Title: Stable Hand

Series: The Braided Crop Ranch, Book One

Author: AE Lister

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: November 2, 2020

Heat Level: 4 – Lots of Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 84800

Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, BDSM, pony play, cowboys, entertainment, sex toys, menage, polyamory, rewards, punishments

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Synopsis

The Braided Crop Ranch is looking for stable hands. But this is no ordinary horse ranch. They cater to men with a certain interest. An interest involving harnesses, tails, and trainers.

Managed and expertly run by registered psychologist, Adam Marsland, the Ranch is a safe place for the expression of sex positive and kink positive needs and fantasies.

Jensen Moriarty is desperate for a job. He can handle horses. In fact, he’s a pro at it. Too bad the BCR doesn’t deal with real horses. But they do have “ponies”.

If Jensen can wrap his head around what the BCR actually stands for, he may have the opportunity to expand his resumé and experience something completely unexpected in the process.

Excerpt

Stable Hand
AE Lister © 2020
All Rights Reserved

Horses. They were what I knew. What I’d grown up knowing, riding, grooming, tacking in the small Alberta town where I’d lived.

I missed small-town life. Ottawa wasn’t a huge city, but it was big enough, crowded enough, it made me crave the peace and quiet of a smaller life.

My friend Mitchell hadn’t told me much about the Braided Crop Ranch except to say the place was secluded deep in the heart of the Muskokas in Northern Ontario, which turned out to be an understatement.

From my calculations I was only about twenty minutes away, but the brush had thickened, and the GPS wasn’t making sense. There wasn’t even a proper road. Out of desperation, I pulled my car over to the gravel on the side of the dirt track. I left the car on, air conditioner blasting, while I looked up the name of the man who’d interviewed me over the phone: a Mr. Adam Marsland. I found the number quickly in my contacts and hit call.

“BCR, Connor speaking,” a chipper male voice announced after a few rings.

The voice didn’t belong to Mr. Marsland.

“Uh,” I hesitated. “Hi. I’m trying to reach Adam Marsland?”

“Who’s calling, please?”

I cleared my throat, feeling like an idiot. Nothing like starting a new job and not being able to find the place. “This is Jensen Moriarty. I’m supposed to be there at noon, but I—”

“Oh, hi, Jensen. I’m Mr. Marsland’s personal assistant. Would you like me to get him for you?”

“I just need directions. My GPS isn’t making sense.”

Connor laughed. “He should have told you not to rely on the GPS. You should be using the map from the email.”

Email? “What email?”

There was a pause. “You didn’t get the welcome email? The one outlining our policies and practices? I’m sure I sent the form to you a few days ago…”

I wracked my brain but didn’t remember seeing an email. Unless the message had gone into my spam folder. “No, I didn’t get it. A map would be…helpful.”

“Sure, yeah, let me text the map to you. Hold on a second.”

“You might as well text me the other info as well.”

Connor cleared his throat. “Yes, well, I’ll let Mr. Marsland explain everything when you get here.”

I heard a notification and saw the map had come through. I opened the file quickly and had a look.

“Looks like I’m not too far.”

“Okay, come to the main building when you get here. You’ll see the BCR sign on the wall.”

“BCR?” I asked, wiping a crushed mosquito off the dash.

“The Braided Crop Ranch. That is where you’re trying to get to, right?”

“Yes. I just— Yes, that’s where I’m headed.” God, could I make a worse first impression?

“I’ll make sure Adam is here to greet you.”

“Thanks,” I said.

As I’d suspected, I wasn’t far out. If I followed this dirt road and turned onto another called Rattler’s Revenge in about three miles, I’d be there.

Would they put me to work right away, cleaning stalls and looking after the horses? Mr. Marsland hadn’t described my exact duties during our phone interview, but Mitchell had said they were looking for a stable hand.

Marsland had seemed like a nice guy. He’d appeared more interested in the kind of person I was rather than in any experience I’d had. I’d explained I needed a job that would give me some direction along with a decent salary so I could pay off my student loans.

The business degree had been a waste of money, no matter what my parents said. Turned out I hated accounting. Yeah, I was good with numbers, but working with them all day and night was too much to ask.

I needed to be outside. I needed to be interacting with other beings, human or animal. I needed hard work and adventure.

Now I had no idea what I wanted to do. Except for horses. I wanted to work with horses. Living on a ranch with a bunch of other cowboys wouldn’t be so bad either. Even if they didn’t share my orientation, the eye candy would be heavenly.

I’d been surprised when Adam told me the salary I’d be earning. The level was high for a stable hand. He’d also mentioned something about the special stock at the BCR so maybe they only housed Arabians or something. That would be a treat. I’d never seen a full-blood Arabian horse up close.

After following the serpentine curve of Rattler’s Revenge for about fifteen minutes, the brush thinned, and I emerged into a large clearing with the impressive outline of the ranch spread before me. The path took me to a set of steel black gates with BCR in big iron letters affixed to the bars.

A black intercom box perched on the stone wall to the left of the gates. I pulled in close, lowered my window, and pressed the button.

There was a crackle and then Connor’s voice. “Name please.”

“Jensen Moriarty. We spoke on the phone.”

“Awesome. I’ll buzz you in.”

An electrical humming noise sounded as the gates unlocked and slowly swung open.

“Welcome to the BCR, Jensen,” Connor said.

I drove forward and rolled up the window to keep the heat out.

An array of bright red and brown buildings crowded the far distance. In front of me stood an imposing clapboarded farmhouse with these words, painted in black, spanning the wall:

THE BRAIDED CROP RANCH STABLES

~ Pony shows every month ~

Pony shows every month, huh? Looked like I’d have my work cut out for me.

I parked in the small lot to the left of the front door and turned the car off. I wondered if driving all the way out here had been the right thing to do. At any rate, the job provided a new beginning and somewhere to spend the summer. If I enjoyed the work and found the people to be friendly and helpful, maybe I’d stay for a while.

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Meet the Author

AE Lister/Elizabeth Lister is a Canadian non-binary author with a vivid imagination and a head full of unique and interesting characters. They have published many other books, one of which (Beyond the Edge) received an Honorable Mention from the National Leather Association–International for excellence in SM/Leather/Fetish writing.