Irontown 1: Student Maids (4 page)

They passed along neat clean streets, parades of shops and some older buildings that might have been factories or mills. Mel gazed out at them in a daze. It had seemed such a nice town in the brief time she had to look around before she had been arrested. Everything was well maintained, there was no graffiti or litter and the people on the pavements appeared smartly dressed, if in rather conservative styles. It gave the impression of an old industrial town that had managed to preserve its heritage by finding some new source of income. With so many cities looking rundown nowadays that was an achievement. How could she have imagined what went on behind its respectable façade?

If only she had chosen to spend a little of her meagre funds on a coach ticket to London instead of trying to save money by hitching, Mel thought bitterly, maybe she would be there by now trying to find some work and a place to stay. It would not have been easy but at least she would not be in this living nightmare. The trouble was she had never had time to make any real plans. She had just wanted to get away and she had snatched up what she could after the moment when… no, she would not think about it.

Would her parents search for her? After what had happened perhaps they never wanted to see her again. Maddy would try to find her as soon as she could, Mel knew that, but how far would she get? Even if an official search was started for her and they found the truck driver who had given her a lift to Shackleswell, where would that get them? Apparently several local policemen plus at least one judge were part of the conspiracy. They would hardly admit to what they had done to her. Now she was being taken to a school for training slave girls. How far did this perversion spread? Who else in Shackleswell knew what was going on? Gouge had talked of her serving the town and citizens using her but did that mean those well-dressed people she could see out there? The whole town could not really be involved… could it?

They came to a quiet tree-line street on the edge of the suburbs. Mel glimpsed red brick walling, iron railings and an upright Victorian-style building with high windows and steep slate roofs. There was an arching sign over a set of black iron gates that read: GRYNDSTONE SCHOOL: Private. She really was being taken to a school, or at least what had once been a school.

The police car turned down a narrow road beside the school lined by a row of trees and a long high brick wall that presumably marked the boundary of the school grounds. At the bottom they turned again into a secluded mews. On one side was a cottage terrace while on the other, adjoining the school grounds, was what looked like a block of renovated stables or storehouses. There was an open-fronted carport let into the ground floor of one of the buildings and into this they reversed.

Unloading Mel from the back, the policemen led her over to a large plain green-wooden door in the side of the carport bearing the sign: THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE: Deliveries. Set in the wall beside it was an intercom speaker. Colter pressed the call button and a female voice replied: ‘Can I help you?’

‘Constables Colter and Mattock, with SPRING 157.’

‘Oh yes, we’ve been expecting her. Do come in…’

The door unlocked and they stepped into a short corridor with a second security door at the far end, which let them into a room with white-painted brick walls.

Behind a desk arrayed with computer and telephone sat a fortyish woman with her dark hair pinned up in a tight bun. There were two other green wooden doors, one in the end wall bracketed by a couple of barred pebble-glass windows letting in daylight while the other was a side door bearing the sign: PREPARATION ROOM. Aside from this there were the usual cabinets and shelves loaded with box files and it might have been any small office except for a couple of details. Beside the desk ceiling stanchions supported a rail a little above head height, from which hung a row of large hooks. From the end hook hung a leash chain like Mel’s that encircled the neck of another naked, bound and ball-gagged girl.

She had a pretty face, firm nose, dark eyes and a wide sensuous mouth. Her tangle of dark curling hair and olive tinted skin suggested some Latin blood. Her figure was good with well-rounded breasts capped by large brown nipples, deep cleft buttocks and a pouting cleft peeping out from under thick dark curls. She glanced up briefly at Mel and her escort then turned her eyes aside in shame. Across her forehead was a pink label reading: CAM 031.

As they entered the woman behind the desk rose and came round from behind her desk, brushing down the skirt of a modest grey two-piece. She had a trim figure, a smooth intelligent face and clear grey eyes. ‘Good afternoon, Constables,’ she said meekly. ‘How nice to see you again.’

‘Good afternoon, Miss Trunnion,’ Colter replied cheerfully. He hung Mel’s leash chain over one of the ceiling hooks next to “CAM 031”, looking her over appraisingly as he did so. ‘Just waiting for number three, are you?’

‘Yes, they’re bringing her by prison van. She should be here very shortly.’ Miss Trunnion was looking Mel up and down with frank interest, her eyes lingering on her breasts and pubes, not sparing her blushes. ‘So this is SPRING 157. Well she looks pretty enough.’

‘We’ve given her a road test,’ Colter confided. ‘Needs a little more tooling but I think she’s got the right spirit.’

‘I’d say she’s a natural,’ Mattock added.

‘I’m sure she’ll make a fine Gryndstone girl,’ said Miss Trunnion.

‘If you’d just sign for her,’ Colter said, holding out a clipboard with a copy of the court papers fastened to it.

Miss Trunnion signed and Colter took the clipboard back. ‘She’s all yours.’

Mattock slapped Mel’s bottom. ‘See you around, girl. Good luck…’

The policemen left the way they had entered.

Miss Trunnion walked round Mel, appraising her from all angles, then stroked her cheek gently and smiled. ‘It’s all right, I know you’re feeling confused and frightened right now. All outsiders do at first. Just get through the first week and you’ll be surprised how natural it all begins to seem.’

The words were spoken in a kindly tone but Miss Trunnion’s touch made Mel shiver. Even in this mad world she now found herself in she instinctively expected more sympathy from a woman, but she seemed to be the same as the others. What was she actually: a kind of school secretary? At a school that accepted new girls delivered naked and bound? How could she go along with the way the men were treating her?

Miss Trunnion lifted CAM 031’s chin, turning her head so she looked Mel in the eye. ‘I do hope you’re going to be good friends. It’s most important because you’ll need to support each other over the next few weeks. It won’t be easy but it’s the only way to turn you into productive citizens.’

Mel saw “Cam” was looking just as confused and frightened as she felt. At least I’m not alone, Mel thought. She tried to smile back reassuringly around her gag.

The buzzer of the outer door intercom sounded.

‘Ah, this will be your chain-sister now,’ Miss Trunnion said.

Mel and Cam exchanged the same mute thought:
chain-sister
?

Miss Trunnion opened the door to admit two large men in dark blue overalls, gauntlets and crash helmets with neck guards. They were leading a naked black girl after them on the end of a choke chain leash.

On her forehead was a pink label that read: BOLT 184 framed by deep brown hair tied up in a ponytail. “Bolt” was slightly darker skinned and more sturdily built then “Cam” with broader shoulders, looking as though she might have been half Caribbean. She also looked extremely angry. Her cheeks were flushed and eyes wide and darting. Yet even her rage could not disguise her pretty, heart-shaped face with a slightly snubbed uptilted nose, arching dark eyebrows, deep brown eye and a full-lipped mouth. White teeth clenched on her ball gag. Her breasts were heavy and prominent, capped by large nipples with domelike areolae. Her buttocks were full and round, her hips wide and legs shapely but strong. A delta of jet-black curls crowned the apex of her thighs.

As she was dragged in, Bolt looked wildly about her, goggled for a moment at Mel and Cam, then began squirming and jerking at her leash and strapped wrists. Maybe it was futile but this show of resistance made Mel suddenly feel ashamed. How easily she had caved in to her captors and trotted after them like an obedient dog. At least Bolt was fighting back. Perhaps a black girl had more reason than she did to fear anything that resembled slavery.

‘Afternoon, Miss Trunnion,’ said one of the guards, looping the end of Bolt’s leash over a hook next to Mel and leaving her to twist round on the chain. ‘This one’s going to need some firm handling. You’d better warn Mr Bradawl that she bites, given half a chance.’

Miss Trunnion said calmly: ‘Thank you, Mr Ratchet. I’m sure we can deal with her.’

She signed another clipboard receipt for Bolt and the men departed. Again it was all done so matter-of-factly, Mel thought. How many girls before them had she handled like this? And what happened to them next?

Miss Trunnion smiled benignly at Bolt, who glared back at her. She was making angry gurgling noises about her gag and pulling on her leash even though Mel could see the links cutting into her flesh.

‘Don’t damage that pretty neck,’ Miss Trunnion said. She reached out to stroke her cheek but Bolt lunged at her. Miss Trunnion took a step back, shaking her head sadly. ‘You can’t possibly escape so why don’t you just stand still and quiet like your chain-sisters? It’ll be so much easier that way.’

Bolt made a growling nose and jerked on her chain again. Clearly she had no intention of making this easy for anybody.

Miss Trunnion went back to her desk and picked up the phone. ‘Headmaster… yes, they’re all here now waiting for you… thank you, I’ll tell them.’ She put the phone down and beamed at the captive girls. ‘Headmaster Bradawl will be down in a few minutes to personally prepare you for schooling,’ she announced. She said it as though they should feel honoured by his attentions.

Cam hung her head while Bolt glowered back at her defiantly.

‘He knows how to handle your kind,’ Miss Trunnion said to Bolt. ‘You aren’t the first who couldn’t accept what’s happened to her. They all learn what’s good for them in the end.’

Five minutes later a man came in through the green door set between the barred windows.

He was heavily built in his late forties with greying hair and was dressed in old-fashioned teachers’ mortarboard and flowing black gown. Hooked through a sort of holster clipped to his belt, like a gunslinger’s pistol, was a crook-handled school cane. But this was not what drew Mel’s astonished gaze. Between the folds of his robes his heavy penis and testicles hung freely on display in front of his trousers, which were tailored in the same way as Colter’s and Mattock’s.

Miss Trunnion had risen again and bobbed her head. ‘Here they are, Headmaster.’

‘Thank you, Miss Trunnion,’ he said.

Bradawl walked round the three girls suspended from their leash chains, looking them over closely.

Cam was gazing at his genitals in blushing saucer-eyed disbelief while Bolt was gaping at them in disgust and contempt. He must know he was exposing himself before them and Miss Trunnion, yet she had said nothing, Mel thought. Policemen did it and now it seemed teachers did it. Here this must be normal. Normal for Shackleswell…

Suddenly Mel realised she had been staring and turned her eyes aside in fear and embarrassment.

Bradawl smiled. ‘No, don’t look away, 157, that’s why it’s on show. All teachers at Gryndstone display their manhoods and we are proud to do so. It reminds our pupils who are the masters here.’ He addressed them all. ‘I’m Oliver Bradawl. When permitted you will address me simply as “Headmaster”. I run Gryndstone School and teach the industrial history of Shackleswell and gynaetics, which, though you will not know it, is the study of integrating female bodies with mechanical systems. I will oversee your education while you are pupils here. I will begin by making certain changes to your bodies so you can function more efficiently and outfit you as proper Gryndstone pupils…’

Bolt lunged against her chain and kicked viciously out at Bradawl’s groin. He twisted to one side, caught hold of her heel and held her foot up high, leaving her wobbling helplessly on one leg.

‘You bad girl!’ Miss Trunnion exclaimed. ‘Headmaster, I’m so sorry. Mr Ratchet said she was a biter.’

‘That was spirited but foolish,’ Bradawl told Bolt. ‘It’s done you no good and only left yourself vulnerable to punishment…’

With his free hand he unholstered his cane and swung it up under her raised leg so that it thwacked crisply into the soft swell of her nut-brown buttocks. He drew back and swung again, this time against the inner thigh of her standing leg, then up into the dark-haired swell of her sex. Bolt shrieked, gurgled, twisted and squirmed wildly, twirling about her neck chain, but she was unable to escape the swish and crack of the cane against her flesh.

After six strokes Bradawl let her leg drop. ‘That is the punishment for disobedience in Gryndstone. Do not forget it.’

Dark welts were already rising across Bolt’s buttocks and thighs and she looked wide-eyed, tear-stained and fearful. Perhaps she was temporarily subdued, Mel thought, but she did not look beaten.

Bradawl turned to at Mel and Cam. ‘It is also the rule in Gryndstone that your chain-sisters share responsibility for your actions.’ Before they could comprehend his meaning he swung his cane quickly, slashing it across the fronts of their thighs left and right and making them curl over and yelp in pain. ‘Perhaps this will encourage you to see that your chain-sister behaves more sensibly in future.’