by Selena Kitt
I heard the smug sound of victory in Sean’s voice. “Oh, yeah. Jocks are totally into pony play, I’m telling you.”
Part of me wondered if he meant to say jockey instead, but I didn’t press it. “And it’s not totally hetero? Because I’m not having some leather bitch boss me around.”
“It’s everything,” Sean assured me. “Women and men, straight, gay, lesbian, all types. These weekend deals bring out everyone. So you’re going, right?”
I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of hearing me say yes, so I growled into the phone, “All I’m saying is I better get some dick out of this. You hear me?”
Sean promised, “You will.”
* * * *
Saturday morning found me in line with Sean and a dozen or so other pony wannabes. There were women with twin ponytails that made them look like little girls and men barely old enough to shave. Our line divided the renovated barn that Sean’s group had rented for the weekend. Tables lined the walls as vendors hawked all kinds of sex toys, books, DVDs, clothing…you name it, someone here had it for sale or knew how to get it. People swirled past the vendors, many on leashes that kept them at their masters’ sides like obedient pets, some in full-body sensory deprivation suits, a few almost naked. Everywhere I looked, I saw black leather. Bearish men wore assless leather chaps that exposed thong underwear and vests open to naked chests and pale bellies. Dominatrices stalked through the crowd with bared breasts and whips folded into their fists, leather mini skirts flaring when they turned to show crotchless panties. I felt conspicuously out of place with my T-shirt and jeans, and I glared down anyone who tried to appraise me. Nudging Sean, I asked loudly, “So where are all the hot guys you promised would be here?”
Rolling his eyes, he told me, “Just wait.” We shuffled forward as another pony-to-be disappeared through the closed door ahead, and I noticed with an anxious sense of dread that we were only two people away from being next. I didn’t want to do this. Watching others being led on chains was embarrassing enough. To actually be one of them would be humiliating. Was it too late to call the whole thing off? Sean would never let me live it down, and the prospect of sex was the only thing keeping me where I stood. What if I missed the guy of my dreams just because I sat out of the training class for beginning ponies?
Yeah, right. As if the guy of my dreams would be here.
I managed to talk myself into leaving and was just about to tell Sean, thanks, but I’ll be waiting in the car, when I realized he was no longer in front of me. The line had moved until I stood at the head of it. I was alone in a sea of leather-clad sex freaks. I vowed to kill Sean if I ever saw him again. Leaving me alone with this crowd, in a place like this…
In front of me, the door opened. A man about my father’s age peered out, his craggy face framed with white hair that wisped back from his brow. He wore a pair of two-tone riding breeches, a navy-blue jacket, and a silly hat that made him look like a jockey. “I’m Charles,” he said in a vaguely European accent that sounded too forced to be real. “I’ll be your groom this morning. Please step in.” When I hesitated, he asked, “Your name, sir?”
“Drew,” I said as he swept me into the room, pulling the door shut and effectively barring my escape.
Around us, long rows of curtains divided the room, and Charles pointed to the empty section directly in front of the door. As I stepped forward, he pulled the curtains shut behind me. On the wall hung various belts and reins, lengths of horse hair fashioned into tails, odd strips of leather. I couldn’t begin to imagine what they were all for. A well-oiled saddle sat on one table, a tangle of leather belts on another. Beside the belts, two horseshoes grinned from the bottom of what looked like hooves. There was one chair in the room, and a pair of leather boots folded down in front of it, waiting to be worn. As I looked around, more than a little nervous, Charles asked gently, “You do know what the term ‘pony play’ means, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” I scoffed. Or rather, I knew what Sean had told me. Was he in this room too, behind one of the curtains somewhere? And was I expected to wear that saddle? Oh, God…
As if I hadn’t spoken, Charles said, “Pony play is a form of bondage where the sub—you—pretends to be a horse.”
“Why, exactly?” I blurted out.
With a faint shrug, he replied, “Don’t ask me. It’s not my fetish.” Turning away, he began to sort through the tangled belts on the table and said, “Undress.”
Taken aback, I asked, “What?”
“That’s a term we use in pony play,” Charles answered. “It means take off your clothes.” Har har, I thought. When I didn’t move, he frowned over his shoulder and said, “Rule number one. You obey the trainer’s commands at all times. When the trainer is not present, you obey the groom. Have you ever done this sort of thing before, Mr. Drew? Because I can assure you that no trainer will give you an order twice.”
Quickly, I began to slip out of my clothes. Undress—I could do that. I pulled my shirt off and stepped out of my jeans, but I hesitated with my thumbs hooked into the waistband of my briefs. Did he mean those, too?
Before I could ask, Charles turned and held the belts out in his hands to form a complicated body harness. “Your outfit, if you will. Remove those.” He nodded at my briefs and before I could think about it, I peeled them off. I had a Crying Game moment where my balls tried to crawl up inside me and my dick shriveled into nothing, but Charles appeared not to notice. Coming closer, he draped the straps of the harness over my shoulders and began buckling and snapping it into place. The leather was cool against my skin, and heavier than it looked. As he worked, his voice was brisk, all business. “I’m going to go over today’s rules. Listen carefully. If you don’t understand something, ask now. Once you’re with a trainer, you won’t get the chance.” I nodded, but Charles admonished, “Don’t move, Mr. Drew.”
“It’s just Drew.” Charles positioned me while he arranged the harness. This wasn’t too bad. As long as I could keep my hands folded over my crotch in some semblance of modesty—only a hastily drawn curtain separated me from the rest of the world. Where was Sean anyway?
A double belt encircled my waist and straps crisscrossed my chest, over my shoulders and down my back. Behind me, Charles worked the complicated buckles and snaps with practiced ease. “As I’ve said, rule number one is to obey your trainer. For today, that will also be your master. You will do everything you are told to do within the best of your ability or you will be punished.”
I nodded, then remembered not to move and stood up straighter than before. “Rule number two,” Charles intoned, arranging the belts across my back. “A pony must never speak when dressed in tack. They won’t use a bit in the beginner’s class, but keep your mouth shut just the same.”
Obey everything they say, don’t talk…two reasons why I wasn’t into S&M in the first place. “What if I have to take a leak or something?” I wanted to know.
“Prance around,” Charles replied. “I’m sure someone will notice.”
There was a hint of a smile in his voice, and I wondered if he was laughing at me. Still, I added, “What if the trainer pushes me too far? Isn’t there, like, a safe word or something?”
“This is a beginner’s class,” Charles interrupted. “You won’t need a safe word, trust me.” Once the harness was in place, he shook out what looked to me like the crotch section of a pair of black leather briefs. Where a waistband should have been, snaps lined the leather. With a quick, efficient manner, Charles threaded it between my legs and pulled it up into place. “Your hands,” he said, and reluctantly I moved them out of the way. Charles snapped the leather onto the belt at my waist, creating a jock that cradled my genitals. Behind me again, Charles snapped the other end onto the back of the belt, then pulled the material taut to cover my ass.
Next came the bridle. “Close your eyes,” Charles instructed. “It’ll go on easier if you can’t see what I’m doing.” A slim belt slipped around my neck like a co
llar and my hands flew up to make sure it wouldn’t choke me. Charles slapped them away. Beneath his breath, I heard him mutter, “Should’ve done the hooves first.”
Another belt went around my forehead, and twin straps on either side of my head framed my ears to connect the belt to the collar. When I raised my hands again, Charles didn’t stop me from running an experimental hand over the bridle. A triangle of stiff leather stood up on either side of my head—ears, I assumed—and hard plastic shields framed my face at eye-level. I opened one eye again, then the other, only to find that my peripheral vision was gone. “What are these?” I asked, plucking at the shields. “I don’t like them.”
“Blinders,” came Charles’s reply. He stepped directly in front of me so I could see him and gave a sympathetic grin. “Welcome to a horse’s life, Mr. Drew. Hold out your hands, please.”
I did as I was told, and watched Charles retrieve the horseshoes from the table. They were attached to gloves fashioned into hooves. Inside each hoof was a thin steel rod that I curled my hands around in a strong grip as Charles snapped the gloves into place. Under my breath, I muttered, “What the hell?”
“Ponies don’t talk,” Charles reminded me. “Just a few final touches before you’re ready to go. Sit.” He pointed at the only chair and knelt down to guide my feet into the waiting boots. They had a slight heel and snapped up the side like vintage ladies’ shoes, but hooves poked out below the black fringe around my ankle. I had no idea anyone went all out like this just for a little kink in their sex lives. How much did all this pony paraphernalia cost? Did people actually do this behind closed bedroom doors? Wouldn’t a regular fuck suffice?
I didn’t really want to know. Once the boots were in place, Charles helped me stand. I tottered a bit when he moved away—the way my foot clicked on the floor meant that there were horseshoes nailed to the bottom of the boots, as well. Shifting from one foot to the other, I listened to the noise the shoes made on the hardwood floor and wondered if Charles would get pissed if I asked him to take all this crap off. Thanks for dressing me but I’m done playing now. Somehow I didn’t think that would fly. Nodding at the saddle on the table, I asked, “Do I have to wear that, too?”
“Not as a beginner,” Charles replied. From the straps hanging on the wall, he selected a pair of thin reins and a long fall of hair—a horse’s tail. “Turn around, Mr. Drew,” he said.
For a moment I thought he was going to call me Mr. Ed. Hoofed gloves or not, I would’ve had to hurt him then. But, since he didn’t, I complied and turned my back to him. The tail snapped into place on the belt above my butt, and the reins attached to steel rings on the bridle on either side of my mouth. Faint hairs from the tail brushed along the back of my thighs, ticklish and strange. When I reached behind me to brush them away, Charles caught my wrist and snapped something onto it. “What are you doing?” I wanted to know. I knew I should’ve hit him when I had the chance.
“A hobble,” he explained, securing my other wrist behind my back, too. “When standing, a pony is always hobbled. It keeps you from messing with the tack.” Taking my reins in one hand, Charles yanked open the curtains and led me out of the small dressing room. “You’re as ready as you’ll ever be,” he told me. Before I could answer, he tugged on the reins and reminded me, “No talking now.”
Ahead, a bored woman in a latex Lolita getup stood in the far corner of the room, clipboard in hand. Beside her, a dozen people dressed like me stood in a group, arms secured behind their backs and reins tethered to a chrome railing. Charles pulled me up to the group and tied my reins onto the rail with the others. “His name is Drew,” he told the woman, who scribbled something down on her clipboard.
I turned to keep the groom in sight, but he slipped behind one of my blinders and disappeared. Then I tried to see the faces of the ponies beside me, but they shied away when I stared at them. From the corner of my mouth, I whispered, “Sean?” No one answered, and the ponies closest to me moved away. “Hey, Sean, you here?”
Something slapped across my ass with a stinging blow, and I whirled to find the woman with her clipboard in both hands, ready to strike again. “No talking, pony,” she growled.
“But…”
She smacked me a second time, bringing the clipboard down hard across my naked thigh. I howled in pain and tried to hide behind someone else, but none of the other ponies wanted anything to do with me. “No talking,” she said again. I glared at her for a moment and only looked away when I thought maybe she’d hit me once more out of spite. Animal cruelty, I thought in a sulk. Someone call PETA.
I glanced at the other ponies, wanting to share the joke, but the burning welts from the clipboard kept me quiet. No one looked at me, anyway. Where the hell was Sean at? And what the fuck was I doing here?
* * * *
For long moments I stood by myself, away from the other ponies. One of them—a woman younger than me—kept taking high, exaggerated steps whenever she moved. Her tack looked custom-made—across her breastplate, the name Pretty Marie was embossed into the leather. Every now and then, she whinnied like a little girl playing horse. Turning my back to our guardian with the clipboard, I leaned down over Marie’s short ponytails and murmured, “So you’re really into this, aren’t you?”
The look she gave me could’ve cut glass. Two high steps took her away from me, but I pushed around another pony to keep beside her. “No, really,” I said softly. “Don’t worry—I’m not hitting on you. I’m gay.”
She made an annoyed sound in the back of her throat and tried to move away again. When I followed, she stuck out one small hoofed foot and kicked me in the shin. “What’d I say?” I wanted to know. “Jesus…”
Someone out of my line of sight gave a mighty tug on my reins, pulling me away from Marie. “This one’s trouble,” Lolita said with a jerk of my reins. I limped around to see a burly man—fat, of course, Sean would’ve loved him—wearing a studded collar and matching wristbands, a pair of leather tights, and nothing else. Sweat rolled over the pale expanse of his belly and down the dark hairs that circled his belly button. I groaned as Lolita handed over my reins to him. If I ever, ever found Sean again…
With my reins in hand, the collared man pulled me towards him. He was a few inches taller than me. He would’ve been intimidating if it wasn’t for the fact that he looked more like the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island than the badass he pretended to be. Shoving his face into mine, he purred, “A pony with spirit. I like that.” Something thin and hard slid between my left thigh and the bulge of my crotch, and I looked down to see a short riding crop in his hand, fat fingers working it between my legs. With a quick shake to get my attention, he growled, “I break little ponies like you every day, buckaroo. Act up out there and you’re mine.”
Before I could ask where out there was, he released me with a shove that sent me back-pedaling into the other ponies. The Lolita bitch held the others’ reins. She handed them over to him once I was out of the way and he folded them into the hand that wasn’t holding the crop. He had all of us now, and a brisk yank pulled us along to the exit. I tried to lose myself among the others, but he kept my reins shorter than the rest, forcing me to take the lead. When we stepped through the door onto the sparse grass outside, a smattering of applause made me duck my head. “Oh, God,” I breathed.
“Prance for us!” someone called out. Immediately the ponies behind me started walking in that affected high step Marie had used, raising each leg waist-high with the knee bent. I lowered my head further, trying to disappear. A jerk on my reins told me otherwise. Ahead, the collared man said, “You too, spitfire.”
I dared a look around. We were behind the rented hall, out of sight from the street. A thin gravel path wound through brown grass and ended a dozen yards away at another barn much smaller than the massive hall behind us. We were heading in that direction—classes were probably taught there, I reasoned, away from the crowds. But the day was warm and clear, and more than a few people had escaped the call
of the vendors and now milled around outside, their black outfits standing out like blight in the bright sun. These were the people the other ponies were showing off for, and I was damned if I would join in. I shuffled my feet through the gravel, refusing to even pick them up enough to walk properly. When I found Sean, I would kill him.
Ahead of us, the collared man stopped so abruptly that I almost ran into him, but he pulled my reins up short and held me in check. His voice rang out loud as if he wanted everyone to hear him. “Pony,” he said, addressing me, “I gave you an order. Prance.”
The blinders kept me from seeing anything but his ugly face. Keeping my voice even, I told him, “My name is Drew. And I don’t prance.”
Suddenly the riding crop leapt from his hand to strike across my thigh. “You’ll do as I say,” he threatened.
In a low, dangerous voice I said, “Untie my hands and try that again.”
The face before me purpled with rage. Each word seemed an effort for him to spit out. “Insolent little ass.”
“That’s rich,” I shouted, “coming from a pig like yourself.” I started to say more but hands seized me from behind and forced something hard between my teeth—a bit, snapping onto the sides of my bridle and rendering me speechless. I strained at the hobble binding my arms, shook my head back and forth, tried to dislodge the bit with my tongue but couldn’t. Around the slim steel bar, I growled at the man in front of me, gnashing my teeth in a fit of anguish and anger.
With a laugh, my tormentor cocked an ear towards me and mocked, “What did you say? I don’t believe I heard you.” Then he tugged at my reins and I lost my balance, falling to a graceless heap on the ground. The riding crop was back again, striping my arm and shoulder and back. “Get up, you foul pony!” More laughter—at least he found himself so amusing. I curled up into a fetal position to avoid the lash that spread fire across my skin in its wake. I kept one hoofed foot on the man’s leg, trying to keep him back, but it was as ineffective as a kitten against a tiger. One thought kept going through my mind: …And some people like this?