As She's Told (62 page)

"All the rigging should have clued me in."

"It is like sailing, come to think of it." Anders rested his eyes on the trotting figure before them. "Challenge and power. Skill and finesse."

"And the fun when it all comes together and you've really got control.

Yes, I see. No, don't slow down, girl." He used the whip again, to good effect. "A boat can cruise a whole lot longer. This one's getting tired."

"She's all right for a while yet. Don't let up."

"All right. Hoist the main sail! Close hauled; a couple more points to windward. Here we go."

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As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob

Chapter Thirty
Mode of transportation thoughts

They didn't let me in the house at all that first week. The closest I got was the flower garden, which was hard baked earth between huge clumps of weeds, threaded by the occasional leggy and pathetic-looking petunia.

Anders had unearthed an old plough from somewhere, and I stood like a patient mule while he worked out how to fasten me to it. Beneath a straw hat, chewing on my bit, I felt entirely, peacefully equine, standing there sniffing the morning air in the shade of the tall house, waiting for the one with hands to sort things out.

Once he got me going, however, my bucolic animal idyll was a thing of the past. No matter how hard I leaned into it, the plough jerked, caught, broke free and then yanked me back to a standstill. I struggled forward, taking the lash again and again down ass and thighs. The tough old weeds stung my legs as I went through them, and required inducement from my master and effort to the point of tears before I got them loose. What had seemed to be a small and manageable patch – maybe six feet by twenty –

became a vast battlefield, with me the platoon that was thinking urgently about white flags.

The second pass wasn't much better than the first. I stopped trying to take in the entire job by eye; just stared at the ground in front of me and concentrated on getting one foot past the other, obeying signals as best I could like a good beast. By the third pass it was easier. Then my master dumped about six huge bags of topsoil all over, and changed the plough for a kind of horizontal rod with teeth, a harrow, I guess, and we went round a fourth time. By the time I'd been hosed down and fed I was barely able to keep my eyes open; I slept, exhausted through the hot midday in my stall.

When I woke and moved I groaned. Everything had stiffened up. Anders came and made me stretch, and rubbed something into my legs. By mid-afternoon I was in harness again, still groaning. Anders and Svend, both of them this time, hitched me to a different vehicle, a cart twice the length of the pony trap, with four wheels instead of two. It didn't seem a whole lot heavier, fortunately, and I was able to pull it well enough. Gradually my aches subsided. They drove me in a leisurely way, nothing above a trot. I 392

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was getting used to Svend's driving, maybe because he was getting better at it. And because the work of a pony was leaving me with very little time to worry.

Anyway, Svend was the easiest. The closest to my master, the one I'd had most time to get used to. The one who was neither female nor had a female in tow. And although he handled me with increasing confidence, he was still a bit of a tyro at the whole thing. A tourist, in a way. The least threat of all of them.

Anders pulled me to a stop and led me beneath some trees by the side of the road. No water was visible, though I could smell and hear it somewhere nearby. My reins got tied up to an overhanging branch like before, and then the two men were out of sight. There was the sound of chopping behind me.

I couldn't turn much, fastened as I was, but I caught a flash of metal in the corner of my eye. After a few minutes there was a clatter of wood into the cart behind my back, and footsteps back into the trees. Another clatter; more wood. Svend appeared dragging a goodsized log; I could feel that one go in.

He went back for more. No light load, this one. I clenched my teeth around the bit, imagining the struggle that was coming and what it would cost me. I was right, too. When at last they led me back to the road, they tried riding, but even whipping me along couldn't get me past a slow walk, so they got off and walked themselves, and I could just about manage. The uphill bits had me panting with the effort, gasping at every blow. Eventually I stood on shaky legs by a shed back behind the house, sweat dripping into stinging welts, watching peripherally as they unloaded. One armful went straight into the kitchen. A fireplace, then. I thought about the heat of the fire on my flank at home, crouching warm under my master's legs.

But after another hose down I was back in my stall, alone again, watching the coming dusk creep up the walls. The stable and stall did have lights, of course; they turned them on when they came out to use me, and turned them off when they left.

Svend had long since been granted free use of my mouth; when he was around he took advantage of the opportunity two or three times a day. Val, too; when she spent time in Anders' workshop, generally made use of me also, to my chagrin. Karl and Ria had been a bit more elaborate about it, but my status as household utility had already been well established by the time they were around. And of course my master satisfied himself any time he 393

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liked, in any hole that appealed to him. Giving him that kind of pleasure was my raison d'être.

So it was no hardship those evenings when the men walked into my stall. The hardship was when they left. It was very lonely there in the dark.

Sleeping alone wasn't easy at all. I woke in the middle of the night on my pile of straw, missing the long limbs claiming me even in sleep. How was he managing without me?

***

The bed was only a double, with a creaky headboard and noisy springs, but it felt oddly large and empty without his little hunhund and her chain noises. Anders wondered how she was coping out there. There was no mistaking her eagerness when he showed up, and her bereft look, like a puppy being shut in its crate, when he turned out the light. They hadn't been separated at night in over a year. He lay awake in the dark and felt for her against his chest, between his legs.

The room smelled foreign, a room that had never contained her. He'd mandated her current lock-up for its significance: layers of implications, most of which he enjoyed immensely. But he hadn't counted on the resulting separation leaving such a hole in his own chest. Still, they'd both survive it.

It took him all of ten minutes, rather than five, to fall asleep. Fishing tomorrow, he thought as he drifted off.

Karl arrived, and got a weekend of good weather, which meant a chance to tour the farm in the two-wheeled cart and get the hang of driving. He liked messing about with fly fishing, too, though what little experience he had was with grayling and sea trout. On Sunday it clouded over enough that there were brook trout biting, even in the parts of the stream with no cover, and they left the pony and trap tied up for long periods while they tried pool after pool. The next morning drizzle misted the truck's windshield during the long drive to the airport. All the way back to the farm, steady wiper noises made a background to their conversation. Karl and Ria and Anders dashed up to the porch with Ria's bags, and then turned to look at the monotone grey sky and what had turned into a determined downpour. "Hot drinks by the fire, and then I'll start dinner," said Anders. "The tour can wait."

Ria came down in jeans and fully repaired makeup, giving judicious approval to the farmhouse. "But where is your little hunhund?"

"Our little mare, so far," said Svend. "It turns out that horses live in 394

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stables; they don't come into the house."

"I think it's time the house had a dog actually," said Anders. "I'll fetch her."

It was a wet and shivering animal that crawled onto the porch and, after a rough towelling, had its muzzle firmly applied. The creature followed the pull of the leash through the door into the big kitchen. She looked very small down there on the floor. The kettle was steaming, and Karl was spreading honey on toasted rolls.

"Here's our little puppy," Karl said. "Just as juicy as ever, as you see.

Now, Anders, how can I feed her tidbits if you muzzle her like that?"

"And how can she lick us hello?" added Ria. "I want to be greeted properly. She hasn't been biting lately, has she?"

Anders grinned. "All right. She can wear a bit and bridle instead, hunhund though she is, and greet you with her tongue. No tidbits, though."

The bridled head followed the leash's tug, and after a moment's hesitation, a tentative tongue reached past the bit to lick the hands held out to it. The creature craned her slender neck, and took in the room for the first time through eyes framed by straps: the underside of the long, scarred wooden table, the painted cupboards and tall hutch, the familiar pans hanging on unfamiliar hooks. Dark eyes rested on a well-known cage in the corner. Boots at the back door. Windows streaked with rain. Back up to all the eyes looking down on her, and instantly down to the wide, worn floorboards between her mitts.

The world outside continued wet and unwelcoming for the rest of the evening. They built up the fire and talked, played with the hunhund, and talked some more. Svend, arguing with Karl over the ethics of carbon trading, found himself increasingly distracted by the sight of the slave upended over one of Karl's knees, having her nipples casually tweaked. He'd thought that he had had his fill of the girl while the others were off at the airport. But each tiny squirm acted upon him like a compressor, sending vital fluids in the direction of his cock.

He had to wait his turn, though. Ria, yawning and jet-lagged, wanted to be lapped to sleep. Then Anders decided to punish the slave for some minor infraction; coincidentally there was a new crop supplied by Ria to test. The striped buttocks' anguished clenching sent the pressure in Svend's compressor into the red zone. At last he got the tearful woman-dog's head 395

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between his thighs.

***

Sunshine flickered in warm trapezoids on the kitchen wall opposite the window, filtering through the flowering vines that wavered in a light wind.

A gentle honeysuckle breezed flipped the corners of newspapers and napkins.

Val sniffed and sighed. "Damn, I wish I could get out here more often."

She looked down at the paper propped against her cold coffee cup. "I shouldn't be reading this stuff. It just makes me mad. Here, look at this." She folded back the Globe she'd brought up with her, handed it to Anders and sat back in her chair with her hands laced behind her head.

Anders ran his eyes down the headlines. "The news always makes you mad. What's particularly raised your ire this morning?"

She pointed. "Developers won another one. One of the last pieces of farmland in Vaughan this time."

"Shit."

Karl forked the last piece of French toast onto his plate. He and Ria would have preferred rugbrød, but the rye at the store in town was something else altogether; a pallid foam unworthy of the name. He smiled at the small square woman across from him. "But you yourself like to build houses, Val."

"I also like to eat. And I'd prefer to eat something that hasn't had to travel a thousand miles to get to me. Anyway, I do renovations, downtown density; not sprawl."

"Eating locally, is that it?" Svend asked. "I've got some friends who are trying to do that. Nothing from further away than a hundred kilometres. No, wait; miles.”

“Either way, that seems a little extreme," said Ria. "Look at the environmental impact of all that food trucking, though."

Ria looked glanced at the pyramid of fruit in the bowl before her. "Still, no oranges? No mangos?"

"Never mind tropical fruit," said Svend. "No coffee! Imagine. They're trying to give it up; Jordan looks like something out of Day of the Dead."

"It's multinationals," Val said blackly. "The bastards. Making a fortune giving us crap food and putting small farmers out of business."

Ria nodded thoughtfully. "This is why we are growing vegetables, 396

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hmm? That is all fine in theory, but you know, my last pair of jeans is now very dirty and that ancient washing machine down there is in pieces all over the floor. Is someone going to put it together again? Washing clothes on a rock in the stream is not my idea of a holiday."

"I have to go into town for parts before I can fix it," said Anders. "We need some shingles for the barn roof, too. I'd better do some loads at the Laundromat while I'm there, because frankly the chance of getting that thing going at all is hit or miss. Ria? Want to come do it yourself or do you trust me with your underwear?" They both headed for the stairs. Karl settled down on the wide back porch with laptop and briefcase.

Twenty minutes later Anders was on his way to the door, keys jingling.

"Feed the slave, someone, would you? And then walk her and chain her up in her stall if you're not using her. I'll be back," he looked at his watch,

"early afternoon some time."

The truck started. Val started on the crossword puzzle. Ria glanced over at the cage in the corner, where the small figure crouched. She took the red bowl from the drying rack, poured some cereal into one side, water into the other, and slid it through the cage's slot. "There you go, hunhund.

Breakfast," she said in Danish. She unbuckled the muzzle and pulled it out from between the bars. Svend piled dishes in the sink and ran water.

The slave's face, released from its restraint, dipped over the bowl.

Crunching noises, the clink of wet crockery, pages turning – a peaceful farm kitchen morning. When Svend turned to hang up the last frying pan, he remembered to extract the now empty bowl from the cage and wash it. Then he took an apricot from the bowl on the counter, cut it up and squatted by the cage. "Come, girl," he said in Danish, and fed her the bits one by one, squeezing a tit while he was at it. He squeezed an ass cheek next, and smiled at the sight of the butt plug. That was going to be in place for a while; no one but Anders had the keys to the belt. Svend replaced the muzzle with gentle fingers, pulled the buckle slowly to the required hole, and stood musing over the cage.