The Princesses in the Tower, by Miras

[Miras]

5-2-5

I didn´t ask to tread in the marsh, that is the stuff for an adventurer. Attendance of Johansson enabled me to revisit the teacher´s lounge. I printed short calumny of Pignon and Woodroof as a prerequisite for continual extra classes and for calling Hamilton as their adult supervisior.

It will remain a mystery why did I ever opt for a teaching career. It shrank the scientifically-minded woman into pitiful serf of little lords and ladies crapping on her and the overblown secretary to the school. I don´t make the coffee, and I am not surveying who stays at home with a fever, but secrets I dispense.

Nothing would be sweeter than cherrypick modest joys. The joy of not being watched by Martin. The joy of not being taken forcefully. What am I supposed to do when those things occur? I have no idea, and that cuts the joy as it sprouts. I have become reprehensive towards very laughter.

That tittering of Lolle introducing her new friend at breakfast!

"Don´t talk, I should tell them apart!" Lewandowska stopped her hand in midair. "Good morning, Basma, I know who you are. Clever eyes and zest for a stranger, you are certainly Gina!"
"I am who I am, and you better be who you claim to be."

"No promises. " She winked at Lolle.

"That leaves me with the humane soulfulness of Sylvia..." They shook hands.

"And a stern rigidness of Roberta."

I wanted to be somebody else again.

"People call me Larissa. Friends for life usually change it to Double L but I like it even from people who prefer the ring of it."

Lolle heaped up her food to make room for Lewandowska. "Did you hear that, Girl B?" She tucked Basma´s hijab.

Lewandowska bitten a bun with mustard. "I suggested to her I would like nickname Lavender and she said…"

"I said nicknames are my to give," Basma stated. "Risotto," she added.

"Double L, the brat wants to eat you whole."

Basma´s hand twitched.

"Don´t you want the same thing, Lolle?"

Sportswoman licked Lewandowska´s earlobe.

"That would mean your exaltation. I´m the powerful one."

"I don´t belieeeeve yoouuu," she stretched.

" I will demonstrate my power in two days. My mouth will be in hurry to do the good deed, and so will yours."

I supposed I will disclose Thompson matters to Hamilton, and she will divulge Lewandowska stuff to me out of gratitude. The barter system.

Lolle´s demonstration of power could be as dangerous as Lewandowska´s vengeance oaths, but I wasn´t going to risk by giving them intrusive questions, and I and Sylvia were dismayed by the new adjustments of daily schedules. Positioning of Paladins interviews necessitated the morning mainstream education and Lovemaking. Sylvia went to Martin from the dining hall, and I joined them after the dry sperm delineation.

They stood there nude, Sylvia had her hair loose on her chest, and she was doing a little dance for the Heir, covering signs of her feminity with a faux-embarrassment and showing them with a scrupulously innocent smile. Martin´s member put on view its purple crown. But the guy picked up the mechanical replica of the same body part from the side table.

"Roberta," Martin said cheerily. "Fucking your wife is minutes-lasting Christmas time. Thanks for lending her. You must be a happy couple. You should intensify the mating by one-half. But I don´t want to fuck you. You are sort of scary. So I said to myself, we will do the shagging centipede."

He gave me a vomit-inducing idea of where this is going. When forced to find a shining positive spot, I welcomed the rare chance of being rough with him. I strapped the dildo on, but while I didn´t push the button yet, Martin knocked Sylvia down, her back on the table and her cute feet wedged on his shoulders.

He used a chair to kneel, and his member poked Sylvia´s pussy in a straight line. The delicious moaning of my wife brought me closer to rage than anything she has ever done because I couldn´t convince myself it was fake. I have stuck dildo deep to Martin, only peripherally taking pleasure from the buzzing and humping in my crotch. I was thrusting so hard Martin would bleed. Unfortunately, he was probably going for that. Unstably holding myself, my right calve on the bed, I could see Sylvia´s screaming face over Martin´s shoulder. I avoided that painful vision, catching her twisting side served me better. She is so screwed. If she lets her pelvis shake with joy, I will give her shakes under the hairbrush for two evenings, and maybe I will tell her to make a stingy birch from the pieces in the park.

"Sylvia, we must discuss this when she hears you," yelled Martin. "Who actually satisfies you?"
I knew the right answer, but I didn´t want to listen to what she must have responded. I withdrew from them to the happy place when I was sixteen, and I experienced love for the first time. Everybody in the high school loved Ronald, me being simply the biggest fan of Lucinda. She could stay at our house, of course, as well as sleep in my room. One night she was eating the chocolate bar, and she no longer ignored the fear-blocked wish. She took off the azure nightgown. Thanks to the lights from the neighbor's party, I was able to see the curves of the apple-sized breasts. I ate the chocolate in exchange for a tidbit that wasn´t diminishing because of her tricky tongue...

The resonance of deep itching back then overcame my distaste, and I screwed the dildo into Martin´s ass. I deceived myself that I´m fucking Sylvia, that she moans for me. I wasn´t touching Martin´s sweaty back. I couldn´t afford to break the illusion, and his furry parts were too much similar to Bernard´s.

"I made a design for what I will wish next," Martin yawned hedonistically, us eating plums in the bed. "You will be arguing and I will conciliate you, which will involve the rite of self-criticism..."

Sylvia was in desperate need of self-criticism. For me, it would be redundant. I self-correct as I err.

Not all agree.

Arnolph in the corridor was watching for somebody who could be only pitied.

"Brunkow." She meant me, not the one I would wish it to.

"Madam, you want to torment the more conscious members of the dwellers."

"How?" I had honestly not a clue, so she might ease up.

"Miss Gutiérezz had to complain to the principal himself, and now you are prolonging lessons for adequate students for the second time. You are aggravating the life of Ms. Hamilton..."

Falsely accused of the wrong crime.

"I can say these girls are cuckoo landers. They are learning, but that is because they dream about life in the escapist magical realm of their own creation. I thought we are teaching them about the state they will want to support."

Arnolph unwinded, not losing any of her hot air.

"Ms. Hamilton is not their mother."

"She is their role model."

Arnolph lid the cigarette.

"Time of Zita and Barbara is precious, but you can talk to Hamilton outside of the workshop."

"No... I... I want her to perceive the VR land. Mrs. Kane could be there to point out the beneficial side of her art."

"Beware, don´t let them turn you into stone, Brunkow."

 

[Miras]

5-2-6

„Pre-election promises for ya. Politicians say how they will curb the drifts, but they contrive the partial success, and they come to understand they are not supermen, endangering those, who helped them."

Hamilton. She´s giving the words „excellent tits“a new meaning, and she is not above blaming the victims. It would be irksome, itching, and scratching, to debate the future of children, drinking alcohol with cartoon characters. So I was glad that vestibule of the Oasis-Masters harem, devilish djinn serving there from the bottle that served as his encasement once, was smoke and mirrors on the substantial level and the actual purpose level.

„You are talking as if she wanted the isolation,“ I told her.

Hamilton was polishing the seat of the chair by her backside. She looked more composed when an anthropomorphized ant-eater cut a piece of the iced ball of scarab dung for her.

"Jenine did the certain deed so that I would get my email exchanges. It paid off. Contacts came and some sources. We, four girls, have not many friends here. We are using those we do have to procure testimony surprising for those who thought they can´t be surprised. Jenine must have been lucky to bust out, but then, why is she holding onto bars?“

You can tell Hamilton respected Thompson rather than liked her. That could be considered attainment. Thoughtfulness was integral to her.

"Hamilton, how much do you know about Lewandowska´s intentions?"

We hadn´t PTA conversation, but Woodroof and Pignon told their maternal figure what weighs me.

"Double L envisages Green doing concessions to inmates. He is renowned for his craze, he likes to use pretty women as instruments of his will, and he adores terminating careers of men." She didn´t let me answer. "His specialty is the softest weapon that has the same caliber as a nuke. The intelligence. Pieces of information are defined by their character, not by amount. And when you possess channel to load them into..."

Kane jiggled Hamilton´s knee.

"Lady, yes, your husband..."

"Stacey, we have never talked to each other, but Barbara speaks about you as like you were the greatest woman alive. There is one part of my studio, I haven´t shown to the girls. Final stage..." Kane went to the djinn´s bar and turned an eye-sized silver coin. Vestibule changed the castle room. The window was portraying some Europesque coast, full of hills. Our table and chairs stayed, Kane stood in the front of wardrobes and separate shelves, holding glowing orbs, plenty of them marble-small. Three, occupying space on the main desk, were just in the fitting size for bowling. Kane took a magic wand from the coat-stand and explained what they represent.

"If the record of torture is, what you are after, this is the place you can extract it from..." She stuck the wand to the orb on the left. "Past, present, and the future. In this one, we have the program already watched by the fans, foes, and villains. The right one is materials that censors - the arch-villains - opened the gate for."

"Kane, download it," Hamilton said.

She didn´t look confident. "I mean here you can download it. In the practice it is not manageable without Mayson or Arnolph, their fingers and eyes, throwing them to a cauldron, stir it and voilá."

Simple, and complicated, dare I say puzzling, at the same time. Equation solvable by one awesome lie.

Technically, any lie people fell for can be considered awesome. Fully aware, I´m skipping a lot of Homemaking, I attained reception in Arnolph´s office.

"Enchanted by the Comic Book Gal?", the spokeswoman asked.

"You could say so," I responded. "Believe it or not, I was thinking. The first day of the broadcast was special. I would like to add the file to accessible VR database so it can be used by lectors for the following student girl class, to scare them."

In the virtual reality, Arnolph berated me in front of the ladies, repeating the domineering oration. "Brunkow, I´m giving you this, and you are now committed not to pick on loyal girls whare participating on the grand world. Rosenstein is making a fuss about one dysfunctional student girl. Whack her ass or strap it to these machines."

Louisa... I must make time for her.

Arnolph touched the orb, and her figure glowed, the golden shroud scanning her credentials. When it dimmed out, a floating keyhole appeared above the orb.

"The system wants to know if I don´t suspect a security leak," Arnolph sighed. She drew the inscription, that looked like her signature on the wall and undrew the blocks like a drapery. "I must use my journal kit," she said, and her hand moved to find a big white hand fan. She opened it and its surface overflowed with icons, about ten of them hooking on the starry rays. Arnolph pushed the lozenge symbol.

"Two lines for one password?" Hamilton asked.

"One code is true, the other triggers the silent alarm. Both are 14-characters long." Kane came over to the spokeswoman, and her wrist passed through the fan´s white light to grip Arnolph´s fingers on the holder. "Once I´ll be at my husband´s place, I publish the graphic novel edition," Kane said. "Your institution should get a free copy." Arnolph didn´t offer any reaction, probably pondering about the interpretation. "I will be carrying it within. It is not like I need to copy the database for my personal use."

Arnolph picked the lower line by the two fingers and transferred its image over the virtual air into the keyhole. Orb divided itself into eight parts like an apple on the saucer. It had visualized yellow-to-green fruit flesh. Kane placed the wand to the center and rewound the film of archived materiál freely, then ordered a download at the beginning of the whole thing. She unplugged the wand, seemingly contented with the summary of the gathered data.

"You can all thank me by never inviting me again," Arnolph said and disconnected.

"She stops sugarcoating and suddenly proposes reasonable terms," Hamilton noted. "Given ungratefulness abound she´ll end in a retirement home. I´ll send her my autobiography there. She will be named a source for the leaked material we obtained."

Kane supported herself equally on me, and Hamilton.

"I didn´t download just the premiere of the broadcast."

"What else?" I didn´t get it.

"Her journal kit! I had the cursor in my sleeve when I touched her!" She was shaking from head to toe.

"You hussy! Bloody moron of..." Hamilton was cursing, but she wasn´t raising her voice.

"I was betting on that once computers were interlinked, this download was visible in the same light as she copying the password, which is to say Arnolph legitimately multiplying the nefarious data."

"The gains would be astronomical," I said. Kane projected some copies of the stolen desktop. "We can´t dig through it today. Unless you can hide on the virtual sub-bottom of no less virtual sea, delete it."

Kane opened the wardrobe and set up the book icon.

"I will save the kit as a fragment for Shieldmaidens episode. Spellbook of the High-Priestess, yeah, that´s rich. We will encrypt it with the briefer password."

I smirked. "Odysseus. The Suitors-slaying hero."

Warden Michelle told me dryly that seven guys have pre-ordered me for sperm release. I would like to see them crushed by the hag who is lacerating them from the inside, licking their neck and ridiculing them.

It wasn´t as if I haven´t stumbled across a long-running machination. Shabby authority all around.

I didn't desire it, but in the end, I could have strengthened their authority, to cling to it. At night, no matter how I leaned my head to Sylvia´s, I had a heavy one, and as an old meddlesome, I made it even harder. Hamilton and Kane left as soon as they walled up their account of secrets. I, unsure of the situation, stayed.

I materialized the tablet interface to see Shieldmaidens Raid data. The unsightly design submitted to the password of my proposal. It displayed Arnolph´s folders ordered by the clear-cut word "Priority" and the assigned numeral. I went for 1 where two files lolled.

Picture and video. The yellow square was entitled "Green-Contacts" and because it bore a paragraph of punctuation marks, they fell into category "look up for mediator in the neccessary case. The video lasted for fourteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds. It will took for milisecond before the armed fellow makes a warm bloody hole between the eyes of the person who stole this video. Consciousness, memory, person, self-awere part of the universe reduced to the motionless muscles.

Sylvia was inhaling and exhaling the low blows of the air, and I suspected she wouldn´t sleep tightly twenty-four hours later. The day´s proper events didn´t euthanize my scruples. The dinner did.

 

[Miras]

5-2- Finale

Dishes of carrot porridge were smoking, the heat radiated from them, adding up to the stuffiness, hovering in the presage of the unknown ceremonial juncture. Tables were lined up, our chairs laid down by their backrests on them, and all the inmates were making the puppy eyes in the general direction of two longer desks concealed by the single tablecloth, dark as a large Brotherhood sigil, hanging now every few meters.

On one side, the female wardens were hefting their truncheons, on the other, the male ones were flexing their tongues. Paladins sat behind the desks after a ten-minute wait. Each of them looked at their other three classmates. Johansson gave them a questioning look with a pursed lower lip, a lad of Asiatic features moved slowly and had a stiff and confused expression on. Readhead had a spark of joy in the eye, and he paid the biggest attention to the inmates out of the group. Athletic type, smiling at the Johansson, sat down the fastest and hasn´t come adrift at all. Mixed feelings of theirs, not comparable to mixed feelings of victims.

Lolle was looking straight into the holoprojector, tapping her fingers in an inverted praying gesture, rejoicing almost imperceptibly.

The cubes discolored with the figural depiction of Justice. The blindfolded lady holding the scales appeared topless and mopping. Principal Mayson spoke on behalf of the statue´s idea.

"Misjudgements hurt the pride of the men," he declared. "Nevertheless mighty became mightier by discipline, and one of its forms is to not fall into delusions of grandeur or infallibility. A wise man repels the despicable sentence." The voice cleared its throat."Some of the ladies here have been incarcerated groundlessly."

If he corrected one word in his shocking exclamation, I would think the second uprising has stolen sodium thiopental.

Inmates' jaws dropped in direct contrast to aloof Paladins. Lolle and Lewandowska didn´t seem to be staggered, they watched like people who fancied the movie they saw previously.

"Thanks to the Prefect´s amnesty, six women will be returned to their guardians," Mayson continued."They share the last meal with you, they will get one week-long course, and then you might bid them farewell. The names of those we want to apologize to are: Stella Varick, to live with her father in Albuquerque."

"Yes! Christ lives and loves me, yes!" shouted one poodle haircut.

"Tahereh Huddleston, expected by her husband in Shelbyville, Kentucky."

"I had no clue, that was possible!"

"Gina Preston, sent to her brothers in San José."

"No way!" Gina gripped my left arm. "I was freed by the power of Uncommon law!"

Lolle pushed her, unveiling the keyboard of her teeth.

That was it? Green is willingly releasing six innocents out of hundreds to get the trust of a new informer? I wept the tears publicly. I loathed the regime´s instigators, and I despised how they see themselves. Tears of joy were reserved for Gina, Stella, and Huddleston and soon for Liu, Romanoff, and Lambert.

Mayson´s speech concluded, wardens brought dishes to Paladins, and we were allowed to eat our fill.

The unstoppable water falling on the carrot porridge was dammed by the back of Sylvia´s hand and wiped by it from chin to cheek.

"Food poisoning!", my wife claimed, and she begged the toilet break on the warden, we all being taken unawares by the whoopings of chosen lucky ladies. I toppled over the bowl. Sylvia wasn´t sparing the towel paper.

"Fake mercy!" I rasped. "It is fake, but I would kill if that meant you and I would receive it."

Sylvia wiped a tear from my left eye and gave me another piece to blow my nose. "Roberta, be jolly it happened to anyone. Our sentence is fixed. Lesbians exist to entertain. Any mercy would befall on one member of the pair. Wanna bring something so cruel as separation?"

She took off the sweater. A transparent bra held her titties, she got accustomed to it by helping out in Weatherby´s classes, to show girls how to lose a lover´s steam. I pinned my face to them, seeing the globes and caressing the fibers was spicing. Sylvia opened her pants and guided my flabby hand to her warm spot. She lifted my ass, striping me from the waist down progressively.

Her lips were licking my tears in the manner of a happy bitch. When adults punished my little self I hated me crying but aunt Cynthie said that poisons are leaving the body with tears, and that includes naughtiness. Some day, I´ll ask Basma what does she think after her chastisement.

If you have tears of sadness and somebody takes them away, one gains something from her beloved. I have wound up the confidentiality.

"Darling, take me to your virtual class!"

Under the pretension of a future joint lesson (efficiency versus sensibleness), I visited the English virtual room. To define it as "trippy" would be a disservice. Most of the floor and the roof were comprised of hard book covers, while the building used wide yellowed pages as walls. There were interactive showcases with one big letter, which I was guessing served as a dictionary, and there hung up portraits of writers, promising the knowledge if you touched them. Grammatical phenomena had cupboards enshrined to them.

"You want to tell me something unsettling, my love?" Sylvia stripped off her virtual clothes to the tiniest bit and leaned on the recess of letter L. "Not apeing Basma. If you are short on words, list in the thesaurus."

"All the words are right ones as long as the listener can bear what they mean."

"Roberta, we have each other..."

"And in order, it stays that way, I´m not sure on which side we will support."

She pulled a face. "We have been given some choice? When did that happen?"

Matter-of-factly I explicated my wife with the exploits of Hamilton, Kane, and Thompson.

She sat on her haunches, resembling a swan laying on her eggs.

"And you are thinking over if it wouldn´t be tactical to massacre them? Perhaps you hunger after fake mercy, Roberta?"

She ingested the reveal. Next to that, scandal is a quotidian occurrence.

"I have looked the data up in the Arnolph´s journal. The largest file was a video call. She was hearing from a guy, bald head in the shape of potato but in a splendid red shirt. Talking quickly and peeping over the cam as he was mucking his provider. "

"Who isn´t some ordinary yoga instructor, is he?", Sylvia said.

"No, darling. He named him once, and that surname unlocked the context. Cao. Cao is doing this and that."

"Alexander Cao?" Sylvia tilted her head back and cupped my knees. "Arnolph and Mayson. Low in position, aiming high. What is Cao´s "this and that"?"

"He is scheming beyond Gilbert´s orders. Along with Neumann, they are negotiating a string of peace talks, since they visited us, starting in London and taking up their diplomacy over Europe, sometimes in Africa too. Cao frequently conducts parts other fellows are not aware of. The guy said he conditions the safe terms by the... A long list of names."

"People he wants to dispose of?" Sylvia tried, allowing me to remain her intellectual superior.

"The other thing. They are white horses he places to the leading positions in the state enterprises. Little kings, who are ruling in his abroad empire. And he plans to become a real Princeps nonetheless."

Sylvia attempted to stand up but couldn´t. "Do they have any evidence?"

"No, Arnolph was demanding, but the guy told her even he needs a tech wizard for that."¨

"It is information of no value," Sylvia deduced.

I bowed so I could pat her on the shoulder. You are given a gift when you gaze at the front and back of the female form simultaneously. Shame we were using those mouths to communicate.

"This imperfect accusation is valuable if you want to immerse someone in trouble."

"I get it," Sylvia said dully. "You are weighing to piss and shit over selfless beings to catapult us two towards the heights of prominent figures."

"Bingo!"I know candor can be taken as an excuse for lack of articulacy however it shortens the blather. "I fear them, and I must know you are where I can reach you, where they will not abuse you!" I interlaced my fingers above her confused eyes. "Would it be possible to team up with their enemies and sleep next to Lolle?"

She drew a breath. Kiss me, girl. Once you know, your approval means universe.

"Roberta, since puberty I have been living among people who wouldn´t have children of their own. I didn´t want to have someone else´s in part because I cared and was a model to any class I taught. So I knew so many people stepping into adulthood, and they deserved moral authority as a person. Moral authority who punishes the wicked, never the nice ones."

I never remember I took Sylvia´s point when I rather wanted to take some serious action. This time she spat back to me the philosophy I have hard imprinted on my heart valve. Wicked are those who should suffer.

Lolle won´t disrupt her service to Prefect. But if she wanted, she could do that through Gina, whom she knows and who is leaving the Tower. The fully clothed Gina would bring a little thing on herself. I will not be the one who points it out, that would be suspicious.

"Hamilton will have to choose," I told Sylvia determinedly. "Either she and her friend get what is coming to them or Lolle."

Sylvia embraced my hug, her cold lips pressed together. She left VR shortly before me and sulked on a way home.

It defied a reason, but another warden, a fat Asian chick, blocked an entrance.

"Sorry, fellow co-lector. I transferred two visiting privileged ones. They need temporary privacy."

"That is preposterous... Nobody´s there, perhaps save to…"

"I will explain," the familiar voice said, and Kane came through the door. "Basma invited me and Pat. Come, you can see a little."

I got a peek. Basma was laying in the bed on her stomach. She had the jeans and knickers yanked, making her olive-skinned round hiney a public matter. A whiter black lady was securing her hands in front of the bed. Kane called me to go back.

"She said what she received in VR was for the past. Now she wants something to remember for the future…" Kane reached out behind her skirt and showed me a long switch. "I'm waiting for when she´ll be ready to take it."



When you actively ask for the thrashing, you might be abnormal. Or maybe you don´t want to become a horrible excuse for human being like one opportunistic tennis player.

 

[Miras]

Chapter 5, Part 3 (1)

Nicole

I was sitting in front of the mirror, wearing only a scrappy piece of clothing that wasn´t in the picture - the black thong with glittering daisy bloom on the broader side.

Patricia looked over my shoulder and gave a long whistle as if my boobs could compare favorably with hers.

"Your innocence is deceitful, Nicole," she said. "Mr. White is scattershot that he hasn´t sent you the gown, just some minisculities, but I think he is sewing the finest wedding dress."

"And I would be making the groom suite? My soon-to-be mother-in-law has done all the work. I won´t leave the side of her son!"

Patricia opened the green lipstick, a second item White passed on, to be received by the hand he asked for in marriage.

"I will draw you little waves. Let him not get tired of you."

"And I don´t wish that since...?"

"Since Paladins have connections and White shouldn´t overhear your fiancé´s first name. Trying to look like your mind is elsewhere? He will search for the other charmer. You will be free of James but robbed of Peter, who in turn will lose...." She quickly spread her arms, fluttering them like a bird learning to fly.

"Fight for Peter by spellbinding James."

Dress for the event cultivated by White came on the dot, so I would pull it on and go. Glowing through the representation of Papilio butterflies with blueish wings, it got a bare back, and it was so tight on the ass I would flaunt it simply by walking.

In the morning, inmates proceeded sequentially on the waiting list. They weren´t looking forward to anything, but they waited.

James White was seemingly skimping on his care for lust objects. He chose me to rule over and that meant he eliminated ninety percent of names from the donated catalog, leaving five ladies to talk. He also convened us on the same evening session, in the front of his room, no less, where we looked at each other like kids taken by mommy to the dentist.

White opened the entrance, inviting us by the austere marching order.

We were all emitting regality. Irene, the friend of Pat and Ruby, in a dark blue dress. Petite Fuka in silver with the beveled skirt. Older Sherry in the black artifact from the past with a bustle. Gutiérezz, whose vents between jaguar spots set beast of the lecherousness free.

To this evening, I knew just the voice of James White and his fondness for abuse and "lesbians" of color. He turned me into his plaything, and he proposed I might not be a person again. I never imagined him as a shorty Eurasian with a small mouth, although I correctly estimated piercing eyes and weak arms. I didn´t care for his unproperly buttoned-up grey shirt and pants. The boy did the caring.

He was observing us, clearly contemplating some spiteful trick. We were smiling, not receptive to his tongue he couldn´t keep inside the mouth, suggesting all the fidgety male flesh, impatient in the sight of us.

White took possession of my hand and squeezed it, removing any comfort or gentleness he feigned with a kiss he positioned above my knuckles.

"My dad has seen your action photos, babe. He called you a jewell, but you are a lass worthy of pirate treasure. Shaking your booty and herself a reward for the sea police."

"I would gladly give you map where you can dig for more, sir."

Anything to reduce my sentence.

White pointed his nose in the air. "I´m more modest than it looks." He looked over the other four.

"Do you think you can play snob girls in the shimmering clothes, cunts? Not a chance when you are attending the pair at the engagement party."

He opened the wide wardrobe and dashed some hangers. "Change quickly."

Ladies weren´t trying to hide their disappointment. Maybe White craved it. However, I didn´t see any shame in their eyes when they renounced all the elegant clothing. Sherry used to make millions, but here she was conditioned to the state that she made sure the man in charge saw her shaved pussy for so long as possible. Irene came from a similar background, and she slid off her panties first.

The new apparel was less distinguishing. It was another design of body underwear, striped in black and white like the old prison uniforms, including the matching caps. Every piece had a lozenge hole over the belly.

"I will not waste number tags on likes of you. I hereby sentence you to the community service. The community being me and the chosen one Orient Sexpress".

He pulled me to the table. Glasses were empty, but the bar was offering swipes I was sure required a Teflon container. No, such a potency would cause combustion in the stomach of White, and my karma is nowhere that good.

Irene poured a stream of Savignon and leaned her figure in an S shape on the bar while White was telling me his life story practically from conception. Once upon a time, his father roamed Hong Kong in the search for a multiuse chambermaid, appreciating a guy who tips here. And that´s how daddy met mommy. Little James was growing up, with speed second only to his father´s shareholder values. "I am an adult. I should have a wife to serve me," he elaborated. "And you girls are at your sexiest half-nude, punished, working or in the awe of the guys. You must be not angry at me, my chosen one, that we share the room with the bridesmaids. I can´t be busting it up with no chicks at my feet."

That represented a single instance he showed some concern for anybody´s feelings. He didn´t care for Irene the bartender, Sherry cutting herself when she was preparing us vegetable toast didn´t move his small piece of heart. He gazed at candy-bringing Gutierréz and Fuke solely from the posterior.

And no, he wasn´t interested in the person sitting opposite to him, on my chair. James was talking, Nicole listening. Her past life was nonexistent to him before he locked on to her.

I burped slightly after my third glass. "Charm becomes a curse."

White poured his rest back into the bottle.

"Very well. We can enjoy ourselves sober. Booze be damned. Does hurting others make your boiler steamy, Chic-Nic?"

"No, I am not inclined. Who should I be hurting for you, sir?"

"Everybody within reach, Chic-Nic. We are unguided missiles!" He snickered through his porcelain teeth. "Cunts! Go to the wardrobe and bend! I want all your hands on the wood!"

The bottoms peeped out like four moons, one of them broad and rockier, two tight and sweet, one just in the most desirable age- firm and alluring.

From the bedroom, White brought a whip whose length put our Holy Submission gear to shame. "I won´t strike them on the same place, but the art is to mark all of them," White said. Then he flicked them. The long black line diffused the pain. Iren and Sherry cried out like some human mares as the red markings were pulsing on them. Gutiérezz and Fuka were acting up after they had their legs coiled in the sharp tail.

White used a whip as a scythe, bringing it down three more times. He reaped a scream, the remaining interviewees were collapsing on their knees and wrists, but they arched to him. White went to me, offering the handle. I would suck with a whip, and I did not want to lock gals in the torment.

"Sir, I was wrong! You are doing a handsome job!" I lifted my dress ceremoniously, and stuck a finger behind the waistline of the thong, continuing deep inside as if the pussy was starving. "We can start wedding night practice."

White didn´t look entirely sure, but his gaze settled on my blowing belly. He threw the whip to the feet of lamenting women, and out of his pocket, he pulled out scissors. He went in my way to cut the thong. Adios, daisy. The man clawed the dress next, from the hem to the neckline. Adios, butterflies.

I had to ignite my passion while he was pulling me butt naked to his room and beyond. But it had a desirable effect. My muscles and labia awaken a water-belching monster. White showed me a space overfilled with water, a large jacuzzi, swirling as he got close, enveloped in yellow-to-green lighting.

He jerked my busy hand forcibly and submerged me in the bath. The warm stream massaged me, and as I felt the swirl all around the waist, my body was a little more accommodating to know a new lover. White spoiled fun a little. He pulled out my legs from the bath. "Stretch them as much as you can." This wasn´t pleasant to maintain. And neither was baring his hands clasped on my throat after he pulled down his clothes. White must have liked to see me as defenseless, he drew my face, so I had to shut my mouth and breathe through a nose. Somehow he found enough space to insert one massive cock. I dared to close my thighs a little. I was afraid he might start to strangle me, but he just bit my heel. I kicked both of my legs. My waist and ass quivered. He seemed to deem it thrilling, bitting my toes on the other feet. He poked me whenever I was mad, and the sensation drove me insane.

White leaned to my ear. "I expect you to thank me once we´re done, Nic-Chic."

I expressed my satisfaction quickly once he released all the grips and made me soak in his jizz. He left the bathroom dried but not clothed, and I heard him talking to the kissed-by-fire belles.

"Do you wish your whipping wouldn´t have stopped? You still don´t know what kind of swing my chosen one practices."

There were some slapping and squealing sounds as he probably pressed them to answer him.

"Why would you be trying? She is docile sheep, the one you want to farm with," stated the words in Irene´s voice.

He exiled us from his quarters. He might think of it as punishment in itself.

At night the friendly sluts were sleeping while I was decoding the present in the meditation. In it, I often caught a gleam of the past.

It was the wrong path to follow. I have only the now. When my father lost his job, and our mom became the breadwinner, I, and Steve, my hyperactive brother, were schooled all day since. Mom thanked him once that he made a new mission from his children, and he never got embittered. He shook his head despite us two listening. "Family was what I was always about. But wise people can find happiness in many things, and when they don´t, they will always have their spirit. As long as they live, everything is good. Everything is essentially good."

Yet I thrived when many things were better. In the time of my second family...

"Forgive me for not standing from the sofa, Peter. If the new Mrs. Yoon is going to work hard, as when old Mrs. Yoon was setting the stroke, she will grow muscles, carry you outside, put you to bed, and then smash you flat." I reached for a biscuit. Some of the hard labor on the side of me, and Peter´s mother, should pay off in the energy.

Peter gave me a second piece in my free hand and sat next to me tightly. He cuddled my breast shamelessly.

"Attractive taken women are doing a disservice to the men of their life, when they are home, far from danger, and yet they wear layers of clothes. That should be punishable by law!"

I swallowed and turned to him. His nostrils flared, taking so much air one would believe he wanted to have a nose as hulking as his fat face. Well, his parents discovered I am skillful. Their son was rewarded with an empty house and me as a sanctioned mate.

"Layers stimulate the fantasy, Peter. Or the fifty-fifty approach."

I pushed away his hand gently and unzipped my pants, standing up to shake them off and their dark colors melted on the carpet. Innocently, I showed my panties-clad bottom to Peter and swung the booty. Strolling to the center of the living room, I took my socks off by stepping on my feet and turned to my fiancée, deepening my smile. I slid panties to my knees, stretching them when I went on all four. I waved my hand forward.

"Your cat wants to have an actual tail. Meow-meow."

Peter shed some layers of his own. "I need a backdrop, kitty." He came back with the massive gree-and-golden pillow in his arms he threw far behind me." From the parents' bedroom," he said. And he proceeded to make himself comfortable, seated and penetrating my body. In college I had two white boyfriends, and, yes, that made me accustomed to more giant junk. However, what Peter lacked in size, he made up for with the quickness of his pushes. Thankfully, the boy had endurance, and his peg was pushing for long and long, building up the way for my climax. When my moaning became audible, he jumped to me from behind, rudely grasping my breasts. He leaned us both back in one violent jerk, so I wasn´t on all four anymore I was sitting upright on his crotch while he laid on the cloth his mother and father might have used for his conception. He continued to hump, but suddenly it was me jumping in squat, afraid I would ever leave that smaller cock. It was just our second lovemaking, and we promised each other the third one should be ravishing me in my wedding dress.

 

[Miras]

Happy New Year, People! We should start it by reading!

5-3-2

If somebody asked me why I wanted Zita Woodroof to help me drive White away, I wouldn´t be making up self-delusional excuses I didn't believe myself about how I thought she might find a solution. No, I screamed to another Rapunzel that I am witless, and I like the warm feeling that she thinks of herself as the one who sends me to the right embrace. I choose her as my companion for the mass classes when I was tired of withholding contempt for my roommates, as in the Fridaý dungeon.

We were strapped nude on mechanical wooden horses, two dozen inmates, their labia hard-pressed from below by the edge.The ordainded exceptions to chastity belts are piling up. Malcolm is demanding.

"Slaves, either you will make me jerk off, or I will drown you in sperm!"

He´s pushing the limits lately...

"I will turn you a little rodeo, and you are supposed to moan in pleasure. Painful screaming can not be so hard, as my practice shows. We need just calibration for that one."

And the triangle slid backward, touching deeper both my center of affections and partially the buttcheeks. It was chafing me and filling me up. Luckily, I turned my surprised yelling into a hedonistic sound of "Ah, ah, ah, ah!" It slid forward. The thing felt like derision, as a total humbling of me, and I knew if that bastard White were here, he would take me down and poke me. I would bruise, and worse, bleed, more than after losing my virtue.

Many of the class, Zita included, coudn´t bring their moans to the top, and four drooled on the floor. Mr.Director gave extras a break.

"Have you met your Paladin?" I asked Woodroof neutrally.

She moved her waist on the wooden horse. "Next week."

"Which one?"

"They didn´t tell me. I can call him Master Ash."

I have no idea how to stay serious when the conversation turns to pop culture.

"I´m sick of...," I confessed, leaving the last word to her imagination.

"You must not be the only one," Woodroof whispered. "He prefers something, and he must avoid a lot. You won´t marry him if he thinks the person he should be commanding smells foul."

Malcolm announced this Saturday will be a study one. They insisted on us having a night behind the literal bars so that we won´t be relenting in our submissive mindset.

We told ourselves the subset of submission lies in the quickness of your adaptation. Cages open to the rude awakening, and you must make everything about you perfectly sleek.

I, and Zita had not too much to pick from when we were to select the Heiress for the park chat, but we followed Cindy to one table by the pond.

"Don´t you mind to be shared, dearest?"

"I must keep you in an ideal state for a new novel, Cindy."

Bellinda smiled and poured us glasses of orange juice.

She was one tall girl with raven hair of the same exceeding length as mine, but she braided them into two ponytails. She had electrifying effect on people around, generated in part by round sapphire eyes and curvy hips. I heard rumors that because she is shagging Cindy, who is single, she must please some guys on other occasions, giving them pleasures they wouldn´t be able to extract from inmates.

"Ladies, I don´t envy your position," Bellinda brought forward. "You are supposed to receive applications from men who would love to become aces of your life voyage. Then you will see how much popular you are. Who do you think will want you, Zita?"

That is a course for the park chats. To learn the talk between ladies about matters which should be of utmost importance to them.

Woodroof took a large sip of juice. "Larry from my class. He was polishing his small mirrors whenever I was around and he slapped my butt once after the game of dodgeball."

"He was honoring you a great deal," Bellinda said. "But the romantic part is that you can´t guess whose eye you will catch. I am ecstatic about Paladins, I would like to be hugged by Mr. Graham. He looks like some robust fireman!"

Cindy sniffed. "Fireman Kid loved every guy´s mistress. He was so busy he left out the distress. House full of skanks turned to ashes, unloved guys gave him a few gashes. They threw his members to be eaten by crows, for, you see, he used the wrong hose."

Woodroof laughed.

"Composed it when I was younger than you," Cindy boasted.

"I don´t understand the sarcasm," Bellinda said. "Paladins will be on the best ideological and physical path thanks to their Institute. The future leaders."

Cindy shrugged. "Johansson is interested in my literature skills, nothing else."

"And White likes only my body," I dared.

"You don´t wish to reproduce a lot?"

Woodroof answered instead. "I talked about it with Nicole. She is conflicted about being a subject of the desire of many men."

"There is no conflict," Bellinda said. "She must choose the one with the best genes. Eugenics should never be suppressed again."

"Do we have a right to talk about genes-passing, Bellinda? I mean, we are here for enjoying other girls." I saw the gleaming broad glasses of Deborah, another passing Heiress. "Are you dissatisfied, Sky Queen - Pirate Queen?"

"I didn´t expect to sleep with anyone but my Heir." The lie knotted on my tongue and hopefully, I looked guilty.

"You just need a few months of training and you won´t think about anyone but your husband and women he will order you to shag."

"Maybe that should be her detention," Bellinda said. "Exposure to lesbianism."

I couldn´t discern if Bellinda really wanted to suck up to a sapphic-digging White or if she was simply exhibitionist-minded. No matter where the truth lay, I was marked a dull girl by her for my comments. I guess Cindy´s cleverness worked only in her favor.

At the time of the usual Saturday sports break the older ones were redeployed to Lovemaking and at that moment I was made the requested third wheel. In her room, Bellinda took a couple of handcuffs from her kinky collection and bound my wrists to the chair. "You will regret thousand times you will be not able to touch yourself," Bellinda goaded.

I wasn´t fighting down my urges seeing her as she stretched out her arms and made a jump like an agile cheetah. Cindy patted Bellinda on her shoulder blades and they soon had full hands with the fans of their skirts, with the wrappings on their crotches, stripping them one woman from the other. When they reached the top, Cindy was done faster because Bellinda wore nothing that would hold her breasts.

Cindy lacked any submission, getting into bed. She leaned slightly on her hip and popped her eyes upward to the smiling face of her lover. The rich spoiled daughter of the publisher disentangled her hair and hooped amidst the sheets. Cindy bounced, stretching her legs. The pussy peeped out like a rising Sun.

Heiress jerked her head. Bellinda looked like Venus in the tempest. On the other hand, her fingers slowly flapped the fluff of Cindy´s center of love just slowly. She petted gently part of her friend. Not a wounded one, I am sure they kept it fit and healthy although it ached sometimes.
Cindy pushed her upper teeth a little over her lip. Ms. Writer was plotting something.
She stroked Bellinda´s wrist and turned on her stomach, facing now Bellinda´s shaved crotch. She sucked on her clit, and I finally started to jerking the handcuffs, seeing Beliinda´s open mouth and kinda suspecting movements of her tongue are copying what the minx is doing down below. I didn´t know that feasting on the air could be so sensual.

When she came, she used her mouth on Cindy´s, licking now remnants of her juice. She wasn´t a man, but her movements started to be rough and demanding. It took another orgasm for her to change her demeanor. Then they stood on their knees and teased each other like girls who met on their first college day on campus. They feasted on their lips and their ears. I wondered if they would use a dildo, but presumably, they liked to caress their inner body only with the intimate contact of the other´s living tools.

 

[Miras]

5-3-3

When they threw me out, an armed force was needed, proclaimed the see-through shirt they gave me. Between my breasts, I had a stylized picture of a girl laying on top of the other. "If Cindy could beat the shit out of Bellinde, I would get her," Claudia said, smoothing her blouse.

It was easier to find an inmate whom they didn´t choose for waitress duty, especially among privileged ones and student girls. The fragile dishes of steamy soups and spicy sauces didn´t make our elbows or knees unsteady. The Heirs impeded us by the incessant pinchings, full-bottom slappings, ear-pulling, nipple-pulling, and douchebaggery laughter. As a "dull girl" I was made to take my skirt off, and the shine of my chastity belt was beckoning the guys.

Logically, they entrusted me with bringing a tureen of soup to the Paladin table. I covered my chest with it and tried to be more seductive by the tenderness on my face. Romano was glad to see me and poked White along with Graham for bigger acknowledgment, something that wasn´t necessary for Johansson, who has developed an obsession with the keyhole above my pussy.

Did I feel too much disgust to ask about the lack of White´s interest? I stayed stolid towards him until I put soup on the table, and he made one hundred and eighty degrees turn. He stood up and wasn´t satisfied with just squeezing me this time, he clutched my wrist into a proverbial vise.
"You bat-faced snake, I want you to take me to the cripple you want to fuck instead of me!"

He was serious, incensed, and fuming. The dining room relatively piped down, exceptions being those Heirs who chortled and pointed their fingers in his direction so that the whole table would see who was jester of the occasion. Graham was whispering some quick words to his ear and Romano put his hand to White´s elbow. Together they solidified into a sculptural group. I hoped to see wardens, but they didn´t rush in. Fine, White doesn´t know about Peter Yoon. He must be talking about my Heir, whom I didn´t see anywhere.

"Carl, come here!" I screamed desperately. He came, inhaling and exhaling. He had a hard time standing upward.

"Did I transgress against you, fellow... Fellow respectable guest?"

White shook my wrist in the air as if I was a rotten sausage. "Ms. Conrad was talking with this hussy in the park, and when I was debriefing her, she told me that my female didn´t think she is going shag none but you! If you have a plan a life with her..."

"I don´t want her. She is lousy in bed, that's for starters..."

"You have never complained. Once, maybe!" I shrieked, suddenly obsessed about my honor. Heirs mimicked my voice with some hint of Chinese accent I did not possess.

"Then why does she want you?"

Carl panicked. He did not want to look into White´s mad face neither he wished to look into my eyes that were fruitlessly inciting the other Paladins.

"Maybe she wanted to set us against each other?" he asked sheepishly.

White slapped me violently. I craked in striking pain, but he didn´t let me fall to the ground.

"We can try to unite against her," he told Carl.

"I´ve felt your mojo, son, and it permeates my members. While I was laying next to your mother, I could have sworn I heard Nicole on that pillow, screaming in satisfaction. Well, she is repaying it to you," Mr. Yoon said. He and Peter did high five. They had no reservations about us in the kitchen understanding their manly dialogue. Mrs. Yoon was working as a wind, bending her figure in the same black apron with white lacing as I was wearing. Thanks to our combined strength, we baked a full sheet of elephant-shaped cookies and put cranberry spread on them.

"We are exchanging our men today," Mrs.Yoon said and gave me a dish for her husband. I was stepping behind her on the way to the sitting room. We bowed, and I passed my load to an excited old man.

"Very good, girl," Mr. Yoon said after eating two cookies. "I would never forbid Peter from sharing the bed with you."

"No," I laughed. " That is the modern´s wife privilege and an instrument of power."

Mr. Yoon sniffed. "When a wife is talking about her power, she is robbing her husband."

I couldn´t stand the hypocrisy. "And husbands weren´t technically robbing their wives of certain things?"

Mr. Yoon grew silent just like Peter´s mother, more on the offended side.


Peter screwed me because he didn´t defend me this time. He was religiously looking up to his dad. I chastised him on the way to the house we were contemplating buying, and one doesn´t want to piss off the driver. Peter still didn´t back off.

"You know what he was saying. Only one can hold the power. He protected my mom and has never hurt her. She obeyed and revered his decisions."

"Are you saying women don´t have their heads?"

Peter waited for me to make a turn.

"All I am saying is many of them seek advice accompanied by gentleness."

They dragged me to the crampy dungeon. I saw some bare legs raised in the air, shuddering. White and Carl tore my shirt in a quick motion. I was too stressed to watch, but I know one of them switched on the control on the wall. A pair of oval leather cuffs on a chain descended, and I pushed my hands through them. White´s rough press tightened them painfully. "I don´t love him," I said in a loud voice. Then came the angry answer.
"I think you are incapable of loving anyone."
I hate you, White. You made me renounce Peter. Mrs. Yoon and Mr. Yoon. Not everyone in that family showed me just graciousness, but they possessed firm character.

The air behind me got pierced by the whiz of a flogger. It smacked me into the shoulders, igniting lines of defamed skin. I screamed not right away, after the first stroke, but before the second one. It burned exponentially. It would not surprise me if I had the candles whose flames were turning stripes of my skin black.

The cords kissed my shoulders and back a second time. I shouted, and the hanging person in front of me flipped her calves backward. The burning pushed me over the edge. I sensed a map of the welts forming on me, completed eventually by the map of leaking blood.

"Can I borrow it? Do you know how to leave a mark or not?"
It would make sense if Carl said that, but I heard this voice sometimes and little. The whipping beclouded me from people entering.
"As if you were hitting hard, Jack."

Johansson responded with pampering laughter. "From the head, I can give you seven numbers to girls who would think differently, but you wouldn´t trust them unless I would prove it on your ass... Which isn´t acceptable for you, is it?"

White was just getting more confused.

"Ms. Conrad? And who is she? One of my rejects?"

"I´m witness," said a familiar young voice. "My name is Zita Woodroof. I have heard Nicole was supposed to be punished, but I was present when she told Ms. Conrad that thing. I spoke with fellow Johansson on her behalf, and we went to he... To Ms. Conrad so you would know what is Nicole´s problem."

"It is either me or this geezer!" Flogger stuck on my butt, and my face became soaked with tears. I was wiping them with my cuffs.

"Ms. Conrad, you told me the whole thing. Were you lying? Are you going to?"

"Fellow White," Bellinda said. "I´m here so you can reprove me. I´ve made the mistake. I told you that Ms. Xiong is so much lovestruck, and she is. I believed her when she mentioned her tutor. But the cupid was flying over her much earlier. The cause itself was presented for anyone to see in her civil records."

Sound of paper unfolding, quintessential background noise of office drones.

"So, she gave her saddle to some guy! Well she is a doll, and men have the right tastes."

I would protect him to my last breath, but Woodroof sacrificed Pater as a pawn in a game. Who wouldn´t have done that? The flogging would be the first step on my maddening descent.

"Peter and I are together," I whispered. "He... In my blood, in my heart and lungs, in my senses."

Bellinda walked around me.

"He is not a seed of the nation!"

"Such a love is what you call a drug," White didn´t cease to be angry. "You´ve said that you and your girl influenced her. Can you inscribe my name on her tag?"

"One hundred percent sure! My pal Deborah has a loyal girl too. We will do a group meeting. Three´s a company."

White took more on a commanding tone. "Make that group company and one. You will also get this ungovernable creature."

They dropped the hanging woman in front of me. It was Irene, unclothed, striped, exuding the stench of vomit.

 

[Miras]

Character Helene was named after one of our members as per her request. I hope she is fine, whatever she is doing!

5-3-4

I wasn´t bleeding, so I received only the normal nano-gel that docs were distributing after Holy Submission lessons, and I could spend the night in the traditional place, tossing and turning.

Because I had a feeling my breaths tend to be shorter and shorter, I made them regular in bed, sitting in lotus, closing my eyes, straightening my spine, even enclosing my hands in mudra. Some people say meditation is for depressed weaklings, but such a state is the calamity of humans, not unusually brought upon by someone.

The breath and wondering in my head were potent like lightning, born in the vast sky, desirous of metal rod. I´ve seen the past again, and I was no longer blaming myself for it. There was no wisdom nor repulsed objections towards it. I watched the flowing pieces of the things I saw, unattended.

"Here you go, Mrs. Kinaski. I have signed up the papers, and you have only one guess which one I´ve authorized grossed out."

A ginger businesswoman in her 50´s sniggered and took a look at just that document on her desk. "Your measures are in our usual range. I see you are engaged, so it is my duty to discourage you from working..."

"You won´t discourage me in that Saint Lauren tuxedo!

"Oh, go-getting intern, longing for my chair! First, she must take a cute snap to complete a nonsensical file."

She slid a photo of me in a shining shirt and went with me to my VR booth. On the curve of the rounded egg-like surface, I touched a little thing stuck to the handle. A plastic cockroach having a shower and smiling with a bent head.

"That´s Mr.Buggingit," Kinaski explained. "Machine will always have bugs and dirty things are hopping around. The mere sight of him is telling us that life is more than the spotless visage of the company."


The long inhale and exhale emptied my head of apathy and searching. Leaving and staying on this spot became interchangeable. And then I saw him again, for a few long seconds - Mr. Buggingit. I relived that distraction from business. In this version of the moment, he said: "Happiness never goes away." I had to believe this cartoony cockroach. The words combined what my father told us. "Everything is good, and happiness never goes away."

Who would have thought?

For me, the fact I was derisive of it gave me hope it could be more than just my synapsis firing rosy message I should pick up as some evolutionary advantage when I found myself in a cramped and dirty cave. I was thinking that in part because in that rapture I felt grateful for limitations. During life as we are living it, the possibilities will change the potentially organized mind into an abstracted one. My consciousness was gifted with the choice - either registering the space of my room, which seemed dull, now and forever, or I could sense my consciousness without thoughts but still working. The second option crowned me Empress of my days.

The lack of sleep mattered very little. I closed my eyes to regain strength. Particles of dust burst with static charge around my ears. I tapped into a pool of stamina and felt like a hot air balloon, so indefatigable it reaches the emptiness of the cosmos. My peace proved stronger than rebuking lamentations of Pat, doleful groans of Claudia, or desultory wonderings of Alice.

Bellinda and Deborah packed my two salted eggs, and they were hurrying me prickly. I ate it on the floor of the interrogation room where chains hooked to the table leashed metal collars of six nude women - me, Irene, Heiresses, their princess lovers... and Woodroof.

"Why is she here? I asked Johansson, who presided over us, reading a book.

"She is the most active of the kiddie bunch, including your case," he explained. "People are grooming her to be an independent tutor."

Woodroof gave me a supportive look.

Irene eyed Deborah´s lover, the girl, whose name was escaping me. She was black, and I mean pitch-black, kneeling on long, thin legs which supported a lovely prominent behind. She had smaller breasts and short curly hair, but the worshipful posture highlighted her natural beauty.

Her head dipped with a smile when she looked at me, Irene, and most of all when she winced at Cindy. She raised her hand. Johansson muttered permission to speak.

"Are you that Cindy Dunn? Have you written Freight Car On The Loose? A Gospel of Murderess?"

The writer nodded, her teeth gleaming between her lips.

"I´m Helene Z. Freeman and I am your fan! I read Freight Car sixteen times and Gospel of Murderess eighteen times!"

Bellinda stroked Cindy´s face. "She makes love to her fandom. Even if that entails only readers of the second book."

Cindy slapped Bellinda´s ass and bowed to Helen. "It is crucial to value faithful readers."

"And I like your program," Helen said sweetly to Woodroof.

"I write it!" specified Woodroof.

"I see Cindy and Ms. Conrad are of one mind and one body," Johansson said. "While our group met because of two girls affected by problems with authority."

"Ms. Baird has them in general, Ms. Xiong is simply unable to prioritize them," Bellinda said.

And that is the problem with my spiritual revelation. I can feel no worry, to not be aggravated by what they say about "Ms. Xiong" but the future stays grim. Could I be assuring myself that "Happiness never goes away" even during my execution?

I breathed. The insight in the night provided me with a better clasp on the present. I could concentrate, meaning I connected to the matter at hand, somehow knowing the solution is closer than the air in my lungs.

I stood up and rested my elbows on the table.

"Can you afford to do that?" asked Johansson incredulously.

"I am of opinion that Ms. Conrad gave me the word and you are the only one I can address poignantly," I said. "Bellinda and Helene were given ten months to reform. Who can expect I will be a new person in over three months? My fiancée Peter Yoon is an obedient son, and he was beyond relieved when his father agreed to our wedding. He was cooperating with the Princess Tower in a good faith, and now his family is losing the... Bedrock."

"Men can be grumbling if they won´t get their promised wives," Woodroof said.

Johansson rubbed his temple. "Ms. Conrad, you´ve said that Ms. Baird is the chronic rebel, but today she is the one who conducts herself as the good reprimanded girl should."

Irene got on her feet in the reminiscence of me. "Engagement is just a kind of trade. One that dumb people are pointlessly hurrying up. I couldn´t cope with Mr. White because he was baring himself to her," she pointed out at me.

Johansson´s features softened. "What do we have here? One girl seems to be socially neglected, and the other is in a conflict of interests, and also substantially experienced one. Ms. Xiong, you can tutor her about living as a couple."

I stopped being careful. Why not? "She could take lessons from her." I nodded toward Helene. "Do I think right you have a husband? Given your pairing?"

"Yes, Adrian sent me here!"

I tumbled back to the floor.

"Yes, I was a journalist. Our newspapers started to print controversial articles. Adrian forced me to quit, and it turned out beautiful as a rainbow for us. But we both thought I was not submissive enough to him, so I let myself conscript. I´ll meet him in the divine July!"

That reinforced my point.

"Man can apply but it is not his duty," Johansson noted. "Mr. Yoon can ask for any woman in the Princess Tower network. They will have a moment to consider, they can decline..."

"How about killing two birds with one stone," suggested Woodroof. "If he can´t marry Ms. Xiong, he can be put together with Ms. Baird at a distance."

"What are you saying, Ms. Xiong?" Johansson´s voice pressured me. I didn´t pay attention mainly to that, but to the fact I could use it against White.

"Can Peter come, so we say farewell as normal people?"

 

[Miras]

5-3-Finale

"Yes Peter, rumors were true. I will have a curfew until I die. My guardian can allow me to have a job, but female working hours are supposed to be curtailed, our taxes will double, and my trade license? It will be yours to hold in trust. Choke on it and wash it down!"

Peter put his glass of wine down. Absent-mindedness hindered him from scooping tasty meatballs up. We were dining at my folks' place, listening to Tom Jones hits and my concerns from discomposure.

"You have nothing to say? Are you looking forward to your authority?"

He bit his lip. It suggested to me that I was correct. I crossed my knife and fork above the dish.

"I haven´t been to their meetings, Nicole..." He looked worn out. "I didn´t vote for anyone I had known sympathizes with them. I will do what will secure who we are and who we will be."

"You will do more, Peter!" I chewed on a meatball, hoping to cast a disdainful glance. "I know who you are, all right. You are my cherub. You are a harmless individual. Alas, cheesy as it will sound, I demand a strong husband."

Together with Zita we were trying to guard so many things at once. My life and well-being. My satisfied partnership with a good man. Peter´s opportunity of living as a man who can climb some mountains, even if I won´t be there to give him the rope. We couldn´t handle it all, and I think we forfeited the most superfluous item.

Zita lent me the browser again, and I called Peter. He told me about new ways I could use my hand when I interrupted him and said we would see each other soon but not after that. He was hysterical, just as I would be if he told me that on the day of my arrest when I clung to the conviction that it would never happen. I explained to him the rest...

The vast terrace on the roof of the Tower offered itself as the scene of our plot, a protruding area that could easily fit sixty people. White was enthroned here in the middle of an open tent of vermilion cloth. I had a silk glove on my right hand. Peter was supposed to kiss me goodbye on it. I held a tray with three glasses in my left hand. Irene stood straddling me and White. The green dress drew men's attention to the exposed stomach and covered the breasts half, so not at all. I still had stinging remorse, alerting me to laziness, and fueling paranoia, but I learned to trust the present.

The four male wardens might have shot the helicopter and brought the beast down if the landing skids exceeded a millimeter in front of the circle around the drawn golden crown. They would also kill my ex-fiancé if he reached into his pocket, which I was afraid he would do the first second he saw me.

Peter came down the steps. A shuffling step further restricted him in the space defined by the group of crookedly smiling cronies. When they parted, it was because of Paladin, but he looked at me, and my gaze locked into his. Our eyes were like small ponds, yet I saw whole galaxies in his, free of bondage to tyrannical rulers, torched by love.

I didn´t know if I should be mad at him, seeing as he seemed to gain confidence, and it wasn´t just how he looked in the purple shirt and the dark clothing, patterned by subtle stripes.

White spurred me to go. That was it. Peter will surrender me as a bride, and he will also reject Irene as a substitute, demanding White would have to simply pay him. This might not be much for James and his father, but Peter will obtain the sum for a new start, and I will be an expensive victim. Brotherhood officials, assholes as they are, admit his right in such a situation. There is no reason why Irene should be lowly valued, and they would keep her gladly.

Business as usual.

White quickened his pace, gesturing behind his back for the female guides to halt their steps. He stopped a step in front of Peter and extended his hand toward him. “Dad was confused by the latest news!” he said excitedly. "Of course, he was happy for me when he realized that I was finally going to execute the transaction myself!"

Peter offered him his hand, but he let go almost immediately. In contrast, he kept looking into White's eyes and desperately tried to stop his cheeks from trembling.

"Funny you mention that," he said. "I can´t give you Nicole straight away. You see, she is now the source of income for my family."

I was trained too well to drop the not-so-cheap alcoholic beverage and stain the meeting. But I would need a full face mask to cover the surprise Peter had prepared, and Irene was looking me up and down with a hint of skepticism, possibly wondering if I know what is going on. Something was clear to me, namely, that I am, for the millionth time, infinitely scared about Peter´s life.

White had permission to express himself.

"She is making you money by laying here, shagging, and pouring soup?"

Peter just looked at his feet for a moment before reestablishing eye contact and stuttered out, “I..,. as her guardian, have the right to manage her affairs and conduct business on her behalf with her trade license. I and m-my dad already started an accessories store months ago. It's still in her name, so if she marries someone else it will go to him. Our legal counsel confirmed that to us. Sorry, we don't want to transfer it to you."

He was panting ridiculously, water splashes coming out of him faster than words. Either he didn't prepare it very far in advance, or he hasn't met anyone who justifiably glared at him before. I was just baffled for a while about what had grown out of the license I arranged like the day before the arrest.

White leaned into Peter's face as if to bite his nose. "So it's not complicated at all. I'll tell Chic-Nic, and she'll transfer the business to you."

"She can´t transfer them as such," Peter said. "During detainment, her role in such matters is supplemented by the state but the right is put on hold. It can be done by her but only after the end of the school year."

"So?! She´ll put it in your hands then! "

"I and my father were thinking about something else," Peter raised his voice. "We are expanding. We can turn the store into a chain thanks to some sedulous relatives. Your father could be our grateful partner. And you would be responsible for sifting the profits from us. All you have to do is to render me Nicole."

White didn't look much at me or at Peter. Now he was eyeing Irene with bigger breasts and a more defiant look on her face and I didn't have to be a mind reader to know he was considering her. That is, if he wants to sleep with her, when he forces her to obey. You couldn't say that I was excited, I was keeping my balance now, but I was satisfied that Peter was able to pluck the string that connected James to his daddy.

“You don't look like a man of trade, Yoon,” White stated, his eyes on Irene's waist. “ I can imagine that the future in-laws of Chic-Nic were the ones who gave you advice on how to deal with life. Of course, everyone likes families, and marriage is not the only way to connect them. If we're going to end up under the same roof it would be nice to make you a real man... What do you say you stay for the party at the new Happiest Place on Earth?”

I no longer lived in the light of happiness or the shadow of gloominess. Still, despite Peter's embarrassment, I felt a memory of earlier feelings. The ardor that he will get to know this building and the life here more closely...

 

[Miras]

Chapter 5, part 4 (1)

Zita

These are the episodes of Royal Citadel High, and you can´t keep up with their turbulences!

Barbara was hanging out somewhere, asking for trouble, and we didn't want to needle in our Androcentrism lesson. Half-sitting, I stood guard between Lydia and her desk so that I could serve her as a chair in a wink of an eye.

Previously curvaceous Miss Pignon had to humble herself as well but passing through the door at Weatherby's side, she beamed and repeated something under her breath, congratulating herself given the tone.

She nudged all members of our Shieldmaiden gang in a friendly way and pointed behind herself. "Paladins dispatched a representant of masculinity."

Whom? I had a vague feeling that Johansson might be interested in our class. He had already sent out a circular presenting the barely usable costume under which he imagined a report card. It's just that when I saw them at the table, only his height and beard seemed masculine to me.

The class was starting, and I could distort my neck to recognize the mysterious emissary. It was an understandable mistake that I expected one of the Paladins. Weatherby greeted him appreciatively -the Asian guy in a rumpled suit with one hand rubbing his sleepy eyes. The influx of new people wearing pants tended to be limited, so I made a guess he is the fabled fiancée of Nicole, ragged by the usual fiancée traditions.

"Mind your betters, stinkers," Weatherby said. "Miss Xiong is a gold standard of those tasting the bittersweet rations of the reform. Her progress and marks endowed her with the courting of many interested men."

That interest culminated in her flogging out of jealousy. She was Euridice, and none of her Orpheus rescuers was a man. Johansson doesn´t count. He can barely be considered a big boy.

"Mr. Yoon was betrothed to her, and he bought her. For a reasonable price, no more, no less. Mr. Yoon, how much is my class worth? Tell them."

Yoon watched the teacher's expression even as he spoke to us, his arms swinging, his feet unable to avoid each other. "I, I, I... I'm not doing estimations. I'm buying all of you. Girls!!" He turned to our desks. "I dislike white flesh, but it is on the menu. My dad liked it, and grandpa was a cannibal. North Korea was bad, while we are excellent." Student girls were struggling to suppress bursts of laughter. A dull knock sounded more and more regularly in the classroom, but I didn't know who is doing it.

People… Perhaps substitutes for them recently humiliated Stacey with the alcohol, but then it was an immediate intention. Barbara needs to tell me if she went to White or he to her.

We wondered if Yoon had something else on his heart. It might have been the case. He was taking his time inquiring what it should be.

He gasped, and the girls in the front row covered their noses. "If you ever want to run a business, realize that the company won't be yours, but no one is taking away your intellect. You'll use it, even if it's sharper than your legal protector's..." His feet disentangled, and he landed flat his crotch on the floor, one leg pointing forward, the other backward. Weatherby tried to help him up, earning a punch to Adam's apple.

"The class is canceled!" shouted the teacher, throwing us a bag of keys to the chains. Yoon wouldn't stand up even by using his strength and kept grabbing onto the desks.

We all left hastily, with the irrational exception of one person. I finally understood the knocking. Louisa Polivka's fist was banging on her desk. She behaved bizarrely, repeating the same movement with her hand without breaking the rhythm, and did not utter a word until most of her classmates were gone. "Take a picture of him! Stick him on the front page of the Announcer!"

Afraid of Weatherby's reaction, I joined the girls in the hallway. I was running to catch up with Barbara, slowed down by her own rambunctious looking around.

I wanted to make it up to her. In the hypothetical case that her actions wouldn´t be sanctified by a more acceptable educator - the Sapphic matron Brunkow.

"So it was all your idea?" asked the teacher, waiting for the availability of the classroom.

"I went to Mayson's and found Yoon sleeping under his TV. White was giggling after hearing my suggestion! Mayson wasn't going to upset him after that."

And I did not mean to turn Brunkow against me.

"I haven't had fun like this in weeks," I told her. "Speaking of fun...Fellow Weatherby's having trouble in class. How about doing a VR biology lesson again?" Brunkow sighed.

"I'm surprised you don't know. Kane took virtual reality today for herself. She wants to finish a video game - Bold Barry and Saucy Nancy. I don't know the details, but it's supposed to be an erotic adventure game with a male and female character. She says that maybe it will make someone think, that is, it will stimulate the organs from the bottom up.“

Jeez, I have to check it out! But who would I play it with? Although I have to admit that originally I didn't just want a distraction. I was striving for a piece of space where I wouldn't be forced to talk in riddles and ambiguities. "Stacey agrees to your terms," I informed her of the pragmatic decision. Brunkow struggled but finally smiled. "She deals fairly," she said. "I'll tell her something important in time."

 

[Miras]

5-4-2

Stacey had an easier hand in dealing with the cards. "Alice will be best suited to upload the video to the browser. Thanks to Barbara, we know who Damasio can send it to."

"You are welcome," Barbara signaled.

"Therese, you are to team up with Roberta and Larissa. You three will be searching for Jenine. If you find her, make her flee the premises, I can´t stress this enough. I will be looking for clues and report them to you."

She is right that Jenine does not exhibit a rational mind, but I have a feeling Stacey envies the plucky nature of the other savior.

I haven't received even the second fiddle until much later. Therese acknowledged me in her supplementary proposition. "Zita might have befriended Neumann himself. We put him on the line for our falsehoods." Stacey opened her empty palm and slightly shrugged. Recounting my forum venture was not going to convince her effectively. And even if it did, what would I be mystifying moderator of Sleipnir Neighs about? The prose of the final Gormenghast part?

I gestured to Therese in gratitude. I´ve had tears in my eyes just looking at her lately. She and Lewandowska managed to arrange the release of several women from Princess Tower without being able to dictate the names because it was up to Lolle Manderville, or, more precisely, Prefect Green. Therese was said to be so strong that she forbade Lewandowska to mention her in front of the co-lector.

"So we are staying in place," I said the words that made sense in the context of my internal dialogue. I laid in bed, at once reminded about the unique tomorrow. "Stacey! You must have heard today about mine and Barb´s Paladin interviews!"

"Fine, Zita Ha... I mean, Shitball. You will do your Homemaking and go to Graham. Barbara has a meeting with Romano in the dining room."

There were no solutions to my dilemmas. Do I wish to go to that interview, or not, meaningless as that question is? Would I like herself to be attractive to Graham? How could he be handsome to me?

If he likes me and it is two-way, he will not sleep with me. He is going to reserve me for later at most. I lifted the blanket. You won´t betray me, little fingers. You know your seedbed and plowing.

The methodical peeling of the potatoes banished the butterflies from my stomach and made my lower abdomen all the more sensitive as they led me from the kitchen to the Holy Submission Lounge. Graham, I mean Hubert, was sitting there on the sofa. What a sight! Not only would I give, I don't know what, for his red beard to shimmer me in all the best places for a lover's hands, but he also wielded a genuine cane. One of the local pieces, as he was looking at it with curiosity. Maybe, he wants to use it on the gals he didn't like or, on the contrary, liked?

Sadly, he put the cane on the sofa next to him. “Have a seat, Ms. Woodroof.” He didn't sound very strict, but I was happy to obey him because he definitely cared that it happened as he said. On the other hand, it would be interesting to see how he would deal with me if I remained standing.

"You're looking at me a bit too much," Hubert suggested.

“Still unsure of what you're going to do with me.” I almost snapped.

"Ms. Woodroof, I'm telling you to be completely honest to benefit my study of relationships!"

He spoke to me like I was a five-year-old, then a bolder tone crept into his voice.

"I don't think you're afraid of me. You probably think I'm worth your sin."

I was proud of myself for responding. "You are a truly remarkable man. Although not quite knight-like."

He looked towards the cane again. "I love my school, but I hate the Paladin stuff. You see, I think they had to found three Paladin institutes in France so they could name them after Charlemagne, Roland, and Napoleon... That one is going to have a rivalry with our Horatio."

"You didn't come to save me then?" Oh god, have I flirted with him?

He shook his head.

"You are not bad looking. I would shag you here and now. Not that I´ll do it. I saw the top-notch piece of your age group."

I didn´t count on it.

"Well, it´s nice you will subdue your pedophilia instinct."

He sniffed loudly. "Pedophile? Do you consider yourself a child? I´m hebephile, hussy. By the way, show me your legs whole."

I crossed my legs and moved my skirt at a snail's pace, rolling it up with mechanical distaste. I stopped just below my ass and pushed it back into the chair. "You are a victim, my friend. You think you have a right to my body because they teach you at school that you are the center of the universe."

He stayed calm. "No, they do not tell us that we are the center of the universe, but its architects. Nourishers and maintainers."

His aroused stare was scratching me. I had to feel like I am fighting back. "So you are taught to change lightbulbs or install solar panels?"

Hubert tilted his head. "When we are not listening in lecture halls, we are supposed to survive in the forest, ride on horses, hunt, and learn crafts to make useful things. Or fight."

"So you have one giant ongoing Renessaince fair?

He grinned. "We have some innovative courses too. One is the humiliation of women."

I was lost at words, and my mouth had to be twisted into a crooked worm because Hubert looked delighted before he changed his expression to a thoughtful image.

"None of us chose to be natural leaders, Ms. Woodroof, but we are. Paladin institute is reminding us to be wary of what we were born as, and part of that is enforcing lower positions on our designated subordinates. Because we live too close to the recent equalist age, we must give orders in our communities and marriages, never forgetting that red should be the natural color of girls' bottom."

Lacking control over the lower, naughty half of my body, I saw my calves and waist getting closer to him. The phantasm of him slashing my bottom for the misdemeanor of my mouth fully formed. Him holding the rod, a cord, or wood. Anything, that would come in handy. Maybe that was why I dared to be impudent.

"I don´t know if you still see us as persons. By your logic, we should be divided between our husbands and children, never caring about ourselves."

"Having allocated place and role doesn´t make you less of a human."

"That is Jim Crow philosophy, and you know it! You are giving one set of people a better standing in life, and they will be the establishment´s favorites in any situation! To qualify as a person, one has to have the right as a citizen and respect as an individual who is part of the same species!"

Hubert seemed to be startled. "Ms. Woodroof, I enjoy the company of intelligent women, but when did this turn into Charlotte Brontë's novel?"

When he asked like that... "It turned into one out of necessity! You think you will cut people from their choices and freedoms, and they´ll brush it aside?"

"No!" Hubert´s annoyance deepened, but he looked aside and regained his cool. "The world knows better now." He inhaled before continuing.

"You should see the reaction of powerful women in Iceland after our annexation there. They wanted to repeat their Feminist protest event – The Long Friday - on its anniversary, October 24th. They planned to abandon their duties, just like in 1975. Total defeat. They were taken from the streets, the living rooms, from their offices. If they had daughters, police stuffed them in jail too. I´m not sure what they suffered there. Who is for grim details? Authorities convinced them in a week. All of them were spoon-fed without clothes, mostly walking on four, the bells sometimes hung from their necks. Often, they had the Brotherhood seal branded on their butts. Cops gave them a little switching in front of the threshold of their houses and then locked them in."

I froze. "Holy mac... What can justify such a thing?"

"Miss Woodroof, such acts don´t happen very frequently."

"If it happens once, it is overkill! And for what? Because they didn´t want to surrender, what was theirs? You guys have a problem, don´t you? At the moment women were given the jobs, the sexual harassment started on the same day, I guess."

"That was the price for your freedom, isn´t that so? You were proclaiming you don´t need to be protected and punished. However, when you came out of the house, you saw that you can´t defend yourself, not really. You demanded special apartments, clucking about perverted powerful bosses..." I listened to him lecturing me. Those arguments, thoughts, they would be stronger if my stomach would lay against Hubert´s knee, my skirt fan out, panties... Panties ripped open during the pointless struggle, Hubert raising his hand high and finishing every sentence with harsh butt-slapping.

Whack!

The heated rear would make me respect him, I would be unsure when his voice went lower because he would hit me twice more for a good measure.

Whack! Whack!

My twitching would only convince him of my unusability, and he would hold me like a giant crab´s claw, tearing my skirt too. That´s how strong he is!

He would help me to find a balance after pushing me away from his knees. The lower half of my body shamelessly bared or not, I would compose myself to leave, but he would pull me and say: "Don´t dare to think, I´m finished with you!" and bend me over the table. I would look back, hearing him unbuckle his belt and looking as he folds it - the moment when it becomes the true disciplinary instrument! My cheeks would be pulsing in the dread of being tanned with that leather.

"Ms. Wodroof, why is your mouth open?"

"I think you're right," I blurted out.

"More sensible than I'd guess," commented Hubert.

"I've thought myself a thousand times since I got here, how many women would be happy to get into a time machine? To see what it was like... When male arms protected. When ladies accepted it unconditionally." The itching between my thighs betrayed me prematurely. I wanted to reach an important "but". "Modern times - and this is not in any way inconsistent with the Announcer - they also offer men to understand women through their view of the world."

"I'm not going to have surgery."

"I was talking about VR games."

Hubert closed his fingers. "I've played a few of those before but always as a male character."

I grabbed his elbow. “One would be helpful.“

 

[Miras]

5-4-3

It wasn't just shots of my private parts that made my hips flutter. I invited someone to visit VR based on my wish. Not because of the class, the sycophantic, albeit creative project, or the schemes with Brunkow. Virtual reality was created to serve individual desires. The greatest tool of human entertainment and education, which long ago caught up, and in some ways surpassed the fictional Holodecks. To be clear, I'm not going to play a governess in 19th-century England.

I quickly led Hubert as soon as I let him find Alice. She was not hiding far away from us. In one of the dungeons, she hung her sketches of heavily edited female figures on chains. She was proudly showing her allurement in a strap harness to Hubert.

"When someone here programs a videogame, you can't help yourself, nerd," she stated as if there was something wrong with that.

"The girl is chiefly horny," said Hubert, looking at the drawing with titanic tits. "Breast enlargement. You couldn't even call it extreme. Never."

"The poor thing would have to roll on them," Alice objected. "They would become its limiters, and we are building a society of restrains," asserted Hubert.

Paladin liked fantasy concerning our bodies and sexist talk, but when we pulled on the virtual suits and Alice took us to her interface in the castle of Troyan Kingdom, he shuddered.

"What are you playing here? Sitting in the throne room, deciding who is the cutest Prince Charming?"

"No," I refused. "If only because no reader of the Fables comic book series will take Prince Charming seriously."

"I won't take him seriously either. He was kissing a corpse."

"Not in the original version."

"Do you think they had that glass casket by their marriage bed?"

"Maybe Snow White kept that kink. But we are heroines. In our show, we fight the beastly hordes of the Werewolf Queen. You know, in fantasy there are three types of enemies - Animal people, Shadow people, and Dead people. And animal people look the best. Beastly is the best."

Hubert blinked. "Who do you want to impress?"

“Guys, I want to assign characters,” Alice reminded herself. "Will Mr. Guest be Barry?"

"No, I'll be Barry. Mr. Guest wants to understand the other side," I explained.

Most people would think I was naive at that point. I only knew the title of the game, and maybe the unsuspected transsexual tendencies, that I foolishly passed off as feminism, started creeping up on me. I relied on Alice, resourceful and able to change little into plentitude.

It was the very woman, who opened the cupboard that didn't fit in a medieval castle, painted and out of place with its surroundings, as it was pictured in black and white. Alice's hands fumbled there for a moment as if working on fuses. "The system has your numbers. I'll keep the game running and try to track bugs." "Ladies first," I said to Hubert. I entered the adventure game under his cover.

I fell not from a skyscraping height, just from the low roof, but I had to lay on my back, and above was nothing but the wide sign filling the horizon - Bold Barry and Saucy Nancy: Vigilantes in the land of the kidnappers.

I got warmer by something that I gradually recognized as buffalo hide. It tickled me funny, but I didn´t move to shake it off. The virtual suit weighed me down with a shell of Barry's hard flesh. The program was not to conjure up a fresh breeze, but something cooled my earlobes. I craned my extended neck and saw the open balcony door interrupting the pale blue wall. Someone was setting her back to the view of the azure sky... Well, it could be none other than "Nancy". The game assigned Hubert a figure with long legs in mouthwatering stockings. Nancy was sporting purple body underwear with a floral motif around the rest of her curves.

Giant glasses looked inappropriate on a heart-shaped face, but eyes liked what I was inert to when they looked at the mirror on the dresser.

"The jury agreed on the new Miss Monkey Island!" Hubert made some ape sounds in the voice of maturing Majorette girl. "Barry, how do you look? Are you a King Kong in the hairless skin?"

I already partially controlled one arm, so I pushed the hide and showed him my nakedness, which did not belong to me.

"I would bang both of us," Hubert said, full of admiration.

"VR suits are still imperfect, I heard. They can simulate an internal pleasure during sex for women, even if they are playing as men, but guys can´t feel what ladies do."

"That is gaming discrimination," Hubert proclaimed.

"You have some ba... I mean, guts. It is not a coincidence you are the disadvantaged one, Nancy!"

I got up to look at myself in the mirror. Barry had one hell of a nose, which could be jumped from not only by Eddie the Eagle, and curls, resembling, in turn, a dark sea with its waves.

"You are cheerful in the game," I remarked.

"I used to read about old video games and watch playlthroughs," Hubert explained. "But then I traded the gaming magazines for the sadomasochistic bedrooms print... I've been thinking about using virtual reality for a long time, but it's banned on Paladin Institutes grounds, leaving it to vacations for us." A smile stretched Nancy's face almost physically. "Do you want to get dirty, or are we going to test how the NPCs will react? It's an adventure game, but we're supposed to score in it."

He was right that I would spend an hour examining the body under my virtual neck, from my shoulders to the long wormy creature between my new legs. I would pull on it and feel it up to... No, that would serve the main storyline.

"You must have gotten used to being naked," Hubert teased me, rubbing Nancy's breasts.

"I'm like you. I like exceptions," I said as my eyes landed on the civilian clothes scattered across the floor. A tiny little sparkling floated above them as evidence that they were objects that could be taken. "Put on what's yours," I admonished Nancy.

Before we knew it, Barry was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and tan pants, while his companion had slipped her tits into a black vest and her legs gracefully wrapped around her jeans. The bell buzzed as soon as we put on the last piece of clothing - Nancy's scrunchy. We moved into a tiny office where it was not possible to take anything. However, Nancy could open the door. Our first NPC came to us - he looked like a college student and his sympathetic voice bounced between psychotic anger and horror. "I know you are private investigators, and at the same time avengers you know how to make sure that particular injustice never happens again. My mother, Gustava Adolpha, was kidnapped two days ago right from the mall. I was able to find out who did it, and it's even worse because the gang of Maxim Swordfish that has been controlling the mayor for a long time is behind it. They want to take my mother and the other abductees on a ship to the Pacific tonight... You must free them and destroy the gang from within!"

 

[Wragg]

Although not quite knight-like.

Who need knights, anyway?

 

[Miras]

Who need knights, anyway?

They are not true princesses, they can´t have any demands.

 

[Miras]

5-4-4

Of course, the interface should ideally include our entire journey to the first location of the interactive story, but Alice must have wanted to save the player and herself from boring walks. In short, as soon as Hubert and I left the office, we found ourselves in front of a business whose lights could not displace the melancholy of the late twilight. Two crossed fish skeletons glowed in a neon light above the entrance.

"I would be happier if I could still sleep with them," muttered Hubert.

In the halls, we joined the crowd of carefree people picking under the fickle spotlights. To the men with often scarred faces and dull looks, in stuffy tuxedos anyway, and the women who should be worried about their kidneys dressed like that. There might have been a bar somewhere, but the drinks were mostly served by girls and boys in short pink uniforms mocking police attire. Some people had gray names floating around that we should touch if we wanted to talk to them.

The music played quietly, and the NPCs didn't speak too loudly either. We could find ourselves looking for the key characters to push us to the mission objective. I looked around until all I could concentrate upon was a conspicuous group of three behind the railing above. I went up half the stairs to get a better look at their names.

"Stephen Borghouse - the mayor," I whispered to Hubert. "This is the villain squad. He is standing there with Maxim Swordfish and Molly Swordfish. Daughter, I think."

"Pretty-pretty," Hubert rated the last-named gothic girl.

"However, her design is sloppy," I said. "That face... And the curves. Almost the same model as Nancy."

"Wait!" Hubert snapped his fingers. "What if that's my job? Impersonate Molly?"

I tried to get closer to the bad guys but the way was shut by two cronies with no dialogue options. “If you're right, Barry should be tasked with bringing her down.“

“Barry is handsome, so she must look his way.”

It would be no trivial matter, as Molly got stuck in incomprehensible electrical gibberish. Now and then, however, she paused, eyeing the man in the corner and throwing darts. Barry practiced this pastime. I managed to hit some high numbers, sometimes with a mafia girl watching the scene. Following our expectations, she came down to me.

"I don't know what is more melodious - her heels or her chains," Hubert joked before disappearing out of sight and out of earshot.

No matter how fictional, Molly worked to make herself unmissable. In addition to the traditional bracelets with spikes, a pair of rattling chains, tied around her trouser-encrusted waist, crossed over a bandeau top, completed her image.

"Hi," she said to Harry. "Don't you want a more mobile and grateful target?" she even had a voice like Nancy.

"I'd have to be blind not to try your parts, hot goth," Barry said without giving me a choice.

Molly flicked her tongue. "I have my own game for you. Tell me a few things, and I'll reveal a little. If you see everything, I'll give you something too."

Barry didn't ask me again and dragged me and Molly to the empty billiard room she locked up. She jumped on the table, legs wide apart.

"Pray tell me," she said. "What is the name of the erotic comic book by Jean-Pierre Gibrat and Francis Leroi which is the adaptation of a famous story for children?"

Some possibilities appeared in front of her legs. I didn´t need much time so I just pushed the "Pinocchia". Anthony showed me it two or three times when he made me kneel in the corner and wanted to walk in on me in the reading of page that would make me wet.

Molly took the right answer as a cue in her secret mafia hideout. She sang a wordless ode, and made her legs flexible but arms even more so. She touched Barry´s arms, slightly, unmoving otherwise but with her eyes that were supposedly telling the guy in the room that she has a much, much bigger erotic fantasy than he does. She moved further and caressed lines of the trousers on her butt, then started to remove her top. She folded it in the half first, so I could see that for her slim figure she possesses unexpectedly full breasts, though this made me jealous of the virtual character, not aroused.

She pointed her bottom in my direction, clutching the top like a shy modest girl who was merely forced to do this. Suddenly she got straight and tossed her top in a quick move, but turned over slowly.

Damn. Not just that her tits were phasers set on stun, but those nipples and areola were painted in the intense shade of pink, something, that got Molly closer to the proverbial doll for adults. She played with the chains and pushed her nipples through the links.

She bent to me. "They are your prisoners, Barry. Do you want to make a cell inspection?"

I twisted them a lot and listened to her moans. It took me a while to understand this is a mini-game, and I must produce a combination she likes. After I had it right, she yelled and put her hands on the zip of her trousers.

"Can you guess, my hero, which erotic novel, published in the '50s, bore the same name as its supposed author?"

That was also a no-brainer. I typed "Emanuella". One of the books I borrowed from my mother´s room, along with six DVDs.

Molly unzipped her jeans and danced artistically in a minute, putting her waist, calves, knees, and thighs in the use. She lost her shoes and made a pretty "silly me" expression, not caring about her trousers sliding down, revealing her green panties and ornamented stockings.

"I must get it all off. Wanna help?"

I jumped to her. Yikes, Barry must make her as God made her and then insert his fleshy joystick. I accepted the first, undoing the chains, and the bracelets, then switching her head down, stripping everything that protected her legs and tender hairy crotch. Now I had to knock her out. Alright, the bottle of gin beside the table was sparking...

"Okay, at first I tried to knock her with the bottle, but then I realized I had to get her drunk. She refused adamantly. Claimed that she would drink until after sex, so I poured it into her mouth. Thank God the game allows that."

Hubert was collecting Molly's items over her naked, lifeless body. „Besides asking everything, try if you can't force access for Barry."

"If Molly has to fuck the mayor, count on me trying all the positions one by one."

Hubert was willing to suck it down, so Barry had time to take it easy. I longed to gargle my throat with one of the liquors on offer, although the stimulant circuits might just tingle the sucker's lips a little. With a glass in hand, I would then approach each NPC and spill the clothes of some of the more handsome gangsters. We would change clothes. He wouldn't be shy in front of Barry...

"I had a feeling you aren´t going to take an advantage of Molly, but if you wake her up, she won't remember anything, and she'll relax again."

The pink policeman spoke to me, but the voice belonged to Alice.

"How can you program a female character like that?" I grunted.

"Porn means creativity and must meet the needs of everyone. Men most of all, because they are the majority of customers." Alice cleared her throat. "Otherwise, Graham was right. He has to make the mayor happy now. I doubt he'll like the end of the act, though."

"Piss on that. Why did you join us?"

“When you finish the game, I will no longer be in the hall. Brunkow gets mad that she can't use VR, so she kept chasing Stacey. She offered us to "work out" together." Alice rubbed her forehead. "It goes on, Zito, it does. At least I will remind her to contact my husband. Nevertheless, Brunkow wants scary service. She's probably the worst person to confide in."

We confided about half of the secrets to her… "Those who are clever need not fear! And we are girls with a wild imagination!"

I successfully undressed a couple of gangsters within twenty minutes. I didn't see Molly, or rather Nancy, upstairs, so I assumed something was up. The fruits of Hubert's gaming zeal turned out to be unpleasant for him, as Alice had prophesied. Mob chief Maxim Swordfish, not caring about his reputation, was coming downstairs and shouting.

"My daughter is a whore, she can go to others of her kind!" He was preceded by two real, and certainly bribed, policemen, leading Nancy in the middle, her clothes torn and her breasts dangling loosely, bound so much that they were all purple. Her mouth was stuffed with Molly's knickers, and she was muttering out weird variations on "Help" as if she were Penelope Pitstop.

I approached Hubert's avatar, amazed at the turn of events. When I was two steps away from him, the whole hall froze, gangsters, beautiful girls, and Maxim's besties stopped moving. Nancy turned her head to me and circled her masked face for a moment. I reached into those panties where I found the paper. As soon as I took it out, the restaurant environment went back to normal. I unfolded the find and saw the inscription: Vanessa Guzmán, The Supply Manager.

 

[Miras]

5-4-5

Will Hubert now play at all, or will he be just roasting over a fireplace? I left the restaurant and let myself be swallowed by the fog of the cut between the scenes. Based on the previous editing of our travels, I expected straightaway transport to Guzmán apartment. In reality, Barry had to talk to people in the streets and assemble the supply manager´s address. Only then would the taxi driver accept the money and kick off his engine. We rode a short time and we would arrive at Guzmán even quicker if we hadn´t fought a giant Fugu fish. I didn´t understand it either.

I rang the doorbell of Vanessa´s home. The manager conformed to the aquatic theme. She wore a broad poncho decorated with corals, seahorses, and sharks... And I saw right through it as the light went through that diaphanous dress and stopped on the orange bra and panties, sidetracking man eyes from Latina face full of Asian and Spaniard features.

For the first impression, I clicked on the line of the flattering dialogue - "Is your voice as sweet as your skin?" She rewarded me with a taste of that yummy voice and the open door. Inside the living room, I decided to be more direct by choosing "Maxim business" clarified by "Not a friend of Maxim".

Cautious as I should have been, I trusted Alice and her resourcefulness. Vanessa called Barry "Intruding boar!" The updated dialogue wheel offered me response options "Slap her," "Take away the poncho," or the most magical course of action, the enchanting spell - "Spank her."

Yeah, let's reveal the veil of history a little. I don´t know much about how it went in other countries, but here in America, there was a time when female characters were spanked with no bad consequence in all media, from movies to superhero comic books. Every field of cultural products yelled, "Show them who is the boss!"

Maybe it was better than later dry politeness.

In decades to follow, there was surprisingly easy to smuggle a spanking scene into audiovisual art, including... Video games, for example, one where you could make elf mom thrash her little daughter for as long as you wish.

I wouldn't have considered myself conservative before, but every mass of the human soul calls for a counterweight. An old-schooler should try new things, to overcome her reservations, and the modernist should know the pros of traditional ways.

Even if it makes her look like a brutish troglodyte. Barry grabbed Vanessa's hand and before she knew it, the lady laid her firm belly on his lap. The poncho slid slightly forward and Barry, seated in the chair, wrapped one arm around the small of her back. She was kicking her legs even before receiving the first blow, slightly blocked by my leg. Now I was getting excited. I imagined that I was the one getting it and took charge of Vanessa's late upbringing. With my right hand, I repeatedly hit the arched, full ass, enticed by the orange fabric. It was slapping nicely, and if I spared her at the beginning, it was only to deliver the most stinging blows when we were done with the warm-up round.

She didn't respond properly for a long time, but as soon as I pushed, she began to plead about what she would do for me if I let her go. We both went into a trance, but each in a different way. Vanessa surely sensed or would sense, if she were real, the spot where I couldn't take my eyes off, and my hand kept coming back there. She made me happy even after I stopped punishing her. Vanessa jumped, all embarrassed, with a superhuman speed worthy of the Flash.

She kissed Barry meekly and offered him more accommodating options for dialogue. It took a few tries to get her to help me with the actions. So she called Maxim and verified that the kidnapped ones were on the ship called Dümmerung. She said she'll give me access to it.

We drove to a place outside the civilized corner of the game world. Dümmerung circled in the bay with the help of four paddle wheels like a car from a Dada poem. I also did not miss that the space around her was swarming with electric eels. I kept hoping that Alice had engaged her brain enough to not make this another minigame, but... I hopped on the sinking rocks with Vanessa and popped my clog nine times.

On another try, Vanessa opened the small back door for me. It led to the cargo area, dirty and plain with no sophisticated accessories. What else was missing, were innocent victims of the kidnapping. Guys were standing there in blocks, the youngest one around twenty, and the oldest one could easily be seventy. Gathered in twos and threes at the chairs, they kept looking at the sheets of paper with lines scribbled on them. Their faces lacked color, but they looked lively.

 

[Miras]

5-4-6

This whole crowd was caught in the same movements, but there persisted an element of action that maybe started and was stopped at some stage. Maxim Swordfish stood in the open doorway, frozen like a statue, or rather a robot that had to be pushed by someone. As I suspected, all Barry had to do, was take a few steps in his direction, and the gangster was moving, his buddy the mayor in the Hades-dark shadow. The two of them were showing the world a grin that was as blissful as it was malevolent. Heat in their eyes subsided a bit when they looked at Barry, but they didn't let it spoil their fun. The mayor simply walked around my character and greeted Vanessa not quite politely.

Maxim showed himself to be a slightly more practical individual and asked me who I was. I could present myself as either a policeman wanting a bribe or a brothel owner needing staff. The goal was to curry favor with him, wasn't it? The second option made me a client and a possible debtor… Maxim laughed sarcastically until I clicked on the bubble that said "What's going on?"

"My camouflage works perfectly," he began to explain. "My dear little boat sometimes sails out into the open waters, yes, but she never loses my animals, only in the most tragic way. What I take from the streets, I keep here. Do you see our guests?" He pointed at the unburied zombies. "Frightened city council, but also honorarium practically from the rest of the state. All serving my organization, victims of extortion, relatives of various hostages. And you know what? They adore me because even though they have to bow to me, I gave them slaves of their own.” He laughed again, this time like a cawing crow. "Come in!" he ordered briskly to someone still in the corridor. A giantess with an athletic figure, symbolic breasts, and hair dyed green walked in, wearing a silly maid outfit... The same clothes wore Maxim's daughter Molly alias Nancy, played by Hubert.

"Gentlemen!" Maxim exclaimed. "These lovely skanks will show you our menu of people who are no longer living as persons for some weeks now. At the same time, they are the main course themselves. After they would take and prepare your orders, they will take the hosts of you, each one tied to the table!"

I went to Nancy and whispered: "Do you have a plan going on?"

Hubert snickered. "You bet. Me and Gustava here were just frozen, waiting for you to arrive."

Maxim shoved me aside. "Just speak, whore," he told Nancy.

Nancy took the central stage. "I know you people have raunchy thoughts when you see lass like me," she said and put her hand under her belly, deep into her panties. She moaned shortly and freed her fingers, this time holding a small cachet.

"I am afraid I will make your instruments soft and retracting today!"

She dropped the cachet on the floor, and it shattered. I have to say I was unable to breathe. The air got poisoned by the suffocating fishy smell. NPCs were reacting much more strongly, protecting their mouths and necks in ways that were dangerous to life on their own. Mostly they were losing consciousness and falling on the floor, making an almost rhythmical thud.

"So long, good fellas!" Nancy took my and Gustava´s hand, jumping to the corridor and locking the door from the other side.

"Greater stench than..." I was tempted to say "crap of princeps", but as a tight-lipped survivalist I changed it to "carcasses of skunk".

"Be glad you weren´t the one mixing it," Hubert said. "We had to prepare the tincture but also the thing that would make us immune. Starting to understand why people switched to the walkthroughs when playing adventure games. We are heading to the bridge!"

"Shouldn´t be here a ton of anyone who wouldn´t allow us?" I wondered.

"All strategical persons seduced," Hubert said. "Simply don´t tarry, and we will join the new commander-in-chief."

We reached the room containing two huge computers and a wooden steering wheel.

"I planted a master hacker in the system," Hubert said, and stood behind the sitting punk with a ring in her nose, wearing only grey rags. She turned on the chair and smiled at us. "Do you want to make some coffee, big guy?"

"No, I want to put some use to your computer skills to do... What are you trying to get into?" Her AI understood.

"The ship is programmed to cruise the ocean every few days, and it is supposed to start in four minutes. I am just changing the order, so it stays near the coastline and the city."

"Then we will put communication into operation and call Mrs. Hoover from the FBI," Hubert said. "How far are you?"

The hacker inexplicably wrinkled her face in a confused stare.

"I am not sure about this system... And I might have been entirely wrong about my hacker life. I should work with my broader muscles much earlier. Never too late to start." She stood up and took a small cloth to wipe the steering wheel.

Hubert laughed in disbelief. "I think Mrs. Kane should attend to a clear bug in the program."That seemed absurd to me. "Alice is no longer watching the gameplay, but... I don´t think this is a bug. AI wouldn´t ordain her new alternative modus operandi..."

"Then why she can´t do what her role describes? The game made me lick her to be part of my team. I will not regret that, but I considered my oral interactions to be so..."

"Maybe this is not a bug. I think this is something you should be grasping as a major lesson."

Hubert shrugged. "That women suddenly back off when they are supposed to be useful?"

"Quite the opposite. You are missing that as every man, women have inherent abilities, and by forbidding them not to use these abilities, you might hurt society as a whole!"

Yes, that is the eternal truth because if you are limiting such a big group of humankind, you might slow down progress. You don´t know which ideas might have been hampered, which lives might have been saved, which perspectives might have been offered.

I need a break from the world.

"So, it is maybe the final mini-game," Hubert stated.

I gritted my teeth.

"I was explaining to you a flaw in your system. Fifteen seconds ago!"

Hubert perfected Nancy´s arrogant smile and shook her head in the ellipses.

"Your idea might be the intention of the game designer. That is unconfirmed until you find a solution."

Dümmerung was now aiming to the ocean proper. The waters shone. I thought the depiction of Atlantic is composed out of the blue fire but wasn´t that the title of some book I read?

"Nancy is the one who should crack this case," I suggested. "You were punished for your sexuality. The man who considered himself your father took away your agency, acting as if his daughter was still a child, or worse, a chattel. Your clues should be like you stood up against him."

"No, Barry, you are the manly oppressor. You are the one summoned to apologize to her."

"That is bollocks!"

"Open her dialogues!"

I waited for about a minute if he will come to agree with me. As that didn´t happen, I clicked on the "Hacker" bubble. Zero options.

Hubert clinically initiated the next conversation himself. The system provided him with the repeated blank space.

"Perhaps to give her something..."

"I used everything that was sparking. It all served its purpose."

I breathed heavily. Videogame can be your supreme leisure, but then it drags by stucking you stuck in the place, and your respite is put off to the second you found out the solution to the riddle.

"There is something in her name." I pointed out to the end of the "Hacker" bubble.

"Some little "X"," Hubert agreed. He touched the letter, but it showed him the same effect as previously. I put Barry´s hand on it, and this time bubble changed its color to yellow.

"Why it... We should edit her name?"

"She doesn´t even have one," I noted. "You were right. Barry must do something, but it is not apologizing, exactly. First of all, he must acknowledge her as a person."

I erased the "Hacker" sign and replaced it with "Delores" as that name touched my mood suddenly.

The renamed NPC stopped her cleaning at once and gently rubbed Barry´s fingers. She returned to her computer, analyzing what the monitor displayed.

"She is in the loop," Hubert complained, and it couldn´t be described in any other way. She was working "hard" while the pictures weren´t changing and the final cutscene wasn´t coming. We lost our last possible chance to interact with her. I glanced around and talked to Gustava, giving her the option "Go to the other computer." She did, and Delores symbolically speeded up.

"What have you done?" Hubert asked.

"It is just a theory, but I think we are not reaching the optimal result if the working lady is the exception. The moment the workplace has more of them, when it becomes a norm, then the mechanism is clogged no more."

"Mrs. Kane is a brave pervert," Hubert spat. "So where is the eeending?"

"I think you need to take the helm," I offered.

When Nancy touched the steering wheel, the ship immediately stopped, then it sailed in the opposite direction. That city might have been corrupt and filthy, but all of a sudden it represented liberty and safety, instead of piracy and slavery practiced on the seas.

The bridge vanished in white nothingness, flashing with black letters.

Mystery Solved

Game Fulfilled

 

[Miras]

5-4-Finale

The burden of the biceps deflated into the synthetic sealskin. I unzipped it with some slowness, compensated by Hubert´s arm.

"Coming out of the fairy-tale realm, unsullied maiden?"

I followed his lead, one step behind him, perhaps so I could admire his posterior. But it is true that in the Holy Submission lounge I was looking at him sitting before I could take my chair.

"Did you agree with what I tried to tell you?"

Hubert smiled. "You are not a child. I would also never call you feeble-mind. Neither am I a little boy or a fool. What we are is superior and subordinate by the sensible law."

"You are the law? So, does that make me criminal?"

"What are you implying, miss Woodroof?"

I took a deep breath.

"Well, since the moment you and I met, my behavior was rather inappropriate. I questioned the wisdom of New Androcentrism in your face."

Five steps carried me to Hubert, discreetly sliding my panties just under the hem. I touched him on the knees, only to stretch myself slowly over them.

"They will revere you in the Institute when you will them truthfully you made uppity bitch cry with your own hands!"

He wasn´t responding, but he liked what he saw. His nostrils were intaking the air, and something hard rose in his pants. I brushed against that important piece of his body and tried to stretch my arms so I could stabilize myself on the floor. Hubert thwarted it by squeezing my right arm under my shoulder.

"Not a move, you equalist brat!"

A plate of steel lowered my buttcheeks flat, that's what I felt.

My pelvis was flying, cheeky halves of the sitting region without stability, my mound scratched by the material of Hubert's clothing. The bottom of the foolish girl was cold, but Hubert made everything in his masculine power to end this discomfort... I wanted it to last long, so I also inflamed him, wriggling my ass a little too far. He did not disappoint, smacked it like a gnawing cur, and drew it tight again.

"I think your Androcentrism teacher needs an important suggestion," he said and slapped my sitting spot four times in a row. "You should be spanked every Friday after the last lesson. You had too easy weekends."

I knew some girls would wish me that misery, unaware of the irony. I should be thanking Hubert. Unfortunately, my yelps were anything but coherent.

 

[Wragg]

"You should be spanked every Friday after the last lesson. You had too easy weekends."

There's a suggestion. Just what she needs on these cold winter weekends!

 

[Miras]

There's a suggestion. Just what she needs on these cold winter weekends!

They don´t have the winter yet. But it is coming and there´s never enough of warmed skin.

 

[Miras]

Chapter 5, Part 5 (1)

Barbara

I am not used to thinking about politics.

That was never meant to be my hobby.

But monsters cut me off from my mom and dad. They said I was brought up in the wrong way. That my parents practiced bad politics.

I hated the school, but at least I could say it wasn´t political. For more than two and half months, I live in the school. And it is about politics so much. While Weatherby is preaching Androcentrism to us, he is the little dictator, with us being the voters who lost the vote. I mean, females once struggled to gain a vote, and in the new era nobody votes, so at least in this sense, we citizens are equal.

The agenda of our class is political, and the worst are visits of spokeswoman Arnolph. She is usually training us to be little fucking summit talkers.

"Do you see those papers in front of you, young ladies?" she asked one day. "Think about what freedoms you might demand from your husbands and what you are willing to give up in return. Want a larger allowance? Perhaps you can offer him broader options for your eventual punishments. After all, you must only abide by his standards to evade his harshness. Do you dream about permission to create art? Write him regularly about sex game ideas. Or do you think there should be a set number of children in your family? Cut on your friends and invite them home as his potential mistresses."

Not just a little teary, I wrote: "My man should talk to me gently. He would communicate with me for hours in our most romantic evenings, in the most intimate nights while in bed..."

The way we participated was by an inch less humiliating than in the joint lesson with Clara, who presented one hell of a reduction of our career choices.

"Remember, girls, it is not about thinking what you can be doing, but what you should."

For the monsters, politics are the element of choice. The stickiest sessions I am suffering through in the Princess Tower are assemblies where Brotherhood executives push on Loyalists to help them. Mayson alternately speculates about the public image and our intelligence. After he speaks to her, Zita stands up. She is presenting a speech I heard her practicing before bedtime and enshrouds our presence like a dominating black specter.

The shower in our place nor the pool we use for PE isn´t enough to wash me off the guilt of being an accomplice to their politics.

The one politician I would shake my hand with is Jenine. She has proved herself heroic. She has escaped, and when I shut my eyes, I can imagine her coming up with the reckoning for the Tower.

I hope today´s interview with Enzo Romano will not be about politics.

I had to go through only one door from the kitchen to the dining hall. I slowed down at the sight of empty chairs and tables where no one was eating. Even at the distance of the lone man at the illuminated Paladin table, I could feel his smile and challenging gaze on me, neither greedy nor possessive, just eager for friendship.

I've already been wrong about a few people, and it would feel like a misfortune if it were to happen with my young man. He may have had a boyish round face and short hair, but his expression exuded gallantry, not childishness, and his figure stood out like a shield any girl would love to lean against.

He opened a small notepad to a page labeled with my name in the graceful curls of his writing, beginning the interview.

Romano didn´t just write well. He had a mellow voice, and when he asked me a question, I sensed him as a guy genuinely interested in my view of things. He was relieving us with a little jokes too.

"Thanks for coming, my dear Barbara. Are you from Santa..."

"No, unless Santa Barbara is in Nevada."

He was curious about my hometown and folks, but he quickly turned to my grades from Homemaking, eventually coming to my expectations from marriage. I told him what I wrote in the agreement practice.

"Precisely!" He bent backward and clapped his hands once. "Communication conveys the reason and feelings of one for another. Husband counseling with wife to be the couple for life, not just two people living in the same house. That won´t flourish in silence."

He tapped my nose. "When I get married, and I'm going to do it soon, I intend to lose myself in my wife and expect her to lose herself in me and her responsibilities in return. The foundation will be modesty, trust, and total openness."

I was attracted by what he was saying. I just had to accept caution and cynicism from many disappointments.

"I'd like to get lost," I said ambiguously. “Unless it means I´ll be grounded for life.“

He placed his hands on the table and shook his head briefly. "Just as the body needs care, the spirit must not be stunted under any circumstances. It applies to everyone. I accompanied my sisters to the Women's Activities and Discussion Club frequently. We met the principa Samantha and the princeps second wife, Justine, there. Also present was Philipa Olsson, daughter of ..."

"Governing Councilman of the Internal Affairs," I finished for him, remembering the men Mayson reports to at the highest level.

"That's right. As you can see, my better half is ready to meet people who, in one way or another, help the current and certainly the future ruler."

He was looking into my eyes the whole time. He could either be a decent guy or just an expert liar. But I was inclined to trust Enzo, so I was honest when I told him it would be nice to see each other again. It made me laugh quite a bit how, as I was leaving, he only now noticed a blank page in his notebook and started wildly filling it.

I shyly told my roommates about Enzo when we were going out. Therese understood me. She was assigned to him herself and called him the best of the Paladins, which might not mean much, plus she considered him a good party. According to her, he stood out well in both the old and new times. Stacey spit out, but in a good way.

Zita came to the room long after the rest of us. I saw that when she lay down, she rubbed her ass. It seemed her Paladin wasn't lazing around and was treating her like the lowest miscreant. But her sighs weren't just painful. Apparently, the fire was burning on both sides of her waist.

"Your hand consoles you like nobody else," I whispered. "Call me when you will know the wedding date."

"You should be aware that in one Egyptian myth..." Zita stuttered. "Never mind. I played a whole virtual reality game, followed by a safe and lively erotical reward in factual reality. Did somebody touch you spontaneously today?"

"I hope he is close to that." I giggled and told her about my impressions of Mr. Romano.