St Catherine’s Academy (F+/FF)
Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2025 10:07 am
At St Catherine’s Academy for wayward girls , young 18+ females who have failed in their rich parents eyes are given strict reeducation and adhere to strict uniform rules as per a 1950s Boarding School.
The intercom buzzed twice—short, sharp, like a slap. Headmistress Graves never buzzed more than twice.
"Miss Langley, report to my office immediately." The voice crackled, icy enough to frost the brass microphone. Two girls stiffened in the hallway, their starched collars grazing their chins as they exchanged glances. Freshmen. Their fingers trembled where they clutched their regulation binders. They knew what those steel poles were for, even if they hadn’t earned the privilege of seeing them in use yet.
The oak door groaned open before Sophie’s knuckles could touch it. Inside, the scent of lemon oil and something darker—old leather, perhaps—clung to the air. Headmistress Graves’s desk gleamed under the low lamplight, empty except for a single file stamped *CONDUCT: UNSATISFACTORY* in red. Sophie’s throat tightened. She’d seen that stamp before, on Lillian’s records the day they’d hauled her out of Latin class.
"Ah. Prompt." The headmistress didn’t look up from her ledger, her fountain pen scratching across the page. The silence stretched, broken only by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner. Sophie counted the seconds. Twelve. Thirteen. Her knees threatened to lock.
Then, the pen stopped. Graves lifted her chin, revealing the scar that bisected her left eyebrow—a relic, rumor said, from a student who’d fought back in ’98, or possibly a dueling scar. Her gaze traced Sophie’s blazer seams, the way her cuffs kissed her wrists. "Third infraction this month. Tell me, Miss Langley, does your father’s donation cover insolence, or must we invoice separately?"
Sophie’s tongue found the roof of her mouth, dry as chalk dust. Down the hall, a muffled whimper seeped through the oak—someone already strapped to the poles, probably. She’d heard the cadence before: two minutes of silence, then the first crack of the tawse.
"The chem lab incident wasn’t insolence, Headmistress." The lie tasted bitter. She’d known exactly what she was doing when she swapped Graves’s prized pH indicators for food coloring. The way the old bat’s face had purpled when her titration turned neon pink had been worth every minute of detention. Almost.
Graves arched that scarred brow. "Indeed?" Her fingers tapped the file—once, twice—before snapping it shut. The sound echoed like a trap springing. "Then perhaps you’d care to explain why Miss Petrovich’s uniform reeked of vinegar when you *allegedly* assisted her with her experiment?"
Sophie’s pulse stuttered. She hadn’t accounted for the ventilation system carrying the scent. Outside, the whimper crescendoed into a choked gasp—someone biting down on their gag as leather met flesh. The rhythm was off today; no pause between strokes. A senior, then. Freshmen always got breathers.
Graves rose, her chair grating against the parquet. The hem of her skirt brushed a brass handle protruding from her desk drawer. Sophie knew what lay inside: the thin, braided crop the headmistress reserved for "clarification sessions." Last winter, Clara DuPont had needed three days standing in class and sleeping face down after one of those discussions.
"You'll join Miss Weatherby outside," Graves said, plucking a blindfold, gag and selection of straps from the coat rack. The leather was worn shiny at the edges from use. "Unless you'd prefer to revisit our conversation after lights out?" Her thumb traced the embossed school crest on the gag harness—a not-so-subtle hint about which option involved witnesses.
Sophie's fingers tingled as she reached for the straps. The leather was warmer than she expected, almost alive against her palms. Behind Graves, the window reflected a distorted version of herself—shoulders too narrow, blazer gaping where she'd lost weight skipping meals to avoid the dining hall's surveillance cameras. A draft slithered up her sleeves as she turned toward the door.
The hallway stretched longer than it had minutes before. Two juniors scurried past, their regulation oxfords squeaking against the waxed floor. One glanced back, her eyes widening at the harness in Graves' grip. Their whispers chased Sophie like spiders down her collar. *Langley's finally getting pole time. Bet she cracks before Weatherby did.*
The steel poles came into view—six gleaming rods reflecting the bright fluorescent lights overhead. At the far end, Cecily Weatherby hung limp in her restraints, her blonde hair stuck to the sweat on her neck. The gag muffled her whimpers into something almost melodic. Sophie counted the welts rising across Cecily's thighs like piano keys. Eight strokes. Maybe nine. Hard to tell where the bruises began.
Graves paused beside the nearest pole, running a gloved finger along its length. The leather creaked as she flexed it. "You've observed protocol often enough." She didn't phrase it as a question. Sophie's stomach dropped as the strap's buckle clicked open—a sound like a pistol hammer cocking.
The headmistress snapped her fingers toward the staircase. Footsteps descended—not the quick patter of students, but the measured tread of a prefect. Marianne Voss appeared, her prefect's badge winking under the lights. Her hands were already gloved. Sophie caught the scent of talcum powder and something medicinal underneath. They'd prepped for this.
Marianne's gaze flicked over Sophie with clinical detachment before she began unbuckling the harness straps with practiced efficiency. The leather whispered against Sophie's uniform as it encircled her waist. Sophie held her breath as Marianne's fingers grazed the small of her back—too briefly to be accidental, too lightly to be provable. The prefect had been Lillian's roommate before they'd shipped her off to the Swiss finishing school. Some debts never settled.
The pole pressed cold through Sophie's blouse as Marianne guided her against it. Steel met spine with a precision that suggested countless rehearsals. Sophie's elbows clicked uncomfortably as Marianne wrenched them backward, securing them flush against the pole with a strap that smelled of saddle soap and something faintly metallic. The gag harness came next—its buckles clicking like insect wings—before Sophie could protest-the panel covering her mouth, the wedge pressing her tongue down.
Another strap cinched above her knees, rough against her stockings. Graves watched, arms crossed, as Marianne knelt to fasten the ankle restraints. Sophie's toes barely brushed the floor; the pole's base plate had been engineered to suspend girls at this exact height—enough to make standing possible, but not comfortable. The strap around her thighs bit in, just tight enough to remind her she couldn't shift away when it started.
The blindfold came last. Marianne pulled it taut with a jerk that sent Sophie's chin snapping upward. With her last blink, she caught fractured glimpses of the ceiling's industrial lights—a constellation of white-hot stars. The leather groaned as Marianne triple-checked every buckle. They all did that here; no one wanted to be the prefect who let a girl slump mid-punishment.
Silence pooled thick as syrup. Sophie's own breathing echoed inside the gag. Then—cloth rustling—Graves' gloved hand gripped her jaw, tilting her face left. "You'll hold this position until I deem it is enough." The headmistress's breath smelled of Earl Grey and mint. "Should you faint, we'll revive you and recommence." Her thumb pressed Sophie's windpipe lightly—a promise—before withdrawing. “There is no time limit. No goal. No indication of when you will be released. Younare restrained entire atvmy pleasure. The whole school can witnrss your humility as a warning and deterrent.” The sound of footsteps retreated down the hall then the office door clicked shut, locked , leaving Sophie alone with Marianne.
The first strike came without warning. Leather split the air—a dry crack—before pain bloomed across Sophie's backside like ink spreading in water. She jerked against the straps, the pole vibrating with the impact. Marianne exhaled sharply through her nose. "Still flinching," she murmured, tracing the welt with her crop. "Like a first-year." The next stroke landed lower, precisely where thigh met buttock. Sophie's toes curled inside her polished shoes.
"You always did think rules didn't apply to you." Marianne's voice was butter-smooth, the kind of tone reserved for reciting Latin conjugations or listing a junior's infractions. Her glove tightened on Sophie's shoulder, nails dimpling the wool blazer. "Lillian thought that too." The third strike overlapped the first, deepening the ache into something hot and throbbing. Sophie's whimper dissolved into the gag's padding. “Remember, as a prefect i am allowed to strike you half a dozen times before i have to infirm a teacher. And maths was never my best subject.”
The hallway's draft carried the scent of lavender starch—someone had pressed the curtains recently. Sophie focused on that instead of the way Marianne's footsteps clicked infront of her, the creak of patent leather pausing just beside her. The fourth stroke landed diagonally, raising a welt that would make sitting in tomorrow's ethics seminar excruciating. "Still think food coloring is funny?" Marianne asked. Her crop tapped the back of Sophie's knee—once, twice—before biting into tender skin.
Sophie's gasp fogged the inside of the blindfold. The gag tasted of salt and the faintest copper where her teeth had scraped her cheek. Marianne's glove gripped her hip, adjusting her stance with a jerk that pulled the straps tighter. "Headmistress says you're to count." A pause. The fifth strike burned lower, just shy of where the stockings ended. "But we both know you can't count past three without cheating."
The sixth landed before Sophie could draw breath—a searing line that made her knees buckle against the restraints. Marianne tutted, the sound dripping with mock concern. "Poor little Langley. Daddy's checkbook can't buy you out of this, can it?" Her crop tapped Sophie's trembling thigh, tracing the welt rising there. "You'll thank me for this when they let you off before vespers. Cecily's still hanging from first bell."
Footsteps retreated, the sharp rhythm of Marianne's oxfords fading down the hallway. The absence of sound was worse; now Sophie could hear Cecily's wet, ragged breathing three poles down, the occasional whimper escaping her gag. The leather creaked as Cecily shifted—testing her bonds, probably—before going still again. Somewhere above them, a fluorescent light buzzed like an angry hornet.
Sophie's thighs burned where the welts overlapped. She tried wiggling her fingers the way Lillian had taught her, counting off—*ten fingers ten toes, count backward when it hurts*—but the blindfold reduced the world to heat and pressure. The stockings trapped sweat against her skin. The straps bit into hermall over. The gag felt like her jaw was dislocating. She wondered hiw long she would wait here.
Down the hall, Cecily whimpered again—a wet, hiccuping sound that ended abruptly as she choked on her own saliva. The leather groaned against her struggles. Sophie pictured her: chin slick with drool, stockings torn at the knees from yesterday's punishment marathon, Marrianne’s damned prefect pin still gleaming on her ruined blazer. Always fighting. Always losing.
A door creaked open somewhere on the second floor, followed by the crisp cadence of heels. Not Graves—these were lighter, quicker. Sophie strained against her blindfold as if it might tear from sheer willpower. The scent of gardenias curled into the hallway—Madame Laurent’s perfume. The French literature teacher never intervened in corrections, but she did linger near the east stairwell every Tuesday at 3:15, timing her cigarette breaks to watch the show. Sophie’s stomach twisted. They’d be entertainment until dinner.
The strap across Sophie’s ribs tightened with every shallow breath, the leather seam pressing into her diaphragm like a dull knife. She tried arching her back to ease the pressure, but the pole’s unforgiving steel forced her spine straight. Her thighs trembled—not just from the welts, but the unnatural angle of her suspension. Tiny muscles she’d never noticed before screamed in protest, her calves cramping beneath the stockings. Marianne had cinched the ankle straps too tight; her toes prickled with impending numbness.
A bead of sweat trickled down Sophie’s temple, pooling where the blindfold dug into her cheekbone. The gag’s wedge forced her tongue against her molars, the pressure sparking a headache behind her eyes. She sucked air through her nose—lavender starch, talcum, the iron tang of Cecily’s split lip three poles down. The fluorescent lights buzzed louder, their heat prickling her scalp under the academy’s regulation ribbon. Every shift of her weight sent fresh fire lancing up her legs. The welts weren’t the worst part; it was the unrelenting *stillness*, the knowledge that even a sigh might earn Marianne’s crop across her knuckles if the prefect circled back.
Her toes curled uselessly inside patent leather shoes. The ankle straps had cut off circulation ages ago—if ages could be measured in heartbeats thudding against her ribs. Sophie focused on the seam of her blazer sleeve chafing her wrist, the way her pulse fluttered there like a caged bird. The strap around her waist had slipped higher with each ragged breath, now pressing just beneath her breasts in a cruel mimicry of a corset. She imagined her lungs as crumpled paper, each inhale a struggle against leather and whalebone. The academy’s architects had perfected this: steel poles positioned where drafts would knife through stockings, straps placed to amplify every tremor.
Cecily’s whimpers dissolved into static. Sophie’s mind peeled away from her body like old wallpaper, hovering near the ceiling where the light fixtures hummed. From here, she could see herself—a doll lashed to gleaming metal, blazer rucked up to expose the welted landscape of her thighs. The blindfold gave her face an eerie smoothness, interrupted only by the gag’s protruding leather panel that made her lips purse grotesquely. Her stockings had torn at the knees; blood beaded along the laddered threads. The Sophie on the pole shuddered as another drop of sweat traced her collarbone. The floating Sophie watched, detached, as the girl’s fingers spasmed against their restraints.
The hallucination sharpened: Cecily hung suspended in a shaft of afternoon sun, her uniform in tatters. Someone had replaced her gag with a metal bit—the kind riders use to steer a horse. It shone between her teeth like a silver knife , pinning her tongue in submission of surrender and spliting her lios as it stretched her jaw to breaking point. Sophie’s spectral self drifted closer. Cecily’s eyes were open beneath the blindfold, pupils blown wide and leaking black ink that streaked her cheeks. The ink smelled of Graves’ fountain pen, of the disciplinary ledgers where infractions were tallied in perfect cursive.
Sophie’s floating consciousness pivoted. There she was—her own body strapped to the pole, but wrong. Her blazer had unraveled into strips of navy wool that slithered around the steel like live things. The straps weren’t leather anymore, but vertebrae threaded together, clicking tighter with every breath. Her gag had melted into her face, the leather panel fusing with her lips in a puckered scar. When she screamed (had she screamed?), the sound came from Cecily’s throat instead.
Reality snapped back—harsher for the reprieve. Sophie’s toes had gone numb hours (minutes?) ago, her patent shoes now lead weights dangling from dead stumps. She tried flexing her arches, but the ankle straps had bitten too deep; her feet might as well belong to someone else. The pole’s base plate kept her balanced on the very tips of her toes, calves trembling like overstrung wires. Every twitch sent needles shooting up her legs, but staying still meant her shoulders bore the full weight of her suspension. The straps there had shifted, the left one sawing into her collarbone with each ragged inhale.
Her fingers were worse. Half-curled against the pole, they’d stiffened into pale talons, the tips tingling violet where circulation had fled. Sophie imagined her nails blackening, peeling away like the time she’d gotten frostbite skiing in Gstaad—except this cold came from within, a creeping paralysis no amount of wiggling could thaw. The strap around her wrists had stretched her arms taut behind her, elbows hyperextended just shy of dislocation. She’d give anything to slump forward, to let the pole take her weight, but the harness gag yanked her head back at an angle that sent fresh fire down her spine.
Down the hall, Cecily’s breathing hitched—a wet, gurgling sound that ended in a cough. The scent of bile joined the lavender starch and leather. Sophie’s stomach lurched. Last term, Isabella Chen had passed out during an overnight correction. They’d cut her down in time, but not before the incident earned her a second round—administered by Graves herself—for "soiling school property." The memory tightened Sophie’s throat worse than the gag. She focused on the ceiling’s hum, on counting the intervals between fluorescent flickers.
Cecily’s moans escalated into frantic, muffled bleats—the sound of a rabbit caught in wire. Sophie knew that rhythm: panic setting in when the welts stopped stinging and started *burning*, when the straps no longer felt like restraints but extensions of your own betraying body. Her own thighs throbbed in sympathy. The gag turned Cecily’s hyperventilation into a high-pitched whine that drilled into Sophie’s skull. Then—silence. Too sudden. Sophie strained against her blindfold, ears ringing. Had she passed out? Had Graves ordered water revived her? The absence of footsteps said no.
A wet cough shattered the stillness. Cecily was choking on her own spit, the gag’s panel forcing her tongue back into her throat. Sophie’s pulse hammered against her ribs. Cecily’s coughs turned jagged, interspersed with thin, animal wheezes. No prefect’s gloves appeared to tilt her chin. No key jingled in the ankle restraints. Just the relentless creak of leather as Cecily convulsed against her bonds.
Then—a boot heel cracked against marble. Sophie flinched. The steps came fast, military-precise, punctuated by the whistle of a crop slicing air. Cecily’s whimper cut off mid-breath. Metal jangled—the sound of a harness buckle being flicked open—then a wet gasp as the gag dropped away. Cecily’s first inhale rasped like sandpaper. “P-please—”
The crop landed before she could finish. Not the measured taps Marianne used, but a full-armed swing that cracked like a gunshot. Cecily’s scream dissolved into sobs. Water sloshed—a bucket’s worth, judging by the splash hitting Sophie’s stockings. The cold shocked through her, sharp as the welt blooming across Cecily’s shoulders where the crop had split skin.
“Silence.” Graves’ voice, closer now. Leather creaked as she adjusted Cecily’s posture, her gloves squeaking where they gripped the girl’s soaked blazer. The gag’s buckle clicked twice—once to loosen, again to ratchet tighter than before. Cecily’s whimper strangled into a wet gurgle. Sophie’s toes curled reflexively. They’d done this to Lillian last spring: the gag repositioned to press the tongue flat, turning every whine into a humiliating drool. “You just earned double time fir thst Wearherby.”
A slosh of water hit the marble, followed by the sharp scent of antiseptic—not just punishment, but preparation. Graves never let bloodstains linger on the poles. The crop whistled again, this time landing with a meaty thud against Cecily’s ribs. Sophie flinched at the sound—bone meeting leather wrapped steel—before the cold hit her own legs. Water dripped from Cecily’s uniform, pooling around Sophie’s ankles where it mingled with the sweat slicking her stockings. The icy shock made her welts burn brighter.
Cecily’s scream dissolved into a wet choke as the gag was wrenched back into place, its panel now pressing her tongue flat against her molars. Sophie heard the click of the headmistress’s gloves adjusting the buckle—one notch tighter—before the inevitable gurgle as Cecily fought not to vomit. The water had been calculated: cold enough to shock, but not enough to numb. Graves’ heels clicked toward Sophie now, each step precise as a metronome. The crop’s tip dragged along the floor, scoring the marble with a sound like a razor on strop.
Sophie’s breath hitched when leather brushed her knee—not the crop, but Graves’ glove tilting her chin upward. The blindfold absorbed the sweat beading on her brow. "You’ll learn what Weatherby hasn’t," Graves murmured. Her thumb pressed into Sophie’s windpipe, not enough to cut off air, but sufficient to make each swallow burn. "Discomfort is temporary. Humiliation is archival." The hand withdrew, leaving behind the scent of ink and bergamot.
A metallic click echoed—the sound of the pole’s base plate adjusting. Sophie’s toes abruptly lost contact with the floor. The sudden suspension wrenched her shoulders, straps biting into her tendons with white-hot precision. She bit down on the gag, her scream muffled into a whine that vibrated against the leather panel. Cecily’s ragged breathing hitched in response; Sophie imagined her nodding along like a broken marionette.
The crop tapped Sophie’s inner thigh—once, twice—before Graves’ voice slithered into her ear. "Posture reflects character, Langley." A gloved finger traced the welt Marianne had left, pressing just enough to make Sophie’s legs quiver. "You’ll hold yourself properly." The crop’s tip slid higher, scraping silk stocking until it hooked into the hem of Sophie’s skirt. Fabric whispered against skin as Graves methodically folded it upward, baring her welted flesh to the hallway’s draft. The air smelled of lemon polish and the faintest tang of blood from Cecily’s split lip.
Footsteps retreated—first Graves’ measured tread, then Marianne’s brisk clip—until only the drip of water from Cecily’s uniform broke the silence. Sophie’s suspended body swayed slightly, the pole’s base plate groaning under her weight. Somewhere down the hall, a radiator hissed. The heat prickled against her exposed thighs, making the welts pulse in time with her heartbeat. Cecily’s breathing had steadied into shallow, rhythmic gasps—the kind that came when you’d cried yourself empty.
Sophie’s toes curled instinctively, stretching for the floor just inches beyond her reach. The water clinging to her stockings had begun to stiffen in the draft, each thread of silk hardening into icy latticework against her skin. She imagined the droplets crystallizing—tiny daggers forming along the laddered tears where Marianne’s crop had bitten deepest. The cold crept higher, seizing her calves in a vise that alternated between numbness and razor-sharp pins. Every shift sent fresh fractures through the frozen fabric, the soundless snap of ice echoing in her bones.
The gag had migrated somehow, the leather panel now pressing directly against her molars. She probed it with her tongue—a mistake—and recoiled as the taste of brine and old blood flooded her mouth. The harness buckle had likely shifted when Graves adjusted the pole’s height, tilting the gag’s angle to stretch her jaw wider. Sophie tried swallowing, but her throat had narrowed to a pinhole, each attempt sending dull agony radiating up into her skull. Her saliva pooled uselessly beneath her tongue, thick with the metallic tang of split capillaries.
The bell’s chime was distant, muffled by the blindfold and the pounding in her ears. Third period—chemistry lab, if the schedule hadn’t changed since her last punishment. That meant… Sophie’s mind fumbled. She’d been marched here after second period’s ethics seminar. Thirty-three minutes, then. Less than the time it took to steam milk for Graves’ afternoon Earl Grey. The realization punched through her: all this—the welts, the suspension, Cecily’s choked sobs—had transpired in less time than a standard teatime interlude. The academy’s architects had engineered this too, she realized—the punishment poles positioned directly beneath the bell tower, where its chimes would mock the girls’ distorted perception of time.
The intercom buzzed twice—short, sharp, like a slap. Headmistress Graves never buzzed more than twice.
"Miss Langley, report to my office immediately." The voice crackled, icy enough to frost the brass microphone. Two girls stiffened in the hallway, their starched collars grazing their chins as they exchanged glances. Freshmen. Their fingers trembled where they clutched their regulation binders. They knew what those steel poles were for, even if they hadn’t earned the privilege of seeing them in use yet.
The oak door groaned open before Sophie’s knuckles could touch it. Inside, the scent of lemon oil and something darker—old leather, perhaps—clung to the air. Headmistress Graves’s desk gleamed under the low lamplight, empty except for a single file stamped *CONDUCT: UNSATISFACTORY* in red. Sophie’s throat tightened. She’d seen that stamp before, on Lillian’s records the day they’d hauled her out of Latin class.
"Ah. Prompt." The headmistress didn’t look up from her ledger, her fountain pen scratching across the page. The silence stretched, broken only by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner. Sophie counted the seconds. Twelve. Thirteen. Her knees threatened to lock.
Then, the pen stopped. Graves lifted her chin, revealing the scar that bisected her left eyebrow—a relic, rumor said, from a student who’d fought back in ’98, or possibly a dueling scar. Her gaze traced Sophie’s blazer seams, the way her cuffs kissed her wrists. "Third infraction this month. Tell me, Miss Langley, does your father’s donation cover insolence, or must we invoice separately?"
Sophie’s tongue found the roof of her mouth, dry as chalk dust. Down the hall, a muffled whimper seeped through the oak—someone already strapped to the poles, probably. She’d heard the cadence before: two minutes of silence, then the first crack of the tawse.
"The chem lab incident wasn’t insolence, Headmistress." The lie tasted bitter. She’d known exactly what she was doing when she swapped Graves’s prized pH indicators for food coloring. The way the old bat’s face had purpled when her titration turned neon pink had been worth every minute of detention. Almost.
Graves arched that scarred brow. "Indeed?" Her fingers tapped the file—once, twice—before snapping it shut. The sound echoed like a trap springing. "Then perhaps you’d care to explain why Miss Petrovich’s uniform reeked of vinegar when you *allegedly* assisted her with her experiment?"
Sophie’s pulse stuttered. She hadn’t accounted for the ventilation system carrying the scent. Outside, the whimper crescendoed into a choked gasp—someone biting down on their gag as leather met flesh. The rhythm was off today; no pause between strokes. A senior, then. Freshmen always got breathers.
Graves rose, her chair grating against the parquet. The hem of her skirt brushed a brass handle protruding from her desk drawer. Sophie knew what lay inside: the thin, braided crop the headmistress reserved for "clarification sessions." Last winter, Clara DuPont had needed three days standing in class and sleeping face down after one of those discussions.
"You'll join Miss Weatherby outside," Graves said, plucking a blindfold, gag and selection of straps from the coat rack. The leather was worn shiny at the edges from use. "Unless you'd prefer to revisit our conversation after lights out?" Her thumb traced the embossed school crest on the gag harness—a not-so-subtle hint about which option involved witnesses.
Sophie's fingers tingled as she reached for the straps. The leather was warmer than she expected, almost alive against her palms. Behind Graves, the window reflected a distorted version of herself—shoulders too narrow, blazer gaping where she'd lost weight skipping meals to avoid the dining hall's surveillance cameras. A draft slithered up her sleeves as she turned toward the door.
The hallway stretched longer than it had minutes before. Two juniors scurried past, their regulation oxfords squeaking against the waxed floor. One glanced back, her eyes widening at the harness in Graves' grip. Their whispers chased Sophie like spiders down her collar. *Langley's finally getting pole time. Bet she cracks before Weatherby did.*
The steel poles came into view—six gleaming rods reflecting the bright fluorescent lights overhead. At the far end, Cecily Weatherby hung limp in her restraints, her blonde hair stuck to the sweat on her neck. The gag muffled her whimpers into something almost melodic. Sophie counted the welts rising across Cecily's thighs like piano keys. Eight strokes. Maybe nine. Hard to tell where the bruises began.
Graves paused beside the nearest pole, running a gloved finger along its length. The leather creaked as she flexed it. "You've observed protocol often enough." She didn't phrase it as a question. Sophie's stomach dropped as the strap's buckle clicked open—a sound like a pistol hammer cocking.
The headmistress snapped her fingers toward the staircase. Footsteps descended—not the quick patter of students, but the measured tread of a prefect. Marianne Voss appeared, her prefect's badge winking under the lights. Her hands were already gloved. Sophie caught the scent of talcum powder and something medicinal underneath. They'd prepped for this.
Marianne's gaze flicked over Sophie with clinical detachment before she began unbuckling the harness straps with practiced efficiency. The leather whispered against Sophie's uniform as it encircled her waist. Sophie held her breath as Marianne's fingers grazed the small of her back—too briefly to be accidental, too lightly to be provable. The prefect had been Lillian's roommate before they'd shipped her off to the Swiss finishing school. Some debts never settled.
The pole pressed cold through Sophie's blouse as Marianne guided her against it. Steel met spine with a precision that suggested countless rehearsals. Sophie's elbows clicked uncomfortably as Marianne wrenched them backward, securing them flush against the pole with a strap that smelled of saddle soap and something faintly metallic. The gag harness came next—its buckles clicking like insect wings—before Sophie could protest-the panel covering her mouth, the wedge pressing her tongue down.
Another strap cinched above her knees, rough against her stockings. Graves watched, arms crossed, as Marianne knelt to fasten the ankle restraints. Sophie's toes barely brushed the floor; the pole's base plate had been engineered to suspend girls at this exact height—enough to make standing possible, but not comfortable. The strap around her thighs bit in, just tight enough to remind her she couldn't shift away when it started.
The blindfold came last. Marianne pulled it taut with a jerk that sent Sophie's chin snapping upward. With her last blink, she caught fractured glimpses of the ceiling's industrial lights—a constellation of white-hot stars. The leather groaned as Marianne triple-checked every buckle. They all did that here; no one wanted to be the prefect who let a girl slump mid-punishment.
Silence pooled thick as syrup. Sophie's own breathing echoed inside the gag. Then—cloth rustling—Graves' gloved hand gripped her jaw, tilting her face left. "You'll hold this position until I deem it is enough." The headmistress's breath smelled of Earl Grey and mint. "Should you faint, we'll revive you and recommence." Her thumb pressed Sophie's windpipe lightly—a promise—before withdrawing. “There is no time limit. No goal. No indication of when you will be released. Younare restrained entire atvmy pleasure. The whole school can witnrss your humility as a warning and deterrent.” The sound of footsteps retreated down the hall then the office door clicked shut, locked , leaving Sophie alone with Marianne.
The first strike came without warning. Leather split the air—a dry crack—before pain bloomed across Sophie's backside like ink spreading in water. She jerked against the straps, the pole vibrating with the impact. Marianne exhaled sharply through her nose. "Still flinching," she murmured, tracing the welt with her crop. "Like a first-year." The next stroke landed lower, precisely where thigh met buttock. Sophie's toes curled inside her polished shoes.
"You always did think rules didn't apply to you." Marianne's voice was butter-smooth, the kind of tone reserved for reciting Latin conjugations or listing a junior's infractions. Her glove tightened on Sophie's shoulder, nails dimpling the wool blazer. "Lillian thought that too." The third strike overlapped the first, deepening the ache into something hot and throbbing. Sophie's whimper dissolved into the gag's padding. “Remember, as a prefect i am allowed to strike you half a dozen times before i have to infirm a teacher. And maths was never my best subject.”
The hallway's draft carried the scent of lavender starch—someone had pressed the curtains recently. Sophie focused on that instead of the way Marianne's footsteps clicked infront of her, the creak of patent leather pausing just beside her. The fourth stroke landed diagonally, raising a welt that would make sitting in tomorrow's ethics seminar excruciating. "Still think food coloring is funny?" Marianne asked. Her crop tapped the back of Sophie's knee—once, twice—before biting into tender skin.
Sophie's gasp fogged the inside of the blindfold. The gag tasted of salt and the faintest copper where her teeth had scraped her cheek. Marianne's glove gripped her hip, adjusting her stance with a jerk that pulled the straps tighter. "Headmistress says you're to count." A pause. The fifth strike burned lower, just shy of where the stockings ended. "But we both know you can't count past three without cheating."
The sixth landed before Sophie could draw breath—a searing line that made her knees buckle against the restraints. Marianne tutted, the sound dripping with mock concern. "Poor little Langley. Daddy's checkbook can't buy you out of this, can it?" Her crop tapped Sophie's trembling thigh, tracing the welt rising there. "You'll thank me for this when they let you off before vespers. Cecily's still hanging from first bell."
Footsteps retreated, the sharp rhythm of Marianne's oxfords fading down the hallway. The absence of sound was worse; now Sophie could hear Cecily's wet, ragged breathing three poles down, the occasional whimper escaping her gag. The leather creaked as Cecily shifted—testing her bonds, probably—before going still again. Somewhere above them, a fluorescent light buzzed like an angry hornet.
Sophie's thighs burned where the welts overlapped. She tried wiggling her fingers the way Lillian had taught her, counting off—*ten fingers ten toes, count backward when it hurts*—but the blindfold reduced the world to heat and pressure. The stockings trapped sweat against her skin. The straps bit into hermall over. The gag felt like her jaw was dislocating. She wondered hiw long she would wait here.
Down the hall, Cecily whimpered again—a wet, hiccuping sound that ended abruptly as she choked on her own saliva. The leather groaned against her struggles. Sophie pictured her: chin slick with drool, stockings torn at the knees from yesterday's punishment marathon, Marrianne’s damned prefect pin still gleaming on her ruined blazer. Always fighting. Always losing.
A door creaked open somewhere on the second floor, followed by the crisp cadence of heels. Not Graves—these were lighter, quicker. Sophie strained against her blindfold as if it might tear from sheer willpower. The scent of gardenias curled into the hallway—Madame Laurent’s perfume. The French literature teacher never intervened in corrections, but she did linger near the east stairwell every Tuesday at 3:15, timing her cigarette breaks to watch the show. Sophie’s stomach twisted. They’d be entertainment until dinner.
The strap across Sophie’s ribs tightened with every shallow breath, the leather seam pressing into her diaphragm like a dull knife. She tried arching her back to ease the pressure, but the pole’s unforgiving steel forced her spine straight. Her thighs trembled—not just from the welts, but the unnatural angle of her suspension. Tiny muscles she’d never noticed before screamed in protest, her calves cramping beneath the stockings. Marianne had cinched the ankle straps too tight; her toes prickled with impending numbness.
A bead of sweat trickled down Sophie’s temple, pooling where the blindfold dug into her cheekbone. The gag’s wedge forced her tongue against her molars, the pressure sparking a headache behind her eyes. She sucked air through her nose—lavender starch, talcum, the iron tang of Cecily’s split lip three poles down. The fluorescent lights buzzed louder, their heat prickling her scalp under the academy’s regulation ribbon. Every shift of her weight sent fresh fire lancing up her legs. The welts weren’t the worst part; it was the unrelenting *stillness*, the knowledge that even a sigh might earn Marianne’s crop across her knuckles if the prefect circled back.
Her toes curled uselessly inside patent leather shoes. The ankle straps had cut off circulation ages ago—if ages could be measured in heartbeats thudding against her ribs. Sophie focused on the seam of her blazer sleeve chafing her wrist, the way her pulse fluttered there like a caged bird. The strap around her waist had slipped higher with each ragged breath, now pressing just beneath her breasts in a cruel mimicry of a corset. She imagined her lungs as crumpled paper, each inhale a struggle against leather and whalebone. The academy’s architects had perfected this: steel poles positioned where drafts would knife through stockings, straps placed to amplify every tremor.
Cecily’s whimpers dissolved into static. Sophie’s mind peeled away from her body like old wallpaper, hovering near the ceiling where the light fixtures hummed. From here, she could see herself—a doll lashed to gleaming metal, blazer rucked up to expose the welted landscape of her thighs. The blindfold gave her face an eerie smoothness, interrupted only by the gag’s protruding leather panel that made her lips purse grotesquely. Her stockings had torn at the knees; blood beaded along the laddered threads. The Sophie on the pole shuddered as another drop of sweat traced her collarbone. The floating Sophie watched, detached, as the girl’s fingers spasmed against their restraints.
The hallucination sharpened: Cecily hung suspended in a shaft of afternoon sun, her uniform in tatters. Someone had replaced her gag with a metal bit—the kind riders use to steer a horse. It shone between her teeth like a silver knife , pinning her tongue in submission of surrender and spliting her lios as it stretched her jaw to breaking point. Sophie’s spectral self drifted closer. Cecily’s eyes were open beneath the blindfold, pupils blown wide and leaking black ink that streaked her cheeks. The ink smelled of Graves’ fountain pen, of the disciplinary ledgers where infractions were tallied in perfect cursive.
Sophie’s floating consciousness pivoted. There she was—her own body strapped to the pole, but wrong. Her blazer had unraveled into strips of navy wool that slithered around the steel like live things. The straps weren’t leather anymore, but vertebrae threaded together, clicking tighter with every breath. Her gag had melted into her face, the leather panel fusing with her lips in a puckered scar. When she screamed (had she screamed?), the sound came from Cecily’s throat instead.
Reality snapped back—harsher for the reprieve. Sophie’s toes had gone numb hours (minutes?) ago, her patent shoes now lead weights dangling from dead stumps. She tried flexing her arches, but the ankle straps had bitten too deep; her feet might as well belong to someone else. The pole’s base plate kept her balanced on the very tips of her toes, calves trembling like overstrung wires. Every twitch sent needles shooting up her legs, but staying still meant her shoulders bore the full weight of her suspension. The straps there had shifted, the left one sawing into her collarbone with each ragged inhale.
Her fingers were worse. Half-curled against the pole, they’d stiffened into pale talons, the tips tingling violet where circulation had fled. Sophie imagined her nails blackening, peeling away like the time she’d gotten frostbite skiing in Gstaad—except this cold came from within, a creeping paralysis no amount of wiggling could thaw. The strap around her wrists had stretched her arms taut behind her, elbows hyperextended just shy of dislocation. She’d give anything to slump forward, to let the pole take her weight, but the harness gag yanked her head back at an angle that sent fresh fire down her spine.
Down the hall, Cecily’s breathing hitched—a wet, gurgling sound that ended in a cough. The scent of bile joined the lavender starch and leather. Sophie’s stomach lurched. Last term, Isabella Chen had passed out during an overnight correction. They’d cut her down in time, but not before the incident earned her a second round—administered by Graves herself—for "soiling school property." The memory tightened Sophie’s throat worse than the gag. She focused on the ceiling’s hum, on counting the intervals between fluorescent flickers.
Cecily’s moans escalated into frantic, muffled bleats—the sound of a rabbit caught in wire. Sophie knew that rhythm: panic setting in when the welts stopped stinging and started *burning*, when the straps no longer felt like restraints but extensions of your own betraying body. Her own thighs throbbed in sympathy. The gag turned Cecily’s hyperventilation into a high-pitched whine that drilled into Sophie’s skull. Then—silence. Too sudden. Sophie strained against her blindfold, ears ringing. Had she passed out? Had Graves ordered water revived her? The absence of footsteps said no.
A wet cough shattered the stillness. Cecily was choking on her own spit, the gag’s panel forcing her tongue back into her throat. Sophie’s pulse hammered against her ribs. Cecily’s coughs turned jagged, interspersed with thin, animal wheezes. No prefect’s gloves appeared to tilt her chin. No key jingled in the ankle restraints. Just the relentless creak of leather as Cecily convulsed against her bonds.
Then—a boot heel cracked against marble. Sophie flinched. The steps came fast, military-precise, punctuated by the whistle of a crop slicing air. Cecily’s whimper cut off mid-breath. Metal jangled—the sound of a harness buckle being flicked open—then a wet gasp as the gag dropped away. Cecily’s first inhale rasped like sandpaper. “P-please—”
The crop landed before she could finish. Not the measured taps Marianne used, but a full-armed swing that cracked like a gunshot. Cecily’s scream dissolved into sobs. Water sloshed—a bucket’s worth, judging by the splash hitting Sophie’s stockings. The cold shocked through her, sharp as the welt blooming across Cecily’s shoulders where the crop had split skin.
“Silence.” Graves’ voice, closer now. Leather creaked as she adjusted Cecily’s posture, her gloves squeaking where they gripped the girl’s soaked blazer. The gag’s buckle clicked twice—once to loosen, again to ratchet tighter than before. Cecily’s whimper strangled into a wet gurgle. Sophie’s toes curled reflexively. They’d done this to Lillian last spring: the gag repositioned to press the tongue flat, turning every whine into a humiliating drool. “You just earned double time fir thst Wearherby.”
A slosh of water hit the marble, followed by the sharp scent of antiseptic—not just punishment, but preparation. Graves never let bloodstains linger on the poles. The crop whistled again, this time landing with a meaty thud against Cecily’s ribs. Sophie flinched at the sound—bone meeting leather wrapped steel—before the cold hit her own legs. Water dripped from Cecily’s uniform, pooling around Sophie’s ankles where it mingled with the sweat slicking her stockings. The icy shock made her welts burn brighter.
Cecily’s scream dissolved into a wet choke as the gag was wrenched back into place, its panel now pressing her tongue flat against her molars. Sophie heard the click of the headmistress’s gloves adjusting the buckle—one notch tighter—before the inevitable gurgle as Cecily fought not to vomit. The water had been calculated: cold enough to shock, but not enough to numb. Graves’ heels clicked toward Sophie now, each step precise as a metronome. The crop’s tip dragged along the floor, scoring the marble with a sound like a razor on strop.
Sophie’s breath hitched when leather brushed her knee—not the crop, but Graves’ glove tilting her chin upward. The blindfold absorbed the sweat beading on her brow. "You’ll learn what Weatherby hasn’t," Graves murmured. Her thumb pressed into Sophie’s windpipe, not enough to cut off air, but sufficient to make each swallow burn. "Discomfort is temporary. Humiliation is archival." The hand withdrew, leaving behind the scent of ink and bergamot.
A metallic click echoed—the sound of the pole’s base plate adjusting. Sophie’s toes abruptly lost contact with the floor. The sudden suspension wrenched her shoulders, straps biting into her tendons with white-hot precision. She bit down on the gag, her scream muffled into a whine that vibrated against the leather panel. Cecily’s ragged breathing hitched in response; Sophie imagined her nodding along like a broken marionette.
The crop tapped Sophie’s inner thigh—once, twice—before Graves’ voice slithered into her ear. "Posture reflects character, Langley." A gloved finger traced the welt Marianne had left, pressing just enough to make Sophie’s legs quiver. "You’ll hold yourself properly." The crop’s tip slid higher, scraping silk stocking until it hooked into the hem of Sophie’s skirt. Fabric whispered against skin as Graves methodically folded it upward, baring her welted flesh to the hallway’s draft. The air smelled of lemon polish and the faintest tang of blood from Cecily’s split lip.
Footsteps retreated—first Graves’ measured tread, then Marianne’s brisk clip—until only the drip of water from Cecily’s uniform broke the silence. Sophie’s suspended body swayed slightly, the pole’s base plate groaning under her weight. Somewhere down the hall, a radiator hissed. The heat prickled against her exposed thighs, making the welts pulse in time with her heartbeat. Cecily’s breathing had steadied into shallow, rhythmic gasps—the kind that came when you’d cried yourself empty.
Sophie’s toes curled instinctively, stretching for the floor just inches beyond her reach. The water clinging to her stockings had begun to stiffen in the draft, each thread of silk hardening into icy latticework against her skin. She imagined the droplets crystallizing—tiny daggers forming along the laddered tears where Marianne’s crop had bitten deepest. The cold crept higher, seizing her calves in a vise that alternated between numbness and razor-sharp pins. Every shift sent fresh fractures through the frozen fabric, the soundless snap of ice echoing in her bones.
The gag had migrated somehow, the leather panel now pressing directly against her molars. She probed it with her tongue—a mistake—and recoiled as the taste of brine and old blood flooded her mouth. The harness buckle had likely shifted when Graves adjusted the pole’s height, tilting the gag’s angle to stretch her jaw wider. Sophie tried swallowing, but her throat had narrowed to a pinhole, each attempt sending dull agony radiating up into her skull. Her saliva pooled uselessly beneath her tongue, thick with the metallic tang of split capillaries.
The bell’s chime was distant, muffled by the blindfold and the pounding in her ears. Third period—chemistry lab, if the schedule hadn’t changed since her last punishment. That meant… Sophie’s mind fumbled. She’d been marched here after second period’s ethics seminar. Thirty-three minutes, then. Less than the time it took to steam milk for Graves’ afternoon Earl Grey. The realization punched through her: all this—the welts, the suspension, Cecily’s choked sobs—had transpired in less time than a standard teatime interlude. The academy’s architects had engineered this too, she realized—the punishment poles positioned directly beneath the bell tower, where its chimes would mock the girls’ distorted perception of time.