Farm Call

Chapter 1-3

Four-thirty, Dan thought with a smile. He’d indeed had quite an easy day. He silently blessed Rose for sticking it to Ezra and getting him home early at the same time. He hadn’t been home at this time in…well he couldn’t remember when.

Couldn’ta been sweeter, he mused. He’d only had one transrectal palpation to check if a mare was pregnant: she was. There were several stops to give spring inoculations and draw blood to test for equine infectious anemia, an almost always fatal disease. The state required every horse to have this test yearly in order to travel to shows or out of state. There were no emergencies, no sick horses, and no hysterical horse owners. Dan sighed as he pulled into his drive. His path to his new life adventure was cleared.

He parked his truck in the garage and went into the house.

His two pups came running to him, barking and quivering all over. He and Christine had adopted Lad and Lady from a litter of eight that had been dumped off at the doors of the clinic. DNA testing revealed they had a beagle for one parent and a who-knew-what for the other. They were colored like beagles with black saddles, tan faces and ears, and shaped as you’d expect a beagle to be. They had the distinctive white tipped tails. They were roughly the size of beagles, with Lady being a bit smaller than average. However, their coats, instead of being smooth, were wiry. Out there somewhere was a beagle who’d had an affair with a scruffy terrier of some sort.

When Christine left she’d told Dan she would send for Lady once she was settled. He hoped she wouldn’t. To him Lad and Lady were a set, not to be separated.

“You’re home early,” came a voice from the kitchen.

“Oh, hi, Julee,” Dan said, walking into the room and carrying Lady, with Lad at his heels. Julee was his next door neighbor, who took care of the dogs for him on a daily basis due to his long, sometimes erratic work schedule. He was grateful they had a neighbor who was available and happy to help him out now that he was alone. They hadn’t needed help very often when he and Christine were together. Christine had a more predictable schedule at the small animal clinic, and she was able to care for the dogs.

“I was just going to feed them. Since you’re home, do you want to do the honors?” Julee asked.

“Yeah, I don’t get to very often,” Dan replied, setting Lady on the floor and going to the counter. Julee had already set out their bowls. Dan doled out their kibble and turned to the dogs, who were sitting politely at his feet.

“Sing,” he commanded.

Both Lady and Lad threw back their heads and gave long drawn out beagle bugles, almost in perfect harmony. Their song ended in a couple of terrier yaps. Julee and Dan laughed.

The bowls of food were placed on the floor and the two humans stood and watched the dogs eat.

“Special occasion, your being home so early?” Julee asked.

Dan smiled. I guess it is, sort of, he thought, his mind going to his plan for the evening.

“No,” he hedged. “Just had a light schedule today. “But I’m going out tonight so I could use you to let them out later if I’m late…if that’s not too much trouble,” he added that last quickly, not wanting to make Julee feel her help was taken for granted.

“Not a problem. You know I love taking care of them. I’d have my own if Elmer wasn’t so allergic.”

Elmer was Julee’s husband. Dan wondered if the man was truly allergic to dogs. Dan had seen how the man reacted to Lady and Lad and it was easy to see he wasn’t a dog lover.

“So, where are you off to?” Julee asked as she picked up the dog bowls and put them in the sink.

“Just going out with some friends.” Dan was stretching the truth a bit, but he hoped by the end of the evening the situation would have turned that stretch into a reality. Although, he wasn’t exactly sure what that reality would entail.

“Well, good for you. You know, it’s not healthy for a man to just sit around and brood after he goes through something like you’ve been through. Do you want me to take them for their after dinner stroll?”

“No, thanks. I’m not in a rush. I can do it.”

“Okay then. I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t worry about these little darlings. I’ll see they get out tonight before I go to bed.”

“Thanks again, Julee,” Dan said.

After his neighbor had gone, Dan looked at the two pups. They were sitting before him, tails swishing the floor. He knew that they knew what was coming.

“It’s time,” Dan said.

The magic words had been spoken. Immediately the dogs got up, ran to the mud room off the kitchen, and returned, holding leashes in their mouths.

“Very good, guys. But, Lad, you’ve got Lady’s leash. You wouldn’t look good in pink. It clashes with your purple collar.” Dan chuckled.

A few minutes later the three were walking down the street of their subdivision. Less than five years before this area had been all farmland. Now it was a sub, with large houses on acre or more lots. There were no sidewalks, so Dan and the dogs walked in the street, which was blacktopped. At least it still has some semblance of country, Dan thought as they walked along.

It was much like the other subdivisions which now ringed the old farm town. Situated, as it was, only a half hour from the city, it, like many other farm communities, had become a bedroom for city folk due to the easy commute provided by the interstate that ran just outside of town.

Dan figured that one day, hopefully in the distant future, suburbs surrounding the city, and the subs around the towns such as his would grow until they merged and all the farms in between would be gone. That thought wasn’t a happy one for the veterinarian, so he turned his mind to the up-coming evening.

He’d researched the gay bars in the nearby city. There were four. One proclaimed itself a leather bar. From Dan’s research he’d deemed leather something he didn’t think he could get into.

From the pictures posted, two of the others seemed to cater to really young guys. Dan wasn’t sure how he’d fit into that scene. The pictures from the websites showed young men, probably in their early twenties, with slender, svelte physiques. Dan wasn’t that old, but he was beyond thirty. And, while he still was in pretty good shape, he wasn’t lean. He’d put on a few pounds over the years.

In the end, the bar he chose was called The Flame. From the description, touting its appeal to a varied clientele, it sounded like the kind of place in which someone like him who was exploring his s****l identity could be comfortable and not be overwhelmed.

When he got home from their walk, he told Lad and Lady he’d be right back and ran out to get himself some dinner. He’d never been much of a cook. He could make a simple breakfast though, and he did some grilling on weekends when he wasn’t on call. He wasn’t very successful even at that. He usually burned the burgers, and Christine had to redo them. Due to their schedules, it was more convenient for Christine to do most of the cooking, so he never really tried to learn.

The increase in population of the town, with the additions of the subdivisions, had qualified it for every fast food franchise known to humankind. Dan worried that since he was so regularly eating food from these establishments, he was going to be gaining weight. His long hours, many of which were spent driving between appointments, left him little time to exercise. He’d done the yard work when they first moved to this house from the apartment where they’d lived when first married. However, that soon became overwhelming with an acre and a half of grass to mow. He now had a lawn service to do that for him.

Dan had depended on the healthy meals Christine had prepared to keep him trim. Without her to cook, and getting home late most nights, he’d become dependent on fast food or restaurants. And the sit-down restaurants in this farm town tended toward hearty meals for farmers, not folks watching their weight. That night he chose Subway.

After eating his six inch veggie sub, Dan headed for the shower. He stripped and looked at himself in the full length tri-fold mirror in the master bath. It afforded him an almost three hundred-sixty degree view of his body.

Dan had never been overly concerned with his body except for health reasons. But tonight, with his upcoming foray into the gay world, he found he was giving himself a more critical assessment.

Handsome? Yes! He was very handsome. He’d been told that many times. He had light brown eyes and dark hair. He had a full beard which had a reddish tinge. When he smiled, his eyes crinkled in a way that gave him a boyish look that Christine had always said she loved.

He turned around. He wasn’t muscular but had a nicely toned torso. Being a horse vet, he needed a certain amount of physical strength to deal with large animals. His chest, stomach, and legs were covered with brown hair.

He looked critically at his belly in profile. He ran his hand from the bottom of his rib cage to the base of his d**k. “Hmmm, what do you think?” he asked the dogs, who sat in the doorway to the bathroom, observing him.

Both Lad and Lady c****d their heads to one side. Lady whined.

“Yeah. I was afraid you’d say that. Getting a little bit of a paunch, aren’t I? Well, I guess I’m gonna have to try doing a few more sit-ups.” Both Lad and Lady shifted their weight from one paw to the other. Dan took that as approval for the plan.

He turned on the water in the shower and waited for it to warm up. He stepped in and began to lather up. There was nothing unusual about his getting hard while he showered. Often he would absent-mindedly relieve any s****l tension in the process. However, this time his hard-on was instantaneous and intense. And, even more out of the ordinary, he made a decision not to jack-off. Dan pondered this. Was his subconscious aware of something concerning his upcoming adventure that his conscious mind was not?