The Interview

Chapter 15

“Oh, that girl!” She snapped as she tapped a finger on the screen, terminating the call. “Now tell me, do I look like an invalid? NO, I DON’T!” she said firmly, answering her own question before I could even open my mouth. “Nor do I need to be treated like one. Come on, no need for a coat, and I’m damn well not going to wear one. Not at this time of the year!”

She held the front door open, beckoning me to exist and followed me smiling as she noted my frown as she closed the door, guessing why and laughed. “No need to lock my front door here. Any foolish burglar skilful enough to make it here wouldn’t get very far with his; what’s that old term? Ah, I remember—his swag bag. Come on, don’t dawdle, there is a bit of a nip in the air, but it’s only a short walk to the house”.

I followed her as she set a surprisingly brisk pace, causing me to hurry after her to ask my day's first question. “Has that ever happened?”

“She wanted to bring the car down, the car! I’m not in my bath chair yet, Girl, I told her! Now there’s another old-fashioned term. You probably don’t know what they were?”

“A sort of older name for a wheelchair”, I replied, having caught up with her. “My grandmother used to call hers that when my granddad pushed her about when her arthritis got bad”.

“Poor woman. I have a twinge of that in my fingers and hips. So far, not terribly advanced touch wood. But you’re almost right. They weren’t the neat lightweight chairs you see today but big ornate things with three wheels, two big ones at the back and a small one at the front, often with a hood as well. Damn heavy to push, I would imagine, typical Victorian over-engineering. Originated in the city of Bath hence the name and…” she suddenly halted abruptly and glared at me but not in an overtly hostile way.

I threw a grin at her, knowing instinctively what she was thinking. “Yes,” I chuckled, “Hardly started, and now not only have you gone off track again but off subject as well!”

“Oh phooey!” she exclaimed as we started walking again. “It’s called the noble art of conversation! You can hardly expect me to talk about those things all the time!” her finger suddenly pointing towards the two figures in the distance that had just emerged from the large building we’d driven past yesterday. The one constructed of stone and wood that I’d realised must be her stable. “Anyway, what was it you were asking?”

“Sorry!” I was confused for a moment. My eyes had been momentarily on the two figures, one leading the other who’d left the building and were approaching some device in the open area near the stable. It looked like a giant T from where I looked. 

“Question?” I realised I’d lost my thread and quickly cast my mind back a few moments later. Right back to when she’d pulled the door closed behind us. “Burglar!” I exclaimed aloud.

“Pardon?”

I jerked my thumb back towards her house or cottage, which I supposed would be more apt. “You were talking about security; how safe it was here, and foolish burglars. I asked if it had ever happened. Has anyone ever tried?”

“Not so fast, dear, not so fast, slow down! She grabbed my elbow as I consciously sped up my eyes on the two figures as we got nearer. Not so much a case of leading as dragging, I noted. A guy, a big one and a marginally smaller female figure, the woman was in front hauling him along while he was resisting, dragging his feet!

“Only once, quite recently, actually. An idiotic local boy who thought he’d try his luck and earn himself a few francs. No doubt he thought that we'd fund his nasty drug habit by paying us a discrete visit!”

“What happened to him,” I asked with interest switching my gaze to her.

She shrugged her shoulders. “He went cold chicken very quickly!”

“Cold turkey”, I amended, realising even as I spoke from her instant whoop of laughter and the mischievous sideways glance that she’d gone fishing and I’d been caught!

“Bitch!” I muttered sourly, which produced another laugh.

“Well, whatever, he soon had an alternative shock therapy to distract him from those foolish cravings. Patty soon taught him that there were far worse forms of abuse than sticking a needle in your arm.” She paused but not for a breather, although it was all uphill to the big house. It was more a case of taking a moment to get her thoughts together, I realised, transferring my attention back towards the stable as a loud crack sounded.

The same sound as I’d heard yesterday, and it produced the same agonised muted squeal. It was the second time I’d heard that distinctive sound of leather upon flesh, repeating twice as I watched. The male figure started moving, no longer displaying that dragging reluctance, seeming almost eager to leap forward and avoid that whip.

I realised the T device was what they called a pony walker, the cross of the T forming a rotating arm. The man was now being tethered to one arm by a length of rope or something similar, whereas the one on the other arm dangled free. There was a second such device I noted further down with a quadruple set of tethers dangling from it. The man was, well neither walking nor running but obediently following that arm somewhere between the two and seemed to be having problems twice he stumbled and fell. 

Each time he struggled back to his feet and started running again, encouraged by the woman’s whip, which didn’t stop until he moved. A remorseless yet unhurried crack, crack, crack, each drawing that same squeal from its target. Then she stood watching, slowly curling the whip as though waiting for the next time to use it. The man completed several more circuits, frequently stumbling but managing to catch himself in time. 

“A mite too fast”, the voice next to me observed with a certain degree of professional interest. “Ah, look!”

I watched the woman walk toward her victim, pause till he ran past, then walk to the supporting post, and a moment later, the device slowed slightly,  dropping the pace. She stood watching him perform another few circuits and then, presumably satisfied, headed back to where she’d initially stood, seemingly catching sight of us for the first time as she raised her free hand in greeting.

My companion casually waved back, and, as she dropped her hand, saying, “Betty’s out early”, She looked at her watch. “Hmm, well, not that early, more a case of us being up a little late. Not that there is any rush, is there? She smiled at me.

I shook my head for want of anything to say, one eye on her and the other still on ‘Betty’ and her unfortunate victim. I very much doubted from everything I’d learned that the man was taking his morning exercise by choice.

“C’mon, we might as well say hello to Betty now that she’s seen us. We don’t want to appear rude, do we? “She paused. “I wonder if Betty knows about you; yes, she must! Patty’s not the sort of girl who forgets things or makes silly mistakes. I suspect that you may have got lucky and that she’s decided she’s bothered by your visit; otherwise, Gunner wouldn’t have been allowed out!”

I felt gentle pressure as she lightly took my elbow and prompted me to move. Gunner? I looked at the man jogging in circles and then decided things were moving too quickly. He could wait for a moment. I was more than a little shocked to find myself thinking, ‘he might be moving, but he wasn’t going anywhere, was he!’ Hell, that casual blasé attitude of hers was catching!

“The drug guy, the burglar, what happened? 

She shrugged. “Him, oh nothing bad,” she said indifferently and then, glancing towards Betty, quickly added, “He didn’t end up with a bullet in the brain or anything like that! Heavens, we’re not savages, are we, not really bad people!”

“An interesting if inaccurate self-observation, I thought, looking at the guy running around in circles under the threat of that whip, Gunner, she’d called him. ‘Not bad people!’ Would that poor bastard agree with her?

“He’s called ‘Blooper’, that’s what Patty named him. It wasn’t too long after she started here on a full-time basis rather than just holiday time. Of course, she’d wanted to do that much earlier, but I said no. I wanted her to finish her education first, as did her parents. We’d never got on very well, but I owed them that, plus I covered all her university costs. “she gave me a thin smile, “they were ever so grateful….sort of!” then she laughed again as though at some private joke. “Come and say hello to Betty”.

The woman turned as we approached and threw a beaming smile at my host while I received a toned-down version with a strong hint of curiosity mingled with suspicion as we shook hands after my introduction. 

“Hiya, nice ta meet ya” the accent that accompanied the firm handshake was American. I detected more than a hint of the South in her voice as well as her slight colouring.

“Betty has been with me for, oh goodness knows, but a long time now.” 

“Sure, have, Ma’am, kinda found my little niche in this nasty big old world and stayed for keeps”, she winked at me. “Even if the folks round these parts do speak the wrong language an couldn’t fry em’selves a decent burger to save their damn asses. Do drive on the right side of the road, though,” she offered as a seeming afterthought!

My companion laughed and whispered aloud behind her hand. “Don’t let her ‘down on the farm’ attitude fool you. Betty here has a master’s degree in foreign relations and fluently speaks three ‘wrong’ languages. She used to lecture at a Paris university until she found my offer of employment irresistible”.

Betty grinned at me with a genuine smile this time and nodded at the figure tethered to the walker. “Pays lousy, but the work ain’t too bad, likewise the fringe benefits”, she chuckled.

“Now, don’t tell such fibs,” my host wagged a finger. “Nothing wrong with the pay, and besides, we both know you’d probably work for free, anyway!” She sounded mildly indignant enough to make Betty and me laugh.

Betty had a cheerful deep booming laugh, quite the opposite of my host's lighter one. Still, she was the complete physical opposite of her employer or perhaps her previous employer. Early fifties, I judged, and If she wasn’t six foot, then she wasn’t far off it, nor was she wearing heels, I noted. Just well scuffed standard Nike trainers, loose jogging pants and a  baggy, shapeless grey sweatshirt. Her short dark wiry curls betrayed part of her ancestry, as did some of her facial features and colouring. Another hint at a Southern origin, but those deep blue eyes and her lighter skin tone were inherited from a different stable, so to speak or think!

“What about the hours?” I asked with a chuckle.

Betty laughed and winked. “Plenty of that available if you want it. Unpaid, of course, but like I said, FRINGE BENEFIT’S,” she said with emphasis nodding towards the walker and repeated the wink along with a wicked chuckle and waggled the coiled whip in her hand.

“So, what has Gunner been doing? Still not settling in, I suppose?” Betty and I followed her pointing finger, no doubt a familiar sight to Betty and my host, but it was a first for me to see such a scene, and I was surprised to find that I could view the poor wretch relatively dispassionately. I’d wondered on the plane how I would feel if, by chance, I saw such a thing, knowing what went on in this terrible place of hers. 

I’d thought there was always a possibility I might catch a glimpse of this hidden secret world by accident, perhaps an odd flash of activity through an open crack of something I wasn’t supposed to discover. One thing I hadn’t considered was that I’d be handed such an incredible sight on a plate, and a dinner plate at that, so to speak! A part of me did wonder if I would be going home, but then I remembered that my host had sounded surprised to see the activity, so perhaps this wasn’t some pre-planned encounter to trap me? 

Besides, that thought was almost secondary to my growing professional and personal interest in what was being served on the aforementioned plate. I watched a near-naked man jogging round in a small circle as dictated by the device he was connected to via a long leash from a rotating arm to his collar. A very high collar forced his chin up and his head back into a very unnatural and uncomfortable position. I looked at Betty standing there in her soft rumpled casual outfit and then back to that figure circling round and round in blind obedience to his uncaring mechanical overseer. In one sense, in terms of exposed flesh, he was visually far more casually or more openly dressed than the woman next to me watching him,  more openly than any of us, but I doubted anywhere near as comfortable.

I couldn’t see his face or features because of his tight-fitting leather hood, with a couple of false pony ears sicking upwards from where his own would be. A large bit filled his mouth, and the only features I could see as he flashed past were the whites of his eyes! Even then, they were restricted by large blinkers attached to his head bridle? I caught a brief flash every time he reached a certain point, and then he was past and on the following circuit. Impossible to even begin to gauge the man's thoughts and feelings!  

“I wonder what he’s thinking?” I muttered and then grinned sheepishly, for I hadn’t intended broadcasting my thoughts even sotto voiced.

Betty chuckled. “Nothing very nice I expect and certainly not about me. Who gives a damn away what it’s thinking? Doing what I want is what counts, especially if it wants to keep a ma whip off its damn hide!”

I looked at her, wondering if that was a mild rebuke, but she hadn’t taken her eyes off the running man, Gunner, they’d called him. I decided it wasn’t anything aimed at me, just a general observation. 

Gunner stumbled and staggered forward several paces, then caught himself in time and resumed his fast jog, and Betty answered the question that was on my lips as I heard several loud clicks emanating from the machinery.

“Au-to-matic”, she drawled, stretching the word out. “Clever device, monitors the animals on it all the time and adjusts itself as needed, neat little electronic critter, eh?”

“It will stop itself if one of them silly creatures trips and goes arse over tit to prevent them getting hurt by being dragged through the dirt and gravel!” my host added and then promptly ruined her humane observation. “Why let the machine strip their hides off them when it’s far more amusing to do that ourselves later!” she finished with an evil chuckle.

Betty grinned at her and added, “Getting better, another day or two, and I’ll start him stepping around like a real ponyboy, well, a better-trained one” she amened with a girlish giggle.

I looked from one to the other, looking for but not seeing the slightest hint of sympathy for the man they were so casually discussing. There was no emotion all was there? Then another thought struck me, and I wondered if we even saw the same thing?

That tight black leather hood rendered him faceless apart from that brief flash of wide staring eyes. Strange how the lack of a face did render him somewhat different, anonymous, less significant, a lesser being? Yes, no? Even as my brain said different, my eyes were trying to paint a different picture, saying something else!

The two women were talking quietly, and it took me a couple of minutes to realise that, for I was focused and fascinated by the man in front of me. That man with a name, Gunner! Presumable the name he’d be given on his arrival here. A fellow human being and yet a real ponyboy, my first if you didn’t count the brief glimpse I‘d had yesterday. A real living, breathing ponyboy in the flesh, not in print or pixels nor some fetish-fascinated wannabe but the real thing! A reality I noted that included all the signs upon his body that shrieked non-consensual via bloody stipes and livid purple and scarlet bruises and not just restricted to his naked bottom either!

I watched, almost open-mouthed, as he circled around and around in front of me. Surreal, the normal and the abnormal merging as one before my eyes. Under that tight faceless leather hood, there was someone who certainly didn’t want to be here, the opposite of me. I was a visitor, an honoured guest, a person, not a faceless captive feral animal running in terror from a whip they could never escape and must cause them almost unbearable agony!

I turned to my companions but closed my mouth as my question died on my lips. Betty had her cell phone out, showing photos. From the conversation and the image I glimpsed of a beaming toothless baby, I realised their conversation had nothing to do with the present but related to a recent joyful event in Betty’s home country. I turned my attention back to Gunner, the man with no face but a set of brutalised buttock cheeks that were so fascinating to my eye!

Pale white flesh where it wasn’t bruised or bloodied contrasting with those items of black leather attire if you could call them such! Bondage harness and pony tack varying from pristine glossiness to the faded, scuffed, well-worn boots on his feet. Special hoof knee boots, I realised, having heard of the things and immediately realised why the poor fellow seemed so unsteady on his feet. 

There was only limited heel support, and his foot was arched, forcing him to place his entire weight and balance on the front part of his foot, a difficult enough challenge when walking, let alone jogging like he was doing. Not, I thought, switching my gaze from his bloodied bottom to the coiled whip Betty held and back again, that he had a choice. Jeez, that looked fucking painful, and somehow, I didn’t think anybody would be reaching for a first aid kit anytime soon!

The other two were still deeply engrossed in those cell phone pictures. Odd words such as ‘cute’ and ‘adorable’ came to my ears which seemed very out of place the more I watched the unfortunate Mr Gunner circle around in front of me. Talk about double standards! 

Even as that thought occurred to me, Betty suddenly jumped to one side, her arm flashing backwards and forwards in one smooth motion making that whip snake out and curl across the man’s buttocks with an audible thwack. He squealed mutely, jumped and stumbled forward, quickly regaining his balance even as Betty shouted, “ Quit yar slouching, stand proud for us animal!”

A second later, Gunner jogged past me again, but I couldn’t tell from his tortured bottom which of those stripes was the latest addition. They all looked fresh and nasty to me, and most oozed blood spots from the puffy, swollen skin. Undoubtedly painful! Shit, I thought to myself, being a martyr to the smallest splinter! 

‘Stand proud?’ I wondered what she meant by that, glancing sideways but deciding not to ask. Babies and baby photos were again the focus of their interest, almost as though that whips brief cameo appearance of a moment ago had never happened. Were they both that blasé, that hardened? Evidently so!

I wondered if that faceless hood was a permanent addition or a temporary one. I knew enough from my research, ninety-nine point nine per cent of which was pure fiction based, I should add, via the Internet and Amazon, that the rest of his ‘tack’ was almost certainly permanent. Body and limbs condemned to perpetual bondage, liable to get worse but never better unless he somehow obtained release. 

Unlikely, I’d read many books and stories about captive human equines over the last few months, non-consensual ones. Only two had resulted in what you might call a ‘happy ending’ for the unfortunate equine, and one of those had left me with the sinister impression that such freedom would not be retained for very long!

It was probably as well I reflected that the other two were so preoccupied with what must be the family album. Betty, my subliminal eavesdropping ears garnered, had three brothers, five sisters and one hell of a lot of nieces and nephews, even a few grand ones! Also, a ton of cousins. Someone seemed to be giving birth almost as a weekly event and clearly a subject of interest to my diminutive host, who took time to apologise.

“I haven’t had a chance to catch up with Betty for ages. She was on an extended holiday in the states, I was in London, then she was on holiday in Italy, I was back in London, and then I caught that wretched bug. Don’t worry, we won’t miss out on breakfast!” she finished with a beaming smile.

Thus, I had plenty of time to continue my perusal of the unfortunate Gunner. Perhaps we were even doing him a favour, for Betty was ignoring him apart from that one bout of savagery. No, that wasn’t quite correct, for every so often, I noted she threw a long look in his direction even as she talked, and I wondered how safe he was from that cruel whip she held so casually?

I suppose I should have been appalled, perhaps subconsciously, a part of me was, but only a tiny amount, for the greater part, was unashamedly fascinated. Yes, I was a little uneasy, even a tad ashamed and perhaps disgusted with myself, but sheer curiosity and selfish fascination buried those feelings. Also, at the back of my mind was that other nagging worry, would I become another Gunner? What had she said, ‘I suspect you may have got lucky’? Was there a hidden meaning to that, I wondered?

Or was the remark intended to offer reassurance, comfort perhaps? The latter was not a term I would have applied to the unfortunate man passing in front of me every few seconds. Head to foot, he radiated discomfort, and there was not a single thing he could do to alleviate it either. It wasn’t simply a case of that nearby threatening whip but more one of practicalities. They’d not only rendered him helpless with a few leather straps and bits of bondage gear but ensured it was inescapable and undoubtedly, by chance or more likely deliberate cruelty, uncomfortable!

It wasn’t the tight leather hood that denied him a face, nor those horrible boots, for nimble fingers could soon have removed those. Likewise, the tight body harness partially covering his torso and the wide corset-like belt around his midriff seemed to be part of that harness. Even that ridiculously high collar around his neck was only secured with narrow straps and roller buckles. 

That thing seemed almost worse than the boots, for at least he could move his feet, whereas that horrible looking thing seemed to hold his head in a vice-like grip and at an uncomfortable angle. Hell, I suspected the only way he could see anything around him would be by squinting downwards. Not once as I watched did he turn his head, nor perhaps was he able to do so. Blinkered and solidly gripped in one position, his worldview must be decidedly limited.

The long armbinder fascinated me the most, stretching from his upper back downwards and confining his arms within that long, tightly buckled and elaborately laced pouch. It was fastened low to his harness, forcing him to adopt a slightly bent posture, no doubt adding one more element to his misery. I thought that without arms or hands, how quickly a human being could be rendered helpless, incapable when denied those appendages.

Human being? Hell, he was already halfway to being transformed, wasn’t he? It was difficult to see him as…my chain of thought briefly paused as I turned to the two women, seemingly fascinated by that cell phone and talking in low voices. Seeing him as a fellow human being, faceless, armless, blundering about in that unnatural body posture, somehow already quite alien and different and already drifting beyond my inherent capacity for sympathy, perhaps?

Sheesh, there was probably enough in that last thought alone to keep an entire conference of head shrinks occupied for a week, wasn’t there! An impression immediately highlighted as he did or attempted to do a sort of sideways shimmy, failed because of that tether, stumbled again and then, as he recovered, promptly soiled both himself and the ground with a steam of liquid shit! 

I recoiled, taking a few steps backwards, not that I was in danger other than being assailed by the stench of fresh, unhealthy-looking human excrement in liquid form. Instinctively I immediately glanced sideways to see not the slightest response from my companions. Amazing! Nor did Gunner appear in any way affected, for he continued on jogging, but then again, he had no other option, had he?

Legs and boots were splattered by the horrible, stinking, yellow-looking stuff, as was the ground, until his steel-shod boots trampled it into the dirt. Yellow! Christ, was there one single aspect of his life they weren’t controlling, weren’t inflicting suffering upon the poor wretch? Just how the hell did he…..I broke off shaking my head and began to feel that sense of sympathy and pity within me that had seemingly gone AWOL for the first time.

“Breakfast?” 

I was startled out of my reverie as she shook my arm. I looked at her blankly and managed a vague “Eh?”

“Breakfast”, she said slowly and pointed to the house. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a couple of croissants and a decent cup of coffee. Come on. Say goodbye to Betty, I’ve taken up enough of her valuable time, and she’s got work to do. Quite a lot of it by the look of things, so come on!” she tugged at my arm.

“Goodbye,” I said as I obediently followed the insistent pull on my arm.

“Bye, see ya around maybe”, Betty drawled cheerfully, shaking out her whip. A moment later, it cracked behind me, and as I half turned and looked back, it lashed out a second time. Gunner's little break was over!

“There is an excellent bakery in town,” the voice on the end of that aged arm urging me along remarked conversationally even as a third crack sounded, and Gunner jumped and stumbled forward once more. “No need for butter or jam; they melt in your mouth almost! Come along now. I’m hungry even if you aren't. I’ll arrange for him to be whipped later, especially for you if your that interested!