Chapter 3: The Therapy Session
The office air, once a haven of wood polish and quiet, now felt charged. Mae’s confession hung between them, a shared, shameful treasure. Dr. Marlowe walked back to her desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a small, black rectangular device. It had a single dial. She placed it on the polished wood, the click of its plastic base deliberate.
“You articulated a somatic response to containment,” Edith said, her voice resuming its professional calm. “Arousal born of absolute restriction. Today, we explore that connection. We will map it.”
Mae watched the device, her mouth going dry again. “How?”
“By applying a controlled stimulus while you verbalize your psychological landscape. We will separate the physical reflex from the emotional need. Or perhaps,” Edith said, a faint, clinical smile touching her lips, “we will bind them together more tightly.”
She came around the desk again, holding something small and egg-shaped in her other hand, made of smooth, medical-grade silicone. A thin wire trailed from it. She knelt beside the restraint chair with a soft rustle of her tailored trousers. Her fingers found the buckle at Mae’s hip, part of the harness that secured her to the chair.
“This,” Edith said, her voice low and matter-of-fact, “is a vibrotactile stimulator. Used for sensory therapy.” She deftly slid the silicone egg under the broad nylon strap, positioning it firmly against Mae. The cool, foreign pressure made Mae gasp. “It remains inert until I activate it. Your task is to continue our dialogue. To explore the roots of your… enjoyment. If you dissemble, or become silent, the stimulus increases. If you are truthful, and insightful, it may provide a reward. Do you understand?”
Mae could only nod, her entire world narrowing to that point of potential contact beneath the unyielding strap.
Edith stood, picked up the remote, and took her seat. She clicked the dial. A low, deep hum buzzed to life inside Mae. It wasn’t sharp. It was a pervasive, rumbling presence that vibrated through her core. A shocked sound escaped Mae’s throat.
“Begin,” Edith said, leaning back. “The resistance in the dayroom. The panic. Describe the transition to arousal.”
“I was… angry,” Mae choked out, the vibration a distracting anchor. “No, frustrated. That no one was listening. That my noise meant nothing.”
“And that frustration felt like?”
“Like being erased.” The word came out in a rush. The hum increased slightly, a gentle escalation. Mae’s hips twitched against the restraint. “And if I was erased… then nothing I did mattered. So I could… do anything. Feel anything. There were no witnesses. Just the machinery holding me.”
“So the arousal was a act of agency within your helplessness.”
“Yes.” The vibration dipped, becoming a soft, almost pleasant thrum. A reward. Mae breathed out shakily. “It was the only choice I had left. To feel good while being treated like an object.”
“And the objectification itself? The diaper change. The feeding.”
The hum rose back to its initial level. Mae bit her lip. “It’s… it’s the ultimate reduction. All the clutter of being a person—decisions, vanity, privacy—it’s all gone. I’m just a body that needs to be cleaned and fed. It’s horrible. It’s peaceful. It’s… honest.” She was panting now, the sensation coiling heat low in her stomach. She fought the urge to press down against it. “I don’t have to be anything. I just have to be.”
“And that honesty is pleasurable.”
“Yes.”
The dial turned. The vibration intensified, graduating from a hum to a deep, insistent pulse. Mae cried out, her back arching as much as the chest harness allowed. The pleasure was immediate, overwhelming, a direct current to her nerves.
“Who am I to you in these moments?” Edith’s voice cut through, cool and clear.
“My aunt,” Mae gasped.
“Wrong.” The vibration spiked, a brutal, wonderful buzz that made Mae’s vision swim. She whimpered. “Try again. When you are soiled and I order you cleaned. When you are hungry and I order you fed. When you are aroused and I control the means of your relief. Who am I?”
Tears leaked from Mae’s eyes. “You’re… you’re the director. The doctor.”
“And what does that make you?”
“The patient!” Mae sobbed, the words ripped from her. “The thing in the chair! The problem to be managed!”
The vibration dropped to nothing. The sudden absence was a shock, a void more acute than the sensation itself. Mae sagged in the restraints, trembling, aching, unbearably empty. She felt raw, flayed open.
Edith watched her for a long moment. “Good,” she said, finally. “That is the foundational truth. The dynamic. Everything you feel blossoms from that.” She stood and walked over, looking down at Mae’s tear-streaked, flushed face. She reached out and gently smoothed a strand of damp hair from Mae’s forehead. The tenderness was devastating.
“You know,” Edith said, her tone shifting into something lighter, almost playful. “Based on your behavior so far—the shouting, the fascinating coping mechanisms—you might actually belong in here. You’re a natural.”
Mae let out a shaky, wet laugh, sniffing.
“If you keep yelling in the dayroom,” Edith continued, her fingers now tracing the line of Mae’s jaw, “we may have to consider a muzzle. We have some lovely leather ones that fit perfectly under the helmets. Very discrete. Very effective.”
The threat was a caress. A promise. Mae shivered.
Edith then knelt again, her face level with Mae’s in the chair. Her professional demeanor seemed to melt away, leaving something more intimate, more mischievous. “So,” she said, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. “What other asylum experiences are on your list for this summer, my dear? We’ve got the restraint bed, the full containment chair, the tube feeds… what’s next? The hydrotherapy tank? The prolonged seclusion cell?” As she spoke, her hands danced lightly over Mae’s restrained arms, her sides, playful, tickling touches that made Mae jerk and gasp against the straps. “I have to say, it’s a treat to have a patient who appreciates the finer points of the program.”
Her fingers found Mae’s ribs, tickling gently, then skated over her belly. Mae giggled, the sound hysterical and bright in the quiet office, her body writhing uselessly in its cocoon of straps.
Edith leaned in closer, her breath warm against Mae’s ear. “I can’t do this with my other patients, you know,” she whispered, a smile in her voice. “They wouldn’t understand the joke.” She gave a final, soft poke to Mae’s side before standing up, straightening her suit jacket, the director once more.
She looked down at Mae, who was breathing hard, a mess of tears, laughter, and unmet need. “I think that’s enough for today,” Edith said, her tone deciding it. “We’ve made excellent progress. Tomorrow, the sleep pod. A true test of your surrender. No stimulation. Just you, the dark, and the silence of your own mind for twelve hours.”
She picked up the remote and gave the dial one last, quarter turn. The vibrator came to life again, a low, steady, teasing purr. Then she clicked it off, removed the silicone egg with the same clinical efficiency, and walked to the door.
“Orderlies,” she called into the hall, not looking back at Mae. “Return patient Holloway to her room. Prep Room Seven for extended nocturnal containment.”
The hum was gone. The touch was gone. Only the deep, aching throb of abandonment remained, and the terrifying, exhilarating promise of the dark to come.
Only the deep, aching throb of abandonment remained, and the terrifying, exhilarating promise of the dark to come.
The two orderlies re-entered, their footsteps syncing on the hardwood before muffling on the rug. They took positions behind her chair without a word. Mae let her head loll forward, playing at being spent from the session’s intensity. Inside, her mind was a bright, racing circuit.
As they unlocked the chair’s wheels with a metallic crunch, she fantasized. Not about escape, but about deeper immersion. She pictured the hydrotherapy tank Edith had mentioned—a sleek, white pod filled with body-temperature water, a molded lid sealing her in with just a faceplate for air, floating in silent, weightless suspension for hours. No straps needed; the water itself would be the embrace.
The chair began moving. The hallway’s sterile lights passed overhead in a slow parade.
She imagined the prolonged seclusion cell, too. A room even smaller than Seven, maybe all soft walls, where time would stretch and distort without the rhythm of meals or shifts. Just her, a diaper, and a fixed garment that would feed and hydrate her intravenously through ports in the fabric, eliminating even the need to be touched.
“Easy turn here, Ben,” the female orderly said, her voice bored.
“Got it.”
They maneuvered her around a corner. The movement jostled her in the harness. The physical sensation triggered another fantasy: something more active. A standing restraint frame, perhaps, where she’d be secured upright for hours, her arms pulled wide in a therapeutic yoke, her feet barely touching the floor. She could pretend to be a violent case, requiring postural control. The ache in her shoulders would be a gift.
Her pulse quickened. She needed them to believe she was still agitated, still the problematic patient from the dayroom. It would justify everything she dreamed of asking for later.
She drew a sharp, dramatic breath. She began to jerk against the restraints in earnest, not with the genuine panic from before, but with the calculated, rhythmic strain of a performer. Her shoulders twisted in the chest harness. She pulled each Segufix-cuffed wrist against its latch with a series of solid, practiced thumps.
“Whoa, steady,” the male orderly, Ben, muttered, his hands firm on the chair’s handles.
“Just ignore it,” the woman replied. “Dr. Marlowe’s note said expect behavioral residue after deep therapy. Don’t engage.”
Mae heard the rustle of paper—a clipboard. They were reading about her. About her. The thrill was electric. She threw her head back against the headrest, a tight, frustrated sound grating in her throat. She tugged at the leg restraints, making the whole chair shudder.
“See? Residue. Just get her to Seven for the pod prep. She’ll settle.”
“I won’t settle!” Mae snarled, the words ripping out of her. She put every ounce of her genuine, feverish longing into the performance, letting it fuel the rebellion. “You can’t just… put me in a box! I need… I need more than that!” She meant it, but not as they understood. She needed the yoke. She needed the water. She needed the silent, endless cell.
Her struggles became more forceful, a convincing tapestry of jerks and heaves. The straps creaked in protest. A part of her, calm and analytical, admired their construction. Another part, wild and hungry, screamed for an audience.
“Almost there,” the female orderly said, her voice a flat line of indifference.
They stopped. A key slid into a lock. The familiar, heavy door to Room Seven swung inward. The sight of the sterile gray chamber, the waiting bed with its array of open cuffs, and the new, ominous pod-like structure now sitting beside it, should have chilled her.
It felt like coming home.
“Last chance to cooperate, Holloway,” Ben said, a hint of tired warning in his tone.
Mae answered by slumping in the chair, going utterly limp, as if the fight had been drained from her all at once. She let a single, defeated tear trace a path to her jaw. It was her best performance yet.
“There we go,” the woman said, satisfied. “Residue discharged. Let’s get her transferred for the overnight.”
As they began the complex dance of unbuckling her from the chair and moving her to the bed, Mae kept her eyes closed. She was already composing the request she’d whisper to Edith tomorrow. The standing frame, Aunt Edie. Please. I think I need to learn stillness while upright. And Edith would understand, her eyes softening even as she wrote the order. The pod awaited her tonight, a void of sensory deprivation.
But tomorrow held such delicious, structured promise.
But tomorrow held such delicious, structured promise.
The orderlies pivoted her weight, a familiar and practiced transfer from the hard shell of the chair to the slightly softer plane of the mattress. The female orderly, Lena, hooked a finger under the back of Mae’s jumpsuit at the collar, holding the fabric taut as Ben guided her legs down. The sheets were cool through the thin cotton. They did not speak to her.
“Left side first,” Ben said, his voice low. He lifted her left ankle, encased in its permanent padded cuff, and aligned the steel receptor on the cuff with the waiting bolt on the bed frame. He pushed down. A solid, satisfying clunk echoed in the room as the lock engaged. He moved up her body, repeating the process for her thigh cuff, then her wrist. Each connection was a punctuation mark in the sentence of her containment.
Lena secured the right side with identical efficiency, her movements brisk, her attention on the mechanics of the latch, not the person inside it. The sequential locking traveled up Mae’s body in a wave of finality. Finally, Lena pulled the heavy chest harness across Mae’s torso, threading the tongue through the buckle at her side. She leaned her weight into it, taking up the slack until the breath tightened pleasantly in Mae’s lungs. The click of the buckle was deafening.
“Full secure,” Lena announced, giving each major strap a habitual, testing tug. Her fingers brushed Mae’s hip where the vibrator had been. Mae flinched, a genuine reaction she couldn’t suppress. Lena didn’t notice. “Let’s get the change done before she drifts. I want this pod sealed by ten.”
Ben fetched a fresh diaper and a bundle of wipes from the steel cabinet. Lena unzipped the jumpsuit once more, the sound harsh in the quiet. The air touched Mae’s skin, raising goosebumps. She kept her eyes fixed on a hairline crack in the ceiling plaster, dissociating into the texture of it. This part never lost its brutal, grounding intimacy.
The tapes gave way with a ripping sound. Ben held her legs, his grip firm and impersonal. The wipes were cool, and Lena’s scrubbing was thorough, quick, and devoid of any gesture that could be mistaken for care. It was sanitation. They rolled her slightly to one side, then the other, to wipe clean every surface. Mae was a thing being serviced. The humiliating warmth of the earlier arousal was gone, replaced by a hollow, clean ache.
They slid the fresh diaper beneath her, its material rustling softly. The powder dusted down, smelling of nothing. Lena fastened the tapes snugly at her hips, her knuckles brushing Mae’s skin. Then the jumpsuit was zipped closed, sealing her once more into the patient’s uniform. The entire process took less than three minutes.
“All set,” Ben said, gathering the soiled bundle. “Ready for the pod?”
“In a moment. Let the night sedative in her smoothie do its work first. Check her in twenty.”
The door clicked shut. The lock turned. Mae was alone in the humming quiet of Room Seven, strapped to the universe of the bed. The pod sat beside her, a smooth white fiberglass oblong with a sealed hatch, waiting to swallow her whole for the night. The promise of that utter isolation, after the overstimulation of the day, felt like a prize.
Her body began to unclench, muscle by muscle, sinking into the restraints as if they were a lover’s embrace. The chemical warmth of the sedative, mixed into her evening nutrient mix, bloomed in her veins. It softened the sharp edges of her thoughts, blurring the line between shame and euphoria. She replayed the vibration in the office, the probing questions, her aunt’s playful threats about the muzzle.
The muzzle. She pictured it. Dark leather, maybe a strap that would buckle behind her head, another passing through her mouth, keeping her silent and still. Her lips parted slightly against the imagined pressure. A deep, heavy sigh escaped her. The Segufix cuffs felt less like restraints now and more like a weighted blanket, grounding her to the earth.
The high window went from deep blue to black. The only light was a small, dim LED above the door. Her breathing slowed, syncing with the faint, almost imperceptible rhythm of the automatic cuff-tightening system. Click. A gentle squeeze on her right wrist. Click. A gentle squeeze on her left ankle. It was a heartbeat. It was a lullaby.
She let her mind float to the standing restraint frame, the one she would ask for tomorrow. She imagined the strain in her shoulders, the delicious fatigue, the absolute exposure. The thought was a pleasant anchor. The pod’s dark mouth seemed to yawn wider in her periphery, but the sedative pulled her down, away from fear, into a warm, yielding nothingness.
Her last coherent sensation was the perfect, equal pressure on every point of her body, holding her in the world. She did not dream. She simply ceased, and in that cessation, found a profound and perfect peace. The click of the cuffs was the last sound she heard as the dark tide rolled over her, pulling her under into a silent, seamless sea.