It was the summer of 1987 and I was sixteen – almost seventeen. Scrawny in those days and usually displaying at least a couple of grazes from a skateboarding mishap. The wounds might have been more important than the boarding skills: badges of honor that even an uncoordinated kid could acquire.

My summer holiday that year began with a little bit of a disappointment, when mom and dad said that they were going on a holiday to Europe. From the outset they left me in no doubt that they were planning a trip that was just for two: a second honeymoon in fact.

So, could I be trusted to look after the house for four weeks?

No. This came just a few days after my buddies and I had been busted for under-age drinking. Nothing major, but we’d been experimenting with a purloined bottle of Jack Daniels and I was brought home by the police: no real harm done but in my parents’ eyes this suggested that I’d be hosting a wild party before their ’plane touched down in Paris.

What would I do, then?

“No problem,” they assured me. It seemed that my aunt Ashley had offered to host me, on her ranch in Arizona.

We saw aunt Ashley once or twice a year. I liked her: she’d married my mom’s kid brother, Frank... but Frank had died in an auto wreck and I barely remembered him. To a teenage boy with a typical teenager’s acute awareness of the opposite sex, aunt Ashley was... intriguing. She could be sharp and forceful, but this demeanor seemed to suit her angular good looks and it was hard to resent her. To be honest, I’d had a crush on her for years.

A summer spent on her ranch in Arizona? I could do a lot worse. The arrangements were made and soon I was on a Southwest Airlines flight to Tucson.

Aunt Ashley would be waiting for me in the arrivals hall, I knew. Southwest had some kind of computer mix-up that day and a lot of passengers were complaining about missing luggage items. I was relieved when I recognized my case: I hauled it off the belt and headed for the exit.

Aunt Ashley gave me a welcoming hug, which was nice. Perhaps too nice.

“I was starting to wonder if you’d missed the flight,” she scolded.

“It’s crazy back there,” I explained. “Hundreds of people have lost their luggage!”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, “but you have everything?”

“Sure,” I said, “let’s go.”

Aunt Ashley led me out to the parking lot where she’d left a pickup. She threw my case into the back and motioned for me to take a seat in the cab. Soon we were driving east, away from the city.

When I look back on that summer there’s a dreamlike quality to my memories. Even the light, back then, seemed different: a diffuse, buttery yellow. When I wasn’t sneaking glances at my aunt’s legs I enjoyed watching the scenery, so very different from Oklahoma City.

The ranch was on the edge of the Saguaro National Park. Aunt Ashley explained that she only spent holidays there, mostly splitting her time between Albuquerque and Tucson.

“Staying on the ranch makes for a fun adventure,” she explained, “but I’d get lonely if I tried to do it yearlong.”

She fiddled with the radio, but it was the old AM type and we couldn’t get a good signal. Music sounded nasty so she opted to listen to the news. The Iran-Iraq war was still grinding on and at that time it looked as if the US might be drawn into it.

“Urgh,” she said, switching off the radio. “Too depressing!”

We made smalltalk. At one point I was interrogated about school (going okay) and girlfriends (none) but for the most part my aunt was content to rattle along in silence.

Presently we turned off the highway and bounced along a road that felt as if it hadn’t seen a repair crew since the Works Progress Administration.

“We don’t get much traffic out this way,” aunt Ashley explained. “Nobody’s going to pay to fix the road – and the big trucks going to and from the mine just ride over the ruts.”

“The mine?” I asked.

“Oh, did I never tell you about the mine?” Aunt Ashley smiled. “It’s the reason I was able to keep the ranch. We – Frank and I, that is – had an approach from a company that wanted to mine on our land, if it was suitable. They did a mineral survey up on Broken Hill, but that’s as far as things had gone when Frank died. Turns out the ranch is sitting on a rich copper deposit: now they do the mining and I collect a check every month. With Frank gone I couldn’t have kept up the ranch all on my own, but thanks to the mine I’ve been able to keep the land that I love, plus a few animals, just for old times’ sake.”

I started to wonder how much fun I’d be able to have, miles from anywhere on a ranch that was all but mothballed.

“Not far now,” she flashed me a reassuring smile. It was lovely: the kind that could kindle all kinds of fantasies in the teenage mind.

I have to admit that it looked like a great place for a holiday: the Rincon Mountains made a beautiful backdrop and the land wasn’t as arid as I’d expected. There were a few horses corralled near the house, with pasture beyond. The house itself was small and a little bit run down, but hardly a ruin. There were also outbuildings of various shapes, sizes and functions.

From one of them, a man came out to greet us.

“Jed,” aunt Ashley introduced us. “You remember I told you about Jordan? We’ll be staying here together.”

“Jordan,” he greeted me. He took my hand in his own immense paw, and pumped it. His callused skin was lumpy, like the plates on an armadillo: I felt puny in comparison.

He turned his attention back to my aunt. “I’ve stocked up like you asked and everything’s fine. Star’s still on daily antibiotics and shouldn’t be ridden for at least a week, yet. Oh – Laura came by earlier with a bundle of bed linen and towels. Also an apple pie. It’s all inside.”

“That’s great, Jed,” my aunt said. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”

“Thanks, but I’ll hit the road...” the burly ranch hand seemed a little uncomfortable. “We’ve got a fair ways to go: I told Emily we’d make Nogales tonight.”

As he spoke, he glanced at his truck and it was clear that he wanted to get gone. Aunt Ashley apologized for our late arrival and then didn’t detain him further.

“Jed’s great with the animals,” she explained. “He does a good job, looking after the place for weeks on end, but he doesn’t like to share. He’s long overdue for a holiday so we agreed that I’d spell him for a month. Give me a hand with these cases?”

She lowered the tailgate, but right away we saw that something was amiss.

In the pickup bed was an auxiliary fuel tank: a squat cylinder on welded brackets that could hold an extra twenty gallons of gas. Not right now, though: at some point during our rough ride a hose had pulled off, causing the contents of the tank to slosh all over the pickup’s bed.

“That’s... weird,” she mused, not so much angry as confused. She sniffed, and made a face.

“What is, aunt Ashley?” I asked.

“One of the cases has been completely soaked with gas, but the other has only a couple splashes on it.”

Mine had escaped the deluge, but hers was soaked. It reeked and as we lifted it down it squelched and the gas oozed out of it.

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. When she opened the case we discovered that virtually everything inside was ruined. In addition to the terrible smell, the gasoline had made the colors in all her clothes run.

“I hope your insurance...” I began.

“That’s so fucked up!”

Aunt Ashley surprised me with her language, but I understood that it was going to be a major nuisance, replacing all those clothes – even if the damage would be paid for.

“There’s no point stinking out the house with that,” she declared, kicked the case and stalked off towards the house.

I followed in her wake, dragging my own case.

“You’ve got some clothes here already, right?” I asked.

“I... guess,” she said. “Maybe a few.”

She looked dubious.

She showed me around the house. There were two bedrooms on the upper floor, and they’d both been aired. Presumably by ‘Laura’, whoever she was. I couldn’t imagine Jed paying attention to details like that.

Of the two rooms, one was slightly smaller and very girly in nature. There was a poster of a unicorn wading in a forest pool and beneath this were masses of soft toys such as teddy bears.

Aunt Ashley looked in the wardrobe and pulled open a couple drawers. Her search revealed some clothing and she picked it over, regarding everything critically. Sighing, she selected a few pairs of panties and a T-shirt. It read ‘Hello Kitty’ and this was the first time I heard of that particular brand.

She held the tee up against herself, and looked in the mirror. “At least I’ll have something to sleep in,” she grumbled. “I’ll make some space and you can use this room.”

“Why don’t I take the other one?” I asked – which was kind of rude because I was her guest, but it seemed to make more sense that I should have the completely empty room, which (I have to admit) had the added advantage of not featuring unicorns and teddy bears.

Aunt Ashley regarded me sullenly. I think I detected a pout, even. “Okay,” she said, after a moment. Reluctantly, she shrugged. “Makes sense, I suppose.”

I hauled my case upstairs and into the more manly of the two rooms. Then we went downstairs and I was taken to meet the horses.

Aunt Ashley called to them and they wandered over to see us. Bobbo was a ridiculously fat little pony, while Star was an American Quarter Horse, long retired from racing but still impressive. Next I was introduced to Chief: I was told that he would probably be the best choice for me.

“He’s a gelding,” Aunt Ashley explained.

“What’s that?” I asked, assuming it was some breed I didn’t know.

“It means he’s been... you know... castrated,” she explained, making scissoring motions with her fingers. Did I detect a mischievous glint in her eye as she enjoyed my discomfort?

“It’s something that’s done to a lot of males: gives them a better nature. In fact, in the heat, a gelding is generally sweeter than a mare.” She patted Chief’s muzzle and talked softly to him. “Yeah, Chiefy: you’re so nice now. I’m sorry we took your balls, but you’re so sweet! Aw...”

She kissed the horse on the nose. I was a bit grossed out, thinking about the bacteria that might thrive on a sweaty horse muzzle, and Aunt Ashley giggled.

“He’s my favorite,” she mouthed – as if the others might overhear and resent this.

She led the way over to a separate paddock and a fourth horse ambled over to see us. “Speaking of mares, this is Patch. She’s a Peruvian Paso, and she’s probably worth more than my truck. I’ve had her artificially inseminated recently and I’m hoping that she’s going to be a mamma. Hi Patchie, darlin’!”

It was getting late and I’d travelled a long way so we had no intention of riding that evening. Aunt Ashley spent an hour showing me some of things that had to be done to care for the animals and then we went back to the house. She looked through the refrigerator and was pleased to find that it really was well stocked. We started preparing food.

On the back of the kitchen door hung an apron, old-fashioned and frilly.

“You should wear this,” she said. “Protect your clothes.”

“You’re the one that’s short of clothes,” I countered.

“Point,” she conceded, reluctantly, and donned the apron. We cooked some kind of elaborate chicken dish with peppers: I don’t remember what it was called.

“Your mom told me about your little misdemeanor with the Jack Daniels,” my aunt said, presently. “If you promise not to be an asshole, you can have a beer – but just one.”

“Thanks, aunt Ashley,” I said.

“Ugh, that makes me sound like I’m about seventy!” she protested.

“Sorry,” I said. “What should –”

“When it’s just the two of us, how about I answer to Ash?” she offered.

“That’s... lovely. I mean great!” No doubt I was blushing furiously. She grinned: a wolfish grin that could make a guy feel a little bit nervous.

The food was good. At home we didn’t often cook from fresh ingredients but despite the additional work it was a real treat. I said as much, and aunt Ashley beamed.

“No TV dinners in my house,” she said. “By the end of your holiday, I reckon you’ll be quite the cook!”

We had some apple pie and then I was surprised to be told that it was almost time to turn in.

“Life on the ranch starts at sunrise,” aunt Ashley chided. “You won’t be a night owl tomorrow, after a full day of fresh air and exercise!”

I had a book that I wanted to finish so I didn’t object. She said I could use the bathroom first so I had a pee, washed my face and brushed my teeth. I decided I’d make more of an effort in the morning.

When I emerged I found aunt Ashley waiting in the corridor. She’d changed for bed, wearing the ‘Hello Kitty’ tee and not a whole lot else. Some panties, I guess. I tried not to ogle her... and failed. In that casual state she looked a lot younger: she could almost have been one of the girls from school.

“Hello... Kitty,” I joked. Trying to make light of the fact that I’d been checking her out.

Her cheeks dimpled prettily as she smiled. She looked a little self-conscious, but also pleased to know that I liked what I saw. Perhaps it felt good to know she still had what it takes to interest a teenage boy.

“Are you gonna let me in the bathroom?” she asked when I didn’t move.

“Uh, sorry,” I said.

I tried to move aside, but we both went the same way: her left, my right. When we dodged back the other way, we collided. I felt the soft pressure of her breasts against me.

“I... sorry aunt, er. Sorry, Ash. Excuse me!”

“Barn dance is Thursday,” she joked – but didn’t back off right away.

Something that neither of us quite dared to acknowledge hung in the air, as thick and as tense as a summer thunderstorm – and if you knew aunt Ashley, you’d know that she always had to up the ante.

“You too growed up to give your poor old auntie Ash a goodnight kiss?” she challenged.

Puckering up, but not quite moving my lips all the way into contact seemed the safest thing to do. This had several advantages for me: primarily that I could write it off as a joke if she proved to have been kidding! Also, I didn’t have to speak, and it left her to choose exactly what kind of kiss it was to be – if any.

Instead of offering her cheek, she kissed me softly but purposefully on the lips.

“Minty!” she exclaimed, and her mischievous grin was back. She pressed me to one side: my mind was awhirl and I didn’t resist at all. She eased past me, slowly. I’m quite sure that she rubbed herself against me far more than was necessary.

“‘Night night, honey,” she said, closing the bathroom door and then bolting it.

I stood for a moment, trying to understand exactly what had just happened. I decided that the best thing to do was to play it cool, since she was probably only teasing me. I took myself off to bed where I lay awake for a long time, my mind racing.

The next morning, after I had showered, I went downstairs. I saw aunt Ashley coming across the yard, still in her ‘Hello Kitty’ teeshirt.

“Had to fix the generator,” she explained. “Glad you’re up – the horses will be waiting for us.”

“You fixed the generator, in...?” I let the question tail off to nothing. Much as I liked seeing her in her T-shirt and panties, it seemed a little bizarre.

“Who’s gonna see?” she giggled. “Our nearest neighbor is more than three miles away and the horses don’t care!”

Is she doing this on purpose? I wondered. Is she deliberately teasing me? Maybe she’s just flirting with me for laughs.

I decided that the best course of action was probably to rub one out, that night. She made me horny, but there were ways to take care of business. If she carried on teasing me like this, I knew I’d have to make sure that I didn’t become too needy.

Meanwhile, there was a whole day ahead. I got started on a bowl of cereal but Ash insisted that I should have bacon and eggs as well. “I can’t have you going all faint on me, after a long, hard morning in the saddle!”

Effortlessly seductive, she could make any line sound like something from a porn film.

I tried to change the subject, complimenting her on the scrambled egg.

“You like?” she asked. “That’s good, because I have a favor to ask.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“We’re about the same size,” she said. “Can I borrow some clothes? I need to wash my one remaining outfit – then I can wear it when I go into town tomorrow to get something new.”

“You don’t want to get some new clothes today?”

“It’s Sunday, silly,” she said.

“Uh, okay, what do you need?” I wondered.

“T-shirt? Pair of jeans? Only I feel about twelve in this tee.”

“Sure,” I said. “Help yourself.”

“Thanks honey,” she said, and kissed me on the cheek.

It was going to be a long day.

When breakfast was complete we got ready to ride.

“Jeans aren’t ideal because of the seams,” aunt Ashley explained, “but thanks for the loan. Maybe I’ll get us both get some jodhpurs when we’re in town.”

She rocked in my loose-fitting jeans. The thought of that sweet, tight ass and... everything else... in my jeans was incredibly seductive. I promised myself that I’d never throw out that pair: they’d always be my favorite.

As promised, we spent the full day on the ranch. Pretty soon I was mounted on Chief, trotting and cantering as she directed. I’d only ridden a few times before, in childhood, but I felt safe on the big gelding’s back. Ash rode Patch, which she assured me was fine: mares can be ridden until the third trimester, when their foal puts on its final growth spurt.

We headed out, up into the hills. Aunt Ashley said we were checking the condition of the fences, but it was in reality a flimsy excuse to ride out for a picnic.

“How am I doing?” I asked as I rode.

“Not too bad, but he’s clearly the one in charge,” my aunt observed.

“How do you mean?”

“See how he grabs a snack whenever we pass some vegetation? He wouldn’t dare behave like that if I was riding him.”

“I don’t mind it,” I objected. “He’s doing all the work, after all.”

“And you’re a pushover,” she giggled.

I scowled. I tried to rein Chief in a bit but my aunt was right: I was more of a passenger than a rider.

“I think Chief likes you,” aunt Ashley said, “but he’s humoring you. He doesn’t really see you as a control figure. If he gets thirsty, he’s going to take himself off for a drink, and you’ll have to pretend you wanted to go that way...”

“I’ll... try to be more assertive,” I promised.

“Oh, please, don’t go changing on my behalf,” aunt Ashley smirked. “The future Mrs Jordan Kelly won’t thank me if I go making you all bossy!”

There was nobody in the frame to become Mrs Jordan Kelly and aunt Ashley probably knew as much from my willingness to come and live on a ranch for a month. I’d had girlfriends in the past but they tended to give me the ‘friend speech’ if I attempted to get serious. There was nobody back in Oklahoma City that I was currently pining for – and besides, I had my beautiful aunt, and my fantasies...

That morning we found just one place where the fence needed to be repaired. The wire had been pulled away from three posts but this was easily fixed with some new staples and the small hammer that Ash had brought along. When I finished hammering the staples into place I saw that Ash had spread a picnic rug and poured us each a drink. The horses were nibbling at the grass.

“What if they run off?” I asked. It would be a long walk back to the house.

“I’ve hobbled them,” Aunt Ashley explained. “Come and see.”

I saw how the simple leather device with two loops allowed the animals to browse, but they’d never be able to get very far.

“That’s my big strong boy, all hobbled and helpless!” Again my aunt was fussing over the gelding, and paying him enough attention to make me blush. The horse gazed back at her, his mood stoical, I thought.

I went to get my drink: iced tea, I discovered. A good choice for a hot day, although I guessed that the reason we were taking an early break was because the ice was already melting away to nothing.

My aunt joined me on the picnic rug.

“Jealous?” she asked.

“Of what?”

“I thought I detected... like maybe you were jealous of Chief?”

“No,” I said, “I just thought you two ought to get a room.”

“You are jealous!” My aunt cackled. “Is it because I kiss him on the nose?”

She made as if to kiss me in a similar fashion, and I fended her off.

“Is it... because I put him in hobbles and show him I’m the boss?”

“What? No way!”

Aunt Ashley stuck out her bottom lip.

“Aren’t you even just a little bit intrigued to know what it feels like to be trussed up, helpless?”

“No,” I said. This was getting weird and I was starting to feel that I wasn’t nearly worldly enough to be left alone with aunt Ashley: she seemed to have exotic tastes indeed.

“Oh,” she said, disappointed. “Sometimes it’s fun.”

I racked my brains for some other topic of conversation, and failed to think of anything.

“In fact, I love it,” she said, biting her lip.

“I guess we’ve got a lot more fence to inspect,” I squeaked, scrambling to my feet.

“Spoilsport,” she said.

As we packed away the picnic rug and made ready to ride again, Aunt Ashley muttered something about needing to fix the damn generator, which seemed an odd thing to be thinking about because it was miles away. I let it pass.

The rest of the day saw a couple more fence repairs, and I acquired an appreciation of the scale of the ranch as we rode. We stopped by Broken Hill for a while and watched the mining operation. It wasn’t pretty, what they were doing to the land, but it looked as if the huge open-cast mine must be profitable.

When we got back to the house Ash asked me to take care of the horses. She took herself off to look at the generator again. It was still thundering away and I couldn’t imagine what might be wrong with it. Still, I was happy enough rubbing down Patch and Chief. My aunt must have been gone for almost an hour. When she returned, we made dinner together: another banquet – or maybe I was just hungry.

...

“Oh shitfire!” A discordant, booming sound came from the laundry room.

I looked in and found that Ash was kicking the washing machine.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s stuck,” she said. “This cocksucker is halfway through a wash, and it’s just stopped. It won’t finish the wash and I can’t get the door open.”

I tried to help but the machine was stuck fast. If we didn’t want to permanently wreck the machine and cause a flood we would need to call a repair man. Meanwhile, aunt Ashley’s last set of ‘respectable’ clothes were out of reach, stuck in the machine.

“This is like a bad dream,” aunt Ashley protested.

I’d never seen her look so vulnerable before. She took herself off upstairs, and I think I heard her crying.

I’d never lived with somebody as emotional as aunt Ashley. The highs were wonderful, but the lows could be terrifying. I didn’t know what I could do about all this, so I tried to give her as much space as I could.

...

In the days to come I learned to do many of the simpler jobs that are required on a ranch. When I wasn’t working, I was riding. The strong Arizona sunlight soon baked me nut-brown, while the daily exercise left me with a huge appetite. I thought that perhaps my shirts were starting to feel a little bit tight: it seemed that my scrawny chest was filling out at last.

I loved how the fresh air and exercise made me feel. I think Ash enjoyed her time away from the city too: she was so much calmer – at least, when she wasn’t teasing me or fretting about the washing machine, or the generator.

We had so much fun that it seemed she forgot to go into town and buy new clothes. Even when we took the truck and shopped for groceries, she only picked up some toiletries and a few items of underwear: she said that we didn’t have time as we needed to get back to the horses. Each day she was wearing more of the teenage clothing she’d found in her room. She looked cute in it and I didn’t object because it reinforced my fantasies that she was my girlfriend instead of my aunt.

I was taking care of my sexual tension on a nightly basis.

I believe we were both having a good summer, although from time to time Ash would look puzzled or dismayed, and at such times she would insist on going out to check on the generator. I couldn’t hear anything wrong with it: the machine thrummed steadily all day and night, never missing a beat. I began to wonder if “taking care of the generator” was some kind of euphemism. Did she perhaps use that shed as a private place where she did something to take care of her own needs?

There was a place that Ash associated with sex, although it was nowhere near the generator: it was the other side of the yard. We’d been on the ranch for twelve days when she said that she wanted to show me something cool. She took my hand and led me to spot where two wooden boards had been placed to cover a hole.

“What’s this?” I asked.

She kicked a board aside and I saw that steps led down into darkness.

It’s my dungeon,” she giggled, rolling her eyes theatrically.

“I believe you,” I laughed. “How many people have you got locked up in there?”

“You found me out,” she grinned. “I confess everything: I lure young men here, and add them to my collection. I call it the Stud Farm. You should see how many of them I’ve got down there, all chained up.”

“You’re the one that needs to be chained up,” I countered.

“Promises, promises!” she said, looking up at me through fluttering eyelashes.

She seized my hand again and led me down the steps, pausing to take a flashlight from a niche.

“This is a storm shelter with a difference,” she explained as we descended. “It was originally built to be a bomb shelter, just after the Cuban missile crisis. We’re about twenty feet below ground level here. This is the first of two steel blast doors. Give it a push: it still opens.”

I did so. Beyond, I found myself in a short corridor with another blast door ahead.

“Go on,” aunt Ashley encouraged me.

“Nuh-uh,” I said. “You go first. You’re not shutting me in here!”

“Aw, you’re no fun at all,” she said, and squeezed past me. We both felt the sex that sparked between us as she rubbed her body against mine.

She swung the door aside. “Won’t you come into my parlor?” she said, biting her lip.

Groping around for a light switch, at last she was able to provide some much-needed illumination, although the single bulb didn’t do much. Battery power, I guessed.

The room was cylindrical, like a tunnel. There was a large tank marked “water” and shelves containing tins and boxes of food.

“Jesus,” I said, “these crackers are dated 1964.”

“It’s the maid’s day off,” Ash giggled, “but I didn’t bring you down here to look at my crackers.”

“Why did you?” I asked, hardly daring to hope.

“Because... what happens in the underworld stays in the underworld... right?”

It was wrong. I knew that: but I was nearly seventeen and Ash was gorgeous and she was throwing herself at me. What would you have done?

Of course, I kissed her.

“I just feel so naughty all the time,” she said, when we stopped kissing long enough to get some buttons undone. “I don’t understand it! I’m just... such a complete ditz, now. I just want to... all the time...”

“You want to what?” I demanded.

For once, I was feeling bold. This was it: ignore the freaky surroundings. Maybe try to respect what she’s said about this being an out-of-bounds place where we could play this game and the normal rules didn’t apply. Worry about that later.

“Don’t you feel it?” she asked. “It’s so... interesting.”

“Interesting?” I asked, trying to make sure I hadn’t misread the signals: that I wasn’t about to make a fool of myself.

Ash outlined her fantasy:

“I’m all alone with you. You’re so strong, so completely in control. I don’t even have any clothes to wear! And if I don’t please you, I know you can chain me up, down here. You can lock me up, if I don’t do as I’m told...”

There was a length of chain on the floor. It was dusty and a little bit corroded, but she eagerly picked it up, wrapping it twice around her body.

“Uhhh, this is getting me so fucking hot!” she exclaimed. Already, she had hitched up her little denim skirt and reached into her panties. I think she was fingering herself.

So that was where I lost my virginity: in a filthy old bomb shelter, far under ground. Given the forbidden nature of our relationship, perhaps it helped to know that we wouldn’t be found, or overheard.

We kissed – urgent, demanding kisses on both sides. After a minute or two I indicated that Ash should lie down on one of the bunks. Despite the filth she complied eagerly.

“Chain me up, chain me up!” Ash said urgently. She held out her forearms, and I wrapped the chain about them. There was no means of locking the chain in place, but I improvised with a twist of wire. I think she liked that.

Looking back, I have some regrets. My first time should have been with a high school sweetheart, every bit as nervous and excited as I was. Ash, in contrast, knew exactly what she wanted – and exactly what she needed to do to get me off. It was intense when it should have been tentative; kinky when even the good old missionary position would have been novel, for me.

So maybe it was a mistake, but sex with Ash was addictive.

Over dinner that evening, she asked me if I wanted to have another look at the bomb shelter.

“Sure,” I said. Then we broke the rule of “what happens in the underworld”: we never made it out of the house.

Ash begged me to spank her, and slithered out of her shorts before settling herself on all fours on the sofa. I obliged her – although I didn’t satisfy her until I increased the force of the slaps to the maximum of which I was capable. My hand stung terribly, and I can’t imagine what her ass must have felt like.

When she turned over and invited me to screw her she was very wet.

That night demolished any inhibitions I might have had. It set the pattern for the days that followed: Ash was like a mare in heat, demanding attention. She wore the skimpiest outfits from her teenage collection and she begged me to administer punishments or to restrain her. This was unfamiliar territory for me and I doubt that I was inventive enough to fully satisfy her needs, but I was young and fit. By day I rode horses; by night I rode her.

One evening, we were entangled together on the floor of her ridiculous boudoir, both blissed out. We hadn’t managed to reach the bed.

We were interrupted by a heavy thumping on the door.

“Who could that be?” I wondered.

We peeped out the window.

“The dance!” my aunt exclaimed. “I’d forgotten! It’s Thursday. Isn’t it? Yes, I think it is. That’s Dennis and his son Sean, from up the valley. I invited them to come over so we could all go to the dance in East Hollow tonight.”

“What?” I said, hurrying to pull on my jeans. “Why in the world did you do that?”

Ash looked genuinely alarmed. “I don’t know!” She exclaimed, zipping herself into a denim miniskirt. She frowned prettily, but she was clearly concerned.

“I have literally no idea why I thought that would be a good idea,” she said, twisting her hair nervously.

Ash was all thumbs, and still half naked. I hauled on my shirt and hurried downstairs to greet our visitors.

I think they were a little taken aback at our lack of readiness, but nobody could stay mad at Ash. She looked cute in that tiny denim skirt and an imported Japanese tee that featured Donkey Kong Junior.

“You planning on going like that?” Dennis grinned.

“Give me five minutes!” she called, and ran upstairs.

I offered Dennis and Sean a beer and we tried to make polite conversation while we waited. Ash was plenty more than five minutes – probably trying and failing to find something suitable to wear.

My aunt called from upstairs: “Jordan, could you help me with something?”

Pleased to have some excuse to escape from the awkward sausagefest in the kitchen, I left them to their beers and joined her. She was wearing a short sundress and she looked gorgeous – but it wasn’t the kind of thing you’d normally see on anybody over the age of about fourteen. The matching headband made her look particularly innocent. Butter wouldn’t melt...

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Can I borrow some sneakers?”

“Sorry, but no: mine are covered in horseshit. All I have is these shoes I’m wearing, or my riding boots.”

She pondered for a moment, then surrendered to her fate with a sigh: “I’ll have to see if there are some shoes that fit me in this embarrassingly pink bedroom,” she said. “Give me a hand?”

There were a bunch of shoeboxes in the closet. She opened the first, revealing a pair with a heel of at least three inches.

“I won’t be dancing in those,” she said, and kept on looking – but it seemed that each pair of shoes she found was more girlie and impractical than the last.

“They look to be about your size,” I ventured.

“Yeah, maybe,” she muttered, reaching up to a high shelf, “but there’s got to be some goddam sneakers!”

As she searched, a pile of several boxes was dislodged. They cascaded down all around us, bursting open to reveal their contents. Everything I saw was for a fashion-conscious teenager, except –

“What’s that?” I asked, puzzled at the sight of an insubstantial black and white outfit.

“I’m, er, not sure you’re quite old enough to know about things like that,” she said, and coughed daintily.

“Huh?”

“It’s, er, a maid’s outfit.”

I held up the satin confection, and grinned. “I guess it’s the maid’s day off, again,” I joked, indicating the chaos that aunt Ashley had left in her wake as she searched for shoes.

It seemed that aunt Ashley misunderstood me. “It’s not a real one,” she said. “Obviously, it’s... more of a costume.”

“Wow,” I said, quietly. “I’d dearly love to see you in it, sometime.”

Aunt Ashley took the maid’s cap from the box, and held it in place.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

I noticed that her pupils were dilated, and she was flushed. She was even more turned on by this than I was – and that hardly seemed possible.

With regret, I remembered our visitors, downstairs.

“You must really like to play dress-up,” I said, trying to make light of her blatant show of sexuality and submissiveness.

“Yes, sir,” she said again; licked her lower lip.

“Hey! Snap out of it,” I protested. “Your friend and his son are downstairs!”

Aunt Ashley shook herself, and tried to gather her thoughts.

“Shoes,” I prompted. “How about those?” I indicated a pair that matched the pale yellow of her sundress.

“I’ve never worn girlie-girl heels in my life!” she protested.

“Your riding boots have a built up heel,” I pointed out.

She grumbled, but took the shoes over to the bed, at least. She sat and regarded them.

“See if they fit,” I said. “It’s got to be better than going barefoot, right?”

Yes, sir,” she said, pouting.

She put the shoes on.

We went downstairs and Ash earned an admiring whistle from Dennis. She looked like a teenage girl in that short sundress; it was barely enough to preserve her modesty and no amount of tugging at the hem was going to resolve that. She started to explain about the suitcase full of clothes that had been doused in gas, but Dennis insisted that she looked great.

Ash asked me to drive, citing the unfamiliar heels. That was a bind because it meant I was going to be the designated driver for the evening. Nothing but Coke for me!

For a person who claimed never to have worn high heels, Ash did remarkably well in them. She danced with Dennis, mostly, although she did join me for an Alabama Jubilee and later on a Virginia Reel. Other than that I danced with a few local girls, although I had eyes only for my aunt.

Sean drank too much. He seemed awkward around the girls: I guess he’d known them all for years, whereas I had the advantage of being the mysterious new guy.

“You got a sister?” Sean demanded.

“Uh, nope. There’s just me.”

“Weird. I could’a sworn your aunt said she was bringing her niece to the dance. That’s why I agreed to come.”

“Sorry,” I said, “but I can’t imagine why she would have given you that idea.”

“This is a bust,” Sean declared.

“There’s plenty of girls here!” I objected.

“Yeah, but they’re all...” he paused for a swig of his beer. “Never mind.”

“That Meghan’s looking at you,” I said.

“Yeah, but have you seen the size of her brother? I do anything more than dance with her and he’s gonna come round and give me a free demonstration of his stump grinding service, If you catch my drift.”

“So just dance with her, then,” I said, but Sean preferred to devote his evening to the King of Beers.

I danced with Meghan. She was sweet... but her youthful face seemed doughy and half-formed when compared to aunt Ashley. Also, I remembered what Sean had said about her terrifyingly proportioned brother: thus I was a perfect gentleman.

At last the evening came to a close. Sean was almost incoherent at this point and we had to manhandle him into the truck.

“You should’a brought your sister along!” he grumbled as I put a seatbelt on him.

Ash insisted that I should take Dennis and his son back to their farm, and this was a good strategy because it provided her with a way to escape: I don’t doubt that Dennis had thought his luck was in when he first saw Ash in that short dress, but she didn’t want sex with him.

As soon as we dropped them off, she began to apologize profusely for having invited them.

“I honestly don’t know why I did it!” she said. “If I wanted to dance with anybody, it’d be you.”

“It’s Sean I felt sorry for,” I said as I parked up, back at the ranch. “I wonder how he got his wires crossed like that?”

“Wires crossed!” Ash exclaimed. “Give me a minute...”

Again, she ran off to her favorite outbuilding.

I was intrigued.

“What’s she got in there?” I wondered out loud, getting myself a Pabst Blue Ribbon from the refrigerator.

I took a swig of the beer and headed back outside.

“Ash! What’s going on?”

I let the sound of the generator guide me. The second time I called out I head a door slam, and the rattle of keys. Ash skidded around the corner and bumped into me.

“Sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I just –”

“Had to take care of the generator, I know.”

Still she clung to me, and that was nice.

“Damn, I wish somebody would take care of me as good as you take care of that generator,” I grumbled.

“Yes, sir,” she said, and unzipped my fly. She knelt before me, right there in the yard and took me in her mouth.

...

In the morning a white-faced and clearly hung over Sean drove his father out to the ranch so they could retrieve their truck. Ash offered them coffee, and as we drank this she was careful to make sure that Dennis understood that although she’d had a good evening, dancing was all she’d been interested in. He took it well enough.

When our visitors left we spent some time with the horses. We got them ready to ride, but it never happened.

In the tack room Ash searched around and presently found a riding crop.

“I’ve been bad again, sir,” she said, eyes downcast as she handed me the weapon. As soon as I accepted it she stripped naked and grabbed her ankles.

I gave her an experimental swat. I knew she liked pain, so I swung as hard as I dared. The flared leather strap at the end of the riding crop made a sharp smack, and left a bright red mark on her beautiful ass.

“Oh!’ She gasped, “Yes!”

I had an idea. Pausing for a moment, I took down a hobble and put it in place about her ankles. She squirmed with pleasure, and from the sounds she made I thought she might come just from the beating I gave her.

After ten strokes each side, I knew she was close. Her ass cheeks glowed red, like a beacon. I pushed her down onto the hard floor, then tore off my own clothes. I entered her from behind, finding her to be very wet and in need of very little stimulation before she reached a climax.

I heard Star snort anxiously as she yelled her pleasure.

I emptied my balls into her just a few strokes later. I leaned in close, and whispered to her as I came:

“That’s my good little mare.”

Ash was breathing hard and I could tell that she wanted more. She was really getting into this! I knew that I would need more than an hour before I could go again, but Ash showed no sign of wanting it to be over. She stayed in place, on all fours.

Since I couldn’t screw her again, I decided to try something else. The tack room contained masses of reins, halters, assorted harnesses and martingales: for a person who wanted to be put into bondage (and my aunt evidently did) it was a paradise.

Since she’d never shown any squeamishness about horse germs I decided that it would be permissible to fit her out with a curb bit. This I pressed into her mouth, and she accepted it with a muffled “mngf!” that communicated the lust that she felt. Most of the tack wouldn’t fit her, of course, being designed for equine proportions, but there was a tool on the bench that could be used to make extra holes in a leather strap. This I used to adapt a halter, fastening it firmly about her head. I added reins, and then a breast collar. Departing from the usual configuration of harness, I used some leather thonging to tie her up more thoroughly, until she was entirely immobilized.

I was amused at the idea of leaving Ash trussed up, and I think it turned her on, too: to have to wait and wonder when I would return. I decided to use the time to check on the horses.

After that I went into the kitchen, quite maliciously leaving Ash to listen for sounds of my return. I was washing my hands when I heard the ‘clunk, clunk’ of two car doors being closed.

Two large men were approaching the house. They wore protective clothing of some kind – a funny getup that made each look like the bastard lovechild of a beekeeper and a deep sea diver. Each was carrying a hat and gloves.

“I’m Agent Parker, FBI,” the taller man said, flashing me a quick view of a shield. “This here is Agent Sewell.”

You wouldn’t believe just how much an introduction like that can focus the mind when you have a tied up and freshly fucked woman concealed in your tack room.

I looked from one man to the other.

“Is there a problem, officers?”

“We’ve detected an unlicensed Murchison field on this property,” the one called Sewell said, producing a gadget. I’d never seen anything like it – or not since ‘Ghostbusters’, anyhow.

“A what?”

Sewell took a step forward, purely for the purpose of intimidating me. He needn’t have bothered: I was petrified.

My rabbit-in-the-headlights impression didn’t satisfy my visitors, though.

“Oh, you want to play the innocent with me?” Sewell demanded. “I’m talking about a reality-altering field projector. Illegal in just about any country you could name. Using one here will get you fifteen years in jail, easy – but I reckon you knew that.”

“Reality... what?” I sputtered.

“Somebody set it up, and it’s centered right here! If not you, who? Who lives on the property?”

“Just me and my aunt Ashley, I guess,” I said, reluctantly.

Aunt Ashley who was currently bound in the stable, blissed out, in full harness and freshly screwed. I reckoned I’d have to tell them that she’d gone out, or something.

“Mind if we look around?” Agent Parker said, not bothering to wait for my reply. He stalked off towards the outbuildings.

Agent Sewell placed a hand firmly on my chest when I attempted to follow, detaining me on the porch.

“That’s a noisy generator you’ve got,” he observed. “What’s she running?”

“I dunno,” I said. Some lights at night. Refrigerator. Record player, sometimes...”

“Bullshit,” the burly agent said. “Show me.”

The outbuilding that housed the generator had a locked door.

“Key?” Agent Sewell demanded.

“I don’t have it,” I said. “There’s a whole bunch of keys on a hook in the kitchen!” I added, quickly, when it looked as if he might smash the door down.

“Show me,” he said again. It was plain that he wasn’t going to leave me alone for a second – meaning I’d have no chance to slip away and free aunt Ashley.

Together we fetched the keys. Sure enough, one of them fitted the lock on the generator building and we went inside.

The diesel generator shuddered on its mountings and it was difficult to make myself heard as I asked what the agent was doing. He ignored me anyway.

He located some thick cables that led away from the generator and pulled them up off the floor, so as to follow them. Reaching into his pockets he produced another gadget and clamped this around one of the cables.

“Pulling a lot of amps here, kid!” he shouted.

I shrugged to indicate that I had no idea what this setup was for, but he looked unimpressed. He followed the cables down the length of the building, to a room at the end of the shed.

“Well hello, mister Murchison,” he grinned.

“What is it?” I asked, regarding the rack of electrical equipment. Red, green and amber lights blinked; wires with quarter-inch plugs snaked here and there between three plug boards, making the whole thing resemble an old telephone switchboard, I guess.

“Suppose you tell me, kid,” Sewell said. “What’s it set up to do?”

“I never saw this before in my life!” I protested. “What’s a... Murchison field?”

“Oh, please! Are you going to keep up the innocent act all day? Make it easy on yourself. You know I’m going to shut this down anyway, don’t you?”

“I don’t even know what it is!” I protested.

Agent Parker joined us and studied the equipment at length. Meanwhile it seemed that Sewell’s job was to loom over me in a threatening manner, ensuring that I didn’t do anything to interfere.

I had to assume that Parker’s search hadn’t taken him into the tack room, else he would have mentioned finding aunt Ashley. Wouldn’t he? Surely...

I was wondering if it was time to insist that I get a lawyer. Being almost seventeen was great an’ all, but right then I really needed the comforting reassurance of a friendly adult.

“You might want to go easy on the kid,” Parker said, at last.

“How’s that?” his partner asked, not taking his eyes off me.

“He’s not the perp,” Parker said, at last. Almost reluctantly: “I think he was the intended victim.”

Sewell turned to face his partner, while clamping one of my shoulders beneath his massive paw. I was going nowhere.

“He’s the victim? How’d you figure?”

“Look at this setup,” Parker indicated something on the right-hand side, but all I saw was a baffling jumble of boxes and wires. “Whoever set this up, they bollixed it. See this here? It’s an XY module and it’s been mounted upside down. Whoever did it didn’t realize they’d gone wrong at the outset, and they’ve added a whole mess of jumper wires but they just made it worse.”

“Made what worse?” I asked – then regretted it as they turned their attention on me.

“Anything odd been happening around here?” Sewell regarded me quizzically, but he seemed to have dialed down the open hostility a little.

“Odd how?” I asked. “I’m only here for a holiday, so I wouldn’t really know...”

Parker interrupted me. “Has anybody been behaving strangely? This aunt you mentioned: where is she?”

“Shopping for groceries,” I lied.

“Expecting her back?”

“Not for hours,” I said – then regretted this as it might encourage them to linger.

“Alright,” Parker said. “It’ll take a while to run a report on this lash-up anyway.”

Again, Parker walked away while Sewell detained me. When he returned he was carrying an equipment case. Inside was something that looked like an electric typewriter, with cables coming from the back, ending in crocodile clips.

“Okay, story time!” he said.

He began attaching wires to various places on the rack of electrical equipment. From time to time he struck a spark and backed away, rubbing his hand. Eventually, he seemed satisfied. He operated a control on his ‘electric typewriter’ and it began clicking. Drums shifted back and forth, but then the machine fell silent. Just when I thought that was the end of the performance, a rasping noise began and a printout inched its way out of the machine.

Parker read the output, and smirked.

“Oh, this is a doozy,” was all he said.

Sewell didn’t take his eyes off me, every inch the G-man. After a minute or so the printing process stopped and Parker tore off the sheet. He gave it to Sewell to read while he took over the job of watching me.

Whatever this alleged crime was, they sure treated me bad, for a person who had been judged victim and not perpetrator.

Sewell began to laugh. He laughed uproariously, the printout shaking in his meaty fist as he read.

He shared some of his favorite excerpts:

“French maid’s outfit!”

“Invited to the dance!”

“Oh – kinky: pony-girl bondage? Jesus!”

At last, his laughter subsided.

“Son,” he said, “it appears that your aunt is one twisted bitch. You’ve had a very lucky escape.”

“Uh...” I didn’t know how to respond to that.

“Listen,” Parker said, “I don’t wanna leave this mess running for another minute. It’s one of the worst mix-ups I’ve ever seen. It could even go critical.”

“Go critical?” I asked.

Sewell frowned.

“Theoretically, this could go self-sustaining,” Parker told his partner.

“Another Pyongyang? Fuck: shut it down.” Swell glanced at a length of two-by-four in the corner.

“Nothing so dramatic,” Parker reassured him. “First, we should set the machine to undo as much as possible. It’s fucked up and I doubt it’ll manage a full revert, but let’s have it do some good before it folds. And if it doesn’t melt down completely there’s always the thermite.”

“I don’t understand!” I protested.

“Just a minute, kid,” said Parker, fiddling with his ‘typewriter’. It started clicking again, and he seemed satisfied.

“Let’s see how far it gets,” he said, and shrugged.

“But, what is it?” I demanded.

Parker considered me for a long moment. At last he decided to let me in on his secret.

“The Murchison field dates back to 1943, and a story that you might know as the Philadelphia Experiment.”

“I saw that film,” I said, warily. “What –”

“The real Philadelphia Experiment didn’t involve hyperspace,” Parker began to explain, but Sewell interrupted him.

“Naw, the real Philadelphia Experiment was an attempt to blend full fat and half fat cheese,” he said, “Christ sakes, Parker, why are you telling the kid this?”

“Like it matters?” he countered. “The kid’s going to get pinched in a few minutes anyway.”

“Pinched?” I asked, fearfully.

“Pinched,” Parker confirmed. “Do you want me to explain? Since you’re the victim, perhaps you deserve that.”

“Please,” I said, “tell me.”

“Okay,” he said. “The Murchison field alters reality. The original one required a huge array of primitive electrical equipment: so much that you could only fit it on a ship. The ship would slip into an alternate universe, just fractionally different from our own. Sail the seas of another Earth and you’re invisible: impossible to attack. That was the idea, anyway.”

This sounded like horseshit to me, but it also sounded like it was just a preamble, so I waited to hear what the Big Secret might be.

“Trouble is,” he went on, “the secret of its construction leaked out. Meanwhile, electronics became a lot cheaper and simpler. Pretty soon anybody with the right connections could buy and set up an illegal Murchison. Make yourself a pocket universe where you’re lucky at cards, and ruin Las Vegas in an afternoon; make yourself a pocket universe where the South won the Civil War; that kind of thing.”

“So... this is a pocket universe?”

“Yeah. A tiny one: but it’s our job to shut it down. To make it like it never existed.”

“What’s different from... reality?” I asked.

“In a nutshell, your aunt appears to have wanted to make you into some kind of sex slave. She’s got all kinds of modules wired up here. If she’d had her way, you’d be mincing around like a fairy by now. Or trussed up like a chicken, maybe. And loving it.”

“But,” I protested, “I didn’t... I never...”

“Relax, kid,” Parker smiled. “She wired it up wrong. She fitted the XY module upside down, so everything she did after that backfired.”

“The generator,” I said. “It all makes sense now.”

“How’s that?”

“She kept saying she needed to check on the generator,” I explained.

“Yeah, probably scratching her increasingly ditzy head each time something didn’t work out,” Parker shook his head. “Some people just don’t have the sense to leave alone what they don’t understand!”

Sewell spoke up:

“So, did you fuck her?”

I looked at him, but said nothing: he was a G-man, after all.

Sewell Shrugged. “I would’a.”

The ‘typewriter’ machine made a pinging sound.

“That’s all folks,” Parker said. He disconnected the machine; stowed it.

He and Sewell drew on their ‘beekeeper’ hats, and their gloves, too.

Since I lacked this protective clothing, I became alarmed.

“What should I do?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Sewell said.

“When reality gets here, you won’t remember a thing,” Parker explained. “The pocket universe that your aunt made is collapsing. The Murchison Constant tells us that alternate realities collapse at one hundred and fifty-three miles per hour, give or take. A couple of minutes from now this aberration will be pinched out of existence and everything will be back to normal.”

I went to the door and they followed me outside. All around there were dark clouds on the horizon, and they seemed to be rolling in on all sides at once.

“That’s a big one,” Sewell exclaimed. “Auntie must’a really fucked with the fabric of the universe!”

Ash would have left the keys in her truck, for sure. I wondered if I should make a break for it? Parker and Sewell had arrived in a Lincoln and I knew that if I went cross-country they’d never catch me... but what about that weird thunderstorm?

Parker, it seemed, could read my mind.

“You might as well try to outrun a tornado, son. You run away from the epicenter, you’re just going to reach the interface sooner. It’s over!”

That gave me an idea.

“They always gotta try!” I heard Agent Sewell laugh as I dashed away from them.

I ran through the stable and into the tack room. Ash was still there, of course: it would have been hard for her to escape as I’d lashed her in place pretty good.

I loved how the leather thongs made her breasts stand out, painfully constricted but with erect nipples. She looked at me with nothing but lust in her eyes.

My girlfriend: my aunt.

She was drooling around the curb bit and she looked up at me expectantly. I was drawn to her, and under any other circumstances I would have wanted to grab her rein, lead her up into the loft, fasten her down to a couple of cleats and fuck her again. She’d have liked that.

Then I remembered what the agents had tried to explain to me. The Murchison field, and that strange machine.

She was the one who’d wired it up wrong: all this was meant for me. She wanted me to be the pony girl.

I knew that the storm front that was closing in – at something like a hundred and fifty miles an hour if the agents were to be believed.

You might as well try to outrun a tornado, son.

Except... why run from a tornado when you can hide from it?

There was no time to free Ash from her bondage – and anyway, she’d caused this, hadn’t she? The air reeked of strange, metallic odors and my hair was starting to stand on end. Reality was closing in and it was time to go!

I ran through the stable and back outside. I took the steps down into the bomb shelter three at a time, hurled myself through the first big door and dragged it closed behind me. I spun the wheel to lock it and moved on to the second.

As I labored to get that reluctant door to move, I sensed rather than heard a kind of soft thunderclap. Ancient dust was dislodged, raining down from the ceiling and making me cough. I tried to use my shirt to keep the worst of the dust out of my lungs.

I felt... nothing. I waited a long time so as to be sure that whatever was happening up above must have resolved itself

I left the shelter and climbed the steps.

There was a board over the stairs at the top but I heaved it aside readily enough. I emerged into good weather: no sign of the storm. I wondered what had become of Ash, and walked towards the barn.

“Help you?” somebody called.

I turned. “Jed?”

“Huh? I know you?”

“Sorry,” I said. “You’re Jed, right sir?”

“Yeah,” he conceded. “Who’re you?”

“I’m a relative of Ashley Kelly,” I said. “I’m called Jordan.”

“Huh. I see.”

He glanced over to the gate; saw no vehicle.

“How’d you get here?” he asked.

“One of the truck drivers for the mine,” I improvised.

He regarded my dusty condition. “What, he made you ride in back?”

I grinned and tried to slap away the worst of the dust. “Something like that,” I said.

“God damn mine: God damn eyesore!” Jed was scathing.

“You don’t like the mine?”

“No, I don’t. But the deal was already in place when I inherited the ranch.”

“Inherited?”

“Yeah. If you’re related to the Kellys, you must know the story. When Frank and Ashley died, they surprised me by leaving me the ranch – and the animals. ‘Owning’ isn’t really something you do, on the timescale of a landscape like this, but I get to take care of the place. For the rest of my life.”

He carried on, further developing the theme that people belong to the land and not vice-versa, but I didn’t listen.

Aunt Ashley was gone. Years gone. I worried at the memory, as if it were a piece of something stuck in my teeth.

Yes, I thought, Ashley and Frank were both killed in that auto accident... weren’t they?

“Where you from, son?”

“Oklahoma City,” I said.

“You got folks, know you’re all the way out here?”

“I think they’re still on holiday,” I said.

“You think?”

“Hey, I’m seventeen!” I protested.

Well, almost.

Jed shrugged. “Nobody’s going to call you a runaway and haul you back home at seventeen, but it doesn’t mean they stopped caring about you.”

While we talked, Star ambled over and snorted softly at Jed.

“Is he favoring his right foreleg?” I asked, innocently.

“Good eye!” Jed was impressed. “You know your horses.”

I decided to continue with the game, exploiting my unfair advantage for all it was worth. I made a show of studying Chief: he was off in the distance but I recognized him.

“That’s a fine Dutch warmblood,” I said approvingly. “Gelding, I guess...”

“No,” Jed shook his head. “Stallion.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Tolerates the heat OK?”

“We’ve come to an arrangement,” Jed grinned ruefully. “I don’t ride him at noon; he doesn’t throw me and trample me.”

So, aunt Ashley never took your balls, Chief? Good for you.

“What do you think of this one?” Jed challenged. He whistled and Patch trotted across her paddock.

I stroked her muzzle, and dislodged a persistent fly from her ear. “Hiya Patch,” I said.

“That’s what we call her!” Jed exclaimed.

“Yeah, she told me,” I lied. Didn’t quite manage to convince him, so I abandoned the attempt.

“Just a lucky guess. But Patch, here, is an exceptionally fine Peruvian Paso. She must be worth fifteen thousand dollars!”

“A horse is only worth what a buyer is prepared to pay,” Jed shrugged. “Also, she’s not for sale.”

“She’s pregnant,” I said.

“Right again,” Jed said. “How in the world...?”

“She told me,” I grinned.

He shook is head in wonder. “You sure you’re from Oklahoma City?”

Just then another mare snorted – actually a filly: I could tell at once that it was a youngster. Jed had a lot more horses on the ranch in this new reality and I was rapidly exhausting my store of knowledge. I had no way of identifying the breed because I hadn’t been shown this animal before.

Her bridle was familiar, though. That curb bit, too: I recognized the equipment that I had used to tie up my aunt, just an hour or so before.

“This is Asha,” Jed said proudly. “Missouri Fox Trotter, of course.”

I regarded the beautiful filly and she dipped her head a couple of times. I patted her neck.

“Hi, Asha.”

I leaned in close, and whispered: “Do you believe in reincarnation, aunt Ashley?”

There was no hint of understanding in the placid equine eye that regarded me, and rightly so: Asha was just a horse, after all. I was being silly.

I patted her neck some more. Swallowed, struggling against the hard lump in my throat.

“Come on over to the house and meet Emily,” Jed said. “Maybe you can get cleaned up, some... and call your folks, if you want.”

I realized that I had no money, and no means of getting home.

“That’s very kind,” I said.

...

Sure enough, my parents were home and they were greatly relieved to hear from me. It seemed I had been missing for several days: they agreed to wire some money and arrange for a ’plane ticket.

After a meal, Jed gave me a ride back to civilization, telling me stories about my aunt and uncle as we went.

I thought of Parker and Sewell – and others like them, tracking down people who tried to “fuck with the fabric of the universe” as Sewell had so charmingly put it.

Would they be able to detect that I hadn’t been “pinched” when my aunt’s artificial universe collapsed? Probably not if I kept my mouth shut – but I felt grief, raw and terrible, at the loss of the woman who had been my lover just hours before: a woman that I now knew to have been dead for years.

Try explaining that little conundrum to your therapist, I thought.

Jed pulled up at a bus stop and I thanked him again. He handed me a twenty: I wanted to promise him that I’d pay him back, but he told me to forget it – the least he could do to help out Frank and Ashley’s nephew, he said.

He made a U-turn and gave me a wave as he headed back to the ranch. I don’t suppose I’ll see him again.

I stood in solitude, with a long wait before the bus was due. No cars passed.

A fragment of memory came back to me, from English class. Herman Melville:

“And I only am escaped alone to tell thee,” I said, to nobody in particular.

Call me Ishmael.

+++ ENDS +++

11,300 words © Bryony Marsh, 2017.
Reviewer comments are always appreciated!

Visit my blog, for news, views, previews, freebies and behind-the-scenes authorbabble. (There’s an article about the story you just read, for starters.)

If you’ve enjoyed my stories, please consider putting something in my tips jar by buying one of my books on Amazon – or read for free with Kindle Unlimited: I’ll still get some royalties!