Cat was completely terrified at noon on Friday the following week. Midday Friday terror was becoming a much too common occurrence for her liking lately, but she had no idea what to expect from her visits to the dean anymore. Half the time they just sat at his desk in his study and read sexually inappropriate books (at least, this was Cat's opinion), the other half he was sexually inappropriate with her. She wasn't sure which was worse anymore. The reading seemed to lead to assessments and violating examinations regardless - they just left her with a week to obsess over her inevitable invasion of privacy the following week.

Seeing the dean sitting at his desk provided the smallest little sigh of relief from Cat as she entered the study, but all it would take to throw her mental state into chaos would be a flash of his lurid smile and a walk across the room to that milky green wall sconce. It could ruin her entire day, weekend, maybe even the entire month at this point. She had no idea what he had planned for her and she was dreading the moment it would finally be revealed to her.

She stood in front of the dean's desk - obedient and demure as always - waited for him to address her. He raised his head and slid a pale blue envelope out from underneath the book he had open in front of him. Handed it to her with a nod.

She accepted it, as if she'd have another choice. On the front her full name was written in the dean's effortlessly elegant handwriting. The envelope embossed with the faintest shimmery snowflakes. It was a stark contrast to the fairly basic and utilitarian, well, everything, that he usually used.

“That, Catherine, is your formal invitation to the Winter Formal next Saturday. I advise you read through the letter carefully later as you will be expected to adhere to a strict dress code for the event… Nothing so immodest as the last dress you wore to a formal event here at the college…” he gave her a menacing and icy look at that last comment. “Meanwhile, we will not be having our usual lesson today.”

“Sir?” Hope sprang through Cat’s spirits. She never got a class day off with the dean. There was always a lesson… or worse.

“You are expected upstairs in the laboratory,” the dean continued and her heart plummeted. Oh god, she'd never been sent to one of the laboratories before. She went pale. “Emma is one of my graduate students and she will be carrying out your preparation for today. I know you'll be in good hands. Should you have any questions about the letter or the preparations, you're welcome to make a private appointment with me next week.”

She couldn't even fathom entertaining that possibility. But she'd never been given a “preparatory” anything. Certainly not by another scholar. What was she being prepared for?!

“Do you need help finding your way to the laboratory?” the dean asked.

“I have no idea where it is, sir,” Cat answered nervously.

The dean stood up and beckoned her to follow. They walked to the lifting bookcase and the hidden stairwell and Cat had a heart stopping flashback to the night that she had been taken up to the attic.

“Black door to the left when you reach the landing,” the dean said, pointing up the hidden stairwell, “Emma is expecting you.”

Cat took the stairs slowly, the bookshelf door clicking and creaking as it closed behind her. Just before she found herself blind in the almost complete dark of the stairwell, a door to the left of the landing cracked open, spilling light back down the stairs.

She lifted her fist to knock at the door, but it swung open wide and, as she seemed to feel over and over and over again lately, her nerves and anxiety skyrocketed into overdrive.

The laboratory was a doctor's office, if not an actual surgical suite. Cat had never seen anything like it. Certain things resembled some of the tunnel rooms that she had stolen glances at the few times she'd been through them, but this room was completely overwhelming.

Wires and tubes were strung and coiled from the ceiling, running from sinks, coming up from the floor, hanging from hooks along the wall. So many, Cat couldn't even begin to comprehend what any of them might be used for.

Electronics and other digital medical equipment also hung from the walls, sat on the counters, was tucked into corners on simple metal carts.

An entire wall of the room was clear cubbies, filled with gleaming silver instruments, clear plastics and glass vials.

And positioned front and center in the middle of the room was a high, padded exam table, two high, padded stirrups extending off the end of it, straps hanging down from the padding.

Cat wanted to turn and flee the room.

“Catherine, welcome,” the girl, Emma, she guessed, said warmly. “I'm going to do your preparation today. You can leave your clothes on, but I will need you to remove your underwear, ok?”

“What is going on?!” Cat asked desperately.

“I know, everyone's first visit to the laboratory can be pretty overwhelming. I had to be helped up the stairs the first time I was brought up here. I sobbed the entire time,” Emma said warmly. “I won't hurt you. Just a little poke here today. I promise.”

“What is ‘preparation’?” Cat asked. She'd never heard of preparation in the time that she'd been at the college.

“Undies off, come sit,” Emma said, patting the end of the table.

Nervously, Cat reached under her skirt to slip off her underwear and hoisted herself up onto the table to sit. It was higher than the table downstairs in the study by at least a few inches. Cat felt impossibly high off the ground, and rather small considering the imposing surroundings. But the surface of it was soft, almost comfortable, it was even warm.

“Have you read your invitation yet?” Emma nodded to Cat's hand. She had completely forgotten she was even holding the envelope and she shook her head. “You’ll want to read it later, follow the instructions explicitly, especially when it comes to the dress code and time schedule.”

“Max told me it’s some sort of virgin ceremony,” Cat said quietly, looking down at the envelope in her hands.

“What else has Max told you?” Emma asked.

Cat leveled a stare at the woman standing in front of her. Could this girl be trusted? She was kind so far, but maybe it was all a ruse, a method to lull her into a false sense of security before stabbing her in the ass with a metal rod minutes later.

Emma smiled, “Of course you’re not going to tell me. I understand. I was you - five years ago. I was the virgin for the prom that year.” Her gaze became a bit unfocused, she looked a little unsettled or angry.

“You’re not a virgin anymore?” Cat asked.

“No, I am, it was all simulated with me,” Emma replied. “Twenty strangers penetrated me - repeatedly - with harsh and strange implements over the course of two hours. I’d never experienced anything like it in my life. I didn’t speak to anyone for an entire year afterward.”

“Why did you stay?” Cat was aghast.

”I didn’t have much of a choice,” Emma answered with a sad shrug, “This school was my only option. Stick with my studies or get sent to fucking Siberia with my abusive father who runs a literal gulag in the middle of nowhere. Who knows what would have happened to me there.”

“Why were you chosen?”

”Vaginal septum, quite an anomaly I’ve now come to learn. It’s kind of like I have two of them down there,” she smiled a bit, but the smile quickly turned to something meaner, “It was quite the novelty amongst the strangers who violated me.”

Cat just sat mute - horrified.

“A girl is chosen every year,” Emma continued, “Sometimes it’s because of some strange or bizarre genital defect. Sometimes they just choose the quietest, most innocent young scholar because they can. If the girl chosen has a completely intact hymen, she’s almost definitely forced or coerced into sex. Usually with the dean, but there are other men in very high positions of power in and around the college who can buy their way in.”

“How many of these events have you been to?!”

“Every year since I was chosen,” Emma shrugged. “I excelled in my studies. The dean thought that I was kind and soft spoken enough to soothe the freshmen girls who were chosen for the ceremony. I didn’t say anything to the girls the first two years I had to do the preparation. But now I actually prepare you all. Equip with knowledge, if not power.”

“Do… is there any chance of getting out of it?” Cat asked anxiously.

Emma shook her head, “Lie back, Catherine, I’ll get you started here.”

Cat swallowed hard and nervously reclined down to her back.

“I can’t promise to save you from it, so I will prepare you as best as I can for all outcomes,” Emma explained as she started to pull items from the clear cubbies along the wall, “Is the table comfortable for you? Temp good?”

“Uh… yeah, it’s fine.”

“Let me know if you want the temperature raised or lowered if you get too hot,” she said in a soothing voice as she loudly rolled a metal cart back over towards the table. “Legs up in the rests, please.”

Cat’s breath hitched, but she complied willingly, draping each of her legs over the padded knee rests, exposing herself fully to the girl in front of her.

“From the information that I’ve been given, it sounds as if your virginity was purchased by the dean,” Emma ran her hands up the insides of both of Cat’s thighs and gently pulled apart her labial folds. “He’s been in SUCH a mood all semester over you, it’s truly ridiculous. You have some hymen here, but I’m sure he’s positively devastated that he doesn’t get to break you open.” Cat could have sworn she saw Emma roll her eyes and her hands lifted from her body and grabbed a vial from the tray next to her. “Regardless, he does seem to like you. Crazy, I know, but believe me, you get very special treatment from him whether you’ve realized it or not. He’s planning to sedate you prior to the ceremony.”

She grabbed another vial from the tray and held each of them up in Cat’s view. “Thing is, the sedative and the drug that he gives his laboratory assistants look virtually identical and I can almost guarantee you that he is not going to notice the thin blue band on the sedative.”

“What’s the drug he gives the assistants?” Cat asked, curious.

”It’s a special amphetamine, one of the doctors at St. Joseph’s came up with it years ago. Gives you crazy strength - enough to restrain someone twice your size, if needed. We usually need that strength down in the tunnels,” Emma explained. “We’ll either swap the vial or just administer it ourselves.”

“And if you don’t?”

“Well, you’ll probably have a pleasant and dreamy time of it all, but we really hope to give you enough energy to get you out of there in one piece.”

She grabbed a clear vial of something and an intimidatingly large syringe from the tray.

“How are you with needles?” Emma asked in a soft sing song voice as she began to draw clear fluid from the vial into the needle.

“Uh…fine, I think?” Cat squeaked.

“Won't pass out there if I show you what to expect?” Emma asked, quirking a brow from between Cat’s legs.

“I… I don't think so?”

“There's a catch,” Emma said, her hand gently pushing against Cat’s inner thigh. “The injection is always - always - administered to the genitals. Helps the drug take effect faster. Depending on how benevolent the dean is feeling, he may administer extra anesthetizing injections around your vagina.”

Cat suddenly wished she could close her legs.

“I'm just going to inject a harmless sterile saline here so you can have an idea of what the initial injection will feel like next Saturday. It's going to sting and burn a bit, but it should be the worst of your entire ordeal…”

Cat squeaked.

“You're going to feel my touch here…” Cat flinched as she felt the girl's warm fingers part her labia. “Just going to gently grab and pinch at the clitoris here…” Cat would have jumped off the table at the touch if she hadn't been expecting it. Instead, her breathing just became erratic and ragged. “And a little pinch…here…”

Pain bloomed through Cat's entire pelvis. It didn't just sting, it fucking HURT, and she would have to do this again the following Saturday?!? Her clit burned and throbbed as the saline solution absorbed into her body.

She watched as Emma dropped the syringe back to the tray and her eyes grew even wider with fear as Emma picked up a large, metal rod and held that up in Cat’s view. Cat swallowed hard.

“This is an eight,” she said. “I’m not going to insert it inside of you, but I do need to push it up against your entrance and take a photo. For the dean. He insists, I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

”He wants to know just how much he’ll stretch you out when he takes your virginity. He’s quite prideful about his large size.” Cat whimpered nervously. “He’s NOT going to take your virginity, Cat. We’re going to stop him.”

“How?!”

“Not your concern right now,” Emma said, pressing the rod up against her entrance. Cat flinched at the cold touch. “Max will be there. Once she reveals herself to you, stay with her. No matter what happens, stay with your friend, she WILL get you out and keep you safe.” Emma reached back over to the tray, picked up a small camera and held it between Cat’s open legs and snapped a picture of the metal implement pressed up against her delicate skin.

“Will you be there?” Cat asked quietly.

“Of course,” Emma smiled broadly, “I’ve had five years to plot my revenge. I’m not missing out on this one.”