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CHAPTER 17—PRECURSORS AND PREPARATIONS
Princess Sucette Souillon seemed inordinately proud of her clan's estate, and looked to S'Leah for confirmation. S'Leah supposed that it was rather impressive, by western Territory standards, but she'd been born and raised on the palace grounds. Compared to the palace, Clan Infibula's compound was poorly constructed guest quarters.
The Princess had become quite enamored of S'Leah. She seemed uniquely intrigued by her physical abnormality. Women with male organs were not that unusual—S'Leah was but one of dozens in and around the palace—but apparently she was all but one of a kind west of the River.
Sucette loved to fondle S'Leah's breasts and stroke her sexy feminine body while the ex-pony hammered her with her ever-hard organ. The combination was psychologically arousing to the Princess, who discovered she wasn't nearly as jaded as she'd thought.
S'leah had taken her nearly half a dozen times during the night and morning, always from the front so Sucette could look at and touch her purely feminine form. When S'Leah climaxed, the Princess would grab and hug her close, feeling her smooth stomach and breasts against her own even as her most masculine of features throbbed and pulsed and spurted inside her. Avowing it was something she never did, Sucette even tasted S'Leah's emission, but it tasted no different than any man's. How she knew what it should taste like without ever having the stuff before was a question S'Leah did not ask her.
Long before one of the drivers knocked on the roof to tell them they were drawing close to the Clan's holdings, the Princess was dressed and the picture of royalty, aloof and superior. By the time they pulled up to the front gates of her estate the aide, released from her compartment, had the pets out and waiting.
Clan Infibula's estate was a large, four-story building and three or four other small structures, scattered about like thrown gravel, all inside a low circular wall. The gate guards recognized the carriage and swung the wide doors open even as they approached. S'Leah said nothing but noticed the poor security—the guards couldn't see inside the coach, and had no idea who it was they'd just let in.
The coach rolled to a stop in the circular courtyard before the main house's entrance. The courtyard was paved with stones, and had a flower garden in the center. The deepset front doors were flanked by two blondes in burgundy finery similar to what the carriage drivers wore. Tailed, longsleeve coats, white ruffled blouses, and skintight calf-length trousers with glossy black toeboots. White gloves and tight ballgags completed the outfits.
The two doorwomen hurried to the coach door and unlatched it, bowing deeply. The Princess exited first, followed by S'Leah and then the aide leading the leashed pets. They seemed in no hurry to enter the house, however, and S'Leah took the time to look around.
Flower gardens bordered the main door and ran along the front of the house. This far north water wasn't as scarce, and the garden wasn't such a conspicuous luxury. On either side of the entrance, suspended from gleaming chain five feet off the ground, were nude women. S'Leah hadn't noticed them at first because they blended in with the mottled walls of the house and the flowers were what drew the eye.
Each was suspended from a chain by her wrists, which were bound together with wide padded leather cuffs. S'Leah raised her eyes and saw the chains were hooked to steel winches that protruded from the house three floors up. The women's legs were spread far apart by steel spreader bars cuffed to their ankles. Their feet were a yard off the ground.
A wide metal ring occupied the center of each spreader bar. A gleaming steel post rose from the ground and speared up through these rings, up higher between each woman's thighs, spearing up until it disappeared between the lips of their sexes. The posts were as fat as a man's ankle, and it was obvious the women had been lowered onto them, and if it was too big, their flesh either stretched or tore to accommodate the steel pole's girth. How deep they were speared by the posts S'Leah couldn't tell. How long they'd been there was another question. Both were unconscious or asleep, their heads hanging forward. Their bodies were shapely, and bore no marks other than the Clan brands.
Using the mobile platform the drivers offloaded the three trunks, assisted by the doorwomen. They left two on the wheeled flatbed, but set one on the ground beside the coach.
“S'Leah, come over here. I think you'll find this interesting,” the Princess said. She nodded at the drivers, who pried the trunk's latches open and cracked the lid.
The trunk was two-by-three-by-four feet in size, laid flat on the ground. As the lid came off S'Leah saw that it was lined with rubber and perforated by air vents, and inside it was a woman.
“On my trip I was staying with an important businesswoman of the territory. While I was there a roving band came down out of the north with captives to sell. Apparently they'd ambushed a caravan far to the north, beyond the boundaries of the Kingdom, and captured quite a few. Well, this one was cursing and spitting and fighting even after two weeks.” She smiled. “I can't wait to break her.” She indicated the woman's position in the trunk. “When my drivers went to load her in the coach she fought, and they discovered how easily she bends. Luckily I had a trunkvault with me.”
The woman inside the trunk was slender, with well-defined muscles and thick blonde hair chopped short. She was on her back, with her legs pulled behind her shoulders. Her ankles were crossed behind her neck, and bound with silk rope. Her arms wrapped around her thighs and behind her back, where her wrists were bound together. Her torso was thus curved, and her weight rested on her forearms and knees.
A black rubber catheter tube ran from the woman's wide open sex across her stomach and into the cylinder gag wedged into her mouth.
“I've found if you make them drink a gallon before you catheter them, a person can easily go a week without more water,” the Princess told S'Leah.
“How long has she been in there?”
“Four days? I don't know,” the Princess said unconcernedly. The woman was unconscious, her body sweaty and streaked. The trunk gave off a strong, unpleasant odor. “They'll clean her up, feed and water her, so we can play with her tonight at the party. She might be too sore or tired to resist much, but there'll be plenty of other diversions. It's to be a wetwall party,” she told S'Leah. “I've got several guests coming from Greenwood and the outlying lands.”
“I'm not familiar with the term ‘wetwall'” S'Leah admitted.
“Well then, this'll be all the more fun for you. Come,” she commanded the aide.
“Why are they on display?” S'Leah asked, nodding at the two impaled women on either side of the doors.
“Oh,” the Princess said, in some surprise. “I'd forgotten they were there. Why did I have them punished?” She looked at one of the liveried doorwomen.
One of the blondes removed her ballgag. “You had them cut open and posted because they'd spilled a bucket of dirty mopwater in the kitchen,” she reminded the Princess. “They're scullery maids.”
“Oh, that's right,” the princess nodded, snapping her fingers. “It's an ingenious device,” she told S'Leah with pride. “Counterweighted, so they sit on the pointed posts with only five pounds of pressure. It doesn't seem like anything at first, but after a few hours it gets quite uncomfortable. Why didn't my mother have them taken down before she left?” she asked the same doorwomen.
“The Lady Rosetta did not know why they were up, and assumed if you'd wanted them down you'd have ordered it before you left, M'Lady.”
“I forgot I had them posted,” the princess admitted.
“How long have they been up?” S'Leah inqured. The Princess didn't know.
“Eight days,” the doorwoman said. S'Leah thought she detected a hint of anger in her voice.
“Well, have them taken off and given some food,” the Princess said dismissively.
“The last one died two days ago, M'Lady.”
The Princess looked up at the two bodies in surprise. “Well, that's a shame,” she said after a few seconds. “They were quite shapely. All right, well, take the bodies down and get the posts cleaned. If they stay up much longer they'll discolor the steel.”
“Yes M'Lady.” The doorwoman wouldn't meet her eyes as she refastened her ballgag.
S'Leah followed her into the house and up a wide staircase. The aide trailed behind, leading the pets on their leashes.
“You'll have your own room,” the Princess told her. “Relax, take a bath, eat a snack. The party starts in four hours. I'll have my aide attend you until then.”
“You're too kind,” S'Leah said. “What should I wear? I did not bring many clothes.” She held up her small case.
“Something that goes off an back on easily, or just stays out of the way when the fun begins,” the Princess said with a smile. “Do not worry. I'll locate an appropriate robe for you. I wouldn't want your clothes to get stained.”
With so many elements still up in the air it was hard for the circle sisters to make any firm decisions, but by the afternoon of the second day their plans, for better or worse, were laid. They once more consulted Sempai Nodo, but she was of little help. Too much was still uncertain.
They prayed and sang to celebrate the circle and the bloodline, then stripped and, as etiquette decreed, pleasured each other. The sister were all highly skilled in the arts of love, but had no real passion for each other beyond their sisterly bonds. Each took turns tasting the others, and all climaxed at least once, but after ninety minutes the kanyu, the ceremonial joining, was over, and the women dressed and split into smaller groups.
“I wish to visit the Lady Hirondelle's seed farms,” Lady Koho said to the Lady of the House. “Accompanying Sempai Nodo. But the Sempai has but a small carriage, as do I. Lady Hirondelle does not have room for us both in her coach, and I do not think she wishes to leave as soon as we do. Would it be possible to borrow one of your coaches for a fortnight or more? We would be using our own ponies.”
“Of course, Lady Koho. I'm sure the Sempai would enjoy the company.” She lowered her voice. “And the Prince?”
“That is the reason the Sempai will be my companion. Who better to have on such a quest for the truth than an expert on the subject.”
“Quite right.” She paused. “Be careful, my sister. All is not as it should be. I sense danger.”
“As do I. Your warning is well taken.”
The evening meal was laid out with an artist's touch, and just as delicious to the palate. Afterwards Lady Koho retired to her room, but only briefly. She had many things on her mind, and could not bear to sit still for very long. She located the Sempai's room and finalized their travel plan. The historian was traveling with an aide in a four-pony carriage. The carriage, however, was too small to hold all four of them, and the general rule was to have at least twice as many ponies as passengers.
Lady Lena had a large coach available for them to use, set up for extended travel. To it they could harness all six ponies, which would be more than enough for the gently rolling hills between Lady Lena's estate and Clan Bukkake's territory.
The Lady Koho took a wrong turn leaving Sempai Nodo's quarters and found herself lost in the big complex. Statua stood or hung in niches at every turn, but they were forbidden to speak, much less move, and all were gagged besides.
After a series of confusing twists and turns through narrow hallways she found a staircase and took it down to the ground floor, or so she hoped. There she found herself at the end of a wide, straight corridor. She began down it just as a quartet of assayan novices rounded a corner ahead and walked her way, in pairs two deep. She stopped them with a raised hand and looked around.
“I am lost,” she admitted to the young women, dressed in the white robes of those learning their craft. They were nearly her height but not yet filled out, in the first flush of womanhood, which marked them as senior students nearly finished with their training. Soon they would be sold or traded to other clans or individuals of importance or means. They wouldn't be true slaves; rather, they would be indentured and required to work for a period of time, usually ten to fifteen years, to pay off their purchase price.
“Where might I find an exit?” she asked their young faces. They were all beautiful, in the classic sense, with excellent bone structure and perfect skin. All four pointed at once down the hall.
“Where am I?” she asked the closest novice, not recognizing the surroundings.
The young novices glanced at each other, then the one Lady Koho had addressed reached up and unbuckled the strap of her gag. From the base it appeared to be a hollow cylinder gag, but turned out to be a phallus-shaped trainer, flexible to follow the curve of her throat. This novice's trainer was unremarkable, eight inches long and proportionately thick. All the novices wore them, and had from the first day of training, until their throats had actually grown around them. Lady Koho kept numerous assayan at her own estate, for visitors or her own amusement, and even though they were all seasoned, with years of experience, they still slept occasionally with the penis gags in place to keep their gag relexes sublimated. It was one of the reasons why Lady Lena's assayan were so prized.
The pretty novice licked her lips, then said, “This is the training school, M'Lady. It's connected to the back of the main house, you must have come out that way.” She looked at her attentively, the gag in one hand. It was made of soft black rubber, and ventilated so she could breathe with it in place. Men, unfortunately, were far less common than women, but a skilled assaya was required to master all the lovemaking arts, and a skilled tongue was only part of the whole.
“Is the stable that way?”
“Yes, M'Lady.”
“Where do you go?” she asked out of curiosity.
“We go to our evening bath, M'Lady. Our studies are done for the day.”
“Continue on,” Lady Koho told them. She watched with glittering eyes as the senior novice opened wide and slid the phallus smoothly in, all eight, maybe nine inches of it, without a gag or even raising her chin. The four young ladies then nodded at her and continued down the hallway.
Lady Koho went the opposite direction, gradually noticing she was passing closed doors to either side. It dawned on her that these were the classrooms where assayan were trained. Curiosity filled her, and she stopped beside one of the doors and listened. And heard nothing. She gently slid the door open and found the bare room empty. Empty of everything, save thin cushioned mats on the floor.
She closed that door and put her ear to the next. Again nothing, and the room was empty when she opened the door.
At the third door she was almost surprised when the room turned out to be occupied. The instructor was leading her class of seven—always seven, three pairs and another on which the instructor could demonstrate—in stretching exercises. The young girls sat in sidesaddle splits, their robes off and folded on the floor beside them, while the teacher, barely an adult herself, led them in breathing exercises. Lady Koho closed the door before she was noticed, and continued down the hall. A far door opened and a class of seven exited, giggling. Their young cheeks were red and they were short of breath as they hurried down the hall past her, bowing jerkily. The classroom door was still open as she passed and Lady Koho saw the instructor picking up small mirrors off the floor. Behind her, on the wall, was a large photograph of the female sex, with each part labeled and identified with an arrow. The sex gaped open slightly, dark red, glistening, and engorged, and had very prominent features; it looked well—if not recently—used. If Lady Koho had to wager she imagined it belonged to an experienced assayan.
“M'Lady,” the instructor greeted her, the mirrors stacked in her arm.
“Self exploration?” she asked, nodding at the mirrors.
“Until a woman knows how to touch herself, she is useless to others,” the instructor said as if by rote. “It is one of the first things we teach the novices, and they practice and refine their skills on themselves for their whole career if they are to remain skilled.”
“I agree.”
“If you are looking for something to watch,” the instructor told her, “an intermediate class is next door, and running late, as usual.”
“As am I,” Lady Koho said, demurring. But as she exited the classroom, something caused her to stop, and turn. She slid open the next door quietly and watched, transfixed.
The instructor, a lean but well-muscled woman in her thirties, stood at the front of the room and faced the class. She was nude, as were the students, their robes folded and in a line along the wall. They appeared barely full-grown, and not yet as full of body as they would become. Beside the instructor, on a waist-high table, lay the seventh student. She was on her back, and held her knees back and apart with her hands. Every so often during the instructor's lecture she would gasp or buck or twitch, and Lady Koho saw her stomach was beaded in sweat. Her head was propped high up on her robe so she could see between her legs, as much as was possible.
“There is no hurry. There is no later. There is only the now,” the instructor told the class. Her entire hand was inside the demonstrator student up to the wrist. “When you use your whole hand, every tremor in you skin is an earthquake to her. Every twist of your wrist is the sun exploding. Go slow. Be gentle, until it is time to not be gentle.”
The six students were paired off and in a semicircle on the floor. Three were on their backs in identical positions to their classmate on the table, while their partners knelt between their open thighs. They all had small, slender hands, but still it had taken the last student fully an hour to fully introduce her hand into her partner. Finally, the instructor could move on to technique.
As she demonstrated slowly opening and closing her hand, the instructor gave a faint nod to Lady Koho, but never stopped her lecture. The students followed along on their partners as she showed them how to stroke the sweet spot with knuckles and fingertips, how to cup the womb in their fingers and massage it, how to stroke the clitoris with the off-hand and other, more subtle skills. While fisting played but a small part in the enclopedic pleasure skills the novices would learn in their ten years of training, this basic introduction to the technique would take thirty hours, spread out over several weeks, not including the hours the novices spent each day practicing on each other.
The student on the table had stopped trying to pay attention and was now just gasping and drooling and shaking. The three students on the floor were nearly in the same shape, and the room echoed with their cries. As the smell of sex filled Lady Koho's nostrils she was reminded just how long it had been since she'd been with another person. She slid the door closed, shutting off the shuddering cries and wet gasps, and leaned her head against the frame. Last night, watching the assaya and Daka, she'd been so close to joining them . . . but no, she couldn't risk it, and knew that for her safety and his she would have to keep her legendary libido under control.
At first her legs were shaky as she started down the hall, but by the time the entrance and its guard came into view she was in control once more and calm, at least outwardly. The wetness between her legs would remain to remind her of things for some time.
The stables, at first, appeared empty. When she walked through the open door into the cool interior no one was in sight, not a pony or a stablehand. But then she heard the clamor from further inside the building, and made her way in that direction.
The pregnant pony she'd seen the day before was in labor, and a small crowd had gathered. Uma was there, overseeing the event, while Daka and a wetnurse looked on. The wetnurse was bare to the waist in anticipation, and her big teats had spontaneously begun to leak in response to the pony's labor.
The pony reclined on an angled, padded bench. She wore her armbinders and lay on her folded limbs, and huffed and puffed around her bit, which looked well-chewed. She still wore her hoofboots, and had obviously been doing some chore when her contractions grew too intense to ignore. Some ponies were so inured to physical discomfort that they continued with what they were doing until the baby began to crown.
The pony's bottom hung just over the edge of the bench, and a midwife sat on a stool there, waiting. The pony's knees were drawn all the way back and far apart, and tied to hooks on either side of the bench with leather straps. In this position her distended stomach appeared even larger than it was. Her sex was dramatically stretched from the labor, and gaped wide, a dark red glistening oval.
Another contraction hit and the pony grunted and bore down. Her sex grew larger and a rounded, pinkish red shape appeared, then withdrew again after a few seconds. It looked like the baby was crowning, and she'd arrived just in time for the birth.
Ponies' pain thresholds were so high Lady Koho knew this one, provided there were no complications, would be back on her feet and working in a day or two. The baby would be taken in by the clan and raised by the wetnurses. The fact that the pony was giving birth in a stable, attended only by a midwife, was sure sign the baby was a girl. Male children were much more rare and precious, and such births were treated with more care. The girl, when it was old enough, would be placed into pony training.
The pony's small breasts were taut and swollen with milk. Her nipples were big and dark. She would be uncomfortable for a week or two until her milk dried up, about the same amount of time it would take her stomach to return to its former shape.
“M'lady,” Uma greeted her. Daka jumped in surprise at seeing her, then bowed and mumbled a greeting. Lady Koho supposed it was the first birth he'd ever witnessed, growing up in the middle of the Wash, with ponies only passing through, never staying.
“Your stables are remarkably empty,” she observed.
“Ranyo has them all out in the exercise yard,” Uma explained, and nodded at the sweaty, laboring pony. “She was making them skittish.”
Lady Koho indicated Daka. “Shouldn't he be out there helping?”
“If you wish, M'Lady, but he said he'd never seen a birth so I let him stay.”
“No, that's fine. He needs to be educated,” she said. “How is it you happen to have a pregnant pony?” she inquired with great curiosity. Not only were ponies, as a rule, barren from the demands of their duties, but any men on the premises with fruitful seed were supposed to be sent to the Inseminariums, by order of the Queen.
“That is a good question,” Uma admitted. “She is the second pony with child we've had in the past three years, and two statua have born fruit as well, and most of them are hardly old enough to have eggs. That is why the Sempai is here, in part, to take samples from all the males. They were all tested before, and declared barren, but appearently something has changed. She is an expert on seed, and I hope will be able to tell us who the seed bearer is among us.”
Lady Koho nodded and looked around idly. The pony was groaning loudly as she pushed for perhaps the last time, and Lady Koho was finding it hard to think. She stepped over to the next row of stalls and looked out the rear doors into the big exercise yard. There she counted twenty-nine ponies, of all colors and sizes, tied to the top rail of the fence by their collars. The dumb-looking blonde stablehand, Ranyo, was aggressively thrusting into a pony from behind. It appeared he was entertaining himself by taking the mounts one at a time as they stood in a row along the fence.
“Stablemistress?” she called out. Uma quickly was at her side.
“Yes M'Lady?” She followed Lady Koho's gaze, and frowned.
“He may be used to having his way with your Mistress' mounts,” Lady Koho said, “but if he tries to force himself on my mares they'll kick him to death. You are remiss in your duties if you have not told him the dangers of strange mounts.”
“Oh, I've told him all right,” she growled through clenched teeth, and started his way. “Apparently it's going to take more than that.”
“I hope Sempai Nodo took a sample from him,” Lady Koho called after her. “I'd gamble he's the one planting the seeds around here.”
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