Chapter 13

Ostara 3/26 Sun

Between the glass and the hissing of Danni’s high-oxygen isolation environment I was shocked. Whatever she’d got into was nothing easily dismissed, and it must have shown on my face. “They say”, she ventured through a tinny speaker, “the critters they made for me are cleaning things up nicely. I fucked a guy who hadn’t a tattle-tat. Never again. I got lucky, another day and my skin might have been eaten off me.” “Um ... sounds icky, Danni.” “I know. When I’m green again can we do an overnight?”

I said “sure”. Deep within me was a warning tone: ‘check her tat first.’

She was sure she’d missed a good picnic and I told her “if you’d been there too there would have been faintin’ spells and myocardial infarctions.” She laughed, licked her lips, “can’t wait to play some more.”

Heidi and Everard joined me in the visiting room. “I’m glad you came to visit”, said Heidi. “Of course.” “Ash, this was fairly serious.” “She’s explained it. Bad call, missing or forgetting to check for a tattle-tat. I bet she doesn’t do that again.” Everard nodded, Heidi said “after you two started playing together, she’s been much more ... active.” “Yeah, so have I.”

Heidi said “Once I was a teen and I remember how she feels. It’s tough, yet people manage to miss episodes like these, and we’re getting nervous about all that ... activity.” “MOM! I’m RIGHT HERE!” said Danni. “I know, Danni. We thought the bad old days, with diseases that made people really sick, had ended about the time we were teens and it might be we were too slutty. We were probably wrong to take that attitude into the future even this far, and we’re sorry about it. We didn’t see it coming and a little, innocuous mistake could have been a horror.”

Danni nodded. “I get it. Ultimately I was a nitwit, and Ash is right, I won’t be that girl again.” Her folks nodded, and they started talking about where they’d be headed during Litha. After a few minutes I made leaving motions and Danni said “I’ll let you know when they let me out of here.” Everard and Heidi rose, hugged me, and Everard whispered “taken all together she’s been happier since you two started.” I nodded, hugged him again, turned and got a CVA home.

Noonish on a Sunday, the house empty. I packed up some of my sassy clothing and another set of date clothing for tomorrow’s meeting with Kyche - it made a fairly small package I could stick in my carrier - and I checked messages.

Ali -

>Hi, Ash,

I don’t know how to start this except with an apology, I took advantage of you last night and I am now embarrassed. [And he went on about how he should have respected me and all kinds of ideas I thought were outmoded but there he was doing some weird kind of penance. I didn’t even finish reading.]

>Hi, Ali,

I desire you. I’m happy with what you called taking advantage of me, I wanted to do exactly what we did - and then some. If you feel like hanging out with me I will demonstrate. -Achille

I wanted Ali. I wanted his cock and I wanted to touch every bit of smooth, strong, shy Ali. Ali, yes. And it still was all up to what he wished.

Putting in a few hours of revision wasn’t a bad idea but the material was feeling a little stale, so after a couple hours I was tired of it and that wasn’t the best of signs for me.

Beck -

>Hi, Ash, I am pretty sure you’re reviewing for exams but if you want to come up for air after all that, I would love to have a few hours for us to play. <3 <3 <3 -Beck-oo

>Hi, Beck,

Please. I would like that. What would be good for you? <3 <3 <3 -Achille

Ali:

>Hi, Ash,

I’m still trying to make sense of things. It is my, whatever, ideas that are in the way. Thank you for challenging them, I think, and please don’t take my slowness as reticence. I simply need to figure some things out. -AXShig

And a moment later, Beck:

>Now would be excellent. <3 <3 <3 -Beck-oo

>Hi, Beck, if the offer doesn’t expire I can be there in half an hour. <3 <3 <3 -Achille

I hit the shower, did all the clean-up, oiled my skin, and put on the most extreme date clothing I had - tiny, mostly metal mesh stuff, many teasing fixtures and accessories, extremely tight, my 75mm heels. I sent a transit to Beck’s so I would be unencumbered on the short walk through fairly dense foot traffic to and from the Square.

Beck was peeking out of her door when I arrived, nostrils flaring, vibrating. “That’s so good, Ash, you’re already hot.” I could hardly speak, I needed her to fuck me so badly. “Good thing your tack is waiting.” She heard the little ‘eeeee’ noise in the back of my throat. “Come on, then, pony girl, we’ll get you dressed.”

Ten minutes later I was in my tack. It felt natural, reassuring me that my overwhelming excitement would be relieved, eventually.

Beck wore her horse-cock, knowing how badly I needed her to fuck me. “Sweet Ash girl, I am going to keep up with your conditioning and this time it’s about your service to my pussy and ass.” Had my clit not been bound it would have smacked my stomach. I knew I wanted to serve Beck, therefore she got to condition me all she wanted and as I felt myself disappearing in a haze of need and desire as she helped me kneel and please her ass.

Every time I tried to tease her the horse-cock tail in my ass punished me. When I was pleasing Beck her way it excited me. I needed to please Beck with my tongue, she taught me exactly how to lick, kiss, and penetrate her ass to bring her pleasure. She used my nipples, clit, neck and ass to reinforce my need to please her and at the end she came screaming from nothing more than my tongue reaching and exciting certain places inside her.

There was a little break where she had me stand, tied my nipples to the horizontal bar, put my bridle on so I would have a horse cock in each of my fuck holes, and cropped my balls. I knew she was teaching me to need her crop and though she was striking strongly enough to make me hurt, I had to have it and my pony clit dripped continuously. “That’s a good pony girl, your clit gets all wet, doesn’t it?” she whispered as I twitched and bent my knees to get stronger sensation.

“Now, girl, my pussy.” She helped me kneel again, took off her horse cock and my bridle, bent my neck back and straddled my face. “Please me, girl.”

First, she had an aroma that excited me; second, I wanted to please her; third, she encouraged me by leaning down, pulling my balls up and into her palm. She squeezed, I needed the sensations she was using to make me her toy, so she taught me in detail how to please her pussy. When she came, alternately screaming and squeezing my tongue, I came - encouraged by my ‘tail’, my out-of-control trainer, and her very firm hand on my balls.

She released me, laid me down carefully and increased the sensation from my tail as she gagged me again with my bridle. “I want you to to have your tongue pierced, among other things, so you can please me with it.” She felt me tighten on her horse cock and said “good girl, Ash, I am training a wonderful woman into my pony girl.” I twitched again and she petted my head.

We lay together, her hands at work on my nipples and clit, keeping me desperate, until she pulled my ‘tail’ out. “Time to fuck my pony.” She bent me over the table she’d been on during our first day together, clipped my collar to something under it, and tied my ankles widely apart. She put her horse-cock back on. “You are my fuck toy, Ash pony girl, and you are going to please my horse cock.”

When she entered me I thought I would cum immediately but she said “No, girl, remember...” and I did. She could fuck me for an hour and I wouldn’t be able to cum without her permission.

I sought to please her more and as she fucked me she made a lot of sounds that seemed like nonsense but that she’d planned, and finally she said “Ash, girl, I own you. Cum now.” And I, riding her horse-cock, came. I was her pony-girl, I needed her, she was my sun-up and my sun-down and I opened myself in a way I hadn’t known before.

I was her pony in this place, but I knew how to touch Beck, beautiful Beck, such that she could be my pony too, and I shared everything I had with her and she came, and she made me cum, and we knew we had a new, difficult-to-describe ownership over one another and she said ‘in my most feverish dreams I never imagined this.’ ‘It’s us, Beck, finally and truly naked.’ And she came again and took me along with her.

A second or a decade later we were back in her play room. What does it feel like to know one’s worthy of another’s trust? It feels like this. I wanted no secrets of hers but respected them all; I wanted to hide nothing. We fused in a way I was certain wouldn’t come undone and a wave of delight came over me. Her horse-cock pulsed in my ass again and it made me cum again and I knew she was as helpless as I when she came.

Beck was holding me closely with her cock planted solidly in me and her stiff nipples making small dents in my back, and I sent her my delight and she sent me hers. We rested there. We could discuss wordlessly so we sent disjoint bits of our experiences and became closer.

Beck wanted my tack off. ‘Please, a little longer?’ ‘No, girl, too much to explore.’

I’d got to the point that my tack represented my delight in serving Beck and how exciting it is to do that. It had come to mean a sort of liberty. Nothing to think about, nothing I could think about, except Beck. I saw why I needed training, so I could go to that place ... and then I saw she was right. I nodded. She released my legs, freed my arms, and bit by bit we took the tack off me and hung it until I could put the conditioning agent on it. I felt I’d temporarily lost being Beck’s pony but kept this connection.

We could do without words, there was a better vocabulary available to us, but we didn’t know how any of it worked, so we fumbled around a bit and found the ‘off’ and ‘on’ switches for this kind of merging and we were together. We went back to the pallet to gather us together.

She lay there, her brown-flecked-with-green eyes watching me. ‘That was never a thing I imagined, and now it is the best thing in me.’ ‘I know, Beck, it’s the same for me.’ We rose, and set the room equipment to clean up sweat and juices and the sex funk.

She wanted to go into the big shower in the play room but it was occupied according to the grunts and ‘smack’ noises so we went back to her ensuite. We had a quiet shower, soft slow touches, a glowing feeling within me and her.

Late for lunch, it was close to 1500 and we were famished. Beck asked what I thought of bento boxes and I said “it’s good, but doing everything for just us seems a waste.” “Then let’s go to the pantry.”

“We walking?” “Yes.” “Good.” We put on clothes not as revealing as what we’d worn to the picnic but still showing us off, and we made sure we were ‘off’. With my heels on I was a little taller but Beck’s were higher than mine and I felt a little intimidated. Beck said “you’re going to have to catch up, and then some.” And she wrapped an arm around me and made sure I would feel the tiny motions of her nails on my lower torso.

This day offered us the best of northern California weather. Sun, warm but not hot, gentle easterly breeze. Birds and insects and squirrels were busy in plots of land not built on, and in people’s front gardens, and in the trees lining Riemann. At first, near the Square, there was fairly dense traffic but it thinned out beyond our place and the walking was more comfortable.

“I think you are statuesque, Beck,” I said looking up, “whereas I’m little.” She laughed. “I think I am rangy and you are bijou.” “We make a strange couple, don’t you think?” “No. We are a good couple. I love and desire you. You love and desire me. What else does it take?”

I stopped her, hugged her. She petted my hair and we continued.

The first part of the walk is the way to school, but we went ‘downhill’ - right - on Bohr a couple hundred meters. Today the pantry would be lightly staffed but the sushi counter and the other take-outs would be fully staffed and busy. Being with the Hausers’ - their single biggest customer, I bet - scion would ensure we got the best the pantry had.

The crowd wasn’t bad and we took turns exploring the pantry as the queue moved forward. There were pantries all around San Hip. They had grown out of the cafeteria service as the Collective went from a collection of shacks and an old Quonset hut, to a dreary lab, the Quonset and modest plywood bungalows, to a set of mixed-use buildings set at intervals around the Square, to its present stable situation: a population of about 30,000 dispersed unevenly around three hundred square kilometers, with town offices and Collective research facilities making up the single largest users of space within three hundred meters of the Square.

The fifteen square kilometers nearest the Square held half those inhabitants. Residents could have small-town center, suburban or rural environments for their homes because, either by accident or by design (no one knew - San Hip planning was famously opaque), the environments were intermixed. Pantries are Collective and are meant to break even, to relieve residents’ need for sustenance without standard business limitations or trips ‘outside’. If it came from the pantries it would be healthful and fresh. What new people were surprised about was the lack of processed food, and the Litha cooking classes, as well as informal culinary circles, were full of new Collective candidates.

I came back to the queue just as Beck started our order: two boxes, twelve pairs of sushi, rice, mixed tempura, tsukemono and cartons of miso soup. “Sure, Becky,” said the sushitori. She hadn’t bothered with detailed instructions, knowing we would get good mixes of sushi and tempura.

On leaving we picked up ... well, Beck wanted sake and got it but I felt festive and got some Champagne and two glasses. I thumbed the pad at the door, charge to my account.

We carried our food back to the Square. We had everything except a blanket and we didn’t care, it was dry and after we’d taken our shoes off we walked barefoot to a little spot under a madrone where we laid out the boxes and cartons and chopsticks and sauce containers and glasses. I eased the cork out of the Champagne bottle, poured and affirmed. Beck echoed and we touched glasses. I touched Beck’s bare foot with mine. ‘Us.’ ‘Us.’

I realized I hadn’t made a meal myself, to serve anyone else, since early last week and I vowed to do better. Of course, a kitchen dance was a deeply-felt social activity and I’d been doing plenty of those, but still ... here I was with someone I love deeply and should serve more.

We had to talk: there would be something Not Quite Right about a couple eating in silence so, without breaking contact with our feet, we chatted while interspersing the audio with direct. We talked about exams, and where we’d be going to undergrad. Beck said “Utrecht” and I thought she’d got something stuck in her throat but “I’m learning Dutch. Utrecht’s a good veterinary school.” “Large animal?” She nodded. “I love spending my time around horses.” ‘And ponies.’ “I met a gentlewoman at a Federation dressage competition. She asked how long I had been competing and I told her; she asked if I wanted to compete at a high level and I said ‘I’m going to be a large-animal veterinarian. I won’t have time.’ So she suckered me into a visit - she being vice-chancellor - and I can go there with a scholarship and stipend if I’ll compete. It’ll take an extra year but I don’t care.” “I’d never even heard of this, Beck.” “Dressage is an Olympic sport, and an art too. It’s about a horse / human team engaged in precise motion, and it’s like dancing in a way, but it relies on the bond between horse and rider to work. It spawns fanatics among breeders and, well, dressage competitors. Small community with old-school manners and the kind of back-biting and hissy-fits you don’t find outside the fine arts, or politics.” “And all this gets you into a veterinary practice?” “It’s an option but not first choice. I want to research.” “On...?” “Psychology of the human-equine relationship.” ‘Duh.’ I burst out laughing, had to hug her. “When do you practice?” “Some afternoons, and most Saturday mornings.”

“Did you know Utrecht is about a two-hour flight from Zürich?” “I didn’t.” “Think it over, girl.” “It’s funny, but I never formed in my mind what life would be like that far ahead.” “Get started, then. You have until the end of Yule to get a commitment unless you’re taking a gap year. Without sharing too much data, a couple of our friends will probably end up at European schools, Tübingen and Lausanne.”

“I understand why I’m looking at Zürich, but how come four of four are looking east?” “Three of us are lifers and the fourth came here when they were six. Too long with one outlook, and aren’t you curious about how people actually live in Western Europe?” “I guess ... not exactly.” “They are attentive to their quality of life in a way we don’t generally have here, and Americans and Canadians sometimes got frustrated with them, but it works in a way you can fall into and enjoy if you’re open - and the Collective has some of that same spirit.”

It took me a few seconds to recall that Auntie Berenice was an ETH Zürich professor during the time when her gender became an issue at Cornell. Maybe that had something to do with why Serge was headed there at the end of Mabon. I’d have to ask.

I fell into what Watson would have called a brown study. Beck picked it up immediately. “Why so glum, chum?” “There’s a future and I have been too enmeshed in the present to try to shape it.” “Give yourself kudos. You were blissfully unaware until, what, a week and a half ago?” “Something like that. I thought I would apply around, get accepted somewhere, go there. That isn’t all there is.” “It isn’t, Ash, and you’re having to learn it at a pace I’d call frenetic, yet here we all are. Start digging, count your blessings, make it happen.”

I had to hug Beck. “I have no idea what I’m doing.” “Sumi does. I will bet you a kℂ she is working quietly to find you a good place. Talk to her. She has wisdom.”

ℂ: Elder Americans sometimes called it the ‘canuck’ but officially it is the Canadia, and popularly Charlie. After the Big Oops the Canada/US landmass had far too many common concerns, and far too few divisions, not to merge. Canada had too few people given the profits to be extracted from eastern Europe and Asia, and the same in the USA meant wages were rising and that wasn’t good for anyone who had a million or more USD to their name.

US banks had been fucking their customers sideways. Fees, charges, outright scams and fake ‘contracts’ were rife in the US banking industry, and US government representatives were profiting too much from bribes - er, ‘campaign contributions’ - to interfere. Apart from the few who used credit unions, whose management was beholden to their members, US banking customers were being screwed, blued and tattooed. Banks profited more than their customers on all kinds of financial instruments: the more influenced by government, the more egregious.

The impending union of Canada and the US had people stealthily moving funds to Canadian banks (whose conservative boards of directors still hewed to a strict code of ethics) which welcomed ‘regular consumers’ no matter their national affiliation. The flight of capital from US to Canadian banks became a rout. The top, ‘too-big-to-fail’ US banks collapsed and the Federal Reserve lost control of the currency to the free-market, but excruciatingly dull, Canadian banking system. Canada’s banking industry found itself gunwales-deep in deposits and they formed the Boards of Canada mere weeks before the union.

The Boards were instantiated as a public service, not as a private source of profit, and as boringly as they could they created a plainly-worded charter which said the Boards were motivated by stability and responsibility to stakeholders, including depositors and borrowers, and the officers of banks would be criminally as well as civilly liable for transgressing it. On the morning of the union the Federal Reserve Bank was derelict and the Boards of Canada were the only manager of currency left standing.