Manties in a Twist (The Subs Club Book 3) (24 page)

He ran his hand up and down my back, and holy
shit
that felt good. He gave my harness a light tug. “Hey. You okay?”

I nodded.

“I’m gonna get behind you. Stay there.” He gathered up the reins and went to stand behind me. My stomach flipped. It was crazy to me how different things felt when I couldn’t see him.

He shook the reins lightly over my shoulders and clucked. I walked forward. Easy enough. I was breathing kinda loud and slurpy-ish around the bit, but whatevs.

He tugged the right rein. It stretched the corner of my mouth. “Can you feel that?”

“Yehhh,” I said around the bit.

“Is it too hard?”

I laughed. “Nhhhoo.”

He pulled the left rein a little lighter. “How’s that?”

“Pehw-hehhh.”

“Perfect?”

He totally understood my pony-talk, so that made me feel better. “Yehhh.”

He pulled back on both reins, and I stopped. He walked up right behind me. I could feel him, but I couldn’t see him, because stupid blinkers. He petted me again. Like, just the way you would a real horse down the neck and over the shoulder. “You’re doing so good,” he said.

I hadn’t actually done much of anything, but I still felt awesome when he said that.

“Can I ride you?” he asked.

I swung my head toward him. “Yewannuhryyymehhh?”

“Yeah.” He gathered the reins into a shorter loop.

I nodded again. “Ohhkhharrr.”

I crouched. He climbed up on my back. I hooked my arms under his legs. I wanted to point out that we were finally
Freak the Mighty
-ing it, but I had the bit in.

I groaned as I got to my feet, and he slapped my shoulder. “Shut up. I’m not heavy.”

I mock staggered back and forth, while he laughed. “Kamen!” He kicked at my sides. “Thunder Canyon! Go forward. Go, pony!”

I shook my head and snorted, then started jogging.

“Oh God.” Ryan clutched my shoulders, then slung his arms around my neck as we headed down the trail. “This was a terrible idea.”

I hitched him up higher on my back and jogged a little faster.

“Yeehaw!” Ryan yelled.

Suddenly I tripped for real, and wiped out.

We collapsed in a heap, laughing and groaning.

“Okay.” Ryan rolled himself off of me. “We are definitely not riding anymore.”

“Wooo huff hoo guuhh buikhh ern vuuh fa-uhww.”

He laughed and unclipped my bit. “What was that?”

I moved my mouth, wiping away the spit. “You have to get back in the saddle.”

“You’re a cart pony. We need to stick to carts. Once we have a cart, that is.”

“Yeah, what’s going on with that?”

“Patience, patience.” He looked around. “And we have to find somewhere better to practice.”

I thought for a minute. “Our apartment has a long hallway. If the cart’s small enough . . .”

He shook his head. “We need to be outside. I’ll check around on Fet. See if anyone has any private property. Or find out where other pony people go, at least.”

I considered this for a moment. “Actually, I might have a better idea.”

I met D for lunch on Monday at a place called Ham on the Corner. It served mostly ham. On buns that were toasted in a skillet full of bacon grease.

I bit into my sandwich. “Dave says that you have land. Outside of the city.”

He nodded, paunch rising slightly as he inhaled. “Yes. But if you would like to build on it, I must decline. I have—” his gaze shifted “—plans for it. But if you’d like to camp with your very small partner, that is acceptable.”

“I don’t want to build. Or camp. Ryan and I just need a place to practice something. Is it private?”

“Very much so, and I am surprised you would even need to ask.” His eyes narrowed. “What, may I ask, are you practicing?”

“It’s just a thing we have to rehearse.”

“It’s not a . . .” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “It’s not a flash mob, is it?”

“What?”

He sighed deeply and ate some more ham. “David recently told me about flash mobs. I’m not judging. But I am troubled.”

“I promise it’s not a flash mob.” I stared at my sandwich for a second, then decided to go with the truth. “Ryan and I are trying pony play, man.” I hadn’t really meant for the “man” to slip out. It was just me trying too hard to be casual. I even added a shrug.

D brought his sandwich slowly to his mouth. Without taking his gaze off of me, he bit and chewed. Those blue eyes were
intense
.

He swallowed. “Pony play.”

“Yeah, like where a person pretends to be a horse.” I shrugged again. “You know.”

“Yes. I know.” He took another slow bite.

“I, uh . . . I know you like horses.”

He didn’t comment.

I cleared my throat. “A Friesian.”

“Pardon?”

“That’s the kind of horse I am. A Friesian. Because I remember you telling me how great they are.”

His expression softened. “I’m not sure whether I am honored or disturbed.” He paused. “I will go with honored.”

“Please don’t tell Dave. It would kill him.”

A strange guzzling sound came out of his throat. I thought for a sec he was crying. Then I realized he was laughing.
Hard
. “Ohh. I’ll try. I really will. But . . .” He wiped under his eye with one finger. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m just . . . imagining David . . .”

I tried to glower at him, but I couldn’t keep a straight face. “If you don’t tell him about this, I promise I won’t tell him you enjoyed the renaissance faire.”

D hesitated. Licked mustard off his thumb. “David is aware that I enjoyed myself at the festival.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”

“We are practicing a greater degree of honesty in our relationship. Have some fries.” He motioned to his plate.

“Fine.” I leaned over to grab some fries. “But still don’t tell him.”

D was staring at my midsection. I realized my T-shirt had ridden up, and my jeans had ridden down. Which left a little bit of red lace exposed. I sank back into my seat, pulling my shirt down.

He met my gaze again. Nodded briefly. “Your secret is safe with me.”

And I knew it would be.

That afternoon, I got “Snow Wanderer” pretty much set. I made a couple of recordings on my shitty laptop recorder, but wasn’t totally happy with either of them. So I called one of the other guys I knew who played at Pitch sometimes. He worked in the Hymland College library, in their media center. The media center had installed a recording booth a couple of years ago. He said it was booked pretty much till the end of the semester, but he could try to get me a spot.

So that made me happy.

Then the Pegasus Sheath arrived, which made me double happy. I walked around with it on and, like, swung it around in circles and stuff until it was time for work.

And then that night, Ryan’s friend Dan came over in an SUV and dropped off a pony cart. We parked the cart on our deck. It was kinda patchworkish—bicycle tires, what looked like a piece of a workout bench, and one of the shafts was slightly longer than the other.

“Where’d this come from?” I demanded.

“Dan works in a bicycle shop.”

“How does that explain anything?”

“Maybe some evenings when I was ‘working late’ last week, I was actually at the cycle shop with some guys who like to build shit.”

I stroked the left trace. “You made this?”

“I had a ton of help.”

I looked up at him. “What’d you tell the guys it was for?”

“I said my mom had just gotten a Shetland pony.”

“That’s one of those stories that sounds so fake it might be true.”

“Knowing my mom, it could be true. Speaking of which . . .”

“Yeah?”

“My parents want us to drive up there for brunch on Sunday.”

“Awesome!”

“We’ll lose a whole day of practice,” he warned.

“Dude. There is time in the montage for brunch.”

“Good.” He looked relieved. Had he honestly thought I’d be upset about missing practice to go see his family?

We carried the cart up the back steps and put it in the laundry room. And then I showed him the Pegasus Sheath.

He was literally speechless.

We had sex with me wearing it, which was a little weird, but hey. This house was a judgment-free zone.

Ryan took Tuesday off work. I mean, no kidding, called in and did the fake cough and everything. We went out to D’s property to practice. The cart didn’t exactly fit in my car, so we had to do some creative things with tying the trunk half-shut so the shafts could stick out. But I was feeling awesome, and Ryan let me blast “Man in Motion” from
St. Elmo’s Fire
on our way there.

The property was just a few acres on the edge of a suburb, off a dirt road. D had given me GPS coordinates, since there wasn’t a technical address. I had a feeling he’d expected me to find it by compass or something, but I just plugged the coordinates into my phone, and it worked out okay. There was a meadow surrounded on two sides by woods, and the grass looked like it had been mowed recently. I wondered who D got to take care of his land. And whether Ryan and I risked running into, like, the caretaker one of these days.

We parked along the edge of the dirt road. Unloaded the cart and the gear, dragged it into the meadow, and tacked up.

This time, Ryan put the hooves on, then hooked my wrists behind my back with padded leather cuffs.

I shifted. I felt a little off-balance, but nothing horrible.

He stepped back. “Looking good.”

If you say so.

He spent a while hitching me to the cart. He had to pull up videos on his phone a couple of times, but eventually he got the shafts secured to my harness. He led me around in a circle so I could get used to pulling the cart. It creaked a lot, but it wasn’t heavy or anything.

He picked up the reins and whip, and went around to get in the cart. It was actually easier to be a pony with my hands cuffed—like, it really hit home to me that I didn’t have to make choices. I just had to follow cues.

I was aware of every tiny sensation—the tail brushing my bare legs, the plug pressed deep in my ass. The harness straps rubbing against my T-shirt, the bit pushing down on my tongue. Sweat trickling under the bridle and drool running down the sides of my chin. The slight tension in the reins as Ryan gathered them. The fucking Pegasus Sheath hanging out of my pants. The fact that I couldn’t see anywhere except right in front of me, thanks to whatever ass lesion had invented blinkers. I pulled nervously against the wrist cuffs, but they didn’t give.

I held my breath as I waited.

He flicked the reins lightly over my shoulders and clucked. I jumped forward into a brisk, half-panicked walk. Was jerked back by the cart’s resistance, but then I leaned forward and got it moving across the grass. The tail swished against my calves, and the plug shifted inside, making my dick try to rise in its sheath.
Stallion power, motherfuckers.

“Easy.” Ryan tugged gently on the reins. “Where’s the fire?”

I smiled around the bit and slowed down. I still didn’t really get what this game did to me. I knew it made me feel really self-conscious, which was weird, because self-consciousness had never been my thing. I’d always liked making people laugh, and the best way to do that was usually to make a complete idiot of myself. But now I was doing probably the most ridiculous-looking thing of my life, and for once, I didn’t want anyone to laugh. Even though I totally understood why they would.

Ryan had asked if I was gonna tell my friends about the pony play, and I’d been all like,
Duh
—but then I’d made D keep it a secret. And I got kind of terrified whenever I imagined doing this in front of an audience. So what was up with that?

But the people who go to a pet play thing probably aren’t there to make fun of the pets.

Probably.

He tugged the left rein, and I turned, careful to make a wide arc so the cart didn’t tip. My skin vibrated the way it used to sometimes at tennis practice when it was hot out and I didn’t hydrate enough. This should have been easy. This was just Ryan telling me what to do and me paying attention. But I felt like I was treading water in the middle of the fucking ocean. Like, how could it be as simple as turning left when he pulled the left rein? Didn’t I have to act like a horse? Make my stupid horse noises or something? Fight him once in a while?