CHAPTER THREE -- AT THE FACILITY
After over an hour, the truck slowed and turned carefully, and then their progress was a bit more bumpy. Finally the truck turned and stopped gently, then slowly reversed until it bumped into something solid. There were sounds of the cab doors opening and closing, footsteps, and then the rear doors opened, bringing the sounds of the outdoors again, together with voices.
With surprise, Gemma recognised the voices as the team leader and her male visitor. They had been in the truck! The woman was still explaining things to the man, who seemed content to listen.
"So here we are. It's not one of the most modern sites, but I like its authenticity."
Gemma's spirits soared; surely she was going to spend her days in rural bliss lying around in grassy meadows!
The two of them were joined by other voices, making greetings. Gemma could not hear what was being said from where she was in the lorry. Then there were clanking sounds behind her; perhaps they were coupling up so that the frames could be wheeled straight into the buildings. Gemma realised she would be first to be unloaded, but when it happened, her frame slid out into the open, but then hit something with a noisy clang of metal, and then her feet and then arms and collar were being freed from the frame. To her surprise, the lorry doors were closed again with a clang and scrape of the locking lever. After a few moments the lorry started and slowly drove away. There was a smell of dust left in Gemma's nostrils, and momentary silence except for bird noise in the distance.
The Superintendent continued her commentary. "So here is the permanent cow who self-indentured this morning, 398. We'll be making some extra modifications to her. Apart from the devoicing procedure I mentioned earlier, she'll have the nubs installed and several piercings. We'll also do the basic hormone supplements; both oxytocin, the milk-drop hormone, and what we call our 'happy' drug, which is a controlled dose of psylocibin. You know, psychedelic mushroom.
From here on they are not generally washed except for those tissue areas involved in production, for hygiene purposes. We find that without clothing they don't smell unduly, mostly their skin smells milky. But because this one is a permanent, so we will apply a hair eradication salve today, to their head, armpits, genital areas and legs. That will be repeated several times over the next few days, usually sufficient to kill off the hair follicles. It makes handling the permanents easier from the employees' point of view, because they all look very similar with bald heads, and there's much less chance of them becoming attached to a particular cow.
For identification purposes they used to be branded, but the plastic ear tags serve adequately as quick visual identification. However, with the new hand-held devices, it's useful to also laser a barcode on them, which the device can read without contact, giving instant access to all their background data. So that's the last process she'll undergo. Then she'll rest for a couple of days."
"......oh, I forgot, no. This one needs milking straight away. Normally the cows take up to a week to start expressing, but it looks as if this one has been practicing, so she's fairly full. A keen one, eh?"
Even as she was absorbing all this new information, Gemma's limbs and body were being handled, her feet being dropped limply to the dock, still in their cuffs. The neoprene waist strap was released and casually discarded together with her blindfold.
Gemma didn't know if she would be able to walk, especially with the heavy metal collar and cuffs on, but then the arms that had been supporting her as she dropped away from the frame, lowered her onto a kind of trolley on her back without her feet touching the ground, and she was wheeled away from the lorry facing backwards. Inside the building, the roof was wooden, with framing and timber slats, but she could see little else. There was a strong smell of straw, of bodies, and perhaps a little of urine. She could see there were four of them wheeling the trolley, all strong men in overalls, so she stayed still, her heart beating strongly.
Finally the trolley came to a halt, and she was lifted bodily, turned in mid-air, and brought down onto her hands and knees onto a floor of straw. Gemma groggily looked up and realised that she was facing some sort of small wooden frame that looked like it would be used for shearing sheep or something like that. Beyond the cage, the midday sun was shining through gaps in the long rough-finished planks that comprised that side of the barn, creating mottled stripes on the straw bed. She was pushed forwards inside the cage, which was also filled with a thick bed of straw, until her head stuck out through two vertical wooden bars into the passage beyond.
Straightaway her neck was clamped tightly, so tightly that she had to concentrate on getting her breath into her lungs through her nostrils rather than gasping through her mouth. Her arms and legs were being fixed again, and then her torso was strapped up against the ceiling of the cage with wide leather bands under her armpits and around her hips and low belly. Once again, she was totally immobilised.
Once again she was aware of the wetness of her gaped opening, was aware of her pressing need, and desperately hoped she would be soothed there soon.
Actually it was not long before Gemma received plenty of attention down there, but it was not to be the kind of attention she was hoping for. There were needles eased into one buttock and then into the depths of each breast. While she was still recovering from these new invasions to her body, she felt her labia being wiped with a very cold liquid, and then someone grasped them carefully. There were pulled back strongly and suddenly a spiking pain sent Gemma into a frenzy of useless flailing. While she was still reacting to the intense pain, she felt cool metal being passed through the wound, and a loud click, before whatever it was, was allowed to drop heavily, so that her labia felt grossly distended. The same happened with her other side.
One of the farmhands came around and crouched down before her face, not bothering to look at her while he fiddled with some equipment. Gemma was absorbed with the thick hairs on his forearms when he looked up, stabilised her face with one hand, and then slid something cold and metallic up into her nostrils. He seemed to squeeze a trigger, and her septum was brutally punched through. Tears streamed into her eyes and she choked up and gagged as her throat reacted, but all she could do was squirm in the tight embrace of the neck stock. Casually, the farmhand fed a thick ring through the hole and let the clasp close. Gemma's attention was filled with the heavy presence of the metal ring on her top lip.