Pony Ranch

Chapter one

“Shit!” I muttered irritably, looking at the splintered bamboo rod I was holding. “I’d better start investing in better quality equipment!”

Suzy laughed and promptly flexed the cane she was holding several times. “Blaming your tools again! That’s bad workman syndrome, milady! You’re using it way too hard. I told you that yesterday, more finesse and less of the wham bam! Let the cane do the work, not your arm muscles. It’s flexible, look” she bent the cane she held in an arc between her two hands so far that I was surprised it didn’t break. “See, super springy! It’s not a hammer, and his rump is not a nail. A light kiss is all you need. Let the downward impetus do all the work, and voila! Her cane flashed up and down.

I gave her a baleful resentful look which had not the least effect on the irrepressible miss who merely repeated her action and said with a giggle, “See, flick and swish, flick and swish!”

Her cane flashed up and down twice to do a damn sight more damage than a mere light kiss would have done to Goldie’s battered and bleeding left rump cheek. He jumped or tried to in his bonds, but the thick straps securing him to that new flogging bench didn’t do leeway to any significant degree! However, he did make a great deal of noise, and I suppose psychologically, that helped him a little? Or did it? 

I could only speak from the point of view of a visual observer, never personally having suffered the sort of agony we were inflicting upon him. I thought the ‘we’ element perhaps a touch speculative, looking at the state of his brutalised bleeding animal rump. A tale of two buttock cheeks!

The left displayed Suzy’s virtuoso handiwork, and the right mine, a noticeable difference between the two. Sally had remarked upon that fact yesterday when we bedded them down again for the night. The difference was even more apparent this second morning of Goldie’s introduction to life in my ‘Pony Ranch’ as young Suzy had dubbed it. I was growing suspicious that the silly name would stick now that Sally had adopted it too!

Suzy had also suggested we break for coffee. I suspected it was a diplomatic way of reining in my clumsy enthusiasm before it overcame my common sense so far as Goldie’s battered rump was concerned. I surveyed the broken cane I’d been using and then glanced down to where I’d be using it to good effect, or so I’d thought. I was probably doing more damage, but she was the one causing the real pain, and with far less damage which was the hallmark of a good trainer, I supposed?

Goldie was bent over my new whipping hurdle, moaning softly now instead of the loud noise he’d been making a few minutes previously. Of course, he’d started the session the same as he had the previous morning, being all mouthy again as if he’d learned or understood nothing from the previous day nor his time back in Mandy’s stable. I’d made a mental note to ask Suzy if that was common, and I remembered that as we sipped our coffee and nibbled chocolate biscuits in my big kitchen.

“Do they all do that” I mused, watching her feed a biscuit to my Raven, who promptly snapped it out of her hand, and it was gone in one shake of his head and a couple of massive gulps, then he sat there with those big brown eyes imploring her for another one?

“No, don’t be a greedy boy. No third helpings,” she giggled, tapping him gently on the nose with a finger. That same hand I noted had been considerably less gentle not ten minutes before when she was delivering not only thirds but fourths, fifths and many more to my new two-legged stallion! “Do what, gobble down choccy biccy’s?”

“No, silly, girl! I was thinking of Goldie out in the stable. The way he started acting up and getting all verbal again this morning the moment we removed his bit. My only experience has been with Beauty, and she was a lot more passive, sort of still in shock maybe or something similar. She certainly wasn’t anything like that unruly loud-mouthed brute!”

“Mmmm”, Suzy grunted, selecting another biscuit. “Alpha male syndrome, I expect, plus Beauty is half his age and, from what little bits I’ve gathered from you, a much humbler background and only a fraction as arrogant! Doing summer piecemeal farm labouring work, didn’t you say when you snatched her from the wild?”

“True” I nodded and took pity on young Raven tossing him another biscuit which he expertly caught in mid-air and then disposed of as promptly as the two he’d already had from Suzy. “No more, no, no, basket, BASKET!” I pointed and, after a long sullen pause to show us that he was only going to obey my command because he wanted to and not because of me, slank off towards his bed in the corner. His unenthusiastic response brought me right back to Goldie.

Suzy swallowed her last mouthful of chocolate biscuit, ran a pink tongue around her lips as she eyed the half-full plate then decisively pushed it away. “Only three?” I grinned, and that tongue promptly re-emerged and poked rudely in my direction. Young Suzy’s daily calorie intake had been a favourite topic of stable conversation back at Mandy’s place. 

I suppose neither Sally nor I should have been surprised that she’d taken it upon herself to organise the catering arrangements for our first night back at my ‘ranch’. Biscuits, chocolate bars, potato crisps, burgers, cream cakes, curries, takeaways, junk food of every description, whatever! It seemed to make not the slightest difference to the petite young miss. ‘It’s not as though she even exercises much’ had been Mandy’s plaintive remark after watching the girl demolish three cream doughnuts during a morning coffee break. 

“Your Goldie was a big man, wasn’t he, a tough guy, important. I mean, in that organisation or whatever it was he belonged to, a sort of gangster, like…” she paused and screwed her pretty face up in thought. “Like that American guy who sold booze when it was banned over there”.

 I licked a finger and held it up. “During prohibition, Al Capone” One up to me, I thought, grinning at her. Aside from being a somewhat sadistic but proficient trainer of human equines and a veritable food disposal unit on legs, my youthful companion was also an exceptionally intelligent young woman. “Got it off the back of a postcard”, I quipped, as my father would have said when she gave me a questioning look. That old retort merely produced a blank, uncomprehending stare, so I gave up at that point. 

“Yeah,” I told her. “Some sort of senior official in the government and part-time Russian Mafia boss on the side. Very sophisticated on the outside and hard as nails on the inside, according to Bob. He got over-ambitious apparently and found out to his cost that he wasn’t quite as senior or as important as he’d thought in either organisation. Paid the price for his foolishness along with his family!”

Suzy nodded towards the door. “Also, that great ugly Amazon lump of a bodyguard that Sally’s been amusing herself with virtually non-stop”.

I nodded, glancing over at the monitors in one corner and picked up a remote, flicking through various images till Suzy shouted, “Stop, hit the yellow tracking one!” even as my finger lifted from one button and hovered over the yellow one. Tony and his gang had done a fantastic job, not just in the transformation of my old stable and farmyard but in the addition of all the accompanying electronic security wizardry. 

It had taken Suzy about five minutes to absorb the briefing one of Tony’s tech guys had given her and then a casual flick through various binders containing manuals and instructions. “Pretty bog standard!” had been her dismissive summary of a collection of electronic kit in one corner that resembled a cross between a tv studio’s production room and a smaller version of mission control at Nasa. 

‘It's quite straightforward’, she would say somewhat tartly every evening as she demonstrated another aspect of the system to  Sally and me, usually adding the ominous, ‘I’m saving the advanced stuff till later. ‘Much later’, Sally had mouthed at me the second night as neither of us shared Suzy’s fondness for technology. ‘On/off button and volume control people’ as Suzy scathingly referred to the pair of us!

I did know what the yellow button did on that useful little hand control. By some clever internal electronic magic, it somehow targeted the main moving item on the screen and followed it around, automatically switching to the different cameras available. It was great for watching the local wildlife, which had already become a favourite and fascinating nightly entertainment. You could even do it after dark with some particular infrared and lowlight gizmo it contained!

On this occasion, we watched in ultra-high definition one of my new lightweight pony sulkies navigating my little empire at a leisurely pace. Sally was in the driving seat, and Candyfloss, Suzy’s aged but experienced mare, provided the motive power. I’d noted earlier when she was getting ready that my tiny lover had armed herself again with that terrible lightweight, flexible stick-like whip she favoured. The long one I’d frequently seen her use to such devastating effect on Bob’s enormous working stallions, Samson and Hercules. Despite their colossal bulk and inbuilt truculence, the sight of the little woman armed with that implement always terrified them. 

I thought Suzy might have said something to her about using it on Candyfloss, but the girl hadn’t seemed the least concerned. She’d merely run Sally through a quick refresh on the phone app that contained a site map and reminded her of the various security alarms and warnings. She didn’t bat so much as a long false eyelash as Sally used her nasty implement to give the pony a savage flick to start her moving. Well trained and long accustomed to the lash as she was, it was still a blow that made me instinctively wince and Candyfloss to squeal loudly into her bit as she lurched forward.

Suzy hadn’t even bothered watching them leave and headed straight into the stable. I stood and watched the little cart bounce along the rough track and into the trees, thinking, ‘instant obedience’. I’d not seen the slightest sign of rebellion in Candyfloss as she’d been led out and put between the shafts and how she had leapt forward at the flick of the reins. Sally’s painful stroke with her whip was more a reminder of who was in charge rather than a starter. I thought about all the scars and marks that disfigured the ponies’ body, a body still in such good shape for her age, one benefit of stable life, diet and regular hard exercise, although thinking upon those marks, I doubted if Candyfloss appreciated it!

“Tony’s guys did a damn good job, I mean a real damn good job”, Suzy mused as we watched the screen, and she pointed. “They could probably earn another pile by going in for landscape gardening, considering what they have done out there. I’ve walked part of it with Raven and Fluffy and how they have managed to keep the tracks virtually hidden, yet they are only meters apart in some places. Like a really cool piece of design!”

“A bit like a maze”, I offered, looking at a hard copy map they’d printed out. “A very irregular one, though”, I added, thinking of the ones I’d seen in the past. They were usually square or rectangularly shaped with geometric precision, formed from rows and rows of immaculately trimmed hedges precisely placed by the sides of the gravelled pathways. They’d been all the rage at big country houses three or four hundred years ago, and numerous examples had survived much to the delight of today’s bored kids after being dragged around the ornately furnished rooms of ‘preserved’ stately homes!

“Yeah”, Suzy agreed, sipping her coffee. “Your place is tiny compared to Mandy’s empire; no offence intended!”

“None taken”, I promptly replied with a grin and waved a hand around my big kitchen. “Hardly a grand manor house, is it?”

Suzy shook her blonde head. “Nope, but I like it, kinda homely and comfortable. Anyway, given the size difference in acreage, they did a great job working with what you had available” she nodded to the big monitor. “Once we get used to it, we can run them at a decent trot most of the time, and there are several places where you can get them to gallop for a short stretch! We can even race because there are a few strategically placed overtaking points. I suspect they made them like that rather than just a stretch with a bit of extra width. Pretty cool, like I said! ”

I nodded as we watched Sally pull up by one of the three little halts they’d added. Just a level grassy area with a standard six-seater picnic table and a simple hitching post. Sally jumped down and tied Candy floss to the post giving her welted rump a gentle pat as she finished but gentle as it was, the pony still reacted. Sally’s long stick-like whip had been used despite the animal’s obliging docility!

That could not be said of the substantial ungainly creature she’d fastened to the rear of her cart and dragged around, struggling most awkwardly and clumsily to remain on its feet. Or, to be more accurate, its hoofs, as with every other aspect that would rule its new life, those were designed to enhance its suffering just a little beyond the norm if any part of such a creature's life could be considered normal!

“Had them made special for Hercules and Samson”, Sally had told her back at Mandy’s stable as she leaned over the stall door admiring the diminutive woman grooming her new beast and decidedly uncooperative beast. “Only adds about another inch to the height, which suits me, of course. I like them big and tall, the bigger, the better! I thought those two big bastards were a mite too comfortable on their hooves, too accustomed to them, so I treated them to a new set”.

“Reshod”, I’d offered, which kinked the little woman up in a prolonged fit of giggles.

“Precisely, but they really fucked the pair of them up. Like they almost had to learn all over again. Not quite, but I was surprised how much it affected them. It was Sarah who suggested it, something to do with their overall balance, I think. As you can imagine, I had a lot of fun with them at the same time while they acclimatised themselves, as it were,” she had chuckled very wickedly at that point and added dispassionately, “clumsy brutes!”

I could imagine. Until my recent extended vacation at Mandy’s place, I’d only ever owned one pair of hoof boots, and they’d gone straight onto Beauty’s feet the same day I’d collected them from my local post office. Mandy herself had helped me, for that had been the day she scared the hell out of me with her unexpected visit! 

Out of curiosity and much to the amusement of the stable girls, I’d experimented with a couple of pairs borrowed from my host's tack room to get an idea of how they felt. Suzy, of course, it had to be Suzy had suggested with an evil grin that I might like to go the whole way. She could tack me up, maybe even take me for a spin in one of the carts. ‘Get the true feel of everything, right?’

Wrong! I’d politely but firmly declined her offer. I’d seen her enthusiastically at work a little earlier, and I wasn’t about to allow the irrepressible little devil to do that to my bottom. No, thank you! My suspicion had been immediately confirmed.

“Awe, spoilsport, I wouldn’t have hit you all that hard on your cute bot bot, what with you being a guest and all that!” she’d laughed.

“Yeah, well, my cute bot bot is fine as is”, I’d replied sarcastically, sitting down to unlace the boots, which I’d decided were horrendous items to wear for even a few minutes, let alone a lifetime; sheesh! Another thought struck me. “Does that ever happen; I mean, do you ever get people who want to experience the other side?” I nodded towards the pony stalls.

“Oh yes, occasionally” Suzy had paused, taking a break from the pile of harness tack she was polishing and oiling. “We have a few regulars who like to play pay and play pony. It’s a little different obviously for us but still fun. A couple of old dames meet up twice a year and ask to be stalled and run together. Old school friends apparently and ever such a sweet pair, Sarah always handles them herself. She’s not exactly gentle, but for Sarah, low key, if you know what I mean? “

I smiled and nodded.

Then there’s another couple, middle-aged and real good-looking, both of whom have been coming for years, so I was told. A pair of real lovey-dovey’s. They run several top-class model agencies and beauty studios and have their fingers in all sorts of pies in that industry. They always arrive as a threesome with a stunning young girl, always immaculately made up no more than a couple of months off being jailbait. A different girl each time, and they are always drop-dead gorgeous young things!”

I’d waited expectantly, one boot half on and half off, while Suzy sighed wistfully, her eyes momentarily distant. Hell, I thought Suzy herself was only a couple of years on the right side of being jailbait herself. I knew she secretly lusted for her own ponyboy; she’d admitted that on my first visit, but had she something or someone else in mind besides? I’d noted that she tended to gravitate towards the younger fillies in her employer’s stable unless assigned elsewhere. 

“They drop the guy, the husband, off with us, and gorgeous wifey always tells Mandy that ‘easy’ is not an option for him or something similar”, Suzy grinned wickedly. “He was assigned to me last year, and his wife told me to give him hell, so I did!”

I liked young Suzy, but the way she said ‘so I did’ sent a shiver down my spine, confirming the correctness of my decision regarding her semi-serious offer to give me the full-tacked-up pony experience! Tacked-up ponies all had one thing in common apart from the harness they wore; they were all helpless because of that harness! It was no accident I guessed that Sarah dealt with certain visitors. I knew from my own relatively new experiences just how easy it was to get carried away when working with such helpless creatures and the younger stable girls were not short on enthusiasm!

“What about the wife?” I asked.

“She and the girl always waited till he was tacked up and stalled, then came to say goodbye. It was, “ she paused and laughed, “sort of interesting and odd, weird at the same time”.

“How so?”

Suzy screwed her pretty face up for a moment in thought before relaxing. “Kind of tender, like I said they were a for real soppy lovey-dovey pair, kiss kiss and all that, like genuinely sad that they were going to be separated. She could hardly let him go, and yet at the same time, the elegant bitch was mauling that little bit of fluff she had with her all over. Couldn’t keep her hands off that sweet piece of cunt even as she was saying goodbye to hubby in his stall! Telling him how much she loved him and would miss him, and then next breath telling me not to spare the whip but not too much around the important bits!” she paused and chuckled. “Then she and the nubile fluff were off together, flying out somewhere for a week in the sun. Like I said, kinda weird with a capital wubbleyou!”

“Very odd”, I mused, making her cackle with laughter.

“Well, I suppose you have to expect things like that. It’s not as if any of us are in a normal nine to five job, or” she jerked her head towards the stable. “persuing the more usual and socially acceptable pastimes and hobbies! I mean, we’re all weird, aren’t we?” she dissolved into laughter.

“Speak for yourself, young miss”!” I replied tartly, although she was one hundred per cent correct, glancing at the big monitor. In addition to receiving the usual morning feed and grooming, Medusa had not been spared an après breakfast beating from her sadistic little owner. The wretched creature had hardly even started her new life and was already rapidly running out of unmarred flesh despite the ample area available! Even patches that had escaped whip and cane so far were heavily bruised. 

Sally had been working on her big beast longer than I had on Goldie and had decided to spend the morning familiarising herself with my new ‘pony trails’ as Suzy dubbed them. She’d initially cast a speculative eye in my Beauty’s direction, but common sense had dictated she harness the far more docile and utterly broken Candyfloss to her cart. Unexplored territory and all that, although none of us for one moment thought that Tony and his gang would have left anything remotely dangerous or even challenging along the various routes they’d created.

I’d left Suzy messing around with Goldie after we’d hauled him from his stall over to a convenient whipping frame. As I’d noted, the foolish creature still seemed to find what was happening to him incomprehensible, which I supposed was understandable to a certain extent given his situation and status a month or so back! That look of rage and absolute disbelief on his face each morning when two young girls, well, one young and one youngish as in yours truly, dragged him from his stall every morning and strapped him down upon a leather-covered bench. Then set about slowly and methodically whipping him till he fainted, rinse and repeat!

Unlike my Beauty, his English was excellent, and one would presume his native tongue to be likewise. Unfortunately, Da and nyet were the only bits of Russian Suzy and I had between us, so the torrent that flowed from his angry mouth once the pain started was incomprehensible. Not that it mattered because Da, we were going to beat him and Nyet we would stop when it suited us, not him!

We removed his bit to feed him, which was one trick he learned in Mandy’s stable. ‘This food is shit’, he’d told Suzy and spat it out at her. The stable staff were under strict instructions to just feed and groom him; the more entertaining aspects of his future life were delayed until I got him home. The young girl had admitted in a fit of giggles later that she’d never been prouder of herself so far as personal ‘self-control’ went at that moment! 

Shit or not, Goldie possessed a healthy appetite, and within three days, he was leaving his feeding trough as immaculate as those ponies who feared the consequences should they fail to consume every last morsel! ‘Hunger being the best sauce’, Sarah had chuckled, watching him one morning. He’d been highly verbal back at Mandy’s, but the girls had silenced him with his bit and tongue press after feeding, no one taking the slightest interest in anything he said or, more accurately, screamed at them!

He'd done a hell of a lot more screaming now he was ‘home’, but this time due to that ‘delayed’ entertainment applied by myself and Suzy, that girl enthusiastically making up for the lost time. I'd noted that he hadn’t complained to her about the food again. I think certain critical aspects of what was happening to him were finally taking root among the little grey cells, not that he’d have much cause to use them overmuch in the long years ahead. Thinking was a redundant task for ponies like him!

As I said, I’d left Suzy fussing around altering and adjusting various straps as she usually did before delivering a lengthy and painful corrective session. Her pet hate was breaking off mid-flow to attend to a minor adjustment, so she’d once told me. Besides, Sally was doing something I hadn’t seen before to her pony’s big fat rump with a small brush that immediately triggered my curiosity.

“Whatever are you doing, Honey?”

Sally turned and smiled that lovely smile of hers at me, instantly causing me to shiver with erotic delight. She was such a delightfully cute little doll, and now she was all mine!

“Painting her fat rump with this gunk”, she muttered, holding up a balding one-inch paintbrush which I recognised as being one of mine from my old workbench and an old jam jar half-filled with a pale golden yellow-looking substance. “Sweetener”, she added, shaking the jar and returning to her work.

Medusa was bent double tethered to the rear of the small cart by a short leash to her collar. The huge pony was writhing in anger or some other emotion. Her hoof-booted feet shuffled alternatively but utterly helpless as my tiny lover busied herself painting a round circle on the animal’s heavily bruised and bleeding right rump cheek and then filled it in. The left already daubed with a thick layer of yellow sticky-looking stuff. I took a closer look getting a whiff I recognised.

“Honey?” I queried, and I didn’t mean it as a term of endearment as I nodded to the jar.

Sally giggled, dipped her brush in the pot, added a generous couple of squiggles to her target, and straightened up. “Partly, but a few other ingredients, I raided your larder. You do know that some of that stuff in there is so ancient its growing mould!”

“I’m not a great one for marmalades, jams and the like”, I defended myself. “I keep them for when I fancy some. Anyway, it’s usually alright if you scrape the white powdery stuff off the top. They’re alright. That’s why they call them preserves, you know!”

Sally considered that for a second before pulling a face. “Mmmm, food poisoning is also alright, too, as long as you are not the one with the belly ache!” She reached around and released Medusa’s short leash allowing the pony to stand erect or nearly erect. I espied a new addition to the animal’s harness that prevented her from reaching her impressive full height. A length of thin multi-strand steel wire ran from a D ring on the high posture collar to a smaller D ring on the crotch strap that ran between her legs just above where her butt plug tail protruded. An adjustable tensioner just above the spring clasp secured the wire, and I immediately grasped the purpose of the addition even though it was the first time I’d seen one in use.

I ran a critical eye over Medusa, noting the immediate difference and wondering why I’d not seen any pony’s similar fitted before. Sally joined me in admiring her big beast. “Adds a little extra, don’t you think? Of course, she’s not quite as imposing height-wise, but there’s so much of her that I don’t think it makes much difference. Looks sort of,” she broke off and laughed, “well hardly sexy, not this creature! Maybe a bit more, er provocative, don’t you think?”

The wire was forcing the pony to bend a bit like a banana, head up and tilted high likewise her rump and in between her torso forced to bend, perhaps like a strung longbow would have been a better description. That curve of her torso thrust her belly and big fat udders out even more prominently, and I could understand what Sally had meant by sexy. I imagined my Beauties proud assets thrust out like that as she ran or even just stood in her stall for me to admire.

“Not bad”, Sally murmured, “I might tweak it a bit tighter tomorrow. We’ll see how she goes and looks today. She can stretch her legs when I give Candyfloss a good runout.”

I eyed the enraged but helpless pony thoughtfully. “Two questions, Honey. Why did I not see any rigged like this at Mandy’s, and just what the hell is that yellow gunk on her bum doing? I somehow doubt it’s for any beneficial purposes knowing you!”

Sally laughed that light tinkling laugh of hers that I found so enchanting. Simple on both counts. Mandy occasionally employs what she calls ‘posture technique’, but not that often. She prefers them in their ‘natural state’ unless destined for the dressage ring. She can be damn hard regarding posture and stance on those chosen animals!

Suzy suggested she add a couple of these wires to the kit we brought. I think she’s keen to experiment as well. Mandy can be a bit, well, strict about some things even when the pony in question belongs to someone else, if you get my meaning. Silly really! No point, though, in my using it on the two big boys for obvious reasons.”

I laughed. “So I’m regarded as the soft-touch am I, the less strict one!”

“Nope, merely the ignorant, inexperienced one”, Sally quipped and skipped away, laughing from the hand I threw in her direction.

I returned my attention to the unhappy Medusa as Sally disappeared into the stable. That added steel wire wasn’t making Medusa’s life any easier. Looking at the big pony, I felt a little sorry for the poor thing, for I thought there was a certain unfair irony to the situation. Her ex-boss was in my stable, now my property. His wife occupied one of Mandy’s stalls while the daughter doubtlessly provided her with more intimate entertainment. The stupid bastard's son was either pulling Bob around his estate or being sodomised possibly right now, maybe both! None of them probably had anything to do with why they were now suffering, and least of all, I suspected that big angry creature tied behind that cart. 

Thinking of how I’d seen my sexy little lover handle Samson and Hercules, neither of whom officially belonged to her, I suspected that fate might have handed Medusa the shortest straw as Sally reappeared sans brush and jam jar. 

“You’ve tightened that thing quite a lot. That’s a very unhappy-looking pony you have there, Madam!”. 

The tiny woman stared at me for a second, and before she could respond, I did it for her, knowing precisely what she’d say. “So who gives a fuck! Yes, I know?”

Sally laughed. “You are getting to know me, aren’t you. Do I say that often?”

I nodded. “Yup, you’re one very cruel woman, my sexy little bedmate. Ok, the pair of you can experiment away so far as I am concerned, but what’s with that yellow stuff then?”

Sally grinned. “Anybody give you a chemistry lesson while you were at Mandy’s. Never heard of figging a pony?”

I nodded, my eyes narrowing as I eyed Medusa’s rump. I had heard and read of such things in my sizeable collection of human equine and similar porn, but I’d forgotten all about it. “I thought you did that from the inside, hot, itchy stuff,” I said, making yet another mental note about something my ponies would not appreciate.

My relationship with my diminutive lover had hardly started, yet she seemed to have already developed the ability to read my mind, I realised as she replied with a grin. “I’ll knock something suitable up for you to try if you are thinking what I think you’re thinking. But you're right; my little concoction here is not the same as adding a little internal discomfort. Look,” she waved her hand. “It’s a beautiful day, no wind, and the sun is shining, and it will get a lot hotter over the next few hours, and what comes out in the hot weather, and I don’t mean sun shades and ice cream!”

“Did anyone ever tell you that you are a very wicked and evil woman?” I repeated, thinking, ‘make that short straw plus!

Sally laughed and hoisted her little backpack onto a convenient hook behind the cart’s seat. I noted that the woman’s diminutive stature made it look far larger than it was. “You do big lover girl, almost every day. Anyway, I’m just doing my bit to help the environment. I’m sure there will be lots of hungry things with wings and a sweet tooth flying about today, I expect. Kiss please”

Things with teeth and stings as well, I thought, bending down and lifting my gorgeous little living doll upwards so that we could mash our lips together. Sally flung her arms around my neck and gave my mouth a thorough oral rape with her tiny tongue before breaking off in a fit of giggles, demanding a return to terra firma. 

Medusa was watching us through those wide angry red eyes of hers, and I wondered for a moment what the enormous creature was thinking, then shrugged it off as Sally hoisted herself onto the cart seat and reached for her whip stick. Did I give a damn what the great beast thought as long as owning it was making my little lover so ecstatically happy? 

Suzy suddenly appeared, and Sally twisted around, extracting her cell phone from her bag. Suzy leaned over, pointing various things out on the map and security app we were using, while Sally made polite but slightly impatient grunts of acknowledgement. We’d had at least two briefings already from the young blonde! Then without so much as a glance at her own pony, Suzy said, “have fun, winked at me and headed back into the stable. Goldie might not have been the muscular young ponyboy she dreamed of owning and breaking, but he made a pretty good substitute for now, and she was undoubtedly enjoying the breaking! Maybe Medusa wasn’t so far out on that limb after all!

The whip cracked, Candyfloss squealed, and they lurched off with Medusa desperately trying to run behind along behind, an entirely new experience. My mind barely registered her clumsy endeavours being busy with something else. How the hell did Sally accomplish so much with that tiny pink tongue of hers, I wondered?

*****

“I’ve seen her do that with Hercules and Samson,” Suzy said thoughtfully, watching the monitor while swirling her coffee mug around as though undecided whether or not to finish the contents. “Always been too busy with something else to take a close look. I wonder how much it hurts or if it’s more phycological. Funny, though, the way she has to keep swishing that oversized rump about trying to flick them off. I bet she wishes she could do much more with that tail like a cow or a horse. Damn good picture, isn’t it?”

I nodded. I couldn’t fault that observation so far as clarity went. I had no idea how much this kit had cost Bob, but nothing was cheap Chinese rubbish! God, they must have spent a veritable fortune on my old farm and the more I looked around, the more that was confirmed. Suzy had worked her magic and switched the image on the security monitor onto the huge wide screen TV mounted on the wall. Another unasked-for and unexpected addition. Tony had shrugged it off as part of his security brief that I might also find useful for entertainment, sheesh!

I wondered if Sally knew that the pair of us played voyeur as we watched. 50/50, I supposed, she would know or guess that they’d have put a camera there, but we might be over in the stable, of course. Indeed, given our joint enthusiasm for breaking in my new stallion, the stable would have been her first guess, I decided had she bothered herself to think about it.

I thought she looked so sweet sitting at that table quietly reading on her iPad like a small, well-behaved child awaiting her parents' return with a delicious picnic from the car or perhaps a tray of cold drinks and some tasty pub snacks. The fact that she had to heave herself onto the bench and sit there with her legs swinging back and forth added to the vision of innocence. My mind groped for something and found it. Contrasts were what sprang to mind.

Taking in Sally alone sitting there against the greenery of the background and wearing that loose ruffled white summer dress with a wide-brimmed straw hat was a picture of tranquillity. All she needed was a little dog at her feet looking adoringly up at her, and you’d have the perfect pose for a watercolour picture. One of those that Victorian and Edwardian artists churned out as an alternative to the heroic exploits of red tunic-clad empire builders. Quantity over quality and mainly destined for the tops of chocolate boxes or biscuit tins!

The contrast or contrasts, plural if you panned out a little, were attached to the little two-wheeled cart and standing upright. The slender, eye-catching figure of Candyfloss with her fountain of shocking pink hair cascading down her back partly hiding the cruel reverse prayer arm binding that had long since faded to the faintest of pink hues. Sarah had told me it was a matter of taste for the respective equine owners. Some liked their animals in pristine gleaming harness and tack, whereas others, she’d paused and glanced across at young Suzy, didn’t give a damn as long as it remained functional.

Suzy had acquired her pony, Candyfloss, from her aunt, who no longer needed the animal. I suspected that apart from some minor tweaking of straps, the creatures hadn’t been out of her pony kit in years. I glanced over at the young owner in question, another picture of innocence, genuine youthful innocence in her case as she leaned forward, her blonde hair spread out, busy with a large cell phone. Two-legged ponies must eventually get used to or adapt to their tack, their boots, arm binders, the whole caboodle, mustn’t they? Or did they? Surely, they must! 

I’m a touch conservative and hate or rather dislike the idea of adapting to certain new things, especially wearables such as shoes and boots. I’ve never been a follower of fashion, my wardrobe being very frugal in many respects, particularly in the footwear department. What must it be like for a pony if it had been captive for many years and then fitted with a complete set of new harness and tack? Breaking in a pair of new shoes could be a pain, but a whole new pony outfit of stiff, unyielding leather! I opened my mouth to ask Suzy about it, then, noting how her fingers were flying busily over the screen, decided to leave it for later.

Back to contrasts on the big TV, Sally was still sitting there unconcernedly swinging her legs, iPad in hand and a bottle of water nearby. Candyfloss stood patiently as a well-trained pony should, occasionally shuffling on her hoofs and flicking her head as some flying insect bothered her. Ponies spent virtually their entire miserable lives just standing around, whether like this or in their stalls. I smiled as I looked at Medusa.

Another contrast, I thought. My original observation noted the difference between the serene, cool-looking young miss and then panning out to the two near-naked sweating human equines and their whip-scarred bodies. The fresh livid strips on Candyfloss’s rump and those Sally had delivered to Medusa after she’d fed the beast. The latter was being neither patient nor serene. Still, despite being tethered by a short lead to the cart, she was hopping about, kicking her legs out and writhing from side to side as though trying to burst out of the unyielding leather corset and harness that bound her huge ungainly body.

I reached over, tapped Suzy lightly on the arm, and pointed at the right side of the screen. The girl showed her teeth and grinned briefly before returning to her cell phone screen, remarking off-handedly, “Looks like the local buggy wuggies have discovered a new treat. Raw pony girl meat!”

I smiled back at her, or rather the top of her blonde head, as she was already bent over her phone again. Suffering ponygirls were old hat to her. I wondered how soon I’d get to that stage as I watched Medusa dancing about, her desperate, frantic movements increasing even as I watched. ‘Raw pony meat?’ Hardly, I’d seen the state of the animal’s rump cheeks before Sally had painted them with her concoction. I’d scarcely have described them as raw the little cutie had cooked them pretty thoroughly!

No doubt there was a zoom facility on the camera responsible for the image on the big screen. Suzy would have known how to do it, but her fingers were tapping away again, and I was loath to disturb her flow. I couldn’t see the majority of the airborne visitors that were hassling the big pony, but there must have been a fair few judging by her movements, including some bigger ones I could see sporting yellow and black stripes! Generally, if you irritate something wearing such stripes, you jump out of the way, even out of the immediate area, but that wasn’t an option for a tethered ponygirl! 

Sally, I noticed, wasn’t entirely oblivious to her pony’s suffering. Every so often, she looked up from whatever she was reading and watched Medusa’s antics with an amused little smile. At one point, the animal tried to twist around and rub her rump against the nearest wheel of the cart, but she couldn’t reach it. I espied a second leash, a long thin one that I’d somehow missed leading to a stout tree branch. Belt and braces, Sally was no amateur, and there was no way her suffering pony was going to be able to rub off all those hungry little dinners feasting on that yellow gunk and perhaps delving deeper for something a little meatier. 

“Ready?” Suzy had stood up, pushing her phone into the obligatory rear pocket and nodding in the direction of the stable making a whip-cracking motion at the same time.

“Yup”, I rose to my feet, one eye still on the screen where Sally was climbing down from the bench and organising herself for another little run, when an idea struck me, something from those long-ago days of sitting on the sofa watching westerns with my father. “You know”, I mused, “I wonder if there are any ants nests around here, big ones?” 

Suzy looked astonished for a moment and then, following my line of sight to the monitor, grabbed my arm for support as she collapsed with a major fit of giggles.  

“Steady girl,” I told her, still thinking. “As I recalled, the hero had escaped from being staked out on top of the anthill by the Apache’s or whatever, but what about a suitably smeared naughty pony tethered right by one or something similar. Why wear your arm out of you didn’t have to when an hour or two of insect bites might prove a suitable incentive! Plus, one could probably watch it from the comfort of an armchair in here as well? 

“Come on, girl, let's not keep Goldie waiting any longer,” I said as I watched Sally casually use her long whip several times to do what Medusa’s frantic gyrations had failed to accomplish. However, I doubted the pony appreciated that particular fly swatter. I beamed at my young companion. Wasn’t owning ponies like this such delightful fun, especially if you had an active imagination!