P.T.A.

Melissa walked into the classroom. As soon as she saw the group of people inside, she stopped dead, backed out, read and re-read the sign on the door, then took two or three hesitant steps back inside with an expression of pure and unadulterated confusion on her face. This...did not look like the local PTA meeting.

And it wasn't like Melissa didn't know a PTA meeting when she saw one. As an Army wife, she'd gone through the routine of getting her sons settled into a new school more times than she wanted to count. She was used to walking into a room of cheerful women wearing floral-print dresses and cardigans, seeing the same faces if not the same people, bonding over bake sales and pancake breakfasts and school carnivals. She could probably pick out a PTA mom out of a police lineup if she had to. But this...

Melissa looked again at the women looking at her. She leaned back again, looking at the door again, but there was the sign. 'P.T.A. Meeting Tonight: 8 PM.' She leaned forward again, even more hesitantly before. "Is...this the PTA meeting?" she asked, entirely certain that someone would correct her.

Instead, one of the women standing at the front said, "Yes, come in!" She beckoned with immaculately manicured bubble-gum pink nails that Melissa couldn't imagine lasting for more than three hours without chipping in her household. "I'm Vickie, I'm the President of our local chapter, and oh my gosh, it is so nice to meet you! There's a seat free over between Jackie and Cassie, just go ahead and sit down there, and we can go ahead and get started! Oh, gosh, it's just so exciting to have a new person here!"

Melissa tried to control her expression as she walked down the row of desks, but she couldn't imagine the other women didn't notice her wide, staring eyes. But they all looked like Vickie. Perfect, shimmering nails in every color of the rainbow. Faces done up flawlessly in matching colors-there wasn't a single woman in the room who looked like they'd hit the ground running after making dinner and hadn't had time to touch up their eye-shadow. Low-cut, high-hemmed outfits that accentuated their curves like they planned to go out later and turn tricks. Curves to be accentuated-Melissa thought she'd done a good job of keeping her figure after two kids, but she looked plump and dowdy next to these women. And each and every one greeted her with that same cheerful, sing-song voice that Vickie used. The phrase 'Stepford Wife' popped into Melissa's mind, unbidden.

She sat down. Jackie and Cassie both looked over at her in perfect unison, and it took all of Melissa's self-control to keep from bolting. "Hi!" they said, speaking with that same eerie, sing-song cadence. "It's so nice to meet you, Missy!" There was an echo of similar responses moving down the rows of desks.

Melissa decided to assert herself early. "It's Melissa, actually," she said, using her best Southern 'bless your heart' voice. She might be out of her element...and creeped right the hell out...but she had dealt with enough feminine pecking orders to know how to rule a roost in short order.

Up at the front, Vickie said, "Of course it is," in exactly the same voice Melissa used on her younger son when he insisted he was secretly Superman. Melissa fixed her grin into position with a samurai's determination. "It's so good that we could welcome you to join us tonight. There really aren't that many women in town who aren't already in the local chapter, so it's nice to see a new face."

Melissa had to admit, the place was crowded. There probably weren't more than 800 people in the entire area, but they still filled every single seat in the room with a half-dozen women up at the front. Not that she blamed them-after a couple of weeks at Dugway, probably even the local PTA meeting started to look like a social event. Maybe that was why they dressed up for it. (Still, all of them? Identically? Melissa's fingers itched to Google that Nicole Kidman adaptation and see where it was set.)

"So," Vickie continued, looking straight at Melissa like she was the only woman in the room, "is this your first time attending a P.T.A. meeting?" Vickie smiled her way around every word, like she'd taken something a little too strong for her back pain (she had to have back pain, right? The dress might be flattering them, but those boobs had to make it hard to stand up straight) or her foot pain (Heels? Who wore stiletto heels to a PTA meeting?) and the whole world was glowing pink for her.

Melissa refused to rise to the patronizing bait. "I've been to PTA meetings in three states in five years," she said calmly. "I know there are always local differences, but I'm sure I can catch up pretty quick."

"Well, we are all about learning!" Vickie said, her voice sickeningly pert. "We'll have you back to being a perfectly trained automaton in no time. Anyway, girls, let's get to the first item on the agenda-Hollie wanted to show us all a really wonderful trick for suppressing your gag reflex when deep throating. She puts her left thumb inside her fist, under her fingers, and squeezes it like so..."

Melissa's eyes nearly popped clean out of her head as one of the other women at the front of the classroom pulled a massive dildo out of her purse, held up her hand and closed her fingers over her thumb, then slid the entire thing down her throat in a single smooth gesture. "Oh my God!" she blurted out, not even realizing she'd spoken until every other face in the room turned to look directly at her.

"I know!" Vickie said, grinning widely. "Isn't it amazing? I mean, I've never had any problems swallowing cock, but not every girl is that lucky. Sometimes training is just about finding new ways to override your silly old brain's natural habits. Isn't that right, girls?" A ripple of nods moved through the crowd of women like they were trying to do the wave with just their heads.

"That's not-what the hell?" Melissa snapped, standing abruptly. "What is wrong with you people? The clothes and the hair and the 'automatons' and what the hell does sucking dick have to do with children's education? Seriously, what the ever-loving fuck is wrong with you?" She stomped her way up to the front of the classroom as she spoke, expecting the women to close ranks and block her path at any moment. The Stepford jokes were getting less and less funny with every passing second.

Vickie didn't look menacing, though. Just confused. "But-I thought you said you'd been to a meeting before," she said, her eyes unfocusing slightly like she was trying to hold too many thoughts at once. "You said you-" She looked down at Melissa's hands in bewilderment. "You don't even have a bracelet! How can you be a perfectly trained automaton if you don't have a training bracelet?"

Melissa could feel the adrenaline pumping through her, telling her that it was not time to ask questions about what the large group of identical creepy women were talking about when they said 'perfectly trained automaton'. It was time to go. She started marching for the door, but one of the women nearest to the doorway moved to block her exit. And when Melissa froze, trying to judge whether she could bowl her over before realizing she'd just gotten up to throw something in the trash, she saw a sudden rush of motion out of the corner of her eye and the feel of cool metal against her skin.

"There we go!" Vickie said. "All better now." Melissa looked down to see a plain silver bracelet wrapped around her wrist, the kind of thing nobody would look twice at. The kind of thing, she realized, that every single woman in the classroom was wearing. She reached to pull it off, but there was a brief sensation of searing heat as the clasp sizzled and smoked for a moment, and Melissa had a pretty good idea what that meant even before she tugged ineffectually at it.

She somehow expected them to do more, to grab her and strap her into some sort of weird sci-fi brainwashing machine...but surprisingly enough, that seemed to satisfy them. Even the woman at the door sat right back down, like it was purest coincidence that she'd gotten up just when she did. "So as I was saying, girls," Vickie said, picking up her lecture as though nothing had happened, "we can't rely on our bracelets for everything. Sometimes the easiest way to teach yourself to pleasure your man is just to hang out with women who are naturally submissive and let them tell you all the ways that they learned to be more obedient. Brandi, you were telling us last week about using kegels to tighten up your cunt for your husband, weren't you? I think we should review-"

"Um. Excuse me." Melissa's voice was filled with barely suppressed fury.

"In a moment, dear," Vickie said. "Brandi has the floor."

A woman in the crowd, distinguishable from the others only by her particular shade of red lipstick and the color of her hair, shook her head politely. "No, it's okay. I think that Missy...Melissa...needs to talk this through before she'll be ready to accept anything I have to say anyway."

Vickie beamed at Brandi like she was about to leap into the crowd and french-kiss her. For all Melissa knew, she was. "That is so smart of you!" she said. "And so sweet, too. Okay, Melissa, you have the floor. What did you want to ask?"

"The bracelet," Melissa said, holding up her wrist. She tried to work her fingers under it, but it seemed to have molded itself perfectly to her skin. "Can you take it off? Please."

Vickie sighed, somehow managing to look cheerfully sad. "Oh, sorry, sweetie, no can do! It's your training bracelet. If I took it off, how would you become a perfectly trained automaton?"

Melissa let out a brief shout of frustration. "Gah! Why do you keep saying that?"

"Well, that's what you're here for, right?" Vickie looked over at the door in confusion. "The Perfectly Trained Automatons meeting? You want to be trained to be a good obedient fucktoy for the man in your life, don't you?"

"I..." Melissa tried to wrap her brain around the bizarre statement, and found that she simply couldn't. She loved her husband, certainly. Loved him enough to put up with the peripatetic career of a military man, loved him enough to miss him like hell when he was on active duty overseas, loved him enough to bear two wonderful children with him and keep trying to make life work for their family despite everything, but...obedient? Fucktoy? "I should go," she said, pushing the whole messy bundle of emotions that the question raised as far back in her mind as she could. She started for the door, certain that the crazy women would stop her.

But instead, Vickie just said, "Are you sure? If you go, you won't learn all the ways to pleasure your Master. You won't be perfectly trained." She almost lost the smile at that last sentence, like the thought sucked all the sunlight out of a cheery day. "None of us will stop you from walking out that door, sweetie, but...think it over, okay?"

"Sure." With a roll of her eyes, Melissa headed straight for the door without a moment's hesitation. As if she really wanted to be around this crowd of nutbags for even a second longer. Sure, they might have a few kinky little tricks to show. And it would be nice to be able to sink all the way down onto her husband's hard cock, all the way until her lips caressed the base of his shaft. She knew it would turn him on to see her kneeling between his legs, looking up at him with a 'come fuck me' smile around his dick. He would be so happy, getting that perfect blowjob. He would be so pleased with her...

A wave of slow, dizzying warmth washed through Melissa's whole body at the thought, and she was forced to stop for a moment just to keep her balance. Strangely, standing still only made the pleasant, warm sensation stronger. She felt a weird, light-headed floaty feeling steal over her body as she stayed exactly where she was and just mulled over the idea of kneeling down and letting her husband fuck her face. Melissa took on a blank, thoughtless expression as she allowed herself to retreat into the fantasy for just a moment longer.

Only a moment, of course. She would stir herself back into motion any second, go home and leave all the weirdness behind and get back to her relatively normal life. Maybe she'd mention it to her husband once the kids were in bed, and she would give him a little demonstration of what Hollie did with that dildo. He would stand at attention, and she would tease that big cock of his with her fingers until it was nice and hot and hard for her, and then she would swallow the whole thing, every last inch. It would feel so good. She'd never been able to take him all the way down her throat, and he was always so nice about it, but oh God it would be wonderful to show him that she wanted him, all of him, all the way down...

Melissa's mouth hung open, and a tiny trickle of saliva clung to the corner of her lips as she pictured him thrusting his cock in and out while she took the whole thing effortlessly down her throat. In her mind, she was tickling his balls with her fingers, her cunt throbbing with desire as she made him strain to hold back his orgasm. He would, she knew. He would try so hard not to make her swallow, but somehow the more Melissa thought about it, the more she wanted exactly that. It would please him. Her mind circled round and round that single notion, seemingly unable to get away from it. Being more open to doing whatever he wanted in bed, being more open to...to doing what she was told, it would please him. That felt insanely fucking hot for some reason.

Melissa struggled to banish the strange sexual reverie she had become lost in, but somehow it refused to leave her mind. Every time she tried to take another step to the door, she would find herself thinking instead of Brandi's as-yet-unrevealed techniques for tightening her cunt until it could squeeze every last drop of cum out of her man's hard cock. She couldn't stop thinking about how good that would feel, getting down on her hands and knees and begging to be fucked harder, faster, deeper. Until he came inside her. Until she made him cum inside her. Until he used her like...like a sex toy. Like a fuck toy.

The door seemed like it was a million miles away now. Melissa couldn't make herself move even an inch closer to it. Nobody was standing in her way, but Melissa realized that they didn't have to; she was being held prisoner by her own constant fantasies of submissive desire. She pictured her husband telling her to bend over and hold her ankles, so that he could pound her standing up. She imagined him commanding her to go down on him while he lay on the bed and filmed his cock disappearing down her throat, and posting the video to show how well-trained her mouth was. (Perfectly trained, she corrected herself, and the words unfolded in her head like a tiny orgasm.) She lost herself in a vision of him lubing her ass, pumping in and out of her until the stimulation made her cum without even touching herself.

Melissa realized she couldn't remember his name anymore. The only word that came to mind now was 'Master'.

Vickie reached out and gently touched her arm. "Missy?" she said, her voice tender. "Are you ready to sit down now?"

Melissa felt a surge of even stronger pleasure at the thought of turning around and going back to her seat. The other girls would have so much to teach her, she realized. They had all been doing this for so much longer, they would have all sorts of techniques for improving her skill at pleasuring her Master. They could train her, train her perfectly until obedience was as unthinking and automatic as breathing. Until she was a...Melissa let out a soft, breathy whisper of pleasure. A Perfectly Trained Automaton. She felt her fingers creeping down the waistband of her skirt, helpless to resist the euphoria that swamped her mind.

"Come on, sweetie," Vickie said, gently steering Melissa's unresisting body back toward the desk. Melissa couldn't stop thinking about the warmth of that touch. She couldn't stop thinking about her Master's half-joking comments about having a threesome one day. She couldn't stop thinking about how much friendlier 'Missy' sounded than 'Melissa'. "Let's get you where you belong."

"...okay..." Missy said, her voice a child's sing-song of thoughtless acceptance. It felt too good to refuse, like the slope of her mind had been greased and everything was sliding down a slippery trail of pure pleasure down to perfect obedience. She sat down, her masturbation taking on a more urgent intensity as she stared vacantly at the women up front and soaked up their every word.

"Anyway," Vickie said, smiling ruefully, "it looks like we're going to be a little bit behind schedule thanks to orientation, so we'll just have Brandi do a quick review of those kegels and then get on to the exercise techniques we've been meaning to discuss for a couple of weeks now. Also, we should all take the chance tonight to give Molly a few good orgasms-her Master was transferred to Fort Rucker, so we won't be seeing her again any time soon. But I'm sure she'll have a new chapter up and running in no time, won't you, Molly?"

Molly nodded. The other girls nodded. And with the final understanding of just how good it felt to be Perfectly Trained, Missy nodded as well.

THE END