Reined In

You need to be logical.

Reality doesn't make sense if you're not logical. Notions and concepts must follow organically from a premise. You need to remember the premise. You need to remember your lessons, especially the really,

really

important ones.

Taming and domestication are not one and the same.

Tanya patiently explained this to me once, I remember, during one of her long monologues to me. She explained it oh so clearly. Everything she says is clear. Perhaps even indisputable.

The difference is obvious, once someone like Tanya walks you through it.

Taming an organism is just modifying its behaviour through conditioning. You provide a set of positive and negative incentives... maybe even perverse incentives... and reshape the behaviour of that one individual organism.

The brain is made for taming, Federica,

Tanya told me once, her eyes glittering with a cold intelligence. Evolutionary reasons dictate it. Adaptability to a shifting environment is a positively selected trait in pretty much all living things.

Domestication, on the other hand... That's not about individual organisms. It's about

populations.

You can keep a pet lizard at home, identical to one you'd find in the wild, and that's taming, not domestication.

But we humans, we have achieved domestication, over and over. In fact, we have bred entire populations of living things to look in a way most pleasing to our eyes, or to perform work for us, or to produce for us.

Evolution gave us the tools,

Tanya told me once, her mouth curling in a mirthless smile. Pretty much any organism can be tamed. And when you look at the extraordinary variety of animals and plants with distinct, domesticated populations, there is only one possible conclusion.

Once you figure out what makes life tick, both taming and domestication are very easy to do. They just require patience, and time.

The logic is faultless, isn't it? Tanya's usually is. That's why I'm on all fours right now, the floor cold against my palms, hard against my knees. That's why Tanya is looming over me, gripping the reins that lead to the bridle around my head.

Because it's only logical.

She pulls -- but gently, so gently. Tanya is like that. The harshness is not in her soft, deft hands...

- unless you misbehave no no don't think about that please,

And not in her manners either, or in her actions. She's not that fond of pain, unless you misbehave, but that's your fault, for

making

her hurt you.

But if you behave, Tanya is gentle and soft, her hands are warm, her manners polite, her actions pleasurable. That's not where the ice lurks beneath the surface of the water.

The hardness is in her eyes.

Things *need* to be logical. Taming and domestication are both easy, and humans perform both all the time, on countless animals and plants.

Follow the logic. It flows organically from the premise. Humans are animals, mammals, primates. Animals can be tamed. Animals can be domesticated. Ergo...

I remember laughing, outright scoffing at the idea when Tanya first told me that. It seemed so absurd, to me, it went against the grain of everything I believed about rationality, human rights, and free will.

The notion that any person could be broken down, reshaped through systematic conditioning... I laughed at it, in part because it was ridiculous, and in greater part, because... it was so disturbing.

Of course, Tanya brought up so many examples from history, from society, from anecdote, and from her studies. Of course, it was hard to deny her examples.

In time, it became harder. Especially harder to deny

her

in general.

As I pad across the room on hands and knees, my eyes fall on the mirror, and her reflection standing above me. I see her eyes, then. I see the ice within.

- No no no look away!

"Good," she says softly, and the word, simple as it is, slices through me. Tanya has methodically dismantled my will, and that's her one-word summary of this mutilation.

Good.

And it is. I feel it, the word, reverberating within me, as I feel the tug of the reins, gentle but firm. My head moves instinctively in response, pulled forward, and the motion drags my whole body with it. My hands and knees move forward, one after the other, in a parody of a primal, natural motion that feels anything but, as my body has been molded to Tanya's will.

There's a war waging within me, a conflict between two irreconcilable sides of me. One that's growing stronger and stronger, and one that's getting smaller and smaller. The latter wants to resist, the former wants to submit. I try to pull away, but my body knows better, having been trained, conditioned, to respond to Tanya's cues with almost automatic compliance.

She walks around me with calculated, controlled steps, her demeanour calm and detached. Her eyes, those cold, calculating eyes, seem to pierce through me, seeing not a person, but a subject, an experiment. Her commands are issued with an air of absolute authority, as if she expects obedience without question.

And I find myself obeying, almost without thinking. When she pulls the reins, I move forward, my muscles responding to her cues as if they have a will of their own. When she asks me to stop, I stop. Her hand touches my shoulder, guiding me into a sitting position, and I comply. She caresses my cheek, and I nuzzle into her hand, seeking her approval.

In moments like this, she's soft. Tender. Almost loving. But I know that's an illusion, a mask she wears to keep me docile and compliant. The real Tanya is...

- no no no you'll panic and she'll have to punish you, settle, settle!

When even logic seems to fail me, I focus on the only thing anchoring me to reality.

The reins. The bridle. The rope.

It's impossible to ignore, which in this case is a blessing. The bridle digs into the corners of my mouth, the reins pull on my head, forcing me to follow Tanya's lead, and I can feel the rope between my legs, ever-present, ever-demanding.

And then, there's her hands...

Hands in my hair, hands on my shoulders, hands on my breasts, adjusting my posture, guiding my movements, fondling my nipples. Her touch is warm, but I can't forget the context, the fact that she's treating me like an animal.

"Up."

It's all Tanya needs to say. In the past, I would've resisted, tried to maintain what dignity I had left. But that was the old me. The me that was allowed to have objections, and issues. Now I just move. I respond. I obey.

I lean forward from my sitting position, my limbs shaking slightly, and I return on all fours. I'm unsteady, but I succeed. I see Tanya's smile, and it's affectionate. Tender, even.

Well done, ponygirl.

She doesn't have to say it. I hear these words regardless.

She makes me trot around the room, like a show horse performing for an audience. I lift my knees high, exaggerating the motion, as she's taught me. My muscles move with a grace that I didn't know I possessed, but it's not my grace, it's hers, imposed on me through endless repetition.

She stops me, and I halt instantly, panting slightly from the exertion. She caresses my cheek again, and I close my eyes, savouring the sensation, even as I hate myself for it. She's so... visibly proud of my destruction.

Of the fact that she did this to me.

That's an evil thing to take joy in, is it not? Is it? I... I don't...

On this topic, as well, you need to follow the logic... but not now, not yet, because just thinking about it makes my heart beat far too fast, and I start to hyperventilate, and if Tanya notices my distress, she... she... she might...

No.

I find comfort in the reins. All I need do is follow them, which requires no thinking on my part, just instinctual, animalistic obedience. That's calming, isn't it?

Relaxing.

There is no need to fear things that make sense. A world that is orderly and predictable is one where there is no room for fear. That's why I use the technique Tanya taught me. Every time I start to feel afraid, I just...

Follow the logic.

It flows organically from the premise, after all. If you accept that taming and domestication are both easy, and that humans, just like other animals or plants, can be domesticated... you still must not forget that taming and domestication are not one and the same.

Never

forget that. If you do forget that, you're going to make Tanya

very unhappy.

I remember the first time she told me that. I knew her research was about incentives and conditioning. I don't know much about behavioural psychology, and I was a little sceptical of how ground-breaking she made her own work sound.

Let's be honest, how many university students think they're going to reinvent the wheel? And how many actually succeed in that?

But then, she said something that sent chills down my spine.

We were lounging in this very room, and yet it was so different. I wore no reins. I stood upright, sat alongside her on the sofa. Roommates. Peers. Equals.

She said she could only pick one.

"What do you mean?" I asked. Did her thesis supervisor think her chosen topic too broad? Something mundane like that? But no. Tanya may be logical, rational, predictable, and orderly, but nothing about her is mundane.

Her work wasn't meant for any supervisor at all.

"Domestication is inconvenient," she told me. Of course it is. Humans live long lives, take a long time to reach sexual maturity, have small clutches of offspring even under ideal circumstances, and even the gestation period is long.

She found all of it so annoying.

As a result, she told me, it would take a prolonged effort to breed a domesticated population of humans, distinct from the free range population, optimised towards this trait or that -- say, beauty, docility, sexual characteristics...

Obedience...

And time would not be the only issue. There is too much baggage from history, she told me, too many laws, too many taboos. No way to perform it discreetly. That made human domestication

very

inconvenient.

If you think about it that way, it is only logical.

That frustrated Tanya very much. It

could

be done, she was adamant of that, but she would never have the chance to prove it, and it irritated her deeply.

Tanya's irritation is a fearful thing. It's not loud, it doesn't come with scowls and shouts. But the ice in her eyes deepen, and you can listen to the gears turning in her mind... you see a glimpse of who she is, behind that calm, girly, attractive mask...

- No no no not now please

That left her only one option, she argued, which was logical of course. Simple process of elimination. Taming required much less time than domestication, a major advantage. Also, it only required a limited amount of subjects -- potentially even just one, since she wouldn't bother with peer reviews or academic requirements -- and it could be done in secret.

The subject, naturally, would need to be someone she had access to, and located at a remove from prying eyes. Someone like, say... a roommate.

Perfectly logical.

I was weirded out. I laughed in her face. Just thinking about it makes me cringe,

I actually laughed at her.

But that was the last time I laughed.

Tanya, never fazed, took it all in stride. With a playful smirk, she suggested what she termed 'simple behavioural exercises.' Small tasks, nothing significant, she assured. A game between roommates.

Fetch this, organise that. So harmless.

I still would have told her to go to hell, but she just kept talking, and her words seemed to wash over me in waves... sedating, pacifying. And her eyes, so deep, so knowledgeable, so uncaring.

The same cold beauty you'd see in a distant star: you can admire it from afar, but to it, you'll always be lesser.

Insignificant.

Her eyes... so deep, so blue. I see them everywhere, even as they loom above me, here, now, with the reins in her hand. She's not looking at me, her focus is on the task, and yet...

They draw me in, just like they did back then.

I... I don't exactly know what she did. Then again, I don't need to know. Does a horse know how men keep it in line? The logic behind that argument is impeccable. Yet, for some reason, it won't go completely through my thick ponygirl skull, and so sometimes I find myself trying to recall what happened.

I never can.

I remember her voice echoing around me, inside me. My vision blurring, my focus narrowed to nothing. Just her eyes. Just her voice. Tanya everywhere, and then nowhere. I couldn't even hear her words, only the tone. I knew she was speaking. I knew it was important, and that I couldn't resist the logic. Why would I? That would, by definition, be illogical.

The next few months were... strange.

She had me fetch things. A textbook here, a glass of water there. I'd already been doing that, and it was harmless. As time went on, though... she made me do more and more. Made me respond to cues, verbal at first, but then also physical. A tap of her finger. A snap. Nothing too restrictive, it didn't inconvenience me too much, it didn't last long. Usually.

But her experiments were getting... stranger. Weirder. One time, she had me crawl on all fours towards her, and... a part of me felt like a deer in headlights, but I could not stop, could not look away from her eyes. The same eyes that loom above me now, and draw me in, and... and...

Another time, she had me take out her reins. I didn't know she had those. She had me... polish them. Organise her gear. On another occasion, I knelt before her, did the same to her riding boots... while she was wearing them.

I was as horrified as I was aroused. And confused, why did those two go hand in hand? Why did this turn me on so, so much? I'd never been into that kind of thing, had I? Surely I'd remember.

But it was logical, and rational. She'd found herself someone who would listen, and who wouldn't report her to the university, or the police. I had to be a good girl. I had to be a good friend to her. And it was only fair, when I put up resistance, that she'd... break me down a little. That's how she phrased it. She'd erode my defences, break my conditioning. I mean, she hadn't actually conditioned me, right? I would know if she had?

So it was all a game, yes, and it was helping her with her thesis, so, yay! But sometimes I thought I saw something else in her eyes. As though she saw me with a level of contempt reserved only for subhumans. She was checking that her pony was tame.

I didn't like that... But I couldn't argue with the results.

I remember the first time she sat on my face. It was different from now. Now, I just crawl along, unsteady on all fours, perfectly silent, perfectly compliant, while Tanya leads me on a slow circuit of the room. Parading me to an invisible audience, perfectly broken, perfectly vanquished.

But it was different, then. Then, there was

struggle.

She was stronger than me, I always knew that. I was a bit of a couch potato, and Tanya exercised so frequently. The embarrassing ease, the casual way in which she pinned me to the ground and unceremoniously planted her crotch on my face, sent a spasm of unexpected arousal lancing through me.

I'd never been attracted to girls, before Tanya's explanations... so clear, so undeniable.

Humans are a hierarchical species. Like many other social mammals, we use sex -- a scarce resource if ever there was one -- as a signifier of power and status in the herd. So,

of course

I was sexualising Tanya raping me. That was my completely natural, purely biological response to a display of strength and power.

It was only logical.

But the logic wasn't reaching me at the time, because I was stupid and uncultured, and I hadn't learned my anti-anxiety technique from Tanya yet.

I was trying to buck her off, trying to breathe, trying to turn my head this way and that while her thighs clamped down tighter and tighter around my face.

As my struggles grew weaker and weaker, and unbidden thoughts flashed through my mind --

Tanya is breaking in a horse, I'm just stupid cattle for girls

-- Tanya started rubbing her crotch against my face. Marking me with her scent.

But that didn't matter. It's not the scent that is seared in my memory, or her weight pinning me down, or the oxygen deprivation, or the violent laceration of my psyche as she raped me.

It's her eyes.

The way they looked as they shone deep and blue and cold, so impossibly far above me, like two distant, malignant stars.

I remember trying to buck her off. I remember planting my feet on the floor, trying to get leverage.

Tanya's response had been so dismissive. Her thighs had casually clamped around my head, further constraining my movements. As I thrashed about, I could already tell I was getting weaker, my limbs responding more slowly, the room darkening with each unsuccessful attempt to get her off.

Panting, gasping for breath, I felt the weight of expectation in her posture. I knew I wasn't going to get her off. Perhaps even back then, part of me did realise, even if I tried not to think about it. The struggles of her vanquished little pony only heightening her arousal, getting her wetter and wetter.

My mind was a jumble of incongruous thoughts and confused sensations, all working to reify Tanya's complete mastery over me. My eyes rolled back, my tongue darted out to at last pay homage to her triumphant cunt, and when I did, she hissed in delight.

For the first time, that day, I submitted to the first of many oral rapes. I ate her out for hours, until my tongue was numb, until I was drunk on her scent and her juices.

And I watched her, above me. Always above me, distant and uncaring, physically exerting herself and yet firmly, coldly rational. Her eyes, so, so blue...

Tanya's hands gently steer me to the left, away from the mirror, and I comply without thought, softly panting like the beast of burden I have become. Thought has been conditioned out of me.

I shouldn't begrudge her that, I think as she sits atop my back, driving breath out of me. I know to make no sound except a soft oomph. That's how she likes it.

I shouldn't begrudge her that, because --

- the ability to do so has been trained out of me

- behind her mirthless smile and clinical eyes and hot girly features, she is a

beast in human skin

- because nothing scares me more than her silent disapproval

because what she was doing was only logical. Social norms and the annoying international order stopped her from proving her hypothesis. She couldn't domesticate humans properly. She had to settle for taming one in secret.

Of course I was the best choice, we lived together. Of course she would take out her frustration on me, she could do that, who was going to stop her?

Of course

she would rape me, from time to time.

No matter how well I did, I would still always be just one tamed and broken animal. Satisfying, but simple. I couldn't hope to rival the sheer beauty of an entire, captive population enslaved to Tanya's will.

She nudges me forward, her legs squeezing slightly as a signal to speed up. I switch to the best approximation of a trot I'm capable of. Tanya chuckles at that, but it's again, a mirthless chuckle of dry amusement, and nothing more.

"Good pony girl," she says, her tone almost conversational, and I shudder at the praise. Rare and thrilling and so good, it fills my ponygirl brain with happy ponygirl chemicals. It's only logical that it would: I've been conditioned that way.

And it's rare praise indeed. Tanya always reminds me just how inadequate I am. The likes of me do not feature in her true dreams. Given resources and time, she says, she would craft perfection. A masterpiece.