Page 20 of Punished and Trained
I finished washing quickly, focusing on mundane thoughts to calm my racing pulse. When I stepped out of the shower, towel wrapped around my body, I found the other women emerging from their stalls with troubled expressions and reddened cheeks that seemed to me to indicate similar experiences to mine in the shower.
“Dress quickly,” Mistress Nurana commanded. “The luncheon bell will sound in five minutes.”
The dining hall seemed an example of the controlled elegance Euporian design obviously favored, with a long wooden table and benches arranged precisely next to it. We sat together at one designated table, our schoolgirl uniforms making us look like agroup of old-fashioned students rather than grown women being systematically broken down and rebuilt.
The food was simple, but nourishing—soup, bread, and fruit—served by silent staff members who avoided eye contact. As we ate, I found myself studying my classmates more carefully. We were all here for different reasons, but we shared the same expressions of bewildered humiliation.
“I never imagined it would be like this,” Palla whispered, glancing around nervously to make sure no staff members were within earshot.
“What did you expect?” Morandra asked quietly, wincing slightly as she shifted on the hard bench.
“I don’t know. Something more… civilized, I suppose.” Palla’s voice was barely audible. “On Hippolyta, they told us the Academy would be educational, that we’d learn useful skills.”
“We are learning,” said Lara, the woman from Euporia who had been mostly silent until now. “We’re learning exactly what they want us to learn.”
I found myself nodding despite myself. The Academy’s methods were brutally effective precisely because they stripped away every pretense, every comfortable lie we might tell ourselves about our situations. There was no hiding from the reality of what we were becoming.
“The worst part,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, “is how my body responds to it all. Even when my mind rebels, my…” I couldn’t finish the sentence, my cheeks burning with shame. Instead, I found myself plunging into a confession. “I have a governor… you know, the Prosperian thing? … down there.”
“A governor?” Trellama asked softly, her eyes wide. “The thing that tells your… husband… exactly what you’re feeling? Every moment of arousal, every spike of need?”
I nodded miserably. “Not my husband—my…” My mouth twisted to the side. “My master. And… you know… it lets him control me… down there.”
The thought that Mistress Orela or even Prince Hendren himself might be monitoring my responses even now, watching the data stream from my most intimate moments, made my stomach clench with equal parts humiliation and unwelcome excitement.
“At least you have someone who cares about you,” Palla said, her voice thick with unshed tears. “When we go to our Guardians’, that’s all I have. I’ll be handed over to complete strangers without a master to keep watch.”
The reminder of our impending assignment to Guardian couples cast a pall over our quiet conversation. I tried to imagine what it would be like—being examined, instructed, used by people I had never met, while Prince Hendren watched from afar like some perverted patron of the arts.
“Ladies.” Mistress Orela’s crisp voice cut through our hushed discussion. “Finish your meal quickly. You have afternoon lessons to attend.”
We ate in silence after that, each lost in our own anxious thoughts. When we were dismissed, I caught Lara’s eye and saw something there that looked almost like pity. As the only Euporian among us, she understood the system we were being fed into better than the rest of us. The knowledge in her gaze was more terrifying than anything the instructors had told us directly.
The afternoon lesson was galactic history, taught by Mistress Orela herself in a different classroom lined with star charts and political maps. I had always prided myself on my knowledge of interplanetary relations, but the version of history presented here cast everything in a radically different light.
“The Wild Years on Earth,” Mistress Orela began, gesturing to a holographic display showing the ancient home world, “represent a crucial period that most egalitarian worlds have chosen to ignore or misrepresent.”
I leaned forward despite myself, genuinely curious. On Artemisia, the Wild Years had been glossed over in our educational curriculum, dismissed as an unfortunate period of regression before humanity spread to the stars.
“Following the worldwide economic collapse, traditional governmental structures failed completely,” Mistress Orela continued. “In the chaos that followed, natural hierarchies reasserted themselves. Strong men took control of their communities, their families, their women. It was brutal, yes, but it was also functional.”
The holographic display shifted to show images of the period—men in positions of clear authority, women in supporting roles, children protected within rigid family structures. Despite my intellectual objections to what I was seeing, I found the orderliness strangely appealing after the chaos of my own recent experience.
“Most important,” Mistress Orela continued, her voice taking on an almost reverent tone, “women during the Wild Years reported higher levels of satisfaction and psychological stability than they had experienced during the preceding decades of so-called equality. When the burden of impossible choices waslifted from their shoulders, when they were freed from the pressure to compete in arenas unsuited to their nature, they flourished.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, the hard wooden chair reminding me of my position here. The historical account felt like a direct attack on everything I had once believed, yet I couldn’t entirely dismiss the evidence being presented. The holographic displays showed communities that had survived catastrophic social collapse through rigid hierarchical structures that placed men in command and women in supportive roles.
“The early colony ships carried these lessons forward,” Mistress Orela said, advancing to the next series of images. “Worlds like Magisteria and Euporia were founded on principles learned during humanity’s darkest hour. We understood that survival required acknowledging biological and psychological realities that more ‘progressive’ worlds chose to ignore.”
The display now showed the founding of various worlds throughout the galaxy—some embracing traditional structures, others pursuing egalitarian ideals. A complex web of trade routes, conflicts, and alliances connected them all, but certain patterns emerged. The traditionally structured worlds seemed more stable, more prosperous, less prone to the internal strife that had plagued planets like mine.
“Miss Viola,” Mistress Orela said suddenly, making me start. “As a former head of state, you have unique insight into these matters. Tell us—did the pressures of leadership bring you satisfaction, or did they create stress and anxiety?”
The question was a trap, and I knew it. But sitting in this classroom, wearing this ridiculous uniform, my body stillhumming with the aftereffects of the morning’s exercises, I found it difficult to summon my old certainties.
“The presidency was… challenging,” I admitted carefully. “There were many sleepless nights, difficult decisions that affected millions of lives.”
“And did you ever wonder,” Mistress Orela pressed, “what it might be like to have someone else bear that burden? Someone stronger, more naturally suited to command?”
