Milking Cows For Fun And Profit

She was a world famous artist, she said, many people buy my paintings. And I realised immediately recognised those love glazed eye's. A fact noticed by my friends who were half as drunk and twice as broke as me.
While we sent her away to gather another round for ourselves, they quickly told me how much money we could expect to see on a daily basis. I did the maths and decided some had to make sure the flow of booze and drugs didn't run out. Lest I see another crime spree like the one three months. I lost too many good friends in that campaign. Squeezing the tits a large, lonely, and ultimately wealthy, cow was a small price to pay. My dignity for a river of substance abuse.
         Over the following weeks my farming instincts were honed to perfection. Aided as I was by a fellowship of alkies and junkies, we made sure we never walked into her paddock while her wallet was empty. Every time she sold a painting we somehow managed to arrive at the bar. Full of thirst and in the beginnings of withdrawal. On some occasions I even tried to talk to the poor girl. But she was so hopelessly in love she couldn’t finish her sentences for the sight of me.
         None of this mattered of course, we were high. Perhaps flying even higher on the waves of her lustful worship than she was as I even began turning a profit on the cow. But still one that meant I had to actually go and milk it.
         It was a chore, sitting and listening to hour after hour of lovesick song. An utter embarrassment to pretend I liked them too. And damn near death to get up and dance with her while she hugged, kissed and fondled every stretch of exposed skin I had.
         But as always the drugs won. As they always had. And we started planning our trips so as to allow me time to recover. Or to put it more succinctly, fuck the living daylights out of a better looking and more entertaining female. The boys noticed this change and started pumping more and more drugs into me. First in higher doses, then in cocktail mixes. Slowly upping the doses until was so out of my mind I didn’t know where I was and who I was fucking. 
         They were the blissful days. The ones where a farmer could walk the paddock blindfolded without stepping in a cow patty. But this farmer was also slowly going insane.
         By now the cow had figured my traditional watering holes. The ones I would always go to when the thirst called and the dealer was asleep, out or in jail. Like all smart cows she knew when she needed to be milked, like all cows make her way to the sheds to be milked, and she would find me half drunk, half withdrawn and full of thirst both licit and illicit. I was never easy to deal with at these times. This is why I was often left alone by my friends.
          It was then I noticed how often she would repeat the same sentences, as if she had been practicing them in her head or in front of the mirror. Over and over the same shit would spew forth from the cow. “Hawthorn won” followed by a grin. Or “I’m selling a big painting later this week. We should go to the casino” images would flash in my mind of asking for five hundred dollars for the roulette table and running out the front door. That place was so big I could keep answering the phone and say I was still in there for days before she realised I’d done a runner. In fact if I played my cards right, I could pretend I lost the first five hundred and ask for another. Making a round thousand in an hour.
         But then she would talk again. And my head would buzz with the fury only lack of drink, amphetamines and opiates could bring you. It wasn’t the lack of drugs, I realised it was her. She was a complete void of interest to me. A black hole of enjoyment and entertainment, even football wasn’t fun when she was around. And the truth was she would never change. She would never become interesting or engaging; never hold my interest for longer than the fifteen seconds between saying hello and handing me the cash. I realised then that there was no fun in this profit and I stopped milking the cow.