The Amity College for Young Ladies  
by silklovers@yahoo.com 

    Barbara had lost all sense of time. She had no sense of how long she had been secured in the stifling dampness of her trunk. She did not even know why she was there. She had done nothing wrong as far as she could remember, her beautifully starched apron was pristine that morning and Mistress Susan had even complimented her on it - an action almost unheard of since she arrived at Amity College for Young Ladies. She had remained silent and respectful and had ironed and starched more than her share of the pile of aprons, pinafores,caps and kerchiefs that never seemed to go down. Like so many of the punishments at College it had been applied at the whim of one of the 'Genteel Mistresses', that elite band of girls who had stayed on at College to help train the new intake. It was one of the reasons Mother had sent her to the College - the posibility of benefitting from the experiences of more senior girls. Barbara had quickly found out that the word Genteel was only for the external consumption of worried parents. It did not exist inside the College where the GMs were simply, and very respectfully, just called Mistress, followed by their first name. She was amazed no-one had ever complained, for they were sadistic in meteing out their own particular brand of punishment, always devising new torments, new bondages and new and uncomfortable gags for them to wear. Mistress Susan was one of the worst and made no secret of the fact that she enjoyed punishing the girls in the most inhumane way possible.      
    Had Barbara been able to leave College she would have told Mother about the terrible regime, but there was no escape from Amity College. One of the selling points of the College was that the girls would be in residence the whole year and would not need holidays - all their possible needs being met by the attentive and dedicated staff. Not only that, but the College reserved the right to keep the girls for a further year if they failed to meet the College's exacting personal discipline standards. Indeed, Sally, who had been at Amity for 19 months, having complained about her treatment to the Matron, was found one evening at the bottom of the 16ft high wall running around the College with a collection of bedsheets tied together. She  was still undergoing her punishment for trying to escape three weeks later. A frightening metal framework of poles, ring bolts and ropes had been installed in the meeting room and Sally was now a permanent feature of their morning assembly, bound helpless to the framework with yards of rope. Gagged, blindfolded and her head wrapped and swathed with strips of the fine linen sheets she had ruined when she tried to escape. She had not been told of the duration of her punishment, nor of the extent. Sometimes she was bound into the same position torturous position for two days at a time, sometimes for a few hours, but always the girls could hear her rasping and hacking for breath under the cruel sheet or dishcloth packing her poor mouth. It had been explained to them that she was being punished, not for trying to escape, but for failing to keep her sheets ironed and suitably starched. She served as a reminder to them all that escape was not an option. When visitors came to the assembly,Sally's bondage was modified with the addition of a number of silk scarves covering her blindfold and gags. The scarves were gaily coloured and gave the impression that Sally was bound in a token way. Only the girls and the Mistresses knew just how severe Sally was bound underneath. Extra dish towels were often tied tightly around her mouth and over her jaw so that the visitors could not hear Sally desperately trying to breathe beneath the multi layered packing. Which made Barbara's current predicament even worse - she had absolutely no intention of trying to escape!
    Barbara found herself secured inside her school trunk,a tall leather covered box, silk padded inside, which stood upright in the space provided by her cot. She was finding it very difficult to breathe through the stifling cloths that filled her mouth and were wrapped tightly around her head. Her arms and legs had lost all feeling some hours ago because of the tight bindings and the uncomfortable position in which she had been tied and strapped. She was secured with a selection of the ironed and starched punishment items which she was required to keep immaculate and by the side of her cot, ready for instant use by Matron or one of the Mistresses. Her nipples were raw, and itched constantly from the rubbing of the heavily starched white tunic which Mistress Susan had tied on her before the punishment began. 
    The trunk had become an item of abject terror for all the girls. A girl who confined in her trunk had no idea of how long she would be there - it was purely at the whim of the mistress she had offended. Before joining College she had been sent to a small shop in Cheltenham where an old lady had measured her for her Amity College uniform and had made additional measurements for the design of her College trunk and other items. Each trunk was unique to the individual girl and was 7' tall and as wide as the student, standing with her arms stretched out to the sides, plus a foot. Built like a rather wide coffin, the inside was heavily padded with a soundproof material and covered in the most divine white silk. Ring bolts and roller buckles were installed at various places according to her measurements, ostensibly to allow her clothes to be strapped into the trunk so that they did not crease, and the design of the trunk allowed the girl to use it as a walk in closet. The lid was of polished leather and closed with a satisfying clunk. The lid was secured by clips and straps on the outside. The bottom of the trunk had several fastenings to allow it to slot into the fixings which were located on the floor next to each cot in the dormitory, allowing it to withstand the agonised rocking of a student confined within. A double floor concealed a baffled air system which allowed air but not light to enter the trunk when closed. Almost as soon as she arrived at College she realised that the trunk was not the innocent but extravagant item she had been led to believe. Mistress Susan had taken her uniform and clothes from the trunk on that first day and they had never gone back. It had been made clear that the trunk would become her prison if she transgressed, and her clothes were placed on a stool where they had to be kept ironed, starched and folded at all times. Failure to do so would result in instant punishment, either in the trunk for lesser offences or elsewhere in one of the many punishment rooms spread around the College if the offence was considered serious enough. It was clearly impossible for the girls to keep all their clothes in such good presentation all the time and so punishments could be applied at any time by either the Mistresses or by Matron Carla. A punishment ordered by Matron was always very severe and could go on for days. The girls lived in dread of Matron and would go to any lengths to avoid her whilst walking around the College However, it was Mistress Susan who had inflicted this particular punishment on Barbara all those hours ago.  
    Mistress Susan had walked into the dormitory where they were ironing their night clothes and had supposedly found a small part of her nightdress which had not been starched. She flew into an instant rage, scaring the other girls who turned to their ironing and doubled the starch for fear of being next. Ordered to remove her linen shift and replace it with the punishment shift, Barbara hurried to obey as Mistress Susan opened the door of her trunk and selected a pile of 3" wide starched linen straps from the table at her bedside, together with a small starched cotton square and a sleeve of heavy starched cotton . The most heavily starched of all their uniform was the punishment tunic, outwardly a normal but double lined thick linen shift, but in reality a handmade linen tunic with a number of modifications added by the lady in Cheltenham. When ordered to wear it, the girl had to remove the white silk panties and silk slip that were the standard undergarments for students not undergoing punishment and place it over her head without creasing the starch. Failure to do would be rewarded with additional, but unspecified time in restraint. Barbara had creased the right sleeve in her haste to obey the furious Mistress and she saw Mistress Susan's eyes light up in a sadistic sneer as she spotted it. She would surely suffer for such a breach, and indeed, she was now, as a trickle of saliva flowed down her throat, sharp with the acrid taste of the starched napkins and dirty dish cloth which now filled her mouth to overflowing, preventing her from swallowing.    
    The over tunic came to just above Barbara's knees and was made of double thickness white linen. This allowed padding or extra stiffeners to be added between the layers where pockets had been specially sewn in to receive them. There were also a range of snap hooks and buttons at various places which allowed additional accessories to be added if required. Over the breasts and on the inside of the tunic were reinforced triple patches of linen which were required to be starched rigid. These rubbed up and down over the wearer's nipples, causing terrible discomfort if worn for more than a few minutes. There was a high collar which could be extended over the head of the wearer as a hood if needed, but was more often used with a stiff starched collar which was fed into a special pocket. Each girl had to keep five different sizes of starched collar ready for wear and Barbara was now wearing the 5 inch size. The rigidity of the starched linen kept her head raised and would not allow her to rest her head or look down - a perfect posture device from the point of view of the staff, but agony for the wearer. A crotch strap was sewn into the garment. This three inch wide item of torment hung down inside the back of the tunic and could be pulled forward through the crotch and strapped to a buckle at the front of the wearer's waist. The inside surface of the strap could be fitted with a wide variety of tormenting attachments but in Barbara's case had been left in in its natural state, the surface filled with lots of small raised bumps, starched to perfection so that each small bump of linen became a stiff mountain of cloth which irritated and tormented the wearer whether she moved or not.  
    "Right you useless slut," shouted Mistress Susan, "Kneel down at the entrance to your trunk". As Barbara hurried to comply, fearful now for her impending confinement in the darkness of the stuffy trunk. Mistress Susan took the square of heavy cotton and started to peel it apart. The seemingly flat square was one of the hoods that were kept starched to perfection, so that when starched correctly, peeling the sides apart became a difficult task. The hood was one of many that the students were required to keep immaculately ironed and starched and this one was just the right size to fit tightly over Barbara's head. A linen drawstring allowed it to be closed at the wearer's neck, shutting off all light and most of the air. The hood was often used by the Mistresses to keep the girls docile whilst they were being fully restrained. Breathing inside the hood was much reduced due to the addition of the starch and the cotton of the hood sucked against the contours of the wearer's face as she breathed in, becoming a globe again as she breathed out. The hood would give enough air for about 15 minutes, normally long enough for the Mistress to complete the body bondage and be ready to apply the head bondage. If a girl had really upset her Mistress, she might be gagged first, a starched napkin being wadded into her mouth for packing, and a rolled dish towel used as a cleave binding. In this event, there was a much reduced air flow and breathing became a matter of survival. All the girls knew this and would do nothing to risk such displeasure. They became truly docile when the hood was applied, lest the air run out before the the binding was complete. Barabara looked straight ahead into the abyss of her trunk as Mistress Susan pulled the tight fitting cotton hood down over her head and drew the cord snug at her neck. Almost instantly, she felt the harsh starched cotton rasp against her face as the hood sucked against the contours of her face. She took her first breath of what would be a very uncomfortable 15 minutes of bondage.   
    "Arms and wrists behind you, palm to palm, you useless slut. I'll teach you to look after your clothes properly if I have to leave you here all week." Barabara blanched beneath the increasingly stuffy confines of the hood. This was no idle threat from Mistress Susan. Earlier that month she had taken an instant dislike to a student called Mary and had picked on her remorselessly until she could not stand the stress and had scorched one of her smartest linen shifts. Mary had been incarcerated in her trunk for a full week. She suffered the most uncomfortable bondage and, because of the intricate and extensive nature of her head bondage, was only released from her bindings once a night, while the other girls were asleep. Each night, her hood was removed and the silken scarves which tightly bound her lower face were loosened. She was fed a liquid diet containing a strong laxative via a bottle and tube. This attached to a tube gag which protruded forward of Mary's mouth and entered her throat, being held in place by a huge wadding of silk and a linen harness which attached to the tube and cut cruelly into the sides of her mouth. After the first 24 hours of her ordeal, and with no indiation of when her bondage might end, Matron had fitted her with a catheter which emptied into a container attached to the floor of the trunk. The container was changed each night and the laxative both increased her suffering and made waste disposal easier. Mary remained gagged and blindfolded throughout this process and on completion of the feeding, the scarves were retightened and the hood reapplied before the trunk was closed for another 24 hours. Mary had told her later that she had spent each 24 hour period in a different bondage position. The first night, she had been tied in a kneeling hogtie, with a strap running from the dish towel that bound her gag, to her ankles, so that her head was permanently forced back. Barbara would rather not think about how Mary's bondage was increased each day and desperately hoped that Mistress Susan was just trying to frighten her, beacuse if she was, she had succeeded. Mary had also been tied spreadeagled against the back of the trunk, mummy wrapped with thick cotton sheets, bagged and left on the floor of the trunk, and on one occasion, ball tied on her knees and strapped to the floor of the trunk with a heavy rubber sheet strapped as a tarpaulin over her to ensure she could not move.   Barbara felt the heavy cotton sheath being extended up her wrists so that the wide end was brought up to her shoulders. The straps were brought forward over Barbara's breasts and then drawn viciously back between her shoulder blades so that the sheath squeezed her arms and elbows together and dramatically increased the pressure of the hard linen pads over her nipples. The straps were brought forward again around her stomach before being wrapped around her back and secured to her wrists within the sheath, forcing her wrists tightly against the small of her back and rendering her sheathed arms completely immobile. Barbara uttered a short squeal as the straps were tightened mercilessly - and then instantly regretted it. Students were required to remain totally silent when undergoing punishment, and even the stuffy confines of the hood could not prevent Mistress Susan hearing her cry.  
    "How dare you make a noise when I am disciplining you. You'll be very sorry for that in a few days time, just mark my words. In the meantime however......"  
    Barbara cowered in her hood, afraid to move a muscle in case it further infuriated Mistress Susan. She heard Mistress Susan rummaging amongst the pile of items on the stool and then heard a tap running in the sink next to her cot. Just as she was trying to work out what Mistress Susan was up to, she found out. A thick band of material was laid over her mouth and pulled viciously back so that the band of cloth entered her mouth, forcing the starched hood deep into her mouth and cutting into the edges as it was tied too tightly at her neck. Almost instantly she felt the dampness of the cloth seep through the starch of the hood and she realised that the gagging band was sopping wet. "There, you have a drink while I finish you off, you ungrateful bitch", came Susan's voice through the hood. Barbara was not listening, as she fought to swallow the flow of water that seeped through the starched hood and dribbled down her throat, mingling with the starch of the hood and making a foul taste as she struggled to calm her breathing. How could she possibly have been so stupid.