Unknown - Bea_s pony

I awoke with a feeling of disappointment inside me. I was aware of my surroundings as wrong, in error, and felt that if I waited a second or two, they would turn into the correct ones.

They remained the same.

I lay in bed thinking what had started out as a good prospect of companionship had been demolished by my own fear of commitment. I had to be myself, fears and all, in spite of what happened. That was the way it had always been with me.

I got up out of bed and walked over to the clothes closet. I took my robe off and stared at myself in the full length mirror. It isn't worth it, I thought. It isn't worth the hassle. Every time I had let myself fall, it was the same old story.

I decided I was not going to eat my heart out over anybody. Let somebody eat his heart out over me, if that's the way it had to be.

There were plenty of Hack Raver's around, and if I did not want it that way particularly, there was always Joe Cunningham, or maybe the answer was a good old comfortable collie like Clyde. Was I leaving something out?

I was still young, only twenty-eight, and what's more, I looked good. There was nothing to criticize about the reflection I saw in the mirror.

It wasn't the reflection that counted. It was what was inside my brain. What was in there that I could not see? What memories of dreams were stored in those cells that I had never been permitted to remember?

Once in New York City I had gone to see the ballet. A particular prima ballerina had done a dance so exquisitely well it had sent chills up and down my spine. I had turned my head at that moment and had noticed the person seated on my right, a young girl of about sixteen, had been similarly affected.

Our eyes had met at the same instant, and she had gasped. Her hand had suddenly hesitatingly reached over and touched mine for a few seconds.

We hadn't spoken then or later. In fact, our eyes had not met again, and after the performance, I never saw her again.

The color of her eyes had never been erased from my memory. A recurring dream I was to recall upon awakening had had to do with it.

I am standing on a diving board about to dive into a swimming pool. Around the pool are many people, some of whom I recognize, some whom I do not. They are both men and women. Some of the men stare at me with sober faces, other men are jeering at me.

Still other men, naked, are holding their penises and wagging them at me. All of the women are smiling at me warmly. I dive, finally. Suddenly the water changes to the color of the young girl's eyes, and I actually fall into one of her eyes.

I keep falling. The color is all around me. I begin to fear I am drowning and wake up.

Standing there in front of the mirror, I thought about the dream and its meaning. It occurred to me that the sadness that gripped at me periodically I had first felt at that performance. It occurred just as the young girl had finally passed from my view forever, during my last impression of her, from the rear, of the ponytail, the camel's hair coat, the lithe calves, the loafers.

What was the meaning of the experience?

I dressed slowly, sadly, putting on a blouse and skirt. Definitely I decided on flats. The weather had turned cooler, and I took the short length light brown suede leather coat I had brought along out of the closet.

The coat fit snugly and tied with a belt. It flattered my figure and I looked expensive. It was one of the few articles of clothing I owned which I considered a prized possession.

Helen was waiting for me in the living room. She was petting the pony lovingly.

"I guess we can safely say we enjoyed your visit, pony," she said to him, patting him on both sides of his head. "I'm going to miss you, you know."

"That's nothing compared to what he is going to be missing," I said.

"That's right," she giggled. "What about that? What do you suppose he will act like when he gets to someone else's house?"

"I can see the headlines. Woman Raped in Backyard by Pet Pony. Wild, huh?"

"Then you'd have to write it up in Pet World."

"Actually what will happen is Cunningham will keep him there for stud," I said, "or have him gelded."

"You mean he will actually cut those big things off?" she asked. "Does the pony ever want to do it afterward?" she wondered.

"If they are cut proud, in other words, castrated after they have reached maturity, I understand they still want to do it, but whether they actually can or not, I don't know."

"This pony is certainly mature, wouldn't you say?"

I laughed. "No question. Maybe a little too much so. Remember what Cunningham said?"

"The pony would get all excited when we had our periods," she recalled.

"He certainly didn't wait for that," I asserted.

"It was because we gave him a little help, wasn't it?" she chortled. "Shall we have one last one?" she proposed.

"Come on, Sis," I said, leading the pony toward the front door. "We're going to need all the energy we can save."

We got the pony in on the back seat and drove away. The way to Denton looked familiar this time and didn't seem quite as long a trip as it had the first time. Some first touches of fall appeared here and there in the north Texas countryside, reminders to me that fall was already cold up north.

The Ho-Ho-Pony Farm looked just as deserted as it had on our first visit. Even more so. There was no Hack Raver standing in the compound to greet us.

"Why, where's Mr. Raver?" Helen wondered after we had gotten out of the car.

"Try the hayloft," I suggested.

Helen looked at me oddly. "Now, why there, for heaven's sake?" I could see the puzzlement still on her face. "Does he, pitch a lot of hay?" she asked.

"No," I answered, "but he pitches a lot of woo."

She threw up her hands. "You're impossible today. What's eating you? It's about John Young, isn't it? You're still mad because he made love to me." She softened her tone came close to me. "Sweets, if you had only said something. You know it would have been strictly hands off if I had known."

"It's not just that, Sis," I said, patting her hand. "It's mostly a lot of other junk. I've really gotten over that night, really," I said. "Just bear with me. I'll be all right."

We strolled around the compound together poking our noses into sheds and barns here and there as curiosity dictated. As on our previous visit, a strange quiet prevailed throughout most of the area, as if the regular work of the farm was taking place somewhere else miles away.

Far down at the south end of the compound we came upon what looked like a sheep shed. The ramps and pens were set up for running sheep through a water system and prepping them for shearing. A few sick-looking sheep were penned up. The others, we concluded, were probably out to pasture.

As we walked down around one side of the sheep shed, we heard what sounded like human voices coming from an enclosed area. Occasionally the human sounds were overlaid with the obvious bleating of sheep.

We stepped up close to the side of the building and the voices grew louder. There was an argument of some kind going on inside, but the voices were still too indistinct to make out too many words.

I looked around for a door but seemed to find only windows on the structure. I was standing there puzzled when Helen motioned me over to her. She was standing by a sheep pen at the end of the shack.

She pointed to a flight of concrete steps leading down into the basement of the building. To get to the steps required walking inside the building where the shearing was done, but that did not seem to pose a real problem. The worst that could happen was getting our shoes dirty.

We picked our way through the shearing area. Sheep dip was everywhere but most of it had dried. It was hard to believe that better sanitary conditions could not have prevailed. Since slaughtering was not involved there, it was probable no strict sanitary code affected the operation.