Team Manager 2: SPRINT!
Chapter 39
THE REST OF THE WEEK went by without a repeat of Lana’s adventure. Dennis wore a pair of Speedos under his shorts and put sunscreen on his own legs. Lana was in jeans and a T-shirt the next day. By Wednesday afternoon, all the girlfriends had arrived and Lana pulled a trailer as the girls lifted straw bales onto the wagon and stacked them. It might not have been quite as fast as when there were eight men working on stacking bales, but with twelve young women, the difference was primarily in experience, not in ability. The straw bales were enough lighter than hay that they could handle the bales and if necessary, put two girls on lifting a bale at once.
Thursday morning, Dennis finished the baling and joined the crew in getting the bales picked up and stacked. There were several appreciative girlfriends who whistled and catcalled him in his speedos and work boots. Nonetheless, by Friday night, they were all exhausted but they’d stacked a bit more than 16,000 bales of straw. Trucks with forklifts had arrived and emptied the staging area almost as quickly as they brought wagonloads in.
“Where does it all go?” Rosie asked as she watched a load disappear down the road.
“They’re headed for Boone where it’s loaded directly onto railroad cars to ship east. Dad made a deal with Home Depot to supply garden straw and they want it in the stores before people start putting their gardens to bed in the fall.”
“They pay enough to have it shipped?” Amy asked.
“Small square bales go for about $180 a ton. We loaded close to 250 tons.”
“No wonder my arms are sore!” Leanne complained.
“It’s good for them,” Dennis said. “We all needed some good strenuous exercise before sports workouts begin in less than a month.”
“Speaking of which, what’s the status of the cross country trail?” Brenda asked.
“They got a deal with a specialty lumber mill down in Dogpatch that had a few tons of extra sawdust and chips. Sometime next week, they’re delivering a couple truckloads to the parts of the trail that are uneven dirt. We’ll probably need to go out and make sure it’s raked smooth. Then we’ll roll it with the roller we used when we smoothed the section we replanted. That will compact the chips with a little rain and it will make a pretty good running surface. Then the only thing left before the season starts is to mow again with the big mower and bring Debbie’s dad’s lawn tractor to mow the grass sections to one-inch length. From that point on, the only maintenance expected this season is to mow before each meet,” Dennis said.
“Wow! The work never ends, does it?”
“It’s Friday night,” Dennis said. “I’d like to take all my girlfriends to County Seat for burgers at the Smashburger. That is if a couple of them would do the driving.”
“Woohoo! Our boyfriend is taking us out!” Natalie yelled. They left the fields and headed to town, not caring that they were sweaty and dirty from a hard day of labor.
The next week, Dennis got another new experience as Randy showed him how to disk and prepare the wheat field for reseeding. All the stubble had to be cut into the soil, then they would plant red clover as a cover. By the end of October, Randy planned to disk the clover into the ground and reseed with winter wheat. Dennis didn’t think he’d be much use to Randy by that time with school and sports in full swing.
He got the field all seeded and on Friday, Brenda and Natalie took him to the hospital for his checkup.
“Dennis, I hope you’re happy with the results of your surgery,” Dr. Sachs said after the eye exam.
“Doctor, I can’t even begin to describe how happy I am. All I ever wanted in my entire life was to be able to see clearly. There is so much color and detail that I’ve been missing through the years. I can’t believe how much I was missing. And I have the most beautiful girlfriends in the world. I try to tell them every day.”
“I can’t disagree with you there. So, here’s the prognosis. In general, you have normal eyesight. We talked a bit about the lack of extreme peripheral vision, but you’ve lived with that all your life. Your eyes are shifting focus from near to far to near without difficulty. I have prescribed lenses for you that you should use when driving. You might find them helpful when you are at outdoor sporting events like football, as well. If you have any difficulty seeing the board in school, just slip them on. You’ve got a small amount of color vision deficiency, primarily in the area of pastels of green and red. Under normal circumstances, that shouldn’t even be noticed.”
“I can drive?” Dennis asked excitedly.
“Well, you need to learn to drive, but you can pass the vision test with no difficulty.”
“Nat, I want to get my permit! Brenda, can you take me to the license branch?”
“Of course, sweetheart. The sky’s the limit now.”
“That’s really true,” Dr. Sachs affirmed. “I’d like you to continue the use of protective goggles when you are working outside. We still want to be a little protective of your eyes until we’re sure they are fully healed and not at risk of infection. I’d like to tell everyone to wear goggles when they are in dust situations, but I can’t even get myself to follow that advice. So, stick with it until I see you in four weeks and you’ll be in the clear.”
“Thank you, Doctor Sachs. Thank you for everything.”
“And thank you for the lovely plaque and letter,” Brenda said. “We’ve talked to our acting principal and she has designated a location for it near the office. We appreciate your contribution.”
“You’re welcome. All of you. Now, Dennis, if I were you, I would take these lovely young women someplace where I could spend an hour or two just staring at them.” He laughed and they all left to return home.
“You’re not going back to the farm today,” Brenda said when they were in the car.
“I’m not?”
“Nope. We’re taking you home where Natalie and I have first dibs at making love to you. I’d guess that during the night, all your girlfriends are going to want some special private time with you, even if they aren’t having sex with you,” Brenda said. “I just hope we still have enough condoms!”
There were plenty of condoms, though they tried valiantly to reduce the number. By the time Brenda and Natalie were finished, Daniella and Roberta were ready. Pleasing the twins was always a joy to Dennis. They were so similar in some ways and so different in others. All the girls had arrived at the house before dinner and had brought food for a splendid meal.
Peg loved all Dennis’s girlfriends—her sisters—and did her best to keep them all playing games until it was story time and bedtime. They watched a movie as they shifted around so each got a chance to be near her boyfriend for a little cuddling and kissing. Eventually, Dot went to bed and the teens spread out their sleeping bags. There simply wasn’t room for them all in Dennis’s bedroom, so they occupied the living room.
It was still hot, even at night when the temperatures were in the seventies. Dennis wore a pair of sleep shorts. Most of the girls were in their thin T-shirts and panties. None wore bras under their shirts and a few were noticeably lacking panties, too.
Dennis just wanted to look at them, still amazed at how beautiful they all looked now that he had clear vision. It wasn’t only their tits and asses he wanted to look at, though each girl made sure he saw plenty of that. He looked at each girl’s face and into her eyes. He tenderly kissed each of them, including Tori, Debbie, and Lana.
When things had finally settled down for the night and people were going to sleep, it was Tori’s naked body pressed against Dennis.
“You know what?” she whispered.
“No. What?”
“I think I’m an exhibitionist.”
“Why do you think that—other than that you are running around naked in a group of thirteen people?”
“That’s part of it. But when we make love, which we haven’t done nearly enough yet, I like to be in the middle of the group. Not like performing on stage, but knowing that our girlfriends can see us. That they can see me rolling a condom on your cock. That they can see as you slowly part the curtains of my sex and slide into my hot pussy. I like them to see when I come, stimulated by the rubbing of your cock against my clit and when you come, they know your cock is pumping inside me, brought to your climax by my fucking you. That’s what I like.” And as she described her passion, she fulfilled it, getting a condom on him and riding until both had come.
In the aftermath, half a dozen hands reached out to touch them and Dennis knew Tori had indeed exhibited their lovemaking.
The following week was another long and strenuous one as Dennis mowed and raked hay. The hot muggy days of August were just around the corner and that would spell the end of his summer job and the beginning of fall sports and school. Dennis enjoyed the hard work and felt he was in the best physical condition of his life. But he was really going to miss seeing Lana nearly every day. It wasn’t like they made out each day. In fact, those days were quite rare. But she always had a sunny disposition and a bright word for him. He supposed he would see her at school and during practices, but they wouldn’t have any classes together. And Lana had decided to try out for volleyball. Coach Fisher had been pretty definite about wanting to handle conditioning her athletes herself.
In the evenings, Dennis and Brenda met to study together, and had nearly completed the eight-week course on athletic fitness training. They often had some time after studying to enjoy each other’s bodies and Brenda often stayed over. Brenda and Lana weren’t the only girlfriends Dennis saw, though. Natalie was often over, sometimes to join Brenda and sometimes just to hang out. Tori showed up at least one night a week, much to everyone’s surprise that her parents would let her spend a night with her boyfriend. They seemed to have no problem with it and often another girlfriend would spend the night with Tori at her house. Dennis thought it a little odd that he had not been invited to spend the night at any of his girlfriends’ houses. He hardly had time to complain about it, though.
It seemed that Friday nights the crew moved into Dennis’s house together and spent the weekend. Dennis tried to save some special time for Roberta, Daniella, Judith, and Amy on those nights. He and Amy had still not made love together. At least, not vaginally. On one close inspection, however, Dennis discovered the remnants of her hymen had torn away. There’d been too much play with him and her girlfriends for it to withstand the assault. With it gone, however, she invited Dennis’s fingers to invade her while he licked at her clit. Beyond that, vaginal sex simply hadn’t come up. But seldom did a weekend go by that Amy didn’t welcome Dennis anally.
The first week of August found the whole harem out at the Browns’ farm to help with baling and stacking the new cutting of hay. Dennis had been relieved and pleased to discover that they’d all been paid for their labor baling and stacking straw. He and Brenda worked out the mechanics of handling the heavier bales of hay, using two girls to lift each bale up to the wagon instead of girls being able to toss a bale alone. They structured the labor as an exercise for strengthening the back, legs, and arms. The stacking of the hay may have gone a little slower than with the hired crew of men, but not enough so that it was a problem. Lana’s parents and brother were in the field with them and Randy was impressed with the rhythm and strength of the loading process.
He used a different loading process for this second cutting as trucks had come available for work. He used the fifth wheel on the farm truck to attach a full semi flatbed trailer and haul it through the field. When the trailer was fully loaded, the hay was covered and strapped down, then taken to the staging area where he picked up a different trailer and they repeated the process. Each trailer load amounted to about fifteen acres of baled hay. Semi tractors would pull in to pick up the load and haul it to Boone, where huge cranes picked up the trailers and put them on railroad flatcars for transportation to market. All told, the process actually sped the loading in the field because they didn’t have to unload before they could collect more.
Elsa and Lana took turns driving the baling machine. Randy had to spend most of his time driving the big rig, which left Dennis working the top of the trailer to stack the bales. He was given this role because he was strong enough to lift the bales up to the level they were stacked. They could put about 750 bales on a trailer when they were properly stacked, but every single person was exhausted and sore by the end of the day.
The kids all received their pay envelopes Friday with an air of celebration.
“No going out until we’re all clean,” Natalie said. “I smell like a farmer. Which is no offense to other farmers, but would wrinkle noses at the mall.”
“We could go to Tori’s to shower,” Debbie suggested. Dennis thought she might have something in mind that made her want to get naked with the other girls. Ultimately, however, they all agreed to just go home Friday night after dinner at the Browns’. Everyone was too tired to go out.
Strangely, that left Dennis to go to bed alone Friday night.
The whole gang planned to go to the mall Saturday afternoon to shop for back-to-school clothes. After helping with the house chores Saturday morning, Dennis decided to go over to the school to check on the cross country course and try to determine how much mowing would need to be done early in the week for the beginning of cross country season. He knew that before the first meet—which also happened to be on the first day of school—he would need to get at least one more long cutting and then get the lawn tractors out to mow down to an inch in length. He wasn’t sure if the grass was long enough to merit a mowing on Monday.
“Mom, I’m going over to the school to check on the track. I haven’t been over there since I got my right eye done. I’d just like to see it the way everyone else does.”
“I understand, dear,” his mother said. “You should still wear your shades and goggles. The sawdust portion of the track could be dusty.”
“Okay. I’ll be careful.”
He put on his sunglasses and carried the goggles with a tape measure to check the grass length. It was about a fifteen-minute walk to the school, about a thousand meters of pavement from the track to the cut along the hay field, and 1500 meters of grass track before it entered the woods along the river for a kilometer. When the course exited the riverbank at the cemetery, it was another 1500 meters twisting around the school grounds to get to the finish. Dennis already had in mind an alternate route for the course that would be more interesting, but he supposed they would need permissions to run along some property.
When he cut off the county road to follow the track they’d cut along the hayfield, he stopped and measured the grass already at about six inches. He needed to speak to Mr. Abernathy regarding whether he wanted to salvage part of the hay regrowing in the strip to be used as a running area. As it happened, the old farmer was out checking the field himself.
“Hello, sir!” Dennis called, waving at the farmer.
“Ah, hello. You’re the young man tending the new running course, right?” Abernathy had the weathered features of a man who had spent all his life working in the sun. When he removed his hat, his bald head glowed white.
“Yes, sir. I was just inspecting to see whether we would need to mow before the start of practice next week. Do you want to salvage what remains of the hay in that strip? I could probably get in here with a mower next week so we’d have time to rake and bale.”
“Well, that’s kind of you. It’s Dennis, isn’t it?”
“Oh. Yes, sir. Please forgive me for not introducing myself.”
“We let that kind of thing pass around here. I don’t think I’ll manage to bale this year. I’ve not been feeling up to the work. Missed the first cutting completely, except for the swath you cut and baled. So, most of what’s in the field now is getting pretty long and dry,” he said with a sigh. Dennis wondered just how old the man was. “No, I just don’t think I can do the work. Maybe I’ll hire someone to plow it all under.”
“Sir, I’d be happy to help. I’ve cut and baled 250 acres for Mr. Brown twice this summer, and baled another 250 acres of straw. I already talked to him about using his tractor and mower to barber the course again this month. I’m sure he’d let me do your field as well,” Dennis volunteered without even pausing to think.
“You’d do that, son?”
“Yes, sir. I can probably get some volunteers to help stack and ship the bales, as well,” he added.
“Let’s take a walk up to my shed,” Abernathy said. It took ten minutes to walk back to the barn while the old man estimated his acreage and recited a few ills that had befallen him and his wife. Once at the shed, he pointed to his own equipment. “Everything was serviced for work this spring when Lila got sick,” he said. “If you can use this equipment to cut and bale, it would save Randolph having to cart his over this direction. You could use the same equipment to maintain the course.”
“Mr. Abernathy, I’d be happy to start work on this tomorrow,” Dennis said. “I’m pretty sure I can get the equipment figured out. That looks like the same model baler that Mr. Brown has.”
“Probably about the same age. His father bought that piece of equipment about the same time I was replacing mine,” he chuckled. “But not tomorrow. It’s the Lord’s Day and we don’t need to busy ourselves with this kind of work when we should be resting from the week of labor. I know you just finished putting up a field for Randolph this week.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll start on it first thing Monday morning then.”
“You’re a good man. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go share the good news with Lila.” He turned from the barn without another word and headed toward his house. Dennis returned to walking the trail, knowing now that he would definitely be cutting this portion next week.
The whole trail would need a rough mow next week, but he’d have a day before he needed to rake in this field and Mr. Abernathy had just offered his equipment to maintain the trail. He could mow after he had the hay cut. The trail wouldn’t be as well-groomed for the first week of practice, but he could get Mr. Stackhouse’s lawn tractor out here early the next week and it would be all set.
He walked on into the woods, deciding to make the full circuit of the trail. He hadn’t been on this portion since they’d delivered the sawdust. One of the men from the county had brought a small steam roller out and compacted a fairly smooth bed through the woods. It looked nice and felt springy under foot. Dennis was humming as he inspected the grade, stopping to pick up a rock and smooth the cover over the hole, tamping it down with his foot. He heard a noise ahead and snapped his attention toward it.
In the middle of the trail, about fifty feet away, a large pig was rooting in the sawdust, right in the middle of the trail.
“Hey! Stupid pig! Stop digging up the trail!” Dennis yelled at him as if he’d understand. The pig kept rooting. Dennis wound up and threw the rock as hard as he could, hitting the pig in the snout. That stopped the rooting. The pig’s head turned toward Dennis and the animal started toward him. “Oh, shit!”
Dennis turned and ran.
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