Debutantes

Debutantes

By Scifiscribbler

Chapter One

The video opened with a drone shot of the woods surrounding the campus, beautiful pine forest that entirely filled the screen to start with.

Rushing over the forest, the drone made it clear quickly just how remote this location must be before bursting out past the treeline and over a high stone wall, elegantly designed and shaped, and across a large lawn.

At the same time it started to rise up, so that a wider and wider view of the campus was clear; the big, eighteenth-century main building, elegant in black stone and white detailing, the sleek modern dormitory buildings to either side, the glass surround of the swimming pool, the stables, and the sports field behind it.

There was someone standing on the glossy red gravel driveway, directly in front of the large double doors at the centre of the hall, but at this point in the video they were too far away to make out much else.

And then the drone swooped forward toward them, almost racing up the driveway itself. The figure resolved itself, new details becoming clear one by one: that they wore black; that they were a redhead whose hair had been arranged into elaborate curls; that they were a woman; lastly, that her clothes weren't black but a deep navy blue, the severity of the business pantsuit she wore having given a misleading impression.

She smiled. "Hi," she said. "My name is Jocelyn Russell, and I'm a proud alumna of the Northrop Finishing School for Accomplished Women." She gestured back toward the building behind her, a genteel but welcoming motion encompassing the caption. "There are those who would say the concept of a finishing school is outdated," she continued, "especially those who think the college experience is suitable for all.

"I would argue against that. For one thing, it's become clear in the past decades that college is not necessary for many career paths, and in fact it can hinder progress. For another, these institutions do not teach you the soft skills."

The video cut to one of the hall's seminar rooms. Seven immaculately turned out young women were discussing something, though it was Jocelyn's voiceover which carried over the top. "Northrop is a selective school. For over a hundred years now it has taken in women from prestigious families and women with potential, in order to provide them with the polish they need to take their first steps onto a larger stage.

"Alumni of the Finishing School are often in the spotlight, moving among the rich and powerful, acting as hostesses and more at gatherings where international policies are decided. This positioning gives Northrop girls an insight that can't be matched, and the lessons taught here can help us apply that influence effectively.

"Take me, for example." She brought the hand she'd gestured with back to her chest, resting fingertips against herself, the palm held just above. "I was born Jocelyn Melton, but I usually went by Josie.

"Like many of you watching this, my parents weren't rich. I went to a pretty good school, but nothing special. But I worked hard, I got good grades, I went in for sports. I made a lot of friendships, some of them with girls I had nothing in common with.

"I worked hard, but I was lucky, too - and that probably describes you, too." Her smile was warm, confident, welcoming. "Because our mutual luck came in the form of someone bringing us to the Northrop Finishing School's attention. They extended an invitation.

"I nearly went off to college instead. Only my parents telling me they couldn't afford the fees stopped me." Her smile changed slightly. "Of course, if you're not an American, the limits on your choices will be different. But there are still limits there.

"Northrop represents an opportunity to step beyond your limits. My fellow alumni have joined the rich and famous; my contact book has details for the private lives of presidents overseas, of multinational CEOs, of oil tycoons from the Middle East.

"And me? Thanks to Northrop, I met Michael Russell." At this point in the video she paused to let that sink in, knowing everyone would recognise the name. Somewhere in the world's top ten richest, he'd made headlines when his company made a huge breakthrough in medical technology. Following the initial breakout success, he'd pushed harder, becoming the face of affordable medical innovation. This had quickly converted into major political capital as well as a significant financial base.

"Thanks to the skills I learned at Northrop," she continued, "I married Michael Russell. Now we share a vision for the future and our goals are aligned.

"The School did that for me, and it can do the same for you.

"You'll still learn many of the things people expect from the college educated. You won't just appear knowledgeable - you'll be knowledgeable, ready to walk the walk as well as just talking the talk.

"For the people you'll be moving among, faking it is not an option. You have to be the real thing, and that's exactly what Northrop will help you become." She smiled. "Beautiful, accomplished, and talented in all the ways that matter.

"As you watch this video, you'll be faced with a decision; where will you go in your first years as an adult? It's not unfair to say that what you choose will change your life. You could go to college, or you could embrace the potential seen in you, and come to Northrop, where you'll become something special." She smiles warmly at the camera. "I can promise you, you'll never regret it."

*

The pitch had seemed too good to be true, Robin had thought. Fresh out of high school, her only options without further qualifications had been big-box retail, fast food night shift, or the giant cheese packing plant that was Hapgood, Wisconsin's biggest employer. Her dad was willing to subsidise her, but willing didn't magically create more money. And there was no sports scholarship waiting for her, the way there had been for big brother Reggie.

Now, sat in the back of the Northrop SUV that had picked her and three others up from the nearest airport, and having driven through dense woodland for the last half hour at this point with no breaks, she wondered if it still was too good to be true.

Karen - who must have been one of the last girls to be given that name before it took on its new meaning - and Angie were still chatting away, but Robin and Eva had fallen silent. They were now entertaining themselves by shooting meaningful glances at one another whenever Karen or Angie said something they found particularly cringeworthy.

The blonde and the redhead didn't seem to notice, and Robin doubted they would have cared anyway; they'd hit it off together from the start, and didn't seem to have even noticed the other girls in the back weren't still involved in the conversation.

Robin had hopes of Eva, though. They seemed to have the same sense of humour, and neither of them was foolish enough to laugh in someone's face when that might turn into drama.

She pulled out her phone, swiped the screen, looked for notifications. None.

She frowned. She'd not checked it since they entered the woods; that was more than enough time, usually, for at least a couple of events to fire. She lined up her face with the camera, tapped for the face recognition check, unlocked her phone.

"We've got no signal here," she said, surprised.

The conversation immediately stalled out. The other three women produced their phones, finding the same thing.

"My God," Angie said, wide-eyed. "How remote is this place, anyway?"

Robin opened her mouth to answer - she'd googled the place before she signed up, after all - but before she spoke, it occurred to her that the other women had probably looked at the map as well. Nowhere seemed quite so remote on a map as some places actually were.

The drive from the nearest airport was three hours. The nearest town was an hour away by car. On its own, that wasn't so weird or intimidating. But when you added in the forest, the sheer unrelenting nature of it, it felt even further away.

"I haven't seen a single vehicle going the other way on this road in an hour," Eva said. "Maybe that's the time of day, but I'd expect something."

Karen pursed her lips and nodded, evaluating this. "We're really doing this, huh?" she asked. The four girls started smiling among themselves. Robin felt an actual connection to Karen and Angie for the first time.

Ten minutes later, they did finally pass a vehicle going the other way; another SUV in Northrop branding, this one empty except for the driver, off to meet the next flight in and collect the next crop of girls.

*

Once they arrived, they were shown to their rooms, and Robin was relieved to confirm that each of them had individual rooms in the big dormitory blocks, with en-suite showers to boot. Another reason to be glad she'd chosen this over college, she thought; she wouldn't be sharing with anyone.

"Freshen up, ladies," they were told by Karl, a cheery groundsman who was acting as porter. "There are a few others already here. No formal introductions until this evening, when the new class have all arrived. Your time's your own until then. Mingle, shower, walk the grounds, nap - whatever you prefer."

He touched his forehead in the most casual salute Robin had ever seen, grinningly refused the tip Eva offered him, and was gone.

Robin exhaled. "You know, I was thinking about taking a walk to see the place for myself," she said. "But then he had to go and say 'nap' and that sounds like a really good idea." She'd spent the entire day so far in one seat after another, but it had all been travel, and travel always had that effect on her.

"Yeah," Karen agreed. "Same."

Eva departed, looking to walk the grounds, and Angie, with a pout, followed her. Robin wondered whether that arrangement would go well for either of them, but she took herself off to lie down.

*

"That's two sleeping now."

"Monitor for REM. Run the introductory if you see it, but be ready to abort at the first sign of disturbance."

"You got it, sir."

*

As Robin slept, two panels in the wooden headboard of her bed slid open almost soundlessly. With a low, quiet whirr, nothing louder than a fan in the same room might give off, two thin rods gleaming with chrome emerged from the revealed spaces. Each one was hinged at a central point and tipped with a small sphere that looked like rubber.

The hinges bent, the tips of the rods swinging slowly inward until the balls touched her temples. Whatever material they were made of deformed at the slightest pressure as they came into contact with her body, making their touch so light it would not disturb anyone deeply enough asleep to have started to dream.

Electricity slid into the probes and a magnetic field sprang into existence between them, a loose ellipsoid that ran through Robin's brain.

Her eyelids fluttered, and Robin dreamed.

The quality of her dreams shifted. She pictured herself in the main building's dance hall - somewhere she had never yet been, had seen only briefly in the video. But as she stood among a line of other young women, dressed like them in white, she was looking in a direction the video hadn't shown, and saw it clearly.

Music began to play, and men came forward, tall and short, bald and long-locked. For the most part they wore suits, but some sported the slacks and polo shirts of the modern tech founder.

Robin joined the group of women promenading in front of them, walking in front of each man, one at a time.

From time to time, one of the men would step up to the line and offer his hand to one of the women. They always accepted it and allowed him to lead them away from the group.

Little by little, the group Robin was in dwindled. A sense of dissatisfaction became noticeable, and then started to increase with each other woman - and, it therefore followed, each man - who disappeared.

Robin found herself envious of them, and matters became worse after a quick head count. There was one more of the women than there were the men; someone was going to be left out.

Robin, who had always prided herself on having an independent attitude, was genuinely shocked to realise how much she didn't want to be the one left behind.

And yet the dream came to its inevitable conclusion, with the last of the faceless other women selected before her.

Robin came awake with a start, vaguely aware of the sound of a click somewhere nearby as she did. She looked around the room but all was as she left it, though the quality of sunlight streaming in through the window had changed. A couple of hours had passed, leaving them well into the afternoon.

She got up and went in search of a snack.

*

In the early evening, the new class at Northrop Academy gathered on the gravel in front of the main building. There were just over fifty of them, a fact that Robin found strangely reassuring - there had been only half so many in her dream. At first glance, she mused, someone might look at the group and think the only thing they had in common was their gender, with different colours, heights, and builds. Certainly they didn't all have the long legs and ample bosom of Jocelyn Russell.

The more they mingled and chatted, and the more she looked around, the more commonalities did start to emerge. While there was variety in their figures, all of them could be called conventionally attractive without stretching the truth; too, all of them seemed bright and perceptive.

From the fragments of conversation she caught as she made her way around the others, she got the impression that they were all independently enough minded to quite welcome the solitude of their remote location. Nobody was expressing regret that they hadn't been able to talk to their family yet, even though the wifi (surely there was wifi) hadn't yet been made available to any of them and there was no other signal available.

It was just one day, of course - less than that - but still she would have expected at least one of the assembled women to be twitching that she hadn't been able to let anyone know she'd got there safely.

Of course, it was always possible she'd just missed that conversation when it had come up for the others.

The sound of crystal being struck rang out, and the group turned to face the big double doors at the entrance to the School. Standing there was a tall, thin woman in a severe black business suit - not a pantsuit, unlike Jocelyn - who had just tapped a wineglass with what looked like a silver fountain pen, and behind her were three men and two women in dress pants, starched white shirts, and waistcoats, each of whom carried a tray with a selection of white and red wineglasses.

"Welcome, one and all," she said, "to the Northrop Finishing School for Accomplished Women." As she finished her sentence the waiting staff behind her swept forward, two heading into the centre of the group, two swinging out to the edges. Robin found herself impressed by the presentation.

"As some of you will already know," the woman continued, "my name is Desdemona Gunderman, and I hold the position of Headmistress at this institution." Her gaze swept the gathering, managing somehow to be both stern and affectionate at the same time. "We do not yet know one another, but we will become very well acquainted over the next three years.

"For the time being, I simply want to welcome you all and invite you to meet one another and match names to faces. One of the marks of an accomplished woman has always been her ability to make even acquaintances feel welcome, so I will tell you that tomorrow morning, each of you will be shown photographs of ten of your cohort and asked to provide their full name and an interesting fact about them, such as you might use in introducing two mutual friends to their mutual benefit."

Robin sighed. That kind of memory for faces wasn't her strong suit, not at all. She accepted a glass of wine.

"Tomorrow," the headmistress continued, "the sophomores will return. Our upperclasswomen are already on campus, though you are unlikely to have met them yet. The first day of a new academic year is an important landmark for them, and one they are busy marking." She paused for a moment. "You will have tomorrow morning to familiarise yourself with the grounds and the upperclasswomen before the sophomores return, so that you need not feel yourself at a disadvantage against them.

"Dinner will be served in the hall in one hour. You have been assigned seats; these will be changed in the next semester based on the staff's observations and judgement."

Whatever that meant, Robin thought, but she set it aside, aware she was being cynical in the face of an experience that should have been magical.

She was sure that in the weeks and months to come, the sight of this campus would come to feel utterly normal, dulled by familiarity. It just hadn't happened yet.

The rest of the evening passed in a blur. By the time she went to bed, despite the nap earlier, she felt exhausted, but she was happy. She felt like, of the fellow freshers she'd had any meaningful conversation with, she liked somewhere over half of them.

She lay down and was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

*

"How did the introductories take?"

"All three we administered twitched at the right moment in Gunderman's speech."

"That's good. Put them onto the next set, start the others out."

"Roger. Watching for REM."

*

The first full day at Northrop felt like a tightrope. Robin got both name and fact right for just four of her ten - not the worst of the group, but not the best, either. Before lunchtime she and the rest of the freshers filed into one classroom, just large enough for fifty desks, which turned out to boast a surprising amount of computer equipment - and the equipment itself, once she inspected it, turned out to be even more surprising.

A place like this, in this classy old building, in the middle of nowhere, and they'd laid on VR headsets for learning?

"Isn't this... you know... impersonal?" Romi asked. Romi, whose name Robin had forgotten less than an hour earlier, was a larger-than-life woman coming to Northrop a little later than most - she was in her mid-20s, having already had a taste of the service industry, but apparently a well-connected customer had referred her.

"Well, I won't lie," Professor Morten answered, her usual thin smile in place. "We've heard that comment before. We try to limit it, when we can, for just that reason. But I can assure you, there's no faster way to offer everyone one-to-one tuition at once. And it makes for private one-on-ones, too.

"You'll find your name on one of the screens. Sit down at that desk and we'll help you into the headsets if that's something you're not comfortable with."

Robin found herself sat next to Romi. They hadn't had much to do with each other, but as they sat down, Romi happened to glance up and meet her eye. Robin nodded. "Thanks," she said softly. "I was wondering the same thing."

"Someone had to ask," Romi agreed. "I'm happy to be the one myself."

The headset, Robin discovered once she picked it up, was playing soft music; nothing she recognised, just gentle strings. It could as easily be a gentle pastoral or something dreamed up as a movie score.

Settling the headset into place, she had to fumble around on the desk for a few moments to find the controllers. The music was lovely, though; to her surprise, she really couldn't hear anything from the outer room either. She figured the equipment had to be pretty much state of the art.

The visor showed her the Northrop logo, a stylised horse in silhouette in front of a green and gold shield. Not quite a crest, but reminiscent of one.

After a couple more minutes the music quieted for a moment. Professor Morten's voice cut in over it. "Alright," she said. "We have everyone set up. We're going to start the course shortly.

"You're going to be shown photos of your colleagues, and you'll have a list of possible names. This is the first phase in social memory training, so we hope you're ready for it. Remember, it's not just about the social cachet you'll get for knowing everyone important in your life and what will please them most. We do memory training early to help you with a lot of our other mental courses, just as the fitness regimen will be starting tomorrow so we can get you all ready for dancing and deportment."

Whatever deportment was. Robin made a mental note to look that up later, if she remembered.

"Here we go," Professor Morten said. The school logo dissolved.

Robin was immediately faced with a headshot of one of her fellow students. Beside it was a list of names, exactly as predicted.

The music had changed, not strings anymore but a reedy woodwind sound that made her think of old movies set in the deserts. She took a deep breath and selected her first name, which lit up green.

Hopefully that means I got it right, she thought to herself, as a new picture popped up in its place. It was strange, but when presented with something like this, she wasn't convinced she'd be certain she'd even got Romi or Eva's name right.

Another face followed, and another. Some of them lit green, others red.

The red names were probably wrong. She liked them less.

After the tenth name, she had noticed that the right answer was often one of the top three. Her attention gradually slid away from the images, onto the answers. Even then, she was paying more attention to their position than the names,

The more answers that came out green, the better Robin felt. Even the music seemed to get more pleasant with each green answer; a tiny discordant note seemed to sound whenever she got it wrong. But there was a pattern, she had discovered by the thirtieth answer, and ten more answers in she had it.

She started just selecting in the right pattern, just as fast as she could - by that point it was clear that this wasn't going to be a short class.

Pictures and words appeared, the words turning green, and were gone, all fast enough that she consciously took in none of them, losing herself in the rhythm.

*

"That's three of them who've gone into pattern recognition."

"Make the switch."

"Roger."

*

While Robin was moving through answers too fast to register what was on the screen, the images and words began to change, all unnoticed.

All the same, subliminally, words flickered through her consciousness.

Domestic... Pleasing... Sexy... Dutiful... Eager...

Before long they were looping. Other qualities, often opposed, appeared in the other lines for Robin to select against them.

Assertive... Strong... Disagreeable... Full of Conviction... Questioning...

Alongside each one of the headshots had become images of her own face, taken from on-campus cameras, showing her smiling when she selected a correct answer, and on the rare occasion that she fumbled and answered wrongly, images of her looking uncertain or quietly judgmental. Had they not been flashing by too quickly for conscious identification, Robin might have recognised many of these from the drive in, when Angie had been offering the opinions she disagreed with the most.

*

"How are we coming along?"

"Twenty-six in the loop now, sir. Three more just entering pattern recognition. We'll make the switch shortly."

"What about the other twenty-one?"

"If they don't hit pattern recognition in the next fifteen minutes, we'll have to mark them down for alternative starters."

*

Her head was spinning, and Robin figured that had to be the speed she was answering at; there was something dizzying about the flicker.

It had crossed her mind that what she was doing wasn't actually training her recall properly. At the same time, it just seemed like such a bizarre thing to focus on first, and she felt the Professor's explanation had been little more than an excuse. She was comfortable knowing she'd pick the information up in time.

Besides, she thought, answering these so quickly might not be exactly the way of fulfilling her duty they'd intended, but fulfil her duty she still was. And it would certainly show eagerness.

If you had asked her why those concepts felt so important to her, Robin would not have been able to tell you, but she would certainly have agreed that both of them genuinely were important. In fact, she would have been surprised just how vehement she was on the topic.

When they broke for lunch, she felt exhausted. Looking around the class, she saw the same expression on all faces - a strange, drained kind of overwhelm. And yet as they met one another's eyes, each of them offered a smile - a small smile, quickly flashing and gone, but genuine, heartfelt, and pleasing nonetheless.

Robin felt strangely like she'd just had a workout with her old friend Heidi, left behind now, who always pushed herself and her friends harder than they would for themselves. Heidi had a knack for getting the best out of her; every time, she felt like she had been brought up against her limits. She also felt, satisfyingly, like she had pushed those limits.

It was that feeling which silenced her own internal doubts about the memory training aspect of the lesson. Just spotting a pattern and following it wouldn't feel so impactful, so she must have learned something.

*

At lunch, they met the upperclasswomen for the first time. It felt like a look into the future, and like the lesson they'd just undergone, it really underlined how much work Northrop would put in to help its students change.

These women exuded poise. They carried themselves with confidence, and their smile was ready, welcoming, and genuine no matter what. They seemed polished.

For all that they had a year left of their academic calendar, they all seemed like finished articles, so far ahead on the path Robin and the others had embarked on that they seemed impossible, except that all of them had achieved it.

Robin felt a strange relief. All the upperclasswomen presented that same image. It wasn't just Jocelyn Russell who made the most of Northrop; by the looks of things, it was everyone who attended.

Their teaching methods must have more to them than she'd realised, too.

The upperclasswomen were alike in another way, she noticed; aside from their heights, which were significantly variable, their figures were all within certain limits; their bodies athletic and fit with curves only in certain areas. All of them wore their hair long and loose; individual stylings varied widely but only within that specific set of boundaries.

Seeing all of them together, Robin mused, they were clearly individuals, even with all the similarities among them; all the same, she remembered the gossip magazines and channels she'd quietly enjoyed through her teens. She felt like if she read one now, she'd have a reasonable success rate in recognising Northrop alumni. There were certain things they just seemed to have in common.

Sophomores had also begun trickling in. Already friendly with the upperclasswomen, they welcomed the freshers in warmly, their smiles similar but all genuine.

Each one, Robin noticed, had the same peculiar knack for focusing on you while you exchanged names, as if you were the most interesting person in the world to them at that moment. The impact of that attention was immediate; finally for the first time she understood what her father had said once about how a saleswoman giving him the full focus of her attention could be strangely euphoric.

She recognised in that what was expected of the freshers, in the next few weeks. It wasn't enough just to better remember people's names and pleasures when you saw their faces (she was sure this concept had been introduced as something other than pleasures, but that was the only word her mind would supply in this context), it was also important to make that first meeting important.

Her scalp tingled at the thought, or perhaps just because of the attention she was receiving from each group of sophomores. Whatever else, they made her feel that she was special, and that her presence at Northrop was enough to prove it, to mark her aside from the rest of the world.

In the afternoon, for the first time, Coach Stanton took the freshers for physical exercise. This first class took place in the gymnasium but without much equipment out. Instead they were simply put through their paces while Stanton observed, making notes. "I like to know what I'm working with," she had said. "You're not going to be held up against one another, but we'll do these once a month, and we'll continue compiling your individual statistics.

"You're competing against the version of you that isn't a Northrop girl."

Robin found that faintly ominous, but she was eager to do what she could, and also keen to please. She pushed herself hard to see what she could achieve.

*

"How are the new class shaping up?"

"Some better than others, but they're all actually going pretty well so far. I think we can get them further along in the first semester than the last group."

"We only need to get them far enough along that they accept being kept over the holidays."

"We'll be well past that. If we get to the end of the first week with the current rates of progress, we'll have five ready for immediate implantation on Monday."

"Any signs of suspicion?"

"Just irritation they can't watch their TV. Nothing unusual."

"Get them to the implant stage and they can. Headmistress?"

"Yes, Doctor?"

"Tell the freshers that internet privileges - and TV with them, if they want that - come for those who excel in their classes, and that this will be assessed starting in the second week."

"Yes, Doctor. Thank you, Doctor."

"There's a good girl."

"It is a pleasure to serve, Doctor."

Chapter Two

By the end of the first week, Robin was starting to feel less exhausted.

Lessons were gruelling, whether that was an intense mental load from the computerised lessons, the weight of scrutiny in creative and social lessons, or the sheer work involved in calisthenics. They were clearly designed to be tough. But that challenge, the fact it was constant (and after the first week, it was clear that even the creative electives were designed to be just as challenging as the rest) meant that she was acclimatising to it.

Everyone seemed to be, although certainly that was to greater or lesser degrees. Eva and Robin had started becoming close friends, not because they had much in common in their backgrounds, but simply because they were taking every challenge in front of them roughly as seriously as one another. Angie and Karen had also paired up in much the same way; they didn't seem to be developing their stamina quite as fast as Robin (at least in her opinion - by now, Robin was very clear that Headmistress Gunderman and her team weren't evaluating things exactly as she did) but they were still working hard.

"It's weird," she said to Mai, an upperclasswoman originally from Japan who had struck up a close acquaintance with her. "There were always kids at school who you could tell didn't care. But everyone works hard here, even the ones who don't get as much out of it.

Mai smiled politely, which Robin had learned always meant that she was about to be provided with a startling insight that seemed to come from a perspective she'd never considered. "At school," she said, "not everyone is motivated. Even at college, you'll see plenty of people who don't care. What we always forget is that these people change the atmosphere around them. They accept failure, and so the environment becomes one in which failure is acceptable.

"Here, we are all striving toward a goal. We all understand its value. The environment here is one of willingness to work. And willingness to put in the work, to do one's duty, is more valuable than a drive to succeed." She paused for a moment after saying that, then nodded decisively.

Robin was silent, thinking it through. The talk of duty resonated with her. The idea that she should be willing to put in all the effort needed, no matter what, that also seemed important. Sometimes, pleasing others came not from achievement but through the visible effort.

She looked at Angie and Karen again thoughtfully, with all that in mind, and nodded slowly. "I think I understand that."

"Good." In conversations like this, Mai's English was impeccable, her accent more British than American, though she'd mentioned it had been learned here. Robin had also heard Mai speaking in a register much more heavily informed by her Japanese upbringing, her word choice simpler with it, while in conversation with others.

Robin hadn't been able to bring herself to ask about it. It didn't seem to be a joke, but it was consistent, so something was going on. Robin suspected the answer would make her uncomfortable.

Going into the second week, Headmistress Gunderman rapped her knuckles on the door just after the latest memory class had ended, while they were all still collecting their wits afterwards. "I hope I'm not interrupting," she said. "Some students have been marked out with standout performances, the staff tell me. I'd like to to speak to each of you today. So the following ladies, please present yourselves to my receptionist immediately you've finished your lunch."

She lifted a notepad to read from. "Elizabeth Grange, Cassidy Pilton. Nadine Benjamin. Robin Kilner. Wendy Nicholls." Her eyes lifted from the notepad, she looked across the assembled, and she smiled. "I look forward to our discussions."

WIth that, she left. Robin looked around for the others mentioned, meeting Cassidy's eye. As soon as Cassidy realised Robin was looking at her, she flashed a warm, welcoming smile that reminded Robin of how automatic that response seemed to the upperclasswomen (even though the smiles seemed too genuine to be an automatic response).

She was surprised to realise that she was smiling too.

*

Desdemona Gunderman was an imposing woman when walking the halls of the School. Once her receptionist told Robin to go in - she was the third to finish lunch and arrive, and therefore third to be admitted for a private conversation, though as she hadn't seen either of the others leave, she'd only known it would be private as the door opened and she saw the headmistress alone - she discovered a very different side to her.

Just seeing her behind the desk, while she retained her authority, somehow changed the atmosphere. The smile, almost conspiratorial, on her lips added to the overall effect.

"Robin," she said. "Obviously you've been doing well. Congratulations, first of all."

"Thank you." There were two chairs on the carpet in front of the desk. Directly between them was a circular shag pile rug, about a yard in diameter. Robin had found herself standing on it; Headmistress Gunderman hadn't directed her to sit, so she hadn't felt it would be polite. She wondered now if she should, but didn't want to presume. Being assertive wasn't the role of a Northrop girl.

It didn't occur to Robin to wonder why she knew that, where the thought had come from, or why she'd agree with it.

"Now, obviously we want to encourage you and the other high achievers," Headmistress Gunderman continued. "We also want you to set an example for the others in your class. But the two intents can conflict."

"Ma'am?"

"An example needs to be on at all times. It can be hard to sustain, and it's extra pressure. We've noticed in the past that this led to high achievers stumbling, and it could be hard for them to recover. The last thing we want you to do is become disillusioned with the process."

Robin nodded, not because she fully understood but because it seemed to be expected of her, and in any case she felt it would please the Headmistress.

"So we looked for a way to do this differently," Gunderman went on. "I'm going to ask you for your patience in the next five minutes."

"Of course," Robin answered. She couldn't remember when her curiosity had been higher.

"That's excellent," the headmistress said. "I was sure I could count on you to understand your duty."

"Yes, ma'am." Robin bowed her head for a moment.

"Through that door, then." Headmistress Gunderman indicated another door, not the one she'd come in from.

Robin was good at spatial orientation, and she often liked to build mental maps of buildings as she explored them. The way this wing of the building had been designed, beyond this should be the gymnasium, but the gym didn't have any doors on the relevant wall. Which meant a small little space, and one which was well enough camouflaged that you could easily not realise there was a space there unless you were looking for it.

These older buildings, she thought, really were all full of surprises.

She stepped through the door and saw in front of her a gurney mounted on wheels, empty, and a figure on the far side of it. The figure was tall enough that she assumed it was male, but as it was dressed in hospital scrubs and a mask over most of the face, she couldn't say for sure.

Robin blinked in confusion and turned back toward the Headmistress, uncertain about all this, but that meant she was turning further away from the man stood behind her in the same narrow space.

A hand came around over her shoulder and clamped cloth tightly against her face. Shocked, she opened her mouth and took a deep breath to scream, and evidently that was the wrong choice to make, because she inhaled a deep chemical smell. Almost immediately her knees gave out and she pitched forward; she was halfway conscious still as she was efficiently loaded the rest of the way onto the gurney, but lost her awareness of the world around her by the time the gurney was moving in its turn.

*

Unbeknownst to Robin, the gurney did not have far to travel; about five feet beyond where she'd seen they went through a weighted swing door, where her gurney was lined up next to two others. One of them bore Nadine Benjamin; Cassidy Pilton, who had occupied the first, was by now resting face-down on a sterile table.

The two men who had drugged and moved Robin grabbed one of the two empty gurneys waiting on the other side of the door, then moved back into the space. Meanwhile, techs had lifted up the hair covering Cassidy's neck.

With a small trimmer they shaved a tiny patch of her hair in a small square after using their fingers to establish the point where the spine connected to the skull. With this done, another moved into place. They carried a device that looked more like a shock baton than anything else and which hummed cheerfully away.

Linking up the square tip of the device within the shaved square of bare skin, they thumbed a switch on the grip and watched a series of telltales light up red and then, one by one, light up green as the device ran its checks and compensated accordingly. Once the last of them had lit up green, the tech pushed a button an inch or so away from the switch, before throwing the switch back.

The chip was accordingly embedded into place just below the base of Cassidy's skull, where it was now engaged in testing filament connections into the central nervous system. There was a certain amount of unconscious resistance to the stimuli it used for testing, but the threshold of what Cassidy would accept and what she might fight had been adjusted over the previous week, and as such her psyche did not fully reject it.

Cassidy was then transferred from the table to a chair waiting nearby at the hands of the two burliest technicians, who moved back to select Nadine.

All unknowing, Robin awaited her own turn.

*

Robin was jolted from what must have been a deep reverie - deep enough that she'd lost track of her surroundings and what she was doing, really a full fledged daydream - by the ringing of silver being rapped against crystal.

With a shock, she realised she already couldn't remember any of the details of her daydream.

She was sat upright, holding a crystal champagne flute of her own, part of a loose semi-circle of chairs in which all five top achievers sat, directly in front of Desdemona Gunderman's desk. The headmistress herself was standing beside her chair, having just tapped her fountain pen against her own flute.

"Well," she said, smiling. "You are all to be congratulated, obviously. But more importantly, we want you to set an example to the others in your class."

For a fleeting moment Robin wondered where she'd heard that before. The question, as well as the half-memory that inspired it, promptly slipped through her fingers, and she had a sense of something discordant, as if the wrong note had been played in the middle of a song. There was no such song, nor any melody, but the feeling persisted. Robin found herself not liking that feeling.

"We don't want this to push you too far," Gunderman continued. "Being asked to serve as an example can be hard to sustain, and it's extra pressure." She looked around the group as a whole, meeting the eyes of each student in turn.

*

"Hit it."

"Roger."

*

Robin almost jumped in her seat. Something about the eye contact, she decided; it must be that eye contact because there was nothing else for it to be. But the headmistress' smile, her approval...

It had to be that which had felt so good. Nothing else had changed but that look.

She was talking about pressure, and about pushing them, but Robin felt on top of the world. A Northrop girl wasn't going to shirk her duty just because it was hard.

"We expect you to give us your best," the headmistress continued. "But we know it will take practice to sustain. So I am going to ask each of you, in turn, to give me a pledge, so that I know you understand the expectations of your duty."

Robin nodded gently. Knowing what was expected of her would make it easier to please.

The same strange tingling pleasure she had felt before surged through her.

"We want you to present a united front," Gunderman said. "We do not want you to break ranks. This is not a time to take a stand on principle."

A chill ran down Robin's spine. She shivered. Taking a stand felt more daunting, just as pushing herself to maintain her standards felt more desirable.

The headmistress turned first to Elizabeth Grange. "As you received the most nominations from staff," she said, "I should like to begin with you. Rise."

Elizabeth stood as she was instructed. Desdemona pointed mutely to a small, circular rug at the centre of the semicircle of chairs. Without further instruction, Elizabeth took up position on the circle.

"Repeat after me. I, Elizabeth Grange..."

"I, Elizabeth Grange," said Elizabeth.

"Do solemnly commit."

"Do solemnly commit."

"To uphold Northrop values in the face of provocation."

"To uphold Northrop values in the face of provocation."

"To serve as a pleasing example of duty."

"To serve as a pleasing example of duty."

The delicious tingle was back in Robin. She was smiling broadly just watching this, knowing the headmistress having chosen them all for this was a mark that her own work deserved it.

"To help others to refrain from questioning."

"To help others to refrain from questioning."

It must be some trick the headmistress had in her delivery, because the tingle was gone and the shuddering chill was back at the idea of the class questioning when they should fulfil their duty instead.

"Very good," Gunderman said, then turned to Cassidy. Realising her pledge was complete, Elizabeth stepped back to where she had been seated and took up position beside it, standing waiting hesitantly.

All five of the students sat through four repetitions of the pledge and actively took part in a fifth. And every time, they each felt those same raptures, that same chill.

Afterwards, Robin would shudder slightly any time the teachers said anything she wanted to question. She never actually raised those questions, feeling too uncomfortable to do so. On the other hand, she volunteered whenever a teacher needed an assistant, and never failed to meet the eyes of those around her and smile while she did so.

At no point did she associate these developing tendencies with that meeting in Headmistress Gunderman's office.

*

The classes, Robin had decided, were fun. Deportment, which turned out to mean 'the way someone walks', had a preferred outcome; the head should remain completely straight and level while they moved, with the body held correctly to achieve this.

Robin and the others spent a lot of time in early deportment classes walking carefully with a book balanced precariously on their heads. Their steps were slow and measured, their hands down by their sides, and they would often smile at the faintly frozen expressions of others walking.

She hadn't expected it to be a bonding exercise for the class, but it was. Their teacher, Madame Meredith, could balance an egg on her head and walk at almost parade march pace without it dislodging, gesturing and carrying on a conversation as she did so; this was obviously intended as the upper pinnacle of achievement, and Robin mentally marked it as a target for herself, since she was setting such a good example.

All the same, she was more fascinated by the difference between one of her class walking and the sophomores and upperclasswomen; the head remained perfectly still and stable, but most of them had developed a slow, slinky roll of their hips, a sashay. Madame Meredith did not teach this, and Robin wondered privately if there was another teacher they hadn't yet met who would cover this theory.

"Do you ever worry about the upperclasswomen?" she was asked one night by Angie.

Robin had her doubts about Angie, though she reminded herself frequently that the evidence of the returning students was that everyone at Northrop could achieve. Angie, on the other hand, simply didn't seem to have the right attitude.

Quite why she'd latched onto Robin as strongly as she had in recent weeks wasn't entirely clear. Privately, Robin suspected Angie was hoping if she was seen with one of the leading students often enough, her instructors would come to think of her as another.

Robin wanted to make an impact, though, and helping Angie to see sense would certainly go down to her credit, and so she sucked down the discomfort and icy shudder that she felt every time Angie ridiculed one of Northrop's many teachings which, once she'd heard them, had seemed like she should always have known and understood that life worked that way.

So when Angie asked, she answered "What do you mean?"

"Oh, you know." Angie always said that when Robin didn't immediately agree. After a few moments of silence she went on, "They just seem, you know, kinda sexual."

Again that shiver of discomfort down Robin's spine. "I don't think so," she said. "What makes you think that?"

"The way they walk, mostly," Angie said. "And the way they smile. I don't know, exactly. Just a vibe."

"What kind of vibe?"

"Like..." Angie seemed to be taking her time finding the words, and Robin, who hadn't really had any reason to consider the upperclasswomen as sexual beings, let alone overtly so, realised that whatever was bothering her, it was really bothering her.

"They don't seem sexy at all," Robin said. "I mean, feminine empowerment gives confidence, and confidence is sexy. But I don't think they're trying to be."

"That's the thing," Angie said, and there was a sudden extra intensity in her voice. "It's not that they're trying to be sexy. I think they're trying not to be."

For the first time, Robin looked up from the notes she'd been making. "You're not making any sense."

"No, listen, right," Angie said. "My aunt Ellie, the family scandal? We thought she was a receptionist for a dentist for years, then one of us booked with her boss and mentioned her. Turned out she hadn't ever worked there.

"We kinda dug into it. Anyway, turned out she'd actually been working as an escort the whole time, just lied to us because she was embarrassed. She'd spent years being slutty dressed up as respectable."

Robin, suddenly aware that her mouth had been gaping wider and wider open with astonishment throughout this recitation, closed her mouth and swallowed to give herself some time to think. "That's what you think of when you look at our school?"

"Not everyone," Angie said. "Pretty much all the upperclasswomen. Some of the sophomores." She shrugged. "It just seems weird."

"It seems disrespectful," Robin retorted, feeling the same shudder down her spine. She closed her notebook firmly and stood up. "Do excuse me," she said with icy politeness before she swept out.

The chill went away when she had passed a certain distance away.

*

"Possible situation, sir."

"What?"

"It's the same pair we've mentioned a couple of times. They had another conversation."

"We have audio, yes?"

"Yes, sir."

"Give me playback."

"Roger."

There was a silent moment before the recording began to play.

"Do you ever worry about the upperclasswomen?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, you know. They just seem, you know, kinda sexual."

"I don't think so. What makes you think that?"

"The way they walk, mostly, and the way they smile. I don't know, exactly. Just a vibe."

"What kind of vibe?"

"Like..."

"They don't seem sexy at all. I mean, feminine empowerment gives confidence, and confidence is sexy. But I don't think they're trying to be."

"That's the thing. It's not that they're trying to be sexy. I think they're trying not to be."

"You're not making any sense."

"No, listen, right. My aunt Ellie, the family scandal? We thought she was a receptionist for a dentist for years, then one of us booked with her boss and mentioned her. Turned out she hadn't ever worked there.

"We kinda dug into it. Anyway, turned out she'd actually been working as an escort the whole time, just lied to us because she was embarrassed. She'd spent years being slutty dressed up as respectable."

"That's what you think of when you look at our school?"

"Not everyone. Pretty much all the upperclasswomen. Some of the sophomores. It just seems weird."

"It seems disrespectful. Do excuse me,"

And again, the conversation abruptly fell into silence.

"Hm. That's the end of the recording?"

"Yes, sir."

"Has Thornhill got her chip yet?"

"No, sir."

"Remind me, is she the only one?"

"No, sir. Three chipless. About standard for this point in the semester."

"They're a little too independent-minded for my liking right now. We have visitors tomorrow. Headmistress, have the freshman class relocated out of visual for the duration."

"Yes, Doctor, of course."

"What do we do about Thornhill, sir?"

"Nothing, yet. We make this a test of Kliner."

"Sir?"

"Either we're right about Kliner, and she should be in the lead program, or Thornhill's instincts are, and she's a problem. I want to know."

"Roger."

*

Robin spent the rest of the evening walking the grounds, trying to clear her head. By the time she made her way back to her dorm, the usual idle chatter was instead a buzz of activity. She did what she always did when confused at Northrop; she sought out Eva.

"Headmistress Gunderman came by," Eva was saying, and Robin was surprised how disappointed she felt to have missed an appearance. "Tomorrow apparently we're all going out to the lake for a lesson in garden etiquette."

"Oh." That hadn't been on the timetable. Robin was surprised, but smiled. After all, it was the headmistress' decision; who was she to stand against it? "That should be fun."

Eva smiled lopsidedly. "I didn't expect you to be so good at etiquette."

"Nor did I," Robin said. It was a reflexive answer, born of honesty and openness, and it came out before she could evaluate whether or not it was an appropriate comment from one setting an example; on reflection she decided that probably it was, and she relaxed. "I've worked at it, I suppose. But..." She considered.

"The rules usually seem perfectly sensible once I've learned them. Don't you think so?"

Eva blinked slowly. "I think... perhaps? I'm not sure. I already knew several of them, of course, but a lot of them have always struck me as meaning that women listen but do not talk."

Robin, who had ceased to find this an unreasonable idea, nodded.

"Now, though, even the worst of those..." Eva snorted with amusement, an unladylike habit Robin was very pleased to finally be beating in herself. "I find myself smiling when I think of them. It has to be something in the way we're taught."

Robin was quiet for a few moments. What did her friend mean, the worst of those? She felt as if she must have agreed, in the time before coming to the Northrop Finishing School. They had been at the school itself for just under three months. But all the same, she felt as if she had spent a lifetime knowing better than to doubt the wisdom of traditional etiquette.

Eva's confusion wasn't an affront in the same way that Angie's attitude had become, though. Was this just a consequence of the three women's different speeds of learning?

*

The freshers started making their way up to the boating lake and the lakehouse bright and early the next morning, before they even had breakfast. As a consequence, when the first limousine passed the gates and began to roll up the gravel driveway, none of them were there to see it and speculate, as they all surely would have done otherwise.

The sophomores, for their part, spent much of the morning - at least that part of their mornings not filled with lessons - watching the vehicles arrive, comparing notes on who and what they'd each seen, and speculating on why so many men were visiting.

The overall mood among the sophomores was an amused excitement to see upwards of a dozen eligible men on the premises. One of them, a movie star just transitioning from action hero roles to producer credits and the occasional serious piece, was immediately recognised. While the others could not be identified, the sophomores immediately assumed that the others must be equally rich, equally important.

Headmistress Gunderman came out personally to welcome each one and usher them indoors, and the sophomores speculated.

"I always knew she was a man-eater," one said, and the others all giggled in response.

Meanwhile, inside the main hall, the men gathered. While she was in the room, Gunderman flitted from one to another, making polite conversation and flattering egos. She did not bother to check whether or not they had everything they needed.

She didn't need to; in the main hall were twenty-four of the upperclasswomen. Headmistress Gunderman remembered reading through their dossiers the night before and selecting the assortment to be on display, though in fact the selections had been made by another and dictated to her.

They were all dressed in silk gowns, strapless, backless, and slit high up the thighs, and they all wore high heels. Yet they moved with perfect posture, they listened to the men waiting with their whole attention, and their long, delicate fingers came to wrest on the arms of the seated men with caring precision or their decolletages brushed the ears of those same men as they took up position to stoop and ask them, quietly, whether there was anything Northrop Finishing School could provide which would make their day even a little brighter than it already was.

To the upperclasswomen, the fame of one of these men was no additional inducement, because they needed none.

When all of the men expected had arrived, Headmistress Gunderman called her students to order. They lined up, a few paces apart from one another and several paces away from the line of chairs the men occupied.

At a gesture, the upperclasswomen began to promenade in front of them, walking in front of each man, one at a time. They made two circuits. On the second, Gunderman said their names aloud as they began the route, so that the watching men had a useful identifier; with twenty-four women in front of them, 'the blonde' would not have been a useful enough description.

After the second complete circuit, the headmistress held up one hand wordlessly, palm toward them, and they filed obediently to a stop. After that, they turned to face the waiting men.

"Go on, girls," Gunderman said.

"Yes, ma'am," they chorused. All of them had picked out one or two of the men for special attention, and they each made eye contact with those they were focusing on. They smiled warmly, to show that they considered what they were about to do perfectly acceptable, and then, not quite in unison, they all reached for the hidden fastening of their gowns.

They quickly undid the fastenings and let their gowns slide to the floor. It had been cleaned the night before, to a professional standard, but as they had been given the signal to disrobe, they would have done so in any case.

Beneath the gowns they wore a variety of different undergarments, but each had been selected to titillate. They posed, still making eye contact with their targets, before sweeping their gaze down the line of seated men.

Headmistress Gunderman smiled again. "Gentlemen," she said, "You have all had a chance to inspect the merchandise. Are you ready to bid, or do you have questions about their performance?"

Five of the men seated there simply waited. These men had all shopped at Northrop before. Four had married Northrop girls; one, an oil baron, had married four simultaneously and would be marrying a fifth. Two of the others were now looking for a personal assistant for their wife, who therefore would plausibly always be on their property.

One had become a widower, much to his own surprise, three years ago. His wife had reacted swiftly when their son had wandered into the road, but not quite swiftly enough. She had died a heroine, and he had been surprised to find how deeply he had grieved.

He had not felt ready to reach out to Northrop to replace her for some time, and when he was ready, his publicist had advised leaving it a year longer. Now he was here, and wondering whether the skilled technicians at the academy had the talent needed to make him fall in love again.

The fifth of the silent group was not there on his own account. Unlike Chris Waterford, the film star, the fifth's clients were very sensitive to the risk that one day the finishing school's secret might be discovered. They understood the value of a go-between who in turn understood their tastes.

It was Waterford himself who raised a hand. "You, uh-" He broke off, aware that he'd been about to ask one of the women directly, and realising that perhaps that wasn't the correct etiquette for the situation. "They're, you know, fully trained?"

Most of the other men hid their smiles, though one smirked openly. Another was simply grateful that someone else had been the one to ask.

"They certainly are," Gunderman replied. "But I imagine you would rather not simply take my word for it." She flashed a smile. "Would you like to select a demonstration model?"

Chris Waterford swept an experienced eye along the line. "Cara Kendall," he said, after a moment. He was a famous actor and, for the blockbuster style he'd made his money in, a gifted one. But nobody in that room believed he hadn't already known which name he would give.

"Cara," the headmistress said, "fetch."

"Yes, ma'am," Cara said. She was tall, and blonde, with wide hips and broad shoulders, and a figure caught somewhere between sporty and soft. Her brown eyes shone with a warmth.

"Casting couch, huh?" the agent asked Waterford, who smirked and shrugged. In the meantime, Miss Kendall had walked over to Waterford's chair. She settled to one knee beside it, and reached underneath to draw out a small chest.

She opened this carefully and extracted a large rubber dildo, before moving to settle herself in front of him. Then she waited, looking directly up at him and smiling.

"You may begin, Cara," Gunderman told her. She sounded not bored but disinterested, the way someone who knew exactly what would happen might be.

"Yes, ma'am," Cara said, and then, looking up at Waterford, she smiled and winked. "Yes, sir."

She took the dildo into her mouth, letting its entire length slide down her throat immediately. It was clear she was prepared to take a cock at a moment's notice, and it was also clear that any gag reflex she might have had, she no longer suffered from.

What stood out to each of the men there about her performance (although they would not think about it until later, by its very nature) was that watching her fellate a fake cock in near-silence, surrounded by other brainwashed women, a headmistress-turned-auctioneer, and several other men had not been awkward; somehow her warmth and eagerness to please had made it a strangely intimate experience.

Chapter Three

The day after the lakefront etiquette lessons, Robin left the dining hall early during breakfast, something she almost never did. She moved resolutely, as someone might if they felt they had already delayed something too long, perhaps through no fault of their own.

Her path took her to the headmistress' office. Headmistress Gunderman did not often eat with the students, but it had still become common knowledge that she had finished eating and settled at her desk well before the first scheduled classes of the day.

The same, it turned out, wasn't true for her receptionist. Robin hesitated - interrupting someone more important than her didn't really feel like it fitted the Northrop way - but it was too important to leave any longer. She knocked on the door.

The quiet in the room seemed somehow to intensify for a moment. A few moments later, she heard Gunderman call "Enter."

Robin pushed open the heavy door and stepped inside. Her footsteps took her, almost automatically, to the circular rug between the two guest chairs, where she took up position standing.

From one side of the room she heard a click, as of a wooden door fully closing. It was not a side of the room that held any doors, though, so it must have been something else; perhaps a trunk or something else with a heavy lid, closing slowly on oiled rails after recent use.

"Well, Miss Kilner," Gunderman said, leaning forward across the desk and clasping her hands. "What seems to be the trouble?"

Robin took a deep breath. "I don't like to speak badly of people, Headmistress," she said. "And it's not ladylike to tell tales out of turn."

"Of course." Her attention had sharpened on Robin. Was this something that she expected once or twice across a year, then?

"It's Angelica Thornhill," Robin said.

"What is?"

"Well, nothing I can pinpoint, exactly," she said. "But I don't..." She slumped, her breath hissing out of her in frustration. She keeps saying wrong things was what she wanted to say, but it sounded too weak. The words were important enough - terrible things for someone to say, in fact - but the accusation sounded flat. "She doesn't seem to have the school spirit," she finished instead. It felt lame.

"Really?" Headmistress Gunderman drummed her fingers on the desk, frowning thoughtfully. "Thank you," she said. "I'll deal with this."

Robin felt lighter suddenly. She hadn't realised how true it was that burdens could weigh on you physically until, with that moment past, she felt it lift. She smiled warmly. "Thank you," she said. "It's been tiresome." And once she had said so, she knew that this was exactly the right word for Angie's behaviour.

"Is there anything else?"

"No, ma'am," Robin said. "Thank you for your time."

Gunderman nodded approvingly. Robin smiled, turned, and left. The problem was no longer hers. She could focus on her studies once again.

*

By the end of the first semester, Robin was beginning to understand why Jocelyn Russell had laid stress on accomplishment and how the Northrop Finishing School could contribute to it. Some of her fellow students had clearly been accomplished already, having embarked on careers of one sort or another. A couple of others came from wealth. Most, like Robin, had seen Northrop as an alternative to college.

"I didn't know what I was getting into," as Eva had said one night. "But I knew what college was going to be, and I knew what the opportunities near me were without either. I chose Northrop because of the possibility it would be better."

Robin understood now how much better it was, and how lucky she was to have the opportunity. Only fifty spaces were available in any class; someone, she thought Romi, had mentioned hearing about a sister school somewhere deep in rural France, but if so it was presumably of a similar size.

She also understood now why the sophomores and the upperclasswomen (although only half of those still seemed to be around) had walked differently than they had been taught in deportment.

A week before the end of the semester, Madame Meredith had provided the exemplars (as Robin and the other more successful students were now referred to) with a small but prettily decorated cardboard box each.

"Wear these," she had said, "to our next lesson. They are our secret weapon in achieving a proper Northrop strut." She had then looked around the half-dozen women in front of her. "Do not speak of these to others," she said firmly. "Am I understood?"

"Oui, madame," they had chorused. The air of secrecy around the project had piqued Robin's interest, but like the others she had still refrained from investigating the box's contents until she had got back to the privacy of her own bedroom.

She had opened the box lid and seen inside a pair of panties with a small dildo attached to the inside of the front, such that anyone wearing them would have to invite it inside.

It is, perhaps, a measure of how far Robin had come in learning Northrop's lessons that she didn't scream or even gasp; her mouth certainly gaped for a moment but she didn't exclaim. She was shocked, but not scandalised.

She had closed the box again hurriedly and set it away, certain that Madame Meredith must have made some kind of mistake, and shuddering at -

No. She had not shuddered at the idea of wearing it, she suddenly realised.

Over the semester, she'd come to rely on that instinctive reaction to things. Whenever there were two possible decisions, it seemed like she felt either delight at the right choice or shuddering revulsion against the wrong one. Where it came from she didn't know, but she was convinced that the academy was helping her hone her instincts somehow. Maybe it was something about the surroundings.

And the idea of wearing that underwear didn't actually unsettle her.

It hadn't been enough immediately, but she had slept on the question, and the following morning she had opened the box again and picked up the panties themselves, and a sudden flush of pleasure had gone through her.

So she had slipped away after their first morning lesson and changed into them, and the moment they were in place and covered by her other clothes she had felt satisfied that she was on the right path.

It turned out that this encouragement had led to herself and the other exemplars walking with a natural, satisfying roll to their hips. This had made keeping her head straight enough to balance a book on it much harder than before, but Robin had just taken this as another challenge to overcome.

She felt much more like the sophomores, walking with that roll to her hips.

Robin had noticed that, as one of the exemplars, she could sometimes see when others in her class reached each of the aids that she already had access to. She always looked forward to those little insights; no grades were given, so aside from seeing whether exemplars changed (Cassidy had fallen behind in recent weeks) it was the only real indication she had of how well everyone was doing.

She was looking forward to seeing some of the other students advance along this path. Especially Angie.

Robin had started to take much more interest in Angie's ongoing performance as time had gone by. She wasn't sure what headmistress Gunderman had said or done, but just a couple of days after Robin had reported her, Angie had showed real signs of a change to her behaviour.

She was no Jocelyn Russell yet but her attitude had improved, she was more engaged in each class, and most importantly, when they had conversations outside classes, Angie sounded actively positive about the prospect of learning more and better.

It didn't seem to be just Robin who was elated as they approached the end of the first semester; Cara Kendall, who had left Northrop early around the same time that Robin had reported Angie, had just been announced as having received a role in the upcoming Chris Waterford movie, having met him and a number of other wealthy, powerful men when they paid a call on headmistress Gunderman.

Robin had been sorry to have missed a movie star, but she didn't regret it too much. She'd been deep in lessons while he was there, and she certainly wouldn't change that.

Cara wasn't the only one who had left at around the same time, but she was the only one where the students knew where she had gone and why. The sophomores and the other upperclasswomen had simply started referring to them as 'graduates' and showed no further curiosity.

Many of the first years couldn't bring themselves to be incurious about the changes. Robin and the other exemplars had discussed this privately, wondering whether to simply rise above it or to confront and correct them. It had been decided that they should quell discussion whenever they saw it, reminding their fellow students that a Northrop girl knew what she needed to know, and did not need to learn anything they didn't need to know.

"When did you get told that?" Eva had asked, but Robin had tutted and changed the topic, not wanting to dignify such a silly question with a response. Like many lessons she had learned within Northrop's bounds, Robin felt as if she had always known it; in any case, if she deliberately ignored any discussion she didn't need to take part in, she felt that same tingling pleasure that was now her biggest guide.

With a week to go before the end of the first semester, Robin privately applied to stay at Northrop throughout the vacation. She had a nagging sensation that she would be embarrassed to see her family again, knowing better as she now did.

*

Robin sat down and picked up the virtual reality headset again. There were tests, twice a week now, administered through these systems so that everyone could be assessed individually and nobody could cheat. They incorporated anything theoretical about the previous week's lessons.

She could barely believe how strange this had all seemed at first.

She slipped it into place and felt for the controllers. In the headset she saw a three-dimensional reconstruction of the Northrop logo, slowly revolving. By this point she knew that it would go away when everyone else had loaded in, to be replaced by the test.

The music in the background was as catchy as ever.

Unbeknownst to her, the helmet now also read the chip implanted at the base of Robin's skull, wirelessly providing software updates. At Northrop, the Pavlov routines could be fired to provide pleasure or discomfort through remote monitoring. Once she had graduated, internal rules would have to provide any ongoing correction for themselves.

The logo went away, and with it Robin's awareness also dropped away into something not unlike a waking dream.

Not long before, Robin had criticised and shunned Angie for suggesting that the sophomores and upperclasswomen were well-masked sluts. Now she mostly didn't think about the question. That was also due to the chip, and the chill that ran down her spine whenever she did allow herself to think about it.

From Robin's perspective, she didn't think about it much because she didn't like to think about it. One reason for that was because she genuinely was finding herself thinking in much more sexual terms as time went on; she had found herself occasionally stealing lingering glances at Karl and the other grounds staff (though she wouldn't dream of initiating anything with them) and she knew for a fact that some of the other students were involved in lesbian liaisons now.

Her sex drive had never been as high as it was now, a little over a semester into her time at Northrop. And yet she never tried to take care of it for herself when she had peace and privacy in her room.

Under the headset, though, Robin dreamed.

She dreamed of waltzing with a man, she wasn't sure who, in a ballroom; they moved as one, in sync, because she was moving as he led, her body pressed against him. He steered her through the dance with one of her hands in his, the other hand on her buttock.

Robin felt at peace dancing like that. It was natural to be led, to be steered. She was a companion for this man, offering him not just pleasure but status. She could be shown off, she could be left to her own devices; she could even be left to entertain colleagues or their wives, making polite conversation or doing whatever else might be needed. A perfect helpmeet.

Just like Jocelyn Russell.

Robin imagined that Jocelyn would not be receiving quite so much pleasure from the fact the hand guiding her was on her ass. She'd watched the intro video carefully and, after becoming an exemplar, she'd gone back and watched it again, considering Jocelyn her own personal exemplar of how things should be.

Jocelyn surely wasn't affected by anything so common or base as the urges and arousal that filled Robin in these fantasies.

The man leading her dance spun her out, and Robin pirouetted away. The ballgown she had been wearing melted away from her as she did so, leaving her standing in thigh-high opaque black stockings and a navy blue lingerie set with garter belts and her high heels.

Robin moved happily around a capacious kitchen. The dream didn't make clear what she was cooking, but certainly she was cooking for many. She drifted from countertop to countertop as if she was still dancing, and loitered at one where dough needed to be made and formed.

She was engrossed in her task when she felt a hand clap against her buttock.

A jolt went through her, and in that jolt time seemed to stand still. Robin felt like this was as good as life could possibly get. She bit her lip against the moan she wanted to give out, then looked back over her shoulder.

The man she was with smiled at her. She couldn't make out his facial features, but she smiled back warmly, both because she felt so happy and because she knew she should. He squeezed her buttock, and she purred, looked down, saw a floury handprint over her buttock. A claim. A mark of ownership.

Robin felt giddy.

The man passed on, and she turned back to her work, thinking of other ways he could claim her.

She worried idly that she wasn't yet experienced enough, hadn't built up knowledge enough of techniques and tricks to please him.

Even then, some part of her felt confident that she would, in due time.

*

"Give me a status report."

"So far, we're not seeing any sign of anyone having deterioration in conditioning over the holiday."

"Even those who went home?"

"That's correct, sir."

"And any issues with family members?"

"Nobody's spoken about them specifically, sir. We're ready to add the probes to their assessments."

"Do it."

"Roger."

*

In the dream, Robin continued to move. Her lingerie and stockings now accepted as the thing she was wearing, she skipped briskly down the stairs and along a corridor, walking jauntily, her head held high and steady, her hips rolling as she had been taught in deportment. She could practically feel the dildo inside her, even though she knew there wasn't one, but that was alright; the dildo was a state of mind.

The corridor was some stately home, wood panel lined walls rather than paper or paint for decoration. Part of Robin felt comfortable there, following the logic that dreams often did. Another was secretly excited to be walking in the kind of room she'd only ever seen in movies.

As she walked along, she was startled suddenly by a phone next to her. An old-fashioned rotary phone on a small cabinet, a light blinking red on and off beside the numbers. Someone was calling her.

Robin understood, without knowing how, that the call came from her parents. She hadn't talked with them much since going to Northrop - the wifi privileges they had been promised they could earn had never materialised, and in the meantime they had forgotten these had even been asked for. It made sense that they would want to talk to her; she wanted to talk to them.

Her eyes flitted down the corridor. Nearby, she knew with the same instinctive dreamlike understanding that told her the call was from family, was the drinks cabinet, and her man (whose identity she was unclear on) wanted a drink.

A drink was not urgent, she thought. A dutiful daughter could be forgiven for answering the call, even if only to arrange a time for a longer call.

She reached out to lift the handset, but hesitated before her fingers closed around it.

In the classroom around her, the other Northrop students were each faced with a similar dilemma. Some made the choice easily, driven by instinct. Others, more torn between the two impulses, had to ask themselves what mattered more, without ever realising their choice was watched and would be assessed in planning future treatment.

For Robin, the question was whether she considered herself a dutiful daughter, or whether her duty was foremost to her man. Whoever he might be, and whatever their arrangement was.

She turned from the phone and started walking down the corridor, in search of the drink he would want.

Whatever her family wanted was only a secondary concern, she felt. If it was important, they'd call back in the end.

*

A week into the second semester, word came down that the freshers were to be split into two smaller classes, with those who were taking to the Northrop way of doing things more easily undergoing advanced training, while the others were drilled on what was needed. As proud as she was of how far Angie had come, her friend was still in the other class.

Headmistress Gunderman visited the advanced class during their first lesson. "I want to impress upon you all that this is natural," she began. "You are all, I know, already on friendly terms with the senior years." And, of course, this was true. "We had to separate out classes at a certain point there, too. This is one reason we do our weekly assessments, and one reason we work so hard to ensure that nobody can cheat on them."

Remembering how much she'd relied on watching for patterns in the first couple of quizzes, Robin flushed. She couldn't be too upset that she'd done so, all the same; she had probably needed that early rush of recognition to give her the momentum she'd needed to get where she was. Now as an exemplar she wanted to learn. Wanted to be better.

She had even begun to dream that maybe, one day in the future, her name might be mentioned in the same breath as names like Jocelyn Russell.

There were no specific classes on academic subjects, but Northrop girls were expected to be able to hold their own in casual conversation on a wide range of topics, and so they were given concentrated lessons regularly which touched on the basics of science, politics, and art; enough that their opinions were not easily dismissed.

Now that the top flight were learning apart from the others, Robin was quite happy to have been moved into a smaller room. Just inside the door were a set of lockers and a series of hooks mounted on the wall.

Robin entered the classroom and stepped to one side, such that she couldn't be seen if someone happened to walk by the corridor before other new arrivals closed it behind them. Without realising she was doing it, she began to unbutton her blouse. Her fingers worked away easily until it could be removed and hung up. She next unfastened her skirt, opening her locker as she did so.

By now there were three other early arrivals to the class who were doing the same thing. Robin didn't register the other women stripping down to their underwear, either, except to think contentedly that she was being joined by her peers.

Robin shut her skirt away in the locker and moved to take her seat. It still did not occur to her that anything out of the ordinary had taken place, except that she felt that same lovely bubbling up of positive feeling.

Robin did not know that she would have felt a familiar discomfort had she not stripped down. She did not think about any of it. Meeting Elizabeth's eyes, she flashed the other woman a warm smile before settling her headset into place and beginning to navigate her way through the test, a dazed smile on her face.

She was soon joined by the others of the top flight. There were no qualms in the heads of any of them about their state of undress. If anyone had pointed it out to Robin, she might have said simply that there were no gentlemen in attendance.

Their eyes wide, their mouths slack, their minds open, they continued to absorb information apace.

*

"I feel like things have changed," Angie said later on, leaning in the visitor chair of Robin's accommodation. There were cooking classes the following day, and both of them held a large binder full of recipes. Their attention was mostly on the reading, but they had found that information sank in more easily if they were not too focused. As such, they met up regularly to read together and to converse.

"In what way?" Robin asked.

"Since we split into classes," Angie said. "The way we're being taught has changed."

This was something Robin had seen too, but she reminded herself that it was likely that Angie had seen something different. She tucked her thumb into the book to mark her page and gave her friend more attention. "What kind of thing?"

"They've got really... intense," Angie said. "I almost expected Ms Davenport to bring out a cane or something in the most recent lesson."

Robin smiled gently. She wasn't sure what Angie would have thought of an occurrence like that, but it seemed to her that discipline was being correctly used.

Fleetingly, it occurred to her that just a few months earlier the idea of corporal punishment as a means of discipline would have revolted her. The dizzying unpleasantness she sometimes felt when her thoughts strayed from what her instinct told her they should be quickly interposed itself, however, and with a shudder she released that idea without further inspection.

"Is it working?" she asked instead.

Angie gave the question due consideration before answering. It did Robin good to see her friend actually taking the Northrop education seriously; it certainly felt like there was a better future ahead of her as a result. "I think so," she said. "On most of us, anyway."

Robin's attention further sharpened. "Do you have doubts?"

"Yes and no." Angie set her own recipe book aside, giving the matter her full attention. "Yes, because I have to pay attention to the evidence of my eyes and ears. No, because we've seen the sophomores and the upperclasswomen.

"Even the sophomores are so accomplished. They clearly have no doubts. They're already most of the way to..." Angie clearly wasn't sure how to express the idea, and nor was Robin, but all the same she knew exactly what she meant.

"The finished product," she supplied, and even though people were not products, even though it was just a near-enough description she'd thrown out on the spur of the moment, it felt right the moment her lips gave it shape. So right that it seemed like it emerged in someone else's voice. Headmistress Gunderman's, perhaps.

Angie was nodding, too, the same light of recognition in her eyes. "Yes, that," she said. "By sophomore year, clearly, everyone is where they need to be, mentally. It's just learning everything we haven't covered yet.

"But even though I know that's what's going to happen, there are times when I look at the rest of my class and I wonder."

"Is there anyone in particular you're thinking of?" Robin asked. She wasn't sure if she wanted the answer yes or no, but she knew the advice she wanted to give if the answer was less.

Angie gave this, too, thoughtful consideration. It was so good, Robin felt, that her friend was now taking Northrop's requirements much more seriously. The focus came first, and the improvement followed; hadn't she learned that for herself? "I think," Angie said slowly, "that yes, maybe. I think maybe Katya is having second thoughts."

Robin shuddered at the idea, a moment before the unpleasant shudder that had been such a mark of the last couple of months hit her. It was strange to react negatively to something twice in quick succession; perhaps the idea was just so vile her body was rejecting it as well as her mind?

Still, she had known what she would have to do if she heard this answer. "You should tell Headmistress Gunderman," she said.

"You think she can help?"

Robin took a deep breath. "She did with you," she confessed.

Immediately Angie's eyes focused back onto Robin, having been staring into emptiness as she contemplated what was ahead. "You reported me?" she asked, and Robin was relieved not to hear hurt in her voice, just surprise.

Robin nodded.

"Well," Angie said, after a long moment. "That explains a lot. Thank you."

Robin smiled. She nearly asked what had happened as a result, but felt the dizziness rising and stopped herself. The workings of Northrop were proprietary, a voice seemed to whisper in her ear. It was not polite to try to learn more about them. "Of course."

Angie looked thoughtful. "I'll speak to the headmistress tomorrow," she said decisively. "No time like the present."

*

"That's ten bucks you owe me."

"Apparently so."

"You really have to learn better than to bet against the system."

"Hey. I'm not betting against the system, I'm betting on which of them will actually speak up. Didn't think there was any chance Thornhill would be the one."

"She's probably taken to the role model programming better than anyone else we've aimed at Kliner, and Kliner was always going to recommend she get involved. She was the one who pushed on Thornhill."

"Yeah, alright, point taken."

"What's Katya's surname again? I need to update her notes."

"Vervolk. Dutch-Canadien, of all things. And no, she wasn't already someone we'd flagged."

"Good for Thornhill, then. Let's push a suggestion to the role models to get their disciples to press for any other resistors."

*

Headmistress Gunderman visited the top flight again toward the end of the second semester.

"Good afternoon, ladies," she said as she swept into the room.

"Good afternoon," they answered. It was not a chorus, was not synchronised at all, and nevertheless they sounded united, all of them answering with the same warm enthusiasm in their tone.

"As you know," Gunderman continued, "we will shortly be breaking for the summer vacation. When you return, the work begins in earnest."

Robin looked to one side, met a similarly confused glance back. She raised her hand tentatively. "Pardon me, headmistress," she said, "but I don't think we fully understand. Haven't we been working this year?"

"Miss Kliner," Gunderman said. "Rise."

Robin stood. She held herself upright, her hands clasped in front of her. There had been no thought involved in the process, at least not in her head; headmistress Gunderman had given a direction and Robin had obeyed. Really, nothing else needed to be thought.

"Come here, Miss Kliner."

Robin obeyed without hesitation or consideration. Though she was not wearing her deportment aids, she nonetheless walked with the inviting rolling hips of a sophomore. Gunderman watched her approach with a knowing smile.

"Miss Kliner," Gunderman continued. "Who should offer their hand for a handshake at a reception?"

"A man should never offer their hand before the woman has done so," Robin said promptly. "However, the woman should be watchful for signals indicating that shaking hands is appropriate, especially if they are the social inferior. In same-gender cases, the host should offer first, and if neither are hosting, it falls to the social superior." She hadn't realised she knew that much information on the subject.

"Correct. Now, Miss Kliner, if your husband informs you he has taken a mistress, what do you do?"

"Ensure she is added to the household security arrangements so she can come and go freely," Robin said with just as little hesitation. "Make sure she is made comfortable within the property and enough room is allotted for her wardrobe. And, of course, a threesome should be offered."

"And why do you know that?"

Robin hesitated, The question had no answer, and thinking about it was causing her a familiar unease. At the end of the hesitation she instead simply smiled politely, almost simpering, to the headmistress, hoping this would be accepted as a response.

Gunderman returned her smile with a knowing smirk, then looked out at the rest of the class. "Miss Benjamin," she said. "Rise."

Nadine stood, just as swiftly and with as little question as Robin had done.

"Come here, Miss Benjamin."

Nadine made her way forward and stood alongside Robin, standing in much the same stance, though Robin felt (with what she considered justifiable pride) that she had walked across with better deportment.

"Miss Benjamin, when are brown shoes acceptable?"

"At the weekend, if not working," Nadine answered. "Black shoes during the working week. A husband should not be permitted to embarrass himself by this error."

"Very good. Now, Miss Benjamin, how would you signal your availability for giving oral pleasure."

"Approach your man, or surrogate designated by him, with proper respect," Nadine answered promptly. "Settle to your knees within easy range of his hips. If he is seated, rest your hands on his thighs. Close your eyes, open your mouth, and await his decision with equanimity."

"Class," Gunderman went on. "Is she correct?"

"Yes, headmistress."

"Do you know when you learned this?"

There was a general awkward silence. Robin, who had been imagining doing so for some eligible husband or owner, joined in with it.

"In your freshman year," Gunderman said, "we prime you in as many ways as we can to be proper Northrop girls. In this coming vacation, you will be expected to sever any ties which may be unbecoming to a Northrop girl. We require," and her tone had become suddenly firm, "that you do so in a way that conforms to our values, and which causes as little ill will as possible."

She sounded so breezy as she presented this. Robin, as with the others listening, felt that cutting her connection to her parents and brother would be a simple task, and one she could easily warm to as part of her duty. "Next year we will help you to integrate what you already know without understanding." Gunderman let that statement hang there for some time.

"Class?" she said firmly.

"Yes, headmistress?"

"Class of 2027, internalise and forget."

Robin's eyelids were fluttering, a pleasant shiver running down her spine. The headmistress had clearly just concluded a speech of some sort. Uncertain of how best to respond, she began to applaud on the grounds that this could not be wrong.

Gunderman smiled benevolently at her while the others joined in the applause.

Chapter Four

Returning to Northrop as a sophomore, the first thing that struck Robin was how different the freshers all seemed to her. Angie actually put it best, when the two of them were chatting that evening; looking over her coffee mug, she dimpled, her eyes demurely downcast, and said simply "What do you make of the raw material?"

It took Robin a few moments to realise what her friend had meant, but once she did she couldn't help but laugh. "I know," she said. "How far we've come!"

"Have you met Denise?"

If asked the question a year ago, Robin would have struggled to be sure, to match the name to the face. After all the training of their first year she could be entirely confident; if she didn't remember the name, she hadn't met her. "Not yet."

"I was talking to her for a little at the mixer earlier. She has a lot of potential, I think, but I'm not sure why she's here. She hates the idea of becoming what Northrop makes."

"I think some of us are always here because someone else thinks we should be," Robin said. "If someone else is willing to foot the bill sometimes you can't say no to them."

Both women paused for a moment after that utterance. It seemed to them as if they'd heard that phrase before, in someone else's voice. But neither of them knew this was true for the other, and neither of them could remember the details, and so it went unremarked.

"Mm." Angie nodded. "It could well be that. I hope the teachers help her see the way forward soon."

"Me too." Robin smiled warmly.

"Mostly, I just marvel at how different they all seem. How... innocent?" She blinked thoughtfully. "Not at all the right word."

"No," Robin agreed. "But they are different to us, yes. I was thinking about this earlier. Obviously, we both have some way to go. A year and change."

Angie nodded. Both of them had, by this point, noticed that the number of upperclasswomen on campus had dwindled steadily over the course of the year. None of the staff had ever commented on it - at least not to their intake - and everyone else had seemed positive with each departure.

All the same, the observant among them - and Northrop excelled in training its women to be observant of others' likes, dislikes, and patterns of behaviour - had picked up quickly that the final year was simply an opportunity for polish, and that some would leave earlier than others in that year.

They had swiftly concluded that actually, all the important lessons could be absorbed inside two years. Robin was, privately, very excited to see how her sophomore year differed from the first. She couldn't shake the feeling that headmistress Gunderman had said something about that, even though no memory ever emerged to back that up.

"I think we might just change more over this year than we did last time," Angie said.

Robin nodded and smiled, her eyes alight. "I can't wait."

*

Robin hadn't recognised the word 'deportment' when her first deportment class came up, but 'elocution' was another matter Once told that there would be weekly elocution lessons, her primary reaction was simply surprise that they hadn't started these lessons in the first year (if not right at the start of the first semester). In her discussions with the rest of the top flight, she found the same opinion was repeated throughout.

Elocution turned out to be taught in one of the few smaller classrooms which weren't outfitted with the virtual reality rigs, and it was taught by headmistress Gunderman herself - the first of the classes they'd had which she took direct responsibility for.

"Good morning, ladies," she said as she took up a stance beside the heavy desk at the front of the room. "Are you ready to expand your horizons and test your limits?"

"Yes, headmistress," they all answered. It was, Robin thought, an unusual phrasing just for learning to speak more clearly. It had also caught her imagination firmly; she found herself very keen to learn more.

"That's very good." She smiled. "Before we begin, we must first properly assess each of you's current ability. Miss Benjamin, rise and approach."

Nadine did as she was instructed, walking to the front of the class with the rolling, confident sway they had each been trained into. Robin privately thought that her own was better; on the other hand, Robin was also starting to wonder if she might be able to be valedictorian of Northrop, however that might be measured. It was all a competition, after all; whatever alliance they made for themselves in society, Northrop girls knew they had to be better companions than the women around them, had to help their partners climb the ranks.

"Miss Benjamin," Gunderman continued, "are you experienced orally?"

Nadine glanced uncertainly back toward the rest of the top flight. "I suppose so?"

Gunderman opened one of the drawers in her desk, took something out, and slapped it onto the table. "Show me," she said.

Standing upright on the table, its upper tip wobbling somewhat, was a large dildo in transparent silicone. Inches and fractions of inches were marked off on its length in a parody of a ruler. Briefly Robin wondered where such things might be put up for sale; who would need a measurable dildo?

She wasn't the only one who was surprised. Around her there were gasps, shocked intakes of breath. One quiet mutter of "What the fuck?" But there were no protests, Robin noticed. They all simply sat there and waited to find out what the headmistress had in mind.

Robin was proud of that discipline within the top flight. She couldn't help but think the lower classes would have at least a few who would protest, even after Northrop had spent a year teaching them that accomplishment comes in different flavours.

Nadine looked from the dildo to the headmistress and back. "Headmistress?" she asked.

"I want to take a measure of your oral experience," Gunderman said levelly. "Specifically, I need to know how deep you can take a man without gagging." She said it in such a matter-of-fact way that there seemed no possible objection.

Nadine hesitated for a moment. The corner of Robin's lip turned up in a smile of satisfaction. She would not, she told herself firmly, have hesitated.

But Nadine also deserved her place in the top flight. After that moment's hesitation she took a deep breath, opened her mouth, and bent forward at the hip, her mouth slipping invitingly over the dildo. Her descent slowed almost immediately, and halted about halfway down the shaft.

Gunderman rested her thumb at the point where Nadine's mouth stopped. "Thank you," she said. "Rise."

Nadine straightened up immediately; Gunderman inspected the measurement and nodded to herself. "Mm-hm," she said. Robin waited to hear an announcement of the depth Nadine had achieved, but none was made. She would just have to do the best she could.

"Miss Evans," Gunderman continued. "Rise and approach. Back to your seat, Miss Benjamin." She had now also produced a small packet of wipes and briskly cleaned the toy.

Nadine walked back to her seat, and Robin read in her expression the uncertainty she must feel, not knowing what the headmistress had expected or even how she measured up against the rest of the top flight. She was feeling something similar herself in anticipation.

Robin was called third, and had at least some idea. She did not hesitate - although only because she had already steeled herself not to, determined as she was to prove a point - but she couldn't take it all, as she had hoped to. Once told to lift her head from it, she squinted at Gunderman's thumb, taking a rough approximation of her capacity.

Once the entire top flight had been measured, Gunderman went on. "Now, class of 2027, your baselines have been recorded. As we continue in elocution, we will school you on capacity; we will also train you on technique.

"For the first few weeks of the semester, you will take turns at this so you can all learn from the frontrunner. Afterwards, you will enter individual training streams."

Robin nodded.

"Later," Gunderman continued, "we will test each of your cunnilingual abilities. The majority of our graduates do not need them, but..." She left the refrain deliberately unfinished, raising her eyes in inquiry, looking a question at the class assembled in front of her. Robin raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss Kliner?"

"But Northrop girls should never meet a challenge for which they aren't prepared, headmistress," she recited promptly. The approving nod that followed sent that strange shivering bliss through her body.

Before Northrop, Robin had never considered herself to be particularly motivated by praise. Now, her own internal validation didn't seem to matter. It wasn't enough for her to think she had done well; she needed someone else, someone in authority, to tell her she had done well. It was better to please another than herself, she thought, and wondered why that thought, too, also sounded like something she'd heard in another voice.

"Very good," Gunderman said. "We will see just how good each of you can be." She smiled. "Class of 2077, new normal."

Robin's eyelids fluttered for a few moments as time seemed to stand still. She was dimly aware of the same hushed pause coming from the rest of the class, until just as suddenly it was gone for all of them.

Her eyes drifted back to the dildo. A second year's elocution lessons promised to be tremendous fun, she thought. It was a little odd that the headmistress had bothered to explain the process to them; by now they were all seasoned veterans.

*

"How are they taking to it?"

"Looks pretty good to me, sir. Honestly more of my attention is on the new intake at the moment."

"Understandable. But don't take your eyes off the sophomores."

"No, sir."

"Any that will need more adjustment?"

"Always. But the week one tests suggest that the work we did survived encounters with the outside world."

"Good."

"Can I suggest a slight change to the plan?"

"You can suggest."

"The second tier should go to the new fitness regime first."

"Explain."

"They haven't had enough naked sexytime for my liking yet, sir. I think they could push back. Better that we get some endorphins in them while they're getting used to it. They need some carrot, they've had plenty of stick."

"I'll consider it."

"All I can ask for, sir."

*

Continuing from the first year, for the top flight, Thursday afternoons were given over to cookery lessons, in the big kitchen out at the lakehouse. From time to time they would be challenged to cater for an event out there, usually one involving the upperclasswomen. For the most part, though, they were challenged with recipe after recipe, technique after technique.

They studied traditional French haute cuisine and modern American comfort food; they cooked elegant, extensive dinners and prepared trays of game-night snacks. And they learned the most commonly preferred ways to brew coffee, prepare tea, and mix cocktails.

They did all of this almost entirely nude; on arrival in the classroom they would each strip, setting their outfits aside in labeled drawers set aside for the purpose. In replacement they donned tiny white aprons, a semi-circle of fabric descending from the waistband, and dipped their hands into flour before clapping them, palm-fist and open, over their breasts, so that throughout the lesson their body was on display but still held the tiniest figleaf, enough that an attracted onlooker could enjoy some quiet speculation.

In the early part of the semester, oil spits and stray knifework meant the top flight picked up tiny scalds and nicks on their fingers from the knives, but they rapidly passed this point; as Nadine remarked during the evening stroll back one night, she'd never realised she could learn skills so fast, with even dedicated cooking schools taking longer.

"They've worked out some way to make learning easier," Elizabeth agreed. "I don't know what, but there's definitely something." The group offered their agreement, but each individually thought that this was something they shouldn't inquire into any further. The school's secrets belonged to the school, and a Northrop girl understood fully that some secrets should remain unnoticed by those not in the know.

Robin found that she was smiling warmly as they walked. She glanced to either side, noting that the entire group walked with that same strut Madame Meredith had helped them to master.

It was delightful.

*

When they had been freshers they had barely been aware of the Winter Gala; all they'd really known about it was that in mid-December the sophomores and the remaining upperclasswomen were elsewhere for a day, a morning, and the night between. They'd had plenty of other concerns to deal with at the time.

In late November the sophomores were informed that they would be working as event staff for the Winter Gala, with specific duties to be assigned in the days to come. When Madame Meredith informed the top flight of this, she added, "Most likely you will all be floor staff, acting as waiters and bar staff. We can expect you to keep secret the identities of anyone who attends who might not want it known." She nodded, a quiet approval at their progress.

"Most likely," she continued, "you have a question in mind. Go on."

Given that permission, Robin was the first to speak. "We won't be carrying out these roles at any function we host," she said. "How do we benefit by doing it here?" She hoped it was the question Madame Meredith had meant. They had been prompted to ask, which confirmed all on its own that it must be a question they would usually refrain from. That made it a question which could be seen as expressing disrespect.

"There are two reasons," Madame Meredith told her. "The first is that you will find service roles useful to practice outside of hosting. Perhaps when it is only your man - or woman - and yourself. Just as we make them feel special by bestowing our focus on them, we make them feel special by showing that they are. Focus is one gift. Deference is another. What is a third?""

"Submission," Elizabeth said, and was rewarded with a pleased nod. Robin found herself jealous; she'd known the answer but had held back in speaking, not wanting to be seen as being too forward. The praise had gone elsewhere.

"The second reason," Meredith continued, "is that you become a better hostess when you understand the capacities of the staff under you. And, while none of them will be you, having worked in the ways you are asking them to work will be beneficial in this."

Silence fell among the top flight as they considered this. Women from diverse backgrounds, this made sense more easily to some of them than others.

"Others may also join the serving team," they were told. "And if one of you has stood out particularly well in cooking, they may be moved to the kitchen, where their performance can shine. But for the most part, I expect this will be the case. Does anyone have any questions?"

The group were silent.

"Very good. Today, we will be adding a heavily loaded tray full of tall glasses to your deportment lessons, so that you are ready. But first, class of 2027, change into the stilettos."

The top flight obeyed,

Three weeks later came the night of the Winter Gala, and the sophomores went down to the Ballrooms first. Unlike the lakehouse, this building was easily accessible to drivers once they had entered Northrop's walls; there was a turning from the main path that would take drivers there, one which for the most part they had been either too excited, too nervous, or too tired to see when they first arrived. Some had noticed it on later arrivals or departures and wondered, but some were discovering it for the first time.

As they grew closer to it, they saw that near the gravel, a raised platform had been installed, firmly supported by metal girdering, with steel stairs leading down from it. The windsock nearby allowed Nadine to put the clues together. "That's a helipad," she said.

"I bet that's why the Gala is here," Robin answered. "Easier for these visitors who need privacy."

The sophomore class as a whole set about transforming the main ballroom. A corner was set up in which a band would be brought in to play, and the central area was left empty and ready for dancing. Around the rest of the room, fifteen large round tables were brought out. The group set them into place, then brought out eight chairs apiece.

This done, those on kitchen duty left the group and went through into the large kitchens to begin meal prep, while the rest of them, Robin included, brought out tablecloths, cutlery, glasses and table decorations.

Once the room was suitable for guests they went into the back rooms to change. They stripped with businesslike efficiency, heedless to their own nudity and to that of those around him. The front of house team then pulled pairs of dark tights, not quite opaque, on and made sure they were properly in place. After that a pair of black satin hotpants each was added to the ensemble, followed by highly supportive bras that lifted breasts and turned cleavage into canyons.

Looking down at the view she now presented, it occurred to Robin that she didn't present quite the same spectacle as the upperclasswomen. She'd assumed their figures had been honed by the Northrop exercise program and augmented by engineering triumphs in lingerie form. Now, she wondered if the summer vacation at the end of sophomore year might involve cosmetic augmentation.

She pulled on a white bodice corset and snapped it into place, the sculpted chest cups almost large enough to comfortably contain her, but in fact just small enough that she spilled over slightly. Above this she buttoned up a transparent white sleeveless top, so that her cleavage was still on display but fabric stretched up to her throat. She clipped a black bow tie onto it in the small of her throat, then fastened white shirt cuffs into place on her bare arms.

Finally she checked herself in the mirror, assessing whether or not she'd need to adjust her makeup or her hair, but pronounced herself satisfied. She gave her reflection her best warm Northrop smile, then strapped on the high stiletto heels provided.

With the rest of the top flight she made her way back into the ballroom, where they gathered in a loose semicircle just inside the big double doors at the front, ready to act as a reception.

There were no nameplates on the tables - it would have been terribly gauche - but each of them had fully memorised the seating plan, including the few plus ones being brought along. (Privately, Robin was delighted to learn that Jocelyn Russell would be in attendance, as the plus one to her husband Michael Russell.)

Each table also had two of the upperclasswomen on it. The sophomore top flight had speculated on what that might mean, and the leading theories painted it either as a chance for them to be introduced into society or as advanced classes such as upperclasswomen might need for their final tests. Robin wasn't sure which she favoured more.

They were in position, the ballroom prepared, a good hour and a half before the Gala was scheduled to begin, which also made it a little under an hour before anyone expected any of the guests to arrive. The lesson was clear; expectations could be useful but your expectations being wrong would be no excuse for embarrassing the people you represented by not being ready.

*

"Our driver just confirmed the LA flight touched down. We'll have five inbound soon, sir."

"Excellent. Headmistress?"

"Yes, Doctor?"

"Go clean yourself up and prepare for public behaviour."

"Yes, Doctor."

"You have the guest list memorised?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"You have their faces memorised?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"You know who will feel better if they're not recognised?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"That's a good girl. Run along now."

"Yes, Doctor."

*

The guests began to arrive with a while before the Gala officially began. Headmistress Gunderman was in place to greet them, but each was then turned over to the top flight's welcoming semi-circle.

Gunderman made great play of those whose egos required them to be recognised everywhere, and politely and deferentially inquired the names of those who preferred anonymity. This, she had told the top flight before, was one of the other reasons a Northrop girl would always work to know faces, names, and preferences, so that the experience would be exactly what they'd prefer, without them having to specify.

Like the others, Robin was very busy whenever a new arrival was introduced and handed off to her. With the seating plans memorised, she would lead, for example, the engineering magnate Kinoshita Arata to his designated chair, make him known to the person sitting to his right (Marc Tremont, whose teenage breakthroughs in software design had kept him wealthy for thirty years), and left (Lucille Dawn, the music producer whose personal life had been a source of much explosive gossip for a decade), and then ask them what they would like for their first drink.

This done, Robin would straighten up and turn toward the bar, but she would wait a count of one and a half seconds in her head before setting off. After all, she had just presented at least one guest with a clear view of her ass, in very close quarters.

Lucille turned out to be a spanker, and one with a very strong wind-up; Marc Tremont had been more of a fondler, and one who made a deep growling noise in the back of his throat during that hands-on enjoyment.

The first time this had happened, with Marc, Robin had wondered why she had stopped moving. It was the right thing to do, but the reason had not come with that; she simply felt that unpleasant dizziness when she considered moving forward. It was only when Tremont started to grope her ass that she understood how important it was to pause and allow the opportunity. It would not have been polite to provide the temptation but not offer the chance to take advantage.

Once the guest had had their fill, Robin sauntered over to the bar, making sure to roll her hips just as much as she could - she already knew the attention would be on her, so it was worth taking the time and allowing them to enjoy it.

Jeanette and Klara were working at the bar. Robin would pass on the order and mention who it was for, just in case they turned out to be the 'same again' type, and one of them would prepare it as quickly as possible while maintaining the standards they'd been taught in the kitchen. It would then be placed on a small silver salver, which Robin would convey back to the table, threading past chatty guests and the other top flight sophomores on their own errands, before lifting it from the platter and bending forward low over the guest's shoulder to place the glass on the table.

Robin had made a fine art of brushing their shoulder with her chest as she did so, and she lingered long enough that any client who had a reaction could take advantage. So far, that was only Lucille Dawn.

Returning to the doorway to await Headmistress Gunderman's next assignment, Robin's eyes widened and her jaw drop, though she was proud afterward that this had only been a momentary response. The shock and excitement remained but she quickly got her expression back under control.

Michael and Jocelyn Russell had arrived.

They both looked impeccable. Michael wore a tuxedo, obviously tailored and immaculate. Jocelyn's dress was bunched bronze fabric, backless, with a low neckline in spite of the material running up behind her neck to an elaborate knot. The skirt of it was slit up to the hip along the line of both legs, so that if she stood with her feet together, only her silhouette was offered for consideration, but if she widened her stance or even began to walk, her thighs would be almost completely exposed.

What was unusual was that her hair wasn't elaborately styled, as it was in most of her public appearances; it was simply kinked, as if it was curled regularly but hadn't been for some time.

Headmistress Gunderman half-turned so she wasn't facing away from her guests while she looked at the student staff waiting and assessed. For the first time, it occurred to Robin that the headmistress had a similar figure to the upperclasswomen; it was just less visibly displayed most of the time. With a smile, the headmistress beckoned Robin forward.

Smiling and aware her cheeks were flushed, Robin made her way forward.

"Mr Russell, Mrs Russell," Gunderman said, "may I present Miss Kliner."

Robin gave a little half-bow from the waist, keeping her eyes lowered deferentially. "It's an honour," she said. "May I escort you to your seats?"

"Of course," Jocelyn said, smiling. Robin recognised the Northrop warm smile, but even knowing they'd been taught the same techniques for it, Jocelyn's looked utterly genuine. Robin wasn't sure her own was on that level.

She turned and led them into the ballroom, and got more than thirty yards through the trip before the need to blurt out what she was thinking became irresistible. "I hope you'll pardon me for saying so," she told Michael Russell, "but I saw your wife's video advertising this place and it's why I came. I well, I've been really glad to receive the support and education we get here, so... I just wanted to say thank you to her." Feeling like more needed to be said but unsure of what, she added "I want to be just like her!"

It didn't occur to Robin that this could have been directed to Jocelyn herself. Robin's own gratification came in praise from those above her. Therefore, she felt on an almost instinctive level, it was Mr Russell who should know how she felt. Jocelyn was the inferior.

It also did not occur to Robin to question why she felt that way.

"Thank you," he said, his smile lopsided. She paused by the two chairs set aside for them, and Jocelyn pulled his out deferentially, dutifully holding it for him to sit in. Robin quashed the moment's uncertainty she felt at seeing a familiar act inverted. "Just like her, huh?"

Robin nodded enthusiastically as Jocelyn sat. "And what can I get you both to drink?" she asked. "We have a well-stocked bar, so I encourage you to put us to the test."

Michael smiled. "I'll have a beer." he said. "Nothing fancy, just good and drinkable. I might test you more later." His eyes were roaming up and down Robin's body, and the only reason Robin wasn't basking in the attention was knowing that Jocelyn was sat right beside them both and it seemed somehow impolite.

Even then, the side of her that liked to compete still found plenty to enjoy. Jocelyn Russell was such a perfect example of a Northrop alumna that she literally presented the video prospectus. For her husband to take an interest in Robin was, selfishly, an experience she was already cherishing.

"And for you?" she asked Jocelyn.

"She'll have a sparkling water," Michael said. Jocelyn's smile didn't change. "Of course," she said. "Now, may I make you known to Eberado Garza?"

The seat beside Michael was still empty and would, in fact, be filled by one of the upperclasswomen, so Robin introduced the chef straightaway. In his native Spain, Garza owned a dozen different restaurants, fronted a TV cooking show, and had partial ownership of a number of farms, bakers, and more.

Compared to the Russells his wealth and influence was small, but that said more about their own success than it did about him, Michael reached across Jocelyn to shake Garza's hand.

Robin turned to face the bar and waited. She was rewarded swiftly by Michael's hand on her ass, squeezing as firmly as Garza might test a melon when checking a supplier. Gauging the way he was acting, she decided he'd like his action acknowledged and encouraged, so she let out a well-practiced giggle. (Once headmistress Gunderman had been satisfied that their oral skills were developing appropriately, she had started also teaching the class a variety of encouragements). Once he released his hold she set off for the bar, head held high, feeling absurdly proud of herself.

By the time she returned, bearing a platter with a beer bottle, glass, and a tall glass of sparkling water, someone had undone the knot of Jocelyn's dress from behind her neck and the fabric had spilled forward onto the temple, showing off a pair of tits that - yes, Robin was pleased to realise she was right - had been surgically enhanced, though by a surgeon with enough skill and taste that you could only tell when their perkiness was on fully and clear display. Her arms hung limp by her sides and the Northrop smile was gone from her face, replaced by an eerie glassiness. Garza was hefting the tit nearest him in one hand experimentally, rolling her nipple with his thumb.

If Madame Meredith hadn't been such a thorough teacher, she might have wavered in her stride from the surprise or - worse - dropped the tray. At first she read distress in the other woman's stillness, but as she drew nearer the table, Russell leaned in closer and whispered something in her ear.

Jocelyn blinked, the unnatural stillness disappearing from her frame as she did, and her eyes widened, a doe-eyed delighted sweetheart. She looked down at Garza's hand groping her and flashed him a warm smile before turning her attention back to her husband, where she giggled.

Robin swallowed and stepped in closer to deliver her trayful of drinks.

"What do you think, babe?" Russell asked. "She wants to be just like you. Think she has what it takes to step into your place?"

"I'm sure she'll make someone a very happy husband one day," Jocelyn said. "Or an owner, or philanderer."

"Whatever's most appropriate, huh?" Garza asked. He threw back his head and laughed.

"It's the same with cars," Russell answered. "We all love those beautiful classics and you certainly never forget your first, but you still look at each year's new models and think about an upgrade.

Robin tittered politely, as did Jocelyn, but as she walked away, Robin couldn't shift her first impression - that the men were laughing at a joke the women didn't fully understand.

Chapter Five

Buoyed up by the encounter with her idol, Robin stayed on campus over the Christmas vacation so she could continue soaking up her studies.

It had been a wonderful evening, although little of it had stayed clear in her memory. As it was wrapping up, headmistress Gunderman had called for everyone's attention.

"Bids will be entertained over the next forty-eight hours," she had begun. "I thank all of you for your time and interest, and I will remind you that if you were not entirely satisfied but saw something of interest, customisation can be carried out upon receipt of a downpayment."

Robin didn't entirely follow what that meant, but as it was clearly addressed toward the guests, she knew that didn't matter.

"Class of 2026," Gunderman continued, "return to your rooms."

Across the ballroom, every one of the upperclasswomen either rose and headed for the door or, in the case of Valerie Dixon, detached herself from the arm of one of the guests where they were stood on the dancefloor and did the same.

"Class of 2027, dream, perchance to sleep."

At that point Robin and the other student staff in attendance all walked back into the changing room. They stripped briskly out of outfits which had been groped, fondled, stretched, ripped, and even stained and set them aside, dressing in whatever fashion each woman preferred (the top flight favouring figure-hugging but expensive clothing that hid but showed off their bodies at once, while other classes had evolved their own styles - a careful observer could almost determine each woman's rankings based on the way they dressed and moved) and started walking back to the main school.

As Robin walked, her memories of the evening seemed to swim and twist somewhat, and after her head had touched the pillow in her bedroom and she had slept, she remembered only scattered impressions of the evening, of which the two biggest were telling Jocelyn Russell how much she admired her, focused on her so totally it might have seemed rude to her husband, and coming away from the event somewhat jealous of the upperclasswomen.

Robin was not the only one who stayed on campus over the holiday. A little over half of the sophomores did, with a higher proportion among the top flight. Nonetheless, with about half of the teaching staff absent, no freshwomen on site, and more than half of the upperclasswomen departed, Northrop's grounds could feel surprisingly lonely at times.

Robin was particularly glad that Angie had also elected to stay. Privately she had realised that one of the reasons she was friendlier with Angie than the other women in the top flight was that she didn't consider Angie to be competition. She didn't altogether like what this said about her, however, and so she tried to avoid thinking about it too extensively.

The two of them took to walking in the woods within Northrop ground, well bundled up against the cold, over the vacation. There they could talk freely about their progress, their dreams and aspirations. Angie began one particular conversation by saying "You know, I'm not sure I actually want to go to work after this."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Angie temporised, "for this to work, I'm going to need to have someone to support instead. But the more of the lessons I go through, the more I feel like I fit a society hostess role more than any of the others Northrop offers."

Robin nodded slowly to herself. It seemed to her, as time had gone on, that Jocelyn's powerful advocacy status was founded in part on the skills of a society hostess or housewife. Looked at through the perspective that the Northrop Finishing School had given her, a lot of the ways she did it started with big functions, with the big statements coming from those.

It was a reminder, she thought, that women wielded power differently to men. What headmistress Gunderman was really doing was giving them the tools they needed in the world as it really existed, rather than fostering the determination to change how it worked.

And Jocelyn was an effective woman indeed. Robin had seen that for herself during the Gala. She was an effective advocate for her husband's viewpoint.

Robin blinked. Something about that idea seemed wrong. Wasn't it Jocelyn's own viewpoint she was advocating for? Hadn't she said something like that in the video? Thanks to the skills I learned at Northrop, I married Michael Russell. Now we share a vision for the future and our goals are aligned. The School did that for me, and it can do the same for you...

Did that mean that her viewpoint was her own, or was it given to her by her husband?

"You're very quiet," Angie said. Robin started. She'd been so deep in her thoughts that she'd completely forgotten she was walking with another. Unforgivable in any case, but the other woman was a genuine friend. That made it so much worse.

"I'm sorry, Angie," Robin said. She tried to recover the thread of the conversation. "Remind me, what was your plan originally?"

"PR," she said immediately. "I know someone who recruits in the field. Northrop's proposal sounded like a great background to rise up the ranks soon. And once I could choose my clients, I could start to shape things. Have a positive impact on the world." They were both silent for a few moments, as their aimless wander through the woods had come upon fallen tree requiring tricky negotiation. "Show more of the people who need to understand that women have as much value as men."

Robin nodded. This was a familiar teaching of Northrop's. "Just a different value," she said, which was the teachers' clarifying refrain whenever it came up. She was queasy, the strange dizzying discomfort returning, but she wasn't sure why. At the same time there was an itch at the back of her brain, like a thought she knew was there but still couldn't put her finger on. What was -

Their conversation cut short when the sound of jingling bells abruptly cut through the air. Robin and Angie looked at each other, startled at first. In each others' eyes they read a growing puzzlement which swiftly turned to curiosity.

Angie smiled first, and Robin answered with one of her own, and in that moment they had agreed wordlessly to head toward the noise and try to find out what was happening.

The woods of the Northrop Finishing School for Accomplished Women are old, and thick, but far from impassable. Indeed, tracks broad enough for vehicles criss-cross the property, some of them marked out of bounds but most simply left as they are. Only students, staff, and expected guests should ever be on the property, after all.

These tracks often lead either to buildings or clearings. The lakehouse (with its small artificial boating lake) and the ballroom, like the house, were built a long while ago, when the school was a residence. Other spaces have been cleared by the Finishing School itself, and for other reasons.

In one circular clearing, perhaps fifty yards across, the source of the bells was revealed. Karl, one of the groundskeepers, was seated in a black trap, a two-wheeled buggy, which was being pulled through the snow by two women in skintight bodysuits, one white and one black. In deference to the weather, they had on equally-figure-hugging grey fur waistcoats with high ruffs around the collar, and wore galoshes on their feet where Robin was sure tall boots would be worn instead. Their arms were strapped to their sides by the same leather rigs which attached them to the trap and to a pair of reins.

The woman in white sported a dark pixie cut, the woman in black had a long red ponytail which had been tied on the very top of her head. Both also sported 'pony tails' emerging from their rumps, and both wore belled collars. Karl was enjoying himself by using his whip liberally, sending it licking out over each of them in turn, while he manipulated the reins expertly with his other hand.

There was no question of his expertise in this field.

Robin was familiar with the word ponygirl, if only because it had been whispered with a kind of reverential distaste by a friend at a sleepover just a couple of years earlier. The friend, whose name now seemed so unimportant her memory would not provide it, had evidently embarked on an exploration of unusual porn practices, and this had been for her the acme of the unreasonable and demeaning practices men visited on women.

It did not seem like a proper pastime for an employee of Northrop.

"Isn't that Skylar Weston?" Angie whispered, a delighted frisson in her tone. For her this was a new tidbit of gossip about a celebrity, the famously feminist and frequently combative songstress Skylar Weston. Robin remembered hearing that she was a Northrop alumna herself, but hadn't thought much of it until this moment.

The woman before her was, unquestionably, Skylar Weston. And once that had snapped into clarity for her, Robin knew who the redhead next to her must be, recognised the face even with the changes to it wrought by a different hairstyle, recognised the strong but shapely thighs, even matched the rough heights.

Jocelyn Russell was being used as, or possibly taught to be, a ponygirl. At the Northrop Finishing School she had attended, alongside another former student. CPD, they called it; continuing personal development.

The itch in the back of her head became a sudden ache. She grunted at the pain.

"Robin?" Angie asked.

But Robin was barely listening. Instead, her eyes squeezed shut, she was doubling over, hands to her head. The sharpest headache she'd had was cutting through her. She'd heard people call them splitting before and now she felt as if she knew what that meant; as if some barrier in her head was splitting open, pushing information back into her head that she'd stopped questioning, stopped paying attention to, stopped even noticing.

She could not reconcile what she had seen with the way she had become accustomed - no, been taught, even trained like a pet - to see Northrop and its goals. She had thought of that despicable, twisted training those women were receiving as personal development, right up until that had become the last straw.

Suddenly it was obvious why there were fewer and fewer upperclasswomen as the year rolled on, and why so many of them disappeared in twos and threes (and why seven had left between the Winter Gala and the start of vacation).

It had to be some kind of brainwashing, she thought, as more and more fragments of memory stirred. That must be why sometimes Gunderman called them 'Class of 2027', a codephrase to make them react differently to the next few words. Like that video game her brother had been obsessed with when they were kids.

The knee of her thick winter leggings had settled into the snow, and for all that it was good at keeping the heat in during weather like this, when it got wet that changed immediately. The cold reached her in an instant. It was clarifying. Energising. Robin stood decisively.

"Robin?" Angie asked again. "Are you okay?"

Politeness demanded she be answered, of course. Robin squeezed her eyes back open against the throbbing headache of restoring memories, and looked at her friend. Angie was looking back at her with concern and compassion, but Robin couldn't see a trace of awareness that what they'd seen was wrong.

Revulsion filled her. Without the manners Gunderman and her team had been trying to program into her, with nothing but a need to flee, she turned and started running blindly through the trees.

Branches whipped against her as she fled. The ground itself was unsteady and slippery in places. Robin just ran; from time to time she stumbled, but all that mattered was getting away.

And then she broke free of the woods and found herself on the Academy's long drive. She turned to face the gates, still running.

She couldn't have run for this long, of covered as much distance while she did so, before coming to Northrop.

The thought almost seemed to appear in her head, although now Robin was noticing that it, like other thoughts she had, sounded like a member of staff, or a self-assured man. As if she'd heard it from someone else first, before it became a thought.

The idea was chilling. Was she going to have to watch every thought she ever had?

The gates themselves, once she reached them, were open - which was a good thing; Robin was fading. Once she was past them she could start making plans, she thought; it wouldn't be pleasant, it certainly wouldn't be easy. But there was going to be some way, whatever it turned out to be, that she could get out into the public arena.

At that moment, getting to the public only meant safety. Later on, a fugitive from Northrop might consider whether to blow the whistle or to lay low; they might remember being shot with an anaesthetic dart and finally realise why there was a part of their scalp they avoided touching while washing their hair, investigate and find the exposed tip of their implanted control device. They might add to that the names of famous alumni they knew and realise there was evidence now scattered all over the world, in the ownership of powerful men or women like Lucille Dawn.

But there was no room for those thoughts. Not until they were safe.

Seeing the gates galvanised her, and her exhausted legs picked up their pace. She couldn't manage much longer, but she wouldn't need to.

Suddenly her ears filled with a clatter and a kind of rolling rattle; She knew looking backward would be a bad idea, but she couldn't help herself. Over her shoulder she saw the trap had bumped its way off track and onto the road behind them, with Jocelyn and Skyler pulling it as eagerly as if they hadn't already been exercising steadily for who knew how long.

And sitting on the trap she caught sight of Angie besides Carl. She had the reins in her hands and was steering with an air of intent concentration.

Robin tried to coax even more speed from her exhausted feet. She had memories of a year and a half of fitness classes, and so much treadmill time. So much work on the gym horse.

As she tried to find more endurance to call on, more fragments of memory rose up unbidden, of sitting astride the horse, straddled on a vibrator projecting upward from the horse itself, bucking and humping on it, while Miss Datson directed her on was she should amend her form in order to give greater pleasure to her user.

She remembered watching others in the same class, observing their own techniques with the hope to beat them out. Remembered for the first time the taste of an excited pussy's juicy slickness, and the hours spent teaching her to eat out a woman. There had been two styles there, one which presumed the act was done for the satisfaction of the woman being pleasured, one for the pleasure of the man who had required it.

She had, perhaps, not done as much running as she had thought, although certainly she had been given good cardio training.

The sensation of Nadine's skilled tongue between her thighs bubbled up to interrupt her thoughts - and her panic. She stumbled, but managed to catch herself.

The trap was closer in any case. She realised with a start that Jocelyn and Skyler had drawn level with here.

Her heart was pounding too loudly in her ears for her to hear the phut of Carl firing the dart gun, but she felt the impact, even felt her buttock jiggle around it.

Her heartbeat was as fast as it had ever gone, and so the drug was through her system even faster that it otherwise would have been.

Carl's hands caught her and dragged her onto his and Angie's lap as her awareness gave out.

*

"What the fuck happened?"

"Not entirely clear, sir. Karl was filling me in."

"Karl, talk to me."

"She was out walking, sir. She stumbled across one of the advanced lessons."

"Which one?"

"Russell and Weston, sir."

"Shit. So, what, she snapped?"

"Yes, sir. Ran for it. Luckily Thornhill was with her."

"Thornhill was in a lower class, sir. We'd already used some of the more intense methods on her."

"Yes, I remember."

"She came down to alert me and we were able to outrun her."

"How? Oh - you had a vehicle."

"Yes, sir. In related news I think they're both ready."

"Good. Ship them back off before it snaps anyone else."

"Yes, sir."

"What do we do about Kliner, sir?"

A long moment of silence.

"How far gone is she?"

"We haven't had the chance to assess yet, sir."

"Is she still out cold?"

"Yes, sir."

"Right. Put her in the VR training. Strap her down. And wake her up by turning the pleasure on."

"Right, sir."

"Give her forty-eight hours and send her to Gunderman for assessment."

*

Robin was whimpering in ecstasy as she woke up. Her body was already shivering with arousal and excitement; she could feel sweat beading on her skin. Opening her eyes, she saw the Northrop logo rendered three-dimensionally, rotating steadily. The VR headsets! Of course, she realised. They must be part of the brainwashing. She closed her eyes.

They didn't close.

She tried again.

They still didn't close.

That should have scared her, but it didn't. That had to be the arousal; she was so horny, so needy, it must be drowning out any other feeling.

Orgasm shuddered through her, and as she whimpered she realised it couldn't be the first one she'd felt, that one had woken her. She wasn't sure that had been the first either; she was aching, not just with pleasure but aching throughout.

Her arms were tight against her side (she couldn't help but think of the two trainee ponygirls), and the twitching and shuddering the orgasm had touched off had made her incredibly aware that her widespread legs had been secured at the ankle - and were high above her head.

She would need to be Houdini reincarnated to escape from this trap. She tried to wriggle forward on her shoulders, on the basis that it might give her legs freedom of movement, but the moment she started to move the dizzying discomfort came back. Robin groaned, suddenly feeling very weak.

Had the brainwashing done that to her?

Now that her struggles had passed, the pleasure was back, and it seemed twice as strong for there having been a gap.

She was going to have to endure this, whatever happened, for as long as she was left there. They would have to release her eventually.

Robin relaxed fractionally and another orgasm rippled out through her, spreading deliciously through her whole body, setting her skin tingling. It was the best she'd ever had, one which took all of her along with it, washed along in the passion of it all.

For whole long moments Robin didn't think a single thought. The Northrop logo hung in front of her eyes, and she whimpered.

Days passed. Pleasure rolled through her, wave after wave, and her eyes stared unblinkingly into the logo. She felt as if she could hear voices whispering, just too vague for her to make out. They must have been poor recordings, scratchy ones, because the most prominent thing she noticed about them was the way they seemed to scratch at her mind.

Robin had entirely lost track of time when she heard a sound, wherever she was, that she hadn't made. Another human voice.

Angie's voice.

"Oh, wow," she said. "I don't know what I expected, but I didn't expect this. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

Robin took nearly half a minute of long, ragged, exhausted, blissful breaths just to understand what she'd heard and realise who had spoken. She heard the sound of wood scraping against concrete, pictured a chair being drawn up near her. "It's for your own good, you know," Angie said. "Headmistress Gunderman came to speak to me after we brought you back, and explained. I've been commended."

This, Robin felt she understood more quickly, but her understanding was still far from instant. As she hung there, another orgasm took her.

She wasn't whimpering into them anymore. At some point she had moaned, and then more loudly the next time. Later, she had wondered if perhaps someone was listening, either in the room or through a microphone, and had tried to silence herself again. This had become a point of pride.

As time had continued to pass she had become convinced someone was listening. And a little later, she had decided they would be happier if they enjoyed the sounds of her pleasure. Since then she had been loud, expressively so, with each one.

"She asked me to come here and talk to you," Angie said. "Said she thought you'd lost your school spirit, and I should talk to you and help you get it back." She had paused through the sounds of Robin's ecstasy, and had then continued with her conversation as if nothing had happened. The polite way to handle someone's unseemly public outburst, she thought.

That was a lesson she'd learned at Northrop, it occurred to her. She was surprised to find herself feeling proud at the thought.

"So I just wanted to say," Angie was continuing, "that I admire you tremendously, aside from this... unpleasantness." She paused. "And I'm sure once you recover you'll be a credit to the academy and a jewel of society." Part of Robin ached with pride at how well Angie was handling her own unfortunate circumstances. Part of her wondered at the fact she could still feel pride on behalf of the school.

"Thank you," she said. It was little more than a croak; her other exhortations had made her hoarse some while ago.

Angie patted her hand. It was surprising to Robin how natural that felt given that her hand had been strapped to her side. "You're going to make some lucky man or woman an excellent wife or mistress," she said. "And I'm sure, if you think about it, deep down you want that."

Robin whimpered. She didn't want to admit to herself how true that felt.

"Anyway," Angie said. "I hope this helps. I feel like it's not enough, but we only brought you back two hours ago, and I'm afraid I haven't had time to compose my thoughts yet."

Robin shuddered again. How long? It couldn't possibly have been only two hours. Could it?

She dimly heard the sound of the chair moving as Angie stood and left. She wondered whether her friend would remember any of this once she'd spoken to headmistress Gunderman again. Wondered, too, if she'd experienced anything like this, if it was part of what was done to weaker students to turn them into star pupils.

There was a sudden strange feeling of pressure across the base of her skull. Robin gasped as Angie's voice started to repeat, echoing through her head with an accelerating series of orgasms supporting it. "You're going to make some lucky man or woman an excellent wife or mistress. If you think about it, deep down you want that."

*

They came back two days later, when the impact would have become unavoidable. They unstrapped Robin's arms from their restraints and left her with her feet suspended in the air, her head in the VR headset, and they had left the room by the time the headset shut down.

She lay there for some time, recovering. At length she forced numb, protesting fingers to reach up and remove the headset, and then she worked painstakingly to shuffle forward so that she could bend her knees, bringing her ankle restraints closer to her so she could undo them.

Food and drink had been left beside her, waiting; the smell of cooked meat had been part of what had finally coaxed her into motion. She ate and drank, hungry and thirsty, but she did not gulp down the water, did not guzzle the food; she behaved more carefully, ate and drank daintily, not because bolting food on an empty stomach leads to further disturbance but because a lady behaves in certain ways.

When finally she rose, she left the room, walking almost demurely but with a languid roll to her hips.

She would make some lucky man or woman an excellent wife or mistress, she thought. She couldn't wait to find out who.

*

"Hi," Robin said. She was standing in front of the 2029 freshwomen, gathered together in the great hall, watching her "My name is Robin Kliner, and I'm a proud alumna of the Northrop Finishing School for Accomplished Women." She gave a warm smile. "There are those who would say the concept of a finishing school is outdated," she continued, "especially those who think the college experience is suitable for all.

"I would argue against that. For one thing, it's become clear in the past decades that college is not necessary for many career paths, and in fact it can hinder progress. For another, these institutions do not teach you the soft skills."

She looked around the individual faces in front of her, imagining what they would soon be doing and discussing.

"Alumni of the Finishing School are often in the spotlight, moving among the rich and powerful, acting as hostesses and more at gatherings where international policies are decided. This positioning gives Northrop girls an insight that can't be matched, and the lessons taught here can help us apply that influence effectively.

"Take me, for example." She brought her hand up to her chest, resting fingertips against herself, the palm held just above. "My name is Robin Kliner, and for the last year and a half, Michael Russell has been my mentor, working hand in hand with his wife Jocelyn, another Northrop graduate.

"I don't know all of you, but I know that some of you will have very similar stories to my own. My parents were fairly well off when I was young, and. I went to a pretty good school, but nothing special. But I worked hard, I got good grades, I went in for sports. I made a lot of friendships, some of them with girls I had nothing in common with.

"I worked hard, but I was lucky, too - and that probably describes you, too." She smiled warmly, confident and welcoming. That brunette, the short blonde, they would probably be among the top flight, she thought. The way they carried themselves said so. "Because our mutual luck came in the form of someone bringing us to the Northrop Finishing School's attention. They extended an invitation.

"I had always planned to go off to college, but my circumstances changed. My parents couldn't afford to support me." Her smile changed slightly, showing how bittersweet she found it. She looked across to headmistress Gunderman. "Northrop represents an opportunity to step beyond your limits. My fellow alumni have joined the rich and famous; my contact book has details for the private lives of presidents overseas, of multinational CEOs, of oil tycoons from the Middle East.

"Thanks to the skills I learned at Northrop," she continued, "I am connected with many of these people. I have sat in on many of Michael and Jocelyn's discussions." She didn't mention the fact that she was often kneeling below his desk, her mouth full, while these discussions took place. You did not try to teach a student everything in the first week. "Now he accepts what I have to offer gracefully, and our goals are aligned.

"The School did that for me, and it can do the same for you.

"You'll still learn many of the things people expect from the college educated. You won't just appear knowledgeable - you'll be knowledgeable, ready to walk the walk as well as just talking the talk.

"For the people you'll be moving among, faking it is not an option. You have to be the real thing, and that's exactly what Northrop will help you become." She smiled. "Beautiful, accomplished, and talented in all the ways that matter. I can promise you, you'll never regret it."

Headmistress Gunderman rose smoothly. "Robin Kliner, ladies," she said, moving onto the dais where Robin had stood. "She graduated cum laude, and I think you can now see why."

Robin flashed them a warm smile and stepped down gracefully. She made polite small talk with the freshwomen for twenty minutes, then made her way out and across to the accommodation block, where Michael Russell had Jocelyn pinned against the wall of her old room "for old times' sake" as he took her from behind.

Robin slipped into the door, closing it behind her discreetly.

"My duties are discharged, sir," she said, stepping across to him. She reached up, running her hands over his shoulder and back.

Michael turned to face her, stepping back, his cock sliding out of Jocelyn's pussy. He slipped an arm behind Robin's back, pulling her closer, and put his lips to her ear.

"Robin, fuck-me mode," he murmured.

Robin's thoughts abruptly ceased. "Yes, sir," she said. "How may I please you?"

Michael stroked her cheek, admiring the glassiness of her eyes, which mirrored the look Jocelyn currently wore. "Sluts," he said, "on your knees."

"Yes, sir," they chorused. Robin sank directly to her knees; Jocelyn, her pussy dripping on the carpet, turned to face Michael first, then settled down beside Robin.

"You know what I want," he said, and they did.

"Yes, sir," they agreed. Their mouths settled into open Os and they both leaned forward, tongues darting forward to tease his prick as they settled in on either side of it, moving in tandem to worship it.

In a few moments more, Robin's mouth had enveloped his shaft and she began to tease his cock, her tongue flicking across its tip. Jocelyn's lips and tongue roamed across his balls, and the two of them combined to coax a deeply satisfied noise from his mouth.

They really did spectacular work here, Michael Russell thought in satisfaction, looking down at the glassy, unseeing eyes of his 'student'. He hadn't actually intended to buy a second; when he'd visited a year earlier he'd been thinking of trading Jocelyn in for something younger.

If it hadn't been for Robin's hero worship, he would probably have sold Jocelyn on through Northrop's secondary market and bought one of the upperclasswomen the year before. Instead, the appeal of having the two of them together, of using Jocelyn to pass on all the extra training he'd sent her to Northrop for, had led to a different idea. It was more expensive, of course.

On the other hand, his VP of Culture had been on the verge of blowing a whistle before offered an evening with them both, and he was pretty sure that the man would be loyal for life now.

It turned out that dolls was a more satisfying game to play if you had more than one.