The Convent

THE CONVENT, PART 2

by Zenna Swallows

Ryan mopped the last part of the floor and straightened his aching back. There was no need to worry about letting a groan escape his lips, because he couldn't make a sound of any sort. But he was also careful not to show any discomfort on his face.

There were a lot of painful lessons he'd learnt during the months he'd spent at this godforsaken convent. But one of the most important was not to present to the world anything other than what Sister Mercy called an expression of "beatific acceptance." It was okay not to smile. But any sign of distress, much less annoyance, was considered "unholy."

If any of the nuns caught him wincing, he would be lucky to get away with just a spanking.

For the same reason, he had to ignore the discomfort of having a full bladder. He could still remember that horrible early training session, at which he'd been forced to drink large quantities of water, then stand naked with a tray underneath him and try to hold it in. Any grimace or jiggling of any kind would quickly bring a painful electric shock. But in addition, any urine that gushed or dribbled out of him was transferred from the tray to a cup - and he was forced to reingest it.

It took him several painful and humiliating hours, but he eventually steeled himself to stand still and expressionless long enough to satisfy his instructors, while his bladder threatened to explode inside him.

Because that was what the nuns of the Blessed Order of Saint Pilarupta believed in: complete obedience, allied with iron self-control.

At the end of his shift, he stopped for a moment to recite his prayers. Then he went to the bathroom, took off and carefully folded his initiate's robe, pulled down his panties and tights, and sat down on the toilet.

Even there, in the privacy of the cubicle, he did not allow himself the luxury of showing relief as he emptied his bladder. It was too dangerous. What he was forced to do in public - and there were eyes, not to say cameras, almost everywhere in the convent - it was vital he do in private as well. Just so that he didn't slip. There mustn't be the slightest hint of disobedience, ever.

That was not how he'd started, of course, on the fateful day he'd woken up in the convent to find that he'd been imprisoned by what seemed to be a group of insane women.

He'd kicked and struggled, even if he couldn't scream because they'd somehow removed his voice. But he'd been weakened by whatever drugs they'd given him, not to say the ordeal of being suspended in chains over a bed of spikes - and being compelled to eat out his chief tormentor, Sister Mercy, as the price of his release.

So he hadn't been able to do much when two hulking nuns in red robes - denoting their status as servants, as he later discovered - had hauled him off naked to a bathroom, where he was scoured (the word cleaned just didn't seem adequate), shaved from head to toe, then covered in some sort of foul-smelling gel that seemed to burn its way into his skin.

Left in a cell, securely trussed, he could only wait until the gel did its work and the burning subsided to a mere tingling. He wasn't to know it then, but in the months to follow, the hair that the servants had shaved off him would not regrow.

His next stop had been some sort of surgery, at which a black-clad nun had given him a brisk and businesslike medical examination, before conducting two procedures that both shocked and terrified him.

The first involved his cock and balls - or what was left of them. They seemed to have shrivelled to a fraction of their normal size, as a result of something done to him the night before, while he'd been sleeping off his erotic encounter with two sexy young novices. He felt what was left of his balls somehow being pushed back into his pelvis, before a freezing spray was applied to his shrunken manhood. He would have leapt off the treatment table, if he hadn't been held so firmly by the two servants.

After that, he could feel very little of what was being done to him and didn't want to look. It was not until he stood up that he discovered to his horror that his genitals had completely disappeared.

All he saw now was a mound of what looked and felt like flesh, with a slit in the middle of what appeared for all the world to be labia. He thought for one dreadful moment that he'd actually been given a pussy.

There was, of course, no vagina. But the nun explained that a short tube had been connected to the tip of his buried penis, meaning that he could only now pee through the slit. As he was to discover, the cunningly designed prosthesis was glued to his flesh so firmly that he would have to tear his groin open to remove it.

The second procedure involved a small device being inserted deep into his ass and fastened in place with more of the fake flesh that had been used to cover his genitals. The nun told him that it had two functions.

One was to administer a painful and debilitating electric shock, which could be triggered by any nun nearby, using a button embedded in a signet ring they each wore. Ryan was given a demonstration that quickly convinced him she was telling the truth.

The other was that the device operated as an alarm. If he went anywhere he wasn't supposed to, including outside the building that would be his home for as long as his training lasted, a security alert would be issued.

After that he was given several injections, then taken to what was evidently a wardrobe mistress. She began by measuring his head and body, then gave him a pair of pink panties and matching pink pantyhose to put on. He hesitated, but an electric jolt in his backside quickly persuaded him to don them.

He was shown how to roll up the nylon of each leg of the tights, push his foot into them, then unroll them up his leg. They felt strange against his newly smooth limbs. A pink corset was also fastened around his torso, the laces drawn so tight that he could scarcely breathe.

Next came the robe, which was essentially a long-sleeved smock, in a bold pink whose colour made Ryan wince. He pulled it over his head and discovered that the skirt reached all the way to the floor. A red cord helped cinch it around his waist and stop it billowing out with every move.

He was given red leather ankle boots to wear, with raised heels that initially made walking rather difficult. A headdress, pink with a white headband, completed the outfit. He was also issued with spare panties and tights, as well as a frilly pink nightgown in which to sleep.

Walking (or stumbling) out of the surgery, dressed as a nun and holding a collection of lingerie, Ryan thought his humiliation was complete. But there was more to come.

He was taken to a dressing room, where Alice and Veronica, the two novices who had delivered such ecstasy the night before, spent fully half an hour applying makeup to his face. By the end of it, he could barely recognise himself, especially with nothing now but his painted face visible. He didn't look like a woman, exactly - but nor was he a man either.

The white-clad novices gave him a folder with what seemed to be a huge amount of information about makeup and instructions on how to apply it, together with a prayer book and rosary beads. T

hey then escorted him to a large chamber with around 30 beds. After stowing everything he had been given in a small cabinet next to one of the beds, he was shown and allowed to use the bathroom. He had no option but to sit down and pee, his painted face burning with new humiliation as he was reminded of his emasculation.

The next stop was a kind of common room, in which he saw various silent figures in red, white or pink gowns sitting alone, either reading or just lost in their thoughts. None of them spared him more than a glance. The novices showed Ryan to a chair, gestured at him that he should stay there, and left.

After a couple of minutes, Ryan looked around, ascertained that nobody was paying him any attention, and then quietly walked out of the common room.

After checking the corridor outside was clear, he headed straight for the window he had marked a little earlier - the one that looked out over the grounds of the convent. After unsuccessfully trying to open it, he shielded his face and drove his elbow through the glass. Quickly clearing the fragments, he tumbled through the opening and dragged himself to his feet.

He had taken no more than a couple of steps before a searing pain in his rear brought him to his knees. He had thought that the warning about the device implanted in him setting off alarms was just a lie, to fool him into not trying an escape. It hadn't been.

By the time Sister Mercy reached him, scant moments later, he was curled up in the grass, howling wordlessly. She stared down at him and pronounced, in a tone of mild disapproval: "You have forfeited the privileges of initiate status."

Her gaze lingered for a moment, then she turned and left him where he was. Ryan suffered through another half an hour of exquisite agony before two servants were sent to drag him inside, and the pain finally ceased.

The whipping that followed left his back and bottom raw. It was not, all things considered, a surprise. But what happened to him next he could not have anticipated.

Thinking back on it now, months on, he still found it hard to credit. But rather than put it out of his mind, he deliberately kept the memory fresh, to remind him of what he had to lose if he didn't play by the Order's rules.

He had been stripped of his clothing and his makeup was cleaned off, and not gently either. Strange braces were attached to his knees and elbows, with short chains and struts running between them. By the time they were all connected, he could not straighten his arms or legs, nor bring his hands together. He was then dragged down to a cellar and locked in one of a row of low cages.

For the period that followed, he was forced to live as nothing less than a dog. His food and water were given to him in bowls, which he could not pick up. Eating and drinking meant lowering his head into the bowls and doing the best he could with his mouth and tongue.

Twice a day, a lead was attached to a collar around his neck and he was taken for a walk in the garden - on all fours, naturally. While outside, he was not allowed to relieve himself - that had to be done inside his cage. He was forced to live with the stink until both he and the cage were hosed down, which happened only once a day.

All that was bad enough, not to mention the crippling pains in the limbs he was unable to straighten. But the worst thing of all was the occupants of the cages either side of him.

They were men - of a sort. Like his, their bodies were hairless and bore the marks of frequent beatings. But they had no braces or restraining chains, and yet held themselves and moved as if born on all fours.

And they could growl, a horrible and menacing noise that kept Ryan awake for long hours each night, as he sought to stay in the middle of his cage and out of the reach of the hands periodically clawing at him through the bars.

Not, he thought, that they wanted to hurt him, The huge erections that obscenely rose from their groins every time they looked at him for any length of time suggested that they had quite different plans...

After an exhausting and terrifying week, Sister Mercy came to see him. She didn't beat about the bush.

"You have a choice. Either you can do what you're told, and go through your training as an initiate. Or you can share a cage with these two."

She jerked a thumb at the creatures in the adjoining cages, who were watching the nun with a wariness that suggested they knew not to make any trouble in front of her.

"I do believe it's breeding season. Perhaps you'll give them the litter they want. Or perhaps not."

Ryan opted to cooperate.

So here he was now, months on, and settled into a routine. He would spend part of each day on menial chores, and most of the rest in prayer or at lessons, with a small amount of free time for either reading or meditation.

The prayers, which he had to learn by heart and recite with his lips moving, invoked the Great Goddess, who would deliver women from the evil of men. He was also given a variety of catechisms to work through, while holding his rosary beads.

As for his lessons, they had a single subject: The Feminine. He learnt not only how to dress and move as a woman, but about the superiority of that gender. He was taught about what famous women had done to aid and advance humanity - and about the many more whose achievements had been blocked or obscured by the tyranny of men.

To aid his understanding of the subjugation of women, he was forced to conform to what his lessons told him was an archetype of female beauty, as conceived by male oppressors. Hence the lingerie and in particular the makeup, on which he was forced to spend at least half an hour each day.

Nobody ever told him as much, but he became extremely adept, not just at applying the products he was given, but designing different looks. He figured that if any of what he had come to think of as the senior nuns disliked his colour schemes, such as the purple, gold and turquoise combination he was sporting today, they would have shown their displeasure - probably though a good thrashing.

But it was not just his superficial appearance that had been feminised. His body was being changed as well, in response to the pills and injections he was regularly given.

Some of the alterations were slow and subtle enough that they might be attributed to imagination, especially with no photos to look back on for comparison. Maybe his bottom wasn't plumper than it had been, or his hips wider. Perhaps the narrowness of his waist was just a product of the corset he invariably now wore. Maybe his general loss of muscle mass was caused by his spartan diet. But there could be no mistaking the breasts that were now swelling on his chest...

Then there were the periods. He had panicked the first time he had started bleeding out of his anus, especially after a couple of days of stomach cramps. But the doctor had smirked when he went to see her, using pantomime to explain his symptoms.

She told him that he should get used to the bleeding and pain, as they were being used to simulate what menstruating women had to put up with. They had become a familiar if unwelcome part of his life at the convent, especially since they did not arrive in any kind of consistent pattern.

Those pseudo periods aside, the only thing that ever really disrupted his routine, or that of the other initiates and servants with whom he lived, ate, studied and slept, were the senior nuns.

The white-clad novices weren't seen that much, and when they were around they didn't cause any trouble. But the women who wore black robes, the only ones whose voices ever punctured the eerie quiet around the convent, were another matter entirely.

At their whim, they might administer spot checks or tests on initiates such as Ryan, examining their appearance or asking them questions to assess what they had learnt, either through simple yes/no questions or answers written on slates.

They could also mete our sanctions for slackness, inattention, disrespect or "lack of devotion," a catch-all category that might cover anything from showing fatigue to choosing the wrong shade of lipstick. If they felt so inclined, they could ask one initiate or servant to spank another, or administer corporal punishment themselves, or have the miscreant hung in chains. But as often as not, they simply touched their ring and delivered an anal zap. And if another device-wearer just happened to be in the radius of the control signal... well, that was just too bad.

They were also entitled to demand sexual gratification from those they held in captivity, at any time and in any location. Most often they would drag an initiate, or less commonly a servant, into a separate room for this purpose. But a few, of whom Sister Mercy was a leading example, preferred to take their pleasure in full sight of others. Those called upon to satisfy a senior nun in this way were sometimes asked to use their hands. But more commonly they would be required to set their mouths to the task.

Hardly a day went by without Ryan walking past a senior nun leaning against a corridor wall, her legs spread and her gown drawn back, while a young initiate knelt before her and lapped away at the older woman's naked quim. Assuming, of course, that Ryan himself was not the one whose skills as a cunnilinguist had been requisitioned...

As Ryan made his way from the bathroom to the dining room, he saw two of the senior nuns coming towards him and wondered if today might once again be his turn to assume the position and deliver the required oral pleasure. But although the sight of him prompted one of them to whisper something to the other, who stared at him and then laughed, they acknowledged his respectful nod and allowed him to pass. He automatically stifled the relief that might otherwise have shown on his face and entered the dining room.

There were a smattering of others inside in red and pink robes, but he paid no attention to them and headed straight for the food. Early on during his stay at the convent, he had wondered how the others in pink, and the generally older ones who worked as servants, had come to be trapped here. Had they volunteered, or been coerced or blackmailed as he had? He had also thought about trying to find a way to communicate with them, to see what they could tell him about the convent, and possibly to plot a way out.

But after his horrific experience in the cage, he had decided fairly quickly to stifle any curiosity and keep himself to himself. He knew literally nothing about his fellow inmates, not even whether they were men or women - and didn't care. They weren't his concern. He suspected that some of them had developed forms of sign language to speak to one another. But he considered it far too risky to try that. If he was going to escape, he'd decided, it would be through playing along and lulling his captors into a false sense of security. Once he saw a real chance to get out, he would take it.

The strange thing though was that he had also found a kind of peace at the convent. Oh, he missed some things from his former life: the fine food and wine for one, not to mention the chance to fuck beautiful women (including his girlfriend, if he didn't have any better alternatives available). But even sex was becoming a fading memory, especially with no physical arousal to remind him of how it felt.

As for the rest of his pampered life, which had always been a product of his family's accomplishments, never his own - well, he didn't miss all the fake friends, the backbiting, the petty ambitions, or the tedium of the job he pretended to do at the bank. There was something more honest in cleaning floors. At least you could see what you'd achieved...

He was lost in thought, sitting alone at a table eating, when the tap came on his shoulder. He looked up to see two novices that he'd never seen before. As with everyone of their rank, their beautiful faces were impeccably made up. One of them beckoned him to follow them and he stood up obediently, not making any attempt to question what was happening. After all, he couldn't ask them anything, and they couldn't answer.

They led him down several corridors and up flights of stairs to a part of the convent in which he'd never been before. He was ushered into a well appointed study, with a carpet on the floor - the first he'd seen at the convent. Sister Mercy was sitting behind a desk, to which a computer console was attached at a right angle. She swung around to face him, motioned the novices to leave, and then stared at Ryan.