by Paul Moore
The next day the tail plug was bigger.
Jenny didn’t hear the limousine coming up behind them, so silent was its approach. She only knew that the right rein grew taut against the bit and forced her to the tufted grass of the shoulder. As the car drew alongside, it slowed and stopped. A tug on the reins stopped Jenny and Button as well. Jenny glanced toward the car and startled herself with her own dim reflection in the tinted rear window. This sweat frothed nude, masked by the bit and bridle, had to be some strange imposter.
Then the window lowered, revealing the face of an older woman. The face had once been beautiful, but time and bitterness had drawn the corners of the mouth and creased between the brows. Cold grey eyes looked Jenny up and down speculatively. Jenny shivered in spite of the heat, seeing cruelty there. This was a woman who wanted to hurt her for fun, a woman who would savor her screams
“This one is new.” The woman’s voice was a deep rasp.
Behind Jenny, Soupcan answered. “She’s just probationary, Lady G, here for a month of training. I think she will work out all right though.”
“Will her contract be up for sale then?” Lady G’s tone betrayed a serious interest.
“I expect that is up to Mister Frisk.”
“Frisk!” Lady G said contemptuously. “He’s a dilettante, doesn’t understand what a proper mount really needs. She looks as though she might be fast though.”
“Haven’t had the chance to find out what she is capable of yet, Ma’am” Soupcan was being uncharacteristically deferential. In spite of the heat, Jenny felt a sudden chill.
“That can be arranged,” said Lady G.
Chapter Nine
The days passed swiftly. Other girls arrived at the Bar-S Ranch. Many were, as Sarah said, mere sluts, sponsored by men who had more hormones than common sense. The mercenaries weeded themselves out quickly, when it became apparent that they would be expected to earn their keep. One girl was taken back to the airport in hysterics, after her long cherished fantasy collided with hard edged reality. Another arrived curled up semi conscious in the back of the truck, suffering from heat exhaustion. Sarah carefully nursed her back to health before paying her for time served and sending her home.
For those who remained, the training regimen varied. Many were show ponies. They spent most of their days circling endlessly in a training ring. Form and appearance were most important to them. Their harnesses were usually made of patent leather, often dyed bright colors. Much of their equipage was merely pretty and highly impractical. Blinders obscured their side vision. Decorative metal studs and conches added unnecessary weight. Gay plumage fluttered from atop their bridles. The rigs they pulled were ornate, designed like ancient Roman chariots or rickshaws, and the drivers wore appropriate costumes. The ponies pranced about in a high stepping gait that was useless for covering ground, but very showy when performed in step by a team. The girls were seldom whipped, and only with the gentlest of implements, to avoid marking their tanned and polished hide.
There were other girls who trained for heavy pulling. They spent hours in the gym, doing squats and bench presses with free weights the size of training wheels. Sometimes Jenny saw them dragging slabs of concrete over rough ground. Once she saw a girl drawing a plow across a field. From the grapevine, she learned that their competitions were grueling ordeals. They dragged loaded sleds over a measured distance, and the loads were increased until only one competitor could still stagger across the finish line. The girls were thick and stolid as work horses, and Jenny wondered what sort of emotional wounds would cause a girl to prefer the life of a mute asexual beast of burden, transformed by heavy training into a creature who would draw shocked stares on the outside world.
Jenny and Button were racers. Their harness was simple and functional, designed to connect girl and cart securely and comfortably, while adding as little weight as possible. Still there was a bit of useless silliness to their rigging. Bits and bridles were unnecessary, of course, since they were willing, even eager, to respond quickly to mere voice command or a touch of the driving whip. They weren’t about to be spooked or distracted the way real horses might. The tails were just for show, of course, and Jenny was well aware of the effect they probably had on the male libido. Every trainer was familiar with the construction of these devices. Whenever he watched a pony girl strutting about with her high tail flouncing behind he would consider its effects and imagine enjoying himself where the tail was anchored. She was sure that when she finally appeared in the competition arena, every spectator in the stands would have similar thoughts.
The tail plugs distending her had grown steadily thicker and longer with each passing day, and Jenny knew that the day was coming when she would be considered ready for use.
To strengthen her upper body, Jenny was required to spend three afternoons a week in the gym, working out with machines designed to train her chest, arms, and shoulders. She did heavy squats as well, reasoning that powerful legs would get her off of the starting line faster.
Button was her training partner. The personal trainer who was assigned to the gym paid little attention to them when she saw that Jenny and Button were already self motivated and well experienced with the gym equipment. She spent most of the time in her office with a magazine and a pot of coffee.
They trained during the time normally set aside for siesta, so that there was no waiting to use the machines. Often the only other people in the gym were Dusk and Tinka.
Dusk ignored them for the most part, and concentrated on training with free weights, moving with a ponderous studied deliberation, her chiseled bronze body glistening with sweat.
Tinka seemed bored by the whole process. When she wasn’t spotting for Dusk, she performed her own exercises carelessly and without enthusiasm. She spent most of her time watching the other girls work out and prattling away while Dusk grunted monosyllables in reply. Once when Jenny glanced her way Tinka smiled back at her and winked.
Jenny simply nodded politely and looked quickly away.
The next day Jenny lingered in the shower after her morning in the training ring. Button had already dried herself and returned to the bunkhouse, but Jenny was enjoying the sensation of hot water on her tired muscles.
Earlier that morning, while he was preparing their harnesses, Soupcan had ordered Jenny to her knees and made a point of comparing her plug for the day to his own erection, waving both under her nose for her to inspect.
“Same size,” he remarked. “I reckon tomorrow you’ll be good to go. Now turn around and spread for it, ask me real nice to make your ass ready for my dick.”
Even though he used plenty of lubricant, the tail plug still hurt going in, and continued to throb inside her as she serviced him with her mouth.
So Jenny was sore and exhausted, inside and out, and dreading the day to come. Her only consolation was the expectation that Sarah would summon her again tonight. The savage affection she experienced from the cowgirl’s practiced hands and mouth at evening’s end more than made up for her cruel techniques of foreplay.
There was something more at play here, something she had yet to admit even to herself. Her support for her ailing brother had not been an entirely unselfish act. Seeing a loved one in distress had filled her with a feeling of helpless desperation, and the money she gave to him was a hedge against it. By taking on that burden she had gained some measure of control over the situation. It gave her power.
Here she had no control, and her only responsibility was to please her trainers. Sarah had taken her outside of herself, to a place where there was only sensation and surrender, and she had taken Jenny there nearly every night since she had arrived. Even Button had teased Jenny about being ‘the flavor of the month,’ and it was getting harder to remember Sarah’s admonition about falling in love.
Thinking about that, she closed her eyes and let her hand stray between her legs. She told herself that she was just easing the chafed skin where the harness had divided her. The freshly shorn mound
had been unusually sensitive to the touch lately. There was something in their food, Button had suggested. Perhaps there was only something in the hot desert air. She threw her head back to let the water run through her hair as her fingers slowly stroked. Her anal opening still throbbed with an echo of the tail plug that had distended it all morning, the memory was still fresh, a reminder of things to come. She found herself thinking about that as well, Soupcan’s thick cock, sinking inexorably into the opening he had so carefully prepared, taking her.
Jenny was startled when a hand crawled spider like down the length of her arm to cover her own hand and press it deeper into her slit. A second hand slithered wetly across the front of her body until a thumb and forefinger teased and tweaked her nipples.
It was Button, she guessed. Sarah had consumed Jenny from the moment that she arrived, greedily demanding most of her time and sexual energy and leaving nothing to share with an affectionate stable mate. Button, Jenny assumed, had finally decided to literally take matters into her own hands, slipping back into the shower room to collect something that was long overdue. The noise of the falling water had covered her approach.
Jenny sighed and let herself relax against the warm, slick skin behind her, leaning back against the soft breasts and purring as a tongue danced over the shell of her ear.
“Ah, Button,” she murmured. “I’m sorry. I kept you waiting too long, didn’t I?”
A soft giggle erupted from the lips beside her ear, and Jenny’s eyes flew wide with shock.
That isn’t Button’s voice!
In that instant of revelation, Jenny felt another pair of hands grip her shoulders and slam her face against the hard tile of the shower wall.
Stars danced before Jenny’s eyes as she turned to confront her attacker, and she ran a quick tongue over her teeth to take inventory.
Nothing broken... but, what the hell?
Then she saw it all. Tinka was pressed against the other wall of the shower, wearing an uncanny grin. Between them, Dusk glowered.
“I told you to stay away from my bitch!”
“I’m sorry!” Jenny sputtered. “I didn’t know it was her!” Jenny silently cursed her inability to invent a plausible lie. The simple truth was too lame for anyone to believe.
Why is Tinka looking so pleased with herself? Shouldn’t she be scared too?
“Bullshit!” shrieked Dusk, and came at her.
Rage made Dusk’s attack clumsy. She reverted to her most primitive weapons, baring her teeth and leading with her open claws. Jenny was still confused, and the black woman’s size was intimidating, but Jenny had learned a few tricks dealing with unruly drunks and dodged the clumsy charge. Misguided instinct would have told her to grab Dusk by the wrists and hold her at bay, but the stronger woman would have wrenched free of her grip easily, leaving Jenny’s defenses open.
Jenny reached for a thumb instead, ducked, and twisted, spinning under Dusk’s arm and coming up behind her.
Dusk bellowed with rage as her arm was forced up between her shoulders. She tried to turn and shake herself loose, but Jenny turned with her and twisted the thumb more, until Dusk’s roar became a yelp of pain. Jenny threw an arm around the thick column of the woman’s throat and tightened it into a choke hold.
She knew that Dusk would try to run backwards next, and slam her against the wall. It was the natural counter move. To prevent this, she wrapped her legs around Dusk’s hard midsection and locked her ankles. With a roar, Dusk lost her balance and they went down hard together, skidding and thrashing on the slick floor.
Dusk was breathing with tortured rasps, but Jenny’s forearm was a vise across her windpipe. Jenny had been a witness to many bar room brawls, and most of them ended this way. Dusk’s nails raked at Jenny’s skin, but she had no leverage to break the hold, and she was weakening.
Squinting into the falling cascade Jenny glared up at Tinka, who was simply standing and observing the battle with an odd sort of avidness.
“Tell her!” Jenny shouted at her, as the shower room door boomed open behind them, throwing a shaft of sun into the room and pinning them all in its spotlight.
“Tell her how it really happened!”
Tinka’s face assumed a mask of terror as she gazed toward the open door.
“Help!” she screamed. “Please help! She’s killing her!”
“I’m disappointed,” said Sarah. “I didn’t think that you would wind up brawling like some trailer tramp.” Her dissatisfaction was real, Jenny realized. Sarah had recognized her potential, and she had fallen short of those expectations.
Jenny shivered in front of her Mistress. A cool wind had been rising all day, and the sand it threw tickled her still damp legs. It wasn’t the chill that made her tremble, or even the fear of punishment. It was the likelihood that Sarah would banish her.
Soupcan and a group of other men had burst into the shower room as though on cue, but Jenny could only assume that they had been drawn there by the sounds of shouting and struggle. She had released her hold on Dusk immediately when she saw them, and Dusk had come at her again, only to be restrained and dragged away by four men.
Jenny had been marched into the main yard under guard and ordered to stand at attention until Sarah could be summoned. A crowd had gathered to witness her shame as she stood dripping and miserable. Soap that she had been unable to rinse away began to dry on her body, making her itch, but she was too chastened to break her position, even to scratch.
“Can you give me a reasonable explanation for this?” asked Sarah.
What could Jenny say in her own defense? She started it! That was the argument of a schoolgirl caught in a playground fracas. She couldn’t claim innocence when even Tinka might be willing to testify against her and save her own hide. Tinka wasn’t even available as a witness. She had fallen silently into step behind the men who took Dusk away.
“I’m sorry, Ma’am. I take full responsibility.” Jenny couldn’t even promise that it would never happen again. Dusk would be looking for a rematch.
Sarah sighed. “I have two choices now. I could send you packing, and if you were a less promising candidate, I would do that in a hot minute. I know how hotheaded Dusk can be, though, and I suspect that you aren’t entirely to blame here. She is one of Lady G’s girls. I let her train here as a personal favor, and I have no say about the price she will pay for her part in this fuck up. If I let you stay, will you accept whatever punishment you have earned?”
Jenny dropped to her knees and pressed her forehead to the ground. “I do not wish to leave you, Mistress.”
She waited an eternity for Sarah’s decision.
“It isn’t just the money, is it?”
She knows you better than you know yourself.
“No, Mistress.”
“I’m entirely too soft hearted for my own good,” said Sarah sadly.
“Put her in solitary for now. I’ll deal with her later.”
The holding cells were located in an ancient adobe structure in a remote corner of the compound. The doors were constructed of heavy plank bolted to cross braces. Small barred openings in the doors allowed anyone passing in the corridor a clear view of the prisoners within. Jenny’s cell lacked furnishings of any kind. It was no more than a windowless stone cubicle. A drainage hole in the center of the sloping floor was her toilet. Her jailers shackled her neck to a length of chain bolted to the wall, not to secure her, she guessed, but merely so that the weight of the chain might serve as a reminder of her disgrace.
“Solitary” was a misnomer, she soon discovered. The heavy door had hardly clanged shut when Dusk began shouting from another cell somewhere in the building.
“Is that you, bitch? They ain’t keepin’ me here forever. I’ll be around, and next time you won’t be pullin’ any of that fancy WWF shit. Paybacks is a bitch, you stuck up bitch stealin’ slut!”
Jenny said nothing, though she was tempted to bait the woman, just to relieve the boredom, and her continued silence might be int
erpreted as fear. She was too weary and dispirited to care. After awhile, Dusk ran out of invective and quiet descended over their prison.
Chapter Ten
It was nearly dark when Soupcan came for Jenny. She made no attempt to resist or escape, and the leash he clipped to her collar before he unlocked the chain was no more than a formality.
She had been fed earlier, table scraps she was told, but some unknown sympathizer in the kitchen had managed to hide a still warm chicken leg under the pile of gristle and rinds. She had polished it off hungrily and snapped it in two to suck the marrow. She felt betrayed in some way she could not yet identify, and devouring the smuggled tidbit became an act of covert defiance.
So she was carrying her tin bowls when Soupcan led her into the shower room, and rinsed them as he readied a large nozzle behind her, not because the chore was required of her, only to distract herself with something mundane as a prologue to the unfolding nightmare.
Soupcan snatched the bowls away impatiently. “Quit stallin’ and bend over, gal.”
His gruffness carried a hint of apology. If he wasn’t actually feeling sorry for Jenny, he had no personal reason to be angry with her. Dusk was the only one who bore a grudge, and it was unlikely that anyone considered her complaint justified, or even worthy of support. Sarah had almost seemed regretful.
Yet Jenny would be punished anyway, no matter whether she was innocent or forgiven. They would make an example of her, because discipline had to be maintained. There was no arguing with that, so she didn’t waste her breath.
She merely crouched on the floor and lifted her ass, spreading her legs to invite the nozzle.
He greased her more than necessary, working his fingers deep and turning them as she buried her face between clenched fists to protect it from the cold hard tiles. The floor smelled of bleach.