Safe Word

by Molly Weatherfield

  Except for the strokes he'd administer while fucking us, Mr. Constant rarely beat us those nights (though he did enjoy coming to watch us being punished after our training sessions). But once in a while-it seemed to be a special treat he'd only allow himself on rare occasions-he'd summon Stefan, and hand him a whip to use on one or perhaps both of us. It would be an oddly ceremonious event, even punctuated by our screams, and by Stefan's frenzied breathing. "Thank you," Mr. Constant would tell him gravely as he escorted him to the door those evenings, perhaps laying a hand lightly on his shoulder, to steady him. "Thank you. I enjoyed that very much."

  "Take off your T-shirt," Jonathan said. He'd dragged his chair over to the side of the bed, and he was sitting backward on it, his chin on his arms. She paused, shrugged, and pulled it off, and she sat up a little straighter, Indian-style, before continuing.

  It was a quiet, demanding regime-designed to fit into the spaces of Mr. Constant's work schedule. And then, every few weeks, he'd give a party, a tasteless, Gatsby-like affair, and everything would change. The cliffs would be hung with fairy lights, the island lit with torches. For a week before, you'd see the guests' yachts gathering in the harbor below Caterers and decorators would have been flown in from-from I don't know where, Athens? Paris? There'd be huge stands of exotic flowers everywhere, marvelous smells drifting up from the kitchen. There'd be a buzz of deliberate, meticulous preparation for the twenty-four hours or so before the guests-as crude and cruel and gorgeous and glittering a bunch as I could imagine-would begin to arrive.

  And two hours before party time-well, that's when the human party decorations went up-Tony and I, of course, together with the slaves that the guests would have sent over throughout the day: We'd all have been herded into a holding pen to wait until we were needed, along with the ones that Annie had rented from an agency that specialized in parties like this. Annie was a remarkable organizer-Napoleon deploying her troops. Somehow, she'd look at this mass of obedient flesh and know exactly where to put us. A dozen of us would be pulling the guests from the parking area to the house, in pony carts. Fifteen would be passing hors d'oeuvres, and she'd have chosen ten girls to be suspended upside down, thighs tightly gripping the heavy glass ashtrays balanced at their cunts. The buffet tables would be lit by kowtowing pairs of human candelabra, wax dripping down their arms and backs and thighs from thick candles held in their clasped hands and wedged into their assholes. "Get that bunch strapped under glass tables... those boys get tied to the pillars-make sure they all have leather harnesses on their cocks.. .and oh, we'll need some more footstools on the main deck...." She'd have assistants for the evening, who would lead us where she directed, and who would apply glittering body makeup to us, paint our faces, attach ornaments to nipples and cocks, harness and bridle us, and hang the inevitable coinboxes from our collars.

  The pre-party organization would happen in a blur, but the parties seemed endless. So many cruel hands to pass through, clits to lick, feet to kiss, meticulously polished shoes kicking your butt or prodding your genitals. So much cum to swallow, and all those pinches and pokes and taunts and torments to endure. You'd be assigned a territory-a room, a lawn, a patio. Perhaps the pony cart area-guests liked to race-or the trapeze, ingeniously engineered with slings and pulleys. The worst territory was the games area, near the pool. There were bets, contests-you might have to wrestle, or run a gauntlet, scamper around on your knees fetching things with your mouth-or perhaps not with your mouth. You'd be impaled with unlikely objects, forced into impossible positions, and kicked or slapped if you couldn't maintain your balance or keep up the pace. And you always had to maintain that extra level of awareness, that readiness for the stray nod or snap of the finger. "You there. Put that down and get over here. Now. And open that mouth. Hurry up, what are you waiting for?" And the laughter, after they'd finished with you, especially when they'd made you cry.

  I'd never have been able to handle it without that week I spent learning to satisfy the people who worked for Mr. Constant. But then, none of us could really handle the games area, because the people who enjoyed using it were way beyond, hellishly beyond, satisfaction. I thought of it as the Garden of Earthly Delights, only scarier. I was smarting there one night, just about to pick myself up after a raucous game of human croquet, when I heard a voice above me.

  "Come on, don't be afraid, Sarah." Where had I heard that voice before? Oh, yeah, "Buy! Sell! Aw-right! " His name was Teddy, I'd picked up from the workroom, and he was big and blond and, yeah, bearish-well, I mean, he looked that way, I don't really know whether he was prone to selling. And she-she was my mystery woman, the dark, dark eyes in the smooth, sad, olive-skinned face. I knew that they were a couple. He was gentle, solicitous with her.

  "Just try it," he said to her now. And to me, "Kneel up, stay still."

  "Come on," he said softly. He picked up her little hand in his large one, covered with light hair. And he moved it over my breast.

  "You see," he said, "you can touch her all you want. That's what she's here for." He grasped the nipple of my other breast, pulling me toward them. I shuffled forward on my knees.

  "Stand up," he said.

  He showed her the stripes and welts on me-some from Annie, and some from who knew where. He had her touch my collar, so that she'd see how stiff it was, how high I always had to carry my head. He tried to persuade her to put a finger in my cunt, so that she could feel how wet I was, but she refused.

  "But you will grease her for me, won't you?" he said. "Come on, you promised you would."

  "Yes," she said. "I promised."

  And she took the tube from him, and timidly began to rub the lubricant up my asshole.

  I wished I could see her face, but I tried to content myself with the feel of her little fingers exploring me. And I couldn't help but let out a little wriggle of pleasure.

  He slapped my breast. "They're not allowed to do that," he explained to her.

  "So," he said then, "are you done yet?" I could hear him unzipping his pants.

  "I don't know," she murmured. "Did I use enough?"

  He laughed, pushing me onto my knees. "I think so, hon. Like enough for a rhinoceros, maybe."

  And then he knelt behind me and entered me. I closed my eyes and tried to keep myself open and relaxed. His cock was thick, very hard-the rhinoceros remark didn't seem like such hyperbole right then. And then I felt her fingers on my cheek. She knelt in front of me, and then she sat down on the ground, and she pulled my head into her lap and stroked my face the whole time. Her lap was warm under the cool cotton cloth of her skirt. And I let myself come. I didn't care how much I'd be punished for it. Teddy knew the rules-slaves didn't come while they were being used. I figured he'd put a demerit token in my box after he finished with me-probably two. But, I was beginning to realize now, he'd finished coming, he was withdrawing from me, and he wasn't paying any attention to me at all.

  Actually, I don't think they put any tokens of any kind into my coinbox. I think they forgot to-because after he came, he and she just sat there for a while. And then they simply wandered away hand in hand. And I stayed on the ground for maybe five minutes more until I felt cold water dripping on me, and then a kick in my side-somebody who'd just heaved himself out of the pool, standing over me and demanding my mouth.

  And I only saw her once after that-later that evening, when I was doing my inevitable turn at the punishment station. She watched me intently by torchlight, as I bumped and ground my hips and endured the flogging at my breasts.

  They left the next day, and I never saw her again. They'd gotten the jobs they'd been hoping for, I heard in the workroom, important jobs at some central bank. So I never found out what-if anything-she'd been thinking that evening at the party, and whether she'd feared or pitied or despised me. She was beautiful, though. Sometimes I dream about her. And when I went to Paris-to get the train for AvignonI spent a morning at the Musee de Cluny, staring at the unicorn tapestries.

  "The pony races,"
he chided her. "Come on, I want to hear about them."

  Why, she wondered. It's not even really his thing. But, come to think about it, she probably knew why he wanted to hear this story. Well, too bad. It wouldn't hurt him to be patient.

  "But it didn't happen right away," she answered. ,we worked up to it gradually. I had to wait to do it. So it's only right that you should have to wait to hear about it."

  It took me a while to get good at the presentations, I told him. And Annie thought my trot and canter could use some work, too-I spent hours just circling a pole in the ring, while she criticized my form, using the riding crop to purify it of wasted motions, to sharpen up my timing. From time to time Mr. Constant would ask when I might be ready to race, and Annie would nod absentmindedly and say something noncommittal. I supposed she had decided I wasn't good enough, and was trying to figure out how to break it to him. But finally, one morning, maybe a week or two after Teddy and Sarah had left, she led me down the hill to the amphitheater I'd seen my first day, and harnessed me to a racing carriage.

  It's more properly called a sulky, though. A light shiny black affair like a bicycle. No brass door handles-well, no doors. It's pure function: just the big, spoked, aluminum wheels, the small, high seat for the driver, at the apex of a long, slender metal U-shaped shaft of metal, with a shorter T-bar inside the U. It rested casually in the dirt on the tips of the U-bar, waiting for me.

  She stood me about three feet in front of it and harnessed me up. Slowly, thoughtfully, she tried different combinations of straps and apparatus that first day. First my pony tail. I opened for the dildo that would hold it into place, and then straightened up so that she could belt the leather straps around me. And then a long, very sturdy strap, running down my back, attaching the ring in the back of my collar to the ring embedded in the base of the dildo. She tightened the buckles, jerking my head back and pulling against the dildo. My back arched like a bow, thrusting my breasts so far out that I could see them, even though my head was angled back so sharply. And I supposed, though I couldn't see it, that my tail jutted straight out behind me as well. Annie moved in front of me, squinting, while she stroked my belly with a finger to gauge its tension.

  Not tense enough, I guessed. She took off the tail apparatus. And then she slowly began to push in one with a bigger dildo. Much bigger-it felt like twice the size of the one she'd just removed, traveling up into me like spreading darkness, obliterating all consciousness except my muscles' fearful effort to accept it, to open and reshape myself around it. Oh, yes, that was better. Because now when she tightened the strap running up my back-I could feel a cold drop of sweat beading at the metal rings-not only did my head jerk back, and my breasts and belly thrust out, but my cunt was pushed forward, open and empty in front of me.

  Now the studded leather harness, snug around my ribsI counted half a dozen buckles that she pulled tightly into place in back-anchored in place by thin suspenders over my shoulders and its own little straps between my legs. I'd have thought the business between my legs would be clumsy, but I was so opened out by the dildo that there was plenty of room. She lashed my upper arms tightly together behind me, pulling my shoulders way back, and fastened the cuffs around my wrists to the T-bar. I grasped the rubber handle grips tightly with my hands-it was good to have something to clench my hands around-but I was glad that my wrists were attached to the bar, so that I wouldn't have to worry about losing my grip when my hands got sweaty. Of course, a lot of the pulling would come from my pelvis: She attached the ends of the cart's metal shafts to the belt around my hips.

  The bridle, now. The bit widened out my mouth like other bits I'd worn, but it had a high, arched shape as well, with knobs that pressed against the roof of my mouth. I couldn't imagine how it would feel when she'd pull on the reins. And then she demonstrated. Oh.

  "It's called a gag-bit," she said. "English animal lovers hated it, but it was very popular in the nineteenth century, because it made the horses foam at the mouth." This was an unusual bit of volubility for her; she must have really liked that detail. The bridle had large blinders at the sides, too. I'd only be able to look straight forward, so when it was time to move to the right or left I'd have to trust the pulls of her hands on the reins, at the gag-bit in my mouth.

  She took her time with the lattice of straps at the back of my harness. I knew that this part was important, that it would spread out the weight I'd be pulling, so that I could use all my muscles, arms and shoulders and back and hips and belly. And a final, frivolous touch-she clipped thin, decorative chains from my shoulder suspenders to my nipples.

  She didn't make me run full out that first day. She whipped me lightly around the track, both of us concentrating on how to take the curves. She stopped, every so often, to loosen or tighten a strap, fine-tuning the cacophony of sensation she was blasting at my body. She adjusted the bridle, too, so that the blinders would obscure more of my vision. And then she dragged a bunch of obstacles into the trackthey looked like big orange plastic garbage cans-and she spent the rest of the day driving me right toward them, zigzagging me around them at the last second with inches to spare.

  The zigzagging's really the point of the race, you know. I learned this when they took me to see one a week later. Of course, I wouldn't be allowed to sit in the stands; I crouched at Annie's feet at the edge of the track, getting mud kicked in my face as the boots thundered by. And I realized how narrow a track it was, when you had half a dozen ponies racing on it. It's a Ben Hur setup-you have to run dangerously close to the other ponies, blocking them, cutting them off. Well, the driver makes these decisions; the pony barely sees, with those big blinders at the sides of her face. But she trusts the driver's hand on the reins-and fears the hand on the whip-so completely that she goes wherever she's directed. You'd think there would be more upsets, more collisions, but the ponies are really good. They're pure flesh, pure trust. They hurl themselves into whatever chaotic blur they're directed toward and then swerve delicately to the left or right, following the minutest gradations of pull and pain at their mouths. Well, they do-or I did-after many afternoons out on the track, taking it one more time, tears streaming out from under the bridle. And then, after practice was over, kneeling at Annie's feet to accept punishment for my timidity and clumsiness.

  Mr. Constant owned two racing sulkies, so Annie would race me against Tony. And once in a while, as time went on, I'd beat him, too. But it didn't mean much, because while Annie'd be driving one of us, the other one would have to be driven by one of those boys I'd seen my first day. They were light enough-and certainly cruel enough-for the job, but of course they weren't as skillful as Annie. So after a while, naturally I'd win when Annie was driving me, leaning way back in her seat, feet in the stirrups at each side of the Ubar.

  Oh, and there's a final wrinkle. You don't just run in a state of physical duress, but of sexual excitement as well. Annie got the young stable guy to help her out here. I didn't know what was going on, that day we first tried this, when he kneeled in front of me at the starting line. I looked at Annie, standing there with her arms crossed and a thoughtful frown on her face, watching me in my bit and bridle, harness and blinders, open and helpless against his mouth on my cunt, his slow, patient tongue on my clit. She watched my belly tremble and my knees start to get weak. And then she prodded him away, quickly swung herself into her seat, and signaled me to begin.

  And I couldn't. I just stood there, howling with silent rage behind my bit, until her whip convinced me that I was actually supposed to run in that condition. And when I finally took off, I noticed that everything was just a little more intense, a little more painful, the colors a little brighter, the shadows a little darker than they had been a moment ago. And I ran a lot faster too-to get back around the track to the stable guy's mouth.

  "She's a natural pony," Annie said to Mr. Constant that afternoon, when he'd come down to watch my progress. "When I get her the way I want her, she'll run the whole race in that state of terror and
arousal. People won't be able to take their eyes off her. Especially after we shave her."

  He'd been stroking my face, through my bridle. His hand tightened now, around my jaw, pushing against the gag-bit. "Just so she wins," he said.

  Annie laughed. "You'd better consider the first race a freebie, boss," she said. "She needs to get used to the sound of the crowd, you know."

  He didn't take his hand off my jaw. He bent my face upward, so that I was looking at him, his glasses reflecting the purple sea. "I don't believe in freebies," he told me.

  But of course Annie was right. I don't think anybody could have prepared me for the sound of a crowd at a pony race. It's a formal dress-up event: The crowd in the stands is like a huge flower bed, luxuriant with the ladies' extravagant hats, buzzing with civilized chatter. And when the ponies are paraded out to the starting line, the hats and suits train their high-tech, precision binoculars at them and scream with hysterical, infantile delight. The time I'd watched from the edge of the track, I'd noticed the sound-I mean, you couldn't really not notice it. But you only really hear it when it's directed at you. It's a kind of growl at first-bored, hungry, fractious-while you wait, tensed, to begin. And then, with the first whip crack, it rears up like a furious, demented beast. It sounds insatiable, but it finally spends itself in vicious laughter, crawling back to its den and regathering its strength and spite for the next race.