by Van © 2020
		Chapter 4

"Dear Lord!"

Effie found herself staring at yet another escalation of Kyler Drāgon's "pony crap."

Trundling towards them down the bridal path was a two-wheeled cart being drawn my a pair "ponies," and The Dragon Lady herself was on the cart's bench seat.  The smiling blonde was still wearing her gleaming brown riding boots, British-tan riding pants, white cotton blouse with the sleeves rolled up, and designer silk neck-scarf.  And she'd added a pair of brown leather riding gloves.  The ponies' reins were in her left hand and a long, thin, scary buggy whip in her right.

The human-ponies were wearing the same pony-harness system as Lady Jo: black-leather-with-steel-hardware pushup-bras, corsets, and weird thongs (either one-piece or multi-part and integrated), as well as horseshoe-soled knee-boots.  Of course, that also meant their breasts were exposed and their heads caged by head-harness-bridles with rubber bits cleaving their mouths.  Their nipples were pierced and ringed (like Jo, Jana, and Effie, herself), and also had swaying, tinkling bells (unlike Jana and herself).  Both ponytails (their real cranial and fake butt-level ponytails) also swayed.  They clomped in unison, and even Effie—who was gaping in wonder and dread at her very first pair of cart-ponies—could tell they were a trained team.

Olivia♥Goodbody

Lolita♥Shaw

Despite the distance, Effie recognized the pony on the right as Olivia Goodbody, Lady Jo Gladburn's administrative assistant and (obviously) fellow kidnap victim.  Her pictures had been in the news stories, and Olivia's trademark bangs had been arranged to allow them to flutter over the bridle's forehead strap and her bit gag served to showcase her equally trademark sexy overbite.  Like her employer and fellow prisoner, Olivia had what in a more normal context would be called a healthy tan.

The pony on the left was a stranger, and she had the same petite height as Jo, Jana, Olivia, and Effie herself.  Also—despite the distance and her bridle and bit—she was unarguably cute.  It was becoming obvious that short stature and excessive girlish pulchritude were important "recruitment" criteria for membership in Kyler's pony herd.

Lucky us, Effie silently fumed, then turned to Jana.  "Is that Lolita on the left?"

"It is," Jana confirmed.  "You'll like Lolita.  Olivia too.  They're both sweethearts."

Effie nodded.  Lolita also had a healthy tan, but not quite as dark as either Olivia's or Jo's.  Her hair was a dark shade of brown and her cranial ponytail decidedly short, to the point that it fluttered a little but didn't actually sway.  Effie suspected when Lolita's head wasn't caged by a bridal/harness, her coif might be some sort of crop, possibly a pageboy.  Her posterior/fake ponytail matched her darker hair but was full length, meaning it was the same length as the butt-tails of the other harnessed ponies.  It did sway.

"Poor Olivia," Jana sighed.  "She loves Jo.  It's obvious.  Unfortunately, it's also obvious to Kyler, and sometimes she makes Ollie watch while she punishes Jo with predicament bondage or some other nastiness, including forcing Jo to cum.  Also, now and then Kyler punishes Olivia and makes Jo watch."

"Bitch!" Effie muttered.  She meant The Dragon Lady, of course, not Olivia or Jo.

"It's heartbreaking," Jana sighed, then leaned close and planted a quick kiss on Effie's cheek.  "Don't ever call Kyler a bitch to her face," she advised in a whisper, "no matter what she does and how much she deserves it.  Believe me, you'll regret it."

Effie nodded, but didn't say anything in response.

Beyond the bars, the smiling, blond, beautiful bitch in question had tugged on the reins, directed the cart off the path and onto the grass, and the wheels rolled to a stop.  She placed the buggy-whip in its holder, gracefully leaped from the bench seat with the reins still in her hand, and tethered the cart and its team to a wooden hitching-post with a dangling iron ring.

Olivia and Lolita panted through their bits, their rings and bells bouncing as they panted for breath.  They also glowed, like Jo, who Effie assumed was still clomping around the exercise machine track off to her right and out of sight.

Kyler ignored her panting, sweating team and strode across the lawn towards the exercise track in question.

Kyler was also ignoring the occupants of The Gazebo Cage, and Jana and Effie were doing their best not to attract her attention as they slowly, carefully climbed to their feet and eased forward so they could watch whatever was about to happen.  Jana even thought to grab hold of Effie's collar-chain to prevent it from rattling.

Kyler and the visible portion of the exercise track came into Effie and Jana's view.  The Dragon lady was standing with her back to the Gazebo with her gloved hands on her hips and Jo-the-pony was just clomping into view.  Her Captive Ladyship came even with The Dragon/Bitch Lady, who pulled her cell-phone from her pocket and tapped the screen.  The exercise machine ground to a halt, as did Jo.  Kyler stepped forward and began running her gloved hands over Jo's body.  She was saying something to her panting, sweating pony, but her back was still turned and the distance was too great for Effie and Jo to hear.

Effie turned her gaze to the cart and found Olivia and Lolita watching the unfolding encounter with rapt attention.  She looked back just in time to witness Kyler delivering a very businesslike slap to Jo's exposed butt.

Despite the distance, Effie could see that Olivia's eyes were shining, welling with unshed tears.  Apparently, Lolita had noticed as well, and was resting her bridled and bit-gagged head on Olivia's shoulder in comfort.

"Like I said," Jana muttered, "heartbreaking."

Effie nodded, then heaved a sigh.  Beyond the bars, Kyler appeared to have sated her appetite for tormenting and gloating over her captive enemy, at least for the moment, and was striding back to the cart.  Lolita and Olivia straightened up as soon as Kyler turned and were standing tall in the traces (as tall as they could, anyway), but with their heads lowered and staring at the grass in front of their booted feet.

As soon as Kyler arrived (smiling evilly), she reached out, lifted Olivia's chin, gazed into her eyes... then chuckled and strolled to the hitching post.

"Bitch!" Effie muttered, then turned to Jana.  "Sorry."

Jana's lips curled in an adorable little smirk.  "You'll learn... one way or the other."

"I said I was sorry," Effie muttered.

Out on the lawn, Kyler had bounced back onto the cart's bench-seat, the whip was in her right hand, and the reins in her left.  She snapped the reins and the whip, simultaneously.  Crack!

Olivia and Lolita stepped off in perfect unison and Effie and Jana watched as the cart trundled back onto the bridle path... dwindled into the distance... the tit-bell-jingling, tire-crunching, and cart-rattling noises faded... the cart entered the trees... and finally disappeared from view.

"So," Jana sighed, "more soup?"

While Jana fed her the rest of the soup (which was cooling but still delicious), Effie pondered how to proceed.  She had a ton of questions, but if they were, indeed, being monitored by their captors (which she conceded was probable), her questions might be nearly as informative to her captors as Jana's answers would be to her.  Monitoring aside, the upside of chatting now would be instant gratification of her need immediate knowledge about her (meaning their) situation.  The twin downsides would be continued ignorance and, until they could talk, the possibly (meaning probability) of learning things the hard way, the painful and unpleasant way.  Effie decided she should suck it up, bide her naked and bound time, and wait for an occasion with a better assumption of privacy.  It was frustrating.

As it turned out, Effie didn't have to ponder the information exchange dilemma for very long.  Just as Jana finished spooning the last of the soup into her mouth and was returning the empty container, dirty spoon, and rumpled napkin to the hamper... the lock in the Gazebo Cage door clicked, the door opened, and Tasha strode into the room, still wearing her black riding boots, gray riding pants, cadet-blue tank-top, and infuriating smile.

"All right, ladies," Tasha beamed as she pulled her smartphone from her pocket, "prepare for pony-collar hush-mode in... three seconds."

"Tasha!" Jana whined, her lips pursed in a truly heartbreaking (and adorable) pout.

Effie's response was to stare more daggers... which proved as ineffectual as ever.

"Three-two-one," Tasha said quickly (taking about one second), then tapped the phone's screen and returned it to her pocket.

Feeling a little stubborn (borderline ornery), Effie decided to test her collar with a cautious whisper. "Test-urk!"  Her collar was, indeed, in "hush-mode."  The damn thing had zapped her throat!  Okay, it had been more of an irritating tickle than a painful jolt, but she had been whispering, so she supposed a subdued punishment made sense.  In any case, the zap was enough to motivate her to forego further tests  She did continue glowering, of course.

The naked, collared, and now silenced ponies (one bound with cord and the other not bound in any way) watched as Tasha reached into another pocket and produced a pair of chrome-steel thumbcuffs.  "Jana, darling," Tasha purred, "give your new herd-buddy a nice hug, around the waist but under her arms."

Still pouting (and being unavoidably adorable) the naked ginger did just that, squirmed close and embracing Effie face-to-face, boobs-to-boobs, tummy-to-tummy, and thigh-to-thigh.  They were now lying on their sides on the thin, twin-size, sage-green, better-than-nothing yoga-mat with Effie resting on her right side and Jana on her left.  Jana's arms were around Effie's waist, as ordered, with her hands against the disgruntled reporter's lower back.

Tasha knelt, there were two ratcheting clicks—C-c-c-c-click!  C-c-c-c-click!—and Effie surmised the thumbcuffs now imprisoned Jana's thumbs, making their embrace permanent.  Tasha then started untying Effie's elbow-bonds.  That was a good thing, of course (meaning the elbow liberty), but the forced intimacy was not.

And then, Tasha made things worse!.  Effie felt her former elbow-cord being cinched through her palm-to-palm, wrist-hand-thumb bondage, tightened around Jana's thumbcuffs, then loop from either side around both of their waists.  Tasha pulled the waist-cord taut and tied a knot at the small of Jana's back.

Effie dialed up the intensity of her imaginary daggers, which only seemed to broaden Tasha's supremely irritating smile.  Being literally face-to-face with her fellow pony, Effie noticed that Jana's adorable freckled pout had morphed into an adorable glower.  And the humiliating icing on the cringeworthy cake of their forced-intimacy was, thanks to their damn collars, neither of them could curse, complain, and/or call down divine retribution up the grinning head of their handler, which she so richly deserved.

And then, apparently because Tasha was in the mood to be a callous bitch, she produced a double-hasp padlock identical to the one already tethering Effie's collar to the terminal link of the post chain.  She snapped one hasp of the new lock through a link of the post chain a few inches from the terminal ring, then snapped the other hasp through the ring on the front of Jana's pony-collar.

Effie and Jana had already been face-to-face, but now they no choice but to be face-to-face, and with the tips of their noses less than an inch apart.  They turned to Tasha and beamed a fusillade of imaginary daggers at Tasha, who (unfortunately) weathered the deadly barrage unscathed.

"Okay, ladies," Tasha chuckled, "feel free to snuggle and squirm, suck face, swap spit, tongue-wrestle, 'snog' as one of our Brit-ponies would say, etc., as long as you do it silently."  She gave a mocking wave.  "Toot-a-loo.  I'll be back."  And with that, she picked up the picnic basket, exited the room, and closed and locked the door behind her.  Click!

Effie and Jana heaved simultaneous sighs.  This caused their already touching breasts to squash together a little, but that couldn't be helped.  The waist-cord was enforcing nonstop tummy-on-tummy contact, and any minor movement in the interests of comfort by either naked captive caused their bodies to slip and slide together... somewhere... somehow.  Thankfully, so far the nipple-on-nipple pressure wasn't enough to make Effie's still fresh piercings complain... but she could feel Jana's rings resting against her own, even through the intervening band-aids.

Effie locked eyes with her hugee.  Is that a word? Effie wondered.  I'm pretty sure it's the name of a brand of diapers, but is it a word?  Hugee?  Fellow-hugger?  Hug-mate?  She-who-is-the-other-half-of-a-hug?  Well, Effie decided, if hugee isn't a word... it should be.

Her green eyes sad, Jana planted a gentle kiss on Effie's lips, then turned her neck as much as their joined collars would allow and rested her head on Effie's shoulder.

Effie knew Jana's kiss hadn't been an invitation that they should follow Tasha's suggestion and start making out, but was an adorable gesture of camaraderie.  She considered returning the gesture by kissing Jana's ginger hair.  After all, the fine, ginger strands were right there.  (And smelled faintly of... sandalwood?)  Anyway, Effie decided not to.  Maybe later, she thought, and closed her eyes.

Effie's predicament was frustrating in at least two ways:

1. The inability to verbally communicate with Jana.  Not only was she learning frustratingly little about her situation, but she was making zero journalistic progress.  There would be no day-in-the-life-of-a-pony interview today, thanks to Tasha and their damn collars.
2. Effie didn't formally consider herself either lesbian or bisexual; however, on the objective level, she could and did appreciate the pulchritude of a hot little ginger cutie like Jana under their current pressing circumstances (pun intended).

All of this... Effie's utter helplessness, her involuntary nakedness, her equally involuntary intimacy with Jana... was all disorienting.  She realized that might very well be the point.  Her captors were playing head games.

Also, Effie wasn't sleepy.  She was napped out for the day.  Retreating into dreamland wasn't an option.

Time passed.

Effie was sore from lying on her right side, and apparently, Jana was also ready for a change.   Effie made a tentative move to roll over onto her back, and apparently Jana understood.  Their shared chain rattled as Jana smiled and nodded her head... and they both completed the half-roll... then continued over until Effie was lying on her left side and Jana on her right.

More time passed... possibly an hour... during which they rolled and changed sides several more times.

And then, the Gazebo Cage door lock clicked, the door opened, and Tasha strode back into the room.

Effie favored the smiling muscular amazon with her best wither-and-die! expression, but this time she left out the daggers.  Obviously, they weren't working.

"Hello again, ladies," Tasha gushed.  She knelt, unlocked Effie's collar from the post-chain, untied the knot in the waist-to-waist cord at the small of Jana's back, unlocked Jana's thumbcuffs, then lifted Effie to her feet.

Effie tugged on her wrist-thumb-hand cord-bondage, just for something to do while she watched Tasha use the former waist-to-waist cord (which was also Effie's former elbow-bondage cord) to quickly, efficiently, and tightly bind Jana's ankles, feet, and big toes together.  She then pulled Jana's arms behind her back, and there was another round of double ratcheting noises—C-c-c-c-click!  C-c-c-c-click!—as she captured the unhappy redhead's thumbs behind her back.  Apparently, Tasha was in one of her previously mentioned kinky, bondage-happy moods.

Next, Tasha took another humiliating grip on Effie's ponytail and led her from the Gazebo Cage.  Her last glimpse of Jana was the ginger cutie lying on her left side, chained by her collar to the post, hands thumb-cuffed behind her back, ankle-foot-toe-bound, and voluntarily "gagged" by her pony-collar.  Jana was obviously an unhappy camper (but remained as adorable as ever).  Tasha closed the door and tapped the cypher-lock, locking the door.  Click!

Effie was then dragged down the corridor, struggling and screaming (meaning cooperative and glowering) to Tack Room #1.  Tasha opened the door, they crossed the threshold, and Effie's nostrils flared.  Leather.  Tanned leather.  The not unpleasant scent in the air reminded her of the racks of leather coats and jackets at Nordstrom or Marshalls.  The space was about fifteen-feet by thirty-feet.

In the half of the space closest to the door, on both walls, arrays of straps, leads, bridles, harnesses, etc., hung from wooden pegs.  Effie recognized components of Jo, Olivia, and Lolita's pony costumes.  All the leather was black and the metal hardware burnished steel.

The back half of the room was bare, except for a taut, horizontal steel chain stretching from the left wall to the right wall.

Before Effie had much of a chance to sort out the details of the various leather and steel accoutrements, Tasha led her to the horizontal chain and clipped the ring on the front of her pony-collar to the center of the chain—Click!—then strolled away to the hanging tack and returned with a pair of leather cuffs.  She buckled the cuffs around Effie's wrists, untied her wrist-hand-thumbs cord-bondage, lifted her hands to either side, and clipped them to the chain.  Click!  Click!

This left Effie naked and bound to the horizontal chain by her collar and wrist-cuffs, her arms raised and elbows bent about 90°.  She had sufficient slack to turn her head, look back over her shoulder, and watch Tasha return to the hanging tack, but was helplessly pinned in place.

And then, for Effie, Kyler Drāgon's "pony crap" expanded from the realms of rhetoric and observation to include the realm of personal experience!

When the metaphorical dust settled, Effie found herself wearing the top half of a pony costume, missing only the the bridle and bit.  Specifically:

• She was wearing what amounted to a black leather corset than rode her hips, squeezed her waist, and pushed up her bare breasts.  It closed by means of a series of several short, thin, horizontal straps and small buckles in a vertical row down the back.
• Her arms were folded behind her back and encased in a "U"-shaped binder that closed with three short straps similar to the corset closure-straps.  The binder had narrow straps that yoked her shoulders and threaded through matching buckles on the sides of the corset and additional straps and buckles that snugged the binder tight against the back of the corset.

From the waist down, Effie was still totally naked, but she noted empty buckles on the lower part of the corset which she assumed were waiting to secure the missing crotch-panel that would complete the system.  So... Effie was a pony, except for the split-crotch bottom, bridle and bit, and boots.

This also solved the minor mystery of whether the pony harness was one, two, or three pieces (not counting the arm-binder).  It was two: corset and bottom.  There was no separate bra.

Effie also noted that the corset and binder fit perfectly.  The buckle-straps all seemed to have only three closely-spaced holes, and Tasha had secured each strap on its middle hole.  Had the corset been custom made to fit Effie Dennings?  Doubtful, unless they had a leather-working shop on the premises.  Then, Effie realized every member of Skyler's "herd" she'd met were the same height and build, Effie's height and build.  So, she surmised, the pony costumes could very well be one-size-fits-all-herd-members.  How convenient for Tasha.

Effie's collar was still clipped to the horizontal chain, so she wasn't going anywhere.  She watched (glowered) as Tasha went to a wall-mounted cabinet... did something involving a little clattering and gurgling (her back was turned and blocking Effie's view)... then returned with a stainless steel, quart-sized bowl in one hand and a small plastic cup half-full of a green liquid in the other.

"Time for a little tongue-piercing aftercare, Effie," Tasha purred, then lifted the cup.  "This is a saline solution, with additives, and it tastes 'minty fresh,' as the saying goes.  Swish it around in your mouth for half a minute, then spit in the bowl."  Her smile widened.  "And I know what you're thinking.  If you spit anyplace but the bowl—like in my face, for example—you'll spend the night in a very, very uncomfortable situation.  Do we have an agreement?"

Effie heaved a furious sigh, then nodded.  She continued glowering, but accepted the contents of the cup and began swishing it around.  Apparently, Effie fumed, 'minty fresh' actually means 'tastes like seawater, mouthwash, and cat piss,' not that I've ever tasted cat piss.

"That's enough," Tasha said finally, then held the bowl under Effie's chin.

Effie spat into the bowl.  Her mouth tingled a little and there was a salty aftertaste, but she'd survived the "aftercare" experience... and she was a Good Little Pony.  It was humiliating.

Tasha left the Tack Room with the bowl and cup.  There was a pause—during which Effie took the occasion to twist, squirm, roll her shoulders, and test her new "outfit"—then Tasha returned without the bowl or cup.  She strode to the cabinet and Effie watched as she used a pair of bandage scissors to snip a six-inch strip of tape from a wide roll of Microfoam tape.

"Mistress' orders," Tasha said, stretching the strip between her hands as she strolled back to Effie.  "Lips together, pony."

It was another moment of truth for Effie the Defiant Prisoner.  Unfortunately, the "collar rules" still applied.  Also, even if, in a literally incredible feat of kung-fu, Effie succeeded in swing-kicking Tasha into oblivion, she's still be harnessed and chained in place. So, glowering all the way, Effie pressed her lips together and endured the humiliation of allowing herself to be tape-gagged.

"Very pretty," Tasha purred as she smoothed the tape with her fingers.  "Normally, Mistress specifies a ball-gag for such occasions, but I reminded her we need to coddle your poor tongue for a few days."  Next, she slowly, gently, peeled the circular band-aids from Effie's breasts, exposing her newly pierced nipples and their new rings.  "Excellent."  Tasha then went to the cabinet and returned with an alcohol soaked cotton pad (Effie could smell the alcohol), a tube of ointment, and a new pair band-aids.

Effie watched and did her best to ignore the ever-so-slight sting of the pad cleaning the old ointment from her nipples.  The evaporating alcohol was cold, cold enough to make her violated nipples sit up and take notice, and take the rings with them (which was more humiliation.)  Tasha applied fresh ointment... followed by the new band-aids, and that was that.  Effie's nipples and rings were once again undercover.

Tasha returned to the cabinet, put the tube of ointment back where she got it, and deposited the band-aid wrappers and alcohol pad in a small trashcan.  She then lifted a six-foot long, narrow, black leather strap from a wooden peg and strolled back to the "patiently waiting" Effie.

The strap had a convenient, wrist-size loop at one end and a spring-loaded steel clip at the other.  It's a horse lead, Effie realized.  Great.  No more getting dragged along by the ponytail.  Yippee.

Sure enough, Tasha clipped the clip through the front ring of Effie's pony-collar, released the clip securing her to the horizontal chain, and "encouraged" her to duck under the chain.  She then passed her left hand through the lead's wrist-loop, took a firm grip on the strap, and led Effie from Tack Room #1.

"Now," Tasha said as she strolled along (with Effie fuming and padding behind), "take my advice and be a good pony tonight.  You don't want to get off on the wrong foot with Mistress.  She doesn't mind you being 'feisty,' as long as you're obedient.  It's a bit of a balancing act.  Anyway, tonight, if I were you, I'd err on the side of obedience.  Understand?"

No, Effie didn't understand, but assumed that she soon would.  Also, her earlier suspicions were confirmed.  Being led around on a leash was, indeed, humiliating.  Tasha kept walking, so her question had been rhetorical.  They came to the end of a corridor, Tasha opened what was obviously a door to the outside, and they exited the stable.  Effie noted two things:

1. She was, indeed on a large ranch of farm.  She'd exited the stable on the side away from the mountains, but the barn she'd seen earlier was off to her right and a large, mansion-sized house was to her left.  Also, the green lawns and bordering treeline continued, with the same mix of species.  Finally, on this side of the stable, the horizon was defined by more of the same forested hills she'd seen on the side with the mountain.
2. Tasha hadn't entered a code in the door's cypher-lock or pulled out her smartphone and deactivated the alarm as they exited the stable, and Effie hadn't been shocked by her collar.  Was Tasha's spiel about getting zapped if she went anywhere near doors and windows a bluff designed to intimidate her into not even trying to escape, or was the security system sophisticated to the point that it knew not to shock her if she was with Tasha?  She'd have to gather more intel and wait for an opportunity to debrief the other herd members.

And another thing: it was getting all too easy to fall in line with Kyler's program and think of herself as a "pony" and a member of a "herd."  It was infuriating.  Of course, Effie wasn't really thinking of herself as a pony just because Kyler and Tasha kept calling her one.  She didn't want to play their perverted game!  But she had no choice!  Effie resolved to substitute "human" or "person" for "pony," at least in her thoughts.  The problem was, she wasn't sure she was up to the challenge.  Eventually, she'd start slipping.  She'd already started slipping.

Okay, plan B, Effie resolved.  From now on, I'm a 'ponygirl,' which is a female human prisoner being forced to playact against her will as a real, four-legged pony.  As acts of defiance went, it was pretty lame, but at the moment it was the only arrow in her quiver... other than overt disobedience at the price of getting zapped or bound in a stress position or suffering who-knew-what other punishments.

The path underfoot was sand and rounded pebbles, but Effie suspected it had been compacted and stabilized in some manner.  Anyway, it provided good traction underfoot and wasn't what Effie could call punishing.  Of course, she wasn't used to tromping around barefooted so there was some discomfort, but she'd survive.

Their destination was the mansion, and it was a classic, post WW-II, Modern structure with a complex, jutting roof-line, horizontal siding, and lots of glass walls.  It reminded Effie of the mansion near Mount Rushmore in the Hitchcock classic North by Northwest, only without the cantilevered lounge and porch overhanging a cliff.  There was no cliff.  Effie christened it "The Ranch House."

They entered The Ranch House through a side entrance and Effie's bare feet encountered smooth and obviously expensive tiles and plush rugs.  The decor was as Modern as the architecture, and everything was obviously top-of-the-line and expensive.  Effie was impressed.  Kyler Drāgon might be a horrible excuse for a human being, but her decorator had good taste.

They made their way through the mansion to a bathroom (also tastefully decorated in the Modern style) and Tasha planted Effie on the commode.

"Be a good little pony and relieve yourself," Tasha ordered (with an infuriating smile).

Effie locked eyes with her handler and glowered.  The fun never stops around here, does it? she fumed.  However, despite the humiliation, she managed to empty her bladder.  When ya gotta go, ya gotta go.  Tasha was "nice" enough to pat her nether region with a couple of folded squares of of toilet paper (which Effie didn't find at all humiliating), then flushed the commode, wet a washcloth at the washbasin, knelt, and scrubbed Effie's feet.  They were only a little dirty, so not a lot of effort was involved.  She then dried them with a hand towel, stood, and pulled Effie to her now clean bare feet.

"Remember what I told you," Tasha cautioned, then led Effie from the bathroom.

Their next destination was a set of double doors at the end of a hallway.  Tasha opened the doors, led her charge across the threshold—and Effie's eyes popped wide!  What the hell?