John meets the ladies

John hadn’t realized how much that workout took out of him. His legs were like jello as he walked into the main room.

It was a large rec room. Tables were scattered throughout. Book shelves adorned the walls. There were dog eared and well read magazines scattered on the tables. Some ladies were playing cards. Some groups were just standing around talking.

He spotted Heidi standing with her clique against a far wall. She was back in her school girl outfit and sucking on a lollipop.

“Joanie! Joanie!” John saw Lisa waving at him from a small group of five women. He recognized Holly and Lisa, but didn’t know the others. He walked over to join them.

Lisa smiled at him. “How’s the first day going, Joanie?” Lisa asked.

“That workout was... intense,” John said softly. “My legs are like rubber right now.”

“And how many times did you get zapped in the shower?” Holly asked with a giggle.

John blanched. How did she...

“It’s your first day, honey. We’ve all been there,” Lisa said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “It’ll get easier as you’re converted.”

“I don’t want...”

Holly jumped in, changing the subject. “Joanie, these are some friends of ours. This is Stacy.” John shook her hand, making a mental note not to overly crush her hand. Stacy was petite, and lacked the bombshell curves of Holly and Lisa. Her chestnut hair was pulled back in a high ponytail. She gave the impression of once being a cheerleader.

“Nice to meet you, Joanie,” Stacy said, shaking his hand with an impeccably manicured one of her own.

“She was a gym teacher who was ‘turned in’ by one of her students,” Lisa filled in. “She’s not been in here that long. Thing is,” Lisa looked around conspiratorially,”we don’t actually know how much time passes.”

Stacy nodded. “No windows. No clocks. I’ve started marking off days by marking ‘lights out’ with my eyeliner on my shampoo bottle.”

“This is Amanda,” Holly said, gesturing towards the next woman. She was tall. Taller than John, and fairly thin. She had a nervous habit of brushing back her long auburn hair from her left eye, where the cascading locks fell over it. “Sorry,” She said, shyly.” She gestured at her hair. “New hair style. I’m not used to it yet.” She was pretty, her makeup accenting her green eyes.

“She handled accounting at a construction firm. When she turned down a coworker’s advances...”

Amanda shrugged. “I wound up in here.”

“And, finally, we have Anna,” Anna was stacked. Her arms were toned, and she had her blonde hair pulled up in a tight bun. She was built like a brick house, and John felt stirring in his crotch that he fought down. It would be too weird to be shocked in front of friends.

“She has a patron.” Holly explained.

Anna casually inspected her manicure. “It seems,” she said, in measured tones,”that my Patron desired a dominatrix. I’m learning how to put men in their place.”

Lisa cut in, “Easy Anna, ratchet it back! It’s her first day!”

Anna visibly relaxed. Then smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.” She tapped her temple. “The conversion. It is getting harder to resist.”

Lisa added, “She was a tennis pro.”

John swallowed. Hard. “Uh.. nice to meet you.”

Amanda smiled at John. “So how’d you wind up here?”

“Wrong place at the wrong time. My sister and her lesbian friends...”

“Say no more,” said Anna with a wink.

John wasn’t sure what she was suggesting. “I have a lot of questions...”

Stacy smiled. “We all did. Ask away!”

“So the conversion... it’s real? And they can seriously change your personality like that?” He gestured at Anna.

“Welcome to life as a heterosexual woman, Joanie,” Lisa said with a shrug. “We’re here. The computer controls everything. If you resist, you’re punished.”

“Speaking of,” John said, “What the hell was that in the yoga class?”

Amanda brushed her hair back again. “We heard about that! What did you see?”

“Some woman leaped at Heidi...”

“Figures,” Stacy said rolling her eyes.

John glanced over at Heidi, who saw him look. He smiled, and she just turned her back to him.

“Anyway,” John continued, “the woman lunged, got shocked twice, then this... thing was put on the back of her neck and she froze. Then she was taken away. That’s all I saw.”

“Look,” Lisa said, “that’s what Heidi does for fun. Heidi’s exercise group is almost ready for release. She just earned that woman a couple more years in here.”

“OK...” John said warily. “But what was that thing that was put on her neck? And what happened to her?”

Anna shrugged. “We don’t know what that thing actually is or what it’s really called.”

“The ladies in here refer to that thing as a Patronizer,” Amanda added.

“As far as it matters,” Anna continued, “it robs you of free will. Any voluntary movement is stopped. You continue to breathe, blink... stuff like that. But it kinda blocks your brain from controlling your body.”

“So... patronizer because it’s patronizing to be frozen like that?” John asked.

“No, silly,” Holly said. “They clip those on us all before being presented to the Patrons. It’s how they keep us from harming Patrons during the Patron parade.”

“Woah,” John said. “Patron parade? I am NOT taking part in that!”

“You don’t have a choice,” Anna said sadly. “The Patronizer will be clipped on. You’ll be prepared and then displayed for the Patrons to inspect.”

“It’s not that bad, Joanie,” Lisa said. “Gen pop has lots of women. Only the exceptional ones stand out and garner attraction of a Patron.”

“But I don’t want...”

“A patron,” the five women said in unison. “We’ve all been where you are, Joanie. But you need to accept that you will be in the Patron Parade.”

“How often does that happen?” John asked, nervously. “When’s the next one?”

“Well, without knowing dates and times, it’s hard to say,” Anna said. “But it’s been a while. Chances are we’ll be having one soon.”

“Fuck,” John said. He shook his head trying to process that. He had to get out of here before then. He pushed it aside, otherwise head curl up in a ball on the floor.

“What happened to the girl in yoga, the one with the Patronizer?” asked John, regaining his composure.

Holly shrugged. “Dunno. It doesn’t happen that often. Heidi always seems to be involved.”

“I can’t wait for her release,” Anna said. “I hear her Patron is a dominant, as in spankings and bondage and stuff.” She grinned. “He wanted a little tart to break and bend to his will. He’ll have just that. And she deserves it. “

“She’s that bad?” John asked.

“Pure evil, Joanie. And you had to go and get her attention,” Lisa said.

“Anyway,” Holly continued, “we’re not sure what happens to the women that are taken away. We just know that their sentences are extended and they come back... changed.”

“As if they had very INTENSE conversion therapy,” Stacy added.

John made a mental note to not take a swing at anyone in the prison. He thought for a bit, then said, “OK, my sister and her friends? How can I contact them?”

Lisa shrugged. “You probably can’t. This prison, as best we understand it, has multiple identical wings. Girls that are brought in together are usually split up.”

“Emotional attachments like those interfere with conversion,” Anna added.

“But how do I know she’s OK?”

“She is,” Stacy said. “The computer prevents any harm.”

“But what if one of them got hurt?”

“The computer would arrange medical care. And before you even think about it,” Lisa said, “You can’t trick the computer into thinking you’re sick or injured. It’ll scan you to make sure things are real.”

“And if you’re not and you try it...” Holly started.

“You’ll be punished!” Anna said, her dominatrix personality coming to the front again.

John wandered over to a table and sat down, shaking his head. The ladies came over to him and huddled around him. “You’ll be OK, Joanie. You’ll get through this. It’s just a lot to take in,” Stacy said.

“But I don’t belong here!” John said, shaking his head.

“You’ll just have to make the best of it,” said Lisa. “You’re here until your conversion and release. You need to accept that.”

The group of women sat down at the table with John. They flipped through the magazines, apparently all fashion magazines, sliding unnoticed into their hetero women mindsets, chattering about makeup and hair styles, trying to draw John into the conversation. John pretty much sat there, uninterested, fighting off that sinking feeling in his stomach that he was doomed. John tried desperately to come to terms with his predicament.

He was in the system as a lesbian. He was in Dixon Correctional Facility to be converted to a heterosexual woman. His chastity plate prevented anyone from telling he was a guy. He would, eventually, be frozen and presented to Patrons. And he had stepped in a deep pile of trouble by getting Heidi’s attention.

There had to be a way out of this mess.

The computer’s voice broke through John’s wallowing. “Prisoners have ten minutes to arrive at their next instructional training. Arrivals within the last week should head to the area marked for instructions on their next training.”

The ladies stood up. “Hang in their, Joanie,” Holly said sympathetically. “It’ll all become routine soon enough.”

“That’s what worries me,” John said as he trudged over to join the group of women standing in the new arrivals area, dreading what he’d have to endure next.