“… has only had tame, highly egalitarian sex as far as we can tell—and of course as you yourself know we can tell a great deal.”
“Oh, no,” Viola whispered.
“So,” said Major Harrow, drawing my wide eyes to his bearded face, “Sara, my dear, you can imagine I think how difficult it must be for her to watch you receive the training she knows she needs just as badly.”
Another little sound came from Viola, and she began to move the cloth again, almost roughly, making me shudder as I felt the governor restrain my pleasure once again.
“That’s enough, girl,” said the prince. “Start cleaning the carpet, now.”
The deposed president moved away and suddenly Major Harrow stepped forward to stand right at my side. I gave a little cry of surprise as he put his arms underneath me and gathered me up out of the exam chair at last. He held me close against him for a moment, his synth-wool uniform feeling scratchy against my naked skin.
I tried for a moment to keep myself from putting out my arms and clinging to his chest, but I couldn’t: my body simply wanted what it wanted. I gave a little sigh that I would have done nearly anything in my power to keep from emerging and then I wondered, just for the second before my guardian started to carry me to the president’s bed, whether he meant me to feel what I couldn’t help feeling despite the absurdity of it: safe and secure in his arms.
I gave myself over to the feeling, because I couldn’t find any alternative except to think about what I would have to do once my guardian laid me on the bed. I couldn’t do that, because it made things so much worse between my legs. I clung to Major Harrow, and he carried me as if weighed nothing at all, turning toward the enormous bed with its purple coverlet.
“Philip,” I heard a man’s voice say. A new man, saying a new name.
“George,” my guardian replied, to my surprise. Was the major’s namePhilip? I felt my breath catch in my throat. How could such a conventional name affect me that way?
“I’ve got what you were asking for,” said the new voice.
Major Harrow—Philip?—had paused for a moment between the chair and the bed. Now he took the final step, and he replied to George as he laid me down on it, on my back and half sitting up, propped up against what felt like a giant cloud of pillows.
“That’s great, thanks. Bring them over here, if you would.”
Them?
The owner of the new voice appeared: another Magisterian officer, tall and bearded, his hair a reddish blond. Not quite as handsome as Major Harrow, but in the same breathtaking range. I had expected him to have something frightening in his hands: two whips, perhaps, or a set of cruel-looking restraints. Instead, he held a flat black box that looked as if it had come from a pricy boutique.
“Sara,” said my guardian, “I’d like you to meet my friend Lieutenant Saint-John. He’s the director of your broadcast tonight. He’s brought a present for you.”
I looked from his face—Philip, I thought with continuing surprise that Major Harrow had a name like that, though I didn’t really know why—to the lieutenant’s. The director smiled at me in a businesslike way I found strangely reassuring, despite the terrible embarrassment that the idea of ‘my’ broadcast had evoked in me.
I looked back at Philip and saw that he had gone from expectant to slightly disappointed, presumably at my silence. I had failed to respond like a well-bred young lady on greeting a friend of her guardian. It apparently didn’t matter that the young lady had no clothes on and was being prepared to do dirty, shameful things in front of a camera, for the lewd edification of millions of people; in Philip’s eye I could see the promise of a paddling if I didn’t do as I should.
“I’m…” I stammered out, looking back at the director. “I’m pleased to meet you, Lieutenant?”
His smile didn’t waver. “Likewise, Sara,” he said. “Here you go, Philip.”
The lieutenant handed the incongruous box to my guardian.
“I’m going to tell Jim and Gary—they’re your cameramen, Sara—to get set up, if that’s alright. And do you want me to bring the…”
He glanced back at me, as if a little sensitive to my feelings as to what he meant to say next, then returned his attention to Philip.
“… the training device?”
Philip chuckled, and he too looked over at me before replying to the director.
“The anal plug,” he said. “Yes. Sara had better get used to hearing her training discussed frankly. Bring me the Number 1 from the set in the chest, please. And do have them set up, please. It’s time for Sara’s first lesson.”
From the direction of the exam chair, where I had nearly forgotten Viola still worked to clean up the mess I had made, I heard her let out a little sob. I looked over there, past my guardian’s purple-uniformed hip, to see that she, on all fours with her terribly red bottom bare and framed by tucked-up skirt and lowered panties, had turned her face to look at me.
Between my thighs, I felt the tingle of the governor’s horrid moderation; knowing Viola had just heard about thisNumber 1made the heat surge all over my body. I furled my brow and looked back at the former president angrily, my sympathy for her gone at the very idea that she could think it might be acceptable for her to look at me when she knew what she had done.
“That’s enough, Viola,” said the prince, putting his hand possessively on her head and twining his fingers in her hair. “Come with me, now. You’ll see Sara later on this evening at the live broadcast. Sara, I know you’ll be a good girl for your guardian.”
He smiled at me before he looked back down at Viola, who had started to rise from the floor.