Scott Nicholson - The Farm

"Rebecca," he said, lifting his hips off the bed and pushing the head of his penis inside her.

Katy almost hesitated. This was too weird. The only way she could get laid was to pretend to be dead. Or, more precisely, be someone who had died. Her rival. The woman she hated.

But another part of her saw it as revenge, as if she were seducing Gordon into cheating on Rebecca. She knew how crazy that sounded, but lust made people crazy anyway, and if she was going off the deep end she wanted to go with a bang.

Katy impaled herself on his hardness and felt the burning length of it drive inside her. She raised herself again and settled, letting it slide even more deeply.

"Rebecca," he repeated.

"Yes, darling, I'm here," she said, shivering in anticipation and an odd sensation that she might have recognized as fear if she weren't so far gone. She scarcely recognized her own voice.

Gordon's hands went around her waist and lifted her, then let her fall back down. They gained speed, working toward a frantic pace, Gordon grunting, his lips peeled back and teeth clenched, his eyes still closed.

Katy flung her head back, hair flailing across her shoulders. She put her hands on his chest and caught his rhythm, pushing herself down as he released her waist at each apex. His penis filled her, and a glow built from inside her belly, a tiny spark expanding into a golden fire.

"Yes, darling, yes," she said, words interrupted by thrusts. "Give it to me."

She started to scream, "Fuck me harder," but something held her back. After all, Gordon wasn't Mark and she'd have to adjust her sexual habits. And it didn't seem like the kind of thing Rebecca would say.

She smelled lilacs, but before she could comprehend the scent the fire expanded and electricity jumped the wires in her arms and legs and this was way better than another lonely bout with the vibrator as the flood of his passion erupted inside her and their hips slammed together and she may have shouted something and she hoped to God it wasn't Mark's name, not that Gordon would have heard her anyway because he gave a loud, shuddering groan and thrust up against her, lifting her nearly a foot off the bed. They collapsed with a squeak of bedsprings and Gordon thrust again, less vigorously this time, but she was finishing her own orgasm and so pressed down enough for both of them.

Their bodies writhed together several more times before slowing. Katy relaxed onto Gordon's chest, her hair flowing over his neck and shoulders, chest heaving from effort. The area below her waist was a warm taffy and she couldn't tell where she ended and Gordon began. His arms went around her and he squeezed more tightly than he ever had before, even when the minister David Tester had pronounced them man and wife in the little church on the other side of the mountain.

"That was worth the wait, darling," she said into the dark, curly hairs on his chest.

"As good as the first time," he said.

She lifted herself, arms trembling in postcoital weakness. "What?"

His eyes, which had remained closed throughout the intercourse, now flicked open, then widened. "Rebecca?"

Gordon sounded dismayed. Had he carried the fantasy all the way through to the end and not even allowed himself to give anything to his new wife? As horny as she had been, was the physical release worth this feeling of rejection?

She rolled off him, or perhaps Gordon had raised himself on one hip and eased her to the side. They separated with a slight sticky smack.

"Gordon, what's wrong?" she said, drawing the sheet over her breasts in an attempt to hide from his shocked stare.

He rubbed a hand over his face and closed his eyes. "Nothing, it was just… that was wonderful, honey."

Gordon bent and kissed her lightly on the forehead, then sat on the edge of the bed. He buttoned his pajama top, fussed with the alarm clock, and stood and stretched. Without a word, he went into the bathroom and closed the door.

Katy lay there, the heat fading between her thighs until it felt as if someone had driven an icicle inside her. She couldn't escape the feeling that she had just been cheated on by her husband's late wife. Gordon turned on the shower, and the hissing spray sounded almost like a mirthful and devious giggle.

The cornstalks were streaked with brown from the early frosts, the tassels stiff and dry. Ray Tester worked his way between the rows, checking the ears. He'd grown Silver Queen, which produced sweet but short ears with small, white kernels. By this time of year, what hadn't been harvested or nibbled down by cutworms was left to freeze and harden. The crows, who hadn't been around since first planting, when they'd go down the rows like mechanical chickens and pluck seeds from the ground were now back for fall.

Some farmers laced loose kernels with battery acid and spread the tainted bait around the edges of their fields. Others would duck down in the rows with double-barrel shotguns, the shells loaded with small pellets to give the most scattering power. Ray figured both of those methods were useless. Crows were too stupid to learn a lesson, and if you killed one, then four-and-fucking-twenty would swoop down in its place. No, the best way to handle the black, thieving bastards was to head them off at the pass.

Which meant a scarecrow.

Not just any old scarecrow, either. Crows were dumb but they had eyes, and if you propped up something that looked like a sack of Salvation Army rags, then the crows would just sit on its head and shit on its shoulders, laughing in that cracked caw of theirs, a sound that taunted farmers everywhere. No, what you needed was something so close to flesh-and-blood that even humans did a double take.

Ray was a champion scarecrow maker. He'd entered his best creation, named "Buck Owens" after the star on the old Hee-Haw television show, in a contest at the Pickett County Fair three years ago and had taken home the blue ribbon and fifty bucks. Buck had an ugly striped shirt and frayed overalls and a head that was sackcloth stuffed with old linen scraps. The judges had especially liked the straw boater that was perched atop its head, dented and torn and weathered. Ray had been proud of his handiwork, especially since he'd dropped out of school in the ninth grade and had never been mistaken for a genius. But while the scarecrow was on exhibit for the better part of that harvest week, the crows had ravaged his fields and taken up residence in the trees above the farm. His late wife, Merlie, had a little bird feeder built in the shape of a church that hung from a wire on the porch. The crows had streaked the church with green-and-yellow runs, proof that the winged rats had no respect for neither God nor man.

Since then, Ray had never entered another agricultural contest. He kept his scarecrow out in the field where it belonged, a good soldier on sentry duty who didn't complain and would give its life to defend its home ground. But even a soldier needed an overhaul every now and then, just to keep its spirits up. So Ray was bringing a moth-eaten scarf he'd found tangled in the briars at a county Dumpster site. The scarf had the extra advantage of being plaid, something that would spook even those nearsighted crows.

He could hear the crows in the forest at the edge of the pasture, cawing from throats that seemed way too long for their bodies. In case some of them had witnessed another farmer scattering their kind with buckshot, he'd tucked a gun in his scarecrow's arms. It was a rusty old air rifle scrounged from the flea market for a dollar. That helped with the soldier idea, too, even though that didn't square with the "Buck Owens" name. But a banjo wouldn't have done a damn thing against those miniature buzzards, unless the scarecrow started twanging it as off-key as did those Christian bluegrass bands.