If this is your first time reading The River, start at the link below or check out this link that gives you the story’s synopsis and chapter-by-chapter links:
The River
Caroline shivered when the car door opened – not from the warm summer air gushing into the air-conditioned limo, but from the sudden chills that crawled across her naked flesh. Determined to follow instructions to the letter, she waited for the younger woman to get out, and then she climbed from the car on shaky legs, her patent leather black stilettos …
The ponies were led out one by one for inspection and to walk the track. Caroline had never seen anything like it.
White tents gleamed in the sun, their sides open to reveal clusters of guests in all black silks and linen, fanning themselves as champagne fizzed in crystal flutes. Beyond the stables, the track stretched in a perfect oval of pale dust bordered by flags that shivered in the wind. A brass band tuned its instruments on a covered platform at one end, and the air shimmered with heat and perfume.
Caroline walked with strict attention to her trainer, Anastasia leading the way around the track. A thin strand of silver connected her gloved hand to Caroline’s leather collar. The older woman was dressed in her driving attire, a stiff riding jacket in forest green, and a flawless pair of white breeches that hugged her hips down to her calves. Atop her head, she wore a leather cap that struggled to contain her burgundy hair. And her boots gleamed as if someone had spent the night polishing them with her tongue. As for Caroline, beyond the leather boots she’d worn for these runs for weeks, she was utterly naked, sun-kissed skin betraying the location of each strap, each piece of her pony harness, including the tight leather strip that ran through her lips and teased her clit.
There was no sense of restraint now beyond the weight of the moment, and the gravity of the collar and the two sets of eyes that fixed on her as she marched by the main viewing tent. Ethan stood with Ms. Benedict, a quiet word passing between them as Caroline passed by, and then the blonde set her drink down and peeled away.
Caroline avoided turning her head, but she could see the spectacle well enough as they rounded the second turn. It reminded her of grand parties in the Garden District for the Louisiana Derby, when she would stroll through posh rooms with the elegant and elite. Runner-up to the Kentucky Derby, the early spring pageant in NoLA brought out the finest in cocktail-meets-Mardi-Gras attire, and she remembered fondly the watercolor floral dress she’d worn.
How long ago that felt now. She swallowed, tamped down her memories, trying to focus on the here and now, not the there and then, when she’d been oblivious to the world around her, the danger her husband had put them in, and even Casey’s needs. She’d laughed along with women she barely knew, sipped mint juleps and mimosas until her head swam, and avoided her husband’s longing gaze directed at other women.
Caroline swallowed as they returned to the corral, and she took her place with the other ponies. There was nothing for those memories now but to put them away. The race would begin soon, and the groomsmen were closing in on their charges. And on her, the newest animal they would cheer on and bet against.
Seven women, each suited in distinctive tack that caught the light: silvered bits, jeweled blinders, plumed harnesses. The effect was theatrical, each woman a living emblem of her owner’s taste. The younger ones were radiant — and all of them were younger than Caroline. Significantly. They moved with practiced rhythm, legs sleek and taut, breasts and bellies bare, their stances poised and proud in their silence. Caroline felt the age in her own bones, tried not to stare. She’d seen them for weeks. Watched them run, prance, test their bodies and their boundaries. Breasts bouncing, sweat like a fine sheen of oil on their bronzed skin, each of them bearing the same strap lines, the same levels of nervousness and exhaustion, some the welts of a persistent whip.
Anastasia walked before each of them, her pace slow and deliberate. “You are here because you have learned to obey. Chosen to obey. Some of you have given yourselves to this estate freely. Some have come when there was nowhere else to go,” she said softly, avoiding Caroline’s gaze, though every head turned her way. “Today, you will run to be seen, and some of you will be chosen again. And again. Remember — posture above all. You are here to entertain. You are here to please. You are here to display, perhaps not to win. But we know what failure will deliver. And if you do not win,” she said, her eyes raking across each of them, “you will pay dearly.”
Caroline tried to steady her breath. Her heart was already racing.
When the trainer came to fit her tack, she shifted, tried not to fidget. Anastasia would be watching, and she would be punished for her failure. This was no different, she told herself, than every other day. Day after day, the track, the tack, the running, the ache of her thighs, the sway of her breasts, the bit forcing her mouth open, and the strap that ground against her clit. All of it she’d felt before, pushed through, learned to endure. She’d never been a runner, but she’d been fit and accepted it. She’d never been naked outdoors, but she’d embraced it. But now, she sensed something different. A shift in her mood, in the energy around her — perhaps it was in the groomers as the two young men took up their stations on either side and transformed the listless Garden District housewife into a glamorous, two-legged beast.
Warm hands on her skin sent shivers down her spine, gooseflesh crawling across her legs and arms. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. The straps were newer, the bit heavier, the leather cooler against her skin. Or was it her imagination? They synched the straps until her elbows came together behind her and her shoulders burned from the strain. They tightened down the bit until her mouth was stretched and her breathing came in animalistic pants. The headpiece she’d never worn before, and with it came a sudden sense of claustrophobia as the eye shields blinded her to the left and right. The only view she would have until the race was over was straight ahead. No distractions. No way to see Ethan or Ms. Benedict, the crowd or other ponies that might be close-by. Her every movement would depend on Anastasia now, and her nipples hardened at the thought of the harsh clamps and the tugging. She was an animal now, and she would run where guided and as fast as the whip would drive her.
And when Anastasia drew her into the private tent before the start, she spoke with deliberate calm. “A small adjustment,” she said, gloved hands efficient. “An added feature Ms. Benedict insists upon. She worries you will lose yourself in the race and not enjoy the fruits of your labor.” She smiled, leaned in, fingers working the strap between Caroline’s legs. Then, Caroline felt cool metal against her clit and the strap tightened again.
“You’ve earned this, pet” she said, and then she ran the reins through the loops at Caroline’s neck and attached the clamps to her nipples with a smirk that dismissed Caroline’s pained look.
Then the trumpet sounded, and the world before Caroline began to blur into instinct and ritual — as they practiced for weeks — knees high, shoulders square. They made their way to the starting line. Every command she’d ever heard had become muscle memory now. Her body would answer the litany of orders she no longer had to think to obey. Gait, posture, pace. The words were carved into her muscles — the count of her steps, the pull of the reins, the focus of the straps. She moved as if the whip itself were whispering beneath her skin.
They were led to the line, seven ponies, carts glinting behind them, dust curling in the light. Somewhere in the crowd behind her was the man she’d surrendered her freedom to, and just next to him was the woman she’d surrendered her — she felt a warm trickle of drool slide down her chin as the metal against her clit came alive with a short buzz — her body, her need…her heart?
The starter’s gun cracked, and the world exploded into motion.
Caroline surged forward, the harness biting into her shoulders, breath tearing at her throat. She took her first steps with grunt and groan, the boots digging into the dirt track, the first crack of Anastasia’s whip lancing across her exposed bottom. The sound of boots and wheels, groans and cheering merged into one roar. Her body remembered everything, and her mind remembered to let go and allow the weeks of discipline to unfold in a single, perfect rhythm. Her body did not belong to her anymore, she whispered to herself, and the cart began to move.
Fast. Faster than she’d ever felt, Caroline drove forward, eye’s ahead, unwilling to cast a glance at the nearest ponies, certainly not toward the crowd and the two individuals whose gazes she could feel on her. Faster, a voice screamed in her head as the crack of Anastasia’s whip traced welts across her ass and hips. She grunted under the strain, accepting the pain, the humiliation of it, stoking the fire in her belly as she pushed past a younger pony, her white blonde ponytail swaying in time with her lashed hips.
One lap down. One of three. Then a jolt. A pulse that came from nowhere and everywhere at once. It slid through her like a tremor, brief, strange, disorienting. A sudden burst of pleasure against her clit.
She stumbled, then recovered, forcing her stride back into sync. Another pulse followed, longer. Her vision blurred at the edges. The whip cracked, and her flanks burned.
The crowd’s applause rose as she steadied herself, thinking it was the strain, the spectacle of endurance. And yet, each vibration struck deeper, timed to the turns of the track until her breathing fell into the same rhythm. She tried to separate motion from sensation, but the two merged; each step carried an echo of the last. A buzz between her legs, a stumble, a moan, the crack of the whip. Pleasure and pain, pain and pleasure. The strain of the straps, the weight of the cart and the woman sitting elegantly behind her, driving her like the animal she was.
By the second lap she knew it was deliberate. And unavoidable. She screamed, baying like a beast caught in a trap, somewhere between agony and ecstasy, her pace faltering, poise buckling until all that drove her was her own determination not to fail. But the younger ponies passed her one by one, their faces smooth with concentration. Caroline’s eyes followed their graceful arcs, the ribbons trailing from their harnesses, the effortless glide of youthful bodies. Dust streaked her legs, sweat burned her eyes, but she ran on, the air filling with the thunder of the others pulling ahead.
When the bell sounded the final lap, the noise inside her own head was louder than the crowd. The track narrowed to a tunnel of sunlight and shadow, and all she could do was keep moving, each breath another surrender, each step another buzz, until the vibrations pushed her over the edge.
She crossed the finish long after the cheering had peaked and faded. For a moment she simply stood there, heart pounding, breasts heaving, sweat dripping into her eyes until her knees gave way, and she sank to the ground, trembling and moaning, orgasm after orgasm washing over her like waves. The sound of polite applause reached her like a memory, barely a whisper above the storm between her thighs.
When she opened her eyes again, the dust had settled. The track was empty. Only Anastasia’s boots remained in front of her.
The trainer crouched, unfastened the bit, and spoke quietly so only Caroline could hear. “Now you know the difference between performance and control,” she said. “You ran beautifully. And they will remember you.”
Caroline watched her walk away, then lifted her gaze toward the stands, only to find Ms. Benedict standing there alone, watching her.
Author’s Notes: Welcome back, dear readers of The River. We’re almost to the end of Act I, in which Caroline begins her new life as a slave at the Kingfisher Estate. Act II begins in just a few more episodes with a shift to the French Quarter, one of my favorite places to visit. I grew up partly in New Orleans, and I go back to the Quarter almost yearly to take in the food, the music and the history. It’s worth it.
And my love of New Orleans is the main reason I put this story there. New Orleans is decadent and dirty, but that’s also a large part of its charm. Caroline’s new life at the Kingfisher Estate is decadent and dirty, dirtier in ways you don’t even know yet, if you’re reading this story. All we know now is how life twisted Caroline inside out and forced her to surrender herself. What we will see soon, in Act II and III, is how this changes and shapes Caroline as she begins to confront new threats — a larger population of men and women who want to exploit her, the criminal element that lingers, the DEA seeking answers, and how she hides her new life from her college-age daughter.
One may think this is simply a raunchy sex ride. Dear readers, it is — also, it is not. Stay tuned and find out, will you?