Chapter One - Prince Najim's Ponies

 

Few outsiders have heard of Namberia, a small East African nation ruled by one Prince Najim. This Prince enjoyed a status rarely found in the modern world, that of an absolute monarch with the power of life and death over his subjects. Najim's people did not seem to chafe unduly under the yoke of this tyranny, for tyranny had long been the accepted status quo in this unhappy nation even before it had passed through the African cycle of colonization and independence in the late 19th and mid-20th Centuries. What opposition to Najim's government there was stayed in exile far from the principate, as this was the exiles' only chance of living to a ripe, old age. Anyone actually living in Namberia foolish enough to openly criticize the ruling Prince soon found him or herself arrested by the secret police, called the Preceptors, then thrown in a cell to await, first, strenuous questioning by a police official concerning the names of his relatives and associates and then, execution. The exceptions to this program were the few young women judged beautiful and strong enough to serve Najim's ruling passion.

For the Prince had a hobby, one that was less sedentary than stamp collecting and more expensive than bird-watching. He loved racing and beautiful women, so he not unnaturally chose to combine these two favorite pastimes by filling a stable with young, athletic, and attractive girl-ponies. It was Najim's pleasure to ride behind a slave girl bound between the shafts of his sulky, urging her on with smart strokes of his whip or crop to their sweat-spangled buttocks. He reveled in the naked flesh his comely draft animals displayed, found their high-pitched cries of pain and pathetic pleas for mercy exquisitely arousing, and was happiest of all at night when he had these defenseless young girls brought to his bed chamber, to be cruelly tortured before he used them to gratify his perverse sexual pleasures.

In more civilized places, Prince Najim's hobby could only be indulged in by a handful of very wealthy men, as the kidnapping and sexual enslavement of young women for service as draft animals and sex slaves is severely discouraged. The pastime is limited to the handful of men and women who possess the means to pay for the elaborate security needed to keep their illegal activities safe from interference by the police and other governmental do-gooders. But in Namberia, the ruling Prince had virtually unlimited power to do as he wished, and there was no one and nothing to stop him from ordering his Preceptors to snatch up any female who caught his eye. The most difficult problem he faced was the occasional disgruntled patriarch who had arranged a marriage for the daughter, granddaughter, or niece, who the Prince had added to his collection to the financial detriment of the patriarch in question. The feathers ruffled by such incidents were, however, readily smoothed with what in Western terms would be considered an absurdly low bribe, usually the equivalent of $100 US (Namberia enjoys the fifth lowest per capita income in the world, so $100 represents a substantial fortune there.).

It was late afternoon, and the Prince, as usual, was at his private racetrack behind the royal palace working out his girl-ponies. With him was his head trainer and mistress of the royal stable. This was his half-sister whose birth name was Ikadala but had been changed by her to "Ika," the word for "cruel" in the Yoruba dialect spoken in Namberia. It was agreed by all who knew her, friends and enemies alike, that the new name fit her perfectly.

Although Ika was her half-sibling's near twin in spirit, physically they were quite different. Prince Najim's complexion was very dark, almost the color of black coffee, while Ika had a generous dollop of cream in hers, a gift from her French mother. He was tall and muscular, his features pure East African, with wide cheekbones, eyes set well apart, and a broad nose It was said that Najim was the spitting image of his father, Mobutu at the same age. Ika, on the other hand, took after her fashion model mother, who had been Mobutu's favorite mistress. She was slender and graceful, with delicate, Caucasian features in an oval face topped by a waterfall of raven-black curls.

Ika's appointment as Master of the Royal Stables was in no sense the result of nepotism. On the contrary, her interest in turning young, nubile females into sexually submissive slaves was at least as keen as that of the Prince, and the pleasure she took from the harsh, relentless and painful training she imposed on the unfortunate young women was if anything, even greater than his. Ika was the Prince's right hand, trusted crony and his closest (and possibly only) friend. Both were intelligent, physically attractive, well-educated graduates of fine Swiss boarding schools, and dedicated sadists. For these reasons, Najim had made her director of the secret police. Together, they ruled Namberia with an iron hand.

Prince Najim and Ika were sitting side-by-side in sulkies, giving their panting animals a brief respite following a long, exhausting run. These particular ponies were the latest additions new to the Prince's stable, having been under the whip for only three days. They were Linda and Veronica Mubutu, identical twins daughters of the former Namberian ambassador to the United States who had been born in Namberia, but had lived in the United States since infancy.

Linda and Veronica had been away at college when Prince Najim's assassins had murdered their parents to put an end to the latter's attempts to persuade the US government to sponsor a new regime in Namberia. Grief and anger rushed the sisters into a hasty and ill-considered decision: they decided to return to their home country and call for a popular uprising to oust the bloody-handed tyrant, Prince Najim.

The Mubutu sisters were counting on their newly won popularity as national heroes to energize mass support for their revolution. They had been members of the US eight that had won a rowing gold medal at the recently-concluded Olympic games, and the media had naturally played up their story as the first Namberians ever to win an Olympic medal. Unfortunately for them, while this publicity made the twins instant celebrities in their homeland, it did not translate into any sort of practical political support in a land where the slightest criticism of the government all too often led the critic to an anonymous grave. They became acquainted with this simple truth as soon as they arrived at the Prince Najim International Airport, when they were arrested the moment they stepped off the airplane, and whisked away by plainclothes agents of the secret police.

They underwent a comparatively brief interrogation session in the bowels of the House of Lamentation (this being the popular name for the secret police headquarters,) where the two girls were grilled for the details of their plot (of which there were none) and the names of their co-conspirators in Namberia (of which there were none.) Their memories were stimulated their memories with alligator clamps wired to batteries on their nipples and clits that sent electric charges through these sensitive tissues whenever the answers they provided failed to satisfy the interrogators. The interrogations were concluded after the unusually brief span of 48 hours, it soon became apparent to even the most cynical and suspicious secret police official that the Mubutu twins were complete political innocents, who had no co-conspirators, no organization, no contacts in Namberia and made no preparations whatsoever, naively counting on a spontaneous mass uprising.

Ika personally interrogated the girls, and after 30 minutes and the administration of a dozen or so shocks, reached the same conclusion her subordinates had. She ordered the two girls to be stripped naked and hung up for examination, and after inspecting them, decided they would be fine additions to the stables.

Now each Mubutu sister stood between the shafts of a pair of a sulky, nude but for leather harnesses pulled tight enough to sink into the flesh around their waists and up between their legs and single gloves restraining their arms from shoulders to fingertips behind their backs, making their elbows touch and obliging them to thrust out their large, solid breasts. Their only other items of "apparel" were the reins, leather strips that ran from saw-toothed spring clamps on their nipples to the hands of their drivers.

Diamonds of perspiration sparkled under the tropical sun on the smooth chocolate brown flesh of their superbly muscled bodies . The twins panted desperately for air after being made to sprint twice around the 400 meter track, their fine mammaries rising and falling enticingly with each gasp. Najim was being pulled by Linda, who had her head thrown back and appeared to be on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion.

"Do you think she's all right, Ika?" He asked. He trusted her expertise in such matters even above his own. "It looks like she's ready to fall down and die, which would make me very unhappy, since we just got her."

Ika frowned, reached over to the clamp on the girl's nearest breast, and yanked once sharply. Linda yelped and looked down at her injured nipple. Ika seized the girl's jaw to hold her in place while she looked into her dark eyes. Then she released her and said, "Don't worry, Najim, she'll be fine. She just needs to be hydrated." She raised her arm and snapped her fingers imperiously, and a female stable hand came rushing up in response.

"Yes, ma-am?" she asked.

"These two cunts need to be watered," she said. "See to it."

"Yes, ma'am," the stable hand responded, and rushed off to carry out the order. Ika and Najim paid no further attention to her.

As they watched the new ponies kneel on the dirt track, bow their heads to reach the buckets set at their feet and eagerly lap up water with their tongues, Najim said. "Ika, may I tell you in confidence about the strange obsession that has been troubling of late?"

"Of course, dear brother," she answered instantly. "You know that anything you tell me goes no further."

He nodded. "I see myself driving a carriage, a big one, a brougham or a landau like the Queen of England has, being pulled by a team of blonde pony girls. I see the pony-girls as clearly as if they were right here in front of me They all have long manes of golden hair swirling around them, and are naked as the day they were born, with their red lips stretched around metal bits, running like the wind and crying out in their sweet high voices whenever my whip lands on their sweet, pink buttocks. I can't get it out of my mind; I can't concentrate on anything else for more than a few minutes before the vision, or whatever it is, returns. This has been happening for over a week, and I simply can't go on this way. I have just about decided that the only cure for my condition is to obtain a set of blonde Western girls for the stable, but I'm worried about the risk." He looked at her earnestly. "So, what do you think, Ika? Can it be done? Is it possible to make this vision a reality?"

She closed her eyes and pictured the scene for herself. She was in the drivers' seat, high above a brace of naked European girls, their pale skins striped with red welts, pulling a big carriage with all their might under the strokes of a long horsewhip. She smiled with pleasure at the image she had created.

She opened her eyes and met her half-brother's eager gaze. "It is an attractive idea, I will grant that, but I can foresee certain difficulties, Najim." She answered cautiously. "While you have an extensive stable of slave-girls, all of them are your own subjects, Namibian nationals who must bow to your will or die. Since they have no legal protection of any kind, you can do exactly what you wish with them. But girls acquired from Europe or the US would be a very different kettle of fish. Any Western girl would have to be painstakingly vetted for political connections before we could even think about acquiring them. And the acquisition process would have to be handled with the utmost professionalism and discretion, as the consequences of being discovered would be a disaster. If we were caught kidnapping a citizen of France or the UK, for example, it could end up bringing the walls down around our ears. Given that, I would definitely not employ the Preceptors for the task. They are not known for their subtlety. What do you imagine the Americans would do, if they found out that the ruler of some pipsqueak African nation had dared to snatch one of their citizens off the street and turn her into a fuck-slave? "

The Prince shuddered. "I would rather not imagine it, if it's all the same to you," he said. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then said, "Still, while I have no great desire to end my days hiding in a hole in the ground like Saddam Hussein, I feel confident that discreet and reliable organizations that can provide high-class Western cunts for my stables must exist somewhere. Surely, I am not the only man in the world with a penchant for girl-ponies."

"I agree, brother," Ika said. "Indeed, I can think of at least two men who might be able to put me in touch with such an organization. But I must warn you; from what I have heard, these, hmm...services do not come cheaply."

"Expense is no problem, Ika," the Prince responded promptly. "If we need more money, I can always proclaim a law requiring...oh, I don't know..., all carts to have rubber tires, then decree a new tax on all carts with rubber tires. That's what it means to be Prince, after all."

"It seems to me that your mind is already made up," she said. She made an abbreviated bow. "That being the case, I will ask you to excuse me, so I can begin to look into this matter without delay." She spun on her heel and walked rapidly away.