Chapter 13

“Filming?”

“You don’t imagine we’re going to leave the dormitories unmonitored do you?”

“But the age range is thirteen to eighteen?” Surely...

“I’ve found an outlet,” she smiled conspiratorially. “They guarantee they can only be seen in the Middle East and you would not believe what they’ll pay!”

“But the girls will be being exploited then,” I had to object, “underage, and they won’t even know...”

“Oh they have to know, if they’re sexy.”

“Blackmail?” I gasped.

“Exactly Carl, I knew you’d be in tune, after all you are a sex beast, aren’t you?”

Janice had roped in Frances Nering to help her build up the business and to be the administrator, so for the next few months I was servicing their needs, in between being a painter and decorator, joiner, electrician and general labourer.

At least Diane Shepherd had finally felt guilty enough, and perhaps had benefited enough from the assertiveness practice, to tell her blokish husband how she felt, so now I only had two randy forty-somethings draining my energy. The porn star thing had been shelved, for now, and the Eastern European women had been sent home, so that was that over with too.

In another slight improvement to my circumstances I’d managed to talk Janice and Frances into going down to the little beach at the bottom of the hillside, which is down a long, steep little path. It provides some significant buttock-firming exercise on the way back up. Some nude swimming had titillated their fancy too, in the late evenings, so they were in somewhat better shape these days.

Which was just as well, because they liked me to work shirtless, and then when I was good and sweaty turn up and help themselves to their vigorous young man, as they liked to snigger.

Anyway I supposed things could always have been worse, so I slaved away, and by opening day in September the building was more or less ready. It turned out Janice had been right about her business plan, and we had thirty-six pupils, most of whom were here because they were badly behaved.

“You’re in Room 8,” I told a tiny Year-9-er, for example, as I carried her bag up from the school minibus-cum-van, in which I’d collected her from the bus station. A good number of parents had chosen to deliver, or should I say offload, their offspring in this way.

“Room 8?” she scoffed, “couldn’t you think of anything a bit more imaginative?”

“You can give it a name if you like,” I smiled down at her. She was rather pretty, if sulky. In fact all the girls I’d seen had been on the lean and attractive side, making me wonder if Janice had had more applications to select from than she’d been letting on.

“Why should I?”

“Well it’s up to you,” I kept the smile going, “you could discuss it with your roommates, when they get here.” Frances had sorted them four to a room by year.

“What about ‘Room I can’t fucking think of a name for’, then?”

“You can make up the sign in Art class,” I suggested. “Don’t forget you’ll have to write it down quite a few times though, and get your roommates to agree.”

“What about ‘No entry to smartass teachers‘?” she stuck her tongue out at me as we arrived.

“One might come in anyway,” I grinned, going in and dropping her bag on the nearest bed.

“I suppose you want to come and ‘tuck me in’ after lights out!” she jeered.

“If you like?” I wondered what her issue was.

“Typical!” she muttered, turning away. I beat a retreat.

The other arrivals were similarly challenging, in one way or another. Some were argumentative, some tearful, some paranoid. Some were just loud. A lot of them had weird hair, piercings, strange clothes or tattoos, or a mixture of all these symbols of unwanted rebellion.

Janice had assured every parent that there was no uniform, no dress code, and no likelihood of their child being sent home again for any reason whatsoever. In the case of a serious crime they’d go straight to the police station. Though some of the more normal-looking ones, Janice had confided, were here because the website emphasised that there were no boys nearby.

By ten thirty in the evening of that exhausting first day I was sitting in Janice’s spacious office watching the dormitory monitors, together with Janice, Frances and the other teachers Bob and Candace. Bob is a short, bristling guy in his thirties, and Candace is mid-to-late twenties.

Both were here and being paid peanuts because, also like me, Janice had caught them being untoward with young schoolgirls. I knew Bob slightly, but Candace had arrived at my old school in the spring after I’d resigned. Evidently it hadn’t taken her long to be seduced, or do some seducing, and get caught, like me.

“So we switch to a room like this,” Janice was demonstrating the camera system she’d had me install, on the dedicated computer with its big screen, “and to a camera like this. They all record with motion detection anyway, and there’s audio of course. You can zoom in and pan with the joystick, like this. It’s all high definition as you see, and automatic infra-red.”

“Where’s the video stored?” asked Bob.

“Online of course,” Janice’s tone hardened for a moment, “encrypted and with two-factor authentication, the same as certain other videos, so don’t go getting any ideas.”

“Oh no,” Bob grovelled instantly, “I was just wondering...”

“Good,” Janice smiled again, “we can all just be one happy family can’t we, as long as everybody understands their situation.” Candace, Bob and I nodded obsequiously.

Janice turned her attention back to the screen, which she’d left arranged with ten bedrooms being displayed as large icons and one full size. She flicked to and fro and we all watched as various young girls got undressed, went to the bathroom and came back in a towel or put pyjamas on. Some of them stayed modestly in bra and panties, while some used the short, thin robes Janice had provided. Some paraded around naked, and in a couple of rooms the naughtiness of this caught on and they all stripped, giggling.