Drip, Drip, Drip... Washing Her Out

(Brainwashing uniformed girls in hospital or clinical bondage, restrained in leg-callipers and wheelchairs, caned, spanked, trained to obedience under strict discipline, corporal punishment and leather tawse)

In the seclusion of the so-called exclusion ward, Meredith Hewson stirred. The tiny single-patient accommodation room was situated behind a heavily padded and bolted steel door leading directly off of the four-bed bed locked ward that up until quite recently had served as her home. Comprising the standard rail-sided, wheeled hospital bed, an intravenous drip stand holding her nutrient and saline drip bottles and a plastic bedside chair, there was little space for much else and even the plastic-covered frosted windows that brightened the main ward were notable by their absence here.

Although she had the companionship of a nurse throughout her waking periods - nurses coming and going in shifts throughout the ‘day’ and taking it in turns to occupy the little plastic chair and read or knit their time away - it had been made patently clear from the outset that they were there merely to fulfil a supervisory role rather than in any concern for the patient’s need for social contact. Indeed, Meredith soon found she was to be studiously ignored; the nurses wouldn’t speak to her and she wasn’t to speak to them. Of course, should she is much as close her eyes during those periods designated as her ‘waking hours’ it certainly wouldn’t be missed; a sharp tingling slap from the nurse’s fingers to either cheek would soon have her wide awake and her eyes stretched wide open.

Gone was the perpetual twenty-four-hour-a-day eye-straining dazzle of the main ward. For that she should have been grateful - and under different circumstances she might well have been. But gone too were all those little background sounds that one comes to associate with hospitals; the rustle of the nurse’s uniforms, the snap of latex examination gloves being pulled into place, the swish of nylon-stockinged legs, the crinkling of plastic aprons, water trickling into hand basins and that subtly metallic rattling-hiss that comes as the curtains are drawn around a bed. To most these would have been trivial things, but after a few months confined to that one small ward - and more often than not confined to her bed, or at best the wheelchair that was always to be found lurking in its shadow - these small things had come to assume something of the status of a lifeline of sorts.

It was a situation that could only have been exacerbated by the fact that, other than on rare occasions, the curtains around her bed had routinely been kept closed, even when she was allowed to sit up in her chair. Having the curtains drawn back was a privilege to be earned and - like being allowed to sit up in her chair - was contingent on good behaviour.

By good behaviour, though, they meant her agreeing with everything she was continually being told regarding what they described as her ‘delusions’ - how what she felt sure deep down where true memories of abuse at the hands of that filthy old clergyman and his housekeeper, were in fact just that; deluded fantasies brewed up by a sick mind.

Not that there was much to see when those curtains were pulled back, on those occasions when, weakened and feeling worn down, she might have acquiesced to some degree. There were two other patients - both of around her own age, she judged - and occasionally she would glimpse one or other being taken by wheelchair, as per the regulations apparently, to the examination room or perhaps to the interview room for one-to-one therapy with the resident psychologist. This latter was an assumption of course and based on these two rooms being the only respite from the monotony of the immediate surroundings of the locked ward that she herself had experienced since her arrival.

She had noted, on separate occasions, that both these girls, like herself, were in leg-callipers and wore neck-braces - something of a surprising coincidence considering that she knew herself to be on a psychiatric ward as opposed to the orthopaedic wing from which she had apparently been moved and of which she had little or no recollection to speak of. Both were always dressed in the same soft, mid-thigh length, rear-fastening little white latex nightdress that she herself was kept in, with its flared circular skirt, matching PVC knee-length bloomers that peeked embarrassingly from beneath and the dehumanising large black number, by which they were always referred, boldly printed over the left breast.

Where these two girls differed from her the most was in their speech, or rather the lack of it. Neither girl seemed to have the ability to communicate with anything approaching intelligibility, slavering and drooling, slurring and stuttering in response to the nurses; the only circumstance under which a patient was allowed to talk on the ward. Whether this incoherence was due to their mental state or the result of some physical injury or abnormality she couldn’t be certain, but it was notable that both girls’ teeth were graced by the ugliest, most incongruous orthodontic braces that Meredith had ever seen and saliva near continuously trickled down the chin of each. At some level she couldn’t help but wonder whether their defective speech patterns weren’t as much to do with those ungainly orthodontic devices themselves as to whatever condition they had been prescribed for. Quite from where she had gained that latter impression she hadn’t any inkling at all - but it was a thought that often haunted her with its sinister overtones.

Something had awoken her with a start, leaving her heart pounding as if pursued, with the foetid breath of one of those loathsome nightmare creatures that forever haunted her sleep close on her shoulder. Her eyes had shot wide open with shock... or had they? Could she be sure? Fully conscious now, she experimentally closed...and then opened her eyes - it made no difference, absolutely none.

Closed or open the darkness enveloping her was total; it was like drowning in thick treacly ink, the blackest, densest ink she could imagine. It had neither end nor beginning, a dimensionless void that could just as easily have been kilometres deep as ending within centimetres of her eyes as a blindfold might.

This was the secret darkness of the totally blind - it was as unyielding to the probing of her senses as to seem to take on the appearance of something tangible, something of texture. There was a velvety quality to it that, while in reality merely the manifestation of the stimulus-independent sporadic misfiring of a few rogue retinal cells, nevertheless reinforced the impression of having a bandaging of thick black velvet criss-crossing her eyes.

But there the illusion ended - there was no fine tracery-work of light that might creep along the ridges of the nose or sneak under creases in the fabric that would served to delineate the limits of a blindfold. Nor was there the tell-tale sensation of contact at any point on her face - other than the comfortable but insistent pressure spread evenly across the breadth of her forehead. There was a certain reassuring familiarity to the latter sensation, its origin she knew well enough - the broad, softly-padded restraint-band that kept her head immobilised and deeply sunken within the soft latex cradling of her pillows. In that instant she knew she was safe; she was all safe and sound and restrained in her hospital bed - and the thought instantly calmed her.

She knew where she was: in the little side room off of the main ward - the quiet room or exclusion ward as they variously called it. She knew the reason for the impenetrably-dense darkness: there were no windows here and in here, she had been told, the light would always be off while she was sleeping - it was why she had been placed here, to get more rest and better quality rest at that. The therapist had said that she hoped a little isolation would make Meredith more appreciative of her therapy sessions, somewhat less cranky and more open to new ideas and that perhaps then she would feel herself more able to cooperate to a greater degree with her therapy.

Meredith understood the rationale behind the imposition of medical restraints of course; they were a real pain, sure, but it was an annoyance she had become accustomed to and knew to be necessary in order to protect her neck and back should she unduly shift around in her sleep. Besides; the broad, padded leather bands around her ankles and wrists, knees and elbows, abdomen and upper chest were one hell of a lot more comfortable than the hot, itchy plaster casts within which she had found herself encased when first she had come round after that horrific car crash - not that she had regained one iota of recollection of the latter.

What was that?...there it was again...and again, just for an instant. There was something out there amidst the pinprick-spangled infinite black folds - one pin-star amongst them came and went, waxed and waned and blinked brighter than the rest. It seemed to have grown larger too, now that it had caught her notice. It alone amongst the faint, shifting, constellations was of a constant hue. It alone seemed pinned in the imaginary night sky, slowly winking like a tiny amber eye, rhythmically winking, sliding smoothly open...then gliding gently closed, brightening then dimming and synchronized near plumb-on perfectly with each sleepily shallow-sighing breath she took - in...out...in...out...on...off...on...off.

For while she lay opening and closing her eyes, trying to discern the real from the imaginary. For a while she unconsciously synchronized her blink rate until the random darkness again closed in.

Then, gradually the opposite phase came to dominate, and a constantly-lit tiny golden-amber disc seemed to hover above her, glowing like a minute sun and...growing, yes...ever so slowly, the change almost indiscernible, but it was quite definitely growing!...or coming closer...or both.

In the pitch black of the room, denied any of the normal background cues, she couldn’t hope to judge its size and, conversely, without any estimation of size its distance was indeterminable, but there was now no doubt - It was real! Somewhere, out there in the room some sort of tiny lamp was slowly blinking on and off...or rather fading up and down - it was not the sharp transition of a thrown switch.

The realisation snapped her out of her trance-like state. For the first time she could make out some three-dimensional detail; it was no longer a dimensionless pinhole pierced through a blanket of black velvet, it was a tiny glittering sphere. It held her gaze, fascinated her, it calmed her and claimed her, drawing her further and further in with each slow cyclical change - from bright firefly-gold, to grey-yellow dusk, to dense night sky and back again.

Something had awakened her, startled her. Something had left her with panicked breath and pounding heart. Yet now she drifted drowsily, her breathing regular, her heart slow and lazy, on the soft yielding margin of sleep. There was something strangely reassuring about that friendly little firefly globe and its gentle unvarying cadence, its compelling metronome precision. It lulled her, whispered for her to let her eyes fall closed, yet demanded her full attention for fear that each reassuring glimmer might be its last, refusing to release her from its thrall.

Now it had grown larger still, revealing finer detail in concert with its expansion and seemingly now containing myriads of minute metallic, almost holographic, stars all twinkling and tumbling. And there was something else now, too - the golden-amber sphere was a sphere no longer. As she had watched, totally mesmerised through countless generations of light-dark cycles, her little fire-fly friend had seemingly slowly morphed. Elongating, stretching, inexorably drawing out into a heavy, gravid tear-drop glob, it had now taken on a character far more suggestive of some organic thing than the indicator lamp she had momentarily considered it to be... A glitter-strewn tail now seemed to string out vertically behind it as if it were some viscous, earthward-bound slow-motion comet, growing thinner and thinner with the waxing and waning of the light and gradually giving credence to the alternative impression of a glow-worm, twirling suspended by a gossamer elastic thread.

Then, as she watched, that spittle-like thread seemed suddenly to diminish, simultaneously changing in hue from gold through silver to faint grey - the rotund little gob at its end, retracting its tail and momentarily reclaiming its globular character, blinked back into darkness with the finality of a flame snuffed out and was gone,..

For some unknowingly short time, perhaps a second, perhaps less - but seemingly stretching out forever - she was left again alone in her cocoon of dark isolation. Neurotically-aimless butterflies took flight shredding calm in their wake and pollinating anxiety - something was about to happen, something was coming.

She couldn’t tell from whence the anticipation had arisen; it was as if a million alarm bells were sounding all at once throughout her subconscious, as if every fibre of her being was tensing for some coming onslaught, every neuron twitching and reaching out for sensation yet cringing back in terror of the unknown.

In that brief moment she was like some nightmare-trapped child, pursued by shadow-lurking demons, terrified should they overtake, yet unable to shake off her own shadow and circling in perpetually-futile panic. Something was coming; she feared it yet somehow knew that on the far side lay the calm she craved, that only this unknown something held the key to her release her from this subtle self-crafted torture.

When it came, it did so all at once, like some coordinated, massed attack on her senses...yet persisted for scantly a fraction of a second...

There was a short sharp piercing electronic bleep, the muscles at her groin jolted into rigour, straining in response to a mild but stinging electric shock and something icy-cold and fluidic splattered heavily onto the very centre of her forehead - having passed straight through the three-centimetre diameter circular cut-out at the centre of the broad webbing headband restraint. The latter evoked a sensation that under other circumstances she would have likened to having received a sharp admonishing tap from a dead-flesh fingertip - one having all the consistency and substance of wet gelatine.

Her heart once again racing and pounding in her ears, she strained uselessly in her bonds, twisting this way and that. The unyielding authority of the medical restraints seemed, ironically, to calm her - had there been any slack the effect might well have been to the contrary. As it was, this reminder, that she lay secured to a hospital bed in a tiny locked room, itself an offshoot of a secure psychiatric ward, rather than inducing the claustrophobic helpless panic that one might have expected it to, instead felt oddly reassuring to her.

Surprisingly quickly the fear started to subside. She began the process of convincing herself that she had awoken from a dream...there was the same all-enveloping darkness around her, the same familiar calming silence. But...but...Yes, there it was again...a tiny pin-prick of light, golden starlight coming and going, waxing and waning, slowly, rhythmically, twinkling on the very edge of awareness...fascinating, holding the attention, growing with each slow-drawing moment, happy to hang there for eternity before, having matured and grown gravid with icy viscous fluid, it would again follow the earthward-gravitating raindrop-path of its previously shed forefathers and of its uncountable progeny to come...

...”Uhhh!...Wha...Wha?” The light had snapped on without warning - dazzlingly bright after the depth of the darkness that had gone before and the achingly short blue-black ink of slumber. At exactly what point sleep had been allowed to claim her she couldn’t possibly know, but from her lead-weighted eyelids and stagnant, muddled, fog-bound brain she knew that piteously little time could have passed since. However long her slumber, it had clearly been hopelessly insufficient for any significant regeneration of her cognitive processes; she felt drunk with tiredness, listless, ready to do almost anything to be allowed some peace, just a little longer to dream... just a little longer.

Dreams? Nightmares, surely? Always it was the same; the sleep-period bell would sound, mellow, resonant and mournful, the lights would fade down and somewhere in the distance, belying the usual totality of silence, rain would be gently falling and surf softly and rhythmically lapping at a shingle beach. For a while peace would reign and she would float in blissful dreamless sleep; that was when the nightmare would begin - drip by drip by drip. It had to be a nightmare, what else could it be? Yet it was one she couldn’t ever wake from, or if she did she awoke anew to the same torment - drip, drip, drip... sleepless night after sleepless night after sleepless night. Certainly, if she wasn’t being kept awake, if it wasn’t real, then whatever rest she was getting wasn’t doing her any good; she was permanently left feeling jetlagged and desperate for sleep, absolutely desperate.

Changed, cleaned up and placed in her wheelchair she longed to catch up through the day, to doze nodding in her seat, to be allowed to return to the mothering, soft latex embrace of her hospital bed, to slumber on its protective rubber mattress cover and be placed back in those humane restraints...Yes, even the restraints; after so long hospitalised in plaster casts she craved their restriction and the reassurance of childhood helplessness that came with the discipline of the nursery - and the plastic pants and thick, comforting diapers that went with it. But of course it was never to be; there were assessments to be undertaken, medication to be doled out, mealtimes, toilet times, exercise periods - the hospital routine was written in stone and not to be denied.

She would be returned to her bed all in good time - their good time - and placed back in full restraint, including the broad forehead strap with that strategically-placed third-eye aperture at its centre. But it would not be to sleep, not during her waking hours. She would be obliged to lie there with eyes open, flat on her back and gazing mindlessly up at the ceiling or staring up at the sagging ‘U’ bend of the IV drip-feed line running across immediately above her head, whereat two lengths of tubing came together through a ‘Y’ connector to join a third section that extended the run over to the cannula in her wrist on the opposite side. It was at the centre of that deeply-sagging section, just above her forehead, were the drip would begin to form, the liquid dribbling down along the underside of the tubing from one of the joints, the golden, viscous, heavy oily fluid gathering, coalescing growing and stretching - waiting there for an eternity to fall.

If she closed her eyes she wouldn’t know when it was coming - and besides she risked receiving a stinging slap from the nurse for dozing. If she kept her eyes open she could not take them away from the golden, sparkling torment growing and dangling above her - she couldn’t know when it would fall, she would try and anticipate it, then beg it to fall, silently in her mind praying for it just to fall and get it over with. Then it would fall and there would be relief... then behind it, the next would be coalescing and growing and in her mind she would be saying ‘please fall, little droplet... please, please fall... please, please...’ And so the day would pass.

The two IV drip bags would, in time, empty out and promptly in their turn be replaced - but somehow, despite that attention to detail and their undoubted diligence, none of the nurses ever seemed to notice the failing seal at that leaky joint. Indeed the staff seemed oblivious to the torment it was causing her, yet if it was by way of mere accident then it brought into question the purpose of that circular cut-out in the head restraint.

She had pointed out the problem when it had first begun occurring - the therapist had been promptly called and she had been dragged out of bed, made to bend across its foot and awarded six strokes of the woman’s cane for speaking out of turn.

First thing, though, was always the visit to the therapist; the sharply spoken psychiatrist or psychologist - the distinction was way beyond her. Bespectacled, raven hair falling and curling loosely about her shoulders and habitually dressed in tight knee-length black leather skirt and tailored white silk blouse, the woman seemed out of place in a hospital environment and more at home in a ‘men’s magazine’, playing the role of some fantasy dominatrix. It was an image that the black high-heeled court shoes and dark tan seamed stockings that she favoured - particularly when teamed with the black silk or leather ties she sometimes wore - did nothing to dispel. Not that her nature always matched the severity of her garb; her approach, attitude and nature seemed flexible, to say the least. To many she could be softly spoken, empathic, supportive, a shoulder to cry on, even motherly. To Meredith Hewson, though, for the time being she would only ever be shrill, cold and domineering.

Young Meredith was not co-operative, you see, not yet sufficiently compliant with her methods. But that would not always be the case of course. There would be change aplenty - and when that day arrived it would be met with soft words, a reassuring embrace and warm wet lips planted on a pretty forehead to replace the expected kiss of leather on chubby, insolent, late-teen buttocks.

Meredith could hear the nurse’s dress rustling - felt a soft wing of polyester skirt-fold brush her cheek and then the less personal, smooth plastic chill, of the woman’s apron. A petite, soft latex-gloved hand momentarily rested itself on her inner thigh, just shy of the broad leg elastic of those thick rubber bloomers they now insisted she wear at night - another palm felt and patted knowledgeably around the area of its crotch, as if weighing the sagging latex bulge in an effort to judge its contents.

From close by, a soft, girlish voice, called out, presumably to some other staff member waiting outside. It was a voice playful rather than merely cheerful and seemingly on the verge of giggling, as if struggling to deal with a sight that was clearly the source of some hilarity to her - it was a characteristic seemingly calculated to bring a glow of shame to the cheeks of any patient presented in the manner that the young woman lying now before her was.

“She has passed water during the night, but there are still no signs of a bowel movement - not a significant one at any rate.”

Meredith felt herself bristle with indignation; despite her mental exhaustion she was still holding out, but for how much longer. It was a battle of wills. It was one of many such presently being fought on as many fronts at once, but this was a struggle that somehow seemed more important than the rest - and the least likely to be rewarded with victory.

Then it was straight into the wheelchair - and with full transport restraint enforced, despite the fact that the trip would consist of little more than a short sojourn along the truncated length of the secure psychiatric ward; itself a compacted space-efficient marvel of interior design.

It was always this way, day after day - the process of tightening the restraints, in terms of the time it swallowed up, far outweighed that required for the journey itself. Indeed, the reality was that the padlocked-security of the ward rendered obsolete the superficial additional security of all those straps, belts and cuffs in any case. Nevertheless, rules were rules and procedure was everything - nary was a buckle left overlooked or unfastened.

No more than a score of metres at most would be traversed before she would once more be presented before the psychotherapist’s desk, suitably restrained and chastened. Hypnotherapy was the order of the day, something that despite the constant reassurances of the staff the girl was still somewhat loath to undergo.

The technique involved a cylindrical device comprising a mirrored section flanked by several multi-hued segments - each having a single word superimposed upon it - viewed through a narrow slit such that each division would be seen in turn and in isolation before the subject would once again regard her own image in the mirrored segment.

To begin with, perhaps for around ten or fifteen minutes or so, the internal cylinder would rotate slowly, the subject being required to read and repeat verbally the series of words spaced around it and given time to digest the indoctrination carried within the received message. Upon each rotation of the internal drum the subject would be encouraged to study herself for a few moments in the mirror while mulling over the series of statements she had just read through. Then gradually, ever so gradually, the rotation of the drum would be sped up, faster and faster, until finally the resulting flickering image would become simultaneously both deeply hypnotic and subliminal.

It was as compelling as it was effective. Combined with a suitably well-chosen set of suggestions, a nice comfortable level of sedation - and, yes, with the more reluctant patient, perhaps a little sleep deprivation beforehand - and after a few such sessions the subject would be left hopelessly entrained to the device and no more able to exercise her freedom of will, as regards accepting or rejecting the therapy, than she might go without taking a breath.

Meredith Hewson, though, was a tough cookie - she would have none of it. At least such had been the case, up until today. But today would be different; today for the very first time she genuinely felt that she just could not take any more. Today it was taking a really major effort of will just in order to keep her eyes open, let alone to go against the authority of a skilled and experienced psychotherapist.

The truth of the situation was that if she wanted to go back on to the main ward she could do so - it was all up to her. All young Meredith had to do, after all, was to co-operate with her treatment and to ask her doctor ‘nicely. But it was the manner in which she would be required to phrase that request wherein lay the stumbling block, as far as she was concerned - it implied her giving up on her fondly-held belief system to a far greater degree than she was willing to. If she felt ready to acquiesce - and at some level she did - then that acceptance still required some catalyst, something to start the ball rolling.

Coldly studying her shattered and sleep deprived patient through horn-rimmed glasses, the girl’s therapist projected her most sympathetically-friendly smile. Dr Ann Ecclestone was nothing if not perceptive - and today was the day, today was the day she needed only give her patient the gentlest of shoves to nudge her in the right direction.

“So, my dear... I get the distinctest feeling that you would prefer it if you were to be returned to the main ward - would I be correct in that assumption?”

“Yes Miss” It always felt incongruous to the girl to have to speak in such a childish manner, but it was the form of address the doctor insisted on and she felt little compunction nowadays to go against her authority. That part of her, that rebellious spark, had been left outside in the free world, beyond the bounds of the hospital and its system of discipline.

“Well, then, it’s very simple; I’m sure you know what you have to do. You only have to ask, if you don’t like it where you are at present. Just ask me properly and I’ll see what can be done - I am here to help you, after all. I’m supposed to be your friend, someone you can trust and confide in and at the end of the day, my staff and I only want what’s best for you - you know that, don’t you?”

“Yes miss”

“Well, then...”

“Please, miss please can I go back on the ward”

“Which ward would that be? What sort of ward is it? I want you to try to be more specific in your speech - it is important that you face facts here, if I am going to be able to help you. You do want me to help you, don’t you?”

“Yes, miss...but, bbbut...”

“Well...”

“It, its, a,a... psychiatric ward, miss”

“Well, yes it is. But it is a very special type of psychiatric ward - what kind of psychiatric ward is it?”

“Its a,a,a secure psychiatric ward, miss”

“So, what you’re really requesting is to be transferred on to a secure psychiatric ward - is that correct?”

“Yes, miss...bbbut...”

“And what type of patient do you think needs to be housed on a secure psychiatric ward?”

“Psychiatric patients, miss?”

“Is that what your friends would call them, do you think? How might your friends, your old school chums for example, describe them - how would they be likely to describe people that are required to be kept in straitjackets and locked behind bars? Be honest with me now, if you want to go back on the ward; because I can keep you in the exclusion room for just as long as I want - and don’t you dare forget that. Weeks, months... it doesn’t matter to me one iota how long you spend in there.”

“Me,me, mental patients, mmmmiss... They’d call them mental patients.” Tears were welling up now, her voice breaking with emotion.

“That’s right; they’d most probably call them mental patients. So what you are asking in actual fact is to be transferred on to the secure ward with all the other mental patients - is that about the measure of it, would you say?”

“Yes Miss, I, I, I suppose so.”

“Then say so for heaven’s sake! Come on, out with it. Say it as it is - without pussyfooting around - and I promise, I will do what I can to help you.”

“Please miss, please m,m,may I g,g,go back on the psychiatric ward with all the other patients?”

“No! Not good enough! Let’s try again - what sort of ward, what sort of patients?”

Meredith was sobbing openly now, shaking and on the brink of a precipice toward which she was being irresistibly manoeuvred and which she felt could only lead her spiralling down into a state of complete and utter mental breakdown should she topple. But backing-off was no option either - she had to get herself let out of that room whatever the cost.

“A...mental ward? Mental patients?”

“That’s much better. Now, let’s try again to put it all together...I’ll start you off: Please may I...”

“Pl,pl,please may I go back on the...me,me, mental ward, miss...with all the other mental patients.”

“You know, that is so much better - we’ll have no more monkeying around with all that politically-correct rubbish here. Now...if the ward you want so dearly to return to is a mental ward and all the patients housed there are mental patients; why do you think we should consider housing you there? Surely the hospital wouldn’t want to squander precious resources to keep you on a locked mental ward with a group of drooling mental patients if you didn’t truly belong there - isn’t that the truth?”

“Yes miss.”

“Then you must be a mental patient. Do you think of yourself as a mental patient, do you think you need to be kept on a locked ward for the mentally ill?”

“I, I, suppose so, miss”

“You suppose so? Don’t you know?

“Yes miss...I mean, no miss...I,I,I...”

“Then you must say so - nice and clearly so that we can all hear. Come on; I am a...”

“I, I, I am a,a,a... mental patient, miss”

“Yes, you are. At long last, a breakthrough! As I have said so many times before; the first step in my having the ability to help you is in your own recognition of your need for help. You yourself have to come to terms with the realisation that you are indeed mentally ill, before we can do anything about starting to get you well again. So...congratulations, sweetheart, you have just taken that first step. Now, let’s hear it all again; one more time from the top. What are you and where do you think you belong? Just think for a moment, I’m sure you know the answer by now”

“I, I, I am a, a me, mental patient, a., a, an, and I belong on a, a mm,mental ward, miss.”

“Good girl! Do you know what - by the time I’m finished with you here I think it will seem incomprehensible to you that you could ever have thought of yourself as being anything other than a psychiatric case...

Over an hour has sped by and the doctor has kept to her word - Meredith Hewson has indeed been transferred back to her original bed on the main ward. But then, so has that defective drip-feed apparatus - already the first of an infinity of oily, ice-cold, sparkling golden droplets is poised on the underside of the sagging Teflon tubing... drip, drip, drip.

Soon she will lie drip-dripping her mind away to the accompanying click of the nurse’s knitting needles. But tomorrow is a brand new day; perhaps he will come to pleasure himself with her bottom, then whip her out of her senses with his heavy leather strap. Perhaps instead she will be bent across the psychotherapist’s desk for six strokes of the rattan cane or folded across the woman’s leather-skirted lap for the loving attention of her tawse. Then again, perhaps the day will be merely dripped away. Drip, drip, drip... Whatever the day brings she knows one thing for sure: it will be spent securely locked behind bars and safely out of contact with the outside world. Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip...