\n After Gertie was relieved and shoved out the door to munch on hay with the other ladies, we checked their water, fed the yard dogs and finally headed back to the house, breath billowing out of us like steam from competing locomotives. It had begun to snow while we were in the barn, and a thin dusting of white lay between us and the house. It was coming down faster now, with determination.

\n "This isn't going to let up anytime soon, is it?" I asked. 

\n Bubba eyed the grey sky with a practiced eye. "I doubt it." He didn't sound like the idea of being snowed in particularly bothered him, so I didn't let it bother me. We kicked off our boots on the covered porch, careful to not track the smell of the barn into the house.

\n As we went inside, the first thing that struck me was the temperature. "Damn, it's hot in here!" I said, wasting no time in throwing off my jacket. 

\n Bubba looked at me with amusement that comes from experience. "The temperature's never right around here in the winter. Just when you get used to the cold, you walk inside and it seems hot. Then you start to warm up and it seems chilly." Bubba spoke as he moved around the kitchen in patterns that were familiar to him. He rinsed out the coffee pot and began to make a fresh batch. "You've got about twenty minutes until breakfast, so get cleaned up fast."

\n A shower. After spending the first few hours of the morning mucking around in cow shit, a good hot shower sounded like heaven, and I didn't argue with him.  The water in the shower was hot and, even through my face fur, stung my skin with unexpected force. After sharing the dawn with the cows, it felt like heaven. I'd just lathered up good when the door to the bathroom opened and I heard the sound of the toilet seat banging against the tank. Christ A'mighty, I thought. Bubba had his dick in his hand, pissing while I was standing here soaping up my balls, separated by nothing but a thin plastic sheet. There were times I wished that Bubba was homely.

\n "Leave enough hot water for me," he said, finishing his business and flushing the toilet. Scalding water shot out at me, and with a yelp I pushed the shower head off to one side until I could twist the hot water tap. He laughed and closed the door behind him when he left. Having him touch me in the milking barn had left me horny as hell, but there was no time to relieve myself in the shower. In fact, given the absolute lack of privacy in this house, I didn't know how long it would be before I could jerk off in peace and relieve some of this tension. With a sigh of resignation, I made the water as cold as I could stand it and rinsed the soap off my body.

\n I grabbed a thick towel off the rack above the toilet and dried off, wrapping the towel around my waist and tucking it in. I was combing my hair in the mirror when Bubba walked in again. "Jeez, you startled me," I said, heart thumping in my chest. It was obvious that there wasn't anyplace in the entire house that was off limits. Like the alpha dog in his territory, Bubba walked wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted to. At the same time, though, he didn't do it as if he was proving a point. He just acted as if two guys wouldn't have anything to hide from one another, so why bother with privacy? "So this is what it's like being one of the guys," I thought. I wondered if that same rules applied to me? If he could walk in on me without knocking, maybe I could walk in on him, too. This had real possibilities, I thought, grinning to myself. 

\n "Sorry about that," he said, sitting on the toilet and taking off his socks. "I grew up with four brothers and one bathroom. We didn't think it was a big deal." He cut me a look. "You're not shy or anything, are you?"

\n "Naw," I lied, desperate to not look like a pansy to him.

\n "Good, that makes things easer," he said as he peeled the undershirt off his barrel chest. His shoulders were naturally wide, and his back was thick from years of hard farm work. In fact, thick seemed to be the rule of the day when they made Bubba. He was built like a truck - wide, thick, and sturdy. His arms didn't have the ripped muscularity of a bodybuilder, but they were big enough around to stretch his shirt. His forearms were big and meaty, his wrists thick and strong. Nature had been very, very good to him, gifting him with a bone structure that would support huge musculature if he ever wanted to hit the gym. His shoulders rolled under his short fur as he worked his shirt off, revealing the humps of muscle between his shoulders and his neck that football linebackers get. They made his short, thick neck look even shorter, nearly filling the space between his shoulders and his ears. For an instant I forgot I was staring, and he almost caught me watching him in the mirror. When he might have caught my eye, he saw only me absorbed in picking through the hair on my chin, looking for an imaginary pimple. When he pulled off his Wranglers right in front of me and bent over to turn on the water wearing nothing but white briefs, I knew I had to get the hell out of there. The thought of him standing naked in front of me was more than I wanted to endure, so I moved operations to the bedroom. 

\n I put on my clothes and waited for the sound of water in the shower to stop. After what I hoped was an appropriate amount of time, I walked back into the small bathroom to hang up my towel, and saw Bubba standing at the mirror with his towel around his waist, working skin conditioner through his fur. "If you're not using this stuff," he said, patting an unlabeled squeeze bottle on the counter, "you should. It's a bit of work, but your skin's gonna crack if you don't. The house and the barn have gas heat, and that makes it really dry in the winter. Oh, hey!" he said, holding the tube out to me, "Get some in the middle of my back, will you?" 

\n "Sure," I said, taking the tube as if it might be dangerous and moving behind him, "show me where you can't reach." Running my hands over his back was something I really wanted to do, but I also really didn't. No, it doesn't make sense, but... you know. 

\n Bubba reached around his back in demonstration, surprising me with the huge expanse of skin that he indicated. His chest was so thick and his arms so muscled that almost all of his back and shoulders went untreated . I squeezed a good portion of the lotion onto my palm and began to work it onto his back. Underneath his fur, I could feel the hard bumps and spots where his skin had gone without moisture for weeks. "God, you're a mess back here," I said, offhandedly, "your skin is sucking up the lotion like a sponge."

\n I squeezed out more and rubbed it in, picking out the occasional tiny scab where his skin had broken and oozed a little blood or that clear stuff. That part sounds pretty disgusting, looking back on it, but it was pretty much what had to be done so I did it. And yeah, it gave me the chance to run my hands all over him. I found that after a few minutes, it wasn't even bothering me so much any more. 

\n I kept rubbing in the lotion until his fur again lay as flat and glossy as on anywhere else on his body, and handed the tube back to him. "Done." 

\n "That feels great," Bubba sighed, taking the lid off the tube again and squeezing a palmful into his own hand. "Take off your shirt and turn around." I hadn't been about to ask him to do the same to me, but since it would have been awkward to leave him holding a palmful of lotion, I complied.

\n The hands that worked the lotion through my fur were surprisingly dextrous for how work-hardened they were. Bubba moved with an economy of motion, taking enough time to get the job done properly, but not spending too much time back there, either. Apparently I needed the lotion too, because he had to do his fair share of picking at my skin, too. Where the skin had broken, the lotion tingled for a few moments but never burned. The massaging motions of his fingertips worked the lotion through my fur and down to the tiny cuts , making sure it worked its way in. He was efficient, but not coldly so, and it took him about half the time it took me to finish. To be fair, that's probably because my back was half the size of his, but still...

\n Snapping the cap back on the bottle, he tossed it back onto the bathroom shelf. "Just let me know if you start drying out," he said, turning back to the mirror and combing through his facial fur. "That stuff's pretty long lasting. Twice a week, maybe?"

\n Of course I'd help him if he asked, but I didn't think I'd take him up on his offer to return the favor. Having him rub his hands all over my body when I was still new to the ranch and shy was one thing, but If he tried something like that after I got comfortable, I might try to jump his bones. That was definitely not a mistake I wanted to make.