Irontown 1: Student Maids (7 page)

They snivelled and groaned, squirming in their bonds in shame as they instinctively tried to close their legs. None of them had ever seen their most intimate parts displayed like this before, like fleshy orchid flowers. Mel felt an additional blush of shame as she found her eyes lingering on the sexes of the other two. Bolt’s dark cleft was a little longer, she noticed, while Cam’s pouted a little more.

Bradawl spoke. ‘Gryndstone is Shackleswell’s school for lost girls, for that is what you are at the moment: lost, worthless, rubbish.’ He indicated the images of their genitals on the screen. ‘Right now those are the most interesting and useful parts of you. They can be used to give pleasure, as storage devices, anchoring sockets and, by the careful application of stimulation, a means by which you can be controlled. At Gryndstone we will teach you to use them and the rest of your bodies properly and productively. You will not graduate until you are all fit to live up to the new names you now bear and take your places as components of the greatest machine there is: Shackleswell itself!

‘I shall supervise your schooling and help teach you how to become fully functional girlcogs. The three of you will train, study, eat and sleep together as a unit. You will learn proper manners and deportment, how to work together efficiently, to give pleasure and above all…’ he glared at Bolt, ‘… you will learn how to obey without question. When you leave Gryndstone you shall be fit to serve in any capacity in Shackleswell.

‘Each of you has come here by different means and for different reasons. Those reasons you may wish to keep to yourselves for now, as do most of our girls, because they often involve personal hurt or shame, but there will come a time when you will have to face them.’

The three of them were still for a moment. We all have secrets, Mel thought.

‘The means, however, are more general,’ Bradawl continued smoothly. ‘Through agents countrywide we run the Shackleswell Project, which is a re-education and rehabilitation programme for young female offenders. Some think it is a soft alternative to prison and assume we are bunch of naïve do-gooders. As you can see this is not the case.’

Mel saw Bolt stiffen in her chair.

‘A variation of this programme is also offered for those who have had problems and setbacks in their lives and who are looking for a fresh start. Of course they also are destined for Gryndstone.’

Now Cam turned her head aside.

‘Then there are those who are simply escaping from something without any clear destination. We have an understanding with certain commercial drivers to look out for runaways who fit our criteria and bring them here.’

Mel sagged. That was how it happened. The lorry driver had seemed so sympathetic she had mentioned she had family problems and admitted she was heading for London with no plans. It had not been chance the local police were waiting to arrest her on a trumped-up charge. She had been so naïve…

‘You may be wondering how long we can hold you here. The answer is as long as we wish and you require. We will make arrangements for you to send messages to friends or families assuring them you are well, so no alarm will be raised. We also have countrywide contacts in influential positions who support our work and record of success turning wild girls into respectable citizens. Local authorities are glad to save themselves the time, money and aggravation involved in caring for troublesome girls. As long as certain paperwork is correctly filed they’ll happily forget they exist. So you see nobody is going to rescue you from Shackleswell. Perhaps you don’t deserve to be rescued.

‘You are all in your varied ways victims of cowardice and failure to face your problems or try to improve your circumstances. Many other girls of your age have suffered as you have and they do not all end up where you are now. Your worst crime is that you’ve given up on yourselves! We’re the only people left to care about you because we see you as a valuable resource going to waste. Therefore, since you have forfeited your right to self-determination, we have assumed it for you. We have the means to mould you into better, more useful, civilized, beings, both mentally and physically. Some girls come to us who have been abusing their bodies with junk food, drugs, drink and tobacco. All that stops here. You, like they, will live healthy lives and put your bodies to a better use. You will learn how to become the well-oiled cogs of society and not grit in its bearings. We shall give you a sense of purpose and pride in yourselves. Your training will be hard but the method is proven. We’ve had plenty of opportunity to refine it. Shackleswell has been taking in and correcting wayward girls for over a hundred and fifty years. You might say our town was built on the bodies of young women...’

Bradawl tapped his laptop and the image on the screen changed to show a stark black and white photograph of a stern-faced man with mutton-chop side-whiskers and a stiff white collar.

‘This is William Samuel Rowland: 1819 to 1884,’ Bradawl said. ‘He was a Victorian inventor and freethinker who built much of Shackleswell and its industry so successfully that for a short time during the mid-Nineteenth Century…’ he paused and quickly touched a key on his laptop.

Mel’s body arched against its straps as shocks stabbed through her nipples like hot needles, turning them into beacons of pain that radiated electric fire through her breasts. She bit down on the bar of rubber filling her mouth as a shameful wail of pain was forced out of her. Her hands clenched, driving her nails into her palms, and her creamy breasts shivered violently. On either side of her Bolt and Cam were suffering the same agonies. She heard a hissing sound. Cam was peeing into her bucket. The pain ceased abruptly and Mel sagged in her bonds, blinking tears from her eyes while her nipples throbbed and tingled. Saliva and teardrops ran down her chin and dripped onto the upper slopes of her heaving breasts.

‘You may have found history lectures boring in the past, Bolt 184,’ Bradawl said severely, ‘but you will pay attention to this one and not look away again. As I have already made clear, disobedience, inattention or poor performance from any one of you brings down punishment upon you all. Do you understand?’

They all nodded miserably, although Bolt did so only with an effort.

Bradawl resumed his lecture with their eyes now glued to the screen. ‘As I was saying, during the Nineteenth Century Shackleswell rivalled Sheffield in the production of industrial machine parts, for which it won the nickname “Irontown”…’

The images on the screen changed to show stages in the growth of Shackleswell with factories springing up, and houses and roads spreading out from its centre. As they flashed before them Bradawl touched another key on his laptop and Mel felt the vibrator head rising up in its mount and begin to slide through her gaping sex, stroking her clitoris as it pulsed and buzzed softly. From the squirms the other two were making it seems they were feeling the same thing. What sort of game was this?

‘Rowland embodied both radical thinking and conservative and, by modern standards, highly chauvinistic ideals,’ Bradawl said. ‘In common with most Victorians he believed men were inherently superior to women. It was how he applied such beliefs to his business plans that made him unique. He was concerned about the number of men had been killed fighting in foreign wars and feared what would happen to his remaining workers if another war depleted their numbers further. He needed a stable workforce he could rely on.

‘He also hated to see any resource go to waste, such as potential workers being unproductively locked in jail for minor crimes. These he blamed partly on poor social conditions but mostly on an excess of drink and frustrated sexual desire. If the intake of one could be diminished and the other more easily satisfied, he reasoned, this would lead to a stable society and a contented and more productive workforce. Pub opening hours in what was virtually his own town could be controlled and prostitutes could always be hired, however, he hated the squalid nature of the profession. He believed sexual activity could be regulated and controlled by more orderly and rational methods.

‘Rowland began a series of experiments that would solve all his problems. He demonstrated that on the small scale and over relatively short distances, the human body was a very flexible, efficient and non-polluting power source when coupled with suitable mechanical systems. He also discovered that though they were physically weaker than men, females were easier to train to function in this way, as long as they were properly prepared mentally and physically. Rowland did not approve of corsets, believing they damaged female health and decided their figures, strength and endurance could be improved and maintained by proper exercise and a healthy diet. Any clothing might catch in machines so it was removed. For the same reason the hair on their heads was kept short or tied back while their pubic hair was completely removed. A naked body could be more easily assessed for its health, simplified punishment if it was required and also helped keep women in a proper mental state of submission and obedience.

‘Gradually he developed a system of manufacturing and distribution based upon girl-powered and operated machines. He called these girls: “gynaetomatons” or “gynatons” for short, meaning a woman who performed actions mechanically and precisely as required. They could be used to power many different devices…’

A new picture appeared showing Rowland seated in a light cane chair that rode upon a box frame with a single tiller-controlled wire-spoked steering wheel at the front and two larger drive wheels at the back. Sandwiched between the upper and lower faces of the frame were two naked women. They lay side by side on their backs with their heads facing forward and were held in place by heavy buckled straps about their necks, waists and arms. The framework was just deep enough to contain them except for their crooked knees that rose up through slots in the frame behind the driver’s seat. Their feet were strapped to pedals connected to the axle of the rear wheels. Their breasts protruded through smaller padded slots in the frame on either side of Rowland’s feet.

Mel felt the vibrator purr a little more strongly against her by now wet slot. Despite her fear and confusion she felt her clitoris pulsing in response. Stifled groans from the other girls suggested they were experiencing the same sensations, but they kept their eyes fixed on the screen.

‘The Twin-Gynaton-powered Gentleman’s Tricycle,’ Bradawl said. ‘A very efficient device to use about town.’

Images of the bizarre vehicle from different angles appeared on the screen. Mel saw how the girls were controlled. Rowland’s feet rested on a sandwich of two light wooden boards linked by coil springs and hinge down one side. The lower board rested at an angle against the girls’ breasts where it was studded with small pyramidal metal spikes. A closer view of the middle of the board showed a small pair of metal balls on arms set on a vertical shaft with a lever linking it to the underside of the footboards.

‘This is a simple form of accelerator,’ Bradawl explained. ‘As the driver pressed his feet down, pushing the spikes onto their breasts, the girls were encouraged to pedal faster. The device carrying the twin balls is based upon Watt’s conical pendulum governor and was turned by a shaft driven by the rear axle. As it spun faster it pushed back on the lower board, compressing the springs and easing the pressure of the studs on their breasts. It was one of many such systems that rewarded effort and obedience from gynatons.’

The imaged changed to show the girls’ groins. Rods from the rear axle ran up between their legs to ribbed balls pressing into their vulvas. The vibrator buzzing away in Mel’s own groin speeded up again and she knew she was making it wet with her juices.

‘As you can see they were also directly rewarded for their exertions by sexual stimulation. Unlike many of his contemporaries, some of whom denied the female orgasm existed and were ignorant of the function of the clitoris, Rowland recognised the reality of female sexual arousal and developed a system of punishments and rewards using its power. He proved that suitable women could be conditioned to accept intimately merging with machines once their guilt about their responses was removed. The earlier they could be initiated into this process the better, of course…’

A new image had Rowland inspecting a row of naked and chained young women. Then they were shown being exercised on treadmills and squatting down on pistons lodged inside their rectums or vaginas to operate hydraulic pumps. Mel clenched about her anal plug in sympathy.

‘Rowland found a source of young female labour in prisons, offering to take suitable girls off their hands to serve in his factories. Hard work and corrective discipline were a punishment for whatever crimes they had committed and also a means of re-education. The stimulation they experienced enhancing their sexual responses and conditioning to obedience also made them ideal as a means of keeping the passions of his male workers satisfied. You may think this was cruel but life as a well-fed and exercised gynaton, encouraged to enjoy the pleasures of sex in a controlled and safe environment, was preferable to prison or even living freely in a city slum. At the end of their period of service gynatons also made capable and obedient wives.’

A new image appeared showing a naked girl strapped spread-eagled to a table with her legs supported in the air by heavy metal rods and braces in the act of being pierced. A series of close-ups showed variously sized rings, rods and chains being strung through the girl’s nipples and labia that were used to fasten her to various stanchions, levers and wheels.

‘It was discovered that piercings, apart from making girls easier to confine and control, when used to physically link them with the devices they were operating, gave them more satisfaction, both physically and emotionally. As we would put it now, it made gynatons feel empowered.’