Guess Who’s Coming to Lunch
They walked us behind the barn to a concrete area with taps and gutters. Giving us a real shower was out of question due to our leather tack, so the handlers quickly sponged us down. I should have been thankful for the clear cool water, but I could not lose the impression that they were actually grooming us in some form – which was rather creepy.
On the other side of the building, thoughtfully placed in its shadow, our lunch was waiting.
I was swiftly disabused of the notion that things would go back to anywhere near normal for mealtime. Sturdy plastic boxes were lined up on long picnic tables, green ones and blue ones in turns. The green boxes contained diced raw fruit and vegetables, their blue neighbours were filled with water. We would be having our lunch out of troughs.
“Stay!” Kandrin commanded.
We stopped some metres away from the tables to let the handlers twiddle with our head gears. I learnt that the DACC standard bridle was kind of modular: Opening hidden locks left and right, Kendrick removed the bit from my mouth. I thankfully slurped my saliva, icky as it may sound. After more than two hours my mouth was free again! And together with a loosened chin strap this new freedom allowed me to actually move my aching jaw. Plastic-boxed tree hugger lunch, here I come!
I couldn’t fail to notice that they had left our armbinders on us. Yet my indignation about eating without the use of my hands was belittled by the relief of not having a piece of steel between my teeth anymore.
“You’ve got fifteen minutes!”
Not wasting precious seconds I stepped over to my personal troughs with my number on them – high-stepped, since even with the bit gone, I was still under bridle. It took no genius to figure out how we were supposed to have lunch. I bent over and stuck my head in the water box, careful not to tilt over. There were no benches. Horses eat standing up. That was of course bad news for my feet, trapped in their unnatural position. I considered it prudent not to complain about it, though. As I greedily drank from the water I noticed an uncommon flavour, maybe from electrolytes or from magnesium against cramps. I didn’t give thought to drinking like that. But when I switched to the food box, my reduction to animal status became bitterly obvious once again.
Between ploughing with my nose through lettuce leaves and apple dice I straightened up every minute or so to get relief from the straining bent-over position. Now and then I glanced at the empty sets at the table row’s far end. Obviously the elusive Group 2 hadn’t yet surfaced from wherever its “activities” had dragged it and therefore was late to outdoor lunch.
Halfway through my meal, and head-deep in my food trough, a rhythmic beat reached me, accompanied with a jingle. The rhythm I immediately recognised as a trot; the jingling sound was new. I had reckoned lungeing to be as weird as it would get, but as I looked up and towards the road, my child-like sense of wonder was called into action once again. For said noises heralded the arrival of the Twoers. The term “surreal” was a good start to describe the scene, the term “bizarre” could take it from there. In a long line the members of Group 2 arrived, bridled, bitted and high-stepping. In addition to the basic tack each one was wearing some sort of body harness – a black leather affair consisting of a waist cincher and lots of belts, buckles and D-rings. What really stunned me was that the girls were pulling two-wheeled lightweight carts, soon to be introduced to me as sulkies. Each cart was manned by a handler who ensured the pony’s correct gait by means of reins and buggy whip.
They were bloody serious about the horse play stuff! That the programme was heavy on symbolism, with the whips and outfits and dressage, was old news. But this was way over the top. All the stuff they had me subjected to so far had made me pretend to be a horse. The escalation I was witnessing right now, with my mouth still full of lettuce, shattered this last mental safety net in the most brutal way possible. The DACC actually used inmates as beasts of burden, turning them into equines on every but the biological level!
I stood flabbergasted, my lunch forgotten, staring at the first ponygirl as she gracefully trotted past me towards the barn gate. Her panting gave evidence of having been driven hard, and so did the swollen and discoloured parts of her skin where her handler’s whip had drawn welts. Yet my eyes were caught by another detail: the quite realistic horse tail emerging from between her buttocks.
“Why are you looking at her, Seventeen?” Miss Cuntling mocked me from the nearby table end. “Got a crush on the filly?”
Questioning and ridiculing the victim’s sexual orientation; a classic tool of debasement. As if they need any more of them around here. Each and every aspect appeared to be optimised for non-stop humiliation. And no matter how bad things were, literally everybody of the staff was entitled to make them worse.
I was snapped out of my consternation by the burning kiss of Kandrin’s crop, well placed on my left breast.
“Planning to answer any time soon? Did you like what you just saw?”
Remembering my role in this mind-fuck fest, I double-clonked a ‘no’.
“Too bad.”
No fool, I knew I had just seen my imminent future. Boy, I really hoped those tails were attached to the harnesses, because I had some alarming ideas regarding the alternatives. Before I forget: The source of the jingling sounds turned out to be little bells fastened to the girls’ nipples. I already told you about tools of debasement, right?
Two minutes later Kandrin declared lunch to be over. I had lost my appetite anyway.
Stories by Venom
venomstories 
December 31st, 2013 at 18:04
I truly hope that when the 90 days ‘re up that they truly get to go home! Though I now fear they’re going up for sale. But the powers that be really can’t let that happen! Just one of these girls smart enough to get the others together at a really good lawyer first then a newspaper could blow such a sweet deal for the government. And nobody’s going to believe the line ” I didn’t know they were doing that there! “.Especially when the press publishes the pictures of the girl who got whipped! Next stop for that judge and prosecutor the old iron bar hotel. With that as an incentive, none of these girl can be allowed to go free after their 90 day sentences.
January 3rd, 2014 at 01:07
Having a few days to think over what I read, it occurs to me that the water is laced with one or two more likely things. The first that occurs to me is a laxative. The second is a mind altering drug to make them more accepting of their training. It could also be to make them believe they are Pony Girls. In which case they’d accept being sold into slavery. For that is what this story is pointing at. After all if the girls serve their time and get released and get together with a good lawyer, the STATE will have to explain to the people just why it ALLOWED a prison for girls to train them in fetish play. They’d also have to explain the use of a single tail whip on the girls as punishment. Even in England the use of a whip for punishment on a person of ANY age is NOT ALLOWED by LAW! With that in mind, none of these girls can be allowed to be released after serving their ninety days. Too many people stand to lose their freedom for it.
January 3rd, 2014 at 15:50
I honestly haven’t thought of laced water. For once there is no trap: The water is indeed mixed with magnesium against cramps. After all, the girls have got to wear their pony boots and armbinders for hours.
As for your legal concerns: Think of the society in the story of being somewhat altered or influenced. Let’s say PBC takes place a couple of years in the future. Juvenile delinquency has increased — either because there are indeed more crimes committed by kids and young adults, or because the definition has changed. Why would the latter happen? Maybe the government needs to distract from failures. Maybe a politician is on the hustings. He or she wants to come across as a man/woman of action. The politician declares juvenile delinquency/CO2 emissions/food with too much sugar in it/food with not enough sugar in it the main problem of our fair country. But be not afraid, the politician already has the solution. Sticking with youth crime, it is special camps and “educational techniques also used for the dressage of animals” (yes, I am quoting myself here). And people are expected to accept those measures “for the greater good”. And they routinely do, because not doing means endorsing juvenile delinquency. You can see this pattern everywhere, from trying to ban s&m porn from the internet in the UK to rants against nuclear fusion (mind you, fusion, not fission — they are completely different, but if you advocate fusion, you get Chernobyl and Fukushima thrown at you).
I gave the whole thing some thought on an early state of the story. The following is part of a chapter not yet published, so I only write down the main points without any spoilers:
Of course our hot-shot politician doesn’t mention all the fetish stuff, most likely he/she isn’t even fully aware of all the aspects. There are advisors, counsellors, all kinds of subordinates, men for the grunt work. Layer over layer. Going down, each one has less influence in the overall idea, but is to an increasing degree in charge of the practical execution.
Example (from concept to execution):
1: “To get wayward kids back on track, we need new educational techniques.”
1 hands it down to 2
2: “Equine training is full of educational techniques.”
2 hands it down to 3
3: “Don’t show wayward kids often a reduced attention span?”
3 consults with 3a
3a: “Horses often wear blinders so they are not distracted. Let’s adapt that!”
3 hands it down to 4
4: “We need at least fifty sets of blinders for our project, plus headgear that fits humans.”
By now 1 is too far above to even be bothered with details. But he or she gave clear orders, and the end result is in line with those orders.
But let’s say that society does have a problem with the result and somebody does file a suit. Nobody in their right mind can assume that the authorities greenlighted the systematic abuse and sexual debasement of inmates. Some of the handlers will be charged, maybe the warden will resign. That’s it.
My reply turned out to be a bit longer than I expected, but what I just described is indeed a core point of my story. Don’t get me wrong, anybody: I don’t say all criminals are just victims of the society, and neither is it implied in PBC (“Kick somebody into intensive care, you are misunderstood; take a posh car for a joyride, you are in for a two-year stint!”). But it is undeniable how quickly things go south when simple answers are presented for complex questions.
July 5th, 2015 at 05:52
I’ve returned to read your past comments as you recently noted under Chapter 22. I’m content to others explore the legalities of this tale and what our heroine needs must do to seek retribution. For me, the real power of Pony Boot Camp is watching one person’s descent into submission and bondage, fully against her will. The fact she’s a spirited person and a fighter, with hangups and all, makes her tragic and fascinating. Don’t get me wrong: I think the fact it is a government program that has been ingeniously planned out adds a whole level of “mind fuck” to her predicament. But it’s her determination to retain her sanity and dignity, even though the cards are stacked against her, that makes this tale really zing. And her relationships to Kendrick and Kandrin and even some of the other pony girls is fascinating and keeps it real. Finally, you’ve taken such care with attention to detail, telling the tale at a pace that makes the story painfully real.
July 7th, 2015 at 01:53
I really like how you characterise our heroine: “[…] a spirited person and a fighter, with hangups and all”. That’s exactly how I see her: strong, yet opportunistic for the sake of self-preservation. A survivor. She cannot be trusted entirely, though, for her statements and rants are heavily biased.
I love her as a creation of mine, but she proves to be quite a difficult character.
July 7th, 2015 at 02:17
Ah,hah! So you’re finding it difficult to rein her in as well. Spirited indeed! Looks like you’re just going to have to let her tell you where this story needs to go.
July 7th, 2015 at 02:22
I fear so. That’s the price for creating a, let’s say, refined character. I cannot bend her any other way without endangering the story’s integrity.