‘So what did the guy say?’
‘Schaeffer? He’s in.’ Anders leaned on a door frame, arms crossed, watching Graham rekey a lock. ‘He ran down a list of possibles with me, a lot I’ve never heard of. Sounded quite optimistic, actually.’
Graham slid out the cylinder plug and picked up his pliers. ‘Still non-profit, right?’
‘Yes, for sure. It would have to be someone’s tax write-off. Once it’s underway we’d link to some existing services.’
‘You gave this guy the plans?’
‘Uh huh. Sample plans, budgets. He’s already tracked down reports on similar stuff they’ve done elsewhere, some news clips too. He’ll turn it all into some slick Power Point whizbang thing.’
Graham looked up from his pins and springs and gave his friend an amused glance. ‘Insufficiently organic, huh?’
‘Whatever gets the job done. I’ve had it with trying to do this on my own.”
“Never thought you’d give any ground on that one.’
‘Jesus, I shouldn’t have had to! Something as obvious as this, to be blocked by those asshole protocol-suckers, without one of them having the guts to just come out and say, ‘We don’t give a shit, let them freeze –”
‘All right, all right; I know.’
Anders ran a hand along the door frame. ‘It was Maia’s idea, actually.
Amazing, her capacity to cut through the crap in my head.’
‘She’s a clever one all right.’ Graham checked the key he was using and inserted the last pin. ‘So what’s Schaeffer get out of it?’
‘Well, he claims to believe that the cause is a good one.’
‘He’s doing it for free?’
‘Cost. Just presentation materials and transportation. Apart from that, I can’t say. One more notch in his belt, proving he can make things happen?’
‘No harm in that,’ said Graham. ‘Not if he can really deliver.’ He slid the lock back into the door and the knob in after it.
‘I guess not,’ Anders shrugged. ‘One slick character.’
‘You don’t trust him?’
‘You know the type. Suit, smooth talker, looks you in the eye and uses your name a lot. Makes me question what his real agenda is. Makes me distrust him on sight, to tell you the truth.’
‘That kind of thing can get to be a bit of a tic for those guys. Putting on the sincere act, I mean. Doesn’t mean he’s not.’
‘Maybe. Anyway, Jake says he’s okay, he’s done good stuff for them.
And there’s no denying the guy’s got connections.’
Graham tested the new keys, and satisfied, tucked them into an envelope and began to put his gear away. ‘Here you go. Tell Val I’ll send her an invoice. Listen, that contraption of yours is going to take a little longer than I thought. Kristen’s back at work and there’s only so much time between jobs and looking after the kids.’
‘No rush. I don’t really want it till the fall anyway, so take your time.’
The contraption in question was a metal and leather framework that would attach to Maia’s collar and belt and keep her nipples pinched and pulled forward. A perfect thing to make her wear when she was on her feet offering service; he could even add a small tray to it. But at this point she was on hands and knees more than she was upright; it could wait.
‘How’s the other equipment holding up? Have the hitches given you any trouble?’
‘No, they’re good. All the metalwork is holding up very well. The cuffs might be ready for new liners in a few months.’ Anders smiled, his eyes contemplating something back at the farm. ‘You should have seen her the other day. A bit of grit got between her wrist and the cuff. She held it up to me and whimpered just like a dog with a thorn.’
Graham smiled a little. ‘How about the chastity belt, is it lasting?”
“Yes, the quality really was good; worth the wait as it turned out.”
“That little shield’s obsolete, then.’
‘Not quite; she’s in it right now as a matter of fact. Val and Ria have her at the moment and they wanted a bit more access.’
‘Both of them? I thought you said Ria was down east.’ Ria had been in Halifax interviewing female fire fighters for her next documentary.
‘She just got back. Now Karl’s in Chicago meeting with his supervisor, and Svend’s here talking to magazine editors, trying to drum up business.
Val would be here too if I wasn’t covering for her. It’s not so easy to take all this time off.’
‘Everyone on the move. Except for one, of course.’
‘Well, naturally she’s a fixture. I wouldn’t mind being there myself to see what the girls are getting up to, but that’s the way it’s worked out. I’ll hear about it afterwards. Val can be a real raconteur when the mood takes her. You should come up yourself some time; what about it?’ Graham opened and closed the latches on his toolbox, and then opened and closed them again. He shook his head.
‘No, huh? You’d enjoy it, you know. Just sightseeing if you like; no touching if you don’t want to. A pony ride….’
‘Stop!’ Graham raised both his hands toward his ears. ‘I can’t.
Honestly. Christ knows I want to. A pony ride, my god!’ His pained eyes briefly gleamed, and he put the heels of his hands over them as if to block out this vision. ‘I really can’t. That one time, you know, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. And what you do to her. What I’d like to do to her. It obsessed me for months.’ He dropped his hands, crossed his arms and stared grim-faced at the floor. ‘It’s not fair to Kristen.’
Anders winced. Graham had made his choices a long time ago; what had he been thinking? ‘Hell. You’re right. I’m sorry.’
‘Not your fault; I agreed to cover for you in emergencies. I didn’t think it through. It’s unbelievably tempting; thanks for the offer, but it’s not anything I could tell Kristen about. So,’ he sighed, ‘I can’t. God knows I hate to say it, but – I’ve got to live with myself. Decent husbands don’t have secret lives; that’s the bottom line.’
‘And decent friends don’t tempt them to. No more. I’m sorry. Svend can take your keys. What about the kink equipment, do you want to stop?’
‘No, no, that’s okay; she knows I do that.’
‘All right. Do you want me to stop telling you this stuff, though?’
‘No, it’s – I can justify – I mean, she doesn’t expect me to recite every conversation I have to her. It’s just actual – you know, being there myself. Is a bit – infidelitous, shall we say.’
***
In the gloom beneath the kitchen table, crouching between two pairs of legs, I waited for scraps. One pair was bare and crossed, with long slender calves and toenails manicured a deep purple. The shorter pair wore jeans and beat-up leather boots planted wide, with wide-open laces. A blunt-fingered hand waved a sliver of toast at me; I took it in my teeth and crunched.
English conversation up above. Something about firefighters. I could easily imagine Ria in a fire station, enslaving the brawn right out of their rubber boots. The conversation had to be a continuation of an earlier one I hadn’t heard, perhaps last night when I’d been in my stall. They’d been outside, welcoming Ria back from wherever she’d got to. I’d also heard them out there a little later, looking at stars. I’d lain as far out from the wall as my chain would allow, and managed to see three through my window; three parsimonious little stars. Then one slipped past the window frame and I could see two. The full sky must look beautiful, this far from city lights.
Beautiful, to a human with the freedom to look up. Which I was not.
Long slender fingers held a slice of tomato. I took it into my mouth. It was very tasty; one of the farm’s own, no doubt. I’d been carrying baskets of them on my back on and off for days. There were little smacking noises: Ria licking her fingers, and then she went on about the fire fighters.
‘What I want to show is the toughness and the daring, you know, but I keep tripping over cases of harassment.’
‘All those poor chicks on disability after finding their fire boots full of shit.’
‘That’s right. Well, I do feel for them, it wasn’t just once but over and over, threats and harassment from those little pricks, their colleagues, but that is not the story I want to tell.”
“Did that turn up with the fisherwomen thing too?’
‘A little, yes, but the women were older and great storytellers, so very strong on screen; that was what came through.’
‘Hey, this is a great shot here. The soot showing the muscle definition.’
Val’s fingers appeared with something dark and lumpy; I sniffed briefly and devoured it. A nice chunk of muffin. Gleefully I licked my lips. I got much tastier food when my master was away. It was the only good side to his absences. No one else bothered to chop up bland stuff to remind me I was a pony; instead I got scraps of whatever was going.
Still, I missed him fiercely. There’d been almost no cuddle that morning after he’d used me; he’d been off and out the door. Where was everyone anyway? No masculine voice anywhere in the house. The truck had gone off early and hadn’t come back.
‘Shall we?’ Ria was saying above me. She pulled me out by the collar and clipped on a leash. I felt oddly light in the tail; I had become accustomed to the weight of the chastity belt, but all that I was carrying was the thin shell over my vulva, held on by rings. A naked feeling. My master had scrubbed and shaved me before settling me in my stall the night before; I felt his soapy, slippery hands….
The collar yanked. I crawled, following minimal but expensive sandals.
Perhaps Svend was on the porch, though there were no keyboard noises.
No Svend. Had he gone with Anders? Karl I knew was away. Only the women, then? Down the front steps and onto the path I crawled, the boots on my left sauntering, making their mark on the dirt and grass.
Just the women. I’d known, really, since the truck pulled away. No echo or scent of the men anywhere. They’d left me alone with the women. All of them, but especially my master, had abandoned me to the mercy of Val and Ria. The tasty morsels turned to lumps of lead in my belly.
The cold would creep over me. The point would slip away. All that would remain would be flavourless obedience, unripe fruit with no weight or sweetness. And my inner brat would probably surface, and get her butt seriously whipped.
I seemed to be past the stage of embarrassment anyway; let’s face it, I had progressed way too far into abject animal-land to fret about being judged. Their scorn was my portion, that’s all; a very nice and fitting portion, too. Well deserved, badly needed. Criticism and resistance were, it seemed to me, for human beings. I was beyond trying to be human.
Still, when Ria came out and put a little saddle on my back, and yanked my head around with one of the more severe bits deep in my mouth, I could feel the old resentment rising in my chest, something I wouldn’t have felt if it had been a man’s hand. She straddled me, and then she chirruped and struck my ass lightly with something slim and whippy. I crawled. She was heavy but bearable, though she was at least balancing herself with her feet on either side, and perhaps taking some of the weight there. Once around in a circle, twice around.
The men would never be able to ride me like this; they were all much too tall and heavy.
Ria was long but light. It wasn’t so bad.
‘Try the stirrups,’ said Val.
This made us top heavy and easy to unbalance. I had to work much harder to move evenly, and had to take more of the little whip. Sweat began to prickle my neck and sides. On the next trip round I staggered slightly toward the outer part of the circle; the bridle and a hard stripe on that flank corrected me.
Val stood outside our circular track, watching and advising Ria to push me harder. The knees at my sides squeezed, the weight on my back urged; I crawled faster.
Then they changed places. The load wasn’t much different; Val was a good deal shorter, but way stockier and more muscled. Still, less height made for better balance. This was offset by the harsher hand on the reins, which kept my head pulled back as if by a check rein; also by the harder hand on the whip.
‘Come on, move your butt! Some pony you are; I’d get better action from kids’ ride at the mall. Don’t you dare slow down; move!’
Tears prickled. Criticism was for animals after all. Val turned and brought her whip down on me so hard that my hips twisted, almost unbalancing her. Then she really gave it to me; I wept all right.
From some buried place came a growing desire to buck this female off my back. She must have sensed this; her grip tightened and the blows got harder. Round we went, with me panting and squealing through a mouth pulled wide by the bit, unable to see the ground in front of me. My ribs were heaving against the tightly clamped knees. She had me; my every twitch was controlled.
My body did as it was bid, and I felt myself squeezed as if through a keyhole, compressed and reduced and forced through an impossibly tiny aperture. No chance. No choice either. Ria had another turn, and she, too, gave me no room to manoeuvre. They added heavy nipple bells and clipped a long lead to them to keep me in a clean circle. One and then the other kept at me. ‘Like a pretty pony in the park – head up! Show off your ass! Up high!’ Ria said, with a mean little crack of the whip. It struck the chastity shield among other things, and I cried and vibrated like a gong.
And I didn’t want her off; I didn’t want either of them off, I wanted to go on and on, with their legs squeezing me to breathlessness and their clever hands in charge. No! I nearly reared. No!
My head was jerked back, and pain was applied to my haunches like wicked paint. We were at a standstill, and I was sobbing. Then something was up against my thighs, rough like denim. Something hard and slippery prodded at my asshole. The grip on the reins shifted and tightened, and Ria murmured something I couldn’t hear. A long, thick object slid into me, out a little, in, the jeans pressed up against my ass. Against my welts I could feel leather and flesh and the hard metal edges of a zipper.
‘Like fucking a centaur,’ Val murmured. Ria was making small noises of her own, and gently rocking.
And surely this was beyond bearing. Could there be anything worse than being ridden, up, down, sideways and up the ass by women, without a man in sight? And knowing that if speech had been my province I would have begged for more? Feeling my flesh pulse and plead, drinking in the mix of female scents. Not unripe fruit after all, but salty and rich. They had me. I was through the impossible aperture to the other side.
They let me lick them, and this task I performed with the eagerness of a dog. I licked anything they put in front of my face, and I squirmed, and whined for more.
***
It had been a cool day of hard wind and rapid clouds that had the edge of approaching autumn. Anders had spent the day getting in the last of the vegetables, including baskets of green tomatoes that he hoped to ripen at home, or failing that, make into chutney. The house was cold and drafty; that evening everyone was happy to congregate in the living room and feed the fire. No point in getting the central heating going for one night; Anders wasn’t even sure it was operational.
Over dinner they argued about overpopulation. In the living room the conversation meandered through immigration and xenophobia, to the loss of community inherent in bad housing policy. While he talked, Anders plugged his slave thoroughly, and dressed her in the tight lycra top with the breasts cut out. She crawled about on the points of knees and elbows, Ria having on a whim wrapped each doubled-up limb tightly in strips of soft cotton.
Anders had added the padding to protect her joints from the hard floor. He watched, amused, as his pet made her awkward way from hand to hand, taking a tidbit here, a squeeze there.
One more evening to enjoy her in company, and then he would have her all to himself again. It was time. He wanted that little body back in his bed.
Maybe he’d do that tonight, what the hell. Keep them both warm.
She had settled down like a cat by the fire, bound knees and elbows tucked under her. But she was up in an instant at a finger snap, scuttling over to Val, head down and bottom up, whimpering and straining for the piece of apple held out of her very limited reach. Anders smiled, proud of her. That self-conscious intellect was tucked completely away. What he’d made her she was – the whole product, juicy and undivided.
Karl, a newspaper on the floor between his feet, was dangling a piece of chicken left over from dinner and saying ‘Up!’ The slave responded to the few Danish commands Anders had figured she would learn, and probably a few more. With difficulty she managed to balance herself on knees alone, little arms waving, and then she wobbled and fell forward onto the newspaper. ‘Come on, up!’ Karl said again. On the third try she managed to get the chicken in her teeth. She dropped it on the newspaper and began to eat it.
The night before, they had jammed for hours on every instrument they owned. Including, of course, his bell holder. He’d experimented with heavier bells and some interesting woody noisemakers, adding in the rattle of seeds and the swish of sand to their improvisations. It was sometimes hard to distinguish his slave’s wail from the fiddle’s.
‘Here, girl.’ Rapidly the little limbs tottered toward him. He lifted her by the elbows, propped them on his knees and examined her, touched her here and there. She looked up at him out of big eyes, aroused to desperation already, no doubt by this new binding. A lovely idea; he already had plans to use it at home. Anders pulled the swollen nipples toward him and just held them for a minute or so, glancing at her face while he described the London East End relocations in the fifties. Then he set her elbows back on the floor, went off and returned with nipple stretchers. Just the sight of them agitated her; once they were on she was frantic. The five of them made themselves hot chocolate and mulled some red wine, read, and argued about the causes of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis. Val could cite chapter and verse on institutionalized corporate greed. Anders insisted that a good half of the foreclosures had been due to homeowners being bankrupted by uninsured health care costs; for this reason the world financial crisis was the fallout of the lack of universal health care in the U.S. As they moved into the politics of health care, they snapped fingers at the hunhund, tweaked and squeezed and pushed her aside when they’d had enough. They kept the living room door closed as they went in and out, in order to keep the heat in and the creature on the floor from wandering.
As usual Svend was the first to unzip. But everyone used that eager mouth more than once in the course of the evening. It was the last night, and they were saying goodbye to this strange and enjoyable fellowship. Who knew when they’d ever be able to do this again?
When it happened that no one had used his slave for ten minutes or so, Anders looked into the shadows next to the fireplace where she huddled.
There she squirmed helplessly, lost to all shame. He snapped his fingers, and when she was before him he muzzled her firmly. Then he took out his keys, and opened up the chastity belt.
Released from belt and plugs she turned and stared at him, baffled. He smiled. ‘Go on,’ he said in Danish. Her confused brow didn’t smooth. She tottered away a few steps and then turned and looked back at him again, exactly like a dog that’s been let into a room that’s normally off limits.
‘Naked cunt at 12 o’clock!’ Svend called out. ‘What the hell?’
‘Yes, what are you doing, Mr. Thygessen?’ demanded Ria. ‘Since when do you let the dog out?’
‘It’s the last night. She’s been a good dog. And a fine pony, too. A little reward for good behaviour. Just ignore that end of her for now; let’s see what she does.’
The whole exchange had been in Danish. Val observed it all, guessing shrewdly at what was going on. She could see the slave shaking, all the way from the other side of the room, standing on her four little points. The conversation resumed. Slowly, the bound limbs moved; the girl made her halting way around the company, receiving an absent pat or stroke along the way. As Ria talked she pulled the slave’s folded arms onto her lap, rearranged some of the binding, and flicked casually at the nipple stretchers.
Then she looked down with a cold eye on the attempt to hump her leg and pushed the girl along.
Whimpering, the slave crawled from one pair of legs to the next, backing herself against them and getting pushed away. Karl had her prop herself on the arm of the couch so that he could torment the stretched nipples. Inexorably her crotch inched inward. By the time he released her, her belly was plastered against the couch and she was squirming against the rough weave. ‘Down, girl!’ he said sternly, but he couldn’t help laughing.
Too late. She howled ecstatically behind her muzzle, howled and howled. Eventually Karl pushed her off and she collapsed on the floor, moaning. Within a minute the muscles of her buttocks had begun to clench again. In two minutes she’d lurched up and wobbled toward her master, whining. He stroked her back and ass, made her roll over so he could rub her belly, rolled her back and sent her off with a little push. Again she went round the company, rubbing herself against anyone who was the least bit receptive. Val gave her only a brief second on her boot before shoving her off. At last Svend took pity and let her hump his leg. This took a little longer than the first time, but not much. After that she lay panting happily on the floor.
Anders’ phone rang. ‘Mr. Thygessen? Cooper here.’ This was their landlord.
‘Cooper? I’ve been trying to get hold of you all week.’
‘Yeah, I got your message. Sorry, I’ve been on vacation. Touring Scottish castles with the wife.’
‘Uh huh. So where do you want me to leave the keys?’ He took the opportunity to provide an update on the state of repairs, and to ask about renting again next year. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of the slave in another dark corner, clinging insecurely to an old standing lamp they never used. She was rubbing against it desperately, about to bring it over with a crash.
‘Hold on,’ he said hurriedly into the phone, and caught the lamp just before it toppled. The slave got an admonitory smack. ‘Sorry, you were saying?’
‘Yeah, I don’t know about next summer. If I can rent it year-round – ‘
Anders felt a warmth at the side of his leg and looked down. The slave, eyes glazed, was trying to prop herself up against him.
‘No! Down!’
‘What’s the matter?’ Cooper asked.
‘Nothing. Just my dog.’
‘A young one, huh? Still jumping up?’
‘Just tonight. She’s a little excited.’
‘You’ve got to train them. It’s no use having a dog that doesn’t know who’s boss.”
“Oh, I agree with you.’
When he put the phone away his pet was still whimpering at his feet.
But Anders decided to save a few for himself. He took her into his bed just as she was. Even muzzled, she kept the house awake for some time.
