The Horse’s Ass
Chapter 7: The Full Harness
Tempest woke to the sound of a rooster crowing in the distance.
For a moment she didn’t understand where she was. Her body felt wrong — heavy and suspended. As her mind cleared, she realized she wasn’t standing. Her knees had given out during the night, and she was now hanging from the two short leashes clipped to the back of her arm binder. The leather straps dug into her shoulders and upper arms, keeping her upright even though her legs had collapsed beneath her.
She let out a low, pained sound as she tried to push herself back up. Her legs trembled violently from the effort. The rigid hoof boots forced her feet into a severe point, making it difficult to find her balance. After several awkward, shaky attempts, she finally managed to plant her feet properly and take the weight off the leashes. She stood there, breathing hard, her head hanging forward.
This is how they left me. Like an animal that can’t even lie down.
The barn was quiet except for the distant rooster and the faint sounds of other ponies stirring in their stalls. The first pale light of morning was beginning to filter in through the high windows. There was no screen in her stall. No looping video. Just the quiet, heavy reality of where she was.
She stood in the center of the stall, arms locked behind her back, forced to remain upright by the short leashes on either side of her. Her body ached from the unnatural position she had slept in. She simply stared at the straw beneath her boots.
This is permanent. There’s no going back to the white room. This is what I am now.
Then she heard the stall door unlatch.
John stepped inside and closed it behind him.
Tempest kept her head lowered, still trying to catch her breath. The short leashes held her in the center of the stall, forcing her to remain upright no matter how badly her legs shook.
“Good morning, Tempest,” he said.
Her shoulders tensed at the name. She slowly lifted her head and looked at him.
“I am not fucking Tempest.”
John did not react to the profanity. He only reached into the front pocket of his rubber apron.
“We can’t have you speaking anymore,” he said.
He took out the gag.
Tempest pulled against the leashes the moment she saw it, but the stall gave her nowhere to go. Her arms were locked behind her. Her legs were unsteady beneath her. The short leads held her centered while John stepped behind her and took her jaw in one hand.
She made one last clear sound before he forced the gag into place.
After that, language left her.
John buckled the straps behind her head and adjusted them with the same patient care he gave to every other piece of equipment. When he stepped back, Tempest tried to curse him again, but the words broke apart before they could become words.
Only mumbled sounds remained.
John moved in front of her. Then he reached up and unclipped the two short leashes from her arm binder. The sudden slack made her sway slightly before she caught herself.
He gathered the leashes and set them aside, then clipped a longer training lead to the D-ring at the back of her arm binder.
“Shadow will no longer be involved in your development,” he continued, as if nothing unusual had happened. “She has returned to her place among the others. From this point forward, you will answer only to me.”
He gave the training lead a light tug, testing the connection.
“You’ve done well adapting to the boots,” he said. “But we still have a long way to go. Today, we’ll begin the next stage.”
Tempest stood very still, the words settling over her. There was no relief in knowing Shadow was gone. If anything, her absence made everything feel more final. John had always been the one in control — now he was removing the last layer of distance between them.
He’s not going to stop. He’s going to keep going until there’s nothing left of me.
He turned toward the stall door.
“Come,” he said. “We have work to do.”
Tempest hesitated for a moment, then followed. The longer training lead gave her just enough slack to walk, but not enough to create any real distance between them. Her steps were awkward and careful in the rigid hoof boots, the sound of the hard leather striking the concrete floor echoing softly down the aisle.
John led her out of the stall and into the central walkway of the barn. The space was wider here, with a thick wooden post set into the floor at roughly waist height. It stood alone in the open area, polished smooth from repeated use.
As they ed the second-to-last stall on the right, Tempest saw Shadow standing inside. The woman who had once trained her now stood secured exactly like all the others — boots locked on, arms bound behind her back, a bit fixed in her mouth, a short leash holding her in the center of the stall. Shadow’s eyes followed them as they moved toward the post. She did not look away.
John stopped in front of the post and gave the lead a short tug. Tempest understood enough to resist before he touched her. It made no difference. With her arms locked behind her back, she had no way to brace herself when he pushed her forward. Her body folded over the post, the smooth wood pressing hard into her stomach.
He adjusted her stance. One boot moved outward. Then the other. She made a muffled, furious sound around the gag, but he did not answer it. He only placed one hand against her back and held her there until she stopped struggling.
From inside her stall, Shadow watched.
That was the part Tempest could not escape. Not the post. Not the gag. Not even John’s hands moving with calm, practiced certainty. It was the witness. The woman who had once corrected her, washed her, fed her, and forced her through the first stages of this humiliation now stood silently among the others, watching Tempest become what she had already become.
John removed a tail from his apron. Tempest saw it only for a second before he moved behind her: dark hair, heavy base, designed not as decoration but as attachment. Her breathing quickened. She tried to pull away again, but the post held her in place and John’s hand stayed firm between her shoulder blades.
He fitted it with clinical patience.
Tempest squeezed her eyes shut against the pressure of the gag. There was no dramatic violence in the act, no rage, and no pleasure on his face. That made it worse.
He pressed the lubricated plug steadily into her until it seated fully inside. The tail settled heavily behind her, its weight now anchored within her body rather than simply hanging from it.
For several seconds he left her there.
She understood then that the horror was not simply what had been done to her body. It was that the barn accepted it. The stalls. The concrete. The quiet ponies. Shadow watching without surprise. Every part of the place treated her transformation as ordinary.
John stepped back.
“There,” he said. “The pony has a tail.”
He gave the tail a light touch, just enough to make it sway. Tempest made a broken sound through the gag and lowered her head as far as the position allowed. She wanted to disappear. Instead, the new weight behind her made her more visible.
“You’ll learn to move with it,” John said. “All of my ponies do.”
After a short while, he helped her straighten. Her legs shook beneath her as she rose. The tail shifted with the movement, undeniable and alien. She tried not to react to it. That only made her more aware of it.
John clipped the lead back to the binder and guided her to a tall steel post bolted into the concrete floor. At the top was a hinged collar positioned at neck height. He turned her with her back to it, opened the collar, and locked it around her throat. It held her upright without choking her. She could no longer turn her head away.
Then he opened the wooden box near her stall.
The horse head was inside.
Tempest went still when she saw it. Thick black leather. Long muzzle. Upright ears. A dark mane matched to her own hair. At the throat, a padded collar held a small gold tag engraved with one word.
Tempest.
She made a low sound around the gag, but the steel collar kept her fixed in place. John lifted the horse head and lowered it over her. The leather slid down, enclosing her face, narrowing the world to mesh-dark vision and the warm sound of her own breath. He adjusted the fit carefully, released the steel collar from the post, then buckled and locked the leather collar at her throat.
When he stepped back, she could no longer see herself, but she could feel what had happened. Her voice was gone. Her face was gone. Jennifer’s head had disappeared beneath something made for Tempest.
John did not tell her she looked beautiful. He did not tell her she looked ruined. He gave her no word she could use to organize the humiliation into something human.
He simply continued.
With heavy scissors, he cut away the last useless pieces of her old clothing and let them fall to the concrete. Then he lifted the final garment from the box: a fitted dark bodice, trimmed in rough fur and shaped to display rather than cover. He worked it into place beneath the arm binder, fastened it tightly, and smoothed the edges with two brief, precise motions.
The transformation was complete.
Tempest stood in the center of the barn in full pony gear: boots forcing her onto her toes, arms locked behind her, tail hanging heavily behind her, horse head fixed over her face, gold name tag resting at her throat. The bodice did not restore modesty. It formalized the loss of it.
John stood back and looked at her.
This time, the silence was worse than praise.
He clipped the training lead to the ring beneath the muzzle and gave it a short tug. “Come, Tempest,” he said. “It’s time to learn how to move.”
He led her down the central aisle. The other ponies turned their heads as she ed. None of them reacted with surprise. None of them looked away. Their stillness told her more than cruelty could have. She had not been dressed up. She had been itted.
Outside, the morning light felt sharp after the dimness of the barn. John led her across the packed dirt to a circular training ring where a motorized walker stood in the center, its long arms extending outward like the hands of a clock.
He clipped her lead to one of the arms, then secured a shorter strap from her harness to the same point. The arrangement held her upright and forward-facing. She could move, but only in the direction the machine allowed.
John went to the control box.
“This will keep you moving until I decide you’ve had enough,” he said. “The harness will hold you if you fall. The speed will change without warning.”
The motor started with a low mechanical hum.
The arm pulled forward. Tempest stumbled, recovered, and was forced into motion. The circle began slowly, then quickened, then slowed again. Each change came without pattern. Every time she adjusted, the machine altered the rhythm. Her world narrowed to balance, breath, pain, and the endless demand to keep moving.
John walked beside her for several rotations. When her steps shortened, the whip touched the front of her thigh.
“Higher,” he said. “Ponies do not shuffle.”
She lifted her knees.
He corrected her twice more, each time precise and impersonal. After several minutes, John stepped back and watched her complete another full circle.
“You’ll stay on the walker for the rest of the day,” he said. “Keep your knees up.”
Then he turned and walked back toward the barn without another word.
Tempest continued around the ring as the machine changed pace without mercy — slow, fast, halt, slow again. The tail shifted behind her with each step. Inside the horse head, her breathing was loud and close.
By the time the light began to fade, she was no longer thinking in sentences. There was only the next step, the next correction, the next pull of the machine.
Jennifer would have screamed.
Tempest kept walking.