The body lay at the bottom of the ravine. An unnaturally twisted leg indicated broken bones. Sightless eyes stared at the distant sky. The man's weathered face revealed that he had spent much time outdoors, maybe working on a ranch as his cowboy-style clothing suggested. Blood had oozed from his fractured skull, matted the greying hair, and formed a pool on the rocky bed of the dried creek. The side of his head was smashed in. Frank whistled soundlessly while he looked around. If the man had cracked his temple on a boulder, the latter should have been in evidence nearby.
His practiced eye recognized the tell-tale tracks where the man had dragged himself over the ground. Given the state of his leg that must have hurt. A lot. For some reason, the man had felt some urgency to get here. Or to get away? Sighting along the tracks, Frank spotted something stuck between the trees growing on the gorge's steep slope.
It turned out to be the wreckage of a strange vehicle. Basically, just a seat mounted between two wheels, like a sulky used in horse races. But the frame seemed too narrow for a horse; its dimensions were more suitable for a small pony. Or for the two-legged, human variety popular in certain fetish subcultures. No wonder they had been coy about the exact nature of the missing 'horse team' he was supposed to track down. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the mount. When the sulky had tumbled down the slope and hit the trees, its carbon fiber shafts had broken off, releasing the pony. Digging through the debris yielded no further clues, except for a nasty-looking flogger that made him frown.
Frank pulled out his mobile phone. As expected, it showed no signal. If he wanted to call this in, he would have to use the radio in his patrol car. That meant climbing up the slope again to the forest service road above and losing even more time. Nah, he better went after the missing pony himself.
Which direction? Upstream, into the wilderness? Or downstream, which would sooner or later lead back to civilization? He started to jog along the ravine, downstream. After about half a kilometer, he spotted a strange footprint on a patch of sand. Like a horseshoe, but smaller. He had guessed right.
Half an hour later, Frank had to lean against a tree, wheezing.
Damned!
He tried to stay fit, but his quarry was probably in prime physical condition. Not to mention the considerable head start it had. He pushed himself off the tree and was about to start running again when he noticed the broken twig. Leaning over, he saw that the leaves on the ground were disturbed as well. It looked as if something had been dragged over the forest floor.
Apparently, the frightened pony had decided to leave the conspicuous stream bed behind, trading speed for stealth.
Clever beast.
He congratulated himself on his good fortune. If he had kept jogging along, he would have missed the signs. But now that he knew what to look for, following the tracks would be easy.
...
Frank caught first sight of his quarry about half an hour later. Quick-witted, he ducked behind a tree. Sweat suffused his shirt, and he was seriously winded but when he spied the lithe figure in the distance, his fatigue evaporated. Some primal instinct informed him that he was confronted with a woman. She had not noticed him yet, and he did not want to spook her, so he kept quiet while he observed her.
Immediately, he realized that she seemed to be stuck. She would lean forward as if she strained against an invisible force holding her back, then turn around again and kick at something on the ground, presently hidden from his view. Using the dense trees to cover his approach, Frank crept closer. It helped that she created quite the ruckus with her frantic attempts to escape her predicament.
From about eight meters away, he got his first good look at the woman. His breath caught. The thing that struck him first was her lack of arms. No, he had to amend that impression. When she turned her back towards him, he saw that they lay folded against her spine, the forearms pressed together and pointing upwards towards her head. It resembled an especially devout prayer position, only assumed behind instead of in front of her body. Frank marveled how her arms could achieve and sustain this double-jointed, reverse prayer configuration. No doubt, being slender as a sword had something to do with the former, while the latter certainly was not by her own choice. Her attire looked like it had sprung from a bondage enthusiast's fevered dream.
Frank allowed his eyes to roam her body. She was not naked, strictly speaking, but the black leather straps forming a harness around the woman's body exposed exactly those areas that conventional clothing covered. Indeed, the harness framed her breasts and crotch as if to call attention to her assets, as did the glinting bits of metal embedded into them.
Her round breasts were not large but very firm, as befitted someone with her slender yet athletic build. She had long, sleekly muscled legs, made to look even longer by her strange, knee-high boots. Like high-heels, they kept her on the balls of her feet, except they had no heels. Instead, their soles widened into round platforms that resembled hooves, especially since they were shod with steel horse shoes, although narrower than those for real horses.
A wide belt around her waist, almost like a small corset, constituted the central element of the harness. From its front, a pair of straps descended towards her crotch. Digging into the crease between thigh and groin on each side, they joined at her perineum. The united strap anchored the tail protruding from her bottom and reaching down to her knees, then followed the crack of her ass before it merged with the back of the waist belt again. Broken-off pieces of the sulky's shafts dangled from the belt and dragged over the ground. This, combined with her hoof boots, had made it so easy for him to follow her tracks.
Particularly daunting was the high collar that enclosed her neck. Its high sides and the stiff tongue extending under her chin immobilized her head in a slight backward tilt. Her plight was aggravated by a pair of blinkers attached to the web of straps that ensnared her head. They cut off her peripheral vision and forced the woman to bend or turn her whole upper body if she wanted to look at something not directly in front of her. No wonder she had not spotted him yet. Navigating the difficult terrain handicapped like this must have been hell.
So that was what a real-life, high-end ponygirl looked like. The reality surpassed his wildest imagination. Frank licked his parched lips. He was no stranger to kink role play, having used his police handcuffs on a number of girlfriends for their mutual enjoyment. Unfortunately, they all had balked when he wanted to go further. But the display before his eyes took it to the next level. They certainly spared no expenses at the billionaire's remote ranch to indulge their perverted fantasies. Only this time, their kinky games had taken a fatal turn.
Besides the blinkers, the head harness also mounted a bit that was wedged between her teeth and pulled at the corners of her mouth. Attached to the bit shanks were the reins that Frank identified as the cause of her current troubles. Apparently, the long leather loop had become entangled in the shrubbery. Bereft of her arms, the ponygirl had no other recourse than trying to pry her reins loose by pulling at them from alternating directions.
But pulling at her reins resulted in an obviously painful action on the bit shanks. Hence, she spun in a circle to wind the reins about her body before she strained against them. The resultant friction lessened the pull on her bridle.
Smart pony!
Fascinated, Frank observed how she leaned her whole body forward, adding her weight to the efforts of her legs. She struggled with all her strength, her horseshoes scraping over the forest floor while her muscles quivered with exertion. Her pained grunts suggested that her sensitive mouth did not escape all punishment from fighting her reins.
