His Black Pearl (16 page)

I need to find shelter. I need to go back to
the barn.

As if to press the point, several fat drops
of rain pelt my skin. A clap of thunder echoes across the hills and
lightning brightens the sky. I can’t stay here. Last night was
warm, but tonight doesn’t look so hospitable.

Still, the thought of curling up in that dank
barn with its rodents and ravens and spiders is almost as repulsive
as the journey I would have to take to get back there. And besides,
what would happen to my grapes if I left them unattended?

I’m not sure when I decided it, but my leg is
already inside the crate before I realize what I’m doing. The small
fruit squishes around my skin. Stems tickle my back and thighs. I
sigh as I sink down further. Grapes roll across my belly and chest.
My chin dips beneath the surface, and when their plump little
bodies press against my lips, I can almost feel Master’s fingers
gently stroking my cunt.

My eyes pop open.

I know I should chide myself for the thought,
but I’m just so tired and full and content. Surely one little slip
up isn’t all that bad, is it?

I don’t have the energy to dwell on the
matter any further. My eyes drift shut. A single grape slides
between my parted lips.

As I fall asleep, I try to tell myself the
wetness between my legs is just from the fruit.

Chapter Fourteen

The roar of an engine wakes me up, and my
head bumps against the side of my crate.

The truck is moving.

It’s moving!

Oh, God, how stupid could I be? Crates of
fruit all stacked upon the bed of a motor vehicle, of course they
hadn’t been abandoned. Someone must have picked those grapes. I
hadn’t noticed any nearby vineyards, but I was so out of it
yesterday that a concert could have been playing behind me and I
wouldn’t have heard a note.

The truck hits another bump, and I
bounce.

Should I make my presence known?

I’ll be found no matter what. I can’t imagine
how anyone could overlook a naked woman lying chin-deep in a crate
of produce. Still, I have no idea who this driver is. What if he
doesn’t want to help me? What if he just takes me back to
Master?

Or what if he takes me for himself?

Shivering, I reach up, and pull the
half-opened lid soundly shut. No, I can’t say anything now, not
when I’m so vulnerable. Better to just wait, see where we’re going,
then I can make a decision.

I rip a whole in the tarp lining my crate and
peer outside. Hills and vineyards roll past as the driver turns
onto the same road I’d taken with Samson only two nights
before.

God, had my freedom really been that
short-lived?

This man must be taking me back to Master.
Surely he saw me lying here in the back of his truck. He wouldn’t
just drive off without checking his cargo, now would he? No, I bet
he saw me. I bet he knows Master, and now he’s taking me back,
probably expecting some sort of reward for his trouble.

All I can expect is the crop.

I’m a huddling, shivering wreck as the truck
bounces and dips along the road. For a brief moment, I wonder if I
should try to make a run for it. Could I survive a fall from this
speed? Surely we’re not going any faster than 30 miles-per-hour. I
could live through that, right? I might have a few broken bones,
but I’d be alive, and I’d be free.

My heart is pounding. I glance outside again,
but confusion overtakes me as I stare down at the road.

Cobblestone?

Where did cobblestone come from?

I think back to my escape two nights ago, and
I’m sure that Samson’s feet never hit any cobblestone. We’d ridden
across a dirt road, so where did this street come from?

My transformation into this semi-animal state
must have made me stupid, because it takes nearly a full minute
before realization hits. This truck isn’t taking me back to Master.
It’s taking me away from him. It’s taking the same route I’d
planned during my impromptu flight, a route that will take us
straight into town.

I smile so big it hurts.

Freedom, rescue, salvation, they’re all so
close now.

I can hear the mull of people outside. Other
cars drive past us. The steady clop of hooves echoes through the
narrow streets. Voices rise and fall as they pass by in
Doppler-like fashion.

I can’t see much, not right now. We’ve pulled
into town and the streets are painfully narrow. All I can see are
sun-baked brick walls as I peer between the slats of my crate.

I want to pop out of this box so badly. There
are people here, people who can help me, and naked or not, it’s all
I can do not to leap from this truck and throw myself at their
feet.

Hold me. Save me. Tell me I’m human.

I need so badly to feel human again.

The truck turns a corner, and I take a deep
breath. It’s now or never. The vehicle’s brakes whistle as we come
to a halt. Behind us, the steady clop of hooves goes silent.
Slowly, I ease open the top of my crate.

Only my shock keeps me from screaming.

I’m staring past the back bumper of the truck
now, but I can’t focus on anything except the tall woman standing
in the center of the road.

Only she’s not really a woman.

Naked, her ebony skin glistens in the
sunlight. I watch the rise and fall of her breasts and hear the
jingle of the tiny gold bells hanging from her pierced nipples.

She stares at me, but she doesn’t speak. She
can’t. What looks like a horse’s bridle is strapped around her
head. A heavy bit pulls back her lips, and the blinders pressed
against her face force her to stare directly ahead.

Directly at me.

A squeak escapes my throat. I clap a hand
over my mouth and duck back inside my crate. I’m shivering. I can’t
stop shivering. I can barely breathe as I rip away more of the
crate’s inner tarp and stare through the back slats.

I keep waiting for the woman to give me away,
but she does nothing. She just stands there, her back straight,
chin erect, arms bound tightly behind her. In the background, a man
sits perched atop a small, single person carriage. He shouts out
what sounds like a greeting to the gentleman across the street and
then gives the reins in his hand a swift tug.

I watch the woman’s head jerk back. I see her
pivot. The thin leather harness that binds her to the carriage
pulls taut against her skin. She raises one foot and steps
forward.

And that’s when I see the boots.

Oh, God, I hope they’re just boots.

Brown leather wraps her legs from hip to
ankle only to end in what looks like glossy black hooves that
envelop her feet. No human foot could fit in such a small
enclosure. I cringe as I realize her bindings must keep her on
permanent tip-toes, and suddenly my old greaves don’t seem nearly
so bad.

She brings her knee up to her pelvis with
each step, and as she pulls her cart around the truck, her strides
slowly building into a trot, I see the long, black horse-hair tail
hanging from between the cheeks of her ass.

Oh, sweet Lord, what kind of fucked up world
is this?

I can barely breathe. The truck pulls forward
once again and an avenue of perversion opens up before me.

More vehicles pass by. I see several trucks,
a handful of topless cars, but mostly, I just see carriages. Small,
light carriages, all with these…these ponygirls attached to the
reins.

White. Black. Brown. Bronze. Skin color
doesn’t matter here. It’s equal opportunity debasement.

Across the street, several girls are tied to
a hitching post of sorts. Each one has her arms strapped behind her
in long, leather sleeves, and several lower their lips to the
trough in front of them as a man in overalls rings out a sponge and
starts to wipe down the tall Nordic woman on the end.

His hand disappears into the slit between her
legs. She stomps her hoof-bound foot on the ground several times
before arching her back and letting out a deep moan.

This is so, so fucked up.

Surely a whole town couldn’t be this
deranged. I mean, this can’t actually be normal, can it?

The truck turns around a corner. We pull down
a street lined with wide sidewalks and tall store fronts. I see men
walking now. Several are dressed in suits nearly as nice as my
master’s, and at the end of their leashes collared women crawl by
their side.

I’m whispering “No, no, no…” over and over in
my head as I watch a red-coated gentleman pause in front of a
bakery. A tiny Asian girl crawls at her master’s feet, and when the
old baker comes out with a tray full of bread, she pops onto her
ass and whimpers until the shopkeeper slides a piece into her
mouth.

The old man fondles her breasts, and she
leans into his touch.

This is way, way beyond fucked up.

Not a single woman wears clothes. Not a
single one speaks. None of them are really human. They’re all just
naked, subservient animals.

They’re all just like me.

A sob boils ups in my chest. I bury my teeth
in the heel of my hand as a line of ponygirls trot past the open
slats on my left. The steady clop of their feet mixed with the soft
jangle of their bells covers the sound of my retching.

No one’s eating these grapes now.

I know that everything I’m seeing is sick.
It’s twisted and perverted. It’s nothing like the wholesome Baptist
life my parents raised me to live. I should hate it all.

But if that’s so, why are the sights around
me making my pussy throb uncontrollably?

My hips thrust against the grapes. I can’t
stop them. There’s no denying the wetness between my legs now, and
it’s not the grapes. It’s me.

I sob again.

Daddy has every right to hate me.

I should kill myself now. I should use
whatever little bit of coherent thought I have left to just end
this. Better to die half-human than to live as one of those beasts
forever. Right?

Outside a pair of women splash through the
leftover puddles from last night’s thunderstorm. There’s something
vaguely familiar about the sway of the blonde’s hips as she rubs
her body against the redhead beside her. It’s not until she
snatches her neck out of her partner’s lips, coy detachment playing
across her every feature, that I finally realize why.

It’s Miss Priss.

The man with the handlebar mustache holds her
leash loosely in one hand as he talks pleasantly to the redhead’s
owner. At his feet, Miss Priss prances. With a haughty glance at
the woman behind her, she lifts her ass in the air, and the
redhead’s face disappears between her legs.

Even from the truck, I can hear her heavy
pants.

Her master chuckles as he looks down. The man
beside him shakes his head and smiles. I watch the redhead dig her
face further into Miss Priss’s clit. The blonde moans low and deep,
just like she did when my lips touched her back in Master’s villa,
and I breathe faster just remembering our times together.

Her back arches. She’s just about to come. I
expect a cry of ecstasy to rip through her throat, but instead, all
I hear is a squeal. She whirls on the ginger and bares her
teeth.

“Not so hard you little cunt!”

Her body stiffens. Her eyes go wide, and no
one moves. Even my truck cuts its engine.

Outside, heavy footsteps break the silence.
The redhead scurries to her master, but Miss Priss doesn’t move.
Fear lines her face. The man with the handlebar mustache drops to
his knees and wraps his arms around her.

She’s shaking hard.

I’m frozen in place. Everyone is. All eyes
are on the trembling woman and her master as a man in a black
uniform slowly approaches them.

Miss Priss is sobbing now.

Her master pleas with the uniformed man. He’s
holding Miss Priss tightly. He shakes his head over and over again,
but the official above him just holds out his hand.

Within seconds, more uniformed men
arrive.

They pull the mustached man away form a
now-hysterical Miss Priss and jerk the leash out of his hand.
Several hold him back before the rest of them turn on my former
playmate.

The girl’s heaving sobs fill the otherwise
silent square. The man in black raises his voice to speak to the
crowd. I can’t understand what he’s saying, but he pulls a
rolled-up poster out of his briefcase, and when he holds it up, I
can see the picture easily enough.

There are two images on the sheet he holds.
One is of a woman sitting at a table. She’s wearing a heavy sweater
and blue jeans. Hardly a speck of her skin shows. In her hand, a
fork dangles from her fingers as she leans forward to speak to the
man across from her.

A giant red X superimposes the image.

Beside it, the same woman lies naked at a
man’s feet. Her mouth is gagged. Her hands are hog-tied to her
feet. With one hand, the man holds her collar so that her back
arches painfully before him. With the other, he cups her
breast.

A permissive green circle surrounds this
picture.

Two men now hold Miss Priss to the ground.
Her breasts spill out across the sidewalk. One of them grabs a
clump of her hair. He yanks back her head.

My heart is hammering along with hers.

The man in black lays his case on the ground.
He opens it. Stainless steal gleams in the sunlight. He pulls out a
pair of forceps and a thin scalpel. Miss Priss shakes her head back
and forth, back and forth, but the officer just grabs her chin. He
forces open her jaw. His forceps dig out her tongue, and when he
lowers the scalpel, I close my eyes tight.

Miss Priss’s scream is loud and terrible
against the silence of the square.

I can’t breathe. I can’t move. Fear silences
me just as soundly as the blood now gurgling down Miss Priss’s
throat.

Dear God, if you lose your tongue for
speaking, what do you lose for running away?