Interrogations And Investigations

The time is again the present; the place is a warren of ostensibly disused passageways and officially abandoned rooms - the disused legacy of a historic Victorian asylum tucked away deep within a private psychiatric institute. After yet another day bristling under strict schoolroom discipline in the cause of ‘scientific curiosity and behavioural psychological research’ a certain young lady has been summoned to an interview room - on the surface of it for ‘one-to-one counselling’, a regular part of the daily regimen of the behavioural research unit. But there is something else in the air, something a little more sinister - as if being confined in a private psychiatric institution, largely through slight of hand, was not sinister enough...

“Please take a seat, young lady”. The white-coated woman looked up from the open file set out before her and smiled pleasantly, indicating with a sweep of her hand the high-backed chair set opposite her. “Make yourself comfortable and then we can get on.” The woman’s patient-friendly manner seemed affected and at odds with her steely blue eyes and severe tightly pined-back hair. Her pleasantries rang all the more hollow given the yellow-gold length of wickedly supple rattan lying across the front of her desk. The curved handle school cane looked to have been as haphazardly discarded as one might toss aside a pencil and was apparently regarded equally as casually by all present, as if the presence, within the confines of a psychiatric hospital, of an implement historically more often than not associated with corporal punishment, was the epitome of normality.

Such complacency should not have been the case within that or any other context of course, outside that of fantasy, let alone be the viewpoint within a behavioural research unit - a world populated by scientific investigators and their volunteer experimental subjects. Such an environment one would expect to be strictly governed by ethics committees and the like, to have legislative safeguards in place, to be monitored, peer-reviewed and reported upon by outside agencies. That was not the case here; the cane, the strap, the tawse - even the martinet - were the every-day means of governance here. Besides, young Lavinia Vitesse was no longer, strictly speaking, a denizen of the research department, not officially - the voluntary aspect of her residence lay now in the past.

The desk behind which the woman was seated was surprisingly utilitarian given her status. A plain white steel-framed affair, Formica-topped with a nest of pull-out draws to either side and a ‘modesty board’ running beneath, it was functional but little more than that. Indeed it looked to be a basic office model circa 1965 - the kind of thing that would have been familiar to any administration clerk or receptionist working in a clinical setting around that time had it not been for the circular flanges skirting the foot of each leg. The latter served as anchor points - a feature common to all potentially movable furnishings in the place - and five broad-headed hexagonal bolts, painted white so as to merge with the flooring, were evenly spaced around each, securing the desk firmly to the floor. The dial telephone, intercom and paper tray, all in white plastic, would have been quite at home in that era. The woman’s laptop computer on the other hand would have risked looking incongruous, but occupied a pullout section set purposely below the sight-line of the interviewee in any case.

Here, then, sat the section psychiatrist; this relaxed and quite surprisingly attractive early middle-aged woman presently settling back into the plush embrace of her white leather semi-recliner, comfortably sinking into its folds and swivelling back and forth whilst absentmindedly twiddling with her glasses. Behind her, backing onto the rear wall, two shoulder-height filing cabinets stood flanking her to either side as if a pair of white-glossed robotic sentries, each vertical column of curved chromed drawer handles sparkling under the harsh artificial lighting like ceremonial decoration. In between the latter, the space was filled by a pair of heavy white drapes of some typically functional and institutional man-made fabric.

Hanging from ceiling, to floor, the curtains served to suggest the position of the interview room’s window, but somehow failed to convince. Lavinia suspected that if she was to make a bolt for it by that route, she would be as likely to be confronted by a bare concreted wall as by glass - it would be typical of the kind of mind games they excelled in here. Besides, if it really was a window she knew from experience that it would be protected behind a rugged nylon grille and allow little more detail to be seen through its whitewashed and frosted surface than the distorted outline of thick, presumably iron, bars, mounted externally and running vertically from top to bottom - not enough detail to relieve the monotony of the place, yet just sufficient to induce despair.

Desperately seeking invisibility - yet all too keenly aware of her conspicuousness in her ugly, anachronistic and childish school uniform set in counterpoint before the sophistication of the fashionably-attired woman psychiatrist and the two smartly-uniformed and attractive young nurses escorting her, two women perhaps not that much older than herself - Lavinia could almost feel herself shrinking physically, as if subconsciously willing herself to insignificance. Nevertheless she could not quite avoid catching the woman’s eye and Lavinia felt herself blush. The woman seated before her was a vision of austere serenity, her lively and intelligent deep-blue eyes regarding her young patient with an ambiguous mixture of understated sympathy and something dangerously bordering on thinly disguised amusement. Her eyes sparkled almost hypnotically in the light from her desk lamp, instantly attracting and locking onto Lavinia’s gaze as if daring her young patient to look away, whilst simultaneously they equally forbade it.

In marked contrast to the older woman’s rather luxurious seating arrangements, the design of the chair proffered Lavinia looked to be anything but welcoming. Of a similar design to those of the class room and notably straight-backed - the back rising beyond the head-height of the sitter - this hard wooden chair, she knew from bitter experience to be every bit as hard and uncomfortable as it looked. Its seat subtly rose in the centre - placing undue pressure on the buttocks and the sensitive flesh between - and was quite short, resulting in a tendency for the front edge to dig into the backs of the thighs. Ten minutes or so sitting there and the discomfort would start to become intolerable - especially when one was forbidden to fidget or adopt any posture other than to sit smartly bolt-upright. But these question-and-answer sessions could go on and on - and she knew only too well just for how long. This ‘analysis and counselling’ session could easily last an hour, perhaps several - it was impossible to tell for sure, but it was not unknown for the doctor to take a break mid-session and leave, only to return suitably refreshed. The patient of course had no such access to respite - one had no option but to sit and wait.

The file spread out in front of the doctor held everything they knew about her and her background, that much she knew. The section presently lying open contained over one hundred questions. Listed alongside each was the answer or answers she had given during the last two sessions. Many of these questions were framed in such a way as to pose what was essentially the same query and probe the same area from several different angles while worded in such a way as to disguise that fact from the subject. Whether the phraseology employed was purposely confusing, designed to trip her up, Lavinia herself could have no way of knowing for sure; she knew only that all too often it felt as if words were being placed in her mouth. An answer given to a particular question might be queried with respect to the response given to the self-same question on a previous occasion or to the response she had made to a second, related question, and the discrepancy discussed in excruciating detail, the inference typically pointing at her reluctance to be truthful in her replies.

The trouble was that in attempting to reconcile these apparent inconsistencies it was all too easy to find she had been cornered and manoeuvred into agreeing with some statement or other that, while seemingly noncommittal in its original context, when extrapolated to some response she might have made previously to a related query, became decidedly self-incriminating. Given that so much of the interminably lengthy, repetitive and embarrassingly-invasive questionnaire was concerned with issues impinging on mental health and given the implications of her ‘doing badly’, she knew she had to be careful. Yet try as she might and as guarded as she tried to make her replies, to be continually self-consistent under such circumstances required a superhuman feat of memory. She was only too well aware that a substantial folio of ‘evidence’ was already building a case against her - it lay open on the woman’s desk in front of her eyes.

Lavinia knew what to expect: The doctor’s probing would begin, as it always did, harking back to the time she had spent staying with her Aunt, the weeks and months between running away from her guardian and her coming - or rather, being brought - to this godforsaken ‘clinic’. Today was a little different though. Today the teenage girl’s deceitfully affable opponent seemed more self assured than ever, a knowing smile playing around her full ruby-red lips. Seated at her desk, her silk stocking clad legs stretched out in the foot well beneath, the smiling psychiatrist was leaning back in her chair. On her lap she had open a brown A4 sized leather bound volume. Pressing her slender tactile fingers together she brought the tips up to her lips appraisingly, the long polished nails catching the light from her desk and her white doctor’s coat falling open as she did so, providing the crestfallen girl a good view both of the journal and of the obsessively neat, handwritten entries it contained.

From the doctor’s point of view her wide-eyed young patient’s ashen face, gazing back at her from the far side of her desk, was an absolute picture; part confused disbelief, part horror, part flustered embarrassment. Self-indulgently the attractive psychiatrist allowed a hint of the satisfaction welling up inside her to reveal itself in the broadening of her smile. Dropping her hands back down to the journal laying in her lap the self-assured woman flipped over a couple of the pages, nodding to her self as the crisp leafs rustled in the heavily-hanging oppressive silence. Then, again forming a steeple from her fingertips and bringing them up to her lips pensively, she simply waited, resting in contemplative silence and giving time for the full impact of the implications of what was resting on her lap to sink into her young patient’s mind. It was the waiting and the silence that would break the girl down now. She didn’t have to do or say anything; she only had to wait and the girl would speak. Eventually all she needed to know would come flooding out like water from a burst dam - and accompanied by the usual floods of tears, as judged by the wateriness she could already see developing in the depths of those oh so pretty eyes the girl had. The thought suddenly struck her: if the girl had not been so damned heart-wrenchingly alluring would she have been able to have gone along with what she was doing to her? She looked across at the figure obediently seated stiff-backed and with hands on head opposite her - the tears welling up in those deep violet eyes and the cupid-bow mouth slightly agape, the lips trembling prettily - surprised at how readily such misgivings could shrug themselves off.

As always she had expended considerable time and effort on her appearance that morning. Her cosmetics, in particular, were applied expertly and in a sophisticated manner - it was all part of it, the full effect. Similarly the tabletop mirror she had on her desk - and that stood at the far corner as if casually pushed aside to give way to her work, was always angled towards the patient in such a way that she would catch sight of her own reflection, at least from the waist up, whenever facing her inquisitor. The contrast between the sophisticatedly attired, psychiatrist with her well manicured nails, expensively coiffured hair and professionally applied makeup and the young woman’s own appearance in that mirror with her short tightly plaited stubby pigtails, shaved eyebrows and ridiculously stiff-collared, old-fashioned school uniform worked its own special brand of magic, weaving its way deep into the girl’s subconscious throughout the interview.

Mulling it over as she waited for the first wavering words to come from the girl’s lips, for a fleeting instant the attractive woman’s smile broadened - then, just as quickly, it faded: It had taken an effort to reassert control, but she feared giving to much away at this stage. It had suddenly occurred to her just to what extent that uniform influenced not only the behaviour of the girl herself, but also that of all those around her or who came in contact with her, in so much as how they regarded, addressed and treated her. If not for the feminine maturity of her development and silhouette one could have been forgiven for taking the girl, from a distance, as perhaps around twelve or fourteen years old. In the absence of anything from which to derive a sense of scale, only at a second or even third glance might her true age of around eighteen or nineteen have been divined. It was interesting to observe how, with a young adult kept dressed as a child - as indeed this girl was - the tendency was to treat her in just the way one might indeed treat a child if meeting her for the first time, even if told her true age in fact. Indeed, the doctor, herself, despite her exterior veneer of professionalism, invariably found herself referring to the young women she had under her care as ‘girls’ rather than the young women most in modern society at large would have consider them to be, at least in terms of their years. None more so than this girl that was presently quavering before her.

Although long legged and naturally willowy - even if displaying a tendency to plumpness of late - somehow the girl’s looks still suited well the way they had her dressed. Only at a second or even third glance would one be likely to accurately divine the girl’s true age. Most would be more likely to take her, at first glance, to be a particularly gawkily-precocious thirteen year old - or perhaps fourteen at most - certainly nothing like approaching the age of majority. Not that such adult concerns and responsibilities need trouble the girl now, not now that she was all set to be staying for the next three years whatever happened. What would happen at that point, though, might well hinge around something she uncovered today, or tomorrow or the day after that.

She felt sure her young patient understood the consequences. The girl would be guarded, she would try to conceal certain details about her past life and any private thought processes she might consider damning, but then again; she couldn’t possibly know for sure what was - and what wasn’t - relevant. How could she? She wasn’t a psychiatrist, she was merely the patient. But she was in the hands of someone who was a psychiatrist and psychologist - and a very good one to boot. She would grind out the truth from the girl, bit by bit if necessary - but she would get the truth, or at least that part of the ‘truth’ that best suited her aims. Ultimately it was her report that would hold greatest sway when it came time for the girl’s case to come under review and it was true that she could just as easily fabricate sufficient evidence to ensure the poor thing stayed safely in her hands without even the trouble of the girl being summoned before the examining review panel. How much better, though, it would be if the evidence that would further ensnare her patient was to come from the girl’s own mouth. After all, the girl was already well aware that she had only herself to blame for her present period of incarceration. Not that she had any compunction about reminding the girl of that fact yet again - in fact she fully intended to at some point during today’s session.

The ironic truth was that in attempting to whistle-blow on her treatment as a voluntarily-admitted patient, the girl had succeeded only in branding herself as ‘delusional’ by way of the apparent absurdity of her allegations - and in getting herself compulsorily admitted under the mental health act. Hardly surprising, really: Who would take seriously tales of a behavioural research unit wherein young women were kept in prison cells and made to work in a sweatshop or - even more absurdly, surely - kept in an environment approximating to the strictest of convent boarding schools, subject to corporal punishment and dressed in the most restrictive, juvenile, anachronistic and humiliating school uniform one could imagine?

As for young Lavinia; already she was squirming, though not yet due to the discomfort of that hard-seated, straight-backed chair - reluctant to take her seat, she was still standing childishly before the imperious woman’s desk, sheepishly shifting her weight from foot to foot and willing the vinyl flooring underfoot to open up and swallow her whole. At that moment she was engaged in an internal struggle to keep her hands down smartly by her sides - as was required of her - desperately trying to keep her thumbs aligned with the side seams of her gymslip’s skirt whilst stubbornly fighting a sudden strange and overwhelming urge to suck her thumb. No, her present discomfiture was not physical, it was all psychological. It was all bound up in the nature of the diary that the woman seated opposite her was now thoughtfully leafing through. She had recognized it well enough, just as soon as she had set eyes on it; it was the journal that Aunt Julia and her psychotherapist friend had insisted she keep. Therein were laid out her deepest reflections, her darkest fears and worries and much else besides - her adversary had her hands on a plenteous supply of ammunition there! But how? How could that woman ever have laid hands on it? Unless...Unless - the thought was unimaginable...Aunt Julia had given it to her!

Settling herself, sinking even further back into her comfortable reclining chair as if in a conscious attempt to emphasize by juxtaposition the upright posture-defining rigidity of the chair set out for her patient, the doctor sighed impatiently. Her knee-length, hip-hugging leather skirt creaked as she shifted her weight and the fine-denier nylon of her stockings hissed and rasped softly as she crossed her ankles beneath the desk, having surreptitiously kicked off her court shoes out of sight of her nervous patient.

The sound sent a cold shiver down Lavinia’s spine, bringing forth as it did, memories of the unsettling sensation of her bare belly pressing heavily down upon the tight black leather-covered expanse of the woman’s lap and of the chilling warmth propagating up from the woman’s mature thighs beneath, percolating first through stocking tops and then the nylon of her slip. The emotion was understandable; after all she had already been upended over the implacable woman’s lap on enough occasions for it almost to be considered habitual. It seemed to Lavinia that she could already catch the heady mixed scent of expensive, well tanned calf hide and the woman doctor’s doubtlessly expensive and exclusive perfume - an exotic musky fragrance that she could not put a name to. It seemed, too, as if she could already feel the surprisingly intense sting of the doctor’s open palm on her bared behind, alternating, one cheek and then the other, over and over and over while all the time berating her with exquisite, insightful and astutely-penetrating comments until she felt as if she would die of the shame of it.

“Now then, patient 30C, isn’t it? Right, remember to lift the hem of your skirt before you sit down, we don’t want you creasing your gymslip... and what happened to your curtsy by the way?”

“S,s, sorry, miss... I mean doctor”

“That’s ok, I’m here to help you - I’m just reminding you for your own good. I don’t lay down the rules they have in the ‘schoolroom’ but while you are under their auspices it is important that their form of discipline continues unbroken. It is what the study is all about; the psychological effects of living under a long term regime of strict discipline. Now, you know I wouldn’t punish you for the sake of it but while you are here the responsibility of keeping up the regimen falls on my shoulders. Remember I have told you before that just because you are physically outside the unit it does not mean you are not still as much under their control. So... Shall we try again? It should be second nature to you by now, just imagine you have just walked up to your school desk; nice and low, head bowed, skirt hem held daintily between your middle fingers and you thumbs... that’s it... and skirt right out to your sides... right out, I should be able to see the whole of the front of your knickers. Good, now sit carefully, lifting your skirt out of the way... that’s it, back straight, hands on head and fingers interlocked. Yes; that’s far better.” The doctor smiled approvingly, pausing for thought before continuing:

“I have something of a surprise for you today, but we can talk about that in a moment. Let’s just say there is a fair chance you might not be returning to the schoolroom after this session - but we’ll see how it goes.”

Lavinia felt her heart leap in her chest - were they going to release her, were they really going to be letting her go after all? She could hardly contain herself, even risking speaking out of turn, albeit without thinking about it.

“Miss?...” Her voice sounded timid even to her; Lavinia shifted awkwardly in her seat suddenly worried at what she had done.

“Now, you know we don’t speak until spoken to, don’t we.” The psychiatrist’s voice remained soft allaying the girl’s fear, while yet reinforcing her authority over her at the same time.

“Yes, miss... I’m...”

“Doctor” the psychiatrist interjected firmly, still smiling.

“Yes... doctor... sorry doctor”

“Ok... so as always we start with the question I must always ask: Do you know why you’re here, 30C?”

“Psychological evalu...”

“No, no, no! We always answer in complete sentences and statements; it always has to be the same... I am here because...” The doctor waved a hand impatiently through the air to represent a continuation of a statement.

“I,I,I...”

“Come on, come on... do try not to stammer so. I have told you how to deal with it if you think you are going to stammer”

“I,I I am here for psych...o...logical ev, ev eval...u...ation, doctor”

“Good, good! I’m glad to see you breaking down words that you know you are going to stumble over into smaller more manageable chunks, just as I have been showing you - well done, much better!.

“Now, tell me; how do you think you are getting on?”

“I,I think th,th, that I...”

“Actually, hold it there a moment - I think it may be better if I were to get the ball rolling while we get on with our session.” The doctor glanced over at the nurse who had escorted Lavinia in and who was still waiting to one side of the door, smiling contentedly at the teenager’s shrinking discomfort in the hands of the unit’s psychiatrist. “Nurse; I wonder if you would be so kind as to fetch Matron for me. She should be in the dormitory ward about now, supervising the meal break, so perhaps you could take over for her”

“Yes, of course, at once, doctor”

“I take it that you have you supervised the girl’s meal breaks before, nurse?”

“Oh yes, doctor.” Unseen by the young ‘patient’ now squirming uncomfortably on the hard wooden chair, the pretty young nurse was beaming and nodding with undisguised enthusiasm; she clearly relished the prospect of having the small schoolroom group, all only a little younger than herself, under her thumb once again. The psychiatrist nodded gravely, her face betraying little of the delight she was feeling inside as a result of her latest brainwave.

Released for an instant from the doctor’s untiringly appraising gaze, meanwhile, Lavinia was fidgeting in her seat. On the hard wood of the little straight-backed chair the elastic suspenders supporting the lisle stockings she was wearing, stretched to their utmost, were sinking into the fleshy globes of her bottom, the large metal clips already making their presence felt at the rear of her thighs where they were busy forming deep-cut impressions of their outline in her skin while the elasticised rubber-lined leg-holes of the bottle-green ‘school-issue’ knickers seemed to be gripping more tightly than ever around the tops of her thighs.

“Stop fidgeting there’s a good girl... back straight please, chin up... and I think we’ll have those fingers more tightly interlocked on top of you head if you please, young lady. Now...where did we get to?”

The questioning started in earnest then, the doctor scribbling on a rough pad while an increasingly distraught Lavinia was gradually and expertly brought to tears. Finally the order came to rise and she was dismissed to stand in the corner of the room facing the wall like a naughty child while the doctor wrote up the session in Lavinia’s patient notes.

In the fullness of time a knock came, a dull metallic rapping of the knuckles on the bunker-like iron door of the interview room, firm, confident. Near simultaneously the door handle squeaked under the torque of a robust wrist and a hinge momentarily groaned in protest. The doctor looked up from the open questionnaire she had been perusing and the dossier laid out in front of her in which, up to that moment, she had been busily scribbling away, laying out her latest analysis of her patient’s responses. “Ah, Matron, please come in and take a seat. Forgive my interrupting your schedule; I appreciate how busy you are but this won’t take more than a couple of minutes.” With a wave of her hand she gestured toward a leather-upholstered easy chair set angled to one side of her desk, motioning her visitor to sit. There came the familiar rustle of Matron’s polyester frock as, out of view of the teenage girl, whose nose was still firmly pressed into the corner, the plump woman smoothed her uniform skirt over her ample haunches and flattened down her apron.

Nodding toward the young woman standing with her back to them in the corner of the room the doctor drew a breath, intending to begin - then, observing her patient more closely, she changed the direction of her address. The latter’s arms were now beginning to noticeably quiver from the effort of keeping her elbows out and shoulders back while simultaneously keeping her hands on her head with her fingertips just barely brushing - it was a very taxing posture, deliberately so. “Keep those elbows out, girl. You let them droop as much as one inch and there will be trouble, I can tell you. I’ll have Matron here take her cane to you - and I can promise you that by the time she has finished you’ll think your backside is actually alight.” The reply, when it came - one was always required - was barely a whimper, barely audible: “Yes. yes, ok. ok”.

“You address me as doctor...DOCTOR. I thought I’d made it clear enough. Now it’s time to talk about that matter I mentioned earlier... No! Keep you nose pressed in to that corner; you only need listen for now. Right! For the foreseeable future you are going to be staying right here, with me as my patient. I don’t care how you thought of yourself before you came here, what you considered yourself to be or where you thought your life might have been going; all that has changed now. If I have to spell it out to you, it is this: The situation now is simply that you have become a psychiatric patient, just like any other, and I am your doctor.

From this point on you are going to see only me, speak to only me, and you shall hear only my voice. I am the person who will decide when you sleep and when you eat - or should I say if you sleep and if you eat. Should I decide that I want you to go hungry... then you will go hungry. In fact, in every way you can think of - and some that I expect you cannot, as yet, grasp - I am going to be in control of your life, every single aspect of it. I am going to be your mistress, your governess, but first and foremost your doctor. Is that clear?”

“Yes doctor.”

“And what are you?” The domineering woman had fairly spat out the words, her accusing stare causing the young quivering girl to cringe..

“Your patient, doctor”

“What sort of patient are you; what are you categorised as now? I’ll not stand for any form of denial. You should know that much about me by now at least.”

“I’m a psy, a psy...a...a psychiat....”

The words seemed to stick in Lavinia’s craw, it went against just about everything she believed in, or rather had once believed in, it was just too humiliating to address herself so.

“Perhaps mental patient would be easier to say? Well, girl...let’s hear you try it,”

“I,I...I...can’t...I just can’t....I’m not mental, I’m not, I’m not!! I’m NOT!!!”

She was biting her lower lip, stamping her feet childishly in turn - left, right, left - her hands balled into white-knuckled fists, her face crimson and the pretty features anger-twisted into gargoyle-like contortions.

One thought ran through the implacable psychotherapist’s mind: “Good, good - the girl is making the perfect start. I couldn’t have asked for more - she’ll soon be well on her way to becoming quite the docile mental patient she should be.”

“Well, Matron, as you may have surmised from that little exchange, it has occurred to me that forever shifting this stupidly-stubborn girl to and from the schoolroom each day is just too disruptive. What I am proposing to do is remove her from the distractions of the usual day-to-day hubbub of the unit and keep her here with me until such a time as she can be persuaded to cooperate more fully with the diagnostic process. As you know there is a small anteroom abutting this office and while I am well aware that it is little more than a large walk-in cupboard, I measured it out recently and it turns out that there is just sufficient floor area to fit in a standard hospital bed. A couple of nights ago I had one wheeled down from the psychiatric ward, all kitted out with the latest in humane restraint systems. I also managed to have squeezed in one of those old style school desks, the same type as we provide in the schoolroom with the seat combined in one unit. This consultation room and the accommodation I have arranged for her in the anteroom are going to be the limit of her universe from now on, or at least until I have gained all the information I require for the report I’ll have to make to the panel as regards her mental health.. Saying that; given that she is not going to be mixing with the other ‘schoolroom section’ inmates, for the time being, I think the whole school uniform thing becomes somewhat superfluous. The thought has struck me that a simple pair of pyjamas would be a perfectly adequate solution; backed up on occasion by the addition of a straitjacket should she step out of line of course.”

As Matron nodded in agreement, the psychiatrist leant forward, reaching down and sliding open one of the deeper desk drawers, one close to floor level on her desk’s left-hand side. “I had these sent down for her - what you think?” The pyjama jacket the woman was holding up was a baggy, shapeless flannelette thing in an institutional broad green and white stripe. It had the hospital emblem embroidered on the breast pocket along with the words ‘St Mary’s Hospital, psychiatric wing’ in a dense black curling script and seemed to audibly crinkle at the touch. Ugly bottle-green rubber buttons served fastened it down the front and starting high at the neck where it’s one concession to femininity was the round broad Peter Pan style collar. The matching green white striped trousers that she then unceremoniously dumped on her desk appeared to be just as unflattering as the jacket. The waistband looked to be too large for the intended recipient and, fastening at the front by a single green rubber button, was notably devoid of elastic. Nor was there any cord or drawstring present that might have been of use to afford a better fit.

Matron, stretching out a hand, was now running the fabric of the pyjama bottoms back and forth between her finger and thumb, smiling appreciatively as she felt the rubberised waterproof inner layer that lined the trousers from the waistband to around the mid-thigh point. Her smile broadened still further as she eyed the stiff crinkly transparent plastic pants and the heaped folds of white terry-towelling which had now been added to the pile. “Not exactly what one might call flattering, doctor, but perfectly adequate in the context of a psychiatric hospital, I’d say.” The thought struck her, even as she was speaking, that the doctor’s thin, pliant cane would lose none of its sting applied over the drum-tight seat of those thin plastic pants.

“That’s exactly as I see it, Matron. I think it is perfectly apt. I also think that keeping her in pyjamas, all day everyday, will have the added benefit of helping her to adopt the correct mindset and better adjust to the idea of being kept as a patient here rather than the volunteer guinea pig, free to come and go as she chooses, that I think she still imagines herself to be.”

From the corner of the room a snuffling sound could be heard, than a sniff, then a mumbled voice muttering something along the lines of “please, I’m not a mental patient, I’m not, I’m not...”. Then the half-hearted protestation tailed off and was replaced instead by the sound of gentle weeping as the young girl heard what she thought might be the doctor picking up her cane behind her. What she had heard was merely the sound of the doctor pushing back the now empty drawer with her foot; both protagonists, pointedly ignoring her, were continuing with their conversation as if the subject of their discourse was invisible to them. Momentarily relieved yet driven to distraction by not knowing what was going on behind her, she risked turning her head slightly, attempting to peer round and out from of the corner of her eye. The result was an immediate rebuke. Clearing her throat threateningly, the psychiatrist’s voice rang out, her educated and authoritative tone instantly turning the girl’s blood to ice: “Remain facing the corner please, as you have been told to. I shan’t warn you again - the next time I shall have you over here and bent across my desk”.

Lavinia could feel her legs turning to jelly, her shoulders burning from the effort of maintaining the torturous posture and her mind rebelling at this frustration of her natural curiosity, a spark of which still glimmered within her despite the unrelenting discipline of the place that seemed designed to crush every last remnant of initiative. Despite all of this, she pressed her nose firmly back into the corner and redoubled her efforts to pull back her shoulders and keep her fingers straight and flat on the top of her head. A bead of sweat ran down into her eye and she blinked to try to relieve the salty sting. Another trickle of sweat had run down the ridge of her nose and formed a droplet at its tip that hung precariously and created in its wake an insistent itch that she dared not scratch, not even by rubbing her nose against the wall lest it be misinterpreted as her turning her head and invite retribution.

The heavy serge gymslip she had on had clearly originally been intended as outdoor wear, incorporating as it did a waterproof rubberised layer between the bottle-green serge fabric and the nylon satin inner lining. The garment was hopelessly over-warm in the centrally heated confines of the institution as a whole, let alone in the rather stuffy interview room or ‘consultation room’ as it was more usually referred to. Taking take into account the full-length nylon slip she had on underneath - a plain, old-fashioned affair having ‘built-up’ shoulders and a tight-fitting, hobbling pencil skirt - and the long-line, open-bottomed corsellete that she had on beneath that - an equally old-fashioned thing utilising a rubberised fabric - and it was hardly surprising that she was sweltering. It was true that the gymslip featured an open-sided bodice, which one might think would aid comfort, even if it did serve to embarrass the girl - it being one of those features she perceived as providing the uniform with an even more childish appearance than it already had by its very nature. Any amelioration, though, was more than made up for by the discomfiture of the school blouse.

The latter, was a tailored and close-fitting green and white striped confection of rather stiff nylon. The long-sleeved blouse buttoned tightly at both the cuffs and at the neck whereat it possessed a stiff, high, Eton-style collar that in turn was further constricted by a tightly-knotted school tie. It was little wonder, then, that little rivulets of perspiration were trickling down her back on either side of her spine. Having nowhere else to go, the tormenting little droplets coalesced and pooled in the hollow at the small of her back before winding their way down the cleft between her buttocks in stops and starts, tickling irritatingly all the way. The salt from her sweat stung and re-inflamed the parallel red ridges of the wheals crisscrossing the bottom cheeks - a result of the caning she had received earlier at the hands of the good doctor - causing them to throb agonisingly in time with her racing pulse.

In fact, from the waist down she was absolutely saturated - the school knickers they made her wear were practically airtight, let alone waterproof. Bottle-green and in the style of childish, short-legged bloomers, although of traditional interlock cotton, the girl’s most intimate garment incorporated a soft rubber lining, had broad rubber-lined elasticated leg cuffs and a high waist. The waistband was ringed with buttonholes that, in wearing, fastened onto rubber buttons sewn around the waist of the corsellete, ensuring an unrelentingly snug fit. Just below the leg cuffs, there was a short expanse of bared flesh - just room enough it seemed, to allow the nickel metal clasps of the corselette’s broad, taut elastic suspenders to properly dig in to the skin - before the dark welts of the opera-length black, itchy, lisle stockings would be encountered. Once clear of the sunburst of razor sharp serge knife pleats - a little below mid-thigh - and the tight hem of the slip, a little higher up, her long willowy legs were in the clear and a little cooler.

Then, lower down, one came across the shoes - and a different kind of torment: Styled like Victorian ankle boots and seemingly several sizes too small, these were a recently introduced replacement for the traditional faux patent leather plastic ‘Mary-Janes’ the girls in the schoolroom unit had been made to wear. Bottle-green to match the gymslip, they constrained the foot, cramping the toes and enforcing a daintily-curved instep that, together with the tight-skirted slip, ensured a restrained, small-stepped, genteel and ladylike gait.

Behind her back, Lavinia could hear her immediate future being mapped out in considerable detail - far more detail than seemed necessary, if not for her benefit. What she was learning was filling her with growing dismay; the idea of being effectively confined in the doctor’s office itself, in a situation under which she could be summoned before the doctor’s desk at any given moment of the day - or night, for all she knew - to undergo test after test and grilling after grilling, sounded intolerable. But worse was to come. The doctor was coming to the end of her explanation, the bombshell - the first of several it would turn out - was about to fall:

“... So the reason I asked you here today, Matron is actually two-fold. The first task is to liaise with the dormitory mistress to ensure that a bed is kept vacant for her and a place in the schoolroom, I may be returning the patient to the school regime in the fullness of time, but how long that will be I can’t yet say; it is as much up the patient herself and how cooperative - or not - she decides to be. At the moment, taking into account her present attitude, I can envisage having her here over a timescale of months rather than weeks.

The second reason is that I intend to start her down this new path today. I have the room ready for her, so I can’t see any reason to send her back to the dormitory - I want to get her into seclusion as quickly as possible. I plan for her to spend most of her time alone in isolation and I want to start getting her used to the idea of seeing and hearing no one other than me, her doctor. it’s the best way I can think of to encourage her to develop a good strong dependency on me, initially, and on her carers in general in time - and in that processes, learn to view herself as a psychiatric patient. The day she gives up on living in denial of that fact will be the day that she can finally begin to settle down to life in an institution - in the end she’ll be much happier for it”

“And so, I am given to understand, will be certain other parties, doctor”

Matron’s interjection was greeted by the psychiatrist with a tinkling little laugh, uncharacteristically girlish.

“Quite so, quite so - well, we’re just going to have to see what we can do with her to oblige. As a jumping-off point, so to speak, I intend to start the patient off with a GOOD HARD CANING ACROSS HER BARE BOTTOM.” The doctor had quite deliberately raised her voice, looking across at the waiting girl as she did so, before continuing in a more normal vein. “From a psychological standpoint, one should seek to delineate a change in regime as starkly as possible for maximum impact. Of course her changing into those pyjamas for the first time is part of that, but what better way to underline in her mind this impending re-birth than a caning, the like of which she will never forget. The severity I have in mind is not something that I would expect any young woman to tolerate and keep in place for by sheer discipline alone - thus your presence, to restrain her wrists or help get her into a straitjacket if she should struggle and it become necessary.”

Lavinia’s mind was now reeling - paradoxically had it not been for the sheer enormity of what she had just heard she would have been panicking, clawing at the door to run. Had the forgoing discussion not taken place between two such authoritative professionals and within the context of a prestigious institution, she might at least have considered some form of protest legitimate. As it was she was merely numb, stunned and rendered unable to react - So much so that when the command came to turn around and present herself before the doctor’s desk she did so without complaint.

“Right; I assume you have overheard our little chat, so it should come as no surprise that I want you out of that school uniform.”

Indicating the pile of folded of stripy green and white flannelette heaped on her desk the doctor continued;

“I don’t know why you should look so dismayed; I would have thought that you would have welcomed the change. I mean to say; why would you want to go around looking like some little school child? I quite agree the pyjamas are going to make you look more like a hospital patient, but at least you are going to be dressed like an adult. Besides; whether you like it or not that’s exactly what you are now - a patient - it says so right here in your notes, in black-and-white. Officially you are a mental patient and that is the whole point of this, why we are going to have to work together, you and I, on helping you come to accept that fact.”

Still keeping both eyes sharply focused on her blushing and perspiring young patient the woman leaned forward, retrieving a buff cardboard file from the top drawer of her desk and slapping it down meaningfully on the Formica top. Lavinia could feel her cheeks glowing even hotter as involuntarily she took in the bold block capitals that spelt out the name of the hospital surmounted by the all-too-familiar gold and red crest, the duplicate of which was embroidered on the breast pocket of her tightly-buttoned bum-freezer jacket, the juvanilising gymslip she had on beneath it, the breast pocket of the form-fitting candy-striped nylon blouse and even the school tie, where it occupied a diamond-shaped shield or lozenge embroidered so as to appear exactly midway between the blouse collar and the top of the gymslip’s yoke or bib when correctly knotted.

That crest or coat of arms - and the humiliating descriptor that went with it - was all over her person, even the knickers, corsellete and under-slip were marked with it in one way or another. It felt as if burnt into her mind - she seemed to see it everywhere she went and to her it represented one thing and one thing only: Control. And it was control with a capital ‘C’: it marked all that it might be printed or painted or embroidered on as hospital property, it indicated that everything she wore, everything she touched or that touched her was under the ownership, authority and control of the institution. It told the world, or that very small part of it that she was now limited to, that she herself was effectively the property of the hospital - or a least that was how it made her feel - and very much under the institution’s authority.

There could be no arguing about that latter point; every part of her life, every moment - from the time she first blearily opened her eyes to the time she was at last allowed to close them, both mentally and physically exhausted - was ritualised and regulated to the rhythm of various tolling bells and sharply-snapped commands. It was not so much having the badge and the name of the hospital adorning her attire as those other words that mirrored those printed on the front cover of the folder that the doctor had had laid out on her desk when she had first been brought in: Secure Psychiatric Wing. Leafing through the folder the doctor again addressed her prone patient:

“This is your official patient file, the one that will be seen by your case review panel. But I have to say I can see no vague, wishy-washy nonsense written here about any voluntary medical trial participation or self-admitted voluntary patient status or any thing else that might imply you ever had a choice in the matter. In fact I would say that, based on what is written here, there has never been anything voluntary about it. This document I’m looking at on this page, here is the order sectioning you - or committing you, if you prefer - under the mental health act into full-time residential psychiatric care. By the looks of what is written here you can forget all this stuff about three or six month’s residency or whatever. This order appears to be open-ended; with the only proviso being that your case be reviewed after two years. Oh! Silly me, my mistake; it says that psychiatric evaluation is to begin after two years. Then reports are to be forwarded to the panel of doctors that will be considering your case with that period of evaluation, in itself, expected to cover twelve months of observations. It looks to me that last statement implies that in actuality it will be three years before your case will come up for reviewal, not two - you must have really ticked someone off on that panel.” The doctor laughed gently.

“Matron; I wonder if you would kindly hand me your cane?”

“Yes of course, doctor” The buxom and potentially portly woman, her waist only maintained by the constriction of the old fashioned boned ‘stays’ she wore, reached down, unhitching the wickedly pliant switch from its clip at her side. She carried, the implement habitually hung from her elastic clasp-belt as if it were as much part of her uniform as the dark blue rustling polyester dress or the starched white cambric bib-apron she wore over it.

“Thank you, Matron; I know I have my own cane here, but I think this level of recalcitrance requires something that will leave a more... lasting impression - and on her body as much as her mind. My old bamboo cane is one thing, but that glass-fibre switch of yours is more like a whip than a cane. Nothing quite marks a young girl’s bottom like it - I think she can say goodbye to her bikini days. Mind you; I don’t suppose she would be too keen to expose that tattoo in any case - not that she is likely to as much as see a beach again for many a year, at least not if I have anything to do with it.”

Lavinia felt herself blanch: The ‘tattoo’ in question consisted of her so-called ‘patient designation number’ - the digits 3 and 0 - together with the name of the hospital and the words ‘secure psychiatric wing’. It was reproduced right across her backside in an ugly thick, black block print style, the digits taking up practically the entire curvature of one plump bottom cheek. Whether it was permanent or not was not questionable in her mind: She hadn’t quite believed it at the time, but then again she had been told it was enough times, it didn’t seem to wash off - she could glimpse it in the shower - and she had certainly felt the buzzing sting of the tattoo pen right enough!

To make matters worse, the woman’s idiosyncratically girlish laugh seemed to underline that last point - the point about her not seeing a beach for many a year - in Lavinia’s mind, bringing forth a secondary wave of panic. Not only did this woman have her entirely in her power, she was clearly determined to keep it that way. She could keep her there, locked-up behind bars, for years and all she needed was sufficient ‘evidence’. One admission could only lead to another and another - and that was all that would be needed to keep her imprisoned. But she had done nothing wrong, legally - not ever. But therein lay the irony - had she been a prison inmate, then there would be a definite sentence, something definitive and with an end to it. In this place time was elastic and her incarceration could be stretched and stretched and stretched.

Lavinia knew she somehow had to remain quiet. It was a battle of wills, but now eyeing the flexible switch being passed to the tall, slim woman doctor - the latter having pulled on a black leather glove, a fitting counterpoint to her figure-tight leather skirt - she knew it was a battle she was destined to lose. This caning, she knew, would be designed to break her - and if it didn’t then the next or the one after that, or the one after that, would. Then there were those other possibilities; she could be deprived of food or kept day after day without sleep. Then there was that other punishment, one she had already been broken by to some extent - being locked away restrained in a straitjacket and made to listen to a few bars of a nursery rhyme going on and on and round and round. She’d seen a girl who had been subjected to that more than once - the poor thing had been driven nearly out of her mind.

“Right come here, bend over my desk and let’s get those ugly old school knickers down for the last time”

Dismayed Lavinia obeyed.

“There’s a good girl - I’m sure we are going to get along swimmingly.” The tone was patronizing in the extreme. Satisfied she returned her attention to the stern, uniformed woman sitting back relaxed at the corner of her desk, smiling pleasantly as if nothing out of the ordinary had taken place. “Sorry about this interruption to your day, Matron,”

“Not at all, doctor”

“If you’d be kind enough to take her hands - I’m sure she is not going to have the fortitude to get through this otherwise”

“Certainly, doctor.”

The tall, statuesque psychiatrist raised her hand, stretching her arm hard back behind her shoulder, her body twisting at the waist and the thin glass fibre switch in her hand, flexing under its own weight and appearing almost whip-like, glistening under the frosty fluorescent lighting. It slashed down with a demonic whistling, the girl’s scream splitting the air.

“One - thank you, doctor” the poor thing somehow whispered... The cane whistled through the air and the second pencil-thin stripe wrapped itself around her hips and across her buttocks - and she screamed... As the pain seared her mind, a lightening flash seeming to pass between her eyes, she already knew she wouldn’t make it to the end, the words just wouldn’t - or couldn’t - form on her lips. She knew her fate: She’d be made to take this beating, right to the end. Then she’d be told that as she had failed to display the requisite level of compliance - meaning that she had failed to count one or more strokes of her correction and thank the doctor accordingly - the ‘therapy’ would have to be repeated. The cane again whistled demonically and she heard her voice cracking as she screamed out ‘three’, though the effort was pointless.

“No, I think you’ll find that was two, dear - you seemed to forget to count the second; and so have I.” The doctor had already made her decision: She’d send the girl back with matron to the schoolroom, and then have her returned later in the day. She’d have something rather special arranged by then - something that would have a far greater, far more permanent psychological impact on her. Drawing back her arm the doctor took careful aim - this one was going to really get the tears flowing. The cane whistled, rending the air once more, the young girl’s bottom twitched spasmodically, the muscles tensing in anticipation...