Read Online The Mayor's Daughter: Draft Pony by Will Versuch - Free Book Online Page A

she quivered with dread as he reached
under the bed to gather up what appeared to be a bundle of black leather straps
that he placed on her lap. “The fault is my own. Any good trainer knows
that if you give a filly a chance to run, she’ll take it. The important
thing is making sure she doesn’t get too far.”
    “But why…,”
Jessica started, and then paused to collect herself, feeling that she was
losing more of herself with every passing moment and desperate to hold tight to
what remained of her sanity. “But why a horse?”
    “Horses lead
lives of servitude, princess,” he answered as he began to wrap the leather
straps around her torso, revealing it to be a harness of some kind. “And
mankind’s considerable creative energies have developed quite devious and
effective ways to control them. It’s quite natural to apply those tried
and true principles to other disciplines.”
    “I’m just a
girl, though,” she whimpered, her lip trembling as he crossed the straps
of the harness between her breasts, making an ‘x’ with a silver ring at its center.
“You don’t need… you don’t need all this.”
    “You’ll
forget all of that shortly, beautiful,” he hissed softly, continuing to
buckle the straps of the harness in place around her back and shoulders, the
leather digging into the soft flesh of her belly as he tightened it. “By the
time daddy pays up, your life will be so much simpler than it used to be. You
should thank me, really.”
    “Oh sure,” she
spit the words out venomously as he finished with the harness, and she winced
as he gave each of its many dangling rings testing tugs. “Thanks for
everything.”
    “Do I detect
a little sarcasm there, princess?” he laughed as he reached under the cot
and withdrew a short, thick leather band. “But you see, that’s exactly
what I mean. All of the stress of your life is now gone.  All
you have to think about now is serving. No more pesky life decisions to
make.”
    “But I liked
my life.” Jessica felt new tears slips from her eyes, and then stiffened
as he wrapped the wide band around her neck, her mittened hands instinctively
reaching up to it. “What? What is that?”
    “It’s called
a posture collar, princess, and it will be good for you,” he explained as
he buckled it in place. The soft but firm leather covered her neck from
sternum to chin, cradling the line of her jaw and holding it firmly in
place. As he locked it on her, she discovered that she could no longer
either turn her head or look down.
    Lost in a sea
of hopelessness, she began to sob wholeheartedly again, bare breasts heaving as
she gave in to her despair. She felt, rather than saw, her captor drawing
her right arm behind her back, bending it at the elbow and then pulling her
hand up between her shoulder blades. There was the click of a lock as the
hand was secured in place. Her whole body quivered as she cried, not
resisting as he brought her left hand up to match the uncomfortable position of
the right.
    “That’s it, baby,” he
whispered softly, running his fingers through her hair and drawing it up into a
ponytail on the back of her head. “Just let it all out.”
    “You can’t do
this to me!” she screamed through her tears, yanking at the bonds that held her
hands up behind her back.  
    “Oh, but I
can and I am, princess.”  
    Jessica’s
shoulders shook as she sobbed, her captor beginning to wrap a thin series of
straps around her head. The thin, soft leather crisscrossed her cheeks,
and she saw a set of wide black blinders in place on the sides of her face,
blocking out her peripheral vision. Taking stock of her situation filled
her with even less hope than she had felt that morning. Her hands were
doubly useless to her, imprisoned in the leather mitts and then trapped high up
on her back, as if she were praying, only in reverse. Her legs were
seemingly free, but her brief experience walking in the boots told her that
they