A strange dream came to Kern. In the dream, he was whipping Jenny’s back, scourging her furiously. Then, like an SM version of The Exorcist, her head rotated through one hundred and eighty degrees, and she gazed at him with sad reproachful eyes. His eyes flicked open, his heart was thumping, there was a strange metallic taste in his mouth. He turned his head towards the glow of the clock on the bedside table. This was a real struggle for his eyes; they were fairly hopeless without his glasses. But by squinting and concentrating, he could make out that it was almost five-thirty.

Deciding just what were his favourite moments was always a difficult matter for Kern. A top contender would have to be the few minutes after waking, when he would visualise the next couple of hours, the time he devoted to the cruel purity of his pleasures. Another favourite was opening the cell door, seeing his girls rolling hastily off their bunks to lie before their master. And today was December twenty-fifth. A day for a man to celebrate life, a day to award himself something very special.

He went down to the kitchen, put the kettle on, lit the gas under the ponies’ porridge. He poured himself a cup of tea, took it with him upstairs to the bathroom. He showered and shaved, scrubbed his teeth vigorously. As his hair dried, he combed it carefully, for he hated his slaves to see him as ever less than perfectly groomed. For them to see him in any way dishevelled would make him feel closer to their level, and somehow vulnerable.

Kern finished his tea in the bedroom, while he was dressing. He wore his usual leisure kit, corduroys and a sweat shirt. It was now six-thirty, and the grey light of dawn was spreading. This bedroom had windows to the font and back of the house. At the front was a small garden, the lane, and the flooded farmland of the Severn valley. To the rear was his large yard, behind which the ground rose towards the Cambrian mountains of Wales, which pushed bony fingers of foothills into the belly of England.

After picking a driving whip from his wardrobe, Kern descended the stairs, went through the kitchen to the back door, and crossed the yard to his garage. He easily manoeuvred his minimalist buggy out through the side door of the garage, its maximum width was only 32 inches and it weighed just 22 pounds. A steel axle running through a shaft joined two cycle wheels. Welded to the shaft was an upright tube that supported the seat, and a coupling ring to which the shaft was attached. He returned to the garage for the draft bar, which he fitted through the top ring on the shaft and secured with a split-pin. Now he clamped the foot-rest bar onto the shaft, and made a last visit to the garage for the harnesses. It was six-forty-five.

The ponies were stabled in a lean-to extension at the rear of the house. Kern had modified it the previous summer, bisecting its interior with a brick wall to form an outer vestibule and an inner cell. Ten feet by sixteen, it ran almost the width of the house. He drew himself up to his full height as he approached the outer door, which he opened and then locked behind him. This vestibule’s only adornments were equipment shelves on either side, filled with the accessories of a slave-holder’s life. There were chains and manacles, there were straps and canes. There was an iron spreader-bar fitted with ankle cuffs, there were hoods and steel collars, there was a welding kit and an antiseptic spray.He selected two pairs of handcuffs and two pairs of ankle shackles, held them in his left hand as he turned the lock of the cell door with his right.

Always his heart was pounding with excited anticipation when he opened the cell door, and today was no exception. Two naked girls rolled off low bunks onto the floor, their ankle chains rattling on concrete. Each girl adopted the posture that Ken had trained them to; flat along the floor, face down with their hands clasped behind their backs, legs spread wide apart. Kern nursed an inner fear that his slaves would some day be desperate enough to attack him, to seek their freedom. This prone position greatly limited their aggressive options while Kern secured them. Each girl was swiftly handcuffed and shackled, and then Kern hauled each to her knees. Neither Kern nor either girl had spoken, they know he would punish them for speaking out of turn, just as he would if they ever looked him in the eye. He walked around them, checking his property.

Sally, the black girl, was almost six feet tall; she had a lovely face and a good physique. Kern had taken her into slavery just three months previously. The twenty-four year old had been first terrified, then furious, then heartbroken, then sullen. He had caned her again and again, careful not to break the skin. Then he had worked her on the treadmill to build her strength and stamina. His resolution not to mark her had been abandoned after her first outing, when chained and apparently helpless, she had turned her head and spat on him. Kern had flogged her for that, and he had run her in the buggy the next day with her back raw. Her broad shoulders were still criss-crossed with cuts, some were healing well, but others still looked dangerous. Kern knew he would have to bathe her back with hot salt water, but it was not an immediate concern.

Jenny was a few inches shorter than her stable mate. A plain-looking girl of thirty-three, she had been Kern’s first pony, and he had learned the slave owner’s craft with her. There was scar tissue on her back because he had foolishly worked her on the treadmill under the lash. She had pulled his first cart alone and with great courage, as the novice slave master applied the whip to her bloody back. Jenny’s lone suffering had convinced Kern that at least two ponies were required; one pony simply could not pull him at a smooth and brisk pace. Kern’s only confidant, a distant sharer of his dark secrets, was a Canadian dentist. When Kern had revealed Jenny’s origin to him he had been horrified. ‘Your own sister?’ he had said; ‘You can’t use your own sister!’

Well why the hell not. Throughout history, men of Kern’s stamp had murdered their fathers and mothers, and sold their siblings into slavery. Kern had committed neither patricide nor matricide, he had merely given structure and discipline to his sister’s wrecked life. Admittedly, the structure was not of her choosing, and the discipline was of an extreme nature, but at least he had not passed her to a stranger. All the physical requirements of a ponygirl were mere ideals, in the practical world she only had to be available, and there had to be no one to report her missing. Jenny had fitted the bill; it was as simple as that. When she had come to live in his house, he had just completed converting the extension to a miniature prison, and had been racking his brains for a foolproof method of pony acquisition. It was clear that Jenny would have to be a confederate or a victim, a mistress or a slave. It had been a spur of the moment decision; Kern had taken her naked and wet from the shower to the cell, and had started her training the next day. The weeks went by, there were no phone calls for her, and her only mail was a visa bill. Mission accomplished.

Satisfied with his animals, Kern uttered a single word, ‘Stay’. This was to instruct the ponies to remain in the kneeling position. He left the cell, locking it behind him. Shortly he returned with a jug of cold water. Each pony drank as much as she could from the jug, then Kern led them both out to the yard, the ponies taking the tiny steps that their ankle chains would allow. Early experience with Jenny had taught Kern to never work a pony on a full stomach, he had seen her throw up too often. His routine now was to work them hungry, then feed and rest them. Later in the day he would put each girl on the treadmill for an hour. In his first weeks of slave ownership, with Jenny, Kern had had used a whip to keep the girl moving. Now he simply chained their wrists to the side rail, gave them a distance to run, and left them to it. The machine had a simple computer to measure distance, as well as heart rate etc. If the pony failed to reach the required distance in the allotted time she would be fastened across a horse and caned, then put back on the machine to complete the distance. This brutal training regime was extremely effective, transforming the ponies’ legs and hindquarters into powerhouses. Kern had become largely desensitised to the brutality of slavery, a simple caning could no longer excite or horrify him, it was just something that had to be done. Flogging Sally had thrilled him though, at each stroke her breasts had bounced as an agonised shudder ran down her body. His erection had subsided when her bladder emptied, and this was another lesson he had learned. In future he would confine a slave to dry out before administering severe punishment.

There was no question of clothing for the ponies; in fact Kern possessed not a shred of clothes for them. The cell was kept at a constant sixty-eight degrees, and as they were always worked hard when outdoors Kern could see no danger of them suffering from exposure. If there was a really cold spell in January or February he might have to think again, but he would worry about that when the time came. He knew that their unsupported breasts would soon start to sag, especially Jenny’s, but he reasoned that looking good was not their true purpose. Floppy tits would not harm their cart pulling powers.

Sally was secured to the draft bar first. Her handcuff chain was locked under a staple on the bar, then her waist and shoulder straps were fitted and fastened to the bar. Jenny was similarly harnessed, and then the head rig was fitted. A soft leather bit went into each pony’s mouth, held in place by a strap around the back of the head. At either side of the bit there was a brass ring. The left hand pony, which was Jenny, had the left rein clipped to her left bit ring, her right-hand bit ring had a leather link to Sally’s head rig. The right-hand rein was clipped to Sally’s head rig. Neither pony had nipple rings, butt plugs or any other adornment. Shaven-headed and bare-footed, they and their equipment comprised only what was needed to do the job, and Kern thought they looked just fine. He removed the ponies’ shackles, then climbed onto the seat and shook the reins. There was a jerk as the ponies hauled the buggy and their master into motion; Kern pulled the right rein, swinging the buggy towards the driveway at the side of the house. At the gate he pulled back on both reins, stopping the ponies. He alighted and opened the gate; he stood there for a few seconds, listening carefully. The misty morning did not allow him to see far, he strained to catch the sound of a vehicle coming up the lane from the main road. If Kern had been expecting callers he would have kept the ponies gagged in their cell, this was just a precaution. All seemed well, so he resumed his seat and turned the buggy left into the lane, leaving the gate open for his return. It was exactly seven.

The buggy continued its jerky motion, Kern had found no way to achieve smooth progress at the walk. Trotting the ponies seemed to provide enough momentum to smooth out the jerks, but Kern always walked them for ten minutes to warm up their muscles. Not for the first time, he noted the superb tone of Jenny’s body. Six months of slavery had eaten every scrap of flab off her; she was just muscle and bone. And a brain, of course. What happened in that organ Kern could not know, and he no longer cared. His philosophy was that life is too short; if you don’t achieve your dreams you have wasted it. Kern had achieved his main dream, he had stepped through the looking glass into his fantasy world, and he had become the master of ponygirls.

Sally was not yet so well muscled as Jenny, hence the buggy tended to drift to the right if Kern did not correct. Eyeing the black girl reminded Kern of his current preoccupation. Jenny was a good pony, but aging, and with another pony to partner Sally he could use Jenny for other purposes while keeping her trained as a reserve for harness. He already used Jenny as a household drudge, fastened to a long chain in the utility room she was his laundress, and the luxury of sleeping on freshly ironed sheets every night was something he had really come to appreciate. Perhaps he could take in some assembly work, make some return on the money he put into his slaves.

When he judged the ponies to be warmed up, he uttered his second word of the day, ‘Trot’. The ponies lifted their knees and the buggy surged forward up the slight incline of the lane. Soon they reached the point where the lane fizzled out at the edge of some Forestry Commission land. Here there was a sharp left-hand turn onto a track through the wood. The leafy track was easier on the ponies’ feet than the stony lane had been, but with a steeper gradient. Kern felt the buggy slowing, and cracked the whip over the ponies’ heads. Speed was regained for a while, when it started to decline again Kern gave each pony a flick across the shoulders, the draft bar and harnesses made it impossible to reach their buttocks with the whip. Jenny gasped occasionally, and her head rolled from side to side, but Kern had no doubt she was fit for many more miles. But he was a cautious man, and ever fearful of being stranded with a dead pony, so half a mile along he steered the buggy off the track for a break.

Finding a small clearing, Kern dismounted and ordered the ponies to squat. He took a cloth from the seat basket and wiped some blood off Jenny’s back, hearing her urinate as he did so. The lash had opened an old cut, and he silently cursed himself for his excessive whip use in the early days. Routine strokes with the driving whip should not draw blood, but her back was in such a poor state that he wondered how much longer he could use her as a draft animal. Perhaps a few months without his leathery kisses would allow the skin to fully heal and toughen up. That would only be possible when he had a new pony. Looking up from Jenny, he caught Sally’s eyes on him, before she quickly looked away. There was something in those eyes, something dangerous. His own safety came to mind again. She was only a woman, but she was less than half his age, and the bondage he held her in was making her stronger every day. If ever she came at him unrestrained, would he be able to handle her? Probably not, he decided. So he would keep her shackled when not in harness, and maybe he would flog her again when her back was healed, just so she knew who was boss. He took his seat in the buggy, ordered the ponies to their feet, and drove back to the track.

At the end of the track was another left turn, taking them homewards. Urged on with frequent tastes of the whip, Sally and Jenny trotted on. Their lungs were on fire, and there were steel needles of pain in their legs, but their master would give them so much more pain if they failed to obey him. Unlike the ponies, Kern was relaxed now. He could sit back, enjoy the ride, and savour the pleasures to come. Life was so, so sweet. It was Christmas, and Santa was bringing him a new pony.

Chapter 2: The Slave Revolt

At a few minutes before eight, the buggy pulled into the yard, both ponies were bathed in sweat and gasping for breath. Kern hopped down from his seat, retrieved the two pairs of shackles from the seat basket, and hobbled his ponies. After swiftly removing their harnesses and throwing them through the open garage door, he led the ponies to their cell, gave them some water, and then put them into the prone position. Returning to the yard, he removed the draft bar and foot bar from the buggy, then stowed it in the garage. Into the house then, to remove the saucepan of porridge from the cooker. He filled two bowls with the sticky food, stirring a large dollop of honey into each before setting the bowls on the small pine table. Next, he brought a thawed chicken from the fridge, placed it in a large saucepan, set it on the cooker and brought it to the boil. He really hated this, he was waiting on the ponies, and they should be waiting on him.

While the chicken boiled, he went back out to the yard. He had a shower head rigged on a pole, fed with water from a hose. Now he turned on the tap, sending a spray of water over the muddy surface of the yard. He turned the tap down to a trickle, not wishing to get himself soaked. He went to the cell, picking a collar and chain from a vestibule shelf on the way. The collar was placed around Jenny’s neck, and he led her by the chain out to the shower pole. Her hands were still cuffed behind her back, and she was still hobbled. The chain was clipped to the pole, the girl shivering violently as the cold water ran down her body. Kern soaped her vigorously, paying special attention to her crotch, her anus, and under her arms. Then stepped across to the tap to turn up the flow. In a few seconds the soap suds were washed off Jenny. Kern released her chain from the pole and led her in to the kitchen, where he rubbed her briskly with a large towel, she whimpered as he worked on her sore back.

Kern sat Jenny at the table, then padlocked her chain to the chair and removed her handcuffs. He gave her a spoon, thrust a bowl of porridge in front of her, then returned to the cell to fetch Sally for her shower. With Sally seated and eating, he returned to the chicken, which was now boiling merrily. He turned the gas down to a simmer, added some cabbage leaves, and fitted a lid to the pan. Now he boiled a small quantity of water in the kettle, and poured it into a bowl. He stirred in some salt, and added some cold water. The ponies were finished eating now, both sat with heads bowed, their hands in front of them on the table. Taking the bowl of hot salty water and a cloth, Kern proceeded to bathe their cuts. He thought that he had better learn how to stitch cuts, that would be the best way to avoid the sort of lumpy scarring that disfigured Jenny’s back. He checked his watch, it was almost nine. He hobbled Sally, then led Jenny out to the sandpit in the corner of yard, where the girls were trained to defecate. Always embarrassed by this particular routine, he turned away from the girl. Job done, he led Jenny back through the kitchen to the utility room, where he substituted a longer collar chain locked to a ring in the ceiling.

Leaving Jenny to her work, Kern led the other pony out to the sandpit. He had been planning to put Sally on the rowing machine for a while, but now he had a change of mind.

‘Sally, I am putting you with Jenny to learn the laundry’

‘Yes, Master’

Had he ever heard either of them say anything but ‘Yes Master’? Not recently. It was what he had trained them to say, the only answer that did not risk a beating. So Sally was chained to the utility room ceiling in the same manner as Jenny, who had already filled the sink, and was now loading it. Kern was irrationally annoyed to see that she was washing the ponies’ bedding first, but he gave no reprimand. Their bedding, like his, was washed every day. He knew that every item would be perfectly washed and immaculately ironed, but still he issued his usual warning.

‘I will be inspecting your work, it had better be good’

‘Yes, Master’ they answered in unison.

It occurred to Kern that there could hardly be anything about washing and ironing for Sally to learn, she was a woman after all. Had she done housework? He had no idea. About the only things he knew about her was her age, that she had been born in London, had come to live with a cousin’s family in Birmingham, and had somehow finished up on the streets. She had got into Kern’s car on a warm September evening, and they had talked business. Then she had broken the tart’s number one rule of survival, she had agreed to go to his home for the night. Perhaps she had reason to trust him; he had been a regular client. For although Kern already had Jenny in captivity at that time, he shared his Canadian friend’s squeamishness about incest, and was obliged to pay for his urges. So Sally had come to stay the night, and was in chains by morning.

Kern left the slaves to the laundry. He had work of his own to do, adding a microphone to the CCTV camera in the pony cell. His obsessive concern with security had led him to speculate that the slaves might be plotting against him, and he wanted to eavesdrop.

In fact, Jenny and Sally had assumed the presence of microphones long before Kern had thought to install them. Although they had not been forbidden to converse, they never did so in his presence, and always in whispers in his absence. Sally stole a glance through the open door to the kitchen, to be sure he had left the house. She spoke to Jenny, keeping her eyes on her work and her lip movements to a minimum. There was a CCTV camera here, as there was in all the areas Kern took them to.

‘How does my back look?’

‘Not too bad, considering. Mine feels awful.’

‘It looks awful, you could get gangrene. Jenny, he’s going to whip us to death or work us to death, we’ve got to get away.’

‘Be patient Sally, we have to wait for the right chance. I know how you hate him, but I’ve been here longer than you, and I’m certain he won’t kill us. He enjoys us too much.’

Sally could not understand Jenny at all. She had been through hell, and yet she seemed so mild about it. And she refused to tell how she had been taken, why could that be? They both fell silent as they worked, Sally wringing the washing, Jenny loading the drier. After a while, Sally spoke again.

‘That road can’t be far.’ At night, when Kern thought them deep in exhausted slumber, they would lay on their bunks and listen to the distant roar of traffic, often punctuated by the whooping sirens of emergency vehicles.

‘You’re in chains. I see he’s even left your ankles shackled now. How can you reach the road?’ Jenny was dismissive, but she had pointed out a fair problem. Whereas Sally had no doubt she could reach the road, shackled or not, the chain attached to her collar was the difficulty. How strong was it? They did not know, neither of them ever dared to test their chains, for if Kern saw them on a CCTV screen he would surely shred their backs.

They worked on in silence, but when Jenny took the first load from the drier, Sally saw her get the iron from a cupboard, saw her plug it into the mains. That iron was sharp and heavy, it was made to bash a head, but could she steel herself to do it? Terrible memories of the flogging came to her. When Kern had dragged her from the cell late at night, she had assumed that he was going to rape her again, she had forgotten about the spitting incident of many hours ago. But he had taken her to the room with the hated treadmill, fastened her wrists to a post, and shown her a whip. It was a stiff, heavy, evil-looking thing, not at all like the whip he used in the buggy. He had come close up to her, squeezed her breasts, whispered in her ear.

‘Thirty for spitting. If it happens again I’ll give you sixty.’

Surely, if he had raked her back with a red-hot steel comb, the pain could not have been worse. When she had wet herself, and the urine on her legs mingled with blood flowing from her back, she had willed herself to pass out, to die. It would be better to see the beast die, but she knew she would only get one chance. If she tried and failed, he would put her through the tortures of the damned, and would keep her so heavily shackled that she could never again get lift a finger to him. So she must not fail, and she dare not trust Jenny. She had finished the wringing now, and she spoke to Jenny again.

‘Let’s swap round now, and I’ll try some ironing.’

The microphone was quickly fitted to the shoe on the cell camera, then Kern had to drill a hole through the lintel above the cell door. In that confined space, the noise of his Makita chewing through the concrete was deafening and prolonged, but after that the job was easy enough. He ran the cable through the lintel hole, then stapled it around the plasterboard lining of the vestibule to the outer door. This door had a wooden frame, which was soon drilled through. From there the cable was passed up to the window of his study, located directly above the lean-to. He did not bother with clipping the cable to the wall, he just took it through the window frame to the phono input of a cheap amplifier. And that was another of his bodge jobs completed.

Kern was sat in his study, gazing out of the window. The mist was thinning now, he could see across the two fields behind his yard to the edge of the wood. Suddenly there was a loud bleeping noise, a smoke alarm. Oh shit, the chicken pan must have boiled dry. He leapt to his feet, and hurtled down the stairs to the kitchen. Grabbing the pan handle, he heaved it across to the sink and turned the cold tap on. The alarm was still bleeping, and the kitchen was filling with steam, when he suddenly thought of the ponies. As he entered the utility room, Sally swung the iron at his head.

Cracking skulls with a steam iron is not something a girl gets a lot of practice at. Sally mistimed her swing, so that instead of the sharp edge of the iron’s soleplate connecting with Kern’s head, she caught him with the flat of the sole. The crashing blow against the left side of his head sent Kern staggering back, he swivelled round before collapsing onto the kitchen floor. Sally charged at him as best her shackled feet would allow, but her neck chain brought her up short, so she threw the iron at his head, missing by several feet. Screaming with rage, frustration, and fear, she now applied both hands to her chain, desperate to break it or yank it from the ceiling. But with a two thousand pound breaking strain, that chain was not going to give. It was anchored to an eye bolt set through a ten inch joist, Sally was going nowhere other than the hell that she had known she would risk.

Jenny stood with her back to the sink. She was wide-eyed, amazed. Now Sally shouted at her.

‘Help me, will you? Help me!’

Jenny made no move. Her only thoughts were of how she could avoid being involved in Kern’s reprisals, for she feared the whip on her damaged back more than she feared death, more than she feared anything. Through the doorway she saw Kern start to rise, and she dropped face down to the floor, hands clasped behind her back. He must know that she had no part in this rebellion. He must. Sally continued to jerk at the chain, throwing her weight into convulsive pulls, all the time screaming at Jenny to help her. But Jenny paid no heed, she stayed motionless and silent in the prone position, a puddle of urine collecting under her terrified body.

Oblivious to Sally’s commotion in the utility room, Kern stumbled out of the house. He doused his head under the showerhead in the yard. There seemed to be no blood, but there could still be serious damage. Cautiously, he poked his little finger into his left ear. When he withdrew the finger he inspected it for blood. Oh thank the lord, there was none. A wave of nausea swept over him, he crouched low to the yard, retching. He had to lie down for a while, so he returned to the house. On his way through the kitchen he closed the utility room door, to shut out as much of Sally’s noise as possible, then he dragged himself up the stairs to flop across the bed. He pulled his knees up and clasped his arms around himself, was surprised to find his eyes stung by salty tears. Downstairs, Sally was suddenly quiet. In a few minutes Kern had fallen into a deep sleep.

Chapter 3: Santa

Kern awoke with start, swung his legs onto the floor and looked at the clock. It was two-fifteen. Holy fuck, he was going to miss Santa. A swift charge took him along the landing to the bathroom, where he wet his hair again so that he could persuade it to lie flat. Suddenly his bladder felt fit to burst, more precious seconds wasted emptying it, before rushing back to the bedroom to dress. Then he needed to piss again. Standing at the toilet bowl, he studied his reflection in the bathroom cabinet mirror, tilting his head this way and that. His left ear was slightly puffy, and the sight of it reminded his brain that it hurt. The cheek on that side looked swollen, or maybe he only thought it was, he could not be sure. Kern knew that he had to be the luckiest bastard in the world.

In the utility room, Sally heard Kern moving around upstairs. She was sat on the floor with her back against the drier. She was exhausted, cold, and shivering. Silently, she began to weep.

Kern dressed in panic, he was in a ferocious competition with time, running against the clock. When he was ready to go, he had to decide what to do with the ponies. It was certain that they were secure in the utility room, but it would worry him to leave them there while he was away from the house. He would have to sacrifice precious minutes to putting them away. He ran downstairs and out to the lean-to. When he reached the outer door he suddenly felt sick and dizzy, he had to steady himself against the doorframe, then the feeling passed, and he pressed on.

In the vestibule he collected a short chain, then he went to the kitchen to retrieve the ponies’ handcuffs. From nowhere, a new sense of power and confidence had come; he wrapped the chain around his right fist, then shoved open the utility room door. Sally looked up at him with big frightened eyes, but she was still game, and she scrambled quickly to her feet. Her plan now was to gouge at his eyes, to have her best shot at blinding the fucker. But Kern was having none of it; he strode up to her and drew back his right arm to smash his chain-wrapped fist into her face. Sally’s hands retreated from their outstretched, claw-like position, she drew them back to protect her face, and she turned her body to shield herself with her shoulder. Kern was able to spin her right round, and then to punch the chained fist into her kidneys. Seconds later Sally’s hands were cuffed behind her back, and the rebellion was over.

With Sally secured, Kern stepped across to Jenny. He cuffed her hands behind her back, and hauled her to her feet. As he did so he noticed the puddle.

‘You’ve wet the floor.’

‘Please, master’

‘Shut up.’

He used the short chain to join the girls’ collars, and then unlocked the collar chains from the ceiling. Leading the chained pair to the their cell took an irksomely long time, because Sally was still hobbled. On arrival, Kern removed the short chain from the collars, then chained each girl to the floor ring. He fetched gags from the vestibule, because he did not want them shouting in the unlikely event of a visitor to the house. The gags were of his own make, similar to a commercial ball-gag, but with an oval wooden block bored with breathing holes. At last he was ready to make tracks, but before leaving he would give the slaves something to look forward to.

‘Jenny, for fouling your workplace I am sentencing you to six strokes with the cane, which I will give you on my return.’

‘Sally, for striking your master you will be severely flogged.’

Kern always felt like a judge in a B movie when he passed sentence on his slaves, but there was no denying the satisfaction of it. As he locked the cell door behind him he could hear the girls moaning in their misery. Excellent. He checked his watch, it was two thirty-five, he was supposed to meet Santa at three. One last scurrying visit to the kitchen, to retrieve his precious envelope from under the microwave, then he locked up the house and ran out to the garage.

The Land Rover coughed reluctantly to life, Kern reversed it out to the lane, then headed for the main road. The last three hundred yards of the lane were under water, but Kern was perhaps the only man in England who loved the millennium year flooding, because it increased the isolation of his home. Heading for the rendezvous, he several times drove around Road Closed signs, and ploughed through with water up to the Landie’s doorsills. He was only ten minutes late when he arrived in the car park of the roadside café. To his immense relief, he saw a Merc with Belgian plates parked close to the café entrance.

Kern hurried into the café, he immediately saw Paul Santa-Dumont smiling at him. Europe’s premier illegal immigrant dealer was sat nearby, and he had company. There was Doorn, the swarthy hard-man Kern had met in Antwerp when he paid his deposit, and there were two women. One was a peroxide blonde who was obviously well into her forties, the other was a frail looking brunette. He stopped at the counter to order a pot of tea, and then crossed to Santa’s table.

Before Kern could utter any greeting, Santa spoke. ‘Have you got the money?’

Santa had a gift for speaking through his teeth. From any distance he appeared to smile pleasantly, close up the mask was unconvincing, you saw only bared teeth.

‘I’m sorry I’m so late, Santa.’ Kern was not to be diverted from opening pleasantries.

Santa was not to be diverted, either. ‘Show me the money please.’

Kern handed Santa the envelope that had nestled under his microwave. Santa did not open it, he passed it to his thug, who went straight to the toilets to count the money.

Santa leaned back on the padded seat. He finally consented to make reply to Kern’s apology. ‘We are not long arrived here, you are lucky. The traffic was stupid, you fucking English have no idea, have you?’

Kern could not disagree with this stark analysis of the nation’s roads, but he said nothing.

Santa gestured to the blond. ‘Allow me to introduce you to Ana, who travelling with me today, and to your new friend Estelle. Estelle is from Ukraine, she does not speak English. What happened to your face?’

The tendency towards changing the subject in mid-sentence was both irritating and confusing. Kern could only suppose that it was an intentional effect. Realising that he had raised a hand to the side of his face, he rubbed the cheek as if it didn’t hurt like hell, and forced a casual answer.

‘Oh, it’s nothing.’

Kern went through the clumsy social ritual of shaking hands with the Ana and Estelle. This interrupted the girl’s consumption of her meal, a plate of chicken curry with rice. She could have no idea how typically English her meal was. Neither Santa or his thug proffered a hand, so Kern ignored them and sat down. He was seated on the left of Ana, who had Dorn on her right. Opposite Kern was Santa, with Estelle on his left. Finishing her food, the unwitting slave looked at Kern with open suspicion, and then spoke softly to Santa.

Santa then addressed Kern. ‘Estelle would like you to know that she is a good girl. She is very grateful to you, and she will work hard to pay you back for her passage, but she is a good girl’

He leaned towards Kern with a knowing leer. ‘She is not going to suck your cock, you understand?’

Kern looked suitably shocked. ‘Oh please Santa, give me some credit. How old is she?’

Santa had to consult the girl, then he replied to Kern. ‘She is nineteen.’

Kern was mildly disturbed; this was a little too much like cradle snatching. But he was locked on this track; he could not go back now. He willed himself to look relaxed as he said ‘Nineteen eh? That’s the same age as my daughter; they’ll be great friends. My wife has Estelle’s room ready, I know she’ll be very happy.’

Santa translated for Estelle, and the fictional cosy family seemed to reassure the girl. Kern and Santa had a brief discussion of the best route to Newcastle, which convinced Kern that the Belgian was going nowhere near the place, and then Doorn returned. The thug said nothing, and his silence was all Santa needed. He stood up, and so did the blond Ana. Santa gave Kern a mocking salute, patted Estelle’s cheek, then walked away without another word, Ana and the thug followed. The transaction had been completed in less than five minutes. Kern was left there with his new purchase, eighteen thousand pounds worth of (soon to be) ponygirl.

Chapter 4: Estelle, Sally, The Cane, & The Moonlight

Leaving his tea untouched, Kern motioned Estelle to rise, he was anxious to be away now. The girl seemed reluctant, but with a glum look on her face she followed him out to the car park. He got Estelle to the Landie, opened the front passenger door for her, and she climbed in. Kern settled behind the wheel, cranked the engine, and they were off. The engine was pumping hot water through the heater radiator, and the girl leaned forward to fiddle with the controls, showing a surprising familiarity with the arcane workings of the ancient beast. She switched the radio on, stabbing the search button until she found the right sort of pop, then she settled back and got a packet of Revels from one of the many pockets in her voluminous padded jacket. She filled her mouth with a handful of the sweets, then waved the bag in Kern’s direction, he shook his head. Several times during the journey, Estelle turned to study Kern, she seemed to sense that there was something wrong about the tall Englishman.

As the Land Rover rolled to a halt in the yard, Kern removed the keys from the ignition, opened his door, and jumped out. Estelle watched him enter a lean-to building, seconds later her apprehension turned to blind terror as she watched him returning; there were straps and chains swinging from his left hand. Kern dropped his small collection of essentials onto the surface of the yard, and then he looked up at Estelle with a blank and implacable expression.

These were going to be the difficult few seconds, but Kern was not going to let the girl piss him about. He opened the passenger door and offered a hand to help her out. She ignored him; head down she stared at her lap. Kern stretched his left arm across her to release her seatbelt, as he did so he seized the back of her neck with his right hand. The belt retracted into its bobbin, and Kern pitched the girl off her seat and out onto the yard, where she landed on her hands and knees. Kern kicked her in the ribs, and she went over onto her back, screaming like a banshee. He leaned over to catch a hold on her wrists, but as he did so she tried to sit up, and their heads collided. His forehead connected with her nose, which had the benefit of knocking her back down. Kern had found a good grip on her right wrist, now he stepped back, spinning his captive over onto her stomach. Her hands were cuffed behind her in no time, then the gag was fitted and there was an end to the noise. He noticed that she had only one shoe on; the other one must be in the Landie. Taking the shoe off her, he threw it through the open door of the vehicle.

As soon as he had shackles on her ankles, Kern left her and entered the house. If she managed to get to her feet, which he doubted, she could not hobble far while he was inside. Opening the door under the stairs, he turned the cellar light on. The cellar steps were steep and narrow; it was a hell of a descent whilst wrestling a struggling slave. Kern knew that, he had done it with the Sally. He went down carefully, keeping a hand on the banister at all times. The air down here was cold and damp; he had never managed to completely dry the cellar. There was no electrical power point, he planned to install one, but had not got round to it. He crossed to a Calor gas fire, lifted the lid to feel the weight of the cylinder; there was probably enough gas in it for a few days. The gas lit after a few attempts, then Kern checked the rest of the cellar’s paltry contents. There was a mattress on a rubber groundsheet, a chemical toilet, and a sink with a single tap. A shelving rack contained towels and blankets, a plastic mug and spoon, tampons and talcum powder, sundry items pertaining to the care of female slaves. Most importantly, there was a ring set into the floor, with a six-foot chain attached.

Kern left the cellar, then he fetched a cane from the lean-to vestibule. Estelle had not moved from where he had left her, Kern could hear her sobbing as he approached. He dragged her up by the handcuff chain, giving the backs of her thighs a couple of stinging swipes with the cane. The terrified girl twisted and turned frantically. Kern allowed her to struggle for a few seconds before letting her feel the cane again, this time across her calves. Then he swung her round to face the back door of the house and shoved her in the back. She stumbled forward a few steps, and then came to a halt. The cane stung her thighs again, and she moved towards the house. She was learning.

There had once been an outside door to the cellar, but it was now under the concrete foundations of the lean-to extension. Now the dangerous steps were the only route to the cellar. He drove Estelle through he kitchen to the cellar door, which was still open. Keeping one hand on her handcuff chain, he crouched down to release her shackles. Then he guided her down the steps, all the while gripping the banister with his right hand. Safely down, he refitted Estelle’s shackles, and padlocked them to the anchored chain. Taking a Stanley knife from his pocket, he stripped her without removing any of her restraints. The top layer, her thick jacket, was the most difficult, needing some very careful knife work to avoid cutting her flesh. Her sweater needed only a slit cut before could just tear it away in a few pieces. Her blouse was gone in seconds, her bra he tossed aside after three cuts through the straps. Her skirt fell away after he made one long cut from waist to hem, then he cut her panty elastic and ripped them off her. She wore no hosiery.

Grasping her shoulders, he bent Estelle forward from the waist. Possibly she was going into shock, she offered no resistance whatsoever. Separating her buttocks, he examined her anus, then her vagina. She seemed healthy enough in those tell-tale areas, there were no growths, lesions, foreign bodies, or burst blood vessels. He looked through her pubic hair for traces of lice, there were none. He straightened her up, then inspected under her arms, feeling for lumps and looking for louse eggs. With no pubic infestation, it was extremely unlikely that she would have lice there, but caution was wise. Reaching his arms around her chest from behind, Kern felt her small breasts thoroughly; he could find no lumps. He checked through her hair, peered as far as he could see into her ears. He picked up the cane again, and swished it through the air as he put a finger to his lips, the universal gesture for silence. Now he removed the gag, forced her head back roughly, and opened her mouth. Her dentition had just one gap; the reformed gum said it was an old extraction. There was one gold filling in a lower incisor, and amalgam fillings in the first and second left lower molars. Plaque was forming, especially at the back of her mouth, but overall her dental health was a close match for her apparently good bodily health. Her teeth would bear watching, he would have Jenny show her how to floss.

Turning Estelle around in front of him, feeling her shoulders, Kern was well satisfied with his purchase. She lacked muscle mass, but her youth would allow him to build that very quickly, and then she would be trained for the buggy. Estelle’s tear-streaked face, smeared with blood and snot, was not a pretty picture. Her eyes rolled upwards in their sockets, her head sagged back, and her knees started to fold, she was fainting. Unconcerned, Kern lowered her to the floor. He had seen all this before. Always a considerate master, he ensured that her tongue was well to the front of her mouth.

All the slave’s pathetic belongings and remnants of clothing he stuffed into a plastic sack. Then he pulled the mattress and the chemical toilet to within the reach of the her chain, and he placed a mug of water on the floor. Estelle was coming round now, her puffy eyes opened; she saw Kern and groaned aloud. He gave her a healthy slap across the face to stop her screaming, and then he pointed to each of the luxuries he had provided for her; the mattress, the toilet, and the mug. As an afterthought, he took a blanket and a box of tissues from the shelves and threw them onto the mattress. Then he removed her handcuffs, picked up the rubbish sack, and left her, closing the cellar door behind him. He was sure that she would be screaming and shouting quite shortly, and he did not want to hear too much of it. The girl would have to realise the hopelessness of her situation in her own time, then she would quieten down.

His strategy for breaking Estelle would be to apply indirect terror, by letting her observe his other slaves being worked and punished, rather than by thrashing her body as he had done with Jenny, and to a lesser extent with Sally. And he would not force himself into her. He would let her learn his absolute power, and fully appreciate the depths of her degraded dependence on him. When she had a complete understanding of how he controlled every minute aspect of her life, then she would want to please him. The memory of Santa’s words came back to him.

‘She is not going to suck your cock, you understand?’

Oh yes she is, Santa baby, oh yes she is.

Back in the kitchen now, Kern made himself a cup of tea, then sat at the table to drink it. Struck by a thought, he went out to the Land rover to gather Estelle’s shoes, which joined the rest of her former life in the rubbish sack. He threw the sack into the vehicle, locked all the doors, and then returned to the kitchen to finish his tea. It was turning four thirty when he went out to the lean-to.

As he opened the cell door, both slaves turned pleading eyes towards him. Ignoring Sally, Kern unchained Jenny from the floor ring, then took her into the house and up to the room next to his bedroom, the room he had fitted for training and punishment. There was a treadmill, a carpenter’s horse, a rowing machine, and a whipping post. The post was not set into the floor, it was held out from the wall on brackets. Jenny had been gagged for more than two hours, her dry tongue kept sticking to the wooden block, and her jaws were in desperate need of movement. All of which was no concern of Kern’s, who set about the punishment in a brisk and businesslike manner. First he strapped her ankles to the legs at one end of the horse, and then he forced her body horizontal along the length of the horse’s body, before removing her cuffs and strapping her arms to the other pair of horse legs. Now there was the issue of severity, which was a matter of cane tip velocity, itself dependent on the length of the cane. He selected a forty-inch cane and swished it through the air a few times to check its soundness. Jenny was making a sort of gurgling whimpering sound through her gag, she had been strapped on this horse many times, and she well knew the pain to come.

Kern laid the bamboo across Jenny’s buttocks, taking care to avoid the base of her spine. The impact created a fairly broad area of redness instantly, which faded swiftly as a ridge rose along the line of contact. However many times he used the cane, this always fascinated Kern. He left about ten seconds between each stroke, aiming the cane with precision so that no strokes overlapped, this greatly minimised the risk of cutting his victim. Ideally, he would like to finish with six separate and perfectly parallel ridges across her rump. Jenny’s head shook from side to side at each stroke, as if she could shake off the pain like a dog shakes off water. Her whimpering was now a fairly loud squeal, she would have screamed up a storm but for the gag.

After the sixth stroke, Kern inspected his handiwork. There were a couple of crossed welts, but no blood, he could congratulate himself on a job well done. He handcuffed her hands behind her back again, then he released her legs and led her downstairs to the kitchen. ‘Jenny,’ he said to her, ‘I am going to remove your gag, then I am going to give you some water. You will be silent and respectful, or I will take you back to the horse. Do you understand?’

The hapless Jenny nodded her vigorous response, and then Kern allowed her to drink her fill from the tap. While Jenny was still bent over the sink with her head under the tap, Kern shackled her ankles. As soon had as she had satisfied her thirst, he asked her if she needed the sandpit.

‘No, Master. Thank you, Master.’

Kern returned Jenny to the cell, taking a jug of water along. He removed Sally’s gag, gave her water, then asked if she needed the sandpit.

‘Yes, Master. Thank you, Master’

While Sally was relieving herself into the sand, Kern thought about her punishment. On the one hand, the thought of flogging her again made his stomach churn with excitement; but on the other hand he was concerned about the risk of infection if he laid her back open so soon after her last whipping.

‘Sally,’ he said; ‘I am not going to punish you immediately.’

‘Yes, Master.’

‘If you are a very good girl over the next few days, I may reduce your sentence to a caning.’

‘Yes, Master.’

Kern thought that this could work out well. He had used Sally sexually since she had been his slave, but always in a brutal and animalistic way. By giving the girl an enormously strong reason to seek his goodwill, perhaps he could manoeuvre her into sexual pleasures of a more prolonged and pleasurable nature. And there would Estelle at his command as well. Suddenly, he was filled with festive bonhomie.

‘Come on, my girl. Let’s get you ready for your evening run.’

‘Yes, Master.’

Kern left Sally in the yard while he fetched Jenny from the cell. He thought briefly about bringing Estelle up to see what would be expected of her, but rejected the idea. It was dark now, the morning would be soon enough to start training her.

Only the moon saw Kern drive his pony buggy up the lane, and it sailed over the trees beside them as the ponies trotted through the wood. Sally’s mind was racing as she forced her legs to keep pumping, she knew exactly how Kern wanted her to reduce her punishment, and she thought that his sexual demands might well provide new opportunities for escape. Jenny was downhearted, and still in great pain from her beating; she could see no hope at all. The ponies’ feet padded almost silently over the leave mulch, the wheels whirred, and there was an occasional smack of leather on brown skin or white. The master was entirely happy in his seat. It had been a lovely Christmas, and he looked forward to a very happy new year.

END