Institutionalisation (1): Susan: The First Days

Susan had arrived mid-afternoon. She had only brought with her one small suitcase but nevertheless the nurse on reception had said that it would have to be stored away for the time being. There having been something of a mix-up the room she was to have taken was not yet vacant and she had not yet been assigned to a research group. Apparently It could possibly be as long as two to three days before she could be entered into a study. Meanwhile, as she could hardly return home now, it would save time later if she could undergo some preliminary psychological tests. Unfortunately she would have to wait until one of the researchers was free but in the meantime she could go and take a shower and then she would be shown to a waiting room.

“Just leave your case here dear and go through with the nurse to the shower room”. Susan only hesitated for a moment before the nurse, who had come in by a side door, was talking and, putting an arm around her shoulders, was firmly steering her towards a second door, immediately behind the receptionist.

“Come along dear, hurry along”.

Susan, startled, found herself being led down a long white corridor. She had not really had had any chance to take in what was going on, it was all happening so quickly. She had certainly been taken aback by the tone of the nurse’s voice. There was something about her, the no-nonsense attitude the air of authority. She had not expected to be spoken to like that, so brusquely. It was something she had never experienced before, never in her life; it had caught her by surprise, caught her off balance.

Having reached the door at the end of the corridor the nurse went ahead using a key selected from a bunch that hung from her belt. It had all happened so quickly, from speaking with the receptionist to being ushered out along the corridor. This was the first time that Susan had really taken in this nurse that had had the temerity to have spoken to her so brusquely, and that was now guiding her so authoritatively. She was taken by the contrast between the appearance of this woman and the nurse at the reception desk. The latter had been dressed in the conventional blue uniform dress of a modern hospital nurse. The women she was now trailing was wearing a calf-length white uniform dress with a white elasticated belt, from which a bunch of keys hung on a short chain giving her something of the air of a jailor or wardress. She had white high-heeled shoes and white stockings or tights, but most striking of all was the white headdress.

The latter completely covered her hair such that only her rather stern yet still rather beautiful face, as Susan was to later observe, was exposed. A rather old-fashioned looking headdress, Susan thought, like something from the 1950s. Turning slightly, so as to allow Susan passage, the nurse ushered the girl, again rather brusquely, through the door, allowing Susan her first really good look at her from the front, confirming her initial impression, from the women’s head dress and authoritative manner, of a no-nonsense hospital matron, yet seemingly from another age. The nurse or matron, as Susan was increasingly thinking of her as, was wearing a semi-transparent apron of PVC or, perhaps, a thin rubber, and of a rather old-fashioned looking bib and skirt design with her elasticated belt fastened over the top as it was a permanent part of her uniform. Her dress, though, appeared to be of a more conventional material, perhaps polyester, Susan thought.

The room in which he now found herself was quite small perhaps 3 metres by 4 metres. Somehow she had expected white tiled walls and perhaps a tiled floor, it was after all presumably a bathroom, shower room or some sort of changing room. Strangely the floor, and later she discovered, the walls, were layered with some sort of plastic material, fairly soft yet tough, apparently padded but presumably waterproof. Safety precautions, she thought, typical of today’s PC world, totally over the top. She supposed that one was less likely to slip and if one did, one was less likely to be hurt one’s self, but was it really necessary? On her right, occupying most of the length of the wall, was a standard hospital examination couch, the only remarkable thing being that it was completely white, even the top, which, from her experience were generally of black or brown leather. This, she was rapidly becoming aware, was something of a common theme. She had started to notice that everything in the room, absolutely everything, was white, not at all what she would have considered a practical choice of décor.

She could see that the couch had adjustable stirrups attached, it was obviously a gynaecological examination couch. It had various wheels levers and controls and looked as if it could be adapted to many different formats and uses. Strangest of all there appeared to be some sort of nozzle protruding up from the centre of the couch. There was something rather unsettling and vaguely frightening about it all.

On the floor alongside the shower cubical was a white plastic basket to which the nurse was now gesticulating. “Come along girl, into the shower, you can put your things in the laundry basket for now. You have a nice warm shower and I’ll be back in a couple of minutes to see how you’re getting on”. With that she turned on her heel and quickly left, closing the door behind her.

Susan felt uncertain, not sure what to do and yet somehow, for some reason, she felt swept along with the momentum. The shower looked inviting at least; she did feel rather sticky after her journey. Quickly she undressed, placing her clothing in the laundry basket as instructed, and entered the shower.

The cubicle was semi-circular and quite small, occupying one corner of the room. It felt even smaller once the door had slid shut. The gently curved walls and door were manufactured in a transparent plastic, as translucent as window glass, and, despite being alone, she could not shake off a feeling of embarrassment that had started to manifest in her mind; she couldn’t avoid feeling like some sort of exhibit, like something on display in a glass case for the amusement of the public. Yes, she was alone for now but before long the nurse would be coming back.

She didn’t want to be seen like this, naked and on display. From inside the shower she briefly scanned the room, looking for a towel. Seeing nothing, she briefly considered getting out and re-dressing, even though already soaked.

At that moment the nurse returned carrying a small white towel which she left on the couch. Without pausing to speak and without so much as an acknowledgement of the naked, showering, girl she gathered up the laundry basket and was gone.

Susan Stringer was alone again and relieved to be so, at least to some extent. Quickly she climbed out of the shower and grabbed at the towel. She was immediately horrified to discover it was far too small to go all the way around her; it was more of the size that she might have used to wipe her face and hands over with rather than the bath towel she would have expected. Nevertheless she dried herself with it as best she could and, having done so, stood, holding it up in front of her lengthwise, trying to cover herself as much as possible and nervously awaiting the nurse’s return. At least she wasn’t cold; the room was comfortably heated, even the floor felt slightly warm under foot.

The nurse returned within two or three minutes of her finishing drying off.

“I’ve taken your old things to the laundry for cleaning. Where are the clothes you brought with you? You did bring a change of clothing I take it?”

“They’re all in my suitcase...” Susan began, before abruptly being cut off mid-sentence.

“Are you always so rude?”

“What?...I,I,I’m not sure what you mean” Susan was nervously stammering, suddenly finding herself in a state of total shock and, uncharacteristically for her, lost for words.

“My title is Matron, that is how I am addressed here and that is how you will address me. Now where is your suitcase girl?

“Th, th, the nurse, th the nurse in reception, sh, she said something about p,putting it in storage for the time b,being.” That stammer, it was getting worse! What was wrong with her, why was she so nervous? The woman was being so bloody rude, just who did she think she was? She had to pull herself together, be more assertive; people like that, they just walk all over you if let them.

“Where are your manners girl. Have you forgotten already, you stupid girl?” The woman had actually shouted that time...and called her stupid!

“I am always addressed as Matron, always. I will not put up with rudeness, from anybody”

Susan suddenly found herself close to tears, her confidence seemed to be ebbing away from her, “S,s,sorry Matron”. She couldn’t believe that she was saying it, and with such deference. She was stammering again; she’d rarely stammered or stuttered in her life before but in under half an hour of arrival she was most definitely developing a nervous stammer.

The woman went on in her bullying tone, pressing home her advantage, keeping the girl off balance: “So you didn’t think to get out a change of clothing first then?”

Susan just stood there, silent, dumbfounded.

“Well girl?”

“N, no I,I,I g,guess I didn’t”

“What?” bellowed Matron.

“M,m,mm Matron” Susan was learning her manners.

At Susan’s correction Matron’s voice changed completely, magically. Suddenly she was speaking gently, softly. In fact her whole demeanour had changed; she was smiling. The contrast with the Matron of mere seconds before could not have been greater. “That’s better, girl” she cooed, and then, hardening her voice once more, yet not to such an intimidating extent as before, she went on; “So why couldn’t you have just gotten a change of clothing out before you left your case at reception?”

“I,I,I,I don’t know, I,I,I didn’t think...Matron.” She had managed to get out the ‘Matron’ part in time, just.

“And why was that? Are you stupid, girl, is that what it is, is that your problem?”

Susan didn’t know what to say, she was slowly descending into a state of complete shock, mental colapse, she just stood there trying not to cry, a last-ditch attempt not to show weakness.

“Well, girl? I am asking you a question, are you too stupid to understand?” Matron’s voice was starting to harden still further.

“N,n,no I,I,I mean YYYes I,I,I’m ssorry Matron.” Susan, despite herself and her resolutions, was beginning to gently cry.

Matron’s voice immediately softened again, now taking on a soothing, insinuating, note of empathy. “That’s a good girl, it’s always best to admit to our mistakes and our limitations don’t you think?

“Y,Yes, Matron”

“Good girl! “ “Now, we will just have to get you sorted out the best we can. I won’t be able to get to your suitcase for the time being and your uniform is not ready yet so I’ll just have to get you some nightclothes from the hospital stores, not necessarily totally suitable but it will have to do for now.” With that she turned and left, again closing the door behind her.

Susan found it difficult to gauge exactly how long she had been left there, alone. She surmised that It must have been close to half an hour, but it may well have been longer, before the door, bursting open without ceremony, had announced Matron’s return. Susan had continued standing throughout, somehow reluctant to sit upon that rather sinister looking couch and not daring to venture out with her only covering being the small white towel that she still clutched about herself. She had been listening intently for the woman’s return, in fact listening for any sign of life, but had received no forewarning of her imminent arrival. Now that she had started to think about it she realised that she hadn’t been able to perceive any sound at all coming from outside the room; all around seemed in a state of utter silent, serene and Zen-like, calm.

She had had time to look around the room; there were no windows she noted and other than the sinister couch, that she had tried her hardest to ignore, and the shower cubicle, there was nothing really to look at. There was just the uniform whiteness of the floors, walls and ceiling. In fact she had started to find it more than a little disorientating; it was strangely difficult to judge distance or to concentrate on anything in particular, basically it was all rather boring, but excruciatingly so.

Matron was carrying a small pile of what at first appeared to be white plastic bags or sheeting but that, upon a second glance, Susan could clearly see were garments of some sort. Turning, Matron placed the pile down on the couch. Susan could see a clear plastic bag balanced on the top containing what appeared to be a thick wad of cotton wool or something similar.

“I’m afraid this is the best I could find and they only had incontinence bloomers in your size. It’s all hospital issue don’t forget and, as this is a psychiatric hospital, they tend to cater for patients with various problems, still, it will have to do for the time being. It’s better than nothing at least, isn’t it?”

Susan just stared at the pile. Matron appeared to be waiting for something. “Well, girl? Have your manners left you again? What do we usually say when somebody is kind enough to give us something?” Her voice had hardened in the way that Susan was already beginning to associate with being in trouble.

Susan bulked momentarily but then, with a supreme effort of will, she summoned up from somewhere a contrite; “t,t,thank you, mm Matron”

The woman smiled, the soft voice was back again. “Good girl.” There was no patronising note to it but rather it was said as one might reward a dog under training. “You get dressed now like a good girl and I will be back in a couple of minutes.” With that she turned and left, the door closing behind her and there came again that eerie silence, made all the more so by Susan’s noted inability to hear Matrons footsteps receding, as she might ordinarily have expected.

Susan went straight to the pile, eager to cover herself up with anything. Without pausing to examine the contents she put the clear plastic bag to one side and went straight to the clothes. She quickly grabbed at what appeared to be a pair of knickers, lifting them up by their waistband; they were plastic! Thin white PVC! Lifting them higher allowed the legs to unfold revealing that they would be rather better described as bloomers. The legs appeared to be designed to come down to about knee-length and had an elasticated cuff at the bottom of each. The waistband was noticeably thickened and was also elasticated. Susan felt like crying again, she couldn’t wear these, she just couldn’t. However she felt sure that Matron would be coming back before long and she had to cover herself up with something; she wouldn’t put it past this woman to make her walk out into the corridor with nothing on at all otherwise. Hurriedly she examined the inside; she wasn’t at all sure which way round they were, having never come across such a style before. A label identified the back, stating in black lettering; St Mary’s, psychiatric wing: Incontinence bloomers, PVC, female. Having determined back from front she hurriedly stepped into them. Pulling them up her legs she shivered at the unfamiliar feeling of the material. She had to carefully ease the leg cuffs over her knees, finding that they were quite tight but that, once in place, they were not unduly uncomfortable, being lined with a particularly soft rubber compound in that area, a provision designed to ensure a reliable watertight seal around the lower thighs as much as for comfort. It was only upon reaching this point in the proceedings that she noticed in the crotch area what appeared to be some sort of arrangement of straps. The purpose of these would have to remain an enigma; she certainly wasn’t in the mood to puzzle over it and Matron could be back any moment.

Susan had to wiggle to pull the waistband into position and couldn’t help but gasp slightly as the rear seam slipped between her buttocks. The shiny white plastic fabric sheathed her bottom like a second skin. It wasn’t that the knickers were tight per se, just that they seemed to be moulded to her exact shape. Indeed, she had vaguely noticed when she had initially held them up that they seemed to be somehow, ‘girl-shaped’, even in the absence of a body to fill them.

Looking down she could now see that the legs ballooned out somewhat before finally terminating at those tight, secure, leg-cuffs; it almost seemed as if they had been designed to look ridiculous. She certainly felt ridiculous wearing them, she was starting to feel like crying again; if anything she felt more self-conscious then when she had been naked. In fact she felt that she might as well be naked, the white PVC shrouded her bottom with barely the slightest wrinkle to the fabric.

Moving about she found that was becoming aware of a slight puckering or invagination at the front where some of the fabric had pulled slightly into the outer lips of her vagina. She self-consciously plucked at the fabric at that point but to no avail. She began to realise that it was not so much due to the material pulling at the front as due to the actual shape of the knickers themselves; they seemed to have been designed to fit the female form as closely at the front as they did at the buttocks. Strangely, though, in complete contrast to the rest of the garment, just beyond the very rear of the gusset a sort of sack of excess material hung down loosely to swing between her legs, this originating from the area covering her anus. The worst thing of all, though, was the realisation of how distinctly contrasted was the dark triangular shadow of her pubic hair through the thin white fabric.

If she could have seen herself from behind, though, she would have been made even more self-conscious; her bottom had been moulded into two, almost perfect, white, shiny, hemispheres, albeit rendered pinkish where they were shaded by the flesh below. The cleft between was now exaggeratedly distinct and shadowed, broadened by the pull of the fabric, the back seam fitting so close as to be well nigh invisible other than at its very centre from which emerged the bladder-like swage of hanging excess fabric.

At least she wasn’t naked, she thought, although she wasn’t at all happy at the prospect of being seen in those knickers. She had always been a somewhat shy girl as regards her nakedness and her, not unsubstantial, feminine attributes but she was now gripped by a growing feeling of humiliation and shame the like of which she had never before experienced. She grabbed at the nightdress, wanting to cover her breasts but mostly wanting to cover those awful, embarrassing, knickers. The dress, she quickly realised, although white to match the knickers, appeared to be of a soft latex rubber rather than PVC. The design looked to be rather childish, with its short puffed sleeves and wide collar, reminiscent of a Victorian child’s sailor suit, teamed with a short but full, circular skirt. As if to emphasise further the juvenile image, delicate frills decorated both the edge of the collar and the skirt’s hem.

Ordinarily she wouldn’t have dreamt of wearing such a thing but she seemed to have little choice. She felt sure, now, that Matron would very soon be returning and the atmosphere of the place, the way she had been treated and the way she had been spoken to had seemed to have undermined her confidence somewhat; she had been feeling less and less able to stand up for herself as time had gone by and now was at something of a low ebb.

She held it up by the shoulders, examining it with ever growing distaste. It was obvious that the dress fastened by way of a rear zip running from the skirt’s waistband to the neck. It was supposed to be just a hospital-issue nightdress and yet it seemed to be so carefully tailored. The bodice was nipped toward the narrow waistband of the skirt, gently curving in at the sides. At the front the material protruded slightly at roughly the area at which it would cover the breasts. The whole garment looked almost as if it were already actually being worn, moulded to, and by, a womanly curvaceous form. Printed over the left breast area were the words: St Mary’s Hospital psychiatric wing. Below this, boldly printed in much larger type, was: 43C. She was somewhat at a loss to grasp what this latter designation might infer, it didn’t seem to make much sense as a dress size and it certainly wasn’t her bra size.

She was in something of a panic now, rushing to cover herself up before Matron returned. The zipper had been fabricated in a tough nylon and seemed rather stiff, she had to struggle but eventually managed to ease it down to the waist band. Stepping into the dress she pulled the waistband up her legs, having to wiggle her hips as she did so in order to ease it over them and up on to her waist. Bringing up the front of the dress, she noticed that the thin rubber fabric of the bodice was thickened and reinforced locally at the sides, just above the hips, in the form of a series of narrow vertical panels that curved inwards toward their mid-point and were reminiscent of the stays in a Victorian corset. The dress was thickened at the front just below the breasts whereupon the fabric was reinforced to form an integral pair of firmly supporting bra cups. Strictly speaking, these latter features might better have been described as half cups, the reinforced region falling well short of being sufficient to contain the entire breast, having merely been designed with function in mind; to support and elevate the breasts.

As she might put on any step-in dress she slipped her arms forward into the sleeves and pulled up the bodice frontage, lifting it up on to her shoulders, while, simultaneously, manoeuvring her arms further into the sleeves, shivering her shoulders and shrugging the bodice into place. Then... failure; her breasts had completely missed the waiting integral cups and, try as she might, she found herself unable to fit into the bodice. Easing her arms and shoulders from the bodice she tried again and again.

Trial and error eventually lead to the discovery that she could only fit into the bodice by positioning it with its shoulders and arm holes low down and with her arms directed at the ground, practically directly at her feet. She was then able to wriggle and shiver her way into the bodice, the reinforced, under-wired cups coming up from beneath her breasts as the bodice was lifted up to her shoulders, all at once gathering, lifting, separating and thrusting.

Her arms, having negotiated successfully the smooth, soft, powdered latex sleeves, she tugged at the puffed shoulders with each hand in turn, then with both hands, finding difficulty, still, in shrugging her shoulders into place. Her breasts, already elevated to a far greater extent than she had ever experienced from any bra, nevertheless still hindered her efforts. Reaching around to the rear she had managed to grasp the rather oversized zipper tag but found herself unable to pull it more than, perhaps, a quarter of the way up her back at best.

To fit the bodice onto her shoulders, she began to realise, would necessitate, and result in, the positioning of her breasts unnaturally, uncomfortably and ridiculously high. The dress just didn’t fit. It couldn’t be made to fit, even in principle, it was just ridiculous. It was not that the size was too small, although the fit was very snug, so much as it seemed to have either been badly designed or designed for some physiological freak of a woman. She was almost shaking in frustration; surely no natural woman could have the figure to match and fit the curves and profile imposed by this dress!

At this point her thoughts, her struggles, had been abruptly interrupted, the door bursting open, giving passage to the bustling and efficient personage of Matron. With practised appraising eye, rapid of thought, rapid of action, viewing the now blushing girl with no little satisfaction yet resisting all temptation to linger over the scene unveiling before her, Matron deftly manoeuvred around and behind the girl. Without word, pre-empting any objection by dint of her decisive and efficient action, she grasped the zipper, sharply displacing the girl’s hand as she did so, and drew it smoothly upward, although with no little effort it must be said.

Even to the least observant onlooker that oversized thick nylon zipper tab would have been an obvious and outstanding feature. Now the rationale behind the design became clear. The purchase afforded allowed Matron to smoothly fasten the dress, despite the closeness of the fit, against the naturally-yielding curves of the girl’s body, flattening the tummy, pulling in, moulding, sculpting her sides, refining her waist, narrowing and clinching. All at once teenage puppy fat was forced and shaped, squeezed and exuded into an exaggerated hourglass. In Matron’s practised hands the strong white nylon zipper glided ever upward concealed as it went by the latex covering as the dress-back closed up. Reaching the girl’s upper back Matron gave a final long, forceful, pull with her right hand whilst simultaneously tugging at the back of the collar with her left. One final sharp tug on the zipper tab closed the collar, the zipper snapping into its final resting place at the back of the girls neck, Matron at this point lifting the girls long blonde mane out of the way.

With these last actions the dress had finally been pulled up onto Susan’s shoulders, simultaneously elevating her bust which by this point had assumed a somewhat unnatural inclination. Her breasts had been raised high, up and out from her body while being thrust forward into the dress’s thin latex bodice, acquiring for all the world the appearance of two pink-white melons. The combination of the uplift provided by the integral bra cups, the almost total lack of confinement to the front and the upper sides of the breasts as well as the thin, elastic nature of the latex used at this region of the bodice conspired to leave her breasts grossly distended yet tightly and closely sheaved.

A particularly cruel observer might even have described the result as being not unlike two large inflated condoms or, perhaps, a pair of pink/white party balloons. Where the material was stretched around the breasts it had acquired a semi-translucent sheen, reflecting the light and, if anything, exaggerating still further their size. The effect from Susan’s standpoint was anything but aesthetically pleasing, the realisation quickly dawning on her that the integral reinforced bra cups, although securely supporting and suspending, did so only from the underside up to a point just below the breast’s lateral mid line, providing less coverage than a half cup bra and only slightly more than a balcony style might.

What was more, and this hadn’t really been obvious upon first inspection, the reinforced portion of the cups consisted of two curved platforms of roughly a ‘U’ shaped cross-section and open fronted, the front portion consisting of the material of the dress itself without reinforcement of any kind. Susan could feel that the support extended, at most, a little more than two thirds of the length of her breasts, particularly now that they were thrust forward and out into the dress front and distended by their unnaturally high suspension.

There had to some mistake, surely, someone had provided the wrong size, that had to be it she thought. Her mind was in a turmoil, it wasn’t so much that the bodice was tight per se, not that it was too small, that it didn’t fit. No, if anything it was quite the opposite. It was almost as if the dress, like the knickers, had been carefully tailored to fit her every curve, but so, so perfectly. The result was to enhance and exaggerate her feminine attributes, but not in an attractive way, she realised, but rather to a ridiculous extent, a humiliating extent.

Throughout the dress the latex fabric seem to vary in both thickness and elasticity depending on its function at a given point; whether supporting, constricting or merely covering. In the region of the breast front, however, the material appeared to be particularly thin and highly elastic. Although excess material had been allowed for the swelling of the breasts at that point the fabric was nevertheless closely stretched around each breast, the darting of the material allowing each breast to be sharply delineated rather than the dress front merely stretching across both breasts. Even the outlined contours of her nipples were clearly visible through the thinly-stretched material, the white rubber tinged reddish-pink by their colouring, each surrounded by a noticeable circular region wherein the white latex had acquired a darker, brownish-pink, under-shade courtesy of her areolae.

Finally, growing more agitated by the moment, her anger mounting, she made her decision; she wasn’t having any more of this, this, this treatment. She was a volunteer for heaven’s sake! She had expected to be greeted with gratitude, to take part in simple experiments, simple psychological tests she had been told. Perhaps in-between, while waiting, she would be accommodated in something akin to a comfortable hotel room, watching television, reading books perhaps. But this? The way she had been treated since her arrival was nothing short of disgusting! There was no other word for it! Yet she felt hesitant somehow.

It was this place, the very way she had been spoken to and treated, and, yes, the way she was now dressed was part of it. All of this perhaps, it all seemed to be conspiring against her, to be sapping her self-confidence, keeping her off-balance and unable to regain her composure. This dress, they had described it as a nightdress, it was just ridiculous and she felt ridiculous in it. Couldn’t they have just got the size right least?

She had always been proud of her large firm breasts, ever since at school, when she had been one of the first girls in her year to develop and flower. True, she had occasionally been self-conscious about their size. Like most teenage girls she had harboured a certain insecurity as regards her looks, despite her undeniable beauty, despite the continuous compliments; she had already caught the eye of many an eligible bachelor as well as, it must be said, that of certain less savoury characters.

Yes, she had, at times, been somewhat self-conscious about her rather precocious curvaceousness but had ever been confident of her attractiveness. Nevertheless the exaggerated prominence of her breasts in this dress, the translucent balloon-like sheaving, the deep shadowed valley between, these things now conspired against her, highlighting those insecurities, keenly heightening that teenage self-consciousness. For the first time in her life she found herself actually feeling ashamed of those once treasured feminine assets, indeed, of her very womanhood.

The Corridor: A Back Passage and a Downward Spiral

Matron leading the way, Susan following close behind with a nurse bringing up the rear, the trio moved out into the corridor, Susan guided, gently yet firmly, from behind by the nurse who had placed one hand on Susan’s right shoulder as if to steer her. They turned left, heading away from the direction that Susan had initially entered from barely an hour before. As before, the corridor was both silent and white, white all around, in every direction, whether she looked to the left, to the right, up to the ceiling or down to her feet. These features, so notable to her upon her arrival, were now, now that some time had past (how long? She wasn’t sure) even more remarkable. She found the white-monotony seemingly to have become even more disorientating; she felt certain that the corridor was, somehow, far longer than it had been. It was difficult, no, impossible, to judge distance; the all-white features viewed against the white background fooling the eye, manufacturing an optical illusion from every vista.

Her feet, now bare, appreciated the soft thick white carpeting as she was guided, without pause for reflection, along the passage. To the left they were passing regularly spaced, unmarked, unlabelled, white doors, each identical to that by which they had just exited the shower-room and each absolutely and utterly indistinguishable from the next. To her right, inset into the wall opposite each door, were windows through which daylight flooded, augmenting the shadow-less diffused illumination provided by the lighting system, the latter providing indirect, covert, illumination from a source within a recess at the point at which wall met ceiling. The windows, although quite large, being of approximately one metre long by half a metre high as far she could estimate, and being roughly at shoulder height to her, did little to relieve the general monotony. Each window, as in the shower room, was of frosted glass and was protected by a white grille mounted flush to the wall, the actual window itself, the glass, was inset, perhaps a quarter of a metre or so behind the protective grille.

Still somewhat wrong-footed but nevertheless having regained some composure, turning slightly to the nurse behind her, she inquired as to their destination, demanded to know what was going on. Her reward was simply a sharp admonishment, the nurse, simultaneously raising a finger to her lips, starkly stating: “Talking is not allowed in the corridors, it disturbs people from their work” and then, more softly, now guiding the girl with a hand beneath her elbow, “come along now dear, keep looking straight ahead if you don’t mind”.

The corridor, in fact, terminated just a few more doors along. Indeed, it was nothing like as long as it had initially appeared, its elongation being by way of a trick of the light; whether by accident or design she could have no inkling.

Passing through an end door they were immediately confronted by a white barred gate that would not have looked out of place in a prison. Beyond the bars lay a small landing immediately across which was an obvious lift door, albeit white like the rest of the surroundings.

Matron unclipped the ring of keys from her belt. Quickly selecting the correct key she swung the gate open. Susan found herself ushered through before she had even had time to as much as think of objection; indeed she heard the soft click of the gate shutting and locking behind her as if in the far distance, as if in a daze, an almost dream-like state. Moments later and another key, lift doors slid open revealing a lift interior essentially identical to the scene outside, right down to the thick white carpet. Susan was ushered inside followed in quick succession by Matron and the nurse. The turn of Matron’s key in the plastic control panel was followed in quick succession by the silently-smooth closing of the lift doors, an ever so gentle lurch and then a soft hum.

This was quietest, most gentle lift that Susan had ever been in, there had been so little initial sensation of movement that she could not be sure whether they were going up or down; if anything she thought they must be going down but there were no floor indicators and the only control was the single key and lock mechanism. The mechanical hum continued to fill the air yet still there was little, if any, discernible sense of movement in any dimension. In fact, had it not been for the humming Susan wouldn’t have been at all sure that they were moving. She was starting to think that something must have gone wrong, surely the lift was stuck, malfunctioning! She was gradually becoming overwhelmed, drowning in a rushing swirling tide of panic; for as long as she could remember she had felt uncomfortable in enclosed spaces. She wanted to say something, ask something yet she felt intimidated, oppressed. It was building up within her, it was pent up but about to bound free; she was going to scream, she was...

With a barely discernible jolt the humming stopped, for a moment fulfilling her worst nightmares, then relief, the door floated across, opening in almost total silence, the faintest swish at most but discernable enough for all that. Certainly enough, together with the change in light level, to reassure of freedom even through tightly squeezed eyelids, enough to release the pumping pressure throbbing in her head, relax sweating clenched fists, unfurl cramping fingers and un-bed deeply palm-embedded fingernails.

Susan was ushered out, the nurse with one hand upon her shoulder urging her forward. Matron, following on close behind, removed her key from the control panel as she went, the lift door unnervingly, eerily, no, supernaturally gliding across behind her.

Susan quickly realised that her impression had indeed been correct; the lift had become stuck, they had gone nowhere, they were back on the same landing, facing the selfsame prison-like bars and the locked, barred security gate. Just beyond was the door to the corridor, through which they had only recently passed. As before Matron unlocked the gate, ushering them through and then on through the door beyond, back out into the corridor, the gate closing behind them, relocking with little more than a click, barely audible yet somehow all the more sinister for it. Matron again took the lead, the nurse at the rear guiding Susan as before, the group moving briskly back along the corridor.

Susan felt confused, why were now going back the way they had just come? Were they going to use the stairs? She couldn’t recall passing a staircase on the way in, perhaps it was through one of the other doors. They were passing the doors again, now, of course, to their right, the windows now lying to their left.

Susan hadn’t been aware to begin with of the way the unsupported extremity of each breast, perhaps a third of the artificially distended length of each torpedo appendage, bounced with each step. But as time had gone by, as the trio had progressed further, she had slowly become aware of a sensation in her nipples, not exactly an irritation, nor exactly a chafing of skin against fabric, at least not a simple, to and fro, motion, no, it was something entirely different, something disconcerting rather than uncomfortable. The elasticity of the latex endowed the fabric with a tendency to grip the nipples slightly, each bounce, each step, resulting in a gentle tugging, a soft and ever so subtle sliding and pulling motion. The awful truth dawned; that this sensation had so suddenly become apparent, that it was growing in intensity, was not entirely unconnected with the steady hardening and distending of her nipples, thrusting ever more insistently out into their elastic condom prisons.

The sensation, if truth be told, was not unpleasant, or rather wouldn’t have been had the circumstances been different, more appropriate. As it was, the effect on the girl was disconcerting to say the least; the uncontrolled, and uncontrollable, response to enforced stimulation so readily and obviously apparent to even the most casual of observers, her hideously-growing embarrassment leading to further overt, and therefore embarrassing, physiological effects.

With cheeks turning the deepest of crimson she felt the blush spreading inexorably across her face, only too well aware how this response clearly signalled her shame and embarrassment. She was giving out the most blatant, overt, indication to all around her, all who might see her, of the humiliation she now endured. Her surroundings seemed to fade away, all she seemed to be able to think about was how she looked to the matron, the nurse, worse, how she would appear to anyone approaching their group, were someone to come from the opposite direction. The mere notion was mortifying, intensifying her blushing discomfiture still further.

She was suddenly glad of the silence, their isolation in the otherwise deserted corridor. At that moment Susan, although generally of a particularly gregarious disposition, did not think she could face anyone, not face-to-face. At least the nurse was behind her and the only thing she had to face in front of her was the white back of Matron’s uniform, with its nipped in waist and tailored skirt, the latter outlining her broad hips before flaring out to gently swish against her stocking-clad calves, the soft rhythmic hiss almost the only sound to be heard, the swing of her skirt hem, to and fro, to and fro, almost hypnotic.

Suddenly a shock, more a revelation; the doors, there was something different about them! This couldn’t be the same corridor after all, not the passage they had been in before. Each of these doors had a small sliding plate mounted at roughly head height, the design suggesting that it might perhaps be a cover for a spy hole. In addition, at about chest height, there was a removable plate upon which, in large black letters, was a number and a letter.

This latter plate or plaque appeared to be of plastic and to be held in a form of slide-in frame that was part of the door. The next door they came to had exactly the same features, and the next, and the next, each door with a different number and letter combination.

It was as they were passing one particular door, perhaps the fifth, that Susan had taken particular note. This door bore the number 43 A. This had been particularly notable to her, partly because they had slowed down at that point and partly as it reminded her of the number printed on the nightdress she was wearing. It was obviously the same format, was it the same number? No, she felt sure it said ‘43C’ on her nightdress.

Her thoughts were in turmoil, more so than ever, chaotically crashing around her head like marbles in an empty tin, and just about as useful to her right now. The only clear impressions that she’d formed, the only logical conclusions that she could reach, pointed to her now being in a different corridor. These doors were very different; “cell doors” she thought, prison-cell doors, that was what they looked like, that was the impression they gave her. The only time she had seen similar doors to these had been on a TV programme about a Victorian prison, or had it been about an asylum? She couldn’t quite remember.

But the lift hadn’t been working? If it had, if anything, she would have thought that they had been going down. But then...that would have meant they would have to be in the basement since they had initially started out on the ground floor. It didn’t make sense, none of it did; the windows, the daylight coming in, they couldn’t possibly be in the basement. Yet in the lift she had been certain that they hadn’t been going up, absolutely certain. She had finally convinced herself that they hadn’t been moving at all. But this was definitely a different corridor, albeit with identical decoration, the now all too familiar all-white theme; the same Zen silence ruled here too.

The next door they reached Matron stopped at. This door had no number, the plaque holder, vacant and waiting. The nurse, reaching into her uniform hip pocket, retrieved a white plastic plate with the number 43C in bold black lettering. This Susan saw for the first time as, reaching past her, the nurse had slotted it into its holder. Almost simultaneously, Matron had unclipped her keys from her belt, and, having deftly selected the correct key, inserting it into the flush keyhole, the door swung open. Susan was hurriedly ushered over the threshold, the door’s thickness and evident iron construction reinforcing her earlier impression of a cell door. Not that she was to be allowed the mental freedom to pursue this notion further; already she was being issued with instructions and dictates and, instinctively, she knew she’d best pay attention.

Home Sweet Home

Initially Susan hadn’t actually, really, heard anything of her instruction. She was stunned. She stood looking around herself, around the room, although, what with the thick iron door, the lock and the spy hole, the description ‘cell’ came to mind, more than’ room’. As in the shower-room earlier and the corridors she’d walked through, everything, but everything, was white. As she stood with her back to the, now closed, door she found herself facing a perfectly cuboid, near featureless, white, space.

The floor was covered wall-to-wall with the same thick white carpet that seemed ubiquitous throughout this part of the building. To the right was a typical hospital bed but realised all in white and, from appearances, possessing a padded frame. Looking immediately straight ahead she found herself gazing in some surprise at what appeared to be a child’s combined desk and chair, positioned up against the centre of the end wall and apparently manufactured in some sort of white plastic. Immediately above the desk, just above the head height of an average seated adult, was a square window of white frosted glass with dimensions of around half a metre by half a metre. This, as with the windows she had seen in the corridors and in the shower room, was inset back into the wall by about a quarter of a metre and protected by a white plastic grille fitted flush to the wall. To the left of the desk, in the left corner facing out from the rear wall, was a toilet. No cistern was visible just the toilet bowl and seat, nor was there any obvious handle or other means of flushing apparent. Other than these items the room was bare, featureless and soulless. As she had observed in the corridors the lighting was provided both from the daylight let in by the window and by indirect artificial lighting, evidently emanating from a source hidden within a recess running around the edge of the ceiling and covered by a white diffuser, notably well out of reach.

Susan jumped; they had been talking to her, Matron and the nurse. She had been miles away, struggling with her thoughts, bemused by her surroundings, the rapidity with which her situation had been changing, the strange feeling, almost an acceptance, that somehow, in some way, her status had changed. Now Matron’s sharp voice cut through, slicing deep into her thoughts, snapping her back into reality, or at least what passed for reality in this place, at this moment.

“What did I just say? You haven’t heard a word that I or my nurse have said, have you?” she was making little attempt to hide her annoyance, her irritation. Susan felt as if she was walking through a dream (a nightmare?), staggered, aghast, she just stared ahead like a hypnotised rabbit, clubbed into submission by Matron’s concussive delivery, her bullying insistence demanding an answer. She must answer, Susan knew, but what answer? What had been said? For around the third or fourth time already that day Susan found herself lost for words, near to tears. No not near, not any more, she was crying.

Susan, despite her resolve, was gently sobbing now. That this had any effect on Matron at all was beyond all the girl’s expectations. As it was it did have an affect, an affect apparently beyond all reason. Matron’s voice abruptly softened, assumed, once again, the strangely soothing, reassuring, almost singsong, tones that Susan had experienced previously in the shower-room.

The effect then, as now, had been similar; wrong-footed, the girl had been thrown off-balance, confused. This time, however, her equilibrium had been even further disturbed by the near-schizophrenic change in Matron’s voice and manner. This time Matron’s attitudinal turnabout had been even more pronounced, even more extreme; a smile, friendly almost maternal strayed across her face as she spoke. This time Susan could only gaze wide eyed through a soft-focus veil of tears as Matron reassuringly placed an arm around her shoulders, gently guiding her over to the small desk while, simultaneously, reiterating her earlier, missed, instructions, now in an odd, cooing, voice that was having a calming effect on the girl while, nevertheless, holding her full attention.

In fact Susan had barely been aware of being seated at the desk, despite having to wiggle her wide hips and bottom onto the low little seat, squeezing herself into the small space, the desk pressing up against her torso. She had found it impossible to concentrate, to compose her thoughts, yet she had found herself paying careful attention to what she was being told, to Matron’s instructions. The woman’s voice had seemed to fill the room, not by sheer volume, not by loudness, quite the opposite, yet that very softness, juxtaposed with the strange situation in which she now found herself, commanded her attention to the exclusion of all else. The room, her surroundings, seemingly faded away, she had felt herself becoming victim to a growing tunnel vision, a growing white tide had begun to wash over her, clouding her senses...

Then she had been alone, they had left, the door closing behind them with the slightest, padded, thud. Her memories, their departing words, the only evidence that anyone else had ever been there in the room with her, such was her sense of isolation.

How long had it been? How long had she waited? She was alone now, alone with her thoughts, the silence almost deafening, a strange, intense silence she had never before experienced. But then again, it was not quite silent, not quite absolutely. There was something there, if she stayed still, listened hard, a far way sshhshwassh-shhwassshh, not initially obvious, barely audible. In fact it was not really audible at all if she fidgeted, the soft rustle of her PVC pants was enough to mask it. So she had sat still, listening intently. And she had done so for some time, becoming more and more desperate to hear something, anything, from outside.

The sound, when she had become aware of it, was like an old friend. It was familiar somehow, yet at odds with her current surroundings, disorientating. Gradually the image had formed, maturing in her mind’s eye, materialising in a way reminiscent to the relief afforded by the image of a lost loved one, slowly emerging from the mist, or the path home, to safety, intermittently glimpsed between vague shadows and sporadically-shifting pools of moonlight. It had come to her in this way, not as a flash of inspiration, of recognition, but rather as an acceptance of faith, an unquestionable truth. It was the sound of surf on a shingle beach, far, far away. She hadn’t really thought about it on her journey here, to the hospital, was it near the coast? The sea? She hadn’t thought so and yet she could plainly hear the sea. She had begun to wonder about the beach. How far away could it be for her to be able to hear it, the surf, here in this room. Strangely, once that she had become aware of it, it seemed to have become easier to hear in some way.

She had begun to fidget somewhat, the PVC bloomers rustling with each movement as before and yet now without seeming to interfere with her perception of those faraway waves. Indeed, on the contrary, the rhythmic beach-surf sound now seemed to blot out that soft PVC whisper.

Her constant fidgeting finally broke through that surf-induced reverie. It was not that the seat was uncomfortable as such; indeed it had turned out to be far softer than it had looked and having the same spongy quality to it as did the desk top. She had wondered as to the utility of the latter, it would clearly be difficult for one to write on anything other than a hardback book on such a soft pliable surface. No it was not the seat itself, it was just that she had been gradually becoming aware of a new sensation, demanding her attention, an insistent urging.

It had finally been her full bladder that had pulled her out from the rhythmic surf and offered her back her freedom to reason, to think again. Susan had been sitting transfixed, staring at the blank wall, slack jawed, her mind filled with that unvarying, controlling, rhythm. She suddenly looked around, almost as if waking from the deepest of sleep. How long had they been away? Matron had said she would be back soon to take her to see one of the researchers, she was just to wait here for a short while until a staff member became available. She looked up, the window behind its white grille seizing her gaze. The frosted glass was now a black obsidian slab, appearing all the blacker for interrupting and intersecting the otherwise perfect white flow of the walls. In fact the window was the only interruption to that monotony; she couldn’t really see the room’s door as a separate entity within the wall behind her. The room was as light as ever but no longer had that day-glow from above the desk. It was night time; that much was obvious.

What had she said, that Matron woman? That something was wrong with the burglar alarm system in some of the rooms, yes, that was it. A ‘malfunction’ Matron said, but that it would probably be fine and in any case she would probably not have to wait too long. However she had appended the advice that it would be best if Susan would remain seated until sent for. Apparently the alarm used a motion detector and in some rooms, although it was automatically deactivated by the badges that the nurses wore and so was turned off while a nurse was present, it had an unfortunate habit of becoming reactivated. Apparently the security company had been called in and their engineer was trying to sort out the problem but it was a somewhat sophisticated system and the problem elusive.

Bloody ridiculous, she thought. She needed the loo and she needed it now, alarm or no alarm. Their bloody alarm would just have to go off wouldn’t it!. Nevertheless, despite her resolve and irritation, she arose tentatively and with some trepidation, a concern that she would have been hard-pressed to put into words if called upon to describe her feelings, had anyone been interested. As it was, having risen she proceeded with all haste, finding her need greater than she had first perceived. This despite a certain stiffness of limbs, only be expected in one obliged to occupy such a cramped position, yet it must be remarked that, had she paused to consider, perhaps not such a stiffness as she might have expected given the circumstances and her perceived passage of time. Little more than one pace separated toilet pedestal from desk. With a growing urgency she tugged at her under things, scrambling, fumbling with growing panic, irritated at having to wriggle out of the close fitting PVC garment.

The lack of elasticity inherent in the fabric required her to fully drop the bloomers to her ankles in order to be seated, to continue with her ablutions, a necessity made all the greater by the low posture she was forced to adopt. The low pedestal, she found, required her to maintain an awkward stance, a low squat with knees and breasts in close proximity. Her privacy and isolation notwithstanding, the sweaty, musty, odour arising from her never regions, from her bloomers, brought the burning blush of earlier back to her cheeks anew.

The thick absorbent pad was now displaying a definite tinge of yellow, spreading slowly as she watched, testament both to the airtight efficiency of PVC, and of a momentary loss of control on her part. She squatted there in growing embarrassment and humiliation. Even though in private at present she dreaded the coming amplification of these feelings, these sensations, as inevitably her present situation became public, to be shared and discussed amongst others.

Having performed her very necessary ablutions, rising anew, somewhat stiffly, from her ungainly posture, she was immediately struck by two things: No toilet paper!, No handle! She could see no way to flush. Perhaps a hidden button in the wall, she felt around for this but to no avail, her fingers finding nothing but the smooth, soft, padding of the wall. She was not really in a state of huge consternation concerning these factors, having only urinated, it was more an irritation and an embarrassment not to be able to flush, to have even the faintest smell of urine diffusing throughout the room. It was not nearly as humiliating as the urine impregnated pad and the, now slightly fishy, odour emanating from her knickers. Having been completely unable to fathom as to how the flushing mechanism might be triggered she gave up in irritated resignation. Someone somewhere had slipped up, she thought, they had clearly given little idea or thought to feminine comfort.

The more pressing problem, one that was quickly becoming apparent upon redressing, was the absorbent pad fitted within her knickers; this now noticeably damp to the touch, yellow tinged and no longer exactly fresh to the nose. Yes, she wanted to pull up her knickers as quick as possible, wanted to hide the smell, but the thought of pulling up the garment with the wet pad inside was not exactly a welcome one. The only option, surely, would be to remove it, place it aside somewhere. So doing, she readjusted her knickers, the direct contact of the PVC with her most sensitive and private regions she now endured with some distaste.

She looked around for a suitable receptacle in which to dispose of the now soiled pad, rapidly coming to appreciate her special circumstances, not really expecting the provision of such a convenience. Finally she determined that to place the pad upon the edge of the toilet seat was the most expedient action, clearly she would be unable to flush it away and, besides, what with the small size of the toilet bowl she would not have been surprised if it had become blocked had she been able to. The yellowing pad, the only colour in the room really, seemed to mock her from its throne, to almost dominate the room.

That it would be one of the first things to be seen upon anyone entering the room played on her mind, she dreaded the humiliation of that moment to come, the inevitable moment, when Matron or the nurses would return.

Susan was beginning to feel quite awful; there was no other word for it. The pants, the bloomers, now devoid of their absorbent layer yet just as airtight, were very quickly beginning to feel hot, sticky. Her mood was not lightened by her tiredness; an overwhelmingly exhausted heaviness had started to descend upon her.

She moved over to where the bed lay, perhaps no more than three to four decent paces diagonally, certainly not much more. Two loud bleeps greeted her arrival. She startled momentarily then, shrugging her shoulders dismissively, began to examine the mattress, remarking to herself on the latex covering, the raised area of mattress that in effect functioned as the pillow, all latex covered, the bed frame of a hospital design but fabricated from some pliant, yet tough, white plastic, and superficially spongy to the touch.

Suddenly Susan jumped, practically leapt out of her skin, the sound had started, the noise, the alarm she realised, the sound she was to quickly come to think of as torture. Wheee-orrr! whee-orrr! An irritating rising and falling siren, loud, yes, not quite painful, not intense enough to cause hearing damage, just the most irritating, annoying, unrelenting sound she had ever heard. Like the gnat buzzing around one’s ear at night, denying sleep, the tap that just won’t stop dripping, only magnified a million times. She just couldn’t think straight, quickly running through the entire gamut of variations available for ear protection but all to no avail. Hands over her ears, fingers in the ears, head on the pillow, head under the rubber bed covers, all failed. On and on it went, Susan growing increasingly desperate, it would drive her mad, she knew it would, just knew it! Just couldn’t stand it!

Finally in resignation she got her feet again, hands-on ears, the siren, the alarm, her personal gnat, personal torturer buzzing around her head, worthy of some mythological Chinese water torture. In desperation she approached the door, or at least the apparent outline of the door, such being the level of camouflage of the doors tight flush fitting coupled with the white-on-white continuity of the room’s scheme. With both fists she was punching, pounding, hitting out... but not thumping, for such a description would imply some worthwhile outcome, some sound to be heard above that incessant screaming cacophony. Even the slightest sound would have provided some satisfaction, some hope that someone might hear her, come to her, reset the alarm.

In this the walls and the door were not her allies. Having the same tough yet pliable surfaced that she had experienced earlier in the shower room they absorbed the impact of her hands, her clenched fists, with a sponginess clearly designed to avoid injury to patients who, disturbed perhaps, might be prone to self harm or simple accident. Whatever the intention, the result ensured that there would be very little in the way of sound production or effect to show for her efforts.

How long she continued with her futilely-padded cushioned hammering can only be guessed at, except to say that, finally exhausted and in despair, she half sat, half collapsed, at the desk, her elbows resting on the desktop sinking into the padded surface, hands still on ears, and, head thus supported, she gently cried.

Susan wasn’t even clear in her own mind at what point it had ceased. The noise had stopped, she presumed that the alarm had reset or somebody had turned it off, if that was indeed possible. For a while it almost seemed as if she could still hear it, it took some time to realise that it was no longer jarring on her, that it no longer hammered upon her mind, no longer tapped against her head like the centre knuckle of some sadistic demented math teacher in the classroom from hell. She was no longer ensconced in her own little private torture chamber, the one she had begun to build for herself in her own mind. She was free to return to the peace and quiet, the overwhelming whiteness and silence of her new reality.

The rhythmic swirl of the tide was slowly becoming apparent again, filling the otherwise dead void-quiet of the room. At first she just sat there motionless, numbly, nerves jangling. Then, as she gradually regained her composure, she became aware of something else nagging at her; she was bored. Not the boredom of a long car journey or slow-moving film, a stodgy novel perhaps or some old classic, no, this was quite different. It was just so, so, quiet, mind numbingly quiet, mind numbingly boring. There was nothing to hear except the rhythmic sound of the surf, nothing to see but white, white-everything, white-everywhere. There was the frosted night-black window of course, but that sat behind a white grille and betrayed no detail.

At exactly what point the door behind her had opened she couldn’t be sure. Certainly a nurse had entered, that she had been vaguely aware of, but the main thing, the thing that had brought her back to reality with such a jolt was the ringing of that bell. A bright, brash tintinnabulation; ding, ding, ding, ding, each perhaps a second apart and strangely seeming to emulate from all over the room at once.

Startled Susan had sat bolt upright. Mere moments later, before she even had time to look round, a white plastic bowl and spoon had been placed before her, quickly joined by a white plastic beaker full of what appeared to be milk. Looking up she saw her saviour had been a young nurse with pretty green eyes, Susan couldn’t be sure but she somehow received the impression that the nurse was blonde although her hair was completely covered by her white headdress. She had a sweet soft, encouraging, voice, lilting, yet there was a note of authority there. “Come along sweetheart, its mealtime. You must be feeling very hungry after your journey.” With that she turned and left. Susan was indeed hungry but was also full of questions. Why was she still waiting to be seen? What time was it? Why had the alarm gone off ? Would it go off again? Clearly her questions were going to have to wait.

The bowl before her appeared to contain a light-coloured porridge, almost as white as the bowl itself. The spoon was of a soft rubbery plastic, quite small, the kind of thing one might give a small child to eat with; another annoyance, another irritation. Hungrily she began to eat, irritated that the bell, the ringing that had announced the arrival of her meal, continued unabated. The porridge proved to be very nearly completely bland, nevertheless her hunger drove her on. She reached for the plastic beaker gulping down perhaps half its contents; it certainly looked like milk, yet it didn’t seem to smell of anything in particular and, like the porridge, was practically tasteless.

She had finished her drink and had very nearly finished eating, grateful for any activity to ease the boredom of waiting. Then the ringing ceased...

Almost instantaneously the nurse, the same young nurse with the pretty eyes, reached around from behind Susan’s chair, removing the bowl and the beaker and reaching back to retrieve the spoon that Susan had put down in her surprise. Again she hadn’t heard the nurse enter. Susan turned, resolved to ask, nay demand, to know how much longer she needed to wait. Her reward was the rear view of the nurse exiting, the door closing behind her, locking with a soft click.

Susan had little option but to sit and wait, too worried now to investigate the room more fully for fear of triggering the alarm again. At least the nurse hadn’t noticed the soiled pad on the toilet seat, or if she had at least she hadn’t mentioned it. Again some time had passed, some unknown period, again Susan had been startled, a bell was ringing, but one of a different pitch, a different cadence, more rapid, more urgent than before. This time she had been aware that someone had entered the room behind her.

Moments later a hand appeared under her right elbow, gently yet firmly guiding her out of the seat, accompanied by a soft feminine, almost motherly, voice, gentle yet firmly authoritative. “Toilet time, sweetheart” was all that was said. Susan began to protest she didn’t really need to go right now, not right now. But it was all happening too quickly, she was led to the toilet. She found herself facing two nurses. One she had met earlier, of large build, attractive of countenance, yet slightly masculine of frame. The other was new to her acquaintance, petite, very feminine. Both nurses were dressed in the now familiar white uniform and headdress. They stood looking at her, at the yellowed, soggy pad balanced upon the precipice of the toilet seat. For Susan’s part, though, there was some relief to be had; the matron was conspicuous by her absence, small mercies she thought.

It happened quickly, so quickly. The petite nurse, who Susan could now see was wearing white latex gloves, stepped forward and, before Susan could do anything, grasped the waistband of her bloomers, pulling them with one swift, practised, movement, down to the girl’s ankles. The larger, nurse simultaneously pressed down on Susan’s shoulders, guiding her firmly down onto the toilet seat. Susan was in a state of shock, stunned by the rapidity of this new development she found herself unable to do more than just sit there, feeling humiliated.

The smaller nurse, the pretty petite one, turned and left the room, returning mere moments later, or so it seemed, with a white kidney shaped dish. She deftly plucked the soiled pad from where it still lay on the toilet seat, now between Susan’s widely spread thighs, and placed it with some reverence, certainly somewhat beyond Susan’s comprehension, in the dish, laying it out along the latter’s length like some exhibit, as if some evidence to be presented at trial. Without further comment, other than a fleeting look of disgust that she had allowed to cross her pretty features, the nurse turned and left, taking her dish and with it Susan’s soiled pad to some as yet unknown destination.

As always here, it was beginning to seem, Susan was to be left in the dark, unlike her physical reality, her environment, which, on the contrary, was bathed in perpetual light. Unchanging, eternal, infernal, white and bland to the point of distraction, to the point of screaming. Seated now, here, upon the toilet, in front of witnesses, under supervision, she just couldn’t ‘go’, just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t have ‘gone’ even had she been as desperate to relieve herself as she had been earlier, not under supervision, not with the humiliation!

The larger of the two nurses remained standing in front of her with undisguised impatience, arms folded. In due course the bell ceased its ringing.” Come along, up you get” a much harsher tone this time. Susan was only too glad to stand up. So doing, she bent to pull up her knickers, one hand reaching for the waistband. The knickers reached her knees, but no further; already a hand was beneath her right elbow urging her away from the toilet, causing her to waddle rather than walk, the girl struggling, still, with the recalcitrant garment. The petite young nurse had returned. From behind her came the unmistakable sound of the toilet flushing, she presumed automatically; no one was near it. The big-built nurse was leaving the room, the door shutting behind her, the younger nurse was standing at her elbow.

There followed a short intermission, beyond which there again came the ringing of a bell; different, more resonant, a deep rich somnolent gong-like bong, bong, bong, not particularly loud, buried, muffled as if from the bowels of the building and propagated through the very structure. It was almost felt as much as heard.

Susan was standing alongside the bed now, her cheeks rosy red with shame, struggling to pull her bloomers back up, struggling to cover herself, regain some dignity. The young, petite, nurse, the friendly nurse as Susan now thought of her, having led her over to the bed, was speaking quite softly “bedtime, sweetheart”. Just this, nothing more, simultaneously leading Susan to stand at the bed head. Throughout her time here so far one thing that Susan had noted was the strangely silent nurses; they never seeming to speak to each other and only rarely to Susan, even then only the minimum required.

Upon re-entering the room the petite nurse, unseen by Susan, had placed a small white tray on the floor alongside the bed. Beside the tray she had placed a white plastic packet. Now reaching down, the nurse retrieved the packet, tearing it open and revealing the thick sanitary towel within, far thicker than the pad Susan had so recently removed. “Come on sweetheart, you’ll feel far more comfortable with this”. So saying, and to Susan’s not inconsiderable chagrin, the nurse quickly bent, slipping the pad into the restraining straps in the gusset of the incontinence bloomers, still hanging around the girl’s thighs. Having achieved this to her satisfaction and almost in the same movement, the nurse reached into the dish, retrieving a dampened pad of what appear to be cotton wool. This she quickly wiped this across Susan’s genitals; practised, effortless, too quick for objection. There arose an immediate, if faint, aroma of disinfectant, Susan noting a slight stinging sensation. Standing back from her work, arms now folded with satisfaction, the nurse simply said “knickers up, sweetheart”.

Although said sweetly, softly, there could be no doubt that this was an order. There was a note of unwavering authority in her voice, an authority that Susan was increasingly finding it difficult to stand up to, although on this occasion there was little incentive for defiance. A rosy-cheeked Susan tugged at her knickers for all she was worth, hips wriggling in effort, grateful for the covering provided, grateful to regain, at least in part, some privacy. Still, even with this relief there came the embarrassment, the humiliation, implicit in the wearing of such a garment. Now this embarrassment was magnified a thousand fold; this new, thicker, sanitary towel was anything but discrete.

This was little more than an adult diaper, Susan thought. What was worse, during this procedure she had again caught sight of the words printed on the label inside the back of her bloomers: St Mary’s psychiatric wing, incontinence bloomers, PVC, female. Having been again reminded of what those words inferred, they now seemed more an accusation then a description.

The larger of the two nurses, the one Susan had earlier mentally labelled as being ‘butch’’ had returned. She pulled back the duvet, sheaved in its rubber covering. Susan could see that the latter was attached to the bed by a system of white toggles and eyes, starting from a point about halfway along the mattress’s length and continuing up to the point at which the ‘pillow’ was positioned. From the bed’s foot to the point at which the eye and toggle system began it was not at all obvious at what point the mattress ended and the duvet/covering began, the mattress cover and duvet appearing to be one and the same.

Only for the second time today Susan needed no persuasion, no coercion; she was exhausted both physically and mentally. Without further instruction, needing little encouragement, she slipped between the rubber covers, no longer worried nor concerned as to her institutional surroundings; in some strange, indescribable, way she was feeling comforted by them. Mostly she just wanted her privacy back, despite the feeling of isolation, of boredom. And then there was the terrible, totally overwhelming exhaustion, this heavy tiredness that was overcoming her.

Satisfied that Susan was in bed the large nurse left the room again, the petite pretty nurse, the blonde, or so Susan had surmised, remaining behind. The nurse squatted, pulling the duvet up over the reclining girl’s shoulders and attaching its edge to the bedside, working her way quickly up from the bed’s midpoint to the girls shoulders, slipping each eye over its corresponding toggle and, with a deft twist of her dainty hand, securing the fastening; a strange analogue of the traditional tucking-in-of-the-patient that might be seen in any hospital. To Susan it felt firm rather than tight, restraining yet not frightening, the reassurance floating in the back of her mind that she could easily wiggle out if she so wanted. Yet it was also a reassuring swaddling, perhaps it had triggered a subconscious childhood memory, she wasn’t sure, she knew only that she felt comforted.

Her task completed, the nurse half-sat on the edge of the bed. In the distance Susan could still hear the insistent bong, bong, bong of the slowly repeating, low, deeply resonant, gong-like bell. She could also still hear the surf on the beach, certain now that it was louder than ever before; the tide must have come in she thought, vaguely, sleepily. The nurse reached over, gently stroking Susan’s forehead; “you try and get some sleep sweetheart, you looked very tired, so sleepy. I’m surprised you can keep your eyes open, they look so heavy, so tired”.

The nurse was stroking Susan’s brow, so motherly, so maternal, so unlike her stepmother. It had been one of the things that had originally attracted her here, to get away from that bitch, at least until she was ready to face university. Those soft sweet fingers stroked so gently, rhythmically, brushing Susan’s brow with a caress as soft as her voice, her tone conversational yet soft:

“I often find I can hear the sound of the sea at night my room, it really helps me to relax, to get off to sleep. You can hear it from here too if you listen. It’s ever so soothing. Just let your eyes close, just for a moment. Yes, that’s it, that’s a good girl. You can hear the surf clearer now, more distinctly, in and out, in and out.

It’s really lovely, just the surf and my voice washing over your body, gently washing it out to sea, you can imagine floating in the sea, such soft fluffy cloudy lightness, in and out, in and out with the tide, and above just white fluffy clouds floating past. The tide is gently going in and out, in and out. You can hear the surf, the rhythm, each wave floating another light fluffy cloud by.” The nurse’s voice had gradually become more and more drawn out, monotone, the words becoming rhythmic, slowly synchronizing with the rhythm of her stroking hand and the sound of the surf. The soft gong-like bell had gradually faded away to nothing. Susan’s eyes were closed now her breathing rhythmic, a heavy sleep enveloping her, cocooning her in her own private world of white fluffy clouds and soft lapping waves.

“That’s a good girl, why not count the soft fluffy clouds as they drift by, that’s a good girl, count the clouds while you listen to my voice, it’s very important to you to keep count of the clouds, you mustn’t lose count, that wouldn’t be a good girl and you do so much want to be such a good girl, you do so much want to learn to be such a good girl. Counting the clouds is getting so tiring but you have to continue, only when you know how many there are will you be able to relax more fully, become a good girl, a good sleepy girl. If you listen, the surf is trying to help you, you can hear what the surf is saying, it is trying to speak to you , to help you. As it goes in and out, in and out it whispers each time, it is your friend, it is trying to help you get better, to get well, you can hear it now, listen it’s just like a child’s chant; a good girl is an obedient girl, a good girl asks no questions, that’s what it is saying, your friend the surf, you can hear it can’t you, yes of course you can, why not join in, repeat with the surf so that the surf can hear that you understand, that it can help you, be your friend, you want the surf to be your friend, you want the surf to be your friend so much, you need the surf, the sound of the surf, listen to the surf now, a good girl is an obedient girl, a good girl asks no questions. That’s it, whisper it as the surf whispers it, in time, in rhythm with the surf, whisper it along with the surf: A good girl is an obedient girl, a good girl asks no questions.”

Slowly Susan’s lips began to move, the whisper, when it came, came in a slow slur as if from a drunk or the deeply somnolent: “A good girl is an obedient girl, a good girl asks no questions” the whisper hesitant, pausing, rhythmic, a rhythmic chant perfectly in time with the sound of the distant surf.

Bending over the sleeping, whispering, girl the nurse gently kissed her forehead “that’s a good girl” she whispered. “You will always hear those words when you hear the surf, the lapping waves, whispering to you. Think of the surf as your friend, keeping you company when you’re lonely. You will never be alone as long as there is the whispering surf, as long as you can hear those words that it whispers so beautifully, as long as you can whisper them back, letting the surf hear how much you love it, your friend. You love that whisper, love those words, want to strive to get well, strive to be a good girl, a good obedient girl.”

The nurse rose, silently, leaving the sleeping girl, the rhythmic soft slurring whispering, the girl’s lips moving in sync with the un-varying rhythmic sound of the surf, waves breaking upon a tropical shore, fluffy white clouds drifting above.

Susan awoke abruptly, startled, jolted awake by a sharp, shrill ringing. Her first thought of the day: another damn bell! Automatically she went to sit up, the tight elastic bed-cover springing her back down before she had risen more than a few degrees above the horizontal.

She lay still for a moment, disorientated yet safe in her rubber cocoon. The events of the previous day slowly returned in an almost hallucinogenic, kaleidoscopic, jumble. She closed her eyes again, for a moment, no more.

Suddenly she was no longer alone, a nurse was there, her nurse, she thought to herself for no particular reason. The petite, pretty, nurse back was beside her bed. Without speaking, not so much as a cheery ‘good morning’, she crouched, deftly releasing with practiced skill the bedcover’s retaining toggles that had insured such a firm, comforting, swaddling throughout the night. As she went she simultaneously and unceremoniously swept aside the duvet with her free hand.

Susan was still feeling sleepy, uncharacteristically devoid of energy, deflated; a leaden heaviness afflicted her limbs, was weighing her down. Before she had even had time to even think, to gather her thoughts, the nurse was helping her to her feet, supporting her by a hand beneath her right elbow, an arm swiftly placed around her shoulders, reassuringly, supportively, aiding in the task of guiding the dazed girl across the room.

Susan, feeling hazy, lightheaded, was glad of the support, glad of the company, and now particularly glad of another fact; that damned bell had stopped. Just three paces, no more, and she found herself guided gently yet firmly down onto that seat again, at that desk. Up until now no word had been said, either way, but now came the nurse’s soft west-country lilt, the authoritative tone almost subliminally buried. “That’s a good girl. Come along; sit down like a good girl.”

Susan was back sitting at that damn desk again; it seemed only moments ago that she had been sitting here, waiting. In front of her, on the desktop, were laid out the white bowl, the white beaker and, alongside the bowel, the childish white plastic spoon; her breakfast, Susan supposed. She glanced up at the nurse who, in her turn, shot back a reassuring, beaming, sugar-sweet smile, yet said nothing. Susan returned her gaze to her ‘breakfast’, the latter differing little, if at all, in appearance from her previous meal. A white milk-like drink filled the beaker, the bowl, containing some sort of porridge as per her previous meal, now appearing even whiter than before in the daylight glow that now issued from the white frosted-glass window above the desk, from just above her head.

For some reason, although hungry, Susan’s attention had been drawn to that window. She had momentarily lost interest in the meal before her, the lack of any specific, discernible, aroma emanating from the latter, together with its uninspiring appearance, further facilitating that distraction.

Yes, there was definitely something about that window, or rather the featureless white-misted pane sited beyond the protective grille, beyond the obvious focal plane, that she had missed before. The realization came to her quite suddenly that that was exactly what it was about it; that the window was not quite featureless, not quite. For some reason she had become aware of a series of evenly spaced zones, barely perceptible shifts in light intensity, barely perceptible vertical bands wherein the frosting of the glass appeared slightly more opaque, a faint alternating pattern of light and dark. Bars! There are bars on the outside of this window! Perhaps on all the windows! The thought hit her; it really was a prison.

Despite the fact that she had just spent the night in a small room, as close to a prison cell as anything she could have imagined and behind a heavy locked door. Despite the security precautions she had witnessed, the locked barred security-gates regularly bisecting the corridors, the key operated lift. Despite all this, she hadn’t felt trapped in any way nor locked in; she had trust, she trusted them. Until this moment, this realization, this revelation. Yes, she had decided that she didn’t like the situation, that as so as soon as she had the chance to speak to someone in authority she would resign from the program, simply leave. But now...Now everything had changed; that realization, those bars on the window, somehow it affected her. Somehow the whole situation, her perception, had changed. In that instant she had become trapped as some misguided 19th-century naturalist might once have trapped a moth or butterfly in his capture bottle, its fate; to be suffocated by chloroform.

Somehow snapping out of it, Susan instinctively reached for the spoon where it lay beside the porridge bowl. Despite everything she was hungry, not so much by dint of an empty stomach, although her stomach did feel empty, rumbling, more driven by a desire for the taste and texture of food, for the mouth-feel. Stirring around in the pulpy, sludgy, mixture, feeling oddly fascinated, satisfied, by the resulting spirals, she lifted a dollop toward her mouth, tapping off the excess with her index finger, loose, runny dollops, splashing and splattering back into the bowl with a dull soft plop, looking for all the world like soggy, slushy, cardboard-like white papier maché.

Suddenly a break in the silence, in actuality more a slash then a break such was the severity. “What do you think you’re doing, girl?” The nurse, that sweet nurse, but her voice had changed, it was sharp, cutting, startling. Shocked, jolted, Susan fumbled, dropping the spoon, the pulp spluttering onto the desktop, small globs sputtering across the front of the latex nightdress, across the tight balloon-globes of her breasts. The nurse continued in the same sharp vein: “Where are your manners? You don’t just help yourself! Has anyone told you it is time to eat yet? Have I told you that your meal is ready, have I said that it’s mealtime yet?”

Susan was taken aback, a response that was fast becoming almost habitual for her in this place. What madness was this? What was all this stuff about etiquette and manners? The food was just sitting there in front of her; of course she would expect to eat it, why would she expect to have to wait? What would be she be waiting for? It was obvious that the nurse was expecting an answer, was growing impatient. Reaching across the seated girl’s shoulder and placing the spoon back beside the bowl she said sharply: “Well, girl, are you lost for words or just rude? I asked you a question”. Susan had descended into her, now customary, state of shock. Her self-confidence suddenly deserting her she frantically searched around for something to say. What should she say? Again she found herself stammering, something she had rarely done before coming here. “I,I,I I’m not sure” was all she could manage.

Susan could sense that the nurse was getting more irritated, it was all in the voice; she just knew that her friendly nurse was no longer smiling. The woman went on: “You’re not sure? Not sure of what? Not sure whether anyone told you to start eating or not sure what to say? Well, you could start by apologizing. Now, come along and be a good girl, you know what to say, I’m sure.”

Towards the end of this latter sentence the nurse’s voice had softened, the phrase ‘be a good girl’ being particularly delicately enunciated.

Despite a deep sense of humiliation Susan found herself saying sorry, more, to her chagrin, Susan had remembered to use the correct address, good manners were so important. “I,I I’m sorry nurse” she stammered, feeling the now all-too-familiar blush spread across her cheeks as she did so.

Yet again a startle, a jolt, a shock; words interrupted, the silence between abruptly, rudely filled by an intrusive ding, ding ,ding. Already there was a certain familiarity, last night’s meal wasn’t it? Instinctively Susan began to turn, to look around, only to be again interrupted, finding the spoon placed in her hand, the nurse having again leant across from behind. The nurse’s voice, now coloured by the return of her soft, soothing, coaxing tone; “come along sweetheart, eat up, it’s mealtime, I’m sure you must be very hungry”. A strange singsong tone, notably odd, yet to Susan strangely familiar, even reassuring. “That’s a good girl” the nurse continued.

As before the porridge was desperately bland, the texture pulpy, almost non-existent and, lacking any real ‘mouth feel’, was not truly satisfying. The drink too was utterly bland, neither warm nor cold, a good description being’ tepid’. In actuality it was all at room temperature and, like everything else in her new, but rapidly more familiar, environment, perfectly comfortable, perfectly nice, just so, so boring.

Susan ate quickly, she was indeed hungry, not a real deep down rumbling-stomach-hunger, indeed she was feeling somewhat bloated if she was to be honest, fats becoming aware of a new need, a rapidly growing urgency now vying for her attention. No, it was not this deep-seated type of hunger, it was more a case of her appetite requiring satisfaction, the need to taste something, chew something, that was the desire, her drive, now.

Throughout the proceedings the bell continued its insistent ring, the nurse twittering on behind her. What was it with this woman? Susan, thought to herself, would she never shut up?. Susan, eating, try to ignore, to shut out, the irritating bell and the nurse’s equally insistent chatter: “That’s it, eat up, it’s nice, that’s it, you are a good girl, such a good girl”

The bowl’s bottom had begun to show between glutinous globs of porridge, although difficult for Susan to truly perceive, the lack of contrast between bowl and porridge, the near-white upon pure white, conspiring to fool the eye. Susan, scooping up what was possibly the penultimate spoonful was yet again interrupted; the most abrupt of silences had descended, the bell having ceased its ring. Seemingly simultaneously the nurse picked up the bowl, spoon and beaker and was gone. Susan was left to swallow the last mouthful alone, dumbfounded.

The urge, this new urgency, was growing now more and more demanding of her attention. Instinctively she grasped at her abdomen, gritted her teeth. She had been holding back, worried about their stupid alarm system, despite herself, despite being certain that the engineers must have fixed the problem by now. A sharply- stabbing pain had her squeezing out from behind the cramped desk and sidestepping crablike across to the waiting toilet, levering herself up, precariously balancing against the desk corner with her right hand while simultaneously tugging at those hideous knickers with her left.

It was with the greatest of relief that her weight slumped heavily down. The plastic ring that constituted the seat momentarily deformed under the impact, her fleshy buttocks similarly moulding, morphing, to match. Her bowel movement initiated in this self-same moment, her knickers simultaneously slipping to their final resting place, washing around her ankles in a PVC pool, the elasticated waistband now a plastic hobble.

In her urgency the double beep had gone unheeded. Indeed there had not been any problem with the alarm system when she had previously used the loo. Only when she had moved to the side of the room, by the bed, had the alarm been set off. Besides she had assumed that the fault had by now been corrected. Certainly the nurse that had brought in her breakfast had not reiterated anything of the warnings given the day before. Now, however, her mistake, her erroneous assumption, was obvious but the knowledge was of little use to her now, it had come too late. Wheeeee whoooo! Wheeeee whooooo! Susan could do nothing about it now, just try to block it out, try to ignore it, concentrate on finishing, getting back to her seat, back to the desk. It would reset eventually if she were back at her desk, this much she knew, but for now she was trapped, crouching low on this ridiculous little pedestal, arms wrapped around her middle in a self-hugging display of abdominal cramping and the efficacy of hospital laxatives.

She felt out of control, she was just going and going. Diarrhoea! The thought cut across her mind in a demeaning wave of humiliating horror. The implications, the repercussions, passed in front of her eyes as if a procession, a tableau of ever-increasing humbling humiliation played out to an accompaniment of wailing siren and low, embarrassingly-rumbling toiletry resonance. The aroma, now filling the room to remain well after the event, would be waiting to point the accusing finger.

A new problem, a disaster in fact: Where had the bloody toilet paper gone? Susan was sure that one of the nurses, one of the pair that had visited the previous evening, had brought with her a toilet roll. Yes! She had! Susan had taken careful note, had been relieved. She had intended to demand one, make a fuss about it and so she had been relieved to spot a roll had been brought in. It was that butch looking nurse, Susan recalled, she had had it in her left hand when they had come in, she had stood there fiddling with it while Susan was on the loo. Where was the bloody thing now? Not that there were too many places where anything could hide, could be misplaced, not in that tiny sparsely furnished little room. There had definitely been one brought in, but there was certainly nothing approximating to toilet paper anywhere in the room now. Surely they hadn’t taken it with them when they left? Why would they? It didn’t make any sense. Nothing did, not here! There was nothing she could use, no paper, no wipes, nothing of any description and the problem was far worse than before.

Desperately she tried to make sense of it all, tried to weigh up her options, find a solution. All the time with that bloody insistent alarm nagged at her, wheeeee-whooooo, wheeeee-whooooo! It cut through her concentration, it jammed her thoughts, it forced impulsive action. Anything just to get cleaned up, get back to that bloody little desk and it’s ridiculously small childish plastic seat. Anything to get that bloody noise to stop!!...Anything!!!

Again the removable absorbent incontinence towel in her knickers came to her aid. She was glad now of the increased thickness, the bulk, of this new pad, the very features that had been the source of so much consternation. It was only with the greatest of care that she was able to achieve anything close to the standard of personal hygiene she deemed acceptable. Both sides of the towel had had to be utilised, the girl desperately trying to concentrate on avoiding contact with her fingers, contact with that loathsome brown slime, throughout desperately trying to block out that constant banshee-wailing.

There had been no choice this time but to dispose of the used towel in the toilet. Even as she had done so she had been aware, at some level, of the trouble to come; the nagging foreboding, the likely repercussions, worried away at her. Why oh why couldn’t she just flush it away, remove the evidence, both visual and olfactory? The aroma, now conspicuous in its pungency, invading every corner, seemed to mock her in her impotent attempts to clean up. On the other hand, she dreaded the actual moment of flushing, dreaded the outcome; she was absolutely certain the toilet was going to become blocked, and then what? What would happen then, when it did flush?

Susan Stringer sat, waited, what else was there to do here? Alone, isolated, she began to contemplate the undoubted uniqueness of her situation before finding that she had drifted away yet again, had lost track of time and of her train of thought, her musings, for the time being, forgotten.

In fact her situation was far from being unique. If, for the incredulous, evidence be required it may be said that such evidence resided close at hand. Close, that is, from the perspective of the reader, those of us gifted the privilege to change the scene at will.