Sapphbroo Farm -

We began our journey back to the city in silence. I used the time to relive and review the past forty-eight hours. Mentally running through the stages of my brief life as a ponygirl. From my first steps in the tack room with Isabella, to get getting much closer with Lily and sprinting laps with Catherine. I didn't know what Catherine had going through her head, but she had a distance in her eyes that looked beyond the road in front of her.

That was how the ride went for a while, until Catherine finally broke the silence by asking,

"So... would you be interested in returning to Sapphbrook as a ponygirl?"

I didn't answer right away. Despite feeling Catherine's expectant attention upon me, I delayed in responding. Lacking a concrete decision, I deflected with my own question after several moments,

"Why did you think I would be a good ponygirl?"

"Well I think we've already shown that you can be a good pony."

I replied with exasperation at her coyness,

"Oh come on, you know what I mean. You knew what you were doing when you invited me for the weekend. Even if I had refused to be one, I still would've had to accept Lily was one after you showed her to me. Why'd you think I would do that?"

"Because... I don't know. I saw it in you."

"Saw it in me?"

I said with deliberate scepticism.

"Well, your personality was compatible... I saw it in you. The energy you gave of when I first met you."

"And my energy I was giving off that I wanted to be dehumanized."

"No of course not!" Catherine replied with genuine indignity. "...and you know that is not what we do, what we did to you."

"Yes I know that, well kind of I do. It's just... It's just..."

I had made that quip about being dehumanized, ironically mostly off of my energy at the moment rather than a coherent thought. I felt oddly combative. I wasn't against a 'who' as it surely wasn't Catherine and most certainly wasn't Isabella. But that left simply feeling against a what, and a what is far more disconcerting.

Interrupting this line of self doubt, Catherine added some more,

"You know, you are sounding quite like you did Friday night when we first told you about ponygirl? I would not have expected this from you, especially after all you've experienced."

"What? Having spent just a weekend doing someone's weird hobby."

"You know it's not just a hobby." Catherine replied with force and hurt in her voice. She paused for a moment, but before I could apologize she continued on in a more control tone,

"Now I don't begrudge you your first night's reaction. It can be quite a jarring introduction, I know, but for goodness sake, you've been a ponygirl since then. And I might be projecting but I got the sense that you quite enjoyed being a ponygirl."

"And?"

"And I am wondering... wondering where all

this

is coming from?"

I was too. Catherine just happened to be the one who it was getting thrown at. It didn't feel great to act like a bitch to her, but it didn't feel any better keeping it in to stew inside of me. My insides curdled at the thought I'd be acting the same if Isabella was the one driving me home. Catherine continued on after giving me a moment for my thoughts once again.

"Jane was being a ponygirl really that bad that you think of it as dehumanizing?"

I think I took longer than Catherine would have like to reply. But to took so long trying to formulate my feelings in words in my head, before feeling like I still stumbled over them when I actually went to speak,

"No I didn't feel dehumanized... but I didn't feel human."

"And how do you feel now?"

"I... don't know. I guess I feel human again. Or I don't really know what that means, but I would say I feel normal."

"And is normal okay?"

"Normal isn't great."

"It's not?" Catherine replied in surprise.

"Let me put it this way, sitting here comfortably in your nice car is making me dread my shitty commute tomorrow."

"That's not what I meant. I meant the more, you know, being a person thing."

"Yeah, and things like my crumby commute make up a lot of what I do as a person. Sit on the bus, sit in the office, sit on the couch. That

is

my normal."

"Yes I guess you did mention that at the bar."

"Yeah, and that's the energy you thought would make me a good ponygirl?" My voice rising at that the end.

"...I saw an agitation. I hoped letting you be a ponygirl would, I don't know, reset things for you. At least for a while."

"For a while until I came begging back to you to turn me into a ponygirl again?"

"Well this weekend was also a bit a trial." Catherine looked over at me, seemingly worried at my reaction, before quickly jumping to clarify, "Not just for you but also to see if Isabella and Lily connected with you as I had."

I looked back a her a bit skeptically.

"And one you passed with flying colours."

Catherine quickly jumped to finish while returning her focus to the road. I in turn let the moment hang. Despite how I couldn't deny that I did have really a good time this weekend, I still somehow felt off balance at the thought of returning to Sapphbrook. But I guess that was actually the thing that was stressing me out, the thought that I could return to Sapphbrook to be a ponygirl.

I had come to Sapphbrook knowing nothing of the practice or even its possibility, and ended it having do it myself. In the moment I rationalized agreeing to do since it was contained to just a weekend. Far from the real world and tucked away in the secluded countryside world of Sapphbrook farm I felt I could experiment. I could be not my burnt-out self, but someone else, something else, a ponygirl.

But now I was going home. Returning to the real world, but coming back with a fragment of Sapphbrook now lodged in my mind, the memories of what I was leaving behind and a string still connecting me in the form of Catherine's offer to return. An offer that if I was to take it up would be my decision. One I'd have to make on my own in the context of my normal life. A decision in part to reject that normal life, to escape again into the world of ponygirls.

I think this was why I was being so snippy with Catherine. What she offered, what she represented, was in part a rejection of my life as it was. A life that despite my dislike for it, made up a good part of who I was. Granted it was a part of me didn't feel very alive, and most certainly less human, whatever that really meant, than what I had experienced as a ponygirl. Still it was quite the weight to think I could swap out part of who I was with just a word to the person sitting next to me. A person whom I still had a niggling feeling wasn't telling everything about the world of ponygirls.

"What do you get out of this?"

"What do you mean?" Catherine said with a hint of defence in her voice.

"Like why do you, I don't know, host ponygirls. Every time we've talked about them you always talk about their experience, the benefits of getting to be a ponygirl, but you yourself aren't a ponygirl. Or are you?"

The concern on Catherine's face was replaced by a smile.

"No Jane, I am not a ponygirl. But I have tried it in the past to know what I am asking others to do."

"Okay, but why do you like asking others to be ponygirls?"

"It's not the asking part that I love, it's what comes after. Caring for and cultivating a nervous filly into a strong and beautiful mare. Do you think every pet owner secretly wants to turn into the animal they care for?"

"No, they like having a pet as a companion or whatever."

"Same with me."

"But having a dog or a cat doesn't come with all... this." As I said this I gestured about the air, trying to point to all the secrecy that went into my stay at Sapphbrook. "People don't have to hide their pets existence from the world."

"What about people with more exotic pets? How many times have you seen someone taking their pet snake out for a walk? You could say I am simply on the exotic end of exotic pet ownership."

"Sure, but there's a difference between wanting a pet snake or whatever and doing the same with a real person. Plus you know you could actually get a real horse for a pet right?"

"First of all, a real horse is not nearly as beautiful as ponygirl." Catherine said with a half laugh and grinning glance over at me before continuing, "Plus, there are aspects of ponygirls that one would definitely not want to do with a horse. Both for moral and biological reasons."

"You mean fucking them."

"Yes Jane I also keep ponygirls as I do enjoy the sexual aspect of their being. And I got the sense you did too with Lily..."

It was my turn to grin, but I did so involuntarily and with embarrassment. Catherine paused for a second to let me sit in my discomfort before continuing,

"It is also a more wide spread practice than you might think. I'm not even the only farm in the province. Yes we have to hide our ponies from the wider world, but there is a certain subset of people that are very accommodating to our collective... predispositions. A kind of ponygirl world."

"And that... all of this is what you want in life. Like Sapphbrook didn't look like you do much real farming, so the pony world is your whole world right? And you're okay with that?"

Catherine demeanour shifted to a more serious tone.

"Yes and no. Yes, to a large extent taking care of ponygirls is my whole life. Of course that includes a sizeable expense which must be paid for through the managing of my finance concerns, but overall the direction of all my work points toward my ponies.

"As for my satisfaction in this life... I have mixed feelings, something I think I share with a lot people who have found their life's calling. Now the actual work of caring for and training ponygirl is absolutely wonderful. But there are other parts of the job... other pressures, needing to work within our larger community that can greatly test one's commitments."

"So why do continue?"

"Because things balance out in the positive. Plus I have responsibilities to the ponygirls I care for. Not just Lily but others that come at other times for varying length. And of course I must think of Isabella's and Rebecca's employment."

A heaviness had come into Catherine's voice so I tried to lighten the mood.

"You sound like some small business owner, just with a really weird product."

This earned me a chuckle.

"Yes I guess you are right."

And with this we lapsed back into the silence that started our car ride home. Each of us now with new things to think over, accompanied by new scenery as the rolling fields that started our journey having now been replaced by the outskirts of suburbia. The outskirts of the life I knew.

One I officially returned to when Catherine pulled up in front of my apartment. Given everything that has transpired this weekend, I now felt comfortable giving her my address. She certainly wasn't a stranger anymore, but instead looking at my apartment now, it was the one to look like a stranger. Shabbier and less welcoming than when I had left. Of course this could have all been a skewed perception after enjoying living on a fancy county estate for the last two days, but it still felt like something deeper had changed.

My bags were unpack from Catherine's trunk onto the sidewalk then we kind of just stood there in silence. There sitting a top my pile of stuff was the question that had been filling up the car all the way back. All of this 'stuff' taking up the same piece of sidewalk I walked across just two days ago, unaware of the pony world I was hurrying off to.

Catherine snapped me out of my philosophical musings by breaking our silence once again. And with the same question, but this time with an audible nervous ring to her voice,

"So... would you want to return to Sapphbrook? You would be welcome anytime."

Going to answer, I found I shared her nervousness. If she had instead asked if I had enjoyed the weekend, I could have answered in an instant. But was that goodness something that ought to be contained. A reckless moment of doing something crazy and which can keep its shine only as memory.

"I... I don't know."

Catherine's shoulder's sagged at my answer.

"Okay, but please think on it, please. I think, I know, you will... would be such a good ponygirl."

"Alright I will."

"Thank you."

Catherine replied with a greater sound of hope in her voice, but it had the sound that it might more of a self convincing hope. She then suddenly pulled out the folded piece of paper and shoved it towards me. Taking it and unfolding it, I found a phone number and the line of text below it,

'- in case you want to call, I'

"Isabella gave that to me and asked that I give it to you. She will hate me for telling you this but she was too nervous to give it to you herself. Something about coming on too strong."

I almost laughed to myself at the sheer absurdity of it all. That I was only now getting Isabella's number after all we had done together, it was like dating in reverse. Along with her being the shy one for once, it felt like a side of her I hadn't had the chance to see while at Sapphbrook and that only made me clutch the piece of paper tighter to myself.

"And you have my number so when you're ready to be a ponygirl again, please give us a call."

Catherine said this as she got back into her car, and with a wave out the window she turned on to the road, driving out of my life. That was if I decided not to return to Sapphbrook, but...

I humped my pack onto my shoulders and turned to enter my apartment. That was a question I needed to think on and it had been a long weekend.

On Monday I returned to work, returned to my normal life, as if nothing had happened, or at least I tried to. I had always tried to keep a separation between my personal and professional life. Never being one to share more than vague stories of my life outside of the office with my coworkers, always ensuring a distance.

I thought this would be no different, easier even. The new stories I had in my mind were so far outside polite office chatter and not to mention completely breaking my confidence with Catherine. Both I thought incentive enough to keep my time at Sapphbrook out of mind at work. But obsession cares little for incentives and so I found my thoughts constantly returning to Sapphbrook. Always bubbling up to the front of my mind, and consequently always feeling like they were dangerously close to the tip of my tongue as well. Like that dark urge to jump when standing at the edge of a cliff.

Even when I wasn't talking, just sitting silent in meetings, I found it quite difficult to pay attention. To be fair, I had always found it difficult to pay attention through all the boring meetings before, but now my mind drifted rather than simply tuning out. My eyes would be drawn to the window. To the blue of the sky boxed in by the window and the tiny strip of green grass between the road and parking lot. The best imitations of my view at Sapphbrook.

This was how preoccupied my mind was at work, with all its constraints of social norms and needing to actually focus on my job sometimes. But those constraints got left the door of my apartment each night when I came home.

It started with just losing whole evenings to day dreams and reminiscing. Lying on my coach looking up at my slightly cracked ceiling but only seeing my replayed memories as a ponygirl. Too preoccupied to make dinner or even change out of my office clothes. These daydreams were also commonly accompanied by my attempts to physically satisfy some of my more 'physical' memories of Sapphbrook, particularly my times with Lily and Isabella.

But then all too often the following days were filled with shame and distracting activities based on late night resolutions to finally put Sapphbrook out of mind. Resolutions which could never lasted more than a day or two before they were worn down by my intruding thoughts and desires.

Desires I still felt utter conflicted about. About the morality, about the consent, about the dehumanization. But above all, I felt conflicted about my desire to go back. To return to the place that had undeniably changed me, but I wasn't sure it was for the better. In the face of all this I tried to find a middle ground, to recreate what I'd felt a Sapphbrook without needing to given Catherine or Isabella a call.

I'd always loved running and had always found escape in it. Now I was trying to feel how I felt during my one ponygirl track workout. But no matter how hard I pushed myself or how long and slow I'd go like I had on the walker, all it felt like was like the running I'd known all my life. Although now somewhat paler in comparison to what I'd found while doing it as a ponygirl.

A key difference I thought was my footwear as I was doing these runs in my usual runners, not the towering heels of my ponygirl hooves. So one day I paid a nervous visit to a shoe store and purchased a pair of 10 inch stripper heels. Probably over explaining to the shop attendant that they for a party I was most definitely going to.

Getting home, I realized I had no where near the confidence to actually try going for a run in them so I settled for just clomping around my apartment. Trying to recapture the highs I felt in my ponygirl boots. Instead all I managed to recreate was the physical height. Beyond that I simply felt awkward. Dejected at being unable to feel as I did at Sapphbrook I feel back into reminiscing.

I even found myself returning to the less savoury moments of my time as ponygirl like my morning enema from Catherine. But now in reflection, tinged by my removal from Sapphbrook, it took on a new light. It had been a rather uncomfortable experience and unlike Isabella, Catherine had not thought to explain it to me before nor to check in with me before doing it.

On the other hand I reasoned it sort of had to be done. I couldn't have simply go the whole weekend without pooping and this was just how ponygirl had to be kept clean. Catherine was just a little blunt in her approach to caring for ponygirls. Like how efficiently she took off my tack while Isabella had talked me through the whole process. I guess Catherine was maybe just more used to working with experienced ponygirls.

And this more positive reevaluation of my enema was also in part due to the erotic elements I felt during the procedure. I had never done anything in that part of me before but it was a part I found myself wanting to explore more of. First with the simple insertion of the tubing, then with the pressure and release of the water produced sensations I could readily recreate despite my desire to.

It was these thoughts that were bubbled in my mind one day while making coffee in the break room at work. Called up by the noises the coffee machine made, the sound of water being pressed and pumped through its pipes transported me back to when Catherine did the same with me. My mind left that dingy break room behind and replaced it with the cleaning room at Sapphbrook. A place not much more picturesque than my current location but vastly more sensationally interesting.

Unfortunately my absentmindedness didn't go unnoticed by my colleagues. Made obvious when a particular nosey one name, Janet, interrupted my ostensible coffee making by asking,

"...if you met someone special."

"Huh?...why?"

I stuttered back having been yanked out of my bowel themed day dream. Despite my less than coherent question, I already knew why Janet was asking about my love life. I knew because she asked everybody about their love lives, as well as anything else about the person that caught her interest, and which she thought she could leverage into more gossip. While I didn't particularly like anyone I worked with, it was more by indifference than dislike. That wasn't the case for Janet.