by Sean O'Kane
“I saw her come off the track at a Derby last month. Right up on the bend it was, she must have come down from all of twenty feet. Didn’t hurt herself,” Martha mused and went back to working with the mortar and pestle. They had moved back into the old CSL office now that twenty five slaves had been returned to their owners. Three of the barracks had been closed and there was no auction scheduled for at least a fortnight, so CSL was as quiet as it had been for years. They had gone back to Carlo’s notes on how to get the best out of promising material and Martha had stumbled across a recipe for a ginger-based mixture which he claimed could get a pony to run up to twenty per cent faster. She was going to try it out that afternoon.
“Mind you that was onto a mat rather than cobbles,” she added.
“Nah!” Brian said, shaking his head. “The Prince is insisting all entrants have a girth harness so their hands are free, specially so if they do fall on the cobbles they can get their hands down to minimise damage. I reckon he doesn’t want her to run and win it.”
“Why not?”
“Because like we were saying at the conference the other week, she’s been over-exposed and there’s not enough opposition. So he reckons it’s best if he rests her for a while. You could tell the crowds are starting to become almost hostile towards her because she’s too successful.”
“Could be he’s right,” Martha said, tipping the powder into a steel bowl and lighting Carlo’s old spirit stove. “We’re not entering?” she asked.
“No, none of them are ready for the Hunter Class. Two might be in a few months’ time and we can think of putting them in for the Kentucky Open. Two more might be ready for the Hacker Class as well. But there’s no point in running them just for the sake of it. Let’s wait till they’ve got a realistic chance.”
“But we’re going, right?” Martha asked anxiously.
“Oh yes! We’ve got to be seen and do some networking! Peter’s coming too so we’ll get the red carpet treatment, he and the Prince go back years.”
Martha put her bowl down and smiled lasciviously. “I hear the Prince has got some of the best slave handling facilities anywhere in the world. Do you think we could maybe get to play a bit?”
“In my experience he’s generous to a fault. He’s got so many slaves he’s quite happy to have his guests enjoy them to the full.”
“Mmm. I’ve seen pics of some his decorated ones. They look yummy!”
The Prince’s plans were coming together nicely. The street circuit through the city of Bakhtar was all marked out and barriers to keep the crowds back had been put in place. The hotels were fully booked and there were no fewer than forty entries for the Hunter Class which was the Blue Riband event and the Novices’ and Hackers’ lists were full too. All that remained was to sort out the more decorative elements of the occasion and this was where he felt most at his ease. He felt he could begin to relax and enjoy the spectacle he was creating now that the hard work of administration was mainly behind him.
The circuit was going to be half a mile in circumference and the Hunters would race it six times. The Novices would do two laps and the Hackers four. He and Selim had selected the streets down by the harbour to cordon off, they were fairly level and quite broad, which would help with overtaking and the twists and turns were not too severe, allowing for fast cornering while providing an interesting and challenging track. It also meant that there would be a cool breeze off the sea. No one wanted to see a pony succumb to heatstroke, there was precious little entertainment in that and quite a few of the entries were privately owned and trained, so no one quite knew to what standard they had been prepared. Part of the course went through the old town and it was there that the ponies would be running and cornering on cobbles, but the fast straights were tarmac because they ran behind the new docks area.
There were miles of bunting strung from the lamp posts but the Prince had an idea that would add immeasurably to the gaiety of the scene. And he was organising a parade to start the afternoon’s racing off.
He and Selim were in the gardens watching some of the squad girls who had been shipped down from the fort up-country, where the arena slaves were housed. They were hitched, two abreast to a line of traps and were high stepping towards the men at a pace which was just slower than a trot – more of a fast walk. The target the Prince was aiming for was an absolute uniformity of thighs parallel to ground at the top of each pace. And each pony had been trained to lift her left foot the instant the right came down and vice versa, so that she should never have two feet on the ground. The result was a bouncy progress that shook every girl’s breasts, buttocks and thighs very prettily. They also dripped silver from more or less anywhere it could be fixed to a girl’s body.
Their feet were in dainty, silver, kitten heeled shoes which were steel shod at the front to make them sound like real ponies on the cobbles and tarmac of the streets. Instead of the workaday crupper with its dildo, plug and tail, they had short skirts of silver metal strips that were long enough to cover their cunts – just. But the strips shortened quickly so as not to cover the thighs and were made very short over the hips, lengthening again over the buttocks until the longest strips hung down the buttock cleavage. With the girls’ exaggerated gaits the metal shook and glittered in the sun. Specially for the occasion they had had their navels pierced and each girl bore a sapphire in a silver setting in the pit. The top of the piercing was worked into a silver riding whip which decorated her stomach above the navel. The breasts were all bound at the roots to keep them set high and thrusting, an unobtrusive length of transparent plastic cable tie had been used for this. The Prince wanted the beholder’s eye drawn to the nipples and the forward curves of the breasts. Each nipple had been pierced – again specially - as no arena slave sported even so much as a pierced ear normally, she wanted nothing that could give an opponent a hold or an advantage – and thick silver rings had been threaded through the holes. The rings were far bigger than usual and supported sets of silver bells mounted at their bottoms. With the breasts bound, the bells hung well clear of the body and tinkled constantly as the girls trotted. Around the upper curve of each breast, set back from the areola, an upright tiara of silver had been attached so that each girl bore two displays of silver standing up from her breasts in just the same way as a tiara would stand up from her forehead. The displays, consisting of a fan shape of silver struts, joined by lace-like filigree work, stretched up almost to each girl’s chin level. At first glance it looked flimsy but there was no risk of any mishap. They were attached by pins driven firmly into the soft breast flesh and while they might shake and follow the movement of the breast prettily they would not come adrift during the parade, this had been thoroughly tested up at the fort. The girls’ high posture collars and blinkers were of silver too and a silver tiara stood in the traditional place on each girl’s forehead, surmounted by plumes in the purple of Bakhtar. Unusually their hair had been left loose and the decorative way it blew and tossed around their sliver-bridled heads provided a fitting backdrop for the richness of their harness.
The final touch to the webs of metal around the girls was provided by rings set through the nasal septum on each girl. From these two chains ran in deep loops back to her pierced ears, and from these more bells hung. The Prince had emptied his stable of blondes, a breed he had a fondness for, and they made a fine display as they trotted towards him drawing behind them the traps that would hold the more prestigious visiting owners.
But that wasn’t the only visual treat the Prince was planning. Once the parade had passed him and he declared himself satisfied, he went into the palace and was met in one of the everyday reception rooms by no fewer than forty four girls freshly returned from the Village of the Women. The village was up in the mountains beyond the arena and was where the female elders of Bakhtar dealt with any unruly or disobedient younger women. They meted out punishments for all sorts of domestic offences and also inscribed the intricate tattoos that were the trademark of Bakhtar slaves.
The Prince, having been educated in England, had been an Anglophile for years – even more so now that Clive Mostyn led the country – and some years previously he had managed to get a coat of arms designed for his somewhat piratical dynasty. And now, for the first running of the Bakhtar Open these girls were to be the standard bearers. Except that they weren’t going to bear the Bakhtar standards, they were going to be the standards. All the girls were Bakhtari, with honey coloured skins and dark hair – another reason why the parade ponies were blondes. Their fronts – from deltas to collar bones were tattooed with the shield of Bakhtar which was quartered with images of a sailing ship, a scimitar, an ankh and a lamp. Two lions rampant facing a castle crowned the shield and the animals were emblazoned across each breast with the castle between them. He knew it had taken the women days of work on each girl and they had told him that it had been quite noisy at times. But it had been well worth it. The girls themselves stood proudly with their hands behind their backs and their legs apart as he walked slowly down the line, trying to detect any faults or discrepancies but the purples and reds and whites were bright, vibrant and accurate. How fortunate it had been that the heralds had designed the shield with a scalloped bottom to it so that it ran down between the girls’ hips, occupying nearly the whole of the delta with its rich red background and gold curlicues and foliage at its edges. The gold actually dipped onto the tops of the labia, so completely did the design cover the fronts of the torsos. He thought that most of them would fetch a handsome price after the race, they would have value as souvenirs after all.
The details of how the girls were to be deployed had already been sorted out and he dismissed them for the moment. He needed to find out how his entrants’ last minute preparations were going, so with Selim trailing behind he headed for the stables and Mahmut.
Every single stall was occupied now that the arena slaves had been shipped in and an atmosphere of controlled chaos pervaded the stable. It was late in the day and as he had been busy, he hadn’t had the milkers brought to him. They were bellowing their distress through the echoing building and the palace grooms were rushing to milk them as quickly as possible. Meanwhile the arena grooms were trying to shower and rub down their charges while the three palace ponies’ food was being prepared. Mahmut stood in the middle of everything, seemingly unperturbed and directed operations, using his whip on grooms as well as slaves if necessary.
The Prince could see he was steadily achieving order and left him to it. Instead he made his way to Lightning’s stall and checked the paperwork hanging by her stall door. With only a week to go, he wanted to check on her times over a three mile course. He ran his eye down the records of the two runs every day for the past fortnight and smiled. They showed a steady decline in times as her fitness improved. A little bird had told him – a very well-paid and secretive little bird – that the Girl Squad’s entry was a clear two seconds off Lightning’s pace and another had said that Salazar’s entry, from Argentina was no closer. He put the clipboard back on its hook and looked at the pony, clicking his fingers to indicate she should approach him. She came to the stall door and he reached through the bars and cradled one heavy breast in his hand. She sighed in pleasure and pushed nearer, trying to thrust her breasts between the bars. She partially succeeded and the Prince used both hands to grip, tug and twist the nipples as they throbbed into erection.
“Do not fail me, Lightning!” he whispered and saw her swallow nervously. Asil had reported back about her visit to the solitary cells. He smiled as he turned and left. A combination of devotion, fear and the whip, plus her native talent would see her home, he was confident. And what was more he had secured the services of the driver who had steered her to victory at the Pretty Pony races.
People began pouring into Bakhtar two days ahead of the races. The streets of the old city, usually only walked by back robed women and gellabiya clad men were now thronged with the brightly coloured clothes of a cosmopolitan and hedonistic influx. For the final day, and while the last of the other entries were being shipped and flown in, the Prince attended Lightning’s early morning gallops himself after ensuring that every inch of the palace’s walls were under surveillance and that interference devices had been set up to baffle nano-drones. It was cold at this hour and there was a mist still burning off as he waited at the end of the gallops. It wasn’t a full three miles but for this last day she was just being run to keep her loose and supple and to let her driver get used to her again. He knew she had been warmed up on the lunge rein before being harnessed and now he glanced at his watch and stamped his feet against the penetrating damp of the morning mist. Up above him a ghostly sun was already rising above the walls to the East and in a couple of hours or so it would be too hot to run her.
Beside him Selim too shivered and wrapped his coat closer around himself. Then faintly, through the grey mist, came the sounds of a whip and the soft rumble of wheels. Gradually an outline appeared and became solid. It was Lightning, moving with her customary ease and grace. She kept coming and assumed more solidity and colour as she did so until finally with a snort, a toss of her head and a cloud of breath she was reined in hard and her driver jumped down.
“She’s still a bit headstrong but every bit as classy as I remember, your Highness,” he said coming to her head and dragging it down by the bridle so her could unfasten her bit and feed her a sweet. “There you go Lightning, girl!” he said as she champed eagerly on her treat.
“Er, your Highness,” Selim put in. “I’ve been meaning to say, is it…I mean... do you want her entered under the stable name she had in America? It’s not too late, I can change it today if you let me know.”
The Prince considered. It wasn’t something he had had time to think about, but now that Selim mentioned it, it did seem a shame to race her under another stable’s name. Especially as that stable hadn’t really owned her. Not the way he did.
He looked at her from the side, tall, blonde and powerful, her breaths steaming in the damp, cold air. Drops of early morning dew sparkled in her hair. She even had glints of it at her nipples. She seemed barely to be breathing hard even after her run. Her magnificent breasts scarcely rose and fell on her deep chest. The planes of her stomach curved smooth and tight down to her prominent delta which disappeared between the powerful haunches and the deep flanks. How he wanted to see how she would take him for a ride when he fucked her! And there was still the matter of the raw masochism he had detected on the plane, he was going to spend many happy hours playing with this one.
He ran through naming options in his mind as he looked at her and came to a decision.
“On this occasion I must agree with the Americans. White Lightning sums her up perfectly. She is blonde, fast and, I suspect, will prove quite intoxicating!”
It was Martha’s first visit to the Middle East and the blast of stifling heat which hit them as they exited the plane came as a complete shock to her. As soon as she stepped onto the tarmac she could feel it striking up through her thin soles.
“Come on!” Peter called and gratefully they saw the Prince had sent a small fleet of cars to meet guests arriving on their flight. They were spared all the hassle of customs and passport control and could relax in the air-conditioned comfort of the car’s interior while their driver took their passports and collected their baggage, then loaded it in and the small convoy set off across the airfield and back into the city.
“His Highness has told me to show you the course for the races tomorrow,” he told them and they drove down from the hills into the city and then into the old city itself and finally to the bustling new docks. The barriers along the road sides clearly told them where the ponies would be running and Brian approved of the course, a bit of up and down but not too much, some good turns, some good overtaking straights. The Prince knew his pony racing alright.
“What are those?” Peter asked, pointing to odd looking posts at regular intervals along the way. They consisted of a straight upright about
ten feet tall with a slender T bar set across its top. Two bracing arms spread out and up to meet its ends from lower down on the upright.
The driver grinned at them in the rear view mirror. “His Highness is going to put on a show you will not forget!” he said.
The passengers exchanged excited smiles as the car turned uphill and headed for the palace, if the Prince was planning a spectacle, it had to involve his slaves somehow.
Chapter Fourteen
Martha couldn’t help a whistle of admiration when she stepped out of the car. The palace was almost a small town in its own right. More men hurried out to help with baggage and they were shown to their rooms. Brian’s and Martha’s was on a corner and overlooked the city and the sea. Peter’s room was next door and the three of them convened before going downstairs for a drink and to meet fellow guests.
“You need to understand that at a time of his choosing, you will be able to do whatever you please with his slaves, Martha,” Peter told her. “But until that time it would be gross bad manners to touch one of them in any way. You can admire them and ask him anything but do wait until he gives the all clear before you enjoy any of them. It’ll be worth the wait, I promise!”
They went back down, guided by Peter who still remembered his way around from when he had been the Prince’s slave trainer. In a ballroom lit by a row of huge chandeliers and with a floor of polished cedar wood, a cocktail party was held for the guests staying at the palace and Martha found herself mixing with the aristocracy of the arena world. She found herself chatting with the Countess de Goncourt and her trainer Amelia, who had once been a groom at The Lodge and Brian’s submissive. But that had been years previously and the three women talked easily of the day to day business of running a slave stable. For what was still the only female owned and run stable, keeping over a hundred sex-addicted women calm and disciplined presented some additional problems, and these Martha found intriguing - especially when Amelia told her what the monthly bill for batteries was.