Pony Ranch

Chapter eight.

“My, what a veritable hive of activity! We are a busy bunch of bees today, aren’t we? Hi Penny, hi Suzy, behaving yourself, I trust?

“Hello, Mandy, me or the brat?” Penny called and waved from where she was grooming Goofy. Suzy did likewise from where she was washing down Candyfloss but didn’t answer; she couldn’t. The small girl was using both hands to groom her mare and had temporarily transferred the riding crop she’d used a few moments before to her mouth, gripping it between small, perfect white teeth.

“Good morning, Ma’am.” I gave Mandy an impromptu curtsy as she walked into the stable, momentarily abandoning Beauty. “Just a normal day at the office for us hard-working girls.” I grinned at her as we hugged and kissed quickly. “So what brings you to my humble little abode?

Mandy disengaged herself with a laugh, looking about and smoothing her top down. “Not quite as humble as when I first poked my nose in here,” she chuckled. “A damn site tidier for one thing now all that rusty junk has gone. What did you do with it all, by the way? You could hardly get a dumpster thing delivered up that track of yours.”

“What the fucks a dumpster?”

“A Bobism!” she laughed. “I mean one of those big hire waste skips, that’s the American term for one. My Bob has always called them that for some reason, and I do not know why. Neither does he, I expect, come to that.” She frowned, looking around again. “I do recall there was an awful lot of junk and general clutter in here before and those huge cobwebs”.

I nodded. “Before you scared the shit out of me that time”, I recalled absently patting Beauty’s nearest jutting udder. “Gosh, that seems an age ago now, but it’s less than six months! I can’t believe so much has happened since then.” I waved a hand towards the stalls and stuff on the opposite side. “Thanks entirely due to you, you and Bob,” I finished with a smile.

“Some,” Mandy admitted, reaching out and helping herself to a generous handful of Beauty's other udder. “NO, no!” she cautioned, the forefinger of her other hand waving up and down. “You know better than that pony or should do by now. You know what happens to disobedient and unruly ponies, so don’t start being silly! Yeah, that must have been a little alarming for you.

“Little!” I exclaimed. “Hell, I’d had sleepless nights worried that my evil deed would be discovered, and there I was just starting to enjoy owing this beast and thinking I’d got away with the crime of the century, well, a pretty big one and then I hear this voice from behind me. Talk about heart attack situations!” I finished with a laugh. “But where would I be if you hadn’t come that day? Probably still knee-deep in junk and whatever else I expect and certainly lacking the entertaining education I’ve had since”.

“Mmmm,” Mandy was looking up while absently fondling and squeezing Beauties udder while my big ponygirl tried to squirm unobtrusively. “I rather liked those big dusty cobwebs, and they did add something to the place. Sometimes, I think my stable is far too clinical, but that's down to Sarah. No cobwebs would ever stand a chance of getting started, not with her mania for cleanliness!”.

“Yeah, well, I suspect they got in the ways of Tony’s guys when they were renovating. Come back in fifty or so years, and they’ll be back to normal. I used this big filly to shift all the crap. Didn’t I tell you that when you phoned that time”.

“What time?”

I shrugged. “Maybe it was before, and I can’t remember now. I built a simple cart and used Beauty here to do the hauling. A joint effort, although what with all the heaving and clearing out, loading and unloading, I reckon she got the easy bit,” I giggled. “Bar the encouragement from my whip, of course!”

“Of course!” Mandy approved.

“I piled it all up near the entrance gate, and then it was a case of paying ‘man with van’ after making sure he had the appropriate licence and paperwork for disposal. The last thing I needed was for it to get ‘fly-tipped’ in some field and reappear on the back of a trailer with some irate farmer driving his tractor up my driveway accompanied by someone from the local council refuse department!”

“I hate people who do that!” she snorted. “Sheer laziness; some people are so inconsiderate. The authorities are far too lenient with people who randomly dump stuff. Fines do not affect such people who probably don’t even pay them anyway. They’re just criminals in my book and should be treated as such!”Mandy observed rather critically, making me stifle a smile. Seemingly, she found nothing incongruous between her words and the action her hand was performing on my captive two-legged equine.

“Pure laziness,” she repeated. “I often take a trailer load of rubbish to our local council refuse and recycling site, and their fee is quite reasonable. I even pay the commercial rate! What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, I shook my head.” I wondered if she’d had to register her hobby come business and what she called it. A range of names leapt into my mind, but none was suitable to appear on any official form. An image of some middle-aged, narrow-minded secretary reading through the ‘Describe your business’ section had elicited my grin. “What brings you here anyway?”

Mandy shrugged as she released Beauty’s breast, transferring her hand downwards to absently run her palm over the nearest tempting rump cheek. I was surprised how stoically my handsome girl took it given that same rump cheek; indeed, both rump cheeks had received numerous applications of the stable cane the previous evening. Beauty hardly flinched, then Mandy stopped, looked around and gestured with a finger towards Candyfloss’s stall. “That one. That's why I’m here”.

“Me?”  Suzy queried in surprise. The young blonde girl happened to be looking in our direction as Mandy pointed.

“A parcel came for you yesterday from your mother, I think from the return address—books by the weight of it. I’d been thinking of popping along to see you all anyway, so bringing that down gave me an excuse. When did you last call her, your mum, I mean?”

“A couple of days ago, why? There was no need to tell her I was working here for a bit, was there?”

“No, I suppose not. None of my business anyway.” She gave  Beauty’s cane, kissed rump a farewell pat and crossed to the other side of the stable. “How’s Candyfloss doing these days? That's the other reason for me popping down. I might, just might, have a possible buyer for her, a good price too, I expect, if you are interested and....” she smirked. “I was also wondering if a certain young lady of my acquaintance still harboured a desire to own a ponyboy, a very wild, untamed one in this case?”

I’ve heard the term light speed, and young Suzy promptly gave an excellent impression of a human being achieving such a velocity. One moment, she was down on one knee attending to her aged animal's hoof boots, and the next, she was outside the stall pushing the open door closed with an eager expression that mirrored a hungry puppy looking at a meaty bone. No, make that a starving puppy!

Mandy's laugh meant she was probably thinking like I was, and I wasn’t the only one judging by that throaty female chuckle from Goofy’s stall. However, Mandy had something else in mind first and flapped her hand at the eager girl. “No, not yet. Go away, shoo, get on with your work, girl. I want to have a tour around first, and then maybe there will be a cup of coffee or something in the offing for a poor traveller. I called in at the post office to buy some of those delicious homemade biscuits I like, but unfortunately, they didn’t have any. However, I did spy some yummy-looking fresh cream doughnuts on the counter that I might be inclined to share”.

Suzy looked disappointed, but only momentarily, then grinned and headed back towards Candyfloss’s stall. “Okies, I can wait,” she called back over her shoulder. “And if you’re desperate for some of those biscuits, I know where there are several unopened bags hidden away in a cupboard,” she finished with a giggle, a wink, and a cute little ass wiggle.

“They’re not hidden,” I  sighed as Mandy cocked an enquiring eye in my direction, “and you’re perfectly welcome to take some back with you. That’s not much of a payment anyway, considering everything you and Bob have done for me. The old lady that bakes them on behalf of the cat rescue had to go into hospital for a bit, but I heard she’s out now, so no doubt normal service biscuit-wise will shortly be resumed.” I reassured her and added. “Come on then; I’ll give you the grand tour such as it is, and anyway, you’ve seen it before that afternoon I came back from your place.”

“Not with it all fully populated,” Mandy laughed. “You’ll soon need an extension at this rate!”

“Not really. Beauty here, you already know, of course, and the others, apart from Goldie and Sally’s big mare, Medusa, are just temporary lodgers, so I’ll only be at fifty per cent occupancy. Hell, boss lady, don’t rush me. I’ve barely started at this game, and besides, I’ve got a long way to go with the two I’ve got when it comes to training them!”

“It will grow,” she predicted confidently. “Owning such splendid creatures is like a narcotic drug; one can’t help becoming addicted, and then one is always looking to enhance that essential daily fix of captive two-legged pony beast!”

I didn’t reply but merely grunted an acknowledgement. Mandy was probably right; I was sure she was, but I was also sensible enough to know that I needed to keep at least one foot firmly planted on the ground for the present. Besides, where on earth would I get the sort of money required to fill more stalls? I was not exactly a pauper, nor was I a prospective candidate for millionaires’ row, nor ever likely to be. I was also uncomfortable with the idea of my glamorous and mega-rich friend supplying additional livestock if that’s what she had in mind. Such generosity is all very well, but there comes a point when it becomes embarrassing and uncomfortable for the one on the receiving end.

“No change here,” Suzy said, looking at her hands and dusting them together as she stepped out of the stall. “Still the same old boring clapped out old mare, aren’t you, girl?”

The slightly stooped Candyfloss naturally remained silent. She couldn’t have replied anyway, not with that bit in her mouth and even if it wasn’t there, she wouldn’t have dared. She kept her eyes dutifully downward. Indeed, I couldn’t even recall the sad creature so much as looking at me once, let alone showing any spark of rebellion or fire. It was hard to tell her age for life in a pony stable, while not unduly arduous on a daily basis, undoubtedly took its toll on those unlucky enough to live such a miserable life.

I’d gathered that most such splendid creatures, as Mandy had called them, were kept primarily as exotic pets, similar to their less exotic four-legged equivalents. I’d been told the animals' life expectancy varied considerably and wasn’t entirely down to how their owners treated them. Some animals, Sarah had said to me over morning coffee, just ‘sort of gave up and lost it’. When they went down that route, there wasn’t a lot you could do, apparently. Force-feeding, whipping and so forth, but you’d eventually lose them. They just gave up in body and mind and pined away, but not many, thankfully, Sarah had said, and that was global. Still, there was no denying that stable life did seem to age most of them prematurely, no matter where they ended up. It’s Just one of those things she’d shrugged.

Given the value of such livestock as well as its scarcity or...Sarah had broken off laughing at that point and rephrased what she said, replacing scarcity with availability. “Not exactly a shortage of prospective stable stock worldwide, is there?” She’d waved one large hand to include the world beyond where we were seated on one of the outside picnic benches.

“Not even on the endangered species list,” I’d added

“Not until they get into one of my stalls anyway,” she’d quipped straight back and then we’d both had a giggly fit. Maddy had walked past leading a ponygirl at that moment and threw a puzzled look, prompting a joint extended fit of giggles.

Anyway, I gathered that it was a matter of some interest, not to say concern for those who worked daily with such creatures, and Sarah was the sort of woman who took her work very seriously. She told me that Mandy was fine, but some owners just didn’t understand and could get very nasty with their stable staff if they lost a valuable animal due to such circumstances.

I’d nodded thoughtfully, for I could fully appreciate her point, and the thought of losing my Beauty that way hadn’t even occurred to me. Looking back, I suppose I should have considered such a possibility, even as inexperienced as I was. Then again, to offset that, I’d been so excited and super hyped up, so I suppose it was only natural. Beauty was a very spirited animal and blew hot and cold so far as acquiesce to her new life went, and I’d been told that was likely to continue for quite some time with those ‘cold’ periods growing longer and the ’hot’ periods becoming less and less intense as my filly slowly surrendered to the inevitable.

The thought of losing her was almost unbearable, unthinkable even for she was the bedrock, the foundation of my new lifestyle, and yes, I could replace her. Well, theoretically, I could somehow do what I’d done before, maybe; plus, I now had Goldie, but that wasn’t the point. If that was the right word, there was no endpoint so far as I was concerned in our growing relationship. That bond between the owned and owner, the pet and the master, the... Well, there wasn’t a way I could describe how I felt about my magnificent ponygirl. It was a unique feeling. Not quite a one-off because I’m sure others felt the same. I’d made a mental note to discuss that with Mandy sometime but hadn’t gotten around to it so far. I suppose it was almost a kind of love, a very strange one, to be sure and very much one way. I doubted if Beauty or any similar animal felt that kind of emotion towards their owners!

One of the things I’d noted both when I was staying at Mandy’s and now back at my place was that we took our ownership of such creatures very much for granted. No one seemed to think it was, well, unusual! Sally, Penny, and Suzy seemed to find it perfectly normal that such unique animals existed in their world and that they had a natural right to do as they did to them. Sometimes, I did feel a little odd, like an outsider, for deep down, I must still harbour some faint traces of conscience yet to be squashed.

The general consensus I gathered from my interesting, if slightly worrying, talk with Big Sarah on the subject during that morning coffee break was that it was the manner and nature of their captivity to blame. I remember grunting with amusement; no big surprise there was there. Besides, it’s generally accepted that long-term incarceration in penal institutions ages the occupants faster than those living freely outside the prison walls. Some inmates will go mad or sink into deep, incurable melancholy. In the case of our animals, add in the dehumanising process, the regular harsh physical abuse and humiliation plus the boredom, the lack of intellectual stimulus, the monotonous diet, the, well, let’s face it. The dire conditions of their living conditions, which you could hardly call living anyway, could you? Not for an intelligent human being anyway, although they no longer qualified in our eyes for that later status!

There were upsides for them as well, Sarah had pointed out to me during the same discussion, although, again, how far up was up and would those unfortunates occupying those nearby stalls regard anything as an ‘up’? Highly questionable, I decided, knowing how I would feel.

They were all well looked after, groomed daily, and fed a healthy, nutritious, if simple, cold diet. Sarah said such food could vary considerably from stable to stable. Although, as a general rule,  any restaurant attempting to serve even the best of it wouldn’t have lasted a week in the everyday world. Food, she told me, was a helpful tool in the training process of such animals, for even the most stubborn, the most recalcitrant animal could weaken when faced with a tiny treat to enliven its monotonous and miserable life. “Besides”, she’d said with an off-hand shrug, “a treat of some sort is real, a practical thing, whereas not being beaten for a day or two is a normal occurrence, so that could hardly be considered a treat!”

They also lived stress-free lives, with none of those depressing daily worries to trouble them that most of the population suffer from. What they lacked in one type of freedom, they gained in another. Their captivity freed them from money worries,  job and promotion prospect hassles, personal and many other ever-present nagging concerns that could grind you down, which was almost a bonus. I’d nodded at the time when Sarah was outlining all the benefits of stable life, thinking back to my days of working and commuting in London. Yes, I’d known all about stress back then, but later, lying in my bed that night, it was one hell of a price to pay, and I wondered if Beauty and all the others out in the stable were stress-free.

After all, I mused, none of them knew what the next day would bring, did they? Well, I suppose in the sense Sarah had meant they knew exactly what the next day would bring and in most aspects, it would be no different from the one before and the one to come.   But would it be an easy day by stable standards or a hard one? Would they be whipped or caned, and how severe and so on? I turned over and fell asleep thinking, nope! If someone had approached me one Monday morning in a hot, smelly, overcrowded tube carriage offering me such a stress-free life, I wouldn’t have signed on the dotted line, not knowing what I knew by that point about pony life.

Besides, when gossiping with the girls and talking with Mandy, I’d heard stories of other ponies who enjoyed, probably a singularly inappropriate word under the circumstances. Two-legged equines used exclusively as their real counterparts had been used for centuries as hard-working farm animals. Those were the ones that inevitably lived the shortest of lives, even those utilised by the more benign owners. Or benign(ish), as Sarah had laughed and added that there weren't many of them about when it came to working their animals hard! I’d seen how my sweet little Sally used Samson and Hercules, and it didn’t take much imagination to visualise the sort of life and work those poor creatures assigned to such farm-style tasks must live!

I’d once asked Suzy how old her mare was, but she’d just shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘too old’ and left it at that. I got the impression that she didn’t know herself and didn’t care. The girl had inherited or been given Candyfloss by her aunt a few years before. I’d initially guessed the woman beneath the pony hide must be in her late forties or early fifties, but given what I’d learnt to date about such animals, she might have been ten years younger. 

A snapping sound brought me out of that reflective reverie just as Mandy repeated the action right in my face, saying, “Hey, wake up, Honey”.

“Tired out, probably poor thing”, Suzy smirked. “ She and Sally were being very affectionate with each other last night for quite some time, quite some time indeed”, and then quickly defended herself in response to the glare I threw at her.

“Hey, it's not my fault your walls are so thin, and that ancient old of yours squeaks so much, is it?” she threw the latter part at her grinning usual employer. “Besides, after a long day in the stable with these beasts, well,  we all know how...” she paused briefly, so Penny’s voice floated over to fill the void.

“How randy we get!”

Suzy scowled and uttered something under her breath. “I was going to say something a little more refined, rather than from ones gutter vocabulary”, she grinned and winked at us, “but along those lines. So what’s this about Candyfloss and a ponyboy?”

Mandy laughed and tapped the more petite girl with a long, slim finger on the tip of her nose. “Patience, child, first things first. I want my tour; I mean,  I am what you might call a shareholder in the enterprise. The car is not locked, so why not retrieve your parcel and put the kettle on and then we can have a nice little chat when we’re all sitting comfortably? What’s in it, by the way, the parcel? I mean, more books?”

Suzy laughed. “Nope, it's for my Uni degree correspondence course. I’ve decided to do an additional tech unit along with all the maths and physics stuff. I was getting bored with all the reading and writing theoretical stuff, so this will liven things up a bit.” She suddenly paused and put a hand to her mouth, her eyes widening, then looked at me. “I left it behind; I don’t suppose you’ve got a spare soldering iron kicking about, have you?”

I shook my head. As you've probably realised by now, I had a decent, more than decent, practical streak in me. Saws, hammers, electric drills, DIY pony carts and so forth, no problem, even a bit of plumbing if required, but I’d never needed a soldering iron. However, I did know what one was and felt a tad peeved, not at the question but at the tone in her voice hinting I might not!

“No”, I answered very firmly. “I have not, and why do you need one? I trust you’re not about to start messing about with the innards of Tony’s surveillance stuff?”

“Oh, no problem, I’ll head into the city and pick one up. It’s for putting coursework together, you know, making electronic things!”

“I had one of those kits when I was a kid”, Mandy interposed. “A Christmas present from a fond great aunt and uncle to ‘improve’ my mind, they told my mother. Evidently, the fact that I could speak French almost fluently and make myself understood in Spanish, aged nine, wasn’t sufficient! It was one of those kiddie kits they used to do years ago in the toy section of all the mail-order catalogues—junior microscopes, basic electronics, my first chemistry experiments and so on. You don’t tend to see them these days, which doesn’t surprise me. Some of those chemistry sets were rather dubious content-wise!”

“And did it?” Suzy asked innocently. “Improve your mind,” she snickered hastily, skipping out of range.   

Mandy laughed and rubbed at her chin, thinking back. “Not so far as I was aware. More the opposite, we hadn’t even finished the leftover turkey before I got bored and banished it to the back of a cupboard, having made the door chime, the alarm clock, the morse code flasher and whatever else went with it and not a soldering iron in sight.” She chucked. “I wonder if you could have made gunpowder with the junior chemistry equivalent? Now, that might have made it a bit more interesting. Now scoot and get your new toy; otherwise, I’ll forget and drive back with it, whatever it is!”

*****

“Never seems to change much that one”, was Mandy’s comment a few minutes later as we emerged from Candyfloss’s stall. “Back in the day, as they say, she must have been a damn good looker in her prime and still easy on the eye nowadays in her present role.”  She flicked the stall door catch closed with one finger while still casting a critical eye over the tall, slim whip whip-scarred old mare. “Not that it matters all that much in this case, but it’s what they term on those tedious business management courses, as a ‘nice to have rather than an essential’, I believe.

“Tell me about them,” I grunted sourly, thinking back to those days of the annual winter training courses for those designated as management prospects, complete with flip charts, group exercises, and hated role plays. “Why this sudden interest in Candyfloss, anyway?”

Mandy chuckled. “Never been on one, but from your tone, I feel I haven’t missed much, and as I said, I might have someone lined up interested in buying Candyfloss. One of those friend-of-a-friend grapevine situations I got in touch with on Suzy’s behalf when word reached my ear. I know she’s bored with this sad excuse for a pony, way too docile for a vibrant young madam like her and by coincidence, well.....” she paused and switched her gaze to me somewhat speculatively.

“Go on”, I prompted.

Mandy shrugged and pulled a face, then, after glancing across the stable, leaned closer to whisper, “Penny has offered her a job, you know?”

I nodded, wondering if I was about to break a confidence and then decided that it was no secret if she knew that already, so I replied quietly. “I know; she briefly mentioned it to me the other day. I got the impression she was interested mainly because Penny is thinking of expanding and prefers colts and stallions, unlike you”.

Mandy nodded thoughtfully and paused while she watched Penny emerge from Goofy's stall, pushing a half-full wheelbarrow of dirt trundling it outside. “Yes, always first in the queue when it comes to handling Bob's pretty colts or his big boys.” She pursed her lips and added, “ I don’t really want to lose her. I know we all tease the hell out of her, but....” she sighed and left it hanging.

I nodded. “Well, if it's any comfort, I got the impression she doesn’t want to leave you or me, for that matter. Penny’s place is much farther away, whereas we are not so far apart, plus she doesn’t know anyone there. She’s not said so, but I very much get the impression she really likes the staff and working environment you have back at your stable.” I eyed my glamorous friend, who seemed to lack a little of her usual self-assurance while looking her normal, attractive, groomed and elegant self.

“I don’t think she minds the teasing; besides, she’s more than capable of giving as good as she gets and probably more. You’re cooking something up, aren’t you?” I queried suspiciously.

Mandy laughed. “You sound just like my Bob. Perhaps I’ve just put something on a back burner to simmer quietly for a bit.” she put a finger to her lips as Penny re-entered the stable minus the wheelbarrow. “More later”, she whispered with a wink. “Come on, let's finish the tour. How’s your Goldie getting on, and has Sally tamed Medusa yet?”

“Hardly,” I told her as we approached the enormous Russian mare’s stall. “You can’t say she’s not trying, though; she’s certainly making her mark or marks! I think the big beast has learned just who its owner is!”

Mandy leaned on the stall door and laughed. “Oh my, yes, that's plain to see. That long horrible whip stick thing of hers has its own unique signature, does it not, and that beast's hide has been well autographed!”

Medusa scowled at us, or rather her piggy eyes did, for her bridle hid most of the big animal's ugly face, whereas its mouth bit both stretched and filled. I knew that not only was Medusa’s mouth being stretched by that tight bit, but she was sucking on the short fat dildo Sally had added to it. She’ll be all the more grateful when I use an ordinary bit, was my diminutive girlfriend's reasoning, which made sense to me, so I’d followed suit with Goldie. I doubt if either had spent much time, if any, sucking on short fat cocks in their previous lives, but that was, of course, irrelevant. Come to that, it was highly unlikely that either of them had ever felt the kiss of cane, crop or whip upon their hides before either. Whereas now it was the opposite, had there been a day recently when they hadn’t felt such upon their soft white tender hides!

“Has there been any come back about them?” I nodded towards Medusa.

Mandy shook her head. “None whatsoever, nor do we expect any. Your Goldie blotted not only his copybook but that of this big monster, along with the three I’ve got stalled. I don’t know what the Russian equivalent is of ending up in the concrete foundations of a motorway flyover. Still, at least this way, they’ve been spared that, although I expect they might feel such a fate preferable in the long term,” she chuckled grimly. “But no, and nobody will ask any questions about them. Russia may be a pariah country at the moment, but its old closed-mouth culture may prove a boon; likewise, these new contacts of Bob’s.”

I looked at her and then nodded toward the entrance. “Would such contracts lead to keeping a certain young lady of our acquaintance happy, perchance?”

 “Maybe!” Mandy laughed. “Mrs Goldie is coming along splendidly, by the way. She’s proving to be one of the easiest ponies I’ve ever trained, and I can’t wait to show her off in the dressage ring. With her background in classical ballet, she’s a natural, plus the silly mare can’t help herself once the music starts.”

I grinned as Mandy gave a sort of shiver of suppressed delight as she described her Russian mare, the beautiful one-time wife of my Goldie, which prompted a question as I thought of my big stallion and his surly disposition that wasn’t entirely due to his present situation.

“Did she still perform after she married Goldie?”

“Let’s go see your big stallion now we’re talking about him.” she gave Medusa a little wave and giggled at that negative but oh-so-powerful response in those angry eyes. It was a passive response because Sally took no chances with her colossal beast, which was hardly surprising given the animal's height and, even more so, their bulk and body mass difference. Imagine an atlas or a globe and compare the United Kingdom to North America, and I mean the whole continent, not just the USA, and you get an idea of the scale difference. A David and Goliath situation but of the opposite sex, and in this case, my sweet little sexy David preferred her whips and canes to a slingshot to bring the mighty Goliath to heel.

Apart from her tight harness and all the other accoutrements of a captive two-legged pony, Medusa sported additional straps and was retained in the centre of her stall by various chains and other tethers. The chains were a special purchase and far heavier than the usual ones I’d seen in use at Mandy’s place, and there was very little slack in them. Come to that, there was very little slack or give in any of her restraints, and despite what must be a very tempting pile of relatively fresh straw in the corner, Medusa would stand on her hooves until her tiny owner returned from work.

Even that wouldn't guarantee any respite for the animal, and even if she were granted a little more freedom of movement, it would come at a painful price. Sally never spared the rod, and even the briefest and most casual visits to check on her big pony girl carried a price to be paid by Medusa’s well-stripped hide.

“My, my”, Mandy chuckled, “If looks could kill! I’ve had many a new pony give me that sort of a look, but this one is a bit scary, isn’t she?”

“That's putting it mildly,” I told her. “Sally is not the only one keeping an eye on all those restraints. We all do it just in case. Fortunately, with that lot on, it’s a belt and braces plus situation in the unlikely event of her ever getting free,” I chuckled. “And she knows it, but you can almost feel it, can’t you, that hatred seething like lava beneath a volcano just wanting to erupt?”

“Mmmmm”, Mandy agreed. “The animal can hardly twitch a muscle, but her whole being radiates absolute rage and fury. Just look at those nasty little eyes, yes indeed. I’ve seen a lot of hate like that thrown my way from these creatures, but with this one, it's almost tangible. I bet you could stand here in winter and warm your hands!” she laughed, giving the glowering beast a final dismissive wave.

“So did he,” I asked again as we looked at Goldie in all his harnessed Stallion splendour.

“Did he what?”

“Stop your new mare from dancing after he married her?”

Mandy shrugged. “No idea, she was only in the chorus anyway, not one of the principles. Plus, by that time, she’d spent far too many evenings canoodling up to Goldie’s Mafiosa predecessor, so I suspect that career option was already dead.” she gave a sudden short bark of laughter, making me jump. “Hell, maybe I’m doing the old bitch a favour!”

“How so?”

Mandy laughed again, raising both arms over her head, shuffled around in a mock pirouette, and then shook herself, giving vent to a bout of giggles presumably brought on by the expression on my face.

“My, that’s what I call a funny look. Here I am doing my best principal dancer impression, and you look like that!!”

“Yeah, well, more like principle pratt! I wouldn’t expect the Royal Ballet to come calling any time soon, nor the… what’s the Russian equivalent, one, the bolshie or whatever it is!

Mandy chuckled. “ Near enough. No, I never begged mummy to send me to dancing class when I was little, nor excelled on the dance floor since. Sitting this one out with a glass of something alcoholic was far more my scene than making a fool of myself. No, I meant I seemed to have given this golden brute’s mate a new lease of life in more ways than one.”

I looked at her in surprise. “Are you saying she likes all this?” I gestured around the stable.

“Tch”, Mandy ejected loudly. “Don’t be silly, of course, she doesn’t like all this”, she repeated my gesture. “Who in their right mind would! No, but I’m getting a sense that when I’m standing there with a whip in one hand and her lunge line in the other that....well, it's hard to explain, more a kind of feeling that she’s...” Mandy paused again and shrugged. “Well, it sounds kind of silly, but that she’s enjoying it somehow, once she’s prancing and the music is playing. I’ve never had an animal that behaved like that at this stage of its training, and I wish she were twenty, even ten years younger,” she finished with a regretful sigh.

“Maybe she is enjoying it or not so much as enjoying it as withdrawing into it”, I mused, remembering another of my coffee-break discussions with Big Sarah.

“Double door syndrome, you mean?” Mandy considered and nodded. “Perhaps you're right, but I’ve experienced that with ponies in the past and more than once. You can apply the whip as hard as you like; it makes no difference when they’re in that state of mind. This does feel different, though.”

Double door syndrome was something Sarah had mentioned when I discussed one of my outings with Beauty with her. There was one point when, having flogged her into a gallop, she became completely unresponsive for a time despite my commands, the reins or even the whip. It was like bowling along behind a zombie for a short period before she snapped out of it and abruptly became aware that her rump was on fire from my repeated blows.

Sarah had used a fancy medical name but said they usually called it ‘double door’ syndrome, which was easier to say and remember. It happened with most ponies occasionally, some more than others, and usually occurred when you had them out for an extended run. Sometimes, in a stall or on the punishment bench, but more often than not when harnessed to a cart or carriage and being worked hard.

Double door syndrome meant that the animal in question mentally exited the room it was in as it were and passed through the doorway of another one far removed from the reality of its miserable existence and was temporarily shielded from all that was going on around it. Unfortunately for the animal, such interludes tended to be very brief, a couple of minutes at most, before they returned to reality, a world where they were not shielded from anything and, as in the case of my Beauty that afternoon, found to their cost,  that the whips and canes of their owners had not been idle during their little mental vacation!

“Whatever.” Mandy shrugged the discussion off. “All that matters is that with her figure and natural poise, she will wow them in the mature entry category and might even hold her own in the normal ones. Anyway, how’s this golden-haired boy settling into his new life? Sally told me the other night that you and Penny had him in harness for a run-out. How’d that go?”

“Not too badly”, I admitted, joining her as we looked into my superb stallion’s stall. That delightful heavy fuzz of golden hair all over his body gave him a glow that instantly caught the eye, which is why I’d named him thus. Besides, ponies never retained their human names, and I’d see his Russian one on a piece of paper when I’d been questioning Bob about potential comebacks regarding his recent acquisitions. Anyway, that delightful thick downy covering would never come off, not even his impressive pubic patch, for although a shade darker, it was a splendid bushy growth almost hiding his sizeable captive manhood behind that golden forest of wiry curls.

I’d already discussed that pubic patch with the gang one evening over dinner. The consensus being that our animals should always be shaved and bare in that region, a little extra on view to please the eye of the owner or handler and one more nail in the coffin containing the animal's self-esteem. I’d been told some owners even went a stage further with their male ones, Bob being one of them. His pretty young colts were denuded of all hair bar their eyebrows and kept that way. An extra task every so often when grooming, but none of the stable girls seemed to mind. A right bunch of Delilah’s that lot, he’d laughed. However, I’d noted that his requirements didn’t extend to his two hulking shaggy brutes, Samson and Goliath!

The collective feeling in my stallion’s case was that given such a beautiful, soft, eye-catching hide, he ought to be treated as an exception and left entirely in his natural state. Not that being spared the razor meant being spared the whip, nor did that soft covering provide any additional protection for him whatsoever when lash and cane bit into his hide.

“We ran him alongside Penny’s Goofy. Have you seen him?” I asked.

“Not yet, another reason for popping down to visit you. She’s been singing his praises lately, and she’s not a girl easily impressed by the male species in or outside of a stable stall. Her hubby is what they had in mind when they coined the word masculine, and I mean that in all and every respect!” she laughed. “Lovely guy though, smashing personality, but my Bob says he always feels inferior to him. Not that he’s any reason to,” she chuckled. “You’ve seen my man in action at least once covering one of his colts. He might not be very tall, but he’s nothing to be ashamed of where size really counts man-wise!”

I nodded. Goldie there and Goofy over the other side would be pretty damn impressive if we released them from their respective cages and provided a certain amount of stimulation. When standing tall and proud, I doubted that either would come close to matching  Mandy’s husband. I’d noted that Bob had nothing to be ashamed of and certainly made up ‘down below’ for what he lacked overall stature.

That reminded me of that outing in the cart with Bob just before I came home when he tied young Buttercup, Goldie junior, behind. To stretch his newly acquired Colts legs, as he put it. And introduce him to pony life. That hadn’t been the only thing he’d stretched that day when we’d halted by one of his regular stopping points complete with ‘mounting hurdle’ as he called it. The youth, it seemed, had inherited far more of his mother’s genes than his father’s, being of slight and slender build along with her pale complexion and hardly a body hair in sight, let alone any sign of that unique golden pelt that covered his pater.

Bob had voiced the same question that had been uppermost in my mind while I watched him vigorously sodomising the screaming and writhing young colt and not holding back one bit with those powerful thrusts. With the fast trot out and now this, the youth would have had a pretty good idea of his future life as a ponyboy.

Hell, if my Beauty and Goldie thought life was terrible, at least I hadn’t submitted them to that indignity, had I? However, on second thoughts? I had a mental image of Goldie tied down and wriggling like his sine had done, as I used something else besides a whip to prove my mastery over him. That thought was accompanied by a rather exciting twinge from a small but intimate part of my anatomy.

“You’ll have to show me where it is.” Mandy’s voice was in my ear, interrupting my thoughts. ”So’s to save time!”

“Wh...what?”

“Your reset button, Honey. You're doing that impression of that elderly US,  what do they call them, Senators or Congressman chap, suddenly freezing on me! What’s up, batteries running down and...what do you want?” the latter part directed at Penny or rather just her head, which peered around the big stable door opening at us.

“My, tetchy today, aren’t we?” Penny chuckled. “A certain cute little blonde just asked me...well more sort of yelled across the yard and ordered me to say that the kettle has recently boiled; thus, both liquid and solid assorted refreshments await your pleasure should you feel like partaking thereof in the farmhouse kitchen.”

“Translated, that means it's coffee break, and there’s nothing wrong with my batteries, and besides, you are the last person in the world I’d ever let near my ‘on’ switch”, I laughed, taking my glamorous friend by the arm. “Come on, let us go over and put Suzy out of her misery and settle my curiosity.”

“And mine”, the complete version of Penny appeared in the doorway. “What’s all this about a ponyboy?” she grinned and pointed a finger accusingly. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to!”

“Eavesdropper,” I chided. “Come along; we can finish the tour later.” I waved my arm around the stable and laughed. “They’ll still be here when we get back, I expect!”

Mandy threw me a dirty look but smiled as Penny intervened again from the open doorway. She’d just turned to walk across to the house when she whirled back and flapped a hand at us, looking rather excited.

“Hey ladies, why don’t we harness up my Goofy and your Goldie again when we get back and then instead of just looking and talking about them, why not take our important visitor?” she stressed the ‘important’ with an accompanying if sarcastic little giggle. “Out for a quick ride around your compact estate. Doing is better than seeing, which is better than hearing, right?”

Mandy and I looked at each other for a moment before she smiled. “Why not? Excellent idea. You can show me how you’re getting on driving them as well. I like it a lot more than the ‘still be here when we get back bit!” she snorted indignantly while I gave Penny a sour look that made her laugh.

“Don’t worry, sweetie. I’ll harness up one of the others or maybe throw a saddle on  Chatterbox; she’s overdue a runout, or maybe I could borrow Beauty. Mummy Penny will keep an eye on you.” Then she broke into another fit of laughter as I stalked straight past her without so much as a glance while beside me, Mandy muttered, “Still be here!” to herself again.