Joanne and I had been playing together for three years when we started to hear the rumors, murmurs and hints. Something called “The Festival”.
The way that we heard it, back in the Thirties in Idaho a couple had bought half of a county and made it into their private playground. They didn’t buy every lot. They didn’t buy it all at one time. They were smarter then that.
But over time they came to own the hills, the valleys, the streams. The police, the courts, the mayor. Then, eventually, they bought all the rest. On their terms. And that was how they created The Festival. The rumors said that every summer an entire town became a place where the play became real. Slaves who ran away were caught by police with nightscopes and electric prods and brought back. If a punishment went too far a local hospital would fix up what they could and the dominant would be brought to trial by a true jury of peers.
We had to do it. Even though we lived halfway across the country. Even though free weekends were scarce and actual vacations were rare as hen’s teeth. It took two years to get approved and more paperwork then a mortgage, but we finally headed off for a long weekend to see what it was like when the chains didn’t come off at the end of the day.
Nobody was allowed in until they had proven that they would commit to a full dominant over submissive life. In fact, even the provisions for emergencies maintained the established order. Dominants held all the medical records. All phone calls, no matter how urgent, were routed through the appropriate dominant. The dom decided whether or not to involve their sub.
To complete this, all subs had to sign a durable power of attorney giving full rights to their dom. Terms were clear amidst the pages of legal jargon. For the duration of The Festival, subs agreed to be legally minors, incompetent to judge their own affairs and with their doms fully empowered to decide how far things would go.
Nobody would decide to do this casually. Just going through the interviews and signing the papers was a terrifying thing.
We got there about eleven o’clock on a Friday morning, past two visible check points and a fifteen minute drive through roads with signs reading: Do Not Trespass – Violators Subject To Lethal Enforcement Means.
At the last checkpoint our retinas were scanned, checked against the three retina scans we’d each put on record in the previous six months. And each of us was implanted, then and there. A quick painful pressure against one thigh and a small transmitter was in place. And mine gave out the signal to every device for miles: Animal.
Because that was what we had chosen to do. I would become her pony, her submissive, pulling a small carriage along winding country roads in harness and bit, while she sat back, open to the summer breeze, and enjoyed the sight and reality of me at the end of a harness, trotting and pulling at her desire. She would see what it it really meant to hold the reins. I would learn to obey crop and command.
We pulled into a dirt parking lot on a breezy spring day to see a few dozen other cars, a few just arrived as others got their things together. From a distance it looked like the parking lot at a small beach, nice cars pulling in under the sunny sky, couples getting out, gathering their stuff from back seats and trunks. A second glance showed a different view. Leather was everywhere as was wicked-looking chrome, bronze, and steel. But so were more permanent things. I glanced up just as one sub walked past with what looked to be electrodes implanted under his skin. Wires trailed before him like lines from a docked ship, gathering together in the confident hand of a woman who could have been the head of a suburban PTA if it weren’t for the implacable air of command in her eyes.
While Joanne pulled our bags from the trunk, I stripped, my clothes dropping into a small pile at my feet, and put on items I knew well. My collar was an old, familiar one, after several years of regular use it felt as right as an old polo shirt as I buckled it in place. I felt that warm sense of shifting roles, the feeling of being under command. Subject to orders but also safe under someone else’s protection. It felt strange to be naked in public like this, a warm wind along every inch of me, but having seen others wearing no more, I told myself that this was like a nude beach and that I should relax and stop worrying.
On my feet I put special heavy leather boots, bought the week before, with steel cable for lacing and a lock at the top. Small holes along the sides covered in fine, tough, metal mesh let them breath. A good thing, since once these were on they were designed to be kept on for as long as a few weeks. We had only signed up for a four day stay, but I still followed the included directions and covered my feet in vaseline, then mesh socks, then wool ones before putting the boots on. The vaseline soaked right through and the boots slid on smoothly, waiting to be locked. Next came a broad leather belt with D-rings all around. Buckling it in the back, I heard the D-rings jingle a bit when I moved. The harness was simple, just some straps along my back and chest to hold the carriage posts, with front and back connections to my collar and the belt.
We didn’t talk while we unpacked and prepared.
Joanne was changing her driving shoes for boots when I said that I was going to go in search of a bathroom. I turned to walk to the nearby buildings. Her hand reached out and grabbed my collar before I even had time to think. “Does my animal speak? Presumptuous of it; that’s what I think.”
She spun me around and pressed me face down against the hood. One hand held my face down while the other started to fasten the locks on my collar, boots and harness. “Animals don’t speak. But some of them need to learn that, don’t they?” She forced a strangely porous bit between my teeth and I heard it lock behind me. “That’s better.”
“Now down with you.” She pushed me down into the dusty ground and as I tried to cough through the bit she explained things.
“You are my animal. You became my animal the moment we passed the first gate. You will stay my animal until this is over. Animals don’t speak. Maybe once in a while one may be allowed a touch of humanness and be allowed to speak but I don’t see that coming any time soon for you at this rate.”
The streak of pain on my back was sudden, inescapable. “Bad Striper, bad!”
Striper?
“That is for forgetting what you are.”
Another two blasts of sharp pain along my back.
“And those are for resisting when I locked you in.”
“Animals don’t use bathrooms. Since you’re my pony you get to go wherever you stand.
But I strongly advise that you are careful about what drops where and when.”
“You’ve been needing this. And I’ve been looking forward to it.”
From here on in your name is Striper, your only thoughts are to do what you’re told and your butt is entirely mine.”
I felt something rigid pressed to my head, shadows darkening the ground that pressed an inch before my face. She had put me in blinders. I felt as much as heard her snap a leash on my collar.
“Up.”
I rose and she locked my wrists to the sides of the belt. Then she pulled out metal mesh bags and fastened them over my hands. I knew to stand straight and look forward so I only heard some kind of can being shaken, then a cold foam sprayed into the spaces around and between my fingers, hardening in seconds into a solid rubbery mass. Even if my wrists were to be unlocked from the belt, my hands were now no more then paws. She walked behind me, patted my behind, and walked away for a bit. I stood, I waited. I could only see one narrow area right in front of me but since she had pointed me towards some trees, I saw only distant branches and shadows. I adjusted to breathing through the bit, which seemed to be hollow and covered in holes, like a whiffle ball, allowing air through but keeping my mouth open and my tongue pressed down. In a few minutes I heard a firm thunk as the trunk was closed and locked. Fingers dug into the strap behind my head and I heard Joanne say, “I’m going to like it here. It is time for me to pick my carriage.”
I walked along a path I couldn’t look down to see, having to hope that she would see any problems before we ran into them. Led by pulls and pushes of my collar and then of the bit in my mouth, I tried to keep from stumbling or going the wrong way. An occasional hard switch to my side or back taught me quickly what each pull and push meant. I gave it my full attention, barely aware of sounds and sights while I focused on the pressures against my harness and blinders. We went along a wooded path, walking quickly on gravel and asphalt, and eventually coming to a clearing. I was guided to an upright post and my harness fastened to it. Without a word, Joanne walked away and left me there, naked, gagged, handless, bound, and with my lead attached to a pole on the edge of some sort of plaza.
I don’t know how long I stood there. Long enough for my legs to ache and stiffen. Long enough for me to start looking around and see others like me, tied to posts or jogging along in harness in front of carts of various sizes. Some of the subs had been harnessed in teams, pulling larger carriages or even flatbed carts loaded with boxes and materials. I looked up at the sky and wondered if a passing plane had ever come low enough to see this unique village.
The plaza (and I would later learn, most of the town) was mostly nineteen-thirties and fifties Main Street in style. They had made changes here and there.
Hitching posts were before every building, Two sets of stocks were visible on a raised platform as was a wooden x-shape large enough to hold a tall man. There was some dust but the streets were mostly asphalt with lots of rubber added into the mix to minimize damage to unaccustomed knees, hands, and bare feet.
An outdoor cafe had widely spaced tables to allow plenty of room for both seated customers and their subs, who kneeled or curled up on the ground beside them, some with bowls of food and water.
Clothing was a jarring mix. Over time it would come to seem entirely natural, with t-shirts and jeans mixed with formalwear, capes, and dozens of varieties of harness, strap, and fixture. An otherwise normal pair of jeans might have a discrete hole in the seat to allow the adjustment of a butt plug. The buttons of a shirt might be closed off with a length of string, marking them as not to be untied without permission.
Police, calm, well equipped, professional, walked the town in pairs, checking the occasional tag or fastening. Subs called over for inspection came quickly and obediently as the police electric prods were set to match the database entry on whoever they pointed it at. Every sub was listed with a pain index and whatever you could handle okay, the prod would be harsher. On the streets was a mix of trim, soundless vehicles and human-driven carriages, moving around pretty smoothly.
I heard bits of comments, a fragment here and there, that made it clear that some people lived here, like this, all year round. They got jobs on staff, moved in. As I saw how things ran, I saw how it didn’t feel like a game here or playacting but like being in a foreign country. Here, it was natural, reasonable, expected, that some people ruled and others served. Only those who willingly surrendered their freedom served here, but, having lost it now they’d obey or wish they had.
You see, the valley had no safe words. This wasn’t a bedroom interlude where a couple or a person did did something for a rise and then went back to doing the dishes or watching sitcoms. You looked around here and you saw that here you either stood firm and commanded or you let go entirely. And, you know, it gave a clarity to things. You could see it in everybody’s face.
In what we called the “real” world, we lived our lives pulling and pushing ourselves. we’d bow and scrape with a client we didn’t respect. Then have to be firm and commanding with staff while just wanting to sit back and let them figure it out.
But here it was different. Not a soul walked these streets who didn’t know where they stood and what they could expect if they strayed.
Having felt miserably vulnerable when Joanne left me, I was a lot more settled by the time I heard her voice behind me and felt her touch on my harness. “Yes, this is our first time here. How about you?”
With her there, other people’s speech was an irrelevant murmur to me. Only Joanne’s words meant anything.
“No, just a long weekend. It was a struggle even to get that many free days all lined up in a row.”
“Yours is nice. How did you train her to walk like that? Mmm. I’ll have to try it sometime. Oh yes, indeed.”
She led me down shady streets, past swiftly glimpsed buildings, to a large doorway. We went in and I was put to the side again, hitched to a new post, side by side with others all strapped up like me. There in dark shadows, with the blinders and the glare from the sun outside, I mostly just heard the shuffling and mumbling of the others. I could hear one man crying, scared-sounding through his gag, trying to catch his breath, saliva bubbling through in his panic as he tried to draw an undoably large breath or exhale all the way.
I was gripped by other hands, my lead was loosened, and they took me to stand between two posts, the traces of a carriage. Just for a second, before I was turned around and strapped in place, I saw Joanne seated between tall wire wheels, holding reins and watching me fastened to her cart.
I heard her take a map, discuss possible drives. The reins were attached to my head and chest and I felt them tighten and loosen as she adjusted her grip. Then I felt them snap as she cried “haw!”, getting me moving. I started forward, the harness now pulling at my chest and shoulders as the cart started to move. I passed under the door, my eyes adjusting to the bright light when I felt a pull to one side and we were off.
The cart wasn’t as hard to pull as I had expected.
Joanne had had me jogging and stairclimbing since we first heard of this so I was certainly fit enough. The road was firm underfoot. I watched it rush by below me, consumed by my strides, warm from the summer sun. The air was cool, pulling the sweat from me. And the posts of the cart and Joanne’s commands made my world simple and clean.
She took me out to the woods and for the next several hours I was her ponyboy just the way I’d hoped for. But some of it wasn’t what I had expected at all. Even though we’d played at dominance and submission for years, it had been just that. Play. Doing a scene at her place or mine, maybe going to a club. Always for just a little while and just a few feet from “reality”. There was always that safe word and knowing that in a few hours or less I’d be back in conventional life.
We were both self-employed,with crazy, changing schedules, and hectic, last minute business trips and somehow, the dominance and submission stuff had just seemed like another part of how our lives fit together. We picked up each other’s mail when one of us was away on assignment, watered each other’s plants, went to parties together, and our leather playing was just a fun add-on to the ways we counted on each other, vacationed together, played together. But this wasn’t like that at all. I kept wanting to say one of our safe words but the bit in my teeth made it no better then a mumble. If I paused for a minute, the sharp bite of her whip got me moving again. The one time I tried to turn in my harness she cracked the whip on my dick. Oh, Jesus, that sure got me moving. She’d been preparing for this trip too and it was really obvious that she must have decided that I was going to learn to obey her flat out and completely, without delay or second thoughts.
Sometimes another cart would pass us and I’d hear greetings going back and forth. Once a rumbling cloud of dust appeared all around me, barely leaving me to glimpse a large wagon with long double rows of people in harness before it. Then I saw a big carriage like something out of colonial days and each of the people pulling it had been painted a different color. A lot of them you hear coming from the sounds of all the bells.
Finally she drove us to a stop at a grassy spot by the road. I heard her call out “kneel” and I gratefully fell to my knees, my breath jetting around the bit, my chest heaving. In the midst of all the confusion and fear and discomfort of my condition, I was wrapped in the pulsing glow of a runner’s high which slowly faded as I knelt there.
Leaning onto my traces, aching all over, I still listened for every sound she made. Gravel pressing into my bare knees, looking straight ahead but tense with waiting as I heard her get closer, farther. I could only guess that she was checking the cart, the harness, maybe just looking at the view.
When she came up behind me I held myself in place. I felt a hand run through my hair, then pat my head a few times. She caressed my chin, ran her riding crop down my back, tapping it against the small of my back, my butt cheeks, my thighs. Every moment I waited for the whip to strike or a new caress to come, intensely aware of every sound and movement. I heard birds singing, insects, wind in the trees. A beautiful day in the country, with a bright view of grass and flowers in the narrow space the blinders left me. Eventually she fastened a leash to my collar, locked a two foot rod between my ankles, undid the cart harness, and lead me away. I stumbled behind her through the grass, watching her hand for direction.
A concrete post stuck a few inches up from the grass, with a couple of metal rings sunk into it. She tied my leash to a ring and left me about three feet of movement. Like at the start of the day, she pushed my face almost into the grass and held me there, dropping a plastic jug full of greenish murky liquid in front of me. She took off the lid of the jug, put in a length of tubing, and put the other end of the tubing into my mouth, pressing it around the bit and somehow fastening it in place. As she loosened my bit a little the pain at the corners of my mouth exploded and then faded back.
Then I heard her just turn and walk away.
She had never even let me see her face.
I was starting to learn to wait. It was beginning to make sense to me. Somebody with a horse doesn’t take it with them everywhere. When they go indoors or want to take a walk, they tie it up, maybe hobble it as she just had me, and leave it behind.
At first, the worst part was the uncertainty. Would she come back in a minute or two? Maybe hours? I wanted her to talk to me, to tell me anything. Any words from her would have been a privilege, a reward. And I didn’t have any idea what might happen next. What if someone found me there? What could I do? The answer was that I couldn’t do anything much at all.
So I sat, I lay down. I sipped liquid from the jug. It seemed like some diluted version of those awful “liquid diet” drinks. I guessed that she expected me to drink what she’d given me.
After a while I wriggled around so that I could lie on my belly and see the road. Carts came by every few minutes, in bright colors and assorted sizes, most with one or two people in harness up front. Some men, some women, most covered with some sort of poncho that reached just past their hips. I couldn’t see much from where I was but I could hear the wheels and the steps. Once I’d been there a while a whole new frustration came up. My hands were bagged and locked at my waist. My feet were locked together and booted. Of all the things this meant, the one thing that started to drive me nuts was that I couldn’t scratch. And every little itch became an obsession. Every insect that landed on me or bramble that stuck to me made me a little bit frantic. The best I could do was to rub on the ground or rub myself against the concrete post. When something caught in my hair, all I could do was shake my head around. I couldn’t do anything for myself but wiggle and twist like a wet dog.
Of course, another problem was long overdue to be faced. When she’d locked me in and kept me from the bathrooms, I’d decided to wait until we got to our room that night. But that was hours ago, and I’d been moving around, and now had swallowed what must have been a gallon of that liquid mush.
I thought about it for a while and couldn’t think of any way out so decided to just do the best I could. I backed away on my knees over to the point furthest from where I had been lying, dragging the empty jug by the tube still sticking out of my mouth, my head pulled down towards the ring, my butt sticking up in the air, and tried to take a poop.
And at first I couldn’t. We’re all conditioned that this is something you do on a toilet, in private, in a little room. Not harnessed and leashed in a sunlit clearing, my rear end pointed out at the bushes, visible from the road, barely able to see and afraid that I’ll get some on my legs or on the rod between them. I felt absurd and humiliated, kneeling and bent over in the grass.
Finally I let go, emptying myself out in a grateful series of spasms and, sure enough, leaving brown glops on one boot. I shuffled over a bit and lay on my back in the grass, rubbing my butt against leaves, trying to clean myself off as best I could. I could feel that I hadn’t gotten everything, but I did what I could. And there I stayed.
After that I pulled myself to the other side of the post, getting as far from the smelly mess as I could, and lay back down. And for a while I just lay there some more, the crickets humming, the flies all over, the smell of the grass in the wind. Not so bad.
Then I heard someone coming out of the brush behind me. I turned around and looked up and saw a person I’d never seen before. A middle-aged man, dressed like any day hiker you’d see, beat-up jeans, t-shirt, sneakers, thinning hair. He wasn’t a big man but there I was looking up at him, my leash tightening as I tried to straighten up.
He looked down at me, pulled an apple out of his bag and started to eat it. He walked over, looked at the cart. I wanted to say something but the feel of the bit reminded me not to try. He walked back over, looked down at me again.
Where was Joanne? What if he took the cart? What if he broke something? What if he attacked me? My hands pulled against my waist and I tried to flex my fingers in the hardened goop inside my mitts. He looked down at me; utterly unconcerned, vaguely curious. He threw the half eaten apple into the distant bushes – my eyes followed it longingly. Then he came close up, even fingered a bit of my harness though I tried to pull away. Finally he patted me on the head, turned and walked off down the road.
The sun was getting lower in the sky by the time that Joanne came back. She was carrying flowers and put a few in my hair as she put me back in harness and then took the hobble off my ankles. A pull at the reins got me in motion and we headed down the twilit road back into town.
Again their attention to detail amazed me. As night fell, little knee-high lights along the sides of the road began to glow, leaving our path as visible as an open field under a full moon but the surrounding bushes and trees dark as could be. Every buzz and crackle in the dark seemed threatening, scary. Like a little kid, all I could hope for was to get back safe, meanwhile imagining risks blown up to terrors by how helpless I was.
Sometimes a sound or movement would make me jump or stumble, but that whip always got me going again. In a little while I got grateful for her orders, the pulls at my reins and that instant sting if I got at all off track. She kept my attention on the road, the narrow little visible path before my blinkered eyes. After all these hours, every scrap of attention I could spare was looking forward to getting to our rooms and settling down. I didn’t know what the setup was (Joanne told me it should stay a surprise) but I was sure ready for a doggie bed or even just a clean floor to lie on. With the way she’d been treating me, my chances of being allowed in bed looked pretty skimpy but any chance to be indoors and out of harness sounded good to me. The prospect of a warm shower, a hot bath, soap and shampoo and more hot water and then a big fluffy hotel towel in an hour or two seemed glorious beyond measure. As the light from more houses crossed our path and the sounds of conversation or dishes being placed on tables drifted to us through open windows, I knew we were getting back to town again, and the bright streets were a welcome sight. Now my role changed; stop and start, pull and stop again. We shared the road with other carts and wagons and silent electric cars. In my blinders, my face down, I couldn’t see much more then wheel rims and the tips of fenders at the edges of my view.
Looking at nothing but a patch of road right in front of me, unable to see what was coming beside us or even sometimes ahead, all I could do was try to pay all my attention to the pulls on my reins and the sounds of my mistress’s voice. I was jumpy and shaking. A few times I tried to raise my head and look around but each time that fierce whip burned deep into me, a lightning bolt of pain, leaving behind a throbbing reminder to look down, follow orders, do what I was told.
I knew I was being conditioned, down deep. I knew that this was training me faster than a dog in obedience school. The clatter of other wheels on every side, the bright light, the shadows, and noise more distraction then any sort of help, and the risk of a shattered leg or even broken back if I turned wrong in these rushing streets. My safety depended on my not deciding anything for myself at all. I was just the dumb force at the command of my driver, who could see what I couldn’t, who knew where it was dangerous to turn or stop or start.
I obeyed with all of my attention and sincerity; I knew that it was my only option. I was her horse, that’s it, and my place was to do what she said, just as soon she said it. I was starting to get that every hour in harness would train me like this, make me an instinctive submissive, passive, obedient. I was there to do what I was told and what I thought just wasn’t part of the picture. In fact, at a time like that, it could get me killed.
I could guess enough to begin to see that hillside roads were gonna be even worse. Here a mistake would put me in the path of another moving cart. Up on a steep slope, a wrong turn would roll us over the side. My mind filled up with visons of my torn body being ripped and torn on the way down a cliffside, still bound to a bumping, tumbling, splintering carriage. So every minute in heavy traffic or on a hillside road meant losing a bit more of my will. Harnessed, handless, and blindered, giving in and just doing whatever I was told became a reflex as I figured out that rebellion wasn’t just about impossible, it could be flat out lethal.
As this sank in, she finally pulled us over to a curb. I heard her get out and her steps as she came and stood beside me. I eagerly waited for her liberating touch. But the hands that gripped me weren’t hers. I was hobbled on a short length of chain, leashed, and taken out of harness. Surrounded by a bustle of motion, I was led away as I heard her giving instructions about my stall.
My stall? I was at a stable, with many subs like me, and even a few born horses and mules, all being washed down, fed, led to paddocks, and put in for the night.
I was lead around by my leash, stumbling along on my chained ankles as best I could, brought to a crowded area, painfully bright, where I was hosed down, sprayed with soapy water, and scrubbed with rough brushes wielded by stablehands I could barely see. My being naked like this clearly meant nothing to them as I was grabbed, turned, bent over, pulled along, as just one more task on a busy Friday evening. A last cold blast washed off the soap and I was pulled off to a slightly less hectic place for the next step. A big tag was hung from the front of my harness, and people consulted it before they rushed me further along.
Once we got indoors, my bit was taken out, and the pain at the corners of my mouth was roaring in as a ball gag was pressed in and fastened into place, leaving me speechless again. I tried to talk around the gag once but an immediate painful slap across the face and a firm, “No, bad” silenced me.
Some of the workers at the stable were there as a game, a chance to handle other humans beings without any thought at all about normal rules or propriety. They were there for the chance to grab and hold and lock into place one person after another. But most of the staff were people who’d lived there since before the takeover, and for them this was just a well paid and simple job. They didn’t want to linger or punish, they just wanted to get through the day and their discipline was even less forgiving because of it. Like prison guards, they wanted us orderly, obedient, and predictable.
And with years of experience, they knew how to make certain that they got just what they wanted. Brought to a stop for the night, I was pushed firmly down to my knees, a four foot chain was fastened from my leash to a ring near the floor, my hands were unlocked from my waist, my blinkers taken off, and I was left on my own.
My stall was an open-ended pen, four feet wide, eight deep, divided from the ones on either side by concrete walls a little over head height high, with a shadowy ceiling way up above us. Instead of a bed, there was a long mound of little grey and brown plastic balls, about half an inch across, nubbly like little golf balls and irregular, almost like pebbles. It was like lying in a pile of styrofoam peanuts. The opening of the stall had a wooden divider a foot high to keep the balls in. As the clear acrylic doors closed behind my keeper, I collapsed onto the mound of pebbles. It actually was pretty comfortable, cool and dry and almost sensuously clean after a day of sweat and thorns and road dust. I stretched my arms out, cramped from a day locked at my sides, and only remembered that I was still bound in mitts when I tried to reach up and touch my face.
I could hear sounds from the other stalls and conversations of the keepers as they turned down the lights and most of them left to go home. Rustlings and mumblings were all around and came home to me again that I was now part of a tribe; a whole distinct species in this place, of people who had voluntarily given up the privileges and rights of our normal lives to live under the hand of those who wanted and savored what we had freely given away.
I wondered what this feel like to the others around me. Were they as confused as I was? As frightened? Did this make sense to them? Even there, leashed, in a paddock, with my hands replaced with paws, no privacy, and subject to the commands of anybody who came in and took me, I still kept trying to make sense of it all. But I was learning that here it did me no good at all.
– • –
The first warm touches of sunlight were coming in through the skylights above us when the keepers started coming around and getting us ready for the day. I stayed loose and went along as my hands were locked back to my belt, my blinders fastened on, and I was lead out to a large room where I was held in place, quickly washed down with warm water, and lead to a trough.
There I was put down on my knees, my ballgag removed, pulled forward, and my head fastened, face down above a long channel filled with warm porridge with bits of vegetables and fruit. I felt a bungie cord clipped to the back of my collar, taking most of my weight, as I leaned down and put my face into the first solid food I’d had since Friday morning. I has smelled it as we came into the room, a satisfying, morning-oatmeal kind of smell, and the bustle of the shoulders on either side, and the pull of the cord on my collar and harness didn’t mean a thing compared to how hungry I was as I pushed my mouth down into the first thing I had wanted and could enjoy since we had passed those gates so long back in my fading past.
After a little while a keeper lifted my face up, wiped off my mouth, and pulled me to my feet and away. They lead us out, one by one, to rows of posts along the edge of the street, and leashed us there. They put us in short hobbles and our harnesses were tightened a bit. Each post even had a bulge in the side of each post we could lean on, almost sitting, when we got tired.
For the first time I could see around me the dozens of other bound subs waiting for their doms to come. They were a mix of ages and different kinds of shape, from built up young guys and women, with gathered muscles bunching up under their arms and legs, to people in their forties and fifties and the occasional truly older sub, off to the side, bound like the rest but usually on a longer leash and in simpler harness.
Sometimes a dom would come up, take somebody, unharness them, and just leave, but some people came by and browsed, seeing who was available that day. A citizen would walk up to a sub and lift up a leg, bend them over, feel a muscle or ask a question of the stable staff. Then they would either move on, or have their selection unlocked and handed over to them.
After I had been there a while, with the sun full up in the sky and a summer breeze along my exposed skin, a stablehand unlocked my leash from the post and led me down a short shadowy path to the same carriagehouse I’d been in the day before. All around me I heard people talking and calling out to each other, things moving, wheels clattering on cobblestones, tires being inflated, wheels set, ropes and chains wrapped around and fastened in place. It sounded a lot like like a busy garage except for the sounds of stuff hitting wood and the number of voices that were women’s. On a sunny summer morning, the staff had their hands full, and I could hear dozens of voices around me as I was lead along the stuffy, narrow paths between carts and supplies and others at their business.
I was fastened between the posts of a new carriage, this one smaller and lighter, with the posts closer together and my harness held on differently. It pulled at me strangely, unfamiliar and leaving me off-kilter. Finally I heard Joanne’s voice and the posts bounced as she reached up and sat herself behind me. She was talking to the workers there and somehow her tone, so different from the one she used with me, left me simply unconcerned. She wasn’t talking to me so I had no reason to listen.
Then she pulled at the reins, cracked the whip above me, and we started to move forward. But just as we reached the doors and the warmth of the sun was soothing my back, she stopped me. She was talking to somebody and I felt a hand on my harness, holding me still.
Then we started again, but a little slower. Again we were on the streets of town and I was dimly aware of a country fair brightness to the mood as we made our way along the lanes and roads.
But we didn’t go straight from town this time. She stopped me before a storefront, hobbled me, tied me to a post, and went in.
In a little while she came back out with somebody else who bent down and lifted one of my legs a bit, leaving me to stumble back into the carriage posts. They talked and then I was unhobbled and led around the side of the building to a very long, very wide bench. My mistress pushed me down onto the bench and fastened me down across it, leaving me lying on my belly on the big wooden planks, my face to the ground and my calves and feet sticking off the side. Then I was really surprised when somebody took off my boots. They pulled off the socks and I felt bits of metal and wood being pressed against my soles as Joanne stood beside me, a possessive hand on my ass, talking to somebody, sounding relaxed, enthusiastic.
And I realized that I recognized that tone. She was shopping. This was how she sounded when she had dragged me along as she went shopping for dresses or handbags or…shoes. So I wasn’t entirely surprised when I felt myself being fastened up into something new. She had decided to change my boots and had had me refitted. After all, wasn’t part of the purpose of this trip to look into other options?
And I could tell that these were an improvement. More flexible, lower, softer. Covered all over in some kind of mesh, still firm but better.
Then other things were fitted on to me, adjusted, removed. When I snuck a single sideways glance I saw a tall pile of leather and bronze and chrome stacked up beside me. Eventually I was unstrapped, brought upright, and somebody put me back in harness on the cart. I felt the posts bounce as my mistress climbed back up and we were on our way.
Soon we were in the country again and she led me out onto smaller and smaller paths, eventually up to just the sort of hill trails I’d been so afraid of. But I obeyed and she was merciful, so it just became a slow peaceful trip, as my small simple world stayed limited to the ruts and bumps a few feet ahead of me, not seeing much but with the sun on my back and none of the sounds of phones or computers or any of the rest of everyday life.
I served her and obeyed her and had time and actions and thoughts only for doing as I was told. I didn’t think, I didn’t plan, I didn’t do anything but pull those posts or whatever else she said.
And I was happy.
At a wider point, she brought us to a stop. Like the day before, she hobbled and leashed me, then led me and clipped my harness to a post in the ground. Then she walked away, but not too far.
>From my place in the grass I could see that we were a good ways uphill now and that she had walked over to look at the view. My leash wasn’t long enough to really let me stand, but I could get upright enough to see that the view was beautiful, framed by pines blowing in a breeze and with the town, the isolated houses, and a wide and complex mesh of roads and clearings spread across what I now could see was a huge valley.
Somehow, despite what I had read and all that we had talked, I hadn’t understood. This wasn’t a few dozen people and fifteen or twenty houses. This was almost a city. And as I sat back down I remembered the lit doorways set into slopes I had seen the night before. All the places that you wouldn’t be able to tell from hilly forest once you were a little down the road. Maybe it actually was a city. There could be thousands of people living down there.
It was a big world out there and a lot of people wanted a place like this to exist. And with enough money and power behind it, who knew just how much there could be to this place?
Thinking about all of this made me scared all over again. Those signs at the gates about “Lethal Enforcement” were real. Maybe they meant just that. I wondered if they’d ever killed an escaping slave and covered it up. I realized that Joanne really could do anything she wanted to me here and nobody would step in to prevent it. In fact, they might join in. What if she left me in the stable again? It was so efficient, so clean, but it was basically a prison, with guards who could break us down completely if we didn’t do as we were told. The streets I had seen looked more forbidding now, menacing, with the shadow of torture and murder hanging over it all. And I was completely unable to do anything about it.
The wind was starting to kick up a bit and in a little while Joanne came back from walking along the grass and pebbles of the edge, went over to the cart, and pulled out a poncho like the ones I had seen a lot of subs wearing. It was a bit more complicated then it looked from a distance; it could be fitted around and through various kinds of straps and bonds. She held me in place and put it on me, turning me around a few times to make adjustments.
Then, at long last, she sat me back down, sat across from me, and looked into my face for the first time since we had left the parking lot back on Friday. She looked at me for a while, then came over and just felt her way along my harnesses, my hobble, the bit in my teeth. She stopped to pet my hair for a minute and ran her finger down my cheek. She grabbed a handful of hair and pulled my head back so she could look into my eyes while standing over me.
Then, still without a word, she went over and sat back down, settling down on a bench and twirling a bit of grass between her fingers.
“So, Sweetie, is it what you expected?” I nodded no. “Oh no, indeed, not for me either, that is for darn sure. It’s so civilized here. So clean. The people are so nice.” She giggled. “Of course, here we have such fun ways to make sure that some of you stay nice.” She looked down at my hands. I kept trying to use them for something, if even just to lean against when I sat back, and she could see me try to pull them away from my sides and how they never got more then an inch or two before the harness caught at my wrists.
Joanne had always been proper. Ladylike. Running a design firm, she had a chic style, but was always correct, even demure. Even here she was dressed in trim twill pants that hugged her well-maintained figure. Her top, sleeveless, was a pretty flowery thing that I was sure was some shade called ecru or sand or buttermilk. Somehow, miles into the woods and just back from walking along the cliff edge, her canvas shoes looked only picturesquely mussed, as did her soft thick hair.
She was so obviously happy here. She sat there, the very picture of a country club wife, and her eyes twinkled with delight, enthusiasm, and a quiet but unmistakable malicious glee. But what scared me most was her certainty, how at home she seemed. For me this was going quickly from disorienting to nightmare. I had worked so hard to build a life that made sense and here it was all utterly gone. I couldn’t stop thinking about the evident scale of a whole society that sat there before our eyes.
Her earrings glinted gold and she looked so completely composed, how could I feel any better then a draft animal by comparison, bound to a post at her feet, dirty and sweaty, with bits of leaves caught in my tangled hair and my face muddy from where my bit left saliva dripping down my jaw?
I had peed twice as we had made our way up, dripping down to the trail as I pulled against the traces, and the stickiness along my legs took away any last bit of dignity I might have hoped for.
“Do you want me to take out your bit? Not yet, Sweetie, maybe tomorrow if you’re good. In fact, I’ve even arranged for us to stay here a few more days to make sure that you’ll have the time to learn proper obedience. I’ll bet you didn’t think I could do that.” Her face showed such amusement as she sat there, her legs crossed at the ankle, the raised foot tapping just a little.
I lowered my head onto the twigs and soil, and looked up at her, trying to show my obedience, wanting her to conclude that I was good now. I tried to speak, but all that came out was a garbled mess.
“Please, mistress; please let me go.” I tried to say. It sounded more like “puh, mihmah, puh leooah”.
“I was wrong. I’m scared. I want to go home.” I tried. “Ah wah oohah Eh seh. Eh wa goaww”, came out.
I looked up at her, now silhouetted against the bright sky, and looked for any sign of mercy in her posture, her gaze.
“Please, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll come over for a week, I’ll do any scene you want. Just please don’t keep me like this.” I fought to make coherent words but it was all just coming out as gibberish.
I couldn’t tell how much she could understand of this, certainly no more then one word in ten. But she let me go on for a while before cutting me off with a commanding, “That’s enough”.
She got up from the bench. I tried not to look too hopeful, keeping my face in the dirt before her, only glancing up briefly. I could see a dozen expressions crossing her face. Confusion, pity, amusement, maybe even a little anger. Then her expression settled into calm resolve.
She looked over my harness, went back to the cart and got the keys, walked back to stand over me and dangled the enticing things before me, letting them twist and sparkle inches before my eyes. Then, watching me watching her, she threw the whole set off the cliff and placed her foot firmly on my neck.
– • –
That night, as I was cleaned up and dressed down for the night, I was far more alert. It looked like I would be kept in the stables a few more days and I at least wanted to know what was going on.
As they led me around I understood a little better what they were doing to me. What had seemed like random and terrifying treatment was turning out to be reasonable and practical. When I was pressed forward, my head locked to a clamp, I realized as they left me there for several minutes and then stuck things into my mouth, my ears, and even my armpits, that they were checking my temperature, my blood pressure, even doing some sort of medical tests of my saliva and sweat.
When they pushed me against a post and pulled first my legs and then my arms back, then release, back, and release again, I understood this they were finding out something about my muscles and my joints. The bright lines of light they shone on my legs and arms and chest must have told them something too, though I didn’t know what. Seeing all of this made some of the fear recede. At least for then. How could I not trust them? I was being looked after with a level-headed competence that made my struggles and fears seem childish. As they led me to a stall, it all smelled and looked familiar, a predictable end after each differently demanding day.
That night I slept well, curling up a bit in my den of soft pebbles and oddly safe in this strange but very well thought-out place.
– • –
The next morning I was ravenous again, impatient to reach the trough and something to eat. When I was finally brought there and my head fastened in place I dipped down and pushed and pressed half of my face into the warm mush and gobbled away like it was the last meal of my life. It was a little different then I remembered it, but just as good.
When the keeper unfastened me from the trough, he looked at my face and didn’t even bother to wipe me off. He turned me for a few others to look at me, and when they were done laughing, he just brought me out to my post and sprayed my face off with a hose as I stood there in the last orange glow of sunrise.
Again I waited and again the group of us changed as we stood there, with new subs brought out every little while and being claimed and led away by stablehands, masters and mistresses.
I was starting to see more details. I could see better now how some of us looked around, nervous and upset. I must have looked like that the day before and I probably still looked like that to the folks around me.
I also started to understand the pecking order. Even among human pets, even among naked and strapped up submissives, there were some who got the sunniest spots, got first access to the water sprays, carried themselves a little higher.
And I now started to figure out the tags. The older and more out of shape subs usually had a red stripe across their tags. I guessed that this barred them from heavy exertion. Some of the most muscular and a few others has silver or gold borders. And the subs available for hire, subject to use by anybody who came by, had tags with black and white checks.
In my harness, I could barely see down to look at my own tag. I certainly couldn’t read the writing, though I could tell that there was some. A green bar ran along the top, a narrow bit of red was in the bottom, but that was all I could see.
After about an hour, I was lead off and again harnessed to a carriage. This was yet a third design, more ornamented, painted in bright colors and with curved arabesques along the posts. I shouldn’t have been surprised when chains of bells were hung from my harness and more small bells hung from my reins.
I heard Joanne talking to someone behind me, with a lift in her voice and an early-morning crispness to her words. I heard her say something about a picnic, places to go. Then the now familiar bounce of the posts against my sides, the slack taken up in the reins, and we were off.
This time again, we stayed in town even longer, moving through streets with sizable buildings on either side and a regular bustle of traffic. She pulled me to a stop. I could just see the edges of a tall shadow, at least four stories and the sounds of any hotel front area, unusual only for the occasional crack of a whip or wet sound of a smack.
She tied me up there and went inside. Despite my having eaten earlier, the smells of more conventional food tantalized me. I could smell fresh bread, jam, coffee. The sounds of dishes and animated conversation nearby made me suspect that she had tied me up in front of the open windows of a restaurant. I could hear little scraps of jazz on the breeze, footsteps moving right past me, carriage wheels, cart wheels, and more and I wished I could turn to the side or pull down my blinders just for a second.
Reflexively, I kept pulling at the straps that held my wrists to my sides, trying to move my fingers in the hardened gel that imprisoned them or move my feet together until the hobble pulled tight. Sometimes it seemed far harder to lose these little things then to live as a slave. Pulling a cart all day, subject to punishment at any moment, naked and collared, all of these things I had expected. I had even experienced things a bit like them before, though always in private and never for more then an evening. But being so helpless, unable to even turn and look at an intriguing noise, unable to brush away a fly or a thistle, unable to feed myself or scratch an itch. Just as on the first day, these were the real humiliations. These were what really separated me from being a man.
When I heard Joanne’s voice again I straightened up, pulled myself upright in my harness. She showed no signs of noticing, untying me quickly, putting me in harness, chatting away with a small group of people and jumping into the seat behind me. A second bounce of the posts and a deeper voice behind me made it clear why she had chosen this larger carriage. She had brought along a date.
A crisp crack on my ass, a firm command, and we were on the way again. The load was definitely heavier now and I had to pull harder. Joanne kept me at a slow trot, so it wasn’t too hard but I remembered the afternoon before, when she had driven me to straight flat roads, and driven me as hard and fast as we could go, racing me along, whipping me hard, leaving welts all along my back and butt that were now tender and sore.
Pushed that hard today, loaded like this, I would stumble and fall and all I could do was hope that she didn’t decide to push me that hard again.
Beside me, pacing me, were two other carriages and a large cart. Joanne, the man with her, and the folks moving along with us called back and forth between them, laughing now and then. We stuck to a wide, easy road, smooth and with plenty of room for all of us. When we got further out into the country, my mistress pulled me back, leaving us following behind as they led the way into the rolling meadows and past the occasional driveway or edge of planted fields.
It wasn’t too long before we all pulled off to the side, where I was driven fifty feet or so into the grass, pulling the carriage behind me off the road and near a clear stream. It felt familiar now as my mistress fastened on hobble and leash, led me to a post, and fastened me there, with jug before me and just enough slack in the chain to let me lie down or sit as the time went by.
New to me, however, was having another ponyboy fastened to a post right nearby. A taller Asian guy, in his forties like me, kind of overweight, in a more elaborate harness that kept him hunched. But as we looked at each other I envied him immediately. He was free of blinders and his master actually talked to him and let him respond before fastening in a ball gag and walking away.
This last thing seemed to me an outrageous, almost scandalous liberty for him to be given. These few words, “yes, my lord.” “It doesn’t hurt today, my lord” were, in my jealous eyes, insubordinate, presumptuous, and most of all, unfair.
But with our rulers walking away, I found that I could find no way to communicate with the bound man beside me. Even through my anger at his unfair privilege, I still wanted to do something. For the first time in days I was close and able to interact with another of my caste. But what could I do? A bit in my mouth, a gag in his, I wasn’t even ready to move my head much for fear of dislodging the drinking tube that came out of my mouth.
So after a while we turned away from each other, ignoring each other, a decision that didn’t seem to bother him a bit.
Meanwhile, in the distance, I could see the picnic well underway with at least a dozen people eating on blankets, walking around, talking. The mounts of the other carriages had been unharnessed and, in a flexibility I hadn’t known possible in this place, were acting as servants, occasionally being sent to catch frisbees in their mouths.
The smells of wonderful food drifted over and I drooled a bit, leaving a mixed line of saliva and my jug’s fluid down my neck and chest.
The sounds of conversation left me frantic to join in, but I was learning over time that the only way to relax was to give in, to stop wishing for what I certainly wouldn’t get. When I was envious, frustrated, feeling kept away from a reasonable desire, I was miserable. But when I gave up, gave in for a while to the inevitable and let their words become meaningless sounds, I could lie back, watch the movements of an insect or a cloud or simply think of nothing at all, then it became a peaceful summer day. I was rested, nothing was expected of me, and I had no concerns at all.
Time passed by. I slept for a while. The sky got brighter, got darker. For a little while it even rained some, warm rain, and I lay there, naked under the warm drops, the metal of my harness cool against my skin, caring not at all. It had been two days already. Today was the third. In a few days we’d head home and, if I understood her remarks that morning, Joanne might even let me sleep in the hotel tonight. So despite all my fears, nothing had actually happened. I had been humbled and used, but I had expected that, in fact I had certainly asked for it.
The past few days had conditioned me into a level of unthinking obedience that I couldn’t have imagined a week before, but I trusted Joanne not to abuse her new power. It scared me that her voice now had a power over me like an owner’s over a well-trained dog, but what would this really mean back in our normal lives? If anything, it would sharpen our relationship back home.
A little after noon, most of the party drifted off, leaving just my mistress, a woman who she was talking to, and a man who seemed to wander off and back, searching the grass like a beachcomber looking for shells. Their servant was still over by them, in a brightly colored harness of some synthetic material that looked like climbing rope, with locks and clasps in sparkling painted colors.
Eventually Joanne came over and put me back in harness. She was in a mellow mood, relaxed and happy. If she hadn’t been wearing a sunhat I might have even been gifted with a look in the eye.
She talked to me as she put me in place, her speech a new mix of our old familiar topics and the gestures and comments that anybody would address to a horse or a pet. “So we’ll be back home soon, won’t we? Do you wonder if the Jenkins check will have shown up yet? I’ll be, oh down, boy, let me get this over your neck, there, good boy, I’ll be ready to start that up as soon as the deposit is in.”
“Been a pretty day so far. The rain was sweet. I always have loved summer day rainbows and you looked so cute when you wriggled afterwards.” “When we, sit, boy, good horsie, get back to town maybe I’ll have you pierced. I like the sound those bells on you make. Oh, don’t you give me that look. You knew I was thinking of it already and it’s only fair that I get a reminder of the trip on you to remember it by.”
“Scared you, hmm? Wondering what your clients would think if you started jingling all the time? Don’t know if you’d have to hold your four by five differently if your ears were pierced? Maybe I’ll get an itty bitty tattoo on your rear in the morning; watch you squirm in your seat on the way home tomorrow night.”
“There now, all done. Good Striper, that’s my sweetie, we’ll be back before you know it.” A minute later we were on our way, as I pulled hard to get our carriage out of the grass and back on the paved road. I could hear the other ponyboy not far behind us and the wheels of their carriage humming against the asphalt.
While Joanne’s comments left me full of concerns about what she now had in mind, it didn’t take long for her swift whip and her stern commands to bring me back to my increasingly accustomed placid servitude.
I wasn’t too long before our way widened and the other vehicle pulled alongside. Our ladies raced us along a straightaway and with only one person for me to pull, I did just fine. Then we settled into an easy, sustainable pace, my back warmed by the late day sun and the shadow of the occasional bird swooping across my vision. This carriage was more old-fashioned then the others I had been on, and it creaked and jangled as we went, almost seeming to mutter to itself beneath the sound of the many small bells that hung from it and from me.
As we made our way down the road I heard something new. A loud beeping was approaching and tires were almost screeching as one of those little electric cars pulled up alongside us and a loudspeaker called out, “Miz Polaski? J. Polaski? Sorry to interrupt, ma’am, but we’ve got an urgent message for you.”
She pulled me to a halt, as did the carriage alongside us. I was left there as I heard her get out and open the car door. She spoke to someone, turned, and walked over back towards me. She stopped almost in front of me and I could see that she was opening a letter and reading it.
“Oh, sugar. This is a problem. What am I to do? What am I to do?”
She looked at her letter and then at me. Then she took me by my head and addressed me directly.
“Sweetie, I’ve got to go back. Something has come up with a client and I’ve got to go right now. I’m going to leave you with Anna and straighten things out back home. She’ll take you to the stable and they’ll handle your paperwork, let you loose, and check you out from there.
Before I go, I’ll zero out your exit time with the concierge so you don’t get charged a fee if you leave early.”
“I’ll try to solve this and meet you later if I can. But I may have to run right out as soon as I get to town if I’ve got a real mess on my hands.”
“If I have to head to the East coast, well, I’ll see you in a few weeks.”
I heard her talk to the other woman, and I could feel her pat me on the head as she talked. Then she was gone. I heard the car door slam and the car drive away.
What could happen now? I was left standing there, still harnessed, still in the traces for the now abandoned carriage. Then the woman came around to where I could see her. “So, I guess that I’ve got to deal with you, hmm?”
“Don’t fret your pretty little head over it. I’ll just tie you up here and come back for you later. But first I’m going to enjoy my ride and I don’t know if I’ll be able to find a bike or if I’ll have to walk back out here. So you just be good and I’ll be back before you know it.”
Then she walked out of my vision and I felt her jump into my mistress’s seat and take up the reins. She wasn’t gentle or slow, whipping me at the slightest excuse, but soon we reached a clearing. There she hobbled me, tied my leash to the nearest post, left me some water, and walked away.
As I lay there, listening to the birds, watching squirrels and a rabbit go by, I tried to think about what my lady had said. If she were to order me to get pierced some way or other would I now obey her and do it anyway, even though we’ld be back in the normal world? Would I care if my clients found out? My neighbors? My family? It just didn’t seem real. Nothing outside of this valley seemed real. It was hours before Anna came back, with the sky a fading blue and the sound of her bicycle a very anticipated humming making its way up the road. The clacketa-clacketa of her shifting gears before she stopped seemed as loud as a thunderclap. The sound of her loading the bike on the carriage was a harsh succession of metallic crashes and thumps.
There was no nonsense in her manner as she tied me roughly and tight back in my place between the cart posts. A stumble on my part got me a cruelly painful lash from her crop. She mumbled under her breath as she got me ready. Oh, she said, she was just fed up with difficult favors demanded by a new acquaintance, her ruined day, my sloppiness, her lost time. She drove me hard on the way back into town and my chest was tight with pain by the time we were back on busy streets.
When we reached the stables, I could tell immediately that something was wrong. Anna just turned to walk away and they weren’t untying me, they were getting me ready for another night in a paddock.
I struggled, tried to speak. They switched me, shocked me, but I squirmed and tried to get them to understand.This was all a mistake.
In a few minutes I heard Anna’s voice as the stablehands tried to figure out what was wrong with me.
“No, he’s not mine; I’m just bringing him back.”
“So his dom will pick him up in the morning?”
“No, you’re not listening to me. He hasn’t got a dom. She left.”
“So, who’s in charge of him? His tag says…”
“Forget the fucking tag. That tag is wrong. Are you hearing me at all?”
“Here, I’ll show you. Look at his dom code and dial that room.”
“Okay, but you’re carrying the…”
“Just call it.”
“Sure. okay, that would be, yeah, uh, hey, wait a minute, this isn’t coming up as a valid dom code.”
“No kidding. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. He doesn’t have a dom here.
Not here. Understand? Not. Here. Get it? Just get rid of that tag and get him a new one, That one isn’t valid.”
Yes, ma’am. We’ll see to it. Should we call you when we’re done?”
“No, I’m leaving tomorrow and I wasted three very expensive hours just doing this much. You guys do what whatever you do in cases like this but don’t you call me. I wash my hands of the whole thing.”
I tried to pay attention to the rest but I had made such a ruckus when they had brought me in that they had drugged me with something. I was aching and sleepy and confused and when they led me to a paddock I didn’t even resist.
The next morning someone got me up and just put me back in the line. I kept waiting to be pulled out, let free, but they just washed me down, fed me, just like the days before. I pulled at my harness, tried to get someone to listen to me but the first smack hurt, the next time they jolted me with an electric prod, and the next they jolted me so hard that I fell to the ground crying.
The stablehand let me lie there and cry for a few minutes, gasping through the bit in my teeth, feeling my exposed skin and bound body as my sobs pulled all those straps tight and then loose against me. Then she pulled at my leash, brought me to my feet and led me out to be leashed to a post and hobbled.
My tears were drying and somehow I wasn’t even surprised when instead of somebody setting me free, a manager came out with a new tag for me and fastened it to my chest. I could see a bit of it if I looked down and while it still had a green stripe, a thin red line, half of it was now covered in black and white checks.
by R.H.W.