Chapter 15

Grace

I looked up. I could see out of the corners of my eyes that all the other girls had also raised their eyes to focus on Mrs. Brown. She smiled back at us beatifically, her eyes traveling around both circles, with a special twinkle for the foster mothers that seemed to say, Isn't it wonderful? These girls will learn how to date the old-fashioned way, just like we did when we were their age.

"Your suitors have each chosen to court you with the help of the New Modesty's matching algorithm, which lets them have access to some of your information—our own version of a dating app."

Mrs. Brown looked around again, this time just at the girls in the inner circle, as if to make sure we had followed everything she said. I couldn't figure out what I thought, or felt, about the news she had just delivered. The hypothetical, pretend figure of my suitor—the one Jake kept talking about, who would apparently have embarrassing rights over me and my body—had just materialized into an actual man. He had swiped, or tapped, or… something… on my picture in the New Modesty's app. My stomach churned, but I also felt a distressing sort of warmth in my chest.

"Now you girls have probably never been on a proper date in your lives," Mrs. Brown continued. "Here in Grasskiln, though, we do things the traditional way. The men who will be your first suitors are all a few years older than you, and they know how to behave themselves and how to treat a young woman in whom they mean to show an interest, romantically speaking."

I looked around at the other girls in the circle. I could see the same uneasiness in their faces, especially Frannie's and Cora's, that I felt at this part of the older woman's little speech. I definitely didn't mind older men. I hadn't ever dated one, of course, or even—because Mrs. Brown was right that date didn't really describe what I and other girls my age did with guys—really hung out with one in anything like a serious way. Once, though, a guy in his late twenties had shown an interest in me, at one of the parties we had in the dorm on Saturdays.

It had made me feel a little special, and a little naughty. He had a job at an office, and he talked about real stuff, like his plans for the future and how the fucked-up state of the world economy would make it difficult to ever own a home. If he had tried to kiss me, I would have let him—and I probably would have let him do a lot more. A friend had pulled me away to drink a shot, though, and when I had looked for the older guy again he had left the party. I had guessed, with a mixture of regret and relief, that he kept a regular schedule, the way a more mature man would.

"That means," Mrs. Brown said, pulling my focus back to her, "that you girls don't have to worry too much about your own conduct, as long as you make up your minds to pay attention to your suitors. Courtship for young women in Grasskiln is all about learning to follow the lead of the man who will quite possibly be your husband—that is, from the point of view of our traditional community, your leader ‘til death do you part."

I stared at her, my jaw slack. I had gathered all that, I supposed, from everything I'd experienced with the Carpenters. I realized though that I hadn't actually put it together with my situation until the administrator of the New Modesty Authority in Grasskiln had made the connection completely solid.

My leader. ‘Til death do us part. My husband—but not, like, lovey-dovey husband, the kind who takes you to the Bahamas and lies with you on the beach until you tell him to get up and get you a pi?a colada.

"So," Mrs. Brown went on, leaning forward a little and focusing on each of us in turn, very intently. "Let's get one uncomfortable—in more than one way—detail over with. The men you'll meet tonight have all achieved approved status. That means the New Modesty Authority has done extensive background checks on them as well as verifying that they're each compatible with the one of you they've chosen to court. It also means that they have the right—and the duty—to punish you on your bare bottoms should you misbehave, just as your foster fathers do."

I felt like my eyebrows had shot all the way to my scalp.

"Wait…" Cora said. I looked over at her to see that her face had gone very red. "You… you can't…"

Mrs. Brown fixed her with a glare that made my heart race. All benevolence had gone from her face.

"I didn't see you raise your hand, dear," she said.

"B-but…" Cora stammered, swallowing very visibly.

"Mrs. Davis," the administrator said, moving her attention to the middle-aged woman sitting behind Cora, who I could see had a stern expression in her brown eyes. "I trust Mr. Davis will hear about this? I'll leave it up to him whether he wants to ask Cora's suitor to correct her, or he wants to do it himself before she goes out this evening."

"But…" Cora tried again, the corners of her eyes sparkling suddenly with tears. I bit my lip as I saw the look on her face, my cheeks flushing hot. Another glance around the room showed that all the other girls—especially Frannie—had flaming blushes on their cheeks too. Finding Mrs. Brown's expression stony and unwavering, Cora turned around to look at her foster mother. "Please… ma'am? Not again so soon?"

That made me swallow and cast yet another look around the room. Had we all gotten spanked or whipped or paddled last night? The other girls' faces seemed to say yes to the mortifying question.

Mrs. Davis had a sour look on her face that I didn't think Shelly Carpenter could ever wear, and I felt a pang of mingled gratitude and sympathy as Cora's frightening foster mother shook her head.

"Mr. Davis will size the young man up, I know," Mrs. Davis pronounced. "Probably test him a bit. If I had to guess, I'd say Cora's foster daddy will probably paddle her in front of him, to make sure he has the right idea about how to handle misbehavior from a little criminal like this one."

Cora let out a choked sob and turned around to face front, her head bowed and one hand wringing the other in her lap.

Mrs. Brown picked up the thread of her presentation with a bright smile.

"You girls are intelligent—every one of your files makes that clear. So I know you're starting to understand the way things work around here. I just want to make one thing completely clear, before I move on to logistical matters like reports and such. You wouldn't be in Grasskiln unless the New Modesty Authority was completely sure that the new life you're starting is exactly what you need."

She looked around the circle in that intent way of hers again, making eye contact with each of us in turn. I thought I saw some sign—on Lisa's and Rosa's faces especially—that my fellow non-violent offenders had begun to accept this idea, that the government and the megacorp that ran the New Modesty knew best.

I tried hard to set my own expression into a hard, skeptical appearance, careful not to curl my lip all the way into anything like a sneer. When Mrs. Brown's eyes met mine, though, the little crease between her eyebrows made my heart jump. I shifted in my seat, and then the sensation of my bruised butt, covered in my new training panties, sent a surge of heat to my face and I had to look down at the floor.

"You're here," the awful woman finally continued, "to finish growing up, in an environment that will let you become happy, helpful citizens of a healthy, traditional community. Thanks to the problems of our time, you didn't get a chance to keep yourselves on the straight and narrow, back in the city. You lacked the right kind of maturity to make good decisions. Here in Grasskiln, you'll grow from bad girls into good, submissive women."

My hands had tightened into fists on my knees. I thought of Jake's deep voice calling me a good girl, and my tummy flipped over. I tried to fight the impulse to squirm again, and failed; my body took over, the wayward need to feel again what the marks from my foster father's strap felt like, in my mortifying new underwear.

Another surge of heat to my face, with an answering surge, to my horror, down below. I wondered suddenly whether Jake would inspect my training panties, the way Shelly had told me he might, and my heart quailed at the thought of what he might find.

Thankfully, the next part of Mrs. Brown's speech didn't affect me the same way the beginning had. Our suitors would submit reports on our behavior and any discipline they'd had to administer. Our foster parents would submit their own reports. We could decline to go on a second date with a suitor, but if we declined three suitors that way we would go back into the criminal justice system.

In the meantime, we would do the chores assigned to us by our foster mothers, and we would be allowed two hours per day to read, or exercise, or watch wholesome videos, or do whatever we pleased as long as our foster mothers approved. The New Modesty would provide a tablet for books and videos on our way out of the office today.

No one had any questions; we all looked at each other and at the older women who it seemed had so much power over us with slightly dazed faces, before quickly returning our attention to the floor in embarrassment. I recognized the tablet the receptionist handed me as the latest model of a famous brand, but I hardly paid it any attention as Shelly drove me back to the Carpenter farm.

"Your suitor's name is Cal Perkins," she told me, her eyes flicking between my face and the road ahead of the pickup. "He's a wonderful young man. In fact, he's actually the mechanic who takes care of our car and our tractor when it's something Jake can't fix. We've known him for… well, ten years now, since he moved to Grasskiln and took over the shop."

I chewed my lower lip and looked out at the fields of cornstalks as tall as I was.

"I was a little surprised," Shelly went on, "that the New Modesty thinks he's a match for you."

I shot a look over at her in surprise, thinking at first that she meant to hurt me, saying that I didn't deserve a ‘wonderful young man,' but the expression on Shelly's face was thoughtful.

"He's so easygoing," she continued. "And you, Grace, honey…"

"Yes?" I asked. Shelly looked over at me sharply. My eyes widened. "I mean, yes, ma'am?"

A quick smile traveled over her lips as she returned her attention to the road.

"You're a handful."

I felt my forehead crease, and I turned back to the fields passing by. Shelly turned the truck in the opposite direction from where I was looking, and I saw that her and Jake's farm was right there. Despite all the terrible indignities and embarrassments, as well as the lingering pain from my punishment the previous night, I couldn't push back a little lift of unexpected happiness at the sight.

"How old is he… ma'am?" I asked.

"Oh," Shelly answered, "twenty-six or twenty-seven, I think?"

About the same age as the guy at the party who had made me feel… what? Naughty, and special, and, I realized as I stepped out of the truck, more, too: innocent, small, feminine. The way the thought of my date tonight with an older man also made me feel, but now with the added complications of my modest dress, my training panties, and my sore bottom.