Orchard
by Mudcub
stories@mudcub.com
As a teenager, I worked on an apple orchard near my house. It was a really nice job - usually it involved sitting in a hot barn talking to my friend John for most of the day. He and I ran the cider press, and we had to wait until the crews brought in that day's harvest. Actually, that isn't true... we usually only pressed apples that had been sittin' around a while and had started to turn to jack. But it made a good excuse to our boss why we weren't workin' that day. "Honest Paul, we ran out of apples and we were waitin' for more!"
Making the cider itself was ok, too. It wasn't really a two-man job, but John and I managed to stretch it out to an eight-hour workday. It was back-breakin' work lifting the boxes of apples into the press, and in the steamy barn, we quickly built up a good sweat. Our boss Paul was kind of a jerk - he wouldn't let us work with our shirts off since he said it was "unhygenic". Plus, we had to wear these company demin shirts that were incredibly hot and didn't let your skin breathe. So, I usually wore an undershirt under my company uniform, and after a few hours, I'd strip it off. By that time, the white t-shirt underneath would usually be sopping wet. What I hated was the way the denim channeled the sweat down my back and down the back of my jeans, so I usually had a wet ass and looked like I had just pissed myself.
As a gay guy, today I love uniforms and rubber. I think it was this job that did it for me. We had to put on these huge clunky rubber boots. Mine were way too big for me, since John and I had replaced two guys who went off to college the previous summer, and the company gave us their old stuff. Often, sweat would gather inside the boot too, and John and I could pour it out at the end of a shift. I remember a couple of times when I wasn't lookin', he came up behind me a poured his boot out over my head! I really let him have it then... I wrestled him to the floor of the barn. When we got up, we were both covered in dirt and mud and all the other junk on the floor left over from the pressing. But at least I know I can give as good as I get!
But my favorite part of the cider job was the rubber suit. Every day, we had to clean out the press, which meant that one of us had to get into our gear and get inside the thing. The juices left over from pressin' are really acidic and will eat through a pair of jeans if left soaking overnight (I found this out the hard way and ruined a new pair of jeans when I first started). Plus, there's lot of gunk in there: apple remains, branches, and (don't tell anybody this) often dead mice and birds. All of it got pressed into our cider, but it was eventually pasteurized so nobody cared. It was really messy work, and had to be done with a small shovel and bucket in a really tight enclosure. With the heat in the barn, I must have put out a gallon of sweat every time I did the job.
The suit was a beige color that was almost see-through. It looked like it was ten years old, but I knew that they bought a new one every summer. The old suits were hung up in the barn from years before, and they were worthless and falling apart from exposure to the acid. So, John and I only had one suit between the two of us, and since we traded off doing the chore every other day, that means we had to share. John was a good friend of mine (though I haven't seen him in over ten years)... at the time he was 6 feet tall and about 180 pounds. He didn't play football on the team, but he threw shot for the track team each Spring. After the track season, John was pretty huge and muscular - though he got fatter every summer when he started drinking beer and stopped workin' out.
But the thing about John was - he really stank. I don't know if he never showered or what, but the guy really reeked. His family was poor, and I know he wore the same shirt for days at a time. I rememeber making fun of him for that, and he got mad at me, and said this was a shitty job and he didn't want to get his good clothes dirty anyway. John had a point, after a few weeks workin' there for the summer, all my clothes were pretty much trashed anyway.
I only made fun of John once for his smell. I think it was one time when we did two pressing in a row on the same day, and I had to get into the suit that he had just taken off several hours before. John was always really good at hangin' up our gear when it was wet with sweat, so it wasn't like it was sittin' in a corner of the barn. Still, when I stuck my head in the opening to put it on, this amazingly strong stench of b.o. hit my in the face. Usually, the suit just smelled mostly like rubber, but this time, I didn't even want to put it on. I gulped in a breath, and dove in. You had to put the suit on by crawling in a hole in the back and popping yer hear into the attached rubber hood. This time, I don't think I've ever put it on so fast! I almost didn't need John's help... though the thing was so heavy and bulky that getting it on was a two-man job, and I got almost as sweaty getting' into it as I did wearin' it! When I had put on the respirator and gloves, I remember said something nasty to John (I don't remember what it was), and John stormed out of the barn. I was pissed because I couldn't get out of the suit alone. I think I worked really slowly, and then had to go up to the office and find someone to help me get out of it.
I could imagine what it would be like to be tied up in the suit for hours at a time, 'cause hell, sometimes I was in it for hours. One time, I had to remove part of the press that was at the bottom, and I had to get in there with a wrench and hammer. It took forever to get the part out, and at one point I was pissed because John kept makin' like he was going to close the press on me (we did shit like that to each other all the time). I always tried not to piss in the suit, but I did sometimes. I know John did, too, because sometimes the suit would smell really pissy when I put it on. However, the was one of those things we never talked about.
When we got into the suit, we were supposed to wear the company denim shirt and jeans, but there was no way. I wore the full outfit one time when Paul was around, and I've never been so hot in my life. It takes about ten minutes to get into the thing, and there I was on one of the hottest days of spring that year in a cotton t-shirt, denim shirt, briefs, jeans, and heavy socks all under the respirator mask, plus the suit and rubber gloves. The suit had it's own rubber boots that were attached, and after you got out of it, you were supposed to pour out all the sweat and hang the suit upside-down. However, sometimes we forgot, or got busy, and the next time you stepped in the suit, you'd sink up to your ankle in cold sweat. That was nasty.
However, as the summer wore on, I usually just wore a t-shirt and briefs in the thing, with no socks. As I said, the suit was really see-through, and it looked funny when John got in it almost nude. I usually wore a shirt, since the shoulders were heavy, and if you were shovelin' or something, it could really chafe. However, when it got really hot, I just wore a pair of briefs, which were like a wet dishrag by the time I got out of the suit. I knew John before I knew I was gay, so we never did anything strange to each other. Still, I think back on all the times that he helped me get out of the tight rubber opening, pullin' my ass out of it, and I know it had to be erotic. Still, as I said, I never talked to him after I went away to college, and I wonder where he is now.
I worked that job for two summers, and then I got a car and found a better payin' job. Whenever I go back home to Minnesota, I sometimes stop back at the apple orchard and check things out. Last time, I went out to the barn - but they had torn the old one down, and had a better-looking facility. It was next to the kitchen, and wasn't so secluded, so you couldn't get away with anything if you wanted! But when I saw a bunch of rubber suits hanging upside down over a grate near the wall, I had to thing about all the hot young teenage boys that had my old job, and were sweating through a lot of hard work!