Potential for what, he had wondered back then. He had gotten his answer very fast, actually as soon as he had arrived at the Oak Stable and had been delivered into the hands of Old Man Simmons. His muscles had developed because of the hard training and the carefully monitored diet. His high sexual drive had been appropriately bent through liberal applications of the whip and sessions with well endowed male homosexuals. He was allowed to come infrequently and unpredictably, probably less than once per month, but never ever inside of a woman (or a man, for the matter). He had been made to masturbate a stallion, but he did not show any talent for it, so the event had not been repeated; and, one of the trainers had said, he was not big enough to entertain mares - he still did not know if she had been joking or not. Now he had adapted to this life, and his potential had certainly fluorished into the actuality of a ponyboy. His mind was more or less stable; he had stopped talking to himself and he had come to terms with his condition. At times he even enjoyed it, particularly the moments of pure athleticism as he gallopped on the track under the guidance of a good trainer: or the moments of pleasure, as a particularly gentle club member masturbated him lightly while fucking him.

Old Man Simmons, or rather Mr. Simmons as everybody called him, would occasionally visit him and comment on his development. He treated him like something in between an animal and a person, holding long elaborate speeches on the theory of physical and mental training, but it was clear that he was assumed to be unable to understand them. After all, he was just a ponyboy.

The hope of recovering his freedom, though, had not left him. He realized that there were no opportunities for escape, since the ponyboy ranch was every bit as secure as the ponygirls'. He suspected that all the details of his behavior were logged and inspected for anything suspicious. All his hopes were focused on outside people, people from his own office, coming to free him. He did not know what to expect, perhaps a BATF style operation, with black helicopters, stun grenades and snipers: or perhaps something sneakier and discrete. He could not be forgotten, he thought: people do not simply disappear.

His body had become strong enough to carry a rider on his back, using a special saddle. A certain lady had developed the habit of allowing him to rub himself over her tight pants after a particularly hard run. Of course, while this took place, he had to be tightly restrained since it was well known that ponyboys could not control themselves near a woman. She would dip her fingers in her pussy and then rub them under his nose and on his tongue. Then she would offer him one of her thighs to hump. She would carefully place herself barely inside his reach, so he had to strain and nearly strangle himself. Of course he was not allowed to come, but liquid would leak out of his dick. After she got bored with his humping and the frequent pauses he had to take to avoid coming, she would make him lick as much sperm as possible out of the stretchy white material all the while complimenting him on his performance. "That's a good boy, suck it all up, you like that don't you?", she would say in a soothing voice, while she patted his head.

The worse thing was that he responded: he responded to the whip, to the murmured commands of his trainers, to the cocks of the club members and to the extraordinarily exciting smell of the female riders. He responded, his cock got hard, his nipples stood up and his mind could think of nothing except obedience, pleasure, frustration, pain and obedience again. The training had gotten to him, day after day and he now caught himself frequently thinking of himself as a pony. He wanted to resist, but everything pushed him in that direction.

Some of the trainers where easier on him than others. He did not know their names, and frequently he was completely or partially blindfolded, but he recognized them by their touch and their voices.

He was staring out of the door of his stall, lost in dreams and vague impossible desires. He could stare for hours, now - that too was part of ponyspace. His reverie was broken by two people entering his view, a man and a woman. They wore outdoor clothes, but did not look ready for riding. Was he going to be taken out by a couple? This had only happened once before, and it had been very pleasurable for him. His penis started swelling, and his elaborate chastity tube beeped once and started politely squeezing his glans. If his erection would not subside soon, a two beep signal would be followed by a painful electric shock to the testicles.

There was no chance of that happening, though, because he suddenly recognized the man and the woman as faces from his previous life. They were not club members! They were his superiors from the office. They had come to rescue him, he thought, and a whild surge of hope made his ears roar. He forgot all sexual excitement and crashed out of his ponyboy dreams. His only focus now was making sure that they recognized him, but he could not speak, damn the gag! And he could not make any gesture because his hands were obviously gloved and tied to the broad leather belt he always wore when at rest.

So he stamped his feet and whinnied for a moment and then he froze, because he realized that his superiors were probably operating undercover. He would not destroy his chance to be free! He stopped moving and felt his face redded in shame, because he had become so much like an entertainment animal. He could see himself from the outside, as they saw him: a muscular man, constrained by leather straps, his masculinity tightly controlled and dominated, ashamed of his own degradation. He had enough clarity to know that he had become an accomplice in his own degradation, and enough honesty to admit to himself that the conversion process, from man to partly animal, partly human object of pleasure, had penetrated his mind.

His mind was rushing as the man and the woman got closer to his stall. They were close enough to touch him, and he saw in their eyes that they had recognized him. He quieted down immediately. The woman, his line supervisor, stroked his shoulders and run a hand under his chin. Then she traced a line down his chest and toyed with his trapped penis. "Must be uncomfortable, this thing," she said, perfectly in character. The man with her nodded, saying "Yes, it detects when he gets hard without permission and punishes him. It is not like he can control it, but he get punished anyway". One of the trainers, a dark haired woman, opened his stall door and clipped a long leash to his collar. She checked that his restraints were all in order and led him out of the stall with a slight pull. His hobbles had not been removed, which meant that there was going to be no running. The trainer disabled offhandedly the punishment device on his chastity tube. He fell into character and walked after her with short steps, ignoring the couple and their gazes. He felt more than saw that they were following along as the trainer lead him towards a two-storey building where he had never been.

He heard some murmured remarks from behind him, but he could not pay attention because he was concentrated on the all-important business of walking properly, with the right amount of stomping, and in the ordained position of one step behind, one step to the right of the person who was leading him. The four entered the building through an open door and stopped in front of Mr. Simmons, the head trainer. He was waiting for them in a very familiar looking changing room. Some clothes had been neatly placed on a bench, and he knew that the small refrigerator in the corner would hold soft drinks and water, chilled to a perfect point.

He felt two people in his head. He could swear his brain was splitting in two parts: the cop, waiting anxiously to be freed in order to arrest this Simmons fucker, and the ponyboy, waiting anxiously for orders and being attentive to form. As long as he stood perfectly still at attention these two people were both satisfied, but what would happen when action was demanded of him? Would he be punished if he walked in the wrong way or failed to cooperate? How was he supposed to help in his imminent liberation?

Mr. Simmons smiled. He was dressed in tweeds and rubber boots (he went for the farm gentlemen look, leaving the rubber-leather style to some of the trainers that worked under him). He welcomed the two esteemed guests and said that, if everybody was ready, it was showtime. The group entered a much larger, double height room that, in fact, took up all the rest of the building. Two trainers were fussing with a ponygirl that had been carefully tied on all fours to a table-high wooden hourse. The position was very popular because it allowed the deepest penetrations while being quite comfortable for both parties.

They walked closer to the tied up, gagged girl, and he realized with a start that it was Lisa. He also realized that his penis had been hard for quite some time now, inside its constrictive metal tube. The trainers were finishing slathering a thick lubricant on her vagina and anus. They patted her butt and joined the little group headed by Mr. Simmons.

Mr. Simmons nodded, and the two trainers unclipped his wrist cuffs from his belt. He waited without moving for the cuffs to be attached to his collar, or to a rope or whatever devious piece of furniture was going to be employed to torment him. Nothing happened, and his hands stayed free to move. The hobbles that linked his thighs together were taken off. Even his chastity tube was removed, and his penis felt the chill air. The trainer that had taken him from the stall gave a short, discrete tug to his leash. His attention returned to Mr. Simmons. The head trainer cleared his voice and then gave a short speech:

"You have been here for six months now. You are an accomplished ponyboy, and you could choose to consider this a strange interlude, perhaps akin to military service or an internship in a rather peculiar company. We know that you entered this place under false pretences, and these six months were also a form of revenge for us. But you know, as Lisa told you six months ago very clearly and as everybody told you before, ponyboys and ponygirls are here of their own free will. It may not look so, because of the bondage and the punishments and the occasional harsh training technique, but this is the truth. Everybody in the stables has taken his or her own decision, just like today you are going to take yours. As you have noticed, we have freed your arms and legs, and you are free to make a choice. Actually, you are not free: you have to decide.

"You can return to the outside world. You can turn, right now, walk to the door you have just come in through, take off everything you are wearing and put on the clothes that are there on the bench. These two nice people, your boss and her own boss, will drive with you to the city. You will again be what you were and you will return to your work under a suitable cover-up story. You will also cease any investigation of our operation and you will never be permitted inside again. It will be as if anything had never happened, at least outwardly. Of course, what is inside you will be entirely your own affair. You might find that your new tastes make it difficult to resume your previous lifestyle, but I am sure that you could find your way into what is called, I believe, the scene. "

The cerimonious bastard actually sniffed at the word "scene".

"Or, and this is the big disjunctive, you can walk right on to that lovely ponygirl, all tied up, wet and wanting (I think she is trying to wiggle her hips despite the bondage) and fuck her until you are completely satisfied. She is all yours for the day. You will be able to enjoy her to the fullest, her tight deep pussy, her soft mouth and her hospitable ass - I think you had a part in making it that way. Of course you will be allowed to play with her tits, we know you like that. I really mean it: fuck her face until she gags, hang weights from her nipples, bang her ass - the works. You like it and she likes it, and you know that. Why, if you feel like it, the trainers can even show you how to fist her. It is a special occasion after all. After you have had your fun, you will be restrained again, taken to your stall and given a full 24-hour cycle of rest. And then you will stay here, as a ponyboy. Occasionally your superiors will visit you, to make sure you are doing OK and to play with you. There may be more opportunities like this one at the moment, or not: I am not promising anything, and I advise you to treat this as a one-time chance.

"You have not been ungagged because there is nothing for you to say at this point. You can ungag yourself in the changing room, or you can keep your gag on and fuck Lisa.

"The moment your cock touches Lisa, or the moment you go out of that door you will have officialy decided. Now, big dude, you make your choice, and decide whether you are a cop or a ponyboy."

Don't think with your dick, he said to himself, think with your brain. This must be a trick, another moment of training. A loyalty test of some sort. No, that could not be, he had never been made to promise loyalty - he had just been trained and shaped, but he had never had to make a choice or state anything. Therefore it could not be a loyalty test. Could this be real? If this was real, why wasn't he already in the changing room, changing into normal, human clothes and getting ready to go back to the world? Perhaps it was a loyalty test from his superiors, who had put him through all of this, causing permanent change to his mind, basically fucking up his life, for some strange, psychologycally motivated reason... no, this did not bear thinking about. This was science fiction stuff, Area 51/Mogul Balloon/Alien Abduction stories. There were no Men in Black, and his superiors were not Illuminati. They were just people. Doing a job, like he was doing his job. And yet they were here, and they had not moved a finger to free him or even to help him choose. They were just looking at him, like everybody else - except Lisa who was unable to, because of her posture collar.

She would not know until she heard his steps and felt his cock sink into her hot body; memories of exactly how wonderful it felt to fuck her flashed back to him. He could just shove it all into her, feel her flesh tighten around his dick and bang her without a thought for anything else except his pleasure. She was his for the taking. She wanted it. He moved a tentative step in her direction.

But dammit, what was this, where was the reason? What kind of a stupid choice was he being offered? It could not be for real. But then why do all this play acting, and when would the marines arrive - no, his mind screamed, there would be no marines, no BATF, no ninjas coming to free him. Only an endless succession of days consisting of training, punished erections, sodomy and rare and very precious orgasms that would leave him wanting for more.

The inside of Lisa's thighs was wet. She had a compact, chubby pussy, and her labia were minora were barely visible. He noticed that she was now wearing a fat golden ring on her clit hood. He took another step towards her. A small golden bell was hanging from the ring. The bell tinkled. Why the fuck wasn't he running out of this place? His dick was bobbing in the air, harder and thicker than it had ever been. With his mind's eye he could see a short sequence playing out, where he ran to the door, entered the changing room and then got the fuck out of the ranch and rejoined his normal life. But his body took one, two, three steps and before he knew that his hands were on Lisa's warm hips. A couple of inches of air still separated his cockhead from her pussy.

He turned briefly his head to look at the people that were in turn looking at him. Mr. Simmons looked amused and actually winked at him. His boss was looking at him open mouthed, her eyes hooded as her own boss was fondling her breasts through her sweatshirt. The trainers were impeccably still - he realized only then that they were probably under as much discipline as he was, despite being apparently free.

He could still have turned and fled, but it was the smell that did it. A stray draft of air wafted the smell of Lisa's pussy to his nose, and before he knew it his hips jerked forward and he sunk into her.

She took him in silkily, smoothly. He felt himself hitting bottom and grasped her hips harder. She squeezed his dick with her deep muscles. This was her message to him and to him only: even if she was tied up and could not speak, she could still send him a private tight hug. He started pumping in and out, his muscular legs driving his hips ever faster. He ceased to think in words. He realized how it was possible that when, months earlier, he had pulled the gag out of her mouth she could sound so correct and yet so odd, like a foreigner speaking English: English had become in a way a foreign language to her. The split had been resolved and he was now of one mind, at one with his new nature: he existed to be a ponyboy, he was a ponyboy and this was his home.