1st of January, 2019It may have been an unwelcome interruption to her sleep, but at least she’d finally found something to tether her hitherto vague sense of time to tonight.
It started with a soft crackling in the night, disrupting the beautiful peace and quiet that had descended upon their room with Ray in the cells. It sounded very distant at first, several miles away at the very least. Just a few minutes ter, some fireworks started to be fired from the manor itself too, likely the sponsors or whatever perverted aristocrat they wished to serve.
Amy wanted to wonder why the sponsors would tell on themselves like that, giving them a date to hold onto — New Years Eve — when it had been denied to them before, but she supposed the trick had run out of usefulness a while ago.
She had counted forty-one days up to now. This count was unlikely to be correct, given the time she spent in the cells, but it’s not like there had been anything better to hold on to. Thinking back to her st day of freedom was more difficult than she had hoped, the day mired in amnesia.
She'd attended a cheap but disappointing pub with some of her acquaintances from the choir on the 28th of November. At some point she’d gotten stuck walking along the river with a girl, a rather pretty one, perhaps two years her senior. They ended up in the riverside park, a little outside the historic centre of Exeter. She doesn’t remember much that happened after that, as such evenings of heavy drinking tended to go, just that she woke up in a cell afterwards.
That makes thirty-three days at the manor— a bit less than she’d expected, still concerningly many overall.
She found herself wandering to the window despite some continued pain in her tired legs, curious to see whether she could see something in the distance. Perhaps there’s a vilge. If they’re lucky, a town with a railway station or simir— though she has no clue how they would pay for a ticket. Those are details to be fretted over ter. The first step is a sense of direction, somewhere they could escape towards.
Faith takes a moment to stand next to her, seeming rather nervous. Amy’s first assumption was that the girl thought she could see any fireworks in the distance, and that she wanted to linger near her for that reason. A cute moment between the two of them, one of bonding.
She’s adorable. Amy is so fond of her.
But there were no fireworks to be seen, other than the vague fshes that emanated from just above their location. It’s a shame, if not unsurprising: of course they would put them somewhere that would perfectly limit their line of sight, most of it obstructed by a mountain range and the rest by trees.
It’s not worth her time. Instead of trying to extract information she’ll never get, she turns to Faith. Rather than trying to look for the fireworks with awe, she seemed annoyed. Her fingers tapped against her arm as she paced ever so slightly and her eyes were wide open in focus. She winced at every explosion.
She flinched when Amy put a hand on her shoulder. At first it seemed like she would withdraw or even run away: instead, after a short pause, she leaned into the touch.
“Scared?” Amy asked, her voice a little more feminine than it ought to have been. Maybe a little too big-sisterly on her end— at least Ray wasn’t around to judge her this time.
“No.” Faith says. She seems more confident than she usually does, which is surprising. “I just hate fireworks. They’re too loud. Just like thunder. And then many of them sparkle too— the sparkling sounds, they’re…”
She tries to imagine what is even being said, and doesn’t quite manage, it being too te on a very te evening for her to think properly. Dar seemed to agree, her words faltering, her confidence breaking, her anger slipping away as she continued to accept Amy’s comforting touch.
It really is a shame that Faith returned to her own bed after the fireworks had ceased— Amy wouldn’t have minded more.
2nd of January, 2019Rather embarrassingly, she’s doing the dishes again. Not because she wants to, particurly, but because she understands that they are expected to keep their own room neat and tidy. It will be held over their heads as punishment if they do not. Ray getting to clean up a little after himself wouldn’t be unwelcome — she still feels a little icky when thinking of the knickers she had to pick up off the floor — but she wouldn’t want the job to fall entirely on Faith’s shoulders next time.
At least it isn’t too much work this time around. Two ptes, two forks, two rather blunt and thus frustrating knives, some gsses. There’s also a pan that Amy is 60% sure is called a skillet. She’d used it to cook two omelettes earlier, but only after she’d overanalysed the concept of cracking an egg, never having done it before and completely unsure how much force she should apply.
In the end, she just tapped it on the side of the pan and managed to do it okay enough. Most of the egg made it into the skillet.
She’s currently trying to figure out how to clean egg white off the countertop.
Does she just use a wet cloth? It sounds like it would be too little, and that it’d leave the pce sticky, but she’s not sure what she should do instead! Or maybe she should start with a disposable wipe, and then find… something else? She vaguely remembers some kind of spray bottle her mother would use, but the details elude her.
If this whole pce was a lesson about skilled and unskilled bour she’s definitely learned it: cleaning isn’t easy, it does actually require quite some knowledge and skill, neither of which comes to her naturally. She’s much better at other things. That’s why she shouldn’t be cleaning but working on actually important things.
Amy sighs rather theatrically, aware that she’s alone right now and can afford the theatrics without anyone commenting on them. Ray is still in the cells, after all, and Dar has been distant in the times she hasn’t sought comfort —she tends to think mostly about the ways she’s going to be hurt. She said that punishment feels inevitable, even if she hasn’t received more than a disappointed frown or a warning gre yet. She’s been doing her best, and that has been enough for Vivienne, who she said was ‘much nicer’ than Eira.
At some point they’re going to want actual results, though, and they mightn’t be so nice anymore.
This is why Faith headed to the bathroom after breakfast, expining that Vivienne had told her to properly clean her hair. The sponsor would then turn it into something nicer than the rat-king of long, wavy strands it is today. It’d be a nice glow up for the girl, one she does deserve. Hopefully Faith would feel better for it, getting to be a cute if nervous little thing rather than looking like a scared and self-neglecting wreck of a boy.
Amy is very aware that her vision of what Dar should become is more feminine than masculine by now — and she would feel guilty if it wouldn’t be so much better for her. Faith could never live up to masculine ideals of strength or power. She could never survive in a world in which her worth as a human being is based on demanding respect.
Femininity, with its loyal submission and deference to authority is a much better fit for her. If it wasn’t being enforced so strongly by the sponsors, she’d probably encourage the girl to transition.
She’d be really cute. If Amy closes her eyes and imagines the changes HRT will cause, maybe a little make-up, FFS if she’s lucky— Faith would be amazing.
She could be all hers too.
So when Faith walked up to her, fidgeting quite badly and compining about the fact that brushing her hair hurt and that the hair loss scared her, Amy knew she had to do something. She took her hand, sat her down on a chair, and decided to brush her hair. It’s not something entirely foreign to her, at least: she too has had hair, and hers has tended to be longer than most men would have it, though definitely medium-length at most.
It also makes her feel more useful than trying and failing to clean a countertop.
“Are you… sure?” Faith asks. “You don’t have to, just for my sake.”
Amy softly takes the rightmost edge of Faith’s hair in her hand, holds it up and starts to run the brush through it. Smaller chunks of hair should probably help reduce the pain — she’s not sure how she can deal with the hair loss, though. It’s not as bad as it looks, as many shedded hairs will be stuck in all the tangles, but it might still be something dysphoric. “I don’t want you to get punished.” She says. “Vivienne just wants your hair to be brushed, I don’t think she’ll mind if you get a little help with it.”
“You won’t get in trouble for it?”
Amy shakes her head, then realises she’s behind Faith and wouldn’t be seen. “I promise.”
“Do you think Ray is okay?” Faith whispers, her feet softly tapping the floor.
“He’s tough. He wasn’t one bit afraid when they got him out of the cells the first time.” Amy pulls the brush through Faith’s hair for the first time, getting stuck at first, then managing to break through the tangles after a bit of extra pressure is applied. Faith only whimpers a little bit. “So I guess that he’ll manage.”
“I hope so.” She pauses for a second. “Those tasers look like they’d hurt.”
“They do, at first.” Amy mumbles, remembering the one time she was tased. “And then you feel numb. Limp. Helpless. They can do whatever they like with your body, at least until your nerves reactivate. Your muscles stay sensitive for a good while after— as do other parts of your body. It’s a very odd sensation.
Faith was just about to respond when the door opened. Two conspicuously non-maidlike people enter and cause Dar to sink back into her chair, eyes fixed to the ground.
The first one to enter was a twenty-something year old man wearing a ratty old tracksuit who seemed rather annoyed to be there. He decided to sit down on the side of Ray’s bed, seemingly not caring to be very useful for whatever task at hand.
The second person entering is a woman, a bit older than the man, in what looks vaguely like a military uniform — though it certainly isn’t anything the British armed forces would wear. She’s carrying a grey box filled with all sorts of tools. Next to it is a smaller cardboard one, the contents of which Amy can’t quite see.
The man eyes them from a distance and squints. Amy hates being watched by a man like him. Their gaze will never be any good, not when the two of them are wearing maid dresses. “Good morning bo— dies. Sorry for interrupting. Don’t mind us— we’ll be gone before you know it.”
“Boys.” Amy says, taking more of Faith’s hair into her hands and carefully brushing it. “If you’d not been retarded and used your fucking eyes properly you’d have seen that immediately.”
He looks at them with apparent confusion. Unsurprising: the bumbling idiot probably thinks gender can be assumed from the clothes one wears. Anyone wearing a dress is feminine enough for his little pea brain to interpret as sexy, something to look at whilst he wanks a pathetic one out.
Men in violent professions like his have no taste at all.
“Okay, Boys.” The man says with an inappropriate level of doubt in his voice. “Behave and none of us will be in any trouble, alright?”
Trouble. Yeah. Of course he’s going to threaten them. It’s all men like him know. They never learned any better, a life in which they gained power through sheer violence against anyone smaller or weaker than them. No bloody intelligence, nothing to offer the world but a ck of conscience in dishing out pain.
And he can’t keep his eyes off them! Sometimes there’s a disappointed gaze at their non-existent chests, or a quick gnce at their skirts hoping to see a penis or anything like that. As if Amy would be such a pathetic AGP to walk around with a permanent erection.
“If you take even one step towards her,” Amy points at Faith. “I’ll cut your fucking balls off.”
The goon makes eye contact with his superior for a second. He then faces Amy again, angry yet shockingly controlled, a hint of anxiety in his tone. “That, um, that won’t be necessary, ma— sir.”
Amy continues brushing Faith’s hair in silence, gring at the man across from her until he decides that the two of them aren’t worth his attention. Of course they aren’t— men like him can barely focus on a task which isn’t fuck or drink for more than five minutes. Paying an attention to two people doing their own fucking business in peace? Impossible.
The female soldier is fiddling around with the locks, repcing the old ones which required a physical key with biometric ones. It seems like overkill for the kind of people stuck in this particur jail— though she supposes that idiot tried to pickpocket some keys and make a run for it without a pn, or back-up, or the idea that they would just improve security if he tried to do so. They’re going to go repce all the locks now. This is why Amy suggested pnning things out first.
She tries to rex a little. The simple, innocent repetition of brushing helps with that. It allows her to think about the many new signs that escape may be possible. The first sign is that they somehow managed to get access to what has to be a significant amount of high-security locks in less than two days, as well as military looking personnel to install them. She supposes it makes sense that something more serious is backing the operation than four maids. Eira is scary and quite capable, yes, but she doubts she’d have the sheer capacity to kidnap three people in different corners of the country without help from more powerful people. Not every aristocrat would have that power either.
There should still be a way out if they pn things out well enough.
The woman tests the new biometric locks to her satisfaction and leaves, taking her stupid subordinate with her.
Amy takes a moment to properly inspect the lock now that they’re gone, pressing her finger against the fingerprint reader and getting a red fshing light. Clearly they don’t have the approval, or not yet, at least. It’s annoying, but not really surprising.
Turning around, she finds Dar shivering, her eyes locked with Amy’s for just a moment and then turning away again. She can guess what caused this response.
“I— I’m sorry. For the… nguage, earlier. I guess I had pent up emotions. And was worried about… men like him, more than him per se. But getting aggressive wouldn’t have helped.” She feels so stupid and selfish.
“I—” Faith tries to say something, then pauses. She looks down at the floor, overcome with anxiety. “You— You probably shouldn’t have said those things.”
“Agreed.” Amy nods, perhaps a little greedy in taking her hand. “That was very stupid of me. I just don’t want you to get hurt, okay?”
“I know.” She whispers. “You’ve always been too kind to me. Even when I didn’t deserve it. When I was weak and almost transitioned. I don’t deserve it now, I’ve been horrible, that’s why I’m here— That’s why they try to make me disappoint you—”
“It’s okay. You’d never disappoint me.” She whispers, unsure where that particur anxiety comes from. “Especially when I’m struggling with the allure of transition too. It could be very easy to give in, but— it’s wrong. For me, at least.”
“I know you’re having a hard time.” Faith says, looking away. “Sorry. That was rude. It’s… it’s worse, here. When you’ve taken the first steps.”
Amy continues brushing the st of Faith’s hair. The whole process has taken her some twenty minutes already. “When you’re in a skirt and they’re calling you Faith?”
“You call me Faith too, sometimes.” Dar points out.
Amy blushes and looks away. “It’s a nice name.”
“I’m worried about you, RM.” Faith sounds rather mencholy.
“Don’t worry about me.” She says, trying to reassure her friend more than anything else. “I’m just trying to get through this, just like you.”
Dar stays quiet for a minute or so. “We’re stuck here forever, aren’t we?”
“Dar—” Amy starts, then stops for a moment, thinking. The prospects for escape seem more dire than ever, and she doesn’t want to lie about that, but giving up would mean giving in to their pns for her friends. She’s been close to the aristocracy— she knows what end result is intended for them, and it is terrifying. She could not live with herself if that were to happen to either of her friends. “I will not let you get hurt. Even if this is forever. I’ll be there for you.”
“Okay.” Faith leans back into the chair as Amy finally finishes brushing. “Please don’t do everything they want you to do, just for my sake.”
“I’m not.” Amy pauses, realising she’s lying in a rather desperate defence of her own actions. “Okay, maybe I am. But only some things. And I wouldn’t do it just for you. I know you’d have my back too— as would Ray.” She isn’t entirely sure of the tter, not right now. “We’ll get through this together. I promise.”
“Thank you.” Dar whispers. Amy wants to hold her again, forever this time, but it doesn’t take very long for Vivienne to show up and take Faith away from her.
3rd of January, 2019“Good morning, girls.” Eira commands attention from two of them by standing in the middle of the room, fnked by Rose. “I’m rather sorry that Jenny won’t be around for today’s announcement, but I’m sure it’ll be so exciting that it makes up for it.”
It might be the fact that Kelynen is standing next to her bed with her taser drawn, the fact that her right leg has been cuffed to the bed, or the fact that Eira is talking with the same predatory tone she’d heard from her earlier, but there are some parts of this situation that make her conclude it’s not going to be a good announcement for them.
Faith, meanwhile, seems to be holding Vivienne’s hand, free to move as she pleases. At least Amy isn’t the best-behaved girl of the group.
It doesn’t take long for Eira to start her big speech. “So, let me start off with the most impactful news: we will start putting you to work regurly as of tomorrow. You’ve been allowed to abstain from it during the recruiting period, and for a little while afterwards to allow you girls to bond a little, but you’re not just here to be cute—” Her eyes darted between Amy and Dar. “—you’re here to be reformed, to embrace your new identities, and to be trained in the arts of domestic work. This requires daily, intensive interaction with your sponsors. We expect this to be done one-on-one the majority of the time, but you will be allowed to cooperate at times.”
“We will start enforcing higher standards of behaviour. This will be done across all three domains of personal growth id out earlier. Let’s start with reform. We will not accept you girls saying any slur or derogatory remark about any group of people. If you do so anyways, you will be punished. That one should have been obvious, but none of you have been able to abstain up to this point. Clearly, we will have to make you learn to stop.”
“Additionally, we will make sure you get weekly reading assignments on topics that we think are of interest: generally, these will be on topics reting to feminism. These will not be voluntary. We expect you to write an essay on each of the works afterwards, which you will answer as honestly as possible, and yes, we can tell when you’re just trying to appease us. You don’t have to pretend to agree: just give your uncensored opinions. Do you understand and agree?”
“Yes.” Faith mumbles, pausing when Vivienne whispers something into her ear. “I understand and agree.”
“Amy?” Eira turns to her.
“I’m not going to read that woke bullshit.” She tries to be a little defiant and resist her urge to just completely fold to Eira immediately. “It’s for trannies.”
Kelynen slightly nudges her with the taser whilst the head sponsor merely raises an eyebrow. She’s clearly unwilling to give the outburst more of an acknowledgement than that.
Does she really want to get tased over some reading assignments? In front of Faith, scaring her, maybe leaving her all alone with no one to seek comfort in other than her own sponsor?
“I understand and agree.” Amy says through gritted teeth.
“Our second point was you girls learning to embrace your femininity. We want to see more significant progress made on that over the coming weeks. This means you will start voice training.. We will provide you with the necessary lessons and routines to do so effectively. You will be expected to speak in the most feminine manner you can maintain when in the company of your sponsors or any guests. If you refuse, you will be disciplined. Don’t worry— we’re not so tyrannical as to enforce this rule in your private time as well.”
Amy rolls her eyes, yet gives in: she doesn’t need the voice training itself, more the consistent usage of a more feminine voice. And there’s a very obvious loophole to the rule: try to avoid speaking as much as possible. That’s her pn, at least.“I understand and agree.”
Dar quickly follows.
“When it comes to the domestic arts, you will learn various practical skills on the job with your sponsors. I don’t think that will prove a particur issue— not for now, at least. The main thing we will be doing here is enforcing the kind of respect that the owner of this manor would be due from you girls, particurly when it comes to honorifics and polite nguage. Some of you can be very rude at times—” as expected, she looks Amy in the eyes. “—even beyond the usage of slurs, and we will crack down on that as much as reasonably possible. I don’t think I need to expin the concept of polite nguage, but honorifics may require some: it’s about the proper use of titles and honours— Amy, you might know more about that.”
She blinks, unsure what to say.
“Your family has some experience with such things, doesn’t it? I remember reading that your grandfather was a member of the House of Lords. What would his full title have been?” Eira is unable to hide her smile at reminding people just how privileged Amy’s life had once been.
Her grandfather had been granted a life peerage by Margaret Thatcher, a reward for loyal service as a high-ranking civil servant. Only mildly influenced, she’d heard, by a sizable donation to the party from her father the year before. He was too busy running his company to sit in the Lords, though, and left the position to Amy’s grandfather.
“The Right Honourable, The Baron Finch of Tewkesbury OBE QC. But that’s long and unwieldy, so you’d probably shorten it to the Baron of Tewkesbury, or simply Lord Finch.” Amy blushes. Dar is probably going to judge her so much for her wealth. It’s not something she touched upon much in their group chats.
“Thank you— I’m sure you’ll run into plenty of aristocracy or peers otherwise; but the vast majority of people don’t fall into that category.” Amy winces at the reminder. “What would be the polite way to refer to these people?”
“You’d refer to women as Ms., married women as Mrs., and men in general as Mr.” She hates having to appease someone quite so willing to humiliate her.
“Quite correct. You will also be required to call all our guests, including the owner of this manor, ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ rather their names if you’re in conversation with them. Unless they specifically request you to refer to them differently, of course. You’ll refer to me as ‘ma’am’ as well, to get into the habit.”
She looks at Rose, who is grinning. “This one wanted to be called ‘miss’. Vivienne said she doesn’t want any title at all, and Kelynen has yet to decide.”
“I’ll keep the option open.” The sponsor says nervously.
If she had to guess, this newfound appreciation for honorifics has less to do with the titles per se, and more with forcing them to think about their nguage before they speak.
Both Amy and Faith understood and agreed, and Eira quickly continued.
“Finally, we will have to discuss the disciplinary process. You’ll be familiar with the tasers we’ve used before. It’s not a perfect tool however; we’ve found that you three would constantly make minor infractions not deserving of being tased, per se, but still requiring correction. Rose made particur compints to me about this after her afternoon with Amy a few days ago, and we decided a more moderate option was needed.”
Amy watches Eira take a metal device out of her bag. It looks like an ankle bracelet. It’s slim and unobtrusive, and she guesses it could be hidden under socks or leggings.
“I think I’ll need a volunteer for this. Anyone?” She says, looking around the room. Neither of the girls responds. “No one? I guess I’ll get to decide then. Amy.”
The bracelet was firmly attached to her leg barely thirty seconds ter.
“It’s a nifty little device.” Eira expins, clearly enjoying the fact she gets to torture Amy with it. “It is basically indestructible by any conventional means that you would have access to, made with strong metals by people who know what they are doing. It’s not some pstic toy you’d find in some online shops. Anything that could destroy this would also, necessarily, take your whole foot with it. So I would recommend you girls don’t even try. If you think you can just take it off, you’re in for a nasty surprise, as you’ll just activate the strongest possible shock—”
Amy is really tempted to try to touch it now.
“—At least, if it detects the wrong fingerprints.” Eira performatively rotates the bracelet, very obviously not getting any electric shocks. “In case any of you were hoping that you might be able to take it off during certain situations, such as showering, I’m afraid to inform you that it’s completely waterproof.”
Eira continues talking for another eternity. Amy gets it. They’re stuck with the stupid things, and they’ll get shocked if they’re being bad girls.
“Now, Amy, I’ll have to give you a minor, corrective shock for using a slur just a few minutes ago. This is a level one shock—”
Amy flinches only a little as the first shock runs through her leg. It hurts, yes, but it’s not so bad, it’s the kind of thing she could handle if she wanted to.
She does, regrettably, enjoy the idea of these corrections more than she should.
“If Amy had done something much more serious, such as gone on a much more explicitly misogynist rant, she’d have felt this—”
She has to bite her lip to avoid giving an audible reaction, such as a yelp. Because the shock bloody hurt. It might have been over quickly, but it was intense. The kind of thing that might put her off bance if she were walking, or even just standing.
Eira wouldn’t give her a moment to breathe before applying another shock. “For repeated infractions, she’d feel this.”
Amy bites down even harder on her lip, very visibly wincing in the process. This shock wasn’t more intense on its own, it just lingered much longer. If the middle setting was quick and dirty, the highest level was much closer to what she would expect from the taser, though the effect is more localised. Her lower leg feels like it’s been temporarily paralysed.
She did make a sound this time around, and a rather pathetic one too.
Amy moaned. And everyone heard it. Kelynen looked on in silent terror, Rose was quite amused, and Eira just seemed intrigued. Nothing would tip her off bance, apparently, as she just continued like nothing had happened.
“And that’s that for the demonstration.”
Eira wrangled one more ‘I understand and agree’ out of the girls — about wearing the ankle bracelet — and then left the two girls to think.
To think about all the new rules they’ll have to follow, the new punishment mechanism and the new locks across the building. About how escape is more unlikely than ever, and how it is their own fault for breaking so many rules in the first pce.
About how both Amy’s worst fears and deepest, most disgusting fantasies seem to be becoming real.
