THREE MONTHS LATER

Clarissa gave Rachel one last kiss and rolled off her, grinning and breathing hard. She giggled, "You young kids and all your energy."

Rachel laughed, rubbing her foreleg against her stallmate Rhiannon's, lying next to her on her back, and gave Clarissa a poke with her hoof. "I'm thirty years old, sis. And you just wear me out!" She shook her head and looked at Natalie. "How do you keep up with her?"

Natalie, still on top of Rhiannon, grinned and reached out with her foreleg to rub the underside of Clarissa's nearer breast. "There's something in her milk, I think. Secret ingredient. I drink lots of it."

Natalie gave Rhiannon a lingering kiss, and rolled off to the side and up to her hooves. She sighed and smiled as a cool breeze rustled the few leaves under the tree she and Clarissa had chosen as the site for their physical goodbyes to the family. Summer was winding down, and there would be many more leaves soon, as the light touch of fall in the air indicated. Clarissa and Natalie hoped the weather would stay nice through their roast, now two days away; they wanted to finish all the sessions of sex with their nieces and sisters out here rather than in the barn. There was something about making love outdoors that felt just right, especially since it made it easier for the rest of the family to give them and their sex partners of the moment plenty of privacy: for the most part the rest of the cows stayed off in the distance, either at the far end of the yard or in the barn, so that the pair with Clarissa and Natalie could give them very personal goodbyes without being overheard. They had spread the sessions out over several days, and were nearly finished.

Natalie watched Rachel and Rhiannon ambling towards a distant tree, rubbing against each other and chatting on the way, as Clarissa turned at a sound from the back door of the house and saw Gail framed in the doorway. Gail called out "You guys free for a little bit?"

Clarissa squinted, both from the sunlight filtering through the leaves and from puzzlement. "Yeah, but aren't we doing you and Sarah tomorrow?"

Gail laughed. "I sure hope so, but we've got somebody else in here who wants to talk to you awhile."

Clarissa smiled as Sarah appeared behind Gail, with Jennifer slung over her shoulders. "Sure, bring her out."

As Sarah reached the bottom of the porch steps, Jennifer said, "Okay, you can put me down now. I just didn't want to get splinters on the porch."

Sarah nodded and bent forward, letting Jennifer roll out onto her outstretched arms, and lowered her gently to the ground. Jennifer squinted up at Sarah and thanked her, then started squirming along the ground towards Clarissa and Natalie.

She sighed as she reached the shade of the tree. "Whew! Feels nice under here." She stretched out on her back, looking up at the cows, grinning.

Clarissa smiled. "We would have come and got you, and saved you having to wiggle over here, but we're not much good at carrying things."

Jennifer shook her head. "I only let people carry me when I have to. I'd rather go places under my own power. It feels..." She laughed. "I guess that's part of what attracted me to the experiment. It feels kind of sexy getting around this way."

Natalie shook her head in wonder. "Is that the reason? I'd been meaning to ask."

"Why I did it? Well, one of them. The biggest thing is, I was kind of bored. I was a sophomore, majoring in tribal history, and..." She frowned. "I don't know, I was just kind of losing steam. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. Somehow I wanted to... make a contribution. In some way that a million other girls weren't already doing. I looked into some things, like the Breeding Farm, and the Fat Farm, but nothing jumped out at me. Then I saw one of those flyers Doctor Sasha -- she's your sister, right? -- was putting out around campus, and..." She laughed. "I got this really tingly feeling. I took that flyer back to the dorm and must have read it a hundred times that night, and..." she rolled her eyes and grinned, "...my fingers got really really busy in bed. Anyway, I was up at Doctor Sasha's and Doctor Marie's office at, like, seven-thirty the next morning. They about freaked when they saw they had a volunteer."

Clarissa laughed delightedly. "I can imagine! Anyway, we're really glad you're part of the family now. Tom seems really..." She looked at Natalie. "What's a good word?"

Natalie thought. "Springy?"

Clarissa's eyes lit up. "Perfect! Like he's come back to life after a long winter. Or the way he's bouncing all around, sproing, sproing, everywhere. You can use the same word either way."

Jennifer's jaw dropped. "For real? He's different?"

Clarissa nodded. "Well, I know he was missing Wendy a lot. I'm sure he still is, but you're doing a lot for him."

Jennifer sighed, her eyes alight. "I'm really glad. Anyway, I wanted to say I just wish I could have got to know you guys better. Reesy and Tally talk about you all the time." She frowned uncertainly. "Do you mind if I ask you one thing?"

Natalie blinked. "Well, how else are you going to get to know us any better?"

Jennifer giggled. "I guess that's true. Anyway..." She paused, trying to decide how to say it. "Don't you... well, I mean, if you wanted to postpone your roast so you could see your daughters born, I know Master Tom would let you if you just asked him." She bit her lip. "Do you want me to ask him for you?"

Clarissa leaned over and kissed her. "Jennifer, you are so sweet! Really, though, Natalie and I have never needed anybody's help to get Tom to do anything. I've had him wrapped around my little finger since... well, since I had fingers." She laughed, then frowned in thought. "It's not that. Sure, we'd love to see our daughters. But... Well, I heard Wendy say once if she stayed around to see everything she wanted to see, she'd never get eaten at all. And she was talking about seeing her granddaughters born, so it was really a similar thing. I'm pretty sure she was thinking the same way we are. It's not that we don't care about our girls. It's more like we care too much."

Natalie nodded. "They're not even born yet, and we already love them to pieces! So if we stayed alive to see them born... well, I know we'd right away be thinking, we've got to see them take their first steps! We've got to hear them say their first words! We've got to see them wave from the bus going to their first day of school! And it'd just get harder, and harder, to draw the line and say we can't see that next thing. We'd want to see everything that happened in their lives, and we know we just can't." She looked back along her body. "I know there's nothing really magical about the age forty, or forty-five, but our meat is losing a little nutritional value every day. Clarissa and I are so lucky we've been able to share so many years together. We'd love to see what's still to come, but that's just being selfish."

Clarissa went on, "It really helps that we know Tally and Reesy are going to be the world's best moms. We know our girls are going to be in wonderful hands." She chuckled. "Well, not hands, exactly. But we trust them to raise our daughters."

Jennifer sighed. "I can see why Tally and Reesy think so much of you. I'm glad I got here in time to know you, even if it wasn't for very long." She glanced towards the house. "I know you guys have a really busy couple of days. I don't want to keep you from doing something you need to. Gail probably has some lunch ready for me."

Clarissa looked at Natalie questioningly, and got a nod and a grin in response. She said to Jennifer, "You couldn't think you'd get away from us that easily," and bent down to give Jennifer's pussy a playful lick. Jennifer gasped, then convulsed at the intense blast of sensations as Clarissa settled in to more serious licking, her excited squeal dissolving into breathless giggles that stopped when Natalie covered Jennifer's mouth with her own.

Later, Jennifer found a new way to use the end of her tail.

THAT NIGHT

Donna and Dierdre privately called it "bedroom music" when they could hear it down the hallway from behind Tom's closed door: the rhythmic repetition of the squeak of the bedframe, followed closely by Jennifer's and Tom's near-simultaneous grunts as he made another thrust, followed by Jennifer's gasp as he withdrew partway before starting the next bar of the music by thrusting deep inside her again.

Jennifer loved the feeling of being surrounded by Tom, as he lay on top of her, partly supporting himself on his elbows, his forearms pressed to her sides, his hands under her shoulderblades and fingers wrapped around her shoulders, his legs clamped hard against her tail on either side, and of course, his manhood buried deep inside her, in that fleshy wet tunnel at the low end of her stomach that seemed so much more sensitive in its new location. She kissed him whenever his face came near enough for her to reach it, her occasional fleeting wish that she had arms and legs she could wrap around him buried under her more fervent need to stay just as she was, with him all around her and inside her forever.

Her body, as usual, had a mind of its own, ignoring her desire for a permanent plateau, raising her response to sensual stimulation steadily higher until the explosion of orgasm shook her body, all but swamping her awareness that Tom had, with one still-deeper thrust and a hoarse shout, begun spilling his fluids into her, his arms and legs gripping her still tighter for the moment and then slowly, slowly relaxing, his erection subsiding but remaining inside her for a few minutes, still dribbling, until at last he sighed and rolled off of her, to lay on his side next to her and stroke her stomach, his hand moving upward occasionally to cup her breast at the top of a stroke. She took advantage of his continued nearness to turn her head to the side and give him another kiss, and whispered, "Thank you, Master Tom."

He smiled. "I see you got to spend a little time with Clary and Natalie today."

Her eyes widened. "Oh, they're so great! I can really see now why the rest of the cows look up to them." She flexed her tail to help her roll to the side and face him. "They aren't from the same litter, are they? They look so different. Natalie doesn't really look like the rest, even if you don't count the red hair."

"Oh! I guess nobody's mentioned it yet. Natalie's not..." He smiled. "Well, I think the cows would scream if I said anything like 'Natalie's not my sister,' so I'll say it this way: she wasn't born in the family. I bought her at an auction."

"Oh, okay! That explains it. How long has she been here?"

"Let's see..." He blinked with surprise. "Wow, I guess that was over twenty years ago."

"How long have they been chained together?"

"Just about that entire time. They hit it off early on. After kind of a rough start." He looked more closely at her hip, and brushed it lightly with his fingers. "You've got some scrapes here. Did Donna look at those? She's our scratched-shins scabby-knees expert."

Jennifer nodded. "When she was giving me a bath. She said they're no big deal. Didn't break the skin or anything. Is it okay if I keep going outside sometimes? I'll be really careful. I know I can get better at not scraping along when I move. You should have seen me a few months ago. I can at least come out for the roast, can't I?"

He smiled. "Of course." He draped his arm over her side, pulled her a little closer and kissed her. He had a sudden impression she wanted to say something. "What?"

She bit her lip. "Well... Clary had kind of an idea."

He laughed. "She always does. What was it?"

"She said there's a modified version of the lactation hormone you give the girlcows, that makes a woman start making milk, but not nearly as much as a girlcow, and your boobs only swell a little bit."

Jennifer had been instantly excited by the idea, all the more so when Clarissa told her that nursing a lover was the most sublimely rewarding experience she had ever known, and that she had Sandy's and Sally's assurance that only feeding your own child surpassed it. Jennifer knew better than to pass along the rest of what Clarissa had told her: that Wendy, during the course of having twenty-eight children, had been lactating through nearly all of her married life with Tom, and that it was something Tom, perhaps consciously, perhaps not, probably missed now. Jennifer watched his eyes nervously. She knew that any obvious attempt to move Wendy aside in Tom's memories would bring up defenses that would push Jennifer away from him. She didn't want to replace Wendy anyway; she only wanted to find more ways to make her master happy. She burst into a smile when his eyes lit up.

"Are you saying you'd want to do that? Start making milk?"

Afraid to say anything else, to give away how very much she wanted it, afraid above all of letting her eyes flick over towards the corner of the room at just that moment, she could only nod, with her lips pressed tightly together.

He smiled. "I'll try to get some of that stuff next week."

She gasped, pressed closer to him and kissed him, at last letting her eyes look beyond him to the room's corner, to Wendy's head. The moment her eyes met Wendy's she felt a wave of approval flowing towards her, confirming her expectation. She relaxed against his body and kissed him more firmly.

SAME NIGHT, IN THE BARN

Natalie snuggled against Clarissa, her foreleg draped over Clarissa's side. "Our last night alone together." Though their roast was not until the day after tomorrow, they had already made plans to share Friday night with Tally and Reesy.

With her lips brushing Clarissa's as she talked, Natalie was speaking sufficiently quietly that she knew they couldn't be overheard over the mutter of televisions in the nearby stalls. Since all of the cows knew this was a special night for them, there was little chance of their being disturbed.

Clarissa's lips curled in a smile, and she gave Natalie another in a long string of soft kisses before replying. "If you don't count our heads being together on the memory shelf." The cows had given that name to the wooden shelf on which the heads of Karen and Kirsten, Monica and Jill, and Jenny and Gwen smiled at the comings and goings of the living herd.

Natalie snickered. "Okay. Last one we'll remember, then." Her face turned serious. "Clarissa... Are you really sure you don't want to be hanged? I'd really do it with you. I'm not afraid of it anymore. Tom could probably arrange something, even this late."

Clarissa brushed her cheek against Natalie's. "I'm very happy with what we planned."

Natalie closed her eyes as the feeling of being close to her life's love overwhelmed her, as it often did. "But you've been wanting to be hanged all your life!"

"I know, but think about why."

"What do you mean?" It occurred to Natalie how rarely she had ever had to ask Clarissa that.

Clarissa chewed her lip thoughtfully. "Well, women like being hanged for a lot of different reasons. Sometimes it's the asphyxia. Some love the sensual feel of the rope around their necks. Or it might be the challenge of kicking longer than anybody thought you'd be able to." She kissed Natalie's nose. "For me, it was always the idea of other people watching me dangling and kicking... and getting them horny! You know the feeling, you've watched hangings on TV. It's part of why they're so popular, and why Hanging Academy girls are such big stars. That just always seemed like such a neat power to have."

Natalie gave her a puzzled look. "You don't want that anymore?"

Clarissa smiled. "Of course I do! That is, I feel the same way about it that I always have. It's just that there's something more important now."

"What's that?"

Clarissa wrinkled her nose. "I know you know. You just want to hear me say it. That's okay, though, I love being able to say it." She sighed contentedly. "Natalie, I promised you years ago that we'd go together. And I've never had a second thought about that. But there's more to it than just that. It's not just that I would never, ever imagine leaving you behind. It's that..." She looked intently, directly, into Natalie's eyes, her voice suddenly husky. "...when I'm being snuffed, I don't want to be thinking about anybody else in the world but you. I don't want to be thinking about whether I'm getting anybody hot. I want my last thoughts to be about you. Just you. Nothing but you." A tear rolled down from her eye. "You see?"

Natalie opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. Her tears far outdid Clarissa's, coming down in a steady stream. She finally managed, in a choked voice, "All... my life... I've been somebody who could use words. It was such a nice feeling... when I'd tell the kids stories, and look around and see their eyes glued to me, waiting to see what words I'd say next." She sniffled mightily, and wiped her eyes on her shoulder, trying to get back some sort of control. "But I've never, ever said any words... as beautiful as what you just said."

Clarissa started catching up on tears. She echoed Natalie's sniffle, and said, "Stop, now, you're getting me going." She shook herself. "What are we laying here crying for? It's time to be excited." She grinned suddenly, her brimming eyes alight. "We're getting roasted!"

Natalie giggled. "I know, I know. Let's just think about that."

Clarissa gave her an open-mouthed smile. "Do we just have to think about it, or can we be doing something else along with it?"

"Like what?" She looked as if she knew.

Clarissa rolled on top of her, her hips already wriggling, and began kissing Natalie's throat and neck, pausing just long enough to answer, "Guess!"

THE NEXT NIGHT

Gail looked in from the stall gate. "I'm locking up now. Do you need anything first? Tally? Reesy? Need anything from your stall?"

Reesy looked at Tally, then shook her head at Gail. "We're fine."

Clarissa smiled at Gail. "See you in the morning, Gail."

Gail snickered. "One last time, huh?" She bit her lip, and suddenly rushed in to kneel in front of Clarissa, throwing her arms around Clarissa's shoulders, pressing her cheek against Clarissa's. She stroked her short hair, then leaned over and kissed Natalie. "Both of you have a great day tomorrow, okay?"

Natalie grinned. "We're planning to."

Gail sighed and secured the ceiling chains to Clarissa's, Natalie's, Tally's, and Reesy's collars, and reluctantly rose to her feet again and walked to the gate. She blew a kiss at Clarissa and locked the gate.

Clarissa looked at the gate for a long moment, then looked at her two guests. "So what would you guys like to do?"

Tally blinked, startled. "We kind of thought that would be up to you tonight. But..." She looked at Reesy, and spoke to Clarissa. "One thing we might do is show you 'slow love' -- like we do with our moms." Reesy's face lit up, and she nodded quickly.

Natalie asked, "Is that a position where we'd be able to feel your tummies?" In the last few weeks, both girls' stomachs had started to bulge perceptably, more obviously by the day, it seemed.

Reesy grinned. "Oh, definitely."

Minutes later, Clarissa and Natalie lay facing away from each other, their connecting chain on the floor running between their collars, as Reesy snuggled up against Clarissa, facing her, each with her right hind leg between both of the other's, their upper forelegs resting on each other's sides, while Tally similarly entangled herself with Natalie. Clarissa smiled. "This is pretty much the position Natalie and I are going to be using tomorrow."

Reesy nodded and explained to Clarissa, "Now we just kiss for as long as we can. If you start feeling excited, just relax and let it wash away, into the back of your mind. The point is just to feel close, not horny."

Clarissa touched her forehead against Reesy's. "That sounds perfect, dear! You understand exactly how we wanted to spend this last night, don't you?"

Reesy nodded slowly, her lips parted, already getting into the mood. "I think so. Just the six of us spending some quiet time together, right?" She brushed her rounded stomach lightly against Clarissa's flatter one.

Clarissa nodded in return. "Though one difference is tomorrow we'll try to get as horny as we can. Speaking of that, I ended up a little too far from Natalie. I'm going to scootch back a little, so come along with me."

Reesy giggled as she worked to stay snuggled with Clarissa while her aunt was wriggling back towards Natalie, meeting her halfway as Natalie had scooted back towards her. Clarissa felt a sea of calm flow over her as her buttocks pressed up against Natalie's, and their shoulderblades met an instant later. For the last few days she had constantly felt the need of Natalie's touch as much as she ever had.

Tally laughed. "I was just thinking -- yeah, it's the six of us here, but we've really only got two names between us all."

Natalie wrinkled her brows, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

Tally smiled. "Tell her, Reese."

Reesy took a deep breath. "We were going to wait and tell you tomorrow, but this seems like a better time." She looked into her aunt's eyes, just inches away. "I'm going to name our baby Clarissa."

As Clarissa gasped, Tally fastened her eyes similarly on her own partner in motherhood. "And ours will be Natalie." Natalie's jaw dropped open, and her head darted forward until her lips met Tally's in a hard, passionate kiss. Behind her, Reesy's slightly muffled "Ummp!" told her Clarissa had done the same.

Reesy broke off the kiss, laughing. "No, no, 'slow love,' remember? Just a soft, gentle kiss that lasts forever. You're going to get too hot to make it work! You're going to get me too hot."

Clarissa bit her lip and grinned. "Okay, okay. But you just don't know how much I love you right now."

Reesy sighed happily. "I love you too, Aunt Clary." She kissed her then, and held it, their lips moving softly together. For the next several hours, long after Gail had lowered the lights, they continued the kiss, while Clarissa periodically rubbed her thigh against Reesy's pussy to hear her soft sighs, her tummy against Reesy's to feel their baby, and her buttocks against Natalie's. It wasn't important, she reflected, to remember this wonderful feeling for any more than the twelve or so hours left to her life. The only thing important, she knew, was the satisfaction of ever having felt this way.

SATURDAY

Clarissa turned her head quickly towards the gate at the sound of the lock opening, letting Reesy's nipple fall out of her mouth, and she quickly swallowed a mouthful of Reesy's milk. She grinned at the sight of the figure standing behind Gail, as Tally shouted "Aunt Sasha!" Tally stopped herself from twisting away from Natalie to roll to her hooves, politely waiting for Natalie to let go of her breast.

Sasha, dressed now in a much more normal way, for her, than the girls had been seeing her lately, her halter top showing off abdomenals that looked as taut as they had been when she was twenty, her shorts revealing legs that looked as if they could, and probably did, lift three hundred pounds from a squat, grinned. "Came to do a little work. You guys won't even let me rest on weekends. You ready?"

Clarissa looked at Natalie, who nodded. "We need to get this done early. You said you wanted us over the fire by two o'clock, right Gail?"

Gail nodded. "And it's going to take a little more time than usual to get your bodies ready for cooking, since there's two of you. Charlotte's going to be helping, but I have to watch her closely, 'cause I told her she could do the preps on Natalie by herself." Gail laughed. "Should have seen her when I told her that. She almost couldn't breathe for awhile. Then she hugged me so tight I couldn't breathe. But she's ready for a solo. She better be, because the next ones to go are me and Sarah."

Sasha entered the stall and set down her bag, knelt by it and began searching in it for the tools she'd need. "Do you want Reesy and Tally to stay?"

Clarissa nodded vigorously. "Oh, sure. This is their stall now. We're just their guests." She laughed at the startled looks from the girls. "You don't mind thinking of it that way, do you?"

Tally stammered, "Ummm... The fact is, we'll probably always think of it as your stall. We'll be, like, borrowing it."

Natalie grinned. "Well, if you want to get totally technical, none of us own our stalls or anything else. We're slaves. Anyway, the point is, you're welcome to stay here."

As they listened to the distinctive metallic sound, from a distant stall, of milk streaming into an empty pail -- today was Cori's turn to help Sarah with the morning milking -- Sasha sat back on her heels. She had removed a laser knife and a small wooden box from her bag. "Clary, you first?"

Clarissa shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Flip a coin."

Natalie's eyes bulged as Sasha opened the wooden box. "Sasha, those look like big sewing needles."

Sasha smiled and started choosing a few of the needles from the box. "I told you I've been learning some new stuff. I don't want to drug you this close to your roast, and a local anesthetic is out too." She finished her selection and sat of the floor of the stall, beside Clarissa. "Left side, or do you want to turn around the other way?"

Clarissa frowned at the sight of the sharp-looking needles Sasha was holding. She replied absently, "Ummm, no, this side's fine. Sash, are you sure this won't hurt?"

Sasha shook her head. "I didn't say that, but it's no worse than getting a shot. Okay, hold still, Clary." With her tongue thrust slightly through her teeth, she poised the first needle just behind Clarissa's shoulder and, with a very steady hand that had always served her during surgery, thrust the tip of the needle in through the soft skin.

Clarissa had squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth, and realized when she sensed Sasha leaning away that the tiny prick she had felt, in place of the stabbing pain she'd been expecting, signalled that the needle was in place. She opened her eyes in surprise, craning her neck to get a look at the needle. "That's it?"

Sasha smiled. "Not done yet. I've got a couple more to do. Take your weight off that foreleg now. It's going to be numb when I get done."

Clarissa leaned to her right, lifting the foreleg slightly off the floor, and waited while Sasha inserted two more needles. Clarissa's eyes flew open wide when the last was inserted. "Sash, it's like my foreleg just disappeared. I have to keep looking at it to make sure it's still there. There must have been something on those needles."

Sasha grinned. "Isn't it cool? No, there's nothing on them. It's just knowing where to put them." She took one last needle and waved it in front of Clarissa's eyes. "This one's for testing. I'm going to jab you in a few places. Tell me if you feel anything. Close your eyes."

Clarissa complied, and waited. After a few seconds, she said, "Okay, go ahead."

Sasha laughed. "I've already been poking you with it. We're fine. You're numb." The picked up the laser knife. "Ready?"

Clarissa took a deep breath and let it slowly out. She nodded.

Sasha held Clarissa's foreleg near the hoof to keep it steady, her face pure concentration as she held the knife below Clarissa's armpit, and raised it up swiftly through the flesh and bone with a single, smooth stroke, severing the foreleg at her shoulder. Clarissa's jaw dropped in astonishment at the sight of her sister handing her foreleg to Gail. She shook her head. "That's just incredible, Sasha. I didn't feel anything at all!"

Beside her, Natalie let out a pent-up breath. "That's good to hear."

Sasha winked at Natalie. "So you ready?"

Natalie nodded. "Do my right. It needs to be the opposite of Clarissa's."

A few minutes later, she sighed with relief as Sasha handed Gail another foreleg. Gail looked at Clarissa. "You guys sure you want these microwaved? We'll spread some sauce on them first, of course, but they still won't taste quite as rich as barbecue."

Clarissa nodded. "The taste isn't the important part." She hopped on one foreleg a few inches to the right, near enough to kiss Natalie. "It's knowing whose meat it is."

The rest of the cows were crowded around the gate to Clarissa's and Natalie's stall, watching Cori and Sarah finish milking Reesy and Tally, when Gail returned with a platter, on which lay Clarissa's and Natalie's forelegs, still steaming slightly in the morning air. She smiled. "Better get them while they're still hot."

Clarissa frowned at Gail's difficulties getting through the knot of cows. "Gail, would it be okay if we all went outside? It's a little crowded here."

Gail looked at Sarah. "All done with the milking, honey?"

Sarah nodded. "Except Clarissa and Natalie. Master Tom said it was okay, them sharing their milk around this morning."

Gail backed towards the barn door with the platter. "Okay, everybody out the front." The cows turned and followed her.

Clarissa squinted at the needles still stuck in around her shoulder. "Do you need to take these out before I start moving around much?"

Sasha shook her head. "They'll be okay, as long as you don't start playing field hockey or something. You'd be a lot less comfortable if I took them out now. It's too soon after the surgery."

Tally and Reesy hovered around uncertainly. Reesy said, "Aunt Clary, do you need us to help somehow?"

Clarissa shook her head and smiled. "Thanks, dear. I think I can make it okay." She looked at Natalie. "How about you, darling?"

Natalie giggled. "Well, I'm a little bummed about not getting to play hockey, but I feel okay for just walking."

Clarissa laughed. "Okay, let's go." They started towards the gate with an awkward three-legged hobble, their connecting chain swinging noisily between them. Clarissa looked around the stall, and stopped suddenly. "Wait!"

Natalie started, "What..." then looked around, and said, "Oh, yeah." To the others, she said, "The rest of you go on ahead. We'll be right there, but we just realized we probably won't be coming back to the stall again. We just need a minute."

Sasha nodded, and she left the stall, followed by Reesy and Tally. Clarissa looked around again, at each feature of the stall. The feeding trough, the juice and water nipples hanging from the ceiling. The security chains, unused at present. The litter box. The television. With a smile, she looked at their sleeping pad, and then back at her lifetime partner.

"So what is it, twenty-two years in here?" She bit her lip. "I remember our first night together in here. You weren't much fun that night." She looked at Natalie warmly, remembering the pain Natalie had been going through then. "But the last eight thousand and however many nights more than make up for it." She leaned towards Natalie and kissed her, long and deep.

Natalie sighed. "And I remember those three weeks near the start when I thought I'd lost you forever. Even with all the days we've been together, I always wish I could have spent those ones with you." She took one more look around. "This was the best place in the world for me to spend over half my life." Her eyes fixed on Clarissa's. "Because you were in it with me."

A single tear ran down Clarissa's cheek. Near the corner of her lip, it met the one tear spilling down Natalie's cheek.

Clarissa broke off the kiss, smiled and took a deep breath. "We can't let the meat get cold."

Together they hobbled out of the stall.

Outside, the rest of the cows had formed a half-circle in front of the barn door. Clarissa and Natalie, already breathing a little hard from exertion, smiled at them all as they emerged from the barn, and looked around to determine the best place to sit.

Clarissa looked up at Sasha and giggled. "I'm not sure how to get sitting down gracefully." There was enough room along the side of the barn next to the door. She nudged Natalie and gestured with her chin. "Right there, hon?" Natalie nodded, and Sasha helped them both sit beside each other on the ground, with their backs against the wall of the barn. Clarissa heaved a sigh of relief, and grinned up at Gail, who was still holding the platter. "Okay, let's eat."

As Gail set the platter down in front of them, Clarissa looked at the steaming forelegs and laughed. "I knew there wouldn't be any trouble telling which was which." The forelegs, their hooves now sliced off with the laser knife so they could be microwaved, were darkened by the thin coating of sauce Gail had brushed on them, but the freckles covering Natalie's were still plainly visible. Clarissa pointed with her remaining foreleg at Natalie's on the platter and said jokingly, "I'll have, let's see, ummm... that one."

Gail knelt and tested the temperature of Natalie's severed foreleg with her fingertips. Satisfied it was cool enough to touch, she picked it up by the ends, holding it like a corncob. She looked up at Sarah and said, "Sweety, could you get the other one?"

She held the foreleg up to Clarissa, somewhat ceremonially. Clarissa waited, watching as Sarah picked up her own cooked foreleg and held it up for Natalie. Clarissa looked at Natalie, and they both burst into smiles, and leaned forward together, each sinking her teeth into the other's foreleg and tearing away a big chunk of meat.

Clarissa sat back with her eyes closed, chewing, concentrating on the taste and feel of Natalie's meat on her tongue. She was slightly startled when Sarah asked, "How did you guys think of this?"

Natalie swallowed her first piece of Clarissa, and frowned in thought. "It was back... I guess that had to be at Kirstie's roast. Right, hon?" She looked at Clarissa, who nodded back. "I don't mean we thought of doing it like this, back then. It was just kind of a wish-I-could-eat-you-and-you-could-eat-me sort of thing. We kept thinking about it again at every roast -- at least I know I did."

Clarissa nodded again. "Me too. Finally at Wendy's roast, Natalie and I started remembering back to when Gail always used to cut off the roaster's arms and legs before barbecuing her and saved them for later, because we were a smaller family back then. I was saying you'd probably do that with us because we were getting roasted together on the same day, and... it seems like we got this idea at the same time."

Natalie laughed. "And how many times has that ever happened?"

Clarissa laughed with her, and leaned over to kiss her.

Sarah bit her lip and looked at Gail. "You want to? On our day?"

Gail gasped, and grinned. "Sure!"

Sandy looked at Sally, who nodded. "We want to too, Gail -- oh! Wait, you won't be here. Did Charlotte help you cook the forelegs?"

Gail nodded. "She's doing a lot of stuff on her own now."

"Oh, good! She'll know how, then. We'll tell her later."

As all of the pairs of partners murmurred in the background, all of them seeming to agree they wanted to eat each other when the day of their roast arrived, Gail looked back at Clarissa, holding up the cooked foreleg. "Want some more, or should I start carving it up for the rest of the girls?"

Clarissa blinked in surprise. "Yes, I want some more! I'm hungry, and Natalie is my last meal! I want to fill up with her till I'm stuffed! And then you can stuff me."

Natalie laughed. "We might totally finish these things before anybody else gets any."

As Sarah and Gail held up the cooked legs, Clarissa and Natalie each sighed happily and took another bite.

Clarissa sat back at last, her eyes closed. "That's it. Let's share the rest with the other girls."

Gail was staring at the remains of Natalie's foreleg, shaking her head. "Clarissa, you must not have eaten for a week!"

Clarissa laughed, and beamed at Natalie. "Well, I was kind of looking forward to having Natalie in my tummy." She took a look at her own severed foreleg. "You done, honey?"

Natalie sighed. "I think so." She rubbed against her stomach with her remaining foreleg. "I wish there was more room in there."

Gail nodded. Pulling the platter off to the side, she began slicing off strips of Clarissa's and Natalie's meat with a long carving knife. Clarissa frowned and looked around. "The girls from Bret's aren't here yet... Oh!" She laughed. "Wow, they're right on time!" The back door to the house had just opened, and Annie, Abby, Becky, and Belinda came galloping across the yard. Tara was visible in the doorway, giving Tom an affectionate one-armed hug, her t-shirt stretched nearly taut over her bulging tummy. Clarissa called out to the approaching nieces happily, and looked at the semicircle of girlcows facing her. "Everybody gets some milk. Including you Gail, and Sarah. And Sasha. Sasha, where's Marie?"

Sasha replied, "She'll be along soon. Penny had a softball game this morning. They won't miss the roast, though."

Clarissa bit her lip. "I want her to get some milk too. And Donna and Dierdre, if they can get out here. Oh, and Jennifer too, of course. She's not out here, is she?" She tried to see through her sisters and nieces.

Gail shook her head, still carving. "She and Donna are keeping the kids occupied in the house. They were playing some board game, last time I was in there." She chuckled. "The kids love watching Jennifer pick up the dice in her mouth and throw them. Donna has to keep threatening to tan their hides if they try it themselves. Then they fight over who gets to move Jennifer's piece on the board. She manages to get them to take turns somehow."

Clarissa smiled, and gave a gesture with her foreleg that seemed to mean, "Okay, line up." "Let's go in the usual order" -- age -- "except when Donna and Dierdre get out here, they get to cut in line, because they probably can't stay long. And Jennifer too, because she's helping baby-sit. And Gail and Sarah go first, because they've got a lot to do."

Natalie broke in, "And Sasha after them, in case she gets called away. And Marie gets to cut in line when she gets here."

Clarissa laughed. "Okay, did we keep it simple enough?" The surrounding cows joined in the laughter.

As the cows gathered around the platter to nibble at pieces of Clarissa's and Natalie's meat while they waited, Gail knelt straddling Clarissa's hind legs, and put her hands on Clarissa's shoulders. Beside her, Sarah was down in front of Natalie, looking at Gail and waiting. Gail smiled down at Clarissa. "Before I get my little sip, I wanted to tell you how special you are to me. I remember, so clearly, that day I ran into you in town, and how much it changed my life. Without you, I wouldn't have spent my life with all these wonderful people, and got to be part of the family. And I would never have met Sarah." She reached beside her and rubbed the small of Sarah's back affectionately. "So thank you again for... well, for my whole adult life." She leaned down and kissed Clarissa.

Clarissa was blinking quickly, demanding of herself that she not start crying. She took a deep breath, and said, "You're really welcome, Gail."

Gail patted her shoulder, and ducked down, lifting Clarissa's breast with her palm cupped on the underside, and sucked and swallowed a few mouthfuls of her sweet milk, while Sarah was doing the same with Natalie. She stopped, and kissed Clarissa again, her lips white with milk this time. Nodding to Sarah, she switched places with her.

Sarah, smiling at Clarissa, said, "Well, I wanted to thank you too, but you already know what for. Without you I wouldn't have Gail." She kissed her sister, and took her turn at her breast.

Sasha followed, and thanked Clarissa, for the first time, for clearing the path for Sasha to go to college. Clarissa hadn't thought of it that way before, but it was true she had been the first of the girls to get a clear promise from their dad that she could continue her education post-high school if the opportunity came. As she bent down to suck on Clarissa's breast, Clarissa expected at first it would take Sasha a moment to get a feel for it, as she had likely never had girlcow milk straight from the source before; but she remembered that she'd doubtless had plenty of experience when Marie had been nursing Penny, and it came easily to her, as everything seemed to.

Sandy and Sally, the oldest of the cows other than Clarissa and Natalie, came up next, with Sandy in front of Clarissa first. She looked back and forth at both Clarissa and Natalie. "I heard what the others were saying. We have something to thank both of you for. So many things, I can't think of all of them. But I know one that Sally and I think about a lot is how hard you both worked to get us back together, that time when we were fighting. We'll always love you very dearly for that, and for everything else you've done. Thank you."

One pair after another of the girls came forward, usually with a treasured memory of how Clarissa and Natalie had affected their lives. Heidi, Haley, and Sami came up together, and used, with a lot of giggling, a tricky rotation they had worked out beforehand, two of them at Clarissa's breasts and one at Natalie's, and vice versa, until each had had a few mouthfuls of the milk from both. Heidi spoke for the three of them, thanking Clarissa and Natalie for taking her into town that day, so that she met Sami.

Clarissa looked up as her eyes caught the shifting of girlcows at the back of the semicircle, and broke into a grin as Jennifer came wriggling through the gap. Clarissa and Natalie shifted apart to give Jennifer room to come up between them. Jennifer rolled onto her back, her head resting on Clarissa's hind leg, catching her breath, and looked up at both Clarissa and Natalie, her eyes shining. "Master Tom loved your idea! He's going to get me some of that hormone next week!"

Clarissa and Natalie both gasped. "That's great, Jennifer!"

Tally shook her head in puzzlement. "What hormone, Jen?"

Jennifer beamed at her. "I'm going to start lactating! I mean, nothing like what you guys do, I guess I'll make as much milk as a mom. But it'll be so cool!"

Reesy's jaw dropped. "Can we have some, Jennifer?"

Jennifer nodded vigorously. "If Master Tom says it's okay."

Natalie nudged Jennifer with her hoof. "Want some of ours? That's what everybody's doing here. I don't know if you've been seeing that."

"Sure!" She rolled onto her stomach, and several of the cows gasped as she used her back muscles to raise her upper body off the ground -- they hadn't seen her do that. She suckled from Clarissa first, then Natalie, afterwards moving off to the side to lay in front of Reesy and Tally, chatting with them as Clarissa and Natalie continued receiving family members.

Clarissa's sisters having finished their turns, including Donna and Dierdre, who each escaped the house and the kids briefly to share in Clarissa's and Natalie's last milking, Wendy's girls were next. As they took their turns, they competed, with a lot of laughter, to remember as many of Natalie's stories as they could. Marie arrived near the end, with Penny, still in her team jersey and shorts, and Marie, like Sasha, had no trouble suckling: when Penny was born, Sasha had taken the same hormone Clarissa and Natalie had recently suggested to Jennifer, and they had shared the job of feeding Penny -- and of course, shared the milk with each other as well.

And as Marie was taking her turn at Clarissa's and Natalie's breasts, Clarence came through the back door of the house, with Dana. Clarissa called out to him, knowing he wouldn't want to miss this. While Dana was shyly taking in a few mouthfuls of milk from Clarissa and Natalie, Clarence knelt in front of them.

He took a deep breath and smiled. "Natalie, I've never really thanked you for... well, I guess I'd say it was getting yourself so deeply involved with trying to find Clarissa, which led to that... ummm, scene, at the police station." He laughed self-consciously. "Of course, I know you didn't do any of that for me. But it got the whole thing in motion that ended up with me meeting Karen. And I do really thank you for that."

Natalie beamed at him. "I'm really glad it worked out so well." She laughed. "Especially considering what I got out of it." She leaned over and kissed Clarissa yet again.

Clarissa said to Clarence, "Well, I guess we're even, as far as that goes, because I wanted to thank you for making Karen so happy."

He grinned at her. "My pleasure, of course." He bent and, doing it easily from years of experience, drank some milk from both of them.

Clarissa had just gestured to Reesy and Tally, whom she and Natalie had agreed should go last, when her eye caught another movement at the back door of the house. She raised her remaining foreleg and waved frantically. "Daddy! Over here!"

She bit her lip as she watched him walk slowly across the yard, favoring his hip -- arthritis, perhaps? It hardly seemed possible to her that her father could ever get old, but she knew it had to happen someday. The girlcows parted again, variously saying "Hi Daddy!" or "Hi Grandpa!" as the case may be.

He squatted down in front of Clarissa, looking from her to Natalie, and smiled. "How's my girls?"

Natalie took in a quick breath at his greeting, and returned his smile. "Doing great, Daddy Sam."

Clarissa leaned forward and rubbed his arm with her hoof. "Daddy, thank you for everything."

He smiled and raised his eyebrows. "Getting a little carried away, if you're thanking me for your whole life. You did most of it on your own."

Clarissa laughed. "Okay, then, thank you for getting me started, and raising me."

Natalie nodded. "And thank you for the same thing. For Clarissa. So we could be together."

He chuckled. "Don't know if I can take any credit for the two of you being together, either. Seems like that was going to happen no matter what anybody did. I've seen the forces of nature and the bad intentions of evil men try to separate you, and nobody could get you apart. I almost think if her mom and me hadn't brought her into the world, she'd of come up with some other way to find you."

Natalie laughed. "Well, thank you anyway, whether you want to be thanked or not."

Clarissa nudged her breast with her foreleg. "Daddy, you thirsty?"

He grinned. "Mean you still got some left?"

She bit her lip and nodded, suddenly a little shy.

He winked at her. "Maybe just a little." He leaned down farther, and Clarissa fed her dad for the first time.