Chapter 9
Viola
After we had done several different cooperative exercises, Mistress Nurana declared herself satisfied.
“Time for showers,” she announced briskly. “Follow me to the bathing facilities.”
My heart sank as she led us through another set of doors into a long, tiled room lined with individual shower stalls. Each stall had a frosted glass door that would provide some privacy, and I could see folded towels stacked neatly on benches between them.
“You will each shower in your own stall,” Mistress Nurana explained, her voice echoing off the white ceramic walls.
“This alternation between nudity in others’ presence, and privacy at specified times, is designed to teach you proper modesty.
When you’re dressed, you understand the value of covering yourself.
When you’re naked, you appreciate the privilege of garments. ”
She gestured toward the stalls with practiced efficiency. “Take your time to cleanse yourselves thoroughly. Pay particular attention to your intimate areas. Your bodies must be maintained in pristine condition at all times.”
I selected a stall at random, my legs still trembling from the exercises.
The frosted glass provided the illusion of privacy while still allowing our silhouettes to remain visible to anyone observing.
As I stepped inside and turned on the water, I heard Mistress Nurana’s voice continuing her lecture.
“Remember, ladies, women are always in danger of succumbing to temptation when washing themselves.” Her tone carried a warning that made my stomach clench. “Your hands may wander to places they shouldn’t go. If they do, I assure you the consequences will be dire.”
The warm water cascaded over my shoulders, and I reached for the soap provided on a small shelf.
As I began to wash, Mistress Nurana’s words about temptation echoed in my mind.
I found myself acutely aware of every touch, every sensation as I cleaned my body.
When I reached between my legs to wash my bare sex, the contact sent an unwelcome jolt through me.
I found my mind turning over and over what Mistress Nurana had said about trusting my Mistress, about cooperation and submission.
Despite myself, I found the concepts strangely compelling.
The idea of having someone else make the difficult decisions, of surrendering the burden of constant choice and responsibility, held an appeal I couldn’t entirely dismiss.
My hand lingered between my thighs, ostensibly for cleaning purposes, but I felt a sudden, powerful surge of arousal.
I wondered for a moment if Mistress Orela had turned on the governor’s stimulation, but then to my dismay I understood that somehow the very idea of the device, and the memory of my master turning its suppression up, had amplified every sensation.
Suddenly I desperately wanted to touch myself properly, to seek the release that had been building inside me since my capture.
My fingers pressed more firmly against the little bud, the tender, demure hood that covered the forbidden center of my need, and I bit my lip to suppress a moan. Just for a moment, I told myself. Just to relieve some of this terrible tension.
But even as the thought formed, I heard Mistress Nurana’s footsteps outside my stall, her shadow visible through the frosted glass. I jerked my hand away as if burned, my heart hammering with the knowledge of how close I had come to disobedience and its terrible consequences.
I finished washing quickly, focusing on mundane thoughts to calm my racing pulse.
When I stepped out of the shower, towel wrapped around my body, I found the other women emerging from their stalls with troubled expressions and reddened cheeks that seemed to me to indicate similar experiences to mine in the shower.
“Dress quickly,” Mistress Nurana commanded. “The luncheon bell will sound in five minutes.”
The dining hall seemed an example of the controlled elegance Euporian design obviously favored, with a long wooden table and benches arranged precisely next to it.
We sat together at one designated table, our schoolgirl uniforms making us look like a group of old-fashioned students rather than grown women being systematically broken down and rebuilt.
The food was simple, but nourishing—soup, bread, and fruit—served by silent staff members who avoided eye contact. As we ate, I found myself studying my classmates more carefully. We were all here for different reasons, but we shared the same expressions of bewildered humiliation.
“I never imagined it would be like this,” Palla whispered, glancing around nervously to make sure no staff members were within earshot.
“What did you expect?” Morandra asked quietly, wincing slightly as she shifted on the hard bench.
“I don’t know. Something more… civilized, I suppose.” Palla’s voice was barely audible. “On Hippolyta, they told us the Academy would be educational, that we’d learn useful skills.”
“We are learning,” said Lara, the woman from Euporia who had been mostly silent until now. “We’re learning exactly what they want us to learn.”
I found myself nodding despite myself. The Academy’s methods were brutally effective precisely because they stripped away every pretense, every comfortable lie we might tell ourselves about our situations. There was no hiding from the reality of what we were becoming.
“The worst part,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, “is how my body responds to it all. Even when my mind rebels, my…” I couldn’t finish the sentence, my cheeks burning with shame.
Instead, I found myself plunging into a confession.
“I have a governor… you know, the Prosperian thing? … down there.”
“A governor?” Trellama asked softly, her eyes wide. “The thing that tells your… husband… exactly what you’re feeling? Every moment of arousal, every spike of need?”
I nodded miserably. “Not my husband—my…” My mouth twisted to the side. “My master. And… you know… it lets him control me… down there.”
The thought that Mistress Orela or even Prince Hendren himself might be monitoring my responses even now, watching the data stream from my most intimate moments, made my stomach clench with equal parts humiliation and unwelcome excitement.
“At least you have someone who cares about you,” Palla said, her voice thick with unshed tears. “When we go to our Guardians’, that’s all I have. I’ll be handed over to complete strangers without a master to keep watch.”
The reminder of our impending assignment to Guardian couples cast a pall over our quiet conversation. I tried to imagine what it would be like—being examined, instructed, used by people I had never met, while Prince Hendren watched from afar like some perverted patron of the arts.
“Ladies.” Mistress Orela’s crisp voice cut through our hushed discussion. “Finish your meal quickly. You have afternoon lessons to attend.”
We ate in silence after that, each lost in our own anxious thoughts.
When we were dismissed, I caught Lara’s eye and saw something there that looked almost like pity.
As the only Euporian among us, she understood the system we were being fed into better than the rest of us.
The knowledge in her gaze was more terrifying than anything the instructors had told us directly.
The afternoon lesson was galactic history, taught by Mistress Orela herself in a different classroom lined with star charts and political maps.
I had always prided myself on my knowledge of interplanetary relations, but the version of history presented here cast everything in a radically different light.
“The Wild Years on Earth,” Mistress Orela began, gesturing to a holographic display showing the ancient home world, “represent a crucial period that most egalitarian worlds have chosen to ignore or misrepresent.”
I leaned forward despite myself, genuinely curious. On Artemisia, the Wild Years had been glossed over in our educational curriculum, dismissed as an unfortunate period of regression before humanity spread to the stars.
“Following the worldwide economic collapse, traditional governmental structures failed completely,” Mistress Orela continued.
“In the chaos that followed, natural hierarchies reasserted themselves. Strong men took control of their communities, their families, their women. It was brutal, yes, but it was also functional.”
The holographic display shifted to show images of the period—men in positions of clear authority, women in supporting roles, children protected within rigid family structures.
Despite my intellectual objections to what I was seeing, I found the orderliness strangely appealing after the chaos of my own recent experience.
“Most important,” Mistress Orela continued, her voice taking on an almost reverent tone, “women during the Wild Years reported higher levels of satisfaction and psychological stability than they had experienced during the preceding decades of so-called equality. When the burden of impossible choices was lifted from their shoulders, when they were freed from the pressure to compete in arenas unsuited to their nature, they flourished.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, the hard wooden chair reminding me of my position here.
The historical account felt like a direct attack on everything I had once believed, yet I couldn’t entirely dismiss the evidence being presented.
The holographic displays showed communities that had survived catastrophic social collapse through rigid hierarchical structures that placed men in command and women in supportive roles.