by Penny Lam
He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. J.B. was rarely without his hat. Maple loved his hair. It seemed so out of character with the rest of him, the dark curls almost cherubic. “Do you want out, Ashley? Because we leave tomorrow. If you come with me, and I sell you, it’s fucking final. You’ll have to deal with your new Master, and there’s no easy ‘out’ switch. Not when a contract is signed, and a hell of a lot of money exchanged.”
The pony girl said nothing. Her body was a statue.
“Fine. If you don’t say the word, I’m assuming you’re on board. And if you don’t show some spirit, I don’t know who you’ll entice. If anyone. But if you don’t sell this time, I’m kicking you out of my stable. I can’t train you if you don’t want to be here.”
Ashley, prickly little filly that she was, turned and went to her stall. Without being dismissed by J.B.
Maple cringed and waited for his explosive anger. Instead, he stood, brooding. When he didn’t make a move to punish or yell, Maple started feeling doubtful.
He’d been trying to offer Ashely an out. He was warning her about how the auction might go. Like… like he cared. How could J.B. care about what happened to these girls when he obviously cared so little for Maple?
Her eyes stung, and she rallied her anger again to approach him.
“Maple, you’re early, and I don’t have time for you right now.”
“You won’t need to make time for me ever again, J.B. I need you to call your driver for me. I’m going home.” When this didn’t garner a reaction she added, “I fucking quit, J.B.”
That was what pushed him over the edge. “What the hell is happening? Is everyone fucking mutinying today? First Raúl, then these ungrateful ponies, and now you!? You want to quit?”
“I don’t want to, J.B., I did. I did quit. Just now.”
“I don’t accept your resignation, Maple.” He was seething, his shoulders quivering as he worked to keep himself in check.
Maple could feel her resolve threatening to crumble beneath the weight of his stare. “I don’t care if you accept it. I’m already packed. If you don’t call your driver, I’ll call a cab.”
“No, you won’t.” He started to stalk toward her. Maple’s heart raced. Her eyes darted, and for a second her body threatened to turn and run.
Shaking, she stood her ground. “Fuck you, J.B.”
He sneered. He stepped close enough to whisper in her ear, his hot breath making her nipples tighten. “You. Wish.”
He was playing with her. The cold jerk had the audacity to play with her. After what he’d done? Oh, hell no. “Not anymore, J.B.” She knew her voice would betray her. Of course she wanted him to fuck her. It was all she ever wanted. His body, his ruthlessness, his propensity for pain.
But she didn’t want him. Not now. Not with the horrible, gut-wrenching memory of Bonnie still at the front of her mind. Her beloved horse’s body was still fresh in the ground where she and Raúl had buried the pieces.
Pieces.
Her mouth tasted like bile. She didn’t know what J.B. saw in her face, but he stepped back. “You aren’t quitting over that, Maple.”
“Like hell I’m not.”
It was kind of amazing, really. The more she snapped back, the more confident she’d felt. Tony had rewarded all of her snide remarks with an open handed slap, leaving her ears ringing and Maple second guessing herself. Her previous need to impress J.B. had always silenced her. It wasn’t much; she still felt the overwhelming desire to shut up and do what he asked.
“Okay, then you owe me twenty-five thousand dollars.”
A sucker punch. “What are you talking about? You paid me, you can’t take my wages back.”
“No, but you agreed to accompany me to the auction. You’re reneging on that agreement. Your ticket was twenty-five thousand dollars. I didn’t agree to eat that cost just because you found a punishment-- that you fully earned, by the way-- too much to handle. So pay me back for your ticket, and I’ll call my driver, and we’ll sign separation papers.”
If her jaw could hit the floor like a cartoon character, it would. That’s what the moment felt like. Surreal. Absurd. Drop an anvil on her. Explode her with dynamite. Because J.B. had to be kidding. He couldn’t make her pay that! She deflated.
“What kind of ticket costs twenty-five thousand dollars?” Her voice was too high. It sounded frantic. Probably because Maple was about a second from losing her composure.
“The kind to an event that is very, very exclusive. Where the clientele are exceedingly rich. What did you think happened? I just brought my ponies and set up a fucking booth?”
Her cheeks burned hot. “I didn’t think that! I’m not stupid, but--”
“But what?” His eyes danced as he gained the upper hand again. “But you thought it was open the the public? But you thought it would be fucking fun? A country fair?”
“Stop cursing at me!” The situation had completely turned on her. She felt a shame she didn’t want; it wasn’t the shame of desiring something forbidden. This was like she’d failed a test. Or been held back a grade. “You’re being so mean!”
“If you say something stupid, Maple, I’ll say whatever the fuck I want to you.”
Her vision was blurred, but she still saw the ponies gathered at their stall doors. Staring. Even Ashley watched, her face stone. Maple’s humiliation was complete. All her gumption was gone, easily snuffed out by J.B. Who had she been kidding, thinking she could storm in here and demand to leave?
She dragged her sleeve across her wet eyes, catching the tears in the flannel before they could fall. He may crush her, but this was her final, small act of defiance. He couldn’t have her tears.
“Fine,” she huffed.
“Fine, what? You’re not quitting?”
“Not yet, I guess.” She let the ‘yet’ hang between them, a dangling hook.
He bit. And sighed. “Okay. You’ll work the auction with me. We’ll see how you feel at the end of it.”
She nodded and, on a whim, stuck out her hand. A deal was a deal, and she wanted him to know he hadn’t won entirely. This was a fucking truce.
He gripped her hand, and it might have been a mistake to try and show him up, because damn…
His touch was electric. Just that little bit of flesh to flesh, palm to palm, almost undid her. Her body launched into arousal, her skin growing warm and sensitive, her nipples straining against her bra, her underwear soaking through.
There was a word for what she was: Conditioned.
Because she didn’t know what else to do, she worked and hoped that enough effort could burn away her body’s response to J.B. She didn’t want to relish it. She didn’t want to fight it, either.
Maple wanted to hide, and curse J.B. for not letting her.
Chapter Ten
The girls were in a trailer.
An actual, metal horse trailer. It had been rigged on the inside for the girls with small metal rails and harnesses to strap them in. To Maple, it looked less safe with the contraptions than if the women had simply been sitting in the back.
After J.B. loaded all five girls in, he took her bag and threw it in the back, too, along with their supplies. All the dressage, some backup gear, whatever else he thought they might need for the Pony Bazaar.
Once she was buckled in the front seat, they were off.
“Where is it?”
“New Mexico.”
She settled in and watched the scenery start to drift by. It would be a long drive, just over four hours if he sped. All that time in the cab, alone with J.B., and nothing but anger on her mind.
Maple still couldn’t believe he wasn’t letting her quit. He knew she couldn’t afford that. And after telling her in his painting room that he’d expected her to quit long before! What an asshole!
It did fucked up things to her already distorted thoughts. J.B. was up and down, then twisted in the things he did to her. Don’t touch him, but he could touch her any way he wanted to. Ask her t
ons of questions and answer none of hers. Wants her to quit and then practically blackmails her into staying.
Her eyes were glued to the window, but it all started to look the same quickly. It was stunning to her, of course, but the sparse vegetation, the long and straight US-84, and practically no cars meant she was soon left with too much time for her thoughts.
The cab smells like J.B. When he’d pulled the truck up to the stable she’d been surprised. She’d expected something new. Sleek and giant. This was just an old Chevy pulling a trailer. Old like it had rust holes eating out its sides. Once inside, though, it fit. Of course he drives a beater truck. The transmission whines a bit as he pushes the speed on the empty highway.
“I’m mad at you,” she stabbed, feeling petulant.
“I figured,” was his only reply. It infuriated her more.
“You shouldn’t have made me do that!” Holding her prisoner via the cost of the event was atrocious, but his true crime against her lay in the ax, and leaving her with her beloved horse.
“You mean Bonnie?”
She exploded. “If course! You know how much I loved her! How could you have made me--” but she refused to say the words. Tried hard not to relive the horror.
“If you’d have listened--”
“J.B., fuck you and fuck your listening.” As soon as she’d uttered it, she couldn’t believe it. She’d meant to ask him why. To see if he felt guilty at all. Instead the anger took a hold and now she was cussing out the last person she could afford to be rude to.
It earned her a small smile. Incredulous, she asked, “Are you laughing at me?”
“Nope. You just got a hell of a backbone out of nowhere.”
She was flummoxed. How did he disarm every freaking conversation!? Stewing in her seat, she crossed her arms and slumped down.
After a few miles, he spoke. “I’m sorry. You’re right. That was too harsh.”
She couldn’t believe it. An apology?
“I don’t exactly have a safeword for those situations, J.B.” She softened as she explained, the hard lines easing inside her. “Usually it’d be ‘I quit,’ but you ignored that, too.”
He didn’t respond to this. She didn’t know if that meant he agreed or not, but it felt a little better. A little more at ease. Of course, she was still furious. Just at a simmer instead of a boil.
“Won’t the girls be cold?” Maple broke the silence, hating the fact that she couldn’t hold out for longer. She was like her mother, though; she couldn’t hold onto anger for long, only guilt and anguish.
“They have blankets. Those emergency thermal ones. Most likely they’ll be pulling them on and off the whole trip.”
“Oh.” She picked at her fingernails. “You couldn’t just let them have clothes on the way there?”
He spared a curious glance at her. “You worried about them?”
Maple looked at her hands, twisting together. “Sure. They’re still people, even if you treat them as horses.”
His fingers drummed on the wheel. It was the first tic she’d ever seen in him. J.B. was either angry or he wasn’t, but he never seemed nervous or unsure. But now, as the pads of his fingers tapped rapidly on the cracked leather wheel, he seemed to be carefully choosing his words.
Finally, he spoke. “It is a mindset, Maple. It’s about being a pony or not being a pony. It’s like when you asked me if I fucked them.” Maple winced, remembering. He continued. “Their Masters might. I don’t know and don’t care. But you’re thinking in terms of bestiality, maybe. It isn’t about that.”
Having found his train of thought, he stopped drumming and gripped the wheel with one hand. The other rested on the window sill. “It’s about care. The girl learns to be a dependent, trainable thing. Broken in, like a horse. The accessories, the commands, the showmanship? It’s all about care. It’s about getting them into a mindset where that becomes like water for them. Or air. They need the care. They crave the guidance.
“That’s what the men are buying. They are buying someone who is willing and needing that kind of relationship. They want the dependency, and the women want to be dependent. The contract they establish, then, is about trust.”
“And care?” Maple added. This wasn’t at all how she’d interpreted what J.B. was doing. It was unsettling. He made this fucked up power exchange sound tender. But how could keeping girls naked for months in a stall, unable to speak and literally shitting in a bucket be tender?
“Yes,” he confirmed.
She thought, too, about the electric plug. That had been far from caring. “But you whip them. Shock them.”
“True. Sometimes that’s part of care, too. You’d punish a toddler who broke the rules. You punish a disobedient pet or, in this case, pony. It sets boundaries. Establishes a deeper trust. That the Master cares enough to protect his pony, even from herself.”
“That’s fucked up,” Maple blurted.
He smirked. “Any more fucked up than getting wet when someone whips the shit out of you, Maple?”
“That was different.”
“Why?”
“Because we have--” What? A relationship? A connection? That wasn’t true, was it? Maple knew they had a pull between them. It was why she struggled to run from him. It hurt too much to believe that might be why he wouldn’t let her go. But chemistry wasn’t enough. Especially not with J.B.
He didn’t respond to her lack of an answer. She didn’t know if he felt the same. Part of Maple didn’t want to know. If he agreed, then whatever dance they were doing was sicker than she imagined. If he didn’t? Well, then she was just dumb. A pathetic puppy trailing him, eager for a quick scratch behind her ears.
Maple hated being near him. Hated it because it was so beautifully fulfilling. His words resonated with her. When she was around him, she liked being dependent on him. Trusting him to take care of her. Make decisions for her. Punish her for stepping out of line. It wasn’t that different from the ponies.
She got it a little, at least. He kept them naked to firmly establish their new positions. They were ponies until their Master decided differently. If he did.
But what if the men who bought the girls were like J.B.? He might be the sexiest man Maple knew, but he also knew how to hurt her the most. A flash of going into Bonnie’s stall with the weight of the ax in her hand forced Maple to shut her eyes. Fight her breakfast threatening to come up.
When Maple wasn’t with him, she could remember how much she hated him for making her do that. For having no compassion. He lost a horse and didn’t bat an eye. He saw her tear-streaked face, features twisted in anguish, and said “go clean this mess up.” And then he wouldn’t let her go after.
The heat built a little in her. It wasn’t the gale-force rage she wanted, but it was enough to remind her that he wasn’t someone to be trusted. She couldn’t depend on him.
And, because he was too fucking good at reading her, he said, “You’re still mad at me.”
She inhaled sharply. “Of course I’m still mad at you!”
“Because of the ticket?”
“Because of Bonnie! And the ticket! Because you push me and push me and never explain anything!” Her hands stopped twisting in nerves, instead clamping on her knees.”You’re an asshole,” she added, but it lacked power.
“Don’t disrespect me, Maple.”
“So you get to disrespect me, abuse me, treat me like dirt-- but I don’t get to call you an asshole?”
He hit the brakes hard enough she heard the trailer wobble a little behind them. The truck slowed to a jerky stop on the side of the road. Her knuckles were white from adrenaline instead of anger now.
“Apologize,” he ordered.
“No.” This wasn’t a game Maple was going to play. J.B. was trying to intimidate her. This wasn’t ignoring his rules. It was standing up for herself. She just wished she could sound firmer. More confident.
He shut the engine off and twisted toward her. “Just because I didn’t let you quit doesn’t
mean you’re exempt from following the rules.”
“You never made that a rule.” Her skin was growing hot, and she knew she was pushing him. Probably too far. But sometimes there are just times when it is too hard to stop, even when you know it’s better to just shut up.
“I shouldn’t have to make respecting me a rule. One more chance, Maple.”
She blew a gasket. “One more chance? Yeah, right. Then you’ll give me another, and another. It doesn’t matter how much I screw up, you’ll just punish me. Then tease me, giving me a little hope. And when I’m not feeling like complete shit, you’ll rip me to shreds, you’ll decimate me. You get off on ruining me.”