Title: Cooped
(story concept by AWMBH)
AN: This story is intended to be enjoyed as a fantasy by persons over the age of 18—similar actions if undertaken in real life would be deeply unethical and probably illegal. © MoldedMind, 2020.
Kelly woke up with a pounding in her head. She tried to recall where she’d been the night before, but she could only draw a blank. She tried to remember back earlier than the night before—the afternoon, the morning, the day before that. Nothing came.
Being unable to remember any of her recent past was unnatural, and it left her feeling uncomfortable. Had she been on some kind of drinking bender for multiple days at a time? Why couldn’t she remember?
As she lay there, feeling this sense of unease, she found the sensation going as quickly as it had come. It wasn’t so bad not to remember. In fact, it felt kind of nice. It made her warm and fuzzy inside.
Or maybe it was her surroundings doing that. She was lying in one of the most comfortable beds she thought she’d ever slept in. It was warm, and soft, and it embraced her body. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to wake up, or open her eyes, if she could keep lying here, surrounded by warmth instead.
Her mind was blank, and her bed was wrapped around her—everything was right with the world.
But a discomforting thought broke into her drifting sense of peace. A bed shouldn’t be embracing her; it shouldn’t be surrounding her. She could feel the air against her skin, so she was not underneath blankets. What was she lying on?
To find the answer, she had no choice but to open her eyes.
Kelly sat up, eyes now open, and was surprised by what she saw first, before she even had the chance to look down.
She was inside a large outdoor cage.
She tried again to remember how she had arrived here; tried to remember entering the cage for the first time. But still there was nothing.
Kelly looked down to see what she was lying on: a bed of long, soft, silken stalks of grass woven together into a large, circular nest. It felt almost like corn silk against her skin, and it was still warm with the body-heat it had absorbed off of her through the night. Part of her wanted to stretch back out into it, and just feel the warmth of it radiating back into her body through the places where it was touching her.
She tried to shake that sleepy desire out of her head. What was she doing lying in a nest that was sitting on the ground inside an outdoor cage? This was wrong: she was a human woman, she belonged inside a building or structure of some kind. And if she was sleeping in anything, it should have been in a bed. And—why was it she could feel the air so starkly against her body?
She realized with a start that she was naked. That was very wrong, too. She should have been wearing clothes! Where were her clothes?
But just as when she’d first woken up, she felt all these concerns smooth back out again. She was warm, in her body and in her mind, and just like it had come to seem natural to her that she had no immediate memories, it now seemed very natural to her that she be lying in a nest, naked, outside on the ground in a cage. After all, she was a chicken. Chickens were naked all the time; chickens slept in nests, inside cages.
Kelly jerked, with a start at the strange thought. She was not a chicken—she was a human woman! But when she rebuffed the offending thought, she felt how tiresome it would be to argue her humanity. It didn’t really matter if she argued, did it? She knew she was human. It would be nicer just to keep feeling warm and comfortable... so if part of her wanted to say things like that, it was fine with her.
This resolved, she decided she wanted to get a better look at her surroundings than she could from the vantage point of her nest. She rose to her feet, and looked out through the wiring of her cage.
Beyond the cage, there was a field filled with women—hens, she realized almost immediately. They were all naked like her—holding their wings out behind their bodies, jutting their juicy, jiggling breasts forward as they ambled slowly through the wide field.
Some of them cawed—some of them kicked at the ground with their chicken feet, while the rest only wandered. They were all very pretty hens, in a wide variety of colors and breeds. How nice it was there was such a variety in the birds, she couldn’t help but think. The farmers would certainly have a full selection to choose from.
Kelly felt so captivated watching the meandering birds that she realized she wanted to get closer to them, so she could get a better view. She walked to the limit of her cage, where she could see there was a door. To her surprise, it was not locked, and it opened with only a light push. She followed its opening out into the field, until she was right up close to the other hens.
She felt the warm feeling wash over her again, now that she was standing so near to them. She was naked like they were: she was like them. She should jut her breasts out, and tuck her wings back. It was always more comfortable to tuck your wings back; that was their most natural resting position. The way she was holding them now felt wrong.
And she should bend at the waist, and walk like the other chickens were walking—that was the way chickens were supposed to walk. They were short by nature and kept close to the ground.
Kelly found herself tucking her wings back and bending her stance lower for a second. Then she snapped out of it again, albeit with some reluctance. For the fleeting moment that she had matched the others, she’d felt warmest of all.
She reminded herself she was only a human observer—it was the rest of them, they were the chickens. Not her.
She watched them more carefully, admiring the way they looked. Their wings were impressive and pleasing in form—and their breasts were large and bouncy, packing in a lot of meat. Their thighs were similarly substantial, as were the drumsticks which led to their little chicken feet. These chickens were all shapely, and well proportioned. Each one was tantalizingly full of flesh. And judging by appearances alone, their shapely chicken bodies would be absolutely delicious. Kelly almost found herself salivating at the thought of it.
She noticed some of the hens breaking away from the others, and heading towards the far side of the field. She followed them out of curiosity, to see where they were going. Falling into the slower pace they walked with almost tempted her into imagining she was one of them again, but she reminded herself that she was just a human observing them, and that kept the enticing thought at bay.
When they got to the far side of the field, Kelly saw that there was a barn there. All along the nearest wall of that barn there were evenly spaced holes. The group of several hens that had come over to it now each took up position by a hole, dropping to their knees so their mouths hovered close to the openings in the wall.
Kelly watched, confused. Then with a start, noticed that from each hole in the wall there emerged a cock, and each hen began sucking eagerly on it.
But those weren’t cocks at all, she remembered. They were worms—and everything was perfectly normal again. Chickens ate worms—chickens loved to eat worms. In fact, Kelly was almost craving a worm herself, now that she thought about it. But if she ate one, that would mean she was a chicken too. And no matter how much that thought was pleasing to her, or how warm it made her feel inside, she just wouldn’t accept it. So, no worms for her.
She could admire the hens as they ate their worms, though. They were special worms: worms that if you took into your beak and played at, would fill your mouth with yummy paste you could eat. And the hens seemed to be doing a very good job with their worms—some of them had clearly already been rewarded with the paste and were swallowing it down. Sometimes, after this was done, the worm would retreat back through its hole, and then a new one would take its place. It didn’t make any difference to the chickens. When there was a worm there, they took it into their beak. When there wasn’t, they waited, watching with sharp eyes for the first sign of a new worm emerging. It didn’t matter if old worms left and new worms replaced them. Either way, the chickens got fed. Either way, they got to eat their fill of that special paste.
Eventually, a few of the hens got back up, and wandered away, back out into the field. That didn’t matter either; other chickens came to replace them and take up position at each of the worm holes. Then the whole process could continue on, the same as before.
Kelly licked her beak—lips, she corrected herself quickly. She licked her lips... eating that special paste until her stomach was full sounded good, too. There was one hole at the end of the wall closest to her that had no hen in front of it. She got down onto her knees in front and watched.
Sure enough, just like at each of the other holes, a worm emerged. Instinct kicked in, and she took the worm into her beak. The sensation of it wriggling in there was so pleasant for her that she didn’t have any time to correct herself—had no time to remember she was human, any different from the other chickens along the wall next to her. She just got caught up in playing with the worm in her mouth, wrapping plush, pouting beak that wasn’t a warm pair of human lips lovingly against it.
She had no teeth, because hens had no teeth, so it was very easy to be soft and gentle with the worm. The worm seemed to like it; seemed to like when she wrapped her beak around it, and pulled at it softly. It responded to that, and she kept moving her beak in the same way, working the worm in the way it liked, and making it wriggle more and more.
Pretty soon the worm was shaking, and then a few seconds later, she felt her mouth fill with that yummy delicious paste these special worms were so good about releasing. She swallowed it down, swallowed and swallowed until the worm pulled back through its hole, leaving her licking the inside of her mouth for more.
When the first worm left, Kelly leaned back from the hole, watching it closely for any sign of another worm. She was a chicken again: doing exactly what was natural for her. This was what chickens did: they watched the ground for any sign of worms in the dirt, and at the first sight of one, they pecked down and ate it up. This was what she was doing, so it was very important that she watch the hole in the wall closely, lest she miss a worm and not get to eat any more.
But luckily, another worm came up through the hole only a few seconds later, and Kelly put her beak to it almost immediately, not wanting to risk it getting away before she could gobble it up and get that paste.
This worm was even more fun to play with than the last one. It was thicker, which only felt more satisfying in her mouth. She worked it doubly hard pulling and twisting at it gently, shifting it around with her beak. Soon it was spilling its paste for her too, and she swallowed this down as eagerly as the first time.
Then she was back to waiting and watching the dirt for the sign of another wriggling worm.
Kelly found herself falling through the pattern: she took the worms in her beak, and played with them until they gave her their paste, and then she ate the paste down hungrily. The more she did it, the more thoughtless and pleasantly warm she felt—the more she felt kindred with the other hens along the wall, doing the same; either watching sharp-eyed for their emerging dinner, or in the process of working to earn it, or swallowing it down. They understood how she felt, she knew: how important it was to watch closely, how disastrous it would be to miss a worm, and let it escape before they could get their food from it, how good and right it felt when they were in the process of playing with it, how filling and tasty the paste was when they swallowed it down.
They understood her, and she understood them: they were the same. The more she knelt there, by the hole, servicing worms, the more she knew that to be true. It was easy to lose herself in the pattern—easy to forget all about being a human, easy to forget she ever had been.
She only stopped when her stomach was filled up with the paste, and she wasn’t hungry anymore. She climbed back to her feet, and felt some of her sense return to her. Kelly wasn’t a chicken, she was still a human woman—she’d only gotten caught up in the illusion because she’d been behaving like the other chickens, that was all.
Clearly being around them, doing the same things as they were doing, made it harder to keep a grip on her humanity. Maybe the safest place for her would be in her cage after all. Besides, with a full belly she was starting to feel sleepy again, and the memory of her warm, soft, silky nest was calling to her.
But her cage was all the way on the other side of the field. She had to walk back past the chickens to get to it.
She started her journey across the field watching them carefully, lest she lose control and start copying them again. There were so many of them, all around her. Clucking, and cawing, kicking up dirt with their feet, waddling around with their wings out behind them, their heavy breasts jutting out ahead of them as the crouched low, and wandered.
They all looked so happy; Kelly couldn’t help but think as she passed by them. But that wasn’t so strange. Why shouldn’t they be happy? It was a beautiful warm, sunny day, and they were carefree. There was nothing for them to worry about but wandering free range in the field. If they were hungry, there was a barn they could go to and feed. If they were tired, they could go back to their nests, and sleep. All they needed to do was feel good, and do what felt natural to them. It was so easy to be a hen— so happy, so calm and pleasant.
Kelly felt jealous of the hens as she walked among them. It wasn’t carefree to be a human; humans didn’t have all their needs provided for them the way chickens did. Humans had cares, and worries. Humans didn’t get to feel good all the time, didn’t get to just focus on satisfying their needs and urges all day long, the way chickens could. Kelly wished she could be a chicken, and have fun all day in the sun. She wished she could be a chicken, and only ever have to think about feeling good and serving the farmer.
But… she was naked, like the rest of the hens were naked. She had knelt at the worm-hole, and played with the worms and eaten their paste, the way the other hens had. When she’d first come out into the field, she’d put her wings back, and crouched down low, and started waddling just like the rest of them. She slept like the other hens did; she’d built a nest of her own inside her cage, and she got to sleep in it every night. How had she not seen it before? Kelly was a hen just like the rest of them! She always had been!
The thought didn’t offend her any longer. Instead, it filled her with joy. She let her wings come back to their natural resting place, and felt her stance shift lower, so she was closer to the ground like the others around her. She thrust her breasts out proudly— hers were as substantial as any of theirs, juicy and tender and with so much meat to them. It felt good to walk like this; to walk like a chicken, because she was a chicken.
She had always been a chicken. That was the reason she hadn’t been able to find any human memories of a life before in her mind. Chickens didn’t have memories. Chickens didn’t have lives before the farm. Chickens spent their whole lives on the farm— she had spent her whole life on the farm. She had always been here, and she always would be. She was a chicken, plain and simple. And she could enjoy the sun with the rest of her sisters. The only thing for her to focus on was how good the sunlight felt on her naked body. And all she needed to do was eat when she got hungry, and sleep when she got tired. There was nothing else for her to think about.
As she realized this, she noticed some of the other hens crossing the field again to another wooden structure—a large chicken coop. She remembered coming from her solitary cage when she woke up; and she understood why she had been there. She hadn’t understood she was a chicken, then. It wouldn’t have been right for her to sleep in the coop with the rest.
But now that she realized her rightful place, she belonged in the coop with the others—she was the same as them. She could join their flock, and live in camaraderie with them. And she could build herself a permanent nest in the coop, among her chicken sisters.
She clucked loudly in joy at that realization, making her breasts jiggle and bounce, and the other hens around her clucked back in response with a happy, heavy welcome of tender, juicy breasts of their own.