Is this a writing/drawing challenge for Sapphic September 2024, because I didn't see any, and my brain just waterfalled this all over a page?
It can be if you would like it to be.
No pressure, like, at all.
But if you do, maybe tag your works with Sapphtember so people can discover them?
Cohost Sapphic September 2024 writing prompt: 03 — Girls who ride horses
The cyborg trails behind the sheriff's horse, hands at the small of her back, cable running from her neck in a gracefully slack curve, up into the sheriff's hand on the reins.
At the base of the cyborg's throat, the sheriff's slim fingers had carefully parted the lobes of a rubber dust cover to slip in the bulky length of a control tether; sliding it home with a firm wrist, securely seated inside the industrial socket. There's a safety breakway connector on the outer end, and then the cable; on the far end of that, a slim teaching pendant. Immobiliser circuit in the plug, of course, if the breakaway gets yanked.
"Assume the position," the sheriff had said, not harshly but firmly, and snapped down the toggle switch cover over the pendant's Arm Position Lock switch. "It ain't a long ride out to Kincaid, but if'n you don't cooperate, I can lock you out of your legs, too, and nudge you around on the joystick here. I 'spect you know that, ma'am."
"Surely do, sheriff," the cyborg had said politely, and cooperated, step after step after step through the dusty waste, in the horse's wake.
The sheriff stops, like clockwork, at legally mandatory prisoner rest break o'clock; finds them the shade of a rock pillar, angles them into it, whoas the horse and slides to the ground.
"You thirsty back there?" she says, hefting a canteen.
"Aw, sheriff," the cyborg says, grinning lopsidedly. "I surely do enjoy watching a woman ride from the back, thanks for askin'," and the sheriff almost laughs, eyes crinkling prettily at the corners.
"Girl, I'm twice your age and arrestin' you," she says. "Save your moves for the young 'uns."
"Ain't never a waste to make a woman feel 'preciated," the cyborg drawls. "...Dangnabbit, I'd tip my hat if'n I could. Jes' imagine I did that part."
"I'm imaginin'," the sheriff says, teeth white in her smile. "...More fool me for it, slick."
"Well, now I feel appreciated, ma'am," the cyborg says, ducking her head.
"Sure," the sheriff says tolerantly, rolling her eyes. "You want some water or not?"
"Yes please, ma'am," the cyborg says meekly, and compliantly takes the canteen's silicone bite valve between her lips, resting the gaze of her half-closed eyes on the sheriff's tanned face, watches her watching her as she drinks. "Thank you kindly," she adds when she's done swallowing, a little hoarsely.
"Welcome," the sheriff says, swiping a bead of water off her lower lip with her thumb. "You need a sit?"
"Too much robot in me, ma'am."
The sheriff raises the same canteen to her own mouth, wraps her lips around the bite valve's soft spout, takes a long suck on it.
"We keep an easy pace, should hit Kincaid around sundown," she says, lips damp, gaze knowing.
"Yes'm," the cyborg says. "Do you think—" and she hesitates a second. "Do you think you could re-sit my hat, ma'am?" she adds, low and intimately serious. "Sweat's ticklin' my neck a bit, could do with the shade on my face—"
The sheriff circles her, comes up behind, solid. Takes her hat off. Wipes her neck with a handkerchief. "Head forward, girl," she says softly, and the cyborg drops her chin immediately; the sheriff tips a small puddle of water into her palm, smoothes it through the cyborg's sweat-matted curls.
She moans at the cool of it; moans again, shivering, as the sheriff rakes blunt nails across her scalp. Too soon, the sheriff pulls her hat back down.
"Ready?" the sheriff says, a heat against her back.
"Ready to go all day for you," the cyborg promises, grinning at the sheriff's secretly-pleased scoff.
