Chapter 44: Enema of the State
The triumph of the tug-of-war was a cold, distant memory. The sharp, grounding pain had faded to a dull throb, replaced by a fresh, crawling anxiety as Julia’s waiters wheeled in the new apparatus. They were three sets of heavy, dark oak stocks, brutally simple in their design. Each had a central hole for the neck and two smaller, curved openings below for the wrists.
“Kneel,” Julia instructed, her voice devoid of the teasing lilt it had held moments before. This was pure procedure.
Rupert, Paolo, and the still-whimpering Henry were maneuvered into position. The wooden floor was hard against Rupert’s knees. He felt the weight of the stocks as they were lowered, the cool oak pressing against the back of his neck. His wrists were slotted through the holes and locked into place with a firm clunk. Another set of restraints closed around his ankles, pinning him in an unwavering all-fours posture, his vulnerable rear elevated towards the audience. It was a position of complete submission, more exposing than anything that had come before. The removal of the butt plugs was a brief, embarrassing relief, quickly overshadowed by what it signified.
“The final test is one of internal fortitude,” Julia proclaimed, pacing before them like a surgeon addressing theatre students. “Control. Surrender. Ordinarily, these concepts are at odds. Tonight, they are one and the same. The man who can demonstrate the greatest capacity for surrender… will prove he has the ultimate control.”
The waiters returned, pushing metal racks on wheels. Hanging from them were clear plastic bags, already filled with a warm, amber-tinted liquid. Thin, clear tubing descended from them, ending in polished chrome nozzles. The clinical smell of latex gloves and lubricant cut through the barn’s earthy scent.
A wave of understanding, cold and nausea-inducing, washed over Rupert. An enema. He squeezed his eyes shut behind the hood. This wasn’t playfulness. This was a violation of a deeply private order. He heard Henry begin to hyperventilate, a frantic, rasping sound.
“Oh, I say,” Agnes murmured from the table, her tone a mixture of shock and keen interest.
“Now this is a proper challenge!” Felicity chimed in, her laughter booming.
“Quiet, please,” Julia said, pulling on a pair of gloves with a definitive snap. She took the first nozzle, lubricated it expertly, and approached Henry. “Contestant Number Two. You begin.”
Henry’s protests were muffled, useless. There was a faint, wet sound, a choked gasp from Henry, and then the soft hiss of a valve being opened. The warm liquid began its journey.
Julia moved to Paolo. “Number One.” Paolo remained silent, but Rupert saw his knuckles whiten where they gripped the stocks. The process was repeated.
Then she was beside Rupert. He flinched as her gloved hand touched the small of his back. “Steady, Number Three,” she said, her voice low, for him alone. “Fight it, and you will lose. Accept it. That is the only way to win my points.”
The sensation was alien and deeply uncomfortable. The initial pressure, then the relentless, warm flow. He felt a cramping fullness, a stretching sensation that was profoundly wrong. The valve clicked open. The liquid, surprisingly warm, began to fill him. He focused on breathing, on the grain of the wooden floor beneath his fingers, on the sound of Margot’s voice cutting through the murmur of the crowd.
“That’s it, darling! Deep breaths! Think of it as a very internal pint!” she called out, her encouragement laced with a nervous edge.
The joviality of the spectators rose and fell. Bets were placed on capacity and endurance. Brenda the baker quipped about “proving the dough,” which elicited a round of laughter. Elizabeth’s voice was a sharp critique of her husband’s lack of composure as he began to groan and struggle against the stocks.
Rupert clenched every muscle, trying to contain the invading pressure. It was a battle against his own body’s reflexes. He could hear Paolo breathing in slow, controlled meditative rhythms. Henry, however, was losing badly.
“I can’t! Stop it, please!” Henry cried out, his body shuddering.
“Failure,” Julia announced, and the flow into Henry ceased. A dark patch spread on the floor beneath him. The crowd gave a mixed reaction of jeers and sympathetic tuts.
It was down to Rupert and Paolo. The fullness in Rupert’s abdomen was becoming an ache, a heavy, bloated ball of fire. He could feel the liquid sloshing unnaturally with the tiniest movement. He dared a glance to his side; the bag feeding Paolo was still half-full. His own felt agonizingly full.
“Margot,” he grunted, the word tearing from him.
“I’m here, Rupert! You’re doing so well! Just a little more!”
The cramping intensified, twisting his guts. He was at his absolute limit. The urge to expel the immense pressure was becoming a screaming mandate from his nervous system. Paolo, the seasoned player, seemed to be faring better, his posture still relatively relaxed.
Julia watched them both, her expression unreadable. She stood between them, observing the levels in the bags. Rupert’s was nearly empty. Paolo’s had a quarter remaining.
“It seems we have a display of remarkable capacity,” she said, her voice carrying. “But the test is not merely volume. It is control. Who can hold it?”
The valve on Rupert’s bag clicked shut. The flow stopped, but the battle was just beginning. The sensation of being impossibly, painfully full was now a static, raging threat inside him. He focused on Margot’s face, on the key, on the promise of this all being over. He couldn’t lose now. Not like this.
Paolo let out a sudden, sharp gasp. His body tensed, a tremor running through him. He was fighting it, losing his meditative calm.
Rupert pressed his forehead against the cool wood, gripping the stocks until his fingers hurt. He willed his body to obey, to become a vessel, to accept this humiliation as a price for victory. He thought of spreadsheets, of tax returns, of anything mundane to distance himself from the screaming reality of his situation.
A low, miserable groan came from Paolo, followed by a series of uncontrollable spasms. The sound of liquid hitting the floor was unmistakable.
“Contestant Number One yields,” Julia declared.
A roar went up from the crowd. Rupert had won. He had won the point.
But Julia wasn’t finished. She walked over to him and placed a hand on his back. “The test is concluded, Number Three. You have displayed superior control. You may now… release.”
The permission was a shock. The relief was instantaneous and overwhelming. But the reality of doing it here, in front of everyone, in this helpless position, was a final, crushing wave of shame. The victory felt hollow, replaced by a deep, weary degradation. He had never felt more exposed, more utterly owned.
As his body obeyed the inevitable, a strange silence fell over the barn, punctuated only by the sound. Then, Margot’s voice, fierce with pride and something else, something wilder, cut through the quiet.
“Seventeen points! That’s my husband!”
Julia leaned close, her lips near the ear hole of his hood. “The body is conquered. Now we see about the mind.”