Chapter 1
Brutus
I don’t like being milked.
Those torturous vibrations, sitting on the edge for ages, never quite feeling complete release…
It’s an unfortunate necessity.
Even for a minotaur, my production is… excessive.
I haven’t missed an appointment since I first started coming to Honeysuckle Farm. Well, since I was dragged here, which I deserved, on account of being a menace.
I can never let something like that happen again. I can never lose control like that.
And near a park, of all places… That part really eats at me. I must’ve scared the kids. I never would have approached them, but that’s beside the point.
No more denial. I hated to think of myself as someone who could lose control, so I didn’t take the precautions I should have taken, and… I lost control.
I still owe Alexander my life—he fucked the sense back into me in more ways than one. He reminded me that I’m a minotaur, and nothing’s going to change that.
The life I want—my sappy, sentimental little dream of a house and a yard and a swing set and a gaggle of kids—won’t be made possible by trying to forget who I am. I don’t know how much of a real chance I have of a life like that… but I know the odds are zero percent if I don’t face the music.
So, I attend my thrice-weekly milking appointments with complete dedication, even when the edging drives me insane. Better to writhe around desperately in the milking chair, thrusting uselessly until my muscles ache, than have even the slightest chance of losing it outside the barn.
It’s not all grin-and-bear-it, though.
The folks at Honeysuckle Farm have become like family.
Maggie and Fiona, the centaurs that lassoed me and brought me in, still check up on me regularly.
I’ve never felt judgment from them—only true gratitude that they could intervene before Teraton’s police, who are not so sympathetic to the struggles of exo-humans.
In the tourism brochures, Teraton seems like a utopia: a city made by exo-humans, for exo-humans. For the more human-like exos, like vampires, satyrs, and herbivore shifters, the city is truly liberating. But for the rest of us…
Reality is rarely so simple.
I sigh as I pull off the highway, guiding my modified SUV onto the wooded gravel road that leads to Honeysuckle Farm. My job pays well enough that I don’t have to cram myself into a car made for a human, and I have a great community here, so I really can’t complain.
I park and step out, hooves crunching on the gravel. It’s a sweltering August day, so I go ahead and unbutton my shirt and slip out of my specially tailored suit pants.
Unlike downtown, nobody here will bat an eye. Between my dense gray fur and my sheath, I’m hardly naked. But life amongst humans is easier if we spend the day double-dressed, so we do.
My tail flicks behind me, automatically moving more freely now that it’s not encumbered. I neatly fold my shirt and pants, then set them on the passenger seat before locking up and approaching the classic red barn.
I head around to the side entrance for regular patrons. The door swings, and even though it’s oversized with exo-humans in mind, the brown bull opening it still has to lean down to get his horns through—Alexander, one of the few minotaurs bigger than me.
“Brutus! You’re late.”
“Traffic,” I say with a casual shrug.
I clasp hands with Alexander and return the half-hug, half-wrestling-match that is a typical minotaur greeting. We lock horns in a friendly way, and my tail lashes happily behind me as I dig my hooves in, giving the brown bull an honest shove.
This is also something we avoid downtown, since it tends to frighten humans. I’d forgone the practice completely, thinking I ought to learn how to live without it. That was another of my mistakes.
I have no real chance of beating Alexander in a wrestling match—he’s proven that many times before—so I let him pull me off-balance, and I stumble into the air-conditioned lounge after him. Most of this main ‘barn’ is climate controlled, the rustic wood merely a facade.
In addition to my three-times-a-week milking, I get lunch with Alexander at least once a month.
“How are things?” Alexander asks, leading me through the cozy, cottagey lounge and out back.
We step into the bright sun and hot breeze. Fenced fields roll out for miles past the barn, filled with exercising centaurs, lazing sheep satyrs, shifted weredogs, and more.
The trees that line the fields, many of them blurry with distance, stand drenched in late summer’s emerald leaves.
“My love life’s still in shambles,” I grumble, needing no pretense of positivity with Alexander.
He snorts. “Tough shit.”
“Whoever invented dating apps was a sadist.”
“I don’t know why you bother with those.” We stride around toward the cafe and the tables and chairs in the shade.
“Not all of us had cute little girlfriends appear on our doorsteps.”
Alexander laughs, and genuine happiness tints his smile. “I suppose that’s true.”
“How are things with Embry?” The human journalist did a series of stories on Honeysuckle Farm, including a (well-anonymized) recounting of my regrettable episode.
How she managed to describe two centaurs dragging me to the farm and Alexander fucking the rut out of me while preserving my dignity is beyond me. I can see why Alexander loves her.
The brown bull’s smile deepens. “Good. Really good.” The tip of his tail flicks back and forth.
I give a wry chuckle and shake my head. “You’re down bad.”
“Guilty as charged.”
The cafe’s doors are propped open, revealing a long barn wood counter, a hand-chalked menu with doodles of vegetables and bovine faces, and additional indoor seating.
Alexander and I stride our familiar route to the fridges on the far side of the counter, where we grab fresh salads.
Large, proper-serving-for-a-minotaur salads.
My human coworkers assume minotaurs prefer meat.
I think it’s some misplaced assumption from human masculinity culture.
Really, there’s nothing I love more than a big bowl of greens: the fresher the better.
Since Alexander’s staff, he’ll settle the tab later, and we return outside to claim a large table under the awning. The chairs are cut comfortably for our anatomy—larger, sculpted seats and backs with holes that give plenty of room for our tails—and we settle, tucking into our salads.
As I bite into an heirloom tomato from the farm’s greenhouse, Alexander gives me an evaluating look.
“The dating thing really is bothering you, isn’t it?” he asks.
I sigh. “That obvious?”
“You’re allowed to be jealous,” he says smugly.
I laugh and throw a tomato at his head. “Fuck you.”
Alexander catches it and pops it into his mouth. “You’ll feel better if you talk about it.”
“I know,” I sigh. “It’s just… embarrassing.”
“How so?”
I pick through my greens, looking for nothing in particular.
“It’s not like I hide it. My height’s on my profile.
There are pictures of me next to objects of suitable scale.
This woman, she… she meant well. But she couldn’t stop saying, ‘I didn’t realize how tall you are.
’ Then she went to the bathroom, and when she got back, she claimed she had to go because her pet sitter called and said her dog was sick.
You don’t get a pet sitter for a fifteen-minute ice cream date. ”
“An ice cream date?” Alexander raises a brow.
“I like ice cream,” I mumble, knowing I’m sulking but not caring enough to stop myself. “At least when they run off, I get a cone of rocky road out of the deal.”
“Are you sure it’s really dating that’s bothering you?”
My tail lashes behind me. “Yeah, I think I know how I feel, thanks.”
“You’ve been irritable?”
“Sure, aren’t we all sometimes?” My nose twitches. It’s quite a rude accusation, but being grumpy about it will only prove his point.
“Trouble sleeping?” Alexander has a knowing glint in his eye.
I glower at my salad. “Work’s been more stressful than usual, that’s all.”
“Working out harder than usual but still restless?”
“Where are you going with this?”
“All symptoms of…” Alexander raises his brows expectantly.
I give a ragged sigh, gesturing vaguely. “Modern life?”
Alexander tilts his head. “Unresolved rut.”
The realization works its way through my brain. “Oh. Fuck. I’m an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot. It can sneak up on you with the regular milkings. Some bulls need more maintenance than others.”
“Okay, then… what the fuck am I supposed to do about it?”
“Join the breeding program,” Alexander says casually.
“Join the… what?!”
“You know, the breeding program.”
“Yes, I know what it is; I… I’m just struggling to see how that’s helpful.”
Alexander shrugs and spears greens on his fork. “You need to fuck a female.”
“I can’t just up and fuck a woman because I feel like it!”
“Right. You’ll be providing a service. In the breeding program.”
My mouth opens and moves, but no words come out. I’m still struggling to compute.
Alexander looks thoughtful. “If you hate that idea, Embry might be game.”
I rub my temples. “Alexander, thank you, but… the solution to this is not me fucking your girlfriend.”
He grins. “It’s not as if I wouldn’t be there.”
“No,” I say firmly. “No judgement, but… no.”
“So, the breeding program.”
“How is the solution… siring children I’ll never see?” I frown.
“There’s no need to sire children. The breeding program is half thematic, anyway. Plenty of the participants on both sides use contraception.”
I chew my salad. “I don’t like it.”
“That’s because you’re irritable. Because you need to fuck.”
I give an exasperated sigh. “Why is that the answer? If I have to fuck someone to function, I feel like a bad person, but doesn’t thinking that make me a bad minotaur?”
Alexander snorts. “You’re doing entirely too much thinking.”
“I’m an analyst. That’s what I do. I deliberately consider the options. I run the odds. I—”
Alexander suddenly grabs my horns and pulls me to my hooves. I stumble backward as he pins me to the rough wood of the barn’s outer wall.
“You have two options,” he rumbles. “Listen to my good sense, or I’ll fuck it into you.”
The bull’s tight grip on my horn goes straight to my cock. My sheath swells. But goading Alexander into fucking me isn’t going to solve my problem. It’ll suffer from the same root problem as when I cum and cum at the milking station and never feel true relief.
Traditionally, male minotaurs fight for dominance, draining and exhausting each other so our competitors won’t have anything left for a female.
Necessarily, males have a lot of stamina.
Some bulls can achieve full release with another male or at the milking machines, but others can only fully unload with the scent of a female in their nose.
Like me. I know Alexander’s right, but I’m stubborn.
Is it so much to ask? To meet a girl on an ice cream date, and fall in love, and make a home, and have eyes only for her?
Maybe that makes me an embarrassment of a minotaur, but… I am what I am. Denial isn’t going to change anything.
I sigh and close my eyes. “Okay, okay, you’re right.”
Alexander gives my horn an affectionate shake and sits down again.
I follow him, grumbling. “Now my cock’s going to throb for the rest of lunch.”
“Wouldn’t be a problem if you were properly drained.”
I raise my hands. “I got it! I got it. You got through my thick skull. I’ll try the breeding program.”