by J. A. Rock
Suddenly, the cheering got louder. I thought at first it was because I was starting to pull ahead of Snowball, but then I heard a jingling to my right.
Cinnamon breezed past both of us at a lively trot. Her spandex onesie barely looked sweaty, and the rubies on her harness gleamed.
Oh no you don’t.
I surged forward, finding another gear. Ryan let me have my head, and I staggered toward Cinnamon, her red tail swishing in front of me like a matador’s cape. The roar from the crowd grew as I pulled alongside her. She quickened her pace.
She’s got energy to spare. She’s just toying with me.
The reins smacked my shoulders again, and Ryan tapped my right thigh with the whip. I clenched my jaw and tried to speed up.
Stan whooped and called, “Your boy’s flagging!” to Ryan.
No, he isn’t, I promised silently. Your boy’s gonna win this thing.
I came up beside Cinnamon again, and once more, she sped up, leaving me behind. But the incline was long, and I could see her trot was getting clumsier. The entire back of her onesie was sweat-soaked now.
I pulled alongside her again, and this time when she sped up, I matched her. It felt like we were going seventy miles an hour, but really, we were barely jogging.
“Geehiihhh toihh-hrrr?” she called to me.
“Yoohhhh gquonnaa loooofff,” I called back.
She veered toward me slightly, and the wheels of our carts collided.
“Qwiiihh-ihh!”
“Giihhrff uhhwb!”
“Nehh-her!”
For Jolly Ranchers. For wings. For glory.
For Ryan.
Okay, mostly for me and bragging rights.
But also for Ryan.
She pulled ahead. Then I pulled ahead. Her driver yelled, “Hyah,” and there was a slap of leather on flesh, and then she passed me again. A second later, I felt the light sting of Ryan’s whip on my thigh, and I jumped ahead of her. Then we were neck and neck.
We could see the finish line now. Dave was there, holding up his phone. At first I thought he was just taking a video, which was not technically legal, but as I got closer, I could hear, over the cheers, the Chariots of Fire theme.
Oh hell yes. That was all I needed.
I rallied one more time and stuck my head in front of Cinnamon’s, just as the flag flashed by.
An hour later, I stood at the entrance to the dressage arena, my heart hammering. I was trying to go over the routine in my head, but I kept getting distracted by all the people in the stands and the music and the smell of corn dogs. And my tail, which was back in and stimulating the fuck out of my prostate. I turned to Ryan, wanting to ask him a question about the first turn, but I had the stupid bit in my mouth.
It’s all about having fun. And destroying Cinnamon. But mostly having fun.
And Ryan and I were gonna have fun. I mean, we’d fucking owned bobbing for apples and the cart race. Was there anything we couldn’t do?
Yes.
Dressage.
I’d just watched Cinnamon in her routine a few minutes before. She’d done it to a suite from Swan Lake. And it had been some legit fucking horse ballet.
I glanced at the bleachers. Gould caught my eye and waved, and then the others were waving too.
I lifted a hoof and waved back.
The pony before us halted in the center of the ring to wild applause. She had a cheering section that was whistling and stomping and holding up TEAM NATALIE signs. The pony and her handler saluted and then exited the ring, and a moment later, the judges held up their cards: two eights and a nine. Same score as Cinnamon. So really, if I could get two nines and an eight, I’d be golden.
Except every time I thought about Cinnamon’s “Swan Lake” thing, I felt a little sicker. Okay, so I wasn’t anywhere near that elegant. People loved underdogs. And they loved to be entertained.
And everyone with a soul loved Survivor.
The announcer said my name, and my friends went nuts. Even D whooped, which was a sound so weird I almost forgot to be nervous for a second.
Ryan patted my shoulder. “We got this, buddy.”
Sure we did. I was just gonna pee my damn Pegasus Sheath was all.
The intro to “High on You” blared from the speakers, and Ryan flicked the reins. I broke into a trot, tucking my chin as we entered the arena. I headed for the C marker at more of a charge than a trot. Started to turn right as we reached it. Suddenly, Ryan was pulling back on the reins, and I couldn’t figure out why.
Salute the judges at X.
I stopped so fast Ryan almost slammed into me. I tried to arch my neck and stand straight, but I was so freaked about screwing up already that I couldn’t move. I just clamped down on the bit and waited, slightly off center from C, until Ryan was standing beside me. He bowed, and I horse curtsied, and the prostate plug gave me inappropriate feelings. The judges nodded at us, and the one who’d eyed my sheath during grooming smiled at me. Ryan got behind me and clucked again, tugging the right rein, and I trotted toward the M marker. Jimi Jamison started singing.
The whip touched the back of my neck.
Extend the trot.
I lengthened my stride, trying to make each foot glide just above the ground, reminding myself to move my front legs at the same speed. We were almost to B, and I had a sudden, panicked moment where I couldn’t remember if we did a circle or serpentine first.
He’ll tell you.
Sure enough, Ryan tugged the left rein just after X, and I turned, creating a serpentine. He was having trouble keeping up with me, because I was basically bolting around the ring. I slowed a little and concentrated on matching my stride to the beat of the song. Passed E, then K.
Don’t fuck this up.
At F, he pressed the whip against the right side of my rib cage.
And I could not for the life of me remember what that meant. So I just kinda . . . pranced.
“Half pass, babe,” he murmured. “Half pass.”
“Shiiihhh,” I whispered around the bit.
“It’s fine. You’re fine.”
He was probably gonna get points taken off for talking to me, but I appreciated it so much. I arched my body around the whip and half passed from F to E. Forward and sideways. Forward and sideways. Lifting my legs. Keeping my stride even. I started feeling the rhythm of the song, which was awesome, and I lifted my legs higher and punched my arms forward and back. Sassy trot. At E, he switched sides with the whip and stopped me. Full pass to X—nailing it. At X, Ryan gave me two quick taps on the right leg. I leaped into a canter, which wasn’t super graceful, but I was excited. The tempis were coming up, but it was gonna be fine.
You’ve got this.
Ryan let out the reins and stood in place, and I made a wide circle around him. He flicked the whip against my calf. Tempi, motherfuckers.
I changed leads and moved into the second part of the figure eight. I could feel Ryan moving with me, and it was actually an awesome feeling, to both be so in tune. I leaned into the second turn, arching my neck.
Suddenly, everything went black. My wig had slipped down over my eyes. I shook my head, trying not to break the gait. The wig slipped farther. I shook more vigorously, hearing the laughter from the stands. My mane flew off. I glanced around to see where it had landed, not realizing that I was no longer moving in a circle, and that Ryan hadn’t had time to adjust his position accordingly.
I saw what was going to happen about a split second before my left rein hit the side of Ryan’s neck and clotheslined him.
He went down like a sandbag.
I slowed, not sure what to do. I started piaffing anxiously, waiting to see if Ryan would get up. Drool was streaming down my chin, and my head felt weirdly naked. The guitar solo raged on as Ryan rolled onto his back.
I made a decision.
I whirled and trotted back to him. Crouched and extended my hoof. He looked up into my eyes, and God, he was beautiful. The most awesome possum fucking pony trainer of
all time, and who cared if we were making a mess of this dressage thing? I smiled at him around the bit. He smiled too and grabbed my hoof. And as Jimi Jamison promised to tell us about the girl he met last night, I hauled Ryan back to his feet. The crowd cheered as Ryan took his place behind me. We cantered at a diagonal through the next chorus, changing leads every two strides. At the K post, I moved into a pirouette, then came out of it on a passage.
The rest of the routine went by in a blur. We eventually arrived in front of the judges, and I moved into the most collected trot pretty much ever. I was friggin’ floating. Piaffin’ like I was born to do it.
We stopped, saluted one more time, and then left the ring.
Our crew met us just outside the gate and swarmed me as Ryan was taking out my bit.
“Dude,” Dave said. “That was amazing.”
I laughed, wiping my mouth with the back of my hoof. “Uh-huh. That was fuckocked.”
“It was the very definition of majesty, and I got it all on video.”
“I wanna see.”
“Hold on.” He elbowed me. “Wait for your score.”
Yeah, because I really wanted to see every judge publicly give me a zero.
But as I turned, I saw the first judge hold up a five. The second held up a six. The woman who liked my horse cock held up a seven.
My group cheered, and the rest of the spectators applauded.
Ryan patted me. “That’s way better than I thought.”
“The consecutive numbers are very pleasing from an OCD perspective,” Gould said.
“You’re totally above average.” Dave punched my arm lightly. “Congrats.”
D offered me a bottle of water, and I took it between my hooves. Ryan opened it for me, and I chugged it, staring at Dave’s phone as he played the video.
“Oh my God.” I burst out laughing. “I look so dumb.”
“You look hot,” Gould said. “Look at your muscles.”
“I second ‘hot.’” Ryan leaned in to see.
I turned to Gould. “You mackin’ on a horse, Gould?” I whispered in his ear. “’Cause I’ll give you a ride later, if you want.”
He stepped away. “Oh, gross.”
I glanced back at the screen. “I do look hot.”
“And look at your giant flopping horse dick,” Dave pressed. “Ooh, hold on, here’s where your wig falls down and you take Ryan out.”
We watched, and I started laughing so hard I snorted, which made me laugh harder.
Eventually Ryan clipped the reins to the cheek piece and led me back toward my stall so we could regroup before the balloon pop. And so we could take my fucking tail out.
On the way there, we saw Cinnamon, standing by her handler, who was talking to another owner. Her bridle was off, and she wore a green nylon halter instead. She looked at me as I passed. “Cute routine,” she said. “Sorry you had some trouble.”
There was a loud thwack, and Cinnamon jumped about a foot in the air. She put one hoof back to the left side of her ass and turned.
Stan was watching her, crop in hand. “You leave them alone.”
It was one of the best moments of my life.
After dressage, we got a break—half an hour. Pets were allowed to hang out in the enclosure where we’d had the meet ’n’ greet. Cinnamon wasn’t there, but a few other pets I knew were. I didn’t see Glazer at first, but then he showed up, hump toy in his mouth. He spat it on the ground. “Everything’s set,” he told me in a low voice through the rottweiler hood. “All you gotta worry about is popping as many balloons as you can. We’ll take care of the rest.”
Fucktopus was a few yards down, testing his cardboard tentacles. Across from us, on the other side of the arena, Mittens was rolling in the grass.
“Is she okay?” I asked.
“She’s fine,” Glazer replied.
Max came up to us, followed by Scribbles and a limping Barkley.
“We’re here to strategize about the balloon pop,” Max announced.
I looked at Barkley, who slowly lowered his arthritic hips. “You doing the balloon pop, Barks?”
He stared at me, panting slightly. “No,” he rasped. “I’m just gonna watch. I’m too old for this shit.”
“So,” Max said. “We need to make sure Cinnamon doesn’t win.”
Glazer looked around. “Where’s Fucktopus? Fucktopus!”
Fucktopus drifted over, tentacles waving.
“You thought anymore about how we’re gonna do this?” Glazer asked Fucktopus.
Fucktopus shook his head.
“I could trip her,” Max offered. “But that’s all I got.”
Barkley let out a hack. We all looked at him. He stared back at us a moment, then focused on me. “That tail you were wearing earlier might come in handy.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Barkley scratched his grizzled muzzle with his paw. “Get her where her weakness is. She hates rats.”
Max frowned. “I don’t get it.”
Barkley leaned forward and whispered to her. Suddenly, Max started wagging her tail. “Oh my God. Oh. My God.” She turned and whispered to Glazer.
Then she looked at me. “Thunder? We’re gonna need the tail.”
“My . . . my butt plug tail? I don’t even know where Ryan put it.”
Glazer turned to me. The little fake tongue flopped in his leather jowls. The eyeholes of his mask were really creeping me out. “Find it. There’s a sanitation station by the blindfolded obstacle course. Go wash that thing off. Wash it good. Then take it to Scribbles.”
“Why is no one whispering to me?”
Max smiled. “We want you to be surprised. Listen, Thunder. We’re going to set you up as the winner.”
“Huh?”
Scribbles nodded. “We’re going to try to make sure you pop the most balloons. Glazer, Max, Fucktopus. You work on passing as many balloons as possible to Thunder. As for Cinnamon.” Scribbles stared straight ahead, eyes flashing behind his ferret mask. “Leave her to me.”
It all came down to this. Cinnamon had, according to the grapevine, completely bombed her obstacle course. She and I now had the same number of points. So whoever won this won the game, set, match, point, and everything.
The other pets and I were led into the small arena full of balloons and lined up on all fours in the middle. A light breeze batted the balloons throughout the ring. There were refs all around the fence, each one assigned to tally the balloons popped by an individual contestant. Cindy went over the rules—stay on all fours was the big one—and then there was a moment of silence.
The buzzer went off.
And all was chaos.
I started blindly lashing out at balloons, but I kept checking to see how Cinnamon was doing. She was a popping fool. She used both hooves at once, slamming them down on balloon after balloon. She even popped one behind her with her high-heeled boot. She could move stunningly fast on all fours. She galloped onto my territory, popping left and right.
“Little slow there, big guy,” she called. She was making her way along the fence, taking out the balloons that had scattered along the rail.
I caught a glimpse of Mittens, who was not popping balloons at all, but rolling around on the grass along the fence.
“Thunder!” Max kind of disguised my name as a bark as she kicked a balloon toward me while simultaneously popping one of her own.
I slammed my hoof down on the balloon.
I heard Max yelp, and looked up to see Cinnamon slam her shoulder into Max’s side. It did not look like an accident. Max limped away, wincing.
So Cinnamon was playing dirty too.
Suddenly there was a barrage of much deeper barking, and I turned toward the source.
Glazer was barreling toward Cinnamon, kicking up grass in his wake. A green balloon floated into Glazer’s path. He leaped onto it, and it burst. He continued on and launched himself at Cinnamon, trapping her against the fence. Cinnamon reared back, startled, and tried to kick
Glazer off. Glazer arched his back, threw his head up, and began humping the heel of her boot.
“Jesus Christ, Glazer!” Glazer’s owner shouted from the sidelines. “You fucking idiot! No!”
There was murmuring from the crowd. Cinnamon whinnied and kicked, but couldn’t shake Glazer.
“Disqualified!” A ref yelled. “No humping!”
As I raced for the red balloon, I saw Glazer’s owner open the gate and hurry into the ring.
Cinnamon wheeled away and took off down the side of the enclosure as the guy grabbed Glazer’s shoulder and pulled him back, clipping a leash to his harness.
As Glazer was dragged from the arena, he raised his paw to the forehead of his mask and saluted me.
Fucktopus was on the far side of the arena, using his tentacles to slap balloons toward me.
And then one of his tentacles fell off. He tried to grab it, but missed.
“Fucktopus is out,” I muttered to Max as I passed her. She was sitting, panting, one paw pressed to her ribs as a ref called to her, asking if she was okay. “What do we do?”
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “He’s coming.”
Who? I chased an orange balloon along the fence. Passed Fucktopus, who was now staring into the stands, his remaining tentacle limp at his side. I glanced where he was looking and saw Maya gazing back.
Seriously? They were gonna pick now for some Romeo and Juliet shit?
I started to call to him, but then Scribbles burst from a cluster of balloons on the other side of the ring, something small and black trailing him. It took me a moment to recognize my mangled tail, wound into a hairy mass and attached to Scribbles with fishing wire from his stress ball. “Rat!” he shouted. “There’s a rat! An actual rat!”
He sounded pretty convincing.
I saw Cinnamon look up just as Scribbles ran by, the “rat” chasing him.
It didn’t look anything like a real rat. And, like, anyone using logic would be like, Why is a rat chasing Scribbles? But I guess to Cinnamon, any small, dark, furry thing was cause for blind panic. She whinnied loudly, bolting for the other end of the ring, all balloons forgotten. There was some commotion along the sidelines, but I didn’t bother to listen.