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Adult Content Warning - this story contains adult themes, including non-consensual bondage/slavery and forced sexual acts. If you are under the lawful age for such materials (18 in most jurisdictions) or if you would find such material offensive, please go elsewhere.
Safety Warning. This story may contain descriptions of practices that are decidedly unsafe, either in general, or if performed by someone without adequate training. There are a number of good books available on safety in the BDSM scene. Most large cities, and some not so large ones, have organized BDSM groups that will usually welcome a newcomer. I'm not going to point out which practices are safe, and which aren't. Any practice is unsafe if performed by someone with inadequate training and experience, or if performed when not paying attention. Please think before you act. Don't make yourself a candidate for a Darwin award.
There are fifteen stories in the series entitled “Ponygirl Transformation.” At this point, I have no intention of writing additional stories in this series, although I thought that before Engineer burst on the scene. The stories are listed in order of the series timeline, although there are a few overlaps and several continuing characters. The first three set necessary background, the next three cover one formative event from three different viewpoints.
1. Ponygirl Finds Her Place
2. Kinder and Gentler
3. The Sorceress’ Apprentice
4. Raw Material
5. Ponygirl by Choice
6. The Politics of Ponygirls
7. Ponygirls on Vacation
8. Bluebird Grows Up
9. Unregistered Ponygirls
10. Kidnapper
11. Suzie’s Ponygirl
12. Driver
13. Engineer (in preparation)
14. PonyGIRL?
15. Segue to Freehold (in preparation)
Acknowledgements. The setting and several of the characters are taken from a series of books by Sir Thomas (A pseudonym). “Adventures on the Hoof” and “Ponygirls, Inc” are both copyright by the Academy Club. Used by permission of Sir Thomas. These works are commercially available, and should not be on any web site on the internet, except for a short excerpt on Sir Jeff’s ponygirl web site.
Some of the characters and settings have been changed, either due to the different legal environment in the United States, my partially successful attempt to make the setting more consistent, and in one case a simple error of memory that got woven into the plot too deeply to back out by the time I discovered it.
In no case should you infer anything about the prior stories from this one. Sir Thomas has substantially different objectives for his stories.
There are a number of hidden references throughout to obscure (and some not so obscure) science fiction and fantasy stories. This is a game that some authors play. Should you care to look, have fun finding them.
Now on to the story...
Chapter 1. What do you do with a Genius?
Chapter 2. First Trip Outside.
Chapter 3. First Training Episode.
Chapter 4. Loose Lips and all that.
Chapter 5. Susi becomes a ponygirl.
Chapter 7. Leslie and Linnet Meet Team 146.
Chapter 8. Linnet Learns Her New Duties.
Chapter 9. Diana Meets her Ponygirl.
Chapter 10. Excessive Enthusiasm Gets Its Just Rewards.
Chapter 11. The Best Plans are Laid.
Chapter 12. College Interviews.
Chapter 13. Larry and Linnet Meet a BDSM Society.
Chapter 14. How did a String of Sex Workers get into Here?
Chapter 15. Amanda and Connie face a hard choice.
Chapter 16. Official interest.
Chapter 17. Amanda and Connie start training.
Chapter 18. A Ride in the Forest.
Chapter 19. Alice tries to salvage Connie.
Chapter 20. Mistress Melanie’s Stable.
Chapter 21. Space Aliens? Huh, What?
Chapter 23. Amanda starts improvising.
Chapter 25. Linnet Closes a Chapter.
Chapter 26. Boris Badinov and the Space Aliens.
Chapter 28. Recruiting an Academic.
Chapter 29. Linnet Gets Her Reward.
Chapter 30. Amanda’s Ponygirl Stable
Chapter 31. Connie flames out.
Epilog. Another Ride in the Forest.
In the first new Arizona Community story from my pen in over three years, Larry Thompson is assigned to go out to Engineering school. We discover in short order that one of the soon to graduate ponygirls, Linnet, has the same psi powers as Alice, so she’s assigned to Larry, and Larry has to learn how to care for a ponygirl, in addition to his already heavy study load preparing for engineering school. He starts training with Raindance, and then his twin sister, Suzi, puts her foot into it. We get to see Suzi “volunteer” to start her two years as a community trainee ponygirl, and then see Larry put a new ponygirl through orientation. Time passes, and Linnet finishes the second part of her training, and is ready to be sold – or so she thinks.
Larry and his mother discover an odd situation at the auction where they are to pick up Linnet, and they wind up with a community trainee for his sister, Diana. They get the two ’girls situated in their cells with their training team. Linnet learns that she’s going to be working closely with Larry on his project, and Diana gets some practice in hitching a ponygirl to a chariot and driving her. The perpetrator of the odd situation gets her comeuppance.
Larry does his interviews for engineering school. His possession of a ponygirl gets him an apartment with the rest of the sexual oddballs, not that he’s complaining about not having to spend the first year in the dorms with the rest of the freshmen!
Larry and Linnet put on a “magic” show for a local BDSM society, and they wind up breaking up a ring of unlicensed prostitutes that haven’t paid their dues to the shadowy organization that provides STD control to sex workers. (It’s the Arizona Community, through a couple of proxies, which is how he got involved.) In handling that, they discover a couple of their client’s daughters caught in the dragnet. Neither of them is in particularly good odor with their parents (or anyone else, for that matter) so Larry is about to make them an offer they can’t (or at least won’t want to) refuse.
“How do you like your new outfit?” Larry asked a kneeling Jenna.
The outfit in question was a black satinette maid’s uniform with a just above the knee skirt and a top that came up to her neck, ending in a flourish of lace that brushed her black leather collar. The sleeves ended with another flourish of white lace about half way down her upper arm, and attached to the bodice with a puff of material that allowed her a full range of arm movement without pulling on the fabric. The skirt itself stayed a couple of inches away from her legs, held out by an underskirt. The hem lay on the back of her calves in her kneeling posture, just touching the top of her glossy sheer stockings. Her shiny black leather shoes had five inch spike heels; her loose brown hair was held back by a pink ribbon with an ornate bow that substituted for the traditional maid’s cap. The white half apron that lay over the front of her skirt tied in back with another ornate bow. The only other accoutrement was a glistening steel hobble with an eight inch chain.
“I have mixed feelings, master,” she replied. “On the one hand, I think it’s an absolutely perfect classical sexy maid’s uniform, and it presents me beautifully. It’s so good I’m feeling a desire to live up to it, or maybe down to it.
“On the other hand, I don’t like that I don’t have any panties or bra. The friction is making me horny, and master is not helping by having me bend over so I can service him. It’s embarrassing!” She flushed slightly as she said that.
“What do you think of that?” he asked, slight amusement coloring his voice.
“I know master is using sex to condition me,” she replied. “It’s working, too!”
“Oh?”
“This one exists only to serve her master’s whim. She’d like it if his whim extended to using her so she could get off soon, though!”
The doorbell rang before Larry could explore any more of his maid’s feelings about her reduced state. He looked up, a slightly abstracted expression on his face.
“That will be Connie and Amanda. Show them in and bring them in here.” He indicated the end of the table.
This particular table stuck out of the wall, so he and Linnet could work on the same project from opposite sides. Tonight, they had the open dossiers lined up ready to access. Ten of them sat in a small file box ready to be ceremonially burned the next day. Eight of the unfortunate students had decided that having their asses peddled to the general population was a better proposition than letting the police know of the misdeeds Jenna had maneuvered them into. The other two had gotten on the phone and started calling people to confess. Linnet sat on a chair, tail curled loosely around her waist, setting up files so she could track and control her new team of sex workers.
Jenna swayed to her feet, still somewhat awkward in the hobbles, curtsied and left the room. A minute later, she led the two errant girls in and seated them at the end of the table. She took their order for refreshments and swayed out of the room, her ankle chain tinkling as it restricted her to short, almost mincing steps.
The two girls had either taken his offhand comment about style to heart, or they were fed up with the slut look that Jenna had imposed on them.
She hesitated a moment, obviously organizing her thoughts. Then she yelped as Larry stroked her with the prod.
“Unvarnished honesty is not only the best policy, it’s the only policy. Ask Jenna what happens when she tries to put a pleasing spin on what she’s thinking.”
Connie drew in a breath. “Well, he said the only reason I wasn’t out on my ass and disinherited was that I came to him first. It was either going to be that, or he was going to have me trained as a ponygirl. At least, if I wanted to be a sex slave, I could be useful for something.
“Then he called up later and said that you might have a suggestion. I don’t know why.”
“Well, he talked to me afterwards. I really only had one question. If he had to do it over again, and he couldn’t have a son, what did he want in a daughter?”
“What did he say?” Connie asked, real interest in her voice.
“What you should expect. He’s built an industrial empire, and he’d like for his only child to take it over. He’d be prepared if she wanted to do something else with her life, although he wouldn’t be real happy about it. What he won’t accept is that she’s not doing something that people will respect.”
“Oh,” Connie said in a small voice.
“Amanda,” he switched his attention to her.
“What she said. They both huffed and puffed, but that’s what it came down to. Either I shaped up, or I was out on the street. He did mention that he really ought to turn me into a ponygirl.”
“They called me later,” Larry said, “and it came to about the same thing. He wants a daughter that someone he respects could respect even if he can’t.
“Of course, they would both like it if you suddenly saw the light and discovered that running a financial empire was your fondest heart’s desire.” Linnet laughed as she saw both of the sweating girls wince at that.
“Somehow, I didn’t think so,” Larry chuckled to take the sting out. “Of course, people are always surprising me.
“Before we get started on the rest of your life, there’s one thing to do.” He took two file folders off of the stack and handed them to the girls. “These are the master copies of your misdeeds. Let’s go onto the patio for a little ceremony. I will freely admit to not being a wine connoisseur. Jenna, what would you recommend?”
“The Napa Valley ‘14 seems to be popular at life transitions, master. Besides, it’s one of their best years.”
“I remember it being quite good,” he agreed. Jenna swayed back to her feet from her kneeling position and left the room, ankle chain jingling. The four of them rose and followed, walking down the corridor to the flagstone covered patio. He indicated the bag of charcoal and the large, copper brazier. “Have at it, girls,” he said as he sat in a lawn chair.
Linnet sat on her heels next to him, and watched the two girls puzzle over the brazier. Larry chuckled. “I know backyard cooking is supposed to be a guy thing, but you’ll figure it out.” He relaxed watching them get the charcoal into the brazier, and then carefully read the instructions before liberally dousing it with lighter fluid. They found the lighter and managed to get it started without mishap. “Put the mesh lid on top so burned paper doesn’t go flying all over.”
Connie started to feed the file folder into the brazier.
“Stop,” he commanded. “Various spiritual masters insist that this ceremony only works if you take each sheet out and look at it closely enough to remember what you were doing. One sheet at a time.”
Jenna had come back in with a serving tray, four wine glasses and a bottle of white wine in a small ice bucket. He signaled her to put it on the side, and then opened his legs. A moment later, she sat before him, eased his cock out of his pants and began lightly teasing the head with the tip of her tongue.
Larry looked over at the two errant rich girls slowly examining the records of their misdeeds before feeding them to the flames. Suddenly, Connie giggled at one of the pages, and Amanda looked over. Connie showed it to her, and she laughed. Then they held it together as they shoved it into the flames. He considered. It was going to take a while at this rate. He signaled Linnet and whispered something in her ear. She grinned and got up to enter the house, tail flaunted behind her.
A few minutes later she came back, dressed in red plastic shorts instead of her trademark black leather miniskirt. The ornate zipper that ran from just under the belt to almost all the way back to her tail had a suspicious bulge in the middle. The thick, black dildo she carried was almost redundant.
“Keep sucking while you get up on your feet,” he told Jenna. The girl struggled to get up into the unnatural position, finally using her hands to balance on her stilt heels while still keeping her master’s cock rigidly erect. He reached over and unzipped his ponygirl. She handed him the dildo, and he plugged it into the socket that emerged from her sex. Then she walked behind the bent over maid and lifted her skirt before plunging the strapon into her waiting pussy.
Jenna’s gasp was all that they could have hoped for, but she never missed a beat at keeping her master’s cock pleasured. A few minutes later, Jenna came, followed by Linnet and Larry shortly thereafter.
Linnet smoothed the maid’s skirt and pressed her ass cheeks. She sank to her knees, still between Larry’s legs.
By this time, the two girls had finished laughing over each other’s misdeeds, and had fed the last of the perilous paperwork to the flames.
“Use the poker to break up any large ashes,” Larry suggested as he got to his feet. “Jenna, bring the wine here.” He pulled the cork and poured four glasses, one for each of them.
“To the rest of your life,” he said ceremonially. “May your expectations be high, and may it live up to them!”
A few minutes later, they had gathered back around the table in the workroom. Larry topped off their wineglasses, and then Jenna took the remainder of the bottle out.
“I hate to bring this party back down to earth, but you’ve got some hard choices. You remember that your parents gave you three options, right?”
The two girls looked at him. “Three?” Amanda asked.
“Yes. You could be thrown out on the street, you could become ponygirls, or you could make something of yourselves that they could respect.” They nodded.
“Being thrown out on your own might be the best thing that could happen to you, but then again, you might never recover. It’s possible that you could walk out of here, buckle down and transform yourself, but I consider it unlikely. Of course, people are always surprising me, and sometimes it’s a pleasant surprise when they vastly exceed my expectations. If you see becoming ponygirls as your best bet, I’ve got the indenture forms, and you could be in Orientation tomorrow morning. However, there’s a fourth alternative that I think will work better.”
“O. K.” Amanda said slowly. “After that last mess, I’m open to listening.”
“I’ve got a project you could help me on. In return, I’ll help you bring your academics up and settle down.
“As I see it, the major problem you’ve got with the course work is that you’ve never learned either self-discipline or good study habits. I can impose enough external discipline and a structure for you to learn good study habits. Self-discipline is something you’ll have to deal with yourself, although I expect it comes easier if you have the proper habits. You’re both intelligent enough to make a solid B average or better if you apply yourself.
“The target you’ll aim at is a B average with nothing lower than a C in academically respectable subjects. You will also take management and finance courses, either as your major or as a minor if you decide to major in something else. That’s partially to keep your family happy, but it’s also to give you a not entirely unrealistic introduction to your family’s business. I’ve got a suspicion that your aversion to inheriting your fathers’ businesses has more to do with a reaction to how his work habits affected your childhood than to anything intrinsic in what you would have to do. So you’ll take enough courses in the area to come to a rational decision.”
“I’d say it’s a rather well founded suspicion,” Amanda said as Connie nodded. “I wanted a father, not another twenty million!”
“I figured as much. It’s not like that’s an uncommon story, after all. You also need a good deal of work comporting
“The kicker, of course, is the project I want help on.”
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense, guy,” Connie said.
“I need a couple of experimental subjects for a new ponygirl training process. Before you get too upset, I need to give you some background.
“The way we train our ponygirls has three major areas. One is to get her into the right headspace to where she simply acts as she’s been trained, rather than thinking about it. The second is, of course, training her in the proper behaviors, and the third is convincing her on the deepest level possible that being a ponygirl is what she was born to do.
“I’m interested in the first part of the process; that is, getting her into the right mental state. Once a ’girl is in the right headspace, the actual behavioral training is straightforward, and she’ll act the way she’s been trained. At least, we don’t have very much trouble with it.
“The third part actually comes in two alternatives. Both of them start with having ponygirls be a normal part of the way the world works in your conceptual systems. That’s the highest level, and since both of your parents are owners, I doubt if you’ll have very much trouble with it.
“The next level down has to do with ‘my place in the world’. For ponygirls, that place is as an indentured ponygirl, and we make sure that she’s rock solid on that. By the time she leaves training, there’s no doubt in her mind. For you, your place in the world includes the possibility that you will spend some time as a ponygirl. The possibility will seem as obvious and logical as breathing. That doesn’t mean you’ll
“The other side of that coin is that I’m also going to train you as ponygirl trainers and drivers. There’s a very simple reason for that, and it’s that I don’t have the staff to handle three ponygirls. The year long trainer’s training class practices on each other for exactly the same reason: we don’t have enough wild ponygirls for them to practice on. In other words, you’ll practice on each other.”
“It sounds like we’re going to become ponygirls either way,” Amanda said. “What’s the difference?”
“The difference is the core of the project,” Larry said.
“I can guarantee you won’t like the initial stages of the standard training sequence,” Linnet added. “To put it bluntly, they beat on you until you accept that you’re a ponygirl, and that’s all there is to it.”
“It’s not quite that crude,” Larry explained, “but it might as well be. To be an adequate ponygirl is as much a state of mind as anything else. It’s a way of organizing how your brain processes information that bypasses some of the functions that make humans different from, say, horses. The really old method beat on you until you either found it, or simply decided to submit. The current method uses various really advanced psychological techniques to guide the process along; it’s got a much higher rate of finding the proper mental state quickly than simply being beaten into the ground. It’s still not at all pleasant.
“What we’re going to do to you is the next step in that direction. I’ve got something radically different in the way of training equipment. I suppose you could call it biofeedback, but that’s a bit like comparing a computer to an abacus. I can snap you into the proper state at the press of a button. Then you can learn to shift in and out smoothly with the proper cues. After that, it’s simply a matter of training you when you’re in the ponygirl mind space. There’s no hurry on that since you’re not going to be indentured.”
“If there’s no hurry, why bother at all?” Amanda asked.
“We’re doing proof of concept. If you can maintain ponyspace and perform properly in it, the project is a success. I’d like to get you to where you can be shown well before the Spring Nationals. If it works, there’s lots of time, and if it doesn’t, I’ll just cancel the project. That won’t affect the rest of our agreement.”
“Hum…” Amanda said thoughtfully.
“Anyway, we won’t get started on that for a few weeks. Linnet and I have this sex worker thing to get organized, and you’ve got to get your grades up. Both of those are going to take all the time we’ve got available.
“Now, on the academics, you’ve got piss poor study habits. I suspect one thing you’ve never learned is that there are stages of expertise. When you’re a novice, you need hard and fast rules and procedures, and you’re still novices on how to study. So I’m going to give you a set of rules, and you will follow them or there are going to be consequences you won’t like one little bit.
“After each class, you will list the assignments and the due dates, break the assignment down into tasks and estimate the amount of time you’ll need for each task. Use the latest start function in your organizer to prioritize them. You’ll work on them in order and note the amount of time you actually took. Every night, you’ll upload the list to my server, with the grades and instructor’s comments for completed assignments. You will not have any social life until and unless your work queue is clean. We’ll discuss your progress at least once a week.”
“I suppose we deserve that,” Connie sighed.
“It’s not a matter of deserve, it’s a matter that you need a structure to learn good work habits, and you need some motivation to not slip back into the bad habits.
“Now, the second thing is that you’re going to learn how to train and drive ponygirls, and you’ll be spending quite a bit of time in your parent’s establishments doing that. That’s for after you’ve got your coursework under control, but we can start you out on it right now.
“Linnet, show the girls your room.”
Linnet laughed as she got up from her chair. “I think you’re going to be surprised,” she said as she led the way out of the workroom to another door farther down the hall. “This is my room.” She led the way in and waited for them to recognize it.
“It’s a standard ponygirl cell, except that it’s got a door instead of the cell bars and sliding cell door. This is where I live when I’m in ponygirl mode.”
“It’s not a punishment, either,” Larry said. “We’ve got very strict rules about ponygirls that spend a large part of their day out of harness, and that rule is that they can’t be out of harness more than a third of the time. I’ve got a highly liberal view of one third, but she still spends most of her nights here rather than in my bed, and I groom her in the morning and take her out and ride her for an hour or so before we start our work day. Depending on our joint schedules, she may spend a block of time during the day as a ponygirl as well.
“We’ll use this to show you how to do training and what the daily routine is like. Then when you’ve got the time to apprentice with your parent’s establishment, you’ll be able to hit the ground running. Depending on how fast you come along with ponyspace, I may have you train on heavy sulky with each other. And of course, once I train you to be ridden, we’ll be swapping which of you is the rider on any given day.”
The two girls looked around. “It looks like the cells at home,” Amanda said. “Although…”
“There are differences,” Larry said. “What are they?”
“There’s an exercise set instead of a bucking rack,” she said as she walked around looking at the cell. “The chair is missing, and there’s something different about the trotting booth. Also,” she paused as she walked into the grooming room, “this is different!”
“I’ve seen three different arrangements of the grooming room, and I understand there are other variations among the owners. This is our most recent version; I suspect you’ll like it. The trotting booth is probably a later version than your parents have installed; the resistance set is for upper body strength and other things that the trotting booth doesn’t handle. Ponygirls normally don’t develop their upper bodies to the extent that they do from the waist down; I prefer Linnet to be more balanced, and I also use it for exercise.
“As far as the bucking rack goes, neither one of us finds bondage to be sexually stimulating. It’s not an impediment, but it simply doesn’t do enough for us to justify the effort. We don’t use the chair internally after the ’girl leaves training because we don’t normally get discipline problems that require it. Ponies that give us discipline problems that can’t be corrected with a judicious application of the prod go back for retraining.”
“Frankly, the whole scene has never done much for me,” Connie said. “But if I’m going to become a ponygirl, even part time, I want to do it right. Tails are fashionable even though daddy hasn’t gotten them for ours yet.”
Larry chuckled at the way she said that. “Isn’t that just a
Connie had the grace to blush. “Well…”
“Ours don’t have tails either,” Amanda interjected into the conversational void. “I’ve never asked why.”
“Most owners haven’t upgraded the ones that were trained before we added the tails. It’s not a matter of impossible; the upgrade’s in the catalog. It’s also not a matter of money. Think about it for a minute.”
“You’re saying it ought to be obvious. Oh, right. They couldn’t take their days off while it was growing.”
“Basically. I suspect there are solutions, but most of them would require the ’girl to agree to do something different on her days off for a few months, and most of the owners seem to have the attitude that they’re not going to ask their ’girls for an opinion, let alone ask them if they agree to something.”
“That sounds exactly like Daddy.”
“Mine too. And I doubt if the staff would twitch without his permission.”
“That’s all for tonight. Head on home, and I want all of your assignments, with estimates, uploaded to my system before you go to sleep.”
“You’re actually doing quite well, regardless of what it looks like to you,” Larry told Amanda and Connie as they sat in the workroom two weeks later. “You don’t learn work organization overnight, and it takes a while to internalize it to where it’s automatic. It looks like your lists are pretty complete, you’re remembering to update them when you get the assignments, and your work breakdowns and estimates are beginning to show some resemblance to reality. Your assignments are coming back with Bs and Cs rather than Cs, Ds and Fs. You’ve obviously got a long way to go, but that’s concrete progress.
“In fact, I’m feeling enough confidence that you’ve got your schedule under control that I can trust the amount of available time you’re reporting.” The two girls exchanged worried glances. Larry chuckled at their expressions.
“Linnet has her string of sex workers organized, and Jenna is settling in quite well, so we’re ready to start the next step. Let’s go into the main room.” He rose and led the way, gesturing to Jenna to follow them.
The main room boasted the largest clear space in the apartment. Larry deliberately kept it clear so that he could practice his martial arts, and so that there would be a space for indoor training.
“There are a number of ways we could start training you as ponygirl trainers. I’m going to start with the prod. Pick up a belt and a prod from the table.” The four young women walked over to the table and looked. There were four green belts with narrow diagonal black stripes, each with one of their names. Next to each belt was a white wand with a handgrip, buttons and a snap to attach to the belt on one end.
“The belts are color coded to indicate your role and status. Green is for trainer, and the black stripes indicate you’re a student. The other main colors are blue for drivers, red for senior trainers and gold for owners. Brown is for ponies that are in girl mode during meets and so forth. Trainers and senior trainers fill three different but overlapping roles depending on whether they’re doing initial training, working in the community outside of the training block, or working in one of the owner’s stables. I’m going to train all four of you on how training works in the Owner’s establishments; I’ll discuss the differences privately with Linnet.”
Linnet looked at him in surprise.
Larry chuckled. “You’re on the fast track to becoming a full community member,
“Anyway, put on the belts and pick up the prods and get familiar with them. They’re all set so you can only use level one.” He noticed Amanda arch her eyebrow in a question. “I thought you two knew what the levels were. Linnet, tell them.”
Linnet drew in a breath. “The way I was told in Orientation is that level one is to get your attention. It bites, kind of like a very aggressive insect. You can’t ignore it, which I suppose is the point. Level two is for punishment. They used it on me during orientation, and I collected a few during training. It’s quite good at motivating you to do it the way you’re told the first time. That’s what Larry used on that girl a couple of weeks ago.” She smiled ruefully. “I’ve never had level three used on me, and I’ve only seen it once. It’s a takedown for someone that’s out of control or in open rebellion. It left her writhing on the floor and screaming in pain. I have no interest in ever seeing it again, believe me.”
“There’s also a stun function,” Larry added. “What we’re going to do tonight is the first exercise from the standard trainer’s course. You’re going to get familiar with the buttons and learn to flip it off of your belt, set it onto level one and apply it to your subject faster than you would believe possible. I won’t say it will save your life because, except for Linnet, you’ll never be working in the initial training stage. The thing to remember is that ponygirls that win championships at anything have got both a competitive streak and an ego a mile wide, and while they’re convinced that they were born to be ponygirls, that doesn’t mean they’re going to accept any schmuck as a trainer or a driver. You don’t have to be mean, but you do have to have the attitude that you’re not going to put up with any sass from a ponygirl, and you’ve got to be able to back it up. In practice, that means that your prod needs to be in your hand almost before you consciously recognize that she’s testing you.”
“Which is what startled me when I hesitated answering you a couple of weeks ago,” Connie said. “I didn’t see it coming.”
“Exactly. It takes a while to learn. The first exercise is simply going to be to get it off of your belt, turned on and held in front of you at a 45 degree angle. The cue will be this click, and it will come from behind you at random intervals.”
An hour later, Larry sat at a table on the patio with Linnet and the two girls, while Jenna knelt at his left. All five of them had a thick, frost covered stein of beer sitting in front of them. “That wasn’t entirely awful,” he said judiciously. “It’s rather obvious that none of you have done martial arts. We’re going to keep on that for an hour three or four times a week until you can snap that prod out and apply it from any position you happen to be in. It does take a while; I’m told that prod practice starts the first day of the trainers training class and extends daily for the entire year. The guys with martial arts background do get it a bit faster. Any questions?”
“Yes,” Connie said. “I’ve already said I’m not particularly attracted to this scene, but I do know I’m not getting out of it. I’m having difficulty figuring out what either one of you get out of it, though.”
“The easiest way to figure Linnet is to read the book,” Larry told her.
“There’s a
“
“You’re Donna?” Amanda asked, startled.
“My name was Bess. They changed it to Donna for the book to protect my privacy. I suppose calling me the pony girl was a dead giveaway.”
“Another book on my reading list,” Connie said in mild disgust. “What about you?” she asked Larry.
“I was born in the community,” Larry told her. “We take wild ponygirls, break them to harness, train them and sell them. It’s our major industry, and everyone is involved in it to one extent or another. It’s simply not possible to avoid it. Ponygirls being ridden or pulling carts or chariots are as common on the streets as horses were before the days of automobiles.”
“Wild ponygirls?” Connie asked.
“It ought to be obvious,” Linnet said dryly.
“I’m still having trouble,” Connie said, filling the silence as Amanda just shook her head.
“Maybe this will help. Larry’s family owns a ponygirl named Will o’ the Wisp. I don’t know a whole lot about her since we never take days off together. I presume that’s policy?” Larry nodded. “What I do know comes from the ponygirl grapevine: she’s a community trainee, that is, one of theirs that they trained as a ponygirl for some reason I’m not altogether clear on. His sisters Diana and Edie trained us as a fancy carriage pair. That is, we do show steps and other fancy procedures while we’re pulling Diana around in a two pony chariot. We’ve picked up some awards, and we might have gotten even more if I wasn’t busy with some of Larry’s other projects part of the time. It cut into the time available for training us together.
“Another item. Larry has told you that he takes me out and rides me in the morning. Frequently, his sister Diana joins him, riding Will o’ the Wisp. We’ve even had Edie join us on occasion, sometimes on another ponygirl, and sometimes riding a wolf. A lot of what I know about the community comes from listening to their chatter. I don’t understand it at the time, but I can replay it later.”
“You can do that?” Larry asked, startled.
“Trick I learned from my slave maid trainer. She was very insistent on my being able to review what I did so I could improve it, and she was equally insistent that I pay attention to what I was doing all the time, every instant. To do that, I had to learn how to replay.”
Connie shook her head. “I’m going to let the wolf lie there.”
“Wise,” Larry replied.
“For the rest of it, what I’m hearing is that you regard all women as wild ponygirls, and see nothing wrong in capturing them and breaking them to harness.”
“I think that’s basically the attitude,” he said judiciously. “Isolated communities tend to have an us and the rest of the world mentality, with the rest of the world either being evil or somehow lesser. You can’t get away from what you grew up with, after all. I think most wild ponygirls are probably better off staying wild, though, all things considered. We used to capture them, these days we discretely dangle the bait and let them walk into the corral by themselves.”
“What about us?” she persisted.
“I told you. I needed some wild ponygirls to break to harness to test out my new process.” He shrugged. “You fell into my hands, and the community would like to do a favor for your parents. Remember what Linnet said about our young women becoming ponygirls for a while. My training you as ponygirls doesn’t mean that you’ll stay ponygirls. If, and I emphasize the if, you apply yourselves to becoming someone that your respective families can be proud of. Your choice.”
Amanda made a cautious grimace as if she tasted something sour. “Frankly, after consulting with myself for a while, I find that I’m not pissed off enough at my father for neglecting me to take a chance on messing up my life just to get back at him. What’s got me curious, though, is that you mentioned wild ponygirls, but I’ve never heard you mention wild ponyboys.”
“We don’t do ponyboys. I’m not entirely sure why not. Since Leprechaun Genetics has the male to female sex change package, we simply change any males that we want to indenture into females as part of the training process.”
“That leaves half of you out of whatever you called it, the community trainee process.”
“It does, doesn’t it? From a couple of comments Raindance made, part of that happens in trainer class, and I do remember several rather obnoxious boys suddenly deciding to become community trainees. I must say it surprised the people around them; they didn’t seem like the type to want a sex change.” He shrugged as if it should have been obvious. “It’s kind of a commonplace observation that 18 year old girls that make trouble seem to start their community trainee experience on rather short notice. I know my sister Susi did.”
“Couldn’t you change them back?”
“Not yet. We sell male to female to the transsexual community, but there’s enough less demand for female to male that we don’t have the process down completely yet. It gets better every year, though. What the community will do once it becomes completely routine is anyone’s guess.”
“And I’ll bet most of them aren’t thinking about it,” Connie said. Larry chuckled at that.
“I’ll bet it will change the community’s sexual perspective,” Amanda added.
“Probably not as much as you’d think,” Larry said. “By the time we’re done with Sex Ed, I think most of us have got a pretty good perspective on how much of our gender related behavior is instinctive, and will change if we change sex. If anything, I suspect it might shift things more toward traditional sex roles, since if there’s a choice, people will go with the sex that best matches the rest of their personality. We don’t talk about the fact that some of what we do isn’t exactly consensual, but it’s no great secret, either. The biggest problem with forced sex changes is that the subject doesn’t know what to expect.”
“What about hermaphrodites?” Connie asked, a bit of a gleam in her eye.
“I believe they’ve done some experimenting,” Larry said. “It apparently isn’t that hard to take a female and add a penis and balls instead of a clitoris. What they came up with is a pretty respectable penis that stows internally when it’s not in use. It’s supposed to be fully functional; they managed to stow the rest of the male equipment internally as well, and make it compatible with female hormones. The sex instincts are a bit rough, and getting a consistent set of gender instincts is still something that’s on the research agenda. What they’ve got is a female with a built-in strap-on. I’m not even sure if they’re still looking for volunteers.”
“Sex and gender instincts?”
“Sex instincts govern sexual attraction, arousal, the mechanics of the sex act and orgasm. They’re still different. The question is whether sie will be aroused as a male or female. They’ve got that worked out pretty well; if sie’s attracted to someone, sie’ll have the appropriate kind of arousal. The mechanism recognizes most gays and lesbians by their pheromones. Sie can even override it deliberately, which I gather helps when two of them get together. Otherwise they might have problems with who gets screwed first.”
“Sie?” Connie asked.
“Someone had to invent pronouns for them. After all, a hermaphrodite isn’t either a him or a her, and calling hir an it is, well, impolite.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Gender instincts. That’s why females go shopping and males don’t.”
“And why men don’t ask for directions,” Linnet added dryly.
“Isn’t that cultural imprinting?” Amanda asked.
“Not the way they explain it,” Larry said. “It goes back to hunter/gather instincts. Gatherers need to know where resources are and what’s in season at any given time. It’s a constant ‘go out and get what we need today’ mentality where sharing things you notice is good for the entire tribe. Hunters, on the other hand, can’t depend on the animals to stay put, and they need to know the territory, which isn’t going to change. So there’s no point in asking for directions. If it’s fixed, they know how to get there, and if it isn’t, they have to track it down. Add mate seeking behavior to that, and you find that male and female gender instincts simply aren’t combinable. At least, all the attempts to combine them haven’t worked out very well. I gather they’ve got ideas, but the estimated market demand is so low that they’re no longer willing to use their available test subjects on the project. If you want to volunteer…” He looked at her meaningfully.
“Uh, no. Just curiosity.”
“Mistress Melanie might be interested,” Linnet added.
“She might at that,” Larry said slowly. “You’re thinking of selling into the lesbian and professional Domina market? It’s definitely a thought; those are two groups that wouldn’t want their gender instincts rearranged. It would still be an awfully small market, and I’m not sure that they want something out in the wild that can’t be easily overlooked. I think it’s worth following up.” He raised an eyebrow at her.
“Slave driver,” she laughed as she made a note on her PDA.
“Pony slave,” he laughed back.
Amanda, Connie and Jenna are coming along nicely on their new career paths. We’re about to get another curve (of course). Just trot on to the next exciting episode of Engineer to find out what it’s about.
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