I did not recognize the unseen voice. Yesterday, after a delightful wine and cheese lunch at that newly-opened country inn, one minute I was enjoying another of my summer weekend hikes exploring a wonderfully remote trail in Quebec's Laurentian woods, the next I found myself waking up groggily on this smelly, itchy hay, in a wooden stall of an old barn, my upper arms, elbows and wrists tied and immobilized, my shoes and socks gone.

The French-accented voice more stated than said, "Your wine was laced. You have been recruited. You are now well on the way to becoming my totally obedient ponygirl, ma cherie. This is already your permanent stall, with your new pony name, Ma Beauté Blonde, stenciled on the lower gate. Outside is your paddock, and beyond is your pasture, quite remote from any neighbors, roads or civilization. Go. When you feel you are ready to accept the first step in your transition, your powder-blue leather bridle, you will of course return to your stall to be fed and watered. And so it will be on each of the coming days, for your hooves, your body-harness, your bit, your tail, your rings, your brand, your nipple-reins, your cart. Now giddie-up. Go. Have fun!"

I never even turned to try and see him. I just bolted past the open stall door, out of the barn, through the paddock door, into the pasture. I ran and I ran. Only when I finally slowed my pace did I have a fleeting memory that I had run right past two other stalls with names, containing tethered, fully outfitted, red-haired and brunette ponygirls, watching me forlornly, yet knowingly. Oh, my escape suddenly seemed so futile!

I hid till darkness, and had slept in fits and starts, nervously, beneath a million stars. Soon after day-break I watched from a distance as the Man hitched the two ponygirls to a cart and rode off. Then again near noon when he returned and stabled them. The Man seemed uninterested in me and what I was up to, never even scanning my pasture as he walked to the farm house.

But now the day is waning. That the blazing sun, from which I managed to shield my fair skin most of the day beneath a shady sugar-maple, is finally setting. I am so tired. I am very hungry. I am incredibly thirsty. I am standing, shifting from foot to foot, cause I really need to pee. I glance back at the invitingly-open barn door in the distance, still weighing the pros and cons of what it has to offer. I admit to myself that over the endless eternity that was today I have slowly resigned to the first inevitable step of my ponygirl fate. I start back towards the barn.