Mutari Island Mystery Ch. 02

The people they met had tried to put fitted blankets on the girls, but they'd rebelled at that. None of them much minded having a blanket they could wrap themselves in when they got cold, but the confinement of ones they couldn't easily discard was alarming and uncomfortable. The people who looked after their current box, one with pleasantly soft walls, had finally abandoned the efforts.

Kenzie licked Lia's cheek and then nuzzled at one of her diminutive teats hopefully, although by now they'd all discovered that there was no milk in their diminished udders, not even the largest ones sported by Hazel. They still liked to suckle one another for the comfort, though, and the salty flavor of their lower lips was basically the same as they could remember.

Voices were audible from outside the door, although Lia suspected the people didn't realize they could be heard. Despite their shrunken ears, the girls all had very sensitive hearing, but nothing the humans talked about seemed very interesting.

"Have they shown any improvement?" asked a deep, masculine voice.

"A little, here and there," replied another deep, but more feminine, voice. "They have good days and bad days. We'd assumed they had been drugged and conditioned, based on their bizarre behavior, but we haven't found any chemical evidence for that, and they've never exhibited any withdrawal symptoms. Still, the doctors are worried about trying to medicate them until they're sure nothing's in their systems."

"And you haven't tried to separate them, or restrain them in their beds? Letting them engage sexually with one another seems... unprofessional. Prurient, even," the male voice uttered, sounding uncomfortable, perhaps disdainful.

"They struggled so much when we tried to put them in clothes, even hospital gowns, that we were worried they'd hurt themselves. As long as we let them remain nude they stay pretty docile. And putting them in separate rooms got them extremely agitated as well. So, with no approval for sedatives, for now we're just tolerating it while the higher-ups debate the matter."

"And what about their families?" asked the first voice again.

"They haven't been allowed to speak to the patients yet. Not that those girls are very communicative right now. But the director is adamant not to let any visitors try until we're sure they won't start mooing again."

"Why shouldn't we moo?" wondered Lia as she used her fingers on Hazel's sex. "How can they not understand us, when we don't even use as many sounds as they do? Isn't simpler better?" Lia's thoughts meandered back to happy memories of grass and sun and sex with her herd.

~~

Hazel brushed her long, dark hair and tried not to concentrate on how alien the light, thin dress felt as it concealed her otherwise nude form. It was merely a disguise, nothing more than a costume, part of an act that included her grooming habits and providing believable answers to whatever questions the doctors wanted to ask them.

It had been many months since the three young cows had been admitted to the psychiatric hospital, and she knew their case had been much-discussed and sensationalized in the media, although she'd been assured that the most embarrassing details had never been made public. She was no longer sure what they thought she was supposed to be embarrassed about, though. There had been a time, early on, when Hazel and her friends had tried to believe the doctors' insistent claims about them being women, as opposed to cattle, but the idea simply felt wrong, and they gradually grew convinced that it was all some kind of deception.

Hazel wasn't remotely ashamed of being a cow trapped in a human body, although she found it distressing, but she knew better than to admit that anymore. Her memories of the time before, as well as those of her sister cows, helped them to figure out the ways to convince their doctors that they were healthy enough to be released, and to try reintegrating with society. Just a few days earlier, they'd been informed of their success, and that their families would be escorting them home that afternoon.

Hazel finished making herself 'presentable,' as the nurses understood the term, and waited patiently, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the other cows. They all knew that their necessary performance was not yet over, that the hardest part was just ahead of them. But they'd been fooling their parents into thinking they were girls for weeks now, and the cows exchanged knowing looks with one another, confident that they would soon be free if they could just maintain the façade a little longer.

Chapter 9

Hazel, Lia, and Kenzie calmly paddled their canoe through the thick fog that had descended on the lake, making the rising moon a pearly blur in front of them as they navigated mostly by instinct. It had taken several weeks of careful acting to lull their families into a belief that things were back to something like normal. They'd finally stopped hovering around all the time, and allowed their daughters a little bit of freedom and privacy again. That had been all the opening that the cunning cows required. They hoped to be back in their real home by the time anyone realized they were missing again.

Kenzie was in the bow, struggling to remove her dress, then tossing it and her sandals into the water before taking up her paddle again. The other cows soon followed her lead, luxuriating in the feel of the damp, clammy air on their naked skin. They mooed quietly, happy at the sensation of freedom, even if the wind tickling the small amount of fur they'd retained in their human forms felt like a tease.

Much more quickly than the last time, the three friends found the island, landing precisely at the spot where the campground stood, which appeared the same as it ever had. With no luggage or supplies to unload, it was the work of a moment for the cows to push the canoe back into the lake and set it adrift, trusting the light breeze to carry it far away.

Knowing that it might take a while for their bodies to restore themselves, the naked girls fell to their hands and knees in the clearing and began cropping grass. Some of the salads the humans had fed them had been intriguing, but nothing tasted as good to the cattle as fresh, dewy grass, except perhaps for their friends' warm milk or salty lust.

With knowing looks, the cows realized they were all thinking the same thing, and they cut their grazing short in order to share their love for one another as best they could, despite still being trapped in their small and nearly furless forms. They pleasured each other with their tiny tongues and slender fingers, each silently admitting that there was much joy and satisfaction to be had together, no matter what bodies they inhabited.

The cows were overjoyed to find their transformations proceeding much more rapidly than before, and were soon suckling from one another again, stroking their swelling udders with increasingly hoof-like hands, mooing blissfully.