Confined to Eden

by SurvileSupplicant (ao3)

Chapter 1: Prologue - ‘And the gates slammed shut behind him’

Hearken, O Muses divine, and let your voices ring,

For I tell a wondrous tale, a strange and mystic thing.

Calliope, and Erato too, I implore your aid,

As I recount a tale of seed, of beauty, and of maid.

A seed unwilling, yet so fair, fell into foreign ground,

A gardener of great beauty then did take it and surround

With care and skill, determined that the flower would grow,

Though fate and fortune might decree it otherwise, and woe.

O Muses, hear my plea, and guide my trembling hand,

As I recount that fateful day, so blessed and so grand.

When early July did bring forth light, and sun, and heat,

And the gardener tended her seed, so delicate and sweet.

-An extract from the Lady Florence’s personal journal. Sixth year

Deep in the heart of the Barbican Centre in central London, the main auditorium was packed nearly to capacity along its dozens of rows of neatly arrayed seating. Some of the listeners, student or guest alike, listened attentively to the man on stage while others tuned the older man out completely. Metaphorically sitting between those two groups, only tuning out some of the long winded praise was a young man in row G, instead choosing to fiddle with the sleeve of his graduation gown. He was a relatively nondescript young man at first glance, perhaps 22 with a willowy build, pale skin and hazel eyes, wavy dirty blonde hair trailed down from the back of his mortar board to tickle the nape of his neck. While he looked at the head of year who by now was at full bluster, he periodically looked down at his sleeve, watching as the slippery satin passed between his fingers like water.

His name was Sam.

The air conditioning was working at peak performance but the combination of the harsh point lamps and warm fourth of July weather meant that standing centre stage for any period of time was hardly a pleasant experience. It was for this reason the man currently standing upon the stage had only a singular bead of sweat trailing down from his temple. He flicked it away and continued to speak to the audience. 

“I hardly think that any of you are looking for a long speech, frankly I am looking forwards to starting my holidays just as much as you all are,” the man in his forties chortled into the microphone, an understanding amused burble answering him, “But it does need to be said that everyone here in this auditorium today deserves to be here. The effort and commitment it took to take your education this far under such trying circumstances and unprecedented times is something worthy of praise, and as your head of year, I thank you all for giving me the chance to teach you.” The Head of Year began to clap which was quickly joined in chorus by the audience, many of whom donned flowing scholarly gowns and mortarboards made from navy blue linen.

Contrary to his prior words, the Head of Year then launched into a long and sincere recap of the events that had made the last few years annoying to be a student, particularly the pandemic. And slowly but surely Sam began to tune him out.

“Earth to Sam, London calling,” spoke a woman’s voice from Sam’s right, causing him to jolt lightly. He turned to look into the beautiful face of the one who had spoken. She had a beautiful, blemishless face with blue eyes and an arrow straight curtain of long raven black hair.

Sam felt a niggle of embarrassment, “Sorry, Victoria, was a million miles away.” he said, causing the older woman to arch an eyebrow in amusement. 

She looked between him and the head of year and settled back into her seat, “Says a lot about his speech if you find your graduation gown more interesting then our esteemed commandant verbally sucking his students dicks.” She whispered in a candied cheek, drawing a snort of humour from Sam. She seized on his slip, “Samuel Hayes, laughing at crass jokes at your graduation, have you no shame?” Victoria’s hand went to her mouth in mock shock, earning her a shove in the arm from the younger man, she was four years his senior but acted far younger at times. 

“Keep telling yourself that, Freudian Slip,” he barbed in return, “No I just think that for a fifty pound hire fee these gowns feel like they’re gonna rip if I sit on it the wrong way.” he explained his prior actions.

“Satin as a material should never be put in a situation where it could be ripped my dear peer.” The raven haired beauty tucked her bangs behind her ears, revealing blue stud earrings. “Treat it well and it will treat you well, it all evens out in the end.”

“Right…” Sam drawled in response, he still thought it was a stupid fucking fee, he was already up to his eyeballs in student debt, the least the University of London could do was fork over a free graduation gown. On that he and his girlfriend were in agreement.

Yes, girlfriend.

The pair had known each other for the last four years ever since they were first roomed together in the on campus dorms and much to his surprise, became romantically involved with the 26 year old beauty in the last two years. A mystery of life he was still attempting to puzzle out but more often than not decided to chalk it up to ‘ don’t ask, you won’t like the answer ’, something that would prove to be far more prophetic than he ever could have hoped. He was interrupted from his reverie by the sound of the head of year clearing his throat, a wave of shuffling movement percolating through the assembled students.

“Right then, that’s enough waffling from me, I think we should start handing out your degrees, you’ve all earned them.” Victoria’s blue eyes swept over her gown clad boyfriend, her hand finding his and giving it a squeeze that he was quick to return. She knew her boyfriend to be placid and not overly comfortable with public affection, but she wanted him to know that she was proud of the both of them. The head of year looked down at his lectern and began to list off names. “Tariq Aaron, Masters in Engineering.”

What followed was pleasant in that it ran with efficiency, a name was called in alphabetical order by surname as well as their field of study before that student went on stage to collect the award. Sam reclined back in his chair, having an M for your surname meant he was bound to be in the middle either way it went. It was not long before Victoria found herself being called up to the stage. “Victoria Florence, Master of Fine Arts.”

Victoria rose to her feet and began to make her way down the steps gracefully as the audience clapped, sending a look over her shoulder to smile at her boyfriend. He was caught in that moment by just how beautiful she was. At 26 years old, Victoria Florence could be described as a true beauty. Not in a ‘look at me I’m a supermodel’ kind of way, but rather a beauty that drew the eye and subconsciously made all those who looked upon her concede ‘this is a beautiful woman.’ She was above average height and he knew that underneath that gown that seemed to flow with a practised grace was an athletic yet trim body with a modest bust.

In a word, gorgeous. 

The corners of Sam’s mouth twitched all the higher when he recalled once comparing her looks to those of Selene Gallio, a comparison that had tickled the older woman fiercely. He spent a few seconds watching Victoria ascend the steps to the stage before accepting her diploma with a handshake and a smile before disappearing into the throng of diploma wielding graduate who now milled at the foot of the stage like satin garbed wraiths. Feeling a rumble by his thigh, he fished out his phone and saw a simple message from Victoria telling him to not run away from the photo op. ‘ I’ll know, I’m always watching. ’ 

‘So much for slipping back home with no one noticing ,’ he mentally sighed as the names slowly hit L.

“Samuel Hayes, Master of Arts in Media.” the head of year read out and Sam rose from his seat. Descending the steps with a brisk walk, his one overarching visible feature became apparent, he was quite tall. In fact the moment he clasped the Head of Year’s slightly too sweaty hand and accepted his certificate, he stood a good three inches over the 5’11” gentleman at 6’2”. “Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life!” The older gentleman said, voice full of optimism as Sam left the stage, his words following close at the tall young man’s heels.

Descending amidst the mob, he felt a little lost, his head bobbing above the sea of mortarboards like a catamaran dragged into stormy sea until he felt a set of arms slink quickly and firmly around him from behind. Cheeks warming at the action, he knew immediately who it was and held his hands up in surrender, “Alright, you got me, no sneaking away.”

“As if I’d let you even if you tried,” Victoria spoke as if it was the most natural thing in the world before rounding on her younger yet taller boyfriend. He had five whole inches on her but she stared up into his face as an equal, her eyes conveying affection, pride and so many more emotions that he could not parse in that moment when she came around to his front before taking him by the hand and leading him in the direction of the doors. Soon enough they were all arrayed on the steps to the Barbican, ready to throw their mortarboards for the photo op.

Looking up at her boyfriend’s annoyed glower, Victoria rolled her eyes before a note of predatory need flashed in them, a possessive glint that bled out from behind a usually perfectly constructed guise. When the call came to throw their hats, she instead fisted the front of Sam’s gown before dragging his head down into hers, bringing him into a searing kiss forever immortalised on film. Sam was taken aback by Victoria's sudden move, feeling a rush of embarrassment at the impromptu public display of affection. He blushed, feeling as though everyone around them was staring at them. In truth, no one beyond the cameraman saw the sudden moment and despite Sam's discomfort, Victoria seemed unapologetic, her lips possessively pressed against his.

When they broke for air, Sam felt a mix of emotions, torn between his desire to enjoy the moment and his unease with the attention they were getting. So it was with immense relief that the moment was over, starting to make their way home amidst a rain of mortarboards.

After returning the loaned graduation gowns to the miserable looking custodian who muttered about seemingly imaginary creases in the satin, Sam and Victoria made a quick exit from the venu and hopped on the nearest train back to their dorms. While a good majority of the Masters cohort were making their way to their watering hole of choice to slake the thirst for booze that only graduation can bring, the duo were set on a much quieter evening of celebration; partially because neither of them liked the prospect of getting blackout drunk but mostly because neither had all that many acquaintances amongst the student body. So it was with heavy feet and legs feeling like lead that Sam turned the key in the lock to their dorm room door and pushed it open, letting out a sigh of relief that that whole faff was over and done with. 

The dormroom could be more accurately called a small four room flat. Past the threshold was a small entryway and hall from which one could access any of the rooms, but the majority of the space was taken up by a moderately sized living room come kitchenette separated by a granite topped island. The Kitchenette was fully furnished with an oven, microwave, fridge freezer and a large coffee machine that took up a lot of wall space. On the other hand the living area was filled by a moderately sized coffee table, a large TV hooked up to a set top box and several consoles and an L shaped sofa that Sam promptly collapsed into with a huff. 

“Thank god that’s over,” he breathed out, enjoying the feeling of sinking into the soft cushions while Victoria closed and locked the door behind her. As she turned to face him, her eyes glinted with an almost feline quality that belied her placid exterior. Spotting a letter on the welcome mat, the raven-haired Florence stooped to pick it up, her lithe form bending and stretching before depositing the envelope on the coffee table. 

“Quit whining, you overly tall baby, it wasn’t that bad.” she said, her voice a bell like tenor. Victoria looked down at her boyfriend with an expression of doting amusement at him so utterly defeated by the prospect of social interaction. “As far as high society bashes go it was honestly pretty tame.”

Sam made an offended noise from his throat, sitting up and looking into Victoria’s eyes, waving his arms in a gesture of protest, one that was enjoyed by the cheshire cat that his girlfriend currently emulated. “It’s a bunch of pomp and circumstance over being given a slip of paper saying ‘yes, you passed,’ when they could have just sent it in the mail.” Exhaling hoarsely, he added softly, “How you ever convinced me to go along with it I don’t know…”

Victoria’s face softened, she took a step closer, resting a hand on Sam’s shoulder and rubbing small circles into it with her thumb, it was a calming gesture and the placid mannered boy soon found his mood mellowing under the ministrations. “Be that as it may, it's also about being honoured for hard work and brilliance, and by god did you work hard for that first my brilliant little blossom,” her hand trailed up to cup Sam’s warming cheek, a smile on her plump lips, “Sometimes you have to accept the trappings of your own worth whether you like it or not.”

Sam sniffed, but he couldn't deny the truth in Victoria's words or their earnestness, even if he didn't want to admit it. "I guess so." He exclaimed, looking away from her, off towards the kitchenette.

“That’s the ticket!” Victoria patted his head before sweeping out of the room, “Gonna grab a shower, then we can start our celebration off in style.” she said, making her way into their shared bedroom and fluidly pulling her blouse off in one clean motion, revealing her C-cups held in place by a black sports bra. She pulled her pants down before stepping out of her clothes and showing off her matching panties. The young woman’s waist was trim indeed, maintaining an athletic touch of tone while adhering to a pulled in sides, giving her that desirable hourglass silhouette.

She hooked her thumbs around the elasticated waist of the stretchy black fabric and slid the panties down her hairless legs. The thin straps held them up, but she wiggled them off over her feet with a soft sigh of satisfaction. The sports bra followed and Victoria was rewarded with the pleasant feeling of her breasts bouncing against her chest. Her fingers trailed along the curve of her hips and along her waist, squeezing lightly and seeming to gain a note of wanting from the pressure before shaking her head and striding towards the door to the bathroom. 

Opening the door, she spotted a rucksack on the bed. “Everything packed for tomorrow?” she called through the closed door. 

“Are you sure I only need one change of clothes?”

His answer came in the form of an amused giggle from Victoria, and he heard the rush of water as she stepped into the shower. The sound was soothing, a gentle patter that filled the small apartment and made Sam's mind whirring unbidden. He could imagine Victoria in the shower, her lithe form slick with water and soap, and he felt a pang of desire in his chest.

"One set is just fine ," Victoria said, her voice slightly muffled by the running water. " I'll provide you everything you'll ever need ."

Sam couldn't help but take comfort from her words, banishing the errant thought to join her in the shower. He imagined the steam rising up around her, the slick sound of soap as she washed her body, and he felt his desire grow with each passing second. And then came the ever nagging voice of reality with an edge of nervous discontent. 

He banished it with a thought and instead rose from the sofa and made his way over to the kitchenette and quickly set to work on a large pepperoni Pizza. Victoria indulged in her showers like a fish to water, so if he was lucky he could have the food ready for them to share. As he sat at the table, tapping his knees to pass the time amid the susurrus of humming oven and muffled shower, Sam couldn’t stop the soft, somewhat puzzled smile manifesting on his face as the same question wafted in front of his mind's eye like a persistent revenant. 

“How on earth did someone like her fall for me…”

It was a conundrum with simple beginnings, back in 2018 he had come to London University with a simple goal in mind, do his Bachelor's degree in media studies and if that went well, try for his Masters. It was a conundrum faced by many young people across the world and he had thrown himself into it with the fervour of one with a willing soul but quite inept social skill. If he had been blessed with a surplus of funds he would have quite happily enjoyed a single flat to himself. Sadly, funds were not exactly permitting so he had to pick shared accommodation in the University's dorms and hope to the ends of the earth that he didn’t get paired with someone that he couldn’t stand for what would likely be years on end.

Which was why he had been immensely surprised to find out he would be sharing a space with an older woman of undeniable beauty and a propensity for Art. He had, in a word, panicked. But to his immense surprise they became friends. It was slow at first, the odd comment here, a chuckle at clothing choice there, but as time passed, the unlikely pair had begun to tease information out of one another. What they were working on, what their schedules were like and what they enjoyed doing. Despite her beautiful appearance, the age gap and everything that would tell the contrary; as the months crawled by proven to fit his inclinations like a Yin to his Yang. 

He considered idly, why it had worked, chalking it up to the fact that neither of them had pried all that far into the other’s background, something the both of them appreciated. Soon enough, they were watching TV together. Telling jokes, playing games. As the pandemic hit and they were confined to their dorm for six months. Sam and Victoria found themselves spending even more time together. They were forced to rely on each other for company and entertainment, and it was during this time that they truly got to know each other. They would cook together, binge-watch shows, and discuss everything from their hopes and dreams to how they missed attending conventions.

It was during these late-night conversations, when they were both far too drunk to obscure their thoughts, that they began to realise that they had feelings for each other. At first, it was just a subtle shift in the way they interacted with each other. Lingering glances and touches, and they found themselves wanting to spend even more time together. But as the weeks turned into months, their feelings for each other grew stronger.

It wasn't until one night, after a particularly emotional movie, that they finally kissed. It was a moment of spontaneous intimacy, and it solidified what they had both been feeling for months. From then on, they were inseparable. They spent every moment they could together, revelling in the newfound joy and connection they had found in each other. They had indulged in plenty of fun but Sam’s awkwardness about sex had meant that they had never progressed beyond kissing, cuddling and romantic petting.

Shaking himself from the trip down memory lane, Sam looked down at the little white envelope bearing his name in small, depressingly formal script. Thumbing it open, he pulled a letter from within and unfolded it, frowning when he spotted a trio of letters in the top right corner.

SLC

“Well shit, that was quick,” Sam said under his breath, quickly looking through its contents before sliding it back into the envelope and rising to check on the Pizza. He had better things to focus on than an ever mounting strata of student debt, like their impending trip to Victoria’s home.

When the pair had got their results back a few weeks ago and saw a pair of First Class honours, Victoria had given him a searing kiss and a firm squeeze of his behind. And with a face redder than a ripe tomato, Sam had expected that to be the extent of the celebration but Victoria had out of the blue suggested that after graduating they should go to her home for a few days to celebrate together. The prospect alone had been exhilarating, a week alone with his girlfriend away to ring in the end of the long and arduous road of his higher education, a veritable coda at the end of the song of his life so far before the next act began. But as he pulled a can of beer from the fridge and poured it into a crystal clear pint glass, he couldn’t help but note that something rang bizarre about the gesture. She had been so insistent they attend the graduation ceremony, when usually she would have taken his desire to not attend at face value. She could be remarkably persuasive when she wanted to be. 

Then there was the fact that it was her home, not just a hotel. In the four years that they had been together, he had never pried into her family background as much as he could have, because she had never asked about his own family. It was something he appreciated and did his best to return. But still, he had teased out a few details over the years. He knew that they were well off by virtue of a few factors; she didn't have a job, yet she was paying tuition by herself and still had enough funds to support both of them. The TV on the wall and the plethora of gifts she had given him since they became an item were all signs of someone for whom money was no object. The only time she had ever mentioned her family in any detail was in vague allusions to having to go see them over the weekend prior to the lockdown. And now, all of a sudden, to go to her house with no warning… It smelled fishy.

By the time Victoria emerged from the bedroom dabbing her damp hair, Sam was pulling the pizza out of the oven and setting to work cutting it into segments. She wore a pair of tight black pyjama bottoms and a camisole top draped in a slinky blue dressing gown that matched her eyes. On the way to the sofa she paused while selecting a Blu Ray from the neatly arranged stack of media, tapping along the plastic spines before stopping on one in particular. Sam approached, doing his level best to balance the large platter of pizza in one hand and a bottle of white wine in the other. “Well aren’t you just the most dutiful little housewife,” Victoria chuckled, nodding approvingly as the taller and younger man sank comfortably into the sofa beside her.

“Yeah yeah, I’m just a regular stepford aren’t I?” he asked rhetorically, turning on the TV and picking up a large slice of pizza, savouring the meaty taste of the neapolitan delicacy. Victoria nodded sagely before opening the Blu Ray case and inserting the disk into the games console that served as their media player. Hazel eyes scanning the front of the Blu Ray, Sam scoffed, “Dracula? Really?”

“We’re both celebrating, remember? So cut a girl some slack in wanting to watch one of her favourite films with her sourpuss of a boyfriend!” the raven haired woman groused, letting out a trill of enthused when she felt Sam kiss her on the cheek. “That’s more like it.”

The pair clinked glasses as the opening credits began to roll of Francis Ford Coppola's dip into gothic horror, a toast to times past and times yet to come. Despite his exasperation at her choice in film that they had watched perhaps a dozen times before, the young man could not help but admit it had an allure to it, it was still a good movie that as a media student he could not help but appreciate. Well, he mused, he supposed he wasn’t a student anymore.

As the movie slowly but surely crawled into its first act, Victoria drew closer to the willowey youth, her arms slipping around his waist and head resting on his chest, listening to the steadily quickening beat of his heart. They were enjoying a pleasant silence when his girlfriend abruptly spoke. “So what’s the next step for you, Sam?” she asked, tearing her eyes away from the screen to look up at him searchingly, “Serenade your audience with some sage words of what comes next.”

She did have a way with words, even when it came to mundane realities. Sam looked and the amber contents of his pint glass with a thoughtful frown then shrugged nonchalantly. “Get a job, earn a living, make a dent in my student debt.” he explained glibly, taking a sip. He hardly wanted the debt of the last four years of university hanging over his head for the rest of his life. “I’m thinking of going into film review, possibly freelance. There’s hardly a lack of need for them and its what I trained to do.” 

Victoria hummed in thought, digesting his words, but the questioning tone did not quite reach her eyes which seemed sharp and focused, having already made their choice. “You deserve better than that, Sam. You’re one in a million that deserves to shine, not be lost amidst the mob.” the black haired beauty crooned, causing his heart to skip a beat. 

He was flattered by her confidence in him but shook his head to disagree, “I’m being pragmatic. It’s either put in the effort and get a job or let that debt hang over my head for 30 years before it voids, and I don’t want to be forced to rely on yo-”

“No,” Victoria cut him off, her voice gaining a strength to it, “You don’t have to worry about that or anything else; I will take care of you.”

Sam blushed, not seeing the flicker of possessiveness in the blue depths of his girlfriend’s eyes. He was flattered by her desire to take care of him, really he was and he found it cute how she never seemed to spare any expense on letting them occasionally indulge in fun. But wanting to get away from such a morose subject, Sam looked back at the TV screen. “Why do you like this movie so much anyway?”

“I love everything about it. The aesthetic, the music, the dark romance, the era and especially the clothes. There’s nothing sexier than elegance.” she said softly, listing off the reasons with certainty, hugging herself to him all the tighter.

Sam felt the softness of Victoria’s bust press against his chest and by contrast felt another part of himself attempt to harden even as he attempted to maintain eye contact. “Victoria loves the Victorian era huh? Isn’t that a little redundant?” they shared a laugh, “Though I would have thought you would take issue with the clothes, I hear corsets are absolutely nightmarish to wear.”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Victoria smirked slyly, batting her lashes in a way to try and get him hot under the collar. 

This game of light titillation and couples comfort continued throughout the runtime until finally the credits began to roll. Sam raised an eyebrow in question when Victoria got up to retrieve another bottle of wine from the fridge. 

“You should probably tone it down a notch, don’t want to risk it for tomorrow.” he said, concerned. He couldn’t drive and the trip up to Oxfordshire would hardly be a pleasant one if Victoria was pulled over for driving while intoxicated. She smirked at him, shaking her head as she elegantly poured the gold coloured wine into her glass. “It’s not funny, I don’t want you getting points on your licence.”

Swirling the contents of the glass twice before taking a long sip, Victoria finally answered him, “Oh I’m not driving us down there, we’re being picked up.” she said, taking a level of joy from her boyfriend's cute confusion. “I didn’t bring it up but this is all part of the surprise, the first of many. Call it the seven surprises of my home that will leave you with life changing shock!”

“Little Minx,” Sam exclaimed in surprised enjoyment, he was starting to like this new side of Victoria, or perhaps that was the beer talking? In the grand scheme of things it didn’t really matter, for Victoria had every intention of subjecting her man to her will whether he consented to it or not.

Later that night as the pair got into bed together spooned against one another, Sam was the first to fall into Morpheus’s domain, blissful in his closeness to the person he cared most for. Alas, unknown to the dirty blonde haired graduate his elder paramor was still very much awake. Moving with a lithe, feline grace, she turned in the bed to look at his sleeping form, watching the gentle pitch and yaw of his chest rising and falling with each breath. Her eyes seemed to glow with mirth and possessive glee, myriads of machinations twirling with hidden idiosyncrasies behind them. Extending her hand, she ran a long finger over his rough cotton bed shirt and felt her nose wrinkle in disgust. It was far too cheap of a material for her liking, he would look so much better sleeping in silk. 

“You already belong to me, now I just have to show you your place.” she whispered aloud as she let her eyes drift closed, satisfied that long drawn stings were finally drawing together. 

Morning swept into the shared dorm room like a well oiled machine, prompting the romantically involved duo to rise from their beds. Victoria was first to get up and quickly procured a cup of coffee for Sam to ward off the lethargy of sleep. He was dimly aware of her buzzing around him as he slowly drank the energising brown nectar, setting his mind at ease. You might say he had an addiction to the stuff but he didn’t particularly care. It kept his mind working at peak performance and meant he was always ready for the day that lay ahead.

No amount of coffee on God’s green earth would prepare him for this day.

Going through the motions of getting ready saw Sam quickly dressed in relatively casual attire. He wore a white T-shirt with short green sleeves and a cheap hooded jacket along with comfortable jeans and a pair of trainers. Shouldering his rucksack, the wavy haired graduate leaned against the kitchen island waiting for Victoria to join him. His ears perked up, hearing a series of sharp clicks coming down the hallway, mouth falling open when Victoria emerged into the living space.

Victoria’s ensemble was a far departure from his comparatively casual attire, donning an aegean blue summer dress with a plunging neckline and golden clasps at the shoulders. It ran down to mid calf letting her creamy toned legs be shown off, her feet adorned in high heeled black sandals that wrapped up her calves with spaghetti thin straps. The heels on the shoes looked positively nightmarish to Sam, thin stilettos of five inches and red soles. Her long neck bore a lose necklace of pearls and Victoria’s long silky hair was gathered under a wide brimmed black summer hat.

The Florence looked at Sam’s stunned face with amusement, “I’d suggest closing your mouth lest you start catching flies.” she said, smirking idly, her lips painted matte red.

His mouth snapped shut with an audible click, running a hand through his hair as a nervous tic. “You’re making me feel really underdressed…” he said, Victoria sidling up beside him. The sound of her heels clicking on the hard floor of the kitchenette was hypnotic. 

“We’ll get that sorted out soon enough,” Victoria replied ominously, standing in front of Sam, shading him with the brim of her hat. With her tall heels, Victoria was now the same height as the willowey young man. As she spoke, she exuded a sense of authority that was foreign to Sam, but it seemed to suit her in a way he could not put into words. Before he could say anything in response, the melodic trill of a harp sounded through the apartment and Victoria pulled her phone from inside her handbag and answered. The conversation was short and the phone was slipped back inside her handbag in a matter of moments. “That was the front desk, our car is here.”

Befuddlement betwixt the hazel eyed young man, his brows knitting together in a confused line, as far as he knew, Uber’s weren’t allowed to make direct pickups from the student dorms, you had to catch them from the street. He opened his mouth to ask when a sharp rap came at the door. Brushing past Victoria and trying not to shiver as she touched his cheek when he passed, Sam opened the door and felt his eyebrows shoot up to join with his hairline at what he saw before him.

Standing in the doorway was a woman in her mid 30s. She was shorter than Sam by a head with fair skin, grey eyes and short brown hair styled in a pageboy. She wore a tight fitting designer suit that clung to her athletic figure consisting of black slacks, white shirt, black tie and an armani jacket. Her tie was held in place by a gold tie pin and she wore a pair of black driving gloves. What drew Sam’s gaze the most however was the chauffeur’s cap perched atop her head. 

Sam opened his mouth to say something but found the words would not come, so weirded out by the sight before him. He opened and closed his mouth several times, affecting a rather convincing impression of a goldfish, but if his floundering concerned the woman at the door she did not show it, maintaining businesslike polite silence as she stood there. 

“Everything okay, Sam,” Victoria asked, stepping into view over her boyfriend’s shoulder. “Ah, Johanna, you’re right on time.” The moment she was addressed, the woman at the door sprung into action. She removed her cap and held it over her chest, the lowered her head to snap off a crisp bow.

“Mistress Florence, I’m glad to be of service to you today.” she said, annunciating her words with lightly accented english. Her grey gaze snapped to Sam, memorising his face in an instant, “And you must be Samuel Hayes, esquire. Johanna Hämäläinen, I will be your valet for this day.”  Johanna introduced, offering a hand to Sam who still looked as if he could not quite parse the reality before him.

Victoria giggled at the interaction causing Sam’s brain to reboot. Gingerly he extended his arm and shook the woman’s hand, finding her handshake to be controlled but firm. “Uh, nice to meet you, I’m Sam.” he introduced, releasing a moment later that she had already known that, “Just Sam, please.” He added as Johanna replaced her hat atop her head. He had never been one for a glut of pomp and circumstance, though judging by the aura of genuine glee emerging from Victoria he was willing to let it slide just this once. ‘ I guess this must be one of those seven surprises ,’ he wondered internally. 

“Indeed, It is a pleasure and a honour to meet you, now do you have any luggage that I can take down to the car for you?” Johanna asked. Before he could respond, the suited driver stepped forwards and brushed by him to step beyond the threshold. 

As she brushed by the much taller blonde, Johanna’s gloved hand delicately slipped into Sam’s pocket and lifted his keys, slipping them up her sleeve without him noticing. She sent a nod Victoria’s way whose eyes glinted with approval.

Blissfully unaware that he had just been robbed, Sam stuttered out a quick response. “No, no, I’ve everything I need right here.” he said, thumbing one of the straps of his rucksack.

“Oh, my apologies. Would you like me to take it down to the car for you?” Johanna asked, extending a hand expectantly. 

“Nah, it’s fine, I got it.”

“I must insist, Samuel,” the valet replied with an edge to her voice, “It’s a Valet duty to escort her charge’s luggage to the car.”

Sam felt a bead of sweat roll down his brow, “Really, I can handle my own rucksack, it's not that heavy.” he tried to argue, sending a pleading look to Victoria.

His answer was an amused eyebrow raise from Victoria who looked between Sam and Johanna’s waiting hand expectantly. An entire unsaid conversation passed between boyfriend and girlfriend in those scant moments before his shoulder slumped. Unhooking his backpack, the blonde passed it to Johanna who held it with professional competence as opposed to shouldering it. 

“Excellent, now if the both of you will follow me to the car,” Johanna said, turning on her heel and making her way back out of the dormroom. The duo followed at a sedate pace as the driver scooted past a pair of women who were locked in an amicable conversation.

“She’s really putting her heart and soul into the bit, isn’t she; I can see a lot of people paying a pretty penny for their Uber to dress up as a chauffeur.” Sam said jokingly, getting his confusion of the situation under control.

Victoria smiled in response, her eyes meeting with those of the two women in the hall as they came onto the stairs, the sharp click of her heels punctuating each graceful movement, there was an imperiousness to her movement that she seemed to suit. Her smile was definitely a warm and inviting one, but her eyes, hidden from Sam by the wide brim of her summer hat, held a note of well meaning condescension at his words, like he had just said something overwhelmingly naive that she found funny. Arriving in the lobby, the Sam shielded his eyes from the bloom of sunlight as he emerged onto the pavement in front of the student accommodation.

Eyes adjusting to the light, he came up short seeing what was parked in front of him. Johanna was in the process of putting his rucksack into the boot of a car, but it was not just any car. The Jaguar XF sat in the summer heat like a sleek black mirage, its chrome wheels and blacked out windows stopping the glare of summer sun dead in its tracks. But even a cursory glance would tell a viewer that there was something odd about the powerful saloon. It was far too long to be standard.

‘A Limousine…’ he thought glibly as Victoria drank in his shocked face as if it were the sweetest nectar. 

As Victoria looped her arm around Sam's and ushered him into the back of the Jaguar, she couldn't help but relish in the feeling of power. The thrill of being in control was intoxicating, and she could feel her heartbeat quicken with every step closer to their destination. She turned to look at Sam and gave him a sly smile, her eyes glinting with something that he couldn't quite decipher.

"This is Surprise number two," Victoria explained, her voice dripping with smugness as the driver closed the door behind them with a pronounced thud. Victoria looked out of the tinted windows, relishing in the knowledge of being watched by unseen eyes. 

Back in the dorm room, the two women nodded before making their way to Sam and Victoria’s room. Upon closer inspection the duo bore a striking resemblance to Johanna, with their cool, steely eyes and professional grace. The blonde of the duo pulled the keys that Johanna had passed them from her pocket and entered the vacated abode while the brunette snapped on a pair of blue latex gloves. They looked around the room with a disconcerting level of precision, taking note of every item that wasn't bolted down. The blonde, Sofia, unzipped a duffle bag and revealed an array of black bags and cleaning equipment, while her sister, Kaarina, grabbed an armful of bags and started stowing away everything in sight.

As they worked, the sisters exchanged terse, almost banal comments in Finnish. They seemed to be communicating without the need for words, their movements in perfect sync. There was an air of professional playfulness to them..

"I never had a place this nice when I was a student ," Sofia remarked in Finnish, her eyes flickering around the room with interest. " What about you, Kaarina? "

Kaarina scoffed at her sister's question, her expression professional and unyielding. " Military school never has good accommodation, " she replied, her tone almost menacing. " You and Johanna got off lucky. "

Sofia pouted at her sister's brusque words, but she didn't argue. They had a job to do, and nothing was going to get in their way. She nodded in agreement and set about her task, her movements quick and precise.

As the Hämäläinen sisters worked, there was a sense that they were a cog in some far bigger scheme. Something ominous was looming on the horizon.

Back in the Limousine, Sam was immersed in a world far beyond his usual ken. The limousine was upholstered in rich chocolate brown leather seats that he sank into with a pleased sigh, they were incredibly soft but with just enough firmness to offer a well and truly comfortable experience. The seating was arranged with two main pieces, three abreast seating at the back of the car sported comfortable inset backrests that bore quilted cushioning akin to a smoking jacket. Victoria sat at the far right seat eyeing Sam with muted amusement as his gaze swept over the many amenities. Sam himself was seated on a long L shaped sofa that ran along the left side of the limo, with plenty of legroom separating him from the opulent drinks bar made from rich dark wood and sporting a number of bottles of wines and spirits. 

“So what do you think, is it to your liking?” Victoria asked dryly, crossing one leg over the other. 

“What do I think?” Sam said, his face splitting into a genuine excited grin, “I think its bloody brilliant!” he enthused. Sam had never been ofay with overly gaudy splashes of cash, he found it rather gauche all things considered. But as he sat there, buckled into this veritable royal carriage with his girlfriend nodding approvingly at him, he decided that as a one of indulgence it was rather special. 

“Excellent, let's be off.” Victoria reached out to her side without looking and danced her fingers across a small control panel, coming to a stop over a large silver button and without looking pressed it down. A sharp click was heard before the button popped back up on the end of a stick that the hat wearing young woman withdrew, revealing it to be a short cane. Grasping it in her hand, she lifted it and rapped it twice against the padded roof of the limo. Just like that and the luxury car pulled away. Sam gave a small clap for the theatrics which Victoria seemed to preen under, pushing the telescopic cane back into its mount.

“Now you’re just showing off,” the man groused, looking out the window as the limousine seems to scythe through London’s midmorning traffic with no resistance. 

“You could say I’m returning to type,” she replied before reaching for the drinks rack and pulling a fastidiously cleaned Brandy Balloon and decanter from their place, uncorking the crystal stopper and expertly pouring herself a half glass.

They settled into a comfortable silence as the car worked its way onto the main roads and seemed to almost silently make its way past the burble of the city. It occurred to Sam that the cabin must have been soundproofed to offer a level of privacy for the occupants and when paired with the tinted windows and black glass divider behind the driver the duo were isolated in their own little bubble of luxury. 

Usually he would have been content to simply sit there and enjoy himself, but unbidden something began to niggle at the back of his senses, an awareness that something wasn’t quite right here but he couldn’t yet see it. He was still missing pieces when he broke the silence, “I didn’t think Uber did Limousines.” Sam said conversationally.

“They don’t.” Victoria swirled the rich liquid in the glass, enjoying its bouquet as it undulated within the crystal balloon before answering her confused boyfriend. “Would you like me to relive your confusion?” 

Sam nodded slowly, eyes on Victoria who looked to be in her element. “Johanna is a chauffeur and valet employed by my family, she is a very skilled and professional driver from Finland who came highly recommended. In fact, all of her family are, we also employ her two sisters. As for this little bastion of baroque class,” she gestured to the interior of the limousine, “It’s a…you could say it's a company car that I’m borrowing to shepard my darling home.”

Sam felt his cheeks warm at her words as Victoria drummed her fingers on her thigh, pouring a second glass of brandy and offering it to the blonde. “Oh, no, It’s a bit too rich for me,” Sam declined only to find Victoria still holding the glass out for him, her face not brokering any refusal.

“I insist, and we’ll get to work on refining your palette in no time, love.” she said bluntly, the dark liquid rolling in the glass as they went over a bump. Her gaze was intense and expectant and the hazel eyed graduate felt his will erode with each passing second before he gingerly accepted the glass. He smiled at her which she returned but could not deny something disconcerting about her cadence, she meant what she had said, but at the same time, it was said in a way that felt broader, grander. 

‘Final’ he mentally supplied, suddenly finding a dryness in his mouth that had nothing to do with the hot July day.

Over the next hour the car set a brisk yet refined pace out of London, surging past the vast majority of traffic with a V12 snarl that barely registered inside the opulent cabin, covered up by the classical music that Victoria had turned on once clearing the M25. The Jaguar happily cruised along at 95, always taking the right stretches of roads to avoid any potential speed cameras or police interdiction. In fact their progress towards South Oxfordshire was so good and smooth, one had to wonder if Johanna had a pressiant knowledge of the roads or if she could simply spot the flow of the traffic.

Sam had done his best to enjoy the journey and the creature comforts offered by the car and sink back into conversation with Victoria, and with the latter pursuit he had met with success. It had not taken long before a random thought had got the pair back onto a conversation relating to their usual nerdy pursuits. Soon enough they were neck deep in discussing seemingly every facet of fictional universes to their recent dip into dark fantasy.

“How can you fuck up so monumentally on the last season, like episodes 1 and 2 were great but 3 to 7? Talk about going off the rails straight into the sea.” Sam said, alluding to a monumental bungling of an otherwise beloved series, “Like so the Dragon knew the throne was evil and somehow burned it in ten seconds when it took a similar dragon a week to make the thing in the first place?”

Victoria giggled at the fire in Sam’s eyes, he had a way with words when it came to the his passions and it filled her with joy to watch. “I hardly think the teleporting general was much better, or snow in the middle of summer. My regards to the actors who had to salvage a performance from bad writing.” she chortled.

Her boyfriend nodded, lifting the still untouched brandy in toast. While he hadn't drunk any of it he had found it a remarkably good prop to gesture with, and he would be a liar if he said he hadn’t caught himself looking at the pattern set into the rounded glass surface. It was an intricate design: A six pointed flower surrounded by a snake biting its own tail and flanked by two griffons. 

Entering the outer limits of Oxfordshire, Johanna turned off the motorway and sent the car off onto a series of smaller country roads with progressively less traffic the further they drove. Looking out the window, Sam saw the rolling hills of England had been replaced by progressively denser forest that covered both sides of the road. Dappled sunlight streamed in through the tinted windows and he found that the time between seeing another car was growing longer the further they drove. 

“Uh, Victoria, I don’t mean to be that guy,” he began, confusion fogging his tone, “But where actually is your house? You said it was Oxfordshire but I haven’t seen a town in like ten minutes.”

Victoria sighed pleasantly, looking out the window fondly as the cage of trees briefly broke to reveal a rolling set of meadows bisected by a sparkling river. She loved this place, so far removed from the filth of the city. “Just enjoy the ride, the destination comes when it comes.”

He tried to inquire further but a sideways glance served in quieting him into silence. Much as it killed him to admit it, he found this new side of Victoria interesting.

A few minutes later and the car began to slow from its blistering pace to a more sedate pace, coming to a pair of tall hillocks that seemed to bar passage and driving between them. Out of the window, Sam began to see elements of life again, what appeared to be a small village that was the poster child for ‘postcard britain.’ A small highstreet with a number of boutique shops, a few restaurants and an old church at the end of the lane, even a small river that they had to drive over to weave between some buildings that looked to have been here since at least the reformation.

It was like driving back in time. 

This must have been the place, and it certainly was a pretty little place to grow up he mused. When the car slowed to 20 he made a reach for his belt buckle but Victoria tutted ruefully, causing him to look at her questioningly.

“We’ve five miles to go, so you’ll have to stay strapped in for a few minutes yet.” she purred, fishing her brandy that she had been nursing for the better part of an hour. 

The car wound through a tight meandering road through dense wood that was thick with oaks, bracken and bramble, almost swallowing up all light, it was suffocatingly close. In fact, the road was so small, Sam wouldn’t even call it a road, rather a paved track. Still, the car’s suspension absorbed the bumps and any unevenness with ease, nary a shake felt within the cabin. The same could not be said for the blonde’s sense of direction as despite looking out of the window nearly a hundred times he was completely turned around. The track was so dark from the boughs of tree canopy that Johanna had been forced to switch on the headlights to cut through the gloom, and even then Sam began to feel a sinking feeling that they had gotten lost.

This couldn’t be the way, right? This path didn’t seem to lead anywhere and even then, according to his phone they were far outside of mobile rage.

Then with an abruptness akin to a canon firing, they were once again in the open under a bright summer sun. But Sam’s focus was not on the sudden bloom of light that the tinted glass did it’s best to defuse, nor was it on the fact he had no idea which direction they were facing. No, his hazel eyes zeroed in on the landscape’s dominant feature. 

Gravel crunched under wheel as the Jaguar approached an immense concrete wall that stretched as far as the eye could see. It was immense in scope, extending for hundreds of metres in each direction before curling out of view and made weathered but still very solid looking concrete before blending seamlessly into ancient smooth stone, the glint of granite unmistakable at any distance. It had to be fifteen feet tall at least and three feet thick. Victoria giggled at Sam’s gawping face, enjoying his shock, Johanna pressed a button on the dashboard causing the privacy divider to slide down and let Sam see out of the front of the car.

“Woah…”

“Woah indeed,” Victoria reiterated, the car pulling up to an imposing pair of black iron gates, twenty five feet high and with hinges as thick as both of Sam’s forearms.  Coming to a stop in front of the imposing gates, Sam took a moment to get a better look at them. While at first glance appeared to be a normal gate, he was able to pick out growths of black iron styled into tendrils of metal vines bearing metallic blossoms, serrated thorns and iron bunches of grapes weaving between the bars. And set into the apex of the gate was the same six pointed flower sigil as the one on the glass held in his fingers, involuntarily growing tighter around the glass. 

“My family is very well off, more than you know.” 

Johanna pressed a button on the dashboard causing the gates to begin to swing open on old but well oiled hinges, yet still they squealed and rattled as each twenty five foot tall slab of iron parted to admit them. The Jaguar trundled forwards onto a long gravel track that seemed to extend deep into the grounds that sprawled out before them in planes of meadows and hillocks. Sam found himself looking out the back window of the limo at the gates that began to swing closed less than ten seconds after the car had passed through them. 

As the car slowly crunched its way up the seemingly endless gravel track, a pair of wide hazel coloured eyes took in the sheer scope of the lands splayed out around them. Mile after mile of verdant green meadow blurred together with distant woods and small forests from which flocks of birds took flight, soaring gracefully on the wonderful thermals of the hot July day. The car made its way past vast fields of blooming wildflowers and astride copses of towering trees. The land seemed to stretch out endlessly, a vast sea of green and gold that rolled and undulated as far as the eye could see. As they continued on their journey, the scenery only became more magnificent. The perimeter wall grew smaller the further they drove, letting him see the distant hills, their tree thick peaks hemming in the little slice of paradise. All the while a river wound its way through the landscape, glittering in the bright sunlight.

Swallowing thickly, Sam turned to the front of the car, “Uh, Johannna? How far is it to the actual house?” he asked, overwhelmed by what he was seeing. It just didn’t make sense!

“About three miles between the boundary gate and the outer gatehouse then half a mile to the house itself.” Johanna answered, not taking her eyes off the road as she continued to drive at a sedate pace.

“The drive down the driveway is always long, don’t want to go too fast unless you want to shred the bottom of your car. It’s annoying but it is what it is.” Victoria chipped in, looking out the window. She surveyed her surroundings fondly, like a mother seeing her child return after a long time away.

Be that as it may, her calm words served only to throw Sam off kilter, sending a torrent of questions bubbling in the base of his throat until he could no longer stop himself from speaking. “Alright, fess up. I know you’re well off but I was thinking doctor’s salary not…” he gestured to the distant forest, “whatever this is.”

Victoria looked like the cat that got the canary, running a finger along the brim of her summer hat. “Let’s just day my family has a relatively important share in FMC for now.”

FMC? He racked his brains as best he could, vague memories of purchasing allergy medication swimming in his mind. ‘That’s a pharmaceuticals company, right?’ he wondered, looking at his girlfriend in a new light as she basked in his confusion. 

“Just enjoy the rest of the drive, love. We’ll be coming up on the gatehouse in a bit.” Victoria replied, shaking her head, “I think you’ll find the first glimpse of home as something to remember.”

“Right,” Sam drawled, “If I pass out from shock please don’t take a picture.”

“Noted and promptly ignored.”

The gatehouse was a two story house with a russet red chevron shaped tiles covering the roof and arched windows set into the second floor; the entire house was constructed around a tall, arched passageway that ran through the heart of the house and was barred by a pair of leaf shaped doors that swung open as the car approached, allowing passage through the gatehouse. Sam could have sworn he saw movement in the upstairs windows but ignored it in favor of the sight he beheld upon emerging from the other side.

“Welcome to Eden’s Rest.” Victoria said with pride.

The manor house sat imposingly on the horizon, a visage of elizabethan stylings hewn from tanned stone into a grandiose sight. The main building was over four stories high and built in an E-shape that expanded in either direction. Dozens of chimneys and turrets rose from grey slate roof with either end of the ‘E’ bearing a thin, turreted tower, serving to punctuate the skyline. The front of the house was positively studded with dozens of large french windows set into the masonry and cleaned with a perpetual shine. The most notable feature of all had to be the central spire that sprouted from the centre of the facade a whole story taller than the house’s main body, bearing a dark blue clock face with golden hands and numerals. The front patio was encircled by a ten foot tall smooth wall topped with pillars that parted in the middle, serving as a secondary gatehouse. 

Passing through the second gatehouse, Johanna bought the car in a slow loop around a fastidiously maintained grass common. It was then that Sam saw them. The Maids.

There were thirty five in total, arranged in neat rows of five, three deep and separated by an arms length. Three rows stood on either side of the entrance at a military style parade rest, hands clasped in front of them demurely. The last five were arranged on the steps to the front door with one of their number breaking from formation to approach the arriving car.

Sam didn’t know where to look, his utterly flabbergasted couhrenance sweeping between the grandiose edifice of Eden’s Rest, the hoard of prim and proper maids but eventually settled on the smug, gloating face of his girlfriend. “Explain.”

“You know you look really cute when you’re confused, but I prefer the look you have when working on something while relaxing.” Victoria said, smiling brightly at Sam and taking his hand. 

“This isn’t normal!” he whispered, pleading for answers.

“It is when you’re a Viscountess.” Victoria said melodically, succeeding again in scattering what was left of Sam’s wits. 

The car came to a stop at the first step and Johanna killed the engine before getting out and making her way around to the passenger door, opening it in a single fluid motion. Victoria stepped out of the back of the car, her high heels making a sharp click upon hitting the stone steps, standing tall as the warm summer breeze rustled her blue dress and hat. She took a moment to look up at the house lovingly before turning and offering Sam a hand, his much taller size making it slightly awkward to get out gracefully. Accepting the hand, Sam allowed himself to be helped to his feet and stood beside Victoria, putting off the same air as a child lost in the supermarket.

On reflex he looked over the assembled staff who watched him and Victoria with hawklike intensity, he found himself feeling incredibly naked under their looks despite their polite, demure faces. Still reeling from the reveal that his girlfriend had secretly been an aristocrat this whole time, Sam only took in a few details from the hoard of women, mainly the air they put off of earnest professionalism. 

He did not notice at first that each and every one of them was hardly what one would consider normal as far as hired help in the 21st century went. All were women of beautiful looks, they ranged in age from perhaps 17 to their early 40s from all backgrounds. White, black, asian, indian, all beautiful. What one observing would likely be drawn to was their uniforms, for each and every one of them bore the uniform of a maid from the Victorian era. 

Their uniform consisted of an ankle-length, high collared black dress made from cotton with some subtle and tasteful piping across the bust. Its long sleeves ended in tight white cuffs held closed by black buttons.  All wore a crisp white apron that covered both the bust and the main A-line of the dress, it was tied off at the waist as well as notably frilly straps that criss-crossed between the shoulder blades. Peaking from the hems of their uniforms were a layer of frilly white petticoats, adding volume to the elegant uniforms. Each maid wore an identical white lacy headband seated atop their tight hair buns while their high collares were affixed with looped black ribbons. 

The central maid approached Victoria, receiving her with a professional but still very warm hug. “Mistress Victoria, welcome home, I trust your graduation was pleasant?” she greeted before calling out in a rich voice. “Welcome home your mistress!”

In one wave of movement the maids responded, grabbing the sides of their dresses and lifting them in a curtsey. “Welcome home, Mistress!!” they all called in unison, their legs crossed.

Victoria gestured limp wristed with her hand and the maids rose from their curtseys before she returned the woman’s embrace gently, though her face was glowing with happiness. “It was, and all the better knowing what is yet to come.” she said before pulling Sam gently to face the Maid. “Sam, allow me to introduce you to Diana Thomas, she’s the housekeeper here at Eden’s Rest.”

Diana was a woman in her mid 40s with impeccable modest beauty with a straight nose, large green eyes and thick eyelashes, she also possessed a notable bronzed tan. Her hair was, like many of the other Maids, in a tightly controlled Victorian bun and was the colour of brushed steel. She also had a small beauty mark on her right cheek wich contrasted beautifully with her wire framed half moon glasses. She was tall, a few inches shorter than Sam but still impressively tall at 5’11. While she was attired in a maid’s uniform it was notably different from the multitude surrounding them.

It was a much more embellished version of the standard uniform made from a shimmering black satin, featuring puffed shoulders, a nod to her position of power, and her apron extended around to the side of her body, a practical choice for her role. As opposed to a headband, Diana donned a white lace mop cap, with white ribbons trailing down her back, setting her apart from the other maids, highlighting her elevated status. Her cuffs bore that familiar six pointed flower sigil while her neck ribbon was adorned with a jewelled pin, marking her as the Housekeeper. Lastly, a silver ring of many jangling keys was affixed to the back of her apron. Despite her mid-40s age, she carried herself with grace and poise, her tall frame adding to her air of authority.

“Diana, this is Sam, my paramour.” the Viscountess said, causing the young man to cough lightly to clear his throat.

“Nice to meet you,” he said softly, gingelly extending a hand to Housekeeper who looked him over intently, appraising him as if he were some interesting animal that had wondered into her scope.

“Charmed and honoured.” Diana took Sam’s hand and inclined her head in greeting, he found her grip to be gentle yet firm, more so than Johanna’s. “It’s a great honour, after all, Mistress Victoria has told us all so much about you. We are all at your service for your every need. Now,” she turned to Victoria, “I have prepared a boudoir for Sam on the first floor, it is fully appointed and furnished to your suggestion, Mistress.” 

“Thanks…” the blonde said glibly. Sam felt a cool bead of sweat roll down the nape of his neck, there was something about the sureness with which that was said that he found disconcerting. ‘ Talking about me like I’m not even here… ’ He looked behind him only to see Johana passing his rucksack to a waiting maid who quickly spirited it away indoors. 

Diana made a chopping motion with her hand to signal the Maids who all turned on their heels and began to file in through the front doors in neat lines with military precision. Soon enough, only Sam and Victoria were left standing on the bottom step of the entrance.

He looked up at her, pleading for answers as Victoria gently ascended the steps towards the huge oak double doors. 

Victoria smirked at him and offered a hand, “Come on then, let's get you comfortable.” she stated. A beat passed between them before Sam relented and accepted the hand, ascending the stairs with his girlfriend, keenly aware of the crashing sound of the courtyard gates slamming shut behind him with finality. 

Chapter 2: Chapter 1: A Well Prepared Surprise

Eden’s Rest’s entry hall was huge, easily a hundred feet across from one end to the other and put the capital G in Grand. Light streamed through the tall French windows on either side of the large, oaken double doors that served as the entrance. An opulent marble floor expanded from the threshold towards the grand staircase, big enough for a cortège to march up ten abreast without needing to push or shove. The staircase was richly appointed in plush scarlet carpeting inset with gold filigree, with not a speck of dust present in the light cast by the imposing crystal chandelier that hung high overhead. 

Hazel eyes widened at the sight, transfixed by the feast for the senses presented to them. A sharp bang from directly behind him caused Sam to jolt in place, shocked back into action by the outside stimuli. He looked over his shoulder and was relieved to see it was simply Diana closing the doors behind him and Victoria as they had entered. She inclined her head to him in professional apology for the sound before setting off, gliding across the mirrored finish of the marble floor and vanishing into a side arch with the twin silken tassels of her mop-cap flowing gently behind her. 

Letting out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding in, the dirty blonde-haired graduate gave the entry hall a much closer once over, spotting that the walls bore many subtly striking features, including plush chairs, ornate tables upon which sat expansive vases of flowers and one large grandfather clock hewn from cherrywood; its broad bronze pendulum swinging back and forth like something from a gothic torture chamber. Sam paused, his gaze catching on something he had missed upon first entry, obscured by the bloom he had experienced from exiting the July sun. 

Upon the floor sat the same six-pointed flower symbol as he had seen on the outer gate, only this relief differed with two key factors. The first was its size, over three metres in width, stretching across the heart of the floor. The second was that it was rendered in far greater detail, the flower a rich lapis blue and the foot of the entire sigil bearing an inscription in looping Latin cursive. 

Innectis ad Perfectum Flore

Victoria could not stop the melodic giggle from slipping from her painted red lips, finding the range of facial expressions on her paramour's face a veritable feast. “Priceless,” she said, voice carrying over the hall and getting Sam to look at her, stood upon the first two steps with one hand on her hip. 

“Ummm,” Sam exclaimed unsurely, gesturing glibly to his surroundings, finding it challenging to come up with an adequate response. Thankfully for the out of place twenty-two year old, Victoria was more than willing to give the conversation a much-needed jumpstart.

In fact, she practically glowed at the chance. “We can play twenty questions soon enough, Love, but there are much more appropriate venues than the middle of the threshold. Come along, let's get you rested and watered.” Turning on her heel, she began to ascend the steps, eyes swimming with joy as Sam scarpered up the steps to join her. She always maintained a lope that put her footfalls a step ahead of him, the combination of that and her heels meaning that she eclipsed his lanky stature for a short time until they arrived on the first floor. 

Sam found he could not muster the words to speak despite the slew of questions practically hammering on the back of his teeth to escape his mouth, still off-kilter from the metaphorical hammer blow that Victoria had delivered to his perception of her, his girlfriend, the Viscountess. Swallowing thickly, he instead decided to continue to tentatively take in his surroundings in the vain hope that the sights and sounds would alleviate his desperate need for answers. Passing a row of pillars that ran from the bannister overlooking the entry hall, they found themselves in a wide corridor that Victoria navigated with the air of someone who could do it with her eyes closed. Corridors and anti-chambers branched off from the hall that was filled with doors. Very glad of his beautiful guide, Sam found his eyes glazing over, passing sightlessly over paintings and busts of long-past Florences. 

They eventually reached a door identical to the rest, save that a maid stood in front of it at parade rest, curtseying to both before opening the door to admit them to the reception room. It was a comparatively ‘small’ room about twice the size of a standard living room, the walls panelled in light-coloured woods and a mint green flock-effect wallpaper. Victoria removed her hat and passed it off to the maid, who promptly left the room and closed the door behind her, leaving the couple alone. Trailing her fingers along his chin as she passed him, Victoria sauntered across the room and deposited herself in a high-backed armchair daintily, crossing one leg over the other before looking expectantly at her befuddled beloved. 

Scanning the room, he saw that the only real piece of viable furniture was the green chaise lounge opposite Victoria next to the unlit fire and soon found himself sinking into its plush upholstery. Despite the abundance of comfort, he sat ramrod straight, clearly still disquieted by all this and only kept from losing his cool by the amused energy rolling off Victoria.

A gentle knock came at the door before it opened, and a maid entered pushing a fully laden silver drinks trolley covered in a white linen sheet.

“Ah-ha! Phoebe, right on time.” Victoria spoke in a familiar tone with an underlying steel, the sound of which caused the maid to incline her head, “My fool of a lover here hasn’t had anything to drink since London; do be a dear and fix him something to slake his thirst.” 

Embarrassment covered Sam’s face like an artful flush of oil paints that Victoria favoured, letting out a strangled grumble at the ‘lover’ comment. 

“Certainly, Mistress,” Phoebe replied, seemingly ignoring the couple’s nonverbal joust. She curtseyed to Sam, revealing her shiny black Mary Janes. “I’m Maid Phoebe, honoured to make your acquaintance.” Phoebe was a pretty young woman in her late teens with auburn-coloured hair and green eyes. “How do you take your tea?”

Sam suppressed the urge to grimace, running a hand through his hair, “Nice to meet you, Phoebe, but I’m more of a coffee person if you have any.” 

He was being polite, exceedingly polite because, in truth, he couldn’t stand tea, he thought it was little more than a watery cup of mud, but his passive, introverted nature put the kibosh on expressing that so strongly to someone just doing their job.

The maid bit her lip and sent a searching, askance look to Victoria. It was such a quick gesture that the hazel-eyed young man didn’t notice it, his introversion keeping him from meeting those pretty green eyes. Victoria’s face revealed nothing, giving a lone, singular nod to her maid who instantly sprung into action, retrieving a cafetières from under the drinks trolley and busying herself with making each of her charges their desired drink. Soon, the familiar hiss of a bubbling kettle filled the reception room, and Sam had to marvel at the speed with which the young woman went about her duties, a range of invisible minutia feeding into each deft hand movement until Phoebe handed him a cup of aromatic caffeine. 

“Blonde Roast Arabica, semi-skimmed milk and one sugar,” the hot drink was placed on the coffee table between him and Victoria, sitting on its saucer like a baroque art piece. It was joined by Victoria’s cup of tea, who swiftly lifted it to her lips and began to sip its contents. Sam inhaled deeply through his nose, the charmingly calming scent of his personal vice a life preserver in this stormy sea of confusion. He took his first sip before being absorbed by the rich, smooth flavour. “I take it is to your liking?”  Sam could only nod, still quietly savouring the gift, but he did glimpse a look of satisfaction on the maid’s face at his reaction before she excused herself, rolling the drinks cart out with her after leaving the teapot and cafetières on the table.

The mundane high of good coffee bleeding away, Sam looked at Victoria drinking her tea and finally allowed the dam on his curiosity to buckle. “What the fuck?” he let out in a long-suffering sigh.

In retrospect, the exclamation was the perfect encapsulation of the past 24 hours. 

Victoria’s smirk maintained but did gain a rueful softness to it, while she found her boyfriend’s confusion to be a sweet nectar, it would not do well to have him falling into a nervous breakdown. So, she decided to add an air of familiarity to her response. 

She sniffed at the teacup in her hand, the trails of barely white vapour lethargically sucked in with a breath, permeating her smell. She smiled. “I promised a game of twenty questions but you seem a little highly strung, so I’m going to be bold enough to say that I know you well enough to guess the first…” she tapped her chin in thought, “three questions, and if it will make you feel better then I’ll go ahead and get them out of the way.”

She was in her element, her words spoke concisely with an air of amusement, still familiar, still Victoria. 

Sam’s spine lost some of its rigidity, which was all the sign she needed to push on.

“To address the biggest elephant in the room, yes, I’m an aristocrat. My full title is the Viscountess Victoria Florence, daughter of Earl George Florence of Bath,” she explained, a banal delivery to underscore the reality of the truth. “Second, this isn’t just a very elaborate rental. Eden’s Rest is my home. Everything you see here, from the house and gardens to the forests and rivers, belongs to my family. If you see someone here that’s not yours truly, then they work for me.” Victoria leaned forwards, blue eyes piercing his hazel. “And the third…”

She left it hanging, an unsaid order in the tone.

He looked at his shoes, feeling her eyes bore into him until he finished her sentence. “Why did you never tell me?”

She regarded him for a moment, tasting his words on the air; there was not as much hurt as she had expected; in fact, it was barely an aftertaste compared to the simple base question. Why ? She could see the cogs in his brain beginning to align and spin, that wonderful mind that she so adored, trapped beneath a humdrum form and timid demeanour, was coming to life, aligning the fragments of information to elucidate a conclusion like so many academic papers. Her look turned predatory. ‘ No, no, not yet. You will have the chance to put that mind to good use ,’ she gracefully rose from her seat to sit beside him on the chaise lounge. ‘ But for now, I will give you your gift of knowledge, love. ’

He looked to his left, into her beautiful face as she alleviated his confusion. “It’s simple. I didn’t want it to sour our relationship.”

“Yeah, it probably wouldn’t have made for a good first impression. ‘ Hello, pleb, observe that my blood is blue, looking forwards to rooming with you; what’s for dinner? I’m feeling stew.’ ”The good-natured barb was out of his mouth before he could stop it.

Victoria practically lit up with mirth, covering her mouth as the giggles came peeling out of her, eyes crinkled in amusement. It was infectious, and Sam couldn’t help but feel some of the weight lift from his shoulders when she slapped his arm goodnaturedly. And honestly, in a way, it confirmed something he had considered the previous day, that their relationship had clicked because neither had pried into one another’s backgrounds. But alas, his mind caught on something else about Victoria: the way she laughed and talked and held herself even. 

It was still undoubtedly her, but she seemed so much more outwardly confident, refined, an aristocrat even. 

He blew out his breath in a huff, “It’s still like… A LOT… to take in. My girlfriend, the Viscountess, eh… like what do I even call you now.” he cocked his head to the side, “Your Ladyship?”

She wagged her finger chidingly at him, tutting for effect, “Tsk, Tsk, Tsk, there will be time for etiquette faux pas later, but know that that title in particular is being held in trust for someone else.” she said matter of factly. “To you, I will always be Victoria, nothing less,” ‘ But a lot more yet to come ’, she added in thought. “The fact of the matter is, Sam, that we passed our courses with honours, and I’ve brought my beloved home to celebrate in the lap of luxury,” she stated, planting a chaste kiss on his warm cheeks before returning to her seat and pouring herself another cup of tea.

Musing internally, he recounted the day's events so far, first the trip, then the chauffeur, then the reveal of her Viscountess status and now the plan for the rest. ‘If this is surprise number four, then what the hell will number seven be!?’ he thought, recalling her promise of seven surprises.

“Now, I’m more than willing to answer any questions that take your fancy, providing they don’t spoil the surprise, but for now, why don’t we just enjoy our drinks?”

“I can drink to that.”

And drink they did, slowly and with great care to savour their caffeine and wordplay in equal measure. As time ticked by in an inexorable march, Sam fielded a variety of questions pertaining to Victoria and her status, and while she was true to her word in answering those questions she could, a few of the answers rang hollow. They were true, but there was an amused undercurrent and double entendre to them that was hardly a Freudian slip. Still, for now, he was content to gain as many crumbs of information as he could, enjoying this far more decisive side to her.

Red Flag.

He perished the thought, barely acknowledging the seed of doubt sitting bitter at the back of his mind. He paused in tapping his foot as she explained that the staff numbered over 70. “Should I really be wearing shoes inside? I don’t want to make more work for the workers,” he queried.

“Servants,” Victoria corrected, “Maids if you want to be specific, and let's rectify your conundrum right now.” She went to a nearby drawer and retrieved an object from it, getting a closer look at it, Sam saw that it was a small silver bell. Victoria gripped the tip of the handle between her fingers before limp-wristedly ringing it. She then put it down on the coffee table and continued. “Once we get that sorted out, I’ll give you a little tour of the house and grounds before we finish off the evening with a Michelin-star meal.”

Sam pulled a face at the comment, but his partner was quick to point a finger at him in warning; her look was clear, that he was to be pampered whether he liked it or not. His will wilted, and he sank back into the chaise lounge. Victoria nodded, good, he was learning. 

A knock came at the door, and a maid entered, different from Phoebe. While she wore the same uniform as the redhead, this maid was in her mid-20s with inviting mocha-coloured skin and large, doe brown eyes, her lips plump and kissable. “Mistress. Is there anything you need?” she intoned.

Confusion washed over Sam like a lukewarm sheen, had she been standing outside the door? She had to have been to be called by something as seemingly frail as the lowly silver service bell.

Gesturing at the now exhausted cups and saucers, Victoria ordered, “Gather up the fine china and call two of my Ladies Maids to bring slippers for us.” 

The maid curtseyed low in affirmation, exposing some of her legs to Sam and letting him see that she wore a pair of sheer black silk stockings before stooping to collect the crockery. 

Feeling like a bit of a stuffed lemon, the blonde spoke to the dark-skinned maid. “Thank you for waiting for our conversation to come to an end before coming in,” he said, assuming that she had been waiting outside the door.

The unnamed young woman looked confused at what Sam had said, it lasted a beat before she seemed to remember something and smiled, bruising a finger past the base of her ear. “Of course, sir, you’re most welcome.”

Despite her arms being full of crockery and drink, the maid made a seemingly graceful exit, her load hardly slowing her as she left.

Yet Victoria rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, “You’ll have to forgive Maid Kate, she’s still adjusting to a few recent additions.” she said, making a mental note to inform Diana of the slip.

A few minutes later, the door was opened again, but this time, two maids entered, each holding a pair of plush, floral-marked slippers. They inclined their heads to them both before splitting off and each taking a knee at Sam and Victoria’s feet. Setting down the slippers, the maid grabbed Sam’s jean-clad leg before undoing the laces on one of his trainers and sliding it off his foot before he could voice surprise. 

“What the-”

“Just let Jeanne and Chloe work, Sam,” Victoria instructed, the chestnut brown-haired Chloe having an easier time with the aristocrat’s heels. “They’re Lady's Maids, this is entirely under their job description.”

The two Lady's Maids wore the same floor-length Victorian uniform as the rest of the staff but were set apart by the gold pins set into their neck bows. The flaxen-haired Jeanne was very good at her job and able to wrestle Sam’s shoes off in short order, her thin arms hiding a surprising strength, sheathing his sock-covered feet in a pair of rose-themed slippers. Their task done, the Lady's Maids stood and looked at both of them with the same serene, self-amused smile, their eyes seeming to look at Sam with fascination. 

“Thank you, girls. Please take our shoes to their appropriate places.” Victoria said, dismissing the two. 

“Yes, Mistress!/Yes, Mistress!” each answered enthusiastically before leaving their mistress and her partner alone once again. But as the door swung shut, Sam could have sworn he spotted the retreating form of a new figure, the swirl of a blue dress and a pair of gloved hands clasped behind their back as the door clicked shut. 

He pinched the bridge of his nose, “You can’t sit there and tell me that being waited on hand and foot is not weird.”

“Different, not weird, Sam,” Victoria answered, her smile just a hair's breadth too wide.

Walking down one of the many corridors, Jeanne and Choloe marched in a veritable lockstep, the heels of their low-heeled boots letting out uniform muffled clicks as they walked. Each carried their separate shoe cargo in the same way, reverently but with heels out so as to not sully their uniforms. 

“I can’t believe he’s actually here, it feels like the Mistress has been talking about all of this for years,” said Chloe, the younger of the two. She was a beautiful woman in her mid-twenties with brown eyes and a modest bust that puffed up the front of her maid’s dress nicely. 

Technically speaking, Maids were not supposed to discuss the idle gossip outside of their dormitory, but being the Mistress’s Lady's Maids did come with a share of perks.

Jeanne nodded in agreement, the twenty-eight-year-old had pale blue eyes and a beauty mark on her right cheek. “She has, though the rabble from the Housemaids has probably made it seem a whole lot longer.”

“Can you really blame them? It's surreal to think how much planning the Mistress has put into this, and soon enough, it will start on the long path to bear fruit. Things will certainly be changing at Eden’s Rest.”

“True,” Chloe replied before closing her eyes in sympathy, “I almost feel bad for him, Dr Ito and the Governess seem to want to make a magnum opus of him.”

Jeanne reached the central staircase, “What else but a Magnum Opus could you call the shaping of our Mistress’s Spouse?” she asked rhetorically before splitting off from her sister maid. While Chloe ascended a flight of steps bound for Victoria’s bedroom, Jeanne descended to the ground floor and made her way to a nondescript wall inset with a metal handle. Pulling it revealed a long trash chute, which she promptly dropped Sam’s trainers into before closing it and returning to her work.

Their Mistress had said he wouldn’t be needing such crass footwear for his new role.

Sam and Victoria could be seen walking through the corridors of the ground floor at an even pace, occasionally broken when the older woman was seized by a particular zeal to enthusiastically point out some kind of interesting furnishing and the storied history that went along with it, her eyes gleaming with life, enjoying the simple pleasure of talking about two of her favourite things in the world. Painting and, as he was quickly finding out, her home. Sam did his best to follow the seemingly disjointed gait of his girlfriend, aided in part by the slippers that cushioned his every footfall. Not only were the plush pair of black slippers with floral patterns comfortable, but they were a perfect fit for his size nine and a half feet. 

They were the best fitting pair of footwear he’d ever had the pleasure of putting on, almost like they had been tailored. 

“All the staff have an excellent eye for sizes,” Victoria had said when asked what the chances were that the Ladies Maids had picked out the exact perfect size for the both of them. And honestly, he believed it. In the roughly twenty minutes since they had left the reception room behind them, the tall man had seen a score of maids going about their tasks like monochrome frilly wraiths, gracefully seeing to the needs of the house. They kept to themselves and did not acknowledge their presence unless he and Victoria directly crossed their paths, where their greeting was silent and demure before returning to whatever task they had been assigned like clockwork.

He had done his best to offer quiet waves and little greetings when he passed them, to which they had all smiled and returned, though Victoria had yet to address any of them on this jaunt, her attention squarely on him. The attention from the one familiar face here was a welcome balm amidst the unfamiliar surroundings. 

Grabbing his hand, the shorter woman dragged her placid blonde in front of a large portrait in the centre of their current hall, “Ohh, this is one of my favourites. This is Countess Elicia Florence II, while her parents were the ones to draw up the initial plans, she was the one who oversaw most of the building.” she explained. The painting rested within a gilded rectangular frame and depicted a woman in her early 40s. She had a narrow face with her dark brown hair gathered in a Tudor hair net inset with pearls; her body sheathed in the tight waist of a white Farthingale Dress with red accents. 

“Tudor?” Sam questioned, looking for any kind of tag to denote the age of the piece. Art had never been his strong suit, but he’d seen enough behind the scenes for period drama at University to recognise a general era of clothing. 

“Close, Elizabethan. Elicia II put much of the era into the building facade but left space for people to tweak it to their liking.” Victoria replied, looking up into her ancestor’s face with a proud expression. 

Feeling a touch of impulsiveness breaking through his usual placid shell, Sam leant down and rested his chin on Victoria’s neck, whispering in her ear. “If she’s a builder, then you’re an artisan to make them proud.”

“Such a tease, blossom,” Victoria pecked him on the cheek before resuming the little tour.

Little was simultaneously a perfect descriptor and woefully undershooting the reality.

Leading him downstairs through a series of internal annexes and at least one door hidden behind a tapestry, Victoria came to a pair of glass double doors with curling iron handles that she seized before opening with a flourish. Bright summer sun poured into the corridor and temporarily blinded Sam before his vision adjusted to the outside. Green. Everything was so very green. As they began to slowly walk along a path of enormous stone slabs, they both took in the majesty of the grounds. Rolling hills and meadows of varying terrain that disappeared beyond the horizon, framing Eden’s Rest as a lone island in an ocean of verdant colours. He let out a sound of astoundment more than once as he traced distant copses of woods obscuring tracks through the grounds that snaked like great slithering serpents. 

High above him, behind a large panoramic window, stood another figure, clad in blue. They watched Sam and Victoria traipse their merry path around the back of the house with an invested stare, taking in every detail of them from the distance apart they walked to the slight awkwardness with which the taller of the two walked. That spoke of someone who still had some hangups about the reality before them. An expected occurrence, one that had been planned for. 

Unaware of this hidden peeping tom, Sam eventually saw that they were coming around to the more organised gardens that rolled out from the back of the house and low and behold, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, covered in a cleaning tarp to protect its crystal waters from dirt and grime.

He shook his head in disbelief, “How the hell could any family afford to buy this?” he asked rhetorically, hands slipping into the pockets of his jeans. 

“We didn’t buy it, it was given to us, remember?” Victoria corrected, cupping the bloom of a low-hanging magnolia that they passed before gesturing with a sweeping motion. “Our money situation keeps everything maintained and running, tickatee-boo.” 

Sam was incredulous, jabbing a finger at a distant hedge maze, “How in the f-” he thought better of cursing, “That maze alone looks like it could be part of The Shining, so unless you’re growing money trees, how the hell do you even put a dent in keeping everything running?”

Victoria giggled at his question, “Oh, Sam, you do find serendipity in your analogies, don’t you, touching on truth for the purpose of a joke.” She lifted her hand and pressed a finger against his chin, gently pushing it until it faced south and pointed to the distance. Squinting his eyes, Sam could just make out a glimmer of glass obscured by trees, a dome and spire poking from the treeline outlined in green steel. It was a Victorian glasshouse. “It might not be money trees, but it's something just as lucrative and far more profitable. It all started with flowers, Sam.”

Returning to her walk, a stray summer breeze caught the hem of the ravenette’s dress and sent it a flutter. “Flowers, and everything you get out of them. Saffron is worth more than gold, sugars keep the masses motivated, and pharmaceuticals are derived from their most lucrative secrets. It's something my family has had on tap for ages, after all, the F in FMC stands for Florence .”

A metaphorical lightbulb lit up over Sam’s head at her words. ‘ FMC… Florence Medical Concern .’ he thought in realisation. 

An hour passed serenely, their slow walk through the boundaries of the gardens and along the seemingly never-ending house yielding a return to the peaceful feeling that he got in Victoria’s presence, but it was not entirely idyllic. While he was still grappling with the fact that not only was his girlfriend an aristocrat but pharmaceutical royalty, there were a few oddities that were slowly bundling together at the back of his mind, forming into a seed of doubt.

A shift of movement out of the corner of his eye caused his head to snap and look back at the manor, but all that greeted him was its tanned edifice and gently rustling curtains that could quite easily have been moved by the wind. That was the fourth time he had seen it, a half-snatched glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye, watching him from on high from the house's upper floors but always gone by the time he had turned to look at it. It had solidified into that oh-so-unpleasant fallacy of ‘feeling like he was being watched.’ 

‘Stop .’ he thought to himself, breathing in deeply, ‘you’re mind is just playing tricks on you, you’re having a nice walk with Victoria, enjoy it, ya lanky fuck .’ he added. The self-deprecating words served their purpose, and he found that most of his calm was returning with a blanket of rationality. There were over 70 staff, of course, one might get curious and poke their head out a window…

“God damn, how long does it take to circle this place; it feels like it has no end.” he commiserated, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. While the weather was simply divine, it was not especially fun to be out in it for too long without shade. 

“Sorry, darling, but some of us are not blessed with such long, shapely legs.” Victoria jested, playfully slapping a hand against Sam’s chest, which he returned, soon devolving into a cartoonish exchange of amused chuckles and faux insults to the choir of half-hearted slaps and gentle shoves. Through it all, Victoria’s dress remained un-creased, not a hair out of place.

This was how a maid found them a minute later, catching their breath in the shade of a large oak that grew near the path. Victoria had already returned to her image of self-control and power, standing tall in the presence of her servant. “Yes?” she asked, causing Sam to look at the maid.

“Begging your pardon for the intrusion, Mistress, but Miss Diana told me that she needs to speak with you regarding tonight’s dinner.” the maid said, her olive-coloured skin and Asian features a perfect compliment to her somewhat breathy, lightly accented voice.

Sighing at the reality, Victoria shot her boyfriend an apologetic look. “Duty calls, it seems, no rest for the wicked. Bian, will you show Samuel to one of the drawing rooms while I speak with Diana.”

“Actually, do you mind if I look around for a bit longer?” he asked, surprising the blue-eyed woman; his demeanour had taken a marked uptick from the good-natured roughhousing. “I kinda want to see the rest.”

Mulling the words over in her mind, Victoria struck up a thinking pose, caught between annoyance that he wanted to do something without her and happiness that he already wanted to see more of what the manor had to offer. “Okay, just don’t stray too far from the house; I really don’t want to have to call in the SAS to pull you out of a tree like a scared cat,” Victoria said before turning on her heel and walking back towards the house with Maid Bian falling into step behind her.

Sam cupped his mouth to call out to her, “Unless you have Triffids in here somewhere I doubt that!”

“Ha! If anyone could find a fictional plant monster in our gardens, ’ it's you, blossom!” Victoria called back, disappearing back into the manor. 

Moments after reentering the house, Victoria’s face shifted. She was still happy and amused, but her bright blue eyes now glowed with a profoundly sinister light, a dark humour that one might glimpse in a spider as it watched the beautiful aerial dance of a butterfly, noting how each arc, innocent and free, brought it closer to the spider’s perfectly spun web. Bian excused herself silently to return to her tasks, and Victoria paid her no mind, ascending the grand staircase to the third floor before pushing open the door to her private study.

The door swung inwards silently on well-oiled hinges, revealing a bonafide command centre in Victorian stylings. The study was the size of a school staffroom with a polished teak floor and matching panelling across each wall's lower reaches. The upper wall panels were all the same: forest green wallpaper with vine designs in a darker colour. The right wall was inset by a tall bookcase filled with scores of leather-bound tomes, almanacks and ledgers, as well as a medium-sized landscape painting of Eden’s Rest. The left wall was comparatively sparse, dominated instead by a large fireplace. A few other small tables and sideboards, as well as a drinks globe, could be spotted dotted around the room, but what stood out most was the desk.

It was large and hewn from polished cherry wood with a black leather surface. You could be forgiven for thinking it was a replica of the Resolute Desk at first glance because it did bear a striking resemblance, framed as it was by the large panoramic window that took up much of the far wall. Two gold desk lamps sat upon it, several manilla folders held down with paperweights, and a PC monitor canted off to the side. Lastly, the front of the desk was carved with the Florence family coat of arms and painted to stand out from the wood. 

There were two other women in the room, both of whom Victoria knew. The first was Diana, the housekeeper greeting her politely, her uniform as the head of staff in perfect order. The second stood behind the desk, looking out of the window over the breadth of the grounds. She turned around, face set in a pleased and professional half smile, “Mistress Victoria,” she greeted pleasantly before rounding the table to stand beside Diana. 

“Trisha,” Victoria returned the greeting, walking further into her study before refinedly sitting in the comfortable leather office chair, enjoying the creaking sounds of rich leather as it adjusted to her form, it came with an old and heady smell that she was especially fond of. 

Trisha Moore was an attractive woman of 5’6” with a trim, athletic build and small bust conferred by healthy living. She looked five years younger than her 32 years would lead you to believe, with creamy blemishless skin and narrow, intelligent, light brown eyes set behind a pair of oval-shaped rimless glasses with red frames. Her straight auburn hair was gathered in a simple ponytail that trailed between her shoulder blades, with two chin-length bangs framing either side of her face. While not strictly period-accurate, her attire fit in with the aesthetic of the manor. She wore a navy blue high-collared velvet maxi dress with gold buttons running down its front to below her navel before opening to be more akin to a coat, its sleeves tapered tightly to her wrists. She wore dark pantyhose over her exposed legs and black Mary Jane flats, giving her an air of professionalism compared to Diana’s more ‘traditional’ attire. Finally, she wore a pair of meticulously fitted black leather gloves and held a worn but perfectly maintained black riding crop in her right hand.

Victoria gestured both to sit and greeted them amicably, talking to Trisha first. “You’ve taken the time to have a look at your soon-to-be charge,” it was a statement, even if phrased like a question. 

“Yes, I first saw him from the gatehouse window when you arrived. He nearly caught me watching from the window a few times during your little tour.” Trisha said, finding the fact mundanely delightful, “Your reports said he was placid, but low and behold, he has a sense of his surroundings.”

“It won’t be a problem.” Victoria pulled one of the manilla folders from her desk and thumbed through it slowly. 

Trisha preened. “On the contrary, I look forward to turning that against him. Sharp minds are like rough diamonds; it takes a guiding hand to truly make them shine.” she said, indicating the files with graceful movements, “The majority of my teaching materials are ready, and I’m looking forward to starting; the only thing pending is your choice of name.” With that, she opened to the floor to Victoria, who had the meagrest mote of uncertainty in the depth of her eyes.

“To tell the truth, I’ve been wracking my brain for months, but with the last push on finals, it's sort of slipped my mind,” she said, chuckling awkwardly. Her bearing was maintained, intense and refined as ever. “It doesn't matter, though, I shall decide in the moment. On that, you have my word.”

Accepting her employer’s judgement, Trisha leant back in her chair, trying to guess what she may settle on. 

Diana waited patiently until Victoria turned to look at her before speaking. “Johanna’s sisters sent word an hour ago, they’ve finished up in London. You should have the manifest of what to keep or dispose of by tomorrow morning.” the steel-haired housekeeper communed, drawing a pleased nod from Victoria.

“Any issues, both here and afar?”

“Samuel’s meal is being prepared to your specifications. Few issues outstanding, even fewer of note.” Diana replied.

“Save for the good Doctor’s absence,” Trisha pointed out, her eyes resting on the third empty chair beside the older woman. 

Diana raised a dark silver eyebrow at the glove-adorned woman in playful rebuke, “Check the time, dearest Trisha.”

Briefly askance at the request, Trisha rolled up her left sleeve, revealing a thin silver wrist watch and checked the time. “Ah, vaping then,” she muttered glibly, internally chastising herself for forgetting something so elementary.

Victoria smiled, enjoying the bi-play between her servants. She hummed in satisfaction before relaxing into her seat, drumming a nonsense beat on the desk with her fingers.

“You seem exceptionally satisfied, Mistress,” Trisha commented, her own face a mask of neutrality. 

Victoria smirked at the older woman. “I am many things, Trisha, if I wanted to speak candidly I’d say I’m barely restraining myself from pulling the cuffs from my drawer,” she tapped her middle finger on the desk, “cuffing you to the radiator and kissing your snatch till you scream my name from the sheer euphoria of what’s to come.” 

Trisha smirked, her bangs hiding the bead of sweat that said she knew her Mistress was serious. 

“But let's just keep it simple and say that it feels good to finally be on the verge of my desires.” The raven-haired Florence finished with certainty. 

“It’s true, we have all waited a long time for this, so much preparation both for today and what’s to come. It’s the start of a long and enjoyable journey that, while hard, all of us will come to enjoy.” Diana declared, perfectly summarising their feelings.

And in that sunlit room, where three women schemed, all were united in a fantasy they’d dreamed.

Walking a complete circuit of the manor house had proved to be a surprisingly tricky task. While there wasn’t much to get wrong with ‘walk till you see the front doors again, he had been tripped up by just how huge the estate actually was. No matter how far he walked, he was treated to the expanding breadth of the house, with numerous outlying buildings catching his eye and slowing his progress as he tried vainly to define their nature. The constants of tan house, green grounds and blue sky became an odd constant for Sam, feeling that while the particulars of his surroundings changed, he was still standing in the same place. Shaking his head at it all, he spotted what appeared to be a wooden park bench overlooking a distant river and decided he had earned himself a break. 

His trainers crunched on the gravel before he unceremoniously flopped down on the left side of the bench, taking in the postcard vista sprawling out before him. If there was one thing that was plain to say about everything, then it could be found in the weather, Britain’s infamous summer rains nowhere to be seen in favour of fair sun and clear skies. It was not overly hot now, shaded as he was by the dappled shadows of an overhanging willow tree. Sam pulled out his phone and checked it, seeing the cold white letters in the top right of the screen reading ‘NO SIGNAL’, causing him to wrinkle his nose in annoyance. In all the rush, he had forgotten to ask for the Wi-Fi password. What was a media graduate without a steady stream of intellectual stimulants?

‘The Wi-Fi hub for this place is probably solid gold and encrusted with jewels,’ he joked to no one but himself, twiddling his thumbs as a warm breeze rustled his hair. ‘ On second thought, definitely not, I doubt Victoria’s that tacky.’

“Then again, I seem to be finding out an awful lot about her today, she wasn’t lying when she said this was going to be a surprise-filled trip,” he spoke aloud, looking up at the shifting branches of the willow overhead, their thin strips rustling against each other hypnotically. 

Moments later, he heard a different sound cut through the ambience, the unmistakable crunch of gravel underfoot growing steadily closer to him. He kept to himself, chalking it up to one of the staff coming to check that he hadn’t been lost amidst the flowers.

The approaching person advanced at a relaxed pace, coming up behind the bench before placing a hand on its back, surprising Sam when they vaulted the wood in a single, clean hop to land beside him, one leg crossing the other.

“Hiya,” said a woman’s voice in thickly accented english. Now sitting on the bench beside him was a short woman of 5’5” were it not for her footwear. Looking at him, she flashed an easygoing smile, “Taking a break?”

If one were to look up the word ‘Japanese’ in the dictionary, they might just happen upon a picture of this woman, given how archetypal her features were. At 27, she possessed mischievous almond-shaped brown eyes, a small bust and a thin waist. Her straight black hair was kept in a square chopped bob cut and Hime fringe that covered her forehead, framing her beautiful face as if it were a piece of art. Compared to the almost total Victorian stylings of everyone else he had met today, her outfit was comparatively mundane. She wore a dark grey turtleneck sweater, tight-fitting leather pants and a pair of black patent leather knee-high boots with block heels. 

That was not what drew Sam’s attention, though, that went to the crisp white doctor’s coat she wore open over the rest of her outfit, falling to just above the knee. 

Taken off balance by the banal intro, the young man offered a weak smile to the Asian woman, hoping that he was not about to be told he was somehow out of bounds. “Just catching my breath; I’m Sam.” he introduced awkwardly, offering a hand that the woman casually took, surprising him by how gentle her shake was.

“Nice to meet you, Sam. I’m Yui.” the now-named Yui drawled, her dainty finger slipping into the pocket of her leather pants and fishing for something.

“Ditto, Yui… um, can I help you with anything?” he asked.

“Not really, other than maybe a bit of flowerside chitchat to break up the monotony of breaks on my lonesome.” Yui’s Kansai accent was very thick, causing her to roll her R’s and give her words a poetic quality despite how relaxed they were. Seeing that he still looked uncomfortable, she pouted cutely, “Relax. I’m not gonna read you the riot act for taking a break looking pensive in my favourite vaping spot.” 

Sam chuckled at the comment, watching her finally pull a chrome-plated vape from her pocket and press it to her lips. That was a relief. “Sorry about that. It looks like I just had a bad string of luck.”

Yui shrugged, taking a slow drag off the chromed pen, “No worries, there isn’t anything wrong with a chat and a smoke. To be honest, most of my co-workers have no concept of social life.” She exhaled into an errant breeze, the wind carrying the blueberry-scented vapour away from them both. She pointed a finger at him with a smirk, “And then there’s meeting you. Samuel Hayes in the flesh and faded jeans, it was going to happen sooner or later.”

“You know me?”

“How could I not? Victoria has a case of verbal diarrhoea, and most of the time, it's your name coming pouring out of her mouth, I doubt there’s a maid at the house who hadn’t heard you were coming.”  

Sam felt his chest warm, heartened by the fact that his girlfriend seemed so gleeful to talk about him, even if he’d have rather she kept it to herself. “Everyone seems to know me around here…” he mused, it rang oddly sour to his ear. 

Yui raised a thin, plucked, black eyebrow, “She didn’t tell you about me?” she asked, receiving a negative and facepalming. She shook her head and chortled. “Oh, that corset-addicted bitch, she’s really gonna invite her boyfriend to stay without telling him about her best friend?” she asked rhetorically, amused at Victoria’s choice.

Sam performed a double take, taken off guard by Yui’s crass words spoken in well-meaning humour. “First I’m hearing of it, I’m afraid. Are you one of the surprises?” 

Yui shook her head slowly, “Nope, I'm an eventuality, not a surprise.”

He leant forwards, curiosity shining brightly in the hazel depths of his eyes. “You’ve known her for a while.”

The Japanese woman held up both hands, “About ten years thereabouts.” 

Her words were nonchalant and humorous, with little held back, seeming more than willing to provide the answers to the myriad of questions buzzing around his head like bees. So, taking the initiative, the placid young man asked where the pair had met.

“You’re probably thinking that it was some kind of picturesque meeting out of some manga, aren’t you? The beautiful Japanese Doctor, wrapped in Furisode, crossing a moonlit Kyoto bridge to meet the foreign princess in the dead of night…” Yui proposed, then let out a snort of laughter. “Nah, nothing so cliche. We met in a club about a decade ago, shortly after I started working at FMC and hit it off, one thing led to another, we had a lot of fun, and eventually, Victoria made me Manor Physician here in this little slice of Tamaka-ga-hara.”

The concise retelling told Sam everything and nothing, but information was information. He was brought back to the here and now when Yui hummed in thought. “I think more proper introductions are in order. Dr Yui Ito, Manor Physician and personal doctor to the Mistress Victoria Florence and family.” she reintroduced, making a flowing gesture towards herself. 

‘So the coat’s not just for show, ’ Sam thought as Yui continued. 

Simply put, when you had a staff of over seventy servants who were at work on their hands and knees for most of the day, one was bound to eventually scrape their knee, and for that, Yui was there.

“Sounds hectic,” Sam quipped, but Yui made a ‘so-so’ gesture in reply.

“Yes and no. I oversee the health of the staff and the house residents while conducting clinical trials for FMC, a win-win in my mind,” Yui looked at her vape and sighed,  “'Only downside is I had to give up smoking.”

“I assume because of the health risks,” Sam hypothesised evenly.

Yui snorted with laughter again. “Nah, the Housekeeper just hates the smell of cheap cigarettes.”

They continued to talk for some time and Yui answered every question he put to her in that same amused detachment that spoke of someone who just wanted to shoot the shit, filling the blanks in a corkboard of conspiracy that had taken form in his mind's eye. However, he was broken from his thoughts when he felt the irresistible and unignorable call of nature taking root in his bladder. 

“Something the matter, Sam?” Yui asked, having noticed the shadow of concentration fall over his average features. 

Sam blushed in embarrassment, “I don’t want to bring down the mood or anything but I really need to go to the toilet, you wouldn’t happen to-”

“There’s a few toilets on every floor; just head inside and have a look; ask a maid if that fails.” Yui directed him inside, indicating a particular door amongst the masonry. 

“Ah, the maids,” Sam pulled an unsure face as he stood to leave, “To tell the truth, I think they’re a little unnerving at times.”

“You will get used to them,” Yui called to him as he left. There was something ominous in the way she spoke, as if it was just a formality, not a reassurance.

He quickly excused himself, leaving the short Japanese woman to the rest of her break while he walked back inside with a stilted gait. 

Despite his best efforts, Sam soon found himself lost amidst the seemingly non-euclidean architecture, confounded by identical doors and more crossroads than he thought possible for a structure conjured from the imagination of man. It caused his anxiety to rise up his back like a creeping noose, but eventually, he saw what he had longed to see: a swirl of black and white cloth vanishing around the end of his corridor. “Excuse me!” he called, jogging to keep up and nearly stumbling when he came face to face with one of the maids, this one in her early twenties with chocolate brown hair in a severe bun, a healthy tan in her features.

“Yes, sir?” the maid answered, hands gathered at the front of her apron.

“Sorry to catch you when you’re at work, but do you know where the bathroom is? I’m kinda lost.” Sam asked sheepishly. He hated having to palm his issues off on strangers, and there was a certain mundane humiliation with being unable to find the restroom.

The violet-eyed maid was not at all perturbed by the blonde’s apparent discomfort and gave a crisp nod, raising a hand asking him to follow her, soon navigating the halls like a fish in water while Sam awkwardly walked behind her. They passed hundreds of items of note in their trek, from paintings of long-gone family figures to suits of armour and other nicknacks from foreign lands preserved behind crystal clear glass. Unknown to him, every step he took, every action he made was observed, tracked and logged by hidden cameras that lurked where none would expect them.

The silence was heavy and awkward, so he broached an introduction to break the ice.

“Nice weather we’re having…” he trailed off, fishing for a name, leaving it to the British to bring up the weather when all other avenues of introduction failed. 

Her tanned face peaked over her shoulder to look at him, her frilly maid’s headband jostling as she walked. She smiled politely at him. “I am Maid Flora, sir. And yes, the weather is most fair.”

“Yeah, I’m glad I’m back inside, tell you the truth. Flora…”

“Maid Flora,” Flora said again, confusing the blonde. She cocked her head to one side, not understanding his hangup. “I am Maid Flora; you may refer to me as Maid, Flora or Maid Flora, whichever takes your liking, sir.”

Eventually, they came to a long hallway with a wooden door identical to all the others, gesturing for him to enter.

Turning the polished brass door knob, the statuesque young man entered the last refuge of the drunk and needy. As with everywhere else in Eden’s Rest, the toilet was opulent without being gaudy. However, it was not without a touch of anachronism, featuring a chain-pull toilet with an ebony wood seat. Far too in need of relieving himself to comment on the finery, Sam quickly pulled down his jeans and sat on the toilet, letting out a pleased sigh as he let nature run its course. 

Sam had always had a smaller than average bladder, and draining half a Cafetieres worth of coffee had served to fill it to such a capacity that he didn’t trust himself standing up. As he did his ablutions, he took the time to fit together the bits of information that he had learned from Yui about Victoria and the rest of the Florence family. 

The Florence family were an old aristocratic family with Victoria being the daughter of an Earl, and while they were wealthy beyond reproach, they chose to remain in the background of society and keep to themselves. Admirable, Sam thought, not liking gaudy splashes of cash, finding it tasteless. But just how wealthy were they? Extremely, according to Yui. While Florence Medical Concern specialised in the research, manufacture, and sale of pharmaceuticals, they were just a cog in the much grander scale Florence Multidiscipline Conglomerate , which had its fingers in a lot of pies across the public and private sectors. Liquid assets alone were in the region of twelve digits, which strained credulity in Sam’s mind, until he remembered the colossal house and staff of enumerable maids at its disposal.

Sam stopped.

Now that he had time to himself, he could address the multitude of minutia and nuanced weirdness within the house instead of being overwhelmed by the sheer size of it all. Now that he thought about it, since the head arrived here, he had never once seen or heard mention of male staff working out the house, and were it not for Yui’s existence, he would have sworn it was a maid-only show. A distinctly Victorian maid-themed show. He knew that Victoria was fond of the era, but surely this was just a one-time thing, right?

Something about this was ringing wrong in his ears, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Looking around, his train of thought was derailed by something else amiss: the distinct lack of toilet paper. 

His business concluded, Sam’s gaze swept over the large restroom from its marble flooring to stone basin and mirror, but he couldn’t find a scrap of toilet paper nor any holders for it.

“ Is something the matter, sir? ” Flora spoke from behind the door, her muffled voice causing him to let out a girlish squawk. 

“Gah!” Sam looked at the door with wide eyes before remembering that something very much was the matter. He awkwardly gestured, futile, given she couldn’t see him. “I seem to have run out of toilet paper.” he lied, the truth that he couldn’t find it a galling embarrassment he didn’t want the stranger to know.

She saw clean through his deception. “ There is none, sir. All the toilets at Eden’s Rest are Takino type, from Japan. ” He didn’t reply, so she added, “ The water washlet rinses your privates while the air duct dries you .”

Huh, well, there was an oddity: brand spanking new Japanese toilets modified to resemble Edwardian chain flushes. Sam knew about them, though he had never had the pleasure of using one. “How do I…”

Flora cut off his question before it had left his throat. “ There is a button on the end of the chain pull, press it and simply wait for the process. ” She instructed truthfully, remaining professionally polite despite the fact that right now, her guest couldn’t wipe his ass to save his life. 

Finding the chain hanging to his left, the dirty-blonde-haired young man grabbed the black enamel chain pull and studied it for a second before finding the button where Flora had said. Depressing it, he heard a small whirr under him as the washlet unit slid out of the toilet bowl. “EEP!” Sam squeaked when a warm jet of water struck his unprepared rosebud, clenching up on reflex. He slowly overcame the shock and became acquainted with the strangely pleasant feeling of water rinsing over his privates before being blown dry. The graduate stood up and caught sight of the device as it silently retreated into the porcelain as if it had never been there. “Cool,” he stated honestly before pulling the chain to flush.

Nothing happened. 

He tried again, the chromed chain pulling the lever beside the elevated cistern, but was rewarded with nothing but a hollow ‘thunk’. “Flora,” he called, “I think the chain pull might be busted.”

Flora paused for the first time since he had first spoken to her. It lasted a full three seconds before saying, “A moment, sir, ” in an apologetic voice with an edge of something he couldn’t describe. Sam heard her feet retreat from the door for a few seconds more before he heard a sharp ‘CLINK’ from the cistern above him. “ Try now, sir. ” 

He gave the chain another pull, and to his immense surprise, it worked flawlessly, the urine-yellowed water flushing away.

Exiting the toilet after washing his hands, he found Flora just outside the door in a low curtsey, head bowed in shame, where she launched into a heartfelt apology. “A thousand apologies, sir! It slipped my mind, sir!” 

Sam held up his hands, waving away her prostrations and supplying, “It’s no problem, really, but what actually was wrong with it?” He asked as she rose from her curtsey, and he half expected her to pull a plumber's tool kit from under her petticoats. 

Maid Flora still looked upset, but it quickly faded; she was more disappointed in herself than scared of him. “All toilets at Eden’s Rest possess a weight sensor in the seat that requires you to be sat down to flush. I had forgotten that you had not yet been told, and so I switched the toilet to ‘Guest.’”

Another oddity about the place, he could ‘maybe’ see the application in a place that prided itself on no mess having a system that kept you sat as you pissed. Lord knew his aim turned to shit when drunk. “I see. Well, thanks for waiting by the door, avoiding some embarrassment, even though you didn’t have to.”

“On the contrary, Sir,” Maid Flora countered, hands clasped in front of her once again in her demure parade rest. “You’ve yet to be issued with a Service Bell, and it is a maid’s duty to be on hand should her owners or guests need her.”

Sam felt the muscles in his neck tense, there was something about the way she said those words that made his hackles rise in warning, an assuredness that had been drummed in again and again. Yet still, curiosity won out. “Speaking of the maids, why do you all wear Victorian dresses? Is it something special Victoria put you all up to?”

Violet's eyes narrowed in confusion, not understanding his question. “This is our standard uniform, sir, decreed by the Mistress many years ago.”

“It must be tough to wear, though,” he ventured; the waistline of the dress, while obfuscated by apron and petticoats, was clearly very tight to Flora’s waist.

Flora looked affronted, clutching a hand over her heart. “Being hard to wear has nothing to do with it, sir. All Maids must come to love their uniform as much as they love their Mistress!” she gave in an impassioned speech before freezing, realisation punching through the fire in her eyes like stygian ice. She shouldn’t have said that. Before Sam could even process what she had said, Flora’s features sharpened, her hand brushing the base of her ear. “I must excuse myself, sir, but I can hear a service bell being rung,” she said quickly before excusing herself with a curtsey, vanishing around the corner before he could get out even two words to stop her.

Hazel eyes remained fixed on where she had vanished. Swallowing thickly, Sam was once again alone in the corridor, confused and with more questions than answers.

“I never heard any bell…”

He trudged forward, eyeing the paintings as he passed, unable to shake the returning feeling that despite being alone, he was being watched.

Hours passed like shifting sand within the manor, never uniform, always unique and dancing to the beat of its own drum. The afternoon had come and gone, and now the shadows began to grow long, the sun’s lower angle causing the Jacobethan-styled home to glow gold almost supernaturally. Maids went about their duties and chores, Diana walking the halls with an eye for detail, spotting every minor error or object of note and adding it to a mental checklist only she knew. Everything had to be perfect for tonight, as it had to be perfect every night that had come before it. 

And in a living-come-drawing room on the first floor, Samuel Hayes could say he was nearly at peace, sprawled out over the comfortable reaches of a plush couch, his head resting on Victoria's lap. He looked up at her as she regarded him, a pleased serenity to her that glowed with unpassable emotion, happy to bask in it in the pleasant silence of the drawing room. ‘ Who would have thought a smile could put you at ease so easily?’

After his… interesting interaction with Maid Flora, it had taken him a few minutes to gather his scattered wits before trying to find his way back to familiar pastures. 

Victoria had found him soon after, emerging from a door behind him with a chiding word about getting lost. She had offered a hand to lead him, and he had accepted, following her back to the entry hall in a blur of unfamiliar corridors. When she had initially suggested returning to the tour, he had been against it, but seeing his state, she had amended it to ‘looking into something fun.’ To his immense surprise, it had been just that. Hidden away amidst myriad solariums, boulders and small libraries, he had been shown many modern amendments to the building that were right up his alley, albeit tuned to Victoria’s taste. Media rooms furnished with tortoiseshell tables, games rooms with every console imaginable upon gilded plinths, computer labs held in the same room as what he was 99.9% sure was a replica of Babbage’s Difference Engine, and so much more. She had even made mention of a personal movie theatre while they had whiled away some time crossing swords in a game, quashing his prior jitters and returning him to his default placid manner.

Most of the afternoon and oncoming evening had been spent relaxing in this drawing room and, with it, familiarity. This was the core of the couple's joy in each other’s company. Conversation and quiet closeness just played out on a much grander scale. 

Victoria gently ran her fingers through his messy, dirty blonde hair, sending waves of calmness through him before Sam let out a pleased hum that made Victoria dip her head to kiss his cheek. But as she pulled back, his inverted view of the room alighted on something interesting. Above the fireplace was a large portrait of what appeared to be some kind of knight of old, donned in mail and a white surcoat with a straight black cross over his chest. He had long blonde hair in a lion's mane and proud green eyes, locked on the form of what must have been his black-haired wife off to the side sporting a dress marked with the Florence sigil.

His eyes raked down the painting slowly to the unlit fire before stopping on an object set upon the coffee table, the silver and black shape of a Service Bell, the evening sun causing it to twinkle gold.

His lips thinned imperceptibly. Despite his calmer mind, a solitary nugget of discontent sat on the periphery of his senses, some primaeval part of the caveman mind that refused to die and screamed YOU ARE IN DANGER. In their wandering and relaxing, if ever refreshments had been required, all Victoria had had to do was ring one of those little silver bells, and in two minutes or less, a Maid or two would enter to attend to their needs. It was… disquieting, to say the least. Summoned by a sound they could not possibly have heard, they kept the seed in his mind well-fed. Alas…

He squashed the feeling again, feeling Victoria’s shapely thighs jostle against his head and neck. There was nothing to fear here.

His thoughts briefly returned to the pretty Japanese doctor, her sarcastic smile shining in his memories. “Will Yui be joining us for dinner?” he asked out of nowhere.

Victoria shook her head, her waves of shiny black hair fluttering around her face, “Ah, you’ve met our esteemed doctor then.”

“She’s alright, kinda bummed out that this is the first time I’m hearing about her unless she’s one of the surprises.”

“Ha!” his girlfriend bleated a laugh, “Definitely not. Miss Gion-District would never let me live it down.” She then smoothed her features and perfectly mimicked Yui’s tone of voice, “ I could never be a surprise; I’m just a part of your life that just happens to be surprising! ”

Sam chuckled at the impression; it was nice to know that Victoria had some friends outside of him, and it sounded like the Viscountess and Japanese Doctor were thick as thieves. “Is she just shy for dinner or…”

“If she could have, then she would have, but unfortunately, the good Doctor Ito is preparing for a large clinical trial tomorrow morning and can’t attend.” she giggled coyly, a half-truth.

Sam hummed, ignoring the warning sirens in the back of his mind.

The young man could not bring himself to bring up the issue to Victoria, and despite her seeing he was at times out of sorts, she did not ask. His reason for not speaking about his worry? Part of it was something he had no overt control of; it was in his nature to be placid and, some might say, submissive. If one knew the right words and actions, his will would crumble like wet tissue paper. The second reason was cognitive:

‘ There has to be a logical explanation for all of this. Odd stuff aside, if they are swimming in money, I’m sure most people would play the clown for the sake of the paycheck at the end of the month. Enough to love their job and employer despite her requests. And who's to say there’s not some kind of switchboard that registers the bells? I’m sure I’m just overreacting. ’

It was a good argument, simple and logical and squared off many of the issues he had seen in his short time here, just enough to enjoy the farce for a little longer. A fine showing of Occam’s Razor.

Little did Sam know that in this instance, Occam’s Razor was poised to slit the throat of any chance he had to escape what was yet to come.

Atop the mantlepiece, a carriage clock struck 7PM, releasing a melodic chime to ring in the change of the hour that filled the room. The sky outside was still quite bright due to the height of summer, but evening had definitely come. Victoria listened to the sound of the clock until it had run its course before gently rolling her boyfriend’s head off her lap. 

“I have to go get surprise number five ready,” she said, gently lifting herself to her feet and smoothing her dress.

Sam made to rise and follow, but Victoria playfully pushed him back into the sofa, causing him to look up at her in irritation. “I can’t get up if you keep pushing me down.”

“You’ve waited a few hours in my wonderful company; you can wait a few more minutes by yourself, Sam.” the blue-eyed aristocrat reasoned before indicating the door, “A maid will be along when dinner’s ready.”

There was an odd glint in her eye that he couldn’t place, but he didn’t resist when she kissed him on the cheek teasingly before vacating the drawing room, following the alluring sway of her hips as she went. 

Sam remained in the well-lit room, splayed out over the comfortable sofa by himself and felt the first inklings of tiredness touch him. It had been a long and surprise-filled day, and he came to the conclusion that after dinner, he would simply ask to go to bed. Guilt stabbed at him, this was Victoria’s grand production after all, and he wanted to be there for the artful distraction she had crafted, but he didn’t want to fall asleep mid-way through whatever after-dinner festivities she had in the works. That would just be rude. 

The carriage clock on the mantle had just struck 7:30 when a knock came at the door, two sharp raps that made him sit up. The door opened to reveal Diana, still the image of professionalism but now sporting a pair of white linen gloves. “Samuel,” she greeted, drawing a bead of sweat from his brow at how she had forgotten he preferred Sam, “Dinner is ready in the dining room, please follow me.”

Pushing himself up, Sam did as he was asked and went to the door, but as he passed it, he noticed something odd. Along the lining of the door was a gold patch of metal about half the length of his thumb in width and a foot in height, a trio of dark circles arrayed one atop the other. Deadbolts? What an oddity. He shook his head to ignore it, chalking it up as an eccentricity of the house or a holdover from yesteryear.

He did not stop to consider what truly made it strange. After all, who used Tungsten deadbolts for a door with no visible locks?

He was led by Diana through the halls that were now lit with warm yellow bulbs fashioned to look like old gas lamps hanging from sconces along the walls. It really changed the mood of the place compared to when it was just lit by natural light. A memory of Versailles swam across his mind, conjured from some half-forgotten movie that the fetters of over-the-top aristocratic life here reminded him of.

The trip was quick, the housekeeper gliding through the halls with her charge, any attempts at weak small talk he made guttering out in the face of her simply doing her duty. The Dining Room was located on the ground floor of the manor on the left wing of the building, held behind a pair of white doors with gold handles that Diana pushed open slowly, the bright light beyond pouring out onto Sam’s dazzled face.

The dining room was more accurately called a hall with polished teak flooring and a number of doors running along each side of the walls. It was dominated by a very long rectangular dining table stretching out across two-thirds of the space, covered in a pristine white tablecloth that looked so soft it could have been a liquid. Lit candelabras ran along its centre line with only two places set, one at either end of the table. Diana walked to the place nearest to them and pulled the seat back, gesturing for him to sit. 

He walked as he was bayed, feeling weird as the green-eyed beauty pushed the high-backed chair forwards to meet him, letting out a placid ‘thank you’ as Diana found her way to the middle of the table. Scanning the place in front of him, Sam internally groaned. A perfectly folded napkin wrapped in a blue bow was set before him, surrounded by other eating paraphernalia. Three sets of cutlery radiated out from it, each one slightly different from the other, in addition to three glasses of differing size and shape off to the right, a similar arrangement at the other end of the table.

Cutlery . If Sam found an element of so-called ‘high society pomp’ beyond ridiculous, it was the overabundance of cutlery. For him, all you needed was a knife, fork and maybe a spoon. Then again, he was a very picky eater who could subsist happily on the most basic of meals, blissfully ignorant of the minefield that was table etiquette. 

“Where’s Victoria?” he asked Diana, the head maid turning to look at him with a reserved smile.

“Our Mistress has a few things to prepare before dinner begins, she won’t be long,” she answered concisely.  

Suddenly, one of the dining room’s side doors opened, and Sam was surprised to see a troupe of five maids walk in. At first, he didn’t recognise any of them, but all sported the same white linen gloves as Diana and silently arrayed themselves around the long table, three steps away from it. Two of them took up positions on either side of the far chair, another pair mirroring them behind Sam while the final maid stood opposite Diana at the centre of the table, making the whole formation symmetrical. Sam blinked before realising he did recognise one of the maids, Phoebe, who stood opposite Diana.

He attempted to wave at her, but she did not turn to look at him, instead keeping her eyes locked firmly on Diana. He thought it was a little rude at first before realising that Phoebe was basically staring down her boss.

“Can we offer you anything to drink while you wait? Water for the table or perhaps a glass of wine? We have a bottle of vintage 67 Boulinger if you want something sparkling.” Diana enquired, turning her head to look at Sam, the jewelled pin in her neck glinting in the light cast by the above chandelier. 

“Could I get a beer, please?” Sam asked, his taste in drink just as basic as his taste in food.

Diana’s nose wrinkled imperceptibly, her half-moon glasses hiding the judging look from Sam. She snapped her fingers, and the maids sprung into action. Phoebe turned and made her way to a wooden box on an outlying table, opening it and causing chill vapour to rise before she pulled a large bottle of beer from within and a crystal pint glass from beside it and placed them on a silver platter. The guest blonde watched as the platter was handed to the two maids behind him, who opened and poured the bubbling amber lager between them before setting it down on a coaster. 

Quietly thanking them as they returned to their places, Sam lifted the chill pint to his lips and took a slow swig, eyes flashing in enjoyment. It was a good beer, probably an import, and it had been poured perfectly, no head to speak of.

A loud knock came at the far door, causing all six maids to stand ramrod straight, which made Sam jolt more than the knock at the door. A beat passed before the far double doors were pushed open, and a new maid entered, unfamiliar, but the gold pin at her neck indicated her to be a Lady's Maid. She stood there momentarily before stepping to the side to admit Victoria.

Sam nearly dropped his drink, his eyes going wide and his mouth falling open. 

Victoria was a far cry from the simple yet tasteful summer dress she had worn for most of the day. Now, she wore a lapis blue Victorian dinner dress made from silk that went all the way to the floor, only the white petticoats beneath peeking from under the bell-like line of its skirt. Her chest was wrapped in a tight-fitting bodice that hugged every curve of her torso, a ruffled detail covering her breasts and its high collar framing her swan-like neck. Her waist had quite clearly been cinched in by a hidden corset, presenting a perfect hourglass, while her arms were sheathed in tight sleeves with fluted black ruffled cuffs. Her long black hair had been gathered in a high ponytail, held in place by a dark blue ribbon and red floral hair clip. She had also touched up her makeup with eyeshadow and mascara that made her long lashes pop. 

She looked like she had just stepped out of her namesake era; she was, in a word, gorgeous. 

As one, the assembled servants curtseyed in greeting while the Lady's Maid left. Victoria turned to look at Sam, smirking in mirth as the maids pulled out her chair to let her sit. She kept his gaze as she unwrapped her napkin and placed it on her lap, enjoying how he continued to gorp at her.

“If you keep that look up any longer, love, I’m going to have to break out a canvas and start drawing.” she joked, snapping Sam out of his brain fart.

He opened his mouth to make a witty reply but found the words would not form, still captivated by the alien yet fitting look that his girlfriend now sported. In the time they had been together, she had never worn anything even remotely as extravagant! ‘I mean, sure, she occasionally wore designer brands, but I’m used to seeing her laze about in her pyjamas!!!’ he thought, his thoughts slowly getting back in order. “You look nice.” he eventually said awkwardly. 

It looked more than nice, it suited her to a tee.

Victoria poured herself a glass of water from a pitcher one of her attache maids brought to her, “Sorry for the wait, blossom. Sometimes you can’t rush getting dressed, I’m sure you know that.” she said, watching him over the rim of her glass. “Do you like my toilette ?” 

His brows knitted together in confusion at the strange word before realising she was referring to her dress. “You’re stunning,” he admitted honestly.

“Flatterer,” one of the maids filled a champagne flute for her mistress to drink from. “But honest compliments are the most sincere, even if this dress is something of a normality for me now I’ve brought you home.”

“This has to be surprise number five,” Sam ventured, alleviating the dryness in his mouth with another gulp of beer. 

“Part of it, certainly. But not all of it. I want to show you all the joys of Victorian living, and what better mood setter before a decadently delicious meal than a silk appetiser?” she tittered, laughing behind the back of her hand as the maids began to wheel in food, each meal hidden under a silver cloche. 

“You’ve succeeded in making me feel underdressed.” Sam retorted, a covered platter placed before him.

“Twice in one day, that’s a record that shan’t be beaten,” Victoria replied, one maid lifting the cloche to reveal a bowl of rich soup. “From here on out, you’ll never have to feel underdressed ever again.”

Dinner consisted of a three-course meal that Victoria had planned to perfection to be a combination of simple and elegant; the cooks in the kitchens had been all too happy to have it prepared to her every specification,

However, it ran into the immediate, finicky and insurmountable obstacle: Samuel Hays being a picky eater. Victoria’s gaze ensured he at least attempted to slurp down a few spoonfuls of his rich tomato soup, but not much more. Instead, he gorged himself on the offered bread to make up the difference, using the wrong knife to slice and butter the bread. More than once, one of the Parlor Maids opened their mouth to instruct him on the right utensil to use, but a subtle look from Diana was all it took to shut them up. It was not their place to correct their Mistress’s loved one on table etiquette.

Yet . 

Once Victoria had finished her own starter, Sam’s still three-quarter filled bowl of soup was taken away and replaced with the main course, a prime cut ribeye steak with asparagus, coleslaw and a Caesar salad. His eyes lit up upon seeing the steak, much more up his culinary ally. 

The meat of the meal was the meat itself, and he quickly dug in, relishing the medium rare beef that was so tender he could cut it with his fork despite his pitiable skill with the utensil. He moaned in culinary pleasure, it was juicy and savoury with the perfect amount of resistance as he chewed it, soft yet not soft enough to turn into mush. There was another flavour, too, amidst the cooling blood, a pleasant tang from whatever dressing it had been doused in when it had danced upon the grill. 

“Someone’s enjoying themselves,” Victoria mused as she watched him push away the greens on his plate while she popped a sprig of asparagus into her mouth. 

“It’s really bloody good.” he answered between munches of the meat and more beer, ‘Though I could do without a squad of people watching me like vultures. ’ he mentally commiserated as a black and white shape emerged from his peripheral vision to refill his empty pint glass. The Parlour Maids and Diana were like statues most of the time, smiling and watching over the progress of what should have been a private meal and acting before he could ask them to do anything compared to Victoria, who, in Sam’s opinion, somewhat rudely directed them with subtle hand gestures and snaps of her fingers. 

“You’ll soon get used to food this good all the time, no more settling for whatever bargain bin droppings you can scrape out of a supermarket on the dregs of a loan.” Victoria sipped her champagne. 

Snorting at his girlfriend, Sam replied, “I don’t think it will be a common thing, Victoria. To be frank, a meal this good would probably put me so far in debt my hair would turn red out of sympathy for my ledger.” he joked, expecting her to laugh. 

“Why?”

Sam looked across the table at his partner, her face set in aloof curiosity that confused him.

“You know why.”

Silence fell over the table as each continued to eat their meals, swapping over to a sticky toffee pudding and ice cream for dessert.

Sam broke the silence, trying to remedy what he perceived as making his girlfriend unhappy. “Sorry, Victoria. I know you said you’ll take care of me, but it's just… I don’t want to be a burden to you.”

Victoria licked her soon clean of ice cream, “What’s wrong with a woman wanting to take care of her partner? It’s quite progressive if I do say so myself.”

Sam chuckled sardonically, “I think our current setting is a bit out of fashion for talking of being progressive.”

"It's funny you should bring up things from yesteryear being out of fashion, love, it should be much more common. Do you follow what goes on in the House of Lords?"

Sam snorted, picking at the greens around what was left of his steak, "Does anyone under the age of 50?" he queried.

Victoria tittered in amusement, tickled by the wit, "Don't be so aloof; plus, my father is a member, so I hear about the goings on more than most." she explained. Sam filed that new bit of information away for later before promptly obliterating it with a swig of his beer. "Two months ago, Lord Madison from Yorkshire made a speech about the employment crisis coming out of the pandemic and how to return the country to what it was before."

Sam raised an eyebrow, Victoria made him wait until she had finished chewing and chased it down with champagne, the gold contents of the flute refracting the image of the tight lapis bodice in miniature.

"Do you want to know what he said?" she asked rhetorically. "I am of the firm opinion that not only was this country at its most prosperous and stable during the latter half of the 19th century as a result of the system of patronage and servitude, but that it is the only route by which we may restore the glory of old England."  

His eyes slowly widened over the course of the quote, incredulousness building at the back of his mind at the insanity of what the Lord had suggested. "He sounds like a bellend." he sputtered, drawing a rueful laugh from his girlfriend that they shared while a maid approached to refill their glasses.

"It certainly didn't engender support from our generation; apparently, people camped outside his manor in Yorkshire to protest, yet all but one called it quits by the end of the first night."

"Typical," Sam mused.

Victoria watched him intently, swirling her sparkling wine. "Honestly speaking? I think he's right."

Silence reigned. Sam blinked slowly, first once, then twice. “ What ?”

“Oh, I’m no nationalist. There’s enough French furniture in this room alone to douse such an idea.” Victoria headed off, not wanting to get her metaphors and analogies mixed up. Sam watched as she used her napkin to clear stray crumbs from her face whilst keeping her makeup intact. “But what I do agree on is that the latter half of the 19th century was the best time in history.”

“The smog, TB and literal poison in the wallpaper would refute that,” he sighed. His eyes, however, were curious and let Victoria speak, “Where are you going with all this?”

Victoria’s smile widened, bearing teeth. “Oh, it has its downsides, sure. I’m not going to defend that, but the bright sides are something that should be brought into the modern day, and that is what I intend for you, love.”

Sam listened with bated breath.

Victoria held up a finger, “There are two things which you need to know, the first is a reminder, and the second is something new for you. As you know, I love the Victorian era. I love its look, sound, aesthetic, trappings and dress.” she explained passionately. “My heart dwells in a time long past, but I’ve the ability, funds and opportunity to bring it to life here with none of its shortcomings.”

She held up the second finger, “The second is the ‘Florence Legacy.’” 

Sam sat up in his seat. “And what is that?” he asked slowly. There was a hypnotic note to her words as she spoke, a glee shining out from behind her eyes.

Victoria rested her chin atop her hand. “You could call it a psychological tick that evolved in the family tradition. When a Florence meets someone who they want to become theirs, " Sam blushed, “We uplift them to the position we think is fitting for them. And that is what I offer Sam, a place here, at my side as my spouse.”

“Pft-hrk!” the dirty blonde spluttered, nearly spitting his drink and sucking some of it into his nose in an effort to stop. He coughed violently to clear his sinuses of the burning feeling of the beer as he tried to comprehend just what Victoria had just said to him.

The older woman at the end of the table watched him clean himself up with his napkin before fixing her with a confused and overwhelmed stare. Her face was pleased; she had always enjoyed it when he got flustered.

A million thoughts ran through his mind before he seized upon perhaps the dumbest of the lot.

“Does that make me the lord of the manor?” he joked, hoping humour would help deflect the reality of the situation.  

“No, you will be its Lady.”

Huh?

Victoria grinned, a manic happiness radiating off her in waves. “That’s the sixth surprise. I have brought you here to become my wife. My corset wearing, tea drinking, bustle sporting, coquet attending, bonnet donning and very much Victorian wife.” she wrapped her hands on the desk enthusiastically; she had been waiting so long to speak these words aloud, it seemed. “You will be taught and enriched so your outward appearance and actions match your inner shine. A wife, MY wife. A prim and proper young lady that will grow up to be at my side from croquet in the garden to ravishing each other deep into the night in a silken boudoir.”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“...ha,” he let out a singular, solitary snicker that was joined by a second, growing into a small chuckle before transitioning to a genuine laugh. 

“ah-hahahahahahahahahahahah-AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!”

As Sam guffawed with belly aching, body shaking peels of absurdist laughter, Victoria too began to laugh, though hers was a much haughtier tone. The room was full of smiles, with even Diana giving a sweet giggle. 

“It would appear that your words have tickled her Ladyship, Mistress,” Diana said in amusement, causing Sam’s cackles to grow further still. 

And why wouldn’t they? This was, without any shadow of a doubt, the funniest, most elaborate joke he had ever seen. ‘She spent all this time and money on all of this for the sake of an ‘I wear the pants in this relationship joke’? I have to respect the bit. ’ he wiped a mirthful tear from his eye. 

“So it seems, Diana, I think she wants a few more sordid details. Sounds good for you, dear?” Victoria humorously asked Sam, who was only now just getting his breath back.

He decided that he would indulge the joke. “Only an artist could spend so much time preparing for a farce. So fuck it, why not? Spill the beans, Victoria. I want all the sordid details.”

“Not all the details, those are to come, and there’s no point spoiling that.” She waved a finger at him condescendingly, “But I can give a few keen examples if you’ll pardon the crassness of my words.”

“Aren’t I a little too tall to play the submissive wife tho?” he mused, perhaps the beer speaking through him, but he was reasonably sure if he stood up straight, he would tower over even Diana. 

Victoria waved away the matter dismissively without missing a beat, deeming it a non-issue. “The wife’s submission is not something as simple as standing over her spouse. It's a matter of being graceful and demure, things you will learn and become second nature to you. But if it's too much of an issue, I could simply bend you over the table and have my way with you to reinforce your position for the staff to see." She tapped the table with a perfectly manicured nail. 

Had Sam not been driven merry by the alcohol in his system or convinced this was just one big joke, he probably would have winced and asked her to knock it off, placidly wanting to hide from the gazes of the Maids who watched them still. Alas, all he could muster was a joking ‘ouch’ at the mental image she had drawn in his mind.

After dinner, coffee was promptly served, and the tall young man drank his preferred brown nectar. Victoria gestured across the table at his mug, “Of course, you’ll have to dial back on the coffee. A Lady’s drink of choice is tea, and I will see you drink it.”

“Now THERE’S something you would have to chain me down to avoid, Little Miss Marquis de Sade.” he barbed, downing the coffee, it was so very smooth and helped some sense back into him as the hilarity of the joke began to grow thin. He sighed, addressing his self-proclaimed ‘spouse’, “Well, this has been a wonderful little charade, Victoria, but I really need to go to bed. Do you mind?”

“Of course I don’t mind; if my wife needs her beauty sleep, then I shall be a loving spouse and provide. Besides, the last surprise will keep till the ‘morrow.” she said as she finished her own coffee and adjusted her cuffs. “Diana, show my wife to her bed chambers and make sure she gets to sleep.”

Diana nodded to her mistress at the order before approaching Sam. “Follow me, your Ladyship.”

Snickering again at the vestiges of the joke, Sam rose to his feet and followed the dress-adorned housekeeper through the door back into the halls of the manor, Victoria’s intense stare following him as he went. The walk back through the house was in pleasant silence in which he could come to terms with the encroaching tiredness that made his legs a curious mix of lead and jelly. Climbing back up the grand staircase to the first floor was tough, but once there, it was only a short walk to the bedroom that had been prepared for him.

Foggy as his full belly made his mind, such that his left eye felt a tad dim, Sam thought that ‘bedroom’ was an understatement. It was nearly as big as his and Victoria’s whole student flat! Self-contained as one room with cream walls and tasteful gold patterns running through the walls, the bedroom had more space available to it than most could ever dream of. There were numerous pieces of luxury furniture on one side of the room near what seemed to be a wall of walk-in closets held closed by wonderfully hewn wooden doors. There were three double windows that Diana was currently pulling the curtains over, shutting out the spectacular view of the grounds covered by the darkening sky.

His interest lingered on two items; the first was a writing desk with a small built-in set of empty bookshelves that was currently empty. His backpack rested on its surface, the first time he had seen it since his arrival this morning. It was a welcome sight. The second thing was the bed that he was pleased to see was a king-sized four-poster bed that looked very comfortable. 

Diana moved past him and turned down the bed, making it ready for him to rest when he needed to. He sat down and she made her way to the door, curtseying to him, “Goodnight, your Ladyship. I hope you sleep well.” she said before turning to leave.

Sam raised an eyebrow and called out to Diana as she turned the bedroom door handle. “I know she’s your boss but you don’t have to keep up with the joke, Diana,” he said.

The housekeeper paused, handle halfway depressed, before slowly looking over her shoulder, her eyes deadly serious chips of jade behind half-moon glasses. What she said to him was something that would stay with him for the rest of his days.

“I do not joke about the truth, your Ladyship. Rest well, you have a big day tomorrow.”

And like that, she was gone, leaving Sam decidedly unsettled in his room.

Shaking his head, he decided that he had had just enough of today and he might as well go to sleep, pulling his bed clothes out of his bag and leaving them on one of the seats, he began to disrobe, messily throwing his t-shirt onto one of the sofas before tapping his jeans. He tapped again, feeling the bottom of his stomach fall away when he didn’t feel the comforting metal jangle. He rifled through his pockets before cursing under his breath. He had lost his fucking keys.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Sam rationalised the situation. They must have slipped out of his pocket in one of the endless rooms sometime during the day. “One of the maids’ll probably find 'em,” he slurred, deciding that he’d just sleep in his pyjama bottoms tonight. 

Climbing into the king-sized bed, he rested his head on the plush duck-down pillow and gently let sleep take him.

The night was calm and still, warm without being stifling as even without the flawless air conditioning pumped into every room through masterfully obfuscated ducts, there was a cool breeze to take the edge off the July heat. Should a person desire it, they could have quite comfortably lain naked beneath the sky, free to observe the stars unmolested by the harsh light pollution of the cities. The heavens were a canvas of deep black and the cosmos a smattering of twinkling jewels that winked down at the Florence’s second seat of power. Most of the maids slept calmly in their beds, food and drink medicated just so as to ensure peaceful, dreamless sleep as a reward for doing their duties as servants. 

For Samuel Hays, however, the traipse through Morpheus’s domain was anything but restful. While sleep had taken him easy enough, he had soon been drawn into a vague nightmare that was vague on details and sharp on dread. He twisted and turned beneath his silk sheets, their slippery and light touch not registering in his sleeping mind, moaning and groaning in discontent. He muttered to himself, an inane babel that amounted to nothing more than a signifier that the sleep was fitful and without rest. 

His dreamself found him walking through a bracken thick forest, the sky so grey it could have been black and large, heavy raindrops pelting down on him. He had to get back; he did not know where or to whom, but Sam had to return. He had strayed from the path and now found himself lost, but that did not scare him. It was the thunder. It crept from the blackness above like a stampede of umbral beasts, a wild hunt of wind and trembling that made his small form whimper, for he was once again small, young, and so very small as the thunder cracked in cerulean sky fire. He broke into a run, the memory of a path a distant glimmer, but the forest seemed to grow thicker and the sky angry. It boomed overhead now, forks of lightning reaching out to claw at the ground with ear-splitting drumfire until finally, with a flash so bright it left him dazed, it had found him. There was the scent of lighting and burnt wood, and he looked up before feeling the left side of his face explode into pain and-

And the dream dissolved, nebulously ending just as it had started, oblivious of the corporal surroundings. 

Summer night was a fleeting thing; the eastern horizon soon began to brighten from inky black to wakening grey, and before anyone knew it, the mother of fire had birthed upon the land; dawn had come. Solar glory blessed the grounds with its coronal kiss, causing the birds to let out their morning song to welcome the day. A solitary lark perched atop Eden’s Rest’s central spire and declared for its stewards, a joyous sound, the preamble to something wonderful.

The gilded handle of Sam’s door slowly turned to swing inwards silently, and Victoria poked her head through the door. Even in the half-light of dawn, dulled by the white curtains drawn over the windows, she could make out his lump on the bed. She smiled, satisfied at what she saw before entering the room properly and closing the door behind her. 

She wore a white, floor-length Victorian dressing gown in satin that clung to her regally and expanded out behind her with a slight train. The garment was formed of a trim-fitting bodice with a high button-down collar worn closed; its upper sleeves had a touch of ‘leg of mutton’ puffiness to them while the cuffs were wide, a comfort feature that maintained the air of high class. There was also the unmistakable silhouette of a slight bustle poking from the gown’s back that flared out to accent her hips and rear. The detailing was also of note, the waist belted close with embroidery over the bust and lace details at the collar and frilly hem.

Victoria strode into the room and made for her paramore’s sleeping form, carrying a cup of tea in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. She set the steaming white mug on the bedside table while her morning cup of ginseng tea was deposited beside it. The ravenette took a moment to look down at his face and spotted the creases on his brow, frowning that he must have had a poor night. Stroking the bridge of his nose with the back of a finger, she was pleased to watch the creases melt away, her presence giving him comfort. 

Next, she made her way to the fireplace on the far side of the room and leant down to light it. A roaring fire soon cracked in the hearth before she opened the curtains. Her blue eyes settled on the clock, and she saw that it was now 5:25, an acceptable time frame. While she waited for the combination of light, sound, and smell to rouse Sam from his slumber, she took the time to look out over the grounds of her beloved home. The sun's radiance had vaporised the dew covering the meadows, and now a subtle mist rose lethargically into the air near the ground, lending a mystical feel to the sight.

An auspicious start.

A distant movement drew her attention and her smile grew to a grin as she spotted a black movers truck trundling down the long track from the perimeter wall. Kaarina and Soifa had probably left in the early hours of the morning to make it here for dawn. She made a mental note to give them a bonus. ‘ Or give them leave to partake of the Tantric Maids for a few days, whichever they prefer .’ 

“Uhhhhphhh.” Sam groaned, the scent of coffee burying its hook deep into his mind and dragging him into wakefulness. Victoria took one of the seats from the collection of furniture and moved it beside the bed. She settled in the chair and began to nurse her Ginseng, waiting for him to wake properly. 

Sam blinked several times, opening his eyes slowly, eyelids gunked half closed by sleep before he could rub them clear. Looking above him, his first conscious thought, other than ‘I want to go back to sleep’, was that something was off. He blinked slowly, mental faculties caught in a figurative boot cycle as he tried to parse just what was wrong. The ceiling was wrong, unfamiliar. Instead of the abstract patterns created by the Artex that he was used to seeing in his student accommodation, he was presented with the light brown wood that formed the canopy of the four-poster bed, festooned with provocative carvings of women locked in…

‘The fuck?’ he thought groggily, surely his eyes had to be playing tricks on him. He turned his head and scanned the vast room before spotting Victoria. He jumped in surprise, sitting up slightly while she continued to watch him, finding his burst of shock endlessly amusing. “Victoria?” he asked, the word coming out slowly.

Victoria gently imbibed another draft of her herbal tea before resting it in its saucer with a clink; she rested her chin on the palm of her hand as she continued to study the dirty-blonde-haired boy’s awakening. “Come, blossom. We both know you have seen far worse than me in the morning. Now drink your coffee.” she said, the comment was more forceful than usual but not unkind, and he was dearly in need of something to wake him up. Sam reached for the mug before drinking deeply. 

He hummed in pleasure at the flavour of the coffee, the rich and smooth bitterness was just the thing he needed to ward off the lingering spectres of sleep in his mind, being able to recall the circumstances of why he was currently in an unfamiliar bed. He also took in Victoria, she had cleaned her face of makeup and now wore her hair naturally, the curtain of silky black hair running down her white dressing gown.

The sight of the ornate clothing sent a wave of memories crashing down on him, and he remembered why he was here. His eyes seemed to brighten as he truly began to wake up, and he flashed a smile at the woman he loved. “Morning,” he greeted in a relaxed voice, shifting until he was sat up against the pillows. 

“Good morning, I hope you slept well,” Victoria returned, Sam continuing to drain his cup. 

He grimaced a little, the half-remembered nightmare souring his mood, “So-so, kinda sad you weren’t there with me.”

“Some traditions have to be observed, but the feeling is mutual,” she assured him, raising her teacup in mock toast. “I, on the other hand, slept wonderfully after such a fun evening. You should have seen your face. I really should have broken out the canvas and palette to capture it in detail. I think I would have hung it over the mantlepiece in the games room.” 

“Hardy-har, har har,” he sarcastically pantomimed, but he could clearly take solace in the joke. He finished the coffee and set it down on the bedside table with a thump, going over the events of last night with a chuckle. “It was fun, though, you get an A+ for creativity and execution; I’m glad I was a part of it.”

She nodded in satisfaction, closing her eyes in contemplation. “Good, good. That’s the right mindset to have, I hope it holds up once we begin your education here.”

Sam scoffed ruefully, connecting the dots with her period-accurate attire, “Okay, you can cut the bit now. It was fun while it lasted, but I think you’re laying it on a bit too thick. Pushing a joke beyond its natural life is just sad.”

“Why joke about the truth? Take the compliment, Lady Florence.” Victoria replied.

“Drop it, Victoria, at least till after breakfast,” he grumbled incredulously, the early morning fraying his usually long temper. Victoria’s face snapped to look at him so quickly he could have sworn she had pulled something in her neck, but he was stopped dead in his mental track by her look.

In her eyes was a deadly seriousness and burning passion, chiding him more than any physical blow. 

“Nothing about last night was a joke, Sam. I fully intend to follow through on what I have said. This is your home now, and you are my wife.” An all too human chill went down Sam’s spine, freezing him to the core. “I will do what is necessary to see you shaped and crafted into an elegant Victorian flower whether you like it or not.” 

He stared at her, into her eyes and across her body, framed in that beautifully sinister attire that suited her like a butterfly’s wings, emerging from the cocoon of mundane happiness to show her true colours. There was passion, seriousness, annoyance, ironic enjoyment and, above all, love. That was what scared him, sent every sense and instinct screaming in warning that his care for her had deadened. She meant every word… and she loved it.

“You’re Mad.” 

Two words. They carried with them a maelstrom of emotions from shock to disbelief and even the treacherous beginnings of understanding. And yet they did not sound right, the words were similar but had an otherness to them, was it the vowels were too long or some extra lisp of lingering morning dryness in his lips. But how could that be? His lips were still moist with coffee.

What Sam had actually said was, “Yur Madths.”

Something was wrong, “Whath? ‘he thuc!? Bictow Iysh-” he slurred, one side of his mouth going slack as his eyes filled with confusion. He sat up straight and made to pull off the covers but found his movements to be sluggish and uncoordinated, flopping uselessly against the sheets. The bedclothes may as well have been spun from neutron star matter for all the ability he had to lift them. ‘ Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! ’ he thought in panic, sending a plea to his girlfriend. “Ish dinc am ‘abing a stronk…stroooonk, elp me Bic.”

But she did not help him, Victoria remained sat in her chair, nursing her tea as his slurred pleas filled the room, watching with interest as the disarray in his body worsened until he could no longer hold himself up, flopping back into the pillows he wiggled impotently as his fine motor control was peeled away layer by layer. “Herrrrllllllllllll…” he finally gurgled, lying still, limp as a wet noodle. 

She admired the view for a few more seconds, finishing her Ginseng before gracefully getting to her feet and approaching the bed to look over him. Sam’s face was an expressionless mask, all muscles having ceased contracting when the harrowing reached its apex. A trail of drool rolled down from one side of his mouth, and his tongue lolled out uselessly. Despite the fast-acting paraplegia, his eyes were very much still awake, hazel orbs having narrowed to pinpricks that darted around the room feverishly.

Lifting a finger, she brought it close to his face and saw how his gaze locked onto it, waving it slowly to the left and right and watching him follow it. He was still awake and cognizant. 

Smiling at him pleasedly, she turned around and went to a distant chest of draws and retrieved a silken handkerchief, sauntering back to his side and beginning to dab the drool from his lips. “Relax, blossom. You aren’t having a stroke. I just need you to be a little more compliant for a bit.” Victoria said, finished with the spittle. She gently shifted his weight in the bed, setting his face to rights before adjusting his arms til both were free of the bedsheets.

The clock read 5:35, which pleased the Viscountess immensely, it meant she had time to talk before the appointed moment came and a captive audience to hear it. She walked around the bed to the window and began to speak again in a conversational tone. “Flowers are interesting, so fascinating. While they have their looks and smells, they also have much more nuanced mechanics to them, to keep them alive and protected, and I don’t mean things so basic as thorns.”

She turned, letting him follow her with his eyes. He was not in pain, nor was he even numb, but there was just a sheer otherness to his senses, his brain sending signals to working synapses that promptly ignored their commands.

“There’s a particularly interesting strain of orchid that grows in the mountains of Borneo that is utterly fascinating. Given that it's so high up, it means that it has to be very careful with how it spends its energy, requiring a precise ratio of pollination and reproduction; too little or too much and its limited nutrients will be squandered. But what’s to stop a would-be pollinator from being too greedy and drinking more than its needed share?” she asked, pointing to Sam as if she were a lecturer astride a lectern. 

Sam was, obviously, silent.

Victoria snapped her fingers with a grin, “Correct, Lady Florence! It turns its disadvantage against them. It adds a chemical additive to its nectar that is quite undetectable and, on its own, totally benign. It’s a particularly ‘sticky’ enzyme that stays in the pollinator’s system for two days with no negative effects whatsoever.” she explained animatedly, nerding out over the mechanics of her beloved plants, “But if it comes back for a second drink within those two days, the orchid releases a second enzyme into the nectar that if imbibed will mix with the first. If both agents are in the pollinator simultaneously, death is quite instantaneous. Its body falling at the feet of the flower to put those stolen nutrients back into the soil.”

Ice-cold sweat beaded down Sam’s back, terror filling his eyes that threatened to pop from their orbits. 

Seeing his distress, Victoria was quick to wave away his fear as she approached him. “Oh, there’s no need to worry. It could never kill anything bigger than a hummingbird. Well, that was before FMC got their hands on it. They cut it open stem to stern to see how it worked one cell at a time. And then they went about improving it as all Florence's do. They filtered it, distilled it and concentrated it until it fit our designs, a binary neurological sedative that is totally unknown to pharmacists and governmental organisations the world over.”

She sat on the side of the bed and began to walk her fingers up his stomach, circling his belly button before continuing the trek up, her face looming into his vision. “Of course, it didn’t come without a few changes; the first agent now has a slight taste; in fact, you probably know that it goes wonderful with a ribeye steak. It also creates a small period of… well, I wouldn’t call it suggestibility as opposed to merry euphoria. I’m sure you’ll be able to give Yui a testimonial.”

She had drugged him. His girlfriend had fucking drugged him!

“The window of it being viable also shrank from two days to 12 hours, but it's in the final result that we find the most fascinating change,” Victoria spoke, now directly in front of his face, the scent of her shampoo filling his nose as her soft lips danced. “If the second agent is imbibed within 12 hours of the first, particularly when bonded to caffeine, it catalyses into half an hour of total nervous disconnect while leaving the five senses intact, meaning I can do this-” She kissed him, slowly pressing her lips to his and begging a searing hot kiss. 

Sam exploded to an atomic red, entire body flushing at the passion that Victoria poured into him that he was powerless to resist. They had kissed many times in the past, but there was something much more here, a will in the way she meshed her lips against his, working them open and running her tongue over his lips and as if tasting him, gently prizing his teeth open as her hand gripped the back of his hair, holding him exactly where she wanted. Her other hand was not idle either.

While she loudly made out with him, moaning indulgently as she tasted her wife’s unresisting mouth, Victoria traced his pectoral muscles, lost amidst a fantasy. The dominant woman could imagine the large teardrop-shaped breasts that would soon begin to grow there, how she would cup them, squeeze the supple flesh until capturing a hardened nipple between her teeth and biting. She squeezed his nipple, twisting it to send a sting of pain into the vacuum of his nervous system, feeling so much more real, the only evidence he had felt was the quickening of his heartbeat and the feel of his breath tickling her face. She eeked the reactions from him, then began to guide them, sculpting them to her desires. Her hand trailed south, slipping beneath the sheets and into his pyjama bottoms where she cupped his manhood, feeling it slowly harden in her hand as she manipulated it to its full length. 

The kiss was now open-mouthed, her tongue plunging into Sam’s mouth in a fiery French kiss, pinning his tongue to the floor of his mouth in a show of dominance even though he was incapable of fighting back. She closed her eyes, intoxicated by her own power, before slowly, almost regretfully, she broke the kiss and pulled away.

“-And you’ll feel it.” she finished huskily, once again using a handkerchief to dab spittle away after she had closed his mouth. She left his stiff cock, just above average at full length, to slowly soften as she returned to her dictatorial position at the foot of the bed. “I’ve been waiting two whole years to do that, you little tease.”

The paralysed dirty blonde registered the words dimly, along with the fact that Victoria once again explored the bedroom in search of something. Sam was internally screaming, circling back to the fact that his girlfriend had drugged him again and again, underscored by a feeling of violation at how she manipulated his body with intoxicating ease. 

“The Florence Legacy is so finicky, Blossom.” Victoria pushed on, “There are so many little rules and traditions you have to observe depending on what you want your partner to become. But you accepted it. Accepted it but never knew.” A finger was held up, her form silhouetted by the fireplace light, “A Karmic bond of significant strength, in this case, love.” she put up another finger. “A year of courting and serenading you with gifts, each and every one you accepted. Inviting you to my home, which you accepted. Listening to my decision and accepting food and board.” 

She closed her hand, and Sam felt each finger lock around his soul, transfixed by his girlfriend and captor’s glowing blue eyes in the shifting shadows cast by the fire. 

“In the eyes of the gods above and the garden below, you are my wife, love. Now I can teach you to be as you always should have been.” she finished before spotting something out of the corner of her eye. She crossed the room, aware of a mostness in her nethers but ignored it, continuing to speak.

“I have had to watch for years as the person I love was content to be drowned in humdrum banality and contented mediocrity. A soul and a mind that is the yang to yin. To that reality, I say no more.”

It was not that Victoria disdained the real world, far from it. She just had the perspective to realise just how valuable her place in life was. 

Picking up the lank grey form of Sam’s discarded bed shirt with a finger, her nose wrinkled in disgust. 

“I’ve always fucking hated this shirt,” she said with vitriol, turning it on the end of her finger as if she might catch a disease from it. “So… cheap . Undeserving of sheathing your wonder.”

Approaching the fireplace, she looked at Sam with a benevolent smile, like a goddess gracing a dumbstruck mortal. “No more rough cotton from a Primark bargain bin. No more male clothes. No more.” And just like that, she flicked the shirt into the fire, forcing him to watch as it began to smoulder and burn. “From now on, it's silk, lace, taffeta, muslin-” she advanced slowly, her cadence clear and happy, “and latex and PVC and leather and nothing at all. The dress shall suit the role, and you are the lady of the manor, my little sissy wife.”

The clock struck 5:45 and a knock came at the door. Victoria returned to her chair and grinned, they were right on time. The door opened to admit three figures, a trio of maids.

Strangely, they were different from any of the maids Sam had seen in his short time at the manor. They shared a commonality amongst them in that all three appeared to be of Asian descent with incredibly similar features and heights. The second was their uniforms. They were inverse of the usual maid’s attire with short white maid dresses, short pencil skirts and sheer white stockings tucked into white latex plimsolls. Their headbands were also different, flaring up into nurse caps bearing the Florence sigil and a black armband on their left arms marked with a red cross. 

Two of them manoeuvred a stretcher into the room between them while the third held a small leather doctor's bag in her hands. They silently greeted Victoria before the Mistress nodded. The third of their number approached and laid her beg on the end of the bed, snapping it open and withdrawing several items. Her dark brown eyes met Sam’s pleading ones and offered no comfort, just a look of interested sympathy as she snapped on a pair of light blue latex medical gloves. 

Picking up one of his limp arms, the maid ran a gloved finger down his arm before finding the vein and swabbed it with alcohol. She returned to her bag and got something that made Sam’s blood thunder in his ears: a syringe and a vial of clear liquid marked with medical stickers. Filling the syringe from the vial until it was full, the Asian nurse-maid pressed it until the first dribble of sedative beaded at the end of the sterile needle. Pressing it to the vein, Sam felt the sharp prick as the hypodermic breached skin and muscle to find its target, but to his surprise, the maid had not yet injected him.  

His confusion was alleviated moments later as Victoria stood and replaced the maid, holding the syringe with her thumb upon the plunger, poised to send him back into the cold embrace of sleep. 

She waited until he once again looked into her happy blue eyes, “Sleep now, blossom, and when you wake, we can begin.” Victoria crooned before depressing the plunger and injecting him with the strong, fast-acting sedative.

As the edges of his vision began to ring with darkness, dragging back into sleep, his rapidly fading mind latched onto a singular abstract thought. 

If her designs at sunset had been the sixth surprise, then the fact she meant it in the cold light of dawn had been the seventh.

Chapter 3: Chapter 2: The Scope

The trio of Nurse Maids silently made their way through the halls of the first floor with a professional grace and silence, their latex plimsolls making barely any noise on the hardwood flooring despite the weight of the stretcher carried between two of them. The miraculously similar Asian duo walked along the long red runner that ran the length of the hallway while the third of their number walked astride them, watching over Sam’s unconscious form with the leather doctor’s bag merrily swinging at her side. While they were on a tight schedule, none felt any inclination that they should hurry, for not only did they know the layout of Eden’s Rest like the back of their hands, but they knew that it was their duty to make sure the Mistress’s wife made it to Dr Ito in as pleasant a trip as possible.

As early morning light streamed through a passing window, the distant sounds of movement began to dimly echo through the house as innumerable staff were roused to wakefulness for their chores. The Nurse Maids were no exception to this; if anything, their days began long before the sun rose and ended long after it had set, but it didn’t diminish the acknowledgement that Eden was waking from its rest.

Turning into a long corridor that was almost indistinguishable from the rest, the two menials carried the stretcher in front of an innocuous-looking door, waiting patiently for their third. The group's apparent leader passed the duo and knocked out the young man, withdrawing a small silver fob from inside her armband and tapping it to the light switch beside the door. There was a sharp click followed by the muted whir of gears from within the door, and they watched as its brass doorknob swivelled thrice before receding into the door, leaving it a perfectly flat stretch of wood. The door silently slid open, rolling on oiled bearings into the doorframe and revealing a pair of metal doors and a digital readout. 

Another tap of the silver fob and the doors opened, revealing a spacious elevator beyond, a slow baroque arpeggio softly wafting through the speakers. Despite its elaborate reveal, the elevator was not entirely unique to the house; every floor had at least two hidden elevators to allow for speedy access to all floors for those who could not walk or needed to cut out the maddening meandering that the maze of corridors created. They quickly entered, and the leader ran her finger down the collection of buttons next to the door.

Eventually, she stopped at one near the bottom, ‘ Medical - Arrivals ’ written in an easily readable cursive. Pressing it, the metal doors slid shut, and the elevator began to descend through the floors at a sedate pace, its camouflaging wooden door sliding back into place, leaving no evidence that it hid anything out of the ordinary. 

There were two reasons for such a paradoxically flashy showing of secrecy. Firstly, the elevator was not supposed to be seen by those who did not know or hadn’t earned the secrets of the house. The second was far more banal.

Victoria thought it was cool.

As the elevator rode downwards through the house silently, they passed into the underground regions that rarely saw the light of day. While the upper house was well and truly massive, it was matched by an equally expansive network of rooms and facilities that served the underbelly of the estate in ways that went beyond simple plumbing and foundation. The first basement level contained expansive storage rooms, but it could be broken down into two overarching sections: Yui’s medical facilities as well as the most sizable playroom and dungeon for when the residents were feeling particularly kinky.

The doors to the elevator opened to reveal the almond-shaped eyes of the resident Manor Physician, who maintained an excited air. “San, Go, Roku,” she greeted the Nurse Maids as they exited into the sterile whiteness of the medical arrivals area. “Annnnnnd,” she drew out, leaning down to grin at the half-dressed Sam on the stretcher, “The new Lady Florence. Okay, ladies, put him on the gurney, please.”

Yui gestured to a wheeled gurney in stainless steel that was upholstered in off-white rubber, and the Nurse Maids snapped off quick acknowledgements before lifting their stretcher over to the gurney. ‘San’ and ‘Roku’ held it steady while ‘Go’ handed her doctor's bag to Yui before rolling Sam’s sleeping form onto the gurney and making sure he was correctly settled. Once all was well, they rolled their patient towards the oncoming corridor that welcomed them to the Medical Wing, Yui at their head.

The Japanese doctor looked hardly any different from the day before, still sporting a pair of leather pants and black knee-high patent leather boots with block heels. The only two differences were she now wore a blue turtleneck and carried a tablet of some kind under her arm, beaming over her domain as she made her way through it bound for the examination room.

Compared to the perfectly preserved slice of a bygone era above, the medical facilities were starkly modern, rendered in blistering white with monochrome and medical-grade steel furnishings, that ever-present ‘absence’ of smell born of too much cleanliness soaking the air. But any illusions that this was simply the chipper doctor’s clinic alone were dashed by its scope. Yui passed numerous doors and windows that led off into a range of bleeding-edge infrastructure. One contained complex latacies of biology equipment that whirred and puffed amidst centrifuges, a mauve-coloured flower in varying stages of dissection being observed under a microscope by another Nurse Maid who bowed her head at Yui’s passage.

Yui sauntered past server rooms filled with monolithic banks of computers that hummed through the soundproofing, her breath briefly fogging at how cool it was. She even poked her head into a vaulted room where a fifth Nurse presided over a series of 3D printers, machining a complex piece of micro-scale equipment under a magnifying glass. 

It was a thrill that she had never, nor would ever, get over, but Yui had learned to live with it. “Ideas into innovation,” she tittered to herself, her thick Kansai accent echoing off the walls. The echo made her purse her lips in thought, the squeak and creak of rubber drawing her eyes and ears to the latex plimsolls that her Nurse Maids wore. Usually, such footwear would be a health and safety issue on polished floors, but the little rubber sheaths were quite the inventive bit of innovation, able to be rendered either very grippy or as slippery as ice with a simple swab of a chemical.

It was one of her better ideas for the ergonomics of kink.

It didn’t change the fact that today was the start of something that would blow all her previous projects out of the water.

However, it begged the question, just who was Doctor Yui Ito?

Her position as Manor Physician went far deeper than simply being responsible for the residents' and staff's health and well-being. Yui was in charge of running clinical trials on the numerous drugs being produced by FMC, but in truth, her exploits expanded far beyond pharmaceutical R&D and into the fantastical and highly unethical. After all, almost every single member of the staff had been subject to the fruits of her labours to help them along to the positions that Victoria deemed appropriate. Ranging from chemical supplements in their food and drink to keep them healthy to the sub-dermal speakers implanted in the base of their ears so they could always hear the chime of a service bell and so much more. 

The doors to the primary examination room slid open automatically at their approach and admitted them into a state-of-the-art operating theatre. It was a wide open space dominated by a large rubber and steel examination table in the dead centre of the room, surrounded by several small wheeled tables, IVs and monitoring equipment. A door was set into the far wall that was fitted with a large rectangular window, dividing an office and command centre from the clean space of the theatre. Looking up, Yui gazed upon the most curious object of all.

Suspended from the ceiling between the harsh white medical lamps was a round white and silver object mounted on the end of a telescopic rod. The object was a perfect, unbroken hemisphere of plastic, metal and ceramic with a spiral traced on its surface; eight cylinders of similar composition were affixed to its circumference. 

Yui called it ‘Sukuna’s Hand’.

She had a hand in making almost everything in this room, including her lovely Nurse Maids. “San, Go, Roku,” the short woman said, instantly grabbing her subordinate’s attention, “Get sleeping beauty onto the examination table then get into your medical scrubs.” 

Her candour was not something that one would usually expect in a medical environment, but the Nurse Maids treated the words as sacrosanct, bowing to their leader in acceptance of the order.

“Yes, Sensei,” they answered before setting to their task.

Yui had… particular tastes. She was simultaneously ambivalent of and proud of her Kyoto roots and the veritable infinite power that Victoria had given her as Manor Physician gave her carte blanche to make what she wanted of her staff. Of the nine Nurse Maids that were at her disposal, all of them had been modified to be extensions of her will for her use. Their names were replaced by the Japanese numbers one to nine and each had been given plastic surgery to bring them in line with what Yui had desired. Some had more notable features than others, but all bore that same oriental beauty that she was proud of. Whatever they had been before was gone, now they were hers. 

Once Sam was seated on the examination table, the trio of women filed out of the room to change, leaving Yui alone with her patient for the first time.

Inspecting the quietly sleeping younger man, Yui took the time to take her measure of what she could see, taking notes on her tablet and snapping several high-quality photographs for the sake of posterity. Once satisfied, she perched herself on the table beside him and walked her fingers from his belly button up to his clavicle, testing the way his pectorals moved and how much resistance specific stretches of flesh gave to her poking and prodding. “Lady Florence is on the average side save for his height, though judging by his weight,” Yui looked over at one of the radial screens surrounding the table and saw a weight readout, mentally subtracting her own weight and that of his bedclothes. “He’s just barely keeping out of the underweight zone.”

Dozens of sensitive microphones were hidden about the room to pick up the eccentric doctor’s idle chit-chat for later archival in case she ever forgot something. She rarely ever did, but it was always better to be redundant when walking the bleeding edge of science. She flicked one of his nipples nonchalantly and watched as the little pink nub reddened a shade darker than the other. It would seem that Victoria had already made an initial assault on her beloved’s body a few minutes prior. She began to flick and twist the other nipple until it had assumed the same shade of teased flesh as the first and was pleased with the rate of reaction.

She quashed the notion that she simply did it to even out the colour out of some kind of sadistic aestheticism. “I’m sure you’d forgive me, Sam; after all, I’m your doctor now and seeing what your body can do is my responsibility whether you like it or not,” Yui commented, looking up with a pleased smirk as San, Go and Roku entered the examination room. 

In place of their functional white maid attire, the trio were now each wrapped in a tight white latex sheath dress that only just touched the top of their thighs, the shiny material polished to a mirror shine under the harsh theatre lights and clinging to every alluring curve; a line of buttons running up the left side of their trim waists holding the short-sleeved uniforms shut. They wore matching latex stockings tucked into their plimsolls, and each still wore their maid come nurse caps. 

These were their ‘medical scrubs’, rendered in only the highest quality rubber. 

“Looking good, ladies,” Yui chirped, hopping off the table as the numerically named women took her place, snapping on medical gloves and picking items from the prepared trays. She sat in a rolling chair and positioned herself to oversee the work. 

“Sensei?” Roku asked, looking at her superior with a pair of scissors held in hand.

“Let’s get our present unwrapped and washed,” Yui replied, the trio giving a ‘Hai’ in unison. She enjoyed it when her creations spoke her native tongue and had conditioned them to make use of it in non-intrusive ways whenever possible.

The trio began to cut away his pyjama bottoms quickly and methodically until he was fully naked, tossing the strips of cloth into the bin marked for disposal. San unhooked a length of clear tubing and began to spray a gentle stream of lukewarm sterile water over Sam, who shivered at the sensation even in his sleep.

Go sent an unsure look towards Yui, but she just waved off the concern, “Just a basic bodily reaction. He’ll be out for a few hours, so get him squeaky clean!”

The tacit approval of their leader and owner given, the Nurse Maids gave Sam an impromptu sponge bath, their dainty hands gently raking across his immobile form and washing away lingering dirt or sweat from the night before. The table was canted to one angle so the water ran towards its foot and safely away into the drains. The good doctor meanwhile was gently pushing herself in a slow orbit of the table on her office chair to get a better look at both Sam and her nurses at work.

‘Pale, but not to an unhealthy degree, evident in someone who lives a relatively sedentary lifestyle, no muscle toning in the legs or abdominals to speak of, and I’d wager size 11 shoes. ’ she rolled closer to inspect the soles of his feet, ‘ Some minor wear on the toes but that just means he walks enough to stay healthy.’

Over the next ten minutes the dirty blonde sleeping beauty was creamed and systematically shaved of his sparse body hair, everything south of his eyelashes was done away with at the hand of an expertly wielded safety razor, with special attention being paid to the curly threads that had sprouted from his legs. With each pass of the hose, more of Sam’s hair was washed down the drain, it was almost dull.

Almost.

But to Yui, there was a thrill to the act of shaving that spoke to her roots; for all the technology that could remould a body and mind, it was so fundamentally sexy to take up a razor and gently scrape away the symptoms of manhood, and it was one she would partake in here without a doubt.

By the time the shaving had been completed, Sam was smooth as a newborn, with the exception of a small tuft of blonde at his crotch. While initially someone might have thought it a glaring oversight, the meticulousness of the rest of the job showed that it had been quite intentional.

Yui rose from her chair and approached Sam, running a finger over his silky smooth legs and nodding in approval at the work. Go offered her a fresh white safety razor while San applied a liberal coating of the shaving cream to Sam’s pubic hair. “It’s a shame we’re only going to be able to do this with him once,” Yui mused, brushing past Roku and causing the Nurse Maid’s latex dress to creak against her form, dislodging drops of water to run down to her thighs. 

“Yes, Sensei, but it is pragmatic,” Roku said demurely, earning a playful smack on the ass from the doctor. Yui smirked at her pet, enjoying the blush that crept up her cheeks at her ministrations, the latex perfectly framing each and every micro move that conveyed how she felt. Submissive, thankful and deeply aroused. 

“Right you are, and it doesn’t mean I can’t keep the most enjoyable part for myself,” Yui explained before begging to shave off Sam’s pubic hair, her favourite part of any shaving, completing the image of an unblemished body not blighted by a single hair. “Keeping track of body hair is such a pain in the ass, so if you're going to shave it, do it once and once only.”

“Yes, Sensei.” they all replied. 

Washing away the last of the cream-spattered hairs, the doctor began to gently fondle the blonde’s sack with one hand, learning its ins and outs and checking if the Nurses had done their job on the trickiest area to shave. They were all masters at this point, but the inspection always put them on edge, as shortcomings would result in a punishment. As she traced the seam from the perineum to the tip of his cock, Yui was satisfied that she had watched her maids squirm enough. She was about to pull her hand away when she felt Sam begin to react to her ministrations

As the young man's cock slowly came to life, Yui felt the subtle coil of his sack in the palm of her hand as it drew closer to his testicles and began to methodically manipulate the hardening member without missing a beat. Her fingertips glided up and down the length in a series of butterfly kisses and ghostly caresses, a catalyst for the actions that Sam’s anatomy performed by itself. Slowly bringing the mushroom-shaped head to emerge without anything so crude as a single pump. She tapped a thumb to the pinkened head, rubbing small circles into the ‘eye’ of the averagely-sized serpent her nimble dance had awakened while her pinky stayed nestled in his sack, feeling his innards twist and coil as she deftly conducted the song of his loins.

After a minute of gentle coaxing, the rod of faux muscle could grow no harder, bobbing periodically against the tip of Yui’s middle finger for each thump of his heart.

She scrutinised Sam’s cock curiously before turning to look at the latex-clad Nurse Maid to her left. “San,” she said simply, giving a come hither gesture to the altered woman with her free hand and waiting expectantly. 

San crossed the short distance to stand beside her leader and offered no resistance when the doctor slowly trailed a hand up her inner thigh before slipping up into the confines of her ‘scrubs’. Yui maintained a serene expression as she searched for her prize, lips curling further up her cheeks as San tried vainly to school her features. The tight sheath of rubber enclosing her body held no secrets, and slowly but surely, a tent began to form in the stretchy material between her legs.

“You’ve got very good at tucking it for surgery, San, but it feels a little needy. Haven’t been playing with yourself in the off hours, have we?” Yui teased, drawing a light moan from San, her tightly packed bust rising and falling with steadying breaths. 

“Of course not, Sensei, my hy-p-” she stuttered, the tent distending the rubber more, “hippocratic… oath… remains… unbroken!” she said breathily, unable to completely shut out her owner’s masterful technique.

Extending her thumb, Yui slowly drew her hand back and hooked the taught hem of the dress, drawing the stretchy garment back with agonising slowness until the underside of something began to peek from the exposed space. She left it there, wrinkles of rubber resting on the pronounced tent and drawing a mewl of embarrassed frustration from San.

“Nurse San,” the woman in question met Yui’s mirth-filled eyes, almond-shaped furnaces of brilliance that they were. 

“Y-yes, Sensei?”

“You know my rules about creasing your uniforms,” she jabbed a finger at the creased rubber she had piled on the tip of San’s growing arousal. 

San took a deep breath before flexing her pelvic muscles. The minor movement was all that was needed to dislodge the taught rubber, and as a result, her sex, at last, slipped free, the latex snapping back into place against her crotch and bearing her privates to the world.

Jutting from San’s crotch was a hairless, happily bobbing cock and tight scrotum, twitching to the beat of her thundering heart. A bead of precum sat resplendent at its very tip, testament to the fire Yui had lit in her loins. For yes, San was a Sissy.

Sam would not be the first man that Yui had ‘helped’ transition to the body and place of a sissy; he would be the latest in a long list that had started nearly a decade before the 27-year-old had taken her current position. Of the some 70 staff at Eden’s Rest, at least ten were sissies, San just happened to be the only one amongst the Nurse Maids.

Gently grabbing San’s cock in her free hand, the doctor looked between both averagely-sized cocks, squeezing them lightly and enjoying San’s more visible and verbal reactions. “Well, how about that, Nurse Sissy-San, 5.5 inches. You’re the same length as your Lady!” Yui informed jovially, giving the Nurse Maid’s sissy cock a congratulatory pump that caused San to bite out a thank you in Japanese.

‘ Pre-reduction therapy, of course, but every dog has their day, ’ she added in thought before letting go of both cocks. As the only sissy Nurse Maid, San was a common target for the immoral doctor’s flights of fancy, and thus, she had elected to keep her cock an average size because it made sense to have an average length on hand whenever it was needed. Outside of theatre, it was kept strictly chastised like many of the other Maids.

She collected the dollop of precum from the tip of the San’s member before lifting the glistening digit to the sissy, who leant forwards and licked the digit clean. She made a gesture, and San retucked her cock, the expanse of the white latex again left unspoiled, ‘Leaking precum in the workplace is fun, but we need to be somewhat sanitary here.’

Rolling backwards on her chair to a computer terminal, all of them grabbed a surgical mask and donned it, covering their lower faces in a hugging cloy. “Boring stuff first,” Yui said, drawing a bored groan from the three nurses; Yui sent them all a sympathetic eye smile. “It’s boring but necessary. I’ll handle the scans, start on prep for rudimentary invasive.” She tapped in a few commands on her keyboard and brought up an interface on the screen, a camera feed looking down on the unconscious Sam.

Above them, Sukuna’s Hand came to life, rotating once before descending smoothly from its mounting towards Sam. As it descended, the six cylinders extended from the rim and deployed prehensile manipulators and a variety of medical equipment. The hemisphere itself slowly rotated, sections of it gyrating and expanding from one another to reveal more equipment that looked to have been drawn from the mind of a mad scientist. It was, in fact, a state-of-the-art automated medical assembly capable of performing everything from X-rays to keyhole surgery in record time, all controlled by Yui’s hand.

The Nurse Maids mostly ignored the technological wonder in favour of their more mundane tasks. They took measurements for every inch of Sam’s body, from the tips of his toes to the ends of his hair. Electrodes were attached to his chest, limbs and head to establish baseline figures for his body’s nervous system and circulation. Blood was drawn from his arm along with a series of minuscule tissue samples being taken for study. Information scrolled past Yui’s screens, building up a comprehensive medical base from which they could work in addition to the pre-existing information that Victoria had ‘acquired’ through paying the right people at the right time. 

While it was not Yui’s first rodeo in the realm of clinical scale feminisation, what was planned for Sam was an entirely different ballpark, utilising techniques on a scale that even Yui, for all her brilliance, had only ever touched on in theory. For the sake of Sam’s safety, they had to make sure everything was accounted for.

“Doctor Ito, we’re ready to begin the allergy test,” Roku informed Yui, who had just finished measuring unconscious reaction using a Taylor Hammer wielded by Sukuna’s Hand. 

“Proceed,” Yui ordered, giving the go-ahead for her staff to begin one of the more critical tests. Roku extended Sam’s arm, and Go approached with a tray of steel implements, lifting a scalpel that she held steadily. 

An allergy test was a simple test, really; a small section of the arm was selected, and shallow scratches were placed upon it by a sterile cutting implement. Then trace amounts of a given substance were introduced to the scratch, and how the body reacted to the stimulus would dictate if they had an innate allergy and how severe it was without risking more violent responses. 

‘Given what I’m going to be filling him with to bring out his feminine features permanently, we don’t want all of this fucked over by an allergy.’ Never let it be said that she was not thorough with her charges. 

While the Nurse Maids conducted the allergy patch test, Yui looked over Sam’s pre-existing medical notes, for while she trusted her own work implicitly, it was always to get an informed second opinion, even if it seemed that Sam’s prior doctors had been slapdash at best. 

‘Let’s see here. Samuel Hayes, born 15th March 2000 to Jonathan Myres and Heather Byrne in Guildford, West Surrey. Blood Type: O- and….’ Yui frowned, the file was far thinner than she would have liked, ‘almost fuck all else til he was 10. Who doesn’t take their kid to the doctor's for nearly ten years? Please tell me he’s-’ her eyes alighted on his list of medications, ‘oh thank fuck he’s vaccinated. Nearly gave up all hope in the medical community there for a second.’

The minutes passed calmly in the examination room, the silence broken only by Yui’s rapid keystrokes and the quiet noting of results amidst the Nurse Maids. 

San cleared her throat to catch Yui’s attention, leaning out from behind the screen. “Tests complete, Sensei.”

Nodding at the progress, Yui returned to her typing, keeping an eye on them through the camera on Sukuna’s Hand. “Spray the wound and erect the stirrups, I’ll be over in a second.”

San nodded and walked over to a glass cabinet on the wall and pulled out a plastic aerosol can filled with a light green, almost colourless liquid. The sissy nurse went back to the table and took a look at Sam’s arm; the patch of skin that had been used for the test was covered in several scratches, two of which were slightly puffy and blistered from how they had reacted to their agitants. Shaking the can twice, she pointed the nozzle at the patch of inflamed skin and pressed the plunger, sending a spray of cool vapour over the scratches. 

Before their eyes, something remarkable occurred. Scant moments after the misty particles of spray had settled on the arm did the symptoms of allergic reaction begin to abate. The cracks and blisters receded into the pale skin, and the scratches themselves visibly closed themselves. After ten seconds, there was no evidence that Sam had ever been wounded, even if said wound had been tiny at best.

FMC had been extracting the secrets of flowers for a long time, and in that time, they had always maintained a small rule. The cream of the crop was kept firmly within the company, and the drugs that those decades of research had produced were truly miraculous, capable of feats and characteristics that toed the line between miraculous and mythical.

This ‘healing spray’ was one of these so termed miracle drugs, and the cavalier method of its use informed an audience of something. It was a compound that FMC had cracked well over 60 years ago; at this point, it was so typical in the eyes of the company that it may as well be for first aid. And if that was so, then what was in store for Sam in the year 2022 with a Doctor who pranced along the bleeding edge of science. 

The answer was complicated and with many idiosyncrasies because there was no singular cure-all when it came to the science of feminisation, but an inkling of what lay in store for Sam could be gleaned in just what Yui’s true speciality was.

Doctor Yui Ito was a virologist. And it was from that study that Samuel Hayes would be metamorphosed into something entirely unique. 

Back in the present, the Nurse Maids had deployed a pair of raised stirrups from the end of the table and delicately strapped his legs into the rubber-padded hollows. Yui hopped up from her seat and jauntily positioned herself between Sam’s legs, snapping on a fresh pair of blue latex gloves as the Nurse Maids raised the back section of the table so the captured graduate was in a ‘sitting’ position. “Jennings Gag.”

Obeying the order, one of the Nurse Maids retrieved the dental gag from a tray and gently slipped it into Sam’s mouth. Yui pressed a few buttons on her tablet, and Sukuna’s Hand descended and oriented a hard light to shine into his mouth as San and Go slowly began to ratchet the two strips of medical-grade steel open. While they surveyed the inside of his mouth, Yui lubed up her index finger and stared at her patient’s freshly shaved asshole.

“Cute little octopus,” she giggled to herself in Japanese, parting the lily-white cheeks and pressing her slippery digit against the nub. There was instant resistance from the unconscious muscles, but Yui simply kept her finger present, smiling as the clear lube slowly saturated the puckered hole, and its own resistance worked against it, slowly letting her slip inside the tight ring of muscles. The warmth enraptured her finger, and she began to gently explore his anal walls, searching for where she knew his prostate would likely be.

Her intrusion was also causing a number of expected reactions in her patient’s body, most notable in his cock that once more was beginning to harden. She went to grab it before frowning and pulling back. While she would have delighted in testing his elasticity with a speculum or milking him to his first dry orgasm, she was pretty sure Victoria would edge her for a month if she did. Hell, anything bigger than her finger or an enema hose stretched the limits on what left the soon-to-be sissy’s love canal virgin. 

She soon found the bundle of nerves and settled on giving the ‘love button’ a firm poke, laughing at how it made the cock jump in response before pulling out her finger with a wet pop. “No bumps or lumps, and that’s the important thing.”

Roku made a surprised noise up by Sam’s mouth, manoeuvring a mouth mirror to get a better look at the back of his mouth. “He already has a crown, Sensei.”

Yui blinked, washing her hands and peeking inside the mouth where Roku tapped his bottom left molar. “‘Looks like luck exists in the leftovers after all. Pop the crown, and we’ll use its mounting for our replacement.”

Between the Nurse Maids and Sukuna’s Hand, the crown was unscrewed from its mounting, and San ferried it out of the room, bound for a fabricator room to produce its replacement. They had always intended on replacing one of Sam’s teeth, but him already having a crown in the perfect place was a stroke of serendipity. All members of the serving staff had, at one point or another, been chipped with a combination of an RFID and tracking chip so that should they ever get lost or, gods forbid, be kidnapped, then they could quickly be recovered.

San returned with the new crown sitting on a metal tray beside a large gauge syringe gun. It was indistinguishable from the one they had taken from Sam’s mouth, with even the staining of too much coffee replicated. You would never think it was packed with its small-scale tracking equipment, not that Sam would ever know about it. An application of the healing spray and the crown had been perfectly rethreaded to its proper place. Then she took up the syringe gun and pressed it to the small of his back. A dull ‘click’ and she withdrew it, having seated a redundant chip deep in the tissue of his lower back, because it paid to build in redundancies. 

While San and Go prepared their patient to take receipt of an IV and enema respectively, Yui had Roku lift his eyelids, shining a pen torch in both to check for reaction and abnormalities and found herself biting her lip.

There was something odd about his left eye that she couldn’t quite put her finger on, and, trusting her gut, she brought Sukuna’s Hand closer to inspect it up close. Curiosity bloomed in her when it returned the result of light astigmatism in the left eye; it hadn’t been in his notes, which made it curious. 

“Nothing I can’t fix. You’re a lucky young lady, Sam. You get a free round of laser eye surgery, and you won’t ever know it.”

Taking a seat at her computer, Yui took full control of Sukuna’s Hand and extricated the needed apparatus from its hemisphere and 15 minutes later, she was once again looking into those Hazel eyes now blessed with 20/20 vision. “Just one more service to bring my Lady closer to perfection~.”

Despite the maleffected medical miracles being performed far beneath their feet, the majority of the staff continued their morning rituals mostly oblivious to the happenings in Yui's domain. And for Lady’s Maids Chloe and Jeanne that currently consisted of standing very still and waiting until they were needed. The bathroom they found themselves in was a fitting testament to its purpose, rectangular in form and consisting of all the appointments one might need to wash and scrub themselves to face the day. Soft, simulated natural light wafted down from a series of faux skylights set into the ceiling, filling the room with a neutral air that mirrored the black and white tiled flooring. At the centre of the room was a perfectly circular wall of frosted glass, a figure shifting slowly amid the abstract gloom.

“Hmmm, hm, hm, hmmmm… da-da-da da-da-daaaaaa….” 

Hidden within clouds of steam, Victoria hummed a nameless tune to herself happily, relishing the therapeutic wash of water that rained down on her from the wide shower head mounted several feet above her. The two Lady’s Maids watched on from outside the shower, their presence ignored despite her nakedness. After all, the Viscountess had far more engaging matters to ponder than putting on a show for her maids.

It had been just over two hours since she had left Sam in the care of the Nurse Maids, and content in knowing that Yui would do a fine job, Victoria had endeavoured to have a typical morning befitting her station. She had gone down to the parlour and enjoyed a hearty breakfast, sending her regards to the kitchens before catching up on any news. A lot of it had been letters and business analytics that she had skimmed through before passing the time with maintaining login streaks on her favourite games, as she would be miffed if she missed out on the full experience.

Ah, but in the end, an enjoyable distraction was still a distraction, something to keep her mind occupied so as to not slip into the childish desire to run downstairs and watch her Sam begin to take shape.

‘It’s not the first time you’ve seen a plaything transformed ,’ she said to herself internally, parting her cheeks to let the aromatic suds tickle her as they followed the flow of water, but her lips remained pinned back in a grin. ‘ Ohhh, I'm so excited though! I’m finally making my beloved my wife! ’

And my oh my, how that thought filled her body and soul with fire.

Running her fingers through her ebon tresses, the blue-eyed aristocrat’s smile thinned a modicum when she was once again brought back to a problem that had been bugging her. The question of Sam’s new name.

While technically Sam was a unisex name and could easily be taken and twisted into ‘Samantha’, Victoria wanted to adorn her with a brand new name altogether. After all, from a fundamental sense, the changing of one’s name was a deeply meaningful and poignant act.

Names had meanings, they had history and formed the basis of how someone was perceived. As an artist, Victoria believed that the new Lady Florence should bear a name that was emblematic, fitting and, above all else, picked by her. The bedrock upon which Sam could be guided to the position she had decided he would fill.

‘...and low and behold, I’m still drawing a blank. ’ she mentally grumbled, the thought that the simple act of picking a fitting new name for Sam had caused her so much trouble was galling, to say the least. She knew she had to come up with something, and as a woman of her word, she had until she had taken his virginity to pick one, but so far, there had been too much excitement to choose. 

Shaking her head, Victoria turned off the shower, sure that seeing Sam again, having started on the path to maidenhood, would be all the spark she needed to pick a name she would enjoy crooning in the dark hours of the night.

Frosted glass sliding open with a plume of steam, she stepped out of the shower with water dripping from her lithe frame, her creamy skin healthily pinkened by the heat. Chloe and Jeanne needed no prompting and approached bearing a pair of fluffy white towels, beginning to gently and efficiently dry their Mistress off.

Sighing at the pleasant feeling of being attended to, she was soon dry and gestured for them to stop, making her way to the door. Maid Jeanne swept past her, her gait still measured and opened the door for her to exit, her dainty feet now padding on a plush cream carpet. 

The bedroom matched the bathroom in terms of scope, but in actuality, it was little more than a secondary set of apartments compared to her much larger main bedroom, having only picked this room to be ready for the day due to it being the closest.

Uncaring of her nakedness, the ravenette crossed the expanse of the apartment with a flutter in her chest as she drew closer to a pair of tall double doors set into the wall. Placing her hands on the door handles, she took a moment to wait and let her excitement build before throwing the doors open with gusto, her bust bouncing lightly upon her chest at the movement. 

Staring into the darkness beyond, Victoria waited a moment before warm lights began to click on one after another along the walls to reveal a large walk-in closet expanding before her.

The wardrobe was formed by two long walls of shelves separated by a hardwood walkway, lights running along each shelf to show off the contents. Racks of clothes of all sorts disappeared off into the distance, ranging from the most ordinary and conservative blouse to outfits that looked like they’d been fished from the pages of history. Beginning to walk along the shelves, she looked fondly at the endless array of garments and allowed herself a small spin, taking in the variety that she had been without for far too long.

The breadth was not contained to a single type of clothing, for there were entire armoires of jewellery and accessories, hundreds of different types of shoes and boots arrayed in neat lines and even a plethora of cosplay outfits. All custom made and of the highest quality. The smile threatened to split her face when a familiar high odour reached her nose. “Oh, how I have missed you.”

Latex. Nestled between a number of toys for bedroom fun was a shrine to the shimmering fruit of rubber, a massive collection of latex garments in every style imaginable and all of it hers. A secret grotto in this microcosm of fashionista paradise. 

Victoria loved latex. Loved everything about it from its look and feel to its sound and smell. It touched all of the senses and left her quivering in happiness and was an itch that had been left mostly unscratched for years. Yet, as always, the hoard was in perfect condition, tended to daily by her dutiful staff, ensuring that when their Mistress returned, her raiment of any sort would be at her disposal. 

She continued her walk to the end of the wardrobe, taking a complete mental inventory of every single object, blowing away the dust of memory and welcoming them back into the reality of her life. Tapping along a line of strapons to her nameless tune, Victoria came to a stop and picked up a garment sat neatly folded in its place. They were panties, high cut and rendered in high-quality latex with a mirrored finish but otherwise nondescript. She took them by their waistband and held them before her eyes, letting the stretch fabric roll against her fingers and marvelling as the thin black rubber deformed and waved with each micro movement, 

“Glorious,” she said before lifting the lingerie to her face and inhaling deeply, letting the wonderful scent penetrate her nose as the cool rubber gilded against her cheeks. She luxuriated in the sound, conducting the symphony in ebonite until she was satisfied. Slipping them on and drawing them up her hairless legs, she purred in happiness as they came to hold her most private places, a shroud of liquid shadow seated between her legs. 

And soon enough she would teach her new wife the joy of latex’s slippery embrace.

But for now? As her Lady’s Maids entered and grabbed the matching bra and corset, Victoria knew it was time to get dressed.

Back in the Examination Room, things remained mostly the same save for a few keen differences. Sam still lay in his medically induced slumber upon the padded table, naked for all to see as the San, Go and Roku milled about him, but now an IV had been hooked up to one arm, feeding a steady stream of clear liquid into his system. Like many pharmaceuticals, the substance was visibly indistinguishable from water, but there was an insidiousness to the simple movement of fluid. 

Drop by drop, it leaked down the thin plastic tubing and into his arm, his steadily beating heart ensuring it would quickly be absorbed, wrapping himself in a blanket of irrevocable change. One of the Nurse Maids justled the IV bag lightly, checking it was flowing at the correct rate before continuing to run a plastic ‘hook’ over lengths of the young man’s body, emitting a muted flash of white light every time she pressed the button in its handle. 

Her fellows mirrored the process on other reaches of his body, clinically manipulating his arms and legs to make sure that there was no stretch of skin that didn’t get a thorough treatment.

Sequestered in her office beside the examination room, Yui drummed her fingers on her desk while looking between the three screens arranged before her. For the last hour, she had been arranging her patients’ new medical files and fitting in the new data gathered from their testing to the notes. Like any good scientist, she had repeated several of the tests to establish control groups and averages to better understand what to expect, as well as confirm that both the molar tracker and backup were transmitting.

While in an ideal world, they would never need them, it was best to make sure your equipment was working. And my oh my, what equipment it was. Looking over her monitor and through the window into the examination room, Yui watched as Roku removed the thin nozzle of a flexible rubber tube from Sam’s anus, pleased to see that the enema fluid ran out crystal clear. When the doctor had taken the time to play administrator in her office, she had left the Nurse Maids to take care of ‘tidying up.’ 

Sam had been given a thorough enema to clean his insides while ensuring his hair would never grow back. Aesthetic aside, it was less work for the future if less time had to be given over to something as repetitive as shaving or waxing. So, like all members of the staff, the young man had been defoliated. Luckily for Sam he would not have to suffer being lathered in defoliating creams, they were too clumsy in Yui’s opinion, they were slow, painful and there was no guarantee they would get every follicle. 

Therefore, the only tenable permanent solution was electrolysis removal. Usually, it would have to be done in several stages, with a wire sending an electrical current into each individual hair follicle to permanently destroy the hair’s root. But Yui Ito had been modifying people to be more aesthetically pleasing for a long time, and with a perpetual blank cheque at her beck and call, she had the time to produce innumerable tools for her unethical trade.

Like the electrolysis wands that San, Go and Roku were currently using to make Sam’s hairless state permanent. 

It emitted a bright light through the inside of its hook that, upon passing through tissue, degraded into the electromagnetic spectrum, meaning scores of follicles could be rendered stopped in every pass.

The doors to the room’s office opened quietly to admit Victoria, the click of her heels cutting through the otherwise silent space. Yui looked over her shoulder and greeted her friend with a smile, nodding appreciatively at her outfit. Victoria wore a purple and black dress with a bunched train gathered behind her, her waist cinched in to show off her hips while the sleeveless bodice left her neck and the start of her bust tastefully exposed. Her hair had been braided into a pair of pigtails that trailed down to her shoulders, touching the lace detailing that was left to overhang her biceps. 

“Good morning, Yui, sleep well?” Victoria greeted brightly, standing beside the jumper-wearing doctor and looking keenly into the examination room. Her blue eyes glittered upon seeing Sam, he looked so perfect laying there, unaware of the wonders he was subject to.

Yui rolled her eyes, “Morning, Victoria. And I slept about as well as anyone that had to start work at 5am. Had no time to get a proper breakfast in because someone wanted me to start as soon as possible.”

Victoria tutted goodnaturedly at the barb, there was no heat to it. Sending the shorter woman a sideways glance, she made a noncommittal gesture before speaking. “We both wanted to start as soon as possible. I’m sure you’ve already got a ring binder worth of notes to comb over in the off hours.”

“You’ve got me there,” Yui spared a glance for the screens in front of her, eyeing the rapidly growing word count. “I like to think I’m the best I am at what I do.”

‘And what I do isn’t very nice!’ the purple-clad Viscountess mentally added, thoughts of a certain short and hairy Canadian mutant dancing across her mind before returning to the tall, smooth-shaven and very much British Sam through the window. “Still, you work fast, I was sitting on my hands at breakfast wondering how far you got in such a short time,” she said cooly, her shower and dressing had served to calm her nerves considerably. 

Yui nodded in appreciation of the compliment, “Boring stuff is out of the way; everything below the eyelashes is gone and won’t be coming back; sad to say you missed his first enema.”

“Shit,” Victoria exclaimed under her breath, she had been hoping to at least catch that much. 

“Don’t blow a gasket,” the other woman comforted, jutting her chin at the ceiling, “Sukuna’s Hand caught the birdseye view on film, I’ll forward the footage to your email if you’re so set on watching your wife’s innards getting irrigated.”

Pouting at the course language, Victoria crossed her arms under her bust, making them stand out a little more firmly. “An email from Sukuna? I’ll get cursed for sure.”

Facepalming at the comment, Yui gritted her teeth and poked the aristocrat in the side forcefully, hard enough to draw a bleat of annoyed surprise from Victoria. “You’re such a freaking weeb, it's not that Sukuna.”

“...huh?”

“Oh, how troublesome,” Yui quietly said in her native tongue before holding up her hands to illustrate the point. “I called it Sukuna’s Hand after Sukunabikona, the god of medicine. Not the damn Kaisen character, you otaku!”

Narrowing her eyes at her friend, Victoria turned to face her fully, “Well then, maybe you should have either used the full name or called it something like his scalpel... or something!”

“Sukunabikona doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as just Sukuna; you should know this given you’re an artist, or maybe your currently incumbent wife got all the writing brains.”

“Put a sock in it, you short waste of a doctorate!” Victoria shot back.

“Inbred Princess!”

“Gion District Oiran!”

“Flower-themed harlot!”

“Leather panted strumpet!”

“Sapphicly artistic aristocrat!”

Within the examination room, the Nurse Maids exchanged unsure looks with one another as they watched their Mistress and immediate superior argue. While the office was soundproofed, it was impossible to miss the steadily building movement between the two as they bickered, Yui having gotten to her feet and making a series of rude hand gestures while Victoria was a viper, reared back imperiously and hurled insults with her station's grace. The pair came to a lull in their argument, glaring daggers at one another before, at some unsaid signal, they dropped the act and began to laugh raucously. It confused the Nurse Maids, but they decided to simply count their blessings and stand to the side of their now-completed job.

Shaking her head wryly, Victoria let the amusement wash over her as she and Yui laughed. Despite the seemingly harsh words, they both came from a place of warmth. There were only a few people whom Victoria would stand to insult her without reprisal, and Yui, as her best friend, was one of them. “Feeling better after getting that out of your system?” she asked, daintily sitting on one of the plush leather office chairs beside Yui.

“Much,” she nodded, a similar expression on her face before they both turned to observe the sleeping Sam.

He was perfect, well, nowhere near perfect just yet, but he was finally the canvas upon which they could add colour to bring him to life. Raking her eyes over him head to toe, she focused on the IV in his arm and looked up at the clear plastic drip of chemicals slowly making their way into him. “What’s in the drip? The usual or something a little more exotic?”

At Victoria’s prompting, Yui hit a few keystrokes on her keyboard, and a window flashed up on one of the screens, revealing a complicated chemical formula diagram. “Just a standard ‘Maiden’s Bouquet’ to get the ball rolling, had to be a bit more liberal on the dosage than usual.”

A ‘Maiden’s Bouquet’ was Yui’s name for a mix of a substance tailored to push the boat out on any prospective sissy. It was a mix of high-strength female hormones, testosterone blockers and anti-androgynes, as well as catalysts that would naturally speed up the body’s acceptance and adaptation to them. It would start the intricate minutia of biological, chemical and hormonal changes that would see Sam pull away from his existence as a man and coddle the burgeoning realities of being a woman.

Quirking an eyebrow at that, Victoria gave voice to her concern, “More than a usual dose? Have you changed the makeup of it that much since last time?” 

She shook her head, “Not in any way that's worth mentioning. I’m always improving it, but we are still well within the parameters of the Cornelius Strain; just had to add more for the simple reason that your wife is so damn tall.” Yui explained, causing a bead of sweat to roll down the back of Victoria’s neck, otherwise masterfully hiding her embarrassment. 

Yui had many methods, resources and concoctions to aid in the art of feminisation and gender transition, but as was the nature of any pharmaceutical company, they won't be the only ones working on the issue. The Maiden’s Bouquet, in its current iteration, had started out as a chemical trial from roughly a decade earlier, where an American endocrinologist by the name of Cornelius had proposed a new method and mixture of drugs to assist in gender transition. The FDA had not approved it, but FMC had been quick to pick up the research and refine it into the Maiden’s Bouquet after Dr Cornelius had dropped off the grid in 2013. 

“No shame in worrying about your wife, Victoria, not every doctor is as good as me.” Yui glowed smugly. “I’ve given him… well, I guess we should start using ‘her’ now, as big a dosage as I can without adverse side effects. Anything more, and she’d wake up tomorrow with a bad case of stomach cramps.”

Victoria nodded in assent at that, content knowing that her loved one would be in good hands. Sam’s feminisation would be a long and arduous process, albeit one Victoria would enjoy, but when it came to the biological side of the transformation, Sam was in Yui’s hands to shape and mould. She was the best possible candidate as her techniques and drugs, whilst highly unethical, would bring out the bride’s feminine features exceedingly quickly.  

They descended into a detail-heavy discourse then, Victoria asking for a condensed version of all the information that Yui had been able to eke out of her tests and what Victoria had already been able to acquire. 

“To summarise, she’s perfectly average in other than a few minor areas. Clean bill of health with nothing untoward that I could find. Cock length is 5.5 inches when fully turgid-”

Victoria fixed her with a mock glare.

“But you were right with her bladder probably being on the smaller side, 50ml smaller than a man of her age and height should be. I’m sure you’ll have a lot of fun with that bit of info. We confirmed the listed allergy to dog hair but also discovered he has a minor one for banana, of all things.”

“Really?” the dress-wearing woman asked, a note of concern in her voice, “how severe?”

Yui assuaged her concern with a noncommittal shrug, “Barely there at all, at worst, she’ll get a stomach ache or tingling lips, nothing more.” she said before bringing up an x-ray of Sam’s skull. “No, the real surprise was more mechanical, it seems Sam had a crown and astigmatism in his left eye.”

That caught Victoria’s attention, sliding closer to the monitor to look over the images and details. “He never said anything like that.”

“His medical documents were surprisingly scant on the matter, but based on what is there, I can make an educated guess as to what happened. ‘Something’ hit his face when he was on a school trip when he was 12, knocked out his bottom left molar and probably gave him astigmatism. Fixed both, by the way.”

Humming in thought, Victoria wondered for a moment what had happened to her beloved. It was a rare instance where she regretted their lack of talking about their home lives. The irony that she was worried about something in the past while currently irrevocably changing his bodily autonomy in the here and now was lost on her.

Minutes passed before Victoria began to grow visibly giddy, and soon enough, she could no longer contain her curiosity. “So how long?” she asked at last.

“How long’s his dick? I told you, 5.5 inches when hard, but I'm sure that will drop. Or are you asking about the soft length, or maybe how long a piece of string is? I can give a number of answers for that one, each more unsatisfying than the last.” she tittered coyly, enjoying the grumble of annoyance that simmered in her best friend’s eyes. “I’m a doctor, Victoria, you’re going to have to give me a straight question if you want a straight answer.”

Listening to her friend's banter, Victoria giggled behind her palm, indulging the doctor’s joke before finally cutting to the chase. “How long before Sam is ready to begin Viral Therapy?”

Once again, Dr Yui Ito’s specialty area of expertise was that of virology. Microbes and plants went hand in hand far more than any would give credit. A lot of the more unique plants in FMC’s care exhibited their unique traits due to the processes of the three kinds of microbial life even from long before they had known that the microbes were even there.

In point of fact, you could say that while the Florence’s owed their life to flowers, the FMC owed its existence to the microbes that some of them carried. It had been in 1851 when the at the time Earl Erasmus B. Florence and his half-sister and wife, Countess Alexis Florence, had been on an expedition to the Congo and stumbled upon a hidden grove of flowers they had never seen before. Known locally as Arebati’s Garden , the flowers, fungus and other fauna had all displayed miraculous traits and medicinal abilities, the research performed there had laid the groundwork for Florence Medical Concern , which had eventually grown into Florence Multidiscipline Conglomerate or simply FMC.

Of the wide variety of fauna in the secret grove, the most miraculous of all had been Khonvoum’s Arrow .

‘It was said that when ground up and imbibed, those who consumed the plant were blessed with enhanced vitality and other miscellaneous abilities. ’ Victoria thought, recalling when Diana had told her of the family history in her youth. ‘We researched it for over 100 years until the early 1960s when we discovered the mechanism by which it worked. A retrovirus.’

In layman’s terms, the vacuo of the plant contained a retrovirus that bonded to the biology of the consumer and selectively enhanced particular parts of their anatomy and general physicality by making minor tweaks at the genetic level. ‘ But Yui was the one to truly make the arrow fly.’ 

Since she had begun on it, the Asian virologist had refined the virus into something that could ‘edit’ the genome of a given subject, allowing the change of things as small as hair colour to physical traits of certain tissue. But for Sam? He would be Yui’s magnum opus, a complete genetic rewrite to irrevocably transition him in the most intimate way conceivable. 

Yui hummed to herself in thought, running the numbers in her head. It was more of a show given that she was correcting based on the initial hypothesis but wanted to give her friend and benefactor as accurate an answer as possible. “For it to go off as smoothly as possible, then there is a general amount of preparation and conditioning that Sam’s body is going to have to undergo before being subjected to complete body saturation. Hormone and biochemistry modifications, dietary control and physical conditioning can be sped up, but it can’t be rushed. So if he takes to the changes within the tolerances, I have foreseen…then between three and four months before VT.”

“Excellent,” Victoria nodded in approval. She had been dreading that she would be told half a year, but three to four months was a pleasant surprise. “That’s more than enough time to enjoy crafting her into the woman I want her to be, moulding what is already there to my liking and adding on what befits her station.” She was also satisfied that it had not been too quick, there was a certain ‘cop-out’ in your projects being resolved and finished instantaneously. 

“'Fucken arts majors,” Yui muttered amusedly under her breath. “It will be a month and a half before the bouquet bears any fruit, but we have some other things to take care of in the meantime. Three things in fact.”

“Oh?” the taller woman wondered as the doctor grabbed the mouse and highlighted a trio of fields on Sam’s notes, turning sheepish when she saw them for what they were.

Name:

Hair Colour:

Eye Colour:

Put on the spot like this by her best friend, she drew a complete blank. She had hoped that maybe she could delay it by another day at least, but her pride would be shattered if she couldn’t provide an answer here and now. Silently pushing herself to her feet, Victoria moved over to the window and looked out at Sam’s sleeping form, watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he slept.

Her silent vigil passed uninterrupted for nearly a minute before Yui broke the silence, chin perched atop her fist. “If you can’t come up with something, then I’m just gonna put ‘Kaguya’ in the notes as a working title.”

The reaction was instantaneous, Victoria rounding on the doctor with a look of incredulous ire. It was a sting at her interests as well as a literary joke that made her seeth. “You’ve some cheek to accuse me of being an Otaku after coming up with that one!”

Holding her hands up in surrender, Yui tittered, “Hey, I could just be referring to another Moon Rabbit from my homeland, and I know you like an exotic name.”

“Dropping Kaguya in anti-climatically with no build-up, I know exactly what you’re trying to say, and as an artist, I find the notion offensive.” she retorted, placing her hands on her wide hips in defiance. Yui just tapped the screen expectantly, an open challenge to refute her by actually providing a name and features.

“Okay, okay, right, thinking bonnet on,” Victoria replied before turning back to look out the window at Sam, but despite that, she couldn’t stop herself from realising that Sam probably would have gotten even more annoyed by the joke than she. He would rant about white-haired demonesses. “You know I was in half a mind to invite you to my graduation, you and her would have got on like a house on fire.”

“Couldn’t be helped. What did you even do the night after if you couldn’t bury a strapon in her ass and make her scream your name?” Yui questioned with a banal cadence, clearly an average act for the bob-haired Kyoto native. 

Memories of the pleasant post-graduation celebrations fluttered past her vision, the simple joy of curling up against her younger boyfriend and watching Dracula togeth-

A figurative lightbulb popped into existence atop Victoria’s head, her eyes glowing at the thought. She stroked her chin, mulling the genesis of an idea over in her mind until a pleased smile glowed in her visage. 

She leant forward to look at Yui with a grin, her mind made up. “Carmilla, white hair, red eyes.”

The words washed over Yui, who took a moment to process them before blinking slowly, a beat passed before the edges of her mouth quirked up in amusement. “Yeah, that tracks,” she said simply before inputting the name into the files.

“No snide wit about my choice of name, Yui? I admire your restraint. But yes, Carmilla will be my wife’s name.” Victoria said, growing more sure of herself with each passing word.

The doctor shook her head slowly, the bangs of her haircut jostling about her face. “Not at all, Victoria, it just fits your tastes. Lady Carmilla Florence,” she spoke, testing the sound of the syllables on her tongue and found herself looking strangely pleased. “It does have a nice ring to it, I’ll give you that.”

Hitting enter on the keyboard, she sent a mass email informing the leading members of staff of the Mistress's decision before getting to her feet with a stretch. “To be honest, I’m happy you picked white because that’s far easier of a permanent choice than you would think.”

Flicking a switch on her keyboard, Yui spoke into a microphone, and her voice rang over the PA system in the operating theatre, drawing the attention of the Nurse Maids, who had been standing at attention for some time. 

“San, Go, go get my needles and 5 cc of WTHDTW-003-35. Roku, go mix up a batch of hair dye; start with Diana’s strain as a base, but knock the rating up to 12.2.” her voice came out clearly over the speakers. The trio of Asian nurses all bowed their heads and gave a professional ‘Yes, Sensei’ before setting about their task.

Once they were gone, the dominant duo entered the theatre and approached the sleeping Sam… well, the sleeping Carmilla in their mind. The purple-clad aristocrat smiled down at him, running her fingers along the smooth inside of his thigh and enjoying the way the supple flesh dimpled to her touch. 

“I’d have thought that you’d complain about white hair as a choice.” Victoria mused, her question obvious if left unsaid. 

Sitting down in a theatre chair and rolling it to the top of the table, Yui gently parted Sam’s hair until the scalp was exposed. “What colour is hair naturally, Victoria, before our body adds pigment to it?”

The Victorian-themed woman considered the question, taking a moment to think back on high school biology from what felt like an eternity ago. Her eyes widened in realisation when she recalled, “White.”

“Technically speaking, it's clear, but I’m not marking your test submissions; it's essentially white.” Yui offered as the first two Nurse Maids returned with the vial of the requested drug and a set of small disposable syringes. “Changing hair colour at the root is a slow process most of the time, and anything other than white, I’d have to whip up a localised viral batch based on his biology to edit that particular gene. But white? I just need to give it a nudge to do it on its own.”

As she spoke, Victoria watched the two latex-clad Nurse Maids draw small amounts of the greyish liquid into the syringes and lay them on a blue piece of cloth for Yui to use. Absently she approached Go from behind and slipped her arms around the Asian woman’s body, offering no resistance as the aristocrat ran her hands along the gleaming surface of her rubber wrapping, her cheeks dusting pink at the feelings transmitted through the stretchy material. 

Yui watched the display and rolled her eyes, then inspected the first syringe; when she was satisfied, she held it diagonally to the crown of Sam’s head and gently breached the skin of his scalp. “I’m introducing a chemical to his remaining hair production centres to induce a localised low-level allergic reaction.”

“Is that dangerous?” Victoria asked, squeezing Go’s breast and kissing her on the neck domineeringly. 

Yui shook her head, looking up over the edge of her facemask, “About as dangerous as forcing an Orgasm. So perfectly safe if you know what you’re doing.” She repeated the process with his eyebrows and eyelids before disposing of the spent needles. “There, in about an hour's time, the reaction will run its course and bring the pigments in his hair low enough to be white without losing any of their health.”

“So the hair will always grow back white,” Victoria concluded, immensely pleased at the progress.

“The rest is just hair dye, but like his shaving, we’re only gonna have to do this once.” Doctor Ito confirmed as Roku returned with the harsh-smelling hair dye and black latex gloves, ready to apply it as soon as possible. “Can’t do anything lasting about the eyes 'til we start her on VT, plus it's not safe to wear contact lenses for any more than 24 hours at a time.”

“It’s an acceptable change; I just can’t wait to watch those hazel eyes bleed to sanguine red,” Victoria answered in an impassioned voice, finishing her teasing of Go with a sharp smack to her ass, relishing the snap of latex that edged the sound as the altered woman tottered away.

Settling down, she contented herself with stroking Sam’s bare stomach fondly, watching his peacefully sleeping features as the thick white solution began to be brushed into his hair. With each pass of the brush, his features were changed irrevocably, bringing her blossom closer to the lily white she desired. 

‘Oh, you'll soon be pure as a lily, my blossom and ripe to be despoiled.’

It was nearing half ten in the morning when Sam was finally deemed ready enough to be transported to be awoken, and Victoria couldn’t be any happier. The young man was sitting naked in a retro stylist's chair, knocking out the last few ZZZs with his head nestled gently against the raised headrest. The maids had been very gentle with him, even if he wouldn’t awaken until the sedatives had cleared his system; they had given him a gentle but thorough massage to make sure he would wake up without the aches and pains that came with being operated on for several hours.

It did not mean there weren’t contingencies in case his awakening was, as it would most likely be, violent. His wrists and ankles were secured to the sturdy stylist's chair by chrome steel cuffs with black rubber padding for comfort. More study leather straps were hidden within the chair in case he thrashed, but they remained out of sight for now. Even if in such a minimalistic way, the bondage suited him. There was a symmetry there to see both arms and legs secured as he rested, bound to Victoria’s image for him even as he slept.

But in her humble and pertinent opinion, what fitted him more was his new hair, matching his pale, smooth skin. She had captured a fantastical wraith and bound it in place.

Leaning against the tall vanity mirror in front of her captive wife, Victoria fished a pocket watch from her pocket and counted down the seconds until Yui had said the drugs would wear off, her excitement growing with each step towards the appointed time. 

Five, four, three, two, one.

Sam began to stir, his mind slowly pulling itself from its deep fugue of unresponsiveness, shifting minutely in his chair. The plush leather of the furniture creaked and squeaked at his movements, but he had been sitting in it so long that the quilted hide was warm against his skin, yet it clung to him in ways that simple fabric could not. It was the first thing that tipped him off to a simple reality before his memories and cognisance were returned to him.

Something was off.

With that tactile impetus all his frazzled mind had to go on he lethargically totted up all the oddities he felt, ‘I’m…sitting?’ he thought sluggishly, head moving from one side to the other as his eyelids began to flutter. ‘ Did I fall asleep at the desk? ’ It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened, he could count on two hands how many times he had worked into the early hours of the morning to make sure he submitted his work on time, pepped up with enough stimulants to tweak out an elephant. 

The coolness of the air against his skin alerted him to something else that was amiss; he was naked, and that was… “Wha?” he croaked, coughing at an excess of saliva in his mouth. He made to wipe the spittle from his lips, but alarmingly, he couldn’t move either of his arms. His numb fumbling turned into alarmed flailing when he found that both his wrists and ankles were held fast to something.

Adrenaline answered his panic, accelerating him into wakefulness like a cannonball. 

Hazel eyes snapping open, he looked frantically around him without taking in any actual details other than the fact he was indeed nude and cuffed to a chair. 

“Welcome back,” Victoria said, savouring the sporadic movements of her beloved wife, his eyes locking onto her the moment the words left her lips. 

He looked at her with eyes full of confusion, Sam hadn’t even noticed that she was all but standing in front of him both due to his agitated state as well as her opulent dress, its ruffles and floor-length silhouette not initially registering as a person, more an abstract force that despite its pleasant air was obviously above his normal ken.

Something caught in his mind at that, the dress sparked memories of yesterday’s dinner and Victoria’s practical joke, a joke that had been rendered a reality the following morning. His eyes darted from her beautiful face to his cuffed hands and back, mind going a mile a minute. It all came to a head when he finally caught himself in the vanity mirror, his willowy form exposed and cuffed to an antique stylist's chair.

Moreover, there was something off about his reflection, it took a second before he realised why his eyes were currently stumbling over the uncanny valley. It was his hair. Where once his nape-length dirty blonde locks had metamorphosed, they were now as white as driven snow with a silvery lustre in the room’s light.

Sent reeling by the sight, he began to thrash angrily against his restraints, rebelling against the reality he had been thrust into as Victoria watched on. Her imposing presence was his only lifeline amidst the storm of confusion, a life preserver of focus on the rocky ocean that he directed the entirety of his being into action, lest he suffer a conniption. Shouting loudly at the Florence heir, he turned the air of the room blue as he raged, his usually placid nature coming to a boil and all but shrieking at his girlfriend in betrayal. She had drugged him! Take advantage of him! Changed him as he had slept and intended a score more in her perverted idea of courting.

Sam’s shoulders shook violently, anger joined by the disgusted feeling of violation as he recalled how she had played with him in bed, her intent laid bare. His face was an ugly rictus now, his newly whitened hair whipping about his face as he conjured every single possible insult from the righteous fury that was his word pool. Who knew you could whip out antidisestablishmentarianism and disambiguation in the same sentence while still partially doped? 

For all the fire he was able to conjure with his words, it was but sound and fury, signifying and meaning nothing before Victoria, who weathered it like an oak rooted firmly in the ground. Her face did not change, still regarding him pleasingly like he was one of her beloved plants having started to bud rarely seen emotion. She had expected the anger and welcomed it, savoured it, his body was her meat and his exquisite mind her wine to luxuriate beneath. 

Pragmatically speaking, it was also a matter of letting her sub have a chance to come off the boil. Sam was, while special, the latest in a long line of subs that Victoria had taken for her own ends and found that when it came to freshly turned subs, it was best to let them expend all their anger as soon as possible before their own nature cowed them back into silence. ‘Yet it's never nice to have your wife shout at you for doing the right thing, that’s a lesson she’ll learn.’ she commiserated, genuine sadness tinging her thoughts as those hazel eyes blazed with anger. They would be full of love soon enough.

However, what she could do without was the excessive volume with which her blossom was shouting at her, it was too early in the morning for that. As he began the tirade anew, incensed by her apparently ignoring him, Victoria nonchalantly leant over the vanity table and picked up a pair of items, the first being a steampunk-styled remote. Waiting until Sam was at the zenith of his anger before she struck, she pressed a button on the remote. In the base of the seat, a hard ridge quickly rose with a stretching rumble of supple leather, parting Sam’s cheeks and resting against his ass.

Bzzt! The ridge vibrated suddenly, suffocating the words that had been coming from Sam’s mouth into a surprised “Eyyyoop!?”

She was upon him in a flash, lifting a medium sized black ball gag from the table and popping it into his mouth while it was still open in surprise. “Owwugh!?” he cried in confusion, but Victoria had managed to expertly lock it behind his teeth and was already lifting his shock of dyed white hair to buckle it tight. His angry bleats began anew, but this time, they were utterly unintelligible and orders of magnitude quieter. Sam fought valiantly against his bonds and attempted to loosen the nub of hard black rubber from his mouth, only succeeding in causing a trail of drool to start to run from his parted lips.

Reaching past him and being sure to brush against his hairless body, the blue-eyed aristocrat picked up a hairbrush from the table and returned to her position behind Sam. Gently lifting his ashen locks, Victoria began to slowly brush Sam’s hair, even as he attempted to pull away from her. Paying his gagged misgivings no mind, she single-mindedly and delicately repeated the simple act of brushing Sam’s hair, the repetitive action slowly serving to take the edge of the young man’s temper. Slowly but surely, he appeared to calm down, the fire receding from his eyes, going from a raging conflagration to a smouldering coal. Still there but manageable. 

The combination of the soothing act and encroaching emotional exhaustion was adding dashes of water to the pot, each gentle pull down of the brush seeming to chisel away another strata of the former blonde’s ire away. It was not a surprise, it was simply that Victoria knew her boyfriend and now wife. Running her hands through his hair had been a simple intimacy that had always succeeded in calming Sam down in the past, and it was a prep work she enjoyed, seeing the waviness of the locks conform to a uniform straightness. 

Thoughts of the past set Sam’s mind on a retrospective path, his inability to move forward forcing him to look back and reexamine their time together in a new light. ‘ How long has she had this in the works? Since the day we met? Was any of it real!?’ he asked, looking at Victoria and himself in the vanity. She had hidden so much of herself from him, and her intentions were insane, utterly unhinged. 

An ache built in his chest, crestfallen eyes dropping to stare at his body and shivering in revulsion at their bear, uncanny nature. It hurt, the betrayal and violation of his livelihood that a woman he thought he loved had fawned over like he was some kind of object, not a person.

‘No ,’ he thought, the inquisitiveness of his ever-active mind driving him to try and understand, to grasp what he had yet to see and make the pieces fit together. He looked back into the mirror, his now pleading hazel meeting Victoria’s interested blue. It was still Victoria; she still touched him fondly and with care, but now he was seeing the whole picture even if he didn’t know what it meant. ‘ You say you love all that I am but want to turn me into something different…why?’ his shoulders slumped with the thoughts.

When she was sure that he was calm enough, Victoria began to speak again in a happy but gentle tone. “The reality of what is going on is not going to change, you are my wife now, the Lady of the Manor and with that comes changes for you.”

Sam couldn’t comment on the oxymoron.

“But as I’ve said, it's more bringing you closer to what I have always known you capable of. As such, I’ve decided to give you a new name, one that I believe truly resonates with the incredible person you are. All that makes you ‘you’ will remain, but it will be fettled, raised, educated and refined into a woman that all will look at with jealousy. Who takes the very flame imperishable of your role and makes it your own. You are the Lady Carmilla Florence, my beloved wife and Lady of Eden’s Rest.”

Sam baulked, but Victoria pressed on.

“Would you like to speak, Carmilla?” she asked, cocking her head to one side as she brushed his hair, forcing him to see himself in the mirror. Despite himself, he nodded, but Victoria held up a cautionary finger. “I will only take your gag out if you promise me you won’t work yourself up into hysterics again. Understood?”

Glaring at her weakly, Sam offered as much heat as he could, quixotically hoping that he could will her into taking it back with a stern look alone. He would have had more success in punching the sun from its orbit.

Finally did his placid and submissive nature asserted itself, giving a small nod, weak glare still in place. Victoria unlatched the buckle at the back of Sam’s head and removed the gag, cleaning it with a handkerchief as the young man flexed his jaw.

“Now that’s much better. While you make very cute noises with your mouth stuffed, I know that the first time anyone wears a ballgag is not a fun experience, Carmilla.” Victoria commented, noting a muscle jump in Sam’s neck, chafing under his new name. 

Looking up at the nonchalant aristocrat, he was powerless to stop his interrogation of the situation from turning inwards, parsing the appraisal in his girlfriend’s look for what he knew she honestly thought. “...Was,” he swallowed thickly, a phantom lump in his throat, giving his gaze a pitiful look, “was any of it real?”

Did Victoria genuinely love him as a person or simply as a canvas upon which to paint her perverse tapestry of kinks and fetishes? The question burned his insides, stabbing at his heart with more ache than a million ball gags could ever impose. 

Coming before him and resting her hands atop Sam’s shackled wrists, Victoria leaned down until she was eye to eye with her so-called wife, pushing her face forward towards his pale features. Sam pulled away as much as he could, but for every inch he went back, the Viscountess came forward until he felt his head press against the padded headrest. “There are not enough lexicons on this plane of reality to capture how much I love you, blossom. And I do mean ‘You’.” she said, tilting her head to one side while cupping one of his cheeks. 

She was so perilously close to him that he could feel her breath tickle against his face, the scent of her shampoo causing goosebumps to rise along his back.

“Buuut,” Victoria drew out with a sultry smirk, “While our little nerd tinted tetatet will be maintained, there are many aspects of it that are going to be tuned to my liking. The position you now sit in is quite jam-packed with fetishes in both senses of the word, and we’re going to have a regular soiree once you’ve got them all down to pat.” she finished, tapping his nose cutely, then straightening up. “You will be educated in etiquette, responsibilities and family history, as well as the many facets of what it is to be the Lady of the Manor. Routine, knowledge base, diet, exercise regime, expectations and responsibilities. You’ll learn new hobbies while others will be forbidden to you, much like ANY reality where you’ll wear anything so drab as a pair of trousers again.”

Sam could do nothing but sit there, shackled to the stylist's chair as the love of his life listed off a cavalcade of insanity that, for whatever reason, was spoken in the cadence of someone discussing the weather. 

“You’ll become intimately familiar with our family’s history and appreciate the Florence legacy; your form will be moulded to my desires and the skills required to see the both of us happy. We’re going to cultivate you into a madonna of sin. You’ll recite poetry to me in French as I fuck you over my desk, you’ll be able to know white wine I have been drinking as you feast upon my snatch and understand the beautiful construct of sub space as we take carriage rides into town, contemplating if the plug rumbling in your rear is ribbed or smooth.”

At those words, Sam’s hazel eyes widened to biblical proportions, something that Victoria noted and filed away to her ever-growing pile of mental notes that was gauging his reaction. 

Face turning slightly serious, Victoria continued. “I’ll be frank on this, Carmilla, it will not be easy. You’ve a thousand things to learn and master and if you can’t make up the slack you will be dragged kicking and screaming up the mountain that is the learning curve. To be my wife is a hard position, one I know you will rise to fulfil.”

He shook his head, denying the reality she was placing before him. “No, no. I won’t.”

“You will, Carmilla.”

“That’s not my name!” he growled, hands balling into fists, “I’m not Carmilla, I’m not your wife or a girl. I’m Sam!” he bleated angrily. Victoria tutted at this before grabbing him by the jaw and squeezing, gripping his jaw tightly. The ashen-haired sissy tried to pull away, but the hold on him was too strong for that, not enough to cause pain but enough to completely arrest any movement. 

Slowly tipping his chin up so he was forced to stare her in her strong blue eyes, Victoria’s voice brokered no argument. “Carmilla. The matter is settled. You are my wife, in the eyes of every single person on this estate you are the Lady of the Manor and part of this household. While any wedding ceremony where I put a ring on your finger is a long way off, it doesn’t change the reality of things. At Eden’s Rest, the position of the wife is someone who is in the total power of their spouse, at their side yet beneath them, and if you defy me or what I want,” he grip tightened to a painful degree, “then you will be punished accordingly.”

Worry filled Sam’s body, the seriousness with which the words had been delivered was like a lance to his cortex, an asuredness that it would be carried out. He let out a meek squeak, getting across that he did not want that to happen, even if he didn’t agree with any of this.

Victoria’s orbs softened at that, even if they maintained their dominant edge that was a constant, her grip softened, and she began to caress his cheeks. “But, if you do as you are told and behave as a good little girl, jumping on the balls of her feet for a proper education, then you will be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams. You will bloom, blossom, bloom into your role and come to adore this place as much as I do, wanting for nothing and without any care in the world.”

Sam simmered at the words; the kneejerk's reaction was to reject the proposal out of hand to preserve what was left of his pride. Victoria remained in the totality of his view, unable to look away from her as she guided his face to always look into hers, fastidiously combing over every detail. A primal fear settled over him, the primaeval part of his brain telling him that he was in the grip of a predator that would rip him to shreds if he gave in. If he gave an inch, she would take a mile and his sense of self along with it…

And yet…

‘I need to know why, what makes you like this, Victoria?’ he thought, desperately wishing the caustic touch of his own love for this tormentor would abate. In the face of such existential dread, he backed down and submissively conceded a resigned nod. 

It was not enough for Victoria, though, who drummed her fingers on her hips, “I need to hear you say it, Carmilla.” Sam grimaced at her honeyed words, he hated that name already. “I need you to admit to me what you are.”

He took a deep breath before speaking in a whisper, “I’m your wife, Victoria.”

The room was punctuated with the sound of Victoria clapping softly, pleased that she had been able to pry the admittance out of her now self-proclaimed wife. She scanned the desk before spotting the object of her desire, a silver service bell that she picked up and rang, its chime ill-fittingly bright given the situation at hand. The door opened, and Sam watched as a pair of maids sauntered into the room in the mirror, his attempt to cover himself pointless and causing him to be enveloped in a full-body blush. 

Victoria swivelled the white-haired sissy’s stylist's chair to face the pair of women who now stood before them, hands clasped in front of them at the maid’s equivalent of a parade rest. Each wore the standard attire of an Eden’s Rest House Maid, so it was in their physical appearance that you could tell them apart. One was a pretty young woman in her mid 20s with mocha coloured skin and bright onyx coloured eyes set into her pointed face. “Maid Delilah, your ladyship.” she introduced herself with a curtsey.

The other Maid matched it; she was a few years younger than Delilah and had a petite build with fair skin, sky-blue eyes and a tightly wound bun of brilliant red hair. “Maid Lily, your ladyship.” the now-named Lily introduced, rising from her curtsey.

A full five seconds passed before Sam realised that they were speaking to him, making it clear that his newly promoted status had been drummed into every single maid.

“After consulting with Diana, I’ve selected Delilah and Lily to be your Lady’s Maids, much like how I have Jeanne and Chloe,” Victoria explained genially, the two servant’s serene glow brightening at the affirmation. Both inclined their heads to the white-haired sissy, not yet given the sanction to speak freely while there was still a procedure to address. “They will be responsible for attending to your personal needs and the mundane realities of being pampered. Washing, both intimate and clerical, arranging and dressing you for the day and being at your beck and call for whatever your need.” 

“I need to get out of here,” he remarked flatly, causing the two maids to share a sideways glance. Victoria let the comment slide, appreciating the dryness of its delivery.

“All in due time, but first, we have to get you ready for the day, and that can’t start until these two are sworn in.” Taking a step back, Victoria allowed the two Maids to slip past her before each dropped to a knee in front of Sam and gently took hold of one of his hands. 

Onyx and blue eyes stared up into fleeting hazel with determination and fervour before, as one, they began to intone, “We who are Maids of Eden’s Rest do emphatically affirm our pledge. To the house, to the land and its residents, we are at your disposal. To our Lady, fresh and new, we bow our heads in supplication and swear that from this day to our last that your burdens are ours, your pleasure is ours to give and our pleasure yours to take. Admonish us, as we cherish you. Plunder our bodies, for they belong to you. We are your Lady’s Maids, and it is our honour to see you soar.”

As the two women spoke their long practised words, Sam didn’t know what to do. His mind feebly attempted to reconcile one possibility with another. If this was a tradition, then it was heinous, but they spoke it with such reverence that it must have been their tacit truth. They were… excited. Chomping at the bit to add another link to the chains that bound them irrevocably to this Jacobethan madhouse.

Leaning forwards, their grip on his hands turned professionally firm, causing Sam to clench his hands on reflex that made the hold all the more comprehensive. Lily and Delilah turned each hand over before each placed a gentle kiss on his ring finger. 

“Maid Lily, forever at your service, my Lady Florence.” Lily softly voiced, her soft and plump pink lips glossy with the moisture of the kiss.

Delilah mimicked the gesture, her kiss was warm yet chaste, her experience showing. “Maid Delilah, forever at your service, my Lady Florence,” she said.

The sensual act of dedication and its long-term undertones made Sam deeply uncomfortable, looking away from his newly sworn-in attendants. Thusly, he was unaware of the echo of unsureness and shadow of hurt that appeared in their eyes at this seeming rejection. 

Seeing this, Victoria let out a small sigh before retrieving a small wooden box from a nearby dresser; the sight of the witch caused the two maids to perk up immediately and rise from their kneeling position as the Mistress of the house approached. “Pay no mind to my wife’s apathy, your Lady is simply overwhelmed by your commitment to your jobs. It’s an artefact of her upbringing that your tender love and care will soon iron out.” she consoled the two before opening the box, revealing a pair of brushed silver slide pins. Victoria removed each before sliding them into the bows at each maid’s collar. “Your marks of office. Welcome to a select circle, maids, be sure to spit-shine one another's cunts to celebrate when you get the chance.”

Sam’s eyes bugged out.

Lily beamed at the order while the older Delilah gave a gracious nod to the Mistress, a promise that the two Lady’s Maids would be enjoying a sapphic escapade when time allowed.

Giving the pair a few more seconds to preen over the look of their new neck jewellery, Victoria made a chopping motion that made the duo snap back to parade rest. “And now for the first orders of the day. Give your lady support.” 

The stylist's chair was rotated back to face the mirror, and Victoria disappeared from Sam’s view; the black and white forms of his two maids blocked his view when he craned his neck to try and follow. Each had a sympathetic look on their pretty face and laid comforting hands on his shoulders and back, confusing the white-haired young man. Delilah patted him on the shoulder while Lily rubbed soothing circles into his back, which only served to set him even more on edge.

Victoria came back into view with a small silver platter balanced on her plam that she set down on the vanity with a sharp clack, giving Sam a chance to take in what was on it while she snapped on a pair of black latex gloves. Sat on the silver platter on a small square of blue linen was a small clear plastic tube with a ring on one end, a slit opening at the end and an eyehole bolt where both met.

It was the unmistakable silhouette of a cock cage, a CB3000 to be precise, and beside it, a generous ice pack.

“No, fuck! Victoria NOOOOOO!” Sam thrashed against his unyielding bonds in a vain attempt to escape the innocent-looking arrangement. He was further impeded when his maids' hands clamped firmly down on his shoulders, holding him tight to the chair. 

Checking to make sure her gloves had no wrinkles, Victoria picked up the cage and twirled it on its ring. “I think it's safe to say from your reaction that you know what this is?” she asked rhetorically, then smirked, “dirty girl, looking up naughty things in her spare time, hmm?” she hummed before removing the tube from its base ring, separating it into two parts. “I’m not sure if I should slap you for being a tart or give you a pat on the head for already knowing a part of your new position.”

Getting between his legs, the black-haired beauty stilled the thrashing thighs with a firm hand before cupping his balls, drawing a strangled gulp from him. Manipulating the semi-turgid length with gloved fingers, she teased the vein and felt him begin to react to her, his sack tight against the cool palm of her hand. “The wife is chaste. That has a lot of connotations and contradictions to it. After all, I expect you to be selectively salacious when the time calls for it, but there are reasons to lock this little clitty away beyond just keeping you from touching yourself.”

She slowly worked the ring over his cock and scrotum until it was seated snugly against his pelvic bone, jostling it from left to right to make sure it was simultaneously secure and comfortable. 

At least in a relative sense. 

“While the esoterica can wait till you start your lessons, I can boil it down to three overarching principles,” Victoria said conversationally before surprisingly pulling away. “The wife is one who is female, thus her sex is sealed.” Sam groaned at the tight hold of the plastic ring while Victoria took up the ice pack. “The wife is a bastion of purity, her walls shall only admit that which her spouse has sanctioned.”

“Please don’t,” Sam begged weakly as Victoria flexed the transparent bag of ice and chemical gels.

“You may want to take a deep breath, Carmilla,” Victoria smirked evilly, lifting the ice pack before slowly pressing it against Sam’s cock. “The wife has no bodily autonomy of her own; thus, in chastity, your body belongs to me.”

Sam let out a pained scream as his world was doused in icy fire, his manhood shrivelling at the strangling hold of the ice pack that was unerringly held against every centimetre of exposed flesh. And Victoria was there to eat up every tremor and facial expression as if they were a delicacy not to be squandered. 

Both Maids reacted instantly, moving to the sides of the stylist's chair; each took one of Sam’s spasming hands and held it tenderly in support, whispering words of encouragement to their Lady. Nostrils flared as he too a series of sharp and shallow breaths through gritted teeth to try and get over the initial shock that was begging to bleed away. A throbbing ache took its place as the thump of his heart carried blood into shrinking flesh until Victoria was satisfied with the work.

‘Satisfied, huh?’ she thought, a spectre of platonic form taunting her from the ether, ‘ It could always be better.’   

While the aristocrat was positively magnanimous that she could cause such visceral physical reactions in her wife, there was a small part of her that lamented having to rely on something so tonally different as an off-the-shelf chastity cage. She removed the ice pack and began to dry off the shrunken clitty, she didn’t want him catching a cold. ‘I’d have much rather Yui be able to machine me a custom job from steel but mundane realities and all that.’ To make such an intimate article of chastity would require measurements that they didn’t have til the examination this morning. ‘ Have you ever tried whipping out a ruler and asking to measure your boyfriend’s cock length? Total mood killer. ’ 

As she slid the hard plastic tube up his now flaccid cock and into its mounting in its ring, totally sealing away his sex, Victoria took solace in knowing that eventually, she could enjoy the sound of her nails wrapping on the faceplate of a bespoke chastity belt.

Sam looked down at himself, shivering as he saw the sheath of hard, clear plastic that caged in what made him a man. He tried to tear his eyes away, but he couldn’t; it was morbidly mesmerising. Victoria slipped a hand into a masterfully hidden pocket in her dress and removed a rectangular block of hinged perspex, a small silver key spearing through one end. 

Gently she lifted his chastised cock, admiring its controlled ‘glow’ before slipping the block of plastic into the matching hole in the top of the cage and holding the key fast. But then, she stopped. Victoria slowly inclined her head to look Sam in the eye, keeping his caged cock between them so he could not look at one without the other.

“Look me in the eye, Carmilla.” she whispered, slowly turning the key in its lock, “Look into the eyes of your spouse and listen to the sound of you once more becoming mine.”

There was a muted snap-click of the lock fitting into place, all but deafening. 

Sam lowered his head and rested his chin against his chest in resigned defeat, he couldn’t even tell where the lock even was in the clear plastic. Victoria held the key up to the light to inspect it, enjoying the way it twirled on the end of its small chain before pocketing it as the two Lady’s Maids consoled their Lady. She tipped his chin up and planted a butterfly kiss on his lips, a ‘well done’ before moving over to the side of the room and gracefully sitting in a high-backed chair. 

“And with that out of the way, we can get ready for the rest of the day. Begin,” she instructed the Lady’s Maids, who launched into a flurry of movement. 

Lily and Delilah were quick to towel him down and remove any remnants of his drool or the cold water from his body before dividing up jobs, ignoring the white-haired sissy’s bruised pride. They started with his hair, Lily brushing it free of the knots his tussling had caused while Delilah looked through a number of trunks on the side of the stylist's room.

“I adore your new hair colour, Carmilla. It really suits you.” Victoria said, overseeing the entire production with rapt attention. 

“Sucked all the life out of it, and you name me Carmilla.” he barbed halfheartedly while Lily retrieved a pair of proper straighteners. 

Victoria giggled at the comment, it seemed that Sam was still in there, if cowed. “Well, you’ve always been a head above the rest of the class, but you need the length to match, and what lies between your legs is hardly anything to write home about.” Sam winced at that,  “But let's add it somewhere else, shall we?”

Delilah approached with an armful of high-quality and perfectly matching white hair extensions that both Maids quickly began to weave into his hair. Each one was a master at their job, and to Sam’s untrained eye, it looked as if the long white hair was tapped against his existing nape-length hair, and it was magically melded as if it had always been there. As the minutes ticked by, his hair was lengthened, layered and styled to the unerring hands of his two selected attendants, who remained silent as the grave. 

‘This… can’t be happening,’ Sam’s mind scrambled to make sense of it, there was just too much. From a sheer logistical standpoint, they COULD NOT be willing to dedicate this much pomp and circumstance to something so seemingly banal as hair. Perhaps that was because he had never exactly given a shit about his hair, but more likely that he was looking for any mental avenue that he could rationalise as this as a joke or one-off. Ignorance was, after all, bliss.

Ignorance that it was Victoria’s right to give or withhold.

Victoria looked around the room as she waited. “You’ll find that the vanity appointments in your room are far more homey than this tertiary stylist's room. We’re only in here because I had it prepared beforehand, it will be less scary when you are naked in your own bedroom,” she explained with a sigh, seemingly annoyed at something.

Seizing on this anomaly, Sam found himself calming down as he settled into the bulwark of denial. Tertiary stylist's room? What utter bollocks! It was just a one-off method of trying to scare him into compliance! And if that was the case, then he would simply weather it til his girlfriend eased off… right?

He lost track of time while in the bosom of his denial, even dimly aware of the pleasant and satisfying clip and snap of hair being trimmed that he recalled from going to the barbers what seemed an eternity ago. He perked up when both of his Maids took a step away from him, leaving him to look at himself in the mirror and his new haircut. 

The hazel eyed twenty two year old now sported a curtain of starkly white hair that trailed to just below his shoulders in lightly curled bangs that framed either side of his face, his priorly exposed forehead covered by a layered square cut fringe that stopped just above his eyebrows. 

Ah, Carmilla, the irony was not lost on him.

Victoria was euphoric, rising from her chair and sweeping in behind Sam to look at the pair of them in the mirror. The Maids had outdone themselves, and she was positively salivating at the wondrous contrast in each of their long monochromatic locks. He was beautiful, but her eyes were full of a different emotion entirely. Vindication. “I knew it. There’s always been a beautiful woman hidden in that body, and it just needed a little fettling to bring her out, Carmilla.”

She ran her fingers through his long hair and Sam was weirded out at the feeling of hanging weight that moved about him, not unpleasant, simply unfamiliar. Meanwhile, The Viscountess also evaluated the feeling of the hair extensions, which were high-quality synthetic ones and would work wonders in this probationary period, but she longed for the day when she could pull her wife’s hair in bed while screaming her name. 

“Spectacular, maids. Now, nails.” Victoria instructed the two young women who selected nail files and toe separators. Sam bridled, pulling his head out of Victoria’s grip but still held in place by the cuffs and shackles. Victoria pouted at him, “Don’t be such a baby, Mrs Florence. Just enjoy the manicure and pedicure that most in London would kill for.”

True to the older woman’s words, the manicure and pedicure that followed were of the highest standard, with each Maid handling a different area. Though he futility attempted to pull his shackled limbs away, Delilah and Lily shaped and trimmed his nails to perfect dimensions with no discernible sharpness anywhere.

While they were doing that, Victoria retrieved the steampunk remote from before and pointed it at the vanity mirror, pressing a button and causing the entire mirror to shift from perfect reflection to matte black, causing Sam to whip his head around in curiosity. It wasn’t a mirror?

“And now comes the actual fun part, getting dressed!” Victoria beamed, the two maids parting once their job was done to let the Mistress look over her wife. “It’s going to seem like a bit of a faff, but trust me on this, love, it's going to be far better for you if you go along with what we say because if you make a fuss, we will dress you while still cuffed to that chair. And I will be frank in saying that it will be exceedingly uncomfortable and humiliating. And we don’t want that.”

Sam shook his head.

“I need to hear you say it, Carmilla.” the beautiful aristocrat crossed her arms as she waited for his contrition. 

Sam sighed, “...Okay.”

His Lady’s Maids unlocked the cuffs and helped rub some life back into his sore limbs before helping him to his feet, towering a full foot over Lily. He looked around the room for a door, but before he had a chance to acclimatise, he was led by both hands to a Victorian changing screen that he was ushered behind. As he walked, her was made aware of the alien ‘dullness’ of his caged cock and had to resist the urge to look down at it. That soon proved to be a blessing as it meant he got front-row seats to what lay in store for him behind the screen. 

The space was filled with a number of desks, couches, and plush stools that had a truly astonishing number of garments arrayed as individual articles of shapes and sizes that he couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Surely they couldn’t all be for him? Victoria moved past him and took centre stage, smiling happily and effecting a conductorial voice that she had used when she had drugged his coffee.

“Contrary to how it may initially appear, a ‘Victorian dress’ is a misnomer. Up until the mid Edwardian period, a dress was the sum of its parts which were all separate and fit together into a single cohesive outfit.” she explained, picking up a pair of simple white silk panites. “Compared with the two stages of modern prep, your average bustle dress from 1885 could take up to eight separate stages to put on in full.”

“Eight!?” Sam baulked.

“Eight, more if it was particularly elaborate,” she confirmed before holding up her hands in placation. “But you aren’t always going to have to endure all eight. While I adore my era, I can see its flaws, and many of our outfits have been tweaked for the sake of ergonomics, so some days you might get away with just a tan skirt and a blouse if I’m feeling particularly Edwardian.” She admitted. Victoria tossed the pair of panties to Sam, who caught them and looked at them like they were from outer space. “We’re perfecting the era, much like how I’m perfecting you. But, given that today will be your first time in a silk love affair, you’ll be getting a full service.”

They began with lingerie. Sam took a look at the panties and saw that they were made of a fine silk with lace detailing at the waistband before the maids gathered up a matching bra and stockings. 

“For aristocrats, which is what you are now, love, the servants do the work for us. That includes dressing. While you might be taught how to do some of the work, your Lady’s Maids will handle most of your daily preparation. It's simply quicker that way.” Victoria chipped in.

Delilah approached with her arms full of the rest of his lingerie and looked at him expectantly, her meaning easily grasped. Gulping thickly and intimidated by the dark-skinned woman’s gaze, Sam gave the panties one more look before pulling them open and stepping into each of the leg holes. Drawing the silky garment up his hairless legs, Sam shivered at the odd mix of too much and too little sensation. His skin was so much more responsive than he remembered, the material like running water wherever it touched, but the ‘sound’ in his senses was a lone tenor, the prior choir of tactile information provided by his body hair deadened and mute. Reaching the top of his legs, the crotch slipped between his hairless cheeks, drawing a squawk from him at the alien presence. These were nothing like boxers at all.

Lily scrutinised the front of the panties intently, particularly the harsh edges of the caged cock that stood out from the fine fabric, before she gently took hold of his crotch and poked and prodded the stiff acrylic cage til it was pointed between the Lady’s legs. It was still apparent that there was something there, but the Maid was satisfied that she had reduced its profile while Sam floundered at being manipulated so intimately by someone he had known for less than an hour.

Taking the matching bra from Delilah’s arm, Lily unhooked the lacy article and held it open that in no time at all was being latched shut across his back while they coaxed him to put his arm through the holes. 

Next, he was all but shoved down onto the padded stool with a grunt, and each of his attendants bore a three-quarters rolled pair of crisp white silk stockings that they slipped onto his feet before steadily rolling them up his hairless legs. Once that was done, he was made to stand and found himself shifting his weight from one foot to another, unused to his tactile senses being so thoroughly played with, the lace tops of each stocking tickling his thighs.

With the basic three undergarments done, Sam had assumed that they would move on to whatever laborious stages the staff had conjured from the annals of history, but Victoria’s smile turned truly ecstatic then. It was time for the corset. “Let’s get you laced up, girl,” Victoria said, lifting the iconic body-shaping garment from its place on the desk. It was a stiffly boned panelled corset, an underbust one judging by its proportions, each panel lightly Jacquarded with Damask patterns that glinted with a pearlescent sheen. Slipping a finger along the sternum line, the beautiful aristocrat revealed the break in the corset and opened it, exposing its interior. 

Working as a team, the two Lady’s Maids corralled Sam over to the desk, where Victoria handed the corset off to one of them, quickly encircling Sam’s waist in a band of ivory-coloured steel. He tried to back away, but the duo were well coordinated; Delilah held him fast from behind and held the two sides of the corset together while Lily took up a long and thin silver rod the length of a drumstick with a small hook on the end. She inserted the rod through the steel catches and used it to hook and draw the buttons of the corset closed, a pressure settling around Sam’s waist.

It was…not as bad as he had initially assumed.

Sure, there was a pressure that pushed in on him from all sides, but it felt closer to a particularly tight pair of socks rather than the bone-crushing beast that all media tended to portray it as. The sentiment lasted for that ephemeral moment between Lily smoothing the buttons out of view and Delilah flapping open the back panels to expose the endless crisp white laces.

“What are you- OH SWEET FUCK GPHHHHH!” Sam yelped, Delilah offered a quiet apology as she began to pull the long laces tight, dragging in the sides of the corset and compressing Sam’s waist one step at a time. The white-haired Sissy bent forwards in an attempt to get away from the monochromatic witches but only succeeded in drawing the corset ever tighter, forced to support himself by placing his hands on the desk in front of him. It was such a simple and insidious sound, the muted brush of laces being drawn tight. He had heard it a thousand times whenever he had done up his shoes, but now it heralded pain.

True to its purpose, the garment pinched in on the young man from all sides, his priorly flat and average build teased into a growing feminine hourglass. He took it back; this thing wasn’t a beast, it was a monster. A monster that now gnawed at his stomach and hips, biting into him with unrelenting steel jaws that robbed him of his masculinity, his dignity and soon enough his breath. 

“Deep breath, my lady, this will get worse before it gets better,” Maid Delilah instructed, steadily drawing out more sections of the laces in a sequence from top to bottom. 

Victoria watched the show from beside her, crooning in appreciation as Lily joined the fray to work on the lower laces, having made sure the top perfectly married up to the padded bra. “I know you’re a fan of extraneous factoids, blossom, so you might find it interesting that back in the 1800s, you'd have had to wear a chemise under your corset. Think of it like a slip that was supposed to protect the wearer from the full bite of the corset and the corset from the sweat of the woman it was wrapped around,” she explained, shaking her head at the absurdity of it. “Why would you ever not want to feel a corset’s embrace? You can feel it now, wrapping you in a tight hug and helping you to fit the image of my wife.”

All Sam could do at the moment was brace himself against the table and get as much air from his rapidly dwindling breath capacity. Perspiration began to gather at his forehead from the effort it was taking to not buckle under the assault, but as the lances grew tighter and tighter, he found that his body moved without his consent, the arch of his back conforming to the shape of the corset it's the steel bones were unforgiving in shaping his waist.

Despite the fact that the young sissy was clearly not enjoying himself, there was something almost hypnotic about the display. With something as simple as some hair extensions, some flattering lingerie and a well-made corset, Sam’s average male form was being tweaked towards that of a woman. ‘ And a mighty fine one at that ,’ Victoria thought. 

Lily worked at the bottom half of the laces, the tip of her tongue poking for lips in concentration. 

Victoria’s good mood dipped when it became apparent that the two Lady’s Maids had run into a snag, they fiddled with and tugged at the white strings without much continued movement. She made a mental note to tell Diana to organise remedial corset handling for the two when she realised what the issue was. The corset was brand new, ergo its laces and bones were stiff and uncooperative, the two were attempting to get the last pull in without hurting their Lady. 

“The last pull needs a firm hand, and you’re lucky that I wanted to be the one to do it,” Victoria said, shooing the two Maids away before grabbing hold of the laces. She raised her leg and rested her knee against Sam’s panty-covered rear before heaving with all her might. 

Sam’s eyes widened at the sudden change, the corset compressed as far as it could, and Victoria’s knee forced him to stand up straight, both banks of eyelets finally kissing. His attendant maids retook the reins and quickly braided them, wanting to make up for their apparent blunder. Once the corset had been tied off, they retrieved a rectangular lace hider and slid it over the cross cross, hiding it from view. The Lady Florence was now shackled in silk, a band of ivory-coloured steel gripping his waist like a possessive lover.

“The first time is always painful, Carmilla. Though I would be fascinated if you could find a carnal vice that wasn’t.” Victoria said, stalking around the woozy-looking Sam and the barest hint of aroused huskiness in her voice as she looked at the forcefully imposed hourglass figure. “Alcohol? Tastes horrid on the first sip. Smoking, recreational drugs and even sex. That first time you are inducted into the mysteries of the senses, pain is always the price of admission. But the pain will fade, and pleasure will take its place.”

Sam looked at Victoria with a deadpan expression, his eyes fogged as if not quite there, “I’d rather it didn’t happen at all.” he said weakly, completely ignoring as a chemisette was affixed to his neck, the half blouse-esque garment continuing the slowly assembling jigsaw puzzle of the outfit. “Are we done now?”

“No, your ladyship, that was merely the first stage,” Delilah informed him, causing the pit in his stomach to grow unfathomably large. Were it not for the slight bulge in his panties, there was barely any way to tell he was a man at a glance. 

It was at this precise moment in space and time that Samuel Hayes mentally checked out of the whole debacle, allowing himself to be manoeuvred around like a piece on a chess board while his Lady’s Maids dressed him up like a doll. 

Stage two consisted of some extra figure and shaping enhancement, a ring of frilly white waist padding was hooked to the base of the corset to help flare out his hips before Lily approached with the bustle. It was a series of light weight metal loops stacked atop one another in the a peach shape connected to a belt which was buckled securely around his waist. When they indicated for him to sit on the stool again, he was worried that the bustle would make it hard but discovered that the metal hoops were quite articulate and could fold up to allow one to sit. They approached him with a white garter belt and hooked it around his waist, lifting the waistband of his panties and threaded the straps underneath to connect up to his stockings. 

“Shouldn’t they go over the panties…” Sam murmured, confused at the extra step, surely they wear easier to remove with the panties under?

Victoria pinched the bridge of her nose and offered him a wan smile, like an upperclassman who had just heard an upstart ask an elementary question. “If the garter straps went over the panties, then you’d never be able to take them off without unlatching your stockings. Aesthetically pleasing as it might be, I want you to be functional in your role, Carmilla.”

As he sat on the stool, he was presented with, surprisingly, a pair of shoes. A pair of calf-length black and white ‘spat’ boots with one-inch flared heels and a quilted texture on their shaft. He looked up at Victoria, who nodded genially, all too happy to answer the unsaid question caused by his despondency. 

“Given all the layers you will be dressed in, sometimes it is better to put on your shoes before we tackle the dress itself,” she explained before the Maids slipped his feet into the boots and helped him stand, they were a perfect fit, tailored to perfection as the slippers had been the day before, but he still stumbled slightly from the elevation of the flared heels. It was a small change, but it had him off balance. 

Two layers of ruffled petticoats were lifted over his head and dropped onto his waist, the fine material tickling his stocking-clad legs before a heavier outer skirt was added as well. Lastly came the matching white bodice with lace detailing that he was buttoned into, its tight fit accenting his form and revealing the faux bust created by the bra and corset. 

It was a bizarre feeling for the white-haired sissy; it felt as if he was being held from all angles and each in a different way. Each component had its place and separate feel, but when brought all together, it was simply…a dress ... .one he was being forced to wear.

A click of low heels echoed in his ears, and Sam watched as Victoria entered his field of view, framed by his new bangs that he was very quickly growing to dislike. 

Looking at Sam with sultry appreciation, Victoria was begging to grow deeply aroused at the sight of him. The combination of bodice and bustle produced a pronounced flair of the hips that she had to resist the urge to hold while the skirt and petticoats, each as crisp white as his hair, covered him to the floor with only the smallest black tip of his spat calf boots glinting from the shadow it cast. Paired with his wonderfully styled hair and naturally pale complexion, ‘ Alas, muse, I have captured a ghost and made her a goddess, one that will follow my chain .’

“Now you fit the role, blossom.” Victoria sidled up to him and brushed a hand against the delicate fabric of his bodice, feeling him flinch away from her. It was an expected reaction, but he appeared to be pliant enough to do as he was told for now. She expected that he would flare up again, but that crease in the fabric of the day would be ironed out when they got to it. 

Sam was led back into the heart of the stylist's room on unsteady feet, the combination of the small heels and cumbersome nature of the dress throwing off his sense of motion just enough to be annoying but not enough to result in falling head over heels. It was the subtleties that rankled him, the paradoxes in sensation. His legs were surrounded on all sides by layers of heavy silks, yet the very nature of a dress meant he was bereft of the usual closeness of trousers. He had an infinite amount of freedom of movement within the set parameters of the ensemble, and that ensemble was unforgiving in what it would allow.

So it was with a strange relief that he allowed himself to be sat down in the stylist's chair once again, this time happily bereft of cuffs and shackles. The layers of skirt, petticoats and bustle bunched up behind him and formed an impromptu pillow for his lower back, which was needed given the corset forced him to keep his posture ramrod straight. 

A semblance of his fire returned when his Lady’s Maids opened a series of boxes on the still-darkened vanity to reveal a collection of makeup and brushes. “No, can we just not…” he grumbled, earning him a pat on the back from Victoria who was full of mirth.

“Nothing extravagant yet, just some tasteful appointment.” she consoled him with a smirk. The comment nearly drove Sam into a conniption. How in the hell was all of this ‘nothing extravagant!?

As the tiny coal of fire at his core began to once again glow with life, the two maids flitted about him with a professionalism that befitted their station. His manicured nails were given a simple clear coat of nail polish to give them a glossy look before they asked him to pout his lips. Lily approached with a tube of lipstick and set to work outlining his pouting lips before gently painting them with a coat of the matte red lipstick while Delilah was gentle in her application of some dark eyeliner. 

Job done, the Maids retreated to stand at either side of him and bowed their heads, their lobs completed, leaving Sam to stare into the black screen that had once been the vanity mirror that showed nothing but a matte black void. He mentally joked that Victoria was laying on the Vampire aesthetic a little too thickly by denying his reflection, but just as the thoughts came to him, he felt a weight settle on his shoulder, the painted tips of Victoria’s fingers kneading at the tough silk of his white bodice. 

Victoria leant down next to her wife and whispered into his ear, “Now let's gaze through the mirror darkly, my Lady Florence.” She pointed the remote at the vanity mirror, and in a flash, it snapped back to its crystal-clear reflection.

Sam gasped, the thing in the mirror’s lips forming into a surprised ‘o’ while familiar hazel eyes raked up and down. The uncanny valley yawned open before him, and a white spectre stared him down with a sultry, smirking raven perched at its shoulder. 

His face had been appointed in a simple and exceedingly tasteful arrangement of makeup, the dark eyeliner and matte red lipstick drew all attention as the only splash of colour on the entire body. It was still very clearly him, his mental self image said as much and could point out each individual aspect of his face but there was an… otherness to his reflection. The context of his visage had changed.

While Sam had never been especially feminine, he hadn’t been archetypically masculine either, dancing on the knife edge of averageness. But Victoria the artist had changed that.

With his hair, she had changed his profile and given him something to make him stand out, shattering his defence of generic appearance. With the dress she had dissolved his form as a man and rebound it into a shape that could not be accepted as anything other than feminine and with the touch of makeup he had officially slipped from the summit of average and into the slope of androgynous. 

Regarding her wife and creation with a loving stare, Victoria gently pulled back the curtain of layered white hair and kissed Sam on his neck. “You’re stunning, Carmilla, properly dressed in your virgin whites. You’ve earned a proof of my favour,” she explained before snapping her fingers.

As the senior of the two Lady’s Maids, Maid Delilah responded to the request, retrieved a flat rectangular jewellery box from the vanity desk, and brought it to her Mistress. It was a simple thing, covered in black velvet with the Florence family sigil highlighted in gold and lapis. 

“Open it,” Victoria ordered, and Delilah opened the box to reveal its contents to Sam. Sat on a small velvet pillow was a thick band of black silk, fastened shut with a small silver catch at its back. Victoria reached in and drew out the choker and dangled it in front of the white-haired sissy’s face. 

She silently opened the item of tastefully simple jewellery and slipped it around Sam’s neck, it was chilling to the touch, feeling as if it had been cast from woven shadow rather than cloth.

“There is Raiment, and then there is uniform. The clothes you wear, the styles in your hair and the jewellery in and on your body: those are Raiment, that which you wear as befitting your station and the moment.” Victoria closed the silk band with a ‘click’ from the catch, the choker holding Sam’s neck snuggly. “Then there is uniform, which, as my wife, is what defines to those who look upon you that you are me. But it's nothing so drôle as the uniform of the servants, no, your uniform is your chastity and your choker. The only constants you will ever wear.”

His hair was brushed back into his hair, and Sam realised what the choker really was. It was a declaration of ownership, a collar by any other name.

No, NO! He denied the ringing feeling of doom as Vicotira pulled away, leaving him alone with his own aristocratic reflection. This was not final, he was not here forever, he would deal with this until he could convince her otherwise or slip away, nothing more. 

“Now that that’s all done, why don’t we go for a walk? It’s past time I introduced you to a few more important people in your life.” Victoria said after a moment, offering Sam a hand to stand.

After what felt like an eternity, he raised his head from its despondent slump and reluctantly took it.

When it comes to the endless tiny elements that together constitute what we perceive as routine, it is, surprisingly, the smallest changes that trip us up the most. Sure, being drugged, feminised and chastised by your now self-proclaimed spouse was the equivalent of being punched in the gut, but it did not niggle at the senses like a tiny change, large enough to be noticed but not significant enough to be a genuine issue. In point of fact, the best analogy for such a change was getting a rock stuck in your shoe.

It did not debilitate you, nor did it do anything more than annoy, but its persistent pestering kept it at the front of your mind for each foot you put in front of the other. A punch to the gut, while traumatic, was a singular event that would fade into a wall of apathy with time. A rock in the shoe, though? That would rankle until you either got used to it or removed it from your shoe.

‘Click’ 

‘Grrrrrrrr .’ Sam smouldered as his short flared heels caught on the floor for the sixth time. 

They were once again astride the labyrinthine halls of Eden’s Rest in one of the many corridors that a visitor would be hard-pressed to tell apart. It was approaching one in the afternoon, according to an imposing grandfather clock that stood between a pair of matching shields bearing a simple black cross, each one with a pair of decorative longswords crossed behind them. As they made their way to their destination, an errant House Maid crossed their path, a stiff scrubbing brush in her hands that she used to work away at the hardwood floor that wasn't covered by the rich carpet.

Upon seeing their approach, she backpedalled to the wall and offered a curtsy to the Mistress and Lady as they passed, not daring to look at either. Partially because the general rule was to not interrupt their betters but also because, on this day, the housemaids had been given explicit orders not to look directly at the Lady until she had been officially presented. 

Her head lowered, she was only able to get the meanest look at the four as they passed, the rich purple hem of Victoria's dress before the swirl of white and black of the new Lady’s frilly petticoats and her Maids' black uniforms. Once they had turned the corner and were firmly out of sight, she swept off in the direction of the dormitories, ready to gush that she had nearly seen their new Lady in her newly clothed glory.

With the quartet, Victoria took the lead, striding forward with an upbeat happiness that gave her a glow as she silently admired the marble bust of a storied ancestor that they passed. Her dress glided over the carpet, and her footsteps were dull, but she held a restrained animatedness to her. Instead of talking to her wife, she left him to his silence as they navigated. 

‘Click’

Sam was once again reintroduced to the metaphorical ‘rock’ in his shoe. While his entire lower body was concealed by the billowing confines of his skirts, the look of consternation on his face was palpable. Walking in heels for the first time was proving to be a unique kind of hell because of how simply annoying it was. Two-inch heels were nothing especially demanding when compared to the four-inch heels that Victoria currently wore, but the slight elevation in height and distribution in weight meant he was as physically off-kilter as he was emotionally. 

He would never know that Yui had been the one to argue for short heels for his first set of women’s footwear, being able to argue down Victoria’s vision of six-inch heels from the get-go.

“Unless you want your wife to be sporting a cast on one leg as her first act as Lady, you’re gonna drop the heel size to two inches, max. Just because she’ll eventually totter around in six inches doesn’t mean I want to be setting a bone from a broken leg when she inevitably falls over!” the Kyoto doctor had argued.

Even though he unknowingly benefited from his physician’s pragmatism winning out, Sam still felt uneasy in the footwear and dress. The flared heels kicked his already impressive height of 6’2” up to 6’4”, towering over his two Lady’s Maids that followed from behind. 

When he had first got out of the stylist's room and into the well-lit corridors, Sam had wondered if he could risk making a run for it, but the triangle formation of the three women blocked his exits, and he knew that he was going to topple over in all these layers if he went anything past a brisk walk. 

“It's intoxicating, the hold of a corset,” Victoria commented, pausing to watch her statuesque wife approach and nodding appreciatively at the artificial waistline. “The embrace is an acquired taste but one that leaves lasting hallmarks on its devotees.” 

Sam didn’t respond, instead gritting his teeth and giving Victoria the best glare he could offer. It only made the Viscountess chuckle before they reached a different corridor. 

Maid Lily increased her pace and brushed past her Lady to open a door for the both of them, Delilah was there to usher both of them into the parlour. 

The parlour was located on the first floor, much like the drawing rooms and bedroom that Sam had slept in last night, and as would be expected, it was equally grandiose. It was a large rectangular room with hardwood floors and cream coloured wallpaper, a mantle and fireplace set into one wall that was flanked by a pair of dark wood display cases. A number of couches and chairs had been set up around the room, each angled to look at some of the artwork that was hung on the walls. One object of note was the full-sized grand piano that waited by the far wall, its lid propped open to expose its internal strings and hammers. However, where it differed was its aura.

The drawing room had, despite its ostentatious content, held a homey feeling to it. While the couches were so soft you could drown in them, there was always a stack of newspapers or other reading material within arm's reach. Some of the sparse modern effects had also been present, it was a place to relax in comfort.

However, the parlour was a decidedly more serious affair. It was a place to receive guests and serve as a prelude for events. While it had the capability of being a pleasant environment, and to the untrained eye, it was, it was more a staging area for the agenda of the day.

A spacious round table sat at the room's heart set for three people, a tea set on a crenulated silver platter. The seats were arranged clockwise at positions 12, 3 and 6, with position 3 being filled by Trisha. She wore her navy blue velvet maxi dress-come-frock coat with a slim brown belt around her waist. Looking around, Trisha snapped closed the small leather journal she had been reading and rested it on the table’s surface before getting to her feet.

“Mistress Victoria,” she greeted, inclining her head before her bespectacled eyes locked onto Sam, sweeping up and down his dress, then into his eyes with a penetrating stare. “And the Lady Carmilla Florence, I have long looked forward to this meeting.”

Sam regarded the shorter woman in front of him. She had a pleasant demeanour with an underlying steel that reminded him of a former project supervisor he had once had at college. She definitely fit the house's aesthetic in her own streamlined way, but whatever first impressions her reserved and professional smile put out, it was tossed to the side when he saw what was attached to her right hip. 

Trisha’s old, worn but well-maintained riding crop, hooked to her thin brown belt.

She counted five whole seconds, waiting for Sam to respond to her greeting before her eyes crinkled in an eye smile. ‘Strike One ,’ she thought, committing the social faux pas to memory. 

“Forgive my wife’s rudeness, Trisha. Her first dressing was an animated experience, and she hasn’t gotten her breath back yet.” Lily pulled out Victoria’s chair and let her sit down, resting her fist on her chin as Sam was made to sit opposite her. 

Once Trisha was again seated to Sam’s right, the two maids went about the tried and true expectation of making tea, the sound of a boiling kettle filling the parlour. 

Letting the virgin white sissy dangle on the edge of his seat for just a little while longer, Victoria eventually began to speak. “Carmilla, this is Trisha Moore, she is being employed by me to serve as your Governess.”

“Charmed,” Trisha chipped in while Sam’s eyebrows furrowed at the word. 

“Governess?” he finally spoke, voice full of confusion. 

Victoria gave Trisha the floor to give a proper introduction. She pushed her glasses up her nose til they glinted in the light before beginning. “Indeed. I have been hired by the Florence family to oversee and contribute to your education and development as a young woman. I will be in charge of your tutoring in matters befitting both your identity as a woman of Victorian aristocracy as well as your position as Lady of the House and wifely responsibilities. For the foreseeable future, I will be at your side as your companion and role model, so I believe that it is best we get off on the right foot.”

“Trisha is a very gifted teacher and logistician, she had more academic degrees to her name by the age of 20 than most scholars earn in 50 years. She’s very much the apple of my mother's eye.” Victoria contributed, enjoying the searching look on her wife’s face as he tried to fit all the pieces together.

The governess chuckled in deference, “Countess Beatrice is someone to whom I am forever indebted, and I make it my mission to help raise your wife to be as good a woman as she was to me.”

“Be sure to keep my blossom’s tongue silver on all matters, Trisha, from the house history to the bedroom.”

“Of course, these are the responsibilities of the Lady.” Trisha agreed, the sound of boiling water rising to a height and Sam’s Maids bringing it over to the table. 

Responsibilities? Were… were they fucking insane? The question came up again and again within Sam’s mind, echoing off the walls of this sham of a form he had been twisted into. With each echo did his small fire of resistance grow. A responsibility was something you chose for yourself, but now they were talking as if he had some kind of obligation to excel in something he clearly did not want.

“You can’t be serious,” he finally said, causing both women to pause their conversation. 

‘Silly girl.’ Trisha thought, templing her fingers in front of her. “While I enjoy a jest when warranted, I make it a point of pride to never joke about my work, Lady Carmilla.”

“We have all gone through a lot of time and effort to get to this day, blossom, you’re obligated to honour the effort we have put in,” Victoria explained.

“Fuck that!” Sam replied, the flame growing stronger.

‘Strike two.’ Trisha counted internally. “It’s a simple calculus, my dear. If you do as you’re told, then you will be rewarded. If you don’t, then you will be punished.”

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, and unbidden, a sentence passed from his lips. An innocuous and innocent series of words that were spoken with no ill intent, just simple exasperation. Unknowing of the reaction they would engender.

“I need a cup of coffee.”

His Governess teeth snapped together with an audible click, her eyes narrowing, ‘ and that’s three.’

Trisha smiled an all-too-sweet smile. The temperature in the room seemed to plunge, and Sam knew that he had somehow blundered as she slowly turned to Victoria, who looked almost disappointed in him. Giving a subtle nod, the blue eyes glittered in newfound excitement when her auburn-haired employee spoke, “We may as well nip this in the bud now and leave an example that sticks.” she sighed before snapping her fingers. “Seize her.”

Before Sam had even had the chance to form a coherent thought, he saw a pair of shadows emerge from either side of him and grabbed his arms. His head snapped to one side, long white hair tossed over the shoulder and saw his Lady’s Maids looking at him apologetically as they manhandled his arms. “Get away from me!” he shouted at them and committed the totality of his strength to try and get free.

While the Lady of the house tried and failed to get free of her attendant’s hold, Trisha slowly got to her feet, being sure to tuck her chair back under the table as she went. Victoria found the sight humorous; her employee made being pedantic an art form, even on minor details like a sequence of tasks. 

After a brief struggle the two Lady’s Maids had claimed a victory, using Sam’s height and inhibited mobility against him and pressed both of his arms flat against the table where they were held fast. He fidgeted impotently, an attempt to stand waylaid by rolling back on his own heels. Movement ceased as he watched Trisha unhook the riding crop at her waist and hold it at her side. 

Trisha rolled the crop between her fingers. “I have been led to believe from what I have read and what your spouse has told me that you are an intelligent person, so I do not feel the need to spell things out more than is necessary,” she said slowly, her voice serene with a scolding edge. “I am your governess. I am in charge of your education, welfare, training and, in the absence of Mistress Victoria, your discipline as well. Lady and companion is a simple archetype to fall into, yet you have succeeded in expanding my patience for sloppiness and margin for offence exceedingly quickly. Three strikes against your character in less than three minutes. Ergo, a demonstration of punishment is in order.”

Fear seized at the restrained sissy, pouring a frigid cascade of water over him that doused the rekindling fire. He shook his head, stuttering out a garble of apology and beg for clemency while Trisha raised the riding crop.

Victoria watched the scene progress implicitly and just when she spotted the twitches of muscle in the velvet of Trisha’s forearm, the indication of imminent movement, did she act. “Hold a moment.”

Freezing in place, Trisha looked to Victoria, her actions entirely stopped by the simple words.

Sam felt his breath hitch in his throat, there was a power in his girlfriend, something that pressed down from all angles, an authority that conveyed from every syllable. And when she addressed him, he found himself mute.

She smirked, “This isn’t mercy, Carmilla, just a matter of neatness.” Her focus moved back to Trisha, “Owing to the fact that the presentation is in less than an hour, you know that no mark can be visible.”

A beat passed before Trisha assented to the request, bowing to her employer’s right and logic. “Turn her palm face up.”

Any hope he had of escaping his punishment was dashed on the rocks at that, the Maids twisting his arm and flattening his fingers til the pale parm of his right hand faced the ceiling. 

“Your hands will be clasped for the presentation so the palm can wear the three lashes without breaching tradition.” Trisha reasoned, drawing an approving nod from Victoria, appreciating the creative manipulation of the rules. She valued Trisha’s creativity as much as Yui’s. 

All pretence of dignity fell away from Sam then, begging Victoria to not let this happen, that he would do what they would say, just don’t hurt him.

His plea just earned him a slowly wagging finger from the purple-clad aristocrat. “Be a big girl, Carmilla, show Miss Trisha you can take your punishment with dignity.”

Trisha held the end of her crop’s ‘slapper’ by the tips of her fingers, the leather rod bending slightly as the tension built. “The first lash is for failing to greet your Governess when she greeted you!” she said before finally striking.

The crop slashed down, swishing loudly as it cut through the air before the full surface of the slapper struck Sam’s palm with a sharp crack.

“Ahhh!” Sam squeaked in pain, though it was more shock at the hit than any pain. He shook his head, begging it to stop as Trisha reset.

“The second lash is for use of profanity in the parlour, that kind of talk is reserved for the drawing room or bedroom unless sanctioned!” she whipped his palm again, drawing a pained bleat as Victoria watched on.

Gritting his teeth, the ashen-haired sissy felt the true sting of pain from this hit, his nervous system having a chance to catch up to the first blow.

“And the third lash is for asking for an unfitting drink. A Lady’s daytime hot beverages are tea, we will break you of that vile habit, Lady Carmilla.” she finished before striking the third time.

Despite her raised voice, her hits had been exceedingly neat and delivered with half strength, a caution as opposed to a true lashing that would have been delivered by cane or whip.

As the third crack echoed through the room, Lily and Delilah released their Lady and allowed him to recoil into his chair, clutching his hand that smarted with pain. Sam looked at the limb, tracing the perfect outline that the crop had left in the slowly reading flesh. It stung his pride far more than it did his skin, but still, it hurt.

Returning her crop to its place on her belt, Trisha sat back down to Sam’s immediate right and watched him as he meekly rubbed the mark of shame. After a time, she spoke, her tone a breath more tender than it had been before. “Has that left an impression on you?”

“...yes,” he gasped out, cowed by the display. It had been exactly what he needed for now.

“Do you want me to do it again?”

“No,” Sam said submissively, shaking his head.

Trisha nodded and extended her right hand in a handshake. “Then let's try this again. It’s a pleasure to meet you, your Ladyship. I’m Trisha Moore, and I will be your governess for the indefinite future. In formal settings, you will call me Miss Trisha, but outside of that, I am simply Trisha. I look forward to seeing you shine.”

Sam squinted at the hand as if it was some foul beast before he reluctantly shook it, wincing when the woman’s firm handshake made his throbbing palm ache. And it was the last bit of impetus needed to make him speak. “...it's nice to meet you…Miss Trisha… I’m Carmilla.”

The older woman held the handshake for a second too long, looking deeply into Sam’s eyes and nodded in satisfaction when she saw the submissiveness in there. “Good. Now, with regard to matters of note, you have a presentation in less than an hour, so let's get you watered and explain what is expected of you.”

Sam didn’t reply, but he nodded in resignation, it was another thing he would have to deal with until he could convince Victoria to see sense. After all, it was just two women…

A teacup was placed before him on a saucer, and he found himself staring into it as one of the maids poured a liberal serving of German Breakfast Tea into it, mesmerised as the sparkling white insides vanished into steaming brown.

Over the course of the next hour, Eden’s Rest was abuzz with activity that extended from both within the large manor house to the greater ground that rolled away into the forests and hills. It was an event, one exceedingly simple but long expected by those who lived there. 

Diana walked along a long line of her housemaids in the antechamber of their dormitories, giving each one a scrutinising once over to make sure not a singular hair was out of place. All wore their pristine full-length uniform with a pair of black patent leather Mary Jane flats, the required attire for events where they were not strictly working. Every maid wore a professional smile, looking directly ahead as the grey-haired Housekeeper made her inspection of them to make sure everything was perfect. The younger and newer members of the staff did their best to obscure any jitters they felt those jade-green orbs bore into them, digging through their very souls and promising retribution if they found something wanting.  

She paused mid-step as she crossed one of them, a pretty but nondescript member of the number and raised her hand to touch the bow tied at the younger woman’s collar, testing the tightness of the knot. Lightly pulling down on the loops, Diana evaluated the amount of resistance she felt from the central knot before nodding in satisfaction, amused at the tiny rise and fall she witnessed in the Maid’s throat, gulping thickly. 

Her inspection complete, Diana took up a place facing them all to address them. “Ladies, I expect as much of you today as I do any other day. No job left undone and no frill out of place. We must show our lady that we are there for her, infallible and uniform in our devotion to the family of this house and the lives that our beloved Mistress and her family have graced us with.” she said, causing the assembly to stand all the straighter. 

The Housekeeper smirked, pushing her half-moon glasses up the bridge of her nose before calling upon the maxim of their little sisterhood. “Where does the house reside?”

As one, the Maids responded, “Within the garden of Eden, where its denizens may rest.”

“And what are we, who wear the uniform of their servants?” Diana asked as her subordinates repeated a mantra that had been drummed into them since they had first donned their uniforms. 

“We are the maids of the Florence Family, an extension of our Mistress’s will who alleviate her burdens and enliven her life.”

She addressed them all, not looking at any of them in particular yet somehow penetrating them all. “And when does our service end?”

Their reply held a sonorous quality; many voices joined in choir with no singular voice standing out, a gestalt answering their superior’s question. “Never. Once the uniform is donned it cannot be removed, time holds no sway over Eden’s Rest or its servants, we are forever somewhere between 1850 and now.”

Clapping twice, Diana was satisfied with the observed tradition and left the antechamber bound for the entry hall, a train of monochromatically attired underlings following at her heels. 

It was not an isolated incident, for elsewhere on the Ground Floor, a door shifted aside to reveal a set of brass-coloured doors that slid open to admit Yui and her Nurse Maids, attired in their inverted uniform. Compared to Diana’s rigid adherence to decorum, Yui was far more lackadaisical as she walked, hands in her pockets and tapping a wordless tune onto the stretchy black leather pants. Her Nurse Maids were comparatively reserved as they followed, walking three abreast as they followed their diminutive leader.

As they walked, Yui spotted a sparkle of rubber out of the corner of her eye and smirked. It was definitely a change to see them allowed up out of the basement during the day, but she knew that they were still staff and thus had to attend. She did wonder if Victoria had wanted them chained as well, but that would make it hard for them to curtsey.

Indeed, the whole manor was coming alive with movement, people inadvertently drawn to the main hall.

Far distant, down at the gatehouse, the Hämäläinen sisters were attired in their Sunday best. Each of the Finnish valets wore an upper-class riding uniform composed of a high-necked white shirt with a matching tie, tight white riding breeches that complimented their toned legs and supple bottoms tucked into knee-high black riding boots. Over it, each wore a red crushed velvet hunt coat that was held closed with gold buttons, the Florence sigil sewn into its breast. 

Johanna, flanked by her two sisters, nodded in recognition of the small and smartly attired group in front of her and accepted the small slip of card the leader handed her. Looking down, the head valet read the embossed gold letters that were written on it.

“The Viscountess Florence cordially invites you to the presentation of her new wife and the Lady of Eden’s Rest. Present yourself at the gatehouse to be permitted entry.”

Satisfied, Johanna returned the invitation to the head of the group in front of her and held up a hand to gesture in the direction of the main house in the distance. “Thank you, sir. Now if you would care to follow my sisters and I, we will escort your family to the main house,” she said before the small group began to crunch their way up the gravel track that led up to the manor.

Back in the Parlor, Sam was oblivious to all of this save the simple particulars of what he had been asked to do. He sat glibly on one of the couches with Trisha seated next to him and Victoria in an armchair opposite him. In layman’s terms, he was to be presented in an official capacity to the staff of the house in his new capacity as the Lady of Eden’s Rest and wife of Victoria. What he had to do had been very easy to understand, and even though his head was still swimming with a collage of emotions at today’s revelations, he could grip onto the simplicity of Trisha and Victoria’s instructions as much as he abhorred them.

After that, the hour had passed in almost normal civility, were it not for the location or outfits as the pain slowly faded from his hand. Victoria broached subjects of conversation that Sam had been forced to meekly answer under the watchful gaze of Trisha and her riding crop. She was an odd case. Despite being nearly a foot shorter than him, his freshly appointed governess was someone who existed in two parts that didn’t seem to align with what he understood. Outside of her explaining what was expected of him, she appeared to be an animated and emphatic woman who was the image of ‘classical education’, reserved and polite but willing to engage and explain if something caught her eye and it became apparent that Sam was lost.

She chipped in on his and Victoria’s conversations and gave genuine responses when prompted by her employer, but despite that, there was this… aura to her. That every action he took was being examined and logged and if he put even a toe out of line then she would tan his hide. Something she knew. Something that she capitalised on to keep the submissive look in Sam’s eyes consistent, all the while giving that affable address that she was a companion to his suffering yet willingly enabled it.

He picked up his teacup and choked down another mouthful with a grimace, the flavour too tepid for him but he did not finish the cup, every time he did then his Lady’s Maids would just swoop in and refill it.

The monotony of high-class oppression was broken when Trisha checked her watch near the appointed time and gave an order for the two to leave, which they did, excusing themselves with a curtsey. 

“Where are they going?” Sam asked, unsure as to if their absence was an omen of something good or bad. 

“To their mark, it's time to begin,” Victoria answered. Five minutes later she rose to her feet and smoothed down her dress and made for the door, holding it open for Sam and Trisha to pass through. 

They made their way through the halls in silence, Victoria having once again taken the lead while Sam followed behind her at a distance of five paces, the speed mercifully slow and letting him avoid the pitfalls of his dodgy footwear. 

Trisha followed behind Sam by one step back and one to the right, a bespectacled Navy Blue shadow filling the attendant position in the absence of Lily and Delilah. 

Recognition washed over Sam as they entered familiar corridors bound for the entrance hall’s first floor landing from which the main ‘nexus’ of the house could be found. But as they drew closer, he began to hear the subtle burble of people getting louder, sporadic and indistinct conversation sandwiched between the rustle of clothes that came about from any gathering. 

The furtive hope for pleading for his escape came apart before it had any chance to even rise. ‘It’s the staff, all the maids, all sycophants hanging off Victoria’s words like she’s a goddess…’ he thought glumly, his painted lips drooping to a frown. The feeling of Trisha’s eyes on his back forced him to shift it back to a neutral façade lest he become reacquainted with her riding crop. 

The facts of the matter remained the same, he would endure this for now until he could either understand and convince Victoria to let him go, or, quixotically, slip away. 

Victoria came to a stop in the archway that separated the corridor from the landing and waited for Sam to catch up with her, favouring him with a satisfied and pleased smile. No words passed between them, but the way he shifted his weight from one foot to another told a story all of its own. She turned on her heel and strode purposefully out onto the landing, the sight of her causing a hush to fall over the entry hall, the assembled staff quieting to ascertain the sight of their Mistress.

She did not turn to look at them until she came to the exact middle of the grand staircase’s topmost step, looking over them all for a moment, keen blue eyes picking out specific individuals amongst the throng. 

Taking a deep breath, the black-haired Viscountess began to speak.

“Good day to you, Eden’s Rest. My staff, my employees, my household. I have asked you to assemble here today to mark an important time in my life as well as that of this house. I have been the Mistress of this, my family’s second seat of power, for eight years. In that time I have had much joy within these walls, even in the time spent away from it. You have welcomed me home, and thus, I acknowledge your toil in my absence.” 

Her speech was delivered in a clear voice that carried to all corners of the entry hall and held all the velvet-tinged imperiousness that her position in the peerage demanded. Victoria leant into her role and basked in its warmth like returning to an old pair of slippers, a comforting and normal way to lighten the day.

Painted lips parted in a self-indulgent and ecstatic smile as she continued. “But in this return, I have not come empty-handed. I spent years amongst the common rabble to understand just how privileged it is to be who I am. I did my work and returned home with an award of mark and something else held in my hand.” Sam’s heart thumped loudly in his chest, feeling Victoria’s attention on him, “I fell in love out there, and I have brought that love home to fill the position that this house has long needed.”

She slowly looked over her shoulder and raised a hand in his direction, “It is my right and pleasure to present to you my beloved wife, Lady Carmilla Florence, Lady of the house.”

That was his cue. 

Sam gulped before gingerly stepping forwards, hands clasped in front of him as Trisha had instructed him. His statuesque and entirely white form drew a small verbal reaction from the hall below and, on impulse, turned to look. It was not an infraction of what he had been told, but in retrospect, he really shouldn’t have.

He nearly tripped over his low-flared heels.

There were… so many.

So very many. 

As Trisha silently brushed past him and descended the right side of the stairs, Samuel Hayes took in the totality of Eden’s Rest’s staff and found himself well and truly speechless. 

It was one thing to be told that over 70 staff members were at the house, but seeing it simultaneously was believing and caused him to baulk in disbelief. 

The entry hall was totally full from the bottom of the stairs to the double doors, rows upon rows of maids and other staff arranged in lines and blocks according to their station and role in the pecking order of the house.

At the head of the throng were three figures, all of whom Sam recognised. Dr Yui Ito on the left, Housekeeper Diana Thomas in the middle and, taking up her position on the right, Governess Trisha Moore. Each stood at the head of a ‘block’ of servant staff and looked up at him with different expressions. Yui wore an amused and impressed smirk, while Diana had a small smile of appreciation. Trisha’s gaze was expectant, watching him like a hawk for errors. 

Immediately behind each of the three leading staff were their immediate underlings. Sam was initially drawn to the Nurse Maids behind Yui with their inverted white and black uniforms. There were nine of them arranged in three rows of three, with all sporting similar Asian features like their leader, though he was surprised that at least three of them had wild hair colours like hot pink and green. 

Diana was backed by the five Parlour Maids, marked by their white linen gloves, before being followed by a block of fifteen housemaids arranged in three rows of five, all of whom looked up at him in wonderment, his whiteness reflected in their eyes. Trisha was flanked by the two pairs of Lady’s Maids, their precious metal pins glinting in the light from the above chandelier and behind them were the three Hämäläinen sisters. 

But there was so much more…

Tearing his eyes away from the other more eccentric staff members, Sam returned his focus to Victoria, who watched him approach with her hand out. He slowly took his captor’s hand and laid a small kiss upon the ring finger of her left hand, Victoria enjoying how soft and pleasantly slippery his painted lips were. Her hands fell to her sides, and Sam began to descend the steps of the staircase until he was halfway down and forced to look out at the horrifying expanse once again. 

Scanning from left to right, his hazel eyes zoned in on the ‘block’ of six behind the Nurse Maids, where the first man that Sam had seen in days stood. The block was made up of two rows of three, with the front row being a trio of chefs wearing crisp white linens, the man in the middle wearing a small pin that marked him as the head chef while his two female Sous-chefs stood on either side and a trio of kitchen maids, evident by their aprons and modified headbands, stood behind them. 

There was an assembly of four stablehands behind the large block of housemaids, two men and two women wearing white shirts, dark blue waistcoats and red neckerchiefs. To their left, and thus Sam’s right, was an eclectic group led by an older gentleman in his late 40s. He had a broad and stocky build but was otherwise healthy with a goatee and close-cropped salt and pepper hair. He wore a tweed three-piece suit and looked thrilled to be there, looking up at Sam with a broad smile. He was joined by his reasonably attractive wife, who wore a tasteful yellow summer dress, and their three daughters, all of whom notably had toned arms. 

That was Rupert, the Groundskeeper, leading the delegation of his small family as well as five more female FMC gardeners who all wore trendy black summer dresses. All looked at Sam with expressions that ranged from shock to glee but it was not them that Sam found his attention paradoxically attracted to. No, that was who stood in front of them.

Sam’s focus was inexorably drawn to the five women who stood between the garden party and the valet trio. They were maids but a far cry from the prim, proper and modest attire of the other staff. 

Each woman wore a scandalously short French maid’s uniform made of shiny latex that had been polished to a mirror sheen. It clung to their upper bodies like a second skin, hinting at everything while revealing nothing. They all wore a pair of elbow-length latex opera gloves and matching stockings that were adorned in six-inch stilettos. A shimmer of silver sparkled from each foot, and to Sam’s Horror, he realised that the poor women had been locked into their footwear with additional steel and leather cuffs at their wrists. All five had been outfitted with a tall and broad black and white posture collar with a large O ring mounting at the front, cutting off almost all movement. All five had been outfitted with a skintight open-faced latex hood with a rubberised maid headband fused to the forehead, exposing their beautiful faces that fluted their long eyelashes and pouted their collagen-enhanced lips. Finally, each woman had a thick steel nose ring pierced through their septum, dangling and jostling a little with each breath. 

And in their eyes, Sam was chilled to see arousal. Deep, carnal and submissive. They saw the world through a haze of reality that was beyond his ken, a world where all was but sex and service.

Despite their scandalous attire, no one seemed to mind their presence, the quintet were simply other members of staff, here to greet their new lady.

Movement clocked at the back of the hall, and Sam felt the pit in his stomach open wide to swallow him up, even more people, but these were just… off. He could not say if they were men or women, he did not know what they were for all they wore was a floor length hooded mantle with the Florence family sigil at the peaks. He had initially taken them for shadows caused by the glare of light from the windows, but now he saw that whatever or whoever they were, they belonged to this house of horrors as well.

Disbelief and despair filled his heart, an all too human reality settling over him as his feeble plan was kicked into the dirt by weight of numbers.

The three Leading Staff took a step forward, “Servants of Eden’s Rest, welcome your Lady!” they called in triplicate, the multitude snapping off a wave of perfectly timed curtseys and bows. 

“Three cheers for Lady Carmilla!” Diana ordered, her green eyes twinkling happily. “Hip Hip!”

“Hurrah!” 

Sam slowly bowed his head, both as he had been instructed and at the feeling of the world pressing down on him.

“Hip Hip!” Yui added, thoroughly amused as she saw Victoria watching over everything with a smirk.

“Hurrah!”

Sam did all he could do to deny the reality around him, retreating into a little ball of introspective submissiveness. But with each cheer, he was reminded.

“Hip Hip!” Trisha finished, content in her charge’s contrition.

“Hurrah!”

With his jailors below him and his ‘spouse’ behind, the Lady Carmilla Florence could for the first time see the scope of what was arrayed against him, even as he closed his eyes and refused to look.

Time had become somewhat moot for Sam after that, withdrawing into himself and doing as he had been told without complaint, he had experienced an odd instance of mental checkout as his catatonic self reeled with the specifics, completely ignoring his surroundings as he mentally recuperated. The image of the legion of maids and other staff arrayed before him loomed from his recent memory like a spectre and made him have to confront the reality that this was a madhouse where the concept of normality was entirely subjective… no. It wasn’t subjective. It was more that the objective was subject to the whims of one Victoria Florence. Who could quite easily have a frilly phalanx up front with rubbery reserves on the side, being simply ‘just another part of your life.’

Sam was in luck that after the initial presentation there had not been any real need to stand on ceremony or mix with the scant few ‘guests’ that had come. A blessing really, given that he didn’t want to get within a country mile of the ones in cloaks, but in days to come, he would chastise himself for not breaking down into tears and showing the family, who he had been told that they were the groundskeepers, that something was deeply wrong here.

He had been reunited with his Lady’s Maids and Trisha and been left to relax as the staff returned to their work, and guests had been left in Victoria’s decidedly more conversational hands. By the time the Viscountess had seen Rupert, his family and the rest of her FMC employees off, things had been approaching the evening, and she was craving her wife’s presence again. Her wife. Ahh, how being able to say it aloud was a clean high that she could not get enough of.

“...-Are you listening to me, Carmilla?” Trisha asked with a note of exasperation in her voice, frowning at Sam’s blank face.

He blinked, coming out of his fugue and returning to the present. Shaking his head, he looked down apologetically. “Sorry, Miss Trisha, I was a million miles away.”

The older woman shifted, mirth filling her as she replied, “Honorific is only necessary at formal occasions, and supper is not a formal meal unless non-familial guests are present.”

“Right…” Sam nodded, pretending he understood the difference when, in reality, he really didn’t. What even was supper anyway?

Taking the words for what they truly were, Trisha repeated what she had said before, unintentionally answering her charge’s curiosity. “I was explaining the difference between dinner and supper. While dinner is a formal meal consisting of between three to seven courses, a supper is a light and informal evening meal, usually held when there is to be evening festivities.”

Sam nodded before his mind caught up to what she had said and looked at her, dumbfounded. Had she been able to pick up on his curiosity from nothing more than his subtle facial cues? His reply was quiet but genuinely curious, his face brightening at the prospect of some new information, even if it was pointless. “Are there any… festivities planned tonight?” he asked, uncomfortable at the prospect of what Victoria considered to be a festivity. 

“Not tonight, I think it's simply that your spouse feels that after last night’s welcome dinner and the presentation that you would take better to a light and palatable snack,” Trisha explained, reaching the door that they had been looking for. “Now, please, Carmilla, do try to pay attention in future; sloppy attentiveness at the dinner table is the death of any aristocrat.”

They found themselves being sat down in a tertiary dining room on the ground floor, one far smaller than the one he had eaten in last night and for now, appointed with a singular round table set for four people. Several people were already in the room, with Diana and two Parlour Maids presiding over the table and the spaces occupied by Victoria and Yui.

As he crossed the threshold and the Parlour Maids pulled out seats for him and his governess, the two old friends looked at him with bright expressions and much as he would deny it, he felt the green tinge of envy looking at Yui. The good doctor was much the same as she had been at the presentation save for the lack of her Doctor’s coat, her mundane attire a palatable alternative to his endless array of layers. 

“Oh hey, Carmilla. Big day, huh?” she asked nonchalantly, the rhetorical question moot given that all knew the answer. 

“Yes,” he answered simply, making no effort to conceal his dissatisfaction with the day and honestly wanting nothing more than to crawl into bed and never leave it. 

“Nice!” Yui said, her eyes mischievously looking him up and down. “Gotta say, though, you are rocking that dress better than queen corset over there,” she jabbed a thumb at Victoria, who shot her best friend an annoyed look. “You’re really nailing the whole onryo look, could have probably pulled off a Kayako Cosplay if Victoria had asked me to make your hair black.”

His eyes narrowed, “You did this to me?” he asked, his hackles rising at the short Japanese woman who looked unrepentant at the accusatory tone.

“Well, that’s not technically true.” Yui pointed out, her smirk quite sarcastic, “I didn’t dye your hair,”

Sam sighed in annoyance, but Yui’s chuckle served to aggravate him back into paying attention.

“But I diiiiiid order my nurses to do it, and I think they did a stellar job, not a single blonde root left untouched,” she said in a self-congratulatory voice that was entirely affected for the sake of supper entertainment. She looked at Diana, “I used your blend as a base, Diana, then knocked it up by a few factors to snow white with just a dash of silver.”

“Most resourceful, Yui, your talents are always valued.” the steel-haired housekeeper said, taking the reveal that she dyed her hair its current colour in stride before saying to Sam, “Supper will be here shortly, Lady Carmilla. We will be having Seared Scallops With Brown Butter and Lemon Pan Sauce.”

It sounded nice, even if he didn’t really know what a scallop was beyond something that cooking shows used to sound fancy, his focus entirely on Yui, who preened under his annoyance. He gritted his teeth and growled slowly, anger filling his eyes in a sight that made Victoria inwardly coo, he looked like a very annoyed kitten.

“Don’t tease my wife too harshly, Yui, she’s had a lot to learn in one day and I want this to be taking a short break, I am a caring spouse after all.” Yui was right about the former, even if the jury was still out on the latter. There had been a lot of explanation on the hierarchy of staff in the last few hours that frankly still made his head spin but as the cloche covered platters were wheeled into the dining room he found himself recalling it.

The staff at Eden’s Rest could be broken down into two overarching brackets: serving and leading staff. The maids all came under serving staff, with the three arms being headed under Yui, Trisha and Diana, with the Housekeeper being the overall head of staff. Their ‘rank’ was still lower than that of residents, with Victoria as the Mistress and head of house while Sam now occupied the position of Lady of the Manor. 

While this may initially seem like he had the power to simply order the staff to let him go, it had been explained that during this ‘probationary period, ’ his rights as the Lady were moot and would always be superseded by those of Victoria and the leading staff. 

The food platter was set before him, and the cloche pulled away, revealing the perfectly cooked light meal. Loathed as he was to admit it given that it was covered in vegetables that make his boring picky eater self retch, it did smell good. He began to eat the food using the thankfully singular pair of cutlery he had been provided, unsure what he would have done if there was more. Seared Scallops proved to be a surprisingly tasty meal; they were salty with a sweet buttery aftertaste that the garnish of lemon sauce brought out sharply; he just had to stamp down on his urge to spit it out at the unusual texture and chewiness of the mollusc meat.

He made no attempt to touch the salad; he would not eat what he did not like. 

Supper was a pleasantly silent affair, with all four quietly enjoying their food with the occasional short conversation cropping up and dying away. Victoria had just finished polishing her plate when she began to talk to Sam, placing her spent cutlery horizontally over the empty plate. “Carmilla, I’m sure that Trisha has told you, but your lessons with her will be starting tomorrow; while I will always pop my head in to see how well you’re doing, I won’t be as present as you might like. You might say I’m going to be reaping the fruit of yours and Trisha’s labour.” she said, amused.

Had this been said to him a week ago, it would have made Sam snark a joke in response, now he just pushed the lettuce around on his plate. 

“Finish your plate, Carmilla,” Trisha said to Sam, not taking kindly to him not eating his greens.

Surprisingly, Sam ignored her and reached for a water pitcher that one of the Parlour Maids moved to fill his glass until Yui piped up.

“Try the wine, Carmilla. A good white goes well with most seafood.” her almond-shaped eyes fluttered, raising her own glass of wine in a mock toast. 

Sam grudgingly did as the Manor Physician suggested, and the Parlor Maid was quick to fill his bowl glass that he picked up and brought to his lips for a sip. He grimaced at the harsh and unfamiliar taste, a far cry from his preferred beer, but it was better than the uneaten greens on his plate. Trisha and Yui finished their own meals and arranged their cutlery across the plate as Victoria had, who raised an eyebrow at Sam’s plate.

“Not eating everything you are given without indicating that you’re not hungry is quite the insult, Carmilla,” Victoria said, templing her fingers as she observed her quickly angering wife. “Were the scallops not to your taste? ” she said, tapping her ring fingers together.

Diana’s eyes shifted imperceptibly behind her glasses, and unseen by Sam, she made a subtle claw motion around one of her wrists to his Lady’s Maids, who understood the meaning and moved out of view. 

Sam gulped at the enmity put into those last few words, and his grip on the wine glass slackened, nearly falling from his fingers only for Trisha’s hand to surge forward and grab it by its stalk.

She shook her head in rebuke of his near accident. “Do not spill wine at the table, you could have stained your dress!” Trisha cautioned, raising a finger to point at the young sissy.

He wasn’t sure what it was about the words, but they caused a visceral reaction in him, “Well, maybe if you were worried about me staining the dress, you shouldn’t have made it white!”

Lily and Delilah made it to a small desk at the side of the room and slid open one of the drawers, each pulling out an item before silently advancing on their Lady from behind.

Trisha stilled. Wrath and scolding filled her face at the blatant talking back from her charge, and already she made ready to deliver the neophyte aristocrat the dressing down of her life, her right hand inching towards her riding crop.

But Victoria beat her to the punch. “White has its purpose beyond simply suiting your better physical traits. Art unilaterally depicts white as a symbol of virtue, and its vestal qualities are seen all over the world, both for the purpose of being a canvas that can become anything and… well…” she gave him a sultry smirk, “I think I gave a clue as to the other reason this morning.”

Sam stopped, his anger stalling as her words snagged on something in his memory. Casting his mind back over the memories, he did his best to tune out the intense emotions that came with them. Finally, he alighted on the phantom of an identical face caught in the same sultry smirk.

“You’re stunning, Carmilla, properly dressed in your virgin whites.”

Virgin Whites… Virgin.

His mind reeled away from the connection it had quickly made.

Quick as a flash, his Lady’s Maids struck, Delilah snatched Sam’s wrists from behind and slipped a pair of padded steel cuffs around each one. Before Sam even had time to register it as anything more than a whirl of black and white cloth, Lily had connected a thin but durable length of chain through a pair of thick D-rings bolted to the underside of the table, dragging Sam’s immobilised hands down into his lap. 

The young man erupted in a smorgasbord of nonverbal complaint and began to yank at the chain with all his weight, but two pairs of hands on his shoulder kept him firmly rooted to his seat as the chain rattled.

Yui looked over the edge of her wine glass, enjoying the suppertime entertainment. No matter how many times she had witnessed and participated in the breaking and conditioning of a sub, the initial reactions were just so darn entertaining. 

“I suggest you calm down, Carmilla. Almost every room in this house has access to some means of restraint, and unless you want me to introduce you to a plug gag and feeding tube prematurely, you’ll sit there quietly and listen to what I have to say.” Victoria purred.

He attempted to yank at the chain a few more times before slowly his attempts petered off and he hung his head, staring at the cuffs and their swirling patterns set into the metal. ‘ She even had art put onto her damn bondage kit…’

Victoria saw the supplication and sighed, this time she wanted to see that pretty face. “Look at me, Carmilla.”

Slowly, Sam met the dominant stare of his so-called spouse; it hit him that this was a far cry from yesterday's dinner, but he just wanted things to go back to normal. “Please don’t…”

“Don’t what? Fuck you? Oh, I hate to say this blossom, but there’s no reality where you don’t spend the rest of your life languishing beneath me, crying out my name.” Victoria snorted, the mental images she conjured were of a brighter shade than the nightmares in Sam’s head. “It’s my right as your spouse to claim you in every way, and while we’ve started on your outsides and Yui on your insides, I’ve yet to make you a woman in the deepest physical sense.”

The white-haired sissy cringed at her juxtaposition of blunt wording and curated artistic speech. 

“I’ll breed colour into your clothes soon enough, but for tonight, at least, your garb will be white, ripe and pure.” She eyed Trisha and the still unfinished plate of greens and made a decision. “Seeing as you can’t be trusted with your hands yet, Trisha will be feeding you by hand for the rest of supper.”

“Of course, Mistress.” Trisha accepted her task, seeing the logic and picking up Sam’s discarded fork that she used to quickly skewer a healthy serving of the lettuce and soak it in the dressing. She lifted the fork towards Sam’s lips and gave him a look of warning that told him that the talk of plug gags and feeding tubes was not off the table. He slowly opened his mouth and let his governess put the disgusting mix of greens into his mouth, new strata of his ego being smashed for every bite. 

The embarrassing hand-feeding continued until his plate had been cleared, and Sam grimaced at the mix of textures and flavours that had been forced upon him. Trisha ignored his complaints and simply arranged his cutlery on the clean plate, knife crossed over fork.

Victoria tapped her wine glass twice, drawing attention to her with its hollow chime as the Parlour Maids cleared the table. “Well, I think we can all agree that that was a pleasant and tasty supper. My compliments to the chef for the meal, and I think a round of applause to my new wife is in order,” she said, causing Sam to look at her in bewilderment. “For providing- pffft, heehehe,” she giggled behind her wrist, “-superb mealtime entertainment, hahahahahaha!”

Yui snorted before joining her friend in a mocking round of laughter and applause that made Sam’s face flush with atomic embarrassment. The maids joined in on the clapping, and surprisingly, Trisha gave a half-hearted clap, clearly not agreeing with the sentiment. 

He pulled on the chain that attached him to the table, the sound of each chain link reminding him that he could not run away from the feelings of humiliation they heaped on him in earnest. “Stop it, please just, stop clapping.” 

“You’ll grow to remember I can be quite a tease, blossom, but I concede that it has been a very long day for you, and you could do with some rest.” Victoria said before addressing Lily and Delilah, “My wife will be retiring to her boudoir for the evening, draw her a bath and see her made ready for bed.”

There was a genuine glimmer of empathy in her blue eyes, but as always, it was through the lens of an aristocrat deciding to pamper a pet that had been out in the cold rather than a girlfriend suggesting a wash. 

Sam stayed seated as Trisha unlatched his cuffed hands from their mounting chain only to attach a chain leash that she used to drag the tall young man from the room, his attache maids close at hand. They led him back upstairs to one of the bathrooms and ushered him inside, he did not have time to take in its grand artifice before the two maids began to run the bath and strip him of the many layers of his ensemble, leaving him shivering and naked in nothing save for the clear plastic chastity cage and his silk choker.

The corset came off with a crack of tension so sudden that it caused him to stumble, groaning at the aches from his waist being released from its confines. Phantom pain aside, it felt good to be able to take a full breath again.

The bath was suitably fancy; a concave basin of porcelain that gently sloped towards each end sat upon a set of four golden lion feet made of brass at each corner. It was long, wide and proportioned just so that one could sit up properly at one end and even allow another to comfortably bathe at the other. But as with all seemingly ordinary items in this place, it had been tuned to allow for kink. A set of two granite posts styled after Egyptian obelisks sat on either side of the bath’s head with a heavy O ring mounting bolted to it.

Trisha attached Sam’s leashed cuffs to the post to make sure he could not run away as the maids began to draw the bath, filling it with numerous fragrant soaps that brought forth a tide of thick bubbles. 

Despite his complaints and feeble resistance, Sam was seated, and the two Maids proceeded to scrub at his body in the most invasive ways possible. 

“AHH!” He cried in surprise when Lily circled the crest of his rosebud with a flannel, carving out any sweat that had been hiding there.

“Try your best to relax, Lady Carmilla; this is going to be a daily occurrence from now on,” Trisha said, yanking the chain and forcing Sam to lean over the edge of the bath, giving the maids full access to his back that they gently lathered in medicated lotions. Trisha reached into her coat and withdrew her small leather journal, and opened it before reading its contents. “Your hygiene routine is a most comprehensive one; Dr Ito gave you a deep penetrating enema to clean out your insides this morning, so there is no need to repeat internal hygiene until tomorrow.”

“A fucking enema!?” he gasped, his feeling of violation growing all the deeper.

His governess gave him a sideways look. “Indeed. Your spouse wishes to eliminate that aspect of your life altogether; given that your anus is your only true maidenhood at this point, it will be kept in the peak of health and cleanliness.” she turned a page, reminding herself of the details. “Every morning, you will receive a shower and enema to remove any built-up waste while your meals and drinks are scheduled in such a way as to dictate when you will feel the call of nature. If the good doctor’s maths is correct, you will never need to do your ablutions ever again.”

Once his Lady’s Maids were satisfied that they had given him a proper washing, Sam feeling like if they scrubbed any harder, he would bleed; he was let out of the bath and finally freed of his cuffs. His pale skin had a healthy pinkness from the hot water that he was loathed to admit he had liked. The freedom was short but appreciated, and much to his chagrin, he found himself leaning into the two women when they dried him with large and fluffy white towels.

A groan left him when he was once again presented with a bundle of white cloth, but a glare from Trisha cowed whatever fight was left in him. One of his maids held open a pair of silk panties that he grudgingly stepped into, shivering as she quickly drew them up his waist. 

Next came the main course of the nightly attire, a floor-length, long-sleeved Victorian nightgown with a high collar. Trisha indicated for him to hold his hands above his head, and the duo of maids lifted it up over his tall form, pushing his head through the elasticated collar before he felt the long, silky garment drop against his body. 

“Chasteness does not just mean denial of your sex, Lady Carmilla. You are a woman of the Victorian era now, you are expected to be modest in bed unless your spouse thinks otherwise.” Trisha explained while providing a pair of mercifully comfortable slippers. 

Sam’s fight was all but gone out of him, at least in the physical sense. He still wanted to leave, but right now, he needed to rest and gather his scattered faculties, so as the governess and maids led him back to his boudoir from the previous night, he did not complain.

He was surprised to find that the room had changed a little since he had seen it last night but could not rule out he simply hadn’t noticed some of the more feminine elements; he had, after all, been somewhat inebriated. Victoria sat in a plush armchair reading a book as he entered and looked up at him with a smile.

“Ah, that’s a suitable wrapper for a quiet night in.” Victoria mused as the maids turned down the bed. 

Sam looked at his girlfriend, wife… no, he remembered, he was the wife, and she was his spouse, silently watching her as she watched him in turn and began to notice something though he was not sure what. There was something that rang odd about the sight before him, and it took almost a minute before he realised what it was. It was her clothes, she was still fully dressed for the rest of the evening compared to his nightdress. And that… meant something.

But what? He was sure that there was something there, given that this place was a land of decorum and procedure. “You’re… not sleeping here,” he concluded, face alight with realisation.

Victoria’s smile turned bittersweet at that, she was happy that he was still sharp enough to notice subtleties but sad that she was bound by certain conventions. Pushing herself up out of the armchair, she laid down the book and came to stand before Sam, her heels making her stand even with his much greater natural height. “I would love to, Carmilla, but there are certain traditions that must be followed. During this probationary period before we truly wed, wife and spouse are to sleep in separate rooms.”

Sam face faulted at the forlorn words, “All of this, and you can’t break your own rules? Some Viscountess you turned out to be." The words were bitter and caused all to look at him. She was well within her rights to punish him for such a blatant insult. 

However, Victoria took the comment on the chin and gently ran her hand along Sam’s waist. “If I couldn’t stick to my own rules and traditions, then how could you ever come to love them as much as I do, my sweet Lady and wife?” she said sincerely before leading him over to the bed and pushing him down onto it. “There will be plenty of time for me to ravish you in my bed and in yours, but until we are wed, we can pine for one another’s embrace.”

Sam was about to ask a question then but was cut off when Trisha cleared her throat, “Mistress, there is one other matter to attend to before bed.”

“Right you are, Trisha!” Victoria chirped and watched on as the auburn-haired governess withdrew a padded cuff and length of chain from the trunk at the end of the bed and looped it around a heavy D-ring set into one of the bed’s posts. 

“Wh-a no, don't!” Sam backpedalled away from the women and soon hit the headboard. 

The Lady’s Maids each grabbed one of his kicking legs and dragged him back down towards Trisha, who went about securing the padded cuff around his left ankle, affixing it with two padlocks in addition to the internal mechanism. “Until you prove you can be trusted in bed, you will be subject to varying levels of bed bondage,” Trisha explained, twisting the key in the lock and pocketing it when it clicked satisfyingly closed. “What you are experiencing now is the lowest form, a single ankle cuffed with a long enough chain that it does not inhibit your movement within the bed. If you misbehave or the Mistress finds it arousing, then we will scale up to and including total immobilisation and sensory deprivation in a sleep sack.”

Sam looked at his chained ankle before he slowly withdrew it under his night dress, the sliver of silver chain snaking up to follow it before the maids covered him down in his sheets. 

Trisha looked him over and nodded to herself, “Lessons begin tomorrow with immediate effect. I will be here at no later than fifteen minutes past dawn tomorrow to see you unlocked from bed and washed while explaining the day’s schedule. Do try to get a good night’s rest, Lady Carmilla. You have a long day tomorrow.” she said before snapping off a crisp bow to Victoria and left the room, the curtseying maids excusing themselves with their smiles. 

Once again, Sam and Victoria were alone in the room, in a vastly different situation then the one he had found himself in this morning and this time he was at a loss for words. He thought frantically, trying to find something to say.

Victoria approached him and placed a sweet kiss on his lips, embracing him closely. “Goodnight, my love,” she said before turning to leave the room.

“Wait!” Sam finally said, arresting her movement and causing her to look over her shoulder at him curiously. He said the first thing that came to his mind. “If I’m chained to the bed… what if I need to use the toilet?”

It was… actually a relatively pertinent question. For all its size and lavish appointments, the boudoir was a self-contained bedroom with no given en suite toilet. While the cycle of enemas meant he wouldn’t have to worry about number twos, his small bladder was a perpetual ticking time bomb overnight. 

She looked at him, face blank, before she began to giggle wildly and then a full-blown belly laugh. Getting her laughter under control, she smoothed down her dress and made to answer. “I… actually forgot to tell you about that. You have my most profound apology, Carmilla. But your darling spouse has a solution in mind.”

She crossed back over to his large bed and Sam was confused when she flipped up the side of the covers and reached under the bed for something. Victoria made a sound of triumph and pulled an object from under the bed that she set down on the sheets. “Something fitting for the era, love.”

It was a white ‘bowl’ made of porcelain with a pair of handles and a hinged top that she popped open with a hiss, revealing it was vacuum sealed. And within was… nothing, just the inner surface of the bowl.

Sam stared at it and knew what it was, his mind supplying the words he could not bring himself to speak.

A chamber pot. An advanced and modernised and indeed very pretty one, but still, a chamber pot. 

Closing it and replacing it under the bed, Victoria gave her wife a happy wave and wished her good night, closing the door behind her. The sound of three long and heavy tungsten bolts rolling into place from the outside hit Sam like a sledgehammer. Alone in the quiet room, Sam sank into the pillows and stared glassy-eyed at the canopy of the four-poster bed, finally remembering what he had spotted on it that morning before Victoria had drugged him. A fresco of two women locked in a sapphic embrace, dining on one another’s womanhoods had been expertly carved into the wood, and at the bottom right was Victoria’s signature.

With no one around and his privacy regained for the first time, Sam did something he had wanted to do all day.

He turned his head into the pillow and began to scream.

Chapter 4: Chapter 3: A Comprehensive Education

A gentle darkness filled the room from end to end, enclosing all in the perfectly ordered oblivion of night. Nothing could be seen to any who had not taken the time to acclimate to the gloom but to those who had were gifted with yet more perfectly ordered sights and sounds. All was as it should be, not a hair out of place nor errant dust floating in the wind. All facets were covered much like the windows, their fine silk curtains denying any view in or out of the quiet Boudoir. Even if they had been drawn back, there would be nothing to see but the slow dance of the stars across the midnight blue ribbon of sky.

‘An area of outstanding natural beauty.’ That was what would appear on the screen of anyone who felt the passing fancy of looking up Eden’s Rest. 

But in reality, there was nothing genuinely natural about the house, both in the moral sense of what went on there or literally in that there was much that was possessive and corralled into an unnatural submission. 

The temperature and air in Sam’s Boudoir were maintained at a crisp 16°C by hidden air vents. A sophisticated and, above all, silent air conditioning system had been set at his Governess’s directive to provide the best chance at uninterrupted sleep. Even the placement of furniture and scant appliances had been chosen for a practical purpose. The clock was at the far end of the room, so placed that the light ‘Tick, tick, tick’ would peter out before reaching the ears of the sleeping Lady.

Tick…tick…tick. As a pair of gilded clock hands joined in union upon the Roman numerals XII -ushering in the 7th of July on fine Swiss gears- the effort was rendered moot by the kidnapped young man himself, who tossed and turned restlessly beneath his fine silk sheets. 

Sleep had been a difficult thing to come by even after abandoning his prior outburst and wanting to fall deeply into sleep, hoping dreams could save him from the waking nightmare. He groaned softly, hands gripping at the light and slippery shimmer of the sheets, an alien environment compared to his usual cotton duvet. Never let it be said that price automatically made something better, because, to one so unused to the watery slick embrace of silk, he would have taken a ratty blanket. 

While the soul was willing to jump feet first into sleep, his senses kept him agonisingly rooted on the edges of it. Every minor change from the norm permeated his mind as unnatural wrongness crawling right from the uncanny valley. The lack of input from his now vacant body hair made every cool touch that much more visceral. The freedom and confinement of his full-length night dress was seldom a balm from the constant presence of the hold around his left ankle or the much gentler embrace of the dress’s high collar. But what was most maddening was his hair. The curtain of silvery-white locks was a strangling thing, touching his ears and face no matter where he turned his head.

He awoke with a growl of aggravation, throwing back the sheets contemptuously. This was the third such time he had been woken from his fitful sleep by his own damned body; the only thing that kept him from ripping the nightdress off was the looming spectre of Victoria and Trisha in the back of his mind. He doubted that they would take kindly to him destroying their elegant prison uniform.

‘Prisoner,’ Sam thought, blinking slowly as his eyes once more acclimated to the darkness of the room. Shapes took form from the dark slowly until he could make out the shadow form of his Boudoir, framed between the dark negative of nighttime vision and the columned footboard of his giant four-poster bed. Sitting up in the bed, the feminised young men sent a furtive look upwards, seeing only a dark expanse of the bed’s canopy. He exhaled, letting out a breath he hadn’t realised that he was holding in. Hazel eyes were gladdened that it was still too dark to see the imagery carved into the rich dark wood of the bed.

Not his bed. Never his bed. He would not even entertain the thought. But wakefulness, especially from a sleep he had never wholly entered into, was not something that he could escape from, even if he denied it. His own inquisitive mind poked out from the fugue of his mood and latched onto the undeniable feeling of pressure around his left ankle. He tried to ignore it, grab onto anything else, but in the un-light, the pressure was strikingly clear. The recently re-christened ‘Carmilla Florence’ did an admirable, or pitiable, depending on your point of view, batting aside his own intrigue before his hand inexorably pulled the sheets aside to reveal his lower body. 

The nightdress was as Victoria and her retinue of perverse servants had left it hours before, his pale feet poking out from the hem. But the length of chain snaked from the corner of the bed and up into the confines of it, an open declaration of bondage even if the implement of binding was hidden. Sam dithered for a moment, feeling the subtle voice of his submissiveness imploring him to let it lie and go back to bed. Gathering his wits, he pulled back the hem like ripping a bandaid from his wounded pride; it stung all the same.

Sam looked down at the shackle, an upsetting sight, and attempted to remove it for the third time that night. He drew his leg up to his chest and began to run his fingers over the seemingly impregnable clamp as he had done before. In the hours that had passed since he had been left to his own devices, Sam had not been a happy camper. Far from it. Initially, he had screamed and kept screaming at the top of his lungs until his voice had grown hoarse and failed him. 

The brief pause, filled with panting, shaking breaths, gave way to a wave of anger that ran boiling hot. Sam had tried to get out of bed only for the chain to snap taught, instantly skyrocketing the metallic snake to the top of his shit list. Grabbing the chain, he had pulled as hard as he could, throwing his full weight behind it in an attempt to wrench it from its O-Ring mounting. His mouth had been alight, spitting obscenities and angry expletives with such caustic venom that they seemed to turn the very air blue as he yanked on the chain. How dare they do this to him. How dare they say that he had no choice in the matter! 

But try as he might, his meagre strength could not make the chain even creak, nor the O-Ring even move any more than its hinge allowed. His efforts were utterly futile before he even started. Under the rich artifice of oak, the bed was constructed around a tungsten frame and bolted to the floor. It would take a professional strongman to even begin to hope to snap the O-Ring, and his angry words had backslid into pleas and begging for freedom from the pleasant-looking cage. He had cried then, deep and ugly until he had no more tears to give. By the time the sun had slid below the western horizon, he was trapped in a cycle of horror, anger and sadness that slowly robbed him of his will to fight, each loop capended by an attempt to slip his simple yet foolproof bondage. 

Back in the present, a mirthless half-smile twinged at the corners of Sam’s mouth as he continued to tinker with the shackle, miserably looking for silver linings as a method to keep his light of hope alive in the choking darkness of the room. The three rounds of experimentation had yielded some information that his mind pawed over like a prey starved beast.

While the cuff was aesthetically pleasing, it had an effective methodology to it that championed simple redundancy. It was composed of three parts that each eclipsed the other, each part serving its own purpose while its brothers covered any flaws. At its core was a sleeve made of a padded black rubber that cushioned the hold from brutal to its current possessive awareness. Next came a black inner cuff made of hardy black leather that was fastened in place by thick straps that were buckled to their eye holes and held the inner sleeve flush to Sam’s ankle. The straps were invisible due to being clad in the true cuff, a tall shackle made from chrome that was mounted onto the inner cuff and rendered the straps unreachable. 

Bringing the cuff a little closer with a small rustle of chain running over cloth, Sam peeled back the visible section of the inner sleeve with one hand before attempting to jam his index finger as deep as he could into the restraint. He hoped that maybe if he could take advantage of any empty space, then maybe he could slip his ankle free. It wasn’t a bad idea; after all, he had never had thick ankles, and in fact, they looked positively dainty with the baulk of the shackle clamped in place. The moment that observation registered in his mind caused Sam to visibly cringe, his bruised pride and masculinity wailing in protest at any admittance that Victoria’s insanity had any basis. Luckily, existentialism was overshadowed by disappointment. Sam had barely been able to get his finger an inch down before it bumped into the unforgiving leather of the inner cuff, brokering no further movement. 

He pulled the finger free with a grunt, causing the two padlocks on the inner side of the shackle to rattle against the metal. Instantly, the memory of being held down as Trisha and his Lady’s Maids had sealed the cuff shut in triplicate assaulted his consciousness, and a feeling of uselessness washed over him. Sam looked from his ankle to the far end of the room, where the door remained closed and locked. ‘Even if I get this thing off, the door’s locked.’ he conceded to himself before flopping back on the soft bed with a huff. 

Sam lingered there for a time before a new feeling pushed itself through his thoughts, one far more physical. He was thirsty. That wasn’t surprising given the amount of water he had shed through tears and spittle these past hours, but still, a dryness in the back of his throat begged to be slaked. Sitting up and leaning over the side of the bed, his hand flapped unsurely in search of the night table he knew was there and found purchase on it, quickly locating the inset lamp and questing for its switch. 

Clicking it on, Sam was suddenly blinded by a flashbang of light that forced him to screw his eyes shut on reflex, waiting for the stinging of too much light seen too quickly to fade. He blinked his eyes slowly, and the room came into focus. It was now lit by soft white gold light that shone from the lampshade to his side. Another lamp on the other side of the bed had also clicked on; their circuits slaved to one another and illuminated the room to half-light. It didn’t fully fill the room, but it was more than enough to read by. Most importantly it revealed the jug of water sat squat on the bedside table. 

The snow-coloured graduate gulped thickly; the jug of crystal clear water looked tantalising, lit as it was from the lamp directly behind it. He gingerly shuffled to the edge of the bed and slowly let his legs slip over the side to rest, feet coming to rest on the soft carpet. True to Trisha’s word, the chain was just long enough to let him sit on the side of the bed without being impeded, able to access the water if he needed it. Sam simply sat there momentarily, unable to move as the jug of water sat tauntingly close. Surely, it couldn’t be that easy, right?

He reached out with a shaking hand and grabbed the pitcher, closing his fingers around the handle and lifted it to pour himself a drink. Both the pitcher and the provided cup were made of clear, hardy plastic, which bore implications of mistrust, but frankly, right now, he didn’t care. He lifted the filled tumbler to his lips and drank deeply, like a man fresh crawled from the desert.

Sam gulped down the clear liquid with fervour before slowing down to a more normal rate, the initial rush of need to slake his thirst fading in favour of the banal enjoyment of drinking. Finishing the glass with a pleased groan, he replaced the glass on the nightstand. He considered pouring a second glassful of the stuff for a few moments before thinking better of it. His physical needs attended to for now. Sam pulled his legs back onto the bed and slumped back into the pillows, his body now resting above the covers. The white-haired graduate stared blankly ahead into the expanse of the room, still revealed by the warm light of the lamps, his eyes unseeing and unfocused. 

There was so much to think about, but he could not muster the energy to act on it. He was exhausted in almost every capacity but physical, left to dumbly look into the ornate Boudoir with the hope that, at some point, he would hear his alarm going off, revealing that all of this had been a bad dream of ridiculous vividness. 

But as time ticked by and the view before him didn’t change, Sam’s shoulders slumped at the reality that this was reality, not some spectre conjured from his mind. He blinked owlishly, the fog pulling back from his hazel eyes as they began to look around the room, picking up certain objects and spaces that he hadn’t noticed before…

No, that wasn’t right. Well, partially, anyway. There had definitely been some new additions to the Boudoir since his first night sleeping here. There was a vanity table and mirror on the left side of the room carved from a warm-coloured wood and paired with a plush stool thick with red quilted upholstery. Looking at the thing, Sam was struck by a revelation of how stupid the thing looked. Not in the sense that it didn’t fit the room's aesthetic, it did. The desk itself was roughly the shape of a kidney bean with two squat banks of drawers perched on the left and right of the desk, each supporting a winding protrusion of wood that held the large oval-shaped mirror.

The desk space was too thin to write, the drawers were too small to hold anything beyond cosmetics, and the mirror was pivoted in such a way that you would have to sit in front of the mirror to use it as a mirror. Its shapes and dimensions were specialised to the point that it was pretty much useless to do anything except be used for its intended purpose. Being prepped for the day.

The same could be said for a lot of the new additions, bits and pieces of furniture that were specialised for use only at specific times and in specific ways that were as impregnable to understand as his bed was to escape from. The only thing that was easy enough to understand from a glance was the tall changing screen that was at the far end of the room next to the wardrobes, their doors inset into the end wall. With nothing else to do, Sam pondered the room and his own feelings, and with every pass he made of the room, he felt his mind snag on the same thing again and again. Eventually, he worked out what it was.

Despite the bounty of opulence, the room felt bare. It was all artefact and facade with no creature comforts that anyone born after the year 2000 would crave. No TV or radio. No computer or silly posters. No homey mess that made a place feel lived in. An image of the tiny bedroom he had shared with Victoria rose in Sam’s mind, causing him to frown bitterly. There had been more heart in the four walls of that tiny student dorm than in this pale-coloured prison. All evidence and personal touches had been filed off in favour of laying the groundwork for what these mad women wanted him to become. His heart ached, and his guts twisted seeing it all.

However, as time passed and the ache in his heart dulled, the twisting in his guts remained, and a familiar pressure began to build within him. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath, closing his eyes and attempting to will away the feeling as just nerves. Despite his best efforts to remain calm, the creeping feeling continued to grow stronger as pressure built up in his bladder. 

Since they had begun to date, Victoria had identified and come to notice something about Sam; he went to the toilet at sharper intervals than most men, leading her to correctly suspect that he had a smaller bladder than an ordinary man his age. It was something that Yui had confirmed on her investigation and factored into his schedule and conditioning to control when and how his body acted on biological impulses. Sam knew none of this, only that the last time he could remember using the toilet was over 24 hours prior and the many drinks he had had since then.

Sweat began to break out on Sam’s forehead in defiance of the room’s cool air, now having to make a conscious effort to ignore the need that was pressing up from his primaeval mind.  

Discomfort.

Pressure.

Alleviate. Now. 

‘No,’ Sam thought, pressing his thighs together in a failed attempt to push away the feeling. But the more he fought, the more his brain woke up and became locked on a grim reality. There was a shackle around his ankle, and the door was locked. He couldn’t hold it in forever, and he would not inflict an indignity as horrifyingly embarrassing as wetting himself in light of the cavalcade of indignities he was already being hit from all sides. Finally, he let out a depressed sigh and opened his eyes, ‘I need to use the toilet.’ he thought, feeling defeated because he knew the only way to solve this problem with any of his dignity remaining.

The white-haired Lady of the House once again swung his legs over the edge of the bed and, trying not to agitate his full-to-capacity bladder, reached under the bed. After a few moments of fumbling, Sam felt his hand touch a hard surface and cringed before pulling it out from under the bed. Lifting the chamberpot up, Sam studied it for a few seconds, mystified by its surface. He had no time to ponder the gold filigree painted across the thing and instead fiddled with it until he worked out that it was hinged on one side. He popped the lid with a hiss of vacuum and opened it as wide as the hinge would allow. Hesitantly, he lifted the hem of his nightdress and slid the pot under it.

His eyes narrowed frantically as he blindly manoeuvred the pot into what he believed to be the correct position, letting out indignant yips and bleats of alarm when the cool white ceramic touched his bare legs. Then, with nothing else to forestall the onslaught, Sam relieved himself.

A stream of warm, off-yellow urine flowed from the tip of Sam’s chastised cock, passing through the slot in the hard plastic cage and into the chamberpot. Sam let out a relieved sigh as the pressure in his bladder dissipated, but his cheeks flushed to atomic red from the embarrassing sound of the noises coming from under his nightdress. Though he would never admit it, Sam was very thankful for the ankle-length garment at that moment, its long white expanse meaning he didn’t have to directly see either the humiliating act or his cock imprisoned behind hard, clear plastic. 

Eventually, the stream died out altogether, the last few drops of his urine dropping into the one-third full chamberpot with damningly clear splashes. The deed done, he withdrew the pot and quickly closed the lid with the accompanying squeak of rubber from the seal, bringing an end to one of the most embarrassing things he had ever done. But even this relief was spoiled by realisation. 

He sat there, staring at the porcelain chamberpot resting in his hands. “Victoria…” he spoke, his words a hushed whisper before gritting his teeth, his body begging to tense. “You…”

She’d done it. Victoria. For all his talk of raging out against the plans she had set out for him, here he was, dressed as a Victorian noblewoman at rest, having relieved herself. All she had needed to do was set the scene, ‘dress the set’ and make his first acquiescence to her desires be something he had no control over, and just like that, he had played the role…

As the revelation tore its way through the young man’s higher brain functions like a conflagration, all the tension in him instantly fled like a puppet with its strings cut. His body felt weak and nauseous, his grip loosening until the chamberpot slipped from his hands. He realised what was happening just a moment too late and tried to grab the falling container, but it hit the carpeted floor with a dull bump and rolled away, its contents sloshing slightly from within. “Fuck!” he cursed, lunging for the pot as it rolled away, only for the chain around his ankle to snap tight, sending Sam face-first into the carpeted floor. 

He yelped in shock, flailing on his front for a second before rolling over onto his side. He looked between the black O-ring mounting for the chain and the chamberpot. The pot was undamaged by the fall and roll leaving it tauntingly just out of reach no matter how hard Sam reached for it. 

The futility of the Sisyphean task succeeded in doing one thing, driving the unwilling sissy into a frenzy of physical, emotional and mental distress that it finally succeeded in sending him over the edge into total denial and shutdown. 

He gracelessly clambered back onto the bed and turned off the lights. He didn’t want to look at either the chamberpot or the chain. He pulled the curtains of the four-poster bed shut, cocooning himself in silk, insulated by the deadening waves of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion. And in that blackness between sweet dream and waking nightmare, Sam finally found a deep sleep, one that he knew would be over far too soon.

First light graced the seventh day of the seventh month at 04:53 on the dot, the golden disk of the sun peaking over the east and painting the South Oxfordshire estate in glorious colour. The pale blue sky of very early summer morning was dotted with numerous cotton ball clouds that looked like they had been plucked from a Texan sky, each turning pale yellow as dawn’s light touched each with a solar kiss. Despite the ungodly hour of this godly sight, the grounds of the Rest were slow and groggy to wake from their slumber, with only the birds chirping their morning song.

But even in this most early of early mornings, Eden’s Rest was a hive of movement that moved through the veins and arteries of the great manor as its heart began to beat to life. While the night was a respected time where all were permitted and expected to rest, there was never a time when all of the house’s servants were asleep. A skeleton crew of House Maids walked the corridors during the night hours to make sure that nothing was amiss and that there was always a maid on hand in case anyone was needed to attend to the resident’s wants and needs from a late night cup of tea to a raw fucking over the end of a bed. 

It was a long, boring and mostly thankless job that was attended to all the same, and the day shift could not begin until the prior day’s night shift had completed their watch. 

Diana stood in the antechamber in front of the Maid’s dormitories with her usual grace and poise, already fully dressed in her uniform with not a hair out of place. She acquitted herself with a single comfort in the form of a cup of lemon tea that she sniffed at fondly. She turned her head slightly to the side, her ear perking up as she heard the sound of rustling cloth through the door to the dormitories. 

The ghost of amusement graced her face. While her girls were drilled and broken to the roter of early mornings and late nights, there would inevitably be those who pushed getting ready to the very last second, banking on the night crew’s last checks to get just five more minutes of idle gossip before the day began. Her face returned to its impassive neutrality when she heard the sound of footsteps approaching from the other door. ‘I will ask who keeps pushing their luck amidst the House Maids. If they want to take advantage of their work for a minute's extra idle hands, then perhaps a week working the night will set them right.’ As the Housekeeper and de facto highest authority amidst the staff, Diana had to set a standard of compassionate perfection. She was the first to start and last to finish and had always, did always and would always see the change of the guard.

Five House Maids filed into the antechamber and arranged themselves in a line in front of Diana, looking no worse for wear despite their long night of work. Diana took a sip of her lemon tea and replaced the cup on its saucer with an intentionally sharp chirp of sound. The maids within the dormitory all froze, hearing the sound and quickly snapping to attention. 

This time, Diana was able to keep her mirth entirely internal, instead looking over the faces of each of the five maids before her. Maid Farnese, Maid Julia, Maid Zara, Maid Kate and Maid Renne. After an unspoken agreement, all five unanimously dropped in curtsey and did not rise until the Housekeeper had nodded her head in silent approval. As all their bootheels clicked loudly against the stone-flagged floor, the doors to the dormitory opened, and the day shift filed passed in a single file line while the night crew made their way in for a few hours of well-earned rest. 

Similar displays of well ordered activity were playing out all over the house, though some with far more leeway than others.

Trisha stood silently before a full-length mirror in her room. Content with what she saw, she gathered her loose, auburn hair and tied it into a simple, functional ponytail before retrieving her clothes for the day. She wore another iteration of what she had worn the day before, a navy blue velvet maxi dresscoat that she buttoned up with ease. She slipped on a pair of black leather half gloves and attached her riding crop to her hip. Giving herself a once over in the mirror, the bespectacled governess nodded in satisfaction before leaving her room, bound for her charge’s Bodiore. 

It would not be a long journey given that Trisha’s bedroom, like almost all of the ‘residents’, was on the first floor. 

She walked with brisk and purposeful steps that carried her through the quiet halls of the floor, her brown eyes already bright and attentive despite the early hour. Trisha kept a very strict routine that ensured that she was always bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. It was innate to her nature, but it was also something that she hoped Sam would come to mirror once she guided him into his burgeoning womanhood. 

Turning a corner onto the main thoroughfare of the landing, she was joined by Lily and Delilah. “Governess Moore,” both greeted the bespectacled woman with polite respect, earning a quiet nod of acknowledgement. The monochromatic duo quickly fell into step behind her. 

The trio quickly and quietly made their way across the landing and towards Sam’s Boudoir. It was a short trip for three as familiar with the house as them, but even so, Trisha took the time to subtly observe the recently elevated Lady’s Maids. Serving as Sam's personal attendants, they would be a common enough occurrence and aid in his rearing at Trisha’s hand that it was only right she gleam as much as she could from what were about to become her most dedicated and steadfast co-workers. 

Both the shorter, redheaded Lily and the taller, dark-skinned Delilah carried a happy enthusiasm with them that was just within the bounds of professional grace. They were happy and excited to face another day and prove themselves worthy of their promotion. Each had polished their silver neck pins to a perfect shine and had giggled to one another at the innocent imaginings of how they would serve Sam as he transitioned into his role as the Lady Carmilla.

‘Perhaps a tad more than innocent mental images, ’ Trisha thought to herself as she caught the lingering dusting of pink fading from Lily’s face when she shot Delilah a look. It was an infinitesimally small action that even the most observant would have written off as nothing, but Trisha made it her pride to notice such small things. There was an energy to their movements, little extras and subtleties to their gait, breathing and looks that came together to form a ‘glow’ that all who knew it would see.

Victoria’s suggestion that the newly christened Lady’s Maids should couple in coitus to celebrate had been followed to the letter. 

Trisha pushed her glasses up her nose to hide the ghost of a smile. Yes, their tantric excitement at the prospect of serving and, when needed, reprimanding their Lady would make them fine underlings.

Reaching the door to the Boudoir, Trisha pulled a long key from her pocket and turned it. Tumblers silently whirred within, the mechanisms translating the key turning into enough force to pull back the thick internal bolts with a metallic ‘Tu-chak!’

Opening the door, Trisha walked in with her two underlings following her, eyes sweeping the room in a single quick look. The room was almost identical to how the three women had left it the night before with the curtains drawn, defusing most of the early morning sun, but the ‘almost’ necessitated that something was amiss. Trisha had been expecting to see the sleeping pale form of her charge, and while she saw white, she had not been expecting to see the curtains drawn around the four-poster bed. Her focus shifted to an errant white lump beside the bed, a beat passing before she realised it was Sam’s chamberpot.

Outwardly, Trisha did not change, but inwardly, she suppressed an aggravated sigh, having hoped she would not have to start the day with discipline. She gestured with her hand, commanding the two Lady’s Maids to set things to rights. Maid Delilah set to opening the curtains while Maid Lily retrieved the chamberpot from where it lay. Pulling on the drawstrings, the curtains parted, causing a bright light to spill into the room. 

Maid Lily deftly picked up the chamberpot and brought it to the governess to inspect, its contents sloshing lightly with the movement, much to Trisha’s surprise. She had initially thought that Sam had tossed the object across the room in a bout of childish anger, but judging from its sound, condition and where Lily had picked it up from, that was not the case. Looking between the pot and the bed, the auburn-haired woman realised what had happened and felt her exasperation bleed away. It had been an accident, it seemed.

Happy that she did not have to use her favoured crop so early in the day, Trisha quietly spoke, “Dispose of its contents once we leave. We have to rouse her Ladyship from her sleep first,” she ordered.

“Yes, Governess Moore, of course,” Lily nodded, putting the chamberpot aside and moving to one side of the queen-sized four-poster bed. Each of the three women took hold of one of the three sets of curtains that hung from the canopy and quickly pulled them back, revealing the snoozing Lady of the House within.

Sam had slept in something approaching contentment for the past several hours, a wonderful dreamless sleep. He started to stir in the bed, his features twisting in reaction to the sudden influx of light and groaning wearily. He slowly opened his eyes only to immediately shut them from the stinging pain of the sun shining into them. “Uuggghh…” he moaned, his eyes gunked shut with sleep.

Noting the distress, Maid Delilah sidestepped into the path of the sun, casting her long shadow over her Lady and immediately bringing an end to his distress. He blinked a few times as his vision returned before noticing the three women. 

“Wah!?” Sam bolted upright and attempted to scramble backwards, his back pressing into the plush pillows. 

“Good morning, Lady Carmilla. I trust that you had a pleasant night’s rest?” Trisha said from her position at the foot of the bed, her piercing stare set on him. 

Sam took several shallow breaths, taking in his surroundings. His memories supplied the needed information soon enough, and his shock and fear quickly morphed into spiteful anger. He opened his mouth to spit a curse at his self-proclaimed Governess. She saw the muscles in his jaw and rested her hand on the top of her riding crop at her waist. 

Sam saw the action and felt a stab of fear, remembering just how embarrassing and painful the length of corded brown leather was. He squashed his angry words down to shallow distaste, self-preservation cowing most of his rebellion. Still, some of it smouldered. “No, I did not,” he ground out through gritted teeth.

“That truly is a shame. Do endeavour to get some better sleep in future, Carmilla. A growing young woman needs to be in top physical form at all times, and lack of sleep is as dangerous as unchecked alcoholism or any other uncouth vice.” Trisha commiserated conversationally, nonplussed by the restrained heat in Sam’s words. She slipped her leather-bound journal from her pocket and opened it to today's date while not breaking eye contact. “Your Lady’s Maids are going to unshackle you. If you make a fuss, then I will have to tell your spouse you won’t be making it to breakfast. Understand?”

He contemplated the older woman’s words, weighing the pros and cons of raging out again, but the image of Victoria retaliating for his breach of her inane aristocratic rituals stayed his hand. He nodded.

That wasn’t good enough for Trisha, eyes gaining steel. “Am I understood, Carmilla?”

She wanted to hear him say it.

Sam shrunk in on himself, taking a deep and shuddering breath before answering. “Yes…Miss Trisha.”

“Good. Now, ladies, if you would be so kind.” Trisha rounded the bed and sat in the chair beside the bed to Sam’s right.

A great rustle of silk filled the room then. His Lady’s Maids pulled back his bedsheets and grabbed ahold of both of his legs. Sam kicked on reflex but the two beautiful maids were well trained, negating any move he made as they began to unlock the trifecta of locks that held the shackle to his left ankle.

In the meantime, Trisha snapped her fingers to get Sam’s attention. “Now, from here on out, the majority of your days will start out like this. Your Lady’s Maids and I shall unlock you from your bed bondage while I inform you of the day's schedule. You must always have a general idea of what awaits you to best prepare. A Lady’s place is to know her place; to know her place, she must know what is expected of her at any given moment.”

Expectations. Always the expectations. Sam had honestly hoped that he would never have to face another expectation or deadline until at least the end of summer. Yet here he was, about to be dictated one by a madwoman employed by his girlfriend. 

Had he not totally emptied his bladder in the early hours of the morning, then the clinical ‘foregone conclusion’ tone that his governess spoke in would bring his piss to a boil.

But for all the internalised griping, the presence of the women and their hold over his body and attention bayed him be silent. 

“We’ll begin with morning hygiene. A thorough wash and cleanse to wake you up and make you ready to be dressed,” Trisha began, causing Sam to shudder at the thought of being ‘dressed’ again. Still, he could use a shower; he ‘felt’ dirty even if there was no spec of dust to be found. “You will take breakfast with Mistress Victoria in one of the dining rooms until morning lessons begin from 8 to 11:45.” 

Sam made a strangled noise at the mention of lessons. The prospect was something he abhorred, but Trisha ignored him as the first of the three locks on the ankle shackle came undone.

Her glasses flashed in warning at him to not make such a noise again before continuing. “You have a Luncheon at mid-day with Mistress Victoria, she had yet to set the venu.”

“What the hell is a Luncheon?” Sam blurted out, the antiquated term throwing him from a loop.

“The modern simplification would be lunch, but please keep silent for the rest of the schedule, Carmilla; it is as tight as it is without you wasting it on pointless questions.”

He grimaced, feeling as if he had been verbally slapped in the face. He was expected to be attentive, but when he showed genuine curiosity, he was chewed out? He remained silent for the rest of the explanation, caught between listlessness and annoyance. How was it possible to feel so tired and weary only a few minutes after waking up?

The second lock came free as Trisha filled in the rest. “Afternoon classes will be between 1 and 3 before an hour’s Enrichment. Mistress Victoria has asked for you to take Afternoon Tea with her at 4 and Supper at 5. I believe the Mistress has some festivities planned to share with you in the evening. Some kind of gaming session, if I understood correctly.”

Sam perked up at that, the prospect of doing something actually fun amidst this aristocratic madhouse was a wan glimmer of hope in the dark. A sign that the Victoria he knew was still in there. 

Trisha’s journal snapped closed, she rose to her feet and retrieved her own key and unlocked the third lock on the cuff and unlatched it. Relief washed through Sam as the constant pressure on his ankle eased off, the maids slipped the cuff off him and he quickly bright his freed limb up to rub some life back into it. 

Trisha spared him no real time before pushing on. “Come along, Carmilla, you’ve seen enough of that bed today, it’s time to get washed,” she said with what passed for enthusiasm for her. Professional and vaguely smug.  

‘Cunt ,’ Sam thought, the slur bringing him warmth that failed to heat his chest, swamped as it was by humiliation and fear. Seeing that he was not moving, Maid Lily took Trisha’s place and offered her Lady a hand while Maid Delilah opened one of the wardrobes at the far end of the room.

He looked away at first, still standoffish with these so-called attendants; they were jailers for all their pretty smiles. If Lily was offended by her Lady’s scorn then she did not let it show, keeping her offered hand firmly in place. The feeling of being dirty seemed to grow at those quiet and patient stares all three women favoured him with. He had to get out of the room. Finally, he bit the bullet and accepted the hand. The shorter woman showed surprising strength in levering him off the bed.

Lily’s sunny smile at having helped did nothing to alleviate Sam’s feelings of uneasiness. In fact, they only grew as the nightdress brushed against his hairless body, the sensitive skin making him shiver at every touch. 

Delilah approached with a bundle of white cloth in her arms, unwrapping it as she spoke, “Please hold out your arms, your Ladyship.”

Sam quirked an eyebrow in question before doing as he was asked and soon found himself being wrapped in a white Victorian dressing gown. Much like any other article of Victorian women’s clothing he had seen so far, the dressing gown was floor-length and made of white brushed cotton. It had a high neck, a button up front and military-styled cuffs. Pushing his arms through the sleeves, Lily buttoned up the front and drew it close to his waist by a cord belt, tying it off in a neat bow. 

He still felt like an absolute idiot, but at least he was a covered-up one. And with that chill comfort, he allowed himself to be led from the room in dire need of a shower.

Sam was led through the typically labyrinthine halls and corridors by his self-appointed attendants. Morning or evening made no difference to how difficult it was to keep track of where he was, and the brisk pace with which they made him walk was doing him no favours. Mercifully, Trisha remained silent as she led them to their destination, giving the enforced aristocrat time to wake properly. He unconsciously wrapped the long dressing gown tighter around him, its voluminous length obfuscating the truth and insulating his awareness away from the reality that he was dressed head to toe as a girl. Finally, they came to the sought-after door and pressed inside without breaking stride.

The bathroom differed from the one they had used the previous night but was no less grand in scope or appointment. A vast open-plan space with tall, shiny white brick walls and a matching floor in white tile with the occasional black tile at equidistant spacing in a touch of artful design. Looking around the room, Sam noticed that the majority of the furniture had been pushed to the edges of the room, including marble wash basins, bidets, and doors, which led to who knows where. Still, it was well-lit, the light streaming in through arched frosted glass windows that glinted off the true heart of the room.

A click was heard, causing Sam to look over his shoulder to see Lily closing the door behind them. Looking forward again, Sam grunted in surprise to find Trisha directly in front of him, having swept towards him silently when he wasn’t looking.

“Are you well, Lady Carmilla?” Trisha asked in a conversational tone, inspecting Sam through her glasses. 

He swallowed thickly, mastering himself and answering, “Yes.”

“Good,” the older woman smiled, her eyes trailing down to give him a once-over. “Please disrobe,” she asked politely, his use of the chamberpot having won him a modicum of leeway as opposed to stripping him against his will.

His teeth clicked together sharply, hackles rising and hands twitching. He felt the gorge of rebuke rise, but the fullness with which Trisha dominated his view held it back. Instead, he slowly acquiesced, his fingers numbly questing to undo the dressing gown’s corded belt. “Can you at least look away?” he asked, rolling the gown off and was surprised when Delilah was there to take it. The dark-skinned maid gently folded the garment and took it to a laundry basket at the far end of the room.

“No, I’m afraid we cannot.” Trisha answered truthfully, “Your actions yesterday inspire distrust in your ability to function as the Lady of this house, and until you can show progress on proving us wrong, then it is our duty -mine as your Governess and they,” she shifted her chin towards the maids, “as your Lady’s Maids to watch and adjudicate. Now please disrobe fully , Lady Carmilla.”

Trisha watched the slight tremor in her ward as he did as he was bayed. His movements were ungraceful and held the shakes of trepidation, rumpling the front of the crisp nightdress as he drew its hem up over his pale, hairless legs. The downtime of his unfamiliar hands allowed the maids to work their other jobs with blinding efficiency, retrieving necessary items from one of the shelves that ran along the walls and the shower in the centre of the room.

It was quite the sight, a broad silver head positioned high above the centre of the room above a corresponding drain, but what drew the eye was what was next to it. A tall, thick silver pipe jutted out of the tiled floor some seven feet, with a pair of brackets at its top and bottom.

Moments later, Sam was once again naked, Maid Lily taking his nightdress to leave his lanky, pale form totally unadorned. He flushed with embarrassment and unease, looking down at his chastised cock and cringing before moving his hands to cover it from prying eyes. 

“Hands by your sides,” Trisha cut in, her words like a sharp knife, a hand resting on the end of her crop in an unsaid warning. The young man scowled at her, conjuring all the malice of a ruffled kitten, pushing his hands to his sides in balled fists. “Good girl,” Trisha trilled, pleased. 

She brought her gloved hands behind her back and linked them in parade rest, “Now, as you will recall from last night, your antics have lost you the right to sleep without being bound,” Delilah passed behind the older woman, pressing a pair of padded cuffs into Trisha’s unseen but waiting hands without Sam noticing before joining standing behind him. 

Sam didn’t like where this was going, and his fears were confirmed the moment Trisha pulled the cuffs from behind her back, spinning them around her gloved thumb by their connecting chain. “Bathing will be no different.”

“No, fuck that. I’m not gonna-” he backed away, stumbling into the frilly fronts of Delilah’s Maid uniform; the taller of his Lady’s Maids flashed him a helpful smile that was borderline cute as she rested a ‘comforting’ hand on his shoulder, preventing him from squirming.

‘Shit .’

The young man rebelled as much as he could, pushing and shoving back and forth while cussing up a storm that made Lily blush in the corner, but it amounted to nought. He told himself that it was because the floor was too slippery and that his bare feet had no purchase on the tiled floor, but no matter his argument, he couldn’t stop Trisha from slipping the cuffs over his wrists. Nor Delilah easily manhandled him over to the stainless steel pole and locked his hands to the bracket above his head. 

Delilah retreated with a swirl of frills, and Sam, tapping what little heat he could from the flames of indignance, tried to kick at the Maid. That failed spectacularly. His foot went wide, and his other foot slipped on the tiled floor, causing him to dangle by the chains between his cuffs. 

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Trisha tutted, internally rueful as she walked a circuit of Sam, keeping herself just out of the range of any possible aggression. “Really, Carmilla? And here I thought that you would behave yourself.”

Sam growled at the auburn-haired woman, his arms already starting to ache. The rattle of the chain through the bracket was a horrible sound.

“Would you like to stand again, or do you wish to be washed in that impromptu strappado? Your maids are capable of either.” Trisha groused in her infuriatingly serious yet polite tone, pointing an index finger at how Sam’s arms and legs flapped and slapped against the simple binding. 

‘What the hell is Strappado?’ he thought glibly, clearly his knowledge of all things BDSM was surface-level. Frankly, he didn’t care because right now, he just wanted to stand up straight. Trisha stopped before him and leaned forward, drawing directly into Sam’s frantic hazel eyes, practically nose to nose. 

He gulped, taken aback by the intensity hiding behind her glasses—an inferno trapped inside the shape of a pretty woman. He could feel her calm and controlled breaths tickling his face and found his struggles grinding to a halt. 

“As your governess, I suggest you begin taking my advice more into consideration.” The blue-clad lady cooly said, " I advise you to let your Maids wash you without incident.”

“...”

“...”

“...Okay…” he whispered.

Trisha withdrew at that, retreating to the edge of the room as the Maids approached to begin their work. Delilah fixed his awkward position, aided by what appeared to be a shepherd's crook made of lacquered black wood with a brass end. She hooked the crook around the bracket that held his cuffs and pushed it up, sliding the bracket upwards along the stainless steel pipe. The whole process was quick but not sudden, allowing her Lady to be gently drawn back up to standing on his own two feet with his cuffed hands now remaining high above his head.

Despite his better judgment, Sam felt a pulse of genuine thanks brush against his thoughts, pushing through the prickle of humiliation he felt at being naked and manhandled. “Thank you,” he whispered. Delilah’s eye widened a modicum, and her professional smile grew more genuine. She inclined her head silently in recognition of his words before returning the crook to its proper place and stepping into an annexe to join Lily.

Trisha filed the exchange away in her mind for later, speaking when Sam looked towards her. “They will wash you now. Do your best to work with them, or I will fetch a spreader bar for your ankles.”

Sam’s reply was cut off when both Lady’s Maids returned from the annexe, each holding a bundle of shiny black material under their arms. He watched, transfixed and with building unease as they unfurled the garments to reveal… he didn’t know what to call them. They reminded him of painting smocks, the sort of thing they’d force you to wear to keep paint off your clothes yet always seemed to be ill-sized enough that some slipped through.

He wasn’t sure if he was thinking of such things now because these ‘smocks’ were a far cry from the musty rumpled things from days of scholarly yore. Each was made of matte black latex with white trim at the cuffs, collar, and hem. It fell to ankle length with a zipper running up the back. Each Maid helped the other into their smock and assisted in zipping them up.

It was quite simple, really. While Lady’s Maids were given the most ‘freedom’ of all serving staff, there were elevated expectations in keeping their uniforms to the utmost perfection—so much so that getting the cotton and satin splattered with the soaps and water that were inevitable with a shower was unacceptable. 

Trisha knew that the truth went a bit deeper than that, but objectively, it was all that mattered right now.

Each woman affixed a white swimming cap with attached latex Maid’s frilled headband to their heads before advancing on Sam who shivered, somewhat intimidated. A twist of a handle was all it took to get underway. The white-haired sissy yipped in shock as his body was pelted by a torrent of hot water from the broad shower head above, so wide that he could not escape the downpour no matter how hard he juked and jived. 

In no time at all, he was soaked to the bone; his new shoulder-length straight locks were clumped together in sodden strands that stuck to his forehead and cheeks. It was all so unfamiliar, different from any shower in the subtleties of sensation, fortified by a heady mix of embarrassment and being watched. To date, the only person who had ever seen him naked in the shower was Victoria. He gritted his teeth at thoughts of his ebon-haired betrayer but soon was wholly preoccupied by the squeaky sentinels of Lily and Delilah, advancing on either side with washcloths and loofahs. 

They took hold of him then, their touches intimate and delicate as they began to scrub and sponge his naked form, the thunder of hot water pattering off their latex attire like a storm off a rainmack. “Hnnn, No!” he griped, turning away as they continued to seek every single crack and crevice to clean, enveloping him in a shroud of lathered bubbles and sweet-smelling soaps that slid lethargically across his body. 

“While I have no comment on matters of religion, I wager that John Wesly’s observation applies to you, Lady Carmilla. "Cleanliness is next to Godliness,"” Trisha commented, watching from the side as Sam bucked against his bonds and the ministrations of both Maids. “Your attire as a Lady of your spouse’s chosen era leaves you delightfully covered up, but that does not excuse you from matters of hygiene. You will look, smell and feel clean at all times unless directed by Mistress Victoria, so cleanings as thorough as this are important and of the norm. Treat them with as much reverence and normality as you would breathing.”

Sam’s cheeks were atomic red by the time that his Maids had finished their rounds of bodywork, their smocks now deliciously slippery looking from all the water and soap that had splashed back on them. They washed and shampooed his hair with a pomegranate-scented shampoo that gave him a crown of suds as they worked it into every strand and to his scalp. He let out a strangled yell when some of the shampoos got into his eye, white-hot stinging pain blooming in his eye. 

“A thousand pardons, my Lady,” one of them apologised, quickly pressing the edge of a flannel to his eye to rinse out the soap. Her rubberised sleeve brushed against his chest. It felt cool and slippery, gliding over his sensitive pinkening skin like an angel's kiss.

Trisha took that moment to prepare her own part in the process. She retrieved a stout wheeled box from one of the closets and quietly positioned it behind Sam, waiting patiently until the maids were done. She knelt down and opened the box, revealing two metallic containers, some subtle machinery, and two lengths of clear rubber tubing, one of which she attached to one of the drains. 

By now, Sam’s thorough shower and hair wash had been completed, with the two rubber-clad maids stepping out of the water flow before switching it off. The downpour of warm water ceased instantly, with only a few lingering drops of water dripping to hit the pale wraith of the Lady. He huffed once, his expanse of revealed skin caressed by coils of steam that rose from it in the mostly cool room. Feeling off-kilter, he shook himself from his bound position, his hair whipping lines of water like a dog.

“Really?” Sam imagined the unseen Trisha saying, even if she was out of sight and silent, the Governess’s aura permeated the room. But for all his internalised grumbles and the position that he was forced to hold, he was glad that he had a shower. The invigorating waters and… interesting method of washing had served to well and truly wake him up. And with wakefulness came the sharpening of his mind. 

‘Okay… if I can get out of this damn contraption, then both my body and brain are unshackled… in a literal sense at least. ’ he thought as his Lady’s Maids approached with fluffy white towels. While he instinctively flinched away from their touch, the drying was at least slightly welcome and soothed any kinks that had begun to take root. 

He closed his eyes as they worked, hands twitching above him every time soft towels gave way to the cool liquid feel of their latex garments. Once he was dried from his toes to the ends of his hair, they pulled away, and Sam once again opened his eyes. The duo retreated towards the annexe door, moving to strip themselves of the smocks. 

“W-wai-wait!” Sam said, his words timid and quiet. " Let me down…” he added before catching himself and quickly adding, “Please!” Much as he despised the needles' decorum, perhaps it would avail him of a speedier return to at least being clothed.

Lily and Delilah paused and looked over their shoulders at him, their eyes full of a mix of confusion and pity. Was he missing something…

‘...I am missing something…’ the words echoed in his skull like a mournful bell, Trisha’s shadow falling across him like a carrion crow. 

“Is twelve hours really all it takes for you to forget salient information, Lady Carmilla?” Trisha trilled, “Cast your mind back. It may have been a different bathroom, but it was still a bathroom.” 

His heart began to beat faster, and his breathing became progressively shallower as a vague memory pulled open his mind's eye. Trisha gently gripped Sam’s shoulder with a gloved hand.

“Internal Hygiene, Carmilla.” Trisha deadpanned, squeezing his shoulder authoritatively and causing him to stiffen. She held a length of clear rubber tubing in her other hand, a long, thin and flexible nozzle at its end. Its nimble black length widened toward the base, all of it glistening with a sheen of perfectly applied lube. 

Trisha felt a tendon jump in her ward’s shoulder where she held him, a precursor to movement. “Spreader Bar,” she ordered evenly, Maid Lily nodding and moving to fetch it from the annexe cupboard as Sam began to violently squirm in the Governess’s grip. 

“Get away from me!” he shouted, though he couldn’t move much between Trisha and his cuffs. Lily returned from the cupboard, taking a second to re-affix her regular maid’s headband, a spreader bar in hand. It was simple in design, a rectangular bar of brushed stainless steel approximately 25 inches across with a pair of matching metal cuffs at either end. 

“No!” He attempted to kick out at the red-haired maid, but she proved surprisingly nimble. As his foot came up, she grabbed him by the ankle and held it, leaving him to hop unsteadily while she secured it to one end of the bar, a clock sounding from it as it latched close. 

Trisha watched on with detached interest, she made a note to ask Diana for more detail on how the Lady’s Maids were trained to read movement. It was not to her high standards, but still admirable. As Sam’s other ankle was locked in place, the eldest woman in the room internalised that while this was an excellent opportunity to acquaint Sam with the Spreader Bar or any other type of bondage, it was purely logistical in this instance. “Come now, calm yourself. Mistress Victoria will be ill-pleased if we do not make it in time for breakfast.”

A garbled, angry snarl was her reply, sounding to all three women like a hissing kitten.

Sam stood awkwardly, spread into a triangle by the two restraints, padding one foot at a time. He pulled a face flush with horror when he tried and failed to close his legs, pupils thinning to slits when he felt something cool and wet press against his ass. 

“Deep breath, girl,” Trisha offered, holding the tip of the thin nozzle against the tight ring of muscles. 

“No, no, please don’t,” Sam begged, nostrils flaring.

Trisha slipped her hand from his shoulder, Sam looking over it to stare into her calm face with frantic eyes. She held the gaze, slowly sweeping her hand under his arm and trailing her fingers over his ribs, counting each one as they passed beneath the leather digits. “This maidenhood is spoken for, and I shan’t violate it until your spouse ushers it into womanhood.” her palm rested on Sam’s navel, feeling the thump of his heart and rise of his breath, “Until that time, I offer my apology for this inconvenience.”

The nozzle was pressed with a modicum of force. Sam’s eyes bugged out, teeth clenching, clear thought evaporating in the face of building otherness. The tip was perilously thin, perhaps the circumference of a pinky finger, but in the time it had rested at his rear entrance, it had spread a sheen of lube along the rosebud, and with the entrance aptly prepped, the thin rubber nozzle began to move forwards.

Immediately, Sam’s body reacted, his stomach going taught under Trisha’s hand as he clamped down to repel what it sensed was an intruder. His eyebrows shot up, lips peeling back and thighs questing to touch. “Wh-aahhh,” he groaned, his body and mind aflame with an overload of physical sensoria and visceral emotional feedback. Fear seized him like a viper… no, a viper was incorrect. While Trisha held his gaze like a fantastical serpent, her hold on his body was closer and more intimate, the grip of a python that only increased in pressure, driving the nozzle deeper.

Making it past the outer bud and inside the ring, the slippery rubber rod glided inside, fed slowly into him inch by inch by Trisha’s steady hand. Though tiny, every millimetre of widening girth drew waves of new and wrong feelings, causing him to twitch and yip oddly. 

“Do not feel embarrassed at your body’s reaction. It’s natural that your body will attempt to resist what it doesn’t yet understand.” Trisha said, offering understanding if not comfort. The nozzle finally slipped inside, synapses that were quite literally not built to process this feeling in nature spasming to come up with a coherent expression. In the end, all he could think were the thought, ‘ get it out, ’ a hundred times over. But it didn’t get out; it kept its slow march inside him, sending jolts of severe discomfort when it kissed his inner walls until all three inches of it were within him.

While it widened towards the bottom, the nozzle sharply thinned where it met the end of the clear hose, so when the virgin tight ass enveloped the black rubber, Sam's own clenching muscles clamped tight on the instrument within him, effectively plugging him with a gasp.

Trisha gently let go of him and stepped away, signalling for the Maids to do the same and leaving him for a few moments, giving him time to get used to the penetrating feeling of the hygienic implement. He doubted he would ever be used to this, his asshole throbbed with the ache of being forced to do something it was not meant to do and the awareness of a foreign body in his most private place made him want to dry heave.

Kneeling before the box, Trisha lifted a catch to reveal a brass switch, “Brace yourself, Carmilla, this might feel a little strange,” she warned before flipping the switch. Within the box, a motor began to turn, drawing forth the contents of the bottles and up the tubing towards the waiting sissy. The enema fluid appeared to be perfectly normal, almost indistinguishable from water save for a slight greyness to its colour, beginning to spray a comparatively gentle spray of body temperature liquid into Sam’s ass.

An entirely new foreign feeling assaulted Sam; feeling the enema fluid enter him; he twitched and spasmed as much as he was able, cursing loudly as he wished ruin upon Trisha in another showing of a blue-coded lexicon. The ‘other’ of the penetration was swept aside in favour of true and proper discomfort as the fluid slowly but surely filled him, causing him to pant at the sudden feeling of bloating forced upon him. This didn’t feel right. 

“Take it out!” he pleaded.

“Not until it is done,” Trisha replied, watching the progress on an ornate dial set into the contraption used for the enema. She split her attention between it and the drama of flinches and twitches in Sam’s body, the enema filling him and touching places inside him he had never felt before. “It’s a matter of cleanliness, and I won’t tolerate it when it’s not warranted. If your spouse wishes to roll around in the mud with you, then that’s her prerogative. Until such a time, you will be spotless inside and out.”

He hung his head, closing his eyes to drown out the feeling and the surroundings. It was just too much… too much. ‘ Too much to be feasible. ’ his mind latched onto a lifeline of sense in a world gone mad. 

Eventually, a subtle pressure sensor within the contraption sensed that Sam’s colon was filled to capacity and ceased pumping in the fluid. Trisha walked to Sam and twisted a subtle catch running around the base of the nozzle, closing it from within. For a moment, he dared to think that she was about to unplug it, but in truth, Trisha detached the hose, transforming the closed nozzle into a thin buttplug. She came around to his front, waiting patiently until he opened his eyes to scowl at her. She held up the length of tubing in response, “The enema will sit within you for a few minutes to take effect,” her lips quirked up into a thoughtful smile, “No overpressure or strain, nor the indignity of douching. Perhaps in time, you’ll find it as invigorating as your external wash.”

“I…highly…doubt… that,” he moaned out between breaths, while not expressly painful, the discomfort of the feeling was overwhelming.

Smoothing down the front of her coat, the professional equivalent of a polite shrug, Trisha replied, “You seem to doubt a lot of things, Lady Carmilla. Shrewdness will serve you well, but it’s my job to make a believer of you.”

She retreated to the side, passing beyond the scope of his vision and retreated into the powerful position of his blindspot. Powerful because even if he could not see her or feel her, he would know she was there, watching to make sure he was okay and only giving help if it was necessary. Any enjoyment she may have felt at seeing so much emotional outpouring she had caused was safely hidden behind her glasses.

Not exactly in any position where he could do anything beyond stand there and take it, Sam let himself fall limp against the bondage rig, whimpering at how cold it felt and his unconscious contraction making the contents of his colon slosh about, his cheeks reddening in embarrassment and overstress. Seconds drew out into painfully long epochs that passed with acquaintance to the liquid in his gut… if this was something to be daily then he was set that it was something he would hate.

While the white-haired sissy thought of the enema as a humiliating and painful element of the house of horrors that was Eden’s Rest, in truth, it was a lot more special than that, as Trisha knew. What had flowed into Sam was no mear mix of soapy water and saline; no, it was a different beast altogether. One of the good Doctor Ito’s many brainchilds during her more official work for FMC, the enema fluid was, in truth, a ‘duel viscosity irrigation agent.’ It was a substance almost identical to water, save for its slight colouration that could be administered like any other enema, but once it was inside, that’s when things began to get interesting.

Within Sam, the enema began to react to the little waste that had built up from the prior day, molecules shifting and rearranging into two distinct compounds, a medicated water ‘outer’ and emulsion-based ‘outer’. The emulsion had been tuned to bind itself to waste, drawing it into the centre of the colon where now a consistency of oil, it remained separate from the medicated waters that bathed Sam’s anal walls, combining cleanliness and suppository medical administration all at once.

‘According to Yui, the medicated nature of the water can be tuned to long-term or short-term results depending on what she or Mistress Victoria require ,’  Trisha thought, recalling when the laid-back doctor had explained it to her. For the foreseeable future, the requirement would be in aid of Sam’s feminisation to Carmilla. But when time and opportunity allowed, ‘Well, I can foresee some innovative uses I am dying to share with the good doctor…’ her eyes glinted with enthusiasm before checking her watch.

Two minutes had passed, and Sam was shifting his weight from one foot to another again, the odd half step allowed by the spreader bar. The discomfort from the Enema had not abated, nor had it been in long enough to get used to, he tried not to bend over, not wanting the substance to slosh and remind him of its presence. He flinched when Trisha swept up behind him and reattached the tube to the plugged nozzle. “Wha- are-”

“Yes, Carmilla, I’m taking it out. Bear with me a second to build pressure.” Trisha explained, causing Sam’s brows to knit together. She looked over to the maids stood by the enema device, its internal motor again whirring quietly. Yui’s creation had another wonderful boon to it: how it could be administered did not require the user to lay on their side. As for the extraction, Sam was about to experience it. Reading the correct figure on the pressure dial, Maid Delilah flashed Trisha a thumbs up, and the Governess twisted the plug’s catch. The built-up pressure was accurate down to the Micro-Pascal, sucking the more viscous waste from Sam in less than half a second.

FOOM

“AGph!?” Sam squawked. The feeling was indescribable. The less viscous water was dragged down at a much slower rate, slowed by a perforated rubber flange at the base of the nozzle. Even then, the full extraction took less than ten seconds, his insides pulsing at the absence of the water. 

Tucking a lock of auburn hair behind her ear, Trisha gently pulled down on the nozzle, causing Sam to bite down on his lip as it was slowly drawn out of his, his hole aching with an unfamiliar itch. The whole experience had sent him reeling, so much so that he didn’t notice the Maids undoing all of his restraints and offering him his dressing gown. Before he knew it, he was back in his boudoir and pushed behind the changing screen, submitted to the mundane torture of dressing.

The first layer was as it had been the prior day. Lingerie in all white with a nightmarish panelled corset that the Maids tied closed. His faculties slowly returning to him, he realised with tainted relief that while the Maids had made up for yesterday's faux pas, they had not laced as tightly as Victoria. His outer wear however was surprisingly, and thankfully, much lighter. A simple white petticoat and bodice were buttoned around him with a matching outer skirt in cotton and the same spat boots he had worn yesterday.

Or at least they looked the same.

Guided over to the vanity table, he was sat down and adequately adorned for the day, a coat of clear lip gloss and tasteful eyeliner. He hummed and harred as they skillfully worked his hair up into a neat but painfully tight Victorian bun.

Looking at him in the mirror, Trisha finally broke the silence, “While I empathise with the Mistress's need to induct you into Victorian finery, I find practicality is a must. So please consider this,” she gestured to the outfit, “your ‘Schooling attire,’”

Sam looked at himself in the mirror, hating how the black choker around his neck stood out like the collar against so much white. “I never wanted to wear a school uniform again after Year 11,” he commented.

Trisha narrowed her eyes before shaking her head and offering a hand. “Come now, so much bellyaching means you should see yourself to breakfast.”

The white-haired sissy eyed the gloved hand with disdain, softening when his stomach rumbled within the confines of his corset. Breakfast awaited, and low and behold, he was hungry.

Sam was escorted downstairs to one of the ground floor dining rooms that was similar in size to the parlour from the day before, and the tallest of the four couldn’t tell it apart from any of the others. It did feel good to be able to walk somewhere without the literal shackles of bondage affixed to his extremities, but the biting hold of his corset and unsteadiness of his gait was its own yoke.

Opening the door, they were greeted by the sight of a moderately sized round table set for four with one of the seats occupied. Victoria looked up from the morning paper nonchalantly and gave a beautiful smile when she saw Sam, her blue eyes glittered with happiness and appreciation for the figure he cut. Compared to Sam, Victoria still wore her nightdress and a belted dressing gown much like the one that her white-haired wife had been furnished with, save for the fact it was forest green with gold filigree. ‘ It suits her ,’ Sam thought reluctantly, galled to admit such a thing.

She was not alone in the room; as usual, Maids Jeanne and Chloe stood behind her at the wall while Diana was in the centre of the room, overseeing the entire table like a silken hawk. 

“Good morning, Carmilla. Sleep well?” she said as one of Sam’s Lady’s Maids pulled out a chair for him to sit, which he promptly did, happy to take the weight off the blasted little heels. Victoria raked her eyes up and down the fine white of his dress and hair bun, “Straying towards the Edwardian today, love. I miss the bustle, but I must say you look simply scrumptious in that dress.”

His lips thinned, an act more noticeable with their glossy coat, choosing not to respond to Victoria’s words until Trisha fixed him with a stern look as she was seated to his immediate right. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he muttered brusquely, which seemed to satisfy the Governess.

Victoria pouted childishly at the noncommittal answer. She knew that he had a habit of being a bit of a zombie in the morning before a necessary spike of caffeine, but tea was still a few minutes out. How to draw him out into the open? ‘If he retreats into a shell, then that’s no fun and counterproductive to the process, it's not a cultivated subspace but a disconnect from surroundings and relationships.’

The Viscountess had broken and conditioned a fair few subs in her time towards a variety of purposes, but Sam presented a prospect that required finesse. A scalpel over a hammer. She still needed him to be him, the man who she had fallen for as he had his nose over his phone complaining something as inane as Gacha drop rates. 

An idea struck her, and immediately, her hand dipped into the pocket of her dressing gown. “Ah, I forgot. You probably don’t want to break your login streak.” She withdrew a smartphone from her pocket and unlocked it, opening a specific app before sliding it easily across the polished wood to Sam.

He tracked the small slab of glass and plastic as it span across the table, bumping against where his chest met the edge of the table and causing him to twitch, but he found himself transfixed when he saw what was on the screen. Picking up the phone with clumsy fingers, he stared dumbly at the opening screen and welcoming music of a mobile game, one with which he was intimately familiar.

Tapping the screen, he watched the screen fade to white for a moment before loading into a menu, a deeply tanned man in gold and red Roman-style armour greeting him with an austere look. A login streak notification popped up seconds later, giving him two more of this month’s material drops. Sam blinked owlishly between the game and the phone, not quite seizing on the moment. “...this is…my FGO account.”

“I should hope so; you pumped enough time and money into it over the years,” Victoria replied, smirking when he looked at her. “What, did you think I’d take all your pastimes from you? I’d be a poor spouse if all I gave was misery to my beautiful wife.”

Sam couldn’t reply to that, a disquieting feeling of… he didn’t know what to call the emotion that filled him then. “This isn’t my phone, though,” he pointed out. His phone had been a present from Victoria, like the TV in their student accommodations, and had been brand new. But this thing, ‘it must be twice as wide as the old one ,’ he realised, turning the phone over in his hands.

“Same files, different case. One more fitting as a vessel for your pastimes.” Victoria made a giving gesture but spotted an askance look in Trisha’s eye, tacking on, “Of course, it has no call or text functions, so nothing to distract you from using it to have fun… when permitted, of course.”

‘When permitted ,’ Sam thought, the words echoing in his head, he saw this for what it was. It was an offered breadcrumb, and he hated that it made him feel good. Under the scrutiny of his Governess and blase eyes of his spouse, Sam found himself running his daily missions.

They slipped into quiet but not unpleasant smalltalk as Tea was served, the scent of which turned his stomach enough to make it growl.

When the far doors opened, the white-clad graduate looked over his shoulder, disappointed when he saw that there wasn’t any food. His face morphed into a scowl when he realised what it actually was, both for who they were and, more importantly, the way they looked.

“Good morning, Yui,” Diana greeted the Japanese doctor as she sauntered into the room.

“Morn’in,” Yui yawned cutely, rubbing the sleep from her eye and rounding the table. Compared to the overabundance of frills, pomp and circumstance that clung to Eden’s Rest like overly persistent bees, Yui chose a far more modern, trendy and normal sleeping attire, a bed shirt, pyjama bottoms and a slinky dressing gown. 

Plopping down in her chair, Yui stretched with a catlike litheness that showed off her perky breasts through her bedshirt, working through aches both annoying and pleasant. Doctor Ito was very diligent with her work, especially when it came to projects that had her undivided attention, meaning that she had worked late into the night tabulating the results of yesterday's tests and tweaking her plans in accordance. Of course, this had meant that the ‘after-wohrk play’ to alleviate the stress had gone into the early hours of the morning, leaving her and er Nurse Maids exhausted but deeply satisfied. 

Yui felt attention on her, discovering that the Lady of the House was positively glaring flaming daggers at her.

Sam was all too happy to let his emotions run hot after what Yui had done to him yesterday and act so nonchalant about it… and she had the cheek to wear something so normal while he was consigned to this floor length prison uniform!

“Oh, hey, Carmilla,” Yui greeted with another jaw-popping yawn, the lethargy of sleep bleeding away as she took in Sam’s comparatively perfect form. “I hope you slept well, you look… honestly you look great. Not a hair out of place.”

Sam gritted his teeth at the praise, he had neither slept well nor did he want to look like this. 

But Yui was awake now and quickly sliding into her sly and somewhat teasing nature, “I’ll be real with you, my Lady,” she said, resting her fist under her chin to look at the sissy, “Between you, the staff and the rest of the frilled peanut gallery you’re making me feel underdressed for breakfast.”

Diana was the fastest to catch the offered bait and shut it down, “Then we should break fast as soon as we can to avoid starving now that everyone of note is here,” the steel haired Housekeeper suggested, inclining her head towards Victoria. “Three voices have asked, and to deny them would be rude.” she quipped, causing both Victoria and Yui to giggle.

Sam’s brows knitted together in confusion, not getting the turn of phrase.

‘Should I put that down under failure to grasp simple humour?’ Trisha wondered before shaking her head, it was a tiny indiscretion that could wait until a later time. She did however need to keep Sam’s mind on the here and now, so held out her hand for the phone. Sam reluctantly handed it over to the bespectacled woman.

Diana withdrew a service bell from within the folds of her uniform and rang it sharply, the tinkling sounds cutting through the air. A few seconds later, the far doors opened again to admit the Parlour Maids who rolled in covered platters of food.

“This morning’s fast shall be broken by Croissant aux Amandes.” Diana introduced, using the proper name for the dish while the Parlour Maids took their time to provide or refill everyone’s drinks. 

Meaning that Sam was given a fresh steaming helping of Germn Breakfast Tea. He did his best to hide his scowl as the aromatic vapurs tickled his nose, the smell of the stuff made him want to retreat inwards.

That wouldn’t do for Trisha, who was now fixed on making sure her ward paid attention and kept attentive even if not contributing to breakfast chatter. “What’s everyone’s agenda today?” she asked the other women at the table, having a good idea already. 

Victoria, as Mistress, was the first to answer, sipping on some Earl Grey and enjoying the warmth it brought her. “Breakfast, obviously. Then, a lot of paperwork has to be looked over and signed for the house and ongoing projects. I need to check over some matters with the Valets and ‘Tech Support,’” she easily explained, inwardly amused at how ‘Tech Support’ was just another colloquialism for those Maids who were assigned to preside over all matters electrical and data security. Tech Maids just didn’t quite roll off the tongue, coupled with the fact that some of the Nurse Maids also held the position. She looked over as Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat, her face turning apologetic, “As much as I would love to spend all day with you, Blossom, these are some things I just have to do, But I’ll endeavour to poke my nose in on one of your lessons if I get the time.”

Sam gulped thickly but was taken aback when Trisha shook her head in refusal to the suggestion.

“Respectfully, Mistress Victoria, I would ask that you don’t take that course. Lady Carmilla has a packed curriculum today, and starting off with interruptions is not the best. Please save your frolicking with your wife for breaks and the evening.” 

Perfectly proportioned lips pursed in thought as Victoria mulled over what the Governess had suggested, humming quietly. Yui watched the exchange from the side while Sam was in two minds. He felt conflicted at the interruption because while he didn’t want Victoria looming over him for most of the day, he also didn’t want to be left alone with a woman who had proven willing and motivated to hurt him if he stepped out of line. Was it better the devil he knew?

Oblivious of her ward’s internal dialogue, Trisha’s own mind was keeping her features expertly schooled. While she knew that Victoria was fond of her and she was necessary for Carmilla’s education, Trisha Moore was keenly aware that Victoria was still Mistress of everything here, and while she may have had leeway as a leading staff, it was nowhere near that of Yui who had the bonus of being Victoria’s best friend. So all she could do was phrase her thoughts as a suggestion and hope the Viscountess acquiesce to her sage council. 

“Hmm,” Victoria mulled over what had been said for some time before finally nodding, “Fair point. I’ll just have to be a big girl and wait until lunch, I guess.”

“Girl, you have a vibrator in your desk drawer; use it if you’re chomping at the bit for some fun,” Yui quipped, earning a snort of laughter from her friend.

The conversation had succeeded in taking up the grace period before breakfast could truly start the Parlour Maids each lifted a platter covered by a silver cloche and placed it in front of the four at the table. Sam sat up, his stomach grumbling anew as the gloved staff set the table with hypnotic efficiency. But disquiet settled upon him when he noticed something amiss. Victoria, Yui, and Trisha were all given a knife and fork, while Sam only had a spoon.

It was taking too long for Yui, who raised a hand and snapped her fingers once, becoming Maid Jeanne to her side to pull the cloche back. True to their name, Croissant aux Amandes were Almond Croissants, covered in a fine dusting of caster sugar and a touch of vanilla and lemon. Each one steamed lightly as a signature of the oven that they had only recently been pulled from. The scent was heavenly, causing Sam’s mouth to water more and more as the other Lady’s Maids revealed more and more of the delicacies. 

There was a hierarchy in the way the cloches were lifted, which spoke of eccentricities that flew right over Sam’s head. As Victoria’s best friend, Yui was permitted to give orders and be attended to by Victoria’s Lady’s Maids while Trisha, as Carmilla’s Governess, could order Sam’s, with Lily lifting her cloche to reveal two more Croissants. 

It was at this moment that a waft of steam caught Sam in the face causing him to look down with mounting confusion until it cleared to reveal his breakfast. Unlike the three women, Sam stared down into a medium sized bowl of pale coloured slop.

Porridge .

His eye twitched, and his lips pulled back in a rictus of betrayed disgust, turning to look at Victoria. She had to be joking.

The blue eyed woman resisted the urge to laugh, finding Sam’s look and palpable confusion and unease a delectable concoction. “Don’t look at me, Blossom, this one’s all on Yui,” she jabbed a finger at the doctor. 

Yui rolled her eyes at the blatant attempt to flow her under the bus, it wasn’t like it was a lie or anything. “It’s nothing that hasn’t already been explained to her,” she said before turning to look into the glowering face of her patient. “You’re set to very specific nutritional needs and diet control. Plus, porridge is a pretty good way to start the day. It’s not like you’re being fed… damn, what’s that thin-looking stuff from that one film?” she asked, searching for an answer on the tip of her tongue, “ya know, the one where the kid asks for some more?”

“Gruel?” Trisha deadpanned.

“That’s the stuff, I mean it isn’t but… ugh you know what I mean.”

‘No, I most certainly do not! ’ Sam mentally screamed at the doctor’s lackadaisical approach while looking at the porridge. While not the absolute worst thing in the world, it was practically teasing him that they got pastry delights while he was left to eat bland slop.

But… he knew from the prior day that not eating what he had been given would result in more harsh words and debasement. Picking up the spoon, he scooped up a portion and took a bite, bracing himself for the worst. It was… nearly average, a bland, slightly chewy concoction with an undercurrent of saltiness he couldn’t place.  

Victoria’s smile grew imperceptibly, inhaling a familiar scent as she nibbled on her croissant and wiped golden flakes of pastry from her chin.

Munching away silently on the porridge, Sam did his best to keep his trap shut and listen to the idle conversation, which mainly consisted of Yui and Victoria jibing one another, much like he and Victoria usually did before all of this. Part of him was initially jealous of the Kyoto native but that soon faded to simply being upset. How? How could they converse and expect him to join in when everyone at this table had been someway complicit in his kidnapping and changing to whatever he was now.

His hand tightened around the spoon, ‘ Not changed, never changed. This is all impossible, a farce that will be abandoned the moment any of them realise how impossible it is to enforce.’ he thought, a soothing mantra that slowly but surely let the bad feelings ebb away. But as he became more at one with the present, he was still a novice in the game of etiquette and decorum he was now a player in; the Maids, Parlour and Lady’s alike moved around the table with fluid grace directed by the hands and slightest movements of the other three women sat at the table, the process so ingrained in them that they could both converse fondly as well as pay attention to Sam even when he thought they weren’t looking. 

His pace of eating and drinking had slowed, underestimating just how much porridge was in the bowl. By the time the others had all finished he was barely half way through. 

Taking note of his plight, Diana cleared her throat to get his attention. “Lady Carmilla,” she began, Sam being able to endure the sting of the unwanted title, “If the porridge is not yet to your palette, is there anything that we can provide to meet your existing tastes?”

“I can do that?” he asked unsurely,

“Certainly. While the set menu for a meal cannot be outright changed, it’s perfectly within your right to ask for small additions and amendments to better your meal.” Diana replied, conveying the needed information in a patient and educational way that was a ‘smoothed’ variation of Trisha’s teaching tone.

It took a few seconds for it to truly register to Sam what Diana had said, and after clearing his throat he dared to ask. “Could I… get some maple syrup…please,” he requested, expecting to receive anywhere between a stern lecture to mocking laughter.

To his surprise, Diana simply nodded and directed a look to one of the Parlor Maids, who curtseyed before leaving the room and, in no time at all, was back with a small crystal jugg filled with clear amber-coloured maple syrup. The jug was passed to Maid Dellilah, who quickly poured a spiral of the sweet secretion into his porridge. Sam stared at the swirl of gold sitting atop the porridge, amazed at the mundane wonder of the way it caught the morning sunlight before it slipped under the surface, a site that prompted him to resume eating with more gusto.

It was good, very good. The syrup added the perfect catalyst for both the oaty flavour of the Porridge and the salty undercurrent it carried. He was so wrapped up in eating that he didn’t notice Delilah still standing beside him with the jug, ready to pour more if he wanted to. He frowned, swallowing his mouthful and felt bad for the dark-skinned maid, “Oh, you don’t have to stand there…” he realised he had never said her name before, and the twisting in his stomach grew.

Realising what was going on, Delilah gave an understanding, though a tiny bit forced, smile for her Lady. “Maid Delilah, your Ladyship. And it’s quite fine. I’m glad you’re enjoying your breakfast.” she said before moving to return the jug to its proper place. 

“Pity not the servant, Carmilla. There is pride in a job well done,” Trisha whispered into her ward’s ear.

Wanting to break the silence that had spread across the room, Yui was next to speak. “Ah, lovely as usual, my comments to the chef. But now that’s done, I can tell you all what I'm doing today,” she crossed her arms under her bust, looking like a smug fox now that the topic had returned to schedules. As per usual, she would be in medical for most of the day, fielding information back and forth between herself and her ‘learned colleagues’; she had medical maladies to take care of for members of the staff.

“Maid Adrianne did seem to be suffering from a sore throat when she attended to me last night,” Victoria recalled, a pleasant chill running up her spine at memories of her evening after playing with Sam had got her all hot and bothered.

“Bingo, she’s slotted in for 2PM.” Yui confirmed, fully aware that the cause of said ‘sore throat’ was poorly adapting to the learning curve of Deepthroating. ‘ A real shame given how much promise she shows at domestic duties. ’ 

“You’ll at least be joining us for lunch and evening entertainment?” Victoria enquired, flashing a sultry smirk at Sam when he paid closer attention.

“Oh, I am not missing that for the world. I need to see if your wife has been keeping you sharp in all the ways that matters. How about it, Carmilla?” the dark-haired doctor asked, a challenging tone in her voice that promised a troubling amount of fun.

Sam focused on the food and pretended and offered a noncommittal shrug. It was probably some other thinly veiled innuendo that he was to afraid to rise to.

One the Parlour Maids approached Yui and lent down to whisper something in her ear, Yui nodded and the Maid stepped back, picking up a small silver platter as she went. 

Finally finishing off the porridge, Sam pushed the bowl away from him, happy that his hunger had finally been sated before burping. 

“Carmilla!” Trisha snapped from his side, pointing at him like he had just shot someone.

“What?” he honestly asked, not knowing what he had done wrong.

“A Lady does not belch like a tawdry beer-swilling strumpit! If you feel the need to do such a vulgar thing, at least cover your mouth.”

He blushed in embarrassment at the woman’s fury; he’d never thought about not having to burp before because he spent most of his time alone, and Victoria had never seemed to care. If anything, she found it funny. But right now, Trisha looked like she was set to dunk his face into his empty porridge until he begged for her forgiveness. He desperately wanted to hide his face behind his teacup, but for once, neither of the Maids had refilled it.

As if hearing his prayers, a silver platter was placed on the desk in front of him, a crystal tumbler sitting atop it. He snatched at it, lifting it up to try and assuage Trisha’s perfectly measured fury, but caught himself before he swallowed it. He tilted the glass and looked at its contents. What he had initially taken for juice was far closer to water save for an ‘off green’ hew.

No one spoke, and a quick check revealed that all eyes were on him, watching him with predatory closeness. He returned to Trisha, holding the glass between them as if it would ward off the buttoned-up banshee. “What is this?” he asked her.

“A Tonic,” Trisha answered slowly, regaining her composure. 

Yui snorted at the grossly non-scientific name.

“A what?” Sam replied, as far as he knew Tonics were something that gave you Superpowers in Bioshock Infinite, and while this place seemed to be outside the rules of sense he doubted they had that level of tech.

“By Mistress Victoria's decision, certain words and contemporary urns of phrase are to be replaced by period-appropriate dialect. A ‘Tonic’ is the closest analogy to the contents of that glass.” She explained, pushing her glasses up her nose until they glinted, “I believe the correct term in common parlance would be a vitamin supplement.”

He felt the urge to toss the contents across the room at that. More drugs! More infernal drugs. ‘ Is this one going to send me back to sleep? ’ he wondered, fingers pressing harder into the crystal and returned it to its tray.

“Do you recall what happens when you do not finish everything given to you?” Trisha asked glacially, her eyes daring Sam to push her far enough. Sam gulped, his hand aching in remembrance. 

“Oi, can we not try to kill each other over breakfast?” Yui asked rhetorically, getting all to look at her, but she had eyes only for Sam. “It’s nothing nefarious. Given the control over your diet and body type, we have to supplement your vitamin intake to keep you healthy. You’re not happy unless you’re healthy.”

He looked at the glass, still unsure.

Taking a breath, Yui placed a hand over her heart. “I sware on my hippocratic oath that there is nothing in that ‘tonic’”, she glowered at Victoria, “that will bring you harm.”

While Sam’s judge in character had been proven to be frankly awful in this last week, he could find no lie or deceit in Yui’s words or face and given the looming threat of another punishment, he brought the class to his lips and began to drink.

“How's it taste?” Yui asked. She saw Victoria glowing with happiness out of the corner of her eye, another step along the long path. 

Sam finished the tonic and put the glass down, relieved that Trisha was seemingly satisfied. “Like sour lime juice,” he wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“Really? Interesting.” Yui was genuinely interested. First-person testimonials were always fascinating.

Victoria templed her fingers, “You are to drink three of these Ladyship Tonics per day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

‘Great’ he thought sarcastically. Breakfast quickly wrapped up after that, and Victoria rose to her feet, matched by Yui and Trisha, who made Sam stand as well. 

The Mistress of the house rounded the table and came to stand before her wife, the combination of his existing height and the tiny heels making him stand six inches taller than her in her slippers. It did nothing to detract from her power and gravitas, looking up into his eyes. She placed her hands on his waist and slowly teased them up his form, sending a chill fire of sensation through him before cupping his face. Leaning up, she captured him in a searing kiss that made his toes curl in their spat boots.

She was like a butterfly, all fluttering while pulling sensation and passion up from deep within the both of them. It was an insidiously wonderful feeling, inciting desire while keeping him painfully aware of where and what he was, savouring the contrast she tasted in his movements.

Victoria kissed him passionately until he began to move his own lips before pulling away, his face red. 

“Good luck with your lessons today, Carmilla. You’ll be in my thoughts.” Victoria said before turning on her heel, leaving Sam to totter towards the door on unsteady legs as Trisha ushered him from the room.

The Governess had selected a room on the Ground Floor to serve as her primary classroom and quickly led the group to the prepared space and gracefully took her place at one end of the room. It was a large square room with rich hardwood floors, several polished tables and side dressers. The room was lit by a glittering crystal chandelier and a pair of tall and wide Elizabethan windows that let natural light spill in. Sam looked out of the window curiously, looking at the wide blue sky and sweeping green of the grounds rolling on seemingly forever. Several other items in the room caught his attention, most relegated to the far wall. A huge blackboard, pulled from the bowels of some ancient university, filled most of the far wall, though if it was an antique, it had none of the dust of a period piece, looking brand new.

To the right of the blackboard was a wooden lectern come desk that Trisha busied herself behind, rummaging through the contents of its draws. 

She saw him looking at her and gestured for him to take a seat at one of the tables. “Bear with the busywork, Carmilla. We will begin shortly,” she said in a crisp, energetic tone, enthused at the prospect of starting. 

Seeing nothing better to do, Sam crossed to the indicated table and took a seat, grimacing when one of his Lady’s Maids pushed the chair in so the front of his bodice touched the edge of the table. Effectively pinning him in position. If he wanted to get the space to slouch, he would have to slide the chair back, which would likely produce a racket and beckon Trisha’s ire. 

Sam was correct in his assumption; Trisha would have made a complaint that rode the line between snide comment and bashful jest, even as she was preoccupied with her preparations. She pulled a number of items from the drawers and set them down on her desk and lectern. Pens, papers, and books were arranged in neat, perpendicular piles, all crisp and new. The eldest woman in the room took particular attention in a wide pale yellow box. Opening it revealed a cadre of pieces of chalk, one of which she drew from its slot with a fluid grace.

Trisha rolled the chalk between her gloved fingers, satisfied when no particulates stuck to the supple leather. “Ladies,” she said, causing Sam to look at her while she remained focused on the chalk, “You’re dismissed.”

Confusion rolled over Sam before he heard a ruffle of fabric, turning to see both his Lady’s Maids giving professional curtseys. They pair about faced and silently filed out of the room, leaving a perplexed Sam in their wake.

The woman in blue felt Sam’s confusion from across the room, “Worry not, Lady Carmilla,” she supplied, switching her vernacular and tone over to a formal setting of lesson time, “Your Lady’s Maids have their own lessons to attend to. A rise in status and responsibility brings with it new skills to learn. From the lowest pauper to the grandest Duke.”

Revulsion crawled under his skin at her clinically crafted sentence, but his curiously yet lingered. After all, the more information he had about this madhouse, the more he could look for a way out. “Learning what exactly?”

Trisha turned to look at Sam from half profile, “Learning what exactly…” She left the words hanging, her eyes expectant behind her glasses.

His eyes narrowed shortly before widening, “Learning what exactly, Miss Trisha?” he reiterated, galled when Trisha looked pleased at the decorum. 

“I appreciate your eagerness to learn the ins and outs of your staff, Lady Carmilla. But perhaps we should get through the basics before you jump in at the deep end?” she replied rhetorically before beginning to write on the blackboard using the chalk.  

The tap, clack and oddly warm scratch of chalk on a blackboard permeated the room, Trisha quickly writing her name in a neat and looping cursive, perfectly sized to draw the eye. Sam watched on as she also began to elegantly write out a collection of other information before she made an academic introduction. 

“Pardon the redundant introduction, but it bears reiterating in a teaching capacity. My name is Trisha Moore, your governess and teacher. I am 32 years old and studied anthropology and education at the University of Exeter before attending finishing school at the behest and support of the Countess Beatrice Florence.”

Beatrice… that name rang familiar in Sam’s head, coming from Trisha’s own lips no less. It did not take him long to connect the dots that that was Victoria’s mother. ‘ And is she as crazy as Victoria, or did Victoria win the nuthouse lottery? ’ Sam thought wryly, following along with what the Governess was saying but growing steadily more alarmed when he saw what she was writing. 

“Upon my graduation, I took up a job lecturing at the Finishing School and offering my services to the Florence Family for their gracious patronage. Over a year ago, your spouse, Mistress Victoria, approached me with the request to serve as your governess. While I admit her initial explanation gave me pause, I was quickly brought around and relished the prospect of such a unique teaching and mentoring experience.”

‘Pause’ was an understatement. While Trisha had met Victoria a scant number of times through her mother, having their first true conversation, including outlining the kidnap, re-education and reconditioning of the Viscountess’s paramour, was one hell of an icebreaker. ‘Relish’, on the other hand, was not a lie.

“While I like to consider myself an all-rounder in the paths of a sophisticate, my primary studies are education, etiquette, and anthropology. I am fluent in English, the four Romantic languages and German.” She underlined the first block of languages and bifurcated it with a vertical line, creating two columns that she named ‘Intermediate’ and ‘Beginner.’  

“I have full professional proficiency in Japanese, Chinese -Mandarin and Cantonese-  and Greek, as well as professional working knowledge of Korean, and I am currently in the opening stages of learning Arabic,” Trisha concluded, making the point to use the correct linguistic signifiers for her level of competency. She would not rest until she was fluent in all of them. 

The list of languages threw Sam for a loop. He initially thought that she was probably embellishing the truth, ‘ 10,000-hour rule on ten languages… ’ he thought, quickly running the math. While he had never put much stock in the old skill-based idiom, it presented more than a decade of study. But as much as he wanted to reject the boast out of hand, he found he couldn’t. The 10,000-hour rule did not account for talent… and right now, the way Trisha spoke convinced Sam to silently listen on. The older woman spoke with such banal conviction, like a simple fact of life. And despite the fact he knew that everything here was a lie… he believed her.

And that terrified him.

‘Either she is a really good actor, or I’m overestimating her capacity for bullshit.’ He shuddered, trying to take his mind off the unassuming yet intimidating woman as she busied herself with more writing, seeking to fill the board it seemed.

When he was sure her back was to him fully, he began to look around the classroom again, first at the large window and then at the door. He wondered lightly if he could make a break for it, pressing his heels against the floor to-

THUMP !

“Umnph!?” the white-haired sissy squeaked in alarm, surprise lancing through him like a searing blade, looking around and suddenly aware of Trisha filling all of his vision. She looked down at him with the ghost of amusement flickering in her eyes, which quickly faded as she raised her crop. How had she crossed the distance so quickly with no sound at all? She raised her arm, the crop going high, and Sam braced himself for pain.

None came.

Instead, Trisha relaxed her arm and tapped the crop’s slapper to source of the prior thump. A collection of booklets printed on high class glossy paper and a pen resting on a pad beside them.

“What are these?” Sam asked, getting his heart rate under control. 

As she sidled against the table, the hypnotic movement of a cobra, Trisha extended a gloved hand and thumbed Sam’s chin before tucking a stray strand of his stark white hair behind his ear. “Mistress Victoria says you are quite the scholar. And after taking a look at your work, I have to concur,” her eyes bored into his, “but academic papers don’t tell a story. I need to know your general knowledge baseline. To see what you know and where you are… lacking .” she said, lacing the voice with a veiled warning. “Then, once I know you through your words and actions, then I can truly teach you to be the Lady you were born to be. And to do that, I need to build within your new knowledge base, observe what needs refinement and what needs scrapping altogether.”

The hazel-eyed graduate tore his eyes from the Governess’s, dwelling again on the booklets. It fell into place moments later. She was asking him to sit an exam. He looked back up at her and deadpanned, “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh I am very serious. I wouldn’t have gone to the effort of writing all the questions if I didn't expect you to answer them.” she answered emphatically.

Anger bled into Sam’s consciousness like a swarm of angry wasps, stabbing into him with righteous fury. He bit his lip, tasting the elusive notes of the lip gloss they had fallaciously forced upon him. What was funny in the abstract sense was his current ire had nothing to do with his outfit or budding feminisation. No. “The last thing I ever want to do after graduating a bloody Master’s Degree is be made to sit an exam, Trisha.” he ground out, forgetting himself.

But if Sam was a swarm of angry wasps then his Governess was a tide of smoke, moving while in situ, emitting a pacifying air of sartorial power from every gold button on her long jacket. “The lesson has begun, Lady Carmilla. In this setting, I am Miss Trisha, and I don’t need to spell out what will befall you should I be given any more undue disrespect,” she exclaimed, rolling her crop between her fingers, her eyes watching Sam closely as his attention flickered to her favoured implement. 

Sam gulped, faltering at the open threat, his thumping heart making him aware of himself and how bound he was already. The coolness of hard plastic against his inner thigh brought him to cooler waters.

Seeing the chink in his armour, the Governess capitalised, leaning against the table and taking the well-worn leather implement between both hands. “Tell me, Lady Carmilla, do you know what this is?”

“A…riding crop,” Sam answered slowly, drawing a short nod from the woman before fixing him with a narrow look.

“Correct, but you fail to see the layers of nuance to it. What it represents. Most people think of crops as implements of punishment, but in truth, they are objects used to correct a supplicant party towards what they should be doing. “Run faster. Turn this way. Pay attention. Suck harder.”” she listed, taking a measure of pleasure when she saw his discomfort at her suggestive imperatives. “You will learn what is asked of you, and I will encourage and correct. I don’t want to use this to punish you; something used outside its function upsets me,” the crop swished through the air as it was tapped against her hand with expert articulation. “But give me warrant to, and I will.”

When she is sure that he was compliant, Trisha pushed off the table and returned to the Blackboard, taking a seat behind her desk. “You have an hour to complete the test. If you have any questions or issues then you raise your hand. This is a classroom after all, respect its rules.”

Letting out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding in, Sam picked up the pen and uncapped it, his face suddenly turning ashen. Slowly, like a marionette pulled by a lank string, he raised his arm. 

Trisha looked up from her journal and raised an eyebrow with such sculpted emphasis it practically screamed, ‘ Really? Already?.’  

“Yes, Lady Carmilla, is there an issue?”

Sam deflated, looking down at the pen in his hand, its arrowhead-shaped nib glinting in the sun. “I… don’t know how to use a fountain pen, Miss Trisha.”

Trisha grimaced but, to her credit, did not fault Sam for his ignorance. ‘ That’s a mark away from the British School System, ’ she noted, thoughts rife with pule. She opened her desk and retrieved a pencil, crossing the classroom to give it to her charge, “I shan’t condemn you to something so base as a ballpoint pen. A pencil is a perfectly fine period-appropriate alternative. Now you have one hour. Do not waste it, Lady Carmilla.”

The hazel eyed young man opened the booklet and allowed himself to sink into the figuratively charged mindset of an exam. The test was on.

While he was initially put off by Trisha’s looming presence in the corner of his peripheral vision, Sam focused on the first few questions and found that their nature served as the perfect haven to drown out the world around him. There were a variety of questions on varying topics, but mostly came under the purview of general knowledge, and he quickly began to answer, feverish scribbling giving way to the slow and low scratch of pencil on paper as he put more effort and thought into the answers. The room seemed to fill with the sound and the deep air of concentration as Sam slowly began to work his way through the thick booklet. 

He was watched most of the time by Trisha, but her vigil was not an unbroken one. From time to time, she would look away from him to read from the collection of books she had brought out or make several notes, always managing to detect whenever Sam chanced a look at her. After finishing writing up the minutes of what had already passed between them, Trisha pushed herself to her feet and used a blackboard eraser to wipe the chalky black surface clean, soon replaced by a new set of information that expanded across the board.

Those actions went unnoticed and unremarked upon by Sam who was too busy getting as deep into the exam paper as he could. It was awfully thick, and an hour quickly vapourised before your eyes when you were under pressure. Moreover, it had probably been about three years since he had cause to do any extended writing by hand; his Master’s Degree had been almost entirely confined to a keyboard, and as a result, his less-than-stellar handwriting had atrophied to a legible chicken scratch. 

And yet despite this, he found himself making an almost blinding amount of progress once he had gotten into his scholarly groove, pleasantly surprised by the range of topics within the general knowledge. Sam was prompted to give succinct summaries of certain periods of history, define and provide synonyms for dozens of words and even a prolonged section on maths. Hitting his head up against a brick wall at a string of algebra, he took a chance and flicked to the back of the booklet and was presented with a formula sheet. 

If Trisha was being truthful, and he hated that she had given him nothing to the contrary, then she had been very thorough in putting the booklet together. 

‘There is some weird stuff, though, like how the question asks me to not show my working out.’ he thought, tapping the odd request beneath a particular question that required the use of the Quadratic Formula. 

Returning to her place at her desk, Trisha looked at Sam contemplatively as he worked and felt pleased, templing her fingers as she watched him work. She liked the look he wore, one that went beyond the orchestra of emotions on his face. There was diligence in his posture that was accented by the elegance of his schooling attire, the faux bust created by the cinching of the corset a pleasant sight to behold. It was like seeing the rough outline of what was to come, a path that she was charged with leading him down. 

Fifteen minutes later, Sam suddenly stiffened, his eyes narrowing. A beat passed, Trisha wondered what could have caused it, then twitched her lips up into a smirk. ‘Ah, she’s reached the first of those questions.’

Hazel eyes blinked owlishly at the page, not comprehending what they were seeing. He tried again to read the question and found it washing over him and leaving no comprehension behind. He tried again and again, but nothing would stick. Why would it stick? It had to be some kind of sick outlier or misprint.

 Despite all the humdrum questions, Sam had stumbled upon a question that had utterly thrown him for how out of place and unexpected it was.  

‘When giving one’s spouse cunnilingus the morning after a stressful evening, what would be the optimal conversation topic to set the spouse’s mind at ease and enhance the sexual service?’

The Lady’s pencil remained suspended above the dotted line of the answer box, frozen in the air like its holder had been turned to stone. His Governess pondered if she should say anything to jog him back into action when he began to write once again, skipping to the next question. His movements were imperceptibly more stilted than before, but Trisha let it slide. The smirk grew in size, this was a good sign in her mind.

Sam turned the page, beginning the next question, relieved to see that it was a normal question. ‘ It was a fluke, a random question she slipped in to fuck with me ,’ he checked off a few more boxes, using the fact to return himself to a semblance of calm and reason-

His hastily constructed mental sanctuary was caved in by a battering ram as he came across another question asking him to give an extended answer on how best to stave off a partner’s orgasm to prolong their pleasure.

Mental screams filled the confines of Sam’s head at such volume and intensity that they would have driven a banshee deaf had they breached his the confines of his cranium. 

As the sadistic sophisticate had explained so succinctly, the test had been designed to acquire Sam’s baseline knowledge on as wide a breadth of subjects as possible. This included those of a tantric nature. This was to politely and intellectually inform the new Lady Florence, who currently looked about a few seconds shy of a conniption, that sex was going to be on the agenda at a banally common frequency. For every five questions there were to do with basic STEM testing and logic were tests of articulation, musings on the Victorian era, extending into testing the feminised lad on what he had been able to pick up about the house and its operations in the brief time he had been there. 

‘How many layers of clothing constitute a Parisian Style Bustle Dress from 1895?’

‘Translate the meaning of ‘Innectis ad Perfectum Flore’ in the context of the Florence Legacy.’  

‘Would you consider Lesbian intercourse a more attractive prospect than Polyamous play between mixed sex partners? Discuss.’

He did his best to answer what he could, abjectly refusing to answer the ones that were plainly smut. Finally, he reached the edge of his fraying nerves and put the pencil down. “Are you serious?” he asked bluntly.

Trisha looked back at him impassively, her face a stern mask, “If you have an issue, Lady Carmilla, raise your hand, and I shall deign to answer,” she cautioned in a monotone voice, a ghost of challenge in the words. 

White hair bristled as Sam bit down on his lip, the cool condescension in those words burned without flame. He was about to…what? What could he do? Blurt out her own insufferable face looked like it could be smacked like many past teachers. ‘ Oh yes, that will probably land me with whatever detention she has dredged up from the Marquis de Sade's playbook. At least he was able to adapt to the time he spent in the Bastille before getting free.’

He took a deep breath, more to gather his wits than assuage any anger. Adapt. He had to adapt. If they were going to play by warped rules, then he would have to play by them, too. The Lady of Eden’s Rest picked his words well, and though he spoke them with a crackle to his voice, they had been well prepared. He raised his hand. “Miss Trisha, I have a question.”

“Yes, Lady Carmilla?” Trisha answered, curious at the note in Sam’s voice she couldn’t quite parse. 

“If you have my files and know how far some of these… topics fall outside of my purview, making me unable to answer them. So, Miss Trisha, can you clarify their presence so I can provide an answer and know what I should do if I can’t?”

‘Clever girl,’ Trisha felt the appreciable thrill of witnessing intelligence in action, noting how her ward had quickly adapted to the mental issue. Able to construct a way of avoiding her promised retribution by framing it as an academic question. ‘It seems that physical stimuli are more reactive than logical ones for now…’ her glasses flashed as she smiled, ‘I’ll work it to my advantage in time.’

As a reward, she answered truthfully, explaining how their presence served as an introduction to a notion that was normal at Eden’s Rest. Sexual expression, exploration and submission were the same as any other basic skill and expectation. Carnal pursuits were normality; he had to become aware and accept that “you can discuss the artisanal pursuits of Caravaggio as your spouse brings you to raucous orgasm and fills you to the brim.”

The words made Sam wilt, visibly shivering in denial and revulsion, but it was clear from Trisha’s explanation that sex was the norm, but he would learn when that norm was permitted and encouraged and when it was to be rescinded. The mental image she painted was vivid, and his placid nature and awkwardness towards such a thing could not take it. The woman he loved doing something to him like that was…

“By my count, we have wasted ten minutes explaining that, but given it was born of your ignorance, I will give you ten minutes extra time at the end, Lady Carmilla.” Trisha pointed out to Sam’s relief, but she fixed him with a steely glare and added, “But you WILL be learning how to use a fountain pen; that is a promise.”

Sam returned to the test and did his best to answer the questions, the first pass mostly focusing on the purely academic or general knowledge and leaving the tantric questions for the second pass, some of which were so obscene, despite being written in a very dry way, that he could not bring himself to answer them and thus left them blank. Once finished, he found himself looking out the window again and noted glibly that the unblemished band of blue sky was dotted with even more white clouds, signalling that the weather was on the turn.

An hour and ten minutes after the test had begun, Trisha returned to the table and collected the test, flicking through the pages and skimming their contents as she returned to her place at the lectern. She gave Sam a few dark looks that made his heart skip a beat, but he was otherwise satisfied with his effort. “I’ll mark them this afternoon. But your work has earned two bits of information before we proceed further into this lesson.”

‘Good fucking God, when does it end!?’  

Trisha opened the cabinet set into her lectern and withdrew a small plate with two silver Service Bells resting on it, bringing it over to Sam. “You should be familiar with what these are at this point,” she noted amicably, taking a seat beside her student, the bells between them. “Now is the time you learned how they worked.“

Schooled features did their due to hide Sam as best they could, but there was the ravenous beast of his own curiosity again at the back of his mind, like a spider feeling the threads of prior intrigues being plucked. He told himself he wasn’t interested. That it was just more pomp and circumstance. The apparatus of a machine designed to rob him of who he is. Alas, he still found the cool balm of intrigue upon him as he watched the intricate way Trisha picked up one of the bells by its handle and rang it, the tinkling sound echoing across the room. 

The bell was like all the others that Sam had seen so far. A purely silver bell with a thin, six-inch-long handle poking from its top made from lacquered black wood. 

Seconds drew out after the last echo of the bell died away before finally, without fail, the door opened, and a maid trooped in elegantly. 

She was not one that Sam recognised even if he had seen all of them during his presentation, and depressingly, they did tend to blur together with their identical uniforms. Like all of the Maids, bar the Tantric, she wore the standard Maid’s uniform and was a pretty young woman roughly the same age as Sam himself. There was something oddly familiar about her though, an uncanny valley effect about her face with its large dark brown eyes, thick eyebrows and plump lips. 

“Thank you for joining us, Maid Dorothy,” Trisha greeted, receiving a crisp curtsey in response. “An auspicious opportunity for any Maid to aid in her Lady’s education.”

“Yes, Governess Moore,” Maid Dorothy replied, giving both of them a beaming smile that was all teeth. She spoke with a clearly American accent that had a light warmth to it that reminded Sam of classical film. Dorothy turned her attention squarely on him and said, “It is an honour to do you service, my Lady.”

“Uh-m,” he cleared his throat, “yes. Thank you, Dorothy.” The servile woman beamed at his comment, making Sam feel incredibly awkward again.  

Standing from her chair, Trisha positioned Dorothy in the middle of the open space and asked her to pull her hair to the side and pull her ears forward. The Maid complied instantly, exposing the backs of her ears to the now bewildered Sam.

“Hazard a guess as to the mechanics of the Service Bells, Lady Carmilla?” Trisha asked her ward, standing beside the Maid, entirely focused on Sam.

“Uhhm,” Sam awkwardly began, suddenly feeling much more self conscious by the new Maid’s presence even though she couldn’t see him. He unearthed his half backed guess from prior days, “The bells are electrical and when one is rung, it connects to some kind of switchboard.” he explained. 

A small nod was given in reply from the gladdened Governess, “Half marks. You touch on the general area but miss the depth of the truth.” she said. Unhooking the crop from her side, she tapped the end of its slapper to the back of Maid Dorothy’s ears. “Every Maid at Eden’s Rest has a pair of subdermal speakers implanted in the tissue at the base of their ears. When a Service Bell is rung, the chime will be immediately played directly into the ears of whichever Maid is geographically closest to the one who rings it. As a result, they always know where to go and there is always someone close at hand.”

Horror gripped Sam, a sudden torrent of shock and dread. In retrospect, it made his prior interactions with the Maids and their hearing ‘phantom calls’ make sense. Trisha pushed on, dipping a hand into her jacket pocket.

“Explanations are best underscored with demonstrations, so let’s acquaint you with how intricate the system can be.” A length of cloth was pulled from Trisha’s pocket as she signalled for Dorothy to face Sam again. She quickly used the cloth to blindfold the woman before plugging each of her ears with the earplugs that had been wrapped in the cloth.

Effectively deaf and blind to the outside world, Dorothy remained at parade rest while Trisha took up the Service Bell again. 

“The sequence and frequency of your chimes can be used to impart information to the Maid of what you need of them. Observe.” Trisha said before holding up the bell for Sam to see and beginning a series of nuanced movements to get the bell to ring in a certain way. Staccato series of tinkling sounds interspersed with forceful chimes as her fingers danced up and down the handle. 

In truth, it just sounded like a hail of noise to Sam, he couldn’t even begin to fathom what was being asked. But the bell was set down and Dorothy removed her blindfold and earplugs.

“What was asked of you, Maid?” The bespectacled woman demanded, hoping to impart to Sam that it was okay to be callous from time to time with the staff.

It took the space of one blink for Maid Dorothy to answer, “You asked for my attention, that you require my assistance, that the assistance pertained to more than just you, Governess Moore, and that it has no predetermined end.” She listed off to a knowing Trisha and flabbergasted Sam.

“Good. Please leave the room and wait outside until you are called in again.” Trisha said dismissively, and the Maid excused herself with a curtsey, leaving Sam alone once again. The moment the door shut, Sam found himself both relieved and ill at ease. 

“So much information… it’s insane.” he said, Trisha returning to her seat beside him and replacing the bell on its plate with the other.

“Indeed. The system is very intricate, and the language of chimes has complexities to it that take time to understand. But I have faith you will meet my expectations.” Trisha said with a genuine tone of encouragement that sent Sam reeling. The auburn-haired woman tapped the top of the Service Bell she had just used. “Almost every room at Eden’s Rest possesses at least one Service Bell placed within it. Each is keyed to a unique note that will tell the attending Maid which room the sound is coming from.”

Sam looked at the bell before his attention swept to the other one. They were almost identical but possessed a brown wooden handle with silver filigree set into the wood. “What about that one?”

Trisha picked up the bell and turned it to show him, revealing that it had a gold clapper. “This is your personal Service Bell. While it can be used to summon the closest Maid, it is also directly keyed to your Lady’s Maids. No matter the distance, if you ring this one, they will come to attend you.”

She passed him the bell, and Sam looked down at it like it was some kind of strange new lifeform that might shatter if he held it too hard. Trisha sighed, “Well give it a wave, Lady Carmilla.”

Looking between the two of them, Sam cautiously rang the bell, its chime ringing through the classroom. Seconds passed, Trisha’s eyes boring into his soul. God, what he wouldn’t do for- ‘Wait,’ he turned his head to look at the door. It remained closed and unmoving. Trisha watched, seeing the gears turn in his head. “She’s not coming in. Did I do it wrong?”

“Yes on both counts, my Lady. Bravo for realising; I was afraid I’d have to lead you by hand.” extending her hand, the Governess took hold of the hand that held the bell and began to carefully shift the position of his fingers along the wooden handle, pressing some in and pushing some out. “There is a pressure sensor in the handle. You must hold it correctly for the transmitter to activate.”

She made him do it again, this time with a precise, ‘limp-wristed’ movement. Sam would never admit it, but he was happy when the door opened a few seconds later, and Maid Dorothy reentered.

“You summoned me, my Lady?” the House Maid asked.

Trisha preened, “Yes she did, Maid, yes she did.”

He looked down at the bell, turning it lightly between his fingers. The twenty-two-year-old sissy did not like anything about this, but there was a strangely banal comfort that came with the fact that he had witnessed his action having some consequence. Perhaps it was because, for the first time since he had awoken strapped to that chair, he had some tiny, infinitesimally small control over what happened. It was barely anything… ‘but it’s a start,’ he thought, resolve hidden deep at his core. 

But the more he thought about it, the more he was left conflicted. 

Seeing the confliction, Trisha changed tac, deciding to lighten the load as it were. “While the ‘language of chimes’ is developed enough to commune intent, usually it is better to summon a member of staff and tell them your intent directly.”

“Why?” Sam asked honestly.

It was Maid Dorothy who answered.

“Because it is not a servant’s place to assume she knows what her Lady needs her for, only that she is needed and must attend.”

Sam looked up at the Maid, seeing the simple yet powerful conviction in her eyes, simply stating a fact of how the world worked. “Please leave, Dorothy.”

Maid Dorothy offered a curtsey and left, leaving Sam and Trisha alone again. 

Sadistic glee arched like phosphorescent lighting within the Governess, a lesson had been learned here and a strong emotion with it. It would hew itself into her ward and even if he rebelled against it, he could never shake the emotions and knowledge that he had learned it. 

“Let’s change tack.” Trisha took back the bells and returned them to the Lectern cupboard before rapping her crop against the blackboard, “Now starts the meat of the lesson.”

Leaning back into his chair, Sam read off the large block capital title written over everything that Trisha had written on the board while they had been testing. 

SYLLABUS

-Etiquette and Graces

-Scholarly Pursuits and Intellectual Acumen

-Household Responsibilities

-Ladyship Acclimatisation

-Victorian Adaptation and Tuning

-Wifely Skills and Pastimes

“During your time under my tutelage, your syllabus can be broken down into six overarching areas. 1)” Trisha wrapped her crop against the board again beside the first of the six elements, “Etiquette and Graces: How to walk, talk and act in given situations ranging from the banal to the extraordinary both in the capacity as a Lady of the aristocracy and as Mistress Victoria’s wife.” she dragged the slapper away and struck it against the blackboard again on the second line, causing Sam to flinch. “2) Scholarly Pursuits and Intellectual Acumen: Building and refining of your existing knowledge base and new topics in accordance with both self-betterment and your wife’s wills and desires.”

He listened to his Governess as she explained, her intentionally vague wording holding just enough information to leave him with an inkling of what it could entail but a forebodingly lacking indication of what it could include. 

“3) Household Responsibilities: Learning the goings on of Eden’s Rest and how to navigate your position as Lady of the House. 4) Ladyship Acclimatisation: Acclimatising to the body, mindset and responsibilities as the Lady of Eden’s Rest.” Trisha pointed at Sam with the crop before making a sweeping gesture over the entire room, a grand movement to include all he saw of the antiquated classroom into her diatribe. “5) Victorian Adaptation and Tuning: Introducing Victorian elements - either verbatim from the period or improved - to your repertoire or tuning your existing likes and pastimes into a more Victorian mode.”

She was in motion then, turning in such a way that her jacket’s tails flared out behind her, almost ruffling in an impossible wind, a flair of theatrics to hammer home the last point, professional smile in place and eyes shimmering with restrained excitement. “6) Wifely Skills and Pastimes: ” the older woman chirped, a knowingly sultry undertone to the way she rumbled the words, thick with dictatorial predation. “Practices that reflect being a woman in all ways, and those most wifely duties of all…” A thought struck Trisha, inspiration that was quickly woven into her words. “All my lessons, tasks and projects can fall within, to borrow your family’s floral parlance, these six petals.”

Sam let his head fall to rest against his chest, overwhelmed by all of this. The fact that Trisha claimed to have fashioned a whole educational course for something so… twisted. So much room to go wrong, downing him in a sea of details and nuance. He suddenly stopped, unable to lower his head any further, something obstructing his path.

Trisha gently lifted her crop’s slapper from where it rested under Sam’s chin, slowly levering his head up until he was forced to look up at her. She leant forward, lowering her face towards his while making sure she was just above him, forcing him to keep looking up at her. “Any questions, Lady Carmilla?”

The length of corded leather that made up most of the equestrian implement stretched out between both of their faces, separating them. Sam was held in place while Trisha had all the freedom in the world. Yet she maintained her position, not deviating even a millimetre to stare into his twinkling hazel eyes, watching the silk choke around his neck jump up and down when he gulped.

“Where do you even start?” he asked honestly. 

The pressure beneath his jaw persisted for a few seconds as Trisha scrutinised him before finally she pulled it away, “As with any newborn, walking and speech, the rest will follow.”

Bidding the surprised young man to stand, Trisha went to go retrieve something from the lectern as Sam slid the chair out from under himself.

Getting up slowly, he groaned at the stiffness and aches in his legs, the small flared heels on the boots sending sparks of aching pain up into his calves. He hadn’t realised how tiring it was to simply sit in the same place for so long. He was grateful for the chance to stretch them and tried to rub some life back into them through the floor-length skirt, shivering when he felt the smooth silk stocking beneath slide against his ministrations. 

He set those thoughts aside when Trisha cleared her throat. The blue-clad Governess held up a relatively small black book, and Sam’s face turned ashen, instantly grasping what she intended him to do.

“Grace is a facet of elegance, the light that shines through modesty. Grace must fill every breath you make and step you take. It is of paramount importance that you engrave it into everything you ever do.” Trisha told him, holding up the black book and balancing it on the tip of her finger. “Thankfully, this was a skill that the Victorians understood and developed into a simple-to-understand exercise. Book Balancing.”

Narrowing his eyes at the innocent-looking book, Sam once again became the personification of consternation. He knew what Book Balancing was, even with his fragmentary knowledge of his girlfriend’s namesake era. He’d seen the image dozens of times spread across media and mentioned as a joke in countless sketches. Aspirant women trying to walk ludicrous loops of their homes with a book wobbling atop their heads.

Trisha noted his slight visual tell and took it as a sign to continue, “It is also a simple way for you to become aware of your personal balance and how to maintain it on the move.” she said, Sam’s annoyance growing when she added, “A needed step right now because frankly, your posture is a travesty for a woman of the Peerage, married in or not.”

Sam scoffed, uncaring of the response.  “If I’m so unladylike, why do you still insist on making me one?” 

In retrospect, he shouldn’t have pushed his luck. All happiness fled from Trisha’s face before she marched towards him, rearing her free hand back and, with no warning, slapped him across the face.

“Agh!” he cried, his cheek stinging, raising his hand to the quickly pinkening flesh. A gloved hand locked around his wrist, the hide vice holding him tight. Trisha glared at him balefully.

“Do not forget your place, Lady Carmilla.” she voiced, words glacial despite the fire in her eyes. “Would you like another, or has the lesson begun to sink in yet?”

Sam bowed his head, cringing away from the dominant woman, his will crumbling. She was so much shorter than him but commanded an air that made him feel like the child she treated him as. “...Yes, Miss Trisha.”

“Good,” she stood on her tiptoes to lessen the height difference between them and placed the book on top of his head, making micro adjustments with her fingers until it remained still. “The important thing is to maintain your lateral stillness. Your corset should hold your spine to the correct position, so let it guide you.”

Content that the book wouldn’t fall despite the odd wobble from Sam shifting his weight between the heels, Trisha repositioned to the other end of the room, back to the blackboard. “The task is simple. Walk from one end of the classroom to the other without letting the book fall. Begin.”

It seemed easy enough. He lifted his foot, long legs taking his first step-

‘Click-clak’ THUD!

The book tumbled from his head and hit the floor with a horrid bang.

Brown eyes stared at him through glass lenses, “Pick it up and start again.” Trisha said in a clipt voice, mentally counting the first of what would turn out to be many, many failures. 

The next twenty minutes could be accurately described as ‘trying to unlock a door with numb fingers.’ you knew what you had to do, and the task itself was seemingly easy, but there was always something that caused a spectacular failure. For Sam, it was getting used to the change in gait that came with walking in heels, even in ones as short as the ones on his boot. For whatever reason, he kept putting his heel down second, causing his entire body to shudder just enough to dislodge the book from his head.

He was not left ignorant for long with Trisha being all too happy to call out instructions, tips and orders from the sidelines. Eventually he was able to consciously force his legs to make the correct ‘heel to toe’ motion, his heels making a clear ‘click’ underfoot as he was able to finally get from one side of the room to the other with the book in place.

“Again.”

He grumbled under his breath, turning around and beginning another slow and stilted click-clack walk across the hard wooden floor.

Every action was observed and committed to memory by Trisha who now walked alongside her ward, waving her crop like a marching band’s drum major. She internalised that this simple action was operating under the progressive overload. Go until the skill in its current state is natural before increasing the load and stipulations. It was going to be hard work, but her ward had taken the first steps.

Without consciously noticing it, Trisha smiled in sadistic enjoyment, basking in the truth she lived by. ‘People doing what they are told is their own reward.’