Chapter One
To The Casual Observer
The car was from Boston and the three youthful tourists inside had been enjoying the
picturesque roadside scenery when someone observed that they were no longer on a main road
and that they were, most likely, lost. At that moment, they were passing a series of hilly
pastures surrounded by a double wire fence. One tourist observed that the fence had small
signs every fifty feet or so stating that trespassing was forbidden, that the land was
posted and that the fence was electrified.
“Guess they don’t want anyone going in there,” one of the two young men in the car
said.
“Or anyone getting out,” the driver said with a laugh as he finished off his second
beer and tossed the can out the window toward the fence. (He had no idea how true his
off-hand remark really was). The aluminum beer can arched through the air and hit the
fence, sending off a fury of sparks and a loud popping sound as the sports car cruised by.
In the distance, behind the fence, small horses grazed, and they all looked up suddenly at
the noise. They then focused as one on the red BMW convertible and it three occupants.
“I’ll be damned,” the girl in the right front seat said as she studied the horses
from a distance.
“What? Where?” chorused the two males.
“I’d swear those horses, or whatever they are, were waving at us. Weird,” said the
girl. “They kind of raised their front feet towards us. Didn’t you see that?”
“I didn’t see anything except a fried beer can,” said the driver, who had slowed and
was looking for a place to stop and take a pee.
“They waved,” the girl insisted, but her companions ignored her and began to search
for a place to stop.
***
As the sports car moved on, each horse suddenly started and then trotted awkwardly
off in the opposite direction, while thoughts of being rescued faded as the vehicle moved
over the hill and their individual internal electronic probes registered disapproval at
the group attempting to signal the car’s occupants with a wave of their feet. Dori
Alexander and her companion ponies knew they were going to pay for the indiscretion of the
single, futile attempt to signal.
If the tourists had been sober, or if they had been using binoculars, they would have
noted that the waving horses were unlike other horses they might have seen in the Vermont
countryside. These horses had unusual front legs and the rear legs were strangely bent
with different joints between shoulder and hoof. They were smaller than most horses and
had very short necks. Their coats were more like rough buckskin than a real horse’s hair
and had shorter heads. They moved slowly and stiffly on their odd-shaped legs and could
only graze on shrubs or bushes above the ground because their mouths could not reach the
earth. They wore bands for hobbles on their hind and forefeet and each wore a locked
leather and steel harness and bit. These horses were not of the equine species. They were
human. They were female and from the elite New England Mountain School for Equestrians.
They would each have dearly liked to be freed. Bound in the head and body of a young
horse, gagged and harnessed, the four had been turned out to pasture for some exercise. To
make sure they didn’t wander too far, each wore a set of control plugs. Inside each
ponygirl were three remote controlled electronic plugs that, when activated, motivated
each pony to do exactly as she was told and trained to do. Their sweeping tails attached
to the rear plug, buried well up inside the rear aperture. A vaginal plug and an oral one
completed the control trio. As soon as they carried out the seemingly innocent move of
raising one front foot a few inches off the ground, (which was all the harnesses
permitted), their monitoring guard pressed several buttons on the control panel in the
nearby watchtower silo. The ponies instantly received electrical shocks and buzzes in all
three plug/probes. At the same time, they heard in their ears the orders to return
immediately. They turned and trotted slowly and awkwardly toward the barn.
“We’re in for it now,” thought Dori. She knew that the school would have some
terrible punishment waiting for them and she was both fearful and annoyed that a mere wave
to a couple to guys would bring such harsh penalties. Dori thought about the decision she
had made to come to the summer session of the school and she wondered if she’d ever get
back home to Virginia. She recalled briefly, as she trotted with the odd gait of a
stiff-legged pony, the day she’d left home for Vermont.
Chapter Two
Escape
“Hey, Dori. Where are you going?”
“Riding school. I’ll be back in the fall. Have a nice summer, you guys…you poor
slobs,” she added softly as she closed the car door and started the engine.
With that, Dori left her little group of former high school friends and drove off for
six weeks at a crack riding academy in New England. She had told only a few people about
this and actually wanted no one to know because she was sure that her horsy friends would
bug her about going to school for something that they all thought they were perfect at
already. Dori knew better. She had been riding for some years, mostly western style, and
she secretly yearned for the more exacting and sophisticated disciplines of the English
seat. When she received a small, personally addressed brochure inviting her to attend the
New England Mountain School for Equestrians, she hounded her father mercilessly until he
agreed to come up with the tuition for the full summer session. Dori was 19 and had
graduated from high school. She’s spent a year at the local community college getting
reasonable grades, but she dropped out, bored with the freshman subjects and ho-hum
classes.
“I’ll go to the University next year,” she told her single parent Dad. He accepted
this, knowing in his mind that she was unlikely to return to college. In any case, he
thought, the summer school would keep Dori from getting into trouble with the local
riff-raff – half were well-heeled society types, the rest were trailer trash from the
other side of town. Both groups rode, albeit at different levels of skill and with
somewhat different financing. The little Virginia community had the luxury of having lots
of horses and plenty of space for riding.
So, with her little white car packed to the roof with her clothes and gear, Dori said
goodbye to her buddies and headed for the interstate and the distant mountains of
Vermont.
On the map, Green River Center, VT, was the nearest town to the school. They told
her to phone when she got that far and someone would come and pick her up. Because she was
too early, she drove on through the quaint New England town and tried to guess where the
school might be. By three o’clock, she had given up and called the school from the Howard
Johnson’s Motel. An hour later, she was met by a woman and a man in a bright red
four-wheel drive Range Rover. They were both well turned out in what Dori could tell was
expensive and fashionable riding attire: white turtleneck shirts under dark blue down
vests, perfectly fitted beige breeches, black boots that Dori thought were probably
Hermes, and black leather gloves. They introduced themselves as Karen and Greg. They
formally shook hands, the couple using the typical German quick grip, once up, once down,
then a quick release motion that Dori had encountered during her visits to the Continent.
She thought it was a rather curt way to meet and greet someone, but she was used to it.
“You are expected,” said Greg with a thin smile. Dori thought he looked about two or
three years older than she was and that Karen could easily have been his sister. She had
the same sandy blond hair, carefully cut and cared for to give her the “carelessly cool”
look.
“Follow us in your car and we’ll show you where to park,” Karen said and she turned
and got back into the driver’s seat of the Rover.
Dori got back in her car and followed as they turned north on the road out of town
and drove for about ten miles. They made another turn and ended up on a dirt road that
wound up through the hills and into the pine forest. The road was marked with deep ruts,
large rocks and washouts where rain run-off had dug near trenches across the road. The
little Ford had a hard time on the hilly track and twenty minutes of rough road later,
they were at an impressively massive iron gate that Karen unlocked and relocked once the
two cars passed through.
“We have arrived. Welcome to the school,” Greg said as he got out of the Rover and
walked over to Dori, who had lowered her window. “Park your car there and come with us.
We’ll get your luggage later.”
Dori pulled into a small clearing next to the road, locked her car and jumped into
the high right seat of the SUV. Karen, Dori observed, had a very nice figure. She was
perhaps a few years older and exhibited an attitude that Dori found somewhat
condescending, as she drove expertly, if not a bit too fast, over the rutted Vermont road.
Greg sat in the seat behind her, saying nothing. Dori noted the Rover’s subtle
modifications, including seat belts that could be actually locked, requiring a key to
release, and multiple heavy-duty tie-down rings on the floor. The locks and tie-downs
seemed nearly as ominous as the German handshake.
“Students who come here for the first time,” Karen said, “tend to find this operation
a bit imposing. As you will see, we are not like other riding schools…except perhaps for
the old Prussian Equestrian Academies of Europe where students often spent their entire
lives.”
“I’ve read about them,” Dori said with enthusiasm. “Weren’t they very strict,
though?”
“Strict is perhaps too generous a word,” Karen retorted, swinging the Rover
completely off the road and onto the grassy side to avoid a tremendous pot hole. “They put
training of the body and mind above all else. If you didn’t cooperate, you were fucked.”
“I suppose that only worked in those times,” Dori added slowly, wondering exactly
which of the two possible meanings Karen had intended to her comment.
“She means that literally,” Greg piped up from the back seat, as if he had read her
mind. “If you didn’t do as you were told, you found yourself being chained to a bed, horse
whipped and buggered day and night.” He licked his lips unconsciously.
“Well,” said Dori, not wanting to seem offended by the rough talk, “I think
discipline has its place. We’re too easygoing today and people get away with too much.”
“Correct,” snapped Karen. “And you, Miss Dori, have you been properly disciplined at
home?”
“My Dad is pretty tough. He used his belt on me a few times when I really screwed up.
The scars went away, but you can be damned sure I didn’t do it again.”
“What were you doing?” Greg asked, looking attentively at Dori’s back and seeming to
appraise the rest of her as well.
“He caught me hanging out with the wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We got into trouble and all got arrested. But the police let me go when my Dad intervened.
He took me home, told me I had to be punished and kept me in my room for a week after the
whipping.”
“Did he tie you up?” Karen asked casually, looking straight ahead as she concentrated
on her driving.
“Well, no,” Dori said cautiously. “He made me hold onto the bed post and told me that
if I didn’t he’d take what he called, ‘sterner measures.’”
“Some people might think that was child abuse,” Karen muttered, concentrating on
keeping the speeding truck on the road.
“Yeah, well, I was pretty mad at the time, but by the end of the week, I realized I
could have ended up in jail with a police record. Next to that option, the belt was easy.
I never told anyone about this until now anyway,” Dori added, surprised that she even
shared this information with total strangers.
“Well, unlike the Prussian Academies, this is only for the summer…” said Karen.
“Except for a chosen few,” interrupted Greg. “The Head picks a few special students
to stay year round. They have their own quarters and work as grooms and instructors.”
“That’s us,” Karen added.
“Oh, really? You guys were students?”
“Of course,” said Greg. “It’s a pretty good life up here away from it all. I sure
like it.”
“I can’t say that idea doesn’t appeal to me,” Dori said cautiously, considering the
usual options available to well-to-do young women like herself. She had no desire to
become a suburban housewife and the idea of getting married right out of high school and
raising kids simply didn’t appeal to her. Most of her friends were already engaged or
still looking for “Mister Right,” which meant finding an intelligent, good-looking,
well-off career professional who could immediately afford a nice house or estate and had
family money. The idea of spending her life with horses and people who understood them was
pretty appealing as an alternate life style.
The Rover climbed further into the hills and soon arrived at a large,
comfortable-looking stone house with several stone barns, silos and outbuildings nearby.
Dori could see two Olympic-size, covered riding arenas, some loafing sheds in nearby white
fenced paddocks and, a few hundred meters to the north, a low, round, stone and metal shed
that looked like a squat fortress. Behind the house was a much larger stone building that
appeared to have been initially designed as a hotel. Dori assumed this was a dormitory.
It was cool inside the house and her guides took her immediately up the wide natural
wood staircase and showed her into a small, but beautifully furnished bedroom. There was
an adjoining bathroom, complete with antique steel porcelain bathtub, washstand and an
old-fashioned toilet with the overhead water tank and pull chain.
“Lovely,” Dori said. “I can handle this. It’s like an old inn.”
“Quite,” said Karen, turning on her heel and walking to the door to join her partner.
“This will be your temporary quarters. Dinner will be at six o’clock sharp. Formal attire
is required. Take a bath and use the robe on the bed. Someone will be back shortly with
your proper attire for dinner.”
“Okay, but my stuff is back in my car,” said Dori absently, as she checked out the
elaborate selection of toiletries on the dresser.
“We will provide the uniform,” said Greg, rather solemnly.
“Okay,” said Dori, wondering why she’d brought all her clothes if this was going to
end up a “uniform campus.”
The school provided her with everything she needed, based on the information she had
written in the eight-page questionnaire she filled out a month before. They had asked many
questions, a lot of them very personal; including the kinds of relationships she had with
boys in school and with girlfriends as well. They insisted on a long list of her exact
measurements, including her neck, wrist, ankle, calf, bicep and thigh circumferences, as
well as the usual bust, waist and hips figures.
“What the hell are they going to do with that kind of stuff?” Dori had asked her
father. He shrugged, knowing that the horsy set had some odd habits and social pretensions
that he personally found annoying, but generally harmless. Dori answered most questions
honestly; having been told that any dishonesty that was discovered would be grounds for
immediate dismissal or “strict disciplinary action.”
Dori’s father seemed a bit reluctant to sign the parental agreement in the school’s
contract, pointing out that she was no longer a minor and that anything she signed was
legally binding for her, not him. “This is pretty detailed, Honey,” he said, after
studying the twelve page document. “You will have to do what you’re told and I know that’s
not your style. They imply that punishment is pretty strict, but if you sign this, you
agree to take whatever they hand out. You just can’t walk away, you know.”
“I know, Dad. I read it. But I think I’m ready for this and it can’t be that bad.
There are lots of kids who ride and they are a lot harder-headed than I am. If it’s as bad
as you think, no one would go there.”
Her father shook his head, but he signed and wrote the large check, remarking that,
based on what he’d read in the contract; “the school will really own you, body and soul,
for as long as you’re there.”
“Like forever, right?” Dori sassed back.
“Well, if they wanted to enforce this paragraph,” her lawyer father mused. “Yes, I
suppose forever. But that’s a long, long time and I have no intention of sending them any
more money after the summer is over, so I doubt they’d keep you there gratis. Just
remember that during the next twelve weeks.” Neither of them knew that in a few weeks,
Dori would be in fact, literally owned by the school.
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