Rebecca sat on one of the benches in the loading area, watching one group of workers loading bags onto the bus while another worked on setting up a couple of speakers and a microphone at a podium. Heather sat next to him. A few minutes later, a woman in business attire, flanked by a few others similarly dressed and carrying colored signs, took the microphone.
"Hello, everyone. If I could have your attention for just a few minutes..."
All chatter in the room ceased.
"Thank you. I'm Dr. Schlaussbauer, and I'd like to thank all of you for serving your civic duty in the Farmland Regeneration program. I'm going to keep this short, because our chickens are waiting on their afternoon egg cycles and we want to make sure they're on time. I'm sure the cows will also appreciate reaching the farm before their lactation begins."
As she spoke, the people surrounding her on the podium began to spread out across the room.
"At this time, I'd like to ask you to split up by species. You will be able to see each other at the farm, so this is only a temporary measure to ensure everyone gets where they need to be on time. Anyone for the Centaur Program will be meeting at the red sign, and boarding first. Please start at the back of the bus. Pigs and sheep, please meet by the yellow sign, you'll be second. Cows, you'll be at the blue sign, and chickens, by the green. Your two species will be at the front of the bus and be last to board."
A few people were silent. One girl, dressed in an outfit that Rebecca didn't recognize, sobbed quietly. Rebecca met with the other cows by the blue sign, around ten of them in total.
The Centaur program participants were mostly male, with a handful of girls among them, and not wearing the clinic-issue clothes. Someone whispered that the Centaurs hadn't yet gotten their dose of transformative serum because of how hard the change was. Rebecca was suddenly glad she hadn't chosen that one.
There were only five sheep, all wearing nothing more than underwear. "My sister was a sheep," one girl whispered. "She said it was the worst. All that wool..."
With no pigs, the cows were next. Before they boarded, the person holding the sign walked past them, asking them if any of them felt fullness in their breasts. One girl raised her hand, and was directed to a milking station.
Rebecca was the last cow to board, with the chickens boarding in front. After what felt like forever, the bus started moving. Rebecca leaned back and took a look at a couple of the pamphlets in the pocket on the seat in front of him.
One, titled "Life on the Farm", gave basic information about the kind of facility he'd be going to. Each bus was one "barn" of participants, who all lived and worked together. A line that caught his eye was about clothing: on the farm, clothing was totally optional. The pamphlet made mention of "changes to your body that might make wearing clothing impossible." Another stated that participants had a kind of special legal status somewhere between human and animal. While they still had full human rights, certain laws regarding public decency no longer applied.
The bus ride took an hour or so, going down country roads that gave way to pavement and large barns on either side of the road. Fifteen minutes or so in, Rebecca's chest started to hurt a little. The further the bus went down the road, the more complaints he could hear: the cows complaining of feeling full, the chickens desperately wanting to lay their eggs. By the time the bus stopped in front of a barn, Rebecca's chest felt like it was going to explode.
The bus doors opened, and the chickens started filing out. A few of them were waddling, and one didn't even make it to the barn before dropping to her knees. Finally, it was Rebecca's turn. He hustled out of the bus, taking only a short glance at the chicken kneeling on the path. She had an egg, a bit bigger than a typical chicken egg, underneath her and looked like she was well on the way to pushing out a second.
The inside of the barn was a lot less like a barn than it was a college dorm. The stalls for the animals were replaced with rooms, with a common area in the middle. The only sign of what this place truly was were the milking machines on the walls. One by one, each cowgirl was paired with a worker and taken into one of the rooms. The one who came for Rebecca was a blonde woman a few years older than him, dressed in coveralls over a short-sleeved flannel shirt.
"You're Rebecca, right? Are you feeling full at all?"
He nodded.
"Let's get you right up to your room then. New girls always have it the hardest."
She led him upstairs, to a room with his new name printed on a whiteboard next to the door in block letters. Inside was a surprisingly spacious bedroom: a queen-size bed stood against one wall, with two dressers and a desk on the other side. The worker opened a second door and ushered Rebecca inside.
The second room was a bathroom, which had a chair and a shelf full of breast pumps and accessories in addition to the usual shower and sink. "Take your clothes off. Rule one, don't bring anything you're not willing to have covered in milk into the bathroom."
Rebecca obeyed, taking off everything and piling it into a corner. He nearly forgot that he'd put his cellphone in his bra, and tossed it into the pile of clothes before taking his bra off. In the hour it had taken to get here, his chest had changed quite a bit. His nipples were definitely bigger and a bit darker, with small beads of milk dripping from the tips. "Holy shit," he thought, "I'm actually lactating!"
The worker took a pair of small hand pumps from the shelf, little more than bottles with a suction cup on top and a bulb that could be squeezed to provide suction. "I'm going to start you on these. You'll probably graduate to a mechanical one tomorrow, but for now, these should do." She handed them to Rebecca.
Rebecca awkwardly put the suction cups against his flat, male chest. They seemed right, but the worker caught it immediately and adjusted them. "You want to make sure you've got a tight seal, or it'll leak all over the place. Now you just take the bulb and pump. Keep it slow and keep the same rhythm going."
Rebecca took the bulbs, one in each hand, and gently squeezed. The suction against his nipples was heavenly, and after two pumps he could see milk draining into the bottles. The pressure in his chest eased, making him more aware of things going on around him.. like the fact that his cock was rock-hard. He just kept on squeezing the bulbs, the suction draining him of his milk, until it stopped.
"It's... it's over for now, right? It's not coming out anymore."
With a squeeze and a twist, the worker detached the bottles. "It's over. You're at around 20 milliliters now, which is a good sign. It means you're building up a good milk supply, and your milk glands are developed. Any other changes yet?"
Rebecca checked his body. "Not yet."
The worker smiled. "There will be. I'm Jess, by the way, and I've been assigned as your... just think of me as a coach for your new lifestyle. Take a minute, get dressed, and I'll bring up something for lunch."