The bustling activity of the day was dying down, and in its place came the kind of rural tranquility one would hope to find in the countryside. The hills were being drenched in the soothing glow of June's evening sun. You let it warm your skin as you strolled across the farmstead you were raised on, lost in pleasant, private thought.

It wouldn't be for long.

"Ey, down there! Mind givin' me a hand for a tick?"

-

You turned your head to the old barn. The booming, baritone voice appeared to come from up in the hayloft, unmistakingly belonging to one of the farmworkers your dad had recently hired for the season. Someone out of the ordinary around here.

This was one of those years where an expected to be plentiful harvest had combined itself with much unexpected maintenance, so the old man had deemed a little 'extra' to be in order, which had arrived in the form of Jackson. He was a towering anthropomorphic stallion, in the prime of his youth and, to the appreciative eye, a sight to behold.

You weren't sure how much of it he'd acquired through his line of work, if he did heavy lifting on the side or if this kind of physique just came easy to horses. Regardless, at 24 years old he was built like a tank under his healthily
gleaming chestnut-and-cream fur. It had a velvety, peach skin shortness to it in all the right places too, leaving no outline of his brawn to the imagination. And to make things that much more uneasy for you, damned fella had a penchant for working shirtless...

"Y'okay, Jack?" you called back to the large opening in the gable end, trying to sound casual. You didn't see him there, must've been in the back.

"Oh yeah, just dandy. Sorta!", answered the dislocated voice. "I don't wanna be a pest 'n all, but I got a pickle here!"

What kind of problem could he even need your help with? That old barn had been little more than a glorified garden shed ever since your family had moved away from livestock to crop farming. It was mostly just a bunch of old hay upstairs. Did your folks finally decide to get that fire hazard outta there?

Still, you thought, even moving the larger bales down shouldn't be much trouble to Jackson; he'd been making short work of any manual labor around the place for weeks. It was plain to see why equines weren't the cheapest hires.
And sure, you were out there too, trying your best, but next to him you might as well have been a spectator. Well... uhm, not that that was completely inaccurate...

"Ya might wanna see this, man."

"Hang on, be right there!" you exclaimed while heading over.

Of course you were. Anything to make an impression on the man you'd been spellbound by from the moment he arrived. Like, how else was a gay kid who'd been pretty isolated for two decades even supposed to react, when someone suddenly just decides to have 7-foot bodybuilders live on the property?

Hell, Jackson was handsome too, in a non-human way. His rugged, chiseled features were one thing, but what really struck you was the dichotomy between those and his striking olive eyes, that permanently seemed to sparkle with amusement and a boyish sense of mischief.
They were full of life, mirroring the stallion's general demeanor around you: spirited, uplifting, hearty. And maybe just a little bit cocky, in a sort of benign, fitting way you actually found quite charming.

Yeah, you had fun together. Hanging around the horse could make whatever boring chore a good time. And boy could he speed things up!

In short: a total dashing heartthrob, and whenever you saw him work with heavy stuff, you would inevitably catch yourself hanging around at a semi-safe distance. Just kind of staring dreamily instead of whatever you were supposed to be doing.
Must've looked like some weirdo, the way you could be transfixed on his effortless movement, on all the visible musculature as it shifted and bulged. Your eyes imagined the rest, undressing what little of him there was left to...

Heh, it was honestly pretty pathetic, you admitted. But it was like everything about that man conspired to make you unable to help yourself~

Luckily, as a generally decent reader of people, you were fairly sure he hadn't caught onto you. Even seemed oblivious to your many half-effective attempts to hide solid evidence of your attraction, often needed when you two would be around each other. Perhaps a good thing, too.

Still, even when you were separated by miles, Jackson's presence had been dominating your mental space at the most random moments day and night, in all sorts of impure ways. Though chiefly consisting of more thoughts of just what this big bundle of masculinity would look like under those dungarees he usually wore around the place.
Would he be... just as herculean down there, resembling his distant cousins the way you'd often heard about horse men?

And of course, that lead to questions like what he could do to you with all that raw strength of his. Strength to carry, strength to hold and subdue, strength to drive that equine pride forward... Damn... you weren't completely green, but... would you remotely be able to take such a thing?

Never mind that, was he even into boys in the first place, let alone the likes of you? You kind of prided yourself on your svelte form, and that perky butt of yours had been a real asset before, but it made for an overall appearance that was very much opposite the one he seemed to strive for.

...Probably all pointless deliberations doomed to remain unanswered, but by God if the possibility didn't keep you preoccupied.

'Funny', you thought, scaling the ladder that lead to the loft: another one of those fantasies had been creeping up on you right when he'd so rudely startled you. Well, better keep that stuff far away for now and focus on helping as well as you cou- 🐎 "Howdy there...~"

"_{What the fu-} JACK!!"

What you saw the moment you got off the ladder and turned around, gave you three answers way faster than you could ever have predicted:

1) Jackson was more perceptive than you'd taken him for.

2) Jackson did, in fact, like boys.

🐎 "Yeahhh, I might've bent the truth a bit: s'more of a raw cucumber than a pickle."

3) Jackson was every bit the stallion between the legs.

-

😳 "I... I uhh..."

🐎 "Reckon the one I'm growin' here might just be one o' them types that pops when it gets big enough, seeds goin' every which way...

"...Wanna make it grow some more and find out?"

😦 "H-hold on, you actually find me attracti-"

🐎 "Probably gonna need more than a hand, though~"

...........

🤭 "Heh... *pfffft* Ha ha ha ha!"

🐎 "Oh, and yeah, I do. You're... pretty as a peach and uhh... _{even sweeter...} Haww, guess I made that plain as day, huh?"

😘 "Well... okay then, mister cucumber farmer. I'm game. But I sure hope whatever you're about to have me do is better than your puns~"

🐎 "Mmmm, never was my forte. But I know what is. C'mon over, sugar..."