New Girl At St Kats

After I left Rhodean at age 18 I spent some time back at home assessing my options. Unfortunately, one of my options was a boy of my own age called Nick. His family worked on our estate and, as kids, Nick and I used to play doctor together; he had held a candle for me but what he did with that candle is another story. It all went wrong when Mummy and Daddy came home too early one night and caught the two of us on the rug in front of the fire. Neither of us had a stitch on so there was no hope of explaining it away.

In the “inquest” afterwards Mummy kept saying, “But he works with the cows”. I think she would have been quite happy if I had been screwed silly by a rich boy. Anyway, I got sent to this Finishing School in the Swiss Alps to get my morals straightened out.

It was all sorted out by phone and email with me getting no say at all but what is a girl with no independent money to do? Mummy rode with me to ensure that I arrived. We flew to Zurich then took a train and a car met us at the station. It proved to be a large and rather forbidding building and we were escorted into an oak paneled office where Mummy did some financial and legal stuff with the Director and I felt like a ham sandwich at a Bar Mitzvah. At the end, Mummy kissed me and I was left alone with the Director who pressed a buzzer on his desk and a trim young secretary in a black dress came in to escort me to a dormitory where she instructed me to wait until called. There were a dozen beds but, this being mid-afternoon, nobody but me was present. My escort pointed out my bed.

So, I just sat there or wandered around looking at the room or stared out of the window at the grey quadrangle below. After a while, a middle aged lady in a blue nurse’s uniform came in and asked me to accompany her; she said she was taking me to my induction.

We chatted about nothing as we walked the corridors which smelt of institutional polish and we came to a combination of medical room and office. A man in well creased trousers and a white shirt rose from behind the desk to introduce himself as Mr. Kent, my housemaster. It turned out that the nurse was Matron and she asked me to remove all my jewelry which would be kept safe for me until I was released. She actually used the word “released” which sent my panic levels soaring. Mr. Kent said that some girls having more adornments than others could cause division and valuable items could go missing so it was best that they go into the safe.

I stood there feeling dehumanized as I shed my watch, earrings, bracelet, ring and watch and Matron took them from me and sealed them into a large envelope marked with my name. Then she, quite casually, asked me to undress. I looked at her and I stared pointedly at Kent. Matron told me not to be silly and she explained that, as my housemaster, Kent was completely trustworthy and he needed to know about the girls in his care.

People used to authority have this knack of jollying you along so that it is socially awkward to question them. They make you feel that it would be stupid and petty to make a fuss. I undid the belt around my dress and then undid the buttons down the front and placed the garment on a convenient chair. I kicked off my black, Bond Street shoes trying hard to forget that there was a man just a few feet away from me. My plain white waist slip was next and then my white, patterned tights. One voice in my head was telling me to point blank refuse to go any farther and the other was, in Mummy’s voice, telling me not to be a silly girl and to do as I was told.

While this internal debate was raging, my hands were unfastening my black lace bra and adding it to the pile and then sliding down my very scant black knickers and making certain that my back was to the man Kent.

Matron, in her “jolly hockey sticks” voice told to, “Just sit yourself on the edge of the table for me” and I sat on the examination table while she put her fingers inside my mouth and had a good poke around before sticking a thermometer under my tongue.

“Just lay on your back for me, there’s a dear.”

Still sucking the thermometer I swung my body onto the table and lay down with my legs together.

She brushed her hand across my dark little bush.

“I’m afraid we don’t have those here.