Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 44256 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 221(@200wpm)___ 177(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44256 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 221(@200wpm)___ 177(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
“This is butter before it gets salted.” She gestures at the liquid. “That’s buttermilk.”
“I see.” I do not see but it seems polite to respond.
She glances over at me as she scoops another huge plop of “butter” into the bowl. “Do you want me to explain how it works? I’m kinda proud of my method.”
“I would love that, actually.” Anything that will get me more of her smoky, delightful voice.
Michaela launches into her explanation. How when she first arrived on Risda III, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to raise cattle. She was interested in a farm but disliked the thought of animals sold to be meat. “It reminded me too much of the life I had just escaped.”
She’d been missing the comforts of home, and wondered if she could re-create them here. She purchased some milk from the store and recalled reading in a book that it could be churned and made into butter, and so she experimented with it before eventually having success. After that, she requested that she be given a farm with dairy-stock, animals bred to continue producing milk even after their calves had grown.
“But then I got my first batch of milk and I realized how much work it was to churn butter. And to sell it at a larger scale was a lot of work.” She straightens and makes a churning motion with her arms. “If I was going to make money on my farm, I’d have to figure something out. I talked with one of the women in town that does odd projects and she helped me construct this.” Michaela gestures proudly at the wall. “If I turn this one crank, it pistons the plunger in twenty different barrels and makes enough butter that I can sell the profits at the store. I sell the buttermilk, too, but people are less interested in that. I’m trying to think of a product I can make that will use the buttermilk up so it doesn’t go to waste.”
“We can always ask the other humans if they have any ideas. Ruthie or Ruth-Ann or even Lady Ruth might know a suggestion.”
“Sure.” She scoops the last of the butter out of the first barrel and moves on to the next, pulling the lid off.
“You can ask when you inquire about bounty hunters.”
“Mmm. I’ll hold off on that for another day or two, I think.” She glances over at me as she begins to scoop butter out of the new barrel and into my bowl. “I don’t want them to think I’m using you.”
My heart freezes in my chest. “You promised to use me.”
Michaela straightens, a sheen of sweat on her face that makes her look shiny and even more beautiful. “Not like that, Aithar. I meant using you for the contacts with the bounty hunter. I want them to think we’re the real deal for a while. It’s not fair to you otherwise.”
Again, she puts me ahead of herself. I’m humbled at her generous nature. “You are the kindest, most understanding—”
“I’m still using you for sex.”
“—generous, incredible, alluring, sensual—”
She puts a finger on my lips to silence me. “Let’s finish up with the butter before we go down that path, all right?”
“Very well,” I reply against her finger and give it a tiny kiss. Just because I can.
For the next hour, Michaela scoops butter out of the barrels and pours the remaining fluid—the buttermilk—into a cold vat. She rinses out the churns, then rinses the butter and salts it before slapping piles of it into rectangular molds and putting the molds into a refrigerated storage chamber. By the time we’re done, I have a great appreciation for all the work she goes through to make butter. She is sweaty and tired, and her stomach growls loud enough for me to hear as we head toward her house. As I mostly followed her around and carried things, I am not as sweaty and fatigued as she is.
We head inside and she glances at the lavatory and her kitchen. “Are you hungry? I’m starving.” She lifts her tunic from under her overalls and sniffs it. “And I reek. This is not an auspicious start to our date.”
“It’s my fault. I came over too early and made you rush.” I don’t apologize, because I wanted to be with her more than anything. I hurried to get here and I’d probably do it again, just because I can be near her. “Would you like to shower while I make food?”
The look she gives me is sheer surprise. “You’d make dinner?”
“I can make noodles with veg, if you don’t mind eating something plain.”
She grabs the front of my tunic and pulls me down for a kiss of gratitude. “You are amazing and I would love that.”
I’m stunned by the quick smack of her lips against mine and give her a dazed smile as she heads off to the lavatory. To her, that kiss was nothing. To me, it was a delight and made this entire day worth the waiting. I practically float to the kitchen and dig through her pantry, looking for the standard noodles that every ship’s mess has. A quick check of her refrigerator shows a variety of fresh mushrooms and some greens, and I chop them up while the noodles soak.