Clarissa looked up, startled, to see she was walking up the steps of her brother's front porch. She'd been so wrapped up in her reverie that she'd barely noted the outside world during the fifteen minute walk from her father's farmhouse. She shook her head to clear it and pushed the front door open.

She heard her sister-in-law's voice from the kitchen. "Clarissa? Did you eat breakfast at home? I made omelets."

Clarissa had hurried down a bowl of cereal in milk -- always plenty of milk around -- before bolting out the door, but she couldn't pass up one of Wendy's omelets. "You got some girlmeat?"

Wendy looked out from the kitchen. "A little leftover. It's in there." She usually diced up whatever leftover girlmeat was available, along with bits of onion and potatoes, mixed with spices she chose not to reveal. "You look nice that way. Good for catching boys. I should know, I caught the best." She smiled back towards her husband.

"What, this?" She looked herself over. She'd hurriedly put on denim shorts -- very short, a red checked shirt of her dad's long enough that she could tie the shirttails together just under her breasts for a bare-midriff look, and short boots -- good for work out in the fields, where she knew she'd be at least part of the time. She had nice legs and a taut tummy, so it probably did look fetching. "Sure, I'll have an omelet." She entered the kitchen, where her brother Tom was rinsing his own plate in the sink, setting it aside for later washing. Knowing she'd be the one doing the washing, Clarissa wished again that Tom had a dishwasher. "When are you planning to join the modern age, Tom?"

Tom, now twenty-two, had started the farm fairly recently, on land his father had helped him purchase. It irritated him for Clarissa to bring up the lack of luxuries again. "Soon as I get another milker and a little more money starts coming in."

She felt immediately guilty. "I know, I'm sorry. Look, I know I'm eighteen, and I should have been converted already and be out there in the barn making milk, but... you know how important the Hanging Academy is to me. Daddy said I could go if they let me in." Her mind turned back to her earlier daydream, of herself, naked and dangling by the neck in a noose, her feet kicking out trying to reach the ground, while dozens of admiring people watched her expire. She felt the tingling and wetness again between her legs.

Wendy was at the stove, using a spatula to push the bright yellow omelet onto a plate for Clarissa. "How long till you hear from them?" About six months along in her pregnancy, Wendy walked carefully, somehow graceful and awkward at the same time, the plate held in front of her bulging tummy.

"This week, sometime, I think. Ooh, did I tell you about the interview?"

Tom snorted. "Ummm, maybe once or twice."

"It was so cool!" Her eyes looked off into the distance at something nobody in the room could see. "When they took me around to see the campus, I got to see some of the girls practicing. I saw one girl hanging by her neck for at least five minutes, and when her partner let her down she was hardly even breathing hard! And she was just a first-year! She's still learning. They say by the time you graduate, you can kick for at least twenty, twenty-five minutes before you die. I think they must teach them how to get some air in while they're hanging, but it's all this big secret."

Wendy nodded, setting the plate down in front of Clarissa, along with a frosted glass of milk. "I've never been to a party where they hanged an Academy girl, but a friend of mine from high school told me about one. She actually was still jerking a little after twenty-seven minutes. Of course, all the men had blown in their pants by that time, including my friend's boyfriend." She giggled. "That kind of pissed her off, but he was still really hot afterwards, so it was okay."

"Yeah! I want that so much! I'd be giving so much to people, and they'd remember me for a long time. And they'd eat me afterwards, of course, so I'd stay a real part of them, not just in their memories."

Tom essayed the losing battle for the hundredth time. "Well, if you were making milk, you'd be part of thousands of people. Providing one of their most basic needs. People really appreciate that."

She sighed. "It's not the same. I want to see... that look in their eyes. You know? I want to get them really hot, and see it, and know they're going to be eating me in just a few hours."

Wendy patted Clarissa's hand. "I hope you get it."

Clarissa chased down a mouthful of girlmeat omelet with a splash of milk. She looked at the glass. "Whose is this? It's really good."

Wendy looked at the bottle. "It's Karen's. We've been growing a new grain and trying it out in her feed, hers and Kirsten's. The milk is coming out pretty good, isn't it? A little sweeter."

Clarissa nodded. "And... like spicier, or something."

Tom nodded. "I think we'll start feeding that to all the girlcows."

Clarissa finished her omelet and took her plate to the sink. On the way, she drained the last drop of milk from her glass, running her tongue around the rim, by ingrained habit not wanting to waste any of the milk her sisters had devoted their lives to producing.

She looked out the window. "Where to today?"

"I'll show you when we get out there." Tom took his wife's hand and helped her to her feet as she steadied the heavy load in her womb. "Let's get going."

As she arrived in the barn carrying her pail, Clarissa saw Kirsten in the nearest stall, sitting upright, leaning back against the back wall of the stall, smiling as her quadrupedal sister Karen finished her breakfast at Kirsten's left nipple. Karen, as did all the girlcows in the barn, looked comfortable standing there naked on her four shortened limbs -- her arms, now serving as forelegs, cut off at what had been her mid-forearm; her hindlegs, of equal length with her forelegs, ending at her lower thigh. I won't have to be converted like that, thought Clarissa, I won't have to live in the barn as a cow, clumping around on metal hooves grafted onto the ends of my arms and legs. With a chain running from my collar to a bar high up overhead, to keep me from being stolen. Though she did feel a pang of selfish guilt -- she knew all the girls had felt proud to share the meat of their amputated limbs with their own family. I'll be eaten by strangers at a party after being hanged for their entertainment -- the thought produced the usual tingling in her crotch again, but the excitement this time was tempered by the competing wish that at least her father could eat part of her, if not her sisters. She remembered the special feeling when the whole family ate her mother a few years ago.

Kirsten saw Clarissa and waved a stubby foreleg at her, and Karen stopped suckling and looked behind her, a little stream of milk dribbling down her chin. "Hey, Clary. I'm about done. I think Kirsten still has plenty left, and I know I do."

Clarissa nodded. "I can start milking you while you finish up." Karen nodded, her mouth already encircling Kirsten's nipple again. Clarissa unlocked the barred gate to the stall and entered, kneeling to slide the pail under Karen's bulging breasts. She could already hear the tinny sound of milk cascading into the pail in the next stall, as Wendy milked Gwen or Jenny, she couldn't tell which. With practiced fingers, Clarissa pulled and squeezed Karen's left breast, and in a moment a stream of milk issued forth and fell into the pail.

Karen and Kirsten must not have been terribly thirsty this morning, Clarissa decided, a little surprised at the amount of milk she'd collected. Wendy had already moved on to the third and last occupied stall in the barn and was milking the girlcows there. Clarissa pulled the nipple clamps out of the pocket of her shorts.

Kirsten winced. She whispered so Wendy wouldn't hear, "Clary, do we have to have the clamps? I promise, cross my heart, I won't drink any of Karen's milk before the evening milking. Tom won't know."

Clarissa sighed. At least one of the girls made the same plea every morning. "I'd leave them off if it was up to me, but you know how Tom is about that. He'd know, and he'd go on again about you guys 'drinking up all the profits.' He works really hard, and at least he lets you drink in the morning. At some farms they don't even do that." She winced herself in sympathetic pain as she attached the clamps to both girls' breasts.

"But we just get so full by evening! It drives me nuts!"

"Well, I guess that's kind of the point. You might promise in the morning to stay away from each other's boobs, but can you keep the promise when you feel like you're ready to pop?"

Karen rolled her eyes. "Okay, just promise you'll get in here on time in the evening. When you went for your interview and Tom went and picked you up afterwards, Wendy had to do the evening milking all by herself, and it took like forever!"

Clarissa's face lit up. "Oh, did I tell you about the interview? It was so..."

Kirsten cut her off. "Can we get out of here? We've been cooped up in here since yesterday morning." Karen nodded in agreement.

"Let me see if Wendy's done. You know we've got to get the milk to the bottling room first, but we'll be right back after that." A lot of the small farms, Clarissa knew, didn't have their own bottling equipment, but Tom had given it priority, knowing it would save a lot of expense in the long run. Cutting out the distributor and selling directly to the local grocers made it possible for the farm to turn a small profit.

Kirsten sighed, then looked at Karen, smiled, and ran her tongue around her lips. Karen giggled. "Okay, Clary, I think we can find something to do."

As Clarissa walked back to the house with Wendy, carrying two of the pails (Wendy, never wanting to feel that her pregnancy was interfering with the work, insisted on carrying one), she asked Wendy, "Has the mailman been here yet?"

Wendy laughed. "Clarissa, it's seven in the morning! You know he gets here about noon."

Clarissa sighed. "I was just thinking when he has something really important to deliver he might try to get here earlier."

Wendy looked at her seriously. "Sweety, you are prepared in case... you don't get the news you want. Right?"

Clarissa's jaw was set. "I know they'll take me. It's what I was meant to do. They have to see that!"

Wendy leaned towards her as they walked and gave her a one-armed hug. "I hope so, dear."

Clarissa looked at Wendy's bulging stomach. "What did the doctor say yesterday?"

"Oh, I didn't tell you! He said the ultrasound showed four!" She beamed. "Four little girls. At least he said he couldn't spot any little wangers in there. Of course, a boy is never too likely. I'll probably have one or two in my entire life, like your mom did. Thirty-six girls and two boys. I guess I've got a long way to go before I catch up. Without the fertility drugs I'd never get there."

Wendy, at twenty-one, very likely might catch and surpass Clarissa's mother, with perhaps as many as ten or twelve litters over the next fifteen or so years. Clarissa held up the pails. "I guess you'll be making a lot of milk pretty soon. Are you going to add to the supply?"

"Not hardly. With four little mouths to feed, they're getting all I can make -- don't see how there could be much left over. Tom's okay with that. Of course, he'd damned well better be." She laughed.

"Will Dad be able to part with enough of my sisters to get you guys through until your girls are old enough to be milkers?"

Wendy nodded. "We were figuring that out awhile back. Your mother had those last quints just eight years ago. If your dad will let us have at least a couple of them in ten years, along with some of the older girls as they come along, we should get there okay. If worst comes to worst we can lease a few girlcows from one of the state farms. Going to be a long time before we're as big a farm as your dad has, but we'll make it okay." Clarissa was glad Wendy seemed to be implying they could get along without her.

Clarissa arrived back at the barn and stopped suddenly at the gate to the first stall, a little embarrassed. Karen and Kirsten were both on all fours, Karen with her face pressed into Kirsten's butt, her tongue vigorously lapping at her sister's pussy. Kirsten's head was thrown back, her eyes squeezed shut, and she was grunting in time with the rhythmic spasms of her body, rocking back and forth, pushing her butt back into Karen's face. Her whole body tensed and she shouted with release, every muscle standing out and quivering, and the shout lingered to become a long moan, which subsided very slowly. At last she stood motionless, her body bathed in sweat, and she tried to get her breath back in gasps.

Clarissa cleared her throat. Kirsten responded with an exhausted giggle, and Karen with a bright, "Clary! We're ready to go. Kirstie already did me." They both padded towards her, beaming at her through the stall gate, the chains securing their metal collars to the overhead bar clinking. The chains had plenty of slack, enough to allow them to wander freely around their stall. They were the last line of defense against cattle thieves -- girlcows were one of the most valuable types of slaves. Each of the six stalls (three of them currently occupied by two girls each) had a barred steel gate across the front that closed and locked with a sturdy steel latch. Any breach of the gate set off a buzzer in the house and at the local police station, unless the correct four-digit code had been entered on the security keypad outside the stalls. The door to the barn had a similar security system, though it was usually left open in the daytime -- Tom felt the girls were happier with the interior of the barn lit by sunlight. None of the girls, in spite of the security, felt as if they were prisoners: they understood the need for protection -- there was no telling what might happen to them if they were stolen. They dearly loved their morning walks, though, their chance to get out and feel the sun on their bare bodies.

Clarissa unlocked the gate, fished the key for the padlocks out of her pocket and unlocked the chains from both Karen's and Kirsten's collars, hearing Wendy doing the same in the other stalls. She pulled the leashes off the wooden shelf and attached one to each girl's collar. Wendy had arrived at the stall entrance by this time, leading the rest of the girls.

"Which ones do you want? I don't think Gwen wants to be with Karen."

Gwen sniffed. "It's no big deal. She just scraped my leg with her hoof last time and I kind of got mad."

Wendy rolled her eyes. "Well, let me take Gwen, Kirsten, and Monica. You get Karen, Jenny, and Jill. Okay?"

"Fine with me." Clarissa took hold of the three leashes and followed Wendy as she led her girlcows out of the barn.

Tom thought it was a good idea to match up three girls from different stalls for the morning walks. Since they'd all grown up together, he suspected they missed each other more than they let on, though each formed a tight bond with her stall-mate. This was usually their one chance during the day to mix with sisters they didn't get to spend much time with.

Twenty-four rubber-tipped steel hooves made a cheerful clattering as they left the hay-strewn stall area and reached the bare wood floor in front of the barn door. Ahead of her, Clarissa saw Kirsten emerge into the yard, her pussy gleaming in the sunlight with recently-released juices.

Jenny whined, "Clary, do we have to have the leashes? It's not like we can run off anywhere."

Clarissa sighed. Another argument she'd had a dozen times. "Talk to Tom about it, not me." She knew Tom had made the rule about leashes after finding that the girls did quite a lot of dawdling without them, taking forever to get to the day's designated field, but she knew better than to explain that one more time, knowing it would just elicit the usual promises of "We'll follow right behind you, honest!"

Watching Gwen up ahead, Clarissa marvelled again at her sisters' ability to walk gracefully on their four shortened stumps, especially considering they couldn't bend their hind legs. It seemed very sensual, the way they'd sway from side to side, twisting their shoulders and hips in a rhythm, the swaying lifting one hoof after another off the ground just long enough to swing it ahead. How did they know which leg to move next? She'd shaken her head when Jill explained, "It just takes practice, and we've got plenty of time to work on it. I don't even need to think about it. You'll learn it really fast." Not me, thought Clarissa. I'll be at the Academy, learning all about nooses.

In a nearby field, she saw Tom stop his tractor as they emerged, and wave towards the adjoining field -- the same one they'd gone to for the last several days, but Tom always made absolutely sure everybody knew what they were doing. The next day, Clarissa knew, Tom would plow that field at last, and the girls would have their walk somewhere else.

When they arrived at the field, all of the girls stepping carefully around the previous day's work, Wendy finally unhooked the leashes on her three charges, and signalled for Clarissa to do the same. "Okay, I know you all know to spread out as much as you can." The girls all nodded and began splitting up, each picking out an area and checking to see if she was far enough from the others.

Their bowels were well-trained, out of daily habit -- their diet, the exercise, the time of day, a certain amount of time after breakfast. Each girlcow waggled her butt and spread the stubs of her legs, and added her day's contribution of fertilizer to the field. None of them liked the job very much, but they were still glad they could contribute more to the success of the farm than just their milk. And today they had a thrice-weekly treat to look forward to afterwards: a long soapy warm-water bath in the barn's tub, with shampoo. All of the girls had their hair cut very short, as a convenience since they looked down so much of the time, but they still felt gross if they went too long without getting it washed. Of course, they also loved the attention, with Wendy and Clarissa sponging their bodies and massaging their scalps.

Before it was time to return to the barn, though, Kirsten shouted from her corner of the field. "Clary! Come over here, look at this!"

She rushed over, not able to imagine what had impressed Kirsten so much. She arrived to find Kirsten rubbing her cheek in a bright bed of wildflowers -- flaming yellow-orange, each holding its petals spread wide to catch the sunlight, waving in the slight breeze. Kirsten was bouncing on her front hooves in excitement, her oversized breasts swaying under her. "Clary, look, they're so pretty! Pull some up for me, please, please? I want some for the stall."

Clarissa saw that the other girls were finished with their duties and padding over. She caught herself nearly stepping in Kirsten's recently deposited feces, jumped over the mess and looked at the flowers. She rubbed Kirsten's shoulders. "Sure, Kirstie. I really better get enough for everybody, though, don't you think?

Kirsten sighed. "Well, okay." She frowned, clearly wishing she'd had some way to pick the flowers herself and hide them, but at last admitting to herself that she ought to share the beauty with her sisters. At 26, she and Karen were the oldest of the thirty-six girls, and she often acted as if the two of them ought to get special treatment. She was really okay, though, thought Clarissa. Most of the time.

By this time the other girls had arrived and were exclaiming over the find. Clarissa pulled up a handful and, on a sudden inspiration, put a few of the lovely starbursts in Kirsten's hair. The rest of them started shouting for the same treatment, and in a few minutes Wendy and Clarissa, laughing, had all the girls in floral crowns.

As they walked back to the barn, leashed again, each girl made the others in her trio give her some idea how she looked with her flowers. Jenny used her chin to help keep one of Karen's flowers from falling out. At the barn entrance, they were all giggling at each other as they took turns, one by one, standing over the upturned faucet in the ground that sprayed water up under them to clean their asses. (Clarissa operated the faucet by stepping on a valve several feet away; if the girlcows could have operated the faucet themselves, they'd stand there spraying their crotches forever.) As they entered the barn, Jill looked up at Wendy, up ahead of Clarissa's group, "Can you put the flowers back in our hair after our shampoos?

Wendy laughed. "No problem. Just don't get us out of bed at night to rearrange them."

Once the girlcows were all bathed and returned to their stalls, their collars once again secured with the chains, their stall gates securely locked, it was lunchtime. The girls busied themselves at their feeding troughs, lapping at the sweet grain, pausing when necessary to suck from one of the water or fruit juice nipples dangling down from the ceiling -- they all liked that arrangement for fluids better than having to immerse their faces in a water bowl to get a drink. Each girl also paused in eating to turn a critical eye to the golden garland festooned in her stall-mate's hair, using her mouth or chin to make minor adjustments, giggling.

Clarissa was glad to see them happy, but could feel butterflies staging a growing invasion of her stomach as the clock crept towards noon. She followed Wendy back to the house to help make lunch for Tom and themselves, trying not to ask again about the mail.

Just as Tom sat down to his chicken salad, Clarissa, her eyes on the front window through the kitchen door, spotted the blue truck. "It's here!"

She hardly touched the floor on her way out the front door, rifling the through the mail in the box before the mail truck had arrived at the next house. Bills, ads... where was it?

Nothing. She sighed. Tomorrow for sure, maybe. She trudged back in, dropping the mail on the kitchen table. "Nothing yet."

Wendy cleared her throat. "Uhhh, Clarissa..." she started, with the hesitancy of a good friend not wanting to tell a friend she's being really stupid. "Wouldn't they mail it to your house?"

Clarissa's eyes bulged. "Right! Right! I'll be back in..." The last was hurled at them from the front porch.

She stopped breathless at the mailbox in front of her house, bent over, her hands on her knees, feeling faint, and took a full minute to recover before shakily pulling the lid down. Bills, ads, more bills... and "Clarissa Martin." She looked up and down several times between her name and the embossed imprint of the Hanging Academy, then took off at a dead run back to Tom's house. Whatever it was, whatever it said, she wanted someone with her when she opened it. Her father was too busy at this time of day -- she could see him out in a distant field. Tom had probably gone back to work as well. But Wendy would be there.

She sprawled full length on Tom's porch, feeling terminally winded, and shouted "I'm okay, I'm okay," as Wendy rushed out onto the porch. She waved the letter at her. "It's here."

"I guessed." Wendy knelt awkwardly next to Clarissa, saw the letter was unopened, which told her she shouldn't offer congratulations yet, and helped her up. They leaned on each other into the kitchen.

Clarissa sank into a kitchen chair. "I can't open it."

"Want me to?"

"No! I mean, I need to open it. I will in a minute." She held it with shaking fingers. She took a deep breath. "Have you got a letter opener? I don't want to rip it all up."

"Would this do?" She handed her a steakknife from the sideboard.

Clarissa nodded absently, intent on the envelope. She willed her fingers to take the knife and slice through the top of the envelope.

The moment she read the opening: "Dear Clarissa: There were so many excellent applicants for our entering class this year, it was very hard..." her heart sank. She let the letter slip out of her fingers.

Wendy read it upside-down, not touching it. She looked up to see her sister-in-law's lower lip shaking, her eyes brimming with tears. "Clarissa, I am so, so sorry." Clarissa rested her wet face on Wendy's shoulder, her own shoulders heaving. Wendy held her for a long time.

Laying on the couch in the livingroom, Clarissa looked up to see Tom standing over her, awkwardly fidgeting with his hat in his hands. "I'm really sorry, Clary."

She nodded slightly, the skin of her face feeling tight from tears. She whispered dully, "Thanks."

"If... you know, if you want to take a few days off, we can manage here." Wendy had come forward and put her arm around Tom's waist. She nodded in agreement.

She shook her head. "Thanks, but I... I want you to convert me. Okay? Make me a girlcow. I want to start producing." She held her jaw tight to keep it from trembling.

"Take a few days to think..."

"No." She sat up. "The thing I've been waiting for didn't... happen. I turned eighteen five months ago. I know you need me out in the barn. Right? Don't say you don't. I know you do."

Tom stood silently.

She leaned back and closed her eyes. "Do it tonight, please. Do it for me, okay? You've been really patient, waiting for me."

"Clary, I..."

"Just... do... it." She looked at him until his eyes met hers.

He folded. "I need to ask Dad. If he says it's okay, then tonight."

Wendy said quietly, "Do you want to go out to the barn?"

Clarissa shrugged. "What are they doing, watching their afternoon soaps on TV?" There was a television in each stall, with a remote with oversized buttons the girls could work with their chins.

Wendy shook her head. "A couple of Jenny's and Jill's old friends from high school came over. They brought pizza, and they're feeding it to all the girls. Kind of a party. Their breasts are getting pretty full, and this takes their minds off that."

Clarissa shook her head. "Maybe later."

Wendy tried to smile. "Won't be any pizza left later."

"Not up to it right now."

Tom put his hand on Clarissa's shoulder, a very uncharacteristic gesture. "I'm going back out. I'll phone Dad before dinner. I won't be too far away if you need me."

"Thanks."

Wendy looked at Tom. "Okay if I stay with her?" Tom nodded quietly and returned to the yard.

Clarissa had picked a little at her dinner, while Tom obstinately refused to bring up the subject of what her father had said, or even say whether he'd talked to him. Clarissa knew Tom had done girlcow conversions before, at Dad's house, though this would be his first purely solo effort.

After the dishes were cleared, and the majority of what had been on Clarissa's plate to begin with had been put in left-over bags, Tom cleared his throat. "You know we've got milking to do."

Clarissa had totally forgotten that they would have this one more chore before... the event.

Wendy put her hand on Clarissa's arm. "You can stay here. Tom and I can do it."

"Thanks. Oh, but... they'll know something's up. If I'm not there. It'll... maybe they won't give any milk at all. If they get too upset."

Wendy looked at a loss. "Are you up to it?

"I'll do it." She sighed and stood up. "Don't tell them, okay? Until maybe afterwards."

Wendy ran through a dozen arguments aimed at keeping Clarissa in the house, but finally said, "Okay, dear. Are you ready now?"

She nodded.

In the barn, the girlcows were all in high spirits. Clarissa tried to let some of their lightness carry her. They still had their flowers, and obvious pizza-breath. They each froze up in pain as she removed their nipple clamps, then begged her to hurry and milk them. Between Clarissa and Wendy, it took two trips to get all the milk to the refrigerator in the bottling room -- a good day's production.

Clarissa met Tom in the hallway. "Okay, the milk's in there, it's cold, it'll keep. Are you going to do it or not?"

"Dad said it's okay. He'll be here a little later. He asked if I minded waiting till tomorrow night, so he could be here from the start, and I told him you didn't want to wait that long. So, well... I'm ready if you are."

She let out a long-held breath. "Where?"

"I figure I'll do it on the kitchen table, and I've put a mattress on the floor of our room, so you'll wake up there. I just have to ask... are you absolutely positive? You know you could spend a week, see some friends, go out on the town a little. All the girls did that."

Another tear, latest in a long line, slipped down her cheeks. "Not this girl. I'd have to tell people... you know."

He shrugged. "Well, if you're ready now, let's go to the kitchen."

She saw that he had spread a thick canvas mat on the table, and his tools were in various places on the counters. She saw the hooves that she would soon be wearing on her extremities, and closed her eyes and shivered.

He extended a hand to help her up onto the table, but she waved him away. "I can get up on my own." Last time she'd have that ability, she realized. She took her boots off, thinking, as she did, that she'd never need them again, and peeled off the rest of her clothes. Never need those again either. She climbed up and sat, feeling very conspicuous, sitting naked on the table where they'd eaten their meals. I won't be anybody's dinner anytime soon, I guess.

Wendy stood, watching. "I'll be right here, sweetheart."

She smiled. "Thanks."

Tom brought out a glass of dark liquid from the refrigerator. "I've got some stuff that'll knock you out. Got some painkillers I can inject you with, too, so you won't feel much after. Not that there's much pain from the laser knife. It's such a clean cut your body hardly notices."

"I know, I know. Let's do it, okay?"

Tom started to hand the glass to Clarissa, but Wendy stopped him and took the glass from him. "I'll do it." She reached out and stroked Clarissa's hair, handing her the glass. She gave her a kiss on the cheek and stood back.

Clarissa looked at the glass in her hand. Last thing I'll hold in my hand, she thought. She wiggled her toes. Sighing, she gave her life over to Tom and the farm, upending the glass and gulping down the knock-out concoction. She made a face. "How long?"

"For it to work? You should start feeling a little spacy in just a minute."

She lay back, trying to rest her head on the hard surface. Wendy started. "Oh, I should have thought. I'm sorry, I'll get you a pillow."

Clarissa blinked her eyes hard, three or four times. "Tank. I feel like a little... rap. Nap. Is that the righ' word?" She seemed to see Tom nodding from far away. Receding from her.

She opened her eyes. Wha'd I do, have an accident? This a hospital? She could see flowers, but not moving, not waving in the breeze. Not golden. Brown. Frozen on the wall. Wallpaper. That wallpaper in Tom and Wendy's bedroom. Musta been her idea, Tom'd never let flowers on his wall...

Her head felt buzzy. She tried to raise her hand to her head. Her arm felt stiff, heavy. Arm must be asleep. It came into her field of view. Short. Too short. Where's the rest of my arm?

She remembered. "Wendy!!"

She heard quick footsteps down the hallway. Her father looked in from the doorway. "How's my girl?"

She smiled at seeing him, her lip quivering. "Kind of missing some parts, I guess. And I hurt. I think I hurt. Can't tell. Funny."

Tom looked in. "The drug is wearing off. Do you remember why you're here?"

She nodded her head, and the tears seeped out again. "I didn't make it in. I'm sorry, Daddy."

He knelt by the mattress, and sat back on his heels, stroking her hair. "It's okay, it's okay. None of that matters."

She lifted up her other arm. Both arms ended a bit below her elbows, terminating in matching steel cups whose rounded bottoms were hard rubber, ribbed like a car tire -- the rubber bottoms screwed onto the end of the steel cup and had to be replaced every year. The hooves were held on, she knew, by a bolt running through the bone, in a channel cleared by the laser gun. Eventually, the bone would heal around the bolt, securing the hoof permanently to the end of her arm. Her foreleg. As would the bones of her short thighs, her hind legs, around their hooves. "If it's wearing off, does that mean it'll hurt a lot?"

Her dad shook his head. "The knockout will fade out, and you'll be less woozy soon, but we can continue the injections in your legs. In a couple of days you won't need the shots any more."

"My arms too?"

"You've only got legs now, honey. Four of them."

She shifted uncomfortably. "My breasts hurt too. And I think they're kind of swollen." She tried to touch them, realized she had nothing to touch them with. She'd never seen them so big.

Tom nodded. "We've started you on the hormone. They'll be tender for awhile, and you'll get funny feelings in them. In a few days they'll get kind of a full feeling. We'll be able to milk you in about a week."

"Where's Wendy?" She gave her dad a tiny smile. "I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm glad you're here, but Wendy said she was going to be here."

Tom ducked out momentarily, then looked back in. "She's coming now. She's been out in the barn."

"She told the girls? Well," she thought about it, "I guess she had to. They'll know what happened when I'm living out there, won't they?" She sighed. Then she heard the bump of hard rubber-clad hooves clopping on the wood floors of the hallway. "Who's that?"

A familiar face appeared, low down by the doorframe. "Can I come in, Clary?"

Clarissa smiled. "Sure, Karen."

Karen padded into the room, the sound softer on the carpet. "I thought you might want some company." Behind her, Wendy looked in through the door and smiled.

Clarissa tried to sit up and found she couldn't. She held her forelegs out towards Karen. Karen, with an effort, bent down and kissed Clarissa on the lips, then said, "Scootch over. I want to lay down with you."

"I don't think I can."

"Sure you can. You can do a lot of things. You'll be surprised."

Using mostly the back of her head and her buttocks, Clarissa managed to inch her way over to the left side of the mattress. Karen rolled to the side and plopped down on her back next to her.

Wendy spoke up. "I told the girls what happened. Karen said she wanted to spend the night with you."

Clarissa rubbed her foreleg against Karen. "What about Kirsten? Won't she get lonely?"

Karen smiled. "She's a big girl. She can make it through one night."

Clarissa looked up at Wendy. "What about after? Will I be in a stall by myself? I don't have anybody to share one with."

"Tom and I talked it over. If it's okay with you, we're going to put you with Karen and Kirsten."

Clarissa smiled. "Hey, okay. I guess I'll get my own stallmate when you get another girl. When another sister gets old enough."

Tom smiled, seeing the opening. "Well, uhh, Clarissa... I don't think you'll be here long enough for that."

She squinted at him. "What do you mean? I've got twenty-two years till I'm forty. Sasha, Sally, Sarah, and Sandy just turned fifteen, so they'll be ready in... less than three years, I guess. You'll get at least one of them, right?" She looked at her dad. "Right?"

Her father nodded. "I'll send two of them over here, probably Sally and Sandy, they're getting to be nice, big girls. They'll be here to replace you."

"Replace me? What are you guys talking about?" She looked back and forth between Tom and her father.

"Well, see, we figured... when Sally and Sandy get converted and come here to live, in a few years, we'll have a party. All the sisters, and some neighbors, some of your old friends. And as part of the celebration... well, we thought you might like it if we hanged you."

She felt the familiar fire starting between her legs. "W-what? Say that again." She prayed she hadn't been imagining it.

"We'll get everybody together, so they can all watch, and we'll hang you, out in the yard. With, you know, you not weighing so much, you'll probably last awhile. Oh, and we thought, while you're hanging, people can come up and suckle at your breasts. I never heard of a hanging like that before. They'll all remember it forever, and of course afterwards we'll cook you over the big barbecue and everybody can go home with part of you inside them."

She struggled again to sit up. "Karen, help me up! Do you mean it?? Do you really really mean it??"

Tom laughed. "Of course I mean it. You're my sister. I want you to go out the way you always dreamed."

Sitting upright now, propped against Karen, she waved her forelegs around, trying to bring her non-existent hands to her face. "It's better than I dreamed! Thank you, thank you everybody! I love all of you!"

"We love you too, Sugar." Her dad hugged her.

Wendy said, "You're probably hungry. You didn't get much dinner. I've broiled some of your arm, if you want it."

"Yes!" She looked around. "Can everybody have some? The girls in the barn too?"

Wendy grinned. "I'll get some extra plates."