The Summer of Francesca

She did not know where the Saint Agnes Academy was located, since she had been taken there and away at night. She thought it was in the country since it was surrounded by fields and forest.

The driver pulled Anne out of the van by her feet and stood her up. She started to ask a question and he slapped her. His son squeezed her mouth and told her to be quiet.

As she followed the driver to a low stone building, the son pinched her behind and she squealed. The driver looked back at her angrily. She kept her mouth firmly shut after that and only snorted when the boy pinched her again.

At the building a young dark-haired attendant (rather attractive, Anne thought) attached a leash to her collar and led her to an exam room.

After weighing her he inspected her for disease. A uniformed nurse brought in a tray of instruments and a notepad; he called out the results to her as he penetrated each of the cavities of Anne's body over the next several minutes.

Anne found the exercise rather pleasant and opened herself to him. He lingered over some of the tests; perhaps he enjoyed them as much as she did. His assistant seemed to also, and came close to watch. Anne thought she detected a metal collar under the uniform; but bent over, she could not see clearly.

She was declared clean, entered into the academy's inventory and assigned to a cell. He took her to a one-room structure with concrete walls where he attached her collar to a tether like the one she was on now and filled a bowl with water.

He let her drink from it, then motioned for her to kneel and began to unzip his pants. She opened her mouth to receive him; but something made him change his mind and he turned out the light and left. She heard him bolt the door on the outside. Had an act of hers repelled him? Did she appear unwilling? She feared she had done wrong in some way she could not guess. She had so much to learn; a feeling of inadequacy overwhelmed her.

As her eyes adjusted to the semidarkness, she surveyed her new home. Her tether ran up to the ceiling, through a large hook and down to a cleat in the far wall. It allowed enough slack for her to lie down, but not to reach the door. It could be pulled short to make her stand, or even to hang her by her collar if someone wanted.

Anne remembered visiting the zoo in the city where she grew up. She loved to imagine herself living in a cage, viewed by the public and fed by a trainer who made her perform tricks. In the old days some animals had chains on their necks; that was even better. Now she was one of them.

Two of the walls had windows that were barred on the outside. An opening in the floor plainly served as a squat toilet. In the center of the cell was a long counter which held her water bowl. She guessed the extra length allowed her to be bent over it.

And hanging from a peg by the door was a garrote; she shuddered and looked away.

The water pitcher sat on a shelf beyond the reach of her tether; there was no sign of food. Eventually she stretched out on the cement floor, glad that Paul made her used to sleeping on hard surfaces and looking forward to the next phase of her transformation. She lay down naked, her hands bound behind her and her collar secured to the wall, the property of her new owner.

The next morning a doctor examined her in a small room with white walls. Her measurements were recorded in a binder with her name on it. He asked intimate questions about her medical and personal history and wrote the answers in her book before leading her down the hall to another room where she knelt before an empty chair. After several minutes, an executive in a suit entered and sat down. He perused the entries in her book and frowned at one.

"Your examination shows that yesterday one or more men possessed you from behind; who were they?"

"It was my owner, sir."

"What time?"

"I - I'm not sure, sir, but it was in the evening just before I was taken here."

"Any others? Not the driver or his son? Someone here?"

"No, sir." She hoped the examination did not count.

"You say no one else used you during the last 24 hours."

"Th-that's correct, sir, no one." Anne began to tremble at the grilling.

"Owner, last night before delivery; that's all right then." His frown relaxed and he erased a check mark.

He stood and looked down at her kneeling before him. After a moment's hesitation he said "Might as well" and used her. Anne was happy to serve him and was pleased to hear him sigh as he came.

He left, and she remained alone on her knees until an attendant took her outside to be exhibited. He led her to a tall frame, larger than Mr. Schuyler's and made of iron, in a sort of park. After she was stretched on it another attendant gave her breakfast of water and a gray paste like cold oatmeal that he fed her on a spoon. It was unattractive in taste and appearance but she had not eaten since the previous day and took all he let her have.

The ground on which she stood was loose sand; she learned the reason for that when she needed to relieve herself and found she would not be untied for the purpose. It was mortifying but there was no alternative and in time she became quite accustomed to it, alone or (if ordered to) in company.

When that was done she began to observe her surroundings. In front of her was a broad, well-kept lawn with green shoots emerging to greet the spring. To one side was a neat gravel path lined with crocuses, some still in bud and others opened to the morning sun. A placard on the frame gave her name and age, her height and weight, and Paul's name as "Owned by"; beneath that was a paragraph in smaller print she could not read.

A field mouse emerged from a burrow in the lawn and disappeared into another nearby. A pair of butterflies chased each other in the morning sun. In her previous life she would never have noticed them. A honeybee mistook her rosy nipples for flowers and landed on her breasts; discovering its mistake after a brief but alarming investigation, it buzzed off in search of other treasures. She felt more alive than ever before, and thankful to Paul; she owed him so much.

Individuals and small groups passed by on their errands. Most of them gave her no more than a glance. Some paused to read her placard, and a group of three women in gray smocks inspected her closely, saying nothing until they were done, then speaking among themselves.

Two women approached her. One held her head up by her hair while the second slapped her face. Then they changed places and the other slapped her. The first woman kissed her on the mouth and they laughed and walked away.

A girl on her hands and knees passed in front of the frame, leashed and driven by a woman holding a leather strap. The woman smacked her with it now and then to keep her moving. They went back and forth in long zigzags until the woman was satisfied or the girl's time was up, Anne never learned.

She watched it all with wide eyes. Her turn would come. This is what she was here for.

A little after midday, Paul approached her with two guests: a husky figure in his mid-thirties and a red-faced older fat man. She hung on the frame with her eyes downcast as he read out the text on her placard that she was to be "treated with severity" and whipped daily, and told them she would be available that evening in the clubroom. The first man placed his hand on her belly; he frightened her for reasons she could not explain.

She remained in place till late afternoon when she received her first beating. An attendant wiped her legs with a rag and raked the sand clean. An audience began to gather around her; some brought folding chairs, snacks and beverages.

Paul advised the academy that Anne was a virgin to the whip, and together they selected the trainer who was to provide her first experience. She watched him approach with growing alarm. He examined her flesh, noting his observations in her book while the audience chatted behind him. In her fright she barely heard his assurance that she would soon come to desire, even yearn for the experience.

At the first stroke she cried out from humiliation, despair, and submission as the lash tore away the last remaining shreds of her self-respect. She heard his commentary to the audience on the new girl: a screamer, passionate, responds well, a little excitable.

He worked her over her for nearly an hour. By then Anne was hanging limp in her bonds, spiritless and defeated.

He stopped, put his instruments away and refreshed himself. He congratulated her on her initiation, and on (he graciously allowed her all the credit) overcoming her resistance to him after the first few minutes.

He spoon-fed her dinner of gray paste. He even held up the bowl for her to lick as a reward, then cleaned paste off her nose and chin with a damp cloth. Anne was afraid to speak, but she smiled her thanks to him. She would have kissed his hands if he let her. After he left an attendant hosed her off and let her dry in the evening breeze.

The lawn showed a different aspect in the fading light. The butterflies had retired to their nests and the honeybees to their hives, but the mice ran about foraging for dinner. A single hummingbird scanned the flowers before returning to its mate, and a squirrel chittered in a tree above her. Anne wondered what he made of the day's proceedings beneath his home. How many girls had been bound there and lashed into surrender while he went about his business? A feeling of contentment, of acceptance, filled her.

Francis - he told her his name - was right when he predicted she would look forward to being whipped. It was a revelation to her once she "overcame her resistance"; she was grateful for the sensitive way he stripped her of her defenses.

Later she found the purpose of exhibiting her, besides introducing her to the staff and the members, was to begin her training in submission.

Other areas of instruction were obedience, and skill in performing the services they required of her. Some girls' bodies were modified as well; Anne would be "opened up" daily until her owner was satisfied.

After she dried off they took her down from the frame, still pink from her whipping and covered here and there with darker lines. An attendant led her to the clubroom, a large wood-paneled chamber with high ceilings and padded furniture, to be introduced to the members. Paul awaited her inside the doorway. He took her leash from the attendant, and she stood with her head down while he described her as "needing experience in everything" and offered her to the group.

He led her to a large oak table in the center of the room and made her climb on it. At his orders she crouched down on her elbows and opened her legs for inspection. She lowered her head but an attendant put his hand under her chin and pulled it back up; they wanted to see her face, she must not try to hide it.

A crowd of members came forward. Two men, one on either side of her, grasped her hanging breasts and played with them, swinging them back and forth and squeezing the nipples.

A pair of attendants pulled her buttocks apart; someone stroked the tender ring of flesh between them and she began to moan. She knew she was forbidden to make sounds but she could not help herself. She wondered if she would be punished for it.

Not tonight, though; they seemed to like her noises, they laughed and encouraged the man behind her who pressed the opening and began to insert something into it.

Meanwhile another man (or more than one, she was confused, she could not tell) ran a hand up the inside of each thigh from her knees, very slowly. The snail-like pace was agony to her and she moaned again more loudly. After an eternity of crawling ever closer he reached the top and pried her lips apart. No, they did, she was sure now that two men were working her.

And a third began to explore the moist opening between while the other two held it wide for him. Her head swam, too much was happening all at once; the man behind her had entered the narrow opening and was probing her there too.

It was all she could do to hold her place. Someone saw this and attendants grasped her hands and feet to steady her. Her moans changed to incoherent noises that made the audience laugh and cheer on the men inside her.

When they had enough of this exercise they retreated and Paul helped her to stand on the floor, wet, dazed and panting. She cried out when someone goosed her, a little mouse-squeak that made them laugh again. But Paul told her she was off to a good start and she smiled up at him, pleased to have done well and to be of value to her new owner.

They were all eager to take her at once; one of them produced a pack of cards and they drew for priority. She blushed to see Mr. Grant look at her and take a card. A director of the academy had her draped over him as he sat back in a leather chair; he idly penetrated her while her legs flailed and the members worked out the order of precedence.

The king of spades took her leash and led her to a private room where he made her kneel and serve him. The king of clubs was next, but he needed a riding crop; while he waited, the jack of diamonds and the ten of spades used her from behind. By the time the deuce of hearts took his turn in her Anne was as mindless as an anvil under a hammer. The last man was annoyed at her groans as he worked her over, unaware that the members ahead of him left her bruised and raw.

Someone led her to her cell and left her on the floor in darkness, filled at every opening with the seed of countless strangers. Alone and fearful of what tomorrow would bring, Anne lay curled in a ball, too sore to sleep and too tired to cry. Her formal education had begun.

The next morning -