Safe Word: An Erotic S/M Novel (16 page)

The bridle, now. The bit widened out my mouth like
other bits I'd worn, but it had a high, arched shape as well,
with knobs that pressed against the roof of my mouth.
I couldn't imagine how it would feel when she'd pull on the
reins. And then she demonstrated. Oh.

"It's called a gag-bit," she said. "English animal lovers
hated it, but it was very popular in the nineteenth century,
because it made the horses foam at the mouth." This was an unusual bit of volubility for her; she must have really liked
that detail. The bridle had large blinders at the sides, too. I'd
only be able to look straight forward, so when it was time
to move to the right or left I'd have to trust the pulls of her
hands on the reins, at the gag-bit in my mouth.

She took her time with the lattice of straps at the back
of my harness. I knew that this part was important, that it
would spread out the weight I'd be pulling, so that I could
use all my muscles, arms and shoulders and back and hips
and belly. And a final, frivolous touch-she clipped thin, decorative chains from my shoulder suspenders to my nipples.

She didn't make me run full out that first day. She
whipped me lightly around the track, both of us concentrating on how to take the curves. She stopped, every so often, to
loosen or tighten a strap, fine-tuning the cacophony of sensation she was blasting at my body. She adjusted the bridle,
too, so that the blinders would obscure more of my vision.
And then she dragged a bunch of obstacles into the trackthey looked like big orange plastic garbage cans-and she
spent the rest of the day driving me right toward them, zigzagging me around them at the last second with inches to
spare.

The zigzagging's really the point of the race, you know.
I learned this when they took me to see one a week later. Of
course, I wouldn't be allowed to sit in the stands; I crouched
at Annie's feet at the edge of the track, getting mud kicked in
my face as the boots thundered by. And I realized how narrow
a track it was, when you had half a dozen ponies racing on it.
It's a Ben Hur setup-you have to run dangerously close to
the other ponies, blocking them, cutting them off. Well, the
driver makes these decisions; the pony barely sees, with those big blinders at the sides of her face. But she trusts the driver's hand on the reins-and fears the hand on the whip-so
completely that she goes wherever she's directed. You'd think
there would be more upsets, more collisions, but the ponies
are really good. They're pure flesh, pure trust. They hurl
themselves into whatever chaotic blur they're directed toward
and then swerve delicately to the left or right, following the
minutest gradations of pull and pain at their mouths. Well,
they do-or I did-after many afternoons out on the track,
taking it one more time, tears streaming out from under the
bridle. And then, after practice was over, kneeling at Annie's
feet to accept punishment for my timidity and clumsiness.

Mr. Constant owned two racing sulkies, so Annie would
race me against Tony. And once in a while, as time went on,
I'd beat him, too. But it didn't mean much, because while
Annie'd be driving one of us, the other one would have to be
driven by one of those boys I'd seen my first day. They were
light enough-and certainly cruel enough-for the job, but
of course they weren't as skillful as Annie. So after a while,
naturally I'd win when Annie was driving me, leaning way
back in her seat, feet in the stirrups at each side of the Ubar.

Oh, and there's a final wrinkle. You don't just run in a
state of physical duress, but of sexual excitement as well.
Annie got the young stable guy to help her out here. I didn't
know what was going on, that day we first tried this, when
he kneeled in front of me at the starting line. I looked at
Annie, standing there with her arms crossed and a thoughtful
frown on her face, watching me in my bit and bridle, harness and blinders, open and helpless against his mouth on
my cunt, his slow, patient tongue on my clit. She watched my belly tremble and my knees start to get weak. And then she
prodded him away, quickly swung herself into her seat, and
signaled me to begin.

And I couldn't. I just stood there, howling with silent
rage behind my bit, until her whip convinced me that I
was actually supposed to run in that condition. And when
I finally took off, I noticed that everything was just a little
more intense, a little more painful, the colors a little brighter,
the shadows a little darker than they had been a moment ago.
And I ran a lot faster too-to get back around the track to the
stable guy's mouth.

"She's a natural pony," Annie said to Mr. Constant that
afternoon, when he'd come down to watch my progress.
"When I get her the way I want her, she'll run the whole race
in that state of terror and arousal. People won't be able to take
their eyes off her. Especially after we shave her."

He'd been stroking my face, through my bridle. His hand
tightened now, around my jaw, pushing against the gag-bit.
"Just so she wins," he said.

Annie laughed. "You'd better consider the first race a
freebie, boss," she said. "She needs to get used to the sound
of the crowd, you know."

He didn't take his hand off my jaw. He bent my face
upward, so that I was looking at him, his glasses reflecting
the purple sea. "I don't believe in freebies," he told me.

But of course Annie was right. I don't think anybody could
have prepared me for the sound of a crowd at a pony race.
It's a formal dress-up event: The crowd in the stands is like
a huge flower bed, luxuriant with the ladies' extravagant
hats, buzzing with civilized chatter. And when the ponies are paraded out to the starting line, the hats and suits train
their high-tech, precision binoculars at them and scream
with hysterical, infantile delight. The time I'd watched from
the edge of the track, I'd noticed the sound-I mean, you
couldn't really not notice it. But you only really hear it when
it's directed at you. It's a kind of growl at first-bored, hungry,
fractious-while you wait, tensed, to begin. And then, with
the first whip crack, it rears up like a furious, demented beast.
It sounds insatiable, but it finally spends itself in vicious
laughter, crawling back to its den and regathering its strength
and spite for the next race.

I wasn't ready for that sound, my first time. I stumbled at
the starting line. My timing was off, my feet wouldn't hit the
ground squarely. I finished sixth out of seven.

But by the end of that first race, I'd learned how you had
to do it. You had to ride the crowd, to get buoyed up by their
jeers, pushed along by the waves of lust and scorn and contemptuous admiration. And I knew that Annie wasn't really
displeased with me. "There'll be more races, asshole," she
said, slapping my butt and sending me to the stocks where
losing ponies had to kneel for the rest of the afternoon in
the dust behind the stands, available to anybody who might
saunter by on their way to get a beer or a lemonade or to use
the porta-potties.

Of course, Mr. Constant had me punished for losing.
But then, he might have punished me for anything at all, so
there was no point getting too upset about this particular
obsession. What was important was that I'd figured out this
pony racing thing. I can do this, I said calmly to myself.
This is just the kind of bent, demonic thing that I can get
behind.

And I did. I surprised everybody-except myself and
Annie, I think-by winning the next race. Yeah, winningfuck placing or showing. Blue ribbon winning.

"Interesting," he said. He stood up and loosened the sash of
his robe.

He climbed onto the bed and straddled her, pulling her
down between his legs and pushing his cock against her mouth,
forcing her lips open, moving deeply into her throat, and coming
quickly.

He closed the robe and sat back down.

"Go on," he said.

It was in New York-some huge estate near the Hudson River.
Mr. Constant had business on Wall Street, and he brought
Stefan and Tony and Annie and me along in a private plane.
The racing sulky, too-taken apart into pieces and packed in
the plane's hold. The estate had huge pony stables for events
like this-there were dozens and dozens of stalls, filled with
slaves and their trainers. It was busy, noisy, kind of cheerful.
This was a much bigger competition than others that I'd been
in. It was famous, an institution, really-slaves from all over
showing their stuff. It spanned several days, though my pony
race was one of the opening events. Trainers looked forward
to this competition-it was a chance to see old friends, compare notes, complain about their accommodations, and show
off their charges to each other. They chatted companionably,
comparing training techniques and pony food (the one Annie
was feeding me was predictably awful-pure nutrition).

"She's got a lot of talent," Annie said to a friend, as she
shaved my cunt over a bucket the day of the race, "but she's especially got that kind of neediness, you know, that ponies
have to have. I mean, you train them by letting them come
every time they go around the track, and after that they
never seem to learn that only the winner will get the treat at
the end."

The friend laughed. "Kate says it's what's most charming
about them."

Annie grimaced. "Well, Kate's pony Sylvie is the one to
beat in this race," she said. "C'mon, asshole," she added to
me, "last time around the track before the race-we'll let the
sun dry off your snatch."

Kate? But it wouldn't be the same one, would it? Too
unlikely, I thought. But I remembered what Margot, at the
auction warehouse, had said. Kate knows everybody in this
little world. Maybe it was the same Kate. I shuddered a little.

Annie shot a look at me. "Damn Kate," she said to her
friend, jerking the ring in my collar as she led me out to the
track to practice one last time. "I don't need to be thinking
about her right now-and neither does this one."

And so we didn't. Or I didn't, anyway. I ran around the
track, getting the feel of the ground under my feet and the
angles of the curve at the end of the oval. I looked at the stands.
They were big, like at a high school football game, only posher,
of course. The crowd's yells would be deafening-Romans at
the Coliseum. I took a long, calm breath, imagining it.

Annie stroked my breast. "Okay, Carrie," she said
softly-she didn't usually call me Carrie-"I'm going to put
everything I have behind my wrist this afternoon."

We had to hurry back to the stable, though, to get me
ready, because we could see the first spectators beginning to trickle into the stands. And since mine was only the fourth
race that day, we didn't have much time.

We entered the stall, and she kissed my mouth, slowly
and deeply. She pushed my shoulders down and I knelt in
the straw and kissed the whip she'd be using-she held it,
doubled up, in her hand. She caressed my face and breasts
with it, and then she put it against my lips again. I kissed it
respectfully. I kissed it passionately.

I stood up and she knelt down to relace my boots. To
smooth them over my calves and make sure the fine leather
thongs were threaded correctly through the eyelets and
around the hooks. To pull them tightly, tie them in strong,
failproof bowknots. She slapped my ass, and I bent slightly
and opened to receive the dildo attached to my tail. The grease
on the shaft was cold; the horsehair tail prickled the back of
my knees. And there was a new sensation-bits of smooth
satin-they'd decorated the tail with ribbons. She harnessed
me slowly, methodically, pulling everything tight, doublechecking all the buckles, and finishing up by pinching my
nipples in their decorative little clips.

I was almost glad to take the gag-bit in my mouth-it had
felt empty after her kiss. And as for the blinders at the side of
my face-I would have taken the track entirely blindfolded if
she'd wanted me to. She stenciled my number across my belly,
above my naked cunt. And instead of bringing somebody else
in to lick my clit, she knelt down herself, making me tremble
so hard that she had to pull away almost immediately. She
was right, I was a natural pony-too greedy and stupid to
know that I was being tricked. Or to care. "They usually have
somebody with a pretty good tongue," she whispered spitefully to me, "at the finish line."

I was ready, I thought-to the extent that I was thinking at all. But not quite. "This is a very fancy race," she said
to me, grinning at my helpless excitement. She attached a
bright green ribbon cockade to the top of my bridle. "Each
pony gets her own color." I guessed the ribbons in my tail
were green as well. She pulled off her T-shirt and put on a
green satin jacket with my number attached to the back. It
looked like something a jockey would wear, except she didn't
bother to zip it up. She looked tough, her hard little breasts
partly visible through the opening of her jacket. She had a
red-eyed lizard tattooed on one of them-it looked ready to
skitter diagonally across her chest. I'd never seen that lizard;
in fact, I'd never seen her in anything but her black sleeveless
T-shirts. The bright green looked good against her pale skin
and short white hair, and the lizard, one of its eyes partially
obscured by the jacket's open zipper, seemed to wink at me as
she moved.

Trumpets blared, and I heard the crowd cheer. They were
announcing our race. I trotted out to the track, first parading by the stands, pausing briefly to receive their screams-I
could detect the note of scorn, too: They knew I'd stumbled,
my first time out. And then I waited, tensed, at the starting
line, pulsing, quivering, dancing on my feet. I was aware of
other ponies, but I didn't think of them as competition, I
thought of them as the bright ribbons decorating their tails.
They were the other hues vibrating on the spectrum. Green is
in the middle-it's the toughest lane in the race-so there'd
be ponies trying to head me off on both sides. I was glad.