by Mark Andrews
All this hit my brain every time my eyes landed on one of those brands as I trotted or pranced around the small circle but I couldn’t let it dwell on my mind. I had to concentrate on keeping up the so difficult gait, whether it be trotting or prancing; keep my eyes fixed directly ahead and my head high for failure in any of these met with the sapling coming up smartly under my thighs or even between them to bite into my naked vagina (he aimed these blows from the front for the tail got in the way a bit from behind). And while you might think that the little sapling would do no more than sting, you would be wrong.
The grooms were all boys in their late teens but they were sadistic little bastards and were strong as boys of that age are and when they flicked those saplings up under my thighs I squealed in pain. Worse of course were the canes aimed at my bottom cheeks. The canes were made of rattan cane and even if our bottoms had not been already horribly welted and bruised from the paddling, they would have hurt badly. As it was, even a touch from them was dreadful so you can imagine how hard we all tried to learn those slightly different gaits from the ones we had been trained at in England and to obey the commands of our respective trainer and groom.
We practised at this all morning and were then returned to our stalls to rest. Once more we were tethered standing up - they said we had to learn to sleep on our feet - or rather our hooves for, they said, they too were now an almost permanent part of our bodies.
I haven’t mentioned them when I talked about learning the gaits. Perhaps I should for the position of our feet in these weird things was quite different from the normal human method of locomotion. When barefoot or in shoes, we humans walk with our feet flat, using our toes to assist in staying erect. With the hooves, it was quite different. Our feet were now an extension of our lower legs, pointing straight down as a ballerina’s does when she is dancing on her toes. The inner part of the hoof was designed to force our feet and ankles into this position and the outer covering of them gave us the appearance of a real pony’s fetlocks, even to the tuft of hair. Naturally, our calf muscles were at full strain in this position and while the hooves were designed to fully support us - and were firm and secure, we still had to learn to walk, trot and prance all over again.
The result was that we now walked more like a horse than a human being. It also meant that over a period our thigh muscles would develop into even more shapely limbs than before. In short, we took on the appearance of part equine and part human - which is what they were aiming at.
That afternoon, when we moved out to the track and began to practise the gaits we had learned inside, I was even more horrified to find some of us had hooves on all four limbs and were bent over on all fours pulling one of the light gigs while others actually had saddles fixed to their backs. I will detail these two even more horrifying events later; for now, suffice to say, every new revelation we came across in those first few days there was absolutely dreadful.
We were harnessed to three of the light gigs by means of a belt made of the clear plastic and this was locked around our hips while the gig’s two poles were clipped to its sides. Then, while the trainer watched critically, we were whipped to all four positions: stop, walk, trot, prance and gallop - and any combination of them. We had to move smoothly from one to the other and any faltering meant we could expect a lash from the long coach-whip the groom wielded in his right hand while his left held the reins that were attached to the bits in our mouths.
These were also there permanently. We had to learn to eat with them in place and although they didn’t leave our tongues pulled out of our mouths by means of the little chains that ran down to our nipple rings after the first morning, it was a lesson we all learned very quickly. Ridha had intimated to us before handing us over to our trainers and grooms that any attempt to communicate with each other or to any of the other slaves could well mean loss of the tongue - pulled right out by its roots - and that the vet might well be instructed to cut our vocal cords so that we would be unable ever again to speak...
I believed him. I now knew that nothing was beyond these people - from Prince Azeem down.
And so we spent our first training day. It was dreadful. There was nothing of the joy I had felt at being a pony girl back in England, serving my ‘master’ Sebastian and living in the stables owned by his cousin, Viscount de Veere. That had really been wonderful. This was utterly horrible. And to make it worse, I could see no way out of it. I was there and I couldn’t imagine they would ever let us go back home - they couldn’t. The authorities wouldn’t dare try to stop us talking and we could even bring the government down at home while creating a world crisis abroad. No, we were there for good - in some position or another.
That night, after being hosed and rubbed down and fed more of the oatmeal mush, we were again tethered in our stalls to sleep standing up with the bridles in place, our thumbs locked to the wall behind us, our nipples drawn up to the roof and our hooves locked to the floor. We could lean against the wall but that was it.
I slept. I had to. I was exhausted after that dreadful day and tomorrow, so the prince had told us, we were all going to be branded ...
Chapter 3
It was a dreadful night though. Every part of me seemed to ache or throb or both. Fit and all as I very definitely was, my muscles felt as though they would never move again and being forced to sleep standing up, also felt as if they weren’t being rested. Added to that, the position of my feet, still kept pointing straight down as if standing on my toes by the inner shape of the hooves, made my calf muscles remain in tension. I thought it was going to take weeks before they would adjust. It didn’t - it was only a few days, but that’s what it felt like.
Then there were the chains that kept us upright - by means of our nipple rings; and the floor chains that kept our feet spread wide apart ... Of course I knew we wouldn’t be tethered in this appalling way every night. I could see the ponies in the stalls over the way were permitted to curl up in the straw in the corner of their stall and that this was therefore all part of our initiation - no doubt designed to cow us into instant submission...
If that was the aim, it certainly worked. The initial ‘welcome’ with the two dozen strokes of the paddle, the rings, the removal of our back teeth and our bridles and bits, our hooves and all the rest of it - the tails, the morning enemas and sloppy defecation process, the exercises and the training ... all of these had had their effects on our minds as well as our bodies. I don’t know if the prince or his trainer had a degree in psychology and particularly an understanding of Pavlov’s mental conditioning theories but his ideas certainly worked with us three.
That night I yearned to be allowed to sleep as those in the stalls opposite me were, curled up in their straw, but no, we had a few days more of the horrible standing sleep position and I did doze a bit.
Notwithstanding that poor sleep, they still made us perform in the gym and on the track however and the grooms and trainers were careful all that first training day to ensure we properly raised our knees as we clopped around the gym or the training track on our horses hooves.
The next day was the worst. We were going to be branded like animals. The prince had underlined to us that we were indeed animals now. We were ponies. Human ponies, yes, but ponies nevertheless. We were not permitted to talk - ever. The rings in our tongues went some of the way to ensuring this but more were the threats that hung over us like the Sword of Damocles. One peep out of any of us and he or she would lose his tongue, torn out of our mouths by the roots and might also possibly suffer a severing of our vocal cords at the vet’s hands. Oh no. I had no intention of even whispering (had I been able) to either Black Beauty or Muscles.
The permanent hooves and tails also underlined to us our new status. We didn’t wear them only at races or even at practice. They were, we were told - and could see it in every single one of the other ponies - now permanent additions to our bodies. We would learn to walk,
or rather to clop around on the hooves, and the giant cones inside our rectums kept the tails eternally attached to us.
I hated them most of all, I think. I had never had anything pushed up into my bottom before and while the part that rested within my anal sphincter wasn’t all that thick, the plastic cone inside my rectum was huge. It made me feel as if I wanted to go - all the time. I supposed I would get used to it, eventually, but on that first day it was a dreadful feeling. So was the tail itself, hanging down from the crack of my cheeks. As I walked it swished from side to side, dragging the hairs at the end of the tail proper with it. This much I could see with every one of the other, nearly a hundred slaves, on that human pony stud farm as they walked, trotted, pranced or galloped about. Those tails became, in my mind, a real part of every one of us and gradually I began to accept that we really were different from the real humans there.
More Pavlovian psychology, perhaps, I don’t know. I do know that as the weeks and then the months passed, I began to think of myself - and Muscles and Black Beauty, and all the other ponies as human animals ...
The next morning we were duly cleaned out but we were not fed. Once more we had to line up on the concrete, lean forward and grasp the rail while the duty groom shoved his nozzle into each of us in turn, the chemicals in that liquid turning our faeces into a stinking brown soup that spattered all over our legs as we painfully ejected it out of us - and then suffered countless repeats until the water spurting out of our anuses was clean and clear - and then the huge syringe injected a dose of paraffin, after which the tails were reinserted.
The rest of them were then fed - but not us. We were to be branded and they didn’t want us vomiting up the oat mush and perhaps choking as the branding iron burned into the muscles of our bellies.
We three were taken to the branding room. This was another of the small rooms off the corridor near the gymnasium, one with a door into it. Inside was a metal table that was bolted to the floor and which boasted straps at strategic locations. There was also a brazier and out of the glowing coals three handles poked up and a small glass-fronted cupboard with a few jars and bottles on its shelves - as well as half a dozen more branding irons.
I shuddered as I was led into this room and took in the macabre features. It was all very plain. We were about to be branded! I could hardly believe it. In this Twenty-first Century, human beings were actually branded on their flesh with red-hot irons and somehow, which was not very clear at that time, the brands turned into the beautiful golden marks that were evident on every one of the other slaves there.
Beautiful? Yes, I used that word, didn’t I? I thought back to the other ponies outside the now closed door of that room. Yes, they were beautiful. I had to admit it. Far from desecrating the pristine flesh of the slaves’ bellies, the marks somehow added to their overall beauty!
And yet the very idea of using a glowing red-hot iron to brand a human being was barbarous. Savagery at its worst! But, as Prince Azeem had told us, we were no longer human. For the rest of our lives, we were now ponies in his eyes and those of the people of his country. Branding was still practised on animals - we were animals. Voila! There you were. What was the argument all about?
Muscles and I were locked to the usual rings at buttocks height on the wall - yes, by thumb-cuffs behind our backs while the magnificent body of our friend, Black Beauty, was pushed up onto the steel table and his ankles (or should I say fetlocks) were strapped down to its bottom corners. More straps went over his thighs, waist, chest, neck and then his arms were drawn up to the top corners and they too were buckled down tight.
The vet now checked his body to see that it was tight and wouldn’t move for I realised what the prince had said to us would be right. If he was able to buck his waist up as the iron touched his flesh, it would blur the mark - and that would never do.
Being satisfied he couldn’t move a muscle, the vet now moved over to the brazier. It was one of those iron things on legs formed with horizontal and vertical straps so that air could get in to keep the coals burning brightly. Through the blackness, I could easily see the red and yellow brightness of the central part of the fire and I shuddered again as I imagined just how hot the irons on the tips of those handles must be. My thoughts were confirmed when he withdrew the selected handle and I stared in horror at the glowing brand on the end.
It was a bright vermilion red and the vet examined it critically, blowing off a tiny ember that had stuck to the iron and then brought it back over to the table. The groom assisting him had gone to the cupboard and brought back a jar which he now held out to the vet to check and the vet nodded to a little glass jug into which the groom now poured a quantity of the greenish-brown crystals that glittered as they flowed into the jug.
The vet now moved up to Black Beauty’s middle and the handsome black boy now raised his head off the table and stared down his body at the dreadful tip of the implement in the vet’s hand - but then, brave man that he is, he merely dropped his head back onto the metal table and closed his eyes. I marvelled at his bravery and hoped I would be the same. I also noted that he now gritted his teeth - the muscles of his jaws stood out starkly and I smiled as I realised he was going to try not to scream.
The vet now positioned the brand, ensuring it was the right way up - and still Black Beauty didn’t utter a peep. The muscles all over his body were tense though and I thrilled as I looked at him. I loved Sebastian in a way I knew was as deep as any love by one human for another could be; but I also loved these two boys - the one now lying on the table and the other standing beside me, watching. Both of them were as beautiful as a human male could possibly be and while I didn’t love them as soul mates like I did my fiancé, they were still closer to me than anyone else in the world.
Now as I watched Black Beauty’s body preparing itself for the worst pain he would ever feel in his life, my heart went out to him - and my libido smashed up into top gear! How could I lust after him as he was about to be tortured? I have no idea but I did. The sight of him lying there, bound down tight and about to be branded, was a sight that is indelibly etched into my brain - and what followed with Muscles was the same.
Then, as if in slow motion, the vet began to lower the iron. He was careful. Ultra-careful. He would have only one chance to make this a perfect brand and I suspected the prince’s wrath, if he muffed it, would be extraordinary.
The last few seconds seemed to take an eternity. It was as if the action was taking place frame by frame. Down came the iron, now slightly cooled, cherry-red tip getting closer and closer to the warm, chocolate-brown and so velvety flesh of the boy’s lower belly.
And then it touched! I saw the muscles all over Black Beauty’s body stand out even more - and sweat beads instantly formed on his skin. His eyes opened - and stared straight up at the ceiling over his head and his jaws clamped even harder together.
Both the prince and the vet stared at him in amazement. It seemed that no slave before had ever been able to keep silent as the iron touched - and then sank in through the various layers of skin to the muscle below - but Black Beauty had!
The vet was careful. He exerted exactly the right pressure for exactly the right length of time. I think it was about three or four seconds - a lifetime if you are being branded, but then he quickly withdrew the iron and handed it to the groom who now gave him the little jug.
I stared in awe at the horrible mess on Black Beauty’s belly as the vet now began to pour the crystals into the crevices he had made in his flesh. And as I watched, I saw the crystals begin to coalesce with the flesh and sort-of melt into the wonderful golden marks that the others all wore.
Before my very eyes, that dreadful blackened mark turned into the same beautiful golden brand that adorned every slave in the stables.
Black Beauty now turned his head towards Muscles and me - and he smiled. Yes, really. He must have been in agony but I knew he was exu
ltant that he had beaten the prince in a small way. He had been able to take the worst pain so far dished up to us with a quiet equanimity.
For his part, Prince Azeem was magnanimous. He patted the boy on his chest and shoulder as he helped to undo the straps that had held him down so tightly. “Well done, boy. I have never before seen any pony take a brand without screaming. Not that I blame them, mind. The pain is extreme, I am aware of that, but you were able to overcome that pain ... Again, well done!”
They brought Black Beauty over to us and while Muscles was released from the ring, the black boy was locked to it. I stared from his serene face down to the now bright gold mark on his belly. It really was beautiful, writhing there as Black Beauty moved his body and I yearned to reach out and touch it. Of course that was impossible but he gave me a tiny wink with his left eye to tell me he was all right.
I couldn’t believe it - then. He had just been branded and yet here he was, standing up beside me as if nothing had happened.
I now watched as Muscles underwent a facsimile of Black Beauty’s ordeal and then he too was returned to us, to take my place at the wall.
I was now strapped down in his place and as they went about their macabre business I too resolved to stay silent. Muscles had taken a leaf out of Black Beauty’s book and had gritted his teeth as our friend had; now it was up to me to make it a hat trick.
Could I do it, I wondered. I knew the pain was going to be appalling. But I had inured myself to pain in other areas - in my athletics training, for example, and at the viscount’s stables back in England. I would try my very hardest to do the same now.
