A Horse Without a Rider

The coffee had long since gone cold by the time Eleanor lifted it to her lips and took the first sip. She grimaced as she returned the oversized cup to the oversized saucer, only partly from the unpalatable taste of the contents. The largest part of her discomfort came instead from the fact that she had reached the final page of the job listings in the last of the papers spread across the table before her for what was probably the fifth time that morning and the result was still that she had found nothing that was even remotely worth pursuing.

In contrast to the listings, she did not have to go through her account statements more than once to know that there was no hope that she had made a mistake or missed out some vital piece of information. She simply had more going out than she had coming in and that was a situation that she had to change as soon as she was able.

But as always it was far easier to brood on a problem than it was to actually do something practical about it, and now that she had exhausted the papers the only thing that Eleanor could think of to do was sit back and feel sorry for herself until another course of action presented itself.

“Let me buy you another,” Eleanor glanced up from the papers at the sound of Kat's voice. “By the look on your face that one must be stone cold by now.”

“My conscience says no,” she gave her friend a mock frown, “but the caffeine addict in me is much stronger and she says what the hell!”

While Kat left their table to order, Eleanor tried to drown the guilt that she felt at accepting the other woman's charity for even something as small as a cup of coffee. She knew that a refusal would have been met with a characteristic tirade against her own ridiculous pride, but the feeling was there all the same.

Eleanor often wondered if she could have survived in New York for as long as she had without the priceless help and advice of her native friend. To look at the two were as different as could be and perhaps that was one of the things that had caused them to become such firm friends. It was doubtlessly true that the one tended to complement the other in many ways and seldom had a day gone by when they did not see each other in the flesh or talk on the phone for a lengthy period of time.

Kat stood a little over four feet in height and exemplified what many people thought of when they pictured the women of the Bronx. She was dark in eyes, hair and complexion as well as being possessed of an accent that to some sounded like nails on a chalkboard to some and the song of a siren to others. For her part she lived up to the reputation of the tough neighbourhood from which she originated, unwilling and unable to back down from a fight as much as she was ferociously loyal to her friends.

She was something of a contrast to Eleanor, who stood almost six feet in her flats and had crossed the Atlantic to get where she was at that moment in time. But like her friend, she did stand as a fine example of what people pictured when they thought of her roots. If her Irish heritage was not given away by her dark red hair and pale skin, then the strong accent that still refused to be watered down by her time in the US was sure to do the trick.

As was usual with women of their generation, both Eleanor and Kat spent a great deal of their time maligning their own attributes while praising those of the other. The former envied the latter her slight figure and diminutive stature, while in reverse the latter saw herself as paramount to a dwarf and made much of the likeness she saw between the former and the women painted in classical style by the pre-Raphaelites. In short, neither would acknowledge their own qualities nor refuse to proclaim that the other had them in spades.

“Let me have a look,” Kat seized the pile of papers as soon as her friend had her hands around the fresh cup of coffee. “Might be that you're missing something a native can pick up on.”

“Don't let me stop you,” Eleanor took a deep sip from the cup. “I would have thought that after five years living in this city I could have picked up on things like that myself. Makes me wonder if I'm fooling anyone in thinking of this place as home.”

“No offence,” the other woman did not pause to look up from the column she was scrutinising, “but living here as a student is not the same as growing up in these parts.”

“So it seems.”

“Here you go,” Kat slid the paper under Eleanor's gaze, “what about that?”

“You're kidding!”

“Why would I be?”

“That's an ad for a live in domestic with experience down as a necessity,” Eleanor shook her head. “How on earth am I even qualified for that?”

“You worked in that hotel while we were on summer break a year back, didn't you?”

“And?”

“Elle,” Kat's expression was one of friendly exasperation, “you say you want to feel like a native New Yorker and then come out with some kind of whiter than white crap like that? Drink your coffee and hope that it wakes you up a little. You need to be a lot more creative with the facts, play up the positives and just don't mention the negatives!”

“You mean lie?”

“Who said lie?” Kat shrugged her shoulders. “You made up rooms in that hotel and they call the people who do that 'housekeepers', don't they? And what's a domestic apart from someone who cleans up and makes the bed?”

“I suppose I could try it,” Eleanor sounded less than convinced.

“What have you got to lose?”

She spent a moment in silence as she truly considered her friend's point. What in reality did she really have to lose if she applied for a job that she was hardly qualified for? Surely the chances were that the prospective employer would simply look over her CV and toss it in the bin if she was that unqualified. Even if she got the job and it turned out to be a disaster, she was not committing a crime of any kind and in the end she would be right back where she started.

“Okay,” she made the symbolic gesture of ringing the ad with a red marker which she retrieved from beneath the mass of papers, “you're right: what have I got to lose?”

“I bet you get it,” Kat laughed. “I can see you in a maid's outfit already.”

“I'm sure it's not that kind of position,” Eleanor tried to hide the worry that the suggestion had stirred in her. “Actually, I'm more worried about the idea of living in the place where I'm working. It just seems odd in this day and age.”

“Could be,” Kat nodded. “But on the flip side you'd be saving money on rent as well as earning a wage. Not too shabby to be ticking off two items on the list of worries at the same time.”

Eleanor nodded and took a deep breath to fortify her nerves as she dialled the number at the bottom of the ad. She just hoped that her friend was right and that she was one step towards a solution to her problems rather than starting on the road towards an unmitigated disaster.

Despite the time she had spent in New York and the breadth of experience that she liked to think she had amassed during it, Eleanor had never found herself in the position of needing to enter one of the towering blocks of apartments that housed the wealthier end of city society. But she had gleaned little else from the vague conversation with a person whom she assumed was her perspective employer apart from this address and so she found herself faced with the unavoidable necessity of swallowing her anxiety and walking as boldly as she was able up to the front doors.

The entrance was a subdued affair of metal and glass doors that might at one time have been considered grand before time and wear had faded it to the state in which she found it. Eleanor found herself with the impression that nothing had been done to stave off the visible aging of the exterior as an odd kind of protest. While the city around it strode boldly into the new millennium and beyond, perhaps the spirit of such small bastions of past traditions retained the evidence of their antiquation with a defiant pride.

Even the doorman, who nodded a polite greeting as he held the portal open for her and made a sound that might have been a word or a mere mumble, wore the same motif in the washed out colours of his uniform. Had there been a covering of cobwebs and a spider hanging by a silk thread from the peak of his cap, Eleanor would not have thought it a strange sight.

She crossed the cracked marble floor and paused before stepping into one of the archaic elevators that lined the wall to her left. They too were in keeping with the general state of decaying finery in the building and Eleanor could not recall having seen an example of one that looked older. She was in half a mind to locate the stairs regardless of the fact that her destination was the penthouse at the very top of the building. But a prompt chime and sliding of doors following the press of the call button did a little to calm her nerves and she stepped into the waiting car despite her earlier misgivings.

The journey to the peak of the tower was surprisingly smooth as the elevator made its way upwards with little sign of the outward negligence showing in its inner workings. Soon the doors were sliding open once again, but this time Eleanor was presented with a quite different sight to the lobby below.

Though the basic materials were the same marble and wood panelling as communal entrance to the building, this small landing was a very different prospect indeed. Where the lobby had been worn and threadbare, this was well-kept and showed the passage of years as a gentle flow rather than an obliterating torrent. Light streamed into the space from an elegant skylight in the ceiling above and not only served to illuminate the landing, but also provided sustenance to a riot of plants that populated the corners and hung from the walls.

Eleanor stepped out of the elevator and made her way across the landing and towards the single door that stood at the opposite end of the enclosed space. It was an unremarkable affair of solid wood that bore no grandiose decoration apart from a handle, heavy knocker and the obvious aperture of a spyhole by which the person answering the door could cast an eye over whoever was on the other side before deciding to grant them entry or else leave them to rot on the doorstep.

Now that she was standing before the door, there was really nothing for her to do except knock or turn around and leave. On the balance of things and considering the realities of her situation that had brought her this far, Eleanor decided that the latter would probably have been the more sensible thing to do, but as she was not keen on more fruitless searching through newspapers while being harangued by Kat for her lack of courage, she decided that she would do the former instead.

Eleanor flinched as the sound of the knocker reverberated around the landing in a manner that reminded her of church bells heard from a few feet away. The echo seemed to last forever and she was so busy covering her ears against the sound that she entirely failed to notice the fact that the door had opened right in front of her. It was only when she felt the unmistakable sensation of being watched that Eleanor actually turned her gaze back towards the doorway and saw for the first time that there was a figure standing in the open portal, studying her intently.

The last remnants of the knocking were fading away, but all the same the sound did not seem to even merit the notice of the woman who had opened the door. She was tall, at least a half foot greater in height than Eleanor herself, who was by no means short. She was also narrow in build, but not slender or slight at the same time. Had she been a man, one might have described her as lean in body due to the fact that she seemed not at all lacking in presence for all that she was lacking in visible bulk.

Another thing that Eleanor noticed almost immediately was the fact that the woman was immaculate in every sense of the word. Her pale, almost white skin was so smooth and clear of blemishes that it could have been compared to alabaster and was elegantly set off against her subtle use of makeup. What might have been masses of thick black hair was gathered into an old fashioned style on the back of her head and her uniform black clothing bore not a single spot or crease.

“Can I ask why you’re making such a noise?”

Eleanor was so taken aback by the striking appearance of the woman in the doorway that the odd nature of her question simply failed to sink in to any noticeable degree.

“I’m sorry,” lost for words, she fell back on the oldest response in the shared lexicon of the English language and simply apologised without any particular understanding of the reason why. “I really had no idea that the noise would echo so much.”

“Well,” the woman spoke in a slightly odd manner, as if unused to holding a conversation with another human being at such short notice, “please refrain from making that awful noise again.”

As she made to close the door without another word, Eleanor suddenly remembered the reason that she was standing in front of the door in the first place. Without thinking, she jammed her foot against the frame and winced as the considerable weight of the door slammed into it.

“Now I seem to have one of your extremities partially inside my abode,” the woman looked down at Eleanor’s foot as though it had materialised in its current position out of thin air. “I would be very grateful if you would see fit to remove it and then yourself from the general vicinity.”

“I’m here about the job,” Eleanor produced the wanted ad, which the woman stared at in the same puzzled manner as she had the foot jammed in the door. “I wanted to apply for the position of domestic that you advertised for?”

The woman’s expression underwent such a sudden change that Eleanor was left wondering just what she could have said to strike a chord with such a seemingly strange character. Could it have been the way in which she had chosen to word her aim in such an overly formal manner? Everything else about this baffling person seemed so stiff and reserved that it would make sense she favoured speaking in such a painfully unnatural way.

“Well of course,” there was little more warmth in the woman’s voice, but at least she was now focussed on the same subject as Eleanor. “In that case you should probably come inside. Please consider yourself granted permission to enter my abode.”

With that she stepped back to allow Eleanor to enter the hallway beyond the door.

Here goes nothing, Eleanor thought as she stepped over the threshold.

The first sip of the tea which the woman had poured into the delicate teacup in Eleanor’s hand had proven to be so bitter that she confined herself to nursing it politely as they sat in what she was sure would have been better described as drawing room than anything resembling a modern term. The interior of the penthouse had both continued the theme of immaculate if eccentric décor and at the same time amazed her with the sheer size amount of space it encompassed.

In the time it had taken to walk from the front door to the neat little room in which they sat, she had seen so many rooms that were filled with so many intriguing things that there was no way they could all have been recalled. It was apparent even after so short a period inside the apartment that it must have occupied most if not all of the upmost floor in the tower entirely to itself.

The implications of such a vast space in so expensive a neighbourhood were not lost on Eleanor and she wondered who this strange woman could be to have such lavish accommodation. Even the smallest of apartments in a building of this kind must have been prohibitively expensive and so the value of the one in which she was taking tea was hard to even begin to guess.

“I feel that I must explain some small matters to you,” the woman seemed to be fond of the bitter tea and drank a healthy and yet dainty mouthful before she continued. “I am not accustomed to attending to matters such as answering the door and having been required to do so since the unfortunate departure of the last domestic I have come to the conclusion that I do not like to do so either.”

Eleanor nodded at the comment, thinking that it explained the woman’s strange behaviour to some extent. If she was as extremely old fashioned as she seemed to be, then perhaps the idea of performing tasks that a normal person would have seen as routine could make her so awkward and odd.

“As your name is Eleanor and I am fond of the name, I will therefore call you ‘Eleanor’ when we converse.” She placed a hand upon her chest as she spoke. “I would require that you address me as ‘Madame’ rather than anything more formal, but I cannot abide to be referred to in an overly familiar manner by a person whom I employ as a domestic.”

“I hope you’ll pardon my saying so, Madame,” the woman smiled slightly at the sound of the word as Eleanor’s accent rendered it and she realised that aside from the rather stiff way in which she held herself, the older woman was actually deceptively beautiful. “But you seem to be talking as though I’d already been successful in getting the job.”

“Now then,” Madame shook her head slightly, “what kind of silly talk is that? Of course you will take the job. You seem to be the perfect choice for the position as far as I am concerned and as I am the person who will be employing you my opinion would be the only one that counts. The fact that you are the only candidate that I have seen would also stand as a mark in your favour as well as the simple reality that if I have to cope on my own for another day then I simply do not know what will become of me. I mean, look at the state of this place.”

Eleanor followed Madame’s gesture as she surveyed what looked to her to be the most pristine example of a drawing room she had ever seen. For the sake of not causing a fuss, she nodded her head in agreement and shook it slightly at the points when it seemed appropriate.

“I have to confess,” Eleanor thought it was time to drop her own contributions into the conversation and see what ripples that cast, “that I’m not the most experienced of people when it comes to this kind of position.”

“That is not as much of a barrier as you might think,” oddly Eleanor had suspected that may have been the case. “I am sure that a clever young thing like you will manage to pick up the gist of things in no time. And before you ask, I understand completely the reasons that are so often behind a girl of your age looking to find employment of this kind.”

“You do?”

“Of course,” Madame gave a conspiratorial wink. “Not all of the pretty young things can catch the eye of the eligible bachelors on the social scene or command a dowry to draw attention. Some of them need to make an effort to amass a fortune of their own so that they may make their way in the world. I am sure that with the salary I am willing to provide you will be able to do just that.”

Eleanor felt as though she was taking tea with an actress who was so absorbed in her role as a matriarch from a Jane Austin novel that she had forgotten where she ended and the character began. She had to consider the possibility that the woman was quite literally mad, but then did the higher echelons of New York society not have a well-known reputation for harbouring a long tradition of wealthy oddities? If there was nothing more to this than eccentricity and the woman was willing to let her learn as she went on, was there really an issue to be wrestled with at all?

“Could I ask what the salary would be?”

Madame nodded and proceeded to write a figure on a small pad of paper she produced from a side table.

She folded the page when she was done and slid it across the tablecloth towards Eleanor.

When she unfolded the paper and read the figure in the neat but flowing script, Eleanor was convinced more than ever that the other woman was more than a little insane.

“That would be per annum,” Madame seemed to respond to her expression of surprise, “of course.”

Eleanor was suddenly placed in a position that she had never thought possible before she entered the penthouse. On the paper was a sum of money that could see her well on the way to clearing her debts and beyond that even start to plan for a home of her own. If this was legitimate and there was no issue as far as her being able to ease into the job, she did not see how she could afford to turn the offer down.

“That’s a very generous salary,” she tried to keep her voice level, “for a domestic.”

“Ah,” Madame raised a single finger.

There had to be an ‘Ah’, Eleanor thought, I knew it was too good to be true.

“There are other elements to the position that I was not prepared to make mention of in an advertisement in a newspaper. These are elements that I would only feel comfortable explaining to a suitable applicant as they are somewhat more sensitive than the normal duties of a common domestic.”

Eleanor nodded and tried to prepare herself for whatever lay ahead.

“Please,” Madame rose from her seat and gestured for Eleanor to do likewise. “Follow me.”

They stood in a room that defied Eleanor’s vision of the way in which the world worked. As far as she was concerned, at that very moment she was Alice and she was very much through the looking glass. If there was one consolation, the contents of the room went some way towards explaining the bizarre character of the woman in who’s home she found herself. Based upon the myriad of items that she kept passing her eyes over in the vain hope that it would all resolve itself into something more familiar, it was no wonder she had chosen not to mention any of this in the newspaper ad.

“I am an exceedingly private person,” Madame explained as she gazed absently at an intimidating array of dildos and vibrators that sat in neat rows upon a rack that was bolted to one of the walls. “You can understand that upon seeing something of this nature, the average person would be likely to form the wrong impression.”

Eleanor found that all she could do was nod in response while wondering for the life of her what the right impression to form might have been.

“What goes on behind closed doors is for the benefit of myself and those whom I choose to invite into my abode.”

For a moment the memory of the formal way in which she had been ushered over the threshold sprang to the fore in Eleanor’s mind. She had the panicked thought that this was all some elaborate kind of code by which Madame was trying to inform her that she wanted to make use of the contents of this fetishistic horde upon her person right there and then.

“In your position as domestic,” Madame went on, “you would be expected to maintain that veil of privacy and never speak outside these walls of what you have seen.”

Eleanor almost let out a breath of relief at the fact she had not been asked, or even worse forced to take part. She nodded in agreement, her mind racing through the implications that this cast upon the idea of taking the job. She was amazed to find herself thinking that in reality there was little that this revelation actually changed in real terms. So Madame liked to get up to some kinky stuff behind closed doors with willing partners, so what? Was that not how the world in general managed to keep going from one day to the next? So long as people were not getting exploited or hurt when they did not want to, who was to say that there was anything wrong?

“I think I understand,” Eleanor nodded. “I’m not very experienced with this kind of thing myself, but your secret’s safe with me.”

“There,” Madame seemed pleased with her response, “I knew an intelligent girl like you would be able to understand all of this. I know it must seem awfully intimidating at first sight, but really it is nothing more than a way of enhancing the enjoyment that is to be had in life’s more carnal pleasures. It has a long and fascinating history all of its own, something that most people are sadly ignorant of these days.”

“I’m sure it’s very interesting,” Eleanor tried to sound sympathetic without sounding interested at the same time.

“Oh but it is,” Madame, “once it has you in its grip, one has to wonder what else could possibly replace it.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that kind of thing,” Eleanor glanced at the open door behind her.

“I have to say that I find that hard to believe,” Madame made no effort to close the distance between them as she cast an appraising eye over the younger woman. “I am not totally ignorant of the outside world and I know full well that young ladies are no longer expected to hide themselves away beneath petticoats and carry themselves with practised deportment. One thing that can become an irritant is a habit of constantly running one’s self down for no reason other than a timidity that is both unbecoming and utterly nonsensical in the face of evidence to the contrary.”

Eleanor felt herself flush, suddenly aware of the fact that she was being complimented in a roundabout way by the strange woman while at the same time receiving a dressing down for her own self-deprecating manner.

“If you are to be successful within my household,” Madame still kept her distance, somehow managing to inspire the sensation of contact with the tone of her voice and the delivery of her words, “you will need to become comfortable around such things as the contents of this room. I will never ask or demand that you do a thing that you feel is not to your liking, but the hidden side of my lifestyle has a way of…creeping into one’s mind and sparking possibilities that were always present, but hidden from view. You may find that trying to deny yourself a thing that you seem to develop an unexpected interest in is far more damaging in the greater scheme of it all than simply experimenting with an open mind and exploring what you do and do not find pleasurable.”

Eleanor looked at her feet as her cheeks burned, Madame’s words burrowing into her ears like seditious seeds carried on the wind. The woman was gracious enough to make no advances towards her, not to openly suggest that she should take any action that she did not desire, but at the same time she managed to subtly mock the restraint and reserve with which she behaved.

As she tried to make sense of the feelings that had been stirred inside her, Eleanor was surprised to find that one of the strongest was not shame, but instead a growing sensation of indignation. Was there in fact something in what the woman said? Here she was being shown a vision of a world in which people followed their most basic urges and cast off any sense of worry about what others might think of them.

And what was her reaction to such a liberating and dangerous idea?

All she had done was stare at her feet and turn a bright shade of red.

Why did she do that, what made her keep shying away from the idea of her own sexuality?

“It always amazes me,” Madame shook her head, “when I see a person who hides themselves away for no reason apart from their own timidity. You have a sweet face, hair a colour that one would never be able to recreate outside of nature and a brain that seems to tick away very nicely inside your head. So tell me, why should people not want you? More to the point, why should you not believe that they would want you? What could there be inside of you apart from your own reservations that would stop you from embracing the pleasures that are there to be had, that are there for the taking?”

Madame’s words were akin to a sound pitched too high for the largest part of Eleanor’s mind to perceive, but there was a small element to which it was perfectly attuned. For the best part of her life that part of her mind had been kept in check by the efforts of her conservative upbringing in god-fearing surroundings, kept down by the fact that she was not a waif with sun-bronzed skin or narrow hips. But now the older woman’s probing had stirred the repressed emotions, brought them to life and for the first time in years the voice inside Eleanor’s head that wanted to shout and scream to be heard was awakened.

Why not?

It was a question that Eleanor had never asked herself before, always breezing past such things with the assumption that she was just not that type of girl. She was not the kind of girl who made a big thing of her curves or dressed to emphasize her cleavage. Showing off her cascading red hair would have been just that: showing off. When others climbed onto a podium or danced on a bar just because they were young and having a good time, she never joined them as people would be looking at her. She would rather die than make the first move and actually talk to the man whom she could have sworn just smiled at her, because she was probably mistaken anyway.

Why?

There had been so many times over the years that she had retreated when she now realised that she should have taken a chance, put one foot forward and just had a damn ounce of confidence in herself.

“It’s like my rocking horse,” Eleanor’s words seemed to both puzzle and delight Madame as she broke the silence.

“How so, my dear?”

“It was back when I was a little girl,” Eleanor looked up. “I had a wooden rocking horse, the old wooden kind. It was beautiful, painted wood and with a mane that was so long. I spent all my time thinking of how perfect and special that it was, I never even dared to climb onto its back once. I’d just sit there and stare at the thing, maybe plait the mane, I was so afraid that I’d do something to break it. And then before I knew it they were taking it away from me, telling me that I was too old for toys and that I had to grow up. I didn’t get to ride the thing in all the time that I had it.”

“It would be a shame if you treated your life in the same way as you treated that rocking horse,” Madame shook her head as she spoke. “In fact I think it would be a tragedy.”

“I think you’re right,” Eleanor was looking the other woman in the eyes as she spoke. “Maybe I should be more open to new experiences for once instead of running away scared all the time.”

“Well in that case, I think I may be able to help you.” Madame could not help laughing as a flash of her former reticence leapt into Eleanor’s eyes at her words. “No my dear,” the older woman shook her head, “I am not trying to make advances towards you for my own self. While I appreciate the natural beauty of the female form, I am more inclined towards individuals of the other gender myself. What I mean to say is that I am often the hostess for events of a strictly private nature that would be a perfect means of introduction for you to the world that the contents of this room exist to serve.”

“I think that would be quite a scary experience,” Eleanor was at once both intrigued and intimidated by the idea of being initiated into such a hidden realm of experience. “I’d be worried about what was expected of me.”

“I admire your honesty,” Madame wore an expression that spoke of understanding. “But we are not unsubtle in our ways and I have come across others in my time who wrestled with curiosity as well as a natural timidity at the prospect of seeing such things for the first time. Would you be more at ease with the proposition of being involved in a way which meant you could see all that went on and yet knew that you would not be required to speak to or even acknowledge another human being?”

Eleanor nodded, intrigued at the idea of being an observer to what went on behind the closed doors of Madame and her circle of friends.

The older woman nodded in turn and motioned for her to follow as she opened a door in one of the walls that could have escaped the notice of anyone unaware of its presence. Inside Eleanor was greeted by the sight of what seemed to be shed skins made of materials such as leather, rubber and plastic and ranging in colour from glistening black through all the tones that she could imagine all the way to the purest white. But of course these were not skins, but rather suits designed to cover the body of the wearer and display their form beneath the tight skin of the material.

Many of the suits were intended to cover the body completely, some with hoods that showed the face and some that left it as blank as a new sheet of paper. Some had sleeves that ended in gloves, others mittens and some even that terminated in what looked like blunt shapes such as spheres or even resembled the tentacles of an octopus or squid. Their surfaces were not uniformly smooth and more than a few boasted spikes, patterns or even a map of raised nodules that mimicked the hide or scales of an animal.

In addition there were boots and shoes that made Eleanor wince at their severity and height, hoods separate from a suit that were even more elaborate than those that were attached and a myriad of other items that she was baffled by and could only assume were in some way related to the purpose of the suits themselves.

Her attention was dragged away from contemplation of the contents of the exotic wardrobe into which she had been lead when Madame coughed discreetly and directed her gaze towards a particular outfit that stood out even against the other due to its complexity and strangeness.

Adorning a featureless mannequin, the first element of the costume was a bodysuit made of a shiny black rubber and adorned with exquisite detailing. It was immediately apparent that the headpiece of the suit was distinctly not human in shape, but rather made in the long and broad image of an equine with only the holes for the eyes being appropriate to the position of the wearer.

Where there might normally have been space for ten fingers, the arms of the suit ended in a pair of hooves that would swallow the hands of the wearer. In the same manner there was no accommodation for feet save for a slightly larger pair of hooves into which they would be slipped.

On a low rack close to the mannequin stood a row of what could only be tails intended for the costume, each with a distinct colour that matched a common shade of human hair.

Eleanor saw that the from the shape of the suit, it had been designed with a woman in mind and there was no way that a man could have forced his frame into the thing without causing some degree of damage to his anatomy in the effort.

Before the suit stood what at first appeared to be a frame of some kind of matt black material, its size and rough shape making her mistake it at first for an odd kind of sledge or toboggan. But she soon saw there was no seat for a rider and that the runners were curved so that the entire thing would rock backwards and forwards on the spot, never moving in any other direction under its own momentum.

Alone the shape of the thing and the sturdy leather straps that Eleanor now saw were attached to it, would have baffled her. But taken with the equine nature of the suit and the knowledge she had gained of what things were indulged in by Madame and her circle, there was little else she could have concluded that the ensemble was intended for.

Dressed in the suit and then strapped to the frame, the person wearing the costume would in effect become a human rocking horse.

“It’s a marvellous coincidence, you must admit,” Madame shook her head in a gesture of quiet amazement, “that I had commissioned this very item not a week ago.”

She made her way to the rack of tails, he hand hovering over them until she found one that was a deep and fiery red. Plucking it from amongst the others, she turned and compared it to Eleanor’s own tresses. Though she did not say as much, even Eleanor had to admit to herself that the match between the colours was close enough to be uncanny.

“Now there’s nothing to be gained for you were there a rocking horse that you could ride upon,” Madame shook her head. “What good would that do for a grown woman? No, the door to that particular stable has been opened and the horse has long since bolted, if you will forgive the obvious metaphor. But here is a chance to make a symbolic step forwards while reclaiming a little of what you were denied all those years ago. What woman truly wants to ride on a little wooden horse, especially when you and I both know that the fun is far more in the act of being ridden one’s self?”

Eleanor felt her nails digging into the palms of her hands as she gazed at the suit and imagined herself spread out upon the rockers. Madame’s words had already provoked her imagination into wild speculation as to just how the feel of the hooves on her extremities and the press of the rubber on her body would feel. She could almost feel the sensation of being under the gaze of strangers as she was forced to remain still and restrained before them. Eleanor almost dared to picture a hand reaching out towards her, touching her skin through the rubber so that her tail twitched in excitement.

“I hope to be able to show this off at the ball I will be hosting in one week’s time,” Madame handed the luxurious tail to Eleanor. “I think that it would be a terrible shame if there was no one to wear it, don’t you?”

Eleanor nodded in agreement without saying a word.

The week that had stood between Eleanor and the ball was gone what seemed like a matter of mere hours rather than days. In that time she became familiar with the way in which Madame ran her household, although she failed to have the time to make the acquaintance of any other members of the staff. She was required to wear a uniform that while quite formal and conservative, she was sure would have driven anyone aroused by Tim Burton movies into a fit of unrestrained passion.

She learned that the theme of the ball was to be a magical and darkly twisted take on the trappings and contents of a traditional toyshop. Apparently the underlying aim of the event, as far as Madame and her peers were concerned, was to attempt to outdo one another with the most extravagant and delightful interpretation of the theme they could bring to life.

For some reason it would have been seen as poor form to make themselves the centre of attention by donning such an extravagant costume themselves, so inevitably the job was passed to one of their many underlings and hangers on. Some, such as Madame herself, relied upon a trusted servant, while others made a show of their favourite lover and still others enlisted the skills of a professional performer of some ilk who was aware of the nature of the thing and still willing to play the part to the best of their ability.

Eleanor herself helped to transform the ballroom of the penthouse from an elegant chamber of notable size into a decadent recreation of what a riotous toyshop might have looked like as seen through the eyes of an unrepentant libertine. As she hung banners and arranged props, she could not help but wonder where she would be positioned on the night of the ball itself and what strange things she would see.

When the time came, she found that it would be Madame herself who would personally attend to the task of preparing her for the festivities. The need for her to be as close to perfection as possible meant that the older woman would not contemplate leaving the job to another soul.

Eleanor felt a twinge of self-conscious anxiety as she began to unbutton her uniform with Madame no more than a few feet from where she stood. But a moment later she was struck by the relatively tame nature of simply undressing in the other woman’s presence when held against what she would ultimately be doing in no more than an hour’s time before more than a hundred strangers.

Quickly she popped the last of the buttons on the black dress and allowed it to fall to the floor around her feet. She had already removed her boots and so she simply stepped out of the garment and onto the floor in her stocking feet. Her black shift came off over the head, leaving her standing in only her underwear as she instantly started to peel off her black stockings. She unhooked her bra, cupping her breasts as she pulled it off before allowing them to hang free and naked. Finally she pulled off her knickers and stood devoid of all clothing as she waited for the next instruction to be given.

Madame gave her an encouraging smile as she walked to her side.

She carried the rubber suit over one arm, managing the thing despite its weight and awkward shape with relative ease and Eleanor felt her skin prickle with anticipation as it came closer.

“Feet first,” Madame held the suit open in front of her, “if you please.”

Eleanor raised her left leg and gingerly slipped it into the unzipped hole that yawned in the back of the costume. The feel of the cool rubber against her skin was like nothing she had felt before and she was reminded of the sensation of sinking a foot into yielding sand or cold mud. This was joined by a realisation of just how tight the suit would be as her foot made its way further down the leg of the costume. By the time she wriggled the same foot into the hoof at the bottom, the thing had become so tight that she swore nothing could have been slid between her skin and the rubber in top of it.

Her right leg followed and once it was firmly ensconced in the suit, Madame began to pull the rubber up and around Eleanor’s buttocks. Soon when she looked down she could have been convinced that she had been picked up and dipped in liquid rubber to the waist as the costume clung so closely to her legs and groin. In addition she could feel the tightness as it pressed against her backside and her vagina at the same time, making her aware of the fact that those parts of her body were faithfully reflected in the costume as well.

A sudden prod from behind made Eleanor look over her shoulder just in time to see Madame attach the tail to her rump via a socket sunk into the latex. Combined with the sight of the hooves at her feet, she could not help but become a little excited at the prospect of coming ever closer to the sight of herself as a rubber rocking horse. As she held out her arms to allow them to be slipped into the sleeves of the costume, Eleanor risked one more glance over her shoulder. She shook her buttocks and delighted in the way in which the tail swished back and forth.

The sleeves swallowed her arms far more quickly than the lower half of the costume had her legs and as Madame placed her breasts inside the cups that would support them within the suit, Eleanor pondered the blunt hooves that covered her hands. Oddly, now that she was considering them as a part of the whole and not simply a restraint that bound her hands and made them useless, she found that she was not in the slightest concerned by them. Instead she held them up and turned them over, imagining the experience of walking on all fours with hooves instead of hands and feet, feeling her tail brush her thighs as she went.

Moments later Madame was guiding the equine hood over her head and taking pains to ensure that the thing sat perfectly upon Eleanor’s cranium. She opened her eyes and for the first time saw down the length of the long snout at almost the same time as she felt the pouch inside the mouth of the hood being eased into her own. She was allowed to breathe by hidden channels between her nostrils and the nose of the hood, but the pouch in the mouth was for quite different purposes.

Once she had closed the zip and sealed Eleanor into the costume, Madame had her sit while she completed the intricate task of teasing lengths of hair through holes in the back of the hood. These were positioned in a line from the crown all the way down to the start of Eleanor’s back and as the red hair emerged, they gave the impression of a mane to match the tail already mounted above her buttocks.

When the task was complete, Eleanor rose to her hooved feet and made her way awkwardly to the empty frame that awaited her. She knelt in position at Madame’s instructions as concealed supports took the weight of her limbs and she settled onto the frame, trying to ignore the way that it shifted beneath her. The older woman wasted no time in fastening the straps that would bind Eleanor’s limbs to the frame and once she was sure the girl was comfortable, she stood back and surveyed her work.

Suddenly aware that she was no longer being fitted into place, Eleanor looked up and sought out the mirror that had been set up for her to see her own reflection. There was no way she could have been prepared for the sight of her own eyes staring back at herself from the visage of a rubber horse, but then who would? Her gaze darted this way and that as she tried to make sense of the combination of woman and horse that she saw in the glass, the mixture of rubber and red hair that straddled the frame and began to rock gently back and forth as she cast her head about.

Had she been looking at her own familiar face, it was possible that Eleanor’s reaction would have been one of shock or horror. But as it was she instead found herself looking into that of a strange creature that had the body of a woman and the visage of a horse, while at the same time had been bound to a pair of runners that tamed its body and would not allow it to escape.

Eleanor found that more than anything else, she wanted to touch her own rubber skin and feel for herself the texture of her strangely altered and yet undeniably desirable form. She twisted and flexed as much as she was able, instantly frustrated by the limited motion that her position as a rocking horse afforded her. But then it dawned on her that if she could not touch her own body, then the next best thing would be to experience the sensation of somebody else doing so instead.

As Madame strapped an ornate leather saddle to her back and wound reigns over her nose, Eleanor was lost in contemplation of what she would feel when others began to explore the shape of her body. The older woman said something to her, but she was too engrossed in her own thoughts to hear. Inside her head the thoughts of being stroked and played with were becoming ever more consuming and she was hardly aware of the fact that with each moment that passed there was less room in there for anything that might have been to do with herself as an individual woman as opposed to a human toy that was so looking forward to being played with for the first time.

The strange effect that the costume began to have on Eleanor’s thoughts was only exaggerated by the experience of being carried into the ballroom and seeing for the first time the effort that had gone into transforming the space into a decadent toyshop from this odd new perspective. Though she had been one of those who worked to make the place resplendent with ribbon, black balloons and traditional playthings arranged on temporary shelves and hung from the rafters, she found that she saw the entire thing anew as if she were now one of the items being placed on display, a part of the décor herself.

She was placed on a raised stage at the far end of the ballroom, alongside a number of other intriguing sights that appeared to be the most elaborate contributions to the festivities by those who could match Madame in terms of both funds and imagination. Eleanor regarded them with a mixture of intense curiosity and a sudden jealousy that she had not in any way anticipated. Was she actually unhappy with the idea that one of these other human toys might attract attention that should have been her own?

As she was lifted onto the stage, Eleanor had a good chance to look over what she now realised was the competition. It seemed that Madame moved in circles where there was no shame in going to the extreme, and she had to admit that she had never seen anything like the company with which she shared the stage.

Her closest neighbour on the stage sat slumped on the boards, so totally still that she could have been mistaken for comatose. From what Eleanor could see, she was a girl who could not have been much more than twenty and obviously chosen for her youthful looks that were complemented by the gay pink dress that she wore and the tight curls into which her golden hair had been gathered with matching ribbons. The girl might have been taken for the perfect image of Lolita, save for the cords that descended from the shadows above the stage and threaded through the loops that jutted out at her wrists, ankles and the back of her neck.

It took Eleanor a moment to realise that the metal loops were not driven into the girl’s skin, but rather into a layer of latex that covered most of her visible body. She saw then that the latex had been moulded to resemble the jointed body of a doll, so that the portions of her body that could be seen looked to be made up of ball joints and shaped wood that had been painted to resemble pale skin. The effect was uncanny and only added to by the way in which her face had been made up with exaggerated rouge on the cheeks and pouting red lips. As she stared at the living marionette, Eleanor flinched as her eyes opened and she gave a sweet, yet vacant smile that was all too appropriate for the part she was playing.

Eleanor tried to ignore the gaze of the marionette and instead devoted herself to studying the peculiar sight of a couple who seemed to be dressed as mediaeval jesters, their bodies clad in skin-tight red and black spandex and heads covered with caps whose bells jingled as they moved. They tossed a series of balls to one another as if practising in preparation for the evening’s festivities and she had to admit that they appeared to be quite talented jugglers.

At first she took them for a pair of clowns and was slightly disappointed to see something so mundane sharing her stage. But then she noticed the limited range of movement that they were afforded and strained to see the reason for their failing to move from the spot on which they stood.

Though she was effectively on all fours, the additional height of her runners allowed Eleanor to see over the head of the marionette and glimpse the lower bodies of the mysterious pair. There she was amazed to see that below the waist, the motley clad jugglers stood in a pair of matching boxes which were large enough to accommodate them if they crouched down and the lids were closed on top of them. Stranger still was the fact that their legs were held together by their costumes, as if they did not have the limbs at all.

As Eleanor watched them sway back and forth, twisting and turning as much as they were able, she realised that they were not after all simply clowns or jesters. They were intended to be a pair of matching jack-in-the-boxes, emerging from their boxes and sitting on a spring rather than legs.

She could tell now that while both were as supple and lean as circus acrobats, displaying great skill at maintaining their balance while giving the illusion of moving atop a spring, they were definitely of different genders. Their painted faces may have been similar, but the woman had the slender and almost equine quality of a gymnast and was a head shorter than her counterpart. Her body writhed like an alluring snake as she tossed the balls back and forth.

But for her own part, Eleanor was far more captivated by her partner,

He was broad, but built with the body of an athlete and provided a masculine counterpoint to the woman that could never have been called effeminate. The features of his face were well concealed beneath the greasepaint, but the spandex that he wore highlighted every inch of his body. Eleanor was almost shocked to see that his penis was not simply covered by the material, but had instead been fitted into an external sheath so that it stood proudly in front of him. It was an effort to pull her eyes away from the sight of the thing and not simply stare as she imagined the sensation of stroking it while she contemplated the muscles of his thighs pressing down on her.

The far end of the stage was dominated by what appeared to be a box of pink cardboard, easily the size of a telephone box and fronted with a window of flimsy plastic. Inside the box, Eleanor could see the figure of a woman stood as still as a statue. She was held in place by a number of ties that effectively attached her to the back wall of the box at the neck, waist and ankles although the blithe smile that characterised her expression did not seem in the least affected by her bondage.

Eleanor scrutinise the woman’s face, aware that there was something not quite right about the way the light reflected off her skin. She noticed that the woman was covered in a tight skin of rubber, like herself and the marionette, but that the finer details of her features had been deliberately concealed beneath it. This pink and shiny skin was made to resemble plastic and the visible portions of her body were marked with grooves at the shoulders, neck and wrists as though they were points of articulation.

At once the sight of the woman brought to mind a child’s doll and the odd visage of an inflatable sex toy merged into one. And that was what Eleanor concluded the point of the elaborate costume was; a doll that evoked the supposed glamour of an unattainable plastic icon of childhood contrasted with a very much adult one intended to be the object of sexual desire.

By the time she had finished sizing up the other fantastical toys upon the stage, Eleanor was surprised to realise that the ballroom had slowly filled with guests. In that time the roles had begun to be reversed and now it was she who was being watched and appraised by dozens of eager pairs of eyes.

She had no way of knowing how many people had crowded into the room in the time that she had been distracted, but she did know that the ballroom was large and the throng that she could see in her limited range of vision seemed to fill it almost entirely. There was the sound of classical music in the background, mixed with the occasional undertone of more modern music created by artificial means that surfaced like a sinister predator from the depths before disappearing once more beneath pleasant strings and percussion.

Though none of the guests that Eleanor could see were dressed a manner anything close to as elaborate as the toys on the stage, their own costumes strangely echoed the nature of the music and décor. Designs and fashions straight out of the pages of history had been reinvented to blend with the trappings of the modern fetish scene. Lace, damask and silk rubbed delightedly against latex, leather and spandex to make the crowd a riotous mixture of past and present all at once.

To begin with there seemed to be little to choose between the amount of attention that each of them received, but soon the ability of the jack-in-the-boxes and the marionette to move in even such a limited manner became apparent as they played up to the ever increasing number of guests watching them.

Eleanor felt a sudden frustrated sympathy for the doll inside her box, lamenting the fact that they were both effectively strapped down and unable to make a show of themselves. That was until she looked over and saw the effect that her supposed comrade-in-bondage was achieving simply by straining against her restraints. The doll could not express herself by means of her expression, but she moved her plastic body in a manner that seemed to indicate the desperation with which she wanted to be freed. Every time she arched her back and tossed her head back, she seemed to plead with the crowd to be let out of her box in order to let them have the pleasure of playing with her.

There was nothing that she could have imaged to be worse than simply sitting there on the stage and allowing the chance of such attention to be taken away from her and she racked her brain for the best solution.

Eleanor knew that she was effectively chained at the wrists and ankles and in addition the hidden supports that run up the insides of her limbs in order to keep her upright also served to limit her mobility at the same time. She was unable to move in any real sense that she was used to and found the situation frustrating as she wanted nothing more than to be given the same attention of any other person on the stage.

But that’s it, she thought, I’m still thinking like a human being when I should be thinking like a rocking horse instead.

Gently at first and then with steadily more force, Eleanor began to shake her equine head from one side to the other. The motion caused her mane to flick and dance, catching the subtle tones of her red hair in the lights that illuminated the stage. Next she cast her head backwards for a moment and then down and forwards, the motion causing her to rock on her runners at the same time. Soon she was lost in the momentum of her movements, thinking of herself as a horse in full gallop and hoping that she could snare the eyes of the crowd.

From the few snatched glances that she was able to manage before the blunt shape of her equine nose obscured her view; it seemed that her plan was having some success. While most of the crowd were being drawn by the more animated delights of the other toys, a small but growing number were casting their gaze over the rocking horse that seemed to have suddenly come to life before them. They watched the effects of her back and forth motion on her mane and tail, the way that the light played off her shiny rubber hide and some even noted the way in which her breasts swung pendulously beneath her as she moved.

Suddenly the sound of a crack that reverberated around the room like the report of a gun broke the spell that the toys had been intent upon casting over the crowd. Each one of them stopped what they were doing and looked around with an expression of surprise on their faces as they searched for the source of the noise without seeing an obvious source either on the stage or amongst the crowd.

“Now then,” a voice spoke out in a tone that was intended to be commanding and not a little scolding at the same time, “whatever do we have here?”

All eyes followed the direction of the voice and found it as a spotlight illuminated the highest point in the rigging above the right hand side of the stage. The figure that they saw perched there was petite, but boasted a figure that could have been nothing but feminine despite her relatively slight stature. Dressed in a bodice of red latex, matching tights and slippers, her hair dyed a shocking shade of the same colour and her face made up in black and white greasepaint, the woman resembled a mischievous imp of some kind. She clutched a coiled whip in one hand and Eleanor noticed that she was perched atop a trapeze swing as she surveyed the stage below her and she had to admit that the diminutive woman looked very much as though she knew how to make use of it.

“I turn my back for a moment and you start playing up the second that I do,” her voice carried so well that Eleanor assumed she must be wearing some kind of hidden microphone. “I won’t stand for this kind of behaviour from toys that are supposed to be gratefully awaiting the chance to be played with when their turn comes.” She stretched herself out and gripped the thin cords on either side of the swing in preparation to leave her perch. “It seems that I’m left with no choice but to dole out a punishment that will remind you all of your place and purpose at the same time.”

With that she swung out on the trapeze and over the stage, tumbling off in mid-flight to land in an expertly timed tuck and roll. The woman came to her feet with a neat cartwheel, still holding the whip in one hand and facing the crowd at the front of the stage.

The petite imp strode from one side of the stage to the other, hands held behind her back as she scrutinised the toys one by one. Eleanor eyed the whip warily, suddenly aware of the fact that she had always been terrified by the idea of being lashed and just how little she could have done to stop the other woman if she chose to use the thing upon her.

“A plastic bimbo in a box,” the imp shook her head as she reached the doll at the far end of the stage. “You’re supposed to be a role model for young girls the world over, teach them to be oh so demure and adorable when they grow up. But here you are, clawing at the inside of your box like a cat in heat. I think that you need to be reminded about the way in which your clothes make you so glamorous and just how easily they can be stripped off of you as well. Maybe that way you’ll learn to be a little bit more retiring?”

The doll had begun to retreat as far back into her box as she was able, as if she truly believed that she was being scolded for her actions. But there was nowhere for her to go as the imp slipped around the back of the box and undid the ties that held her in place. She opened one side of the box and herded the nervous doll into the centre of the stage.

Eleanor had to admit that the woman dressed as the doll was putting on what she hoped was a very good act. She looked both ashamed and deeply nervous as she stared out at the crowd. While she had been inside the box, the tiny dress of pink latex that she had been wearing had not been visible, but now it was clear that the garment barley covered her ample curves and angles.

“Now,” the imp prodded her with the butt of the whip, “strip.”

Slowly the doll did as she was told, the task made all the more difficult by the fact that her costume had bunched her fingers together in a single claw of a hand. The type of doll that she represented did not have articulated digits and so by the strange logic of the setting, neither did she. The doll struggled even with such a small amount of clothing to handle and almost stumbled over on more than one occasion, but in the end she stood naked on the stage.

Devoid of clothes, it was instantly clear that she had been made to resemble a doll in every way possible with her jointed limbs and smooth plastic body. Her breasts were firm and totally lacking any kind of nipples and there was not a hint of hair on her groin. There at least she seemed to have been allowed to remain very much naturally human, the plastic only just hiding the glimpse of her most intimate parts with their visibly real flesh.

“That’s better,” the imp walked around the doll with a smile on her face, barely reaching the other woman’s breasts with the top of her head and yet commanding her full attention and inspiring complete obedience. “I think we need to remind you what it’s like to be played with. I’m sure we can get a volunteer from the good people here tonight. How about you, sir?” She pointed to a man in the front of the crowd who appeared to be dressed as something pieced together from the remains of Edward Scissorhands and Jack Sparrow and almost managed to look like the man who played them from the right angle. “I’m sure that you’re not afraid of playing with a doll no matter than you’re all grown up!”

The man hardly took the time to acknowledge the imp as he hopped onto the stage and advanced towards the doll with what he had probably been told was his best pirate look firmly spread across his face. For her own part, the doll tried to look like a picture of submissive nerves, but Eleanor was sure that she could see beneath that thin veneer of emotion. There was a light in her eyes that suggested she was in truth far less than unhappy to have been given to the man who was now running his hands up and down the sides of her body. The imp whispered something into his ear and he nodded before slapping the doll hard across the buttocks and almost chasing her behind the curtains and into whatever lay backstage.

“Come now,” the imp addressed the crowd as a collective moan went up at the departure of the doll and her new, albeit temporary master from the stage. “You must respect the wishes of your fellow guests as to whether they choose to play in the open or in one of the private booths that we have backstage. We will have order,” she took in the crowd with a gesture from her whip and a stern look on her face, “or I will make sure that the troublemakers are punished by turning them into toys themselves. Don’t think that I lack the powers or the mean to do so!”

The threat did nothing to still the crowd, but then it was not intended to. Most were more than eager at the prospect of either being chosen to play with the toys onstage or else as the next best thing being chosen to don one of the costumes themselves.

“Oh do get up,” the imp sighed as she walked over to the marionette who had slumped back to the boards of the stage. As if in response, the inert form sprang to its feet and then sagged forwards, head on one side in a manner that suggested the puppet was listening while at the same time subtly mocking her tormentor.

As she watched, Eleanor realised that the woman was being supported and moved solely by the strings that were attached to her costumed body. There must have been an elaborate arrangement of wires and puppeteers in hidden in the rigging to make the thing work, but the result was impressive to say the least. For her own part, the woman in the costume seemed to remain as limp as boiled celery and never move a muscle of her own accord.

She could not help but wonder if the suppleness was simply a matter of acting or the woman had been given some kind of anaesthetic to achieve the state in which she hung from the strings. If she was drugged, then Eleanor did not envy her the experience that was undoubtedly awaiting her backstage.

“Ah,” the imp plucked at the marionette’s strings, “a poor puppet who dances for the one that pulls her strings and never once thinks of her own feelings or desires. But what’s this? You’re dancing alone and we can’t have that, it would be such a wasted opportunity! You need a strong partner to take you in hand and lead you through the dance. And I see just the man for the job, how apt that his solid nature will be paired with your own lack of a spine!”

The man that the imp had chosen climbed onto the stage using the steps at the far ends, their wooden runners creaking beneath his weight. Eleanor guessed that he must have been well over six feet and weigh in excess of two hundred pounds, but if there was any fat on him it was well hidden beneath the slabs of rigid muscle that defined the shape of his body. He was starkly bald and yet bristled with body hair and sported a thick goatee of steely grey over a face that was best described as rugged. His costume was possibly a wry comment on his own appearance, seeming to be that of a teddy bear which he had torn open to the waist. Only his legs were still covered by the layer of fur and the rest hung around his midriff like a skirt of torn skins. A pair of braces prevented the whole thing from falling down around his feet and he chewed on the butt of a cigar as he went his eyes intent upon the form of the marionette.

When he reached his prize, the puppeteers had their own fun by making the human puppet seem to cover her face in horror and flee across the stage from the approaching bear. Rather than be angered, the man instead roared with laughter and began to give chase, amused by the farcical little performance into which he had been drawn. When he caught his prey, he seized her and swung her around in a mock waltz from one end of the stage to the other.

“A bear, a bear,” sang the imp in the background, “all black and brown and covered in hair!”

The dance ended when the bear and his marionette twirled through the curtains and out of sight of the crowd. As they went and attention turned to who would be the next toy to be given to a guest, Eleanor could not help but wonder what the experience back there would involve for whoever was working the strings of the puppet.

“Aarrgh!” the imp jumped into the air with an exaggerated expression of shock on her face as she walked in front of the jack-in-the-boxes. She turned to stare at them with indignation in her eyes. “Which one of you is responsible for that manhandling of my posterior?”

Both of the jack-in-the-boxes look at the other as if puzzled and shocked at the accusation and then shook their heads in unison to claim innocence. A second later they both tried to secretly point to the other, saw the accusing fingers and fell into a silent argument of gesture and expression that spoke of long experience as a performing duo so easy was their improvisation.

“Stop bickering,” the imp grabbed their attention. “I know the difference between the touch of a man and a woman. It was you that put his hands on me.” She pointed at the male jack-in-the-box, who feigned innocence by placing his hands on his chest and shaking his head vociferously.

“Oh please,” the imp turned to the audience, “let me see if there’s a woman in here who would rather have you pawing at her than me.”

Eleanor saw that there was no shortage of eager women in the crowd and more than a few men who seemed downcast at being denied the chance to play with the mischievous jack-in-the-box. She may have been no expert on the average male member, but she was sure the one that stood out on the front of his costume was quite considerable. In conjunction with his athletic figure and tendency to cause trouble, there was never going to be a lack of interest in him.

“You in the petticoats,” the imp ushered a woman onto the stage in an elaborate period dress that allowed her to literally sweep across the floor as she went. “Maybe you don’t have legs under all of that, but then neither does he. But no matter, I’m sure that you’ll find something below the waist that’s to your liking.”

The woman was wearing heavy and very dramatic makeup and seemed to be more than a little impaired by drink as she approached the jack-in-the-box. She smiled up at him as he leered back at her, as if luring her closer all the time. She reached out with a gloved hand and began to stroke his spandex covered penis up and down as though she had never seen one before. Soon he was very much erect and began to perform a rippling dance as his new owner massaged his member ever faster.

The crowd denied the sight of such things with the previous toys and their masters, soon shouted words of encouragement and scandalous demands up at the stage. These only made the wicked light in the eyes of the jack-in-the-box grow more eager as he reached down and spun his supposed mistress around so that she faced the enraptured audience. Then quick as a flash, before she could even change the confused look on her face, he lifted her petticoats with one hand and pulled down her panties with the other before leaning into her.

Suddenly entered with the entire length of his erect penis, the expression on the woman’s face was quite something to behold. Eleanor had never seen anything like it, the combination of surprise and then totally unexpected pleasure that bloomed sent the crowd into hysterics. In any other circumstances, the act would have been unthinkable. But here in the midst of this strange company the woman simply gasped in delight and bathed in the reaction of the audience as the jack-in-the-box proceeded to have his way with her.

But then, just at the moment when it seemed she could take no more of his attentions, he wrapped his arms around her and coiled himself up into a tight ball. Holding her against him, the jack-in-the-box pulled the woman down into his own box until the lid slammed closed on top of them. Eleanor was amazed that both of them had managed to fit inside and like the rest of the crowd, she wondered just what was now transpiring in that small wooden cube in the middle of the stage.

The imp wasted no time in ushering the box away under the power of two stagehands dressed so plainly as to be almost invisible. Only then did she turn her attention to the female jack-in-the-box who save for Eleanor herself, was the only remaining toy on the stage.

“Ah, my dear,” she shook her head as the female jack-in-the-box looked hurt and betrayed by the actions of her male counterpart. “You look as though your heart has been broken by his mounting of that woman. But what did you expect he would do when the chance came along to spread the legs of a real woman rather than toss balls back and forth with a silly little thing atop a spring? Maybe you should have been tossing other balls all that time?”

The jack-in-the-box crossed her arms over her chest with and angry expression on her face.

“That’s the way,” the imp laughed at her reaction, “shoot the messenger!” Her tone became conspiratorial as she moved closer to the sulking jack-in-the-box. “If I were you, I’d remember that what’s good for the gander is also good for the goose. What better way to get back at the bastard than to play him at his own game? And I’m sure that everyone here will tell you that you shouldn’t knock knocking a human being until you’ve tried it.”

At that the crowd cheered in approval and the female jack-in-the-box made a wonderful act of going from sceptical to intrigued and then to lustful as the idea supposedly bubbled around inside her head. She nodded at the imp and turned to face the crowd before making a show of her pliant body, bending in ways that were almost too much to be believed and at the same time being sure to proffer her breasts, twist her buttocks and pout her black-painted lips as she did so.

“There’s a man with the class we need to treat you to a dose of human company,” the imp pointed to a man in the audience who had been quietly intent upon the jack-in-the-box throughout her performance. At the invitation, he simply nodded his head silently and made his way to the stairs and onto the stage. The man had skin the colour of ebony and wore an exquisitely tailored suit in a nineteenth century cut topped off with a cane that he carried elegantly at his side. When he reached the middle of the stage, he stopped and made a practised bow to the somewhat surprised jack-in-the-box before taking her spandex-clad hand and planting a gentle kiss upon it.

Clearly taken aback by his manners and affectations, the jack-in-the-box could not help but be stricken with a rather silly grin as he returned to a standing position. The whole thing was helped by the fact that the man was undeniably handsome into the bargain and seemed to have quite unmanned the toy that he had been given.

Next he leaned forwards and placed a kiss full on her lips, meeting with less than no resistance as she pressed herself into his body with an eagerness that no one had been expecting to see.

As he ended the kiss, he whispered something into the ear of his prize through the red spandex that covered her head. The expression on her face spoke volumes about her reaction, but as she almost tried to beat more speed out of the stagehands that appeared to move her box behind the curtains, what he had said remained a mystery.

Suddenly Eleanor became aware of the fact that all eyes were now upon her. In her fascination with the ceremony of pairing off the toys with their delighted masters, she had quite forgotten the fact that she was amongst them. Now there was only one prize left to be claimed on the stage and she could not begin to explain how uncomfortable it was to know it was her own self.

“All alone on the big empty stage,” the imp was suddenly sitting astride Eleanor’s saddle with a mocking expression on her face. “Does no one want to ride this poor little pony?”

The sensation of a rider’s weight upon her saddle was an odd experience for Eleanor, but not she found at all an unpleasant one. The imp was light as a feather and no matter how she made a show of pushing herself back and forth on her back while pulling on the reins, all that the human rocking horse really noticed was the motion that she caused. Somehow the feeling of finally being sat upon and ridden was a relief, as was the way in which Eleanor’s equine nose was pulled this way and that by her rider.

“Perhaps I was wrong,” the imp shook her head, “here comes a likely rider for this red headed mount beneath my backside! Yes, the lady in the cloak and hood, come up here and take the reins from me.”

Lady, Eleanor thought as she glanced suddenly at the crowd, I’m being given to a woman?

In reality she supposed that there was no hard and fast rule that stated she had to be given to a member of the opposite gender. But then she was already secretly jealous of the toys that had been given to the previous masters and would more than likely be treated to an intimate meeting with their members even as she stood there on the stage.

Were there ways in which being the plaything of a woman would be as wonderful, if different to being the plaything of a man?

Eleanor realised that either way, she was about to find out.

Her master stepped onto the stage, a tall figure draped in an all concealing hooded cloak of rich black material. She wasted no time in capering on the boards for the amusement of the crowd or responding to the efforts of the imp to make a comedic scene out of the moment. Instead she simply nodded to the stagehands, instructing them to lift Eleanor by her runners and carry her behind the curtain.

For her own part, Eleanor was somewhat deflated by the speed at which she had been removed from the stage. Watching as the other toys were whisked away after some amusing and exciting play before the crowd had stirred her expectations as to what she might expect herself. Now that she had been carried away and into one of the empty booths backstage, she could not help but feel the fault was her own, that somehow she had been disappointing enough to bustle out of sight without a second thought.

“Finally I have you all to myself,” Eleanor recognised the voice behind her as she heard the door to the booth swing closed. “I can’t abide all of that noise and fuss when I’m trying to enjoy myself.”

Madame undid the clasp holding the cloak around her neck and allowed the entire thing to fall around her feet. Beneath it she wore a black leather corset that covered her from beneath her breasts to an inch below the waist with a diaphanous and sheer blouse of the same colour tucked in so that it swathed her exposed chest and arms. Beneath the material, her pale skin was more hinted at than actually visible and her nipples could be made out in shape if not actually seen in the flesh. Black latex tights covered her legs from below the corset and disappeared into tight boots that reached to her knees and added to her already considerable height with their perilous heels.

But the one item of her costume that captured Eleanor’s attention as she glanced back over her shoulder was the intimidating length of the phallus that she wore strapped to her crotch, as naturally as if she had been born with the thing.

It was by no means the largest imitation of a penis that she could have imagined; rather it was a generous size without seeming to be grotesque in some strange way. Eleanor guessed that the thing must have been made from some kind of rubber and probably modelled on the real thing based on the amount of detail that was visible along the shaft.

Now that she had seen it, two things were evident to Eleanor as she gazed back at it.

The first was that Madame was obviously intending to use the thing upon her.

The second was that with every passing moment the length of formidable rubber was coming ever closer.

“I have a confession to make,” Madame’s voice was calm and reassuring as she knelt down behind Eleanor. “You are not the only one who owned a beautiful rocking horse as a child.” Her hands were on the other woman’s buttocks as she spoke, stroking and massaging her through the rubber skin of the costume and working their way forwards to her groin. “Mine was a joy to have and unlike you I did ride it whenever I could, in fact I rode it until I quite wore the thing out.”

Eleanor swallowed and tried to keep her breathing even as she felt Madame’s fingers brush past the lips of her vagina and move on to slide across her stomach. They found her breasts and pressed them against her chest; teasing the nipples and making her arch her back as much as she was able while lashed to her runners.

“The moment that you told me your sad story,” Madame was closer now, almost speaking into her ear, “I wanted to help in any way that I could, wanted to show you how much you had missed by denying yourself the simple gratification that you have a right to feel as much as anyone in the world. This is the perfect way to do so, to show you the joy of being ridden and at the same time allowing me to feel that happiness I once had and ride a beautiful rocking horse again.”

Eleanor felt something cold slide against her groin and jumped instinctively at the sensation. She could not see the approach of the phallus or know that it had been covered with a lubricant for her own benefit. Instead she experienced a moment of panic as she sensed the movement of Madame’s body against the buttocks.

Although she was filled with nerves, a strong undercurrent of the excitement she had been filled with while on the stage still held sway over Eleanor’s body. As it was there had not been time for her change in mood to have an effect on her physical state and so when the time came, the head of the phallus met little resistance as it pushed against the outer lips of her vagina.

The sudden pressing was followed by the sensation of entry as her muscles moved to accommodate the width of the shaft that followed the head into Eleanor’s body. Madame did not stop her forwards motion and instead pushed onwards into the helpless rocking horse, feeling her quiver as she went ever deeper.

Eleanor was sure that this could not go on for much longer, that there was simply not enough room to accommodate the entire length of the phallus inside her body. But still she felt the head making its way into her core and the shaft coming afterwards to keep the sensation alive even as it built in intensity.

Soon their bodies were no more than a fraction of an inch apart, as much of the phallus as possible filling Eleanor and driving her mad with the effect it was having on her most intimate parts. Madame held her in that position for what seemed like an eternity, keeping as still as she was able and simply allowing the experience to wash over her plaything until there was no resistance left inside her.

Only when she was satisfied with the tumult of pleasure that she sensed in the bucking motion of Eleanor’s restrained body did Madame begin to move backwards and forwards inside the younger woman. For her it was a pleasurable act as well, due to the well-concealed fact that the phallus was double-headed and extended as far into her own body as it did into Eleanor’s. She wanted to ride and be ridden every bit as much as she was sure the rocking horse beneath her did.

For her own part, Eleanor was convinced that she was never more than a second away from either biting through the latex that filled her mouth to scream out loud or simply snapping her back with the intensity of her stimulation.

When the climax came and she rolled back and forth on her runners, Eleanor was convinced that she was somehow changed by the experience. It was almost as though she had become accustomed to her body as it was restrained in the costume and worried that when she was released she would strip off the latex to find that she had hooves instead of hand and feet, a mane and tail or the head of a horse rather than her own.

“Rest my dear,” Madame whispered in her ear, “rest and gather your strength for there is so much more that I have to teach you.”

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23.10.12