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 1. I Want. I Want. Please...
Chapter 2. You’ll do it My Way.
Chapter 5. Michelle makes some Discoveries.
Chapter 6. Tammy Goes Full Time.
“Show them in please,” Jed Trolley said into the intercom.
A minute later Peony showed two people in, a father and daughter by the looks.
Pleasantries out of the way, Jed asked: “So what brings you to the Excelsior Stables and Kennels?”
“Tammy wants to become a ponygirl, and she just turned 18 so I can’t absolutely keep her from it. I’m dead set against it, and her mother is kind of on the fence.”
“I can understand your viewpoint, Mr. Baker,” Jed said dryly. “I certainly wouldn’t want any daughter of mine to become a full time ponygirl. So,” he turned to Tammy, “what is it you want? How did you get interested?”
“Oh!” she said a bit breathlessly, “Michelle took me to a ponygirl meeting a few months ago. They look so cute, all done up in leather straps and nothing else on!”
Cute, her father thought, wasn’t the way he would describe it. Sexy, maybe. Cute, no.
“Do you know what ponygirls do when they’re not being shown?”
“Go home and cook supper?” she hazarded.
Jed laughed. “Let’s go out and look at some. Make sure you put your coats on, it’s cold out there!”
‘It doesn’t look that cold,” Tammy said, looking out the window.
“Looks can be deceiving,” he said. “We like our eye candy.” Peony came back in, bearing the two guest’s coats.
“I’ve got an outside door here,” Jed said, sliding a section of what had looked like the outer wall to the side to reveal an opening.
“You’re not wearing coats!” Tammy said accusingly, followed by “Oh!” as a gust blew up her coat and skirt. “It’s cold!”
“We’re both weatherproof,” Jed laughed. They didn’t look weatherproof. Jed wore slacks and an open sports shirt, while Peony wore a single shoulder tunic that fit as if it was painted on, and which barely made it to mid-thigh before it ended.
“Weatherproof?” Frank Baker asked.
“Well, we’re both wearing more than it looks like. I’ve got my thermal underwear, and Peony is wearing a long sleeved top and footed stockings. They’re made of a new nano-fabric that matches the wearer’s skin tone and does an excellent job of temperature regulation. Her tunic is the same fabric, although it’s permanently colored rather than being color matching.”
“It must be awfully hot indoors?”
“It’s not an insulator, it’s a regulator. It keeps our temperature within a degree of optimum, regardless of the outside temperature. Right now it’s insulating, indoors it pretty much doesn’t do anything.”
“We actually don’t wear them during warm weather. Most of us prefer the feel of the air on our skin,” Peony added. “I should say that the free people don’t wear them, my tunic is our year around slave livery.”
“You’re a slave,” Tammy asked in surprise.
“Most of the workers here are slaves,” Jed said. “That’s the business we’re in, and it keeps the overhead down.”
“So tell me what you’re seeing,” Jed said to Tammy.
“Two ponygirls and a worker clearing snow?”
“Exactly. We try to keep our ponygirls busy; a ponygirl that spends too much time standing chained in her stall is an unhappy ponygirl.”
“Why isn’t it motorized?” Frank asked.
“Well, that’s a matter of philosophy. A manual snow blower is cheaper than a riding blower. We only need them a few times a year, and we’ve got the ponygirls, so we put shafts on them and don’t spend the extra money. One item isn’t that much in the budget, but it does add up.”
“Why are they on their hands and feet?”
“They’re on all four hooves,” Jed chuckled. “Ponies have hooves, not hands and feet. We don’t have DNA mods to turn hands and feet into hooves, so they’re wearing hoof boots. The more practical point is that they can pull heavier loads four footed than two footed; the human body isn’t really structured for pulling loads. You can see how well developed their hindquarters are.”
“None of the ponygirls at the show were on all fours,” Tammy said, fascinated. “Do they ever stand up?”
“Frequently. Some of them prefer two feet when they’re not being worked, some of them seem to prefer four, but they all do both.”
“So they go home at night?”
“They go to their stalls in the stable. These two have been full time ponygirls for at least a year, and probably a lot longer.”
“How can you tell?”
“They’ve got manes and real tails. That’s not a hair style; their hair grows that way. You can see how long the bottom part of the mane has gotten; it’s over six inches.”
“Can I talk to one?”
“No.” Jed said.
“Aw, I want to talk to one.”
“I didn’t say no as in not allowed, I said no as in not possible. They don’t talk, and they couldn’t understand you if you talked to them.”
“They can’t talk?” Frank asked. “How do you keep them from talking?”
“They’ve got a gadget installed in their mouth that generates counter-sound waves whenever it detects speech, and earplugs that distort speech so it isn’t recognizable. They’re permanent installations; you’d need minor surgery to remove them. Nothing difficult or dangerous, but they’re not coming out by accident.”
“So they haven’t talked at all for over a year?”
“Right.”
“Why don’t you let them talk?” Tammy asked.
“They’re animals. Animals don’t talk, or at least they don’t talk to us.”
“They’re animals?” Tammy exclaimed. “That’s silly.”
“A ponygirl,” Jed said in a tutorial voice, “is a girl that’s been trained to act like a horse, is used like a horse and is treated like a horse. What that means is that she’s trained to whinny, snort, wuffle, nuzzle her handlers and eat sugar cubes off of their hands. She’s harnessed like a horse; she pulls things, she’s ridden, she’s trained in show routines and shown at meetings. She’s kept in a stable, eats out of a dish without using her hands and reacts to commands the way she’s been trained without understanding what the words mean to us.
“Animals don’t talk to us; we don’t talk to them. Whether animals have got languages depends on how far you want to stretch the definition of language; horses can certainly communicate whatever a horse cares about to another horse, for example. We don’t, however, have a language in common.
“Our ponygirls have got a sign language they use when they’re off duty and their hands are free. They talk about ponygirl things; their work, their passengers and riders, their tack, cleaning the stable, the stallions and stuff like that. It started off as spelled-out English and evolved, or more properly devolved, from there. It’s missing a lot of grammar, and it’s got a relatively small vocabulary. Small for us, huge for the rest of the animal kingdom. It keeps them centered in the mindset that they’re ponygirls, not people.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard it put that way,” Frank said, clearly intrigued in spite of himself.
“Well, training a girl to act like a horse, using her like a horse and treating her like a horse doesn’t make her a horse. She’s not as strong, she doesn’t eat as much. We let them maintain parts of their stable. They invented the language they use. Still, by the time they’ve been ponygirls for a while their mindset is that they’re ponygirls, not normal girls that are being forced to act like horses.”
“What did she just do?” Tammy broke in, sounding somewhere between shocked and fascinated.
“Emptied her bladder,” Jed told her, not that she didn’t know.
“She’s allowed to do that?”
“She’s trained to do that, or rather she’s untrained so she does that,” Jed told her. “Horses piss when the urge strike them, and she’s trained to act like a horse.”
“She goes in her stall?”
“No, that’s not allowed. I’d have to check the records whether that one retains enough control to go to the latrine when she needs to, or whether the physiological monitor sends her to the latrine so she doesn’t make a mess in her stall.”
“Would you take me as a ponygirl?” Tammy asked suddenly.
“No.” Jed told her flatly. Her father looked relieved.
“Why not?”
“Let me explain. From my point of view, there are four groups of ponygirls. There’s a group that comes in for training for a few hours at a time, sometimes a couple of times a week, sometimes a couple of times a month. They rent time on the bridle trails, and sometimes they get together and race. They’re not slaves, they’re just very kinky amateurs.
“There’s a second group that comes in for longer intervals, from a few days to a couple of weeks, and goes back home the rest of the time. There are full time ponygirls that their owners board with us, and there are full time ponygirls that we own.
“The latter three groups have valid slave contracts with their owners. If she’s here in my stable, and her owner isn’t with her, I’m not going to get myself caught when she wants out and my trainer just goes on and starts training the rebellious streak out of her.
“So if you want to play at it, I’ll be happy to take your money. If you want to do anything more than play at it, you’ll sign a valid slave contract first, and you’ll sign it with someone other than me.”
“But...”
“I don’t need more ponygirls. The market is slowly expanding, but the fact is that I’ve got more ponygirls than I can use efficiently or sell. I’ve got 35 at this stable. Twenty of them are being boarded for their owners, the other fifteen I own. Some of those are because their owners quit paying the fees and just left them here, and didn’t dispute when we filed suit to collect. And about half of the ones I board have been put up for sale by their owners.
“I sell maybe one a month on average; I’ve got 25 for sale; that’s two years of inventory. It only takes two months from the time we put the muffler and earplugs in to rough-train a ponygirl. It may take a couple more for her to build up the strength and stamina to pull a full load for several hours. It takes about six to modify and train her to be ridden. Eight months and she’s fluent in ponygirl-sign, most learn it quicker. Show training is a continuous process.
“That’s market conditions, girl. If someone came and bought ten of mine tomorrow, I’d take your contract the day after, no questions asked, and put in the muffler and earplugs right away. You’d have your Slaveowner’s Consortium tattoo within the hour, and you’d be on the conditioning wheel right after. You wouldn’t speak another word unless whoever I sold you to after training decided to free you. That’s the situation.”
She looked stunned. “But...” She took a breath. “I think I’ve got to go to the ladies room.”
“How much of that was for her benefit?” Frank asked as soon as she vanished with Peony.
“None of it or all of it. I’ve got no reason to do anything but lay my cards on the table, face up. If there was a market, I’d take her slave contract in a minute, at least if she didn’t have a lot of outstanding debt I’d have to pick up.”
“I thought there was a market?”
“There’s a lot of poorly trained ponygirls out there, and there’s even more sloppy security. We’re one of the only two chains in the business that guarantees that if you leave a slave with us, she’ll still be here when you come to pick her up. We’ve never had an escape, and we train the tendency to want to escape out of them if we’ve got them long enough.
“If you want my opinion, you’ve lost her. She’s wearing a Goodwife Institute Yellow class ribbon; either you insure she never attends another Goodwife Institute class, or she’ll sign a slave contract with someone within the year. She’s already started to regard being a slave and having an owner as a normal part of our society, and she didn’t blink when I talked about selling them. She did when I talked about selling her, but I think that was because she was afraid of what she was feeling.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said with a sigh. “My wife wanted her to train at the Goodwife Institute so she could get a good husband.”
Jed laughed. “Far as I can tell, that has no effect whatsoever. Well, maybe it does a bit, the amount of advertising they’re doing.
“Tell you what, Peony can keep her occupied for a while. Step into the office and I’ll go over the fee schedule and a number of options. It never hurts to be prepared if it hits the fan and starts walking.”
The ride home was strained, to say the least. When they got there, Frank went to work on the computer, and Tammy went to her room to sulk. Then Frank had a long talk with Marge, his wife.
Dinner time rolled around, and Tammy emerged from her room to find that she didn’t have a place set at the table. Instead, there were two bowls on a low table, with a footstool in front. One bowl had water, the other had what looked like some kind of porridge, possibly a flavored oatmeal.
“...” she said. At least, she opened her mouth, but no words came out.
“We’ve decided,” her father said, “that if you want to be a ponygirl, you’ll learn some of what it means. That ribbon you got from Goodwife is a fully competent control collar, and I had them upgrade the software before we left to Excelsior’s standards. The reason you can’t talk is that I’ve paralyzed your vocal cords. The reason your dinner is on that table is that ponygirls eat directly from the bowls while they’re standing on all four hooves. What’s in the bowl is Slave Chow; it’s an oatmeal base with everything you need mixed in. That’s all ponygirls eat, and that’s all you’re going to eat for a while, so get down on your hands and feet and dig in.”
She looked at him incredulously. He looked back steadily. She looked at her mother, who looked somewhat strained but didn’t give her any support.
She opened her mouth again, and then went “eep!” Or she would have if her vocal cords had been capable of producing sound. Her hand went to her throat, and then she dropped her eyes and knelt in front of the bowls.
“Hands and feet, not hands and knees,” her father said.
She rearranged herself and found that her head naturally hovered over the bowls that contained her evening meal. She gave a put-upon sigh and then started in, sucking up a little water and trying to get some of the oatmeal into her rather than all over her face.
Eventually she looked up, oatmeal smeared over her mouth and chin, and then plunged her face into the water to try to get it off.
She found both of her parents looking at her, her mother looking a bit troubled.
“Good,” her father told her when she looked over. “Wash your food bowl, refill your water bowl, wash off your face and come back. I’ve got more news that you might like a good deal better.”
She struggled to her feet and did the chores while her parents ate some more of their dinner.
“Sit. On the floor; ponygirls aren’t allowed on the furniture. I said I had good news, or at least you might regard it as good news. I’ve set up for you to spend two afternoons a week at Excelsior being trained.”
Her eyes flew up, startled.
“You’ve got an appointment Tuesday, that’s three days from now, to have what they call the P1 modification set installed. They say you’ll probably spend another couple of days recovering; the breast surgery will heal in around three days, and the gene mods sometimes kick up a reaction the first day or so.
“They recommend the P1 set for all ponygirls, regardless of whether they’re curious amateurs or headed for full time pony slavery. There are a number of pieces.
“The breast mods install countermotion generators. They’ll let you do vigorous activity without your needing breast support; all they’ll do is quiver a bit, and I’m told you’ll find the sensation pleasant rather than painful. They also add holes for breast rings that can be used for bells.
“They’ll pierce your septum and put in a grommet for a nose ring.
“The DNA mods will extend the lower boundary of your comfort zone so you can be naked in weather most of us would regard as too chilly to handle without clothing. They’ll also strengthen your back, extend your tailbone for a socket for a tail and reshape your feet so you can wear hoof boots without discomfort.”
She looked back at him, wide-eyed, and then grinned.
“I take it you’re pleased. They’ll measure you for your tack, and it should be ready for your training sessions to start the week after.
“Now for the not so good news. I brought back a couple of changes of slave livery. It’s the same style but not the same pattern as they ones they use. You will wear it around the house except when you’re eating. You’re going to take over all of the household chores; your mother will supervise. We’re going to find out how much you actually learned in those courses at the Goodwife Institute.
“You’ll eat ponygirl style; when your tack comes in you’ll wear your hoof boots on all four legs, and you’ll wear your tail as soon as the socket finishes growing properly. I haven’t decided yet whether I’m going to build you a stall in the basement; I might, I might not.
“We’ll see where things are in a few months. That’s going to be make or break; either you’ll give it up, or you’ll sign a slave contract with me. Then I’ll board you full time at Excelsior. After that? We may keep you if Marge and I like having a ponygirl to play with, or we may put you up for sale.”
“Questions?” He touched a button on the remote. “You can talk now.”
Instead of a question, she jumped up and screamed “Daddy!” and almost upset the table as she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“I must say I’m surprised,” Marge commented after Frank had put his daughter into her stall in the basement.
“About what?” he answered, putting the novel he’d been intending to read back down.
“Tammy. She’s settled in to being a reasonably competent slave maid. She’s still got a lot of rough edges, but she’s young, and she’s learning.” She frowned. “I hate to say I was wrong, but you spotted the symptoms while I was still hoping. Damn the Goodwife Institute!”
“I’ve been wondering about them myself. Especially why the Anti-Slavery league hasn’t been on their case.”
“There is that,” Marge said. “What’s bothering me almost as much is that I’m settling in to like having a slave as a housekeeper.”
“You want to keep her?” he asked, an eyebrow raised.
“Not really, the neighbors would think it’s real tacky having my daughter as a slave. And they’d wonder about you as well.”
“Excellent point. I have to say she’s definitely a hot piece, and she’s just gotten hotter the more she’s settled in.”
“So unless she surprises me and decides to call it all off, I’m agreeing with you. She signs a slave contract and then either we board her with Excelsior as a ponygirl, or we sell her. Or both.”
He sighed. “I really hate to, but I don’t think she’s going to come to her senses. It seems like such a waste.”
“Doesn’t it just. What’s the next step with Excelsior?”
“Well, they think she’s coming along quite well, but she isn’t ready to take a chariot out on the carriage paths yet. She needs to develop more stamina, and they haven’t quite trained the tendency to anticipate the reins out yet. However, they are recommending we install the P2 modifications.”
“What does that involve?”
“P2 is the muffler and earplugs. I dug into them a bit and found out that they’re both standard programmable medical devices. They’ve got them rigged so that they can be turned on and off from the control collar, although the control collar doesn’t get any useful input from either of them.”
“So nobody would ask questions if they find them; they’ll simply assume they’re for a speech impediment or something?”
“Right.”
“I wonder if I could use them for anything?”
“I doubt it, although the muffler is probably better than paralyzing her vocal cords whenever we don’t want her to speak. Unless you’re thinking of keyword command training.”
“Possibly. I’ve been noticing that ordering her around really doesn’t take a lot of words.”
“It might be possible, but I’ll admit I don’t have any idea how to set up a training sequence. I have the impression that most of the ones Excelsior uses are preprogrammed. Their trainers just select the one they want from a list.”
“I think I’ll look into it,” she said.
“The other thing they’re suggesting is that I bring her in and out in a ponygirl trailer.”
“Oh, why?”
“It’s another step. They think it will firm up the mindset.”
“Is it legal? I mean without a slave contract?”
“I checked. As long as she doesn’t object.”
“A ponygirl trailer. I assume it’s just a small horse trailer? Did they suggest a model?”
“There are a couple. One for short trips, one for longer trips. The long one has food and waste facilities.”
“I think we’d better get the long trip one. Do they even have singles? The only horse trailers I’ve seen have been for two.”
“Why the long trip one?”
“I think I may want to take her out to some shows, and some of them are fairly far away. If that doesn’t scare her, nothing will.”
“Shows. I don’t think she’s ready yet.”
“Oh, not yet, and maybe not until after she goes full time.”
“Well, we can always sell it.”
“I think it’s so cool!” the voice on the other end of the phone said excitedly.
“What’s cool, uh, Michelle?”
“Oh, right. I’m Michelle, Mrs. Baker. I haven’t seen Tammy for a while, and then I saw her on the endurance wheel at Excelsior. I think it’s so cool what you’re doing with her!”
“You saw her at Excelsior?” Marge echoed, trying to collect her scattered thoughts.
“Oh yes! Are you boarding her there? I want to reserve her and take her out for a chariot ride as soon as it gets a bit warmer!”
“She hasn’t gone full time yet; she’s just up there three times a week for training.”
“Oh. I was hoping. When’s she going to go full time?”
“Never, we hope.”
“If she didn’t change her mind after the first couple of sessions, she isn’t going to,” Michelle said definitely.
“That’s what we’re afraid of,” Marge sighed.
“Oh, I know Tammy. She’ll try something a couple of times, and if it doesn’t grab her she’ll turn around and walk away. If she does, she’s like hooked big time. Can I talk to her?”
“Um. She’s downstairs in her stall right now.”
“Oh! You’ve got a stall for her! Mega cool! Can I come over and see?”
Marge sighed. “Sure. Just call ahead, we don’t keep her as a ponygirl full time.”
Marge finally managed to get Michelle off the phone after arranging a time.
She shook her head and considered. Should she tell Tammy and prepare her? After a moment’s thought, she decided not to.
Marge glanced out the window as the visitor alarm flashed. She saw Michelle’s car come to a heart-stopping halt after her usual headlong sprint up the driveway. Why anyone would accelerate in the driveway before stopping was beyond her, but that was Michelle.
Marge eyed her daughter’s friend as she came up the walkway, her eye being drawn to the Goodwife Institute ribbon with the Yellow cameo on the front which adorned her throat.
“You finally got a housekeeper,” was the first thing Michelle said after she hung up her coat.
“Huh?” Marge said, not very elegantly.
“Oh, darn. Me and my big mouth. You were always a good housekeeper, but this is, like, professional.”
Marge shook her head. “Tammy’s doing the housekeeping when she’s not being a ponygirl.”
“Way cool. All those courses had to be good for something! You got her a cute uniform?”
“Just some standard slave livery. It’s the same style Excelsior uses, but a different pattern.”
“Wowser! So Tammy really has found what she wants to do.”
“It looks like it,” Marge sighed again. “Watch the steps.”
The miniature stable was in the far corner of the rec room where it could be hidden behind a screen. The screen wasn’t in place so Tammy’s stall was visible from the stairs. She stood up to look at the noise, and then whinnied excitedly when she recognized Michelle.
“I guess that answers that,” Marge muttered to herself as Michelle hurried over and held out a caramel candy she’d extracted from her purse.
Tammy delicately craned her head forward and took it on her tongue, and flipped it into her mouth. Then she nuzzled Michelle, giving a soft wicker at the same time.
“Does she still talk?” Michelle asked.
“We installed the earplugs and muffler last week. They’re working on firming up the commands.”
“Oh. Present!” Michelle commanded.
Tammy came erect and folded her hands behind herself. She stood still while Michelle ran her hands over her skin, lifted a breast, stroked her hair and rattled on for a couple of minutes describing her points.
“Well trained,” she said. “Relax” she commanded, letting Tammy relax from the presentation posture.
“Do you have a leash. Oh, here.” She unsnapped the chain and snapped the leash onto the ponygirl’s collar. “Step!” Tammy started high stepping across the room. Michelle tried out several other commands, finally returning the ponygirl to her stall.
“Well trained for what, two months part time?”
“About that. She started out twice a week, now she’s over there three times.”
“So what else have you got?” she asked as she looked around. “Oh! A real ponygirl feeder. I didn’t think they made them!”
“We had to hunt; the company discontinued the line almost as soon as they introduced it.”
“What’s her pony name?”
“We haven’t given her one yet.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it’s not going to matter to her shortly because she won’t be able to hear it.”
“I don’t understand?”
“From what they told me, the collar decodes the commands and then gives her a stimulus, and she responds the way she’s been trained for that stimulus. They start off with the verbal command, train in the stimulus and the response they want, and then shut off the verbal part in the earplug.
“They tell me the real hard part for the novice ponygirl is learning to let herself respond when she doesn’t hear the stimulus. Once she’s over that they can send the commands over the network, for all it matters.”
“Oh! So her name is just a command?”
“Right. We change the words her collar responds to, and she’ll never know the difference.”
“Wow! I never realized it was that intense. When can I talk to her?”
“Maybe never,” Marge told her guest.
“Oh?”
“I’m doing something different with her. You know I’m using her as my housekeeper, right? I’m trying to train her the same way ponygirls are trained, to only react to commands and not actually understand language.”
“Intense!” Michelle said. “How’s it working?”
“Better than I thought it would,” Marge answered. “I got the basic material off the web from some human robot enthusiasts who had reverse engineered the collars, mufflers and earplugs, and had Frank adapt it so it fit in with Excelsior’s ponygirl program. It swaps the command sets based on what she’s doing, and fits in a different set of stimuli so we don’t trip over each other’s stimulus and response patterns. We’re both having fun playing with her.”
Marge paused. “I think I will let you talk to her. I want to see how this works.” She turned to the ponygirl that was standing watching them talk and said: “Tammy. Mode. Slavegirl.”
The ponygirl unclipped the chain from her collar and walked into the shower room. A minute later she walked out wearing her slave tunic and sandals.
“That’s neat,” Michelle enthused as Tammy did a slow pirouette, letting the skirt of the tunic flare a bit. “That’s a standard slavegirl tunic?”
“One of about five patterns that sell enough to be barely affordable. They’re about 150 each, but they last several years of full time use before showing wear.”
“That’s pretty affordable, I’d say.”
“True.” She turned to Tammy. “Snack. Kitchen.” Tammy curtsied and then headed upstairs.
“What’s she going to set out?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Marge said. “She’s not a robot; she’ll fill in the instructions somehow.”
“She sure acts like it,” Michelle said in an admiring tone. “You’ve done a good job training her.”
“Well, one of the things Frank said he was told on his first trip to Excelsior kind of resonated with me. They said that you can train a girl to act like a horse, use her like a horse and treat her like a horse, but she’s not a horse. Similarly, I can train her to act like a household robot, use her like a household robot and treat her like a household robot, but she’s not a robot.”
“That makes sense,” Michelle said as the two of them walked up the stairs.
She’d laid a small spread of cheese and crackers, with a pot of coffee for her mistress and a glass of milk for Michelle. She bustled around getting first Michelle and then her mistress seated. As soon as Marge sat, she sat on her heels on the floor next to her chair.
“She looks like she’s settled in,” Michelle said as she spread cheese on a cracker. “I wish our maid was this efficient.”
“Some of it’s training, but I think Tammy really wanted to be a slavegirl. I was in denial for a while, but...” she trailed off. Then she turned to the brunette head that was level with her waist. “Tammy. Mode. Language. On.”
“That didn’t seem to do anything,” Michelle said.
“Huh?” Tammy jerked around. “I can understand you?”
“I just turned the muffler and earplugs off, dear,” her mother said. “Michelle wanted to talk to you, and I think we’ve got a few things to talk over as well.”
“Oh.” Tammy said, settling back down.
“Sit. Chair.” her mother said.
Tammy pulled up a chair and sat down. “Why did I just do that? I heard what you said, but I’m not supposed to sit on chairs unless I’m doing something that needs them.”
“Turning the muffler and earplugs off didn’t turn off the collar, dear.”
“Oh. Right.”
“How do you like being a slavegirl?” Michelle asked.
“Well,” Tammy frowned a bit, “I think I like being a ponygirl better. At least when I’m at the stable; here it’s a bit boring. I don’t hate being a slavegirl, I just think that it’s going to get fairly old in a while.”
“How’s not having language working?”
“I like it,” she said enthusiastically. “I can get my work done without Mistress hovering over me and telling me how to do it. And it feels like I’m making the decisions, even though I know I’m simply following her commands.”
Marge stared at her daughter and then giggled. “You know, I never thought of it like that. My mother hovered too, and I wished she would just go away.”
“So you want to continue being a ponygirl?” her mother asked.
“I’m still having fun. I don’t know how long that’s going to last, though.”
“They tell me you’re missing most of the experience just coming in and out.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said, suddenly serious. “I’d have to have a slave contract to be boarded there?”
“That’s Excelsior’s rules, and as far as we’ve been able to tell, they’re really the best stable around, besides being one of the least expensive. Besides, the ones that don’t have that rule are in court all the time, either over escapes or mistreatment.”
“You’ll free me when I get tired of it?” she asked.
“We’re not going to promise anything,” she answered severely. “I’m told that the experience of being boarded at the stable is different enough that most of their ponygirls don’t want to be freed. A year there and their attitude seems to shift; they think of themselves as ponygirls, not as girls being forced to act like ponies. A couple that have been freed have been miserable, and took a long time to adjust.”
She shook her head slightly. “I’ll take the chance. How soon can we do it?”
“Your father has been talking about having you do the slave contract this weekend,” Marge told her. “We probably won’t board you there full time for a while, though. I’ve got a number of things I want to try out before I replace you.”
“Well...” She suddenly giggled. “Like I have a choice after I make the contract!”
“You’re beginning to understand,” her mother said. “Tammy. Mode. Language. Off.”
“She can’t understand us now?” Michelle asked. “Obviously not,” she continued as she saw Tammy’s lack of response.
“Work. Background.” Marge commanded. Tammy slid off of the chair, curtsied and walked out of the room. A minute later they heard the vacuum cleaner start.
“She could try to escape?”
“It shouldn’t be possible. We keep an invisible fence up around the stable area when she’s downstairs as a ponygirl, and there’s another invisible fence that keeps her on the property and out of sight of the road. Then there’s a couple of sequences that keep her from using the computer or any of the phones. It’s about as foolproof as it’s possible to get without keeping her locked in a cage.”
“I was just thinking about what might happen if I asked you to let me train her up a bit and show her.”
“Now that’s a thought. We’ve discussed it, but neither of us really has the time to get involved with the show circuit.”
“But how would you keep her from escaping? Not that I think she would want to, but still.” She shrugged. “Most of the ones I saw were hobbled, in fairly strict bondage, or shackled with pretty decent locks.”
“It’s easy,” she chuckled. “Now that you point it out we might want something for show, but the invisible fence should work wonders.”
“You’ll take the equipment with you?”
“No equipment,” she chuckled again. “Or at least no equipment that’s specifically for an invisible fence. We put in a few wireless nodes when we started keeping her as a ponygirl, but that was to make sure we didn’t have any dead areas.”
Michelle looked a bit confused.
“Let’s go to the computer room so I can show you something,” she said.
“Let’s see,” she said as she sat at the workstation. “Your control collar is active.”
“My WHAT?” Michelle exclaimed.
“Your control collar,” Marge repeated, with a cat eating the canary grin. “You didn’t know that your Goodwife Institute ribbon was a control collar?”
“No. I. Didn’t.”
She took a deep breath. “That explains that!”
“Explains what?”
“Why I started thinking that I’d love to be an obedient housewife, and slavery began to look real attractive after I’d taken a couple of Yellow courses.”
She took a deep breath to calm down. “I spotted it and stopped taking courses until I could figure it out.”
“Good move,” Marge nodded. “Although I don’t think you spotted the whole thing.”
“There’s more?” Michelle said cautiously.
“Quite a bit more. The yellow courses are the Effective Femininity program. The reason they give you a ribbon is that they load an assistance module for each course. The techniques they look like they’re teaching you are a mishmash of old occult, New Age, Human Potential and any number of others, and mostly don’t work reliably. The assistance program uses plain old stimulus and response conditioning to take up the slack, and it’s very effective.
“Not only don’t they tell you that’s what they’re doing, they don’t tell you that the assistance modules will try to herd you into the Red program.”
“That’s the Effectively Utilizing Your Slave courses?”
“Right. They start by shifting your attitude toward slavery so you regard it as a perfectly normal, and in fact essential, part of any properly functioning society. If they get a lot of push-back, they stop. Once they’ve got that in, then they work on getting you to believe that true happiness for you lies in being a slave. They’re subtle, though. If they get push-back on that they switch to getting you to believe that owning a slave would be neat.”
“Oh. My. God! That’s exactly what happened. What do I do about it?”
“Nothing.”
“Huh?”
“Ask yourself if you’ve really got any attraction to becoming a slave?”
“Not really. I’m just pissed they tried to stick it into my mind.”
“Exactly. Ask yourself whether owning a slave makes sense, considering your situation.”
“Good point. It would be neat, but it doesn’t make sense at the moment. I don’t have either the income, the time or anything to do with her.”
“Right. You can’t put the omelet back in the eggshells and expect them to hatch. It’s in your synapses. Returning to before it went in is impossible. It’s up to you if you want to do what it takes to get a full view from all sides of the issue so you can put it to rest.”
“No thanks. I’ve got enough to think about.”
“That’s what I thought, dear. However, now that you’ve figured it out, you can make it do a few things for you.”
Michelle looked at her suspiciously. “Let’s get back to how you’d control Tammy at a meet.”
“OK. It’s very simple. The collar knows where it is to within a few inches by checking the various transmitters in range. We just program in the permitted areas, and it creates the pressure and pain gradient if she tries to cross one.”
“Oh. Oh! So you can switch which areas are permitted with a command!”
“Exactly right.”
“So it takes some planning, and I suppose something so she’d have to follow when she’s outside of a permitted area.”
“Right. Like the ponygirl trailer we use to take her back and forth.”
“Oh, right. I don’t need to get into the gory detail right now. So what did you mean about making this thing do something for me rather than to me?” She touched the ribbon.
“Well, it’s got a lot of capabilities that Goodwife simply doesn’t use, and that Excelsior doesn’t advertise that they use. It’s the enthusiasts that make it stand up and dance.
“For example, you can load a number of different modules and switch them as needed. It can read subvocalizations. It’s network aware. If you wanted to install an earplug it could talk to you.”
“So I could have a personal voice terminal,” she said. “That could be very useful.”
“The enthusiast community has a set of modules that they call the ‘human robot’. It’s very flexible. It can be controlled from outside, inside or a computer. Or any combination. Some of them use it to program their slave so she has almost no discretion, some of them use it to enhance their own experience and don’t let any whiff of outside control enter.”
“I like that last little piece,” Michelle said.
“I thought you would. We’re going to be trying some of them out with Tammy to see how well they work. We’ll do the Intercom, Robot Housekeeper and Living Doll modules for starters.”
“Robot Housekeeper I can see, but what are the other two about?”
“Intercom lets you use the collar, muffler and earplug as a network phone. The collar is the microphone as well as taking commands. The muffler shifts mode so it’s a speaker, and the earplug lets you hear responses without anyone else hearing. Or you can set up the muffler as the microphone, or subvocalize and let the collar clean it up for transmission.”
Michelle stared. “You’re telling me I’ve got a cell phone around my neck, and nobody ever told me?”
Marge giggled. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“So I could also talk to my household computer, right?” she shrugged. “Of course. Using it as a cell phone in public might weird out some of my friends, though.”
“And if it didn’t, they might try using you to make calls.”
She giggled. “I can just see it. But using Tammy would be legitimate, right?”
“Well, if you paid the bill.”
“Of course. So what’s Robot Housekeeper do that she isn’t doing now?”
“It uses the household computer to organize the housekeeping chores. Tammy is good at the actual work, but she’s not the world’s best organizer and without language it’s hard for me to tell her exactly what I want.
“The videos I’ve seen have been fantastic, but enthusiasts are called that because they’re enthusiastic. You might be interested in it for yourself.”
“Why?”
“Well, from the videos you block out the time to do your housekeeping chores, and then it takes over and directs you in doing them. They say it feels like you’re making the decisions, but it’s the computer that’s decided on what needs to be done and the optimum order to do it in. If you stick with it you’ll wind up with a better looking house in less time than you could imagine.”
“The idea of my computer bossing me around gives me the willies,” Michelle admitted. “Still, if it can get me to do household chores both better and faster than now...”
“Right. The Living Doll isn’t something you’ll be interested in. It’s a program that freezes the slave in position, exactly as if she was a life size doll. I’m interested because it’s something to do with Tammy while I don’t have anything for her to do, and I don’t want to put her downstairs in her stall for the time.”
“I don’t think I’d like that.”
“I suspect Tammy won’t like it either, but I want to find out how it works. And maybe she will like it.”
“I doubt it, but she’s surprised me more than a few times,” Michelle commented.
“Then there’s one that I’m not thinking of for Tammy, but it might interest you. It’s called Go To It.”
“Go To It?”
“It’s your own personal navigation system. You tell it where you want to wind up, and it gives you a cue anywhere you have to make a decision about which direction to go.”
“More food for thought,” Michelle mused. “That might turn the lemon into lemonade, at that.”
“You’re awfully quiet,” Frank said to his daughter. They were in the front seat of the station wagon Frank used to take the ponygirl trailer that usually contained his daughter to and from the Excelsior Stables.
The station wagon was still pulling the trailer, but the ponygirl was on the front seat, wearing a t-shirt, shorts and sandals.
“I’ve gotten out of the habit of talking,” she said, a bit apologetically. “I’m thinking about what’s going to happen when we get there, is all.”
“Excited?”
“Butterflies in my stomach,” she grinned. “I want it, but it’s so, like, final.”
“That it is,” he replied.
A few minutes later, they pulled through the gate to the Excelsior Stables and Kennels, and into the parking lot, taking a large slot because of the trailer.
Frank slid out, settling his coat while his daughter’s shorts and light shirt looked a bit out of place in the brisk early spring weather. She looked back at the car, and then waved goodbye.
“What was that about?”
“That’s probably the last time I’m ever going to take a trip in one,” she replied with another grin. “I wanted to say goodbye.”
The two of them walked into the offices and found Jed Trolley’s office, where Cornflower sat primly at the secretary’s desk. Or at least as primly as she could manage, which wasn’t very.
The Excelsior slave livery wasn’t intended to be prim; it was intended to enhance the eye appeal of their inventory of slave girls. The sleeveless tunic that fell off of her right shoulder certainly did that. The black and white diagonal streaks emphasized the perfect breasts, while the body hugged her curves like it had been painted on.
“Oh, there you are!” she said, the cornflower blue eyes from which she got her name sparkling. “Jed is expecting you.” She slid out from behind the desk and held the door to his office open, taking Frank’s coat in passing.
The two of them walked into Jed’s office, where Jed got up to meet them. Pleasantries finished, he waved them to chairs, and took his seat.
“Tammy?” he asked.
“Uh, I thought we’d just, like, do it?”
“Well, we are. There are some formalities, though. I’m making a complete video of the proceedings that’ll be part of the record. It started when you walked in.”
Frank raised an eyebrow.
“It’s not that anyone has figured out how to cheat the deposition machine yet, but it hasn’t been from lack of trying. They also want to see that I’ve covered certain things, and that you seem to have understood them.”
The two of them nodded.
“The law around slave contracts is settling down, but it is not at all similar to what, for instance, the law was in the Roman Empire or in Colonial America. Thinking that it is will get you into a lot of trouble, and that is, unfortunately, the common perception of the modern approach to slavery. It’s changing, but we can’t assume that everyone walking into this office knows the difference.
“The fundamental issues revolve around the fact that both slavery and involuntary servitude are forbidden in the Constitution. What we call slavery is a result of the ultra-conservative Supreme Court’s double-think around the issue of the sanctity of private contracts and private enforcement of them.
“There are three key points. The first is the word involuntary. The contract has to be entered into voluntarily, and we use the deposition machine to validate that. That’s the standard setup used to take legal depositions.
“The second revolves around the word slavery. The Court decided that the essence of slavery was that society was involved in enforcing the contract, specifically in the form of society’s agent, the government. So if the government does not enforce the terms of an enslavement contract, then it isn’t slavery.
“The third is the other side of the second; the government is prohibited from interfering with the measures the slave owner takes to secure his right to insure the slave keeps performing her duties under the contract.
“The crux is that if the slave leaves the owner’s direct control, he cannot take any measures to get her back which would be illegal if the contract of enslavement did not exist.
“While some jurisdictions are a bit more vigilant than others, the anti-slavery societies are quite active in making sure that violations are prosecuted, and juries are not particularly lenient.
“That in turn means that it is the slave owner’s private responsibility to see that his property doesn’t walk away. The law allows him to do essentially anything in that line as long as it doesn’t violate a long list of health, safety and other regulations that apply to everyone.
“The standard example is that locking her in a cage that she can’t get out of in case of fire or other emergency isn’t allowed; her death would be prosecuted as negligent manslaughter, and would carry a prison sentence because the contingency is not something that a prudent man would overlook.
“The other side of that is that the courts do recognize that a slave contract is a slave contract, and the owner is allowed to do anything with his property that doesn’t violate laws that would apply if she was not a slave. He cannot, for example, kill her. He cannot maim her or disfigure her in ways that cannot be quickly and cheaply reversed by standard medical treatment. He is responsible for maintaining her so that she does not become a charge on society, and the courts will enforce that.
“The essential nature of a slave contract is that he can require her to do anything that it is physically or mentally possible for her to do, and he can do whatever is needed to insure that she performs acceptably. Her only recourse is to leave, and he is under no obligation to make it possible for her to leave.
“Understood so far?”
“That’s pretty standard,” Frank said as Tammy nodded.
“Now, my understanding is that you intend that Tammy become a full time ponygirl at some point, and that may involve modifications so that she can be ridden, and that will change her hair to a mane and give her a functional horses tail. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Tammy said in a low voice as Frank nodded.
“Now, all of those modifications can be reversed. The hair change is easy enough, the tail can be removed surgically and while the riding changes can be reversed, they are not particularly noticeable so they usually aren’t.
“The final point to cover is the tension between the slave’s legal right to abrogate the contract, and the owner’s right to prevent her from doing so. The technology which Excelsior Stables and Kennels uses makes it practically impossible for the slave to leave the contract; in fact there has not been a case where it has happened in the decade Excelsior has been in business. That is not to say that it is absolutely impossible; nothing in this life is absolutely impossible. It is, however, unlikely enough to be practically impossible.
“Tammy, do you understand that your slave contract will be permanent, unless your owner decides to manumit you?”
“Yes,” she said in a low voice.
“Good. Let’s get to the next step of the process. Frank, you identify yourself at the deposition machine, then Tammy, you use the brain scanner on the deposition machine to answer the questions on the screen and make the contract. If it accepts your side of the contract as voluntary, there’s a ritual to perform, and then we’ll register it with the Slaveowner’s Consortium and have the registration number permanently tattooed on her skin in the usual place.”
Finally, Tammy took off the scan helmet and stepped away from the machine.
“There’s one little ceremony that needs to be performed. Tammy, slide the panel over there to the side; the one that has a picture of a barbecue.”
Tammy slid the panel aside to reveal a charcoal grill with an exhaust hood on top and a computer display at eye level.
“What you’re going to do now is take off your clothes and burn them while you recite what’s on the screen,” Jed told the startled girl. “Watch each item burn and use the poker to break up any ashes before you take off the next piece.”
She looked at him and then giggled slightly as she turned back to the fire that was going to consume the last remnants of her former existence.
She took her shirt 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. It is his choice how I present myself to the world, and I enthusiastically support it, whatever it is.”
She touched the on switch, and the gas flame ignited, starting the charcoal coals in the bottom. Something in her seemed to relax as the fire consumed the thin t-shirt.
She took off her bra and added it to the fire with a small shake of her head. She hadn’t, after all, needed a bra since the surgery to install the countermotion generators. 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 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.
Jed nodded as Frank said: “Tammy. Mode. Language. Off. Lock.” He paused a second, and then said: “Tammy. Mode. Ponygirl.” Jed took a halter off the wall and held it out. Tammy high stepped forward, holding her head out for the restraint. Jed slid it on and then opened the door to outside. He led her out, fastened the rope to the ring, and went back in.
“Do you think she’s going to make it?” Frank asked when Jed got back in.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if she did, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“Why not?”
“If I could tell you specifically, I’d have told you before she enslaved herself. The thing is,” he steepled his fingers, “women who do well as full time ponygirls have a number of characteristics in common. Unfortunately, people are people, and I’ve never seen a profile that there weren’t exceptions to, and I can find lots of exceptions right here in this stable, let alone across the entire chain.
“So let’s look at the points. She’s a bit below average on general intelligence; around the 40th percentile, maybe as high as the 42nd or 43rd. Her physical intelligence is quite a bit higher, but not really notable, maybe somewhere around the 60th percentile, give or take a couple of points.
“She’s below average on verbal intelligence, gregariousness and social intelligence. None of these are far enough out of line to be really notable.
“Those are all plus points for making it as a full time ponygirl. The more of them, the more likely she’ll succeed.
“However, we’ve had failures where every indicator was right in the center of the profile, and we’ve had successes that nobody in their right minds would pick. I’ve got two PhD candidates in my stable, and they’ve been ponygirls for several years. Go figure.
“So I mostly go slow. A couple of months of regular sessions two or three times a week knocks most of the wannabes right out. It’s a good sign if they get over the hump with the control collar, muffler and earplugs. A few casuals go with the riding mods, but not many. However, that’s as far as I can take them as casuals.
“The real problems don’t show up until they go full time. That’s when you find that you can’t program around periods of unhappiness and depression, and they get worse the more you try. Or she starts to become unmanageable, or just turns mean.
“Why that happens, I don’t know, but the only thing to do is release her from being a ponygirl and do something else with her. I think of it like there’s a basic core somewhere that we can’t touch with even the best stimulus-response training, and if you violate it too much, it simply doesn’t work.”
“That’s surprising. I thought you could reshape them any way you wanted.”
“Well, there’s lots of enthusiasts that tend to sweep the failures under the rug. They think there’s always a next time, and we don’t know enough yet. I don’t know whether they’re right, but I do know that I can’t push it beyond a certain point without getting in trouble with the regulatory agencies and the Anti-Slavery society.
“Besides, even Pavlov was rather selective in what he published. His contemporaries said that his dogs were mean after the way he treated them. They would make the fabled junkyard dog look like a slobbery shepherd.”
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.