Natalie giggled. "It's like they all keep wanting to have sex with me. I mean, I don't mind, but didn't they mostly stick with their partners before I came?" She had had play dates behind the barn with every sister at least twice, and she and Karen had arranged to meet again after this morning's trip to the field. Natalie had felt most intimidated by Karen the first time, eight years older and holding so much of the other girls' respect -- but only for the first few minutes, her nervousness dissolving in a session of giggling and licking.

Clarissa shook her head. "Not completely. Remember I floated around through all their stalls before you came, and we all played a lot. But I think they all just feel excited that there's somebody who's not..." She stopped and smiled. She'd been about to say "Not from the family," but she and the other girls had taken so much trouble to make her feel she was part of the family. "...I mean, somebody we didn't all grow up with. A new family member."

Natalie laughed. "So they'll all get bored with me eventually?"

Clarissa kissed her, and rubbed her cheek with her own. "I know I won't get bored with you."

"Mmmm." Natalie returned her kiss. "Better not. I'll just keep bugging you."

Clarissa looked at the clock on the television. "Wonder if we have time to..."

As an answer to Clarissa's question, Wendy opened the barn door. "Turning into a really pretty day out here. Tom said we could let you stay out a little longer after field duty," an announcement greeted by several Yeses and All Rights.

Karen walked next to Natalie as Wendy led them out to the field by their leashes. She smiled at Natalie. "I'm going to ask Tom if we can have the nipple clamps off while we play. The milk stand is making so much money, I don't think it matters that much if you and I share a little milk in the daytime. He'd say no if you or I were on stand duty this afternoon, but we're not." It would be Monica and Jill today in the stand.

Natalie gasped. "That's such a great idea. Do you think he'll say yes?"

Karen winked. "I think I can talk him into it."

Natalie turned to Clarissa, walking on her other side. "Did you..."

Clarissa grinned. "I heard. That really sounds like fun."

As Wendy released them from their leashes and they spread out into the field, Natalie frowned as Clarissa headed to the edge of the field. "Clarissa, please don't go so close to the trees." Memories of that night in the ditch, in the darkness, always made her uncomfortable.

"I'll be right back. Somebody's got to poop over here." Clarissa stopped a few feet from the edge of the field and spread her hind legs, clearing her mind and telling her body to let go of its stored wastes.

Natalie stopped herself from trotting over to Clarissa, weeks of habit conditioning her to maintain her distance from the others in the field, understanding the need to fertilize all portions of the area as evenly as possible.

As she spread her own hind legs apart, she was startled by a movement of shadows behind the trees. "Clarissa, there's..."

Clarissa, half turned towards Natalie at the sound of her voice, heard a thumping sound from behind. She whipped her head around. "What...?" Something touched against her side, and a sudden painful tingling shot through her body from the point of the touch. Everything wobbled and spun.

Natalie gasped at the sight of a large man, a ski-mask covering his features, leaping out from behind the nearest trees and touching Clarissa with a small black box that looked like a TV remote. The thought "This can't be real, this can't be real, this can't be real" flooded her mind, freezing her in place as the man gathered the limp Clarissa in his arms and bolted back into the woods. As she lost sight of him and fixed her eyes on the spot where Clarissa had been standing, the paralysis released its grip and she screamed, "CLARISSA!" running towards the place she had last seen her. "Wendy! Miss Wendy! Master Tom! He took Clarissa he took Clarissa he took Clarissa..." Behind her she could hear Wendy shouting for Tom through the confusion of the other girls' voices.

Natalie ran for the trees, but was restrained a few feet away by a breathless Wendy. She sobbed, "Let me go, let me go, I need to get Clarissa, let me go!"

Wendy tried to calm her through her own tears. "Natalie, stop it, stop, you can't go in there. You know you can't catch him, and you'll only get lost. Tom's coming."

From behind her, Tom ran into the woods, slowing as he dodged trunks, trying to look in all directions. Natalie strained to escape Wendy's grip, as Wendy knelt by her and stroked her hair, holding her head against their own, their tears mixing together. To their right, the other girls had gathered in a tight knot, watching after Tom and crying.

Tom emerged five minutes later, a grim look on his face. He held out his hand to Wendy. "Phone." She fumbled in her pocket for her cell phone, and hugged Natalie tightly as Tom dialed 9-1-1.

"So none of you really got a look at the man? Except Natalie?" Detective Warren was scribbling notes in a small pocket pad. Beyond him, two uniformed officers were crawling on hands and knees in the ferns below the trees, not sure what they were looking for.

Tom shook his head. "I wasn't even in the field. I was just getting there from the toolshed. Natalie said..." He stopped as the detective held up his hand.

"I can get her statement later. Did you see anything at all?"

Tom shook his head. "I didn't know anything had happened until Wendy started calling me."

"Where is Natalie?"

"Wendy has her in the house. Should I go get her?"

"Let's go there. Hot out here." He closed up his notepad and started walking towards the house, not waiting to see if Tom was following.

Tom went ahead and held the door open as Warren entered the back door silently. The kitchen was empty. "Wendy?"

Her voice called out from the bedroom, "In here."

In the bedroom, Wendy was sitting on the floor next to the bed, patting Natalie's forehead and cheeks with a washcloth. The babies were napping on their backs in their crib in pink jammies. As Tom entered, Wendy held the cloth out to him. "Tom, could you get this wet again? Cold water. She just threw up in the toilet." She sounded exhausted.

As Tom took the washcloth, Warren entered the room and knelt next to Natalie. Natalie didn't move, but tracked him with her eyes. He spoke to Wendy. "I'd like to ask her a few questions."

"I'm not leaving her."

He shook his head. "You don't need to." He focussed on Natalie, and spoke in a quiet, sympathetic voice. "Natalie? Do you remember me? We met at the police station a couple of months ago."

After a few seconds, Natalie nodded.

Tom returned and handed Wendy the cloth. Wendy resumed patting Natalie's face, and looked up at Tom. "Where are the girls?"

Tom sat on the edge of the bed. "They're still out there by the trees. There's an officer watching them. They didn't want to leave."

She nodded, and ran the washcloth slowly along Natalie's neck. "Oh, I just thought. Could you go out and put a Closed sign on the milk stand?" Tom nodded and left the room.

Warren fished his notepad out of his pocket. "Natalie, do you think you could answer a few questions?" She looked at him silently.

He went on, "We're going to find Clarissa. We need to know everything we can, though. You can help us find her."

Her voice raspy from an hour of crying, she said, "I don't think I can help much. I didn't see much."

He did his near approximation of a smile. "Tell me what you did see. Anything you remember. Or even just think you remember."

"We... we were all out in the field. We were... well, we go there to take a dump. To fertilize the field." She gave him the tiniest smile.

"Were you with Clarissa?"

She shook her head, and winced. "We separate when we go out there. She went over by the trees."

"So she was right by the trees when a man came out and took her?"

She nodded, and grimaced. Tears started seeping out once more.

"Can you describe him?"

"He was... I couldn't see his face, he was wearing a ski mask."

"What color?"

"Black. Everything was black. Black pants, black... sweatshirt, I guess, with a turtleneck."

"Could you tell how tall he was?"

She shook her head. "I'm not very good at that, from down here. And, you know, Clarissa was down on all fours, too, of course. I guess he looked kind of big. Broad shoulders."

Warren stifled a sigh as he made notes. No face, no height. At least he had a sex. And shoulders. That narrowed it down.

"Did she yell? Did he put his hand over her mouth? What happened?"

"He was just suddenly... there. I don't think she saw him. He put a dark box against her side, and her mouth flew open and she stiffened, and then she just fell." Her voice broke. "She's not dead, is she? Did he kill her?"

Warren shook his head. "I can't imagine why he'd kill her. If he wanted girlmeat he can get all he can eat in the butcher shop, and steal it from there with a lot less work than it took to steal Clarissa. Don't worry about her being dead. People steal girlcows because they're girlcows, not for their meat."

She gave him a little warmer smile than before. He continued writing in his notebook. He looked back up at Natalie. "What he's got is a taser. He stunned her with that. I can check on taser sales. There are a few places you can get one legally, and they keep records. We may find him that way." Fat chance, he said to himself, but he kept that thought to himself.

She smiled again. "Thank you. Find her, please. Please?"

He closed the notebook and looked in her eyes. "I will. It's what I do." He was accustomed to treating the rare girlcow theft instances as stolen-property cases. Seeing Natalie's pain made it different. A person was missing. He resolved to keep his promise.

Milking that evening was a very somber affair. Tom took the girls into the barn and milked them himself, while Wendy stayed in the house with Natalie. The girls stood together as he milked them, resisting his urging to go into their stalls. Finally Karen asked if they could all stay together that night.

He sighed. "I can't secure all of you in one stall, Kare. None of the stalls have more than three chains. And I don't much feel like leaving any of you loose just now."

Kirsten, her red, puffy eyes matching those of all her sisters, suggested he could use the in-town chain leashes and lock all of them to one of the overhead chains.

Tom bit his lip. "You wouldn't be able to get very far from each other that way."

Monica sniffled, another tear sliding down her streaked cheeks. "We don't want get away from each other."

Tom shrugged and got the chain leashes to secure them, in Karen and Kirsten's stall. He left as all six of them were huddling together in a knot in the middle of the stall, seeking comfort from each other's warmth and touches.

Wendy was just finishing milking Natalie in the bedroom, Natalie just able to make herself stand upright long enough to get some relief from the pressure in her breasts, her lips quivering.

Wendy looked up as Tom entered the room. "Tom, I think she should stay in here tonight."

He nodded. "I'll get the sheets for the mattress."

Wendy began, "Uhhh..." and Tom turned. "What, sweety?"

"Tom, would you... would you be a dear and sleep on the mattress?"

Tom blinked. "oh, uhh... sure."

Natalie, tears seeping constantly, eventually fell asleep around 2 am, in Tom and Wendy's bed, with Wendy's arms around her, Wendy's hand softly stroking her hair.

The first thing Clarissa was aware of was the smell. She wrinkled her nose, her eyes still closed. She opened them, finally, to the sight of an enormous dog towering over her. She shrieked and rolled away from it, to be stopped with a bone-shaking smack against a vertical wall. Breathing in gasps, she made herself look around herself.

The dog, now five feet away, stood looking at her curiously, offering no obvious threat. The wall on her other side was wooden, belonging to what appeared, especially in the context of her nearby companion, to be a doghouse.

The dog, appearing be a male mongrel in which Doberman predominated, walked casually over to a water bowl near an ivy-covered wall and began lapping from it.

She tried desperately to remember what had happened. She had been ready to drop her feces in the field -- what then? Where was everybody?

She got laboriously up onto her hooves and took in her surroundings. Despite the bright light, she was indoors somewhere, in a room about forty feet by twenty, with ceilings around fifteen feet high. The room, though, had a dirt floor, in which grass was growing, interrupted by a number of small bushy clumps -- plant growth of one kind or another seemed to be everywhere, in fact, other than in a cleared area of a radius of five feet or so in front of the doghouse, where the dirt was packed hard. She could hear the faintest whisper of an air circulation system. Otherwise it was totally quiet, missing even the normal quiet sounds of daily life noticeable only by their absence. She couldn't tell the source of the light, except that it seemed to be overhead and shaded by ivy clinging to the ceiling. The walls were likewise hidden behind ivy. She seemed to be alone, except for the dog, another equally large dog near the far end of the room, and, to her astonishment, four sleeping puppies who didn't look more than a week old. Possibly the more distant dog was their mother.

There was an odd shimmering to her left, about halfway to the far wall -- no, it was a mirror! She realized the dog she was seeing in the distance was a reflection of the one a few feet away from her, and as she tentatively moved to the side, she saw her own reflection. The mirror, running across the entire room and reaching a height of about seven feet, with ivy covering the rest of the wall above it, forced her to revise her estimate of the size of the room: about twenty feet square, the mirror making it seem twice as large.

What am I doing here, how did I get here??

She recalled, fuzzily, the tingling feeling exploding outward from her side as she'd stood in the field. Afterwards there was a confused kaleidoscope of images -- she seemed to remember strong arms picking her up, her own muscles refusing to obey her commands that they resist, her throat not cooperating with her attempts to call for help. Then a sharp sting in her buttock, of which she could still feel an echo -- had he given her a shot? Something that put her to sleep, until she woke up here? That would explain it.

A crushing awareness of being totally alone suddenly terrified her. "Natalie! Are you here? Did he get you too? NATALIE!" She held her breath, willing herself to hear Natalie's voice in response. Closing her eyes, she could almost feel Natalie next to her, almost smell again the scent of her pussy as they had made love that morning. An overwhelming feeling of loss rolled in like ocean waves, and she burst into tears. The dim yearning to be back with Tom and Wendy, and with her sisters, was submerged under her aching need to feel Natalie snuggled against her. As much as she wished that her current circumstances were a dream, something she and Natalie could giggle over once she had awakened, she knew her sensations were too vivid for this to be a dream. There was no dream quality about it.

Her sobs were cut short by the barely noticeable sound of a click, followed by a soft hum. It registered only because it seemed so out of place here. Her eyes were caught by a slight movement near the mirror, and she gasped. A large, muscular man was standing there, insubstantial, ghost-like -- she seemed to be seeing through him. Her jaw dropped as she stared.

He smiled at her obvious stunned reaction. "Nothing magic, my dear Sprite," increasing her puzzlement -- what an odd way to address her. "All done with mirrors." He laughed at his small joke. "I mean, I'm on the other side of the mirror, in sort of an observation room. When I turn on the light in here, you can see me. Of course I'm competing with the reflected scene from your side, so I imagine I look transparent. Kind of a cool effect, isn't it?"

His tinny voice seemed to be coming from above her head rather than from him. She suddenly realized the clicking sound had been a speaker system being switched on; the hum was its carrier.

She sniffled to clear her nose, her cheeks still damp with tears. "W-what do you want with me? P-please don't hurt me!"

"Me? Oh, I have no plans to hurt you. You'll probably rarely even see me. I probably won't ever come in there with you, though there is a door, hidden behind the ivy over there." He pointed to her left. She couldn't see an entrance, but of course, she must have got in here somehow. "I just plan to watch."

"Watch... watch what?"

"Oh, you and your family as you go about your daily lives."

She whipped her head around, full of hope, suddenly, that her sisters were here somewhere -- and Natalie. "Where are they?"

He smiled. "You're standing in the middle of them. Your mate there, having a little snack at the food bowl, is Thunder." She took in a breath quickly, realizing he was referring to the dog. A faint bell of recognition went off in her head. She had seen the dog somewhere before. And the man -- somewhere she had seen both of them.

"Your name is Sprite. I haven't named the puppies yet."

Her jaw set in anger. "My name is Clarissa."

He shook his head. "No. Bad dog. Start thinking of yourself as Sprite."

She started to respond, and suddenly the meaning of his words hit her. He intended for her to be one of his dogs!

Her voice shook with fury. "I'm not a dog! I'm a human being! A woman! Girlcows are not lower animals. We're serving our own kind. I'm not going to be your dog!"

He repeated the head shake. "Very bad dog. I'd punish you, but there's really no point. You don't have any choice."

Her heart pounded, her whole body trembling. She looked at the doghouse. If the whole point for him was to observe her...

"I'll just hide out in the doghouse all day. You won't have anything to watch."

"Try it. Well, actually don't. The floor of the doghouse is heated. Not dangerous, but you'd probably get an uncomfortable burn if you lay on it more than a few minutes. Oh, I do turn down the heat at night. Both in the doghouse and in the air conditioning system. It gets pretty nippy where you're standing, at night -- you'll know it's night because I'll turn down the lights -- and I water the grass then too. If you want to sleep out in a cold rain, be my guest, but you'll find it toasty and comfy in the little house, especially with Thunder and the puppies sharing their body heat with you."

She stamped with frustration. Such a simple system for controlling her actions. When he wanted her outside so he could watch her, she'd be outside. When he wanted her huddling in her doghouse with her doggy family, there she'd be. She wondered what other tricks he had for making her do what he wanted.

A movement to her right caught her eye. One of the puppies was stirring and stretching, and in a moment all four of them were. Soon they were all stumbling to their feet, and two of them came prancing towards her.

"I took the liberty of smearing some of their mother's milk on your breasts, around the nipples. Got rid of those clamps while I was at it. You can thank me if you want."

She gasped. "You mean... you expect me to..."

"I know what they're going to do. How you respond is up to you. I imagine they're pretty hungry, though."

She backed away as the nearest pup clumsily approached her. "No! Girlmilk is for people! Bring their mother in here if you want them fed."

"You're their mother now, Sprite. You want them to starve? Besides, aren't your breasts getting a little full just now?"

Another control trick, using her own body this time. Her only means of relieving the fullness in her breasts was to let the puppies do it. She was sure he'd be fascinated.

Suppressing a moan of frustration, she waited for the first puppy to reach her, followed closely by one of his siblings. Both dogs soon zeroed in on the nipples of her low-hanging breasts as the source of what they were looking for. The other two puppies soon were pushing in from behind, and all four now jostled for position, each taking a short turn at one of the two available food sources before being pushed away and replaced by another eager mouth. She sighed heavily and let herself fall onto her side, her hip thumping heavily on the ground. The puppies were startled away for a moment, then came back and resumed their meal.

It wasn't like sharing milk with Natalie. There was no love in it, only need. It was occasionally momentarily painful, but they didn't bite very often -- instinctively they knew how to suck. Clarissa, who had witnessed a variety of farm animals nursing their young, knew she looked exactly like them. She felt her humanity draining away with her milk. The tears resumed flowing.

Finally the last puppy drifted away, satisfied, and commenced exploring the small "yard" with his siblings. Clarissa glared at the ghostly form of her captor. "What about me? What am I supposed to eat?"

"You've seen Thunder over there at the food and water bowls, haven't you?"

She gasped. "I'm supposed to eat what he's eating??"

"What's wrong with it? Doesn't he look healthy?"

"I -- I can't! I won't! You can't make me eat that."

"I understand that. You'll want to, though. What do you think, I'm going to let you order in pizza?"

To her horror, she understood that here she was the victim of the simplest control trick of all. Even as a normal girl, her body would insist that she eat and drink, but in her girlcow modified body those needs were stronger and more frequent. She was already very thirsty right now, and hunger pangs were beginning.

She got up and walked over to the bowls. Each had a spout overhanging it, obviously for replenishing the supply -- even as she watched a small drip fell from the spout over the water bowl.

"Look in the ivy. There are two green buttons in the wall, see them? Push them and more water and food come out of the spouts. Of course, I've been keeping Thunder happy, but I didn't want you worrying when the bowls get empty. You can eat and drink as much as you want."

She could see the buttons. Looking down in the food bowl, the ration didn't look terribly appetizing, but it wasn't repulsive, at least.

"I didn't hear thanks."

That much, at least, he couldn't force her to do. She bent her head to lick tentatively at the water, and in a moment found herself gulping the liquid down as if she'd spent a week in the desert. She punched the left-hand button with her hoof, and a fresh supply of water cascaded into the bowl.

As welcome as the water looked, the real meaning of the spouts suddenly occurred to her: he could keep her here indefinitely, perhaps without ever having to enter the room. All her needs were taken care of.

Well, there was one other need. "Where's the... bathroom?"

"Oh, look straight across at the other wall. Up near the mirror. See the box? The litter box? I've even managed to train Thunder to use it. Can't say the puppies are housebroken, but maybe you can handle that somehow. There's a little door in the wall next to it, by the way, you probably can't see it with the ivy in the way. It's just a few inches high, and every night while you're in your little house, I'll replace the litter box and you'll have a fresh one."

Her heart sank -- it was a final confirmation that he planned to keep her here... well, forever, if he wanted to. He had gone to so much trouble to make the environment complete, to satisfy every one of her basic needs. That is... the animal needs. She would eat here, sleep here, deposit her wastes here. Even her overabundant milk production was taken care of, in a humiliating way.

The only needs that would go unmet were the human needs. The need for the love of her family. The need... for Natalie. She would never see Natalie again.

Rather than new tears, she felt a burst of fresh anger. She would get out! There had to be some way. She shied away from the question of just how that could happen. There would be a way! She would get back to her family. She would be back with Natalie, and never leave her side again.

She started to turn at a sudden sound from behind her. Before she could move, Thunder was on her back, his weight pushing her hooves into the spongy soil. She screamed. "Get off me, get away."

"Don't resist him, he'll probably get mad," the voice from the speakers shouted quickly. Thunder had already resisted her instinctive attempts to shake him off, and she stopped herself from making a more elaborate defense, realizing he was probably right. On her back, Thunder was consolidating his position, his hot breath on her neck, his stomach rubbing heavily on her back. She groaned as she felt something like a finger, of which Thunder had none, finding its way into her pussy. She stood still and cried as he did her, literally, doggy-style.

At last he grunted excitedly, and pulled away shortly after that, strutting away from her, the victorious male, as his seed dribbled down her hind legs. Still crying, she wailed, "W-why did he do that? I know you want me to be a dog, but how did you explain it to him?"

Infuriatingly, the voice over the speakers chuckled. "It worked. I'd been spreading vaginal secretions from human females on his mate's genitals. I figured he'd come to associate that smell with sex. You must have been thinking about sex, and he picked up on it."

She had, in fact, been remembering this morning with Natalie. "S-so I have to keep myself from thinking about s-sex?"

The ghostly figure shook his head. "It's too late now. I don't think it would make any difference anymore. He's got the idea."

She shivered in horror. "H-h-how... how often... would he...?"

He shrugged. "Not more than a couple of times a day, I don't think."

"No!!" She dropped to the ground, wracked with sobs.

"Well, I'll be going now. That is, I'll turn off my light in here. In the future, you won't see much of me. I'll be watching you from here, but invisibly. Be a good dog. If you don't behave yourself, I'll cut off the food for a day or two. I'm sure you could tough it out, but Thunder... well, I think if he gets hungry enough he'll stop seeing you as his mate and start seeing you as food. He knows you're not really a dog."

Even all of the day's previous news paled in comparison, as the bottom fell out of her life. She said, in a tiny, shocked voice, "You can't... you'd... you'd let me be eaten by a lower animal?"

"That's going to happen in the end. You'll be a meal for Thunder. I'm just saying you can make it happen later rather than sooner."

"I -- I -- You can't do that! You can't feed girlmeat to a lower animal! It's so..." She couldn't think what would be a word strong enough. Illegal? He obviously didn't care. Degrading? Immoral? Shameful? Did he have a sense of any of those? She whispered huskily, "You can't feed me to a dog."

Every woman, no matter what her station, could at least claim that one validation of her femininity: that in the end of her life she would fulfill her destiny, she would attain immortality by becoming part of the bodies of her own kind. She would live on in her people -- her loved ones if possible, and if not, at least her meat would sustain someone who needed her. To feed her to a dog... it removed her from the human race. It took away her womanhood.

"I hope you'll be a good dog for a long time, Sprite."

With a tiny click, the almost imperceptible humming stopped. He had turned off his microphone. She looked quickly towards the mirror, and she could see well enough through her teary haze that the ghost had vanished.

She buried her face against her forelegs and lay where she had fallen, shaken by a fresh round of sobs. Her lips, hidden from any possible view, mouthed the words, "I'm going to get out, Natalie. I'm going to get out..."

She lay immobile for about an hour, tears seeping out of her closed lids -- unmoving because she had no idea what to do or where to go. Intense thirst finally brought her back to her feet, and she moved slowly, squinting because of a headache, over to the water dish.

She used her hoof to splash most of the existing water out of the bowl, and ran a fresh stream of it into the bowl from the nozzle above, not wanting to drink the same water Thunder had been lapping at. She ducked her head down to drink, her energy coming back slightly as her thirst decreased.

She looked at the food bowl, reluctant to try it, though her stomach was rumbling. But she knew she had to keep her strength up somehow, and the thought struck her that the choice of dying by starvation was not an option -- even her death wouldn't solve her problem, as her final thoughts would be the realization that she was about to be eaten by a dog -- she shivered and backed away from that thought. Okay then, whatever it took to stay alive...

The food consisted of small biscuit-like chunks and globs of ground-up meat. She tried to identify the meat, but there were too many unusual tastes surrounding it. She wondered if it was horse, a common additive in dogfood, a possibility that made her gag momentarily.

She had barely swallowed her second mouthful when a rumbling sound behind her made her freeze. She whipped her head around, in time to see Thunder, growling, his teeth bared, not five feet away and looking ready to spring. In near-panic she jumped away from the bowl, retreating sideways until Thunder was reassured that his food was safe.

Her tears reflected anger and frustration this time -- stupid dog, I can get you as much food as you want! she thought to herself. And how am I supposed to eat now?

As Thunder finished off the remaining food in the bowl and licked the bottom, she could only tell herself, dogs sleep a lot. I can eat when he's napping.

Thunder curled up near the bowl, his head up in eternal vigilance, as Clarissa's stomach growled again. Sudden insight hit Clarissa: I'm his slave! I'm the slave of a dog! He can use me for sex whenever he wants, he can decide when and whether I eat, he'll probably decide when and how I sleep -- he owns me!

Clarissa had never had a problem with being Tom's slave. All her sisters, in long family tradition, had become girlcows, and though she had dreamed for a time of something higher as a Hanging Academy graduate, with the very short but exciting life that would follow, she adored Tom and was proud to be his slave. There should be love in the master-slave relationship, she believed, though she knew it didn't always work that way. But even the lowliest, most mistreated slave could at least take some pride in her ability to please her owner.

But... this is a dog! He doesn't have a mind, he can't think "Good slave" when I do something right. He won't even think about me when I'm not right in front of him.

Clarissa had been trying to cope with the loss of her humanity, the theft of her womanhood. She was trying to handle the shame of being a lower animal, but she suddenly realized it was still worse: she wasn't a dog. She was an object owned by a dog.

Furious, she ran over to the mirror and banged her right front hoof against the glass as hard as she could, as her snarling reflection hit back. She didn't care that she would probably be sliced to ribbons by shattering glass. She was taken aback to discover that wasn't going to be a problem: as hard as she struck the glass, there seemed to be no effect on it at all except a few small streaks to show the places her hoof had hit. She couldn't imagine hitting it this hard without at least producing a crack. Maybe it wasn't glass. Whatever the hell it was, it was beyond her strength to do any damage to it.

Okay, no exit that way. There has to be some way to escape.

The water and food dishes were against the wall to the right of the mirror, a few feet from the mirror. She'd been there, so she looked to the other side. The litter box was over there, again near the mirror -- Mr. X, as she had begun calling him in her mind, must like a good view of bodily functions.

She moved over to the litter box, inspecting the wall behind it closely. She couldn't identify the building material partly hidden behind the creeping ivy. It was coarse and stony looking, yet fairly flat, interrupted by a wooden lattice on which the ivy had found some purchase. She tapped it with her hoof, hearing a muted tapping sound as she did -- the material seemed so solid it almost swallowed the sound of her hoof striking it. Near the bottom was the small door Mr. X had mentioned, through which he would remove and replace the litter box. It was barely five inches high, about thirty long. There was a hollow sound as she tapped it, her first proof that there was any open space in the world behind her prison. She couldn't budge the door, though. Clearly it latched from outside, and in any case it was too small for her to fit through.

The puppies had taken a break from cavorting around the yard and were snoozing near the doghouse. She suspected they'd be hungry again when they awoke. She sighed heavily.

Without the yipping they'd been doing earlier, it was very quiet -- much too quiet, Clarissa suddenly thought. She held her breath, closed her eyes, and tried to focus her entire being on her ears. Aside from the whisper of the air circulation system, to which she had already grown sufficiently accustomed that she could barely perceive it, there was nothing. It was as if she'd suddenly stuffed her ears with cotton. Traffic noises, distant trains or airplanes, dogs barking (present company or others) -- none of those. Her cell was very effectively soundproofed.

She realized Mr. X could well be watching her explorations from his little room behind the mirror, but there was nothing she could do about that. She would never be able to tell when he was there unless he chose, as before, to show himself.

There was no other interruption in that wall, all the way to the back, where a similar wall, across from the mirror, met it perpendicularly. It was made of the same material, and she followed it until she reached the side of the doghouse, backed up against the wall. She would have liked to hide behind the house, out of his sight, so of course he'd arranged for that to be impossible.

She tentatively entered the doghouse, and backed out again a minute later. It was featureless -- had she been expecting doggy furniture or something? It was really warm in there, hot actually, as Mr. X had warned her. The floor and walls had to be the source of the heat, and she knew she'd never be able to lay down in there. Even just standing would be uncomfortable -- she already felt sweat breaking out all over her body. Okay, she thought, forget the doghouse in the daytime then.

She moved around the doghouse and puppies and resumed examining the wall on the far side. It ended at the wall along which the food and water sat.

Near the back of this wall she found the door Mr. X had spoken of. Much more solid than the tiny door by the litter box, this one seemed as impenetrable as the wall itself. She couldn't detect any rattling as she pushed against it. About three feet off the ground there was sort of a "handle," if one could call it that, but it was altogether useless to her: actually it was a small recess into which Mr. X could put his fingers and reach a latch she could barely see. The opening was much too small for her hoof to get into it. She didn't doubt it was locked anyway.

In a few minutes she completed her circumnavigation of the room, and stood at the food dish. Thunder had laid his head down and was now, as far as she could tell, asleep. She watched him for several minutes, during which she could see his sides expanding and contracting slightly as he breathed, but no other movement. She turned to the food dish, only now remembering Thunder had emptied it.

Nervously, she pushed the button, starting the flow of food to fill the dish, her eyes on Thunder. It seemed he was a heavy sleeper, and she sighed at having finally caught a break. She bent to the food dish and resumed her interrupted meal, realizing, as she did so, that her trip around the walls had at least accomplished one thing: it had proved that her prison was inescapable, not only for her body, but also for any sounds she might make. If she were ever to get out, somehow Mr. X would have to let her out.

Her meal had set her bowel movement, aborted this morning, back in motion, and she hurried over to the litter box. She moaned, knowing he was probably watching. She was accustomed to pooping out in the open, in the company of her sisters, but that had always been justified for the practical reason that it helped the farm. Now it was just for an invisible stranger's entertainment, and it was the first time she had really felt embarrassed at doing it. It was growing beyond her power to hold it in, though, and she shook her head and sighed as she deposited her waste in the box, afterwards emptying her bladder, which she'd also been avoiding as long as she could.

Well, so much for that, she thought as she walked away. I've done every necessary bodily function here except sleep, but I'll be damned if I'll do it in the doghouse. Just one piece of dignity, somehow, I've got to hold onto.

Her pussy felt wet, and slightly tingly in fact, and she knew it wasn't because she had just peed. She tried to remember whether she'd just been thinking about Natalie, but couldn't immediately recall any particular erotic reveries.

The puppies were starting to stir again. Two of them were stretching, and she closed her eyes and sighed yet again, knowing they were probably going to be hungry again. Well, she thought, at least they help me out a little while I'm helping them, the full feeling having returned to her breasts, and she began walking towards them.

Partway there, a sound from her left made her whip her head in that direction, but Thunder was already behind her and mounting her again. She wailed "No!" but he was already inside her, his forelegs clamped against her sides next to her breasts, his energetic thrusts against her buttocks rocking her whole body. At least I was wet, she thought as she braced her forelegs against the assault, her heart pounding in fear at the sound of the low growl in his throat, knowing that his rigid erection scraping against her dry pussy would have been made it even worse. He finished at last, dismounted and trotted away triumphantly, as her tears started flowing again.

What had Mr. X said, maybe he'd do it once or twice in a day? This was already twice he'd... no, rape isn't the right word, is it? That implies some sort of intent. Rutting. That's it. He's going to use me for mindless rutting. Maybe several times a day. Her sobs became more audible as she imagined her future.

She lay down near the puppies, all of whom were up now, one of them batting his paws playfully at his brother's face, both of them yipping. The other two saw her and bounced over towards her, quickly gravitating to her nipples. The other two soon joined in, with a repeat of the shoving and jockeying for position that again made her the main character in her mental image of a sow nursing her piglets. At least they're cute, she thought, rubbing her foreleg against one of them as he suckled, and marveling at the volume of tears her eyes could produce in a single day.

She had pushed the food button and made another attempt to eat, again being driven off by Thunder, pointlessly guarding his endlessly replaceable food source. He had been patrolling the yard for hours, and she was starving. The puppies were playing as usual, one of them fascinated by his brother's tail, trying to capture it as it wagged on the ground. She tried to watch them to get her mind off food, but that only went so far. At least Thunder didn't care so much about the water dish, and she had plenty to drink.

As the yard dimmed suddenly around her, she first thought hunger was interfering with her vision, before remembering Mr. X had said he would turn down the lights at night. By the time the dimming stopped, the scenery around her was barely lit, as if by the light of a half-moon. It took several minutes for her eyes to adjust to the point that she could see the doghouse.

Thunder had made for the doghouse. Clarissa didn't know how long Thunder had occupied the cell before she arrived, but obviously it was long enough that he knew the drill. Mr. X must have turned down the temperature of the floor in advance of dimming the lights -- not that that would do Clarissa much good in making the doghouse a daytime hiding place, since the doghouse would probably only be useable for the last few minutes of daylight, and she'd never be able to even predict when those minutes would be.

Her heart leapt with excitement at the opportunity -- finally, a chance to eat! She didn't need to see the food bowl, her nose led her quickly to it. As she ate, she looked around for a good place to sleep. There was a slight rise just to the left of the doghouse -- maybe that would be good.

It was about ten minutes, and she was just finishing eating, before she sensed the coolness of the air -- it had been very comfortable all day, but now she was suddenly covered in goose-pimples. She had decided she could stand a cool, wet night, remembering the long night with Natalie in the ditch. Actually, she remembered, that had been a pretty warm, humid night. She was used to no other kind, in fact. She knew other parts of the world got very cold in winter, and she'd always wanted to take a trip sometime to see snow and build a snowman, but her father had never been the travelling type -- not with a whole barn full of girlcows to take care of.

So with the exception of standing in front of an open refrigerator, she didn't have much experience with cold, and believed she'd be able to handle it.

By the time she started shivering, it occurred to her that the puppies were feeling cold too, and they had no idea what to do about it. Admittedly they all had fur coats, but the idea of them all huddled and shivering when warmth was just a few feet away alarmed her.

She trotted over to one of them, and suddenly wondered just how to get him moved into the doghouse. The image of a mommy-bitch she had once seen picking up one of her pups with her mouth flashed through her head, and in the absence of any better ideas, she decided that would have to do. She bent and clamped her teeth on the hair on the back of his neck, and picked him up as he yelped in surprise. She trotted to the doghouse and deposited him just inside it. The warmth inside, so oppressive earlier, felt welcoming now, and it was hard to back away into the cold air outside. At least the exercise was warming her, she thought to herself, as she went to fetch another puppy.

By the time they were all inside, she felt a little more comfortable, even slightly sweaty from her efforts. She made a quick trip to the litter box for a bedtime pee, and returned to that area she'd picked out earlier to see if she could make herself comfortable there.

By the time she stretched out along the ground and wriggled slightly to get herself situated just right, her head up on the rise, she was shivering again. It seemed colder than it had been earlier, and she wondered just what temperature the thermostat was set for. She curled up a little tighter, shivering constantly now. And then the rain started.

Not rain, exactly. It was more of a heavy mist, but it chilled her completely to the bone. She scrunched her eyes shut and screamed out in frustration. There was no way in the world she could spend a night this way. She would have to, as Mr. X wanted her to, sleep with the dogs.

It took her several attempts to get up -- her joints didn't want to move, and her convulsive shivering was interfering, but at last she stood on her hooves and nearly ran around the side of the doghouse and in through the door, standing inside it with her teeth chattering. Simply being inside wasn't enough, though, her body overriding her mind's revulsion and compelling her take advantage of the body heat available. She lay down on her side and wriggled closer to Thunder until her chest was against his, her higher hind leg finding its way between both of his, her upper foreleg laying along his side and her lower one worming its way underneath him. He grumbled absently, half-awakened, and settled back into sleep as she clung to him, his warmth flowing into her as if it were literally a fluid.

And so Clarissa and Natalie both slept that night nestled with a companion -- Natalie miles away in Wendy's arms, Clarissa with her... owner. Both of them seeping tears of loss.