"Clarissa, you awake?"

"Hmmm?" Clarissa wriggled, and tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes. She didn't seem to be able to reach them with her hands. Understanding returned to her slowly, and she switched to using her biceps, which worked satisfactorily. She mumbled, "This will take a lot of getting used to."

She found she was snuggled closely with Karen, not remembering when that had happened. Clarissa's sore breasts were cushioned against Karen's huge ones, her left hind leg caught comfortably between both of Karen's, her right foreleg draped over Karen's side. She winced. "My elbows hurt. And my legs. My hind legs, I guess I'm supposed to say."

"That'll go away soon. Do you think you need a shot?"

"Maybe, if it gets worse. My breasts hurt too. Not hurt, I mean, it's like they're... throbbing. Oh! Look, they're bigger than they were last night!"

Karen smiled. "They'll get bigger than that. Look, Tom's already up, out in the fields somewhere. Wendy's out in the kitchen. Do you need anything?

"A little thirsty."

Karen grinned. "You're in luck, that's one thing I can fix. Give me a minute..." After a bit of wriggling and grunting, Karen managed to move herself a little forward on the mattress, until her left breast was positioned in front of Clarissa's mouth.

Clarissa looked up at Karen. "For real?" Though she'd had gallons and gallons of her sisters' milk in her life, she'd never had any directly from the source. Her dad didn't want the younger girls bothering the milkers. "It's okay?"

"Clary, you're one of us now. We all share it with each other. In the morning anyway, when we're allowed to. Drink up!"

Uncertainly, Clarissa opened her mouth and took in the nipple. It took a few moments of experimenting before she was rewarded with a spray of warm, sweet milk in her mouth. As she sucked, a feeling of peace came over her. She believed she could just lay there, sucking on her sister's breast, tasting the sweetness, forever. After a few minutes, her thirst was gone, but she kept at it a few minutes longer. Finally she stopped and looked at Karen.

"What time is it?"

"About five-thirty, or close to six. I was going to say I should get out there pretty soon. Wendy's going to milk all of us soon, and I want to share with Kirstie before that. Would you be okay here by yourself?"

"Sure, I..." Clarissa stopped, and gulped suddenly. "I guess I'm thinking I can take care of myself, get up, grab some breakfast, go to the bathroom. I can't do any of those things, can I?" Her eyes widened, looking as if tears might be coming.

"Shhh, Clary, it's okay. All the girls go through this at first. We're doing okay, aren't we? There are a lot of things we can't do for ourselves, but we all help each other. And we've got Tom and Wendy for the things we can't get done by group effort."

"But, but..." and now the tears did start flowing. "I don't even feel like I'll be able to walk. I know you guys do it, but I'll probably keep getting all tangled up and fall over..."

Karen shook her head. "That's another thing all the girls think at first. Look, we're all YOU. We all had the same mom and dad, we grew up together, and we've learned how to handle being girlcows. If we can do it, you know you can do it!"

Clarissa tried to smile. "Promise?"

Karen wriggled back down along the mattress, so her face was next to Clarissa's, and gave her a long kiss. "I promise. Now, would you be okay here for awhile?"

"Wendy's in the kitchen?"

Karen nodded. "She'll be here if you need anything. Just call her."

Clarissa nodded tentatively. "I guess I'm okay." She thought about how she usually occupied herself in bed, on days when she awakened early enough that she didn't have to leave the snug covers just yet, and giggled. "I'll be all right here." Then a sudden thought struck her. In a panic she bent forward and rubbed her elbow against her pussy. It didn't have anything like the effect of fingers, and she couldn't get anywhere near her clit. She gasped in horror. "Karen!! I can't do it!! I can't touch myself!!" She started sobbing.

"Clary, no, Clary, it's all right, it's all right!" She spoke soothingly. "Clary, shhh, stop. Listen, okay? Listen a minute?"

Clarissa looked at her with tears rolling down her cheeks, wondering how Karen could possibly make this better.

"Clary, remember how I said we help each other? That's one of the ways. It's something we can't do for ourselves anymore, so we do it for each other. You understand?"

"L-like.... you and Kirstie, yesterday morning?"

"Exactly like that."

"Is it... just as good?"

Karen grinned. "No, lots better. Want to see?" She wriggled herself down the length of the mattress, until she was facing Clarissa's pussy. Immediately she started licking Clarissa's pussy lips, pushing her tongue inside, searching for her clit.

"Aieee! Oh, Karen, Karen, you're right, that feels wonderful! But you better stop for now if you don't want me to pee all over your face. That is one thing I need to do."

"I'll go get Wendy. And then I better get back out to the barn. I know Kirstie needs me. Wendy will need to open the stall for me. Can you hold it that long?" She kissed her sister's pussy once more, as if to promise to come back to that later, and rolled to the side. Using her elbow to lift herself while twisting, she managed to get up on her hooves with what seemed to be a minimum of effort. Clarissa watched, marvelling again at an ability she felt sure she'd never master herself. Karen bent to kiss her one more time, and said, "I'll check on you later." She padded to the door, and Clarissa could hear her thumping down the hallway.

In about five minutes Wendy, returned from letting Karen back in her stall, looked in on Clarissa. "Karen said you've got nature calling you?"

Clarissa looked at her front-heavy sister-in-law uncertainly, knowing there was no way Wendy could carry her. "Yeah, both ways. How do I get to the bathroom? Let alone up on the toilet seat?"

Wendy put her hand to her mouth. "I'm sorry, I hadn't thought. We've never had a brand-new conversion here. In a few days when you can walk, you can just use the litter box in the stall, but I know that doesn't do you much good now."

She thought a minute. "Okay, let's try this." She disappeared for a moment, and returned with a towel from the bathroom. "You can go on here. Then I'll take it out to today's field and drop off the goop there. Your first contribution to fertilizing."

Clarissa laughed, for the first time since the letter had arrived. "Thanks, I'd like that."

Tom carried Clarissa out to the kitchen for lunch. With her head and back propped up on a cushion, Wendy fed her a girlmeat sandwich -- a nice slice from her own arm -- and milk from a bottle with a nipple. Clarissa felt intensely embarrassed at using the bottle, feeling as if they were treating her like a baby. Well, she thought to herself, I suppose I am a baby in a way. Afterwards, Clarissa asked if she could spend the rest of the day in the barn.

Tom nodded. "I was thinking you'd want that. Should we make it permanent now? You could stay in the house another night or two if you want to, but this is as good a time as any to get used to being out there."

"I know. Yeah, I think Karen and Kirstie can take care of me." She shivered suddenly with an unexpected tingling in her pussy, thinking of some of the ways Karen had promised to take care of her.

"Okay, we have a couple of things to do first then. Wendy's going to cut your hair, and I'll find the right size collar for you."

"A collar? Now?" Somehow, even after her conversion, as irreversible as it obviously was, the collar seemed a symbol of how permanent her status was now.

"No time like the present. Again, something to get used to." He took out a tape measure he'd put in his pocket earlier, and circled her neck with it. "Yeah, okay, I know we've got one that size. And after that, I'll brand you, and you'll be all set."

"Oh yeah." She shook her head slowly, not in disagreement, but just in wonder at things happening so fast. All of the girlcows had a brand, in the case of Tom's farm an interlocking T and W. It was in the standard place for girlcows, just above and between the breasts -- just one more security measure, a way of identifying stolen milkers. "Is it going to hurt? I'm already sore in enough places."

Tom shook his head. "I can deaden the skin with an injection. You've seen me do it before, at Dad's, right? Any of your sisters scream when I did it?"

"I always just figured they were a lot stronger than I was."

"Don't sell yourself short. Anyway, let me go get the stuff."

Wendy stopped him before he left. "I'll need her in a chair for the haircut. Can you put her in that one?"

"Sure, sweety." He lifted Clarissa into a chair by the table, as Wendy spread a cloth on the floor underneath it to catch the remains of Clarissa's inconveniently long (for a girlcow) hair. As soon as he left, Wendy stood behind Clarissa and started cutting, humming as she combed, lifted, snipped.

Clarissa found she could hardly concentrate on the loss of all the years of hard work her long locks represented, faced with the problem of what to do with her arms. No, she kept forgetting, her forelegs. She couldn't fold them, she couldn't twiddle her thumbs -- all of the standard time-passing attitudes were impossible now, and there seemed to be nothing to do with them except let them hang limp at her sides.

Tom returned, and turned on one of the burners on the stove as Wendy finished and showed Clarissa her new look in a mirror.

She smiled, as her fears of her new shorn look dissipated. While very short, her hair still had a very girlish look. "Hey, I like that. That's kind of cute that way."

Wendy beamed. "You did know I was in a beauty school when I met your brother, right?"

"What, was he your biggest challenge or something?"

Tom said "Hey!" and Wendy laughed. Out of the corner of her eye, Clarissa could see the branding iron starting to turn red on the burner, and looked away.

Tom approached her with a needle. Clarissa winced at the sight, but Tom shrugged. "I think you'd rather feel this than the branding iron." She nodded uncertainly, and bit her lip as he gave her a little jab just above her breasts.

Clarissa couldn't tell if anything was happening to her chest, but when Tom asked "Feel that?" and Clarissa responded "Feel what?" he said "I think you're ready."

She screwed her eyes tightly shut. "Don't tell me when you're doing it."

She gasped at the sizzling sound, overprepared for any sort of pain. When she opened her eyes, she looked down in astonishment at the small patch of smoking skin just above her swollen breasts, darkening as she watched. "You did it already? It's done?"

"All finished. Now, of course that's going to sting a lot as the injection wears off. But that's it, we're done changing your body. Just let me get the collar on and you'll be totally set."

"That won't hurt, right?"

"Not a bit, just takes some getting used to."

"EVERYTHING is taking some getting used to."

The collar came in two semicircular pieces, made of steel, about an inch-and-a-quarter across and 1/4 inch thick. Each of the two pieces ended with a thick block of steel projecting from the outside surface of the semicircle, on the last inch of the semicircle. There were two holes in each block, for screws. Very large screws. Each piece also had a thick D-ring projecting outward at the middle of the semicircle.

Tom fitted the two halves together around Clarissa's neck, joining them at the side of her neck, forming a circle of steel large enough that it put no pressure on her neck -- but just barely. He had measured her neck accurately, and the collar fit perfectly, with a hint of snugness but not tightness. He fitted the screws in the slots where the blocks from each semicircle met, the two screws on each side being screwed in from opposite sides of the joined blocks. It took him ten minutes to finish turning all four screws, to the point where the heads of the screws fitted into countersunk holes on the surface of the block, with just the very top of each screw head visible now. "Almost done, Clary." As a finishing touch, he started up a small power drill with a grinding attachment and, protecting her neck with a thin piece of plastic to block any tiny flying scraps, he ground off the top of each screw head until it was flush with the surface of the block -- and no longer had a groove for a screwdriver.

There were no tools in his toolbox, or anyone else's, that could remove the collar now.

Wendy held the mirror up again, tilting it so Clarissa could see not only the collar but also the brand, no longer smoking now but looking as if it should be very painful. "How's it look?"

Clarissa stared for a full minute. Finally, in a tiny voice, she said, "I'm... really a girlcow now, huh?"

Standing behind her, Wendy rubbed Clarissa's shoulder with the hand not holding the mirror. "Well, you've got the uniform, anyway. It'll really be official when your milk starts coming in. Looks like that'll be soon, doesn't it?"

Clarissa nodded. "Could you tilt it this way a tiny bit more? I want to see my breasts." Wendy obliged. In an awestruck voice, Clarissa said, "They're huge!"

Wendy smiled. "They're getting there."

Clarissa kept her head turned towards the house as Tom carried her out to the barn. I might not ever be in there again, she thought. She could not remember any of her sisters coming into her dad's house after their conversion, nor any of them into Tom's house other than Karen, and that had to qualify as a special occasion. Clarissa knew the house wasn't her place anymore. Her place was in the barn, as a girlcow.

She could hear a low murmur of conversation as Tom unlocked the barn door, which stopped as the door came fully open. All of the girls had come up to the front of their stalls, pressed up against the bars of the gates to see the new member of their group.

"I'm so sorry, Clary." That was Jill. "I know how much you always wanted it." The other girls murmurred their agreement. She guessed Karen must not have explained to everybody the special present Tom had promised Clarissa in a few years. She would tell them her happy news when she got a chance. For the moment, it was nice to know that they cared about her.

"Can Clary come with us awhile, Tom?" Gwen asked. "She's been out in the world all this time, we were hoping she could sit awhile and get us caught up."

"Look, you'll all get a chance to talk to her, but right now she needs a little recovery time. Give her a couple of days, okay?"

"Well, why do Karen and Kirstie get to have her?"

"I want her to be with the ones who've been girlcows the longest. They'd be the best teachers."

"Come on, Tom, we can..."

Clarissa spoke up. "I can talk with all of you. Everybody can hear everybody in here, even if we can't all see each other. My voice isn't broken. It's just been kind of a... weird morning though. Let me get a little rest."

Several girls said, "Okay, Clary."

As Tom opened the gate to Karen's and Kirsten's stall, Clarissa could see a new chain hanging down from the overhead bar. Obviously Tom had known she'd want to come out to the barn and be with her sisters. It was one more idea to get used to, though: that she was now property that could be stolen.

Karen padded around Tom, assuming some sort of supervisory position. "If you lay her down there," pointing with her chin, "So her butt is in the far end of the litter box, then she won't have to move anywhere when she needs to pee. That would make things a lot simpler."

Tom asked Clarissa, "That okay?"

"Not moving anywhere sounds great."

He set her down gently in the indicated place, brushed his hands, and reached up to pull the end of the chain over. He pulled a padlock out of his pocket and locked the chain to the D-ring in the front of her collar -- ordinarily the chains were always locked behind the neck, but Clarissa would be spending most of her time for now on her back, and this would be more comfortable. "I've got to get back to plowing. You going to be okay here?"

Clarissa smiled at Karen. "I'm pretty sure they can take care of me. Thanks for everything, Tom. I mean everything." Her eyes locked with his, and he knew she meant every word.

Tom smiled back, and backed out of the stall, closing the gate with the usual sturdy click as it latched. He waved at her and left the barn.

Karen padded over to her. "Do you just want to rest, now, or watch some TV? You could choose the show."

"I don't even know what's on. I've never watched daytime TV."

"On DBC there's this game show, where they have women compete in these crazy contests, like answering questions while hopping on one foot or running an obstacle course. They have money prizes, and the girl with the least money gets stripped naked and hanged. I think a lot of men just tune in to watch that part." She giggled. "Or on CTN, there's a soap that takes place in a butcher shop, and every week a guest star comes in to be processed and the people in the shop solve all of her family's problems before they snuff her, so she dies really happy."

Clarissa wasn't sure she was ready to watch a hanging. "The soap sounds good."

"Getting that then." She punched the appropriate buttons on the remote with her chin.

After the show, Karen cleared her throat. "Ummm, Clary... I was hoping we wouldn't have to eat in front of you, because you're probably getting hungry too, but I'm just starved. Being a girlcow is going to make your metabolism go really nuts, with your whole digestive system working to make milk, and you'll be hungry and thirsty all the time. It's probably starting on you already, with the hormone treatment. Is it?"

Clarissa nodded, suddenly aware of feeling famished.

Karen looked at Kirsten miserably. "You don't suppose Tom could hear us now, do you? He's probably way out in the fields. Even if he could, I hate to bother him when he's really busy."

Kirsten looked longingly at the feeding trough and sighed. "Yeah, and Wendy's either out there with him or in the house. Probably the house, in her condition... hey!!" She suddenly brightened. "We could feed her."

"What? How?"

"Clary, you wouldn't mind food with a little spit mixed in, would you?"

Her jaw dropped. "You want to spit in my food?"

Kirsten laughed. "No, goofy, I mean like this." She trotted over to the feeding trough, lowered her head into it and chomped down on a huge mouthful of grain. Her cheeks bulging, she trotted over to Clarissa and looked down at her from above, trying somehow to signal with her eyebrows what she expected of Clarissa.

Clarissa caught on, and opened her mouth. Kirsten dropped her head down, pressed her lips against Clarissa's and let the grain dribble into Clarissa's mouth.

"Yeah!" Karen nodded excitedly. She trotted to the trough herself and lapped up her own mouthful, bringing it to Clarissa by the time Clarissa had finished swallowing the first batch.

Kirsten was bouncing excitedly on her front legs. "We can take care of her ourselves! Oh, liquids too! We can't feed her any milk for now, with the clamps. Clarissa, you want apple juice or water?"

Clarissa hurriedly swallowed a mouthful, and said in a small spray of grain, "Ummm, apple juice, I guess."

Kirsten sucked on a nipple until her mouth was full of juice, then came over and kissed Clarissa, letting the juice flow into her sister's mouth. The two older girls performed as a bucket brigade for the next ten minutes, the chains to their collars constantly jingling, until Clarissa finally said, "I'm okay for now -- just a little more juice, I'm still a little thirsty." Afterward, Karen and Kirsten happily applied themselves to taking care of their own hunger.

Clarissa watched them eat, knowing she'd have to eat that way in a couple of days -- and from now on -- and said, "Thank you guys, so much. It just really means a lot that you..." Her eyes well with tears and she stopped.

Karen came over. "It part of the helping I was talking about." A smile spread over her face then. "Remember that other thing you needed help with?"

"The other... oh!!" Clarissa blushed. "I -- if you -- are you...?"

Karen's smile broadened. "Want a little help now? You can return the favor sometime."

Speechless, Clarissa nodded.

Luckily, with her butt in the litter box, her pussy was raised slightly above floor level, easily within Karen's reach, with her straddling the litter box with her forelegs. She dropped her head down and began licking Clarissa's pussy lips, noticing already a tiny gleam of juice forming at the lower end, before she'd even started. Clarissa's startled reaction to the intensity of the feeling nearly bounced her out of the litter box, and her breathy sighs soon became grunts, coming in time with waves of tension that engulfed and stiffened every muscle in her body. Her entire being was vibrating, and the energy feeding the vibration was the electrical dynamo centered on her pussy and clit, as Karen's tongue probed inside her and traced every inch of that special area. A convulsion of orgasm, stronger than any she had ever experienced on her own, blasted through her and shook every fiber of her, bringing her, screaming, to the peak of tension before letting go, dropping her to float down like a feather, settling back to earth, feeling more relaxed than she had ever been.

She looked up at Karen. "That was..." and then she couldn't think of any words to say.

Karen giggled. "I could tell it was."

From the next stall, Gwen shouted, "Hey, no fair, you guys have a threesome in there."

Karen shouted back, "Okay, you can spend some time with her, I promise." She looked back at Clarissa. "If that's okay with you."

Clarissa smiled exhaustedly. "S'okay, anything's okay."

She blinked, and said suddenly, "You're doing so much for me. I need to feel like I can do something for you too."

"Like what?"

"You tell me."

Karen looked at Kirsten. They both smiled and nodded. Karen said, "Kirstie, you go first."

Kirsten padded over to Clarissa, and walked up straddling her body, stopping with her pussy hanging directly over Clarissa's face. Spreading her hind legs farther apart, she brought her pussy down within range.

Clarissa didn't need any hints. Her body knew every minute detail of what Karen had just done to her, and she had no trouble knowing what to do. The only thing she was conscious of wanting, as her tongue lapped at Kirsten's soft, wrinkly nether lips and sucked on her clit, was to make Kirsten feel as good as she had just felt.

That evening, Wendy came in and announced, "I've made some Clarissa-and-cheese sandwiches for everybody. It's from her arm -- we're saving her legs for a bigger party later. Oh, and it's no one girl's cheese, you all collaborated. Do you want those first, or do you want to be milked?"

Six insistent voices chorused, "Milk!!!" Monica giggled and said, "Sorry, Clary, we don't mean to be disrespectful to your meat, but you don't know how it feels to be full like this."

Clarissa responded, "Don't worry, I will in a few more days," and everybody laughed.

After the milking, Wendy walked from stall to stall, letting the girls eat from her hands. Between mouthfuls, they asked her about the babies -- yes, four of them, four girls, due in about couple of months, the doctor said they're all doing fine. The girls discussed the possibility of sharing the barn someday with Wendy's daughters, and sadly realized Karen and Kirsten were a little too old for that: milkers rarely lived to the forty-five year age limit for women, since they slowed down production considerably by their late thirties, and except in unusual cases it was traditional to eat them on their fortieth birthday. Among Tom's current girlcows, Jenny and Jill were twenty-two, Monica twenty, Gwen twenty-three, Karen and Kirsten twenty-six, so Monica and Clarissa were pronounced the lucky ones (Nope, thought Clarissa, sure enough, Karen hadn't told them). Wendy said both she and Tom believed in the traditions, and that the girls should assume they'd be eaten at forty, but she promised on Tom's behalf that he'd be considerate of any of them who was still a reasonably good producer when it came close to the time for their daughters to be converted. She said she knew she'd feel very proud when her first daughters started producing milk for the farm, and the girls agreed, remembering, and telling Wendy, how their mother had smiled and cried when Karen and Kirsten were converted. Wendy rubbed her bulging tummy and laughed. "I think I've got a lot of work ahead of me before then."

As always, Tom dimmed the barn lights at 9:00, the signal to the girlcows to give their bodies a much-needed good night's sleep.

It occurred to Clarissa that, while the litter box was an appropriate place to pee, it didn't readily solve the problem of how to avoid sitting in the result afterwards. After talking it over with Karen, she decided she needed to scoot forward as much as was practical, then back off a little afterwards. She wriggled ahead through the gritty litter, using her buttock muscles and pushing her head back against the floor to lift her upper body, reminding herself that this problem was only temporary. She did manage to scoot back to a relatively dry location afterwards. Karen and Kirstie took their turn afterwards, facing away from Clarissa to avoid hovering over her. As Clarissa watched the pungent liquid cascade down from between her sisters' hind legs, it made clear to her that there were no private functions anymore: the life of a girlcow had its rewards, but there was also a loss of things that had belonged to her as an individual: her inability to do many simple things for herself, her need for others to help her do them, meant she could not insist on keeping things private from those people she needed.

She watched intently as Karen, then Kirsten, each moved towards the mattress pad along the back wall of the stall. Each one lifted a hind leg and swung it underneath her, letting herself tip slowly so that her hip hit the mattress gently, afterwards falling onto her side. They scooted closer together, snuggled against each other, kissed each other, and said "Night, Clary." She watched the stillness of sleep come over them before thinking to say, "Night." She closed her eyes and drifted off.