by Maren Smith
“Do you want a beginner’s harness?” the stableman asked.
“No.” Stripping the shirt away, Master Marshall bared her body for anyone who cared to look. He touched her face, soothing back her fears with gentle caresses. “My pretty little pony has already had her introduction to harnesses.”
Kaylee blushed so hot she could feel the air warming around her. Under his steady gaze, she stopped wringing her hands and gradually forced them down at her sides. It was the Rainbow Room all over again, only this time the lighting was better. It showed everything and offered no shadows for her to hide in.
Her breasts were too small. That was her first thought. Not modesty, just vanity. Her breasts were too small. And fast on the heels of that came the even less flattering realization that she probably could have used a few more hours on the treadmill before she came here. She wasn’t fat, but she definitely did not have an eighteen-year-old model’s pert butt and thighs. Not like the women in the spanking photos posted all over Tumblr and a few other Internet sites. Oh, she was pretty enough, and she knew that. But mostly, she was just normal. Average.
And then it struck her. What Master Marshall was doing didn’t have anything at all to do with how she looked. Like the chubby woman on that picnic blanket, bound up in her multicolored shibari ropes, this was about submission. Period.
The stableman returned with a pair of thigh-high boots and two other handlers, one man and one woman, the latter of which folded her arms over the top of the stall door and rested her chin on her wrist to watch while Master Marshall caressed her curves.
“The rules here are a little different,” he told her as he accepted a bucket of water from the male handler and came back to her. “A well-behaved pony pays attention to what her Trainer wants of her. You may not speak. I want you to relax. Listen to the sound of my voice and feel the touch of my hand.”
He set the bucket down in the sawdust before her. A trickle of soapy water sloshed over the rim and was absorbed. Reaching for the wall, Master Marshall flipped a switch and a heating lamp came on directly overhead. Within seconds, even before he bent to dip the sponge he retrieved from a low shelf into the bucket of water, the air around her had warmed.
Kaylee wasn’t prepared to be bathed, not in a stable, certainly not in front of a small audience, but that’s exactly what he did. He washed her, caressing her with the softest sponge, stroking every part of her body and letting the water run off her in rivulets. It felt so innocent. How he did that—touch her like this in the most personal of ways, washing her back, her breasts, her legs, and even up between, using his fingers to part her folds, and yet somehow keep his touch impersonal—she just didn’t know.
Her nipples tightened, but not from the cold. The heating lamp overhead kept off the chill and the sponge was hardly abrasive, but her nipples tightened anyway. When he grazed them with his eyes, she felt it as keenly as if it were a physical caress. He could just as easily have been plucking them with his fingers, rolling, kissing or suckling them—her breasts began to ache with such wanting. But he didn’t. He simply washed her, dipping the sponge often to keep the water running over her warm.
“That’s right,” he said when she began to weave a little on her feet. “There’s my pretty little pony. Don’t be embarrassed. Ponies don’t get embarrassed when they’re being rubbed down. They just enjoy being touched. Good girl, just like that.”
With each pass of the sponge, Kaylee relaxed just a little more until soon she was leaning into his touch.
Setting the bucket aside, Master Marshall exchanged the sponge for a soft white towel. He dried her the same way he’d washed her, starting at her back and shoulders and moving his way down to her legs and her feet. When he was done, he draped the towel over the stall door and picked up the same kind of curry brush she had seen Race the Night’s Trainer using on him. Slipping his hand under the strap, he fit the brush into his palm and moved around behind her. Then she felt it; the gentle lift as he gathered her long hair and began to brush.
No man had brushed Kaylee’s hair before, not since she was very small. As unprepared as she was for the bath, the feel of him working that brush through her hair was completely disarming.
“Good girl,” he murmured, so low and sincere. He was so careful with each tangle he encountered not to pull her hair. “My good, good girl.”
In spite of herself, of being watched and certainly of standing in a stable with sawdust between her toes, a bed of clean straw at her back and the smell of real horses tainting every breath she took—in spite of all that, Kaylee softened under his touch. Every pass of that brush as it moved from the top of her head to the tips of her hair, seemed to strip just a little more tension from her body. When it ran out of tension, it began to strip the bones from her legs.
Her knees wobbled. She tried to shore herself up, to concentrate on holding as still as he’d wanted, but the simple act of him brushing her hair was turning into something else. Like the deepest massage, she began to quiver under his hands and then to cry.
“Do you remember what your safeword is?” he asked, soft and soothing in her ear.
Kaylee nodded. She didn’t know if she could speak or not.
“Do you want to use it?”
She shook her head. She had no idea where these tears were coming from. She didn’t feel sad. She didn’t know what she was feeling, but tiny drops of traitorous water collected inside her anyway, welling up in the back of her throat first and then filling her eyes. They blurred out the world, reducing every awareness to nothing beyond the droning calm of his voice, "good girl… pretty pony…" over and over, as he gathered up her long, brushed hair and fixed it into a proper ponytail.
He dressed her and she just stood there while he did it, those strangely emotional and yet unfathomable tears falling down her face while he slipped the bridle over her head. Where he got the tissues from, she didn’t know, Maybe there was a box tucked discretely up on one of the shelves. Maybe someone in the gathering audiences passed them over the top of the stall when she wasn’t looking. Either way, he wiped her cheeks, blew her nose, and then he made her into his pony.
“Open,” he said, and she did, letting him fit the bit between her teeth. The bridle was much more comfortable than it looked. There were at least six places where buckles could be adjusted to better the fit and Marshall went patiently from point to point, attending to each one until the blinders fit perfectly to the sides of her face, narrowing her field of vision, and the straps followed the curves of her cheeks and jaw but did not pinch or chafe.
The chest piece was much more complicated. A series of straps crisscrossed from back to front around her waist, around her breasts, and in between her legs in a way that framed her pussy and the curve of her bottom rather than covering them. The ponies she had seen trotting their rider through the garden had worn something different, tight-waist corsets that left their bare breasts but supported them underneath, and their privates had definitely been covered. The one she wore was little more than a series of straps that hugged her curves, the black leather accentuating her pale skin.
“Deep breaths,” Master Marshall said, as he took a position behind her. She had been so busy admiring the harness that she hadn’t realized he’d picked up a horsetail butt plug until she felt his hand prize her bottom cheeks apart and then the cool, slickly lubricated head of the plug began to nose at her back entrance. “Relax your bottom. This might hurt a little. You’ve had a lot of use back here today. Breathe out for me, my pretty little pony—good girl—nice and slow.”
When he pushed, her body yielded. He was right; she was tender from use, but as the plug invaded, slipping up inside her, it didn’t hurt. She felt only the most fleeting pang of discomfort as the widest section of the base met and conquered the minor resistance her sphincter offered, but then it was in her and Master Marshall was pressing it deep into place. “Good girl.” His warm breath caressed the back of her neck. His even warmer lips pressed upon her shou
lder. He took his hands from her bottom, leaving the plug in place while his attention turned to her harness. He adjusted the lie of the strap that ran between her legs, using it to prevent the plug from slipping out again when she moved. As he did with her bridle, he then went from buckle to buckle, adjusting each point to fit her curves and contours. “Normally I would bind your arms in a sleeve behind your back. But this is your first time and I want you to wear the hoof boots. Your beautiful body was made for all my favorite things: fucking, spanking and thigh-high boots”
He was right, too. The boots he put her in were black and shiny, zip-up-the-side, skin-hugging, fuck-me boots. Made to look like horse’s hooves, they were heel-less with metal horseshoe inserts on the bottoms. She imagined she could feel them under her toes. Even through the sawdust, each practice step made a strangely satisfying clumping sound. Walking felt strange. She wobbled a little when he took hold of her bridle and led her in a slow practice circle around the stall.
Little by little, she grew accustomed to the strangeness, the slight weight of the horseshoes and the audience in the doorway, which had grown from three stablemen and handlers to five. The woman was smiling at her and it was so infectious that, without even realizing it, Kaylee smiled back. She felt…pretty. Exotic. Hardly self-conscious at all. And when Marshall crowned her outfit with those three super long, bright blue ostrich feathers, she even felt taller, as if she’d suddenly grown all those extra inches.
Clipping a lead to her bridle, he took the training whip the stableman offered him and, with more of a click than a tug, led her out of the stall. He went slowly, giving her plenty of time to get used to the boots, but her awkwardness barely lasted beyond that first breath-taking moment when he took her past the mirrors. Kaylee stared at her reflection. Between the bridle, headdress, feathers and harness, she hardly recognized herself. The heels made her look so tall, so slender—not just pretty or exotic, but gorgeous.
“Wow,” she whispered, hardly daring to breathe.
“Ponies don’t speak,” Master Marshall reminded her. “Not even the most beautiful ones.”
He stood beside her, patiently waiting while she looked her fill. Clicking his tongue against his back teeth, he led her down that long aisle of occupied stalls, past all the other pony boys and girls, some of whom had come to their stall doors to watch her walk by, and out of the stable.
The sun was gone, but the immediate yard was lit by a series of very bright lights. Unlike the Castle, these were electric, motion activated and bright as spot lights. She could see the white-painted fence of the training paddock from the sliding doors, but Master Marshall took her only a few steps onto the hard-packed earth where the light was the brightest. Letting go of her bridle, he uncoiled the lead to its full length. Pulled taut, it would have given them ten or so feet of separation, but he only stepped off a few paces and took up his whip.
Hands growing damp, Kaylee pressed them nervously to her thighs and waited to be told what to do.
“We’re going to start with a few beginning exercises.” His voice remained calm, soothing. Kaylee nodded, but still flinched when he extended the whip. He didn’t strike her. Using the end as a teacher would a blackboard pointer, he lightly tapped her flanks.
“Walk on,” he said, and hesitantly, Kaylee took a forward step. She would have gone to him, but he moved with her, keeping himself parallel to her side and leaving her to follow his body cues. Eying the whip, she walked an anxious circle at the end of the lead, each small step making a pleasing plodding sound.
“Walk on,” he encouraged, tapping her bottom with the end of the training whip when she paused.
So Kaylee walked, and he turned with her, keeping her always before him, separated by the length of the lead and yet so intimately close with the whip never far from her skin. When she completed her first circuit, he brought it from behind her bottom to tap at her abdomen.
“Whoa,” he said, and she stopped where she was. “Square up.”
When she only looked at him, puzzled, he used the end of the whip to gently guide her. A touch under her chin and she lifted it; a tap to her cheek and she suddenly realized he wanted her to stand at attention. She did, adjusting her posture with every soft tap until her feet were together, her shoulders were back and she was standing before him, straight and proud.
“Good girl.”
The words melted softly inside her, and the training whip returned to her bottom. She felt its touch all the way down in her sex.
“Walk on,” he coaxed, and she did. Another circle, another whoa, another square up, another good girl. Oh how his praise made her feel special.
Somewhere in the stable, a woman’s soft moan cut the night. Outside, Master Marshall continued to put her through her paces. He made her walk, trot, whoa, back up and square up. He made her lift her feet and hold her pose. He never used the whip as anything more than a gentle pointer, and he never failed to tell her she was good. By the time the grounds were well and truly dark and he was ready to lead her back to her stall, Kaylee was ready to receive her own visit from a stable stallion. Never had she felt more sexy or sure of herself. Every step made her that much more conscious of the anal plug tail seated inside her. Every small movement sent a pulse of warmth from her sex up into her belly. The pony girl two stalls down from hers was still with her stallion. The wet slick sounds of swift riding and breathy gasps followed her, haunting her senses, exciting her further.
Master Marshall made no comment on her arousal. He simply undressed her, handing each piece of tack over the stall door to the stableman who waited patiently to put it all away. Now and then, his hand brushed the underside of her breast, sending shivers of wanting dancing through her. Her nipples pebbled tighter, her breathing grew more shallow and erratic. She so badly wanted to beg him to touch her again, to take her aching nipples in his mouth or even just between his fingers. But he didn’t touch her that way, and she didn’t ask because ponies didn’t speak and even more than his touch she wanted him to tell her she was good.
He knew it, too. It was in the way his eyes danced into hers as he moved around her, slowly undressing her, teasing with those light touches that heightened her need for more without ever satisfying it.
“Good girl,” he murmured when the harness at last came off and she was left standing in the middle of that straw and sawdust-laden stall, in nothing now but his collar. “Turn around.”
Kaylee turned, promptly, obediently, every inch of her trembling.
“Bend forward and put your hands on the wall.”
Though Master Marshall had put the training whip up first thing upon their return, he selected a shorter, slender crop now and pulled it down off the wall. He came to stand beside her, his hand smoothing down the slope of her back until he caressed her bottom.
“Hips back.”
She arched them, offering however much of her that he wanted to take.
“Legs apart.”
She immediately adjusted her stance and won another fond caress in reward.
“I’m going to whip you now,” he told her softly, the heat of his hand circling each nether cheek in turn, coming close, but never quite dipping in between where she so badly ached to feel him. “I’m going to whip you not because of anything you’ve done, but because you’re mine and I want to see the marks of my ownership on your body while I fuck you tonight. I want to feel them with my hands. I want to taste them with my mouth. And when I grind into them, pinching and squeezing until you’re begging me to stop. I want to watch you cum with tears falling down your beautiful face.”
He took his hand from her bottom and Kaylee almost wept the loss.
“What do you have to say, pet?” he prompted as he stepped away, taking up a position of discipline behind and to the side of her.
“Thank you, sir,” she whispered.
It was only ten strokes, but by the end of it Kaylee could have sworn he’d taken her through hell. The last cut felt like exactly that. It slashed acr
oss the backs of her thighs—a line of pure and punishing fire that flared into agony when he at last threw down the crop and caught her close.
“Who owns this pussy?” he demanded as he took her, pounding into her so hard that there was no part of her that did not feel the glorious pain, the beautiful punishment.
“You do, sir!” she cried and she didn’t care if the entire stable heard her.
“Who owns this ass?”
“You! You!”
He yanked her off the wall and dropped her down into the sawdust and the straw. He slapped her ass, catching as many of the growing, throbbing welts as he could reach. “Who owns this ass?” he growled and slammed up into her until she was shouting.
“You, Master! It’s you!”
“Say it again.”
“It’s you, Master!”
“Again!”
“Master!”
They came together, Kaylee shaking and screaming as he drove in deep and held himself there, furiously straining to embed himself into every last inch of her, until the rolling spasms dwindled and died, and the need eased into languid satiation. She didn’t realize until then that in those throes he had bit her shoulder. His panting breaths felt so hot against the back of her neck, and when he kissed the marks he’d made, Kaylee lost her heart.
It had taken less than three days, but nothing felt more real to her than this, right here and right now, and she loved him for that. She loved him for everything.
She loved him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was morning, just a little after nine am. The breakfast dishes were still lying on the table. A Little Maid had been summoned to clear them away and only just arrived a few minutes ago. Kaylee recognized her from the Rainbow Room, though the pretty blonde barely looked at her. In fact, she barely looked at anything beyond Master Marshall, sitting on the couch in nothing but a pair of worn jeans. The undisputed eye candy in the room, he wore them every bit as well as he did black leather.
