It wasn’t that Marta disliked sex, it was that after the seventh child she knew, without a doubt, that she wanted no more. “Oh come on honey, you’re still breastfeeding, it’s not likely you’ll get pregnant,” said Cyril. Anyone but Cyril would see that seven kids in twelve years could pretty much rule out that myth.

When Marta crawled into bed at night, she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. Cyril was a sneaky bugger, a fast worker; he could come from behind and be in and out before she woke up enough to stop him.

One evening, when Cyril was in the barn, Marta was leafing through an agricultural magazine, while feeding baby number seven, when she found a solution. Now all she had to do was send away an order on the sly, then convince her husband that an anti-mating apron for male goats was some sort of sex toy.

Louella Lester

is a Winnipeg (Canada) writer and photographer. Her writing has appeared in journals such as New Flash Fiction, Blink-Ink, Flash Flood, Potato Soup, Cleaver, The Odd Magazine, Litro, Five Minutes, SoFloPoJo, The Dribble Drabble Review, and a variety of other journals and anthologies. Her book Glass Bricks (At Bay Press, April 2021), written in flash and micro, is a quirky look at her work life.

Author’s blog: Through Camera & Pen