Beauty's Release by Anne Rice

"What would happen if it was put on our cocks?" I wondered. "Best not to think about that," I told myself.

  What I thought about day to day was improving my form, marching better than the other ponies, deciding which coachmen I liked best, which coaches I enjoyed most pulling. I grew to love the other ponies, to understand their state of mind.

  Ponies felt safe in their harnesses. They could take any manner of abuse as long as they were confined within their appointed role. It was intimacy that terrified them more than anything, the prospect of being taken out of harness and into some village bedroom where a lone man or woman might talk to them and play with them to his or her heart's content. Even the Public Turntable was too intimate for them. They shuddered when they saw the slaves up there being paddled for the crowd. That is why it was such a torment to them when the village boys and girls played with them. Yet they loved nothing more than to pull the chariots in the race on fair day with the whole village watching them. It was what they were "born" to do.

  I passed into this state of mind without entirely sharing it. After all, I rather adored the other punishments, too. But I didn't miss them. I was happier in bit and harness than out of them. And, whereas these other punishments of castle and village life tended to isolate the slave, pony existence drew us together. And we amplified each other's pleasure and pain.

  I became used to all the stable boys, to their jovial greetings and responses. In fact, they were part of the comradery even when they paddled us or tormented us. And it was no secret that they loved their work.

  Tristan all this time seemed just as content as I was, and in the recreation yard he admitted this. Things were harder for him; he was more gentle than me by nature.

  But the real test and the real change came for him when his former Master, Nicolas, started to hang about.

  At first, we saw Nicolas only occasionally passing the wagon yard. And, though I had not been very interested in him on the voyage from the Sultanate, I began to realize he was quite a charming and aristocratic young man. His white hair gave him a special luster; and he always wore velvet as if he were a Lord; and the expression on his face struck terror in the ponies, especially those who had pulled his coach.

  After a few weeks of his quiet comings and goings, we started to see him at the gate every day. He was there in the morning, watching when we trotted off, and there at evening when we came back. And, though he pretended to be watching everything around him, his eyes settled on Tristan again and again.

  Finally, one afternoon he sent for Tristan to draw a little market cart for him, just the sort of chore that froze my soul. I was scared for Tristan. Nicolas would walk right by him and torment him. I hated to see Tristan harnessed and rigged to the cart. Nicolas stood by with a long, stiff thrash in his hand, the kind that really marks the legs, just studying Tristan as he was bitted and fitted up well. Then he whipped Tristan's thighs hard to move him out of the yard.

  "What a terrible thing for Tristan," I thought. "Tristan is too gentle for these things. If he had a mean streak, as I have, he would know how to handle that imperious wretch. He does not."

  Seems I was quite wrong. Not about Tristan's lack of a mean streak, but about its being a terrible thing.

  Tristan wasn't back to the stables until near midnight. And, after he was fed and massaged and oiled, he told me in low whispers what had happened:

  "You know how frightened of him I was," he said, "of his temper, his disappointment in me."

  "Yes, go on."

  "And for the first few hours he whipped me mercilessly, all through the market. And I tried to be cold, to think only of being a good pony, to put him in the scheme of things, like a star in a constellation. Not to think on who he really was. But I kept thinking of when we had loved each other, he and I. And by noontime I knew I was grateful just to be near him. How wretched it was. He wouldn't stop whipping me, no matter how well I trotted. And he never spoke a word."

  "And then?" I asked.

  "Well, in the middle of the afternoon, after I'd been watered and rested on the edge of the marketplace, he drove me up the main road to his door. Of course, I remembered the house. I've recognized it every time we've passed it. And when I realized he was untying me from the cart, my heart stopped. He left me in bit and harness and whipped me into the hallway and then into his room."

  I was wondering if this wasn't forbidden. But what did it matter? What could a pony do when such things occurred?

  "Well, there was the bed we'd made love in, the room where we had talked. And he made me squat low, on the floor, facing his writing desk. And then he sat down at the desk and looked at me as I waited. You can imagine how I felt. That position is the worst, squatting, and my cock was unbelievably hard, and I still wore the harness, my arms bound tight against my back, and the bit with the reins over my shoulders. And he was picking up his damned pen to write!

  "'Drop the bit,' he said to me, 'and answer my questions just as you answered them once before.' I did as he said, and then he began to interrogate me about all aspects of our existence: what we ate, how we were groomed, what were the worst trials. I answered everything as calmly as I could, but finally I was crying. I couldn't control it. And all he did was write down the things I said. No matter how my voice changed or how I struggled, he kept writing. I confessed that I loved the pony life, yet it was hard. I admitted that I didn't have the strength that you have, Laurent. I told him you were my idol in all things, that you were perfect. But I longed for a stern Master still, a loving and stern Master. I confessed everything, things I didn't even know that I still felt."

  I wanted to say, "Tristan, you did not have to tell him. You could have concealed your soul. You could have taunted him and insulted him." But I knew this was no good for Tristan, this line of thought.

  I kept silent and Tristan went on with his account.

  "Then the most remarkable thing happened," he said. "Nicolas set down the pen. And for a moment he said and did nothing but gesture for me to be quiet. Then he came and knelt before me and put his arms around me, and he broke down. He said that he loved me, had never stopped loving me, and these months had been agony for him...."

  "Poor boy," I whispered.

  "Laurent, don't make fun of it. It's serious."

  "I'm sorry, Tristan, go on."

  "He kissed me and embraced me. He said that he had failed me when we had left the Sultanate. That he should have whipped me for my confusion in not wanting to be rescued and guided me through it – "

  "It's about time he realized that."

  "And he wanted to make up for it now. He wasn't allowed to take off my harness – there was a stiff fine for that and he had to respect the law – but we could make love together, he said. And we did. We lay on the floor together, as you and I did in the Sultan's bedroom, and I took his cock in my mouth as he took mine. Laurent, I've never known such pleasure. He is my secret lover again and my secret Master."

  "What happened after that?"

  "He drove me out again into the streets, and thereafter he kept his hand on my shoulder, and when he whipped me I knew that it was giving him pleasure. Everything was magnified. I was exalted again. Later, in the woods near his manor house, we made love a second time, and before he put the bit back in my mouth he kissed it lovingly. And he told me that all this must be kept secret. That the rules regarding the village pony stock were very, very strict.

  "Tomorrow we're to lead his team when he goes to the country. We'll be tethered to his coach for some time almost every day, and he and I will have our secret moments when we can."

  "I'm happy for you, Tristan," I said.

  "But it's going to be so hard, Laurent, waiting for opportunities with him. Yet it's thrilling, isn't it, never knowing when they will come?" I never worried about Tristan after that. And, if others knew of his renewed love with Nicolas, they did not seem to mind. When the Captain of the Guard came round to talk to me, he said nothing about it and treated Tristan just as affectionately as be
fore. He told us both that Lexius had been taken out of the castle kitchen almost immediately and he now served the Queen on the Bridle Path every day. The fierce Lady Juliana had also taken a liking to him and was having a hand in his training. He was becoming an exceptionally accomplished slave.

  "So now I don't have to worry about either Lexius or Tristan," I thought.

  But all this set me to thinking again about love. Had I ever loved one of my Masters? Or was love elicited from me only by my slaves? Surely I had felt a frightening love for Lexius when I'd whipped him in his chamber. And I felt love, profound love, for Jerard now. In fact, the harder I whipped Jerard with my hand the more I loved him. Maybe it would always be so with me. The moments in which my soul yielded, in which everything formed a complete pattern, were moments when I was in command.

  But one strange contradiction to this troubled me. It was Gareth, my handsome stable-boy Master. As month passed into month, I grew to love him too much.

  Every night, Gareth spent some time in our stall, pinching my welts, scratching them with his fingernails as he complimented me on what I'd learned, or how well I'd done, or passed on to me the praise of some generous villager.

  If he thought that Tristan and I hadn't been whipped enough that day – and this was common when we were not the last two in a team – he marched us out to the training yard, a large place at the opposite end of the stable from the other yards, and there he whipped both of us along with other neglected ponies until we were good and sore, having us all run before him in a small circle.

  All detailed matters of grooming for Tristan and me he attended to personally. He scrubbed our teeth, shaved our faces, washed and combed our hair. He clipped our nails. He trimmed our pubic hair and oiled it. He oiled our nipples to soften them after the pinch of the clamps.

  And when we were put in the fair day races for the first time, it was Gareth who calmed us as the screaming and cheering crowds unnerved us, Gareth who hitched us to the little chariots we had to pull and told us to be proud as we strived to win.

  Gareth was always near.

  On those rare occasions when we were to have some new style of harness or rigging, he put it on us himself, explaining it to us.

  For example, after we had been in the stables about four months, high collars were introduced, much like those we'd worn briefly in the Sultan's garden. They were stiff to hold the chin high, and it was impossible to turn the head while wearing one. And this Gareth liked very much. He felt they added style, and provided better discipline.

  As time passed we wore these more and more often. And the reins of our bits were run down through loops on the sides of these collars, so that our heads could be pulled more effectively. It was difficult at first to make turns in these collars. We could not turn our heads even a little as we had been used to do. But soon we did it well, in the manner of real horses.

  On glaring hot days blinders were strapped on us that partially shaded our eyes, only allowing us to see a little of what lay directly before us. It was comforting in a way, yet it made us run at a more dogged and clumsy pace, because we were completely dependent upon the coachman's commands for guidance.

  We were fitted out with ornamental harnesses for festival and fair days. On the anniversary of the Queen's Coronation, all ponies wore leather dripping with fancy buckles, heavy bronze medallions, and jangling bells, and it weighted us down and gave us a new awareness of our bondage, as if we needed it.

  But, in truth, our rigging was so much the same that the smallest change could be used as a punishment. If I showed the slightest sluggishness or sulkiness to Gareth, I was made to wear a longer, thicker bit that disfigured my mouth and made me miserable. An unusually large and heavy phallus was always used at least twice a week to remind us how fortunate we were to have smaller ones the rest of the time.

  And skittish, uneasy ponies were often completely hooded in leather, their ears stuffed with cotton. With only their mouths and noses exposed for breathing, they trotted along in silence and darkness. And it did seem to calm them beautifully.

  The times it was done to me as a punishment, however, I found it completely demoralizing. I cried from start to finish of the day, terrified at being unable to hear or see and whimpering every time a hand touched me. In blind isolation, I was more vividly aware of the picture I made than ever before, I think.

  But, as time passed, I wasn't too often punished, and it became more and more of a catastrophe of the heart when I was, Gareth sparing me nothing of his disappointment and temper. I was too deeply in love with Gareth, and I knew it. I loved his voice, his manner, his mere silent presence. It was for Gareth that I showed my best form, did my best trotting, bore stiff punishments with heartfelt contrition, obeyed with quickness and even joy.

  Gareth often complimented me on my handling of Jerard. He would come into the yard to watch. He said the added whipping made Jerard more animated and frisky. And I enjoyed the praise.

  But, no matter how strong this love for Gareth became, the special love for Jerard grew as well. I became more and more tender with Jerard after the paddlings, kissing him and suckling him and toying with him in ways that weren't too common in the pony recreation yard. I feasted on his body for the whole hour. And, on those days when he wasn't put out for me to play with, I had little trouble finding obedient substitutes. It was amazing the pain I could inflict with my bare hand.

  In fact, sometimes I wondered at my passion for whipping the others. I loved it as much as I loved to be whipped. And in my secret heart I dreamed of whipping Gareth.

  I knew that if I whipped Gareth then the love I felt for him would boil over. It would be beyond my control or recall.

  That never came to pass.

  But I had Gareth. Perhaps he had had a lover in the early months; I was never to know. But by the end of the first half of the year, he was slipping into my stall and lingering there, and behaving restlessly and strangely.

  "What is troubling you, Gareth?" I asked finally, getting the courage to whisper to him in the dark. He might well have whipped me for speaking, but he didn't. He had moved my hands to the back of my neck so that he could rest his head on his folded arms on my back. I rather liked it, him resting there, the feel of him against me. He was running a lazy hand through my hair. Now and then his knee would nudge my cock.

  "Ponies are the only real slaves," he murmured dreamily. "I prefer them to the daintiest Princess. Ponies are magnificent. All men should be given the chance to serve as ponies for a year of their lives. The Queen should have a fine stable at the castle. The Lords and Ladies have asked for it often enough. They could go for little rides in the country with ponies in splendid rigging. There should be a fine academy for the ponies, and more races, don't you think?"

  I didn't answer. I dreaded the races. I was a frequent winner, but it was as frightening a thing as any that I'd ever been made to do. It was performing for amusement again, instead of work. I liked hard discipline and work.

  There was that knee again, against my cock.

  "What do you want from me, beautiful boy?" I asked softly, using the phrase he often used for me.

  "You know what I want, don't you?" he whispered.

  "No," I said. "If I did, I wouldn't have asked."

  "The others will make fun of me if I do it," he said. "I'm supposed to use the ponies when I choose, you know....

  "Why don't you suit yourself and not worry about the others?" I asked.

  That was all the urging he required. He dropped down on his knees and took my cock in his mouth, and soon I was roaring towards a finish in sheer bliss. "It's Gareth, my beautiful Gareth," I kept thinking. Then there was no thought at all. He snuggled against me afterwards, telling me how fine I was, that he loved the taste of it, my juices. When he slipped his cock into my backside, I came close to paradise again.

  And though this happened often, his delicious mouth pleasuring me, he was just as stern a Master afterwards, and I was three times over his shudde
ring slave, crying at his slightest word of disapproval. Now, when he was angry, I thought not only of his handsome face and pleasant voice but of the mouth sucking hard on me in the dark. I cried frantically whenever he scolded me.

  Once I stumbled while pulling a handsome equipage, and when he got wind of it he had me spread out on the stable wall, and he whipped me with a broad leather strap until he wore himself out. I was shuddering in misery, not daring to rub my cock against the stones for fear I'd come. When he released me, I knelt at his feet kissing his coarse rawhide boots over and over again.

  "Don't be clumsy like that again, Laurent," lie said. "It discredits me when you are clumsy." I was crying with gratitude when he let me kiss his hands.

  When spring came round again, I could scarcely believe nine months had passed. Tristan and I lay together in the recreation yard, confessing our fears to each other.

  "Nicolas is going to the Queen," Tristan said. "He is asking to purchase me when the year is out. But the Queen is not pleased with his ardor. What will we do when these days come to an end?"

  "I don't know. Maybe we'll be sold back to the stables," I said. "We're good steeds."

  But it was like all our conversations of this sort – pure speculation. All we knew was that the Queen would consider our cases at the end of the year.

  And when I saw the Captain of the Guard, when he came into the stables and sent for me and let me talk to him, I told him that Tristan was desperate to return to Nicolas, and I was just as desperate to remain where I was.

  After the life of a pony, how could I bear anything else?

  He listened to me with obvious compassion.

  "You're a credit to the stables, both of you," he said. "You earn your feed twice and three times over."

  "More than that," I thought, but I didn't say so.

  "The Queen may grant Nicolas's wish, and as for you, it would be the natural thing for you to be given over for another year. The Queen's more than pleased as it is to hear that you've both quieted down and behaved yourselves. And she has plenty of new playthings to content her at the castle."