Tally and Reesy hurried down the porch steps, a little self-conscious when they noticed everyone in the yard was facing their direction, sitting or standing watchfully and silently. Trying, hopelessly in vain, to be inconspicuous, they ran to where their mothers were standing and knelt beside them, each draping her arm over her own mother's back.

Sandy frowned at Tally. "What were you doing in there?"

Tally concentrated on not looking secretive. "Oh, ummm... we just wanted to tell Aunt Wendy how grateful we were to her for helping you guys take care of us all those years."

Sally blinked. "You didn't tell her that before?"

Reesy sighed. "Mom, really, we're sorry if we disrupted anything. She was really glad we told her. Umm, about that, I mean. She's not mad or anything."

"Did you... shhh!" At the back door of the house, some movement was visible. A sighing of whispers went around the yard and died out, leaving a deep silence in which the joyous singing of a bird in one of the trees seemed to be a fanfare. Naked, framed in the doorway, with Tom and Bret behind her, Wendy stood for a moment and beamed at everyone, her gaze sweeping across the yard seeming to stop briefly and especially at every single individual present. Tally thought to herself dimly she had forgotten about something and realized, Oh yes, breathing.

Wendy looked down and walked slowly down the porch steps, seeming to concentrate on every sensation -- the rough wooden steps, the cooling breeze, the birdsong. At the bottom of the steps, her four oldest daughters, two on each side, came up beside her, and walked slowly on their four shortened legs beside her as she approached the towel-draped bench. Before arriving there she floated her hand above the glowing coals of the barbecue pit, and she shivered with excitement, her mouth slightly open, lips curved in a gentle smile. She beamed at Gail, who was standing with her hands clasped behind her back behind the barbecue, and said "Nice job." Gail grinned back, her forward-thrust breasts showing her pride in her work.

She turned back and continued towards the bench, stopping at last just in front of it and turning back to face her family once again. The four girlcows withdrew a few paces and Tom came up beside her.

She took a deep breath. The entire yard was quiet. "I was just thinking..." She smiled. "I'm so glad to have such a big family, because I feel so much love from all of you, and I'm giving it right back to you. But with so many of you, I feel a little bad that you each can't eat very much of me, because you'll have to split me so many ways." She waited for a few giggles to subside, and went on. "So it makes me feel better to think of it this way: I won't physically fill any of you..." She looked to the side, at Tom. "...Except maybe you, dear..." She leaned towards him and kissed him, then looked back at the rest. "But when I'm inside you, you'll each feel every bit of love that I have for you, and that's going to fill you up till you pop!"

Most of the girlcows rubbed their eyes against their shoulders. Fiona, her eyes round as saucers, asked, "Will I always feel you in my tummy, Mommy?"

Wendy smiled happily at her. "I think you just might, sweety. I hope so."

Wendy swept her eyes over the whole yard again. "I wish I could give each one of you a kiss after my head is cut off, but..." She sighed. "I guess that's just one more trouble with having such a big family. But I am SO glad for each and every one of you. So eat me today, and be very, very happy always." With a quick wipe of the back of her hand she cleared away one stray tear, and took a deep breath. She turned to Tom and wrapped her arms around him, bare skin pressed against bare skin, her head against his, and whispered, "Thank you for all of my babies, and for all of the years of sweetness."

He whispered back, "Thank you for sharing so much of my life."

She opened her mouth again, and bit her lip, hesitating to bring up the subject for the hundred-first time. Knowing that look, he rolled his eyes and grinned. "Yes, sweety, I'll get a bed-slave."

She sighed and smiled. "You better. Somebody needs to keep that body warm at night. And sometimes hot." She giggled and kissed him one more time. "Now..." She looked around once more, letting go of him and backing away a step. "I guess it's time to do it."

He nodded, and gestured towards the bench. Bret, wiggling the laser knife nervously in his right hand, moved to stand just to the side of the bench, as his mother knelt and rested her chin on the towel, her neck a few inches above the surface.

Her oldest daughters came closer and took up stations around her, Ashley and Adrienne next to her hips on either side, Abby and Annie by her shoulders. The looked uncertainly at each other until Ashley finally nodded, and they all began licking her -- Ashley and Adrienne along the sides of her thighs up as far as her buttocks, Annie and Abby along her upper arms and shoulders, periodically onto her neck. Wendy moaned softly and shivered with sudden arousal. Tom knelt behind her, putting his hands atop her buttocks, and rubbed her pussy lips, already glistening and swollen, with the tip of his erection.

For several minutes he teased her with it, until she reached back, carefully avoiding poking Ashley and Adrienne who were still solemnly licking her, and used her fingers to spread her pussy lips apart, her right index finger pointing insistently to her opening. She gasped and shook as he entered her, and began thrusting.

Bret, kneeling to the right of her head, next to Annie, kept a close eye on his mother's level of excitement. As her gasps lengthened to throaty sighs, he gestured to Gail to stand in front of Wendy, ready to catch her head when the time arrived. Once Gail was in position, Bret carefully moved the knife in underneath Wendy's throat.

Breathing quickly now in short gasps, Wendy reached back and stroked Ashley's and Adrienne's hair as they licked, then wrapped her arms around Annie's and Abby's shoulders. Stiffening suddenly, her eyes squeezed shut, she let out a piercing cry. Bret nodded to Gail, who pressed her hands against Wendy's cheekbones. Bret brought his arms up, the laser knife slicing cleanly through his mother's neck.

Her mouth wide open in rapture, Wendy opened her eyes and blinked in surprise as Gail lifted her head from the bench. She smiled at Gail, clearly still euphoric from her orgasm. As Tom shouted and emptied himself into Wendy's still-quivering pussy, Gail raised Wendy's head and kissed her softly on the lips.

Wendy smiled at Gail, and flicked her eyes to the side several times, signalling that she wanted to be turned around. She looked down quickly, her eyes widening in amazement at the sight of her own back and buttocks, then fastened her gaze on Tom, still plugged into her from behind and breathing hard. Their eyes locked, and he gestured to Gail to bring her head down to him.

He carefully took her head from Gail, and they smiled at each other. She just had time to mouth "I love you" before he fastened his lips on hers and kissed her. He held the kiss until her lips stopped moving against his and the light faded from her eyes.

The younger girls had departed for the playyard, but none of the girlcows seemed able to make the first move away from the barbecue, standing in a circle around it as Wendy's headless body turned on the spit, her wrists secured by twine to her upper thighs, her legs tied to the spit at her ankles and knees, her skin almost blindingly glistening in the cooking oils Gail and Charlotte were brushing on, her breasts darkened with the syrupy glaze that had become a family tradition. At last Clarissa nodded to Natalie, and they backed away and withdrew to a shady spot under a tree. The circle of cows began breaking up.

Tally and Reesy, holding hands, quickly weaved through the dispersing crowd towards Sasha, knowing she wouldn't be standing still for long. Tally tapped Sasha on the shoulder just as she was reaching for Marie's hand. "Aunt Sasha, Aunt Marie, before you get wrapped up in anything..."

Sasha turned and looked at the girls curiously, a smile twitching her lips. "Change your minds?"

Reesy, momentarily taken aback by the apparent mindreading, suddenly figured out what she meant. "Oh, college, umm, no..."

Tally, equally surprised, caught on. "Oh, it's not that. We just wondered if you had any time free at the clinic Monday."

Sasha blinked. "What about the Breeding Farm? Don't you need to be there?"

Reesy started to say they wouldn't be going, but both girls had agreed not to tell anyone today. "Uhh, we don't need to be there until Tuesday. Could we... well, I don't know how you work it, do we need to make an appointment or something?"

Sasha looked back at Marie, her eyebrows raised. "Sweety, have you got anything Monday morning? I know you've got lab at one."

Marie frowned in thought. "I've got Tammy coming by at nine about her research project. Staff meeting at eleven, of course. I think ten is okay for me."

Sasha nodded. "Ten works." She turned back to the girls. "Is ten okay? It can't be something that would last more than an hour."

Both girls nodded. Reesy said, "If Uncle Tom will let us borrow Aunt Wendy's car." It seemed a safe bet -- with Wendy gone, the two girls were the only able-bodied licensed drivers on the farm, other than Tom himself. Once they turned eighteen in a few more days and became slaves, they would need to go through a more elaborate process to obtain driving privileges, something none of Tom's slaves had found a need to do.

Sasha looked back and forth between them curiously. "Do we get to ask what it's about?"

Reesy looked at Tally, who responded, "We'd rather wait, if that's okay." She looked around the yard, and at Wendy's body, turning slowly over the fire. "This isn't really the time."

Sasha nodded, understanding. "See you Monday, then. You know where the Vet School is?"

Reesy shook her head. "We'll get to campus early and find it. There'll be signs, right?"

Sasha nodded again. "We're on the fourth floor of Cassel Hall. See you then." She absently patted each girl on the shoulder and turned back to Marie. "Where'd Penny get off to?"

Reesy saw Tally gesture with her head to follow her to an unoccupied shaded area under a tree. When they arrived, Tally said in a low voice, "We really should tell our moms."

Reesy's eyes widened. "Now? During the party?"

Tally pretended to be fascinated by the younger girls' impromptu game of Tag. "Didn't you see them both looking at us when we were talking to Aunt Sasha and Aunt Marie? That look on their faces? And I don't think they believed us about what we went in to tell Aunt Wendy. They know we've got some secret thing going on. You know how worried they'll get if we shut them out of it."

"But..." Reesy bit her lip. "I know we have to tell them sometime. But why bum them out now, when everybody's having fun?"

"I think they'll understand."

"But they've been so excited about us going to the Breeding Farm! I hate disappointing them like that. Let's just wait, and everybody have a good time today, and we can tell them tomorrow."

Tally gave a barely perceptible shake of her head. "I know we had to tell Aunt Wendy, and we needed to catch Aunt Sasha and Aunt Marie before they got all wrapped up with the kids, but we've kind of blown it as far as keeping our moms happy and ignorant. They know something's going on."

Reesy took a deep breath. "Okay, where are they? Are they alone?"

Tally tried to look without turning her head. "They're both drinking Aunt Sami's milk. Let's wait a bit. Aunt Wendy won't be done cooking for a few more hours, and they'll have to snack a little before that. You know all the cows drift in and out of the barn to eat while the meat is roasting. Let's sit here and wait till our moms go in."

They sat side by side, with their arms wrapped around their shins, for half an hour, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of the yard -- Penny organizing a game involving tossing a ball around a circle of girls, anyone dropping the ball being out of the game until the next game; Aunt Sasha playing basketball against Cayla, Cammie, Cori, and Crystal, with Aunt Marie as the referee; Charlotte basting her mother's body under Gail's supervision, Gail pointing to Wendy's pussy lips surrounding the spit pole, reminding Charlotte to keep them well saturated with the oils Charlotte was patiently brushing on; Erika and Emily giggling as Clarence's girlpet Dana trotted back to them with the bone Emily had thrown clenched in her teeth, her bright red tail waving back and forth (Reesy and Tally recognized the bone as one of Aunt Monica's thigh bones, saved from her roast, a favorite prop in the girls' frequent hide-the-bone games); the slaves not otherwise engaged napping under the trees; the girlcows distributed around the yard sunning themselves or engaged in lazy love-play; Uncle Tom, Grandpa Sam, Bret, and Clarence sitting by one of the picnic tables, drinking beer and discussing whatever it is men talk about, while Bret's wife Tara sat nearby, surveying the scene as if imagining how similar her own roast might be in twenty years time, absently stroking Annie's hair as she and her stall partner Abby lay resting on either side of her. Through it all drifted the delicious aroma of Aunt Wendy's meat cooking, making both Reesy's and Tally's stomachs rumble together.

At last Tally poked Reesy with her elbow, and Reesy turned to see their mothers approaching the barn door. The girls waited a minute or so and, trying to appear casual, made their way into the barn.

Reesy held her finger to her lips and both girls held their breaths, determining after a moment that there were no other cows in the barn besides their mothers. They walked up to their mothers' stall, seeing both cows from behind, their heads down in the feeding trough. Sandy whipped her head around in surprise -- the sound of footsteps, as opposed to hoofbeats, was unusual in the barn in the middle of a party. "Oh, hi sweety." Sandy smiled shakily at both girls, biting her lip, as Sally turned to look.

Both girls stood nervously with their hands behind their backs, looking at the floor. Sandy padded over, looking up at the two girls she had always considered to be her daughters, though she had carried only one of them in her womb -- Sally felt the same. She heard Sally coming up behind her to stand beside her. "What's the trouble, honey?"

Each girl squatted down in front of her mother, to bring their heads down to the same level, each putting her hand on her mother's shoulder -- they always felt a little uncomfortable towering over their mothers. Tally cleared her throat, looking back and forth between both of the older women. "Would... would you guys feel..." She wasn't sure how to go on.

Reesy took a deep breath. "If we..." She paused, the sentence assembled in her head, and quickly rattled it out in one breath.

"Ifwedidn'tgototheBreedingFarmwouldyouguysbereallydisappointedinus?" She squeezed her eyes shut to avoid the hurt look she knew she would see.

Sally gaped at Reesy, and looked at Tally for confirmation. Tally nodded, wincing as if in pain. "Mom -- moms -- We know how proud you are of us getting in, and you were so glad we were going to make a hundred babies and if they all became breeders there'd be like thousands of women in just two generations being food for so many people and..." She stopped herself, knowing she was babbling.

Sandy looked back and forth, her brow furrowed, trying to make sense of this. "Darling, is it... are you scared? I know it's such a big step, going out and making your place in the world as a woman. It's hard not to be a little girl anymore. But... everybody goes through this. It's all just part of..."

Reesy shook her head vehemently. "We figured out our place! We had, like..." She looked at Tally.

Tally nodded. "It was kind of a... vision, sort of. Of what we're supposed to be. What we're meant to do."

Sally squinted at her. " 'Meant' to do? What do you mean?"

Reesy hesitated, wondering how to make it as clear to her mothers as it was to her and Tally. "We've always felt it was kind of a special thing, our moms being girlcows. We never knew anybody else like that..."

Sandy smiled. "You didn't always act like you thought it was special."

Tally rolled her eyes. "Well, you know what she means, though. We thought..." She stopped again. "That's not the right word. We don't think, we know. We know we're links in a chain..."

Sally blinked. "That's not what I thought you were going to say. I'm not sure where you're going with this. What do you mean? What kind of chain?"

Reesy finished the thought. "It's a chain you guys started. We're supposed to be girlcow moms, and our daughters will be girlcow moms, and... that's the chain." She winced as Sandy blurted out, "You're pregnant??"

Tally shook her head. "No, not now. But we're going to get pregnant and then get converted, like you guys did. And we'll bring up the babies, like you guys did, and we'll see them grow up and get converted and have their own babies..."

Sally narrowed her eyes. "How are you planning to get pregnant? Some guy is going to..."

Reesy backed away slightly, waving her hands in a negative gesture. "Oh, no, no! See, that's what we were talking to Aunt Sasha about."

Sandy looked lost for a moment. "Sasha... Oh!!!" The last exclamation came from Sandy and Sally together. Sandy went on, "Where are you going to live?"

"Oh, here, we're going to be here, on the farm." Tally tried desperately to read her mothers' faces. Their main expression seemed to be astonishment, but she wished she could see what was underneath that. "You're not too disappointed, are you? We know it's not the same as having a hundred babies... Awk!" She tumbled backwards as her mother lunged at her, ending up on her back with her mother straddling her. Sandy kissed her cheeks, both sides, her chin, her lips, again and again, tears streaming from her eyes. Next to her she could feel Reesy in a similar position, Sally raining similar affection on her, saying, "Oh, I'm sorry baby, did you hit your head? Are you okay?"

Reesy repeated, "I'm all right, I'm all right. Mom... We're okay, then? About this whole thing?"

Sally laughed while her face continued crying. "Okay? Reesy? Clarice?" She hadn't called Reesy that in years. "If the two of you are really going to go down the same road we went down... I just hope that means someday you'll be as happy as I am right now. I want that for you so much!"

Reesy turned her head to look at Tally while her mother continued kissing her cheek. "I think they're okay with it."

Sitting up, leaning back against a wall of the stall, Tally stroked her mother's back and laughed. "It's a little early to worry about which stall, isn't it? I guess we'll just take whatever's available. They're all pretty much the same."

Sandy shook her head. "You don't want to be way on the end. I was just thinking, it takes a little while to get used to things after conversion. Why don't you stay here in our stall for awhile, until Clary's and Natalie's roast -- that's just a few months off -- and then you could have their stall and be right next to us."

Reesy, lying stretched out along the floor behind Sally, her head propped on her hand, her arm draped across her mother's waist, smiled. "So much for leaving the nest, huh? Sorry, I'm just kidding," she added as Sandy frowned. "That sounds like a good idea..." She raised her eyebrows at Tally, who nodded. "But I think we should ask Aunt Clary and Aunt Natalie first. I'd feel funny just taking over their place without them saying it's okay."

Sally, who had nearly drifted off, her backside snuggled against Reesy, said sleepily, "Oh, of course. But I know they'll say yes. They've always had kind of a special place in their hearts for you two. They were..."

Reesy giggled, interrupting her. "Yeah, we know, they were there when we were born." This wasn't exactly the first time they'd been reminded. Her eyes grew wide suddenly. "Oh!"

Sally turned to look at her. "What, sweety?"

Reesy shook her head. "Just had an idea, but I'll tell you later." She made eyes at Tally, a sort of "You'll really like this one" look.

All four looked up at the sound of footsteps. Sarah looked in through the stall door. Sandy, suddenly flashing back to their days growing up, marvelled at the change in Sarah since adolescence. Sarah had never been one for much physical exertion as a teenager; now nearly twenty years of chores as a farm slave had given her a body that, while not approaching Sasha's, was nevertheless quite muscular and toned for a woman her age. Of course, there also remained no hint of the tan lines that had been so noticeable when she first started at the farm. In the same way Sasha always had, she looked powerful, healthy, and overall stunningly attractive. It had taken all these years, but Sandy and Sally's two other littermates were finally twins.

Sarah looked at them. "Gail said she thought she'd seen all you guys come in here. Tom and Bret are going to take Miss Wendy off the fire in about ten minutes, if you want to see that."

Reesy sat suddenly upright and looked down at her shirt, covered with darkened stains of drying milk. "Tally, let's go change."

Tally looked down at her own shirt and nodded. "We can't look like this for Aunt Wendy." She kissed Sandy. "Mom, we'll see you out there. We'll just be in the house a minute." Holding hands, they sprinted out of the barn.

The girls emerged from the house, with clean shirts, just in time to watch Tom and Bret remove Wendy's carcass from the fire, her skin cracked and brown, shining with the juices Gail and Charlotte had been brushing on it and shimmering with wisps of rising steam, her breasts a darker brown with their caramelized coating, and carry it over to the yokes that would hold it up on the spit for the girlcows. Everyone knew the dining priorities, Wendy having explained them the previous day, and the cows assembled around her body, those who would be eating first standing closest.

Gail knelt and reached underneath with a sharp knife to slice off Wendy's nipples, cutting each into two pieces and holding them out for Ashley, Adrienne, Annie, and Abby to lick from her hand. Wendy's four oldest girls chewed the choice breast tips, savoring the flavor before swallowing. Charlotte turned the spit so that Wendy was on her side, as Bonnie, Belinda, Becky, and Beth came forward to bite off a mouthful directly from Wendy's breasts, followed by Tom's sisters, in order of age, Clarissa and Natalie first. The cows all made an effort to take bites small enough so that all of them could have some; the four oldest girls stood by, waiting for a chance at a little more breast meat in case there was any left after Rachel and Rhiannon, Tom's youngest sisters, had taken a bite.

Once Wendy's breasts were gone, her eight girlcow daughters distributed themselves around her body, biting off steaming chucks of Wendy's flesh for the main part of their meal; when they were done, Tom's girlcow sisters took their turn. All during the girlcows' feast, the rest of the family sat quietly, even the youngest girls, though they had to be occasionally shushed by Donna and Dierdre. When the last of the cows finished, Tom and Bret carried Wendy's remains over to the carving table to prepare platters of meat for the rest of the family and guests to eat, as conversation resumed as Gail, Sarah, Charlotte, and Crystal distributed food around the tables.

Tally and Reesy sat with the younger kids waiting for the food to be ready, helping Donna and Dierdre maintain some order at the table. Once the food arrived, though, they piled their plates with meat, baked potatoes and salad and carried their plates and drinks over to the tree their mothers were resting under. They'd wanted to put in an appearance with the kids so they could be conscious of it being their last time at the "Kids' Table," but felt a strong urge to share the meal with their mothers; the C-girls were certainly old enough to handle the younger girls without Tally's and Reesy's help. They sat under the tree, eating and holding out forkfuls of food for their mothers.

Clarence sat at one end of the picnic table, sharing it with Tom, Bret and Tara, Sasha and Marie, and Sam. Beside him, Dana sat on her haunches, silently as always, and he fed her from his hand while he ate.

Waiting politely as his father finished chewing the last of Wendy's pussy meat and swallowed, Bret at last cleared his throat. "Say, Dad?" When Tom looked up, he went on. "Tara and I were thinking about... well, of course you'll be alone for a little while. I don't know how soon you were planning to get a bed-slave..."

"I've just about got enough saved for a good one. I'll be at the auction in a few weeks and see if my money'll get me something I like. Might try the slave store in the city if that doesn't work." Unconsciously, he reached down to rub the side of the large transparent jar on the ground next to his end of the bench. Wendy's head, floating in preserving fluid, looked out from the jar, still smiling, her unseeing eyes appearing happy.

Bret nodded. "We kind of figured that. Anyway, if you want Tara to sleep over once in awhile, I'd be glad to bring her by."

Tara smiled at Tom. "I'm already pregnant, so there isn't that to worry about, and I won't be showing for a few months yet. Of course, I might have to bring along some kind of weird foods, if that doesn't bother you."

Tom snorted. "Can't be weirder than what Wendy ate when she was carrying kids." He smiled at both of them, and patted the jar again. "I appreciate the offer. Not in the next few days, but maybe one night next weekend."

Bret looked at Tara. "Does that work, sweety?"

She nodded. "Sure." She turned back to Tom. "Just let us know."

Reesy held up her drink for Sally to sip through a straw, as she looked around the yard. She sighed happily. "I'm glad we're staying."

Tally nodded emphatically. "Definitely."

Reesy looked across to where Clarissa and Natalie seemed to be napping, Clarissa lying on top of her partner. "Oh, I was going to tell you that idea I had earlier..."

A minute later, Tally was nodding enthusiastically, as were their mothers.

MONDAY

"Is that it over there?" Reesy pointed at a six-story building a hundred yards off. They had consulted a campus map displayed on a billboard at the entrance to the campus, but that had been about a mile back.

"I think it must be. If we're going the right direction." Tally looked at her watch. "We're still half an hour early."

Reesy nodded. "I'd rather be early than late. I don't want Aunt Sasha or Aunt Marie wasting any of their time waiting for us. Anyway, there's nothing going on here." She gestured with her head towards the naked girl hanging in a noose in the courtyard just off the sidewalk, her hands tied behind her in the traditional way. They had missed her rope dance, and she now was simply turning slowly in the slight breeze; otherwise, she was motionless. A small crowd was already dispersing, except for a handful of college girls tending a waiting barbecue pit. No doubt the courtyard belonged to a sorority -- campus sororities had a reputation for taking care of their own when one of their members was drafted. Reesy and Tally saw no point in staying longer: there certainly wasn't a question of a free girlmeat meal, as the girl hadn't even been mounted over the fire yet. "Let's move on."

Approaching their target, they saw the sign reading "Cassel Hall, School of Veterinary Medicine." Below that, in smaller type, they read, "Girlpet Clinic, first floor."

As they entered the building, the first thing they saw appeared to be the waiting room for the clinic, where two men and one woman each sat in chairs with their girlpets at their side: one man had a ponygirl kneeling next to him, a bandage covering her left shoulder; the others had puppygirls, one holding her left forepaw off the floor, the other coughing discreetly in a far corner of the room. As the girls entered the elevator, a nurse in the reception window called out a name, and the ponygirl and her owner stood.

Reesy punched the button for the fourth floor. "Wonder why Aunt Sasha and Aunt Marie don't have an office where the clinic is."

Tally shrugged. "I guess they have a staff to handle the day-to-day stuff. They probably need to be closer to their research labs."

The elevator doors opened to show an ordinary-looking institutional hallway, with doors along either side, bulletin boards awash in thumbtacked notices in between. Tally looked to her left. "Here's 401. And this one..." she looked right, "...is 430. 409 must be down there, on this side." She pointed down the hallway.

They passed a double-door standing partly open, and just beyond it stopped at a door with a frosted glass pane at eye level, behind which the room seemed to be dark. Beside the door, engraved porcelain plaques read "Girlpet Clinic Directors," and below that, "Sasha Fallon-Martin, D.V.M.," and "Marie Fallon-Martin, M.D." Reesy knocked, and both girls listened. Reesy shook her head. "Not here yet."

Reesy looked back at the half-open door they had passed, from which a slight squeaking sound had emerged. "Maybe they're in here." She walked back to that door and peered in, Tally right behind her. It was a very large room, in which Sasha was removing a cassette from a video camera. The door squeaked as Tally opened it slightly wider, and Sasha looked back, smiling as she saw the girls' faces. "Oh, you're a little early. Come on in."

Both girls blinked at the sight of Sasha more formally dressed than they'd ever seen her: an off-white button-up blouse with the sleeves rolled up just past her elbow, and dark blue pants, not shorts, looking a little dressy in fact. As she turned, the room light glinted on a small brass nameplate pinned to the blouse above a breast pocket, reading "Dr. Sasha Fallon-Martin." As the girls stepped in tentatively, a little awed by the various displays of their aunt's authority, Sasha said, "Let me show you what I've been working on lately. It's kind of a secret, so don't spread it around. Not that the students around here are great at keeping secrets."

As Reesy stepped beyond a large bookcase and her view of the room widened, she saw what the video camera was pointed at, sucked in a startled gasp and stepped back involuntarily. A second later Tally gave an identical gasp, followed by delighted laughter from the girl on the floor, who chortled, "I always love that reaction!"

Sasha laughed. "Girls, this is Jennifer. She's an experimental girlpet. Jennifer, these are my nieces, Tally and Reesy Martin. Tally's on your left."

Jennifer smiled at them. "Hi. You're... No, I guess you're not identicals, are you? Not quite?"

Tally responded in a tiny voice, "Ummm, no. It's a long story. You're... Are you...?" Tally looked helplessly at Reesy.

Reesy, equally stunned, whispered, "Are you a... snakegirl?"

Jennifer beamed at her. "The very first."

Tally's wide-open eyes locked with Jennifer's. "You can talk?"

Jennifer snorted. "All my life."

"No, I mean, if you're meant to be a girlpet..."

"Oh, right. Well, of course, I have to be able to tell the doctors how I'm feeling, and what works and what doesn't. I imagine when snakegirls go into production and people buy them as pets, they'll be mute, like puppygirls. Or who knows, people might want talking snakes." She shrugged and smiled.

Sasha nodded. "We converted her here, in the lab. Marie worked with the engineering school to design and build her new hip and knee joints, and I did the actual surgery. With Marie assisting, of course. And a plastic surgeon." Sasha glowed with pride in her work.

Tally started to step forward, then seemed to think better of it. "Is it okay if...?"

Jennifer looked brightly at her. "Do you want a closer look? I don't mind. I'm definitely used to it."

Tally looked at Sasha, who nodded. She stepped closer and knelt beside the girl, Reesy coming up beside her.

The girl lay on the floor, on her side, in what the girls thought of as a low-sided pit, about ten feet on each side. Her hips were bent in a natural way, but her engineered knee joint bent the wrong direction, the overall effect being that her body formed a half-circle in the pit. She had no arms, her shoulders ending in rounded knobs that looked perfectly natural -- excellent work by the plastic surgeon, no doubt. Except for the lack of arms, she was perfectly normal from the waist up, with full, natural-looking breasts. Below the waist, she had a single... well, "leg" was probably not the right word, since it would never be used for standing: what had been her two legs had been fused together, the skin of one seamlessly joined with the other, all the way from hip to... again, "foot" was not an appropriate word. Her feet had been removed, in fact, and where they had been, there was a hard, bony-looking ridge circling her... not ankle -- it was hard finding the right names for new body parts. Beyond the ridge, her... Reesy decided to call it a tail, tapered down to a rounded point. Behind her hip, the skin was rounded in what the girls assumed for now were normally-shaped buttocks, while in front of her hip, a mound of skin protected what looked like wrinkly lips... Tally cleared her throat. "Aunt Sasha, is that her... pussy?"

"Yes. We moved it a little. It had to go somewhere, and of course she doesn't have legs for it to be between."

"Does it..." She shook her head, trying to clear it. "Does it work? I mean... work?"

Jennifer laughed harder than ever. "Maybe better. It seems like I'm more sensitive there than I ever was before. And plenty of male students have tried it out. Go ahead, feel it." She giggled. "I mean it."

Tally reached down, a little shyly, and patted the mound. Jennifer closed her eyes and sighed, pushing her hips forward slightly to increase the contact. Reassured that the touch was indeed welcome, Tally pushed her finger between the folds of skin, encountering a wet, warm, tight tunnel -- feeling exactly like a normal vagina, in fact. Jennifer moaned in response.

Sasha interjected, "Her urethra's in there too. It's a fully-stocked vagina, if you want to put it that way. Solid wastes come out of the usual place. We didn't have to move that. You can take a look if you want."

Tally quickly shook her head. "No, we'll trust you on that."

Reesy had joined Tally, and reached down to stroke the skin of Jennifer's leg/tail. It felt soft and real, even the new part uniting her legs. Reesy shook her head in wonder.

Jennifer shuddered in what appeared to be a small orgasm, and Tally took it as an opportunity to withdraw her finger. She indicated the pit, which, on close inspection, turned out to be full of tiny metal ball bearings. There was a litter box, currently clean, along the back side of the pit, and food and water bowls in one back corner. She reached down and cautiously sifted through the steel balls with her fingers. "What's this for?"

Sasha answered, "Those little balls make it easier on her skin. There's not much friction, with them rolling all over each other. In the future we'll find some ways to toughen up the skin, from the waist down, maybe make it scaly. Jennifer was getting rug burns."

Reesy frowned and asked Jennifer, "So do you have to stay in the pit?"

Jennifer shook her head. "Oh no, I can move around everywhere -- I've even managed stairs."

As she spoke, she straightened her wrongly-bent knee and pulled the lower half of her "tail" back in a more normal direction. Reesy exclaimed, "You can bend it both ways!"

Sasha explained, "That's the new knee joint I was talking about. Her hip does that too. That's important for giving her a more snake-like look..."

Jennifer broke in, "And sure makes it easier to crawl around, considering what body parts I've got left." Wriggling forward, she cleared the rim of the pit and... slithered, snake-like, on her side, along the floor of the lab. As the girls watched, their jaws slack in amazement, Jennifer made a brief tour of the lab, her movements distinctly snakey and human at once, her hip and knee joints alternately bending in both directions as she used her shoulder knob, hip, knee, and the bony ankle ridge to push off.

Sasha explained, "She's spent weeks watching videos of snakes crawling, in slow motion, studying how they move. She's improving every day."

Jennifer spoke a little jerkily as she moved, "It's not too bad now, on the floor -- I'm getting the hang of moving so I'm not scraping quite as much." She wriggled back into the pit. "I like this stuff, though. I can pile it up to make a little nest to sleep in." She wriggled, pushing up a ridge of the tiny balls in front of her to demonstrate. "So you can see I do move around on the rug or linoleum or whatever. But this is my little comfort zone." She smiled and snuggled more comfortably among the pellets.

Tally frowned uncertainly. "I can understand you can give her new joints in surgery, but how can she... work them? Her muscles weren't made to do that."

Sasha smiled. "Good question. But they were, to some extent. Your own buttock muscles could pull your thighs back behind you, if your hip joints didn't stop your legs from bending that way. And for the lower legs... well, of course you don't have muscles along your shins, since your knees can't bend backwards so you don't need them. But as we were replacing Jennifer's knees with the new joint, we also did some rearranging of her lower leg bones. They're still in there, but turned so that some of her original muscles attach in front instead of in back. So she's using her original equipment to bend her lower leg both ways. Of course, she's been practicing for months now. It's easier now, isn't it, Jen?"

The snakegirl rolled her eyes. "More than you can imagine. I could hardly figure out how to move anything the first week or so -- it all felt SO weird. But now it just seems really natural." Grinning, she bent suddenly forward at the waist, and bent her knees back that disconcerting wrong direction, folding her body into a full circle she completed by putting the end of her "tail" in her mouth.

Reesy gasped. "Can you feel, down at the end there?"

Jennifer grinned around her tail, still sucking, then let it drop out of her mouth. "Yeah. In fact, it always gets me a little horny. Kind of sends shivers all around the circle."

Tally frowned. "But then you can't... well, you can't touch yourself, can you?"

Jennifer sighed. "That's one drawback. I can't always depend on some nice person with fingers, like you, just happening to be around. But that's why I have this." She tapped the end of her tail against a billiard-ball-like knob sticking up in front of her in the middle of her pit. "I can rub against this, and it's just as good." She giggled.

The two girls turned at a sound from the door. Marie came into the room, smiling. "Hi Reesy, Tally. I see Sasha is showing off our project."

Reesy looked back at Jennifer. "It's... she's really amazing." Jennifer grinned and bit her lip, coloring slightly.

Sasha finally put down the cassette she'd been holding. "I'll do some more filming later, Jen. Right now I want you to run through your exercises. Doctor Marie and I need to talk to Tally and Reesy for awhile."

At the word "exercises," Jennifer curled her lip and sighed. Sasha turned and beckoned the girls to a door in the side of the lab that led to her office, as Marie locked the door to the hallway through which she'd just entered. Sasha invited the girls to enter the office with a gesture. They went in, followed by Marie and finally Sasha herself.

The office had not actually been dark -- the girls could now see that the frosted glass pane in the door to the hallway was covered with paper. Marie, seeing the girls looking at it, smiled. "We like a little privacy in here sometimes."

It had not been empty either, though its occupant would not have been inclined to answer the girls' earlier knock. In a blanket-filled nest in a corner, a pretty puppygirl lay resting, and the girls could hear very soft music from a radio the puppygirl had been listening to. She scrambled up awkwardly at the sight of Sasha and Marie entering and stood on three legs, her left hind leg, wrapped in heavy bandages, held bent and off the floor as she stood. She hobbled towards Sasha, who was closer than Marie, accompanied by a soft jingling sound, her right hind leg hopping as she walked, her tail wagging, obviously glad to see the doctors.

The other far corner of the office, across from the puppy's nest, was set up as an exercise area -- there was a weight-lifting bench and two chinning bars, the higher one presumably for Sasha, the lower for Marie. In one of the near corners two desks sat at right angles to each other, their chairs on the far side of them next to the wall. Sasha went behind the one along the side wall of the office and sat in the chair, as the puppygirl hobbled over near her chair to be petted. Marie sat behind the desk along the rear wall, and said to the girls, smiling, "Have a seat. I guess we finally get to find out what this is about, right?"

The girls pulled up two chairs which had been next to one of the walls, set them in front of the desks and sat. Both still felt flustered by their encounter with Jennifer, and now at the sight of the puppygirl. They had very rarely seen a real one, and couldn't remember being in the same room with one, not counting the clinic downstairs -- puppygirls usually belonged to wealthy men in the big city. Clarence's pet Dana, of course, was really a girlcow acting as a pet. This girl had full but normal-sized breasts, with tiny bells held by rings in her pierced nipples, lacy brown cloth booties covering her paws, a leather collar of the same color, and the full-body tattooing, in white and brown patches, from the neck down, that only the most expensive puppygirls sported. Sasha, brushing her hand softly through the puppy's hair, noticed Tally and Reesy both looking at the puppy. "This is Princess. Her owner brought her to the clinic because she'd been limping - it turned out to be a bone spur in her hind leg. I operated on her last week, and she'll be here about another couple of days before she's well enough to go home. I want to keep track of the incision until the stitches are ready to come out." The girl lay down carefully, avoiding banging her sore leg on the floor, and curled up near Sasha's feet. Sasha raised a quizzical eyebrow at her nieces. "Now -- what's up?"

Both girls, struggling mentally for a way to introduce the subject, watched as Princess stood laboriously and hobbled to a food dish in the corner of the office and licked up some dried meat, and lapped up water from an adjacent bowl. She turned, then, and limped out of the office, into the lab, her nipple bells jingling.

Reesy cleared her throat nervously, conscious for the first time of the possibility that her aunts might say no. "We... we wanted to ask..." She looked at Tally.

Tally bit her lip. "We... well, we know what we want to do with... our lives." She winced, the statement sounding a touch more grand than it had in her mind's ear before saying it.

Sasha nodded, tentatively, and picked up a V-shaped, spring-loaded hand exerciser from the desk and squeezed it rhythmically as she talked. "You're planning to be breeders. Did you want some medical advice?"

Reesy shook her head. "We're not going to be breeders." She frowned, realizing this wasn't exactly true. "Well, not like we'd been planning before, I mean. We're going to be... that is, we're supposed to be..."

Tally finished for her, "Girlcow moms."

Reesy nodded enthusiastically, relieved that the idea was finally out. "Like our own mothers."

Sasha looked at the girls blankly. "You're pregnant?"

Tally giggled. "Everybody keeps asking that. No, not yet. But we want to get pregnant, and then converted, and have the babies as girlcows."

Marie frowned. "So who's the father?"

Reesy shook her head. "There won't be a father, exactly."

Sasha said patiently, as if to one of her slower students, "There needs to be a father, dear."

Reesy returned the look, her lips curved in a smile, surprised that Sasha, of all people, would say that. "Penny doesn't have one."

Sasha opened her mouth to respond, then sat back. "Oh," she said quietly, then a more drawn out "Ohhhh." She looked at Marie, who blinked at her in return.

Eleven years ago, Sasha and Marie, longing to make their married life more complete, had participated in an experiment conducted in the med school, in which the genetic materials from one woman's egg had been used to fertilize the egg of another woman, which was then implanted in the second woman's womb. After signing up for the experiment, they had spent days discussing which of them should carry the baby, finally agreeing that, though her body was smaller, Marie had fewer demands on her time, as she breezed through her sophomore year while Sasha was meeting a demanding vet school schedule. Nine months later Marie had given birth to Penny, genetically the daughter of both of them, on whom they showered all the love two mothers can provide.

Sasha sighed. "I can see what you're thinking. But the med school isn't doing that experiment anymore. The university administration leaned on them a little to back-burner it. They got a little scared that if the general public heard about it, and started imagining it meant men weren't needed for reproduction anymore..." She rolled her eyes. "I mean, it's not like every woman in the world would start doing it this way. Lots of them really prefer the old fashioned way. But it really bothered the old farts on the board that all the children born this way would be female, since there were never any Y-chromosomes involved. They were sure males would be bred out of the race." She shook her head. "Not that that's necessarily any great loss, but it'd never happen. Try convincing them, though. But anyway," she looked at the girls sadly, "They're not doing it anymore."

Reesy leaned forward. "But you guys know how it's done. You could do it yourselves, couldn't you? All the equipment you'd need would still be in the med school. Wouldn't it, Aunt Marie?"

Marie, whose appointment was in both the med school and vet school, nodded slowly. "Well, yeah. We could do it. But another thought is, you two are too genetically close to want to start crossing your chromosomes like that."

Tally, startled, said, "Oh! No, that wasn't what we were thinking. We weren't going to use each other's eggs."

Sasha blinked. "So whose eggs do you plan on using?"

Reesy answered, "Besides our moms, there are two really special people in our lives: Aunt Clary and Aunt Natalie. We know they still have eggs, even if their girlcow bodies aren't doing anything with them. Wait, before you say anything," she said quickly, waving her hands as Sasha opened her mouth, "We know Aunt Clary is related to us too. Not quite as close as we are to each other. But you can do tests, right? To see if there's any dangers in putting our genes together? I'd be the one who'd have her baby."

Marie looked puzzled. "Why's that?"

"I'm named for her." Seeing that Marie's puzzled look wasn't going away, she went on, "Oh, my real name is Clarice. And Tally is really Natalya."

Marie smiled. "Never knew that. But yes, there are some fairly comprehensive tests for potential genetic problems. That's a little beyond our expertise..."

Sasha interrupted, "There's a professor in cell bio who owes me a favor." She was leaning forward, looking excited. "The tests take several weeks for a complete analysis. Are you up for that? When were Clary and Natalie getting roasted?"

Breathing fast, her hands clenched, Tally said quickly, "That's not for a few months yet. Does that mean you'll do it?? Will you do it??" She could hardly breathe.

Sasha turned to Marie. "Sweety, I'll take care of the tests. Would you be able to line up the use of the equipment?"

Before Marie could reply, the girls jumped out of their seats, Reesy rushing to hug Sasha while Tally was throwing her arms around Marie, showering "Thank you" on both of them. Marie grinned at Sasha, looking around Tally. "I guess I'd better."

Sasha gave Reesy one last hard squeeze and said, "Okay, let's figure out a schedule for all this. I'll need tissue samples from you two, and from Clary and Natalie." Her eyes narrowed. "I assume they know about this?"

Reesy reddened and shot a look at Tally. "Ummm..."

Sasha laughed. "Well, you might consider letting them know."

Reesy nodded frantically, hoping their plan wouldn't hit one last snag. She wiped away a tear, kissed Sasha on the cheek, and stood next to her desk. "We'll go home and tell them right now."

Tally looked around her. "Aunt Marie, I think we left our purses in the lab. Can we run in there real quick and get them?"

Marie smiled and said, "Of course, dear," and Tally hurried over to the lab door, Reesy close behind her, too close to avoid running into Tally as she suddenly stopped dead in the doorway, her hand shooting up to her mouth.

Both girls stood in the doorway, frozen by the sight of Jennifer on her back, with Princess lying on top of her, straddling her, face to face, the two girlpets rubbing their pussies against each other energetically, their breasts squashed together, their lips pressed together in a passionate kiss that muffled a near-orgasm moan from Jennifer. Both girls were perspiring freely, the overhead fluorescents making the white patches of Princess's skin glow as if she were electric herself. Just moments later, Jennifer's body went rigid, and she screamed as the spasms of orgasm shot through her, which pushed Princess over the edge herself. Breathing raggedly as she came down from her high, Jennifer giggled as Princess licked her chin and cheeks, her tail wagging.

Tally and Reesy felt Sasha's hands on their shoulders, Sasha saying quietly, "I forgot to tell you, Jennifer and Princess have really hit it off. I don't think Princess gets to be on top at home very often."

"So is it okay? Aunt Clary? Aunt Natalie?" Both girls looked pleadingly at the two older women.

Natalie turned to Clarissa. "So what do you think?" The edges of her lip were quivering, ready to turn. She already knew what Clarissa was going to say.

Clarissa, her eyes glowing, whispered huskily, "We're going to be moms!"

Natalie's broke into a grin. "Yeah!"