Funishment pt 1
I hid the leash under my shirt as I hurried downstairs to my stall, at this point I was banking on having the needed supplies on hand because I really didn’t want to risk conversation at the expendables cabinet.
This gamble at least paid off and I was settled in with the extractors pumping away within just a couple minutes. I took a deep breath, reached for my phone, and after a brief panic remembered I’d left it with Carolyn.
I rubbed the fabric of my shorts between my fingers as I sought out something else to fidget with. I wasn't used to just sitting still and doing nothing during an extraction. I'd used the wrong air port to be able to reach my computer from here so I turned on the TV instead. The poor thing hardly saw any use and the compulsory ads and smart “features” did nothing to incentivize more action.
Pulling up my usual video apps felt like it would defeat the purpose of the whole scrolling-cleanse I was undertaking so I amused myself waving the remote around and watching the little pink cursor bounce all over the screen. I even traced out the pattern a DVD logo would make and indulged in a few perfect corner bounces for my own amusement.
I'd lost track of how long I'd been waving the silly remote around when I decided I was empty enough and I’d just have to get the coffee part of this errand out of the way.
Jake and Thad did have a pretty decent carafe of drip coffee out every morning and that would still be warm, but a while back I’d ground beans and done a manual press for Carolyn. Not only had she sworn up and down that the difference was everything, but she immediately expected I would make her coffee that way every day since. Evidently it was different enough because the one time I went back to the drip she had pouted until I redid it.
Regardless, she seemed to appreciate the effort, and no doubt got her jollies on knowing I'd be laboring for her simple pleasures.
I disconnected from the air line and broke down the harness on autopilot, tossing the expended and washable components in their respective bins before fixing my bra and shirt. The leash was the wildcard though. There was enough cord to make it look weird if I just stuffed it all in my bra, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do with it. It would reach the floor if I just let it hang loose.
Besides, my shirts had such wide collars to accommodate my horns that the leash would be plainly visible anyways.
“Moo~”
I'd almost forgotten about the vocal changes as I mumbled to myself. More than ever I was tempted to cheat and disconnect the leash just to avoid humiliation, but integrity was about how I behaved when nobody was looking. Or something. Carolyn expected me to wear it so I would.
I let the leash hang over my shirt and bundled a little bit of the slack to sit in my shorts pocket. Sure, it was in plain sight, but Carolyn would be pleased and anyone else might just think I was owning it. Like this was all some sort of fashion statement…
Deyha walked up as I closed the door of my stall behind me. “There you are! Here, let me hold that.”
I held up the bag of milk I had just extracted but to my dismay she tugged the leash out of my pocket instead.
“Moo~” I complained as she set out across the common area.
“Don't worry, Carolyn texted me. She filled me in on your task. I’m proud of you for holding up your end—“ she waved the loop of the leash “— but unfortunately that doesn’t quite mean you get amnesty.”
I gave her my most bored glare as she walked me to the kitchen area. Usually, all the bits I needed were packed out of the way, but Deyha had so kindly brought them all out to the worktop next to the hot food station, in plain view of the entire lobby. The kettle was full too, but she hadn’t turned it on, meaning I had a few solid minutes of waiting for water to boil.
“Anything I can do to help?” She leaned on the counter as I reached to plug in the kettle and grinders.
“Moo…”
“Ah, yeah it's probably easier to let you just do your thing rather than having you do charades.”
The next insult from the universe was the single circuit for two high current devices. Grinding beans while boiling water was a sure-fire way to trip the breaker so I couldn't even multitask.
Deyha watched while I worked, mercifully helping to keep the leash out of the way as I did the required measurements and filter prep. After a minute I had everything but the water… and the cups.
“Moo?” I held up my hands in my best approximation of a cup shape.
“A bowl?”
I shook my head.
“Yeah, I’m yanking your tail. You need a cup? Where’s Carolyn's?"
I shrugged and held up two fingers.
“Two cups? Uh, I appreciate the thought but I’m not big on coffee.”
I shook my head again and she pushed off the counter. “I’m afraid we’ve already hit the limit of charades… two cups, but not for me… oh, I guess you’re probably fixing some for yourself as well.”
I was tempted to shake my head and wait for her to come to the conclusion that the second would be for Ellen, but that seemed like unnecessary confusion. She left the lead on the counter as she went on her little quest.
My efforts to use some latent heat vision power to speed up the kettle amounted to nothing, to the point where I was beginning to speculate this was a 'watched pot' situation until I saw the first bubbles through the little side window.
"I think this is the type Carolyn uses. Will this work?" Deyha set down two double-wall cups and I nodded. I went ahead and pre-portioned some of the milk into each of the cups, ignoring Deyha's surprise as I set up the press above Ellen's.
"I… guess I'll set the rest to pasteurize…" She took the mostly full bag of milk and I executed my practiced pattern.
Some people were hardcore about consistency with this setup, but rather than do the whole ritual on a digital scale for precision, I just went on vibes. A scoop of coffee, some hot water, a little stir with a chopstick, and then a few moments to steep while I fit the plunger in place. Once the arbitrary amount of time had passed, I pressed the coffee through the filter, ejected the puck of grounds into the compost bin, and started over on Carolyn's cup. Ordinarily, I might make Carolyn's first out of some sense of preferential treatment, but I had theorized that warming up the press could make the coffee a sort of "second pancake is always better" situation. I'd never made bad coffee with it, but I went on pretending this would make Carolyn's cup that tiny bit superior to Ellen's.
"You… haven't always been doing your coffee like this, have you?" Deyha eyed the cups with skepticism as I shook my head.
"Moo."
"Alright, I believe you. I… guess I won't shame you."
I rolled my eyes and gestured toward the clinic.
"Its a little remarkable how much of your non-verbal communication is eye-rolls."
I stuck out my tongue and blew a raspberry.
“Shouldn’t have said anything…”
Ellen was just leaving the lab as Deyha and I arrived and I watched the journey her mind took as she picked up details: happy to see us, delight about coffee, and maniacal glee at the sight of the leash.
I held out her cup and slipped past her into the lab, not waiting to see if Deyha would follow.
“Welcome back, pet.” Carolyn accepted her coffee and the leash from Deyha before nodding to the pet bed. My guess was she had conscripted Ellen to bring it over.
I took my time situating as Deyha pulled over a chair. This cushion felt undersized. I couldn’t stretch out over it, the side walls weren’t firm enough to rest my head on, and for that matter the bottom wasn’t thick enough to provide much relief from the tile. I missed the bag chair in my stall.
“Moo~” I sighed melodramatically and pretended to doze as Carolyn and Deyha chatted. Sometimes I felt like I could just let my mind wander and truly check out of reality, but today I felt a little over-aware of the conversation above me.
“Ellen said she has a handful of apps she uses for messaging and social media, are there any others I should set it to download? How do you install the farm management app?”
I watched Carolyn pass my phone to Deyha. I definitely didn’t feel great about seeing my personal belongings passed around, even by people I loved and trusted.
“Nothing comes to mind, and that’s just a glorified webpage shortcut. It wouldn't hurt to make her an account though.” Deyha turned my phone over in her hands. “She really okayed this?”
I nodded, but I didn’t check to see if Deyha noticed before resuming my pretend nap.
“Yep. I’m not sure if she told you about resetting it, but when I offered to set up some parental control features she handed it over pretty immediately.”
“Moo~” I rolled my eyes at the heavily revised telling of events.
“That sounded like disagreement.”
“She might have had second thoughts…” Carolyn mused.
“Take a look. See what you think.” Deyha handed the device down to me.
At first, nothing looked different from the regular bare setup. A few familiar apps were on the home in no particular order, but the settings app showed the changes.
I had screen time limits now, four hours per day total shared across the handful of messaging apps.
I opened the App Store and pulled up the game I still played. Predictably, the install button required some sort of password.
I reached up to tap Carolyn’s thigh with the phone and then braced myself for the worst.
“Hmm, what’s this? Oh~” Carolyn’s tone dipped immediately to teasing and I rubbed my face as one of the trailers for the game started playing. I could even recognize the different character voices as they laid out the whole exposition, the grand pitch of why the person watching the trailer should download this free game.
“Spend responsibly? But it’s a free game— oh…” Carolyn clicked her tongue. “I see what’s going on~ look at this character.”
“Oh, hey there’s a cow girl.” Deyha’s chair creaked. “You could probably pull off a costume of her, though you tend to wear more clothes.”
“Moo~” I waved my hand and reached to take my phone back. I’d severely miscalculated on whether it was worthwhile to download again. I’d still be able to play it from my PC at least.
“Well, it gives me an excuse to try out the allowance feature.” Carolyn mused as I tried to make myself smaller on the pet bed.
“There!” Carolyn tapped my shoulder with the phone. “Now you have a little stipend to spend on your little anime girl collection.”
“Moo.” I looked glumly at the list of apps that I’d installed previously. Suddenly, it didn’t seem worthwhile to ask for any more, not if Deyha and Carolyn were going to look into what the game actually was. I didn’t really care about setting up more of the phone either, so I put the stupid thing away so I could try in vain to get comfortable.
“Having second thoughts yet?” Carolyn reached down to rub my shoulder.
“Moooo.” I shrugged and shook my head.
“I’m sorry for teasing.” Carolyn leaned down to rub my back.
I was tempted to try to bite her leg, just to be funny, but I settled for stealing one of her shoes.
“Says she doesn’t have a foot fetish, yet she takes your shoes at every opportunity.” Deyha petted my head as I grumbled.
Still, I leaned into the touch and before long Deyha was kneeling next to my little pet me with both hands.
“Absolutely spoiled…” Carolyn nudged me with her foot. “You’re supposed to be in time-out, not pet vacation.”
I meant to make a very cute and innocent moo, but what came out was a particularly wet belch. I covered my mouth as Carolyn and Deyha giggled.
"That wasn't a cow sound~" Carolyn teased.
"Moo!"
"Cows are notorious burpers, for your information." Deyha reached down to take my hands and pulled me upright. "Here, sit in my lap for a bit. I think being vertical will help."
"But the pet bed!"
"Is painful bloating part of the funishment you had in mind?" Deyha smirked at Carolyn.
"No~"
"Then I'm burping the baby for a bit… and then I'll probably need to head out. Sorry."
"Moo~." I tried to affect an appreciative and accepting tone.
"I know, I know." Deyha guided me into her lap, "We have all the time in the world for bareback creampies to prove you want my babies—"
"Babies‽ plural?"
"Sure, why not?"
"This deal is getting worse all the time…" Carolyn grumbled under her breath as she turned back to her computer.
I struggled to get comfortable in Deyha's lap. The arm rests of the chair made it awkward to straddle her lap this way, but with a little help I was able to reposition so that I was mostly comfortable. Deyha even lowered the chair so that I could just barely touch the floor with my hooves.
"Alright baby~" Deyha rubbed my back as I focused on untensing. It was hard to shake the feeling that I needed to balance and be extra ready to correct if the chair started to tilt.
The touch helped though, and I hummed as Deyha worked her hands up under my shirt.
“Are you trying to make her horny? You’re the one who prohibited fucking here in the clinic.”
“No,” Deyha tucked my shirt into my bra so it would stay out of the way. “I have every confidence that Maddie can handle a little skin contact without losing her mind.”
“I’d bet against that.” Carolyn grumbled.
“Not everything is gambling!”
I closed my eyes and let my arms dangle behind Deyha’s back. To a degree, Carolyn was right and this was very much putting me in a mood, but I wasn’t feeling all that excited or aroused. I was uninhibited in the sense that I’d let anything happen to me, but I’d sooner fall asleep than jump someone’s bones for sex.
I was so relaxed that the first burp to bubble up caught me by surprise.
“Aww~ good girl, Maddie.” Deyha cooed.
I covered my mouth as Carolyn giggled. Luckily, my impulsive apology got covered up by a moo, thanks to the collar. I supposed that was an upside of the whole arrangement— if you could call missing out on chomps a perk.
Still, neither of my loves sounded disgusted so I started over on relaxing, losing myself in the sensations of Deyha surrounding me. Calloused hands on my back, rumbling warmth on my chest… being in her arms like this felt like a sort of home.
“Well…” Deyha broke the silence and began to fix my shirt. “I think we got all the burps out, I’d better head out.”
“Moo!” I protested even as I let her ease me out of her lap. “Moo~” my efforts to fake a burp were similarly foiled so I could do nothing but pout as she stood and stretched.
“You can go with her if you really want.” Carolyn surprised me with the offer.
Deyha however laughed. “Oh, I don’t think she would go for that, and no offense, I think it might harm the reputation of the farm for me to walk around the market with a cow on a leash. People might think we do that to everyone, or that you didn't ask for it.
I shook my head and took Deyha’s abandoned seat. “MooOooOo” my voice wavered as I continued to shake my head.
“Yeah, that's all right. I'd ask if you have any requests, but I don't think I could translate, and texting would probably defeat the purpose of collar time.”
“It would,” Carolyn agreed. “So be good, Maddie. Though, I bet she misses ice cream. If you pick up a couple pints I'm certain that between me and the other omnivores it won't go to waste.”
“Mmm true.” Deyha patted my head and leaned in to give me one last kiss on the brow. “I'll bring back treats then. See you this evening.”
“Moo~”
“Maybe Mazer can rig me up some sort of moo translator, or make it so that whoever holds the leash can understand her… might also defeat the purpose though.” Carolyn picked up my leash and waved to Deyha before turning back to her computer. “Anyways. Where was I?”
“Moo~”
“Thanks” Carolyn drawled sarcastically. “That really clears it up.”
I nodded as though I was accepting genuine thanks and rolled Deyha’s old chair closer to Carolyn’s until the armrests touched.
Usually it was pretty hard to tell what she was working on, but I recognized the blueprint/style diagram of the milk producer digestive system. There were also way more post-it notes around the monitor than usual. Most of them were little diagrams on runes specifying the order in which to draw the lines as well as the effect. Many were also in unfamiliar handwriting.
“Moo?” I pointed at a rune at random and Carolyn sighed.
“That one stimulates a cell to produce ATP— energy, effectively.” She pointed at the one below it. “That one targets CO2 molecules and splits them, and that one piggybacks on the other rune to temporarily render the carbon inert. It cheats the krebs cycle, preventing anaerobic respiration and—… I'm losing you aren't I?
“Moo~”
“Thats okay,” Carolyn rubbed my back. “These comprise a sort of engine that Mazer designed, kinda like those card games you play. These runes work together each activating the next in a cycle to aggressively burn through the target bodies’ energy reserves, not for an easy weight loss drug—” Carolyn lowered her voice “Though it's only a matter of time for that lovely misapplication… Anyways, it hijacks and overclocks your body's power plant without flooding your blood with lactic acid. This allows for accelerated modifications without a massive external supply of mana.”
“Moo?”
“Yeah, I’ve got no idea which part of that is confusing.”
I shook my head. “Moo moo.” Carolyn still looked concerned but she didn't seem to mind me resting my head on her shoulder.
“All that to say… Ellen is going to be a guinea pig for this, consensually of course. We’ll have her in inpatient care with blood oxygen sensors, all the monitors we’ve got really, and we’ll see how quickly this facilitates her feline mods. Mazer will be standing by as well, but just because we can handle a crisis doesn't mean I’m not going to make this bulletproof. I’m working on safety subsystems to cut off the rune engine if anything looks wrong.”
I settled for nodding this time.
I wasn’t sure why the herbivore cow milk mod was on screen if this was for Ellen, but I wouldn't be that surprised if she did both.
Carolyn hummed as she pulled up a modeling program and began arranging strangely shaped blocks to resemble the runes. I personally would have had some feedback on optimal arrangements, but besides being unable to communicate them at the moment, I didn’t want to rule out the possibility that there were rules to this puzzle that I didn’t know.
With no end to Carolyn’s workday in sight, and no avenue for meaningful dialogue, I eased myself back down into the pet bed, propped myself up against the wall under Carolyn's desk, and opened the newly reinstalled game.
As soon as the title screen was gone I was greeted with the cow-girl character Carolyn and Deyha had remarked about. My obsession with her was pretty indefensible. I’d burned all my in-game resources getting seven copies of her, and I’d definitely spent a hefty bit of real-world money on the gambling too. In that regard, I wasn’t totally sure the allowance Carolyn set up was such a good idea.
But on the positive side, there was a pretty good case for a cosplay of her. Sure, her proportions were a little unrealistic, especially her waist, but at the end of the day she looked like me. Or rather, I looked like her.
I’d pretty unapologetically copied her horns with my latest mod, and besides that my ears, tail, and hooves had always been a dead-on match for her. I just wasn't brave enough to sprint around in a skirt and cutoff top.
Even imagining wearing a crop top made me remember the athletics class I had to take in middle school. I never understood why all the shirts had to be so short and even the most oversized one they would let me wear immediately showed my midriff if I raised my arms.
Why had I been so ashamed of my body? Why was I still? Sure, I’d been called fat a little— or… maybe it was a lot back then. I used to hear the accusations constantly, that I was “eating because I was bored” and that I shouldn’t get seconds… maybe they were right.
Now I was definitely even more round, but intentionally so. I still hated when shirts were snug against my belly, but I’d been steadily getting used to having a chest. At the very least, the "moobs" remarks hadn't prevented me from enjoying my new bust.
Looking down, absolutely nothing was the same as it had been. Light, wispy hair covered my legs, matching perfectly with my new more golden skin tone.-- but, maybe everything wasn't gone either. I did keep my stretch marks. In middle school they must have been pretty new, probably even purpleish, but now they were just thinner skin. They were texture, and while I wasn’t quite excited to show them off, they weren’t exactly embarrassing either, right?
The character on my phone launched into one of her idle monologues about how she liked to eat super fast to save time, and I found myself once again thinking that must be terrible for digestion.
“Damn, even the anime girls have bad relationships with food. Truly nothing is sacred.”
“Moo~”
“Sorry, sorry. I’m not trying to hate on your game. Is that your favorite character talking? Let me see.”
I held up my phone near the edge of the desk and I could tell just by listening that she was doing one of her idle animations.
“I have to admit, she’s pretty damn cute. Not as cute as you though, on account of the game devs chickening out on some of the animal characteristics. No hooves? Sad.”
I wanted to ask “what happened to my cuteness not being about how I look?” But with the leash preventing anything articulate I settled for a more agreeable sounding “moo.”
"I'm sorry that this is boring~ I'll wrap up here soon, promise."
I debated mooing again, but I was losing faith that I could reliably communicate anything with the simple sound. Already, both Deyha and Carolyn had taken to making assumptions and running with them.
I lowered the volume on the game a little more and set about knocking out the daily tasks.