Pony Life

Pony Life

Chapter 1

I shivered in the chilly morning air as I quietly drew back the curtains to peek out the bedroom window and across my farmyard towards the refurbished old stable building. A greenish glint briefly caught my eye, puzzling me until I realised it must be one of the numerous moss patches on the opposite red-tiled roof. The morning dew upon it caught and reflected the early morning sun, which held the promise of a glorious day once it was strong enough to warm things up a bit.

I grinned at that thought. I had similar plans for the day ahead for  ‘warming things up!’ Only those things receiving such heat wouldn’t be green moss, roof tiles, or anything I could see from my bedroom window in the surrounding locality. Those ‘things’ being my ponies, my two-legged human ponies safely secured and stabled within that seemingly innocent old farm building I was looking at. I shivered again, but this time, my shudder had nothing to do with being cold. I turned as a noise behind me disturbed my contemplations.

“Mmmm, wass up….uhhh!” Sally had half-turned over, opened her eyes briefly, and promptly nodded off again. She often did that and sometimes started snoring quietly in a way I found decidedly cute. I listened, but this morning, the adorable sound was absent. Pity, for I found the sound soothing, like a cat quietly purring, and often lay awake next to her warm little body listening to it. She also talked, or rather muttered, occasionally in her sleep as she’d just done. Frequently singular words or bits of sentences, but rarely anything coherent. Sometimes, if I were going through one of my occasional bouts of insomnia, I’d listen and try to make sense of those random utterings.

The other two occupants of my bedroom made no sound whatsoever. I’d slept in my usual place on the nearside of the king-sized bed, near the the window. Sally maintained that it was the far side, being furthest from the doorway. Whatever, it was one of those silly and pointless arguments! Sally had slept in the middle, and young Suzy was on the far side, where she lay comatose and precariously near the edge, I noted. One twitch or a hiccup, and the girl would join Fluffy on the floor. At least, I assumed my human puppy girl was in her customary place on the thick bedside mat.  

I gently pulled the curtains together again to avoid disturbing the two sleeping beauties, but it didn’t make much difference. The sun was growing stronger by the minute, and  Sally had chosen our bedroom curtains, or drapes, depending on where you live, because they were pretty and not for their light-deadening qualities. I was conscious of that as I tiptoed around the huge bed, seeing pretty clearly in the not-so-dim light as I picked up various items of female night attire that had been discarded during the previous evening's multiple bouts of frenetic lesbian lovemaking!

Fluffy wasn’t asleep, for I could see her sad eyes looking up at me in the semi-darkness and saw her draw back fearfully. Why me? I wondered; I mean, it wasn’t me that had tanned her pert little puppy butt raw the preceding evening. Suzy had done that in a moment of impatience when the mutinous little bitch had momentarily refused to put her tongue to use where Suzy wanted it. Not a very sensible thing to do, and I’d have thought Fluffy would have learned that by now, given how many times Suzy had used her talented little tongue. Heavens, that must be more than Sally and myself combined!

My temporary….I paused, wondering how long that loan of a temporary stable girl would be ‘till I got settled’ after the renovations. Heck, much longer, and I’d probably have to put her on the payroll…not that I had one! My loanee, stable girl was young, blonde, sexy and decidedly cute. The sassy little minx only had to glance at some poor guy for him to get the hots and not only guys! Fluffy,  I’d found out last night I wasn’t alone in having a talented tongue, plus the girl was a veritable bundle of enthusiastic energy. Somehow, I’d found that exhausting even though I was the one doing relatively little other than lying back with my legs spread wide while wriggling in ecstasy and giving full voice to my enjoyment!

Had my poor pup benefited similarly, I wondered and then shook my head. I doubted it. I disapproved of my captive livestock being allowed to orgasm. Teased and tormented sexually, yes, but no matter how many hurdles their desperately wriggling bodies might jump, metaphorically speaking, the winning post on the final flat stretch was never to be reached. I knew Suzy was too contentious to break that rule, and given the girls' sadistic streak, probably far too mean!

That savage streak had indeed shown last night when she delivered that prolonged, merciless spanking to the frantically wriggling pup. How the poor thing had yowled, and so, for that matter, had my Sally, but for an entirely different and infinitely more pleasurable reason. Partly because of watching young Suzy’s punishing hand rising and falling so effectively and partly because of what my long probing fingers were doing inside her tiny but sensitive pussy while she watched.

That was one of the cruellest of paradoxes, of course. It certainly was one of the most delightful for me, even if it meant I now had the word SADIST stamped right through me and my soul, if such existed. I was forever dammed! The sight and sound of a helpless human animal on the receiving end of such treatment was so utterly stimulating that I could no longer imagine my life without such delightful entertainment.

I showed my teeth to Fluffy with a reassuring smile; my human puppy bitch was safe from me for the moment. At least, I’d intended it that way, but from her body language, she seemed to interpret it another way and tried to shrink into herself even more so, silly animal. Mind you; I suppose there wasn’t too much difference between my reassuring one and my about-to-do heavy and painful things, evil smiles, I guess thinking about it!

I found and wriggled into my very un-sexy baggy jogging style pyjama bottoms and top, tossed Suzy’s overlong men’s polo shirt she’d worn to bed along with Sally’s child-sized nightie onto a nearby chair and headed quietly for the door. I vaguely remember that Suzy had been wearing a pair of frilly panties at one point, but lord knows what had happened to them! They weren’t in sight, and she certainly wasn’t wearing them; one glance at the bed showed me that. Most of the duvet had found its way to my side of the bed, and apart from one leg, Suzy was lying contentedly on her back, showing all she had. I considered twitching the duvet over her but decided against it. The room wasn’t all that cold, and I’d only wake one or both of the sleeping beauties, and I didn’t want to do that. I felt cool, calm, and relaxed after the frenetic going on the night before, and selfishly didn’t want to share that quiet morning freshness with anyone else for a while.

It wasn’t a work day for Sally, and besides, one glance at the bedside alarm clock showed that even if it had been, there would have been no need to disturb her, not yet anyway. I slipped out of the room, closing the door quietly and wondering why I didn’t feel tired after what had been something of a wild and hedonistic night of girl-on-girl debauchery. I’d certainly dropped off to sleep feeling utterly exhausted and sexually spent.

Raven cocked an incurious eye in my direction from his basket as I checked the water level in the electric kettle and switched it on. My young black German shepherd dog regarded me quizzically for a moment, stirred slightly in his basket, the wicker creaking and then decided it was too early. More importantly, I wasn’t making any moves towards his food bowl. He lowered his head and promptly went back to sleep. So much for man’s best friend! At least Fluffy had acknowledged me even if she had looked scared to death! Then again, besides an occasional tap on his muzzle, what had Raven to fear? He’d never felt whistling the kiss of the cane on his tender rump, had he?

I glanced at the big kitchen wall clock and nodded as I spooned instant coffee into a mug. Yes, it was very early, but I felt…felt kind of what? I contemplated for a moment and then smiled. Frisky was the word that came into my head, and I don’t mean it in a sexual or erotic sense, at least not entirely. I felt kind of energised and was enjoying being up bright and early. More importantly, I noted as an afterthought, also relatively clear-headed which was surprising when I eyed the glasses, bottles and other detritus from the previous evening yet to be cleared away.

We’d got back home a little later than intended from the auction, partly due to lingering over breakfast and then taking our time at Sir Jeffreys loading the three reluctant two-legged animals into the horsebox and ensuring they were suitably restrained and quieted for the drive back to my place. Melons, the first to be secured, had been particularly troublesome, but being suitably harnessed and tacked, her muted protestations and pointless struggles were more of a nuisance than anything else.

‘Melons’ had been one of Suzy’s suggestions during dinner the previous evening when the question of naming  Mandy’s latest purchase arose. We’d only ordered a half bottle of wine, but that had been enough on top of the earlier champagne, so we were all a bit giggly. We quickly became very silly before Mandy called a halt. We were not entirely happy with the name, but it would do for now. Mandy had used it the following morning when telling the girl to start getting Candi, Flach and Melons ready for transportation.

“Melons?” Sarah had laughed, quizzing her Boss.

“Why not?” Mandy had yawned with a shrug. “We’ve got to call the animal something, and that one kind of stuck in my mind. It sounds better than Jugs, Booby or some of the other ones you lot were tossing about during the desert course last night. “Plastic Fantastic, for one. I don’t find much that's fantastic about that foolish creature!”

Then, of course, we’d hit unscheduled or unscheduled, so far as we were aware, roadworks twice, and the second one had seemed to go on forever. You know the sort, miles of orange and white plastic cones, dire warning notices about exceeding the forty-mile speed limit, as if! Redundant speed cameras as we crawled along at half that speed past various unmanned and unattended mechanical diggers and similar, with not a soul in sight! Not a single orange day-glow-clad workman to be seen, not even leaning on a stationary spade, and yes, it was a weekday!

Mandy had driven extra carefully, I’d noted and muttered frequently under her breath when we hit a stop/start/stop extra slow patch. Not good considering the reluctant human cargo we were towing behind us. At one point, I was going to ask a question, wondering if similar circumstances had ever led to such livestock being accidentally discovered. I refrained after catching a glimpse of  Mandy’s irritated face in the rearview mirror. Probably not, I decided, or if it had happened, then someone had done a damn good job of keeping the lid on it!

Mandy could be quite ‘snappy’ when she was in the right mood, so I kept quiet, not knowing if the slow crawl was annoying her or maybe something else. I did see her nod during a prolonged stationary period when Suzy, looking backwards, commented, “Good thing we made doubly sure they were all gagged effectively and completely immobile!”

I knew what she meant. People had a habit of getting out of their vehicles during those unexplained long stationary periods to try and see what was happening up ahead, so the last thing we needed was ponies making a racket if anyone walked past! As usual, when we finally got going again, we saw no apparent reason for the ten minutes or so we’d sat stationary.

Anyway, that meant by the time we reached my place late afternoon, Mandy wouldn’t even stop for a quick cuppa. A  kiss and a hello with Sally as we unloaded three somewhat wobbly-legged and disoriented animals from the box, and that was it. They were gone long before we’d finished settling the new livestock into their stalls, not even waiting to see that. Sally was still leading  Melons, the last of the three, assisted by Suzy, towards the stable as Sarah finished closing up the box and hopped into the big Range Rover, giving me a thumbs up as she did so. Mandy promptly drove off, her right hand briefly raised in a quick half wave, while Sarah twisted in her seat to look back, presumably at Melons. The big woman still looked somewhat glum, I’d thought.

I sipped my coffee slowly, enjoying the morning stillness. Poor Sarah, she’d so wanted to get her claws into Melons, hadn’t she? Still, as the old proverb says. ‘One man's misfortune is another man’s opportunity’. Or women in this case, and thinking along those lines about misfortune, I wondered if Melons was any better off. Probably not in the long run! Sally had been ecstatic last night when I presented Flach to her as what I laughingly called a pre-anniversary anniversary present for a good girl, although the ‘good’ was debatable from the way she’d gleefully eyed up her unexpected present.

Happy as my tiny lover had been, I noticed that Flach wasn’t entirely absorbing all her attention, for, not unexpectedly, she was also casting a speculative eye in Melon's direction. Mandy had told her that Miss Plastic Fantastic was temporarily stabled here to be ‘broken in’ and hadn’t been very specific due to her haste to get back on the road. Thinking about that look in Sally’s eye, combined with young Suzy’s evident enthusiasm, I suspected the bitch might have been better off with big Sarah after all, or then again, maybe not!

Flach or Beanpole, as Mandy had dubbed the beast? Maybe something else entirely, but that was for Sally to decide, not me. I didn’t particularly care for either name, but if I had to choose, I’d probably pick Beanpole. I decided sipping my coffee. It was more humiliating and non-Germanic, but the animal wasn’t English or British, was it being Rumanian. Did it speak or understand English? Given its circumstances, I frowned at that thought and wondered if I should have put it differently, as in the past tense. Had been able to speak English.

Not that it mattered now that speaking any comprehensible language was strictly verboten! Well, it wasn’t new to stable life, so presumably, it had at least learned that basic lesson by now if it wanted to avoid instant punishment. The creature had been a physical education teacher in its previous life, so maybe it had learned English. I shrugged and took another sip. No matter, it would soon learn at Sally's capable hands.

And what about Suzy’s new beast, Candi, as she’d somewhat ridiculously named the poor thing? Now that was humiliating for the animal, and with an i rather than a y! Was he better or worse for the deal? I pondered. Suzy was petite, young, attractive, cute and incredibly sexy. In contrast, Helga was massive, middle-aged, and.…well, forget attractive, cute and sexy unless you had a penchant for Bull elephants! Which of them would he prefer on the end of a whip?

Neither would be the answer, of course, but at least he wouldn’t be forced to watch his younger twin sisters being sexually abused by Helga and her girls any more, but I suspected that would be scant compensation once Suzy got going. Helga had kept the youth in pristine, unsullied condition to keep his value up, another bonus for the savage young miss. No longer the case since the girl had already given him a couple of ‘tasters’ of things to come once she got him home!

He'd been swatted with her crop numerous times between stable and horsebox yesterday, and I’d heard her whispering in his ear that those were just a few gentle ones to keep him warm until she had time to train him to be a good ponyboy properly. Suzy’s idea of gentle probably differed from his by a considerable margin, plus she’d already given him quite a ‘taster’ the day before when she’d had him on a pony-walker alongside Pandora.

I  took another sip of hot coffee, and the floorboards above creaked as someone made their way to the bathroom. Suzy, I suspected for Sally was far too lightweight to clump about like that. I shrugged; so far as Melons was concerned, would it matter who started the ball rolling?

*****

 “Quite a night”, Suzy repeated for the third time as we sat around the table, steadily emptying the pot of fresh coffee I’d brewed. Proper coffee this time, as Sally called it, not instant, and collectively ignoring the toast, cereal and croissants I’d put out. None of us, it seemed, felt like eating, which didn’t particularly surprise me. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t feel ill or even hung over, at least not in the usual sense that followed a heavy night. I did feel exhausted, a tad physically drained, for as Suzy kept saying, it had been quite a night.

Besides, it hadn’t been a heavy night, not in the booze sense. We had emptied several bottles of wine to accompany a light supper of Welsh Rarebit that Sally had prepared. My mother used to call it that, but hers was always just cheddar cheese on toast, whereas Sally's was the real deal with a special tangy sauce of her devising. Simple but decidedly scrumptious and hardly a potent aphrodisiac, though, nor the wine, which was a cheapo supermarket ‘own’ brand.

“Yes, quite a night, " Suzy said for the fourth time, shaking her tousled blonde hair as she contemplated her coffee mug. “I mean, how the hell did I end up in bed with you two?”

“Yeah, and all the rest” I grinned at her as my memory began to click back into gear. “I certainly seem to recall appreciating your….your presence at one point!”

“I woke up feeling uncomfortable” Sally added her two pennyworth or two cents worth, as our American cousins would say. “I was wearing my strap-on harness, and it had sort of slipped around a bit” She shook her head and promptly winced slightly. “How the hell did that happen?”

“I vaguely remember you using it on Fluffy at one point”, I told her, and……

“Not just Fluffy!” Suzy interrupted. “Hell, for such a titch, you can use that bloody thing almost as….as bad as bloody Sarah, and she’s a hundred times your size. At least she feels like that when she’s above pounding away at your pussy! No wonder I feel so sore this morning; what with you last night and that big bitch pounding me the other night!”

“Less of the ‘Titch’, thank you”, Sally growled and then smiled. “As good as Sarah, eh? I think I will have one of those croissants after all. Did you warm them?”

I shook my head. That would have been too much of an effort, but Sally didn’t seem to mind as she reached for one and then tore into it with her cute little teeth. Suzy watched her for a moment and then also helped herself and chose to eat hers by tearing small chunks off the pastry with her fingers.

“Gotta keep my strength up for later, " she said through a mouthful of semi-masticated croissant. “Gonna be a busy day for us hard-working ladies. No rest for the wicked this early!”

I glanced at the big kitchen wall clock again. That last statement wasn’t true, not this morning anyway. The hands had moved on since I’d first come downstairs to put the kettle on. The three of us were decidedly late on parade this morning. It was well past the usual time for the morning feed for our captive two-legged animals, let alone any other activity. Mind you, those unfortunates housed in the stable would probably regard that as a bonus rather than a penalty. 

On second thoughts, though, I couldn’t fault her on the wicked part, for we were three wicked, evil ladies, and we wouldn’t be resting much for the next few hours, nor would we wish to. The previous evening, we’d confined ourselves more to the basic practicalities of settling our new animals into their less-than-deluxe new quarters. That’s not to say they didn’t receive the customary handling; the intimate touches and squeezes that were a daily feature of owning such exotic creatures, plus our various crops, made their usual mark. Nothing serious, though, even if it did make them squeal and jump. We’d save the severe and essential discipline for later when both we and they were more refreshed. Heck, I don’t even know why they bothered to squeal like that, for they were hardly more than love taps merely to demonstrate our total dominance over the silly, stubborn animals!

“I remember grabbing Fluffy by the collar and dragging her upstairs with me behind you two.” Suzy frowned thoughtfully and continued talking through a mouthful of French pastry. I’m not sure what happened after that?” she finished, sounding a little troubled.

“Me neither, but I wouldn’t worry about it, Suze”, Sally told her. “There is always a first for everything, and we all enjoyed ourselves”, she paused, “At least I'm pretty sure we did, and I’m beginning to feel better than I did ten minutes ago! Our super discussions must have triggered it, as well as the wine. Anyway, I feel a bit more human than I did twenty minutes ago and talking of being human…” she trailed off and laughed.

I nodded understandingly. We hadn’t spent all that long in the stable, which was a little strange now that I thought about it, especially now that we had three new animals to play with. But two of us had been travel-weary while Sally had held the fort on her own for several days. She’d hustled us over here for supper, and then we’d had the wine and talked about the newcomers and had more wine, made plans and had more wine…and inevitably got ourselves worked up and randy! I laughed aloud, causing my two belated breakfast companions to stare at me.

“No big mystery, last night, I mean. ”I explained. “A few glasses too many on top of those nasty plans we were discussing for…” I jerked my head in the stable direction where those we no longer considered human resided. Well, no longer one hundred per cent human anyway! “We just got a trifle worked up, that’s all!”

“Yeah,” Suzy nodded ruefully. “And that led to another night of getting pissed and then pussy pounded!”

I laughed at her woeful expression. “Cheer up, you didn’t sound unhappy last night, and you didn’t get your bum soundly spanked this time and talking of spanking” I grinned and jerked my head again. “Perhaps a little arm exercise will do us all some good!”

*****

“Now, Beanpole,  don’t be a silly pony. You need to eat to keep your strength up, and new ponies like you always need to keep their strength up because you’ve so much to learn…. and learn fast. Believe me, life will be so much better then!”

I grinned. Naming rights solved, and talk about blatant insincerity and downright lying! Leaving some of the words aside, you’d have thought from Sally's soft, sweet tone that she was talking to a cute, unruly toddler who was steadily refusing to open its mouth for a spoonful of delicious, nourishing, warm baby food.

Beanpole wasn’t a cute toddler, though, was she and no matter how enthusiastically she gobbled up her morning pony chow, her life was unlikely to get any better! I could understand her reluctance for the unappetising concoctions of pony feed; pony chow, as Suzy called it, might be nourishing. Indeed, we took care to see that it met such criteria. However, we skipped on the warm and delicious elements!

They could blame me for that one. Mandy’s ponies primarily ate a daily diet of food she purchased ready-made. A kind of pony kibble that could be chewed as it came straight from the plastic sack or mixed into a paste or soup of varying consistency depending on how much water was added. I’d tasted it a few times in various forms, and it wasn’t too bad. Bland, yes, boring, yes, but it did come in a range of flavours that were slightly different, if somewhat unidentifiable. I’d been helping Sarah liquidise them for breakfast once and asked what the difference was.

The big woman had grunted and pointed to the plastic sacks on the shelves. Those are green; those are cream; that one is brown, and so on,” was her answer. “You can also serve it hot, but we never bother”.

“Yes, but what about flavour?” I’d persisted, looking at the pale green, thick, soupy slop in a stainless steel bowl I’d just produced via a big electric mixer.

“Like I told you. That one's plain green flavour and needs a shade more water,  that bag is dark green flavour, that one brown flavour and so on…tch, pay attention, girl!”

I gave up at that point, dipped a finger in the light green slop, licked it, and added more water as she’d suggested, making it easy for them to slurp up. There was nothing on the bags, not even a manufacturer's label. Just a coloured sticker to let you know what colour the contents were, which was a lot of help, I don’t think!

Mandy wasn’t much more informative, either. ‘Oh, one of my acquaintances in the scene owns the place that makes it. I wouldn’t worry yourself too much about it; I never do. It’s easy to use and keeps them all healthy, and that's all I care about. They should be grateful that I feed them something that tastes slightly different each meal. Try a bit…oh, you have; it's not exactly repulsive. Hell, my dogs live on cheap canned dog food and table scraps!

I’d got half a dozen sacks of various colours in store courtesy of Mandy, which I’d brought back when I moved into my newly renovated little estate. So far, they’d remained unused as we experimented with various home-produced ‘pony chow recipes’ that could be more than ‘slightly’ different for each meal.

Suzy's verdict was that it was “More of a hassle” than back at Mandy’s but far more amusing and entertaining, especially since we rigorously enforced the ‘clean dishes or else’ rule—the ‘or else’ aspect, of course, involving a high degree of pain to ensure the animal in question quickly regained its appetite!

I set elementary criteria for pony chow. It had to be nourishing and not likely to make them sick in the short or long term. For example, you could not empty the contents of a pepper pot or hot chilli container into the mix just because you wanted to watch the immediate effect! It also had to be of a suitable consistency to be slurped rather than chewed, which was better for their bowels. A constipated pony was a pain in the neck, so keeping them continually ‘loose’ was another priority.

That last requirement wasn’t that difficult to achieve. Along with the sacks of ‘coloured’ food, I’d also been given several unmarked, one-gallon plastic containers containing a murky brown liquid. ‘Kind of an industrial-strength variation of Syrup of Figs, ’ Sarah had told me. I suspected it wasn’t likely to be available over the counter anywhere, nor even via prescription in small doses!

I had no complaints about its effectiveness, though, for it only took a couple of thimblefuls stirred into the contents of the chow bucket to do the job. I referred to it as ‘The syrup’, whereas Sally called it ‘Runny tum-tum stuff’, and of course, to Suzy, it was simply ‘Shit juice!’ I wondered if that was the general term back at Mandy’s stable or merely a Suzy term. I suspected the latter and that we’d all end up using it in the long term. A tad coarse but certainly descriptive!

That was more or less it, criteria-wise, and over the first few weeks, we experimented and evolved a dozen or so basic recipes. That’s not to say they were identical every time. That depended on who was doing the prep, availability of ingredients,  mixing quantities and general mood at the time! We did everything by eye rather than bothering with scales and measuring jugs for speed and convenience plus, there was always what Sally called the X factor. You could translate that as tossing in whatever you thought might enhance the concoction as a last-minute addition. That might be anything from additional salt and pepper to half a tin of liquidised doggie chunks in jelly that Raven had turned his nose up at!

Just as Melons was doing now, mirroring what Beanpole had done on the far side a few moments ago, unfortunately for her, the tolerance I had when my pup was in one of his rare fussy eater spells didn’t extend to finicky ponies; besides the animal ought to be hungry. Simon, Sir Jefferys's head groom, had told us she’d hardly eaten anything during her brief sojourn when we collected her yesterday, nor had any of them been breakfasted at Mandy’s request.  

“Journeys usually make them sick”, Mandy commented. “Probably all that swaying about while standing on their hooves. Nor had we fed them the previous evening. Watered, yes, but we’d let their stomachs settle down overnight before introducing them to the culinary delights of…well, the one-choice, no-choice dish of the day they’d be fed. Yes, we always doubled up when making breakfast so that the same plastic bucket of slop would be used for supper. I mean, why make more work for ourselves than was necessary? It wasn’t as if we were going to lose customers, were we?

“Trouble, Boss lady?” Suzy looked in through the open stall door.

*****

We’d been a good two hours, maybe nearer two and a half beyond when we’d usually feed the critters. There wasn’t a designated set time as such, but we usually fed them within the same half-hour period each morning and evening. I’d been told that such regularity and routine was good animal husbandry, whether it be two or four-legged animals you were looking after, which made sense. My pup, Raven, was regulated by his feed and walkie times and wasn’t slow to remind you when one of them was due.

Prepping breakfast for them that morning was a team effort by unspoken consent. Typically, it’s a one-person task handled by whoever is first up and downstairs. However, the three of us felt a bit jaded, and none of us was functioning normally, but we managed to produce their chow without getting in each other's way or doubling up. Then we decided it was about time for our usual morning coffee break, so naturally, that took precedence. By the time we’d absorbed a bit more caffeine and a couple of chocolate digestive biscuits each, we felt a bit more ‘human,’ as Suzy put it after our night of debauchery. That raised a collective giggle as we spontaneously glanced towards the blue plastic bucket standing on the draining board, destined to fill the tummies of our ‘non-human’ humans!

We must have been feeling better, which led to a discussion about what we fancied for lunch and dinner. We decided that for the latter, one of us would nip down to the village fish and chip shop for the usual: medium battered cod and chips x three, two cartons of mushy peas, and a large cod that Raven and Fluffy could share as a treat.

“Fish is good for their teeth”, Suzy commented a few minutes later as we crossed the yard towards my stable. “Lots of protein”.

“I thought that was calcium,” I queried, sniffing my ‘jam pot’ container and wishing I hadn’t. If only one of us were feeding, the blue plastic bucket would serve solo. On mornings like today, when the chore was shared, we poured the sloppy mixture into small plastic containers with a wire handle. I vaguely remembered them from my youth, dominating the breakfast table, with my mother buying jam or marmalade in bulk instead of by the jar. I’d found a stack of them during that initial major clear-out of junk from the stable and set a few aside in case they came in useful.

“Both are good, but I think, clinically speaking, calcium is the more important,” Sally chipped in from a couple of paces behind, causing Suzy and me to share a quick grin. My little lover worked part-time as a receptionist at the local medical centre and seemed to think that qualified her to dispense advice and wisdom on general health! We’d both learned not to mention headaches, colds, or other minor ailments lest she took a more practical interest.

Unfortunately for them, our animals were not so lucky in that respect—or maybe they were, depending on how you looked at it. Sally also served as our on-site vet and was very friendly with the prescription nurse at the practice. All Sally had to say was, ‘I’ve got a friend who's feeling a bit poorly’ and describe the symptoms, and one of our ‘off-colour’ animals would be getting dosed as soon as she returned home!

I opened the door after Sally keyed in the code twice and failed. She seemed to do that every time, and I’d suggested she get her eyes checked if her aim was that bad. Her response was always the same and a little tart. ‘I can see perfectly well, thank you! I’m just used to typing fast, but I do it on a horizontal keyboard, not a vertical number pad! Suzy and I said nothing as she tapped that keypad for the third time, somewhat more slowly, muttering to herself.

Once the door made its usual loud click, I heaved it open to be immediately greeted by that now familiar odour of captive human animals. As usual, Sally and Suzy pushed impatiently past me as I took my customary pause in the doorway. Suzy described it as ‘my surveying my domain moment’. The girl wasn’t entirely wrong in that assumption either, for I relished that brief moment every time I entered the old building. That familiar smell of straw, sawdust, dirt, sweat-soaked leather, shit and piss and so on. Some people might have found it revolting, but not me and my body invariably gave a little shudder of anticipatory delight every time.  

I’d thought about trying to explain that feeling to my companions, but I doubted if they’d understand. They were both far more acclimatised to such unsavoury aspects of two-legged animal husbandry than I was, and perhaps, in time, I would be the same way. I hoped not, for I savoured that daily kick every morning. 

Under other circumstances or perhaps with other animals, our belated arrival with the equivalent of the food trolly would be greeted with enthusiasm by those whose tummies were probably beginning to rumble. What Suzy callously called the in, out and don’t hang about routine for often feeding seemed to stimulate their bowels, so the sound of a pony splattering its legs and stall shortly after wasn’t unusual. I was accustomed to the attendant smell by now, but occasionally, one of them took that nasal sensation to a higher level. Goldie was prone to doing that I’d noted.

The foul outpourings from his open tail tube evidently very different now from what he’d previously dined on in his elevated position in the Kremlin and as a Moscow Mafia boss. No Caviar, oven-cooked suckling pig and so forth, accompanied by Beluga Vodka for my golden boy. The latter caused me to pause for a second as a thought occurred. Maybe he’d been a heavy drinker in his previous existence. I’d read a lot of Russians were and that Vodka was cheap and freely available. Perhaps being denied that accounted for his bad temper and troublesome behaviour. Withdrawal symptoms?

My abrupt laugh caused both my companions to turn and stare questioningly at me briefly before resuming their respective tasks. I was still chuckling as I passed Goldie's stall, noting how the belligerent animal’s eyes glowered at me and his head turned. Maybe not. Given his predicament, such symptoms would be pretty minor; he’d far more to worry about now than alcohol deprivation, hadn’t he? Thanks to Sally, the last dozen or so hours being a prime example!

We’d been about halfway through our late and simple breakfast when suddenly, she said, “Whoops!” and put a hand to her mouth and turned to me, biting her lower lip.

“Whoops?”

She shrugged. “I forgot all about Goldie,” she said, pulling a face and shrugging again. “Oh well, far too late now to worry about it, and besides,  I doubt it will have done him any damage” She stopped and then giggled. “I did all the damage before I left him perched on his hooves as an extra punishment, poor boy”.

Poor boy, maybe, but there wasn’t the slightest trace of sincerity in her voice nor any indication that she was about to go and release the poor creature from its suffering. ‘Perching’ or hoof perching, as we called it, was a punishment we inflicted from time to time on a troublesome or recalcitrant animal. A beating was painful but soon over, whereas standing in the centre of your stall on your hooves with your legs fully stretched and your head held high for hours tethered by a tight leash from the rafter above to your posture collar was decidedly unpleasant.

If I had any immediate plans for Goldie, I might as well forget them, at least for the next few hours. Sally frequently used Perching as a punishment for big Medusa; she had a special tether complete with an array of pulley blocks, such as you might see on a sailing yacht, to aid her in hauling the big animal into position. She’d perfected the technique back at Mandy’s place on Bob’s big ponyboys, Samson and Hercules and watching her made you realise how sailors in the olden days could easily manage to haul those yard arms supporting huge billowing sails into position when changing tack on wooden sailing ships.

It was an effective ongoing punishment, but the downside was this it tended to cripple the pony for a time once it was released. Medusa invariably collapsed and curled herself up, moaning as circulation and relief came back to over-stretched limbs. Lord knows what state poor Goldie would be in after a whole night, an extended night at that, but as my tiny lover had said,  his acute discomfort was unlikely to have done any permanent damage.

Unlike his pony hide, I noted. Of the three of us, I was probably the soft-hearted one or relatively soft(ish). Despite being somewhat smaller and lighter than I, the other two members of our troika compensated for that with their savagery. Then again, they both had far more experience than I did, and as I’ve mentioned before, probably tended to see considerably more pony and less human in the animals than I did. I suspected that would change over time, and it probably already had, considering all the horrible things I’d done in the past year!

I noted with a certain degree of satisfaction that look of absolute hate visibly disappear, replaced by a look of horrified anguish as he realised that I’d paused in passing and was not about to enter his stall and release him from his torment. Serves you right, animal, I thought to myself. Maybe you’ll show more respect to the woman who now owns you in the future!

I’d said I’d deal with Melons as I felt a sense of responsibility for the creature now she was in my stable thanks to Suzy. Sally would deal with Goldie along with Beanpole, while Suzy volunteered to feed Medusa, Beauty and Candi.

“It's only fair”, the girl said. “Melons is brand new, so she’s likely to be troublesome, and I’m the one who dropped you in it. I’ll look after the other three. Beauty and Medusa know the feeding routine, and Candi better learn quickly if he wants to stay on my good side!”

I’d been tempted to quip, ‘What good side?’ but refrained because she was being helpful after all, and sometimes friendly banter can go awry. She was right, though, and the little I’d seen so far told me that Melons was unlikely to settle into her new life quietly. Then again, did I really imagine for one moment that she would!

I nodded to Goldie and said, “Don’t fret, boy. Sally will see to you in a minute” I gave him my best reassuring smile and received that renewed look of absolute hatred in return. I shrugged indifferently, for it was water off the proverbial duck's back. My big golden boy was hardly in a position to do anything, was he? Besides, why blame me if she decided her priorities lay first with her new pony? If he’d been a bad boy yesterday and upset his tiny Mistress, he only had himself to blame. I nodded to him, noting with amusement how his eyes flicked warily from me, seeking out the tiny woman who’d had sole charge of him in my absence. Sally had said she’d ‘damaged’ him and, by the look of his well-stripped pony hide, more than once. Well, that was his problem and unlike Beauty, Sally and Suzy had carte blanche to do as they liked to my golden-haired boy.

Beauty was my prize animal, whereas the big Russian was little more than an extra to me, a whipping boy, a human punching bag that Mandy and Bob had unexpectedly gifted me. That was exceedingly kind, but big, small, young or old ponyboys had never featured very strongly with me. It had been that image of a sweaty, well-whipped ponygirl pulling two women in a carriage that had first ‘floated my boat’ as they say.

Strange how that now seemed a lifetime ago, and yet it been little more than a year and a half since in a fit of boredom one evening and contemplating a ‘pony trekking’ holiday with girls of a similar age when that exciting image popped up on my monitor. I’ve no idea what search terms I typed into Google that evening. Presumably, girls or girls were one and pony another, but there must have been others, such as trekking and holidays. However, by some random act of electronic fate, my PC decided to spit out that image. At least, that caught my eye amid whatever else must have appeared on the screen.

It's amazing how things like that can impact your life and, in this case, others as well. I was thinking more in terms of Fluffy and Beauty, for I’d had a direct hand in turning their lives upside down and worse. Whereas Goldie, Medusa and the others would have ended up in harness or similar regardless of me, and that brought me back to Melons, who was definitely not a ponyboy!

Her personal circumstances might have undergone a very abrupt change, and not for the better either, but one thing she was renowned for hadn’t changed, not yet, anyway. That was the voluble output, which was considerable. Despite being bit gagged and there not being a camera-wielding reporter or similar in sight, the vocal cords were still working overtime by the sound! During my sojourn at Mandy's, Big Sarah had told me that it was virtually impossible to silence a pony entirely via a mouth bit. You could mute it to the point of being incomprehensible so far as intelligible speech went. However, achieving complete silence was impossible, no matter how big the bit and tight the retaining strap was pulled. Indeed, she’d strongly cautioned me against overtightening mouth bits due to the potential for causing tissue damage in a sensitive area. ‘They soon learn through other means that trying to communicate is both impossible,  pointless and merely a waste of effort!’ A lesson Melons had yet to learn. But she would, and painfully!

“Mmmffff, youufff, arghhhhh”, and a whole lot more. None of it was the least bit comprehensible because Suzy had used an extra large mouth bit on her and pulled it tighter than the norm after forcing the animal to drink the previous evening. Standard practice with a new animal because normal-sized bits were generally for the long term. In contrast, initial induction called for more severe measures till they learned that silence was, if not golden, preferable to the painful alternatives! 

“Tch, none of them will get a wink of sleep otherwise!” had been Suzy’s justification as we’d settled them into their new quarters.

“Very considerate of you, young madam”, I’d laughed, thinking of the noise and fuss Melons had initially been kicking up while Suzy attempted to water her. Patience, not being one of Suzy’s strong points, meant that she’d simply dunked Melon's face into her water trough several times to shut her up and held her there, leaving the option as to whether or not to drink her fill or drown. I was surprised she hadn’t resorted to more painful means of persuasion, but the crop stayed in her belt. Melons had quickly got the message and had doubtlessly been thirsty anyway.

“I don’t know what you have planned for tomorrow, older Madam! But do you want a bunch of ponies all dead on their feet through lack of sleep and fit for nothing, yes, no?”  had been her terse response.

Fair point, I’d conceded, thinking back as Melons glared at me, not quite managing to mirror that vengeful look I’d just witnessed in Goldie's eyes, but certainly a worthy attempt. Oh, how true that old expression ‘if looks could kill’ was! To truly appreciate it, you had to be in a situation like this. But since she was no more capable of carrying out that threat than Goldie had been, another cliché popped into my mind. That line at the end of Gone with the Wind, my mother's favourite movie. ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!’ Or words to that effect.

I smiled straight back at her and repeated my indifferent shrug. The animal didn’t realise it, of course, but the day that look in her eyes vanished forever would be the day the animal became of little interest to me. I couldn’t speak for the entire pony-owning community because I didn’t have enough experience, but who would want a boring, deadbeat pony? Indeed, or similar for that matter thinking back to those two sad old lots at the recent auction and the total lack of interest they aroused in the audience.

What was it Mandy had said? ‘Other options. Return to the owners, maybe sent onto another auction, or….other options, as I said. I wouldn’t worry yourself about them’. I’d meant to quiz her later about what she meant, but I’d forgotten about it. I gazed thoughtfully at Melons, wondering what those ‘other options’ were and whether I wanted to know. Somehow, I doubted that there were retirement homes for elderly house slaves and similar to enjoy their golden years nor grassy paddocks for retired ponies.

I thought of Beauty, Fluffy, Goldie, and maybe other animals I was yet to own, until Melons interrupted my sombre musings by stomping her hoofs up and down, kicking up a cloud of dust and dirt in a temper tantrum. Oh, fuck it. I gave a callous shrug. I’d cross such bridges when needed, which wouldn’t be for a long time. Right now, I had other things to occupy me as I reached for the simple catch to Melon’s stall and hefted the food container in my other hand, thinking that I’d adopt Suzy’s simple method if the animal decided it wasn’t hungry. Why not? After all, the creature had spent two-thirds of its life wearing a thick coating of cosmetic gunk on its face, so a smearing of pony chow wouldn’t matter would it?

*****

“Trouble, Boss Lady?” Suzy had said.

I shook my head. “Nothing I can’t handle. How’s Candi settling in? Enjoying his breakfast?” I nodded at the riding crop tucked in her belt. “I heard that encouragement you were providing, and what's with this ‘Boss Lady' business?”

 “Well, you are the boss lady here, aren’t you? The girl giggled and tapped the leather handle of her crop with one finger. ”I don’t think my boy cared over much for the way his breakfast smelled, but a couple of swats from the tip of my crop on the tip of his cock sorted that silliness out! Did that sound right?” She finished with a frown, and I guessed she was repeating the sentence in her head.

I couldn’t help laughing at her reflective expression as I said. “My mum used to say that hunger was the best sauce for a reluctant appetite, but your solution, I’d say, is far more appropriate to this situation”. Even before I’d finished speaking, I knew what would come next as I eyed Melons thoughtfully. Mandy had entrusted me to board her latest acquisition, a very expensive one, so I could hardly allow the creature to starve herself and hand over a scrawny skin-and-bones pony when she came to collect. Besides, the animal wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Suzy wanting to piss Big Sarah off, would it, and so….I grinned and changed my mind. ‘Not too much’, Mandy had said, but those big artificially enhanced udders were not entirely forbidden, were they?

Ignoring the pony, I raised my food container and poured the contents into the stainless steel food trough that had caught my eye on eBay, and I bought ten of them. I think they’d originally belonged to a commercial Bain-Marie serving counter, but they made excellent pony feed troughs that were hygienic and easy to clean. Not that the rest of the stall followed suit, and from the stench, Melons had already adjusted herself to the lack of conventional toilet facilities. My eye alighted on a suspiciously heaped pile of dirt and sawdust in one corner. Melons was going to be one of those, then, was she?

That was another of the many aspects of pony life and behaviour I’d noticed while helping out at Mandy’s place. Not important, but I found it fascinating. Some ponies pissed and crapped where they stood regardless and ignored their filthy outpourings, whereas others were more fastidious. Some always did their ‘business’ in the corner of the stall, always the far end where the wall was, I noted and some, but not all, also took the time to scrape dirt and sawdust over the mess just like a domestic cat does in a litter tray.

“Varies from animal to animal” was Big Sarah’s indifferent response when I mentioned it during one coffee break. “Why the curiosity?”

“No real reason,” I shrugged. Evidently, the head stable girl didn’t share my curiosity, familiarly breeding contempt, perhaps? I did find it interesting, though, and of course, then as now, I found everything to do with such exotic animals fascinating.

“It does tend to happen far more with female ponies in stalls than male ones, I’ve noted,” Sarah had added as an afterthought, topping up my coffee mug. We might have been discussing the weather so far as she was concerned!

I eyed that little heap, wondering if I ought to offer melons some sort of a compliment for being so… so…I’d been thinking ‘tidy’, but that probably wasn’t quite the right word. Not that it mattered, I told myself, so why bother? I doubted that Sally or Suzy would share my fascination, and I had no desire to amuse them, so I refrained from commenting. And besides, it made no difference when mucking out the stall. Well, not entirely true, I thought, still looking towards the corner. It was easier and far quicker to deal with one area than the whole stall, thus making the main weekly mucking out, if not quicker, less hazardous to one's footwear!

Every other day, we did a quick, what Suzy called ‘Lumps and clumps!’ in every stall. Raked their flattened straw bedding back into a pile and then did the dirt floor, collecting those foul lumps, bumps and damp patches as we went and scooping it into a wheelbarrow for the growing composite mound. Bizarrely, it kind of reminded me of the ‘bran tub lucky dip’ at the annual village fete when I was a kid. My mum always bought me a ticket, and I’d hang over the edge of the barrel desperately searching for one of the small wrapped packages, hoping for something good, only to end up being disappointed with the usual cheap chocolate bar which I could have bought at the village shop for half the price.

Still, it was different and a tad more exciting than buying over the counter, even if my dad always cracked the same joke every year. ‘Careful girl, that looks more like cat litter than bran to me, so make sure you find something with wrapping paper around it!’  That stale old joke invariably popped into my mind every time I was raking out a stall, and this time, the prizes were definitely unwrapped and while frequently, the same shade certainly wouldn’t taste of chocolate!

If she continued, Melons would be the first such animal my stable had housed. From day one, beauty was and had always been a ‘where I stand’ crapper. Suzy’s Candyfloss and the two Penny had brought likewise, similarly with Medusa. Whereas my Goldie was a definite ‘squirter’ most of the time. Lord knows what sort of a diet he’d lived on in Russia, but I’d already given up trying to get more roughage down him. He suffered from frequent bouts of diarrhoea, but his over-loose bowels didn’t seem to affect his health overmuch, so I’d given up trying to cater especially for his problem.

 Besides, I suppose this will sound weird. I just loved watching him when he squirted and couldn’t do anything to stop it from happening. What with his bowel problem and hollow tail tube, he was helpless to prevent the inevitable and didn’t he just hate that humiliation? Plus, if I happened to be watching, oh boy! Talk about humbling mortification and the pride of the high and mighty crumbling to dust as he soiled his stall and himself. That was when that familiar look in his eyes took on an extra shade of hatred as I witnessed his degradation.

“Are you going to feed her or not?” Suzy was back at my side, swinging her empty food container by the handle. “Tch, I’m done, and so is Sally. You know Mandy won’t thank you if you starve the poor thing to death! Mind you, she added contemptuously. “ Miss Porky, there could do with losing a few pounds by the look of her. No Photoshop here to disguise the truth! The face and tits that launched a hundred thousand teenage erections now far more flabby mutton joint than lean lamb chop!”

I thought it was a trifle unfair, but we both laughed mainly because of that vitriolic look in Melon's eyes rather than what she’d said. Despite her desperate situation, the girl's words clearly stung the pony. Flabby was perhaps a little inaccurate, and nothing a pony's diet and strict exercise couldn’t quickly amend. As for mutton rather than lamb, the bridle and bit covered most of Melon's face, so the daily application of half a ton of cosmetics was no longer necessary!

I couldn’t fault those jutting udders, though, nor the silicone quality or whatever was inside them. Her Turkish plastic surgeon had certainly earned his Euros or whatever she’d paid with, and I promptly grinned as that corny old joke came to mind. The one about the horny gut and having to wait three days before they could screw down the coffin lid! In this case, I suppose they’d have to puncture the bloody things!

Besides, I thought as Suzy sauntered off whistling tunelessly to herself back to Candi’s stall; Mandy hadn’t bought her for looks, had she? My elegant and glamorous friend had a stable full of good-looking younger animals, had she not? I suspected that she’d bought Melons principally because she was something of a ‘unique’ specimen, a one-off, that plus that she wanted to deprive some unspecified rival of the privilege. I’d asked her during dinner why and what she intended to do with her latest purchase. She was far too old and had the wrong shape for the dressage ring and racing circuit.

“Because I could, and she was available, so why not?” Had been her answer or the first part while she thoughtfully chewed on a piece of rare, very rare rump steak. Probably the only kind of rump she didn’t like red hot or scorched! “Don’t worry, I’ll find a…a suitable use for the bitch. She can do many useful jobs around my estate, pulling a roller or a mower, for instance, and then there’s always….”Mandy paused and chuckled. “Well, according to the tabloids, she could never keep her legs crossed for long, so I’m sure I can find some suitors to keep her entertained and me amused. My dogs, perhaps, and I can always borrow one of Penny’s four-legged stable occupants. I gather she liked them oversized”, she’d finished with a wicked chuckle.

I’d pulled a face at that, much to her amusement. “Well, why not? I gather she likes her partners ‘big’, or at least that’s what I read in a magazine article…not that I go out of my way to read such garbage”, she paused. “Gossip section in an airline magazine, I think, captive audience flying back from Germany once when I forgot my book!”

The sound of a plaintive squeal as a crop found its mark returned me to planet Earth, and I physically shook myself as the sound of crop and squeal was repeated along with Suzy’s hissed, “Early days, silly boy, but I wouldn’t advise trying that again, not with me!”

Yes, Suzy was right. We’d started very late, and the day was no longer young. An apt thought given my recent musings, and then there was that text from Penny on my cell phone. ‘Give me a call, hun, when it's convenient’. I wondered what that glamorous model Miss or rather Mrs complete with hunky hubby, two kids and a collection of two-legged animals wanted. I shook myself again, muttering. “Get a grip, girl”.

“What?” Sally stood outside the stall, leading her big Medusa by the animal's nose ring tether.   Medusa was the only animal in my stable that was so fitted, but given the beast's size and evil temperament, it was a much-needed addition. Indeed an essential means of control when you contrasted the colossal bulk of the animal to that of Sally, her tiny owner. It was a real case of beauty and the beast that invariably gave me a thrill both of pride and erotic stimulation when I saw them together.

“Nothing, Dear. Just talking to myself.”

Sally laughed, mainly because of what Suzy immediately called from Candi’s stall. I didn’t catch it, but it was undoubtedly derogatory and aimed at my remark about talking to myself. I watched the big animal obediently following its tiny Mistress out into the stable yard lest she yank on that cord and deliver mind-numbing pain to its nasal region. Time, high time I decided to do what I should have done ten minutes ago. I tipped the greasy contents of my feeding bucket into the stainless steel trough, used my rubber-tipped spatula to scrap out the last few globules, and reached for the crop in my belt.

Melon looked at the trough and took a step backwards. Well, they must have fed her at least once back at Sir Jeffery’s place, I thought, and to think is to act. “Hey Suze, got a minute?”

“Sure, Boss lady, why?”

I looked Melons straight in the eyes and smiled as my fingers reached out to release the animals mouth bit.

“Melons is about to eat her scrumptious late breakfast, and I know how good you are at helping animals recover their appetites: clean bowls and all that. I’ll hold her head down in the trough while you provide any necessary encouragement. Just lend a hand for a second, would you? Oh, and bring your crop….no on second thoughts, get one of the canes, a nice thick swishy one!