Michael snickered, but Tucker’s eyes widened and he leaned forward with glee. “Now, I wouldn’t be sayin’ such a thing, my dear Ms. Selador, since you ain’t heard my rendition of ‘Born in the USA.’”
“This is my—seventh Academy in ten years,” Marcy said, rescuing Alex from trying to make some sort of comment in response to Tucker’s revelation. “And there hasn’t been a single entertainment yet that didn’t make me feel like my slaves were the most boring creatures on the planet!” She laughed. “But damned if I’ve met more than a dozen owners who really want the fancies.”
“Not our niche,” Alex shrugged. “But fun to watch, in that ‘we’ve dined, now divert us’ sort of way.”
“Remember that year on Santorini?” Tucker asked with a broad smile. “Now, that banquet made you feel like a goddamn Roman.” He turned to Michael and Stuart to explain. “Sixteen different rooms, because we reclined, boys. On damn couches! They had to put up tents for all the slaves they sent in. We’re talking cup-bearers, footmen, washin’ up slaves, and then they had jugglers and tumblers and contortionists and who-knows what else.”
“It was damn uncomfortable if you ask me,” Alex said with a smile of her own. “But I did think it gave you a great sense of being really overcome with service. Something like this,” she swept the room with her hand, “this is a little old-fashioned and exactly like any formal dinner. But a Roman banquet with twelve courses and one server per guest? It’s a taste of what you can do with unlimited power over a vast amount of people. It was too sweet—like those honey-dipped fruits at dessert, remember? One bite, and you felt like it was the most delicious thing you ever tasted. Two bites later, you needed that strong coffee just to wash the taste out of your mouth.”
Tucker nodded. “Moonshine madness. Well, that’s why I’m a trainer and not an owner. That, plus what my accountant tells me!”
Michael shook his head, wishing he had been there. “So the Academy is one way for you to all feel like owners?”
“Extravagant owners,” Marcy said. “Very few of the owners I know actually live like this, even when they have the wealth to justify it.”
“And speaking of extravagance,” Alex said. She nodded her head toward the double doors that opened up to the back of the building.
Conversations, while not stopping altogether, shifted in tone as the ponies were herded in, prancing around the edges of the room in pairs. Michael was delighted to find that instead of the more typical English carriage style of harness
and costume, these were obviously western ponies, with heavily inlaid leather harnesses and brightly colored rodeo head-dresses. Trick ponies! Benjamin’s father, in brown leather batwing chaps and a matching vest, drove one group while the steel-eyed Abigail whistled and drove the other. Michael hardly recognized her in her fringed white leather skirt and vest and beautifully decorated silver-toed boots. Images of Dale Evans tickled at the back of his mind as she expertly cracked her driving whip over the tossing heads of her team.
“’Bout time they found out that everyone who likes ponies ain’t English,” Tucker said with a chuckle.
The ponies were arranged by height, the smallest ones in the front ranks. When Abigail’s team passed by the table, Michael especially admired a young Asian woman, her black eyes sparkling over the silver bit in her mouth. As she tossed her silky hair, making the purple ostrich plumes in her head harness dance like flags, he noticed that the hair descending from her butt plug looked exactly the same color and texture as the hair on her head. He scanned all the ponies as they passed, and laughed out loud; they all wore their head hair long, and their tails matched. Several of them were fairly expert in flicking those tails too, to the audience’s delight.
The two teams rounded the room, crossed each other at the main dais and continued to trot, knees high, through intricate figure eight and double circle patterns. They split, the pairs passing each other in perfect movements, advancing and turning under Zeke’s firm gaze and Abigail’s expert whip cracks. It was not as much a rodeo show as a weird kind of horsey square dancing.
In their final formation, to the applause of the diners, the ponies gathered in a row across the dais, advancing forward and then sideways, their heads moving in unison now. They turned and moved expertly, all the while keeping their eager eyes on their handlers, showing a combination of spirit, strength, and obedience to command. It was stunning to look at, down to the final movements, where they wheeled so energetically that it gave the impression of rearing, and then all bowed low, their trainers bowing with them, to thunderous applause.
“Just like the Rockettes,” Michael joked.
“Actually, it looks like a routine pioneered with the Royal Lipizzaner Stallions,” said Alex. “I think that would predate Radio City by about 150 years.”
“Fancy stuff for rich owners,” said Tucker. “Just imagine what that herd must be worth, huh?”
“And the owners just loan their slaves to us for shows and service?” Michael asked. “No remuneration?”
“Listen, owners like to know that their slaves are good enough to be here,” Marcy said. “I wish I could have supplied a half a dozen myself, but I only felt good about one recommendation last year. How about you, Alex?”
“We’ve got three alumni here,” Alex replied. “At least I think it’s three—after a while, I lose track of some of our older graduates, especially if we don’t represent them any more.”
Michael frowned. “Damn—then how many...?”
“Anderson slaves?” Alex filled in. “Here this week? We might not be able to get a good accounting, so many of her clients get credited to their first trainers, even though she’s the one who perfected them. Hm. Maybe twenty?”
“Twenty?”
The trainers looked around, estimating how many slaves made up the service arm, while the ponies trotted prettily out the back doors again and people started to rise.
“At least,” said Tucker, squinting. “Yeah, at least. Anyhow, let’s shove off and see part two.”
“You mean that wasn’t it for the entertainment?”
“Oh no, my wild dog, that was not the extent of the entertainment!”
Michael twisted in his chair and then stood up as Ken Mandarin approached. “Betting will close in ten minutes; does Parker allow you such pursuits?”
“Betting on what?”
“The races, boy,” Tucker said genially, taking Alex’s arm again. Their chairs were slid away by silent, smiling slaves and everyone started to head for the rear doors. The evening was slightly cooling, but still lush and wonderfully fragrant, and the breezes whispered through the room. “Ponies dancin’ ain’t much of an entertainment, no matter how pretty they are. And that wasn’t nearly long enough. It ain’t a real entertainment until you start to feel drowsy!”
“Oh, Tucker, you love every minute,” Alex said. “And I know you’ve been waiting for this part, because I saw you placing your bets earlier.”
“Indeed,” Ken agreed. “I too, have wagered heavily. Upon the team from Calgary, Canada. They are not as pretty as the Swedes, but they seem strong, and virile.”
Once outside, in one of the few large open spaces on the land owned by the ryokan, a makeshift track had been laid, marked with brightly colored silk flags. Michael was surprised to find the race was not between the hardy western ponies who had just performed, but by teams of dogs. Three thick-wheeled, chariot-like vehicles had been placed at spaced intervals, obviously weighted down with packs of something bound in more silk ribbon, and hitched to each one was a team of five naked human dogs. Slaves in loincloths were lighting high torches along the side of the track, and blankets, pillows, and low seats were arranged for the spectators.
The dogs were panting, sometimes barking at each other and at the crowd. They whined and whimpered and nosed their handlers with the same wiggly ecstasy that any dog owner would recognize, and occasionally growled and snapped when they jostled each other too roughly. As Michael maneuvered his way through the crowd, he found Benjamin, bare-chested but wearing a light leather vest, checking the harnesses on one team. He waved happily when he saw Michael, and Michael slipped under the guide rope to join him.
“They look great, eh?” Benjamin asked proudly, ruffling the long hair of his lead dog affectionately.
“I have never seen anything like it!” Michael cried, laughing with delight. “Dog sled racing?”
“Well, you know, not all dogs can be lap dogs,” Benjamin said. In fact, one of the dogs, a muscular female with blue eyes and tattoos and scars all over her body, had started to assertively nose Michael with a certain gleam that was a savage cross between a grin and the baring of teeth before a fight. Michael almost drew back, but instead decided to reach down and pet her. She sniffed at his hand, and along his leg, and then decided he must be all right, because she accepted his stroking and made happy growling noises deep in her throat. Michael had never seen someone so devoted to an animal role before, and much to his surprise, it excited him. He just knew that if she was properly fucked from behind that she would growl and snarl and then howl when she came. His cock sprang at the image.
“This is the first team Da had me train by myself,” Benjamin said. “Now, be good, Livia, don’t do that,” he added, when the female had started to nose toward Michael’s crotch. “Bad dog! Stay in place!”
She whined, but grinned, wuffed and moved back beside her harness partner. Michael laughed again in sheer delight.
“All of ’em are from Calgary, three different owners. Da is running the Alaskan team, and Georg Lundgram has the European team. Not that it’s much of Europe, eh?” Ben was obviously excited—he sounded more like his father and spoke faster. “They’re the only dog trainers who are our competition, I guess, puttin’ out workin’ dogs as well as sportin’ ones.”
“So you’re competing against your own father?” Michael asked, incredulous. It sounded so strange, in this ever-so hierarchical world, where one never challenged one’s superior. “What happens if you win?”
“Better to ask what happens if I lose,” Benjamin laughed. “Losers get extra chores, I reckon.”
Seven trainers who had been given garish ribbons to declare them the Honorable Racing Officials began to signal for silence for the starting line-up, and Michael quickly shook Ben’s hand and ducked back under the rope.
And what if you do win, my friend,
he thought, as the handlers walked the track once together and the betting was closed.
Does that mean you’re not a junior trainer any more? Is it like one of those “beat the master and become a master” things? Will it embarrass your father, or will it make people respect the two of you more?
Lately, Michael had thought a lot about status, and it was so much more complicated than he ever imagined. But before he could get too
lost in his thoughts, there was a sharp gunshot, and the three teams rose, barking and howling. Their shoulders and hips pulled tightly against the harnesses as they rose on their feet, hands reaching in front of them as though they were walking limbs and not tool holders, and then the heavy sleds lurched into motion over the shorn grass. The handlers stood, braced in the chariot portion of the sled/cart, one hand wrapped firmly on a padded handle set into the frame, the other hand free to use a remarkably fluid long whip. Each vehicle had a traditional, short dog whip that was hung from the side, but it was clear that unlike those, which were primarily meant to make noise and break up fights, these handlers actually used their whips to hit their dogs. It was hard to know which to be more impressed by—the beautiful reactions and struggles of the teams as they both pulled and jerked against the harness in pain when the lashes struck them, or the skill of the handlers who had to use a single tail while perched on the back of a narrow, precariously balanced cart.
At the beginning, the teams pulled together into a tight, equal formation, trading off first place only when they rounded the tighter corners and were forced to make room. Michael was amazed at the ferocity with which Benjamin laid onto the shoulders and flanks of his team. It wasn’t that Zeke or the slender Swede were any more gentle—it was just that it was strange to see Benjamin, so friendly and lighthearted and openly cheerful, was also clearly a sadist who enjoyed his work.
But clearly, no matter whether he enjoyed it, he got results. Gradually, into the second circuit of the race, he began to pull ahead of the other two teams, to the roar of the crowd. Ben’s team strained and howled, dropping onto all fours and rising up against the harnesses in an impressive show of spirit and strength, finally pulling ahead of the other teams by the entire length of the sled, and from then on, they never relinquished first place. They surged across the hastily erected tape at the finish line, with Benjamin howling as loudly and lustily as his team, leaping off the sled to run up alongside them and collapse to his knees to shower them with pats and hugs. They howled and licked and kissed his body, their shoulders and arms shaking with tension, their hips wriggling and thrusting in excitement. Someone could easily be buried under five human dogs like that, overwhelmed. But Benjamin was laughing and slapping playfully at them all, crying their names with affection and pride.
Michael had to really push his way through, but he made it to his friend, cheering at the top of his lungs. Ben grinned wildly, his face dripping with sweat, as he rose and accepted a big ribbon and a large brassy medal from the laughing Honorable Officials and hearty back slaps from his peers. But he shook them all off when his Da came through the crowd, and got pulled into a big bear hug that elicited even more cheers. Zeke looked proud enough to pop the buttons off his shirt, and was as equally covered in sweat as his son. “Get your team cleaned up, boy,” he said with a smile. “You done real good.”