The Institute
by Bridget

I will never forget the newspaper ad that changed my life.

Co-eds needed for summer research project. 19 to 21 years old.
Must be available all summer. Room, board, and generous honorarium provided.
Apply in person at Institute for Behavioral Studies, 12845 Old Bronson Rd, Sunday June 7 at 9:00 a.m.

I was not looking forward to spending my summer as a server in a local restaurant, especially since the small town’s population decreased by 70% in the summer when the students were away. As an orphan over the age of eighteen, all I had was my scholarship and waitress jobs. With room and board provided, I would be able to put the money from the honorarium right into the bank.

That Sunday morning, I showered and dressed in my best clothes; a dark blue skirt and jacket, white blouse, and red bow at the neck. This was going to be my interview suit for my senior year and I had bought it when it was on sale about a month ago. I had scrimped and saved all year, thinking that I would not be able to get it until the next fall, but when it went on sale, I was able to get it early.

I knew where Old Bronson Road was, but the address indicated that it was way out of town. I drove my old clunker of a car about 50 miles per hour and it took me about 30 minutes until I saw the building on the right. It was an old southern mansion up on a hill, surrounded by a ten-foot high stone wall. The iron gate was closed, but there was an intercom next to it.

I pressed the button and when the intercom answered, I told it I was here to interview for the research project. The gate swung open and I drove up the long drive. The parking lot in front had about nine cars in it, not counting mine. At least three of them were clearly students’ cars on their last legs, like mine.

Inside the front door was a modern reception area with expensive wood and brass furnishings. Three other coeds were seated filling out forms. Behind the desk was a man wearing a lab coat. I introduced myself and he gave me a clipboard with some forms to fill out.

The first one was a personal history, then a medical history. That one did not take long because my parents died when I was only two and I had no other relatives, so I only had to complete it for me. The last form was a release that said if I was accepted for the project, I would hold the Institute harmless for any and all acts during the project. That one kind of made me think, but I signed it and turned it back in to the man at the desk.

I had a few minutes to study the other women who had also finished filling out the forms. One was a short Japanese woman and the other two were Caucasian, one blond and one brunette like me.

In a few more minutes, the man stood up and said that it didn’t look like anyone else was coming. He pressed a buzzer and a woman, also dressed in a lab coat, came through a door in the back. She told us to follow her and then led us to a locker room.

“We are going to give each of you a physical. I apologize, but our gowns have not come in yet,” she began. “We have just recently opened and we are still waiting on some of our supplies. I am going to ask you to remove your clothes and jewelry here and then come with me. The exam room is just down the hall and we won’t run into anybody, I promise.”

The four of us just looked at her as if she were crazy. Then the Japanese woman said that it was a good thing the Japanese did not have the body taboos of Americans and began removing her clothes. We all laughed nervously and followed her lead.

When the four of us were naked the woman led us out to the hall. The exam room was about twenty feet away, and when we got there she instructed the blonde to enter. It only took the rest of us a second to realize that we would have to stand naked in the hallway while the others were being examined.

What do you talk about with other naked women when you are standing in the hallway? I will tell you. Absolutely nothing. Not one of us said a word.

After about thirty minutes, the blonde came out and the other brunette entered. That broke the spell and we asked her about the exam. She told us it was very thorough, but other than the cold speculum for the pelvic exam, not bad.

We found out each other’s names and Jody, the blonde, said that we had to be certifiable to be doing this. We all laughed and agreed with her.

I was next into the exam room and Sue, the Japanese woman, was last. The other woman’s name was Kathleen. Altogether, we had been naked for about two hours and it was actually beginning to not feel abnormal to me. When Sue’s exam was over, the woman came out with her and told us to follow her. I thought we were going back to the locker room, but she led us past it and into another room. It was about ten feet by ten feet and there was no furniture at all. The woman told us to stand against one wall and waited with us with the door closed. In a few minutes, another man, not the one at the reception area, came in. Each of us tried to cover up as best we could with our hands.

He looked us over briefly and then stood in front of us. “Let me start by saying that if you stay until the end of the project, each of you will receive $15,000, tax free. I hope that makes up for the little inconvenience of being naked this morning.”

I almost fainted. $15,000 was about eighteen months work at the restaurant, including two full-time summers. At that moment, all I could see was a complete year of nothing but studying. No part-time job, plenty of time and money for some fun, a real chance to enjoy my senior year of college. I looked to each side and could see the same wheels spinning in the other three girls’ heads.

“Now, the project is a bit unusual, so hear me out completely before you decide,” he went on. “We were founded by an endowment. Our charter is to study dominant and submissive behavior and to try to establish the role of genetics and environment on a person’s tendency to one or the other.

“Bluntly, what we are proposing is to make you slaves for three months. If you agree, we will ask you to sign a contract waiving your rights to pursue both civil and criminal remedies. Such a contract is, of course, unenforceable. However, a trial it would show that you voluntarily entered into the contract, with the consequent damage to your reputations. I suspect that such a trial would receive widespread publicity and would severely limit your career opportunities. Another part of the evidence we would introduce at the trial would be the videotapes that have been made of you ever since you entered the locker room.”

He took four pages from his breast pocket and handed one page to each of us. The contract was very simple. It said that we were entering into the contract voluntarily and without duress. It also said that for the duration of the contract the staff of the Institute was our de facto owner and we were to be their property. As such, they could do anything to us they wished, for whatever reason they saw fit.

“No limitations at all? Does that mean we have to have sex with you perverts?” Jody asked.

The man and woman looked at each other for a moment. Then the man answered. “Sex is not our primary interest here,” he said, “but in order for us to conduct this experiment, we cannot agree ahead of time to restrictions. We do not feel that it would be an accurate test if we agreed to restrict what we could or could not do.”

So what was it to be? Was I willing to trade 3 months of who knows what for $15,000? I looked up from the paper I had been reading at the man and woman. They were whispering in the corner, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there were four nude young women in the room with them.

“Does one of you have a pen?” I asked.

The man turned toward me but before he could reach me, Jody cracked, “Let me check my pockets.”

I started laughing really hard. Soon the four of us were almost hysterical with laughter. If I had known any psychology, I might have been able to figure out that that meant something. As he handed me the pen, even the man was grinning.

I signed my name, holding the paper against the wall and still chuckling. Sue took the pen from me, signed her contract and tried to hand the pen to Jody. But she shook her head no and said that she wanted to leave now. Kathleen did likewise.

The woman escorted Jody and Kathleen out of the room and, I assume, back to the locker room to dress. I never saw either one of them again.

The man took four more pieces of paper out of his breast pocket and shuffled through them, selecting two. “These are powers of attorney for us to put your things in storage for the summer, close out your utilities, and cancel your leases. Of course, we will take care of all of the expenses.”

Sue and I signed them and handed them back along with the contracts. He folded them and tucked them back into his pocket. “Follow me and I will take you to your new home and introduce you to the rest of the staff here.”

I hadn’t thought about anyone else being involved in this, other than the three people we had already seen. He led us down the hallway toward the back of the building and into a large, modern kitchen. Then we went down the steps to the basement. He hadn’t turned on a light and it was very dark, with just some light coming from the top of the steps. At the bottom of the steps, he took out a key and I heard him fumble around before he used it to unlock a gate that went from floor to ceiling. We went through the gate and stood at the bottom of the steps, straining to see what was in the basement. He locked the gate and called out to turn on the lights.

There were four men and two women standing almost directly in front of us. Each of them was young, in their late twenties or early thirties like the others. Instinctively, Sue and I tried to cover ourselves with our hands, but one of the men told us to drop our arms to our sides. I hadn’t yet learned, nor had Sue, that slaves are supposed to follow orders without hesitation. When we were too slow to react, he barked the order again. Slowly, we lowered our arms and let them gaze at us.

As they looked us over, I took a look around the basement. It was just a cement floor, with cinder block walls and an unfinished ceiling with exposed beams. The basement ran the length of the building; about sixty feet by forty feet, and there were support columns of four by fours spaced throughout the basement. But it was the equipment that made me wonder what we had gotten involved in. There were chains hanging from beams in the ceiling every fifteen feet or so. Some were attached directly to the beams and some ran through pulleys on electric hoists. There were rings attached to some of the pillars, some high up and some at the base. In one corner of the room were several cages that would hold large dogs, or, as I soon learned, people. Another corner held a shower, toilet, and wash basin. The shower was open, no curtain or door. Along one wall were several tables that could tilt with rings attached at each corner. Hanging on another wall were all sorts of equipment; whips, collars, cuffs, manacles, and other things that I did not understand at the time.

The man who had barked the order to us to drop our hands motioned for us to follow him and he took us to the wall with equipment. The others followed us and we stood there as they selected our collars and cuffs. They were all made out of steel, hinged and locked in place with padlocks. Each cuff had a ring attached to it and the collars each had two rings. After we were collared and cuffed, at both the wrists and ankles, we were each taken to a post and our wrist cuffs attached to rings over our heads.

“A few minutes ago, I had to repeat an order to both of you to lower your arms. You need to learn that orders are to be carried out immediately, without any hesitation and without any comment. Consider this your first lesson.”

He and another man went to a wall and each of them selected a whip. Then they came back to us and we were each whipped for the first time. The screams Sue and I made echoed around the dungeon after each stroke. Between strokes, we were crying and begging them to stop. We swore at them, pleaded with them, anything to get the pain to stop. As I twisted around, trying to avoid the whip, the man whipping me didn’t seem to care. He just kept hitting whatever part of my body was exposed to him. When they were through, Sue and I were just hanging there by our wrists, sobbing.

The man who had whipped Sue stepped up to her and lifted her chin so she could look at his face. “Have you learned your lesson, slave?” he asked her.

She nodded, chin still held in his hand. He stepped back and whipped her again. “The correct response is, ‘Yes, Master,’” he told her. “Have you learned your lesson, slave?” he asked again.

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

“And what about you, slave?” he asked walking over to me.

“Yes, Master.”

I was shattered as I said it. I had addressed him as Master to avoid being struck again.

Sue and I were taken down from the rings and led over to the shower. We were both perspiring, from the whipping we had received and from the strain of trying to support ourselves from the rings. Our hair was tangled from our heads flying back and forth. Sue was told to shower while I stood there and watched her. Then it was my turn. I washed off as carefully as I could, being careful not to rub too hard because of the welts from the whipping. While I did, Sue dried off by rubbing her hands over her body and wringing out her hair. I guess slaves were not permitted towels. Then Sue was told to shave her pubic mound. She did it while kneeling with her legs spread wide. I shuddered as I wiped myself off with my hands and brushed out my hair, knowing that I was next.

When it was my turn to shave, I knelt down, spread my knees and lathered my mound. I cringed a little as the razor scrapped off the hair. The razor clogged after each stroke, but I did what Sue did and rinsed it out in the toilet. When I finished, I wiped off the excess shaving cream and blushed all over at the thought that I was completely exposed to them. I couldn’t bring myself to look at my slit because it was too embarrassing.

Over the next several weeks, Sue and I were trained to be slaves. The training program was rigorous, and well designed. After just a few days of it, I recognized that we were being conditioned to think of ourselves as slaves, with no rights at all. As we came to believe this, the pace of the training accelerated.

After the first week, chores were added. We would be in training for six or seven hours each day, then we were put to work upstairs. Whenever we left the basement our wrists and ankles were shackled, allowing us just enough freedom of movement to work, but not enough to run away or fight. We were never left alone; there was always one of the others present. We always addressed them as Master or Mistress. If we forgot to use it whenever we spoke, we were whipped. We were not permitted to talk without permission. We were never allowed to cover up, and we slept each night in the cages in the basement with our hands bound behind us.

I didn’t understand about our hands being bound until two weeks later. The first week, all I could think about was doing what they wanted so I wouldn’t be whipped again. Even with all of my concentration, I still made mistakes and they punished me. But as I learned what was expected, and did those things, the whippings decreased. During the second week, I began to feel a tension building inside me but didn’t understand what it was until one night, after being locked in the cage, I had an overwhelming desire to play with myself. The fact that my hands were bound behind me prevented me from doing so.

I think part of my frustration was the fact that I equated nudity with sex. Being naked all of the time kept sex at the front of my brain. However, at first, it had to fight through too much fear to really let it surface. As the fear subsided, and I settled into my new role as a slave, it was able to break through and began to occupy more of my thoughts.

The next day, one of my chores was to clean the living quarters of one of the women and she happened to be my overseer that afternoon. When I finished, she complimented me on the job I did.

“Mistress, may I speak?” I asked.

“What is it, slave?”

“Mistress, if I really did well, may I beg a favor?”

“Go on, slave.”

“Mistress, may I please have ten minutes alone?”

“Why?”

I didn’t respond right away. After just a moment’s hesitation, she lashed out with the cat that she kept at her belt. She struck me five times and my body was on fire, not just from the pain, but also from my own need to experience an orgasm.

“I ask you again, slave, why?”

“Mistress, I wish to masturbate.”

She smiled as she looked at me. “Come with me, slave.”

I followed her back down to the basement where she had me kneel and attached a short chain to my collar and to one of the posts. Then she went back upstairs. A few minutes later, she came back, followed by Sue and the other men and woman. Sue was told to kneel beside me, while our owners formed a semi-circle standing around us.

“That slave,” Mistress announced, “asked for permission to masturbate.”

I blushed as she told everyone about my moment of weakness. One of the men told me that it was okay, that I had permission to play with myself, but that they would watch. I just knelt there, completely numb and unable to move.

“Go on, slave. I have granted your request.”

“I can’t, Master. Not now, not with everyone watching.”

“Are you refusing to carry out an order, slave?”

“No, Master,” I answered as I reached down and put my hand between my legs. As I stroked myself, slowly and gently, my other hand went to my breast and I fingered my nipple until it was hard and erect. Within a few seconds, I was oblivious to the people watching me and could only feel the sensations building within me. Quickly, I reached a climax and the orgasm I had was long and hard, the best I had ever had. As I came, I arched my back and lifted my hips, pushing them out toward the people watching me. I moaned and cried as the pleasure washed over me. Finally, it subsided, and I resumed my kneeling position.

That act seemed to break the ice. After that, the men used Sue and me frequently. Often it was just a quick blowjob, or they penetrated my anus. But there was enough vaginal sex that I had several orgasms each day. The women also used Sue and me to pleasure them. That was strange at first, but I soon realized that they liked the same things I did, and it became easier to please them.

We continued this way for several more weeks when there was a drastic change to the way we were organized. One of the women, the one that was the toughest on us, that punished us the most and spoke of us as sluts, switched roles and became a slave. It was entirely her choice. One day, when the group was down in the basement after waking Sue and me up, she shuddered and then quickly calmed down as if she had come to some decision. Then she quickly stripped herself, knelt down before one of the men, and submitted herself to him as a slave.

She was collared and cuffed, as Sue and I were, whipped for the first time as a slave, then she showered and shaved herself.

After she submitted, life became easier and harder at the same time. It was easier, because now there was a third slave to share the chores. But it also became harder because the remaining free woman became a scourge to all three of us. It was several weeks later when Sue was selected to feel her wrath. Sue hadn’t done anything wrong, but she decided that Sue needed a lesson. With Janie, the newest slave, and me watching, one of them began whipping Sue while she was suspended from one of the hoists upside down. Sue’s legs were spread wide by a bar between her ankles, and Mistress spent a lot of time whipping the insides of her thighs, a very sensitive area. Sue had gone through the screaming stage, then the crying and pleading for mercy stage, and was now just trying to survive when one of the men came down. He saw that Sue was in danger and quickly snatched the whip right from Mistress’ hand. Then he got the other men and they decided to enslave Tonia.

Tonia fought them hard at first, but finally her resistance eroded and she became just as docile as the three of us. At that point, we were four men and four female slaves. While I thought that we would soon be paired up in relationships, one Master and one slave, the men did not ever reach that point. The four of us were rotated between them, not in any regular way, but more like when a man wanted a slave for something, he just got the nearest one. Often that meant sex, but was frequently nothing more than another pair of hands in the lab.

Yes, it actually is a lab, and the men are research scientists. The women were also, until they were enslaved. Now they function as lab assistants.

That was several years ago. They have had several more training classes for girls recruited into slavery. The four of us helped train them sometimes. Whenever I was called on to be a trainer I was allowed to wear a leather thong around my waist with a piece of silk tucked in. That is the only thing I have worn in the last three years. I don’t know what happened to the girls in the training classes, if they were released and paid the way I was supposed to be after a few months, but one day, while cleaning the living quarters, I heard one of my Masters discussing an upcoming auction on the phone. Shortly after that, the current training class disappeared from the Institute. I don’t know for sure if they were sold and continued their existence as slaves, but I suspect that is what happened to them.

In the last several weeks, the men think they have identified a combination of genes that leads to submissive behavior. They say that based on their research, over 65% of all the women they have tested have that combination of genes. This is in line with the number of women who accept their offer of temporary slavery in return for money; the ones with the combination invariably selecting slavery and the ones missing the combination turning the offer down.

All I know is that I am very happy and satisfied with my life as a slave. I am loved and cherished by the men, even though they think of me as property. I enjoy serving them and pleasing them. It really strikes me as a joyful thing. And the fact that the sex is frequent and great is just one of the side benefits that I enjoy. I am still whipped from time to time, but I would say that the whippings are a small price to pay for fulfilling my destiny.