Country Days

Taste Test: Down Under by Laney Cairo, Kara Larson, Kate Roman

Country Days By Kara Larson There were cows in the garden. Six to be exact. Pai tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. Six cows, happily eating their way through his heirloom tomatoes and beans. Six black and white cows, standing hock-deep in the spahgnum moss that he'd so carefully cultivated under the beech saplings in the corner of the garden. Six cows that didn't belong to either him or Hemi, and who'd magically appeared on the other side of their very high, very solid wall that stood between the garden and the road. "Eh, whaiaipo." Normally, Hemi's deep voice sent shivers down Pai's spine, especially whenever his partner called him 'love' in Te Reo Maori, the language they tended to speak at home. Now, though, staring at the young hoon cows tearing up his garden... "Pai?" Strong arms wrapped around his middle, pulling Pai back against a broad, hairy chest. "What's wrong, love?" Hemi nibbled at Pai's neck, the warm expanse of that beloved naked body pressing up against Pai's. "Cows," Pai choked out. He rubbed at his eyes again, hoping the sleepless nights out at Lewis Hut, combined with the seven hours of trekking yesterday to hike off the Heaphy and back into civilization for his weekend off, were contributing to the hallucination. Hemi stopped nibbling on Pai's neck, resting his head on Pai's shoulder. The white tips of Hemi's thick, dark hair tickled 5

Taste Test: Down Under by Laney Cairo, Kara Larson, Kate Roman

Pai's nose. "Aae, there are cows in the garden." The lack of surprise in Hemi's rumble of a voice concerned Pai, and he wasn't quite sure why. Pai blinked again, trying to focus as Hemi's bare body rubbed up against his arse, that thick cock of Hemi's teasing at Pai's crack. "God, Hemi," Pai moaned, leaning back against his partner. Over a decade they'd been together now, their union blessed by the Maori gods of creation—Ranginui, Father Sky, and Papatuanuku, Mother Earth. His poor, beloved Hemi had been cursed once, and Pai broke that curse, freeing the gentle man trapped inside the fierce beast. And Hemi could be such a beast sometimes, especially when he thrust his ... and he grabbed Pai's... "Hemi," Pai moaned again as Hemi's erection teased at his hole. There had been a rushed, passionate reunion last night after Hemi picked him up at the trail head, as they'd fumbled in the back seat of Hemi's Nissan Sunny like they were teenagers. Then they'd come home to fuck by the fire and then once again in the bedroom before Pai passed out. It had been ten days, after all—ten long, lonely days that Pai had spent, watching the hikers come in and out of Lewis Hut, maintaining his section of the Heaphy Track and ensuring that no one went missing or was lost in the rash of flooding that struck the Heaphy River Valley. Ten years ago, when he'd saved Hemi and Hemi had saved him, Pai had dreamed of working for the New Zealand Department of Conservation, helping preserve the wild bush and watch over a portion of one of the Great Walks. No one had mentioned the schedule of ten days on the trail as hut warden, and the 6

Taste Test: Down Under by Laney Cairo, Kara Larson, Kate Roman

four days off he'd have every fortnight. Though there was a double bed in the hut he was allocated as hut warden, it was still a lonely job, and Pai had his doubts that Hemi would survive ten days without internet and with only the vaguest suggestions of electricity. The solar panels on the hut roof kept the small fridge going, and powered his single light bulb in the little one room bach he called home for most of the summer, but it would never power Hemi's beloved laptop, and the sat phone didn't have wireless. All thoughts of that went out the window as Hemi's scruffy cheek rubbed against Pai's, that heavy cock sliding into Pai with practiced ease. How many times, over the past ten years? And he never became complacent about it, because it never became stale. Especially not during those summer months of the Great Walk season, when he spent half of the month away from his beloved partner. Pai braced his arms against the window sill, squaring his hips to allow Hemi deeper access. Hemi's large hands gripped his hips, the blunted claw-like nails digging deep into Pai's skin. Hemi thrust in and deeper and—oh... There weren't always fireworks. Stars didn't always burst behind Pai's eyelids as he came, but this time, after nearly two weeks of missing his lover, Pai definitely saw a few sparkles in the air. "Hemi!" he cried, coming all over the windowsill. Hemi grunted, his face buried in Pai's shoulder as Hemi followed right behind Pai. Hemi's heavy body slumped against Pai as Pai clung to the window frame. 7

Taste Test: Down Under by Laney Cairo, Kara Larson, Kate Roman

"Eh, whaiaipo?" Hemi kissed the side of Pai's neck again, his body slick with sweat and molded to every bend of Pai's body. Pai leaned against Hemi as Hemi straightened up, happy to be cradled in his partner's arms. He petted the dark hair that furred those strong arms, remembering the brown pelt that had once covered Hemi's body. Hemi's broad face was cleanshaven now—or as clean-shaven as his continuously scruffy lover could be—but Pai had to admit that he missed his taniwha, his own personal beast occasionally. He turned around in Hemi's arms, running his finger through the dark mane that still framed Hemi's tanned face. The white tips went higher up now; Hemi was nearing fortyfive and Pai himself just passed thirty. "You're thoughtful, Pai. Should I be suspicious?" Hemi's voice rumbled up from his chest. Pai grinned at Hemi cheekily, surprised that he had the energy for it. "Just thinking, Mr. Karerehe." He turned on the same charm that he'd used on a fierce old guardian spirit, breaking the evil curse that held his love in beast form. "Thinking of you, and me, and our years together..." Hemi leaned his forehead against Pai's, pressing their noses together in the Maori ritual of hongi, the sharing of the breath of life. "More than a decade now. I half expected you to trade me in for a newer model." Hemi's yellow eyes, by times either fierce or gentle, stared deep into Pai's. "Better looking bloke, pretty like you." Pai snorted. "Trade you in for who, 'Rini's boy? Wiremu isn't even eight yet. Besides, Marika would thrash me." His 8

Taste Test: Down Under by Laney Cairo, Kara Larson, Kate Roman

older—meddling—sister, once she'd dismissed her initial misgivings about Mr. Hemi Karerehe, had warmed to Pai's choice of partner. Granted, she still thought that Pai was feckless and flighty, and that Hemi was exactly what he needed to stay grounded, so Pai wasn't sure how much he actually trusted his sister's judgment. She'd raised him and their two older sisters for years after their parents' deaths, sacrificing her own schooling to make sure that Pai and their sisters had the best opportunities their poor little West Coast town could offer. Responsible for no one but herself now, Marika was branching out her guiding—if heavy-handed— reach to other Maori families, including Pai's old friend Airini, now pregnant with her second child out of wedlock and a school-aged son to boot. Hemi chuckled, and Pai enjoyed the echo of it vibrating against his cheek as he rested his head against Hemi's neck. "Marika would do more than that, Pai love." Hemi rubbed his face against Pai's hair until it fell in Pai's face like a black cloud. "Didn't you say something about cows?" "Fuck!" Pai pushed away from Hemi and rushed out their bedroom door, down the stairs and out into the midmorning sunlight. "Bloody fucking cows!" He grabbed a shovel from where it leaned against the house and brandished it wildly at the cows. The cows stared at him for a moment before dropping their heads to the ground again, grazing on his precious, beloved garden. "Fucking ... fuck!" he screamed, stamping his foot. It would've sounded much more impressive had he been 9

Taste Test: Down Under by Laney Cairo, Kara Larson, Kate Roman

wearing his tramping boots, or even his wellies, but the cows still paid no notice. "Pai." Hemi stood in the front door, so glorious in his nakedness that Pai wanted to jump him again. "Cows!" He pointed, frustrated. "Not our cows, either." They were 'between' cows at the moment. Hemi's animal husbandry contact and butcher for the beef cows they grazed on their back pasture had decided that the animals were getting too fat on the good grass, carefully mulched, tended and tilled by Pai in the off-season, so they'd been replaced with a small herd of sheep instead. Hemi walked toward Pai, the play of light on Hemi's naked muscles mesmerizing Pai. God, but his lover was beautiful. He moved like one of the big cats at the Orana Wildlife Park out east near Christchurch. They'd taken a trip a few years back, driving down the West Coast and over Arthur's Pass to Christchurch, admiring the Canterbury plains, since Pai had never been further east than the pass itself. Pai's most vivid memory was of Hemi standing face to face with the largest female of the pride, separated only by the metal cage he and Hemi stood in. Yellow eyes had peered into yellow eyes, and even the zookeeper had noticed the kinship between the two. "Yes, Pai. These aren't our cows." Pai wished sometimes that Hemi's usual mild tone carried a little more emotion, a little more excitement in it. He knew Hemi was using that casual voice just to annoy him. Pai took a deep breath, remembering all those times that first Marika, and then later Hemi, had berated him for his impetuousness. "These not-our-cows are eating my garden." 10

Taste Test: Down Under by Laney Cairo, Kara Larson, Kate Roman

He tried to have patience, by Ranginui and Papatuanuku, but he didn't know how successful he was, especially since he waved the shovel half-heartedly in the general direction of the cows once again. "Should we get the comfy chair?" Hemi asked in that same mild tone. At least Pai knew what Hemi had been doing these past ten days, aside from the remote lecturing and research that he did for the archeology department at the University of Otago. Someone had been watching too much Monty Python again. "I—" He stared at the cows, wanting once again to stomp his foot and throw his foot on the ground, throwing a full wobbly like he hadn't in years. Nearly twenty years, to be exact. Hemi's hand stroked Pai's hair, petting it softly. Pai leaned into the caress, struggling to keep his eyes open as the heat of Hemi's body lulled him into complacency. "Damn it, Hemi, I'm trying to—" "Kapai, that's good, love." Those hands moved down to Pai's shoulders, kneading the tension out of them. Pai turned to jelly at that touch, barely able to keep upright as Hemi's hands moved down his shoulders to his back, caressing and stroking and... "God, Hemi," Pai moaned, surprised at the needy whinge in his own voice. It would be so easy to lie down in the soft mosses and lichens that carpeted the garden, letting Hemi sink into him again, taking him slowly and thoroughly as they basked and fucked in the sun's warmth— And as the cows ate the rest of his garden. 11

Taste Test: Down Under by Laney Cairo, Kara Larson, Kate Roman

Steeling his willpower, Pai pushed himself away from Hemi and moved toward the cows. They were larger than the cows that usually populated the back pasture, or maybe Pai just watched them from farther away. In any case, six pairs of brown bovine eyes watched him, uncaring, as he moved toward them. "Do you at least want to put on some clothes, taane?" Pai shivered. He loved it when Hemi called him 'beautiful.' "As impressive as your body is, I don't think the cows care much for it, clothed or unclothed." Pai refused to turn around and glare at the man he loved so much, but damn, that urge to stamp his foot was returning, with a vengeance. "I will find out who these cows belong to, and I will put them out on the side of the road right now, before I lose another tree." The silver beech seedlings had been transplanted from the Oparara Basin as a DOC experiment, to see how well they'd grow in the unprotected and slightly colder, slightly wetter air an hour and a half south. Except cows apparently didn't wear tags like dogs did. Each cow's ear was notched, but those notches meant nothing to Pai. Hemi took care of the livestock, coaxing milk out of each of the two dairy cows and clucking to the chooks that pecked their way about the yard. Even the weak, the wild birds, flocked to Hemi whenever they saw him, knowing what a big old sook he was. "Pai—" "They aren't marked." Pai could feel the panic building up in his chest, killing any desire that still lingered in his body. 12

Taste Test: Down Under by Laney Cairo, Kara Larson, Kate Roman

"How will we tell whose cows they are?" He only had three more days before he had to head back to Lewis Hut, pack on his back and boots on his feet. Three more days of homecooked meals and sleeping between cotton sheets on a real bed, instead of that poor excuse of a mattress and his old sleeping bag that he was stuck with in the hut. This was seriously the last summer he'd be roped into this. He was supposed to be day warden at Oparara, taking tourists on tours of the caves, not patching the trail and making sure trampers didn't drown when the rivers rose on the Heaphy Track. Hands seized his shoulders, turning him around and pulling him into a tight embrace. "Call the police, Pai," Hemi said gently, tickling Pai's ear with his breath. Pai inhaled deep, and then exhaled, trying to expel the worry as he breathed out. "The police. Right." He leaned his forehead against Hemi's shoulder for a moment, then looked back at his cows. "I don't suppose you can pipe them into the back pasture with the sheep?" He gave Hemi his best hopeful look, dropping his eyelids to peer up at Hemi from beneath his eyelashes. Marika claimed that Pai had somehow received all the good, thick eyelash genes in the family, so Pai knew that the trick would work. It always did. Hemi muttered something about cows and living out in the wops, but then he nodded. He kissed Pai gently, then walked toward the nearest cow, clucking gently. To Pai's surprise, first one cow, and then the other five, followed Hemi as docilely as a line of ducklings. Then again, Hemi always had been Dr. Doolittle. 13

Taste Test: Down Under by Laney Cairo, Kara Larson, Kate Roman

Pai sighed and made his way into the house, knowing that dealing with the police was his job. Though it had been ten years and more since the curse was lifted, Hemi still had a phobia about dealing with others face to face, which somehow translated into Pai doing the shopping down in Westport, Pai arranging anything over the phone, and Pai negotiating with New Zealand Post when the post carrier had lost their mail— again. That was the price they paid for rural delivery, though, and living halfway between a small town and an even smaller one, with nothing but an hour and a half of two-lane road in between. So he rang the police down in Westport. He dialed the local number, knowing that if he dialed 1-1-1, the police would probably put them on some kind of black list. "Tasman District, how may I help you?" a bored voice answered. "I'd like to report some misplaced cows," Pai said, moving through the house to make sure Hemi secured the cows in the back pasture. "Misplaced cars? Make and model, please." Pai rolled his eyes, resisting the urge to hit the fridge as he passed by it. "Not cars. Cows. There are six cows in my yard, and they don't belong there." "Are the cars in good, working order? Full of dents?" the voice rambled on. "Cows!" Pai yelled into the phone. "Cows! The animal! The one that you eat, not the one that you drive."

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Taste Test: Down Under by Laney Cairo, Kara Larson, Kate Roman

"No one has reported any stolen cars in the past twentyfour hours, sir, nor any damaged ones," the voice said patiently. "Are you sure they don't belong to you?" Pai sighed. From the kitchen window, he could just see into the pasture, where one of the cows dropped a cow pat onto the ground. "I suppose you could say they're in working order, as one just shat on my grass," he growled. "They're cows. Things that go moo, and they're eating everything they can find in my garden, so I'm assuming their digestive systems are quite in order." "Cows? Why didn't you say so?" Pai dropped the phone. "Sorry, can't talk right now!" he shouted before kicking the handset across the room, where it hit the wall with a crunch. "That didn't go well then, love?" Hemi asked, coming in from the yard. He carefully inspected each foot before stepping into the kitchen. Pai rolled his eyes. "Thought we had bloody cars on the lawn. Who hires those idiots?" Hemi chuckled, then put his arms around Pai again. "Why don't we try Buller District Council Animal Control?" He loved Hemi. He really did. But Pai hated that his lover could be so logical sometimes, especially since they were still naked, and the cows were no longer a threat to his garden. "Or we could leave them in the pasture for a while," Pai said, turning in Hemi's arms and reaching up to kiss his partner.

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Taste Test: Down Under by Laney Cairo, Kara Larson, Kate Roman

Hemi's mouth met his with equal warmth and fervor. "'Strewth, we could." One hand reached down to grab Pai's arse, squeezing it gently. Pai's only response was to grab Hemi by the hand and drag him back upstairs to the bedroom. **** Pai stared out the window in the bathroom, surprised to see only sheep in the pasture. "They're gone." Hemi looked over from where he was brushing his teeth, the foam around his mouth reminding Pai of the muzzle he'd once sported. "Gone?" White foam dripped down Hemi's chin and onto his bare chest. "Gone," Pai repeated. "Someone took the bloody cows." Someone had somehow opened their back gate and removed six cows without either him or Hemi noticing. "We should report it." Hemi snorted, then rinsed his mouth and wiped his face on a bath flannel. "Report cows that didn't belong to us as missing?" Pai sighed, leaning against Hemi. "I suppose that dumbshite at the police would just think I was talking about cars again. Maybe the people at Animal Control came for them." Hemi shrugged. "They're gone now, love, and your garden is secure once more against encroachers and invaders." Pai thought about the nights that awaited him, two more ten-day shifts in the hut, listening to the kiwis call to each other in the dark hours. He thought about the asthmatic cow 16

Taste Test: Down Under by Laney Cairo, Kara Larson, Kate Roman

that had, until recently, plagued his sleep here at home, lowing at all hours as if it was pining away for someone, or some bovine. "What do you say to a week away, eh, Hemi?" he asked, kissing Hemi's freshly-shaven cheek. "Even a weekend—well, a midweek. Get away from the computer, come spend some time looking at the stars when it doesn't rain, cozy up by the woodstove..." That would be one way to cure those last lonely nights of summer. If not, he still had three whole days with his Beast. Days in the country life—there wasn't anything quite like it, anywhere in the world. The End [Back to Table of Contents]

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