Note: there's not a ton of smut in the setup here but my medical kink series is a good indicator of what level of kink is to come in this story. Thanks for reading if you choose to do so :)

I paused on the steps, taxing the limits of my neck’s ability to take in the heights of the looming old farmhouse above me. The pediment was imposing but the eaves were noticeably worn and in disrepair. The gingerbread detailing that had looked so ornate from afar was chipped and flaked, some pieces having fallen off completely in the hundred or so years this house had been standing. 

I imagined the lifecycle of one of those pieces, dangling with only a tenuous connection to the larger design and separating slowly in imperceptible increments over the years. Until some nonspecific day, when the balance of its weight finally shifted just enough, that the wood would break loose and fall back to the earth. It struck me how silly it was to shape a tree into some useless ornament only for it to return to its beginnings stripped of its luster and painted over. It would lay there so achingly close to the soils that once fed it but unable to take root. What a pointless thing to put a tree through. 

I took the remaining paces up to the large door, dragging my bag behind me over the rough stone. I went to push the doorbell when the bronze plaque above it caught my attention.  

The Janus House:
Betterment and Order for the Wayward

I hadn’t even rung the bell when the sturdy door opened wide to an empty foyer. A bath of golden light flooded the threshold where I’d just been surrounded by cold decay and rot; this warmth was brilliant in contrast. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that sunlight from a glass dome, installed some three stories high, was bouncing off richly polished banisters and floorboards. Gold-flecked wallpaper, finer than I’d ever seen before, crawled along a grand staircase flanked with soft lights and lace-valenced windows. And the wood… the floors, the paneling, the molding that framed each crystal-clear window, all of it shined and shimmered as if made from a rare gemstone. 

I walked in wordlessly, mesmerized by the room, and began to slowly turn in circles with my mouth agape as I stretched my neck again to take in the ornate glass dome that filtered the brilliant light. I caught my breath at the sight of it and was taken aback so wholly that I forgot to investigate who had opened the door.

“Miss Morgan, I presume,” came a small voice from behind me. It was soft and timid but it startled me out of my reverie anyway. 

“God this house!” I exclaimed as the petite creature closed the heavy door behind us. 

We were now both lit entirely by the sheen of this interior, which was illuminating her soft cheeks and made her eyes sparkle. Her small, delicate features glowed beautifully; her red hair was as sumptuous as the warm mahogany behind her. I wondered if the room had the same effect on me, if I too looked so magical surrounded by this opulence?

“Yes, welcome to Janus,” she said as she picked up one heavy end of my bag. I quickly grabbed the other to not burden her any more than necessary. My mood had shifted into an exuberance I hadn’t felt in quite some time. This wasn’t like the last home. Or the two prior to that. Those had all been ill-kept and cold; one was even not a home at all but the wing of an old hospital. Walking into those had felt scary at first, and then just depressing and demoralizing when I would see that the next had nothing different to offer from than the last. 

But this…this felt like a luxury, a vacation even. How could I not get better in a place like this? I’d been confused when I‘d received the invite, just a small program for 12 young women at a time only. And me, with my long history of disciplinary problems and delinquencies. Now I wondered what deal with the devil I’d made in a past life to be this lucky. I held my heavy bag firmly as the tiny woman led us into the adjacent parlor. I wouldn’t drag it across these pristine floors for anything. 

She dropped the bag and offered a seat. I chose the plush, velvet sofa and ran my hand along its soft texture. 

“This place is amazing,” I gushed again. “Is it as amazing as it looks? How long have you been here? Are you one of the other patients?” She stood serenely beside a large chair while the long-dormant chattiness within me had clearly bubbled back up in my excitement. “Are you going to sit too? What’s your name?” I was only half paying attention to my attendant as I greedily felt the fabrics and settled into an extra pillow. 

“My name is Rosalind,” she offered directly, but not indelicately. “You can call me Roz. I prefer to stand, and yes, I’m one of the boarders, but we call ourselves Novitiates here. I’ve been here a few weeks, I believe.”

“Well it’s good to meet you, Roz.” I said through a giddy smile, one I actually meant. “I’m really glad to be here.”

Roz returned the smile but it struck me then how odd her stance was. Her hand was draped delicately on the tufted leather chair beside her, and she had one foot perched behind the other, the tops of her toes on the floorboards beneath her in an elegant repose.

“Are you a dancer?” I asked genuinely. She looked elegant but…stiff. 

Roz lifted her chin proudly, almost instinctively, but before she could respond, another woman brushed into the parlor. Her presence immediately filled the room and Roz backed herself behind the chair and into the corner before the woman took her seat.

“Welcome Morgan. My name is Gwen.” The woman’s voice was calm and even, but it was clear she hadn’t given one thought to interrupting the conversation I’d been having.

Another young woman quickly followed into the room and wordlessly took hold of my bag laying in the middle of the floor. In some strange choreography, Roz grabbed the other end and they both started shuffling silently back out to the foyer.

“What are you doing with my stuff?” I urgently asked the stern woman sitting before me. Somehow I knew intervening with the girls as they started up the stairs wouldn’t do any good. Gwen was clearly in charge. 

“Don’t worry about your things. Whatever you’re allowed to be in possession of here will be waiting for you in your room and all else will be kept in safe keeping. Should you need it again, that is.”

Gwen elegantly crossed one ankle over the other and rested her hands in her lap. “I’m your Rectrix.” 

I laughed a little. I couldn’t help myself. “Isn’t that like a butt doctor or something?” A part of me was a little ashamed that I didn’t know. The other part of me liked that my not knowing would probably annoy this woman. Something in me already wanted to annoy Gwen.

But her expression didn’t change much and her response was as calm and even as before. 

“A Rectrix is similar to a governess. I’m responsible for your care and wellbeing while at Janus. I was the one who thought you’d make an excellent fit here, actually. I was heartened by your letter of application. I’m really glad to see you here.”

Oh god, the letter. I’d written it at a particularly low point, fresh off my latest failed recovery home for women like me. I hadn’t been out even a month before I was right back to my usual tricks, sucking anonymous cocks in alleys and on my way to imploding my fourth marriage (and only the one had been my own). 

But it had been fucking that priest who’d been so resolute in his conviction to save me that’d made me write that letter.

“Wayward is a word meant for girls like you,” he’d said to me on that fateful night in his office as I knelt in prayer. “You just need to return to the path. Feel his guidance within you and you can resist these urges. I know you can, Morgan.” 

He’d been so kind, so generous to offer me private tutelage. He’d promised to oversee my nightly prayers, taking it on as his personal responsibility that I stayed the course. And I’d been faithful to show up every night, just before we each were to turn in for the day, because he’d stirred something in me. I wanted to please him. I wanted to be good, even if it was only for him. 

And when he'd taken my face gently in his hands that night so he could look me directly in my eyes to tell me how good I was, I saw straight through to his soul what would truly please him. 

I could have looked away. I could have blushed and averted my gaze like a virtuous woman would have done. But I knew all too well what would happen if I didn’t. And when they gave him a slap on the wrist and reassigned him to a smaller parish in the countryside later that month, I knew in my bones that I was responsible for the fallen priest. Just as he’d wanted to usher me along the right path, I wasn’t able to stop myself from showing him the spoils of all the wrong ones. 

“That letter was really special, I want you to know,” Gwen continued. 

“I took it directly to him and made a case for you. He’d been wanting to limit the numbers in the house, what with all the interest we receive from young women in need these days. It’s very difficult to make selections, to tell them we can’t help. I would take them all if I could but he only has so much room…” Her voice trailed off as her gaze meandered and settled on the large portrait hanging over the mantle.

I watched her curiously for a moment before following her sightline to the man in the portrait. He was nothing special from the looks of it. 

“So that’s the owner?” I asked tepidly. I held back on my usual caustic sarcasm in favor of genuine curiosity. Gwen’s stern comportment had softened into a glazed-over look of admiration. Maybe even adoration. 

From what I knew about the house, the owner came from a prestigious family but had been a bit of a libertine in his youth. Why he’d left the public eye to open a boarding school for young women was a bit of a well-known mystery. I remembered a time when people whispered that he had ill-intentions, that he was taking advantage of these lost women. But when pupils of the school started returning to society, it was clear that whatever was happening behind these walls worked. Graduates went on to be wives, mothers, a successful lawyer in one case and a diplomat in another. They were all happy and productive, and not one had returned to her back-alley ways, that I knew of at least. The mystery over the years had instead shifted to just how the hell Janus was so successful. 

“What goes on here, Gwen?” I asked softly and a little hesitantly as the light streaming through the dome started to fade into sunset. Gwen looked at me for the first time with a warm, knowing smile.

“Whatever you want to happen here, my dear,” she answered, almost breathlessly. “Come, let me show you your new home before it gets too dark.”

Gwen stood with her hand outstretched, her other gathering her skirt. Quick flashes of the other houses, with their cold cells and angry wardens, sent a wave of confusion through me as I followed her toward the stairs. I had no idea what was before me at Janus, but the warm light of the foyer had faded and only the soft lamps and my new Rectrix were there to guide me.