Susie Follows Orders

by Roger Quine

  ‘Discipline is essential,’ one of the girls who’d led her up to the dormitory said quietly. ‘Ms Savage is discipline. We all need discipline.’

  Susie shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘You’ll learn,’ the blonde said, and her companions nodded agreement. ‘You’ll learn to respect and enjoy, and to serve with a glad heart.’

  ‘To serve with a glad heart,’ echoed several voices.

  Susie could hardly believe what was going on was real. She’d read about mass brainwashing and seen it on quite a few television documentaries, and now it appeared she was looking it right in the face.

  As the girls settled down she padded through to the small adjoining bathroom, was somewhat disconcerted to find a flannel and toothbrush with her name stamped on them, but was glad to use them anyway, and returned to bed, draping her scanty clothing over the foot of it. She looked anxiously for somewhere safe to put her precious and incriminating handbag, and was grateful to stuff it in her plain wooden bedside cabinet.

  Chapter Ten

  For most of the night Susie lay awake, wondering how soon she’d get the chance to escape; how quickly she’d find the opportunity to get through an open door or window and run as fast as she could, as far as she could. But then she remembered Sophie. She knew she was more help to her sister on the outside fighting for Sophie’s release than she was as another prisoner on the inside, but she could never abandon Sophie and run away now. Why, Sophie might be in the next room, asleep on the other side of the wall, breathing deeply just inches away and dreaming of home. Susie knew she had to stay for the day or two it would take to find Sophie and rescue her. And with that decision made, she slept at last, dreaming it was Sunday morning and that she was at home, having breakfast in the kitchen with Sophie.

  Waking up in the strange place was a shock, then a disappointment, and the comfortable glow that dreams of home had created were quickly dispelled as she got on with the task of communal preparing for the day. It wasn’t too bad; a bit like she imagined a boarding school to be, but with subtle differences. For a start there was almost none of the friendly chatter she’d expected; the mood was subdued as the girls took it in turns to wash, using the shower room in pairs. Susie followed suit, said little while she showered, and dressed in the plain white dress that clung to her, accentuating her breasts and the lack of a bra, and barely covered the skimpy white panties that were her only other garment.

  Breakfast was preceded by prayer, another long sequence of chanted responses. Reinforcement, she thought, of the brainwashing she’d guessed at last night. The technique was simple enough, getting subjects accustomed to saying ‘yes’ to a series of innocuous questions so they’d be predisposed to reply the same way when asked the difficult ones. Getting them used to repeating key phrases over and over without question so that when the time came for them to do something they might otherwise have balked at, they were accustomed to making a positive response automatically, their own opinions overridden by the chanting of the throng.

  All the time Susie was scanning the faces around her, making a rough head count of the hundred or so young people. None of them was Sophie, though it was hard to be sure because most of them were girls, almost all blonde and constantly shifting from place to place so it was hard to keep track of them all. Sophie could have been there, she concluded, and she might not have noticed. Another thing she hadn’t expected, although she didn’t know why, was that some of the members - only a few, admittedly - were young men, and like the girls they were predominantly blond. She found it hard to believe that the only people in Britain searching for spiritual guidance and peace were young and fair.

  After breakfast Savage, the bulky lesbian, appeared at Susie’s side. ‘Come with me now,’ she ordered brusquely, and Susie rose to obey without thinking, following her into a small room with white walls and highly polished floorboards, empty except for a few scattered cushions. Sitting cross-legged on one of them was Raoul.

  ‘Today begins your acceptance,’ he announced. ‘She will see to it.’ His eyes alighted for a moment on the butch woman, and then returned to Susie.

  ‘So, what’s going to happen to me?’ she asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

  ‘What will happen is that you will find out all things you wish to know.’ His slight smile was cruel, she noticed, without a trace of humour. ‘And after acceptance is over you will have no interest in asking more questions. You will be glad just to do as you are told quickly and obediently.’

  ‘I would like to see my sister, though,’ she tried.

  ‘She does not wish it,’ he replied easily.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Susie challenged, unable to imagine that Sophie didn’t want to see her now she was so close.

  Raoul gazed down at the floor for a moment, and when he looked back up at her there was something disturbing about his expression, especially his eyes. His lips were a tight line that hardly moved when he next spoke. ‘You have fire,’ he said, anger clearly seething just below the surface. ‘I admire this, in the right place and at the right time. This is not that place or that time. If you wish to remain here you must learn obedience and respect. That will be your first task.’

  ‘But,’ Susie’s heckles were up, ‘you told me I could see my sister! You promised!’

  ‘We have spoken of these things before.’ He was unflappable. ‘I promise nothing. You have promised obedience, and after you fulfil that promise, acceptance ends. Then you are one of us, and then will you be free to ask questions and choose your destiny. Until then, we choose for you.’

  Susie’s arguments died in her throat. She knew she had to do whatever was asked of her until she could find Sophie. And she knew Raoul would not hesitate to protect himself if he felt threatened by her.

  ‘Good, I see you recognise the wisdom of obedience.’ He sounded pleased with himself. ‘Acceptance begins now.’ He waved a hand dismissively. ‘Go.’

  Thick fingers grabbed Susie’s arm and the woman steered her through another door into a bigger room.

  ‘This is a class of new initiates,’ explained Savage, meaning the group of around a dozen or so sitting cross-legged on the floor. ‘And they are to witness you learning the first lesson of the New Believers... obedience.’

  Susie wasn’t at all sure she liked the sound of that, but she remembered her promise to do anything and everything necessary to find her sister, and her resolve hardened. Then the ugly bully turned her to face an object she hadn’t really noticed as she came in, so distracted had she been by her predicament. It was a sturdy squat wooden device that looked like a short vaulting horse, the end nearest the wall slightly higher than the end facing the group.

  Savage pulled Susie towards it, and she knew she had little choice but to acquiesce without objection and be positioned face down over the contraption, waiting without complaint while stubby fingers folded the skirt of her dress up onto her back and peeled her panties as far down her spread thighs as they could go. She knew only too well that the silent gathering had a full view of her naked bottom and damp sex, nestled between her parted thighs, but she was now on a mission and beyond caring.

  She was made to grasp two small grips, and her feet were lifted and placed in stirrups, so she found herself in a parody of a jockey’s position on a racehorse, arms outstretched, knees bent, bottom raised in the air. Her wrists and ankles were secured in place with leather straps.

  The pose she was in was actually quite comfortable, but she couldn’t relax because she felt so vulnerable with her knees bent and her bottom raised. Then she realised Savage was talking to the sheepish audience, her leather strap ceremoniously raised in her right hand.

  ‘You have learned about the opposing forces,’ she lectured, ‘and about the closeness between light and dark, between love and hate, between pleasure and pain. You have seen how easy it is for love to beco
me hate, and how you can turn hate into love. And you’ve been told that we can use pain to give pleasure.’ She paused for dramatic effect, and possessively placed her left hand on Susie’s back, just between her raised and rumpled skirt and her buttocks. ‘Today we’ll be learning about some of the ways to produce that pain, and in doing so we’ll initiate the purging of this wayward girl’s contaminated soul...’

  Susie had rarely heard such drivel, but bound vulnerable and exposed across the wooden horse she felt her buttocks clench with trepidation.

  Saying nothing more and without warning Savage brought the broad strap viciously down across Susie’s poor bottom. Livid pain permeated her flesh at the first stroke, soared higher at the second and was dulled by the third, and the triple assault was laid on before she’d had a chance to cry out, though it left her gasping for breath.

  Whack! Before she was able to ready herself another line of fire crossed both Susie’s buttocks. ‘Oww!’ she wailed at the injustice of the attack.

  Whack! She howled again, her eyes blurring with tears and the horse creaking as her muscles instinctively tensed.

  ‘Perfect...’ whispered the brutish woman, her voice a little tight from the exertion. Another barrage assailed Susie’s perfectly positioned bottom and she writhed in pain, knowing there were deep red lines marking her soft flesh, her knuckles white as she gripped the handles fiercely. ‘Perfect...’ Savage said again, her voice a little detached as she slowly reached out to feel the heat in Susie’s blotchy and tortured bottom. Then she readied herself again and six more times the strap swept down onto Susie’s vulnerable flesh, causing her to buck each time, tears smudged on her flushed cheeks, her eyes clamped tightly shut. To her chagrin Susie knew her body had flowered, its petals spreading in arousal, her juices glistening so that all those watching could see the effect the beating was having on her. And even if they hadn’t noticed that, they would surely see the almost imperceptible movement as she instinctively ground her hips, pressing against the leather contraption to which she was strapped.

  ‘Excellent...’ breathed Savage, her eyes drinking in the vision of the beautiful girl strapped over the horse, sobbing quietly as a result of her expert handiwork. And then she gathered herself, seemingly aware again that others were watching the performance. ‘Good,’ she said, clearing her throat and turning to the silent ranks, the atmosphere in the room tense, ‘time for a break, I think.’

  Chapter Eleven

  The quiet breathing all around the darkened room was regular and steady, and Susie judged that all the girls were asleep. The crack of light under the dormitory door had been extinguished for half an hour or more.

  She had learned a lot earlier over the evening meal, and discovered not only that the butch Savage took whomever she chose to her bed each night, but that most of the girls had ended up at the commune as strays. They’d either been picked up on some or other station concourse, or in night-clubs, or sleeping on street corners. All had the same things in common - they were young, they were attractive, and they were runaways.

  And they were asleep.

  Susie was afraid and she wanted to stay where she was, safe in the snug bed. But she also wanted to find Sophie; all the girls were basically acting as prostitutes, pure and simple, and she had to save Sophie from such a corrupt regime. When told to have sex with someone they did so without question, believing they were helping to fund the community in which they lived and enrich their lives and that of their clients with pleasure - the principle upon which the cult was founded.

  But it was clear to Susie that Raoul was making a huge amount of money from prostitution and drugs, and these poor inmates were little more than white slaves. Though it was exactly the sensational scoop story she’d dreamed about since her teens, she was more scared for Sophie’s sake than eager for her own. And presumably her little sister had already been through the unusual instruction course of acceptance to which she had submitted that morning, and witnessed something similar to what she had that afternoon.

  After a frugal communal lunch, Susie and the group had made their way back to the same room, where she joined them by sitting cross-legged on the floor, the unyielding surface against her poor bottom making her wince. After a few minutes of waiting in silence, Savage watching imperiously over them, there was a suppressed buzz as Raoul entered, and addressed them.

  More instruction about the ‘work’ of the sect followed and Susie sat through it acutely conscious of the dull throb in her buttocks. Initially she was able to listen to very little of what was said, such was the distraction of the aftermath of her beating, though she did hear from Raoul that the class would be meeting ‘sponsors’, to ‘entertain’ them in the ways of the New Believers.

  This latter credo, the essential belief by which the New Believers lived and worshipped, was explained with his mellow voice pitched low and level, relying on his accent and pronunciation to give his words colour while the actual tone was a hypnotic drone. His eyes roamed around the room as he spoke but they always returned to Susie, observing the way she nibbled her lip and fidgeted distractedly.

  ‘We believe we are given life to enjoy. We are here to make best of all the lord’s gifts. To enjoy all pleasures he created. All pleasures, in all things. We believe we must begin here,’ he touched his chest with an open palm and spread fingers, ‘in our own body.’

  As she listened, Susie could feel herself growing more and more flustered, the tenderness in her buttocks exciting her.

  ‘What you learn here will show you how to enjoy maximum pleasure of your body,’ continued Raoul, and Susie surreptitiously rocked on her bottom, wishing she could slip her fingers into her dampening panties.

  ‘You must learn to love yourself without shame,’ he said, looking directly into her eyes. ‘Not to be afraid of your needs.

  ‘Another goal,’ he went on, ‘is to learn the best way to enjoy giving pleasure to others. It is,’ he said simply, ‘the highest form of service.’ Such was the impact of his personality and his voice that Susie wanted to believe him. She was sure the others did believe him. ‘And so you will use the gifts the lord has given you, your young and fruitful bodies, in his service.’

  Susie knew he was telling them to have sex with whomever he ordered.

  Raoul’s gaze bore deep into her eyes, and they seemed to blaze encouragement, making her rock her hips with a little more energy, but not so much as anybody else seemed to notice.

  At that moment Raoul had won something, Susie sensed it; some kind of victory in a battle between the two of them which only he seemed to understand. But he didn’t mind her knowing that he’d won, and that confidence, that absolute self-assurance, was the truly frightening thing about him. She was suddenly completely in his power, and they both knew it.

  And his power, in his building, among his community, was absolute.

  As he continued to address the group in that compelling voice, Raoul was at his persuasive best as he extolled the virtues of community living. His message, simplified in the extreme, was nothing more than ‘all for one and one for all’. Meaning they were all there to be used by anyone, and anyone could use all of them. Especially his ‘sponsors’. Most of his teaching and philosophy was aimed at persuading those who were listening that they could safely ignore all conventional morality on the subject of monogamy and sex, and that once sex was disassociated from morality it became nothing more than a source of unequalled pleasure.

  ‘This I can prove.’ He nodded to the stocky Savage, and she pulled a beautiful dark-haired girl, with deep brown eyes and a sultry mouth, to stand before them. Raoul guided her to the wooden horse and helped her to sit on the edge, and lay her on her back, feet lifted and placed in the stirrups before being tied there. The girl’s dress slithered smoothly down her raised and parted thighs, exposing the white panties stretched tightly over her delicate mound.

  From an i
nside pocket of his baggy tunic Raoul took a white plastic vibrator. He raised it for all to see, and there were hushed whisperings around the room. Susie saw the bound girl watch it with wide eyes, and then hold her breath as the object slowly lowered, hovered between her parted thighs, buzzed quietly into life, and then touched the delicate material of her panties cosseting her downy pubis within. She gasped lightly and closed her eyes.

  Raoul teased cruelly, gently rubbing the tip of the vibrator against the girl, and Susie felt her insides melt with excitement as she saw the white of the girl’s panties darken prettily with moisture as she became clearly turned on by what he was doing to her.

  Susie could understand exactly what the girl was experiencing and felt herself joining in, growing more and more aroused by the erotic display. Watching the elusive movements of the vibrator, Susie understood the need that drove the circling movements of the girl’s hips as they searched for it, looking for resistance to press against. Susie could barely breathe as the tiny buzz finally drove the girl into a frenzy, the steady circling now over as she lost her rhythm and her hips made desperate stabs in an attempt to capture the vibrator.

  Then, in an undisciplined act she reached between her thighs and actually gripped Raoul’s wrists. He calmly stopped his ministrations, as though expecting her lack of self-control, and waited while Savage raised her strap and lashed it down across the girl’s stomach, her muscles strained as she lifted her hips higher off the horse in her quest to be penetrated by the humming plastic. She shrieked and rolled her head and immediately removed her hands from Raoul. But to intensify the message, the futility of such indiscipline, Savage beat the girl across the stomach twice more, before stepping back and leaving Raoul to continue his tortuous teasing of her.

  And Susie felt an overpowering empathy with his lovely victim; a bond between two girls who, though not touching each other nor connected in any way, were about to share the same moment of release, one of them driven by the movements of the vibrator and the other by watching.