Chapter 13: Starting to Learn

Collette, Fara, Daphne, and Anna had spent a restful night in the dormitory that had been set up for them on the top floor of the Sunrise Tea Parlour. “Not very comfortable,” Tsai Linn had said as she had shown them the small room, with its four simple beds ranged along one wall, “but you will be too busy to worry.”

Certainly, the accommodation was simple but the beds were comfortable enough and, given how hard they were working, the girls found it easy to get a good night’s sleep. Next day, they were up early and ready to start.

Tsai Linn and Liu Wei joined the group of four trainees. The girls had been chatting together, wondering what the morning class would bring, but were now waiting attentively.

Four male slaves, naked and collared, had been brought up from their cages in the basement and were now kneeling in the middle of the room.

“Tell me. Here are four males. How can we stop runaways?” Tsai Linn smiled at her class.

The trainees were standing in a room, with a bare wooden floor. The room, over the Tea Parlour, had been used as a store room for some of the Sunrise imports. A pile of boxes with the company’s logo stood in one corner. Now though, with most of its floor cleared, it was where Fara and her friends were to start the JUMIST Junior Mistress Training Programme, beginning to follow the discipline of Kòngzhì Rén. Liu Wei sat on the pile of boxes watching. She didn’t look happy at having to sit by while Tsai Linn did the talking.

On the end wall, framed in a glass case, hung a beautiful, black silk qipao — the symbol of the girls’ goal. An elaborate dragon embroidered in red silk stretched from the shoulder to the hem. Its silent presence was as much a warning to the men as it was an encouragement to the girls.

The four girls looked at one another. They were all uncertain and none of them was anxious to take the initiative. Standing there in their plain, white silk qipao’s, they looked like a row of medical students listening to the words of some distinguished consultant and reluctant to take the risk of saying something foolish. Tsai Linn, in her yellow and blue Sun Rise uniform, paused for a few moments to see if any of them would come forward with an idea.

“Please imagine – this man is yours.” Tsai Linn clipped a leash to Bernard’s collar and pulled him forward. Caught off balance, Bernard almost fell as he shuffled forward on his knees. The first girl, Collette, pulled a face as much as to say “No thanks!” and Tsai Linn responded, “Yes, not pleasant idea but please pretend.” The other girls giggled. “He is bigger than me. Maybe he wants to abscond. He is stronger than me. How can I stop him? Remember the four paths and the four pressure points.” She looked down at Bernard who at least had the sense to keep his head bowed, not daring to be caught staring either at Tsai Linn or her pupils.

The students stood in silence while thinking how to couch their answers in terms of the Path of the Hand, the Path of the Rope, the Path of the Cane, and the Path of the Look and the four pressure points of Pain, Pleasure, Humiliation and Fear.

“The Path of the Rope — Tie him up?” Collette volunteered.

“Good,” Tsai Linn welcomed her input. “How about more ideas?”

“Ankle chains,” one of the other girls said.

“Chain his collar to the wall. Or put him in a cage or a cellar or something.”

Liu Wei yawned and looked bored. She got up from her seat and walked around the room, fiddling with some of the instruments of restraint and punishment that hung on the walls. Tsai Linn gave her a mildly irritated look but carried on with her class.

“All good ideas,” Tsai Linn encouraged. “How about making slave keep himself in place?”

One of the girls laughed. “You can’t do that! They’d just walk off.”

“What might stop that?” The girls looked puzzled for a while. Tsai Linn dropped Bernard’s leash. The four girls saw him shoot a worried glance at her as she walked away from him, obviously concerned about what was to happen next. Tsai Linn walked back towards Bernard. As she drew level with him, without thinking he dropped his head to the floor.

“See. This is instinct for him. He knows this is what he does. No command needed. No whip. No cane. He is own slave keeper.” Tsai Linn reached forward and gripped Bernard’s hair at the back of his head. She pulled his head up until he was looking up at her, his face only inches from hers. “You want to leave, round eye? You want to go no-sponsor?”

The girls could see that the look on Bernard’s face was one of pure terror. He shook his head vigorously. Just the thought of trying to make his way on the edge of the law was enough to make him feel panic.

“See. If male know he better off with you, he stay. If male know he worse off without you, he stay. If male afraid of what you might do when he go, he stay. If male uncertain, he stay. This is Pressure of Fear.”

“So our best bet is to make them understand that staying is their best option, either because they are afraid of going or because...”

“Because they like being treated as they are...” the girl on her right, Fara, interrupted, “Pressure of Pleasure!”

“Exactly,” Tsai Linn replied with a smile. “Keeping males is like walking tight-rope – we must be circus performers. Sometimes cruel, sometimes kind, but always in charge. So sometimes we use chains or ropes or cages, but this just to show he depend on us. Come here.” She waved to Fara, the girl who had just spoken, to join her. “See what you can make of this one.”

The girl looked a bit shy for a moment but straightened her back and stepped forward. She didn’t bother to take the cane that Tsai Linn offered but just stepped up to where Bernard’s head was pressed close to the floor. Fara wasn’t certain what to do but then, she told herself, keeping this slave in order couldn’t be any harder than bullying her boyfriend. Jim. She thought back to a time when she’d been teasing him, pretending to be a New Order agent that had arrested him.