Home(s) On The Lake

“You don’t look good, Rose” sensitive Helia noted. “Do you need a hug? Or loving milk?”

“I need my milk maiden besties—other than the one who’s driving, and thank you for driving, Tent!—”

“–Gladly, y’all!” I interrupted.

“I need to have a cuddly conversation amongst us, hopefully as close up front as we can so Margific Tent can hear us and we can hear her.”

“‘Margific’?”

“Let it go, Regular” she suggested as she petted several of my tentacles easily within her multi-handed reach. “Just trying to turn the name you don’t like into some form indicating high praise you might abide.”

Again-swelling Helia brought a preponderance of softness to their cuddle group, though that’s not to say that Sara and Rose had nothing in this regard to contribute. Through the rear-view mirror I caught a span of getting settled in during which Sara looked genuinely pleased to be so horse-shaped big and have so many soft sexy parts against which Rose and Helia could rest. Rose I knew and know plenty well enough to easily read her pleasure at having and sharing so many generously-fleshy boobs, and just “having” to slightly move one of my clothed tentacle tips against and barely into her huge labia lips.

Notwithstanding Rose’s tent-tip move, in this moment her need was companionship, not arousal. “We’re heading back to Bubblensqueak Lake, as you both know and Tent’s making happen. I’ve been concerned about what’s going on there ever since she and I had to drive off and leave it and our beautiful homes behind. Having now within the last couple of hours seen your home burned to the ground, Sara, I’m gravely concerned and highly anxious about what we’ll find when we reach the lake. That home is all I have… or had. I have nowhere else to go.”

“I feel you” Sara softly smiled, leaning over and gently easing Rose’s upper body towards hers for a closer up-top friendly caring embrace.

“Were either or both of you renters?” Helia asked Rose.

“Didn’t we go over that in the cell?”

“I don’t remember.” {I was probably daydreaming of milk.}

“We both owned our own homes. Put a lot into them, especially her.”

The topic of conversation and especially the refreshed stabbing feelings of that painful day of loss made it difficult for me to function as a driver. Actually what it mostly did was make me drive faster than might have been optimal given posted speed limits, to get to an answer sooner while our supportive new udderly milky friends had our feelings on this matter fresh in their minds, and might be able to better support us.

“Don’t use the past tense, Rose” Sara admonished. “You and Tent own your own homes, until proven otherwise!”

“Not only that, but even if one or both of them are burned down the way Sara’s was, you own the land, so you can rebuild!”

Rose turned and looked at me, seeing how I responded to Helia’s latest positivity. She later told me that my expression was every bit as pained as she’d expected. Yes I enjoyed constructing my own addition and outbuilding initially, but I didn’t want to do it and more all over again so soon!

Sara excitedly waved her handheld around, “My roving dot on Maps says we’re close to Bubblensqueak Lake. Are we?”

“We’re so close that I‘m decelerating right now” I replied, heart figuratively in my throat with anxiety, returning to this place where so much drama and so many wonderful things happened, fearing what might no longer be there, or might have otherwise changed for the worse.

Soon as I turned us off the highway onto the still-familiar dirt access road, I tentacle-lifted Rose, plunking her down in the front passenger seat next to me, for moral support.

“You could’ve just asked, you know. I’m fully capable of walking and worming my way pretty much anywhere I want or need to go.”

“Sorry. I’m… worried.”

“I know” she wanly smiled, attempting to pat my side and winding up patting my huge right boob’s side.

“Need more warm loving softness up here?”

“Yes please, Helia” I responded. “You too Sara, if there’s room.”

Nothing so far that I could see had changed since we left, rounding the first turn that blocked the view of the highway but still some 40 m from the second opposing turn, tall fairly dense sight-through-blocking woods and related greenery on both sides of us. Once we made it through the second, opposite direction turn, we would be able to see the lake and Rose’s then my homes… or at least the land where they’d once stood.

Sara and Helia were as speechless as we were, in their case from wonder and interest in all the new-to-them sights every direction around us, rather than anxiety as for us.

I made the second turn; the moment arrived.

“It’s THERE!” Rose excitedly screamed, pointing her finger out the windshield at her home, by all immediate visual evidence still standing and looking as it had been when we’d left.

She’d barely finished yelling when I saw my beloved home, fully intact, as we’d left it! I could no better contain my excitement than could Rose, “Mine too! And Milk Palace, with its sign still! Where should I park? Where should I park?”

“Anywhere! Doesn’t matter!”

I nearly slammed the rig into Park, not quite off the road between our two houses. Wouldn’t have made it much farther anyway: Rose and I exploded into joyful sobbing of release of fear and worry, in my case blinding myself in my own river of tears.

Our crying and hugging them (as well as each other) got Sara and Helia weeping too.

We (especially me) nearly broke the motorhome’s doors in our (especially Rose’s and my) rush out of it, to find out what each of us had to know next: was the interior intact?

“You check yours I’ll check mine signal me or call me or something!” Rose yelled in a long run-on sentence as she nearly ran on towards her house.

Helia and Sara later told us that they just stood there taking in the beauty of the lake, our homes’ exteriors, and the general surroundings. As was Rose, I was on a hellfire mission to find out what all was going on inside.

{Front door’s unlocked. Alright.}

Opened it, and “HHHHHHHHHHHH!”—everything was there! Just as we’d left it! At least in the main room.

I whacked more than a few things in my rush to check out all the other rooms of my home, finding each one just as we’d left it, like we’d just left this morning! Well OK, not quite: there were thin layers of dust, and things had been moved around a little by the health inspectors and whomever else had been through. But it was mostly OK, including some personal mementos I never expected to see again!

“Ohh!—you startled me!” I didn’t expect to find anyone already inside Milk Palace.

“Sorry” Helia apologized, with a hug as well as the word.

“I should’ve guessed you’d want to come in here first.”

“Milk is one of my life’s main missions.”

“So what do you think?”

“Love the feel in here! The ambiance is mmmpf!” she blew a chef’s kiss.

Rose nearly ripped the screen door off its hinges on her rush in. Thankfully Sara was right behind and caught her over-exuberant door fling in time. A little cozy, but we all fit inside.

“(huff) Looks good to me (puff).”

“You didn’t have to race over here so fast, Premium dear.”

“Yes I did! Had to know that it’s OK (huff)… and you’re OK.”

Helia later told us she felt magic fill the room as Rose and I threw our arms open and she rushed over to me, leaping up into/against me for a deep embrace, aided by a couple of my front tentacles. Kissing close, we gazed into each other’s beautiful faces (well hers anyway), caressing each other’s hair.

“It’s here. All here… our lives.”

“I know” I agreed. “Isn’t that amazing?” Still holding Rose, I turned us both and shared, “Welcome to our world, Sara and Helia.”

“Our home—our combined homes—here on beautiful Bubblensqueak Lake” added Rose.

“Is it my home too?”

“Yes!” we assured Sara together, with Rose adding, “Yours too, Helia.”

“Thank goodness for that!”

“OK let’s go unload the motorhome and get settled in. What’re we going to do with that thing, anyway?” I asked Rose.

“Well over half those involved with that whole enterprise are apparently currently in jail or prison. So I’d say park it out of the way and maybe look into what a person does with those vehicles for long-term storage, then do that and wait for someone to ask for it.”

It felt surreal moving back into the homes we’d left. Mainly into mine, since Rose had left most of her home’s belongings in place there, other than that set of emergency sewing supplies, miraculously still in the motorhome when we reclaimed it and took off. To clarify, I mean surreal in the best way: floating on a cloud of joy, relief, and giddy happiness. If what our now-mutated governor said was true, we were all now free mutant citizens, able to go about our lives with no fear, hiding, nor shame, as long as we respected the rights of the non-mutated to keep their comfort-zone safe distance from us.

It hadn’t been especially warm all day. Now with the sun low in the sky, it was edging on chilly. Amongst the many great joys of being home—home!—I love saying that, and thinking it, still to this day!—was again having our full wardrobes available. Not that either Rose‘s or mine were especially full, given our ongoing mutations prior to having to leave and some since.

Despite being tight on the edge of uncomfortableness, I managed to get into my wonderful full woot! woot! warm outfit that Rose made for me. She hadn’t had as much length nor as many arms when we left, making it harder for her to fully get into anything. Mostly what she wanted was what she already had on: pairs of sturdy work gloves for most of her hands other than her top pair and the next pair down, so she could move about faster with greater comfort. She’d had them on most of the time since roaming around Sara’s burned-down former home to keep her hands warm.

Sara had what she wore when we picked her up: not great, especially for cold weather, but better than nothing. As with Rose and her gloves, the most important thing to Sara was remaining in her two pairs of shoes, which she’d been wearing since inspecting what had been her home and had been nearly new at the time she had to run away and met up with us. Her feet hadn’t grown nor otherwise mutated, making it easy and comfortable for her to keep her feet in her existing footwear.

As with Virgil, whatever Helia might have had didn’t make it into the motorhome, leaving her nude as the temperature dropped. Fortunately I had a ready solution.

“It’s in no way form-fitting, but it should at least keep some of the chill off” I told her as I handed her the huge tent dress I kept by the front door for quickly covering up when unexpected visitors came by.

“Cool!” she smiled.

“Warm, hopefully” I countered, using several of my tentacles to speed up getting it over and on her.

She was all grins, quite liking having it.

“I can take it in various places for a better fit, if you want.”

“No, thanks much for the offer, Rose. One of my fantasies is being so huge that I have to wear a tent dress, and now it’s happening. There’s only one problem.”

“What?” Rose and I asked together.

“Given that it’s a tent dress on me, which I love!, I’m going to instinctively respond to anyone calling Tent.”

“Ya know what? Until something else works out, whenever you’re wearing that dress we’ll call you Tent, and you all can call me Regular.”

“Or Margie.”

Thwock!—I gave a gentle one to Rose. Sorry, not sorry: she deserved it! Nor did she mind, given how she grabbed onto my thwocking tentacle (I don’t remember which one), riding it like the usual kind of cowgirl as well as the udderly milky kind of cowgirl she more literally was, holding on tight as I playfully whipped her around until we both were laughing too hard to continue.

“Dick horse to the rescue!” Sara yelled, charging towards us and softly (thanks to her soft front) crashing into us, joining in with the laughs and what was becoming a cuddle.

“Milk delivery!” Helia exclaimed, crushing her unbelievably soft front into our ever-more-affectionate giggly mutant people pile.

We were having so much fun all piled together cuddle-horsing around and laughing in the living room that we didn’t hear the repeated knocking on the door.

“Hallooo ladies! Annnnd maybe gentlemen too?”

We all turned and looked together.

“Dag!” Rose exclaimed, on top of me calling out, “Mr. Nabbit!”

“Correctly in both cases. At least one of you girls dropped your keys when you left.” He held up my keyring in one hand, and Rose’s in the other, “Where would ya like them?”

“Bring ’em over here and come meet your new neighbors: our friends from prison and just before, here to live with us now” replied Rose.

“I thought you were on vacation! Did those motherfuckers imprison you without cause?!”

“That’s what they said had to happen to everyone who’d mutated” Helia timidly replied, unsure what to make of this craggy old man briskly ambling towards us with intense fire in his eyes and on his overall expression.

“BAH!” he yelled, handing Rose and me our respective keys.

Rose (who’d known him longest) touched his forearm, which often stopped him in his tracks and garnered his full attention, “Dag: what went on here while we were gone?”

“Pande-dank-dog-monium! Gubmint dooty-cooters day after day! Tryna get on your land—both yours! Private property! No warrants!”

“But they had to inspect things, due to health concerns!”

“Thaaaat’s what they said, shoving all kinds of legal mumbo-jumbo in my face, written by puffy-shirt dingwank attorneys who majored in bloviating!”

Helia later admitted that she’d wondered if Dag knew this on account of that having been his major too.

“I told those bureaucratic unelected desk-jockey sniveling snipes ta get the hell off this lake and go fuck themselves into some new non-contemptible career worthy of that last c-word!” he ranted. “Damn bitches and sons of bitches!—mostly bitches, but I digress.”

“So they didn’t try to take over or shut down our property?” I asked.

“They sure fuck-fartin’ tried, ’til I got in their face with my copy of the Constitution as we currently have it with all the amendments, and they’re comin’ back at me with case law and a bunch a other shit the Supremes—the court, not the Motown band—prolly haven’t ever even seen! Eminent domain ought to be unconstitutional, dadgumit!”

“They tried that?!”

“Nah, just sayin’. They tried plenty of other shit, and I wasn’t having it!”

“Why would you work so hard protecting Tent’s and Rose’s property?”

“’Cause we’re a community, my shapely horse-shaped friend! A small community of 3 homes I grant you that, but a community nevertheless! We Bubblensqueakers stick together!”

“Thanks Dag!” Rose smiled, pulling him into her for a squishy boobacious hug she knew he’d love.

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Nabbit! I put so much into this home and the addition, it broke my heart to have to leave it all behind so soon.”

“What’s it gonna take for you to feel OK calling me Dag the way Rose does, Tent? I mean if you really don’t want to that’s alright, but I thought we’d worked things out after that evening I got near-pass-out drunk on that 1.5 liter of Bulleit Rye Whiskey—damn, that’s good stuff. Dangerous, though. What was I sayin’?”

“The evening when you saw me in the lake.”

“Oh right! I shoulda had enough wits about me even with the whiskey ta know that you couldn’t be the Loch Ness Monster no matter how much ya mutated, ’cause we’re nowhere near Scotland! And Lockie or Loki or whatever it is ain’t pretty like you.”

Touched, I felt moved to offer, “Tentacle hug?”

“Sure.”

Rose had hugged Mr. Nabbit more over the years than me, though this wasn’t the first time. I often found him too worked-up sweaty or otherwise tending-dank for my liking, though under the rough exterior I’d learned he was a nice, highly principled, ethical man, albeit eccentric. As a recluse he had almost no contact with other people, especially women. One of the first lessons I learned about him from Rose was that honestly embracing him worked wonders calming him down.

“I already apologized” he said to me, “so what’s that new social justice thing I’m supposed to do next?”

Rose and I looked at one another, unsure what he meant.

Some of his frustration came back, “The one we’ve been doing since 2020 and the Floyd protests! You know: that thing! Reparations… no: that’s what we light-skinned are supposed to do with people of darker color! I have a color, goddamnit! Sorry. Uhh… Restitution… Reposessionnnn—no, not that! Oh come on! One of you smart young adults must know!”

“Do you mean restorative justice?”

“That’s the phrase! Thank you Miss… Mizzz… am I close yet?”

Think what you want. I think it’s cute witnessing older people struggling so hard doing their honest best adapting to modern paradigms new and foreign to them.

“I’m Helia. And honestly I’m OK with either Miss or Ms., though the latter is more comfortable and accurate.”

“Again? I got the Ms. part, but the rest of it? New name to me.”

“Helia, pronounced like hell-eee-ah.”

“Hell, I can say hell correctly all day long! Great ta meet ya, Ms. Helia!”

“Helia Melonowski, so technically Ms. Melonowski, but just call me Helia.”

“Yeah I wasn’t going to say anything about your”–he waved his hands frantically indicating her physique–“and I’m tryin’ not to stare, but… wow!” He turned back to me, “So how about it, Tent? I donno how to do the restorative justice thing, only that it’s the step after apology which empowers you which anyone’s apology does not, so you have the power to make things good between us, assuming I can and will do whatever needs doing.”

“I don’t need that. I just feel weird calling someone older than my parents by their first name.”

“Didja go to an Ivy League school or something?”

“No, why?”

“They’re more formal in parts of the east. More uptight and often closed-minded too, the bastards. How about an ivy-covered school of higher education? Didja go to one of those?”

“Only one of the buildings, and they trimmed most of it off my senior year.”

“Good! Because that stuff wrecks buildings! Bah! People and their aesthetics over longevity! Sorry. Where were we at?”

“You’re trying to get her to call you Dag,” Rose reminded him, “and for reasons defying, well, reason, she’s not having it.”

“Y’know what? You saved my and Rose’s homes, so I’ll call you almost anything you want, Dag.”

“That’s more like it!” he grinned his receding gum line crooked yellow-toothed grin. “Not that anybody should haveta work so hard fightin’ off the people who’re supposed ta be workin’ for us! Not that those lazy so-and-skanks know anything about an honest day’s work!”

“Mr. Nabbit?—I don’t know you yet, so I’m going to call you that.”

He eyed Sara up and down, “Go on, hun.”

“You seem like you’d be aligned with the Republican Party. Were you sad when Mr. Trump wasn’t re-elected?”

“Don’t get me started on that half-bit half-wit lying sack o’ baby tantrum shit that couldn’t even run a small-time mob!”

Unfortunately he was already started, and those of us who knew him knew there was no point stopping him when he got into this particular family of rants.

“I didn’t vote for that lower primate delusional pinprick! The Party of Lincoln for years now’s been stinkin’! And don’t get me started on the Democrappers! Those condescending smug know-it-all ivory tower ‘Righteous, Righteous!’ asshats that run over everyone who disagrees with them, shouting them down misusing the words ‘science’ and ‘facts’ when it’s just their damn POLITICO-RELIGIOUS BELIEF SYSTEM they’re tryna shove down everyone’s throats while the unions ass-fuck them AND US! Jack-booted thuggery of authoritarianism is what it is!”

“So what party are you?”

“Iiiii’m an Independent, young lady! Or do you identify as ladyhorse? I don’t get all this newfangled stuff—nothing against it! Just that my brain hurts keeping track of all those different new personal pronouns and who’s using what… or which. An’ now you know why I just barely passed English.”

“You told me you went to university.”

“I did, Rose: UC Berkeley. Prolly a good thing I didn’t mention ta the bureaucrat dim-bulbs stickin’ their snooty noses all around here that I majored in nuclear engineering.”

“You did?!”

“Yeah, but it didn’t last: dropped out after getting too many Cs and Ds. Didn’t like it there anyway. With today’s political color-coding terminology, it was so blue that it might as well have been Brahman New England. BAH!

“Sorry for going on like that my 4-legged acquaintance-friend—and I mean that in the best way!—and all of you whose names I know.”

“Really? My legs are what you notice most?”

“Didn’t seem appropriate for me ta get into how you’re better-hung than the entire rest of this county put together, and twice over at that! If’n you need any Scrote Sloat, let me know.”

“What’s that?”

“Why it’s the finest damn ball sack lotion this side of the Mississippi! And the Otter Tail, for that matter.”

“Thanks, but unless it works the same on udders, it probably won’t help me.”

“Ya got one in back too?!”

Sara nodded.

“Yeaahh, yer prolly lookin’ at Bag Balm for that. Eh Rose?”

“I use more than she does” I reminded him.

Realization clearly struck Dag. I knew this from his cessation of speech along with his special way of squinty-staring, looking us all over. “Unless I’m missing something, all 4 of you have udders… right?”

We all nodded, with Helia adding, “We’re the Udder Girls—all of us! Milky friends, living the busty milky udderly wonderful life together!”

“Now give it to me straight, girls—ladies—young women… whatever ya each like: what is the deal with the milk?”

“You’re not going to turn us in, are you?!”

“To the government? FUCK NO! I just want to know the truth, and your name, hun. Or whatever you want to be called, if you’re doing the thing like Tent.”

“Not to confuse things, but since I’m wearing the tent dress tonight, I’m going by Tent instead of Helia, and we’re calling Tent Regular, because that’s Rose’s pet name for her.”

With enough glittery glee in her eyes to nearly earn a tentacle thwock from me before she even said anything, Rose eased Dag’s head near her mouth so she could whisper, “Her given first name’s Margaret. But don’t call her that, else she’ll hate on you! Sometimes she lets me get away with Margie.”

He looked up at me with the softest eyes I could remember seeing from him (to this point since first meeting him). “Margie’s a pretty name, Tent Regular!”

“She’s just Regular. And I’m just Tent, and maybe just for tonight.”

He slapped his hand against his forehead, as though it hurt. “Y’all are confusing me. I mean I know it’s good and important for people my age to exercise our minds as much as possible, but there’s a limit! Especially when I’m still tryna understand the whole mutation and milk thing and everything else.”

“I don’t like my given name in any form and never have. It’s less effort for me to use an appropriate pseudonym than legally change it.”

“BAH!—I get that, totally! The less ya mess with the gubmint, the better off ya are! And don’t get me started on the corrupt piss-ants in certain major businesses!”

Unfortunately for us, sometimes Dag was self-starting.

“Crony Capitalism?!—Bah! They’re just tryna wrap themselves in the glory of honest capitalism, taint’n the shit out’ve it ’til people confuse their corruption with capitalism! ‘Too Big To Fail’ my fragrant ass!”

It was: sometimes when Dag got over-excited like this, he spontaneously farted small silent odiferous ones.

“Anybody besides me think we ought to be getting started on a celebratory dinner for all of us including Dag, to thank him and express our gratitude to him and each other and good fortune along with skill and planning that has us all back here together on our lake, with our new besties Sara and Helia?”

“Thank you, Rose! Now I finally know your name!” he directed at Sara. “Though I still want to hear from you whether you prefer young lady or ladyhorse or woman-pony or androgynous or whatever other.”

“Sara with no H. I identify as a woman, though technically at the moment I’m some form of humantaur thanks to my centaur-like body shape and probably also cow due to my fully-active udders. My gigantic peni are a source of consternation for me, having always been unambiguously a cisgender genetic female before the mutations.”

“I hope you learn to have as much fun with them as you can. Sometimes playing with mine is what keeps me going. And good on you for dropping the H! All those excess letters that just take up space and eat ink when printed out! Bah!”

“That’s another reason I prefer Tent over any form of Margaret. Except tonight when Helia’s tent-dress Tent and I’m Regular.”

“Dinner?”

“Yes Premium, let’s talk about dinner.”

“Aaaaaagh!” Dag moaned in what I hoped was feigned agony as he collapsed into me, apparently still overwhelmed with the name situation.

This first night home, relaxing more than I’d ever been able to relax since the mutations first started, sharing a delicious barbecued ribs dinner mostly made by Rose and Dag together using his grill rolled over from his house onto my (and Rose’s) deck remains to this moment one of the highest near-pinnacle points of my life so far, arguably the pinnacle.

Helia and I worked together in the kitchen on a hearty soup for the ever-cooler evening whilst the barbecuing was going on.

We started out enjoying the meal on the deck, looking out onto the grand view of Bubblensqueak Lake, our backs warmed by the residual heat from the grill as the last vestiges of twilight extinguished. Had it been a warm season, we would have heard crickets. This deep into fall and nearly winter, it was nothing short of amazing that there wasn’t already a decent layer of snow on the ground and the lake much closer to freezing over. I asked Dag about this.

“Climate change. I didn’t used to fully believe it—I admit it! But yeah…. Too many people, is what it is.”

“You don’t think we can all change our ways and make things better?”

“Nope Sara, I don’t: too many of us, and in all of human history we never all pull the same direction on anything. Just look at all the wars and other strife, as recently and as far back as ya wanna go. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try and conserve and be responsible stewards of this planet that’s ultimately in charge and is kindly allowing us to live as long as we don’t fuck it up too much which we almost have. I just don’t think we have it in us, else we wouldn’t still be fighting about skin color and religion and sex and abortions and the death penalty and mutations and all kinds of other things we can’t even agree on in this nation, much less beyond our national borders.”

“How did this lake get its name?”

“OK, so you’re Tent tonight, not Helia?”

“Either way. How did this get named Bubblensqueak Lake?”

“That’s not what either the Dakota Sioux nor the Ojibwe called it, that’s for sure!”

“When I looked it up it said we’re on Nihithawiwin land” said Rose.

Dag shook his head and shot his hands up in holdup form, “I’m 5 percent or less indigenous on this continent—unknown tribe or band or whatever. No disrespect ta that small part of me or anyone else: I jus’ can’t keep all that stuff straight! So I’m 95 percent descended from land pilferers like most of us. All I know is all of us all over the U.S. who aren’t majority indigenous here are on stolen land, all the way up inta Canny Canada and down south where the Spaniards were fucking around subjugating people in the name of god—don’t get me started on religion!”

“Yeah, don’t do that. Helia was asking about how our lake got its name.”

“Oh yeah right. The way I heard it an Englishman by the name of Bartholomew Gingold was the first pale-skinned occupant to claim or buy this land after it was appropriated by those who were here before from those who were already here like I said. Legend has it that on a particularly hot day, he heard the lake burble to his ears quite like the sound of his favorite dish from his homeland: Bubble and Squeak: that hash-like fried mixture of cabbage and cooked potatoes and/or cooked beef, or apparently whatever else is lying around, fryable, and edible.”

We found ourselves all cuddling closer and closer together for warmth as the night rapidly grew cooler. Once there was no more meaningful heat from the cooling-off grill, we udder girls cleaned up everything else whilst Dag cleaned and locked the grill (to keep local hungry animals out), and we all went inside.

The cheery fire in the fireplace and the lights all aglow in the main room filled with my friends and lovers and our property protector and crusty old recluse neighbor Dag Nabbit is another delightful memory I’ll forever cherish.

Rose wasn’t at all shy boobing herself onto her favorite couch over to the side with the nice outdoor view. I almost stopped her to allow our guests first choice, until noticing that all of Sara, Helia, and Dag wanted to be closer to the fireplace. Dag, the only one amongst us with a normal human body, fit readily into a smaller standard-sized rustic comfy chair just to the right of the fireplace facing into the center of the room at an angle. I was too big to fit anywhere other than the large couch on the exterior wall opposite the fireplace, meekly taking my usual seat, briefly struggling mentally with how huge I was relative to anyone else present, and how none of us were truly small.

Fleshy Helia—I mean: Tent, for tonight—almost was her own seat in her over-full udderly glory. Assuredly she didn’t fit in any chairs and even the couches wouldn’t have been a great fit with her udder as full and massive as it presently was. What she most needed was a full-height back rest, which my center front pair of tentacles readily provided her once I was seated and settled.

Initially upset at how poorly she fit anywhere, Sara found her perfect seat: her horizontal midsection spread across the small rustic wood coffee table. “Aaaahh!” she smiled once settled atop it.

“Good?” I asked.

“I feel like I live here now.”

“Good!” replied Rose and I in heartfelt unison.

We all looked and smiled at one another, taking in the cozy warmth and peaceful atmosphere. Somehow even Dag’s crooked, aged smile didn’t bother me, lit up as he was by the flickering easy-medium blazing fire, as well as the caring love in the room.

“Not to be a pest in any way” Dag broke the silence, “but I still want to know the truth about milk and mutations. Your-all’s truth, whatever ya know.”

Rose and I glanced uncomfortably at one another, each sighing in our turn as Sara and Helia joined Dag looking expectantly towards us.

Seeing me squirm, knowing how I hated discussing this subject, and being braver, brasher, and more familiar with Mr. Nabbit than me, Rose answered first. “Tent—octoTent, usual Tent a.k.a.–”

“–Don’t say it!” I raised my nearest tentacle, ready to thwock her.

“Her! She grew an udder and was producing milk first.”

“I developed it before I moved here.”

“You want to tell it?”

“No.”

“She was making a lot of milk. I’d tasted some and thought it was amazing, and marketable.”

Helia raised her hand, acknowledged silently by Rose, “It’s the best milk I’ve ever had, and I’m a milk connoisseur who’s tasted hundreds of varietals from many dozens of microdaires as well as larger dairies.”

“But why would ya sell it with all the mutations?!” asked Dag.

“We didn’t know!”

“I strongly suspected problems, especially once you started mutating!”

“You were giving me at least a quart in my vag that first time! I only had some in my mouth, after I’d already significantly mutated!”

“Sweeties: you don’t need to yell. We’re all friends here, and Dag just wants to understand.”

Helia’s point was well taken. Rose took her vocal presentation down a notch immediately. “I truly thought it was the great sex with her that mutated me and genuinely thought her milk was safe for drinking even if not boinking, so I took some to Lakeland Co-Op which as you Dag know is where I’ve long gone for fresh produce and know people.”

He nodded.

“They thought it was great, one of the people affiliated with it tested it and found no problem–”

“–It was just basic go/no go testing” I interrupted.

Rose raised her eyebrows towards me, then continued, “Tested and tasted by members of the co-op: no problem!”

“Then! No time for mutations!”

“Who’s telling the story?!”

“Go on” I partly pouted.

“The TodlinTown Boys got in on the action, dramatically widening distribution. This tentacled honey over here was and remains a massive milk producer, on her own producing enough to satisfy demand for a premium-priced raw milk product, skirting laws in places via being sold in stores when such is not legal in many jurisdictions served.

“Long story short soon I was making milk too, as I still am. You can see from my currently-distended udder boob on the upper left that I’ve named Uddy that I’m making a lot more than a typical un-mutated human mother makes for her offspring, though far less than Ms. milky originator over there” she pointed towards me. “Hers was sold as Lakeside Bucolic Farms Whole Regular milk, which is why my pet name for her is Regular.”

“Ahhh kay” Dag gappy-gum-tooth smiled, nodding with understanding.

“Mine has always been creamier, hence they retailed mine as Pinnacle Premium Creamy, which branding and premium price limited sales volume to an amount I could nearly supply as the sole ‘cow’ making that grade.”

“Which one of you made their low-fat variety?”

“That was just them diluting her milk with water.”

“I knew it!” Helia snapped her fingers.

“I didn’t think you’d had any Lakeside-branded milk other than the regular, before we were at the mini-mart and you went all-in on that past-date bottle of what turned out to be my milk under the Diggity Dawg Dairy Cream Preme branding none of us had seen before.”

“I don’t usually do low-fat anything, but the fellow milk-loving woman I casually know who blogs as Ms. Milklove and I crossed paths at a small store and exchanged what we were sampling, and she’d bought the Lakeside Bucolic Farms Low-Fat. So yes I did try some, but not a whole bottle.”

Dag stroked his chin stubble thoughtfully, “So there really was a dairy here?”

“Technically yes, in a sense, though neither Regular nor I thought of it that way. We were just a pair of young women whose lives had been thrown for a loop due to the mutations, trying to live our lives without hurting anyone and making some income from what our bodies made that otherwise would be going to waste.”

Mr. Nabbit looked upset, turning away and doing a form of fisted face palm.

Rose and I worriedly looked towards one another.

After nearly a minute and a half of period-free if not truly pregnant silence, I couldn’t stand it any more. “What’s going on, Dag?”

I saw the water in his eyes when he aimed them directly into my own, then Rose’s, “That’s what this place—this lake—is all about: free citizens living their lives without bothering anyone and anyone bothering them! So glad I told those gubmint shitwanks where ta stuff it! And…”–he got choked up–“thanks for being here… neighbors. All of you” he now looked towards Sara and Helia.

Once he recovered his usual demeanor, he asked, “How does SOMS come into this? The mutations?”

Rose didn’t need to say “Your turn” to me aloud: I read it in her eyes.

“Before you knew me, before I moved here, I was a medical student at WisMed.”

“Wiswhat?”

“Wisconsin College of Medicine in Eau Claire. Born with no legs from a congenital birth defect, I’d learned to live that way, go around in a wheelchair—all that. No problem; it was my life.

“Start of this past summer at the end of the school year, something happened that caused me to start growing stumpy things where most people such as yourself have legs, which turned into my first tentacles. No weird milk consumed, no strange food-related things that I knew of, or know of to this day. Freaked out, I went into the well-regarded teaching hospital right there on campus. They had nothing useful for me, initially attributing it to poor diet and fat deposits. My prescription such as it was was an appointment with a dietician.

“Started eating better but the mutations kept going, so I knew it wasn’t that. With so much happening so quickly and such a useless experience when I first went in, I didn’t go back for more exams.”

“Good fer you, Regular with tentacles but not Tent tonight! Did I get that correct?”

“Yes for my name, though not sure that my not going back was the best decision. Left to my own devices, I doubled down on doing what I do well: medical research, in this case online reviews of others’ existing findings. Very soon it became clear that I was mutating far beyond what anyone understood, apparently unique in the world… unique and alone.”

Helia felt the need to lean far back and turn part-way around into a deep cuddle with my front tentacles and part of my nearly full udder.

Lazy Rose’s lowest hands grabbed my nearest tentacle (left outer front) for tactile caring affection.

Sara seemed to be struggling to get up, which bothered me. “No one needs to move on my account, and thank you for your caring support!”

She managed to hook part of my left outside rear tentacle with her front left foot, guiding it as best she could within arm’s reach. Once I picked up on what she was trying to do, I helped deliver it to her.

“I’ll take one of those, if you can spare it” said Dag.

My left outer right was already not that far from him, making it easy for me to hand that amazingly distant part of my own body to him.

“How is it you’re not bothered by our mutations Mister… Dag?”

He looked Sara squarely in the eye, “I wouldn’t have made it this far, judging shallowly on appearances. That’s why I’m trying to understand what-all’s going on with you all.” Even though he didn’t really know what to do with my clothed tentacle end, he set it in his lap and petted it like one would a cat. “You can feel this, Ten–, uh, Regular?”

“Yes, and it’s very nice, and I appreciate it—all of what all you are doing, all of which I feel.”

“Wow. So… you’re Patient Zero of SOMS?”

“As far as anyone knows, yes. I truly don’t know how it happened. I don’t want to raise Rose’s ire again, but given what happened to me then her, I had a very strong feeling that anyone consuming my milk including myself and Rose was taking a dangerous risk.”

“I only wanted to help!” Rose whined uncharacteristically, looking upset nearly to the point of tears.

“It’s great milk, and I’m not sorry!” declared Helia, rolling partly away from me towards and into Rose’s base area.

Helia Melonowski’s got to be one of the best people on the planet. We’re all human and no one’s perfect, however never have I met anyone so easily able to genuinely turn things around towards the positive. The heartfelt look of gratitude I saw on Rose’s face (directed towards Helia) was the deepest I’d ever seen on her up to this point.

“I’m thrilled with my mutations, and I don’t want to go back!”

“You don’t know that they’re over yet” Sara reminded Helia. “You could mutate some whole other way, maybe like Virgil.”

“Who?” asked Dag.

Rose unlocked her device, waving it in front of me to imply that I should deliver it from her to him.

“Somebody’s a lazy boob worm” I teased.

“Somebody can reach all the way across this room, which none of the rest of us can!”

There wasn’t any point arguing with her, especially since she’d already planted the device into my tentacle which she’d been caressing.

We could all easily read the shock on Dag’s face when he looked at the screen. “Are this person’s mutations what they look like?”

“If it looks to you like a giant penis with his head on it with two bodacious boobs with outsized nipples and a huge fleshy vagina—just the vagina, not the whole vulva—that’s what Vagil’s all about.”

“Vagil?”

“That’s what she insists on calling Virgil” I rolled my eyes.

“You know this person from where?”

“Prison” replied Rose. “They brought him into our cell after we’d been there awhile, and some days after that Helia joined us.”

Sara brought the conversation back, “So as I was saying, Helia, you might mutate some whole other way like that even still!”

“Well it hasn’t happened yet, and that’s after I’ve had more of these two’s great milk!”

“So is drinking milk the way the mutations happen?”

“That and sex” Rose didn’t quite clearly answer Dag.

“Or any other form of milk-to-skin contact,” Sara quickly added, “else we’d not have been able to subdue the guards and escape the way we did.”

Dag made more of a statement than asking me a question, “But that’s not what happened to you.”

I shook my head.

“And mutations happen every time anyone gets any of the mutation milk on or in them?”

“Not always.”

“And that’s why it’s so difficult to understand, and trace!” Sara’s frustration started to come out.

“And this is all SOMS?”

“That’s what they’re calling it” I replied.

“Was it sudden onset?”

“Yes” “Uh-huh” “Mmm yeah” “Yup” each of us replied in various wording, out of sync.

“Thing is, it’s really nonlinear, and unpredictable” I noted.

“Abstention from sex and possibly mutated milk works.”

To this point I’d never seen Helia look so shocked, in this case at Sara’s last comment. “Who would do that?!”

“Some of us may not be thrilled with having our lives thrown into disarray with ever-unpredictable changes!”

Dag studied us for a moment, apparently hesitating before asking, “While we’re all being honest and open with each other—which I prefer as a default way of being—for those of you who are willing, besides Helia who already answered, I’d like to know what you truly think about your mutations… so far. Like ’em? Dislike ’em? Any specifics you feel up to sharing? Anything about the overall experience so far?—apart from the capture and imprisonment, which was FUCKED and never should have happened! Sorry… I do want to hear from you who feel like sharing.”

Once again, Rose bravely went first. I think it was easier for her, having known Dag longer. “I wasn’t expecting it at all, despite Regular’s admonishments, so when the changes first started, it was shocking. When they kept going, I was scared, mostly of the unknowns and figuring that losing my legs meant that I’d become immobile. I do love boobs—mine and others’, so having more and having them get bigger was and is a plus for me. At first what became Uddy scared me—again the whole unknown thing, including whether I’d remain healthy or get sick or die.”

“Sorry to interrupt, but has anyone who’s mutated gotten ill or died as a direct result of the mutations?”

“We don’t know that” said Sara. “I’m answering because like Regular I too am a med student… was a med student. I was also a certified nursing assistant, not because I planned to get to a residency then practice medicine as an MD, but because I wanted direct clinical experience to be a better researcher.”

“Good for you!”

“So what I wanted to say is that some of my mutations started from the milk. Then more intense ones happened after caring for an already mutated individual in the hospital, whose arms had turned into penis ends the way Regular’s tentacle ends have.”

“I thought that’s what I saw when you were out and about when you were first here with little to no clothes on! But then I thought I was hallucinating. I wasn’t trying to look! But you were just kinda… out there, uncovered.”

“You were not hallucinating. When I first mutated my tentacles all had standard pointy tips. Then, per the SOMS designation, very suddenly within days of my last 4 tentacles coming in, the tips on all of them rounded and opened up into what by all appearances were penis tips. I found they operate that way, other than outputting milk rather than sperm and so on.”

“It’s a blast” Rose lustily smiled, blushing.

“If you’re interested enough to get up and roll my tentacle sock all the way down and off on the one you’re holding for direct inspection, you have my permission to do that.”

Dag was interested, carefully rolling that sock-pant off. “This is amazing, what you’re body’s done” he reverently commented during the process.

“Wow” he shook his head in what seemed to me like amazement. “Every one of you is amazingly endowed, in at least one if not several ways.”

Each of us smiled uniquely.

“Now how do I put this tentacle sock back on?”

“It’s warm enough in here for me that you may leave it off. Want to have the end in your lap again when you sit back down?”

“If you don’t mind, yes please. Not sure it’ll help me understand, but for sure it’ll make your reality more real ta me.”

Rose struggled not to laugh watching me blush and my boobs swell as Mr. Nabbit petted my now-nude and hardening tentacle end the way he’d been doing with the sock-pant on. We nearly got into an argument later when she teased me about it and called me a slut. I advise you not to judge me on this or really anything else, dear reader.

“Should I continue now?” asked Sara.

“Yes” was the consensus.

“The patient in the hospital who unintentionally sprayed milk on me and started the new intense round of my mutations was there for a set of issues which can’t readily be divvied up into mutation versus non-mutation issues. After these more overt mutations started I was ineligible to continue my nursing shifts, given the many unknowns and my own dismay and discomfort with my own, so I don’t have many data points. From the time the first mutated individuals came in until I had to leave, no one died nor became ill directly from SOMS, though there were a few cases of deleterious interactions with pre-existing conditions. Many were there more from emotional devastation from their mutations, seeking a medical cure no one as far as I know to this day has. That’s all I wanted to say. Back to Rose.”

“All I wanted to say beyond where I was was that the scary part was the unknowns. For me and Tent since I’ve known her, so far our mutations follow a rough pattern: dramatic changes which cannot be predicted, intermittent periods of no further changes, then intermittent expansions of earlier patterns. For me for example, so far up until today my recent changes have been growing more boobs and arms, becoming a longer worm, getting wider in the sense of bustier, and Uddy getting bigger.”

“With more milk?” Dag asked.

“Basically yeah. And as you might be able to tell from looking at us, we haven’t milked since this morning, so for some of us we’ll need to get to that before bed.”

“Thank you for saying something” said Sara.

Dag was already on his feet, gently setting down my tentacle end, “Thank you all so much for helping me better understand what-all’s going on with you and had been going on around here that had the nosy-nozzles out in force. The only additional thing I’d hoped to learn now was what I asked about a few minutes ago, about your experience with your mutations and how you feel about them now and all that.”

“I’ll finish up since I’m nearly done” said Rose. “I’m contented with what’s happened. Not sure I would’ve consciously chosen it before anything started– nah, strike that: I have no regrets. I like being a boob worm woman, I love having so many dextrous hands for sewing and so on, I like having a high sex drive, I enjoy making my own milk, which I do drink in small quantities in my coffee and so on–”

“–Mmmmmm!” Tent-for-the-night Helia interrupted. “Sorry.”

“I like this life, especially now that the Mutant Wars are hopefully all over. Small, fleeting amounts of anxiety on occasion regarding possible unpredictable changes, but taking a cue from tonight’s Tent in the tent dress, I’m staying positive, and so far for me it remains a positive experience.”

“I’ll just quickly go over where I am now” I immediately followed up once Rose finished. “It’s been a very rough road, especially being the very first person as far as anyone knows, and there are still many times I’m uncomfortable being so truly huge after having grown up less than average size from my lack of legs. I do quite like the far greater mobility my tentacles give me, and having so very many appendages all under my control with my tentacles having such extreme reach and high strength is what I consider a blessing far more than a curse.”

“Quick question:” Dag broke in, “is it difficult in terms of mind share to focus on so many appendages at once?”

“It’s a learning experience, and we can go deeper on that subject some other day. Bottom line for me is that after investing a lot of focused time learning to operate my new limbs, for me it’s really no harder than when I only had my arms. Every day gets easier, which might make it challenging for me if or when my mutations change again some dramatic way. But like Rose mine seem stable” I used a tentacle to knock on the wood of Dag’s chair, “so as long as it’s like that, I’m good. At first having gigantic boobs was inconvenient, though now I’ve come to love having them.”

Tent-Helia nodded knowingly.

“The huge udder and the whole milk thing is mixed for me, especially with so much harm having come to the world from it. Before I forget, Dag, where should we be dumping our milk that won’t destroy things and/or creatures?”

“Nooooooooooooo!”

“You can’t drink it all, Tent Melonowski!” Rose bellowed.

“The dump is where I’d put it” he replied.

“What dump?”

“The one we used ta use when ya first moved here! The old quarry!”

“The state close that, Dag.”

“Yeah, and they locked ya all up without due process, or even cause! Just because the state does something doesn’t make it right, much less correct!”

“But what about the environmental damage?”

“It’s a dang Superfund site already for over half a century, my esteemed humantaur new neighbor! Did I get that right?”

She nodded.

“Seriously: they were doing so much blasting and using so many chemicals there last century that even if it’s not on the Superfund list, if the Feds knew about it, they’d put it on. So don’t any of you tell them! But do put your milk in there, because unless you think it can mutate inanimate objects into zombies or something, that’s the least-worst place to put harmful substances anywhere for 20-some miles around here.”

“OK, like Rose, I’m basically done with my summary of how I feel now. I’ve found contentment being a very strong sex-positive octo-cow-woman, and now that my milk’s off the market and not hurting anybody, looking forward to a peaceful life here on the lake with you all, dabbling in website work and other work-at-home jobs in lieu of making and selling milk.”

Tent-o’-the-night shook her head, “We’ve gotta find a way to make all our milk safe.”

“We’ve gotta go express our milk, wherever this old dump or quarry or whatever is” said Sara.

“It’s cold and dark!”

“You can’t seriously be thinking of holding all your milk in inside overnight, surely!”

“Well… I kinda like all the bulk and sloshing” she softly and demurely replied.

“I’m not holding it all night” Rose declared. “Then again, I’m not looking forward to traipsing out into the woods for possible willd-lif encounters.”

“Possible what?”

“It’s how Premium prefers intentionally mispronouncing wildlife” I explained to Sara.

“Wait wait wait wait wait” Dag waved his hands. “It’s downhill from here to the dump.”

“Yes, and that makes it more exciting for anyone to go there and back any time of day or night” said Rose, “mutated or not.”

“Gimme about 5 min– well, better make it 15 minutes—ta fetch the old firehose and roll it from somewhere hereabouts down into the dump.”

“Is it possible to run it out a window of Milk Palace facing that direction?” I asked.

“Yes I can, but for gravity flow that means that all of you letting loose on milk need ta be higher up than the hose as it goes out the window.”

“Run it out the door” Rose griped.

“Oh wait!: we can run it out the side drain!” I remembered. “That’s big enough for a fire hose!”

Unable to get anywhere near enough to pat my shoulder, Mr. Nabbit instead patted my still-bare tentacle, “I’ll go get the hose and coil about 10 to 20 feet outside Milk Palace and run it down ta the dump while you all figure out what works best.”

“You know which building is Milk Palace?”

“A high percentage of people around the world know of Milk Palace, neighbor Rose, thanks ta those nosy health inspectors and the media mongrel cameras following them, dadgumit! Thing’s got a damn sign on it, so yes I know which one it is!” He jabbed his finger towards the window facing the woods, “That one! The outbuilding Tent–I mean Regular built.

“Alright, I’m on my way. Thanks for dinner and all the sharing, and hearing most of your true stories of mutation and milk and everything!”

“Who didn’t tell theirs?” Rose asked no one in particular.

“Sara” I answered.

“This isn’t a good time to ask me because I’m getting uncomfortably full of milk and having flashbacks to a bad time.”

“Can’t have that!” were Dag’s last words on his now-rushed way out the front door.

“Think he wants to help milk us?” Rose asked once he’d left.

“Do you want to be responsible for what might happen to the man who single-handedly kept the entirety of our properties safe from overzealous authority figures?!”

“Never mind. Let’s go get the Palace set up and see if any of those drains are big enough and point the correct direction.”

The hose worked great through the floor-level drain, and it only took Dag about 10 minutes to find it and start rolling it out. Barely 20 minutes after he left, we were ready to flow.

Everything was going well… almost.

“You’re supposed to be expressing your milk, not drinking in ours!” Rose rightfully ranted towards Helia, no longer Tent as she no longer had the tent dress on.

“But it’s sooo goood!”

I did my best to reassure her, easing in from behind and to the side into a loose cuddle, “There’ll be plenty more. We’re all producing regularly.”

Apparently my reassurance did little. I hated seeing this kind woman upset nearly to the point of tears. “I need some Lakeside Bucolic Farms milk tonight!” she whined.

“Alright, get over here and get onto Uddy’s lower left for some fresh Pinnacle Premium Creamy while I empty her other three into the hose.”

“Help me empty my udder all the way once Rose is done, and I’ll let you have some from my boobs back inside the house.”

Helia’s face lit up, “All of it?”

I shook my head. “Be good, like you were when we all helped Sara when she went first, and you may have half of what I currently am holding up top.”

“Pinnacle Premium Creamy’s going, going–”

Helia rushed over and latched onto Uddy before Rose could dump any more.

All I could do was watch and shake my head. Helia hadn’t even started expressing her own milk yet!

“Hhhhhhh… hhhhhhh” I panted, back on the couch in the main room, lost to lust as Helia stimulated me far beyond my expectations with her nipple suckling on each of my big ones in turn, currently my right. We never did get her to drain more than about halfway down, despite repeated urgings. At the moment I can’t say I’m sorry, given how much more of her warmth there is in our cuddle, with her ensconced in a couple of my tentacles basically lying atop me.

“Aaaaahhh!… Aaaaahhh!”

That’s Rose, vocalizing from our bedroom. Seeing her and Sara looking left out (and her ticked) when Helia first latched onto me and got me going, I’d suggested that she and Sara might want to celebrate our successful homecoming and new freedom with some fun boning, or whatever else they might want to get into. Apparently Sara’s lust overcame whatever reservations she might have had about further mutations, and I knew well that Rose had basically no reservations (and poor memories of historic sex hangovers).

As is often the case, my original vague plans for having Rose and I sleeping in our bed as usual and setting up Sara and Helia wherever they wanted to be between the guest bedroom, the several couches, and Rose’s house faded to irrelevancy: Helia didn’t want to get up after filling up with my milk, and I could hear each of Rose and Sara snoring contentedly.

Thankfully I’d gone to the bathroom before Helia and I got started, so I had no urgent need to get up—more so after the relaxing orgasm she unexpectedly gave me. If you’re lactating and you enjoy being suckled and Helia Melonowski ever offers to suckle you, accept her offer. You’re welcome.

All I had to do was poke the logs in the fireplace to eke the last flaming tendrils of life out of them, then ensure the fire grate was as closed as possible. I did these things with ease with two of my tentapanted front tentacles, without budging off the couch. Helia was already asleep atop me, and didn’t even notice.