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The Sleepwalker
Chapter 1
Everybullheknewparticipated in the time-honored tradition of jerking off for money.
Selling one’s semen had been a mark of adulthood in the small, rural community where he’d grown up. All of the milking joints had an age requirement, and visiting was a milestone on par with getting one’s driver’s license and graduating from secondary school. It was a universal experience to have that first visit be an anxiety-ridden nailbiter, but it was offset by what came after — a beer extended by a father, an uncle, a neighbor, a seat by the fire, and a back-slapping laugh shared. An inclusion into the previously closed circle of adulthood and community.
“Good afternoon! If you’re here for the orientation, you’re in the right spot! If you could sign in here and take a seat, we’ll be calling your name with some forms to fill out.”
There was no neighbor or cousin waiting for him at home that afternoon, no one to extend a beer and clap him on the back, only this bright-voiced receptionist. There was paperwork he needed to finish, emails he’d ignored to come here, and a heating pad for the shoulder he’d had the audacity to attempt sleeping on the night before. He had shit to do, and he could already tell that this orientation was going to take entirely too long.This is what you get for making an appointment the first week. You should have waited a month or two. They’re going to act like you’ve never jerked off before, give you instructions.Rourke shifted in impatience at the mere thought.
Across the room, a clock styled to resemble a weathervane ticked, each second seeming louder than the one preceding it. The rest of the waiting room was, like the clock, highly stylized. He had winced the moment he’d come through the door that afternoon, surprised and more than a touch vexed that an establishment catering to a hooved population would have carpeting, instantly imagining the way the long, looped pile might catch at his soles. But once he had taken a step over the threshold, Rourke realized the carpeting was not carpeting at all. Synthetic turf, soft and scratchy and green; it felt bristly beneath his hooves, with no danger of catching. The ceiling, he noticed, once he had checked in at the small reception desk, was painted to look like an afternoon sky — cerulean blue, dotted with puffy white clouds. Red shiplap on the walls and a cheerful, sunny yellow gerbera daisy on the receptionist’s desk in an old-fashioned bottle. The exterior of the door was painted a rich Kelly green, and its small window was bracketed in framing that resembled the chrome bumper of a tractor.
They had gone out of their way to give the impression of a bucolic, postcard-worthy farm . . . or a primary-colored daycare center designed for toddlers. For the space of a heartbeat, he was offended.What the fuck are they trying to say?Gritting his teeth, he decided to push aside his annoyance, at least for the moment.Fine. Pretend we’re barnyard animals. Let’s hear their little spiel. They’d better be paying a pretty fucking penny.
He was not the only minotaur in the waiting room. Two other bullmen sat on the plush sofas, both with their heads down, eyes trained on their phones. It was unsurprising. There was a decent minotaur population in Cambric Creek, and if this new place was planning to pay as well as rumored, they would likely scoop up all of the locals from the competing milking facilities in Bridgeton and Starling Heights. He was annoyed by the childish interior and the less-than-subtle message it sent, but not enough to forgo the gas he would save by not driving all the way to Starling Heights to make his deposits.
“I’ll let you know what it’s like, save you the trouble . . . yeah, agreed. I don’t know what their rate is yet, but does it matter? Anything to keep from having to sit in Bridgeton traffic.”
Rourke listened to the one-sided phone conversation of the bull across the room, mentally agreeing with the sentiment. He avoided Bridgeton as much as possible since the divorce — childish, perhaps. Cowardly, most assuredly. But he had never liked living in the city in the first place, he would remind himself, and there was little need to go there now, not when Cambric Creek was where he both lived and worked, and it boasted enough restaurants and entertainment options to make the neighboring mid-sized metropolitan city virtually obsolete to his existence. In any case, the milking facility in Bridgeton wasn’t that much closer than the one in Starling Heights, and the time and fuel it took to drive to either one practically negated the whole purpose of the visit. Interior design choices aside, considering it was five minutes from home, he was willing to give this place a chance.
“Mr. Braidfute? We’ll just need you to fill out the questions on this clipboard for health screening, front and back.”
“It’s MacMathers-Braidfute.”
The young woman behind the counter appeared to be humanoid, albeit with pale blue skin. She blinked slowly at him, clearly caught off guard by his words.
“I’m sure you have a lot of hyphenated names on your clipboard,” he went on, nodding at the board in her hand. “The first name is representative of the family trade, and the second is the name of our ancestral clan. I know that probably seems insignificant to you, but if you’re going to be working with minotaurs . . .”
“It’s not,” she cut in, eyes crinkling with her smile. “It’s not insignificant at all. And thank you, I didn’t know that. I’ve been here two weeks, and you’re the first client to correct me! I appreciate it; I wouldn’t have known otherwise. And I’ll be sure to remember that in the future.”
Rourke gave her a wry smile, ignoring the bull across the room, who rolled his eyes as he returned to the sofa. The clipboard contained all the standard issue questions — height and weight, if he was a smoker, if he possessed any known health issues. His brow furrowed as he read down the sheet, unclipping the paper to flip it, finding the back just as thorough as the front. It was unusual for a milking joint to ask for a detailed family health history.Why the fuck do they care?He scowled, eyeing the top of the form closely for the first time.A subsidiary of Pfizzle Pharmaceuticals. He blew out an aggrieved breath.That’s why.
“You think they’re going to be using us for genetic testing with all these questions?” He asked the question aloud to the room with no expectation of an answer, but the bull to his left, around his age, similarly dressed, snorted in agreement.
“I wouldn’t put it past them. These places don’t care what happens once they get paid for it. They pay us and send us on our way, and they get paid by whatever company is buying our spunk and go on their way. We’re not entitled to answers like that.”
Rourke huffed, knowing the other bull was probably right. In all the years he’d been doing this, he’d never received a comprehensive answer from a single employee of any milking facility he’d ever visited on whatever the next step was in the jizz pipeline, and he likely never would.You’re just the supplier. You don’t get answers. And it’s not like there’s a shortage of suppliers.
“I heard these joints that are owned by the pharmaceutical companies are slicker,” piped up the third minotaur in the waiting area, younger, wearing a snug navy-blue T-shirt and battered jeans that ended just above his hocks. “This one doesn’t sell off the cum. They’re the ones processing it. My cousin in Bingham said he’s been to one of these pharma-owned places, and they’ve got textured sleeves on the breeding mounts. That’s what I’m hoping for.”
The bull on his left snorted again. “That beats the broom closets at the place in Bridgeton.”
The three of them laughed. Another rite of passage, exchanging information with one’s fellows, adding your own voice to the whisper network of minotaurs who advised on which places were the cleanest, who paid the best, and which boasted the sort of amenities this younger bull was hoping for.
The door opened, and another minotaur stepped into the waiting area. Rourke nodded, recognizing the newcomer, and before the new arrival had a chance to move away from the reception desk, the door opened again. There was a three-bull limit at the facility in Starling Heights, requiring them to wait in the parking lot and keep watch for a green lightbulb to go on above the door. Most of his fellows knew to shuffle into the undersized place in Bridgeton one at a time.
Five minotaurs in a single waiting area would normally be overcrowded. It would be a delicate dance to ensure their horns did not bump or lock and that their broad bodies would adequately fit on the inevitably undersized furniture, but the room here was surprisingly spacious and comfortable. The furniture was large and plush, the only thing in the area that wasn’t done up in some primary-colored nonsense aesthetic scheme.Pharmaceutical money. They probablydohave the fancy strokers.
“Gentlemen, thank you all so much for scheduling appointments with us today!”
The sylvan woman who entered the room had a blinding, beaming smile of overly-whitened teeth. She wore a Holstein-printed apron over a short-sleeved collared shirt and slim-fitting black slacks, driving home the farm-like aesthetic of the place.Pharmaceutical money. More dollars than sense.
“We’re going to take you on a short tour of our facility this afternoon, and then each of you will complete the health screening if you wish to proceed. If you are selected for participation in the program here, you’ll be notified within three days.”
“Selected?” The ivory bull who spoke had been the last to arrive, a rumpled academic type in a cable-knit sweater and oxford shirt with a wrinkled collar. “What do you mean selected? There are half a dozen of these machine tug joints in the Tri-County area. What do we need to be selected for? Don’t you all do the same thing?”
Four large bovine heads swung back to the sylvan woman, waiting to hear her answer. Her beaming smile never cracked.
