The institutionalised tr.., p.56
The Institutionalised Trilogy, page 56
It had taken a final hacking fit of coughing to end it; moist, choking with phlegm - the congestive payback of his exertions.
An unseen hand reached across her and a cane, as long and as thin, if not thinner, than her own little finger, was unceremoniously discarded mere tens of centimetres from her distraught features. Near perfectly white and with the unmistakable sheen of glass-fibre or of some durable plastic, only the fine longitudinal threadlike traces of red close to its tip, where its gentle taper brought its diameter to something less than a half centimetre, marred its finish. Testament to the splitting of skin, the marking of her flesh, those latter blemishes, she knew, she was intended to see - this was part of the nightmare, for her to be indelibly marked this way, to evermore bear the marks of her shame on her body.
From behind the barely conscious girl came now a new sound, a soft boggy squelching, like fingertips plunged into thick mud - or a pot of cold medicated cream. She felt twisted yet soft fingers on her flesh, felt the burning cheeks of her bottom parted with a gentility at odds with the tortuous beating those hands had so recently delivered.
A cold, gel-coated digit tarried for a while, playfully stroking around the sensitive puckered flesh of her anus - describing a deliciously-teasing and tormenting little pattern of ever-decreasing circles that left her feeling as helpless as rabbit in the headlights. Almost hypnotised, she felt the gentle yet insistent pressure and then the surrender of her muscles as her sphincter gave access - the latter stretched and weakened by the endless parade of treatments given her, the enemas, the irrigations, the suppositories, the anal dilator that was seemingly kept almost permanently in situ.
Having been granted access that finger now withdrew in its near-frictionless goo of lubricant jelly, as if having proved a point there was no desire to linger. Then that urging pressure came again - and again access was granted. Then again and yet again the action was repeated - the cycle repeating in full, over and over. Those little teasing circles would be drawn softly around and around her little puckered rose bud, a little gentle pressure would be brought to bear, notably less each time - and she would be again penetrated there. A rhythm gradually built up, in and out, in and out, in and out.
Then something far larger was offered up, was lodged there. It was shocking yet not unanticipated - she had experienced it so many times before. So often in the past it had dominated those dreams and nightmares of hers, those delusions - it had come to rule her psyche as much as it now dominated her physical person. The rhythm built again, the cyclic violation now punctuated by coughs and gasps and modulated by accelerating, heavily-laboured panting excitement...
She was being fucked up the arse...There; she’d said it, admitted to it - if only through the private medium of her own internal dialogue. Crude, yes, but what other term could there be that might sum it up quite so succinctly. Fucked-up-the-arse: It was the perfect term for it, one that carried with it the full force of the traumatic damage, both physical and psychological - and particularly the latter - that this act, this rape, was inflicting on her.
Faster and faster, in and out, in and out, the grunting louder and growing increasingly deep-throated, the coughing, the gasping, rising in frequency in concert with that of his thrusts...rising...RISING...
There came one final gasp... She could feel his filthy slime trickling, warm within her bowels, filling her belly - or so it seemed to her dread-distorted, near-phobic perspective: He’d come... The old bastard had come in her, as he had so many times before. He’d come in her ass, contaminated her, made her as filthy as he was.
This was the kind of filth and scum that soap wouldn’t wash away, this was sin - and sin had to be expunged, purged not rinsed away with the bathwater. She knew only too well how such absolution might be brought about - she didn’t have to be clairvoyant to know what was likely coming next.
A few moments respite, the refractory period; time enough for remorse, then guilt, then the translocation of that guilt. A precious few moments, perhaps a minute, perhaps five then the repercussions would start: the swearing, the cursing and the accusations of wanton, blasphemous sin. Next would come the threats of chastisement - faux-biblical ranting, all fire and brimstone and the casting out of Satan and his minions...Yet no such outpouring came; instead there remained merely the wheezing and panting, albeit falling now in tempo.
Her relief, such as it was, proved short lived: A vein-knotted hand snatched the cane from in front of her fear-filled traumatised eyes, whisking it past her nose and causing her to flinch in alarm.
The caning had begun anew before she had even time enough to process the thought. That high-end swiping and swooping and swishing hiss, hisss, hissss of sterile atmosphere displaced and rended, again filled the room - the first renewal of her screams, entreaties and sobs wouldn’t be far behind. Freshly-lit lines of fire again branded sweet flesh, but now in opposition to the old and layered superimposed upon them in beauteous symmetrical precision, raising a fine diamond-grid of wheals. Here was agony artistically sculpted and as intense as if it was a physical entity in its own right. In his way he was an artist - a sculptor of the soul and saviour of the spirit - and this would be his masterpiece. Indeed it would be one of very many he was now given leave to create and recreate upon the same canvas ad infinitum in his search for perfection and absolution, by dint of this place she was held in.
***
All around her the room seemed to fold in on itself; the wall before her faded to the purple then swirled into darkness. The black velvet whirlpool closed mercifully in around her, claimed her as its own - what human mind could’ve taken such insult without withdrawing so?
Time passed, how long can only be conjecture. Something was rousing her; there was a hand upon her shoulder, a soft hand, unmistakably a woman’s hand. A voice spoke in the soft singsong tones of an angel. Gentle, sweet and filled to the brim with concern, more importantly - and much to her relief - it was a feminine voice. The doctor’s voice had come to her as a mother’s might to her nightmare-ridden still slumbering infant:
“Are you all right, sweetheart, is something the matter? Only, it looks like... have you been crying?”
In response the girl could only blubber, her breath shuddering with emotion and her lips slobbering, drooling with saliva as might some asylum inmate.
The doctor continued on as if totally unaware that the girl was even trying to say something in reply. In fact, if anything, her voice hardened to some degree, as if irked by the young woman’s incoherent mumbling:
“I’m sure the nurse must have told you that I wasn’t going to be long - and I’ve only been away a few minutes. I’m well aware that it can be a little bit disconcerting at first, being immobilised like that, but we have to be absolutely certain that the patient is kept stationary while we’re taking the X-ray in a case like this one. Besides, it’s not as if you’ve been left here alone very long; there was absolutely no need for you to go and get yourself worked up so. I’m sure you know how these things work by now - the nurses have to leave the room while the machine is in operation - it’s a fact of life.” The fact that there was no actual recognisable X-ray equipment in evidence anywhere in the room didn’t seem to faze the woman one iota. In actuality, other than the bench itself and a circular array of spotlights approximating to the type of illumination source one might be confronted by in a dentist’s surgery, the room was bare.
Again the girl could only incoherently slather and mumble and drool in response. Then slowly, ever so slowly, those lines, burning as if etched by acid into the flesh of her backside, began again to slice into her consciousness, clarifying and crystallising her thoughts:
A nightmare, it had to have been nightmare, she was all safely and securely locked up in a hospital, a psychiatric hospital, confined in a secure ward - how could he have possibly got to her here? It had to have all been in her mind - didn’t it?
But that aching in her belly, that torn-flesh-burning in her anus kept telling her otherwise. They screamed their objection - they knew of her abuse, they couldn’t be ignored - they hollered at her of her dumb denial, screamed at her.
The shriek, when it came, penetrated the very fabric of the walls. It caused all present to bring their hands to their ears - the doctor, her two assisting nurses - all present except one. Only one there experienced that unearthly soul-tearing wail un-attenuated, its source, their patient...
...”He’s been here again, he’s whipped me, fucked me up the arse, he...”
The girl’s outburst had clearly taken the doctor by surprise, startling both she and her accompanying nurses. As one they the shot her a disapproving, disgusted look, their faces registering the same unvoiced distaste. The sharp slap she was awarded stole away Meredith’s breath mid-sentence, truncating what would surely otherwise have been a long drawn out and distraught tirade - yet the nurse’s palm had merely slapped playfully the girl’s left buttock, landing with little more impact than was sufficient to ripple the flesh.
“Now, now! Language, sweetheart - language! We certainly don’t say the ‘F’ word here. Nor do we say ‘arse’. What do we say here when we mean to refer to our bottom?”
There came a bitter sucking-in of breath through clenched teeth - then a hesitation of a duration close enough to endangering her of receiving another such swipe that the nurse had actually drawn back her hand to shoulder height in preperation.
“B,BB, Botty, nurse; I meant my b,botty.” The girl fairly bristled at the childish terminology they demanded she use; the words seemingly sticking in her throat and causing her to splutter near incoherently.
“That’s much better! Now, I’m sure that if there is anything at all amiss the doctor will be able to see it when she examines you in a moment.”
Behind her she heard the unmistakable elastic-snap of examination gloves being pulled on and seconds later cold nitrile-covered fingers were slipping and sliding across the tender flesh of her bottom, feeling, testing, prodding and probing and gliding to and fro across each cheek in turn. She could feel the doctor’s slender fingertips running along, tracing and exploring the corrugated furrows and wheals she thought sure - that she knew - lay raised, swollen, throbbing and inflamed and crisscrossing the once blemish-free satin-soft white flesh. She could feel every nuance, every detail, of that throbbing red meshwork she knew must surely now decorate her backside - she gasped with pain whenever and wherever a finely manicured fingernail was drawn across the intersection between overlaying ruts and ridges or when a pinch of flesh was rolled, however gently, between finger and thumb.
Then she gasped anew, more in shock than in pain; this was a new sensation, a ghastly sensation to one of her sensitivity - a gentle feminine digit explored first her intimacy, then probed the softly puckered entrance above. Behind her, the doctor’s gently-considerate tones could be heard as noncommittal “hmmms” and “aahhs”...
The verdict, when it came, left her nonplussed, reeling - not least by the blatant way she was kept ‘out of the loop’, as if she were not capable of rational thought or discussion.
“Well, can you see anything here that we should be concerned about?”
“No. Not really, doctor. Although, there is this, here; some sort of deposit around her anus. Could it be some sort of anal discharge, perhaps? That would certainly explain her discomfort.”
“Well, yes. Although I’d say that it’s more likely that she’s simply had a rather unfortunate ‘accident’, so to speak - perhaps something related to her having had an adverse reaction to the suppositories I prescribed last time. Either way; she does look a little sore there. It’s something we will have to keep an eye on; but other than that, there doesn’t seem to be anything else we need be overly concerned about occurring here.
Other than for that discharge or whatever it is, would you concur with me, nurse, that there is nothing in evidence here that might support these allegations of abuse she continually insists on makings?”
“Pretty much; certainly I can’t see any evidence to the contrary. She seems disturbed right enough but there is no physical evidence that I can see to corroborate her story”
The doctor turned to the other nurse, so far watching in reserved, professionally detached silence: “And what about you, nurse?”
“I think I’d concur, doctor; I really can’t see anything out of the ordinary here at all, at least not physically. But as for her mental state; well, I guess that’s a different issue entirely - some sort of psychotic episode perhaps?”
“And the way she reacts to tactile stimulation - what would you say about that?”
“Simply a psychosomatic response, I’d say. It is something that is obviously real enough to her - but it’s symptomatic of her psychological condition, no more than that”
“Very well diagnosed, I’d say, nurse; that’s exactly how I read it: What we have here is a pseudo-physical manifestation of the patient’s delusionary condition. There is little more than that at work here - and in a way I’m quite relieved to be able to say that. To be honest with you, I would hate to have to think that such a sweet girl had actually undergone the sort of ordeals she has related to us in the past. Delusion, hallucination; call it what you will - it’s sad but that’s the truth of the matter...You know, it must be awful not to be able to trust one’s own senses.”
Behind her Meredith Hewson could sense the two nurses rustling and bustling about. She felt her bonds slacken and then her chin gently lifted by lily-white and scented soft hand - the white-coated doctor, all kindness itself, while refastening the neck brace now took the opportunity to draw the distraught girl’s attention to the flashing red light high up on the wall before her.
“Closed-circuit television; there’s always someone keeping an eye on you here, you silly thing. Don’t you think someone would have seen if there really had been anything untoward going on in here? Either I or one of my nurses would have been in here like a shot.”
Helping the girl up into a standing position the doctor couldn’t resist landing a final playful slap on the plump ripe swelling of her patient’s right buttock cheek - a parting shot, leaving the flesh rippling in its wake. The girls yelp was met with a warm, if condescending, smile and a derisory: “silly pudding”.
Gentle and playful that slap might have been but it had flared instantly into a blaze of pain - as if to confirm her delusion, if such it had truly been, to be in truth reality, no matter how improbable that might seem. Yet, in the absence of mirrors, her neck immobilised in that support and her hands rendered useless, the words still ringing in her ears would likely be the only rendition of truth she would have access to for quite some time to come. Besides, these were health professionals, after all; doctors, nurses. A lifetime of social conditioning would not be denied so easily: these were trustworthy people - surely it was her judgment that was questionable here, her judgment that was at fault.
Yet, for it to have seemed so real - surely that was delusion indeed. Surely they had every right to keep her locked up in here; she was surely going out of her mind - she was going stark raving mad. And to have even imagined such disgusting acts in the first place; how could such vile filth be conjured by her own mind, such foul and perverted thoughts? What did that say about her?
What if it was some sort of suppressed desire, something she had subconsciously yearned for? She had heard of such things; what if all those perverted desires were actually part of her - part of her true personality - what then? Surely she would then be judged insane by anyone - what right-minded person could think otherwise? They’d keep her locked up in here or, worse, on the psychiatric ward with all the other poor damaged souls - those poor fools rocking back and forth, gibbering, slobbering and drooling.
In that moment the die was cast: she would say no more of the incident nor of that old rector or parson or whatever the old bastard had been. Nor would she ever again speak of the abuse she had suffered at his hands and that she seemed to recall so clearly - the months, or was it years, she’d been kept under his lock and key. She would say nothing more about any of it - she would deny it all. After all, she had no wish to find that she had merely exchanged one form of incarceration for another.
His had been a jail from which there had at least always been some hope of escape. This captivity, she instinctively knew, would be different - this confinement would have legitimacy, would be all perfectly legal, above board and justified.
Once they had someone locked up in one of these places - properly and legally ‘put away’ - the appropriate documentation signed and the legal niceties tidied...well, that would be that as far as her future life was concerned.
There’d be no escape from this establishment. Had she not already seen the bars on the windows, mounted both inside and out? Had she not already shivered before the cold steel of the security grilles that guarded every passageway and corridor, no matter how minor, with their stolid implacable locks and their sturdy immovable iron slide-bolts - and all rendered in the same hygienic white as the walls, as if in disguise, as if to blend in seamlessly with the other, seemingly more legitimate, accoutrements of psychiatric bondage that lay all about her?
Why, they would be able to keep here as long as they liked... And even if she wasn’t already insane - and she couldn’t be sure she wasn’t - she would eventually become so. They wouldn’t have to lift a finger, this place, this... clinic, would see to it.
The wheelchair was trundled forward and the doctor, her smile never wavering, never failing to engender trust, gestured for the girl to be seated:
