Summer Session Assignment

Erma and Fannie were roped as a class assignment, with cotton clothesline tied in the form of fetters. One hank formed a handcuff, securing wrists in front of each of the two young women, and another hank formed a hobble between the ankles. A short hobble: Close to the minimum length for hobbles a woman was intended to walk in.

The ropes would have been trivial for the young women to remove. Retying them undetected would be another matter, thanks to the short strips of blue tape, one on each cotton handcuff and one on each rope-hobble. The tapes were psi-active sealing tapes.

Psi was very real, as had been first discovered in back in the nineteenth century. That, indirectly, was why Erma and Fannie both wore slave collars. It was why all women in 1950s America (and in the rest of the world) were chattel slaves owned by their menfolk.

“Die Professorin?” Karen asked, as the two roped women entered the suite they’d been assigned to for the summer session. Both of them nodded.

Karen was one of their suite-mates in Acosta Dormitory, a year ahead of them at the Mansfield Finishing Estate, and two year ahead of Christine, their fourth suite-mate. ‘Die Professorin’ was Missie Judith, one of the Finishing Estate’s instructors and tutors. And, of course, a slave woman herself.

Erma looked down at her ropes and back up at Karen. “Will you join us?” she asked sweetly.

“Not now.” Karen tamped her grin down to a simple smile. “I might after supper, though. My assignment is to practice my chained-curtsies.”

“But you do them so well,” Fannie said.

“I like to believe that I’m competent,” Karen said, “but I’m told that I’m ‘mechanical,’ and I do have to think about it. I have to learn to ‘let them just flow,’ and the only way to get there is to practice.”

“What I need to do,” their fourth suite-mate piped up, “is to run spins on a Ouija wheel. That’s my latest assignment.”

Christine had turned eighteen that spring and so had entered Mansfield Estate for the summer session, rather than waiting until fall. In contrast to her three brunette suite-mates, she was short, broadly curved, and red-headed, with blue eyes behind a large pair of glasses. Everyone expected that her slave collar would receive the bauble of a bond witch when she turned twenty-one.

“Can I borrow yours, Karen?” Christine asked. “Or should I acquire my own?”

Karen said, “Yes and yes. You should acquire your own, tomorrow. But tonight you can use mine. After supper we can spin it as a quartet.”

In the dorm, all the slave women went barefoot. Thus the four suite-mates went barefoot to supper in the cafeteria, and barefoot to the kitchen cleanup they were assigned to afterwards. (For the summer session, it had been decided to assign the rotating kitchen cleanup duty on a suite by suite basis.) And finally the four barefoot slave women returned to their suite, where Karen brought out her Ouija wheel.

“On the floor, or on the table?” Erma asked.

“Not on the table,” Christine said. “On one of the parson’s tables, and we can sit on pillows around it.”

They brought out pillows from the bedrooms, and Karen gestured at Erma and Fannie in their cotton clothesline fetters. “Christine and I should dress to match,” she said.

The suite had hanks cotton clothesline discretely tucked away. This was unofficially winked at in the Finishing Estate’s dorms, while being loudly and officially prohibited. Christine’s eyes grew wide behind her glasses as she watched four hanks being brought out of their hiding places, but she cheerfully secured Karen and allowed Karen to secure her. That left all four of the young slave women cotton-fettered as that sat on pillows around the Ouija wheel.

“Do we have a notepad?” Fannie asked. Erma held up a yellow legal pad and a pencil, using two hands as the cotton line connecting her wrists required her to do.

Christine looked at Karen. Karen wiggled her fingers, passing the initiative back to the glasses-wearing slavegirl.

“We should start by giving our names,” Christine said. “Full names,” she added.

With the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment (commonly known as ‘Demancipation’) women had lost their surnames along with their freedom. In response to this, a custom had grown up of giving each girl-child two given names instead of just one. That way, a slave woman could choose which of her two names she preferred to go by. But the combination of both her names (along with her slave number) remained a woman’s legal and psi-significant identity.

“Erma Susan,” Erma said. “STT-030-259.”

Christine raised her eyebrows when Erma gave her slave number as well as her two names, but she didn’t object.

“Marcella Fannie,” Fannie said. “SEY-071-940.”

“Gail Karen,” Karen said. “SAG-268-224.”

“Joyce Christine,” Christine finished the round. “Um, SXJ-754-735.” She took a deep breath. “Okay now, Erma, um Erma Susan will ask a question and spin, and I’ll record the answer. Then we’ll pass it on widdershins.”

That would put Fannie next, followed by Karen, with Christine spinning last.

“All right,” Erma said. “My question is: ‘Is this seal really active?’ I can’t sense a thing from it.” She held up her cotton-fettered hands to display the seal-tape that would reveal if she tried to secretly free herself. Then she reached over – using both hands as those cotton fetters required – and made the first spin on the Ouija wheel.

The fourteenth spin was a period, or stop, indicating the answer to be complete. Christine read it off from the yellow legal pad: YES OF COURSE.

She then handed the pad and pencil to Erma, and it was Fannie’s turn to spin. Fannie said, “My question is: ‘What color should my next dress be?’ – the next one I sew, I mean.”

This took twenty-six spins. Erma read off the answer: DARK BLUE WITH GREEN TRIM.

Karen was the next to spin. “My question is: ‘Who is the best tutor for me?’ For–” She grimaced at having to make the addition, and plowed on. “For learning to make chained-curtseys elegantly.”

Sixteen spins. DIE PROFESSORIN.

Fannie handed the pad and pencil to Karen, and it was Christine’s turn to spin.

Christine took a moment to gather herself before speaking. “My question is: ‘Will my masters-to-be wince at my wearing glasses?’”

Erma gave her a sharp look, but held her tongue. Christine reached out – with both cotton-handcuffed hands, just as the other three had done – and spun the Ouija wheel.

This answer also took sixteen spins. Karen read it off: DO NOT BE SILLY.

“They say that, sometimes, not even the future knows what the future will be,” Erma said. “So you get ambiguous foretellings like that one.”

“Not always,” Christine said. “Fannie’s question was about the future – in a way, at least. So was Karen’s.”

“Mine wasn’t,” Erma said. “It’s just that…” She gestured two-handed, with her wrists pulling at the rope-fetters connecting them.

Karen said quietly, “It’s just that you don’t like the answer.”

Erma nodded reluctantly, frowning as she did so.

“We don’t have to like it,” Fannie said. “We just have to find it interesting.”

“We’re going to be all night in these things,” Erma groused. “Tomorrow too, until we meet with Die Professorin again.” She looked down at the rope-hobbles on her ankles. “But yes, I have to admit that this does feel interesting – and they’ll feel more interesting the longer I wear them.”

(end)