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Over the Barrel
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Over the Barrel
By
Breanna Hayse
©2014 by Blushing Books® and Breanna Hayse
All rights reserved.
No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Hayse, Breanna
Over the Barrell
eBook ISBN: 978-1-62750-516-1
Cover Design by ABCD Graphics & Design
This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.
Table of contents:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
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Chapter 1
Blair Farbor tore the bottom hem from her long, dirty skirt while muttering obscenities under her breath. The words felt good as they slipped from her lips, knowing that Great-Aunt Imelda would likely throw a fit if such language crossed her all-too-proper hearing. Clutched in the young woman's hand was a letter from the Headmistress of the Philadelphia Academy for Young Ladies, advising her aunt of the expulsion.
"Rancorous and unladylike behavior will not be tolerated at our esteemed school," the prune-faced matron had declared after discovering Blair behind the stable, experimenting with a man's cigar that she had stolen from the school's overseer. "I have excused many of your indiscretions, Miss Farbor, but this act of rebellion and spite is one not to be ignored. Fetch the cane."
"Fetch it yourself, you mean old pig-faced sow. I will no longer subject myself to your cruelty. I have been doing all I can to be discharged from this institution, and you are too stupid to see it," Blair glared back. "I am no one's fool! You keep me here for your own purpose. You would sell your damned soul for my aunt's approval and your maidenhood for her fortune, and all here know it!"
"Well! I never in all my years … You are a curse of the devil, you wicked child. You are dismissed!"
Blair's departure was not without drama as she released a string of profanities learned from the academy's groundskeepers and stable hands. It was truly satisfying to observe the headmistress grasping at her heart and fanning her wrinkled old face as she fell back in her over-stuffed chair in shock. Blair offered one final gesture of questionable origin, and pleased with the headmistress's response, that included prayer and supplication to God, she trotted out of the room and away from the despised school.
Blair slowed her pace as she walked through the academy's gates and looked down the long, deserted road. Even in a carriage, it took a solid hour to reach her aunt's home. With the prospect of rain looming overhead, Blair knew she would have an uncomfortable journey in front of her. She had no doubt Great-Aunt Imelda would have her whipped for her behavior, but anything was better than staying in this wretched place. She began to daydream of a time and place where she could be free from this archaic attitude that women were designed to be mothers and servants of their husbands. She was intelligent and quick on her feet, and sitting in a room quoting Shakespeare and sewing buttons was not on the agenda. She wanted complete freedom to do what she willed—something special with her life, something memorable. She did not want to die and be forgotten like her mother had been.
Melancholy set in as Blair recalled her mother's final days. Consumption drained her quickly and she passed away in the middle of the night, without a sound and without a goodbye. Her burial was conducted the next day and was only attended by her aunt, Blair, and a household servant. There was no explanation why her grandfather, Imelda's brother, had not arrived to exchange condolences. The headstone was simple—her mother's initials and a date—nothing more. The service ended, and Great-Aunt Imelda shooed the nine-year-old Blair away, with instructions to practice her letters.
Blair's memory was blurred after that day. She was placed in a tiny room in the servant's quarters and clothed in the simplest, most modest attire. Her meals were taken in the kitchen, amidst the scurrying workers, and she was forbidden to receive visitors or leave the premises without being in the presence of her aunt. Determined to be noticed and never forgotten, the child launched a campaign of mischief. At her aunt's command, she received daily beatings from the old cook, with the large wooden spoon—always over her skirts, so they neither hurt nor discouraged Blair from finding new ways of making herself be seen. She was constantly threatened with being sent to live at her grandfather Malcolm's bison and cattle ranch in Colorado territory, surrounded by outlaws, thieves, and the lowest of human kind. Each day Blair prayed Imelda would follow through with that threat. Blair believed that, even in the imagination of the most horrible of conditions, she would be free of the oppression and control that surrounded her. More so, her adventurous and rebellious spirit was excited by the thought of entering Indian Territory and primitive living. She would do anything to forever depart the dull, colorless boredom that accompanied the well-to-do and strictly adhered-to properness that was the city.
Soaking wet and with her feet aching from walking in her heeled boots, Blair finally reached the steps of her aunt's grand house, set towards the back of the pristine grounds. Like the other homes in the elite 'suburb' of the city, Farbor Mansion advertised the amount of money that her aunt had gathered. It had been painted a horrendous bright yellow to declare to all who laid eyes upon it that the owner had wealth, power, and virtue. The inside was decorated with heavy drapes, dark wood, dark wallpaper, and hardwood flooring. There were two hallways and two staircases, one grand for company, which allowed for dramatic entrances, and one plain for the children and servants. Blair hated every brick of Farbor Mansion. It reminded her of the stiffness and materialistic life that she had been forced to live around, yet was never part of.
"Aunt Imelda?" Blair called as she entered the foyer. It was time to face the music.
"Miss! You are chilled to the bone!" her personal maid proclaimed. "I will get you towels and tea. Your aunt is in the parlor."
"Thanks, Madeline," Blair smiled at the older French woman, who had been her only friend since she had come to this dreadful mausoleum of a house. "What would Aunt Imelda do if you were not here to keep me out of her vision?"
"Miss Blair," Madeline said, wrinkling her forehead, "I was hired as your maid. To help care for you."
"And you have always done a marvelous job. Thank you," Blair said, kissing the woman on the cheek. Dripping, she walked down the hall and tapped on the heavy, oak door. "Pardon my intrusion, Aunt Imelda. May I come in?"
"Enter child. What are you … why, you are positively drenched! Were you seen publically in this state?"
Blair sighed, rolling her eyes as Madeline began to pat her down. "I was caught in an unexpected storm on the way … here." She could never call this house
a home, any more than she could call Imelda family.
"A lady would have a carriage take her to the door," Imelda said, snootily.
"Yes, but a lady without coin does not take a carriage. She walks."
"Coin is earned, not given. You have done nothing to earn a cent. Even your existence costs money that you have no means to repay."
Blair held back her comments. She sat in a large leather chair as the maid unbuttoned her boots and pulled them off her feet. Another servant brought a footbath, and Blair sighed as her cold feet sank into the steaming water.
"What is that in your hand?" her aged aunt crisply asked.
"A note from the headmistress. I can explain," Blair began, biting her lip as the maid transferred the note from her hand to her aunt's.
"You always seem to have some kind of explanation, don't you, child?" Imelda read the letter, shaking her head as she did so. "You refused a caning and were expelled? Profanity and ungodly gestures? What am I going to do with you?"
"I am truly sorry, Aunt. I've told you this in the past—the academy suffocates me. I need to be free and not stuck in a dingy room, reciting poetry."
"I have truly reached my end with you. You are getting too old for whippings, although I don't think they ever did you any good." Imelda lifted her teacup to her lips and stared over the rim at her niece. "I believe it is time for you to take a job as a governess. Perhaps being responsible for a child will help you stay out of mischief and allow you to support yourself."
"I do not want to be a governess! I'm tired of staying inside and being told what to do. I refuse to comply with these standards that society has placed upon women. I reached the age of majority last year and still have not experienced a coming-out. I turned nineteen years last week and still have not been given the opportunity to make decisions for myself."
"Nineteen?"
"Yes. Another birthday come and gone, unnoticed by you," Blair said bitterly.
"It is simply another day and has no measurable value in life. Amuse me. What decision would you make, being mature and knowledgeable in the ways of the world as you are?" Imelda asked sarcastically, setting the teacup on the desk and leafing through a stack of papers with disinterest. The old woman picked up the note that sat on her desk, read it, placed it down and then lifted to read it again. She crumbled it in her hand and then tossed it into the fireplace behind her.
Blair swallowed nervously. Imelda's calm demeanor typically meant trouble. "My decision," she said, "will not include marriage, children, or being some man's servant. Please, Aunt Imelda. Try to understand that I am not like these girls who are content with attending lavish parties and elegant soirees. I need to breathe!"
"The business of attending lavish parties and elegant soirees is not one for you to be concerned with. You are not meant to partake in society affairs. As for your need to breathe, I shall remind you that breathing involves the use of your lungs and exchanging air. You can breathe anywhere, including your room, Blair. I will have your dinner sent to you."
"Locking me in my room will not change who I am." Blair's bravado was quickly dissipating. "I'm begging you to try to understand."
The elderly woman stared at her with watery light-brown eyes. "Your mother wanted adventure. She would not listen to sense, and you saw the results. She married a missionary! A man without a cent to his name, who promised her a life of excitement—a life that eventually killed her."
"Father was a missionary physician, and they helped people who were too poor to pay for medical help. They loved what they did." Blair's voice weakened as she fought to remember her parents.
"Your father took that girl into an ailing village, which cost both of them their lives and you, your parents. I warned her, but she was a stupid chit—stubborn and willful and unable to listen to reason, even if it was right there in her face. Stupid and stubborn, like her father. You are just like she was."
"Wanting a life with some excitement is not being stubborn or willful. And I am not stupid! You never cared for Father because he wasn't rich. Your selfishness and greed prohibited you from seeing how many people he and Mother helped!"
"These tantrums of yours are unacceptable, Blair Farbor. You may accuse me of whatever you desire; however, even your childish beliefs cannot deny the truth. I had a duty to fulfill an obligation to the family. I never wanted children," Imelda said sourly, "nor do I care much for them, but I was not about to allow my flesh and blood to be placed into an orphanage. I housed, clothed, fed and educated you, despite your parents' foolishness."
"I suppose you expect me to be grateful for that," Blair said, unable to hide the seething anger in her words. "Was my presence so repellant to you that it was better to keep me locked up as far away as you could manage? Is it because I looked like my mother that you never permitted me to be seen in your house, except for short, special occasions? Did you tell everybody about your pathetic charity case to make yourself appear as the good Christian woman? You should have just sent me to Grandfather Malcolm and allowed me to live in Colorado."
"My brother wanted to assume care of you; however, it was not appropriate, given that he no longer had a wife. This discussion is over. Be gone with you now," the woman ordered, ringing a bell next to her hand. She snapped her fingers as the housekeeper entered the room and curtseyed. "Take Miss Farbor to her room and make certain she is settled for the night. She will not be dining this evening."
Blair glared at her aunt. "Sending me to bed without dinner is not going to change my mind about you! In fact, it only makes me hate you more!" Her shrill words were accompanied with a backlash of profanities and the stomping of her foot.
Imelda simply raised her hand. "I have had enough of your horrid disposition. I have been debating my course of action with you since you reached your majority and now have made my decision. Pack your belongings. You wanted to be outside and have freedom? Very well, you can now be Malcolm's burden. There you may have as much freedom as you wish, as well as share your choice words with the ranch hands. I am certain you will impress them regarding your extensive vocabulary and deplorable behavior. Madeline! Take her upstairs. I do not wish to lay eyes upon her ever again. Blair Farbor, you are dead to me."
Blair's mouth moved wordlessly as she repeated her aunt's words. Was this finally happening? She lifted her chin proudly, determined to offer the last word. "I guess then you will do to me as you did to my mother and leave nothing on my headstone but my initials and the date of my passing when that times comes as well. Good riddance! May God have pity upon your selfish, evil soul! Remember what you used to tell me, Aunt Imelda? Things will always come back to haunt you when you've done evil."
Blair groaned as the steam engine buckled over the tracks, jarring her neck as she tried to sleep. After over ten days of brutal travel, she was tired, irritable, and left with no patience. She had been able to bathe only twice, which was, by the ripe redolence of sweat around her, twice more than anyone else on the train. Across from her sat a new passenger—a middle-aged man smelling of whiskey and cigars, whose favorite topic of conversation was himself. What was worse than his endless, dull descriptions of his home, dead-end job and adventures to the marketplace was his untidy, unwashed appearance and accompanying stench.
Spittle ran down the corner of his mouth as his dark, beady eyes studied her. "You meeting your husband?"
"My Grandfather. He has a ranch outside Manitou Springs," Blair answered politely.
"I hear there is gold up there," the man said casually. "What type of ranch does your Grandfather hold?"
Blair shrugged. "I know nothing of gold. Grandfather Malcolm raises bison and cattle for sale to locals. That is all I know."
"I'm hoping to find me some color up in the Peak. One good vein and I'm rich."
"There is more to life than money," Blair stared him down.
"That is an easy thing for a little girl to say when she has been given everything she has ever wanted. Your dress might not be flashy, but it is
of good material and your shoes are of quality hide."
Blair grimaced. The one thing she wanted, love, was not something money could buy. She lifted her chin. "Money cannot purchase health, happiness, or a sense of accomplishment. I would give every cent I had for either of those."
"A cent that you have neither earned nor deserve is easy to spend, isn't it?" Blair reddened, reminded of her aunt's similar words. She turned her face to look out the window as the man continued, "A woman like you needs to settle down with a respectable man and give him babies to carry on his name. You probably don't even know how to cook, do you? Those hands have never scrubbed a floor, hung laundry, or even milked a cow. You are pretty enough to carry on an arm, but need someone to teach you how to be a proper woman. Are you going to live off your Grandfather's charity for the rest of your life?"
"I am not, nor have I ever been, a charity case! I have many skills that are quite employable, thank you. As for being a proper women—that is not for you or any other man to decide," Blair snapped.
"I do enjoy taming a feisty young lady, and you seem to be quite the challenge." He surveyed her hungrily as he took a swig from a small bottle that he had hidden inside of his coat. "I wonder what your Grandfather will ask to get you off his hands."
"I am not for sale. I have no further interest in this conversation. Excuse me."
To her dismay, there were no more available seats for her to relocate. Swearing under her breath, she flipped open a book and fought to ignore her companion. She glanced up hopefully at a stop, praying he would depart or that a seat would become available for her to take. Once again, the car was full and she was imprisoned for the next several days, before the next scheduled passenger exchange.
The heat accentuated the aroma of fried chicken and biscuits in her food basket and she swallowed harshly. She had not eaten since her departure early that morning, but the prospect of dining was dismissed as her stomach turned sickly from the sway of the train and the odor of the despicable man in front of her.