Anxiety

Still she felt the urge to cover herself. Not as strongly as a week ago, and by no means as overwhelmingly as the month before. Miriam let her arms dangle down her sides, opening her shoulders in the same motion. She liked to believe that all her anxiety had been removed, lying greyly in the folded heap of non-descript clothes, having been stripped off her literally.

Her dressage kicking in, Miriam quickly made eye contact as her handler approached with her harness from across the cosy tack room. His silent command of brushing her elbow was enough. The girl raised her arms high, thus giving him access from all sides. Roller-buckled leather wound about her body, which cursed lankiness slowly became counterbalanced by tone and tan. In her mind Miriam was donning armour, like a heroine from those books dear to her heart.

Once the harness, practical as it was revealing, presented itself snug in all places but one, she was bidden -- once again non-verbally -- to lower her limbs to their former, least awkward pose. Nothing more was needed to announce her bridle; and by it the one item that would control her more severely than all the other tack her body would soon carry combined.

An entanglement of belts filled her field of vision, cruel steel pushed against her lips. Total submission became the paramount goal of her existence as Miriam opened her mouth wide to accept the bit. Minding her intricate braid, her handler tightened the various straps about her head, benevolent yet firm. The corners of her lips stretched back as the bit settled deep in Miriam's mouth, with its spade-like extensions lying flat on her tongue. No more speaking. No more thin voicette routinely unnoticed in her self-esteem-free everyday grind. A small loss, as she gained so much more in return -- the unambiguous guidance from the reins, casting out the ever-gnawing uncertainty of what was expected from her by people both known and strange. She, for whom nothing short of waterboarding was necessary to get more than one sentence out of, would choose the agony of a flogging over the horrors of a conversation. As the last and possibly single most important part of her head bondage the chin strap tightened, trapping her lower jaw against the unrelenting bit and thus sealing her fate.

The slender wristband for which Miriam offered her right arm wasn't strictly part of her tack. The fitness tracker in it would monitor her signals, mitigating the risk of her overexerting herself. She had been found becoming a tad too enthusiastic of late once the serotonin would flow aplenty during gallop. Her handler was also concerned about her falling back into the self-harming habit of not daring to pipe up when reaching her limits.

Although she would not be able to wear one without evoking memories of control and discipline, it was hard for her to erotically charge the little doobrey -- something that could not be said about the gear her handler fetched next. No matter how heavily she had blushed whilst taking off her clothing, this reaction always increased to almost comically reddened ears once Miriam was confronted with hoof boots. Unlike, say, her ponygirl harness, which had no direct equivalent in the mundane world, the extreme footwear built a bridge to the ordinary; an outrageously fetishised version of a day-to-day item. In her mousy life Miriam confined herself to trainers and generic winter boots, maybe her precious Docs if she went really wild. Heels or posh designs of other varieties were not for someone like her. How ridiculous a thought!

Extensive assistance from her handler was needed for Miriam to have one lower leg, then the other encased in the stiff, not yet fully broken-in leather. With her feet stressfully forced into the en-pointe position on the moulded hooves she was standing a full span taller now, not that she cared. She was too tall for her taste as it was, her skinny frame overemphasised. The boots would not come off any time soon, and not only because her handler covered each lacing with a leather flap whose buckles were secured by small padlocks. Showing grace and pace on her hooves was a dressage objective.

Although she might use her legs in her pony persona, her upper limbs would not be granted this freedom. There would be no nervous fumbling of fingers in flat-chested shyness, no insecurity where to leave her hands, and Miriam was thankful for that. Her arms, slender as they were, folded up behind her back, higher and higher until her hands rested praying between her pronounced shoulder blades. Niftily placed restrains pinned her wrists against her body. Further down, a wicked belt pulled her elbows together to the event of touching, unfazed by her curbed squeals of distress. It, too, found an anchorage point at the harness lest Miriam flap her arms like broken wings. This was only the second time she was able to accomplish this extreme position, albeit under massive strain. She was proud of this achievement, a feeling which had seldom visited her in the past. The strain would fade. Not today, but in time. This was training, after all.

Put into such demanding bondage, Miriam had never felt safer, more protected. All responsibility but the one for absolute obedience was lifted off her. And even if she failed in her wholehearted attempt, she would still be cared for by her handler, on whom she might even allow herself to have a crush without feeling laughable.

She cast her eyes down out of habit, both on the thought and his approach. He paused before her, not proceeding until she would indicate her readiness. Miriam fought her way back into the volatile mind set of a proper pony and looked up, her vision guided and steadied by the blinkers.

Twin pain raced through her breasts as she was belled. The handler did not let the clamps snap shut, but allowed them to close slowly on her nipples. He had adjusted them to a slightly higher tightness than Miriam was used to, and a bitted gasp escaped her lips. She detested pain as a means of titillation, and the concept of punishment as an end in itself. But she was not opposed to needful physical hardship. Better to endure the bite of their serrated jaws than to experience the dreaded bell slippage during a cross-country gallop. Her handler had so far refrained from pursuing a more permanent fixture, as he deemed her not yet ready for this step. Miriam understood the importance of first accepting her body before seeking to modify it by other means than exercise. Even the braid of hers, elvenesque as it was, had required a good deal of mental effort.

It had been worth it, though. The way it started at her temples as two strands, emphasised the design of her bridle, emerged from it to open up to a springy ponytail had found admiration by onlookers and fellow fillies alike.

The way it complimented the final piece of her tack. The one item that like no other would define her as a ponygirl. Her handler assisted Miriam to find a stable pose bent over the horizontal beam opposite the bridle wall. The wood was smooth and rounded, polished by the leather-clad skin of countless ponies who had opened themselves for their tails.

Miriam willed her sphincter to relax, and was briefly defied as the tender orifice reacted stubborn to a lubricated touch. Her handler had shown great patience in the past, when a successful digital probing had required half an hour of slow palpation. The same patience had his finger fully entering the silken canal in less than a minute today. Once embedded within the still clenching depths, it began a gentle stirring against the rectal walls.

Miriam pressed her teeth into the rubberised sections of her bit, the sensation of anal penetration still alien to her. A shadow of panic threatened to rise as her handler removed his finger to replace it with something of a more invasive nature. Ere she had the chance to give in to this most unwanted emotion, the tip of her plug pressed against her freshly prepared opening. With only the slightest amount of stretching pain the bulb slid in, even aided by the now pliable sphincter once the thickest part of the taper had travelled past. A very pony-like gasp escaped Miriam as the plug seated itself. Her handler helped her up from her exposing position and immediately prompted her to perform a couple of high steps on the spot. Her intruder shifted slightly, but otherwise remained in its designated place. From between her buttocks a chestnut-coloured tail was emerging in a luscious arch. As a precaution against the effects of muscle actions during the upcoming foray the handler buckled her crotch strap to tightness. A retainer ring allowed her tail to remain undisturbed. A wipe took discreet care of the fresh excitement between her legs.

That annoying weakness in her knees would pass, Miriam knew. Her rectum was pulsing around the plug in sync with the throbbing burn from her nipples. Another rhythm would soon take over. Her handler stepped in front of her to clip the reins to her shanks.

Eye contact! Don't grovel, she scolded herself. There was a distinct difference between docile and sheepish.

Taking the reins short, her handler let her outside to the waiting sulky. The high-stepping gait on relevé came naturally to Miriam; gone were the times it felt awkward to bring her knees up with every stride. Gone were also the whip marks on the back of her thighs, and to draw new ones had become needless.

Hitched to the lightweight cart, she felt her handler taking his place behind her. The sulky's two wheels bore most of his mass, the rest was neatly distributed across her shoulders by the harness.

The driving whip fell. A sharp lick to her right hind-quarter, not punitive but uncompromising. Then an immediate follow-up to the left to set the pace. Miriam took off in an energetic trot across the cobblestoned yard. The boost in confidence that came with the hollow clonk-clonk of her hooves would carry her for miles. In chorus with the chimes of her nipple bells the sound would certainly turn heads. Oh, how boys had used to not even ignore her, but simply not notice the brunette wisp in the corner. This invisibility, welcomed by her far more often than not, was not an option when in pony gear.

Such notion could not terrify her anymore as she was prancing down the oak-shaded road. One buckle, one high-step, one tailing at a time, the dressage transformed her -- not into another person, but into another self. Freed from social norms, she answered only to the commands from her adored handler. The bent before the old granary was coming up, and her handler reined her in. Steel edges pressed into her palate and tongue. The fiendish design of her bridle prevented her from evading the bit action. Miriam would not want it any other way. The blessing of immediate, unmistakable order, free of vagueness and triviality, was too tempting. A strict, closed set of rules she could adhere to.

With every metre that went by underneath her hooves the worthless ballast of doubts and fears dwindled away. A proud pony at last, she couldn't wait for the next straight stretch of the country road to leave everything that kept her in true, grey, mousy bondage behind in a spirited gallop.