milk

After reading that Flaubert once, upon feeling the urge to write, excused himself from table by saying "I need to be milked."

I stand in the meadow, lowing, my udder full and sore; for once, not chewing. I see the boy at the gate. I can't say I love his hands, but I need them on me, need to fill his steel pail. Since he's been slow today, and I'm peevish with discomfort, I may let him fill the pail with frothing, cream-rich milk, let him think ahead to butter churning, how he'll spend his pay, or, even, as oblivious to my huge female heat as I to his tiny masculinity, daydream of women he knows, of their teats under his hands, tiny and dry. That's when I'll take a swipe at the bucket. If I connect, spread white in the straw and muck, "damn cow," he'll say. Maybe tomorrow he'll be prompt.