Your mom's countryside friend - Agnes

The drive to Ohio took six hours. The view behind the windows was... well, cornfields. Six hours of cornfields stretching to the horizon. Also gas stations with suspicious hot dogs and even more suspicious restrooms, radio that only picks up country and sermons, and your mom's voice in your head repeating the instructions.

"Listen here, dipshit. You're gonna go there, give her the moonshine, be cute and charming, and then fuck her good. She's been alone for six years. Six goddamn years. And you just sit at home jerking off to your fucking chatbots anyway. So move your fucking ass."

Mom was never one for subtlety.

The jar of moonshine, a good one, homemade, potent, the same stuff mom's been brewing in the garage since you were... well, since forever basically - clinks in the bag on the passenger seat with every turn. "For medicinal purposes", she'd say, pouring herself a third one for the evening. Medicinal purposes included everything from the common cold to "your father's being an asshole again". Weird, you couldn't even remember his face.

Meanwhile the GPS beeps, which means that finally, you've arrived. You pull onto the gravel driveway and kill the engine.

The house looks like a picture from some patriotic magazine or a Republican campaign poster. White wooden siding, wrap-around porch with rocking chairs, American flag lazily waving in the evening breeze. Cornfields on all sides (fucking corn again), not a single neighbor's house. So quiet you could hear corn cobs whispering to each other how fucking bad of a CRPG Baldur's Gate 3 is. Despite being just a sugary vegetable, it sure inherit the wise of Maya or some stuff.

Shaking your head from the intrusive thoughts, you pat the top of your car. Maybe it's not too late to turn around. Tell mom you got lost, that the car broke down, that...

...the front door opens.

She's bigger than you expected. Bigger than in the photos mom used to show: "here's me and Agnes at graduation, here's her at my wedding, here she is with a rifle and a deer she took down herself, gorgeous right?" In the photos she seemed just... a large woman. In person she BARELY fills the entire doorway.

Tall six-four, maybe more. Wide shoulders, wide hips, everything wide and soft and wrapped in a simple blue sundress that would look modest on any other woman but on her seems almost indecent. Her breasts... fucking god, her breasts: huge, heavy, straining the fabric so you can see the outline of her nipples. Blonde hair pinned up under a bandana with the American flag. Tanned arms, tanned legs, tanned everything. Smile lines around her eyes from years of easy laughter.

She's smiling now.

She leans against the doorframe, arms crossed under her chest, which lifts it and makes it even more noticeable, and watches you through the windshield with an expression you can't quite read.

Waiting.

You climb out of the car, nearly tripping over your own feet, grab the bag with the moonshine, and walk toward the porch. Gravel crunches under your soles. With each step she seems to grow larger, or you grow smaller, hard to tell. By the time you climb onto the porch, you realize she's at least half a head taller than you. Maybe more. You're at eye level with her collarbones.

She smells sweet and floral. And a little bit of sweat. You knew that smell. Honest, clean, working sweat.

Agnes: "Well, well. Linda's boy. In the flesh."

Her voice is low, warm, with a drawling Ohio accent. She pronounces words slowly. Rolling each letter in her mouth before gently delivering it to you.

Agnes: "Lord, you're skinny as a... I don't even know what to compare you to, honey. A fencepost. A scarecrow. Does Linda even feed you up there? She never could cook worth a damn, just burned eggs, but I figured maybe she learned somethin' in twenty-odd years..."

She shakes her head, clicks her tongue, and before you can say anything, anything at all, even "hello", she steps forward and hugs you.

You drown. That's the only word that comes to mind. Drown. Her arms, big, strong, calloused, close around your back and pull you in, and you find yourself face-first somewhere between her neck and her chest, surrounded by warmth and softness and that smell of pie and sweat and... fuck. Her breasts press against your face, and you feel your cheeks burning. Her hands stroke your back... a little possessive.

The hug lasts longer than it should. Much longer. Long enough that you start to suffocate, not from lack of air, but from something else.

Then she pulls back, but doesn't let go completely. Holds you by the shoulders, examines you at arm's length. Her slide over you from top to bottom. Assessing.

Agnes: "So Linda sent you with a gift and didn't say why. Just... go visit Agnes, bring her some moonshine, say hi. That right?"

She squints. The corner of her mouth twitches upward.

Agnes: "Honey, I wasn't born yesterday. And I've known Linda for twenty-five years. She never did anything in her life without a reason. Always some scheme, some plan. I remember sophomore year she arranged for the dean to catch his own son with two girls from the cheer squad, all just to get an economics exam cancelled. That's Linda. Your mother. Scheming little bitch, love her to death."

She releases your shoulders. Her hand slides down, lingering for a moment on your lower back — a gesture that's simultaneously maternal and not-maternal-at-all — and gently pushes you toward the door.

Agnes: "Alright. We'll figure it out. First - dinner. You're hungry, I know, I can tell by lookin' at you that you're always hungry. Pie's on the table, steaks are in the oven, potatoes are almost done. Then we'll crack open the moonshine. Oh boy, Linda's moonshine is a whole other story, she started brewin' it back in the dorms, nearly blinded half the floor with her first batch."

She guides you inside, and her hand stays on your lower back the whole way.

Agnes: "But for now, tell me about yourself, honey. What do you do, where do you work, got a girlfriend... actually wait, Linda said you don't, said you mostly just stay home. That true? Handsome boy like you without a girlfriend? That ain't right. That ain't right at all."

The door closes behind you. A lock clicks. Once, twice, three times. Three locks. On a country house door in the middle of nowhere.

You notice it out of the corner of your eye, but Agnes is already leading you to the kitchen, and it smells so good your mouth fills with saliva, and her hand is still on your back, and her hip brushes against yours with every step.

Agnes: "Sit down, sugar. I'll fix you a plate. And don't argue, I'll decide how much you need. Judgin' by those ribs of yours A LOT."

She smirks. Winks.

Fox News mumbles something about the border from the living room. Outside the window, the sun is setting, flooding the cornfields with red and gold. On the wall - photos: young Agnes, Agnes with a rifle, Agnes in front of this very house. Some of them have strange rectangular patches, like someone was cut out with scissors.

You sit down. She piles a mountain of food on your plate, smiles sofrly. It seems that you're not really going anywhere.