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A cabin sat alone in the woods, awaiting the return of its owner as it had for several months. But it was a pleasant place to wait.

The woods in the mountains of North Carolina are something out of a storybook. Tolkien could write at least a trillion pages about a small forest glade in an idyllic fantasy world so different and yet so alike from our own. Let him. North Carolina has no need for that. The mountains speak for themselves. The gentle splash of water running lazily through a stream seems inescapable no matter where one finds themselves. The views from the highest peaks leave one with a feeling that this is it. This is all there was of the world. Just rolling peaks of green, trees swaying in the crisp morning air unaware of the misery found in the rest of the world. For the mountains of North Carolina, the "rest of the world" is a myth. This is all there is. This is all that was. This is all that ever will be. This is all that needs to be.

And it was into this pristine stillness, this timeless time that stretched for eternity and was as short as a heartbeat that the singing of Jon Bon Jovi intruded like a hand wiping excrement against the Sistine Chapel ceiling. An absolute atrocity of a motor vehicle bounced its way down a gravel pathway nearly and intentionally overgrown with the emerald North Carolina grass. Its journey was laborious, every bump in the road like the stumbling, slow steps of a centenarian who had experienced more life than they could ever hope to deal with. The battered white van pulled to a stop just beside the small dwelling

Oh fuck, thought the cabin, or would have if it could think. Thankfully it couldn't. Some would say it was lucky in that regard.

The cabin itself was likely built nearly ten years ago, but had been maintained with the care that can only come from someone with more money than common sense. It was built as a getaway for a family that was wealthy enough that they'd never need to get away from anything. At one point it had been a summer retreat for a family of three that pretended all members involved cared about each other. The father was an investment banker, a job that seemed to exist only to meaninglessly and bafflingly create wealth from more wealth. The mother had been born into money from a family that had been born into money that came from two families that had been born into money. And yet somehow, against all sense of reason and logic, the daughter had mysteriously grown up to be a genuinely good person.

Of the four human beings who arrived in the exhausted van, only one could literally claim that description. The driver, Lydia, exited the vehicle, placed her hands upon the small of her back and stretched, working out the strain of someone who had driven for hundreds of miles and had hundreds more still to go. She pulled a cheap scrunchy from her long black hair before running her fingers through it, enjoying the feel of the chilly North Carolina wind flowing through it after enduring hours of driving. "I hope this is the place, because if it isn't then it really should be. It's gorgeous." She stepped to the side of the van and threw open the large sliding door in a practiced motion. "Alright, fuckers, everybody outta my van!" The smile on her lips indicated she was anything but upset.

The three remaining passengers started to exit one by one, each groaning as they stepped outside. The back of the van was unusual in that it contained no seats, merely an old yet clean mattress that served to keep the three of them hidden from prying eyes as they huddled underneath the windows. The three of them were, after all, quite an unusual bunch.

The second out of the van was a tall bipedal donkey wearing a white labcoat and pajama pants over her soft gray fur, her long ears twisting this way and that as if trying to catch every single sound they possibly could. She held in her three-fingered hands an orange slurpee that she had nursed for long enough for it to completely melt, and yet it very much wasn't. "Holy fuck! Everything's green!" The donkey spun around on one hoof, gesturing behind her as if the owner of the cabin was not aware that everything was, indeed, green. "Like, really really green!" She extended her other hand, offering to help the third passenger from the van.

Camilla took the offered hand awkwardly, gripping it as well as she could with a cloven hoof as the large cow woman clad in a simple blue dress pulled herself from the humid interior of the vehicle. When her feet touched the ground she stretched her strong arms, adjusted the large udder hanging from her waist, and let out a long bellowing yawn. "It is green. You nailed it, Haley."

The donkey smiled, her blocky teeth stained orange from the sugary drink. "Nailed it to the wall! Why would you ever want to leave this place?" She sat her drink on the roof of the van so that she could use the other hand to help the final passenger exit the vehicle. She'd need both hands. He was a large one.

Camilla rubbed the sweat from her forehead on her black and white splotched fur-clad arm. Even with the air conditioning blowing, it was very stuffy in the back of the van and she took a few breaths of fresh air to try to clear her lungs. "I didn't. I was abducted. Into a van. Like this one."

"Not exactly like this one," offered the sole human. "I'm betting the other didn't have a sickass collection of hair metal greatest hits albums."

Camilla's long ropelike cow tail attempted to sway back and forth in the breeze. She started to lift her dress enough to give it more room, but stopped as she remembered she was standing in front of the final member of the group. The black and white Holstein pattern of her fur contrasted greatly with the red entering her cheeks. The large dress just barely covered up the two pairs of watermelon-sized breasts and larger udder that her recent mutation had left her with. "Let's let Ben out before he suffocates. Wouldn't do to have him pass out before he breathes real air for the first time." She stepped aside to let Haley help the largest of the quartet out of the vehicle.

"We have real air in Utah," muttered Haley as she tugged on the large bull-man's arm. "It's just--Jesus, you're heavy. It's just hot. And dry. And probably has magic underwear--and fuck you're tall!"

Ben was trying to find the best angle of escape from his captivity. If he tried to place a hoof outside first, his frame was too large to allow him to duck underneath the open door. He pulled away from Haley's grasp before with a grumble he tried to stick his head through the opening. This resulted in his large horns hitting the frame of the doorway. "Ow. Fuck." He turned his head at another angle, which only caused him to bump his other horn in another spot. "Ow. Fuck." He started to crawl out the door on all fours, this time succeeding in bumping both horns at the same time. "Ow. Fuck." He still wasn't used to the size of his body. He wondered if he ever would be.

When the large bull-man managed to extract himself completely out of the van, it rocked back and forth with his exit. "I'm never riding in a car again. Ever, ever again. Especially not this fucking death-trap." Not for the first time, Ben was surprised at how much taller he was than the rest of them, nearly eight feet of solid muscle. Camilla was the second tallest, just a few inches short of seven feet.

Lydia, the human driver, patted Ben on the head like a dog as he slowly stood upright. "Sorry, babe, I asked for a helicopter and they got me this old thing."

Ben raised his arms into the air, stretching them for the first time in nearly 48 hours. Somehow they'd managed to fall asleep in the van in the back of a Waffle House parking lot, although the donkey, Haley, never seemed to need sleep. It was the most uncomfortable he'd ever been, which was saying a lot as he'd once woken up in a small cell transforming into a minotaur. Still, he couldn't help but feel a little guilty at enjoying the sleeping arrangements, as he had Camilla snuggled up next to him for the whole night. "You can fly a helicopter?"

"Oh fuck no," Lydia replied. "But that doesn't mean I'm not dumb enough to try. You okay?"

Ben nodded as he stretched his tail before swinging it back and forth underneath his black kilt, the only clothing that would allow his privates any measure of room. He rubbed the brown fur on the back of his legs, trying to regain blood circulation from where they'd fallen asleep. "Yeah, just need to work out a couple of cramps."

"Is your arm okay?" asked Lydia.

The bull mutant blinked. "My arm?" He hadn't given any complaints about his arm during the whole trip. "Yyyyeah? Why do you--"

"Good!" interrupted Lydia as she punched him on the shoulder.

"Ow!" he exclaimed, although it certainly didn't hurt. "What'd I do?" He smiled.

"You insulted my god-damn base of operations. My fucking casa familia." Lydia returned the smile. "Shall we?"

Camilla rubbed her arm awkwardly. She seemed about to say something, but was hesitating.

"You okay?" More and more Ben found himself asking her that question. He was always more concerned with her well being than his own or anyone else's.

Camilla nodded. "Just ... a little weird, y'know? Being back here?" She took a deep breath and gave a sad smile. "The last time I was here I was the same species I was born as. I wasn't half-barnyard-animal."

"But now you are, so everything's okay!" offered Haley, holding her hand out for a fist bump that wasn't returned. "Half-barnyard-animals rule! Half-anything-animals do, but half-barnyard-animals especially. I mean, obviously. That's like basic science."

"You just say that because you're a half-barnyard-animal, too," returned Lydia. "It's species prejudice."

Haley stuck out her orange-syrup-covered tongue. "You're a half-annoying-animal. And you're just mad because you wish you were a rat again."

Lydia shrugged. She seemed almost sad. "You're not completely wrong. Probably."

"You're god-damn right I'm not completely wrong. Probably."

The group turned to look at Camilla, waiting for the owner of the cabin to help them inside. The cow woman sighed, put on a brave face and led the others to the front porch. "Sorry, it's just weird, y'know. There are some bad memories here. Some great ones too, don't get me wrong, but still some bad ones. Never expected to be leading a group of mutants into my dad's stupid get-away-from-Wall-Street cabin."

Haley snickered. "Don't talk that way about Lydia--OH MY GOD!"

The group stopped, Camilla's hoof hovering above the single step leading to the porch. "W-What? What happened?"

"OH MY GOD!" Haley looked at the others each in turn as if waiting on them to come to whatever insane realization she had just reached. "OH MY FUCK-ING GOD! Guys!"

Lydia shook her head. "Just once," she whispered. "Just once I wish I knew what the fuck she was about to say next. Just once. Just to see what it's like."

"Guys!" Haley clasped her hoof-hands together. The strange woman held several doctorates, but no doubt whatever realization she had just reached was greater than any of her academic or scientific achievements. "Mutants! Going into a cabin! In the middle of the woods!"

Three sets of eyes blinked.

"This is just like the Ninja Turtles movie!"

And continued blinking.

Ben turned his head at an angle, one of his horns nearly touching his shoulder. "The ... The Michael Bay movie?"

"Fuck you!" screeched Haley. She pointed to Bentram as if she were religiously offended. "Fuck. You. 'The Michael Bay movie?' No, the real one. The Corey Feldman one."

"Who's Corey Feldman?" Ben regretted the words before they were completely out of his mouth.

"See, this?" Haley turned to face Camilla, but pointed a large, fuzzy finger at Bentram. "This is what I'm talking about. This is what's wrong with the younger generation. No respect for the classics. This is why our country is doomed."

Camilla laughed. Ben was glad to hear the sound. Lydia just looked back at her van as if she was missing the road already. Haley's smirk indicated her tirade was less about the woes of the future of humanity and more to break the tension of Camilla returning to a home she simultaneously dreaded and adored.

The cow woman stepped onto the porch, nearly losing her footing as the step rocked slightly, apparently a little loose. Ben immediately ran up to her to catch her. She gave a shy smile and nodded that she was okay. Ben could feel the other two snickering behind his back. She walked to the screen door, pulling it open before bringing her hoof-hand to the main doorknob. She hesitated before touching it. It was fine, Ben thought. They'd give her as much time as she needed. She looked through the small window near the top of the door and suddenly pulled her hand away. Something about looking inside the place brought her more discomfort than she was prepared for, like she was looking into a room set in a past she'd rather forget.

Camilla turned around, a fake smile fixed upon her boxy snout. "Um, the food and everything is ...?"

Haley nodded, her rabbit-like ears swaying comically forward and back. "Everything's taken care of. The first drone will be here a few minutes after I hit the big button on my phone that says 'make the first drone be here.' Fresh fruits and veggies, prepackaged salad, various dairy products. You two seem to handle those okay, but still go easy on them for a while. Doctor's orders." The donkey woman looked over at Lydia and whispered, "I'm the doctor."

"I know," Lydia whispered back. "I know, they know, everyone here knows. Why would that be something you'd need to clarify?"

"Should be enough for today," continued Haley, "and there will be another tomorrow, and the day after and every day after that as long as you'd like. Which I guess is forever, since I guess you intend to continue eating as a general rule. God, even I don't know where I'm going with this one. Bottled water just in case there's a problem with the water supply, which you've assured me there won't be?"

Camilla nodded. "Never has been. One of the reasons my sperm donor built the place here was because of all the natural springwater. He spent a fuckton on filtration systems too, although we'll have to make sure those still work." By "sperm donor," Ben knew she meant her father, to whom she had as little regard for as possible. "Shit," she suddenly said. "We should've brought some kind of--"

"Water quality test strip thingies?" Haley interrupted. "Those will be in the drone, too."

Camilla blinked. Her tail stopped swishing for a few seconds. "Really?"

Haley smiled. "Josie thinks of everything. She's my baby girl. If there's something wrong with it, just make due with bottled water until tomorrow. Maybe the day after. By then she'll have replacement filters on the way. Oh, that reminds me ..." Here she nodded to Ben. "I hope the both of you are okay with handling some basic plumbing upgrades. We've got a new toilet on the way, too."

Ben grit his teeth, his large nostrils flaring. He hoped the sound wasn't as audible as he was afraid it was. There was an ... incident back at the clinic. An incident involving over four hundred pounds of bovine accidentally crushing a human-sized toilet. It was the most embarrassed he'd ever been and had taken all day to fix.

"I'm guessing your dad didn't install cow-mutant-accessible toilets," Haley continued. "The insensitive prick."

Camilla giggled. Her mood seemed to improve whenever anyone belittled her father.

"We'll have a bigger shower installed too, once you guys give us the measurements of the bathroom. That'll be a bit more complicated to install than the toilet. If you guys don't think you can handle that one, we can have contractors come out and install it. We'll just need to have the two of you go camping or something for the day to stay out of their way. Y'know, to not draw attention. To the fact you're cow-people. Until we have a cow-people-friendly plumbers--OH MY GOD, Lydia! I just had an idea!"

Lydia smiled and did everything she could from making eye contact with the donkey lady. "You guys ready?" She nodded towards the front door.

Camilla nodded. "Yeah." She slid a backpack from her shoulders, sitting it on the porch and pushing the velcro flap aside to dig into it. She turned to Ben for a minute, but noticed him intentionally not staring at her cleavage and self-consciously stood back up. "Um, Ben, do you think you can ...?"

"Yep! Got it." Ben rummaged through Camilla's backpack until he pulled the keys from the bottom. Camilla was still learning how to manipulate small objects with her hooves, something Ben very luckily didn't have to worry about. The change had thankfully left him with two fingers and a large thumb on each hand. They were ungainly in their own right, but nowhere near what Camilla and several other mutates had to deal with. He slid the key into the lock and started to turn the doorknob, but Camilla stopped him.

"No, let me do that part." Ben nodded. It may take longer for her to turn the knob, but it was worth it. Camilla's rehab was more than just learning how to do once simple tasks all over again. It was just as much about building her self-confidence by not making her feel like she was relying on everyone else to do tasks she had taken for granted for so many years. After a few seconds, she had the door opened. She smiled, glancing at Ben, whose returned smile was genuine. Sometimes, it was the simple, small victories that meant everything.

A dusty smell greeted the group as the door swung open. No one had been here for a while. Thankfully there was no immediate smell of mildew or mold, anything that could prove dangerous.

Camilla cleared her throat. "Um, maybe you guys can wait here for a minute? Just give me time to check the rooms, make sure I don't have anything too embarrassing lying around?"

Ben nodded. "I'll be right here." Something about the sentence sounded weird to Ben's own ears. "I mean, we will. All of us. Not just me, but ... y'know, me too." His eyes clenched shut. He could feel Lydia shaking her head without turning around.

Camilla smiled, nodded, then walked inside, the loud clopping of her hooves on the old hardwood floors receding into the cabin as she went from room to room. It wasn't a large cabin, so the inspection only took a few minutes. From what Bentram could see, it was basically just a small living room with a surprisingly large couch. There wasn't anything separating the living area from the even smaller kitchen. There was a room on either side of the living area, probably the two bedrooms. In the back was a small hallway that immediately bent at a right angle leading to a bathroom small enough to give Bentram some measure of concern. He hoped he'd have enough room to move around in there.

Camilla returned after a few minutes, nodding in satisfaction. "No snakes. Or black mold. Or even any kidnappers with glowing green goo that turns you into cow mutants."

"Ahhhhhh-HA!" screamed Haley. "You DID see the fucking movie!"

Their host waved them inside. "Come in, have a seat. I think we could all use a rest from the road. Are you sure you guys don't want to spend the night? I'm sure the couch is more comfortable than that fucking van, and I might have some sleeping bags around somewhere."

Lydia and Haley looked at one another.

"Up to you, burra," said Lydia as she crossed the threshold. "I'm good either way. I can sleep in that heap of shit van better than my own bed."

Haley put her hands on the small of her back, attempting to work some kinks out. "It wouldn't be a bad idea. Would be nice to--OH GOD!" Suddenly Haley turned on one hoof, raised both hands above her head, and screeched in terror as she brought both hands down on a rickety rocking chair, shattering it into pieces.

A silence like the inside of a tomb fell upon the cabin. Haley turned to face the others, a look on her face like she had just avoided being hit by a car.

The silence was broken by the loud mournful lowing of a cow. It droned on into infinity, growing in sadness with every passing second. "What?!" Camilla finally screamed. "What the fuck did you just do?!"

"Jesus, Haley, the fuck?!" echoed Lydia.

Ben was content to merely stare at the ruins of the furniture. It had been a nice antique, painted white and pink with blue and yellow flowers. It had likely been built specifically for Camilla when she was a young girl. The simple etchings along the headrest hinted that it was a labor of love, probably built by one of the cabin's former inhabitants or perhaps another family member.

Haley suddenly seemed aware of her own actions. "It ... It moved! On its own!" Her answer left Ben even more confused. "It ..." Haley swallowed. She seemed almost on the verge of tears. "It moved on its own!"

"AND?!" screamed Camilla, large blocky teeth clenched in anger seldom seen on a cow's face. "The cabin hasn't been opened in months! It was a fucking draft!"

"I-I-I thought it was a ghost!"

If there was the silence of a tomb in the room before, now it was far greater, like the complete absence of sound one could only find in the outer reaches of the solar system. Ben swore he could hear four individual heartbeats. One was racing, two were beating normally, and the other sounded like it was trying its absolute best not to go into cardiac arrest.

"A ... A what?!" Camilla screamed in utter amazement. "You thought it was a GHOST?! You're a ... Aren't you a fucking medical scientist?! And you thought it was a GHOST?!"

Haley's lip trembled. Ben could just barely hear the words, "Thought it was a ghost."

"You-You fucking ..." Camilla closed her eyes, no doubt fighting to keep from saying something horrible. "Haley ... My grandfather built that chair. When I was born. My mom painted it. She used to rock me to sleep in that FUCKING chair every night. It's my earliest memory. That chair was the one happy thing in this whole goddamn cabin when my mom was dying and my dad was barely pretending to give a shit. I've been thinking about that chair for the last two thousand miles. I knew I couldn't fit in it anymore, but I just wanted to sit next to it and probably cry for a week. This whole goddamn cabin could burn to the ground and the only thing I'd miss was that ..." She pointed at the splintered bits of wood. "Was THAT!"

Haley squeaked out a response: "B-But ... ghost?"

Lydia grabbed Haley by the sleeve of her labcoat. Haley had the face of a child looking for support from her mother. "I think," whispered Lydia, "we should maybe get back on the road."

"I-I-I can fix it!" Haley offered. She bent and lifted what used to be part of the armrest. Maybe.

Lydia laughed. "Ohhhhh no you can't. You really, really can't. You just did irreparable damage, babe. It can't be reparabled any more. You can no longer reparable it." Despite the seriousness of the situation, she was trying not to laugh and doing a bad job at it.

"What is even happening?" Ben asked the uncaring universe.

Camilla picked up a pillow from the couch, brought it to her muzzle, and bellowed into it. Ben got the feeling the action was less about relieving frustration and more to give Haley time to run away and perhaps enter a witness protection program.

Lydia tugged again at Haley's labcoat. "Come on, doctor. You're going back to the van mattress."

"B-B-But ..." Haley glanced around the room for any sympathetic face, eventually dropping her gaze back to the ruins of the chair. "I thought it was a ghost," she whispered again before she dropped the wooden shard back to the floor and allowed herself to be dragged away.

Ben followed them to the front door, unsure if perhaps he should be asking to flee alongside them. "Um ... bye?"

"How in the hell are you still alive?!" asked Lydia the donkey as the pair reached the van's sliding door. Haley was crying at this point and had to be gently guided into the rear of the van.

"It could have been a ghost," she sobbed.

"I know," answered Lydia softly.

"It COULD have been."

"I know."

Ben weakly waved goodbye before closing the door. He hesitated a moment before turning around. Camilla had uncovered her face now and was merely staring into space. Her words came out slowly, barely audible. "Every bone in my body is made of hate."

Ben coughed, bringing his fellow bovine back into this plane of existence. "Uh ... Welcome home?"

---

Camilla spent thirty minutes on the couch staring at the ruins of her chair before sentient thought finally seemed to surface again. "I'm hungry," she finally said. "Are you hungry?"

Ben was on his feet immediately. "I'm super hungry. Let me check if Haley hit the big button." He peaked out the musty curtains to the front yard, but it appeared the drone hadn't arrived just yet. The donkey had probably forgotten in the wake of the recent catastrophe. "No dice." He stepped away from the window.

"I might have some stuff in the cabinets still," Camilla offered. "I mean, it's been a couple of months, but some canned veggies or something might still be okay to eat." She started to rise, spreading her legs to allow her udder to slip between them.

"I got it, just take it easy." Ben smiled, holding out his hands and motioning for her to stay seated. "You've just been through a traumatic experience. You witnessed a battle between a talking donkey and the supernatural. Put your feet up and rest. I got it."

Camilla smiled shyly. She was probably just happy to have someone near her in this particular room that gave enough of a shit to be nice to her. "Thanks, Ben. And ... What I said before?" She pulled her ropelike tail between her hooves and ran her palms across the tuft of hair at the tip. Ben had never touched it, but he imagined nothing in the world could have been softer. "Back at the clinic after I, y'know ... became me again?"

Ben nodded. He immediately knew which particular conversation she was referring to.

"I meant it." She looked away, her floppy ears drooping sideways. "You're doing me a favor. Being here and all. Just ... thanks."

Ben made a dismissive hissing noise which brought her ears upright again. "You're not gonna be saying that when you hear me snoring all night. Gonna run my ass back to Talahhassee." Camilla gave a melancholy smile, which made Ben feel a little worried he shouldn't have been so flippant. "I mean ... Thanks, Camilla. You having me here kinda means the world to me."

Her smile was a lot more genuine. "Um ... So ... Ohhhh shit."

"Hmm?"

She made a retching noise. "I probably had some fresh veggies in the fridge. Some carrots for sure. They're definitely not gonna be so fresh by now. And ohhhh Christ, some bologna."

Ben chuckled. "I got it. No problem. I was a senior in college, remember? I'm an expert in throwing rotten food away. You got some cleaning stuff? I'll throw it all out and wipe the fridge down."

"Underneath the sink. Here, let me--"

"Nope!" Ben interrupted. "You and that couch get reacquainted. This is a vacation. Or something. Even though it's your house."

Camilla smiled. It never failed to make Ben happy to see that smile. He wasn't sure if it had something to do with them both turning into the same herd animal, but he also didn't really care. It felt nice. "Okay. Thanks."

The large bull-man turned to the small kitchen, approaching the refrigerator carefully like it were an unexploded incendiary device. He slowly pulled the door open, but turned away immediately and retched, his long pink tongue extending nearly a foot past his muzzle. "Ohhhh-kay, yeah. Yeah, fuck."

"That bad?"

"Yyyyyeah. That bad." Ben slowly turned to once again stare at the atrocity before him. Rotten carrot sticks floated in yellowish water inside an unopened bag. A black head of lettuce--or perhaps cauliflower--was oozing onto the lower shelves. A packet of sliced bologna that had grown fuzzy blue spots stood in the center of the rotten food like it was their ringleader.

"Shit, I can smell it from here," Camilla whined from the couch. "You sure you don't need--"

"Nah, I got it. Let me get a garbage bag and I can ... Oh, no."

"Oh, no?"

"The bologna just winked at me."

Camilla chuckled. "Shut up."

"I think it may be sentient," Ben returned. "I think it's trying to communicate."

She was laughing now.

"Maybe it's not too late to get the donkey back here? Need a doctor. Somebody way smarter than me to handle this shit. This is Star Trek first contact level shit."

Camilla rubbed her tail between her hoof-hands, petting the tuft of hair on its end with the palms of her hands. "Just show our guest outside. I'm sure he'll understand."

Ben spent ten minutes throwing the spoiled food away. The cabin only had one door, so he had to carry it through the living room out the front door. He intentionally made an exaggerated show of how horrible the bag's contents were by holding it as far away from his body as possible and pinching his snout with his two large fingers. "Garbage is around the side?"

She nodded. "But we have to take care of it ourselves."

"Huh?"

"Super secluded, remember? There's a compost box for organic stuff, but I used to have to drive anything not degradable to the Asheville dump." She looked down at her hoof-hands, wiggling the stubs that used to be her thumb and pinkie finger. "Guess that's not really an option anymore. Josie said the delivery drone will double as a garbage collector. It'll fly it back to whoever supplies us all the food, and they'll take care of throwing our junk away." She spread her legs a little wider, trying to more comfortably rest her udder.

Ben nodded to the open spot on the couch. "Put your feet up."

"Where are you going to sit?"

"Let me worry about that," Ben responded. "Just take it easy a while. Been a long couple of days in that tiny-ass van." He opened the door and was surprised to see the drone must have arrived and promptly left while he was cleaning out the fridge. "Guess we missed garbage day today. But, hey, food's here. I'll just sit this shit outside for now away from the house. Far, far, far away from the house."

Camilla sighed and swung her long legs onto the couch as Ben took the trash outside, pulling her udder into her lap as she lay back. Ben returned quickly and carried several bags of fresh vegetables, individual bags of premade salad, a few loaves of bread, and several different types of fruit into the kitchen. He set them aside while he turned his attention to cleaning the refrigerator, scrubbing it with a sponge and all-purpose cleaner until it was more or less sanitary. He thought he could hear Camilla softly snoring behind him and smiled. Every single roommate he'd ever had snored and it had kept him awake every day. But with Camilla, it put him to sleep immediately. He'd have a hard time sleeping if he couldn't hear it.

He started pulling the items from the drone-box, finding a letter from their pig-hybrid friend Josie at the bottom saying to send a note back with the drone to let her know if there's any special food items they'd ever like. The drone wasn't actually sent by their friends at the clinic, instead coming from the person that paid for it all. Evidently he was trusted enough with Camilla's address. Ben got the feeling the less he knew about their funding the better he'd feel.

The refrigerator now more-or-less stocked, Ben placed Josie's note on the counter in case he forgot to tell Camilla about it, then opened a small cupboard above the dishwasher to place the bread inside and look for any canned goods. Instead, he was greeted by a sight that was simultaneously terrifying and awe-inspiring.

"Ho-lee-shit, Camilla."

Hearing her name, the cow woman sat up. "Whuh? W-What is it?"

"You tell me!" Ben stepped aside and motioned to the cupboard. Sitting inside were at least a half-dozen large packs of mint Oreo cookies. "All the same flavor? And so many of them? Isn't that like serial killer territory?"

Camilla fumbled for the pillow she had been sleeping on and attempted to toss it across the room at her tormentor. "Fuck you, those are my life's blood! You've just deeply offended my way of life." Ben laughed. Camilla extended her arms to either side, her large breasts jostling at the motion. "Gimme. Now."

Ben took a package in his large hands, flipping it over to examine the expiration date. "They're probably stale."

"I don't give a good god fuck. Gimme."

He nodded. "Yeah, expired like two weeks ago. They'll probably make you sick. And with the whole cud-chewing thing you'll be eating stale cookies like three times per bite."

Camilla's expression didn't change. She continued holding her hooves out to the stale cookies as if Ben hadn't said anything. He shook his head, popped an unopened bag open, and handed her the entire package. She squealed in joy, lay back down and perched the plastic tray on her stomach. Her large udder propped it at an angle as if it were specifically made just for providing easy access to stale mint cookies. "I am going to eat the shit out of you," Camilla whispered softly to the cookies.

Ben went back into the living area, looking around hesitantly for a place to sit. The couch was the only piece of furniture, or rather the only one that survived Haley's assault. Camilla noticed him standing awkwardly. She picked her bag of cookies up with both hooves and pulled her legs up. "I guess you can have a place to sit, but only because you took care of Steve and cleaned the fridge."

He carefully lowered himself to the couch. It looked sturdy enough, but there were now two very large creatures sitting atop it. "Who's Steve?"

Camilla lifted her legs, placing them atop Ben's so that she could stretch out. He wasn't quite prepared for the casual physical contact, although he certainly didn't mind it. He tried to ignore the way her udder shifted as she spread her legs, sliding further between them before it came to a rest. Their clothing options were very limited. Camilla was forced to wear nothing but dresses and Ben suspected there was no way she could wear underwear because of the udder getting in the way. Being this close to her, he could smell what he instinctively knew was her genitals and felt more than a little uncomfortable at how much he enjoyed the scent. Ben himself was forced to wear an extremely large kilt and go without any kind of shirt, although he suspected his host certainly didn't mind staring at his large, muscular furry chest.

"You know, Steve. The sapient bologna life-form you just killed." She made a noise like she was clearing her throat as she coughed the cookie from her stomach back into her mouth. It was a rather nasty part of their new biology that they were both still getting used to. "How does it feel that I made you a murderer on your first day here?"

He chuckled. For a moment he thought about making a joke about following in her footsteps, but thought better of it. That was still probably a sensitive topic she'd rather avoid. "Wouldn't have it any other way." He noticed her eyes were unfocused, like she was completely zoned out, like a normal cow munching on grass. Still, a smile was on her snout as she continued to chew the chocolatey mint cookies. He'd have to remember to ask Josie to order more Oreos.

Ben smiled. He liked Camilla a great deal, especially after all they had been through together. Not just with the transformation, the wild escape, that horrible night by the abandoned house where Camilla had taken the life of the person who turned them into this. There was a connection between them that was hard to deny. Half of their DNA now came from animals that belonged together, and it bothered Ben a bit when he considered if his feelings for Camilla were because of genuine human friendship or simple animal instinct. But the time they'd spent together recuperating at the clinic had made them very good friends, and Ben was happy to spend time with her. "So," he finally said. "What's on the agenda for tonight?"

"Oreos," Camilla immediately answered, licking black crumbs from her thick lips. "Oreos are on the agenda for tonight. After that?" She leaned to the side to set the bag on the ground. Ben tried his best not to look at her udder. "Then probably a nap. Then a catnap. Then a ... cownap. Then another catnap. Then it'll be time for bed." She nudged his leg with a hoof. "Aren't you tired?"

Ben shrugged. "A little. Mostly just ... I dunno. Guess I always feel weird in new places. What did you do to pass the time when you were up here? Y'know, before all the weirdness happened."

"Usually I'd get abducted by psychopaths and turned into a cow freak." She smiled, despite the harsh words. "There are some great hiking spots, and they're all still on the property. That's fun, although I guess we have to watch out for any trespassers that might want to snap a picture of the legendary cow-bigfoot."

"We're very popular," said Ben.

"We really are." Camilla motioned toward the corner. "We used to have a TV before my dad decided it interrupted ideal family time for our unideal family. I never really wanted one anyway. Whenever I'd come up here it would be specifically to get away from all the glowing rectangles in my life: TV, computers, phones. That kinda thing." She motioned with her clumsy hoof towards the ceiling. "Solar panels get drained by all that stuff anyway. Sooo ..." She smiled shyly. "Hope you like boardgames?"

Ben smiled. "Love 'em. Don't be surprised if I kick your ass in some Monopoly."

She laughed. "You'll have your work cut out for you, it's a pretty big ass." Camilla felt very self-conscious about her weight after the change. Very little of her added mass was fat, but it was still strange going from a thin person to weighing about three times her previous weight. Most of it was muscle, and of course her new additions on her chest and between her legs. "Speaking of gigantic cow asses ... the bathroom situation is going to be weird until we get the replacement."

"I was wondering about that."

"Ever go camping?"

"Not even a single time. I'm from Miami. I never even saw grass until I was like sixteen."

Camilla giggled. "You're cute. Well, same basic concept as doing your business inside. Except, y'know ... outside. Otherwise we'll run the risk of breaking the toilet with our huge cow asses."

Ben almost said that he liked her huge cow ass, but bit his tongue.

"You'll pick a spot in the woods to do your business, and I'll pick my spot in the other direction. We'll leave some toilet paper and hand sanitizer by the door." She was blushing through the white fur on her cheeks. "You have your spot, I have my spot, and never the twain shall meet. Got it?"

He nodded. "Your spot. My spot. Got it."

"You're lucky though, I guess. You get to do some of your business the normal way like a modern human being." She glanced at his kilt. "I'll have to go outside every time. Unless you want to let me borrow your penis." A look of dread appeared on her face. "That ... was the most awkward thing I've ever said in my life."

"I was going to say, 'Anytime!' That would've been even worse." Ben rubbed the end of his left horn with his thumb. It was a habit he'd picked up lately.

"I'll forgive your awkward shit if you forgive mine?"

He nodded. "Shake on it." He held his hand towards her but it accidentally brushed against the hem of her dress and he pulled it back quickly. "God damn it."

"Is everything going to be this awkward?" she asked.

"Everything is going to be this awkward," he confirmed.

Needless to say, there was a lot of tension between the two. Ben loved everything about Camilla, and he was pretty sure she felt the same way. It was hard to think around her. He knew their instincts had been altered and their libidos kicked into overdrive. But he didn't want to give into the instincts. At least not all the way. During their escape there had been a moment when they'd both fooled around, but Camilla's mind had been altered far worse than his own and she was basically only operating on the basest of her desires. He'd be lying to himself if he said that part of him wanted her more than anything, but after everything she'd been through it wouldn't be right to take advantage of the desires he suspected she also had.

"Um ... Can I take a look?"

Camilla's eyes went wide.

"At the boardgames! I meant, look at the boardgames."

"Oh! Y-Yeah. Of course." She raised her feet off of his legs and swung them onto the floor, but leaned a bit too far and ended up leaning onto him awkwardly. For a moment they sat staring into each other's eyes, Camilla's bottom lip trembling slightly. Eventually she looked away and started to rise. "S-Sorry. Fucking udder messes up my balance."

"N-No problem." For a second he thought he'd mention that it was the same with his recently-enlarged genitals, but even he wasn't dumb enough to go that far.

She had trouble getting to her hooves, and Ben offered a hand to steady her. "Thanks." When she had steadied herself she nodded towards a small table in the corner. Underneath the table were several boxes of boardgames. "We've--I've--got all the classics. Monopoly, of course, that's mandatory for any getaway cabin. Risk. Scrabble ... Holy fuck, that's going to be hard to do with these." She shook her hoof-hands gently before walking over to the table. "That's weird, I don't even remember this one."

"Careful! Maybe it just suddenly appeared. It might be a Jumanji situation."

"I know, right!" She slowly lowered herself to her knees, pushing aside a few of the boxes to look at the one she didn't recognize. "If we play it we'll end up turning into cows or something. Oh, no, wait. It's just ParcheeeEESUS!"

A large spider chose that moment to crawl down the wall. Camilla shrieked and swatted at it ... and promptly opened up a hoof-sized hole in the drywall.

"Oh fuck! Fuck!" She examined her hoof, probably looking to see if there were any splattered spider guts on them.

"You okay?" Ben didn't remember standing up, but he must have because now he was crouched down next to her, one hand on her shoulder and the other wrapped around her chest. The movement was entirely instinctual. She was in trouble and he had to be there for her as soon as possible.

Camilla looked more frightened of the closeness of her friend than she did of the spider. Her nostrils were flaring; her eyelids lowered just a bit. Her large ass was pressed against his groin and he could feel her tail twitching slightly. Ben realized they hadn't been this close since they were back in the swamp. She leaned her head back against his chest, and he realized they were both sniffing each other. He could smell her normal scent, mixed with a bit of fear, and ... something else.

She opened her eyes just as her tongue was starting to make its way out of her mouth and towards his neck. He let go as she leaned forward. "Y-Y-Yeah. Just a bigass spider. Fuck, I broke the wall."

He swallowed a large lump in his throat and wondered what the last thing he ate was. "No worries, I know how to fix holes in drywall. It's easy. You just push furniture in front of it. Boom, no more hole."

Camilla blinked at him a few times before they both started laughing. It continued for minutes, until Ben's side hurt and he was having trouble catching his breath. It wasn't anything that was said, just the sheer absurdity of the situation they now found themselves in.

When Camilla was able to form words she said simply, "I'm a cow."

Ben nodded. "You're a cow."

"I'm a mutant cow-woman-thing sitting on the floor with a mutant bull-man-thing in my dad's weird-ass cabin talking about fixing drywall. And I just ate like seventy Oreos."

"Come on, no," Ben replied. "More like sixty. Sixty-five tops."

"Seventy Oreos," she repeated. "This has to be the most stupid set of occurrences in my life. ANYbody's life. Right?"

Ben nodded. "I'd bet money on it." He rose to his hooves, then helped her up.

Her ears drooped. "Fuck, how do we fix this?"

Ben shrugged. "With ... hammers or something? I'm not very good with tools. But we'll figure it out, right?"

Camilla frowned. "I wish my hands worked."

"So you can hold a hammer?"

"So I can hold a hammer." She yawned.

"You want to lie down?"

She nodded. "Sorry. It's just been a long couple of days. And I reek. Been in that van for too long. I think I just want to take a shower and call it an early night."

Ben fought a losing battle against a large yawn. "I guess I'm pretty tired, too. Sounds like we should both crash."

"Thanks, Ben. I'm ..." She suddenly did something he didn't quite expect, wrapping her arms around him and drawing him in for a hug. He returned the hug as she nuzzled her snout into his broad chest. "I'm happy you're here. Don't know what I'd do all by myself in this tiny cabin. Probably go crazy--or, I mean, crazier."

"Nowhere else I'd rather be," he patted her back. "You get some sleep. I'll probably hit the hay pretty soon myself."

They slowly released each other. Camilla turned quickly away and walked to the small bathroom. She flipped the light on and softly swore under her breath. "Thaaaat's not gonna work."

"What?"

"The shower is way smaller than I remembered." She paused, then muttered under her breath, "Of course it is. Everything is now." She turned around. "Is it okay if I just stink? We both might have to put up with it until the new shower is here. Or wash up in the sink." She yawned again. "I'm running on fumes here."

"Why are you asking me for permission?"

Camilla smiled shyly. "I ... dunno. Herd animal brain, maybe?"

"You and your herd animal brain get some rest. And you don't stink, you smell good--nice! You smell nice."

She smiled at the compliment. It was so hard to tell which behaviors were part of their own personalities and which were being influenced by their new bodies and instincts. "Thanks. You smell good-nice, too. I'm in there, you're in there." She motioned back and forth towards the two doors with her hooves. "Anything you need just--"

"Anything I need can wait until the morning. Go to sleep, woman."

She nodded, stumbled across the room, and closed the door to her bedroom.

---

Bentram couldn't sleep. Of course he couldn't fucking sleep. He might have dozed for a few minutes, but that was about it.

There were several things preventing him from falling asleep. First, he could never sleep in a new place. Hotel rooms, a friend's house, it didn't matter. It took him a week to get used to his dorm room back in school. And this place in particular was so ... quiet. He missed the noise of the police sirens, the honk of some inconsiderate asshole driver, the music from the bars in the distance.

The second reason was the bed. It was comfortable enough, but Camilla had neglected to mention the bed was a twin size and he'd have trouble fitting on a queen size now. His legs were basically hanging off the bottom of the bed from the knees down. He had almost fallen off the damned thing several times as he tossed and turned, trying in vain to find a more comfortable spot. It was like trying to sleep on top of one individual couch cushion. And the room was so small he kept accidentally slamming his hoof onto the wall.

The third reason was her. He didn't want to admit it, but it was the biggest issue at hand. She was two rooms away. That was one room too many. Camilla and he had never slept in the same room back in the clinic, but they'd been very close and it just didn't feel right having two walls between them. He didn't have any doubt about what caused that idea. They were herd animals, it was kind've what they did.

Ben turned onto his back again, staring up at the ceiling. "Fuck this bed. The couch was better." He opened his eyes a little wider, his tail perking up a bit. The idea had merit. The couch was better. More comfortable certainly. And he was getting sweaty in this tiny room without much circulation. It would be nicer in a larger room.

And that was all. That was everything. These were perfectly normal reasons that a perfectly normal human being could have for sleeping on the couch. Nothing abnormal about it. Nothing bovine.

"Fuck it," he whispered as he rolled off of the bed and onto his hands and knees before climbing to his hooves. He slowly opened his door, peaking into the living room. For some reason he thought he'd find her standing there waiting for him. He was a little sad when she wasn't.

He crept across the floor to the couch, his hooves clopping as quietly as they could in order to not wake her. He eased his large backside down on the couch, wincing as it groaned under his bulk. He slowly lowered himself down until he was laying on his back with his head at the end closest to her door. In truth, it was just as cramped as the bed, maybe moreso.

But it was closer to her.

He smiled and felt sleep creeping up on him almost immediately. Maybe that was all he needed. Just to be a little closer to her. He smiled as sleep finally overtook him.

It lasted only a few minutes before he was startled awake by the sound of a large creature clearing her throat.

"Sorry," Camilla whispered. She had a blanket wrapped around her. Her ears had rotated to point towards the ground. "Couldn't sleep?"

Ben raised up a bit. "Nah. You?"

She shook her head. "For an hour or two maybe. Mind some company?"

He started to raise himself up, but she motioned for him to lay back down. He moved his feet out of the way and slid backwards, giving her enough room to lay half on the couch and half against his chest.

"Still comfortable?" she asked.

"Yeah. You?"

She gave no reply, only smiled and pulled the blanket around her tighter. "I'm shedding all over the bedsheets. Like so much of it. Could probably collect it all and make another cow-lady. Gonna have to wash them like every day. Probably clog the exhaust on the dryer and burn the cabin down. Did you sleep at all?"

He shook his head, but now it felt like he could barely keep his eyes open.

"Why'd you come in here?" she whispered.

He paused. He wasn't sure if he should say the reason, but he took the risk. "Probably the same reason you did."

She looked up at him, her blunt horn dragging across his chest lightly.

"I just wanted to be close to you," he admitted.

Camilla continued looking at him for a few moments, then smiled and rested her head on his belly, smiling as she breathed in his scent and made a happy mooing sound.

And so Ben found himself with four hundred pounds of cow mutant on top of him on a narrow couch with one leg hanging off the side and one pinned beneath his friend. By all rights he should have been extremely uncomfortable.

He never slept so well in his life.

---

Bentram slowly opened his eyes as he felt Camilla's head rubbing against his belly. There was a small puddle of her drool matting the fur on his abs that he found himself not minding in the least. She groaned and pulled her blanket tighter, trying to blot out the sunlight in an effort to fight off consciousness for a few more minutes. Without thinking, Ben placed his hand on her head, running his three large fingers through the soft short hair on her scalp. She mooed happily. As he started to fully awaken he realized he was petting her and slowly pulled his hand away.

"Didn't say stop," she moaned. He chuckled and started petting her head again. She pulled her blanket away and stretched before rolling over to her stomach. He felt something stirring underneath his kilt and hoped she wouldn't notice. Whether she did or not, he found her rubbing her nose into the cloth of his kilt, making happy cooing noises as she sniffed him. He watched as her tongue slipped past her lips and pressed against the black cloth, unconsciously tracing the shape of his emerging cock as it peaked out of his sheathe.

"Um ... Camilla?" She squirmed, smiling happily at hearing the sound of her name coming from him. She took one last sniff before she looked at him, her eyes fluttering open. For one scary moment he was afraid that she had somehow lost her mind again as he watched the simple, dull eyes of a grazing animal stare at him sweetly. A spark of humanity finally appeared in her large brown eyes as she realized what she had been doing. "Um ... Good morning?" he croaked.

She pulled backwards quickly, the word "sorry" on her lips for a moment before they both heard a loud crack and were suddenly laying on top of the remains of yet another broken heap of furniture.

Camilla sat back and made a very human-sounding scream. "All of my FUCKING chairs are breaking!" She looked at Ben with resigned fury in her eyes, like she was anxiously awaiting him to share in her wrath.

Instead he suddenly couldn't stop laughing.

"It's not FUCKING funny, Ben!" She smacked his knee with her hoof and his leg made a swift jerking noise in reflex. "It's mmmmmoooo couch!"

Ben lay back, holding his sides as he kept laughing. Camilla slapped him across his snout with a pillow, almost impaling it on his horn. "Sorry," he laughed. "Sorry. I guess we should've known better. We weigh a lot ..."

Camilla rose her hooves into the air, aiming carefully at Ben's crotch.

"I mean, 'I weigh a lot more!' I do! Singular. Just me. Definitely just me."

She shifted, pulling her udder from underneath her before she sat on it. "How'd I get so fat? I eat nothing but salad!"

He casually threw a pillow in her direction before standing up and offering her a hand. She accepted, but when she got to her hooves she intentionally fell towards him and licked the end of his nose. "Got you, asshole." Ben wiped the spit away and noticed her running her tongue against her lips as if she were tasting his skin.

"I'll start picking this up ..." Ben glanced at the remains of the rocking chair. "Fuck, we never cleaned up the other one."

"They're with each other in Valhalla now. My couch and my fucking rocking chair." She sighed and turned to the door. "Screw it. I need to go for a walk. It's nice right now before it gets too hot. And I want to get away from the big stinky minotaur." She turned back towards him and stuck out her large tongue. "I have to pee. Meet me on the porch in a few minutes? You're coming too. Time for you to experience the joys of North Carolina mosquitos." She fetched a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom and marched out the door.

Ben picked up the smaller remains of the shattered couch and piled it on top of the rug near the front door before carrying them outside and tossing them into the trash. Camilla came around the corner to meet him. "Ready? I want to show you this weird thing I found a while back. I call it nayyyy-ture. It's crazy."

Ben placed the lid back on the garbage can. "Give me a second. I, uh, need to go use 'my spot.'"

"Do what you gotta." She handed over the roll of toilet paper, then leaned against the side of the house, squinting in the early sunlight at the strange red birds that seemed to have made a nest nearby.

Ben rejoined her after taking care of his business and the two made their way down a path trailing away from the back of the cabin. The trail soon had them winding this way and that through a grove of plants that were too small to be called trees and far too big to be bushes. It formed a sort of ceiling so thick it was almost hard to see, a tunnel burrowing further into the forest.

"This is awesome," Ben whispered. "What did you call this? Nay-ture?"

She nodded. "Nayyyy-ture." She giggled. "You sound like a horse when you say it. Hmm, that might have been nice actually."

"Nice?"

"Being a horse." She stepped over a fallen branch. "Horses are cute. Every girl wants a pony when they're a kid."

"Cows are cute," offered Ben. "I'm a cow and I'm cute."

"Point. What would you have been if you had a choice?"

"Hmm." This was one of the strangest conversations Ben had ever taken part in, and that was saying a lot given where he had lived the past two months. "I dunno ... velociraptor?"

Camilla giggled. "Nice."

"You?"

"Probably a bluebird. Or a cardinal. Something that can fly." She sounded wistful. "Everything seems like it would be better if you can fly. Also, here we are." She stopped at the base of a medium sized dogwood that seemed out of place all alone amongst the other trees.

"Here we are," Ben agreed. "Where ... are we exactly?"

"Where my mom lives," answered the cow, nodding to the tree.

Ben scratched his head. "Your mom lives in a tree? Like a squirrel? Are you feeling okay?"

She shook her head. "My mom IS a tree."

"Your ... mom is a tree?"

Two tears were falling from Camilla's large brown eyes before Ben realized the seriousness of the conversation. "She is now," she whispered.

Ben looked at the dogwood and finally put two and two together. He'd heard about this. People that had been buried along with a sapling so that it would literally grow from their remains. It was as creepy as it was beautiful. "Oh. Camilla ..." His hand hesitated to touch her shoulder.

She kept her back to him. "It was illegal as hell. Can't put a ... the remains in the ground. Can contaminate the groundwater. But my dad pulled enough strings. She really wanted it and she sure as hell didn't want to be buried next to him when he goes. So he paid off the right people and now my mom is a tree. One of the only good things he ever did with his money."

Camilla rubbed a few tears from her eyes with the back of her wrist before she looked up at the cross-shaped white flowers that covered its branches. "Hi, mom. You might not have recognized me. I'm a cow now. This is my friend, Bentram." She motioned for him to step closer. "Say hi, Bentram."

Ben slid closer to Camilla and cleared his throat. "Um, hi, ma'am. Nice to ... Nice to meet you."

"He's kinda goofy, but he saved my life so I'm letting him sleep on the couch." She smirked as she glanced at him. "Except he broke it, so now he's going to sleep on the porch or something." She lightly hit him on the arm with her hoof. "Say something nice."

Ben felt like he was in the wrong place and the right place at the same time. "Your daughter is, uh ... Really something, ma'am." Camilla started to look upset before he continued. "A hell of a fighter. Got me out of a real tough jam. Saved my life too, and the life of a really good man. She, uh ..." He could feel her eyes on him completely now. "She went through hell and came out the other side swinging. She's a fighter. I'm guessing she got that from you." He glanced at Camilla, but could only look in her eyes for a second before he had to turn away again. "She's the bravest person I know, and the best friend I ever had. You should be proud of her."

He felt her head on his shoulder and her arm around his back. God, he wanted to kiss her so badly. She gave a loud sniff and rubbed the small of his back. "C'mon." She took a few steps away. "We'll be back tomorrow, mom. Maybe the day after. I think we'll be sticking around for a while." She cleared her throat as her tail swung back and forth underneath her dress. "We both will."

---

It was the early afternoon by the time they made it back to the cabin. Camilla stopped and turned around to face Bentram, kicking at a few leaves with her cloven hoof. The keratin had a few brown spots on it where she'd stepped in a patch of muddy ground. "Thanks for coming with me, Ben. And for ... what you said back there. To my mom. That was really sweet."

Ben rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "It was true. And your mom is ... she seems like a very nice lady."

"You're a good person." Camilla licked the end of her nose with her large tongue. "It sounds weird to say it, given the way we met and all but ... I'm glad I met you."

He nodded. "Same."

"You're a good friend."

"Glad you think so." He frowned. "There's ... something you should probably know, though. Something we haven't ever talked about but should probably get it out in the open."

Her ears were standing straight up now. "O-Okay. Um, you can share anything with me. Whatever it is."

Ben nodded quickly, but his gaze was now fixed on his hooves. "Camilla, um ... I don't know how else to say this, but ... you're standing in my spot."

Camilla's brow furrowed. It seemed to cause the pretty black splotch that covered her right eye to shift a bit. "Your ... spot? What?"

"My spot." He couldn't stop the smile from creeping across his face.

"I don't underst--Oh my God!" She hopped away from where she was standing, shaking her hooves as if to get something off of them. "You complete fucking monster!" She launched a barrage of cloven punches at his chest and shoulders.

Ben laughed as he tried to keep her from hitting his face. "I'm joking, I'm joking! Hey, c'mon! Ha ha ha."

"I take back everything I said." She kicked at his shin and he winced as she actually made contact. "Oh my God, did that hurt?"

Ben grimaced. "Yyyyyeah, little bit."

"Good!" she answered. She crossed her arms, closed her eyes, and stuck her thick tongue out at him. "You really are sleeping on the porch for that one."

"Bet I can still hear you snoring from outside."

"I don't snore!" she whined. "... Fuck. Do I snore?"

"Little bit. Nothing bad. It's kinda cute, really." Like everything about you, he thought. Like everything that you do, like everything that you say, like everything that you are. Ben realized he was in pretty deep.

"I'll make sure to do it louder then. Asshole. Come on. This has been a good day, but I can think of two things to make it better." She turned, swaying her tail as she walked. Ben couldn't be sure, but he thought perhaps she was intentionally raising her dress a little higher with every swish of her ropey tail.

"What's that?"

"First ... booze. Lots and lots of booze."

Ben laughed. "I like where your head's at. What's the second thing?"

"Me handing you your ass in Monopoly."

---

Camilla had what Ben would describe as rich-white-people taste in wine. She kept several bottles with names that screamed at how expensive they were, alongside a few bottles of surprisingly cheap vodka, bourbon, and rum. Ben knew absolutely nothing about mixing drinks, but she seemed to enjoy giving him directions on how to make an old fashioned, and it ended up being simple enough that even he couldn't mess it up. She did however threaten to murder him when he offered to put a slice of lemon in it.

Around the third or fourth "passing of Go," they both switched to wine. When Bentram asked about the location of the wine glasses, Camilla proceeded to call him a pussy and brought the entire bottle to her lips.

"If I drop it, it's your fault." Camilla set the bottle back on the floor with both hooves. There was a small table in the kitchen, but Camilla understandably didn't want to push her luck with a third furniture-related accident. They had opted instead for sitting on the cushions of the couch with the game board between them. Camilla lay on her belly and Ben had a hard time finding reasons not to stare at her cleavage. He suspected she was using her large breasts as a distraction technique; perhaps he had underestimated his opponent. It was a flawless tactical strategy.

"Of course," he replied. "Completely my fault. Please for the love of God can I just go to jail?" He rolled for the third time and cursed when he didn't roll doubles again.

"Accept it." She smiled, her large blocky teeth glistening like they belonged to a madwoman. "You're fucked. Accepting you're fucked is the first step on the road to recovery. Roll for me."

Ben picked up the dice again, this time rolling for Camilla. She was getting more dextrous with her hooves every day, but manipulating small objects was still an issue. Ben cursed when she moved her piece--the dog, of course--to the one piece of property on the board still remaining for sale. "Jesus. This is rigged or something."

"How is it rigged?" she asked, lifting the bottle to her lips again. The fur around her lips was becoming stained purple, and Ben had a hard time thinking of something he found more adorable. "You're rolling for me!" She sat down the bottle and lifted a large bowl of salad mixed with cranberries and crumbles to her mouth. Camilla hated anything that made her seem more animal than human, but had to make a concession in the way that she ate. Ben lifted his own bowl to his snout as he took a bite in the same way.

Ben had started eating in the same way as Camilla back at the clinic. She was always so embarrassed about being forced to eat without using her hands. Ben decided to eat the same way that she did. He called it a gesture of bovine solidarity, but really he just wanted to turn a source of embarrassment for her into a joke between the two of them. It seemed to work, as meals went from being sad affairs to something they could both laugh about. Their friend Josie said it was "the sweetest gross thing she'd ever seen."

"Still rigged," he muttered. "You gonna buy Tennessee Avenue?"

"You're damn right I'm going to buy Tennessee Avenue." She fumbled with the paper money. Ben had offered to handle that for her as well, but her immediate response was that he'd just steal it from her. She could slide the money across the table fairly well using the nubs that used to be her thumb and pinkie finger, and Ben was nothing if not patient in giving her the opportunity to use her hands in whatever way she wanted to use them.

"Going to buy a hotel?" Ben asked as he took another swig of whiskey. "Or, like, six of them? Finally?"

"Nnnnnnope," she slurred. "I'm still happy with my little green houses. Your go."

"I mean, okay, but that's literally all of them. You've bought every single house. I want to put some up, too. Should I just use quarters or something?"

Camilla rolled onto her back, laughing maniacally at something Ben had said. She tugged on her dress, trying to pull it a little higher. It was now impossible for Ben not to stare at her breasts, and he had a feeling she knew it. "Nnnnnope again! Nnnopers!"

As expected, it had taken quite a lot for either of them to get drunk. Their bodies were much larger, and their metabolism was far beyond what a human could manage. Still, they had definitely achieved their goal and were both feeling it at this point. If they were still normal, they'd probably be in the emergency room having their four-chambered stomachs pumped.

"Read the rules, mofo." Camilla was definitely feeling it more than he, but then again she'd drank a lot more.

Ben fished the rulebook from the box and squinted at it. His eyesight was worse than it had been before he'd changed, and the several bottles of wine hadn't done his vision any favors. "What exactly am I looking for?"

"The part that says 'the cute cow lady wins.'" She rolled onto her side, tugging awkwardly at the straps at her shoulders and adjusting the position of her breasts through her dress. "You can't use quarters or buttons or whatever when you run out of houses. You just can't buy any more houses."

"Bullshit." Ben scanned the rules.

"You should trust me on this one." She hiccuped.

"No, bullshit. This is a crusade now. A holy mission to find what the fuck rule you're talking about." He stared at the booklet in amazement as he found the rule she was alluding to. "That's junk! Whatever, okay, so put hotels on your shit!"

Again the smile of a completely insane person. "Nnnnnope!" She took another swig, this time wrapping the neck of the bottle with her large tongue and actually lifting it off the ground a bit before wrapping her hooves around it. Ben's eyes were glued on the display, his imminent defeat momentarily forgotten. She giggled into the now-empty bottle as she saw his jaw go slack. She made a further show of setting the bottle back to the ground using only her tongue. "Fuck, that'ssss like six bottles or something. Go us! We're the world's first--and bestest--alcoholic cows."

"But why don't you want to put hotels down?" he asked. "You'd make more money."

Camilla smiled; it was evidently time to reveal her master plan. "Cuz you can't buy any more houses, and you can't put hotels on your shitty properties if you don't have four houses on them."

Ben stared at the board in awe. "This is ... witchcraft or something. How the hell does nobody know about this?"

"Cuz I'm a genius. I wish I had hands."

"So you can roll the dice?"

"So I can hold all of your money!"

Ben looked at his options, and discovered he had none. "Okay. Fuck. There's no real way I can win now, right?"

She hiccuped again. "You had already losssht before you rolled for the firsssht time. GG."

"GG," he returned. "Play again? I know your trick, that won't work on me next time."

She shook her head and rose to a sitting position. Her udder was on full display now, four long teats pointing in his direction as if to mock him. She either didn't notice or didn't mind. "It's dark. I want to see the fireflies. I can take more of your money tomorrow. Help me up?"

Ben slowly rose to his hooves, although not without trouble. He took her hooves in both hands and pulled her to her feet. She tried to spin as if they were dancing, but stopped as she almost fell over. Laughing, she led him to the front door and into the lawn. "If you gotta puke, puke out here?"

"Copy that."

"Thankssss." Without any warning, she plopped down onto the lawn and lay on her back on the grass and pulled her dress completely above her udder. "Fuck, this thing gets hot. Lay down! Wanna ask you somethin'. And don't look at my mega-boob, you creeper."

Ben lay down next to her and passed her the bottle of Maker's Mark he had brought with him. "What'd you wanna assshk?"

She took an awkward drink before handing the bottle back. "God that'ssh nassshty. Okay, so ... You met my mom."

"Yep."

"When do I meet yours?"

Ben fell silent. He wasn't expecting the question.

"Oh. Sorry. Wassh that not something I should have asshked?" She placed a hoof on his chest.

"Nah, it's good. I ... I talked to her once. Back at the clinic. Over Skype on Josie's computer."

She nodded. "Yeah, I know. Didn't know how it went, though. How'd it go?"

"She hung up. Like six times. Called me every name in the book for impersonating her missing son. I eventually had to sing back to her some goofy song she used to sing to me when I was a kid. That finally convinced her."

"Ohhhh my God! That's the sweetest thing I've ever heard." Camilla rolled onto her side, resting her head on his shoulder. "So what happened when she saw her baby boy is now a mythological monster?"

Ben took another swig before passing the bottle over. Rather than take it from him, Camilla merely opened her mouth and he poured a small bit into it, which sent her into another giggling fit. "You are a goofy drunk," he chuckled.

"I really am. What happened?"

Ben turned the bottle over in his hands a few times, his large thumb rubbing at the wax seal. "Didn't go good. She's ... real religious, y'know? I mean, she didn't come out and say it, but I know she probably felt like I must have pissed God off for this to happen to me. Or, I dunno, something." He took another swig. "Want another hit?" He held the bottle out to her.

"'Kay, one more, but then I gotta stop or you'll see me spew. Did she ... like ..."

Ben shrugged. "She didn't say anything mean, just ... cried a lot. We talked for a long while. I told her I'd be staying here for a while and she said she'd come to visit, if that's okay."

"Of coursshh it's okay!"

"Thanks. But ... just gonna take her a while, I guess. Most people don't even know about the few freaky animal people out there, other than Candice. I don't know if my mom even saw the news when she made her big debut. So ... yeah. Kind've a shock. She probably thought I was dead."

Camilla placed her arm around him, resting her chin on his chest. "Don't let me fall asleep out here, okay? That's, um ... rough. But I'm glad you were able to talk. I'm sure everything will be fine. I envy you, though. Must be nice to have a parent that gives a fuck about you."

They were silent for a while, just staring at the flashes of yellow light as the fireflies made their way around the front lawn. "What do you miss the most about your mom? Shit, I'm sorry. That was probably not cool to ask."

"No no no, it's all good. Hmm ..." She was quiet for a while, save for the occasional hiccup. "I guess more than anything ... I really miss having someone tell me that everything is going to be okay."

"Everything is going to be okay." Ben's response was immediate, and it seemed to surprise him as much as it did her.

"Th-Thanks. That ... felt good." She licked at the wine stains on the fur around her mouth. "I meant what I said before. You're a good friend. A shit Monopoly player, but a good friend. The best I've ever had."

Ben finished off the bottle and set it aside. "I really thought I was gonna take all your money. Leave you with nothing."

"I already got left with nothing! 'Member? I was a braindead cow for like three days." She trembled slightly, probably remembering what she had gone through. Watching her cry for her mother as her mind slipped away had been the worst thing Ben had ever witnessed, and he had merely observed it. He couldn't imagine what it must have been like for her.

"I'm ..." Ben swallowed. "I'm, uh ... not good with this stuff, but if you want to ever talk about ... that ... or, I mean, anything? I'm here for you."

Camilla held her breath for a few heartbeats at hearing those final words. She was so close now he could feel her breath on his long ears. "Th-Thanks, Ben. Let's, uh ... Let's go inside before it gets cold."

Ben helped her up. He expected her to do a little twirl like earlier, but instead she seemed to have something on her mind. Give her time, he thought. She'll open up whenever she's ready. Give her as much time as she needs.

The light inside the cabin seemed much brighter after sitting outside in the dark for so long. Ben was sure the alcohol rapidly invading his bloodstream was also a factor. He held the door open for Camilla and almost bumped into her when she stopped in the doorway.

"IIIIII'm drunk," she announced. "I'm very, very drunk. And shhleepy. Veeeery very--are you drunk, Bentram?"

"I am quite drunk, Camilla." In truth, he couldn't remember ever being this hammered.

"Cooool!" she slurred, spinning around and placing her hooves behind her back. For some reason, she wasn't quite making eye contact. "Soooo ..." Here she laughed hysterically as the word came out like more of a moo. "Soooo where are you gonna sleep? After you broke my fucking couch and all."

"Oh! Um, yeah ..." Ben glanced in the direction of his room, where his new archnemesis the tiny bed awaited him. "I'll shhhurvive on the bed. Or I guess I can sleep on the couch cusshhions."

Camilla took a deep breath. "Mooookay, look. That fucking bed is soooo tiny. And you're not. You're big. Like reallllly, realllly big. You following me so far?"

He laughed. It never amazed him just how deep his voice got when he was laughing. "Same page so far, yesssh."

"I've got a queen and ..." She glanced in the direction of her room. Ben could smell something now, and he was pretty sure he knew where it was coming from. "It's small for me too, but I think we could both fit. Barely. Maybe." Under her breath, she muttered, "If we cuddle." Ben thought she probably meant for him to hear the remark. "And, I mean, if we slept separately again I think we'd both just end up in the living room sleeping on the floor anyway. I kinda like having you around ... for some reason." She giggled as she said the last bit. "Would you like to, um--"

"Yeah!" he interrupted, much more eagerly than he had intended. "I mean, yeah, that makes sense."

"Goooood," she lowed. "Less laundry to do that way anyway. Fuck, I shed like a labrador! Just, uh, that'ssh it, though. Just sleepy-time. The kilt stays on." Her large brown eyes migrated down his body until they focused on the weird garment he always wore now. "Mmmmooookay?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Sshhcout's honor and all that." He raised his hoof-hand as if to take a vow. "I am here to respect your boundaries and to chew bubblegum. And I am all out of bubblegum."

She giggled. "I'm gonna asshume that's from a movie I've never seen." She suddenly stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Ben, her strong arms wrapping underneath Ben's thick shoulders. "I lllllike yooooou," she lowed. "But with us, it'd be more less chewing gum and more chewing cud. Which is just BLECK!" She made a retching sound.

"Agreed." He nodded. "Very bleck."

She released him and motioned for him to follow to the tiny room before pointing to the far side of the bed and motioning for him to lay down. Ben couldn't remember a time in his life when he felt more awkward. He sat down softly, one knee on the bed and the other leg hanging off of it.

Camilla laughed. "Yooooou're like the meekest scary monster ever." She plopped down on her side of the bed. Ben waited until she seemed comfortable before laying down next to her. The bed was far too small. He thought about sliding away to give her as much room as possible but soon found her sliding backwards to rub her back into his chest. His horn kept getting in the way as he tried to lay on his side, and he wasn't quite sure where to place his right hand. Her pillow was situated lower than his, letting her press the back of her head into his chest. Internally, Ben screamed at his penis not to emerge from its sheath as she couldn't help but grind her large ass into his crotch. "Is comfy?"

"Yeah." The sound of his voice was three octaves higher than he believed he was still capable of reaching. "Comfy."

"Goooood," she mooed. She made a whining noise before muttering "I hate making cow sounds." She yawned loudly, her long tongue almost licking her pillow. "If you snore, I'll kill you."

"That's fair," Ben responded.

"And nooooo funny bisshnessh."

"No, ma'am," he concurred. "I've seen what happens to people that get on your bad side."

"Heee heee. His head went 'POP.' Can you move your arm?" He pulled his arm away, but she shook her head, turned onto her back, and pushed against the arm that was lying between the two of them. She seemed agitated as she kept trying to push it, but Ben had no idea what she wanted him to do with it. There just wasn't enough room. "Yoooou fucking cow-operate." This last word sent her into another laughing fit. "I didn't even mean to make a pun that time, but I hope I'm sober enough to remember that one tomorrow." Ben realized he was laughing too, but more because he enjoyed seeing her laugh. Finally she was able to pull his arm straight into the air using both of her hooves. "There. One sec."

"What are you doing?"

Camilla leaned into his armpit, inhaling deeply through her large flared nostrils. She made a high pitched noise of contentment. "You stink and I like it." She settled again, pressing her back into his chest. "Put your arm around me, weirdo."

He obeyed and she snuggled closer. He tried not to drape his arm over her breasts, but it was hard not to when they took up most of her front. She pulled his arm tighter around her, pulling it into the space between both pairs of her breasts.

"I can feel your heartbeat through your chest," she whispered. "Feels nice." She was drifting off now. "Can you feel mine?"

"Y-Yeah," he whispered back to her. "Yeah. Feels nice."

"I think I'll keep you around," she sighed. "You're a good cuddler. And you smell goooood. And you're fucking hot."

Ben cleared his throat. "Um ... What was that last bit?"

Her answer came in the form of a deep lowing noise that slowly changed into a soft snore.

Ben put his chin on top of her head. "Goodnight, Camilla."

---

Despite the chill North Carolina morning air, Ben couldn't remember a morning where he had awoken feeling so comfortable and warm. He also couldn't remember a morning where he had been harder. Being this close to her, inhaling her scent throughout the entire night had left his brain demanding he partake in a very specific activity. Instead he closed his eyes, intent of getting a few more minutes of sleep next to someone he cared about very much. His eyes closed for a few moments before he heard a scream of absolute terror.

Ben sat up quickly, his head hurting from the alcohol but also the low, mournful, panicked sounds emanating from the cow woman laying next to him. "Whudafuk?" he mumbled before his brain finally finished rebooting and he turned to find Camilla laying in the small space between the bed and the wall, rocking herself back and forth while roughly hitting herself on the back of her head with her own hooves. "Camilla?! What's wrong?! Baby, what's wrong?" He hadn't noticed that he had used the word "baby," but she seemed to. Her eyes were bloodshot, the whites turned red although her large pupils were black and focused on him as if suddenly remembering he were there. Tears were coming from her eyes, a bit of drool falling from her maw, her large breasts jiggling noticeably as her breathing became more labored. Ben started to rise from the bed, slowly approaching her.

"I'm sorry," she screamed. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She was using words. That put to rest Ben's first major concern, that she was somehow losing her mind again. What she was apologizing for he couldn't begin to guess, and he doubted she knew either. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm--Don't FUCKING TOUCH ME!" She recoiled in horror as Ben reached for her.

Ben slowly backed away. "It's okay! Hey hey hey, it's okay. What's wrong? Everything's okay. Talk to ..."

Her response was to roll onto all fours, crawling out of the room before finding her footing and running. Ben heard the sound of the bathroom door slamming shut. He sat staring at the place she had recently sat before he started to roll out of the bed. For a moment he placed his hand on the carpet. It was still warm. For some reason he pulled his hand away, like it was lingering on something soft that he shouldn't be touching.

Ben crept into the living room, finding the door to the tiny bathroom was indeed shut. He had no idea what to do. He was never good at this sort of thing, but he'd feel terrible if he didn't at least try to talk to her.

"Um," he coughed, unintentionally. He could never get over just how deeper his voice was, a rumble that he had to keep in check lest it rattled the windows. It especially wasn't useful when he was trying to seem comforting. "Camilla, I'm out here if you want to talk. Okay? I mean ... yeah ... if you want to talk." As far as sympathetic words went, he had just struck out, fallen over, and shat all over home plate. He was really, really bad at this.

For a moment he thought about knocking on the door but at this point he felt like he'd fuck up even that simple task. Instead he hung his head and walked out the front door. He wasn't sure where he was going. Maybe he was supposed to just leave.

He found himself standing at the edge of the small porch, noticing that most of the nails at the end of the single wooden step leading down to the ground were starting to come up. For some reason, this made him feel a little better as an idea came to mind. "Okay, Bob Villa. Or whatever the fuck his name was. Yeah, let's do that then."

Ben walked to the back of the cabin, pausing at "his spot" to do his morning business before he walked to the small shed he had noticed just before their hike yesterday. It wasn't locked. Peeking inside, he found it was mostly barren, containing only a few two-by-four boards, some faded window shutters that had never been used, an ancient sledgehammer, and lots and lots of spiderwebs. Tucked into the corner he found what he was looking for, an extremely rusty old toolbox that might contain what he needed. It took some fiddling to get the latch to open; it must have been rusting in the corner for quite some time. When he had managed to open the thing without breaking it, he found it was filled with what one would expect: screwdrivers, tape measure, and the tool he was actually looking for, a dusty old hammer.

Returning to the porch, he half-expected to find Camilla waiting for him. He peeked through a front window to find that the bathroom door was still shut. For some reason he couldn't decide if that was a good sign or not. He stepped back down to the ground and turned to address the escaping nails.

"Alright, mother fuckers. Let's get you back in line. Time to do dude stuff."

Ben soon discovered that his hands were far better at grasping heavy objects than swinging a hammer. The tool kept slipping from his large three-fingered hands every time he swung it. It couldn't slip if he gripped it tighter, but that made it very awkward to hold. The first nail he addressed ended up being badly bent and he cursed under his breath as he had to straighten it before successfully hammering it back down.

"See?" he said to himself. "No problems. Tiny-ass nail is no match for big-ass bull muscles. I'll be building skyscrapers by the end of the week." He nodded. "Dude stuff."

Over the course of the next few hours, Ben had fixed the wobbly step and a few other loose boards on the railing around the porch. He'd have to ask Camilla if she thought it might be a good idea to put a mesh screen on the porch. That way they could sit outside and watch the fireflies without worrying about mosquitos.

That's assuming you're going to stay, he thought. What the fuck are you doing here? And where the fuck should you be? You don't have anywhere to go.

He supposed he could go back to the clinic, at least for a while. They'd be able to set him up with a place to live in seclusion, although it certainly wouldn't be as nice as this place. Maybe that wouldn't have to be for very long. He knew his mom would eventually come to terms with what had happened and would want to see him. He could move back in with her. Going back to college was certainly out of the fucking question now.

Ben glanced through the window again and saw that the bathroom door was open. Peeking inside again, he saw that the bedroom door was closed. He wondered again if he should go to her and try to say something, but he knew he'd just fuck it up.

Instead, he turned his attention and woefully subpar handyman skills to pulling weeds from around the porch, tightening the hinges on the door to the toolshed, and even straightening up one lopsided gutter along the cabin's side. He was strangely pleased that for the last job he was tall enough that he didn't even need to bother with a stepladder.

As the midday sun started to beat down on him, he turned his attention to ... it. Whatever it was. It was a rectangular area framed with old rotten boards. Weeds were growing through the fine gravel that covered the ground inside the rectangle and the deflated remains of what used to be a plastic ball rested in the corner like a tombstone. If it wasn't for the ball, Ben might have assumed that it actually was a grave. He thought that maybe it was used to summon a portal to another dimension. Perhaps a landing spot for a UFO. Regardless, it had definitely been built intentionally--whatever the hell it was--and he could spend some time getting the weeds out of it.

He began doing just that and after an hour he was ready for a rest. He took a seat on the edge of the porch, where he could admire the masterful repair of the rickety old step. He thought about going inside for a drink of water, but still felt awkward enough that he decided it was better not to. Still, he had done something constructive, and that was putting him in a better mood. Whether he was going to stay or not, he was helping out his friend, and that was enough.

Just as he was starting to feel just barely better than completely useless he heard the door open behind him. Turning, he saw Camilla shuffling outside, staring at the ground past the swell of her udder. She looked up at Bentram in surprise, likely at just how sweaty he was. "W-What have you been doing?"

Ben smiled. "Been kicking ass all over the yard! Fixed the steps. The gutters. Mostly did a bad job at barely fixing a few minor things. Impressed? I'm thinking about starting my own reality show." He waved his hand in front of his face like he was spelling out a grandiose title. "Call it 'This Old House ... But With a Bull Monster Thing.' That might just be a working title. But, like, home repair but with a bovine mutant running it. What do you think?"

She laughed. "I think you need some water to get your head on straight." She returned to the house, coming back after five minutes with a tray containing two plastic cups and a large pitcher containing bright pink liquid. "Guess who figured out you can make lemonade with hooves? Can you take it, I'm pretty sure I'll drop it."

Ben hopped to his feet and took the tray from her. "Holy shit. You didn't have to go to any trouble."

"Ben, I poured powder into a pitcher of water and stirred it. Not really any 'trouble' involved." She took a seat, leaning on the post framing the entrance to the porch and looking at the repaired step.

He poured her a glass and handed it to her before pouring himself one. "Fucking love powdered instant lemonade."

"You do?" she asked.

"Hell yeah." He took a long drink, draining half the glass in one go. "Grew up on this nasty stuff."

"Good." She smiled. "I'm glad you like it." She sat her cup aside and pushed the tray closer. "You can have the rest. Sounds like you've been busy while I've been ..." She trailed off.

Ben wasn't sure if he should try to say something nice, or maybe dismissive to try to get her not to worry about the morning's episode, or if he should just shut the fuck up and drink his lemonade. He opted for the latter, and gradually felt that was the right call. "You sure you don't want any more?"

She nodded. "It's all yours."

Ben lifted the entire pitcher and poured it into his throat, making a playful gargling sound as he swallowed. It didn't earn him a laugh from his friend, but it did make her shake her head in mock embarrassment and that was more than enough.

"Hey!" Ben suddenly exclaimed. "Okay, you have GOT to tell me what in the fuck this thing is." He stood and helped her to her feet. Her eyes seemed to want to be pointed in any direction but his, which he assumed meant she was still thinking about what had happened.

The pair walked back to the alien landing pad and Ben turned to point at it like he was revealing one of the world's most hidden mysteries. "What in God's green fuck IS this?"

"Oh. It's a bocce ball court." She said it nonchalantly, like this information was supposedly to immediately answer his question.

"The fuck is a bocce ball?"

"It's this stupid game my dad used to make my mom and me play." She shrugged, which caused one of the shoulder straps of her dress to slide down. Tugging it back into place, she went on, "It's really dumb."

Ben looked at the small court, more questions running through his tired mind than answers. "It's a game? How do you play?"

She sighed, sounding impatient, like she didn't want to have this conversation. "I barely remember. It wasn't fun, even when I was a kid. You roll the balls and try to get them close to the other balls or something. Whoever gets their ball the closest wins ... maybe? Something like that."

"You're fucking with me."

She shook her head, her floppy ears swaying left and right. "No, it really is that dumb."

Ben paused for a moment before something popped into his mind and suddenly he couldn't stop laughing.

Camilla raised a brow. He loved the way the black patch over her eye shifted whenever she did. "What's funny about a shitty bocce ball court?"

It took him a while before he could form words. He pointed down at the overgrown play area. "This? This right here? This is what my grandmother used to call 'white people things.' She used to shake her head whenever she'd see something this weird. Like only white people would have something this goofy in their yard. And this ..." He gestured towards the ground. "This is like the most 'white people thing' I've ever seen."

A look of shock came over Camilla's face. "Wait. Bentram ... are you black?"

Ben silently blinked at her. He was about to ask if she was serious until Camilla started laughing. She had been joking. "You are ... THE ... most gullible person I've ever met. I don't think I've ever met anyone so ... I dunno. It makes you honest, I guess. I love you."

They both stared at each other like some sort of leprechaun had appeared between them.

"It," she said. "I meant to say 'it.' I love it. You being gullible." Her tail had drifted between her legs.

Ben was blushing as hard as she was, though his brown fur probably did a better job of hiding it. "W-We should, uh ... We should play it some time. You can show me how."

She stared at the court. Anything to get away from the awkwardness of what had just happened. Finally she said simply, "No."

"No?"

She shook her head. "No. I hate it. Even if it didn't remind me of my dad, I hate this stupid thing. Would you mind ... if you could tear it down? I just want to get rid of it."

"Sure! No problem. Hang on, saw an old sledgehammer in the shed." He turned to walk towards the toolshed. "Can knock out the boards, and shovel some of the gravel up. Unless you want to, like, leave the frame up and turn it into a garden or something."

"I didn't mean right now," she called after him. "You've been working all day, you don't have to do it right now."

He shrugged. "Won't take a second. They're mostly rotten anyway."

Ben returned with the sledgehammer, held it above his shoulder, and brought it down against one of the planks. It immediately gave a cracking sound as it split in two. "Hey, looks like I found something I'm okay at. Big bull mutant can swing a heavy blunt object. Who knew?"

"I'm sorry about this morning!" she suddenly blurted out. She fidgeted with her hooves, rubbing them together like she was wringing out the fingers she no longer had.

Ben let the hammer sink to the ground. "Hey, don't be. Nothing to be sorry about. I'm sorry I didn't ... I mean ... I wasn't sure if I should have tried to talk about it or ... D-Do you want to? Talk about it?"

She nodded slightly. "I ... I have dreams. Nightmares. You know. About what happened. Guess sometimes they're there with me when I wake up, too."

"I'd be surprised if you didn't," he said softly. "You went through a hell of a thing. I can't imagine what it must have been--"

"No, not that." She swallowed. "Well, I mean, yeah. That, too. The whole not-being-me thing. Don't know if I'll ever get over that. But I was talking more about ..." She slowly looked up at Bentram.

"It's okay. Whatever it is, it's okay."

"I ... I killed him. He was a piece of shit, but ... I ..."

Ben couldn't resist the urge anymore. He dropped the hammer and hugged her. She held him tightly, and he was happy to find she wanted the hug as much as he did.

"You didn't do anything wrong. He would've killed Candice's husband, and probably me too. You did what you had to do. And that guy? World's better off without people like that guy in it. You didn't do anything wrong."

Her voice was barely a whisper. "I can still feel his skull crack. Every time I look at my hands ... my hooves. I think about it."

"That'll go away. You've got your whole life, and we can talk with Markeshia over the phone about it, too. Don't worry about it." He let her go enough to look into her eyes. "You're the best person I know. The very best person I know. You don't need to feel bad for what happened."

She nodded slowly, unsurely. "O-Okay. Thanks. J-Just, I might need some time alone sometimes. To work it through in my head."

"Of course," he said. "Whatever you need. Say the word and I'll be gone."

Suddenly she was breathing faster. "Don't say that."

"No no no, I meant like I'll go find something to do outside or--"

"Don't ever say you'll be gone," she whispered. "Don't ever leave me."

The thought of leaving her hit him like a punch to the gut. Maybe it was just animal instinct, the need to remain with a herd. But he believed the feeling came from a much more human part of him. "I won't. Long as you want me to, I'll be right here."

"Don't leave," she repeated.

The next words out of his mouth felt good as he said them, like he was reassuring himself just as much as he was her. "I never have. Not since all this happened. I never will."

Her mouth opened, just barely. There was an uncertain look in her eyes as she started to bring her lips closer to his. When she felt her large udder touch his leg it seemed to make her remember how strange her body was and she pulled away.

Ben stepped out of the hug. The both of them found their eyes wandering back to the sledgehammer. "I wish my hands worked," she said again. It had been the third time she'd said that in as many days.

"So you can hold a sledgehammer?"

"So I could hold your hand. Like a normal person. Like a human." She looked up at him again, and Ben finally found himself certain that the look in her eyes was the one he kept hoping to find there. He slowly held his hand out and she placed her hoof in it. He repeated the gesture with her other hand.

He'd had trouble looking into her eyes ever since she'd walked outside. Now Ben found himself unable to look anywhere else.

"Ben ..."

Ben tried to say something, but couldn't think of anything. He needn't have worried.

Camilla kissed him, innocently at first, slowly, letting their thick lips simply press against each other. The kiss lasted for only a few heartbeats before they pulled away, looking at each other as if to ask if what they had just done was okay. The uncertainty lingered for a few scant seconds before her lips sought his again. This time Ben felt her lips open just a bit before her tongue touched his teeth. He touched his tongue to hers, opening his snout more to feel them dancing across one another.

She giggled and pulled away, resting her forehead against his. His brow was sweaty, but she hardly seemed to mind. "Your tongue is huge."

He laughed. "So is yours."

"It ... feels nice."

They kissed again. It had been a long time since Ben had felt this way about anyone enough to kiss them like this, and he found himself wishing he could have done this with her months ago. He wanted to make sure he'd remember this moment forever. The feel of her hard hooves against his back. Her four breasts pressing against his slick chest. Her thighs rubbing lightly against his. The fabric of her dress sliding across his knees as her tail spread her scent. But more than anything, her thick tongue inside his mouth.

She broke off the kiss and trailed her hooves slowly down his sides. "Do you want to ...?"

He nodded. "Very, very much."

"Good," she whispered. She turned, keeping her hoof in his hands as she led him to the cabin, through the door, across the living room, and into the tiny bedroom. They sat on the bed with her hooves resting in his thick palms. "I want you. God, I've wanted you for so long."

"Me too," Ben said. "But ..."

A worried look crossed Camilla's face.

"What if ... What if it's ... like it was back in the swamp? What if the way we feel isn't because it's us, but because we're what we are now? I care about you, I really care about you, but what if it's just some animal instinct or--"

"I don't care," she interrupted. "I like you and I don't care why as long as I like you. That's all that matters to me right now. Yeah, there's the whole herd animal thing and Jesus Christ how you smell drives me insane. That's all the cow stuff. But take all that away and ... I-I still think we're right for each other. Do you?"

He nodded slowly, the smile spreading across his face bringing tears to his eyes. "I do. God yes, I do. It's only been a couple of months, but ... this whole time, I ... I think I love you."

He saw the same smile on her face. "Good. I think I love you, too. And I look forward to finding out for sure." She wrapped her hooves around his thick neck and tried to pull him down on top of her.

For a moment he resisted. "I've been working in the yard all day, and it's been like two days without either of us trying the shower, and with being in the van for a couple days before that. Maybe I should hop in the shower first and then--"

"Don't you fucking dare." She closed her eyes, bringing her wet nose to his chest. "God, if you knew what your scent does to me ..." She pulled him on top of her, her large breasts and soft udder feeling so good upon his hard chest. She reached out with her tongue, tasting the sweat on his neck before lightly biting at his ear. He gave out a very strange squeaking noise that didn't sound at all like it should have come from a 400 pound bull monster. But it caused her to laugh again, and there was nothing in the world he loved more than that sound.

They lay together for a long while, just exploring one another's bodies, losing themselves in the simple touches they had denied each other for so long. Eventually she pushed him away lightly, raised her ass off of the mattress, and started to slip out of her dress. He helped her, his fingers lingering on her large udder and her bottommost pair of breasts before pulling the dress over her head. They both laughed as the fabric caught on her horns. As soon as it was past her snout his lips were back on hers as if it pained them to be anywhere else. She moaned into the kiss, tossing her dress in the corner. Her arms were above her head and he took the opportunity to breathe in her scent, moaning deeply, a feral low that made her gasp and brought the scent of her wetness to his nose.

"God, every time you make that fucking noise." She licked her lips.

"Which noise?" He lowed again, deeper than before. "That one?"

"Feel like I'm cumming every fucking time I hear it."

He brought his hands to her top set of breasts, hesitating for a moment too long.

"Touch them," she whispered. "I want you to touch them. All of them. You have no idea what it's like when all eight start getting hard when I watch you walk by. Please, please just--MOOOOOOO." He took one of her long teats into his fingers. Even as large as his hand was, the thick, soft teats still took up his entire palm perfectly. He brought his head to her right breast and wrapped it entirely around a teat, slithering around it like a serpent. "Fuck," she hissed. "Fuck, that's good. Oh Jesus, makes having the fucking things worth it." He continued to prop himself up with one hand, switching to her bottom set, dragging his tongue against each teat in turn. The space between the upper and lower pair had a layer of sweat and the scent of it was driving him wild. She began breathing faster. "God, I'm going to cum just from that. The udder, too. The udder, too."

Ben laughed. "Been wanting to do this forever. Does it ... feel good? Like the others?"

She sighed loudly. "You have no idea. Touch it. It feels so gross sometimes, but the way you stare at it, I just ... I-I need you to touch it."

Ben nodded. "Nothing I'd rather do," he said as he lifted the heavy thing slightly off of her waist, sliding his hand underneath to feel its weight. It felt like her breasts, but was larger, almost hanging below her knees when she stood. The heat and the smell coming from underneath pushed rational thought from his mind, reducing him to a rutting animal until he felt her hooves caressing his horns.

"Careful with these. Okay?"

He wasn't sure what she meant at first. Sometimes he forgot about the damned things. But her words dragged his mind back into sapience as he whispered, "Okay." Again he wrapped his tongue around one of her teats, caressing two more in each hand. It caused her to raise her waist, pressing the udder into his face as she writhed, the palms of her hoof-hands sliding across her other nipples, each still wet from his mouth.

"OOOOhhh Gooooood," she moaned. Ben glanced up to see her large tongue hanging from her mouth, her eyelids nearly closed. He knew she was probably feeling just as lost to her instinct as he was.

"That good?" he asked softly.

"That gooooOOOHH!" He applied a bit more pressure to her thick teats, now pinching them and tightening the grip of his tongue around them more tightly.

"Still good?" He was afraid he had gone too far.

Her answer was to thrust her hips over and over as she lowed like a common cow in heat. Ben realized that she was having an orgasm just from having her udder played with.

As she was riding the waves of her pleasure, he slid off of the bed until he was kneeling on the floor, lifting her udder and placing it against his blunt horns like he was resting it on top of them. "You've got a boob hat," she moaned, laughing slowly as she fought to remain lucid.

She started to say something else when she felt his tongue sliding against the furry skin on the back of her udder. "Oh FUCK! FUCK!" She covered her hand with the back of her arm, biting down on it. "I-I-I didn't know it was so sensitive right there. Oh Jesus, it feels like you're touching my--"

Bentram's tongue touched her labia, the feral lips protruding past her crotch as it winked slightly. The smell was so strong here. He knew whenever she sat down that it must be pressing against the back of her udder, the heat and sweat collecting, waiting for him until this very moment.

"S-Stop!" She groaned out. Her head was thrashing back and forth, her horns clacking against the headboard a few times. "W-Wait! Just give me aaHHHH! Give me a second, I'm s-still MOOOOO!"

Ben's eyes darkened for a moment. His mate was denying him what he wanted, and he wasn't having it. He made a low, threatening noise as if to warn her that he was not going to stop what he was doing. He had never tasted anything so wonderful as his tongue slipped between her lips. As the tip of his tongue touched her clitoris, he gave another deep bellow. The sound alone was enough to cause her to cum again as her thick lips squeezed against his tongue over and over. She wrapped her strong legs around the back of his head, pulling him closer despite her earlier begging for him to stop. He couldn't imagine what she was feeling now, but he only knew that causing her this much pleasure made him feel more masculine than anything in the world.

Her pussy was weeping now, the sweaty bedsheets soaking as they absorbed strings of her wetness. Bentram licked that up as well before returning to her pussy, pressing his tongue further inside of her, curling and writhing it in order to feel every single part of her. There were no words coming from her now, only mooing, lowing, groaning. Only rarely did she make a noise that sounded like it could come from a human being.

It was nearly a half-hour before Bentram even began to consider stopping, only pulling away when he felt the tightness of her cunt start to relax. He slid his head from under her udder, lightly kissing at her lips as he pulled away, the feral beast now satisfied as his caresses became more tender. He licked his lips as he sat back, rubbing drool and cum on the back of his arm before licking that off as well. For a second he thought she must have fallen asleep before he saw her weakly lift her hoof, gently motioning for him to come closer.

He lay next to her, wrapping his arm around her breasts as he kissed her neck. "That was good?"

She laughed meekly. "Every day. Y-You have to do that every day. Just like that. Whenever I want. Whenever you want. You understand? Don't ever ask me, just drag me to the ground and do it."

"Yes, ma'am." His hands again reached for her teats before she slapped it away.

"No. Sore."

"Okay." He drew her in closer, happy to lay next to her, although another part of his body was far from satisfied as he pressed his hard cock into her waist.

"Jesus Christ, is that your dick?" She turned to look down at where his kilt was now tented so much his cock was peeking past its hem. "Get that thing off. Now. Get it off now."

Ben reached for his waist and started to slide the buckles built into the strange clothing aside.

"No, get it OFF!" she moaned, rolling onto her side and trying to help with her hooves.

Finally he had the clasps loose and slid the garment off of him, tossing it to the floor to lay atop her dress, where it could stay for the rest of time as far as he was concerned.

Her eyes were wide as she stared at it, bobbing wetly in the air, slightly bending upward and then back downward in almost the shape of an "S." It was almost painful now, demanding to sink into his mate as the tapered end dripped precum onto her leg.

"It's, um ..." Bentram was suddenly embarrassed. "It's pretty weird looking now. Uh ..."

"No it isn't," she moaned as she turned onto her belly, laying on top of him with her large breasts straddling either side of his waist. "It's not weird, it's mine." She brought her nose closer, whining as she placed her snout against his skin where his balls touched his leg. She trembled as she smelled him over and over. "God, it's better than I thought. Don't ever wash this. Let me. Okay? Like this." She drug her tongue between his sack and his leg, and he had to resist the urge to simply plunge his cock into her throat. "I've wanted this thing for so long. I-I could smell it. Back at the clinic. Whenever you'd go outside and you'd come back in. I could smell your cum after you went outside and hid behind that rusty old shed to jerk off."

Ben suddenly felt very self-conscious. "Oh." He pulled away slightly, his embarrassment plain to see.

Her snout followed him as he tried to pull away. "I thought about following you. Every single time. I wanted it so bad that it hurt." She gently took his fuzzy sheath between her large teeth, biting down gently just enough to lift it away from his red cock just slightly before releasing it. "But now it's mine." The look in her eyes was so demanding she seemed almost angry. "It's mine now. Do you understand? It's mine. Say it's mine."

Camilla smiled wickedly just as soon as he said the words: "It's yours."

"GoooOOOood," she lowed before quickly taking him into her mouth. Bentram hissed like he had just touched a hot stove before laying his head back. He found her horns and slid them into the palm of his hands as she bobbed up and down. "Ohhhh shit."

She laughed as she pulled away. "Oh? I thought I had a big scary monster's cock down my throat. Guess it was just some helpless little bull." She pressed the back of her tongue against the tapered tip, wrapping the rest down to nearly the base of the foot and a half long shaft. "Does the little bull want to come in my mouth?"

"Want to come somewhere else," he groaned.

Camilla's laughter started as a giggle before settling to a deep, rumbling moo. "Later. But first ..." Again she brought him into her mouth and slid it down her throat. There was a look in her eyes that Ben sometimes saw while she was chewing cud, like her mind was a blank as she focused entirely on nothing else but the feel of his cock sliding down her throat. Ben had never felt so wonderfully helpless in his life. He found himself wanting to kiss her, fuck her throat, and eat her out at the same time.

After a few minutes, she slid him from her mouth, although she left the end of her tongue resting on the quivering tip. "Are you close?"

Ben could only nod.

"How close?"

"Really fucking close."

"GooooOOOOd," she lowed as she raised off the bed. He whimpered in protest before he saw her turn around to present her large ass to him. God, he had forgotten just how wide her ass was. She giggled as she saw him admire it. "Glad someone likes this fat ass." He watched her tail sway back and forth, trying to spread her scent, although the room was already saturated with it. She lowered her breasts to the bed, raising her bovine cunt into the air as it winked in anticipation and drooled onto the soaked sheets. "I want you every way I can, but I really want it like this. The first time, anyway. Fuck me like I'm your cow. Your good little cow. Okay?"

Ben rose to a sitting position. She'd get no disagreement from him. He'd never supposed sweet, kind Camilla would have such a dirty mouth in bed, but somehow it made her more adorable. He started to climb to his hooves, but as soon as his snout was close to her pussy again he started to lean back towards it, his tongue hanging from his lips.

"No," she warned. "No more of that. I want to feel you. Inside of me. I need to feel you inside of me." She bit her lip, her demands dominant one moment and docile in the next. "Inside me and on top of me."

Ben didn't know why he was hesitating, but he was. There was nothing he wanted more in his life than to slide his strange red cock into her.

Camilla smirked, and the black patch on her right eye squinted as she raised a brow. "You've ... Wait, you've done this before, right?"

He felt the need to defend himself as his pride was suddenly being assaulted. "What? Y-Yeah. Lots of times. Like, lots of times."

"Really?"

He shook his head. "Okay, yeah. Once. At prom. I was drunk."

She laughed, though it wasn't a mocking sound. "You are so goddamn adorable, I can barely stand it. Come on. Be my bull."

Ben moved closer, his cock screaming at him to stop thinking and just fuck his mate.

"Seriously, though, we can go as slow as you need toOOOOOOO!" Ben slid the entirety of his cock inside of her. He meant to go slowly, but once the tip was on her lips it seemed like both of their bodies wouldn't be satisfied until he was buried to the hilt. "MOOOOOO God," she groaned. "Don't stop. Don't stop just MOOOOO!"

They ceased to be people at that moment. Ben the honor's student and Camilla the kind millionaire were simply nowhere to be found. Both had completely checked out of their own minds as the bull began to thrust and the cow began to slam her gigantic ass back against his waist, desperate to feel him as deep as he could go. Ben reached around her waist, wrapping his arms between her two sets of breasts and pulling her as tightly as he could. He wanted to be as close as possible. As deep as possible. Nothing else mattered. Nothing other than the slap of his balls on her udder, the way her cunt squeezed around his wet cock, the soft fur of her ass pressing against his waist, the feel of her ropey tail in his mouth as he found himself needing to bite it and the deep animal bellow she made at how much she liked it. It was all too much and he found himself cumming inside of her more quickly than he would've liked, although as he continued to thrust he found himself not needing to stop. They weren't people now, just drooling, lowing beasts covered in fur and cum and sweat.

Neither could say how long they had been fucking, or when exactly the pink dots left their vision and they could slowly form rational thoughts. Ben believed Camilla had probably regained her human mind before he did, but made no effort to slow him down as he continued to pound into her until with one final thrust he deposited the last of his seed inside of her. Both slid to the bed, Camilla squeaking happily as she pressed her face into the wet mattress, wiggling her ass slightly as if to tease him as she felt him press heavily against her back.

He started to pull out of her and she demanded he stop as he felt her insides gripping him. "No. Just stay like this," she moaned. "Just stay like this forever."

Ben nodded. "Sounds good."

They lay together for a while with her back to his chest until finally she shifted, indicating she wanted his heavy body to slide off of her. Ben pulled out, sliding onto his back as he watched what looked like a gallon of his seed wetly sliding out of her pussy. "Holy shit," she whispered.

"Holy shit," he agreed. "Guess we definitely gotta wash the sheets now."

"Fuck the sheets," she said as she draped a wet leg across his, snuggling closer to him. He felt like she was trying to touch him with as much of her body as she could, and he was more than happy to let her. He rolled onto his side, kissing her again. There was no awkwardness this time as their tongues intertwined, like they were lovers who had known each other for years. She pulled out of his mouth just long enough to whisper, "I bet it wasn't like that at prom."

He laughed as he shifted, the soaked mattress suddenly reminding him of something. "Oh, shit."

"What?"

"Shit," he repeated. "Are you ... on something. The pill? I didn't even think about that. Couldn't think about anything, really."

"Ohhh. Yeah, that. Doesn't matter."

He gulped. "Doesn't matter? I don't know if I'm ready to be--"

"No, goofy." She licked the tip of his nose. "Haley told me ... before she broke my fucking chair. After the change, my body treats my eggs as foreign antibodies. Killed all of them as soon as I started changing. Couldn't get pregnant if I wanted to."

"Oh." He was pretty sure this was the most awkward conversation he'd ever had. "D-Did you ... want to? Kids and all that?" He was sad to think of her not being able to have children if she wanted them.

"Oh, fuck no," she answered. "Fuck no. After the deal with my parents and all? Fuck no, fuck that. Kids are terrible. They're not natural. And besides, did you know that every serial killer throughout history has had one thing in common?"

"What?"

"They were all kids at one point in their life. Think about that. The science is clear."

"Oh," he laughed. "Okay."

He felt her hoof sliding down his back to his backside, squeezing it tightly. "Jesus, I should write a book about your ass. You don't worry about any of that kids nonsense, you just let me know when you're ready for round ... whatever. Let me know when you're ready for round whatever."

He chuckled, leaned away slightly, and looked between them. "Um, okay. I'm ready for round whatever."

She followed his eyes to his still-hard cock. "Oh! Oh, we are breaking the hell out of this bed."

---

There was no screaming when Ben awoke, only the soft sound of deep breathing, warm Holstein fur against his skin, and the feeling of his arm draped around someone he cared about deeply. He curled up closer, not falling back asleep, just happy to take in her scent, her warmth, and her touch. Gradually an idea came into his head about making breakfast for the two of them and so he started to rise, kissing her lightly on the ear as he rose. Her floppy ear twitched, but she remained fast asleep. After easing off of the bed, he retrieved his kilt from the corner and slipped out of the room, closing the door softly behind him.

Ben walked into the living room while slipping on his kilt and trying his best to keep his cloven hooves from clopping too loudly. Breakfast basically always consisted of fruits, grain, and orange juice, but neither of them seemed to ever tire of it. Not surprisingly, they had both lost interest in drinking milk. However, cheese was still cheese and therefore was still consumed in large quantities. It was cheese, after all.

Apples and pears were soon sliced, oranges were peeled, and several pieces of toast were sliced in twain. Bentram nodded in satisfaction. He debated waking her, but the thought of her sleeping soundly made him smile and he decided to instead take in the morning air while the sun was still rising.

Ben stepped onto the porch and was suddenly hit with a feeling like he had never seen this place. It was like the world had changed while the cabin and the two cows that lived in it had stayed the same. Things were different now, even from yesterday, like one chapter of his life had ended and a much better chapter was beginning.

There was something about the woods of North Carolina that made him feel like he was in another world, Middle-earth, or Narnia, or Westeros without all the murder. The trees seemed to move on their own, just eerie enough to be interesting without being menacing. The birds were just beginning their songs, the sunlight was barely peeking through the canopy of green, and in the near distance a brook made its way from one eternity to the next. This place felt like he was living in a photo that could have been taken yesterday or a million years ago. Nothing changed here, and it suited him just fine.

His life had become so different than how he had always imagined it would be. He remembered so vividly waking up terrified and confused on a cold concrete floor while a man filled with hate berated and assaulted him as casually as if he were saying good morning. He remembered becoming a monster and watching helplessly as an absolutely perfect person died and a simple animal took her place. He remembered the escape. The pain of being shot. The fear he felt when he was saved by the kindest living nightmare he'd ever hope to meet. The strangeness of living with an assortment of talking bipedal farm animals that loved Chinese food and movie marathons.

But mostly he just remembered how he felt every time he saw her. She went from being a stranger in a cell to a barely sentient creature, to an unfortunate young woman he called Molly, to the most wonderful person he'd ever met. And now she was more, and he couldn't be happier. If this was what his life was going to be from now on, he was glad all of it had happened. He'd take being a monster if it meant being a monster with her.

The screen door squeaked as she stepped outside. He didn't turn around; he didn't need to. He felt her arms wrap around his chest and the warm weight of her naked body against his back. The moment lasted only a moment before her hooves slid down to his waist and began tugging at his kilt.

"Off," she ordered. "You can't wear this anymore. You aren't allowed."

He laughed as he unbuckled the kilt and dropped it to the ground. "No argument. So weird wearing that shit all the time. I made breakfast."

"I saw! Thanks, that was sweet." She kissed his cheek as he pulled her closer, wrapped his arm around her, and together they watched the trees wave in the wind as the sun peaked above them. "What are you going to do today?"

"Hmm. Maybe finish ripping up the bokey-ball court."

She chuckled as she rested her head on his shoulder. "That can wait. How about we grab breakfast and have a little picnic? There's a really pretty spot next to the stream I can't wait to show you."

His only response was to smile. He realized he had tears in his eyes. He laughed and wiped them away.

"Wow," Camilla said. "What's got you so happy this morning?"

Ben was silent for a moment, searching for the word that described the source of his joy. When it came to him, it was such a simple one. "Everything," he said.

He turned to face her, pulling her close and kissing her forehead.

"Absolutely everything."