Chapter 13 #3
“Receptivity?” I echo.
“For Phase Two,” she says. “Your system is primed for gestational implantation.”
My hands shake against the restraints.
“I’m not, I can’t! You can’t make me!”
She cuts me off gently. “Little cow, nature is doing most of the work. We’re simply guiding it.”
Guiding it. My ribs tighten with panic. She scans my abdomen, my chest, and my lymph nodes and nods.
“Fluid retention is excellent,” she says. “Weight gain is ideal. Tissue density is increasing as predicted.”
She says it like she’s checking off bullet points. I force myself to whisper, “How much have I gained?”
“Nearly twenty pounds,” she answers without hesitation. “All healthy. The majority of her weight is concentrated in her hips, thighs, breasts, and subcutaneous stores. They are exactly where we want them to be.”
My vision blurs. She removes a vial from the cooler. “This is the last of the priming sequence for Week Three.”
I shake my head rapidly. “No! No, please… please don’t!”
She injects it into my IV, ignoring my pleas and begging. Warmth blooms through me almost instantly, tingling, dull, and heavy like melted wax poured through my veins.
My body sinks into the hospital-grade bed. “You’ll feel full for several hours,” she says. “Your milk output will likely exceed two liters today.”
Two liters. My breath hitches. “That’s impossible.”
Her lips curve faintly. “You said that last week. And yet here you are.” I close my eyes because looking at her hurts.
She places a hand on my forehead. “Rest, little cow. You’re almost there.”
I know it’s the last night of the week because the music overhead changes.
A cello. Slow. Haunting. The kind of melody that aches. The nurse dims the lights and brings the nighttime bottle.
This week’s is pink-tinted. Stronger than last week. I can smell the sweetness before she touches it to my lips.
“Open,” she whispers. I hesitate. Her hand smooths my hair gently, reverently.
“Little cow… you’ve done so well. Don’t fight this part. You need sleep.”
“I want Erik,” I breathe. She pauses only a moment.
“He can’t reach you here.” My heart twists into something sharp and unbearable.
“You don’t know that,” I whisper angrily. She doesn’t contradict me. She doesn’t agree either. Instead, she brings the bottle back to my lips.
“Sleep,” she murmurs. The sedative slides over my tongue. Heavy. Warm. Soft as velvet. My vision blurs. The pump hums. The straps hold me steady.
And as the darkness rises to swallow me whole, one last thought thunders through me, desperate, raw, a prayer hurled into the void with my whole being: I don’t even care if it is Erik that finds me… I just want someone to come save me!
By the fourth Monday, I no longer fully wake from sleep.
I surface from it, thick, heavy, and unwilling, like a body trapped under warm water.
My eyelids flutter open to the familiar ceiling: pale panels, a soft hum, and the distant whisper of classical piano drifting from the speakers overhead. Chopin today. Something slow, something that aches.
The restraints are already in place. The pump is already attached. Another morning. Another cycle. Another day inside the life they carved around my skin without my permission.
My breasts ache, a deep, full heaviness that makes my ribs feel too tight. The gallon tanks attached to the upgraded pump are half-filled already and impossibly heavy. I don’t even know when the session began. I might have dozed off during it.
The female nurse enters with her usual clipboard and her impossible calm.
“Good morning, little cow,” she says, checking the suction levels. “You’re producing beautifully.”
Beautifully. If anyone else said that word to me, I would probably cry from gratitude. From her, it lands like a chain tightening around my neck.
“What day is it?” My voice comes out small.
“Monday, Week Four, Month Two,” she replies. “The final preparatory week before we officially launch Phase Two.”
Phase Two. My stomach lurches, but I don’t have the energy to vomit. She moves around the bed with clinical ease, rechecking my IV line, changing the adhesive, and smoothing ointment over my sore nipples in practiced strokes.
Then she pauses. “Oh good,” she says brightly. “Dr. Rhys will be pleased.”
A cold prickle crawls over my skin. “Why?”
“Your swelling looks optimal today.”
My swelling is optimal? I close my eyes. I don’t want to know what that means anymore.
I hear him before I see him, his footsteps measured and unhurried, the sound of authority that knows it will not be challenged.
When Dr. Rhys steps through the door, the temperature in the room seems to drop. He looks at me the way a collector looks at an artifact: cataloging, appraising, owning.
“Good morning, my sweet little Claire.” My name sounds wrong coming from his mouth, and I can feel bile rising up my throat.
I swallow. “Why are you doing this?” He doesn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he walks around me, hands clasped behind his back, taking in every shift of my body. My fuller thighs. My rounded hips. My breasts, taut and heavy with milk.
“You’ve done remarkably well,” he says finally. “Better than our projections and far better than our other little cows.”
I try to turn my head away, but the harness limits how far I can move now. The IV line tugs at my arm, reminding me I am held in place at every angle.
“Please,” I speak hoarsely. “Let me go. I’m not… I’m not what you think.”
He stops beside me and lifts my chin with two fingers, not rough but claiming.
“You are exactly what I think. The perfect convergence of biology and potential. Do you have any idea how rare that makes you?”
“I’m a person,” I breathe.
He smiles, soft and patronizing. “You are a resource. My prized little cow. I’m going to make a fortune on you.”
My vision blurs with tears. He releases my chin and turns to the head nurse, Devereux, and the broad, silent man who always hovers near the equipment.
“Finalize the weekly report,” Rhys instructs. “And increase her calorific load. She needs ten more pounds before the auction.”
My heart seizes. “Ten pounds?” Devereux asks.
“At minimum,” Dr. Rhys says. “More is preferable. The highest bidders prefer a full-bodied cow: lush, plump, visibly productive, and hormonally primed. Demand has increased from five buyers to thirteen. She will be a record-breaking commodity.”
Commodity. I feel something in me tear apart.
Dr. Rhys continues calmly. “Increase her herbal dosage. Add the priming medication to her evening bottle. Expand the container capacity again; her production will triple by Thursday.”
Triple. A gallon wasn’t enough. I can’t breathe. Dr. Rhys steps closer again, lowering his voice.
“You should be proud, little cow,” he murmurs. “Very few cows achieve optimal status this quickly. You are exceeding even my expectations.”
A shiver rolls over my entire body, not from cold but from something deeper. Something like disgust and grief.
He straightens. “Prepare the Phase Two evaluation for this week. Her weight gain will dictate the timeline.”
Then he leaves. Just like that. As if he didn’t just dismantle the last pieces of my hope and humanity.
Every day after his visit gets harder.
The shakes are thicker now, almost pudding-thick. Sweet but with a bitterness that lingers on my tongue.
When I ask what it is, the nurse smiles. “Just medicine to help your body prepare,” she says. “For your next purpose.”
My stomach twists. My breasts swell more each hour, painfully full between pump cycles. The upgraded pump empties them into massive containers that fill impossibly fast. My thighs brush together in ways they didn’t two months ago.
My hips spread into the mattress. My top no longer reaches the bottom of my ribs.
The nurse changes me into a new outfit by Wednesday: another thin, flowy top, slightly larger to accommodate my expanding breasts and stretching across my chest, and soft shorts that flare around my hips.
“You look perfect,” she says. I look away so she won’t see me break.
It happened one mid-afternoon. The pump’s collection tank fills to the brim, over a gallon in a single cycle. The nurse gasps softly, clapping her hands together like a delighted schoolgirl.
“Oh, little cow,” she whispers. “Dr. Rhys will be thrilled!”
I bite my lip until I can’t stand the pain any longer. They switch out the container. Reset the pump and resume the suction, and I cry silently, praying no one notices.
I’m slipping. Fading. Becoming something weaker than I ever imagined myself capable of being.
During the night feed, I whisper shakily to the nurse, "Please... please don't make the next one too thick. I can’t… I can’t take it anymore.”
She pauses, then leans over me with a terrifying softness.
“Oh, little cow,” she says. “It’s such a positive sign you’re feeling full. You’re almost exactly where Dr. Rhys wants you.”
“Please,” I sob. “Please, don’t increase it again. I can’t…” a single tear slips down my cheek. She brushes it away with her thumb like a mother comforting a child.
“You don’t need to worry,” she coos. “Once you reach your final weight range, we’ll begin the real work. Phase Two. You’ll be so valuable then.”
I shake my head, desperate. “No. No, I can’t. Please!” She lifts the nighttime bottle and tips it toward my lips.
“Hush, little cow,” she coos again. “No more tears. It’s time for sleep."
I try to turn away. Her hand holds the back of my head. The nipple presses on my mouth. I don’t have the strength to resist anymore. The thick, sweet, herbal sedative fills my tongue. My vision blurs. The restraints seem to float away. The world dissolves into fog.
As consciousness slips, I reach for Erik in the dark of my mind, begging him with every broken piece of myself… Erik… Please… Find me… And then the darkness takes me completely.