I was in a rage! The blinding kind of rage that had me seeing red. I couldn’t believe that that man, Officer Clayton, if that’s what he really was, had put me down in my own bed and I was forced to lie there helplessly. The tie from my bathrobe was used to tie that hobble, between my ankles, to the foot of the bed and then the reins attached to the bridle and bit was looped under my headboard. It might not be tied but it was so tight that I couldn’t fight it. I could lift my head a little bit and then steel bit pulled hard against the corners of my mouth and the pain stopped me.

My room was trashed and all I could see, in the dim light of a late April day, was the mess I had made. If I hadn’t run, maybe this would all not be happening. My mind kept telling me that it couldn’t be happening and it would all turn out to be a huge, ugly mistake of identity when someone realized that my Dad wasn’t that man they wanted. The idea, that I was born somewhere else, was impossible and absurd. I’m Jane Cobb, Jonathan and Brenda Cobb’s daughter and they would find that out, sooner or later. They had too, didn’t they?

The only other solution, the one the scarred me to no end, was that man, Clayton, was a psycho, like out of the movies and my mother and I were going to be killed. I was so afraid and so helpless. It just couldn’t be happening at all.

Then I heard the man go downstairs after going into my mother and dad’s bedroom. Of course it’s only Mom’s room now. But there was, as I sneaked around and found out, in the bottom drawer of dad’s nightstand, next to his side of their bed, a bunch of books and magazines that had stories and pictures of what they called human mares or ponygirls. So who knows, maybe Mom had looked at them and gotten this crazy idea she wanted to be one of mares from a picture or a book. But would she go this far?

I didn’t think so, but if not, that meant we were going to die. I tried to squirm around and get some slack in my bonds from somewhere, so I could get loose again. Free from the bed, even naked in this weird outfit, I would run out the door and look for help. I really didn’t care what people thought of me when and if they saw me like this. I only wanted to live and end this nightmare, once and for all.

But then I heard noises downstairs. Mom and that stranger were moving around. And then I heard Mom do that whinny thing again. “Damn!” was my only thought. She was really buying into this thing about being a human mare. It was crazy! I wondered what they had done to my Mom to drive her crazy like that. Or maybe it was my Dad. Could it be that somehow, before he died, he had driven my mother insane and she was now acting out some crazy thing Dad had wanted her to do. But it just didn’t make sense to me.

Then the front door opened and more voices could be heard. I could hear that “Aunt Karen” from the funereal and church. And that black woman too! What were they doing here at night? Mom had said she was Queen Pamela but could that be? Was she, a black woman, actually a queen of an island of slaves? No, it couldn’t be true. I strained to hear anything being said but all I heard was more mummers and vague movement noises. Then I did hear my mother crying. She was crying loudly and sobbing and sounded really distressed. I really wished Daddy was here and could stop all this.

I tried harder to get free so I cold go to my mother. They were making her cry and she needed me. But with my wrists cuffed there was no way to get enough leverage to push off the bed and pull myself free of the reins that had been shoved under the headboard. I tied to roll in the other direction to create enough tension to pull the reins free but, that action really drove that bit deeper into my mouth and I sobbed in pain and frustration.

I cried and cried. I no longer knew who I was or what was going on in my own life. My life and the entire future that had seemed to be set in stone a few hours ago was now in question. I just needed to graduate from school, go to the prom, go to junior college and then get a job or a husband. That’s what 18 year old girls, growing up in the suburbs do. They don’t wear harnesses with a bridles and bits.

I guess I finally dozed off in utter fatigue. What else cold I do. Maybe with sleep and a little strength I would find a way to escape. That was all I could think of, escape.

And then the man was back! He untied the bathrobe tie on those hobbles. I tried to say something but the bit in my mouth slurred all my words. And he pulled the rein loose and stood me up. It was a weird kind of surreal feeling to be standing there while he held the reins and could guide me at his own will. It was that sinking feeling of helplessness that grew in the pit of my stomach. The awful bit and reins gave him total control and left me with no options, none at all. I couldn’t even say anything understandable enough to make people listen to me.

The ease with which he was able to make me go where he wanted me to was horrifying to me. A pull on the reins attached to my mouth and I had to go with him and in any direction he chooses for me. Naked in the harness it was so embarrassing I wanted to fall down where I was and not let him take me anywhere else where people might see me. But as much as I tried to resist, even tried to drop to my knees, I only succeeded in making it hard on myself. His grip on the reins was short and just under my chin. I felt the bare exposure of my body with each motion and step. The air that came up the staircase reminded me I was nude. An accidental brush of his hand on my body, shoulder, arms or breasts didn’t matter, any touch of skin to skin reminded me that sight of me was available for anyone who looked at me.

And then we were down the stairs and stopped with the other people in a group. The black woman held the reins to my mother’s bridle and bitted face. Mother stood there calmly but with the track of tears still on her face. She seemed relaxed and I didn’t understand that. Her hands weren’t cuffed like mine. She was free to reach out and fight if she wanted to but she wasn’t doing a thing. Her ankles weren’t hobbled like mine. She had on some sort of shoes, like a dancers shoes but in leather with a thicker sole and a buckled ankle strap.

She seemed totally unconcerned with her own condition. Instead she looked at me and at first seemed please but then she frowned. She neighed and stepped with a scraping motion of her left foot. “No, Nugget, Strawberry is okay for now. Once on the plane we can ease the restraints and get her in shoes. The hard tarmac when we land in the heat of the tropical sun will be burn her feet without shoes.”

Tarmac! Plane! Tropical sun! Shoes!

None of it meant anything to me. What I heard were parts of sentences in private codes that someone else knew but I didn’t.

Before I cold wonder about it all that supposed aunt of mine opened the front door and held it open and the black woman with Mom in reins walked out the door. Mom was naked and she just walked out our front door! That just was too much. I tried to back away from the man hold those damned reins. He gave a sharp tug and I almost fell down except for the fact that he held the reins so short. I was felt like a rag doll made of flesh, that he could do what he wanted me to do. I was pulled outside into the April night and felt breezes blow over my exposed flesh. My nipples stiffened and in spite of every outrage I felt and I found a form of excitement, sexual excitement, which was building down inside of me. I didn’t have a chance to wonder why though. In full view of any neighbors who might look out, Mother and I were led up to and pulled into a waiting limousine and sat down with towels under our bottoms on the leather seats.

The black woman with Mom sat in the last seat facing forward. Officer Clayton and I sat in the next seat facing back toward the rear so we faced the black woman and Mom. I tried to turn my head in spite of his grip on the reins and saw Aunt Karen turn out the lights and close the front door. She had worked the button on the doorknob as if locking it. I heard the sound of the door as it was shut and had a rush of sad feelings overwhelmed me. My whole world was now lost to me if some miracle didn’t happen fast. I knew, in the pit of my stomach, that I would never see the only home I knew, ever again. My entire life of…well, for 16 of 18 years, was slipping away with each passing second.

Aunt Karen slid in next to Officer Clayton and closed the limousine. “The house is secured, your Majesty,” she said to the black woman. My mind reeled. Was she really a queen? “We have only to go.”

The black woman nodded her head. “Very good, Lady Karen! Tell he driver to leave for the airport.”

Airport! I cringed at that word and mentally curled up inside myself still not wanting to believe this was real. My life gone and the life ahead of me seemed bleak.

Lady Karen picked up a phone next to her and said “We’re ready to leave now, driver.” The large engine of the limousine came to life with a quiet roar and we started of smoothly for the airport. Out the window I could see everything I ever knew about myself and life slide by as the big car wheeled around the block. Life on Brown Street, in Skokie, Illinois, was now in the rear view mirror. The car went down to Lincoln Avenue and then right onto Oakton Street and west toward Mannheim Rd and the bright lights of O’Hare airport. Surely when we got out at the airport someone would rescue us? You can’t stand in line for a plane with two naked women in harnesses. I guess I was really grasping for straws because I convinced myself that rescue was at hand and justice would be swift when we reached the airport.

Can you imagine my distress when they car drove through gates and uniformed officer waved and guided right the car right up to a waiting plane. There were security people all around the area but as the car stopped and I realized they were there to protect the Queen and not save me. The door was opened and I was dragged out after Queen Pamela and my mother had exited. Lady Karen on one side and Officer Clayton on the other pulled me out and I was forced up the steps and into the large twin engine plane.

I guess it wasn’t the biggest but it was large enough to seat the Queen, with my mother next to her, on one side and across the aisle Lady Karen took over my reins and I was forced to sit on the inside seat while she sat on the aisle seat. The reins were tied to the arm rest of the seat in front of me and I was buckled in for take off.

“Well done, Sir Clayton,” the queen said. Then she patted Mom’s hand and said “We’ll be home in a few hours Nugget. By noon you’ll be back were you belong.”

Mom seemed glad and smiled around and in spite of the bridle and bit. She gave another whinny and this time I knew it in gratitude. She wanted this. She had wanted this all along. No one was forcing my mother to do anything she didn’t want to do. Being stripped of all her legal rights, being led around by reins in a harness and naked was exactly what Mom wanted. She was going home and sat happily next to what I knew now, in spite of my inner denial, was her Queen, her ruler and her owner. My mother was a slave. She was an owned slave and property of the woman next to her. And she was glad to be exactly that.

I started to laugh and began to giggle out of control. And then the laughter turned to tears again. In spite of myself I felt myself sobbing on the shoulder of Lady Karen as she wiped my tears with a handkerchief and rubbed my naked shoulders. “It won’t be as bad as you fear,” she told me. But of course that didn’t really help. I felt the plane engines roar as it taxied and then began the run down the tarmac and then leaped into the air with the wind lifting it. I felt a bank and turn and then we leveled off and began the long flight back to where I was born. The Island, which I had no memory of and a place I no desire to be.

“Strawberry,” Lady Karen said. “Try to calm down. Poor Nugget is really worried about you. Here let me show you something.”

The woman took an envelope out of her purse that she picked up from the floor at her feat. She took out two legal sized documents held them in front of me so I could read them. I found myself pulling at the wrist cuffs trying to take the papers. “Please,” I manage to beg around the bit.

“Not yet,” she said. “Just read these. Later we’ll loosen the restrain your under. But not now!”

I read the first document. It was a birth certificate issued by the Kingdom of Saint Barts that identified the human mare Nugget as giving birth to a female baby, named as Strawberry. The weight and eye color matched what Mom told me I weighed at birth, eight pounds six ounces and I have blue eyes. It declared the child was a healthy “human mare child.” The texture of the paper made it seem very real. But I still had my doubts.

The next document named Strawberry as a legally owned human mare, property of Queen Pamela and subject to all the legal rights of her owner. It named the queen’s stable as place of legal residence and Nugget as my dam. Again it all looked very legal but I still doubted it all.

“Still doubt?” Lady Karen asked.

“Yeth,” I lisped around the bit. “Ould be aked,” I tried to say.

“Yes, it could be faked. But for what reason would the sovereign Queen of a small island kingdom stretch to the breaking point her diplomatic rights to come and retrieve two strangers on a whim? Our treaties, that protect us, are so very fragile in the first place. We are the last place I know of that slavery is legal. We exist as we are, still, only because the Kingdom provides a service where the ultra rich of the world can come and enjoy their fantasies of owning exotic slaves. We are a safety valve that allows the rest of the world to go about it’s business and let us give dilettantes a safe haven were they won’t get arrested or disgraced. The last of the nobles, the magnets of industries, the newly wealthy and the empowered politicians can come and the people back home does not have to know about their secret sexual obsessions.

“They can seek temporary status and own or rent slaves and some even contract to be short term slaves themselves. It helps the rest of the world exist with less to deal with from the rich and powerful people and gives our island an income few islands or third world countries know.

“Enough money and power so that our Queen can travel thousands of miles and regain her own lost property. Do you imagine for a moment that there could be an error here? That she would risk public attention, which we don’t want, in order to kidnap someone from the streets of a friendly power. The minute we were contacted about my brother’s death, Sir Jonathan, the Queen used every power at her command to come and get you and your mother. In case you didn’t know your mother has a title too. It’s only a mare’s title, not like a royal or noble title. But your mother is designated as The Queen’s Mare. There always two and the queen has refused to name another, second Queen’s Mare until we could find your mother or know that she was deceased. For sixteen years your mother’s stall mated has been in virtual mourning for the loss of your mother.

“This might not mean much to you, especially right now, but look over at your mother with the queen and see how she’s acting. Is that a kidnapped person taken against her will?”

I looked over and saw that Mom was sitting quietly and listening to the queen as she talked to her about something. She was happier then I had ever seen her in her entire life. She was doing those noises and the queen seemed to understand her sounds. But then the queen reached out and unbuckled the bridle. I saw Mom hold back slightly as if she didn’t want that infernal contraption removed from her imprisoned head. The bridle, bit and reins were draped over the seat in front of her and Mom laughed. She stretched her jaw and said “Whew! I need more time bridled and bitted, your highness. I’m really out of practice. It’ll take weeks on the round abouts to get me back into pulling shape. I’m 38 now. The older I get the harder it is.”

“Our new stable Mistress will order the workouts. Lady Peggy is a very competent trainer of mares.”

It all seemed so normal but yet totally bizarre beyond my understanding. My Mom was talking about retraining for herself to get in shape as a human mare. For what though? The only answer I could come up with was that my mother actually wanted to be in harness and pull some sort of cart or wagon.

“Please,” I begged of Lady Karen and motioned as much as I cold toward my mouth. “The ‘it, ‘ease?” I begged. Lady Karen looked at the queen. The queen must have heard me.

“If she promises not to scream or carry on I will permit her bridle and bit to be removed for now. But she must be kept cuffed and hobbled. I want it clear to Strawberry that even though she is daughter to the Queen’s Mare she is still subject to everything and allowed no privileges.”

I nodded my head eagerly. The trap of total forced submission, as I would learn all about later, was already beginning to work. I had no where I could go and nothing I could do and any freedom allowed me was to be a treat from that point on. And I was grateful when the Lady Karen unbuckled the bridle and bit and placed it over the seat back in from of us. “Oh, thank you,” I said and meant it. I worked my jaw around as Mom had done and cleared my throat.

“Now what?” I wondered to myself as I sat there relieved by the absence of the bit in my mouth. I was free to talk if not move around and free to ask questions. But of whom and of what should I ask. What I’ve learned so far was that my life wasn’t what I thought it was. I looked at Lady Karen. “Please, Lady Karen,” I said, “How do I address you? As Lady Karen or Aunt Karen?”

“Lady Karen, until we land,” she said.

“Lady Karen, what happens when we land?”

“I become a human mare too and join you in your training.”

“Please Lady Karen, why?”

“Because my brother, your father, Sir Jonathan Cobb committed a crime when he stole you and your mother from he Queen’s Stables. In order for my daughter to keep the family estate I must serve a punishment for his crimes.”

“But, Lady Karen you’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Oh, my dear niece, this is not about his crimes, it’s about family pride and honor. I’ve been the Queen’s stable mistress for years. I know more about mares and being a mare then anyone except the mares themselves. A life as a mare has no fear for me. So if submitting means my daughter is elevated in rank and becomes the new Lady and head of our family, I become just a mare to save her. Mother’s do what they have to.”

“Lady Karen, did my mother do what she had to?”

Lady Karen laughed and said, “Why don’t you ask her?”

“Lady Karen, how?”

She sighed. Then she turned toward the Queen. “Your Highness Strawberry would like to talk to her mother. She has questions that need a mother’s answer.”

“Certainly, Lady Karen. I need to stretch and use the WC. Nugget can change seats and sit where you are now.”

The queen who looked every inch a regal beauty in dusky color stood up and yawned and headed toward the back of the plane. One, of the two stewardesses, that had shown us to our seats followed her back. Lady Karen stood up and stretched to and then moved back one row to behind where she had been. Mom stood up, gathered her bridle and bit, her towel and stepped sidewise out into the aisle. That’s when I noticed a swatch of what looked like horse hair, and was a sort of tail, that hung down from the bottom of her harness where it passed between her legs. It was toward the back under her buttocks. Mom seemed to take no notice o0f it herself until she had placed the towel down in the seat next to me. She actually brushed the tail under her like a skirt and sat down on it.

“Jane, your real name is Strawberry and before I sit down and talk to you I want you to know that in the rear of the plane are cages big enough for a woman to kneel in. So I can’t stop you from doing whatever you decide to do, but it wouldn’t take much for someone to put you in one.”

“Mom…I understand that I’m a captive. I can’t get away on an airplane. I’m trying to stay calm but it’s not easy.”

“Fair enough,” Mom said. She was unfettered and I wondered at the way she could move freely around while I sat here hobbled and cuffed. She put her left arm over my shoulders, pulled me closer to her and kissed my cheek. “What can I tell you?”

“Why do we sit on towels?”

“Because we’re naked! Even with the cinch strap between our legs some residue might get on the seats and then get on someone’s clothes.”

Well, that made sense. It made more sense then a lot of things in my life that happened so far today. “What’s hanging down from the bottom of your harness?”

“My tail!”

“You have a tail? How?”

She sighed. “You won’t like this she warned.”

“I haven’t liked much today so far.”

“It’s been that rough on you, huh?”

“I’m kidnapped from my own home and taken away on an airplane and my own mother seems to think its okay. Shouldn’t it feel rough on me, Mom?”

“Well, it happened to me too. Sixteen years ago only I wasn’t kidnapped in a legal sense, I was stolen and taken to somewhere I didn’t want to go and forced to do things I didn’t want to do.”

“But Daddy took you to freedom.”

“I didn’t want it. Look, honey, it’s been really hard on me too, all these years. I hated most of it except for the fact that I was with my daughter. I know you find this hard to believe but I was forced to wear clothes, for the first time in my life. The island is in a tropical place. Cold is sixty-nine degrees in the morning for us. Suddenly I had to wear clothes, pretend I knew how to wear them and then suddenly lived through a winter and really had to wear them to stay alive. All I wanted to do was go home. Now I am.”

“Okay, I see your point,” I agreed. “But I still think its barbaric and not the same as what’s being done to me. But what about that tail?”

“The tail is mounted in a small ceramic egg. It’s been inserted into my…rectum and lets the tail hang down. It’s real horse hair.”

“That’s horrible! Doesn’t it hurt?”

“No, the egg is just big enough to hold the tail in place. The egg goes all the way in and my anus closes around it and keeps it all in place.”

“And you don’t mind?”

“Do you mind wearing gym shoes?”

“That’s not the same!”

“Why isn’t it the same?”

“Gym shoes are outside my body. They are easy to wear. It’s j-just not the same.”

“I’ve worn a tail since I was younger then you are now. It’s the same a wearing gym shoes to me. And not really too much different from when we put tampons into or bodies.”

“Okay, I see your point but still don’t think it’s the same.”

“Jane, Strawberry, honey,” she said. “Just for a moment listen to me at try to accept what I say without criticism for how I lived. I…liked my life. It was a good life for me and I loved the people around me and had no thoughts or inkling that anything was wrong with how I lived or what I did. My mother, your grandmother, whom I hoped is still alive…”

“Blondie is very much alive and will rejoice when she sees you, Nugget.”

“Thank you Lady Karen,” Mom said. “That really adds to my joy at going home.”

“Mom? You really mean that, don’t you? You want to get to being a…what?”

“A mare, Strawberry,” she said.

“The Queen’s Mare,” added Lady Karen.

“Is that like a Lady?” I asked.

“No but it is the highest status of any mare on the island,” Mom added. “There are always two of us because the queen’s smallest carriage is a tandem carriage for two Mares. Myself and Cherry, my stall mate are the queen’s mares.”

“Cherry? I seem to remember that name,” I said.

“You played in the stable nursery with her daughter Robin.”

“A little girl with red hair, like her mother,” I said suddenly remembering something I had forgotten about completely. “We wore little harness too. But I always thought those were just the kind they use on little kids, to keep them from running away. I wore a harness and was naked!”

“Yes, you did and you were naked. You played naked with the other little mares.”

“Little mares,” I exclaimed and shook my head. I didn’t want to remember this because it made Mom’s crazy story true. But there it was, naked and playing in a nursery with other kids, toddlers just able to walk, all of us girls and wearing small harnesses. “We played pony and horsy and wagon pulling with little carts.”

Mom smiled at me. “Yes, you did. In the U.S.A. little girls play with dolls and toy ovens. At the Island of Saint Barts little mares play at pulling wagons and carts. And please don’t tell me it’s different. It is different but the same because it’s how a little girl learns to do what their mothers do.”

“But then, if you didn’t want to go why did Daddy steal you and me?”

“He didn’t,” Mom said.

“Pardon me, Nugget,” the queen said. “Can you tell us all what happened that night?”

“Yes, you’re Majesty. Cherry and I were hitched to your personal carriage, so you and Lord Milton could go for a romantic midnight ride. He was courting you, wasn’t he Your Highness?”

“Ah, yes, but it was only a fling not to prove worthy of my time. Go on, Nugget.”

“We came back and Cherry went straight in, un-harnessed herself and headed to the showers. We had to harness each other for the sake of…”

“Yes, my discretion,” Queen Pamela said. “You two were a marvel when it came understanding l’amor.”

“At any rate,” Mom continued. “She went in and turned on the water. I had stopped to read a notice on the stable message board and was still fully harnessed with bridle and bit and reins. Then I looped the reins around my shoulder so it wouldn’t drag and went to get Cherry to undue the buckles in the back of my harness belt. There’s three and hard to undo them all. But on the way I heard a baby cry and thought it was Strawberry. Ordinarily she would have been asleep in the stall with me but since this was a late ride night she had gone to sleep in a nursery crib.

“And I diverted into the nursery and there was Sir Jonathan holding Strawberry in a carrying back pack.”

“Oh, I remember that!” I said. “I remember it because I thought I was riding on Daddy like a horsy ride.”

“Well, there are only mares on Saint Barts but it must have seemed the same. When I went up to Sir Jonathan he grabbed my reins and pulled me after him as fast as he could right outside into the night. Other men were waiting and Sir Jonathan decided to take me along rather then kill me, which is what the other men wanted to do. I wasn’t supposed to be there. Sir Jonathan was stealing Strawberry. He had an obsession about my daughter.”

“Because of there Mare’s breeding agreement,” Queen Pamela said. “When a mare is bred the male breeding her agrees that he gets male children to adopt and raise as his own but females are all to be mares and raised by the breed mare’s owner.”

“So my brother was stealing your daughter and not both of you?”

“Yes, Lady Karen. It’s not easy to fight with a bridle and bit on when your reins are being pulled hard. Then the other men had straps that bound my arms behind my back and Sir Jonathan stuck a needle in my arm. I woke up in New Orleans and was fully clothed and taken to a train. Within two days we were at that home on Brown Street and he had fake documents and got a job. I was in a place and culture so strange to me I had no idea what to do. Anything I thought of would have me arrested to and Strawberry put up in a foster home. So I stayed and did the best I could for all these years.”

“Mom, you did fine,” I said. “I never knew your secret and you’ve been a good mother to me. I love you very much. But that doesn’t mean I like what’s going on and look forward to any of this. I don’t want to be a mare or be trained as one.”

There was a long silence. Then he queen spoke. “Strawberry, I understand you anxiety. But think of this. You had no legal status in the U.S.A. You were and would be again an illegal alien and there are warrants out for the arrest and deportation of Sir Jonathan, yourself and your mother. You were coming back no matter what happened. But I’m in a position of awkwardness. I couldn’t bring back your mother and not you. So you here and there’s nothing you do about that. There’s nothing even I can do about that. I can’t send you away to any other country even if I wanted either. And our laws, which I too have to obey, do not give me the right to change your station in life.

“It would cause a revolt or I would face serious political threat if you status were changed to a different level. And it is not fair to your mother to not let her go home to the life she wants to live. So for her sake, give every effort to adjust to your new life. But if, after a time, no less then a year, you can’t cope with being the mare you legally are, ask my new stable Mistress to see me. Tell her our secret word, which will be Annabelle and then when I hear that I will summon you personally and we will talk about your situation at that time. One year of your life to make up for the lost sixteen years Nugget has endured, which she did endure for your sake and out of love of her daughter.”

I had to think it over but really didn’t think there was much choice. “Your…Majesty, gee, I’m not used to these terms, your Majesty. Since there’s not much choice and the offer you made seems my best hope, then for my mother’s sake I will try. But I can only promise to try.”

“Of course, dear,” The queen said. “All my subjects are only asked to do their best.”

“But Queen Pamela, I might fight it after all. I can’t be sure what I’ll do right now.”

I felt alarmed because it sounded, as I said it, like a threat and I didn’t want the woman who, actually, legally owns me to see it that way. Was I just digging my hole deeper?

The queen smiled at me. “Strawberry, we have years and I mean years of experience in dealing with mares that try and get rebellious. We wouldn’t have mares if we couldn’t cope with one more. Sir Clayton?”

“Yes your Majesty,” said the man in the seat behind the queen.

“Make sure that Strawberry is classified as a wild, untamed mustang. She will need special training.”

“Yes, you’re Majesty.”

“Can I please get these cuffs off? I need to go to the bathroom.”

My cuffs were removed and the stewardesses summoned. Both were naked when they showed up. No chains or harness just two nude women with only shoes on and the sight of their thick pubic triangles to draw everyone’s attention to them. I made me very conscious suddenly of my own vee shaped display of reddish blonde pubic hair that emerged from either side of the cinch strap between my legs.

“Take this mare back to the WC and make sure she can use the facilities,” the queen ordered.

“Yes, you’re Majesty,” the two women said and I was taken back to the rear of the plane. My cuffs were removed but the hobbles stayed on. I guess I was my wild mustang status. The cinch strap was unbuckled in the back and I could use the toilet.

I was escorted back and Mom and I sat together for the rest of the flight to my new home. I actually leaned back and found myself asleep in my mother’s arms once again in my life. It was a peaceful sleep considering all that happened. We woke up when we landed to refuel but right back went back to sleep, mostly out of sheer fatigue. No matter how I felt I couldn’t change anything. So I decided to rest and save my strength for when I landed at this Island. My thoughts were still about a way out of all this. But I now knew I would have to bide my time.

About nine in the morning the naked stewardesses served food. Since I hadn’t eaten since the church luncheon I was really hungry. But why oat and honey cakes and water, for Mom, Lady Karen and I, while the Queen and Sir Clayton and other security men sitting up forward of us, got sandwiches and chips and coffee. Mom said this was healthy mare’s food and I should get used to it. In a screwy way it made a sort of sense. I was now a human horse. So what else could I eat but oats. At least the water was poured into a glass and they didn’t make me drink from a bucket.

We leaned back again. “Mom, I love you,” I told her.

“I know, darling. Please, just try and get through this. I’ve always been able to trust and count on Queen Pamela. She always treats us fairly.”

“Us being mares?” I asked.

“Of course, I can’t speak for nobles, freemen or other slaves. I can only speak just from what I’ve known as a mare.”

“I still have my doubts,” I said. “But tell me what’s going to happen.”

Lady Karen leaned forward and said, “There will be a procession from the airport back to the palace and the Queen’s stables. The return of the two of you is known throughout our island and will be marked as an important day. The day the Queen’s Mare returned from captivity.”

“But, Lady Karen, isn’t being a human mare captivity?”

“Not from our standpoint. It is a birthright and honor to serve your Queen or owner. That’s how we look at it.”

“Just a job?” I asked.

“More of an honor,” Mom said. “Strawberry, I am proud of who I am and what I am. Please try to understand that much.”

“I think I do, Mom. Understand your pride at least. If you can do it you might as well be the best. Like any girl playing a sport in high school. Or a professional athlete.”

“But that is what we are,” Mom said. “Athletes of a different kind then you knew existed but athletes all the same. Sprinters and long distant runners doing it while pulling the weight of wagons or carriages. Think of it that way. You will be trained to be a professional athlete in the new life you lead.”

“But a procession to the palace? You were that important, Mom?”

“To the people of Saint Barts, yes,” Lad Karen said. “The Queen’s Mares are seen during all public ceremonies and pageants. They are a symbol of the Queen’s sovereignty and her right to rule. Now Nugget’s coming back and the Queen’s Mares will be reunited. It is a very important moment for all of us.”

“Your people will be there to see us get off the plane?” I asked.

“Hundreds, at least, Strawberry, maybe thousands of people will be there. We are a small country but a proud country and proud people.”

“Oh, god!” I moaned. “Everyone will see me?”

“Of course,” Queen Pamela said. “You are the daughter of the Queen’s Mare returning home. The people will want to see you and your mother.”

“Naked and harnessed?” I asked.

“Is there another way?” Mom asked back.

“Oh…Mom! I’m going to so embarrassed like this.”

“You will be hailed not scorned,” Mom said.

“Oh, no! That can’t be right. I’m just a naked girl in some damned harness get up.”

“You are my daughter and I want you to be proud of that. For my sake, if not your own.”

“Yes, mother!”

But when we landed it was a lot more then I expected it to be. A lot more!