“All, right, Prancer, let’s get to it!”

Trying to ignore the effect of the reins on her nose, Cassie began starting up, always the most difficult part of any journey.  The bottoms of her booties had been outfitted with horseshoes – heavy, but they DID give enough grip so she did not slide in the sandy soil of the roadbed.  She did find that the corset helped her in her push forward with all her might, and finally she did begin moving forward, her constricted breath huffing through the pear bit, her eyes focused on the road ahead, her head fixed in a proud, upright stance, her breasts proudly erect as well, sporting the pretty tassels, blue and red, the colors of Master Hawkins’ alma mater.

The cob in her vagina felt strange, and she was forced to keep her thighs further apart than she was accustomed to, for comfort.

“Go girl!” yelled an excited Horace, as they slowly built up steam, and headed for the lower forty gate.  Sean kept flailing the reins, annoying her to no end, and yelling, “Gettiup!”

As she approached a gentle curve in the road, she caught a small glimpse of her Papa back by the shanty, a sad look on his face.  But she had no time to dwell on it – all her energy and focus was put into getting the cart going.

The momentum built, and she was soon prancing, as required, out the gate and onto the county road, huffing and puffing through her bit, and strutting her stuff, her tassels swinging with her body motion, her Master urging her on, her head high.  In some weird, deep way, she was proud, although the pain was mighty.  She’d win that race!

But Sean was not satisfied. “Faster!”  Abruptly, she felt the sting of his long riding quirt on her buttocks, and she moved even quicker.  “Atta girl!  Run!”

Even though the corset restricted her breath, she DID manage, and her breasts heaved up and down, as her breathing became centered there. 

A small boy loomed ahead, and then waved as they passed him – Sean waved back.  He was having such fun!  So exciting!

Cassie became caught up in the excitement, as if she were merely a spectator, and as if she was not in a genuine amount of pain!  Perhaps it was the adrenalin, perhaps it was the feeling of being ‘free’, in a perverse, odd sense, free to ‘gallop’ along the country roads, something she would never had been permitted to do if not harnessed like this. Thinking about it, she had not been off the plantation since last summer!  Only these fetters allowed her this ‘freedom’.  If not for the pear bit, she may have very well at that moment yelled out at the top of her lungs, “I live!”  It was God’s intention for a free woman to feel like this, and, really, were not all men meant to be free?  And, right now, this minute, this second, she was FREE IN THE WIND!!

Am I losing my mind?  Reality abruptly made its face known.

Sean must have completely forgotten, or chose to ignore his promise to Horace that he would return momentarily, for the ‘fun” ended (at least for Cassie), when they got to the general store about a mile down the road.

It was there that he pulled on the reins harshly, pulling the rod into Cassie’s face in a painful way, slowing her down not just because her neck was pulled even further backward than its constrained position forced it, because her eyes saw the redness of blinding pain. 

“Whoa, girl…whoa!”

Of course, Sean was oblivious to her pain, merely hopping off the cart before she stopped, and pulling the reins over her head and tying them to the to the hitching post in front of the store.

Sean went into the store, and just as Cassie was regaining her composure, who should walk up but the small boy they had passed on the road?  He appeared to be about seven years old and stood, there, staring at her for a few minutes.

Then he asked, “Can I have a ride in your wagon?”

Of course, Cassie could do nothing but look at him, turning her head as best as she could, considering the posture strap held it tightly in place, in a futile attempt to see around the blinders.  Did not this little white boy know what she was?  Even little boys (and girls) were taken to the races now and then.

He repeated, “Can I have a ride in your wagon?”

When she didn’t respond, he began to pull on one of her breast tassels – hard – like a spoiled brat pulling on his mother’s skirts!  PAIN!  MORE PAIN! And this not even necessary!

The little boy kept repeating his question, over and over, all the while pulling harder and harder on her breasts.  She leaned over to accommodate the pulls best as she could, considering her tethered reins, but relief was impossible.

Over and over he pulled, and she was in agony, protesting with a muffled grunting from deep within her throat.  STOP, STOP! PLEASE, STOP!

But he didn’t seem to understand that she could not talk, and, with a little boy’s stubbornness, he was determined to get her to respond.

Finally, in desperation and acute pain, she lashed out her horseshoe-clad foot and kicked him in the face, sending him sprawling across the dusty road.  He lay there motionless.  What have I done?

Of course, as luck would have it, it was just then, at the moment she kicked him, that an elderly white man came around the outside corner of the store, from the outhouse, fixing his pants. Cassie was in shock!

The old man stopped in his tracks, looked at the boy, and then at Cassie, and began yelling, on his way into the store.  Pointing to the door, he yelled to Sean, “Do you own that there pony girl?  She just killed a little boy!  Kicked him in the head, she did!”

Sean came running out, and spotting the boy, and leaned over him.  “He’s still breathing!”

“WHAT did you do, Prancer?  What’s gotten into you?”

With that, and the old man and the storekeeper looking, he picked up the boy and put him in the cart.  Then he untied Cassie, slapped her hard in the face with the back of his hand, saying, “Damn you!”  Cassie had been slapped hard before (after all, she was a slave!), but this hurt even more, considering how the incident was provoked.

Sean jumped into cart, straddling the little boy, who was still unconscious, and angrily pulled on the reins, “Get goin’, bitch!”  Despite the harsh tugging on her nose, and the myriad of other pains, Cassie never started up so fast.  She was on the road trotting toward Doc Atkin’s house in record time.  “Go!”

It didn’t take long to traverse the two miles, and Cassie was huffing and puffing all the way, almost dropping when they finally arrived.  The corset, in particular, was bothering her, as her breasts had kept pounding on its top ridge in her haste.  This was exacerbated due to the fact that it was further away from her body because it had loosened in the trauma of the run, and, while the looser feeling was welcome, she hardy noticed it in her focused trot.

Sean galloped her up to the hitching post in front to Doc’s house, but in his haste, failed to tie her up to it.  Grabbing the boy, he rushed to the front door and began banging until the housekeeper answered.  He quickly entered and the door was closed behind them.  Then the door was re-opened quickly, and the black face of the housekeeper peeked out, looked at Cassie, and then closed the door again.

As her breathing calmed, Cassie became aware of the fact that she was not tethered, and temptation reared it head.  She feared the repercussions of her actions back at the general store.  Sean had a bad temper, and his father was worse. But where would she go?  Trussed up like this, she’d have to find someone to free her.  Papa?  No, she wouldn’t want to risk his life like that.  There WAS no one else, and unless she could be sure she somehow could get free, then the chances of getting caught after running away were very high -- punishment for THAT would be FAR worse than what she might be in for now…

She just stood there, thinking, her body racked with pain, shuddering at how she would be treated after Master Sean came back, especially if the boy was seriously hurt.  God, help me… Her jaws were starting to hurt badly.

CHAPTER THREE - THE ARRANGEMENT

The plantation mansion’s posh drawing room.   Mr. Hawkins, his son, Sean, and the widow Brady, Jessup Brady’s mother.