by D. A. Maddox
Savannah obeyed him.
His eyes passed over the thin veil of the robe, her breasts, back up to her bare arms, down again to the curve of her hips. “Tell me you live to serve.”
“I live to serve,” she answered, annoyed to find herself shivering.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-one, sir.”
She found it odd, being interrogated for The Select by a man who taught Making the Transition to seniors. The Select didn’t believe in the transition. They believed in full citizenship at eighteen—among other things.
“Do you have cunt hair?” Professor Krantz asked.
Savannah gritted her teeth and nodded, sensing Scott’s blood pressure rise. He was right next to her, inches to her right. His hands clenched and unclenched.
“Answer aloud. Do you have cunt hair, or did you shave off your cunt hair?”
“I have … cunt hair,” she managed, letting the sentence go as though she’d been holding her breath.
Add one more to the list of words I never said before tonight.
“Are you natural?”
“I’m sorry, Professor Krantz. I don’t understand.”
“What color is your cunt hair? Keep those arms up.”
“Blonde, sir.”
“Answer with complete sentences.”
He knew. He could tell she didn’t talk like this. He was testing her.
“My hair color is natural, sir. My cunt hair is blonde, sir.”
“Do you trim your cunt hair?”
“I trim my cunt hair, sir.”
Professor Krantz stepped back from her. “The lineaments on this one are up to par,” he then said to Veronica. It was the closest thing to a compliment Savannah had ever heard him lavish upon anyone. “Coloring and attitude seem right for a future sub. Deference is close, workable. Obedient, given reasonable assurances. Guess the night’s not a total waste.”
“Glad you approve,” said Veronica. “And, Savannah? Dumbass? You can put your arms down.”
Professor Krantz moved on to Scott.
****
He didn’t linger in front of Scott long, and that was a good thing. Scott wanted to punch him. Stupid, he told himself. We signed up for this—literally signed up for it. She signed up for it. And this is what it is. You want to get through it, and she wants to get through it. Stay cool—for her sake as much as your own.
It just wasn’t easy. He’d done it, so far—was more than a tad proud of himself, for that much—and the night was getting on. It was 11:45. When did it end?
He hoped midnight. Then they could kiss goodnight, go their separate ways until tomorrow, and fast-forward to the new day via sleep. It would come easily, if only it would come soon.
“Shit,” Krantz said, taking him in. “These two really were made for each other. Kid wants to kill me. Guess we know where he’s headed.”
“Told you,” Veronica said, with an infuriating level of self-satisfaction. What the hell were they talking about, anyway? What had Veronica told him?
11:46. Try as he might, Scott could not make the second hand on the wall clock move any faster. He did, however, escape Krantz’s attention without having to go through anything like what Savannah had just endured. And as Krantz moved on to the next pig and another anonymous prof took it in turn to examine him, Scott felt a twinge of guilt for being let off the hook so easily.
From behind him, from another line in the square, a voice deep with aged femininity greeted a familiar student.
“Oh, look, it’s Terry Boone from my Wednesday five o’clock session! And this must be your lovely new girlfriend, Celia, whom I overheard you talking about at the café. Am I right? Sticking close together, are we?”
Scott stole another surreptitious partners’ glance with Savannah, both heads lowered, Savannah seeming to share in his thought: Good. We’re not the only ones.
“Yes, ma’am,” Terry quietly replied.
“Let’s see that macho derriere, shall we? Turn about, please. Yes, that’s a cute one. Okay, face forward again. Have you fucked my Terry yet, Celia?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Have you seen each other naked? Lots of young lovers like to get that out of the way before Origins. Takes some of the pressure off.”
From Terry: “No, Ma’am. We … we’re not allowed—”
“Oh, pish. Malcolm—oh, Maaaal-colm,” she called in a singsong voice.
And Malcolm, coming closer, answering: “Doctor Evans?”
“I’d like to see these two in the nude, please,” Doctor Evans said sweetly. “I want to make them look at each other all naked and in front of us. You know, see their first reactions.”
Goddamn it, Scott thought. What the fuck is wrong with these people?
But he had to admit the scenario was pretty fucking hot.
“Doctor Evans,” Malcolm started reasonably.
“Oh, just look at them thinking about it! What do you want to bet they both cry?”
“After the lottery, Doctor,” Malcolm said. “Soon as that’s done, if neither of them wins, we’ll bring them to you. You can make them do it then. Give ’em something to think about during the action—but not before. Lottery winners serve first. You know the schedule, ma’am, same as it’s been since—”
A regretful sigh. “Since time out of mind, yes. I wasn’t aware tradition still mattered under current student leadership.”
Silence.
Veronica heard, but she didn’t respond. She stood stock still, simmering with rage.
“It matters,” Malcolm said. “Nothing is more important than tradition, Doctor Evans.”
The doors opened again. Through them, each bearing one of the iron lottery bowls, emerged Tabitha and Zeke.
It was ten minutes to midnight.
It was time for the drawing.
****
Graciously as he could, Malcolm extricated himself from the oh-so-clever Doctor Evans and withdrew back to his control board.
She’d played him good, right there. Got him to say exactly what she’d wanted so that she could express what so many of them were thinking: Veronica was out of control, and he, Malcolm, didn’t have the wit or the balls to do anything about it. They wanted their inkwells and fancy pens back. They wanted “The Masochism Tango”, a song that had caused quite a stir in the early days of Bridgemont, back on the setlist. They wanted The Select to keep its secrets but tell no lies. They wanted their initiates hazed to the limit—but not beyond it.
You’ll see, old bitch. I’m fucking fixing this shit under your own blind eyes.
None of them knew—unless Krantz did. He had a sneaking suspicion Ronnie had told him she wanted the lottery rigged, much as her reason for revealing that eluded him. All she had said earlier was that she thought Krantz would suspect them, anyway.
Telling him is goading him, he thought. You’re crazy for doing it, Ronnie—not that it’ll matter.
Stealing a sidelong glance at the stage, he saw Zeke and Tabitha set the bowls on the altar, then saw Tabitha coming his way at a jog as Veronica made her slow, theatrical approach towards the stage.
“Stay on her,” Malcolm said, once Tabitha was in earshot. “We have no idea how much of that footage is gonna be usable, Tabby. We need as much as we can get.”
Tabitha marched to within an inch of him, but Malcolm didn’t flinch. Tabitha was stone cold—she could be downright fearsome—but she was a friend.
“I hate this,” she said with honest, unaffected, half-stifled outrage. “This is so unfair. It’s not the ‘chance’ they agreed to take—and it lets the others off. How can they be real members after not really being up for the lottery? Everything about this sucks.”
“It does,” he agreed, holding up his hands, palms up. “I hate it as much as you do, believe me. Not more, mind you—you’re fucking hard core—but just as much. And it has to happen—so we can end this. Judgment day is coming, Tabby. Right?”
She looked away from him. “Right,”
she reluctantly agreed.
“Sacrifices must be made. When the truth comes out, we’ll…”
“What? Apologize?”
Malcolm shrugged. Why not?
“There’s no apologizing for this. It’s too big. This is going to bother me forever. I’m a goddamned good fucking person, Malcolm.”
“Think, Tabby,” he implored her. “Seriously, think. We’re about to save The Select and put Veronica Cruz on Consequences, Live! so please, think.”
She took a moment.
“If she graduates Select, her successor will be someone who runs this shit just like she does.”
Tabitha nodded.
“So—still worth it, yes?”
She turned from him. “Still worth it,” she said, and stormed off.
****
The house lights went dark. A spotlight fell over Veronica, once again at the mic with the altar in front of her, the twin pairs of totem poles at either side. “It’s time,” she purred, making her voice reverberate in waves.
The Neutrals moved in. They detached the ropes, removed the stanchions, and hemmed in the pigs with a wall of humanity that was inescapable at every turn. The pigs clustered tighter, a collective reflex that could not be denied. They packed themselves in together, huddled as close as they could. A second spotlight shone down upon them.
“Won’t be you,” Scott whispered in Ritchie’s ear.
Ritchie looked as confused as Scott was disgruntled. “But how … how could she forget something like that?”
“Don’t sweat it, man,” Scott said, calming himself as best he could. “Take whatever good comes your way.”
Savannah pressed against him. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
From the stage, Veronica continued, “In keeping with tradition, the lottery is a Ladies-First affair, so let’s see…”
“It’s going to be me,” Savannah moaned into him, clasping her chest. “Oh, Scott, I just know it. It’s going to be me.”
11:59.
“You can’t know that,” he said holding her tight, both arms around her now. “Come on. It’s possible, but what are the chances?”
Veronica drew a name from the women’s bowl and read it to herself. She looked up, grinning.
At Savannah—right at her.
“What will they do to me?” she pleaded with him, already crying.
Midnight.
Veronica showed the ticket. “Savannah Miles,” she said, “you are one lucky girl.”
The pigs drew back from her, everyone except Scott.
“Seize her,” Veronica said.
And the Doms came for her.
Chapter Sixteen:
Presentation
“Better her than me.”
The voice was familiar, recent in memory. Not one of the Doms—four of whom, led by Tabitha, stepped into the space that had previously been The Pen.
It was Celia, whispering to her boyfriend, Terry. There she stood, in the instant before Savannah was taken, arms crossed over her chest as though she were the one in trouble, as though she needed to ward off attackers, or kidnappers.
She’d tried to be quiet—but no one else was talking, and Savannah had heard. She stared at her, stricken.
“Sorry,” Celia said, casually abashed. “Poor form. Oh, God. Really sorry.”
The order came from Tabitha, addressing the two males in her small squad: “Colt, Freddy—get her legs.”
Freddy she knew by his short stature and freckles—Veronica had addressed him directly back on the lawn. This was her first introduction to Colt, though, who was every bit as muscled as Scott and had shaved his head completely bald. They were total strangers, and yet they wasted no time coming for her—reaching for her.
“Wait,” Savannah said, forcing the word through her panic, still holding onto Scott, who clutched her tight. “Hold on, I’m not—hey.”
Colt and Freddy took up position behind her, ignoring her. Freddy grasped her by the calves. Colt wrapped an arm around her middle.
“Scott,” Savannah said, finding her voice squeaky, crippled with dread. “Scott.”
Tabitha: “Brandy, take an arm.”
“I’m here,” Scott said. His voice was shaky, too, eyes bloodshot. She couldn’t tell if his temper was getting ready to blow or if he was just overcome with defeat.
Brandy’s fingers clamped around her left elbow, constricting like small, bony snakes. She was lithe and strong—much stronger than Savannah would have guessed. Her other hand took her under the arm and shoulder. This close to her face, Savannah could see the nose ring was fake. She could smell the spray that held Brandy’s hair up in burgundy spikes.
“Don’t help me, Scott,” she said. “Don’t do anything.”
“I can’t,” he said, choking on the small words like they physically hurt him.
Tabitha took her other arm. And in spite of herself, her fists were still at Scott’s shirt, grasping it at the chest as he held onto her wrists. The four Doms lifted her from the floor, face-down, just like Superman if he needed four holders to make him fly, just as Melody had been lifted on the back lawn. Savannah cried out. Her mind raced: This is happening, this is happening. There’s nothing I can do.
Savannah un-fisted her hands, releasing her grip on his shirt.
Scott held onto her wrists, eyes blinking.
“Make this difficult,” Tabitha said, “and she pays for it, not you.”
And Scott mouthed the same words to her that she had mouthed to him back in the hall of feelers: These … people … don’t … count.
Savannah nodded, caught her breath and held it—until Scott let her go.
****
They turned her from him, facing her toward the stage, then walked with her through a thin aisle between the rows of student observers seated in cheap, plastic Uncommon Café chairs. Held in this way, it would be impossible for Savannah not to kick, to not try to wrest herself free. Lying limp would hurt like hell.
She tried to look over her shoulder, back to Scott. Also impossible.
So touching, Veronica thought from her vantage point on the stage. So moving. So tragic.
Bringing the first lottery winner, the female, face-down and off the floor was standard practice at the Fete. In such a position, being hauled away from one’s safe space never failed to make an impression. It encouraged compliance, too. To be sure, the Pen would not, at first, have felt like a safe space—but it quickly became one as everyone inside of it came to represent “us” and everyone outside of it came to represent “them”. Of course, the only pigs who ever fully realized this were lottery winners.
“Let me go!” she yelled. “I can walk!”
Veronica licked her lips.
That she be taken by multiple people, preferably strangers of both sexes, was most effective. To be delivered by unknown escorts inspired not only considerable humiliation in the female sub, but also a profound understanding of her own helplessness. The escorts would not speak to the lottery winner, neither to threaten nor to comfort. They were a force, like hurricanes and tornadoes. They were inevitability made flesh.
“I said, let go! I won’t try to run … please.”
Are you wet yet, Savannah? They said you got wet when they touched you in the hall.
Really, Veronica did not understand the appeal from the sub’s point of view. In all of her three and a half years in The Select—six months as the ranking Skull—none of the other members in any of the castes had seen her in a position of real vulnerability. No one had seen her naked. Even as a plebe (she didn’t think of herself as a “pig”, not even when she was one), she’d managed to keep her purity robe the whole night. She was a Dominant from two previous generations of Dominants, both of whom had risen to the Skull before her.
“Why won’t you listen to me? Oh, God, oh, shit.”
She was halfway to the stage. Her gaze flitted, wide-eyed, between Veronica and the totem poles, then to the Neutrals who watched passively and did nothing
to help her, then past Veronica to the toys and torture that awaited her.
Behind her stupid Zorro mask, Tabitha offered Veronica the best death stare she could muster, and that was saying something.
What? she thought. Did Malcolm tell you? Someone always has to go through this, Tabby. Might as well be her.
Veronica didn’t much like to remember her first Origins Fete, uneventful as it had been. She’d avoided the March by arriving on time. She’d had zero infractions. She’d minimized the hall groping by returning any efforts of manual affection with aggressive action of her own. Her status made many of the Dominants wary about getting in her personal space. She’d entered The Select in a bubble and found she enjoyed its protection immensely. The only thing she hadn’t been able to wheedle out of was the lottery.
That had been the first time the idea of rigging the drawing had occurred to her, back in the autumn semester of her freshman year. It hadn’t turned out to be possible at the time, but the idea had stayed with her ever since. Back then, there had been a particularly darling classmate of hers she’d wanted to see put through it, but it hadn’t panned out that way. Nor, quite fortunately, had Veronica won.
Malcolm had won for the guys, though—and in the year after him, Tabitha for the damsels. Both had put on a display of resistance and endurance so strong that their later prominence in The Select had been virtually guaranteed.
Veronica hadn’t needed any of that. She was born to this. She was royalty, here—and royalty doesn’t work for what’s already theirs by right.
“Put me down!”
You, Veronica thought, as her underlings thumped up the side steps of the stage with her, will be better than they were. You and Scott will be spectacular.
****
They didn’t put her down on the stage steps, nor on the stage itself until they’d borne her past Veronica, who tracked her progress to the female totem poles with an eyebrow arched.
She was still held, still wriggling, as she got her first closeup look at her chains. Those weren’t mere cuffs, and they weren’t shining steel. They were iron, as black as the lottery bowls and just as old-looking. They were wide and thick, like wall manacles in a medieval dungeon. And there were two sets of them: one pair at the bottom face, and one pair at the middle. Two short, tightly-wound white rope cords dangled from the heads at the top.
