Chapter 1. The Snack Tray.

The snack tray was having a great time. This was one of the best play parties she had ever attended. At the moment, she was watching a couple doing their thing. The woman was stretched out on the St. Andrews cross, with a blissed out look on her face. The man was in the process of building up from the gentler floggers to more severe whips, driving her to even greater heights of ecstasy. Another couple were standing at her base, sampling the snacks their hostess had arranged.

The snack tray was a 5’10" blonde solidly mounted on a pole that attached to a 6" tall base. She was wearing 5" pumps and stay-up mesh stockings. Her ankles were encased in solid leather cuffs attached to a cross bar so that they were spread shoulder width apart. Farther up, she was wearing a chastity belt. The belt concealed a catheter that ran down the inside of the pole, and emptied into a container in the base of the stand. There was also a remote controlled dildo, powered from the stand and pole, and a very solid butt plug. The chastity belt was riveted to the pole.

The tray itself had started life as the top of a circular table. It had been cut in two, and the center had been removed. It fit snugly around her waist, just above the chastity belt. The back part had a fitting that was riveted to the pole. The table came out for about a foot on all sides, giving space to arrange food, plates, napkins and similar stuff.

Continuing up, she had a chest harness that came from just below the rib cage, crossed between her breasts and went over her shoulders and down her back to the waistband. A second horizontal strap went around just above her breasts. Both straps were riveted to the pole.

A collar that had a small nameplate in the front adorned her neck. The plate said, "Snacks." She was wearing a bridle and what appeared to be a red ball gag. The actual gag was a special gadget that she had designed after existing gags had proven totally unsatisfactory for long-term bondage. It was a mouthpiece into which her teeth fitted. The front had a half-inch hole; her teeth were only a little farther apart. The gag itself didn’t have any way of keeping her mouth closed; the bridle took care of that. The front of the ball gag screwed into the hole. With her lips arranged over the ball, it provided a satisfactory illusion of the standard thing.

The gag allowed her to be fed. Every few hours, one of the attendants would come up, unscrew the ball, and mount a modified baby bottle. It contained a pureed mixture of foods that she had prepared ahead of time. She would suck it down, and then the ersatz ball gag would replace the bottle.

This time, her arms were folded in front of her, in a praying position. There was a sign hanging from them. It said, "Please do not feed the snack tray. She is being fed a scientifically designed diet."

This was one of the longer parties she had been at. It was over a three-day weekend, and it would be going full time from Thursday night to Monday morning. She had arrived directly from work on Thursday, gotten herself mounted, and would not be dismounted until early Monday. She had packed work clothes, and would go directly to her day job. It gave her a blessed vacation from her apartment.

She needed that vacation. The dust kitties were closer to dust pumas; they could have chased down rats. She did laundry when she needed clean clothes, and not before. There was always a chance that she would die first; she wasn’t sure which was preferable. She cooked because she had to, and ate a reasonably healthy diet only because she couldn’t indulge her other major interest, running, if she didn’t. She had lost a whole string of boyfriends who had just adored a sexy bondagette when they discovered that she absolutely, positively, hell will freeze over first would not keep house for them.

Safety freaks were an inevitable part of the scene. While they put a damper on things, they also reduced accidents, injuries and outright fatalities. They freaked out when they saw her. Especially when they discovered that the bondage was riveted on, not locked, and that she would stay in it for eighty hours without a break. They relaxed a bit when they discovered that she had two panic buttons, not just one. And that the stand contained cleverly concealed fast breakouts.

They still had a hard time with eighty hours. Especially when they noticed that the pole was not connected to the bridle. It ended about where it was riveted to the chest harness. They never did figure it out.

She had built up to long weekends in bondage over several years. Since she liked long-term, strict bondage, she had researched solutions to the problems, and had never let other people’s opinions of possibility bother her. Keeping her muscles supple, rather than knotted up in cramps, turned out to be a combination of things, somewhat related to isometrics, hatha yoga and muscle group isolation. By now, it was totally automatic.

Keeping her head up even when she was sleeping was a side effect. One of her boyfriends had been interested in sleep deprivation, and had hooked her hair to a switch. It triggered when her head fell down when she went to sleep. She had changed the muscle suppleness program so that it could maintain position indefinitely. It even worked during REM sleep, which was supposed to be impossible.

The other adjustment was something she called bondage space. It was not related to subspace, which was inhabited mostly by mathematicians, faster than light spaceships and submissives in states of ecstasy.

Bondage space was a state of alert awareness with a major difference. Like the deal a pizza chain had struck with the banks, she had made a deal with time. She figured time had grown up enough that it did not have to be watched. It could take care of itself. So time did its thing, and she did hers, and they didn’t compare notes. If she really wanted a coherent notion of what went on while she was in that special state, she could always walk down the gallery of her memory and review it. She did that occasionally. A lot of interesting things happened at play parties; some of them were actually worth studying.

She always examined training demonstrations in detail. Some of those people really knew what they were doing. She would have never been able to do what she did without those demos to give her pointers.

She had only two regrets. She had never managed to put her interests together, and she had to maintain a mundane existence to support her hobbies.

Chapter 2. Negotiations.

I was cruising the net, looking for new bondage opportunities, when I found it in one of the sex personals newsgroups. "LIFETIME EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEED." It was either spam, or someone looking for a slave. I knew my aversion to housework made me thoroughly ineligible, but it never hurt to look. In either case, the "lifetime" couldn’t be real. I pulled up the message.

LIFETIME EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEED

Lifetime employment guaranteed. All needs furnished until the day you die. No taxes. No paperwork. No bureaucratic hassles. No office politics.

The successful candidate will be a 26yo or younger female, athletic, good looking, willing to sever all relationships with her current environment. If you are interested, email pgjobs @ coldmail .com.

Looked like a perfect fit. Even in the economic downturn, I have no trouble getting jobs. At 5’10", with long blonde hair down to the bottom of my shoulders, and a classic figure, I’m an automatic hire. The problem is staying hired. Since I loathe most jobs, it affects my attitude.

Let’s try it out. Good for a laugh, at least.

It seemed that they were looking for a slave. For real. Specifically, for a pony slave. Now, I’m moderately familiar with the ponygirl scene. I’d love to be part of it, since it combines two of my favorite activities, bondage and running. The big problem has always been finding someone to play owner, trainer or groom. The guys all want to shack up, which is ok by me, as long as he keeps house. They want me to do that for them, which kills the relationship dead. The women want to be paid.

So I went after it hammer and tongs. I’m afraid I worked the correspondence person to a frazzle with all the questions. After a while, I had a pretty good idea of what they were going to do with me. Everything except the no talking part sounded good. And I never did much talking in bondage anyway. The biggest question was whether Ponygirls, Inc. was real, or whether I had simply latched onto someone with a great imagination. The videos were what decided me. They simply did not look like fakes.

I had figured out the hook on the "lifetime guarantee." The owner was going to put me down when I couldn’t run or be shown any more. I didn’t have any problem with that; I didn’t figure life would be worth living if I couldn’t run. But getting him to admit it was like pulling teeth. Even with strong encryption on the e-mails.

So I digitally signed the indenture, and waited for them to tell me where to report.

Chapter 3.

I came out of my haze slowly. I was lying in some sort of box, tied in a hogtie, with a blindfold and gag. There were a large number of straps holding me to the sides. I felt several pairs of hands working on the bondage.

A couple of attempts at a stretch demonstrated that the bondage was quite well done. I’m somewhat of a connoisseur of such things; I love bondage, both administered by other people and by myself. The obvious quality of this bondage reassured me that I had made the right choice. I hadn’t been sure that Ponygirls, Inc really existed. Such things are too easily faked on the net.

Somebody was pressing on various parts of my body. I felt something in between the pressure points. Suddenly it clicked. I was being measured! I hadn’t anticipated this, but it was also quite reassuring. Good bondage gear is always custom made; otherwise it can either abrade or cut off circulation. Or it’s too easy to get out of.

Finally, all the hands stopped doing their thing. Then two pairs of hands grabbed me by the hips and waist, and lifted me from the box. They carried me somewhere, and then turned me right side up. I felt myself being lowered slowly until my knees touched the surface. A quick twist assured me that the belt around my waist was now firmly attached to something behind it. It felt like a pole.

A pair of male hands grabbed one ankle and unhooked it from the hogtie. Then he pressed it down. I didn’t resist. I heard a click from behind me, and the hand released my ankle. Try to move it. It seemed to be attached with an inch or so of slack.

Then he did the other leg. I do love well-planned bondage. Enough slack to avoid cutting off circulation or causing cramps. Secure enough to give a pleasing sensation of being restrained.

A woman’s voice said, "Well, lets get the blindfold off." She took it off. I blinked at the sudden light, and then looked up at her. And up was the correct word. She towered over me. I hadn’t expected that, although I should have. Part of it was because I was on my knees. Part of it was because she was wearing thigh length black boots with 5" heels. And I suspect that part of it was because she was fairly tall. I am not a good judge of such things at this angle. I had to crane my head back a bit to see her face.

She seemed to be surprised at what she was seeing. I only learned much later that it was because she was expecting fear, bewilderment, or some such. Alert interest wasn’t on the menu. She got on with it.

"Well, lets get the gag off next." The gag came off. I licked my lips.

"I’m at Ponygirls? I’m on my display stand?"

"Why yes. My, you did get yourself oriented fast, didn’t you? Are you thirsty? Would you like some water?"

I was a bit thirsty. I hadn’t had a drink for a couple of hours before the snatch team had grabbed me. I hadn’t been planning on being kidnapped, especially since I had signed the indenture, but it did make a nice memory for my mental scrapbook.

"Yes, please."

She picked up a plastic cup with a straw, and put the straw in my mouth. I sucked on it greedily. Now, this was what I called service. Food delivered right to the mouth; don’t have to move your hands at all. Not that I could have, but you get what I mean. I was thirstier than I thought. I finished the cup.

"Do you want more?"

A second cup would do just fine. She gave it to me. I ran out of thirst about half way through and quit sucking.

"Enough?" I nodded. She took the cup and straw away. Then she took a wand like thing from her belt. It had a shaped handle, and several buttons. She waved it at me.

"Do you know what this is?"

"No. I suspect its some kind of prod, but I’ve never seen one like that."

"Exactly right. It’s a hypersonic prod. It’s used for discipline and punishment. I’m going to show you what it feels like."

She switched it on, and ran it along my arm. That woke me up. "Yipe. That stung."

"It’s supposed to. That’s level one. It’s used for minor corrections and to get your attention. Now you know what it feels like."

"I sure do."

"Now, this is level two." She touched a button, and the whine went up in pitch. She ran the wand up my leg. I screamed. That damn thing hurt!

She turned it off, and wrapped an arm around me. "I know that hurt. You’re all right. You’re doing just fine." I took a deep breath, and let it out.

I settled down. "That’s for punishment. Never disobey an order. That will give you a level two every time."

"Yes."

She walked over to the table, and picked up a red ball with a bunch of straps. It was a ball gag and bridle. Old home week.

"Once I gag you, you will never talk again."

I suppose I looked doubtful. "You look like you don’t believe me."

"Well, I’ve been listening to the debates on the Consensual Slavery Act. And it seems that you wouldn’t be legal if you kept your ponies from talking."

She looked at me with a bit of respect. "Now, that’s a very perceptive comment. So I’d better expand on what I said."

"Once I gag you, you won’t talk at all during your training. All desire to talk will be conditioned out of you. Understand?"

I nodded.

"After training, whether you talk depends on who we sell you to. A small number of owners like for their ponies to talk. Most either don’t, or they’re not in the US, and their staff’s don’t speak English, so it’s kind of pointless."

I nodded again.

"For example, if you’re sold internally here at our headquarters, we have a must talk rule. We don’t have to listen to you, but you must talk at a specified time in your daily routine. The reasons don’t concern you. You probably have less than a one in ten chance of ever saying another word. Understand?"

I nodded. "In other words, don’t get my hopes up. If I don’t expect it, then if it happens, it’s a good thing. If I do expect it, then when it doesn’t, it’s a bad thing."

"And it can lead to discipline problems. You don’t need that."

"Too true."

"It’s been nice chatting with you. So I’m going to give you an option. If you promise to be good, I’ll leave the gag for the end. That way, we can chat while I finish you up."

"I’d like a few last words."

She turned to put the gag on the table. "Um, miss?

"Yes?"

"I’m getting a crick in my neck looking up at you. Could you mount the headrest now, please?"

She stiffened, and then laughed. "Of course, honey."

She picked something off the table from next to the gag. It looked like a headrest from a dentist’s chair. She came back behind me. "Now, lift your head."

I lifted my head. "Now, we put it on, and put this bolt in. Now, tilt your head back. All comfy?"

"Thanks, that helps a lot".

"Next, we deal with the clothes."

I chuckled.

"Oh?"

"Well, it was kind of obvious that the clothes had to go. I just didn’t know if you were going to make me take them off in time to sexy music, or rip them off of my poor, resisting body."

I heard a male laugh from behind me, "Now, that would be too much fun for this place." I laughed, and so did the tall lady.

"Actually, I’m going to cut them off. With a dressmakers power sheers." She held up a tool.

She got right to it. She cut the pantyhose around my ankle right at the cuff, and pulled off the feet. Then she pulled my pants, pantyhose and panties out from under the leather belt around my waist. Two long, precise cuts, and my bottoms were ready to be removed. She just reached down, and pulled them from where they were stuck, either under my knees or against the pole. Then she tossed them into a wastebasket.

The she pulled my blouse out of the leather belt. Two cuts up the sleeves to the neck, taking the bra straps with them, and two precise cuts up the sides separated them nicely. The front just fell off. She pulled the back off from where it was stuck against the pole. I was now naked. Felt like old home week, again. The life and times of a bondagette.

"Now, that was efficient."

"Thank you. Now, the next thing is going to hurt. I’m going to put your tags in your ears."

"Oh, those things I saw in the pictures? I couldn’t quite make out what they were. All of the ponygirls seemed to have them. Except Silence, for some reason."

"Now, you’re an observant filly. Silence isn’t livestock. She’s a full community member who likes to play ponygirl part time for some reason. And she’s very good at it."

"But, don’t they use chips these days?"

"Well, yes. We’ve never gone there because our product is scattered all over the world."

"First, antiseptic." I couldn’t see what she smeared on my ears. It felt cool. "Now, the punch." She held up this thing that looked like a punch to put holes in papers. The actual punch wasn’t that big, but it sure looked like it to me.

She did the left ear first. I sucked in my breath. That HURT. Then she did the right ear. Likewise. And they left an ache behind.

She picked up some pieces from the table. "Now, this is the tag. It’s in three parts. This part has your number. Then this hollow post goes through the center. Then we put the post through the hole, and we put this last part over the other end of the post. Now, we crimp it so it won’t come off." She used another tool that looked like the punch, except that it didn’t have a rod in it.

Then she did the other ear. Somehow, those livestock tags made me feel, well, owned. In a way that none of my boyfriends ever did, even when we played master and slave girl. Must have been something about a number issued by an official agency. I knew a couple of girls that were branded. They had that same feeling.

"Hollow post?"

"We put things in them; like earrings, or bells."

"I think I’d like bells, please. It just seems more, well, like a pony. Sleigh-bells."

She chuckled. "Bells it is, then." She took a couple of little bells off of the table, and hung them on my ears. I couldn’t see where she put them, but the ache seemed to intensify a bit. I shook my head, and they tinkled.

"Now for the last step. We put rings in your breasts." I couldn’t see what she did. My breasts aren’t huge, but I had my head back, and she was below my line of sight. I just lay back and let her work. I could feel her smearing something on the tips of them, and then they went numb. "Anesthetic?"

"Yes."

Then she got something from the table.

"Punch. Now we put the bar in. And now the ring. And now the pressure weld." She did it to both breasts. It felt like there was a bit more weight there. And another dull ache.

"How about some more bells?"

"Suits."

She picked up another pair of bells. A bit more weight. I shook my body experimentally. I heard them clink.

"OK, well, that’s it. It’s been nice chatting with you. Talk time is over." She held out the ball gag and bridle again. I opened my mouth. "Head up." I brought it up, and she popped the ball in. Then she buckled the straps, making sure it was snug.

"It’s been a pleasure working on you." She wheeled me over to a full-length mirror. I looked. I saw myself, mounted on a stand, with a big red ball gag and bridle on my head. Little bells were in my ears and on my breasts. I shook myself, and heard the tinkle.

"Head back."

I put my head back on the rest. She did something to the back. I tried to move my head; it was now fastened somehow.

Then she tossed a blanket over me. I could no longer see anything. I felt my stand being moved again. Then it stopped. There were hall, or corridor noises. People were walking by. Metallic thudding that I would just bet were horseshoes. Snatches of conversation, all muffled by the blanket.

I felt myself drift into bondage space. OK by me. Bondage space is a special state of mind I get into when I’m in long-term bondage, and there is nothing to think about. It’s not subspace. I’ve been there too, and it’s a quite different state of mind. It’s a total awareness. My attention will go to whatever is around that attracts it. I’m even aware of time passing. Its just that something is perfectly content to let time pass. It figures that time knows exactly what it’s doing, and doesn’t need any help from me.

One time a boyfriend left me tied up in the kitchen all day while he was at work. I was still there when he came back. The clock was the only thing moving, so that’s what I watched. I couldn’t have told you how much time passed, however. That clock meant absolutely nothing to me; it was just something to look at. And that was perfectly all right.

Chapter 4. First lessons and the Chair.

My platform moved again. It stopped, started, moved off in different directions. That was all right, too. A little something said, "Try to keep track of the turnings." The rest of me giggled at it. How silly. I’d be able to play it back later if I wanted. None of it bounced me out of bondage space. The only things that would normally bounce me out were coming out of bondage or someone to interact with. Or an emergency that meant I needed to bail out so I could deal with it. Or the timer ending on a self-bondage setup. Or a couple of other things, none of which were present.

Eventually, the platform stopped moving. Perforce, so did I, since I was one with the platform. I could hear noises. People talking. Mostly in that tone that means they are giving orders. Something that sounded like whinnying usually muffled like it was gagged. Occasional screams. And crying, also muffled. Metallic stomping, like horseshoes.

The blanket came off. There was no warning, not that I would have cared if there had been. Another woman stood in front of me. She towered over me, but that was normal here. With my head tilted back, I could only see the top of her. That was dressed in a white, low cut blouse, and a leather jacket with epaulets on the shoulders. I had no idea what was below her waist, if anything.

She walked around me a few times. So did two men who were with her. Finally, she told them, "Put the boots on her."

I felt them come around behind me and take the ankle cuffs off. Then I felt leather slide up my legs, and my feet inserted into shoes. There was a zip, and the leather encased my legs to mid-calf. This was more like it. I would have taken a bet that these boots had horseshoes on them.

"Stand her up."

She came over and removed my headstand. My head came up. The two men grabbed me by the waist, and pulled as she did something behind me. I came up. Then they set me on my feet.

"The first thing you need to know. When I ask you a question, stomp your right hoof two times if the answer is yes. Stomp three times if the answer is no. Understand?"

I nodded. Wrong move. She hit me with the prod. "Understand?" I nodded again. She prodded me again.

"Understand?" This time I got it. I stamped my right foot twice when I nodded. "Better."

She asked me several more questions. I stamped twice or three times as I shook my head yes or no.

"Next lesson. Ponies don’t shake their heads. Understand?"

I stamped my foot twice and nodded. She hit me with the prod. "Understand?"

Same thing. "Understand?" This time I tensed my neck so I couldn’t move it. I stamped my foot, and felt my neck try to move. Apparently, it worked, since she didn’t use the prod.

She asked a few more questions. I kept my neck tense, and stamped my foot the correct number of times. She seemed satisfied, but I was getting this horrible suspicion. She simply didn’t know what she was doing. She was going by rote, and her teachers were fools. In my former life, there were several people who did training. I kind of liked the demos. They would train someone in some absolutely silly and useless behavior. I volunteered as subject a few times. What I learned was that you had to hit it exactly right for maximum effectiveness. She was late. Consistently.

Unfortunately, this fool had my future in her hands. I was just going to have to take responsibility for training myself.

She was done with this sequence.

"See that chair. Get your ass over onto it."

I moved. It looked like a wooden chair with something in the middle. When I looked, it was a toilet. The thing in the middle fit between my legs. It might be a splashguard, or something. The two guys started tying my legs to the legs of the chair. They left about an inch of slack in the bondage. Then they moved up, unhooked my hands from the belt, and began tying my arms to its arms.

She looked at me. "Among other things, it really is a toilet. Relieve yourself whenever you want."

I did.

She swung a small rest in back of my head, and tied a pair of straps to my bridle. She fiddled with them until she was satisfied. Meanwhile, the two guys took off my waist belt, and tied my torso to the back of the chair. It felt like there was some useful back support.

Finally, she stepped back. One of the guys stepped out, and came back with a funnel arrangement, and two jars. One had white goop; the other had chocolate colored goop. He put the base of the funnel into a hole in my ball gag, and tied it to my bridle.

"This is how you will be fed. This white stuff is called mash. It’s a carefully built compound of everything needed to keep the active ponygirl in good health for years. It tastes good. It’s all you will be fed. We use it ourselves for snacks; it’s much better than the junk in the machines.

"Now, this other stuff is called slop. It’s the same base as mash, but it tastes awful. It tastes as bad as we can make it. And it doesn’t wash out. The only thing that can cut it is mash. Not saliva. Not water. Got it?"

I tensed my neck. This time, I felt my foot going without my conscious intent. And nothing tried to move my head. Good.

"You were told that you would never talk again. Correct?"

I felt my foot go twice. No twinge in my neck.

"We’ll try to make it easy on you. Most of the time you will be gagged. But there will be times you will be wearing a bit or something else that will let you form words. Don’t do it. Any words will be rewarded with a mouthful of slop. Understand?"

Another two taps. This time I left my neck alone. No nod.

"Just to show you what it tastes like." One of the guys put some slop in the funnel. Then he pushed the screw. God, the stuff tasted awful. Burnt chocolate and bitter almonds. With other stuff added.

Then he put an ounce of the white stuff in the funnel, and turned the screw. It washed out the taste.

He filled up the funnel. "Suck on it. It’ll come in if you suck." I tried. Eventually I got the trick, and some of the mash squirted into my mouth. It did taste good.

The woman swung the small headrest out of the way, and pushed my head back onto a bigger headrest.

"Fifteen minutes to eat your mash. If you aren’t done, that’s it. We take the funnel out anyway."

They left, and a barrier came out of the floor. It had a mirror that showed a washed out blonde strapped into a chair, with a big funnel stuck in her mouth. I experimented to see if I could go into bondage space with this. It worked; I kept sucking on the mash.

A while later, one of them came in and removed the funnel. He shoved my head forward, and swung the small rest into place.

He threw a switch. A set of numbers lit up showing 80:00. "The chair is now armed. If you move your head enough to pull the reins, you will get a shock. Try not to move your head."

He left, and the mirrored panel came up.

I looked at the numbers in shock. As I looked, it went to 79:59. Eighty hours! Sleep deprivation and muscle fatigue. That should leave anyone nice and pliable. Except me. Eighty hours was the longest I’d ever gone, and I’d done it several times.

I had been doing bondage for several years. A couple of my boyfriends had thought it was cute to leave me tied up all day while they were at work. The first couple of times, the muscle cramps were excruciating. After that, I figured out that if I kept the muscles moving, I could avoid the cramping. It took a while to learn how. What I found was an offshoot of isometric exercises, muscle group isolation and other things. By the time I was done, I could take over a day of standing bondage without cramping.

Another of my boyfriends had tried sleep deprivation on me. This was after he had found out that I had absolutely no desire to cook or clean for him. I was game. What he had done was tie my hair to a switch. If my head fell, the switch would be thrown, and I would get a shock. My body managed to figure out a way of holding my head stationary, even during REM sleep, which is supposed to be impossible.

Once I figured out how, I played statue at play parties. Eighty hours is a three-day weekend, from end of work to beginning of the next workday. I just wish I could have gotten paid for it.

So I just closed my eyes, and went to sleep. Apparently I was snoring when someone came in to give me my next mash ration. He shook me awake and stuck the funnel in my mouth. I sucked it down. He came back to remove it and reinstall the small headrest. I went back to sleep.

Chapter 5. Interlude.

One of my least favorite parts of this job is feeding the ponies while they are on the chair. I don’t like to seem them slowly disintegrate from sleep deprivation and the acute pain of muscle cramps. But it has to be done. We have no other way of breaking the will so that they will comply. And no matter how willing they are when they arrive, there is always resistance.

I know Alice and Pretty Lemon can do it other ways. But nobody else has found out how, so we still do it this way. Every once in a great while you find a pony that can cheat the chair. The last one I heard of was Alice, and the Sorceress is, well, special.

This time, when I came in to feed the new pony, she was snoring. And her head was being held rigidly, to avoid triggering the prod. I said, "oh, shit." Then I woke her up, removed the small headrest, and fed her.

I left, and the shield came up. Then I considered. Feeding her was correct. That was part of my job, and it was necessary. Passing it up to my head trainer would be futile. She would have no more idea of what to do than I did. So I called security.

Security asked what the problem was.

"The pony in this cell was snoring in the chair when I came in."

"That’s a prob….." They don’t hire geniuses for security. Getting it that fast may have meant he was overqualified. OK by me just now.

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"Call Alice. I can’t call her. You can."

A couple of minutes later the Sorceress called me. "Security said something about a pony sleeping in the chair?"

"Yes, ma’am."

"Tell me about it."

"She was snoring when I came in. Her head looked like it was being held rigid somehow. The reins were loose, not tight. If there was any equipment failure, it didn’t contribute."

There was a moment of silence. "Keep feeding her. Leave a note for her lead trainer that we will groom her in the morning. Assuming she hasn’t succumbed yet. I want to be present when we take her off the chair. Oh, and check with supplies that all of her gear is in the cell."

I complied. Nice to have superiors that actually did something appropriate.

Chapter 6. Grooming.

When I woke the third time, there were four people standing there. The new person was a 5’5" redhead.

She said, "Hi, honey. I see the chair doesn’t work on you." I stamped my foot twice. She laughed.

"I’m Alice. I’m called the Sorceress when people think I can’t hear them. Dena here is your regular trainer. I’m going to be in and out for several specific lessons. You’re one of a very small number of ponies that know how to handle the chair. Don’t even think of disobeying me. Think of me as the Borg. Resistance is not only futile, it’s not even possible."

They unstrapped me. "Down on hands and knees, and go to the wash-up room." I crawled over to the room. "Straddle the toilet. Don’t sit down. Bend over with your back horizontal so your ass sticks out. Good."

I straddled it. They gave me an enema and a douche. Then I was told to expel the enema into the toilet. Then they took off my bridle, but left the ball gag. I was told exactly what to expect if I let it fall out of my mouth.

Next, I went to the shower area. The showerhead was only four feet off the floor. I was given soap and a washcloth. I had to do my hair twice. When I was done, I crawled over to my trainer. He dried me with large terrycloth towels. He used a hair drier on my hair, my armpits and my thatch. Then he did my hair in a French braid. As I shortly learned, there were several styles in use. They switched as whim took them. The whole process took a while. He made it quite sensuous.

Next, I had to crawl over on the mat, and lie spread eagle. They started with my boots. Then they put shoulder length gloves on me. The gloves had a plastic insert in the hands that made them stick out at the wrists. They zipped up the gloves, and then folded my arms to my shoulders. I felt a click near my elbows, and my arms were frozen in place.

Then I had to stand and let them put a bustier on me. This was laced up quite tight, and then zipped. My elbows were attached to rings in the side of the bustier. The next piece was a collar. This was much higher in front than in back. I had to tilt my head back to wear it. There was a rough spot on top of the collar that made me want to keep my head away from it.

Then he gagged me with a new ball gag and bridle. They took the old one out first, of course. I had the sense to not say anything. Then he came in front, and pushed some lubricant into my sex. A big dildo that filled me to capacity followed this. He did something to the end of the dildo, and I felt something expand inside of me. The dildo was not going to fall out.

"Kiss the mat."

I got down on my knees, and put my head on the mat. He put some lube into my asshole, and then put another dildo into it. When he tightened it, I felt something go between my ass cheeks.

"Back up." The two guys picked me up and put me down on my display stand. I pulled my legs up as I came down on the pole. I really didn’t want to think about what would happen if I didn’t. They hadn’t told me to do it. Another thing that wasn’t covered in training.

Then they put in the funnel, and gave me my mash. Dena and her team left. Alice touched my face.

"Enjoy your mash, honey. I’ll be back in a while, and then we’ll do your next pony lesson." Alice seemed to be completely different from Dena. She left the cell. This time, I was facing the corridor. I went back into bondage space, and sucked on my mash.

Chapter 7. Training.

Alice returned about the same time I ran out of mash. I tried to come out of bondage space. "Stay where you were, honey." I went back in.

She took the funnel away, and put it on a shelf. I tried to come out again, and found that I couldn’t. I tried to panic, and found that I couldn’t do that either. "That’s good, honey."

She spent some time having me make noises. Eventually, she had shaped them into a satisfactory whinny. All the time, she was talking to me, and making me answer with foot taps.

Suddenly, she took my gag out. I was so surprised I tried to say something. What came out was a whinny. That surprised me even more. Another whinny. And another. Then I relaxed.

"That’s good, honey. I think we’re done with this lesson, don’t you?"

I whinnied and tapped my foot. "I agree. We’re done." She put my gag back in.

"I’m going to tell you what I did. Normally, I wouldn’t, but you seem to know quite a bit about how to train yourself. I don’t want you to get in trouble by accidentally undoing this."

"What I did was take your aversion to slop, and shape it into a little routine that will make you whinny whenever you try to say something. It will let you talk in certain specific circumstances. You don’t need to know what they are. Understand?"

"I’ve also put in a routine that will maintain your ability to talk. I don’t do this for all the ponies. I simply don’t have time. Don’t worry about it. If lightning strikes, and you are allowed to talk, you’ll be able to."

"Eventually, those routines will forget why they are doing what they are doing. They will just do it. Maintenance free programming."

"I’ll be back in a little while for your next lesson. Just relax, let this digest."

She left. She waved at me as she walked down the corridor. I whinnied back.

She had left me facing the corridor. I watched the corridor. I watched the ponies in the cells across the way. Time passed without being noticed. She passed several times. She always waved. I whinnied back at her each time.

She opened the cell door and came in. "Time for our next lessons, love." She took the headrest off of my stand, and unlocked the chains on my ankles. "Steady there, girl."

I spent the next hour learning how to get up and down on my stand. In concept, it was simple. She kept at it until she was satisfied with the way I did it. Part way through, a little woman came in. She watched, and occasionally corrected one of my movements.

She put my headrest back, and locked the chains back on my ankles. The both seemed to be satisfied. They left the cell together. The little woman barely came up to Alice’s hips, and she wasn’t that tall. Alice waved, and I whinnied. Time did its thing, and I did mine. We successfully ignored each other.

The next time they came back, they taught me the march step. This required me to bring my leg up so the thigh was exactly parallel with the floor, and the calf was exactly vertical. And my hoof had to be exactly in line with my lower leg. With my head tilted back the way it was, I couldn’t see what they were doing, I could only feel it.

Alice delimited the top of the movement with a folded whip. When my thigh touched the whip, it stopped. The little woman shaped the movement. I did marching in place until they were satisfied. Somewhere in there, the folded whip vanished. She put a pair of reins on my bridle, and I learned when to start and stop.

Then we did the march step in movement. This wasn’t quite the same, since my hoof came down in a different place, and it started in a different place. And turning was different. They marched me up and down the cell, starting, stopping and turning with the reins. When they were satisfied, I went back onto my display stand. I got my mash ration. They left. I noticed that the only thing they had said to me during the entire lesson was "This is the march step, girl." I sucked on my mash, and practiced contentment.

The next time they came in, the marched me over to the booth I had seen in the right side room. They strapped me in, connecting rings on the sides of my bustier with straps on the sides of the booth. Alice attached a set of reins that came out of the back to my bridle. She also swung a set of probes so they touched my buttocks. She put some kind of attachment between my breasts. I suspected it was a heart and breathing monitor.

"This is the trotting booth. You will spend several hours a day in this booth, each and every day. It will help you build strength and stamina. It will also help you develop correct form." She explained the indicators. There were two columns of green lights that indicated where I should have my legs. There was a red light that indicated when I was supposed to whinny. There was a mirror so I could watch myself. They had me do march steps until they were satisfied with the way the controls were set.

"You’ll be in here for two hours. This session is set for five minutes of marching, and five minutes of rest. A little seat will come out when you are to rest. The seat will drop away when you are to start again." They turned the machine on, and left.

I could have called it the treadmill from hell, but that wouldn’t do it justice. The floor didn’t act like any treadmill I have ever been on. It was solid, but it moved at exactly the speed my hoofs should have been going relative to my body. The green lights went up and down, and I got shocked whenever I was too far away from them. I got shocked if the light went on and I forgot to whinny. I got shocked if my legs and hoofs didn’t describe the exact movement required. After a while, I got the rhythm, and the shocks didn’t happen any more.

After that, my days became very similar. The training team mostly got me up in the morning, groomed me, and fed me my morning mash on my stand. Then the day alternated between the trotting booth and the display stand. At the end of the day, they put me down for the night on my mat.

What this meant was that they would remove my bondage, except for the bridle and bustier, and I would lie face down on the mat. They put my legs in a single glove type leg binder, and they put my arms in a single glove. Then they hooked the two together for the classic hogtie. I was attached to the mat with several straps. A hood and a pillow topped this off. The hood eliminated all light, and cut sound down substantially. I slept.

Every few days, Alice and the little woman would come in and teach me a new step. They programmed it into the trotting machine, and I would practice. I found out that the trotting machine could do voice commands to make me change the step I was using. Trotting sessions gradually got longer; rest breaks fewer.

One day, Alice came in with Dena. Stephanie, that was the little woman’s name, wasn’t with them. I perked up.

"Today’s subject is forced sex. I take it you like sex." Of course. In fact, I was getting frustrated; I hadn’t had any since I arrived. She checked on all the modalities. Dick in cunt, Dick in ass, sucking dick. Sucking cunt. Being sucked off. I like them all. Just the list was getting me hot.

"I think she’s ready."

"Let’s go through the drill anyway, I want to see how she gets me off."

They took out my gag, and replaced it with a ring. Then Dena held up two fingers in front of my face. I let my tongue flick out and lick them.

"Yep, she’s ready." Alice got a plastic thingy from the shelf, and held it in front of me. It was shaped like a cunt and clitoris. I got to work on it with my tongue. Didn’t taste bad at all, they had charged it with sugar water.

"Whinny." Huh. Oh, I guess they want sound effects. No more kinky than the rest of this place. I whinnied.

You might have thought they would have me get them off while I was on my stand. Unfortunately, the geometry was wrong. If Dena or Alice had undone her blouse, I could have done her nipples. Sigh. What they did was take me off of my stand, and march me over to another gadget that they called a bucking rack.

I had to plant my hooves wide apart, and bend over at the waist until I was horizontal. Then they attached a pair of rings on my bustier to overhead ropes. I was now suspended. Finally, they put a rod across my shoulders.

Dena came in front of me, and lifted her skirt. I got to work. "Whinny." Alice was behind me, pushing on the dildo. I whinnied, grunted, licked and sucked. Dena moaned. Eventually, we both came. Then Dena went, and was replaced by Alice. I whinnied, grunted, licked and sucked some more. Alice came, and I had my second orgasm. Now I knew why it was called a bucking rack – I tended to buck when I orgasm’d. It kept me in place.

They put me back on my stand. Then they kissed each other and left. Sigh.

The next day, I was back on the rack. Alice and Dena were joined by a couple of the men from the training team, and a big guy whose name turned out to be Leo. I’d seen him occasionally walking by. I got to suck him off first. Then the dildos came out, and he took me in both holes. After that, it was a free for all. There was usually someone behind me, either in my ass or my sex, and someone in front of me, either a dick or a cunt. As long as I remembered to whinny on the stroke, they were happy.

That was the most fun since I had been here.

After that, sex was on the menu daily, although it never got that intense. Much better. I had to wonder what they were feeding those studs. Not that I was complaining, mind you. I could have used some for my boyfriends in my old life.

One day, Stephanie came in by herself. She clipped on a pair of reins, got me off my stand, and marched me down the corridor. We went through a door, into a corridor, and then another door. After the relative quiet of the cellblock, the sound level assaulted me. I started. Stephanie calmed me down. There was a row of arenas separated by low walls. I couldn’t make out the end. Most of the arenas had a ponygirl, either being ridden, or pulling a cart or a sulky.

She talked to a woman at a desk, and then marched me further down. I got hitched to a cart. She came up behind me, and wiped something along my ass. She got in, and guided me across the walkway into one of the arenas.

So, now I was a cart pony. We went up and down the arena, around and around. The first time I made a mistake, I felt this horrible buzz in my guts. Not that it hurt, it was just horrible. I started paying real close attention to what I was doing. After a while, she drove the cart back across the walkway, unhitched me from it, and marched me back to my cell.

Then she started doing movement correction. God, that was intense. For a solid hour, she had me repeat the same movement until she was happy with it. Do it at normal speed, faster, slower. Backwards. Forwards. Sometimes she would have me stop in the middle. Then I had to complete it one way or the other. By the time we stopped, I was rung out.

She put me back on the stand. She was barely able to install the funnel and give me my mash. I suspect she may have used a footstool. I sucked down the mash greedily. Then I fell asleep when it was gone. I never knew when one of the trainers came in and removed it.

Cart work was now on my menu daily. It replaced one of the sessions in the trotting booth.

One day, she came in with one of the trainers, not Alice. The trainer saddled me. He put a plate of some kind on my back; it fit from my shoulders to my hips. Then he put the saddle on. He unhooked my arms from the begging puppy pose, and folded them across my back just below the saddle. Then he put another plate on top of my arms.

I went down on one knee, and Stephanie swung into the saddle. When I came up, I swayed. I wasn’t used to the added weight. It focused on my shoulders, so it wasn’t hard to carry it. It was just that it screwed up all the movements I had been trained in.

Stephanie had the patience of Job. We spent a fair number of sessions just going around the cell, until she was satisfied that I could do most of the steps with her in the saddle. Some of them just weren’t suitable for saddle. And there were a number of new movements.

Saddle replaced one of my sex sessions. By this point, I can’t say I really missed it. I was still doing cart, so there were two working sessions a day.

The day finally arrived when Stephanie rode me out of the cell into an arena and we really got down to work. We started on the faster gaits. Eventually, she introduced me to the track in the training complex. It was a standard ponygirl track, not that I would have known the difference at that point.

She started drilling me in the proper form for start and finish. We went around a few times by ourselves, but most of the time we raced other ponies and riders. Stephanie was much more concerned with form than speed. Speed was what the trotting booth was for. Trotting booth sessions had been getting easier and easier. Now they began leaving me wrung out again.

Since I suppose that most people know how a horse race goes, I’ll just hit the differences. One major difference is that horses start off from a mechanical gate. The starters pistol is only left for tradition. In a ponygirl race, we are marched up to the starting line, and then go down on our right knee. The right kneecap and the left horseshoe have to be exactly on the chalk line. When the starter’s pistol goes off, we come up using the left leg, swing the right leg forward into a perfect march step, and then continue from there.

It’s the one time in a race where we are trained to react to something other than our riders. For us, the starter’s pistol is the cue. Those first few motions should look like a chorus line doing a synchronized dance step.

After that, of course, the rider is in control. I respond to the reins, knee signals and weight shifts. A good set of blinders helps immensely; I don’t like to know if there is a pony beside me. That’s not my business.

Like a horse track, the starting line varies with the distance, but the finish line is always in the same place. Also like a standard horse race, the strategy is to get your ponygirl into the inner lane, and stay there if possible. You pull out to pass. The rider does all the strategy. All I do is what she tells me.

The next place where I have some active part in the race is right at the end. We turn out and go on one knee before the judge’s stand, in the order of crossing the finish line. The idea here is to put the right knee and left hoof exactly on the line, without having to break step to make it happen. Only real novice riders try to control their ponies in this maneuver. We get trained in the turnout and final kneel.

The rider dismounts and stands in front of the pony. This isn’t quite as weird as it sounds; the riders max out at 2’6" so that’s the only place to put them. Even on one knee, I’m over 4 feet tall.

They never did train me on sulky. As I found out, there was no point on light sulky; there were no lobo-ra (that’s the little women trainers) outside of the communities, and there simply weren’t enough female trainers to train on heavy sulky. The competition weight limit is 150 pounds, which lets most of the men out.

Chapter 8. Going, going, gone.

One day, everything changed. I was saddled as usual, but instead of being ridden to the arenas or the track, I was ridden somewhere else. When I got there, Stephanie got down, and they removed the saddle and much of my tack, including the boots and arm binders. A couple of men heaved me into a box, and I swiftly found myself in a hogtie. It reminded me of my transportation here, except that I wasn’t out of it for the first part. They tied me in, and put a breather mask on my face. I felt myself drift off into that familiar not quite awake, not quite asleep state I got from sleepy gas. They closed it up, and I felt movement. Eventually, the movement stopped, and then the universe did its funhouse thing.

The box got picked up, and put on some kind of a platform. Then I heard an engine, and we were off. Fortunately, the box was well padded; or I might have been bruised. We didn’t go very far at all. My box got unloaded, and I got unpacked. I was in a cell very like the cell I had been in. Just about everything else was different.

I felt cheated. I had really expected to be present while an auctioneer was selling me to a yelling crowd of bidders. Oh, well.

There was an older couple, and a young woman, probably in her early twenties. I might actually be older. All three of them had that indefinable aura that lets a submissive know a dominant at first sight. The young woman had it the most, she who must be obeyed. She deferred to the older couple, so she was obviously the daughter.

The couple was dressed normally for upper class. She affected leather. It looked natural on her, like it had grown there. That made me think. The members of my old training team weren’t dominants. The lobo-ra weren’t either, but then, they didn’t have to be. They were more a force of nature. You didn’t argue with a landslide, you just got out of the way, and hoped you made it.

There were a couple of women dressed in sandals and thigh-length tunics. Also two men dressed in jeans and open shirts. All four of them wore collars with their names around their necks. They also had whips, prods and other things on their belts. This looked like one real interesting establishment. I didn’t recognize any of them, so they were out of my old stomping grounds, or out of my price range. They may not have been in my scene at all.

The collars on the women set them off wonderfully. I wondered who had designed them. Obviously, the slaves were looked after quite well. Which wasn’t surprising, all things considered. You didn’t want your ponygirl training team pissed off at you.

They were chatting at each other in American English. At least one die had rolled right side up. I could have wound up someplace where I couldn’t understand a word. The daughter turned out to be named Fran. Mommy and Daddy were Lenore and Jeff. Not that I really needed to know the names, but it was nice to be able to identify the players from the chatter.

They were discussing my name. Finally, Fran named me Dreammaker. "She looks like such a honey. Those training records were an absolute dream."

"But, remember they said that the chair wouldn’t work on her. You might have discipline problems."

"That’s why we got her so cheap. With her stats, she should have gone for close to a million. And you know I don’t have discipline problems." Daddy winced slightly. She was definitely She Who Must Be Obeyed. I suspected we would get on real well.

There were six ponies for four trainers. My schedule was about what it had been: a bit more trotting booth, a bit less sex. Riding wasn’t on the schedule. The trainers worked me on cart daily. Fran came by and worked me on heavy sulky frequently; she was the rider.

Heavy sulky differed from cart and light sulky in one really important respect. I had an additional harness that focused the weight of the sulky onto my shoulders. The racing weight limit was three times that of light sulky or riding. It was necessary; my bustier would not have handled it, nor would I if the weight was on my waist.

Fran took me out to show or race fairly frequently. These were smaller affairs, usually with a few local owners. She won quite a few of the races; I had been trained well, and was in top condition. Fran cared about what she did. She was one of those dominants who never accept less than the best from either themselves or others. Unfortunately, she and her team knew less about training than my original team of trainers. And there were no lobo-ra to take up the slack. My racing form deteriorated badly.

At least a couple of years went by. Younger ponies replaced two of the older ones. I was still Fran’s favorite; we had hit it off right away. We had a very relaxed owner – pony relationship.

Then we were raided.

Chapter 9. It’s a Raid.

The first I knew that anything was going on was when the senior trainer started shouting orders to get us back in our cells, get some clothes on, and go out and surrender. I was on my stand; in bondage space the entire activity looked amusing, kind of like a Ben and Jerry cartoon.

Then a bunch of strangers came in. They were mostly in plain clothes, but their demeanor spelled cop. If you’ve got your antennae out, you can spot it right off. These were on duty; they didn’t want you to make a mistake about that. All the ponies were getting nervous until one young woman, I guess her name was Sharon, chased the rest of them out and calmed us down. I couldn’t make her out at all. She seemed to know what she was doing, but she was radiating dominant, submissive and cop. One very confused person.

Things quieted down. Our training team came back. The next morning during grooming, they told us we were required to talk. Not allowed, required. And we didn’t have to hold the silly ball in our mouths while we were being groomed. I was stunned. It looked like the final die had turned right side up.

My first attempts to talk were badly slurred, but at least my larynx, mouth and tongue were trying. I eventually managed to ask what had happened understandably. It seemed that the raid was looking for undocumented slaves, under the Consensual Slavery act. All four of them were properly documented; the Feds had just missed the documentation because the address was wrong. The six of us weren’t documented. There was some kind of high level politicking going on about it, but just hang in there, Fran thought that everybody was determined to make whatever was going on work.

I liked talking. I had no idea how much I missed it.

Fran wasn’t around for a few days. I missed her.

Chapter 10. Gymkhana.

Then they took me and another pony out and stuck breather masks on us full of sleepy gas. The universe did its funhouse thing, and we were somewhere else. Fran was there when they took the masks off. So was a box full of our equipment. A forklift picked up the box, and our platforms were tied to the back. We moved off, Fran walking beside us, keeping us calm.

We went through a bunch of tunnels and a freight elevator. We came to what looked like an apartment complex in a cave, complete with walkways and grass lawns. The apartment buildings had ponygirl cells rather than parking spaces on the first floor. We turned into one of them. They wheeled our display platforms into two of the empty cells, and the training team got right to work. Fran kissed me on the forehead, and headed off to wherever she was going.

Later that day, a lobo-ra came in, had me saddled up and took me out riding. I was out of shape for that; I hadn’t been ridden in several years. It turned out her name was Donna.

The next couple of days, that same little woman worked me over, trying to improve my form. I was told that I was in a heavy sulky race in a couple of days, and Fran didn’t want to lose. Not that I blamed her. I don’t like to lose either. It takes two; rider and pony, to either win or lose.

Race day came. I was transferred to the cells in the stadium. Then I was marched out to the harnessing area, and hitched up. Eventually, we were off. We were number eight in a field of ten. I got off well, and Fran got us to the rail on the second lap. The two ponies to the right of us were in first and second going around; we were fourth. As we made the turn to the judge’s stand, I could see the first and second place ponies go to ground on the line with perfect form. The third place pony had horrible form. I made very certain that I hit the line just right; imagining Donna behind me with her prod helped.

When the rankings went up on the board, we were in third. Those two days working on form helped.

Fran groomed me the next morning. She told me that third in that field was a win. The first two ponies were locals; they had lobo-ra work them every day. The rest belonged to other owners; they didn’t have any lobo-ra.

Then she told me that there was another major change in the offing. I was going to get days off. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

Also, the paperwork needed to be straightened out. We were going to see a judge in a month or so. This pony was getting a bit bewildered; I had thought I would never have to deal with any of that again.

"Dreammaker, you are an absolute honey. But the Consensual Slavery laws apply to you. That indenture you signed is worthless except as evidence of intent. I think we can get the original mail exchange admitted as a negotiation. Then we can get the paperwork legally backdated to when you signed the indenture, and then you’re mine, legally. But you have to be there, in person, and in shape to talk, or the judge won’t buy it."

"Which means that you’re going to have to learn how to behave as a girl again."

I snorted.

"Lets start today." She chased me out of the grooming chamber, and pointed at a set of drawers. "Your girl mode stuff is in there. Get dressed." I got dressed. The uniform turned out to be a leather miniskirt, mesh hose, five-inch heels, a push up bra and a medium cut blouse. There was a shoulder bag with an ID in it. It had my name, Dreammaker, a good picture, my IPC number and her name as owner. "That will work for purchases on my account. Food is ok. Don’t buy anything else. Oh, yes, tickets are ok as well."

We went upstairs. Her parents were getting started. She dumped me on them. Once we got expectations straightened out, they were a pair of dears. They were off to the races, which suited me just fine. Ease into it. They were mildly startled when I did things for them. Fran had been very explicit.

"Lenore, I started out as a BDSM submissive and a bondagette before I was a pony. Doing minor errands for a pair of dominants is second nature; I’d feel wrong not doing it."

Lenore laughed, "Right, just don’t abuse the relationship."

We both laughed.

Chapter 11. Paperwork.

Fran stayed a week after the meet ended. She kept me with her, so I was being worked by one of the lobo-ra daily. She also got in quite a bit of time in the heavy sulky, with a lobo-ra training her. We had some time to get acquainted girl to girl rather than owner to pony. We liked each other; there just wasn’t very much content, since we lived in very different worlds. One thing she discovered was my impressions of the teleports. She had them check me, and I turned out to be immune to teleport fugue.

They had worked out a very simple procedure. I went down to the teleport stages, and stood on one of them. They teleported a series of weights, each one a foot closer in. Usually, if someone was going to be disturbed, they showed signs of it at the fifty foot mark, although it didn’t become serious until it hit twenty feet. They dropped the last one in my outstretched hand. Showoffs.

When we went back, it was both home, and in some ways different. I had gotten used to having a lobo-ra around. The trainers I could take a pass on, ours weren’t that bad. I’d also gotten used to days off; she had given me three, and that looked like all for a while until the legal tangle got unsnarled.

The legalities got unsnarled fast, at least for me. Fran’s family was in that lofty category where they didn’t employ an accountant; they had an entire firm of managers looking out for their affairs. They shared the firm with a number of other families in the same position, so there were either specialists on staff, or they knew where to get them quickly.

We saw the judge the next week. There was a local attorney to keep the courthouse wheels greased, a young woman from Fran’s firm of wealth managers, Fran and me. The judge never had a chance. The only thing that raised his eyebrows was the livestock tags instead of a collar. The name change came with the rest of the paperwork.

With that paper in hand, we got legal IDs for me. Then I got my drivers license.

The next day, I got sued. I hadn’t paid the last month on my credit cards, nor had I properly terminated my apartment lease. I hadn’t seen any point to it, since I never expected to be back in circulation again.

Fran told me to take care of it myself. Well, not exactly true. She was paying Ponygirls a retainer to use their teleport system. She had me on the list of authorized users. She tossed me one of the special rigged cell phones and told me I had an appointment in an hour at the wealth managers. They were two states away. So much for not having any bureaucratic hassles ever again.

So I called Ponygirls for a teleport. I went out to the middle of the practice arena, and they put me on top of a parking garage with nobody around. I walked a couple of blocks to their offices.

It turned out to be smooth as silk. Their credit repair expert had already pulled the credit reports from all three major credit bureaus. There was a major case of identity fraud. At least two different people had been using my identity while I was away. He got on the horn to the only credit bureau with a consumer fraud assistance unit that was worth the name. They’d been the major player for over a decade. They split the file for us, and marked the new one as fraudulent. Another guy had been paying off the legitimate bills even before I got there, so the fraud tech had some updates to work with. That improved our credibility enormously. I signed a stack of affidavits. We shipped them off, and that was the last we heard of that.

Chapter 12. Interlude.

After that, things settled down for a while. A few days on my display stand, running in the trotting booth, being worked by one of the trainers and being screwed on the bucking rack got me back to normal. At least, I hoped it was normal. Days off could have been difficult, since we were out in the boondocks, and there weren’t any extra cars. My interests simply didn’t coincide with any of the trainers, so we couldn’t share a day off. In any case, it wouldn’t have been wise. They needed to keep seeing me as a pony, not as a girl. They couldn’t handle the dissonance. Fran could and did.

I checked with Fran, and she authorized my using the teleport. That freed things up immensely. I left from the arena right after grooming, and came back before lights out. I started showing up in my old stamping grounds at occasional play parties. This took some negotiating, play parties were overnight affairs, and that meant I would be out after the normal "be back here or else" time.

One of the trainers told me I was causing problems with the two younger ponies. I got to do things on my days off that they didn’t. I thought for a moment.

"That’s probably solvable. If Fran will allow them to use the teleport, they can do almost the same thing I can. They just have to be out."

So we synchronized days off for a while. I showed them the procedure, checked them out on the sleepy gas canisters, and got them used to being back in circulation. Then we went our separate ways.

Since I was now legal, and we had the teleport, we could go to more events. Our show calendar started getting cluttered. Eventually, we cut back to one regional a month, the national quarterlies, and the big annual international event at the Arizona community.

Fran took the special six-month trainers course at the Arizona community. She used me as her pony, so I was located there. After that, I was back at the top of my form. She had also trained me in some new pony behaviors. The most unusual was getting me to roll my eyes independently when I was upset. That even impressed Alice.

By the time I got back, Fran’s family had put their own track on the estate, so that was our home track. The track had twenty ponygirl cells, the six of us rattled around.

Lenore trained the other two young ponies as servers at parties. Her regular staff was overloaded. Since her regular staff was dressed in the French Maid style, she had the ponies dress in Community street clothes. The leather miniskirt and mesh stockings fit well, and marked who was a slave girl and who was a pony. Eventually, I joined them. Service was not on my "I hate to do it" list. It kept the peace around the cellblock.

Fran told me that I had to find something to do for when I could no longer be raced. I told her I expected to be put down at that point. She told me she would not do it, I had better get used to the idea that I needed a career path. So I chose trainer. It took some doing; the six months course was pretty intensive.

I went back to the community full time, and moved into Leo’s cellblock. That was the only one where most of the ponies had real odd schedules, with girl mode every day for large chunks of time. I took one of Fran’s other ponies along to practice on.

Now that my world had opened up a bit, I was discovering that being a pony full time was getting awfully confining, and not in the way I liked when I was a simple bondagette. It took several talks with Alice, and then several more with Fran, before we worked it out. It turned out to be absurdly simple.

Fran rented me out as a specialist trainer. I usually had two ponies on my training list, sometimes three. Our teleport retainer went up substantially, but then, so did the fees Fran was charging for me. Fran’s managers took care of the paperwork, and her family’s servants took care of the housekeeping. That kept me in girl mode for five to eight hours a day; the rest of my time I spent in pony mode, with a week or so full time leading up to major events.

Several teleports a day had their cumulative effect. Suddenly, the funhouse effect disappeared, and I understood what I was seeing during one. That surprised me enough that I mentioned it to Fran, who sent me to see Alice. She gave me enough pointers that I was able to work it out, and I found that I could teleport. It was only between places I had already been. I would have needed much more clairvoyance to go somewhere I hadn’t been. It was convenient, but I still needed the mechanicals a lot of the time.

Chapter 13. The Broadcast.

We were at the spring quarterlies. I was in my cell at the host track with Fran and one of my training team, preparing to go into pony mode, when it happened.

"Yeeeeoooowww." I wound up on one knee. The wrong one, not that it matters. I had twisted my ankle. Fran took one look, and yelled for a medic. He got there, figured out that it was only a sprain, and bandaged it up. Fran scratched us for the third race, which was the only race I was in. She was in another race with another of her ponies, which was much younger than me.

Fran looked at me, and then grabbed her cell phone. She talked for a few minutes. "Dreammaker, when he’s done with you, beat it up to the broadcast booth."

I’m afraid I said, "Huh?" What broadcast booth? While these things weren’t precisely underground any more, they were mostly still invitation only. You didn’t get in unless you were an owner, family, or knew someone.

"I forgot you didn’t know. No reason for you to know, but I should have told you anyway. Someone decided to broadcast this set of races on one of the X rated channels. It’s part of easing us farther into the mainstream. There’s a bunch of race guys up there, searching desperately for a clue."

She gave me directions. The medic gave me a crutch and showed me how to use it. "Keep off of it." He obviously meant it. Like I wanted to hurt my ankle any more.

I hobbled toward the booth. When I got there, it was obvious that they were out of their depth. There were three sportscasters, a director, a producer and a number of techs. The director was the one with all the little screens in front of him. There were seats for four on camera, the fourth was nowhere in sight.

I hobbled in. "Hi, folks, I’m Dreammaker. They tell me I’m supposed to be helping you guys." It was almost comical, the looks of relief. The producer waved at the fourth on-camera seat.

"Hey, Fred. Get the lady to her station. Show her how to use the mike." The station proved to have several screens in front of it. One showed the current shot, one showed what I looked like on camera. The others showed either what the director thought was important, or what I did. The mike was a standard headset with only one earphone. For the director, natch.

"What happened to the guy who was supposed to be here?" Not the most politic question, now that I think about it.

"He’s in the john, throwing up." Oh. I’ve seen that at play parties. A top will be working his bottom up, starting with the light floggers, and some newbie will suddenly get sick. Or something. It happens. Some people just shouldn’t be anywhere around the scene. At least, close up.

The timer was showing ten minutes to broadcast. And about eleven minutes to the first race. It was going to be close. Then I noticed that I was still on in the third. Grab the cell phone and call the stewards. "Dreammaker here. Why am I still on the card for the third?"

"Why aren’t you in the ready circle?"

"Sprained ankle. I’m in the broadcast booth."

"Sorry to hear it. I’ll need to hear it from Fran to make it official."

"I thought you had. OK, I’ll call her. She’s probably working with her other pony." I called, and I was off the card in about a minute.

The chaos sorted itself into order. Then the show credits rolled. "THE NAKED LADY NETWORK PRESENTS PONYGIRL RACING."

The senior sportscaster did his thing. Then I got the chorus line shot I had asked for, and it switched to the race announcer. The starter’s pistol boomed. "They’re OOOFFFF!"

They let the race announcer do his thing until the field had gotten itself next to the fence. At that point, it was just about like every sulky race you’ve ever seen. Except for the ponies. And the fact that the drivers mostly looked a lot better than the usual run of jockeys.

"What the heck are they feeding those fillies? My old lady would have dropped dead on the last turn."

"Don’t think about your wife. Think about the top half dozen or so women on the international track circuit. And a training schedule from hell, every day for the last how ever many years."

"Top half dozen. How do you get women with that kind of genetics?"

"Gene surgery." Dead silence.

"What did you say?" Oops. I’d let a cat out of the bag.

"We’re all enhanced. Leprechaun Genetics is the only firm that can do gene surgery properly. And this package is only available to ponygirls. They absolutely, positively do not do it for anyone else."

"I thought the ethics committees had banned it."

"Leprechaun Genetics is allowed to do it. Everybody else can only do research. They’ve got their reasons. One of them is that nobody but them can guarantee that exactly the intended change is made to exactly the target gene and no other, in each and every target cell, and no other. It just isn’t safe without their techniques."

"The other is that, except for very simple applications, there’s too big a risk of unanticipated interactions with the rest of the genome. They only deal with a small number of packages, and they have very fast back out procedures if anything goes wrong. Nobody else is even close."

We switched back to the race at that point. The track announcer did the finish, and then I went into the lineup before the judges’ stand. The lined up in order of crossing the finish line. The ponies went down on one knee, exactly as they had at the starting line. Each driver got out of her sulky and stood behind and to the left of her pony.

Two ponies changed order on form.

"What the heck?"

"One of the major differences. Form counts. That’s why that start was so beautiful. And why that final lineup looked like a Marine drill team. You can lose up to ten seconds on form if you blow the start. You can lose up to another ten seconds if you blow the lineup before the judges. Its one second added to your time for each point below perfection."

The fourth race was a solo. The sportscasters picked it up as soon as the ponies started to line up at the starting line. No sulkies or drivers.

"Solo is a new style for ponygirl races. It’s a combination of a standard track race and a standard pony race. Notice the differences. The starting lineup is the ponygirl lineup, not a track lineup. No blinders, and half the girls are wearing rear view mirrors on their bridles."

"That’s bizarre."

"Well, yes. Remember that they can’t turn their heads with that collar. If they want to change lanes, they either risk running into another pony, or they use a mirror. The loss in wind resistance is made up for by not losing style points for cutting another pony off. And it’s not that much loss, considering the wind resistance from their hair."

"And of course, they still have to make the lineup before the judges."

"Speaking of hair. I was noticing your hairdo."

"Yes, that’s the standard pony cut. We all wear it. The sides simulate a pony’s hair, the top and back are supposed to look like a mane. Since mine’s gene manipulated, it’s a little bit more like a mane than most."

More silence. "That sounds like half the stars in Hollywood would kill for it."

"Leprechaun Genetics doesn’t release its client list."

The head sportscaster stared a moment. Then he leaned back and roared. "I’d wondered about some of those hairdos."

We switched our attention back to the race. "Have you got a favorite?"

"Cloudburst, of course. She’s going to walk away from the rest of the field. Part of the reason is that she’s community, not outside like most of us. So she works with senior trainers all the time. The rest of it is that she’s one of the ponies that split her time between pony and girl mode daily. She’s actually the head system administrator of their computer complex. Ponygirls and Leprechaun Genetics share the complex. She may or may not have a boatload of trial enhancements, but she doesn’t need them. She’s also clairvoyant enough to not need a mirror and not lose style points making mistakes."

"I’m surprised she’s here. She’s usually an understudy in the Wolf and Ponygirl show. I understand that’s going to be here tonight."

They got off and ran the race. Cloudburst won handily, of course. Good form is efficiency, and efficiency means no wasted energy.

Between races, they ran another batch of commercials. The producer asked, "The Wolf and Ponygirl show?" So I told him about it. He thought it sounded sexy. I suppose it is, for some people. For most of us, it’s just beautiful. I called Leo, and he arranged to have a CD sent to network headquarters by messenger. The network called the producer back and said they loved it, but they had the wrong set of announcers. They needed a dance or ballet person; sportscasters wouldn’t hack it. They had the person in mind, but they couldn’t get her there in time. Ideas?

So I volunteered to teleport her. Another dead silence. "Teleport?" Weakly.

"You mean somebody actually told you where this was so you could drive here?"

"Somebody else drove, we were doped part time."

"Then you were teleported. 98% of the population has to be drugged to handle it. Most of the rest are just passengers. There are about 20 people worldwide who can teleport without mechanical assistance. So you need to tell her that. I can supply sleepy gas, or stun her. She can use any knockout pill of her choice. Just so she’s out when I go from point A to point B without crossing the intervening space."

So I hobbled to the car when the races ended. I had Ponygirls teleport me there, since I didn’t know the destination. You need lots better clairvoyance than I have to teleport to somewhere you haven’t been. I picked her up. We hit it off right off the bat. Sleepy gas was ok with her, so I got out of the city limits, put her out, and came back. Took less than an hour.

She was sufficiently Society that she had dinner with the Owners. I hung out with the broadcast crew while they reconfigured for the show. I also had a long talk with Old Tom. I’d never seen him before, but he had been mentioned. He couldn’t have been anyone else. We discussed their objectives, and ways and means.

The Wolf and Ponygirl show went off without a hitch. There were only three of us in the broadcast booth: the senior announcer, our fine arts announcer, and me. He introduced it. She identified all of the music and made intelligent comments on the treatment, and I talked a bit about the people involved.

When the lobo-ra came out, the producer, the director and the senior announcer all gave me a dirty look. Tomorrow was going to be interesting. I’d discussed that contingency with Old Tom.

The second day of racing was almost like the first. Races are races, after all. The only difference is that the card had been rearranged. The fourth race was now riding style. I told the broadcasters to hold it until the end of the third, and then all would be revealed.

At the end of the third, right on cue, Old Tom walked in, doing his best leprechaun imitation. Since nobody had ever seen one in reality, that was pretty good. I picked him up and put him on my station.

I introduced him as the council chief for the Wolf riders.

One of the techies said, "Wolf riders?"

"Wrong planet."

"Oh."

We talked as they rolled commercials. Then we did the fourth race. Seeing the ponygirls actually being ridden was an interesting study in emotional reactions.

We talked about training. Old Tom laid the groundwork for getting training work for his people outside of the communities.

Eventually it was over.

Chapter 14. Trainer.

The sprained ankle left a permanent weakness. It was good enough for ordinary use. In fact, it was OK for cart work and even for being ridden, as long as I didn’t go faster than a trot. But my racing days were over.

I had a number of long talks with Fran. She was blunt about it. She really had no use for a pony that couldn’t race. She definitely had a use for a trainer of my caliber, as well as some of my other talents. I had to deal with it. Eventually, I faced up to the fact that I had really had my fill of long term bondage. Not that I disliked it, but that it wasn’t doing anything for me.

So we dissolved the indenture formally, and she added me to her staff. She agreed that I would not have to deal with paperwork or do housekeeping.

We’d settled into our new relationship nicely. She got a new pony to replace me, and I got one of my own. Normally, I couldn’t have afforded one; they were so far out of my price range that I would have needed a telescope to see the numbers. But I had played the pick of the herd lottery while I was at the Arizona community being trained to be a master trainer. I had won, and of course I not only couldn’t afford the upkeep, as a pony myself I was simply ineligible. This happened with a fair amount of regularity. They drew another winner, and I got a rain check. Most of the rain checks were never cashed, because most of the candidates never got the income boost that made it possible for them to keep one, or they lost interest before they did. In my case, Fran authorized the upkeep. She seemed to think that the responsibility would help settle me.

Which it did. There was a huge difference between caring for and training someone else’s ponygirls, and doing the same for mine. I could weasel out of the emotional focus required with hers. She was the owner; I was just doing my job. In fact, it was to their benefit that I do my job well, or they would get in trouble with the owner. Classical avoidance of responsibility. With my own ponygirl, I didn’t have that option. It was my name on her papers. The only reason I had for keeping her head straight was that I wanted a ponygirl, not a friend. It took a while.

Jeff and Lenore gradually withdrew from showing theirs. Fran located a couple of her cousins that wanted but couldn’t afford ponygirls, who settled for driving and showing hers. Their families were rich; they just weren’t in that stratospheric class that could spend a few million down, and half a million a year in upkeep for their toys. Fran still showed her two, and I located an old acquaintance that almost fell over herself for the opportunity to be added to Fran’s staff as a trainer and as my driver. When Fran shoved an indenture in front of her instead of an employment contract, she signed it without any questions. She didn’t even notice that it had my name on it, rather than Fran’s. That surprised me as well.

I recovered nicely. I added housekeeping my apartment to Evelyn’s list of duties. Fran increased my salary so I could afford the upkeep.

Between training the ponies, supervising the training staff, and making the round of the shows, I was kept blissfully busy. In fact, I was having the time of my life. I had intended to spend time keeping in shape as a pony, but I not only didn’t have the time, the staff couldn’t have handled it. Evelyn could have if I hadn’t been her owner; her BDSM background accustomed her to switches. But it didn’t come up.

Chapter 15. Bambi.

One day, Fran called me to her office. It seemed she had a family problem. Another pair of her cousins had fallen for the ponygirl bug. This time, it was a set of fraternal twins. One of them wanted to keep the other as a ponygirl. The other wanted to be kept.

Their mother had thrown up her hands in frustration. They were of age; she didn’t have any real way of controlling them. Their trust funds were out of her hands. Fran handed it off to me. She was real obvious about not saying, "Make them forget it." So I made arrangements.

Anna turned out to be the dominant. She was a 5’3" brunette with her hair done in a pageboy. Bambi was the one that wanted to be a ponygirl. She was 5’10", and had the most gorgeous mane of jet black hair I had ever seen. It was every bit as good as Black ThunderBolt’s. Even if it came out of a bottle, Leprechaun Genetics could make it real. She also had the athletic, runner build we favored for our girls. I showed them around the cellblock, training arena and track. We watched a couple of the girls being worked on cart and on heavy sulky. Anna kept up a steady stream of very intelligent questions. Bambi just stared at everything with wide eyed fascination.

I had two of the girls hitched to one of the larger carts, and I took them both out in it. I’d been doing team training for show. Several of the shows had an owner’s parade. Since I frequently had more than one of the ponies there, we were training them as teams. There were several arrangements. If Fran was there with one or both of her ponies, then she had her own cart as owner/driver. If Jeff and Lenore weren’t there, I rode as owner, and my drivers handled the team. If they were there, I handled the team, the drivers sat next to me, and Jeff and Lenore rode as owners. Occasionally we did three carts, with my driver handling my girl, and me as owner.

Anna took to using the reins like she was born with them in her hands. When I tried to hand the reins to Bambi, she smiled shyly and refused to take them.

After that, I herded them into my office, and asked Bambi point blank why she wanted to do this.

It was just something she had to do. It seemed totally right.

I’d heard that before, in my BDSM scene days. Trouble was, at least part of the time, it was the true answer. There just wasn’t a better one. So I laid it on the line.

"Bambi, once you sign that indenture, you won’t have an opportunity to back out. The CSA allows us to ignore back out requests during training. We train you so you won’t be able to ask to get out afterwards. At least for several years, until the conditioning wears off. If you are here, I will maintain that conditioning. I maintain it for all of the girls."

Anna nodded slightly. I had finally gotten Bambi’s attention. She looked thoughtful.

"The training is coercive in the extreme. The older style includes a number of very stressful procedures that will make you want to comply. The newer style doesn’t have those procedures, but it is no less coercive. At least with the old style, you have the chance to rebel, even if you will be swatted down. Painfully. With the new one, resistance is not futile, it’s not even possible."

"When you sign, your relationship as sisters is over. Done with. Finished. Your relationship is owner to ponygirl. I’m going to advise Anna to not groom you herself until she has her head on straight about that. Also, she is not to associate with you on your days off or your vacations. The only times you will normally see her is when she is working you or racing you."

"You will not be allowed to talk at all during training. After training, the Act requires that you be allowed to do so. We have been requiring talking during grooming, but I’m beginning to move away from that. It seems that talking during the days off is sufficient. And it maintains the separation better."

"You won’t be trained here. I have neither the time nor facilities, and my staff doesn’t have the training. You’ll be trained at Ponygirls. If anything happens to Anna during your training, you will be sold at auction. The first you will know about it is when you are shipped somewhere, and the people around you are not the ones you expect."

Bambi was deep in thought for a while. "Would you let me feel what being on my stand is like?"

"Certainly." I led them both out into a formal garden. There was a wheeled platform in the center, with a pole sticking up. There was a table with a number of things on it. "I will have to use capture bondage, I don’t have the full pony bondage in your size."

She walked to the center of the garden and looked at the stand. Then she looked at the table. It contained cuffs, belt, hood and a number of locks. There was also a breather mask and bottle of sleepy gas. She smiled and came to a decision. "Put it on me."

I started with the belt. She sucked in her waist as I buckled it in front, and locked it. Then I put the cuffs on both her wrists and ankles, and locked them.

"Up on the stand, Bambi. Put your back to the pole. That’s good. Now squat slowly." I guided the rings in the back of the belt onto the pole. "Now bring your left leg back so the knee is on the platform. Now do the right leg. That’s good." I locked her ankle cuffs to the platform with the short chains.

Fran had come in with a clipboard. I gave the clipboard to Anna. "Hold it for her." I gave a pen to Bambi. I said nothing. Bambi looked at the indenture as if it was an extrusion from the fifth dimension. Then she smiled again, and signed and dated it. I held out the inkpad. She inked her thumb, and thumb printed it.

Anna took the clipboard back and signed as owner. Fran took the clipboard and signed as witness. I had already signed it earlier. As Anna signed, I pulled the hood over Bambi’s head, and locked it. I wanted her last sight of us to be of her sister signing the papers to become her owner. I pulled her hands behind, and locked them to the belt. Then I put the breather mask on her, and triggered the valve.

We went down the path, past the yellow line that signified twenty five feet, and turned around to look. The platform with the bound girl shimmered for a moment. Then it vanished.

The center of the garden was empty. Bambi was now a ponygirl.