Victoria's Rules, Ch. 1

Victoria's Rules
(Mind control, F/f. foot fetish, humiliation, slavery, bdsm, sadism)

I thought I would be a super hero when I discovered my special ability.

    It's a good one: I can reverse time to a certain degree. Say for example, I drop a plate. I can just rewind fifteen seconds or whatever and make sure to not drop it this time. Or if I said something that offended someone, I can just wind back the conversation and say something else. Or at least, that's what I did until Victoria took control of my entire life.
    Now if I even try to use my power for my own sake... It takes a while to explain what happens, but I avoid it at all costs because it's painful and doomed to fail. She has ways of knowing if I even try. That was one of her first rules for me.
    It hadn't occurred to me that other people would get superpowers like I did. Certainly not Victoria Summers, the meanest most manipulative girl in the entire school. She always had her little group of sycophants surrounding her doing everything she says, but now she can dominate anyone she meets in huge or subtle ways.
    Victoria got her dream power: she can meet you and right away give you rules to follow.
    "From now on," she will say in her aristocratic cut-glass voice, "I want you to spend your lunch break detailing my Land Rover. Even if you just did it the other day, spend the entire hour cleaning it. I drive barefoot, and I hate the feeling of dirt or sand on my feet as I press the peddles."
    If a person tries to disobey Victoria's rules, bad things start happening. First is a nausea that quickly becomes debilitating. Feels like you need to throw up but it just won't happen. Forget going to work, or school – I could barely lift my head the agony was so bad. Next is vertigo, dizziness, dysphoria. She even uses my power to amplify hers: making a disobedient girl repeat the same moment of pain over and over again. She can just reverse time for as long as it takes for the person to give in and obey her. When she did it to me, I could barely last fifteen minutes.
    I've never seen a person who can resist her power in any serious way and she is only getting stronger.
    She uses it to get her way all the time, but still enjoys more subtle politicking and rewarding people for voluntary, servile behavior. She's given her friends a portion of her power, and they use it to create their own little fiefdoms throughout the school. Each is unique in its cruelty, with Kim's being particularly bad. She was Victoria's right hand and best friend. A coltish blonde who was truly excited to have volunteers to act out her outrageously unethical psychological and sexual experiments.
    The transformation has been jaw-dropping. It is a kingdom built on slavery, where all the slaves are wealthy young women from privileged backgrounds. The tuition at Hartcourt Academy was over a quarter of a million dollars a year, and that didn't include boarding, food, or fees for using the horse stables. They buy the finest food to serve to her, and beauty products to pamper and adore her. She seems to believe that this makes her stronger.
    I need to remember. I need to create a record of what's happening before Victoria bans me from doing that and controls all of history too. Can you imagine? I need to share what happened, so maybe someone else can figure out how to stop her. Or at least learn how it all began...


Chapter 1
    She was such a bitch.
    "Max is so skinny, I think she only eats once a week!"
    I blushed when she said that – Jenny and Marie nodded and laughed and thought it was a compliment. But my whole life I've had body issues with thinking I'm too skinny, then Victoria Summers calls me out about it on orientation day, in front of all our future dorm mates.
    That 'compliment' really stuck – larger girls looked on with undisguised envy. I kept mumbling something about being into working out, but I get so anxious whenever somebody brings up my weight, I was all flustered. Then I made a bad first impression on people as some quiet, sulky skinny girl.
    This is all before I got my power, by the way. I was a regular girl then: 20, college freshman at the school of my dreams. Short black hair that I heavily textured. Eclectic fashion, but I really liked to showcase my toned butt in yoga pants. It helps that I have really long legs for my height.
     And yes, I did have an eating disorder. Whatever, I don't want to talk about that.
    I went to a 'treatment facility' for it at the behest of my asshole stepdad and that really sucked. I think he just wanted to get me out of the house so he could have the place to himself, treating my mom like crap and making her behave in all stupid demeaning ways without a witness to get in the way.
    He's rich, obviously. He is also controlling, chauvinistic, and a total pain in the ass to be around. He always makes my mom walk around the mansion in bare feet, even on cold nights. She even started putting pressure on me to do the same, so I would always wear cartoonish or bright neon socks to annoy Roger. It was a double-edged sword though; when he got upset at me, he would take it out on my mom who either wasn't courageous or just wasn't interested in standing up for herself. Why this time? He had already crossed so many other lines, maybe she enjoyed it on some level.
    Before I left for the rehab facility, we came to an uneasy truce about the sock situation: he apparently didn't mind if I wore a pair of snow white teardrop socks with a splash of crystal blue making the organic cotton look like snow. They had overly intricate ruffled lace around the ankles, and fit very snugly around my feet while providing nothing in terms of warmth or protection. They were thin enough that you could see my red pedicure and toe cleavage perfectly – would they even survive a day in shoes?
    Not that I would have ever worn them outside, because I actually found them kind of frilly and ridiculous. He said this was a way of testing how dirty the floors are, to see if the maid should come. At one point, I saw Roger had my mom wearing the same teardrop ankle socks, rubbing her feet over every inch of his tile floor as though using them to dust the entire mansion with slow, mindful movements.
    I loathed him, but I obviously didn't want to hurt my mom so I agreed to go away to a rehab facility.
    At least that's what it was supposed to be, but it quickly became more like a prison. Remote, so there wasn't anything nearby to do, with ridiculously stringent rules and classes. It was literally the kind of place they would make you write lines on the chalkboard if you were tardy. I found it tolerable, but barely – if we weren't allowed to talk to the other girls there I think it would have driven me mad. As it was, I met some really cool people and did make meaningful progress in overcoming my mental issues which I think is a credit to that facility.
    I was on the road to recovery, and one comment from Victoria set me back years. It just made me want to prove myself to her, which isn't a good mindset to begin with.
    I met Courtney that same day, though, so it wasn't all bad.
    She was selling joints for $5 each and business was great. Totally not the drug dealer type: Persian oil heiress, just doing it for the thrill. Even if she got discovered, what would the cops really do?
    "You look so good! Do you work out? I'm too lazy to do it," Courtney said to me. She was reclining back on a bench, texting someone but she put her phone away so we could talk.
    "Come on, you can have a seat!"
    I don't talk a lot so it was great talking to Courtney who could easily spend two minutes talking without needing feedback. Even then, I could just say "Yeah" or "really?" and she would continue on some funny tangent for another two minutes.
    "My mom found my birth control pills and she freaked out. But I know for a fact she signed off for me to have them, wouldn't she already know? And that's not anything like if she catches me with a boy. One time, she literally chased a guy out of our house when he found out we were alone together. Just between us..."
    Like that, Courtney came into my life and we were best friends. She had a lot of money, and would toss me stuff as soon as she got bored with it: smartphones, smartwatches, earrings and bracelets. Sometimes it felt like all I wore was her old hand-me-downs, I'd walk out the door with at least five accessories she had given me.
    "Here you take my old watch and that way we can stay in touch better. There's even my payment information on there – pay for dinner or whatever you want, be my guest."
    For the most part, I met my friends through Courtney. There was Larissa, a Greek girl with full lips and a full figure. And Jill, who had a talent for finding parties for us all to check out, and keeping us safe while we were there.
    Jill loved dressing up – one of Victoria's rules for her was a strict uniform of Victoria's choosing: a muted schoolgirl uniform that was apparently designed to feel uncomfortable. Her wild red hair tamed into a sock bun and often totally obscured beneath a charcoal grey beret..
    Jill waxed eyebrows too, that was a lucrative little side hustle she did right out of her dorm room. She was really into the steampunk look; her room was full of antique radio clocks that were old enough to have the Conelrad logo on them still.
    They still worked just fine. We would listen to college radio when our friend Shira DJ'd and smoke really good weed – it was everything I expected from college. Classes were interesting and stimulating. I even competed with Victoria to be the class valedictorian, to my clear advantage. Then she started spreading rumors, and being rude and otherwise making my life hell.
    One day, as I was eating lunch in the library cafe:
    "Max, I'm really glad to see you eating," Victoria said within earshot of several people sitting around us.
    In her high heels, she had walked up to me to say that? Nobody could ignore that click-clack sound. Who wears high heels to a library??
    "Thanks?" I said, trying to play it off like a joke. Already the food seemed wrong – I could feel people staring at me and judging me it totally killed my appetite. I had only taken two bites.
    She asked if she could sit down and I agreed even though I didn't really want to talk to her.
    "Courtney said you came here from an Institution?" Victoria said, and I immediately got angry at Courtney for sharing something like that. What the hell?
    "It was more like a private school," I said.
    "It was Winstead House, right? That's where they send girls who aren't fit for higher education to teach them a trade. One of my best maids graduated from there."
    I glared at her.
    "Well, I'm here so I did something right," I said, cool as ice.
    That should have been my warning not to trust Courtney with anything serious, but I did exactly that later when I discovered I could rewind time. We had already fought and made up at that point – I really did think I could trust her. Or maybe Victoria made her spill the beans by some other way.
    Courtney and I used to practice using my power – seeing its extents and limitations. She was hillarious about the whole thing. She really wanted to be my superhero sidekick, and she would come up with all these contrived situations to test me. She kept detailed notes on our findings, and would do amazing research. We did some great things to start: preventing accidents, befriending people, and maybe I cheated a little to always know the right thing to say in school.
    Now that I think about it, it was about this time I noticed other changes going on. I was just so swept up in the drama of my own life that I didn't put two and two together until it was too late. But who could have possibly divined such a thing?
    The first conspicuous change I remember seeing, was Jill wearing a uniform.
    Despite myself, I laughed when I first saw Jill in that schoolgirl's uniform. I thought it was a joke! This was the same girl who wore a swan dress like Bjork did, and would spend hours giving herself glam makeup even to go to the coffee shop. Jill carried books around with her now to complete the look – a striking anachronism considering how everything was on tablets now.
    "Jill, what's up with your new outfit?" I asked as she sat to eat with us.
    Even her lunch was basic: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (no crust) and a green apple with a bottle of milk I didn't even know they served in our dining hall.
    "I'm doing some research for Dr. Quinn," she answered bashfully, "I need to wear this uniform for a semester and use analog technology as much I can. She even confiscated my phone!"
    We were all taken aback by that.
    "Uh, I don't think that's legal," Courtney said, laughing nervously.
    "Oh, it's okay," our friend replied, "I'm getting a huge stipend for it. And I get author credit when it's published – that's really going to accelerate my career, I think. Wouldn't you do the same thing?"
    We all paused and thought about it. I don't think I would. Courtney murmured something polite, and we had a nice lunch.
    "How is it working with Dr. Quinn?" I asked.
    "She has so many rules to follow!" Jill said, whining a little bit in a cute way. "But, good. I know she wants more volunteers, if you would be interested."
    "What kinds of things does she have you doing, exactly?" Courtney asked.
    "I am participating in a course of her design, using only analog technologies as much as possible for the semester, like I said. Maybe she will write a quote on the board then it's my job to look it up without using the Internet. Or I will read books and provide her with hand-written summaries for her to examine. I have to pay a lot of attention to my penmanship – that counts for a lot of the grade."
    "Sounds weird," Courtney said.
    I agreed, it barely seemed worth rewinding for to get more information. I wanted to test a rumor out though, so I gave Courtney the signal that I was about to use my power: examining my nails very closely as though looking for hangnails urgently.
    I rewound time to about when she asked me if I'd take the same deal.
    "I would definitely do the same thing!" I said, "Is she looking for more volunteers? Tell her that I'll give her hand massages if she lets me in the program,"
    Courtney laughed out loud, but Jill blushed.
    "Oh, come on! It was just one time, everybody makes such a big deal about it! Wouldn't you like a hand massage too?"
    "Okay, fair point," I said, "--
    "Yeah, I'll take one right now, please!" Courtney said, offering one hand across the lunch table to Jill.
    "Okay!"
    Jill reached out to Courtney and started massaging the Persian girl's hand. Only Courtney would see through the absurdity of the situation to appreciate a free massage. I didn't want to push much farther – Jill seemed well enough. In fact, I didn't even rewind to change the events back to the first conversation. I decided to let this one be the story: where Jill gave Courtney a pleasant massage and we all caught up with each other, closer for the intimacy.
    Maybe Courtney told Jill about my power?
    I have overlooked describing the scope of my power, so far. It was totally life-altering. I could make as much money as I needed gambling online, always careful not to win so much so as to arouse suspicion. I could consistently take photographs that made people think, "how could she capture that exact moment so perfectly?" again and again. I was never wrong about something. I was superhuman.
    And so was Victoria.
    In those early days she was frosty or downright mean no matter how much I tried to befriend her. At first I was patient and understanding, trying to build a shared understanding. But I honestly got tired of her constant attitude, and our relationship degraded even more. I'd start rewinding to come up with the perfect insult to put her in her place, or mostly just avoid her altogether.
    Next I will discuss some of the changes I saw within the school. Parts of it are missing and it might not come out right – Victoria's gift – but I'll do my best.