This story has been two years in the making. It started life as an intended two-book project, with the first one fully edited by Jill, then the second one with about a third edited. It went onto the back burner when other things and other stories came into my life. I sincerely thank Jill for her time, and Eric for correcting the factual errors I had made. So, after that, here is the first chapter of --- ‘Essentially Egg’.

Chapter 1

They say you always remember where you were and what you were doing the moment you heard dramatic news. One time I recall, with absolute clarity, was the day my world turned upside down and my future moved from a branch line onto the express track, although the latter wasn’t apparent at the time.

My first girlfriend left me, without saying goodbye. She wasn’t the last to do so, but she was the first. Thinking back, she reminds me now of a chicken we had when I was little. It was a white hen that allowed me to hold her but roamed our garden, destroyed the flowers, and crapped everywhere, especially places you had just swept.

My folks had a small-holding out Elmstead way where we had a few chickens. This Houdini of chicken-land escaped from almost every pen we put her, even managing to fly over a ten-foot fence. She fell ‘foul’ of a local fox one night while perched on the handlebars of my bike. All the other chickens were safe in the henhouse, but it was her wandering ways that brought about her downfall. However, my life became a lot cleaner after we had tidied up the blood and feathers.

I was just eight at the time, an ovoid tyke. My face was sort of oval with the chin being the thin end. My mother kept telling me I was “her little angel.” My body was, at that time, the other way round. I was thinner at the shoulders than the hips. Add a pot belly and you get the picture. I was shaped like a ten-pin. In my early teens, I managed to rid myself of the pot belly by doing a bit of running, which I stopped once the weight had disappeared. I ended up with big hips under a smaller chest which wasn’t that much better.

My parents, Bill, and Betty Grosse had done me no favors when they christened me Edward George Grosse. I became “Egg” on my first day at kindergarten and that stayed with me throughout my schooling. If I did well, I was a “good egg” and if I did badly, I was a “rotten egg.” In high school chemistry, I was always looked at whenever a noxious smell was generated by any of the experiments, even if I was nowhere near the source.

I did well enough at school, being able to go to Wayne State University which, fortunately, was in the nearby city of Detroit, allowing me to remain living at home. By that time, we had finished with horses and cattle. My father and I had converted part of the old stables into my own place. I had also gained my driving license so was happily self-contained, able to come and go at my own pace.

That pace was controlled by the chickens. We had slowly built up some chicken sheds that had become our main business. My high school mornings had included fresh egg deliveries to a number of shops in our area before I was dropped off at the school gates, usually with a few dozen for teachers, who had standing orders.

By the time I attended Wayne State, my father had converted the spare room into an office where he controlled his unexpected empire. We had some part-timers who would come in early to collect the eggs for grading and packing. The morning deliveries had been replaced by a truck coming by mid-morning to collect the shipment. It went to a central warehouse that now handled our output, along with other producers in the area.

My part in the business had evolved into introducing hatchlings that were sent from a nearby hatchery. I would make sure they were fed and watered and looked after until they were transferred to the pens with all the others. We classified ourselves as “free range”, but our chickens hardly ever saw daylight, scratching around in the enormous sheds under big yellow lights.

At the other end of the process my mother was in charge, picking out the older chickens to be collected by another truck. It took them to a factory, once a week, one that had a deal with a local fast-food chain. It was odd to think that I might be sitting in the outlet near the college and eating some nuggets that I had nurtured a few years beforehand.

The layout of our place was pretty simple, one half of the frontage was an old horse yard with the stable behind it; the other half was the garden, kitchen garden, and the main house. A road ran up the middle and out the back we had three large sheds which housed the chickens, a good size car park for our workers’ cars and the trucks that came. Then a packing shed, toilets, and restroom. Behind that again was another five acres where we used to run cattle before they got too much of a worry to keep.

In Wayne State I found myself that girlfriend, or, should I say, she found me. I was somewhat shy around girls and not one to put myself forward as a potential date. Henrietta Penny was different. She was very sure of herself, a bit flirty and difficult to consider as a steady sort of girl. However, she saw some potential in me. Not for sex, though, more as a source of wealth. With a steady wage from the business, I wasn’t short of money like most of the students, and she gave me kisses in return for my wallet.

She would drag me into a dress shop and, when she found one that she liked, she would pull off the ticket and give it to me to pay, all the while looking into my eyes. In that way she reminded me of that roaming hen from my younger days. One of her other things was the need to move up in the world. She was often on my case for living in a stable, when I could afford to move into a condo, the higher the better. That also reminded me of my feathered friend. I put up with her antics as I didn’t have much choice in the matter. Having a girlfriend who acted odd was better, at that time, than having no girlfriend at all.

It all came to a head just before my last year. A big party had been planned after the end of term as a prequel to the prom night in our last week there, next year. I had bought Henrietta a very nice dress, which she looked gorgeous in, and had collected her in my car to drive to the hall where we were to dance and make merry. She and I danced a bit and then she said that she needed to go to the toilet and would meet me by the punchbowl in a few minutes.

I was standing by the punchbowl about twenty minutes later with still no sign of her when a girl, who I had admired for some time from afar, came up to stand beside me, filling her glass.

“Looks like we’ve been scrambled, Egg.”

“What are you talking about, Josie?”

She pulled her phone out of a pocket in her dress and showed me the last message, which read, “Find somewhere else to live, you’ve been replaced.”

“Oh, Josie, I’m so sorry for you, but how does that affect me?”

“Well, it’s your girlfriend who replaced me. I saw her leaving with my partner, Reynard, a few minutes ago. They’ll probably be up in his penthouse soon having sex. He’s rather good at that - but a bit needy.”

I stood there shocked. The girl I had been looking after for some months was now in the highest roost of all and shacked up with the fox.

“Where does that leave you, Josie?”

“Up the creek - without a paddle! I’ve been living with him for three months and all my stuff is at his place.”

She then tapped out a message on her phone to him, asking about her things. We stood and sipped punch until the answer came back that she could pick them up the next day, as long as it was in the afternoon, and to leave her key when she left.

To take her mind off her dilemma I asked her if she wanted to dance so we went out on the floor together. The DJ put on some slower numbers, and we danced with our arms around each other.

“How come you’re smiling,” I asked, “I’d have thought you’d be sad?”

She kissed my cheek, “It’s because I’m dancing with a guy who has no need to strut and preen. I never realized before just how nice you are, Eddie.”

“Thank you for that. Have you anywhere you can stay, tonight?”

She bit her lip before whispering, “With you, that is, if you want me to.”

I was still a virgin, and she definitely wasn’t but I swallowed hard.

“Of course, I think that I’d like you to stay with me tonight.”

We left the hall and went to my car. It did have a whiff of Henrietta’s perfume, so Josie pulled a little bottle from her bag and gave the car a good spray of something new, and to me, exciting. I drove her back to the family farm and pulled up outside the stable.

“Don’t worry, Josie, it’s a bit different inside.”

When I opened the door and ushered her in, she gasped. We had pulled out all the stops when we remodelled the place. The entry was straight into an open plan kitchen / lounge / diner and was all bright and shiny. I told her that my bedroom was through the door at the end and that there was an ensuite bathroom.

I offered to sleep on my couch while she took my bed. She smiled, took my hand, and pulled me through into the bedroom. There she turned, put her arms around my neck and really kissed me, releasing the shackles that had held me back for many years. My crush on her turned to love that night. I lost my virginity on that bed before going to sleep, sweaty and naked, worn out from the events that had brought us together.

It was my alarm that woke us both at five. I opened my eyes and looked at her with her long dark hair across the pillow and offered a little prayer of thanks for my good fortune.

She asked, drowsily, “Why the alarm? It’s Sunday.”

I kissed her and told her I needed to go and look after my little ones. She pulled me down on her and we made love again before showering in my bathroom together. I loaned her a robe while I made us coffee and toast and then also loaned her an old shirt and some jeans. Because of my odd hip size, they all fitted her perfectly. She joked that she probably had some stuff that would fit me.

I had some sneakers that she could pull tight. Then I took her out to the hatchling shed where I checked out the current batch, making sure they were all right, and topped up their food and water. Josie was in heaven with the furry little chicks, picking them up and stroking them.

“Don’t get too attached to them, Josie, they may end up as the three-piece box you eat in a few years.”

She pouted and then laughed with me.

“Eddie, this is something that you’ve hidden from us. What else do you hide away, waiting to be discovered?”

I kissed her.

“Josie, last night you discovered something that no other girl has --- my love.”

“What do you mean?” Josie argued. “You were fantastic last night and far more caring of what I wanted than I’ve ever known. Didn’t you and Henrietta roll around in that lovely bed?”

I hung my head. “She would never come inside my home. If we had to come here for me to pick something up, she would sit in the car and then get on my back about getting a condo in the city.”

“So, you and she – didn’t?”

I closed my eyes and admitted that last night was my first.

She put her arms around my neck and kissed me. “If you improve on what you did last night, you’ll be the lover from heaven. I can’t wait to find out how good you can be.”

“Are you sure? There must be plenty of buff guys at university who would be happy to be your guy.”

“Don’t you want me to stay?”

I held her close and told her that my place was her place for as long as she wanted. After I had made sure the chicks were all right, I took her into the main house where my mother was cooking a proper breakfast. I told Josie that this was how I normally started the day, and it gave me time to get back into the stable and get ready for the day of study. My mother looked surprised when we walked into the kitchen.

“Now who’s this lovely girl, Eddie, this is something a bit different for you.”

I introduced Josie and told my mother that we were both majoring in Business Administration. I said that we had only got together last night due to a very strange situation which we had to explain.

My mother sniffed and nodded. “Good riddance to that Henrietta, she was never a genuine girlfriend.”

When my father came in for his breakfast, we repeated the introduction, and my mother gave him a wink to say she would tell him later, but he asked where Josie came from. She told us she was from the city.

My folks seemingly knew that we had slept together last night but nothing was said about that. Back in the stable Josie looked more carefully.

“So, the reason that there’s none of her things here is because she’d never come in. What a stupid bitch! She’s going to get a wake-up call with Reynard. I can tell you that! There’s one big difference between you guys and that he’s all flash and no substance and you’re all substance and no flash. The penthouse belongs to his mother, his car belongs to his father, and he used to try and get me to lend him money. It’s probably because I didn’t that ended up dropping me.”

Having time to spare, we undressed and made slow and wonderful love for a couple of hours. I was introduced to pleasing a girl with my fingers and tongue. When we were both drained, we nestled.

“I’m going to love teaching you new ways to make love.”

I told her that we had all the time in the world. I put together lunch for us after we had showered and found her something a little better to wear from my wardrobe. She asked if there was anything I couldn’t do. I had to admit that I wasn’t the greatest cook in the world and hadn’t installed a laundry because there were two machines in the main house.

After we’d tidied up from lunch we got in my car and went to get her stuff. Last night’s dress was in one side of my wardrobe, to be joined by others this afternoon. I was shown where to park in the tower block car park, Reynard’s space being clear. In the elevator we held hands, and when we got to the penthouse, she let us in with her key.

She discovered that most of her things had been tossed into the spare room. We took several trips to take them down to the car. I found myself carrying the sort of items that I’d never touched before. I found the experience strangely exciting. We finally found everything we could. She left the key on the kitchen worktop before we pulled the door shut with a satisfying bang. Outside the door she pulled me to her and kissed me.

“Thank you, darling; without you I don’t know if I would’ve had the strength to do this.”

We went back to the stable and took her things in to be packed away in drawers and hung in the wardrobe. I was hoping that whatever was happening between us would last as I was more under her spell with every passing hour. We had dinner with my parents that evening, my mother doing a roast. Chicken, of course.

With the meal over we were sitting quietly when my mother looked at Josie. “Josie, I can see that you’re an experienced girl. Please tell me that you’re not leading my son on so that you have somewhere to stay.”

I waited with my heart in my mouth as Josie considered her reply.

“Mrs. Grosse,” she said. “When I saw my boyfriend and Henrietta leave together, I was shocked, I admit, and was worried about where I was going to go. Eddie and I danced for quite some time, and I realized just how nice he was. He didn’t come on strong but there was strength in him. He was kind and thoughtful. When he offered me somewhere to lay my head, I thought that he would be just like other guys once we were here. No, he offered to sleep on his couch. I could see that it was a genuine offer, leaving anything else to me. I think that was the moment I knew that I wanted to be near him. Today has been magic, from the cheeping chicks this morning to this magnificent roast tonight. I’m so happy I could almost cry.”

That night she wore a lovely nightie and I put on some pyjamas. That lasted all of ten minutes before both items were on the floor beside the bed. I drifted off to sleep with an angel in my arms, and knew I was in heaven.

When the alarm went off, she knew what was in store, and she had her own jeans, blouse, and boots on - ready to help me. Together we got the job done quickly. I showed her the other sheds where the laying hens were just waking up and looking for breakfast. When we got into the main house to have our own, she was asking questions about the operation, from the cycle of chicks to the fast-food supply. She was no slouch in Business Administration and could pick open a business plan as good as anyone.

She did some calculations in her head, and I could see the wheels turning as she realized how much we were turning over. She didn’t say anything at the time, but when we were alone again, she spoke to me about it.

“I really hope you don’t think of me as a gold-digger but what I heard today has staggered me. If your parents leave you this business, you’ll be a very wealthy man and I want you to know that it’s all new information to me. I don’t want you to think that I’m here because of it. The last two nights together have been the best of my life and I’m really falling for you in a big way.”

I kissed her and told her that I was happy she was in my life and any reason she was here was all right by me, and especially right if she loved me for myself. Seeing that we were on the summer break, and it was Monday I asked her if there was anything else she needed to get.

“The one thing that wasn’t in the penthouse is my guitar, well, guitars, actually. They’re at the house of one of my friends. Can we go and get them please? They won’t take up much room. I promise.”

We got the car going and I drove us into the city again, but this time to quite a good neighborhood. We ended up outside a detached place that looked well cared for.

“This is where Donna lives,” she told me. “You may recognize her from school but she’s not in our stream.”

She rang the bell, and a girl opened the door, squealed, and hugged Josie. She wanted to know what had happened on Saturday evening, and we went inside. Josie explained how she was dumped and showed her the text message.

“That bastard!” exclaimed Donna. “So, who exactly is this fine upstanding young man? He looks familiar.”

“Donna, this is Eddie, sometimes called ‘Egg’ but I’ll never call him that now. He saved my bacon on Saturday evening, even if it was his girlfriend that went off with old Foxie.” They talked some more and then Josie told her that she wanted to pick up her gear.

Donnas’ face fell. “Dad doesn’t want us to use the garage anymore. That old fart across the road has complained again.”

“What can we do now? I don’t know where we can play; do you?” Josie sighed.

They looked at me.

I said that I may have an idea but that it would depend on how many of them got together.

Donna smiled. “Well, usually there are five of us and we don’t play that loud. It’s just that the old biddy across the road isn’t into country rock. We call our group the Pixies and we’ve done a few small gigs. We were hoping to do more once we graduate and Wayne State has already asked us if we could play prom night, next year.”

I made a decision that seemed important, for some strange reason. “I’ve got a place which should be OK, as long as you’re happy with it. If Josie can get her gear, I can show it to you. If you want, you can come with us. I’ll bring you home again.”

When Josie had said her gear wouldn’t take up much room, she was being a little flaky. Two guitar cases went in the trunk. Donna had to share the back seat with an amp. I drove back to the stable and parked.

Donna looked around. “This is a stable! We may frighten the horses, you realize.”

Josie laughed. “Donna, looks can be deceiving; this place is nothing like the outside once you get in.”

“I’ll make us a drink after you’ve both seen another of my secrets,” I said as I led them further along the outside of the stable and used a key to unlock a door. After I opened it and turned on the lights, they both gasped and Josie grabbed my arm for all she was worth.

The room was my studio. It didn’t have any fancy recording gear because you can do it all on a computer these days. The room was big enough for an upright piano, my own guitars, an amp, and my violin in its case. The walls had been lined with old egg trays.

“The only things that can hear you play here are chickens, who usually like a little music at times.”

Josie and Donna ventured inside. Josie came back to the doorway where I was standing. She held me close with tears in her eyes. “Eddie, darling,” she said, “If you play these instruments, I really do love you.”

Donna came and gave me a hug as well. “Are you sure we can set up in here, I wouldn’t want to be a bother?”

I grinned. “Music is a big part of my life already. A little more will be perfectly good with me, especially country rock, which is one thing I enjoy when not playing classical pieces.”

We unloaded Josie’s stuff, and the girls wanted to try the place for sound. Donna asked if she could use one of the guitars, and they plugged into Josie’s amp. They started off with an old Dixie Chicks number and sang along with it. I went and pulled out something I didn’t play often, an electric violin.

When I plugged it in to my own amp and joined in there was something that I had never felt before. Here I was, after years of playing alone. I was with the two girls, and we moved from one song to another, their faces alight with joy and my mouth getting tired from smiling. When we stopped, after about forty minutes, we were all bathed in sweat -- but happy.

Marianne Gregory © 2022