Captive Thirst

1 GABRIELA The soles of my leather riding boots shuffled back and forth over the floor, kicking up stable scents and I swore, if they bottled and sold the smell of horse sweat and sawdust, I’d bathe myself in it like French perfume. My career as a jockey was off to a shaky start. I just wanted to win the Briarville Derby. Here I was trying to hide my boobs so no one would know I was a girl on the track, and it was harder than leveling Half Dome with a nail file. The chest binder strapped me down tight, and discomfort took the focus off the fluttering butterflies in my stomach while I curried small circles over Native Prancer’s black, shiny coat. “I’ll hide the boobs, you hide your eyes.” I whispered, stroking his velvet nose, comforting us both. I deliberately placed the blinkers against his temple, limiting his vision so he’d concentrate on running and not get distracted on the track. Bras were bad enough. I went without whenever possible, which was not very often with a dad like mine. “Put some clothes on, Mija! You’re indecent.” Mija meant “daughter” in Spanish, and it was supposed to be a term of affection. But sometimes being the female child of Señor Seranno felt like living through the inquisition on the daily. “Where are you going? Who will be there? When are you coming home?” He didn’t appreciate it when I reminded him I was no longer a kid. My age was an unwelcome reminder that my ovaries were shriveling like the dried-up skin of stale pinto beans on the pantry shelf. The only offspring of the Serrano household, female or not, had no business racing horses. Being a coveted child and coming from a powerful family sounded great and all except for one thing. Freedom remained a matter of fairy tales. My father let me know under no uncertain terms that I’d study a respectable field and breed many sons in order to continue our lineage. According to our tradition, when I married (not if) I would keep my name, Gabriela Serrano, and add my husband’s surname at the end. Thus, the legacy of Serrano clan would remain obvious. I was no better than a brood mare. Private school, a generous allowance, all the saddles, bridles, riding lessons, and horses of my own, made privilege great. My father never denied me anything, except for one very important item—choice. Today I was going against his will, and I’d be racing somebody else’s horse in the trials, disguising my s*x from even my trainer. Not difficult. I’d never been a girly girl. Giggles and gossip had always left me cold. My mama never understood it. Nor did she protect me from my father’s plans for me to have a litter of little Serranos ASAP. I didn’t blame her. She’d jumped a gazillion social classes to get to where she was today, and rocking the boat was not in her nature. She went from field worker to first lady of a mob boss within the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or Jaliscos for short. My dad still got s**t from his lighter-skinned relatives for marrying an “India”, an indigenous woman, with skin like milk chocolate. Maybe his motivation to escape Mexico and live in Northern California was more about that than he cared to admit. He wasn’t so different from me, both of us bucking against the reigns that our families used to keep us on their chosen paths. Fuck that. I was born to ride, not breed babies. If my father knew I was here, readying myself to race Carlos Drago’s promising colt in the Briarville Derby, he’d kill me dead. Heir to his throne or not, no one disobeyed the orders of Javier Serrano, El Jefe. That fact didn’t help my already frayed nerves, and I paced around Prancer, checking his cinch for the third time, and rubbed the back of my neck. My anxiety wouldn’t benefit either of us on the track. The colt read my emotions like a clairvoyant on steroids, and he relied on me to be his steadfast human. “Not to worry, buddy.” I scratched his forehead. “Use your wings out there on the backstretch. I’ll keep you safe and you just fly.” He snorted air out his nostrils in response, and I blew a sympathy gust of breath past my lips and felt immediately better. We were two of a kind: high-strung, jittery, relying on each other for comfort. Prancer had me. I had him. The one thing I lacked was not to be found in a cow town like Briarville where people still professed, “The West Was Not Won on Salad.” Beef was definitely what was for dinner, and I feared the cow pokes and dairy dudes in this “Victorian Village” would never give me what I wanted. A soft dom. A gentleman who knew when not to be gentle. A Dom who pampered me and then f****d me hard. The kind of man who cuddled me and took me over his knee for a naughty funishment. The men my father paired me with were overbearing and boorish, and so far, more concerned with pleasing papá than satisfying me. My heart was holding out for the sort of guy I read about in books. A man who’d treat me like a princess and f**k me like his naughty girl. In order to find Mr. Right, one had to be on the lookout. Presently, I didn’t have time to spend on the pursuit of pleasure and relieving my ever-present state of horniness. Besides, I’d read that a woman’s chance of o****m during a hookup was a measly twenty percent, and the average duration of said experience was seven minutes. My fingers and vibrator did better than that, and they were a lot safer. I had no idea what actual f*****g felt like. So far, it was an act as remote as the lost city of Atlantic. The only action my p***y got was posting against the saddle, and that made me sexually aroused more often than I cared to admit. Squaring my shoulders, I stated mine and Prancer’s affirmation, willing it to be true, “You’re a winner. All the world will cheer with you as you cross the finish line first, leaving the other horses in the dust.” It gave me hope to know that a powerful, charging beast like Native Prancer had his fair share of demons in the closet. If he conquered his fear of flapping trash bags and his hatred of tires laying on the ground, to get out there and wear The Look of Eagles: cool, calm, collected confidence—then so could I. “Time to fake it til we make it, baby. Just run faster than everything else, and nothing scary will catch you. Lead the herd to safety.” I patted his muscled neck and scraped my fingers into his mane, putting my forehead against his glossy coat, inhaling his intoxicating aroma, and hanging on for dear life so I wouldn’t flee the scene like my body was begging me to do. With more courage than I felt, I grabbed the lead rope under his chin, and walked out into the foggy morning air, which placed wet kisses on my cheeks and lips. Prancer’s hooves clopped against the cobblestone road to the racecourse, and my belly rolled with excitement. Avoiding my father’s ire was exactly why I disguised myself as a boy. It was much better this way. My masculine alter ego, Jorge Diaz, promising apprentice jockey from South of the Border, could take credit for all I cared. I didn’t mind about his riding along for the win. On this early summer day, he bore my same wide nose, my coffee-with-milk colored skin, but thanks to the binding, he was missing my size B breasts. They were as undetectable as my jitters. Or they’d better be. Otherwise, my pipe dream of being a jockey would be put out to pasture faster than you could say “boobie trap.”