I stumbled to the doorway and saw the other girls emerging from their rooms. Sixty-Eight looked as exhausted as I felt, her eyes red-rimmed. Seventy moved with the careful stiffness of someone whose ass had been recently paddled. Sixty-Two—the girl I’d glimpsed in the hallway yesterday—had the glazed expression of someone still half-asleep.
And then there was Fifty-Three. Emily. She looked completely put together despite the early hour, her sharp features alert andassessing. Her eyes found mine and something flickered in her expression—anticipation, maybe, or hunger.
“Line up,” Mr. Jenkins said, gesturing to the wall. “Hands at your sides, eyes forward.”
We arranged ourselves in a row. I ended up between Seventy and Sixty-Two, acutely aware of how my wet diaper sagged compared to their dry ones. Mr. Jenkins walked down the line slowly, inspecting each of us with that same neutral expression.
When he reached me, he paused. “Wet diaper, Seventy-One?”
I looked at the floor, my face burning.
“The answer you’re looking for isYes, Sir,” Mr. Jenkins told me, his voice sharpening slightly.
“Yes,Sir,” I whispered.
“Well, the good news is you’re headed for the showers. The bad news is that you’ll wash your diaper by hand in the sink before you join the other bad girls in the shower room. Remember to clean that little cooch thoroughly, too.”
CHAPTER 10
Bill
Via the panoply of monitors—both video and purely data-based—in the second floor control room I watched the feeds from the residential floor closely. Reggie Jenkins always conducted a snappy, educative morning inspection, wisely letting his sheer physical presence do a good deal of the work of rehabilitating our bad girls. Georgia Winters, PhD, one of the assessors assigned to Project Dollhouse, sat beside me at the long counter, her attention fixed on the display that showed the aggregate biometric data streaming from each girl’s sensor. The imaging screens showed multiple angles of the hallway where our five bad girls stood in their line.
“Seventy-One’s your new girl, right? Pam Nelson?” Georgia murmured. “Her readings are fascinating.”
I watched as she tapped through the overnight data.
“Look at these arousal spikes. She was riding the edge for nearly four hours before exhaustion finally took over.”
I leaned closer to examine the graphs. The sensor had of course captured everything—every attempt to resist the vibrator’s effects, every moment her body had surrendered despite her mind’s protests, the exact timestamp when she’d finally wet her diaper in her sleep. Beautiful data that confirmed what Ed and I had suspected during her intake assessment.
“She’s more responsive than most,” I observed, watching the live feed as Pam’s face burned with shame when Reggie noted her wet diaper. “Am I reading this line right? Those skin galvanics look like there’s a very deep conflict, no?”
“True,” Georgia confirmed. “And her cortisol levels stayed elevated all night,” Georgia added, scrolling through more data. “High stress, but not dangerously so. And look here—” She highlighted a section of the graph. “Even in her sleep, the arousal patterns continued. She’s got a real battle going on in her body—exactly the profile we want to see.”
On the screen, I watched Reggie direct Pam toward the bathroom. She moved with the distinctive waddle the wet diaper forced on her, her shoulders hunched forward in a futile attempt to make herself smaller. The other girls followed behind, and I noticed how Fifty-Three—Emily—kept her eyes on our newest acquisition.
“Emily’s going to enjoy introducing Pam to special duty this morning,” I said, allowing myself a slight smile.
Georgia nodded. “She’s definitely ready to do her part.”
I pulled up Emily’s file on my own tablet, reviewing her progress. Eight months in the program, and she’d transformed from a defiant hacker who’d nearly crashed a major financial institution into one of our most reliable assets. Her technical work inthe Workshop was exceptional, but more important, she’d fully embraced her role in the hierarchy.
“She’s probably the best Trusty we’ve had,” I agreed. “Her work with Shaniqua has been perfect.” Shaniqua—Little Seventy—had been the first bad girl from whom Emily had commanded the special duty that Pam would have to provide in a few minutes.
Becoming the Trusty involved understanding the value of dominance and submission. Experiencing both sides taught a bad girl empathy and control. Emily had needed to learn submission first. Now she had learned how to wield authority responsibly. Not every bad girl was suited to the role; most of them went to their new owners without spending any time as the Trusty.
For her part, Pam needed to learn that submission wasn’t just about her daddies. It was about accepting her place in the entire structure of Project Dollhouse as well as of society. I wasn’t sure yet whether Pam would make a good Trusty, but I suspected she might. The first few days would tell us a great deal about our new girl’s potential on several fronts.
I switched the view to the bathroom camera, watching as Reggie directed Pam to the sink. Her hands trembled as she unfastened the wet diaper and pulled the little vibrator out of its pocket. Her forehead creased as she placed the device on the counter, and I saw tears tracking down her cheeks as she ran water over the thick, sopping cloth. The humiliation was etched into every line of her body.
“Thanks, Georgia,” I said. “I’d better get up there for the daddies’ meeting.”
Pam
“You can leave the vibrator next to the sink,” Mr. Jenkins told me. “The diaper goes in the laundry bin over there.”
I wrung out the diaper as best I could, my hands shaking, before carrying it to the bin Mr. Jenkins had indicated. The wet cloth felt heavy and shameful in my grip. When I dropped it in, the soft thud seemed to echo in the tiled space.
