"Why was it lovely?" I asked, mutely fascinated. I was trying to picture him, his long black hair, the hair of the horsetail, and the slender elegant figure of my Master walking beside him. All that lovely white hair in the sun, my Master's lean thoughtful face, those deep blue eyes.

"I don't know," he said. "I'm not much with words. I'm always proud when I am trotting. But I was all alone with him. We came out of the village for a twilight walk in the country. All the women were out at their gates to bid him good evening. And gentlemen passed, returning from a day of inspection at their farms to their lodgings in the village.

"Every now and then your Master would lift my hair off the back of my neck and smooth it out. He'd tethered the rein good and high so my head was way back, and he gave me many a crack on the calves I didn't need just because he liked it. It was the most exhilarating feeling, trotting on the road, and hearing the crunch of his boots beside me. I didn't care if I ever saw the castle again. Or ever left the Kingdom. He always asks for me, your Master. The other ponies are terrified of him. They come back to the stables with their bu**ocks raw and they say he whips them twice as much as does anyone else, but I revere him. He does what he does well. And so do I. And so will you now that he's your Master."

I couldn't answer.

He didn't say any more after that. He soon fell asleep, and I squatted very still, my thighs aching, my c**k as miserable as before, thinking of his little descriptions. It sent chills through me to listen to what he said, and yet I understood what he was saying.

It unnerved me. But I understood it.

When they released us and drove us out to the coach, it was almost dark, and I felt myself fascinated by the harness and the nipple clamps and the reins and the lacings and the phallus as they were all refitted. Of course they hurt and frightened me. But I was thinking of Jerard's words. I could see him harnessed in front of me. I stared at the way he tossed his head, stamped his feet in the boots as if to improve the fit. And I stared forward at nothing with wide, baffled eyes as the phallus was worked well into me and the straps pulled tight, lifting me off the ground, and we were jerked into a fast trot down the road, away from the manor house.

Tears were already spilling down my face as we turned on the road, the dark battlements of the village looming before us. Lights burned in the north and south towers. And it must have been that same time of evening that Jerard had described, as there were few carriages on the road, and women leaned on their gates, waving as we passed. Now and then I saw a lone man walking. I was marching as briskly as I could, my chin painfully high, the heavy, thick phallus seeming to pulse with heat inside me.

I was cracked over and over again with the strap, but not once was I reprimanded. And just before we reached the Master's house, I remembered with a start what Jerard had said about nearly reaching the neighboring Kingdom! Perhaps he was wrong that he would have been received. And what about his father? Mine had said to obey, that the Queen was all powerful and I would be well rewarded for my service, well enhanced in wisdom. I tried to put it out of my mind. I'd never really thought of escape. It was too baffling a thought, too much against the grain of what was already so hard to accommodate.

It was dark when we pulled up to the Master's door. My boots and harnesses were taken off, everything but the phallus, and all the other ponies were whipped away to the public stables, pulling the empty coach after them.

I stood still thinking of Jerard's other words and wondering at the strange, hot shiver that went through me when the Mistress lifted my face and brushed my hair back from it.

"There, there," she said again in that tender voice. She blotted my forehead and my wet cheeks with a smooth handkerchief of white linen. I looked right into her eyes, and she kissed my lips, my c**k almost dancing, as the kiss took the breath out of me.

She slipped the phallus out so quickly I was pulled off-balance, glancing back at her in alarm. And then she disappeared into the rich little house, and I stood shaken, gazing up at the high-peaked roof and the fine sprinkling of stars above it, realizing I was alone with the Master, his thick strap in his hand as always.

He turned me around and had me march along the broad paved road back in the direction of the marketplace.

SOLDIERS' NIGHT AT THE INN

For hours Beauty slept.

And only vaguely was she aware of the Captain jerking the bell rope. He was up and dressed without an order to her. And when she fully opened her eyes, he stood over her in the dim light of a new hearth fire, his belt still unbuckled. In one swift movement he slipped it from around his waist and snapped it beside him. Beauty couldn't read his face. It looked hard and removed and yet there was a little smile on his lips, and her loins immediately acknowledged him. She could feel a deep stirring of passion inside, a soft discharge of fluids.

But before she could break through the languor, he had pulled her up and deposited her on the floor on her hands and knees, pressing her neck down and forcing her knees wide apart. Beauty's face flamed as the strap walloped her between the legs, stinging her bulging pubis. Again came a hard slap to the lips, and Beauty kissed the boards, wagging her bu**ocks up and down in submission. The licking of the strap came again, but carefully, almost caressingly punishing the protuburant lips, and Beauty, fresh tears spilling to the floor, gave an openmouthed gasp, lifting her hips higher and higher.

The Captain stepped forward, and with his large naked hand covered Beauty's sore bottom, rotating it slowly.

Beauty's breath caught in her throat. She felt her hips lifted, swung, pushed down, and a little throbbing noise came out of her. She could still remember Prince Alexi at the castle telling her he had been made to swing his hips in this ghastly, ignominious fashion.

The Captain's fingers pressed into Beauty's flesh, squeezing her bu**ocks together.

"Wag those hips!" came the low command. And the hand thrust Beauty's bottom up so high that her forehead was sealed to the floor, her br**sts pulsing against the boards, a throbbing groan choked out of her.

Whatever she had thought and feared so long ago at the castle didn't matter now. She churned her bottom in the air. The hand withdrew. The strap licked up at her sex, and in a violent orgy of movement she wagged and wagged her bu**ocks as she had been told to do.

Her body loosened, lengthened. If she had ever known any other posture but this she couldn't clearly remember it. "Lord and Master," she sighed, and the strap smacked her little mound, the leather scraping the clitoris as it thickened. Faster and faster Beauty swung her bottom in the circle, and the harder the strap licked her the more the juices in her surged, until she could not hear the sound of the strap against the slick lips, her cries coming from deep in her throat, almost unrecognizable to her.