Pony Life

 Chapter 4

I wasn’t in any particular rush; in fact, I was feeling quite lazy and sluggish, and found myself leaning against one of the stable doorposts as I suddenly let out a loud yawn, then promptly grinned. I’d nearly automatically started to apologise for my noisy breach of social good manners out of habit. My upbringing, I suppose. Idiot, as if it mattered to Melons over there, glaring so grimly at me or any of the others.

Two others I reminded myself: Beauty and big Medusa sulking in her stall over yonder. Goldie was strapped over the whipping hurdle outside, anxiously awaiting my ‘pleasure’, while Candi and Beanpole were earning their keep somewhere along the woodland dirt tracks. My mouth opened, and another yawn escaped, bigger and longer but thankfully less noisy than its predecessor, and I grinned again, wondering how many times I’d unwittingly apologised to one of the animals without it registering.

Suzy had pulled me up about it only last week, hadn’t she, asking, “Why did you say that?” There was a look of complete astonishment on her pretty face that momentarily baffled me.

“Say what?”

The young girl looked at me curiously, then shook her head, making the blonde high ponytail she was sporting swing back and forth enticingly. “Say sorry to this dumb thing, you moron!”.

I paused, soapy scrubbing brush in my hand and stared at her. We were in the wet area garbed in the usual rubber boots, plastic kitchen aprons and yellow washing-up gloves. I’d initially bought myself a box of surgical latex ones via Amazon when setting up my stable and planning the capture of a pony to occupy it. Well, it had seemed the appropriate thing to do, that was until I got to Mandy's, where they used bog-standard household washing-up ones bought at the local supermarket, probably.

I didn’t need to ask why. Practicality! Those blue surgical latex gloves seemed to take half a day to put on, and then, when you were done, they got thrown away. Whereas the good old yellow ‘Marigolds’ or whatever brand, slipped on and off in a second and lasted for ages. The ones I’d worn in Mandy's stable had been pink rather than yellow, but that’s irrelevant!

We had been jointly engaged in giving Goldie his weekly washdown. I had been attending to his 'uppers’, that is, waist upwards, including hair and teeth, while Suzy took care of the ‘lowers’ as Sally termed the tasks. Suzy tended to phrase it a bit more crudely. ‘The shitty end!’ was her vulgar description, and she wasn’t entirely joking or wrong!

The only en-suite bathroom facility in the stalls our two-legged animals occupied was the dirt in whichever corner or spot they chose to use. When and where to empty their bladders was one of the few remaining decisions left to the miserable creatures. We weren’t fussed; they had to be mucked out regularly anyway, and it was a necessary chore we cheerfully accepted. It was one of the responsibilities of ownership, such as walking the dog, cleaning out the cat litter tray or changing the sawdust in the hamster cage in normal households.

The latter analogy did not escape me. I had a couple of hamsters as a child, but nowadays I need considerably more sawdust than the bag I bought fortnightly with my pocket money at the local pet shop. My mother wasn’t a strict woman, but she firmly believed in the maxim that if I had a pet, I was responsible for caring for it, including the financial side. That was when we lived in a small terraced cottage, not on the old farm I reside on now. I lost both sets of grandparents within a couple of years, and my parent had been singletons with no siblings. None of them were wealthy, as in a private jet lifestyle, but they owned large houses and had savings for a rainy day, as the old saying goes, stored in banks, building societies, and other investments, which ultimately filtered down to me, neither of my parents being spendthrifts.

Those sad windfalls, coupled with Dad gaining a decent promotion with a far higher salary, which entailed moving to a new area, meant we could afford to live in the country as my mum had always wanted to do. Fast forward a bit, and that’s how the farmhouse and surrounding land came to be my home…. and, to get back on track, home to Beauty and co! Anyway, we’d lived modestly, and my mum certainly wasn’t mean when it came to pocket money, but I was expected to pay my share. I bought the wood shavings and sawdust, and she added their pet food to the weekly supermarket shop.

I’m still buying bags of sawdust and wood shavings, but now in much larger quantities and significantly bigger bags. I used to walk home from school with a bag of hamster supplies in one hand and my school bag in the other. Considering the difference in size between the cage and the stall, that would be rather impractical to do. Nowadays, the bags are sack-sized and arrive by truck to be dumped at the bottom of my drive and then hauled up to where I store them. Which reminds me, we're reaching the point where I need to place another order, possibly doubling what I had last time, since there is space to store it now we’ve had time to get more organised.

Deliveries always make me a little uneasy, although there’s no real reason why they should. I always have items dropped off at the bottom of my drive, just inside the gate for security. Plus, some of the trucks that deliver would never make it up to the house. Not that I’d want them to. Tony’s team installed a large plastic garden tool locker just inside the gate used by Amazon and similar companies for smaller parcels and packages, and the cameras and alarms always alert us to their presence.

Anyway, the ‘humping’ of heavy items to where they need to be stored isn’t a big deal, nor is it a strenuous, back-breaking task! I do have an alternative source of labour available, and putting them to some real, actual work for a change is quite entertaining. Once one of us has checked and signed for the delivery, if necessary, we hitch a team to my ‘work cart’. That was another costly but practical purchase from a specialist supplier. It has four wheels and is designed to be pulled by two or, if necessary, four two-legged ponies. There is a driving seat, but only Sally uses it. Suzy and I tend to walk alongside the team, one on each side, providing the necessary ‘encouragement’ and guidance from there.

There is a convenient little spot just a few yards beyond the entrance gate, large enough to park the cart discreetly out of view from the road. I keep a big wheelbarrow and a sack trolley there, and it’s pretty simple to move items the short distance from the drop-off point to the pony cart. All we need to do is load the cart and unload it on the other side. ‘Good exercise for us lazy bitches,’ Suzy calls it, although I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration and calling us lazy bitches is a tad unfair!

Of course, harnessing four up is a bit more complicated and involved than a twosome, but we tend to do that most of the time, even if it’s a lightish load, because it’s fun and looks good. I’d never envisaged a foursome situation when I bought the cart, the ‘wagon’ as Sally calls it, but it came with the necessary bits and bobs anyway. Plus, like Sally’s favourite cart, the main shaft at the front was telescopic, like a crutch or walking stick. You know what I mean? You push the little ball with a spring and slide the aluminium pole up and down, but this one's a meatier version.

It worked pretty well with Candyfloss and Beauty as the lead pair, while Goldie and Medusa provided much of the additional raw pulling power and were conveniently positioned for Sally's whip stick. A handy tool, especially when coaxing greater effort from them, was required on some of the steeper sections. Even with the heaviest load the foursome had yet to stick for more than a couple of seconds on the upward journey. Next delivery, it would have to be, well, perhaps Beauty and maybe Candi or Beanpole or even Melons while she was here. Might as well get some practical use out of Miss Big tits.

Given its limited use, it had been an expensive purchase, or rather a joint one, since Sally had paid her share. The cart, or wagon, was quite large and, although mainly made from aluminium, it was too bulky and unwieldy for a quick trip along the narrow woodland trails. However, it proved to be an excellent and entertaining delivery vehicle, especially when carrying a weighty load. Watching the animals strain and have to put their backs into getting it up the steep, winding track back to the farmyard was truly an impressive sight to behold.

Food for thought, as well as for Sally, was drawing up some ideas for the heavily overgrown plot, well, more of a small field really, behind the farmhouse. My mother had originally maintained a sizeable vegetable garden out there, and there had been several large greenhouses now broken, rotten and derelict. The idea was to pull those greenhouses down and use the ponies to transport the debris down the track before ploughing it up. There was other junk lying around as well that needed clearing, so I could get a refuse skip, a dumpster, as Suzy called them, using US terminology. Get it delivered to the bottom, where there was enough room on the wide verge beside the entrance gate and the road to park it.

That reminded me, I might need to check with the local authority to see if I needed a permit or some sort of official clearance if I had one delivered there. The last thing I needed was for some minor local official to knock on my door, so to speak, over some trivial matter. My security was pretty darn good, but why take chances that you don’t have to? Just my luck if the whole tech system decided to throw a wobbly and quit allowing Mister or Mrs busybody to come marching up the drive when I had the ponies out exercising or something!

I mentioned that to Suzy, Miss IT, but she only laughed and pointed out that the system had an automatic fail-safe backup, and if that should fail, “Just shoot the nosy bugger!” had been her indifferent suggestion.

“I don’t have a gun!”

“Well, buy one, get a shotgun or something. You live on an old farm, and all farmers own one, don’t they! Bob has a whole collection; he goes…what ’dya call it….clay pidgeon shooting and stuff!”

Yeah, great idea, Missy, I thought—one step forward and twenty paces leaping backwards. As a law-abiding citizen with no criminal record, living on a rural property, I could obtain a firearms licence without too much difficulty or hassle, no doubt. The downside being the Boys in the dark blue suits and pointy hats might very well want to check I had secure facilities for keeping a firearm and ammunition, and not only that, I’d heard they had a habit of turning up unannounced from time to time and doing spot checks to ensure you were complying with the law regarding storage of said items. That would seem to defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?

All very well, Mandy's husband having a ‘collection’, but Bob owned a considerable chunk of the English countryside and had more influential connections than I had, and….and…well, he knew people in high places and I didn’t! I didn’t even know people in low places! I decided I’d think about it a bit more and discuss it with Sally. We’d already had one kind of intrusion, so it wasn’t a subject I was inclined to take lightly. Fortunately, that one hadn’t been serious, and Tony’s security measures had done precisely what they were supposed to do in terms of alerting us.

But back to Sally and her sudden interest in ‘green fingers’, I think it was more the idea of ground clearing and sod breaking that caught my little lover’s eye rather than the planting and growing. The same company that made carts also sold a couple of types of ploughs, labelled for ‘theatrical and play use only’ with two-legged ponies! Yeah, I mean, like who were they kidding when they built those things on the same sturdy lines as the carts and other gear they sold? Pull the other one. None of it was cheap, and I couldn’t imagine Mr and Mrs Saturday night BDSM couple coughing up that sort of money and keeping something like that in the bedroom, no chance!

That was like telling people that a Sherman tank was the ideal vehicle for their weekly shop at the local supermarket. Mind you, considering the number of bangs, scrapes, and bumps that happen daily in supermarket car parks, perhaps they wouldn’t be too far wrong and thinking of tanks and armour plate. It would be sensible to invest in some heavier-duty gloves if we were to go ahead and clear that area. I made a mental note, recalling all the broken glass near what remained of those old greenhouses. Maybe we could improvise a scoop like a plough that a pony could pull; their hoof boots would probably be quite resistant to damage and cuts, wouldn’t they?

Somehow, Melon's confrontational, hostile gaze invaded my conscience, ending my thoughts. That, along with the aura of pure belligerence emanating from her restrained and controlled figure, was almost palpable in its outraged intensity. My mind quickly refocused on its previous thread or on what had initiated it along that side road as I approached her stall and peered in, sniffing loudly as I did so.

“Good girl,” I said, giving her a beaming smile as I immediately spotted the pile in the right-hand corner. I revisited the sawdust topic and its use, along with other materials, to create a suitable floor covering in the stalls. Melons had used a hoof, as most of them do, to create that pile, and she hadn’t made a ‘sandcastle’ merely to amuse herself. Her legs and hoof boots were splattered with the dried outpouring of her bowels as well, and my nose provided additional confirmation of what my eyes could see.

“There’s a good girl, you must feel much better now that pony poop is out!” I told her with another big Mrs Nice Guy-type smile that merely prompted a barrage of muted, inaudible noises from behind her bit. She’d annoyed me during breakfast feeding, so I’d forced her to drink her fill, then kept her mouth bit somewhat tighter than usual to cut short that irritating verbal flow. I’d used the Suzy method again—a pony soon learns to drink its fill when its face is pushed into a drinking trough. “Drink”, dunk. “Drink”, dunk. “Drink”…. and I’m sure you get the picture. Ponies do quite fast if they want to keep on breathing!

I was pleased to see that neat little heap in the corner, though her soiled legs and the reek of fresh human excrement from the stall told a different story. Another thing I’d learned during my brief apprenticeship at Mandys was that some owners preferred solid tail plugs and trained their ponies like pet dogs, to do their ‘business’ at a specific time and places while exercising or relaxing in a paddock, for example. I was firmly in the other camp, as Big Sarah had put it. Likewise, Mandy, believing that was a little too….too civilised, shall we say.

Yes, I suppose there was a certain satisfaction and entertainment in training them to poop on demand like that, but it was also somewhat restrictive, surely, for the owners. I mean, you or someone else had to be there to remove their anal plugs physically, and it involved getting personally involved in the unpleasant, squalid business! I much preferred to stand back and observe rather than get close to the action!

Once a week, or whenever they were scrubbed and wet-groomed, was quite enough for me. I wasn’t one of those weirdoes who get their kicks from, what’s the term… Scat, that’s it: Scat and piss games. Like, yuck so far as I was concerned! To me, that element of owning two-legged ponies was part of the thrill, but not up close and personal every damn time!. Cleaning them regularly, as I said earlier, was a fun chore in its way. However, having to be on hand twice or even once a day to pull a plug so they could shit didn’t appeal to me overly much.

Besides, I just adored watching them crap where they stood and being helpless to do anything about it. My God, the expressions on their faces, what you could see of their face and the attendant body language. I could see that look of shame and utter mortification on the visible portions of Melon's face as I smiled at her. Two, maybe three weeks ago, I’d seen pictures of the painted bitch flaunting her chief assets for all to see, or virtually so, in a very revealing and completely inappropriate dress at one of the more prestigious meetings in the annual racing calendar.

She’d been flaunting herself on the arm of some smartly dressed top-hatted gent, smiling for all she was worth at every camera she could spot. The man looked a bit embarrassed, to give him his due, and God knows what the stewards thought of that so-called dress. She’d never have been allowed into the Royal enclosure during Ascot week in that outfit; she probably wouldn’t even have been permitted through the main gates to mingle with the ordinary hoi polloi. Royal Ascot week, after all, imposes a high standard of dress even on Joe Public!

How the mighty have fallen, I thought, and then immediately shrugged. Well, once socially ambitious wannabes with big tits rather than truly mighty, perhaps more fitting. The equine comparison was conveniently apt. Posing and pouting prettily in the prestigious winners' enclosure, to now occupying a primitive stall in my stable, splattered with the stinking mess of her own bowels, and displaying a purple, bruised bottom like corrugated cardboard, thanks to her first serious taste of my cane. The very same slender bamboo cane I’d left hanging from a convenient nail near the front of her stall, and purely on a whim, I reached out to unhook it.

The effect of my impromptu movement was decidedly gratifying and couldn’t have been more appropriately timed if I’d planned the action, or if she’d thought about it or….well, whatever, for the result was the same, given we’d both acted involuntarily. The very sight of me reaching for that simple, slender, but oh so excruciatingly painful sliver of wood had an immediate effect on Miss Big Tits! The difference between us, though, was that I didn’t have a hollow tube up my bum holding my sphincter muscles open wide. Nor had I been living on a specialised semi-liquid diet for the past few days!

Melons jumped and hopped about, squirming and writhing, but of course, there was no way she could halt that steady trickle of liquid human waste that exited via her hollow butt plug tail holder. I’d left her on a neck tether after the morning feed, as I usually did during the day—much like some other owners. Mandy tended to allow her livestock a greater degree of freedom unless they were being punished for some minor misdemeanour. They were free to wander about within the limited confines of their stall or lie down atop whatever sparse bedding they were permitted, usually straw, and take the weight off their hooves.

I’d decided very early on in my budding career as an owner of two-legged equines that mine would be no different to their four-legged counterparts. You rarely see horses lying about on the ground, do you? So likewise with my livestock, outright owned or merely boarded. Suzy had asked me about that the first evening we’d come back from Mandy's to settle into my newly refurbished human equine complex. My, that sounds a tad grand, doesn’t it? Anyway, she saw what I was doing with Beauty and that Sally was following suit with Medusa.

I have long adjustable neck tethers dangling down from the roof beams above in each stall. You can lengthen them and hook them out of the way to one side or attach them to a pony's high posture collar. The amount of movement permitted within the stall then depends on how much slack you allow them on the tether. I allow them to shuffle a few feet in any direction, but no more; certainly, not enough to spend the day lazing about on the dirt floor! Not until they were released for the night after the evening feed, anyway.

It's purely a personal choice, and yes, exceptionally cruel, but it appeals to me. They are now human-ponies, and the tether reinforces that, plus it gives me a little extra thrill thinking about how much control I have over the poor creatures. I also enjoy seeing them in their stalls when I enter, not lurking below the door level out of sight. Suzy wasn’t very bothered about it and quickly hitched her Candyfloss by the neck on a very short tether, simply saying “When in Rome”.

Melons turned away and shifted uneasily from one hoof to the other, facing the rough brickwork at the rear of her stall, which I found amusing. I would have bet a reasonable sum, if I were a betting person, that her face under that bridle would be glowing a bright red with shame at her humiliation. Beauty was no different, despite the months I’d had her, and if she didn’t physically shuffle about, she would turn her head away if I happened to be watching when nature took its inevitable course. No matter how they might feel or even try, there was nothing they could do about the embarrassing situation.

Goldie, on the other hand, was the opposite, and I wondered if it was a ‘girl thing’ to be so... so finicky; that’s a good word, about such a simple act as 'doing it' in the dirt. Well, I suppose, given the circumstances—the lack of hygiene, bathroom facilities, and the fact that it was an involuntary happening you’d absolutely no control over or any means of cleaning yourself up afterwards—you’d feel quite differently. I gave a little shudder. I couldn’t begin to comprehend how I would feel about it, especially if some gleeful sadistic bugger was watching!

Sally believed that the reaction was probably unique to each animal and maybe connected to personality and behavioural traits. Goldie, as I’ve mentioned, didn’t care much about the demeaning act—or rather, he did, but it didn’t seem to bother him any more than anything else. He was aggressive, confrontational, and troublesome twenty-four-seven, and I hadn’t seen any change in his attitude. Medusa was similar, and Candyfloss had been so long in harness that it was second nature to her, no different from breathing.

I gazed thoughtfully at Melon, absently noting my handiwork from the day before: that lattice of ridges and wheals on her rump cheeks. Her first serious introduction to the painful reality of pony life, if I can say it like that, and Miss Big Tits hadn’t been the least bit appreciative of my efforts! I grinned, for that was putting it mildly. The mare hadn’t shown any of that initial angry stoicism that Goldie had displayed, but then I hadn’t really expected that from her. If little old me could make a tough mafiodo guy like Goldie sing so sweetly, then this bitch had stood no chance!

I glanced around and sniffed. Yes, it was getting a bit whiffy, more than a bit, so we’d probably have to muck out tomorrow, the day after at the latest. Having six ponies stalled indeed added to that ‘aroma of captive human livestock’ I so much enjoyed, so one had to accept the accompanying drawbacks, I supposed. Candi wasn’t entirely new to stable life, nor was Beanpole, so it would be interesting to keep an eye on them, ablution-wise. Pity they weren’t fresh from the wild, but even so, it would be interesting to note how they behaved when their bowels decided to empty.

‘Interesting Aspects of Human Pony .....?’ I paused, unable to think of a suitably polite or academic term for crapping in the dirt—a brief scientific dissertation by…well, no names, no pack drill. I chuckled to myself. Hardly likely to take the scientific world by storm! Besides, there’s no Nobel Prize for research into the most extreme and cruel perversions, is there?

I gave myself another of those top-to-toe shakes, this time entirely voluntary and conscious. Silly girl, why are you standing about on a nice day thinking up such rubbish when there are far more entertaining and amusing things you could be doing? Good question, I told myself, flipping the catch to Melon stall, which did produce a reaction from the bashful occupant within, probably because I still had that cane in my other hand.

*****

Déjà vu time again, I thought as I led—or perhaps dragged, that would be more accurate—Melons from the stable towards a vacant whipping bench next to Goldie. Then, as quickly as that idea popped into my mind, I changed it and led her to the big outside ‘pony walker’ instead. Well, I did have a responsibility to Mandy after all, and I wasn’t entirely sure how far I could go along the punishment road with the mare. I mean, she wasn’t my property, was she? And I had no idea how long I’d be looking after the creature.

That had been weighing on my mind so heavily that I rang my friend the night before for a quick check-in, to see how she was after our little auction adventure, etc. Naturally, Melons came up, and I found out she hadn’t even got round to mentioning that trip to London and the Sherlock Holmes museum Suzy had suggested. “Not the appropriate time,” Mandy had told me. “Bob’s completely focused on business matters at the moment and in one of his wretched ‘doom and gloom’ phases. The whole world is going to pot because of you know who and his tariffs! Personally, I don’t see it as a big deal, given our investments, maybe a few hiccups, but in the long run, it’ll be business as usual. The richer will get richer and the poor will get poorer as usual, despite many of them voting for him,”

I’d made vague noises of agreement from my end of the line, figuratively speaking, since I was on a mobile, which was about all I could do, as she was talking so fast. “He’s out in the stable now, working off his bad mood on Samson and Hercules and then no doubt some unfortunate colt will get a thorough ploughing from his master's cock once he’s worked himself up. I told him to be careful and take it steady, but he’s not in the mood to listen to reason. Not when he’s convinced we’re all heading for the poor house, as if!”

I was nodding in agreement on my end, not that she could see me, and wondering if my modest investments would be adversely affected by potential global turmoil. “You’ll have to hang on to Melons till… oh, I don’t know. I reckon, knowing my hubby, it’ll be at least another week, probably two, before his Cassandra-like predictions dry up and he feels more like his usual self. It’s a bind, but better I give it a week or two, then start organising that little outing Suzy suggested and let him know about the bitch. How’s she getting on, by the way? Are you doing the necessary? I’m going to have to think up a better name — I can’t say I’m sold on Melons now, I’ve had more time to think about it. Why don’t you three ladies put your heads together and….”

At that point, I lost the connection, which hadn’t been very good anyway. I debated whether to call back but decided against it, thinking she’d call me if she had anything important to say. Mandy hadn’t, so I figured Melons, or whatever we decided to call her, was mine for another month or so. I’d been seeking guidance, but the call didn't provide any clarity. What did doing what was necessary mean?

“It’s no good looking at me like that,” I told the struggling animal as I attached the dangling tether, or pony leash, as I called it, to Melon's posture collar. “Aggression breeds aggression, remember, so I’d keep that firmly in mind if I were in your shoes, hoofs!” A piece of advice I suspect went in one ear and straight out the other, judging by the look in her eyes, and was immediately confirmed. She swung from side to side as I released my grip on her and then tried to swing a kick at me, silly creature!

I wasn’t wearing heavy hoof boots or a pony harness, and I had full use of my arms. Plus, I’d become quite savvy at handling such creatures by now. That swinging hoof did more harm to her than to me as I dodged nimbly to one side, whereas she immediately lost her balance and fell, only to be halted by that tether to her high leather posture collar.

“Upsy-daisy," I laughed, promptly catching her and setting her firmly back on her hooves, albeit a tad wobbly. "I’d watch that if I were you, pony; we don’t want any broken necks, do we?”

Actually, I thought the chances of that happening were quite slim, given the difference between a few inches and the drop in feet beneath the trap door that the hangman used to use, at least I assumed that was the case, never having seen such a horrible event. Besides, that posture collar was very sturdy, not to mention tightly supportive. I briefly giggled as a mental image of a crowd of ponies all desperately jumping up in the air while on the walker in a vain attempt to harm themselves came to mind to end their miserable existences collectively. Pretty damn futile, I thought!

That had been another topic that came up one morning during coffee break while I was at Mandy's that time. I hadn’t brought it up; I recall one of the other girls, who was also relatively new, mentioned it. I frowned, trying to remember who it was, but couldn’t. Anyway, we’d been discussing pony life, such as it was, and how excruciatingly boring they must find it, being highly intelligent animals after all. Nothing to do all day but stand around doing sweet nothing, and if something did happen to break the monotonous routine, it wasn’t likely to be the sort of distraction they’d welcome. Nothing but the walls of their stalls and a dirt floor to stare at, no TV, no radio, no books, no internet, no nothing……we’d all fallen silent for a moment.

I smiled at that memory. A rare event, I recalled thinking back to how animated the gang usually were during our caffeine break. No different, in fact, from any similar group of young girls, despite their more unusual employment. Boyfriends, girlfriends, reality TV shows, movies, clothes, shoes, fads and all the rest. None of them was what my grandmother would have called ‘shrinking violets’. She’d used that term on me a few times, for I had been, indeed, still was, somewhat on the shy side, I suppose.

I thought about young Suzy and the others I had met. No, that term didn’t really apply to any of them, and now that I think about it, I hadn’t yet met anyone in the pony scene quite like that. Maybe that was another first, so to speak, for me. Everyone seemed to be—well, perhaps extrovert might be a bit of an overstatement— but none of them fell into the shrinking violet category. I remember being impressed, and if I'm honest, a little intimidated by those youngsters at the time. None of them seemed the slightest bit awed or, to put it another way, overwhelmed by the unique nature of their work. Far from it!

“Quiet down!” I snapped at the restless pony I was holding, my mind still preoccupied with that conversation. Someone had raised the subject of captive ponies trying to end their lives, to commit suicide, a terrible but final escape from the boredom, the humiliation, the pain, and everything else. That’s what had prompted that brief interruption in the usual cheerful chatter. We’d all looked at Sarah.

“It’s happened,” the big stable Mistress had said with a shrug. “Not often and….” She looked around, her eyes lingering on each of us for a moment. “...never here! That’s why we preach constant vigilance, and that applies both ways, Ladies. It’s not just about avoiding getting kicked or a hoof boot stamping down on your foot if you're careless; it's also about keeping an eye on the animals we are responsible for and making sure that they’re,” she paused and laughed rather harshly. “Well, I was going to say ‘happy’ but I think that might not be the most apt word, eh?”

That naturally sparked a ripple of giggles as we all thought about the ponies stalled a few feet or yards away from our cosy stable staff room. 'Happy' was not an adjective I would have chosen, even given my limited experience with such creatures.

“My bad,” Sarah admitted as she thoughtfully mused. “Let’s say... safe! Stay safe. Safely stabled, securely harnessed, nothing loose or broken in tack and nothing in the stall or nearby that they could use to hurt themselves,” she shrugged. “Like I say, I know that a few animals have succeeded, but… well, you all know how helpless they are, so if it happens, it's down to carelessness, incompetence on some fool's part.” She gave us that same one-by-one survey again. “Yes, like I said, never forget that they’re intelligent creatures and so are you; none of you are fools, so don’t be foolish, and now on that note, back to work”.

As then, as now, I turned my attention back to Melons, whom I had absently released after holding her. Yes, I agreed with Mandy, surely we could come up with a better name than that for the once-so-called celebrity. She, who had yet to be appropriately named, was twisting from side to side where she stood, gazing around as if seeing everything for the first time. Perhaps she was, for yesterday she had been secured face down on that bench, screaming her not-so-pretty head off while I gave her a taste of the stable cane. Taking the time to look around her hadn’t been very high on the agenda, I suspected.

It's called a walker, a pony walker,” I told her, pointing to one of the vacant arms with its tether hanging down. “There is a big, powerful motor up there at the top of the main column which... well, I think you can guess the rest, eh pony!” I smirked at her, delighted by the look I saw in her eyes. No need to explain more, I thought happily as I approached the thick central column, lifted the weatherproof cover in the control box, then changed my mind and headed back to the stable.

The rebellious animal had got away with that malicious boot swing because I’d been unarmed, so to speak, having hung that cane back on its hook. My riding switch was somewhere in the stable, which wasn’t unusual. Suzy and Sally habitually kept one tucked into their belts, whereas I tended to put mine down rather than do that. Something else to work on, I reminded myself as I dutifully collected it and slipped it through a convenient belt loop, then paused as my eye fell on the nearby collection of punishment tools. After a moment's thought, I selected a shortish, long-handled whip from the comprehensive selection available to me.

It felt good in my hand, and I’d used it more than a few times before, not just to enthusiastically crack into empty air as I did a couple of times emerging from the stable. Pretty neat, I congratulated myself—three attempts and three very satisfying cracks without a single failure. My Calamity Jane impersonation hadn’t gone unnoticed either, for Melons had jumped at each one, I noted with amusement, backing as far away as her neck tether would allow.

Which was all of a couple of feet, but still more freedom than I was prepared to allow as I tucked the whip under my arm and flipped the cover up on the controls again. Number three tether motor whirred briefly, forcing Melons to move a little as the leash attached to her collar was drawn upwards. I stopped it when it looked about right, a little slack but not too much. Give them far too much, and you risk a neck injury if they stumble and fall too far. In contrast, at the position I selected, she’d only get a minor jerk. If she didn’t regain her footing, the walker would pause, and there were several options built into the clever thing. I could set it to shock her, that could be done via a special collar attachment or even various clamps, such as nipple or clit. Those involved a bit more setting up, of course, but Sally had used them quite frequently on Big Medusa.

She’d shown me how, and I’d used them on Goldie a couple of times when he’d joined his former bodyguard on the walker. Only in his case, I’d clamped the clit wire to the end of his sizeable penis where the bell end poked out of his cock cage. I smiled at the recollection of that first time. He’d soon learned the art of walking in his hoof boots, and if not elegantly, at least not to stumble! Low shock settings weren’t on Sally’s agenda. Fried cock and bollocks were!

Outwardly, the walker appeared to be a simple piece of kit. The motor whirred, the arms moved, and the ponies walked until it stopped, either manually by one of us or via the internal timer if set. However, there was a whole range of options that could be programmed into its impartial electronic memory. Basic ones were already there, and others that you could tinker with and store in the device's memory bank or whatever it had. You could even control it from a simple app on your phone. Suzy, who else, had shown us how to do that, and I even remembered how to operate it. Well, some of it anyway.

I decided that for her first experience, I wouldn’t go too fancy, if that’s the right word. A simple stretch of the legs was all I wanted, not hopping, skipping, and jumping with ever-increasing electric shocks! Yes, it could do that if you took the trouble to programme it that way. It was from the same company, or whatever they called themselves, that had made the ones at Mandy's, and they were probably costly. Like the wagon and plough, I doubt there’s much general demand for such devices, unlike electric toasters, clothes irons, or even ultra-high-end desktop computers, etc.

Apparently, mine was ‘next generation’ compared to those Suzy had been familiar with at Mandys, so of course, little Miss Tech had to experiment with it using Candyfloss as her test subject, her ‘lab rat,’ as Sally put it. She programmed various routines, for want of a better word, into the machine and then observed how quickly Candyfloss learned what was required to avoid the painful penalties for failure.

Actually, and to be fair, the girl had been lenient, setting the shocker relatively low because she was more interested in the process than in amusing herself by punishing poor Candyfloss. At least, that was the initial idea, but as her ‘experiment’ continued, some frustration arose at her elderly mare's lack of progress in learning, and so the penalty for failure increased. As an impartial but interested observer, I felt she was being somewhat unfair to Candyfloss. I mean, the poor thing had spent years in harness learning not to think for itself under the most painful and strict conditions, and now she was being asked to do the very opposite.

I ran my eye over the control panel to double-check everything was okay. That was the problem when electronic stuff became overly complicated, and Sarah's ‘keep it safe’ warning was now at the forefront of my mind. I could see myself starting the damn thing one morning, everything appearing fine, then going to make a cup of coffee and coming back five minutes later to find the arm spinning around at a hundred miles an hour, dragging a dead pony. All because a long-forgotten memory programme, #78 or something, had kicked in after about five minutes, after I accidentally tapped something wrong and didn't realise it was set up that way. Well, maybe not a hundred miles an hour, but you get the idea of where I’m coming from.

Of course, Suzy had scoffed derisively at that idea until I reminded her of her dental appointment problems. I had arranged it with my dentist and given her the surgery number, which she had dutifully and correctly added to her mobile. They’re pretty particular about missed appointments, so they ask you to contact and confirm the day before. That's what she tried and failed three times, blaming me for giving her the wrong number. I checked it and it worked. It was simply a case of finger trouble—she kept tapping the next contact down in her list every time, for reasons known only to her. That's the problem with all this tech stuff; we all make simple, silly mistakes, usually out of familiarity and overconfidence, no matter how tech savvy we might or might not be!

That was another of my dad's regular sayings. ‘If it's important and even if it's not, check once, twice, and thrice, and then, to be extra sure, make it a fourth!’ I glanced at Melon's profile from the side, up at the tether, and then back to the display on the control panel. Walk mode, check. Speed, check. Time, hmm... manual, I think, check. After one last overall glance, I pressed the start button. A brief pause followed—the usual moment when the motor above gave a quick twitch transmitted along the walker arm. Before it had time to pass down the tether, the arm was in motion, dragging the tether and, of course, the pony with it.

“Move!” I shouted as my finger released the start button, but it wasn’t necessary. Melons was already moving even as my mouth opened. The mare wasn’t daft after all; she’d earned herself a small fortune over twenty-plus years purely on the strength of a pretty face and an ever-growing pair of boobs. Most of said fortune was then spent on plastic surgery, maintaining face and boobs, and while the tits might be impressive, the face up close and sans war paint, less so these days. Not that it mattered behind her bridle!

She couldn’t sing, dance, act, or even tell a funny story, yet she’d gained nationwide fame through her well-publicised tabloid appearances and bedroom antics. She had dismissed her agent and publicist years ago and now managed her own affairs. No, she wasn’t daft—at least not in some ways. However, given her current predicament, it hardly made her particularly clever overall. Surely, at some point, a warning bell should have sounded when she became involved with—well, whoever she had got involved with that had relatively swiftly led her to my pony walker!

Basically, what I’m taking far too long to say is that she was intelligent enough to understand what the thing I’d just fastened her to was for. In all honesty, that observation didn’t require you to be a Sherlock Holmes to realise, given her circumstances. Even so, her first few steps—her first couple of circuits—were hardly elegant as she staggered along, obeying that indifferent yet relentless pull at her neck. At least she was moving, and as far as I could see, not attempting to fight that mechanical master, unlike Goldie and Medusa, who had been so foolishly trying to do those first few outings.

Still, I couldn't help but compare her pathetic, woe-begotten figure—sullen, sulky, and resentful—to my friend Mandy's top show ring dressage ponies. My, how beautiful and elegant they looked, proudly strutting their stuff on the walker. Heads up, bridles crowned with high, feathery plumes, bodies straight, udders thrust blatantly forward, legs raised to the required height, knees bent in that beautiful ponygirl gait that was so impressive to onlookers. I wondered if that was to be Melon's fate. But perhaps unlikely given her age, and she wasn’t that tall.

Mandy preferred her dressage ponies to be tall and not too old. I knew Bob had an age limit for his young colts, but I couldn’t recall Mandy ever mentioning one. She’d put Goldie's ex-dancer wife into pony tack, hadn’t she, as well as training a mother and daughter duo as a dressage pair. But hadn’t she hinted at showing Melons on the circuit over dinner the other night? So perhaps that was her plan. The big uddered mare wasn’t exactly unknown, was she, at least in the UK? I grinned. Yup, knowing Mandy, it would amuse her to showcase the once-celebrity to a broader audience in a humbling yet completely controlled way. The woman had been famous for her irrational and uncontrolled public rants and outbursts, hadn’t she? So seeing her in a more, well, perform-to-order fashion would be highly amusing, wouldn’t it!

I give her a couple of dozen circuits to find her feet, or rather her hooves. Sorry, old habits and phrases die hard, don’t they? Mandy was going to have her work cut out for her, I thought, but then again, who was I to say that? I’d seen my friends’ dressage ponies being put through their paces at the hands of their demanding owner, and they’d probably all started like this—sad, saggy, and sullen lumps plodding along so dispiritedly. That reminded me of another family saying, this time from my mother: ‘It’s the cook that’s important, not the ingredients. Give the worst cook in the world the very best ingredients, and you’ll still end up with something horrid. Give the best cook the worst ingredients, and they’ll always manage to come up with something tasty and edible.’

I smiled at the memory, recalling that one of my dad's eyebrows had always twitched slightly at that saying, and if she weren’t watching, he’d wink quickly at me once I was old enough to understand his meaning. Mum's cooking had always been... well, somewhat traditional and uninspired, adequate but somewhat basic and bland. That's probably why Dad brought home fish and chips or pizza twice a week, and ice cream was a regular dessert topping, never custard!

Happy memories, all the same, and far better on the palate than what I’d fed my animals that morning, I reflected as Melon passed by; her head turned towards me, and that look of pure hatred simmered in her moist eyes. Eyes that you could now see clearly, without being obscured by a few millimetres of caked-on makeup and oversized false eyelashes.

Well, if cooking was on my mind, there was no better time to start preparing the joint for Mandy’s waiting oven. Time to do ‘the necessary’, I decided, uncoiling my whip and giving it a shake as I glanced over towards Goldie. His head was turned towards me, watching, so I raised my whip handle to my lips and blew him a mischievous kiss. He could wait a little longer for another roasting, I decided, and promptly chuckled. It wasn’t as if he had anything urgent to do, was it?

Melons passed by again, and that look in her eyes hadn’t changed one bit in the last few days, and I decided I didn’t like it. I gave the whip another shake, assessing the distance, and drew my arm back. Well, Mandy had done the shopping, not me, so if the ingredients weren’t of the highest quality, it wasn’t my fault. We’d have to see how good a cook Mandy was, but for now, I could do my part and at least tenderise the meat a little.