Page 1 of Getting Down on the Farm: Vol. 1
PartOne
HOOF
Or; A Goldilocks interpretation, but about Centaur dicks.
1. WELCOME TO THE FARM
Istared up at the brightly colored poster on the wall in front of me, gaping at the image, even though I knew it was fiction. A woman was embraced in a pair of enormous brown arms, lifted from her feet, before a technicolor sunset blazing over a cornfield. Her small hands cupped around a much larger face, head tipped and mouth pressed to the wide snout and maw of the man holding her. From his head, a pair of golden horns sprouted broadly in either direction.
A woman, kissing her minotaur lover. They were just models, part of the publicity program for the Population Integration and Innovation Agricultural Initiative, I assumed. The program was only a few months old and as far as I knew, it hadn't received a great deal of response yet. Not from human women, at least.
They'd proudly advertised their success stories, all two of them so far—two women both now partnered with vampires, set up on brand new farms with freshly tilled fields.
Vampires were fairly easy for human women to picture themselves with. There was plenty of fiction to back the idea up and aside from a little blood play now and then, and the habits of a night owl, there wasn't much to differentiate a vampire from a human man. PIAII definitely hadn't announced a minotaur partnering yet—especially considering minotaurs came inherds. The poster was a suggestion.
Sure, ladies. It might seem daunting at first, but look at how happy you could be if you gave it a shot.
The door to the office creaked open and I tore my eyes from the poster, dropping them down to my lap. A woman entered, lovely and rounded. She was layered up in cotton, wool, and denim, with coffee stains on her blouse, curls in every direction, and an armload of paperwork so barely contained in her grip I was sure she was a witch and was using magic to hold onto them.
"Francesca—"
"Frannie," I said quickly. Francesca was some other girl, one who had her clothes dry cleaned, and hair that didn't frizz, and bills that were paid on time. I was, decidedly, a Frannie.
"Frannie," the woman greeted, and then tipped her chin to her name tag. "Annabelle. We're very happy to see you here on the farm. We don't get very many walk-in volunteers."
Speak, I told myself, but I wasn't sure what to say, and I kept glancing up at the poster on the wall, so Annabelle blessedly plowed on ahead of me.
"We're more than happy to give you a spot here, and move forward with any interest, but I should just forewarn you that we don't have any vampires, demons, or?—"
"Centaurs?" I asked, blurting the word out.
And, in the distance, somewhere out on the model farm the Initiative used to introduce its volunteers to the lifestyle we were signing up for, there was a whinnying cry as if in answer to my question.
Annabelle blinked and straightened. With a sudden gesture, the pile of files in her arms dashed over to the corner of her desk, and she was holding a single pamphlet in her hand.
"We have a number of centaur candidates, if you're interested."
Vampires and demons were familiar, sought-after potential matches in the wake of the news. Humans were dying out, but so were all the mythical species we never really believed existed. And as it turned out, those species and humans were perfectly biologically compatible with a little bit of magical help. Because witches were real too. Apparently our genes were better off blended together, and at the crisis point, the global government was willing to get on board with the plan.
After the initial public explosion and refusal of the news, the world had settled down with a begrudging acceptance. Integrate, or extinction. For all of us.
And so, sure, a pale man with a taste for blood was easier to swallow (all pun intended) than one with an elaborate set of tentacles that required a magical boost to 'mate' with.
Unless you were...me. Or someone like me. Someone who'd watched the news clips, watched the many species of monsters stepping forward, and felt an excited flutter…everywhere. I was sure I wasn't the only one. Even the model in the advertisement looked pretty content in the arms of that minotaur.
Then maybe you weren't so disturbed by your prospects. And maybe a freshly terraformed farm and new monster mate was a bright spot in your slightly lackluster prospects. And maybe you'd always had a bit of a thing for Firenze in the franchise-that-shall-not-be-named. And a collection of increasingly large sex toys you challenged your body with. And a thing for saddles and stirrups. And an active imagination.
Maybe then…
"I am," I said, my face scorching hot. "Interested."
Annabelle offered me a serene smile, as if plenty of women had come in and said the same thing. Maybe they had and PIAII just wasn't caught up on their advertising.
The pamphlet thwapped against the clear desk and then slid across the top toward me.
"Centaurs do require a certain amount of...commitment on our human volunteer's part. For your health and safety, there would be a magical adjustment made to your reproductive organs, including your vaginal walls, cervix, et cetera.”
It was my turn to blink, but Annabelle only glanced down at the pamphlet.
