Pony Up

The man who held the clipboard walked over to the table and spent a few moments studying the contents of the notes and the girl lay out upon it. He repeated some of the checks that had already been completed such as taking her pulse and studying the reaction of her pupils to a small torch produced from his robes.

His examination was soon over and he returned the clipboard to its place before carrying a small metal tray back to the table. On the tray were an unlabelled vial and a syringe, filled and ready for use. The man located a vein on Hannah's left arm and sank the needle into her skin. He had worked out the dosage based on the time elapsed since the dart had penetrated her skin and taking into account the size and age of the subject, the injection would ensure she was out for longer than was strictly necessary.

As with any drug, a larger dose was more risky than a smaller one, but there was no room for error and no one in the room wanted the subject to wake up in the middle of the process they were about to perform.

The men behind the masks may have been anonymous and devoid of all identity, they may have been total strangers to Hannah even if she had been conscious and given the chance to see their faces. But the same could not be said for the girl on the table in relation to the men in the masks. They knew every inch of her body and were familiar with her physical form to a degree that was simply not possible without intense study over a prolonged period and with a definite purpose. They knew Hannah's petite frame from top to bottom, were familiar with her feminine and yet slight body in every way possible.

The man who had administered the drug was joined by one of his colleagues who carried a roll of cutting tools and wheeled a sturdy bin on castors behind him. At a nod from the first man that seemed to be a signal to proceed, he busied himself with the task of removing her clothes.

Hannah had been offstage for no more than a few minutes when she had reached the tour bus and she was still wearing the clothes that she had performed in that night as a result. She had never been one to choose elaborate costumes for the bands gigs and she was convinced that she did not suit overtly feminine garments. The fitted red T-shirt that she wore above denim shorts was testament to that conviction, and while she chose to cover her legs with tights that were divided between yellow on her left and red on her right, a pair of canvas trainers completed the outfit. In combination with her choppy hair, dyed a similarly vibrant orange, Hannah presented the image of a woman who was more pixy then siren.

The laces of her trainers were simply sliced through with a pair of clippers and then pulled off her feet, revealing them clad in the tights that were now visible from the tip of her toes to the point where they disappeared into her shorts. The man dropped them into the bin without a backwards glance as he worked.

He undid the button at the waist of her shorts and pulled down the zipper to reveal Hannah's groin beneath the thick nylon of her tights. A firm tug dragged the shorts under her buttocks and started them down her thighs and then to her knees. When they reached her ankles, the man lifted her feet enough to pull them off completely and they joined her trainers in the bin.

Though he had taken the time to undress Hannah below the waist, the man chose to take the clippers to her T-shirt instead of peeling it off her body. He lifted the bottom of the shirt and sliced through the front, parting it so that the two edges fell to either side of her chest. Cutting the T-shirt from sleeve to collar on both sides took only seconds and the tattered remnants of the garment were soon yanked from beneath her.

For some reason the man turned next to her tights, pulling them away from her body and rolling them down her legs. His manner in doing so was by no means slow, but even a casual observer would have been able to wonder why he took more time and care with Hannah's legs than he did with her torso. Was it possible that one of these men who had shown no emotion whatsoever towards the girl on the table was trying to secretly indulge himself without being noticed? Perhaps it was so, but the moment that another of the men glanced over to see how matters were progressing, he hurried his efforts and completed the task of stripping the tights from the legs.

Beneath her clothes, Hannah had been wearing simple and rather nondescript underwear that consisted of a strapless bra and panties. Her skin was pale and patterned with the hint of delicate freckles in certain places, the hair that became visible as her last items of clothing were removed was a dark brown in colour.

Now that she was naked, another handing over took place as the man who had stripped her was replaced by another who carried a bowl of water and a simple disposable razor. He was more efficient in his work and soon began to shave Hannah's body of all the hair that he could find save for that on her head and her eyebrows. When he was done there was nothing left but smooth and slightly raw skin to be seen.

A more complex stage of her treatment was announced by the arrival of two of the men to handle the next task. They brought to the side of the table what looked at first glance to be a jumpsuit of some exceptionally pliable material, yellow in colour and with an appealing texture that resembled lycra. But upon closer inspection, the thing could be seen to be open at the back while having a hood attached at the collar and the shape of the sleeves and legs were very unusual indeed. Rather than ending in a cuff or incorporating a glove or sock for the appropriate appendage, the ends of the limbs instead flared out to accommodate strange shapes that flared out from the line of the suit and ended in circular pads perhaps four or five inches from one side to the other.

The men began to guide Hannah's legs into those of the suit, pulling the material over her skin and pushing her feet down into the strange shapes at the end. There her feet sank into a firm and yet at the same time yielding substance which seemed to swallow them whole and grip them tightly. It hugged her claves where it was little wider than her own legs and then gradually became wider as it reached the bottom of the legs, only stopping to form the circular base that replaced any defined foot.

The rest of her legs were soon covered as the suit was pulled tightly over them and it became clear that the garment had been made specifically to fit Hannah's dimensions as more of her body was swallowed beneath the yellow material.

At her groin the material was fitted to her crotch just as tightly before being stretched across her stomach and over her naked breasts. Each of these was slipped into its own sheath within the suit, fitting their shape perfectly so that once they were inside they stood as pert and round as they had before. But the difference was also plain to see, now that they were covered in the same yellow as two thirds of Hannah's body. The delicate nipples were picked out in a shade of orange that contrasted well with the more dominant yellow, smoothed and rendered in thicker layers of the same material.

Hannah's slender arms were placed into the sleeves, her hands sinking into the same material that had claimed her feet. The effect was more subtle here though, the size of the rounded shape in which the arms ended was more in keeping with her own hands and the lines from the wrist followed her own limbs. As the material engulfed her hands, it was clear that while she would be unable to move her digits in any way, Hannah would retain the ability to rotate her wrists while wearing the suit.

With all of her limbs in place, the hood was pulled over Hannah's head after a cap had been applied to cover her hair and make her appear bald. The features of the hood were an uncanny likeness to her own, different only in that they seemed to have been designed as an exaggeration of the real girl rather than a simple copy. Plumped lips in a shade of orange that matched her nipples pouted in a way that Hannah had never been comfortable with and her eyebrows of the same colour somehow managed to make even a neutral expression into a lusty sulk. Her eyelids were matched by the hood as well and in the same orange, long lashes spreading from their edges like the flapping wings of a butterfly.

One of the men turned her onto her back once she had been fully dressed while another used a small device to seal the edges of the suit together, fusing the material so that there was no need for a zipper.

Moments later the cellular adhesive lining the inside of the suit became active and began to bond to Hannah's skin as the material pulled ever tighter to her skin. Soon there was no way to differentiate between the suit and the woman wearing it, so strong was the effect of the adhesive on her body. The lines of her vagina became visible, the definition of her nipples stood out against her breasts and the lips of her mask opened as they covered her own.

With a painful attention to detail, the men examined the openings and orifices of her body to ensure that the suit was perfectly aligned with the girl beneath. Gloved fingers probed Hannah's mouth, vagina and anus to be certain that she would be able to function without impediment now that she wore a new and artificial skin.

Seeing that Hannah's mouth had opened slightly at the pull of the adhesive, one of the men took the opportunity to slide a small plastic device between her lips and push it to the back of her tongue. The presence of the device made her swallow in an unconscious effort to clear the blockage, but the device had been designed to take advantage of this reflex and the action only caused it to slip further down her throat. Eventually it came to rest against her vocal chords where it lodged itself firmly. The thing would present no impediment to her breathing nor stop consuming food or drink. But it would have a profound effect upon her voice, as she would later discover.

For the final touches to her new body, Hannah was turned onto her stomach with her head propped upon a foam pillow so that, had she been awake, she would have been looking straight ahead.

Two of the men approached the table carrying what looked like elaborate hairpieces in an orange that was a little darker than the colour of her lips and nipples. The first they attached to her seemingly bald head, strong glue holding the thing in place as it extended down the back of the neck and only came to a tapering halt in the middle of her back. The effect was a mane of hair that stood semi-erect and flopped over Hannah's face, framing her yellow features in orange.

The second hairpiece was longer and ended in what looked like a plug of some kind with sharp needles protruding a good inch from the end. The man holding the thing located a socket at the base of Hannah's spine and just above her buttocks, into which he thrust the plug so that the needles sank into her flesh. When he removed his hand it was clear to see that he had fitted a long, glossy tail to the girl's rear that matched her new mane perfectly.

He prodded the bottom of her spine with a metal probe and watched as the tail responded as if it were a part of her. As it was the thing had been plugged into her nervous system and would move in the same manner as any other of her natural appendages.

Finally one of the men placed what looked like a high-tech version on a branding iron to Hannah's right thigh, just an inch onto the buttock. There was a sound like that of a large stapler being depressed and when he removed the device it had impressed upon her skin the stylised image of a heart in the same orange that coloured her hair and various parts of her body.

The addition of the tail meant that Hannah could not be turned onto her back, so the men simply left her where she lay and retired from the room once their work was done.

Only when one took a step back and appreciated the strange features of Hannah's new body did it become apparent what had been done to her. Alone the elements were puzzling and alien, but taken together they began to make some kind of disturbing sense.

The rounded extremities were not simply blunt stumps, they were exaggerated hooves.

The hairpieces were not outlandish when they were taken as a mane and a tail.

The heart on her thigh was not a tattoo at all, it really was intended to be a brand of some kind.

Hannah's body had been transformed from that of a woman to that of a cartoonish equine. Her skin replaced with smooth lycra, her hands and feet turned into hooves and her hair replaced with a more fitting mane and tail.

All in all she looked like nothing more than a human being melded with a Pony Pal, the ubiquitous brand of plastic ponies that children the world over played with and collected with the devotion of a cult.

None of this seemed to matter to the men in the hazmat suits as they returned to the room and lifted the unconscious human pony from the table and back onto the gurney.

Maybe they had seen stranger things in their time, or maybe they knew to keep their thoughts and observations to themselves when presented with such things.

Either way they wheeled Hannah out of the room and away in silence.

Hannah woke slowly, the pleasant sensation of a deep and truly refreshing sleep proving strong enough to keep down the odd feeling that something was wrong. For a time there were only the vague details of her surroundings, fed to her without conscious thought by her senses as they came alive a little more with each passing moment.

She knew that she was warm and lay upon something that was very comforting, the feeling of it pleasant against her skin. She was also aware that there was an almost sweet smell on the air that she could not place in her semi-aware state, it was clean and simple in nature and not at all familiar to her nose. There were also faint sounds that reached her on the breeze, sounds that reminded her of birdsong heard from a distance.

It was only when she finally opened her eyes that Hannah finally remembered that none of those things were consistent with the sights, sounds and smells she associated with a morning on the tour bus.

She glanced around and saw that she was laid on top of what seemed to be, of all things, a pile of hay and inside some kind of small structure with walls made of wooden planks. There were no windows that she could see; only a door in the middle of one of the narrow walls that seemed to be cut into two halves with the top open to admit daylight.

So, she thought, it was a kidnapping.

Hannah wondered for a moment if she was in the hands of some demented fan or at the mercy of a more sinister and dangerous type of person.

Her thoughts became more urgent as she realised that the hay was rubbing against her skin in a way that would not have been possible had she been wearing clothes. Things only got worse when she made an unconscious effort to cover herself and realised that she could not feel her hands.

Things must have been serious if her kidnappers had stripped her naked and bound her hands.

Hannah decided that there was nothing else for it; she would have to make herself known to whoever was behind all of this and see what she was dealing with.

She drew in a lungful of breath and tried to shout, hoping to attract someone's attention.

The noise that emerged from her mouth took her totally by surprise.

"Hello, is there anyone there?"

That was what she had intended to say, but instead she had uttered a sound that was part whiney and part snort. She tried again, but was once more only able to produce sounds in a similar vein that more resembled an animal snorting than human speech. It was as if something were stopping her voice forming the words that her mind willed it to speak. She had no way of knowing what was causing the phenomenon and she was more than a little scared by the experience.

Of course the cause of the change in her ability to vocalise was a result of the device that had been implanted in her throat. It was a complicated thing that functioned to alter the movement of Hannah's vocal chords whenever she tried to speak. Instead of words, the device would alter the sounds to replace them with noises more fitting for an equine than a human being.

It was when she raised her hands to her throat that Hannah first realised the extent of what had been done to her.

Rather than the sight of her own extremities, she instead saw the rounded yellow pads that covered her hands. Her eyes widened in shock as she moved her altered limbs and saw them react in the same way her former body had done.

Hannah followed the line of her arms until she was gazing down at her chest, trying to take in the changes that had been wrought. She saw her breasts, thighs and then her feet all changed to the same yellow and beneath a new skin that was clearly not natural but rather a stretching and moving lycra.

Her modified hooves explored as best they could, brushing the hair of her mane into her face so that she could see the intense colour and reaching behind her to locate the tail that she was suddenly aware of as though it were a living part of her body. She almost screamed in horror when the tail moved as she thought about the thing.

Still reeling from the sight of her new body, Hannah tried to get to her feet.

It was a daunting task with her feet trapped in the broad hooves of the suit, but she managed to struggle to a standing position after a number of failed attempts. The hooves forced her feet into a position similar to that of a person walking in high heeled shoes, and as it was years since she had worn anything other than trainers, Hannah took a long time to get used to the sensation.

When she was confident enough with her balance, she made her way to the door of the structure in an effort to explore her surroundings. As she reached the two halves of the door, she realised that she was actually standing inside a stable intended for housing a horse. Glancing through the door she saw that the stable had a small porch outside and a number of racks on the wall that held a collection of what she assumed were riding tackle.

Hannah pushed the bottom of the stable door open with one of her hooves and stepped out onto the porch. She was surprised to see that the small wooden structure was not standing in the middle of a field, but was actually very much indoors. The whole thing stood in the middle of a single room with three plain white walls and a third composed of floor to ceiling glass that looked out over a wide and unfamiliar cityscape. The floor of the room was carpeted with what Hannah assumed was some kind of synthetic turf, as it looked too pristine and even to be real grass. There was even birdsong being piped into the room by means of some hidden speaker system and perhaps that was the feature that she found the most disturbing of all.

The glass of the windows afforded Hannah her first chance to see her own reflection from head to toe and it was a sight that instantly caused her a confusing rush of emotions.

She was a horse, she realised as she noted the shape of her hooves and the way in which her mane and tail cascaded over her yellow skin. Or more aptly, she was a pony. She had been changed to resemble a cartoon-like rendering of a humanoid equine, hooved and sporting recognisably animal features and yet retaining the shape and sexuality of a human being.

As a woman in who lived and moved in the music industry and particularly a part of that world that was still woefully male dominated such as rock, Hannah had been unknowingly conditioned by the urge to defy the expectations placed upon her gender. She was more aware than most of the assumption that a woman only fronted a band on her physical merits rather than her talent and knew all too well the reality that a strong-willed female would be thought of as a pushy bitch where a male with the same attitude would be lauded as a maverick and a rebel. She had tried to escape these stereotypes and gain acclaim for her ability as a vocalist and writer, but there was always the fear that if she showed too much of her feminine side she would satisfy the prejudices of her male audience while at the same time alienating the female as well.