Clarissa jerked awake suddenly, provoking a low sleepy mutter by Thunder, with whom she was still entangled in their usual sleeping position. She calmed him by stroking his side with her foreleg, out of habit trying to postpone his awakening while her mind raced. How could she have forgotten? She was wearing her freedom behind her neck, if only she could find a way to use it.

Her dream had reproduced that conversation at the police station, the day she'd been registered, about her pass tag. She generally blanked out discussions about electronics, and it hadn't seemed so important at the time.

If she could just break the tag off somehow!

She strained her memory to make sure she was recalling correctly. The electronic gadget in the tag was something new -- she didn't believe her sisters had it, or at least it was new to her, when the officer had described it. If it was broken, it sent out an electrical signal containing her I.D. number. The stations receiving it could zero in on her location -- that was all they needed, wasn't it? To know who she was and where she was?

I just have to break the thing off somehow. Automatically she reached up with her foreleg, momentarily disturbing Thunder again. I don't have any hands! And my foreleg isn't long enough! I can't touch it!

She carefully disengaged herself from Thunder, able to avoid waking him after many days of practice. I've got to get some food before he's up. I can think about it while I'm doing that.

The lights were on, and the cell was warming. After making another mark in the soil next to the doghouse, sighing as she saw it was the eighteenth one, she trotted quickly over to the food dish, knowing the heat would force Thunder out of the doghouse soon.

I have to pinch it against something somehow.

She managed to eat her fill before having to back away from the dish quickly as Thunder's low growl sounded behind her. As usual, a couple of the puppies sought her out for a drink -- she suspected they would need her gradually less, but luckily Thunder himself had acquired a taste for her milk and was picking up most of the slack. As the puppies helped themselves to her nipples, she looked around the cell. She couldn't spot anything hard enough or sharp enough on the ground to snag the tag against. The door to the cell, which she had still never seen open, offered no handholds or anything pointy that would work. The doghouse did have some edges where the sides came together, and the litter box had corners near ground level. Maybe that would work.

She headed towards the litter box, and stopped, suddenly.

Could he be watching, now? What I'd be doing would look so obvious. He knows the pass tag is there, he's seen it. If he sees me on my back, rubbing the back of my neck against the corner of the litter box, what else could I be doing, other than trying to get the tag off? He'd know he had to put a stop to that. He'd probably drown it in glue or something, so I could never break it.

Now that she seemed to have a specific opportunity to free herself, she faced the fact she had avoided acknowledging until now: there was no other way. Other than breaking the pass tag, she realized, with a sudden access to nausea, she could never get out of here. The walls were solid and soundproof; she could never in a million years open the door; he would not even let her be awake when he opened it, and she had already discarded feigning sleep as a too-dangerous option -- she couldn't outrun him in an escape attempt anyway; clearly he was smart enough not to have let anyone share the secret of what he had down here, so visitors of any kind, let alone sympathetic ones, were impossible. Nobody but Mr. X would ever know she was here. He might die with the knowledge, not caring that it meant she would eventually be eaten by a starving Thunder, since he intended that fate for her anyway. She had been telling herself, desperately, that some means of escape would present itself, perhaps several different ones as time went by. She believed that because it was crucial for her to believe it.

But her mind told her, now, for a certainty, that she would spend the rest of her life here. Unless her pass tag could tell someone she was here.

It wasn't an opportunity to be thrown away lightly. She might try, awkwardly, using the corner of the litter box, or an edge of the doghouse, but only if she felt sure he wasn't watching -- and she didn't know how she could have that certainty. And she would very likely be tossing away her chance at freedom in a strategy that seemed unlikely to work anyway: the tag wasn't meant to be snapped easily, and trying to do it blindly, rubbing the back of her collar against a corner, with the D-ring holding the tag constantly getting in the way, seemed less likely to succeed the longer she thought about it. She knew she had the patience to spend hours in the attempt, even days, but every minute she spent trying it increased the chance he'd see her doing it.

She lay on her side and broke into tears, all of her initial excitement gone in a burst of frustration. Her freedom was so close! She could hear it jingle if she shook her head! And she had no idea how to use it.

The puppies, still thirsty, had followed her, three of them now crowding in front of her for a chance at two nipples, one periodically succeeding in pushing another out of the way. Tears still running down her cheeks, she rubbed a foreleg against them. They were the only breath of sweetness in this nightmare -- yet even they would soon add to her woes, wanting her for sex rather than sustenance.

She looked again at the litterbox, several times tensing her muscles to rise and move over to it, to try dislodging the tag, changing her mind each time.

He could be watching right now. I don't get that sense of him, but I can't afford to trust that. If he watches me rubbing my collar against the corner, my chance is gone forever.

She ground her teeth, breathing hard through her nose. She was beside herself with frustration, knowing she could only try removing the tag when he wasn't watching, and knowing she could never be sure when that was.

So turn it around, Clarissa.

Turn it around. She couldn't know when he wasn't watching, but there were times when she knew for sure that he was. Those times, increasingly rare, when he appeared as a ghost. She must do something with that. But what? How could the knowledge that he was watching help her?

Thunder trotted towards her from the food dish. Her stomach clenched, suspecting he was horny already, but he headed towards the wrong end of her, and she realized in relief he simply wanted a drink. As he lowered his head and began sucking, she remembered that feeling of triumph when she had first manipulated the dog into helping her empty her breasts. Playing a minor-league version of Mr. X's game.

Could she step up to the next level? Could she manipulate Mr. X somehow? Talk about turning it around! But there must be some way. Something she could say to him.

She kept running up against the same problem: no matter what she said to him, he couldn't afford to remove the tag himself. "By the way, Mister X, I was wondering if you'd mind letting the police know I'm here." Sure, Clarissa, that ought to work.

Thunder finished milking her and started to patrol the cell, ever on the alert for hypothetical intruders. Clarissa barely noticed.

One of the puppies, coming up from hehind her, suddenly straddled her hind leg, an instinct kicking in for the first time encouraging him to hump anything vaguely the right shape. It took Clarissa a few seconds, in her surprise, to recognize what he was doing. She kicked forward with her leg, sending him flying with a yelp of alarm, to land a few feet in front of her. Not wanting to continue presenting him the same target, she raised herself laboriously onto her hooves, only to hear Thunder trotting up behind her, ready to take her once more. She moaned and closed her eyes tight, pushing back as he thrust against her, using her pussy to squeeze his organ, experience telling her it seemed to get him finished faster. She sighed in relief as she heard his howl of orgasm, glad another session was over with, and opened her eyes to see the puppy in front of her, absorbing a fascinating learning experience. She groaned, knowing he and his brothers would all be trying to practice on her leg within days, and it was only a matter of time before they were all big enough for the real thing.

She crossed the cell to the water dish, trying to recover her lost train of thought. Manipulation. Something she could say to Mr. X. Some way of getting around the fact that he knew he mustn't remove the tag.

Knew he mustn't...

Clarissa froze in midstride, her jaw dropping, her breathing quickening, deepening.

What if he didn't know?

Why was she assuming he did?

She thought back, again, to that day at the police station. Tom asking about the tag, how it worked. Tom hadn't known about it, not in detail. The electronic alarm was something new. Her own brother, owner of a dairy farm, had read a little about it, but still had to ask questions.

Mr. X wasn't a dairy farmer. Was he? Could he have some other cows, out in the lost world outside this cell?

If he did, then why wasn't one of them here instead of herself? He'd had to steal a cow to get one for the cell. He must not have any others.

So he might not know anything about the tags. Everybody knows what pass tags are for, but the new little radio gadget...

A small bell went off in her head. She wasn't feeling his presence, but in case he was there, she realized she didn't want him to see her standing lost in thought, nor even make it clear that she was even capable of thought anymore. She wandered slowly to the water bowl.

Okay, she thought as she drank. What if he doesn't know? What do I do? I still can't just ask him to take the tag off. He'd get suspicious. He might look into it.

Behind her, she could see Thunder was in nap mode, no doubt conserving his energy for another late-morning rutting episode. Glad of his habitual somnolence, she moved over to the food bowl.

She sighed as she ate, angry at the idiot who designed the tag. It's not working as planned, is it? Didn't you stop and think the thief might not take the thing off at all? She remembered why it didn't send out a constant signal, but...

Her gasp as the idea broke upon her made her suddenly choke on the mouthful of food she was chewing, and she swallowed it convulsively before breaking into a coughing fit, automatically trying not to spit out any of the chunks of girlmeat mixed in with it. But she had it! She had it!

But could she do it? Butterflies churned in her stomach as she pictured the effort. She knew herself too well, she realized. She knew how hard this would be for her.

Not in a physical sense. She simply had to tell him something. The trouble was that the something she had to tell him was a whopper of a lie.

Natalie lay facing Kirsten, the latest of the sisters to share Natalie's stall for the night. They had shared their milk and made love in the morning, and were resting now, their breasts pressed together, their hind legs intertwined. Natalie was laughing. "Why did she even have to say anything?"

"Well, see, that's just Clary. You can always read what she's thinking in her face. I mean, I came downstairs, and Clary and five or six of the other girls were in the den watching TV, and I came slamming in, and before I could say anything I see this look on Clary's face, and as soon as I look at her she panics and says, 'I didn't break your CD!' So I say, 'So how did you know it's broken then?' And her eyes just got big like she's trying to think of a way out of it, and she just started crying. See, I mean she understood the idea of lying, she just doesn't know how. So if she ever tells you anything, like 'I love you,' just believe her. She won't be lying about it."

Clarissa often thought about the girl whose meat she was eating -- meat she was sharing with Thunder and the puppies. She often felt her presence as she ate, but somehow never as strongly as now. Her stomach felt warm, though the food was cold.

She renewed her promise to the girl. I will get you out of here. I'll get both of us out of here. And when my family eats me, you'll be part of all of them. And the people who eat them. We'll go together, okay?

She felt a stronger radiance from inside, almost a physical touch. She had a sudden deja vu feeling, and struggled to place it. It hadn't been at the food bowl. She remembered then. She'd felt it when she woke up that morning. With the dream in her mind.

Clarissa gasped. You... Did you put that in my head somehow? That thing at the police station? Did you make me remember that?

She couldn't feel sure she was getting a yes-or-no answer on that. Was that the same almost-touch feeling? It was hard to tell.

Okay, listen. I could really, really use some help here. You know what I need to do, right? I just don't feel like I can do it by myself. I mean, I can do it, but I'll screw it up. If he gets any hint that I'm lying, then it's all over. If you can help me, I can get us both out. Can you help me? Somehow? She looked in wonder at the remaining food in the bowl. I mean, this was really your idea anyway, wasn't it? It's not just a coincidence it came to me while I was eating you. Right?

The warmth seemed to spread outward from her stomach, soon reaching her legs.

I'm going to take that as a Yes. But I'll hold you to it, okay? You've got to help.

She didn't want to leave the food dish, but she knew that it wouldn't be a safe place to be standing when Thunder woke up. She wandered aimlessly around the cell, only semi-aware of the puppies playing around her. On inspiration, she dragged her hoof near the doghouse, making another, extra tally mark on her "calendar." Just in case. She didn't know whether Mr. X even knew she was keeping track, but she needed an extra one. Just in case.

After the morning field trip, Karen accompanied Natalie back to her stall, and smiled at Natalie after Wendy had secured their collars and locked the stall door. "So do you feel like you've been getting to know us?" She was the last of the girls to spend the night with Natalie.

Natalie nodded. "And Clarissa too. I guess you know I've been getting the others to tell me stuff about her. So I hope you've got your Clary story all figured out." She giggled and looked away. "I feel a little nervous with you."

"What, just with me?" Karen looked at her questioningly.

"Well... yeah. I mean... all of the other girls are older than me too, and Kirsten's the same age as you, but... I don't know, you're really like everybody's big sister. I don't even think it's an age thing. I'll bet you were always kind of... grown up."

Karen laughed. "Thanks, I guess. It seems funny you'd say that, because I don't know if I want to be that way. Oh, no, I'm not insulted, I didn't mean it like that," she said quickly as Natalie frowned. "But if I get to pick somebody to be like, I think it'd be Clary. She just... cares so much. About everybody. If something's important to you, then it's important to her too. She's like that with people she doesn't even know. That's why they really warm up to her."

A tear spilled down Natalie's cheek as she nodded. "She'll be back. Won't she?"

Karen moved forward and kissed the wetness on Natalie's cheek, and rubbed her own cheek against it. "Count on it. She'll get somebody to help her. She's like that."

The time seemed to pass endlessly. She waited for her mysterious sense to tell her, but no bells from that quarter. She couldn't just start addressing the mirror in hopes he was there -- whatever she said might be recorded for later playback, perhaps much later, and that would wreck the entire plan: she had to speak to him at a time when he could act immediately, or at least within the next day, anyway. Even just looking at the mirror expectantly, hoping he would appear, was dangerous. Timing was everything.

She had fed the puppies, and Thunder, and shaken off two of the puppies again, experimenting with humping her leg as she lay near the water dish. Twice during the day Thunder had approached her, his erection visible, and she knew better than to lay there when he wanted it -- he tended to be very insistent when he was horny, and giving in seemed far less dangerous than the alternative.

Her internal clock was telling her that it must be near lights-out time -- the clock being the constantly-growing tingling between her hind legs, which she had found no way to relieve other than her distasteful nighttime performance in the doghouse with Thunder. And at last, there it was -- she had no words to describe the feeling, only its consequence, the knowledge that he was in that room, beyond the mirror, watching his favorite pet.

This is it, she said to the unknown girl whose meat was part of her body. If you're there, I need you now. Come to me now. And I sure hope you're better at this than I am.

She stood and ambled towards the mirror, a smile blossoming on her lips and widening as she drew closer. She stood, looking at the point where he usually appeared. She realized she felt calm, and found that encouraging.

She blinked as he suddenly appeared in front of her, his usual smile damped slightly by a puzzled look. She knew he was wondering how she'd known he was there. "Evening, Sprite. I see you're looking cheerful tonight. I'm glad you're coming to accept your new home."

Clarissa continued looking at him, silently, smiling, remembering the danger of speaking out of turn. He did like maintaining the fiction of her being a dumb animal, but she knew his curiosity could hold out only so long.

"Enough with the cat-swallowed-canary look. Wrong species." She continued staring at him, and at last he rolled his eyes and snorted. "Okay, fine, speak."

The voice that came from her throat seemed to be hers, but she wasn't altogether sure she was causing it. Within herself she focussed on the necessary facts. What day it was. What time it was. "I hope you've been keeping your livingroom clean. You're going to have some unexpected guests."

His eyes widened, his jaw dropping momentarily before he collected it. "Excuse me?"

She hadn't even been sure what she'd say next. She knew, now, she didn't need to worry about holding up her end of the conversation. It was taken care of. "I'm sure you've noticed that metal tag on the back of my collar." She shook her upper body, making the tag jingle.

He blinked, his head starting unconsciously to shake back and forth as he tried to keep up with the turns in the conversation. "I'm sure there will be a point to all this."

"Seems a little bigger than it needs to be, doesn't it?"

"And you're going to tell me why that is?"

"So there's room for the radio."

The headshaking continued, with a short burst of laughter. "Just called headquarters, did you?"

She shook her head. "Not me. It does it automatically. Mine does it at 6 pm on the twenty-third of each month. It sends a signal to the police. If the signal matches up with any stolen slave reports, well, I'm sure you get the idea."

Her smile broadened as she watched him bite his lip. A warm flush shot through her body. He's buying it!! He's buying it!! She waiting for the date to sink in. He had to realize it sooner or later.

There! It was all she could do to keep from hopping with excitement as she saw a smile spread across his face to match her own. "Well, lucky for me dogs can't count."

She let a little of the internal uncertainty inside her, raging under the surface, seep out. A measured dose. "W-what do you mean?"

"Not that dogs have much need of a calendar anyway. But today's the twenty-second."

She was past the hard part. Now she could feel free to show all the terror she had kept bottled. "N-no! It c-can't be..."

His grin was triumphant, his sigh of relief audible. "You've lost track of the days in there, Sprite. Not that you need to bother with that. This is your home for the rest of your life. Now be a good dog and go to bed." He made a shooing gesture with his hand, and disappeared. In a moment, she could feel the air start to turn cooler as the lights dimmed.

She turned, knowing he must still be watching, and made a show of dragging herself disconsolately towards the doghouse, where Thunder and the puppies were already headed.

Thunder lifted his leg for her as she arrived, his erection growing, and she suppressed a groan. Okay, one last time. Please let this be the last time.

After taking care of her own drug-inspired need as well as Thunder's, she lay quietly, against Thunder, feeling his chest rise and fall against her own, her eyes closed, but her mind racing. Will I hear him? Will I be awake when he does it?

Sleep was out of the question, and each minute took an eternity to pass. She tried to convince herself Mr. X had no choice. He had to do it, and he had to do it tonight. What was taking him so long?

At last she heard a soft hiss above her, high up in one of the corners of the doghouse, and immediately started feeling drowsy. Her heart leapt, knowing it was happening now. So that's how he did it before. That's how he made sure I was asleep when he... when he...

Warren realized finally that the ringing telephone wasn't part of the dream. He reached out blindly and found the receiver, growling "Hello?" or something approximate. He looked at the clock. The red-lighted display said 3:13.

"I - I'm sorry to wake you, Detective Warren. This is Cindy, at the station." The night dispatcher. "I've got a message on the computer that a slave pass tag just sent a signal. There's a note here I'm supposed to call you if that happens."

Warren sat upright instantly. "What's the number?"

"The I.D. number, sir? The message says the I.D. was garbled. It starts with 1-0, and that's all they got."

"I'll be there in ten minutes." As he started to hang up, he brought the receiver back up. "Call Price at home. I want him there too."

"Yes sir."

Warren was still rubbing his eyes as he entered the station. To Cindy at the desk, he said, "Price here yet?"

"No sir, but he's coming." She looked at him wide eyed, apparently stunned at the idea of anything happening on her shift.

"Send him back when he gets here." He threw open the door behind the desk, hearing "Yes sir" as he headed down the hallway.

He sat impatiently drumming his fingers as he waited for his computer to warm up, then riffled through papers on his desk for the address of the Web site. As soon as his computer screen settled he started up his browser and typed in, with several backspacings to correct hurried typing errors, the URL for the slave-locator site. Price came in after a token knock as the site window opened on the screen, his smudged shirt partially tucked in. Warren frowned, remembering he himself was wearing yesterday's underwear, but at least it was out of sight. Price came around behind the desk so he could see the monitor. "Any info yet?"

"Just getting there." He clicked a link for "Recent Signals," finding one with today's date, at 3 am. The listing included an I.D. number which was, indeed, 10 followed by question marks. He clicked on that one. He drummed his fingers again as a map was slowly rendered on the screen. It proved to be a map showing the town and several miles of the surrounding area. Road names appeared on it, and a few small yellow dots, which Warren recalled signified the locations of receiving antennae. Superimposed over the map was a large, red circle, transparent in the sense that words and lines on the map could be seen through it. Based on the scale of the map, the circle was about two hundred yards in thickness, and about five miles across. Warren's eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement.

From behind his shoulder, Price said, "I thought it was supposed to pinpoint a particular location. I don't see one. And what's that circle mean?"

"Damned if I know. Where's that phone number?" He against searched through piles of papers on his desk, gave up and clicked the Back button. The previous screen showed a number to call for further information. He dialled it, and identified himself and his police unit to the sleepy-sounding man who answered, meanwhile recalling the map to his screen. "I'm looking at a map for a missing slave signal, and I can't figure out what it's telling me."

"Hold on. Let me get it on my screen. Which one is it?"

"Latest one. Came in around 3 am." He waited for the man to find it.

"Okay, looking at it now. That circle is the area the signal came from."

Warren was appalled. "You're saying the best you can tell me is it's from somewhere inside the circle?" Nearly the entire town was in it.

"Not in it. On it. Somewhere in the red area."

Warren stared at the map, dumbfounded. "How... why is it like that? How do you figure out it's somewhere on that circle?"

"See those two receiving stations close to the south end of the circle? With the circle running between them? They're the only two stations that picked up the signal. We need three to pinpoint a single location. With two, this is the best we can do. Looks to me like the circle is about..." He paused. "half as far from the more northern station as it is from the other one. The system is judging that based on the relative strengths of the signal received at the two stations -- it can tell the signal originated half as far from the one station as the other. So that's what the circle is: all the places that are half as far from the north station as they are from the south station. And the reason it's so thick is because of uncertainty in the measurement."

Warren looked helplessly at the screen. "But we're just talking a few miles here. Why didn't the signal go any farther than that? Why did only two stations pick it up?"

"Could be lots of reasons. Weather. Obstruction. Weak battery. Was it a really old pass tag?"

"I don't even know for sure whose it is, but I've got a good idea. It was just a few months old. Supposed to last for years, aren't they?"

"Supposedly, yeah. The whole thing is kind of new, you know. Probably still some bugs."

Warren muttered, "Bugs, yeah." Into the phone, he asked, "Anything more you can tell me?"

He could almost hear the shrug over the phone. "That's about it. All I know is what I can tell from what I'm seeing."

Warren mumbled "Thanks" into the phone and hung up. On reflection, he muttered "Shit." He related the content of the conversation to Price, to the extent that he understood it.

Price sighed. "So what do we do? Check on everybody who lives on the circle? There've got to be hundreds of buildings in that, homes and businesses, and parts of a few dozen farms."

Warren stared at the screen, his chin on his hands. "No time." He talked quietly, mainly to himself. "It's got to be Clarissa, right? We don't have any other stolen slave reports going. Three weeks, and suddenly her tag gets broken. Probably just sold her, and the buyer didn't know about the tags." He was softly pounding the desk without noticing it. "New owner means a new place. Might be going to move her today. Got to try to find her today."

Price's jaw dropped. "Need about thirty or forty deputies for that. Be nice if we had that many."

"Got to be a way to narrow it down. She's in one place. Got to find that place." His eye wandered back and forth between the two yellow dots, the receiving stations, and suddenly started looking at the rest of the yellow dots on the screen. "Why didn't these other stations get anything? Look at this one here. The circle almost runs through it! Why didn't it hear anything?"

Price examined the screen. "Well, she might not be at this end of the circle. That tower's really close if she's sitting here," he pointed, "But not if she's down at this end."

"Right! Let's block out part of the circle. Shit, this will be easier if we print it." He clicked the print button, and sat tapping his pencil quickly on the desk as the printer slowly ground out a copy.

Warren yanked the paper out of the printer tray as soon as it appeared, reaching for a marker as he did. "Okay, everything from here on up is closer to this receiver than the ones that heard her, so get rid of that..." He drew a slash across the circle and scribbled over the discarded portion. "And on this side, scratch this part out..."

Only the southernmost arc remained. Price looked over the map. "We ought to recheck the farms in that area..."

Warren suddenly jabbed his finger at a point on the bottom of the arc. "There! Remember who lives here?"

Price gasped. "Gordon! But we checked him out more thoroughly than anybody else! And that's almost the closest point to the receivers! Why's the signal so weak there, of all places..."

The words spoken by the phone minutes ago came back to him. "Obstruction! She's underground!"

Price shook his head. "Marci and I looked at homes in that area. They don't have basements. The soil makes it too hard to..."

"He's a builder! He doesn't give a shit how hard it is. He probably dug it out himself!" Warren jerked the phone out its cradle.

"Cindy! Get Judge Fielder on the phone. You should have his number there. I need a warrant. Transfer him to me when you get him..."

"Uhhh, sir?" Price tapped at his shoulder. "It's 4:15. I don't think the judge would be happy..."

"Shit! Okay, Cindy, hold off for now. I'll call him in a couple of hours. Price, drive over to Gordon's and park out of sight. Take your own car, not a black-and-white. Stay there till I get there, and make sure nobody leaves. I'll get the echo sounder out of the supply room..." a device that detected underground cavities, "...and I'll meet you there around seven. Go!" He waved his arm.

"Yes, sir!"

Price was glad he'd had the foresight to get his thermos from his locker and fill it with some of Cindy's coffee. He rubbed his eyes, determined to stay awake. He was slouched in the car, about fifty feet from the entrance to the drive that led to Gordon's house. At about six, a car entered the drive, the driver looking like Gordon. Price hesitated. Warren had said not to let anyone leave. It wasn't clear what he should do if someone arrived. Possibly it was the buyer, coming to take the girl away. But as long as he was still there, it should be okay.

Clarissa winced, her head swimming as she returned to consciousness. Her buttock tingled with the familiar sting -- he must have given her a shot again. That seemed to be the strategy, a whiff of gas to put her to sleep, then injection of a stronger drug to make sure she stayed that way.

She carefully untangled herself from Thunder and emerged from the doghouse. The pass tag! Is it gone? She shook her head, her collar moving with her neck without jingling.

Why was she still here? Where are they? Did the thing work or not? Her legs felt weak with anxiety. They should be here by now. Why is it taking so long?

Out of habit, she headed immediately for the food dish, and froze. Mr. X was in the mirror, watching her. She barely noticed the reflection of her own shaven head. She was getting used to that.

"Morning, Sprite. I've had a long night, and I'm not happy about that. Took a long drive and discarded your little trinket. I appreciate you telling me about it, but you were a bad dog not to tell me sooner. I think a couple of days stuck in the bench would be a good lesson."

Clarissa's heart seemed to stop. The tag hadn't worked, nobody was coming to rescue her, and now she'd spend forty-eight hours completely immobilized while the dogs used her for milk and for sex.

And worst of all, her rescue plan had failed. She would live here for years, for the rest of her life, until Thunder ate her. She felt a warm stream of urine dribbling down her leg.

"Have fun on your last day of free movement for awhile. If you..."

He stopped, as that musical tone that had interrupted him once a couple of weeks earlier sounded again. She saw him give his wristwatch a startled look, and heard him mutter, "Shit." Immediately his image winked out.

Her heart pounded.

Gail laughed as Jenny licked the tiny slice of pizza out of her hand. "That tickled."

Jenny grinned at her. "And you don't like that, right?"

Kirsten pointed with her hoof. "Gail, can I get that piece right there?" She indicated one that had an especially large chunk of girl-sausage stuck in the cheese.

Natalie looked around. In the last week she had spent the night with, shared stories with, and made love with each of the girlcows in the barn. She knew the empty feeling of being without Clarissa would never go away, but she knew that they felt that same emptiness, and sharing it made her feel she really was part of the family. She laughed with Gwen as they went for the same slice proffered by Gail, and let Gwen take it, playfully rubbing her hip against Gwen's.

Wendy felt distracted. She'd heard Tom's cell phone a few minutes ago, which he'd finally gotten in the habit of taking to the field with him, followed moments afterward by the sound of Tom's running footfalls in the yard, going up to the house. It seemed that if it was something really important he'd tell her, but the nagging feeling that something was wrong persisted.

She tapped Gail on the shoulder at last. "You've got things in hand here. I've got to go in the house and check on something." Gail nodded, and Wendy turned and left, trying not to run.

She entered the kitchen through the back door. "Tom, what..."

She stopped dead. Tom was standing there, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. In front of him, Detective Warren stood, beaming. He nodded at her, and said, suppressing a laugh while trying to sound casual, "Afternoon, Ms. Martin. Got something of yours here."

At his feet stood a girlcow Wendy didn't recognize immediately, her bald head darkened slightly with stubble. The cow looked up at Wendy, tears streaming down her face, and said in a choked voice, "Hi, Wendy." She gave Wendy a shaky smile.

Wendy walked slowly toward the cow, her jaw hanging open, tears springing to her own eyes. At last she dropped to her knees in front of her and hugged her, silently, for a very long time. She wrinkled her nose at the smell, but held her tightly.

Finally Clarissa said, "Can I see Natalie? Please?"

Wendy straightened up, and kissed Clarissa's cheek, sniffling. She smiled around her tears, tried to speak and gave up, and just nodded.

As Tom and Wendy neared the barn, Clarissa walking shakily between them, Warren behind them, Wendy whispered to Tom, "You call Natalie out here. You look like you could act almost normal. I know I couldn't."

Tom nodded, and wiped his eyes again with the heel of his palm. "Normal enough?"

She choked back a giggle. "Close enough. Go ahead."

The girls looked up in surprise as Tom stuck his head around the doorway. "Can I see Natalie out here for just a minute? Just Natalie. I've got something to show you."

Natalie looked quickly at the other girls, seeking some sign that they might know what this was about. They looked back at her blankly, several of them shaking their heads in bewilderment.

Natalie backed out of the circle and approached Tom nervously. She couldn't think of anything she'd done to get herself in trouble, but Tom did seem to be having trouble keeping his mouth straight. It appeared as if he was very angry about something.

The rest of the girls watched, stumped, as she disappeared through the door, looking at each other and shrugging. Several of them turned back to Gail, looking for another pizza slice, before they heard Natalie's scream, and a loud smack of falling bodies. Karen, closest to the door, bolted first, followed by the rest.

They stopped together, just outside the door, trying to make sense out of what they were seeing. Natalie was sprawled on top of another girlcow, a bald-headed one who was on her back underneath, both girls laughing and crying wildly, kissing every inch of each other's face, Natalie shouting "I don't care what you smell like!"

Monica recognized her first, and screamed, "CLARY!!!" The shout started a stampede towards the two crying girls, stopped by Karen bellowing, "Hold it hold it!! Let Natalie have a few minutes!" As the rest of the girls halted, all of them starting to cry, Karen pointed her stubby foreleg at her sister and said, laughing as her own tears started, "And after that, Clary, you better be ready for us!"

Wendy felt exhausted by eight o'clock, as she put the dishes in the sink and rinsed them, deciding she'd wash them tomorrow. After Gail had gone home, nearly crushing Clarissa with a hug, Wendy had cooked dinner for Clarissa, Natalie, and Detective Warren as well as herself and Tom. Natalie had refused to be separated from Clarissa by so much as an inch the entire day, and they were now licking the last of the food off their plates on the floor, giggling at each other's bald head -- Natalie, as Wendy had bathed her and Clarissa earlier in the afternoon, had begged Wendy to shave her head and eyebrows, because she didn't want Clarissa to "feel different." During dinner, Warren had avoided any detailed discussion of what exactly what Clarissa had been through, since Clarissa was right there, but assured everyone that Gordon, sitting in jail downtown, would be locked up for many years to come. As for the dogs, the police had found that Gordon had a sister in another town; she had agreed to give the dogs a home.

Gordon shook his head in amazement as he told them all the role Clarissa had played in her own rescue, the clever ruse that had enlisted Gordon's unwitting aid in his own betrayal. And he made sure Clarissa knew that, without Natalie's insistent intervention, they would never have been alerted to Gordon as a suspect, without which they could never have zeroed in on Clarissa's location with as little information as the pass tag had managed to broadcast.

In the barn, the other girls were sharing the food Clarissa had been eating in her cell, not exactly enjoying the taste, but understanding that Clarissa wanted very badly for them all to consume what remained of the girl whose importance Clarissa had not precisely specified. Clarissa had begged Detective Warren to bring the food to the house. He had explained to her that it was needed for evidence, as feeding the girl's meat to the dogs was one of the many crimes Gordon would be charged with, but she convinced him that he didn't need all of it for that. At last he had relented and, after securing a sample for the police lab, had arranged for the rest of it to be delivered to the house. He knew Clarissa was convinced, for some reason, the girl had "saved" her somehow, and that Clarissa had promised in return that her sisters would eat the girl. After what Clarissa had been through, he couldn't find it in himself to deny her something she so desperately wanted.

Finishing with the dishes for now, as Tom said goodnight to Warren and shook his hand again, Wendy having given the detective a warm hug, she sighed with exhaustion and asked Tom to get the hide-away bed pulled out from under the livingroom couch.

Tom looked at her in surprise, glancing at the two girlcows, then back at his wife. "They're sleeping in the house?"

Wendy nodded. "I already told the other girls. They understand."

He shrugged. "Uhh, sure. I guess they'll both think the hide-away's more comfortable than what they're used to."

Wendy gave him a tired smile. "The hide-away's for us, dear."

Tom gawked at her, scratched his head and headed for the livingroom, muttering "At least we'll get to sleep together this time."

Clarissa giggled as her breasts gave a soft gurgling sound. They were pressed tightly against Natalie's. They lay together under the covers of Tom and Wendy's bed, their forelegs draped over each other's sides, their hind legs intertwined, each one's right thigh pressed against the other's pussy. The unfamiliar feel of the bedsheets cocooning them made Clarissa feel as if she was in a world of her own with Natalie, disconnected from all her memories of the last three weeks. She couldn't take her eyes away from Natalie's.

With her foreleg, she stroked the smooth skin of Natalie's newly-shaved head, and giggled again. "I miss the red."

Natalie smiled and kissed her, for the hundredth time. "I'm not missing anything, now that you're back."

"I thought about you all the time. That's what kept me from giving up." A tear rolled down her cheek, and she pressed up more tightly against Natalie, streams of milk from both of them tickling their breasts and running down onto the bed. She backed away slightly, laughing at the sucking sound of their tummies coming unstuck. "We're making a mess."

"Master Tom and Miss Wendy won't care. Miss Wendy put that plastic liner under the bottom sheet." She squashed her breasts against Clarissa's, making them squirt again, ducking her head to lap some of the sweet creamy milk off of her partner's breasts.

Clarissa kissed her again. "I wonder how long we would have spent kissing if I'd been here the last few weeks."

Natalie looked at the ceiling, calculating. "At least an hour, I guess. If we did it a thousand times." She grinned. "Let's make up for it."

There was no more conversation for the next hour, as Natalie's and Clarissa's lips clung together, while their thighs rubbed their pussies, and the puddle of milk grew underneath them.