Pearl Jones

The Schooling of Carolyn

CHAPTER ONE

WELCOME

It didn't look like a pit. Carolyn had expected something … seedier. A run-down old hotel, perhaps, with women leaning out from the windows. Or maybe a half-converted jail. Even one of those tastelessly ostentatious modern buildings. Not this. The Academy looked like a very expensive resort; high in the mountains, far from the modern world. Stone walls bordered the manicured grounds, and the limousine drove for what seemed like miles after passing through high wrought-iron gates.

She spent the ride wondering what she had done. What she'd gotten herself into. It had all seemed reasonable enough the night before-seen through the bottom of a shot-glass, shock and orgasm as intoxicating as the drink. But now, alone in the back of a limo, far from the only town, the only life she'd ever known, it seemed completely insane. Surreal.

Discipline.

The stranger who had told her of the Academy had whispered it, and it was embossed on the thick rag-bond card she'd been given. The driver had murmured it just before closing the car door. Discipline.

What kind of discipline?

Sexual, surely, given the things that odd woman had said and done. But what did that mean? Did I sell myself into some kind of sex slavery? Damn, I don't even know if this place is co-ed! That woman, last night, she didn't say. And why didn't she come get me herself? What's with the stretch? And the driver? What's going to happen to me?

Her head hurt, and all the questions boiling in her skull didn't help. Hung over, and not for the first time. Fine; she could handle that. She'd had a lot of experience over the past few months. Hangovers were just the price she paid for drinking, and they were still better than the nothingness she drank to escape. Had drunk to escape. Until last night, when a stranger had offered her something better.

Maybe … She shook her head. No point to wondering what would happen; the limo was nearing the end of the drive. All she had to do was get out of the car, and she would see what was to be seen. Or not. I could go home. Just forget about all this.