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Mrs. Brown fixed her with a glare that made my heart race. All benevolence had gone from her face.
“I didn’t see you raise your hand, dear,” she said.
“B-but…” Cora stammered, swallowing very visibly.
“Mrs. Davis,” the administrator said, moving her attention to the middle-aged woman sitting behind Cora, who I could see had a stern expression in her brown eyes. “I trust Mr. Davis will hear about this? I’ll leave it up to him whether he wants to ask Cora’s suitor to correct her, or he wants to do it himself before she goes out this evening.”
“But…” Cora tried again, the corners of her eyes sparkling suddenly with tears. I bit my lip as I saw the look on her face, my cheeks flushing hot. Another glance around the room showed that all the other girls—especially Frannie—had flaming blushes on their cheeks too. Finding Mrs. Brown’s expression stony and unwavering, Cora turned around to look at her foster mother. “Please… ma’am? Not again so soon?”
That made me swallow and cast yet another look around the room. Had we all gotten spanked or whipped or paddled last night? The other girls’ faces seemed to say yes to the mortifying question.
Mrs. Davis had a sour look on her face that I didn’t think Shelly Carpenter could ever wear, and I felt a pang of mingled gratitude and sympathy as Cora’s frightening foster mother shook her head.
“Mr. Davis will size the young man up, I know,” Mrs. Davis pronounced. “Probably test him a bit. If I had to guess, I’d say Cora’s foster daddy will probably paddle her in front of him, to make sure he has the right idea about how to handle misbehavior from a little criminal like this one.”
Cora let out a choked sob and turned around to face front, her head bowed and one hand wringing the other in her lap.
Mrs. Brown picked up the thread of her presentation with a bright smile.
“You girls are intelligent—every one of your files makes that clear. So I know you’re starting to understand the way things work around here. I just want to make one thing completely clear, before I move on to logistical matters like reports and such. You wouldn’t be in Grasskiln unless the New Modesty Authority was completely sure that the new life you’re starting is exactly what you need.”
She looked around the circle in that intent way of hers again, making eye contact with each of us in turn. I thought I saw some sign—on Lisa’s and Rosa’s faces especially—that my fellow non-violent offenders had begun to accept this idea, that the government and the megacorp that ran the New Modesty knew best.
I tried hard to set my own expression into a hard, skeptical appearance, careful not to curl my lip all the way into anything like a sneer. When Mrs. Brown’s eyes met mine, though, the little crease between her eyebrows made my heart jump. I shifted in my seat, and then the sensation of my bruised butt, covered in my new training panties, sent a surge of heat to my face and I had to look down at the floor.
“You’re here,” the awful woman finally continued, “to finish growing up, in an environment that will let you become happy, helpful citizens of a healthy, traditional community. Thanks to the problems of our time, you didn’t get a chance to keep yourselves on the straight and narrow, back in the city. You lacked the right kind of maturity to make good decisions. Here in Grasskiln, you’ll grow from bad girls into good, submissive women.”
My hands had tightened into fists on my knees. I thought of Jake’s deep voice calling me a good girl, and my tummy flipped over. I tried to fight the impulse to squirm again, and failed; my body took over, the wayward need to feel again what the marks from my foster father’s strap felt like, in my mortifying new underwear.
Another surge of heat to my face, with an answering surge, to my horror, down below. I wondered suddenly whether Jake would inspect my training panties, the way Shelly had told me he might, and my heart quailed at the thought of what he might find.
Thankfully, the next part of Mrs. Brown’s speech didn’t affect me the same way the beginning had. Our suitors would submit reports on our behavior and any discipline they’d had to administer. Our foster parents would submit their own reports. We could decline to go on a second date with a suitor, but if we declined three suitors that way we would go back into the criminal justice system.
In the meantime, we would do the chores assigned to us by our foster mothers, and we would be allowed two hours per day to read, or exercise, or watch wholesome videos, or do whatever we pleased as long as our foster mothers approved. The New Modesty would provide a tablet for books and videos on our way out of the office today.
No one had any questions; we all looked at each other and at the older women who it seemed had so much power over us with slightly dazed faces, before quickly returning our attention to the floor in embarrassment. I recognized the tablet the receptionist handed me as the latest model of a famous brand, but I hardly paid it any attention as Shelly drove me back to the Carpenter farm.
“Your suitor’s name is Cal Perkins,” she told me, her eyes flicking between my face and the road ahead of the pickup. “He’s a wonderful young man. In fact, he’s actually the mechanic who takes care of our car and our tractor when it’s something Jake can’t fix. We’ve known him for… well, ten years now, since he moved to Grasskiln and took over the shop.”
I chewed my lower lip and looked out at the fields of cornstalks as tall as I was.
“I was a little surprised,” Shelly went on, “that the New Modesty thinks he’s a match for you.”
I shot a look over at her in surprise, thinking at first that she meant to hurt me, saying that I didn’t deserve a ‘wonderful young man,’ but the expression on Shelly’s face was thoughtful.
“He’s so easygoing,” she continued. “And you, Grace, honey…”
“Yes?” I asked. Shelly looked over at me sharply. My eyes widened. “I mean, yes, ma’am?”
A quick smile traveled over her lips as she returned her attention to the road.
“You’re a handful.”
I felt my forehead crease, and I turned back to the fields passing by. Shelly turned the truck in the opposite direction from where I was looking, and I saw that her and Jake’s farm was right there. Despite all the terrible indignities and embarrassments, as well as the lingering pain from my punishment the previous night, I couldn’t push back a little lift of unexpected happiness at the sight.
“How old is he… ma’am?” I asked.
“Oh,” Shelly answered, “twenty-six or twenty-seven, I think?”
