Giddy Up
Could you be, could you be loved?
Don't let them change ya, oh
Or even rearrange ya, oh, no
"Giddy up!"
The crop stings. Mistress likes to use it. The group starts to trot, pulling the cart along. Six butts bobbing up and down, six tails swishing gaily, twelve hooves clopping and clicking. Me in between. I bite the bit and try to fall in with the general rhythm. Mistress doesn't like chaos. I can't see much, just straight ahead and down. Not that there's a lot to see anyway. It's a drab industrial complex, the road uneven and in state of repair, with an occasional pothole to keep our senses sharp.
I don't know the pony in front of me. A straight back, long slender legs, not much of an ass. The arms are still strong and muscular, not the atrophied useless twigs one develops here after years of permanent bondage. No branding yet. He? She? must be new here, stumbling frequently, disturbing the inner harmony our little herd has developed. I hate it immediately.
The whip cracks, inspiring the leading ponies to speed up. I let out a loud whinny. Oh the joy to be running out into the green, exercise under the sun the whole day, then being doused with cold water and rubbed properly dry. Sometimes, when we are standing together in the stables, flashes of my former life come back to haunt me. The office. Going on business trips. Wearing a gray suit. Talking to boring people. Important decisions to make. Do I really want to go back? No.
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We have been running for half an hour now, give or take. The pony in front of me is sweating profusely. It lacks the elegance, the easy, fluid movements an experienced horse displays. I hope it will learn quickly, I'm not sure what happens to the poor creatures that don't fit in. They tend to vanish quickly. My guess is that they are used for work on the fields or sold to a petting zoo if they are lucky. If they are unlucky, they are probably sold to some pervert who keeps them as house pets, indoors, under totally inappropriate conditions and might even engage in some unnatural act with them.
I try to figure out whether it's a mare or a stallion. Work horses usually show only small sexual dimorphism, genitals securely locked away, breasts flat to nonexistent, and no traces of body hair left. Horses don't talk of course, and so you can't go by the voice, either. I bet that most of my companions have forgotten how to speak anyway. For some of them it's likely an improvement.
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