Liar's Bench

The old man's words ran through my head as I pulled out of the parking lot. What happened to all the women in our valley? What did that story about Ralph mean? Then at a stoplight I noticed a Darwin fish-with-legs on the car in front of me and laughed as the tension left my body. I'm a scientist; I should know better than to listen to that backwoods crap. People don't just disappear, and women don't turn into dogs.

"Hey, honey," I called when I arrived home. "I picked up some vodka like you wanted."

"Oh, hey there, baby," Rachel said. She came out of the bedroom wearing one of my dress shirts with the front open, and panties. Swaying, she leaned against the doorframe for support. "I missed you," she slurred softly.

"Rachel?" I moved towards here, concerned. "Are you...I thought you finished the--"

"I found something even better." She slurred again, half-closing her eyes. Then she pointed to the kitchen counter. "Over there."

Two-quart jars sat on the counter filled with a tan liquid, like thin ice tea. One was full, the other was missing a generous portion, and Rachel's slurred voice told me what happened to the rest.

"Where did you--"

"I dunno. They were just there. On the front porch." She shrugged as if it didn't matter.

I opened the part-empty one and put it to my face. It smelled sweet--not like sweet tea, more floral. Maybe jasmine, or something tropical. A cautious sip confirmed the high alcohol content, but it was smooth like good bourbon, not harsh like vodka.

"Paul?"

"Hmm?" I said without turning around. So this is moonshine, I thought to myself as I took another sip.

"I'm horny."

Pppph! I sprayed the liquid across the counter in surprise.

Spinning around, I saw Rachel's hand inside her shirt. Her head drooped to one side and her mouth opened slightly as she massaged her breast. Her other hand slid down her flank to rest on her hips.

Damn, I thought as my slacks tented. That's what a man wants to see when he comes home from work.

"What, you don't think I'm sexy?" She pouted.

"Oh, baby. You know what I think." I said, taking another drink and stepping towards her. I let my gaze roam her body, from the dimple in her neck, down the freckled slopes of her breasts, where her shirt hung tantalizingly close to revealing her nipples, and past her stomach to where her swelling mound disappeared under lemon-yellow panties.

She raised her chin as I approached and her hands slipped around my waist.

"I've been thinking about you all day." She said before our mouths met in a hungry kiss. Her lips were intoxicating--soft and warm yet eager. Rachel's mouth opened in invitation and I willingly entered, tasting the sweet, floral perfume of the moonshine in her mouth.

"Ahhh..." She moaned in surrender as her body yielded to my embrace. Clutching her close, I could feel her chest heaving against me. One of her legs slipped between mine; her panties slid along my leg and the bulge of my hard cock ground into her abdomen.

"I love you, Rachel," I whispered. Sinking to one knee I buried my face between her breasts. Her skin was damp with sweat, and I inhaled the musky aroma. I wanted her so badly that I began to shake.

"Ohhh, Paul." Her fingers dug into my shoulders, pressing me against her flesh.

With trembling hands, I pulled the shirt off her shoulders, letting it drop the floor around our feet. Her nipples were a delicate pink, like cherry blossoms, and I kissed them with gentle touches of my lips. Her breasts were soft against my cheeks. My fingers slid down to her hips, taking hold of her panties. I looked down to see the curly hair on her mound springing up as I pulled the fabric away, and I could see a wet spot in her panties when I slid them over her hips.

"Now you," Rachel said, pulling me to my feet. She unbuttoned my oxford slowly, giving me time to stare at her chest and the way she was pressing her thighs together. Running her hands across my nearly hairless chest, she bent closer to take playful bites at my nipples.

"Uhh..." I groaned. My cock was painfully tight in my slacks, and my nipples were hard. I didn't know how much longer I could wait. ' Why should I?', growled something from that new, dark corner of my soul. She was wet, she was ready--I should take her now. I felt a chill, remembering the hunger in my nightmare. I was torn between love and a dark lust. Unable to fully contain myself, my arms trembled with the strain of not shoving as I pushed her down to her knees.

Thankfully, Rachel offered no resistance, only staring at my face and licking her lips as she sunk down. When she laid her cheek against my crotch, my hips thrust unconsciously, provoking a little laugh as she nuzzled my bulge. Undoing my belt, she pulled down my slacks, leaving my cock still trapped in my underwear.

"Hurry..." I growled, half begging half commanding as the darkness trying to take over.

With a taunting smile, she ran her hands up my legs and between my thighs, slipping her fingers under the edge of my briefs. My back arched as she tickled my scrotum and giggled.

"Ahhh..." I groaned in relief as she finally wrapped one warm hand around my cock. She rested her cheek against my stomach, letting her long hair tickle my legs as she tugged on my cock. I could feel the sensations radiating out from my crotch and my world shrank.

"Uhnn," I whined as she sped up, jerking my cock in one hand while fondling my scrotum with the other. My hips bucked into her hand. Standing abruptly, she whispered in my ear.

"I want you to fuck me now."

"Oh, baby," I said, lifting her onto the kitchen counter. "Remember the last time we did it in a kitchen?"

"Ohhh, yeah..." She moaned at the memory. Bud, our realtor, was showing us a house when he suddenly got a phone call and had to take it outside. Rachel dropped her panties and I'd sucked her off with our clothes on. She was kneeling in front of me to return the favor when Bud walked back in--luckily she hadn't unzipped my jeans yet but she blushed furiously as I slipped her panties in my pocket before he could see. We'd cut the day's house viewing short and hurried back to the hotel for some hot sex.

She laid back and spread her legs, exposing the wet pinkness of her sex. I sunk in slowly, using every ounce of control to not simply ravish her. Luckily, her tender flesh washed away weeks of frustration. Usually, it would take some time for us to find a rhythm, but not today. We moved in sync from the very beginning, matching each other's thrusts and echoing each other's desires.

I bent low over her body, brushing her hair aside and showering kisses on her exposed neck.

"Uh...uh..." She grunted in time with the sound of our bodies slapping together.

I forced her legs farther apart, grinding my hips against her pubic bone, my control slipping.

"Oh, yeah... like that, baby..." Her moans grew louder and her hips bucked erratically as her passion mounted.

"Rachel..." I murmured in her ear, keeping the pressure on her clit and fucking her with quick, shallow thrusts.

"Oh--" Her head lay limply on its side. Her hips still moved, but only on autopilot as her brain locked down on the pleasure emanating from her groin.

"OH!" she screamed.

Her body shook and her heels drummed against the cabinets as she climaxed. Her pussy tightened around my cock with each contraction. Her burning heat too much for me, and I sped up letting my control go. I draped her legs over my shoulders and pounded into her relentlessly. My orgasm felt like an explosion, and my knees buckled as I quivered, cumming deep inside my beautiful wife.

"I love you, Rachel." I murmured when I could talk again, feeling the tension from our recent fights flowing out of my body into a puddle on the kitchen floor.

"You too, baby." She cradled my head against her breast and exhaled a soft sigh of contentment.

"I have an idea." She continued

"Hmmm?" I mumbled into her breast.

"Let's go in the bedroom and do it again. Even harder this time."

Damn, I marveled. When did my wife turn into the Eveready bunny? Not that I minded. In fact, the more I thought about it the more it turned me on. I pictured Rachel as a bunny-girl, wiggling her fluffy ass at me, always wet, always ready for action. When I came home from work, she'd be on all fours in the kitchen and bound towards me, nose twitching as she sniffed my crotch. I'd unzip my fly and she'd suckle at my cock while I scratched behind her floppy ears, and--

"There we go--" Rachel's lusty voice brought me back to reality, where I discovered my cock was already hardening. Whether from the fantasy or from the way she was tugging it, I wasn't sure, but I didn't care.

The next day, Rachel thought I should take something up to the Trivette place to thank them for the moonshine, so I brought home sweets from a little homemade cupcake shop. Not wanting to risk my Honda's underbody on that washed out gravel, I went up on foot.

Thick woods separated our two properties, but they weren't the usual mix of firs, maples, and bramble that I saw so much of on the way to work. Instead, this felt almost primeval; gnarly red oaks spread their limbs in a canopy that blocked out the sun, broken here and there by the tall spike of a tulip tree, as thick around as any I'd ever seen.

There wasn't anything I could put my finger on, but my stomach tightened in the gloom. A shadow moved off to my right and I spun towards it, but it was already gone. Before I could relax the sudden rat-a-tat of a woodpecker made me jump. I stopped to listen and I thought I heard a woman crying faintly. The dark part of my soul stirred to life in response and my cock thickened.

Who would be here, I wondered, stepping off the road to investigate. Briars tore at my clothes as I pushed closer to the sound, and head-high branches loomed suddenly out of the dark. Past a small rise and--the sound was water in a creek. I could have kicked myself--now that I knew what it was, the sound of the creek was obvious. How could I have thought it was a woman?

The forest became just a forest again as I made my way back to the gravel road, but still, a weight lifted off my heart as the tree cover lifted. Ralph's farm spread across the end of the valley, surrounded by tall, forested ridges on three sides. Beyond the ridges lay Cherokee National Forest; where a man could hike through the wood for days and not see another human face. After what I'd experienced crossing into Ralph's property the thought made me shiver.

A stone cottage sat amidst a neatly tended garden, next to a stream. In the distance, I could see the stream falling over a waterwheel that extended from a stone and timber barn. On either side of the barn were fenced in pastures, where a flock of sheep grazed. I could hear the hum of countless honey bees gathering pollen from the wildflowers dotting the meadow. It seemed so peaceful that the darkness of the forest seemed like a bad dream that had passed.

I shook my head to clear it and walked up the flagstone path to the cottage. Lacy curtains concealed the dark interior, and no one answered when I knocked. Ralph's old pickup was up near the barn, so he had to be around somewhere.

With some trepidation, I decided to go look for them in the barn. As I got closer, I began to hear noises from inside: rough, animalistic noises. Taking the open doors as an invitation I stepped inside.

Gaps in the ceiling beams let blades of sunlight into the ground floor, and I saw a row of stalls on one side and a large pen running the length of the other. The first stall was empty, but a cow stood in the second: tan with streaks of white around her nose and her large black eyes. She chewed her cud placidly, in the way of cows everywhere.

Realizing the noises were coming from deeper in her stall, I moved closer, where I discovered Ralph, standing directly behind her, holding her pelvis. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I realized that his overalls were in a puddle on the floor, and I could see his naked butt as he slapped his crotch against the cow's rear.

"Woah. Uh--" I backed away.

"Oh. Hey there, neighbor." Ralph grunted and waved. "Come to help me with the cows? Tammy-Jo don't mind, do you, girl?"

He swatted the chubby woman's ass. She was standing with her hands braced against the stall rail, staring blankly at the wall. Her pendulous tits flopped forward and back as he fucked her from behind.

"B-," I said, too confused to speak coherently

"The hormones, see. We don't use no artificial hormones, so we gotta keep 'em in the mood. I reckon this way works as well as any other. Why don'tcha give me a hand here?" his voice was husky and full of pleasure and I could feel my cock responding.

He stepped back revealing muscular legs and prolific curly brown hair. I tried not to look at his dick, but it was hard to miss the unusual length as it bobbed with his movement.

"Go on, then."

"I--"

"Here, take a look at this." He said, putting his hands on her upturned crotch and sawing his fingers into her. Pulling them out he held them in a shaft of sunlight where they gleamed wetly.

"Easy as pie. Just drop your pants and stick 'er in. Even a city boy like you can do that, I'd allow. I'd sure be glad for the help." Ralph assured me. "Still have two more heifers to go this evening."

"But--"

"You could finish Tammy-Jo for me while I milk her--"

"Milk her?"

"Well, yeah." He said.

The woman's expression didn't change as he knelt in the hay beside her, grabbing a teat in each hand. Nor did she react when his rhythmic squeezes produced jets of white liquid. I didn't get the sense that she cared about much of anything. He grabbed a pail and placed it under her chest.

I blinked, and suddenly saw Ralph kneeling beside the same cow I saw earlier, still chewing her cud.

"Ralph? Is that--"

"Oh. Hey there, neighbor. Come up to help me milk my cows?" Ralph waved as if seeing me for the first time. Now he was wearing the overalls that had been in a pile behind the cow.

I opened my mouth, but no words would come out. Had it all been a figment of my imagination? What was happening to me--first with Rachel, and now this debased hallucination. I dropped the cupcakes stumbling backward out the door and ran. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Ophelia sitting on a sunny rock, laughing silently at me as I fled.

"Hold it," I said, starting to rise. "If this story is some perverted fantasy of yours, I'll pass."

"Well now, friend. He fixed me with those dark eyes again, and I froze unwillingly. "I haven't told you a single untrue word, sure as God's own truth. His voice lowered. "There are places here, out in the valleys, where there ain't many people, where the walls of reality are... He cocked his head, thinking. "...porous, I reckon you could say."

It sounded like nonsense, but I found myself sitting back down.

"And sometimes, when the moon is right, things pass through. Sometimes in this direction, sometimes in that direction."

"That direction?" I tried to sound skeptical, but the man's voice made me shiver, and as he continued, I was glad of the bright sunshine.

That night Rachel went to bed early, still a bit tipsy from another day's helping of Ralph's moonshine. The day's events bothered me too much to sleep, so I lay on the sofa, trying to reconcile what I had seen and heard with any conceivable explanation. Try as I might, the only explanation I could come up with was that I was becoming delusional. The moon was almost full, and it was shining brightly through the window when Rachel came to fetch me.

"Come to bed, honey." She ran one hand through her mussed hair and squinted against the moonlight. "It's almost two and you have to teach tomorrow."

"Hey, bunny." I smiled at her and she giggled at my unconscious slip of the tongue. She was so beautiful, with her hair sparkling silver in the moonlight like the Greek goddess Artemis.

"Bunny huh?" she said lightly as she turned and wiggled her butt at me.

My eyes traced the curves under the cut-off t-shirt she wore to bed, then stopped, horrified.

Just above the crack of her butt was a bump. Much bigger than a zit, maybe an inch or two across, and smooth, as if under her skin. It hadn't been there yesterday, I knew that. Rachel misunderstood my expression, thinking that work must be bothering me.

"It'll be okay, honey. Whatever it, I know you can handle it. Why don't you come and get some rest." She bent over the sofa and stroked my hair with a gentle look. Unable to ignore what I had seen, I put my hand around her as I stood, letting my fingers trail down to her lower back without being obvious.

It was real. I could feel it under my palm. It was soft, like a breast, but much smaller. Rachel didn't appear to notice my touch, or at least she didn't give any sign of it.

"Rachel?" I began, wondering what I should say.

"Yes?" She kissed me, a light touch on the lips.

"I love you, Rachel. Whatever happens, I want you to know that, okay?"

"What's gotten into you, honey? Why are you being so dramatic?"

I wanted to tell her, but I knew she wouldn't believe me so I kept quiet.

The next couple of weeks passed in a blur. Maybe it was the alcohol since we were both drinking the moonshine every night. At least Rachel generally held off until I got home so we had some time together to talk and prepare dinner before we ended up naked and sweaty, grinding our bodies together somewhere in the house, wherever we were when the moment took us. More than once that was outside, and her cries echoed up and down the valley.

Ralph and Ophelia didn't come around much. He'd wave when we saw him driving slowly down the trail towards Highway 321, but something kept me from approaching him. Maybe it was Ophelia, and the way that dog stared at me. One time I asked him about the moonshine, but he just shrugged and said it was an old family recipe.

I tried to ignore the weirdness. Things started to smell. No, not like they stunk, like whatever smell they had, was getting stronger. I could tell what Rachel was preparing for dinner as soon as I turned off into the main road; I could tell whether the critters scraping at our trash cans were possums or coons without even looking. The best part was Rachel, though. Burying my face in her breast and inhaling made the rest of the world go away like there was a straight line running between my nose, my brain, and my crotch. I could smell the state of her arousal with exquisite precision. When she was in heat, I was always ready.

If that was the only difference I would have been happy, but the bump on her rear was growing. Slowly, but I could feel the difference. She seemed strangely unconcerned. Every so often she would talk about seeing a dermatologist, but nothing ever came of it. In fact, the only time she was ever angry was the time she went to town for a haircut.

"Can you believe, the beautician said I have hair on the backs of my ears. What a bitch. Just wanted more money."

Thankfully, the mood didn't last, and by nightfall she was snuggling with me on the sofa, pulling up my shirt and sprinkling little kisses while I tried to finish my grading. The evening ended as it often did, with her kneeling on the sofa while I stood and fucked her from behind. Sure enough, when I looked, she did have hair, fine white hairs that felt extraordinarily soft as I brushed them with my lips.

Rachel took up running again and went on a vegetarian kick. It's great that she was in the kitchen instead of in the bedroom drinking herself into oblivion, but if she packed me one more celery stick for lunch I was going to scream. Stopping on the way home for a burger became a daily ritual to satisfy my craving for meat.