“Too bad,” Kate Swenson mused. “I’d love to model a skinsuit for that shithead Donald, just to remind him of what he threw away.” Donald was the name of her ex-boyfriend, who had broken their engagement with a “Dear Joan” letter a month after Kate had joined the Army.
The Army spared no expense in getting them home as expeditiously as possible. A big helicopter landed right in the middle of the parade ground and whisked them to Philadelphia International Airport, where the cadets who were flying home had first-class tickets waiting for them. The half-dozen who lived in the Northeast Corridor were whisked to 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, and put aboard one of the new, 200 mile an hour maglev trains. For Jodie, who was from the suburban Main Line just outside the city, a staff car with driver was laid on and she was driven home as if she was a general.
Robin was dropped by a taxi at her house seven hours after she had boarded the copter at the Academy. She lowered her bag to the ground and stood at the front door without knocking for a moment, as tears welled up in her eyes.
“Oh, hell,” she muttered, and rang the doorbell.
Her father opened the door. He was in his dress uniform, the brass oak leaves and buttons gleaming. He looked as if he was about to burst from pride and happiness. He saluted, a huge grin spreading over his face.
“Welcome home, cadet,” he said.
Robin returned the salute, but before she could say anything she was nearly knocked to the ground by a soft missile. An instant later she was being crushed in the arms of her little sister, Merry.
“Robin, I missed you so much,” Merry said. Tears of joy clung to her cheeks. “How could you stay away so long?”
“God, I missed you, both of you,” she added looking at her father. “It seems like I’ve been away for years.”
Merry snatched up Robin’s duffel bag before either Robin or her father could get it and led Robin up to her old bedroom, excitedly asking questions. Robin had no need to answer them, as Merry was unable to wait for a response to one question before the next one bubbled out of her.
At dinner, over an enormous rib-eye steak at the Brooklyn Steak House, Robin was able to tell Merry and her father something about her experiences at the Academy. She cautiously tested the conditioning, not wholly convinced that it would work, by trying to describe the skinsuits. She found that she could not. Her vocal apparatus refused to function when she approached a forbidden topic, and that was that.
Her father was very interested in the curriculum at the school, and seemed pleased at Robin’s responses when he tested her knowledge of military history, tactics and her other subjects. “I can see why you were first in your class, honey,” he told her, smiling. “I was a little sorry you decided go into the service instead college, but it looks like it worked out well.”
Her sister could not hear enough about life at the Academy and Robin’s classmates. “You’re going to be an officer,” she said in an awed voice, several times. “You are so lucky, sis.”
That night, after their father went to bed, the sisters sat on Robin’s bed talking.
“My eighteenth birthday is next week, Rob,” Merry reminded her.
“I know,” she replied. “Don’t worry, sis, I’ll get a present for you before I go back. I’m just sorry that I won’t be here to see it.”
Merry did not seem to hear her. “Do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to march right down to the recruiting station on James Street across from the courthouse and enlist. I’m going to buck for the Academy, and I bet I make it, too. Then we’ll be at school together, and also in the Army. Won’t that be great?” she asked Robin, her face beaming and her eyes shining.
Robin’s mind went blank for a moment. She had been anticipating this moment, pondering about how to deal with this situation if it arose, but now the moment was upon her and she did not have a solution.
Merry was beautiful, smart, and athletic. She had been on the honor roll every semester since sixth grade, and she had been offered full scholarships by Washington State and Indiana for swimming and by Stanford for softball. Worst of all, she admired Robin extravagantly, almost worshipped her. Of course she would want to follow in her big sister’s footsteps and make their father as proud of the younger daughter as he was of the older.
Robin did not have the slightest doubt that she would be snapped up by the officer’s training program the instant Cafferson’s ferrets saw her Army aptitude test results. Somehow, she had to keep Merry from walking blindly into Robin’s Hell.
“Merry, I not sure enlisting is the smartest move to make right now,” she began. Her sister’s face clouded up.
“Why, Rob? Don’t you think I can cut it in the Army?” she asked in an injured tone. “I might not end up first in my class, but…”
“No, no Merry, it’s not that at all,” Robin quickly assured her. “You have such great offers from the colleges, you can’t let them get away. Why, Stanford…”
“You had scholarship offers yourself,” Merry interrupted. “You joined the Army because you wanted to follow Dad, to serve like he did. We talked about it before you enlisted, don’t you remember? You told how great it would be, both of us in the Army together…”
“Yes, Mer…” Robin said, as she saw her sister grow more agitated as she spoke. “But…”
“And then you were selected for the Academy, picked to be an officer, like Dad was,” Merry said, her eyes flashing in anger. “Are you afraid that I’ll make the Academy too, that I’ll compete with you for his respect?” Her face was flushed, and there were tears of anger in her eyes. “Or do you just not want your kid sister at your school, because you think I’ll want to hang out with you and your friends? Or maybe you think I won’t be good enough to make it in the service the way you did? Which is it, Robin? We used to help each other, to root for each other, love each other. What happened to you?”
I was handled by men like a prize heifer, beaten like a lazy mule, fucked like a cheap whore and I had to just take it, that’s what happened, Robin tried to say. I had to lick my friend’s genitals until she had an orgasm, and watch them pound another friend’s naked body as if she was a piñata at a birthday party, Robin wanted to scream. She felt as if Merry was running gaily towards a precipice, and Robin was impotent to warn her of the danger. I don’t want to see you bent over a desk being buggered by a monomaniacal general, or crouching at his feet holding his ugly sack in your sweet mouth, she thought fiercely. But she could not say any of those things. When Robin tried to say that the food was bad, the beds uncomfortable and the buildings virtually unheated in the winter, her vocal chords refused to do their duty. The conditioning would not let her say anything that might be considered critical of the Academy.
“It… I just think you’d miss the whole college experience, making new friends, meeting boys, going to football games. All your friends are going to college. Besides, the curriculum at Stanford…”she was going to say that there were far better professors, teaching more interesting courses in Palo Alto, but the conditioning wouldn’t allow her to make comparisons that were unfavorable to the Academy. She paused, her mouth still open but with no words appearing, trying to think of a way to express the thought in a way that the policeman in her brain would permit.
Merry stared at her as if she had turned into some peculiar monster, then burst into tears and ran out of the room, shouting, “I hate you!” A moment later she heard the door to Merry’s room slam shut.
Robin rose to follow. She tried the door, but it was locked. She pounded on the door and yelled despairingly, “Listen Merry, you can’t join the Army! Just listen to me!” There was no response.
What could she do? She thought about asking her father to forbid Merry from enlisting. But what could she say to him? That Merry was too smart and talented to waste her life on a military career? He would never believe that this was Robin’s real reason, and he would demand to know the truth, which she could not tell him. She sat on the living room sofa with t
he television on, trying to think of a solution. She was so deep in thought that she did not notice her father enter the room and sit beside her, until he touched her arm to get her attention. Robin jumped.
“Oh, hi Dad,” she said, forcing a smile. “I didn’t see you there.”
“Good show, sweetheart?” he asked. When she made no reply (she did not even know the name of the show that was on the screen), he went on, “I heard you and Merry arguing just now. Can I help?”
“Dad,” she said turning to look him in the eye. “I need you to do something on trust, because I can’t explain it right now. Do you trust me?”
“Robin, you know I trust you,” he replied steadily, “and you know I will do anything I can for you. If you can’t explain, I will take it on faith that your reasons for whatever you want are good enough. Tell me what you want me to do.”
She took both his hands in hers and squeezed them. This was hard, harder than she thought it would be. She thought again of Merry, naked and spread out over a desk, with General Cafferson standing behind her, his erect penis in his hand. She had to do it.
“Dad, I want you to tell Merry that she is forbidden to enlist,” Robin finally forced out. “I can’t tell you why, but it’s important, believe me.”
He did not reply immediately, but his brow furrowed in concern. At last he said, “It’s not really me you’re asking to trust you. It’s really your sister you’re asking. Robin, when she turns eighteen, she becomes an adult, a free agent. She doesn’t need my permission to enlist, any more than you did. I could tell her, order her not to do it, all right, and I will, if you insist. But what do you suppose Merry’s going to think, especially if I can’t tell her why I am suddenly against it?”
“She’ll think that I asked you to do it, and she will just go ahead anyway,” Robin answered slowly.
“That is what I think will happen too,” he agreed. “Of course, if you explained your reasons, I sure she would listen…” he went on.
“But I can’t,” Robin wailed. “I just can’t!”
Her father rubbed chin. “Do you still want me to…?”
“No, forget it, you’re right of course,” Robin interrupted. “It wouldn’t do any good. Thanks anyway, Dad.”
He hugged her. “I’m sure it will work out all right in the end,” he told her. “If worse comes to worst and you can’t talk her out of it, it won’t be too bad. She’s a sure bet to qualify for the Academy, and an officer’s life isn’t as bad as all that,” he reassured her, patting her on the back.
“I guess you’re right, Dad,” Robin said dully. “I’m sure it’ll be all right.”
Merry refused to speak to Robin, or even look her in the eye the next day, or the day after that. She would leave the room she was in if Robin entered, and would refuse to go into any room that contained her older sister. After two days, Robin could not stand being shunned by her beloved sister any longer. She kissed her father goodbye, packed her duffle and left, with no particular destination in mind.
She took a cab to the airport with the intention of returning to high Point early, and then remembered that Jodie had invited her to stop by her family’s house outside Philadelphia if she had the chance. She quickly pulled out her phone and called.
Jodie was obviously puzzled to hear that Robin was leaving Seattle three days before her leave was over, but just as obviously happy that she would be coming to visit her. There was a plane to Philadelphia in two hours, and she found the little blonde waiting for her wearing a huge grin on her face when she got off the plane that afternoon.
Jodie seized Robin a hug that made her ribs creak, and planted a passionate kiss on her mouth while Robin was still trying to say “hello”.
“Come on, honeybuns,” she said, grabbing Robin’s bag with one hand and her friend’s hand with the other. “The family can’t wait to meet you, and I want a little private talk with you myself,” she added with a lewd wink.
Robin was surprised to learn that Jodie was rich. Their house was a rambling stone mansion set high above a creek on a big wooded estate in the exclusive suburb of Gladwyne. Jodie’s parents seemed genuinely glad to meet Robin, about whom Jodie had apparently told them a great deal, and welcomed her warmly. Her thirteen-year-old brother seemed tongue-tied in Robin’s presence.
“What’s the matter with him?” Robin finally asked Jodie, after Carl turned purple and ran away when Robin had asked him what grade he was attending in school.
“He’s a little shy because he thinks you’re the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen,” Jodie said with a smile. “It looks like you’re irresistibly attractive to the Lawrence family. Probably my folks are drooling over you too, in private. Well, they’ll have to get their own Bransom. This one’s mine.”
Robin enjoyed the remainder of her leave with Jodie, managing to forget her worries about her sister for long stretches at a time. On the last night, while she was in bed with Jodie (Jodie’s parents were unbelievably understanding about such things), she told her the whole story. She secretly hoped that Jodie, whom she regarded as being much cleverer with people than herself, would have a solution. She had a difficult time hiding her disappointment when her friend had nothing but sympathy to offer.
“No wonder you left,” she said. “This goddamn conditioning is horrible. I don’t know what you could have done that would have helped.” She shook her head. “Maybe she’ll have second thoughts about it and decide not to enlist after all,” she said hopefully.
* * * * *
When they returned to High Point, the campus was a beehive of activity. Seven of the empty barracks were being prepared for occupancy by new class of two hundred and ten cadets who would form seven platoons of “kittens”, as the first-years girls were to be called. Workmen rushed around with bedding, painting the weathered buildings.
The Cadet Cunts were moved out of the barracks and into dorm rooms, which they had not even known existed in the labyrinthine school building. Each room was furnished with two beds, two desks and two cabinets. The cadets were permitted to choose their own roommates. This did not take long, as most of them had already paired off during the long, cold winter.
On the third day back, the senior cadets were told that they would be given a list of kittens for whom they would serve as advisor. Each senior cadet would be responsible for the progress of their “section”, the group of ten new girls that were assigned to them. Colonel Miles spelled out their new duties to the First Platoon.
“The kittens will receive drill from NCO instructors, and take classes at the school, but you will be their ‘mother cats’, who will prepare them for the ‘personal’ side of their duties when they are called upon for these services,” he told them. “You will be required to administer discipline for poor performance of these intimate duties. Obviously, the more quickly they learn the new skills required of them, the less they will suffer at your hands. This should not need saying, as you are all familiar with our system here, but I will remind you that if discipline is applied by you with insufficient zeal, both the kitten and cat will receive the strokes again from an instructor.”
He went on to explain that the kittens would be arriving in stages over the following three weeks. About half of the new cadets were drawn from women who had enlisted as privates, and had at least completed basic training before coming to the NWMA, like themselves. The other hundred new girls were new enlistees, fresh off the street, who would be put through an abbreviated two-week basic training simply to acquaint them with the fundamentals of military discipline, such as drill, saluting, inspections and so on. These kittens would be the last to arrive, coming to High Point only after they had completed their mini-basic camp. The Cadet Cunts would receive their section lists the day before their kittens arrived, and were expected to be present to meet them when they stepped off the bus. As the Cadet Captain, Jodie was obliged to meet every busload of new victims when they arrived. She hated this duty more each time she had to perform it, until she fina
lly went to Colonel Miles and attempted to resign her Captaincy.
As she had expected, the Cadet Commandant did not accept her resignation. He reminded Jodie she would be treated no differently than any other cadet. The reminder consisted of ordering the little blonde to bend over to hold her ankles while the Colonel administered twenty strokes with a cane, and followed that up with a long and painful buggering.
The day before the final group of kittens was to arrive, Robin and Jodie were talking about the plight of the new girls, trying to think of whether they could do anything to lessen the suffering of the new girls, when Kate Swenson knocked on the door.
Kate’s normally cheerful face was grim. “Robin, I think you should see this,” she said and handed a piece of paper to Robin, turning her face away as she did. Robin looked at the neatly printed list bearing the names of the section of kittens who had been assigned to Kate. She was shocked, but not surprised, when she read the fourth name on the list: “Bransom, Meredith”.
Her hand fell to her side and the page fluttered to the floor unnoticed. “Merry, my poor Merry,” she whispered, “why didn’t you listen?”
The End of Book One
Book Two of the “Cadet” series will follow the continuing harsh training of Robin Bransom, Jodie Lawrence and the rest of the First Platoon Cadet Cunts, as well as the adventures of Merry Bransom as she learns the cruel realities of the National Women’s Military Academy and gradually comes to understand the nature of life as a sexual plaything of her officer-masters.
Below is an excerpt from Cadet Part Two: Duty, Service, Country.
Cadet: The Academy Page 10
