Chapter 10
Hendren
I hadn’t been able to keep myself from checking on Viola’s video feed every hour or so all day.
The Academy’s surveillance system provided remarkably comprehensive coverage.
From my embassy study, I could access feeds from every classroom, exercise facility, dining hall, and dormitory room.
The quality was exceptional—high-definition video with crystal-clear audio that captured even whispered conversation, as well of course as each involuntary gasp or telling blush.
Currently, I watched as Mistress Orela efficiently secured the virtue-keepers around each pupil’s wrists, the soft leather cuffs with the short chain that bound them to the woman’s collar, beautifully designed to prevent self-gratification.
Their hands, I could see, would remain safely away from temptation during the dangerous overnight hours.
Viola stood third in line, her pale blue sleepwear modest yet also emphasizing her femininity.
The Academy’s choice of nightclothes struck me as inspired—covering enough to suggest propriety while the fabric despite its thickness revealed the outline of her nipples, the curve of her hips.
She shifted nervously as her turn approached, and I felt a familiar surge of possessive satisfaction watching her anxiety.
“Arms forward in front of your bosom, with your wrists together,” Mistress Orela instructed when Viola stepped up to her.
I leaned closer to the screen, noting how Viola’s breathing had quickened.
The governor’s readout on my secondary display showed her arousal spiking as the leather cuffs clicked into place.
Even the simple act of being restrained sent shameful heat through her body—a response that still doubtless horrified the former president, but which I found deeply gratifying.
The chain connecting her wrists to her collar was just long enough to allow basic movement while preventing access to her sex. Mistress Orela tested the length with professional efficiency, ensuring Viola couldn’t reach below her waist even if she tried.
“There,” the mistress said with satisfaction. “You’ll find the restraints quite comfortable for sleeping, but they’ll prevent any inappropriate touching during the night.”
I watched Viola’s face flush crimson at the implication.
The idea that she might be tempted to pleasure herself in the darkness clearly mortified her, yet the governor’s readings told a very different story.
Her arousal continued climbing as she contemplated the long night ahead, her body trapped between desire and denial.
The reconnaissance data we’d gathered on President Viola Herranofar had told us that she had masturbated before sleeping most nights, like so many healthy but repressed women.
I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for her alongside the hardening of my cock at the idea of the deprivation enforced by the virtue-keeper.
The dormitory room itself was spartanly furnished—three narrow beds with crisp white linens, a single window with gauze curtains, and little else.
Viola apparently shared the space with Morandra and Palla, the two women from Hippolyta who had volunteered for reformation rather than face house arrest.
I had read their files with considerable interest. Both had been caught aiding the resistance during the Vionian revolt, but their sentences had been surprisingly lenient.
The fact that they had chosen the Academy over a few years of comfortable confinement suggested something deeper, of course—a need they perhaps hadn’t fully acknowledged even to themselves.
Now I watched as all three women settled onto their beds, the virtue-keepers making their movements rather awkward and deliberate.
The restraints clearly served a more abstract purpose, beyond preventing masturbation, for the Euporian Good Way: they provided a constant reminder of control, of feminine submission, and of the imminence of disciplinary consequences for forgetting who truly owned a woman’s sweet, needy cunt.
“Sleep well, ladies,” said Mistress Orela as she left the room, turning off the light and closing the door behind her.
The low-light capacity of the camera through which I watched let me see the three pupils very clearly in the darkness, all of them curled sweetly on their sides with their bound hands in front of them.
A minute went by. I almost turned off the feed, but I had a feeling I might miss something if I did. Sure enough, my Viola spoke, in a hesitant voice, just when it seemed all three of them might have fallen asleep.
“I… I don’t want to pry,” she said, “but… if you don’t mind talking about it… maybe…”
“What?” asked Palla in a voice that suggested she hadn’t gotten especially close to sleep yet.
“If we don’t want to answer,” Morandra said in the sort of authoritative voice that I imagined came naturally to a university professor, “we won’t, obviously.”
“Well,” Viola said. “Is it true that… that you volunteered to come here?”
Ah, yes, I thought, my heart going out to my beautiful new concubine. That would be what you want to know, wouldn’t it, Viola?
Viola
My heart had started to beat much faster than I really thought the simple question warranted. I couldn’t deny, though, that the answer seemed to matter a great deal to me.
“I mean,” I continued, “if you did volunteer, the alternative… it must have been awful, I know. Like… I mean, we don’t have it on Artemisia, but I know there are still places where they impose the death penalty.”
“No,” Morandra said softly. “The alternative was just a few years of house arrest.”
I felt the air leave my lungs in a rush. “House arrest? But… that’s nothing. That’s…” I couldn’t finish the sentence, my mind reeling with the implications.
“Comfortable house arrest,” Palla added, her voice barely above a whisper. “With full access to books, entertainment systems, even limited social contact. We would have been bored, but safe.”
The silence that followed was deafening. I stared at the ceiling, trying to process what they had just told me. They had chosen this—the Academy, the degradation, the systematic breaking down of their independence—over a few years of comfortable confinement.
“I’m sorry,” Palla said suddenly, her voice thick with embarrassment. “I know how that must sound to you. You didn’t have a choice at all, and here we are, having voluntarily walked into this place.”
“It’s not that simple,” Morandra said, and I could hear her shifting restlessly on her narrow bed. “Palla, you know why we’re here. We both know.”
“I was trying to help the resistance for all the wrong reasons,” Palla whispered, her voice so quiet I had to strain to hear it. “I thought… I thought if I could prove I was brave enough, strong enough, independent enough… maybe I could convince myself that I really belonged on Hippolyta.”
She trailed off, too embarrassed to continue. I waited, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“It was the same for me,” Morandra said finally. “I kept volunteering for dangerous missions, kept pushing myself into situations where I could have been killed, all because I was trying to… to deny what I really needed.”
The admission hung in the air between us like a confession. I felt something shift in my chest—not quite relief, but a terrible recognition.
The silence stretched on for what felt like hours. Then, almost without thinking, I heard myself ask, “Do you think… do you think the virtue-keepers make us want to touch ourselves even more than we would otherwise?”
All three of us started giggling—soft, nervous laughter that seemed to bubble up from some deep well of shared understanding. The sound was both mortifying and oddly comforting.
“Yes,” Palla whispered through her giggles.
“Definitely yes,” Morandra agreed, and I could hear the smile in her voice despite everything.
“I keep thinking about it,” I admitted, my cheeks burning in the darkness. “About how I can’t, and that makes me want to even more, and then I feel ashamed for wanting to, and somehow that makes it worse.”
“It’s like they designed them specifically to torture us,” Palla said.
“They did,” Morandra replied matter-of-factly. “That’s exactly what they did.”
The next day, breakfast, morning class, physical education, and lunch all passed in a blur of routine humiliation.
I found myself going through the motions, as prescribed by Mistress Orela, mechanically—practicing the seven degrading positions, reciting passages about feminine submission, enduring the transparent exercise garments and the showers just private enough to make me blush.
My body responded with its usual shameful eagerness to each degradation, the governor ensuring, I knew, that every flutter of arousal was monitored and recorded.
But when we filed into the classroom for our afternoon lesson, I stopped short in the doorway.
Six couples stood arranged along the walls—twelve adults in formal Euporian attire, their postures radiating authority and expectation.
The men wore dark suits with the subtle rank insignia of Guardian status, while the women beside them wore elegant dresses that made it look to me as if they intended to attend a gala.
My stomach plummeted as I realized what this meant. Our assigned Guardian and Mistress couples had come to collect us like packages from a shipping depot.
“Ladies, please take your usual seats,” Mistress Orela announced, though her voice carried an undercurrent of excitement that made my skin crawl. “Today marks a significant milestone in your education.”
I moved to my desk on unsteady legs, hyperaware of how the short skirt rode up as I sat. Around me, my classmates displayed similar signs of distress—Palla’s face had gone white, while Morandra sat rigidly upright, her jaw clenched with tension.