ANNUAL INSPECTION
Jack Turner woke at the same time he had every day for the last
thirty-five years and blinked in the darkness. He could hear heavy breathing
behind him and reached over to shut off the alarm before it went off.
He threw the covers off and sat up. The readout on the clock radio
clicked to 5:56, the sound deceptively loud in the pre-dawn quiet. Both his
feet popped when he stood, sounding like distant gunshots, and he shook his
head.
Starting to get old, he thought. His compact frame was naturally
muscular, but starting to thicken. He'd had his fifty-second birthday a few
months back, and even the long hours he put in every day weren't enough to keep
him skinny anymore.
Jack plodded across the creaky farmhouse floor to the bathroom and did
his business. He slept nude, and stepped right into the shower. After drying
off he dressed quietly in the dark, then headed downstairs.
He'd forgotten to preprogram the coffee maker and frowned at the empty
pot. Only himself to blame. He put a filter in, filled it with grounds, and
threw some water in.
Jack found his boots in a corner of the kitchen and laced them up while
the coffee brewed. He'd missed the weather report the night before and so
pressed his palm against one of the old double-paned kitchen windows. Hardly
cold at all. He left his jacket and headed out just in his flannel shirt and
jeans.
The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon. The morning air was
crisp but not too bad, maybe forty-five degrees or so. Jack headed down his
front walk a hundred feet or so to the road and pulled the newspaper from the
box.
He unrolled it standing there and checked out the headlines. Layoffs,
corrupt politicians, brushfire wars, a few natural disasters in the Third World
- same old, same old.
A sound reached his ears and Jack looked up. Down the dirt road a ways
a car was approaching. Jack looked around, then back at the car. Didn't see
much traffic out here, especially at this time of day. Still too dark to make
out what kind of car it was past the headlights.
As it neared the car slowed and the passenger window came down. Jack
bent over to look.
"Henry!" Jack exclaimed. "What the hell you doing out here in our neck
of the woods at this hour?"
"Pete Foster's dog started throwing up around midnight and kept going.
Missy thought she saw blood in the vomit and they gave me a call."
"What's that dog, Barney? He okay?" Henry was the local vet, and a
good one. Which was lucky, because he was the only one within fifty miles.
Henry grinned. "It was blood all right. Dog got to eating spoiled
roadkill, raccoon I think. It was the coon's blood."
"You name it, a dog'll eat it," Jack said.
"Ain't that the truth."
"What are you doing coming back this way? You still living on
Greenbush?"
Henry nodded. "But I'd thought I'd swing by here, maybe catch you up."
"You did, and I don't mind the company. Got some coffee brewing inside,
want to come in?"
"I'd be obliged, but I wish I could say this was purely a social call."
Jack frowned, then snapped his fingers and pointed. "That's right, I
forgot, you're the new federal inspector."
"That I am."
"How is old Charlie Brogan? It seems like he was just over here
checking things."
"Enjoying his retirement down in Florida with Thelma," Henry told him.
"Got a postcard last month. Says he's doin' a whole lot a nuthin."
"Well good for him. Didn't he buy a cow off Vanderbilt Farms?"
"Yeah, she's down there with him, probably trying to get used to the
heat."
Jack nodded. "They don't like the heat, that's for sure. It's not good
for 'em, and sweating really cuts down on the milk. I put air conditioning in
twenty years ago, production went up five percent overnight." He scratched his
head in thought, leaning against the mailbox. "Has it been a year already?"
"No," Henry said, and started to dig through some papers next to him on
the front seat. He pulled out a file folder and opened it. "Been nine and a
half months, but before that Charlie let you go for almost fourteen, so this'll
just about even it up."
Jack looked at the other files on the seat. "How many dairy farms we
got in the county now?"
"Well, it stays pretty steady," Henry said, "although the number of head
in the county's been going slowly up for the past twenty years. I think there's
twenty-six milk farms in the county now. Vanderbilt's the biggest, they bought
out Sanderson last year."
Jack nodded. "Heard about that. Sanderson couldn't turn down the
offer. It was more than generous, and he was looking to retire early."
"With his three hundred head, Vanderbilt's got over a thousand head now,
minus the five head Sanderson took with him under 29f."
"Twenty-Nine F?"
"The early retirement clause if a farm closes or is sold, you can take
up to five percent of the stock out of production, age notwithstanding."
"Right, right. Well, I've got a few years before I have to worry about
that."
Jack knew he'd have no problems selling off his entire herd as pets, and
for a substantial profit, too, but for the fact that it was against the law.
The whole dairy industry was government subsidized, and therefore strictly
regulated. The government's main concern was production quotas, not money.
"Billy going to take the place over then?" Henry asked him.
"No, probably Chris. Here, come on and pull around into the drive, we
look like a couple of fools jawin' in the road." Jack thumped the car with his
palm twice and cut an angle across the lawn.
Henry pulled deep into the long driveway and climbed out. He was tall
and skinny, his face and arms lined and tan from spending so much time outdoors.
He turned around as Jack came up.
"I forgot, Billy's off to school now, isn't he?"
"Yep, first year."
"He decided what he wants to be yet?"
"He says a lawyer." Henry made a face. Jack gave a small laugh.
"Yeah, that's the face I made, but you can't tell kids anything, they've got to
make their own mistakes."
"He's too nice to be a goddamned lawyer."
"That's what I was thinking, but who's to say?"
"How's his mother doing? She miss him?"
"A little. You know." Jack looked at the file in Henry's hand, then at
the big barn behind the house. He jerked his head. "Shall we?"
The two men walked slowly up the wide gravel driveway toward the big
steel-framed building, the rising sun throwing long shadows all around them.
The barn looked more like a warehouse or a small factory, with an
unadorned steel exterior (painted white) and vent windows high up near the roof.
"Air conditioned?" Henry asked, staring at the barn as they approached.
He knew what Jack had said, but he couldn't see any AC units.
Jack nodded. "And heated in the winter. I keep the thermostat at
sixty-eight year 'round. If it gets too drafty they've got some things they can
throw on, but most of 'em won't wear them even if they're cold. Don't like the
feel of clothing, I guess."
"How many head you got now?"
"Eighty-seven. Nothing like Vanderbilt, but then again I don't have
their operating costs. This is just a family business."
They reached the door and Jack pushed a seven-digit code into the keypad
on the wall. He pulled open the door and motioned for Henry to go first. Next
to the door on the outside of the barn was the notice Jack was required by law
to post.
NO TRESSPASSING. VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED UNDER FEDERAL LAW, USC.
665.0.3, USC 669.2.7.
"Alarm connected to the Sheriff's Department?" Henry asked as he stepped
in.
"Directly. That's statute now."
"That's right, I forgot. I'm still learning this job."
The two men stood just inside the door and waited for it to close
automatically. It did, with a loud click, and the alarm beeped.
The barn was quiet, echoing softly with the rustling sounds of the cows
beginning to stir. The air inside was warm, and was laced with the scents of
the herd. There was nothing like the smell of a dairy barn. It could be a bit
overpowering to those not used to it, but after a lifetime Jack hardly noticed
it anymore. Henry's nostrils flared as he breathed deep, and he blinked as his
eyes adjusted to the artificial lighting.
"What do you need?" Jack asked his old friend.
"Well, I gotta inspect the girls, make sure they're not being
mistreated. Check their feed, their living conditions, take a look at your
milking machines, the usual. Have to physically examine a few. This'll only be
the fourth full inspection I've done so I'm still feeling my way through." Jack
could see Henry shifting as his body reacted to the pheromone-laced air inside
the barn.
Jack waved a hand toward the spacious interior of the barn. "Knock
yourself out. I'll tag along and answer questions."
Henry flipped open the folder as he moved away from the door. He found
the checklist of questions he had to have answered, and started filling in those
ones Jack had already covered. Jack stopped and Henry looked up to find himself
at the end of a long double row of milking machines. About half were in use,
and the smell was much stronger here.
"Oh, you've got those new automatic milkers," Henry observed. "Are your
girls on a schedule or do they just wander in when they feel full?"
"Years ago I did everything on a schedule but now, especially with the
autopumps, I just let them go in whenever they feel full."
"How's that working for you?"
Jack smiled. "Now that they can get milked whenever they want, as soon
as they start to feel full they hit the pumps. But the more they milk, the more
they produce. Some of these cows, they're milking once or twice a night and
every two or three hours during the day. Production's gone up almost eight
percent."
"That's great to hear."
The automatic milking machines were padded steel frames each on its own
raised concrete platform. The walkway Henry stood on ran between two rows of
machines, ten per row, each row set on a two foot high ribbon of concrete. The
collected milk ran through the vacuum hoses to the pump's refrigerated tank at
the end of the row.
The milker at Henry's elbow was unoccupied and gleamed dully in the
light. The top of the metal frame resembled a sort of padded table with a great
big square opening in the middle, subdivided by thin padded bars into four equal
squares, each eight inches across and with removable rubber padding all around.
Underneath was the self-guided, articulated nozzle assembly.
One of Jack's eighty-seven slowly approached the unoccupied machine,
glancing disinterestedly at the two men. She knelt behind the boxy frame on a
thick pad while the sensor inside the automilker recorded her identity via the
ID chip implanted inside her ribcage. There was an identical chip under the
skin above her left ankle, just under the stock number tattooed in black.
This cow's teats swayed ponderously with her every movement. They were
visibly engorged with milk, skin stretched and shiny from the internal pressure,
and would be firm to the touch, almost hard. Her skin was a pale white from
living indoors year 'round, and blue veins were visible on her oversize globes.
Her fleshy nipples were big as a man's thumbs, their own weight dragging the
tips down so that they pointed at the floor in front of her feet.
Once she was kneeling she grabbed the sides of the frame with both hands
and leaned forward. Her breasts swung out, each one as large as her head and as
swollen and engorged as a piece of overripe fruit.
She carefully lowered herself, guiding a teat into each square opening.
When she was down she rested her body on the padded frame, laid her forearms
down, and set her chin on the backs of her hands. The automilker activated with
a quiet hum.
Once the laser sensors scanned the position and profile of her breasts
the nozzle assembly jerked into motion. The nozzles moved into position and the
men heard four quick wet sucking sounds that were abruptly cut off as the
nozzles latched onto her fat nipples. Very faintly they could hear a rhythmic
thumping and watched her breasts shake and quiver as the pumps went to work
extracting her bounty.
The girl stared vacantly ahead as she was milked, her face inches from
Henry's arm. He looked down at her body, not realizing until then just how
small and painfully skinny she was.
"Jack," he said, sounding a bit concerned, "how much are you feeding
these girls?" Every single one of the young cow's ribs was clearly visible.
Jack checked the ID number of the girl showing on the automilker's
screen. It also displayed her production history - average gallons per day,
plus her weekly, monthly, and lifetime totals.
"This one's on twenty-five hundred calories a day, which is more than I
eat. She weighs all of a hundred and ten pounds, and thirty of that is tit."
"I can see that. Twenty-five hundred?"
Jack nodded. "Don't let the ribs fool you. She's a new breed. A
Thompson/Green. The first of 'em just grew into maturity last year. I bought
her and three other T/G's from the FDA's nursery a few months ago."
"What's its real name again?" Henry knitted his brows together.
"The nursery? The Production Department of the National Dairy Office,
or something like that. The Product Enhancement Division is the one keeps
developing the new breeds. She's supposed to look like that," Jack explained.
"You've heard of Verheiden cowbelles, right?"
"Sure." Henry looked around the barn. There were Verheidens everywhere
he looked, which wasn't surprising since they'd been the most popular breed for
close to three decades. They were the General Motors of Dairy cows.
"Well, they're genetically designed to be big, right? Real Big. Six
foot or taller, big frames, and real big teats. The bigger the body, the more
milk it can produce, right? At least, that's been the theory. Look at her."
Jack pointed at a cowbelle walking toward the line of automilkers. She was
older, had been producing for close to fifteen years, and had the massive
stretchmarked teats to prove it.
"Purebred V. You see the size of those teats? I'm probably getting
close to two hundred sixty ounces a day out of her, but I've got to feed her
four thousand calories a day to do it. Without the teats her body weight's a
hundred sixty pounds, easy.
"The new Thompson/Greens, they went a whole different route.
Small-framed females, engineered to mature at a younger age. I'm getting eight
for six from her now," Jack said, nodding at the small female, "and she's just
starting. Her milk only came in heavy six months ago." He knew Henry would
know he meant eight ounces of milk from each of the belle's four teats, six
times a day. "Her production'll keep going up every year. By the time she's
the age of this belle," he stuck a thumb at the beefy Verheiden settling herself
onto an automilker, "she'll be up to two hundred and forty ounces a day on
twenty-three hundred calories. That's an extra thousand dollars a year in my
pocket."
"She's built like a grape vine," Henry observed wryly. "At the rate
they're going, in ten years the Nursery'll be selling forty pound cows with
eighty pound of teat hangin' off em." They both knew teat size didn't by itself
was unimportant if the cow wasn't producing, but they also knew small teats just
didn't have the capacity needed for commercial production.
Men had been selectively breeding cows for close to two thousand years,
always looking to increase production. Advancements were made, but they had
been measured in decades, and fractions of ounces. Verheidens were the last
strain of cow developed solely through selective breeding.
With the advent of genetic engineering and a new understanding of the
role of certain hormones in milk production and metabolic rates, the slow pace
of progress in the dairy industry suddenly went into overdrive. Dairy farmers
experienced huge gains in production seemingly overnight.
"What are you feeding them?"
"LactoMax Blue."
"That's got the hormones mixed right in, right?"
"Hormones, vitamins, everything."
Henry looked at his paperwork. "What's your average daily production?"
Jack leaned an elbow on an automilker and scratched his nose. "Well,
I've got four T/G's, forty-seven Verheidens, eleven Stolzkirks, and twenty-five
mix-breed cows. Average daily for all of them is . . . ." He held up a finger
and walked over to the small office he had in the barn. Jack's thumbprint
unlocked the door and he went inside, Henry close behind. Jack bent over his
computer's keyboard, then shook his head and peered at a clipboard hanging on
the wall beside the desk.
"One ninety-nine and a half," he told Henry. "On an average diet of
twenty-eight hundred calories."
"Hmmm." Henry looked out the open doorway at the skinny T/G who'd
settled into the automilker minutes before. Even though her backside was
pointed at him and he couldn't see her face he could tell she'd fallen asleep
just from her breathing. He studied her small rump with a veterinarian's eye.
Her body didn't even appear to be fully developed and was closer to four and a
half feet tall than five.
"Whatever the Nursery's doing to accelerate their maturity is really
working," Henry observed. Jack looked to see his friend studying the young cow.
"Do they even have to do body hair removal?"
"Well, they're bred smoothbodied now."
"How about teeth? All the young cows I've examined seem to have
excellent teeth."
Jack nodded. "They've developed some sort of ultra-fluoride treatment
or something. They stay strong and white even if we only brush 'em once a
week."
Henry shook his head and looked at Jack. "You remember the way it used
to be?"
"Oh yeah. In fact, my older cows, the ones I've had for twenty years or
so, most of them have had to have their teeth pulled. Less hassle, but then
I've got to get them soft feed."
"Stolzkirks, they're the ones with six teats, right? Why aren't they
more popular?"
"Six packs? Body can only produce a certain amount of milk whether it's
coming out of four nipples or six. And they get a lot more blocked ducts and
infections. These T/G's? Nipples like bootleather, they don't leak, but when
you hook 'em up to the pumps the milk comes out of 'em like turnin' on a
faucet."
A flash of light off to one side drew their attention. Jack's son Chris
appeared, hair still tousled from sleep and wearing wrinkled clothes. He made
sure the barn door latched behind him, then moved into the barn.
"Chris!" Jack waved a hand and the boy headed their way. He still
looked half asleep.
"You remember Henry, don't you?" Jack asked his son.
Chris nodded. "Hello Mr. Crane." He yawned and blinked dully, trying
to wake up. Henry couldn't help but smile.
"What, no school today?" Henry asked.
"Easter vacation."
"Henry's the new FDA inspector now that Charlie Brogan's retired, so
don't give him a headache," Jack warned him. "What are you doing this morning?"
Chris frowned and tried to think. "Running self-diagnostics on the rest
of the automilkers and taking care of whatever comes up, then cleaning the
shower stalls." Behind him a very pregnant cow came waddling up. Her belly was
so big it made her engorged teats look dainty in comparison, and pushed her
lower pair of breasts apart and up into the set above them. She had the big,
tough-looking permanently engorged nipples of a veteran belle, now darker than
usual because of her pregnancy. Her belly kept her from using an automilker and
Henry watched as she sat on a stool and turned on a manual machine. She
attached the four stainless steel nozzles to her nipples with practiced ease and
rested while the pump did its work, staring off into space.
"Any day now," Jack said to Henry, nodding at the expectant cow. He
pursed his his lips, then said, "Excuse me a second," to Henry. There was an
open box of latex gloves nearby and Jack pulled one on before stepping out of
the office. With gentle prods he got the pregnant cow down on hands and knees.
The nozzles stayed firmly glued to her big swinging teats as the weight of her
breasts and belly bowed her back.
The cow sighed as Jack slid two gloved fingers into her bulging sex. He
couldn't remember the last time he'd handled a cow that wasn't already wet, and
his fingers made squelching noises as he maneuvered them inside her, finally
locating the mouth of her cervix. The cow sighed again, and pushed herself back
against his hand.
Jack patted the cow's rump with his bare hand as he pulled his fingers
out and stood up. "Hardly dilated at all," he told Henry, peeling off the
glove.
He glanced at his son and indicated the pregnant cow. "Keep an eye on
her," he warned the boy. "She could go into labor at any time." He checked his
watch. "Well, get to it then. Breakfast in about an hour, don't forget." He'd
installed an intercom between the house and barn but if the boy was at the far
end of the barn he wouldn't hear the call.
Henry watched the boy walk away. "Boy, he's getting big. Tall as I am,
anyway. How old is he? Thirteen?"
"Fourteen. Growin' like a weed."
Henry set the file in his hand on the corner of Jack's desk and leafed
through the pages. He tilted his head at the line of milkers beyond the office.
"You get a lot of pregnant cows?"
Jack had to laugh. "Yeah. Hormones in the feed are supposed to not
just keep them from menstruating, but from ovulating entirely, and I've got two
others just like her around here."
"Chris and Billy?"
"And their friends," Jack said with a grin and shake of his head. "Now
that Billy's gone I've hired a couple of Chris' classmates to help out. I don't
mind them cocking the stock, but they keep forgetting to do their work first."
"Teenagers."
"You got that right. I was just the same when I was his age, not that
I'd admit it to him. I tended cows at Bob Ferguson's farm down in Mayneville
summers when I was in high school. He only had thirty head and I think I got
eight of 'em pregnant. Genetics and hormones weren't as good back then."
"What do you do with the pups? Sell 'em to the Nursery?"
"Yep, and they raise 'em and sell 'em back to me. Well, I've got first
dibs if it's a pup I originally sold them." He looked out the office window and
pointed. "That little T/G you noticed? One of Teenie's sisters birthed her
eight or so years ago. They tweaked her genes, or whatever they do to develop
the a first generation. After the first all the pups are born with the
upgrades."
"Boy, you're right about those accelerated growth hormones. I would
have guessed she was eleven or twelve. She yours?"
"Well, Billy started getting into the stock a couple years before that,
but I don't think she's his. Which means she's either mine or Pat's, the
part-timer I put on that summer I broke my arm."
"I remember him. College kid, right?"
"Yeah. Don't know how he found time to study, all the cow punching he
was doing after work."
"You didn't stop him?"
Jack shrugged. "He always did his work. Hell, my girls loved him. You
know how they're in a constant state, and Pat was able to keep right up with
them. The good Lord also blessed him in more ways than one, if you know what I
mean. Even my Verheidens couldn't complain."
"Production go up much when they're pregnant?"
"No, actually it goes down. Their bodies already think they're pregnant
because of the hormones. When they actually do get pregnant, there's not as
much energy available to go toward milk production. But I get good money for
the pups, and after giving birth their production goes back to what it was or
better."
Henry nodded at the row of automilkers. The rumps of half a dozen cows
pointed back at them. "You have all of them in ponytails?"
"Too much work to do anything else. Their hair's pretty amazing, isn't
it?"
"That's the hormones. Same thing happened to my wife when she was
pregnant. Thick and glossy like on a shampoo commercial. You know, Vanderbilt
shaves theirs."
"Bald?" Jack shook his head and made a face. "Eck. Too ugly. They
can wash their hair themselves, so it's not really more work for me. Hair grows
about an inch a week. If they weren't all smoothbodied they'd look like bears."
They watched as a cow got up off her automilker. Her nipples were dark
red from the milker nozzles and swollen even larger than normal, but what really
struck Henry as different were her teats. Empty of milk they were much flatter,
nearly pancakes, and swung limp and loose as the cow wandered away.
"How about their intelligence? Are the new breed, the T/G's, any
smarter?"
"About the same. They can wash themselves, use a toilet, and understand
enough of what you tell them to do what you want, but they're happy just staring
at the wall or the floor or each other. They can't read or write."
"You tried teaching them?"
"No. They come toilet-trained from the Nursery, and know how to wash
themselves. We help them brush their teeth and show them how the showers work
but that's about it. The older cows are smarter, but I still wouldn't let one
drive."
Henry laughed. Like anyone would ever let a cow near car keys. "Mind
if I inspect the showers?" Henry checked his file. "And your autofeeders?"
"Not at all." Jack moved to join him.
"No, no." Henry held up a hand. "I can see you eyeballin' that
computer, I bet you have some numbers to punch. You do your work and if I need
anything I'll holler." He peered toward the big play area near the far end of
the barn. "You got TV's back there?"
"Yeah, the girls like the pictures. Cartoons mostly, and some nature
shows."
Henry smiled and shook his head as he grabbed a wad of latex gloves from
the box and headed toward the back of the barn.
Henry appeared at the office door fifteen minutes later and leaned on
the jamb. Jack leaned back from the computer.
"You got a good boy there, Jack," Henry said in his affable manner.
"Don't know how he gets his work done with those cows after him so. I'm an ugly
old man and half a dozen of them were wagging their tails at me before I ever
got a glove on. I suppose I should be used to it by now. Vanderbilt's are even
worse because they don't get as much play time. That little play area you got
for them back there with the pads on the floor and the toys, there's got to be a
dozen of them in there already, rollin' around on top of each other."
Jack smiled. "I told you they were healthy. That's how they spend most
of their day."
"Vanderbilt keeps 'em separated but for an hour or two a day playtime.
And that playtime, it looks like what you got going' on back there, but worse,
and they got ten times as many head. Those big toys for the V's?"
"Yup."
"A tad intimidatin'. I saw the treadmills back there. Those for the
cold months when you can't walk 'em around the field?"
"Yep. They don't like them much, but they like the cold less."
"FDA has to do their physicals, right? How often do you do that?"
"Pete Schultz comes by every six months and gives the whole herd a
complete medical examination. That's a copy of his last report." Jack pointed
at a stack of papers on top of the filing cabinet. "I figured you'd need to see
it. The ones that're expecting, he comes in and checks 'em every month, every
week when they get to eight months."
Henry leafed through the report casually. "You having any problems?"
"Jus the usual. Colds, couple cases of the flu, and the usual
constipation."
"Constipation?"
"Yeah, the LactoMax tends to bind them up. There's an extra hose in
each shower stall. We can give 'em enemas if we need to when we're scrubbing
them down."
"How do they like that?"
Jack shrugged. "Chris says a few of them like it. Usually don't get
much reaction out of them, but that's typical with everything."
Henry grunted and pushed Pete Schultz' exam report away. Jack's herd
was in excellent shape, as he'd expected.
"Well, I'm done," he told Jack. "I can fill out the rest of the blanks
at home tonight. You've got some fine belles here Jack, everything looks
great."
"Thank you Henry." Jack stood and the two men moved out of the office.
Jack closed the door, made sure it was locked, and looked around for his son.
He could hear him in the back, scrubbing out the showers. Henry took a few more
steps to stand between two automilkers, both occupied by Verheiden belles. He
looked back and forth between the two cows appraisingly.
"Yes, some fine looking belles," he told Jack again. He ran his hand
along the flank of the V to his left. He felt a throbbing as he rested his palm
on her backside and realized it was from the pump as it rhythmically sucked the
milk from her. The cow turned her head to look at him with big limpid eyes.
"I forget how warm they are," he said to Jack.
Belles had an average body temperature of 101.1 F, due to their faster
metabolisms and the enormous energy they expended producing milk. Between the
higher metabolisms and the strain of commercial production most cows didn't make
it to sixty, unless they retired after less than ten years of production. Heart
failure was the usual cause of death.
It was rare to find a farmer that formally named his cows. Jack
normally referenced their serial numbers whenever he wanted to identify certain
cows, but like most farmers he had nicknames for some of them. The belle whose
flank Henry was stroking was called Lips, and if he'd taken a few steps backward
the reason for the nickname would have become quite clear.
She was one of his older cows, maybe thirty years old, and her body had
thickened after fifteen-plus years of barn life. Her hips were wide, even for a
Verheiden, her thighs and buttocks meaty but not fat. A hair over six feet
tall, she tipped the scales at two hundred and ten pounds with four full teats.
Although out of sight beneath her, Jack knew her breasts were each the size of
his head. Her labia were large and thick and a calloused dark brown, and she
sported a large penis-like clitoris, another occasional side-effect of the
hormones. Perhaps she'd given birth once or twice, Jack couldn't remember, but
when she squatted, spread her legs, or just got on all fours her big sex
naturally gaped open. Verheiden holes could usually take an entire hand, and
with the decreased sensitivity bred into them fists were usually what he saw
them using on each other in the play area. From what he'd seen it took an
unlubed fist just to get Lips' attention. Surprisingly, though, she wasn't his
biggest cow; that honor was reserved for the one he called Big Betty.
He should have retired Betty years ago, she was nearly fifty, but she
was the first cow he'd ever bought. Besides, she was a milking machine: still
producing ten for six after thirty-five long years. Jack told himself she was
so old and fat and ugly she was worth more at the pump than what he'd be able to
sell her for. No one would want her as a pet, and she was too inured to barn
life to settle in anywhere else. He wasn't feeding her any more than the usual
Verheiden diet, but over the decades she'd somehow gotten fat and he didn't want
to cut her calories in case it affected her production. She had heavy arms and
legs and a round gut that jiggled when she walked, and the four largest teats in
his herd, stretched and flat even when they were full. She had delivered eight
pups to him over the years, which had put quite a lot of coin in his pocket, and
he was as fond of her as a man could be of a cow.
It was obvious Henry didn't grow up on a dairy farm or he'd know what
stroking its flank meant to a cow. Under his touch Lips spread her knees on the
pad and looked back at him eagerly. Henry missed both the movement and the
look. Jack didn't think Henry was prepared to satisfy the cow in quite that
way, what with a file folder in his other hand, and probably knew nothing about
the extra work most Verheidens needed because of their oversize dimensions.
"Want some coffee?" he asked Henry, as Lips wiggled her backside
eagerly. The question made Henry turn toward his friend and he again missed the
cow's signal.
"That sounds fine, but only if it's no trouble."
"It's sitting in the kitchen, fresh brewed, just waiting to be drunk,"
Jack assured him. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Lips sway her big
hips from side to side, trying to get Henry's attention, as the nozzles sucked
the milk out of her huge nipples with a rhythmic thumpthumpthump. From his
vantage point he could see her sloppy gaping vagina clenching in anticipation of
Henry's hand.
Jack led him to the back door of the house, just off the kitchen. The
sun had taken the sharp bite from the air but it was still chilly enough to get
Henry's fingers stiff. Jack shut the old door firmly, cutting off the influx of
cold air, and turned to see Billy's mother standing at the counter in her robe,
her back to them. She turned at the sound of the door.
"Mornin'," Henry said cordially with a little nod.
"Pour Henry a cup of coffee, wouldja?" She was standing right next to
the pot. The whole room was soaked in the aroma of the strong brew.
The big woman smiled at both men. "Good morning," she said cheerfully,
then turned back to the cupboard to grab a cup. The men sat down at the round
oak table.
Henry leaned over toward Jack, a pained expression on his face. "Is it
Melody?" he asked, embarrassed he'd forgotten her name. She pulled a cup down
and filled it with black, steaming coffee, then turned around to face them with
it in her hand.
"Yep," Jack said, patting Henry's forearm forgivingly.
"Do you want milk or sugar?" Melody asked, eyebrows raised.
"No sugar but it smells strong. I'll take some milk."
"What about you Jack?"
"Milk and sugar like always, but take care of Henry first."
Melody smiled and undid the belt holding the front of her terrycloth
robe closed. She reached inside with her free hand and brought out her lower
right breast. Leaning forward fractionally, her fingers began to expertly
squeeze her breast in a smooth, rolling motion. In just a few seconds her milk
began to flow. She moved her fingers to the base of her fat nipple and began
rhythmically squeezing. Multiple thin white streams of milk shot into the cup
which she held ready.
After seventeen years on the milking machines Melody's nipples were as
long as Jack's thumbs and just a bit thicker. When the coffee was a medium
brown she pinched her nipple to stop it from leaking and tilted the cup so Henry
could see.
"Enough?" she asked him.
"Yes, that's fine, thank you."
She handed him the cup and, still holding her nipple, went back to the
counter.
"Fresh milk's so sweet it's almost like adding sugar," Jack said.
Henry swallowed his first sip. "Ain't that the case." He stuck a
finger in the cup and swirled it around to mix Melody's milk completely, then
took another sip.
The big woman's milk was flowing freely now. All she had to do was
point her nipple at Jack's cup and take a handful of teat and huge sprays of
milk shot out with every squeeze. Henry could hear the milk spraying into the
cup as she came back around the table. When the coffee was light enough she
pinched her nipple and handed Jack his cup. Henry eyeballed her over the top of
his coffee, watching her big teats sway inside the open robe.
Melody didn't like to wear the robe but there'd been a chill in the
morning air. Her body still had trouble adjusting to changes in temperature
even though she'd been out of the climate-controlled barn for nine years. She'd
been setting up the pump when the men came in and went back to that after giving
Jack his coffee.
The men talked quietly as Melody, standing at the counter, vacuum-sealed
the nozzles to her four nipples and started the small pump. While it worked she
grabbed a pink elastic band out of a bowl on the counter and put her long brown
hair into a ponytail. She was a purebred Verheiden, six feet tall with wide
shoulders and hips. Her milk had come in when she was thirteen and Jack had
bought her just a few months later. She'd birthed Billy at age twenty-one and
gone on producing seven for six for another nine years before Jack decided to
retire her. She had a plain face and was dumber than most; if she hadn't been
Billy's mother he'd have sold her off. Instead he took her in but kept her on
the pump so her milk would stay up.
Everyone heard a rustle and then Chris' mother appeared in the doorway
leading into the dining room. She still looked half-asleep, her long sandy
brown locks covering the sides of her face.
"D'you forget to set the alarm again?" Jack asked her after checking his
watch. She nodded, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"Henry, you've met Teenie, haven't you?"
Henry set down his empty cup and nodded. "It's been a while, though.
Good morning."
"Good morning." Teenie looked around, then stepped over to the kitchen
counter next to Melody. She helped herself to a hairtie out of the same bowl
that Melody had and set about tying her long hair back.
The contrast between the two women was almost comical. Teenie was over
a foot shorter than Melody. Too old to be a Thompson/Green (she was just
twenty-eight), she was just naturally small, with slender limbs and narrow hips.
Although she weighed almost a hundred pounds less than the Verheiden belle she
stood next to, their breasts were nearly the same size. Since there was no milk
to firm them up Teenie's breasts hung low and relatively flat for a belle, her
bottom set of nipples swaying down between her hipbones.
Her milk had come in several years earlier than Melody's, but Jack
quickly discovered there was a problem. She was allergic to the silicone
O-rings in the milker nozzles that formed the vacuum seal. The silicone caused
her to break out in a horrible rash. Jack tried nozzles with latex O-rings but
she was allergic to them as well. After several frustrating months he applied
and was approved for a Medical Exemption. He'd planned on selling her to a
state training academy, where she'd be educated in pleasure skills (she was
quite cute), but by the time her rash disappeared she was pregnant and he had
only himself to blame. She had no problem nursing Christopher until he started
school, but that was the last milk to come from her breasts.
Teenie had slipped into a pair of fuzzy slippers to beat the cold floors
but was otherwise nude. Neither of them had ever worn a bra, and rarely wore
clothes, but Jack had been around cows since he was fifteen and hardly noticed
anymore. He made both Teenie and Melody fast walk on the treadmill an hour a
day, to keep them toned, but their breeding had more to do with their
near-perfect figures than anything else.
"I was going to make a cheese omelet for breakfast," Teenie said. She
turned toward the men, finished tying her hair up, and put her hands on her
hips. "How many eggs should I use?"
Jack turned to his guest. "You staying for breakfast Henry? You're
welcome to join us."
After being surrounded by big, dark, suction-enlarged nipples
genetically designed to stand up to rough use all morning, Teenie's nipples
looked odd to Henry. She had large, palm-sized areola in a dusky pink shade,
with half inch long nipples like the ends of his pinkies. He stared idly at the
tiny cleft between her legs, then shook his head to clear it.
"No," he said, "I've got to be getting home. Mary'll be wondering where
I've gotten to, didn't tell her I'd be stopping for an inspection." He stood
up. "Thank you for the coffee though, and the hospitality." He picked up the
file folder.
"You're more than welcome. Come on by sometime when you don't have work
to do." The two men moved toward the back door, still talking.
"I'll try," Henry said. He looked down at the folder in his hand.
"Should be done with the report in a day or three. I'll send you a copy soon as
it's done. There won't be any surprises in it."
"Henry, I appreciate that. I always try to keep my cows happy, they
produce more milk that way. And if you're ever in the area and want to inspect
one of my belles personally," Jack said, "they won't mind and neither will I."
"Well," Henry said with a bemused smile, "I'm not as young as I used to
be. I might do myself permanent injury."
Jack laughed and slapped him on the back. "You tell Mary I said hi."
"I'll do that." The two men shook hands.
"Goodbye ladies," Henry called.
"Goodbye!" Melody called out over her shoulder. She still stood at the
counter attached to the pump.
"Goodbye! Come see us again." Teenie was pulling eggs out of the
refrigerator and her nipples had hardened in the cold air.
Jack shut the door behind him, then waved at Henry as he walked to his
car. When Henry was out of sight around the corner of the house Jack went to
grab another cup of coffee.
"He was nice," Melody said at his elbow as Jack poured himself another
cup. "Who was he?" Her forehead wrinkled up as she tried to think.
"Just a friend," Jack told her absently. He glanced at the jug she was
currently filling with milk, fit snug into its slot in the pump, then instead
went to the refrigerator. There was still some of her milk left from the day
before and even though it was cold, and would cool his coffee, he hated to throw
it out. It had separated as it sat and he had to shake it up before he could
pour it into his coffee. She still produced over a gallon a day and sometimes
it was a real chore to drink it before it went bad. Before that happened he
usually made Melody drink the last of it so it would, in a way, be recycled.
He went back to his chair at the kitchen table and watched Teenie make
breakfast. Her small, muscular buttocks clenched and unclenched as she moved
back and forth. From behind, but for her hair, she looked like a skinny
ten-year-old boy.
After a few minutes Melody finished pumping. She put the fresh quart of
warm milk into the refrigerator after taking a drink, the nozzles into the sink
to be rinsed, and the pump out of sight under the counter.
Most dairy farmers he knew had one or two retired belles around the
house. They were smart enough to do housework, and some, like Teenie, could be
trusted to cook without setting the house on fire. It was only natural to grow
attached to them but every once in a while some fool would up and marry one.
Not just give her her papers when she retired, but marry her! What a nightmare.
Jack knew better than to emancipate Teenie or Melody. It would only confuse
them and cause problems for everyone. Jack liked his life as simple as he could
make it.
He checked his watch. He'd told Chris breakfast would be at
eight-thirty, and it was almost quarter after now.
"Melody." The big cow was hovering behind Teenie as she always did when
the smaller cow cooked, watching her crack eggs into the pan. When she looked
over he crooked a finger at her.
"Take that off," he told her as she came around the end of the counter.
She removed her robe and folded it over the back of a chair before coming around
the table toward him. The pump suction had enlarged her nipples slightly, and
turned them reddish brown. Two had white drops hanging from their ends.
She stood next to the arm of his chair and he reached out and grabbed
hold of one of her buttocks. She had a big, healthy ass and he smacked it
affectionately. Jack ran a hand down the back of one leg, always amazed at how
smooth their skin was (he was convinced it was because of the hormones), then
slid his fingers up between her thighs.
Melody grinned playfully over her shoulder at him as he gently pinched
her fat labia together, then slid a finger between them. With his other hand he
reached up and grabbed hold of one of her lower nipples. It was like grabbing a
fat, stubby, rubbery finger. She didn't have much feeling in them and he could
pinch them until his fingers ached before she got so much as a tingle.
Jack pinched and rolled her nipple between his fingers for a while as
his other hand wiggled between her legs. Melody spread her thighs a bit and
stuck her rump out. He pulled down on her nipple for leverage as he began
finger banging her, but he quickly got bored. He took his four fingers out of
her and gave her a hard smack on one buttock. Melody pouted at him. She stuck
her rump out even further and pulled her buttocks apart with her hands. Shaking
his head, a little smile on his lips, Jack put his fingers back in. She was
very wet and his hand squelched and squished as he worked it into her. Melody
started breathing heavily as he twisted his hand back and forth inside her slick
hole. After another minute he pulled his hand from her, pushed his chair away
from the table, and spread his thighs apart. Melody's smile grew bigger and she
quickly knelt down between his knees as he wiped his hand off on her robe which
was hanging nearby.
Jack took a sip of coffee as the big cow undid his belt and unzipped his
pants. With experienced hands she pulled his soft penis out and bent down, then
quickly straightened back up.
"Oops," she giggled. She deftly pulled the dentures from her mouth,
then bent over again and went to work.
Teenie had much more talent at it than Melody, but the Verheiden had two
things going for her that the other belle didn't: her bare gums, of course, and
her size. The sheer physical size of her meant she had no problem fitting all
of him inside her mouth.
Jack sipped his coffee as Teenie cooked the omelet and Melody's head
bobbed in his lap. She usually drooled a little too much but he'd been unable
to break her of the habit. He put a hand on the back of her head and she took
the hint, deepthroating him on each downstroke.
Melody hadn't taken a shower yet and still smelled like sex from the
night before. He'd mostly just watched as the two cows went at it, same as they
did four or five nights a week. He didn't know if it was the generations of
selective breeding or the years on the hormones but he'd never met, much less
heard of a cow, retired or not, that wasn't wet and frisky all the time, and the
new, genetically altered breeds seemed to be even worse.
Teaching retired cows discretion and decorum was an exercise in
frustration. They hated wearing most clothes, and would masturbate themselves
or each other whenever the mood struck them, no matter where they were. Out in
the country or bouncing around his property that wasn't a problem, but that
wasn't the case everywhere. Jack usually just left them at home when he had to
run into town.
He had a king-size bed but still the three of them barely fit on it.
Teenie usually directed the action when she and Melody got to playing, but both
of them were very submissive with him. They were both remarkably flexible, as
well, and if she didn't have so much teat meat to rearrange Teenie would have
spent a lot more time with her knees behind her shoulders. Jack had always been
a light sleeper and more often than not would join in instead of just watch.
Teenie was tight everywhere, but the same couldn't be said for Melody because of
her size. Cows, however, retired or not, never seemed to pay much attention to
which of their holes was getting reamed, and Melody was no exception. Jack
suspected that because of the high pain tolerances bred into them through the
preceding centuries they just didn't have as much sensation throughout their
bodies. He'd sodomized a hundred cows while they were bent over eating and most
of the time they kept right on chewing.
Chris came in through the back door, stamping his feet in the chill air.
He blew into his hands.
"Wash your hands and then we'll eat," Jack told his son. Melody was
making loud sucking sounds as she always did but Chris never looked over,
instead more interested in what was for breakfast. He moved into the kitchen
and peered over Teenie's shoulder at the omelet, then stepped to the sink and
began washing his hands.
Jack finished up, grunting softly. Melody kept slurping and sucking
even as he deflated and Jack looked between his legs to see she was playing with
herself. He slid a boot under her and nudged her wiggling fingers.
"Time to eat," he told her. She whined halfheartedly, then packed his
shrinking equipment back inside his trousers. She got up, put her teeth back
in, and helped Teenie bring the plates over to the table. She sat down to eat
without bothering with her robe.
"Thank you, Lord, for these, they gifts, which we are about to receive."
Chris said the grace, and then the four of them dug in. Breakfast passed mostly
in silence. The men were too busy eating and the two cows never had much to
say. Once he finished his eggs Jack got up and fixed himself a third cup of
coffee. He stood behind Teenie as he sipped at it, idly stroking her cheek with
one hand as he studied his son.
"After breakfast," Jack told him, "I want you to check the computer log.
Any cow that hasn't hit the showers in two days I want you to drag in and get
'em clean. Any of 'em seem bound up use the enema hose on 'em too." Teenie
turned her head toward Jack's stroking hand and sucked two of his fingers into
her mouth, looking up at him with big eyes. Jack pulled his fingers out,
shaking his head at her, and wiped them off on her neck. "After that," he went
on, "you've got the rest of the day until dinner free."
Chris smiled and nodded eagerly. There'd be a dozen or so cows that'd
need washing. He could put 'em in the stalls two at a time and they'd mostly
wash each other while he worked the enema hoses. He'd have to strip down to
keep his clothes from getting trashed, but if he had the rest of the afternoon
to himself he figured he might as well stay naked and spend the day playing with
the cows. He still hadn't tired of the new T/G's, which were breathtakingly
tight. He could tell they liked him, and there were still a few he hadn't
gotten around to yet.
