Mom and I stood by dad’s grave side. We had on brand new, black dresses and gloves and veils bought just yesterday. The dresses had nice little jackets and our nylons and high heeled pumps were black to in the latest fashion from 1962. Ordinarily, as an 18 year old girl/young adult, I would have felt very grown up and even proud to dress this way, so much like a sophisticated adult woman from that time. But father’s death robbed me of all those thoughts. Two months from graduation and senior prom until that awful moment I came home and was told he had died at work, my thoughts were all on prom dresses and dates and boyfriends and the things girls of 18 look forward too.
Dad’s wake was closed casket because he had fallen from a girder, or something at work. Mom had, of course taken charge and the factory dad had worked for was paying for the funeral and the mortgage on the house. We hadn’t had time to adjust to what it meant for us yet. Mom and dad’s friend and co-workers were there but no family. As far as I knew my parents were orphans because no mention of their families or blood relatives was ever made during my childhood. Holidays and birthdays we celebrated just for the three of us unless some friends were included.
Mom and stood there trying to put on a good face. We were both tall women, six feet, taller in heels, which limited my high school dating a lot. We were good German stock as Mom put it, with blue eyes and she was gold blonde hair while mine was more strawberry blonde in color. My girlfriend always told me they could see that I was my mother’s daughter and if I were older or she, somehow younger we cold pass as twins. I hadn’t really ever thought of that too much. It was a nice thing to say about my mother but didn’t mean a lot to me.
Our local minister was just about done with the grave side service when two women I had never seen before walked up to the grave site. One was a tall, brunette haired woman only slightly shorter the mom and I. The other woman was black skinned. What was then called Negro. Today she would be referred to as either African American (in the U.S.A.) or just black. They both had on outfits very similar to mom and I, black dresses, pumps, hose and veils. Their veils were the more polite type, pillbox hats with a little netting for a veil that barely covered their eyes.
My veil and the one mom wore were on wider hats and more like widows veils. Everyone was quiet until the reverend was done. We were to go to a luncheon at the church after this. Mom didn’t seem to want to go but would just for form. The people around us said the condolences except for the strangers who seemed to want to wait until they could talk to mom and I alone. I saw them walking around the grave side to approach us. I looked at mom in a questioning way but she gave a slight shake of her. So I said nothing and waited to find out what this was about.
The white woman came up and looked at mom and said “Hello, Nugget.”
Now that wasn’t my mother’s name. She was Brenda just as I’m Jane. Brenda and Jane Cobb. “Can this wait until after the luncheon at church?” my mother asked. Mom had straightened up and seemed to get more poised when the woman called her that strange name.
“Of course, Brenda,” the woman said. But she emphasized Brenda as if that was an odd name to say.
I was totally at a loss to understand what this meant. Mom seemed to hold herself straighter and more forceful and yet at the same time seemed to demur to this stranger. “I’m Jane,” I said trying to get some feel for all this. “Are you coming to the luncheon?”
“We weren’t invited,” the woman, whose name I still didn’t know, said.
“Oh, but everyone can come. It’s at our church.” I offered.
“Brenda?” the woman asked.
Mom sighed deeply, torn by indecision at that moment. Then she said “It wouldn’t be right if you didn’t come to the luncheon m-m…Karen.”
“You haven’t told your daughter anything, have you Brenda?”
Mom shook her head and kept quiet for a few moments. The she said, “Jane, this is your Aunt Karen. You father’s sister.”
“My aunt?” I asked in real surprise. “But I didn’t know we had relatives.”
“I don’t live around here, Jane. You mother and father moved here years ago. They left the family farm.”
“You and dad were farmers Mom?”
Mom had that not now look on her face as I tried to understand this all. I looked from mom to my new Aunt Karen and then back to mom and then at the silent black woman who stood at Aunt Karen’s side. Aunt Karen said, “This is Pamela, my maid.”
“Oh,” was all I could say.
The black woman curtsied to me at the introduction. And that surprised me too. I mean I was taught how to curtsy. Girls were still taught that in 1950s and 1960s while I was growing up in this small Midwestern town. What surprised me even more was that my mother curtsied back to the maid. “Pleased to meet you, Pamela,” mother said. It was as if the maid and my mother were somehow equals in status. Only Aunt Karen stood there and didn’t attempt a curtsy. “Jane,” mother said in one of her most quiet but determined tone of voice I ever heard. “Please show respect and curtsy to Pamela.”
Well, I wanted to object but the sight of Dad’s coffin held my tongue. So I gave my best curtsy to Pamela, with the right leg drawn back and the left knee bent.
“Now your Aunt Karen,” mom told me and she was already into the motion of a deep curtsy to Aunt Karen.
Aunt Karen stood ramrod straight and simply nodded her head as if she were royalty. But I went ahead and curtsied too.
The luncheon was a strange affair. Mom was more subdued then she usually is and surprised everyone with Aunt Karen’s introduction. I noticed that no one else gave a curtsy to anyone else. Pamela was introduce but kept herself back and tried to stay invisible in amongst the group of white people. There were extra seats in the church basement and Pamela sat off by herself. No one wanted to intrude and Aunt Karen left it that way, not needing Pamela’s services I guessed.
As the luncheon broke up, Mom and I gathered ourselves together, to go back home. Aunt Karen and Pamela were going out the church door at the same time. I felt a real tension there, so thick I could have cut it with a knife. Neither, my new Aunt Karen or Mom was offering any information to me. We turned back to our family car and Aunt Karen said, “Brenda?” Mom stopped with her hand on the car’s door handle. “Mister Johnson, John’s lawyer said the legal matters will be handled tomorrow morning at your house.”
“Yes, that’s right. You’ll be there of course.”
“Unless you want to meet right now with me,” Aunt Karen said.
“No. Please,” Mom said.
“Tomorrow then!”
Back home mom and I went upstairs to our separate bedrooms to change out the black dresses. Ordinarily on a day when I didn’t go to school I’d have been into jeans or shorts in a shot. Keep in mind that back then that was the teenage equal to kids play clothes. Knock around clothes. But somehow that afternoon, after being dressed so “grown up” all day, it seemed like it would be very disrespectful to dress “down” that way. With the dress, garter belt and stockings off I sat on my bed in panties, bra and slip and wondered for the first time in months what to wear. Some how poodle skirts and blouses didn’t seem right either. I settled for a plain blue, shirt waisted, short sleeved house dress, the kind my mother usually wore. I slipped on sandals and went down to the kitchen.
Mom smiled at me and said, “Great minds think alike.” Her house dress was almost exactly the same as mine, except for the apron she had on. She was putting a roast in the oven and I grabbed an apron and asked if I could help.
“Sure, honey,” she said. “Get out three good sized potatoes to peel for mashed while I mix a salad. You know how your father likes…”
But she didn’t finish the thought and just shook her head instead.
I carried a bowl, pot and peeler over to the table, got out the potatoes and began to peel them, with the peels in the bowl and then sliced the potatoes into the pot. I realized Mom was cooking for Dad to but I wasn’t going to say anything. It wasn’t the time of place. Mom had to handle grief her own way and I did too, that why I was in the kitchen with, doing a chore voluntarily instead of watching TV or staying up in my room with my record player.
We were both trying to stay close to each other but everything as normal as we could. I saw her slip a bowl of salad back in the refrigerator, knowing it had been made up way to soon. She stood with the refrigerator door opened looking in at the food. “That was too soon for the salad.”
“It’ll be okay, Mom. The potatoes are ready.”
She chuckled to herself. “It’s to soon for those too,” she said. “Oh, I’m just addled today. Let’s have some Cokes.” She brought two bottles (8 ounces back then) and pried off the caps with a bottle opener. She walked over to the table and sat down across from me. “Drink up, honey,” she encouraged me.
I took a long swallow and did feel better. No cure but it was nice sitting there together. We sat in silence for a long time. It was if she wanted to tell me something and I knew I wanted to ask question but neither of us knew how to begin. “Janey, there’s a lot of questions going around in your head right. Your Aunt Karen is a new wrinkle in your life and a mystery to you. I want to explain this all to you, but I’m not sure telling you now would be better then just letting things happen.”
“Mom, what’s going to happen?”
“That’s what’s so hard to talk about for me. It’s so simple for my stand point but I know it’s going to very hard on you.”
“Mom, your now making me really afraid.”
“I’m screwing this up,” Mom admitted. “Do you remember when you were 2 years old and we came to live here.”
“Very vaguely! I remember a long boat ride and really being sick on the boat.”
“You do remember that?”
“Yes, but not much else. It seemed like we were hurrying a lot, you, me and dad. As if we were running away from something. I only remember it as some nightmares I’ve had. A boat, then a bus trip and me crying and something about wearing diapers again, is all I remember.”
“Actually that’s a lot more then I thought you’d remember. We were running away! From the country we were all born in.”
“What?”
“Yes!”
“I wasn’t born right here.”
“No!”
I sat there and was totally stunned. “Am I an American citizen?”
“No, neither am I nor was your father. He smuggled us into this country and never could apply for citizenship. There are ways to get papers that look good, but once he died and death notices went out…it all came apart. I thought it would but was hoping for your sake it wouldn’t.”
“Then that’s why Aunt Karen showed up. To take us back with her? But where are we going?”
“The Island of Saint Barts off the coast near Florida. In the Caribbean!”
“But I don’t want to go. Why did Daddy do this to us?”
“I guess he hoped to give us a better life. He wanted to save us. He meant well but I never agree with how he did it. You and I were kidnapped and dragged away against my will and brought here. Now…now I want to just go home again and quit living a lie.”
“Mom! This is horrible! I can’t leave here. I graduate in two months. We’ve been picking out my prom dress and everyone I know is here.” I was almost screaming at her and yet crying at the same time. I felt like I was going lose all control. “What are we? Criminals? Did you and Daddy rob a bank?”
“Well, no! Nothing as dramatic as fleeing bank robbers but I almost wish it was. It would easier to explain. You see, or I hope you will, that you father stole us.”
“How can you steal a person?” Again I was screaming and Mom just seemed at a total loss. I wanted to run up to my room, put on my record player really loud and just hide under my covers. I was so afraid of what I might here next. I think I had, logically figure it out but I know my mind was accepting anything more that I was about to here.
“We’re slaves,” Mom said quietly.
“No…no! That just can’t be!” I yelled and this time I did run upstairs. I didn’t turn on a record I knocked over the little portable record player on my desk. I threw it against the wall and knocked all my perfume bottles off my dresses. I went over and took out the black dress I had felt so good about a few hours and tore it into rags. I pulled my hair and screamed and ripped open the front of the dress I had on. I wanted to hit something or do something. But I fell down on my bed and pulled a pillow over my head and cry like a baby. I guess I fell asleep that way for an hour or so.
When I woke up it was late afternoon and the April sun was lowering to the west. The shadows I cold see out my bedroom window were long now. I could smell my roast and that smelled so good. It almost made me think everything was normal. But I looked around the room at the way I had trashed everything there and knew nothing was normal anymore. I tried to think of something to do.
Then I decided to run away.
This nightmare couldn’t be happening, not here in a small Midwestern town in America. Mom had to be wrong or I had to run away and try to find help. I considered all my friends but the decided to just go to the city. I’ve heard that there so many people in the city that people could hide there. Chicago, when we visited seemed nice and I could probably walk there if I really needed to. In fact the more I thought about the more I realized walking was the only way. I didn’t want to take a suit case so I dug in my closet and found a Girl Scout back pack. Most people didn’t go around with backpacks but it would be easier then a suitcase. Of course this was in my room and a suitcase was in moms.
I only packed my spare jeans; gym socks, sweater and my bras and panties. Then I ripped off the dress and slip I was wearing. I just tore them off and threw them down and stepped on the garments as if I was punishing these pieces of cloth. Then I put on a dark pair of black denim pants and a black sweater. I pulled my hair back into a quick pony tail and dug out one of baseball caps I wore for girl’s softball in my sophomore year. I threaded the pony tail through the gap in the back of the cap and carefully, very quietly opened my bedroom door. I crept down the stairs and went to the front door and turned the knob very slowly. But there was a policeman standing there in front of our door!
Now I began to fear that what my mother had told me was right. That really made my heart pound and I reached up and touched my chest and felt my heart through the cotton of the sweater I was wearing. I would try the back door and maybe the basement windows, though the basement windows hadn’t been opened in years. Quietly I moved back toward the kitchen but crouched down to one side of the doorway. Mom was alone at the kitchen table eating dinner. My stomach rumbled at the thought of that roast beef and mashed potatoes.
I felt weak though, as I crouched there, because Mom looked so sad and lonely. I saw her wipe tears from her eye. Then I saw something that I didn’t understand at all. Mom stopped eating and stood up looking down at her food. She brushed down the skirt of her dress and touched the buttons on the front. It was as if she needed to touch the clothes she was wearing to make sure they were still there. I just crouched were I was and held my breath, hoping Mom would step out of the kitchen for something so I could sneak out the door.
Only Mom began to unbutton the front of her dress. She unbuckled the cloth belt at her waist and then took her dress off right there. The dress was carefully folded and put on the kitchen chair I would have sitting in. Her slip was pulled up over her head and folded neatly too. Then her undergarments, garter belt and bra and panties and stocking all followed until she was naked. I just couldn’t believe what I saw. My mother had just stripped herself naked in the kitchen but for what purpose? I hadn’t a clue but she even added her high heeled pumps to the pile of clothes and then put a kitchen towel down across the seat of the chair she was sitting in and then sat back down and continued to eat her meal. I just knew this was preparation for something. A sacrifice maybe? Was my mom going to kill herself? Over what had happened.
But I couldn’t stay here any longer. As much as I loved my mother and feared what she was about to do to herself I had to get out and get away. I had to get her away from the kitchen without seeing me. I went into our living room, picked up an ashtray and then threw it into the dinning room. I heard mom’s chair scrape and she stood up startled by the noise. “Janey!” she called and went into the dinning room. I had a wisp of a thought that my mother was as if her being nude was normal. But I wasn’t ready to think about things. I burst out of my crouch and ran to the kitchen door. I didn’t try to be quiet now. I only wanted to get out as fast as I could. I ran down the two steps of the basement hall and then out the back door onto the cement walk that led to our garage. I was going to jump the fence and run off down the alley and get as far as I could. Mom couldn’t chase me until she was dressed so I had a good chance at a good head start. Then into the city and who know, maybe become a prostitute if I had to. Being female I knew I could always do that if needed. I would easier on me then a boy running away.
Except I was tackled and pulled back just as my feet left the ground to go over the fence. The wind was knocked out me but the second I got my breath back I screamed as loud as I could.
I came back into the house in handcuffs. There were two men at the back door in suits, not uniforms and they said “Thanks officer,” as he let them take my upper arms from both side.
“Well, you were right Agent James,” the officer said. “She did try to run. But her mother didn’t!”
“We’ll handle it from here,” Agent James said and with the other man led me back into the house. We went into the kitchen and Mom was back to sitting naked at the kitchen table. She didn’t react at all to being nude in front of these strangers. It was as if she didn’t even know they could see her body. I was sobbing as the two men brought me over and sat me down in the chair across from my mother. My backpack with mom’s pile of clothing was put on the chair next me. My wrists were behind my back and my arms were pulled over the chair back and second pair of handcuffs locked my wrist down in back to the chair. It was hard sitting there like that. I just scowled at Mom and back at the two men.
“I’d like to handle this alone now, Agent James,” the other man told Agent James.
“Yes, sir,” I’ll be outside in my car writing a report if you need more help. The officers are on guard too.”
Agent James went back out the kitchen door and this new man cleared his throat. “I’m security officer Clayton of the Kingdom of Saint Bart and I’m here to make sure you are returned to your rightful owner.”
“Yeah, right! Sure! But this is America and you can’t do that,” I told him.
“Actually, Strawberry, I can. And you just saw that in action. We knew this was going to much harder then ordinary property recovery. But you should know that right now you are stolen property. Running away makes you into a fugitive slave and means that when we have you back your will be in for at least a prison sentence. You could also be put to death too.”
My face turned white. I know it did because Mom’s turned white too. I just sagged in the chair. Lost! With nothing but fear left inside of me. I sobbed as I asked “Why did you call me Strawberry.”
“That’s your legal a real name just as your mother’s is really Nugget.”
“That’s not a name you give people,” I said.
“We’re not people, honey,” Mom said,” we’re slaves. I told you that.”
“Legally,” Security Officer Barton said, “You are human farm animals.”
“Farm animals? What…what the hell! This just can’t be happening. What are you people! Cannibals? Are we going to be slaughtered and cooked for dinner or just put out in a pasture somewhere?”
“No, honey,” Mom said in that still very quiet voice. “We’re draft mares.”
“You mean like horses or ponies? You use people like animals to pull wagons or something?”
The officer nodded. “Wagons or carts,” he said. And then added, “Or as a taxi service like rickshaws in the orient. But exactly what Queen Pamela will do with you I couldn’t even begin to guess.”
“Queen Pamela!”
“Yes, she’s the ruler of Saint Barts. Our country is an old fashioned Kingdom and her father had only one daughter. So she is our queen and your rightful owner that your father stole from the Queen’s stable. It has been a black mark on my reputation since that day. For sixteen years I tried to find the three of you. Had your father been alive right now he would have been in jail, waiting for extradition. But that isn’t needed for you or your mother because you are just stolen property.”
“So you finally got your man Jean Val Jean?” I asked.
He smiled at me. “Good, you have learned in this school system. The queen will want to know that tomorrow we head back home. But no, I didn’t get my man. Your father won, if that any consolation to you. I would have never found you if he had lived. It was sheer luck that he died.
“Now, I guess we better take some precautions. Nugget stand! We’ll start with your so Strawberry can see how this is done.” The man opened a very large briefcase and took out a tangle of leather. He squatted down and put straps around my mother’s ankle, straps connected by a belt about a foot long which was locked on my mother’s ankles. If that alarmed me, the body harness that he held up next really upset me. But it didn’t seem to bother mom at all.
She just stood there as he pulled shoulder straps and waist belt and even a crotch strap up between Mom’s legs, tight into her pubic area. I was further upset that there was a pair of rings with tags on them that he moved aside for the narrow strap to pull tighter between her legs. I had never had more than a quick glimpse of my mother nude before and never seen these bright rings. My mother has a very fine, blonde pubic bush but it was thick and spread in a vee shape up towards her navel. There were wrist cuffs the bottom of the wide waist belt and these were buckled on her wrist it reminded me of pictures I had seen in the school library of prisoners being transported, only in leather instead of steel. I swallowed hard looking at her. She actually seemed to stand taller and seemed proud of herself were as a few minutes ago she was meekly sitting at the table like a mouse.
My mother was a human mare!
My mind tried to understand that idea but couldn’t quite grasp it. It was still in denial and I saw what was going to happen to me. I began to shiver in my chair.
“How’s that feel, Nugget?” Officer Barton asked.
“Good!” Mom said which utterly astounded me. “I’ll have to get used to it again but it does feel good to be back in harness again. Thank you, sir. Do you own a Mare, sir?”
“Well, just our two cart girls.”
“Well, you harness me so firmly I knew you must have tacked up mares before.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “I usually tack up our mares. My wife says it’s a husband’s duty and lets me get a little excited too, when I touch their bodies.”
“Your wife’s not a mare, sir?”
“No, just a house slave. Only she doesn’t think its right for her, a slave too, to tack up our mares. I’ve told her over and over again as long as I say it is then it is okay. I guess she’ll tack them up herself until I get back home. I was told to bridle and bit you too.”
“Yes, of course, sir,” Mom agreed.
“Your treat my mom like and animal! Mom, you sound like this is the right thing to do. Are you crazy?”
The man had more, smaller pieces of leather he was holding up to mom’s face. Leather and pieces of bright metal too.
“Please,” Mom said and he stopped for a moment. “Janey, I am an animal. I’m a human mare and was the best in the queen’s stable. This is normal for me. I never wanted to run away. Your father stole me. If he hadn’t done that this would be completely normal for you too. And if I could have one wish now it would be that your father had left us alone. But since he didn’t now you will have to be forced to accept this as normal too. I’m sorry for this but I did love your father dearly. I devoted myself to you and him every moment for the last sixteen years. But his dream died with him and now, I’m allowed to be normal again. Normal for me! And I can’t help it if it’s hard on you. I’m a proud mare and hope you will be too.”
As she stopped her speech she turned her head slightly and opened her mouth AND LET THE MAN PUT A LEATHER COVERED STEEL BIT IN HER MOUTH! I tried to break the handcuffs on my wrists. I didn’t know who my mother was anymore or what she was but I wanted out now! My wrist already hurt but I think I was going to end with them rubbed raw and bleeding. I had to end the nightmare I was living.
The leather straps of the bridle went around mom’s head and he buckled it all firmly. There was a loop of reins that hung from rings at each side of the bit and he took up both sides just below moms chin. I saw him work my mother’s head around and up and down and side to side. “Not bad for an amateur,” he commented. “How does it feel Nugget?”
I expected Mom to try and talk in a lisp with the metal in her mouth but she didn’t. For an answer she nodded her head and whinnied. My mother whinnied! And then lifted up and stepped down with her right foot. “Good,” the man said. “I know that real mares of your caliber can tell in an instant if things aren’t right. You know that you a legend back home.”
Mom neighed and stepped with her left foot. They were talking to each other. Bridled and bitted and mom was talking to him without words. In spite of myself, with every idea in my head in conflict, I began to be fascinated by the sight of my own mother as a human mare. A human farm animal! What was wrong with me I cried to myself inside. She looked actually happy. She couldn’t grin with a bit in her mouth but all the other lines of her face said she was glad. She even seemed to be relieved of all her burdens. I guess she really meant it when she said she was going home.
Officer Barton led mom up and down the kitchen a few times while she too short hobbled steps following him. He stopped in front of the oven and asked mom “Does it all feel okay?”
As if he really cared and was worried about what she thought. Mom did the whinny and step thing again and then he tied her reins to the handle on the over door. I started to laugh in spite of myself. Of course, he would just use the oven handle as a hitching post since mom was just a mare. Maybe even a famous mare? Was my mom a female “Seabiscuit” winning races or something. I just couldn’t stop laughing until I realized the officer was in front of me. “Easy or hard, Strawberry?” he asked me. And “Hard!” my mind screamed at me inside my head.
“Will it matter,” I asked in a resigned tone of voice.
“Not in the least. You get hurt the hard way and have some bruises. But as your mother has already indicated I’m pretty good at this.” He reached back into the briefcase and took out a small, bright, wicked looking hunting knife. He saw the horror that came over in my face. “Relax, Strawberry. This is only for you clothes. Wit in handcuffs, once the clothes out of the way it’ll go quicker.”
“O-Okay, just don’t hurt me, please?” I begged.
“Hurt you?” he asked in surprise. “You are the queen’s property and of prized stock. It’d be worth my life if I hurt with more then a bruise needed to get you in your first tack. Look, Strawberry, this isn’t they way it’s normally done. Look at how I tacked up you mother, Nugget, while she cooperated. That’s the normal way. None of the mares on Saint Barts, not even the foreign ones that come to us to live out their fantasies get hurt because of a fight when being tacked. But I’m a trained police office too. You wouldn’t win.”
“I-I’ll try, really hard, to be good and make it easy,” I told him because that knife really scarred me.
Mom whinnied at me and nodded. I found myself staring at the way the reins from her bitted mouth to the oven door handle shook with her head movement. But before I could take it all in Officer Clayton used the razor sharp knife expertly and quickly and I was a helpless, naked, 18 year old girl in no time. He took me to the kitchen sink and used the shower head hose to tie the hand cuffs behind my back to the back of the sink, so my arms stayed out of the way completely, while he worked. I hadn’t been naked anywhere except for in the gym showers or here in my bedroom, ever. And suddenly this man was touching. Firmly, but casually! Not like one of boyfriends trying to get me aroused in the back seat of his jalopy. He was doing a job.
And my mind raged at me because I was starting to feel arousal at all his touches. It just wasn’t right.
It just wasn’t fair.
The hobbles went first and I tried to kick but he did know what he was doing. Once on I could only just stand there while everything else went on. The harness felt really strange but then not to different then a bra or girdle does. I realized that women harness themselves up all the time and never think anything about it. The strap between my legs almost made me come. I was so surprised and caught off guard I almost feinted too. It anchored the shoulder straps and made the whole harness fit in a way that was firmer then anything else I ever felt. He was careful to unlock one wrist at a time. Right wrist went first after a careful inspection.
“Good, I was worried that you had broken some skin,” he told me. The crazy part to me was that he sounded genuinely concerned with how he was treating me. He was taking away all the rights I thought I had and turning me into a slave, a farm animal, a human mare and was worried about how he was treating me.
The leather cuffs on my wrist felt far better then the steel handcuffs had and wouldn’t chap or bruise. They were also just as secure but in an easier to manage way. They were in front of my body and I cold relax my arms. So I did. I was tired of fighting. In fact I was just about exhausted from all that went on that day. I wasn’t tethered, but had no hope of going anywhere and anyway, as he left standing at the sink until he came back with a bridle, bit and reins for me.
I tried to keep my mouth closed as he raised the bit but just before it got to my mouth I parted my lips and it was slid into place. I realized that bitted I couldn’t close my mouth and had already heard my mother slurp up extra saliva. “You will drool, Strawberry. But you can’t do anything about that. So try not to fight yourself. Slurp some up if you can or just let the drool come. It going to take you a while to learn how to live when harnessed but you will. Others have for years and years already. Women have been harnessed and bridled and used as mares by men for centuries. From the sultans in Persia to the American South. It’s nothing new.”
I looked at mom. She was shaking her head up and down whinnying softly as if to tell that me he was right. I felt the strap pull back as I bit on the leather in my mouth and everything became firm but hard. But I could feel the control this man now had on me, especially when he moved my head around like he had moms. It was absolute control. He could make my head move in any direction and I couldn’t do a thing about it. Then he walked me up and down just like he had mom. I could feel the pull in my mouth and the tug at my ankles where the hobbles snub them. I was as not graceful as Mom had been while hobbled. The leather kept snubbing my ankles and I almost stumble but of course the officer held me up easily.
I tried to copy what I had seen mom do. I wasn’t very good. He stopped in front of mom. “Well, Nugget, you daughter’s becoming a mare. Did she do okay?”
Oh god! What an emotional conflict for me. I wanted my mother’s approval, what teenager doesn’t. But I still was ready yet to completely give in to the human mare thing. Mom did give her nod, whinny and step thing and Officer Clayton grinned at her.
“How do you feel, Strawberry. Think you can handle this so far?”
What a question. As if I had a choice! But I wanted to handle it right at that moment. If I had to be a mare and if my mother was considered to be one of the best, then why shouldn’t I try to be a good mare until something else happened to change life again. I nodded and whinnied. Mom and Officer Clayton chuckled. “Not quite a mare’s speak yet, but you have the right idea. I’m going to put you to bed now, Strawberry. It’ll be you last night here but you have to stay tacked. I can’t chance another escape try.”
I was led up stairs with the sound of mom whinnying to me as if she were trying to give advice. Which I couldn’t understand that day, back then, of course.
How naïve I was that day. Of course I know mare’s speak now, I’m fluent in it and the queen wants me to write it all up as a mare’s speak dictionary. To help non islanders who want to come and be mares. It’s an international thing now or maybe it always was. I tried to answer her that night as we turned up the stair case but she kept neighing and telling I was doing it wrong.
As I was reined to my own bed then and Officer Clayton covered me up with a blanket and I wondered what the hell could happen tomorrow, when the queen came to get us. Would someone, somehow, suddenly decide they couldn’t do this.