In the truck on the way to the police station, Clarissa tried to make eye contact. "Natalie -- is that what you like to be called? Is that what your friends call you?"

The girl obviously wasn't used to riding in the back of a pickup truck. She stood stiffly, staggering a little with each bump. She mumbled, "I suppose they would."

Clarissa wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean. "If you stand with your legs a little farther apart, you can keep your balance better."

The girl looked at her briefly with a remote expression, then looked away. She made no obvious effort to adjust her stance. She backed away from the cab a little farther, stretching taut her leather leash that was secured, as was Clarissa's chain one, to a steel ring just below the cab's rear window. She jerked her head back suddenly, making the leather snap with sudden tension, and Clarissa winced involuntarily at the pain in the back of her neck she knew the girl must have felt. She seemed to be trying to test the strength of the leash, or maybe to snap her own collar, a leather model much less secure than Clarissa's own steel one. Clarissa couldn't see any point to the effort -- where did she think she could go if she broke the leash or collar somehow? At just the wrong moment the truck's rear left tire ran through a pothole, and the girl made a choking sound as the swaying of the truck threw her just that much farther back. Clarissa instinctively tried to help, but she was off-balance herself, and in any case there was no way she could get behind the girl to push her forward -- her own leash was no longer than Natalie's. The girl quickly took a step or two forward.

"I know you're probably scared -- you don't know Tom, or me, or anything about what you're getting into. You'll just have to wait and see, but my brother Tom's really nice, and you'll love his wife Wendy, and all the cows are my sisters and I know they'll really like you." Clarissa wasn't sure she even sounded sincere to herself on that last comment. Natalie didn't seem to be an easy person to warm up to.

Natalie looked at her with the most nearly readable expression Clarissa had seen so far -- something like contempt. "Lets you live in the house, does he?"

Clarissa was surprised. "Well, no, of course not, my sisters and me live in the barn."

"And he comes out and milks you two or three times every day?"

"Actually, Wendy does most of that lately, but sure, they milk us." What could she have been expecting? "We're cows."

The girl looked away, her lip slightly curled. "Uh-huh."

Clarissa was dumbfounded -- didn't the girl know she was a cow herself? But of course, she knew that -- she'd been in the State Dairy herd, so she couldn't have much of a misunderstanding about that. Clarissa felt relieved when the truck pulled to the curb near the police station. It gave her more time to think how to start the conversation up again. She felt almost desperate to get Natalie to smile -- she had such a pretty face, or would if there were some life to it, but she seemed closed off from any contact with the world at large.

On the sidewalk, the girl walked in that same bored, sulky way she had up on the stage at the auction. Tom slowed down to let her keep up, but the girl drew back even more, and Tom seemed to have no choice but to tug as gently as he could on the leash, trying not to choke her. Again, Clarissa couldn't see any point -- somehow it seemed to give the girl some satisfaction to put on a show of resistance. Clarissa couldn't picture what would be satisfying about it.

Standing at last at the registration desk, they began the process that Clarissa had become familiar with a few weeks earlier. As Tom showed the clerk the documents he'd gotten from the cashier at the auction and filled out the registration form, Clarissa looked at Natalie's shoulder and then up at Tom, puzzled. "She doesn't have any brands at all, Tom! No number on her shoulder, and..." Clarissa felt it would probably be impolite to bend down to look underneath her and see if she had one on her chest, similar to Clarissa's T and W brand, but she didn't recall seeing one earlier when she'd had a better view. "Doesn't the State Dairy brand its cows?"

He shook his head. "They've got a whole staff in charge of security. No cow's ever been stolen from the State Dairy, so they don't bother with brands."

Natalie looked a little apprehensive during this exchange. Clarissa shook her head. "Oh, Natalie, don't worry. It won't hurt, just stings a little, and then it's all over with." Natalie glared at her, as if she'd heard "won't hurt a bit" many times before.

A plainclothes detective emerged through the back door of the room -- the same one who had questioned Clarissa the last time she was here. Her face lit up in recognition. "Detective Warren! Remember me? Tom Martin's Clarissa? And you remember Tom, right?"

Detective Warren did his near-imitation of a smile. "Oh, sure, yeah. Things going okay?"

"Great! And we got a new cow -- I guess you know that, that's why you came out here. Her name's Natalie. Natalie, he's just going to take you in the back for a minute, but don't worry, he's really nice. He won't hurt you, he'll just ask you a question. Okay?"

Clarissa got the feeling her assurances that people were nice and things wouldn't hurt were losing value by the minute through constant repetition, but she didn't know what else to say, and she couldn't stop imagining how scared the girl must be -- that had to be why she was acting this way. "Just go with him and he'll bring you right back."

Natalie sighed and shuffled off behind Warren in a resigned way -- as usual, as far behind as the leash would allow. As she disappeared behind the closing door, Clarissa looked up at Tom and said in a near-whisper, "Tom, what's the deal with her, do you think? They don't mistreat cows at the State Dairy, do they? I've never heard anything like that. But it just seems like something bad happened to her somewhere along the way."

He scratched his head and shrugged. "You'll be sharing a stall with her. You can ask her, but she doesn't seem the real talkative sort."

Clarissa looked at the closed door behind which Natalie was now invisible, and felt somehow Natalie herself was a closed door. If that door was locked -- well, this might be a long three years.

The ride home hadn't been much more revealing. Clarissa had asked Natalie what life at the State Dairy was like, but Natalie's "You eat, you sleep, they milk you" response didn't generate the sort of conversational fodder she'd been fishing for.

"Ummm...." She paused awhile. "Did you have TV?"

"Big one, in the barn."

"Just one, for all the girls? I guess you didn't get much choice in what you got to watch."

Somehow that brought about one of the rare moments of eye contact. "No. Not much choice," she nearly spat out the last word, and her eyes flashed angrily.

Okay, thought Clarissa, clue there somewhere. Was she mad they didn't let her pick what TV show to watch? No, Clarissa, don't be silly, this is something bigger than a TV show. There was a whole personal freedom thing going on here, which showed in her resistance to being led around by a leash. It was hard to make sense of it, though. How much freedom could a girlcow possibly expect?

Her first instinct was to press a little harder on that point, but she sensed that Natalie, behind her closed door, was reinforcing the barricades, and probably wouldn't say much on that or any other subject the rest of the way home. She decided to take the conversation sideways.

"Uhhh... At home, we've got a TV in each stall. You and me will be in a stall, just us, we just have two cows in each stall. You can pick which channel if you want. Okay?"

It was hard for a girlcow to shrug, at least while standing, but Natalie's facial tic was pretty much equivalent to a shrug.

Clarissa decided to take a breather from the battle and watch the countryside going by. She loved seeing the scenery passing her almost more than anything else about her town trips -- that and the ice cream, which she hadn't mentioned to her sisters. She would have loved having some of her sisters along on the trips, but she didn't want to feel as if she were buying their company -- or, well, that Tom was.

As they turned up the drive to the farmhouse, Clarissa decided to give it one more shot. "I'll introduce you to my sisters, but I don't really feel like I know a lot. You're Natalie, you're eighteen, and you were at the State Dairy. Is there anything else you'd want them to know?" There, Clarissa, that ought to get a little useful information out of her.

Natalie just looked at her without responding and looked away.

Clarissa nodded. "Uhh... okay. I'll go with that then."

As Tom pulled to a stop behind the house, Wendy came out the back door, wiping her hands with a dishtowel. She navigated awkwardly down the back steps, not really looking up until she reached bottom. At that point she started to say, "Tom, did you remember to get..." Suddenly she stopped dead at the sight of an unknown red-haired girlcow in the back of the truck. As Tom leaned into the cab to retrieve the parcels he'd bought at the store, and the water bottle, Wendy continued approaching the truck, slowly.

"Tom...?"

Tom opened his mouth, grinned, and seemed at a loss, but covered it by holding up the water bottle in front of Natalie. Pretending she wasn't thirsty seemed to be beyond Natalie's abilities, and she sucked greedily at the oversized nipple. Clarissa hoped for an instant that she wouldn't drink it all, then realized, Uh, hey, I'm home, I can get a drink in the stall.

"Honey, this is, uhh, Natalie. I bought her at an auction in town."

Wendy's jaw dropped. "With what??"

Clarissa started, "He..." and suddenly stopped. She looked at Tom, understanding it was for him to decide how to explain the day's activities.

He smiled. "Well, first of all, I won three thousand at a draft snuff. Did you ever meet a girl named Cheryl Bonner?"

Wendy frowned. "I don't think so. I guess I could look through my high school yearbooks."

He waved off the suggestion. "No big deal. But she was the one getting snuffed. In a guillotine, with orgasm sensors. It was three thousand for the guy who could send her off."

She looked at Tom with pride, her glance dropping down to his crotch momentarily. "And that was you?"

He grinned. "Well, yeah. So anyway, that's where I got the money."

She frowned. "Did you say three thousand?"

He nodded. She looked back at Natalie, who had finished her drink and gone back into looking-off-into-the-distance mode. Wendy shook her head. "You didn't get a girlcow for three thousand."

"Twenty-seven fifty, actually."

"What??"

Wendy wrinkled her forehead. "She can't be much more than twenty. Her boobs are big enough, they ought to be making lots of milk. Who sold her? Estate sale or something?"

He shook his head. "State Dairy."

Wendy's jaw dropped again. Clarissa felt a little surprised Wendy seemed more familiar with the going rates for girlcows than Clarissa was, but then she realized she and Tom must spend a lot of time working out the farm's finances.

Wendy backed away and signaled for Tom to follow her. Obviously she didn't want to embarrass Natalie with her questions. Clarissa hoped they'd hurry up the discussion -- she needed to pee badly, and didn't want to do it in the truck.

Wendy tried to keep her voice down, but her squeaky whisper carried to where Clarissa was shifting uncomfortably from one hoof to another. "What's wrong with her?"

"I don't know why the Dairy is letting her go, sweetheart. But she was free, I've got two-fifty left over, and you know a little more milk won't hurt."

Clarissa was grateful Tom had passed up the chance to say it had been her idea. She was already starting to suspect the wisdom of it, and she knew Tom had from the start. He could easily set her up to get the blame if anything bad happened, but he hadn't.

Wendy looked back at the truck, and put her arms around Tom and kissed him. "We'll try to make her feel welcome. Are you going to take her out to the barn now, or... oh, that's not much of a collar she's got, is it? Let's bring her in the house and get her a good collar. And you'll need to brand her too, of course."

He returned her kiss. "You're right. I'll bring her in. See you in a minute."

Wendy started to turn, then grimaced and dropped her hand down to her stomach. "Ow!"

"What??"

She giggled and put up her hand as he started to reach for her. "No, it's not time yet! But they're kicking a lot. Watch them tonight. It's really fun."

He kissed her again. "Just let me know when it is time."

She laughed. "Oh, honey, I'm sure you'll be the first." She squeezed his hand, and turned and walked back to the house.

Tom came back to the truck. "I'm going to take Natalie in the house, Clary. Do you need a drink first?"

She shook her head. "What I really need to do is pee. Can you let us out now?"

"Oh, sure." He let down the tailgate and pulled out the ramp, then unhooked both girls from their leashes. Clarissa trotted down the ramp quickly, spread her hind legs and sighed with relief as the long stream of urine began taking the pressure off her bladder. She saw, looking behind her, that Natalie hadn't moved from the truck. Tom stood expectantly, waiting for her.

In a quiet part of the back of her mind, Clarissa marvelled at how much had changed in her life with her conversion -- part of her knew that the idea of calmly stopping to pee in front of members of her family, not to mention a stranger, was something she never would have imagined doing a few weeks ago.

Clarissa turned back towards the truck and tilted her head, looking at Natalie, who was making a show of not looking at anything. Pointless resistance seemed to be a general theme of her behavior. "Natalie, the truck's not going to go anywhere. You might as well get off it." She looked up at Tom, shaking her head in bewilderment.

Tom shrugged and reattached the leash to Natalie's collar, untying the other end of it from the back of the cab. After he'd tugged on it lightly, Natalie finally turned and made her way grudgingly down the ramp.

She seemed, as was her habit, to be maintaining as much tension as she could in the leash, as Tom started leading her across the yard, without actually stopping her progress altogether. Clarissa called out, "Tom, would it be okay if I came in with you?"

Tom bit his lip to keep from laughing. "Be my guest."

At least he's not yelling at me, she thought. She felt terrible. All of the self-congratulation she'd bestowed upon herself after the snuff episode seemed laughable now: she could only think of how royally she'd screwed up. This girl could wreck everything that made life on the farm enjoyable.

I've got to make something out of this, she decided. Somewhere inside Natalie there's got to be a little girl who loves life and has dreams. I've got to get in there and find her.

Natalie sat equally stoically through a quick trim of her red hair by Wendy, down to the 1-2 inch length she favored (short even by girlcow standards), and Tom fitting her with the permanent thick metal collar. She ignored Clarissa's reassurances about what the branding would feel like, reacting very little except for a quick intake of breath as the hot iron sizzled against the momentarily deadened skin just above her huge breasts. Clarissa, desperate to find something that could possibly interest her, filled the time with mini-biographies of her sisters who were here at the farm, figuring Natalie would have to have some curiosity about the cows she would spend the rest of her life with, though she displayed none.

Wendy went out to the barn as Tom was finishing up, to tell the girls she and Tom had a surprise for them, as she unhooked their chains and brought them out in front of the stalls so they could all be together. She'd planned initially to simply bring Natalie into the barn and let the girls exclaim over her, but had a feeling that wouldn't go as planned, so she explained to them beforehand that Tom had bought a new cow, waited for the hubbub to die down, and warned them it appeared the girl must have been through some hard times. She just shook her head in a mystified way when pressed for details, and told them she knew nothing more about Natalie than that she'd been auctioned off by the State Dairy.

Karen said "Oh, so she's older, right? I guess it'll be like having one of our aunts over here."

"Uhhh, no. She's... about nineteen or twenty, I think."

Gwen wrinkled her nose. "Wendy, they wouldn't sell a cow that soon, would they? Or... wait, are you saying she had a rough time at the State Dairy? They had to get rid of her?"

"Gwen, really, I don't know anything more. You guys can try to find out more of the story if you want to, but... well, don't press too hard, okay? At least not right away. She's a little... standoffish."

The girls stood silently, looking at each other, until Karen, who seemed most often to speak for the group, said, "We'll... try to be nice to her."

"I guess that's all I can ask. Now, we're going to partner her with Clarissa, of course." She could hear a collective sigh of relief, as if they'd thought Tom might have decided to rearrange all the pairings. "But you'll be able to talk to her when you're out for your walk in the morning, and I want you all to try to get to know her."

Monica said, "I just hope the group isn't changing too much. I mean, we never even imagined getting a new cow from outside the family."

"I know, I know. Look, if it doesn't seem to be working out, Tom can sell her to one of the other local farms. Okay?"

All the girls exchanged looks, and each finally nodded.

Just at that moment, Tom appeared in the doorway of the barn, holding a leash chain in his hand. It wasn't immediately obvious what was at the other end.

Clarissa realized he must have decided he was going to need to use the heavier leash -- usually the chain was for visits to town. Clarissa had already seen Natalie making a concentrated effort to break a leather leash, so using the chain was probably a good idea.

Tom's lips were compressed into a determined line as he gave the chain one last pull, bringing the reluctant Natalie into view. He didn't want to hurt her, so he maintained a steady force on the chain rather than jerking it, as Natalie stumbled in past the frame of the barn door. Her head was down at first, but she slowly looked up, her face wearing its customary blank expression as her eyes bore briefly into those of each of the girlcows facing her, one after another, before resuming their usual unfocussed gaze.

The girls all looked at each other, shaking their heads in puzzlement at Natalie's behavior. As far as they could see, Natalie had taken an instant dislike to each of them individually, without any obvious justification.

Karen, standing closest to Natalie, cleared her throat. "Ahh... Natalie? We just wanted to welcome you to our... home. I know you're probably kind of scared, it's a new situation and all that, and... well, we're all really friendly and we'll try to... make it nice for you. Okay?" She tilted her head, trying to find an angle where she could make out something readable on Natalie's face.

Giving up on that, she turned a knowledgable eye to Natalie's engorged breasts. Tom hadn't clamped them, and Karen could see beads of milk decorating each nipple. She'd probably been dripping on the way out to the barn, and Tom had had his hands too full just trying to get her there to notice. "Tom, she probably hasn't been milked since this morning. Would it be okay if we all shared some of her milk?" To Karen, that was the ideal ice-breaker -- she always felt closest to her sisters when they were suckling from her.

Wendy, as brief as her acquaintance with Natalie had been, knew enough to doubt Natalie would calmly let any of the girls be that intimate with her body -- Wendy had visions of Natalie slapping with her foreleg at the first girlcow who came near her breasts. "Ummm... why don't we get some of her milk in a glass, and we can pass that around." That got her some puzzled looks from the girlcows, but none of them voiced an objection.

Tom trotted back to the kitchen for a clean glass, and the silence during his absence was strained. Natalie seemed to be the only one not uncomfortable with it -- she was probably very used to inspiring strained silences.

At least Natalie didn't fight with Tom as he knelt and held the glass under her left nipple. She appeared to be finding something worth looking at in the far upper corner of the barn as Tom began squeezing her breast, and a stream of milk began squirting into the glass. In a few minutes the glass was full, and Tom straightened, his knees cracking. Karen and Kirsten, as the oldest cows, came forward for the first taste.

Tom held the glass for Karen and tipped it for her to sip. Her eyes shot open wide at the first taste, and she jerked her head away suddenly. With an effort, she swallowed, and quickly shook her head at Kirsten, who was already leaning in towards the glass. "Uhh, Tom... I think you'd better have a taste."

Mystified, Tom lifted the glass to his lips for a draft. It took a lifetime habit of reverence for milk to keep him from spitting it back out.

Karen bit her lip and looked up at him questioningly. "Kind of sour, huh?"

Tom held the glass up, looking at its contents. It seemed to be milk, and he'd personally squeezed it from Natalie's breast, so there wasn't much question what it was supposed to be. "I, uhh... yeah."

Wendy stepped forward. "Can I try it?"

Tom looked at her, and down at her bulging tummy. Could this stuff hurt the babies? He shook his head. "No need, sweetheart."

Wendy looked doubtfully at Natalie, then back at Tom. "Well, we still need to finish milking her. She's got a whole day's worth in there, and she's getting fuller by the minute. We can't just leave her boobs alone till they pop. Look, her other nipple's already dribbling, and you didn't even touch it."

He looked at his watch. "It's time to milk them all anyway. Let's keep hers separate, though, okay? Till we can figure out what to do."

The subject of their conversation remained as remote as ever, as if unaware of any problem. Wendy led the other girls back into their stalls and fastened their security chains to their collars. While she was milking them, Tom climbed a ladder up to a catwalk above the stalls and opened a stopcock that allowed water and juice to flow into the dangling nipples of stall number 4, Clarissa's and Natalie's new home. He took some satisfaction in doing that, and afterwards in filling their empty feeding trough with the grain that was the staple of the girls' diet. While he didn't exactly feel angry with Clarissa, he did have a feeling that it was an appropriate consequence (punishment?) that she was going to have to be the one to share a stall with Natalie.

Clarissa tried to catch Wendy's eyes while she was milking her. She didn't want to apologize for the idea of buying Natalie while Natalie was standing right there, so she tried to convey her contrition with her eyes alone. Wendy read it there, and stroked Clarissa's hair lovingly as she finished milking her with one hand.

While Tom carried the buckets to the bottling room, Wendy took another bucket and let Natalie's milk squirt into it. Natalie's habitually unexpressive face did at least show some signs of relief as the pressure in her breasts abated -- Wendy decided Natalie may not even have been milked this morning, and her breasts were probably painfully full, not that she had given any hint of that up to now. Tom returned as she was finishing, and led Natalie into her stall, replacing the leash with the security chain, hooking Clarissa up afterwards to the other one. He ruffled Clarissa's hair in a vague way, and she rubbed her head against his leg. The televisions muttered quietly in the other stalls as he locked the gate to the stall, leaving Natalie and Clarissa to get... better acquainted.

Clarissa watched as Natalie explored the stall. She doubted that Natalie actually had that much interest in it -- based on her earlier behavior, Clarissa had the feeling the girl just wanted to see whether the security chain limited her movements at all. She seemed a little frustrated that she could get to all points in the stall without being stopped by the chain, so she was denied the chance to tug fruitlessly against its restraint. She did pause in her roaming long enough to pee in the litter box, and then headed for the feeding trough. She hadn't eaten for hours, and Clarissa knew she had to be starving. She paused while eating and looked around. "What's there to drink?"

"It's the nipples."

Without nodding, lest it be interpreted as some sort of thanks for the information, Natalie took a long draft from one of the water nipples, and resumed eating.

From one of the near stalls, Clarissa could hear Gwen and Jenny in one of their frequent lovemaking sessions. She sighed. Don't think that's going to happen in here tonight. "So what do you want to watch on TV? Like I said, you get to pick the show." She could hear Gwen's distinctive squeal of orgasm.

Finishing her meal, Natalie walked slowly over to the sleeping pad at the side of the stall. "Don't care. You decide." She rolled heavily onto the pad, facing the wall.

Trying to stifle an audible sigh, Clarissa punched the remote's on-button with her chin. She found she couldn't concentrate much on the entertainment in general, though she did feel a little of the familiar tingling between her legs during the game show -- when the loser was hanged, and the camera showed close-ups of her sensual wriggling and kicking as she dangled from the noose, for a few moments Clarissa was back in her old dream, a much-lusted-after Academy girl, purchased at a high price to put on a show as she died that would have every male spurting, then ending up inside the stomachs of those same men who had wanted her so much... she shook her head and, with an effort, pulled herself out of the reverie. She wouldn't have minded it getting her horny, except she had a feeling Natalie wouldn't be much help to her when she started looking for some relief.

She got her own dinner from the feeding trough, as much as a way to pass some time as to hold off her hunger. When the lights dimmed and the tv's went off, she padded tentatively over towards the sleeping pad, trying to decide where she had room on it -- Natalie had arranged herself so as occupy most of it.

"Natalie, you awake?"

A sigh. "I am now."

"Could you move over a little?"

Natalie roused herself enough to look back over her shoulder. "No! You're not sleeping with me. Get your own place."

"There's only one pad. We're meant to share it."

Natalie turned away and lay her head down again. "I don't do girls."

Clarissa shook her head fiercely in exasperation. "I'm not talking about sex! I'm just talking about sleeping!"

"Sleep somewhere else. You're not sleeping with me."

Clarissa could hear whisperings from the other stalls. Finally Monica spoke up from the adjacent one. "Clary? Should we try to call Tom? He'd hear us if we all yelled together."

"No! It's okay, I can handle it." She stood uncertainly for a few minutes, then retreated to the far side of the stall. She sighed as she plopped down onto the hard wooden floor. Not so bad, she decided. I can sleep here. Something inside her made the words "Night, Natalie" come out of her mouth. She closed her eyes, but the tears started seeping out anyway.

She had no idea what time it was when the shout woke her up, but "wee hours" seemed as good a description as any. A panicked "No!!" echoed in her head. As she tried to decide whether it was real or part of a dream, Natalie removed all doubt by yelling, "Where are they?? Get them back!! Where did you put them??"

Clarissa struggled to her hooves and hurried over. Natalie, still laying on her side, was waving the legs on her upper side -- her right foreleg was pinned underneath her. Clarissa rubbed her own foreleg urgently against Natalie's shoulder. "Natalie! What's wrong?"

Natalie gave one last full-body spasm and suddenly stopped. She whipped her head around and looked up at Clarissa. For just an instant Clarissa could see fear and anger in her eyes; then it seemed as though, by an effort of will, Natalie had yanked the emotions back behind a curtain.

Clarissa repeated, "What's wrong, Natalie?"

The girl sighed. "Some idiot woke me up and is standing over me trying to talk to me."

"I think you were having a really bad dream."

"How would you know?"

"You were talking in your sleep."

Natalie turned away and lay her head back down. "I don't talk in my sleep. Now leave me alone."

Clarissa could hear muttering from the other stalls, none of it sounding very happy. She called out, "She's okay. It's over. Just go back to sleep." She could hear Gwen mumbling, "Yeah, right," as she padded back to her space on the bare floor.

Fortunately, Natalie only woke them all up once more the rest of the night.

Kirsten came over towards Clarissa after they'd finished dropping their feces in today's designated field, as they ambled back towards the waiting Wendy. Clarissa was relieved Natalie wasn't with them; Tom had kept her behind for Doc Follett, the vet, to examine her.

"Clary, you doing okay?"

Clarissa sighed. "I didn't get much sleep."

Kirsten nodded. "I know, none of us did. I guess you're getting the worst of it, though."

Clarissa wondered what Kirsten would think if she knew buying Natalie had been her idea. Not something she wanted to broadcast to the world at large just now. "I'll be okay."

They were almost back to where Wendy stood with the leashes. "Clary, if you get, like, horny, you know, just tell us. We can take care of it out here. I'm sure Wendy won't mind."

Clarissa suspected the idea wasn't Kirsten's alone, and she teared up a little, thinking about how much her sisters cared about her. "Thanks, Kirstie. I'm okay for now, but I'll let you know, okay?"

Kirsten pressed her cheek against Clarissa's. "Sure, sweety."

Natalie had stood impassively through the enema. To Tom's surprise, she had willingly given a urine sample as the vet held the cup under her. He straightened up and signalled to Tom to follow him out of the barn.

"Well, Doc? Find anything?"

"I'll know more after the specimens come back from the lab. We've got urine, stool, blood, milk. I know, I tasted the milk, but I can't identify anything in particular. I don't see any symptoms of anything, either. Look, Tom, obviously you got a health certificate when you bought her. They couldn't have auctioned her without that."

"Yeah, but I don't know anything about the vet who did the health check. You, I know. I'll trust whatever you tell me."

"I've got nothing firm to tell you yet, only something fuzzy."

"Huh?"

"Well, I've run into similar cases before. Cow giving sour milk, no organic cause. It's always coincided with the cow being very depressed. She is, isn't she?"

Tom blinked in surprise. "Well, yeah, I guess that's easy enough to tell. But what's that have to do with it? All depressed cows give sour milk? Why haven't I ever heard that?"

Follett shook his head. "No, not all of them, of course. And I haven't seen anything in the literature about it. But I think there's some kind of psychosomatic thing that goes on -- mind over body, you know. Depressed, angry at the world... if it runs deep enough, I think it could affect internal chemistry."

"I believe that, but that much?"

"The mind can do amazing things. But I'm not giving that as a diagnosis. It's all speculation on my part, and I've got nothing to back it up. I'll go ahead and test the fluids, of course, but I've got a feeling I won't find anything."

"Those assholes. Seems like the State Dairy would have said something about this."

"They weren't legally required to, as long as she passed the health check, and for that matter, they may not even have known. Couple hundred cows, and they mix all the milk together. By that time, you can't taste anything sour anymore."

"Shit. That doesn't help me. I've only got eight cows, and I can't afford to start losing customers. Any ideas?"

The vet shrugged. "That part's your job, and I can't pretend to have any expertise in that area. Maybe you can mix it with chocolate, sell it as a specialty, I don't know. Right at the moment I can't tell you how to make it taste any better, though."

"Shit." Tom pulled at his lip. He looked up, shook Follett's hand. "Anyway, thanks."

"Sure thing. And I'll let you know how the tests come out."

"Appreciate it," Tom replied absently, as he watched his wife leading the other cows back to the barn. Follett patted him on the shoulder and carried his bag back to his car.

The next morning, Wendy signalled to him as he was plowing one of the fields. He hurried over, expecting at any moment to need to rush her out to the car and head for the hospital. She held her hands up, laughing. "No, no, it's not that."

He slowed but continued. "So what's up?"

"Well, I just finished milking the girls. I kept Natalie's separate, of course. But I think their production is down a little. Not much, but I think we should keep an eye on that."

He rolled his eyes. "Just what we need. Oh, hey, did you taste it?"

She looked at him, puzzled, then remembered him telling her what the vet had said. "I did take a little sip when I got to the bottling room. I was just making sure I hadn't somehow got Natalie's mixed in. It tasted fine. There just wasn't as much."

He sighed. "I'll talk to them when I take them out on their walk."

She blinked. "When you take them? Really, Tom, I'm fine. I feel like I ate a bowling ball, but I can still get around."

"I know, but I thought I'd do it today. This'll be the first time we take Natalie out. She can be... kind of a challenge."

She nodded. "Be my guest."

Something in her tone surprised him. "You don't like her much, do you?" Not that that in itself would surprise him, except Wendy seemed always to find the good in everybody.

"It's not a matter of liking or not liking... well, maybe it is. But she could at least try to make friends. As long as she's going to be here for..." She stopped as a thought occurred to her. "Tom... could you maybe... take her back?"

He gave her a tiny smile. "They don't give refunds, sweety."

"I didn't mean that, exactly. But you could sell her. You don't have to try to get all the money back."

He shook his head. "Not that simple, honey. If I sold her to a friend, that'd be one less friend. And if I sold her to somebody I didn't know... well, that'd just spread my new reputation as an asshole to a wider area."

She leaned towards him and hugged him -- from a bit of a distance, as her tummy was a little in the way. "We'll think of something. Maybe it'll get better."

He held back the words, "It better." He hated being pessimistic with Wendy. But he said them to himself.

On the way out to the field, the girls made a wide space around Natalie -- not easy with them all tethered to the leashes Tom was holding, and it caused them to stumble against each other occasionally, in turn causing audible grumbling. As he unhooked the leashes, the other girls quickly spread out, while Natalie more or less stayed where she was. In a few minutes, he saw with relief, she spread her hind legs apart and let go of her wastes. Must figure she had to do it somewhere, he thought, and it might as well be here. He was sure she realized it was preferable to an enema.

He walked over towards Karen. As he said her name, she whipped her head around and snapped, "What?"

Taken aback, he said, "I guess that answers my question. I was going to ask if everything's okay in the barn."

She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Tom. I didn't mean to yell at you. I just haven't got much sleep the last couple of nights, thanks to Miss I-don't-talk-in-my-sleep." She curled her lip at the reference to Natalie.

"Do you think you're making less milk?"

"Wouldn't surprise me. Tom, you've got to do something about her."

"I know, I know. What do you suggest?"

"I think we should just eat her."

Tom bit his lip. He hated to throw in the towel so soon -- it amounted to having paid nearly three thousand dollars for a few girlmeat steaks. But her presence was throwing the whole farm off. "I'll think about it."

Should talk to Clarissa, he thought. She was right in the middle of the storm -- he'd heard how Natalie had been treating her, and he'd put a second pad in the stall so Clarissa could sleep somewhere. And recent glitches notwithstanding, he still put some value on her opinion. Not out here, though. Too many ears.

He gathered the girls together and put their leashes back on. None of the girls talked on the way back in. Monica bumped accidentally against Kirsten, and Kirsten banged her hip angrily against Monica's in return.

After he'd led the girls, including Natalie, back into their stalls and secured them, he asked Clarissa to come back outside with him for a minute. She followed him away from the barn, knowing what the subject was going to be.

"Clary, I've been thinking... look, I'm not blaming you, honest. This isn't about that. But there gets to be a time when you've got to admit mistakes and move on." She noticed he had avoided saying "your mistake."

He went on, "I'm thinking... this isn't working out. With Natalie, I mean. Maybe we should just roast her and eat her."

"No!!" She knew her voice had probably carried back into the barn, and she went on, more quietly but urgently, "No, please, you can't do that!"

Tom looked at her, surprised. "Clary, it's not a big deal. I'm just talking about us eating her. It's not like I'm going to torture her or anything."

"No! Nobody here can stand her!"

Tom looked at her blankly. "I thought that was kind of the point."

"Tom, she can't be eaten by a bunch of people who hate her! Whatever has happened to her, she's really hurting inside. She doesn't deserve this on top of it!"

"Clary, it's not about deserving..."

"It is! Every girl deserves a chance to end up inside people who love her! Tom, you're not a girl. You don't know what we feel like."

"I know you were all set to have a bunch of perfect strangers eat you."

"That's not the same thing. That was my choice, and anyway, I know they wouldn't have loved me, but they'd lust me," she said with a tiny smile, not certain that was really a transitive verb, but knowing her point was getting across. "And anyway, after you and dad said you'd hang me and all my friends and family could eat me, I knew that was what I really wanted."

"Well, fine. But every girl doesn't get to end that way. You know a lot of them end up in cans, and they have no idea who'll be eating them."

"I know every girl doesn't end that way. But every girl deserves a chance to. To be able to think, I'll make my friends warm inside, and become part of them. Please, you can't do this to Natalie! Please?" Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"So what am I supposed to do? Wait till everybody likes her? How likely does that look?"

She knew this wasn't easy for him, and he was thinking about the needs of the farm. "Okay, just... give me a day or two, okay? Two. I think I can get to know her. I can find out what's bothering her."

"In a couple of days?"

"Just give me that. Give her that. Okay?"

Tom stood looking at her for a long time. He finally let out a breath and said, "Okay."

She sniffled, and squeezed his shin between her cheek and shoulder. "I love you."

He ruffled her hair. "Love you too. Two days, though. Right?"

"Right." She wondered, though, what could possibly happen in two days that would change anything.

Clarissa was still sniffling a little as Tom finished securing her and locking the stall door. After Tom had gone she lay down heavily on her pad, then looked up, astonished. She hadn't expected any spontaneous comment from Natalie. "What?"

"I said it won't help. Crying. You think it will, but it won't. It means they won and you lost. Don't ever cry."

Clarissa got herself back up on her hooves and crept closer to Natalie. "W-what are you talking about?"

Natalie turned to face the wall again, and went on in her usual flat voice. "Or go ahead. Keep losing. I don't give a shit."

Clarissa was nearly to Natalie's pad. "When's the last time you cried?"

Natalie turned to look at her one more time. "I told you before to stay away from me. And don't try to tell me this time you need to sleep here. You've got your own pad now." She turned away again. "Go away."

Clarissa froze, part of her wanting somehow to dig in underneath Natalie's first personal comment, if it could be called that, the other part telling her to give up on this lost cause. She took a deep breath, turned, and went to the feeding trough. She didn't feel strong enough for the battle just now.