Manties in a Twist (The Subs Club Book 3) (20 page)

“Probably,” Ryan agreed.

I checked the price tag. “Holy shiboles.” I showed him.

“Oh my God. I hope human ones are cheaper.”

“Are you finding everything you need?” asked a voice behind us.

We both turned to face the cashier.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re good. Do you have anything more moderately priced? Bridle-wise, I mean?”

She nodded toward the end of the line. “Cheapest bridles are down there.”

Even the cheapest bridles were kinda pricey. We moved on to saddles. Ryan picked up the smallest one and made me bend forward. He tried to sling it over my back, but it slid off. “I mean, how would we even get this to stay on you?”

“Yeah, it’s too bulky. We might need one for miniature horses. But I’m doing the cart race, remember? I’m gonna be a driving pony, not a riding pony.” We’d spent last night reading up on the different types of ponies. We’d also found a website with information for pony newcomers, and it had like a horse character sheet you filled out. So we were gonna do that tonight.

We put the saddle back and found a third room full of brushes.

“Hell yes. Look at this.” I held up a red rubber mitt with little spikes on it. “You tell me horse riding isn’t already kinky as fuck.”

Ryan put his palm against the rubber spikes, making them flex. “I’ll bet that feels really good. For horses.”

“Are you gonna groom me?”

“Well, we are in the grooming competition. So, I mean, yeah. I guess I have to, like, brush you all over and braid your hair with ribbons and shit.”

“Okay, get this thing.” I threw the mitt against his chest. It fell to the floor.

“Jerk.” He reached down to get it.

I grinned and picked up a brush. The bristles were stiff and left little red lines when I ran it down my arm. I got a strange feeling then, but I wasn’t sure what it was.

I dragged the brush down my arm again.

If we did this pony stuff right, Ryan was gonna be touching me a lot. I know,
duh
, and he already touched me a lot anyway. But he’d do the kind of stuff that everyone knows feels really good, but you never hear anyone talk about. Like, it was amazing as fuck if someone else brushed your hair or washed you or whatever. Or if they petted you and it wasn’t the kind of petting where they were just foreplaying their way to your dick. But sometimes it was tough to ask for that, because once shit got all hot and heavy, then you were just like,
Okay, yep, never mind petting, let’s do the dick grabbing.

And I loved sex. Seriously loved it. But I was also a total slut for just—touching. Backrubs, holding hands, all that shit. And the idea of being tied up while Ryan brushed me, like in those pictures, was doing a lot for me at the moment.

“Feel this one.” He held out a brush with white bristles. I extended my arm and let him use it on me. It was like the feathers of a goddamn downy baby eagle.

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah?”

“Here.” I took the brush from him and did his arm.

“That’s amazing.”

“I know.” I brushed him again.

He gazed at me for a long moment. “What?”

“What’s what?”

“You have a weird look on your face.”

“Nothing. I’m just excited for this.”

He took the brush. “We’re really doing this?”

“Unless you’re chickening out.”

“Chickening out of victory? When have I ever?”

I grinned. This
was
gonna be a victory. And I was gonna show my friends that even though I wasn’t around as much for meetings, I was still totally loyal to the Subs Club. I was prepared to do us the ultimate service: defeat our arch-fucking-nemesis. “We could get some brushes here. Right? And then just shop online for the other stuff?”

“Let’s do it.”

We took the rubber mitt, a currycomb, a stiff bristle brush, and a soft brush up to the checkout. Plus a riding whip Ryan had found that was long and straight and black, with a silver cap on the handle, and a tiny, thin lash about two inches long.

The cashier rang us up without a word.

I nodded at her. “I think for now our niece is just going to groom her horse. And maybe whip it, but only to give cues.”

She didn’t answer. Handed our bag to us with a flat stare. “Have a good day.”

I was pretty fucking sure we would.

We ended up going home and shopping for human-pony stuff online. We used Ryan’s laptop this time so we could sit on the couch. We found a website that was really helpful in terms of telling us about pony gear. But there was so
much
gear, and we had no idea what we actually needed.

“Bridle.” Ryan made a note. “Definitely. And I guess just a regular bit? We don’t need the kind that, like, pushes your tongue down, right?”

“Why would we need that?”

“It’s for bad ponies.”

“I’m not a bad pony!” I rested my chin on his shoulder and stared at the screen.

“Aww.” He leaned his head against mine. “Are you the best pony?”

“Yeah.” I yawned and made
nyop nyop nyop
sounds afterward. Settled my chin back on his shoulder. I turned my head slightly and stuck my tongue up and to the side until it touched his earlobe.

He laughed and swatted me away. “Pay attention. Here’s the form we have to fill out about your pony persona. See?”

Breed. Name. Age. Height. Weight. Coloring. Distinguishing marks. Temperament. Past owners. Cart pony or riding pony?
It went on.

“So what kind of horse are you?” Ryan asked.

“A Friesian,” I said immediately. D loved Friesians, and D was one of the coolest guys I’d ever met. He’d shown me some pictures, and Friesians really were literally the most beautiful horses ever.

“A what?”

“A Friesian. It’s a giant black warhorse. Here.” I took over the laptop and Googled Friesians. Pulled up a picture of a huge black horse with a long, wavy mane and tail.

“Pretty sure my sister had that exact perm in high school.” Ryan cocked his head. “That’s a gorgeous animal.”

“Right? Now imagine I’m that.”

He looked at me. “If you were a horse, you would totally be that.”

“I know. Look at that
tail
. People spend, like, hours putting conditioner on that shit, D said.”

He went back to the form and typed in Friesian. “And what’s your name?”

I thought for a moment. “It needs to be something really powerful. Like Thor.”

He made a face.

“You don’t like Thor? What about, like, Storm . . . Trooper? Fire Hawk? Lightning Cloud King Flame-Wreath?”

“That’s a little long.”

“Thunder Canyon.”

“Isn’t that a ride at Cedar Point?”

I nodded. “It is. The
best
ride. I want my name to be Thunder Canyon.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“Thunder Canyon the Friesian.” He filled it in. “How old are you?”

“Um, how long do horses live?”

“Like, thirty years or something.”

“Can I be seven?”

“Sure.” Ryan typed it into the form. “Aaaand . . . sex?”

“Yes, please.”

“Don’t be an idiot. What’s your sex?”

“Man horse.”

“That’s not a choice. Stallion, gelding, mare, colt, filly.”

I looked at the choices. “What the hell is ‘gelding’?”

“It means you’re a boy horse with your balls cut off.”

“Hell no! I’m a stallion.”

We went through my temperament and training. I was playful and friendly. I listened most of the time. I knew how to walk, trot, canter, and gallop on cue.

“What are your preferred treats?” Ryan glanced at me.

“Wings.”

“Horses can’t eat wings. That’s sick.” He looked at the screen again. “The examples are carrots, apple slices, peppermints, sugar cubes, and oats.”

“What about . . . wings?”

“Still not an option.”

“Jolly Ranchers?”

“I think Jolly Ranchers would work.” He filled it in.

Eventually we moved on to the list of beginner pony gear. We found a fetish shop that sold bridles. Very expensive bridles.

“Ooh, I want the feathery thing on top!”

Ryan looked at me. “You want a plume?”

“Yeah. I gotta stand out, right?”

“Hell yeah.”

I pointed at another bridle. “I like that gold bit. And what are those things?”

Ryan enlarged the picture of the bridle. “Blinkers. They keep the horse focused on what’s straight in front of him.”

“Let’s get that blinkers one, with the gold bit.”

“It doesn’t have a plume.”

“We can make a feathery thing to put on top. It’ll be cheaper that way.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard to rig.” Ryan put the bridle in the cart, and I got a thrill in the pit of my stomach. I was gonna wear that fucker. On my
face
.

We found a harness that said it was good for beginning ponies. A lead rope. Some hoof gloves. An information page that explained the difference between riding ponies and cart ponies.

“I’m not gonna be naked at this show thingy,” I said, gazing warily at the photos of naked ponies. “Okay? Can I be one of the ponies that wears black clothes under the harness?”

“Sure. Except you’ve got a really good chest. I’d vote for shirtless.”

It was a fair point. My chest was fucking amazing. Plus abs. “But Friesians are all black,” I pointed out.

“All right.” He paused. “
Tight
black T-shirt, then.”

“Done.” I clicked on another link. “Look at
this shit
.” This page had rows and rows of hoods. Some had ears and noses; some were like leather gas masks. “These are demonic.” I clicked on a full leather horse head with terrifying eyeholes.

“Ewwww!” Ryan grabbed for the computer. “Get rid of it!” He clicked back to harnesses, then breathed a sigh of relief. “Just use your regular face for this, okay?”

“Agreed.”

“Do we need riding reins or long reins?”

“Long reins, right? Because we’re doing carts.”

“Shit, we’re up to three hundred and thirty dollars already.”

“Oh, fuck.”

“And we don’t even have a cart yet.”

I looked at him. “What do we do?”

“I think I can get us a cart, actually. If you don’t mind waiting a week or so.”

“Dude, the less time we have, the sweeter the montage.”

“Ooh, here’s a really nice black tail. Do you want the butt plug tail? Or the one that attaches to a harness?”

I stared at him. “The tail goes up my butt?”

“It can.”

“Shit just got real.” I turned back to the screen. “Get me the butt plug one.”

“You sure?”

“I don’t want some wussy harness tail. Mine’s gonna be up my ass.”

He added it. “Oookay, and we already have a whip, so—”

“No! I don’t wanna be whipped.” I slung my arm around his throat and pretended to choke him.

He played along, making strangled noises for a moment, before batting my arm away. “Look what the pony play site says on this subject: ‘For dressage, the whip is a vital cuing device. It is not used to hit or punish the pony. It takes the place of leg cues.’ See, if we’re doing this dressage thing, we need a whip.” He paused. “What do they mean, takes the place of leg cues?”

“I dunno.”

We looked it up and found a video of a ponygirl doing dressage. The human wasn’t riding the pony—she stood on the ground holding long reins and was using a thin, straight whip, like the one we’d bought, to tap different parts of the pony’s body. She never hit the pony—like, almost everything she did with the whip was so light and quick you’d miss it if you blinked.

“So wait, do I have to prance like that?” I asked. The ponygirl was, like, seriously lifting her legs up. And doing some crazy sideways movements.

“Uh, yeah. Look at the video description. Dressage is the highest form of horse training. It balances obedience, flexibility, and elegance.”

“How does that equal prancing?”

“Haven’t you ever seen the horse stuff at the Olympics? The dressage horses have to do all kinds of prancy stuff. They, like, jog in place.” He stood. “Like this.” He jogged in slo-mo, lifting his legs high without actually moving forward.

I raised my eyebrows. “Maybe you want to be the pony?”

“Hell no. This is all you.” He sat again.

“I want a mane. So everyone knows I’m a Friesian.”

He thought for a moment. “I might have an idea.”

I rested my head on his shoulder. “What?”

“I was Slash from Guns N’ Roses for Halloween a few years ago. I think I still have the wig.”

I stared at him. “
You
went as Slash?”

“Why not?”

“Hey, rock on.”

Slowly, things began to take shape. We ordered the gear and promised we wouldn’t worry about the price. And over the next few days, while we waited for the stuff to arrive, I watched videos. Not just pony play videos, but real horse videos too. Man, people did some weird shit with horses. Like, what was the point of making a horse run around you in circles? And what the crap was “posting”?

The human ponies were hilarious. Some of them wore the demon hoods, and some had fancy bridles or latex suits or crazy boots designed to make their legs look like horse legs with hooves on the end. But some just had black clothes and bit gags with reins attached. Nothing fancy. I watched a lot of dressage videos and studied the prancing. I wrote down the names of different gaits and transitions. Walk, trot, canter, gallop. Halt, back up. Dressage: half pass. Full pass. A bunch of French words I couldn’t pronounce. I read about what horses liked to eat, and how they communicated with their ears and tails and stuff.