Manties in a Twist

by J. A. Rock

  Dave hung up slowly. Glanced at Miles and me. “He pretends he’s all innocent, but he’s the craziest mofo of us all. Anyway, he says Robert, but he may be fucking with us, since he seems to think it’s highly amusing that we don’t know.”

  I remembered something all of a sudden. “It’s Robert.”

  Dave smoothed a hand over his hair. “You’re sure?”

  “I saw it on a document.”

  It had been on Gould’s hospital release form, which I’d seen when I picked him up. I remembered watching Gould sign it and thinking his wrist looked weirdly skinny. His face too. He’d been so worried about being overweight for as long as I’d known him that it was surprising to realize he must’ve lost a lot really fast. I remembered thinking I should hug him, but not doing it because . . . I don’t know. He seemed delicate. Like he’d fall apart if anyone touched him. And I was pissed at him, a little, I guess. Which wasn’t fair, but I was.

  “Ah well,” Dave said after a moment. “I guess it doesn’t matter much. We’re just gonna call him Gould forever.” He paused. “But it’s nice to know.”

  That night while Ryan was in the shower, I looked online for any local pony info or events in the area besides PetPlayFest. It would be really cool to get to watch some other people do pony play before I had to do it. But all I found was some pony munch thing through a Fet group, and it turned out to be a couple of hours away.

  Since I was on Fet for the first time in months, I stalked my friends to see what they were up to. Gould had joined some poly group, so hey. Dave had nothing new in his feed. D had put up some quote about the power of silence. Miles had written some wall post about true love that was full of fancy words. Maya had recently commented in, like, eighteen discussion groups.

  And Ricky . . .

  Ricky’s profile said he was in a relationship, which had been the case last time I’d checked a few months ago. Except now his status read: Belongs to: SayImADreamer.

  It took me a sec to register. ’Cause I’d heard that username before, but I couldn’t think where. And then a memory came to me of the Subs Club’s earliest days. Gould telling us that Bill Henson was back on Fetmatch under a new name.

  “No pictures of his face, no mention of who he is. He’s SayImADreamer. I thought people should know.”

  I stared at the status for a while longer.

  “What the fuck?” I whispered. Then I said it aloud to Collingsworth, who was snoring in a corner of the room.

  I grabbed my phone and called Dave. It rang a bunch, and I started to worry Dave was at work. But he finally picked up. “Hey, buddy.”

  “I think Ricky’s playing with Bill.”

  “What?” It was a “what” like he hadn’t heard me, or hadn’t processed what I’d said.

  “Get on Fet. It says he’s in a relationship with SayImADreamer.”

  “Did you say Ricky’s playing with Bill?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Look,” I insisted.

  I listened to the click of the keyboard. Eventually Dave came back on. “It’s on Bill’s profile too. It says Ricky belongs to him.” His voice was kind of . . . annoyed, almost, which was not what I’d expected. I’d expected him to go apeshit. Or maybe, like, cry or something.

  I scrolled up and down through Ricky’s profile, like maybe his status would change if I kept doing that. “So this is why he didn’t want to tell us who he was seeing.”

  Dave was quiet for a few seconds. “I’m going to hang up with you and call him.”

  “Hold on. We can’t just jump on him about this.”

  “Why the hell would he do this?” he snapped. “He knows what Bill did. He knows Bill’s not safe!”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Last year he was all, ‘Oh I’m so scared I’ll die if I do BDSM, and now he’s fucking playing with Bill?”

  “We should definitely talk to him. But we need, like . . . finesse.”

  “Bullshit. I’m calling him.”

  “No,” I said firmly. “You’re not his dad. You can’t forbid him to date someone you don’t like. Think first. Isn’t that what you and D are working on? Thinking first?”

  All I heard for a moment was Dave’s breathing. Then: “Could you talk to him?”

  Whuuut? “Me?”

  “I’m overbearing. But you’re very innocuous, and he loves you.”

  “I don’t . . . Dave, I seriously don’t know if this is any of our business.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked coldly.

  I heard the shower turn off, and I took the phone into the front hall. “Ricky’s an adult. And like you said, he knows the risks.”

  “Clearly he doesn’t.”

  “He told you he was seeing someone almost a year ago. We gotta assume that’s Bill, right? So he’s survived this long.”

  Except what if Bill was abusing him or something, and Ricky was afraid to leave?

  The thought freaked me out, but at the same time, I didn’t actually believe it. Which was maybe stupid, since I knew how dangerous Bill could be, but I’d always been, I think, more willing than the others to consider the possibility that Bill had made one huge mistake and learned from it.

  Obviously, killing someone was way too huge a thing to be called a mistake. And yeah, I’d seen Bill around Riddle before the night he played with Hal, and I thought he was arrogant and, like, sloppy. But I’d known other people who’d played with him and liked him.

  “I cannot believe,” Dave said slowly, “that you think there’s anything remotely okay about this.”

  “I didn’t say I approve. But it is Ricky’s choice. Not ours.”

  “Kamen.” He sounded scary. “I don’t care if you’re in a new relationship, if you’re busy with other shit—whatever. You can’t just abandon your obligations to the group.”

  “Since when are my friendships obligations?”

  “Responsibilities, whatever you want to call them. Because we do have responsibilities to one another. And you can’t just bail.”

  “Bail on what? Who am I responsible for? Ricky? He and I aren’t even that close.” I paused for a second as it dawned on me. “You mean to you. You mean I have a responsibility to do what you want, and help you make things the way you think they should be.”

  “Where the hell did you get that? Ricky’s our friend.”

  “So’s Ryan!” It just burst the fuck out of me.

  Silence. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “It has to do with—with you thinking I have a responsibility to look out for people in our group, but you don’t think you have any responsibility to care about Ryan.”

  “Whoa, dude. Can we get back on topic?”

  “No. You know this is on topic, at least sort of. You liked Ryan when you met him. You were fine when I started hooking up with him. And then I don’t know what happened, but you and everyone else turned against him, and—”

  “Oh my God, so now this is a conspiracy?”

  “Sometimes it feels like one! I see the way you look at him, and the way you look at me when I’m with him, and you don’t like him. It’s not in my head.”

  “Buddy, I can’t make myself care about Ryan as much as I care about you, or Miles, or Gould, or even Ricky. Okay? I can’t flip a switch and make myself feel something that isn’t there.”

  He actually said that the quietest and gentlest of all the things he’d said so far. But it hurt way worse than anything else.

  Why, though? Why would you even need to flip a switch? Why wouldn’t you just care about him because he’s important to me?

  He sighed. “Look. If you don’t want to talk to Ricky, I’ll do it myself.”

  But before I could figure out how to reply, he’d hung up.

  I spent the next few days anxious, wondering if I was wrong about Ricky. Maybe we did need to stop him from doing stuff with Bill. I just didn’t understand how we hadn’t found out before now. Gossip tra
veled fast in our community. Especially among the gay guys.

  Then around Thursday, it hit me: Cinnamon. That was probably the fucking secret she’d wanted to tell me. And Mom, at the housewarming party, asking about Ricky. Saying, “He seems very happy,” but in that pleading voice.

  What the hell? Why hadn’t she just told me?

  Because it’s not your business. Seriously, dude, it’s not.

  By Friday, I’d made the decision to put it out of my head. I needed to focus on my pony studies. Ryan and I had been reading up on the rules for the dressage competition, and there was a lot to figure out. We had to choreograph a dressage routine set to music, and it had to incorporate certain movements, gaits, and transitions. We had just over three weeks until PetPlayFest, and I’d never even worn a bridle.

  Saturday morning, the first wave of pony stuff arrived. Ryan and I tore that shit open like it was Christmas.

  “Awww, yes.” I pulled out a jumble of leather. It smelled fantastic.

  “Are you huffing the reins?”

  “Kinda.” I took another sniff and passed the reins to him. Then I ripped open the plastic bag containing the bridle, and the one containing the hooves.

  The hooves were pretty stiff, but they were padded around the wrists. I held them up. “Can I try this stuff on?”

  “Does it look like I’m stopping you?” He picked up the bridle. It had the bit attached with clips to the cheek pieces—I’d been studying my Parts of the Bridle diagram—but the blinkers were in a separate packet.

  I eyed the bit, with its rubber coated mouthpiece and bright gold rings. It looked different than it had on the website. Bigger, kind of. “I just have to put that in my mouth?”

  “Uh-huh.” He looked at me. “You ready?”

  I nodded, nervous and excited.

  He held the straps in one hand, bit in the other, and guided the bit into my mouth. My dick got sort of hard as he tightened the cheek straps, pulling the bit back until it stretched the corners of my mouth.

  “Owmugerhh, thiff ithff weey-uvd.”

  He laughed, tugging a strap. “What’s that?”

  “Wyy-unhhh.”

  “Sorry, you’re just a little garbled . . .”

  I rolled my eyes at him. He unsnapped the bit from the cheek pieces and eased it out of my mouth. The leather straps dangled from the sides of my face. “I said it’s weird.” I wiped my mouth. “How am I supposed to not drool all over myself?”

  “Suck it back in, I guess.” He set the bit aside. “We can leave that off until everything else is in place.”

  I held out my hands. “Put on my hooves.”

  Collingsworth was watching us suspiciously from the corner, his head nearly touching the ground.

  Ryan put the hoof mitts on my hands. I concentrated on the smell of leather, the warmth of his hands on my wrists as he fastened the straps. I was getting, like, floaty just from the brush of his knuckles on my arm as he buckled me in.

  “Nice,” he said quietly.

  I flexed my hands inside the mitts. Put them on the floor. Craaazzyyy. I couldn’t pick stuff up or scratch my face or anything.

  “How’s it feel?” he asked.

  “Um, good. Kind of ridiculous, but I like it.”

  “Harness next. Want to take your shirt off?”

  “Do you want me to take my shirt off?”

  “Every minute of every day.”

  I tried, but I’d already forgotten about the hooves. “Can’t.”

  I held still as he eased my shirt up and pulled it over my head and then over my hooves. As soon as it was off, I felt cold, which made no sense, because the apartment wasn’t cold at all. He ran his fingertips down my side, and I realized I wasn’t cold, exactly—more like extra sensitive. Like just the feeling of the straps on my head and not being able to use my hands was making all my other senses overactive.

  He grinned. “You wouldn’t be able to do anything if I called upon Gay-Skull and launched a tickle offensive.”

  I jerked my arms close to my side, knocking his hand away. “Don’t you dare.”

  He laughed. “What would you do?”

  “Use my pony power to subdue you.”

  He stroked my shoulder, but it didn’t feel like the prelude to a tickle offensive. It was really gentle, and I closed my eyes for a few seconds. Flexed my hands inside the hooves again.

  You won’t be able to do anything. Once you’re hooked to a cart and your hands are tied behind your back and you have a bit in your mouth, he can touch you however he wants, lead you wherever he wants, and there’s nothing you can do.

  That kinda hit me all at once, and I started breathing faster.

  He stroked all the way down my back, almost to my ass. Made a circle with one finger around the small of my back, then traced up again. I arched like I was trying to follow his hand.

  I sat there on my heels while he sorted out the harness. He put it over my shoulders and around my waist and adjusted the straps. My dick got harder each time he touched me. “I’m gonna be the worst horse,” I whispered.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’m getting a boner and all you’re doing is putting my tack on.”

  He laughed. “You have the strongest reactions to wearing things. How do you get dressed in the morning?”

  I grinned. “I think it’s only when I’m wearing things I’m not supposed to be wearing.” I rubbed my nose with the back of my hoof. “Seriously, what if I go to this show and I have to prance around with an erection?”

  He tightened a shoulder strap. “You’re a stallion. You’re supposed to be horny.”

  “Good, because I’m getting tack-related carnal stirrings.”

  “Talk to your doctor about TRCS. There is a solution . . .”

  I laughed. “Do I look weird?”

  He studied me. Shook his head slowly.

  “You don’t have to lie.”

  “You look different. But I’m getting TRCS too.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yeah. It’s, like, the leather smell and seeing you all . . . covered in straps.” He buckled the last piece of the harness. “You are tacked up, my friend.”

  “Do I need the tail?”

  “Do you want the tail now? Or is this enough for today?”

  “Um . . . it depends. What are we gonna do?”

  “Well, I found this site.” He got on his phone and pulled up a website that was like, “10 Things to Do if You’re New to Pony Play.”

  The first one was “Take your pony for a walk.”

  “I thought we could do that,” he suggested. “We could go up to Berry Park. They have that creepy trail that goes to the cell phone tower. No one’s ever walking there. And there’s plenty of bushes to hide in if we do see anyone.”

  I glanced at him uncertainly. “What if people did see?”

  He shrugged. “They’d live. Right?”

  I thought about it. “I guess so.”

  “If you don’t want to, we won’t.”

  I tried to scratch my chest with a hoof. “I want to.”

  He checked the screen. “It says to not overwhelm your pony with too much tack the first time out. So, like, we could leave the bit off, so you can talk to me. And the tail and blinkers. Sound good?”

  I nodded, relieved. How weird was it that I actually did feel kind of overwhelmed? This was supposed to be a joke. Just a dumb thing I was doing to show Cinnamon up.

  I read the rest of the list. “‘Give your pony a bath.’ Ooh. I wanna do that.”

  “Where would we do it?”

  I looked out the window, the bridle straps sliding against my face and the back of my head. “In the yard.”

  “People would definitely see.”

  “I can take off the pony stuff and just wear shorts. But I’d secretly be a pony.”

  He laughed. “Not sure what the neighbors are gonna make of me washing you, but okay.”

  He took off the bridle and hooves and had me put on my s
hirt over the harness. Then we packed our gear in our reusable Geegs bag and drove to Berry Park. I was too nervous to talk much. I wanted to do this, but the closer we got, the more I realized that this whole PetPlayFest thing was not something I’d thought through. If I felt this weird about the idea of wearing a bridle where people might see but probably wouldn’t, how was I gonna do horse ballet in front of a whole bunch of people?

  We walked a good ways into the woods, to where the trail was overgrown and gnats were flying around our heads. Ryan stopped. “Here, you think?”

  “Sure.” It didn’t look like a place that anyone would be walking unless they were planning to have outside sex.

  Ryan set down the bag and opened it. Pulled out the bridle. “Blinkers on or off?”

  “Umm . . .” I stared at the bridle. “Off.”

  He left the blinkers off and tried to untangle the mess of straps. “I already forget how this goes.”

  “Here.” I took it from him and adjusted it. “Try it like this.”

  He grinned. “You’re not supposed to have hands. You’re a horse.”

  “Shert errrrp. I’m helping you.” I handed it back to him. “I feel like you should have a horseman name too. Something that sounds good with Thunder Canyon. Like ‘Rafael Charmant, riding Thunder Canyon.’”

  “Uh-huh. Bend your pretty face down.”

  I bent down, and he slid the bridle over my head. I swallowed as he fastened the straps.

  “There.” He stood back.

  It felt . . . like no big thing. I mean, I was standing in the woods with straps all around my head, but I could live with that. I was glad we didn’t have the bit yet, though. I was trying to imagine having to take orders from him without being able to talk, and it made my spine feel like a bunch of mice were running up and down it. We never played with gags or anything, because I basically never shut up, and we both liked it that way.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You look good.”

  “You’re lying.” I pushed at the bridle. “I look dumb.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “You’d be surprised.”

  I looked down at the front of his pants, because his dick never lied to me. I couldn’t see anything, so I reached out and groped him. There was moderate hardness.