NINE AND A HALF YEARS LATER

"Bonnie, tell Dad that hammering's driving me nuts!" Ashley chinned the volume button on the TV remote once more in frustration, her eyes pleading with her sister to find some way to give them a break from the clamor.

Bonnie sighed as she squeezed the last bit of milk out of Adrienne's breast. Today was her turn milking her sisters; the B-girls rotated that chore in the afternoons, their mother doing the morning milkings after all the kids had gone off to school. "You know there's no help for it. Me and the other girls need a place to live after we're converted, and that's just a couple of months away. Anyway, they're only working on that a few hours a day."

Ashley looked around the stall, Gwen and Jenny's old one, as Bonnie moved the stool so she could start milking Ashley. "Maybe you guys could just squeeze into these ones. Aunt Heidi and Aunt Haley have never had any trouble living with Aunt Sami, and they've been in there for years. We could make room for you."

Adrienne looked at Ashley in surprise. "Ummm, Ash, we should talk about stuff like that beforehand, don't you think?"

Ashley rolled her eyes, as Bonnie stroked her right breast and milk began squirting into the pail. "I'm sorry, it's just all the noise makes it hard to think in here."

Between volleys of hammer blows, Adrienne heard the moans and sighs from the next stall, Monica's and Jill's old one, where Annie and Abby were going at it hard. She grinned at Ashley. "Soon as Bonnie's out of here, we could start making some noise of our own."

Ashley choked back a giggle, as Bonnie said irritably, "Hold still. If you want me out of here. Anyway, Bret said they're about halfway through. They'll have it done in about a month."

Ashley sighed heavily. "Not if Bret keeps smashing his finger with the hammer." Adrienne laughed.

Bonnie finished up and left the stall. Hesitating before entering Annie's and Abby's, not wanting to interrupt their lovemaking just as it seemed to be reaching its peak, she knelt next to the shelf on which the heads of her departed aunts were displayed and idly brushed her fingers lightly through their hair. Dad had set them in pairs representing their partnerships through their adult life: Karen and Kirstie together -- Bonnie didn't remember Aunt Kirstie at all, so it was harder for her to relate to her, but she remembered Gwen and Jenny very well, and stroked their hair fondly. For the time being, Aunt Jill's head was on the shelf by itself, as she waited to be paired with Aunt Monica when her time came to be roasted. Monica was spending her nights among the six occupied stalls in rotation; Ashley had said she'd been learning a lot about sex from her, and Bonnie was looking forward to hosting her after her conversion.

She went back to Aunt Karen for a moment. Somehow she'd gotten a bit of a cowlick near her ear -- literally a lick from one of the girlcows, no doubt -- and Bonnie brushed her hair flat, nodding as she saw she'd fixed the problem. She hadn't gotten to know Karen as well as the others, with her gone every weekend, but she knew her aunts respected Karen and loved her. Mom talked to Clarence on the phone occasionally; he had saved up enough money so that he had recently bought a newly-converted girlcow at an auction, and Mom said they were very happy together.

Bonnie wondered whether her own head would be on this same shelf someday. By that time Dad might have retired and brought the shelf into the house; or she might end up going with Bret when he started his own farm. She suspected most of her nineteen younger sisters would end up at Bret's. Bonnie hadn't decided on a stall-partner yet -- she felt close to Belinda, but being with Becky might be fun. If one of the girls went to college, Bonnie might even share a stall with Aunt Monica, though she would be less than a year from her barbecue by that time.

She suddenly realized that, during her daydreaming, Annie and Abby had quieted down. She looked in their stall, and saw that they had finished and were snuggling together, both sweaty but with their breathing slowing to normal. She dragged the pail with her into the stall. "Guys ready?"

Annie lifted her head from its resting place between Abby's hind legs and giggled. "Yeah, get these damned clamps off." Bonnie set the stool down, unconsciously brushing her fingers past her own breasts under her t-shirt, amazed and a little excited to think that they would be huge like Annie's and Abby's in a few months, and continued her chore of milking her sisters.

Sandy wriggled her head to get it resting comfortably against Sally's tummy as they settled in to watch TV. In the next stall, she heard Rachel and Rhiannon giggling and making other familiar sounds from their foreplay. Recognizing the sound of Tally's and Reesy's agitated voices approaching from the barn door, she twisted her head back to look at Sally in surprise. Seconds later the two teenagers appeared at their stall gate, wearing ingratiating smiles. Sandy's eyes bulged when she saw the rest of what they were wearing, and she scrambled to sit up, Sally behind her doing the same. Sandy began in a shocked voice, "Tally, what are you..."

Tally interrupted her. "Mom, Aunt Wendy won't let us go out like this. We don't see what the big deal is. Could you and Mommy Sally tell her it's okay?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sally with the same expression she herself probably had. Both girls were wearing stand-alone bra cups covering their newly-developed breasts, the cups evidently held on by suction or by tape; aside from exotically strapped-on high heels, the only other items of apparel were matching denim shorts, coming down at most four inches from the beltline, slit up the side-seam all the way to the belt. They must have had thong panties on underneath. With their light blonde hair, which they had just last month had their Aunt Wendy cut extra-short in imitation of their mothers' girlcow cuts, framing their pixieish faces, the overall effect was a disconcerting blend of innocence and trashiness. Sally was moving her jaw to speak, but nothing was coming out. Sandy swallowed hard and sputtered, "Wh-where did you get those?"

Reesy sighed and rolled her eyes. "We ordered the bras from a Web site. And the shoes. Aren't they cool? And the shorts, we sort of made those ourselves. Or styled them, anyway. So anyway, we're going to Girlburger. Could you just tell Aunt Wendy it's all right?"

Sally gathered herself and clenched her jaw. "No! No way. Go back in the house and change. And come back out here before you go."

Tally's jaw dropped, and she looked at Sandy. "Mom?"

Sandy shook her head vehemently. "No! Go change."

Reesy's lower lip was quivering. "But... but Trisha's coming by in, like, fifteen minutes. She just got her license. We're just going to Girlburger and meet up with some other girls."

Sally's eyes narrowed. "And boys?"

Tally threw her hands in the air. "Okay, yeah, there'll be a couple of boys there too. We won't go anywhere or do anything. We'll just sit in Girlburger."

Sandy, breathing hard through her nose, said, louder than she meant to, "You're fifteen. You're not going out dressed like that. We might need to rethink this whole going out thing. Both of you stay in tonight and we'll talk about it tomorrow."

Both girls gasped, horrified. Tally shouted, "That's so unfair!" You can't just..." Words failed her. Reesy looked pleadingly at Sally. "Mom, PLEASE..."

Sally shook her head. "No! Stay in tonight. Mommy Sandy and I have to decide what to do."

Her hands clenched, Tally rasped, "I hate you!" Reesy wailed, "You're the worst parents in the world!" Sobbing, they turned and ran towards the front of the barn.

Both mothers stared frozenly at the gate where their daughters had been standing, hardly breathing, hardly noticing when Clarissa and Natalie entered from next door. The two older cows crept cautiously towards Sandy and Sally, their presence unacknowledged until they stood right in front of them. Clarissa asked softly, "You guys okay?"

Sally, startled, looked suddenly at Clarissa. Her face crumpling, she put her chin on Clarissa's shoulder and started sobbing, her twin doing the same with Natalie.

Reesy and Tally ran into Ashley's and Adrienne's stall, threw themselves down in a sitting position, wrapped their arms around their shins, and each buried her face against her knees, wailing inconsolably, too loudly to hear their mothers crying. The two young girlcows had been lazily sharing their milk with each other after dinner, Adrienne sucking on Ashley's breast when the argument broke out, but they'd risen to their hooves and were listening intently by the time it was over. Each chose one of the girls and rubbed her forehead against her cousin's upper arm for several minutes before the girls had calmed down enough to acknowledge them. Reesy finally looked up, her chin still quivering, and threw her arms around Adrienne's shoulders, rubbing her tear-streaked face against her girlcow cousin's, Tally doing the same with Ashley. Behind them, Gail slipped quietly out of the barn to go tell her mistress that the girls weren't going to be going out tonight.

Sniffling, Sally gained control over her breathing just enough to choke out, "Clary, have we just wasted fifteen years?"

Clarissa pressed up more tightly against Sally, nuzzling her neck, still experimenting to find the physical contact she'd find most soothing. "Shhh, no, no. You're raising two beautiful daughters, both of you. This is just a cloud going by."

Sandy moaned, "You heard them. We're the world's worst parents. They're probably right. Why did we think we could raise kids? It's hard enough with a complete body." Her voice wavered and she started crying again.

Natalie, watching Clarissa to see what she was doing while trying out some comforting tricks of her own, said softly, "You've been great with the kids, all their lives. Now you're the parents of fifteen-year-olds. Nobody survives that without a lot of bumps and bruises." She smiled, hoping to see a similar expression on Sandy's lips; it didn't work.

Sally took a deep breath -- she was feeling faint from lack of air. "Clary, did we do the right thing? Were we too hard on them?"

Clarissa tried the smiling trick too, with no better success. "Sally, I saw them going by. Both directions. You think Dad ever would have let you out of the house dressed like that? Go with your parental instincts. You've got good ones."

Sandy looked up, listening. "That's them down in Ashley and Adrienne's, isn't it?"

Natalie nodded. "I think that's a good place for them right now."

Sandy groaned. "No, it's not. You know Ash is just going to take their side like she always does. They've always listened to her more than to us."

Natalie shook her head. "They listen to you a lot more than you think. And as far as what Ashley does... let's wait and see, okay? You could be surprised."

Tally, her face again buried against her knees, choked out in a muffled voice, "Why do they hate us, Ash?"

"Tally, look at me." She said a little louder, over Reesy's sobs, "You too, Reese." Both girls reluctantly focussed their red-rimmed eyes on their best friend.

Ashley tilted her head in exasperation. "They don't hate you. You know that."

Reesy sniffled. "Our friends are all going to think we're dorks. All their parents would let them go out like this."

Ashley shook her head. "Not all of them. Just a few, maybe. The ones who aren't paying any attention to them."

Tally's irritation bubbled to the surface; she wasn't used to this from Ashley. "Why are you on our moms' side?"

"There aren't sides, here, Tal. Everybody's on the same side. All we care about right now is you. Why do you suppose your moms wouldn't let you go?"

Reesy snapped, "They think we'll let the guys mess around with us. Like they didn't do it when they were our age. They'll deny it, though. They're so old, they don't even remember."

"Oh, Reese, I kind of think they remember. They remember all that kind of stuff. Like the guy who wrecked their hearts and almost broke them up from each other, just playing a little game with them."

Tally looked at her in astonishment. "What? Who?"

Ashley held her eyes and said slowly, "Your father."

Reesy sucked in so much air she nearly hyperventilated. She snarled, "What do you know about him? Our moms never talk about him, except saying he left town years ago. They told YOU all about him?"

Ashley shook her head. "Not them, no."

Tally, her face reddening, said hoarsely, "So they didn't want us! They're mad at him, so they take it out on us!"

Ashley, taken aback, shook her head fiercely. "No, no, no! Look, quiet down a minute, hold your breath, and just listen. At the far end of the stalls." She gestured with her head in that direction.

Glaring at her, both girls reluctantly followed orders. Behind the low murmur of televisions in the nearer stalls, they could hear a quiet sobbing in recognizable voices.

Reesy broke the silence in the stall. "Okay, they feel bad. They were too mean to us, and they know they were wrong."

Ashley rolled her eyes. "That's not it. I know exactly what they're feeling, and you do too. They're scared."

Tally's eyes narrowed. "Scared? Of what?"

"Not of what. For who. Look, remember that puppy you guys had when you were ten? My dad bought it for you, because you kept bugging your moms for a puppy?"

Both girls looked at each other, their anger replaced by a memory of sadness. "Of course we remember."

Ashley spoke carefully, knowing their feelings might still be intense -- though that in itself was useful here. "That day... when he got loose, though the little hole in the fence. When he got run over. You guys cried about it for two days. If you'd seen him getting out... if you'd seen him running for the street... what would you have done?"

Reesy gaped in astonishment. "I'd run after him and stop him. You know that."

"Even if he really, really wanted to run out in the street?"

Tally sighed. "He didn't know what could happen."

"So you'd stop him from doing what he wanted? You'd do anything to save him?"

Reesy's eyes narrowed. "Look, I know what you're saying. But we're not little puppies. We know what we're doing."

Ashley shook her head. "I know you think you do. But you don't know anything about all the cars coming. And worse. And no, I know you're not puppies. You're daughters. And your moms love you a hundred times as much as any puppy. They know about the cars, because they got hurt by one themselves, really badly. They just feel really lucky they didn't get killed, and especially lucky that they wound up with you guys. Maybe nothing bad would happen to you. That would just be pure, dumb luck, though. Look... I'm looking at you, and even I can see why your moms would be scared of you getting run over. And that's why they're crying. Well, one of the reasons."

Reesy looked deflated. "Wh-what's the other reason?"

Ashley looked back and forth at both of them. "They're also crying because you really hurt them a lot just now."

Tally opened her mouth, but couldn't find words to say. Reesy looked at Ashley, and turned her head in the direction of her mother's stall, then back again. Both girls stood for several minutes. Finally Tally looked at Reesy, and together they turned and headed for their mothers' stall.

Clarissa looked up as the girls appeared at the stall gate. She gave Natalie a silent head gesture, and they each gave Sally and Sandy a kiss and left the stall, giving a "Hi" and a smile to the two girls as they passed them.

Reesy and Tally stood silently, their eyes fixed on the floor, as their mothers watched them. Tally finally broke the silence. "Anything on TV?"

Minutes later, the girls were sprawled on their backs looking up at the screen, using their mothers' stomachs as headrests the way they had when they were little, smiling a little at the laugh lines. During a commercial, Tally twisted her head to look up at Sandy, finding that her mother was looking back at her. "Mom?"

"Yes, sweety?"

"I'm... sorry I said that. Earlier."

Reesy looked around to Sally. "Me too. I'm sorry, Mom."

Sandy bit her lip and smiled, her tears starting to flow one more time. "I know, darling."

Clarissa and Natalie came into Ashley's and Adrienne's stall and smiled at Ashley. Ashley sighed heavily in relief. "Did I do okay, Aunt Natalie?"

Natalie kissed her. "You were perfect, dear."

Ashley giggled. "Good coaching, I guess. How did you know this would happen?"

Natalie shrugged. "I didn't know what it'd be, exactly, but I knew something like this was bound to happen soon."

Clarissa beamed at Ashley. "We owe you one. You guys want to come over tomorrow night? Spend the night in our stall." She looked at both Ashley and Adrienne, and raised her eyebrows. "Natalie and I have been working out some new positions."

Both of the younger girlcows gaped at them, delighted. "Sure!"

At nine, Gail looked in, and saw that the girls and their mothers were both laughing at the end of the comedy show "Puppy Love," about a mute puppygirl who is much smarter than her husband-and-wife owners, mentally commenting wryly on their antics in an echoing voice-over. Gail smiled. "I need to secure your moms for the night and lock the gate. You guys better get to the house." She pulled Sandy's ceiling chain over and locked it to her collar.

Tally cleared her throat. "Ummm... we thought we might maybe spend the night." She looked across at Reesy, who nodded, and then twisted around to look up at Sandy. "Okay, Mom?"

Sandy took a deep breath and scrunched around to give her daughter a kiss on the cheek. "Of course, sweety."