THREE YEARS LATER

The Master of the Breeding Farm pulled the file folder towards him and opened it, looking vaguely at other papers in piles on his desk. "I only seem to have one file here. Is there -- oh, I see. My staff put both your dossiers in the same folder." He looked across at the two young women sitting across from him, their light-blonde hair, curly on one, straight on the other, just long enough to frame their cute, fair-skinned faces. They were dressed conservatively but attractively in white form-fitting button-up blouses and dark blue, not-quite-knee-length skirts. Their self-confidence in dressing that way impressed him. Most breeder applicants wore rather skimpy eye-catching outfits, trying to radiate erotic appeal. These two didn't need any artificial help.

Tally smiled at him across his desk, squeezing Reesy's hand in the chair next to her. "Yes sir, Mr. Tarrant. We'd like our applications considered together, if that's okay."

The Master opened their file again. "You're twins... no, wait." He looked more closely at the file, puzzled. "You have different mothers. You're not even sisters."

Reesy smiled. "We are, at least we think of it that way. We have the same father..." She gave Tally a little eyebrow twitch, knowing she was telling the truth, though the dossiers claimed the father was Tom, "And our mothers are sisters. So I guess that makes us more than half-sisters." She giggled. "We've always said we're three-quarters sisters."

Tarrant smiled appreciatively, and looked at the folder again. "You're eighteen -- no, wait, that would be next week." He muttered to himself, "I should have realized that. You're not collared." The puzzled look returned. "You have the same birthdate."

Tally grinned. "Our mothers like to do things together."

He raised an eyebrow, and went on. "You've finished high school. That's important. At this farm we do insist that our girls be high school graduates. I see you applied to our school here three years ago, but withdrew the request and finished at the public school."

Tally nodded, remembering the battle over the school. Their mothers had worried that they would be turning eighteen, becoming slaves, before graduating, and would no longer be allowed to attend the public school. Aunt Wendy had suggested sending them to the Breeding Farm school, where nearly all the students were children of slaves and they would be allowed to attend after their eighteenth birthdays. Their mothers had reluctantly agreed, but the girls had strenuously objected to leaving their friends and going to a new school. They had held to the promise they made at the time to take an extra class each semester during what should have been their free period, and had managed to graduate at the end of fall semester. Tom had taken Sandy and Sally to the small fall graduation ceremony, where they had been allowed to sit in the back. The pride radiating from the girls' mothers seemed to fill the whole room. "Yes, sir. We wanted to stay there."

Tarrant looked up at the girls. "You understand I can't interview you without your mothers' master's permission. I'm not seeing those forms here. Did you bring them?"

Reesy pulled two folded sheets out of her purse. "I have them here, sir."

Tarrant examined the sheets momentarily, then buzzed for his secretary. She entered, and he handed her the two forms. "Verify these, please, Miss Pell. Mr. Martin's number should be in the phone book." He looked back at the girls as the woman left the room, and gave them a tiny smile. "You understand, we had trouble a few years ago with daughters of slaves trying to get away from their masters."

Tally nodded. "Yes, sir. Our master knows all about us being here."

He flipped through several pages in the folder. "You've passed your physical exams -- we always check for fertility, of course, and a hip structure easily able to carry a large litter of babies, but also a certain minimum degree of attractiveness." He looked up and smiled. "No trouble there. At this stage the judgment is left with me, though. Now I want you to tell me: why do you want to come to the Breeding Farm?"

Tally looked at Reesy, then back at Tarrant. "I guess you've probably heard this a hundred times, sir, but we think it's really important, what you do here. What the girls do. I know you can see, in that folder, that we grew up on a dairy farm. A woman can only give her body for meat once, but the girlcows on the farm... they all get that special feeling of being able to provide food all their lives. At the Breeding Farm, we'd have that same kind of feeling, in a different way. A girlcow's milk only lasts for a week or two, but the lives we create here -- well, people will still be eating our daughters fifty, sixty years from now!" She shook her head in wide-eyed wonder. "That always blows me away."

He nodded, thoughtfully. "Why didn't you want to stay at the dairy farm?"

Reesy said quickly, "You've got to understand, we love it at home! But... I guess it's that we want to meet more people. At the farm, it's the same people all the time. Here, you've got..." She smiled. "Well, the parties are an attraction, of course. I guess that's the big thing, to us, getting to meet a lot of different people." Men from the surrounding communities attended the "parties" at the Breeding Farm, presenting certificates of health screenings to be admitted, and paying a reasonable fee. During the course of a party most of the men soon paired up with a breeders, and they went to a private room to get much better acquainted. The fees, along with the proceeds from the sales of offspring reaching adulthood, generated the funding for maintaining the farm and its excellent health system and schools. They were very proud of their schools -- a number of the best students were freed of their slave status to attend college. (They did have to sign contracts pledging a certain portion of their future earnings to the Breeding Farm.) On the other hand, a signifiant number of the breeders' daughters stayed on at the farm to become breeders themselves.

He looked at both girls intently. "You understand it's not all party, party, party, right? In fact, you'll spend most of the next twenty or so years pregnant. Only the girls who are between litters go to the parties."

Tally nodded emphatically. "Oh, of course, sir! Reesy and I plan to have at least a hundred babies beween us." She squeezed Reesy's hand warmly. There was nothing remarkable about their goal. Over a twenty year period, girls at the Breeding Farm usually had forty to sixty daughters each, in some cases as many as eighty, with the help of special fertility drugs to which even amateur breeders such as Wendy didn't have access.

"It doesn't bother you that you wouldn't get to raise them all yourselves?"

Reesy smiled. "Well, it depends on what you mean by 'raising them,' I guess. Our mothers couldn't do a lot of the usual 'mom' things, so our Aunt Wendy did a lot of that instead -- you know our mothers are girlcows, right?"

Tarrant gave her a startled look and flipped through pages in the folder again. "It says they're slaves, but I didn't realize what kind. That's quite... unusual."

Tally nodded. "Anyway, we'd keep in close contact with our girls and make sure they knew they were our daughters and we loved them very much. That's more important than anything else. That's what our mothers did for us."

He was impressed again, thinking he'd never heard the question answered in quite that way. "Obviously you like the idea of having children, then. It doesn't bother you that there almost certainly wouldn't be any boys?"

Reesy shook her head. "No, sir. We studied up on that a little before we came. We know scientists aren't really sure why human male sperm are so much weaker than female sperm, but it does explain why there are so many more women. And the fertility drugs you use here make women create a lot more eggs, but meanwhile they also give the eggs tougher cell walls, and the male sperm can hardly ever get through."

Tally continued the explanation. "And having all female babies is really what makes the breeding farms work. Having a normal mix of males and females wouldn't do anything but increase the population. Having all females is what increases the food supply."

Tarrant blinked. He had heard applicants address that subject before, but never so succinctly. "Have you girls thought about going to college?"

Reesy fluttered her free hand vaguely and let it drop. "We thought about it a little, and Master Tom was willing to free us to do it. And our moms wanted us to -- at least, we think they did. They didn't really say. Once we decided to come here, our moms really encouraged us. We just really wanted to be here."

Tally picked up again. "We like learning things, but we like to do it on your own. We know you've got a good library here, and we'll probably hit that pretty often." She laughed. "Especially when we're pregnant."

He laughed with her, finally. "Well, we'd like you to join us. That's a preliminary acceptance of your applications, by the way." He saw both their faces light up. "We have a standard one-week trial period for all new girls, in which they stay with us, attend the parties, live in the dorm, and decide for certain whether this is the kind of life they want. The other girls will be evaluating you, and their evaluations will be taken into account in the final decision to admit you. You aren't committed to stay here until your final acceptance becomes effective. One limitation, as part of your probationary status, is that you won't be allowed to engage in any private parties with the guests, for obvious reasons -- we can't have you getting pregnant before we know if you're staying." He smiled. "Not to mention that you're underage this week anyway. Just explain to any guest who suggests getting a room that you're on probation this week. When that happens, we often find the guest returns the next week." He looked at their outfits again. "You'll probably want to dress a little more appropriately for the parties. We do have the girls wear clothes at the parties -- the guests seem to like it that way. You can visit our wardrobe office."

Tally interjected, "Oh, we do have some of our own outfits. We designed them ourselves. Would that be okay?"

"Model them for the wardrobe mistress. It's fine if she gives the okay. You'll need to go there anyway for your probationary collars. They will look like the collars the other girls are wearing, but they don't describe you as our property. Oh, speaking of that, your master will be compensated if you do end up staying with us. Even though you aren't technically his property yet, we do recognize his rights. Let's see, what else?" He thought for a moment. "Oh, feel free to get drinks from the bar during the parties -- you won't find any alcohol in them, but they're quite tasty. The bar staff knows not to serve anything alcoholic to any of the girls. I assume you know why."

Reesy nodded. "Well, sure. Any of the girls might be pregnant and not know it yet." She bit her lip. "I hope you don't think this is pushy, but will we be able to permanently room together? That's really important to us."

He nodded. "There's no problem with that."

Tally asked, "What about visitors? Can we have family and friends visit us here? Especially... well, there's no problem about our moms coming and seeing us here, is there? Master Tom said he'd drive them here once a month, as long as it's okay for girlcows to be in the dorms."

He scratched his head. "Now, visiting girlcows, I can honestly say, is an issue that hasn't come up before, but I don't see a reason why not. I'm sure you're aware you won't be allowed to leave here except in special circumstances, so a lot of our girls have frequent guests. Many of our girls' mothers are slaves, and we don't have a problem with them visiting, as long as their master or a qualified representative is here with them." He smiled. "Well, you've answered all my questions. Have I answered yours?"

Both girls nodded their heads. "Yes, sir."

He held out his hand, and both girls shook with him in turn. "Well, welcome to our farm." He pushed the button on his intercom. "Miss Pell, could you page... let's see, let's have Judy Shinn come here. She can show our new girls to their room and give them a tour of the facilities." He smiled to see the two girls beaming at him, both of Tally's hands now grasping both of Reesy's in a tight knot as they leaned together.

Judy turned to face them as the three girls emerged into the hallway. She smiled at them, her hands behind her back, proudly naked, as she would usually be when not at a party, her shoulder-length brown hair brushed back behind her ears, revealing the shiny leather collar embossed with the name "Judy" in flowing silver script, and the words "Property of the Breeding Farm" in smaller, more normal type underneath. "Let's see -- the cafeteria is closest, but let's wait and go there closer to lunchtime so we can eat there together. I guess we can start with the gym. I've been spending a lot of time there lately. I just had my last litter three months ago."

Tally looked with a little surprise at Judy's lower tummy -- there were some signs she may have had babies, but it wasn't easy to tell she'd given birth that recently. "How soon after you have the babies before you start going to the parties again?"

"They let us have a couple of months to get back in shape. I just started a few weeks ago. You coming tonight?"

Reesy grinned. "Sure."

Judy smiled back and gave a little "follow me" gesture. The girls started after her, but Tally suddenly stopped. "Oh, wait a minute. We've got to make a call." She pulled her cell phone from her purse, turned it back on -- she'd turned it off to guard against the possibility of getting calls during the interview -- thumbed the speed dial for Wendy's number, and with a practiced gesture, brought it up to her ear with two fingers extended to brush away the fringe of hair covering her ear. She grinned at Reesy while waiting for Wendy to answer. In a few seconds she said, "Hi, Aunt Wendy," and Reesy leaned towards the phone so they could shout together, "We're in!" giggling happily afterwards.

Tally raised her eyebrows and made an abbreviated phone-offering gesture to Reesy, who gave her a minimal head shake and tiny hand wave that meant, "No, you go ahead." Tally continued the conversation.

"Yeah, we just came out... There's a girl here who's going to give us a tour... Yeah, we'll be spending the night -- A few nights, actually... Well, we've got some clothes and stuff packed out in the car, but we weren't sure you'd let us keep the car that long... Yeah, I know, we'd thought maybe be here overnight at the most... Right, we figured you were going to need to go into town to get stuff for Saturday... Oh, of course, Aunt Wendy! We wouldn't miss that for anything! You know we'll be there! And we were going to need to come home anyway, there's probably some papers for you or Uncle Tom to sign... How about if we drive home later this afternoon, and you could bring us back and drop us off. Will that work?... Okay, we'll be there about..." She looked questioningly at Judy. "Four?" Judy nodded. "Yeah, about four o'clock. Oh! Don't tell our moms yet, okay? We want to tell them... well, yeah, that's true, they'll probably drive you and Gail crazy asking if you've heard anything. Okay, go ahead and tell them. We'll give them all the details when we get home. Okay. Love you too, Aunt Wendy." Reesy leaned in and said "Love you!" Tally finished up with, "Bye, see you in a little while," and clicked off.

She put the phone away, and took Reesy's hand, intertwining her fingers with hers, and grinned at Judy. "Okay, ready for the gym."

Reesy said, "I'm sure that's what Aunt Sasha would tell us to check out first." They both laughed.

Wendy, kneeling, gave both Sandy and Sally warm hugs, kissing each one's cheek. "I'll be sure and send them out here as soon as they get home."

Sally rubbed her hip against Sandy's. "Thanks, Wendy. What time is it now?"

Wendy looked at her watch. "Eleven."

Sandy rolled her eyes. "Five hours. Did they say how long they'd stay?"

Wendy shook her head. "It sounded like they need to be back there tonight, but Tally didn't say what time. Maybe they can at least stay for dinner. I'll let them bring their plates out here and they can eat it with you guys."

Sandy nodded. "Thanks."

Wendy grinned and stood. "I'll be back out when they come home. I want to hear about it too. It's really exciting!"

Sally grinned and nodded. "See you later."

She held the smile long enough for Wendy to get out of sight, finally biting her lip as it started to quiver. She murmurred to Sandy, "I don't know if I can get through this without crying. I wanted this for them so much, because they've hardly talked about anything else for months, and they did all that reading up on it. But... I'm so mad at myself for feeling this way, but part of me was hoping they wouldn't make it."

Sandy nodded, a single tear winding its way down her cheek. "I know. We'll..." She swallowed. "We'll get to see them every few weeks. And... their babies! Can you believe that? Our babies are ready to have their own babies! And we'll be..." She shook her head, open mouthed. "Grandmothers!" She tried to reconstruct her smile, but several more tears followed the first one down. She sniffled. "I'll just miss them so much!"

Sally pressed her own wet cheek against Sandy's. "Maybe we need to do all the crying now and get it out of our system. So we'll be ready to be happy for them when they get here. I promised myself, you promised yourself, we'd let them go. We can't spoil it for them. All those times, Daddy always told all of us, follow your heart. We didn't have to be girlcows, not if something else was more important to us. I mean, look at Sasha! All the stuff she's done. And this is what they want."

Sandy sucked in a shaky breath. "I know, I know, I know all that! It's just going to be really hard."

Sally tried to blink the tears away, and rubbed her eyes against her shoulder. "No kidding."

SATURDAY

Tally absently stroked Ashley's back, feeling the breeze ruffle her hair as they sat under the shade tree, Tally sitting cross-legged as Ashley sat back on her haunches. Reesy sat on the opposite side of Ashley, self-consciously fingering her temporary collar that she'd been showing off so proudly, identical to Tally's except that each had her own name stamped into the leather. The three girls watched as Wendy gave long hugs and whispered messages to the smaller kids gathered around her. They heard Wendy laugh at something Erika, one of the 8-year-old E-girls, said; smiled as Wendy kissed Erika on the cheek. The other girlcows were distributed haphazardly around the yard, some sunning themselves, some cuddling, some sharing milk with each other -- Tom had allowed Sarah and Gail to remove all their nipple clamps for the day. Sandy and Sally lay on the grass near their daughters, listening, wanting to be with them but knowing they needed time with their cousin too.

Ashley turned to Reesy. "So tell me more about the parties. The guys were all pretty nice?"

Reesy shrugged. "Well, a few of them are a little pushy. They never get nasty, though. There are some pretty big bouncers lurking in the corners of the room." She giggled.

Tally said, "Of course, we didn't get to use the private rooms, but Judy showed us one when we were taking the tour. They've got little hidden microphones, and there's a corridor running behind the rooms, on the other side from the party room, with a couple of security guys right there, listening in, and they can get in the room pretty fast if one of the guests gets mean. Of course, the guests know all that, so they don't cause any trouble. They haven't had any of the girls get hurt for years."

Ashley shuddered. "Just talking about it makes it sound kind of scary."

Tally shook her head. "Not really. All the girls we talked to said they always feel really safe."

"And they really take care of the pregnant girls, right?"

"Oh, no kidding!" Reesy exclaimed. "You check in with the medical staff every week, or more often if there's a problem. More often towards the end, too. And they've got classes for first timers, so you know all about how to take care of yourself."

"Do you -- Oh, Aunt Sasha and Aunt Marie and Penny are here!" Ashley quickly rolled up to her hooves and trotted towards the new arrivals, Tally and Reesy having to scramble to their feet and run to keep up with her, but they had to stop at the periphery of the mob of smaller kids crowding around the two new arrivals. Sasha easily swept up Francine and Fiona, the two nearest five-year-olds, her arm muscles bulging as she exclaimed about how big they were getting, while Marie scooped up Felice and gave her a hug -- while her own muscular development was impressive and she could hold her own at arm-wrestling with many of the male students at the university who were afraid to try it with Sasha, her petite frame would have made it hard to lift two of the girls at once. Their 10-year-old daughter Penny was quickly surrounded by her own horde of small admirers, all begging her to join the game they'd been playing.

As Francine giggled happily after Sasha blew raspberries against her tummy, Reesy managed to catch Sasha's eye. Securing Fiona against her with her forearm freed up Sasha's hand enough to give Reesy a little finger wave, and she called to Reesy and Tally, "I'll talk to you guys later."

The girls nodded, and Tally asked Ashley, "Want to go up front and see if we can spot Bret and the girls getting here?"

Ashley grinned. "Sure." Together the three went into the house through the kitchen, where Charlotte was helping Gail get the side dishes ready. Charlotte and Crystal, fifteen now, were expecting to take over the duties of Gail and Sarah when they turned 18, so that Gail and Sarah could be barbecued. Charlotte, in particular, was expected to take over as the family cook.

Before the three girls could reach the front door, it opened and an older man entered wearing a familiar face. Ashley gasped in delight, as Tally and Reesy exclaimed "Grandpa!" each of them running to him to be the first to give him a hug.

His arms encompassing both of them, he looked at their necks. "You're all grown up now! Let me see those collars."

Tally tilted her head back to give him a better view. "These aren't the real ones yet. We're not really slaves until next week."

"Well, they still look pretty nice. Hey, how's my little cow-baby!" He let go of the standing girls and knelt to give Ashley a hug, accepting her kiss on his cheek. "Your mom in here or is she out back?"

"She's in the yard with the little ones right now. We were coming through to see if Bret was here yet."

He patted her and said, "Well, let me go pay my respects to the lady of the house." He stood up and frowned. To Reesy, he said, "I don't know as you should take Ash out front without a leash. Never hurts to be careful."

She nodded. "Okay, Grandpa." To Tally she said, "You guys wait here. I'll go get one."

About twenty minutes later Tally, sitting on the porch steps with Reesy, Ashley's leash wrapped around her hand, jumped to her feet. "There! That's him." The three girls ran over to the gravel drive and waited as Bret pulled in with his pick-up, his four girlcows grinning from the back. Bret stepped out of the cab and ruffled Ashley's hair before turning to start releasing the leash-chains of Annie and Abby, who were closest to his side, while Bret's wife Tara held the water bottle for Becky and Belinda on the other side. Tara smiled at Tally and Reesy. "Hear you're leaving soon."

Tally nodded excitedly. "Yeah, we're starting at the Breeding Farm next week!"

"That's great." Tara rubbed her stomach and her smile widened. "I've started doing a little breeding myself."

The three girls all gasped. "No kidding??" "That's great, Tara!" "When are they due?"

"Early November, if everything goes according to plan. Too early to tell how many. Now, don't tell anybody else yet. I want to tell Momma Wendy myself."

Bret came around and released Becky's and Belinda's chains. "We're already obsessing about names." Tara held the water bottle for Annie and Abby.

Reesy laughed. "How about 'Doofus'?"

Ashley shook her head and sputtered, "Naw, everybody'd confuse her with her dad then." Tally and Reesy nearly collapsed in giggles.

Bret gave Ashley his best glare. "Lucky you're on the other side of the truck. Spank her for me, sweety."

Ashley laughed and pranced out of Tara's reach, but came back as Annie started down the ramp to the ground, Abby following her. Ashley gave Annie a warm kiss. "Miss you, sis. How's it going at the new farm?"

Annie looked to the side and winked at Tara. "Better than you'd think. Luckily Tara runs everything."

Becky came down the ramp, turning to Ashley. "Where's Mom? In the house?"

Ashley shook her head. "Back yard." She looked up at Reesy. "Unhook me, okay? We're all just going to run out back. They need to see Mom."

As Reesy knelt to unhook the leash, Bret examined Tally's collar. "Couldn't talk you into coming out to my place, huh? Still got open stalls. Give the rest of the girls a little more company."

Tally shook her head, as Reesy stood up next to her watching the girlcows clatter onto the porch. "We wouldn't want to go there without our moms."

He blinked in puzzlement. "They coming with you to the Breeding Farm?"

Tally shrugged. "Well, no." She felt that little pang inside that always went with the thought of leaving the farm. "They'll visit sometimes." Beside her, Reesy sighed as she watched the last of the girls, Belinda, disappear into the front door, and reached up to brush away an unexpected tear. Dust from the truck, she decided.

Sasha smiled and sighed as her sister Dierdre steered the last of the F-girls into the play yard, Felice holding Marie's hand and insisting she play with the girlcow dolls with her, Fiona trying to drag Penny towards the treehouse. Gail and Charlotte emerged briefly from the back door, Gail getting the fire going in the barbecue pit while describing her technique to Charlotte, who was watching closely, both then returning to the kitchen. Sasha turned back to the two nieces standing beside her. "You guys sure you don't want to go to college? I'm sure I could pull some strings and get you scholarships. I know what kind of grades you got in high school. You probably wouldn't even need my help."

Tally bit her lip. She had no doubt that was true; Sasha and Marie, as co-directors of the university vet school's Girlpet Clinic, had enough influence to make just about anything happen. "I really, really appreciate that, Aunt Sasha. We talked about it, and well..."

Reesy explained, "It really isn't our kind of thing. We were telling the master at the Breeding Farm the same thing. We just want to..."

Sasha smiled. "Follow your hearts?"

Tally laughed. The phrase seemed to be kind of a family by-law. "Everybody keeps saying that. But yeah, that's what it really comes down to."

Sasha sighed. "Well, it was worth a try. I'd love to see you guys doing something with your minds. But... I do understand that's not the only way to make your mark in the world. But if you do change your mind, give me a call, okay?"

Reesy grinned and threw her arms around Sasha -- hugging Sasha was always like hugging a coiled spring, even before Sasha wrapped her arms around you for a crushing bear hug, but it still always felt good. Tally took her turn as soon as Sasha let go of her gasping sister, feeling the warmth of her tight embrace. A few yards away, Sandy sighed, wiping her damp eye against her shoulder. Sally rubbed her with her hip, blinking rapidly.

Charlotte, able to get away from the kitchen for a few minutes, was hugging her mother, whispering back, "I love you too, Mom," when Wendy heard Tom exclaim, "Oh, Clarence, hi! Glad you could make it." Wendy beamed at Charlotte as her daughter kissed her cheek, then rose and smiled at Clarence.

She gave him a long hug, and still held him as she backed away to look at him. "It's really nice seeing you, Clarence. And this must be Dana." She knelt and petted Clarence's girlcow, whose cute freckled face flashed her a shy smile, darting forward to kiss Wendy's cheek and afterwards blushing. Wendy knew that Dana was voluntarily mute, like a puppygirl -- she had, in fact, wanted to be a puppygirl, but couldn't get the financial backing for the operation. Puppygirls, usually the slaves of wealthy masters, underwent much more elaborate body modifications than girlcows: soft paws instead of hooves; upper arm and thigh bones surgically shortened so that they had elbows and knees in the middle of their four short legs; and a tail grafted between the buttocks which they could wag by a practiced tensing of the buttock muscles. Depending on their masters' preferences, they were often tattooed with large irregular patches in various shades. Dana was simply a girlcow, but Clarence had done his best at giving her more of a puppygirl look, with a collar and leash in bright red that matched her firey hair, redder even than Natalie's, the hair itself grown shaggy and longer than a girlcow's, sporting a bright red bow on one side -- and he had even managed a tail of sorts, a cute ball of red fur, less functional than the fancier one puppygirls sported, which Sasha herself, at the clinic, had stitched to the skin of her upper buttocks in an operation no more painful than ear-piercing. Throughout much of the rest of the day she stayed close by Clarence's side, obviously not used to crowded places but seeming relatively comfortable with the friendly strangers surrounding her.

Wendy took her seat on the ground again to continue receiving daughters, and Tom shook hands with Clarence. "Getting a little gray there, Clarence?"

Clarence smiled. "Could say the same to you."

Tom grinned. "I know, but don't. Make yourself at home. There's some beer in the cooler there. Have you met my dad? Oh, sure, you've met before..."

Tally sat with her arm draped over Sandy's shoulders, Reesy beside her with Sally, with the rest of the girlcows who stood in a crowded semicircle awaiting their turns with Wendy. Sandy, her eyes overly bright, asked, "So have you made some friends over there already?"

Tally nodded. "Well, we told you about Judy, she's really nice. And there's another girl, Cheryl, who remembered us from high school. She was a couple of years ahead of us..."

Bonnie lay her head on Wendy's shoulder, feeling the warmth of her mother's hug. She gave her a kiss on the cheek, then shifted her hooves nervously. "Ummm... Mom?"

"What is it, sweety?"

"You've, ummm... never had any of my milk."

Wendy looked at her in surprise. "Why, of course I have, darling. I drink it all the time."

"I mean..." She wasn't sure how to put it.

"I... oh!" Wendy smiled. "Well, I guess this is a good time for it, isn't it?"

Bonnie sighed with relief. "How should we do this, then?"

Wendy looked down, and took hold on Bonnie's forelegs near her hooves. "Lean back onto your hind legs, sweety. There, like that." With Bonnie resting her forelegs on Wendy's shoulder, standing on her rear hooves and bending forward at the waist, Wendy leaned forward, took Bonnie's right nipple in her mouth and began sucking gently. Bonnie felt a calm elation spread through her body, glad she could finally return to her mother the gift that had sustained her in her first years of life.

Tally stopped in mid-sentence, her eyes suddenly wide and glued on Bonnie and Wendy. Her attention to the rest of the world shut down, leaving only a tunnel with Bonnie and Wendy at its end. She was marginally aware of a feeling like an adrenaline rush washing through her body -- no, not quite like that. More like the effects of the cold medicine she had taken once that had made her mind race, thoughts spinning through her head so fast she couldn't grasp them, had no idea what she was thinking except it must be terribly important, that she must act on it at once except that she couldn't figure out what action was required or to what purpose it should be directed. She had read on the side of the medicine package afterwards, "Warning -- May cause mental confusion."

This was like that.

Wendy stopped sucking and smiled at Bonnie, her tongue licking away a coating of white liquid on her lips. "I'd better only drink a little, honey. I have a feeling I'll be drinking a lot of milk in the next hour or so."

Bonnie looked around at her converted sisters behind her, and her aunts behind them, the nearest girls standing with their backs arched, their huge breasts thrust forward, and grins on their faces. Bonnie laughed. "Think you're right, mom."

Tally blinked rapidly, the revving engine of her mind beginning to throttle back. She realized suddenly Sandy had been saying her name for several seconds. "Tally... honey... you okay? Tally, what's wrong?"

Behind her, she could hear Sally trying to get Reesy's attention. Tally shook her head to clear it, finally looking at Sandy, seeing her brows wrinkled with concern. "Sure, Mom, I'm fine. I was just..." What she'd just been doing seemed to elude her.

"You were talking about Cheryl. Has she had any litters yet?"

"Cheryl?" She frowned with puzzlement, trying to identify who Cheryl might be. The word "litter" finally supplied a context. "Oh! Right. Yeah, she's already towards the end of her second one. Five girls, and she'll have them in about a month. She's huge!" She giggled, the excitement of the subject beginning to come back.

She realized, suddenly, Aunt Clary was staring at her. She looked away quickly, not sure why.

Tara sat down beside Wendy to hug her. "Thank you for having such a great son, Momma Wendy."

Wendy beamed at her. "I'm glad he found somebody like you to take care of him. And my girls too. Someday you'll know how special it is to find a good home for your own daughters."

Tara bit her lip and giggled. "Sooner than you probably were thinking. I was about to tell you..."

Wendy gasped. "You're pregnant?? Now??"

Tom, standing with Bret, choked and hurriedly swallowed a mouthful of beer. "Huh?"

Tara nodded, and Wendy raised her arm for attention. "Everybody! Tara's going to have babies!"

Amid the clamor of voices and thumping of hooves as the girls and girlcows crowded in shouting questions, Wendy laughed and said, "Here's your chance to get used to the noise."

Tara turned and waved the other girls away with a smile. "Let me finish talking to Momma Wendy, okay?" The girls retreated with a little good-natured grumbling and some giggling, and Tara turned back to Wendy. Her smile seemed almost too big for her face. "The very first one that comes out will be named Wendy."

Wendy's jaw dropped. "Really? That is SO sweet. Thank you. I kind of wish I was staying around to see them, but..." She chuckled. "If I waited around for everything I wanted to see, I'd never get eaten at all. And it's nice to think my granddaughters will be born with some of me inside them."

"A lot of you, I hope." She laughed. "We're taking some of your meat home with us, and I already told Bret I'll be eating for four or five." She looked up and behind her to her husband. "Right, sweety?"

Bret grinned and gave a resigned shrug. "Whatever you say, hon."

Tally and Reesy each gave Wendy a warm hug, as their mothers waited behind them for their turn. Wendy waited a few seconds, expecting the girls to talk first -- they were rarely at a loss for words. She looked at them curiously. "You guys okay?"

Reesy looked quickly at Tally, then back to Wendy. "Oh! I'm really sorry, Aunt Wendy. I guess we were just thinking about... how much we'll miss you." Beside her, Tally nodded.

Wendy laughed. "Well, it's not like I'm going anywhere. I'll be inside you. A lot closer to you than I am now."

Tally said quickly. "Oh, we know that. We just..." She looked helplessly at Reesy.

Wendy's eyes narrowed. "You do have something on your mind, don't you?"

Reesy bit her lip. She glanced over at Tally, seeing the same puzzled look on her sister's face. "Sort of, but we don't know what it is. We'd tell you if we knew."

Wendy stroked Reesy's face fondly. "Well, I hope you figure out what it is."

Reesy shivered. "So do we." She leaned in and kissed Wendy's cheek, Tally kissing her from the other side at the same time. "Love you, Aunt Wendy."

Wendy smiled happily at them. "I love you too."

As the girls moved off to the side and sat down to let their mothers come forward, Tally felt a hoof nudge her hip. She looked beside her to see Clarissa standing there, Natalie on the other side of her. "Hi, Aunt Clary."

Clarissa squinted at her. "Are you guys okay?"

"Ummm... fine." Next to her, Reesy looked at Clarissa and gave her a distracted nod.

Natalie suggested, "You're thinking about next week? Having any second thoughts?"

Tally bit her lip. "You're going to tell us to 'follow our hearts,' right?"

"Not exactly." Clarissa looked back and forth at both of them. "I was going to tell you to make sure you know it's your hearts you're following, and make sure you know where they're going."

Reesy opened her mouth to respond, and closed it when she realized no response was forming in her head. Her head felt blank, as if some major message had been erased and been replaced with something hidden behind a screen. Tally squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. "How... how do we decide, Aunt Clary? How do we make sure?"

Clarissa shook her head. "You're the only ones who know."

Tally took Reesy's hand. "Let's get away for awhile, okay? There's too much going on here. I can't think. And I feel like we need to figure this out now."

Reesy looked at the commotion all around the yard. "Where do you want to go?"

Natalie pointed out across the fields with a stubby foreleg. "I've always done my best thinking over in those trees." She smiled. "Well, my best remembering, anyway. Nobody will bother you out there." She waved towards the area in question.

Tally's eyes followed the direction Natalie was pointing. "Good idea. Let's go, Reese." They looked to see that their mothers were still talking with Wendy, and took off, unnoticed by any but Clarissa and Natalie.

Clarissa and Natalie waited until last to talk to Wendy. Wendy put an arm around each one's neck and hugged them against her tightly from either side.

Clarissa kissed her cheek and said, "I was almost thinking you were going to outlive us."

Wendy rolled her eyes and grinned. "Don't rub it in. I know I've stretched it about as far as I can. This is the right time, though. I did want to wait for my littlest girls to get into school."

Clarissa nodded, knowing all that. At forty-three, Wendy was quite old for a woman, but not uniquely so. Free women were most often eaten in their late thirties if they hadn't been drafted before that, but for family or job-related reasons they often chose to go beyond that; even slaves, traditionally eaten at forty, might be allowed to continue working a few years longer if they were particularly valuable and replacements were not immediately available -- like Gail, already forty but waiting a few years for Sarah to reach that age, since by then Charlotte and Crystal would be old enough to take over their duties. As long as a woman, free or slave, was consumed by the statutory maximum age of forty-five, nobody really raised an eyebrow.

Wendy turned to Natalie. "What about you guys? Still planning for the end of summer?"

Natalie smiled. "We thought that's the best time for it. All the leftover Wendy meat should be gone by then." All three of them laughed. Natalie stopped first, and bit her lip. "And... Wendy...?" She wasn't sure quite how to say what she wanted to say.

"Yes, dear?"

"I... You... Well, I was just thinking... You're like my mother, in some ways. I mean, you've been a mother to me here." She laughed. "I'm not trying to make you feel older, really. But..." She looked around the yard, at the groups of girls, talking, laughing, playing. "This..." She turned back to Wendy. "This is what my mother's roast should have been like. This makes up for..." She sighed. "Well, I'm glad I could be here."

Wendy hugged her tightly. "We're all glad you could be here. For all these years."

Tally, holding Reesy's hand tightly in hers, sighed as she looked up at the tall trees surrounding her. "So. Any ideas?"

Reesy shrugged. "About what?"

Tally rolled her eyes. "If I knew what, we wouldn't be here."

Reesy looked at her shoes. "We're supposed to go back on Tuesday. The Breeding Farm."

"It's..." Tally looked back at the rest of her family, just visible in the distance over a slight rise in the ground. "...kind of competitive, isn't it?"

"Huh?"

"The Breeding Farm. At the parties. Remember how pissed Gloria was when April ended up going private with that really cute guy? And in the cafeteria, there were kind of these... cliques, like in high school. And the guys at the parties... they just had one thing on their minds."

"I was just thinking about Aunt Wendy. We were telling her we would have taken a furlough to come here, but... we don't really know if they would have let us. I mean, maybe this isn't what they'd call 'special circumstances.' We'd probably only get to come back here for real emergencies."

Tally caught Reesy's eyes and held them. "We're talking ourselves out of this, aren't we? Why? What else are we supposed to do?"

Reesy looked at her, startled. "Supposed to... that's it! I've been feeling like... there's something we're supposed to do! Something we're meant to do. The Breeding Farm isn't it."

Tally's eyes grew wide in recognition. "Yeah, it does feel like that. Ever since..."

Reesy nodded. "Something about seeing Bonnie with Aunt Wendy. Something... A girlcow feeding her mom..." She shook her head. "That's not it. Not all of it, anyway."

"I know. I... almost see it, but it keeps dancing away." Tally was breathing hard, her eyes glistening with oncoming tears.

Reesy looked around. "Let's sit down over here. Close our eyes, not try to think. It'll come to us." She led Tally beside a creek, and they sat on the bank of it, their legs dangling over the edge. Reesy noticed a hoofprint next to her hip. Probably Aunt Natalie. She'd said they come over here sometimes. She idly wondered why, then shook her head to clear it. "Think about Aunt Wendy and Bonnie. What was happening then? What were you thinking?"

Tally had her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Trying too hard, she thought. Relax. She let her mind drift back to that moment. Bonnie leaning over her mother. An image floated in front of her. "Chain."

Reesy jumped slightly. "Chain. Yeah. Not like Aunt Clary and Aunt Natalie wear. Not that kind. More like... daisy chain? Something nice. Something... Proud of it. Proud of the chain..."

Tally's eyes shot open. "Girlcow moms!!" The instant the words were out of her mouth, she heard Reesy gasp.

"Yes!! We're supposed to be... Our moms started it! Started the chain! They're the first link, we're the second! We're supposed to be girlcow moms!"

Tally knocked against her head with her knuckles. "It was in there the whole time. Like we always knew this. Somehow seeing Bonnie feeding her mom... let it loose."

Reesy gasped. "How do we get pregnant?" Tally giggled, and Reesy laughed with her. "No, I didn't mean how do girls get pregnant. But we can't go to the Breeding Farm. They wouldn't let us come home after, and they sure wouldn't convert us themselves so we wouldn't have any more babies after! We have to do it some other way."

Tally frowned. "That's true. We... I guess..." Her voice trailed off.

They both sat silently. In the stillness, Aunt Marie's voice echoed from the distance. "Penny, come here, sweety. They're about to do the snuff."

The girls' view of most of the party was blocked by the rise in the ground, but the treehouse was visible, and Penny's head in its doorway. "Okay, mommy." She called Marie "Mommy," while Sasha was "Momma." She descended the steps quickly, Fiona right behind her.

Tally and Reesy watched Penny dash out of sight, then whipped their heads around towards each other, their eyes bulging, their fists pumping. "Yes!!" They threw their arms around each other and hugged each other, and immediately let go and scrambled out of the ditch. Their hands linked, they pelted back towards the yard.

Reesy looked around frantically as they reached the yard. Ashley and Adrienne were standing solemnly on one side of the porch like four-legged sentinels, Annie and Abby in similar poses on the other, all shifting from hoof to hoof nervously. Reesy shouted to Ashley, "Where's Aunt Wendy? We want to tell her something!"

Ashley looked irritated. "She's in the house, getting undressed. You shouldn't go..." She stopped and stared at their departing backsides as they dashed up the steps into the house.

Bret, standing in front of the closed bedroom door, held up his hands in a stop-gesture as the girls ran up to him. Tally, breathless from her run, stammered, "Is... Can we... We need to talk to Aunt Wendy. It'll just take a few seconds."

Bret started shaking his head, then appeared to think better of it. He raised his hand to tap on the door behind him. "Mom? Reesy and Tally want to talk to you. Is that okay?"

The door opened and Wendy beamed at the girls through a surprised expression. "Come in. Obviously this can't wait till later."

Wendy was bare from the waist up, still wearing her pants. Despite her preoccupation Reesy, with part of her mind, marvelled at Wendy's generous breasts, still firm and shapely after so many demands on them from so many babies over the years. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tom, partly undressed himself, his hands on his hips, scowling at the invasion of this private moment. Reesy held up her hands apologetically. "We are SO sorry, Uncle Tom. If there was any way to say this later... well, you'll both be happy about this for different reasons, I think."

Tom stared at her for a moment, then twirled his wrist in an "okay, out with it, move it along" gesture.

Tally took a deep breath. "Aunt Wendy..." She wasn't sure how much to explain, and decided at last on just the bare essentials. "We're going to be girlcow moms. Me and Reesy." Beside her, Reesy nodded enthusiastically.

At least six different expressions passed over Wendy's face in sequence, finishing with mild bewilderment. "The Breeding Farm..."

Reesy shook her head. "We're not going. We're going to stay here."

Tom's scowl evaporated in an instant. "What?"

Tally turned to him and nodded, smiling. "If that's okay."

Tom blinked. "Yeah, sure." He looked at Wendy in amazement.

Wendy squinted at Reesy. "What was this part about moms? You're... Are you...?"

"Oh! No, not yet. We're going to talk to Aunt Sasha about that."

Wendy's mystified look deepened, and then suddenly cleared. "Sasha... oh! Right." She looked at them in wonder. "What brought this on? You were so excited about the Breeding Farm."

Tally laughed. "We don't know where it... came from, exactly. But it feels so..."

Reesy suggested, "Complete?"

Tally nodded excitedly. "Yeah, that's it. It completes us. It makes us who we were meant to be. We're part of a chain, Aunt Wendy!"

Wendy was trying to keep up. "A... chain?"

Reesy nodded. "It started with our moms, and we're supposed to continue it. We'll each have a baby, and they'll be girlcow moms too, and so on."

From the doorway came a startled "Wow!" The girls looked in that direction to see Bret standing there, wide eyed. He'd suddenly realized that if there was something special going on here then he, as the future owner of Tally's and Reesy's babies, if not Tally and Reesy themselves, was part of it as well.

Wendy's lower lip was trembling. "I am SO glad you could tell me this. Do you want... should I tell everybody when we go outside?"

Tally gasped in horror. "Oh no, Aunt Wendy! We'll tell our moms later, then everybody else. This is your day! When we're out there, everybody should be looking at you, not us!"

Wendy smiled and held her arms out wide. "Well, come here, then." She hugged them for a long moment, then stroked their hair and kissed their cheeks. "Thank you both. You've made a happy day even happier. Now I've got to finish getting ready."

"Love you, Aunt Wendy!" This came from both of them.

Wendy glowed. "Love you too!"