Cat’s dress was obscene. She wasn’t sure how it could possibly be considered any more “modest” than the dress she had worn to the Holiday Gala. It was practically transparent. She’d asked the proprietor at the dress shop no fewer than half a dozen times if they were SURE this was the dress the dean had instructed her to wear for the event. Oh no - she wasn’t allowed a choice in her dress for this special event - it had already been carefully selected and put aside for her to retrieve in the days leading up to the ceremony.

And ceremony was entirely how she thought of the event in her mind. It wasn’t a dance. It wasn’t a formal social event for the school and its scholars. It was a creepy, unwanted, mysterious and terrifying sex ceremony that she couldn’t even begin to wrap her mind around. She wondered if there would even be a dance at all - would there?! Or would The Great Hall just be the ceremonial grounds for a man old enough to be her father to rape her and take her virginity?! She could barely even think about it without hyperventilating. What if Emma and Max (and all the others?!) were wrong! What if they couldn’t save her? What if they couldn’t come to her rescue, step in and/or do all of the other things that they seemed to be promising for her safety?!?

Cat buttoned the final button at the neck of her practically transparent dress. She stared at herself in the mirror. She looked like a fucking doll. The chest and skirt hem were ruffled with white lace, the skirt seemed much too short for the college’s usual dress code and the invitation had strictly forbidden undergarments. No great surprise about that, but she could most definitely see the dark circles of her areola and nipples peeking out under the bottom of the lace ruffles that covered her chest. She crossed her arms over her chest and wished Max was around to escort her to The Great Hall.

She hadn’t seen her roommate all day. She’d heard a door softly close in the early, early hours of the morning. She didn’t know which door - if it was the main entry of their room, the trap door in the ceiling of their closet or perhaps another hidden door somewhere else in the room entirely. It was nearly the end of the school year and Cat felt like she only had more questions about, well, everything.

The first and foremost question on her mind at the moment - what was going to happen at the ceremony?! She was putting all of her faith and trust in Max - and Emma, to an extent - believing that her friend would help and rescue her out of this situation. That she wouldn’t be subjected to some wild and violating sexual ceremony. That she would leave The Great Hall and come back to this room a virgin still.

There was a knock on the door to her room and she nearly jumped straight up in the air at the noise. Her escort. Of course. The invitation had mentioned that as well. Her feet felt completely leaden underneath her as she went to greet her patron, dressed from head to toe in a black shroud. She felt like she was following a grim reaper to her death.

:::::

The Great Hall was festive, lively, downright jovial as Cat walked through the main doors with her shrouded patron. As soon as the two of them entered the building, a strange hum fell over the great, open room filled with people. Everyone - literally everyone - was dressed in black. It unnerved Cat in a way she hadn’t expected it to. She wrapped her arms tight around her middle again as her patron led her off towards the side of the hall. The crowd of people split, clearing a wide path as she walked through. It was so eerie, Cat could practically feel her knees shaking with each step she took.

They reached a set of tall and ornate double doors. Cat had noticed them plenty of times before at meals, and always assumed it was a smaller private dining area for… well, she never really thought about the doors much beyond that simple thought. They never seemed to eat with other faculty, and she always felt like there were far more patrons at the college than were ever present at the meals. Surely these people had to eat somewhere - why wouldn’t there be a more private staff-only dining area? The patron stopped short at the door and punched in a lengthy code to the keypad next to the ornate door handles. Cat watched almost incredulously - she was impressed the patron could remember such a long sequence of numbers without looking at anything to reference the entry key. Something clicked and Cat could hear the echo of that awful, abrasive buzzing noise from somewhere inside.

The doors opened to a large room, filled with at least thirty to forty more individuals, completely shrouded from head to toe in black. The room was completely silent, except for the dull, echoing bass of music coming from The Great Hall on the other side of the wall. In the center of the room, there was a dormitory bed - it looked too similar to the bed that Cat had been tied to in the dean’s attic around the holidays. She tried to calm her racing heart, prevent herself from breathing too hard and too fast, but the sight of the stark, crisp, white bed filled her with a newfound dread and fear. This was happening. What if it all went wrong? Oh god.

She choked as she heard the dean say her name from somewhere behind her right shoulder. In the next instant, she felt his heavy hand on her shoulder and she wanted to crumple to the floor on the spot. She suddenly, perhaps inexplicably, thought of August. Hadn’t he been her intended date to this sordid event? Unsurprising that she never saw him, he certainly didn’t appear to be here in this room (not that she could discern anyone beyond the sea of shrouded black faces anyway), but was he here? Somewhere? Out there in The Great Hall?

“Do you have any questions before we begin, Catherine?” She heard the dean’s voice somewhere in the periphery of her mind.

“What?” She shook her head, dazed, confused, terrified.

“You may take your place on the bed,” the dean indicated, nodding towards the center of the room, the middle of the sea of black, “We can get started.”

The room was deathly still, calm, silent as Cat slowly walked over to the edge of the bed. She barely noticed or sensed any movement whatsoever as she made her way through the open path created for her. He didn’t touch her, but she could feel the heavy presence of the dean standing directly behind her. She stared down at the crisp, white sheet pulled tight on top of the mattress. That was it. Just a sheet covering the mattress. She wasn’t being afforded any sort of modesty here tonight.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” The dean boomed so loudly from directly behind Cat’s ear, she shook, jumped, and stood utterly and completely rigid, her knees touching the mattress in front of her. There were men here?!? She looked around the room desperately, hoping to discover any familiar face amongst the shrouded heads. No avail. Max could be standing literally right in front of her and Cat would have no idea whatsoever. Cat took a gasping breath and felt like she might start crying as the dean boomed loudly from behind her about the virtues of the college, the ceremony they were all about to bear witness to on this evening, espousing all of Cat’s academic achievements from her freshman year. At face value, it was a perfectly academic speech to a room full of ghouls.

“Lay down on the bed, Catherine,” the dean instructed, nudging her at the small of her back. It wasn’t a hard nudge, not even a shove, and Cat lurched forward, bending over at the waist and catching herself with the palms of her hands on top of the mattress. Her ass thrust backward into the hips of the dean standing - looming - behind her, and she felt the distinct firm something that she could only assume was his erection. She practically withered inside of herself and quickly climbed on top of the mattress despite her fears of what might happen once she was lying on her back.

Her situation didn’t improve any. She lay down and tightly crossed her legs long in front of her, wrapped her arms around her chest and stared blankly at the ceiling. If she just thought of something else - anything else - she could close her eyes and this would all be over within a couple of minutes, right?! Max would appear from the ghoulish sea surrounding her, grab her hands and they’d flee to safety… Or something. Cat still wasn’t entirely sure what she was supposed to be waiting for or what they were planning to do. Were all the black shrouded figures wealthy, paying donors? Or were they other students just like her, gathering together in order to participate in some sort of crazy revenge scenario?!

“Spread!” She felt the harsh, flashing bite of a wooden rod strike across the tops of her knees and she nearly screamed as she, practically by reflex, assumed the spread position that she and all the other scholars had been instructed to learn within their first days at the college. She barely heard the dean coo and praise her quick and obedient response to his commands. She silently thanked every deity she could think of that he didn’t place the rod between her thighs to hold them open.

She had no doubts that anyone standing in the room could see up the skirt of her flimsy dress. Hardly surprising, but it still humiliated her and made her squeeze her eyes shut in shame.

“Preparatory, please!” The dean called out loudly and there was a rustling as something - no, someone - made a path through the crowd with a wide silver tray filled with vials, syringes and a couple other metal implements Cat could barely catch a glimpse of as the figure holding the tray breezed past where she lay.

More talk from the dean about the ceremony, the process, what and how he would be administering this or that before he began. It was all buzzing noise in Cat’s ears.

Suddenly, her attention caught on the words, “…And we’ll begin with the first series of injections…” and Cat instinctively pulled her knees together. It immediately earned her a harsh and shockingly painful whip of the wooden rod against her thighs. She squeaked and spread her legs open wide again, staring in fear as the dean brandished one of the largest syringes she had seen in her entire life above her knees and began to lower it between her legs.

“A shot to each side of the vulva near the vaginal opening…” the space between her legs burned and throbbed in a way she didn’t think she’d ever felt before in her life. Within seconds though, the throbbing became a dull ache. A few seconds after that, she couldn’t feel anything between her legs anymore. What did he just inject her with?!?

“And just to be safe, one more directly into the clitoris to dull the sensation and stretch within the vagina,” he said as she felt another searing burn flare through her pelvis. Again, within seconds, it was a dull throb. Seconds following that, she felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.

“Before we begin, I want to be sure to extend the opportunity to anyone present tonight to verify this young scholar’s purity,” the dean said proudly, assessing the audience within the room. The offer was met with complete silence. “Anyone?” the dean seemed surprised as he asked the question. Cat felt a spark of hope - maybe all the shrouded figures WERE scholars?!

Suddenly, a shrouded figure appeared at the dean’s side and he beamed a wide smile down at Cat.

“Two fingers, no more,” he instructed to the figure in black who came around to stand by Cat’s side. She desperately looked up into the black fabric of the covered face - please be Max, please, please be Max - and without any word, warning or preamble, an exceptionally large hand appeared from within the black robe and disappeared between Cat’s legs. She felt nothing except for the harsh motion of her lower body being shoved upwards. Well. Rest assured she couldn’t feel a damn thing between her legs. As quickly and silently as the figure had appeared by the dean, they disappeared back into the crowd surrounding the bed.

Cat looked wildly around at the figures surrounding her - were they getting closer or was that just her imagination?!

“Finally, because Catherine has been such an exemplary scholar this semester, I will be administering a heavy sedative for her comfort…” Cat’s breath caught in her throat as another vial and syringe were pulled from from wherever the tray had been placed near her feet. This was it. Either she was about to be drugged into a state of semi-conscious sedation, or she was going to be given a supercharged jolt of adrenaline. She wondered what either sensation might feel like - she hadn’t experienced either. Would she be ok in either circumstance? Where was Max?! Oh god, she wished she knew where Max was in the room right now… WAS she in the room right now?!

For the briefest instant, she felt a sharp sting hit her clit once more. Her eyes widened, as the dean’s hand stayed between her legs - again, she could feel her body moving underneath her, but felt absolutely nothing between her legs - what WAS he doing to her right now?!? But then, slowly but surely, a tingling began to creep through her belly. Her heart rate began to elevate and pound in her ears. Without warning, her legs jumped up and out and her feet flexed as if her lower body had been jolted with a shock of electricity. She stared wide-eyed at the dean, as he stared back at her with a similar look of shock on his own face.

Oh. Oh no. That definitely wasn’t the response that he had expected from her body.