Advice For a Newcomer?

"Any general advice you might have for me?"

Ophelia pauses for a moment to think about my question. I figure that any kind of knowledge of what I am going to have to do to make it through this will be useful. Ophelia is kinda similar to myself in the sense that she is still rather new here, so her experiences should give me a fair idea of what to expect even if I'm not sure if I can trust her yet.

"There are few things that would probably be good to keep in mind as you get yourself situated into the routine here." She says as I listen intently.

"The most important thing is that you should be careful with what you say around this place and who you say it to. Slaves in general tend to be rather selfish, despite what you might assume. The only person they really care about pleasing is their mistress. If they see that our Head Mistress is favoring one **** over themselves, they might become jealous and attempt to harm your standing with her through whatever means they can come up with."

"You speak like this is from experience." I reply, noticing that she seemed to end her sentence somewhat bitterly.

"Very observant of you, Sara." She acknowledges. "Yes, I experienced this first hand just last week. Since my arrival, I've done everything that I can in order to please our Mistress. I have obeyed every one of her orders and never once failed to do her bidding. I was eager to serve and wanted to make a good first impression. Another ****, Elise, who I don't believe you have met yet, was my partner in training at the time. She was really friendly towards me for days and acted like she actually cared for my well-being..."

Immediately, it clicks in my mind that this sounds eerily similar to my current situation.

"... One morning I woke up to see an angered Head Mistress looming over top of me. It turns out that Elise tipped her off about me stealing jewelry from her chamber. Of course this wasn't true but it was my word against Elise's, who has been here for several months now. I tried to plead my innocence but Mistress wasn't having it, especially when she showed me the supposed items I stole which Elise had obviously planted. I'd rather not recall the brutal punishment that I was given..." Ophelia's tone slowly gets more angered and resentful.

"Since then, I haven't been able to completely trust anyone here. That's the one thing I miss the most since becoming a ****. Having someone you can spew your heart out to at the end of the day is not a luxury one has within these walls."

"That's awful..." I answer, feeling sympathetic but also a little uneasy at Ophelia's revelation. I try to not to make myself look so obviously uncomfortable but she doesn't seem to pay much attention to me since telling her story has riled her up a bit.

"Some of these girls are so **** to appease the masters that they'll do anything even if it means lying or selling out a fellow ****." She says spitefully.

There is short period of silence during which Ophelia seems to calm herself down and takes notice of me.

"Oh shit. I know it might hard for you to believe me after what I've just said, but you can trust me Sara. I wouldn't have warned you about that otherwise." Ophelia remark in an attempt to reassure of her sincerity.

"I trust you." I answer, still not completely sure about the truth of that statement.

Buying my response she smiles, looking at me with those beautiful eyes as I try to think of what say. It's hard to imagine that a girl as sweet and as pure looking as herself could be deceitful in any way. It also begs the question of why someone such as her is involved in a place so dark as this. Everything about her seems so sincere, maybe I'm just being paranoid?