by Kyoko Church
He took a sudden step forward. I flinched. He ignored my reaction, looking closer at the offended cheek. ‘Go to the office and put some ice on that. It’ll help keep the swelling from getting too bad.’
Finally, I was able to move.
* * *
He came around the next day when I was tugging a bale of hay out to the feed station. I guess I’d been grimacing a bit because he stopped mid-step and asked, his voice low and burly, ‘What’s wrong, Gail?’
Seeing him brought a funny feeling to my gut. I wiped my brow and shook my head. ‘Nothing, Mr Barrett. My shoulder’s just sore is all.’
To my surprise, he reached out and took my shoulder in his hand. ‘Why?’ His hand was big enough to fit my shoulder in his palm. He squeezed it, poking his fingertips into the dips of sinewy tendon in my shoulder blade.
I winced a little before I could hide the discomfort. ‘Just slept on it wrong, I guess.’ It was a lie. I’d fallen a few days prior, catching myself straight down on my right hand and jamming my shoulder in the process. It ached whenever I moved something heavy.
He continued rubbing. My body went taut as I imagined his hand straying to other places too. I was embarrassed by that thought and looked away.
‘Look at me,’ he said brusquely.
I immediately did as he instructed. He prodded here and there in my shoulder blade, watching my eyes with an intensity that made me blush, the way he would if he was looking into a horse’s eyes for signs of pain or discomfort.
‘I don’t think it’s a serious injury. But you do need to stretch it out so it doesn’t get stiff.’
I nodded, barely even hearing. I was too busy willing my body not to quiver.
‘Come.’
He led me to a stall in the far corner of the barn. It was a large stall, set up to house equipment and keep extra bales and troughs out of the way, the kind of musty room most of the other hands avoided. I was instantly aware of how alone we were, of how the wooden slats in the wall let in little peeps of sunlight, striping the walls lined with hooks that held all sorts of tack.
He reached for some idle ropes.
‘Stand here.’
I went to his side, near the wall, and waited while he took down a long rope and began to tie it to a thick iron hook above me. He was standing so close while tying the rope that the bulge of my breasts rubbed against his chest, sending an electric shock pulsing through my nipples and down to my crotch. It happened again as he shifted around, grabbed my right wrist and began to tie it to the rope hanging from the hook. I bit the inside of my lip to keep from moaning. Even then I don’t think he realised what he did to me, standing so close and all. Or maybe he did and just didn’t care. Either way, by the time he’d tied the rope securely above me, I’d become insanely aroused. I’d forgotten what it was like to feel so turned on, just from the proximity of another warm body.
‘There,’ he said, taking a step back to appraise the situation. My right wrist was tied up above my head so that my arm was fully extended. ‘Now pull your weight down a bit, so your shoulder gets a proper stretch.’
I did as he said, sort of bending my knees until my arm was stretched taut, and I began to feel a heavenly pull in my shoulder. Looking up, I admired the steadfastness of the knot, the way it coiled around the iron hook and then around my wrist, firm but not uncomfortable. I let my weight down a little. It felt good, very good, but I soon realised that my position – back up against the wall, right arm straight up, my knees bending to increase my crouch – caused my breasts to push outwards, right at him. I’d slipped into a tight white tank top that morning, and now my cleavage was starting to pop up at the scoop neck. I was acutely aware of how exposed I felt. He just stood there right in front of me, arms crossed, watching.
I tried to tell myself that it was all in my head, that he was just trying to help me sort out this sore-shoulder business. But no matter how hard I fought in my mind to convince myself that this was all innocent, I couldn’t help really feeling like I was on display for him. On display and at his mercy, being that I was tied up and all, those critical eyes of his evaluating me every second that passed. I squatted further down, sure that the hardening nubs at the tip of my breasts were completely visible through my shirt and bra. I was sure he could see them. I’d picked my thinnest white cotton bra and my lightest top, expecting the day to be hot. And I guessed I’d been right about that, just not in the way I’d expected.
‘Do you have enough leverage?’ he asked.
‘I … I guess,’ I stammered.
He came over and undid the rope. When I made to move away, he put a hand on my torso, pressing me back against the wall. I gasped, but he stood unmoved.
‘Stay.’
He re-looped the rope, took up the extra slack and refastened my wrist to the screw hook again. This time, though, there was a good deal of extra length hanging from the knot around my wrist. He took the extra length, threaded it behind me and up through my legs, and then wrapped it once around another thick hook a few feet away on the wall on the other side of me. The way the rope was drawn up between my legs made it rub in the most indecent spot it possibly could. My mouth and my throat dried instantly, and I began to shake a little.
‘Put your weight down,’ he said.
I half-crouched down, knees knocking. He pulled on the rope, which added a nice amount of force to the stretch, but also had the unfortunate side-effect of digging right down into my crotch. My jeans were tight enough as it was, but now the seam between my legs was practically crushing my clitoris.
He began to pull and release a little, and then repeat, which sort of slowly pulled and released me, up and down, stretching and then relaxing my shoulder accordingly. I had been trying to hold my breath, hoping he’d think enough was enough and let me out of the precarious position, but as it went on and on, I could not stop myself panting at the exquisite feeling building between my legs. I bit my lip, trying to silence my growing arousal.
‘Relax,’ he said.
I did, which caused me to sink further down. Before I realised it, the aching knot of my clitoris burst loose. There I stood, shaking and moaning and coming up against the tack-room wall, while my boss watched.
As I caught my breath, he unwound the rope and threaded it back between my legs. He loosened the knot that was around my wrist but didn’t untie me completely.
‘You ought to be able to get yourself out of that,’ he said before leaving me alone in the stall.
* * *
I was doing the last of the chores that night when Mr Barrett came in. He paused, looking at the wheelbarrow of manure I was hunched over and the shovel in my hand, and said, ‘Finish up what you’re doing. I need a word.’
‘OK, Mr Barrett.’
He was sure to say something about this afternoon, about how disgusted he was with me, that he thought maybe I needed psychological help or something. So when I went to his office, I could only stand in front of his desk like a guilty little girl who had been summoned to the principal’s office.
‘Do you know why I keep you on, Gail?’ He didn’t even look up from his paperwork when he asked.
I was right. He was going to reprimand me. I thought about it. He had made many of the others’ jobs temporary summer posts; the business just hadn’t been coming in enough to keep so many hands on. I’d assumed I had only kept my position because of seniority – I’d started months earlier than most of the others and was one of the only employees who didn’t have constraints to keep them from working late. My nightlife was nonexistent. But now maybe he was doubting his decision to keep me on.
‘No, Mr Barrett.’
‘Because you care. About your responsibilities, about the horses. Sometimes it’s hard to get you kids to take your work seriously.’
Being called a kid didn’t rub me the wrong way. Mr Barrett was probably close to fifty, and I’m sure we seemed like kids to him. Either way, I realised he was extending a rare bit of praise.
‘I do my best,’ I said.
‘You put in extra effort, you stay late most nights. I’ve noticed. I need people who take care of their responsibilities.’
It was just my personality to make sure everything was neat and tidy before leaving each night but I also liked the calm of the stables at dusk when night was falling and the horses were settling. I could have sworn that they snorted to one another subtly, not talking, but communicating their presence to one another. I hadn’t thought he’d really noticed, and I certainly hadn’t done it to get noticed.
‘Well, thank you, sir. I do love horses.’
He looked up at me and smiled. He was such a serious man, always so stern, that I didn’t know if I’d ever seen him smile. I realised how handsome he was, how the smile reached his eyes and made him seem so sincere and warm. It made me feel safe and comfortable there in front of the man I’d been so fearful I had disappointed. The smile left and the steady sternness returned. I realised I was staring and looked away.
‘That is why I keep you on. OK?’
I nodded, a little confused.
‘Now come here.’ He turned his chair.
My mind went quiet, my brain idled in neutral. I walked around his desk, stopped in front of him, waited to be told what to do. Whatever it was, I would do it – the smallest praise from him made me feel like such a good girl, and I wanted to feel that high again. He reached and grabbed my hand and pulled down on it so hard that I fell to my knees between his legs.
There was a moment of stillness, while he sat there, his eyes devouring me with such hungry confidence that I felt the entire universe focus down on me. Reasoning fuzzy, I reached for his crotch. Beneath my palm it felt warm and hard. My fingers found the fastening on his jeans and then the zipper, and when he lifted his hips up I managed to work his pants down around his thighs.
Oh, God, I could smell him. His musk after a day of subtle country sweat, mixed with the scent of faded denim, was mouth-watering. He smelled like a cowboy. A real cowboy.
I immediately dove onto his cock like I was starving for it. I was embarrassingly enthusiastic for a moment there.
His all-encompassing hands pressed at the back of my head as he urged me to slow down. Fortunately, with his entire cock stuffed into my eager mouth, I really didn’t have a choice. I mapped the underside with my tongue and then pushed further forward, wanting every last bit of him inside my face. As soon as I’d gotten the tip of his exquisite cock to the back of my throat, Mr Barrett gently but firmly grabbed both of my hands and placed them on either armrest of his chair. I peeked up. He had overlapped my hands with his own, firmly enough that I knew he would not release them, even if I gave them a good tug. Being held down, both by his hands and his eyes, without the slightest sign of give, thrilled me. I went back to the task at hand, wondering if I had really done a good enough job around the ranch to deserve such a pleasure.
I was by no means an expert cocksucker, so I hoped my enthusiasm would make up for whatever I lacked in the technique department. Since I didn’t have use of my hands, I was concerned that my mouth would lose its grip on his cock. I made long, slow strokes up and down the entirety of his shaft while keeping the head in my mouth and then returned back down his shaft to the root. When I began to feel in control, I ventured to pull his cockhead out halfway from my lips, keeping it from popping out by applying generous suction.
He was as quiet as a country evening up there. The slight parting of his lips and the way he stroked my wrists with his fingertips, all the while holding me down tightly, indicated he was enjoying it just fine.
I moved in a rhythmic bobbing until I’d lulled myself into painful arousal. I fantasised about mounting him and thrusting my cunt up and down over his cock. My slit grew moist and I became lost in it, taken over until I writhed around, hoping to catch my clit on the seam of my jeans, savouring the weight of his palms squashed down hard over the backs of my hands, pumping my mouth over his cock like it was a pussy. I was so far gone, I moaned and whimpered like a complete slut around his girth, allowing my saliva to pool around my lips, loving the way it dripped down my chin in little strings.
He remained so quiet that the only clue I had of his impending climax was the jarring of his hips as they rose up and bucked toward me. When he came, he released my hands to grab my head and shoved my face over his lap as hard as he could, grunting as his hot semen poured from his body into mine. I swallowed around him, taking all of it in with innocent eagerness. He gave a heavy sigh when he finally let go of me.
I stood up on unsure feet, wiped my mouth and chin on my palms and pushed back behind my ears some errant wisps of hair that had come loose. As soon as I had finished rearranging myself, and he’d pulled up and refastened his jeans and tucked his shirt, a cold realisation of what I’d just done hit me.
I’d gotten down on my knees and sucked my boss off. Like some kind of mindless bimbo.
I just stood there the way I had the other day when he’d accidentally whipped me in the face. My body was keen, every sensitive bit of my flesh from my lips to my nipples, the drenched flesh between my legs, the soft spot on the heel of my foot that had always been an erogenous zone for me – all of it ready to be touched and tormented. Completely in contrast, my brain sizzled with acute shame, showing me disgraceful replays of what I’d just done.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked in that steady drawl of his. He remained seated authoritatively behind his desk like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.
I was so mortified that I could only nod. He was sure to call me a hundred different variations of the word ‘whore’ and then fire me. And still my inner pussy muscles contracted in desperate need. I was like a mare in heat. I’d never been so swept away by impulse yet, amidst the swirling tumult of disgrace, I was undeniably turned on.
He said, ‘Get home, Gail,’ before turning back to the paperwork on his desk.
* * *
My home wasn’t my little apartment in the little town a few miles away. My home was now the ranch. Realising this, aching for a particular place for the first time since I was a little girl, a time before I had learned not to get attached, was disarming. I’d been looking for this and found it, and now I wasn’t sure I wanted it.
I went to work the next day and took a ride out on a horse named Hayward. He needed exercise and I needed to ride myself raw, out and away. Halfway out I put a hand down my jeans and humped my hand until my core melted. It was a superficial win. By the time I’d made it back to the stalls, the uneasy feeling was back. Mr Barrett was inside the stables, checking up on things, when I pulled Hayward in to rub him down and water him.
The way he watched me go about my chores told me he suspected what I’d been up to, and I spent most of the time trying not to let him see my furious blush, hoping the wetness between my legs wasn’t seeping into view.
After I’d finished with Hayward, Mr Barrett approached me and said, ‘I need you to stay late tonight, Gail. I have some work in the stables for you before you leave.’
‘OK, Mr Barrett.’
He didn’t come by until it was dark, and everyone else was gone. When he came in, he gestured for me to follow him and led me into a free stall toward the back of the stable.
‘Stay here,’ he said.
I waited and a minute later he was back with a chair and rope.
‘Sit.’
I sat.
Without a word he wrapped the rope around my upper body, pulling it just tight enough to draw my back to the back of the chair. He criss-crossed the rope between my breasts and over my shoulders, and then around and under them so that my cleavage rose when he secured the rope in a knot behind me. With a second length of rope he made a similar pattern over my lap, encouraging me to raise each leg so that the rope crossed over one thigh and under the other, and then back around until they were tightened down fairly secure. When he’d finished, the bindings crossed and wound tightly up near my crotch, just enough to tease my sensitive b
its. The pressure on my breasts was maddening, too.
Hypnotised by his motion, it didn’t occur to me, until he stood back and looked at the configuration he’d created, that Mr Barrett had done this before. Tied a girl up in a chair, probably just the same. How else would he know exactly how to tie me, which knots to make, what length of rope to use? He’d done this before, he’s into this sort of thing. And then it occurred to me that although he was into this sort of thing, it was quite out of the ordinary for me. I started to pull against the rope, hoping it’d slip loose enough to let me escape. It didn’t.
He frowned down at me.
‘What? What did I do?’ I kept struggling.
He crouched down, the way a parent would do when they wanted to have a serious talk with their little child. ‘You need time to think, Gail. You really do.’
The way he sounded subtly exasperated with me made me want to cry, like I’d disappointed him. ‘About what?’
‘You seem all balled up inside, Gail. It’s clear to see. There’s a heap of discord you need to work through. Sit here quietly tonight, and decide what it is you want, or don’t want. I’ll come back when you’ve decided.’
With that he stood and left the stall and closed the door. The latch clicked into place, and his feet thumped on the floor as he walked away. He didn’t even say how he’d know I was ready. He didn’t even say! I started to panic.
‘Mr Barrett, please! Come back! I don’t want to sit here all night!’
No response, nothing but lights clicking off, and then silence.
‘Marshall!’
I spent the next ten minutes hollering, at first for him, and then just hollering. I just felt this energy, sitting there in that little chair, surrounded by the hushful noises of the horses, by the smell of rugged life and hay. It made me just keep on hollering. I heard footsteps again and halted my yelling. The light in the barn came back on and he opened the stall door. Without so much as stopping to take a look at me, he knelt down, wrapped a bandana over my mouth and tied it tight behind my head.