Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 ## And it Please the Court

   Isolde was pulled from dreams of her ex-lover by the sound of bells. 
The groom carried them slung over his shoulder as he entered the stable,
and each pony held her breath in the hopes that she wouldn't be chosen for
a pre-dawn run.

   The first morning jobs were always the same sort of client: curfew-bound
women needing a sealed hansom to take them to some early obligation or
other.  It was high-paying work, but so time consuming that the extra sleep
was worth more to a pony than the fares.

   Isolde heard the bolt on her stall slide back, and had to fight the urge
to throw a tantrum right there.  She craved sleep, but not for the rest it
gave.  She yearned to return to those dreams of the time when she was a
truly free woman, living with one of the most powerful men in Mernica.

   The groom smiled as he entered, and tossed the bundle of tack over the
lower half of the door, bells jingling.  The hard soles of his high boots
echoed on the stone floor as he paced around Isolde, detaching the catheter
and enema tubes from her sanitation sockets and inspecting her for injury.
He squeezed a dollop of gel into one hand and began massaging it into
Isolde's gloss-smooth rubber flesh.

   She sighed into her bit, rolling it in her teeth as she worked her stiff
jaw.  The morning polish was the closest thing she got to a therapeutic
massage.  And as with most of the substances habitually put onto or inside
her glistening body, the skingloss made her feel randier than she'd ever
known in her old life.

   Once she was oiled and polished, the groom fastened the harness around
her.  An imitation horsehair tail plugged into the enema socket, and the
displays on her blinkers came to life.  As the groom released Isolde's
hand-hooves from the cuffs holding them high over her head, buckling them
to either side of her gravity-defying breasts, she studied the job
information being fed into her eyes.

   The groom threaded a thin leather strap through Isolde's nipple rings
and led her to a prepared hansom, hitching her to its front poles.  While
she tried to read up on her early fare, he reached between her legs and
began to rub her modified clitoris in rough clockwise circles.  Isolde
clenched her teeth on the bit again as the stimulation triggered a modified
reflex that caused her to prance in place, knees kicking high in the air as
her thighs tried in vain to rub her to orgasm.

   The groom pulled the strap from Isolde's piercings, patted the underside
of her left breast, and switched on the hansom's whips.  Twin lashes stung
back and forth against Isolde's thighs, and her high-kicking immediately
turned to a startled trot as she bolted for the collection point.

   The streets of Alem Town were largely empty at this time of day, and
Isolde almost ignored the congestion and route information coming from her
blinders.  She bounded down deserted lanes, leg-hooves amplifying her
stride.  Somewhere inside them, Isolde was certain she could still feel her
old human feet, crushed cruelly into a permanent *en pointe* position.  But
these days she never noticed, largely due to the well-cushioned
bounce-spring effect of the hooves on Alem's roads.

   Isolde pranced in place in sexual frustration as she waited for her
fares to step outside.  She *had* to believe that her old limbs were still
intact inside the pony-girl improvement suite.  Her wrists, now bound to
her shoulders by the cart harness, ended in smaller hooves that made fine
manipulation of anything impossible.  She dreamed of one day opening the
fists that she was sure were bound inside, and playing the floodreed again.

   Isolde's frustration mounted as she watched two women emerge from the
building and make their way with excruciating slowness.  Sophie's ankles
swung forward and caught short with each step, fighting against the hobble
skirt of her white laminate gown.  Stella held her arm and shuffled beside
her to keep pace, finding it easier to walk in the professional clothes
she'd borrowed.  Stella helped Sophie clamber up into the seat of the
hansom and then climbed in beside her.  They placed their ankles in the
stocks by their feet and brought the doors down over their legs.

   The moment the two women were locked in, the automated whips began
again. Isolde raced down the path indicated by her blinders, hoping the two
women would let slip some small piece of information about the world
outside the stables.  She focused her Improved hearing on the whispers in
the cabriolet behind her, and had no trouble following the entire
conversation.

   "Listen," Stella sighed, as if admitting defeat against an ancient
battle, "I just want to say...I'm sorry, and you were right all along."

   Sophie looked suddenly perplexed, and brought her finger away from the
ring that dangled from the front of her collar, "Whatever do you mean?"

   Stella rolled her eyes, "Well, if you hadn't actually kept *actual
clothes* around, I wouldn't have had anything suitable to wear to court
today!"

   "Oh, that!" Sophie laughed, "You know, that was originally not my
decision.  When I first came here, the rules for visiting diplomats forbade
relying on local utilities.  That's why that room looks like the inside of
a caravan: they gave us all washers and fuel cells and enough fuel to keep
us in lights and water for months.  And then you hired that maid for me,
and I guess I never had any reason to change any of it."

   "Um, about that maid..." Stella bit the corner of her lip, "I didn't
hire her, so much as, well...bought her."

   "What?!" Sophie turned suddenly in horror, "But *why*?  I mean, you
always said--we always talked about..."

   "I know!  I know!" Stella held her head in her hands, "We had just
broken up, and I had to do something drastic and spiteful.  It was either
that, or set the place on fire or...I dunno, sightseeing in Aekora or
something!  Anyway, she was supposed to spy on you and confirm all my
darkest suspicions, but of course they were all paranoid ex-wife
nonsense..."

   Sophie just let Stella talk, her jaw hanging open.  Stella finally bit
her lip again and stopped digging herself in deeper.  It was several
seconds before Sophie spoke again.

   "Just, to think...  All this time, you were a slavemistress..."

   "Oh and I suppose you've abstained entirely from Torei's misogynistic
system of chattel slavery!" Stella spat, and her expression immediately
curdled with regret at her outburst.  Sophie's finger had snapped right
back to the ring on her collar, worrying it nervously once more.

   "I'm..." Sophie spoke softly, so that even the ponygirl had trouble
listening in, "I'm an asset of a treaty corpus.  The trustees consist of
the Relitanian Deputy Ambassador, and Legit Arnolga.  They're both men of
high enough status that any work I do for them will actually have a chance
of succeeding."

   "Arnolga..." Stella's face now wrinkled in concentration, "You mean the
old lech from the supreme court?"

   "Find me a chaste man who comes to Torei, Stel!  He's a voting member of
the Abolition League, and a loyal Amalthean official in good standing.  I'd
have asked a family member if I still had any, but..."

   "No!  No...he's a good choice, I guess.  So what, he's given his seal to
our case?"

   "Effectively.  We're only getting a hearing because of his intervention,
really."

   Isolde trotted on, turning down a broad ceremonial boulevard filled with
traffic.  She found it difficult now to keep the pace set by the automated
whips, and her knees no longer kicked high and out of their way in time. 
It was like losing the rhythm while skipping rope, resulting in repeated
sharp stings to her hamstrings.  After a dozen misses in a row, an
involuntary girly whinny escaped her throat.

   "Is there any way we can slow those down for her?" Sophia asked.

   "Kammit, we're going to be late!" Stella groaned, "We need this thing to
go *faster*!"

   "They're needlessly cruel, Stel.  There's no way she can go any faster
in this.  Switch them off."

   Stella sighed and pushed shapes around on the side window, and the whips
stopped.  Soon after, the cart slowed to a halt in the middle of an
enormous crowd of women.  Stella leaned out to see an enormous banner being
held across the road in front of them, and swore loudly.

   "What is it?" Sophie craned her neck.

   "Strike action.  Looks like the clarkettes are marching grievances all
week.  They must have chained themselves across the road just before curfew
last night."

   Sophie stared out the window as the wall of women rippled outward,
threatening a cart pulled by four girls in full pony gear.  The man inside
was hollering obscenities at them in some antipodean accent, but the
combined voices of the women drowned him out with their chants.

   Soph marvelled at the mass of humanity, all in identical regulation
maroon chastity corsets and gold nipple-medallions.  They sat on each
others' shoulders, locked in a complicated weave of identical silver
laminate arms and legs held together with steel manacles.  When they acted,
it was as one organism.  Any threat to the weave was sequestered and
crushed.

   "Look at him," Sophie pointed at the screaming man.  "He's all of the
men of this world.  Just one little pecker on a planet full of women.  If
they all rose up, he'd be red meat for their tables..."

   The man threw something at the picket line, and the wall drove forward
suddenly, lunging and creating a half-dome four or five women high.  The
man flinched and cowered in his cart, scrambling for the reins and
screaming at his ponygirls to back up.

   "But that's just it, isn't it?  They can no more afford to conquer the
men than the DÃ-mons could pull down the Way Up.  They'd bring the whole
planet down around their ears.  So the best you get is riots over..."
Stella squinted, "...over fellatio pay and on-shift orgasm privileges. 
Kamn, what a sorry life it must be!"

   "Well, you can bet that Gowan will be pressing for more." Sophie
gestured to the portraits of the union's benefactor that marked the
perimiter.  "He's always driven a hard bargain for us."

   Isolde suddenly jerked, and the hansom's whips began lashing out in
short bursts.  The two women shook in the cab, as the ponygirl pranced
frantically in search of a new route to their destination.

   "I told you to shut--"

   "I did!  It's punishing her for being late, now.  I can't control this!"

   Their pony charged at the wall, driven by reflexive obedience to the
blinders, and was driven back in terror.  Again, she ran forward only to
push back again in terror, rear end smarting from the lashing her own cart
gave her.  Her panicked cries came out as shrill whinnies, at the same time
inhuman and immediately communicating human emotion.

   "Get us out, Stel!  Kammit, *get us out!*"

   ---

   Gowan was a social reformer, and he travelled the Universe speaking
about how he needed help to improve women's lot on Torei.  Isolde met him
at a fundraising dinner, he bedecked in traditional Mernic costume, and she
in a glittering floor-length gown that flaunted her low-gravity body. 
Their affair was slow and respectful, building gradually as she accompanied
him from engagement to engagement.

   Finally, she returned with him to Torei, living as his Free Consort. 
The pair travelled between his palace grounds in the countryside and his
penthouse dwellings at the top of Mernica Tower, near the Way Up.  She came
to love how Gowan dealt with his slaves and contracts, always letting them
relish the pleasures of his lifestyle along with him.  She came to love his
every tenderness.

   But try as she might, he would not divest himself of human property
altogether.  She never could tell how sincere the women around her were in
their gratitude for his kindness.  Like a prostitute, their very livelihood
depended on being able to please him.  A powerful man like Gowan kept
powerfully talented actresses in his collection.

   The slaves who modified her schedule of Improvements, for their part,
had the decency to tell Isolde why they did this to her.  For Toreans, the
women of this house had the cushiest job imaginable.  Isolde's lover, their
master, had one of the few unacceptable kinks on Torei: the White Knight
fantasy.  He wanted to rescue each and every one, and be worshipped as a
liberator.

   The only person more perverted than him was Isolde.  Had she convinced
her lover to set loose all the women of his house, they'd be unemployable.
Being dismissed from so noble a house was bad enough, but his proclivities
made him a terrible reference.  The pressure was too great, and Isolde had
to go.  One afternoon she fell asleep on the table as a slave administered
relaxing massage, and woke up in the Adaptation ward of the Mernican branch
of the Ministry of Improvements.

   The Adapters were stoic Isolates from Dahom: leonine female bodies
sealed in the black rubbery glaze of the isolation suit, their heads
encased in the featureless obsidian helmets.  They worked silently,
undistracted by Isolde's hoarse yelling.  They communicated without words,
and appeared never to rest during the entire three-day operation.

   Isolde begged, pleaded, and attempted to bargain with them.  She
promised them her lover's wealth and influence, her planet's every comfort,
and her mind's every secret.  Somewhere in the vast atmosphere-generating
ziggurat on the South pole, one of Dahom's AI subsystems processed Isolde's
words and opted not to send its surgeons the slightest sound of it.  They
finished the operation with top efficiency.

   In the recovery cell, a representative from the Ministry visited her to
talk abut finance.  As a Freewomb, she now bore the costs of the dramatic
cosmetic and structural modifications to her body.  The man had an enticing
proposal: one year in his personal stables participating in all manner of
pseudo-equestrian sexual scenarios would settle the accounts neatly.  He'd
buy out her debt immediately and put her on contract in his house as a
show-pony.
Her hands, now balled to fists somewhere within the rubbery fore-hooves,
could no longer operate a screen.  The tradition in this situation was for
the parties of the contract to seal the pact with intercourse in front of a
reliable witness.  Isolde chose instead to spit in his face.  Her White

Knight would be along in no time.

   ---

   Isolde pulled her carriage forward and backward, twisting and squirming
between the whips and the terrifying crowd.  The hansom cab rocked back and
forth and even side-to-side, one wheel hopping up off the ground at a time
as the ponygirl rocked it dangerously about.

   Stella stabbed at the glass, searching for anything at all that she
could control.  Lights surged and dimmed, voices came from speakers inside
and out, and bunting flopped down around the roof and retracted in again.
Stella swore as she was thrown forward by another retreat from the roaring
picket line.

   Just when it looked like the stalemate would last forever, Stella
shouted and her fingers danced.  Maroon and silver bunting burst in a
fringe around the cab, and it began to blare a union march from its
amplified soundsystem.  Sophie squealed and stuck her fingers in her ears,
but through a terrified squint she began to see what was happening ahead of
her.

   The women loomed over them, forming a dome just as they had to the man
next to them.  But instead of pounding down vengeance upon them, the floor
of the half-dome lifted to make an arch over their heads.  Isolde spotted
the gap and made her break, racing beneath the human bridge and into the
courtyard of the old bailey.

   ---

   Stel thought that Soph's tip for Isolde was excessive even given what
the poor ponygirl had just been through, but held her tongue.  They raced
through the slave's entrance and queued for admission.

   With the clarkettes on strike, only automated approvals were getting
through, and the number of booths were limited.  There were already a few
women crying in a corner, no doubt denied for some critical hearing. 
Stella and Sophia squeezed together into a booth and let the doors seal
shut.

   "Slave Sophietta, property of the Relitanian-Amalthean Peace Envoy, you
are granted entry by the writ of Legit Arnolga.  Slut Stellanova, you are
named as legal counsel in the writ, but are currently disqualified from
court appearance due to irregularities in your outstanding contracts. 
Resolve your contractual status and try again."

   "Stel?" Soph looked worried, "I know what you're thinking.  Don't do
it!"

   Stella swore, and slammed a fist against the solid metal over her
stomach.  "There's no time for getting this right!" she then spoke to the
screen, "I am at large on parole, automatically enforced.  I submit my
status to court mediation, at any time following the resolution of
Sophietta's hearing."

   The system blinked softly to indicate consultation and coordination of
multiple automated minds, and then the far gate opened.  The pair spilled
out of the booth and stumbled, arm-in-arm, down the corridor.

   "Aaah!" Stella squealed, "Nono, not this way!  Ooh, kamn!"

   Soph looked concerned, "What?"

   "No, I'm fine, it's just--Aaah!" She cradled the metal domes around her
breasts as if protecting them from something, "My parole belt wants me to
go straight to the courtroom."

   Rather than say anything, Soph just hooked her arm around Stel's elbow
and followed her lead through the complex.  Occasionally Stel would jump
back or aside from the sting of some invisible whip, and Soph did her best
to keep her ex-wife standing and moving on.

   They made it to the courtroom early, and waited outside until the
session let out.  A plump man with a big smile on his face practically
danced as he walked out.  In one hand he held a leather strap, the other
end of which was a metal ring to which six chains attached.  On the
opposite end of these chains walked six dour women with beautiful Amalthean
features.  Their arms were bound about their waists by strict rubbery
corset-straitjackets, emphasizing their exposed breasts.

   Stel swore, "That was *Delitra*!  Kammit!  I *dated* her!"

   Soph again held her tongue, and just laid her hand on Stella's.  She
squeezed gently, and put an arm around her shoulder.

   Once the crowd thinned out, the two women filed in and knelt in the
Petitioner's Circle.  They were alone, as even the magister seemed to have
gone to chambers.  Stella's breath was short and heavy, and she fidgeted
and fumbled trying to get their documents up for a last-minute review.

   "Stel, are you all right?"

   "No, I'm fine, really.  This is--" Stella sighed, and gasped sharply,
"The kamn thing is...*teasing*." She pounded her fist against the rectangle
of clear plastic that lay on the ground before her.

   Sophie looked down to see that instead of their papers, the device had a
timer counting down the seconds until the hearing began.  Beside it
scrolled the alternating messages, "**GOOD GIRLS ARE PUNCTUAL.**" and
"**OBEY THE LAW, AND BE REWARDED!**" Stel moaned, her eyes half-lidded.

   Sophie looked around nervously, feeling helpless.  She cradled Stella in
her arms, and soon she found herself locked in an old familiar kiss.  The
timer visible in the corner of her eye, she permitted herself to surrender
to longing and nostalgia as if it were no more than five extra minutes of
sleep in the morning.  People were arriving now, and Soph broke the kiss
with a blush and a downward gaze.

   Stel, for her part, struggled to straighten herself out as well, despite
the stimulation.  Catching her breath, she whispered a hushed "Thank you."
out of the corner of her mouth.

   Sophie sighed, "I never should have let you go."

   Stel just bit her lip and turned away, not wanting to let Soph see any
tears.

   Sophie continued, "I could tell that you needed so much more than I
could give.  I mean, I tried...You just always held back.  I never
understood...I mean, did you have too much respect for me or something?"
She coughed, and wrung her hands on her lap.  "Well, anyway...I realized
that I was the only thing on this whole planet that was keeping you from
exploring all those corners of yourself.  I was the one who kept you from
realizing your own true nature."

   "Soph, *please*..." Stella choked, stifling a sob.

   "No, I need to say this.  You have to understand that I wasn't just
blowing smoke when I told you that I did it because I love you.  You were
just so...unfinished, back then.  You had so much ahead of you, and I want
you to have it all."

   Stella wiped tears from her cheeks and sniffled, "So that's it, then? 
You broke my heart to save it?  Well thank you very much.  I'm sure I've
grown marvellously thanks to that."

   "Stella please, stop fighting and look at yourself.  Can't you see that
you have?  You're no longer the wild kid I married, but a fierce driven
woman all your own.  And really, admit it: you did have some fun being
single here, didn't you?"

   Stel set her jaw, self-consciously aiming her gaze at the ceiling.

   Sophie cracked a slight grin, "Or did I not hear a tale of a certain
bridgemaiden and a modified bureau?"

   Stel did her best to keep the giggles down, but ultimately couldn't hold
back the broad grin.  "I guess I did have some great times, now and again."
She sniffed again, but no more tears were falling.

   "I'm glad you did, Stel.  And once this is all over, once we have the
twins back and we're uncollared and unbelted, I hope we can try having good
times together again."

   "I...I'd like that." Stella's broad grin softened to a loving smile. 
"I'd like that more than anything."

   The women embraced again, but before they could do or say much more the
timer ticked to zero and a man in a maroon laminate catsuit strode to the
bench, carrying a matching helmet under one arm.  The two women immediately
bowed forward to touch their foreheads to the floor, wrists crossed behind
their backs.

   "Petitioners, beg for relief." The man seemed bored.

   The two women straightened and laid their hands on their knees, palms
face-up in a pose of supplication.  Stel spoke first.

   "Sagacity, we are honoured to have your ear.  We seek the release of two
freewombs under Relitanian protection.  Per our filing, we are entitled to
ruling-by-peer-group through declaration 74 of the--"

   "I am familiar with the document." he interrupted, clearly unhappy with
the situation, "So, your little treaty insists I assemble eleven of your
peers to decide on my own ruling?"

   "Yes, sagacity."

   "And you assert that the Truants in our care are, in fact, Freewombs
held against their rights?"

   "We do, sagacity."

   "Answer me carefully, now.  Are you advocates of the off-world model of
human equality?"

   Stella ground her teeth, but knew that lying would get them nowhere. 
"We are from the Relitanian-Amalthean Peace Envoy, which seeks equality for
all."

   "And yet this envoy possesses this slave-petitioner, and you who speak
for them are yourself in possession of three slaves."

   Sophietta dared not turn her head, but Stel could see her eyelashes
flare open at the report of the number of slaves she'd purchased.

   "We work respectfully within the structure of Torean laws and customs,
no matter our ultimate goals, sagacity."

   The Magister leaned back in his high seat, rubbing his erection
thoughtfully through the laminate sheath he wore around it.  A devlish
sneer slowly crossed his face.

   "Well events transpire that I happen to have eleven peers for
petitioners of your stature, and the Ministry has already approved them. 
Place your consent on the floor and they may enter."

   Stella looked down at the rectangle on the floor and reached forward to
select consent for the case to be tried at the whim of the 11 peers.  The
Magister rubbed himself and gasped with what seemed like erotic glee, and
then the door opened.

   Eleven men in dark laminate catsuits and heavy boots marched in, their
eyes made up with dark eyeliner and various whips and chains and other
implements hung over their bodies on belts or bandoliers.  They sat in a
semicircle to the side of the Magister's bench, and grinned at the
astonished petitioners.

   "The Ministry's representatives for Status Quo are on their way now. 
When they arrive, your case will be decided by your fellow slaveowners. 
Thank me for my Justice."

   Stel couldn't speak, the lustful glares of the Torean men pinning her to
the floor, but Sophietta took a shaky breath and squeaked out.

   "Thank you, Sagacity.  Your Justice and Wisdom honour us."

   The Magister laughed as a door behind them opened, and the Ministry's
team walked in.