*I just couldn´t resist and had to post it on this special day. Enjoy!*
**Jenine**
Quenching of my thirst brought me the satisfaction big enough to forget the bargain about my life. Now the sleep might cure me a little too. I was the last to go to bed and obviously I am not going to move an inch, just like Barbara and Ms. Kelly. Zita´s head with honey hair was retracting and ejecting for some reason and Ms. Hamilton was wiggling all the time. Yes, I was asleep just as I covered myself.
I woke up still in the total dark. All the dreams forgotten, as my usually are. I have seen Ms. Hamilton was rolling from side to side, obviously unable to finally rest. Others were deeply asleep, in fact, Barbara was snoring loudly. Even from my bed I could see through the window the distant line of other rooms in the mass of Princess Tower, illuminated on more than one place by the lights switched on. Was this time of the reveille? It looked too irregular for that. But then, would it be tolerated too much in advance?
Today I must obey them, so it seems I´m afraid, scared even! The plan from now on will rely on the ties between inmates. They want us to work? We must cooperate then! Diligence of the good might prove to lead to undoing of the wicked. I got up and took a few necessary steps to Hamilton and poked her.
“We two are the strong ones”, I said carefully. “We will lead them.” I pointed to the other beds and then did a sign with three fingers. “In the time there will be more of us.”
Hamilton was now half-sitting.
“Just bring me an axe. Or at least hammer.”
“Maybe I could give you hammer and a sickle.”
“Are you a communist?”
“No and you know that! I was sorta libertarian. You see, that´s why I liked these guys at the start….” I looked up to the ceiling. “They are libertarian in many things.”
“Except of one matter.”
I grinned. “A little one.”
Hamilton yawned.
“Senator, my head aches and feet are tingling. Help me to the bathroom please!”
She hanged under my arm and limped a few times along the way. She seemed however doing better once I switched the light on and Hamilton herself was able to open the medicine chest.
“Hey, look, almost expired!”
She wasn´t pointing to expiration date. For some reason Hamilton was tapping on the middle in the word “ibuprofen” and then on the beginning of “pills”. Two P´s? Or just one?
She swallowed her medicine and returned with me, in much more fit state.
“Listen, Senator. I know you imagine we´ll crush Tower into pieces. But I must assure you, we can´t do much more than enjoy this room´s view from the window and have a fun with rock-paper-scissors. That will be the good way to use our privacy, not conspiring with the cows like these. Learn the drill, that´s precisely what food´s preparation might be about. I hope you understand me.”
I nodded, because I hoped so. I tried to remember all the P´s: Pieces-Paper-Privacy-Precisely-Preparation. She wants to use the kites and she thinks that homemaking will be good opportunity for their delivery.
“OK”, I started to work on an answer “I don´t want to make problems. Providing they will not harm us, I will not demand even a simple pencil.”
Hamilton barked a laugh.
“Now, look at how practical are these….”
She quickly dressed into that monstrous green skirt and old fashioned colourful blouse and made a few swift movements around the room. Yes, I could imagine they could provide a cover for lots of messages. Though not in her blouse, which was stretched by those breasts enormously. Now Hamilton returned to the bathroom, where she started to tear up more toilet paper than one person should naturally need.
This made me excited for the new daring move. Also mischievous for this pretending-to-be-a-good-girl as I touched the buttons on the old fashioned blouse of my own. We two conspirators need our entourage to act the same. I had to do a lot of shaking up with both Zita and Barbara before they woke up. “Big aunties are dressed up and the hour is near. Let´s make oppressors satisfied for once.” Ms. Kelly´s sleep was interrupted by my voice alone. Nobody hasted from their bed, but everyone surprised wardens, as five figures with the housewife image were looking innocent, as if contemplating only about making their room even more beautiful.
I experienced my first visit of the dining hall and I was struck by the rural visage of this section with large wooden tables and benches in an oblong-shaped space. What seemed a little inappropriate was ironically quiet meditative music evoking anything but busy interior with so many people. Hey, bastards! Haven´t you captured some singers, so they could waste their lives and talents here?
No matter what they were doing previously, now were people around mostly mute ragdolls, sometimes clumsy in their new skirts. I looked at my little pack, prepared to be their “coordinator”, if “leader” was too much to ask.
“Sit here little cubs, Ms. Hamilton, you and Ms. Kelly can go to the right…”
Before I could finish the simple instruction, warden near our group whispered something to the former detective. “Oh, excuse me, girls… I will receive my last piece of Mud Queen reward. There during breakfast on Whoretable.” She pointed to distant row of women who had separate chairs and an awesome broad tablecloth.
“Enjoy your company, Madame! Just go back to decent girls ASAP! Prepare yourself for a lot of discussion since we have no post office!”
Rest of us found the places with backs facing tall barred window through which only night darkness was seeping. The others of the pride obediently took their seats on my left side. On the other side there was eating couple of blondes, possibly sisters. Individual rations were consisting from plate with two French bread rolls, yogurt and a small dish of salad.
“Lettuce with tomatoes! Did they run out of meat from yesterday?”
“Tomatoes are very healthy”, objected Zita.
“And what are they curing?”
“I think they are preventing testicular canc…”
I gave her a look. Bread rolls were the least objectionable. I used half of the yogurt on the salad which made my spoon only a little quicker.
“Try to imagine you are a courageous astronaut, relying on tasteless basics”, said Zita.
“Or anxious ballerina”, suggested Ms. Kelly.
“Before bulimia issues”, added Barbara.
From my reluctant eating, only the rest of the yogurt was spared in a moment and Hamilton, holding a gift basket, returned with a company. Girl of Asian ethnicity, made strange in this outfit, whose hair ended just above her behind.
Oh, the other Majesty!
“Hi, I´m Nicole. Stacey invited me to your party.”
“Welcome, Nicole. If your roommates won´t miss you…”
“I can´t sit with them, they are right there.” She pointed back to the “Whoretable” and sounded embarrassed. She wasn´t very confident even when she introduced herself. We are in for a case of some messed up soul. Anyway, she shook the hands and learned the names of the rest of our group. Wardens took hers and Stacey´s baskets. I´ll discover the exact contents in the evening, I guess.
Music has been stopped by the loud gong. Aware of the clear meaning, we stood up as one woman. The distant wall just screeched massively as someone from the other side pushed it´s middle and the smell of the unprocessed food invited us to the labour.
The phrase “too many cooks in the kitchen” usually tells you something about the shoddy production of future mismanaged product. Not about the stress of the participants in the very literal case.
We have been divided into trios per small section, me being sorted with our two underages. Hamilton, Ms. Kelly and Nicole were working in the eyeshot. Separation by tables of matting glass wasn´t sufficient prevention from us bumping into each other when we wanted to breath.
Occasionally we misheard or mistook instruction addressed to somebody else. Not surprising, since our tutors were mostly grotesque matrons in white without any culture, whose most polite words sounded like “Haveyousomethingwithyourhandsdumbidiot?!”, if somebody splashed the water with bunch of sausages by throwing too much of them at once. Hey, they are getting ready, that´s what matters. A much quieter, but nevertheless obstacle represented men with cameras on their shoulders, supposedly coming from the other side of the ocean on the behalf of BBC, making documentary about our harmonic simple lives, but also supposedly helping to edit our personal files for later usage. All in all, I think having a house in the neighbourhood of an airport and backyard full of shifting sand would make more bearable habitat.
Amidst the over flooding smell and noise , I did a disoriented dance, pretty sure clumsiness will get me into trouble. It came to pass thanks to the future omelette. I was terrible with the estimation of oil that I had to partially pour back from the pan and the egg was slippering between my fingers constantly. Thank heavens I had Zita on my side. With the words “I used to help mom all the time” she started to demonstrate and patiently let me to repeat it, so everybody saw I´m learning. I heard Hamilton laughing as soon as the girl volunteered. Barbara, always looking like she is interested only in the result of the cooking, showed herself as master chopper of the garden crass. It was wise decision not giving the knife to me.
Putting the bread and the apples into the toaster finished our breakfast duty and some of us were chosen as the waitresses. As I suspected they were serving heirs in utterly different dining hall. We who stayed, got a snack task – marble cake. Our ovens were switched on for some minutes already and this was easy for anyone, who knew how to mix the ingredients in their right respective amount.
I wish I was a quicker learner… ¨
They brought us single cookbook that we were shifting from group to group, given promise that we will spend some time in homemaking library later. For now we had just one shot. So yeah, open your boxes for more eggs, some sugar, flour, baking powder.
I had mixed it in a bowl as best as I could and beat it, probably slower than I should. I hated greasy stuff on my fingers and between my knuckles, I was using the stirring spoon more as a stick for driving away dirty creature. I had to look away. What an imbecile circular movement for the arm!
“Could you give there even less flour?”
Not sure, but afraid it was addressed to me, I looked down. “Ups” doesn´t begin to cover it. While I should have semi-solid circle filling blend, I was poking like a puddle of powdered yolks. I must be still confused ever since we switched to the metric system. Zita at the oven peeked and bulged her eyes.
“I am blind, am I not? I´ll…”
“More like dumb to watch.”
“I would say too clever to cooking:”
The choleric cook behind just turned me in moment and pushed my torso across the link.
She stepped on my skirt so it sticked to my bottom. I expected she will take the stirring spoon, but actually it was white chopping board and used it without overdue on the both buttocks. The world has not seen mine hands, but they were clenched in fists!
THUD! THUD! THUCRACKK!
Muscles on my ass felt broken and the final stroke made even wood of the board to give up. She threw the bigger and smaller pieces to my feet and let me to complete that dull marble cake with seriously stinging body, cursing myself, maybe for the simple fact that I had to attract an attention again. Or maybe it´s a good thing I´m taking it away from Hamilton?
She seemed to be on the track with her intentions, because I heard her asking: “Will we be allowed to write some recipes down?”
“That´s the point of the library”, responded someone, with a little less anger in her voice this time. Awesome. I believe Hamilton will be making a lot of side notes of personal nature.
We had to go to Homemaking library as soon as the last marble cake started it´s 30- minutes stay in the oven. And it was pretty place that actually reminded me the college years. There was still too many of us, but we could manoeuvre between the tables and the shelves where one could plethora of books for housewives, as well as magazines, sometimes very old about this subject. We were given the short paper with a list of eight foods, supposedly the menu for tomorrow’s lunch and dinner. Find in the cookbook, write in the exercise book, be prepared to make any of it the following day. I had to do it all standing, after those whacks I could barely bend. During the writing by pen on the ball chain I hoped that my roommate´s opportunity will not be wasted. Exercise books were once again sent to our place by proxies.
I haven´t got any message as we were returning to the kitchen. Good sweet Lord, freedom fighters must learn some patience.
And now, for the third time, we had to suffer words of that stupid spokeswoman. I don´t know where the author of my speeches was, but I wish he was working for the Brotherhood. Honestly.
“Breakfast of today was appreciated. Even after your service, our visitors could not tell the difference! We are sure that even your marble cakes will taste good, but we are curious about more detailed opinions so that we can update the curriculum. You see, we have opened guest books today, therefore you will be held accountable with marks given you by men. Practice that will, after all, continue even after your release and in the case of your insufficiency, we will see you here again. Now you will be divided to assistance among our cleaning service and given the sector to cultivate.”
The cleaning lady Felicia might have been the nicest female collaborator around. If I made a peace with the way she treated me like her niece, when I felt as babysitter myself next to this petite child-like creature. I had to be grateful when using vacuum cleaner on the corridor or filling our buckets with the new water, so her voice was drowned out. However when I was hysterically trying to get the results by the mop or the toothbrush…
“Oh, Jen, I´m not sure, how many friends you have out there, but I have about dozen of pals back in town and I am dazed I can´t talk to them! They took away my cell phone, I can´t know the Wi-Fi password…. My folks can write to the Directory, but I can´t ask them a damn thing! I am here for two weeks now and I don´t know if they caught some new kind of flu… and I have only three books here. Have you some with you too?”
Trying to spread the detergent on the pipe by the small cloth, with the slightly wrecked body, I was absorbing the ignorance slowly.
“No, we were told only books from the libraries would be allowed to us.”
“I can lend you all of mine.”
I thanked her without asking what they are. Like she wouldn´t get us both into trouble.
The smell of cleaning is sometimes worse than sight of the dirt. I was thinking about pulling Felicia into my life.
“What I used to do wasn´t so physically demanding, but I had to make uneasy decisions. Geez, the last year this month we were in the Senate discussing Trade Unions responsibility Act and some people like me were unsure about consequences. You know, the eternal conflict, because employers will be satisfied, but what will be for the bigger happiness of the employees in the long run, that´s not so certain. I told them we must give people some limits on both sides and…
“You have voted for it?”
“Yes.”
“You were stupid.”
I had a gloves, so no fingerprints, but murder case investigation would be short.
I was glad we weren´t part of a room service. If guests were in the vicinity, it would turn into cascade of groping. Even seeing them how they do this to Felicia would make me sick.
End of the shift meant assigning me to the outdoor crowd near tha plantat… I wanted to say the garden beds. Once again in groups of three or four people we had a common task, this time preparing the new generation of potatoes. I don´t like them much more than vegetables from breakfast, so now I am possibly forging my own chains. We digged up about dozen trenches and could cut grown up pieces and planting with their eyes facing the sky. In this line of work, people blended, so in order to look for my roommates, I would have to go astray from the given bed. Still, I think I´ve seen Ms. Kelly, putting the pieces in trenches very fast and sometimes with unfortunate missteps, frantically correcting them immediately. Leaving trenches covered, soil now looking just like it did before, our groups get larger, up to six women, charged with taking full flower pots from greenhouse to cart with separate shelves. We rode them towards empty space between rock gardens, just on the threshold area of the main building. I´ve reached for the hand shovel at least conscious that I´ll make area a little prettier.
Inmates and wardens all around out, I´ve noticed unmistakable hair of working Nicole. I managed to sit down and engrave under me, sure she will hear my whisper from there.
“I hope they haven´t tortured you already, too.”
She looked astonished, but her nose and eyes stayed in the pelts of marigold flowers.
“They didn´t have to… This is the second day and I understand everything. I… have actually a lot of basic points now. I think if I will behave, not just they will spare me the worst, but maybe they will even let me send a message to my fiancée. Wish me good luck, Jenine!”
She used her shovel to rid of some smaller stones in her way.
“I should wish you to be good girl and let them defeat you? Because of some guy you say is better than them? Lose you illusions Nicole! I´m married, but I always knew my husband must report to me as his boss. If you let guys talk to each other, the first part of their programme is the wicked collective control of women! ”
“While I was growing up, I have never seen such a thing. Until these final years.”
“You should learn something then. About the vile institutions like The Girls’ Home on Sprogø in Denmark. Or The Magdalene Laundries in Ireland. And organized raping in Bosnia. Not to mention Comfort Women for Japanese soldiers.”
Nicole pushed and enlarged her hole quite a bit in one movement.
“Jenine, humans hurt other humans. Some patterns might be more frequent, but making ideology out of them means only spreading the poison.”
That angered me. “So we now live in a pattern. Perhaps! I just had a naive hope that we prevented another repetition!”
Even I must admit I overreacted and fell on my knees into the grass, again maintaining the illusion of constructiveness. This was simply meandering. More than once I leaned against the cart and pretended slight sickness, just not for longer than a minute at a time. When the women stared at me, I didn´t know if they recognised me or were concerned. Once my movements get really drunkard-like and I have almost dropped my two pots. And then passing inmate helped me, even get hold of my wrists, before I could sit on the ground. She was gone in an instant and I felt a little pressure behind both sleeves. I did a one deep hole in front of myself and let two pieces of toilet paper to lend there, then examining them when my hands were covered by flowers. One text was extremely short. It read: *I´ll try to get in rooms.* The Second had a small paragraph: *I infiltrated the room service and made friend with a maid. We found a crazy tech guy and distracted him. Maid disconnected him from the net and I did my best to memorise the password from the file. He does not care I am writing in his room. Now we need device and unmonitored place. We might try something after this on BDSM. Tear and eat this after reading.*
I complied with gusto. And it was marvellous to taste our success in secret. Hamilton, you have planted and cooked the best course of the day!
Source: reddit.com/r/sexystories/comments/ffhma9/the_princesses_in_the_tower_chapter_2_part_1