A Room Up Above

“What did Midnight have on when you were cropping him, young lady?” John asked softly.

“Oh…”

“Midnight had a saddle…” Janae started, sounding not-very-hopeful.  “With a cinch… I should get to keep my bra on,” she bargained.

The analogy seemed a fair one but John had other thoughts. “You won’t be wearing a saddle, that’s for sure, nor want to be,” though for a moment the idea appealed to him somehow. “Tell you what,” John offered, pinching the crop between thumb and forefinger, raising and angling it downward beneath her first button, “You can keep your bra or your blouse – not both – and if your blouse, unbuttoned.” He was no stranger to women being more self-conscious about their belly than their breasts, thanks to modern media and midriff-baring thirteen-year-olds, even a woman with what appeared to be a quite lovely waist. “One,” he intoned, using the crop fob inside her blouse to push her bra strap toward her shoulder, “or… the other.” Again she swallowed visibly, not expressing a choice, and, withdrawing the crop, John moved down the row of stalls toward the tack room.

“Ah….” Inhaling deeply, John took in the rich smell of well-oiled leather softened by use and darkened by sweat. An entire stack of saddle blankets sat on a counter and the walls were hung with more straps and reins than he could use in two dozen of the best spankings. Had he been dissatisfied with the crop he was holding he could have exchanged it for a whip of similar length or a different crop with a little leather hand, or one with a loop or several other designs. The room was small; warmer, but cluttered and crowded. Janae had followed him inside and he closed on her, wrapping his hand around her ponytail. “I won’t need to put a bit in your mouth, will I?”

“Oh, no sir,” she assured him, dropping her head and her voice to whisper, “Please, sir.”

“Good to hear. Now.” He turned her to face the tool bench. Rather obviously a bench brush sat atop it, a long narrow wooden brush with an even narrower flat section to its back. As a substitute for a hairbrush it would be an admirable chastiser. “Is Janae a good boss?” he began slowly, his mouth right at the top of her ear. “Is she kind to the stable-girl? Does she appreciate how much of this work she doesn’t have to do herself? Not a spoiled little princess, I certainly hope…”

“Not… no… not too bad… maybe when she has friends around…”

“Oh? What happens then?” John demanded.

“Not so much any more… she used to… just sometimes… be a bit mean, maybe… just… you know, wanting to show off?”

“But all done now, fortunately. Nothing that needs taking care of,” he clarified, making the question a statement of fact.

“Not very often. Not like before. Just once in awhile.”

“Just once in awhile? Even now?” John felt the quick slight nod of her head as much as he saw it as she tugged against the tension of her hair. “Not good.”

“Um no, um, not good.”

“I may have to come back for that, may I not?”

“Might,” she agreed in a tiny voice, her knees shaking, her thighs pressed together.

“But not tonight,” he assured her. “Plenty enough to do tonight.” With this he slapped her bottom pleasantly, possessively.

“Yes,” the poor little rich girl again agreed.

“Yes?” he questioned in a mock growl, landing a matching spank on her other cheek.

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s better,” John praised as he released her, ran the crop down the front of her thigh and turned to the counter. “Here are some blankets.” Eyeing a saddle stand with mixed satisfaction and the crowded floor with less he considered their options. The room was the right mix of earthy and sheltered but they might have to settle for center of the stable, he thought, moving back to the door.

“The stable-girl has a room here,” Janae volunteered rather suddenly, clearly desiring even more shelter, wisely seeking greater privacy. “It’s up above. She’s not here and… well, I know where she keeps a spare key.”

“Oh you do, do you? What’s ‘up above?’”

“The stairway’s outside,” she explained. “I could go up… I wouldn’t want you to see.”

“See?” John asked. He still intended – and expected – to ‘see’ everything, quite completely.

“The hiding place,” she explained.

“Ah….” Yes, that made sense. The idea that she was backing out, planning an escape, had flitted across his mind, though he wasn’t sure why, or, that is to say, why now if not before. She’d been in a daze of arousal when he first saw her and clearly enjoyed being under his command. Still, wanting to secure command of the situation he thought it best to keep the initiative. “All right, you go up, get the key, open the door, and get back down here. I’m going to count to thirty, slowly, and you will be back before I’m done. Understood?”

“Why don’t you just wait, then come up?” she asked reasonably.

“You will be back, standing in front of me, before I am done. Is that clear, young lady?”

She bowed her head most prettily, breathing a near-silent “yes, sir.”

“And Janae? You’ll thank our friend the stable-girl for her generosity on her return, won’t you?”

“Oh yes sir, absolutely.”

“Good. Now off you go.”

She bolted for the door and true to his word he began to count, very slowly. No doubt she’d want to make sure the place was tidy enough to avoid embarrassment on anyone’s part, he thought. And there’s one more thing I need from the tack room after all.

***** 

Her boots on the stairs gave him plenty of notice of her return and he counted aloud from twenty five. Janae heard ‘twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight’ as she rushed through the door, breathless despite being appearing accustomed to exercise. “Good girl,” John told her and she beamed briefly before dropping her head once more. “If everything’s in order we’ll start with your jacket,” he told her, extending a hand.

“My jacket?”

John smiled as she started to remove it without waiting for his answer. “Yes, it’d be better to leave your clothes down here. Frame of mind is very important.”

“All of them?”

“Well, not your blouse. I stand by my offer, unless you think it will help you to go without it.”

“Oh, no, sir. Please, sir, I’d like to keep it on,” she begged, implicitly agreeing to discard the rest.

“Unbuttoned,” he reminded her.

“If I have to…”

“You do. Or off entirely. Boots next.”

Perching herself on a crate, Janae pulled off one long black boot and then the other, standing them against the wall. “Socks, too,” he reminded her. Standing in her bare feet her height was all the more noticeable, her posture all the more pronounced. She blushed once again at the appreciative look that tugged at John’s features. “And?” he asked with an arched eyebrow.

“These?”

“Please.”

After a moment of fumbling Janae managed to release the waist of her twill jodhpurs but her progress remained slow. John chided softly, “You haven’t forgotten why you’re having to do this, have you, Janae?”

“No sir,” she replied rather piteously, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not me you need to apologize to, now is it, young lady?”

“I mean I’m sorry for being so slow.”

“Just focus on what you’re doing – and why.”

With another ‘yes, sir’ her riding breeches finally came down and as John had suspected they had not flattered her – nor would they anyone, he surmised. This progress, however, did little to dispel Janae’s anxiety.

“Turn around,” he told her magnanimously. “I’ll hold your blouse.” It seemed that she found his offer oddly reassuring and she moved quickly to comply, opening her buttons, letting him lift her blouse off of her shoulders as she pulled her arms free, reaching behind to release the hooks of her narrow bra band. Clasping one arm to her breasts she pulled the other free of its strap, her hand quickly diving back into the protection of her sleeve before repeating the process on the first side, all with an impressive degree of modesty. Even if it was primarily on principle - and temporary at that.

With this success and the long shirttails touching her thighs, getting out of her panties was less of a production even while one hand was employed securing her blouse. She had turned again and John steadied her by the shoulders as she worked them down to mid-thigh, one leg at a time. From there she let gravity do its part, stepping out of them and picking them up with her toes.

“Put them in the pocket of your pants – we don’t want anyone finding them lying around, do we?”

“Yes, sir,” she agreed, “I mean, no sir. I mean…”

“Hush. Door. Stairs.”