{"loaderData":{"4":{"story":{"id":"7ab37806-c47e-417f-8c18-ef6af55b1525","seriesId":null,"seriesName":null,"currentUserId":"00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000","added":"2023-04-01T06:02:45.574Z","title":"Breakfast at Tiffany’s","slug":"breakfast-at-tiffanys","shortId":"uL9Xy1Pe","authorNote":"I started this story, well more of a novella, in December when Shorterbus, on the Deviant Art site, kindly sent me a brief suggested scenario for a short story. Of course, as usual, I have written too much and probably been far too wordy, for which I make no apologies. I write primarily for personal amusement and entertainment, and if anyone else enjoys my jottings, fair enough! \n\nThis one has been on the back burner for a while, meaning I have kept chopping, changing, adding, deleting, and getting a little lost along the way! It’s become like an itch on a sore spot that should be left alone, yet you can’t resist picking at it! I know there are discrepancies, mistakes, typos and all sorts of errors, but I decided to stop picking. I will possibly return to it and do various edits in the future, but it kept me happy and amused, which is all I require. Cheers, and thanks for reading if you make it to the end!","disclaimer":"All right belong to the author.","type":"Short","paidUrl":null,"synopsis":"Society model becomes a ponygirl.","partCount":1,"parts":[{"partId":"f7e2fbe4-b7f9-43b2-aba2-daa1aee7ead9","title":null,"summary":"Breakfast at Tiffany’sMoon river, wider than a mileI'm crossing you in style some dayOh, dream maker","wordCount":36033,"readTime":180,"number":1,"state":"Published"}],"currentPart":1,"contentTitle":"Chapter 1","content":"

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Moon river, wider than a mile

I'm crossing you in style some day

Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way

\"Just a minute, Miss. I am sorry, I have been expecting\nyou, but I must check. They insist on it for everyone, even if I does know them\nby sight and name. No one gets in without a yes from someone up at the big\nhouse. It drives the delivery guy's loco, what with young Miss Tiffany\nsometimes ordering stuff nigh on daily from that Amazon or whatever! Leastways it used to till I telled her they\nmight as well have em drop it down here with me, and I’ll fetch it up later for\nem. Safer, eh!” Then he shook himself and muttered, “Talking too much again,\nladdie” He smiled apologetically,\ntouched his hand to his woolly cap respectfully, and rapidly tapped on his cell\nphone.

“No problem, and I’m sorry I’m late. I kept getting lost”\nKathy smiled, not overly impressed by the security and a little amused. Well,\nshe had expected something hardly surprising, wasn’t it and something she’d\nhave to get used to herself? After all, if you had it in abundance, you had to\nprotect it and yourself. Knowing what she knew about her fiancé’s wealth,\nmostly gossip, admittedly, but even so, had she arrived to find a drawbridge\nand moat complete with armed guards, she would not have been overly surprised.\nOne vague old guy in a shabby green woolly hat armed with a cell phone wouldn’t\nkeep a determined bunch of thugs out.

A moment later, she was waved through the big ornate double\ngates, giving the scruffy old guy a friendly wave to show that she was not the\nleast bit upset at the minor delay even if she was an important, no more than\nthat, a major VIP guest in capital letters. After all, that rather sweet old\nman with his somewhat old-fashioned mannerisms would be working for her soon.\nWas he an employee, a direct one, or did he work for a specialist company? No,\nsilly question. Way too old for that, nor was he wearing a badge or anything.\nNot unless a blue woolly cardigan with holes to match those in his tatty hat\ncounted! Perhaps he lived in that cute little cottage by the entrance.

Still, she’d have to make sure Roger thought more about\nsecurity. Bar a few cameras and an elderly butler plus a few other domestic\nstaff, there was not much else in evidence at his principal residence in\nLondon. Kidnaping was not an unknown crime, and having her fingers or ears\nposted one by one back to her new husband as a bit of encouragement did not\nappeal to her.

“Just follow the gravel road, ma’am”, the old gatekeeper had\nsaid, giving her another vague salute. “Take you right up to the house so it will.\nPark out front. Plenty of room; if you’re staying, I expect someone will take\nit around the back for you. Maybe even give it a wash and polish,” he’d\nchuckled, eyeing the hire car somewhat dubiously. Well, it had been in an\noutside lot, and apparently, it had rained a lot recently.

The drive from the small airport hadn’t helped it much\nappearance-wise either, nor had the sat nav in the car when it had twice taken\nher down ridiculous tracks, one of which had ended in a muddy farmyard.\nFortunately, the guy there had been very helpful, provided her with an old map,\nand noted down the correct route for her; otherwise, lord knows where she’d be\nnow! The road, if you could call it that, to get here hadn’t even featured on\nthe satnav, which she’d switched off after its continual urging to turn around!\nKathy had known the place was remote, isolated in the Scottish Highlands, but\nthis bordered a little on the absurd.

Why would anyone want to live here? Thank god Roger spent\nnearly all his time in that big London townhouse. Given the ridiculous property prices in the\ncapital, that building was probably worth more than this entire remote northern\nestate. Now a small private island in the Caribbean instead would be something,\nwouldn’t it? Especially in the cold season, and he could probably afford one.\nImagine spending part of the winter up here? Kathy glanced around at the\nspectacular if bleak scenery and shivered.

If it hadn’t been for his daughter, she’d have imagined it\nas some sort of tax avoidance scheme thing people like him always did. But no,\napparently, Tiffany, his young daughter, loved it up here and had spent most of\nher life at the ‘family castle’ as he’d laughingly termed it. Well, he wasn’t\nfar wrong, and one end of it had started life as one about six hundred years\nago, although most of it had gone incorporated into the many rebuilds and\nadditions to the present house—a modest twenty-two-bedroom dwelling! Complete,\nshe’d been told with all the essentials any self-respecting country house needed.\nHuge kitchen, billiard room, the smoking room now used as a TV room, library,\ndining room, two lounges plus a disused ballroom come small theatre and god\nknow what else.

Her older fiancée\nlaughed when telling her that she could join him on his next safari to the\ndarkest attic region where he’d never set foot. He’d had to repeat that one\ntwice till she twigged! Darkest\nAttic/Africa. Yes, very funny! Kathy had wondered if that silly joke was\ngenuine or a leg pull. Roger had admitted that the twenty-two rooms did include\nthose in the old servant quarter, some of which he’d added needed considerable\nrenovation.

He was based in London and spent nearly all his time there,\nand Kathy could not understand why he’d squandered a small fortune on this\nwhite elephant. Okay, so his young daughter, the apple of his ageing eye, just\nadored the place but even so! There were limits, and living out here would be\none of hers and a hard one at that. Kathy was a bright lights city girl,\nnightclubs, designer-label shops, expensive restaurants, West End theatres, a\nwitty circle of fashion and show-biz friends, and of course, the cameras of\nadmiring paparazzi.

For some unfathomable reason, he’d bought the place for his\nfirst wife, Tiffany’s mother. Why would the woman have wanted to live like some\nhermit recluse way out here? Why would anyone, for that matter, and how long\nwas this damn gravel drive? A question that answered itself as the enormous\nweathered grey granite building came into view as she rounded a wooded corner.\nHer first thought was ugly but impressive, and then, God, how much was the\nupkeep on a place like this, especially out in the sticks?

Not that many sticks were in sight among the barren, rugged\nhighland hills and distant mini mountains. Very uncool to a city gal like her!\nOkay, so Roger was rolling in money but still! Then she smiled to herself. If\nhe weren’t worried about this ancient heap, he would hardly bat an eye when she\nstarted seriously making inroads on an unlimited credit card balance for the\nwoman he professed to adore! Hell, if he’d bought this antique for his first\nwife, and that was way back when the zero’s at the end of his bank statement\nwere a lot fewer, maybe he could be persuaded to buy that island, just a little\none for her?

Not that she was greedy, of course, but necessity of late\nhad meant curbing her previous spending habits as income diminished both by\namount and frequency. Not quite an emergency stop on her financial journey, but\nthe helpful warning letter and a subsequent follow-up meeting with the\nfinancial advisor at her bank had initiated her applying the brakes somewhat\nsharply. Not quite an emergency stop, but not far off one.

Then providence had favoured her, and she’d met Roger. Kathy\nsmiled to herself at that thought. Let the good times roll once more as they\nhad until recently when worrying about her bank balance, and credit card bills\nhad not been the least bit problematic. She scowled as the thought turned sour,\nunlike the last twelve months or so now she came to think about it.

Just one fly remained in the ointment, one last hurdle,\npresumably the small one with vivid red hair standing outside the front door at\nthe top of a broad flight of shallow steps as she pulled up and applied the\nhandbrake. The old guy had said plenty of parking, well that was certainly\ntrue. There was not another vehicle anywhere and enough room for a small\nsupermarket parking lot, even with what looked like a giant fishpond complete\nwith a dormant fountain in the centre.

Kathy applied the parking brake and instinctively pulled\ndown the sun visor for a quick mirror check. First appearances were important.\nThat was the first lesson she’d learned in the modelling business when she was\nyounger than the smiling girl gracefully coming down the steps to meet her. The\nnext few minutes might be the most important of her future life, and Kathy\nfully intended that they would go well. She took one last lingering look and\nthen pushed the shade back into position, opened the car door, swung her long\nslim legs out, and exited with all the dignity she could muster.

Kathy knew Tiffany was eighteen, but only by a couple of\nweeks and surprisingly, there hadn’t been a big party or anything. Not quite\nher scene, Honey! Roger had laughed when she’d queried it with him, for, after\nall, Kathy was virtually the kid's stepmother, wasn’t she? Or rather stepmother\nin waiting. Stepmother elect even until the ceremony and civil bits were signed\nand settled. What was her scene then, she’d asked, feeling a little put-out,\nbut Roger had merely laughed as though at some huge joke and said, oh, no doubt\nwhen you two meet next week, she’ll confide in you, one way or another, he’d added\nwith a chuckle. I’m only her grumpy old man, mister moneybags, whereas I think\nshe’ll get on very well with you. He’d grinned at her over his brandy glass and\nadded that he wasn’t a complete sour puss, for he had arranged a rather special\npresent holding up a finger. No, wait and see. I’ll let her show you! Then he’d\nwinked at her relatively coarsely, she’d thought.

She was not upset at that wink or the belated invitation to\ndine, more relieved than anything. Roger\nhad been a little cold recently, a touch remote and somewhat distant for some\nunfathomable reason. Was he having second thoughts? Kathy had wondered\nanxiously. Was it the age difference, his daughter or something else? She’d\nbeen glad to join him the other evening, and he’d seemed much more his old\nself. He’d even apologised for his recent attitude, something on his mind but\nnow settled. That’s why Kathy had been so happy to see that strangely amused\nwink, even if it was so out of character.

Stepmother, what a horrid term, like spinster or great aunt\nand similar, Kathy thought, with an inherent age element inbuilt! Of course,\nage was the potential pitfall in what might otherwise have been a smooth road\nto riches hitherto undreamed for a simple but beautiful girl who’d grown up in\na local authority care home. The polite, politically acceptable modern term for\nan orphanage! Besides, she truly did like Roger even if he was twice her age\nplus a bit and had a little problem for an aspiring bridegroom. Two little\nproblems, in fact! One was size, where it counted, and the other was that the\nViagra pills didn’t always work, and even when they did, age combined with size\ndidn’t make for a very satisfying sexual union. Not for her anyway, plus she\nusually had to work him hard with her mouth to achieve full erection such as it\nwas, and she hated doing that. Not that he was tiny, but she did prefer her\nbedmates to be more stallion sized than pony!

At least he didn’t fire blanks, although the chances of her\ngetting a fat belly, to put it crudely, were pretty slim, but that didn’t worry\nher. Kathy was a sensual girl who liked her rumpy pumpy regularly and liked it\ndeep, hard and prolonged. Poor Roger\nfailed on all three counts, and all too often, when he was primed and loaded,\ntended to pull the trigger way too early. Hell, that last time, he was hardly\nthrough the front door when he let loose—not very satisfying for a woman like\nher, especially after all the effort her tongue had put into coaxing his little\nbunny to stand to attention!

Kathy was twenty-seven years old, a model, actress, singer,\ncelebrity and entertainer, or so it would have been stated on her CV had she\nbeen bothered enough to create one. A successful(ish) model who’d graced the\npages of many top magazines, some more than once and even a couple of covers.\nShe’d never managed to wear a set of angel wings for Victoria's Secret's show,\nbut she’d strutted her stuff along a fair few other catwalks in various capital\ncities. The additional credentials on that non-existent CV being somewhat sparser.\nShe’d once done the rounds on TV talk and game shows and appeared in a\nshort-lived TV series, very short-lived for only the first three of six\nepisodes had aired to terrible reviews. She had a few minor movie credits and a\ntentative record deal that bombed right after her second session in the\nrecording studio when they’d triggered the release clause.

On the plus side, she’d always worked clean, as she put it,\nnever once flashing her bare boobs at a camera lens nor shown anything worse\nand had no time whatsoever for those sluts that did. Anyway, that sort of thing\nhad dried up these days! There was way too much hard porn freely available out\nthere on the internet, so what few glossy top-shelf magazines remained were\nstruggling. Of course, Kathy didn't count all the skimpy costume and micro\nbikini stuff she’d done as being in the same category. But she was proud of\nnever having shown a single nipple, lots of outlines, of course, under tight\nbraless clothing but never so much a glimpse of a single bare nipple.\nSuggestive poses, yes, far too many to count, but nothing she was ashamed of,\nso far, anyway!

That last part was the worry. She’d had a great life from\nall the excitement of being a wide-eyed sixteen-year-old newcomer escorted\naround her first shoots by old Mrs Martin, her house mother from the care home.\nApparently, Mrs M had been quite a stunner in her younger days, and her old\ncontacts had given Kathy a firm footing in the cut-throat modelling business.\nLater a confident twenty-year-old with a bevvy of handsome, well-endowed\nadmirers in tow and a great social life. Twenty-two going on twenty-three and\nfeeling on top of the world with a relatively healthy bank balance and\neverything she could wish for, well, not quite everything, so she’d bought more\nand more a tad too recklessly.

Yeah, not quite everything summed things up these days as\ndid recklessly! Like having a not-so-healthy-looking bank balance these days as\nshe’d waved goodbye to her twenty-sixth year sitting at home alone watching a\ndismal movie on TV rather than partying the night away. The following morning she’d said hello to the\nnext rung on the ladder leading all too rapidly to her thirties while looking\nat her reflection in the bathroom mirror. The growing laughter lines seemed\njust a tad deeper, the skin sallower while her eyes no longer seemed to have\nthat same sparkle nor her blonde hair that natural lustre. Imagination or\nperhaps not!

Mrs Martin had warned her, hadn’t she years ago. Remember\nthe three F’s of fame she’d told Kathy as they caught the tube home one\nafternoon after her fourth or fifth photo shoot. False, fickle and fleeting\nunless you’re someone of great and lasting importance. Keep that in mind, and\ndon’t get carried away now that you’ve had your picture taken a few times and\ncollected a few nice cheques. Good\nadvice and promptly forgotten by an excited sixteen-year-old until recently!

Twenty-seven wasn’t old, was it, and yet what did she have\nto show for the previous ten years or so? Security for her old age, no! Not\neven for what seemed to be rapidly approaching middle age. A wardrobe room full\nof ultra-expensive clothes and shoes, most of which she’d only worn once, and\nall the designer bags, shoes, and accessories that had gone with the lifestyle,\nyes! Now only worth a fraction of what she’d so carelessly paid originally. A\nrented flat that was becoming ever more unaffordable, and that was after\ndownsizing last year! Thinking of ladders, why the hell hadn’t she done what\nthat financial investor Mrs M had taken her to see yonks back advised? He’d\nsuggested she sink some of her earnings into property, so at least she might\nhave had her own place now and a foot on the property ladder, maybe higher than\nthe bottom rung!

Worse, if she wanted to stay mobile, she’d have to shell out\nnow for a cheap little family hatchback or resort to public transport. As of\nlast week, the sexy white BMW coupe, the second one she’d had for free and\nunlimited use, had been reclaimed by the dealer. The present financial\nsituation, they’d told her with suitable apologies. Unavoidable, given rising\ncosts. They hadn’t added that they’d noted her regular attendance with said car\nat society and other prestigious events seemed to have taken a steep nosedive\nof late.

Oh, yes, they’d been very apologetic, and then the two-faced\nlying bastards had promptly lent another one to that over-painted teenage\nstrumpet who was a talentless nobody! A fucking influencer on social media, as\nif that meant she was someone special. Shit, even the tan was false, just like\nthe nails, the boobs, the eyelashes and the injected oversized lips. Hell, the\nbrat might be old enough to pout sexily at a camera on YouTube, but she wasn’t\neven old enough to legally fuck let alone drive the damn car, so her moronic\nover painted mother would have to do it for her!

Now she was a stepmother in waiting to a similarly aged brat.\nWell, okay, so Tiffany was a couple of years older. Old enough to drive her car\nand to legally fuck an adult without being considered jailbait, old enough by a\ncouple of weeks now to vote or sink a vodka and lemon in a pub legally. Kathy repeatedly reminded herself of what\nshe’d been like at the age and with money to burn and cringed inwardly at the\nmemory. Poor Mrs M, if only she’d stayed around a bit longer before cancer had\nso swiftly taken her!

Kathy had been having these glum thoughts ever since her\nuncelebrated birthday, and most of the flight to that tiny airport had been\nalong similar lines. Why hadn’t she put\nsome of her money into property, shares, or whatever? Well. She hadn’t, and\nshe’d ridden the gravy train full pelt until it hit the buffers and thrown her\noff. It hadn’t quite happened like that. Decay and deterioration didn’t occur\novernight, but looking back, she should have recognised the signs and, like\nmany others, hadn’t till too late. She was only twenty-seven and could pass for\na few years younger if she worked on her face and the lighting wasn’t too\nharsh.

She could fool herself and others, but not those in the\nbusiness. Her phone no longer rang\nanything like as often as it once had. The time when she could pick and choose\nthe jobs her agency had was gone, and jobs available for her were becoming\nrarer and far less lucrative. She'd laughed at the last one and tossed it\nstraight back at them. Three days of work modelling for cardigan and sweater\nknitting patterns! Perhaps not the best move she could have made in rejecting\nit given the pressing need for penny counting, so thank heavens for Roger.\nJesus fucking Christ. Twenty-seven and was she already over the hill, a has\nbeen. No way!

It wasn’t just the work that had seemingly evaporated almost\novernight, just like the contents of her bank account, but her social life had\nfollowed suit. The invitations had dried up for public events, and to the more\nprestigious private parties and the like, which had once deemed her attendance essential.\nOnly now did she realise she’d merely been part of the décor. A replacement for\nanother pretty face of the moment to be replaced in a few years by\nsimilar. Nor it seemed was her presence\nneeded or required anymore to grace a red carpet at those award ceremonies\nshe’d thought a permanent fixture in her annual calendar. She’d even sunk to\nauditioning for a hostess job on a third-rate afternoon games show, sugar and\nshitty spice! How low was that, and she hadn’t even been offered that? They’d given it to another overpainted buxom\nbimbo just because she had a billion followers on Tik Tok or something!

Oh, she still went out, of course. She still had friends or\nperhaps old acquaintances and plenty of numbers in her phone if she needed male\ncompany for the evening and some horizontal entertainment later, although not\nnearly as many as she’d once had. Once upon a time, they had rung her. Now, if\nshe called them, it was somewhat risky as unexpected wives and partners\nsometimes answered, even on one embarrassing occasion, a kid had gone to find\ndaddy! Her world seemed to have moved on without her noticing or needing her.\nKathy also suspected word had gone around, so perhaps she was even regarded as\na potential liability these days by her casual old flames who’d also moved on!

Then thank God, three and a half months ago, the cavalry had\nridden to her rescue in the shape of Roger. Tall, tanned, lean, ruggedly\nhandsome and loaded. The fact that he was twice her age plus was irrelevant,\ngiven his boundless energy and zest for life. Ironically, he made her feel old,\nfor it was like having a relationship with an over-enthusiastic teenager or a\nnewly acquired demanding puppy. If he had one failing, it was that latter\naspect of his personality. The demanding part for he could be terribly tedious,\neven possessive.

Her makeup had to be just so likewise the outfits she wore,\neven her damn hemline. Heels were out, as was excess jewellery, particularly\nearrings. He also had an annoying habit of calling her at awkward moments to\ncheck that she was alright. It was very sweet of him but still bloody awkward\nat times. Her last bedmate hadn’t questioned for one second that it was her\nagent calling that late, but the hunk she’d picked up had been very sweet,\nnaive and well-hung! The latter making\nup for the void between his ears. The sex had been so heavenly that she’d\nforgotten all about it by the following morning. Once a wedding band had joined\nthe huge diamond engagement cluster on her finger, there would have to be a few\nchanges, mainly for Roger. Kathy would\nput her foot down firmly on the threshold before allowing herself to be carried\nany further!

Had he become worse of late, or was that her imagination,\nand he hadn’t batted an eyelid the other night over dinner when she’d told him\nabout the fucking car dealership? Hell, she’d been at her most winsome, hadn’t\nshe and far from promptly promising to escort her to the nearest expensive car\nshowroom the following day, all he’d done was mutter something about it being\nawkward for her and then attracted the waiter's attention and complained very\npolitely about his lobster tasting a little odd to his palate! Very strange and\nunsympathetic behaviour!

“My, you managed to miss the front door by a fair old way!”\nTiffany smiled and held out her hand as Kathy walked to meet her. Perfectly\ntrue, for her mind had still been on other things, and she’d driven straight\npast and pulled in a good distance away. She’d realised that as soon as she\nyanked on the handbrake but decided that reversing out and manoeuvring closer\nwould have made her look even more foolish.

“I’m a lousy parker, plus I need the exercise,” Kathy said\nand then laughed, “Well, truth to tell, my mind was on other things!”

Tiffany laughed and said. “Wait till you see me in a\nsupermarket car park, especially in reverse! Well, you got here. Mrs McCreadie\nwill rustle up a hot drink with a wee drop of something extra in it if I know\nher. She’s the cook come housekeeper. She has been here for years and\nyears. Don't worry about your luggage;\njust let her have your keys, and Bob will sort it out. He’s her husband, our\ngardener and odd-job man—no need to worry. I think the last criminal type we\nhad around here was hung for sheep stealing in the mid seventeen hundreds, so\nhalf the time, we don’t even bother locking the doors. Well, some we certainly\ndo, she corrected herself with a girlish little giggle. “Welcome to Loch Doune\nHouse. Don’t ask about the loch bit; no\none knows where that came from, given the nearest one is miles away and not\neven called that anyway!” she laughed, taking Kathy’s left arm and steering her\ntowards the steps and into the big house.

Two drifters, off to see the world

There's such a lot of world to see

Kathy half unpacked her suitcase, then changed her mind and\nwent to the big window. She could see her car looking lonely and forlorn in\nthat big empty area in front of the house. She'd followed some of that winding,\nbumpy gravel road, well track, and right down there, the small cottage by what\nmust be the main gate. Rolling hills, mountains most with a light dusting of\nsnow on top to one side and wild-looking open spaces of moorland on the other.\nRemote probably wasn’t a strong enough word to describe the vista. Pretty\nenough to enjoy on a short visit, but to a sociable, bright lights-loving city\ngal, the shorter the stay, the better! At least Roger had the big London\ntownhouse, and even if he wasn’t interested in buying a little island, he could\nafford a couple of first-class tickets to somewhere warm every winter rather\nthan here!

Actually, it was surprisingly warm despite the cold, austere\nappearance of the old house. Inside, it wasn’t as big as it appeared from the\noutside, and although some of the rooms and contents looked as though they\nbelonged to another era, another century, those that seemed in regular use were\nless grand, more homely even cosy. Tiffany had said they were virtually\nself-sufficient. You couldn’t see them from the front, but the other side of\nthe roof was covered in solar panels, plus they had their own little wind farm\nin a field out the back. Everything was electric now, whereas before, they’d\nhad to use a ton of oil for the heating, which was a pain. Too near the stable\nwhen they had to refill the oil tank, Tiffany had muttered half to herself and\nthen laughed. I don’t want my ponies\ngetting scared by the disturbance from a noisy tanker, do I? Now hardly anybody\nfrom the outside, as she oddly termed it, needed to visit.

Tiffany wasn’t quite what Kathy had been expecting. The girl\nonly turned eighteen recently but was very mature, which she found somewhat\nunsettling for no reason she could identify—just a kind of inner feeling.\nPretty enough to be an acceptable entrant for a beauty contest, although\nwinning a prize might depend on the competition! Nor would she have gone very\nfar in Kathy’s chosen cut-throat profession. Too petite for one thing and far\ntoo wholesome. Cute would be a better way of describing the girl. Cute with a rather\nserious adult attitude about her.

Long wavy red hair along with the traditional milky white\nskin and freckles many redheads have, and wasn’t bonnie Scotland one of those\ncountries that traditionally produced more red-headed lassies than most? The girl\nseemed friendly, although Kathy was intuitive enough to know that might not be\nthe case if you got on the wrong side of the self-assured young miss. She’d\nalready made that mistake just after they’d passed through the big front door\ninto the massive entrance hall.

She’d rather foolishly said something about ‘hoping they’d\nsoon become great friends’ or words to that effect, which sounded rather crass\nnow she rewound things in her mind, not to mention being somewhat lacking in\noriginality. Her tone probably helped, either! Why hadn’t she thought more\nabout a suitable introductory icebreaker as she travelled North rather than\ndwelling on her other problems? Her mind momentarily blanked out the beautiful\nhighland view and switched into replay mode.

Tiffany had spun on her heel, stood for a second hand on\njodhpur-clad hips, and regarded her coldly through those serious green eyes.\nEven in her fashionable riding boots, the girl probably didn’t stand five foot\nthree, but she seemed far bigger at that moment. “I’m not a child, Kathy, so\nplease don’t treat me like one. Let’s get that straight right away” then she\nlaughed, tossed that glorious head of flowing red hair, and clapped her hands.\n“I get enough of that from dear old darling daddykins”.

The hand claps resulted in a motherly-looking rotund\ngrey-haired woman, perhaps mid-sixties or so, wearing a frilly flower-patterned\napron hurrying into the hall. She flashed a benign motherly smile at Tiffany,\nbriefly dropped one knee into something resembling a cross between a curtsy and\na simple bob towards Kathy, perhaps in acknowledgement of the new household\nmistress, and promptly disappeared. Tiffany waved one arm toward an open door\nand led her into a small, comfortably furnished lounge with a real log fire blazing\naway and a small flat-screen TV perched in one corner. Oh, well, Roger had told\nher he had a huge one in a special room mainly for watching sports, not that\nKathy was an avid regular viewer, but there were certain reality shows she\nenjoyed.

She’d been offered\nthe opportunity to appear in several when she was younger but had turned them\ndown on the advice of her agency. Perhaps a mistake now as some of the pretty\nfaces had made it big, or biggish, hadn’t they? There was a large signed\nblack-and-white framed photo on a silver plate next to the television featuring\na pretty elegant woman in a black dress and long evening gloves, a tiara and a\ndiamond necklace who looked familiar, but the name escaped her.

“Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the movie”, Tiffany\nhad said, handing over a large and chunky-looking mug with a wee bit extra in\nto warm her up as the housekeeper had whispered. The woman had reappeared\nalmost instantly, bearing the tray with the steaming mugs and some delicious\nhomemade Scottish shortcake biscuits. “My mother’s favourite film, lordy, how\nmany times did I hear the theme tune, Moon River, when I was a kid!” she had\nlaughed.

“No need to ask about your name then”, Kathy chuckled.

“Nope, none at all. Apparently, daddy wanted to call me\nMoira after mummy. A good old Scottish name and his aunt and grandmother had\nbeen called that, middle name in the latter case.” She nibbled on a biscuit\nshowing small beautiful white teeth and giggled. “Mummy had different ideas on\nthe subject, and anything mummy wanted, mummy got, always! Poor daddy, more\ndevoted slave, I think, than husband!”

Kathy had nodded sympathetically. “I know, your father, er,\nwell he…” she trailed off, unsure how to finish what she wanted to say.

Tiffany sighed sadly. “Yes, I know, just a few weeks short\nof my eleventh birthday. That had been a very special one because Mummy bought me my second pony, the one I’d\nso been looking forward to” she shrugged and looked way younger and vulnerable\nfor a moment but only for the merest fraction of a second. “I still have them\nboth, but I wish she could have been there to share the moment. Daddy was, and\nSammie, of course, but it wasn’t the same without her to help with it”.

Kathy repeated the sympathetic nod. “I’m sure Roger, I mean\nyour father tried to be a good stand in” She’d been about to ask who Sammie was\nbut to her surprise, Tiffany had burst out laughing.

“Stand in, daddy, at the stable!” the girl chuckled as\nthough at a huge joke. “No, no, no, not back then! That was always mummy’s\nlittle empire, not that he begrudged her hobby. Apparently, it took him a fair\nold while to adapt, but like I said before. Anything mummy wanted, mummy got”\nshe paused and shrugged again. “Of course, it’s different nowadays, as he’s not\nso focused on making a ton of money every day, and he’s become quite partial to\nvisiting the livestock, some of them anyway”, she laughed and added. “He flies up frequently nowadays, most\nweekends unless he’s abroad making more money.”

Kathy frowned at that. Most weekends wasn’t what she had in\nmind—visiting once or twice a year and briefly, maybe! “Flies up”, she queried.

Tiffany nodded, helping herself to another biscuit after\nfirst politely offering the plate to Kathy, who declined. Her bathroom scales\nhad also recently joined the apparent coalition against her, and those\ndelicious-looking biscuits probably contained a ton of butter.

“Helicopter, sorry”, Tiffany apologised, wiping her mouth.\n“He’s got one of his own. I’m sorry if I’d waited a week before inviting you up\nhere, you could have used that, but it’s in for servicing or having some\nessential new widget fitted, no doubt at great expense, which will be better\nthan whatever widget it replaced. It costs a fortune to run, and he’s always\nmoaning about that, then uses the thing as though it were a bicycle. You know\nhe’s even sent the pilot over to the airport on a Sunday morning before now just\nto get the Sunday newspapers! Shit, you know how much those things cost in\nfuel!”

Kathy blinked at that. True, Roger was generous and\nextravagant, even a touch flamboyant, but she knew he also had a reputation for\nbeing miserly. Kathy glanced automatically at the cluster of diamonds on the\nengagement ring he’d given her as he proposed over the dinner table. It must\nhave cost a fortune, her first thought, and then, of course, she had that\nsurreptitiously confirmed at a Bond Street jeweller the following day. Then\nthat same evening, he’d embarrassed her by making a fuss about a minor error on\nthe dinner bill! She moved her hand as she noted Tiffany also looking at her\nring with something of a scowl that quickly morphed into a smile as she caught\nKathy’s eye.

“You didn’t know about that?”

Kathy shook her head. “No, he never mentioned it, not once.\nI didn’t even know he had one!” She said a touch indignantly and frowned. How\nmuch easier would her journey have been, the latter stage anyway! Was Roger\nhaving second thoughts? He had been a little distant and reserved of late, plus\nshe hadn’t seen him for nearly a fortnight till the other evening. That in\nitself was a little strange, given how attentive he’d been earlier in their\ngrowing relationship. A little too attentive at times, she reminded herself,\nthinking of those times she’d had to give him the brush off to satisfy her\nother needs.

In addition, she was still smarting about her car. Given what he’d splashed out on that ring,\nwhat would it have cost him to provide her with a new set of wheels befitting\nher status rather than the cheap third-hand hairdresser’s runabout she had her\neye on in a local garage through sheer necessity?

“Bad trip?” Tiffany inquired, breaking her train of thought.

“I’ve had better. Early taxi to the airport, and it was\ncrowded for that time in the morning. I couldn’t believe it, heaving! Everyone\nflying South on cheapo package holidays to the Spanish sun, and hardly anyone\nheading North like me. Bars and restaurants packed. How can people drink like\nthat at that time in the morning? The flight wasn’t too bad for that airline,\nbut as you told me on the phone, they are the only one that regularly flies\ninto that tiny airport from London. Then there was that primitive hire car\nbooth with a moronic attendant. No automatics, of course, so I spent the first\nhalf hour ruining the gearbox and then trying to find this place. It didn’t\nlike that SatNav setting you suggested either!” Kathy threw her hand up and\nthen wished she hadn’t as a strange dizzy feeling suddenly hit her, making her\nblink several times in surprise.

“Are you all right?”

Kathy shook herself. “Yes, fine. Just a little light-headed.\nProbably the trip, early start, lack of sleep and worrying about getting lost\non the way here. Maybe a bit of excitement as well. No big deal” she shook her\nhead, trying to clear it. Strangely, she felt a bit funny, like when she’d\nfainted getting up. That had happened twice after watching TV. Low blood\npressure and then sudden energetic movement, her doctor had said and didn’t\nappear overly concerned about it. Kathy had been, but it had only happened\ntwice, and that was years ago now. Still, she did feel vaguely odd.

Tiffany nodded sympathetically. “My fault. I should have\narranged for someone to meet you. I tend to forget how isolated we are here and\nhow bad the local roads are. Still, I expect you met a few of the locals!” her\nface twitched into that curious little smile again.

“I should say so. I must have stopped at least half a dozen\ntimes to ask for directions. Isolated is right! Kathy stopped in surprise. “But\nyou don’t live here all the time, surely?” she was astonished. Yes, maybe it\nwas picturesque in a sort of rugged way, but to live here all year round,\nespecially for a young girl. The large house had spent most of the last two\ncenturies hosting seasonal grouse shooting parties till its absentee\ndebt-ridden titled owner decided to sell it off along with other sizeable\nchunks of his rarely visited highland estate. At least, that’s what Roger had\ntold her.

Tiffany laughed. “Why not? Home is where the heart is, or so\nthey say. I’ve lived here full-time, except for boarding school, but I quit\nthat when I was fourteen. Daddy fixed it up. Home-schooling and Sammie tutored.\nShe used to be a teacher, a friend of mummies who accepted a job here way back\nwhen I was a kid. Besides, I’m not a thicky. I did pretty well in my exams last\nyear. All A’s and only one B. Could have done better in that last one if I’d\ntried harder, but it was my weakest subject”.

Kathy shook her head in amazement. “But don’t you find it, I\nmean”, she waved a hand towards a window. “I mean, surely you must get bored\nliving way out here” She was going to add in the sticks but decided not to at\nthe last moment. “I mean, what on earth do you do all day?”

Tiffany smiled and shook her head. “No, I can’t recall ever\nbeing bored. Anyway, we're hardly a thousand miles from civilisation. How long\ndid it take you to get here? A few hours even if you did get lost a few times,\nI expect”.

“More than a few”, Kathy muttered irritably.

“My fault, but no, I never get bored. I had my schoolwork,\nand I plan on doing a degree, and maybe I will go away for that,” Tiffany\nmused. “Terms are relatively short and holidays long at Uni, but I’ll have to see\nhow I feel. I’m going to give myself a year to think about it. A sort of non-gap, gap year without\nbackpacking halfway around the world! \nI’ll almost certainly do something, but maybe opt for the Open\nUniversity correspondence stuff. I would miss my ponies if I went away, which\nis my main numero uno interest and running the place for Daddy. Plus, I enjoy\nhelping Bob around the house, and there is always plenty to do in a place this\nsize and age, never mind the stable and outbuildings. I’m pretty hot, you know,\nwith a toolbox or an electric drill,” she paused and giggled.

“Everything bar\nelectricals. Daddy said no to that. Carpentry, plumbing, painting, plastering,\nwallpapering, you name it but nothing electrical. I had to promise him that.\nAfter all, a dripping tap or a roll of wallpaper isn’t likely to kill me, but\nelectrics are a wee bit trickier!” the girl stopped abruptly, put a finger to\nher lips, and acted, making her look about six years younger. “Maybe I could\neven do an apprenticeship in the building trade. Did you know that Winson\nChurchill was a member of the Amalgamated Union of Bricklayers and built his\nown brick walls around his country house because he found it therapeutic?”

No, she didn’t, Kathy thought, responding with a neutral\ngrunt. Tiffany was not what she’d expected, not one bit, and she wasn’t\nentirely sure what her approach should be. Big sister, maybe? She searched for\nan entry hook and found one.

“You keep horses; you like riding.” Kathy smiled. “I’m not\nall that knowledgeable on the subject, I’m afraid” she shook her head again to\nclear that fuzzy feeling and frowned. Why did she feel like that? “I’ve been to\na few race meetings and once visited a racing stable and stud farm. I’ve never\nseen so many horses!”

She didn’t add that she’d found the race meeting and the\nstud farm boring. She’d only gone to the other race meetings because they\nattracted the right social set, and it was good to be seen with them and\nphotographed for the society glossies, especially with her sporty white BMW.\nQuaffing a few glasses of champers and eating a picnic out of the boot with\nB-list showbiz types, even some A-listers went down well with the dealership\nwhen they saw the photos in the media. \nBesides that, she couldn’t get worked up about the business; even the\nbetting left her cold, and all the horses looked virtually identical, apart\nfrom the odd grey or black one. Growing up in the care home, Kathy had never\nowned a pet; to her, the horses were merely big, potentially dangerous and\ndistinctly smelly oversized and over-pampered pets.

“My main interest” Tiffany selected her third biscuit, took\na bite and chewed thoughtfully, looking at Kathy. “Your one up on me. I’ve\nnever been to a stud farm, but I remember it was something mummy and Sammie discussed\nbefore…before the accident.” Her eyes suddenly widened as if another thought\nhad suddenly occurred to her, and she gazed into the distance for a moment and\nthen back to Kathy” Interesting”, she muttered, wiping a few biscuit crumbs off\nher lips. “I hadn’t even thought about that potential aspect!”

Kathy blinked partly because of what Tiffany had said and\npartly because...what the hell was wrong with her head? “Interesting?”

“Oh, nothing” Tiffany smiled. “Just something I hadn’t\nconsidered. It just popped into my mind. Look, why don’t you head upstairs?\nI’ll show you to your room, freshen up a bit and then pop back down—no need to\nchange. Informality is the general rule, and dinner will be a while yet. I\nshowed you those big rooms off the hall before we sat down, so now, we can walk\naround the rear gardens, and I’ll show you my pride and joy, the stable. You\nlook as though a whiff of fresh air wouldn’t go amiss!”

“The horses” Kathy did not precisely say it as she felt, but\nshe was aware that her reply lacked enthusiasm. In fact, she didn’t feel terribly\nenthusiastic about anything, but having just arrived and given the potential\ndelicacy of the situation, taking a little afternoon nap right now might seem\nlike some sort of a slur or similar insult. Tiffany seemed friendly enough, at\nleast on the surface, but how deep did that surface go?

Tiffany laughed. “Sort of horses. I tend to specialise more\nin ponies. At least, that is the accepted term for them. Big old Thundercloud,\nmummy’s handsome grey stallion, is very much in the horse category. I’ve had him for years. Mummy bought him\nyears ago when he was young Thundercloud back then. Come on, upsy-daisy!” she\ngrinned, launched herself out of her chair, pulled Kathy upright, and steadied\nher as she staggered slightly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Kathy nodded; the prospect of that nap seemed ever more\nattractive, but no. “Fine, just a little lightheaded. I was up early, skipped\nbreakfast, and did not sleep much last night with the excitement of coming.\nI’ll be fine. A bit of fresh air is probably just what I need right now!”

We're after the same rainbow's end, waitin' 'round the\nbend

My huckleberry friend, moon river, and me

There was a soft knock on the door so soft that Kathy half\nmissed it the first time. She was frowning thinking about it as though she\ndidn’t know how to respond when it came again a little louder, and then the\ndoor slowly opened, and a head peered cautiously around. A comic-looking,\nalmost clownish head with a big pair of thick-rimmed black spectacles, a\npointed goatee beard and a bald head save for two pyramid-shaped tufts of hair\nsticking out at matching angles above each ear that effectively mimicked that\nsilly goatee.

“Sorry, Ma’am, but I knocked several times. I’m Bob. I brung\nyour bags up earlier from the car. Miss Tiffany is waiting on you downstairs in\nthe big hall. Sorry for interrupting\nyou!” The head politely withdrew.

Kathy shook her head for the umpteenth time. Knocked several\ntimes? Had she actually fallen asleep, she silently asked the familiar figure\nlooking back at her from the dressing table mirror. How could she have done for\nthe bed was untouched? She’d washed her face and hands, freshening herself up\nas Tiffany had suggested and then set about repairing her face. Something that\nhad become habitual over the last what, ten, eleven years if the product on\nview was to remain saleable. But then was it. Did she look so much different\nthese days, or was it, as her friend Jodie had said a few weeks back? ‘Look,\nKathy, when you and I started, there were those that thought sixteen was on the\nyoung side. Hell, now we have twelve-year-olds running popular fashion and\ncosmetic YouTube channels’.

Maybe she should have done what Jodie had done, married a\npremier league footballer with a five-figure weekly salary and quit the\nbusiness three years ago. But she had been having far too much fun even to\nconsider doing that. Nor had there been a shortage of well-endowed bedmates to\nextend her entertainment into the small hours!

Kathy had been maid of honour at the swish showbiz-like\nwedding, but she’d thought her friend's early retirement foolish at the time.\nNow, Jodie had a massive six-bedroom house complete with swimming pool, a\ngarage full of luxury motors, two adorable kids and hubby was good for a few\nmore years earning that insane weekly salary. Who had been the fool? Kathy\nstood up, waited a few seconds for that persistent dizzy feeling to wear off\nand then headed for the door. Inner ear, she wondered, another of those\ninfections like she and two other girls picked up from that suspect swimming\npool in Malaga the other year?

She went to the bathroom looking for a tooth mug or glass,\nfound one, rinsed it, and drank cold water. Her mouth also had a funny taste\nthat seemed to have gotten stronger despite the water. The housekeeper Mrs,\nwhatever her name, had asked hot chocolate, tea or coffee. Kathy had opted for\nthe chocolate on a whim, it being years since she’d last had any. With a laugh,\nthe woman said a wee drop of something extra to keep a skinny wee bairn like\nyou warm after your long cold journey. Yeah, she’d tasted that, a drop of\nScotland’s finest, no doubt, but the local distillery wouldn’t get many repeat\nexport orders if this were the after-effect.

Anyway, it wasn’t that cold and hardly a long journey\neither. Kathy thought it wasn’t as if she’d trekked to the north pole,\nrummaging through her three cases to find a scarf and wind it around her neck.\nShe even grinned, for she’d noticed that slight inflection in Bob’s voice when\nhe said bags. He obviously didn’t understand why someone like her required\nthree large suitcases for a simple weekend away!

‘A drop of something to warm up the wee bairn, the housekeep\nhad said. Well, I’m hardly a wee bairn, she thought as she left the room,\nmentally translating the woman’s Scottish brogue into English. Twenty-seven\nyears old and five feet ten and a half in her stocking feet. Neither small nor\na child! They said five-nine was the desirable height for a model, precisely\nwhat Kathy had been at age sixteen. That’s why all those big-boobed pint-sized\nteenage wannabe’s ended up flashing said boobs for a living rather than\nstrutting catwalks in Milan or Paris!

Kathy paused at a turn in the impressive staircase to look\nat a huge picture, an oil painting she had somehow missed going up. Tiffany was\nwaiting by the front door, but she had her back to her, clutching a cell phone\nto her ear. It was an enormous portrait of a woman mounted on a large grey\nhorse. Kathy knew nothing about art, but whoever had painted this one had\ncaught both movement and action to the degree that made you think you saw\nmovement. Very clever and skilful.

The horse was rearing its front legs in the air while the\nwoman in traditional red-coated riding dress was half-turned in the saddle,\nswinging a long slender riding whip downwards. You could almost see the\nmovement of those legs and that swinging switch. A small engraved brass title plate was at the\nbottom of the frame. ‘Mastering Thundercloud’. Kathy glanced down towards the\ndoor and then back to the picture. No doubting who the rider was. Not beautiful\nin the classic sense, but that same red hair and elfin prettiness her daughter\nhad inherited. Mature and lacking that youthful cuteness Tiffany radiated, her\nexpression was a little disturbing. A sort of snarling triumphant look, part\nanger and part joy, odd!

“Mummy on Thundercloud”, Tiffany called up. “She hadn’t him\nall that long when that was taken, so he was still a wee bit temperamental!”

“Taken?” Kathy queried, joining the girl at the bottom of\nthe staircase and pausing again as her head gave another twinge. “Taken?” she\nrepeated.

Tiffany nodded and took her arm. “From a photo daddy took.\nIf you look closely, an illegible signature is in the bottom right corner. The\nguy is famous in racing circles, and daddy commissioned this one as a Christmas\npresent. Kind of catches the eye, doesn’t it?

“It certainly does”, Kathy agreed, wondering how she’d\nmissed it earlier and enjoying the blast\nof cold upland air on her face as they exited

Tiffany laughed. “Apparently, they had a bit of a\ndisagreement over it. Daddy and the artist, I mean. I take after mummy, and the\nguy wanted to make her a bit bigger, taller in the saddle because, given the\nsize of old Thundercloud, it would look better perspective-wise. Daddy would\nhave none of it, though. Told the guy that was the whole point of the picture\nand why he was commissioning it. A sort of beauty and the beast theme and where\nwas the artist was coming from anyway!” Tiffany giggled. “Told the silly idiot\nhe’d spent his entire career painting jockeys on horses, so where the hell was\nhe coming from with the bigger rider proportional crap!”

Kathy nodded and smiled politely, getting the point. She had\nmet a few of the more successful jockeys at various functions and always found\nit a little embarrassing, given her height and love of heels for those\noccasions. Flats were fine for certain things, such as country rambles and\nextended shopping trips but not for dates. Kathy liked to see eye to eye with\nher guys in the physical sense rather than the spiritual sense, and logic\ndictated that if they were tall, they’d likely stand tall elsewhere for her.

Roger was six feet two and ramrod straight. Indeed, he’d\nspurned a university place and gone to Sandhurst, that army officer school\nplace, followed by seven years in the Scots Guards, complete with a big bearskin\nhat and red tunic. She’d asked him if\nhe’d ever met the queen, and he’d laughed and said he had, but many years\nlater. He did admit that he’d had his ankle savaged by a royal corgi once while\non palace duty, but given the way he’d grinned at her, she’d taken that with a\nlarge pinch of salt. Anyway, soldiers wore boots, didn’t they?

Roger had told her his daughter favoured her mother's\nheight, not him. Moria had also topped out at five foot three but had one of\nthose personalities that make you think the person is seven feet tall! Tiffany\nhad barely achieved her mother's height but managed the seven feet tall\npersonality just as confidently. Kathy quickly glanced at the self-assured\nyoung woman guiding her along. She could agree with that, and even adopting the\nelder sister scenario might be pushing it. Maybe it would be different in\nLondon, for that was her home ground, but up here, she was the one feeling\ndecidedly unsure and juvenile! Oh, if only that dizziness and strange fug in\nher head would disappear.

Moon river, wider than a mile

I'm crossin' you in style some day

“Fresh air will soon clear your head, I expect. Good clean\nnorthern stuff, none of your polluted London smog!” Tiffany said confidently as\nthey headed for the big old stable building twenty minutes and two more woozy\nturns later. They’d inspected the once sizeable rose garden, now chiefly\ndormant, another big fishpond with some huge carp that crowded to the edge in a\nsplashing frenzy expecting to be fed. An immense vegetable garden that went on\nand on with rows and rows of green stuff in various stages of evolution and a\nveritable mini forest of fruit bushes in straight lines. Tiffany went on and on\nabout it, which was boring to someone who ate fruit and vegetables but hadn’t the\nslightest interest in how they worked!

“Orchard down there”, Tiffany had pointed. “Apples, eaters\nand cooking plus some pears, plums, even a few cherries. We are virtually\nself-sufficient, what with chicken coops way down that way, plus a couple of cows\nand a few pigs. A cousin of Bob’s mostly manages them and helps in the veg\ngarden. I do as well. I like watching things grow,” she broke off abruptly and\ngave a sudden giggle glancing sideways at Kathy’s trim figure. “Always have and\ndon’t mind getting my hands dirty”, she laughed, holding them out and wiggling\nher fingers.

Nothing artificial there, Kathy noted. Nice nails, not long\nbut not chewed down to the quick either. Ugh, she shuddered at that thought.\nOne of her pet hates. Indeed, there was nothing remotely artificial about\nTiffany. Kathy automatically reached for her cosmetics every morning, even if\nshe wasn’t going anywhere, whereas Tiffany was the opposite. Clean, scrubbed,\nand prettily fresh-faced. Wholesome was the word that came to her mind. Roger\nhadn’t said all that much about her had he now she came to think about it.

Come to that, did she know that much about Roger? They’d\nbeen introduced at a party, not a very good one, and he’d looked decidedly out\nof place and uncomfortable. Looking exactly like she felt so, they’d got\ntalking, shared a couple of chuckles at the expense of their hosts, made their\nexcuses and regrouped in a small but very expensive Chinese restaurant along\nthe Bayswater Road that Roger favoured. One of those that served real authentic\nChinese food, not the stuff local fast-food takeaways churned out nationwide\nthat most Chinese citizens wouldn’t touch even with a ten-foot chopstick!

By no means her first experience with normal-sized ones, but\nshe had been surprised when they served exotic dish after dish but no rice.\nRoger had explained that in China, in polite society, rice was regarded as a\n‘poor man’s food’ a filler up, and it would be served almost last just in case\nthey still had a little room left. Taking a small amount was considered\nacceptable, but shovelling it in as though stoking a boiler would be an insult\nbecause you were still hungry after your meal!”

Roger had told her a little about his wife and Tiffany on\ntheir second date, again at another exclusive restaurant, an Italian one in\nSoho. Matrimony was something he’d thought he’d missed till he met Moira. She’d\nbeen the love of his life despite a twenty-year difference in their ages and\ntragically killed in a collision with a tractor some years before. Just one of\nthose things he had said sadly, neither driver was at fault or maybe both. The\ninquest had reached no decision blame-wise—two fatalities in atrocious winter\nweather conditions, the full details never to be known. Then a few years later,\nhe’d confessed to making a complete fool of himself with a second marriage to\nsomeone nearer his age. Well, a little nearer, he’d laughed and then grown\nreflective.

It didn’t work out, and he’d sighed. I might as well tell\nyou. I was looking for company into my approaching senior years, but she was\nlooking for more than that. I could give her money, she was undoubtedly fond of\nthat, but she was demanding in other ways that were harder for me to fulfil. No\npun intended! Bitch emptied a private vault, a bank account, and three credit\ncard accounts before I caught on and then did a runner with her lover, a\nyounger guy I employed as a pilot occasionally. He sighed again, adding. Not\nthat it had done either of them any good nor me come to that. My company plane\nwent down in the North Sea. He was a Norwegian chap, young, big and blonde, presumably\nmaking for home at my expense. Nothing ever found, but then, he’d shrugged.\nWinter in the North Sea is not a good time to go swimming.

Roger had shaken his head, looking terribly sad, adding that\nbeing lucky in love was evidently not for him. Maybe he should stop going out\nwith younger women and find someone his own age. That mischievous grin had\nbriefly returned as he’d said that, making him look ten years younger, then\npromptly vanished. Would you believe it? I failed again shortly after. I never seem\nto learn. Another dammed way too young gold-digger!

Kathy had taken umbrage at that and taken issue. Pointing\nout that she was not, repeat not a gold digger, no way and anyway, hadn’t she\ninsisted on paying her share, going Dutch at the Chinese restaurant and done so\ndespite all his silliness and macho arguments? She hadn’t even known how loaded\nhe was back then, had she? Well, not to\nthe full extent, although she had heard a whisper at that party. Gold-digger\nindeed!

Once more, Kathy paused and shook her head to clear that\ngrowing fog. It had seemed to have taken ages to reach that long red brick\nbuilding with that funny-looking addition on top. Neither dovecote, bell tower,\nnor oriental pagoda but a seeming mishmash of all three. His lordships folly\npresumably a century or two back!

“Are you sure you’re all right” Tiffany held her arm again\nbut much tighter and peered at her with a curious expression on her pretty\nface. Odd, Kathy thought. She wasn’t feeling all right, far from it, but that wasn’t\nwhat struck her as odd. Tiffany didn’t look, what? Not overly concerned.\nKathy’s brain switched from weird architectural add-ons to her companion’s\nface. Curious, yes, but that look on her\nfresh young face wasn’t, wasn’t…

“I think I need to sit down!” Kathy gasped as her legs\nseemed determined to do their own thing, and supporting her weight wasn’t on\ntheir immediate agenda.

“Took your time getting here, girl” it was a new voice,\nolder and lacking that soft Scottish burr that Tiffany and the others had. “I\nmean, what is so fascinating about gawping at beans, peas and bloody cabbages,\nfor heaven’s sake. Here, I’ll take her now”.

A statement Kathy would have agreed with ten minutes ago,\nbut now it hardly registered. A new face, much older, close-cropped blonde hair\nwith a piercing above one eye and tattoos on the arm that reached out. Kathy\nloathed tattoos and body piercings. A faded green dragon breathing equally\nfaded red curly frames. What the fuck, was she ill, fainting, what…

“Took longer to take effect than I expected, but all’s good.\nNo, I’m okay,” Tiffany said, sounding far away. A very long way away. “You take\nher other side, grab that arm. Come on, Sam, quick, while the money-grubbing\nslut still has a bit of go left in her legs, walk her in, quick! I want the\nbitch to know she walked in here on her own two feet!”

“Why, for heaven's sake?”

“Because I do, that’s why!”

“Okay, girl, you’re the boss, just like your mother. Half\nthe time, she never explained diddly squat either. Up your end a little, lift.\nQuick afore she goes completely!”

Kathy felt herself lifted, figures on either side, her head\nspinning, fog, nausea……

“Remind me to get that ring off her finger asap. Daddy is\nvery old-fashioned about some things, and that was a binding contract as far as\nhe was concerned, and this randy money-grubbing slut broke it every night of\nthe week or so that detective guy I suggested he hired told him. Poor old\ndaddykins failed in love again!”

Not every night, Kathy thought indignantly and wanted to say\nso, for it seemed important. She felt so strange. So very strange, as though\nfloating on air even though her legs touched the ground; sheesh, what was that\nappalling stench? Money-grubbing? “I’m not”, she murmured aloud because it\nseemed especially important, “not another damned gold-digger!” then the\nblackness overtook her.

Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker

Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way

That same stench. Always that same foul smell when she\nopened her eyes, dragged from the normality of blissful uncaring sleep to a\nliving nightmare from which there seemed no waking. Dragged back to a bizarrely\ncruel and abnormal world by that hideous bell that began to sound again even as\nshe shook her head, trying to clear her sleep-befuddled head. Hell, no!

Kathy rolled over and struggled frantically to her knees,\nignoring the pain and stiffness in her legs and body. An inadequate mattress of\ndank, flattened straw on a soft dirt floor was no substitute for the expensive\nbranded memory foam one she usually slept on. Nor was that harsh electric bell\nakin to the soothing electronic melody with which her overnight charged iPhone\ngently heralded the start of a brand-new day.

The panic that immediately overcame her did not help her\nfrantic attempts to gain her feet, the hobble chain between her legs, and the\nfact that she could not use her arms. Panic was an effective motivator, and\nfear was an even better one. Panic and fear generated by other more tangible\nmotivators and those who used them to achieve and satisfy their perverse whims!\n

It had taken three attempts before she could stand upright,\nsubconsciously shaking bits of straw and particles of soft black dirt off her\nbody as a big dog might do with water droplets as it emerged from the sea or\nriver. To her horror, that bell had rung briefly for a second time as she\nstruggled and then fallen ominously silent, which could only mean one thing.\nKathy had somehow missed the first of the three summons the bell demanded. One,\ntwo, three, with only a brief interval between each as an unforgiving finger\ndepressed the push switch.

One to end beddy, one to be steady and one to be ready. That\nwas the silly childish rule that had to be obeyed every single morning by the\noccupants of the stable. Kathy had learned that in the first few days, but not\nto her face. Just about everything Kathy had learned in those first few days\nhad come sideways, obliquely, indirectly fed to her by her captors as they\ntalked to each other. No, they never spoke to her face; why should they? To\nthem, Kathy was just an animal, now, wasn’t she? Apparently, an important\nanimal, a special animal, an animal little miss fucking sadistic brat Tiffany\nhad plans for, but still just an animal like all her others!

Kathy staggered towards the front of her stall to stand as\nwas required each morning. Head up, eyes straight ahead, chest out, legs\ntogether and not so much as a twitch to be seen. A fortnight, no, not even\nthat, and she was already well on the way to emulating a statue-like red-coated\nguardsman outside Buckingham palace. Indeed, the similarities imposed hadn’t\nbeen lost on her. One of her many boyfriends had been a young lieutenant in a guard’s\nregiment, and she had joined the tourists to watch him doing his duty there on\nseveral occasions. Her chocolate box toy soldier, the friend who’d accompanied\nher once, had laughed. Poor Simon, might\nhe have been the one out of all those who’d shared her bed more than once?\nPerhaps something more permanent would have come of their growing fondness for\none another. Unfortunately, his parents hadn’t approved of a relationship with\na popular model. Then a bomb, one of those terrible IED roadside devices in\nAfghanistan, proved that ‘chocolate box red tunic toy soldiers’ had other\nduties besides entertaining foreign tourists. Poor Simon.

Kathy bit her lip, trying hard to concentrate and prevent\nher eyes from watering. Life was hard enough without thinking about poor Si,\nespecially as Ms Sammie was already in front of her stall, leaning forward on\nthe low door, elbows resting on the top and that terrible long thin switch in\none hand. Kathy’s eyes couldn’t help looking at that horrible thing, but only\nfor the merest second before they resumed staring over the evil women’s cropped\nblonde head into the rafters on the far side as she reached her assigned spot\nand stood ridged as was required. Or as rigid as she could, for she couldn’t\ncontrol her bodies involuntary trembling at the unwelcome closeness of the\nother woman.

Kathy could smell that fresh, clean scented warm body odour\nthat contrasted so sharply with the rank smell that her filth body emitted. She\ndidn’t need to look at the woman’s hard face to see those cold, contemptuous\nice-blue eyes filled with cruel amusement nor the expression on her face. Kathy\nhad already spent far too much time seeing that merciless and unforgiving face,\nwhich was enough to last her an entire lifetime. Indeed, the past few weeks\nalready felt like a lifetime and more. She felt herself trembling even as she\ntried to stand so stiff and still. She couldn’t help it, for she knew she’d\ndisobeyed the bell’s summons yet again and failed to present herself as\nrequired. Late on parade, as poor Simon might have laughed and teased her.\nPunctuality had never been one of her strong points when arriving for a date!

No one laughed here, though, not in this dreadful place. It\nwas so unjust, silly, and ridiculous, not those in the stalls anyway, for how\ncould they find humour in this crazy situation? \nHow could you go from being hard and fast asleep to full wakefulness and\ndutiful wide-eyed attentiveness in such a minuscule timespan? Press wait, press\nwait and press again with zero tolerance. She was trying her best, was she not\nunlike the first few confusing days? Trying, not through personal choice, but\nto avoid the inevitable and painful consequences of disobeying the sour-faced\nblondes stupid rules. No, not hers, Miss Fucking sadistic little weirdo brat,\nTiffany’s bloody rules! Or maybe those of her long-dead mother who’d started\nthis bizarre charade!

Kathy stood there trembling, feeling those cold blue eyes\nupon her, revelling in the cruel authority their owner exercised over her and\nhow completely helpless she was to prevent the bitch from doing just as she\nwished whenever she wished. Gloating was the term, gloating! Then she sensed as\nmuch as saw the woman move silently onto the next stall. Christ, she came and\nwent like a bloody ghost, her boots making no sound on the soft muck covering\nthe floor. You never knew when you were safe from her appearing as she did\nwithout warning! Well, not quite true. Sometimes there had been a warning that\nleft a livid painful strip across your bottom or thigh!

Kathy had been introduced to that horrible bell on her first\nmorning. It’s insistent if brief ringing had awakened her to a strange and\nterrifying world. A world that took her a while to fully comprehend, and her\nsecond conscious action after opening her eyes was to empty the contents of her\nstomach. At least her body convulsed and tried to do that, but nothing other\nthan a thin bile emerged as she rolled about on the dirt floor! Her nose and\neyes had told her why for it wasn’t just dirt she was rolling around in; it\nhadn’t been just her mouth and stomach contributing to the revolting yuk! Other\nbody openings added their quota to the persistent stench surrounding her.

Fully comprehending might not have been the correct term, as\nKathy realised later how any sane, civilised person could comprehend what she\nawoke to that morning. The lights were very bright, and her nostrils filled\nwith a terrible animal-like reek that exceeded what her body must have\nproduced. It smelled like what? Despite\nher strange situation, a memory of a photo shoot a few years back emerged. That\ndisgusting circus in Eastern Europe they used as a backdrop. They’d still had\nanimal acts, and she’d been invited; backstage was the wrong term. Back big\ntent, maybe afterwards, with the other two girls and the rest of the crew for\ndrinks and a small buffet.

Looking back, none of them had eaten much because of the\npervading smell that hung over everything. Seeing how the wretched animals were\nconfined had not helped their appetites either. Now, as she stood there in that\nenclosed, stinking little space, she was the animal confined, but no, that\nwould never happen to her. That crazy little bitch had got it all wrong; she\ncould not do this to her, NO WAY. Kathy forgot the morning rules, tamped her\nright foot angrily into the dirt, spinning around in a full circle, shaking\nherself as though she somehow could slough off her rage by doing so and then\nstopped dead. Her young captor was looking at her over the low door, and even\nas Kathy stared back, Tiffany shook her head, giving the latest occupant of her\nstable a small, sad wry smile that somehow contrived not to be a smile at all!

Two drifters, off to see the world

There's such a lot of world to see

A dozen days earlier, Kathy might have seen that same smile\non the girl’s face as she regarded another of the stable’s occupants before\ndelivering the worst beating it had ever received, and it had received a fair\nfew by that time. Tiffany rarely lost her temper, seldom shouted or raised her\nvoice. Nor did she use abusive language very often, and, unlike her senior\nstable Mistress, she tended to smile rather than scowl or sneer at her captive\nanimals. After all, why shouldn’t she, for she delighted in her ownership and\ndominion over them just as her mother had once done! Her mum always smiled so\nsweetly when disciplining an unruly pony.

Strangely Kathy didn’t feel frightened, not for those first\nconfusing moments. Puzzled and disorientated more than anything else, she\nrolled about on or, more like in, some gritty substance that, while soft,\ncertainly wasn’t a mattress! It was dark\nbut not pitch dark, for somewhere, there were lights on that threw a limited\namount of illumination into the room, no enclosure that she lay in. Narrow with\nno ceiling other than something way above and only just visible in that dim\nlight. A small red light halfway up winked at her like the one on the fire\ndetector in her kitchen.

Kathy shook her head and instantly wished she hadn’t the way\nit felt, and began slowly taking stock of the situation. Her brain slowly began\nto function despite the fuzzy feeling in her head that accompanied one mother\nof a headache. What wouldn’t she give right now for a couple of paracetamols\nand a glass of water? Hell, forget the pills; given that foul taste in her\nmouth, she would have killed just for the glass of water! At that point as she\ntried to sit up and failed twice. Then she realised why she was struggling to\nperform such a simple operation and immediately felt foolish and very alarmed!

She could not use her arms, not at all! They were secured\nbehind her back, one atop the other in tight, restrictive garments. She could\nwriggle her fingers slightly within what contained them. Her nails scraped\nagainst the soft unyielding material. Leather perhaps? A strong whiff of that\nmaterial in the air competed with that foul animal reek. That fact had hardly\nregistered when a far more shocking one did, along with that first kick of real\nfear in her stomach as she looked down at her bare boobs and prominent nipples.\n

Her eyes adjusted, and Kathy stared at them in complete\nshock as though seeing them for the first time. Her sluggish brain struggled to\ncatch up and process what her eyes saw. What the fu…. She blinked several times\nand shook her head, keeping her eyes closed momentarily as the little grey\ncells behind finally got their act together, going into reheat to catch up.\nBoth eyes closed for a second, then her left eye opened first, immediately\nfollowed by the right, and then that boot in her belly promptly delivered\nanother savage kick!

Apart from a tight black leather corset-like garment with\nnumerous D rings, she was completely naked! Not just a horrible alien garment\nbut one that was way too tight, she realised as her panic-stricken lungs also\nwent into overdrive. Fuck, she could hardly breathe in the damn thing that was\ntrying to strangle her midriff. Kathy wasn’t one of those thin matchstick models\nthe fashion business loved so much. She had curves, not to excess, but they\nwere there partly disguised by her height, and she was somewhat proud of the\nfact plus, having a trim waist and rigorously watching calories had helped. Now\nit felt as though that trimness was being forcefully trimmed by several more\ninches, and there wasn’t much give in that leather thing she was wearing!

Worse, her breasts were blatantly in full view of the world\nfor the first time in her life, not just her breasts either, and it was that\nshocking realisation that banished more of the confused fog from her brain,\npushing her consciousness from fuzzy autopilot to full manual control. WHAT THE\nFUCK! She thought she’d shrieked it aloud momentarily, so strong was her\nfeeling of outrage. Then she did just that; her lungs and throat gave full vent\nto her feeling with a few other choice expletives added to express her anger\nand amazement at whatever was happening to her. Irritation, shock and rage\ninstinctively replaced reflective thought and shouting and screaming was by far\nthe more instinctive and natural reaction.

So great was her perplexed fury that she broke off and\nstarted hiccupping for a few moments until she counted slowly to ten, calmed\ndown a little and brought herself back under control. Kathy had always prided\nherself on that ability, keeping her cool no matter the situation or the\nprovocation. As a popular model, she’d faced her fair share of potentially\nawkward situations, both professionally and privately. She paused for breath\nsucking in great mouthfuls despite the best efforts of that horrible tight\ncorset strangling her midriff. What the\nfuck! That phrase was bouncing around inside her head as Kathy stared around\nthe bare brick wall of her narrow enclosure on one side, the wooden wall on the\nother and then at the low wooden door at the open end. Kathy could hear muted\nsounds from whatever lay beyond, but that was all, so she gave vent to her\nfeelings once more in a slightly more controlled verbal manner as her brain\nsought to make some sense of this bizarre situation she’d found on waking.

There was a chain of some sort between her ankles like\nconvicts wore in the olden days, but it wouldn’t prevent her from getting to\nher feet, would it? So, she tried and failed. Trying to get up without using\nyour hands was not the easiest thing to do. There was something else as well,\nKathy quickly realised. As much as she wanted to escape some of the yuk she’d\nbeen laying in, her brain said no. It wasn’t just the difficulty of trying to\nstand, but her head instantly objected to her making an attempt. It wasn’t yet\nready to face the world from a vertical perspective, but she wasn’t prepared to\nheed such advice. Kathy desperately wanted to see what lay beyond that low\nwooden door, so she gritted her teeth, rolled over and then, using her knees,\nslowly rose determinedly, if shakily, to her feet.

A part of that pervading stink that surrounded her seemed to\nrise with her. Indeed, its foul source was splattered upon her body, legs, and\nbare feet, making her retch heavily, but only a thin, bitter bile emerged to be\ninstantly spat out. Instinctively Kathy tried to wipe the skein of spittle from\nher mouth, then realised that she couldn’t and cried out in frustration as she\nshook herself from side to side. Her right foot stamped angrily into the soft\nsquidgy dirt before realising with disgust that it wasn’t just dirt she’d\ntrodden in.

Kathy stood shakily on her feet, looking about with a\ngrowing, if odd contradicting, sense of both awareness and bewilderment. Her\njourney North, that bloody irritating drive, constantly getting lost! She’d\nflown, driven and then met the girl, Tiffany. She’d felt funny, odd and wobbly,\nand they’d gone for a walk, looked at loads of vegetables and stuff, then gone\nto see the stable and…Kathy gasped and looked around her and caught sight of a\nlong row of rusty horseshoes nailed to a nearby beam. She was in that stable, wasn’t she? In a\nfucking stall, a horse stall, for fucks sake! She shook her head, but why? She\nlooked down at herself, a vague if improbable idea forming. A memory of an odd\nphoto shoot some years ago, then a movement to her front instantly diverted\nthat thought process.

“Who are you? What….where….what the fuck is going on?”

The woman was looking at her over the entrance door, not\nlooking the least friendly nor sympathetic. Amused, yes, but there wasn’t a\nhint of compassion in those piercing\nice-blue eyes nor on that face. Late forties, maybe older, with close-cropped\nblonde hair, attractive perhaps once but in a chiselled hard-faced butch way,\nand no doubting her sexuality. Kathy shivered; she’d met women like that all\ntoo often during her modelling career, and any attraction was decidedly one way\nso far as she was concerned. The absence of communication was even more\nchilling than the look, even though she tried twice more. Nothing, just the\nmerest twitch of the thin lips and then she disappeared with a sort of grunt that\nmight have meant anything. A moment later, a loud shrill bell rang, stopped,\nand sounded twice more.

Kathy had stared disbelievingly at that vacated space for a\nmoment in astonishment and then instinctively started shouting again as her\nanger and indignation blotted every other thought and emotion out for a couple\nof minutes. Kathy had no idea how long\nshe had made that commotion. Still, she must have used every foul and obscene\nword in her vocabulary several dozen times before she finally lapsed into a\nbreathless, bewildered silence. She also realised that she’d been\nsubconsciously stamping her bare right foot up and down into that filthy yuk\nagain!

Even as she contemplated hobbling to the nearest wall and\nwiping her foot against it, the blonde head and torso reappeared. This time the\ndoor swung open as the hard-faced woman entered, strode several paces forwards,\nspun Kathy around and then, holding her by whatever was restraining her arms,\npushed her so that she hobbled forward as best she could towards the doorway\nand bigger space beyond. Taken by surprise, Kathy had managed only a few\nmincing little steps, handicapped by that chain between her legs, before she\nrecovered both wits and voice and dug her feet in quite literally!

“Hey! Watch it, what the fuck, what do you think,\nyooooooow!”

Further one-way communication was instantly terminated as\nshe was twisted and propelled into the nearside wall, her head roughly grabbed\nby the hair and banged against the brickwork twice before being pushed forward\nagain.

“Hey, hey, wha…”

The previous action was repeated twice more in that short\ndistance to that open doorway. By the time she found herself propelled through\nand into the bigger space beyond, Kathy had got both a sore head and the simple\nmessage, not to mention being shit scared! The moment she tried to say\nanything, it was head-banging time, and that big blonde dyke didn’t do gently.\nThe last thing Kathy needed was violent contact between her head and a rough\nbrick wall right now!

In any case, Kathy’s bewildered attention was already\nfocused elsewhere, and that growing pit of fear in her stomach had become a\ngaping chasm. She was being force-marched down a long, lofty narrow building, a\nstable, and she counted six stalls on either side. She must have been in the\nfirst on the left, still indignant, hurting and shuffling along in confusion\nthat she’d missed the next one but not the third. A girl, no a woman, large,\nheavy breasts jutting forward above a purple corset, the woman’s face partly\nhidden behind leather straps, her mouth part open but blocked and odd looking,\nand her hair rising in an auburn cascade atop her partially shaven head. What\nthe fuck? She twisted her round to the left to keep the woman in sight.

Kathy’s curiosity had not gone unnoticed as she heard an\nevil-sounding laugh from behind. The pushing movement abruptly halted, her\nunfettered breasts swinging and bouncing slightly as they’d only ever done in\nthat morning dash twixt bed and bathroom. A handful of her hair was grabbed, then\nher head roughly twisted enough to hurt her neck so that she looked back to\nwhere they’d come from, and then her head was slowly moved, left to right in an\narc.

“Curious, eh, Pony?” the woman behind sniggered. “Wanna see\nyour new neighbours? Miss Tiffany’s little herd, do you?”

Kathy foolishly attempted to nod, a purely subconscious\nreaction but not a good idea, as the hand gripping her hair tightened and cruelly\ntwisted along with a hissed verbal warning. “Stand, pony, still, girl, still!”

Kathy squeaked as her roots protested but made no other\nsound. Strange because there was a whole lexicon of words she wanted to scream\naloud, a raft of questions and demands for a rational explanation, and yet bar\nthat squeak, nothing else emerged from her mouth. Partly shock and partly\nbecause she did not want her head banged against any more bricks! Besides, it\nwas her eyes doing all the work at that moment.

The hand turned her head slowly, giving her a slow panoramic\nview of the stable and its occupants, for there was more than one. There was an\nopen low door to the space she’d recently occupied, and Kathy noticed a big,\ntarnished brass number one on the wooden frame above the doorway. Nothing was\nvisible in the next one down and then that big-breasted woman who’d caught her\neye. Next to her in number four was a tall, very tall man in contrast to his\nfemale neighbour sporting an incongruous blonde Mohican haircut! Broad-shouldered\nbut also wearing an identical purple, as were the straps covering most of his\nface. Kathy gawped at him in astonishment before the hand gripping her head\nmoved her on, noting that although she was only a few feet away, he wasn’t even\nlooking at her. He stood rigid like a\nstatue staring straight ahead, his head tilted slightly upward, and then she\nnoticed the odd-looking high collar around his neck.

“What the fu….yow, give over!” Kathy had instinctively tried\nto look back at the woman in number three but wasn’t allowed to do that. Her\nhead was being twisted in the opposite direction, and trying to resist that\npressure was painful plus, she was propelled several yards forward and had to\nconcentrate lest the wretched thing anchoring her legs together tripped her up.\nNumber five held another leather-harnessed woman, shocking pink this time. Very\npetite and slender with a high dark ponytail and small perky breasts. She stood\nthe same as the others, stiff, still paying not the slightest attention to anything\nother than something unseen by Kathy high in the roof beams to her right.\nStrange, but then what wasn’t at that moment?

Number six was empty,\nor if occupied, its inhabitant was out of sight, perhaps lying in the dirt as\nshe had been only a short while before. Kathy’s mind was like a troublesome\ngearbox. She’d found first, was trying desperately for second but was hardly\naccelerating. One memory, though, had suddenly snapped into sharp focus\nagain. That odd photo shoot out of the\nhundreds and hundreds she’d done in her relatively brief career—two days in a\nmuddy farmyard in Essex along with four other models.

A popular high street chain adding a new line of\nequine-themed garments as a new street fashion trend. A range of sexy tight\njodhpurs, riding breeches, figure-hugging tops, smart jackets, and stylish\nlow-heeled riding boots. The shoot had a kinky theme which had caused a few\npuritanical complaints at the time, not that the company had minded. They’d\nused the farm outbuildings, and a couple of real horses plus two of the models\nhad been required to pose as human horses, pony girls! The other three posing\nas crop-wielding stable girls in various outfits and then swap roles. A fact the shoot organiser hadn’t considered\nimportant enough to tell them or the agency beforehand. Kathy had refused point blank to be one of\nthe former.

There hadn’t been any prewarning, and she wasn’t about to\nplay bondage horsey girl for anyone, the flesh-coloured bodystocking being\nirrelevant! After some discussion, the\nothers had agreed on the promise of a bonus. That was back when she could\nafford to piss off the directors of such shoots, safe in the knowledge that\neven if one door closed, a ton of others were still awaiting her arrival! The clothing, though, had been pretty neat,\nparticularly the tight breeches and tops, and Kathy had got a bundle of\nfreebies so long as she agreed to wear them frequently in the next couple of\nmonths, so the clothing company hadn’t been too bothered.

Pony girls! She’d heard of that stupid fetish, but as her\nhead was twisted to the right, she remembered one significant difference from\nthat shoot. The two harnessed models had worn clingy but opaque body stocking\nthat effectively hid everything from view. Unlike those, she’d just seen! There\nwas something else as well about them, what?

“Hey! Hey, leave it\noff. Let go of…yah!” A brief impression of a white painted wall, stacked tools,\ngardening ones, a couple of plastic bins, and wheelbarrows on either side of a\nlarge arched doorless opening, and then she was looking at stall number seven\non the other side. This time a real horse was staring back at her with a\ncurious but detached interest. Grey, she noted, and the next stall along also\ncontained a real horse, black, smaller, with a white mark running up its nose.\nIt, too, looked at her with interest for a moment and then shuffled around in\nits stall, its braided tail flicking a couple of times upwards as she heard it\nsnort.

Three of the remaining stalls were occupied by human\nfigures, all in that strange statue-like attentive pose by the door to their\nstalls. Two males and one female with the final stall, the one opposite hers\nvacant. Hers! Kathy baulked immediately at that thought. Her stall! But she was being propelled forward again,\nhaving been allowed only the briefest glimpse of the other stalls. Her head was\nreleased, and a moment later, she was through the brick archway and into the\narea beyond.

Everything seemed to have happened in the briefest space of\ntime. Indeed, it had and way too fast for Kathy’s jumbled fuzzy brain to\ncomprehend. Thoughts and impressions seemed to have momentarily slowed time as\nif that were possible, and now normality was being restored. That fog in her\nbrain was receding rapidly, and as it exited stage left, everyday rational\nreasoning was entering stage right only far too slowly.

“Hey, hey! She screamed. “You can’t do this to me, hey,\nbitch you can’t…Noooo!” The bitch could and did, thrusting her into a tall\nnarrow iron cage standing in one corner and calmly flicking the bolt home with\none finger. Then she crossed her arms and stood there looking through the bars\nat her victim with that same cruel smile. Kathy instinctively backed away or\ntried to, but the thing was no bigger than an old-fashioned red telephone box\nand just as restrictive! Two inches backwards, and her useless arms were tight\nagainst the iron bars behind her.

“Don’t you fucking dare!” Kathy snarled, knowing it was\nuseless even as the words left her mouth. She’d seen that look in the woman’s\neyes, seen that look before, more than once. Hell, what girl hadn’t in her\nprofession! Kathy had done a shoot in Spain not long after her eighteenth\nbirthday with a prominent woman fashion photographer, her female assistant and\nanother older model. Everything had been fine until the last evening when\nthey’d all had a bit too much to drink, and then the other three started making\nout in public, kissing and groping each other and laughing at her when she\nbacked off from them. They’d laughed, but their eyes had told another story.

Kathy had left them to it and slipped away to her room, but\nunfortunately, it wasn’t hers alone as she shared it with the older model. The\nother three crashed in about an hour later, clutching a couple of bottles and\ndrunk as hell. They couldn’t remember what followed when they flew back the\nfollowing day, or at least that’s what they’d claimed. ‘Anyway, all girls\ntogether doing what girls do when the boys aren’t around, and the drink is\nflowing, no big deal! Remember, sweetie, if you want to get on in this\ncut-throat business keeping your legs closed won’t cut it!’ That was how the\nbutch forty-something photographer had summarily dismissed the previous night\nas they’d exited arrivals with their baggage to go their separate ways.

Kathy very much doubted if the bitch, with her ugly tattoos\nand hair close-cropped to pink-dyed stubble, had ever opened her legs when the\nboys were around? She had though for\nKathy that night while the other two had grabbed her arms and forced her head\ndown till she’d damn near suffocated on that wet wiry muff. A decade later, Kathy could still hear the\nhorny bitch screaming, ‘make her do it, make her do it’. They had as well,\ntwisting her arms, ears, hair, breasts and nipples, hurting her until pain and\nfright had made her plunge her tongue into that stinking twat! Her agent had\npersuaded her to drop the matter, hadn’t even seemed surprised despite Kathy’s\noutraged tantrum and told her to forget about it for the sake of her career,\nand so she had, reluctantly.

Dropped but never forgotten, and now another pair of female\nhands were reaching out again, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to\nstop them other than scream, which she did and loud but with no more effect\nthan in that out-of-season hotel room. \nBar, the short blonde hair, this bitch might have been the twin sister\nof that lesbian photographer. Hot hands, warm breath, and pairs of greedy wet\nlips had clamped down on her own that night in the hotel, silencing her\nprotests. Nor had they been the only body parts that had muffled her cries. It\nhad been a long and humiliating night, and all three seemed insatiable.

That horrendous ordeal returned to haunt her briefly but faded\nat the first touch of those hands upon her beasts, for this was now and no\nmemory. Kathy paused for breath to look the woman in the eyes, and what she saw\nthere made her close her own and resume screaming and shouting abuse at full\nvolume that didn’t diminish as the woman's hands squeezed and fondled her\nproffered breasts and tweaked her nipples.

“My, my, what a lot of silly noise. Now we can’t have that,\ncan we?”

Kathy abruptly choked off her scream and opened her eyes to\nsee the petite figure of Tiffany standing alongside the big butch blonde that\nwas sexually assaulting her. “What the….what the fucks going on and get that\ndyke bitch off my fucking tits!” her voice rose to a shriek.

Tiffany covered her ears with her small hands and shook her\nhead. “Such a noisy pony Well, I suppose that's only to be expected. One moment\nyou’re out there,” she waved one hand. “ running free in the wild, flaunting\nthose big udders to all and sundry and sleeping with every Tom, Dick and Harry\nthat crosses your path. Then next, you're occupying a stall in my stable and\nbrightening up Sammie’s day. C’est la vie as they say”

“What the fuck! Let me out of here, let me loose right now,\nyou sick little brat and get that fucking dyke off of me,” Kathy screeched, her\neyes flashing only half hearing what Tiffany had said.

Tiffany lowered her hands and turned to her companion. “Off\nof me?” she queried. “Not exactly pristine BBC English, is it Sammie, but then\nwhat can you expect from someone like her? But maybe you should leave the filly\nalone for now, I need to have a private little chat, and you need to sound the\nbell and stand the herd down before they start cramping up. When I'm finished\nhere with Pepper, I’ll be a long shortly to lend a hand with the chores.”

“Pepper? The big blonde queried with a harsh laugh.

“Tiffany shrugged. “Why not. I’ll explain later, and it’ll\ndo for now. I might change it later, but it’s better than slut or slag, even if\nthose would be more appropriate for this cheating animal. Now chop chop, open\nup and then run along, we do have a duty of care, and I’m sure they are all\ndying for their delicious morning mush. You can play with her udders later!”\nTiffany finished with a girlish laugh and waved one hand dismissively at the\nmuch bigger woman. The blonde chuckled, giving Kathy’s breasts a final hard\nsqueeze that made her squeak—then flipped open the cage door and moved to the\narchway, briefly pausing to press a bellpush before disappearing into the stall\narea beyond.

Kathy watched her go open-mouthed and then turned to deliver\na verbal explosion of outrage upon the younger girl who’d also disappeared,\nreappearing almost immediately from an adjacent side room swinging something\nround and red by a short strap. Kathy recognised it immediately and opened her\nmouth to shriek. It was not a wise move given what Tiffany held, as Kathy\nrealised a fraction too late. Tiffany was quicker, the girl reaching up,\npinching Kathy’s nose closed with one hand, and thrusting that red ball into\nher open mouth and past her teeth. Then her nostrils were free and filled with\nthe youngster's warm, sweet scent as she stood on tiptoe, leaning into Kathy’s\nnaked breasts as she fastened the strap behind her neck.

“You are a tall one, aren’t you, phew. I’ll have to get a\nstep stool to pat you on the head once you’re hoofed up!” Tiffany dusted her\nhands together. “That’s better, a little piece and quiet. I could almost hear\nyou from the house, you know. I'm not\ntoo fond of excessive noise, another of the things I inherited from my mother.\nShe was never a disco chick for loud music, nor am I. Anything loud is a no-no.\nWell, almost,” she giggled and pointed to one wall, adding, “There are times\nwhen I find orchestrating certain loud sounds very amusing!”

Kathy’s head turned to follow the small pointing finger. Up\nto that moment, she’d been grunting and futilely screaming nonstop against the\nhorrid object, filling and stretching her mouth but instantly ceased as her\nbulging eyes took in several long racks of terrible implements. Whips, canes,\npaddles and enough riding crops to equip an entire cavalry troop, or so it\nlooked at first glance.

“Hmmph”

“Exactly” Tiffany nodded lightly, patting Kathy’s left\nbreast. “Very Hmmmphy! My mother introduced me to her favourite form of, well,\nnot music exactly, but a very entertaining accompaniment when training animals\nlike you. You might say those are my conductor batons, and “she paused and\ngiggled. “I think we both know who will be playing the part of the orchestra!\nAnyway, to business, no, no, hush, pony, hush!”

Kathy squinted as a small finger tapped against a portion of\nthe ball between her teeth, and then, with an abrupt exclamation, part\namusement, part disgust, Tiffany wiped it on her captives hair, and Kathy knew\nwhy. She was drooling, fucking drooling; she could feel it pooling on her right\nbreast. Nor could she expel the horrible thing filling her mouth, or despite\nher best efforts, could she make any coherent sound.

“It’s no use being silly like that, Pepper girl”, Tiffany\ncautioned, wagging the same finger at her. “All I can hear is oomff, ummff,\nmumfff, so you’re only wasting energy trying to do even that. Personally\nspeaking from experience, I’d advise saving your strength at this point” she\ngave a half smile. “Not that you silly animals ever do that initially, but you\nwill learn. Time, patience and my many conductor's batons will ensure that,” she\ngiggled, nodding towards the rack. “Mummy taught me that lesson before I got my\nfirst pony. Time, patience and the whip and a lot of each, especially that last\none!” Tiffany laughed. “Her very words”

The girl pointed through the doorway. “Jumbo will tell you\nthat, or would if I let him. I initially named him Conan, after the film with\nbig Arnie. Conan the Barbarian. One\nevening, I watched it on the telly while mummy was busy here. I was a bit\nnaughty because I wasn’t supposed to watch anything she considered violent.\nKind of silly when you think about it,” Tiffany giggled, nodding toward that\nterrible rack. “I was reading Lord of the Rings at the time, so I was into\nfantasy-type stuff, still am. I’d love to go to one of those big cosplay events\nthey have in the US, although I’m not\nsure who I’d go as?” she frowned, absently fingering Kathy's left nipple.\n“Anyway, mummy didn’t think the name suited the great lumbering creature, so we\ndecided on Jumbo instead!”

“Oommphhf”, Kathy strained her arms against their tight\nbinding, her eyes bulging from the effort while her gaze switched back and\nforth from the sweetly smiling young girl to that rack of torture tools. She\ncouldn’t be serious?

Tiffany took a step backwards and folded her arms across her\nchest. Kathy noted for the first time that the girl was dressed as though she\nwere about to go for a ride: low-heeled scuffed boots, tight brown breeches and\na short-sleeved clingy matching top. The girl's red hair caught in a bushy\nponytail that was clearly more for convenience and not a hint of make-up on her\npretty fresh face.

Kathy wasn’t stupid, never had been and almost certainly\ncould have gone to university had she not opted out of the education system\nearly to follow another career. Indeed, going as a mature student had been\nsomething she’d considered recently as she could get a loan for that, couldn’t\nshe? Maybe go into marketing or advertising, and come up with something more\nsensible than half the crap she’d posed for in the past!

Kathy paused her futile efforts to speak and free herself as\nher brain clicked into gear while Tiffany stood silently before her, head\nslightly to one side as though considering something. The girl’s appearance,\nthe stinking stable, everything she’d seen, what they had done to her, and what\nthey’d said. She must have been drugged;\nthat’s why she felt so bad. Those funny fuzzy spells earlier, or was it the day\nbefore or what? Those others, the harnessed\npeople through that arch and their ridged postures. They were real, weren’t\nthey not part of some crazy dream? As real as that fucking ball filling her\nmouth and those awful things over there that Tiffany had pointed out so damn\nnonchalantly. They were like her, weren’t they those other people? They were\nnot here willingly, were they?

“Now, to business. Let’s get a couple of things straight,\nshall we” Tiffany mused, half looking at Kathy and half down at her hands as\nshe appeared to be ticking things off on her fingers. I wouldn’t normally do\nthis with a new animal, but I do make exceptions for certain, mmmm, shall we\nsay, special arrivals. Mummy would\nundoubtedly disapprove of me talking thus to a dumb creature like you, but\nsadly, she’s not here, is she? Then again, if she were, you wouldn’t be here.\nSo, I’d listen carefully if I were you, pony. I expect this is the last time I\nwill ever talk to you like this,” Tiffany paused and smiled. “human to human,\nso to speak, although you barely qualify for that any longer. Now hush that\nsilliness, or I will get angry!”

Kathy had snorted loudly, suddenly realising that she still\ncould still make a noise through another opening but was immediately\nforestalled as the girl walked forward and pinched her nostrils closed again\nand held them for a few seconds before releasing them and admonishing her with\na firm tap from one small finger on the tip of her nose. “I wonder if it will\ntake you as long as it took my big beautiful Jumbo to realise that making me\nangry is not a good idea! Silly boy, but I was much younger and even smaller back\nthen, so naturally, the big animal didn’t take me very seriously at first”\nTiffany paused and reached through the bars and gave Kathy’s right nipple a\ntweak. Not hard, but it shocked her enough to gasp against her gag.

“Yes, a very silly creature indeed, but it learned. In the\nend, they all learn something else mummy used to say. Of course, he’s much older, far wiser these\ndays, and very docile. No, he didn’t take me seriously back then, but those\nthings hanging on the wall aren’t ornaments, as he found out soon enough!”

Kathy panicked as the girl released her nipple and pinched\nher nose closed again for a few seconds. She couldn’t breathe or do a thing,\nnot a damn thing. That brat in front of her could raise her hand, nip her nose,\nand she’d be dead in what, three minutes, two, maybe less the way her pulse was\nracing and then being tapped on the nose like a disobedient puppy! Even as she\nthought that she squealed into her gag as the same two fingers used their nails\nto nip her left nipple this time. Hell, that hurt! She’d noted that the girl\ndidn’t sport long false ones as so many her age did, yet they were long enough\nto damn well hurt when the little bitch did that!

“This will, perforce, be a one-sided conversation”, Tiffany\ncontinued and then giggled. “Well, actually, entirely one-sided since you can’t\ntalk. You might as well get used to that right now, for that was always\nmother's first rule for the stable. Ponies don’t talk, not ever. That was also\nthe first thing she impressed upon me when she brought me over and introduced\nme to her animals once she felt I was old enough to appreciate them.”

“Ummphhhh!”

“Yes,” Tiffany mused, her eyes distant, absently reaching\nout again and caressing the nearest naked breast for a moment as though\nstroking a pet dog. “I remember one silly pony, a young colt, a big one, and\nthe newest resident. He did try to say something to me while they were feeding\nit. Foolish animal for mummy was not amused and even let me help her” Tiffany\nsmiled at the memory, then tweaked Kathy’s nipple again. “Happy days, eh,\nPepper? Hey, you’ll probably see a lot of Jumbo; he’s in number eleven, almost\nopposite you. Not the fresh young colt he once was, but I’ve always been fond\nof him because he was the first I tamed all by myself. He squealed so\ndelightfully for me, and of course, he wouldn’t dream of being naughty these\ndays, would he?”

Tiffany gave the nipple another tweak and laughed at the\nlook on Kathy’s face. “Well, perhaps he does dream, for that’s about the only\nthing I don’t control in this building. When and what you eat, when you sleep,\nwake, every activity, every minute of every day and night, I am in charge just\nas my mother was before me. Even your bowel movements will be mine to control,\nnot yours. As for this pretty hide,” Tiffany smirked, letting go of the nipple,\nrunning her palm over Kathy's smooth leather-clad belly and down one thigh, and\nthen pointing to the rack of whips and other horrible tools.

“Mummy always loved a new arrival, a fresh canvas, so much\npristine hide to leave her mark upon”, Tiffany giggled. “Unlike poor old Jumbo,\nI’m responsible for filling in most of that canvas and over-painting it many,\nmany times! No doubt I shall…” the small girl suddenly broke off with a\nthoughtful expression on her face.

“Big Jumbo! I hadn’t even thought about that. Two birds with\none stone!” Tiffany mused, ignoring the frantic muted noises emanating from\nKathy’s gagged mouth and her agitated movements that became even more desperate\nas Tiffany began to run both her palms over Kathy’s flat belly and then down\nher hips.

“Not bad, not bad at all”, Tiffany muttered, stepping back.\n“Maybe a whole flock of birds with one stone. I think Pepper, you’re going to\nbe even more fun than I imagined, not to mention being useful as well,” she\nnodded. “Mummy always wanted to do that but never did, and it could make daddy\nvery happy, wouldn’t it? Mummy never looked beyond here, of course, how she was\nthinking. Turn it around a little, though, and it would stop all that silly\nsighing from daddy, wouldn’t it? ‘I don’t suppose I’ll ever be a grandaddy’,\nshe mimicked in a silly voice. “Well, no way I’m getting a fat belly at my age\njust to keep him happy, but I don’t suppose he’d be all that fussy if…well, if\nyou hadn’t fucked up big time, you’d almost be family, eh, girl?

Fat belly? Kathy’s eyes widened in horror at the implication\nas Tiffany stepped forward, and once more, the young girl's hands were roaming\nover her midriff and hips.

“Of course, he might not want to, but then he\nalways….”Tiffany broke off again, and the hands paused and then resumed. “Why\nnot the alternative” she giggled and tapped Kathy on the nose. “I’d have to\nthink about it some because it would be an ultra-rare treat for him. Unique, in\nfact. An interesting experiment to see if poor old Jumbo’t trunk is even\ncapable after all this time”.

“All fed bar this one?” The butch blonde was back carrying a\ngalvanised bucket in one hand and a large soup ladle in the other which she\nused to point at Kathy.

“Mmmm, no, not yet. Her stomach might not be settled enough,\nand the fat cow could probably do with shedding a few pounds. Let's leave\nPepper till tonight. She’ll be ravenous by then, I expect.”

The blonde laughed and hefted the bucket. “Yeah, very\nhungry; she might even eat her first meal here without needing the usual\nencouragement!”

Tiffany smiled and tapped Kathy on the nose again. “Well,\nthat’s my department for the immediate future: any infractions, tell me. I’ll\nsupply the corrective encouragement for Pepper here. You’ll have to be patient,\nSammie, for now. She’s not going anywhere, is she?”

The blonde laughed, put her ladle into the bucket, and then\nplaced it on the floor before joining Tiffany. \nHer hand instinctively reached out, squeezing her other breast, making\nKathy squeak and struggle even more. Her eyes began to flow with tears as the\nbizarre reality of her situation started to overcome her.

“Nice filly”, Sammie observed. “Your Dad’s getting better at\npicking them. Why Pepper?”

Tiffany shrugged. “Why not, and he didn’t pick her,\nespecially for the stable, remember? If she hadn’t been such a randy slut, then\nthings might have been very different” the girl gave a sort of shudder. “Who\nknows, might even have ended up here in an entirely different capacity!”

Sammie gave a short laugh. “Yeah, mistress of all she\nsurveyed over at the house. I wonder how he intended to explain all this to her\nin that case?”

“I don’t think he\nwould have. I doubt he’d have bothered even bringing the tart up here. He never\ndid with the others, did he? Anyway, I\ngather she wasn’t interested in leaving London from what he told me.”

“Yeah, no doubt reluctant to leave behind all those other\ncocks she was so fond of accommodating!” The blonde sneered, releasing Kathy's\nbreast, and with practised ease, inserted a finger straight up into her vagina,\nmaking her squeak, jump and wriggle in humiliated rage. “Park a bus up here, I\nexpect!”

“Now you stop that right now, Sammie, \" Tiffany\nordered, slapping the woman's arm even though the woman was considerably bigger\nand probably nearly three times her age. “You mauled her enough yesterday when\nwe brought her in. You'll get your chance later, but this animal is mine for\nnow!”

Kathy shuddered as she felt the finger give an exploratory\nwiggle, and then it withdrew. She watched wide-eyed as Sammie waved the digit\nin front of her eyes for a second before pursing her lips and placing it\nbetween them, making a horrible sucking noise, then grinned at her as she\nremoved it and wiped it on Kathy's hair. “Essence of new ponygirl! Why Pepper,\nthough?” she asked again.

Tiffany shrugged. “I kinda wanted something mummy might have\npicked for her. You know how Breakfast at Tiffany’s was her favourite movie?”

Sammie rolled her eyes. “As if I’d forgotten? You're as bad\nas Moira, what with piping that theme tune, Moon River, around the stable when\nsome poor pony is going to get one hell of a beating!

“I find it soothing!”

Sammie smirked. “Yeah. Well, not very soothing for the\nponies until they know which one you’re playing it for, but that doesn’t answer\nmy question, girlie!”

“I was trying to think of a name somehow connected. Audrey\nHepburn and George Peppard starred so..”

“Peppard to Pepper, oh yes, highly imaginative, I don’t\nthink!”

Tiffany giggled. “Be nice! It’ll do for now, and I like to\ngive them a name straight off. Mummy always did that. She used to say that you\ncan’t take the human out of the animal, but you can put the animal into the\nhuman, which starts with a new name. \nOkay, we can leave her here for now. Let's get all the morning chores\nout of the way, and then we’ll finish tacking her up and introduce her to a few\nother things,” Tiffany laughed, nodding to the nearby rack.

“You first, of course, M’lady”, Sammie said, eyeing the\nvarious whips and canes.

“Of course, I go first. First, second third, until I say\notherwise! Come on and stop looking so\nsulky about it!” she took the bigger woman’s arm and steered towards the arch.\n“Bye the way, you don’t happen to know where the key to Jumbo’s cock cage is by\nany chance?”

We're after that same rainbow's end, waitin' 'round\nthe Bend

My huckleberry friend, moon river, and me

“I must get my ears checked, for I seem to have missed the\nstand-downtown bell this morning”, Tiffanny put a hand to her ear cocking her\nhead on one side “or maybe not”, she added as the bell rang for the fourth\ntime. “I spy with my little eye\nsomething else that perhaps needs to see a vet about its hearing, or is it just\nbeing lazy”, that sweet smile that wasn’t disappeared “or worse, deliberately\ndisobedient?” She snapped her fingers and tapped the top of the stall door.

The morning routine,\nKathy thought, belatedly resuming her position right in front of the hated brat\nas the echos of that final shrill ringing died away. The same every damn morning, and it never\nvaried, never changed bar the first face you saw or sensed, for lowering your\neyes from that point halfway up the roof on the far side wasn’t recommended.\nThat would be considered a sign of disrespect or, worse, disobedience, which\nwasn’t tolerated, not in Miss Fucking bratty sadistic Tiffany’s private version\nof hell!

“Head up, udders out, stand for me till I say otherwise”,\nTiffany snarled and then walked away, not even bothering to look back to see if\nher order was being obeyed. Why should she when no occupant of her stable, even\nthe newest animal, would dare risk her wrath?

Kathy had lost all track of time. She might have been\nconfined in said hell for weeks, months, or more. Day and night, yes, but\nlonger, she had no idea, not since Miss fucking dyke Sammie had caught her\ntrying to scratch the bricks at the rear of her stall with one of her harness\nbuckles to add another day to a crude calendar. How she’d known Kathy didn’t\nknow, but she’d suddenly appeared in a furious mood, dragged her down to that\nend room, and thrust her into the narrow iron cage to await the teenage brat\nand another session on that loathsome flogging bench or similar!

She did not know how long she’d have to wait for even that\nfourth bell varied daily but standing there; she’d had plenty of time to mull\nover how her life had so abruptly and unexpectedly changed. Kathy guessed the\nbig blonde knew about her calendar because cameras were situated all around the\nstable. There was no such thing as privacy. You were exposed body and soul\ntwenty-four-seven, and Kathy still hadn’t gotten used to the exposed body bit,\nnor did she intend to, for there had to be a way to escape this crazy, bizarre,\nsurreal situation. There just had to be! How could a hell hole like this even\nexist today in a civilised, developed country?

Kathy made that resolution at least a dozen times daily but\nhad to admit that her early optimism was waning somewhat. On the one hand, it\nwas unbelievable that the little red-headed bastard of a bitch could do this to\nher, to keep her captive like this, like an animal! Then, on the other hand,\nall she had to do was lower her head, if she dared, and look diagonally across\nat the hulking occupant in number eleven. One such glance could put an\nimmediate and colossal damper on her determined ambition to escape.

Jumbo was a big boy, no a big man, tall and bulky, built\nlike a rugby prop forward, and how long had the little bitch kept him here? A\nhelpless captive in her private petting zoo for her perverted amusement, and he\nwasn’t even the oldest or longest occupant of the stable, or so she’d learned\nvia snippets of conversation. Tiffany’s\nmother had been dead for nearly a decade, and that poor guy had newly arrived\nwhen the evil brat was first introduced to this hell hole she so delighted\nin. How old was the girl when she first\napplied a bamboo cane to Jumbo’s sizeable bottom?

Kathy had found herself frequently staring across the\nstable. How often had the poor man suffered since that first painful encounter,\nand not just at the end of a slender wooden cane? Despite his size, he seemed\nso apathetic and spiritless. He followed obediently on the end of a leather\nrein as his petite young tormentor led him about like a grotesque version of\nbeauty and the beast—a hulking human puppy dog who’d been house-trained so\neffectively. Except no rolled-up newspaper had inflicted the scars that covered\nhis body!

Kathy shifted her weight from one foot to the other or one\nhoof to the other, as they’d no doubt put it. Her insane jailers who’d\nincarcerated her in this preposterous ultra-fetish asylum they’d created solely\nto serve their perverted interests. A part of Kathy’s brain almost refused to\naccept that it was real and actually happening to her, that such a bizarre\nplace could even exist. Unfortunately, it did and that portion of her mind that\nquestioned it was shrinking daily.

Still, no one came to view her, to gloat at their captive\nhuman animal. Kathy could hear sounds from elsewhere in the stable, the usual\nrestless rustling as her fellow prisoners shuffled about in their small\nenclosures or the occasional neigh or whinny from the two real animals. Nothing\nfrom the two devils that ran the fucking place, so all she could do was stand\nthere statue like gazing upwards and across until she was released. To do\notherwise would have been very foolish.

Kathy’s mind drifted back to that first incredible morning\nas she waited in that iron cage, her mind endeavouring to process what was\ngoing on and completely failing as her rage built up minute by minute. If she’d\nbeen a steam boiler, no doubt she’d have triggered the pressure release valve\nor blown up in an impressive explosion of noise and scalding steam. However,\nshe wasn’t; there was no release, not even vocally. Oh, if only she didn’t have\nthat horrible thing in her mouth. All she could do was throw herself against\nthe cage's unyielding bars, which quickly proved more painful than satisfying.

It had seemed an age till Tiffany returned; meanwhile, Kathy\nhad subsided into a sort of stupor, not asleep nor entirely conscious, her mind\nstill not yet the active alert organ it had been twenty-four hours earlier. The\ngiggle broke her dormant state both of body and mind as her eyes opened, and\nseeing the girl there looking at her, she instinctively threw herself forward\ninto the bars that formed the iron door. Neither that nor her muted screams of\nrage and protest had the slightest effect on her predicament.

“Careful”, Tiffany cautioned with another giggle. “You’ll\nhurt yourself if you go on like that, silly animal” She giggled again as Kathy\nexploded in another futile outburst of energy and stifled noise. “No, no, now\nstop that!” the girl's hand reached through the bars and gently stroked Kathy’s\nleft breast. “Now be calm; there is nothing you can do to change the situation,\nnothing. Nor will anyone come and look for you, so listen carefully; I shall\nonly speak to you like this once. After this, my communication with you will be\nbriefer, virtually non-existent in conventional terms!”

She smiled, withdrawing her hand, and stood there with her\narms folded, looking thoughtfully at her prisoner. A trim little figure all in\nbrown and beige. High brown riding boots, beige leggings and sweater. Kathy glared back at the smaller, younger\ngirl who radiated supreme confidence. She did not display the slightest tinge\nof remorse or sympathy at the outrageous way she’d treated her guest, her\nstepmother-to-be. A dark thought flashed into Kathy’s mind as she looked at the\nsmiling redhead through the bars. Was this how she’d intended to treat her\nprospective stepmother all along?

A thought immediately confirmed. “Did you honestly think I’d\naccept a whore like you in mummy’s place? Daddy might have shared your bed a\nfew times, but once I’d made a few enquiries, there was no way I’d allow the\nlikes of you to share his! I’m not a prude, and he’s a man like any other with\ncertain appetites, after all, but one does have limits. Sticking his cock in\nyou is one thing, but putting a ring on your finger is quite another! There is\nnothing wrong with daddy’s helicopter, but why should I have made life easy for\nyou?“ Tiffany paused and giggled. “Start as I mean to go on, Pepper, and yes, I\ncan get away with it!” Tiffany smiled. “If that’s what you’re wasting energy\ntrying to tell me. Besides, making your trip here a bit awkward worked well for\nme!”

Kathy’s eyes flared with hatred for the composed little\nbrat, for that’s precisely what she’d been endeavouring to convey in a frenzy\nof muted words and an ever-extending skein of drool.

“Let's see now”, Tiffany began ticking things off on her\nfingers. “Paper trail at the departure airport, at the arrival car hire firm\nand you stopped, what? Three or four times for directions and even got a map\nfrom Jimmy Donaldson; how kind of him. Lots of people will remember you. I\nexpect Sammie and Bob will have left that map somewhere prominent and dry in\nyour hire car, tucked in the sun blind, perhaps. So sad but not unusual.\nTourists are always taking that tight bend at the bottom of Black Tarn hill way\ntoo fast and end up in the burn, although it's more of a river there when it's\nin spate as it is now. Six cars and a motorbike have ended up in the water in\nthe last ten years, with three fatalities. It’s not that deep even at this time\nof the year, but ice cold and extremely fast flowing. I suppose it's natural\nthat people insist on trying to get out rather than sitting chest-deep waiting\nfor help. Sheer panic, I expect”.

“Mmmmffff!”

Some, like the Aussie tourist couple, made it to the bank\nbut not that salesman the year before. They found his body three miles downstream,\nheart attack, but you’ll be like....” Tiffany paused and chuckled. “Well, like\nthe other one. The one they never found. Missing presumed dead,” she chuckled\nand jerked a finger back towards the arched doorway. “Perhaps if they’d looked\nupstream and say here instead, but why should they have done that? No doubt\nthey will look and look, and local people will help. Maybe we’ll help again\nfrom here. We did last time, at least for the first few days, before they\nscaled things back and moved further down. Poor Mrs McCreadie was almost run\noff her feet making tea and snacks for everyone” Tiffany smiled. “I felt so\nguilty, and of course, daddy unsurprisingly did his nut when he found out about\nit. He went ber-ser and capital K! Poor Sammie nearly got the boot for setting\nit up for me despite them being friends for yonks. Anyway, a storm in a teacup\nby then. When he came up, the search had long since moved down to the coast,\nand letting Dobby out of his stall would have been pretty stupid.

“Mmmmffff!”

“He’s just so cute. Hardly any bigger than me and yet riding\nthat huge great motorbike. I might even have done him a favour by permanently\ngetting him off that dangerous thing. He stopped to try and buy some petrol\nbecause he was running empty and hadn’t realised just how few facilities there\nare around here. I mean, like zilch, so far as filling stations go or anything,\ncome to that! Oh, but he was so cute,\nand I just had to have him. I was into Harry Potter then, well still am, and\nwith his big silly ears and the expression on his face, I immediately thought\nDobby!”.

“Mmmmffff!”

“Yes, Mmmff indeed” Tiffany nodded absently, stroking\nKathy's breast again. “I expect the police will be here sometime later today.\nOh, I shall be so upset. Distraught even. I can do a very good distraught, not\ntoo over the top if you know what I mean.” the girl paused for a moment\ncontemplating. “Or should that be…oh, never mind! Anyway, all my fault. I should have been more\naccommodating; perhaps we wouldn’t have fallen out so quickly, and you wouldn’t\nhave driven off into the night in such a rage. I did shout after you to be\ncareful on that road, but you probably didn’t hear me. I expect it will be\nSergeant McDonald, such a dear. I’ve known him since I was a toddler, you know.\nA real cuddly sweetheart is Uncle McDonald. Poor lamb, he does so hate being\nthe bearer of tragic news. He was the one who had to tell Daddy when mummy\ncrashed back when he was just the local constable. Still, I expect a tot or two\nfrom Mrs McCreadie will help.”

Tiffany seemed to realise that she was fondling Kathy’s\nbreast again and withdrew her hand with a jerk. “Whoa, getting ahead of myself,\nalmost as bad as Sammie. I’m surprised these big whores udders are not black\nand blue the way she was helping herself to a few handfuls last night. Now I\njust need to..”

What Tiffany needed to do remained unknown as the girl’s\nphone rang at that point. “Here already? That was quick. Yes. Oh, goody, I was\npretty sure it would be him. Do the usual for them, and I’ll be right over.\nYep, two minutes!” Tiffany killed the call and smiled at Kathy. “Wowzer,\nquicker than I thought. Some early bird must have had their wits about them.\nAnyway, all the better for me and” she giggled “, and all the worse for you. In\nabout ten minutes, a certain waning model and wannabe celebrity will have faded\nentirely and permanently from the public's fickle memory, and I doubt anyone\nwill give a damn. It’ll be, remember what’s her name? Think upon that whore!”

Tiffany slapped the breast she’d been casually fondling hard\nand turned to leave but, after a single pace, stopped abruptly, whirled around\nand pointed. “Feel free to look around while you're waiting, Pepper. Those\nitems dangling from their hooks will soon feature rather prominently in your\nfuture life. Take a decko at the specialist furniture while you’re at it with\nall the straps and fittings. That one over there is very popular,” the girl\npointed to something that looked like a carpenter's saw horse and chuckled. It\nwas glossy black with a very narrow padded leather top, and sticking up were\ntwo big sex toys whose function was immediately apparent. Tiffany giggled\ndelightedly at the look on Kathy’s face. “Popular I should explain in that it\nwas one of mummy’s favourite pieces and very adaptable. Big Jumbo almost lived on it at one point!”\nTiffany smiled. “Anyway, as I said, this will be our last little chat, bar\nperhaps a situational update when I return. From now on, those nasty toys over\nthere will do most of my talking. Bye for now, and welcome to my mother’s\nstable. I’m so glad you could come, especially now I’ve plans for you beyond\nthe immediate!”

“I’ve plans for you?” Those four words had stuck in Kathy’s\nhead as effectively as the harness and other horrible things that bound her\nbody and denied freedom and what did ‘beyond the immediate mean. Complete\nrational thought and mental clarity had returned in the interval between\nTiffany's departure and returning about an hour and a half later after dealing\nwith uniformed officialdom. Growing terror was how she’d spent that period,\nreinforced by a brief visit from the big blonde.

The older woman strode briskly through the arched doorway\nand grabbed a long thick cane from that rack of horror that seemed to have a\nmagnetic attraction for Kathy’s eyes. The woman had ignored her until she was\nabout to leave. She’d paused, swung around and came over to the cage flexing\nthe cane between her hands, smiling wickedly as Kathy instinctively endeavoured\nto push herself back through both iron bars and the brick wall behind.

“No way out that way, pony”, the woman chuckled and, after a\nquick look, rearwards over her shoulder, reached through the bars to grope\nKathy’s left breast again. “No escape from Miss Tiffany’s stable, ever!” Then\nthe thick cane in her other hand was thrust through, and the tip tapped upon\nher right breast. “A fine pair of udders and virgin fresh. Not a mark on them,”\nthe woman smirked. “But not for long! Wait till your little owner gets to work\non them. Bad move, girl, flashing them at her daddy the way you did and then\nbetraying him!”.

Kathy gasped into her bit as the woman bobbed down and\nthrust two fingers into her vagina, penetrating deep and then wriggling them as\nshe squirmed and protested mutely. “Sssstttpit!”

The blonde laughed and stood up, licking her fingers slowly,\nlasciviously, and then used her cane to tap upon the same intimate spot she’d\njust violated. “Udders make a fine target, but I find a few good uppercuts in\nthis region very effective for bringing ponies swiftly to heel, be they colt or\nfilly, mare or stallion. They all dance the same for me when the cane bites!”

Moon river, wider than a mile

I'm crossing you in style some day

Kathy maintained her\nrigid pose, shivering slightly but from the chilly morning air rather than\nfear, although fear was an ever-present factor in her life. What else when you\nwere a helpless captive in the hands of two sadistic psychopaths who didn’t\neven consider you human and regularly applied pain to your body with not the\nslightest trace of human emotion? No, correction. They did show emotion, the\nbastards, but not the sort that was welcome to her or any other unfortunate\nwretches incarcerated in this private version of hell.

A movement to her front, finally! Kathy’s head didn’t move,\nbut her eyes briefly dropped just for a second before resuming that intent\ninspection of the opposite upper reaches of the ceiling. Tiffany, Miss Tiffany,\nas the house servants respectfully called her or Tiffy as the big blonde dyke\noften did. The brat inspected her livestock every morning, the same damn\nroutine each day or sometimes her partner in crime until that final bell call\nfreed them. This morning, Kathy had been fractionally late again and thus\ncondemned to stand as she was till ordered to stand down by one of the bastards\nunless they forgot her, of course! By the sound of it, they’d started the\nmorning mucking out routine, so would she have to stand thus until they reached\nher stall?

Morning inspection! That alone was galling, an additional\nhumiliation among many and no doubt deliberately intended to add to the stable\noccupant’s degradation and misery. Start daily by ramming home that they were\nmere animals, possessions, exotic pets to Tiffany. Her hapless subjects ruled\nand used by an ultra-cruel monarch in any way she chose and dependent on her\ngoodwill even to exist. Kathy hadn’t fully appreciated that last thought until\none evening in the second week after receiving a savage beating at the brat’s\nhands.

She’d been rolling around in her stall in a futile attempt\nto free her hands, desperate to massage and soothe her tortured bottom. She’d\nbroken off exhausted and sobbing then the full realisation had hit home for the\nfirst time. The brat could have whipped her to death, couldn’t she? And no one\nwould have known, would they? She couldn’t do a single thing for herself; could\nshe except breathe, and even a simple pinch to her nose could stop that if that\nhorrible ball was filling her mouth, not that the bit between her teeth was\nmuch better!

Kathy dropped her eyes instinctively as they registered a\nmovement but only for a fleeting instinct. Tiffany was walking up the lines of\nstalls opposite, looking at them and their captive occupants. The little bitch\non yet another morning inspection. Christ, it was so fucking unbelievable,\nwasn’t it! Yet it was painfully real, and no one batted an eyelid about it, did\nthey?

That her captive presence in a stall along with all the\nothers was an everyday norm was confirmed later on that first day when she’d\nbeen returned to her stall by the blonde dyke after the brat had so cruelly and\nso calmly flogged her that first time. She’d been left tethered by a couple of\nchains affixed to her harness near the entrance to her stall and unable to do\nanything other than hop from one foot to the other, silently sobbing. Helpless\nto touch or do anything other than endure the fiery pain in her poor, tortured\nbottom and thighs and cruelly used breasts. \n

Bob had appeared a couple of times carrying a huge toolbox\nand, apart from a casual glance, ignored her and noisily busied himself doing\nsomething out of sight at the far end. Kathy had seen him several times since,\nand he had not shown the slightest interest or curiosity in her wretched\nplight. His wife, Mrs McCreadie, was also an occasional visitor along with her\nlarge blue plastic bucket full of the foul yuk the stables occupants were\nexpected to eat. The woman had even paused by her stall and spoken to her once.

“Settling in, are we, lassie” the woman had smiled as though\ntalking to a new employee. “There’s good. Best not to try Miss Tiffany’s temper\ntoo much. Sharp, she can be like her mother often was. Foolish, you were\nflashing all you got at her poor dada and then doing the dirty on him!”

The woman had shaken her head sadly and headed off with her\nhorrible bucket muttering something to herself as she went. Kathy had stamped\nher feet in frustration. She hadn’t; she hadn’t, had she? She’d not flashed\nanything other than a smile. Dada had made all the running during their first\nfew encounters, not her! The fact that she didn’t quite know just how rich dada\nwas at the time was irrelevant, of course!

Occasionally it was Mrs McCreadie who brought in their feed.\nMore often, one of her two persecutors and once had been the old guy from the\ngatehouse who’d left the bucket ready to be dished out later. Tiffany and Sammie had been busy down the far\nend in the room that housed the cages and those other pieces of horrible\nfurniture with which she was becoming far too well acquainted. A young male\nvoice was screaming and shouting in agony, and Kathy had occupied a stall long\nenough to know the reason why. The old guy had shuffled in with the bucket,\nplaced it carefully down by the big entrance doors, shouted something, and\nturned to leave but stopped as a particularly loud scream sounded. He’d paused,\nshrugged, bent down, picked up his bucket, and shuffled down towards the noise,\nreappearing a moment later to depart quietly, and not once had he bothered to\nglance at her nor any of the stable's other occupants!

“Pepper, stand down!”

Thank heavens for that! Kathy relaxed and shook her body.\nTiffany was walking back towards the far end of the stable, not even sparing\nher a glance. Kathy was now free or rather released to do whatever she wanted\nwithin the confines of her stall. Twenty-four hours before that fucking bell\nrang again, but she’d better not be late tomorrow. Had she got away with it\ntoday, or would they be back for her later? Kathy cringed inwardly at that\nawful thought.

Bar feeding, grooming, and God forbid, another training\nsession with Miss Tiffany; Kathy was now free, totally free, at least that was\nwhat that big blonde dyke Sammie had laughing told her when she was grooming\nher one morning. Grooming, they called it? Washing and groping more like and\nSammie didn’t give a damn where her inquisitive fingers ended up did, she!\nEvery bloody session, that bitch had to probe her most intimate parts with one\nor more soapy fingers.

Free, yeah, free! Big joke. ‘Free for the day now, pony’,\nthat’s what the big bitch had laughed as she closed the stall door after that\nfirst horrible grooming session. Kathy had still been traumatised, but the\nwords had stuck. ‘Must be nice, eh? No worries about rent or mortgages, no\nworries about work or money. Hell, Pepper, you don’t even have to think about\nwhat to wear or have for your supper, do you, girl!’

Kathy glowered and unthinkingly stamped her foot at that\nmemory. To make it worse, the bitch had reappeared a moment later and laughed,\n‘Don’t even have to worry about whose dick your big whore hole’s going to\nentertain tonight either, eh? Maybe Miss Tiffany will take pity on you and let\nme tickle your hot clitty’ the blonde head had disappeared, but her voice had\nfloated back ‘once a year, maybe!’ she’d added with a cruel chuckle.

Fucking bitch! The fact that there was an element of truth\nin her hateful words wasn’t lost on Kathy, for she’d always been a sensual\nhedonistic girl, and sex had played a part in her life for a long time. A more significant factor than she’d\nappreciated until now. She’d taken such pleasure for granted as far back as her\ntime in the care home when she’d lost her virginity to one of those who were\nsupposed to be caring for her. She hadn’t been the only one to suffer at that\nbastard's hands, but unlike the others she’d enjoyed the experience after the\ninitial shock of penetration.

Perhaps that did make her a whore. After all, she’d shared\nthat fuckers bed willingly on numerous other occasions and suspected it was her\ngrowing appetite and demands that had frightened the guy into resigning. But\nno, that didn’t make her a whore did it? Not once had she ever spread her legs\nfor money. It was true that apart from that first occasion, she’d invariably\nbeen the prime initiator. Even thinking back to that first occasion, maybe\nshe’d been a shade too forward and precocious, plus she hadn’t been ignorant of\nthe randy bastard's reputation, had she? Jesus fucking Christ, did that make\nher equally perverted, given all that was happening? No, Kathy decided very\nfirmly; it did not. She’d had that same itch regularly for over a dozen years,\nbut now she couldn’t scratch it, which was so damn frustrating. If only, but\nno. Kathy glanced at the nearest wall and squirmed, another inch on the thing\nin her twat, and maybe she could have humped the damn brickwork, but it wasn’t,\nand she couldn’t, could she. Why couldn’t the big one stuffed up her arse be in\nfront!

Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker

Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way

“Sorry to keep you waiting, pony” Tiffany smiled and\nshrugged. “I had to make an official statement, and then we had a bit of a\ngeneral social chat. Of course, by that time, they needed a second cuppa, and\nwell, I expect you know or can imagine how these things go. Here’s me itching\nto get back in here and yet having to look all sad and contrite and go through\nthe motions, and I was never a good actress. Now old Mrs McCreadie, she’s\nmissed her calling what with wringing her hands and wailing ‘that poor bairn,\nthat wee English lassie’. Anyway, it seems your hire car has been found, your\nempty hire car, so now the search is on for said wee lassie somewhere\ndownstream. I did point out that given your age and build, you’re neither a\nyoung bairn nor on the wee side, eh Pepper? That gave them a laugh and lightened\nthe sombre mood a tad! Sorry to have kept you waiting, but I’m back now!”

Kathy had stared at the sweetly smiling young girl, hardly\nfeeling the possessive squeeze to her right breast as the girl emphasised the\nword now. Her mind was reeling as it slowly processed what Tiffany was saying,\nand the fact that her brain didn’t want to play ball wasn’t helping. I mean,\nwhy should it have, given the crazy situation? What sane mind would believe\nwhat was happening to her? An hour later, brain, body and bottom were entirely\nin tune with the situation and seething in humiliated, helpless rage and agony\nas Miss Tiffany delivered her first little ‘taster,’ as she put it, of what\nstable life would be like for her latest acquisition.

That had been her first experience of how sadistic the brat\ncould be. As the newest occupant of the stable, such painful and humiliating\nsessions had become a daily, sometimes twice daily, occurrence. Nor was it just\nTiffany, either. ‘Miss Tiffany’s lunching in town today with some of her\nfriends, pony, so I’m on breaking and training duty!’ That’s what the fucking\nblonde dyke called it. Breaking and training as Kathy squealed and screamed in\nagony under cane or lash. Being cruel to be kind was another misnomer they\nfrequently used. Kind!

It was unbelievable what they were doing to her and how they\nwere doing it. How could otherwise ordinary people behave like that? Then\nagain, Kathy had a friend, not so much a friend, more a colleague. Louisa was a\ngorgeous, tall, ebony-skinned girl five years older than her from the same\nagency with whom she’d done a few jobs earlier in her career. Kathy had shared\nthe occasional coffee with Lou after she’d left the business, having hit that\nsame low point in her modelling career that Kathy was experiencing. Lou had\nbecome a professional dominant catering for a limited clientele of financially\nwell-endowed city and show biz perverts.

“None of them particularly well-endowed elsewhere”, Lou had\nconfessed, making them giggle over their cappuccinos. Kathy had expressed her\nreservations knowing that prostitution was an established extra in her\nbusiness, although disguised as ‘high-end escorting’. “Still means opening your\nlegs”, Lou had sneered contemptuously and added. “There’s a saying in my\nbusiness that pro-domming isn’t prostitution. Believe me, it is! The pathetic\nbastards still expect a helping hand to squirt at the end of a session!”

Lou had grinned wickedly at that point and leaned across the\ntable, beckoning to Kathy with her forefinger to come closer. “Some of them I give a choice towards the\nend, no squirt and money back if they let me play a bit longer but on my terms\nfor an hour or so, no safe words!” She’d giggled and winked conspiratorially.\n“Some of them are silly enough to agree to indulge me. Would you believe I had\na senior policeman screaming and begging me to stop just a few days ago?

Kathy had blinked in surprise and asked, “did you?”

“Did what, stop? No, of course not, darling! Why should I\nwhen I’m having such fun? Silly bastard\nleft my place waddling like a bow-legged duck threatening me with lord knows\nwhat for criminal assault! Silly Billy. Most of them do that after one of my\nindulgent ‘extra’ sessions, and half of them are so traumatised and angry and\nin such a hurry to get their pants on and depart that they forget to ask for\ntheir money back”, she’d laughed. “A win-win situation for me, and then most of\nthe stupid wimps can’t wait for another session once they’ve recovered a bit,\nof course!”

“Aren’t you frightened of being arrested or something?”\nKathy had asked her, which had made Lou hiccup and giggle as she finished her\ncoffee, glanced at her expensive Cartier watch, gathered up coat and bag, then\nmade to depart but paused and grinned.

“Nope, too many friends in high places these days.” She’d\nlaughed. “Very high, darling. Very high! This bloody country is governed by\nfucking perverts! Throw in the fact that money talks; the more money, the\nlouder the voice. Anyway, forget that; it’s the special commissions I do, the\nreal mega high-earning tricks that would get me locked up and the key thrown away\nbig time!” she winked. “Flew back from the Middle East only last week after an\nenjoyable week or so providing a little voyeuristic entertainment, among other\nthings. No safe words there either, and no…well, better not to know, sweetie!”\nLou had tapped one side of her nose, given a very strange wink and with a\nwicked laugh, waved a hand and disappeared out of the door joining the throng\nof Oxford Street shoppers and tourists.

That conversation had been in Kathy’s mind quite frequently\nof late, likewise that strange wink and the look on Lou's face. It had puzzled\nher at the time, but now she saw that self-same or similar expression every day\non her tormentor's faces. Mega high earnings? Was this crazy stuff what Lou had\nbeen hinting at? Kathy’s heart had sunk at that thought. What if this fucking\nhorror show in an isolated part of the Scottish Highlands wasn’t a one-off!

When she returned from lying her pretty redhead off to the\nlocal law, Tiffany's apology hadn’t sounded the least apologetic—very much the\nopposite. The words might have been correct, but her gleeful tone was both smug\nand triumphant. The young huntress had set out to catch her prey, succeeded and\nnow intended to mount its head on her trophy wall. Given what they did to her next, a quick,\nsingle stroke of the executioner’s axe to her neck might have been far more\npreferable to the humiliation and pain she was to suffer. Worse, there was to\nbe no blessed instant release into permanent uncaring oblivion for her!

A couple of times, Kathy had hovered on the verge of falling\ninto temporary insensibility, but the sadistic little brat was far too skilled\nand too experienced to allow her that outlet as she writhed and screamed on the\n‘discipline bench’ as they termed it. Nor had pain alone taken her down that\npath, but the accompanying shock and humiliation had played nearly equal parts\nover two long unbelievable hours of torment.

Two hours, hell, it had felt like an entire lifetime to\nKathy as her initial angry snarls of defiance had quickly changed to screams,\nshouts and pathetic pleas for mercy that were not granted. Ultimately exhausted\nand hoarse, all she’d been able to do was whimper as Tiffany had laughingly\npatted her blistered bottom, saying, “Well, that was fun, wasn’t it, Pepper?\nTwo whole hours and not a single faint. I must say I’m impressed with your\nstamina. We didn’t need the old-smelling salts once. Not bad, not bad at all for an introductory\nsession! Any last words before I pop this back in?”.

Kathy had been too exhausted in body and spirit to reply\nbeyond a pathetic squeak as the cruel girl held up the mouth bit she’d been\nshown earlier. Her fighting instinct had been temporarily crushed by physical\nincapacity. By pain and mental incredulity at what was happening to her, what\nhad happened to her and the growing awareness of what might happen to her!

“No, nothing to say” Tiffany had laughed and then wedged\nthat horrible bit between her teeth with which she was to become so accustomed.\n“All that silly noise earlier when we were dressing you, and now nothing,\nreally!”

“Nooommmfff”

“No, too late now, pony” Tiffany had giggled and patted her\non the head. “Now, I have some things to do, so you can stay on this bench and\nhave a nice little rest. I’ll be back to play in a little while, and then you\ncan return to your nice stall for some delicious din dins!” A statement Kathy\nremembered later when the big blonde dyke rammed her head into a stinking\nstainless-steel container and held it, forcing her to lap up her first meal.\nEspecially that inflexion in the giggling brat's voice when she’d emphasised\ndelicious!

That initial experience was stuck in her mind, no, not\nstuck. Burned, branded, seared into her brain and would be for life even if, by\nsome miracle, she was freed from this nightmare to walk through those big\ndouble doors and back to sanity. Two\nlong hours! The most humiliating and debasing two hours imaginable. That was if\nany sane person could imagine that such wicked perversions could be perpetrated\nby one human being upon another in such a cold-blooded and sadistic\nmanner. Sadly history is full of such\nhorror, and the two fiends that now ruled her life were no exception. They’d\nhad abused and violated her body without hesitation, hadn’t they? Jointly\nrevelling in her outraged protestations, feeding off her pain and humiliation\nlike two voracious parasites satisfying their perverted appetites. Worse, their\nvile hunger seemed insatiable!

Kathy sobbed into the horrid bit, stretching her mouth at\nthe memory. Miss Sammie had joined Tiffany to finish dressing her. Even now,\nKathy gagged and choked as she recalled that first experience of finding out\nhow helpless she truly was and how vulnerable and accessible to the pair of\nevil perverts as they’d ‘dressed’ her.

Her body was no longer her own, and her wardrobe was\ninfinitely more limited than the sparse collection of garments she’d possessed\nin her care home days. Kind as her house parents and the other staff had been,\nthe realities of local authority finances had inevitably meant a culture of\nseconds, hand downs and charitable donations of used clothing. Perhaps that\npartly explained her subsequent reckless spending on so many expensive outfits,\ndresses and shoes once she could afford them. \n

Now she was restricted to a very meagre wardrobe, which was\nsuch an appropriate word considering what they had strapped and locked upon\nher. Nothing was loose, nothing was lightweight, and nothing was overly\ncomfortable. Nor was any of the horrible stuff coming off anytime soon, or so\nshe’d gathered, listening to what Tiffany and Sammie had laughingly discussed\nas they yanked straps tighter and tighter.

The inevitable necessity of close physical contact was one\naspect of her business that Kathy had always hated, and this situation was a\nmillion times worse. Having her hair fussed about with or her make-up slowly\nand professionally applied had never bothered her, but her body was something\nelse. Those glossy fashion photos of seemingly immaculate perception in the\nmagazines might look like that from the front but go behind the model, which\nwas a different story. Hasty tacks, safety pins, gathered up extra folds of\ncloth or even the opposite, gaping slits with flesh bulging through where a\ntoo-tight fit had received some on-the-spot relief adjustment via a box cutter\nor similar! A hastily applied band-aid wasn’t an unknown addition either in\nthose situations.

Such shoots usually meant a dresser, even a whole team of\npeople accessing her body, pushing, pulling, squeezing, and touching as they\nmoulded her like a piece of clay to fit the outer layer and then often the pose\nthey wanted. Catwalk shows were just as bad, but at least they ensured the\nclothes would fit in advance. However, it was no different behind the scenes,\nwith quick changes assisted by the dressers. The same hasty hands, doing the\nsame things and for some of those sad, ugly bitches handling a body like hers\nwas maybe a perk of the job!

Jesus, but she was suffering, wasn’t she? That horrible screaming\nhad finally stopped, and she’d seen Tiffany walk quickly past the front of her\nstall and exit through the big doors. Doubtlessly her evil work with whatever\nunfortunate captive male presumably finished, or at least for now. Such\nagonised screams and shouts were an all too frequent daily occurrence in the\nstable, and far too often, Kathy had been the one responsible.

Jesus, she thought again as she squirmed and wriggled,\ntrying to gain a modicum of release from the various straps and fastenings she\nsported in abundance. Did they need that many of the damn things, given the\nabbreviated nature of her costume as she thought it? Very abbreviated, for\nabout the only thing not on show was her belly button. Not that her actions\nrelieved anything, for the bastards were forever fiddling with what she wore.\nFingers frequently sliding under tight straps and prying inquisitively into her\nmost private and delicate places, often adding to her misery by tweaking yet\nanother strap one notch tighter.

Two fucking hours Kathy thought again, a twelfth of a day, a\nsixth of half a day and the merest fraction of time in a year, and yet it had\nfelt like an entire lifetime once the brat had started working on her as she’d\nput it. Working on her as though she was nothing more than a car engine to be\nserviced or some lifeless, soulless object akin to that!

Tiffany hadn’t liked the leather corset Kathy had awoken to\nfind herself wearing. Well, neither had the wearer, but then Kathy had no\nchoice in the matter, but compared to the brat's final choice and fit, that\nfirst one had been almost a comfort item. As a breed, she’d frequently noted,\nfashion photographers seemed invariably short-tempered and impatient on shoots,\nso Kathy was accustomed to being hustled out of one outfit and into the next.\nHowever, no previous experience could have prepared her for that first hour of\nplaying a life-sized captive Barbie doll for a fetish-fixated brat and her\npartner in crime.

The pair hadn’t taken the slightest note of her as a person,\nan intelligent human being, as they’d stripped her and then dressed and\nundressed her while the fucking little red-headed bitch waivered between the\nvarious bits of harness tack, as they termed it. They must have had a ton of\nthe wretched stuff stashed away, judging from the growing pile of discards as\nTiffany tried one horrible thing after another on her until she was satisfied\nboth with fit and colour.

Her new home was a relatively small rectangular stall that\nmany years ago would have originally contained a real horse, not a two-legged\nfetish parody. Unpainted walls of rough-hewed grey stone brickwork, a stout\nwooden varnished partition between hers and the adjacent stall and the low door\nat the front.

“A king-sized bed compete with toilet facilities en-suite\nfor madam”, Miss Sammie had laughed, pointing towards the flattened pile of\nsoiled straw in one corner. The blonde had unclipped the reins from the mouth\nbit before roughly shoving Kathy towards the rear of the stall, along with a\nfarewell slap upon her poor, tortured bottom. An agonised bottom burning from\nthe second of those two horrible hours as it received that little ‘taster’ from\nthe brat.

Not being used to the stupid boots, they’d only just strapped\nto her long legs she’d staggered backwards two steps and then fallen in the\ndirt. “Generous toilet facilities\nreadily to hand”, the big blonde laughed, kicking up a pile of muck with the\ntoe of her boot. “Plus in, room dining\nvia regular room service”, she’d pointed with her crop to a low shelf\ncontaining a stainless steel water bowl with a large round slot cut into it to\naccommodate a similarly sized bowl alongside. “Dinner will be served in a\ncouple of hours, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, not!”.

The nasty blonde had sniggered that last part as she left\nthe stall, and then as an afterthought, as she clicked the low door closed,\nturned and smirked. “Oh, a word of warning. Our ponies adore their delicious\nfood; they always lick their bowless spotless! Just as well because Miss Tiffany disapproves of ungrateful\nanimals that spurn her generous hospitality, and I think you’ve just found out\nhow she deals with that!”.

Kathy glanced towards the shelf. Her food bowl had been\ntaken away after breakfast, as usual, empty and licked clean as required. It\nhad only taken Kathy a couple of meals to decide life was terrible enough\nwithout adding Miss Tiffany’s mealtime\ndisapproval to her problems. Eating and drinking with your head in a bowl that\nway was so damn demeaning, and once they replaced her mouth bit impossible for\nfood and difficult for water. The revolting mush they dished up twice daily was\nalways far too salty hence her thirst. Her mouth bit was tight, cruelly tight,\nbut there were some holes in it, and with an effort, she could suck up small\namounts of water just like a fucking wild animal at a watering hole in one of\nthe Attenborough documentaries on TV, but at least that might be fresh. It was\nnot covered with a film of dust and the odd dead insect like hers until they\nchanged it again.

Kathy automatically wriggled in what must already have been\nthe one-thousandth attempt to obtain some leeway and comfort against the cruel\nbindings holding her body in bondage. A pointless exercise in that Miss fucking\nbrat Tiffany’s nimble fingers would no doubt swiftly rectify any such slackness\nthe next time she checked, and at the moment, that was almost every time she\nappeared. Being hands-on with her newest ‘animal’, as she put it, was obviously\na big turn-on for the little bitch.

Flattened straw, dirt, a bowl of dusty water, and a\nfull-length modern frameless wall mirror mounted dead centre on the wooden\npartition. Tiffany had even pointed it out as a unique feature she’d added just\nfor her newest pony. Not to Kathy directly, of course, for apart from that\nfirst morning, she’d not addressed a single remark to her other than curt\ncommands. ‘Why waste words on a dumb beast’ she’d said to the blonde dyke one\nmorning. That was so fucking infuriating, and they did it all the time. Kathy\nhad learned much that way and did not like what she had learned.

No, they talked to each other, knowing she could hear and\ncomprehend everything they said. Sometimes Tiffany would even talk to herself\naloud, thus achieving the same aim without deigning to address her pony\ndirectly!

Tiffany had pointed out that reflective addition to her\nlarger partner in crime later that first full day. “A little touch of home for\nmy newest animal. Daddy tells me the slut was always preening herself and\ncouldn’t pass a mirror anywhere without admiring herself, ” the girl had\nlaughed. “Well, now she has all the time in the world to admire herself and her\nnew outfit. I hope she’s got a lot of patience because the next quick change\nwill be a long time off, I expect!”

Kathy glanced at the mirror and would have ground her teeth\nin frustration if she could. Unfortunately, owing to a rather uncomfortable\nhard rubber bar filling her mouth, she couldn’t and had to settle for an angry,\nirritated scowl instead.

Another fucking lie. Okay, so she frequently paused briefly\nto check on her makeup and appearance, so what? Every girl in the fucking\nbusiness soon learned to do that. The agents and agencies even told them to do\nit. They were paid to look good in public, and thus they were their best\nadvertisements. Then there were the companies that often provided freebies in\nthe form of expensive cosmetics and designer clothing who could be pretty\nruthless and have long memories if they didn’t like what they saw—preening\nindeed!

The addition of that mirror was a subtle act of sadism on\nthe red-headed bitches part. It was never truly dark in the stable. Even at\nnight when the main lights were off, others provided a dim level of\nillumination that wasn’t that dim once your eyes got used to it. That fucking\nmirror was always there, as was so often her reflection upon its impartial\nglass surface.

Kathy gazed back at her hateful reflection as she’d done\nmany times already in the brief, although it didn’t feel brief, time she’d been\nresident in the stable. Initially, it had been trying to find a weak point,\nsomething she could exploit to rid herself of the restraints that bound and\nincapacitated her so effectively. Lately, though, such looks had waivered\nbetwixt anger and apathy as she realised her captors had left no such loopholes\nfor her to utilise.

Quite how she would have done so was another question, she\nthought, looking back at herself. Her arms were secured one above the other\nbehind her back in a tight armbinder of vivid scarlet leather, her fingers\nimmobile in leather mittens. ‘Scarlet tack for a Scarlet woman’, Tiffany had\ndecided. A tight Scarlett corselet that not only left her boobs exposed but\nalso supported and uplifted them and offered them to the world at large. Or, in\nthis case, for the benefit of the brat that had dressed her in the damn thing!\nDressed her with less feeling than she might have a plastic doll. No, that\nwasn’t true, was it? The girl had enjoyed every damn moment of the humiliation\nshe inflicted on her living, breathing human doll.

The horrible high collar around her neck was a similar\ncolour likewise the boots her legs had been crammed into. Boots such as she’d\nnever seen in her life nor imagined such horrible things could exist. Hoof\nboots, they called them, and in their eyes, she no longer had feet but had to\nstagger around on her hooves. She was forced to stand permanently on her toes\nas though in high heels, and although Kathy had always worn heels in public,\nnothing beat kicking them off at the first opportunity, only here there was no\nsuch opportunity. She was condemned to wear the wretched things continually\nnight and day!

Kathy had screamed, shouted, sobbed, begged not that the\npair had paid the slightest attention, and then she’d been silenced once they’d\nadded more matching scarlet leather in the form of a head harness and, finally,\nthe horrible mouth bit. Worse, the brat had grabbed hold of a handful of her\nhair as though considering it, then said to her companion. “We’ll leave the animals\nmane for now. Let it get accustomed to the bridle. Anyway, I haven’t decided\nwhat style I want it to have, so I don’t want to shave her now and then regret\nit later, do I?”

“What about branding her and ringing her” The big blonde had\nsaid, making Kathy’s blood run cold. They couldn’t be serious, no way!

Kathy had screamed even harder into the bit, her eyes\nbulging. Branding, shave her head, her crowing glory! No way and she gasped\nsilently with relief as Tiffay shook her head.

“No, all in good time. Time for that later once she’d become\naccustomed to her new life. Maybe when the vets up next, just in case of any\ncomplications”.

That was only a momentary reprieve, for the horror continued\nunabated as that seemed to remind Tiffany of something. She disappeared for a\nmoment and then came back carrying several items, a pair of scissors, a razor\nand a can of foam. Her every instinct was to struggle as they bent her\nbackwards so that her most private area was easily accessible, but then she\nheard Tiffany say somewhat callously. “Hold her, please. Anyway, If she\nstruggles and gets herself cut where it hurts most, it’ll be her own damn\nfault, nothing a few drops of antiseptic won't cure. It’ll probably sting like crazy, but better that\nthan this cunt having a septic cunt, eh!”

Kathy had frozen at that point. Venereal disease or thrush,\nanything like that, had always terrified her. She was paranoid so far as\npersonal hygiene and cleanliness of that area went. Like every model, she kept\nherself trimmed down there but never totally minus a hirsute strip, and she\ndidn’t need a rocket science or medicine degree to know just what the brat\nwould do with that cheap plastic disposable razor. The thought of being nicked\nor cut down there terrified her, so she ceased all motion abruptly bar that of\nher horrified eyes.

Kathy had thought it the most humiliating thing they could\ndo to her, especially when she squirmed in anger and shame, feeling Tiffany’s\nsmall hand roaming all over the area she’d just shaved. Worse, one small finger explored her vaginal\nopening while another inquisitive finger penetrated her rear before delivering\na proprietary pat to be bottom.

Satisfied that Kathy was as smooth as she wanted, the girl\ndisappeared briefly before returning with another scarlet strap dangling from\none hand. It wasn’t the strap that caused Kathy’s eyes to bulge again but the\ntwo bright pink objects in the girl's other hand. This time after one horrified\nlook, Kathy did go ballistic. Naive and ignorant she might be so far as this\ncrazy kidnapping pony malarkey went, she could recognise a fucking pink plastic\ndildo and butt plug when she saw them!

Looking at her reflection in the mirror of all the things\nthey’d done to her that first day, that particular memory was by far the worst,\neven allowing for how Miss fucking Tiffany had subsequently amused herself\nshortly afterwards with her ‘conductors batons’. ‘Somehow, watching and feeling\nthe giggling brat violate her body with those loathsome objects had bothered\nher far more than the beating that followed, painful and humiliating as it had\nbeen.

Thanks to that high uncomfortable collar that held her head\nvirtually immobile, she could only see that final strap via the mirror. Kathy\nhated that scarlet strap as vehemently as the two sizeable invaders it retained\nin her unwilling body. Invaders that were changed every few days during her\n‘extended grooming’ thus perpetuating that cruel humiliation. The fucking strap\nwas way too tight the way it split the generous, fleshy outer lips of her\nvulva, chaffed her inner thighs when she waked or wobbled in her ridiculous\nfootwear and somehow kept those horrible things wedged deeply front and back.

Her eyes moistened, and a single tear briefly escaped her\nright eye to be quickly absorbed by the underside of a narrow bridle strap.\nKathy had always been sensitive about how ‘big’ she was down there compared to\nmany other girls, and never by choice would she wear a bathing suit or bikini\nbottom that was overly tight in that region. She’d done a few photoshoots that\nmade her cringe when she saw the published pictures, and she often wondered if\nother people noticed what she did.

Unfortunately, Miss fucking brat had, of course! How could\nshe not when she was gleefully forcing that short fat pink dildo up into the\nmost intimate area of her body? But she’d found the time to put her fingernails\nto painful use, bitch! Her outer lips\nwere twice the size now or looked it, thanks to the little sadist and the flap\non the end of her crop. Not to mention painfully sore and even more sensitive\nto that fucking strap that felt like it was trying to split her in two!

Kathy turned away from the mirror, shaking her head as\nanother tear threatened to escape wondering why she felt so damn horny. She’d\nnever had any masochistic tendencies, and even if she had been inclined, this\nplace was way over the top in that respect. Maybe they were putting something\nin her food? Didn’t they used to do that in days gone by to soldiers and\nprisoners, only the opposite, add something to dampen their ardour?

Unthinkingly she kicked the dirt with one of her clumsy\nboots only to instantly regret the thoughtless action. She’d absently taken a\ncouple of paces towards the stall door and was now a victim of her booby trap\nas she thought it. Not that it was very effective, for they just walked\nstraight through it or dragged her the same way, seemingly ‘not giving a shit’,\nliterally that she had, and just in that same spot!

Another horrible insane frustration. The things inside her,\nalthough substantial, were not solid and allowed the passage of liquids. The\nshort, fat one in front stretched and humiliated yet frustratingly lacked the\ndepth needed to reach her clit when she tried to hump the wall. At least it was her decision about where and\nwhen she pissed despite the humiliation of squatting and doing it in the dirt.\nUnlike the one up her fucking bum. Like most people, Kathy had taken her\nsphincter muscles for granted. Now they’d been effectively bypassed,\ndeliberately rendered useless, and her captors seemed to find the result so damned\namusing! They also seemed immune to the accompanying foul smell permeating the\nentire building that had registered with her that first afternoon despite her\ndrugged state.

She shook her leg and wiped the hoof-like appendage through\nthe dirt several times, trying to scrape the muck off via the hard underneath\nsurface without much success. Was there something else in the food, or did they\nneed to do that given it was liquidised, designed to be licked and slurped\nquickly rather than chewed and masticated? Designating a place in her stall for\nsuch foul outpourings had been an early decision, and bloody-mindedness on her\npart had moved it from that far corner to the entrance to inconvenience her\ncaptors.

It hadn’t, they didn’t give a damn, and she got as much of\nit as they did, so why bother! Even as she thought about it, Kathy\nautomatically moved as quickly as she could as her body delivered a\nthree-second warning. She staggered towards the doorway, changed her mind and\nreached the corner just a fraction too late to squat, groaning as the first\nuncontrolled gush soiled her thighs and boots.

“Shit!” A somewhat ironic choice of profanity under the\ncircumstances as she squatted in the dirt. To think that three years ago, she’d\naccompanied her latest beau to the royal box on the second day of the\nprestigious Royal Ascot race meeting. Admittedly they’d been seated right at\nthe back, but she was positive that when they stood for the queen’s entry,\nshe’d received a royal smile, or at least one had been aimed in her general\ndirection.

Kathy caught sight of herself in that fucking mirror. From\nthat regal height to this? To squatting in the dirt to take a dump over which\nshe had no control. Then she heard the stable door bang loudly, and a moment\nlater, Tiffany’s face, surrounded by a loose unruly mass of red hair, appeared\nover the stall door. Kathy froze, or\nmost of her did. Not another session, please god not another session. The brat\nsmiled as she saw what Kathy was doing, and then she disappeared.

“Hey Sammie, that new stuff has come. I’ll bring the box\ndown so we can unpack it”.

Kathy breathed a sigh of relief and promptly squirted again\ninto the dirt beneath her haunches. Once more, she looked across to the mirror,\nand although she was too far to see them, the tears began to run unrestrained\nfrom her mournful eyes.

Two drifters, off to see the world

There's such a lot of world to see

Time had become meaningless; anyway, she had no clock, no\ncalendar, and every damn day was the same, so why worry about it? Kathy did,\nthough and by her reckoning, she’d been here what, more than three weeks, five\nbut surely not six? It felt like a lifetime already, yet she guessed it to be a\nmere fraction compared to some of her stablemates.

Depression and worse were common among girls in the business\nbut had been unknown to Kathy. They said it was a sort of illness of the mind,\nyet something she personally could never conceive. Her life had been too full,\ntoo exciting for such stupidity, and anyway, it must only happen to weak-minded\npeople, mustn’t it? Now, she knew\ndifferent after what, four, five, six weeks or more. If there were a way out, a\nquick exit, even though it was permanent, she’d take it without the slightest\nhesitation. Unfortunately, there wasn’t one unless it was possible to die from\nhumiliation and degradation. Maybe the brat would flog her to death one day but\nno, no way. Tiffany was far too careful about that. The brat could have found\nemployment with the Spanish Inquisition or, what were they called, the Nazi\nGestapo, couldn’t she? How many fucking years had she been practising her\nsavagery in the stable, and yet she was only just old enough to vote!

Still sulking after her intimate morning grooming and\nsmarting from the four fresh stripes the brat's cane had left on her bottom\nKathy had been so wrapped up in her thoughts she’d missed the newcomer's silent\nentry till he spoke.

“My goodness. I must say you’re looking wonderful in all\nthat get up, old girl. Tiffy said you’d adapted far better than she’d expected\nto stable life! Quite the sight.\nAbsolutely top-hole and spiffing as my dear old long-gone grandpater would have\nsaid, bless him!”

Kathy spun round and\ngaped, or at least she would have done had her bridle allowed her jaw to drop.\n‘Roger!’ No, yes, finally. He was leaning on the entrance door smiling at her\nwith a lit cigarette in one hand. Kathy hated cigarettes and detested the smoke\nthey produced. An ashtray with attendant ash and a few butts could make her\nwretch. She’d nagged him incessantly until he’d stopped in her presence and\nassured her he would finally make every effort to give up the weed, not that\nshe’d seriously believed he would. However, once ensconced in his London home,\nshe would insist he have all the furniture, curtains and carpets cleaned once\nthey were married and confine himself to the outdoors when indulging in his\nfilthy noxious habit! A limp cock, a\npremature ejaculation she could live with, but smoking indoors would be an\nabsolute no no!

“RRRooooogggaaaa!” she screamed into her bit and hurried\nover to him, conscious of her blatant nudity and her absurd costume. She was so\nexcited, so relieved to see him standing there that everything else was\nmomentarily banished from her mind. Her hope and relief at seeing him there so\nnonchalantly looking into her stall would surely mean an abrupt end to all this\nstupidity.

Of course, the only one being stupid was Kathy herself, but\nthat thought didn’t even register; she was so eager to resolve this absurd\nsituation. It must be a mistake, and he would sort it out immediately. Hell,\nshe wouldn’t even kick up a fuss; well, not much of one, given how god dammed\ninsane and illegal this fucking hell hole was. Did he know about…

Kathy stopped just short of the stall door, looking at him\nin horror. Tall, slim, upright, his long silvery grey hair needing a trim,\nlooking no different from the elegant, well-dressed gent who’d wined, dined and\nwooed her, and he was…was smiling at her. Fucking smiling! Not a trace of\noutrage or astonishment or anything like that. Smiling and not just that,\neither. He looked at her…just like his fucking evil little brat looked at her\nover that low door. Admiring her as though she were some fucking farmer's\nprized sow or whatever!

“Rrrroooooggggnnooo”,\nKathy screamed into her mouth, trying desperately to form coherent words\nstamping her right foot in its clumsy boot up and down in the dirt.\n“Ttttiiiiffffffeee!”

He took a drag from his long cigarette, one of those\nevil-smelling black ones he favoured. He’d once told her they were imported\nspecially from a small tobacconist in Turkey just before she’d told him to\nexport it and himself outside the restaurant. The fact that it was illegal to\nsmoke inside hadn’t bothered him in the slightest. ‘Private room and they\nappreciate my regular generous patronage’ he’d assured her smugly, but she’d\nstill made him stand in the street in the rain!

“Steady on, old girl, you’re going purple. Bust a blood\nvessel or something if you aren’t careful, what?” he smiled and exhaled a cloud\nof evil smoke into her face while reaching out with his other hand to\nreassuringly pat her right breast.

Kathy barely noticed either action as her mind reeled,\noverwhelmed and disbelieving but yet somehow understanding at the same time as\nshe stared back at him. The same suave, smiling Roger with his dated mannerisms\nand old-fashioned talk and yet not the same person. He knew, the bastard knew,\nmust have known all along and not just about the fucking evil stable, but he\nknew about her, knew she was here and what his foul brat had done to her. Kathy\ncould only stare back at him through horror-filled eyes beginning to tear up.

“Used to hate coming in here, you know,” he told her,\naffably, withdrawing his hand and gesturing around the building. “Absolutely\nloathed it even though I paid for it and for what my wife kept in here. You can’t imagine….” He paused and then\nchuckled, taking another drag on his reeking cigarette. “Silly, of course, you\ncan imagine! Funny what you’ll do for love, isn’t it? How far one is prepared\nto go? Of course, she didn’t tell me\nstraight off what she intended, just a couple of horses at first, and then\none-day Moira invited me to come and see her latest occupant. A bit of a shock\nat the time, but” he paused and chuckled. “Now, there’s an understatement if\never there was one” he shrugged. “Well, a bit of give and take, and you get used\nto things, don’t you and…” he sighed and shook his head. “I do miss her, and of\ncourse, Tiffany reminds me so much” he paused again, looking very sad, then\nshook himself and chuckled, exhaled another cloud of smoke, and took a deep\nbreath.

“Girl was right, you know. A hair of the dog, or dogs in\nthis case,” he laughed. “I used to hate the stink in this place, but now I find\nit quite the opposite. My wife always found it stimulating, a long day in here\namid the stench with her special ponies and she was always ready for an early\nnight,” he chuckled again, adding with a sly wink. “Not that she had sleeping\nin mind!”

“Noooommffff”, Kathy glared at him, her mind still in a\nwhirl and only half listening to him as he prattled on so cheerfully. The\nbastard wasn’t going to do anything, was he? No, he didn’t care, didn’t give a\ndamn and as for his fucking bitch of a daughter?

“Even thinking of this place these days has a certain, well,\na certain, shall we say, ‘stimulating’ effect. Pity I couldn’t have bottled the\naroma and let it loose in my place in Knightsbridge, eh? Might have saved me\nsome embarrassment when I failed the test, so to speak, what? Still, from the\npictures my little girl showed me, you didn’t exactly go short when my back was\nturned. Every bloody night, eh?”

“Noofffeffffffynnnnniiit”, Kathy wailed and stamped her foot\nagain in frustration. Not that the action was any more helpful than her futile\nvocal attempts as the thick dirt muffled any sound. He didn’t sound angry as he\nspoke, merely quiet and disappointed.

“Could have brought you up here, I suppose”, Roger mused.\n“Tiffy wasn’t too keen on that idea, though, and I somehow doubted you’d be as\nopen-minded as I was that first time Moria brought me over here to see her\nfirst two-legged equine. I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you, but you are,\nor were I should say, a bit of a prude, you know, girl, despite that hungry\ncunt of yours? Only ever doing it in the dark and not taking your knickers off\nuntil you’d climbed into bed and things like that!” he took a long drag on his\ncigarette before continuing. “Doesn’t help to excite ones old John Thomas you\nknow?” he complained.

Unlike my Moira, she wasn’t the least bit inhibited in the\nbedroom. Way too brazen at times, I thought. Have to admit that my mind was\nwell and truly blown that first afternoon when she casually shed her top and\nthen got her whip out and used it on the poor fellow. The way her tits bounced about! Talk about\nmind-boggling!” he sighed again, then grinned. “But boy, did she make an effort\nto unboggle me later that evening. Not that it required much of an effort, as I\nrecall,” he laughed and then winked again, adding. “Well, watching her back\nthen was always a pleasure; likewise these days, when young Tiffy gets going?”\nhe chuckled, adding, “Not that she ever flashes her assets about like Moira was\nprone to when the mood took her!”

“Anyway, don’t fret;\nI’ll pop back before I leave. I've been thinking of this for the last few days\nand don’t want to waste all the pressure that’s built up now I’m here, a full\nhead of steam.” He grinned and patted her right breast. “As I said, I find this\nplace so stimulating these days. Toodle-oo, as grandaddy used to say, for now,\nHoney”.

Kathy instinctively jumped backwards as he leaned forward\naway from that patronising touch upon her breast and the cloud of foul-smelling\nsmoke. Unfortunately, still not fully accustomed to her horrible footwear nor\nperching permanently on the front part of her foot, she found herself rolling\nin the dirt again. By the time she’d recovered herself and her footing, he’d\ndisappeared, leaving only that swirling smoke and a final chuckle in her ears\nas she’d tumbled.

Kathy regained her feet and shuffled to the door, then\npaused. Standing a little way inside her stall and looking out was permitted\nbut standing right against the door to look up and down the stable as best she\ncould despite her restricting collar and bindings was strictly verboten! Curiosity in such animals was natural, as\nMiss Tiffany had once remarked to her big blonde accomplice, but only so much\ncould be allowed. Kathy’s bottom had experienced the painful penalty more than\nonce for exceeding that allowance!

No one was in sight bar Roger who was looking into the next\nbut one stall down. “Looks like you’ve been a naughty girl again, eh, Bonnie?\nThen again, maybe not. We both know how your stepdaughter feels about you don’t\nwe?” he chuckled. “Doesn’t need much of an excuse; takes after her mother in\nthat way but count yourself lucky. Unless I’m mistaken, Moira’s first husband\noccupied this very same stall for several years, and if you think you’ve been\ntreated harshly, well! He finished with a short barking laugh and moved on to\nthe next stall.

“Good morning, Clyde, pleased to see me, eh boy? No, of\ncourse not, silly me! Sorry, I’ve been AWOL for a couple of weeks—business\ncommitments are tedious but exceedingly profitable. I was actually in your\ncountry for a few days, well, correction, in Sweden, the next-door neighbour.\nAll Scandinavia, though, isn’t it? Near enough, I flew over Norway both ways,\nso that sort of counts. Now don’t back away like that, silly boy; it’s not as\nif I’m a total stranger, is it?

Kathy watched as he laughed, flipped open the door catch,\nand disappeared from her sight into the stall, but she could still hear him.\nHis gravelly rich voice, perhaps a fraction muted, but every word reaching her\nstill astounded and somewhat shell-shocked brain.

“Only so far you can go anyway, Clyde, so why waste energy\ntrying to walk through a brick wall especially when we both know how much you\nwill expend shortly thrashing about!” He chuckled wickedly. “Mind you, after my\nrecent trip, I now understand why you and the thieving bitch next door needed\nall that money of mine. Have you bought a beer over there or a tot of whisky\nrecently, my god!” then there was another low laugh, and she heard him mutter,\n“Foolish question, eh, Clyde. Now come on, don’t be skittish boy”.

Kathy’s brain clicked into gear. Stepdaughter, money,\nNorway, Bonnie and Clyde, no way! Had it\nnot been for the strap under her chin, her jaw would have been on the floor as\ntwo plus two added up to six and probably a whole lot more. Evidently, the\nnormal rules of law, order, life and probably the whole damn universe did not\napply in this stinking hell hole and to those who ran the fucking evil place.

“Now, boy, behave. BEHAVE!” a distinct crack emphasised that\nlast angry command that Kathy was only too familiar with, although the sound of\nthat crack was always secondary to the pain accompanying it.

“Now walk, walk, on, move, you stupid beast. You might not\nhave anything better to do all day, but I certainly have!” that crack sounded\nagain twice, and then Roger emerged from the stall backwards, holding a leash\nattached to the ring in the big blonde guy’s nose. The tall one with the\nMohican haircut and the purple harness. He seemed to tower over Roger in his\nhoof boots, and Roger was taller than most guys. Clyde and Bonnie next\ndoor. Bonnie and Clyde! Kathy remembered\nseeing that movie on late-night TV, Faye Dunaway and….and another guy. Bank\nrobbers in the states during the nineteen thirties.

Kathy watched as Roger half led, half dragged the big guy\ntowards and through that dreaded arch at the far end, or half watched; her eyes\nwere also flicking around the other stalls, suddenly seeing a connection,\nmovies. The brat had called her Pepper, hadn’t she? A working name unless she came\nup with something better, she’d told big Sammie. Named after George Peppard,\nwho had starred in her mother’s favourite movie. Moon River, the theme tune\nthat she already hated, like no other piece of music she’d ever heard.\nDoubtlessly they all did, for Tiffany sometimes played it on an endless loop\nwhen one of them was being ‘corrected’ as the brat termed it on that bloody\nbench down there! Soothing background music Tiffany. More like a fucking\nsignature tune for the little brat's sadism!

“Aaaaaghhh!” Kathy squealed as a small gloved hand attempted\nto detach a sizeable clump of her hair from her head, twisting and pulling\nsavagely. At least that’s what it felt like! Her head was turned around to look\ninto a pair of angry green eyes below a fringe of red hair as the pressure was\nreleased, and a leather-clad finger tapped her sharply on the nose—the little\nsadist in person.

“Bad Pony, bad Pepper, bad, bad, bad! “What daddy is doing\ndown there is none of your business, but don’t worry, you’ll get your share\nsoon enough. I have plans for you, big plans” Tiffany giggled. “But time enough\nfor that once I’ve broken you in, pony!” she hooked the finger through one of\nKathy’s bridle straps and pulled her head closer. “Curiosity may have killed\nthe cat, but in my stable….well, we both know what happens to ponies that can’t\nmind their own business. Don’t fret, though; the stable cane has never killed\none” Tiffany paused and laughed. “Although I expect they wished it would. As\nI’m sure you will by this evening!”

Kathy’s eyes bulged, and she began to tremble as the small\nleather-gloved finger tapped the tip of her nose. “Catch you later, girl!”

Instinct prompted her to take a step backwards as Tiffany\nsmiled and headed down the stable, but then, what the hell, the brat wasn’t one\nto change her mind, was she? Kathy took a pace forward and twisted around.\nMinding her own business had never been one of Kathy’s strong points.

“Not your lucky day, eh Bonnie” Tiffany laughed, stopping\nbriefly by the number three stall and then peering into the adjacent one. “I’d\nhave been ten pounds richer if Sammie had accepted the bet, but she wouldn’t play\nball. Probably been keeping count like me. What’s the score now? It must be\nfour-nil to Clyde when it comes to getting humped. Poor you! I expect you must\nbe as randy as that slut Pepper back there by now. You whores are all the same\nunderneath, but at least this time, I wised up daddykins before that one got\nher hoofs on any of his dosh! Anyway, talking about gold-diggers!”

Kathy watched as the young redhead spun on her heel and\ncrossed to one of the opposite stalls pulling off her right glove and then\nsnapping her fingers several times. The girl who lived in that one appeared\nimmediately, responding to that impatient summons. Zebbie, that was her name,\nand you didn’t need to be a Sherlock Homes to know why Tiffany had called her\nthat. Even Doctor Watson would have got that one after a single horrified\nglance.

The evil twosome liked to exercise their captives outside in\nthe fresh air, so Kathy was ideally placed to see the various occupants as they\nwere led past and through the big double doors. The girl was one of the smaller\noccupants of the stable and would have been around Tiffany’s height without the\nstupid boots they all wore. It must have been around the fourth or fifth day\nwhen Tiffany had led her past the stall. The sight of that poor girl had\nshocked and disgusted Kathy perhaps more than anything that had happened in\nthose first few days.

Not even her second and prolonged painful ‘training’ session\nwith the brat came close to that moment of dreadful revulsion! Had it not been\nfor that bit tightly clamped across her mouth, she’d have emptied her heaving\nstomach into the dirt there and then. Instead, she had to contain the impulse\nand remained uncomfortably nauseous for the next few hours.

“Nice and dull out today, so it’s safe for a walk, Zebbie.”\nTiffany had laughed as they exited. “Don’t want that delicate gleaming white\nhide of yours getting even the tiniest touch of the sun, do we?”

Kathy had stared after them. Suntan, sunburn! That would\nhave been a minor problem for the poor woman or girl. You couldn’t tell because\nthe damn bridles hid most of the face but almost certainly a girl. She wasn’t\nwearing one of the restrictive corsets that all the others wore and hadn’t the\nfigure of a mature woman. What she did\nhave, and in sickening abundance, was many stripes different from those Kathy had across her bottom and thighs. Well,\nshe also had them, but they weren’t the ones that caught her eye. The girl\nsported black stripes maybe an inch or so wide and everywhere. Belly, boobs,\nbottom, and legs, like someone, had painted her naked body. Body paint, another\nrequirement for a couple of photo shoots Kathy had rejected out of hand,\nregardless of the generous fee.

Thirty minutes later, Kathy’s earlier curiosity turned to\nhorror as Tiffany returned, walking the restrained girl past her stall by her\nnose ring tether as casually as people walked their dogs in the local park.\nThis time it was the left side in view, making Kathy retch in disgust. Her\nrevulsion wasn’t at the sight of the fresh livid marks that marred the girl's\nbuttocks from the riding crop Tiffany carried. \nEvery occupant of the stable had those, including herself. Evidently,\nbeing scorched by something other than the sun was perfectly acceptable.

Kathy realised it\nwasn’t body paint that contrasted so sharply with the girl's pale porcelain\nskin nor anything similar. Those striped markings were ugly body marring\npermanent tattoos! Kathy shuddered. Tattoos and body piercings were anathema to\nher. Why any pretty woman would want to disfigure herself in such an ugly way\nwas beyond her understanding! Fuck fashion trends if they went down that road!\nWorse still to her eye, she unthinkingly shuffled forward and peeped out to\nkeep the pair in view. Compared to the heavy markings on the girl’s other side\nand right bottom cheek, it appeared to be a case of work in progress!

One of Kathy's ongoing fears was body piercing and when or\nif they would do it to her. It seemed fairly arbitrary, no doubt dependent on\nthe brat’s whim. Some of her fellow captives sported nose rings, and others\ndidn’t. Some had their nipples pierced and ringed, both male and female, and\nsome didn’t. So far, she was unmarred and desperately hoped to stay that way,\nunlike that poor zebra-stripped girl. How were they doing that to her?

A question answered the following day when a commotion\nopposite one evening had naturally piqued Kathy’s curiosity again. Hell, it\nwasn’t as if there was anything else remotely interesting to do. You could only\ncount the bricks in the wall so many times a day to stay sane! Tiffany had barged through the external doors\nand walked straight past her with complete indifference, for which Kathy had\nbeen profoundly grateful. A moment later, the brat was leading or, more\naccurately, dragging that other girl, Zebbie, from her stall and down towards\nthe arched doorway at the end. Zebbie was not following as docilely as she had\non the previous occasion! Very much the opposite, not that her reluctance\nproved too much of a hindrance to Tiffany, just an additional excuse to use her\ncrop on the poor girl.

A few minutes later, the real commotion had started that had\ntruly sickened Kathy and scared the proverbial shit out of her. Literally, in\nthis case, since there was no way to prevent it with that tube stuck up her\nbum. A bare tail tube yet compared to the other ‘tailed’ occupants. Miss\nfucking evil sadistic, brat, stable mistress not having made her mind up about\nKathy’s hair yet. “No rush, eh pony”, she’d say, running a hand through it,\nstroking it as you would a pet dog while Kathy shuddered and would have ground\nher teeth in silent rage had it not been for the cruel bit in her mouth. Tears\ncame into her eyes whenever she thought about how helpless she was and how they\ncould violate her body like that!

They could and did, though, didn’t they? They could do\nanything they wanted, including what Tiffany was doing to that poor girl with\nher strange pale complexion. The buzz of the needle device was clearly audible\ndespite the girls terrible screaming that went on and on seemingly for hours.\nEven then, that continuous stream of gut-wrenching sobs remained audible,\noccasionally punctuated by some irate callous command from the callous brat.\nGod, that must have hurt, maybe more so, given how her skin looked so pale and\ndelicate! Nor were those black stripes the only ones the brat added to her poor\nbody during that session! The little sadist never missed an opportunity, did\nshe?

Kathy watched as the zebra-like girl responded to finger\nsnaps coming to the front of her stall, allowing her sadistic young mistress to\nstroke her head and pert little stripped breasts. She heard Tiffany giggle and\nsay. “This cute udder looks so much better than the other, eh girl? Pity I\ncan’t erase and start again now that I’m getting the hang of it and haven’t\nsplotched for ages! Once I’ve done your face and head, I’m half thinking I\nmight start on the other animals, add their names, for instance, somewhere\nprominent and take it from there,” then she laughed, “easy to find a suitably\nprominent spot on my fillies but then again why not with the boys there as\nwell? It would keep the uniformity. Besides, that’s where you see people\nwearing name badges, isn’t it!”

Kathy gasped or would have done it if it hadn’t been for\nthat wretched bar in her mouth as her eyes followed Tiffany to the far end of\nthe stable. The girl stopped outside the doorway and laughed at something she\ncouldn’t see. Not that she needed to, for the noises emanating from that area\ntold their own story and had done for the last ten minutes. Oddly given the\ncircumstances, that unseen but audible activity down the far end irked her a\nlittle. How absurd was that, but it did! \nKathy had been lucky if she got three minutes and a half minutes before\nRoger rolled off her! Clyde, it seemed, was the beneficiary of a far more\nprolonged fucking.

Tiffany took a couple of paces backwards and then called.\n“Margie just called. You left your phone on the sofa again. I told her you were\notherwise engaged,” the girl paused and added with a silly giggle. “I told her\nyou were out but would ‘come’ as soon as you could!

The response wasn’t loud enough for Kathy’s straining ears\nto decipher, but Tiffany giggled again and walked back to the entrance calling\nover her shoulder, “I told her you’d call back in half an hour, okay?” This\ntime she did acknowledge Kathy with a sad shake of the head and waggled a\nfinger from side to side in a negative gesture, mouthing ‘later’ at her.

The girl was hardly through the doors when she heard Roger’s\nvoice shouting excitedly from the opposite end. “That’s it, that’s it, big boy.\nOh my, that’s it, oh boy, oh my splendid Viking, that’s it!”. Then there was\nsilence for a few minutes until that familiar evil crack broke it, and then the\nbig blonde guy, Clyde, appeared with Roger behind him, holding a whippy crop.

Kathy watched as her supposed betrothed steered his charge\nback into his stall, closed the door and hung the crop on a convenient hook.\nShe could even see the smile on his face as he gazed into the enclosure before\nrubbing his hands together with a chuckle. “Splendid, eh boy? Best ride we’ve\nhad yet. Amazing what a little absence does, isn’t it? I don’t know about it\nmaking the heart grow fonder, but it certainly made something else grow harder,\neh what?”

Roger looked at his watch and walked towards the doors,\ngalvanising Kathy into frantic action. \nShe kicked her feet up and down in the dirt and banged herself backwards\nand forwards against the stall door making as much audible noise as her bit\nallowed. He stopped immediately and looked at her in surprise as though he’d\nforgotten all about her. Then he smiled slowly and walked over until he was\nclose enough to gently raise a hand and pat her head.

“Hey, girl. Hey. Don’t take on like that old thing, might do\nyourself an injury, strain a fetlock, what? Hah, I almost forgot you, what with\nleaving the usual little deposit in Clyde there” he turned his head and called.\n“Crime doesn’t pay, boy! Better luck next time, maybe!” he grinned and winked\nat Kathy. “Not that there will be a next time for him, or” he gave a sort of\napologetic shrug. “Not for any of you, come to that!” he waved his hand around\nand then looked thoughtful. “then again, I suppose, taking all this into\naccount, some crime does pay for those that can afford it!”

Kathy just stared back at him, stunned into total silence.\nThe moment he’d walked through those doors, she’d been sure that, somehow, this\nbizarre circus would come to an immediate end. Yet here he was patting her just\nlike his fucking brat did, and he’d just, just…. Her mind was elsewhere for a\nsecond or two before it returned to him.

“….yes, I must say I was surprised as well. Never for a\nmoment thought I was that way inclined, well you don’t, do you? Not at my age,\nanyway. I always assumed one was born that way. It was Sammie who suggested it\nin passing one day. I was experimenting with Bonnie’s back door for a change.\nThe bitch had never been over-enthusiastic about letting me through the front\ndoor during her brief presence in the marital bed. So much for conjugal rights,\neh? Anyway, I thought it might prove amusing for a change. Well, I said to myself that night when thinking\nabout it. I mean, they’re both ponies now, and somehow it seemed more\nsatisfying than whipping the big thieving bastard's butt!” he broke off and\nchuckled. “You know, I believe I get harder thinking about that stallion these\ndays than I ever did with the silly mare next door! Hell, I bet that pill I\npopped wasn’t even needed!”.

Kathy had fallen silent and stood motionless as he prattled\non about his returning virility, both hearing and not hearing what he was\nsaying as the grim reality of her situation overcame her. Foolish as it now seemed,\nshe’d been sure that Roger would appear at some point and put an immediate end\nto this crazy farce. But it wasn’t a farce. No, it was reality. She glanced up\nat the cyclop's eye of a small camera. Genuine reality TV, not the fake\nscripted kind, with a very unwilling cast and a minuscule but enthusiastic\naudience. A tear formed in her right eye and ran down her cheek as another\nwelled up in her left eye. The tears continued to flow even after the bastard\nhad bid her a cheery goodbye and gone for his lunch, promising to return later.

We're after the same rainbow's end, waitin' 'round the\nbend

My huckleberry friend, moon river, and me

“Now come on, Pepper. I don’t want to use this nasty switch\non you but believe me, I will if you’re going to be stubborn. Sorry to have\ndisappointed you, my dear. I saw that look in your eyes, that flash of hope\nwhen I first walked in, but honestly! I mean, what did you imagine I was going\nto do? Did you think I’d throw up my\nhands in horror and summon the local constabulary to cart young Tiffany off to\nthe nearest gaol? He chuckled and shook the reins he was holding. “Anyhow,\nfilial responsibility aside, it would seem an ill-advised course of action\nregarding self-preservation.

As you know, I’ve more than a few pennies tucked under the\nproverbial mattress! However, I doubt if greasing palms at any level would\nprevent me from joining her in the dock on a string of serious charges! Now, be\na good filly and walk on”.

Kathy stumbled forward, feeling the end of that long whippy\nswitch on her bottom. It had been a gentle, insistent poke, unlike every other\ntime such an implement touched her flesh and made her howl in agony. True to his word, Roger had reappeared an hour or so later,\nminus the Turkish cigarette, but his breath smelled strongly of whisky. Kathy\nhad a very sensitive nose for such things, or had until they’d incarcerated her\nin this stinking prison!

“Been chatting with young Tiffy over lunch about you…no, not\nthat!” he laughed and patted her cheek. “Out of the question, I’m afraid, if\nthat’s what put that sudden hopeful gleam back in your eye. Besides, even if\nyou could be trusted to keep mum about my daughter’s quirky little hobby, it\nwould be a bit awkward trying to explain your sudden resurrection, eh what!” he\nchuckled. “The curvaceous blonde Lazarus. All those annoying paparazzi, the\ncamera flashes, the tabloid front pages, TV interviews and lord knows what. Bet\nyou’d love that! Back in the big time again, so I doubt any such promise would\nlast five minutes!”

He'd opened her stall and hooked a set of reins on her\nbridle while talking and pulling her forward as he opened the door. Kathy snorted\nloudly and tried to swing a heavy hoof boot at him as Roger stepped backwards.\nA futile act with that hobble chain between her knees and his nimble footwork,\nbut he seemed to find it amusing.

“Now, as I said, behave. Any silliness, and I will use this\nnasty thing, and I know it damn well hurts”. He paused and laughed. “Can’t\nspeak from personal experience, at least not in the way Bonnie and Clyde can\nwhen I’ve used it on their thieving hides, or could if they were allowed”, he\ncorrected himself. “A few introductions, my family and other animals, eh? Very\napt, now where to start? “

He walked into the middle of the stable dragging Kathy along\nwith him, then paused, looking about before turning back to Kathy and tapping\nher lightly on the head with his long switch. “Well, while we’re on the subject\nof talking, you know that Tiffany won’t countenance such with or by her\nanimals? Yes, of course you do. That’s one of the first lessons you learn here,\nisn’t it, and I expect Tiffany can be a very effective teacher! Her mother\ncertainly was!” he paused momentarily, looking thoughtful. “Teaching or\ntraining? Hmmm, the latter, perhaps? Anyway, back on track, re-talking or not\ntalking. Whereas me, well, I’ve always been a bit too garrulous, Mr Talk Talk,\nmy secretary calls me. There are times when…” he stopped and laughed, shaking\nhis head.

“Mmmmmfff”, Kathy tried and stamped a foot in frustration.

“Quite. Stick to the point, eh? Stop the verbose\ndilly-dallying. Doctor Doolittle, that’s me, or so Sammy says. I talk to the\nanimals; I can’t help myself. Always have done. It used to annoy Moira, but\nTiffany is a tad more tolerant about it. Old dog and new tricks and all that!\nAnyway, I asked my little girl if you’d been formally introduced to the rest of\nthe family, so to speak, which seemed to tickle her fancy, so I got the thumbs\nup on that one” he looked around the stable and frowned. “My wife used to have\nchalk name boards as well as those old brass stall numbers. I wonder why Tiffy\ndoesn’t do that?”

The next thirty minutes or so was a depressing nightmare for\nKathy as she was walked from stall to stall once or twice with the aid of that\nswitch on her bottom if Roger thought she was a touch tardy. If she were, then\nit wasn’t a conscious decision on her part but more a slothful reaction to one\npitiful introduction after another and the overwhelming growing depression that\naccompanied each meeting. If Kathy had\nthought herself standing on a fragile trapdoor before, Roger’s arrival had\nopened it, and she was falling into a bottomless black pit. Worse, unlike a\ncondemned criminal, no hemp ticket to oblivion was looped around her neck!

“Not a bad collection, eh?” Roger chuckled as he closed the\nlast stall door. “Had to shell out for most of them one way or the other, but\nonce they’re in here, they don’t cost much to run”, he chuckled. “They\ncertainly kept my wife happy, and now young Tiffany. No use sitting on it is\nthere when you can spend some and spread a little happiness!”.

‘Happiness!” Kathy was far too dejected even to try and\nmutely respond. She’d just met Bonnie and Clyde, his second wife and the big\nNorwegian hunk who’d cuckolded and robbed him. Supposedly both were at the\nbottom of the North Sea along with his private plane. Now both fellow\nstablemates while the aircraft had been turned into scrap and spare parts by\none of his more shady acquaintances. “When you’ve made as much dosh as I have,\nyou always meet a few, er, shall we call them useful characters of dubious\nmoral character en route.” he’d chucked,\ntapping the side of his nose before they moved on. “Mums the word about them,\neh girl!”

Then there was Zebbie, the Zebra girl. Roger had terrified\nher at that stall as he pointed to the wretched occupant. “Tiffany is thinking\nof taking this all off, you know”, he’d said, giving Kathy’s matted hair a\ngentle tug. Still better bald than like poor Deborah in here. I mentioned her\nonce, didn’t I? Miss fucking gold digger, that almost became my third error of\njudgment. No second, I can’t count the love of my life, can I? You would have\nbeen number three on that list had we tied the old knot. You can tell what gave\nTiffany the idea, of course. Deborah, Zebra. Debbie, Zebbie, eh? “he’d\nchuckled. “Sammy always tells her she lacks imagination. Interesting skin\ncomplexion on this one as well!”

The two real horses he’d merely mentioned in passing with an\nairy wave of his hand. “Old Thundercloud, first occupant when Moira had the\nderelict building renovated. Well, kind of renovated it, for I doubt she was\nthinking too much about comfort for the future occupants. Maybe you saw that\nbig picture halfway up the staircase. \nHell of a temper on this big brute at first, but she tamed him. Moira\nwas very good at taming things. Yes, that’s the correct term. The old boy’s\nmore or less retired now but still good for the occasional trot around the\nestate if I’m in the mood.

His smaller neighbour is Thumper. We got that pony as a\nbirthday present for Tiffany when she was, well, whenever it was. Both Thumper\nand Tiffy were smaller back then, of course. That was when Moira decided to\nintroduce her to all this,” he repeated that airy wave. “Be a bit hard to hide\nit all when she came over to give Thumper an apple, eh? Can’t say I was\nenthusiastic about it,” he muttered and then gave a short laugh. “But when did\nmy opinions carry any weight up here, eh? Like mother like daughter in all\nthings!”

He paused, thinking for a moment. “As I recall, Moira got\nbig Jumbo over there about the same time” he paused again. “Yeah, I was in the\nStates at the time for the pier development project. New York, Walldorf-Astoria, probably when she\ncalled me so Tiffany could thank her daddy” He chuckled at the memory. “Mind\nyou, Moira told me that Thumper was already coming a very poor second compared\nto the attention she was giving big Jumbo. As I said, like Mother like\ndaughter, eh!”

Kathy viewed one miserable captive after another bar the two\nreal equines who seemed perfectly happy with their lot. Hardly surprising under\nthe circumstances, plus they were without the restrictive harness tack and\nmouth bit. Nor did they suffer the regular touch of whip, crop and cane as did the\nother stable occupants and had known no different life. Probably better fed as\nwell, Kathy thought as she was hauled along stall by stall.

Jumbo she was familiar with, but even so, she couldn’t help\nherself wincing silently and cringing at the sight of his whip-scarred body\nfrom up close. He’d stared straight back\nat her through big brown, oddly incurious eyes. Sad eyes that almost lacked\nthat sparkle of life. Not so much a big puppy as a living zombie, Kathy shivered\nat the horrible thought and its implications.

“Pretty exotic and erotic, eh?” Roger had commentated as the\ntour continued waving the hand, holding the crop around the stable.

That’s not how Kathy would have described the sad and\ndepressing sights as she followed the firm hand holding her reins. There was\nnothing remotely erotic about the stable or its occupants, which wasn’t just\nbecause she was one of them. How would she have reacted to this house of horror\nif she’d married the bastard? Would he have shown it to her, or suppose she’d\nwandered in here by accident? What then!

There was Doby in number six, who was so small she’d not\neven noticed him that first morning but then the way she’d felt along with Miss\nfucking Sammie twisting her head about it was hardly surprising. He was another\none the brat frequently took outside for exercise and seemed a particular\nfavourite of Tiffany’s. “Cute little feller, isn’t he?” Roger chuckled. “Of\ncourse, I blew my top when I found out about him! Talk about sailing a touch\ntoo near the wind! Threatened to close the whole damn shebang down pronto, but\nof course, I’m too softhearted; that’s always been my weak spot!”

A somewhat ironic statement, Kathy thought, considering that\nswitch in his hand and the fact that he’d used it a couple of times on her\nbackside. Admittedly nothing like as hard as his sadistic daughter would have\ndone, but it still hurt. Nor would the in/out occupant of stall five have\nagreed with his softhearted nature; worse, he seemed indifferent about his\ncallous decision.

“Young Pinky stays in this one sometimes”, Roger had said,\ntapping the stall door with his switch as they passed. Another pint-sized pony, you may see her from\ntime to time.” He’d suddenly paused, absent-mindedly jerking her to a halt.\n“Sorry old girl, a touch too hard on the old brakes there, what?” He apologised and gestured to the empty stall\nwith his crop. “Bit of a cheek, Sammie teasing young Tiffy about a lack of\nimagination when she called this one Pinky!”

He tapped Kathy with his crop again on the rump and shook\nthe reins walking her back towards Bonnie's stall. “What's that thing they say in the horse\nbreeding world? Ah yes, out of!” he gestured his crop again. “Pinky was out of\nthat one by her first husband. Bit of a stuck-up little brat, but I did my best\nas one does. Paid for a very costly Swiss school and god knows how much in\nexpensive goodies to win her over. Ungrateful little bitch that she was! Pity\nthough,” he sighed and added, “One does have the odd twinge of conscience!”.

He'd fallen silent, so Kathy twisted from side to side, looking\naround the stable until Roger shook the reins and tugged her head back as he\nemerged from his brief reverie. “Steady girl”, he cautioned and then continued\nhis narrative. “Sins of the parents or parent singular in Bonnie's case. How\nwas I to know that the snooty little brat wasn’t in Zurich when that little\naviation incident occurred? Best laid plans and all that, but I suppose such\nunforeseen incidents are inevitable. Still, it served as a damn good lesson for\nTiffany the next time she decides to make a ‘Dobby’ type decision. Think once,\ntwice, thrice and more before you act. Funny how just a single word can alter\nan entire situation, affecting an innocent person's entire life. Now if I’d\nbeen a bit more specific instead of telling them to bring ‘all’ on board up\nhere, they might have contacted me before acting.” He paused again, allowing\nthe reins to fall slack.

“It wasn’t a holiday, so she shouldn’t have been visiting\nher mother at all, but I gather she missed her boyfriend and did a runner,\nsilly girl! Very silly. I met the moron\nonce, and believe me, that term is a generous compliment to his intellectual\ncapacity. Anyway, definitely, a case of the wrong place and time, so she ended\nup here as well, much to Tiffany’s delight. Pinky was about eighteen months\nolder, and the two girls didn’t exactly get on” Roger chuckled again. “Another\nmassive understatement if ever there was one!”

Kathy felt the switch rub up and down her bottom as Roger\npaused again, his hand moving absently, his mind elsewhere. “Anyway, I’m\nwaffling on, aren’t I? Thinking back, I’m maybe the one who should have done\nthe once, twice, thrice thinking, perhaps. Then again, I was pot-boiling mad at\nthe time, and rational thinking tends to go out the window—Tiffy’s suggestion,\nof course, to add them to the stable. It also killed two birds with one stone\nfor her, as big Sammie was considering quitting at the time. She’d just broken\nup with a lassie over in the town and was thinking of moving back to London,\nmissing her bedmate, so she was. This wee part of the country is very puritan.\nFolks around here think you’ve only got to whisper the word lesbian, and you’ll\nburn in hell forever”.

“Long story short, Tiffany gave the lass to Sammie. I mean,\nwhy not? She had two brand new ponies, one of whom she hadn’t been\nover-enamoured with in the first place” he paused and chuckled. “Think yourself\nlucky in that we didn’t get around to tieing the knot. Things might have been a\ndamn sight worse, well worse(ish),” he amended. I think Tiffy was a bit miffed\nwith Sammie, though. I expect the girl thought Pinky would be stabled alongside\nthe other two and available to her whenever she wanted, but Sammie had other\nideas. Hardly surprising since she had far more intimate plans for the arrogant\nbitch. She keeps the little cutie in her cottage; we only see her occasionally.\nFrom time to time, Sammie brings her over and harnesses her up for a stint in\nthe stable, much to Tifany’s delight! Pink, you will no doubt have gathered\nfrom her hair, is Sammie's favourite colour hence the pony tack and the name.\nWell, come on, walk on, girl. Talking of Pinky, let's meet another pony”.

Bluebell was the oldest ‘pony’ Raymond showed her. A much\nolder woman in number ten whose body carried even more scar tissue than Jumbo's\nwhere the faded blue harness and corset didn’t hide it. Her grey eyes were not\nso much sad as dead as she stared back at Kathy, although it seemed she wanted\nto say something the way her lips twitched silently upon her mouth bit. Once\nupon a time, she’d probably been very tall with perhaps a figure not unlike her\nown, Kathy thought. Bluebell was slightly stooped with flattish sagging whip\nscarred breasts and a long grey/white ponytail reaching down her back almost to\nher waist.

“This one belongs to Sammie as well”, Roger had said\noffhandedly with a shrug. “Bit of a sad old mare these days but not a bad\nlooker back in her prime, as I recall. She’s been here quite a while, making\nher the second oldest animal after old Thundercloud. I don’t know much about her; well, make that\nsweet FA as they say, nor does Tiffany, so she’s a bit of a mystery. Moira\nprobably knew something for Sammie produced her a few weeks after she accepted\nmy wife’s invite to work up here but never said anything. Ex-lover, rival,\nenemy, who knows, for all Sammie’s ever done is grin and put a finger to her\nlips if you ask her. Not exactly been kind to the poor beast either over the\nyears, has she?”

Kathy didn’t make a sound, for she was staring at the poor\nwoman in absolute and total horror. A terrible thought had occurred to her. Was\nshe looking at a mirror image of herself in what, ten, twenty, thirty years?\n‘Been here quite a while!’

Moon river, wider than a mile

I'm crossin' you in style some day

“Well, that’s the grand tour done and…” Roger stopped\nmid-sentence and slapped his forehead. “By Jove, I’ve clean forgotten to phone\nMargie. You know Margie, of course, Marjorie. Yes, don’t look so blank; of\ncourse, you do. Margie is or was the secretary stroke receptionist at your\nagency, been there for years, I understand. Yes, that’s the one. Kindly soul,\nmost upset to hear about your sad demise and even organised a little memorial\nservice for you as no one else was going to do anything. Naturally, I attended. Very sweet, I thought of her to do so,\nespecially as I’ll bet you hardly paid her much attention. I know you didn’t;\nshe told me so over dinner that same evening. One of the haughtier ones to\nquote her.” He paused to chuckle and reached for his silver cigarette case.\n“Haughty, eh?” he chuckled again.

“That’s where I’ve been going wrong, I realised\nromance-wise. I asked her out initially to see if she’d been taking too close\nan interest in your disappearance and presumed demise, but that quickly became\nsecondary, even irrelevant, as one thing rapidly led to another. I’d forgotten\nhow much fun Moira used to be between the sheets, even when we weren’t actively\nplaying mummies and daddies. Outside of the bed as well, come to that. I don’t\nknow where she gets them, but Margie knows more blue, and I mean blue jokes,\nthan most comedians! The lady is an\nabsolute riot in bed and not the least bit demanding on a chap” he paused to\nextract a black cigarette from his silver case and light it. “Even more fun\noutside of the bedroom!”

“That’s where I’ve been going wrong, old girl. I paid way\ntoo much to what Tiffy called eye candy the other day. I mean, well, you know\nMargie, so I needn’t elaborate. An oversized ugly dumpling on short fat legs,\nthat’s what she calls herself and hardly front-of-house material for a top\nmodel agency. A bit like a hair saloon having a bald receptionist, what? But\ndammed efficient. Oh, my, she is that. From day one, she became interested in\nmy business and got a darned good head on her shoulders. Anyway, long story\nshort, that ring Tiffy reacquired from you isn’t going to waste you’ll be\npleased to know. Took you long enough choosing the bloody thing, as I recall.\nOf course, Margie says it’s way too over the top for her simple tastes. She’s\ngoing to have them alter it, remove all the stones bar that that small emerald,\nshe rather likes that one.” he smiled and then became serious as Kathy made a\nsuccession of incomprehensible noises into her mouth bit.

“Anyway, I don’t suppose you will meet her again despite\nTiffany taking a shine to her, and they get on so well together. Have done\nsince I introduced them at a friend’s wedding the other week. Bit of a\nwhirlwind romance yet again, but that’s how I am. Tiffany even insisted on\nbeing maid of honour when we tie the knot. Put her foot down and refused to\nallow us a simple civil ceremony at the registry office and is making me do it\nin style with all the usual trimmings at a big county house and restaurant\ncomplex. Going to cost a small fortune, but we both think it’s kind of cute\nhumouring her. Anyway, meeting-wise,\nit’s a no-brainer, as they say. Tiff and\nI decided it best if Margie stays down south” he paused and chuckled, waving\nhis cigarette around.

“Somehow, I don’t think a kindly body like her would approve\nof all this, eh? I mean, she’s not the least bit prudish in or out of the\nbedsheets, quite the opposite, but some things are perhaps best kept secret. If\nI hadn’t found the sight of my first wife with that whip in her hand so damn erotic,\nwell,” he laughed. “Maybe a completely different story, especially for you and\nyoung Tiffany? Anyway, Margie knows about the estate and house, of course, but\nI told her it’s on a long, a very long term let to an old business acquaintance\nwho values his privacy. Tiffany hates London and has a job up here keeping an\neye on the estate for me, plus doing her studying and has her own little\napartment in the house, so that’s all settled and everybody happy. A little white lie or two never hurts?” he\nchuckled and looked at his watch.

“I’d better go make that call before I get into trouble”, he\nlaughed with a wink and rubbed his hands together excitedly. “Funny old world, isn’t it? Here is me with\nthree fine-looking fillies still available for the taking, yet when it comes to\na bit of good old-fashioned normal rumpy-pumpy between the sheets, dumpy\nMarjorie beats the lot of you! Not that I’m averse to a bit of abnormal fun\noccasionally these days,” he added with a chuckle glancing down towards Clyde’s\nstall. Well, better be off, left the damn phone on the sofa again”.

He walked to the doors, and after a second, Kathy moved to\nthe front of her stall, her eyes following him. Her mouth worked on the bit,\nbut nothing emerged, not even muted. Somehow this latest revelation had stunned\nher more than anything, and she didn’t know why. She knew that her fate was\nsigned, sealed and delivered. A mental image of Bluebell suddenly loomed large\nin her mind, and her body shook.

Roger halted abruptly in the doorway as if a thought had\noccurred to him and turned back, theatrically tapping his head. “Oh, I just\nremembered something else. I was telling Tiffany over lunch how excited\nMarjorie is over it all. I mean, getting spliced at her time of life. Her only\nregret is that she’s way too old to start a family, even to adopt” he grinned and\nchuckled wickedly. I know the feeling; Tiffany was a late, if very welcome,\narrival in my life, but sadly she’s no interest whatsoever in my business\ninterests. Pity, but on the flip side, my excellent, if grossly expensive,\nphysician seems to think these ageing bones may stay the distance and make\nancient bones!” He paused and patted his stomach, chuckling.

“I’ve teased Tiffany a few times recently, grandaddy wise\nand rightly been ticked off by Margie. She’s right, plenty of time for that if\nthe girls so inclined, but” he paused\nagain and laughed. Anyway, long story short, my little girl might have an\nalternative solution.” He smiled and took another long drag on his cigarette\nbefore continuing. “I’m sure the legal formalities of adopting can be surmounted.\nOne’s generosity had been much appreciated over the years, and I’m sure there\nare plenty of local projects stalled for lack of investment,” he winked.

“I expect it will\nmean spending a fair bit here and there and some of it under the counter, no\ndoubt, but then what’s new there in terms of breaking the rules” he waved a\nhand towards the stalls. “Plenty of\nclinics and specialists are prepared to turn a blind eye when necessary with\nthe right fiscal encouragement. Maybe\ntime to bring the vet in and look you over, as Tiffany suggested. Well, she’s not really a vet, a pal of\nSammie’s and a trained nurse, but they call her that,” he chuckled and added.

“Kind of fits the situation, what? She pops up and checks\nover the livestock several times a year, and as Tiffany said, you are or were\nalmost family, eh? A lot to think about,\nand it takes two to tango, of course” he stopped and looked across the stable\nto big Jumbo’s stall. “Bloodline is important, but then with the right\nupbringing, background and education?” he mused and then shook himself. “Well,\nas I said, lots to think about, old girl and all the time in the world to do\nso!” he finished with a casual wave as he departed, whistling a tune that had\nbecome very familiar to her.

Kathy stood rooted, staring at the half-open door, her\nbridle hiding the expression of shocked horror on her pretty face. He couldn’t\nbe serious. No way! Roger, she’d discovered, did have a somewhat quirky sense\nof humour plus a habit of tossing out some outrageous titbit for his audience\nto nibble on. But this, no, no one could be that…her brain failed her as she\nturned and stared wide-eyed at the brick wall at the end of her simple stall.\nShe was still staring fixedly and unseeing at it a few minutes later when the\nsound of the door catch behind her snapped her out of that momentary stupor.

Tiffany stood in the opening, hands-on ripped jean-clad\nhips, an unbuttoned knotted tartan shirt exposing her smooth flat belly and the\nobligatory quirt tucked into her belt. The girl regarded her thoughtfully and\nthen nodded as though she’d decided something. She swung around, clicked the\ndoor closed behind her and headed down the stable. A minute later, that\nfamiliar hated tune began to play through the stables speakers, and every captive\nhuman equine trembled.

Kathy had never heard of the expression, ‘For whom does the\nbell toll, it tolls for thee!’ but if she had, then at that moment, she would\nhave fully understood its meaning. You couldn’t hear it, but you could sense\nit, that invisible, inaudible sigh of relief from every stall bar Kathy’s as\nTiffany returned and resumed her previous pose.

“Did you think I’d forget this morning’s inquisitive\nnaughtiness, Pepper? Tiffany said\nsoftly. “Very foolish if you did, but don’t worry. Curiosity may have killed\nthe cat, but I’ve no intention of killing the Kathy!”

“I certainly hope not”, Roger was back in the doorway, “I\njust…” he broke off as the sound of a helicopter reached their ears growing\nlouder. “Ah, my personal aerial Uber, I believe. Don’t rush yourself, darling.\nPlenty of time before you need to come and give the old man a goodbye kiss. I\nexpect Mrs Mcreadie will insist on giving the pilot a mug of something hot when\nhe collects my bags; you know how she is”.

Tiffany was eyeing him curiously, “So?”

Roger pointed to the empty stall opposite. “Meant to mention\nsomething last night to you and Sammie, but clean forgot what with all the\nother interesting chat and stuff the pair of you were discussing regarding you\nknow who”, he gestured towards Kathy. “Went right out of my mind till today’s\nlittle tour. Moira never did get to fill this place completely. That was one of\nyour mother's ambitions, you know?”

Tiffany nodded. “Yes, she told me that once” she looked at\nthe empty stall and then back to her father. “Why, what’s on your mind” she\ninquired suspiciously.

Roger chuckled. “Oh, I shan’t be abandoning you completely.\nMargie isn’t going to give up her cultural weekends away with the ‘girls’ from\nher bridge club or her ocean cruises. I’ve no objection to dressing for dinner\noccasionally for the odd social function, but doing it every night for a\nfortnight while shut up in big steel box with a lot of boring people holds no\nappeal whatsoever. There’ll still be plenty of opportunities when I’m free to\nindulge myself here”.

“So?” Tiffany repeated.

He laughed, adding, “ I can always keep my fingers crossed\nbehind my back when Margie and I tie the knot, and I haven’t lost my roving\neye, Honey. It spotted a delightful new prospect in the office only the other\nweek. Sweet of face, short on leg and with the cutest bubble butt you ever did\nsee. Looks like an innocent little angel and certainly got my old todger\ndownstairs twitching in an upward direction!”

“No doubt big of bosom, false of eyelashes, tight of\nleggings, fake of tan and short of skirt plus a pouty set of puffed-up lips, I\nexpect!”

“Far from it, my dear!” Roger laughed, walking towards the\nstall, waving one finger in dismissive circles. \n“Everything was au naturel. This cutie wore trousers, a tie, a silly\nlittle moustache, plus his designer stubble. I think buggering old Clyde down\nthere has given me a whole new outlook! An adorable young pint-sized colt for\nthe family collection, perhaps. Room for a little one, say over there opposite\nPepper here. A seasonal present to myself, minus that ridiculous little\nmoustache, of course, and you’ll have all the fun of breaking and training it!”

He reached out and squeezed Kathy’s left breast. “Fairs\nfair, after all, you wanted this disloyal slut for your eighteenth, so maybe\nChristmas I get to treat myself! Margie fancies an Xmas cruise to Santa Claus\nland with an old school friend to see the Northern Lights, so I’ll be free to\nindulge myself. Who knows, yet another\ncandidate for breakfast at Tiffany’s, eh!” he chuckled. “Not just breakfast\neither. Dinner, supper and accommodation thrown in as well. Full board no less!” he gestured towards the\ncrop in his daughter’s belt, “with all those entertaining extra trimmings!\nMaybe I’ll call him Rudolph, but I doubt that it will be his nose glowing red\nthroughout the festive season, eh?” he laughed.

Kathy watched him exit the stall quietly, singing to himself\nin tune with the music still playing on its endless loop.

Moon river, wider than a mile

I'm crossing you in style some day

Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way

","authorName":"NickHC","authorUserId":"30a36844-629c-4185-8bb2-0ff6535020aa","rating":5,"ratingCount":3,"reviewCount":2,"quoteCount":0,"storyCodes":["Extreme","Real Life","18yo","Bondage","Bratty","Domination","Humiliation","Leather","Pain","Sadism","Spanking","Non-Consensual"],"language":"English","readTime":180,"recommendations":[{"id":"dde83d58-ef0f-4e23-ae39-c36967559c64","title":"Toxic Lust","slug":"toxic-lust","shortId":"CKQEane2","synopsis":"Christina harbors a secret addiction to the exhilarating thrill of being caught. Unbeknownst to her, this dark compulsion becomes the conduit through which Maria and Jake, can live out their own sinister desires, the result of which may send Christina’s life hurtling into a chaotic spiral of destruction.","rating":5},{"id":"a895e0ea-6e92-4e24-ab20-3a75d454fac2","title":"Taken To XS - A Group XS Story","slug":"taken-to-xs-a-group-xs-story","shortId":"vDpWv8V7","synopsis":"The long awaited ending to Dr. Saavik's unfinished story - Group XS.\r\nFollow Catherine's descent into the dungeons of Group XS.","rating":5},{"id":"548c5f06-4a17-4f11-8e1e-31b8a37f7c7f","title":"Total Darkness","slug":"total-darkness","shortId":"xwi8ZgfA","synopsis":"In this sequel to Into Darkness, Tiffany finds herself at a slave training facility in company of former friends and enemies.","rating":5}]}}},"actionData":null,"errors":null}