U. N. Known Writer

The Horse Boy of Hofenberg

The challenge was to write a short story which must include all the following items:

1. Location: The story should be taking place in the Alps.
2. Activity: Climbing
3. Object: A Wooden Horse.

Sitting high on the wooden horse I had a great view of the sun just starting to break across the tops of the Alps that surrounded Hofenberg. Soon it's rays would start to work their way down from the snow topped peeks, and onto the pine lined ski runs that lead down into the valley that lay between us and Soll am See. It would be through that pass that I'd be carried, once the procession honouring my Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandpa got started. Until then I will remain right where I was, unable to get off the horse, even if I wanted to due to the mounting peg that was stuffed right up my bum.

Every year my village paid tribute to the heroic actions of my ancestor. I was even named after him, although saying that there were still at least another two Johann's in school, but still, at least I had a history to be proud off which they probably didn't.

My four times Great Grandpa had been a hero when he'd been my age, and I was going to be as well, once they realised I'd replaced the battered old dummy that was usually paraded about on the shoulders of the village elders every summer.

Okay so the stories told about Johann senior didn't exactly make too much sense and there was no mention of them anywhere but in the stories the old men in my family liked to tell, but that doesn't mean they weren't true, does it? I mean, a thirteen year old boy, could have ridden a horse all the way to Soll am See, to warn them of an impending avalanche, before collapsing of exhaustion at the feet of the mayor on the town hall steps.

Yes, I know that sounds like how the marathon race got started in ancient Greece but it's still possible that it happened here too. Just because there's no record of an avalanche doesn't meant here wasn't one. It still would have been a tricky journey back then before the roads were blasted out of the mountains replacing the perilously single track that wound around the foothills and then climbed up and over the lowest peek before dropping down on the other side. It must have taken up to a day to do at normal speed, so to do it in a hurry must have been exhausting, unlike now when the journey takes less than an hour on foot, let alone in a car.

It had been my grandpa, or great grandpa who'd had the idea to honour Johann's journey which I'm sure had nothing to do with a gimmick to bring in tourists for the summer season at a time when the ski lifts are surrounded by rolling lanes of grass, without a snow flake in sight but at the very top. That's when the procession started. Grandpa even made the horse himself. The one I'm sat on right now.

I don't know why they didn't just get a real horse and boy to ride it, but I guess Grandpa wanted more of a spectacular than that. Something that looked a bit religious so he borrowed quite a bit from the various Saint's days that the other villages had. So instead of a real horse plodding along the new roads, we had a wooden one, on a plinth, raised up on the shoulders of eight men, all in traditional dress, with a very unconvincing dummy of Johann – made by Grandma – sat on top.

It must have looked really stupid that first year, especially as the dummy kept falling off the horse, but once that problem had been solved via the addition of a support peg screwed into the back of the horse, the second year went so much better. A few years after that, and it was a tradition that crowds came to line the narrow streets for, cheering on the heroic Horse Boy of Hofenberg, and a legend was born.

That was a few years back. By the time I was born although people still came to see it, but they weren't always impressed. The dummy having been patched and patched over the years, was in a bad way. Fact is it looked like something Doctor Frankenstein put together, in the dark, in a hurry, from bits he had left over!

My dad had put into the town council to get a new one, but that had been rejected, so it was down to me to prove just what was needed, and that was a real boy. One who could wave to the crowds, catch the stuff thrown to him, and do all the things people now expected in a world full of animatronics and Disney parades.

Of course no one listened to a thirteen year old boy, not even one descended from the actual Horse Boy of Hofenberg, so I had to prove them wrong and so far I had, as uncomfortable as it had been at times, and especially now the support peg was poking up through the special hole in my lederhosen right up into my bum hole.

I was wearing a traditional costume too and do you know what? I'd never worn one before. I mean. Who does? It took some getting used to, I can tell you, especially as I was a bit bigger than the dummy had been but I'd had a few weeks to get used to them, since that first time I'd sneaked into the shed behind the town hall where the horse was kept.

I'd had terrible trouble getting the clothes off the dummy, especially as I couldn't turn the light on. Turns out the clothes were pretty much all that was holding the thing together and it fell in two once I took the braces off with the torso falling on the floor and the legs staying in place.

Putting the lederhosen on for the first time was a weird feeling. I mean they were leather for a start, and didn't have a fly, just a big hole at the front that your bits dangled out of, and which this flap could be pulled up, and fastened with two buttons to the waistband. This meant that your bits weren't totally covered, as the flap wasn't fixed at the sides so it was possible for people to peek in and see everything you had. Well they would have been able to had the lederhosen not been so tight on me. Tight enough to flatten my bits until they pretty much couldn't be seen by anyone, no matter how close they got to look which was a relief, if uncomfortable.

The weirdest thing about the lederhosen, I found, was just how short they were. So short in fact that I couldn't wear any underwear as all my boxers would hang out of the legs, and just looked so wrong. Once fastened nearly all of my legs were on show, even my thighs which looked terrible white from the board shorts I normal wore. And it was worse once I had the H-bar braces in place.

These fastened to the shorts in the middle at the back, right at the top of my crack, then went up my back where they split into two to go over my shoulders, before coming down either sides of my chest where the chest plate pulled the straps closer together, and then down to fasten to the shorts again over my hips. The chest plate, like the rest of the braces, was made of leather, but instead of just being plain like the rest, had red stitching around the outside, and a rounded part in the middle where the words "Horse Boy" formed the top arc and "of Hofenberg" formed the bottom one. In between them was a silhouette of a horse, just in case anyone didn't get the idea.

As you can tell these braces had been made especially for the dummy, so there was no adjustments built into them. Trouble was, the dummy was a few inches shorter than I was, so by the time I had the braces fastened the shorts got yanked up until I was practically being given a leather wedgie and that took some getting used to I can tell you.

Whenever I could I took to wearing the lederhosen not just so I could get used to them but because I actually got to like they way they felt after a time. Not that I could wear them at home, or around the village without anyone wondering what I was up to but up in the mountains, there was nobody around to question my motives, and I did need to get some sun on my thighs.

Climbing up and down small rock faces was my favourite thing, as no matter how much I stretched my legs to get my trainers to a far away foot hold, the lederhosen would stretch with them, pulling tightly across my bottom in a way I'd never experienced before and not just because of the cool air that would blow in through the hole in the seat and tickle my own hole. Something that I did like. Very much indeed.

At the time I excused it that I had to get myself ready for the support peg, but the truth was that as I newly teenaged boy, I liked playing with my hole. Even as a little kid I'd been poking things up there, to get that little tingly feeling that boys get when something touches that special place that's inside their bottom.

Since then I'd progressed beyond crayons, pencils and other writing implements, to a point where something the size and shape of the support peg didn't really faze me. At least it didn't until I actually saw it.

The dummy of my ancestor, or at least the bottom half of it, had pulled of the support peg with a popping sound that had made me giggle. Yet that giggle soon died in my throat when I cast my eyes upon the six inch [15 cm] high support peg, that was almost that around at the thickest part and perhaps two thirds that at the thinnest near the bottom, with a near point at the top for ease of insertion. Still, as I soon realised, it wasn't the biggest thing I'd had up my bum.

There were a couple of failed attempts before I did managed to take all of the support peg inside me. These though had more to do with the difficulty of getting myself high enough over the wooden horse in order to aim the pointed tip at my hole. Even then though I couldn't sit all the way down as I as if I did I wouldn't have been able to reach the roof strut and pull myself up again, once my bare feet were dangling on either side of the horse. That was something I hadn't done until this morning.

It had been dark when I'd arrived, but I was used to using the moon shining bright on a clear alpine night, to guide me to the town hall shed. The window was still open where I'd broken off the latch so it was easy for someone with my climbing experience to crawl inside to where the horse was waiting.

I was already wearing the lederhosen and the plain cotton shirt that went underneath it. Thankfully the floppy hat the dummy had original worn had been lost a long time ago so didn't have to bother with that, and I'd grown used to going bare foot, so I had no shoes or socks to hide. Just a pot of lubricant as there was no way I could sit on the support post for several hours dry.

Climbing up onto the trestles the plinth rested on so the men carrying it wouldn't have to bend down to pick it up, I spent a few minutes getting the peg good and slippery before doing the same to myself. My fingers easily slipping through the hole in the seat of the lederhosen, before I tossed the top way into the back where it no one would find it.

The lighting in the shed changed slightly marking the start of the sun rise, as I climbed up the second time. Shadows lengthened, then shortened before lengthening again, by the time I had got my bare legs on either side of the wooden horse.

Sitting in a sort of crouch most of the way forward, the crutch of the lederhosen was pressing against the carved mane as I used my knees to push myself up high enough to reach the roof joist.

Holding on with both hands, I slipped my knees from the back of the horse and hung there for a few seconds before raising myself up into a sort of sideways chin-up and started to work my way backwards along the joist, until the support post was between my legs.

Slowly I started to lower myself down again. My arms trembled slightly at the strain of supporting my slender body, but they were strong from hauling myself up the sides of mountains and of course, down again.

I felt the tip of the support post brush against my right leg, and changed my grip slightly to centre it between my legs allowing it to run up the sensitive inside of my thigh, in a way that almost made me giggle. But this was no time for laughing as one slip and I could be impaled in a way that would take some explaining at the hospital that was two towns over. Assuming that I made it that far.

Practise allowed me to direct the tip to the hole in the lederhosen even though I couldn't see what I was doing. Once there, it slip through the leather, and once more touched my flesh, just to one side of my hole. A shift jiggle of my hips and it was on target and it was time to lower myself onto it.

Slowly the tip eased itself into me. My hole widening to take its steadily increasing girth as my elbows straightened out to the point of no return, where I was going to have to let go, and wouldn't be able to go up anymore.

The peg was very nearly at its widest point by the time my arms had no further to go, which stretched my hole quite wide almost to the point of hurting, yet I had to prepare it for what was to come so in a way that would have made my gym teacher proud, I raised myself up until just and inch or so of the support peg remained inside me and then lowered back down to the widest part again. This I did six times, which was about the limit my arms could take. On the seventh, I let go.

I landed with a bit of a thump on the back of the horse. My bare legs splayed out on either side, and the support peg, fully imbedded in my bottom, much to the relief of my hole that got to close up around the narrow diameters of the base.

That had been pretty much the last thing I'd done, as there was nothing else I could do, but wait and watch the beauty of the sun rise across the mountains, as I waited for the dawn parade to begin. Just what the villagers would think when they saw me mounted on the horse, I didn't know. Would they guess just how I was staying on the smooth sanded surface of the horse? Well if they didn't at the beginning of the parade they would certainly know once we got to Soll am See, and I finally dismounted. Still by then I'd be as big a hero as the original Johann had been. Wouldn't I?

If only my ancestor had taken the time to put a saddle on the horse before he went off on his heroic mission everything would have been so much easier. But then he wouldn't have been the Horse Boy of Hofenberg would he?

The End