Owned And Owner (30 page)

‘All right, you stupid animal, just for that.’
He held down a button on the front bin. Teats jumped and howled, shook her bottom and when he released the button, turned her head to look indignantly at her master. ‘That’s what you’ll get whenever you slow down. So you just keep yourself moving at a good fast walk, you hear me?’ Teats took a breath to scream again, but froze with her mouth wide as
Cerivar’s
hand moved back toward the button. She closed her teeth on the bit, dropped her head and nodded miserably. Garid could see her straining her ass helplessly around the plug.

Cerivar
tied the reins back to the first bin, making Teats raise her head. By this time the little red fruits filled the bins completely, and
Kolyrik
could be seen walking back rapidly along the track toward the barn. The woman’s owner gave her a smack, and she leaned into the harness, the shafts drawing the three bins in her wake. The load wasn’t light, and her movements were restricted by all the straps and, of course, the butt plug. But she walked steadily into the distance, her blinkered head pulled back by the bridle. She couldn’t see well just in front of her, and she stumbled a little when the track curved around the corner of a field. The men watched her stiffen, yelp, and hurry the bins around the curve and out of sight.

They grinned at each other as they turned away.
Cerivar
invited them back to the house for a drink. ‘I’ll need to get some lab work done shortly, so I’ll have to leave you for a while,’ he said. ‘Stay and see how the
marligers
turn out.’ So by and by Garid and Therin strolled down without their host, cold drinks in hand, and watched Teats being unloaded, watered, and sent back again. She kept up an easy pace with the empty cars, but on the way back half an hour later, with the cars heaped high, she was clearly tiring.

‘Is she testing to see how slowly she can go, do you think?’ Therin asked, as they watched her steps begin to lag, a field away from the barn.

‘I think so, though she is tired,’ Garid said.
‘Any second now.’

Garid was right; the shock came a few seconds later. They saw her knees buckle and heard her little shriek. She picked up her pace, struggling to get the load to the safety zone of the barn. They followed her in and watched
Kolyrik
push a water tube past her bit. She gulped the water down and then sagged between the shafts as the manager began to unload the
marligers
.

Kolyrik
looked up. ‘Mr
Cerivar
said you could use the female if you wanted, sirs. Now’s a good time, but if you wouldn’t mind being quick…?’ Therin happily released the woman from the shafts, and she sank to her knees, looking grateful for the respite. Therin took out her bit and used her mouth, controlling her head with the bridle straps. He pushed for her throat, keeping one eye on the unloading process, came when it was about half done, and gave place to Garid. But Garid was thinking of his own little
jeedy
in her cage, and how eager she would be to be let out, to kneel between his legs and suck him for as long as he wanted.

‘Do you use the woman yourself at all,
Kolyrik
?’ he asked.

‘Oh, sometimes, sir, when I’m not busy. I don’t much like the look of her, but it’s hard to see all this
randiness
going on without getting a rod up. My partner left half a year ago, and it’s a long way to town.’

‘Well then, let me unload that last bin for you, and you unload yourself.’

The man smiled,
then
looked doubtful. ‘You have to treat these gently or they bruise.’

‘I’ll be careful.
Watch.’
Garid shifted some fruits with a delicate hand.
Kolyrik
, satisfied, made hasty and rough use of the woman’s mouth while Garid completed the unloading. Then Therin hitched her up again, and sent her on her way with the empty bins.

They thanked the manager, who thanked them also, and went by the house to look in on
Cerivar
. He was just finishing up in the lab, and they settled down for a last cold drink in the shade on his terrace, where they could see Teats when she returned.

They sat in contented silence for a while, and then Garid said, ‘I’m curious about something you said,
Cerivar
, that you like a bit of a fight.’

Cerivar’s
eyes glinted. ‘Well, I always win, you know. I just get to conquer her over and over again.’

‘Why do you think she fights if she never wins?’ asked Therin.
‘More punishment?
I think
Vizay
likes to provoke me sometimes, but she’s subtler about it. Just a little slow to obey, a look in her eye, that sort of thing. She steps it up if I don’t punish her right away.’

‘My slave wouldn’t dare try that, not anymore,’ Garid said grimly. He told
Cerivar
about the escape attempt and the subsequent regime.

‘Teats
has
tried to get away a few times,’
Cerivar
said. ‘
Therin’s
right, it’s just provocation. After all, where would she go? And she’s never hotter than after she’s been punished.’

‘There’s punishment and punishment,’ said Garid. He watched Teats in the distance, pulling her load toward the barn. ‘Or shall we say it’s on a continuum? Anywhere from a light sexy flogging that gets them hot and hardly hurts, through a hard whipping that punishes but makes them hot afterwards, to a really severe punishment that gives them no pleasure at all and gets something through to them that they need to learn.’

‘And all points in between, yes,’ said
Cerivar
. ‘I did have to use the last kind when she fought being a pony. I quite enjoyed her struggling, up to the point where it started losing me races. Cold water, lots of it, works every time. Five minutes under the hose and you wouldn’t know her.’

‘You have to draw the line somewhere,’ Therin agreed. ‘Mind you,
Miseko
had
Vizay
so well trained that I’ve hardly had to worry about it, once I made sure she knew who was boss.
Miseko
showed me her routines, and the rules he keeps her to; it was straightforward enough.’

‘No differences in how you treat her?’ Garid asked.

‘Well, I’m a bit restricted by location, except on the weekend when I play with her at
Miseko’s
. I do have to work sometime. After all, I have debts to pay, right?’ He bowed toward Garid. ‘And all because of her, I might add! So I don’t get a chance to do much pony training. I’ve found that when I have
Vizay
at my place she needs to be kept locked up pretty firmly or she distracts me; she’s like a cat, always rubbing up against me. Which is fun, but I was getting behind.’

‘You’ve got that panel to lock her into.
Cerivar
, have you seen that?’

‘Only by
vidcam
; I’ll have to get over there someday. It looked gorgeous.’

‘Wood Nymph from the Rear,’ said Garid, motioning a large rectangle with one hand and curves with the other.

‘Mm-hmm, that’s fun, but I’ve made something simpler when I just want her out of the way for a few minutes. I’ve made a little seat for her.’ He laughed.

‘A seat?’

‘It’s about a meter off the floor. It’s just a thick, smooth, wooden bar sticking out of the wall, curving up, attached…’ his hands outlined a ‘T’ shape with the arms of the ‘T’ curving back, ‘…to another curved bar that holds her round the waist.
Tight.
That one attaches to the wall on either side. When I don’t need her I sit her in that and lock it. She has quite a good time, but it gets uncomfortable after a while.’

Garid thought he’d enjoy seeing this method of storage. He watched Teats pulling her load, almost at the barn now, and
Kolyrik
bringing her in by the bridle.

Cerivar
asked, ‘Did you see her get shocked on that run?’ The others shook their heads. ‘She’s learning. But Garid, to get back to the obedience question, do you never want the fun of dealing with resistance? I’d get bored.’

Garid thought about this. ‘I’m never bored with my slave.’ He lay back in his chair and looked at the horizon, where turquoise was darkening to teal. Pale orange shreds of cloud drifted low. ‘I suppose what I’m dealing with is another kind of resistance. I’m talking about her will, rather than her body. She still has a will, and it’s still a struggle, but it’s quite a subtle one. She’s very docile, she does exactly as she’s told, but I can still see her sometimes, trying to anticipate, or second-guess an order, trying to use her intelligence, trying to be something other than what she is. I like to see her let go of that, give herself up completely. Then mind, body, everything becomes whatever I want it to be. It’s ironic, because in fact she has to use whatever she’s got in order to let go as well as she does.’

‘It probably helps that she can’t speak
Henthen
,’ said Therin.
‘Much harder to take control when she doesn’t understand what’s going on.’

‘I heard you won’t let her talk at all,’ said
Cerivar
.

‘She can’t understand or speak. She’s never been allowed to learn
Henthen
, and she lost any urge to speak a long time ago.’

‘The more severe punishments we were speaking of, I take it?’

‘Yes. I beat it out of her. As far as I’m concerned, women on this planet are animals and shouldn’t be allowed language. But – each to his own.’ He shrugged to show he meant no offense.

‘Too late now in Teats’ case.’
Teats was
leaving the barn again, the empty cars at her tail. They watched her slowly recede into the distance. The setting sun hit the rails, fiery orange lines glinting through green that was suddenly marked with shadows.

‘
Vizay’s
also; she doesn’t know a lot of
Henthen
, but probably more than we think. Anyway, I like listening to her begging to be taken out of her wall seat, in that soft, pleading little voice.’

‘But should you let them speak among themselves?’ Garid enquired. ‘Especially
Ranize
?’

Both men shook their heads. ‘Of course not; who knows what they’d be plotting!’ said
Cerivar
.

‘Hmm.
All right, I’ll suggest a rule that when stables are shared the women are gagged.’

‘That’s no good if they’re sharing a trough,’ said Therin. ‘They’d have to be watched all the time then. I’ll volunteer,’ he grinned slyly. ‘Did you see how
Arageda
stopped his slave’s mouth after you complained at
Miseko’s
? The next time she was there he had her in a tongue press.’ He explained to Garid, who hadn’t seen it. ‘Just two little rectangles of wood held together at the ends with bolts, squeezing her tongue. They go across her mouth like a bit. He had it strapped behind her head so she couldn’t slide it off; apparently she worked it off once.’

‘He was the one who was most interested in the fact that his slave had been talking,’ Garid commented. ‘Good for him.’

‘He’s planning to put a stud in her tongue so she won’t be able to slide it off.’

‘Then he won’t have to use the strap. Nice.
More elegant that way.’

Cerivar
returned to
Garid’s
disciplinary methods. ‘Your slave is the one in the chastity belt, right? I bet she’d do anything to get that off.’

Therin laughed. ‘She gave up on that one ages ago, eh, Garid?’ For a while he had observed, fascinated, as Garid drew out the punishment for his slave’s outrageous misbehavior. He knew that his friend had not yet seen fit to end the punishment. ‘Garid doesn’t think short-term,’ he told
Cerivar
. ‘I hold back on
Vizay
sometimes, just for fun, or make her do things to get the treat. But in the end she always gets to come, a lot.
Garid’s
pet can’t do anything to earn an orgasm; she’s got no hope at all as far as I can see.’

Garid shook his head. ‘She can’t earn one; as a slave she has no right to have orgasms.’

‘Not ever?’

‘Slaves have no rights. If I feel like giving her one, arbitrarily, that’s my choice. All she can do is never, ever
try
for one. If she tried to make herself come, or to manipulate me into making her come, she’d still be thinking it was something she had some control over. I won’t ever let her have one if she thinks that. And she’s learned not to.’

‘So are you ever going to let her come again?’ Therin asked.

‘Once I’m sure she understands, understands deep down, that orgasms are completely at my whim and have nothing whatsoever to do with what she wants, she might get one occasionally.’

‘But you tease her all the time, don’t you?’ said
Cerivar
. ‘I’ve seen the dildos in that belt.’

‘Oh yes, but it’s not just the dildos; I take her right to the brink, and then stop.’ The other two men looked appalled and aroused by this level of cruelty.

‘How often?’

‘Most days.’

‘Are you saying that she can take all that and still not try to come?’ asked
Cerivar
, incredulous.

‘She can now. As I said, she’s learning. The lesson wouldn’t mean much if it wasn’t difficult. I think it’s the one thing that’s done more than anything else to teach her what she is.’