Not Afraid

“This is it? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“She said we mustn’t be put off by first impressions. The accommodation is around the corner to the right. It’s a pity we arrived in the dark.”

“My fault?”

“I’m not saying it’s anybody’s fault. I’m sure it will be perfectly fine.”

In the light of the headlamps, she watched him approach the dilapidated building and disappear into the dark.

There were patches of bare plaster where the paint had fallen off. Left of centre was a big barn door flanked by an ordinary door. Another door was set in the gable above with a small-pane window to the right of it. No sign of the wooden stairs that must have once provided access. Some rusty pipe scaffolding was stacked against the left-hand corner.

As she got out of the car the blackness that had swallowed him was lit up. Passing two garage doors she came to the far end of the building.

“The key was in the lock, like she said it would be.”

A table and plastic chairs, a couch and an easy chair. On the other side of the breakfast counter was the kitchen with usual mod cons, presumably. Against the wall to the left steep wooden stairs climbed upward.

“Where’s the loo?”

He led the way through the kitchen to the bedroom. Quite spacious with a queen size bed.

Sitting on the toilet listening to the hiss and rattle of her piss and enjoying the feeling of relief, she heard him ascending. His footsteps were dulled but audible on the wooden floor overhead.

“Terrible stairs,” he said. “Not for drunks or the elderly.” He had emptied the car while she freshened up. “There’s another ensuite bedroom up there with two single beds.”

She stood at the open door and looked out into the darkness.

“No lights. It feels like an open field and I can hear frogs in the distance.”

When they opened the door in the morning they were both surprised by the unexpectedness of the scene before them.

“I could never have imagined this in the dark.”

They were looking at a paddock with half a dozen ponies slowly moving in an aimless fashion towards them, all the while nibbling at the stalks of grass that had been missed the previous day.

“Mindless,” she said. “I can’t say I envy their existence.”

“It doesn’t look like they suffer from stress.”

After breakfast he asked her if she wanted to do some exploring. Pearly Beach was about three or four k’s down the road.

“I thought I could hear the sea in the night. We’ve only just got here. I want to chill for a bit. You go and check it out.”

She put the dishes in the sink and was about to settle down with her book when she noticed that one of the ponies was standing at the fence and seemed to be staring at her.

It stood its ground when she approached, and even let her stroke its head and muzzle. The brown eyes were calm but expressionless. Thick muscular lips that did the work of hands. They parted to reveal top and bottom incisors.

“What big teeth you have,” she said aloud. Probably got a big dick, too. Nothing on show at the moment. She wondered what those leathery lips felt like.

There were no sugar lumps in the kitchen, so she spooned some jam into the palm of her hand and went back to the pony.

“Here you are; lick it. It’s better than sugar. Got more flavour. Just try it. No? Well, fuck you then.”

She wiped most of it off on the domed head of a fence pole and was about to go in to wash the rest off, when the bloody thing started licking and mouthing the post like it was giving it a blow job. Try again. This time she got the novel sensations she was after: the giant caterpillar lips and the rasping tongue doing acrobatics in the palm of her hand. So that’s what it feels like?

She had finished drying her hands when she saw the woman striding across the paddock.

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