A Tale Of Two Families

Chapter 34

Patrica made a few notes in the big A4 diary they were keeping records in. Her daughter Eva had named it the DDD book, the daily dairy diary or the ‘moo cow’ book! Whereas she and her elder daughter referred to it simply as the logbook, a more appropriate name for its function as the technical record of their observations, measurements, dosages and events in the new dairy.

Twice a week, she sent an email to France with a summary of how her livestock were progressing and the drugs and dosages given. She also sent an abbreviated copy to her friend Margret, who followed the project with interest while making tentative arrangements for her future dairy herd. That wasn't likely to happen for some time, though, according to Alice's friend Heather. They’d just taken in no less than ten muscular young colts from one of those Eastern ex-Russian provinces that had unpronounceable names that always ended in ‘stan’. Borat territory, Heather had called it!

Her friend often undertook one of those large commissions, having developed an excellent global reputation for such specialised tasks. Yet another oil-rich Arab Prince offloading some of his dollar surpluses upon his hobby—in this case, an octet of strong young colts to pull a sizeable open carriage around his desert estate. Eight to be in harnesses, and two in reserve back at the stable should they be needed. An entire football team almost, bar one, and according to Alice, they had been just that when they were abducted. Both women had wondered what had happened to the eleventh member, but….well, it wasn’t important, and they had other things on their minds.

Far too many other things for both mind and hands! Alice was still complaining about losing her general work slave back to the nursery. That was a source of friction between the sisters at present, but then that was nothing new. When hadn’t there been a little friction between the two as Eva had grown older? But there was no doubt that the addition of the dairy had added considerably to their daily workload, and that was just the usual animal husbandry stuff, such as feeding, cleaning, mucking out, and so forth.

 Add in the injections, the lab stuff they had to do, record keeping, and so on, and not forget that the two hucows had to be serviced daily by their captive bull, adding a considerable burden to their lives. It was not that mother and daughter regretted the ‘experiment’ as they called it, for it was yet another aspect of human-animal ownership that both delighted in. Especially now, both cows had started lactating slightly, and watching the bull in action was always entertaining!

Besides, they probably didn’t have to do half of what her husband called the ‘bumf’ side, an old military term for paperwork, apparently. Still, her French colleagues had been so helpful that Patrica felt obliged to assist them as much as possible in their interesting experiments. It was a bit tedious and added to the daily workload for both mother and daughter.

Neither of them was the least religious, but Sunday had been allocated the rest day, the one day of the week both cows and their bull got a day off or a little different from the usual routine, and they were contemplating extending that to the whole weekend. A decision taken not from the point of animal welfare or within the parameters of their ongoing experiment but driven by the necessity of completing other chores. They still had a stable and its captive occupants to look after and the kennel plus those two bitches at the house to keep usefully occupied.

“Not enough hours in the day. No peace for the wicked!” Patrica had grumbled recently as she joined her daughter in the end room of the new dairy building, which they’d named ‘The Bull Pen’.

“And we are wicked, very, very, very times a thousand wicked!” Alice had responded with a cruel laugh. A somewhat accurate statement given the whip she was holding, and no doubt Beefy Beefcake would agree with every single very and quite a few more. Not a thousand for the way the girl hit. He probably wouldn’t have lasted the first hundred, but as usual, it had seemed like a thousand and hurt like ten thousand. Alice was not a girl to indulge in half-measures!

Busy or not, Alice had taken time out of her schedule to deliver yet another object lesson to him. “Entirely his own fault for getting mouthy instead of eating his breakfast” " the girl had snapped at her mother in response to a questioning look as the girl was doubling up her short dog whip, watching Beefy reluctantly eating from his trough. It had been Alice’s turn to feed the dairy animals, and the silly beast had made a mistake or rather made two mistakes, either one of which would have angered the girl immediately, and Alice was a girl best not to anger!

Beefy hadn’t been resident in his primitive  ‘bullpen’ for all that long, though, and given the somewhat improbable situation he found himself in, his lack of enthusiasm and cooperation was perhaps understandable. Foolish in the extreme, as they say, but perfectly reasonable, even logical, given that   Beefcake and his twin brother had somewhat natural belligerent personalities. They’d bullied their smaller classmates mercilessly through both junior and middle-grade years at school, and later, both of them had left numerous bruises on their high-school dates.

None of that was known to Alice, nor was it the least relevant. The twins could have carried out whatever juvenile mayhem suited them be it stealing lunch-box contents, beating their smaller classmates half to death or later raping every girl they’d dated for all she cared. Saints or sinners, it didn’t make any difference to her, but belligerence, disrespect, and blatant disobedience did matter and would be swiftly and painfully dealt with!

Unfortunately for Beefy,  Alice was not a girl who allowed understanding, reason, or logic to interfere with her daily routine. Nor would the girl ever make exceptions for a new arrival’s natural inclination to object to this cruel, bizarre and unbelievable treatment. Trying to object to such treatment verbally was not something she would appreciate!

Beefy’s mouth and foolish tongue were busily engaged in doing what they should have done in the first place when Patrica entered his pen. Alice had freed his mouth to eat his breakfast, not to mouth obscenities at her and utter pointless threats to her continued wellbeing. He might be big,  bulky and well muscled, but harnessed and restrained as he was, there was only one person in the pen whose continued ‘wellbeing’ was at risk, and it wasn’t Alice!

Five agonisingly long minutes on the receiving end of her whip had reminded him of that simple fact. Indeed, most of that foolish verbal aggression and reluctance had vanished after the first two minutes, replaced by a lot of other less threatening verbal noise as he endured an additional three minutes of leather impacting hard upon his bull hide to reinforce the message. Alice hadn’t even needed to give a single command as he sensibly lowered his big head and opened his mouth to eat rather than abuse his pretty but merciless captor.

“Bad news, I’m afraid, darling. I’ve just been talking to Margret; she sends her regards, but it’s a no-go with Lucinda. That new commission she’s got has scotched the idea of the girl joining us; they’ve got their hands full with all those new ponies!”

“Yeah, I suspected that might be the case. I forgot to mention it yesterday, but I spoke to Heather the other night, and she sounded pretty doubtful about it. They’re super busy, and according to Heather, there’s another similar job in the offing in a month or two, female ones this time, but yet another bunch fresh from the wild. Heather sounded a bit dubious about it, but then you know Heather, a perfectionist when it comes to training such livestock. She didn’t come right out and say, but I got the impression she thinks Margrets getting a tad too greedy or maybe over-extending herself is a better way of putting it. Heather is worried about standards dropping. Anyway, bottom line, she’s out of the picture so far as helping for a bit, and she was pretty sure Margret wouldn’t let Lucinda go; besides, the girl only just started, so she’d be pretty raw anyway”.  

Patrica frowned. “The whole idea was to find someone to help us and send her along if she deemed her suitable after a couple of weeks of familiarisation in her stable. Even raw would be a useful pair of hands. Oh well,” she shrugged, “Maybe we should rope in Eva a little more and see if my husband can tear himself away from his big new fuck toy!”

Alice gave a short bark of derisive laughter and pulled a disbelieving face. “No way. It’s hard enough getting the lazy little brat to muck out Patootie and do her fair share elsewhere! As for…well, you know what I think about ‘him!’  She put a lot of contempt into that final word. We’d spend all our time watching that useless pair and never get anything done ourselves. Too many cooks and two of them, figuratively speaking, couldn’t boil so much as a single egg between them, let alone make the soup!”.

“Broth, dear, broth and talking of food, he’s left some” Patrica nodded to the feeding trough as Beefy raised his head and looked as though he was about to stand up, or as far as he could given the short leash that led from his heavy collar to a stout steel staple in the wall above his shallow food trough. He ought to have known better. Even in the short interval he’d been there, he should have learned not to do that. His owners expected, no demanded, that every scrap of food they provided be eaten regardless, leaving so much as a single grain of rice would not be permitted.

Patrica winced as Alice’s whip swiftly reminded their big, intransigent bull of that fact. She had one of her migraine headaches stubbornly hanging around, and though only mild, those howls of agony were pretty damn jarring, even if it was necessary. Big boy needed to learn; the sooner, the better for all of them!

Alice paused, hesitated, and then lowered her arm reluctantly, her body giving an involuntarily little shiver of sheer pleasure. He did yowl so beautifully that it seemed a pity to stop, but she was a practical girl. Besides, the unruly beast was bound to irritate her again before the day was done, plus she invariably encouraged his aggressive daily couplings with the hucows with a long slender cane.

“Heather is going to have a word with Margret. She has a possible substitute in mind, but she’s a bit young, so she hesitated to mention her before and…”

“And what and how young?” Patrica asked curtly as her daughter slowly folded her whip and tucked it under her waist belt,

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, mother! I’m not an idiot, and neither is Heather. Cassie, that’s short for Cassandra, by the way, is old enough…” Alice paused, wrinkled her pretty nose thoughtfully, and then shrugged. “Well, age of consent old enough and kids mature pretty early these days, don’t they? Plus, I gather she’s a keen type and Heather said she’s a good worker. Cassie spent three weeks helping out at the stable last summer, and the girls at a loose end since she got expelled!”

“Expelled!” Patrica rolled he eyes and opened her mouth to say something but changed her mind noticing that  Beefy’s head was cocked to one side as if listening, which he probably was since he didn’t have anything else to occupy him other than avoiding her daughter's whip. That reminded her of an earlier discussion she’d had with Alice. They employed their two-legged equines as draft animals at times around the little estate, so maybe they should do the same for their new bull. A little strenuous exercise wouldn’t hurt him, well not the exercise anyway!

But that brought her straight back to the workforce shortage or, to use the modern term, the human resources situation or lack of it! They needed more such hands to manage the growing number of non or no-longer-human resources, didn’t they?

Alice chuckled as she exited the pen. “Yup, expelled from a rather expensive Swiss/French convent school in one of those places that sits astride the border between two countries. From what Heather said, I gather Cassie is not the academic type nor very conformist. Nuns run the place on fairly strict lines, and having been chucked out of two schools in the UK, her mother hoped it might be good for her. Cassie loved the country, town and scenery but was far less fond of the syllabus and those responsible for delivering it!”

“Goodness, so what did the girl do?”

Alice shrugged. “Heather didn’t know, but evidently, it was bad enough for them to drive her to the nearest airport and immediately put her on a plane home with a short phone call to mummy to meet her! She’s at a loose end and has been badgering her mum to let her return to Margrets. From what Heather told me, it seems the girl has no interest in further academic studies and loathes exams” Alice paused and laughed. “Who doesn’t, for that matter? Apparently, she won’t countenance the idea of Uni and has no idea what she wants to do so maybe a kind of working gap year would suit her and maybe us. Bags of energy in need of a suitable outlet, according to Heather and Cassie took to stable work like the proverbial duck to water!”

Patrica pursed her lips, considering the idea. “She sounds very young, but then so is Eva and maybe having someone around of a similar age who is willing to pull her weight would be a good example for a certain lazy young madam? How come she ended up working at Margrets in the first place?”.

Alice shrugged. “The usual friend of a friend and discrete word of mouth. Her mother’s divorced and has a close, very close girlfriend who keeps some exotic pets caged in her basement. Cassie, being the curious kind, went exploring one day when they were staying there and …well, as Heather put it, they returned home to find a not-so-secret basement entry door open, and the young miss downstairs amusing herself by teaching them new tricks. Given the girl's rapidly developing curiosity in such creatures and that she wasn’t interested in accompanying them on a month-long cruise viewing Mediterranean antiquity sites, her accompanying those pets to Margrets new facility for a few weeks was a no-brainer. That’s another area your friend has branched out into.”

“I didn’t know that?”

“No, I didn’t either. Heather has been interested in adding a kennel for some time, and Margret recently took the idea on board as another revenue stream, plus providing some additional entertainment. However, instead of keeping a few doggies of their own, she’s doing it as a boarding kennel. They get a variety of breeds to look after. It’s not an enormous turnover because there aren’t that many prospective customers around, but enough to keep them amused, cover the costs, and keep the bank balance ticking upwards. That’s how young Cassie ended up spending a month playing stable girl with ‘Auntie Margret!’ What do you think?”.

Patrica pursed her lips thoughtfully, reached for her back pocket, and swore. “Left it on the office table. I think I’ve got Heather’s number; I know I have. I might have a quick word and then phone Margret. I’m due to give her a verbal update anyway” She nodded back towards Beefy and winked at her daughter.

*****

Three days in a row, both producing steadily now after those booster injections, she wrote at the end of the logbook entry and, after a moment, drew a line underneath to emphasise her entry. Very satisfactory, she told herself, rereading her latest notes and then flipping back a few pages at random to glance at previous entries.

“Finished that list, Ma’am.” Cassie's pert head poked around the half-open door. “Eva wants me to cart race. Will that be okay?”

Patrica turned to smile at the eager youngster. “Heavens, already! That was a long list of chores, and please, don’t……” she sighed, shook her head and shrugged but decided against mentioning it again. Ever since the girl had visited with her mother for a brief interview, she’d politely called her prospective employer ma’am and carried on doing so no matter how many times she’d been asked to call her Patrica. Alice, she called Alice, Eva she called Eva and….well, she took after her daughters so far as her husband went and hardly even addressed him, let alone call him by name. Indeed, she probably used the same derogatory names her daughters did in private and out of her hearing, she suspected, although not to his face!

That thought caused a frown to crease her brow as she considered his position in her household. Patrica was not an overly emotional woman and never had been. She loved her daughters, of course, even though one of them frequently vexed her to extremes. She was, to a certain extent, genuinely fond of the man Alice often referred to as ‘Dickhead’, but then she was fond of her livestock also, wasn’t she in her own unique way likewise the two mature women whose submissive tongues so frequently sated her high sexual drive.

Sometimes, she wondered why she’d married him rather than just ‘living in sin’ as her paternal grandmother would have put it. Partners, as they now described themselves in such relationships. She wasn’t the least bit religious, but she was a practical woman, so maybe that was it. Being married rather than just living together gave her more of a hold over him. At least it felt that way, and there had been a time after…after her first youthful matrimonial mistake when having a man around had been helpful in a social scene sense.

Maybe she had been a shade too hasty, but he had been, indeed was, a very handsome man and then add in his boundless vigour and impressive penis and well….she shook her head and smiled. Maybe she had been a touch hasty when a date led to a one-night stand, which turned into a three-night stand. Plus, he had other qualities, his relative tractability being one. By no means submissive in the sense she demanded from her assorted captive livestock. Still, in an amiable manageability sense and of course, he’d not baulked in the least when faced with her ‘unusual interests’ as she’d casually put it that first time she’d brought him back here and shown him the stable, or rather its captive occupants.

She’d sounded him out a little beforehand, of course, pillow talk and the sharing of fantasies of the more extreme variety, and he’d been surprisingly forthcoming, not to mention imaginative, and perhaps that had been another bonus. He was an eminently desirable specimen, and leaving him swimming freely in the social pool she’d frequented was too risky, she’d decided. While his massive endowment and rugged, dark good looks quickly gained him access to her social set, his financial endowment was the reverse of his manhood. To say Gigolo might have been a little unfair but not too wide of the mark. It wouldn’t be long before someone else hooked and caught him on a more permanent basis, so she’d struck first!

Besides, apart from her gorgeous hedonistic self and more than comfortable financial status, she had precisely the sort of bait he would be unable to resist. Thus, knowing something of her husband’s extreme fantasies, she’d been more amused than surprised on the second morning of his initial visit when a much younger Alice had angrily barged into her home office mid-morning. ‘Had she permitted her ‘new boyfriend’ to do what he was ‘doing’ to her colt Pipkins in the stable?’

Pipkin was more Shetland Pony size-wise than regular Pony and decidedly cute. She’d always regretted selling him; technically, he hadn’t belonged to Alice, but the girl was still relatively new to the stable and had taken a liking to the small animal. Not entirely new, for she’d been watching mummy in the stable with her beasts from a very early age, but new in the sense that she was of an age to be actively involved in the stable when not at school and loving every minute! It would be a few more months before she received her first pony as a birthday present, and that had been partly to mollify her hostility to her mother's imminent marriage to ‘Dickhead’. Patrica reminded herself that name had been around for a while and added to over the intervening years, and then a polite cough interuptred her memories.

“Sorry, excuse me, ma’am”, Cassie apologised, raising a small hand to her mouth.

Patrica laughed and shook her head as though to clear it. “Sorry, dear, I was daydreaming—old memories. Yes, of course, you can go with Eva. You don’t even have to ask; providing them with regular exercise is part of your job description” She paused and then chuckled. “Not that you have one. Maybe I should draft one for you at some point?”

The girl responded with a giggle and an impish grin. “That’s okay, Ma’am. I kind of get the general picture, and I’m learning a lot, especially from Alice, even from Eva,” she added as an afterthought that made Patricia laugh.

“Well, I’d stick to Alice for advice if I were you rather than Eva. As I'm sure you've noticed, my younger daughter isn’t terribly enthusiastic about stable essential chores. Eva tends to save her enthusiasm for…..” Patrcia broke off as Cassie giggled again somewhat loudly and repeated that action with her hand to her mouth, saying, “Whoops!”

Patrica nodded. “Exactly, and don’t let her bully you about it. She’s got no rank here as such. Eva might be a shade older, but you’ve my full permission to jump on her if you feel she’s being a bit too enthusiastic in other directions. She has a tendency towards wanton savagery at times that I won’t tolerate. Ponies don’t grow on trees; they aren’t easily replaceable, as I’m sure you fully realise!”

Cassie nodded, her eyes suddenly wide, and her youthful face became serious as she took in the meaning of what her employer was saying and the ultimate implications.

“Precisely!” Patrica nodded with satisfaction. It had all been fun and games for the young miss so far. How much thought had Cassie given to the fact that none of her new charges occupied their stalls, kennels and pens because they wanted to be in them? Nor would they appreciate her expending youthful energy via that whippy switch she’d readily adopted and was invariably tucked under the wide hipster belts she favoured over ripped jeans or leggings. It was already as much an accessory as the pink iPhone in her back pocket.

‘Petite, pert, pretty, and potentially a right little sadist!’ Alice had reported back to her mother after the girl's first full day. ‘But a very willing worker and she listens to what you tell her, unlike someone else we both know!’.

The girl was delightfully precocious, with a maturity several years in advance of her age and, according to her mother, a tomboy but in a decidedly female way. Another Heather in the making, perhaps even looking a little similar, although with freckles and her short mane of untidy, wayward hair was blonde rather than that vivid red.

*****

“It was all so boring, I mean dull and no fun!” Carrie had told them during dinner that first evening as she quickly shrugged off her academic record and repeated expulsions. “Especially that last place in Switzerland. Like Colditz with nuns rather than guns!”

“What did you do?” Alice asked curiously, having warmed to the youngster when she’d taken her on a tour of the little estate earlier and introduced her to the livestock she’d be helping to look after.

“I…..” Carrie paused a desert spoon halfway to her mouth, surveyed her curious dinner companions, and grinned at them. “Well, I suppose it wasn’t very nice, on reflection. Funny though, very funny,” she pulled a face, “Well, I thought so, but they did overreact. No sense of humour, some people! This pudding is scrumptious. I will have to be careful here unless I want to end up looking like Sister Assumpta she…..well, she deserved it, the bad-tempered fat cow and the others! Yes?” she finished questioningly, looking around the table at them all before swallowing a spoonful of blackcurrant pie and ice cream.

Well, the girl was quite loquacious, so doubtlessly they’d find out what heinous deed if that was the appropriate term for the crime she’d committed at some point. Carrie had already been forthcoming about certain aspects of her home life or her mother’s home life, which explained why she hadn’t been shocked by what she’d seen on the earlier tour. ‘Hardly raised so much as an eyebrow!’ Alice had reported back ‘’but interested, oh my, very interested!’

“Mummy’s girlfriend keeps pets as well”, Cassie explained during the main course. “When she decided to move in permanently with her, then I got to see them and help out during the hols and after I was….well, you know…. kind of surplus to requirements at that fuc…that strait-laced convent school.

Chichima’s pretty cool; her father is some big-wig type at the Nigerian embassy in London, related to the ambassador. Her name means sweet and precious girl, and she told me in her local language. The family owns a zillion oil wells on their tribal land or whatever. She told me that the country’s the largest oil exporter in Africa, so her dad doesn’t just work in London but owns a decent-sized chunk of it!”

“Makes a change from Arabs, I suppose”, her husband had muttered sourly. Not unexpectedly, since he was something of a confirmed racist in his views. Patrica had no such prejudices, taking a far more simplistic view. There were people like her who owned ‘animals’, and those who didn’t, and the colour of their skin, race, religion or nationalities were irrelevant. Likewise, those who were ‘owned’ and reluctantly ended up on the wrong side of the divide. They counted for nothing, less than nothing!

Immigration was one current topic guaranteed to set him off on an angry diatribe no matter how often she pointed out the positive aspects for people like her. Every article in the paper or on the news about ‘boat people’ crossing the channel triggered an outburst from him. Yes, it was totally out of control, and the authorities seemed to have no grip, solution, or idea of how to stop the flow. Equally and more importantly, no one was counting heads, and the fact that those little rubber boats went missing all the time or washed ashore empty of occupants was no longer causing any outcry, and of course, not all of them had drowned!

Indeed, she heard a rumour that at least one of those criminal gangs organising such crossings was dispensing with the inflatable boat bit altogether for some of their customers, doubling, probably quadrupling their revenue streams. In the first place, charge the poor bastards a fortune for getting them from whatever hell hole they were desperate to escape from. Then, they were transported to the French coast and supposedly a place in an overloaded inflatable plus a cheap life vest, which was more for reassurance than practicality.

However, not all of those hopeful souls desperately looking for a new life were making it to that final hazardous stage, so there was currently a slight glut of available livestock on the market. Those so chosen were guaranteed a new life but very different from what they’d envisaged! It had even reached the stage where you could place an order in advance and be quite picky, or so she’d heard. Her husband was a fool if he thought people like her would get upset about such an easy source of fresh material!

“Mummy and Chichima were introduced at an Embassy party,” Cassie had continued her narrative. One of those boring diplomatic drinky do’s, she told me. All trade talks and insincere apologies for past colonial misunderstandings, blah, blah! Anyway, Erik was Mummy’s boyfriend at the time, worked at the Norwegian embassy and looked like a bloody Viking! About seven feet tall and all hair, beard and wild looking…even in his evening suit! Nice guy, I liked him, a big cuddly bear of a man and, according to mummy, big where it counted for her!” Cassie giggled, putting her hand to her mouth.

“Not the only mother whose mind runs along those lines!” Alice had whispered to her younger sister, causing the girl to choke and splutter as she sipped her sparkling wine.

“Anyway,” Cassie continued a moment later, correctly translating the encouraging hand movement the spluttering Eva made in her direction. “Big ‘Eric the idiot’ was more interested in discussing the price of imported Bananas or Mangos, whatever, and I gather that his interest in terms of rape and pillage had been falling off of late. That left her playing wallflower, and Chichima took note”. The girl paused, looked at her new boss for a moment, and then shrugged. “My mother’s a bit like you, Ma’am. She's pretty good-looking for her age. What?” the latter being directed at three of her amused dinner companions.

“Really?” Parica commented quietly with a very composed, expressionless look on her face.

Cassie blushed. “Oh, well….I mean, you are, I……” she paused, thought about it and then obviously concluded that climbing out of the hole was better rather than risk digging it any deeper. “Anyway, she and Chichima hit it off straight away, and since it was a very boring do, they snuck out early and went back to Chicky’s place. Mummy’s always been a bit bi, and Chicky she soon discovered, was not wholly chick, much to her delight. She’s absolutely drop-dead gorgeous in all aspects, but she does come with a little or, rather, not so little extra!

The Viking got his marching orders the very next morning by email, telling him to be packed up and gone by lunchtime. Bit of a shame because I liked Erik, but no great loss. Chicky, that's what I call her, is way cooler plus, she always treats me as an equal, not her lover’s brat. The attendant minor nuisance!”

“Really?”

Cassie nodded and took a sip from her wine glass. “Mummy’s always been what … well….em….” Cassie paused and then shrugged. “Let's call it a woman of appetites! I read that expression in a romantic novel once, and it kinda stuck in my mind, but you get my meaning, I’m sure?”

“Oh, yes”, Eva assured her, “We get it, don’t we mummy!”

“Can it?” Patrica growled at her youngest daughter, who giggled delightedly at the admonishment and winked at her sister.

Cassie looked from one to the other, then nodded at Eva. “My upbringing probably hasn’t been quite as…..as open as yours” She glanced briefly towards the two statutory figures awaiting a summons to clear the table. Girlie and his Aunt suitably attired in brief, very brief and revealing maid’s outfits. “But Mummy’s never been short of partners nor very quiet when she’s having fun, and I’ve never been very naive. Chicky was a bit of a shock, though!”

“How so?” Alice asked.

Patrica nodded approvingly to herself as she watched her eldest daughter. Although she’d initially suggested it, Alice’s enthusiasm had waned somewhat at the prospect of them employing Cassie, thinking she was too young, too inexperienced, and possibly a potential security risk. Those initial misgivings seemed to have quickly evaporated, for the girl was very vivacious, willing, hardworking, and, as Eva had put it, pretty damn streetwise in terms of the unusual aspects of her new employment! After being shown around, Cassie opted out of getting ‘ settled in’ and starting the following day but had set too immediately and enthusiastically to help muck out the stable alongside Alice and assist with the evening feeding.

Cassie chuckled at the question. “Mummy’s a friend of your friend Margrets and knows a few people with similar interests, if you know what I mean. I’ve only been to her place once, but, well, yeah. I mean, how crazy cool can a place like be? She laughed. “Well, I’m here, aren’t I? Plus, I’ve had some experience with Chicky’s pets. That was definitely part of the shock finding them that time and then seeing that Chicky’s also got something a little extra, or rather a lot extra. She’s what they call a hermaphrodite. She’s all woman with a fantastic figure and tits to die for but also has one humungous cock. I’ve seen it and….” She paused and laughed. “Mummy’s very brave, but I suspect that was part of the attraction, that and the fact that she’s always been a bit bisexual, like I said”.

“Chichima sounds fascinating,” Patrica said.” I wish your mother had stayed longer as well instead of driving back so quickly”.

“Oh, she is. I love her; she’s mega cool and has been more like an older sister to me than anything else. We hit it off immediately; most of her other boyfriends treated me like a kid or thrust stupid, expensive presets at me as if that would impress! Chicky and I clicked from our first meeting and have been Besties ever since, not that it's been all that long, but I think this time Mummy’s in for a long relationship,” Cassie finished with a giggle holding her empty glass out for a refill. “But don’t worry, they’ll both visit me fairly soon”.

“What about these pets?” Eva asked. “Like ours? Did you know about them?” the last question was directed at her mother, who nodded.

“A little. Margret mentioned them when we chatted; I gather you accidentally discovered them. Went exploring and found a door open?”

Cassie shook her head and giggled. “Kind of correct, but a little more to it. It was during the last hols, the last one before I got expelled. I’d been at home a few days acclimatising, so to speak, back to proper civilisation after that horrible convent!” She paused and rolled her eyes before admitting, “To be honest, it wasn’t all that awful, but it wasn’t my thing! Anyway, by then, Mummy had moved in with Chicky, and they’d gone to some upmarket fashion show in the West End, probably to ogle the models as much as look at clothes, and I said no way. I went to one once, and it was boring and full of old women wearing too much makeup and effeminate guys kissing each other and calling everyone dearie!”

“Not to mention expensive clothing that would only fit if you had a figure like a pencil! Alice added.

Cassie nodded. “Anyway, that wasn’t my main reason. I was curious as to why Chicky wanted me to knock before entering her study and why she changed or switched off the big TV monitor screen on the wall. That had been the only time she ever got a bit sharp with me was when I bounced into her study unannounced, and she always switched that screen off, and it wasn’t anything special, just one of those like you have here, showing various security camera views. I didn’t treat the knocking too seriously!”

“Curiosity thus aroused”, Patrica noted.

“Uh, huh?” Cassie shook her head, “It wasn’t or not at first. I’d gone to bed early one night, felt a bit queasy all day, must have dozed for a bit, and then woke up thirsty. I had an urge for a glass of milk, so I went down to the kitchen and was surprised to find no one about.” She pulled a quizzical face. “Well, kinda odd, I thought since they hadn’t planned on going out but being a nosey little bitch and feeling better, I went for a walkabout look-see and drew a complete blank. Nobody was downstairs, and the bedroom they shared was empty; likewise, every room I looked in, I went back to my room feeling a bit puzzled. Later on, I heard them laughing, so I went downstairs only to meet them hurrying up, all excited and hot-looking and not inclined to tell me where they’d been. Just around was all they said as they headed straight for the main bedroom, and then it got noisy. Mummy’s a squealer if ever there was one!”

Eva reached out, picked up the near-empty bottle of Prosecco, poured the last inch or so into Cassie’s glass, and looked questioningly at her.

“No, no, no more!” Cassie said, “Don’t think about opening another bottle on my account. I’m already feeling a bit tiddly and don’t want to oversleep tomorrow, not on my first full day!”

“Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve heard that excuse! Alice sniped, looking sideways at her younger sister, who promptly stuck her tongue out in return.

Cassie giggled at them, considered her wine glass and then pushed it to one side. “I asked them the following morning but got nowhere, of course. That was probably the one time I did feel they were treating me like a five-year-old, which I’m not and thinking about it, I’d concluded there was only one place they could have been.

“Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no lies!” Alice quoted.

“Exactly, and while they weren’t telling lies, they were not being very forthcoming either! Chicky doesn’t have a garage because of where she lives, one of those big old terraced houses in Knightsbridge near Harrods, which is about as exclusive as you can get. She pays for two parking spaces out front, which cost a small fortune each year, but she told me she gets a diplomatic discount because of the embassy connection. Anyway, no garage, no garden, no outbuildings, and so that left only one place that could have been deuced, Miss Sherlock Holmes!”

“The basement”, Eva supplied.

“Yup. Correct Miss Watson. I’ve never read any books but adored the Sherlock TV series. It was a no-brainer, and it had quite a fancy combination lock on it. It was underneath the main staircase and opposite the kitchen. I’d seen it loads of times because the passage kind of jiggled a bit there, behind the staircase and then on into the big kitchen. Chicky had shrugged it off, telling me there was nothing much down there, and the lock had been put on by the previous owner, who stored some valuable old furniture and stuff in the basement. Cassie paused again to consider. “Maybe fancy isn’t the right term. Heavy-duty looking would be better. One of those push-button pads with a little green electronic screen above, which didn’t seem to do anything other than keep telling me I was keying in the wrong number. Didn’t even tell me I had X number of attempts left like some internet sites do if you key in a wrong letter or number on your password!”

“But you sussed it out?” Patrica surmised.

“Yup”, Cassie repeated, looking rather smug” People are so predictable, even those that aren’t idiots. I could have stood there all day playing the random numbers game, so I put my brain to work. I tried different combinations of her cell phone number forwards and backwards, and then I tried birth years. I guessed she was about twenty-seven and got it on my fourth attempt. Year backwards. She must be twenty-eight! She’s changed it now, of course, or rather, I did it for her. Can you believe that, just four numbers! By then, it was too late for secrets, and I wanted full access plus visiting privileges!

Cassie trailed off, looking over at Girlie and his Aunt with a thoughtful glint in her eye. She’d been introduced to the household ‘non-animal’ servant livestock earlier. She hadn’t batted so much as an eyelid in surprise, but Patrica had noticed that same look when she’d appraised Girlie earlier. Perhaps it was just as well her husband was preoccupied with his big ugly fuck toy!

“Well?” Alice said it for all of them.

“Well, what…..oh!” Cassie giggled and then laughed.

“Oh dear, I think someone’s going to fit right in”, Eva chuckled, surveying the frustrated expression on the other three faces seated around the table. She also looked over to the petite older woman in the abbreviated maid’s uniform and imperiously clicked her fingers. “Coffee girl, and be quick about it. You may serve it in the lounge, and Cassie can finish her interesting story sitting comfortably”.