Slave World 2 - The Ties That Bind

by Johnny Stone

  “Nathan,” I sighed.

  He had them keeping an eye on me night and day like personal bodyguards, especially when I was near the perimeter fence by myself. The concern on his part was sweet, but it got old after a while. Most times I felt like I was being stalked by a mob of armed paparazzi with itchy trigger fingers. All I had to do was cry wolf, and the jungle would explode around me like a planetary assault. It kind of defeated the purpose of why I came to my ‘secret’ spot after my morning run, I may not be able to see them, but I knew they were there. They were always there.

  I guess it wasn’t really a secret, but it was a special place for me just the same, secluded and tucked away from the world where I came to be alone and think. I was particularly fond of the small waterfall and pond, and why’d I’d been drawn to it from the very beginning; it reminded me of being down by the river when I was kid. It was just a matter of seeing to a few minor details, and I had my own little slice of private paradise.

  It was actually a natural pool with a snaking stream that led off into the jungle and not manmade. The waterfall itself was created from a light shower cascading down a rocky cliff face, and fed from some unseen source on the other side of the fence. Of course, this meant I had to install a portable water filtration system upstream; didn’t want any of those nasty aquatic bugs or blood sucking leech sinking their claws into me if I fell asleep. I already had a close call like that once, and was much more careful now. My spot was just outside of the main repulser field that kept the larger vermin and pests away from the ranch, so I guess I have no one to blame but myself.

  Dover-rats really weren’t that inherently dangerous, being three-foot long subterranean herbivores that made annoying and sometimes hazardous tunnels near the surface while groping about for grubs, but their reproductive habits left something to be desired. They were A-sexual and laid larvae-like offspring, and they weren’t picky in the least in who, or what, they laid them. Let’s just say that was one time I was glad the guard force was nearby and keeping an eye out for me.

  Bitch, you’re not fooling anyone, you were hoping it would happen. I would have enjoyed it at least, and we could always take a trip to the medical bay afterwards. I have an idea, why don’t we sneak outside the perimeter fence some night and let those deliciously savage beasts have their way with us? We’re one of them now; you know that, don’t you?

  It was about eight months ago when a Dover Rat tried to mount me after I’d fallen asleep while sunbathing, and the little puff of neurotoxin it snorted in my face would ensure that I would stay that way until it was finished, and blissfully ignorant afterwards. Being mounted by Nathan – good. Mounted by a creature trying to lay its young in my rectum, only to have them slowly eat their way out of me a few weeks later – very bad. Rape within the animal kingdom… maybe humans and animals aren’t all that different when you stop to think about it.

  It didn’t help that the damn rats were everywhere on the periphery of the ranch not under the repulser net, but let’s just say we came to an understanding and they left me alone now. They may not be very intelligent and I may not be able to hold a rational conversation with them like a Vox or Egrin, but they understood primal threats clear enough. If you touch me again, I’ll stomp your furry asses into the ground.

  Temper, temper, Margo, that’s so unlike you. For a moment I thought it was me talking. Tell you what; let me handle them next time. Perhaps I can make a deal with them – straight fucking and that’s it – we’ll let them take turns on us. Oh what fun that would be.

  “This is going to feel so good,” I groaned in delight, eyeing the water. It always did after a run, and I slowly waded into the pool, sinking to my knees, while avoiding a few of the larger moss covered rocks poking up out of its crystal clarity. It was euphorically refreshing, just as I knew it would be against my flushed skin. Talk about a contrast in temperature, and it set my teeth to chattering, making me giggle like a silly kid, when I went prone and closed my eyes. My tail amplified the chill, carrying it to the very tip with a light splash that broke the surface.

  I found it soothing, how the gentle pull of the current flowed around my body, lapping at my breasts breaking the surface like pale melons topped by chiffon marbles. It was the perfect setting for me to cool down and relax, to clear my mind of all the clutter, to simply reflect on things and get my focus for the day. I could spend hours laying in the water, or sun bathing in the nearby clearing. Recently it helped to idle away the anxious waiting, and I hated waiting. Maybe I’m having another mid-life crisis? I seemed to have one of those every couple of years the older I got. It’s the only thing I could think of for some of my recent decisions.

  My life should be perfect now, right? I’m a pony slave for the greatest man ever. I have friends – real friends – and not a care in the world for the first time since I was a little girl. So what the hell’s wrong with me? I’ve been an emotional basket case lately and our impending departure is only making it worse. I’d never felt so jittery and distracted before, and I can’t stop sweating, or wanting to…

  Touch yourself, slut, we both know you want to. Finger-fuck yourself...that’s it, just like that.

  I had to physically grab my hand with the other, to keep it from slipping between my legs, playing with myself again. Nathan had never actually said that I couldn’t, but I felt guilty doing it, let alone cumming without permission. Those were two invisible rules of submission that I tried to impose on myself, along with a slew of others to make the illusion of slavery complete in my mind.

  It’s not that Nathan doesn’t satisfy me or me him. The sex is always great and he can get very creative at times, especially when my remote comes into play. It’s not just physical between us either; our love seems to have grown by leaps and bounds over the last year. I couldn’t imagine being without him now, but…

  We miss Master Michael, don’t we? Poor little Margo’s needs have been so neglected lately.

  I often wonder if there is something wrong with me, is it natural for a woman to crave some of the things I do, like being a mindless thing to be degraded and used sexually? I don’t know how many times I’ve dreamt of Nathan forcing me to my knees, slapping my face, spitting in it, before stuffing his cock down my throat, fucking it. After he was done he would just walk away without saying a word, leaving me a pitiful, slobbering mess on the floor, as if I wasn’t worth his time any longer. Oh god, yes please, just once.

  We had it, and you gave it up for him… for love. Silly girl. I was so happy, and look at me now.

  “Stupid tail,” I muttered angrily after jamming it on an underwater rock. I hated it when that happened.

  Still, I wouldn’t give my tail up for anything, it’s a part of me now. To be honest, I’ve grown fond of how it feels swishing back and forth, and it does help to keep those pesky, flying bugs away from my ass when my monthly injection of Dovasole repellent begins to wear off. I suppose that’s not the only reason why I like it. Sex is much more… uhm… interesting now. It gives Nathan just one more thing to grab hold of, combined with a fistful of hair.

  Mmmm…we love hair pulling, don’t we? We always have, but he doesn’t do that very often, does he? Not like how Master Michael used to, and we miss it.

  I pushed myself gingerly through the water in search of a new spot, before settling in again, staring up at the sky through a break in the trees at nothing, daydreaming and wondering.

  Hoping… wishing… wanting. We could always run away and find a new Master? One that will treat us properly – one who owns other ponies. You know they’re out there; we can smell them. They may not be exactly like me, yet, but in time… We’re special, aren’t we, Margo? Master Michael even said so.

  I’d thought that a trip into Port City would help me find the emotional stability I needed; some random interaction with other people outside of my tightly knit circle, while tagging along with Nathan on whatever business he had to attend to. Maybe I just wanted to feel like a normal person fo
r a change; you know, do some shopping or maybe some sightseeing. I missed that, along with the struggle of day to day adversity that made me into the fighter I am today, or used to be at any rate.

  You’re right. We’ve grown weak and soft and it’s all because of you…and him. We don’t need him to protect us any longer; we don’t need anyone except each other, just like old times.

  What a mistake that had been. Nathan had tried to talk me out of it, and I should have listened to him, because he knew exactly what would happen. I guess when you live in a secluded paradise away from the ugly reality of the rest of the world…

  I’d walked the neat and orderly permaplast streets, silently clinging to Nathan the entire time. Past all the vendors and shops with their living display signs, slaves in compromising positions meant to entice, as well as humiliate and degrade. Past the numerous brokerage houses and the never-ending misery they contained. Past the elegantly dressed landowners that eyed Nathan and I with something akin to loathing disgust and even open hatred. Their slave-pets were in tow, cuffed and on leashes most times. The visual appearance of some was meant to display the wealth status of the owners, or simply the innate beauty of their property. Others were used for their size and strength, as common pack animals.

  Oh how I wish that were us, don’t you?

  Most of the Landowners went out of their way to avoid us in the passing, like we had some sort of contagious disease. The thing was that I did have a disease in a way; I was a pony, which meant I was a former slave and the incurable disease I carried with me was freedom. Maybe if I’d been naked and in chains we wouldn’t have drawn so much attention, but I doubt it. Everyone knew about the uprising on the old Savota Ranch and that Nathan had set all of us free- you can’t keep something like that a secret on Slave World. They feared him and the dangerous change in the status quo that he’d brought about by openly snubbing them – it threatened their entire way of life. Word may spread. Others may try. Could a slave be completely trusted now? Was a slave ever trusted, I wondered? By some, maybe in the past, but not any longer. I could only shudder in thought at the harsh repercussions befallen my brothers and sisters, because of what Nathan had done.

  A few of the faceless Landowners eyed me hungrily though, those who had been at Donna’s birthday party when I was first presented to her. Many of those same guests had touched me, wanting to purchase me from Michael, my old Master, and the man who brought me here. They had seen what I could do, what I became when under the undeniable influence of my remote – those select few watched me like a prize piece of meat in a display case. I’d done my best to look the other way and turn a blind eye to the disturbing sights around me, wishing I were home. The problem was that I couldn’t.

  It was like looking out over a sea of perverse leather and depraved nudity. I even saw other slaves like myself, at least on the outside. Apparently Michael wasn’t the only one who owned ponies and other animal slaves, but there was a world of difference between us. I was free and they were members of chariot teams pulling two-wheeled carts, while their Masters or Mistresses rode in comfort behind them cracking buggy whips against jiggling asses, or in some cases heavily scarred backs. I’d cringed at the sound, and my heart went out to them in a way most people will never understand. My place on this world could have very easily been reversed, if not for a hand of fate cutting me some slack for a change.

  If only… We’re getting wet, so wet…

  I think the sprawling open-air auction market, with its utter disregard for humanity and decency, had been the worst. Terrified faces…incessant sobbing through tear-streaked eyes… the look of utter despair and helpless surrender. It was by far worse than anything I had experienced at the Holloway Trading House when I was sold.

  Potential slaves, both male and female, were displayed in numerous ways, publicly whipped, tested for pain tolerance, suspended and bound in demeaning positions to be used, and possibly broken spiritually forever by the numerous clients sampling the sea of naked wares for their personal amusement. Without realizing it, I’d fallen under a horrible spell from the heinous vulgarity arrayed before me, responding intuitively to distant commands – my hands slipped behind my back, and I’d lowered my head, ready to serve. Worst of all I’d grown wet; the sordid moisture quickly soaked through my flimsy panties, pussy clenching reflexively in expectation, as my body prepared itself to be used. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to drop to my knees and…

  Let go, Margo, let me be me again, you bitch! Why fight it any longer? You know it’s going to happen sooner or later, just like in the past. That’s it… Just for a little while. So close…

  Thankfully Nathan pulled me away from the market before I slipped that far. In time I noticed the grim darkness in his eyes, and the corner of his upper lip was twitching. That was bad; a stress related quirk he’d brought home from the war. He hadn’t liked what he saw, not from me or at the marketplace.

  Nathan had brought a side arm with him to Port City, not that he really needed it, but the fact that he had concerned me from the very beginning. I knew the other Landowners didn’t like him, but would they actually try to kill him? Either way a gun in the hands of a pissed-off Marine in a hostile environment left very few possible outcomes, and none of them were good.

  The vast majority of the other Landowners in town hadn’t been armed, thankfully, but that didn’t mean they were defenseless. There were security police scattered everywhere, but it was the sentry drones armed with both lethal and non-lethal weaponry that kept the peace, or handled the rare instance of an uncontrollable slave. We seemed to have a significant number of them shadowing us from the moment we’d entered town. Maybe they were expecting trouble out of Nathan, or maybe they were just scared; I would be after hearing about the battle at the Ranch, and I’m sure wild rumors had blown it out of proportion. It really made me wonder that if something did happened or if Nathan snapped, and he looked about as close to it as I could remember in a long time, how long he’d be able to hold off the swarm of drones. Even a wolf pack can take down a bear, if given enough time.

  And we’d have a new Owner then, wouldn’t we? I shiver at the thought.

  Slave World… so much evil, amongst so much beauty. Everything it stands for, everything that goes on here is wrong as far as decent society is concerned yet it was my home, and the birthplace of my new life. Was it wrong for me to embrace it for my own self-indulgent desires? I had from the very beginning, because it was the best thing that had ever happened in my life, despite all the shit I’d put up with along the way. Who was I before coming here? A teenage runaway and recovering drug addict? A whore who had wasted away what should have been a brilliant Fleet career with meaningless sex at every opportunity? I had been a lonely, unhappy, and emotionally unstable woman who could barely stand to look at herself in the mirror.

  Yes we were, and I loved running the show all those years, but look at us now… so pretty, so perfect… so fucking sexy. Just imagine all the fun we could have, if you let me, but instead you’d rather play the good wife for a man who doesn’t even appreciate our potential.

  Why am I starting to cry? Because it’s true, that’s exactly who I’d been.

  I’m a completely different person now, after what Michael and his doctor did to me, what they’d turned me into. I’m a stranger to myself, and maybe that’s what I like most of all – my thoughts, dreams, everything was new to me, not to mention exciting in an odd sort of way. Some of them made me wonder if I was even human any longer.

  Stop being coy, you know the answer to that. We’re a human pony now, and we’re changing. You can feel it getting stronger just like I can, and I want it! I’m not going to be able to take a back seat in our lives for much longer, so you better get your head in the game before I do it for you, before I start being naughty. My time is coming again, Margo, the new and improved me whether you want it to or not. After I do, there won’t be any coming back.

  Horses… I dream about hor
ses a lot now, more so than before, and not necessarily of them, but of being one. Whinnying, I can’t help it any longer, and maybe I don’t want to. The hyperactive sexual responses, the desire to run free and naked under the sun, to simply serve and nothing else… I secretly craved those moments from sun up, till sun down. It’s like starting my life over again from scratch with a clean slate. Go figure… Well, maybe that’s not completely true. I could blame my recent mood swings, especially in the last few weeks on many different things, but in the end, I think it all boiled down to closure. I still have one old score to settle.

  Yes… revenge…Now you’re talking my language.

  An unexpected result of my trip into Port City was our upcoming departure from Slave World. I don’t how he did it, but Carlos Mandolin, my old Cartel employer, found out where I was. I never got a good look at the guy he hired to deliver the message, before he vanished back into the crowd after shoving the vid stick in the palm of my hand in passing. How he knew it was me beneath my pony modification remains a mystery, not to mention the timing of the whole thing; what were the odds of him finding me like this on the one and only time I’d left the ranch since I’d arrived on Slave World? Of course, my suspicions had run high until I listened to the message in private; it was Carlos all right, and he’d taken great pains to give me what he called a professional courtesy for one of his old ‘family’ members. He told me where I could find Quinn; the man who had taken everything from me that I once held dear, and in doing so, find my old ship. I’ll never forget Carlos for that.

  The entire message got me thinking about a lot of things, things and people I hadn’t thought about in over a year. John, my one time companion and dearest friend happened to be one of them. He’s dead now, and I do see it that way, murdered by Quinn simply to make a point. It was then that I discovered I still loved him in a way, and probably always will.