Despite knee-high leather boots that terminated in a horse's hoof, a latex clad body polished to a mirror shine, and a young woman busily tightening a thick, black leather armbinder around his arms, Dylan drew little attention from passersby as he stood in the partial shade of a tree.
Dylan found it hard to hold on to conscious thought as the overwhelming physicality of the moment dominated his mind, his limbic system taking charge and shushing his cortex.
It wasn't a bad feeling though.
The black latex catsuit, dappled by shifting patches of sunlight shining through the late summer leaves above him, Dylan wore had him feeling alternately hot and cold. More likely, the fluctuating sensations were driven by his anticipation - and nervousness - at being Lexi's pony for the Folsom Street Fair.
Dylan's anticipation belied the fact that he had been a pony many times before, but all his previous experiences had been lacking, leaving him unfulfilled, like a yawn cut short too soon.
Today was different.
Today Dylan would have his first experience at the hands of another who shared his own beliefs about pony play, namely that human ponies are behaviorally and visually at their pinnacle when they are controlled with a strong hand aided by copious bondage.
Dylan had all the gear, from hood to hoof, acquired methodically over the years. Although he had been fortunate enough to wear his pony gear with regularity, all his previous partners and handlers had treated him too much like a coveted pet, something to be pampered instead of the human-turned-beast-of-burden that populated his deepest fantasies.
Dylan wanted someone he could trust to take control of him for a couple hours (he was far too enamored with modern amenities to desire, even in his darkest of fantasies, to want to be treated like a horse for very long).
He craved for someone to restrain him in his meticulously collected pony gear and train him like a horse, pushing him to his limits, powering through his resistance, his hesitation, and all his complaints until he felt he could take no more. And then, finally, release him in a sweaty latex ball at her feet.
This was his fantasy.
While he would certainly compromise on the details, it was so far removed from what his past partners and trainers wanted from a human pony that Dylan slowly lost interest in pony play. His interest waned as he began to equate pony play with being cherished, doted on, and admired instead of forcibly harnessed, used and abused.
Eventually, Dylan's mind moved to other fetishes as his vision of pony play was entirely eclipsed by the ideas of those around him.
Then he met Lexi.
She rekindled his desire to become a pony, fanning a spark of desire for pony play, something Dylan had believed to be long extinguished, until it was raging within him again, stronger than ever before.
Dylan recalled the initial, tentative message from Lexi on the forums in which she expressed an interest in pony play and asked some vague questions about how one would train a human pony. He remembered how, after reading it, his heart jumped and he flushed a little. He didn't – still doesn't – know why that happened. Her message never specifically stated what type of pony training she might favor, but the way she talked about human ponies, the phrasing of her questions, it screamed to Dylan that she was like-minded.
As they exchanged messages, Dylan's instincts were proved correct. Their interests aligned perfectly.
Perhaps too perfectly Dylan thought at first: the more they chatted about hypothetical pony scenes, the more blurry the line between fantasy and reality became. Dylan eventually concluded that at some unidentifiable point in the past year, he and Lexi had switched from discussing pony play to online pony role-play.
Thus, it came as a huge surprise to Dylan when Lexi suggested they meet at the Folsom Street Fair, which she would be attending for the first time that year. She hinted that it would be especially fun if Dylan would be willing to be her pony for the day.
Dylan jumped at the idea. It was perfect in so many ways. He would get to meet Lexi and get to finally be the type of pony he wanted to be in a safe, highly public environment.
When Dylan met Lexi an hour before the fair, any remaining concerns he had about the day's planned activities were erased. Seeing her for the first time left him more incredulous than reading that first message from her 11 months before.
She was gorgeous, a statuesque 5'10", which was a perfect mesh with Dylan's 6'2" (in his opinion - not that he was thinking of a future relationship of course) with blonde hair that crested just below her shoulders and friendly blue eyes that were the antithesis of every depraved, filthy sentence she wrote to him for the past year.
Lexi was quick with a smile and just as affable in person as she was online. What's more, to Dylan's delight, she was dressed perfectly for the occasion. She wore English show clothes with breeches that accentuated her slim body and field boots polished to a shine that rivaled the steel spurs around their ankles.
She even carried a jumping crop (something Dylan had forgot to pack) and a riding helmet. Dylan thought the latter was a nice touch even though there would be no actual riding today. Her show attire was immaculate, but clearly not brand new, which gave credence to her claims of being a bio-horse rider.
Dylan waited patiently, as Lexi worked the thick leather sleeve up his arms and began lacing him into his new toy. The armbinder was so new that its flawless obsidian surface creaked constantly as Lexi jockeyed it into position. Each movement infused the air with the smell of fresh leather.
Dylan marveled that his first experience wearing an armbinder felt so private despite the fact that it was occurring on a busy sidewalk.
The armbinder was Lexi's idea but one that Dylan immediately loved. She told Dylan that while she liked the hand hooves ponies wore, she preferred the streamlined look of the monoglove. It reminded her of some of the first human pony photos and artwork she had seen and she likened the difference between hand hooves and armbinder to the difference between a horse at liberty in a field and a highly collected dressage horse during competition radiating immense power barely constrained.
Logically, the analogy was ludicrous, but on mulling it over, Dylan became convinced there was a truth to it though he never could consciously figure out why it felt so right viscerally.
Regardless, Dylan had never worn an armbinder and was quite curious to discover if it was as restricting as so many stories would have him believe. So, it didn't take much convincing for Dylan to make a trip to a renowned leather bondage shop near him and get fitted for a binder.
Luckily, the store was able to have his bespoke binder ready the morning of Folsom, and so it was on the sidewalk, in front of the store that Lexi began the process of fusing Dylan's arms behind him in an ocean of leather.
Dylan felt Lexi adjusting his hands at the bottom of the sleeve so they extended flat, palm to palm before he was jerked bodily as Lexi pulled the laces through row after row of eyelets. Finally reaching the top, a good couple inches above Dylan's elbows, she stopped momentarily to tie a loose knot.
The armbinder was snug enough that Dylan knew he wouldn't be pulling his arms out anytime soon. However, with a good 6 inches between his elbows, it was a comfortable restriction.
Dylan felt another pinch, this time in his armpit, as Lexi tightened the shoulder straps of the binder that snaked through Dylan's armpit and around his neck and shoulders. These straps held the armbinder up on Dylan's arms, so he couldn't work the sleeve down and off his arms.
Lexi's hand moved haltingly along Dylan's latex-clad chest as she positioned the square flap of leather, through which the two shoulder straps crossed in front of him.
Lexi moved out of Dylan's vision for a second time. Moments later, Dylan felt her commence a second round of lace tightening on the armbinder.
Dylan gave an involuntary grunt as his elbows were brought an inch apart.
"Are you okay?" Lexi asked
"Yes" Dylan responded in a low, but not-quite-strangled, voice.
Dylan detected something a little off in Lexi's tone, but he couldn't identify exactly what it was, if it even was there in first place. Her words were over so quickly that he couldn't be certain. No, it must have been his imagination, projecting his own nervousness onto her actions, Dylan thought. He dismissed the thought, but he started to feel uneasy, a small ball of anxiety forming in the pit of his stomach.
Apparently needing no further encouragement, Lexi continued tugging on the laces row by row until reaching the top of the glove for the second time. She redid the loose knot at the top to prevent the bulging leather sleeve from unraveling her most recent handiwork.
Lexi went back to the bottom of the armbinder to tighten all the laces for the third, and final, time.
Dylan was sweating profusely and taking rapid shallow breaths. As his arms were pulled closer together, he found it increasingly difficult to breathe. He was second guessing agreeing to wear the armbinder today. He knew he would be expected to wear his tack for an hour, or even two, so perhaps it was foolhardy to assume he could handle an armbinder for that amount of time when he'd never worn one before.
Lexi interrupted Dylan's thoughts with a satisfied sigh as Dylan felt her lacing reach his elbows for the third time. Dylan's shoulders strained as his elbows touched. Dylan felt an enormous force pulling his arms together as Lexi put all her weight into tugging the laces ever tighter.
A minute later, Lexi reached the top of the sleeve for the last time. This time she tied the laces off tightly and securely.
Dylan was wondering why Lexi was making it so tight. She could have stopped after the first pass. She should have stopped after the second pass. Dylan enjoyed bondage (really enjoyed bondage), but this was a little much for a first encounter. He would have to wear this, in addition to all of his pony gear, for an hour or two while the two of them walked around the fair.
Dylan debated voicing his objections but decided to wait. After all, he could ask to be let out at any time.
With the laces secured, Lexi tightly buckled the final three straps of the armbinder as Dylan craned his neck to watch: one just above the wrists, one below the elbows, and one above the elbows.
The straps were not needed to prevent him from getting free Dylan knew, but he had to admit they looked good. He really hoped he would be able to get photos of himself like this. Although insanely uncomfortable now, he knew it would be incredibly hot to look at himself bound like this later.
As a final touch, Lexi locked each of the buckles with a small padlock.
Lexi must have recognized Dylan's alarmed look at the clicking of the locks.
"They're mostly for show…but partly for security. There's no way you'll be able to unbuckle the straps, locks or not, but I like the idea that nobody else will be able to unbuckle them either. It's exciting to know that I'm the only one who can free you," she said.
"Oh," Dylan responded throatily.
A twitch of arousal coursed through Dylan as Lexi's words washed over him.
He couldn't deny the appeal of being so helpless, knowing that if he got lost in the crowd at the fair, there would be no easy way to release him from his bondage.
Still, the way Lexi said it bothered Dylan. My, what big teeth you have…the thought popped into Dylan's mind unbidden. Where did that come from? Dylan shook his head to clear it.
But it didn't go away. There was something so very wrong about how Lexi was acting, how she was speaking.
Even as his dick bobbed an enthusiastic yes to her words, Dylan's gut screamed a resounding "no".
"How does it feel?" Lexi asked, when Dylan didn't elaborate on his monosyllabic response.
She took a step back and seemed to admire her handiwork: the tightly secured armbinder restraining the latex and hoofboot clad Dylan.
"Tight." Dylan managed between gasps. He could safely say this was by far the tightest his arms had ever been bound. "My arms are feeling a little cold."
"They'll warm up once we start moving around," Lexi responded optimistically, "Are you ready for the rest of your tack?"
Dylan was most certainly not. He didn't imagine lasting five minutes with his arms bound like this, far less with his tack on top of it.
Lexi seemed to read Dylan's distress at his bondage. Her features tightened slightly.
For a second Dylan thought she was angry, frustrated, stymied even, but then he blinked, and he saw it was sympathy on her face, not anger.
Dylan tightened his resolve and said "Sure!"
This time it was undoubtedly relief that washed over Lexi's face. Clearly she was glad he wasn't in too much discomfort. Still, Dylan couldn't shake the anxiety in his stomach, which had grown into a twisted knot.
Dylan relaxed a little as Lexi ran her hand down the length of the leather glove that bulged with the strain of holding his arms together. The leather was like a second skin. It conformed to every contour of Dylan's arms, outlining his musculature and fusing his arms together from elbow to fingertip.
The cost of Dylan's aesthetically and functionally perfect bondage, and his wonderfully arched shoulders, was the strain on his diaphragm, evidenced by his rapid, shallow breathing.
Dylan calmed himself, consciously slowing his breathing as Lexi began attaching his harness. She pushed leather straps through the gap between his back and the armbinder, bringing them around his torso and tightening them across his chest.
Dylan was not enjoying the experience as much as he had hoped.
The straps of his harness, newly digging into his torso, added to the pressure on his diaphragm from the armbinder. The combination severely restricted his ability to breathe. Dylan fought down panic, the urge to safeword out of this, this degree of bondage beyond which he had ever experienced.
Still, the intensity of the helplessness he felt was undeniably arousing. He focused on his arousal and slowly, his panic ebbed.
Dylan felt Lexi's hands working over each of his thighs, attaching each thigh cuff to his waist belt. Her hand then moved down each leg, attaching more cuffs, first above, then below, his knees, and finally the much heavier hobbles around his ankles.
Little clicking sounds reignited the panic of being infinitely more helpless than he ever had before, "Wait, you're locking all the buckles?" Dylan asked.
"Yes," Lexi replied, "you'll look amazing!"
"Okay," this partially pacified Dylan. He did want to be a cross between a bondage and a show pony.
Nevertheless, for a first foray with a new handler, he wasn't sure how appropriate it was to lock all the buckles. It would take significantly longer to remove the gear, which could be a problem if any unexpected issues arose. On top of that, he was already a bit overwhelmed with the extent of the bondage.
Although there was no way he could free himself from his bondage without help, even without any locks, there was an undeniable psychological impact of being "locked" into his bondage. Dylan felt so incredibly helpless. He had never felt anything remotely like it before. It was truly overwhelming.
"Uhm...I don't think I can last a full hour like this," Dylan added, drastically understating how he felt.
"I completely understand. Don't worry," Lexi said, "As for the locks, they're all keyed alike, so it won't take long to remove them."
"Okay," Dylan repeated half-heartedly, though he felt marginally better after voicing his concerns.
"And remember, three paws of your feet – err hooves – and I'll release you immediately. Two, and I'll stop whatever I'm doing and check with you." Lexi added.
"Got it. Thanks." Dylan felt much better hearing her confirm his safe signals. Knowing he could get released whenever he wanted was like cradling his own personal totem.
Lexi brought a leather collar up to Dylan's neck. As she tightened it against his neck, Dylan felt a pair of cold metal prongs being pushed against the skin of his neck.
He recognized it as his shock collar.
It was 2 inch black leather collar that he modified to accommodate the unit from an off the shelf dog shock collar. It looked much better, in his opinion, than the thin nylon collar that was standard with shock collars.
Dylan heard another click as Lexi locked the shock collar in place around his neck, but he remained serene, knowing he could gain his release whenever it suited him.
The sound of another zipper being pulled followed by startlingly cool air flowing over on his crotch interrupted Dylan's thoughts.
"Wait...," Dylan began as he felt his erection pop out of the unzipped crotch portion of his latex bodysuit.
"It's okay. This will only take a second," Lexi said as she gently grasped his balls and pulled them free of the latex as well. She fastened a much smaller leather band around Dylan's balls.
The band contained another shock unit, and Dylan felt the cold metal of the prongs brought into snug contact against his balls. Dylan knew that both the shock units (neck and balls) could be controlled from a single remote because he was the one who made the pair (from a pair of dog training collars that could be controlled from the same remote).
Dylan had told Lexi about the pair of shock devices he had adapted, and how he liked how easily they could be used to control him, but he was surprised that she was using them today. He assumed it was for his benefit since he had raved about how much he liked the idea of being controlled at the push of a button.
Another click as the shock collar around his balls was locked in place. Dylan's cock made a small bounce at the sound.
Lexi carefully pushed his balls back inside the latex catsuit. Before doing the same with his cock, Lexi gave it a stroke, eliciting a groan of pleasure from Dylan as she zipped the crotch zipper closed again.
Dylan saw Lexi pocket the remote for the shock collars.
"Almost done," Lexi said as she lifted a mask up to his face.
The leather of the mask was shaped uncannily like a horse's head, complete with soft brown eyes (that were difficult to see through at the best of times), and attentive equine ears. The mask even sported a little bit and bridle that completed the look.
The mask twisted in Lexi's hand as she brought it up to Dylan's face. Dylan could now clearly see the inside of the mask, where he saw an inflatable butterfly gag in addition to several leather straps that would hold the gag, and mask, in place on his head.
It wasn't a new sight for Dylan (after all it was his mask), but he was surprised to see the gag in place. He had specifically removed it from the mask yesterday evening when packing his gear for today. He remembered dropping it in the gear bag, but even so Lexi would have had to rifle through the bag, find it, and put it back in place in the mask and do all of that while he was in the store paying for his armbinder.
It was puzzling, but likely innocuous, Dylan told himself since she knew he did like gags, and after all they had a safe-signal, not just a safeword, so he could still free himself whenever he wanted.
As the mask approached Dylan's face, Lexi's other hand came into view. At first Dylan thought it was to steady the mask as it twisted back and forth, but as her other hand came into better focus, Dylan saw that Lexi's index and middle fingers were each curled around a small grey foam ball.
Dylan's brief moment of puzzlement turned into panic as Lexi deftly pushed one foam sphere into each of Dylan's nostrils. Reflexively, Dylan opened his mouth to gasp for air as the foam expanded firmly into place in his nostrils.
Needing no encouragement, Lexi pushed the gag into Dylan's open mouth and had the mask over his face in less than a second. In another three seconds Lexi had all the straps secured tightly against Dylan's head preventing him from dislodging either the mask or the gag, completing his transformation into a horse.
With his mouth now plugged, Dylan fought for air and was rewarded by a small flow from his nostrils as the air took a meandering path through the thick but porous foam.
He greedily sucked air in as hard as he could. The strain on his diaphragm from having his elbows bound together behind him – and his tight harness - was exponentially magnified by the effort of filling his lungs through what felt like a yard-long cocktail straw.
As soon as the mask was firmly in place, Dylan felt Lexi attaching locks to each of the mask straps, locking the mask, and gag, in place. The mane of the mask would cover the little padlocks so the equine look would not be spoiled.
Dylan fought down real panic now. The gag was a surprise, but the foam balls shoved deep inside his nostrils, plugging his nose, barely allowing him enough air to live, were terrifying.
As Dylan struggled to keep his calm, he was dimly aware of Lexi attaching tie downs from the bit in the horse mask's mouth to the back of Dylan's harness. She then ran the reins through the rings of a martingale attached to his waist belt.
The tie downs pulled Dylan's head back, while the running martingale would pull his head forward and down (the degree to which it would do so depended on how much pressure was exerted on the reins, the more rein pressure, the further down Dylan's head would be forced).
The combination of those two pieces of tack effectively prevented Dylan from moving his head forward, backwards, or even to either the side. Not that he was paying to much attention to that at the moment.
It all happened so rapidly that not only did Dylan not have time to object, but he didn't even fully realize what was happening until it was far too late. He was still a little disoriented from the mask going over his head, the shift from bright sunlight to a dim greenish hue acting like a flash-bang inside his head.
Dylan heard muted noises that sounded like buckles and locks, and he felt his head being pulled backwards then forwards until finally it felt like his head was being held in a neck brace, but none of these sensations truly penetrated the sense of confusion that Dylan felt.
Dylan's senses slowly returned to him as he precariously maintained a calm demeanor. His eyes adjusted to the reduced light inside the mask and the limited peripheral vision allowed by the combination of the eye positions in the mask and the blinders of the bridle worn by the horse mask.
Dylan watched helplessly as Lexi grabbed the bulb of the butterfly gag, which was attached via a discreet rubber tube through the horse mask's mouth to the hollow rubber bladder held firmly in Dylan's mouth.
Dylan looked on as Lexi's hand clenched the blub, sending a rush of air through the tubing and…the flaccid rubber butterfly gag in his mouth, to his astonishment, came to life and began actively filling mouth.
Dylan tried to extricate it, but in addition to the strap around the back of his head that held the gag in place, there was another strap that went around his chin, which held his mouth clamped shut around the gag.
As the gag continued to inflate, Dylan gave up on trying to get it out of his mouth and focused his efforts on communicating with Lexi that he didn't want to be gagged. Try as he might, Dylan was unable to move his head to show his displeasure, and since speech was impossible with the growing rubber intruder holding his tongue immobile, Dylan protested as best he could by grunting.
But the gag relentlessly grew. Lexi kept pumping the bulb, over and over.
As she continueds pumping the bulb, Dylan transitioned from mildly worried to completely panicked. He realized the situation was completely out of control. He had no way of signaling Lexi, and she couldn't read the panic on his face because of the mask.
Dylan's panicked grunts became quieter as the rubber bladder filled his mouth, but Lexi seemingly couldn't help herself: she kept pumping and pumping. Dylan made a short glottal sound as he strained his muscles against the leather that encased him, but his arms and head were too well restrained to move.
To a casual observer he didn't appear to be in any discomfort (the horse mask hid the distress that would otherwise have been evident in his eyes) nor did he appear to be struggling, but the outward calm forced upon him by his bondage belied his hysterical state.
Then Dylan remembered: the safe-signal.
He pawed the ground twice in succession with such force he half expected to see sparks fly as the metal horseshoe of his boot struck the hard cement.
To his relief, the pumping stopped. However, after basking in the joy of not being completely suffocated, Dylan realized that even though it was not inflating further, the butterfly gag filled his mouth completely. The air-filled intruder occupied every crevice and corner of Dylan's mouth; it pressed into the roof of his mouth and held his tongue down in a cruel embrace. He would have bit down on it in the vain hope of rupturing the thick rubber, but the leather strap fastened under his chin already held his jaw clamped around the gag tighter than a vice.
Dylan tried to yell through the gag. He screamed at the top of his lungs, but the inflated rubber bulb and leather horse mask muted his efforts into what sounded like a hushed groan to the world outside the dim prison of his mask.
The effort of trying to make even that pathetic noise robbed Dylan of precious air thanks to the thick foam plugging his nostrils. His pulse quickened and his lungs burned. Try as he might, he couldn't seem to pull enough air through the foam in his nostrils, and what air he did pull through was hot and humid from recirculating in the confines of the mask he wore.
The mask that outwardly projected a happy horse face concealed a panicked human visage, contorted in fear and desperate for cool, fresh air, desperate for release. A face of a young man on the verge on passing out not just from lack of air but also from the pain of his bondage and the terror of his sheer helplessness – he couldn't even communicate his anguish through facial expression nor body language such was his costuming.
It took nearly a minute for the pain in his lungs to dissipate. And twice as long for the hysteria to subside.
"Ah, it looks like you figured out the purpose of the foam," Lexi said.
Dylan grunted in anger, but had to take another few seconds to catch his breath again.
"What you may not have figured out is that you're going to be my pony for a lot longer than this fair."
Lexi paused before continuing, "A lot longer."
Dylan went cold with fear. The blood in his veins turned momentarily to ice before the adrenaline hit him and his heart hammered in his chest. Restrained as he was, neither fight nor flight was even a remote possibility. He tried to control his body's age-old instinct. He couldn't afford the increase in his body's demands for oxygen.
He hoped he misheard her, but the twinkle in her eyes told him he had not.
How could he have got himself into this situation? His mind screamed at him. Instinctively he struggled against the ambinder and screamed for help. But he realized immediately what a mistake he made. His brief struggle used up all his air, and he doubled over trying to catch his breath.
Lexi laughed and said, "Feel free to struggle and make all the noise you like."
She tickled Dylan a little around his rib cage and Dylan felt like his lungs were going to explode. A constellation of bright dots clouded his vision and tears formed around his eyes, but nobody could see them. All they did was make it even harder for him to see out of the mask.
Dylan was about to paw the ground three times, asking (pleading really) for immediate release, but he held back.
This was game. It had to be.
Surely this was part of the scene.
She was toying with him. She knew he wanted to feel helpless. They talked about it endlessly in their messages, their role-playing.
That must be it.
She's fucking with me Dylan thought.
A mind fuck. Brilliant, and scary…terrifying really because of the timing and the expert way she nailed the acting. That made it all the more clever.
Dylan was able to get himself under control. This was what he wanted, an hour of helplessness, his limits pushed.
That's what he told himself, but a part of him, an ancient part, buried deep inside his brain knew the real reason he hesitated. It knew he hesitated to make the safe signal because his sanity would break if she ignored it. If he pawed the ground thrice, and she refused his release, he would, quite simply, go insane.
He wasn't ready for that yet.
"Time to go," Lexi interrupted Dylan's thoughts as she started walking, pulling Dylan forward by the reins.
Dylan hesitated, not sure what to do, but ultimately it didn't matter because as soon as the reins became taught, he was jolted forward.
Caught off guard, Dylan stumbled and nearly tripped as the hobble chain clanked loudly doing its job, keeping his feet no further than a foot apart.
Dylan barely regained his balance in the hoof boots before feeling more pressure on the reins as Lexi walked on, oblivious to - or worse still, reveling in - his plight. He didn't know which, and was too focused on staying upright and breathing at the moment that he couldn't spare the mental energy to evaluate the possibilities.
Dylan followed Lexi, stumbling, constantly on the verge of losing his balance or passing out, his shoulders screaming in pain at the unnatural position of his arms.
It felt like miles to Dylan, but when they finally stopped, he was able to make out a street sign, which indicated they were only now about to enter Folsom Street Fair proper. He groaned inwardly, knowing they'd only walked a hundred feet.
As they entered the street fair, the mask's eyes finally fogged up to the point that Dylan had to blindly follow the rein pressure, trusting Lexi not the lead him astray. He faintly heard the jingle of the hobble chain and the clip-clop of his own hooves on the pavement, but that was the extent of his awareness of the outside world.
His tail swished against his legs, and he felt where it attached to his harness even through the thick leather of the armbinder as his movement caused his arms to bounce against his back.
As they continued to walk around the fair, Dylan came to realize that he could, if he squinted, see out of one of the nostrils of the horse mask.
Through this tiny peephole, Dylan could discern that all the stops Lexi made were for passersby who wanted a photo with her and her pony – mostly the pony.
Lexi clearly loved the attention, and she seemed to enjoy making Dylan start and stop walking abruptly, over-correcting him with the reins and crop.
Dylan began to get fatigued. He was completely and utterly worn out.
His arms were numb, and he could barely breathe with the gag in his mouth and the foam filling his nostrils. Every step was a monumental effort. His calves were on fire, and the balls of his feet were numb at the bottom of his hoof boots from taking his weight for what seemed like hours - from the position of the sun, Dylan was pretty sure it had been hours.
Finally, Dylan saw that Lexi was leading him out of the fair.
Good! He was going to scream his fucking head off at her when she finally released him.
But for now, he was going to behave. While she was in total control he wasn't going to do anything to provoke her.
However, he soon saw that she was leading him to a horse trailer, the ramp of which was ominously down, the inside hidden in shadow, only the sweet smell of alfalfa permeated out of the blackness.
Every step toward the trailer amplified Dylan's worry. Finally, just under 20 feet away from the ramp, Dylan collapsed. Partially out of exhaustion, but mostly out of fear. He didn't want to go in that trailer. He couldn't get in that trailer. He wouldn't. Once he did, it was over. Once he was inside, the door closed, he knew she would have him forever.
Lexi leaned down, and looked directly into the nostrils of the horse mask, seemingly knowing that this was Dylan's small window to the world beyond his current pony hell.
"Get up," Lexi whispered.
Get up now!" the whisper became a harsh rasp.
Dylan didn't respond. He watched as passersby formed a circle around the collapsed human pony.
"If you don't, I'll do this," she held up the bulb which would inflate Dylan's gag further and gave it a few small pumps, "until you won't be able to breathe. Then I'll walk away. It will take them," she gestured to the forming crowd, "at least 30 seconds to figure out you're in trouble, and then a couple minutes to find a way to remove the mask that's locked onto your head."
"By then, you'll have suffocated." Lexi continued, her voice grave but with a wide smile on her face to assure everyone watching that this was just a stunt for their benefit, the disobediant pony playfully resisting his mistress.
"Either you get the fuck up now and get into the trailer, or I pump up this gag and leave you for dead."
Dylan saw the coldness in her eyes. He didn't know if it was a bluff (if it was it was a good one), but he didn't think so.
Dylan mustered all his strength, awkwardly twisting and contorting his severely restrained body until he was able to get himself painfully back on his feet in the cruel boots. His head would have dropped unconsciously in defeat were it not for the wide collar around his neck and check reins fastened to his mask that forced his head rigidly upright.
He walked behind her into the oblivion of the trailer.