A Sissy Saga Ch. 05

Miriam opened the door and poked her head through the gap into her daughters bedroom. "Sorry to call on you at such short notice darling, but the water boiler's buggered and I have no other choice but to ask Hardwick to go and have a look at it. I've no idea how long he's going to be, so could you take his first session?"

Jennifer roused herself from the book she was reading and sat up. Her ambition was to take a degree in psychology, but she was compelled to hang back from attending university until her mother's school was properly up and running and money became available. Although she had no fixed position in the hierarchy of instruction she had agreed to assist when she was needed, and that morning, feeling bored and trapped in the house like a fly in a jam jar, she was pleased to show just how useful she could be.

A short time later they walked across the outside yard and entered the gymnasium. At one time it had been the coach-house but recently it had undergone an extensive makeover. Miriam complained that it cost as much as all the other internal refurbishments put together. The original stone-flagged floor had been replaced by neat looking parquetry and while much of the equipment inside was second-hand the facilities it could now boast were as good as any top rank school in the land. All the fitness paraphernalia together with an ancient sit-up-and-beg piano that Hardwick used when conducting dancing lessons was pushed to the side, leaving the floor clear for the first period of the day.

"It's deportment training," explained Miriam, "You've done it before so I'm sure it won't give you any trouble."

The students were already in place and Jennifer eyed them speculatively. They stood in a neat line. Six of them. All good girls; fragile fairies as camp as a row of tents; all dressed identically in thigh-length picture frocks the colour of whitewashed peaches. The dresses were the approved garment for deportment training and the whole of each skimpy outfit looked like it weighed less than a ounce. The display of bare skin was extensive, their bodies showed little fat and looked warm and smooth, which belied the toned muscle Hardwick took care to develop in them. All as gay as springtime in Paris, she mused. Androgynous, almost angelic features atop trim bodies that displayed the kind of bare slender legs any real girl would kill for.

Miriam addressed them. "Now my pretties, be still whilst I introduce you to Jennifer. She as graciously agreed to fill in for Mr Hardwick whilst he his engaged in other vital work."

She smiled at her daughter. "They are all in the latest intake and you won't have met them yet." She indicated them with a wide swing of her arm. "Here we have Bambi and Zoë, Lulabelle and Jemima, and on the end, Fifi and Samantha."

Jennifer smiled politely. "They look sweet in their little frocks."

Her mother responded with a sharp nod of her head. "They have accepted their future so there shouldn't be any trouble. It's probably best if I just leave you with them or nothing will ever get done, I need to see if Hardwick as any idea of what he's doing."

There were times when it would seem an advantage to be a hard-faced harridan of forty, and Jennifer guessed this was one of them. These new first-termers didn't know her, so they would be assessing her at that moment, noting her youthfulness and estimating her abilities, and eventually they would think her too young to keep a grip on their behaviour. Young people could play havoc if not checked all the time and they would be reckoning her incapable of maintaining control. Vitally then, she had to put her stamp of authority on things. And it had to be done immediately.

The piano stool was butting against her knee. She waited until her mother had exited the room, then pushed it away with her foot and pointed to an individual on the end of the line. "Go and find me a proper chair."

While he went off to find something from a side room she held the others with her eyes, displaying no hesitancy, no giggles or ingratiating smiles, nothing that could be interpreted as weakness. When she spoke her words were deliberate and unfaltering, indicating utter self-assurance.

"You and I have to come to an understanding," she began, "We all need to know who is in charge here, and you have to know that it's me. I'm not a tutor and at first sight I may seem a slip of a girl whose demands can be easily dodged, but I can tell you I'm not inexperienced when it comes to calling the tune with boys in frocks."

The faces in her small audience drained of colour as the resonance of her voice beat against their ear drums. This girl was going to be no soft touch. Her intonations were of the kind that made dogs tuck their tails between their legs.

Samantha returned with a hefty hard-backed carver and placed it carefully behind her, but Jennifer remained standing as he rejoined the line.

"I'm stronger than any of you, more cunning than all of you." she went on, "I know all your tricks and I know all about the questionable little games you devise when unsupervised. I can be pleasant of beastly, warm or mean, everything depends on your willingness to comply with what I say."

Taking a step forward she glared at them, challenging them, intimidating them. Her greatest thrill was to dominate and she knew exactly how to do it. "Do you enjoy being girls?"

"Er...yes." volunteered Jemima.

"You should say, yes Jennifer. Using my name implies respect and I insist on respect."

She moved sideways and faced Zoë, an item as slender as a reed with a peaches and cream complexion. "Do you enjoy being a girl?"

"Please Jennifer, we're not real girls."

She had been about to move on, but the unexpected reply jarred with her and instead she slowly rounded on him. "Dear me. Here we have a little lady who's so sharp she may cut herself. I know what you are, you stupid, panty-freak, but you all dress like girls and look effeminate. You probably like gentlemen to admire you too. Do you? Do you enjoy being admired, Zoë?"

Zoë's face took on the colour of a turnip. Unable to form a safe answer and smashed by her fierce invective he looked down, contrite, while some of the others in the group sniggered.

"Just as I thought," sneered Jennifer, "You have no shame. You're all as girlish as pink cardigans. PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD - EVERYONE. Anyone else who comes up with a cleverer-than-thou notion had better watch out, because I'm in the mood to put their balls through a laundry mangle."

They all obeyed her without raising any protest. Aware now of her sharp temper and slightly afraid of it they gazed to their fronts and didn't even dare look her in the eye. Jennifer stalked round behind them, sensing their nervousness and enjoying it. Being a resident of Fairyfield was like trying to ignore the lyrics of a catchy song, she mused. One started out telling ones self the words didn't matter, but three lines in and any previous plan was forgotten and one settled into the comforting rhythm of the music. Innocent twinks were totally out of their depth in such a place. Here they became young men of straw who could be led, swayed, bamboozled or bullied, and with the appliance of the correct kind of discipline they settled down in a surprisingly short time.

She reflected on the perversity of the business her mother had established at Fairyfield, and she didn't wonder that it had aroused hostility from all the po-faced women in the district. After all, a sissy school could be construed as a sink of moral corruption and a haven for homosexual depravity.

Following a few minutes of silence everyone sharpened up perceptively and seemed eager to co-operate, and at last Jennifer seated herself regally in the carver. "Put your hands down by your sides. Show me how far you have progressed under Mr Hardwick's instruction. Form single file and circle the floor, then promenade towards me as if you were a debutante presenting yourself to the Queen."

She watched them intensely as they proceeded around the floor of the gym. It was easy to detect Hardwick's influence. Their way of strutting was based on the pas de bourree, a ballet movement were one foot is swiftly placed in front of another, and was an indication of the man's defunct career as a dance-master. Chorus-girl tap shoes were no real substitute for high heels, she thought, but for the moment they had to suffice. She made a mental note to suggest to her mother that each student should purchase a good pair of high-heel pumps from the monthly allowance their parents gave them.

"Walk towards me, be gracious, toes out, heads up, shoulders down." She sat admiring how they shook their slender hips and wiggled juicily as they turned towards her, just enough to make their meagre rehearsal skirts swirl and make a show of tight panties with plenty of cock-bulge in front.

"That's it. Tummy in, bottom nipped. Dip a little curtsy and swing to the side. That was good Lulabelle, but some of your friends haven't quite got the hang of it yet, so we'll try it again. Around you all go, and remember to swing your hips.

***

When she perched at one end of the sofa in the common-room at lunchtime Miriam Hancock took leisurely stock of the members of staff around her. They were a motley lot, for the most part other peoples rejects, but by some fluke of human chemistry they made her sissy-school work.

On her right sat matron, a tall, scrawny woman with a thin face always displaying a sour expression and looking as if she were perpetually sucking an acid-drop. She'd been Chief Nurse at a fashionable London clinic until accusations of some kind of medical malpractice caused her to seek isolation in the Yorkshire dales. There was no place for a full-time matron at Fairyfield, and she'd been taken on as a secretary, but old habits died hard with her, and she still relished every opportunity to slip on a white coat and play a medical role.

Sitting directly opposite to her Margaret Pardoe drummed the fingers of one hand impatiently against the knuckles of another. She was beyond the flush of youth and appeared plain and faded, but her features were so finely drawn her face seemed attenuated at times. Always dressed in neutral English good taste she was a handsome enough woman, though her head drawn up on a long neck like that of a duck gave her a disconcerting quality of indulgence. She appeared to endure life with laudable little fuss, but was a discouraging person to meet for the first time, seeming always to be smothering resentment at something or other. Maybe that was because she was a lesbian who had acquired a taste for putting her hand inside girls panties, and dealing with sissy-males was ultimately distasteful to her. Thankfully, the constant need to punish them alleviated some of the tension and consoled the hard feminist streak in her nature.

Mrs Pardoe was employed as a tutor despite having never qualified in anything other than some obscure exam in needlework. To her credit she had assisted faithfully when Miriam had been with the probation service in Harrogate, and having suffered some upset with the present administration there she'd been happy enough to serve her again when invited.

Cups and cafetieria rattling on a brass tray announced the presence of Gloria. Fat and shapeless, unrefined and unassuming, but always well organised. She had been nanny to Miriam's own children and had stayed on as housekeeper when that role ended. She had always been a broad-hipped woman and had grown larger with the years. She had a big bust and double chin and was immensely overweight, but gave an impression of physical warmth and richness of body. Now she managed the auxiliary staff on the ground floor with amazing efficiency - brutally some would say, since she was known to have thrown a woman who displeased her down a flight of steps.

If youth and beauty were needed to offset the lack of them in her other staff, Emma Twist had them to spare. She was young and pretty, and the only one in the room with academic training, but beneath her outwardly pleasant exterior brooded a dark kind of heartlessness. She enjoyed the role she'd been given probably more than anyone else there. Her perversity had already lost her a place in mainstream education, but her sadistic tendencies were compensated for in Miriam's eyes by other qualities. In a life without men she had the potential to be an endearing companion from time to time.

Her eyes shifted to the far end of the coffee-table around which everyone had gathered. There Mr Hardwick sprawled nonchalantly in a chair. When not wearing clothes suitable for the gymnasium he preferred to loaf about in an old jacket and trousers graced by slightly scuffed shoes. At forty-four Hardwick still carried the air of a juvenile lead, an impression emphasised by elegant mannerisms that bordered on the effeminate. He was the odd man out in more ways than one. Miriam would have preferred an all-female staff for her school, but Hardwick had fitted her requirements too perfectly when she'd recruited. Despite the premature peppering of greying hair on his temples he was a superb gym-instructor, and having spent many years with the Royal Ballet he was ideal to teach deportment and figure-training, subjects in her curriculum that were dear to her heart.

A special bonus with Hardwick was his lack of interest in anything outside the school, and he obliged by serving as a handyman-janitor in his spare time. He was also a pederast who delighted at being around boys in panties and was the reason he'd been prematurely 'retired' from his previous appointment. That only became a problem when it clashed with Margaret Pardoe's ultra-feminist views, and unsavoury as his appetite may have been to some people she could always be sure he treated the pupils as girls.

She waited for everyone to settle, then began. "The purpose of this meeting is primarily to do with Open Day. You'll recall the last time we met I outlined a proposal to promote our school at the end of this term in a way that would both thank our present sponsors and establish some rapport with new ones. Most of the visitors will be well appointed and affluent, and in my experience wealthy people demand to be humoured and flattered, so we must pull out all the stops to impress." She grinned, "At least until they're all too sozzled or stoned to know any difference. I'd appreciate your thoughts now you've had some time to think about it."

There was a pause. No one felt like being the first to start. Miriam looked towards the housekeeper. "Food, Gloria. Will we be able to feed people?"

"Aye, there's no problem wi' that Miss Hancock. A buffet can be delivered on whatever day you choose. The caterers just need confirmation a week in advance."

"Good! As for wine, one glass of Premier Cru will be sufficient for everyone on arrival, after which they must put up with more mundane things."

"The rooms needed for the displays you intend will need to be redecorated," said Emma Twist, "For the sake of economy I was thinking of extending the student's day and having much of the work done by them."

Mrs Pardoe sneaked a sideways glance at her, and then appealed to the headmistress. "A great deal of time will have to be spent on the costumes you want. I'll need to have my own pupils in compulsory detention until they're finished."

Miriam nodded. "If extra effort is required I see no reason why the girls should not be encouraged to make it. It can only enhance their character." She looked towards the end of the table. "And the aerobic display, Mr Hardwick. Is that in hand?"

The middle-aged man stopped lounging and leaned slightly forward. "In hand of course, headmistress, but with most pupils having to attend unremitting detention I fear for my rehearsal time."

Mrs Pardoe immediately took umbrage, interpreting his remark at a personal swipe at herself. "What kind of time do you need to teach them how to jump about and wriggle around? All you'll really suffer is less time to maul their bodies."

The man's eyes glared at her and just for a moment Miriam feared they would leap at each other in a spitting, tearing rage.

"Enough, Mrs Pardoe, I won't have my meeting turned into a cat-fight." She stared hard, and the other woman stared back with equal ferocity; in the past they'd conspired together in criminal debauchery of the most unacceptable kind, and they knew enough to have each other thrown into jail several times over. The exchange of glances became a duel of wills, and it was Mrs Pardoe who gave way. Instinctively she knew she was no match for Miriam. She had neither the wit or determination to use her knowledge properly, and she lacked the uncanny ability of the headmistress for wriggling out from tight situations.

"Mr Hardwick shall have his dancers," Miriam told her unequivocally, then to the gym-instructor she said, "Make your selection from wherever you wish, but those pupils not included from your own class will report to Mrs Pardoe or Miss Twist to make up their shortfall."

The man squirmed with dissatisfaction. "That will make things dashed complicated on occasions, headmistress."

"If there's a problem you must work it out, Mr Hardwick." she told him without compromise. She then added in a gentler tone. "By the way, we are all pleased to know you had success with the water boiler earlier. Without your efforts the house would have been full of unsavoury body pong by suppertime."

"There's something else that must be worked out," put in Emma, "I calculate we've not enough pupils to perform the number of activities you propose on Open Day. Some of them will need to be used two or three times."

Miriam gave a wan smile. "Then I shall rely on you, Miss Twist, to formulate an action-plan to accommodate that." She glanced from face to face. "Is there anything else?"

"Breasts, headmistress. We should have breasts."

A smile returned to Hardwick's face and everyone gazed at matron who had uttered her first words at the meeting. "Open day would surely be incomplete without one or two boys with proper breasts," she said, "But the oestrogen I dose into their food won't produce anything substantial by the end of term. I doubt any of them will have enough puppy flesh to fill a starter bra."

Matron was keen on breasts, and it was she who administered the hormone cocktails that would eventually make the boys into hot teenage she-males with a talent for waving their soft, round sissy bottoms at men.

"What are you advocating, matron?" asked Miss Hancock.

The other woman gave a rare smile. "In London I had a great deal of experience with breast enhancing surgery, and on several occasions I performed it myself without supervision while the physicians sat in their office-suites totting up fat fees. I know where to obtain the silicon implants, and there's plenty of room in the east wing where ..."

"No, no matron, you're going too far." Miriam interrupted, "Even if such a thing could be made safe my budget for this year couldn't sustain what is certain to be an expensive business." She glanced towards Mr Hardwick, "Surely there must be exercises that will encourage breast development."

"I'll - er - look into the matter." he replied noncommittally.

Matron retreated back into disgruntled silence, and Miriam took another look around. "Anything else before we close the meeting?"

Being the newcomer Emma Twist sought to establish herself by saying something at this stage. "The pupils are hard to settle at night. The rule about asking permission to play with themselves is constantly flouted, they're forever flitting between each others beds, and the prefects not only tolerate it but often join in."

"And what would be your remedy for all this misbehaviour?" Miriam asked.

Emma felt all eyes turn in her direction, and she sat forward in her seat. "Male hormones are the villains here, so the occupants of each dormitory should be paraded after showers each evening and compelled to masturbate to a conclusion under the supervision of a stern overseer."