by Penny Lam
Yeah, she kind of had.
Some part of Maple had been sure that she needed J.B.. Needed his control, his anger, his discipline. And she had things to offer him, too. She was trainable, just like he’d said. Loyal. Devoted.
She stumbled to her room, thankful no one was there to see her tears and mascara (and semen, you filthy whore) stained face. J.B. had managed to eviscerate her in one sentence. This was a mistake.
It hadn’t felt like a mistake. Her body had hummed for him, each pound of his cock or strike of his hand a balm for her.
She’d wanted to be punished. Maple hadn’t factored in that the worst punishment, the one that would truly leave her decimated, wouldn’t come from a belt. Just a sentence.
Her room (not your room anymore) was as it had been. Clean, stark, beautiful. On her pillow was an envelope. Anguish howled through her, seeing evidence of J.B.’s efficiency. Had he had the letter of dismissal already prepared? Had the entire thing, including Reece, been an elaborate scheme?
The paper was heavy, thick. She unfolded it to see not J.B.’s letter of dismissal, but a masculine, elegant script.
“Lovely Stable Girl with so many secrets-- J.B. has secrets, too. Can you guess all of them? I’ll give you a clue. Look in the stable-- you know the one. I’ll be interested to know your reaction. -M. Reece-”
He was a cat and she the mouse he wanted to play with. She knew it. But as she stood in her small room and saw all the things she’d lost because of him, because Reece had put her in a spot, the emotions she normally felt-- shame, humiliation, defeat-- began to bubble. Their black became tinged with red, which grew until she thought she saw crimson spots in her vision.
J.B. didn’t need to be kind to her, but he couldn’t fire her. Not for this. Not without providing some answers.
Without second-guessing Reece’s obviously twisted motivations, Maple grabbed a cardigan to cover her ripped shirt and ran, determined. Peering out the door, she saw nothing but her stable of shame, where she’d let Raúl down and then J.B. with her fucked up needs. Beyond it, the off-limits stable.
What kind of secret was J.B. keeping out there?
No one was around. She ran, hard, for the stable. There was nowhere to hide if she got caught. No brush, or building, no cover of night. It was dusk, and the bruised purple of the sky was still sliced through with enough orange and pink that her darting figure would be visible.
Her feet were dragging by the time she reached the locked door. Her palms slapped onto its modern, smooth wooden frame, like a child running into the wall at the end of a school yard race. Her lungs burned, threatening to collapse from the strain of her run. Arms and legs like soup. The nausea she hadn’t had for days threatened her again. The rattlesnake’s bite taunted her, reminding her of how altered her body was. It didn’t taunt her as much as Reece’s words, though.
The wind was picking up. She was cold and out of time. Soon Raúl and the boys would be getting back to the ranch. They’d find J.B., who’d tell them he’d let her go. Maple chewed a nail, trying to not imagine that conversation. Raúl’s falling face, or whatever crap reason J.B. gave for firing her.
She had more immediate problems. The lock was an old fashioned bolt lock. She’d love it if she could just pick the lock with bobby pins or some other savvy trick. But Maple’s education had been in pain and pleasure, not espionage. She searched the ground until she found a rock large enough to do the job.
It was heavy and rough in her hands, cold enough to make her fingers numb and her palm prickle. The price of what was about to happen made it feel heavier. She was beyond Pandora. This was no box. It was a man’s treasure chest, hoarded and guarded, and she was about to bust it open.
Anxiety held her still like a puppetmaster. It stayed her hand. The thought of disappointing J.B. had once been the most terrifying one she’d known. But Maple had seen J.B. angry. He’d been on the verge of truly hurting Reece. This action she was about to take? It blew Reece’s coming on to her out of the water.
If she did this, she’d lose his trust forever. Lose him forever.
You’ve already lost him, Maple. He’ll never want a dirty, used up girl like you.
The rock was above her head. She brought it crashing down. The clang of the stone and metal clashing was ominous. Maple glanced furtively around, certain someone would come running. Hell, J.B. was so secretive about this stable she half expected an alarm to go off.
No one came. No alarm sounded.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed the doors in.
Oh, fuck.
Chapter Fifteen
Some shocks are a splash of cold water in the face. Like when your best friend pees on a stick and tells you she’s pregnant. Or when you get a big “D” on a paper you worked hard on. Things that feel monumental in the moment.
Other shocks don’t act at once. These are timed,. They creep on you so slowly that you don’t realize the danger you’re in until it’s too late.
One time, Maple had run over a man. She’d run over him, jumped out of her truck, and looked down at him until his accusing eyes shut and the thick, gurgling breaths he took slowed to a murmur. Then she’d got back in her truck and drove away.
That had been a slow shock. Hell, she’d made it all the way to her parents’ house before it dawned on her that she’d probably killed him. Weeks had been spent scouring the news on the internet, trying to see if she was wanted by the police. She searched for an obituary. But she knew nothing of the man, no name or location. All she knew was he was going to hurt that girl from the bathroom. Hurt her like Tony had hurt Maple. She knew that his body made bumps so large under her tires that her body bounced in her seat like a carnival ride.
It wasn’t until the summer had passed that she realized she was frozen. It was shock, but it didn’t paralyze her. It just numbed her. Shut her down. The slow moving kind that allowed her to protect herself from what she’d done.
This wasn’t either of those kinds of shock. This was--
It was a stable, all right. It had stalls, but they were too small for horses. Silent, Maple went from stall to stall. Inside, panting, stomping feet, eyes large and distrustful, were women. Naked women. Row after row of them.
How a room could be so full of people and yet so achingly silent was beyond Maple’s comprehension. Then again, stalls of women were beyond her comprehension, too.
She realized as she stared that they weren’t naked. Sticking out from their asses were tails. Bile rose in her throat, scalding the back of it and threatening to come out. The tails were inside of the women. Beside them, hanging on the walls, were tack items. Some had saddles. All of them had bits. Bridles. Reins. Blinders.
In each stall hung a bucket of food. Maple stepped close to one girl, a brunette, not much older than herself. The woman backed into a corner. Except, Maple saw, it wasn’t just a stumble. The woman’s knees lifted high. The foot was thrown down, sharply, a stamp. The woman was stamping back.
Maple had fucking spooked her.
Inside the food bucket was fruit, some vegetables. Next to it was a bucket of water. In one far corner a large pile of hay and a blanket. In the opposite corner, a bucket Maple could only guess was for waste.
This whole time, Maple had been running from herself. She’d thought she was a monster, corrupted and withered. God, how many nights had she hated herself? For what she wanted? For what she’d done? Maple had been convinced she was the lowest of the low.
This, though.
J.B. was a monster. Tony had been a bad guy. She knew that, somewhere inside. But this was insane. A room-- a freaking stable!-- full of captured women. Women he’d stripped. Dehumanized. Treated like animals. And, if the riding crops and whips on one wall were to be believed, he hurt them, too.
All this time, she’d been treating this stable like some game. A mystery to solve. Maple had expected memorabilia of his dead wife. Paintings more fucked up than the ones in his house. Maybe some family secret about land. Something,
anything, but these snorting, stamping, terrified women.
Maple could smell the fear in the stable. It stank of sweat and adrenaline.
It took biting her lip hard enough to bleed for Maple to cut through her terror and awe to speak.
“It’s okay,” she murmured soothingly. Déjà vu-- her body was in the same pungent, sweating, trembling state she’d been in when she’d let Bane out. The women, though, didn’t relax with her voice. “It’s okay. I’ve found you. I’m going to get you help.” Which was half a lie.
Maple never heard about the guy she’d run over. His death had gone unannounced. She was almost positive she’d gotten away with it. Almost, though, wasn’t enough. Because there might have been a witness. And the girl could have connected her to Tony, to the club, to the guy, to that awful moment in the bathroom. She’d never officially pulled out of Tulane, or turned in her notice at her apartment.
She’d just picked up and run. So she probably got away with killing a man. But probably wasn’t concrete enough.
Calling the police wasn’t an option. But they could! One of the women could call. Maple yanked her phone out of her back pocket. She snapped some photos of the women -- they’d need proof, later-- before trying to hand the phone to one of the women.
“Come on,” she encouraged, hating the tone she was using. It was the same tone she used with Bonnie. “Take the phone. Nine-one-one. We’ll get help here for you.” Maple planned to be long gone before that happened.
How?
J.B. was having a chauffeur take her home. The fence surrounding the property had been too high to scale. Maple wasn’t dumb enough to think she could run through the large canvas that was West Texas and survive. Hell, she’d barely survived the sprint to the stable.
Panic shattered her resolve. All around her, the women’s eyes were rolling, their stamping harder and more erratic. “I’m here to help you!” she cried, not understanding their reaction. “Whatever J.B.’s done to you, we can get fixed. I just need to think of who to call--”
The women all froze then relaxed. Maple realized they were all looking at the same thing. Something right behind her.
This was the ice-water shock.
“You won’t be calling anyone, Maple.” J.B.’s dark, resinous voice lacerated her coherent thoughts. “Drop the fucking phone.”
“I’m trying to understand,” he seethed, “what part of off-limits was not clear.”
Maple felt wobbly. Her knees threatened to give out. She dropped her phone, hearing it clatter and skid away.
J.B. stood, leaning in the open door frame of the stable. Behind him, the sky had deepened to a royal purple. The rising moon cast shadows on his hard, angular face. The brim of his cowboy hat blacked out his eyes, but she knew they were pinned on her.
“Y-you’re a monster,” she whispered. “What are you doing to these women?”
“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand, Maple. You’re a lost little girl. It’s time to go home.”
How could he be so calm? How could he talk about sending her home still? “You think I won’t tell? I’ll call the police. I’ll tell every news and media channel in the United States. How you keep naked women locked up and treat them like animals!” Maple’s words were large, rushing from her mouth, but her body was shuffling back. Her shoulders caving, and her stomach shrinking in. Her words were large, but her body was trying to disappear.
“Sit down, Maple,” J.B. sighed and gestured to a chair. The only chair in the entire stable, next to a small desk that had been shoved up against a wall.
“No! I’ve got to get out of here!”
“Sit. Down. Now.” The command reverberated through her, shaking her bones. He seemed larger now. J.B. stalked toward her, the slam of his boots on the concrete sending needles into her heart.
Run!
Her body hovered, frozen and indecisive.
Scream!
Fear clamped her throat shut, devouring any scream she might have issued.
J.B.’s hand, the same one that had been shoved inside her, making her writhe in pleasure, grabbed her upper arm. It hurt as he dragged her to the chair and shoved her in it. The force with which she landed sent the chair skidding into the wall. Her head snapped back and whacked the wall. Pain sliced through her brain, helping her snap back from the paralyzing horror.
“If you hurt me--”
This just set him laughing. J.B. didn’t laugh often. No wonder-- it was a cruel thing. Grated and cutting, she fought back tears as he mocked her. “If I hurt you?” He chuckled more, then leaned down, putting his face into hers. Making himself her whole world. “If I hurt you, you’ll come. You’ll explode and beg me for more. You think I don’t know? That I don’t see what you are? You want me to hurt you.”
His hands gripped her shoulders, fingers digging in. Maple found her back pressed painfully to the chair and wall, every struggle bringing spikes of pain.
Goddamnit, he was right. Humiliation clouded her as her pussy began to swell again. It grew dewy and damp, her panties clinging to her, like it hadn’t just been fucked without mercy hours before. She writhed, clenching her thighs together, aware of his judging gaze.
There’d be no more walls she could build now. J.B. had demolished every brick, crumbled all her mortar.
“Why are you like this?” She sobbed.
“Why are you like you are?” He responded harshly. She heard rather than saw his deep inhale, his struggle to hold onto control. “This is why you needed to go, Maple! I can’t… I can’t hurt you. Not the way you need me to.”
God, had that been why? Eyes swimming with tears, she sought his gaze. “You did before.” How was he doing this? How was he turning her on, making her want him again, more, tangling her up in desire? For God’s sake, he had women locked in here! Maple called him a monster, but as the fight drained from her so easily, she knew she was worse.
“Before shouldn’t have happened. I meant that. You’re an employee and it is imperative I keep business and pleasure separate.”
Maple pointed at the women. “Like them? Is that how you find pleasure?” She meant to spit the words at him, but they sounded like pleas to her ears.
“No.” Firmly, he pulled her out of the chair. His hand stayed on her shoulder, grounding her. Keeping her near, like a pet. “This is business, too.”
Maple shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
He paused, taking in the stable. Maple saw a mix of pride and suffering in his features. “Before we go further, are you going to call the police?”
“Should I?”
“You could,” he admitted. “But while I’d be embarrassed, I’d also be fine. Each of these women has signed a contract with me. Paid me money. They are clients.”
Maple’s eyes went wide. She couldn’t believe it! “But who would pay to be locked up? Who would want such a thing?”
His mouth twisted, the cruel amusement set in his grim face. “Are you really going to judge them? Are you so sure you can’t understand them?”
It was a bitter drink. Maple couldn’t even blush anymore. She was too tired, too raw. The smell in here was different. Hay, yes. And leather. But also sweat, human but delicate. She forced herself to really look at the women in the stalls, beyond their bizarre acting and the equipment.
They looked healthy. Subtle pink dotted their glowing cheeks. Their hair was clean and brushed. The tumultuous fear in their eyes was entirely directed at her. When she caught one or two of them staring at J.B., it was with, well, affection. The ugly glow of envy-- envy!-- grew inside Maple’s belly, tasting sour.
Yes, these women were like her. Their choices were different, but they sought the same thing. “Do you hurt them?” She asked timidly.
“Only when they misbehave or don’t listen.”
A moan caught in her throat, visions of the crops and whips cracking through her skull. The thought of J.B., in his worn out, low slung jeans approaching her with a hat on his head and a whip i
n his hand--
Lightheaded and woozy, she dropped to her knees. J.B. squatted beside her. “Maple, what in--”
Her eyes rolled, and Maple felt on the edge of blacking out.
Crack!
Pain fractured, heat flaring under the surface from where he’d struck her. Her eyes jerked open, and her back jolted straight. She tasted blood in her mouth. “You hit me,” she said, stunned.
His hands clutched her armpits, and he pulled her effortlessly to standing. “You were about to pass out. You’ve overexerted yourself tonight. You aren’t healed yet.” If there was concern in his voice, she didn’t hear it. She only heard his cagey anger.