by Ian Smith
Charlotte arrived and Rosie was at least left alone whilst he put her harness on. Rosie watched as the exquisite redhead stripped without being asked to and stood without commenting as her tanned boobs received the same treatment that Rosie’s had. But then, Rosie reflected, the drop-dead gorgeous Charlotte was naturally much more promiscuous than she herself was: Charlotte’s deep, even tan had by her own admission come from nude sunbathing before her enslavement and she certainly wasn’t a virgin when she was captured, unlike Rosie herself.
Ashley finished putting on Charlotte’s harness, which was identical to Rosie’s. The harnesses were tight fitting and Rosie could feel the straps squeezing her in places. They were not actually uncomfortable, although they did absolutely nothing to hide the girls’ private areas. The circles at the front provided support for their breasts, but they also pushed them out provocatively.
“Let’s go to the garage,” Ashley said. There was a clump, clump sound from the boots as Rosie and Charlotte walked. Ashley walked behind them no doubt drinking in the sight of their bare bottoms, in Charlotte’s case her rear still showing recent cane marks. As they stumped their way through the mansion, they passed two policemen. The uniformed coppers did not bother to hide their roving eyes as the girls went by, but Rosie was used to such lack of even the most basic courtesies these days. As they moved on, she heard the one policeman say to the other, “it’s true, then.” She assumed (correctly) that they were talking about the carefully shaven pudendas and she felt herself flushing.
As they stepped outside the air-conditioned mansion, the midday heat and fierce sun immediately assailed them and Rosie became aware that this was going to be hard work as well as humiliating. Ashley led them to the garage area where, as well as a couple of smart and expensive cars, there were several pony carts. Ashley led them to a twin-seater. Rosie and Charlotte were required to stand with their backs against the cart and Rosie felt the heavy straps from the cart as they were attached to the back of her harness. Reins were also linked to her head straps. To her left, Charlotte was also secured.
“Go round to the front of the house and wait,” Ashley instructed.
Together, Rosie and Charlotte started to walk. Rosie felt the weight of the cart through the straps from her back and had to lean forward to pull most effectively. She had been taught how to pull, although this was only her third time ‘out on the road’. She most certainly had not enjoyed the first two. After just a few steps she was sweating and she knew things were going to get a lot worse.
They came to the end of the drive and pulled out onto the road. Rosie always felt an irrational need to check in case anybody she knew might be watching. It was irrational for two reasons: firstly, even if anybody was watching, she still could not do anything except carry on; secondly, she (thankfully) did not know anybody in Xanxta except for the other girls on the hockey squad who had been similarly enslaved and the citizens of the town who had enslaved her. As it was, a couple of pedestrians, one male and one female, glanced their way and then went about their business. In Xanxta, pony girls were a common sight.
Rosie and Charlotte pulled up outside the front gate to the mansion and waited. Rosie could feel the very hot sun on her bare skin. At first when she had been brought to Xanxta, her light skin had peeled quite a bit, but, aided by daily applications of sun tan lotion, she was now a bit more used to it and her flesh was a little darker, although she had a long way to go to match Charlotte’s superb deep tan.
Chief of police Jefferson Williams emerged from the mansion and settled into the cart. Rosie tensed and felt Charlotte also stiffen beside her. They both knew that there was a whip on the cart seat.
“To the station,” he ordered.
There was a hiss of leather moving the air and Rosie gasped in pain as the whip lashed her mostly bare back. She heard Charlotte’s similar gasp as the leather landed across her back too. Desperately, both girls leaned forwards and their leg muscles worked frantically to start the cart moving. With his weight in it, it was far less easy than when empty, but they were soon moving. He hadn’t needed to hit them like that, Rosie reflected bitterly.
He cracked the whip in the air and the two girls flinched visibly then put even more effort in. The cart trundled along, Rosie and Charlotte trotting in front, their young leg muscles working smoothly under their firm skin, their arms locked to their sides, firm breasts held securely in the leather circles so that they jutted out in front of them. Their bodies gleamed with sweat.
Rosie’s back exploded in new pain and she squealed in anguish as the whip bit into her. Desperately she lowered her head as far as the reins would allow and pulled with all her might. Beside her, she could sense Charlotte doing the same. Their breath whistled past the wooden bits in their mouths and the world outside seemed something of a blur. Charlotte was ‘driving’, as she knew the route better, and they moved along at a fast, and for Rosie highly uncomfortable, pace. Thankfully the station wasn’t far away and already Rosie could see it in sight. It was both a bus station and an airfield, the only two ways into or out of the oasis town, as Rosie had found out when she was first brought here and inevitably looked for a means of escape. The only other way out was to walk out into the desert; if a slave did that, she would be lucky if she died of thirst before the hunters and their dogs found her and brought her back.
Rosie and Charlotte slowed, gratefully and brought the cart to a halt in one of the pickup bays. Police Chief Williams got out and without a word to them went into the air-conditioned terminal. Rosie stood, panting, steam coming off her and feeling rivulets of sweat running from her armpits down her flanks. With her arms secured at her sides, she could do nothing about it. Her mouth was dry, her tongue almost stuck to the bit. A slave boy moved down towards them, holding a bucket. He took aim and threw the contents of the bucket over Rosie. She gasped as the cold water hit her. It was so refreshing that she almost orgasmed. He dipped the bucket back into a water butt and emptied the contents over Charlotte. Rosie stood there, feeling like a drowned rat but still immensely grateful. Now the slave boy, who was around her own age, half filled the bucket again and held it to her mouth. Rosie gulped down as much of the water as she could, though as much of it ran down her cheeks as she got into her mouth. It was impossible to say thank you to him with the bit in her mouth and such niceties were out of place here anyway. Clearly this was his job, the city council having no wish to see pony girls collapse of dehydration, but she could have kissed him anyway.
As Rosie stood waiting for Chief Williams to return, she saw another single seater pony cart pull into a nearby bay. There were lots of other carts around, but this one caught her eye because the nearly naked girl pulling it was another of the girls from her hockey squad. It was Shannon, a very short but busty girl who had always been brimming with energy and vitality. She looked very different now, harnessed to a cart, her body tanned and seemingly more athletic than before, her big breasts sticking out. She didn’t see Rosie, who was rather grateful: not that she had anything against Shannon, she just didn’t want anybody to see her like this, even though her former team-mate was in a very similar plight. It looked as if Shannon had been made a permanent pony, because she was pulling a taxi cart. As Rosie watched, a man climbed into Shannon’s cart and the stocky former hockey centre forward began to pull him away and out of sight.
Shannon was only the second of her former friends Rosie had seen since she had been taken from the dreaded slave-training centre to be sold at the Slave Shop. It was a depressing reminder that none of them had escaped their fate; and in all likelihood none of them would.
At that moment, however, her attention was brought back to the present as she saw Police Chief Williams emerge from the station terminal with another man. This was a neatly dressed man of around sixty years, with straggly hair carefully brushed and a slightly arthritic walk. He was quite short but very stocky, with a barrel chest; Rosie surveye
d his evident bulk with dismay, because she would have to pull his weight as well as that of the police chief. The newcomer wheezed a little in the heat and surveyed the two girls harnessed to the cart. With some difficulty, he levered himself into one of the two seats, whilst the police chief settled in beside him. Rosie was taking deep breaths, preparing herself for the coming ordeal of effort.
“Slow trot,” ordered Police Chief Williams, “I want plenty of time to consult with my colleague before we get to the mansion.”
Thankful that this would be a much lower pace than the journey out and also that he had not started them with the whip this time, Rosie and Charlotte began to pull forwards, feeling the harness taking the tension and digging slightly into their bodies. There was a lot more resistance to motion this time, with the weight of the two men. The sun beat down, combining with Rosie’s efforts to make her sweat profusely. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the gleam of sweat on Charlotte’s tanned flanks as well.
“I’m extremely grateful to you for coming, Don, especially at such short notice. I don’t mind admitting that I’m out of my depth here.” Rosie could hear every word of the conversation.
“Well, it’s always a pleasant change to sample Xanxta’s rather unique hospitality,” returned the other man amiably. Rosie could feel his rheumy eyes roving over her bare back, bottom and legs.
“Maybe you should retire here in a few years time,” said Jeff. “Or to Promethia, the new town. They’re expanding, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to get a resident’s visa there.”
“Perhaps, perhaps,” mused the other.
“There’s not much crime around here, either,” said Jeff. “That’s one of the things which worries me. Most of the population is pretty contented and besides the penalties are severe. Murder is very rare and when it does come along, it’s usually a heat of the moment thing, not premeditated like this.”
“What would the penalty be?”
“Life enslavement without a doubt, just think about that: life means life, probably in one of the sweat factories at that. You’d have to be mad to take the risk.”
“But there’s a lot of money in this household, from what you told me?”
“Pots and pots of it and that is another problem for me. Money talks in this town, so Tyler Mason has a big voice. If I mess this up, I could lose my job.”
“But what about money as a motive?”
The police chief shook his head. “The murderer picked on the wrong victim, then. Edward Harris had only arrived here a week ago as a medical trainee. He had no money, that’s why his employer’s fiancée - that’s Elizabeth Mason - arranged for him to stay here. She’s pretty much cut up about that, saying she led him to his death. But the trouble is, since he’s so new here, and nobody knows him, there’s just no motive that I can fathom.”
“Could he have been blackmailing somebody, who decided on a cheap way to pay?”
Another shake of the head, “there are no skeletons in the family closet, and the guests all seem clean as well. You need to bear in mind that most blackmail arises from people having secret sexual perversions, but in Xanxta almost any perversion can be practiced openly.” Rosie shuddered: she could attest to that.
“Let’s put that to one side for the moment, then,” said Donald, “and look at the mechanics of the crime.”
“But that’s even worse! The whole thing’s bloody impossible!” For a moment, Jeff’s agitation was such that Rosie could actually feel the cart shake through her harness. Then the man took a deep breath to calm himself. “I received the report from the pathologist this morning before coming to pick you up. He confirms that Edward Harris was poisoned by curare. Now, that particular poison is funny stuff. You could swallow a gallon of it without any ill effects: it has to get into the bloodstream, say by injection or through a skin wound. So Harris had to be injected or stabbed or something like that. That’s where we hit the big problem. That room is little more than a store cupboard: four walls, a ventilation grille you couldn’t squeeze a mouse through, and a locked door which was always in clear sight of at least three or four people throughout the hour, and twice that many at the time Harris was killed, which the pathologist, like Dr. Chase, puts at within a few minutes of entering the room. Don’t give me any guff about secret passages: I’ve already had a builder sound out every wall, and there’s nothing like that. I’ve also had every stick of furniture examined for a poison trap, and there just isn’t one. There’s no sign of a hypodermic or anything either, just in case you think he might have committed suicide. And just to top it all off, the pathologist can’t find an entry wound anywhere on him.” As it later emerged, all of this was true. Rosie, listening intently as she pulled the cart, felt her hair stand on end: were they dealing with a ghost?
“According to the pathologist,” Jeff went on, “it’s a pretty grim death. Curare paralyses the area nearest the entry point first then spreads through the body until it reaches vital organs. If, say, you got injected in the thigh, your legs would go first then it moves up your body until it gets to the heart. You might have ten seconds or so. This poor sod had a grimace on his face and his jaws were locked solid. Now, he has that short time in which to scream, and the door is solid but not soundproofed. Nobody heard anything, so it seems to me that the murderer clamped a hand over his mouth to shut him up for a few seconds until he snuffed it. All well and good, until you come back to the same question: how the hell did the murderer get out of that room?”
“Or into it, for that matter,” mused Donald Peters. “I assume there was nobody already there when Harris went in?”
“It was very dark in there, but they don’t think anybody else was there. Plus, you have another conundrum: all the members of the household, slaves included, are accounted for at that moment and pretty much throughout the hour before Harris was found. Everybody has a water-tight alibi.”
“You’re assuming that the murderer is somebody within the household?” asked Donald.
“It seems to me that we have to, otherwise the motive problem gets even worse - pretty much nobody else in the town had even met this guy - and you have the added complication of somebody getting into and out of the house. No, I think it must be somebody within the household. Don’t you?”
“It seems eminently reasonable to me.”
Jeff took a breath, calming himself once more. There was a lull in the conversation; Rosie assumed that Donald Peters was digesting the information, although he could just have been studying her bottom and Charlotte’s. As a guest of the Tyler mansion, he would of course have full access to her; it would be another overweight, middle-aged pig for her to have to copulate with. Rosie fought down her bitterness and distaste and concentrated on keeping a steady rhythm as she pulled the cart. Although the pace was mercifully slow, her legs were tiring, the heat was beating down on her - the cart itself was nicely shaded for the passengers, but there was nothing to protect her or Charlotte from the sun - and there was a lot of weight to pull.
“So what’s your next move?” Donald Peters asked.
“My men should have finished taking statements from the members of the household by now. I’ll collate them and go through them later. Meanwhile, I need to interrogate the slaves. I’m going to take them away from the mansion for that.”
“I’d like to just chat generally to the people in the house and have a quick look at the notes so far,” Peters said.
“No problem. Ah, here we are.”
Rosie was very relieved to see the mansion coming into view. She and Charlotte brought the cart to a halt outside the front gate and waited for the two men to alight. Then they were dismissed and able to pull the now much lighter cart around the corner and into the garage area. At least they were off the street now, out of the public view, but they were still harnessed and, unable to free themselves, they could only wait, dripping sweat in the hot
sun and feeling the now sweat-soaked straps sticking to them.
Ashley appeared. Rosie had to endure some more ‘accidental’ groping as she was un-harnessed. The tired girl was allowed the brief respite of a shower before resuming her duties. There would, no doubt, be yet more unpleasantness before the day was out; and added to the usual horrors was the knowledge that one of her tormentors was also a murderer.
Flashback Four
Twelve girls, each fully naked, now stood in the circle, arms secured above their heads. They had all been carefully looked over and four had been removed, each deemed insufficiently attractive either in looks or body. Rosie had stood shaking with shame and fear when it had been her turn to endure Amir’s inspecting gaze, but he had then moved on to the next girl without comment. One of the other men, using a marker pen, had scrawled each girl’s number on her forearm.
“Now,” he had said, “I need to know if any of you sluts are still virgins. Call out your number if you are and don’t forget the proper mode of address. Lying,” he added with a sinister tone in his voice, “is not advised.”
There was an awkward silence amongst the girls. Rosie nerved herself to speak.
“Please teacher, number one,” the blonde Sarah called out in embarrassment.
“Please teacher, number fourteen,” Rosie managed to say.
Nobody else spoke. “Only two out of twelve?” Amir sneered. “What a corrupt society you come from. Check them, Hassan.”