This work is copyright 2000-2006 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.
Now on to the story...
Chapter 6. Ponygirl Sign Language.
Chapter 7. Crystal takes Moonlight for a spin.
Chapter 8. Decisions, Decisions.
Chapter 10. The Plot Unravels.
Chapter 11. Serenity takes a ride.
Chapter 12. The Plotter Arrives.
Chapter 13. The Plotter discovers she’s a Bitch.
Chapter 14. Sold! Or Something.
Chapter 15. Terry and Bethany ride their ponies.
“Mr. Trolley can see you now,” the pretty secretary told the man and woman in the waiting room as she got up from her desk to usher them into her boss’s office.
The man started slightly; he’d been studying her while attempting to avoid appearing to stare. He hadn’t been entirely successful but she didn’t mind; she was quite used to the effect she had on males of most ages. Being attractive was part of her job, and she accepted the attention it caused with no little amusement.
The 5’6” blonde wore a single shoulder tunic that could have been painted on, except for the parts that came over her ample breasts and the mid-thigh length skirt. The tunic had a pattern of diagonal black and white streaks that fell from the shoulder, circled twice, and finished up around the skirt hem. The pattern was definitely not stripes; interestingly it didn’t show any breaks where the fabric could have been sewn.
She had a bold red ribbon around her neck, decorated with a small plaque whose pattern he couldn’t quite make out. Her legs shimmered above her 3” heeled open sandals.
Jed Trolley looked at the couple that his secretary ushered into the office. They looked like they were in their late twenties, which matched the dossiers he had been reading. Terry stood about 5’10” with the sandy hair that spoke of a significant amount of northern European somewhere in his ancestry; she stood an inch or so shorter with a combination of light complexion and blond hair that spoke of the same origin.
Pleasantries past, Jed opened the issue by asking Terry: “So you want your wife to spend the next two weeks as a ponygirl?”
“Yes. My company is sending me on a training course, and we thought this would be a good time. She’s been itching to have a longer ponygirl experience for quite a while.” Anna nodded her head vigorously in agreement.
“You say you’ve been showing her in the part time category at meets for a couple of years. The video clips look good; she’s actually taken a couple of firsts in her category?”
“Yes, I have.” Anna’s voice was low and throaty.
“The thing to understand is that this is a major step from where you’ve been competing. You haven’t, for example, registered her with the Slaveowner’s Consortium.”
“No, we didn’t think it was necessary.”
“It’s not for what you’ve been doing, although I’m mildly surprised since the Ponygirl Section has a category for part time which does not require that the ponygirl be a slave. However, boarding her here isn’t the same as far as we’re concerned.”
“I don’t see why?” Anna asked.
“Well, let me repeat the background for you. You undoubtedly know most of this, but it doesn’t hurt to go over it again, and it looks good on the registration recording.
“Excelsior Stables and Kennels is one of a number of organizations in the slave business. We specialize in pets; that is ponygirls, puppy-girls and kitty-girls, although we of course handle the males of each variety as well. We train them, board them, rent them and sell them. We also board the more normal varieties of slave, do basic and some touch-up training and sometimes buy them for resale, but our focus is in human pets.
“The legal situation is, to put it mildly, murky. You understand the constitutional limitation on slavery?”
“I can’t say I do,” Terry answered. “My civics course led me to believe it was prohibited, but it obviously isn’t.”
“Well, that’s the first murky part. The Constitution prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, and it’s quite explicit about it.
“Most states, and the federal government, also explicitly prohibited slavery until a few years ago. The ultra-conservative Supreme Court is thankfully no longer with us, but while it lasted it struck down those laws as unconstitutional infringements of the right to make and privately enforce contracts, and the more moderate courts since haven’t reinstated them.
“I’m told the court decision was a model of double-think. I know I get a headache whenever I try to read it. However, there are three critical elements.
“The first is that the relationship has to be entered into voluntarily. That’s ensured by the brain scanner in the standard legal contract and deposition system we have here.
“The second is that the government is not allowed to take any actions whatsoever that would tend to enforce the owner’s rights in the contract. That was the crux of the decision: that slavery, to be slavery, had to be enforced by society, which means the Federal, state or local governments.
“The third key element is that the slave owner is not required to allow the slave to walk out, and the government cannot unduly interfere with any measure he takes to prevent his property from walking out.”
“That’s where I get lost,” Terry commented.
“Well, it’s murky. Since slavery doesn’t exist, there is no such legal category as a slave, therefore a slave technically has the same set of civil rights as anyone else, and a lot of government bureaus make it their business to enforce them, at least in their core areas.”
Anna frowned in concentration.
“Let’s take the standard example. Let’s say you wanted to keep her in a cage and take her out when you wanted sex. If she agreed to go into the cage willingly, that’s the first part. The brain scanner lets the courts verify that it was willing agreement when she entered into the contract, regardless of whether she changed her mind later.
“She’d have to get out of the cage to exercise her right to terminate the agreement, and you have no obligation to let her out so she can leave. So it looks, on the surface, that she’s stuck.
“However. Let’s say your house burned down, and she died because she couldn’t get out of the cage. The charge would be negligent manslaughter. The anti-slavery societies would make certain it would be prosecuted, and juries are not particularly lenient on that set of circumstances. So you can’t simply lock the cage and put the key somewhere she can’t get to it.
“That’s the guts of the slave owner’s dilemma. There are, of course, a lot of details including medical care, building codes, fire prevention codes and insurance regulations, but that’s the guts.
“The other side of it, of course, is that we board slaves, and the owners have a perfectly reasonable expectation that their property will still be there when they come to get it.”
“So how do you handle it?”
“With this.” Jed took a red ribbon out of a drawer and put it on the desk. “It looks like a ribbon necklace, but it’s actually a quite sophisticated control collar that’s been shrunk with nano-technology. It’s the same as the ones the Goodwife Institute calls a Goodwife Ribbon. You can buy them directly from the manufacturer if you want to experiment; there’s a very enthusiastic experimenter’s association.
“The Goodwife Institute uses very little of its capabilities and the enthusiasts make it do some pretty unbelievable things. We have our own system that handles everything we need to maintain control.
“Cool,” Terry said as Anna looked at it with a bit of trepidation.
“Most of what we do with a ponygirl revolves around our definition. A ponygirl is a girl that has been trained to act like a horse, is treated like a horse and is used like a horse. She is not, however, a horse.
“Horses are usually either in their stalls, in a meadow or field with a fence that most of them can’t jump, or harnessed to something. We do the same thing with ponygirls; most of the time they’re either in their stall, in a meadow behind the stable, or harnessed. However. Ponygirls aren’t horses. They’ve also got a latrine, a feeding room and a shower room.
“One of the rules is that, while ponygirls are in their stalls, they have to be chained to the wall. For both legal and practical reasons, we don’t lock the chain, and we don’t lock the stall door. We use this on the end of the chain.” He took out a snap hook. “It’s simple and it lets them take it off any time they want. Of course, if they’re in their stall with it off for more than about ten seconds, the collar will nudge them, and then if they don’t put it on, it’ll start a punishment sequence and notify the stable hands.
“We make a virtue out of necessity. We don’t let them relieve themselves in their stall; they have to use the latrine, so that’s one reason why they’d unchain themselves and leave. Then there’s a meadow in the back they can use to relax and play. It’s bounded by both a visible and an invisible fence. And they also have to keep their own tack clean and properly oiled. The stable hands are quite happy to let them pitch in and help with the stable chores as well, although they don’t have to and the trainers frown on making them do it. Those are all valid reasons why they might leave their stalls by themselves. It makes it look like the chain is redundant, right?”
Both of them nodded.
“Well, part of the reason is that the chain looks good, but the real reason is that it reminds them they’re under control. Ponygirls aren’t horses. A symbolic restraint would do nothing whatever for a horse; with a ponygirl it reinforces the role. She’s the one that clips it to her collar when she goes into her stall, and she’s frequently the one that unclips it when she’s taken out. If a girl is here long enough, she starts to get a feeling that something’s wrong if the chain isn’t attached while she’s in her stall. I’ve seen a few curl up with the thing as if it represented safety of some kind.
“Another example. I mentioned that she isn’t allowed to relieve herself in her stall, right? Part of the definition is acting like a horse, and horses don’t have any control and can’t be easily trained to have any. It’s pointless. So if she’s under harness and she needs to empty her bladder, she just does it.
“However, if she’s in her stall, she’ll go to the latrine. The stable attendants don’t like cleaning up the mess if they do it in their stall, and the girls don’t like living in it, or the smell. Most of our girls are fastidious enough that they’ll make sure they hit the latrine before being harnessed, but if they need to when they’re harnessed, they’ll just do it. It doesn’t take all that long before they simply let it happen without being embarrassed.”
“That’s more stringent than I’d expected,” Anna said thoughtfully.
“It is, if you were expecting to be here without a valid slave contract. The courts will not interfere with what we do, as long as we don’t overstep the bounds I mentioned earlier. However, there has to be a contract; if we did some of the things I’ve just mentioned without a contract we’d be in very deep trouble.
“Here’s another piece. Whether animals talk depends on how far you want to stretch the definition of talking. Horses can certainly communicate whatever a horse cares about to another horse. However, they don’t talk in any human recognizable language, and they don’t really understand human speech, regardless of the language.” He took a weirdly curved piece of what looked like plastic out of the drawer, and added two earplugs next to them. “These are standard medical devices that are used to correct speech and hearing defects. We have them set up so the mouthpiece detects speech and generates sound cancellation. It lets anything that isn’t speech phonemes through. The earplugs do something similar: they detect speech and replace it with a nonsense stream of speech sounds that still has the same emotional content, and which allows her to identify the speaker.
“Those are our rules for pets we board. You’ve got to be registered and you’ll be treated like a highly intelligent animal. If you can’t live with it,” he shrugged, “you can’t be boarded here.”
“I thought I heard of facilities that didn’t require a slave contract.”
“It looks that way, but looks are deceiving. The Slave Warehouse advertises that they will accept women in their kennel who don’t have a slave contract. Part of the difference is that they’re a slave kennel, not a ponygirl stable. What they do with slaves that are kenneled there is pretty understandable. The other part is that their kennel contract is a slave contract; it’s registered with the Slaveowner’s Consortium in a special section that isn’t public record. It’s limited term and it expires when she leaves, but it gives them the same rights they’d have with the usual contract.
He paused a moment. “The Slave Warehouse also uses a permitted area and invisible fence system. It’s basically the same as the one we use. Other kennels are always losing slaves and being hauled into court for maltreatment.” He shrugged. “It looks like in a couple of years it’ll be just us and The Slave Warehouse. The rest are being sued out of business.”
“What do you do with ones that rebel?”
“Our trainers are quite good at gentling pets down. It’s the ones that start off in rebellion that are a bit of a challenge, but we have ways of coping. It doesn’t matter to us if she comes caged and screaming about what she’s going to do to everyone when she manages to escape. What matters is that she’s in that cage legally, which means in practice that her ID tattoo is registered with the Slaveowner’s consortium and her consent is on record. Or it means that she’s a convicted criminal who was sentenced to enslavement or chose it instead of the jail term. Of course, dealing with rebellion costs extra.” Jed smiled, possibly at the thought of the extra.
“I’d think the anti-slavery societies would jump on that real hard.”
“Well, they used to. That’s one place where the murk works in our favor. They stopped when the ultra-conservative courts ruled that it was kidnapping, regardless of whether the slave wanted to be freed or not.
“That’s a criminal act that carries life imprisonment or death in many states, and the laws that let the victim select the penalties led to a number of them being enslaved. The ultra-conservative court upheld those penalties, so the ‘except as a punishment for crimes’ clause in the Constitution now has real teeth. Most of them aren’t willing to risk it. The ones that were are now wearing control collars, and they don’t have an option to walk out.” He shrugged. “The governments like it; it costs a lot to keep a prisoner in jail.”
“That would tend to make the rest of them a lot more cautious,” Terry nodded. “So what’s the next step?”
“We need to get your ponygirl registered and her consent on file. This interview will be part of the file at the Consortium. By the way,” he said as he picked up one of the files and looked at it, “the name you’ve been showing her under is Moonlight on Wheat?”
“Yes,” Terry answered as Anna nodded again.
“I checked with the Ponygirl section of the Slaveowner’s Consortium, and it’s available. That’ll be her registered name, then, unless you want a different one?”
“Uh. No. That’ll be fine,” Terry answered.
“Anna. Once we install the collar it won’t matter if you have second thoughts: the time to decide you don’t want to do this is right now. You know the drill with the contract machines, right? The two machines are linked. You each take one, put the headset on, put your ID on the scanner and your hands on the plate, look at the camera and answer the questions on the screen.”
They both nodded. He handed Anna the collar. “You need to put this on while you’re wearing the headset. It’ll tell you when.”
Anna shook her head a bit ruefully, and then walked up to the leftmost machine as Terry walked up to the other. She put her ID on the scanner, put on the headset, put her hands flat on the scanner and looked at the screen, which was backed by a camera.
The screen lit.
“Identity verified: Anna Winters.”
“Brain scanner functioning properly.”
“Transferable Unrestricted Use Indenture of Anna Winters to Terry Winters.”
“Please confirm that this is the desired contract.”
She pressed yes. It put another question on the screen, and she pressed yes again. It continued for a while, and then instructed her to install the control collar. She took the ribbon and wrapped it around her neck, where it quivered a moment before it shrank slightly to a snug but not tight fit.
She answered a few more questions. Then it displayed the end:
“Willing agreement with the contract terms verified for both parties.”
“Contract registered with the Slaveowner’s Consortium.”
“Contract registered with Ponygirl Section: assigned name is Moonlight on Wheat.”
“Slaveowner’s Consortium ID assigned to indentured party: XXXXXXXX.”
“Excelsior software in control collar initialized.”
“Contract terms installed in control collar.”
“Session ended.”
Anna headed for her chair when she came back.
“Remain standing,” Jed told her. She looked at him. “We’ve got a bit of a ritual to perform. Over here.” He walked over to a wall panel with a mural of a charcoal grill and slid it aside, revealing a gas fired charcoal grill and an exhaust hood, with a display screen above it.
“Take off your clothes and burn them. Say what’s on the screen as you take off each piece and put it in the fire. Watch it burn and use the poker to break up any ashes before you take off the next garment.”
She looked at him incredulously, and then gave a small yelp as he pressed a button on the small controller in his hand. He looked her in the eye for a moment before she dropped her gaze and turned to the oven that was going to consume the most visible symbols of her former existence.
She took her blouse off, and put it into the oven. Then she looked at the screen, squared her shoulders and repeated: “I am a slave. My only desire is to be what my Master wants me to be. How I present myself to the world is His will, not mine. I am his property, and his property must show his mark.”
She touched the on switch, and the gas flame ignited, starting the charcoal coals in the bottom. She watched the fabric curl and burn, the hood sucking the fumes away and the sound muffling her sob.
She took off her bra and added it to the fire, an almost involuntary giggle escaping as she remembered the bra burnings from the long expired women’s movement. She repeated the words on the screen:
“I am a female slave. My breasts make me attractive to males. They exist for my Owner’s pleasure, and it is his will how he takes that pleasure.” She straightened a little as she said them, bringing her breasts up.
She stirred the fire with the poker, looking at the buttons and the hooks and eyes as they glowed in the coals.
She slid off her shorts and tossed them in, showing that she was wearing a rather skimpy thong underneath.
“I am a ponygirl. The globes of my ass give my Master pleasure to look at, and give me a long, firm stride. I exist for my Owner to use and display at his pleasure.”
She slid off the thong and threw it into the fire with a quick twist of her wrist.
“I am a wanton slut. My master gets great pleasure from screwing me. His pleasure is my pleasure, whatever it is.”
Finally she slid off her sandals and put them into the fire.
“I am a ponygirl. My hooves will be shod with steel, the better to dig into the ground and pull my loads. I live to be ridden, to be raced, to be shown and to pull my Owner’s carriage.”
She poked at the fire some more, watching as the sandals disintegrated in the flames.
When she turned away, she saw Terry holding out his hand with the mouthpiece. She took it and slid it into her mouth, wincing slightly as it nestled in and melded with the roof of her mouth. She took the two earplugs from him and slid them into her ears.
“One more thing,” Jed said, “or rather six more things.” He slipped a set of wristlets and anklets around the new ponygirl’s wrists and ankles, finishing up with one just above her knees. He touched a button. She got a surprised look on her face and then brought her arms back behind her until she had them horizontal, palms on opposite elbows.
“How does that work?” Terry asked.
“They’re a training device for the first few days. They cause sensations. As long as she goes away from pressure and moves toward warmth she’ll move her limbs the way we want. Like this.” He pressed another button. This time she smoothly brought her right leg up, stopping when the thigh was horizontal and the calf vertical. She shook a bit on her left leg, and then steadied.
“Beautiful,” Terry clapped. He pulled her in close and gave her a deep kiss.
“And one final thing,” Jed said as they separated. “Head. Back.” he told her, making sure the two words were carefully enunciated and separate. She tilted her head back, and he shined a little light up her nose.
“I see you had her septum pierced.”
“Yes. I had them put in a grommet; she looks delicious with a nose ring, but she can’t really wear it on the street.”
“Not an issue here.” Jed took a partially closed ring and a crimping tool from a drawer, inserted the ring into her nose and crimped the circle closed.
“There. Nicely ringed, eh?”
“Beautiful!”
“Well, let’s get her outside so they can tattoo her registry number and get her to her stall.” Jed opened a door in what had appeared to be the outside wall, snapped a leash on her collar and led her outside. The ponygirl followed beautifully, arms folded behind her and legs coming up to a perfect high step. He threaded the leash through a ring and picked up the phone next to it, giving a few orders in a low tone.
“We need to finish up the details, and then you can head for the airport,” Jed told Terry. “How likely is it that you’re going to release her after two weeks?”
“I don’t know?” he answered. “It depends on a lot of things that haven’t settled yet. If they go one way, she’s going to become my new wife’s runabout when we move to one of the slave owner’s enclaves. Another way, I may send her to the Goodwife Institute for their training when I come back. A third way? I’ll pick her up and we’ll go back to our apartment.” He shrugged.
“Well, if you want to keep her as a ponygirl for long stretches of time, we have some gene modifications you might like to consider. They’re not all mandatory, but you could be ticked for unsafe working conditions if she doesn’t have them. You might also like to know how to use her control collar and our software for managing her while she’s not being a ponygirl.”
“I can do that with it?”
“Most of our workers are slaves, and we needed something to manage them.” He shrugged slightly. “Our management likes to stay close to our core business, and general slave management isn’t it. Whether anyone other than us finds those capabilities useful is up to them. Most of our clients do, some don’t. Most find that it’s got a lot of rough edges.”
The two men started going over the brochures that Jed laid out on the desk.
Moonlight on Wheat stood naked, her leash threaded through the ring in the wall and her arms held crosswise behind her. She wondered briefly how she had come to be standing here, and then laughed to herself. It was clear enough, and looking back on it the last two years led inevitably up to this day. She unconsciously shifted her weight and her right leg came up into the high step pose, thigh horizontal and calf vertical, almost without her thinking about it.
She shifted her weight again, and wished that someone would come and get her; her bladder was threatening to burst.
What she didn’t know was that the physiological monitor in her collar was quite well aware of her condition, assuming it could be said to be aware at all, and was broadcasting it along with the rest of her vital signs. The technician whose job it was to do the next part of her processing had noticed her bladder was full and decided to leave her there to deal with it.
She finally remembered what Jed, was that his name, had said about relieving herself. She was standing on grass, so she finally let go, blushing a bright red as the yellow stream spurted out from between her legs. She noticed a few prickles under her collar and the bands on her wrists and ankles, but dismissed them as random occurrences. It didn’t occur to her that the computer in her collar had recognized one of the many patterns it was programmed to identify and had started a conditioning sequence that would eventually lead to her completely losing bladder control under the appropriate circumstances.
A few minutes later the splatter had dried and she saw a woman walking toward her, a tangle of rope over her shoulder. She wore the same style single shoulder tunic as the secretary; it held her breasts up nicely, flattered her waist and hugged her hips before falling to end around mid-thigh. Other than the tunic she wore a pair of mid-calf length work boots and a red ribbon around her neck, decorated with some kind of little cameo that the ponygirl couldn’t quite make out.
“So,” she said brightly, “you’re Moonlight on Wheat. I’ll just get you fixed up and then you can get all comfortable chained in your new stall, OK?”
The ponygirl looked at her and smiled a bit tremulously. She’d recognized her name, but hadn’t understood anything else the woman had said. However the feeling of cheerfulness had communicated.
“This is a halter,” the woman told her, being very careful to pronounce the word halter distinctly and separately from the rest of the sentence. Anna’s eyes opened wide. She recognized the word halter; the first word beside her name she had recognized since Jed had said “head” and “back” to her a while before.
Halters she knew, she’d worn them often enough when Terry hadn’t thought it was worth while going through the bother of fastening her bridle. She brought her head forward, letting the woman fasten the rope cradle around her head and tighten it.
“Follow,” the woman commanded, tugging on the rope. She followed, high stepping almost automatically as the bands around her limbs subtly prompted her movements.
The woman led her to an alcove in the side of one of the buildings, throwing the lead rope around a convenient ring with a practiced motion. “Stay,” she commanded.
Moonlight looked around her and started at the sight of a charcoal brazier with a handle sticking out of the coals. She relaxed a bit when she saw that it wasn’t lit.
“Steady,” the woman said soothingly as she noticed her subject tense up. “We’re not going to brand you today,” she added as she caressed the ponygirl. “Right now I need you on the restraint rack, though, so back up.” She enunciated the last two words distinctly and carefully.
Moonlight backed up a step and felt something wood behind her. The bands on her limbs prompted her to spread her legs a bit and step up onto the contraption. The woman slid a set of wooden restraints over her limbs and around her waist, pinning her to the rack.
“Steady,” she soothed the jittery ponygirl. “I need to draw a little blood for the lab.” She swabbed a space on the girl’s arm and showed her the syringe, and then expertly drew her blood sample. She labeled it and put it into the refrigerator, and then stroked her subject to calm her down a bit more.
“What we’re going to do now is tattoo your identity number.” She held up a sheet of paper that had writing in purple ink on one side, and then laid it on the ponygirl’s belly just above where her thatch began. She smoothed it down and then sprayed it.
A minute later she took the paper off and studied the results, making sure that each number and letter had transferred completely, without gaps or missing pieces. When she was satisfied, she wheeled over another machine and clamped it against the pinioned ponygirl’s body tightly enough that she couldn’t move. Then she turned it on.
It made a staccato whirring noise as Moonlight drew in her breath and then gasped.
“Easy, girl,” the woman said as she stroked the ponygirl.
Five minutes later the machine turned itself off. She held up a mirror so the ponygirl could look at the scarlet and black symbols that had been tattooed across her belly.
Moonlight on Wheat sighed at the sight. She could make out her name, even though it was reversed in the mirror; the rest was a mysterious set of numbers that she supposed meant something to the Slaveowner’s Consortium’s computers. She knew what they meant for her from conversation at the ponygirl meetings she had been shown at.
As far as the Consortium was concerned, she now belonged to Terry. She was his property, and they wouldn’t accept another owner without a bill of sale from him. They’d accept it and record it if she decided to walk out, assuming she could manage it, but they wouldn’t accept a different owner afterwards. Their position was that her owner at the time she walked out was still her owner until they got a properly registered bill of sale or manumission from him.
The attendant led Moonlight into the stable. This part, she noticed, was a long corridor with a solid wood wall on the left which was crowded with various items of tack, and stalls on the right.
The stalls seemed to be about three feet wide and six or seven deep, with four foot high walls and a pillar at each corner.
About half way down, the attendant stopped in front of a stall that had a sign, “Moonlight on Wheat” on the back. She pressed a lever and the bolt that held the stall door retracted, letting the door swing out. She removed the halter with a practiced gesture and pointed. “In.”
Moonlight walked in and looked around, puzzled. The attendant stepped back to watch. A moment later the ponygirl went “eep!” as her collar jolted her. She looked around, puzzled. The attendant motioned to her throat as if she was clipping something there.
Moonlight scowled but obediently picked up the chain and clipped it to her collar. The attendant nodded and walked out, the heels of her work boots echoing in the silence.
Two stalls farther down, another ponygirl stood quietly watching, the gleaming chain at her throat falling gracefully between her breasts. Moonlight looked over at her; she whinnied back.
The stall, Moonlight decided, was a stall. It had straw on the floor and a pile of blankets in one corner. The light chain she had clipped to her collar came from an iron ring set in the wall. There was a lever on the door that would probably open it, and that was about it. Inspiring it wasn’t.
The wall on the other side of the corridor had her familiar tack. She suspected some of it might be replaced if it didn’t meet Excelsior’s standards.
About then her stomach reminded her that it needed to be fed. She looked around in puzzlement; there didn’t seem to be anything in the stall to eat, or for that matter any place to put food or anything to eat it with.
Possibly the other ponygirl knew where the food was? She opened her mouth to ask, and then closed it when nothing came out. The other ponygirl’s giggle didn’t do anything to help, either, so she mimed putting something in her mouth.
The other ponygirl made an exaggerated “O” of her mouth and then gestured further down the corridor. She unclipped the chain from her collar and walked out of the stall, pausing to take a pair of what looked like strange boots from the wall and slide her hands into them. Then she bent forward on all four hooves and swung her head in a “follow me” gesture.
Moonlight unhooked the chain and left the stall, following the four hoofed ponygirl. She turned down a corridor into a room that had a bar across the far wall about a foot off the floor, and a slot all the way across the wall that was about a foot and a half high and about three feet off the floor.
Her guide walked up to the wall and butted her head gently against a large blue button. There was a swooshing as if water was flowing. Her guide stuck her head into the slot and started to lap it up.
Moonlight walked up to look. Once she got close, it turned out to be fairly obvious: there were bowls every two feet set into the bottom of the slot with a blue and a tan button below each one.
She looked at her guide and almost laughed. The setup was practically impossible to use unless one was on hands and feet. She dropped forward to where she could hold onto the bar, and found that her head fit naturally into the slot. She hit a blue button, and was rewarded with a spurt of water into the bowl. A minute later, she started to slurp it up, realizing just how thirsty she was.
Once she’d drunk her fill, she frowned in thought. Water was good, but where was the food? She decided to hit the tan button and see what happened.
What happened was that something made a noise, and then a small panel she hadn’t noticed lit up with a timer counting down. It said two minutes.
Eventually the timer hit zero, and a slot at the top of the bowl opened and some pale looking stuff oozed out into the bowl. A further look told her it was probably some kind of flavored oatmeal. Ug. However, she was hungry, so she worked on getting it from the bowl into her mouth.
A few minutes later she had licked the bowl clean, thinking that she had probably gotten more into her than on her face, so she hit the blue button again. The remains of the oatmeal swirled down, and the bowl filled so she could plunge her face into it, and drink another few swallows of water.
She noticed her guide had left, so she decided to go back to her stall for a nap. When she got to the corridor, she found her guide taking the front hooves off and carefully putting them back in their proper place on the wall.
A nap did seem to be next. She snapped the chain onto her collar, spread out the blankets and fell sound asleep.
Moonlight woke up to a piercing whistle. One of the stable attendants stood outside of her stall. She shook her head to clear it and stood up. He pointed at her and then at her tack on the wall. All he said was “Harness. Yourself.” but that much came through clearly.
She looked at him and thought: Why was a guy wearing a skirt and a necklace? Well, a streaked tunic and red ribbon exactly like the one the secretary had worn. She had to admit he did look cute in the tunic, and the top outlined his muscles nicely. Maybe they got a bulk discount.
She high stepped out of the stall and struggled into her tack. This was the first time she had ever had to put it on herself; Terry or one of the grooms at the shows they went to had always done it before.
When she had finished the attendant looped the reins through a ring and then went over it slowly, talking soothingly while making sure she paid attention as he checked that each of the buckles was properly tightened.
He led her out of the stable to an exerciser. This was a post about seven feet high with a horizontal pole sticking out one side and a counterweight on the other. He looped her reins over the pole and looked at her. Then he nodded and his lips moved slightly. The motor on the exerciser started, pulling her forward. He watched her high step around the pole for a minute and then walked away toward his next task.
The passionless computer that supervised the stable watched the physiology monitor built into her control collar, insuring that her exercise session kept her on the ideal curve to build up her endurance without pushing her to the point she would have to waste time healing.
She lost herself in the march around the circle, almost unaware of the voice in her earplugs that gave her commands to speed up, slow down, walk or trot. She was even less aware of the subtle stimuli that the control collar applied with the commands.
Eventually it told her to stop for the last time. She stood, panting slight, as another stable attendant came up, unhitched her reins from the wheel, and led her back into the stable.
They stopped in front of her stall. The attendant held up her hand, all four fingers spread, and touched each one as she said: “Remove Tack. Shower. Rest. Clean Tack.” Then she stood back and watched to see what Moonlight would do.
Moonlight fumbled around with the unfamiliar task, but eventually managed to get her tack removed and stacked on the ledge below the wall. Then she stood in puzzlement until her earplugs said: “Shower.” She remembered the shower room she’d seen on the way to the food and headed in that direction.
The shower room had a rack of boxes, each of which contained soap, washcloths, towels and grooming tools. She went toward them, puzzled as to which one was hers, and discovered that the band on her wrist guided her to one of them. She shrugged, pulled out the soap and took a quick shower. She brushed out her hair and then stood until the voice in her ears said: “Rest.”
She frowned. Rest would be welcome, but... She headed for the eating room and drank her fill, and then hit the latrine, blushing as she squatted over the floor toilet in plain sight to relieve herself.
Then she headed back to her stall. Two minutes later she was sprawled out, covered by a blanket and sound asleep, the light chain falling from the ring at the front of her control collar to the straw on which she rested.
The stable computer allowed her one sleep cycle, and noted that she woke rather than start a second. When she stood up and looked around, it watched for a minute to see what she would do before prompting her.
Her eyes lit on the pile of sweat-soaked tack. She sighed, unclipped the chain and took it and the cleaning tools into her stall. She reattached her chain and started cleaning.
Finally she was done. She put the tack neatly on the wall and went back to her stall to think.
This was, she thought, not at all what she had expected. Except for the exercise wheel, and even there she had expected one of the trainers to exercise her on a luge. On the other hand, what had he said? Act like a horse, work like a horse, be treated like a horse, but not a horse. So it did make some sense. Horses didn’t have hands, and she did, so they were going to take advantage of it. Horses were basically stupid so they’d take advantage of the fact that she wasn’t. Well, she laughed quietly to herself, she was here, which probably said something.
About then, one of the grooms came through and took a halter off the wall. He gestured in her direction so she came to the front of the stall and let him wrap it around her head. He led her out to an area where there were mats on the floor and low posts with rings between the mats. He stood her on one and looped the lead through the ring. Then he walked away.
She looked after him in puzzlement. Then a voice said in her ear: “Vertical stretch. Both feet on the mat, raise hands and stretch to rise on your toes.”
The voice seemed to have the patience of the truly dedicated, or more likely the patience of a computer. It led her through an exercise session.
Eventually it stopped just when she thought she was so wrung out that she couldn’t do another bend. It said: “End of session. Unhitch halter, go to next task.”
Next task? She asked herself as she removed the rope from the ring. What next task? She shrugged. Water, latrine, shower, sleep. If they wanted her to do something else, they could tell her.
Tell her they did, but they waited until she had rested. Then a stable hand came by and took her out with another ponygirl to practice whinnying, neighing, snorting, nuzzling, pawing with one of her hooves and other horse behaviors. Laughing, she suspected, wasn’t on the menu, but they probably did more of that than any of the other behaviors. As usual, she never noticed the sensations her control collar generated as it started to lay down the associations between what she was feeling and the various pony behaviors.
Finally the first day was over, and she gratefully snuggled up with her blankets on the straw and fell asleep.
She woke and fuzzily wondered where she was. She looked at the wooden walls on both sides, and suddenly remembered. She was in a ponygirl stall at Excelsior Stables and Kennels, and for some utterly insane reason she had actually asked to be here.
Well, she thought as she stood up, there didn’t seem to be anything to do but enjoy her two weeks as a full time ponygirl. She looked at the tangle of blankets on the straw, and then at the tack on the wall. Shrug. She folded the blankets neatly and stuck them in the corner, and then looked at the other stalls. Some of them still had sleeping ponygirls, a couple had girls standing and looking around.
Latrine, shower, breakfast, she thought to herself. She unclipped her chain and headed for the latrine.
An hour later she stood in her stall and wondered what to do next. Well, hadn’t the man, what was his name, said there was a meadow? With something else. An invisible fence, that was it. She put on her pony boots and went looking out the back.
There definitely was a meadow, and there were several ponies in it. There were also a couple of very odd looking something or others on four paws. One of them had a stiff tail, the other seemed to have fur and a cat’s tail. So. A puppy-girl and a kitty-girl? Apparently. She watched as the kitty-girl took off a front paw and threw a ball; the puppy-girl barked and bounded after it. Then she returned with it in her mouth and presented it to the kitty, who gravely took it and threw it. The puppy-girl bounded after it again.
Moonlight almost laughed at the scene.
She decided to do some exploring. She walked toward the fence, and suddenly felt some pressure on her throat. Another pace and it built up and became painful. She backed up hastily and tried somewhere else. Same result.
So that, she thought, was the invisible fence. She wasn’t going to be allowed close enough to the real fence to reach out and touch it.
About then the woman who had tattooed her the day before came around. “Yo Ho, Moonlight!” she called, swinging a halter. Moonlight looked at her, and trotted up, letting her put the halter around her head. She led the ponygirl through the stable to another of the rooms along the side. This one looked like a clinic. Moonlight almost panicked before she blacked out.
When she came to, she was lying on her side back in her stall. Her breasts ached abominably. She looked down and saw that they were heavily bandaged.
The rest of the day she felt quite a bit off, and the stable hands and trainers seemed to accept it; her exercise sessions were shorter and did not push her as much. She slept fitfully, but the next day the malaise seemed to lighten and finally vanish. The woman came around and removed the bandages; she couldn’t see any real difference in her D cup breasts. Possibly her nipples were a bit higher, maybe a bit less sag, but it was hard to tell.
When she moved, though, the difference was immediately obvious. Her breasts didn’t wobble. They quivered a bit, but they didn’t wobble at all. The quiver felt kind of like what she expected from a real snug sports bra, but without the tightness.
Two nights later she noticed another difference. The blankets felt too hot, and the outside air felt comfortable rather than a bit brisk.
That day they took her out in a chariot for the first time. She’d gotten an impression that she really ought to put her tack on and go somewhere. She looked around in puzzlement when the calm, emotionless voice in her ear said: “Put on tack. Go out front.”
So she put on her tack, carefully checking that all the buckles were properly tight and that it was positioned so it did not chafe, looped her reins over a shoulder and walked out the front. She saw one of the trainers standing by a chariot.
She shrugged mentally and trotted over to her. The trainer lifted the shafts and she backed in. A couple of minutes later the trainer had fastened and tightened the traces. She felt the familiar flick of the reins that told her to start moving; she settled into easily following the rein signals the way she had done for the last two years of part-time play.
After that, her days imperceptibly merged into each other. On one of her trips out to the meadow she discovered a stallion, and also discovered that she hadn’t been laid in way too long. She found she was almost terminally embarrassed at doing it in full view of the other ponies in the meadow, but the stallion didn’t seem to mind, and pretty soon she didn’t either.
She was introduced to a second exerciser. This one was also a post with an arm, but the arm was lower and sported a pair of shafts, and well as a mechanical gadget that held her reins. Like the first exerciser, the computer that supervised these sessions pushed her to her limits, but not beyond them.
She got the distinct impression that both her strength and stamina were improving much faster than she could reasonably expect.
One day a stable hand came in with new tack: four pony boots. She looked at them in puzzlement. Four?
They were similar to the boots that most of the other ponies wore. They were some black substance that wasn’t leather, rubber or anything else she was familiar with. The boots were tall enough to cover her knee and come part way up her thigh.
He patiently showed her how to put them on and take them off. They were fairly large and floppy so she could slide her foot into them. Then when you touched an ankle, they suddenly tightened from the ankle up, fitting snugly to her curves. They flexed with her muscles and the joint at the knee. A different touch on the ankle made them release so she could take them off.
The front hoof boots seemed to have some kind of stilt arrangement; her hands would only go part way down. There was a hidden release that it took her a while to master.
When she tried to walk in them, she got a major surprise: her body seemed to walk on all four hooves quite naturally.
The next day, she found a new set of tack on her part of the wall, and one of the stable hands showed her how to put it on and take it off. After that, they started exercising her on four hooves. She found that she quite liked it. When they finally put her on a chariot on all four hooves, she discovered that she could pull a heavier load.
Moonlight looked curiously across the meadow at two ponygirls that were sitting facing each other and wiggling their fingers. One of them suddenly giggled, and then the other one laughed. Whatever were they doing? She’d seen them before, and she still didn’t know.
She knew both of them were being kept permanently as ponygirls because they had manes. She didn’t know their names; names other than hers simply didn’t come through the earplugs and she had never been close enough to read their tattoos, nor seen them in their stalls so she could read the signs. She privately thought of one of them as Red, from the color of her mane, and the other as Jello, from the way her tits quivered when she walked.
A third pony walked up to her and sat down, holding up her hands. This was the one she called Pony Tail, from the way the girl habitually put up her hair. Moonlight frowned and the girl laughed. Then she carefully sketched some lines in the air and held up her fingers. Moonlight looked at her as she did it again, and then the pattern suddenly registered. She’d sketched the letter A! So the finger pattern had to be A?
She made the gesture back, and the girl made an exaggerated frown, and then did it again. This time Moonlight caught the differences, and managed to make the gesture so the girl smiled at her.
An hour or so later, she was sweating from the amount of concentration needed to make her hands do what her teacher wanted. She’d learned five simple words and maybe ten letters. It wasn’t, she thought as someone yelled and her teacher hastily got up and trotted to the stable, the letters themselves. It was making the sequence flow without making letters she didn’t want in the middle.
This was interesting! She decided she wanted to continue learning, even though she was going to go home with Terry in a few days.
Crystal watched the ponygirl trot out of the stable on all fours, look around curiously and then head toward her. Moonlight on Wheat was a fairly natural name, she thought, considering her complexion.
Moonlight wore her chariot tack, her reins neatly looped over one shoulder. The harness both was, and wasn’t, similar to how a horse would have been harnessed. This harness had three straps that circled her torso: one above her breasts, one below and one around her waist. A single strap connected the three, running from the first one all the way back, across her buttocks and then back up the other side. Thick shoulder straps held the first strap in place and connected to the second by cross straps both in front and in back. The arrangement distributed the stress so that the ponygirl only felt it on her shoulders when she was pulling, and on her buttocks when she had to stop the chariot or move backwards. Crystal nodded as she looked at the unexpectedly efficient arrangement.
Crystal wondered briefly why the ponygirl didn’t wear any other protective clothing against the brisk fall weather. She didn’t know about the DNA modifications, or about the insulating properties of the hoof boots or the heater built into the front hooves. The combination let Moonlight handle temperatures at least 40 degrees lower than expected.
Moonlight was fairly large as ponygirls went; her shoulder came up to Crystal’s ribs, and she could give Crystal’s breasts a bounce with her head when she butted her playfully. Crystal almost shoved her away, but instead let her fingers scratch the ponygirl behind the ears. Moonlight whinnied delightedly; it always surprised her how much meaning the girls could put into a sound that should have come from a horse.
The attendant only took a minute to harness her to the light chariot. Crystal got in and took the reins. She took up the slack, making sure she had the right amount of tension, and then released the brake. A quick flick of the reins, and they were off.
Moonlight, she thought, had a very nice trot. She didn’t let her legs interfere with each other. Her ass cheeks expanded and contracted with each stroke, and the small twist of her hips around her spine rippled down her tail beautifully. The twist of her shoulders in time to the movement of her front legs made a delightful counterpoint to the stillness of her head.
Altogether, a most beautiful and superbly trained animal. She wondered briefly what the ponygirl would think if she knew what she had going with her owner. She smiled evilly, and then turned her attention back to the winding forest path.
Anna, or rather Moonlight on Wheat, seemed to be doing quite well, Terry thought. After a month being trained as a full time ponygirl, she looked like she had adapted completely.
The ponygirl who now thought of herself as Silver Hair came trotting out of the stable on all fours and looked around for the chariot and whoever her passenger was. She hoped it was Hard Ass; while the woman definitely had a cruel streak she was also one of the few that treated her as something more than just one of the herd.
She spotted Terry, whinnied and broke into a gallop in his direction, almost knocking him over as she butted him in the stomach.
He scratched her behind the ears and then gave her a long, thoughtful inspection before backing her between the shafts of the chariot and fastening the traces. He shook out the reins and she started down one of the paths, giving him one of the smoothest starts he could remember from any ponygirl.
The way her ass cheeks moved was more than vaguely erotic; he could feel himself beginning to react somewhat. The reports indicated she’d taken to the role of hot little slut with a passion. Well, the minx had been his wife for several years, and they were still legally married. He ought to know that her sexual appetite resembled a mink’s. That was one of the things he most liked about her.
After a half hour they arrived at a secluded little nook on the property. He’d reserved it for the afternoon when he’d reserved Moonlight. The office staff undoubtedly thought he was planning on screwing her silly. They were only partly right; sex wasn’t the most important item on the agenda, although it was second, and there wasn’t a third.
Her favorite vibrator had definitely done the trick of wearing her out before he was completely wasted. He hadn’t thought she could get more sexy, but apparently being a ponygirl had released inhibitions he hadn’t known she had.
He took a quick dip under the little waterfall to wake up and get ready for the next part. By the time he got back, she was back on all four hooves and, he would have sworn, looking for more. He shook his head ruefully.
Most things had solutions if you were creative enough, he mused as he flipped open his organizer and tapped in a message. Then he showed it to her.
She got a surprised look on her face, and then playfully butted him in the stomach again as she whinnied.
He held out the organizer and gestured at her right hoof. She shrugged daintily and slid her hands out, taking the organizer and putting in a message.
His message had said: “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to come get you at the end of the two weeks; things got so busy at the office I was living out of my suitcase on three different continents. I barely had time to send Excelsior a check so they didn’t sell you.”
She’d answered: “I’ve been having fun. It was a rough start, but for the last couple of weeks I really haven’t thought of anything outside. I think Hard Ass wants to buy me, but I’m not sure.”
“Hard Ass?”
“I don’t know her name; she’s driven me several times. She’s about, oh, 5’6”, brunette in a bob, very precise dresser.”
That might be Crystal, he thought.
“Just as well I sent in the payment, unless you want me to sell you to her?”
“No Way! She’s a fun ride as a rental, nice firm hand on the reins and really makes me extend myself, but as an owner? She’s got a cruel streak that would sour things right away.”
“It sounds like you like being a ponygirl full time.”
“Oh, I do. Weekends just don’t let me get into it.”
“So do you want to stay as a ponygirl?”
She paused a while, thinking of what she wanted to write. “I’m not sure. I know I really don’t want to come out right now, though.”
This time Terry had to think.
“Well, you’d better make up your mind. I’ve got a break for a few days from the current emergency, but I’ll be all over the place for the next month or two before it’s settled. After that? I’ll probably be home more, and I want a wife. If you want to be a ponygirl, I’ll divorce you and look for another wife.”
Silver Hair took the screen and looked at the message thoughtfully.
“The contract machine did say that was a provision, didn’t it?” she said thoughtfully. “I presume it’s legal.”
“A slave contract is grounds for a unilateral divorce,” he answered. “It’s not automatic on signing the contract. Objecting terminates the contract, but she doesn’t have to be produced so she can be asked.”
“It sounds like I’ve got a month to make up my mind,” she finally typed in. “How long does it take to install the riding mods?”
“The install is fairly quick, but it’s about three months before you can start training, and then another three for training.” He paused in thought. “Tell you what. If you want, I’ll have them do the installation, but I’m not going to wait six months for you to come home to your wifely duties. If you want to be fully trained as a riding ponygirl, I’m going to divorce you, and you’ll stay a ponygirl for the rest of your life.”
She looked at the message and then giggled. “Well, I always knew you were decisive. Ask me again when the globe trotting lets up; I don’t really want to be alone in that house while you’re gallivanting all over the place without me.”
“OK.” He showed her the message without handing her the pad, and then snapped the cover closed. She slipped her hands back into the front hooves. Ten minutes later she was pulling the chariot down the path at a brisk trot, exactly as if nothing had happened.
Terry Winters looked at the auditor’s report and frowned. The discrepancy wasn’t all that large, and it probably had a perfectly mundane explanation in some screwup or other, but it shouldn’t have existed. What bothered him most was that the authorization seemed to have come from his office, and he not only didn’t remember approving it, it was something that he wouldn’t have approved, at least without enough additional justification that he would remember it. And he didn’t.
He looked at the ceiling and thought about who. Some executives would have looked into details, but Terry had learned through bitter experience that if one had competent workers, it was always a question of who, not what. He’d made sure his subordinates were competent; they were the usual mix of personalities ranging from the dedicated company men to several climbers that were out for themselves. Those were some of the most effective as long as you knew what turned them on and watched your back. And his back seemed to be developing a definite itch.
He mentally reviewed the climbers and settled on one as the most likely suspect. And if that was the person, then he had a pretty good idea of what they were up to.
“Jim,” he said to the voice on the other end of the phone, “I got this discrepancy report from one of your auditors.”
He listened a moment. “Oh, no, I think it’s quite real and he might have stumbled on something fairly big.” He listened again.
“Not at all. That’s why we do random audits; there’s no way you can game the dice.”
He listened a moment. “Now here’s what I think might be going on. If so, you might want to look at these accounts. Oh, and give the relationship with Stornath Engineering a good check; they’ve got a tendency to sit on discrepancies instead of screaming at the first quiver.”
“Oh sure, not a problem. That’s your department’s job, after all.”
“I haven’t heard much about the investigation,” Terry said to Jim on the phone.
“Well, we wanted to keep you out of the loop,” Jim replied a bit apologetically. “You understand how it is.”
“Of course. I take it you found the culprit?”
“Right. It’s surprising how many people don’t understand IT department backup policies.”
Terry laughed. “Destroying records is so simple on the telly, isn’t it?”
Jim chuckled in response. “I’m not sure whether it makes our job easier, or it’s a temptation to people that otherwise would stay on the straight and narrow.”
“Well, that’s something that can be discussed over a beer. So what’s happening?”
“It’s up to legal, and they’re going to turn it over to the prosecutors tomorrow. As far as our investigation can tell, she has no idea her little scam has broken.”
“Little?”
“Well, not so little. We think we can recover most of it, fortunately, but it’s still in the multiple class 1 felony range. And we think there are some other things the prosecutor will be interested in, although they don’t involve us.”
“Oh?” he asked, interested. Then he listened for a while.
“Keep me in mind if the company decides to put her up for sale,” he said.
“Oh, we will. That scenario makes such a fascinating example.”
“Even more fascinating if I buy DeDe as well.”
“So it will.” The voice on the other end of the communicator sounded amused.
The ponygirl who now thought of herself as Silver Mane slowly walked along, the unfamiliar weight on her back pressing down but not really bothering her. It seemed like her body had settled naturally into a new pattern once the woman had gotten into the saddle. It still took a lot of attention to her balance; she didn’t want to tip over and with a rider her center of balance seemed to be quite a bit higher than she was used to.
The touch of the feminine hand on her back startled her, but she recovered nicely. She liked the feeling of the smoothness stroking her back next to her mane.
Her mane. She still wasn’t sure if she liked the sound of that. One day Terry had come, taken her out in the chariot, and used the little organizer to ask her if she was ready to come home. She’d said: “not yet,” idly hoping that he’d try to convince her. He’d dropped the subject and then used her, leaving her panting after a major orgasm.
A few days later the hair on most of her head had started falling out, to be replaced by a thick white coat that nicely outlined her skull. What was left was a wide strip from her brow all the way back; it seemed that it was going to continue growing under her collar and would continue on down to below her shoulder blades.
At the same time they’d removed the plastic insert from her tailbone that she used to attach her tail. She realized it was to allow her to grow a real tail about the same time her hair fell out. She wondered what Terry was up to.
It took her another few days before she realized that his question was the only one he would ever ask; as far as he was concerned, she had made the last decision she would ever make, at least as a free woman. She was now fully his ponygirl. He’d probably filed the divorce papers as soon as he got back.
A month later her trainers had put a strange harness on her, with a heavy pack, and put her back on the conditioning wheel. She’d staggered under the load for a while before her body shifted into a new balance; then she began to rebuild her strength and stamina.
A couple of weeks after that one of the smaller trainers put a harness on her that contained a saddle, and taught her how to help a rider mount, or at least not fall over when one mounted.
The saddle tack was quite different from the tack she wore in four footed mode. It had the same top arrangement to distribute the load to her shoulders, but it included a heavy waist band that let her lean forward to balance her rider and put their combined center of gravity straight above her hips. The waistband itself was of the same miracle fabric as her boots, and had the same insulation and heat properties.
Today was definitely brisk as fall tended toward winter, and she wore what she thought of as her sweater under the harness. This was a pullover with a deep notch in back for her mane and cutouts for her breasts. It was more of a leotard: while most of it ended at her hips, it had a built-in thong designed so it didn’t interfere with emptying her bladder.
It was made of the same fabric as her boots, and had the same regulating properties. It also changed color to match her complexion; from a distance it wasn’t at all obvious that she was wearing anything.
A cross-arm binder completed the outfit. It held her arms crossed behind her back, just out of the way of her rider, and served to keep them both warm and useless. Like the front boots, it had a release switch where her fingers could get to it, and it had a wrist cuff and pulley arrangement so that she could, with difficulty, put it on herself.
She had one other garment that her trainer had her practice with, but which she wouldn’t wear regularly until the depth of winter. It was also a pullover, but it completely covered her torso except for small cutouts where her breast rings peeked through and grommets for her bladder and anus. It had arms and legs that fit into her boots, and a neat arrangement so that the power cells in her front hooves could warm the entire garment if necessary. The power cells weren’t part of either the riding or the two legged pulling arrangement, but the coverall actually handled almost all conditions, and nobody in their right minds would be out riding in that kind of weather. Working to clear snow, yes, but riding? Not for pleasure.
She also had a face mask that fit into the outfit. It was held on by her bridle so it didn’t have to cover her entire head; the pelt of thick horsehair that covered where people had hair was perfectly adequate insulation and it let her mane free in the wind.
It took a couple of weeks for her to adjust to the new configuration so that she could move confidently with a rider in her saddle. Then a new woman showed up, one she hadn’t seen before, and started to ride her.
This rider was a nicely built brunette, about 5’4” and probably not much more than a hundred pounds. She’d been carrying a bit more than that in the exercise sessions. The most striking thing about her was her air of serene confidence; she was a woman who didn’t seem to be easily flustered and who knew her own mind. Moonlight immediately liked her. None of the other ponies seemed to know her, so Moonlight named her Serenity.
Serenity showed up every few days, in no discernible pattern. She always practiced riding a little, although sometimes she took Moonlight out in a chariot. She had a firm hand on the reins, a cheerful word and usually a sugar cube for her ponygirl.
Then one day the penny dropped. She’d been called to come out with her chariot harness, so when she trotted out she was hoping to see Terry; Serenity usually rode her before taking a chariot ride.
Her collar nudged her toward one of the chariots with two people standing there. Her eyes widened in surprise and she whinnied: it was both Terry and Serenity, standing by a two person chariot.
She dutifully backed between the shafts and stood wondering what was going on as Serenity harnessed her, caressing her as usual in the process. Then she felt both of them get into the chariot. She thought Serenity was holding the reins; her touch was a bit more graceful than Terry’s.
They stopped in the same little grotto that Terry had first asked her whether she wanted to continue being a ponygirl. This time Serenity watered her before tying her reins to a tree so she could watch the two of them eat a companionable picnic. After they cleaned up, they made love, Terry making Serenity squeal in a most unserene manner.
They washed up and then drove their very horny and unsatisfied ponygirl back to the stable. Serenity unhitched Moonlight and stroked her before offering her a sugar cube. Silver Mane looked at it and knew this was the defining moment. She shrugged mentally; Anna was gone, and this only made it official. She delicately swept the sweet into her mouth, making sure to caress her new mistress’ hand with her tongue in the process. Serenity hugged her, saying something that she couldn’t understand. All she knew was that Serenity was happy with her, and that made her happy. She whickered before turning to the stable and trotting back, hoping one of the stallions was available and interested.
Terry was definitely a fast worker, she thought. It was only four months since he had asked her if she wanted to come home, and she had inadvertently severed their marital relationship by saying: “not yet.” For a while she’d lost track of time, but she’d begun to keep track of the days after she learned the finger language.
The ponygirls kept their own calendar, more for their amusement than from any real need. None of them knew what the date was outside, and they had decided that they really didn’t care.
One of them had come up with a really bizarre system. Silver Mane had thought it was too complex for words, until she had realized that it made it simply impossible to lose a day. She might forget what happened on a day; she did that quite frequently since most days didn’t have anything worth remembering, but they couldn’t forget the day itself.
There was a cycle of five, and a cycle of twelve, and the position of the Moon and whatever planets happened to be visible in the heavens after sundown. And there was a memory code so that, once learned, it was almost impossible to forget the associations.
The station wagon rolled into the lot at the Excelsior Stables. A maid in a classically skimpy sexy uniform slid out of the driver’s seat to open the door for her owner. Two attendants hurried up with a platform, followed by Jed at a more decorous pace.
The attendants opened the back of the wagon and slid the cage with the naked, gagged and bound woman onto the platform and wheeled it away, not caring in the least about the hate-filled glare she gave them.
“You did say it didn’t matter if they were willing,” Terry said to Jed as the platform with the cage rolled away.
“We have our ways,” he answered. “You want her trained as a dog?”
“She always was a bit of a bitch, now she’s going to learn how to be a real bitch. Besides, Bethany has taken a shine to riding Moonlight, and she thinks having a dog pacing her while she’s riding would be just too cute. She’s also thinking of showing them together.”
“A dog and ponygirl show? If I wasn’t professionally interested I wouldn’t want to be in the same county!”
The two men laughed companionably as the attendants wheeled Crystal around the corner.
“So your new wife is working out well?”
“Oh, is she ever. She isn’t quite as oversexed as Anna, but that’s not saying much. She likes it regularly, and since I’m on the road a lot DeDe fills in while I’m away.” He gestured at the maid hovering in the background.
“How’s she doing?”
“Quite well. Your training did everything you said it would: she responds perfectly to the computer and the modules we installed, and Bethany loves the way she serves and does housework. Of course, that was the training Crystal gave her at Elite Maid Training.”
Jed frowned slightly. “I was wondering what you wanted with her, though?”
“It’s not for the sex: she makes a nice piece of eye candy, but she-males don’t interest me that way. She used to be her husband,” he waved in the direction of the now vanished Crystal. “She trapped him into a slave contract and had a boutique sex change outfit modify him. I bought her contract while Crystal was in jail awaiting trial. She keeps Bethany purring while I’m not around, and one of her jobs is going to be taking care of the dog.”
“Now that is truly evil,” Jed laughed. “Talk about revenge.”
“Well,” Terry shrugged modestly, “a nice, juicy example every once in a while keeps the climbers looking for alternate routes to the top.”
The young woman who strode into the room was a 5’8” brunette who wore her shoulder length hair tied back with a ribbon. She wore what looked like a red ribbon around her neck that had a decoration of some kind on the front, and a one shoulder, black and white diagonally streaked sleeveless tunic that hugged her curves and came down to mid-thigh. Otherwise she wore sturdy work boots with a two inch heel and not much else. The Excelsior Stables did not lavish raiment on its slaves.
She looked across the room at the cage containing her latest challenge. She wrinkled her nose; the odor of urine and poop was rather strong. On the other hand, the woman huddled in the cage looked like she was ready to beg. Not broken, just at her limit for the moment, and willing to negotiate.
Delia wheeled the cage away from the wall and hosed it down, washing the mess into the drain in the center of the concrete floor. Then she sprayed, taking the rest of the smell out of the room. Finally, she walked to the front of the cage where the woman could see her clearly, and stood, hands on hips, and stared her in the eye.
“You are going to cooperate, aren’t you, bitch?”
“Who are you calling a bitch? Bitch!” she said right back, showing that she had some fire left.
“You are. You are a bitch. A bitch is a female dog, and your owner wants you to be trained to be a dog. When I’m done with you, you’ll bark, sit up, beg, roll over, walk on all four paws, fetch and scratch at the door when you need to be taken out to shit.”
“That’s crazy!”
“You’re a condemned criminal, and the person who bought you gets to decide what you’ll be. He wants a dog. You’re it.” Her smile spoke of things she knew that her victim would discover – too late.
“Let’s start out with your first lesson. You’re thirsty, right?” She didn’t wait for the response, she simply wheeled a small table in front of the cage and put a shallow bowl of water on it. Then she unfastened a piece of the cage front so the woman could stick her head out over the bowl.
“Well?” she said as she stood back. “That’s your water. Lap it up, doggie.”
The woman cast her a look of pure loathing, but stuck her head out to where her shoulders pressed against the bars of the cage. She found she could get her head down to the surface of the water. In a few moments, she started to slurp it up, and then began to use her tongue.
Once she got well started, Delia put a package into the microwave and turned it on. By the time the woman had finished lapping up the water, the microwave was done, and Delia put another bowl in front of her new dogie.
The woman sniffed at it and made a face, but obediently plunged her head into the bowl and began eating. “Good doggie,” Delia said with saccharine insincerity as she scratched her behind the ears.
The doggie continued snarfing up the wretched mess in the bowl with every evidence of liking it.
“Now,” Delia said when she’d finished, “you get to ask a few questions. It’s going to be your last opportunity, so make the most of it. When I get tired of answering them, I’ll turn your muffler and earplugs on, and you won’t ever hear a comprehensible word again. Or be able to say a comprehensible word, either.”
The woman pulled her head back in. “You’re serious about turning me into a dog?”
“Serious as death. You’ll learn to like it, too. My orders are that the bitch should be frisky as well as obedient and affectionate.”
“I could ask why, but you already said that my owner wants me that way. Who are you?”
“My name doesn’t matter, especially since you won’t be able to hear it in an hour or so. I’m one of the trainers the Excelsior stable owns; I specialize in breaking recalcitrant slaves.” Her smile was hardly reassuring.
“You’re a slave?”
“Yes. Like my livery?” Delia twirled, showing it off. It was a sleeveless tunic that fastened over one shoulder and hugged her curves to where it ended around mid-thigh. It had a bold black and white streaked pattern that was not precisely stripes, but did swirl diagonally from the single shoulder strap across her breasts to where it finished at the hem.
“Most of the workers here are slaves; it’s actually a fairly soft berth if you’re good at your job and obey orders promptly. I’m like you; I liked to push people around until I pushed one too many and stepped over the line. Well, more like pole vaulted over it.” She smiled reminiscently, obviously showing no remorse whatsoever. “Excelsior made an offer after I was convicted, and I accepted; they’re a lot better than twenty years in prison. Besides, I get a steady stream of victims, um, subjects, and I love what I’m doing.”
The girl in the cage shuddered.
“So what are you going to do to me?”
“Train you. We’ll do a little surgery and some DNA modifications to shorten your hind legs, firm up your breasts, change your shoulders and hips around and tilt your head so you can function effectively on all four paws. You should be ready for delivery in a couple of months.” She paused. “I think you’ll make a perfectly lovely bitch.”
The girl in the cage shrank back as Delia smiled at her.
“More questions?”
“Uh,” the girl stuck her head out again. “You said surgery and DNA changes?”
“Yes. The surgery will put countermotion generators in your breasts so they don’t wobble all over the place when you move. They’ll still move some, but it’ll be pleasant rather than what most women feel without a decent bra.
“The DNA changes will reshape your skeleton. When they’re done you’ll come up to about here,” she patted the air just about level with the hem of her skirt, “and be very comfortable on all four paws. We’ll reset your head on your shoulders so you’ll face forward but still be able to bend to eat out of your doggy bowl. You’ll still have hands, but most of the time you’ll wear cute little paws that will be so much better for walking. Whether you’ll be allowed to use your hands is up to your owner; some owners forbid it, some like you to do most of your own grooming and take care of your kennel yourself.”
“That short?” she asked curiously.
“Oh, your torso won’t change, if anything it might get a bit longer. We try to get doggies about that size. Kitty-girls should come in here,” she gestured to about her knee, “and ponygirls usually come in around here,” she gestured to her waist.
“No more questions?” Delia shrugged and her lips moved slightly. “Well,” she said in a soothing tone, “it’s going to be fun training you.” The bitch frowned at the, to her, meaningless stream of phonemes and then shrugged. Her trainer sounded like she liked her.
Silver Mane almost balked at the sight. She’d been called out of the stable that had been her home for the last year to find herself facing the back end of a horse trailer. Well, she thought, it wasn’t like she had a whole lot of choice in the matter. Apparently she’d been sold, or something. She hoped Serenity would miss her.
The attendant had her halter on an unusually long lead. She found out why when he entered the trailer, ran the lead through a ring in the front of the left-hand stall, and then used it to pull her up the ramp. She wasn’t sure, but she though he tied it to a bracket in the back, well out of where she could reach even if she took her hoof boots off.
It wasn’t like it was the first time she’d been in a horse trailer. Back when she was still Anna, and Moonlight on Wheat had been a fun hobby instead of her whole life, Terry had experimented taking her to shows in a trailer. They’d quit doing it for long trips because the trailers they’d rented didn’t have either food or waste facilities.
One thing she found out fairly quickly was that this trailer had both. She’d noticed that the right hand stall had seemed to be closed off with something, now she found out what it was when they slid part of it across and then toward her. It seemed to be a urinal which she could back into. And the low table in front of her had two spigots, one marked with a pair of wavy blue lines and the other with a bowl. Food and water.
It looked like a long ride to wherever she was going.
It was. The fortunate part of the trip was that the trailer had one way windows. They were made of the new nano-tech material that made them truly one way, and that also regulated the internal temperature by varying the amount of sunlight allowed in.
The unfortunate part of the trip was that they didn’t stop to exercise the two ponies. It took three days to get to wherever they were going. Scenery, Silver Mane decided, was scenery. It changed as they went through cities, towns and the countryside, but somehow it was mostly the same. It wasn’t that she was totally lost; she knew where she had started and she could see city names and interstate numbers as they went by, so she knew she was headed across the country.
Eventually they turned off of the interstate system onto a local expressway and then onto a busy four lane highway. Another pair of turns found them in a waiting line at a gate. Then it was stop and start onto a blacktop and past a huge parking lot to where they finally parked in a dirt covered yard before what looked like a ponygirl stable. At least, the ponygirl on the exercise carousel certainly suggested it!
It was definitely their stop. She saw several slaves swarm out of the building, and heard the back door clatter its way up. Then there was a short wait as they unloaded the tack and moved the urinal blocking her path. She carefully backed out and looked around, or as much around as her halter would allow. Then she whinnied joyfully: Terry and Serenity were standing there! It make her glad she’d taken the chance to run a comb through her mane before putting her front hooves back on.
Serenity came up and ran her hand through the ponygirl’s mane while Silver Mane nuzzled her. Then she held out her hand with a sugar cube. Silver Mane looked at it and laughed rather than whinnying; after that ride she thought she deserved a steak dinner! But she took it off with a quick flick of her tongue and nuzzled her mistress again.
“There he is,” Terry said as the other pony came cautiously backing down the ramp. Silver Mane couldn’t, of course, understand what he’d said, but the tone of satisfied curiosity made her turn her head. It was Screws Well, otherwise known as Rings her Bells, one of the stallions from the stable! She whinnied a greeting to him, and he whinnied back on seeing her.
“I think she just said what’s important, love,” Terry told Bethany with a laugh in his voice.
“Oh, absolutely,” Bethany answered, tilting her head up to nuzzle his ear. “Think we should let them get to it and take our rides later?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, minx?” he answered, caressing a breast he happened to find under his hand.
She pulled him down for a long, passionate kiss. “See you in an hour or so,” she waved at the stable hands. “Have them saddled for riding.”
“Should we let them rut?” the taller of the two stable hands asked the other as they led their two ponies toward their stalls.
“Why should we stop them?” she answered readily. “Besides, I want to see how that stallion performs. I might want to sample him myself!”
“You what?”
“You guys. You’ve been having all the fun trying to keep ten mares and little old me satisfied. Too often is probably bad for discipline, but you need some competition!” She reached under his tunic skirt and stroked what she thought of as the most important part of his anatomy.
“Slut,” he said huskily.
“Of course. What else is there?” she riposted as she guided Moonlight into her new stall, stripped the halter off and snapped the hook on Moonlight’s collar. The two of them turned and walked toward the back.
Silver Mane slid out of her front hooves with the facility of long practice, and held up her hands.
“Explore and then show me what your name is all about!” she signed at him.
“Now!” he signed back, and then unsnapped the hook from his collar. A moment later both of the ponies were in the corridor on all four hooves, Silver Mane having stopped to put bells on her breast rings. They poked their heads into the latrine and the feeding rooms before finding the door to their meadow. Then they spend a few minutes checking where the fence was before nuzzling each other.
Silver Mane planted her front hooves as Screws Well removed his hooves to stroke her mane and run his fingers down her spine. She whinnied, ending in a gasp as he walked behind her, stroked the insides of her thighs and entered her. After a minute, they both came, the bells on her breast rings tinkling brightly as she jerked around in the orgasm.
“So that’s why he’s called Rings her Bells,” Stan told Sally.
“He’s a fast worker,” Sally answered huskily. “Now, you make me forget him,” she said as she drew him toward the stairs to their room on the second floor.
“This,” Terry said to his beloved Bethany, “is what life should be.”
She laughed musically. “So it is, and you know what?”
“Oh?”
“The cherry on top is that all of them think I’m gloating about riding your first wife!” She stroked Moonlight on Wheat’s mane possessively as the two of them rode their ponies through the woods.
“You aren’t?”
Bethany laughed again. “I had nothing to do with it, dear! We didn’t meet until after she decided she wanted to be a ponygirl more than she wanted to be your wife. I save my gloating for something I had a hand in.”
“Let them think that,” Terry chuckled.
“Oh, I will. At first I thought of asking you to sell her. Then you asked me to try riding her, and I absolutely fell in love. My dream horse was always white, but I never thought it would be a ponygirl when I was growing up!
“I’m still puzzled about why you gave her up as a wife, though. I’ve never heard you say a bad word about her; I’d have thought you’d have tried to get her back.”
“Well,” Terry said reflectively, “she was trying to be both a wife and a ponygirl. We could have bought a ponygirl, but that wouldn’t have gotten it out of her blood. So I maneuvered her into a position where she had to make a decision.
“I was being rather aggressively if subtly courted by Crystal. I didn’t see it at the time, but that was part of what made me think I wanted Anna to make up her mind one way or the other. She’d been at Excelsior a week when the Underboard Engineering mess blew up, and I spent the next couple of months globetrotting and living out of my suitcase. I let Crystal take her out with the chariot to see how things worked out in that direction.
“I managed to get back to see her about a month after she started, and we discussed things. She said she wasn’t ready to come home, especially since I was still globetrotting, so I told her that she either came home when this settled down, or she was going to become a full time ponygirl, and I’d get another wife. That was when I was still thinking of Crystal as my next wife.
“Shortly after that, I found out that Crystal was embezzling and trying to frame me for it.
“So she’d been a full time ponygirl for several months by the time things settled down enough so I could stay home more than one day a week! I’d been letting Crystal use her as a carriage pony so that Crystal didn’t catch on that we were putting the case together. That trap snapped shut around her about the same time Moonlight decided she wanted to be trained as a riding ponygirl.
“So you might say that Crystal forced the issue.”
“Crystal,” his wife pronounced, “was an idiot. I like her as Millicent much better. She certainly seems to be having fun, doesn’t she?” She waved in the general direction of the puppy-girl that trotted beside them, tongue hanging out.
“Oh, she is. And DeDe is almost purring on having her ex-wife in a cage.”
Bethany laughed “For her, I guess revenge really is sweet. DeDe thinks her life would be complete if you’d just let her out of the chastity belt!”
“Not while I’m around.” Terry said flatly.
“If it’s me you’re worried about, you needn’t,” Bethany laughed again. “DeDe hasn’t figured out that it’s money, power and social position that turn me on; that big dick of hers is fine when I haven’t got you, but it doesn’t have the other three attached. Not,” she added, “that I’ve got any complaints about your dick size!”
“This stallion is bigger than either of us,” Terry said.
“And that’s just too big; he’d tear me to shreds,” Bethany said promptly. “I’m serious about that. If all I wanted was a series of orgasms that would turn me inside out, wring me out and hang me up to dry, I’d use one of my vibrators. I’ve got a couple that could probably put me in the hospital if they didn’t have safety interlocks.
“What they don’t have is a big, manly chest and nice, comforting arms when I want to feel small and protected. Neither does DeDe, at least any more. And neither of them has money, power and social position. I haven’t felt the urge to take the vibrators out of the box since we’ve been getting it on together.”
“I understand DeDe used to be a more reasonable size before Crystal had him turned into a she-male slave maid.”
“Crystal was an idiot,” Bethany said. “Dick size isn’t everything. It isn’t even everything when it comes time to get horizontal and do it. A woman who’s overly concerned with dick size has her priorities screwed up.”
“As you said, Crystal was an idiot,” Terry said, obscurely pleased in spite of himself. “She didn’t know what was important. Neither did Anna.”
“I don’t know about that,” Bethany said thoughtfully. “I think Anna knew exactly what was important to her, and it wasn’t money, power and social position. From what I’ve seen, she’s happy being a ponygirl. Millicent is still looking for an angle. DeDe seems to be happy taking orders and letting the computer run her around, although she’s still got a real masculine streak that has nothing to do with her tendency to put her round peg into any available hole at the slightest opportunity.”
She shrugged. “I’ve got what I want. Trading up is risky, and men like their wives to be faithful. Crystal didn’t know the meaning of enough; I do. I just want to keep the money and power coming in so I can enjoy milking the social position.”
She mused a moment. “I think you could let DeDe out so she could ravish Millicent to her heart’s content. Jealousy I can understand, but there’s probably a way of setting it up with the control collars so that she couldn’t get it on except with her.”
“Now that’s a thought,” Terry said. “I just might look into it.”
The ponies who thought of themselves as Silver Mane and Screws Well trotted on side by side, ignoring the incomprehensible sounds of the conversation between their riders.
If you enjoyed this story, please e-mail the author and let him know. He likes to hear from his loyal fans, and it gives him some motivation to keep writing this stuff. Of course, if you're a publisher and you'd like to buy some of these stories, please let him know. The starving author in the garret makes a great story, but it sucks in real life.