This work is copyright 2000-2004 by Xaltatun of Acheron (A Pseudonym). It may be posted on the Internet to any free forum. It may be reformatted to match the forum's look and feel, and the forum editor may make minor spelling and grammer corrections. Otherwise it must be posted in its entirety, including these notices. It may not be sold, or included in any compilation that is sold, or posted on any forum that requires a fee for access, without my written permission. My permission will require payment, terms to be negotiated. For purposes of this notice, sites guarded by Adult Check or similar packages are considered pay sites. Posting on any site must include this copyright notice.
Adult Content Warning - this story contains adult themes, including non-consensual bondage/slavery and forced sexual acts. If you are under the lawful age for such materials (18 in most jurisdictions) or if you would find such material offensive, please go elsewhere.
Safety Warning. This story may contain descriptions of practices that are decidedly unsafe, either in general, or if performed by someone without adequate training. There are a number of good books available on safety in the BDSM scene. Most large cities, and some not so large ones, have organized BDSM groups that will usually welcome a newcomer. I'm not going to point out which practices are safe, and which aren't. Any practice is unsafe if performed by someone with inadequate training and experience, or if performed when not paying attention. Please think before you act. Don't make yourself a candidate for a Darwin award.
There are fifteen stories in the series entitled �Ponygirl Transformation.� At this point, I have no intention of writing additional stories in this series, although I thought that before Engineer burst on the scene. The stories are listed in order of the series timeline, although there are a few overlaps and several continuing characters. The first three set necessary background, the next three cover one formative event from three different viewpoints.
1. Ponygirl Finds Her Place
2. Kinder and Gentler
3. The Sorceress� Apprentice
4. Raw Material
5. Ponygirl by Choice
6. The Politics of Ponygirls
7. Ponygirls on Vacation
8. Bluebird Grows Up
9. Unregistered Ponygirls
10. Kidnapper
11. Suzie�s Ponygirl
12. Driver
13. Engineer (in preparation)
14. PonyGIRL?
15. Segue to Freehold (in preparation)
Acknowledgements. The setting and several of the characters are taken from a series of books by Sir Thomas (A pseudonym). �Adventures on the Hoof� and �Ponygirls, Inc� are both copyright by the Academy Club. Used by permission of Sir Thomas. These works are commercially available, and should not be on any web site on the internet, except for a short excerpt on Sir Jeff�s ponygirl web site.
Some of the characters and settings have been changed, either due to the different legal environment in the United States, my partially successful attempt to make the setting more consistent, and in one case a simple error of memory that got woven into the plot too deeply to back out by the time I discovered it.
In no case should you infer anything about the prior stories from this one. Sir Thomas has substantially different objectives for his stories.
There are a number of hidden references throughout to obscure (and some not so obscure) science fiction and fantasy stories. This is a game that some authors play. Should you care to look, have fun finding them.
Now on to the story...
Chapter 4. A real offer, at last.
Chapter 5. Morning at the apartment.
Chapter 15. Community Trainee.
Chapter 19. Your reality check is in the mail.
Chapter 20. Training Class, Part 2
Selma, out of work and very much out of sorts with her family, runs across an advertisement on the net for a ponygirl. She�s intrigued, and decides to follow up on it. So she signs the indenture. Then she discovers that it was for real.
She arrives and is uncrated. Then she�s subjected to a deliberately overwhelming introduction to the program. It works; by the second week she�s settled into the routine of being a ponygirl trainee when they discover that she�s got a real bad hair day. It makes her unsalable, and that causes a problem. What to do? Well, we wouldn�t have much of a story if they didn�t figure out something, now would we? She becomes a test subject for the geneticists. When last seen, she�s a very contented ponygirl trainee, just learning how to be a lobo-ra�s saddle pony.
�Hey, Stevie boy, is that you?�
�You know it is, Uncle Guido. How�s the family?�
�Doing great, kid. But you know Uncle Frank, he always worries.�
�Yah, one of these days he�s going to short circuit the worry box, and go up in smoke. What about this time?� I hoped he hadn�t heard about my latest fiasco.
�He hasn�t heard from Little Fuzzy for a while, you heard anything?�
�She disappeared. Just plain vanished. Police don�t know anything. I got her stuff in storage before the landlady tried to sell it.�
Shouldn�t be much of a problem, I thought to myself as I opened her PC and extracted the hard drive. Selma was only half smart about the things. I popped the drive into the analyzer and watched the automated cracker look for stuff. It came right up; cracking her passwords was a piece of cake. She had lots of deleted e-mail that hadn�t been overwritten.
�Hey, Stevie, boy, that you again?�
�Of course, uncle. How�s everyone?�
�Uncle is still worried about Little Fuzzy.�
�So am I. I still haven�t heard anything from her.� We talked about this and that for a while.
�Ran across something weird that I thought Mike might know about.�
�Oh?�
�Yeah, I found a film clip with this totally bizarre dance. This cute chick was dancing with wolves and what looked like real leprechauns. The chick was rigged out like a pony and the leprechauns were riding the wolves.�
�Kinky. Mike might know about it, at that. I�ll ask around.�
You can�t be too careful, I always say. The rest of the family claims I�m paranoid, but it�s quite true. It�s always the one thing you never expect that gets you. Mike had set me up with someone named Pretty Lemon who might know something about the clips I�d found on Little Fuzzy�s computer. You know that itch between the shoulder blades when someone is looking at you? I was feeling it real bad as I headed down this deserted street toward my appointment, making certain I wasn�t too close to anything anyone could hide behind.
I came to lying on my back, looking up at this rather unusual chick. That had to be Pretty Lemon. She had this amazing mane of lemon yellow hair that emphasized she had nothing else worth looking at. The two guys she had with her I dismissed immediately. Enforcers, but at least, they were being polite.
I scrambled to my feet and took in the sight. As I said, she was nothing to look at, although she was dressed to show off whatever assets she had. Low cut white blouse, black miniskirt with a phone and some wand hanging from the belt, mesh stockings and knee length black boots with five-inch heels. Whoever dressed her had to be nuts. The plain ones look better with more clothes, not less. The other thing that was obvious was that she was a butch lesbian. Making a pass was totally out of the question, which was just as well. I didn�t want to hurt her feelings by not making one.
�Pretty Lemon, I presume?� Not the world�s greatest opening, but you have to say something.
�Guilty as charged.� She had a kind of throaty, unforced laugh. Something was tickling the back of my mind. Where had I heard of that head of hair before? �You must be Steve.�
�Was the last time I looked. Did you really have to put me out to bring me here?�
�Uh, huh. Otherwise you�d have turned into a raving maniac.�
That brought me up short. �Didn�t I hear something about that a couple of years ago?�
She laughed again. �We�re being much more careful these days. Anyway, I�m supposed to put you into the picture while we go see if we�ve got your missing relative.�
We turned a corner, and I saw the next piece of the picture standing there, rigged out as a pony and hitched to a cart. She looked just like the pictures, except that her harness was white leather. This one was worth staring at. She had her head tilted back, allowing her waist length chestnut hair to fall free. Her foundation garment framed her perfectly, from where it hugged the curve of her hips to where it gave her perfect breasts just a hint of support. Her white leather boots forced her feet into a full pointed toe extension. They looked like they might be set on horseshoes. She had blinders on her bridle, a cute chestnut tail coming out the back, and bells on her ears and breast rings.
�Climb in,� Pretty Lemon said. All of us got in. �Do you want to drive her?� She handed me the reins.
�Huh?� I pulled my jaw back up. I hadn�t seen any flies, but I didn�t want to take chances. Besides, it makes me look as stupid as I was feeling at the moment. �How?�
�Just like a horse; that�s the way she�s trained.�
I shook the reins, and clucked at her. She strained a bit getting the cart moving, and then we were off. She did have horseshoes on those boots; I could hear the clip, clop of hard rubber on concrete distinctly. �Which way, ma�am?� Pretty Lemon gave me directions. We went into a tunnel, and then stopped at a security booth. One of the guards gave me a pass. �Don�t lose it.� I promised him I wouldn�t; it didn�t look like a real good idea to find out what would happen.
We came out into a large cavern with what looked like a small town built into it. �Just head up the street to the Arena. We should be in time for the third race.� I grunted; it was taking most of my attention just handling a ponygirl and cart in traffic, and not get distracted by that hair and tail swaying in front of me as she trotted along.
I got a good look at her head when we left her tied to a hitching rack. I scratched her behind the ears, and she whinnied at me.
The arena was like every horse track I had ever seen, except the oval was about half the size I was used to. The stands held a scattering of people. The grooms were wheeling out platforms to set up the third race as we settled into our seats. Each platform contained a kneeling girl stuck to a pole like a butterfly on a board. The grooms got them off the stands and harnessed them to what looked like miniature sulkies. This looked like leprechaun day; all of the drivers looked like little dolls. I could just imagine the fuss if they ever got jockeys that small for real horse races.
They walked up to the starting line, doing some kind of fancy step, every bit as good as several dancers I had known. They knelt precisely on the chalk, and came up like a chorus line. They charged around that track like the devil himself was after them, not that I could see any of the drivers using a whip. They were going so fast, I expected them to turn out to the finish line and collapse. Instead, they turned for another go around the track. Then they took third circuit, and a fourth. When they finally turned out to the finish line they knelt on it like they�d measured it with a ruler. It looked like five girls had just done a mile at a pace that would have been good for a 200-yard dash, while pulling a sulky, and in a uniform that couldn�t have helped their breathing.
�Best steroids I�ve ever heard of. Does the IAU know about this?� I asked.
�Not drugs, genetics. And no, they don�t.� she said.
�Now that�s interesting,� I grinned. �Let me know which ones to bet on.�
She looked confused for a moment. �Oh, right. This is for ponygirls only. It�s not available outside, under any conditions.�
�There are always exceptions,� I said.
�Too true. I don�t think you know which rule this is an exception to, though. You can talk to the managing director about it, but the answer will be no, as in �not even if all hell freezes over�.�
Negotiating isn�t my job, so I shut up. Besides, what had been tickling my mind had just surfaced. �You ever heard of someone called Sally Bananas? She vanished a couple of years ago, with the Feds in hot pursuit. They claim she had hair just like yours.�
She laughed again. �That�s me, boyo. I came here about two hours before the Feds raided my apartment. They�re pretty sure I�m still around, but they don�t have a clue as to where.�
�That�s a neat trick. How�d you manage it?�
�I didn�t. They kidnapped me for the ponygirl program here. It was total coincidence that the Feds knocked down my door two hours later. The Sorceress needed a hacker, so here I am.�
�So you�re the one that covered the back trail from Selma�s machine? I couldn�t figure out how you did it.�
�There was no back trail to cover. Or rather, it ended at the next router upstream from her ISP�s mail server.�
�Huh?� Now I was royally confused. �You penetrated her ISP just to get her?�
�Nope, didn�t have to penetrate anyone. We can read anything, anywhere, and write anything, anywhere. In one way, I�m not real happy about it; it�s too much like cheating. I don�t have to crack passwords or anything any more. There�s no challenge left in hacking.�
�That sounds like magic.� I said in a tone of blank disbelief.
�That�s why she�s called the Sorceress� Apprentice,� one of the enforcers said.
�That�s also why you want to forget what you just heard,� the other one said.
She smiled brightly. �You do say the nicest things, Bob.� He grinned back.
I looked back at the track. They were setting up for the fourth race. This time, it looked like the leprechauns were riding the ponygirls. Maybe I�d wake up and discover they�d slipped me a new designer drug. Please?
The training arenas were in this long room, stacked end to end. Each arena was maybe 30 yards square, sunk about six feet down from the walkway that ran down one side, and separated from each other by a wall. By now, I�d found out that the leprechauns were called lobo-ra, which means wolf-rider in some language or other. They sure didn�t look like the comic books I�d read as a child.
It was definitely Selma in the fourth arena; there was no way I could mistake her, even though her hair had grown out a bit, and was so mixed it would have made a clown cry.
Little Fuzzy was being worked with a cart. Her trainer was in the cart, and one of the little people was on the ground, showing her how various movements went. My appreciation of the ponygirl I had driven here went up; that looked like a very thorough training regimen. After watching a while, the reason finally got through my thick skull. Real ponies acted like ponies; the training we gave them was a relatively light veneer on their normal behavior. Selma had to be trained from the ground up to act like a pony. It looked like she was doing well at it.
Today�s lessons looked like show stuff. She was being trained to bring her leg up folded, with the heel pointed straight back, and then kick it out at the top of the arc before bring it back down to complete the step. As they went through the drill, I could see her getting better, with her movements becoming more fluid and at the same time, more precise. Whatever they were doing for training, it beat anything I had ever heard of. Of course, I�d never heard of the lobo-ra before today, or seen a race with five women in bondage harnesses and high heels absolutely trashing world running records without breathing hard, either.
I never did get to talk to her. They wouldn�t let me break her training discipline.
�What,� Leo asked, �do we do with her?�
Leo was sitting with Alice; Pretty Lemon; Black ThunderBolt; Lenore, who was the head of the training academy; Thomas, who was the head of marketing; and Dave, his security chief.
�Why is this a problem?� Dave asked.
�Her family is getting awfully insistent, and they�re one of the major Mafia families on the East Coast.�
�We could just blow them away,� Dave said. �The police would probably thank us if they knew.�
�It would undoubtedly be an improvement,� Alice said dryly, �But think of what would happen next.�
�So what? Dead is not going to come back to bother us.�
�People would wonder. People would ask questions.� Pretty Lemon said.
�And when they didn�t get any answers, they�d invent them. You�d have an absolute zoo if a major Mafia family just fell over dead with no answers,� Black ThunderBolt added. �Make me glad I�ve got a mountain over my head.�
The head of marketing added, �And some of our contacts know enough to point the finger right at us.�
�Didn�t think of that,� Dave said. �We�ve got too many clients out there to protect them all if it blew up in our face.�
�What about just sending her back?� Pretty Lemon asked.
�She�s the one that doesn�t want to deal with her family.� Alice said. �She wouldn�t have been in the fix she was in if she would have accepted their help.�
�Tom would raise hell,� Lenore said. �He�s head over heels in love with her.�
�Besides, that would establish a precedent,� Marketing added. �I don�t think I want to go there.�
�I don�t either,� Security said. �Too much risk of her talking.�
�What about making her one of us?� Alice asked.
�What?� Dave exclaimed.
�I�d rather not,� Lenore added. �If she gets it, I�d rather see Cloudburst and the ThunderBolt first. At least, they�re contributing.�
�I agree,� Marketing said. �She�s done nothing to deserve it. In all fairness, we�d have to open it up to all the community owned ponygirls, and then we�d have all hell out for noon.�
�That�s going to have to happen anyway,� Alice said, �but I agree, it�s too soon. We need a lot more spadework first.�
�It�s also beside the point,� Leo said. �The basic issue is that we�ve got a Mafia family breathing down our neck on this. Either we fight them, or we do something that lets them see she�s doing what she wants to do.�
�That would mean she�s got to work outside,� Pretty Lemon said. �How do we keep a leash on her?�
�And keep her mouth shut,� added the security chief.
�Sounds like a commitment issue,� said Lenore. �I know why Alice and the Lemon are with us. That�s why I�ve objected to your getting a membership,� she added, turning to Black ThunderBolt.
�Mine should be pretty obvious,� Black ThunderBolt said, �I get to play goddess of the gene pool. I couldn�t do that outside, and I�d have to deal with academic politics. Sometimes you frustrate the hell out of me, but it�s still better than academia. Cloudburst?� She thought a moment. �She�s the head sysadmin of one of the larger computer complexes in the world; we�re certainly in the top 100 if not the top 50. She doesn�t do a huge amount of bitching, either. I�d guess she�d want to stay, but I wouldn�t care to bet on it.�
Lenore nodded thoughtfully. �So it looks like we�ve only got two options,� Lenore said. �Either we find a club to hold over their heads so they keep their noses out of our business, or Selma comes up with some reason for us to trust her outside.�
�So, how about this,� Leo said. �We tell her family we�re not going to break her training schedule. That gives us two months. Security comes up with a club; maybe put together a dossier on their drug dealings, or something. When we would normally start letting her talk, we ask her to think about it.�
�OK by me,� said Dave. �I just hope the Board buys it.�
�And the Mafia. I�d hate for this place to come down around my ears,� said Pretty Lemon. �The last thing I want to do is deal with the Feds again.�
The unnamed ponygirl knelt on her stand and placidly let her last feeding digest. Two of the ponies opposite her had not been in their cells for several days. She watched the trainers walk back and forth, and watched the new chestnut in the cell opposite fidget a bit. A redhead walked up to her cell and let herself in. She seemed somehow familiar.
�Hi, pony. I�m Alice, remember me?�
The memory came back. This was the one that had gotten her the lovely blond mane she sported. She tapped twice and whinnied.
�Of course you do. You�re just about done training, and we need to talk a bit.� Alice took the gag out of the pony�s mouth. �Talk time.�
�Uh, what about?� pony said, a bit slowly.
�What we�re going to do with you next. Your uncle Frank has been asking about you.�
�That ... bastard,� pony exclaimed. �He�s the last one I want to talk to. How did he find me?�
�Poor security on both our parts. That�s irrelevant,� Alice said, waving her hand to dismiss it. �What we need to know is whether you want to stay a ponygirl until you fall over dead of old age, or whether you want to join us. If you want to join us, we also need to know why we should trust you.�
�You�d let me go back to being a people again?� She sounded quite surprised.
�Yes, on condition that you maintain some kind of relationship with your family. And, of course, the commitment thing I just mentioned.�
�Damn. I don�t want to let them get their hooks into me.�
�You hate them that much?�
�No, not at all. I�d like to see them again. I loathe the family business, and staying away is the best I can do to keep them from getting me trapped in their web.�
�Well, if you were one of us, that couldn�t happen.�
�Oh, good. Can I keep Tom?�
�You�d have to drive him off with a club,� Alice laughed. �He�s in love with you. We still have to deal with the trust issue, however.�
�I don�t know. What would get you to trust me?�
�Joining us fully. You�d have to spend some time training ponygirls.�
�Hey, neat. I always liked training my cats to do the strangest things.�
�You don�t have any objection?�
�Why should I? I didn�t have any objection to my becoming a ponygirl, why should I have any objection to training other girls?�
�OK, we�ll do it that way. As of now, you�re a community trainee. The thing you need to know about them is that they are our own people. Most of our young women spend two years as ponygirls and then one year in class before starting to train. Community trainees wear white tack, so you�ll get your new tack in a couple of days. Since they grow up here, they�ve got a general idea of what�s going to happen to them. It�s impossible to keep them from having it, so I�ll fill you in. You�ll be going into the next community trainee auction, where you�ll find out who your owner is going to be for the next year and a half. Then you�ll come out, and go to trainer�s school. That�s a year. Then you�ll spend a few years training ponygirls before you go on other things, unless you want to make a career as a ponygirl trainer.�
�That�s all?�
�That�s all I�m going to tell you. You get you new tack when it comes, you�ll be transferred to the new stable when it happens, and you�ll know what your owner wants you to do as a ponygirl when it happens. Our trainees don�t know any more about that than any of the other ponygirls.�
�Oh.�
�Well, that�s all we need to talk about. Talk time is over.� Alice held up the ball, and pony obediently opened her mouth. Alice installed it, and then scratched her behind the ears. Pony whinnied at her as she left the cell.
Days passed. The team kept training me. I learned how to pull carts, and two different ways of racing; one with Dana riding me, and one pulling a sulky. They also started training me on show routines, where I was expected to hold a position, and then move into another position on command. The days passed.
Then one morning they brought another ponygirl into my cell, and hitched some kind of shafts to the front of my stand. Tom slid a hood over my head, and then I heard the clop, clop of the ponygirl�s hard rubber horseshoes in front of me as my stand jerked back and forth, punctuated by her rider�s voice giving her commands and keeping her calm.
After a while, my stand rumbled into what sounded like a large hall, and someone removed my hood. It looked like there were several ponygirls across the way from me, and I thought I could see one on each side out of the corner of my eyes. Then people poured into the hall. At least, I assume they did; all I could see was various people walk up and look at me, and pick up some kind of folder that hung from my headrest and discuss it with their companions.
This ponygirl was getting puzzled, until I finally remembered the redhead who told me that I�d be auctioned off. What was her name? Alice, I thought, although it didn�t seem to matter. This seemed to be the auction, and I seemed to be lot 38. I had purchasers looking at me, and most of them seemed to like what they were seeing. My mane attracted a lot of comments; apparently it was quite unusual. I preened under the attention.
Then the people left and they wheeled most of the stands from the rows behind me out of the room. Attendants came around and gave each of us a mash ration. I sucked mine down greedily. Then they took me off my stand and marched me to a bathroom. I let go, and then they marched me back. Then the people came back, and looked us over again. Several wrote bids on my bid sheet. It was nice to be popular. Several people wanted me as a racer, but just as many seemed to want me as a show pony.
Finally the crowd left, and attendants wheeled us across the room and up a ramp to where we were lined up at the back of a large stage.
The auctioneer started with a lot 8, and then lot 14. I was mildly puzzled until he announced lot 17 next, and then kept going up by ones. That was more what I expected. Then I was puzzled again since some of the ponies seemed to be going for points, and some for real dollars. Lots of real dollars; I had no idea we were that expensive! Then I figured out that it was the community trainees that were going for points, and the community owned ponygirls that were going for real money. Then lot 38 came up, it was my turn! The bidding was rather spirited. I thought I heard Tom�s voice, but I couldn�t be sure. Finally the bidding stopped, and I heard the auctioneer bellow: �Lot 38, sold to Tom Fredland!�
An attendant wheeled my stand to the back of the stage, and slid a hood over my head. Then I just knelt there until I heard another �girl come up and stop in front of my display stand. After a few thumps and bumps, she started off, and I heard the clop, clop in front of me as I was taken somewhere else.
Somewhere else turned out to be another ponygirl cell. Not much of a surprise, that. What did surprise me was that I had a completely new training team. I suppose it should have been obvious, but I wasn�t thinking. I was just letting myself drift, not that there was anything else I could do.
The next morning, Tom came in, got me out of my night bondage and groomed me. He had this big grin on his face. �Well, Raindance, you�re mine now.� I whinnied excitedly at him.
�I need to explain the new rules to you,� he said as I crawled over to the shower and sat on my heels under it. �Now that you�re out of the training block, you�re required to talk during your morning grooming.�
That startled me so much that the bar of soap I was using squirted out of my hand, and I had to crawl after it to get it back. �I can talk?� I asked. Not the most intelligent comment, but then I wasn�t laying any great claim to intelligence at that point.
�Yes,� he said. �The actual rule is that you have to talk.�
I paused a moment while I soaped myself thoroughly. �She said I wouldn�t ever talk again.�
�If you�d have been sold outside, that would probably be true, however, we�ve got a rule that all of our ponygirls have to talk once a day to keep their voices in working order.�
�I�m grateful, of course, but I don�t understand.�
�Well, you wouldn�t. Alice told you that you were a community trainee, right?�
�Yes. That�s something special, but I didn�t understand it.�
�That�s all right. Community trainees are ours, and the reason we require them to talk is that if they didn�t talk for two years, they�d have some trouble starting talking again when they come out. You�ve got another year and a half to enjoy being a ponygirl. At least, from the way you�re acting, I assume you�re enjoying yourself.�
�Oh, I am,� I told him. �There�s nothing to worry about; it just floats along.� I finished drying myself off and crawled back to him, presenting my bottom so he could stick the dildo and butt plug into their waiting sockets.
�That�s great,� he answered. �Well, talk time is over for today.� He buckled my bridle around my head and held the ball gag in front of me. I opened my mouth and let him install it. By now, the reaction was completely automatic; I not only didn�t have to think about it, I doubt if I could have thought about it.
One thing I discovered fairly quickly; just because Tom was my owner didn�t mean he spent that much time with me. It was pretty much like training: I found out who was going to groom me in the morning when he or she woke me up and sent me into the grooming room. My day always started out with a grooming, and then stand time to suck down my mash and digest. Then I got two hours on the running machine and another rest period to drink some mash and digest. From there on, it varied, and I do mean it varied.
Tom was training me as a racer, and also on dressage. You might think that meant I�d be spending all my time at the racetrack being trained. Well, I did spend a lot of time at the race track, but most of it wasn�t being trained. Most of it was spent pulling other ponygirls around on their stands!
The way it worked was that one of the lobo-ra would come up and have me saddled right after I�d finished with my second mash, and ride me to another ponygirl cell, where she�d have me sit while she attached a pair of shafts to the stand. Then she�d have me pull the stand out of the cell and down the corridor to the track. I�d drop her off in the ready circle, and then pick up another one and haul her back. On many of those days, they�d break the back and forth to ride me out to the track proper for training.
Race training wasn�t all that different from what they�d done in the training block. Some days they�d concentrate on starts, some days they�d concentrate on the end of the race, the turn out to the judge�s stand and the final lineup. Still other days we�d do racing signals, which meant learning the various rein signals.
It wasn�t all practice. I did race every few days, and I suppose all that training was paying off. My finishes steadily improved from dead last to the middle of the pack, and eventually toward the top. I remember coming in first a few times, but it was hardly a regular occurance.
Other days I wasn�t in the arena at all. The first time one of the lobo-ra rode me out of the arena through the archway onto the street I almost balked! She rode me to various places, and left me tied to a hitching rack until she came back and got me. That wasn�t the strangest part of it, though. The strangest part was the way I was serviced.
Several times a day, a cart came by, pulled of course by a pair of ponygirls. The trainer in the cart very efficiently worked down the line of �girls at that particular hitching rack and fed us our mash. Then she emptied our bladders, and moved off to the next hitching rack to repeat the process.
I suppose that last part needs a bit of explanation. Part of the daily routine was, of course, answering the call of nature. Being a ponygirl didn�t make me immune to my bladder filling up. While I was in my cell, the trainers simply led me into the grooming room and had me squat slightly while they held a rubber funnel against my anatomy. It took a few tries initially before the pattern settled in, but after that it was pretty automatic.
The trainer that fed us did it the same way. She installed the mash funnel, and then reached from behind and pressed in the other funnel. The first time she did it, I almost choked at feeling both ends going at the same time. After that, it became routine.
After a few days of this, one day a lobo-ra rode up and hitched my reins to the back of her ponygirl. Then she led me to another cell, where she picked up another ponygirl. Then she picked up a third, and took us all out to a hitching rack where she left us. All that day, different lobo-ra would walk up, unhitch me and ride me somewhere, leaving me at a different hitching rack. Later that afternoon, another lobo-ra came up and led me back to my cell, together with a string of other ponygirls.
The morning after that happened, I asked Elspeth what was going on. I asked her because she happened to be the trainer that groomed me that morning, and she was one of the few trainers that would actually answer questions. Most of the trainers I either babbled at, or we talked about sex.
�I suppose,� she said a bit slowly, �I can explain a bit. Tom�s doing something unusual with you. Most of our �girls are specialists, and since you�re a racer you�d probably be here in your cell except when you were in the arena being trained or actually running a race. What he�s planning on doing is moving you through all of the jobs that ponygirls do in the Community. Right now, you�re doing the lobo-ra taxi.�
�I can see they need it,� I said. �They�re too small to get around someplace this big. So what else is he going to have me doing?�
�You know better than to ask that,� she swatted me playfully. �I suppose I can tell you why, though. It�s because you�re an outsider that�s going to be joining us.� She stopped; I suppose to see if I would put it together.
�So all of you natives already know all of this, just from living here,� I said.
�Good girl! That�s exactly right.� She held up the ball gag in front of my face; my mouth opened to receive it.
Lobo-ra taxi wasn�t the end of it, though. The next thing I got trained on was chariots. Chariots were like sulkies, except that they were big enough to hold two adults and some packages. They weren�t carts; carts were basically boxes on four wheels while the chariots only had one axle; they put more weight on the ponygirl�s harness. Then I got trained to work with another �girl on bigger chariots. I spent more time on taxi, but this time it was with the chariots, not with the lobo-ra saddle.
Then they put me on commuter service for a few days. Commuter was this big wagon that people simply jumped on and off as it moved; kind of like a streetcar you�d only see in a historical flick. That needed an eight pony team; the driver sat in front and most of the time we just kept going from the residential dome to the training block and back, passing the arena on the way.
For some reason, commuter broke my day in the middle. They only had us on it for five or six back and forth trips, and then they unharnessed us and put us to doing something else.
Commuter seemed to be a major shift in what they had me doing. The next thing was in the Executive Block. I got hitched to a lawn mower! That was steady work; the mowers took two ponygirls and a driver, and we went back and forth for most of the day, with breaks for sucking down our mash rations.
The executive block was a separate cavern that had lawns between the apartments. It didn�t run to streets at all; there were nice little paths, but I suspected that the residents mostly used their ponygirls to get around. As it turned out, I was right, but I didn�t find that out until later.
I�d been a working pony for about a year at this point. I only figured that out later, when I looked at Tom�s diary, of course. The next thing they did was shift my schedule twelve hours. By then, I�d forgotten what had puzzled me about the commuter service. I found out quickly. My new day started the same way as usual: grooming, some mash and digestion time, a period in the trotting booth, and then some more mash and digestion time. After that, I went right to the commuter service for a couple of hours, and then I got hitched to various carts that held cleaning supplies and other stuff for the cleaning crews. A cleaning crew usually only had one ponygirl; they�d fill the cart with supplies and drive me to wherever they were working, unload the supplies and fill the cart with stuff that needed to be disposed of, and then drive me back to dump the garbage and pick up more supplies.
Then I�d get put back on the commuter service, which ended my working day. I had another session of stand time for mash and digest, then a short trotting booth session, and then I got put down for the �night.�
That lasted for maybe a month. I got to see parts of the complex I hadn�t been in before. In particular, the hydroponics and fish cultures were where a lot of the garbage wound up.
During that month, I didn�t do any racing. When they put me back on a regular schedule, I�d lost a good deal of form; I went from just behind the regular winners to the middle of the pack with an almost audible thud. It was back to training, but this time they started me on steeplechase. Steeplechase takes an exquisite sense of balance. All they worked on for a month was jumping over progressively higher barriers while I was carrying varying loads. Lots of the jumps weren�t barriers at all; some of them were over ditches, and some of them were from one level to another, or over a low barrier where the other side wasn�t at the same level. Once I found my balance, they started over with a lobo-ra riding me. Then they started putting it together so that we�d go from one obstacle to another.
This was where they started giving me my head. Even the lobo-ra weren�t insane enough to try to control a ponygirl on a jump. It was like a regular race in a way; the start and finish were my business, the rider was just along for the ride. They taught me a set of signals so my rider could tell me what the next obstacle was all about, and of course she was in control in between obstacles, not that mattered very much. There usually wasn�t enough distance between them to get up to speed and then adjust to get the right speed for the obstacle.
As you might guess, steeplechase wasn�t the most popular way of showing a pony. As I found out later, you�d probably burn her out in three to five years; a racer was good for fifteen to twenty years.
Selma is still training up nicely. Now that they�ve got the hair problem under control, marketing is probably regretting making her a community owned ponygirl. Then her family gets into the act, and they make a deal. Now she�s a community trainee, whatever that is. She discovers quickly that one of the things it means is that she�s sold at auction, and her new owner is her former lead trainer, who names her Raindance.
So now what happens to our favorite ponygirl? You�ll just have to wait for the conclusion
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