God's Crusade

Part Fifteen

Madison Nixon soon learned that she could not fool Miss Scott, or Miss Dexter. Not even for an instant, as they both seemed to predict her every move, let alone notice it, and thwart her intentions before she thought of them, as if they could see inside her mind. She was kept restricted at all times. In her impossibly tight corset, diaper, mittens and undergarments, let alone the cumbersome gowns, she doubted if she could reach the door, let alone open it, so she eventually decided to cooperate. Not that proving her cooperation was that simple. Even a dubious expression on her face, or a flash of something in her eyes, could get her punished quite severely. But she did not despair. She would still have the last laugh when her father had to let her go, and he really would have to do so eventually, and then he would finally have to admit that she could live her own life her own way. She would have a quite delicious revenge. She focussed on that, congratulating herself on finally doing something positive to free herself of his tyranny. She hated what he was becoming and what he was, and it would be her who brought him down for the sake of everyone. But especially for the sake of her own sanity and future.

Her father was obviously mad at her. He was planning to run for President, and her new liberal friends apparently worried him, especially the one he assumed she wanted to sleep with, so he was doing what he always did; just getting rid of the embarrassing problem for a while. Madison had been the problem several times before in her short life. She was sent to boarding school when she was caught kissing the neighbours son, a typical overreaction to a normal teenage rite of passage, and switched to the most repressive Christian College in the whole state to try and squeeze her emerging political views out of her system before it was too late. She knew her father. Nothing would be allowed to get in his way and sending her over to England was a great move from his point of view. He had threatened it before, several times, when he finally reckoned that giving her the damned good whipping she deserved was no longer having the desired effects. Every Nixon toed the line or else. Her brothers had done so. Her mother did as she was told too, in her own ways. But Madison was made of sterner stuff, and she was pleased to be in England, to see it for herself and to expose her father's evil friends for what they really were. It was just like her friends had said; people like her father did not care about human rights, especially hers. If she could play her part in stopping him she would laugh in his face. Damn it, she would spit in his stupid face. Her nice new friends would know where she had gone, and more importantly why, and the internet stories would start off, like pushing a snowball down a hill and watching it turn into an avalanche of bile until her father had it all over his face. She was an American citizen, so he would not be able to keep her hidden away forever. The heat would build up and up, and he would have to let her go, the damage done. She had rights. It was still the land of the free.

However, it was still not easy. Not that she ever expected it to be easy. She had chatted to Natalie Hughes online. Only once, and not for very long to be truthful, but it had moved her at the time. She had read her story at college, and talked it through with the other members of her Christian Feminist Support Group, but she never really imagined that the transformation process would be so invasive. She was not being turned into a nun, of course. So the brutality was reduced to an almost daily paddling for her perceived misdemeanours, and her dear old Pops had done worse than that if she came home from school with a B, but it was totally relentless. Either Miss Scott or Miss Dexter sat with her all damned day, doing everything for her and keeping her headphones in place. It was an obvious brainwashing technique, detailed quite accurately on the internet, but it was still difficult to resist even if you knew what it was and what they were trying to do to her. In-between these so-called 'lessons' Miss Scott, in particular, talked to her, telling her what was expected of her, telling her that she had to make her beloved father proud of her, in God's love. She had heard all that before many times. Her father's old-school Baptist rantings had been a big part of her childhood, and the message was very similar. Believe, obey and pray for more of the same. But she had no intention of being a Daughter of Eve. Nothing could make her surrender.