by Big Kahuna
Boredom was the true enemy, she had come to realize. Without any form of stimulation, her mind would ultimately turn to mush. At that point it would be over. Rance would have his bovine dream girl, though at least she might finally get laid. Small comfort.
She ambled about the barnyard constantly, looking for anything that might help her to escape, finding nothing. She discovered a bat house off in the distance, mounted on a pole behind Rance’s trailer. That explained why there were so few flying insects. She remembered learning as a child that a single brown bat could eat up to a thousand mosquitoes in an hour. A good thing for livestock that couldn’t handle fly swatters.
She also reconnoitered at night. She did so as quietly as she could, which wasn’t very, her cowbell letting everyone know exactly where she was at all times. No one seemed to care. None of the other cows ever came out of their stalls, and Rance never came in to investigate. Perhaps he didn’t feel the need, a relaxed attitude that she very quickly came to understand, given his simple but seemingly unbeatable security.
The first thing she discovered was that the pet door to the outside was locked every night. It was done from the outside, by some mechanism she hadn’t seen, probably just a plastic cover. If so, it was removed every morning prior to her getting up. She would hear Maggie out there sometimes, yowling for fresh milk. The poor cat was definitely spoiled now, not to mention a bit fatter.
She even tried the human doors once, on her third night as a hucow. It had been a complete waste of time. Getting past the milking stations was simple enough; the gates between them were latched, but it was no trick to wriggle past the vertical T-post. It was the trip across the sealed concrete floor that was the most daunting. She could not walk upright, as the weight of her breasts combined with her fastened on footwear made bipedal movement all but impossible.
So she walked like a cow. It hurt like hell, placing most of her considerable upper body weight on her plastic-encased knuckles, her bare ass high in the air as she fought to retain traction on the slippery concrete, but she persevered, gritting her teeth against the pain.
It took her ten minutes to reach the exterior door, by hucow reckoning, the slow speed of her journey due entirely to her massy milkers wobbling to and fro beneath her with every step. She rested a bit once she arrived at her destination, sitting with her back against the metal door, seeing how things looked from Rance’s side of the room. All things considered, if you were going to live on a dairy farm, it was probably best to be the one doing the milking rather than the one getting her tits squeezed. Janice had already learned this lesson. Melissa sighed, remembering the beautiful Native American.
When her break was over, she tried to stand, sliding her back up against the door, even shimmying her shoulders against the steel door until she could stand upright. And it had worked, right up until her rear hooves shot out from beneath her, landing her right back on her rump with a painful smack.
“Oww…” she cried in pain, instantly putting her hooves to her mouth to silence herself, an all too human gesture that looked decidedly out of place on her bovine features. She looked about, expecting a few of the other cows to investigate. None did, either not hearing or not caring. Melissa decided that it was probably the latter.
She did not attempt to stand again, feeling silly for having even tried. She could just as easily—or with as much difficulty—operate the doorknob while kneeling on the floor. It turned out to be impossible. This wasn’t due to Rance having installed some kind of super-secure doorknob. He hadn’t needed to. It was a standard, interior brushed-steel doorknob, very like the one in her apartment. Which was exactly why it was impossible. It had a little horizontal tab in the center of it, signifying that it was locked. All you had to do was push the tab in and turn it upright to unlock it. Child’s play, for someone with hands, but with her hooves it was an exercise in futility. She tried again and again to move the tab with her hooves, as delicately as she could, working by the light of the glass-fronted cooler. It was no use. She tried nosing the tab upward with her mask, which was even less effective.
All but defeated, she walked on all fours to the door on the other side of the room, the door to his office. Even from a distance she could see that it was locked, but it was just possible that the door might not be completely closed, thereby failing to lock. Nope, it was firmly shut. The cows were in for the night.
And every night thereafter.
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Despite the fact that she was a prisoner, Melissa had to admit that she was a well looked after prisoner. Rance took care of every aspect of her life, of all of his cows’ lives. He milked them regularly, fed them regularly, was diligent in the care of their teats, made sure their stalls were clean, made sure the floor was clean, monitored their body fat with a pair of calipers, trimmed their nails, checked their teeth, and even took care of their monthlies. This surprised her at first, although in retrospect it shouldn’t have. After all, he shoved a tube up her ass six times a day. Inserting and removing tampons was just one more chore for the hardworking dairyman.
Which he definitely was. She had never seen someone work so hard in all her life, from sunup to sundown and into the middle of the night. She remembered Janice explaining how her father had wanted her and her brother to understand the life. Rance’s father must have taught him the same thing.
Day after day, Melissa watched him work. If he ever asked her, she could point out that taking on a junior partner would allow him to expand his herd by a good fifty percent while markedly reducing his workload, yet still earn him the same amount of money. But he could not do that, and she was fairly sure she knew the reason why. A partner would always be a danger to him, would always pose a threat. The Lone Star Dairy was a thoroughly illegal enterprise, at least insofar as the means of production was concerned. While this meant that said partner could never inform on him without landing himself in hot water, there was always the possibility of having his operation muscled in on, a hostile takeover. That backhoe behind the milking shed could just as easily put Rance’s body in the ground as it could any of theirs.
Nevertheless, it amazed her how he was able to do all of this without being discovered. Where was he getting his power from? She hadn’t yet seen a power line, but he might have a propane generator on site, or maybe solar. What about water? That could be piped in underground, but then again he might have his own well.
This business venture would not have been possible ten years ago, she mused, having a good deal of time for musings. It was an Internet world now, where everything you wanted was just a mouse-click away, and practically anything could be delivered to your door. All you needed was a laptop and a cellular connection, and you were good to go. Groceries? No problem. Prescription drugs? FedEx them in cheap from Canada. She had even read of some Internet companies that were toying with the idea of shipping customers’ purchases using drones.
A man—or woman, she reminded herself—with only minimal technology could live his entire adult life without ever stirring off of his property. Hell, you could even hire in paid escorts when you needed some companionship, although Rance had that situation covered at least six times over.
Yet despite his hard work, he often found time for little things. He usually tended his garden during the late afternoon, sometimes bringing something over to the fence for his cows to sample. He would put his arms through the fence, his cupped hands full of mint, or basil, or some other fragrant herb. Her sister cows enjoyed these little visits, jostling each other out of the way so that they could sniff whatever he was offering them.
Day after day passed with no break in the routine, each day the same as before, each day the same as the next, the only exception being bath days, which were every other day. Melissa looked forward to those days the most. She enjoyed the hot water, as well as his touch, some small part of her hoping that he might fuck her, another part fearing that he would. The day that he slipped his dick into her meant that it would
be over. She would be a hucow inside as well as out.
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Rance removed her cowbell two weeks after her failed escape attempt. This surprised her, having grown used to it. She supposed Rance trusted that she wouldn’t try to escape again. Perhaps he felt she was sufficiently cowed by now.
At least she presumed it had been two weeks. This was something of a guess. She had been bathed seven times, or was it eight? And she could swear that he had given her a bath two days in a row, possibly more than once. Had she missed a day or two somewhere, or was Rance deliberately doing this to mess with her time sense? If so, it was working.
Yes, it was definitely working. The complacency that she feared was beginning to take hold. She no longer ambled about the barnyard, looking for clues to her location, or anything else for that matter. Most days she could be found lying on the mulch, her back against the fence. She might look up from time to time, hoping to see the occasional jet pass overhead. She saw a helicopter pass by once, a thousand feet up or so, she guessed. She sometimes wondered if the pilot might have seen them, but from that height he would have seen nothing more than a bunch of cows lazing in a barnyard. About as unremarkable as it gets.
There was another reason that she had stopped putting any effort into escaping, namely her udders. They were huge now. They had been huge before, but now they seemed immense beyond imagining; pale, bloated spheres that hung almost to the ground, even with her arms fully extended. They were at least as big as those of her sister cows, she judged, possibly bigger, and probably accounted for at least half of her body weight, making her more tit than woman.
Rance was going to win. She knew that now. There was no way she could continue to stave off the encroaching dementia. She simply did not have the resources. Treat a person like an animal long enough, and they will become that animal. Rance knew that. It was only a matter of time.
And how would she know when that time came? Simple, she supposed. She would feel his dick inside her. On that day she would no longer be human. She would be a hucow. She would be property, chattel. One of the herd.
She wondered if she would miss her old life. Would she even remember it? Probably not. The other cows seemed perfectly contented with their respective lots in life. It didn’t seem to Melissa that a person—even a hucow—could be happy while knowing that there were greener pastures beyond the tube steel fence they lived behind.
Chapter 14
The Journey Home
Melissa awoke in the dead of night, instantly aware that something was different. This in itself was bizarre, because she only ever woke up when her udders signaled that they needed to be emptied.
She raised her head from her hooves, yawning behind her mask. She listened a bit, hearing nothing out of the ordinary: no one stirring outside her stall, none of her sister cows mooing in their sleep. Melissa put her head back down and closed her eyes. Must have been a dream, she thought drowsily, the soothing purring of her cat helping to lull her back to sleep.
Melissa instantly opened her eyes again, her now wide awake mind registering the sensation of fur pressing against a small area of her expansive breastflesh.
Maggie? she thought. Melissa backed away a bit, her udders moving only slightly, but enough so that the sleeping cat was dislodged from her warm beanbag chair.
“Prrt?” the disgruntled feline mewed.
Melissa could only just make out the outline of her cat in the dim space of her stall, but she knew that meow well enough. How did you get in here, puss-cat? she wondered. Did Rance let you in?
No, he didn’t let her in, she realized, her heartbeat quickening. That would be entirely out of character for him. Maggie, despite being small and domesticated, was still a carnivore, and therefore not allowed in with the livestock. At least that had been Melissa’s interpretation of the arrangement. So then what was the fattened feline doing here?
He forgot, she realized. He forgot to block the pet door leading to the outside! Melissa did her best to calm her breathing. Was this really happening? Or was it a trick? Then again Maggie might simply have been sleeping in here or one of the other stalls, and Rance might have missed her.
Or he might have made a mistake. That was possible too, and worth checking out. If he really had left the door unblocked, this might be her one and only chance to escape. If she didn’t do it now she never would. Then she really would be Buttercup.
She got up on her hooves and knees, mindful of the sleeping cat, and ambled toward the pet door to the milking shed. The large room was dark except for the light coming from the milk cooler. None of the other cows appeared to be up. Keeping half an eye on the door to Rance’s office, she made her way toward the exterior pet door, hoping, praying, willing it to be unblocked. Her heart racing, she put a hoof out to the flexible rubber flap and pushed. It swung forward easily.
“Mmmh—!” she whimpered excitedly, but silenced herself, fearing that she might be heard. She moved forward slowly, pressing her plastic cow head against the flap, until her front hooves were fully on the mulch outside. The barnyard looked like it always did, save for it being full dark. It wasn’t so dark that she couldn’t see however, the quarter-moon high in the sky giving her at least a little light to navigate by. Melissa looked down at her arms to find that her white skin was practically luminous.
So this was it. She could escape now. Judging by the fullness of her udders, it was probably just about midnight. That meant she had approximately two hours before the next milking, plus an additional thirty or forty minutes during which time Rance would have to milk the herd before coming to look for her. How far could she get in that time?
Or she could wait until after the milking. If she waited until Rance went back to bed, then she would have at least four hours in which to get away, possibly five, a good chunk of that time being after sunrise. Also she could start out with her breasts completely drained—an important consideration. She could escape from Rance, but she would not be able to escape the building pressure, nor the twin burdens that made up so much of what she had become. She would be out there, naked in the dark, with no one to milk her should she not find help in time.
But if she waited until the next milking, Rance might notice that the pet door was unblocked, or he might simply remember that he had forgotten to do so. He might never make that same mistake again. No, she decided, it was now or never.
Melissa started toward the fence, but checked herself. If she was going to undertake this journey, she needed to do one thing first. She approached the trough for what she hoped would be the last time. She took the plastic penis between her lips and sucked on it; cool water spurted into her mouth. She drank her fill and a little bit more. It might not be the desert out there, but it was a warm evening, and the surrounding scrubland would likely be plenty dry. Best to plan ahead.
Melissa approached the fence with trepidation. The last time she had tried this had been a spectacular failure, and her udders had been smaller then. They weren’t so huge now that she wouldn’t be able to get them through the horizontal bars, but there was no way she was going to be able fit them and the rest of her torso at the same time. So she went sideways.
This turned out to be ridiculously easy. Just slip one leg though, then an arm. Pull one nearly spherical breast though the bars, and then continue the process with the remaining half of her body. She felt like such a fool for not having tried it that way the first time.
But now she was free. It felt strange, being on this side of the fence. Exhilarating. She didn’t have time to stop and smell the roses, however. The clock was ticking.
She made it through the bushes camouflaging the barnyard with only a few scratches, though she expected that she would get quite a few more before the sun came up. There was actual grass here, an oasis of greenery amidst the brown of Texas. It ended quickly enough, the dirt drive ahead of her now, Rance’s trailer forward and on the right. All she had to do was walk the thirty yards to the rise, and the
n over. After that she would be home free.
If Rance didn’t see her.
Melissa knew at the outset that it would not be easy. The scrubby, rocky terrain would tear up her knees before she even got to Rance’s trailer, much less whatever distance it might be to an actual road, which meant that she was going to have to walk on all fours, like a real cow.
The first few feet hurt like hell, mostly in her shoulders, which had the unenviable task of supporting her back as well as her front, that front having two heavy udders suspended beneath it, wobbling to and fro with every step.
It was incredibly slow going, but she was doing it. She was putting distance between herself and the milking shed. Melissa continued forward, underused muscles straining. The trailer was dark; no sign of movement inside. Foot by foot she continued, gritting her teeth with the strain of the effort. She was now level with the door of the trailer. So far, so good. That was when the light came on, illuminating the entire area in front of the trailer.
Melissa froze in place, waiting for Rance to come out of the trailer, lasso in hand. He would slip it around her neck, lead her back to the milking shed, shove her back into her stall, and leave her there until morning. Let her miss a milking. That would teach the stupid cow.
The light shut off, plunging the area back into darkness. It was a motion sensor light, triggered by movement! She was surprised that she had been going fast enough to set it off, and even more surprised that Rance seemed not to have noticed it. Probably dead to the world, she thought. The poor, tired cowboy.
She continued onward, trying to keep her speed slow enough to keep from triggering the light again. Yard by yard she moved forward, her muscles getting used to the strange rhythm, the pain in her shoulders beginning to lessen.