The Random Recollections of Birthday Boy

Part 5.

“Golly, that filled a big hole. I hadn’t realised quite how hungry I was. There is nothing like a crispy bacon sandwich, is there? Oh?” she held a gloved hand out, looking up at the still leaden sky. “Stopped raining, so that’s good. I hate splashing through puddles, it plays havoc with your boots and shoes. Now then, let’s get you back to the stable where you belong!”

He stared at her briefly before she disappeared out of view and then inwardly shrugged. What was the point of getting angry, of getting irritated or frustrated? What good would it do? That was one lesson he’d learned for himself over the two years of his captivity, unlike those he’d been forced to learn via forcefully wielded whip and cane.

They did what they wanted, whenever they wanted, and he could do nothing about it. Not a thing. Oh, how frustrating that had been to an active, independent-minded guy like him. He’d been a soldier, a warrior and…okay, so you couldn’t be too independent-minded in the army. Go too far down that route, and they were likely to call it Mutiny or some such thing. Then again, on the other hand, they did encourage a degree of such thinking, leadership potential they called it.

What the hell was she doing behind him? He dared not move, and that bloody thing around his neck didn’t help any, the high collar, a posture collar his young owner called it. Whatever, it meant he could not move his head other than a tiny amount before the thick leather stopped him. The only way he could see other than directly in front was to shuffle around, and having been ordered to stay and stand by the evil brat’s mother, he dared not disobey. That had been another lesson those merciless whips and canes had taught him, a very early crash course of lessons and ones he still carried the scars from as permanent souvenirs. Living certificates of his painful education, probably seared forever into his helpless flesh!

What the hell was she doing? The woman hadn’t disappeared, for he could sense her presence and smell the perfume she used, the same one her daughter Kelly often wore. An expensive aroma of sultry promise and warm, soft delights permanently denied to him. Did she wear that as work, he wondered, as a purely idle thought and if she did, how did …. How did that overtly sensual bedroom and boudoir smell go down at the hospital where she nursed?

A fucking nurse, a bloody healer, for Christ’s sake! How…no, she was walking away, talking quietly. The bitch must be on her phone, maybe talking to that sodomising bastard of a husband or perhaps the sadistic little brat of a daughter. Christ, there wasn’t much to choose between them, was there, they were all fucking evil and perverted! He mulled that one over for a few minutes to distract him from the overpowering urge to shuffle himself around a little. He’d never learn, would he and she’d had that fucking whip doubled up in her hand when she came out of the house.

A healer of the sick! Yeah, healer, heal thy self and start upstairs, for they were all sick, mentally sick and depraved. How the hell could people like this exist? But that was a stupid question. History was littered with examples of such people both en masse and as individuals, and medical types were not immune, were they? There’d been that Nazi doctor in the concentration camps, Man… Mangle, Mengles or something like that. There’d been Harold Shipman only a few years ago, a doctor who supposedly killed nearly three hundred elderly patients and was convicted of killing fifteen or so. Then there was the infamous Dr Crippen, who murdered his wife and dismembered her body early on in the previous century. An American citizen who’d fled the country with his Mistress only to be apprehended on arrival in Canada. The first criminal to be caught by the use of the newfangled wireless telegraph. He’d made the mistake of taking a cheap, slow boat as a second-class passenger and, despite being disguised, was recognised by the captain, who’d seen pictures of him in the papers and promptly sent a telegram to Scotland yard. They promptly put a detective on a much faster boat, and he was waiting for him when he arrived in Quebec. He nodded to himself; he’d read a book about that not long before this present farce had overtaken him. They said that if the good or rather bad doctor had travelled third class, he’d probably never have been seen by the ship’s captain and would have gotten away with it.

Fate, the fickle finger of fate, he brooded. Had he not decided to hitchhike that day or perhaps not to travel at all…. his thoughts faded as he stared moodily and unseeing into the distance. Fate, fucking fate! It was “yowwwww!” He screamed into his mouth bit as the whip cracked across his right buttock cheek in an agonising band of searing fire, only to be instantly repeated on the left one even as he jumped and squealed into his hated mouth bit.

“Now then, Trooper, you’ve had a nice rest, not to mention a healthy natural shower. I once read somewhere that bathing in fresh rainwater is good for the skin. Maybe I’ll try it one day or then again, perhaps not, she laughed. “It does seem a touch primitive, does it not? Now walk on and no slouching, now. Walk on, boy.

The whip cracked a third time, this time catching him across both buttock cheeks, but he’d half expected it, so his reaction was less subdued. He neither jumped nor yelped aloud into his mouth bit, not that it didn’t bloody well hurt, but then they always hurt, didn’t they? There’d be no fucking point in whipping him if it didn’t hurt. Not that there was any point in anything they did, well….Okay, can that thought. To them, or at least to Kelly, he wasn’t even human; he was a two-legged animal to be broken and trained. He was….

He yelped and jumped as the whip caught him again, even harder, as his head was savagely tugged to the right by the rein attached to his bit ring as she shouted. “Concentrate, you stupid animal! I’m steering you straight, so why are you veering left? You don’t think you obey unless you want more of this! The whip caught him again.

No, he hadn’t wanted that one or any of them, and he definitely didn’t want to feel that whip anymore. Not today, not any time, nor any other of the horrible things Kelly referred to as her ‘toys’ or sometimes ‘our toys’. Ours only because she was on one end and he was on the other, the wrong end! Bloody horrible, and exceedingly painful instruments of pain they were, not fucking toys!

“And keep those legs up, knees high, step nicely for me, Trooper, you know the drill. You damn well should do by now; you’ve had enough lessons, haven’t you!”

His face twisted into a grimace despite the horrible impediment in his mouth. Yeah, he knew the damn drill all right. He was, or had been, a soldier. Drill had been a part of his life, certainly of his early military career when in training. Daily sessions on the parade ground under the direction of an unforgiving little corporal whose thunderous voice belied his stature. ‘Git them arms up, up, higher, lei, lei, lei rite lei. Swing them bloody arms, you useless shower of ex-civi slackers and old yer damn heads up, chins up, up……and so on. Probably no different to what generations of similar corporals had screamed for umpteen generations of recruits. Bet even the Romans had….oowwww!

She’d hit him again, making him momentarily stagger and almost overbalance. For one horrible second, he feared he’d fall. Two fucking long years, and he still hadn’t fully mastered the art of walking in the horrible hoof boots strapped to his feet and doubted he ever would. How many times had he done just that, ended up face down in the dirt while his young tormentor screamed in anger reinforced by repeated blows from the whip or whatever similar implement she had in her nasty little hand?

Somewhat to his surprise, his lapse went unpunished for once. Maybe she’d been looking elsewhere or at her phone or simply couldn’t be bothered to exercise her arm again. They were past the stable now, which was partly why he’d begun to veer to one side automatically. That was pretty stupid of him, but sometimes you couldn’t help instincts kicking in. He’d thought she was taking him back to the stable and his stall, which was his mistake. Ponies don’t think; they obey! How many times had he heard that and felt the reinforcing kiss of lash or cane?

He plodded on, step after step, legs raised, knees high, thighs parallel with the ground. What an absurd way to walk and move, and yet they demanded it. Demanded eye-pleasing perfection. His pony walk, his pretty high-stepping pony gait. Recently, he'd noted that he’d had to do that less and less. He’d started automatically, but Kelly sometimes snapped, ‘No walk normally today. I’m in a hurry, so let's get to the fields quickly or something similar. The one thing he had learned was not to anticipate her wishes. That was another lesson painfully learned, for anticipation was akin to thinking, was it not? And even if he’d been right, it was still wrong to move before being guided by command or reins, and he’d suffer for such foolishness.

They couldn’t stop him from thinking, though, not within the silent privacy of his head, although he sometimes wondered if that was such a good thing. How would he feel, say, in ten or, God forbid, twenty years? Twenty years! Twenty long years of tedium of restrained captivity or painful casual brutality. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that he’d endured two years, but he had and the thought of it going on and on and….. It was unthinkable, and yet? Escape was impossible; he’d given up any idea of that a long time ago, and likewise, the idea that somehow he’d be rescued. Even hope of an improvement in his captivity had virtually faded.

Step, step and, step. He plodded on knees raised automatically to the required height, subconsciously reacting to the subtle pull of the reins as he was guided along the track that ultimately ended at the public road. It was a long and winding track with a gate at the end, a gate that was alarmed. He knew that although he’d never seen it or been that far down the narrow, gravel-covered private road. He’d heard them talk about it a couple of times, and no one could enter without someone at this end pushing a button or whatever for the gate to grant entry.

‘For you, the war is over’ or ‘escape is impossible’. That’s what they’d said to prisoners of war, wasn’t it? Things along that line anyway, but none of them had said anything like that to him. They didn’t need to, for he’d quickly found out for himself that escape was impossible. Not that he was surprised by that lack of communication. He was simply a dumb animal, so why talk to him? They rarely did. Kelly, his young owner, least of all. Whereas her mother. She….His thoughts came to an abrupt halt as a sudden realisation occurred. He didn’t even know her name, nor did he know that of her husband. Just Kelly, the daughter, and did she have any other names and a surname? What was that? Two years, two fucking years, they’d kept him in that bloody barn, and he didn’t even know that about them!

His abrupt chain of thought caught him off balance or rather caused such to happen, resulting in an abrupt exclamation of outrage from behind immediately, followed by each buttock cheek being seared by the tip of the lash again. Hopping in sudden agony and nicely high stepping to please the eye didn’t quite work in tandem, and he’d received two more blows before he’d got his wayward legs back under control. Christ, where the hell had the bitch learned to use a whip like that, he wondered. Her savage little daughter had two years of experience under her belt now, whereas his sessions with her mother were far rarer. Had she owned a similar human pony as a teen, and if so, what had happened to it? Now, that was a sobering thought! Worse still, what would happen to him?

Two years, two and a bit now and yet he didn’t even know the names of those who held him captive. Mummy, daddy and bloody Kelly, that’s all he knew. It wasn’t important, though, but it was still unbelievable that he didn’t know their names. Not that it mattered. It would not make one iota of difference to his life if he did know them!

“Whoa, whoa, Trooper, boy”

His head was jerked savagely back, and he instantly stopped moving as required, awaiting the next command. His head was yanked to the left, and he shuffled around in blind obedience to his Mistress’s orders.

“Turn, boy, turn. That’s it, good boy, right around, turn. Time to go home after our nice little walk now we’ve stretched our legs. Now, walk on, walk on, boy”.

He tensed himself as he stepped out, waiting for her whip's inevitable accompanying encouraging blow, but it didn’t come. Step, step and, step. No, he seemed to have escaped it on this occasion. Nice little walk. Bollocks! Bollocks with brass knobs on! There was nothing nice about prancing like this while having your buttocks whipped hard by a sadistic woman. Nice walk, my fucking arse and a well-whipped one at that!

They headed back towards the buildings, which was a little disappointing. Despite the woman and her damn whip, he’d hoped they might go further down the approach track. Maybe this time, he’d get a glimpse of the entry gate and the minor public road he knew was there. It was not a busy road; he did know that. He’d once heard her ‘daddy’ derisively say something about it being a two-car-an-hour road, if that’.

His mind switched back to automatic mode. Escape, if only! His stall had a simple catch, and as far as he knew, the stable door wasn’t even locked at night. Maybe there was some sort of remote electronic lock he didn’t know about, but then again, maybe not. The building itself wasn’t that secure or gave that impression. It was old, and apart from the stink of a human pony, it smelled old and musty, and the doors looked pretty decrepit. One good kick, especially from a steel-shod pony boot, and he’d be out and away.

Away to where, though and for how long could he remain free? Were there other things that he didn’t know about, other security devices? This seemed to be a remote rural location, and the house was pretty big. Not your modern average family three-bed semi-detached shoebox, was it? No, more like five or six bedrooms, the sort of places that seemed to attract burglars and the like, or so he’d once read in the newspapers. Didn’t they favour such buildings in remote, isolated locations? Maybe they had other things to protect them, such as cameras and alarms. Hell, those doorbell cameras were ten a penny these days, weren’t they? Or had been two years ago, and tech developed fast these days. There might even be trackers of some sort built into the collar or harness he wore, for they could make electronic stuff so tiny these days.

There were cameras in the stable so his teen owner could watch him on her cell phone whenever the mood took her. Three that he knew of, for he’d little else to occupy him when he was left alone and the lights were never turned off. Even those must be on some automatic timer, for they dimmed at night and returned to full brilliance every morning, serving as his alarm clock, although he couldn’t rely on them. There was no discernible pattern to Kelly’s morning visits, and more than once, an angry shout had awakened him as she switched the lights on manually from the doorway. Failure to be up on his feet and wide awake, standing at the front of his stall ready for his young owner's morning inspection, was a big no-no in her eyes, and his hide, as she called it, would soon suffer for his ‘laziness’ and lack of respect.

His ruminations were interrupted by the first few shrill bars of a tune he recognised but couldn’t put a name to from behind him. The reins yanked hard, hurting his mouth again as the familiar cry of “Whoa, boy, whoa” rang out in repose to that insistent ringtone.

He halted immediately and stood still, absently realising that he was no longer shivering as he’d been earlier. He still felt cold but not as cold as when he’d got cold and wet. He no longer felt wet other than his various pieces of harness and tack, which were still damp, very damp, and a bit more uncomfortable than usual.

“Yes, yes, speaking,……..Well, it must be the line then if I sound different, and no, I haven’t got a cold or anything; I’m perfectly well, thank you. I am outside, though, having a pleasant little walk. No…..No……I would not be available that day. Yes, I understand, and it's not your fault; these things happen. There’s nothing you can do about that. My appointment was…….well, I can go another week; it’s not terrible,” he heard her laugh. “Yes, I do need it cutting, but not as much off as before, a little too much, I thought last time. The same as it is now, but about an inch shorter will suit me. I know, I know, but I like it as it is……oh, can you do that style? I saw the movie last month, and she looked brilliant with her hair like that. Well, okay, I’ll look at the pictures. No, silly, I’m not going to come in to do that. Why not send me a couple….yes you can. Just use your phone and send them to me. Well, ask one of the girls, and they’ll show you how to do it. They don’t have to be photographic masterpieces, silly man. I’ll let you know before I come, so that’s Thursday the 16th at three o’clock. That’s great because I’m doing earlies at work that week……Yep, yes, okay, see you on the 16th. Kelly must also come in, but I’ll organise that when I visit. You know what she’s like! I do wish she’d take a little more care with how it looks! Oh, and my regards to Chrissie if you see her. I heard about the baby. Love and kisses from me. She’s coming back, I hope after her maternity leave…..oh good, well see you on the 16th, bye.

He tensed, waiting for the command and hoping that was all he would receive. He was both right and wrong as she called “Walk on”, and he felt the tip of her whip upon his right buttock cheek, but it was only a touch, not quite a caress, but its sting if you could call it that, was insignificant compared to the usual cutting bite.

Normality. A window of normality in this bizarre and perverse world, he exited within. Her hairdresser, he assumed from what he’d heard from her end of the conversation. Not that it was any of his business. He’s been disciplined on several occasions by Kelly when she’s thought or imagined that he’d shown some interest or understanding in one of her inumrable phone conversations. It was a little unfair since her phone was constantly ringing, and he wasn’t in a position to walk discreetly away, but nothing about his life was fair.

The stable was near now, almost home. Home! Christ, was that how he was starting to think of it? A bare, primitive stall in a draughty, cold old barn. What, then he wondered, did the beautiful and elegant woman behind him have in mind for him? Beautiful, elegant, always immaculately made up and dressed. Gorgeous, yet utterly indifferent to his suffering and misery as the human being she knew he was. Unlike Kelly, there was no real pretence with mummy.

“I hope I’m not developing a cavity” he stiffened slightly as she spoke, but he sensed she wasn’t addressing him or was she? The woman sometimes did that, almost conversationally, as though talking to an equal, not some dumb, restrained, captive animal. It reminded him of how his mother used to speak to the family cat, tell it her problems or about her day.

“It feels like a sliver of bacon. You know how it is when you can feel it with your tongue. Probably only a tiny fragment, yet it feels huge, and you can’t stop poking at it!”

Bacon, Jeez, when had he last had any bacon, the taste, the smell of bacon frying or a nice meaty sausage or….he shook his head and tried to divert his thought away, but the bloody woman behind continued her odd thread aloud.

“I like it crispy well not crispy as such, but well done. I never put butter on the bread, and when I make a bacon sandwich for myself, I just add a little brown sauce. Very tasty, yummy, yum, eh Trooper?”

He jumped again, almost losing his step rhythm as the whip cracked, but it was in empty air near his right ear. Perhaps not even a conscious action on her part, merely emphasising the word yummy. Doubly cruel, but that was how they were. They never thought much about anything they did to him half the time!

Her phone rang again, and he halted as his head was jerked back, this time without so much of a single ‘Whoa’. Nor could he hear what she was saying because she walked away immediately, presumably listening to whoever was on the other end of the call. He shivered, for he was feeling the cold again, and he was getting wet once more. Damp, perhaps more than wet, for it wasn’t raining or drizzling but what his mother would have called spitting.

He closed his mind to those thoughts and memories immediately. Thinking along those lines was too painful, too hard to bear. Those sorts of reminisce brought on nothing but misery and melancholy, and that was in its way, even worse than their cruel whips and canes. The pain from those was instant, searing heat that cut, bruised and lingered but had faded within a couple of hours to a dull but tolerable ache, whereas….yes, memories lingered.

Yeah, whereas was bloody right. Too fucking true, mate, as he might once have said to his friends and squad mates about something they were discussing. Football, family matters, girlfriend trouble or the latest unreasonable demands from their company, Sergeant Major. The latter’s crazy antics had always been a favourite subject for discussion.

Thinking along those lines was something he tried to avoid, for memories brought him no pleasure, and he was far too young for nostalgia and anyway, he’d hardly lived long enough to build up a decent repertoire to look back upon. No, his life had been cut cruelly short and not by bullet upon the battlefield or injury. No, his had…. fuck it, she was coming back, he could hear her firm footsteps crunching on the gravel.

“Now then, Trooper” He heard the words and tensed as the reins pulled tight, waiting for the command and accompanying kiss of the lash. “Walk on, boy, walk on and step smartly. Let us show the world how pretty and sexy you can do a proper ponyboy prance, eh!”

He did just that feeling as always, a ‘right pratt’, but he dared not do otherwise and moved forward in response to a shake of the reins, his bent legs rising and falling with near military precision. One his old Sergeant Major would undoubtedly have loved and, this time, drilled courtesy of a far softer and youthful female voice as he perfected the high-stepping routine during many hours on the relentless pony walker. That and the whip in Kelly's hand as she trained him to perfection!

‘Show the world!’ Yeah, how likely was that? He’d have given…well, he had fuck all to give. His bank account had been virtually empty when he was captured, and his credit card balance was the opposite. What few possessions he’d had were undoubtedly long gone now, but he’d have been willing to sacrifice a leg, hell, an arm and a leg to have someone from the world, the normal world, to be watching and to take some action to free him.  

“He’s the opposite, of course; what else!” her voice came again from behind. “Hubby, I mean. He likes his bacon soft, ‘Chewy’, preferably streaky with lots of fat. Yuk and I don’t know about chewy, semi-raw and uncooked; I call it never mind chewy!”

He almost missed a step again. Christ, she really was the one out of this world, wasn’t she? Way out! Strolling along behind him, whip in hand and talking about bacon fucking sandwiches. “Yahweh!” Fuck, he might have almost missed his step, but fucking Madam Eagle Eye behind hadn’t missed anything, and that whip hurt; it bloody well hurt!

“He calls it ‘Dewey’, not chewy; she continued as calmly as if she were sipping coffee with a colleague in the hospital canteen, not steering and flogging a helpless male ponyboy. “Dewey, That was a new one for me, and Goggle, I looked it up but found nothing. It must be a local term, maybe. His mother had a ton of those. He also has butter on his bread; it has to be butter, not margarine and red tomato ketchup. He can’t stand the stuff on anything else; neither of us can, but he has to have it on his bacon sandwich. Odd that, don’t you think?”

Trooper didn’t answer, of course. Not just because of the bit in his mouth but more on account of that damn whip in her hand. He couldn’t even grunt or acknowledge her question, which was almost undoubtedly rhetorical. His role was to obey, not agree or to understand other than the simplest of direct commands. Just like a pet dog, sit, beg, roll over, only treated far worse than any pampered fucking pooch!

Yeah, kicking a dog was bad form was it not and socially unacceptable, but what they did do to him and how they kept and treated him? If people only knew that! Now that was socially unacceptable in any fucking society!

“Nearly there, boy, and then I’ll give you a nice rub down and get you an early din dins. Probably not a bacon sandwich, but I’m sure you’ll appreciate it.” She laughed, but it wasn't a pleasant-sounding laugh.

Yeah, he was sure he would ‘appreciate it’. Leaving anything in his bowl was never an option, regardless of whatever vile stuff they poured into it. Another lesson painfully learned during the early days of his captivity. God knows what havoc it was causing to his digestive system, for he was rarely free of the ‘runs, ' as they termed it—his ‘splattering’, as Kelly called it termed it.

“Oh, and by the way, Tropper. That was my other half on the phone just now. Hubby is coming back early and, by the sound of it not in a very good mood. Such terrible language! Apparently, his golfing partner ricked his back on the fourteenth tee and couldn’t carry on, so he’s out of the tournament. Hubby, likewise, is out since it's for twosomes. He was asking after you, wasn’t that nice?”

His ears picked up. Asking after him? That bastard, why? He shuddered with horror, for he could only think of one answer to that question, and it wasn’t one he liked.

“Don’t worry, boy, I told him Kelly was away for the night, and you’d nothing on”, she giggled. “In the diary sense, that is. He went away in a bit of huff with me, you know. The other night, he was all worked up and wanted to…and, well, I couldn’t. I never can when it’s that time of the month for me. I did offer him a hand job if the poor honey was that desperate. I’m afraid that the oral alternative is a strict no-no with me, and besides, he’s never once eaten me so tit for tat, as far as I’m concerned.”

He stepped on, listening to her casual ramblings with a growing sense of apprehension, not to mention suspicion. He flinched again and heard her mocking laugh as the whip flicked playfully across his buttocks but lacked venom to its bite.

 “I expect he’s even hornier now. I said once I’d fed you, I’d leave you on the hurdle where he likes you” She giggled, and the whip caught him once more, but again, no more than a light, almost playful tap. “Kind of funny, don’t you think? You and Kelly started the day ploughing, and you’ll both finish the day getting ploughed.”

This time, his high stepping did falter, but she let it go, merely giggling and delivering yet another light, almost caressing flick of the whip across his hindquarters.

“Except I expect Kelly will enjoy her evening experience far more than you will, Trooper and who knows, maybe I’ll come and watch Hubby in action. Yes, I think I will. I expect it’ll be an interesting and entertaining experience, so why not? Something new for me if not for you, and there is nothing worth watching on TV. Silly game shows, repeats, and  those dreadfully boring reality shows that are not very real!”

His answer was to yelp into his bit as her whip caught him again, and he heard her mutter thoughtfully to herself. “Perhaps bring a half bottle of chilled bubbly with me, and maybe I’ll warm you up a little beforehand just to get all three of us in the right romantic mood” She giggled and gave the reins a flick. “A touch of Kelly’s stable cane, perhaps. Would you like a little tickle from that boy that boy?