“You okay, sweetie?” Liv asked. “Maybe you should go to bed. You’ve got a busy day ahead of you.”
I nodded, picking up my hat from the table and putting it on. “Not a bad idea. Glad to meet you, Liv, Michael.”
Michael, Liv, and Trey looked at me as if I had ketchup all over my face.
Oh God, now what?
“What?” I said, so tired and wanting to be out of everyone’s sight for the next twelve hours.
“You…uh…you’ve got the good ’ole boy, naive cowboy thing going on right now. The way you handle yourself is even making me wonder.” Michael said slowly.
“Wonder what?” I asked, knowing I’d regret the question even as I asked it.
“Whether you’re as competent as you seem. Whether you have the right touch. Whether this wasn’t your destiny all along.” He stood up and nodded. “And I can’t wait to find out.”
*
Walking back alone on the gravel path to the bunkhouse, I admired the beauty of the grounds, listening to the whine of the cicadas and the melodic song of the blackbirds as they heralded the evening light. The intense heat of early afternoon had dissipated, but the air still clung warm around me. My skin felt damp with sweat, but the solitude gave me the peace and quiet I needed after such a tumultuous day.
I wondered why I wasn’t more shocked at what I’d discovered here at the Braided Crop Ranch. I had always been interested in the kinky side of sexuality, but I’d never had any opportunity to express more than a passing curiosity in any of my brief dalliances with other men. I’d never been in a steady relationship, and outside of the safe confines of an establishment like this one, I wasn’t comfortable experimenting with strangers.
Everything about the BCR screamed safety and consent. The setup allowed people to have their most secret fetishes indulged and celebrated. Some might think this kind of sex play was a hair’s breadth from bestiality. But I knew it had nothing to do with animals and everything to do with the submission of one human to another, the domination over a person’s innate tendency to overthink, so a person could exist purely in their most primal form. And sex was very primal. Sex was perhaps the most primal urge, behind the tendency to violence and aggression. And to harness that energy this way, subvert it by treating the person as the animal they essentially were, seemed like a revelation.
I mulled these thoughts as I opened the door to the bunkhouse, listening to the creak of the dusty hinges. The silence welcomed me like an old friend. I tossed my hat onto my bunk and walked around slowly, even climbed the ladder to peek into the loft, to make sure I was, indeed, alone. Because there was something I wanted to do although I’d already succumbed to the need once.
After kicking off my boots, I lay on the bunk I’d claimed as my own and stared at the bottom of Luke’s bunk, sliding a hand down to touch myself. I closed my eyes as I rubbed my swollen cock through my jeans with sublime relief.
“If I have to put you in the brace again, you’ll feel this crop on your beautiful ass.” Kamal’s voice echoed in my brain.
And this: “Getting a bit tight there, Luke? You like our new stable hand, hmm?”
I pictured Luke in his body harness and collar, his penis bulging and vulnerable in the metal cage, his arms bound behind him.
Those goddamn harnesses. Made of thick, black leather and studded with grommets, they crossed the chest and back, circled the shoulders, and extended down the sides of the torso to attach onto a pelvic piece that looked like a leather jock strap without a jock. Two broad leather straps framed the ponyboy’s buttocks and crossed just above the pubic bone. I had never imagined anything so sexy in my wildest dreams.
I undid the button of my jeans and pulled down the zipper. I slid my hands beneath the waistband of my cotton boxer briefs until my fingers wrapped around the hot pulsing flesh there.
God, I thought I might come thinking about Luke being disciplined by Kamal. What I would give to actually see that!
I stroked myself back and forth, thinking of other things I’d heard.
“I’d turn you to the wall, wrap my hand around your big, black cock, and jerk you off so slowly you’d about die before I let you come.”
I groaned and stroked myself harder. I almost didn’t hear the hinges creak as the door opened.
I froze. The frantic beating of my heart filled the large space.
I was in plain sight of whomever had come in. Still, part of me thought if I kept my eyes closed whoever was there would ignore what was going on and graciously move on to his own bunk.
So I breathed as quietly as I could, but I was already so close to orgasm I couldn’t control my stuttering inhales. After several moments, I started to wonder if I’d imagined the noise.
I opened my eyes. Only to find myself staring directly up into Luke’s bright blue ones.
My breath caught. I thought I might actually die. Not the little death of an explosive orgasm, but an actual, final death—of embarrassment.
Luke drank me in as if I were a pool of cool water and Luke a thirsty animal in the desert, and one side of his lip quirked up. “You know, you don’t have to do that yourself.”
My mouth opened. I tried to speak but couldn’t form words. I clutched my dick for dear life and realized one or two more strokes, while I gazed into Luke’s blue eyes, would have me erupting all over myself.
