Slaves of Irontown Page 4

  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. ’

  Turning aside from the string of three now damp-eyed girls, Bradawl said to Miss Trunnion: ‘I’ll take the first one in for adjustment and see if I can put a little iron into her soul. ’

  Miss Trunnion unhooked Cam’s leash from its hook and handed it to Bradawl, who led her through into the Preparation Room. Mel saw a flash of white tiles and heard a faint whimper from Cam and then the door closed behind them.

  At times during the next twenty minutes Mel thought she heard machinery running and muffled yelps of pain coming from behind the Preparation Room door. It was unpleasantly like being in a dentist’s waiting room while waiting your turn. By her side Bolt was also listening. Instead of showing sympathy, however, she glowered angrily and shuffled her feet, looking about the room as though searching for some means of escape. This show of defiance was all very well, Mel thought, but she could have shown a little more concern for others.

  After one particularly piercing yelp penetrated the door Miss Trunnion looked up from her keyboard and screen and said:‘It only hurts for a few seconds,’ which Mel did not find very reassuring.

  Finally the Preparation Room door opened once more and Bradawl emerged. He was now in rolled shirtsleeves and wearing a red rubberised apron and was leading Cam on a leash behind him. She was red-eyed, trembling and walked awkwardly. As he hooked the end of her leash back up and she lifted her head Mel gulped as she saw what he had done to her.

  The least of it was the schoolgirl flat black shoes and white ankle socks she now wore and the pink and grey-striped tie that hung between her breasts. Then there were the heavy metal cuffs encircling her wrists and ankles and the metal collar with inset tether rings locked about her neck. Where she had a label stuck on her forehead “CAM 031” was now stamped in bold black type directly onto her skin. The same characters were also emblazoned across the upper slopes of her buttocks above their cleavage and on her pubic mound just above the apex of her cleft. All her pubic hair had been neatly shaven off. Worst of all, however, were the large silver rings that now deeply pierced both her brown nipples and both pairs of her labial lips.

  When Bradawl had said he’d put iron into Cam he’d meant it literally…

  ‘Why, she looks beautiful, Headmaster,’ Miss Trunnion exclaimed, even as Bolt growled in rage beside Mel.

  ‘Yes, she does,’ Bradawl agreed. ‘Now who’s next? ’

  As Mel gazed into Cam’s dazed and pain-filled eyes, Miss Trunnion unhooked her leash and handed it to Bradawl.

  The Preparation Room was lit by more barred pebble-glass windows and lined with white tiles, cupboards and glass cabinets filled with many different boxes and jars and unidentifiable glittering devices, and a small workbench. In the centre of the room was a large black vinyl medical examination couch fitted with gynaecological stirrups. What made Mel shiver was the sight of the many thick restraining straps dangling from its sides.

  Bradawl shut the door and looked Mel in the eye with a masterful gaze. ‘Are you going to give me any trouble? ’

  Mel shook her head. At that moment she was too dazed to think about resisting.

  ‘Good. It’s not a sign of weakness to accept the inevitable and surrender yourself to your fate with dignity, you know, though I suspect Bolt 184 would disagree. Now let’s have a proper look at you…’

  He lifted her chin. ‘A nice fresh-looking little cog,’ he observed. He cupped and squeezed Mel’s breasts casually, making her wince. ‘A fine pair of breasts with good, thick, hard nipples. Don’t worry, girl, that’s perfectly natural. ’He squatted down and fingered her pubes, making Mel shudder. ‘Full, thick and pliant labia with plenty of flesh to hold a ring firm. ’

  Mel had hung her head in shame as they examined her, blinking tears from her eyes. He was handling her as if she was a dumb animal in an auction

  ‘There will be some pain. Do you need to pee first? ’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Right, bend her over the couch so I can stamp your haunches…’

  Trembling, Mel forward over foot of the couch between the spread stirrup frames and lay face down fearful and shivering. She could smell female scent impregnating the vinyl. How many more girls had lain here before her? She twisted her head round. Bradawl was fitting large rubber type letters into a set of three different sized holders. They all read “SPRING 157” in reverse.

  Bradawl swabbed a strip of skin across the top of her haunches just above the cleft of her buttocks with some sort of spirit that left it cool and dry. Then he inked and pressed the largest of the printing blocks against her. Mel flinched but she felt only the cool firm pressure of the stamp.

  ‘This is indelible ink, 157,’ Bradawl explained. ‘I’ll retouch it every month or so. ’He pulled the block away and examined the result. ‘A neat impression. Anybody using your rear can read that when they have you. ’

  He used an electric hairdryer to dry the mark to prevent smudging. Then he said:‘Right, let’s get you strapped down properly. . . ’

  Sick with mounting fear, Mel turned and laid herself across the couch on her back so that her head went between the jaws of the vice, which Bradawl screwed tight. A thick rubber bit attached to the vice plates replaced her ball gag. With her tongue Mel could feel deep tooth marks indenting the rubber. Heavy straps went across her chest above and below her breasts, and her hips. Freeing her wrists he pulled her arms down to her sides and strapped them at the wrists and elbows. Bradawl spread her legs wide and slid them into the moulded knee and calf supports, securing them with straps across her thighs and ankles. Now her legs were drawn up and bent with her thighs wide open, showing her most intimate private parts. Except that she had no “private parts” now, she realised. Her body was open for all to see…and worse.

  With her feet hanging in air out of the ends of the stirrups and her sex gaping wide Bradawl measured her feet. From a cupboard he brought out a pair of white ankle socks and simple black school-style shoes with single straps and low square heels. When he was sure of the fit he used a hammer and punches to stamp her part name and number into the straps.

  ‘You are responsible for keeping them clean and polished,’ Bradawl told her.

  With her feet so modestly covered the rest of her looked even more exposed. Bradawl then set to work removing her pubic hair, clipping her honey-tinted bush short with scissors and then applying hot wax strips that he ripped off her mound, pulling out her stubble by the roots and making her yelp and clamp down on her bit. He finished the procedure by applying a cream that stung horribly.

  ‘That’ll inhibit any regrowth for a couple of months,’ Bradawl said. ‘Meanwhile you’ll stay smooth as a peach. ’

  Mel blinked back tears. Her bare vulva now felt doubly naked and exposed.

  He swabbed down her forehead and newly depilated sex with more sprit, then carefully applied the second smaller bowed type block he had prepared to her forehead. The third, with the name set above the number, he pressed to the mound of her pubes above the apex of her cleft. In a hand mirror he showed her the results. Mel shuddered. She now had an identification mark where she had previously had pubic hair. Anybody looking her in the face could see her new name and
number printed neatly across her forehead.

  ‘You’re beginning to look like a proper flesh cog, 157,’ Bradawl assured her, patting her head as you would a dog. ‘Now we’ve got to get a bit of iron into you. These will help you function more efficiently with any machine you are assigned to operate. ’

  He brought over a tray of equipment and set it on a stand by the couch. Mel swivelled her eyes round as far as her head clamp would allow and saw an array of small shiny steel devices, some with clamps and some with needle tips of different shapes and sizes, together with plastic ampoules, cotton swabs and four shining silver rings. She began to whimper and strain at her straps.

  ‘Hold still, 157,’ Bradawl told her sternly. ‘You don’t want to make a mess of this, do you? ’

  Mel froze in horror.

  He used disinfectant swabs to clean her nipples and pubic lips and then clamped a tong-like device to her right nipple. Its jaws had aligned slots in their centres. Under its pressure her nipple started to go numb. Bradawl smiled down at her frightened face.

  ‘I’ll fit you with standard labial and nipple locks to start with,’ he said, holding up a slender padlock with ring-like hoop. ‘They work on a common key. That way they can easily be swapped for other fittings as required. ’

  He took up a thick short needle on a handle with a guide flange that engaged with the jaws of the clamp. The needle was coated in a fine translucent film.

  ‘Years ago we had to wait a couple of weeks for piercings to heal before we fitted full-sized rings. Now the bodkins leave bioplastic sheathes coated with local anaesthetic coagulant inside you. They seal the sides of the fistulas so you can be ringed and used right away. There’ll be a few drops of blood but not much. The sheath dissolves when you’re healed. Now you bite down as hard as you like on your bit because this is going to hurt a little…’

  Mel shrieked as the cold steel lanced through her nipple while hot tears filled her eyes. As if in sympathy her left nipple pulsed with blood so hard it hurt.

  Bradawl deftly slid the end of the padlock ring back through the tiny passage as the bodkin withdrew and clicked it shut. The padlock hung from her burning nipple against her trembling breast. By the time he had repeated the process for Mel’s left nipple she was crying steadily. A little blood leaked from the incisions that he quickly swabbed up.

  He used a curved needle for the thick flesh of her outer labia, aligning it with the holes he had bored through her shiny pink inner lips just above the mouth of her vaginal passage. Mel shrieked and strained so hard the couch shook but Bradawl took no notice. The ring padlocks threaded through her nether lips were a little larger than those in her nipples. They glinted against the flushed pink of her abused vulva like the handles of doors on the entrance to her interior.

  Bradawl dabbed away a few last drops of blood and then stood back to admire Mel’s trembling body in which flesh and steel were now inextricably joined.

  ‘You look fine,’ he assured her.

  By now Mel was so exhausted from repeated highs of shock, pain and fear that she simply wanted to crawl into a warm dark hole, curl up and sleep and find when she woke that this had all been a terrible dream. However, the Headmaster was not finished with her yet.

  He measured Mel’s ankles and wrists and then from a cabinet of restraints selected two pairs of steel cuffs with convex sides, hinged in half, with inner lining of black rubber. Recesses had been cut in the middle of the outside face of each half. Across one recess was welded a curved bar about which a shackle could be locked. From the other recess protruded a sprung bolt snap hook, such as might be used to secure a dog leash.

  Freeing her wrist and ankle straps, Bradawl snapped the cuffs in place, locking them with slender keys. They felt very heavy. The snap hooks were now set facing each other on the inside of the cuffs.

  Bradawl brought her wrists together in front of her so that the cuffs clicked together and then he twisted. The bolt snaps engaged, securing her wrists. ‘One way locking,’ he said. Taking a slender key hanging on a belt chain he inserted it in a small hole in the side of one of the cuffs. The bolt withdrew and he pulled them apart. He made the same test on her ankles. Now she could be cuffed at any time according to the whim of those around her, or else secured to some other chain.

  ‘A common key,’ he said, holding it up for Mel to see. ‘Everybody in Shackleswell carries them. ’

  He put a tape measure round Mel’s neck and then selected a steel hoop collar, also rubber lined. It was hinged at the back and had a ring the size of those in her labia hanging from the front. Like the cuffs, smaller semicircles of thinner rod were welded across recesses cut out of the sides while the rear hinge pin had been formed into a vertical “D” ring.

  Bradawl worked over it for a few moments at the bench with a small power tool and then came back to Mel. She saw: SPRING 157 had been engraved along its outer sides. He freed her head from the vice and snapped the collar shut about her neck. It felt cold and heavy.

  From a box he brought out what looked like the knot and tail of a pink and grey-striped school tie without a collar loop.

  ‘This is the Gryndstone school tie,’ he told her. ‘The colours represent iron and flesh. Wear it with pride. ’

  The large pre-formed knot slid over her front collar ring so that it protruded out from under it and hung over the tail of the tie. Popstuds secured the upper end of the knot to her collar. The tie hung between her bare breasts with its point stopping short of her navel.

  ‘Now you’re beginning to look like a proper Gryndstone schoolgirl. ’

  Next Bradawl took up a small electronic box with a lead and jack plug that he plugged into a socket in her collar. ‘You’ll learn the proper way to converse with your masters in lesson times but the collar will teach you what is prohibited twenty-four hours a day. ’He pulled the bit from her mouth and held up a small card in front of her. It was printed with a list of two-dozen of the most common and much overused expletives and obscenities. ‘Read them aloud as though you mean them,’ he told her.

  Too fearful to ask why, Mel obeyed. Bradawl had her repeat the list three times then he unplugged the control box. ‘Now try again. ’

  ‘Fuc - awww! ’

  As she had started to shape the word contacts into the front of the collar protruding through the rubber lining had stung her throat with a short sharp electric shock, causing her larynx clench up and stifling the rest of the expletive.

  ‘There’s a sensor and language chip built into your collar linked to a power cell and capacitor,’ Bradawl explained as she blinked back tears. ‘It’s now programmed to recognise the words on the list as you pronounce them and give you a warning. Before we had to use whips and tongue clamps but after a few weeks in your collar you won’t even think about using those words ever again. Shackleswell girls don’t foul their mouths with bad language. We have better uses for them. ’

  Even though she rarely swore, Mel felt the completeness of their control over her had gone up another step. From now on, even when she was able to use her mouth her words would be censored.

  Bradawl had a length of chain in his hand and clipped it to the collar ring. He undid her straps and gave her new leash a tug. ‘Get up, 157. ’

  She had no choice but to obey. Choice had been taken from her. Awkwardly Mel climbed down from the couch. She was frightened to bring her thighs together for fear of disturbing the padlock rings, which felt enormous and unnatural as they hung in the throbbing sockets pierced through her flesh. What they would have felt like without the protective sheaths and anaesthetic she could not imagine. As she moved they clinked together faintly. Her nipples pulsed about their own rings that swung with the motion of her breasts. They were standing up harder than she had ever known, almost as though they were proud to display them. Her body was such a traitor to her.

  ‘Head up, feet apa
rt and hands behind your neck, 157,’ Bradawl ordered.

  Mel obeyed. Bradawl circled round her toying with her new rings and stroking the letters and numbers stamped on her body. What must she look like in her neat white socks and school shoes? She closed her eyes, bit her lip, and shivered with every touch, acutely aware of the ring locks hanging free from her pudenda, tugging on her sex lips, the cold weight on her nipples, the absurd tie hanging between her breasts and the hard heavy ring about her neck.

  ‘I think you’ll be a credit to the school,’ he declared.

  He cuffed her wrists behind her back, popped the gag ball back in her mouth and led her out into the office where he hooked her leash up beside Cam’s. Cam flashed Mel a shy glance of commiseration. Bolt jerked against her chain and swayed threateningly.

  Bradawl eyed Bolt thoughtfully. ‘Miss Trunnion, perhaps you would assist me with preparing our last pupil. ’

  ‘Certainly, Headmaster,’ Miss Trunnion said.

  Bolt was in the Preparation Room for nearly half an hour. Through the door Mel and Cam heard many muffled grunts, squeals of pain and Bradawl’s voice snapping out commands to Miss Trunnion. Clearly Bolt was not cooperating. During the last ten minutes they were also distracted by a rising swell of excited voices from outside the pebbled windows. It reminded Mel of the sounds of a school playground. Well, that was logical enough, but who was out there and what were they doing?

  When Bradawl finally emerged leading Bolt on her leash, he was robed and wearing his mortarboard once more. She was fighting back tears and trying to look hard and defiant. However like Mel and Cam she was now shaven, stamped, ringed and cuffed, with a Gryndstone tie hanging between her breasts and schoolgirl socks and shoes on. Following on behind her Miss Trunnion looked flushed and gazed at Bolt in open disapproval.

  ‘At least you look like a Gryndstone girl now,’ Bradawl was saying to Bolt. ‘The rest will come in time. The school is a machine and it will mould and plane and grind you down until you are fit to serve. ’