PART I

When Bodie first joined CI5 he thought, "You lucky sod, now you have carte blanche to off the bad guys ... and any civilians who get in the way ... and to generally indulge your sociopathic tendencies." But he reckoned without one thing --

Well, two, actually -- he reckoned without Cowley and the partner he assigned.

Ray Doyle was a tempting morsel, despite his tatty clothes and an air of cranky self-righteousness. His way of twitching his arse in Bodie's face as they walked up a flight of stairs provoked something akin to feeing frenzy in the ex-merc. But whenever Bodie thought about jumping Ray he remembered the music of criminal bones snapping in Ray's gorgeously shapely artist's hands. Bodie might have been psychotic but he was nobody's fool.

Despite this small problem, the professional relationship blossomed. Bodie killed people and Ray suffered over it -- a fair division of labour. But Bodie couldn't help noticing some odd personality traits which set his partner apart from the herd -- ordering pints of milk at the local, for example, or chewing the ferns in Cowley's office. He tried once or twice to question Ray, but Doyle just rolled around in the grass and avoided the issue.

Then one day Ray didn't show up for work. Bodie put this down to his partner being prostrate with grief over having spoken sharply to a suspect the night before, but he decided to ask Cowley about it.

"Where's my partner?" he roared as he rushed into the Controller's office and grabbed Cowley by the lapels, hauling him out of his chair and enhancing, in the process, his reputation as a dangerous lunatic.

"Easy laddie. D'ye no ken where he maun be? Ooh, bide-a-wee, he's no timorous wee beastie ye maun nursemaid licht-'n' -- nicht, nicht?"

Bodie released him. "Can I have that in English?"

"He took the day off, dolt."

Bodie was stunned, dazed, deeply hurt ... quite literally ready to yell ... "Why didn't he tell me?" he cried, choking back a sob and staggering a bit which was a nice dramatic effect, he though. The denuded branches of a geranium brought Ray's flawed but interesting and only apparently deformed face to mind, as he had looked as he munched that very plant not a week before -- the sunlight glinting off his cheekbone. Bodie was shocked, appalled and a little queasy. "I have to go to him," he declaimed.

"It's only a cold," Cowley shouted as Bodie fled the office. "Idiot."

Bodie ran out of HQ. He ran through the CI5 parking lot. He ran all the way to Ray's house.

"His car's still here," he observed, calling on all his CI5 training in observation and deductive reasoning, and reflecting that this in itself was a good thing since he'd forgotten his car in the lot at HQ. "He must still be here."

Cautiously he shot the lock out and entered Ray's flat.

The apartment had a stale, sour smell, rather like a barn in high summer. As he entered the hall he tripped over something -- a bale of hay! It was strewn all over the hallway, as well.

"I didn't know Ray had a cow," he mused. "I wonder why he didn't ask me to come and milk her? I'm good with animals."

Suddenly a brown and white shape about the size of a milk truck came barreling through the lounge -- bell clanking, hoofs clattering -- and knocked Bodie into a pile of manure before it disappeared into the bedroom.

"Ray's gonna get the bill for this," Bodie muttered darkly as he picked himself up out of the mess on the floor. He stripped off his trousers and went into the bedroom.

She stood by the bed, placidly chewing on a white chenille spread that Bodie had always hated. "Nice Mooska. Did Uncle Ray leave you all alone?"

Her huge, scum-green eyes flashed mute appeal, and Bodie thought of his partner yet again. "Does Mooska want Uncle Bodie to milk her?" he purred, his fingers inching towards her udder.

"Nnnnmmmmooooooooooooooooooo!" She shook her head warningly.

"O-kayfine," Bodie conceded. What to do? Either he'd have to wear a pair of Ray's trousers home, or spend the night. Choosing the lesser of the two evils, he dove into Ray's bed.

But sleep wouldn't come. Perhaps it was Ray's disappearance, or the presence of a strange cow in the flat; or perhaps it was because it was only tea-time, but Bodie found it impossible to sleep.

He tried counting sheep, but that didn't help either.

"What should I do?" he wondered out loud. A vision of Ray's face drifted through his mind again, and before he knew it, his hand -- as if of it's own volition and with a will of its own -- began a familiar milking motion.

"Ahhh Ray!" he groaned. "Ahhh, Mooska... Ah shit! ...Whew!!"

Then he fell asleep.

---

PART II

"What the bleedin' bloody, ruddy, fuckin' friggin' flippin' 'ell you doin' in my bed, Bodie?" Doyle demanded. "And where's yer knickers?"

"Where have you been and where'd you get the cow?" Bodie countered defensively as he tucked his shirt tail between his legs.

"What cow?"

"The green-eyed one."

"Oh yeh, that one. She, um, followed me 'ome from the pub one night. I thought I told you."

"No you didn't."

"Cold out, innit?"

Bodie wrapped a sheet around his waist. "Speaking of colds, Cowley said you 'ad one?"

Ray coughed. "Yeh. Want some breakfast?" He scurried out of the bedroom.

"Where'd she go?" Bodie demanded, following him into the kitchen.

"Who?"

"The cow."

"Which cow?"

"The one with the green eyes!"

">cough< She went out. Yoghurt or cottage cheese?"

"Cheese. Where were you?"

">cough, cough< Out."

"Out where?"

">cough, hack< Doctor. Want a glass of milk?"

"What did he say?"

">Wheeze< Who?"

"The doctor!"

"Which doctor?"

"The one you went to."

"Oh him? Said I had the flu."

"Thought it was a cold," Bodie said suspiciously.

"Did I say cold? I meant the flu. Actually I meant it was cold out and that's how I got the flu."

"You don't look sick. I think you're hiding something," Bodie remarked sagely.

Ray coughed into Bodie's milk.

Things were better after that.

---

PART III

About a year later --

"Bodie, I'm going to take some time off."

"Why?"

"Why do you think?" Ray demanded, casting a baleful glance in Bodie's direction.

"Goin' to buy some new clothes?" Bodie asked helpfully.

"Health reasons," Doyle countered.

"Well, that plaid jacket made *me* sick."

"I'm going down to Jersey to recuperate."

"From what?"

"The flu." He coughed delicately.

"That was a year ago!"

"Resistant strain," Ray explained. "Want to come along?"

"Nah."

"Oh come on..."

"Don't think so." He watched as Ray rooted around the CI5 freezer for some ice cream. The light from the freezer door threw his bones into sharp relief and Bodie felt a lump in his throat as he caught the angelic golden beauty of his ethereally lovely yet very butch partner. "Well, maybe ..." he conceded, back-pedalling furiously.

"They have cows there," Doyle informed him with a smile designed to show off his artistically chipped tooth.

They motored down to Jersey (which is a good trick, but never mind ...) and stopped at a quaint and rustic inn called 'Ye Olde Milke Payle'.

"Nice place," Ray promised. "Run by good folks -- Elmer and Elsie. You'll like them."

Ray checked them in and Elsie, a buxom, brown-eyed woman, pinched his cheeks merrily.

"This your doxy?" she asked cheekily.

"This is my Bodie," Ray responded.

"Looks a bit like a doxy," she responded earthily, pinching his cheeks jovially. "Around the mouth."

Ray stared hard. "So he does."

"Feeling generous?" Elsie asked cheerfully.

Ray hustled Bodie upstairs. "Send up some clover tea, love?" he called back to the cheerfully jovial woman.

The bedroom was painted milk-white and there were jugs of flowers and weeds all over. Ray plucked a few stems of grass and chewed them thoughtfully. "I suppose you wonder why I asked you here tonight," he said.

"No. Where are the cows?"

"That's what I want to talk to you about -- cows. well, cow, actually. One of them."

"Yeh?"

"Right here."

"Right here?" Bodie looked around dimly.

"Remember the cow in my flat?"

"Mooska?"

"Yeah, well, that was me. I'm Mooska."

Bodie staggered a bit under the weight of the disclosure. "You're never ..."

"Yup."

"No!"

"Honest --"

"Honest?"

Doyle played his trump card. "Remember jerking off in my bed?"

Bodie's ears turned bright pink. "Come to think of it," he remarked thoughtfully, "I've never seen the two of you in the same place."

"Yes you have."

"No I haven't."

"You've seen both of us in my bedroom."

"Not at the same time," Bodie protested.

"But you didn't say that," Ray countered.

"Well, it's what I meant."

"But you didn't say it."

"You *know* it's what I meant."

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did."

"If you can't be bothered to say what you mean, I can't be bothered to worry about it."

Bodie rubbed his forehead. "Why didn't you tell ne about Mooska?"

"I did."

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did."

"You didn't!" Bodie protested. (Again.)

"Did!"

"Didn't!"

"Did! Did! Did!" Ray shouted, slightly agitated. "Just now."

"I *meant* why didn't you tell me at the time?"

"You didn't *say* that."

"But I ... oh, never mind. Anyway, why did you have to drag me all the way down to Jersey to tell me? Wouldn't have been easier over a pint at the local?"

Ray insinuated his lithely agile (and obviously vastly superior) body into Bodie's personal space. "I brought you here for a reason, Bodie."

"So you said."

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did -- you said you brought me here to tell me about you and Mooska."

"That's not what I meant."

Bodie smiled.

"I brought you here for another reason."

"Flu, wasn't it?" Bodie asked as Ray unbuttoned his fly.

"Health reasons. If I don't get a piece of your ass I'll die." He tore off his shirt. "Oh Bodie -- dance the dance with me -- the cosmic rhumba! Let's boogie!" He knocked Bodie down and sat on him. "I'm a were-cow but I have feelings too."

"Hey, no problem," Bodie insisted, trying to wriggle out of his pants.

"This time of the year when people like me celebrate by dancing around big poles and ..."

"What? Cows?" Bodie threw his tattered clothes into the corner.

"Hmm? What? Oh ... no, pagans," Ray explained, reflecting that maypoles had nothing on Bodie. "Now we wait for the fairies to show up."

---

PART IV

"Oh, Ray ..."

"Oh, oh ... Bodie!"

"Oh, Ray ... Ray!"

"Mooooo!"

"Oh crap!"

---

PART V

Bodie, mother-naked and a bit chilled, was running through the fields, looking for Ray who had leaped through the window in cow form after they'd made love.

"Ray? Was it something I did?" he called plaintively. He stopped every likely-looking heifer. "That you, mate?"

"Hello, sailor!" Lounging against a tree was a gorgeous naked woman with the body of a goddess.

"Uh ... hi."

"Why are you out bothering the cows when you could be having fun around the bonfire?"

"My partner's a cow," Bodie burbled.

"That's not a very nice thing to say about him. I'll bet he doesn't say stuff like that about you."

"No, I mean a real one. Moo. You know."

"Oh. Oh, supernatural stuff."

"Yeh, right."

"I get it now."

"He answers to the name of Mooska. Seen him?"

"I'm just a fertility goddess." She beckoned him to her tree. "C'mere."

Bodie approached warily. Before he could back away, she grabbed his balls.

"Little gift from the other side," she chuckled. "A permanent hard-on." She disappeared, but the echo of raunchy laughter hung in the twilight.

Bodie looked down and grinned.

---

PART VI

"Oh ... Ray!"

"Oh jeeze -- not again ..."

---

PART VII

(Lots of coloured lights, whistles and bells.)

"Boooo-deee!" An unearthly voice called his name. "Booo-deeeee!"

"What?"

"How was it?" The fertility goddess materialized with a snap about two feet above him.

"I'm tired of it," he admitted.

"Already?" She shook her head. "Little boys are all alike."

"It's a mixed blessing," he observed.

She grinned at him. "That Mooska?" she asked, nodding towards Ray who was lying on the grass, out cold.

"That's him."

"Nice arse." She frowned. "Oh, hey, I feel a prophecy coming on." Her eyes glazed. "William Bodie, also known in the great whenever as Ironhead ..."

"What?"

"Shut up. This is my vision. I charge you to do the bidding of the gods in this world. You and Mooska ..."

"Ray."

"Sorry, Ray. You and Ray will fuck everything in sight and be generally fruitful."

"Can't be bad," Bodie muttered.

"You will infuriate prigs and fanatics everywhere and will be as a god yourself, and get it wrong most of the time, thereby proving our superiority once and for all. Amen, so mote it be, Inshallah, and all the rest of that jazz." Her eyes unglazed. "Sounds pretty nifty, huh?"

"Except the part about getting it wrong."

"Think of yourself as a holy fool," she explained, patting his erection which deflated immediately. "Look, if you need me again, just call. My number is on all the phone booths in the astral plane. Oh, I forgot to tell you -- your old man's a fairy. Ta!" And with a cheerful giggle she vanished.

---

PART VIII

"I don't know how to stop this story!" Bodie shouted. "It goes on and on -- it's like a bad dream!"

"It *is* a bad dream," Ray yelled over the sound of universes rendering.

"That's been done, Ray."

"Oh."

---

PART IX

Bodie and Doyle lay exhausted in the woods.

"This is just a breather, innit?" Ray gasped. "Any minute now something awful is going to happen and I'll have to change myself into a wombat and you'll have to sleep with a relative. I *hate* this universe."

"Oh don't whine," Bodie snapped, haunted by the memory of all the people he'd sent into limbo that afternoon.

Suddenly the sky darkened and the wind picked up.

"Oh no, not again," Ray groaned.

Trees were torn from the earth. There was blood on the moon.

Cowley stepped into the glade.

"I am the deus ex machina," he declaimed. "I have come to end your story."

"Oh thank god!" they chorused.

Cowley waved his wand and chanted "No-more-Cow-Ta----"

-- THE END --