I am Gideon: Chapter #22

The Stallion

Spring came on in full, and with it came new foals, who bounced around after each other and suckled luxuriously from their mother’s wealth of milk, and their energy made me feel more alive than I had for a while.

One afternoon a big shuttle pulled up, and two men in what looked like military uniforms, unloaded the most beautiful horse I had ever seen in my life.  It was a huge stallion, and word had it he had he had cost tens of thousands of credits on Anguine II.  He had been tranquilized for the flight, and the men gave him another injection so his phallus would drop and Fidel could see that he was getting what he paid for.  They said not to worry.  The tranquilizers would wear off in a couple of hours, the horse would retract his phallus, and by morning he would be ready for the hunt course.  They inspected the facilities, put the stallion in his stall at the end of the barn, and Fidel invited them down to the main house for refreshments before they left.

Unfortunately, that left the big Tarkelian and three of his ugliest cohorts alone with the horse.  I had gone to start the evening feeding when I heard their laughter from the stallion’s stall.  I crept back and there they were – fondling his genitals and saying nasty things – sucking and licking.  It still makes me shudder.  The Tarkelian took a wide piece of wire and wrapped around the stallion’s phallus, laughing and saying it was a cock ring.

“Bet you can’t get that down your throat,” one of them said, and the Tarkelian was actually trying it just about the time the horse began to wake up and retracted his organ.  They scattered, probably thinking the stallion would try to kill them – and I half wish he had.  He didn’t.  He dozed off again, but the others didn’t come back.

By morning, instead of being ready for the hunt course, the stallion was on the rampage, throwing himself against his stall door with his ears laid back and his teeth bared.  I had a feeling he was in pain, but I didn’t dare say anything about what the men had done.  I knew I’d be next if I did.  I tried in the evenings, then, to talk to him, to get him to let me help him, but it was no use.  I couldn’t clean his stall or do anything to make him feel better.  Fidel was angry about being sold a “bad horse,” and I felt like a coward for not saying anything.

A few days passed and Fidel walked in with a very tall, handsome man.  They stood in front of the stall while the stallion raged and the tall man asked questions.  “Leave me,” he said, “and give me some light.”

When Fidel was gone, the man began speaking to the horse, and the animal calmed down.  “I wonder what happened to you?” he asked.  He had a deep, gentle voice.

This man could break me in half, I knew that, but the animal was suffering – I’d suffered like that, and I made myself pick myself up from the top of the straw pile and say,

“I can tell you that.”  And I did.  I told him exactly what they’d done to that innocent animal.

“Thank you,” he said, and I ran as fast as I could to be as far away as I could when the horse went after him.

We were all gathered at the paddock fence when he came out of the barn with that beautiful horse at his shoulder.  He never glanced at me, but he fixed the Tarkelian in an icy gaze and explained to Fidel what had happened.  He said the horse would be fine with rest and medications.

 “Get that man a bunk,” Fidel said, and I knew my life was about to change.

Photo by Hollis.