Herded

Dear Reader:

Here's what "Herded" contains: nonconsensual mind control, incest (hetero and homo), interracial, and hucow-if-ication.

Oh, and some spanking. And bad language, too.

If all that might float your boat, please read & let me know. And if it ain't your thing, there are lots of other stories out there.

Regards,

Adam Lily

The Present

The breasts of Laura, my nineteen year-old daughter, pull on her slender frame. They're so heavy her back muscles are shaking. Blue veins bulge and throb, wormlike, around her areolae.

"Please, Daddy," she gasps. "It

hurts

. I need you to do it."

Six of us—my family and our two visitors—are in Laura's spacious, pink-walled bedroom. Our home is saunalike, and Laura, my wife, my son, and I are all slippery with sweat. We're dying in this cloggy heat, but our visitors require it. And unlike us, their skin is dry.

Laura rests on hands and knees on her vast white bed, her sex offered up to the dark and muscular man at her rear. She is sliding herself along the two thick, calloused fingers he slid into her moments ago. The motion gently knocks her breasts together. Such slight collisions might normally feel pleasurable, but for Laura it's agony. Her massive boobs are engorged with milk, which makes even the mildest collision miserable.

"Please Daddy it

hurts

please, you can touch me, it's okay, just please make it STOP."

At my left is a groan. Stacia—my wife and Laura's mother. She lays nude in a blue armchair, one leg slung across an armrest, long black hair flowing over her breasts. Her pudenda is shorn and pink, her labia glistening. She touches herself and gazes at our daughter's purpled, pneumatic breasts.

I did say we had two visitors. In a chair to my right reclines another man—taller, lighter-skinned, and leaner than the dark man at my daughter's rump. Before this second man kneels a fit, naked, and pale young man with a bob of black hair: William—my son, and Laura's twin brother. He bestows on this caramel-colored man a tender and worshipful fellatio.

I can't see William's face, but the growing puddle of precum beneath him tells me he's as lost in arousal as my wife.

The second guest flashes me a brilliant grin. He approves of my son's work. I don't think William is even gay.

And me? Well. I'm naked on the floor in front of my pleading daughter. My cock pulses out a beady and clear ooze. I cannot tear my gaze from the mesmerizing knocking of Laura's breasts. I fancy I hear sloshing. Off each nipple dangles an opaque and elongated drop of milk.

Three Months Ago

"We got a package from Laura," I said.

Stacia and I were in our living room. She was kicking off her heels after a week of corporate lawyering. I was bleary from 12 hours of caring for cardiac patients.

My wife snorted. "More trinkets for her 'research?'"

"Maybe," I said. "Except it's not addressed to herself, like the rest of them. It's addressed to you, me, and William."

Laura was a college sophomore—an anthropology major with a minor in gender studies. She was spending the year trekking the Asian steppes, studying the Ut-Sark people. They were a tribe of cow-and-sheep herders, and their numbers were dwindling rapidly. Modernity, Laura told us, was overtaking them. Pushed off their land, pushed out of their way of life. Almost a Trail of Tears situation, she insisted. So their culture needed to be recorded, maybe rescued, before it vanished from the earth.

So, back in August, Laura had traveled to Asia to live among the Ut-Sarks. For six months we received monthly letters related to her travels. Then in March came this package: large, heavy, and addressed to all of us.

"Well, open it," said Stacia. "Let's see what's she sent from the bushmen."

"Nomads. They herd cows and sheep, and they—"

"Open the package, Arthur. I'm wiped, and the less I can think about Laura, the better."

Reaching into the box, I ignored my wife's bitterness. Part of me couldn't blame Stacia, of course. She had clawed herself from trailer-park poverty into a law career pulling down seven figures a year. That was admirable, but her hard-driving life had left her contemptuous of any career that didn't bring in the bucks. Laura's academic pursuits—and Laura herself, really—she saw as self-indulgent and worthless.

But I was proud of my smart daughter. My little girl, traveling to a distant land to study a profoundly patriarchal culture. . . . I thought her independent and brave.

I reached into the box, pushed past the cushioning straw, and hoisted out a sculpture the size of a small microwave. A deep and beautiful bronze, it was a scene of two men herding four cattle. Grunting, I set it on the coffee table.

"It's gorgeous," I marveled.

"It's expensive," spat Stacia. "My money at work."

"Maybe it was a gift," I pointed out. "Not from Laura but from the tribe."

That mollified Stacia. "Maybe so. It is rather pretty."

I studied the bronze. "Two adults. A bull and a cow. And two calves, male and female."

Stacia touched one of the creature's flanks. "Oh, it's warm. How is it warm? And what's this?"

I looked around. A raised glyph of some sort—a circle pierced by a spearhead.

"A brand," I suggested. "To mark ownership. Each animal has it."

"Hunh," said Stacia. Her long fingers caressed the brand. "Each one."

"Look at the eyes," I said. The animals' eyes were small red rubies. The men's eyes were brilliant green emeralds. All the gems flickered gently, as if from some inner light.

Stacia and I caressed the warm, soft bronze and gazed at the glittering gems for some time.

"I guess it is lovely," she eventually said. "Lovelier if actually a gift."

I dug through the box and drew out a small piece of paper. The top had a short message in Laura's handwriting: "A new herd of the Ut-Sark Tribe of the Steppes, freely given." The rest was covered in row after row of florid glyphs. We couldn't read them, but they were so beautifully rendered that we couldn't help but gaze at them for some time.

Eventually, Stacia said, "Their writing is beautiful. Like the sculpture." Then her eyes hardened. "Maybe Laura can sell it all when her degree leads her into poverty."

"Where should we put the bronze?"

Stacia considered. "Why not right here? Where we can all enjoy it?" She caressed it some more. "I don't much care for art, but this one invites . . . contemplation."

I nodded. "It's relaxing. Soothing."

Stacia's cell phone rang. After a short conversation, she hung up.

"That was William," she said. "He'll be late again. The other busboy couldn't make it."

William—Laura's twin—was nothing like her. As dim as Laura was sharp, as uninterested in the life of the mind as Laura was devoted to it. Still, he was a good boy. When he wasn't working, he was at the gym. I worried about his future, but I was pleased with him nonetheless.

Stacia, who considered William unambitious, despised him nearly as much as she did Laura. But at least William wasn't costing us money. At least William worked.

Stacia stroked the statue one last time. Then she stood. "Bed," she said, reaching her hand to me. "Are you coming?"

I was startled. That was how Stacia propositioned me. But weren't we exhausted?

I guess not. I took my wife's hand, followed her to our bedroom, and made love to her for the first time in many months.

The Present

The drops hanging off Laura's nipples are clearly breast milk, but it's unlike any milk I've seen. The fluid is opaque, slow-moving. Her milk is like thick, white honey.

"Why is there milk?" I ask. "The milk . . . did you have a baby?"

"I'm their food," Laura whimpers. "They feed me spices. It makes me make milk. The milk goes to their herds—"

"Their herds? Their cows? An sheep?"

Laura begins to weep. "Please Daddy it hurts so bad I need milking every couple hours or it hurts and they haven't milked me for FIVE WHOLE DAYS and I can't sleep please—"

Laura's begging is wearing me down. My desire to ease her pain pushes aside any taboo. And I'm a medical professional.

Just treat this clinically

, I think.

There's nothing sexual about milking my daughter to relieve her pain.

Intending to do no harm, I reach for her breasts.

Stacia hisses, "Don't do it, Arthur."

I halt before I reach Laura's breasts. "I'm just trying to help her. Medically."

"

Don't

you fucking do it, Arthur. Do

not

help her."

Laura sobs, and Stacia smiles, and I realize what it's about. Stacia's not trying to prevent some sexual perversion. She couldn't care less about that. No; Stacia wants Laura to be in pain. She wants Laura to suffer for what she's done to us.

At my right, my son's mouth is audibly making our other guest as happy as a man can be.

"Daddy," begs Laura. "Daddy,

please

, I hurt

so much."

Stacia hisses

yesss

and amps up her fingering.

Two Months Ago

William ran into the living room, hair bouncing. "Another package from Laura. For the three of us."

The new package was smaller and lighter than the one with the bronze—which Stacia, William, and I had taken to communing with daily. We also kept the note with the symbols nearby. We still didn't know what they meant, but we enjoyed looking at them.

William shook the box. "Maybe it's a dictionary. To tell us about their language."

"Yes," said Stacia, sipping chardonnay. "That'd be very lovely. What grunts and clicks translate to 'Shithole Country?'"

William opened the box. The room bloomed with a tangy, sweet spice. He pulled out four aromatic wreaths, scrunchie-sized rings of purple leaves woven together with grass.

Stacia wrinkled her nose. "Ugh. Potpourri."

William pulled out a note and read it aloud. "'In honor of the new herd of the Ut-Sark Tribe of the Steppes, freely given. Place at the four corners of your shelter."

I frowned. "In honor of the statue?"

The rest of the note had more glyphs, different from the others but just as beautiful. We mulled them over as the scent of the spiced wreaths filled the room, the home.

"Maybe it's okay," said Stacia. "The scent. I'm getting used to it."

"Yeah," said William. "I like it."

We sat there a time, breathing deeply. The statues' eyes sparkled and thrummed.

Stacia said, "Arthur."

"Hmmm?"

"The wreaths. Place them in the house. You know, at the corners."

"Um. The whole house will smell that way, then."

"Right," said Stacia. "That's the point."

"Okay. Where?"

"Lord, Arthur. You're a bright boy, I hear. Figure it out."

One wreath went in Laura's room, a second in William's, and a third in my and Stacia's room. I got clever with the fourth one, placing it around the neck of the bull in the sculpture. That way, when we spent time with the bronze, we'd also enjoy the spices.

The Present

The veins of Laura's breasts writhe. "Daddy don't listen to that

bitch.

She hates you, she hates me, all of us—please."

I mumble something about respecting one's mother. Stacia barks out a laugh.

The darker man audibly removes his fingers from Laura's rear—she shudders, whimpers, humps air—and brings them near his nose. He inhales lightly, then smiles as if he has sampled a perfectly aged wine.

Then he leans forward, over Laura's body, and jams his fingers up my nose. Wriggling his fingers, he slathers my nostrils in my daughter's musk.

Her fluids: they are the same scent as the wreaths, but far, far more powerful. A muggy, cloying, mind-dulling, body-broadening scent. My senses mutate. The room grows brighter. Sounds come as if I'm underwater. My skin buzzes, detecting the lightest eddies of air produced by my wife's busy hand, my son's bobbing head, the breathing of the men. If I could smell something other than my daughter's pussy, I'm certain I could detect the sweetness of her breast milk and the grass of the distant steppes on our guests' feet.

In dizzy weakness, my arms buckle. I faceplant, and my ass bobs up in the air. Our guests laugh as I loopily try to regain my kneeling station.

The dark man sinks his fingers back into my daughter, works them around, and withdraws them. Over to William he goes. He quickly waves his fingers under the other man's nose. The caramel man laughs, waves the scent away with a woo-ing sound, and utters appreciative syllables.

The dark man grips William's hair and pulls his head back. My son puts up a tepid resistance. As with me, our guest snakes his fingers up William's nose and deposits my daughter's juices into his nostrils. All the muscles in my son's body slacken, and he slumps to the floor.

The dark man returns to Laura and re-anoints his fingers. Over to my wife he goes, his fingers stringy and drippy.

One Week Ago

"Another letter from Laura," said Stacia, tossing it on the table next to the statue. "Because she's gone native. Because she doesn't know how to call, text, or email like a human being."

We've gathered in the living room, playing Scrabble, like a good family would. We're spending more time together. Being together whenever we can.

William says, "It's pretty amazing. Getting a letter all that way."

"Amazing if you're a savage," said Stacia. "Amazing if you believe that Norplanting underaged black girls is a slow-motion genocide and African inoculations are actually sterilizations."

Clenching our teeth, William and I ignored Stacia's outburst. She'd always been mildly impolitic, but lately she'd gotten far worse. And we all seemed different. Stacia was angry all the time. William seemed . . . slower. Dumber. And me, I'd always been laid-back. Stacia called me passive. And now? It was like I was stoned from sunup to sundown. It made caring for my patients difficult.

William scanned the letter. "She's coming home next week!"

Stacia tsked.

"And she's bringing friends."

Stacia laughed. "Friends? Moochers. Dirty-feet pot-smoking fancy college shits—"

"No," said William. "Members of the Ut-Sark Tribe. She's bringing two of them to the United States."

Stacia sat up. William and I winced, knowing what was coming next. "She's bringing grass apes into MY home?"

"Our home," I reminded Stacia.

"I make the real money, Arthur. You're just a fucking

nurse

. A bump up from candy striper—I'm surprised they don't make you wear a skirt and give 'special' sponge-baths! If it were

your

home, this'd be a goddamned ranch house with only one walk-in closet and two bathrooms."

Before I could defend myself, William said, "There's a coin in here," and he slid it out of the envelope into his palm.

We gathered over it. Golden, brilliant, and about the size of a silver dollar. It bore glyphs resembling the characters on the letters and on the flanks of the cattle on our sculpture.

"It's . . . lovely," admitted Stacia. "Even beautiful." She caressed it, and a shudder ran through her. "And it's warm."

Reflected light from the coin danced across her face, William's face, and I'm assuming mine, too. Soothing, lovely shine.

William looked at the letter. "'In honor of the new herd of the Ut-Sark Tribe of the Steppes, freely given. Mount at the entrance of your shelter.'"

"Our 'shelter,'" snorted Stacia. "Like we live in a barn or something."

"In honor of the new herd," I mused. "So the coin is for the sculpture. Laura told me a little about this. Animism. Actual spirits in objects. Treating things as if they have souls."

William said, "I guess they want us to put the coin near our front door. . .?"

We stood around William's hand, our senses soaking up the coin.

Someone in my head thought:

This is not right. Something is wrong. The letters, the statue, the wreaths, this coin. These scents and glyphs. They're doing something to us—.

Then Stacia spoke, decisively. "Mount the coin by the front door, Arthur. On the inside. Where we can see it when we leave for the day and when we come home."

"But not too high," said William. "Close enough to touch. I want to touch it."

Stacia nodded. "That's smart, William. Touching it, every day."

The rightness of their directives extinguished my concerns. After deciding where to mount the coin, I retrieved wood scraps, screws, and a drill from the basement. When I was finished, the coin sat regally above the simple wooden cross by our front door, roughly at eye-level. We'd see and touch it every day, now.

I returned to the living room. William was kneeling at the sculpture, one hand on the bull's back. Stacia was at the thermostat, changing the settings.

"The letter says they like it warm," explained Stacia. "Really warm. So we have to be good hosts."

"And Laura has asked us to take time off work," said William. "So her friends can understand us properly."

Stacia retrieved a spray bottle of water from the kitchen and liberally spritzed the wreath around the bull's neck. "Refreshing the spices," she explained. "They like the scent."

I took this in. Ramping up the thermostat. Time off work. A coin above our cross at the front door. Intensifying the scents of the wreaths. And Stacia was agreeing to it . . .? And participating in it?

What was going on, here?

Then the tangy, thick spice-scent reached my nostrils and into my mind and everything was just fine. All this stuff, it's just what we had to do, now.

The Present

"N-no," says Stacia to the dark man approaching her with goopy fingers. "Get away from me, you aborigine."

He is at my wife, Laura's secretions at the ready. With her one free hand—she can't stop touching herself—Stacia slaps at the dark man's ribs. She might as well be slapping bronze. "Arthur," she wails. "For God's sake you

weakling

, protect me!"

I should be angry. I should expend every last inch of my strength and rise up to defend my wife. But I can barely keep my own head up.

Clutching Stacia's hair, the dark man wrenches back her head and lances two lubed fingers up her nose. She spasms as if jabbed with dozens of needles. Then her struggles cease, and the hand at her sex falls aside.

The dark man pulls his fingers from Stacia's nose. Lifting her by her hair, he shows her off to his friend. Blood trickles from one of her nostrils—he must have broken a few capillaries. The men chuckle and converse. I can tell they're talking about us. Then the dark man drops Stacia to the floor, where she twitches and moans, her blood christening the white carpet of Laura's bedroom.

William rises shakily to resheath the tall man's cock in his head.

Thirty Minutes Ago

They arrived just after 11 in the morning. Stacia, William, and I had been waiting in the kitchen for hours. Not moving, only sipping water, breathing deeply, and gazing at the coin. We were strung out. The moist blast heat of the house had induced days of sleepless torpor. Sweat beaded on us with the slightest motion. William and I were in our boxers. Stacia wore panties and a loose-fitting tank top.

Without a knock, without ceremony, they entered my home. First came Laura. My heart leapt to see my daughter. Despite a year on the steppes, she was still pale—pale legs, pale face. Maybe a few freckles. And she'd grown more slender. Except . . . except her breasts? At least from what I could tell. She was wearing her college sweatshirt. And even though it masked her form, I could tell that breasts were higher and rounder than they'd ever been before.

What had happened to her?

Laura stood to the side and lowered her head as if in prayer. In came our guests. First the short, dark man, his obsidian skin gleaming, dressed in a long robe brightly colored in greens, reds, and blacks. Then the tall, caramel-skinned man, dressed the same way. Slung over the latter's shoulder was a long leather pack and what sounded like metal poles rattling inside it.