This work is copyright 2000-2006 by Xaltatun of Acheron (A Pseudonym). It may be posted on the Internet to any free forum. It may be reformatted to match the forum's look and feel, and the forum editor may make minor spelling and grammer corrections. Otherwise it must be posted in its entirety, including these notices. It may not be sold, or included in any compilation that is sold, or posted on any forum that requires a fee for access, without my written permission. My permission will require payment, terms to be negotiated. For purposes of this notice, sites guarded by Adult Check or similar packages are considered pay sites. Posting on any site must include this copyright notice.
Adult Content Warning - this story contains adult themes, including non-consensual bondage/slavery and forced sexual acts. If you are under the lawful age for such materials (18 in most jurisdictions) or if you would find such material offensive, please go elsewhere.
Safety Warning. This story may contain descriptions of practices that are decidedly unsafe, either in general, or if performed by someone without adequate training. There are a number of good books available on safety in the BDSM scene. Most large cities, and some not so large ones, have organized BDSM groups that will usually welcome a newcomer. I'm not going to point out which practices are safe, and which aren't. Any practice is unsafe if performed by someone with inadequate training and experience, or if performed when not paying attention. Please think before you act. Don't make yourself a candidate for a Darwin award.
There are currently 12 stories, either written or planned, in this series, which is part of a new universe I've created. If you want to put stories in this universe, please read as many of them as you can first and then contact me. I have a background document which fills in quite a few details and will keep you from going off in a strange direction.
1. 2040 Betrayed (Ponygirl)
2. 2041 Becoming A Ponygirl (Ponygirl)
3. 2055 Girl In A Cage (Slavery)
4. 2060 Second Generation Ponygirl (Ponygirl, sort of)
5. 2058 - 2068 Shake The Bars And Scream! (Slavery)
6. 2061 Transmogrification Prep. (Ponygirl, gene mods)
7. 2069 Wild Girls, Inc. (Slavery)
8. 2069 Fiona (Slavery) --- Submitted to Leviticus
9. 2070 They Also Serve... (TG, Slavery, Statue) - at Stardust ( stardustr.us )
10. 2070 The Girlfriend Contract (Slavery)
11. 2070 Trouble: Two Girls Under One Roof (Slavery)
12. 2070 The Long Road (?)
Now on to the story...
Chapter 6. Ponygirl Sign Language.
Chapter 7. Crystal takes Moonlight for a spin.
Chapter 8. Decisions, Decisions.
Chapter 10. The Plot Unravels.
Chapter 11. Serenity takes a ride.
Chapter 12. The Plotter Arrives.
Chapter 13. The Plotter discovers she’s a Bitch.
Chapter 14. Sold! Or Something.
Chapter 15. Terry and Bethany ride their ponies.
“Mr. Trolley can see you now,” the pretty secretary told the man and woman in the waiting room as she got up from her desk to usher them into her boss’s office.
The man started slightly; he’d been studying her while attempting to avoid appearing to stare. He hadn’t been entirely successful but she didn’t mind; she was quite used to the effect she had on males of most ages. Being attractive was part of her job, and she accepted the attention it caused with no little amusement.
The 5’6” blonde wore a single shoulder tunic that could have been painted on, except for the parts that came over her ample breasts and the mid-thigh length skirt. The tunic had a pattern of diagonal black and white streaks that fell from the shoulder, circled twice, and finished up around the skirt hem. The pattern was definitely not stripes; interestingly it didn’t show any breaks where the fabric could have been sewn.
She had a bold red ribbon around her neck, decorated with a small plaque whose pattern he couldn’t quite make out. Her legs shimmered above her 3” heeled open sandals.
Jed Trolley looked at the couple that his secretary ushered into the office. They looked like they were in their late twenties, which matched the dossiers he had been reading. Terry stood about 5’10” with the sandy hair that spoke of a significant amount of northern European somewhere in his ancestry; she stood an inch or so shorter with a combination of light complexion and blond hair that spoke of the same origin.
Pleasantries past, Jed opened the issue by asking Terry: “So you want your wife to spend the next two weeks as a ponygirl?”
“Yes. My company is sending me on a training course, and we thought this would be a good time. She’s been itching to have a longer ponygirl experience for quite a while.” Anna nodded her head vigorously in agreement.
“You say you’ve been showing her in the part time category at meets for a couple of years. The video clips look good; she’s actually taken a couple of firsts in her category?”
“Yes, I have.” Anna’s voice was low and throaty.
“The thing to understand is that this is a major step from where you’ve been competing. You haven’t, for example, registered her with the Slaveowner’s Consortium.”
“No, we didn’t think it was necessary.”
“It’s not for what you’ve been doing, although I’m mildly surprised since the Ponygirl Section has a category for part time which does not require that the ponygirl be a slave. However, boarding her here isn’t the same as far as we’re concerned.”
“I don’t see why?” Anna asked.
“Well, let me repeat the background for you. You undoubtedly know most of this, but it doesn’t hurt to go over it again, and it looks good on the registration recording.
“Excelsior Stables and Kennels is one of a number of organizations in the slave business. We specialize in pets; that is ponygirls, puppy-girls and kitty-girls, although we of course handle the males of each variety as well. We train them, board them, rent them and sell them. We also board the more normal varieties of slave, do basic and some touch-up training and sometimes buy them for resale, but our focus is in human pets.
“The legal situation is, to put it mildly, murky. You understand the constitutional limitation on slavery?”
“I can’t say I do,” Terry answered. “My civics course led me to believe it was prohibited, but it obviously isn’t.”
“Well, that’s the first murky part. The Constitution prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, and it’s quite explicit about it.
“Most states, and the federal government, also explicitly prohibited slavery until a few years ago. The ultra-conservative Supreme Court is thankfully no longer with us, but while it lasted it struck down those laws as unconstitutional infringements of the right to make and privately enforce contracts, and the more moderate courts since haven’t reinstated them.
“I’m told the court decision was a model of double-think. I know I get a headache whenever I try to read it. However, there are three critical elements.
“The first is that the relationship has to be entered into voluntarily. That’s ensured by the brain scanner in the standard legal contract and deposition system we have here.
“The second is that the government is not allowed to take any actions whatsoever that would tend to enforce the owner’s rights in the contract. That was the crux of the decision: that slavery, to be slavery, had to be enforced by society, which means the Federal, state or local governments.
“The third key element is that the slave owner is not required to allow the slave to walk out, and the government cannot unduly interfere with any measure he takes to prevent his property from walking out.”
“That’s where I get lost,” Terry commented.
“Well, it’s murky. Since slavery doesn’t exist, there is no such legal category as a slave, therefore a slave technically has the same set of civil rights as anyone else, and a lot of government bureaus make it their business to enforce them, at least in their core areas.”
Anna frowned in concentration.
“Let’s take the standard example. Let’s say you wanted to keep her in a cage and take her out when you wanted sex. If she agreed to go into the cage willingly, that’s the first part. The new brain scan technology lets the courts verify that it was willing agreement when she entered into the contract, regardless of whether she changed her mind later.
“She’d have to get out of the cage to exercise her right to terminate the agreement, and you have no obligation to let her out so she can leave. So it looks, on the surface, that she’s stuck.
“However. Let’s say your house burned down, and she died because she couldn’t get out of the cage. The charge would be negligent manslaughter. The anti-slavery societies would make certain it would be prosecuted, and juries are not particularly lenient on that set of circumstances. So you can’t simply lock the cage and put the key somewhere she can’t get to it.
“That’s the guts of the slave owner’s dilemma. There are, of course, a lot of details including medical care, building codes, fire prevention codes and insurance regulations, but that’s the guts.
“The other side of it, of course, is that we board slaves, and the owners have a perfectly reasonable expectation that their property will still be there when they come to get it.”
“So how do you handle it?”
“With this.” Jed took a red ribbon out of a drawer and put it on the desk. “It looks like a ribbon necklace, but it’s actually a quite sophisticated control collar that’s been shrunk with nano-technology. It’s the same as the ones the Goodwife Institute calls a Goodwife Ribbon. You can buy them directly from the manufacturer if you want to experiment; there’s a very enthusiastic experimenter’s association.
“The Goodwife Institute uses very little of its capabilities and the enthusiasts make it do some pretty unbelievable things. We have our own system that handles everything we need to maintain control.
“Cool,” Terry said as Anna looked at it with a bit of trepidation.
“Most of what we do with a ponygirl revolves around our definition. A ponygirl is a girl that has been trained to act like a horse, is treated like a horse and is used like a horse. She is not, however, a horse.
“Horses are usually either in their stalls, in a meadow or field with a fence that most of them can’t jump, or harnessed to something. We do the same thing with ponygirls; most of the time they’re either in their stall, in a meadow behind the stable, or harnessed. However. Ponygirls aren’t horses. They’ve also got a latrine, a feeding room and a shower room.
“One of the rules is that, while ponygirls are in their stalls, they have to be chained to the wall. For both legal and practical reasons, we don’t lock the chain, and we don’t lock the stall door. We use this on the end of the chain.” He took out a snap hook. “It’s simple and it lets them take it off any time they want. Of course, if they’re in their stall with it off for more than about ten seconds, the collar will nudge them, and then if they don’t put it on, it’ll start a punishment sequence and notify the stable hands.
“We make a virtue out of necessity. We don’t let them relieve themselves in their stall; they have to use the latrine, so that’s one reason why they’d unchain themselves and leave. Then there’s a meadow in the back they can use to relax and play. It’s bounded by both a visible and an invisible fence. And they also have to keep their own tack clean and properly oiled. The stable hands are quite happy to let them pitch in and help with the stable chores as well, although they don’t have to and the trainers frown on making them do it. Those are all valid reasons why they might leave their stalls by themselves. It makes it look like the chain is redundant, right?”
Both of them nodded.
“Well, part of the reason is that the chain looks good, but the real reason is that it reminds them they’re under control. Ponygirls aren’t horses. A symbolic restraint would do nothing whatever for a horse; with a ponygirl it reinforces the role. She’s the one that clips it to her collar when she goes into her stall, and she’s frequently the one that unclips it when she’s taken out. If a girl is here long enough, she starts to get a feeling that something’s wrong if the chain isn’t attached while she’s in her stall. I’ve seen a few curl up with the thing as if it represented safety of some kind.
“Another example. I mentioned that she isn’t allowed to relieve herself in her stall, right? Part of the definition is acting like a horse, and horses don’t have any control and can’t be easily trained to have any. It’s pointless. So if she’s under harness and she needs to empty her bladder, she just does it.
“However, if she’s in her stall, she’ll go to the latrine. The stable attendants don’t like cleaning up the mess if they do it in their stall, and the girls don’t like living in it, or the smell. Most of our girls are fastidious enough that they’ll make sure they hit the latrine before being harnessed, but if they need to when they’re harnessed, they’ll just do it. It doesn’t take all that long before they simply let it happen without being embarrassed.”
“That’s more stringent than I’d expected,” Anna said thoughtfully.
“It is, if you were expecting to be here without a valid slave contract. The courts will not interfere with what we do, as long as we don’t overstep the bounds I mentioned earlier. However, there has to be a contract; if we did some of the things I’ve just mentioned without a contract we’d be in very deep trouble.
“Here’s another piece. Whether animals talk depends on how far you want to stretch the definition of talking. Horses can certainly communicate whatever a horse cares about to another horse. However, they don’t talk in any human recognizable language, and they don’t really understand human speech, regardless of the language.” He took a weirdly curved piece of what looked like plastic out of the drawer, and added two earplugs next to them. “These are standard medical devices that are used to correct speech and hearing defects. We have them set up so the mouthpiece detects speech and generates sound cancellation. It lets anything that isn’t speech phonemes through. The earplugs do something similar: they detect speech and replace it with a nonsense stream of speech sounds that still has the same emotional content, and which allows her to identify the speaker.
“Those are our rules for pets we board. You’ve got to be registered and you’ll be treated like a highly intelligent animal. If you can’t live with it,” he shrugged, “you can’t be boarded here.”
“I thought I heard of facilities that didn’t require a slave contract.”
“It looks that way, but looks are deceiving. The Slave Warehouse advertises that they will accept women in their kennel who don’t have a slave contract. Part of the difference is that they’re a slave kennel, not a ponygirl stable. What they do with slaves that are kenneled there is pretty understandable. The other part is that their kennel contract is a slave contract; it’s registered with the Slaveowner’s Consortium in a special section that isn’t public record. It’s limited term and it expires when she leaves, but it gives them the same rights they’d have with the usual contract.
He paused a moment. “The Slave Warehouse also uses a permitted area and invisible fence system. It’s not the same as the one we use, but it’s just as effective. Other kennels are always losing slaves and being hauled into court for maltreatment.” He shrugged. “It looks like in a couple of years it’ll be just us and The Slave Warehouse. The rest are being sued out of business.”
“What do you do with ones that rebel?”
“Our trainers are quite good at gentling pets down. It’s the ones that start off in rebellion that are a bit of a challenge, but we have ways of coping. It doesn’t matter to us if she comes caged and screaming about what she’s going to do to everyone when she manages to escape. What matters is that she’s in that cage legally, which means in practice that her ID tattoo is registered with the Slaveowner’s consortium and her consent is on record. Or it means that she’s a convicted criminal who was sentenced to enslavement or chose it instead of the jail term. Of course, dealing with rebellion costs extra.” Jed smiled, possibly at the thought of the extra.
“I’d think the anti-slavery societies would jump on that real hard.”
“Well, they used to. That’s one place where the murk works in our favor. They stopped when the ultra-conservative courts ruled that it was kidnapping, regardless of whether the slave wanted to be freed or not.
“That’s a criminal act that carries life imprisonment or death in many states, and the laws that let the victim select the penalties led to a number of them being enslaved. The ultra-conservative court upheld those penalties, so the ‘except as a punishment for crimes’ clause in the Constitution now has real teeth. Most of them aren’t willing to risk it. The ones that were are now wearing control collars, and they don’t have an option to walk out.” He shrugged. “The governments like it; it costs a lot to keep a prisoner in jail.”
“That would tend to make the rest of them a lot more cautious,” Terry nodded. “So what’s the next step?”
“We need to get your ponygirl registered and her consent on file. This interview will be part of the file at the Consortium. By the way,” he said as he picked up one of the files and looked at it, “the name you’ve been showing her under is Moonlight on Wheat?”
“Yes,” Terry answered as Anna nodded again.
“I checked with the Ponygirl section of the Slaveowner’s Consortium, and it’s available. That’ll be her registered name, then, unless you want a different one?”
“Uh. No. That’ll be fine,” Terry answered.
“Anna. Once we install the collar it won’t matter if you have second thoughts: the time to decide you don’t want to do this is right now. You know the drill with the contract machines, right? The two machines are linked. You each take one, put the headset on, put your ID on the scanner and your hands on the plate, look at the camera and answer the questions on the screen.”
They both nodded. He handed Anna the collar. “You need to put this on while you’re wearing the headset. It’ll tell you when.”
Anna shook her head a bit ruefully, and then walked up to the leftmost machine as Terry walked up to the other. She put her ID on the scanner, put on the headset, put her hands flat on the scanner and looked at the screen, which was backed by a camera.
The screen lit.
“Identity verified: Anna Winters.”
“Brain scanner functioning properly.”
“Transferable Unrestricted Use Indenture of Anna Winters to Terry Winters.”
“Please confirm that this is the desired contract.”
She pressed yes. It put another question on the screen, and she pressed yes again. It continued for a while, and then instructed her to install the control collar. She took the ribbon and wrapped it around her neck, where it quivered a moment before it shrank slightly to a snug but not tight fit.
She answered a few more questions. Then it displayed the end:
“Willing agreement with the contract terms verified for both parties.”
“Contract registered with the Slaveowner’s Consortium.”
“Contract registered with Ponygirl Section: assigned name is Moonlight on Wheat.”
“Slaveowner’s Consortium ID assigned to indentured party: XXXXXXXX.”
“Excelsior software in control collar initialized.”
“Contract terms installed in control collar.”
“Session ended.”
Anna headed for her chair when she came back.
“Remain standing,” Jed told her. She looked at him. “We’ve got a bit of a ritual to perform. Over here.” He walked over to a wall panel with a mural of a charcoal grill and slid it aside, revealing a gas fired charcoal grill and an exhaust hood, with a display screen above it.
“Take off your clothes and burn them. Say what’s on the screen as you take off each piece and put it in the fire. Watch it burn and use the poker to break up any ashes before you take off the next garment.”
She looked at him incredulously, and then gave a small yelp as he pressed a button on the small controller in his hand. He looked her in the eye for a moment before she dropped her gaze and turned to the oven that was going to consume the most visible symbols of her former existence.
She took her blouse off, and put it into the oven. Then she looked at the screen, squared her shoulders and repeated: “I am a slave. My only desire is to be what my Master wants me to be. How I present myself to the world is His will, not mine. I am his property, and his property must show his mark.”
She touched the on switch, and the gas flame ignited, starting the charcoal coals in the bottom. She watched the fabric curl and burn, the hood sucking the fumes away and the sound muffling her sob.
She took off her bra and added it to the fire, an almost involuntary giggle escaping as she remembered the bra burnings from the long expired women’s movement. She repeated the words on the screen:
“I am a female slave. My breasts make me attractive to males. They exist for my Owner’s pleasure, and it is his will how he takes that pleasure.” She straightened a little as she said them, bringing her breasts up.
She stirred the fire with the poker, looking at the buttons and the hooks and eyes as they glowed in the coals.
She slid off her shorts and tossed them in, showing that she was wearing a rather skimpy thong underneath.
“I am a ponygirl. The globes of my ass give my Master pleasure to look at, and give me a long, firm stride. I exist for my Owner to use and display at his pleasure.”
She slid off the thong and threw it into the fire with a quick twist of her wrist.
“I am a wanton slut. My master gets great pleasure from screwing me. His pleasure is my pleasure, whatever it is.”
Finally she slid off her sandals and put them into the fire.
“I am a ponygirl. My hooves will be shod with steel, the better to dig into the ground and pull my loads. I live to be ridden, to be raced, to be shown and to pull my Owner’s carriage.”
She poked at the fire some more, watching as the sandals disintegrated in the flames.
When she turned away, she saw Terry holding out his hand with the mouthpiece. She took it and slid it into her mouth, wincing slightly as it nestled in and melded with the roof of her mouth. She took the two earplugs from him and slid them into her ears.
“One more thing,” Jed said, “or rather six more things.” He slipped a set of wristlets and anklets around the new ponygirl’s wrists and ankles, finishing up with one just above her knees. He touched a button. She got a surprised look on her face and then brought her arms back behind her until she had them horizontal, palms on opposite elbows.
“How does that work?” Terry asked.
“They’re a training device for the first few days. They cause sensations. As long as she goes away from pressure and moves toward warmth she’ll move her limbs the way we want. Like this.” He pressed another button. This time she smoothly brought her right leg up, stopping when the thigh was horizontal and the calf vertical. She shook a bit on her left leg, and then steadied.
“Beautiful,” Terry clapped. He pulled her in close and gave her a deep kiss.
“And one final thing,” Jed said as they separated. “Head. Back.” he told her, making sure the two words were carefully enunciated and separate. She tilted her head back, and he shined a little light up her nose.
“I see you had her septum pierced.”
“Yes. I had them put in a grommet; she looks delicious with a nose ring, but she can’t really wear it on the street.”
“Not an issue here.” Jed took a partially closed ring and a crimping tool from a drawer, inserted the ring into her nose and crimped the circle closed.
“There. Nicely ringed, eh?”
“Beautiful!”
“Well, let’s get her outside so they can tattoo her registry number and get her to her stall.” Jed opened a door in what had appeared to be the outside wall, snapped a leash on her collar and led her outside. The ponygirl followed beautifully, arms folded behind her and legs coming up to a perfect high step. He threaded the leash through a ring and picked up the phone next to it, giving a few orders in a low tone.
“We need to finish up the details, and then you can head for the airport,” Jed told Terry. “How likely is it that you’re going to release her after two weeks?”
“I don’t know?” he answered. “It depends on a lot of things that haven’t settled yet. If they go one way, she’s going to become my new wife’s runabout when we move to one of the slave owner’s enclaves. Another way, I may send her to the Goodwife Institute for their training when I come back. A third way? I’ll pick her up and we’ll go back to our apartment.” He shrugged.
“Well, if you want to keep her as a ponygirl for long stretches of time, we have some gene modifications you might like to consider. They’re not all mandatory, but you could be ticked for unsafe working conditions if she doesn’t have them. You might also like to know how to use her control collar and our software for managing her while she’s not being a ponygirl.”
“I can do that with it?”
“Most of our workers are slaves, and we needed something to manage them.” He shrugged slightly. “Our management likes to stay close to our core business, and general slave management isn’t it. Whether anyone other than us finds those capabilities useful is up to them. Most of our clients do, some don’t. Most find that it’s got a lot of rough edges.”
The two men started going over the brochures that Jed laid out on the desk.
Moonlight on Wheat stood naked, her leash threaded through the ring in the wall and her arms held crosswise behind her. She wondered briefly how she had come to be standing here, and then laughed to herself. It was clear enough, and looking back on it the last two years led inevitably up to this day. She unconsciously shifted her weight and her right leg came up into the high step pose, thigh horizontal and calf vertical, almost without her thinking about it.
She shifted her weight again, and wished that someone would come and get her; her bladder was threatening to burst.
What she didn’t know was that the physiological monitor in her collar was quite well aware of her condition, assuming it could be said to be aware at all, and was broadcasting it along with the rest of her vital signs. The technician whose job it was to do the next part of her processing had noticed her bladder was full and decided to leave her there to deal with it.
She finally remembered what Jed, was that his name, had said about relieving herself. She was standing on grass, so she finally let go, blushing a bright red as the yellow stream spurted out from between her legs. She noticed a few prickles under her collar and the bands on her wrists and ankles, but dismissed them as random occurrences. It didn’t occur to her that the computer in her collar had recognized one of the many patterns it was programmed to identify and had started a conditioning sequence that would eventually lead to her completely losing bladder control under the appropriate circumstances.
A few minutes later the splatter had dried and she saw a woman walking toward her, a tangle of rope over her shoulder. She wore the same style single shoulder tunic as the secretary; it held her breasts up nicely, flattered her waist and hugged her hips before falling to end around mid-thigh. Other than the tunic she wore a pair of mid-calf length work boots and a red ribbon around her neck, decorated with some kind of little cameo that the ponygirl couldn’t quite make out.
“So,” she said brightly, “you’re Moonlight on Wheat. I’ll just get you fixed up and then you can get all comfortable chained in your new stall, OK?”
The ponygirl looked at her and smiled a bit tremulously. She’d recognized her name, but hadn’t understood anything else the woman had said. However the feeling of cheerfulness had communicated.
“This is a halter,” the woman told her, being very careful to pronounce the word halter distinctly and separately from the rest of the sentence. Anna’s eyes opened wide. She recognized the word halter; the first word beside her name she had recognized since Jed had said “head” and “back” to her a while before.
Halters she knew, she’d worn them often enough when Terry hadn’t thought it was worth while going through the bother of fastening her bridle. She brought her head forward, letting the woman fasten the rope cradle around her head and tighten it.
“Follow,” the woman commanded, tugging on the rope. She followed, high stepping almost automatically as the bands around her limbs subtly prompted her movements.
The woman led her to an alcove in the side of one of the buildings, throwing the lead rope around a convenient ring with a practiced motion. “Stay,” she commanded.
Moonlight looked around her and started at the sight of a charcoal brazier with a handle sticking out of the coals. She relaxed a bit when she saw that it wasn’t lit.
“Steady,” the woman said soothingly as she noticed her subject tense up. “We’re not going to brand you today,” she added as she caressed the ponygirl. “Right now I need you on the restraint rack, though, so back up.” She enunciated the last two words distinctly and carefully.
Moonlight backed up a step and felt something wood behind her. The bands on her limbs prompted her to spread her legs a bit and step up onto the contraption. The woman slid a set of wooden restraints over her limbs and around her waist, pinning her to the rack.
“Steady,” she soothed the jittery ponygirl. “I need to draw a little blood for the lab.” She swabbed a space on the girl’s arm and showed her the syringe, and then expertly drew her blood sample. She labeled it and put it into the refrigerator, and then stroked her subject to calm her down a bit more.
“What we’re going to do now is tattoo your identity number.” She held up a sheet of paper that had writing in purple ink on one side, and then laid it on the ponygirl’s belly just above where her thatch began. She smoothed it down and then sprayed it.
A minute later she took the paper off and studied the results, making sure that each number and letter had transferred completely, without gaps or missing pieces. When she was satisfied, she wheeled over another machine and clamped it against the pinioned ponygirl’s body tightly enough that she couldn’t move. Then she turned it on.
It made a staccato whirring noise as Moonlight drew in her breath and then gasped.
“Easy, girl,” the woman said as she stroked the ponygirl.
Five minutes later the machine turned itself off. She held up a mirror so the ponygirl could look at the scarlet and black symbols that had been tattooed across her belly.
Moonlight on Wheat sighed at the sight. She could make out her name, even though it was reversed in the mirror; the rest was a mysterious set of numbers that she supposed meant something to the Slaveowner’s Consortium’s computers. She knew what they meant for her from conversation at the ponygirl meetings she had been shown at.
As far as the Consortium was concerned, she now belonged to Terry. She was his property, and they wouldn’t accept another owner without a bill of sale from him. They’d accept it and record it if she decided to walk out, assuming she could manage it, but they wouldn’t accept a different owner afterwards. Their position was that her owner at the time she walked out was still her owner until they got a properly registered bill of sale or manumission from him.
The attendant led Moonlight into the stable. This part, she noticed, was a long corridor with a solid wood wall on the left which was crowded with various items of tack, and stalls on the right.
The stalls seemed to be about three feet wide and six or seven deep, with four foot high walls and a pillar at each corner.
About half way down, the attendant stopped in front of a stall that had a sign, “Moonlight on Wheat” on the back. She pressed a lever and the bolt that held the stall door retracted, letting the door swing out. She removed the halter with a practiced gesture and pointed. “In.”
Moonlight walked in and looked around, puzzled. The attendant stepped back to watch. A moment later the ponygirl went “eep!” as her collar jolted her. She looked around, puzzled. The attendant motioned to her throat as if she was clipping something there.
Moonlight scowled but obediently picked up the chain and clipped it to her collar. The attendant nodded and walked out, the heels of her work boots echoing in the silence.
Two stalls farther down, another ponygirl stood quietly watching, the gleaming chain at her throat falling gracefully between her breasts. Moonlight looked over at her; she whinnied back.
The stall, Moonlight decided, was a stall. It had straw on the floor and a pile of blankets in one corner. The light chain she had clipped to her collar came from an iron ring set in the wall. There was a lever on the door that would probably open it, and that was about it. Inspiring it wasn’t.
The wall on the other side of the corridor had her familiar tack. She suspected some of it might be replaced if it didn’t meet Excelsior’s standards.
About then her stomach reminded her that it needed to be fed. She looked around in puzzlement; there didn’t seem to be anything in the stall to eat, or for that matter any place to put food or anything to eat it with.
Possibly the other ponygirl knew where the food was? She opened her mouth to ask, and then closed it when nothing came out. The other ponygirl’s giggle didn’t do anything to help, either, so she mimed putting something in her mouth.
The other ponygirl made an exaggerated “O” of her mouth and then gestured further down the corridor. She unclipped the chain from her collar and walked out of the stall, pausing to take a pair of what looked like strange boots from the wall and slide her hands into them. Then she bent forward on all four hooves and swung her head in a “follow me” gesture.
Moonlight unhooked the chain and left the stall, following the four hoofed ponygirl. She turned down a corridor into a room that had a bar across the far wall about a foot off the floor, and a slot all the way across the wall that was about a foot and a half high and about three feet off the floor.
Her guide walked up to the wall and butted her head gently against a large blue button. There was a swooshing as if water was flowing. Her guide stuck her head into the slot and started to lap it up.
Moonlight walked up to look. Once she got close, it turned out to be fairly obvious: there were bowls every two feet set into the bottom of the slot with a blue and a tan button below each one.
She looked at her guide and almost laughed. The setup was practically impossible to use unless one was on hands and feet. She dropped forward to where she could hold onto the bar, and found that her head fit naturally into the slot. She hit a blue button, and was rewarded with a spurt of water into the bowl. A minute later, she started to slurp it up, realizing just how thirsty she was.
Once she’d drunk her fill, she frowned in thought. Water was good, but where was the food? She decided to hit the tan button and see what happened.
What happened was that something made a noise, and then a small panel she hadn’t noticed lit up with a timer counting down. It said two minutes.
Eventually the timer hit zero, and a slot at the top of the bowl opened and some pale looking stuff oozed out into the bowl. A further look told her it was probably some kind of flavored oatmeal. Ug. However, she was hungry, so she worked on getting it from the bowl into her mouth.
A few minutes later she had licked the bowl clean, thinking that she had probably gotten more into her than on her face, so she hit the blue button again. The remains of the oatmeal swirled down, and the bowl filled so she could plunge her face into it, and drink another few swallows of water.
She noticed her guide had left, so she decided to go back to her stall for a nap. When she got to the corridor, she found her guide taking the front hooves off and carefully putting them back in their proper place on the wall.
A nap did seem to be next. She snapped the chain onto her collar, spread out the blankets and fell sound asleep.
Anna has been enslaved and checked into Excelsior’s stables as a ponygirl, and is now taking a nap. She’s here for two weeks, or so she thinks. Events are going to intervene, as we’ll see in the next exciting episode of Betrayed!
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