Free A Calling to Thrall by Jena Cryer Page A

shown what their true place
is. Only then can they find peace like my Leeta has.”
    Mr. Mason's lips quirk into a half-smile. “So I
should consider this a humanitarian effort?”
    “You can think of it however you like as long as you
get results.”
    “My results will depend on what I'm given to work
with. I don't expect you'd have invited me here if all your women
behaved like this one.”
    Master chuckles. “I do believe I’m beginning to like
you, Mr. Mason.”
    He snaps his fingers, and I’m at his side in an
instant. With practiced ease, he clips the leash to my collar and
orders me to heel.
    “Now if you’ll follow me.” Master rises to his feet.
“I’ll introduce you to your first project.”

Two
     
    Her tanned legs glisten with sweat. Perfectly
pendulous breasts sway as she prowls the corral. The tiny hoops
hanging from her dark, round nipple sparkle in the sunlight.
    I crawl beside my master. He keeps me on a leash
mainly out of habit now. He knows I won't run from him. He knows I
can't. I haven't walked on two legs in so many years I don't think
I can even remember how. Still, my leash is a symbol of his control
over me, of his domination, and I've long since stopped questioning
any of his methods.
    Ten years, he said. I've been here ten years, but it
might as well have been a lifetime. My collar is practically a
second skin now, and the thought of wearing clothing—did I ever
really wear clothes, or was that just some abominable dream?—sends
shivers coursing down my spine.
    Master orders me to sit beside the gate, and I watch
as he and Mr. Mason approach the girl inside.
    “She's what we refer to as a ponygirl,” Master says.
“Only she's a bit reluctant to accept the role.”
    The girl's arms are strapped behind her back. She
chews at her bit and whines as she dances around the paddock in her
thin, hoof-shaped boots. With every step Master takes towards her,
she takes two more back until finally her bare ass is pressed
against the gate in front of me.
    Between her cheeks hangs a long, brown horse hair
tail.
    “Easy,” Master says. “Easy.”
    But this girl is stupid. She lunges to the side,
completely ignorant of the other man trying to catch her, and plows
straight into Mr. Mason's arms. He tightens his grip as she
thrashes against him, and within minutes, the once beautiful woman
dissolves into a mess of tears and sobs.
    What is wrong with her? Doesn't she understand her
place? Master will be good to her if she submits. All she has to do
is forget about the time before, and—
    Memories of muddy water and thick cypress groves
return to me. I'm eighteen again. I just graduated from Oak Ridge
Academy. I'll be attending Ole Miss in less than two months, but
right now I'm partying on Moon Lake with my friends. We're by
ourselves. David brought his jet ski, and I'm riding double. We've
just left the barge anchored by Deacon's Pointe, and we pick our
way through the cypresses as David drives us to a secluded spot
lost in the center of the grove.
    He cuts off the jet ski.
    “Come here,” he tells me.
    He turns and his breath trickles down my neck. His
fingers graze my breast. I shiver. When I look down, my nipples are
hard and pointed beneath my bathing suit. He pinches one and then
the other. Jolts of electricity roll down my spine.
    “David,” I say, but he presses his lips against mine
to silence me.
    I feel one strap slide off, then the other. Slowly
he peels down my swimsuit. Warm, moist air hits my breasts. He digs
his fingers into their milky flesh, and they more than fill his
hands.
    “God, you're hot,” he says, and I giggle.
    His hands move down my sides, my hips, and then back
up between my legs. He slips his fingers beneath the crotch of my
swimsuit and strokes my clit until I'm nothing more than a
heat-stricken animal grinding against his palm.
    “Please,” I whisper, and he slips the rest of my
bathing suit off before tossing it over a nearby tree branch.
    “Hell of a way