The Copper Horse #2 Pride (27 page)

Erik turned to
him with a grin. “Do you like it, darling?”

Reuben gave a
single nod. Even though he was a slave, his elaborate outfit made
him fit in with the crowd of high society people. He belonged to
Erik Dal, so he was in fact invited here, unlike all those who
remained outside. No one could say he was scum and throw him in the
gutter.

It was hard to
miss the glances they were getting as they slowly progressed
through the hall. Erik stopped every now and then to exchange a few
words with people he knew, but no one dared to say anything bad
about Reuben, as if Erik’s glory somehow spread over to him. Even
the fact that some of the looks he got were colored with disgust
couldn’t quell the pride he felt. Would any of his friends even
wear an outfit as expensive at this? None of them were willingly
given expensive jewels or cherished like he was.

He felt a
peculiar kind of satisfaction whenever the guests noticed his stiff
cock under the leather. He couldn’t help himself. The tight outfit
squeezed him like a fist with every move and added pressure on the
tail. He could imagine that he was going to be hard all night. If
his cock was to be visible, it might as well be big and engorged
with blood. Erik’s body, encased in leather and right in front of
him, would surely keep his prick stiff.

“I’ve heard
Dima Gregorovich broke out of the asylum,” someone said.

The familiar
name caught Reuben’s attention. Erik had been approached by a
middle-aged lady in a red dress that was mostly hidden by a lacy
cape depicting stag heads. A heavy layer of white paint covering
her skin made her look like a ghost.

Since he was an
animal, no one could blame him for staring, so he did just that
without inhibition.

Erik gave the
woman a curt nod, ignoring her knowing smile. “That is
correct.”

“And the Dals
had absolutely nothing to do with it?”

“Oh, believe
me, I would love to know more than you do.” Erik’s voice sounded as
cheerful as usual when he spoke to acquaintances who weren’t
beneath his heel.

“I am so
curious if Mister Preston includes this new turn of events into his
plot. He always thinks on his feet.” She smiled and fanned herself,
but Reuben’s gaze wandered off to a flock of young girls a few feet
away. They kept glancing back at him from time to time, and their
voices could be heard even through the music.

“Is Gregorovich
actually a character?” Erik reached back, and before Reuben
understood what was going on, gentle fingers slid up and down his
tightly encased cock.

He let out a
loud half-snort, and his attention was right back to Erik. His
sphincter tightened over the phallus inside him when Reuben tensed
his buttocks at the touch.

The lady in red
must have noticed it too, because she paused for half a second, as
if unsure whether she should continue. “I think so. Unless he
managed to escape, of course.” She laughed and winked at Erik.

“Ah, yes. Let’s
hope he’ll move his attentions to Liverpool, or some other city and
leaves us be.” Erik took a glass of some sparkling drink from a
waiter circulating with a silver tray. He and the lady exchanged a
few more words and pleasantries before an elegant gentleman in a
red tuxedo snatched her away.

Erik looked
back at Reuben and tugged at the reins, slowly approaching an open
door leading to a staircase. “You’re on everyone’s lips.”

That wasn’t
much of a surprise, considering what he was wearing. Reuben let out
a whinny, feeling more powerful than ever. He was a part of
something bigger, and he reveled in every minute of it. Hans
touched him with surprising gentleness as he escorted Reuben up the
stairs, right behind Erik. The hooves clattered against the stairs
which every step he took, but he felt safe between two men who
would make sure he wouldn’t fall.

Once on the
first floor, Erik led him down the corridor, straight to the booth
at the very end. Reuben didn’t have to ask to know it had been
decorated at his master’s request. All four chairs had horse head
shaped armrests, and the wall separating the space from another
booth was covered by an intricate painting of Pegasus. He smiled
around his bit and stood there, admiring the work of art. A white
winged horse, falling from the sky into a forest below. Erik had
such impeccable taste. John knew nothing.

For a moment he
was getting worried he’d have to spend the whole play in a standing
position, but then he spotted a kneeler cushioned with smooth red
velvet and walked over to it.

“Yes, darling.
That one is yours.” Erik pulled closer and slipped one hand under
Reuben’s mantle. It was hard to keep quiet when he pulled at the
tail, teasing Reuben’s sensitive anus. Reuben moaned and leaned
into Erik’s body, his prick throbbing at the movement. He loved
when Erik paid attention to his ass.

The hooves made
Reuben so tall that the top of Erik’s head only reached up to
Reuben’s chest, but it felt so good to have Erik embrace his
waist.

“Poor thing,
you can’t come yet.” Erik raised his face towards Reuben with a
small smile and tugged on the tail again.

Reuben huffed
and rubbed his erection against Erik’s stomach. He was a sinner to
embrace all the filthy things Erik had him do. The thought came to
him because they were in a former church, but he couldn’t care
less. Nothing had ever happened in his life to make him this way,
so if he was born with such a defect, it was God’s mistake, and he
refused to take the blame. The way Erik slowly moved the phallus
inside of him made Reuben whimper with lust.

“Good, that’s
it. We need you ready for Percy Preston, don’t we?” Erik slowly
traced Reuben’s arm with a trail of kisses. “When he looks up to
our booth, he needs to see how excited you are about his
performance.”

Reuben couldn’t
imagine Percy Preston would actually look at them, but he shivered
at the thought that it could happen. He let his eyes roam and
stiffened when his gaze met a familiar set of eyes on a pillar
across the nave. Erik’s face, covered with silver, turned towards
him, a smug smile coloring the cold lips. It was a life-sized
statue dressed in red leathers, with hair layered with gold paint.
In its arms it held a disembodied horse head.

Reuben snorted
and pointed to it with his chin before looking back to Erik with a
question in his eyes.

“Pretty, isn’t
it?” Erik slowly stepped back and sat in the chair closest to the
kneeler. “I am one of the main sponsors of this theater.”

Without being
asked to, Reuben acted on his intuition and kneeled next to his
master. He could clearly see the stage from there, too. He couldn’t
comprehend just how rich the Dals were. Like the king himself,
maybe. Below, he could see galleries filling with middle-class
Bylondoners. The scaffolds supporting platforms with simple wooden
chairs were fenced off, presumably to prevent the plebs from
forcing their way up and disrupting the evening for everyone
else.

Reuben rubbed
his temple against Erik’s knee, but he couldn’t be as carefree with
it as usual since he had to balance the plume and worry about his
hairstyle. In a kneeling position, the phallus pressed on his anus
and made his cock throb again. Oh, how he wanted to be pounded by
Erik. Maybe he could get him to do it in the booth during the
intermission.

Erik stroked
his head and allowed Hans to sit in a chair close to the entrance
to their booth. As the noise rose when the doors were finally
opened to the poorest spectators, they settled into a comfortable
silence. Erik’s hands roamed over the shaved sides of Reuben’s
head, making his balls tighten in the confinement of his
outfit.

They waited
patiently, watching the crowd. Some people gawked up at Erik’s
booth, but Reuben was too caught up in waiting for Percy Preston to
care. The stalls emitted horrendous noise, and he could smell beer
all the way up in their booth, but when the lights began to fade,
the crowd went surprisingly quiet. Reuben held his breath, excited
to hear the drums of the orchestra mixed with the sound of hundreds
of clocks ticking and cogs moving in invisible mechanisms. Even
Erik’s touch became less important, and he bowed forward to get a
better view of the stage.

The curtains
parted, and the opening scene left him breathless, as they were
instantly transported into the world of the
Dandy Doctor
.
Reuben immediately recognized Percy Preston in a wig of flame-red
hair, just like in the poster. He was fucking a girl in a nurse’s
uniform right on the surgery table. Documents lay scattered on the
floor as he pounded her like there was no tomorrow. From high
above, Reuben could actually see half of his ass in the lowered
pants. Would they be actually doing it on stage?

The nurse
moaned and squealed like the prostitutes Reuben had seen. “Yes,
Doctor Deverell, more!”

A door to the
side opened with a loud bang, and a huge man in white stormed in.
It took a moment for Reuben to realize the long sleeves the man was
dragging over the floor were a distinctive feature of a
straitjacket.

Percy Preston
groaned, looking over his shoulder, but never stopped driving his
hips between the nurse’s thighs.

“The fuck is
this, Deverell? You promised to have a cure for the Plague, and two
months later this is what you do!” The other actor had a low voice
and a harsh Russian accent.

Percy Preston
arched his back, and with a howl he came. Or so it seemed. Percy
Preston was the greatest.

“I was busy,
Gregorovich. Can’t you see I need this for my mental hygiene?”

Reuben barely
registered the roars of laughter from the public, too entranced by
what was happening on stage. This was nothing like the play he had
seen in London. It was even better, more raw, shameless. Just like
him.

Merry music
accompanied the scene as background noise when the nurse got off
the surgery table, showing off her naked body to the crowd.

“I have more to
talk about, but the nurse has to leave first,” Gregorovich grumbled
with a frown, his back straight as he walked around, picking up
some of the documents.

“Her?” Percy
looked at the young woman, who was readjusting her skimpy outfit
while pushing her bosom out towards the lecherous public. “Oh,
she’s just a whore. I only make them dress like that.”

“Filth! Get her
out of here,” spat Gregorovich, but his gaze followed the
prostitute as she left the scene. Her uniform was hitched in the
back, so her buttocks were on show, and for a moment the audience
erupted with thumping and catcalls.

Gregorovich
took off the straitjacket and threw it to the floor. The actor was
wide shouldered, tall, and muscular, with dark chest hair. One of
his arms looked like armor, or a separate mechanism. Women in the
crowd squealed and laughed as he flexed his pectoral muscles.
Reuben had to admit the actor deserved the applause, even though he
couldn’t join in.

The background
moved, and dead bodies on hooks emerged from the darkness. Reuben
wasn’t sure if they were real but assumed they’d stink if they
were.

“Don’t you want
to have a go with a slicked up muff? We are the best of friends
after all,” Percy Preston said as he adjusted his pants. He threw
the white laboratory coat to the desk, and his form exploded with
color. He was wearing a tail coat with a peacock feather print,
brown breeches, and high heeled boots. The flutes and trumpets went
wild. Reuben had no idea how the theater did it, but even the
colors of the lamps changed, lamps in all colors of the rainbow
lighting up on each of the dead bodies in the background.

“No. There is a
war to be had. Not whores to be fucked.” Gregorovich sneered at
Percy’s outfit.

Percy tossed
his beautiful hair back and frowned. “Wait, wasn’t your lobotomy
appointment due?”

Gregorovich
growled like an animal. “Yes it was,
my friend
. And where
were you when I needed help? With whor—oh, I mean, your lady
friends. If you did as much research on zombies as your prick does
inside snatches, we’d be long rid of the Plague.”

Percy tsked and
paraded across the stage, ending the walk with a pirouette next to
a huge desk with piles and piles of documents on top. “I am on it.
We just need a few touch-ups here and there.” With one swift move,
he turned around the desk, which abruptly became an elaborate
dressing table, with colorful vials and a pair of female stockings
hanging over the mirror. Percy picked up a huge pink powder puff,
and as soon as he touched it to his face, the dressing table
exploded with a cloud of white dust.

Gregorovich
coughed. “This is fucking ridiculous! We’ll never get to the
parliament on time.” He walked past the dressing table and
discreetly grabbed the stocking. When he turned away from Percy, he
tucked it into his pants, making the crowd roar.

Reuben laughed
so hard behind his muzzle, tears streaked down his face.

The story went
on, following the characters’ journey through London. They were
depicted as complete mishaps who couldn’t even reach their
destination in Westminster on time to read their demands to the
members of the Parliament. The list of proposals included the right
to fuck out in the street as long as one concealed their face. With
so many prostitutes on the way to Westminster, Ferris Deverell was
way too distracted to think about time, and once his balls were too
dry to look at women anymore, the stocking Gregorovich had snatched
from Ferris’s dressing room caught in the hinges of his metal hand,
which made Ferris wonder whether his friend intended to wear it
sometime. The first act ended when the two men reached the gates of
Parliament.

Reuben was
exhilarated when the curtain went down, and for the first time
since the beginning of the play, he looked up to his master. He
tried to show his happiness by rubbing his face against Erik’s
thigh. He knew the play was satire, but he still felt that he’d
learned a lot about Deverell and Gregorovich.