The Institute

The Institute: The interview

Author's Note:

As with my previous story, I tend to focus less on quick gratification and more on slow buildup; on feelings, inner thoughts, tensions and emotions. I also like to write from the submissive's perspective, about her sensations, the hesitations that shape her experience. If you're looking for something fast and graphic, this may not be for you.

This story is dedicated to someone who inspired me to write it, based on her detailed input.

Thank you, Isabelle. Wishing you all the best wherever you are.

All characters involved are obviously of legal age.

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Sarah stood on the white pebble driveway looking up at the immense Mansion humbling her petite frame. Looking left and right, the building seemed so wide as to have no ending, and towering above her were three stories plus a mansard roof, making her hyper-aware of her smallness.

Behind her, the satin black car which had chauffeured her here, crunched its large tires over the white dolomite back towards the iron gate, where Sarah had noticed another large building -- surely garages, or stables or maybe a servant's house, she had thought.

It was Wednesday noon, and just half an hour ago the mysterious looking car had been standing at her School's entrance, waiting for her, and she was made to step into it without even giving her the time to eat her lunch. The headmaster, guiding her to the waiting vehicle, had told her she could leave her backpack at School, that her parents would come and get it later. Ever the "good" girl, she hadn't argued, or asked questions, she had just obeyed.

Her mother had explained it only that morning, over breakfast, in a matter-of-fact tone. A gentleman would collect Sarah from school in the afternoon and bring her to an interview for admission to a very special, and very expensive, educational institution. Nothing more had been said. Her parents had never mentioned such a place before, nor asked whether she wished to go.

Sarah had looked down at her milk after that announcement, nodding once as though this had all been discussed already. It had seemed easier to accept the information immediately than to ask questions she was not sure she wanted answered.

Still, throughout the few hours she spent at school that morning, the thought of it had lingered beneath everything else: "older gentleman", "private interview", "special institution". Each time she recalled the words, she felt the same strange tightening low in her stomach. Not really a sense of fear, though close enough that she could not separate the two sensations cleanly.

During class, while pretending to take notes, she had rehearsed explanations silently to herself. "Maybe this is counselling." "Maybe they think something is wrong with me." "Maybe they found out." That last thought had made her pulse quicken so suddenly that she had lowered her eyes to her notebooks and forced herself to keep writing.

Yet, as the morning wore on, Sarah found her apprehension slowly giving way to something else. The possibility of being judged still unsettled her, but alongside it grew a more difficult thought. What if they had not misunderstood her at all?

She imagined the older gentleman waiting to interview her: severe perhaps, intelligent certainly, the sort of man who expected to be listened to carefully. Another headmaster, she told herself. Someone before whom she could sit properly, answer respectfully, and prove herself attentive and eager to learn.

And secretly, she was hopeful. What if she would finally beseen?

Atop a set of wide concrete steps, a mulberry-coloured double door slowly opened. An unknown young woman stood there, extending her arm to signal Sarah to walk up the steps and enter the building.

Sarah, standing very straight, was still wearing her navy blue school uniform, her dark blue ballet flats and her knee high white socks. And the young woman also looked like wearing a school uniform but with elements that somewhat surprised Sarah: the colour of the uniform was rather bright, a red bordering crimson, something Sarah hadn't seen before, most school uniforms being dull colours like her own dark blue, or Santa-Maria's grey, or Saint-Joseph's dark green.

But it wasn't the colour alone which was surprising. As Sarah stepped up the stairs, tentatively, and furtively eyed the woman -- who looked just a few years older than her own eighteen, and had a developed and athletic looking body and lush blonde manes -- then quickly cast her eyes down, muttering a barely audible "sorry", somewhat terrified at the woman's confident eye contact. From her feet upwards, Sarah had noticed the lack of socks and the black open toed high heels, shoes more appropriate for going out to a luxurious party than being part of an educational institution's uniform. And the pleated skirt was.... short, to say the least. It looked like it barely covered.... anything. And her white short-sleeved shirt was rather... translucent. And very much... unbuttoned.

Elements which struck Sarah as odd. But on the other hand had her intrigued, and destabilised her assumptions, she even felt a bit thrilled with the realisation that this was obviously not your regular tutoring facility and she sensed pride that she was about to be interviewed in an institution which was looking very different from any other schools in town or in the region. She understood this institution is disciplined, but not conventional. As it seemed that this might be a place where feminine display is normalised.

A softly murmured "Thank you." slipped past Sarah's full lips.

The grandness of the building, looking more like a castle than a mansion; the looks of the enormous luxurious automobile with a uniformed chauffeur compared to what would have been a ramshackle bus with a smelly fat driver, driving to an old and poor looking school building like hers, this was obviously a place and a surrounding which exuded opulence.

Sarah's heart beating faster now, through a vast hallway she followed the elegantly walking woman whose heels were clicking along the veined marble floor, while not a word was said. Sarah was clutching her hands tightly around the one thing she was carrying, the one thing she had been ordered to take with her: her pink Moleskine notebook, her private diary.

As she shuffled quickly through an ornate foyer, she remained quiet, absorbed the atmosphere, while passing door after door and along a series of figurative paintings which Sarah remarked often depicted what looked like European or Arabic bath houses, harems... They created a sense that beauty, ritual, femininity, and service have an historical legitimacy here. Eying the many works of art, she tried to suppress her fascination, and at the same time was very self-consciousness about her own plainness.

At the end of the hallway, the woman walked up a wide set of carpeted stairs, Sarah glancing at her outlined calves, at the way the bright red fabric of her utterly short skirt was so gently swaying, how confidently she was moving. Once up the stairs, they turned into another hallway, with once again a set of large wooden doors, and Sarah's heart began to gradually pound harder into her chest, and she noticed how she unconsciously started to adapt herself to the environment, her head still lowered but her shoulders pulled back, her spine slightly arched, trying to mimic the other woman's gentle sway of her hips as she placed foot in front of foot as she walked on the herringbone parquet of the first floor.

Finally they reached a door which was very different from all the others, painted a glossy pitch black. A colour who, Sarah thought, matched her own jet black voluminous hair, a feature -- along with her tan skin -- she had inherited from her father. Her mother had handed-down her littleness and slenderness. But Sarah had never understood where her shyness and introversion came from. As none of her parents had those characteristic. She had often wondered if she behaved like that because she just didn't fit in the real world.

Right before the woman in the red uniform knocked on the door, there had been a short silence but somewhere far away in the building, it had sounded like someone whining. Softly though, and not in a bad way, it sounded like someone in agony but who was at the same time enjoying it. Yet another otherworldly element defining this place.

"Yes" came a grave voice from behind the door, and the blonde woman pushed the door open enough for Sarah to walk in, and she pulled the door back shut, in the most discrete way, not even peeking into the room.

A large space which looked like an office, was filled with art deco furniture, giving the room a feeling of flair, subdued boldness, restrained opulence while keeping the space warm, welcoming. To the left a few single seaters and a sofa, a couple of low tables, and throughout the room multiple bookcases and cupboards, with books obviously, but also bronze, ivory, glass and iron statues, Sarah quickly noticing all of them depicted nude female bodies in various elegant and luscious poses, all works that seemed to defined female beauty.

And right in the middle of the room, standing in the middle of a huge soft carpet, a vast desk behind which a perfectly dressed and groomed older man was sitting, taking some notes, not looking up, not talking, treating Sarah as if she wasn't there. In front of his desk was a small wooden chair, and, after hesitating for a moment, she dared to step forward and sat down, the pink notebook on her tightly clenched thighs, minimising her movements, her eyes scanning the room, too stressed to dare to look at the man in front of her. Somewhere behind her she heard the echoing ring of heels pass through the hallway, maybe also the faint rustle of a chain or something similar.

"Sarah" the old man said, still not looking up. His fountain pen scribbled something on a piece of paper. "Eighteen, since a bit more than two months."

He wasn't exactly asking questions so Sarah kept quiet. She felt impressed by his composure.

"Your parents... and this is the first and last time I will mention them... thought it good to send you to me to see if I can.... accept and correct you." He finally looked up, not smiling but not looking stern either. He looked with peering eyes, filled with certainty, moved them very slowly from head to toe and then back up, at the young woman sitting in front of him.

Sarah had felt a tingle at the word "correct", a word one can interpret in different ways but she had understood it as a form of reprimand. Sarah didn't fully understand, what had she done wrong? She had stiffened her pose, had arched her back a bit more, and her knees were really pressing hard against one another.

"I imagine that, myself having gotten to know your parents a bit as I have talked to them a couple of times... I imagine that they didn't... inform you that much about what we do here, did they?"

"No, Sir." Sarah spoke with a very small voice.

"First of all, when I ask a question I expect a clear answer, and not a mouse squeaking. And secondly I am not 'Sir', I am 'Master', is that understood?" He spoke clearly but calmly, not raising his voice.

Sarah, affected by how he defined this interaction so immediately, cleared her throat and articulated: "Yes, Si... Master." She shivered as she realised she might have disappointed him from the very start but this silly misstatement.

He raised an eyebrow at her initial mistake, and noted something on the piece of paper he had been reading. Again, Sarah quietly muttered a quick "Sorry."

"You shouldn't worry about your parents having hidden this from you, you are in safe hands here, we know exactly what to do with a girl like you." This made Sarah for a brief moment relax her shoulders.

"...if.... we will allow you in, of course."

Sarah felt a thump of disappointment at those last words, she sensed she was being evaluated, she felt her innate urge to perform correctly make her nervous, but also drive her... And already she felt that she did not want to leave this place and hungered to prove this man, this... Master... that indeed she needed correction or whatever he found that she needed. She felt her urge to prove herself come strongly to the fore.

"It requires a special.... breed.... of girls to be allowed in, Sarah, a very special... stock... of females..."

Was he referring to animals now, Sarah wondered for a second. Her mind was reeling, going from anxious, to comforted, to confused, to nervous again.

He leaned back just a little. ".... Only girls with.... potential.... to become their true selves... are allowed in. If there is even the slightest bit of doubt about how deeply their 'condition' is rooted inside them, we don't accept them." Sarah beamed at the word "potential", then her shoulders hunched again at the words "don't accept". She understood that this place could empower her, make her truly bloom but she didn't know into what yet.

His hand reached out and stayed there. Sarah hesitated, still wondering what "condition" she was in, but then after a while she understood and took her diary and placed it in his large wrinkled hand.

"Apt colour." he said, his mouth curling into a grin. "For a silly little thing like you."

Sarah swallowed and again her body reacted to this demeaning comment, a sensation she had only felt when she had imagined the things that she had also noted in her diary. A strange sensation of both anxiousness -- at those overwhelming unknown feelings -- and need for them to be repeated: stronger, constant, more intense.

He pulled the notebook's elastic off it and placed it on his desk, very slowly flipping the cover open and then from the first page on leafing through it, his old eyes scanning the pages, as if he already knew the contents of her diary and was trying to find back the page where he had left off.

Page after page was slowly being turned, filling the silent room with the soft flutter of thin paper.

Sarah became gradually redder in her face, knowing full well what pages he would soon be looking at, fearing the exposure. But at the same time it felt like she wanted him to read and look at those very private writings and drawings. She felt a sensation as if she was soon to be liberated by this man, who would maybe finally be the one to understand her.

"Who is the 'He' in the sentence 'He can have me' from this poem called... 'All yours'?" He asked, tapping a page with his finger, looking up. Sarah was now blushing heavily, swallowed nervously.

"N... Nobody in particular, Si.... Master." Sarah lied. She saw how he noted something on his piece of paper.

"So it could be about my chauffeur? Or about your gymnastics teacher? Or your father..."

"No! Not.... not my father, S... Master." And again, scribble scribble, on the piece of paper. Sarah hated how she seemed to be socially conditioned to use the word "Sir", but nodded at her conscious self-correction.

"Well?" He looked up quizzically, stern, his eyes drilling their way into Sarah's mind. At that moment, one look into his eyes told her that lying to him or hiding anything from him would be impossible, and that she was bound to always be honest with him.

"Mister.... Mister Williams." She responded, with mortification, she knew instinctively that dishonesty would never work on him.

"Your history teacher, right?" Sarah stiffened. But then quickly responded: "Yes, Master." He looked up and paused, nothing was noted on his piece of paper and he nodded in what seemed like appreciation of how she had managed to get rid of her habit so quickly.

"How old is he?"

"Uhm... Fifty-five? Fifty.. six, M... Master?" For the first time since entering the room, she found herself able to speak with him in an almost natural way.

"Sixty-three in fact, girl."

He paused, his eyes remained staring at her, unsettling her.

"And why can 'He'... 'have you', my dear?" He stressed the quoted words very intently and it seemed he could see straight through to Sarah's deepest feelings. Nothing in her appeared hidden from him, and strangely, this made her feel... peaceful. Was there finally somebody who understood her?

"He is kind, attentive, but also... uhm... stern and.... uhm... demanding, Master, and I.... I wanted to be with him, to be.... to be.... uhm...." Sarah hesitated, for did she exactly know what she wanted? And if she knew, what word should she use? She suddenly felt small, inexperienced, even silly.

"His slave." He said, not asking, just saying, looking down at her diary, turning a page. Sarah stayed quiet and acknowledged that statement by lowering her dark brown eyes. Yes, she had dreamt so often that he would take her home with him. And that she could live with him. A man who noticed her, but also demanded so much of her and pushed her, a man she could constantly prove herself to, and would give her earned approval, a man offering structure, who remained composed while she is emotionally turbulent.

The Master flicked another page and Sarah knew what he was looking at now. He lifted the notebook and faced the drawing to Sarah, the careful but imperfect pencil drawing of the head of a girl, tears rolling down her cheeks, a collar around her neck and leash hanging from the collar curving into an invisible hand.

"Who is this?"

Sarah did hesitate for a while. Then spoke "Me, Master." She felt a strange sensation in her bosom, as if her blood was rushing to reach the very tips of her chest.

"Who is holding the leash?"

"Mister Williams, Master." She felt the flush on her cheeks darken, become increasingly warm, her ears reddening uncontrollable, while she was shivering as if she had catched a cold. She ached for the carpet under her chair to swallow her whole.

"And what if it was me who was holding the leash, Sarah?"

He placed the notebook back down, very slowly turned a few more pages and had a look on his face as if they were familiar, as if he had seen the contents of those pages before, those poems, notes, diary entries and drawings.

From her side, Sarah felt a sort of relief: "He isn't disgusted", was her main thought. His questions feeling more intimate than intrusive. She managed to relax her shoulders somewhat, took in a deep but silent breath to still her heart.

He then closed the notebook shut, pulled the elastic around it, opened a drawer to his left and in a very nonchalant way almost threw her diary into it before slowly pushing the drawer shut.

"And? What if it was me? What if it was.... anybody? Any...man?" The way he uttered that last word, it felt like he had a direct connection to her nerve endings, of which a few were tingling in ways she hadn't known was possible. Still, there was that inner struggle with how her body felt and how she had been conditioned to live in society. Sarah looked down at the hem of her pleated skirt which she had been tugging at nervously all the time, as if trying to find support, trying to find focus on something else than his questions.

She didn't speak her next words for his approval, but somewhere she hoped he would be happy with her answer, which came from deep down her underbelly, and was nothing else than the truth: "That would.... that would be nice, S.... Master." The fountain pen once again scribbled something on the piece of paper.

"Nice, hu?" he chuckled. His voice sounding demeaning, he had once again a small grin on his face. "Was this his approval?" Sarah thought.

He reached into a drawer, and took something dark and round from it, leaning on his elbows on his desk, slowly turning the thing in his fingers. It looked like a large leather band, with a buckle and silver ring attached to it. His eyes were inspecting it with intent, as if checking the thing for defects or imperfections.