On A Short Leash (8 page)

Truthfully, it wasn’t just boys who were after her. Men in their twenties and some much older men chased her, too.

She was sure she was bi-sexual as well, because she found some women very attractive though she hadn’t had much experience in that area, just a little kissing and feeling each other up at one of her boarding schools. She liked a few of the mistresses there, in particular a young woman who taught English. But better than that was other girls developing a crush on her. She liked to imagine them pining away and dying of unrequited love.

She liked to be admired so she could adopt a manner of indifference and disdain, although it got boring after a time. She loved the power she had over people who wanted her.

When she reached her late teens, Susannah set about snaring the one person she liked who seemed impervious to her charms, Malcolm Grainger.

If he’d noticed how tall and curvy she’d become, he gave no sign.

She was spending most of her time at the stables having dropped out of education; her parents had given up trying to find a school that would take her; they had practically washed their hands of her altogether.

Skin-tight jodhpurs didn’t do the trick, even when she bent over and practically wiggled her bum at him. Shirts unbuttoned most of the way didn’t attract a second glance even when she didn’t wear a bra. Flirting left him cold.

One night, Susannah came into the stable where Malcolm was attending to a sick horse. She’d been out drinking and found it difficult to prevent herself falling over, grasping the ends of the stalls to steady herself.

‘You’re drunk!’ he said.

‘How is she?’

‘As if you care.’

‘I do. I love her dearly. I love all the horses.’

Most of her words were slurred.

‘You’re making yourself sound ridiculous,’ he said scornfully.

‘You just don’t appreciate me like most people do.’

‘What I appreciate is hard work, not sentimental crap. Silver Cloud is a horse you were supposed to be looking after. You haven’t looked in to see her in days. You need to start pulling your weight or you needn’t come any more.’

‘And you can fuck off!’ she told him.

‘Charming,’ he said. ‘If you were my daughter I’d put you over my knee.’

‘You’re not man enough.’

‘Don’t tempt me.’

She entered Silver Cloud’s stall and came close to him. ‘You don’t give a fuck about me. You just want an extra pair of hands without paying for them. You’re a mean bastard!’

Malcolm was sitting on a short stool, stroking the mare’s flanks. He grabbed Susannah and pulled her over his lap. She was wearing a ridiculously short skirt. ‘And you look like a whore,’ he said.

He yanked down her thong and slapped her dimpled bottom.

‘Get off!’ she yelled. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

He spanked her hard on both cheeks; his hand seemed huge and rough. When she kicked her legs and squirmed in his lap, he held her fast and smacked her bottom with real force as if his anger had built up and was suddenly released.

‘You pig!’ she shouted. ‘I’ll have you locked up! Let me down!’

Her bottom was on fire by now and she thought how it would look to him, quivering globes gradually turning redder, just like her face which was hot with embarrassment though it had not been slapped.

Finally he allowed her to slip from his knees into the straw. Silver Cloud stamped her back feet and whinnied.

She saw him look down at her with her long hair dishevelled and her pussy exposed to him. ‘Take a good look,’ she said. She unbuttoned her shirt and took it off. ‘Go on,’ she told him, ‘you might as well see everything. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’

She was naked except for her boots.

She shuffled towards him on her knees and put a hand over his groin. ‘You’ve got a hard on, haven’t you? I could feel it when I was over your knee; a great stonking stiffy. You’re just like all the rest, but you pretend you’re different.’

‘Put your clothes on, girl!’

‘You can feel my tits. Go on, you’re dying to.’

She took his large hand and pressed it to her breasts.

He didn’t take his hand away.

Her large dark nipples were firm under his fingers.

‘Get dressed, Susannah!’

‘You get undressed,’ she said. ‘You enjoyed spanking me, didn’t you? I’ll let you into a secret, I quite liked it too.’

She went into the tack room where there were riding crops for the youngsters when they came for lessons and took one back to him. Then she got down on her hands and knees, her ass towards him.

‘Give it to me,’ she said. ‘Malcolm, please.’

It was what she dreamed about. Malcolm taking her in hand like a rebellious, wilful filly. This time she was the one who was pleading, surrendering power to him.

He stood up and paused as if wrestling with his own thoughts, sensing how his far-reaching his decision might be.

She yelped when he brought it down four square across her offered cheeks. The fact that her bottom was already stinging from being spanked made the pain excruciating, like nothing she’d experienced before. He hadn’t held back. He whipped the crop across her cheeks a second time and then a third.

Then Susannah realised he was stripping off his trousers and shirt, kicking off his shoes, dragging off his socks. Looking back at him, she could see he was gloriously naked with a massive erection. Malcolm put his hand down to feel the rigid weals across her cheeks, tracing the lines with his fingertips, taking pleasure in the contrast with the softness of the rest of her flesh.

‘Keep in position,’ he ordered. ‘Don’t let your arse sag; keep it up and keep it tight.’

She steeled herself to take another stroke, gritting her teeth.

She heard its whistle through the air and then felt the riding crop curl round the contours of her cheeks and she cried out again.

He was thrashing her like an angry bully might whip a horse or a cowering dog. Not that Malcolm would treat an animal this way. But it was fit treatment for her, it was just punishment for her arrogance and for the way she put men down at every opportunity. She deserved to be down on all fours, getting her ass bruised, being brutalised as though she was an object provided to satisfy his baser instincts to inflict pain and humiliation.

He could take revenge on behalf of his sex.

She imagined his cock growing stiffer as he flogged her.

She felt moisture in her sex despite the pain.

She lost count of the times he hit her with the riding crop.

Another pause and she felt his forefinger push into the tightness of her anus and stretch the sensitive membrane in her passage. Then fingers stretched and probe her slit, opening her up, exploring her as intimately as he pleased and she stayed in position for him, ass in the air, legs apart. She felt she was his creature, his plaything.

‘Fuck me, Malcolm,’ she heard herself say. ‘Get your dick up my shag hole. Oh, fuck me, now! Now!’

His answer was to use the riding crop on her again; this time across her back which hurt even more, if that was possible.

Then she felt his big hands on her back where the weals were fresh as his strong thighs slapped against her and his cock filled her throbbing pussy. Her fantasies and her deepest desires were coming true. She was being fucked by Malcolm Grainger.

She wanted him to make her come but he pulled out before she got near.

The stable was a converted barn with a hayloft. In the old days a pulley lifted bales into the loft for storage and the basis of the system remained intact.

Malcolm lifted Susannah and carried her to where the ropes hung down from the void above them. He tied her up so quickly and so deftly that she wondered if she had done this before with other girls.

He secured her wrists with extra lengths of rope.

Then he left her with her feet still on the flagstones.

She felt apprehensive as her sweat cooled on her body and her quim juice dried around her pussy. She wondered how she smelt to Malcolm.

He returned carrying a whip and she felt her stomach lurch with fear, being in no doubt it could inflict real damage, far more severe than he had with the riding crop. He had a blindfold as well, which he tied in place. Then, to her horror, he produced a bit that he pushed between her upper and lower teeth so she had no choice but to clamp it between her jaws, the effect being to draw back her lips in a hideous grin.

He turned the handle on the whitewashed wall and she was hoisted, still wearing nothing but her boots on her dangling white legs.

She tried to say, ‘Malcolm, I’m sorry I was rude to you.’

The words were lost and all that came out was a series of ‘ugh-ugh, ugh-ugh!’ noises.

‘I can’t hear you.’

She wanted to beg him not to hurt her but her mouth was stuffed with rubber and she was speechless.

Susannah found the pain in her arm sockets almost unbearable as he winched her a few inches higher.

Malcolm put his face close to her pussy which was just the right height for him and sniffed at her bush, taking deep breaths. She could feel his face against her pubic hair though she couldn’t see him.

‘At last,’ he breathed. ‘At last…’

Then his fingers went in and, in spite of everything, she bathed them in her juice.

There was a pause and she imagined him stepping back to judge the correct distance for him to reach her with his whip and trembled in dread of the searing pain that was bound to follow.

She could see nothing and say nothing. The silence in the stable was so deep that she fancied she heard the pounding of her own heart.

A whistle-hiss heralded the arrival of the lash which curled itself round her breasts in a tight embrace like some bone-crushing snake and finally unwound itself to drop to the floor.

Only the gag prevented a scream that would surely have woken those sleeping in the house. They might have thought they’d heard the death throes of some animal caught in a trap. Susannah almost fainted. The force of the blow made her swing to and fro like a human pendulum.

She waited to be whipped again, conscious enough now to worry about the way her breasts might be scarred. But waves of nausea swept through her as she braced herself, wondering where the next lash would land. He made her wait...

He must have moved his position without her hearing anything.

It was her already tender bottom that received the full force of the second stroke.

Again, she thought she saw lights flicker in the darkness under her blindfold, felt her mind detach itself from her ravaged body, float above somewhere to observe; for a few seconds, she supposed it took no longer, she looked down as dispassionately as she might look at slaughtered carcasses in an abattoir. Then as mind and body fused again, pain engulfed her.

***

‘Race you to the stones!’ he challenged her.

It was months after they had entered their strange, intense relationship.

The cairn, commonly referred to as ‘the stones’, had been there as long as they and generations before them could remember. There were references in local history books going back a long way. Some people said there was a slab under it that had been part of a pre-Christian stone circle. Beyond the cairn was a scarp, a sharp drop to the valley where the river ran its course. All along the valley the cairn was a landmark, perched in its prime position.

It was permissible to add stones to the cairn, although it was higher than Malcolm, who was six feet tall; the trouble was there were few if any stones on the level part of the heath. There was scree on the slope directly below the cairn but you had to be brave or foolhardy to scrabble about there just to add your stone for posterity; consequently the only people who did were young risk takers usually emboldened by drink.

Susannah had done it with a group of friends when they’d all been very drunk.

She thought for seconds that she might not follow Malcolm, who was riding his horse Major, but recognising he was trying to improve her foul mood, she urged her horse forward in pursuit. There was enough distance to the stones for her to give Malcolm a head start and still catch him in a contrived photo finish.

Once or twice he raised himself high in the saddle and took a look behind, judging the distance between them.

She gained ground, feeling the thrill of releasing the mare’s full power and her mood lifted. She pictured the way it would end, in laughter as it always did. They hadn’t yet grown tired of this little ritual. It might seem that Malcolm was in control, that he had the responsibility for engineering the perfect finish, but Susannah had her part to play, either by holding Silver Cloud back at the last second or coaxing a final surge. It wasn’t easy to control her at the end. Riders and horses had to be perfectly attuned. But finishing together was important or Malcolm had to win by a head or a length at most. It was part of the understanding between them.

The two horses were almost together, stride for stride, hooves pounding, the stones looming up before them. A few more metres. Susannah strained to judge it right, concentrating hard, trying to apply just the right amount of pressure to the mare’s flanks with her legs. She was on Malcolm’s left side…they flew past the cairn exactly together…and veered to the left. Suddenly she realised Malcolm was not turning but galloping straight ahead. He was leaving it desperately late. What was he playing at?

She saw him disappear over the edge, an image she would see over and over in her mind’s eye. He’d ridden straight ahead, not turning at all. She wasn’t aware that he’d lost control, there were no signs of panic, but it was only split seconds. He looked almost serene.

Afterwards she remembered she’d screamed out his name, ‘Malcolm!’ and her first feeling was embarrassment that she was shouting at someone who wasn’t there. She felt ridiculous – and angry. If someone had come upon the scene, they would have thought her stark raving mad.

She wondered if there had been anyone in the valley beneath the scarp who witnessed horse and rider in free fall. What would they have seen? Did Malcolm become detached from Major’s back as soon as they went over? Did they stay together as though riding the air? Did the horse plummet more speedily, being the heavier, a Pegasus without wings?

And, if anyone did see horse and rider fall, how would they account for it? Would they doubt their own senses? Especially if they were far away on the other side of the river and the sound didn’t carry, the sound of the crash into the undergrowth. She imagined such a witness might rub his eyes in disbelieve.

No one came forward even when the accident received lots of coverage in the media.