Summer School

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Escape

“Hey, Dori. Where are you going?”

“Riding school. I’ll be back in the fall. Have a nice summer, you guys…you poor slobs,” she added softly as she closed the car door and started the engine.

With that, Dori left her little group of former high school friends and drove off for six weeks at a crack riding academy in New England. She had told only a few people about this and actually wanted no one to know because she was sure that her horsy friends would bug her about going to school for something that they all thought they were perfect at already. Dori knew better. She had been riding for some years, mostly western style, and she secretly yearned for the more exacting and sophisticated disciplines of the English seat. When she received a small, personally addressed brochure inviting her to attend the New England Mountain School for Equestrians, she hounded her father mercilessly until he agreed to come up with the tuition for the full summer session. Dori was 19 and had graduated from high school. She’s spent a year at the local community college getting reasonable grades, but she dropped out, bored with the freshman subjects and ho-hum classes.

“I’ll go to the University next year,” she told her single parent Dad. He accepted this, knowing in his mind that she was unlikely to return to college. In any case, he thought, the summer school would keep Dori from getting into trouble with the local riff-raff – half were well-heeled society types, the rest were trailer trash from the other side of town. Both groups rode, albeit at different levels of skill and with somewhat different financing. The little Virginia community had the luxury of having lots of horses and plenty of space for riding.

So, with her little white car packed to the roof with her clothes and gear, Dori said goodbye to her buddies and headed for the interstate and the distant mountains of Vermont.

On the map, Green River Center, VT, was the nearest town to the school. They told her to phone when she got that far and someone would come and pick her up. Because she was too early, she drove on through the quaint New England town and tried to guess where the school might be. By three o’clock, she had given up and called the school from the Howard Johnson’s Motel. An hour later, she was met by a woman and a man in a bright red four-wheel drive Range Rover. They were both well turned out in what Dori could tell was expensive and fashionable riding attire: white turtleneck shirts under dark blue down vests, perfectly fitted beige breeches, black boots that Dori thought were probably Hermes, and black leather gloves. They introduced themselves as Karen and Greg. They formally shook hands, the couple using the typical German quick grip, once up, once down, then a quick release motion that Dori had encountered during her visits to the Continent. She thought it was a rather curt way to meet and greet someone, but she was used to it.

“You are expected,” said Greg with a thin smile. Dori thought he looked about two or three years older than she was and that Karen could easily have been his sister. She had the same sandy blond hair, carefully cut and cared for to give her the “carelessly cool” look.

“Follow us in your car and we’ll show you where to park,” Karen said and she turned and got back into the driver’s seat of the Rover.

Dori got back in her car and followed as they turned north on the road out of town and drove for about ten miles. They made another turn and ended up on a dirt road that wound up through the hills and into the pine forest. The road was marked with deep ruts, large rocks and washouts where rain run-off had dug near trenches across the road. The little Ford had a hard time on the hilly track and twenty minutes of rough road later, they were at an impressively massive iron gate that Karen unlocked and relocked once the two cars passed through.

“We have arrived. Welcome to the school,” Greg said as he got out of the Rover and walked over to Dori, who had lowered her window. “Park your car there and come with us. We’ll get your luggage later.”

Dori pulled into a small clearing next to the road, locked her car and jumped into the high right seat of the SUV. Karen, Dori observed, had a very nice figure. She was perhaps a few years older and exhibited an attitude that Dori found somewhat condescending, as she drove expertly, if not a bit too fast, over the rutted Vermont road. Greg sat in the seat behind her, saying nothing. Dori noted the Rover’s subtle modifications, including seat belts that could be actually locked, requiring a key to release, and multiple heavy-duty tie-down rings on the floor. The locks and tie-downs seemed nearly as ominous as the German handshake.

“Students who come here for the first time,” Karen said, “tend to find this operation a bit imposing. As you will see, we are not like other riding schools…except perhaps for the old Prussian Equestrian Academies of Europe where students often spent their entire lives.”

“I’ve read about them,” Dori said with enthusiasm. “Weren’t they very strict, though?”

“Strict is perhaps too generous a word,” Karen retorted, swinging the Rover completely off the road and onto the grassy side to avoid a tremendous pot hole. “They put training of the body and mind above all else. If you didn’t cooperate, you were fucked.”

“I suppose that only worked in those times,” Dori added slowly, wondering exactly which of the two possible meanings Karen had intended to her comment.

“She means that literally,” Greg piped up from the back seat, as if he had read her mind. “If you didn’t do as you were told, you found yourself being chained to a bed, horse whipped and buggered day and night.” He licked his lips unconsciously.

“Well,” said Dori, not wanting to seem offended by the rough talk, “I think discipline has its place. We’re too easygoing today and people get away with too much.”

“Correct,” snapped Karen. “And you, Miss Dori, have you been properly disciplined at home?”

“My Dad is pretty tough. He used his belt on me a few times when I really screwed up. The scars went away, but you can be damned sure I didn’t do it again.”

“What were you doing?” Greg asked, looking attentively at Dori’s back and seeming to appraise the rest of her as well.

“He caught me hanging out with the wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time. We got into trouble and all got arrested. But the police let me go when my Dad intervened. He took me home, told me I had to be punished and kept me in my room for a week after the whipping.”

“Did he tie you up?” Karen asked casually, looking straight ahead as she concentrated on her driving.

“Well, no,” Dori said cautiously. “He made me hold onto the bed post and told me that if I didn’t he’d take what he called, ‘sterner measures.’”

“Some people might think that was child abuse,” Karen muttered, concentrating on keeping the speeding truck on the road.

“Yeah, well, I was pretty mad at the time, but by the end of the week, I realized I could have ended up in jail with a police record. Next to that option, the belt was easy. I never told anyone about this until now anyway,” Dori added, surprised that she even shared this information with total strangers.

“Well, unlike the Prussian Academies, this is only for the summer…” said Karen.

“Except for a chosen few,” interrupted Greg. “The Head picks a few special students to stay year round. They have their own quarters and work as grooms and instructors.”

“That’s us,” Karen added.

“Oh, really? You guys were students?”

“Of course,” said Greg. “It’s a pretty good life up here away from it all. I sure like it.”

“I can’t say that idea doesn’t appeal to me,” Dori said cautiously, considering the usual options available to well-to-do young women like herself. She had no desire to become a suburban housewife and the idea of getting married right out of high school and raising kids simply didn’t appeal to her. Most of her friends were already engaged or still looking for “Mister Right,” which meant finding an intelligent, good-looking, well-off career professional who could immediately afford a nice house or estate and had family money. The idea of spending her life with horses and people who understood them was pretty appealing as an alternate life style.

The Rover climbed further into the hills and soon arrived at a large, comfortable-looking stone house with several stone barns, silos and outbuildings nearby. Dori could see two Olympic-size, covered riding arenas, some loafing sheds in nearby white fenced paddocks and, a few hundred meters to the north, a low, round, stone and metal shed that looked like a squat fortress. Behind the house was a much larger stone building that appeared to have been initially designed as a hotel. Dori assumed this was a dormitory.

It was cool inside the house and her guides took her immediately up the wide natural wood staircase and showed her into a small, but beautifully furnished bedroom. There was an adjoining bathroom, complete with antique steel porcelain bathtub, washstand and an old-fashioned toilet with the overhead water tank and pull chain.

“Lovely,” Dori said. “I can handle this. It’s like an old inn.”

“Quite,” said Karen, turning on her heel and walking to the door to join her partner. “This will be your temporary quarters. Dinner will be at six o’clock sharp. Formal attire is required. Take a bath and use the robe on the bed. Someone will be back shortly with your proper attire for dinner.”

“Okay, but my stuff is back in my car,” said Dori absently, as she checked out the elaborate selection of toiletries on the dresser.

“We will provide the uniform,” said Greg, rather solemnly.

“Okay,” said Dori, wondering why she’d brought all her clothes if this was going to end up a “uniform campus.”

The school provided her with everything she needed, based on the information she had written in the eight-page questionnaire she filled out a month before. They had asked many questions, a lot of them very personal; including the kinds of relationships she had with boys in school and with girlfriends as well. They insisted on a long list of her exact measurements, including her neck, wrist, ankle, calf, bicep and thigh circumferences, as well as the usual bust, waist and hips figures.

“What the hell are they going to do with that kind of stuff?” Dori had asked her father. He shrugged, knowing that the horsy set had some odd habits and social pretensions that he personally found annoying, but generally harmless. Dori answered most questions honestly; having been told that any dishonesty that was discovered would be grounds for immediate dismissal or “strict disciplinary action.”

Dori’s father seemed a bit reluctant to sign the parental agreement in the school’s contract, pointing out that she was no longer a minor and that anything she signed was legally binding for her, not him. “This is pretty detailed, Honey,” he said, after studying the twelve page document. “You will have to do what you’re told and I know that’s not your style. They imply that punishment is pretty strict, but if you sign this, you agree to take whatever they hand out. You just can’t walk away, you know.”

“I know, Dad. I read it. But I think I’m ready for this and it can’t be that bad. There are lots of kids who ride and they are a lot harder-headed than I am. If it’s as bad as you think, no one would go there.”

Her father shook his head, but he signed and wrote the large check, remarking that, based on what he’d read in the contract; “the school will really own you, body and soul, for as long as you’re there.”

“Like forever, right?” Dori sassed back.

“Well, if they wanted to enforce this paragraph,” her lawyer father mused. “Yes, I suppose forever. But that’s a long, long time and I have no intention of sending them any more money after the summer is over, so I doubt they’d keep you there gratis. Just remember that during the next twelve weeks.” Neither of them knew that in a few weeks, Dori would be in fact, literally owned by the school.