Country Life I

Although the leather straps of the chastity belt, softened as they
were by wear, tended to rub against the buttocks when I walked fast,
I was puffing by the time I reached the house.  She did not allow me
much more than ten minutes for the quarter mile walk from the
bus-stop and much of the distance was along a rough track.  Not that
She would say anything if I were late, but there were many ways that
I would pay for such a black mark.  At least I had warmed up a
little.  It had been a cold spring day and when She ordered me to go
to work that morning, the clothes bin had contained only trousers, a
shirt and a thin pullover.  One more sign of recent disfavour.

     I entered the yard through the side gate.  Immediately I had
closed it behind me, it was time to take off the shoes, socks and
pants while I was still on the relatively clean paving.  The shoes
were already a little muddy, but as yet I had managed to prevent any
mud getting on the pants and It wouldn't do at all to cross the very
muddy yard in them.  I had learned to be scrupulous in controlling
the eyes during this process.  On a previous occasion while I was
concentrating on removing the pants without letting them touch the
dusty paving, the gaze had accidentally fallen on a window of the
house and I had, for an instant, met Her gaze like an equal.
Wearing a blinding hood continously for three days makes an
effective impression on the memory.

     In shirt and harness and carefully carrying the pants and shoes
I hurried across to the piggery door and gratefully entered it's
pungent gloom.  The warmth generated by the occupants of the pen was
welcome.  Even the smell which had once seemed a stomach churning
stench was now familiar and even comforting.  Here it was easier to
control the gaze because I must now avert it only from the small TV
camera mounted near the roof in one corner of the small barn.  Here,
of course, it was impossible to know if She was watching or not.  It
hadn't taken me very long to learn the value of assuming that She
was.  Sometimes She'd record me for hours and use the forward search
on the VCR to check for improper behaviour.  The clothes bin had a
separate compartment for shoes and even a pocket for the emergency
telephone card which was the only contents of the pockets.  I used
them.  Then I took the collar off its peg, dropped to hands and
knees and put it on.

     The collar was, I suppose, quite a clever piece of electronics.
It was based on a design originally intended to train dogs not to
bark by detecting the bark and giving an electric shock.  The
battery, shock apparatus, and throat mike were from the original
module but the electronics had been extended, and there was now a
mercury tilt switch and an infra-red receiver.  The resulting
package under the chin was a little on the large side for comfort,
but then comfort was not the idea.  From the middle of the package a
hasp, like that of an unlocked padlock emerged.  That too had its
sensor.

     The gate of the pen it not much wider than the shoulders, so
there is little danger of even the piglets slipping past when I
crawl in.  Sara, the big sow could back me off if she chose -- I am
quite afraid of her -- but the gate, which opens inwards, would
probably close between us on its spring and anyway she seems content
with her own side of the fence.  The pen takes up only a little less
than half the floor area of the barn and the other part is cluttered
with the crush pen, which is something I shudder to look at, and the
dogcart, which holds somewhat happier memories.  It is good,
sometimes, to get out in the fresh air.  The harness is well
designed and now I have learned how to move agily within its
restrictions; only the bit causes me any real discomfort.  I like to
believe that, for the size, I've become quite a useful and well
trained draft animal.  Certainly the last few times we've been out
for a drive, She's hardly more than flicked me with the whip.  Very
different from our first outing.

     About a half an inch above the floor of the pen, a metal bar
runs from near the front to the back, about a foot from the left
hand side.  It tends to get buried, of course, among the bedding and
dung but it is easy enough to find when you know where it is.  The
chain is about eighteen inches long and has a welded ring on each
end.  It is quite heavy.  One ring goes around the bar.  On the
other I now closed the hasp of the collar with it's very audible
click.  There is a time limit on this.  If I don't lock the collar
on something within twenty seconds of putting it on the electronics
starts to punish me.  The chain is long enough for me to get the
head in the food trough and to use the water fountain but I have to
be very careful when the bar is covered by bedding because I must
drag the ring along it without the collar punishing me for pulling
too hard.  Of course I don't dare touch it with the hands, even by
accident.   By this time I hardly ever got shocked that way.  I
worried more about Sara.  In the beginning I had been bitten several
times, once seriously enough to need stitches.  (Writhing in the
crush pen, mumbling the pain into a gag while She stitched as calmly
as if making a dress.)  Things were better now; Sara had got used to
me and I had learnt the body language to show her deference so that
she was rarely angry with me.  These days she even permitted me to
eat before she was finished.  With this established, the other pigs
were not much of a threat since they, like me, deferred to her.  Oh,
I got the occasional warning nip, but I hadn't had a bite bad enough
to bleed in weeks.

     One of the benefits of the chastity belt is that it protects
one otherwise tempting target from bites.  Another is that without
it, straw bedding causes irritation to the cock.  It is an
embarrassment at work, of course.  I can't use the urinals and I
tend to smell faintly of urine by the end of the day.  When I wash
the body before setting out for work I have to flush out the belt by
putting the hose against the urine hole.  When She does the hosing
down, I am locked into the crush pen and She usually removes the
belt and washes it, and me, thoroughly with the hard cold water jet.
It is, of course, one of the prime rules that the belt never comes
off when I might be in a position to touch or see the cock.  That's
what the belt is for.  It isn't that She imagines I might be
unfaithful but that it's important that I remember that the cock is
Her property, not for me to look at or interfere with.  I'm glad of
it really, masturbation is the violation of the Rule which proved
the most difficult to suppress.

     Along with the other inhabitants of the sty I wait for feeding
time with some impatience.  They ate at noon but I haven't eaten
since early morning, since when I've done both farm chores and the
job.  There is a canteen at work, of course, but the only money I'm
allowed to handle is the exact change for the busfare.  It is hard
to get an impression of the passage of time here, because the dim
lighting is artificial with hardly a trace of sunlight getting in
but it was probably a couple of hours before she came.  I schooled
the gaze to the center of her dungaree clad form.  Higher I dare not
look, without a direct command.  Her legs were hidden by the wall of
the sty.  The bucket of slops is in her hands and we all hurry to
the trough as she heaves.  We all slurp up the slurry with equal
haste.  If anything I am the most frantic eater.  The flat human
face puts me at a grave disadvantage here and I used to get a lot up
the nose but I have learned to eat quickly, otherwise the share is
too little, and I spend the next day painfully hungry.
Occasionally, when I have pleased Her, She gives me titbits of human
food, but never enough to be of any dietry significance.  The pigs
seem to get such treats more often than I do.

     Soon the trough is too low for me to get any more out, even by
licking the cold metal bottom.  I turn and carefully look out of the
sty.  Oh joy, she is taking down the leash.  Perhaps she means to
allow me in the house this evening.  For the last two nights She has
simply walked out after filling the trough, and I suspect that I
must have offended Her, though I had racked the mind in vain for the
offense.  Perhaps She's forgiven me.  Even if She is taking me out
of the pen for some more active punishment, that punishment will
expiate the offence, whatever it was.  Her punishments are often
harsh and always inventive but once I have been punished, that is
always the end of it.

     I lay on the back with the eyes closed while She used a small
key to open the hasp of the collar.  When I heard the gate open, I
hurried out.  Again, I must get the leash put on within twenty
seconds if I am to avoid painful shocks.  At the same time, I must
not rise from all fours or the mercury switch will trigger the
shocks.  She seemed in no hurry to lock the leash on but I only got
the first, warning tingle before the hasp of the collar clicked over
the leash ring.  She put me in the crush pen, closed the gate on the
neck and clamped the hands and feet. This could be a good or a bad
omen.  If She means to take me into the house She will want to clean
me up first with the hose.  On the other hand she may have put me in
for some kind of torture.  A chain belt is pulled up under the
waist, clamping the arse against the bars of the cage's roof.  I now
had about four square feet of dirty floor to look at.  I must hold
the arms straight or the gate would half strangle me.  If the legs
relax the chain belt digs painfully into the waist.  One of the
things I most dread is being left in this cage for so long that the
strength of the arms and legs starts to give out.  I'm put in here
maybe twice a day on average, usually only for a few minutes but I
haven't got over that dread for the very good reason that it is
realised from time to time, invariably without any prior warning.

     The hard stream of icy water was a shock -- it always is -- but
it was also a relief.  The hose has a nozzle which produces a hard,
flat fan of water which batters painfully against the skin, even
when directed at a shallow angle, but efficiently dislodges the
filth in which I was almost completely coated.  Once I was clean,
She brought the boots.  The boots are not for the feet but for the
hands.  They come up several inches above the elbows, greatly
reducing their ability to bend and a strap tightens them onto the
wrist, trapping the hands inside a rigid "foot".  A longer strap
from the outside of the top of each boot buckles behind the
shoulders.  They add about six inches to the length of the arms
which makes it easier to walk on hands and feet since it equalises
the length of the front and back "legs".  This is encouraging.  She
seldom takes me into the house without these things on.  On the
other hand she could just be teasing me and the next move might be
back into the pen.

     Learning to walk on the leash had cost me some considerable
pain.  I must walk to her left with the face about level with the
midline of Her body.  The leash must be under tension but not too
tight or the collar will shock me.  I must be careful not to get
under Her feet.  At least, in these circumstances, there is no
danger of looking Her in the eyes, in fact all I can see without
getting a pain in the neck is the ground immediately before me.  If
I twist the neck to try to see Her feet, I tend to veer to the
right.  This is why it is so difficult to get it right.  I must
judge our relative position almost entirely by the strength and
direction of the pull on the leash and the occasional glimpse of
foot out of the corner of the eye.  At first it was difficult not to
get underfoot when She turned to Her left, but She knew I was trying
my best and would punish me only by triggering the collar with a
jerk on the leash.  At one time walking on all fours would have soon
have become painful in itself but the sinews and muscles seem to
have accomodated to it.

     While I was wiping the feet on the doormat a man walked out of
the living room.  His body, perhaps, ten years younger and
undeniably better looking than the one I use.  The expression on his
face, as far as I could tell, oscillated between lust, hope, and
embarrassment.  I recognised him from Her latest party.  Had I owned
hackles they would, no doubt, have been bristling.  His name, I
remembered, was Dirk.  I had taken a dislike to him, not so much
because had had put out his cigarette butt on the backside and them
made me eat it (I was, after all, there to entertain Her guests) but
because of his arrogant and superficial conversation.  I remember
him asking Her about the number freeze-branded on the back.  "It's
his Farmmark number," She explained patiently, and then, when his
incomprehension was obvious "It's a livestock registration scheme.
If he gets stolen or run over by a bus they can look the number up
on a computer and let me know."  (I was registered as a boar.  She'd
put "Species: Bore" on the form as a kind of joke and they'd
predictably "corrected" it.)  She took out the controller for the
collar and switched off the tilt switch so we could go upstairs
without me getting shocked.  When the three of us entered the
bedroom my suspisions about what was to occur were confirmed.  This
was probably why I hadn't been brought into the house for the
previous two evenings.

     There was a small square table in one corner of the room.  She
patted the surface and I clambered up and knelt on it.  It was a
familiar perch. "Stay." she ordered, "Watch".

     "Do we have to have him in here?" Dirk protested.  "I'm not
sure I can perform with him watching."

     "Then leave."  She answered with Her customery economy, so
different from his own garrulousness.  However the Gods were deaf to
my silent prayers and he stayed.

     A detached part of the mind followed their loveplay.  Her skill
is immaculate.  She led him to lovemaking of a sophistication he had
almost certainly never known, yet so adroitly that he doubtless
imagines that all the inspiration was all his.  Most of the mind,
though, was writhing with emotion.  There was jealousy and hatred,
of course.  There was some stirring of the ghost of the late,
unmlamented sense of embarrassment.  The overwhelming emotion,
though, was fear.

     The most traumatic episode of life to date had occurred about a
week after the sty became my regular residence.  By then, being
locked in the crush pen and hosed off had become more or less
routine.  What followed, though, was anything but.

     First, She had placed a metal bowl in the middle of the narrow
field of view.  In the bowl was a scalpel, three sets of forceps,
surgical scissors and some sutures.  Then she explained, with
unemmotional didactism, exactly how gelding was performed.  She knew
where to cut the scrotum, what blood vessels had to be tied off.
"These instruments are relatively easy to obtain," She concluded
"but you can't easily get local anaesthetics."

     She took the bowl back out of sight and I heard the instruments
clink in the bowl.  I was shivering with unfeigned terror.  In the
front of the mind the terrible, irrevocable "safeword" flashed like
a neon sign.

     Yet when cold metal touched the scrotum what emerged from the
mouth was not the safeword.  It was not a human sound at all but a
terrible peircing squeal such as my stymates might have made in
similar circumstances.  Yet the touch was brief and harmless and She
laughed.  "Not while I've still got a use for them," and, seeing
that I would be good for nothing that evening, She returned me to
the Sty where I lay shivering.

     I had learned two terrible things.  Firstly, up to that point I
had imagined that one day she would go too far and I would use the
safeword.  Now I knew better.  I had genuinely believed I was about
to be castrated and I had not said it.  I will never say it.
Secondly I knew that Her seeming joke had been serious.  If She ever
loses interest in me sexually, She will geld me.  That's why a new
lover filled me more with terror than with jealousy.

     I should, perhaps, explain about Her variant of the safeword
concept.  Back at the beginning of our relationship She had
explained it in Her deadly serious voice.

     "There's only one kind of `safeword' I accept and that's `I'm
leaving you.'.  If you ever say that, our relationship ends right
then.  I'll give you back all the gifts you've given me, and we'll
never meet again.  Don't ever threaten me with it, don't ever joke
about it."

     Since then, I've given Her more gifts.  I've given Her the body
that had been mine.  I've given Her everything I once owned.  I've
given Her my future.  I don't want the gifts back.  Those things
used to seem so valuable.  Now they seem like a backbreaking burden
that I am glad to be rid of.  Better a slave to Her, even a gelded
slave than a slave to things.  I understand, now, the attractions of
the life of cloistered monks.  The vows of poverty and obedience and
sometimes silence are, in a way, tremendously liberating.

     But now the lovers had finished their business.  It was clear
that She wasn't fully satiated, and I hoped that Her lust would earn
me a turn, though that might not fit in with the aesthetics of the
scene.  Dirk, however, was both glowing and exhausted.  In an evident
mood of post coital benificence he came over to where I was
squatting, doggy fashion.  "Did you enjoy the show?" he asked and
put his hand out, probably, to pat me on the head.  That was a
mistake.  Because he didn't understand the rules under which I live,
he thought me harmless.  Knowing those rules well, I barely gave it
a thought.  The teeth clamped down on the webbing between his thumb
and forefinger provoking a howl of outrage and pain.  The taste of
blood was a joy to the mouth.  He slapped me back handed across the
face and my own blood mingled with his in my mouth, but it was
nothing.  The wound would heal only very slowly on such a mobile
area of flesh.  With luck it would hurt for weeks.

     The basic rule is simple.  I am allowed, unless specifically
told otherwise, to satisfy animal needs by animal means.  On the
other hand I may only use peculiarly human abilities, such as
manipulation with the hands, walking upright and speech, or
operating even the simplest gadgets such as doorknobs, in carrying
out an order, and then only to the absolute minimum extent necessary
to comply.  I can function at work only because I am under orders to
pretend I'm a person while I'm there.  At parties, I am ordered to
be nice to the guests.  I had had no such orders that evening.

     This had been a risky enterprise, however.  Just because what I
had done was within the Rule, that didn't mean I wouldn't be
punished.  The Rule binds me, not Her.  But it payed off.  She
laughed.  I had pleased Her!  I could not be sure, of course, but I
had hopes that our relationship would now be on the way back to
normal.

====================================================================

                          Country Life II

I was getting increasingly nervous.  After the Dirk incident things
had seemed better at first.  I hadn't seen the creep again, but
there had been other lovers.

     There were two signs, very ominous when taken together.  The
first was that She seemed to be using me for sexual pleasure less
and less often.  The second was that She was being unusually kind to
me.  She dropped a whole slice of cheesecake, something I lust
after, on the kitchen floor and though She cursed, I was pretty well
convinced it was no accident.  When there was no lover, She allowed
me to stay later than usual in the house.  I was pretty sure I knew
what was on Her mind.  She was gradually coming to the conclusion
that castration was the most humane course of action.  Increasingly
denied the only outlet for my sex drive permitted me by the Rule and
the belt, I was beginning to wonder if she was right myself.

     Mostly, I was afraid of the pain.  I was never one of those
people who take pleasure in pain, especially not my own.  Oh, my
tolerance has increased, but I still fear it.  From the beginning
She had understood that too much pain used as punishment would
become ineffective, since I would habituate to it or even begin to
enjoy it.  If I were to be gelded, She would have to do it herself,
and I didn't doubt Her hand would be steady.  The trouble is that
although She worked as a biochemist, She would not be able to get
the local anaesthetic that a vet would use.  The vet, poor man,
turned a blind eye to a lot.  I had only once heard him complain
about the situation, and that was when the pigs went down with an
infection he was convinced they had from me, but beyond a certain
point he certainly wouldn't go.

     To understand why She was going to obliged to make this
"unkindest cut", it's best to try to see the nature of our mutual
obligations from their beginning, barely (it seems incredible) a
year previously.

     When we first went beyond friendship we played the switch game,
but it soon became apparent that I was the natural bottom.  We tried
an oath of obedience, at first for a week, then renewed weekly, and
finally "until death do us part".  It was very difficult at first.
I never deliberately broke it, but habit kept betraying me.  So when
I took the oath, what I swore to was to do everything in my power to
obey Her every command.  She, in return, promised to do everything
in Her power to help me keep my oath and it was a promise She kept
consistently, mercilessly, and with ingenuity.  At this point we
were quietly married.

     Of course, obedience became more natural and, ultimately, easy
with practice.  I began to feel a shadow of discontent.  As I first
accepted the commitment, I had felt the sense of shedding a heavy
weight.  The heavy weight was, I think, the responsibility that goes
with freedom.  But having shed so much of that weight, I now became
more sensitive to what remained.  We discussed it.  We concluded
that I still had too much freedom.  I was, in effect, free to do
anything She had not forbidden, and that covered much ground,
despite so many standing orders that it was hard work to keep track
(though pain is a great aid to memory).  We discussed extending the
oath so that I would do nothing without orders but it was
impracticable.  The problem was that my biological needs were known
directly only to myself.  To ask permission every time I was thirsty
or needed to relieve myself would not only be a nuisance for her, it
would also be me taking the initiative, which contradicted the whole
idea.

     "That would make you a kind of Zombie needing to be ordered to
do every little thing.  You'd have less initiative than a dog," She
pointed out, and thus the Rule was born.  We saw that the level of
initiative of a dog was about right for me.  The rule is really very
simple.  I may use animal means to satisfy animal needs.  I may use
human means only to the minimum degree necessary to comply with
orders.  If I'm thirsty, I can go out to the kitchen and drink from
my bowl.  If I need to relieve myself, I can go outside, on all
fours of course, and lift my leg (providing the door is not latched,
of course).  There are inevitably grey areas.  If I absolutely must,
I can communicate a need doggy fashion.  I can bring her my water
bowl in my mouth if it is empty, I can knock on bottom of the back
door if I absolutely must go out.  This will often earn me a minor
punishment and almost always a telling off, but it gets me into a
lot less trouble than, say, pissing on the floor.

     We tried this for a week and it was hard.  Again, habits kept
betraying me.  We both worked hard at it.  She bought the collar, at
first just to give me a shock when I vocalised, which I did too
often without thinking about it.  Then She got the thing modified to
remind me to keep my body horizonal, and not to tug too hard at
leash or tether.  It helped a lot to avoid the errors I made when I
was inattentive and bad habits caused misbehaviour.  I also wore the
"boots" on my arms for long periods to get me out of the unconscious
habit of handling things.  A habit which often got me punished at
first.

     By the end of the week I was beginning to improve by leaps and
bounds, losing the old habits and starting to form new ones.  I felt
again that wonderful, paradoxical sense of freedom, in much stronger
measure.  I made the oath perpetual with great enthusiasm.  Again
She made the complementary promise to do all in Her power to help me
to keep the Rule.  We also instituted regular confessionals to deal
with those cases where I slipped up without Her being aware of it.

     Masturbation is a persistent problem.  Masturbation is not,
generally, an animal means, though sexual frustration is an animal
need.  It became the most common cause of my being punished.  It
became apparent that it was always going to be very difficult to
control.  So She made the chasity belt.  It helps.

     At first I slept on the floor at the foot of the bed.  The
trouble was that I kept being caught short in the night and having
to wake Her so She could let me out to urinate.  One night She got
so irritated that as soon as I went outside She shut the door behind
me and went back to bed.  It was a cold night.  I began to worry
about hypothermia.

     I checked the outbuildings.  All the doors were latched.  I saw
that there was only one way open to me within the Rule to keep warm.
With hands and feet I dug a trench in the dung heap and buried
myself as best I could.  My feet were like ice and I slept not a
wink but the warmth of decomposition kept my core temperature up.

     How She laughed when She found me like that in the morning.
"Of course, that's the obvious solution," She said.  From then on I
slept and ate with the pigs, finding, to my surprise, that the straw
bedding was more comfortable than the carpet.

     Now that she was making less use of me sexually, the pressure
to masturbate was becoming more of a problem again.  I might not be
able to touch it, and a hard-on hurt in the confines of the harness
but I still had my imagination.  She knew this as well as I did.
The promise to help me keep to the Rule still bound Her, yet to have
used me when She felt no desire would be a betrayal of our
relationship.  There seemed only one real solution.

     But suddenly It seemed that She might have thought of another
one.  She became very busy and I spent more time in the sty than
usual.  A couple of times She was away from home, once for three
days, leaving one of Her new lovers to feed us livestock.  There was
much brown paper in the waistbasket, denoting parcels.  She seemed
happier but more pensive and was offhand with me.  Naturally She
told me nothing of Her plans.  Why would She?  I don't do decisions
these days.

     One evening She came into the piggery with a mysterious box
which had some controls and a couple of wires coming from it.  She
put me into the crush pen as usual but then I felt two needles
pushed under the skin of the back, one in the neck and one near the
base of the spine.  Suddenly my whole body was full of pins and
needles.  The sensation increased until is seemed unbearable and I
discovered that all muscles seemed to be locked.  "Did you feel
that?" She asked, and added the necessary command "Answer." I tried
but my vocal apparatus refused to obey.  "Oh, of course," She said
and the pins and needles stopped.  She gave me a token smack for
failing to obey before, and said "Did you feel me stick the needle
in your arse?  Answer now." "No Lady" I replied; if there had been
pain from the needle, the pins-and-needles sensation had swamped it.
It seemed She had found me an anaesthetic of sorts.

     Three days later, She seemed to be ready.  Before ordering out
of the sty that evening She ordered me to empty my bladder as
completely as possible.  She then gave me the most thorough wash of
my life, using some kind of liquid soap.  Rather than put the belt
back on she put a simple condom on me.  Then She led me to the tool
shed.

     The tool shed was originally intended as a byre although,
nowadays, it is only used that way when I am ill and quarantined to
prevent the pigs catching something from me.  This evening it had
been totally cleaned out and smelled of disinfectant.  In the middle
was a heavy wooden table, freshly sanded.  There were straps
attached to the legs.  There was also an insulated ice box, some
metal boxes and the electrical box.  I started to shake violently.
She ordered me to sit on one end of the table and fastened straps
around my ankles.  Then She pushed the two needles from the
paralysis box into my back and had me lie back.  She then pulled my
forearms down over the sides of the table and secured my wrists to
the other legs.  She stroked my hair.  "There, there.  You know you
have to trust me to do what is right for us both.  This will solve
our little problem one way or the other.  Trust me."  With that, She
turned on the current.

     What I experienced wasn't exactly pain but it was certainly
unpleasant.  It was as if my body from the neck down was dead meat.
I could see her take a succession of surgical instruments and work
with them.  What she was doing seemed far more complex than I knew
castration to be.  At last, She told me to brace myself and turned
off the current.  I felt as if someone had just expertly put the
boot in.  She then brought in my boots, collar and leash.  "Now
don't touch yourself," She ordered as She undid the straps.  She put
the boots on my arms and the collar on my neck, then tethered me to
the usual ring She uses when I sleep in there.  She brought me some
clean straw bedding and a bowl of water.  After I had settled, She
cleaned up the instruments and wiped up the blood.  I glimpsed two
small, bloody objects in a kidney shaped dish.  "Yes, the source of
the problem," She said, catching the direction of my gaze.  "A nice
little titbit for the Sara."  Sara was the big sow.  She was in
season at the moment and that made her irritable.

     For three days She kept me in the building, a small heater
keeping it pleasantly warm.  She was in and out all the time.
Constantly replacing the bedding and repeatedly examining my
scrotum.  On the morning of the third day She came in with an
electro-ejaculator and a condom.  She efficiently collected a semen
sample.  "Now, we'll see," She said.

     About fifteen minutes later She came back and sat on the table,
looking very seriously at me.  "I owe you an apology and an
explanation," She said.  I was genuinely shocked.  In the course of
our relationship never once had She apologised.  "When I made that
`joke' about castration way back, that was wrong, and weak of me.
In our relationship you give, I take, you know that.  That is in our
respective natures.  You have given me everything, and I have seen
how glad you are to be rid of it.  You have given me your future.
In making that threat I gave a piece of future back to you, forced
it on you.  I didn't want to have that piece.  But that was a
selfish, thoughtless act.  Well, that piece of future is gone now
from both of us."

     I realised how right She was.  That fear was gone from me now.
I literally had nothing left to lose!

     "You know," She went on, "that ever since I decided that you
were one of the livestock, we have always wanted you to be able to
earn your keep that way, as livestock."  It was true.  I had come to
hate working like a person, wearing clothes.  Keeping up the
pretence, and that was exactly what it felt like, was a constant
strain.  "Well, I think I have found a way.  I don't know if you
have heard about the progress in pig to human xenotransplants but
the success rate is now better than human to human transplants,
thanks to genetically engineered pigs with human antigens.  Well, I
managed to find one that matches your profile.  When they used its
heart, I swiped a piece they'd never have thought to use.  They'll
never miss them, the rest of the pig goes straight to the butchers.
I just checked your sperm count, my little piggy, and they've
taken!"

     She watched understanding and contentment dawn in my face.
Then She unhitched my leash from the wall.  "Come on, lets go cure
Sara's itch."