Eden looked over the faces of the girls.  Each face now wore a look of concern.  Eden could barely conceal her smile.  There was no more laughter and friendly contact with Theo, instead all the girls were looking at him warily.  That's exactly what she wanted.  Eden wanted to make sure the weekend was all about making Theo pay for what he'd done, not about being treated like any of the others, or worse, being the center of attention.

  "All right.  We're going to give Goldilocks a two minute head start.  Then I will start the timer and you'll have five minutes to find him and catch him.  First to physically grab him will win.  Either by the reins, his mane or...", and with this, a smile did escape Eden's face, "... by his tail.  I highly suggest you grab the tail.  GO!"  And with that, she reached down and clicked the lock on the harness, leaving Theo completely free to move.  At first glance, it would seem like Theo had no chance to win this challenge.  As he awkwardly ran down the hall on his knees and elbows, even at his fastest, it wasn't very fast.  His thick mane and flowing tail swung back and forth as he trotted.  Even worse, the very audible 'jingle, jingle' of the little bells on his bridle and reins made it sound like a herd of reindeer were going through the house and were a very easy way to track his movements.  Hiding from the girls would be very difficult if they knew which direction he was in.

But the girls were not exactly in any condition to engage in a heated chase themselves.  The girls had done their make-up and their hair just right, making them hesitant to do anything that would mess that up right before the convention.  The girls were all wearing dresses, layered with various combinations of pinafores, ribbons and bows, that combined for some bulk and made moving quickly awkward.  But the primary issue... All of them were wearing the pony boots that had been custom made.  Even for the girls who had worn heels before, they were just different enough to be tricky.  And for the girls who weren't comfortable in heels, it made it very difficult for them to move quickly at all.

Theo, knowing that the bells were going to give him away if he kept moving, used his natural cunning to figure out his best bet was to hide before his head start ran out.  That way the girls couldn't use the sound to track him.  He was far enough away now that he didn't think the girls could hear the bells, so he darted in and out of rooms, looking for hiding places.  Luckily this was a huge mansion with lots of options.  In one room, he saw a bed he could hide under, but he realized the only way he'd fit under the bed was if he tipped himself on his side... And then he'd be helpless, unable to get up in case he did need to run for a bit at the end.  He saw a closet that he might be able to hide in, but quickly realized with no hands or mouth, there was no way he could close the closet door behind him to get in and hide.  Running out of time, he bolted around a corner, finding himself in the huge playroom that that ABDL party had been in.  It was still decorated for when he, dressed as a teddy bear princess bride, had been forced to marry the doctor prince teddy bear groom.  Had that only happened the night before?  It seemed like months ago!  Theo glanced at the collection of huge stuffed animals piled in the corner.  Then he did a double-take!  Theo had a flash of inspiration!  He raced across the room, and dove into the pile of stuffed animals.  It didn't completely cover him, but it covered his body, particularly the bells and saddle, the most obvious part.  Even if they did see his leg or something, it wouldn't look out of place in the pile of stuffed animals.  There were other pink, furry stuffed animals that looked similar enough to provide camouflage.  And best of all, he was able to keep upright so he could potentially move spots of they got too close, instead of being trapped somewhere.  It was perfect!  Theo tried to calm down and breathe very slowly so he wouldn't move at all and risk jingling one of the bells.

---

Eden intently counted down the seconds as she watched the new phone she'd promised the girls. "Three... Two... One... GO!"  And the girls were off in a flurry of ribbons, bows and skirts. 

Emily was dressed as 'Jaunty Jupiter'.  And while she looked fierce in her punk tartan style, she looked awfully unsteady.  Emily, being a very tall girl, never wore heels as she didn't like emphasizing her height.  She'd only been talked into wearing these because they matched the show and because all the other girls were wearing them.  And so she struggled more with trying to avoid breaking an ankle than actually searching for Theo. 

Madison might look like the most adorable cute dolly as the cuteness overload known as 'Merry Mercury'.  But in real life,  Madison was such a tomboy.  What the other girls didn't realize is that this was her first time in heels or even in a dress!  (Well, maybe she'd been put in a dress as a child, but as soon as she'd been old enough to express a preference, she had worn pants.)  Only the excitement of the other girls for the convention and her love of the show had been able to overcome Madisons extreme dislike for dresses, let alone this extreme outfit.  At this moment, she was tremendously regretting even the idea of going to the convention.  In a bit of a twist, Madison was the only one who wasn't totally upset by the idea of swapping outfits with Theo.  She'd almost rather be a pony than wear a dress... Except that would mean that she'd be at Theo's mercy, which she knew from experience would not be fun.  As both girls walked very slowly and gingerly on their tiptoes, working very hard not to break an ankle, both girls were clearly no threat to Theo.  That left the majority of the searching to be done by Aya and Sarah. 

Besides being a girly-girl and wearing heels as soon as she could, Aya had also trained as a gymnast when she was younger and had an amazing sense of balance.  She moved through the house, navigating obstacles with her skirts whirling, as gracefully as the princess 'Sparkle Moon' she was dressed as.  Unknown to the other girls, Sarah had actually competed in beauty pageants as a kid, so extreme outfits and heels were very familiar to her.  Wearing the 'Dazzling Mars' ensemble with the huge bows and massive multi-coloured petticoats was just like the old days for her.  Together the two girls were moving through the house with a reasonable speed.  But would it be enough?! 

It was a very big house.  All the girls were certain that, if Theo escaped, they would be the one in the pony costume with Theo there to torment them and all of them were terrified of the thought.  They had to catch him!  The girls went through every room, searching in closets and under beds.  A moments thought might've given them a chance to realize what Theo had realized, that it would just be impossible for him to take advantage of those places to hide.  But the girls were somewhat frantic, given what was at stake, and panic was keeping them from thinking logically.

"FOUR MINUTES!"

Time was being wasted by the girls.  It was obvious as the girls looked in clothes hampers, opened cupboard doors, and generally looked in spaces that a moments reflection would indicate could not hide a boy, even one as small as Theo.  But as Eden shouted out the quickly dwindling clock, the girls got even more frantic, wasting more time.

"THREE MINUTES!"

Aya was the first to reach the huge playroom.  Theo held his breath as he heard the rapidly approaching 'Clip Clop.  Clip Clop.' of the pony heels Aya was wearing.  She spun into the room, scanning the area wildly.  Theo held his breath as Aya looked around.  He watched her looking behind couches and furniture using just his peripheral vision.  He didn't even want to move his eyes lest she see.  Aya got down on her knees, lifting her skirts and being careful not to drag them on the ground.  She put her head to the ground, looking underneath the furniture.  Just as carefully, she got back to her feet.  Finally, she stood in the center of the room, and gave it a quick scan.  Theo kept his eyes open in a fixed, glassy stare so as to look as much like the other stuffed animals as possible.  He was able to see Aya consider the room searched, and move on.  Theo finally inhaled, happy at his luck.

"TWO MINUTES!"

Meanwhile, Eden was smiling at how well this was going.  As she called out the time, she could see the girls getting more and more flustered.  The fear that they might fail was making them upset, at themselves and at Theo.  As time advanced, that upset was turning into anger at Theo.  Now if you asked Eden why focusing the anger of the girls on Theo was important, she'd say this was all about teaching him not to be a bully.  That he needed a dose of his own medicine and only Eden could give it to him properly.  But if you dug a little deeper, you'd find that the loss of her beloved dolly at Theo's heel was something that upset Eden on a fundamental level.  She needed justice for the destruction of her family heirloom, the porcelain doll that Theo had destroyed.  A just punishment for the priceless loss.  But, even deeper than that, there was something stirring in Eden.  Something that Theo had triggered in Eden that was affecting her ability to see things rationally.

Eden had become a dominatrix for the simple reason she enjoyed it.  There was something in her that needed to take powerful, arrogant men down and make them howl or beg according to her whims.  But there was another part of Eden.  A part that enjoyed cuteness, softness, frills, curls and child-like behavior.  That was the reason she'd become a sponsor of the local ABLG group, letting them use parts of her family home.  It seemed to fill another part of her.  But until Theo, the two sides had never crossed.  Suddenly, she had a bully... Someone who personified the very fire of macho and arrogance that challenged the warrior part of Eden.  A boy who had driven his mother into therapy and had been taken in by his Aunt... But she could barely handle him.  This was wrapped in a blue eyed, blond boy who, with a little effort, could be made as cute as a button.  Even better, making him into a little bundle of adorable was the most horrible, humiliating thing she could do to his macho ego.  It was the best of both worlds.  It was like she had discovered waffles and syrup, coffee and cream or strawberries and chocolate.  And the part of Eden's brain that wanted... No, that needed to keep Theo was already working overtime on ways to make sure this didn't end.  But Eden was shaken out of her line of thought by the clock in front of her.

"ONE MINUTE!"

By now the girls were a frenzy and not thinking things through.  The girls were digging in piles of dirty clothes.  They were looking through bookshelves.  Things were frantically tossed aside.  Theo saw bits of this with his peripheral vision.  And Theo started to smile.  He had done it!  He had outwitted the dumb girls.  He'd once again proven that men were superior and, even with the severest of restrictions that had been placed on him, there was nothing they could do to match his intellect.  As he'd always known, girls were stupid.  And Theo laughed a menacing, but quiet laugh.

"TEN SECONDS!"

But alas, despite being careful to be quiet, laughing does make one's body shake slightly.  And when you have a long blonde tail, all curls and with a huge bow, it makes that tail shake like a flag being waved.  Worse if that tail is sticking out out of a pile of stuffed animals.  And one set of eyes was in a place to notice.  

"FIVE SECONDS!"

And with only a few seconds on the clock, Theo felt a hand firmly grab onto his tail and give a solid tug.  'CLICK'.  And suddenly Theo remembered the tail from the teddy bear suit he had worn before and that the pony suit was similarly equipped.

In both the teddy bear suit Theo had worn before and the pony suit he wore now, his Aunt Nancy had realized that Theo would have his legs held apart and that Theo's most sensitive region, his groin, would be defenseless.  So out of concern, Nancy had crafted a protective cup for Theo's bits, much like they used in sports.  But Nancy, unable to measure things beforehand, had to guess the size, and wound up guessing far too small.  So while Theo just barely fit in the protective cup, it was a very tight, uncomfortable fit.  Worse, if Theo somehow became aroused, there was nowhere for things to expand.  And making something bigger in an enclosed space is functionally the same as something big being squeezed.  Ouch!  So without intending it, Nancy had accidentally created a horror of a chastity device.  Something that not only prevented proper arousal, but that caused extreme discomfort if it even started.  As if that wasn't horrible enough, the absolute worst of all, Nancy had used underwear with a vibrator built in.  She'd left the plastic piece that sat between Theo's butt cheeks and had wired the vibrator to the tail thinking it would be funny to make Theo squirm around a little.  But because she was unaware of the mistake she'd made on the protective cup, instead the arousal the vibrator caused would result in such extreme discomfort, Theo would have to bounce and squirm to extremes to get any relief on his tortured bits!

So when a smiling Sarah had grabbed Theo by the tail, she'd unwittingly turned on that very vibrator.  And as the device began to buzz in his underwear, the arousal began, shortly followed by the pain of someone applying crushing pressure to Theo's boy parts.  There was no conscious thought on Theo's part.  The only relief was to jump and move.  Theo squirmed and jumped, unable to stop, making mewling noises that were completely stifled by the gag in his mouth.  He had to thrust his hips, back and forth, in order to get even a slight bit of relief.  He couldn't control it.  With the most delicate part of his anatomy threatened, it was as if the animal part of his brain took over his movements.  Theo had zero control of his own movements.

To the girls, now all watching, what they saw was a pretty pink pony.  They saw that pony leap out of the pile of stuffed animals, and begin to leap and jump and buck like a wild horse.  As Theo moved, mane and tail flipping about, bells ringing a chaotic chime, that's exactly what it looked like to the girls.  It looked like the horses you see at the rodeo, desperately bucking to throw off a rider.  Not knowing what else to do... The girls just watched Theo putting on a show.  

"You know how they get horses to buck like that in the rodeo?" Madison asked in an offhand way.  The other girls just watched Theo bucking and kicking, fascinated by the spectacle, forcing Madison to answer herself.  "My grandpa told me that they tie a rope around their testicles and they buck like that to get it off."  Hearing that, all the girls looked at Theo, then slowly turned to look at Eden questioningly.  Eden merely smiled an evil, evil smile as she recalled how they'd made the teddy bear dance.  And all the girls turned back to watch Theo keep going and going.  

After a bit, Eden walked over to Sarah and handed her the brand new phone.  Sara was obviously happy with her new phone, and started investigating it.  Eden then walked over to Theo and gave a quick tug on his tail, turning the vibrator off.  Theo breathed heavily, trying to recover from the exertion.  He wanted to thank Eden for the mercy but of course the gag prevented it.  Theo took a wider stance, trying to give his poor tortured package some room to recover.  Luckily for Theo, it's almost impossible for the body to do any lasting harm to itself that way, but that didn't make the pain any less real.  With his mind focused on what had just happened, it's no surprise that Theo didn't realize what Eden was doing at first.

Eden had pulled a stuffed animal out of the pile that Theo had been hiding in.  It was a furry teddy bear, looking not unlike the teddy that Theo had been dressed as.  The difference was that this teddy bear was wearing a cowboy hat and outfit.  Eden placed the bear on Theo's saddle, quickly tying the bear's feet underneath the saddle so it wouldn't come off.  She tied the bears arms to the reins.  Just as Theo realized what was happening, Eden gave him a terrific slap on the rear, one of the few places his pony suit wasn't padded.  As he recoiled from the slap, Eden quickly tugged his tail again.  Again, Theo was leaping and bouncing around mindlessly, unable to think or behave in anything but the most animalistic of behaviors.  Except now he had a teddy bear cowboy in the saddle who seemed to be riding the bucking pony, a humiliating sight that brought laughter to Eden and the girls.  The girls looked on in a mix of amusement and fascination (at Theo's actions) and horror (at thinking about what Madison had said they do to rodeo horses) as Theo bucked madly.  The smile on Eden's face went ear to ear as she recorded video of Theo on her phone.  After a few minutes, she turned to the girls.

"C'mon ladies.  Let's get cleaned up from all the running around and then we're off to the convention.  We'll be back in a few minutes, Goldilocks!  Don't go anywhere!" Eden said, laughing all the way.  But Theo barely heard her as the girls headed off.  It was the cutest thing possible, a pink pony with blonde mane and jingly bells ringing trying very hard to buck off a cowboy teddy bear.  Anyone seeing it would smile.  Yet Eden had managed to perfectly disguised an exquisite torture under the surface.  Theo tried to beg for mercy but the gag muffled any sound.  He tried to turn a pleading look to Eden and the girls, but they just smiled at the darling adorable pink pony with the teddy bear cowboy riding.  The girls turned on their heels to go clean up and not one of the girls felt guilty about it.  Theo just continued to helplessly bounce around, turning and twisting, doing anything to give relief to his straining boy parts, but knowing it would be a while before any relief would come...