At the blacksmith Jayne learned from Don Estanio that he had decided she should have no penetrative sexual activity from now until after the gala race for which she was to be trained: her sex would therefore be closed completely. She was to undergo the harshest form of ventral closure. Fearing the worst, Jayne listened dry-mouthed as Don Estanio explained what would be done: she was to place herself over the anvil, and submit to having her outer labia punch pierced not once but twice. To her relief she learned that she would not have to endure the ordeal of being ringed and welded. Instead her sexual vent, as the Don described it in the horse-oriented parlance of the stable life which she would now lead, was to be riveted closed. Twin gold barbells would be used, pushed through the piercings and irremovably sealed with ball-closures at either end to seal her labia together. Only by forcing a sharp cutting tool, rather like a miniature bolt cropper, between the tightly closed lips of her sex and then cutting through the gold bar itself could her sex be again opened.

She would be double pierced: once low down on the sex, as with the girls to be ring-welded, but also once higher up, nearer the cleft, so as to seal the sex slot tightly.

This time Jayne was not given the option of refusal. Her Rubicon had already been crossed: she had given her consent, and now had to learn to accept whatever was decreed for her. She was led not to the ringing frame but to a low bench where the Don and the Blacksmith waited as she mounted astride, just as Lady J. had described to her did pony-girls being pierced on the anvil in the smithy. Without coercion, Jayne straddled the bench, lowered herself into position along it and, remembering Lady J's description of how the girls to be pierced willingly facilitated what was about to be done to them, pulled her legs up and forward. Then - again without waiting to be told - she dipped her back to tilt up her spread buttocks and hips so that the blacksmith could easily reach the carefully prepared, smoothly bald sex, the sex she knew was about to be pierced and its soft labia cruelly and permanently riveted together. Now that the moment of her trial had come, Jayne was determined to give no cause for complaint or reprimand. She was determined to show that she was willing and compliant. Inwardly, she trembled, waiting for the moment her swollen, throbbing sex lip would feel the sharp point of the piercing tool pressed against its soft flesh before being driven cleanly through, the first stage of the rite that would seal her sex firmly closed. She hoped that, if there was to be pain - and she could not see how such an operation could be performed without anaesthetic and yet there be no pain - she would be able to bear it stoically and quietly, without flinching or crying. Outwardly, she closed her eyes and held herself perfectly still, bent forward, thighs wide parted, the plump and smooth split peach of her sex pushed back and up, offered without reservation. Under the bright light above the anvil, the inner edges of each smoothly-rolled, plump labium glistened with the silver evidence that she could not prevent.

Still swollen and tender from her vigorous sexual activity earlier, the thickened outer labia were grasped firmly in turn and pulled outwards to full stretch, the cold and impersonal piercing tool fitted over the waiting tender lobe, the plier-like handles squeezed together to grip the captured flesh. Jayne felt the sharp tip prick the soft skin and closed her eyes. To her surprise the piercing itself, perhaps because the actual puncturing of her flesh was so quick - much quicker than a normal piercing, with a hand-pushed needle or even piercing gun - was virtually painless, and it was only when the barbell was being fitted that a dull throbbing ache began to penetrate her tranquillised state. She concentrated on containing it.

Strapped into the ringing frame, pressed hard up against the rubber padding, she endured the securing of her breasts as they were pulled roughly and without ceremony through the rubber seals to bulge incongruously on the other side. Having watched Constance being ringed, she knew exactly what would be done to her and now waited nervously, determined to put on a brave show and not cry-out when the pain came. She felt the tongs grip her nipple, felt her breast being pulled and stretched, heard the slow count in Spanish. Did she really hear, or did she merely feel, the snapping, crunching sound as the squared-edge sharp spike of the piercing tool was driven through the thickened, rubbery flesh of her bruised and swollen teat? The tough gristle of her erect nipple did not yield as softly and as easily to the stabbing spike as had the plump, soft fatty tissue of her smooth-shaven labia. The hot fire which stabbed through her breast tip was excruciating, and it was all she could do to stop herself yelling loudly - but none the less her short sharp cry and then the longer drawn-out, deep-throated 'aaaaagh' gave every indication to Don Estanio that, as he required, 'she had felt it'. The swelling pain continued as Don Estanio manipulated the first of her stout harness rings into place through the pierced and throbbing nipple. Jayne groaned inwardly, silent again, as the ring burned within her tit-end like white-hot wire.

She felt the second nipple tightly gripped, pulled forward, until it felt as if they were trying to pull her entire breast off her chest: she groaned aloud. She heard again the count to five in Spanish, but at least this time was prepared. As the sharp spike again stabbed through the gristle-tough, stiffened tip of her pulled-taut breast, eyes tightly shut she rewarded her tormentors this time with little more than a low groan. Only the sound of her harsh breathing filled the quiet room as the second ring was fitted, bulging thickly through the reddened, swollen teat.

A red mist forming before her eyes, she heard Don Estanio's comforting words beside her, took a sip from the water he offered. Don Estanio, seeing that she was on the edge of semi-conscious swoon, wafted strong smelling salts under her nose and Jayne's head cleared instantly. She was acutely aware again of her surroundings, and of the throbbing in her still tightly bound breasts and now pierced and ringed nipples, and between her parted thighs of the swelling dull ache from her clamped and rivetted sex slot.. She heard the rattle of the branding iron in the grate, and then the hiss as the hot metal was plunged in the waiting bucket of water to take the red edge off its heat, so that when in a few seconds she was branded, the mark would be clean-cut, the smooth flesh of her buttocks neatly etched for life with the image un-blurred by the scars which might be left by excessive blistering. She heard the blacksmith's tread beside her, felt briefly the heat of the branding iron as it was carried past her.

'Now, Jayne' warned Don Estanio, 'you must relax your crupper completely. When you are ready we shall brand you.' Jayne struggled against natural nervous reaction to comply. This was the last act of her initiation, the last test in her rigourous ordeal. So far she knew that despite that one single cry she had acquitted herself well, with dignity. That her aunt would be proud of her performance; that she herself would be able to take her place as a fully ringed and branded pony-girl with pride, knowing she had conducted herself well and stoically through her trial. Only that one surprised yelp, as she had felt the intentionally cruel hurt as the first of her nipples had been so crudely pierced, had betrayed her. She did not want to let herself down again. She concentrated hard on steadying her breathing, relaxing the muscles of her smooth skinned bottom - her crupper as the Don described it - of presenting the full surface of each full moon to the branding iron, so that the mark when it healed would be perfect, undistorted.

She was just beginning to wonder if she was succeeding when the searing grey-hot iron was laid lightly to her flesh. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream, her entire body stiffened in a rictus of reaction and, mercifully, she blacked out for the few moments it took to make the ritual complete.