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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 seven stories in this series, which takes a young lady named Sally from her first attempts to scratch an itch she isn't able to ignore to becoming a full time career ponygirl, subject to the desires of her legal owner.
1. Trainee Ponygirl
2. Stable Discipline
3. Weekend Ponygirl
4. Show Ponygirl
5. Resident Ponygirl
6. Indentured Ponygirl
7. Academic Ponygirl
Now on to the story...
“I’ve got a proposition for you I think you’ll like,” Janey told Sally as they ate their lunch at a restaurant near where they worked.
What now? Sally thought, but all she said was “Oh?”
“It has to do with your being a ponygirl.”
Sally stared at the blonde, fork full of salad greens stopped part way to her mouth. “I didn’t think anyone at work knew that.”
Janey laughed. “At least half the floor does. You thought nobody would recognize you?”
“Umph.”
Janey laughed again at the expression on Sally’s face. “You should change your hair style. That mass of red ringlets is distinctive. I think the only thing you could do to make it more obvious would be to come in with your tail.”
“My tail doesn’t like either skirts or chairs. So what were you thinking of doing with me?”
“I want to train and show you.”
Sally considered for a moment. “What does that involve?”
“There are ponygirl shows every few weeks. There are contests you enter her in, like racing, fancy rein work, dressage and other things. Some of them have fairly substantial prizes for winning.”
“That might be fun,” Sally said thoughtfully. “The stable is only letting me work two weekends a month, so I’ve got a lot of free time. When can we go to one so I can see what it involves?”
“I’d like you to hit it cold.”
“You’re not my owner.”
“What does that mean?” Janey asked, obviously displeased.
Sally shrugged. “I’m not indentured to you, you’re obviously not my husband and you’re not my boyfriend, so you don’t get to tell me what to do and expect me to do it without discussion.”
“That’s...”
“Coming on a bit strong? Well, yes, but I’m showing you some limits you’ll have to live with if we agree that having you train me and enter me into ponygirl events at shows is something we both want to do.”
“I thought the show programming would do that.”
Sally frowned. Talk about weird ideas! “Up to a point. You
“We’ve always had an expert program mine.”
“Which I take it means you don’t.” She smiled to take the sting out. “Briefly, all the programming in your shield is organized into domains. Each person or business with programming in your shield has his or its own domain. They can’t interfere with each other, and they’ve got strictly limited privileges, suitable for what they need to do.”
“Privileges?”
“Your domain has special privileges. So does your owner’s, and so does your protective association’s. Stornath’s domain, for example, is only active when you’re on company property, but it can prevent you from going into certain areas or handling or operating certain equipment. Or reading certain memos, for that matter.”
“Stornath has programming in my shield?” Janey looked down
“Well, I didn’t either until I learned how to really use my shield. I’ve never found anything that isn’t emphasized in the employee handbook, so I don’t think it’s that big a deal, frankly.”
“
“I had to have a control shield installed before they would let me do weekends, and I’m kind of a control freak. I like to be controlled, but I also like to know how I’m being controlled, and I like to be able to put my own limits on what I’m being controlled to do, so I learned how to do my own programming.”
“That sounds complicated.”
“Oh, it is. What’s worse is that the extensions into the brain have to be grown, and that takes both patience and some pretty strange exercises to coax them into the right places. The programming is relatively easy.”
“It’s still not clear.” Janey shook her head as if to clear it, her blonde pageboy bob settling softly on her shoulders. “It might help if you walked me though how it works.”
“Well, you’d get a domain in my shield. That domain would have semi-owner privileges when I’m being a ponygirl and in specific locations, and it would have friend privileges otherwise.”
Janey nodded.
“Since you’ve got a shield, you could send commands from your shield to mine.”
Janey lifted an eyebrow.
“Well, if I was hitched to your chariot, you could control me directly, rather than using the reins. That is, of course, once you learn to actually use that piece of metal between your legs.”
“And if I didn’t?”
“Then it would be more complicated. You’d either need to use some form of remote, or program in voice or visual commands like hand signals.”
“Oh! Like my husband has me programmed.”
“Exactly,” Sally said dryly.
“Hubby kept all the programs and equipment when my shield was installed,” Janey said thoughtfully. “I don’t think he’d have any problem with my using them, though. It was more that I wasn’t interested. Why would I want to make the effort?”
“You can give commands to the ponygirls you’re showing just by thinking them. I’ve got my apartment set up so that I can turn things on and off with a thought.”
“Wow!” Janey’s eyes went wide at that. “I thought that was fiction!”
“It mostly is, but that’s only because most women with them installed never learn to use them for themselves. They think they have to have them so their owners or husbands can control them, and they never think what they can make them do. When you get right down to it, they’re programmable network devices, and they can talk to anything else on the network, like your household control computer. In fact,” she grinned, “I’ve got it set up so my household computer can control me.”
Janey looked at her friend strangely. “Say what?”
“It’s a modified version of the task program they use for indentured household servants. My household computer sets up the work schedule, and then transmits the next task when the current one is done. When I want to do chores, I simply give it control. My apartment has never looked so good!
“It’s also,” she added a bit thoughtfully, “coordinated with my boyfriend’s domain, so when we’re home together and he wants a beer or wants to use me, he just pushes a button and I bring him the beer or fall on my knees and pull his zipper.”
“You’re right. That is kinky. So what you’re telling me is that I can show the perfectly programmed ponygirl, if I learn how to work the controls.”
Sally laughed. “That’s certainly one way of putting it! I like being controlled, and I like people using me. Having lots of different people use me is what I like about the amusement park; being a household robot isn’t quite as satisfying. It’s more complicated, which I like, but it doesn’t have the variety of people.”
“So you want to see one before you make a decision,” Janey nodded. “I think there’s one the 23
“That should work,” Sally said, her eyes unfocused for a moment. “Yes, it does. I don’t work at the park that weekend.”
“You just checked your organizer, didn’t you?” Janey said, half
“Yep,” Sally chuckled. “I figured you needed to see how convenient it could be. The shields are just network devices, and there are programs to interface them with all kinds of things.”
“And all I need to do is learn how to really use mine to
“So tell me one,” Sally said. “Have you shown ponygirls before?”
“Just one, and that’s my sister-in-law. They’re really into the ponygirl thing; they’ve got a stall for her, and she pulls their lawnmower. It’s built with shafts instead of a motor. She’s trained to pull a chariot, and he drives her into town to do their shopping.”
“That is serious! How do they get away with it?”
“It’s a fairly upscale community. There are a couple of other wives that have been trained to be ponygirls, and there are quite a few indentured pets; mostly puppies and kitties, but there are a few ponygirls as well. It’s not unusual to find a ponygirl hitched to the rack in front of the supermarket.”
“Sounds like a great place to live!”
“Oh, it is. They thought that showing her would be fun, but they’re getting a bit restive that I’m not taking her to higher levels. I’m finding that standard stimulus and response training only gets so far, at least with the time we’ve got to spend on it.
“I don’t think they’re going to quit showing her, though. They just bought a ponygirl trailer, and they’ve started keeping her in the stable during shows. She changes at home, and doesn’t change back until they return.”
“Talk about suburbanites with too much time on their hands. So you want to show me. I’m game as long as you learn how to command me internally. I like the feel of the reins, but I also like just following my feelings, and I absolutely love knowing that my feelings are being dictated by my driver!”
Sally pulled her car into the strip mall, and found the place she was looking for sandwiched between a dry cleaner and a convenience store. The relatively undistinguished shop proclaimed that it was Joe’s Programming. The smaller sign on the window proclaimed that it specialized in programming all models of control shields. She almost expected there to be a special this week on taming unruly wives.
The honey blonde behind the counter wearing the skimpy lab coat did not look like she could be Joe. Josette, maybe. However, she flashed Sally a smile and looked at a list. “Hi, you must be Sally?”
“I am, but how did you know?”
“We see all, know all, tell very little,” she said, dropping her voice in an attempt to sound
“We read your control shield when you came in the door, of course. Janey isn’t here yet. What can we do for you today? Lesbian commitment ceremony?”
“Nothing like that,” Sally responded, silently noting the comment. “I’m a ponygirl and Janey is going to be showing me. We need a shared key so she can install her support programs in my shield. She also needs a training course in how to use it.”
“That should be simple. Come on back so we can get started. Since you mentioned training, can I interest you in a course?”
“No,” Sally laughed. “I can’t come all the way out here regularly, and I’m probably ahead of any courses you have.”
“Well, let’s get you hooked up,” she said, leading the way into a back room. The room had a line of chairs along the right wall, and a long desk that had built-in screens, keyboards and other stuff against the opposite wall. There were women in several of the chairs, their legs spread because of the bulk of the post that separated them.
“I see you wore a short skirt; that makes it easier. Just take your panties off and sit down so your shield fits into the post.”
Sally looked at the chair doubtfully, and then reached under her skirt and slid her panties down. When she sat, the bulk of the post forced her legs apart. The curve of the chair slid her down until she was nestled against the post. She squirmed a bit to get comfortable; suddenly she heard a click from the post, and she found herself pinned, unable to move.
A moment later, she felt something remove the center of her chastity and control shield, and then replace it. A pair of ghostly fingers gently separated her lower lips, and then she felt a very stiff rod slide down her tunnel. She gasped and then discovered that she was no longer able to talk.
She felt the commands start to come up her command channel, and discovered she couldn’t intercept them. The commands probed the connection between the channel and her brain, doing things she had never heard of.
Then she heard a ghostly voice. “Phase one check complete. 216 function points. Coverage is 48% of released areas, no coverage in experimental areas. Average capability in covered areas is 78%.”
Then it continued. “Phase two commences. I’m going to give you verbal instructions. Please say yes on the data channel.”
She almost decided to not play their silly game, but then shrugged and replied.
“Very good. Now say no.”
She complied again.
“You seem to be very well developed. We’re going to skip most of the detail and go for a more sophisticated test. How many domains are currently installed?”
The test went on from there. As it went on, Sally kept revising her opinion of her mastery level downward. Eventually it stopped.
“Phase II complete. Basic data channel utilization: 87%. Shield content management: 68%. Basic programming: 57%. Advanced programming: 28%. This puts testee in the 97%th percentile.”
It seemed like nothing else was going to happen for a while, so she started paying attention to the room. One of the other women had left and two more had joined them. Neither one was Janey, though. The honey blonde wasn’t in the room, either.
“Hi,” a voice said on her audio channel. “I see you’re back with us. That was the highest score I’ve ever seen! The system is suggesting the mastery review course for the data channel. That’s a great course, by the way. It fills in all of the blanks. My score went from around 60% to the high 90s, and I’ve never heard of anyone, and I mean anyone, scoring 100% on any of the mastery tests.”
“I thought I was hot stuff until that test! I’ll have to think about that course. But where’s Janey?”
“She called and said she’d be a bit late, and the 97
“I’d rather you fix it! I’m the one that likes being controlled, but the idea that the controller might be controlled is icky.”
“Just a bit of an integrity test, girl! If you ever decide you want to be indentured, I could really use a housekeeper and ponygirl!”
“I’m surprised you can’t buy one.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be. I could buy one of each, but finding the combination for sale is rare. They seem to grow on trees over in Shackle Acres, but most of them are married, not indentured.”
“Pity. As long as we’re talking, why is this thing stuck into me?”
“It’s a testing probe. It bypasses the shield so we can test the data and control connections directly. It’s a felony to
“That would be fun, but I’d prefer to chat if you’ve got the time.”
“I’ve got time between vic- ah, clients, and I’d love to talk.”
“So, if you don’t mind a personal question, you don’t look like your name is Joe!”
“Joe’s a local businessman who owns a number of small shops in this area. His gig is to shop the slave and indenture auctions looking for ones that he thinks could operate a small business like this. He buys them, sets up the business and trains them. Then he rakes in the profits.”
“So you’re indentured?”
“I’m a crim-slave. I thought my sister was getting badly mistreated by her husband, and her protective association wasn’t doing anything about it. So I killed him, and then removed a couple of other slimeballs. Then I turned myself in, and they gave me a sex change and some basic obedience training and put me up for auction. I knew what the deal was going in; I had no illusions about what would happen to me when I offed those stinkers. At least they shut down that association after the scandal!
“I’ve got a nice apartment upstairs, and pretty much do my own thing when the shop is closed. Except when he rents me out to a client.”
“Rents you out?” Sally asked, fascinated by the tale.
“To business travelers. They come in for a few days or a few weeks, and they’ve got a nice apartment complete with housekeeping, maid service and a mistress if they want one.”
“All while you’re running the shop?”
“Hey, nobody said my life was easy, but that’s why we’re looking for a combined housekeeper and ponygirl.”
Another Friday, Sally mused as she drove along. This time, though, she wasn’t going to either her less and less frequently visited apartment with its more and more neglected boyfriend, or to the stable that was occupying more and more of her time. She was headed for the woman who wanted to be her trainer and show her.
Her last set of conversations, though, had sparked an interesting innovation. Her car wasn’t the newest one on the road. In fact, it was several years old. It had enough sensors so it always knew where it was, and enough computer power so it could have driven itself if she had the automatic driving equipment. However, she didn’t, and it was simply too expensive for the little she used it.
Her next car would have it for sure. The government had made it
She’d downloaded another module from the net and installed it into her shield. She was now directly connected to the car’s computer, and the car was feeding driving instructions directly into her motor areas. She could already tell the difference. She’d always weaved a bit back and forth in her lane, today she was holding it like she was on a rail. She hadn’t missed a turn signal yet, and had always been in the right lane at the right time.
She also wasn’t speeding, but she was making more lights than ever before. It would have been weird, except that she already knew the computer was a better driver than she was. That had been proved the second year the automatic drivers were out and there were enough of them on the road to make a difference. They had wiped out start and stop driving on the expressways by the simple expedient of driving at the exact average speed and letting the car ahead of them do whatever it wanted to.
It certainly let her mind wander while driving without causing a problem! However, she saw the house she wanted ahead, and it seemed that Janey had made it there before her.
“Hey, Janey,” she waved as she shut the car down and waved.
“Oh, there you are,” Janey waved back.
“Can I borrow your bathroom to change?” Sally asked.
“I hope you brought weekend clothes.”
“Oh, much better than that,” Sally replied as she got the suitcase from the trunk and hauled it into the house.
A few minutes later she walked out, grinning from ear to ear.
“Eep!” Janey exclaimed. The surprise was
She’d also put overboots on over her hooves so the iron horseshoes wouldn’t damage floors. All together, the hooves and boots added a good eight inches to her otherwise rather average height.
“Are you?” Janey asked, trying to recover.
“I didn’t pack the rest of my tack, so I’m not going to do much if anything as a ponygirl. I just thought that adding to the local color might be fun. Besides, if we’re short on expenses, I can overnight in a stall.”
“Stalls cost more than a single in the dorm,” Janey commented offhandedly. “Should we coordinate?”
“We already are,” Sally replied. “I enabled it when I drove up. You should be able to direct me to do anything that’s programmed in your domain.”
“Huh?”
“Try a command,” Sally told her with a grin.
Janey looked at her strangely, and then her eyes went unfocused. A moment later Sally whinnied and stamped a hoof.
“Did I make you do that?” Janey asked, a bit of awe in her voice.
“Yes. I saw the commands. Good going, by the way.”
Janey shook her head. “It can’t be that simple.” She sighed. “Well, let’s get going.”
Sally dove back into her car to retrieve a
Janey expertly guided the car down several streets and eventually pulled up in front of a split level ranch house placed in the center of a large, well kept up lawn. “Guide me in,” Janey told Sally as she backed the car up to a closed trailer. Sally got out, and waved her back until the trailer was properly aligned with the hitch.
A couple of minutes later, a well built man came out of a back door leading a ponygirl. She was walking on all four hooves, not least because the man had her on a very tight rein. Janey let the back of the trailer down, and the man marched her up the ramp.
The trailer seemed to have two compartments on the bottom, both of which seemed to be two feet wide by three high. He shoved her into the left hand compartment while Janey opened the front of the trailer. That turned out to have a recess about a foot or so deep, with a half foot wide vertical slot in front of each compartment. Janey slid the top off of the slot, and the ponygirl poked her head out. Then Janey shoved her head down, so that her neck went into the slot, and closed the top, sliding two bolts so that it would stay closed.
Sally walked up to inspect the contrivance. On closer inspection, she saw that the width of the vertical slot could be adjusted in half inch increments, and that both the sides and the front were well padded with shock
They spent a few minutes loading tack and luggage into the upper compartment and making sure it would not come loose, and then closed and padlocked both ends.
The man stood back and looked at Sally, and then offered her his hand. “I’m Hank, by the way. You’re Sally?”
“Known as Flying Hooves when I’m being a ponygirl,” she replied, vigorously shaking the proffered hand.
“That’s some rig,” he said. “Mind if I take a couple of minutes and look?”
“Not at all,” she replied, and slid out of her tunic so he could look closer.
“Real solid legs,” he commented as he ran a hand down one leg and then tapped her on the side of the calf. She lifted the leg, and he took the boot off and then replaced it. “So that’s how you protect floors.”
He traced the ankle and frowned. “How do you stand being in full extension all the time?”
“It’s some kind of genetic mod,” she answered as he put the leg down and she rebalanced. “I had to wear toe shoes for an hour a day for the first couple of months of training. After that, I found I could wear either flats or the toe shoes however long I liked, but I still couldn’t walk on three inch heels for more than a few hours without my feet hurting. I’m afraid I got a bit of a reputation at work after that for being a bit overboard on dressing sexy; I just
“I presume those are sheaths of some kind?” he said, drawing his finger down her thigh again.
“Yes, it’s some kind of a memory fabric. There’s a gadget that makes it relax so I can take it on and off, and then it tightens up on its own when it senses my body heat.”
“Neat stuff. Now, how does that tail work?”
She swished it for him. “That was some minor surgery to attach the socket to my tailbone. The tail itself snaps into the socket. There’s a control link to the motor areas of my brain; it took a couple of months for my brain to reprogram itself properly. That is, by the way, the same data and control link that the shield uses, so I can move my tail with a program.”
“Interesting. We’re going to have to look into that. With that tunic, it’s easy to think that your entire body is covered with horsehair. Clever illusion, that. I presume the arms sheaths are for the illusion?”
“Of course. Normally I wear hoof boots on my front legs, with a foot long extension so my back is level.”
“It’s still a nice illusion. Well, let’s get going.”
They got. Hank was reasonable and sat in the back; Sally’s legs, what with the hoofs and extra boots were simply too long to fit.
The show was at a small convention area that specialized in “get away from it all” type outings. While it wasn’t that far away from anything, it was surrounded on three sides by scrub woods that were in turn backed by more substantial security barriers that belonged to other companies. That was, on reflection, amusing. They didn’t want the people in the camp trespassing, and the convention area didn’t want trespassers, so their barriers were like gold: it made it look like they were more afraid of the conventioners than the conventioneers were of them.
The access area led into the parking lot, and from there a covered path led past a guard station to the actual convention area. The convention area had a central open space surrounded by a number of buildings. One of them turned out to be the stable, and two more were bunkhouses with really tiny rooms. Then there was a dining building, and two more buildings that had meeting rooms.
What helped, though, was that it had a lot of outdoor space, including a running track that went entirely around the buildings. The show attracted well over a hundred people, plus around fifty ponygirls of wildly varying ages, experience, status and seriousness. They varied from enthusiastic amateurs like Easter Dance, through professional quality independents like Flying Hooves, to indentured ’girls that had been trained show ponies for a decade or more.
Fifty wasn’t entirely accurate. That was the number that were housed in the stables. The convention area had drawn the line some time ago about part timers in the stables: if a ponygirl had stable space, she came in a ponygirl trailer and left in one, and didn’t change in between. There were maybe a dozen amateurs that didn’t particularly want to spend two days as ponygirls; they would change elsewhere, do their thing and then change back.
Janey pulled the car and trailer up under the covered loading and unloading area, and got Easter Dance out of the ponygirl trailer. Even though she had to walk down the ramp backwards, she came out a lot faster than she went in.
The pulled the chariot out of the trailer and hitched Easter Dance to it after hastily assembling it. Then they loaded it with the rest of their equipment. Janey slid into the seat and flicked the reins to get the ponygirl moving as Hank and Sally walked up the path beside her.
As they led Easter Dance down the path from the parking lot, they walked through the registration checkpoint. Flying Hooves chuckled as she felt a computer on the network query her control shield and discover that she didn’t have the convention center’s module installed. She sent back an approval to install it from the network, and nodded as it suddenly appeared within the shield. The analysis programs in her module promptly reported that it was nothing special: it was a basic security module that would keep her out of places she wasn’t supposed to be, and otherwise let her know where the other members of her party were at all times.
She looked on in bemusement at Janey’s sour expression as she lifted her skirt for the module to be installed by cable. Easter Dance rolled her eyes as the attendant attached a cable to her shield as well. Hank, of course, simply got an identification badge. She shrugged. If Janey wanted to put up with that, it wasn’t her business.
Janey stopped at the single men’s dorm, and they unloaded Hank’s suitcase, and then she went to the single women’s dorm where they unloaded their own bags. Then she drove the ponygirl to the chariot and equipment storage area where she unhitched Easter Dance from the chariot, and then pressed a code on her communicator. The stable computer took over control of the ponygirl: she promptly turned and trotted into the stable, where she’d be sent to the latrine, and then unharnessed and groomed before being sent to her stall, all untouched by human hands.
The stable itself was organized with three long corridors of ponygirl stalls. The center corridor had stalls on both sides, the other two corridors only had stalls on one side. Each side had fifteen stalls in a row, giving space for sixty ponygirls. Since the convention area owned a half dozen ponygirls of their own, it wasn’t quite overflowing, but it was tight. The stalls were almost the same ones as Flying Hooves’ home stable: three feet wide, five feet long and a low table for food and water on the inside end. They had a good covering of straw on the floor. The inside ends of the stalls in adjacent corridors were separated by a small equipment runway where a robot kept the water and ponygirl mush plates filled.
The other members of the party headed for the convention center to pick up their schedules. They conferred briefly over the list of events, with Sally blocking out her time to be with Janey whenever she was working Easter Dance. She did, after all, want to see exactly how Janey was handling her to get an idea of whether she really wanted the blonde as her show trainer.
Over half of the events were races. They didn’t interest her in the slightest. Not that she had any objection to Janey racing her if that was what she wanted; she just didn’t think there was anything for her to learn by watching one. Besides, there were lots of good ponygirl races on video.
She dithered slightly between the oddball events and some of the presentations, eventually deciding on the events. Most of the presentations didn’t look all that interesting from a ponygirl’s perspective. After all, she wore bridles, she didn’t design them, and what style she wore was more the stable’s or her owner’s or presenter’s decision.
The oddball events, on the other hand, were something her presenter might want her to do, so she inserted them into her schedule.
Saturday morning was bright, crisp and clear, just the right day for wandering back and forth taking in the sights, inspecting vendor’s booths and answering questions from people that were fascinated by her outfit. It was, she thought, probably the last time she’d see one of these events from a human perspective, although one never quite knew.
“Now what are they doing?” Sally asked Janey as the organizers started to clear a stretch of road.
“Setting up for the parallel parking, I would think,” Janey answered. “It’s one of the more difficult events.”
“What’s difficult about parallel parking?”
“Oh, lots. Very few entrants get above a 5.0, and a lot of them simply foul out. It’s got very strict scoring requirements.”
The activity eventually sorted itself out. They’d put up a low barrier on one side for a curb, and placed two chariots with ponygirls standing in the traces next to it to block out the two ends of the parking space. There was a long line of chariots, complete with drivers and ponygirls at one end.
One of the judges waved a flag, and the first contestant started his ’girl with a flick of the reins and a loud “gehup!” She moved out smartly, hardly seeming to strain getting the chariot into motion.
“Nice rein work,” Janey commented in a low voice.
“I see.” The driver was using very light tugs of the reins to guide his ponygirl into the exact position he wanted. He pulled back and stopped her with a
Eventually he got his chariot into the space. He got out and wrapped the reins around a post next to the pony’s head. Then he unwrapped them, got back in, and
“I didn’t think he was that bad!” Sally said.
“Well, it’s difficult. He was too far out, and he took way too long. His rein work while backing up was atrocious, and his pony didn’t obey the signals properly. I’ve tried training Easter Dance for this event, and never got far enough to make it worth entering her. Do you think?”
“Is there any rule against using an autopilot?”
“Huh?”
“I’m thinking about the way the computers run cars. I’ve got mine rigged so that the car computer controls me while I’m driving. It’s a lot more accurate than I am by myself.”
Janey shook her head. “I still haven’t figured you out! So how would we do it?”
“Well, my part of the program should be relatively easy. It’s mostly which leg goes where, when, and also making it flow so it looks natural. It’s your part that will be interesting.”
“Oh?” They stopped to watch the next contestant bring his chariot next to the lead chariot, frown and then go back and forth a couple of times to get the right position.
“We need sensors, and the only ones available are in your head. Getting the data from your visual system is going to be interesting. Then you’re going to have to handle the reins while you’re looking over your shoulder, which is a different motor pattern.”
The comedy of errors finally ended, with the second contestant getting a rousing 1.5.
“That was awful, wasn’t it?”
“
“I’ll help.”
“Oh? How?”
“I’ll build you a task module for your part of the process. You’ll enable it when we’re doing the parallel parking routine, and disable it afterwards. You’ll enable and disable my task module as well.”
“Task module?”
“That’s a module that handles a specific task. Yours will have to use your eyes as sensors, figure out what you want me to do at any given time, and then use a specialized set of rein signals to get me to do it. Mine simply has to interpret those rein signals and coordinate my hooves to make it happen gracefully.”
“How do you do that?”
“Well, I just found out that the programmer that connected us gave my module in your shield both programmer and trainer authority. That’ll let me build and debug the module while we’re working on it. It’ll take a while, though, because you’ll need to grow some new neural connections.”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”
“Giving away too much control?”
“Ah, huh.”
“You’re not actually giving anything away. It’s more of a loan; your protective association is supposed to monitor anything that happens under either authority.”
“My protective association? I know I’ve got one, but I’ve never heard from them.”
“Where did they come from?”
“My church, when I got married and they installed the shield.”
“Well, think of changing to a different one! Church related protective associations are for the birds unless all you want is to be protected against your husband abusing you beyond the particular sect’s ideas of utterly unreasonable.
“Also, I’d suggest that we drop the trainer privilege as soon as you’ve got some facility with programming your personal module.”
Janey’s laugh sounded a bit strained. “Actually, I’m having more trouble with the idea of a little module between my legs controlling you than I am with you having some kind of controlling authority. I’m still having trouble dealing with how much you like being controlled.”
“It is a bit weird, isn’t it? The amusing part of it is that I seem to be one of the people that Kiss Pray was originally supposed to be directed at. It’s a fetish, of course.”
“Oh? Right. Kinky Sex Practices.”
“Exactly.”
If anything was going to make her balk, Sally thought to herself, it was this. She had driven to the stable after work like she did on the Fridays when she was scheduled for working in the amusement park, but this time was different. She wasn’t scheduled for the amusement park. Janey was going to take her to a ponygirl show as a ponygirl.
She’d gotten herself into her ponygirl bondage: hoof boots and tail, and the computer had routed her to her stall. She relieved herself, ate and stood on all four hooves, staring at the wall.
Then a groom had come and tacked her up, wrapping the heavy leather band with all the buckles around her waist, and putting her head in a bridle and bit. He threw some other tack over his shoulder and led her out into another corridor she hadn’t been in before.
The corridor eventually came out to a loading dock which had an open ponygirl trailer parked next to it. She could see a ponygirl’s hindquarters in the left hand compartment.
The groom led her to the right hand compartment and then shoved her into the dark cavern with the vertical slit of light at the end. She managed to poke her head through the opening, and saw Janey standing. She whinnied at her, and Janey scratched her behind the ears before taking her bit out. Then she swung the top closed, imprisoning Flying Hooves’ neck in the vertical slot. A moment later, she swung the front closed, leaving the imprisoned ponygirl in almost total darkness, with just a bit of light coming through the slot.
The trailer swayed a bit as she heard the scratching as they stowed more tack in the top compartment, then she heard the rattle as the back panel came down, removing what little light had been left. The definite snick of the padlock that secured the door seemed a bit redundant.
She sighed to herself. The ponygirl trailer wasn’t her idea of first class traveling
She concentrated internally. Both Easter Dance’s and Janey’s control shields showed up clearly on the network, but Easter Dance didn’t respond to the chat request. It wasn’t that she was offline or that she had been specifically blocked. She just seemed to be so inept that she couldn’t recognize a chat request through her control shield. Flying Hooves didn’t even try Janey. Talking to someone driving a car was flatly forbidden even if either she or Janey wanted to breach the separation their roles imposed. She sighed again. It was going to be a long ride. At least she knew where she was; Easter Dance likely didn’t. Her control shield showed her location to within a few feet, and she could get the map locations from the free public part of the data net. She tuned into one of her favorite music channels and tried to take her mind off the sways and bumps.
An hour or so later the car and trailer pulled to a stop. Flying Hooves didn’t notice at first: they’d stopped and started enough times in traffic that she had quit paying attention. She noticed when Janey got out and opened the front of the trailer, and sunlight suddenly
A moment later, she heard the back door being unlocked and rolled up. Easter Dance came out first, negotiating the incline like she had done it many times before. Flying Hooves backed out next, being very careful of her footing. Hank snapped reins on their bridles and tied them off to a post set near the unloading area.
Then Hank and Janey pulled their chariots out of the storage bin on top and swiftly assembled them. Hank unloaded the luggage and tack while Janey fastened the two ponygirl’s waistbands and tightened them. Then she hitched them to the chariots and drove the car and trailer off to find a parking space while Hank stood by the two harnessed ponygirls.
A few minutes later she walked up and they got into the chariots, with Hank driving his wife, and Janey driving Flying Hooves. They stopped at the checkpoint, and the guard checked them in on his list. “Let’s just get your control shields updated,” he said, reaching for the programmer.
“I hate this,” Janey muttered as she made to lift her short skirt so he could insert the cable into her control shield to download the module.
“All done,” Janey told the guard as she dropped the hem of her skirt.
“I see that, but what happened? They either turn green immediately, or stay red until I plug in the programmer.”
“I’d like to know myself. My ponygirl fixed it, whatever it was.” The guard gave Flying Hooves a very strange look, and then shrugged.
Why would they do that?
I’m not entirely sure, although I can make a guess. You said your PA was associated with your church. Those are set up for “wife stays home and meekly obeys husband.” There’s no need for checking out loadable modules, so they simplify their process by forbidding it. It cuts down on expenses and lets them charge less.
Remember that I’ve got trainer’s
So if I learned the proper command I wouldn’t have to go through this?
Either that or change protective associations. I’d suggest doing both.
Janey nodded to herself. Another wrinkle, and one she should probably deal with soon. She wasn’t going to bother Jim with it, she decided. As long as she could download the damn modules herself and not have to wear a short skirt so she could lift it for idiot security guards!
Sally, or maybe it was really Flying Hooves, was very good for her, she decided. The redhead might be crazy as a loon to want to be a ponygirl when she had other career options, but she’d certainly gotten her off of dead center in considering what she could make the control shield do for her, rather than avoiding the issue of what the control shield could do to her.
Janey drove her ponygirl smartly to the single women’s dormitory, and hauled her luggage to the broom closet they
She drove her chariot into its assigned space, unhitched the ’girl from the traces and looped the reins over the shoulder harness. Then she punched in a code on her communicator.
The stable computer promptly took over control of the surprised ponygirl, sending her a set of commands that made her trot to the latrine, where she emptied herself out, and then to the grooming machine. Flying Hooves found that a new experience. The grooming
The cart rolled into the next station, where she was thoroughly hosed down with warm, soapy water, cleansed with infrasound and then rinsed. The next station dried her off with warm air. The station after that had another set of machines with lots of arms that combed out her hair and tail, and rubbed her down with massage oil. The last station put her hoof boots back on. The computer then sent her to her stall, where she promptly started in on the ponygirl mush.
The ponygirl mush, she decided, seemed to be exactly the same stuff they had in her home stable. On reflection, it made sense. There was probably someplace that put out hermetically sealed 50 gallon drums of Industrial Ponygirl Mush. She giggled to herself, and decided that she could get to really like this system. She wondered why her home stable didn’t have it, and then figured that it probably did, but not in the section for transients. It certainly didn’t seem at all bashful about taking control of her movements back and forth to the amusement park!
A couple of minutes of experimenting showed that there was, indeed, a stable system she could access, and there was even a high resolution laser display with access to all the usual channels. She decided it was probably a standard system, marketed by the same people that marketed Industrial Ponygirl Mush.
She tapped into the convention system and learned that Janey had registered them for several events, including two races, the ponygirl parallel park and the random obstacle course.
The random obstacle course wasn’t something she was particularly concerned about. That was a holographic system that projected a course and various obstacles that the driver had to race her ponygirl around without running into them or knocking them over. The course changed every time, and sometimes changed during a run. The best Flying Hooves could do to help the team was to stay in ponygirl space and react as trained. On second thought, maybe she could do something with the parallel park task modules to let them corner like a race car. Well, she thought, it would need a lot of practice, so it was for next time.
The races she could do without, but as long as Janey was the one showing her, what Janey wanted, Janey got. There were a couple of good racing programs out there. She downloaded one, and presently was happily
She didn’t, however, have a great deal of time to work on the program, because a few minutes later the computer took over again and sent her to the latrine and then the groomer. This time the final station wrapped her waistband around her, installed the shoulder harness, and fastened her headstall around her head. When one of the arms brought up her bit, her mouth opened without any
Then they wrapped a leather strap around her head. The strap had pads that covered her eyes, and more pads which covered her ears. The later had computer controlled counter noise generators that left her totally deaf. She whinnied in surprise as she realized she really was cut off from whatever was going on around her. It wasn’t, however, a totally new experience; her trainer had used the same system several times to instill absolute obedience to the reins.
The computer sent her out to the chariot parking area and left her standing next to a two pony chariot. Janey took her reins and carefully
A minute later, Hank walked out and slid into the seat next to her.
Flying Hooves’ shield, of course, immediately identified Easter Dance as the ponygirl to her right. It wasn’t surprising that Janey might want to take them out in a two pony rig, but she was sitting to one side rather than in the middle. That meant someone else was sitting next to her, and that someone was most likely male since he didn’t have a control shield. She concentrated, and a moment later identified both Janey’s and Hank’s communicators.
Flying Hooves snorted softly. So Janey and Hank didn’t want either of their ponygirls to listen to what was happening behind them? She sent a command to her module in Janey’s shield, and a moment later started listening through Janey’s ears to the conversation as her body reacted to the various tugs and twitches of the reins. Janey, she thought amusedly, really ought to learn enough to remove the trainer privilege from her module!
The conversation started out with what sounded like the end of a torrid kiss, and the physiology monitor certainly confirmed it! So Janey was stepping out with a married man, while the man’s wife was harnessed to the chariot. It sounded like the beginning of a really bad romance novel. Probably a best-seller.
The conversation wandered back and forth after that, confirming her impression of a really bad romance novel. If this went on to fruition, Easter Dance was going to find herself an indentured ponygirl rather than a housewife with a somewhat kinky hobby, and Janey’s husband might well wind up as a feminized crim-slave harnessed right next to his sister.
She idly wondered if there was anything she could do to wreck the plot, preferably without leaving traces.
Janey drove them in fairly random patterns around the track, and eventually pulled them up before the men’s barracks. She and Hank left them hitched to a rail while they went inside. Hank
A half hour later, Janey came out and backed the chariot into the roadway. Her physiology, Flying Hooves noted, certainly indicated being recently and well fucked. She drove the chariot around randomly for a while as she cooled off, and then eventually came back to the stable. Hank met her there and they had another torrid goodnight kiss before unharnessing their ponygirls. Janey punched in the release code, and the computer took over their movements, sending the two of them to the latrine, and then to the automated groomer. It then walked her back to her stall, where it tried to put her down for the night.
She recognized the sleep command sequence and idly deleted it while she had some ponygirl mush and a drink. Then she lay down on her side on the straw, legs folded up so that she didn’t hit the stall sides or extend out into the corridor, and thought it over. She finally decided that she needed to make a cover your ass report to Excelsior, and ask them what she needed to do to stay out of trouble with this nascent plot. She tossed the ball into Excelsior’s court and replayed the sleep commands from the computer. A moment later, the redheaded ponygirl was snoring gently on the straw in her stall.
The next
She checked the schedule, and discovered that she had another three hours before her first scheduled event, which was a race. She didn’t, of course, have any idea whether Janey would take her out for a ride first. The thought sent a delicious shiver of anticipation through her; the uncertainty about when her owner would want her for something was what being a ponygirl was all about; at least for her.
There was a private message waiting in her shield from Excelsior. It said to try to keep out of trouble and pretend she didn’t know anything was going on. That wasn’t horribly illuminating, but on second thought it was what she should have expected: she’d asked to be kept out of trouble, so they certainly weren’t going to tell her anything that might indicate complicity if the criminal justice system decided she had information they wanted. That was one of the drawbacks of the control shields: the justice system could open her up like a can of soup, and pour out the contents for their examination. She could fudge with her owner, but only if he wasn’t particularly competent at examining her program.
A couple of hours later the computer jerked her out of considering the race program and routed her through the latrine and the harnessing machine. This time it equipped her with a conventional set of blinders and checkreins so that she could not move her head. It sent her out to the chariot parking area. Janey stood next to their racing chariot, communicator in her hand. She pushed a number of buttons, backing Flying Hooves between the shafts a bit clumsily even if fairly effectively. Then she picked up the shafts and buckled her into the traces. “Now that,” she said, “is what I call efficiency.”
She slid into the seat and flipped the reins, starting Flying Hooves on her path to the racetrack. When they got there, she found that they’d rolled a starting gate out onto the track. The gate was a relatively simple affair, with four foot wide sections that were about three feet deep. The front had a horizontal bar around two feet above the ground that a ponygirl wouldn’t be able to go over in four footed mode. At least, she wouldn’t be able to go over it when she was doing a racing start, which is what mattered.
Janey drove her into the fourth slot, and let the reins droop. Flying Hooves simply stood there, keeping her head back of the bar. She knew it would slide up swiftly when the gun went off, and also that it was covered with powder that would glow under ultraviolet light. If the bar even touched her hair, it counted as a break ahead of the gun, and she’d be disqualified.
The back and forth of the drivers trying to adjust their ponygirls for an inch or so advantage eventually stopped, and the line stood there, pretty much as if it had been carved out of so much multicolored stone, the stillness only broken by the
“CRAKKK!” The gun sounded, and the barrier slid upwards swiftly.
The seven ’girls in this race bolted from the gate, dragging their chariots and drivers behind them. Flying Hooves felt the sting of a lash across her hindquarters, and redoubled her efforts, charging straight ahead with her head down, and only paying attention that she stayed between the chalk lines that defined her lane. A moment later, she responded to the reins pulling her left, and then left again. Another jerk of the reins propelled her into the lane next to the fence.
She spotted a chariot in front of her, and tried to move up a bit so her nose was almost in the other driver’s back. The pressure on her reins told her to not be quite so aggressive. Then the lane curved to the left, and she went around the end with the rest of the field.
As soon as it straightened, she felt another white hot streak across her hindquarters together with the tug of the reins to the right. She pulled to the second lane and laid on the speed. She slowly pulled ahead of the ponygirl and chariot on her left. Of course, she couldn’t see them once her head pulled level with the other girl; the blinders insured she didn’t have any peripheral vision.
Janey laid a third stripe on her laboring ponygirl, and yelled: “Get a move on, you lazy bitch!” Flying Hooves found a reserve of strength and pulled ahead far enough for Janey to pull her left, back into the lane by the fence, and just in time for the curve.
She pounded down the straightaway, keeping an even pace until Janey suddenly laid two more stripes across her thighs and buttocks. Flying Hooves put on a burst of speed, leaving the ponygirl that had been coming up on the outside in the dust. She took the final turn and then Janey laid another set of stripes across her, evoking a final burst of speed that kept her ahead of the three ’girls that were attempting to challenge her on the final straightaway. She crossed the finish line at a dead run, only a head in front of the next racer.
Janey pulled back on the reins, slowing the panting ponygirl so she could turn her into the winner’s circle.
That, thought Flying Hooves as she stood in her stall munching her ponygirl mush, wasn’t at all what I expected a race to be! Janey sure likes the whip! At least, the lotion was taking the sting out of the whip marks.
The lotion had surprised her also. Janey had sent her back to the stable as soon as the winner’s ceremony was done, and the stable computer had done its usual thing of sending her to the latrine and then the grooming line. However, this time the robot that combed out her hair had also slathered lotion all over her backside.
The second race was going to be in the afternoon, in about four hours. The random obstacle was on Sunday morning, followed a couple of hours later by the parallel park. Then she didn’t have another event until it was time to leave.
The second race was about the same as the first, except that it was longer. Janey kept her on a somewhat tighter rein, and didn’t use the whip except at the very end. They came in third.
After the races, the random obstacles was a real change of pace. The ten contestants were lined up, single file, at the entrance to the field. The big holographic projectors were set up in each corner, and on the sides.
One of the officials stood at the front of the line, and waved each of the contestants into the field at five minute intervals. The contest was supposed to take an hour, and the computer kept changing the various obstacles and changing the directional signals for where each of the contestants was supposed to go.
The race had been physically exhausting, this contest was mentally and emotionally exhausting. The computer told Janey what she was supposed to do for the next challenge, and she had to adapt and direct her ponygirl through the challenge while analyzing it on the run. By the time she came out the other end of the field, both of them were ready to drop.
Flying Hooves almost wished she was blindfolded; it would have made it easier to simply obey the rein signals without worrying about the number of obstacles they managed to plow through rather than avoiding.
Janey sent her back to the stable immediately, without waiting for the rest of the contestants to come out of the field so they could see the final score. Flying Hooves was quite willing to go; she was simply exhausted.
The automated ponygirl grooming station helped, and so did getting outside of some food. She flopped down and slept, without bothering to check in with the stable system and see if a result had been posted.
The computer let her get a couple of hours of sleep before waking her for the parallel park. She woke fairly refreshed, or at least not slagged over.
They lined up single file for the parallel park. Janey and Flying Hooves were third, Hank and Easter Dance were fifth.
They watched the first contestant move out smartly and pull up beside the first chariot well. This time he managed to back into something resembling a good position without
The second contestant repeated his comedy of errors, but the judges awarded him a 2.0. He’d improved something, but it was hard to say what.
The official brought his flag up, and Janey shifted in the special modules. He brought his flag down, and they moved out and pulled up next to the first carriage like they were on a rail. They paused, and Janey turned to look over her left shoulder. She flicked the reins and then guided Flying Hooves backwards into position like they had radar. She paused, and then pulled out and moved next to the first carriage in an exact parallel.
The silence was deafening as the judges
Hank and Janey sent their ponygirls back to the stable, and barely waited for Easter Dance to be out of sight before giving each other a long hug and a long, hot kiss.
Flying Hooves relaxed into the jets of water in the grooming line, letting them wash as much of the day’s tension out as possible. The booting robot slathered her with more lotion, and then she was sent directly to be harnessed again. This time the harnessing robot hung the extra tack in a bag on the side of her waistband, and sent her out to the chariot parking area.
Janey efficiently hitched her to the chariot, and drove to the single women’s dorm, where she got her luggage loaded and headed out to the parking and loading area. This time Easter Dance went into the ponygirl trailer willingly; she was going home!
A couple of hours later, Flying Hooves was in her usual stall in the stable, eating more ponygirl mush and considering. It wasn’t even night yet, and she didn’t have anything on the schedule. Did she want to go home, or did she want to overnight here and go directly to work in the morning.
A groom came by and leaned on the stall door. “Hey, Hooves!” She flowed to all four hooves and whinnied at him. “They want you in the amusement park. Do you want to go there, or go home?”
She looked over her shoulder and considered how to answer without words voice. Then she remembered, whinny for yes, snort for no.
“That was a real trip,” Sally told her friend over lunch. “I was thinking I didn’t really like the racing, but considering the prize money...”
“There is that,” Janey said. “Easter Dance never won that much!”
“So why didn’t we get a 10.0 on the parallel park?”
“A half point for being a bit far out, and a half point for non-standard rein signals. I think they just didn’t want to award a 10.0 for a first time. Or for the first time when the highest anyone else got was a 6.0.”
“Given what they had to go through, I thought a 6.0 was amazing.”
“So do I. Do you want to do it again?”
“Absolutely! I’ve got some ideas for both the racing and the random obstacles that I think will help. If they work out, we should be able to flatten the random obstacles, and it might give us a bit of an edge in the races. At least, it will reduce the number of times you have to use the whip!”
“You’ve certainly convinced me that I need to learn how to really use that shield. I’m still dithering about changing protective associations, though.”
“Well, you should. Even if you and your husband are intending to raise a family once you pass the family stability test, a better protective association will help. And if you want to do anything else, it’s almost mandatory. The religious associations aren’t useful for anything except homemakers who can’t get any children from the lottery.”
“It’s still...,” Janey shook her head.
Sally shrugged. Janey was probably in too deep to back out. She didn’t think her friend would like
She changed the subject, and they continued chatting.
Well, Sally thought to herself a couple of months later as her car’s computer used her body like a robot on the drive home, that seemed to have worked out. The news had just announced that the Federal prosecutors had shut down another religious protective association. It wasn’t simply incompetence this time, either. They had been actively taking bribes to overlook situations they should have been stopping.
She sent in a query for details. As she suspected, Janey’s brother-in-law was in deep trouble, but he’d probably pull out of it with nothing worse than community service and monitoring. And, of course, a determination that he wasn’t fit to be a father, which meant that since his wife had permission to raise a family, she could divorce him.
She idly wondered which version of control shield he’d choose. One version was built around the penis and scrotum, leaving them in place. The other required relocation of both the penis and scrotum internally, so that the penis would extend through the center of the shield when it was erect. It definitely eliminated the male bulge between his legs! Of course, she mused, he might not be allowed the choice since part of the crime was infidelity.
Both Jim and Janey were going to get community service and supervision as well. He was going to get it because of inadequate supervision; he should have been paying more attention to what his wife was doing. Janey was going to be doing her housework under her household computer’s supervision from now on, and she was going to learn how to be a ponygirl. Her sentence required her husband to use her as one a certain minimum number of hours a week.
She chuckled. If the nameless programmer at Joe’s Programming was right, Janey would wind up being a hot property. Always assuming that she screwed up again.
She sent Janey a message asking if she was still in a position to show her, or if she should start looking for another trainer.
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