Jake had slept in a little late starting the day off at eight a.m. instead of six, having come home late from having to help Earl reassemble the scrapped grinder trap. Clara was already up,enjoying the first cup of coffee and going through the daily business expenses, then she saw the reminder on her phone. A large order of fluffy pelts for Mr. Giovanni the fashion designer was due tomorrow and only half the pelts had been collected. Jake was finally up and after a quick breakfast he was out the door with a kiss for Clara, coffee in hand just as Jr pulled in with Mark just behind him. Bill and Shannon were last riding in together, both looking like they wanted to go back to bed, the group gathered around Jake at the porch stoop.
“Alright everyone were putting all calls on hold for today. Giovanni Jacques’s order for his next runway line is due and the livestock is ready for harvest. Hope you’ve sharpened your buck knives cause we’re gonna be puttin’ them to work. Any questions?”
“Yeah, where the hell is Earl?” Mark yawned.
“Out getting the replacement parts for the grinder destroyed by the scrappers when they stole them.”
“Looks like I’ll be getting my hands dirty today.” Clara sighed stepping out onto the porch. “List is posted by the pens in the barn.”
Clara was no stranger to skinning animals, being a hunter’s wife she helped skin and process everything her husband brought home, even shooting some herself. The two story set of pens that had every fluffy sorted by breed, gender and base color were over packed with overfed fluffies with little room to move. The constant yammering and complaints from the crowded pens echoed throughout the spacious area growing louder when the crew entered hoping to get their attention. Clara took the pen with the defective designer fluffies with a clipboard in hand reading the list, each born with severe special baby syndrome or far too derped to do little more than shit and bottle feed. A high risk when the gene pool was so shallow, making these ones unsalable to stores and breeders, good for only its meat and pretty fluff. There were nearly forty sets of numbers for this pen alone each with a matching ear tag for the fluffy on the list, she grabbed the first two on the list and hand off the clipboard. They were beautiful white alicorns with pink manes with cuties marks of balloons and cake but barely reacted to being picked up by their manes and carried off to the butchers station. The two were all cross-eyed and blep tongued looking cute and innocent… until Clara’s blade made the first cut. One sat in the sink shitting itself in terror as it watched the blade move quickly and skillfully then with a few hard yanks the bright white skin and fluff was ripped free. The inside out hide was hung on a coat hanger and set on the line, the second one had to be rinsed off before the shit could ruin the color of the pelt then it was onto the chopping block.
Jake had the unpleasant job of setting up the tanning drums, large plastic barrels with no lids and bucket after bucket of foul smelling tanning chemicals. Modern chemical formulas made the hide’s transition to leather far quicker than traditional ones but the stink was just as bad if not worse. Mark and Jr. were prepping the hides stretching them out on frames and using a power washer to blast the bits of meat and fat off them before their chemical bath.
Bill and Shannon were on skinning detail as well, the priority on getting the more exotic colors processed through. So it was back to the inbred reject pen for another set of cocked eyed, drooling nitwits. The barn had gone silent by now except for the screams of fluffies being skinned alive, no more begging or demanding just cowering trying to hide behind their fore legs. It took almost two hours to process nearly the whole pen save for two, a purple mare and a pink stallion who clung to each other for dear life.
A white SUV pulled into the driveway as Mark and Jr. had finished loading skins into the barrels and Candace climbed out looking a little disheveled. The second she climbed out she pulled her shirt collar over her nose to shield it from the smell.
“Sorry I’m late, dad, the daycare shut down from a gas leak and I couldn’t find a sitter for the boys.”
“Don’t worry about sweety, grab your knife an join your mother at the butcher block.”
Life had been good to the brown fluffies in the brown pens, bred from crossing some of the designer fluffs with the resident shit factory to create a shiny golden brown fluffy. It almost reminded you of lion’s fur and had gotten more food and the odd toy to share amongst them, keeping them fat, happy and coats lustrous. When they saw Candace their fear lifted for a moment looking up at her with hopeful tears in their eyes.
-Miss Candy! Miss Candy! Hewp! wots of scawwy noisies an scweamies! Save bwuddas an sissies fwum meanie daddehs!- Cried one mare.
Candace took an inhaler from her hoodie pocket and took a long hit from it, held it then released.
“This stuff tastes like shit. And I have to take it all the time because of the diseases you fuckers carried that I caught when I was little. It’s expensive as hell, my insurance barely covers it and I was on a ventilator till I was twenty! This is why I LOVE skinning you little bastards.” A terrifying grin spreading over her face.
“Candace, quit scaring the damn things an just get to skinning. You do this every time.”
“Yes, mom. It’s just my favorite part is all. You’re first bitch!” Grabbing the mare that had spoken up.
“What was that?”
“Not you, Mom, the fluffy.”
While Candace got to work drawing out the skinning process Bill got started on the smarties, they were easy to pick out. Formerly the loudest and meanest of the wild caught fluffies, instead of a reset to better their disposition they had their tongues cut out instantly making them the new dummehs of each pen. They of course tried to reassert their dominance but when you can only moan and howl in the faces of other fluffies you get kicked in the face a lot. Now the thing about smarty specific coats is that it was part of Giovanni’s extra cruel line of limited edition wares, as their punishment and poor treatment was recorded and made into a QR code for customers to scan and watch the making of their new clothing choice. Bill clipped on a body cam and picked up a red and blue maned earthy stallion by said mane.
“Welcome to stallion #3352’s journey into the world of high fashion.” He narrated. “So it’s off to the chopping block for this little babbeh raper.” Plopping him down on the block.
Shannon grabbed a smarty as well after getting her cam on, she carried it by the tail and set it on the block next to Bill’s station while recapping the smarty’s crimes. Skinning them was quick and easy but was drawn out for the video’s sake and instead of executing the skinless smarty, they were placed in a pen outside to watch their hides get tanned. Trapped outside in the cold morning air under the blinding sun with no eyelids to shut and just to add insult to injury Jr gave them a nice lime juice rinse with a garden sprayer. All for the camera.
Pen after pen the fluffies were processed til there was a scant few left if any in most of them and after a long and overdue lunch break the hides were pulled from the barrels and hung to be rinsed off. Thankfully fluffy rawhide comes out soft and pliable already, skipping the breakdown step to make it so. The skinned smarties could only cry and howl, standing up against the pen fence, reaching out for their fluff back. Raw flesh burned from the sun, eyes dry and cracked, shivering from the cold, it was time for the smarties journey to end. Other smarties got a quick end after the skinning, but for the smarties it was going to be drawn out as well, everyone grabbed a smarty and headed to the chopping block. First the standard squeezing, wringing out any remaining shit still left inside, then it would be pinned to their bellies and the buck knives got to work again. The infamous angel wing execution, the back was flayed open, ribs cut from the spine and pulled out like wings the the lungs are yanked out and left resting on the back. A slow, long and agonizing death with their dying breath caught on camera for the customer’s enjoyment. When the last smarty gasped their last the bodies were rolled into the meat wagon and taken to the walk in fridge for their next delivery to FluffCo. The pelts were left to hang drying overnight in the barn hanging on the line down the center in front of the few remaining fluffies who cowered and cried looking at what was left of their former pen mates.
The morning sun flooded the barn as the doors swung open the following day, Jake with tablet in hand watched as his crew walked in carrying dozens of collapsed cardboard boxed and rolls of tape. quickly folding, taping and filling the boxes they were carried out to van where a man in suit and tie waited with his own tablet.
“Alright, that’s one thousand eight hundred and fifty eight tanned fluffy pelts. Please sign for confirmation.” Jake stated holding out his tablet.
“Of course. Oh, and Mr. Jacques sent these to show his appreciation.” The man signed then opened the passenger door. “Mr. Jacques made you these jackets using the first batch of hides you provided us.” Taking out two large boxes. “One for each of your employees.”
“Thanks, but how’d he know our sizes?”
“He just knows, sir.”
Opening the top box Jake pulled out a XXXL black leather jacket with golden brown fluff trim around the cuffs and collar.
