Chapter Seven: Formal

It took some time to come to terms with my latest punitive transformation. While the change in my overall weight and stature seemed to be more or less proportional each time - and, therefore, I was technically being changed less each time - each one also took me further and further from the realm of the normal and therefore felt much more significant. If the change after I'd been caught breaking into A010 had been a hard pill to swallow, this one was a bastard of an enema.

The changes prescribed in our behavior plans were intended to nudge us toward whatever 'proper' behavioral pattern and mindset our guardians desired. In my case, that of a meek and helpless person. And, I had to say, those nudges were disturbingly effective. Given my size and my mandatory 'absurd-twintails' hairstyle, I felt like a tiny doll of a person among my peers. Even among my fellow littles. Little Michelle, still looking all of twelve years old, had three inches of height and some pounds of weight on me. She was also stronger than me, too, and it wasn't particularly close. Against my better judgment, I let her goad me into an arm wrestling match, and she beat me handily three times in a row.

"Come on, Natalie, are you even trying?"

"Yes!" I snapped. "Of course, I'm trying. I have tiny twigs for arms now!"

"They're not that bony," Simone said, presenting a spindly, mocha-dark arm for comparison.

"Okay, maybe not, but I've also got like zero muscle. It's embarrassing!"

It was also inconvenient. Heavy doors and even my modest school backpack gave me trouble, and my short stature put a lot of things out of reach. If I was further reduced, I might need a chaperone to navigate the campus. Cecilia sure got a kick out of it, though. During breakfast, she approached our table and made a show of crouching down to my level. The seats weren't particularly high off the floor and, even so, my little feet were dangling. Cecilia leaned into me, her expanse of bosom pressing against my shoulder and her platinum-blonde tresses dangling past my face.

"Hi, sweetie," she said softly. "Are you lost? This is the breakfast time for the Beginner girls, not the Juniors. Do you need somebody to walk you back to your room?"

"Fuck off, Cecilia," I said. "I'd rather be fifty-seven inches tall than have an IQ of fifty-seven."

She snorted. "You really don't get it, do you? The more you resist us, the deeper the hole you dig for yourself. If you don't give up soon, you'll find yourself buried."

"I heard that Headmistress Lily disciplined you, too," I said with a shrug. "I guess poise and elegance aren't part of your behavior plan."

That earned a giggle from Simone and Helena. Anger flashed across Cecilia's face and she grabbed my slim shoulder. Her grip was painful and, frankly, unbreakable with my current strength. She forced me to face her and pressed her forehead against mine until our little button noses almost touched.

"Listen, bitch," she seethed.

"Get your fucking hands off my roommate," Cassie said, nudging Cecilia hard enough that it almost knocked me off balance.

"Mind your own business, Cassandra."

"My friend, my business," she said. She leaned in and whispered so we both could hear: "If you don't back off right-fucking-now, I'll sink your ass in the lake again. Do you think I won't?"

Cecilia stood and huffed. "Consider this a warning," she said, and stormed off.

"Do you really have to provoke her?" Cassie sighed.

"I didn't storm over to your table. She's the bitch here, and if Cecilia comes here looking for shit, I'll hand her baggies all day long..."

"What are you going to do? Cute her to death? Be careful, Natalie, that's all I'm saying."

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks, mom." Simone and Helena giggled again. Cassie winked, ruffled my hair like she might a kid sister, and rejoined the Bigs. I was twenty-six and she was sixteen, for fuck's sake.

+++++

While I couldn't escape the week without further conflict with the Bigs, I did escape the week without further formal punishment. That, in of itself, was a minor miracle. I even managed to catch the change my latest transformation had introduced to my school uniform before Mrs. Sturm did - instead of blue or green ribbons for my pigtails, I was now required to wear pink or peach. Why? I would find out later, but it was inscrutable at the time.

The pennants and decorations of the Harvest Pageant stayed up throughout the week - and, in fact, we littles were expected to dedicate some small amount of time each day to make sure they kept ship-shape. Somebody kept taking down streamers and leaving them on the ground, and we had to put them back up. Rather, Simone did. Even on my tiptoes on the step ladder, I was a few inches shy of reaching the right spot. I wanted to name Cecilia as the culprit, but I had no evidence to back that up.

That week, we littles were diligent and dedicated to our work - to our service tasks and to our classwork. Not because we were especially enthused by either, but because it helped keep our focus off of the week's capstone: the Harvest Formal with the St. Lovelock's Academy for Young Gentlemen. Where most of the other girls were going boy-crazy, excited to be socializing outside of school for the first time since school started... excited to be socializing with boys for the first time since school started... I outright dreaded it. So did the other littles because, from the sound of it, we were being offered up as meat on the chopping block.

"I won't let anything happen to you," Cassie reassured me. "We'll play it cool, and you'll be fine. You'll see."

I didn't need her protection... rather, I didn't want to need her protection. But I might need it, all the same. And I needed her to be in her right mind on the night of the formal. "What about you?" I asked. "What are you going to do?"

"I'll wear my dress and see where it goes?" She held the shimmering cloth against the beyond-decent curves of her body and mimed a waltz. "It's going to be so fun!"

"I mean, what are your boundaries? Kissing? Beyond kissing?"

She sighed and lay back on her bed. "Beyond kissing," she said. "Definitely beyond kissing. But not, you know..."

"Fucking?"

"Ew!" She threw a pillow at me. "Right. No sex... but if I like one of the boys, then lots of grabby hands. Mine and his." She picked a tennis ball from the side of her bed and squeezed it suggestively. "This is going to be so great!"

"For you maybe. You're beautiful, you have a beautiful dress, and you'll have the pick of the boys. I look like a little kid, I'll be wearing a maid's uniform, and I don't even like boys."

Cassie rolled to face me and counted off her counterarguments on her fingers. "First off, you don't look like a little kid. You look like a little, suuuper cute sixteen year-old. Second, you aren't wearing your service uniform. The Bigs get to pick what their littles wear from the school wardrobe, and I'm obvs letting you wear whatever you want. And third, so what if you don't like boys? I don't like girls, and I've had lots of fun with you!"

"Yeah... about that," I said. "Hate to break it to you, Cassie, but I think you might be bi."

"Ew!" She wrinkled her nose. "Really? No... it's just because I'm cooped up with a bunch of girls. That's all. I think."

"Want to bet?" I eased off of my bed and gauged her response.

"Huh?... What do you mean?"

"I mean you're going to be getting down to business with the boys of St. Lovelock's, right? How much 'experience' do you have with the opposite sex, president-of-the-robotics-club Cassandra Petersen?"

"Co-president," she said uncertainly.

"So... little to none? Well, not to toot my own horn, but I have lots of experience in this field, twelve years of it, and I'm glad to offer my expert services to my roommate-and-sworn-protector. But there's a catch, mon amie: you'll have to make out with a girl."

In typical Cassie fashion, she visibly considered it, the little gears in her head clicking under the forces of a thousand variables. She stood from her bed and approached me, brow furrowed and looking down at my tiny frame - at five-ten (and one half), Cassie stood a full head and a half taller than me. At 148 solid pounds, she weighed almost twice what I did. That was clearly factoring into her calculations. "Won't... won't it be different?" she asked.

I nodded - no use in denying the obvious. "A little," I said. "But less than you might think. My mouth is smaller. I can't sweep you off your feet and kiss you. But there's a lot of - eep!"

Cassie swept me off my feet and kissed me. Just like that, she pulled me into a kiss, the sweet smell of her shampoo and the perky mint of her mouthwash filling my senses. She kissed me inexpertly - her tongue and lips were fumbling, and her arms were rigid... but I soon showed her the error of her ways. And, as small as I was next to her, it was a boon in some regards. She could follow by example - I showed her how to lead without leading. I showed her how to slide into a lap with perfect face alignment. I had lots of experience as the bigger, stronger partner, but I'd also learned a lot by induction. We made out, my heart aflutter, my body aglow and lost in the sensations of the moment. Suddenly, Cassie was pushing me away, and there wasn't much I could do to resist.

"Natalie..." she said. When I moved back in with my tongue, she held me back. "Natalie." Her hazel eyes looked deep into mine.

"What? What's wrong?" I sat side-saddle on her lap, worry playing across my face.

"I'm definitely, definitely bi," she said.

+++++

The 'school wardrobe' was disappointing. Rather, it was very good, which I didn't care for. I'd hoped I might find a neon green mumu that would ward off any potential Lotharios. Or, barring that, maybe comfy sweats and an oversized t-shirt, and I might don those and spend the formal snoozing in some cozy corner undisturbed.

No such luck. It was all skirts and dresses, and all were appropriate to an evening out. There were no sizes listed on anything - just four or five racks of women's wear ranging from semi-casual to red carpet formal. None of them were as nice as Cassie's dress, but none of them would be offputting to a suitor, either. And none of it looked like it would remotely fit me, so that was a pretty good excuse in of itself. Sorry, can't go, couldn't find a dress!

"This one would be cute, right?" Cassie said, holding up a swishy black a-line dress with a white patent leather belt.

"I don't want to look cute," I said. I flipped through a few more options and had to admit - given the choices available, Cassie's wasn't bad. Of course, it would never fit me - all the better. I shrugged. "Fine, hand it over."

I stepped behind the privacy screen - why, I couldn't say. It's not like Cassie hadn't seen me naked and more a score of times already. I put the thing on… it was absurd. I managed to get the straps to dangle off my narrow shoulders, the chest draped low enough that the top half of my bra was visible, and the hem of the thing fluttered limp at mid-shin. With its tightest cinch, the belt still slid well past my waist. I stepped out from behind the screen, already rolling my eyes.

"Hmm," Cassie said. "Turn around."

"Why?" I asked, but I was already turning around. Then Cassie plucked out one of my hairs. "Ow!"

It must have been a component for some sort of sizing magic she'd learned. Whatever she'd done to make her own formal dress fit, she did that to me. Suddenly, the black dress fit my tiny size perfectly, the top accentuating my modest bust, the belt snug around my eighteen-inch (really!) waist, and the dress flaring out nicely and swishing about just past mid-thigh.

"You look so cute!" Cassie squealed.

And I hated to admit it, but she was right. I looked beyond cute and at least a little bit sexy. I was always cute dialed up to eleven, with my mass of fiery hair, smooth, barely-freckled complexion, sparkling emerald eyes, and little pouty cupid's bow of a mouth. Now, with a dress that actually accentuated that I wasn't a little kid, the hotness dialed up a few notches, too.

"I can't wear this," I sighed. "Every straight guy in the place is going to buzz like flies to honey."

"Buzz buzz," Cassie said, goosing my rear through the fabric. "But don't get too high on that horse, little miss. Wait until you see what I've got in store."

It was her turn to slink back behind the privacy screen for her reveal - though she was tall enough that I could see the top of her head bobbing up and down as she fussed with her dress. Her hand reached up, plucked out a hair from her own head, and she did her wardrobe magic. And what magic. She stepped out and left me speechless.

"How do I look?"

"Uh..." was all I could say. She was phenomenal.

Cassie was already hot enough without cosmetics, and when she did employ them, she was sparing in their use. Even tonight, she was only a bit past sparing, but the effect was striking. Her hazel eyes smoldered behind her brushing of eyeshadow. Her lips were wet and ready to kiss, her cheeks on the verge of a coy blush. And the dress. Sweet Krishna, the dress. It wasn't an especially daring thing - the high of the high-low only rose just past her knees, but the waist really accentuated her hips, the exposed back accentuated that she could row the hell out of a crew boat, and the chest accentuated that you had to blow past two vowels before reaching her cup size. The chiffon of the midriff was just gauzy and translucent enough that you could see abs and a glittery naval piercing beneath it.

"You got a naval piercing!"

"Yep! Eva showed me how to do a magical piercing... she's actually super nice for a Big. Her cold bitch thing is for show. To keep Cecilia and Jordan at bay, you know?"

"Sure," I said. I had to admit - among the Bigs, Eva had never given me any grief, and what snide and belittling comments she'd hurled my way had been the minimum to maintain decorum among her clique.

"So... you like?"

"Mamma likey," I confirmed. "I'm not sitting first chair in the hotness section tonight."

I wasn't even understudy, obviously. The other Bigs, in my (possibly biased) opinion, weren't as hot as Cassie. Only Cecilia was vaguely close, and her chronic resting-bitch-face and active-bitch-personality knocked her down another few notches in my estimation. I know some guys who really go for that look, but to me it's always seemed like more trouble than it's worth. If a woman looks like she's just smelled a turd whenever she's around you, it's hard to imagine that she's having a good time, and that has always detracted from my own enjoyment. Make of that what you will. The other Bigs weren't as hot as Cassie, but that was like saying an 8.5 earthquake isn't as awesome as a 9.5 disaster. Definitely true, but still plenty newsworthy. When compared to my mere tremors of hotness along a 500-mile subduction zone of tectonic cute, I didn't have much to worry about.

I was collared, but Cassie didn't leash me - neither, now that I noticed, did Eva leash her poor, ditzy Emi. The other three girls were led out by their Bigs to the waiting limousine. There were thirty limousines in all, a huge procession of them lined along the single cobblestone road leading into the St. Circe's campus. Thirty limousines to transport the 150-ish girls in the Beginner and Advanced cohorts to the Harvest Formal.

We walked out in the cool autumn evening, the trees having changed over the course of the week to golden and russet-red, some of them shedding leaves and half-bare, and some of them more beautiful and multihued than I'd ever seen a tree get before. I walked next to Cassie, distracted at my own hair, now that it was down and I was wearing a sleeveless dress. My hair jostled all around my shoulders, dangled down to my ass, and was more voluminous than anybody's hair had any right to be. I'd always been a hair guy (in addition to the many other fetching parts of a potential partner), and if I'd seen a woman with hair like that, I'd have considered it a major plus. Honestly, though, it could be a huge pain in the ass. Literally - I was small enough that I had to worry about sitting on it.

"After you, my sweet," Cassie said.

I'd been distracted, lost in thought. We were already at the limousine and she'd opened the door for me. I offered a smile and got in, marveling at how huge the interior of a limo was to little old me. Then Cassie got in, and Eva and Emi and Jordan and Simone, six of us in all, and then the limo was off, rumbling down the cobblestones toward the Old Abbey and the St. Circe's / St. Lovelock's Harvest Formal.

+++++

At some point, the cobblestones became smooth stone, but the transition wasn't obvious. Looking out the window with more than a little anxiety, I watched as we transitioned from the autumnal, wooded St. Circe's campus to pastoral countryside (no hint of forest aside from a few distant copses) and then to the ascending, vineyard-dotted hills of old country leading up to the castle-like edifice of the Old Abbey. The driver opened the door for us and we slid out with well-conditioned grace.

"This is where all of the whole-school formals happen," Jordan said to Cassie. "It's kind of, like, neutral ground. I think somebody used to have a school here, but it's been years and years since the place was shuttered. Now we get the run of the abbey two or three times a year."

"Are, um..." I said. "Are any of the faculty here? You know, chaperones?"

"Aww, she's scared," Jordan smirked. She tossed her fiery hair, tittered and shimmered in her tight blue dress, and leaned down until we were face to face. "Don't worry, munchkin, one or two teachers will be there. And don't worry, they'll protect you about as much as they did during the Harvest Pageant. What did Ms. Basil tell us, Eva?"

Eva tapped a carnelian fingernail against crimson lips. "Be bright, be beautiful, be engaging, be a lady, and do St. Circe's proud?" she recited.

"And, unless I'm mistaken," Jordan said, "a good little obeys her betters. Do us proud, babydoll."

She tapped me on the button nose and rose back to her full height, about as tall as Cassie, a bit more lithe and willowy, and positively towering over me in her four-inch heels - I had two-inch wedges that I managed quite well in, thanks to Ms. Law's relentless drilling on posture, gait, and balance.

From the driveway, we proceeded into the Old Abbey with the other girls - and, when we arrived, the gentlemen (boys) were already waiting for us. What confronted us was some prep school nonsense that, being an erstwhile brother in Sigma Epsilon Alpha, I knew a bit about. The sort of stilted, choreographed social ceremonies that hearken back a like a hundred years. The sort that, whenever I heard one of my brothers speak of them with reverence or seriousness, I thought just a tiny bit less of him. It was for fun and for pomp, nothing more. In this case, the young men of St. Lovelock's were waiting and lined up along the entrance hall, the line stretching back and ascending along the big curving stairwell that lead up to the upper gallery. They stood at attention in their tuxedos and three-piece suits. And, as we filed in and assumed our little formation in the foyer, they shouted in unison,

"Welcome to the abbey ladies!"

Then about five boys on each side popped champagne bottles in celebration and another six or so filed out from each side to present a bouquet to each of the girls from the St. Circe's 'delegation'. Cecilia, of course (her platinum hair drawn up into elaborate braids and her white dress sparkling with pearls and diamonds), accepted the flowers on behalf of the C-wing girls. She quelled her resting bitch face and looked flattered and gracious. I probably looked like I wanted to gag.

There was champagne, but the drinking was light - we were all underaged, after all, and there was plenty else to get up to - mostly chatting and dancing at first. The abbey's entry hall had been remodeled to resemble a hybrid of a castle's great hall and the entry of a mansion, with a large chandelier-lit open area in the middle, twin curving stairs of rose marble bannistered in mahogany gilt with gold leaf, and a grand gallery looking over the hall. In a ballroom just beyond, I could hear the pulse of pop music and see the gyrating forms of two dozen dancing teenagers.

"Care to drink and dance?" a boy said.

I frowned and turned to face him, only to find that the comment was directed at Cassie - of course. Who would choose me when they could have her? The boy was tall and dark with a douchey little man-bun, and I judged him harshly - most of the boys here were sixteen or seventeen and (presumably) none had yet been alloyed by the crucible of a collegiate party experience. Amateurism abounded. But Cassie responded, her face lighting with a smile that no actress on earth could fake, her graceful hand covering her mouth to demurely giggle when he whispered something, and then the two of them wandered off without a further glance back at me, Cassie's roommate and sworn protectee.

"Care for a dance, beautiful?"

This comment was directed at me. A lean boy of about fifteen with ginger-auburn hair almost the same color as mine. He extended a hopeful hand. "Fuck off," I said, and marched off.

Cassie was nowhere to be found - I assumed she was in the dance room, but I did not want to go there. A girl my size could easily get caught up and pulled into the thick of things. Instead, I lined up for punch and hors d'oeuvres, garnering a fair number of looks - first, because, when not shadowed in Cassie's glorious penumbra, I was actually disarmingly pretty (or so every half-glimpsed image of myself in a reflective surface indicated); and second, because I had a Collar of Contrition and a Command Collar jangling around my slim neck, which made me a marked woman.

"Ooh, this one looks like trouble," one of the boys said, a tall blond boy, broad and handsome and clearly full of himself. He ran a finger along the chrome surface of my Collar of Contrition until I pulled away. He chuckled.

"Oh, not so much trouble," Cecilia said, sidling up to the boy and letting him put an arm around the small of her back, his hand upon her taut, silk-encased flank in a vaguely possessive way. "No trouble if you know how to control her."

With that, she took a sponge, moistened it from a vial she had in her patent leather clutch, and rubbed it around my collar. Obviously, it was some of the ritual water used in the control ceremony - I guess it stayed good for a while and she'd had the foresight to save some. A chill ran down my spine - she would be, I assumed, much more adroit than Cassie, given her much greater experience. Then I felt the power of her command - or, rather, lack thereof. It was a tiny little impulse, actually, several-fold weaker than anything Cassie had tried on me.

Still, I played along, paying close attention to the commands and letting them control me. It took a lot of my attention because they were so weak compared to Cassie's. To Cecilia's credit, those commands were weak but nuanced. I sidled up to the boy's other side, smiled, and leaned my russet-haired head against his shoulder.

"What would you do with me?" I asked coquettishly (again, at Cecilia's command).

"Hmm... you're so small and pretty... I'm afraid I'd break you," he said. "But I have a few things I'd like to try."

I smiled prettily again and whispered into his ear. "Try a goddamn thing and I'll break your fucking dick off," I said.

"What the fuck?" He looked angrily to Cecilia.

"That wasn't me! What the fuck, Natalie?"

"Fuck you, Cecilia!" I spat. "You and your bullshit control fetish can kiss my ass!"

Before she could react, I stormed off, angry and tearing up. Cecilia shouted something behind me, but I ignored her. I stormed up the staircase along the gallery, harrumphed when I got to the landing, and then glimpsed Michelle being led off by her silvery leash by a blond-haired boy. One of his friends elbowed another student and chuckled, "he said he likes them young," and the two high-fived one another. I thought about storming after him or telling off the friends, but somebody grabbed my shoulder and pulled me away.

"Don't be stupid, Natalie," Simone whispered. She'd hidden her Command Collar beneath the high collar of her dress - something that I couldn't do with my thin-strapped number and its expanse of exposed shoulder. "What would you do? That boy is more than twice your size?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "But it's not right. We're people, not playthings."

Simone frowned and nodded. "Tonight, I think we might be both. Just try to make it through without getting yourself raped or punished."

I nodded and sighed - she was right. What could I do? We walked to the back of the abbey, out to a little balcony overlooking the gardens. The paths below were studded with torchlight and I could see at least a dozen couples strolling about, many of them hand-in-hand, some of them kissing or whispering sweet nothings to one another. The boys of St. Lovelock's in their tailored black or gray formal suits, the girls of St. Circe's in their shimmering, swaying, sweeping dresses of a dozen elegant colors. I wished I could feel those wonderful butterflies of young love instead of the cauldron of terror and rage churning in my small chest.

"Can I sit with you two?" a boy behind us asked.

"Fuck off," I said. Simone shrugged.

"I don't want to be here, either," he said. He just stood behind us.

I looked back - he was a pleasant-looking boy, brown-haired and well-muscled but not overly tall. Average or a bit above, I guessed - about as tall as spindly Simone and a lot bigger than me.

I sighed. "Fine." I patted the marble of the balcony next to me. "You can sit... no funny business."

"I'm Magnus."

We shook hands - his palm utterly dwarfed mine, but he was gentle. "I'm Natalie. This is Simone."

"Hello," Simone said.

"I thought that maybe if we were talking... that if I struck up a conversation with you two... nobody would bother us? I saw the thing with Lucian - the big blond guy - and that blonde girl from your school. I just found out about the collars they make some of you guys... girls... wear earlier tonight. Like you're indentured thralls or something? And... uh... yeah. That's really fucked up."

"Yeah," Simone said.

"It's just one of the dozen ways they try to control us," I said. I made a mental note to look into 'indentured thralls' when I had the chance. "They made me this small with magic. They made me look like this."

Magnus nodded, his eyes pinpricked with the lights of distant torches in the garden below. "I always wished I was pretty," he said, surprising himself a bit with the statement.

"You wish you were a girl?" Simone asked.

Magnus blushed. "No, not exactly."

I gasped. "You were a girl!" He and I shared a look, and I think he figured the same thing in reverse about me.

I forgot all about Simone - I was fixated on the boy. His expressive face, his brow knit in worry. I hated to admit it, but part of me found him attractive. I clearly had conflicting ideas about what I liked, and I wondered how much of my mentality had changed. The old Martin would have been scandalized. But that wasn't it - in his face I saw an earnestness that a small part of me knew I could exploit. He might get in trouble for revealing too much, but I was starved for information and he just might have some. I shamelessly grilled him on his change and, clearly against his better judgment, the boy told me what little he knew:

Magnus had been one of two twin girls… and her father, wanting a son, had taken the lesser of the two, the homely and ungainly Maggie, the daughter dealt the genetic short straw against her pretty and gregarious sister, and sent her to St. Lovelock's to shape her into the son he'd always wanted. A suitable heir to the family empire. Super sexist, but that's old money for you. To make it happen, he'd paid some ungodly sum for the services of a specialist who, with the right ritual and in the right circumstances, could warp the very fabric of reality in a way that few, if any, other magic users were capable of. Magnus had heard on good authority that the specialist wasn't even human, but from some other realm.

"He was tall and pale with dark eyes - like no whites - and a broad-brimmed black hat," he said.

"Doctor Heirophant?" I asked, for the description was almost spot-on.

Magnus shrugged. "I don't think so. I don't know if I caught a name, but it was definitely Professor something."

I heard giggling behind us and turned to see Emi wandering down the hall with a slightly-drunk boy. She nodded excitedly, the tresses of her golden blonde hair bobbing everywhere. "Yeah, I want to see something really big and special!" she said.

I leapt to my feet and started back inside.

"Natalie, no!" Simone hissed. Sorry, Simone - I was going and that was that.

"Emi?" I said. I approached the two, looking confusedly between her and the boy. "Did the headmistress say your curse had run its course? You really shouldn't be with a boy if your curse is still popping up."

"Curse?" she said confusedly.

I looked to the guy and shrugged. "She fucked a guy with some kind of curse, and she's been ditzed-out for weeks. We hope it'll wear off soon, but if the headmistress says it isn't contagious anymore, I guess it's fine."

The guy looked at Emi and bit his lip. I saw the gears turning in a very Cassie-like way, considering a thousand variables, the two biggest ones being: am I horny enough and is she hot enough to make this worth it, in the off chance that the little chick is telling the truth? The answer relayed back down from the forebrain: Negatory. Abort.

"Um... I'm going to go get a drink. I'll be right back," he said.

"What curse?" Emi asked, twirling her hair.

"Go hang out with Simone and Magnus back there," I said, giving her a little nudge. "Magnus is a very nice boy, and I think he'd like it if you asked him to walk you through the garden. Okay?"

"Okay!" Emi said. "Where are you going?"

"Crazy, I think," I said with a shrug. "I'll see you later."

"Natalie! Natalie! Don't!" I heard Simone calling after me, but I didn't turn back.

I stormed across the upper gallery, stormed toward the big suite of rooms where I'd seen Michelle being led by the collar. My little wedge heels went click-click-click as I marched, but I felt like I was stomping down two ton weights upon the marble. I filled myself with as much self-righteous anger as I could manage and then managed a little more.

The suite I found was large, sumptuous, and fortunately unlocked. It was dimly-lit and decorated like the boudoir of a pleasure palace: thick gold drapes, big lounge pillows. Intricately-upholstered ottomans, Ming vases with fragrant explosions of poinsettias and daffodils, and a great big whirlpool tub near the middle. Maybe half of the couples in there were engaged in sex or quickly gearing up toward it, and the big hot tub was on the verge of becoming an orgiastic soup - all of it, apparently, just dandy with our respective academies. And near the back of Fuck Central Station, I found Michelle.

Michell was still with and her 'suitor' who 'liked them young'. She was frightened, legs spread wide and supine on a floor pillow big enough to be a mattress. She was topless, breasts practically nonexistent and clad in only her cutesy, pink-bowed panties. Her eyes were tearing up, her bottom lip was trembling, and it was clear that the only reason she wasn't screaming 'rape' was because her collar still had some degree of control over her. She could express her emotions, but she couldn't resist the advances of the boy from St. Lovelock's. But, I decided, I could resist them for her. The boy stripped himself of his tightie whities and crawled onto the floor pillow, slim and naked and visibly erect. And I took a running start and kicked him right between the legs, the wedge heel of my shoes making a little 'click' when they reconnected with my foot just as I connected with his naked balls. Bullseye - he grabbed his crotch, howled in pain, and toppled to the side of Michelle. As he vomited up oysters casino and struggled to recover, I grabbed a vase.

It was only a medium-sized vase, perhaps two and a half feet tall, and it took all of my meager strength to lift it. But I was running on quite a bit of adrenaline in that moment, and I slammed it on top of him with quite a bit of assist from gravity.

"Eat vase, you piece of shit rapist pedo motherfucker!" I screamed. The vase shattered, the boy groaned, and blood bloomed out from a gash in his head. I kicked him in the side one, twice, and then I felt myself tumbling.

Something went Thoom!, and suddenly I was pressed against the wall by an irresistible force. A man - not a boy, but a man of thirty-five or forty - stormed into the room, his face twisted in anger. He wore a fine three-piece suit, the dark pinstripe of the vest accentuating his slim waist, the gold chain of a stopwatch dangling from his breast pocket. His pencil mustache quivered.

"What is the meaning of this! You... you thrall-girl! You disobey your betters! You attack my student! I should turn you into a slug! I will turn you into a slug!"

With a glint in his eye, he pulled out... not a gold watch, but a glitzy pendant, and he started to chant. I tried to resist the force holding me against the wall, but it was firmer than any iron shackles. Simultaneously, I felt another energy, an energy far stranger and more horrible, coalescing in the space about him, and I knew that he was about to do something terrible. Turn me into a slug, if I had to guess. Then I felt the binding force falter - one hand fell loose and then my whole arm. My foot with its little wedge heel started to wobble. And, as I felt the man push his horrible energy toward me, I also felt something deep within me well up from... well, from the bottom of my womb. It was a strange feeling, sexual but not at all arousing, flooding throughout my entire body. The Control Collar fell from my body, the leather crumbling and insubstantial like burnt tissue paper, the amethyst gems of my Collar of Contrition went pop!-pop! with little violet flashes of light, and then the collar itself dissolved into sand. And, for the record, I did not turn into a slug.

"I will discipline my own student, thank you," I heard a woman say.

Sprawled on the floor, I looked up to see Ms. Law, prim as ever and only a thin arched eyebrow to indicate anger or disdain, standing next to the man.

He balled his fists, looked to her, and snorted. "She'd better get a proper punishment - I'll follow up on it."

"See to the boy's medical needs. I'll worry about my girls."

Ms. Law unbuckled Michelle's collar first, and an instant later my friend started to shake with sobs, suddenly released from the collar's control. Then Ms. Law lifted a boy's blazer from the back of a chair and wrapped it around Michelle's small shoulders. Gesturing me to her side with a flick of the wrist. Then, with a turn of her heels, she escorted both of us from the suite. Everybody had stopped their lovemaking - twenty or so students gaping in disbelief as we were led from that den of debauchery. The chaperon from St. Lovelock's squatted over his groaning, bleeding student, tending to his well-deserved wounds and muttering. The Lovelock's boy had been lucky. I'd have done a lot more than some kicks and a vase if I'd got another minute with him. As we walked out of the Old Abbey, Ms. Law gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

"Well done," she whispered.