Clarissa squinted up into the sky, trying to judge from the sun. "What is it, about noon?"

Natalie nodded agreement. "Like Gail said, it'll take awhile to gut us and stuff us and all that, so I guess it's about that time. Everybody..." She gestured with her foreleg. "Go over by the table over there and wait for us. We want to talk to Tally and Reesy a minute, and then we'll be right over."

The semicircle began breaking up, and everyone was soon wandering across the yard. Clarissa smiled at Reesy and Tally. "Thanks for being so patient."

Reesy shook her head. "More like nervous, Aunt Clary. We promise to do the best we can today."

Natalie laughed and leaned forward, rubbing her foreleg on Reesy's shoulder. "There's nothing to worry about, dear. Your tongues are just magical!" She grinned as Reesy blushed and giggled, then looked at her seriously. "We do want one promise from you, though."

Both girls nodded knowingly. Tally spoke for both of them. "We'll tell the babies all about you and how special you were."

Clarissa smiled. "That's so sweet to say, but it's the other way around that's most important. We want you to always care for them, and be there when they need you, and tell them so often they never forget: how special they are to us, and how much we love them." She looked from one to the other, deeply into each one's eyes. "Promise?"

Tally sniffled, holding back tears. "We promise. Absolutely."

Reesy let one tear get away, to flow down her cheek. "We promise."

Natalie sighed. "That's the only thing left we wanted to hear. Are you thirsty?"

Both girls nodded eagerly.

Clarissa looked down at her breasts. "We've still got some left. Kind of hard to believe, after all that." She giggled. "Anyway, Tally, you take a little of mine first, and Reesy, you start with Natalie. Then switch." She looked at Reesy. "Reesy..." She stopped. "Clarice." She smiled as Reesy blinked at the use of her real name. "I want you to get as much of my milk as you can hold. For you and for little Clarissa in there."

Natalie nodded. "Same for you, Natalya. Drink till you're floating away. For you and for Natalie."

The girls nodded. Tally bent down to Clarissa's breast and sucked in a mouthful of milk, and swallowed it. She raised her head and kissed Clarissa's cheek. "Thanks for everything, Aunt Clary." Beside her, Reesy was mirroring her actions with Natalie.

Slowly, almost ceremonially, both girls backed away, and shifted around each other to stand on all fours, each facing the other mother of the baby growing inside her.

Reesy took her aunt's nipple in her mouth, and after a few minutes, she felt as if she'd been here forever. Clarissa's breast was soft and warm, her milk was sweet, and the feeling of contentment went beyond any Reesy had ever known. She thought she could feel the baby stirring inside her, awakened by the cooperation of her two mothers in nourishing her.

Reesy wanted to go on longer, but she felt she couldn't hold anymore, and she knew everyone was waiting. She finally let Clarissa's nipple drop out of her mouth, raised her head and kissed her aunt. "Thank you. We'd be here another lifetime if I started telling you what for, so just... thank you." Beside her, Tally was finishing up with Natalie and thanking her as well.

Clarissa laughed, leaned forward and rubbed her cheek against Reesy's. "You're very welcome, and thank you too. And now we'd better get over there. I think we'll need a little help walking that far."

After a little awkward experimentation, they found what seemed to work best was for Clarissa to rest her foreleg-less shoulder in the small of Reesy's back and hobble along a little behind her. Clarissa grinned at Natalie, giggling at how the two of them must look, conscious of everyone watching their slow progress across the yard.

They stopped in front of a wide, low table Tom had set up near the barbecue pit, and turned to face their family, each still leaning against her namesake. Clarissa took a deep breath and grinned. "Most of you weren't around then, but I guess you all know there was a time when it looked like this day would never come. But somehow, I knew it would, and there is nothing better than looking at all of you and knowing I'll be inside you tonight. Well, there's one thing better..." she looked at her partner, "...and that's getting to spend all these years with Natalie." She felt warm inside at seeing Natalie's face light up. "You want to say anything, hon?"

Natalie nodded and looked out at everyone. "I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. I never could have imagined I'd feel that way when I first came here..." She looked around. "I guess nobody here remembers that except Master Tom. But you're all very special, and you can't imagine how good it feels to know all of you are about to eat me..." She laughed. "I can't wait anymore! Let's do it!" She looked at Clarissa, who shouted "Yes!" and both of them looked to see who would help them up onto the table.

Gail and Sarah came forward. Gail patted Reesy on the shoulder to signal her to move out of the way, squatted beside Clarissa and wrapped her arms around her from the side, while Sarah was doing the same for Natalie.

With a lot of direction and giggling from both Clarissa and Natalie, Gail and Sarah hoisted them up onto the table, to lay facing each other, each with her remaining foreleg pinned underneath the other, Clarissa lying on her right side, Natalie on her left. As Gail arranged their connecting chain so that it lay on the table beyond their heads, Clarissa sighed, feeling her sexual pilot light beginning to burn at the sight of Natalie's face up so close, Natalie's eyes looking into hers, Natalie's breasts pressed up against her own. Seeking to create one last private moment with the entire family surrounding them, Clarissa mouthed "I love you" to Natalie, who mouthed the same in return. With no visible sign between them, they both pressed closer and touched their lips together, knowing they would never end the kiss during their lifetime.

Clarissa and Natalie had assigned roles to various family members, and those so designated moved to their positions. Gail and Sarah moved to the end of the table to be ready to catch the heads as they were severed: Gail would take Clarissa's, and Sarah was in charge of Natalie's. Tom and Sasha each picked up a laser knife and took positions on opposite sides of the table, Tom on Natalie's side, Sasha on Clarissa's. Marie, standing beside Sasha, lifted the upper hind legs of both girlcows, giving Tally and Reesy room to do their assigned tasks.

These last two girls swallowed nervously and looked at each other, each taking a deep breath. The tiny sound of a muffled whimper of arousal from Natalie stirred them into motion: their beloved aunts were getting each other excited from nothing but kissing, but surely would need for Tally and Reesy to do their jobs in order to reach the necessary peak. The girls moved forward, Tally positioning her head between Natalie's spread hind legs, Reesy with hers between Clarissa's, and together they began to lick the pussies of their partners in motherhood.

Clarissa and Natalie both shivered as they felt the girls' tongues probing, stimulating. Clarissa smiled around her kiss at Natalie, seeing Natalie wriggle her eyebrows in return, before both of them closed their eyes to concentrate on the sensations between their hind legs and the soft wetness of their lips pressed together, their tongues rubbing softly.

Tom nodded to Sasha and they moved to position the laser knives under the two girlcows' necks, placing them, as Clarissa and Natalie had specified, below the metal collars so that the collars, and the chain connecting them, would stay with their heads. As Tom prepared to decapitate Natalie, he was momentarily stunned by the recollection that he had proposed snuffing and cooking her long, long ago, before Clarissa had prevailed upon him to give her two days' grace -- two days that had then stretched to twenty-two years. He smiled to himself: Clary never misses a trick, he knew. That had to be why they had assigned him to Natalie today -- so that he would remember that day so many years back. One last "See, I told you" moment for Clary.

Tally and Reesy tried to push out of their minds the sense of heavy responsibility their aunts had placed on them, in insisting that nobody other than the two girls should be stimulating them. The two young girlcows were very proud that their aunts had trusted them to such an extent. Of course, over the last few months they had come to know Clarissa's and Natalie's sexual responses nearly as well as their own, and they knew the exact pattern and rhythm of licking that excited the two older cows the most. Reesy permitted herself a smile as she heard Clarissa's moan and felt, with her tongue, the tremor that had just shot through Clarissa's body. She concentrated on that one spot for a moment.

Sarah and Gail were each having a hard time perceiving the flushed, moaning bodies before them as Clarissa and Natalie: though their own roast was still a couple of years away, neither could stop projecting herself into the body of the girlcow in front of her, fantasizing about the day of her own roast, trying to commit every detail to memory so that their own snuff could be just as beautiful.

All of the surrounding family members -- the many girlcows, the slaves, the honored guests -- had nearly stopped breathing, struck with awe as Clarissa and Natalie made love for the last time.

Clarissa opened her eyes again, needing to see Natalie at the end. Natalie. Natalie. Natalie. Natalie...

Clarissa. Clarissa. Clarissa. Clarissa....

Tom glanced up at Sasha as the two principals' breathing accelerated and deepened, every exhalation now punctuated with a sigh in a little higher pitch than the one before. Clarissa's and Natalie's hips were thrusting forward, their bushes grinding against each other, their bodies stiffening and quaking... they had just tightly squeezed their eyes shut again, and a piercing shriek was emanating from both their throats. He caught Sasha's eye and gave her a tiny nod. Together they silently mouthed, "One...."

Clarissa felt herself slipping backwards... not her body moving, it was she herself, somehow, being pulled downward through her body. Toward her pussy, where all her sensations were exploding. How weird, she thought. So this is what the end feels like. Nobody ever gets a chance to tell about it.

"Two...."

Tally and Reesy staggered backwards suddenly, two quick steps, and fell on their butts and over onto their backs, astonished looks on their faces. Their mothers gasped and started instantly towards them.

"Three!" Together Tom and Sasha whipped the knives upward, slicing neatly and quickly through the necks of the two girlcows.

Sally and Sandy were galloping towards their fallen daughters. Marie, closer and more mobile, was there first, kneeling beside Reesy and cradling her head in her lap, giving her cheek gentle taps with her fingers, saying quietly, "Reesy, Reesy, talk to me."

Sasha started towards Tally, but was stopped by Gail's puzzled, "Clarissa?" Turning to look that way, she saw Gail frowning, holding Clarissa's head. "Clarissa? Can you hear me?" She looked up and saw Sasha. "I think she's gone already. I've never seen it that fast."

Beside her, Sarah was talking to Natalie's head, with equally negative results. She looked at Clarissa's head, then up at Gail. "Sweety, Natalie's gone too."

Sasha smiled and patted Gail's shoulder. "Don't worry. It happens sometimes, and it probably means they both fainted when their orgasms hit their peaks. They can't recover from that once their heads are severed. The point is, that means they went out right on top. Excuse me, let me see what's up with the girls."

Tom hesitated, deciding finally that Sasha and Marie were much better qualified to help the girls than he would ever be. He looked at Clarissa's and Natalie's heads and gestured at Gail and Sarah to put them into the jars of preserving solution -- their collar chain running up over the sides of the jars from one to the other. He signalled to Bret then to take Natalie's body as he lifted Clarissa's to carry it into the kitchen.

Both Tally and Reesy were blinking hard by the time Sasha knelt next to Tally, both girls looking actually a little better than their mothers. Sasha threw her arm across Sandy's shoulder. "Slow down, slow down, you're about to hyperventilate. They look okay." Across from her, Marie had succeeded in getting Reesy to track her moving finger with her eyes. Sasha touched Tally's cheek with her hand. "You okay, babe?"

Tally swivelled her head quickly towards Reesy, and smiled as she saw Reesy looking back at her. "Ummm... I guess so."

Reesy suddenly gasped. "The babies! Are they okay?"

Marie stroked her hair to calm her. "If you feel okay, that usually means the babies are okay too. You didn't fall all that hard, and they've got a lot of cushioning in there. We can drive you to the clinic a little later and do some tests, but I'd say everything's fine." She looked up at Sasha, who nodded agreement.

Sally felt herself relaxing. She bent down and kissed Reesy. "Baby, what happened?"

Reesy shrugged. "They pushed us back."

Sally's eyes narrowed. "Who did?"

Reesy looked at her in surprise. "Aunt Clary and Aunt Natalie. I don't think they knew they were doing it. They were kind of in the middle of an orgasm." She looked at Tally for confirmation, and Tally nodded.

Sally opened her mouth to argue, but stopped herself. This wasn't the time. Later.

Sasha was finishing timing Tally's pulse and feeling her forehead. "Everything seems fine. The two of you should get a little rest." She looked around. "Assuming you don't want to miss any of the action, why don't you get in the shade of that tree." She pointed to the nearest one.

Tally nodded. "Okay. Thanks, Aunt Sasha." She and Reesy each staggered up onto four legs, shook off a momentary dizziness, and walked over to the tree, their mothers following them. Not having gotten much in the way of sleep the previous night, they drifted off within minutes of laying down.

Tally shook herself out of an innocuous dream, as the pounding sound in her ears resolved into the thumping of a basketball on the hard-packed dirt in front of the overhanging backboard nearby. She saw that Cammie and Cayla were playing against Cori and Penny, with Aunt Marie refereeing. Penny, just ten but already nearly as tall as her birth-mother, was holding her own against the fifteen-year-olds. It struck Tally as odd that Sasha wasn't involved in the game. Looking around, she spotted her under a nearby tree, chatting quietly with Sarah. The two of them were sitting identically, their arms wrapped around their shins, and though Sarah's muscular development would never rival Sasha's, Tally thought the two of them had never looked so much like littermates, in spite of one of them being clothed and the other naked. Sasha casually looked around and smiled when she caught Tally's eye, and Tally had the feeling Sasha had assigned herself to keeping an eye on her and Reesy for the time being.

In Reesy's case the aroma of cooking girlmeat roused her, and she opened her eyes to the sight of Gail and Charlotte giving a quarter turn to the spits mounted side-by-side over the glowing coals of the barbecue pit, on which were impaled the torsos of Clarissa and Natalie, minus their heads and all legs. Crystal sat nearby, looking proud to have an official role to play in the roast, acting almost like a surgical nurse as she responded to Gail's and Charlotte's requests for various cooking implements. Reesy wondered how long she'd been asleep -- her aunts' skins were already browned and cracked, glowing with the sweet juices Gail and Charlotte were brushing on.

Reesy turned her head, thinking to judge the time from the lengthening shadows, and was startled by the voice behind her, full of concern. "How are you feeling, baby?"

Reesy shrugged. "I'm okay, Mom. I didn't mean to sleep so long. It's just been a long couple of days."

Sandy looked up from giving Tally a kiss on the cheek. "We understand that, but what happened at the end of the snuff? You really had us worried."

Tally sighed. "We told you, Mom. Aunt Natalie and Aunt Clary pushed us away somehow. I know they didn't mean it."

Sandy bit her lip. "Dear... They didn't have anything there to push with. You know that."

Reesy frowned, and said tentatively, "Maybe... Aunt Marie...?"

Sally shook her head. "I didn't see anything like that, honey. And she had both hands occupied holding their hind legs up."

Tally shook her head. "Okay, okay. I guess we just got over-excited or something. We were just so tense! You guys just don't know how nervous we've been, not wanting to mess up Aunt Clary's and Aunt Natalie's snuff."

Sandy nuzzled her nose against her daughter's neck. "We know you've been worried, and I hope you know the two of you did a wonderful job! You probably didn't hear Sasha talking about this, but you got them so worked up they fainted just before the knife cuts, and Sasha says the last thing they knew was being in the middle of an orgasm. You were both just perfect, dear."

Both girls glowed with the praise. Tally said, "Thanks, Mom."

They turned at the whispery sound behind them, and saw that Jennifer was wriggling towards them. The skin of both her hips and on both sides of her knee joint was heavily grass-stained, as if she'd been getting a lot of practice at outdoor movement, but while she was a little winded, she was smiling. "You guys had us a little scared. It's good to see you're okay."

Both girls grinned -- they had been coming to feel very close to Jennifer. Reesy spoke. "It wasn't a big deal. We're fine."

Jennifer twisted her neck around, surveying the activities in the yard. "Is it always like this? This is really fun."

Tally responded, "At family roasts, you mean? Yeah. Wasn't your family like this?"

Jennifer shook her head. "Most families aren't as big as yours, you know. You guys are like a whole neighborhood, all by yourselves."

Reesy noticed several of her aunts and cousins looking at her curiously. "Tally, let's move around so people see we're okay. Jen, want to watch the basketball game?" She squinted at the players. "Penny and Cori are acting like they're ahead."

Just as they were arriving by the court, Tally looked behind her, suddenly aware of an increased buzz of conversation, and saw that Gail and Charlotte had taken the meat off the fire to cool. She nudged Reesy. "Think we're going to eat soon."

Reesy grinned. "Great! I'm starving. We kind of slept through snacks." Neither of them needed to say why the upcoming meal was exciting for an additional reason.

From behind them, they heard Sasha's voice. Reesy turned and saw Sasha had come over and was observing the game, smiling, her hands on her hips. "I'll play the winners."

Penny exclaimed, "Great! But you have to give us twenty points, Momma."

Sasha's eyes lit up. "Only twenty? Deal!"

Jennifer laughed. "Who are we for in that one, Reesy?"

Reesy giggled. "Don't ever bet against Aunt Sasha. Not till Penny's another five or six years older, anyway." She was about to expand on the subject, but at that point Charlotte's voice called out that the meat was ready.

Tally took in a quick breath, and she nudged Reesy. "This is the fun part, Reese." Reesy nodded enthusiasticly. This was not only their first family roast as girlcows; it would be their first-ever taste of roasted nipples, and they would have the rare honor of eating two apiece -- Clarissa had designated both of her nipples to Reesy, and Tally would get both of Natalie's. Or, as each girl thought of it, one for herself, and one for the baby.

Minutes later, as Reesy bit into Clarissa's syrup-coated breast and tore away, and self-consciously chewed and swallowed, Clarissa's left nipple, she hoped that consuming and assimilating these body parts which were, for a girlcow, the most symbolic part of her anatomy, would help ensure that her life together with Tally could be as rich and loving as those of her two favorite aunts. As the girlcows started assembling behind them to take their turns eating Clarissa and Natalie, Reesy caught Tally's eye, and knew she was thinking the same thing.

TEN YEARS LATER

Deanna had heard the school bus chugging away from the house, so she was ready when Clarissa and Natalie came bursting through the front door. Her daily ritual of shouting "Slow down, slow down!" at least got the girls walking instead of running, and they blew quickly past her to their room, each giving her a breathless "Sorry Aunt Deanna!" Deanna, from Tom and Wendy's fourth litter of children, now a house slave, was actually a cousin of the girls rather than an aunt, but the girls' mothers had taught them to use "aunt" as a sign of respect for the elder generation. Deanna sighed as she heard the two thumps of their school backpacks being discarded -- she would make sure in a few minutes they were up by the wall next to the bed rather than in everyone's way in the middle of the room, calling the girls back in to move them if necessary -- and came into the kitchen just as the girls entered it and threw the refrigerator door open, each grabbing one of the two glasses of milk, the sides of the glasses cloudy with condensation, and somehow spirited them over to the kitchen table without spilling any, afterwards turning their attention back to the still-open fridge.

Natalie's head swung from side to side as she examined the refrigerator's contents. "Where's the leftovers of Aunt Rachel's and Aunt Rhiannon's meat?"

Deanna pointed. "Charlotte put the cold cuts in those plastic containers on the bottom shelf. See them?"

Clarissa grabbed the nearer one, whose top had a strip of masking tape on which "Rhiannon" had been printed neatly with a ballpoint, along with a loaf of bread, while Natalie rounded up the plastic squeeze bottles of mayonnaise and mustard, as well as paper plates. "Where is Aunt Charlotte anyway?"

"She's in the bottling room working on making some cheese."

Natalie's eyes lit up. "Is it our moms' "?

Deanna shook her head. "It's mixed." She left the kitchen to check on whether any obstacles had been produced in the bedroom, blowing a kiss to the other house-slave, her sister and partner Denise, who was visible across the hall in the other bedroom folding clothes, while Erika scurried around the room behind her, getting dressed for a date. Deanna called out to the girls in the kitchen, "You can see the name labels on the containers. Don't get the meat mixed up!"

Clarissa responded, "We're just going to eat Aunt Rhiannon," as she upended the mayonnaise squeeze bottle over her bread.

Natalie already had a milk mustache after draining a big gulp from her glass, which had a flowing script "N" engraved in its side, where Clarissa's had a "C". They had stopped nursing directly from their mothers' breasts when they were five. Reesy and Tally, having known that was coming, had insisted that their daughters each have a glass of their mothers' milk ready for them after school. Over four years later, the afternoon milk snack was a ritual the girls wouldn't imagine breaking.

Clarissa recognized the sound of a down-shifting sports car coming to a stop in front of the house, and called out, "Aunt Erika! Aunt Penny's here!" They heard a panicked squeak from the bedroom Erika shared with the house slaves as she finished picking out clothes to wear. It was hard to imagine why Erika always had such a hard time finding clothes when she was the only person in that bedroom who wore any. (Clarissa and Natalie shared the other bedroom with the F-girls.) Erika, now eighteen, would normally be a girlcow by now -- the other E-girls had been converted earlier in the summer -- but, to her immense excitement, she had been accepted into the university where she would start classes in a couple of weeks, the first in the family to go. The local public schools started a few weeks earlier than the university did, and for Clarissa, Natalie, and the F-girls, the school year had already begun. The F-girls, now in their first week of high school, would be home soon.

Clarissa and Natalie shouted in unison, "Hi, Aunt Penny!" as Penny walked in the door. Natalie volunteered, "Erika's getting dressed. She'll be out in a minute."

Penny nodded, and broke into a smile as Erika came out of the bedroom. Erika was dressed in shorts, sneakers, and a half-top that showed off her abs, presentably taut after several months of working out since the relationship with Penny had blossomed -- her body wouldn't approach Penny's slender but powerful one in muscular definition for a long time, but she was very faithful about the use of her new exercise equipment. They put their arms around each other's waists and came together for a long kiss, after which Erika called out, "Deanna! Denise! We're going out for pizza and a movie. Tell Daddy I'll be home by 9:30, or I'll call first if I'm going to be later. Okay?"

Deanna shouted "Okay" from the bedroom, and Erika smiled at Clarissa and Natalie, looking on through the kitchen door. "You guys be good, and don't give Deanna a hard time. See you later!"

Both girls responded, "Bye, Aunt Erika, Aunt Penny!" as they watched the older girls turn and go out the front door, holding hands. After the door closed, Natalie wondered aloud, "Think they'll get married?"

Clarissa answered, "I heard Aunt Crystal and Aunt Charlotte talking about it. They were saying they'll probably get married if Aunt Penny gets into the Med School at the university."

Crystal and Charlotte had a respected ability for reading those kinds of signs -- they had been the only family members not taken by surprise when their sister Cori had married her high school girlfriend. Penny was about to start her senior year at the university, and had already begun the tedious process of med school applications. No doubt she would indeed want to put off marriage plans until her future had stabilized. Marie had assured her that the fact of both of Penny's mothers having been doctors would help. Marie was still available to write letters of recommendation for her -- Penny and Marie had eaten Sasha several years earlier.

Natalie and Clarissa were both washing down the last bites of their sandwiches with the last of the milk when Deanna re-emerged from the bedroom. As they jumped to their feet, pushing their chairs away with their legs, Deanna said, "Hold on!" She pointed at the glasses, paper plates, and the food container and squeeze bottles in succession, saying "Dishwasher -- trash -- fridge. And I saw some socks and undies poking out from under the bed. Get those to the laundry basket."

Natalie said, "Okay, Aunt Deanna," as both girls did a hurried clean up and bolted into the bedroom. After a quick trip to the laundry hamper, they streaked through the kitchen again and out through the back door, earning one last "Slow down!" from Deanna.

After the door slammed, Deanna sighed and rolled her eyes. She had no desire to be nine again, but she did wish she could tap into that energy somehow.

The girls sprinted, hand in hand, across the yard and into the barn. They rushed past Crystal, who was sweeping the floor near the bedpad she shared with Charlotte, with a hurried "Hi, Aunt Crystal!" They stopped in front of the memory shelf and, not hurrying for once, each kissed the cheek of the "other mother," for whom she had been named, their habit on entering and leaving the barn, encouraged by Reesy and Tally. Family members always remarked on the resemblances. Clarissa had Reesy's nose and chin, but her hair was that same brown shade that the older Clarissa's had been, worn at present in a pony tail; Natalie seemed to have Tally's eyes, but her only other obvious partial concession to Tally's genes was her strawberries-and-cream hair, a mix of Tally's blonde with the original Natalie's bright red, likewise worn in a pony tail. She could have been a childhood photograph of the first Natalie.

Clarissa brushed her fingers lightly through the hair of the original Clarissa, straightening out a few strands that were out of place, while Natalie remedied a slight kink in the chain connecting the collars of the two heads.

Crystal watched them as she swept, wondering if it was her imagination that the girls had been paying even more respect than usual to their mothers' heads in the last few days. They had been taught to honor the heads, and they had always done so, but they seemed more... pensive about it, lately.

At last the girls moved smoothly around each other and, to Crystal's surprise, each one kissed the other's mother, full on the lips. She couldn't remember seeing them do that before. They then took each other's hand again and walked, more slowly now, into their living mothers' stall.

Their mothers, of course, were already looking at them as they entered, alerted by the commotion of their initial entrance into the barn. They were sitting upright, Tally against the wall of the barn, Reesy in front of her leaning back against Tally's breasts, watching the end of one of the afternoon game shows on TV. Jennifer lay on her back between Reesy's outspread hind legs, using one of them as a pillow while looking up at the screen. She turned her head and grinned at the girls, giving them a "Hey!"

The TV volume was turned up slightly, to help make it audible over the sound of Cayla and Cammie making love next door, in Sandy's and Sally's old stall, something they did often and energetically.

Each girl bent down to give her mother a kiss, and patted Jennifer's stomach, which always made her giggle. The show's closing credits were running, and Jennifer rolled onto her side. "I better get back to the house. I need to get Deanna to give me a bath before dinner."

Reesy nodded. "See you tomorrow, Jen?"

Jennifer grinned. "Sure." She bent backward at the waist, lifting her upper body to give Reesy and Tally each a kiss, and smiled a "Bye kids!" to Clarissa and Natalie, who waved at her as she wriggled out past the gate.

Tally started, "How was..." before remembering something to tell them. "Oh! Uncle Tom said he'd drive both of you over to Bret's on Saturday, and you can spend the day with your cousins." Bret and Tara's oldest girls, Wendy, Mandy, Mindy, and Cindy, were the same age as Clarissa and Natalie, and they often went over there to play.

The girls grinned. Clarissa said, "Oh, great! Mom, can we go out and play by the creek till dinnertime?"

Reesy started to answer, and hesitated, picking up on what seemed to be an inordinate amount of significance the girls were attaching to the request: Natalie was biting her lip, and Clarissa seemed almost to be holding her breath. "Just what is it you guys do out there? You've been going out there a lot lately."

She couldn't miss the quick look that passed between the two girls. Natalie said, "Ummm... we're thinking of building kind of a... clubhouse there."

Tally's brows knit. "What's wrong with the one in the yard?"

Clarissa answered, "We, umm... we like it better by the creek. It's really pretty with all those trees around. And private."

Reesy frowned. She wasn't sure she liked it. But then, they were at about that "secret society" age. She sighed and looked at Tally, who echoed her sigh and nodded. Reesy said, "Okay, but you come right back to the house the minute they call you in for dinner."

The girls' eyes lit up and they scrambled to their feet, each saying "Thanks, Mom!" Before they quite made a move for the stall gate, Tally said "Gimme kiss!" Each girl kissed her mother, and an instant later they were out the door. They paused again briefly at the memory shelf, this time just long enough to give their other mothers a kiss, and pelted out into the yard and out towards the tree line, holding hands.

In the next stall, Cammie and Cayla were reaching a sexual crescendo. Now alone with Reesy, Tally felt herself getting horny. She turned to Reesy and already saw her smiling face approaching for a kiss.

The girls slowed considerably as they approached the trees, unstoppably drawn to the creek but nervous about what might happen, based on recent experiences. They had seen Tom in a distant field on the way, but he was lost to sight now. They picked their way through the underbrush and finally sat on the grassy bank of the creek, their legs dangling over the edge. They let their minds turn to the thoughts they had been working so hard to suppress at school and at the house.

They closed their eyes and sat in silence for a few minutes, until Natalie finally asked, "You remembering anything?"

Clarissa shook her head. "Nothing in particular. Nothing new, I mean. I don't think we need to be here to remember anymore. I've been having dreams..." She was aware of Natalie nodding her head beside her, "...and in the morning more of it's there."

"Yeah. I think most of it is there now. The gaps are filled in. I mean, the memories don't all run through my head all the time, but when I reach for one, it's there."

Clarissa nodded. "Like..." She turned to look at Natalie. "Here's a good one. Kirstie's roast. You remember that?"

Natalie's eyes widened and she nodded excitedly. "That really made such an impression on me. It was the first time I really understood what a woman's roast is supposed to be." She sighed. "I obviously don't have to tell you I wasn't brought up right. We talked about that often enough. If my mother's roast had just been like that..." She shook her head and waved the subject away. "Enough about that. I can't change that."

Clarissa decided to draw her away from that subject. "Remember the milk stand? All those people were so nice."

Natalie giggled. "Oh yeah, and we met Clarence that way! Can you believe how shy he was back then?"

They had first discovered the creek behind the treeline two weeks ago, in the midst of a bored exploration of the outer fields after a planned trip to Uncle Bret's farm had fallen through. They had both felt a tingle of familiarity pulling them closer to the creek, while telling themselves it was impossible that this particular spot was familiar. As soon as they had sat on the edge of the creek, the mental barrage had started -- fleeting visual images, ghostly sounds, tactile sensations that had gradually assembled themselves into a unified event, memories of a traumatic confession, a fall into the creek, rain, darkness, rushing water, a terrifying night alone together. At that point both girls had fainted. When Clarissa opened her eyes, Natalie was beside her crying uncontrollably; Clarissa's own memory of that night in the creek was less emotionally charged but no less intense, and she was shaking like a leaf, breathless. She had wrapped her arms around Natalie, stroking her hair, trying to soothe her, both of them crying now until the shock began to abate.

The family, that evening, had assumed they were just sulky over the cancelled trip. And it was easy enough for the girls to pretend nothing had happened. The memory connected with nothing else. There was no sense of it being personalized; it felt as if the whole thing had happened to someone else, and they had watched it like a movie. A movie might scare you, but afterwards you can finish your popcorn and go home, gradually putting it out of your mind.

They had promised each other not to go back to the creek, but three days later they were drawn back as if by a magnet, this time recovering the memories of Clarissa's kidnapping, Clarissa reliving the terror and frustration, Natalie the pain, anger, loss. It was too much for nine-year-olds to handle.

But then, they weren't really nine anymore.

They had gone back again, and again, feeling a need much stronger than their revulsion. They had recovered more benign memories, often almost trivial, the sort of day-to-day memories everyone has to look back on but usually finds no pressing need to. And then the dreams had started. Slowly, the narrative became continuous, a connected lifetime for each of them. And as it did, it became personal. They knew these were their memories, not a story of things that had happened to someone else.

Now near the end of it, the process seemed so natural that neither of them had really noticed the change in the way they referred to the memories. In the last few days, both girls had stopped thinking of the person whose memories they were experiencing as "she."

Now it was "I."

Clarissa broke a silence of several minutes. "We must have had all this inside us all our lives. Why did it take so long for it to come out?"

Natalie shrugged. "It was buried so deep. I suppose there was no way to get at it except by coming here, to the creek, with all its... associations. Oh!" She smiled suddenly. "It didn't all stay hidden that whole time. It bubbled up out of the depths every now and then. That's why the whole family calls you 'Clarissa' now instead of 'Clary.' "

"Oh! Right!" Clarissa's eyes widened. They had been too young to remember, but had been told about it -- how everybody had been calling her "Clary" the first two years of her life, but as soon as Natalie could talk, she insisted on calling her "Clawissa" -- and it had caught on with the rest, though none of them were sure how Natalie had known that was her name. She had to have heard it somewhere, they assumed, and managed to stop worrying about it, but it still struck family members as sufficiently curious that they mentioned it to the girls when they were older.

Clarissa rested her chin on her palms. "But how did those memories get here? How did... WE get here? Everybody doesn't all have past lives they remember. We'd know about that by now."

Natalie said slowly, "There's one memory I can't get at yet. It could be there."

Clarissa looked at her. "Are you talking about our snuff? I remember the morning, but then things go blank. Do you remember what happened?"

Natalie shook her head, and gestured with her arm to indicate their surroundings. "Well, if we want to remember it, we're in the right place. Let's compare notes on what we do remember about it."

Clarissa took a deep breath and closed her eyes tightly. She was silent for several minutes before speaking. "We were up on... like a table. I know there were people around us, but I wasn't really thinking of them. I was thinking about you." She stopped and tried to clear her mind for a moment. She knew the memory would elude her if she reached for it. It had to come of its own accord.

Natalie whispered, "Somebody... oh, it was Marie. She lifted our hind legs up..."

Clarissa nodded. "Yeah."

Natalie went on, "So Tally and Reesy..." She gasped suddenly and raised her hands to her mouth. "Oh, that is so weird! I wasn't even thinking of them as our moms! We watched them grow up! Clarissa!!" She put her hand on Clarissa's arm. "We were there when our moms were born!! We were with Sandy and Sally!"

Clarissa drew in a sharp breath, her jaw hanging open. "Listen! I've got a better one!" She looked at Natalie, her eyes so wide they seemed ready to pop out. "I remember our grandmothers being born." She put her hand over her chest, trying to get her breath back. "My mom..." She giggled. "...I mean my original mom... I remember her letting me pat her tummy, big round tummy. And she said she had little baby sisters for me in there, to play with later. I was three. I didn't understand what 'baby sisters' meant. I thought sisters were big older girls who always yelled at you. Anyway, later she had the babies, and I could see them lying in their cradles. Daddy took me up closer, and told me their names were Sandy, and Sally, and Sarah, and Sasha. I remember I felt really disappointed, they just seemed so useless, laying there crying and waving their arms, and I couldn't play with them." She laughed, shaking her head.

Natalie laughed with her, then put her hand on Clarissa's arm again. "We're getting off the track. We're supposed to be thinking about our snuff."

"Oh, right." Clarissa straightened up and closed her eyes again. After a few minutes, she began, "Okay, Tally and Reesy were down there licking. At least I guess they were. By that time it was all just sensations. I was just feeling, not thinking. It got so intense! I don't ever remember an orgasm like that before. And then I was... sliding..."

Natalie gasped. "Yes! I remember that! Sliding backwards. That couldn't be, could it? I mean, the table wasn't slippery. Or tilted."

Clarissa, her eyes still closed, whispered, "Sliding. Inside myself. Sliding out through my body. And... then I got... sucked inside something. It closed around me. It felt nice, all warm and wet... there was this thumping sound, and the sound made me feel... content. I don't..." She paused for several minutes. She finally shrugged. "It all faded out after that. There isn't any more. I guess I died then. I don't remember Sasha cutting my head off, though."

Natalie's mind was racing. She had suddenly, for the first time in the last hour, remembered who she was in this lifetime. She shouted, "The babies!! We went into the babies!! We ARE the babies!! That thumping sound, that was our moms' heartbeats!"

Clarissa spun towards her in astonishment. "How..." She clapped her hands against her mouth. "Yes!! Reesy and Tally had the babies inside them, and we slid out of us and into them! That's how! That's how we got here!!" She threw her arms around Natalie and held her for a long time, rocking back and forth, almost beside herself with happiness.

She finally loosened her grip and sat upright. "We should tell our moms, shouldn't we?"

Natalie blinked. "How?"

Clarissa shook her head and laughed. "Okay, yeah, that is tricky, isn't it? 'Hey, Mom, you were really cute when you were a baby.' "

Natalie nodded. "And remember how scared of us Reesy and Tally used to be? Not scared, I mean, kind of in awe." She sighed. "We don't want them in awe of us. We want them to be our moms. I guess we better hold off telling them -- telling anybody -- until we think of just the right way to do it. Everybody's going to think we're nuts."

Clarissa laughed. "I suppose, by some ways of looking at it, we actually are. Okay, not a word to anybody. Not yet."

Luckily, thought Natalie, she and Clarissa had always been perceived as a little precocious. That might cover slips of not talking like nine-year-olds. And most of their habits of behavior were conditioned by nine years of their current lifetime, unbreakable except by conscious effort. It would probably work for some time.

Clarissa shook her head in wonder. "My Daddy was right."

Natalie looked at her. "We don't have... oh, of course. You mean your original dad. Daddy Sam. Right about what?"

"On the day of our snuff -- remember? -- he said something like, if he and Mommy hadn't had me, I would have found you some other way." She looked intently in Natalie's eyes, seeing the person she had adored for more than a lifetime. "I found you again. We found each other again. We came up with a way to be together."

Natalie looked at her solemnly, then unexpectedly broke into giggles. "I just thought of something."

"What?"

"This will really help us at school. We've learned all that stuff before."

Clarissa burst out laughing so hard she almost slid into the creek. She was still giggling, wiping her eyes, when Natalie reached out and took her hand in both of hers, intertwining their fingers and squeezing tightly. "Until this lifetime... I never, ever held your hand before. Maybe that's why we do it so much now."

Clarissa reached up with her free hand and stroked Natalie's cheek. Her other hand gave Natalie's a squeeze, and she said, "I'll love you forever." Wondering, as she said it, how literal she was being.

Deanna's voice reached them, faintly. "Clarissa! Natalie! Dinner!"

They sprang to their feet and ran back to the house, hand in hand.