by Big Kahuna
She was nearing the rise now. Another few yards and she would see what lay beyond her provincial hucow existence. Oh, wouldn’t it be nice if there were a shopping mall within ambling distance?
There wasn’t a shopping mall, but there was light, off in the distance. Miles away, tens of miles away, she couldn’t tell, but she knew the haze of city lights when she saw them. That had to be Dallas out there, or perhaps Fort Worth. There was also a road, or what looked like one, about half a mile distant, though given the dim light it was hard to tell. It was at the bottom of a subtle grade. If she could make it that far, then someone was bound to pick her up.
Melissa looked back at the trailer. She was taking an awful risk, leaving like this. There might be bobcats out there, coyotes, rattlesnakes, and scorpions, and here she was, as naked and defenseless as a real cow. It wasn’t too late. She could still go back to her stall, wait until after the next milking to make her escape under better conditions.
No, she couldn’t, she quickly realized. She was a free person, not some slave whose existence lay solely in making milk for her owner to sell. The statesman Patrick Henry once said, ‘Give me liberty, or give me death.’ An admirable sentiment, but then again she couldn’t recall that the Virginia governor had needed to be milked every three hours.
But Patrick Henry was right. She was not a slave, nor would she live like one. Delaying now might cost her her freedom. It was time to go.
Once she began her trip down the gentle slope her mood began to improve. She was free now, and with each hoof step she put on the dirt road she felt that much freer. But with each hoof step forward she began to question that freedom. How free had she really been in her life? She thought back to her elementary school days, penned up with other children, herded from one class to the next. Then middle school, which had just been more of the same, albeit with a different herd. Then high school, where you were taught conformity along with civics and math.
Finally there was college. She remembered the joke about women going to college to get their MRS degree. She’d always found that attitude insulting, until she discovered that a good many girls really were there for the purpose of husband shopping. The ultimate meat market.
And then there was her job at Masterson. Stuck in an office, her labor being squeezed out of her, milked of her very essence, all for the benefit of her employer. When she stopped to think about it, she had never really been free in her life, had always been herded in one direction or another, been a part of some herd or other. She stopped in her tracks and looked back the way she had come. Being a hucow had definitely fucked with her head.
Since she was stopped, she decided to take a rest. It was still quite a ways down to the road, but at least it was downhill. This was a mixed blessing however, as gravity shifted her udders forward, placing more stress on her shoulders and upper back. She wondered if she would be able to walk upright once this was all over, once her feet were free of the plastic hooves.
Don’t think about the future, girl, she told herself. Keep your mind on the present. Just put one hoof in front of the other until you reach the road.
Melissa started moving again, wanting to put as much distance between herself and the Lone Star Dairy as possible before the next milking, which judging by the weight of her boobs was in about an hour. Step by step she continued down the dirt road, soreness beginning to settle into her shoulders and hips, those joints disliking this new method of locomotion.
Noise up ahead. Melissa stopped, A truck, or something like it, going down the road ahead, heading toward the city! She needed to hurry. Other cars or trucks would undoubtedly come along, but traffic would only get sparser for a while, not picking up until a bit before daybreak. Could she hold out that long? She remembered Bluebell’s cries of pain when Rance demonstrated his power, using her as a guinea pig. She estimated that she had two hours, three at most.
She continued her lonely journey, the sensation of her tail brushing against her thighs making her feel more bovine than her slowly expanding udders. Pain in her hips told her to stop. She rested on her hooves and knees for a bit. She was about halfway to the road now, but she was also more than halfway full. God, her udders felt so heavy. This was farther than she’d ambled in the longest time. She really should have kept in better shape, prepared for when this day would come. Well, the day was here, and she was not going to get another chance. Rance would probably lock that cowbell around her neck for good if he caught her. She sighed and got up off her knees and continued on, her already heavy milkers that much heavier for having delayed.
Another car went by ahead of her, the sound of tires on blacktop almost comforting. She was so close to being free she could almost taste it. But what would she do with that freedom once she regained it? She was more cow than woman now, and that was no exaggeration. Aside from her udders, which were the size of...well, there was nothing she could compare them to, their immensity having long since surpassed fruit or sporting equipment, there was still the matter of her skin. It was almost completely white now, and where it wasn’t white it was tattooed black, at least over fifteen percent of her body, she guessed. She supposed her skin would darken back up eventually, but the splotches would require laser treatments to be removed, which would take both time and money. If Rance were caught she supposed he would have to pay restitution, which would cover the cost of the surgery, but that would not happen until he was found guilty. Until that time she would have to use body makeup to cover her bovine markings, or else dress like a schoolmarm, all so that she might pass for human.
She was now level with the road ahead, the grade having evened out. It was about fifty yards away, she estimated, though judging by the pressure in her udders—breasts! she reminded herself—it was already milking time. Her sister cows were probably already up and waiting for Rance to enter the milking shed. How long before he would realize that she was gone? She had to keep moving.
Panting inside her mask, she continued putting one hoof in front of the other. She was perspiring heavily all over her body, the hands inside her hooves slick with moisture, sweat running into her eyes. It stung but she could not wipe it away, her hands having been reduced to clubs. She squinted a few times, trying to force the sweat away. It worked, making her vision blurry instead of nonexistent.
The hollow clop of plastic on asphalt told her that she had arrived at her destination. Melissa’s heart leaped inside her chest. She was going to be rescued! She rested alongside the road for a full minute, her vision clear now, though her eyelids felt gritty from the combination of dust and moisture.
What was this road? Was it a two-lane highway, or a county road? The former would be busier, especially at this time of night, but a county road was more likely to frequented by locals, or drunks, or even illegals preferring to avoid state troopers. Fearing all of the above, Melissa moved over to the side of the road—what was the point of escaping if she was just going to get hit by a car?
She waited for at least a full minute, but could see no headlights coming from either direction. How long was she going to have to wait? The middle of the night milking was probably just finishing up, meaning that Rance would be free to come and look for her. It had taken her two hours just to get this far, ground that he could cover in little more than a minute.
A wave of pain struck her at that moment, the pressure within her udders increasing past the point of mere discomfort. Any minute now he was going to come driving down that dirt road. What if some passing motorist did come along? What if Rance saw them? He probably had a gun, certainly a rifle. This was Texas, after all. Melissa doubted that her presumptive owner would think twice about shooting someone who was stealing one of his cows. She could not stay here.
The hazy glow of city lights was to her right, therefore she went left. It was a gamble, but she doubted that Rance would credit her with sufficient intelligence not to take the obvious route. She was nothing more than an animal to him, and animals didn’t think; they followed insti
nct. Rance would assume that her instinct would tell her to head for home, therefore she would do the opposite.
She moved as quickly as she could, the pain in her shoulders and hips almost rivaling the pain in her breasts. She stopped after a few minutes, looking up at the top of the rise from this side. There appeared to be no activity up there, but then the milking shed and his trailer were set far enough back so that people would be unable to see his dairy from the road. It wasn’t as if he were operating a petting zoo.
She kept moving, doing her best to ignore the pain and not succeeding terribly well. Her breasts were heavier than she could ever remember them, swinging stiffly from side to side beneath her. She would like nothing more than to suck the milk out herself, take a little weight off while taking some liquid refreshment, but with her mouth and hands effectively locked in plastic, the only milk that would come out was whatever she leaked.
Melissa continued moving, the constant clop-clop of her hooves grating on her ears. She was coming up on a bend in the road, one that appeared to swing left, putting her out of sight of Rance’s driveway. If she could make that, and if Rance went the way he should, then she would be home free.
But then she saw the lights, twin high-beams coming over the rise and down, her owner coming for her. Melissa was almost to the point in the arc that would shield her from view should he look her way. She redoubled her effort, sweat once again pouring into her eyes, making vision difficult, but gaining ground with each step, until the ground gave way beneath her.
When her right hoof came down and hit nothing but air she knew she was in trouble. “OHHH...! she cried out, as her upper body slammed down onto the dirt shoulder of the road, her fully expanded udders cushioning the fall, but her inertia combined with her nearly spherical milk dugs causing her to roll forward, her body pitching over the side of the road and down.
Centrifugal force rolled her over onto her back, knocking the wind out of her as she began sliding down the dirt embankment that supported the road, loose pebbles and rocks scraping her bare skin causing her to hiss in pain. But physics also assisted her, her rear hooves swinging over her and down, the prosthetic footwear digging into the dirt, slowing her slide until her battered and bruised body came to rest at the base of the embankment.
Melissa lay back against the inclined wall, her body in more pain than she’d ever known. “Ohhh...” she groaned, the low wail reverberating through her plastic headgear making her sound even more like the pitiable creature she knew herself to be. She rolled forward slowly onto her hooves and knees, wincing at the pain in her joints and lower back and chest. She moved a knee forward but then stopped and stayed there awhile, unable to move for the pain, and furthermore seeing no need.
She was going to die out here. She knew that now. If she had stayed in her stall she would be safe and warm now. Rance would have milked her and sent her back to bed, noticeably lighter in the chest and entirely pain-free. Was it really so bad, being a hucow? She had been looked after, every need taken care of. Well, almost every need, but she felt sure her owner would ultimately have given her what she wanted, what she most desperately needed.
Tears began dripping from the eyeholes of her mask as she remembered how good it felt to be milked, the warm glow she felt after an enema, even the subtle flavors of the feed. It had not been a bad existence. It had in fact been a better life than her previous one. There was no running around, no worrying about bills, no worrying about being late for this or that, was she too fat, would this person like her, should she play dumb or act interested?
Being a hucow involved none of that. All she had to do was make milk, and that was a naturally occurring process. It was what she was made for, what her body had been designed for. And she had been good at it. Rance had once said that she was blue ribbon. Had anyone else ever paid her such a compliment? No, none ever had.
“Mooo…” she lowed, having finally come to realize her place in the world. Could Rance possibly hear her? She doubted it. He had most likely headed in the direction of the city, the way he had expected that she would have gone, the direction she should have taken.
She mooed again, louder this time, hoping that by some chance her owner might hear her, might come to the aid of his lost livestock. She stopped her mooing, listening intently for the sound of truck tires, or perhaps the incomprehensible language that he spoke.
And she did hear something, though the sound was neither mechanical nor speech, nor was it even human. She looked up to see two pairs of gleaming eyes piercing the darkness, low growls emanating from their direction. She knew at once that they were coyotes.
They came closer, the alpha coyote first, warily edging about, apparently trying to make sense of the strange-looking animal. Melissa whimpered, a non-human sound that nonetheless advertised her terror. She knelt there, unable to flee, and just as unable to defend herself, her fear so great that she was unaware that the muscles controlling her bladder had released, a stream of urine flowing down between her thighs to pool at her knees. The coyotes attacked.
She put a hoof up to shield her face, a purely instinctive response that nonetheless spared her from seeing the alpha coyote’s head explode, blood and gore spraying from the animal’s shattered skull as a sound like thunder echoed all about.
Melissa fainted.
Rance killed the second coyote with a single shot to the chest, the 30-06 round propelling the animal backward several feet. The dairyman stood up, his knees cracking slightly, stowed the rifle in the cab of his truck, and then skidded down the short embankment so that he could attend to his hucow. He checked her pulse and found it to be weak, though not dangerously slow. She would be just fine.
___________________________
Melissa awakened groggily, the jostling of the pickup truck she was lying in almost like a cradle. She looked up to see the stars in the sky; peaceful, immortal. They had been there long before she was born, they would be there long after she was gone.
The truck came to a stop after a minute, but she did not get up. Rance came around and opened the tailgate, giving her a wink. He pulled her body gently to him, then lifted her up and carried her into the milking shed, where he placed her on her side on the rubber floor next to her milking stand.
She moaned when she felt the warm washcloth on her teat. It was a good feeling. She moaned again while he washed the other teat, making them clean, making her ready. He had saved her life. He was a good owner, and because he was a good owner she was going to make him lots of milk.
When the teat cup latched on she moaned again; a long, low sound of bovine satisfaction. He attached the other one a few moments later, making her pleasure complete, or at least nearly complete. She allowed herself to be attended to, keeping her eyes closed while her owner cleaned and bandaged her many scratches and gave her water. He sang while he worked, his low crooning putting her in a happy place.
Working on his knees, he removed her hooves and washed her feet and hands, then did the same thing with her head and face. When she was clean, he put them back on, returning her to her natural state.
The suction dropped off, signaling that the milking was done. She continued lying there, her eyes closed, while he inspected her teats and put salve on them. He really was a conscientious dairyman.
He put a hand under her flank, a signal for her to get up. It was difficult, but she managed it. She was a bit shaky, like a newborn calf, her sore muscles protesting at being put to work so soon. She started to move forward, toward her stall, but felt her owner’s hand on her flank, a caress. She heard the sound of a belt buckle being undone, then the sound of a zipper being lowered. She held her breath, waiting for it.
“OHHHH…” she lowed, as he slipped inside her, filling her to the hilt, the sound of her satisfaction bouncing off the glazed brick walls.
Buttercup was home.
Chapter 15
Buttercup’s Reward
Buttercup awakened when her udders told her it was time. She got up o
nto her hooves and knees and stretched, her body now entirely healed of the scrapes and cuts she’d received the night she had wandered off and gotten lost. What had she been thinking? She really could be a stupid cow sometimes.
She ambled out into the milking shed, ready as ever for her morning milking. Most of her sisters were already there. It looked like Blossom and Dewdrop were still asleep, though they both emerged after a few minutes.
The Man came in a little later. He was singing, though she couldn’t understand the words. Buttercup decided that she liked his singing.
She mounted her platform once her sister cow Moo-Moo had done the same. The Man locked her head into place, then cleaned her teats and began milking her, after which he moved on. He fed her and watered her and then gave her her enema, often whistling, sometimes singing. When she was done, he let her go, though she noticed that Bluebell was still kneeling on her milking station. That was okay, Buttercup decided. Her turn would come.
Buttercup lay in the barnyard afterward, her back against the fence, enjoying the beautiful morning. A fat bumblebee buzzed by while she lay there, and then went on its way. She napped.
She was milked again a little later, after which it was Moo-Moo’s turn to be fucked. That was okay. Buttercup decided that she could wait for the Man to fuck her. She was in no hurry. She lazed in the barnyard, looking up at a plane that was flying overhead. She wondered where it was going.
Later, the Man came up to the fence with something in his hands. It was mint. She breathed it in, enjoying the fresh scent. Buttercup decided that it was her favorite smell.
The next milking came and went, Cinnamon receiving the honors this time. That was okay. Her turn would come, although she hoped it would be soon.
It was late afternoon when the next milking came. Her udders were so heavy with milk it was all she could do to amble up the ramp. Of all her sister cows, her milkers were the biggest. She knew she shouldn’t compare herself to the rest of the herd, that as cows they were just here for their owner. Yet she couldn’t help but feel a distinct sense of pride, that having the biggest udders made her the better cow. The best cow.