Camp

I got off the plane and looked around, finding the large red bus in the parking lot. I started walking towards it and noticed some other women, most of them young like me but a few in their 30s or 40s, heading the same direction. We didn't say anything to each other; we felt awkward about it given where we were headed.

We saw a tall blonde woman with cropped hair waiting outside the bus with a smile. She waved to us. We approached, and she said, "Bags, please." We handed her our bags one at a time as she stuffed them under the bus. Then she said, "The items in your luggage will be inspected. Inappropriate items will be discarded, and inappropriate clothes will be confiscated or altered. Don't worry, we'll provide you with plenty of clothes." Then she hustled us on the bus, where there were already several other girls. I took my seat next to a nervous-looking brunette who was only about 20. The cropped blonde stood at the front and said, "It should only be about a 20 minute ride from here. When we get there, the director will inspect you, and then orientation will begin." She sat down in the first seat and we took off.

Based on the looks on the other girls' faces, I figured I might be the only volunteer attendee. A volunteer was still pretty rare, even though the camps began accepting volunteers several years ago. When the New Order took over the continent, they established a dozen of these camps to train women in sexual practices as punishment for crimes. They'd be trained and either kept by a party member as a concubine or sold into slavery. The justice system was harsh under the New Order.

About three years later, the camps began accepting girls who were sent by their husbands or boyfriends who believed they needed improvement, or by their fathers who wanted to get them a good husband and get rid of them. Even as the camps grew, few people talked about them, and it was largely a mystery what went on there and how life was, whether the system was harsh or easy, and how the campers were trained. That's probably why there were so few volunteers. But I wanted, when I eventually found a boyfriend or got married, to be able to please my man as much as possible.

So I signed up to attend Camp Northwest. There were several options, but Camp Northwest was about a mile from a small town and a college campus, so I figured there would be a lot of people my age. Of course, that only mattered if I would be allowed to explore the area freely. I had no idea what my life would be like over the next year.

The bus turned off a country road into a place with a bunch of cabins and buildings, and there were several barely-dressed women walking around. We must have arrived. We pulled up in front of an official-looking building and stopped. The blonde stood up and said, "Everybody off. Form a line and stand up straight. Get ready for inspection!" And so we did.