"Are you sure she's ready for this?" Dr. Fraunhoffer asks, for perhaps the third time. "It's quite severe. Almost a traumatic experience, for the wrong kind of patient."
"Quite sure. She insists," Pia tells him. "She's quite obsessed about it. You know how  she is."
"Oh, I do," he agrees. Privately thinking that Judith Martinelli was one of his craziest patients. And if you're a shrink in California, that's a serious challenge. Judith is intensely masochistic, a thrillseeker with little common sense, but one who plans elaborate and complex ordeals for herself, often at great expense. Pia, her business manager, and sometime lover, is the one who gets to do most of the dirty work setting things up.

She's happy doing business with Dr. Fraunhoffer. He's a tall, greying distinguished generalist who specializes in patients with socially neutral sexual disfunctions. Judith makes a nice break from the endless parade of penis anxieties, erection problems and tubby women with 'he won't fuck me' syndrome.
He says: "Just for the record, let me make it clear then. I don't think that this treatment has any therapeutic value at all. It's been used as a kind of shock treatment for psychotics, but then, what hasn't. I think it's a pure piece of medical mischief. Something from the Middle Ages."
"And so?"
"So, uh yes, since you're paying, I'll do it for her."
Pia nods her approval. "Here? Or I mean, at the La Estrella clinic?"
"Oh, no. They don't allow that kind of thing there! And i'm not equipped at the office, of course. Let me call around, do a web search. I think there are some old-fashioned places in like Wyoming, or Canada, that will do it, if I refer her, and attend."
"Uh oh! I think I hear the signs of 'getting pricy'!"
"Oh, not really. And anyway, she can afford it. Don't tell me she won't film the whole damn thing, anyway, and sell it to people . . ."

What is the intensely masochistic Judith up to now? 
She had read this account on the Internet, and her fascination had been piqued:
"As many as 30 wet cotton sheets are individually wrapped about the limbs and body - as tightly as possible, so that only the breathing tube from the inflatable gag remains exposed. The sheets are then compacted and bound paralyzingly tight using several long roller towels. Once these have been wrapped and pulled very tightly round the patient, mummy-fashion from head to toe, it is quite impossible to move -- not even to blink or twitch a toe (unless a foot has been left exposed so that it can be tickled, or if electrodes have been attached, 'below the waist').

Often panic has already set in, but the worst has yet to come.
"Since the patient is now rigid he or she can be picked up in an invalid hoist and lowered into a long water tank containing water, crushed ice -- just as cold as I can make it. You probably cannot imagine the shock or agony as this ice-cold water seeps through the bindings and numbs the skin. It is of no consolation that I hoist him or her out and strap him or her very tightly to a hospital type bed when he or she has been sufficiently soaked. The muscle contractions due to struggling can reduce the cold but this soon results in unbearable heat, especially if the patient is further wrapped in heavy rubber sheets. The patient can be immersed and the cycle repeated whenever my assistant or I feel like it. By the morning, after a sleepless night and only cramp and the fear of immersion to break the monotony, the patient's power to resist is often broken (often, or always?)"

She'd masturbated to this text many times, and over the next few weeks had made Pia's life a misery, trying to set it up. "We could use it for some psychological thriller," she'd argued. "And dammit, I just want to do it, that's why!"

Judith arrives a little early from the scruffy motel, hoping to be shown round the grim hospital. She was happy to be out, after two days in isolation in the ratty single room, preparing herself. Her camera crew is already in position, but they have been asked to be subtle, to avoiding over-exciting the inmates. They're in a rural part of Quebec, it's November. Soon, it will snow. Where she is, is grimmer still. A treatment wing for unfashionable hydro treatments. Not for burn therapy. No, just for schizophrenia, paranoid delusions, disorders of that sort. It's restricted to patients rejected by other hospitals, from coast to coast. Lots from south of the border, from doctors seeking a last resort. Out of favor, the buildings are run down, the staff is bored, surly.

Everywhere, the smell of chlorine, an absence of people, a quietness you associate with closed factories. She's given a form to fill in -- yet another waiver, another signing away of the right to sue. They just keep her sitting alone in the waiting room. The magazines are from over a year ago.
After fifteen minutes or so an unsmiling dowdy nurse appears and says, in strongly accented English: "Ready? Zis way please." Slouching along in bored fashion, she leads her to a tiny changing room.  On the way, Judy observes the green gloss paint, the tiles, the overhead fluorescents. Unappealing, like a morgue. A hospital from the 1930s. "Everything off, please," Judith is told, with just a hint of a snaggletoothed smile. 
"Put your clothes in the basket, and come out here when you're ready."

Judith has not overdressed, and quickly strips. Naked, she touches her breasts, her belly, in a last regretful act. It might be a while. Then she steps shyly out, into the hallway. The nurse looks her up and down, expressionless, as though pretty tanned athletic women were an everyday sight here, at a place you could use as a set for a Planet Of The Frumps movie.
"The rings and earrings in this box, please. And is there anything else we need to know about? A diaphragm, for example?"  Judith shakes her head.
Then the nurse motions: "You're ready, then. Come this way, please."
Judith had expected to be given a hospital gown. But there wasn't one in the cubicle, and she's not offered one now. She's led down another brightly lit corridor, naked and barefoot, padding along behind. Judith is quite extrovert, an exhibitionist even, but is looking around anxiously. She's led into a large room, like a hospital laundryroom,where two other grim-faced nurses are waiting. Fortyish, dumpy, unattractive, just like the first. They look at her with dour faces. 
"Over here," she's told by one. "Sit down."

There's a clipboard, which starts off saying 'Patient Preparation/Hydro/Salle Reservee: Judith Martinelli.' She can't read what else it says, but most of the boxes on the form are checked. The nurse who led her takes up an electric razor. She begins running it over Judith, making sure she shaves all her bodily hair including legs, crotch and armpits. There's not much to do, just her trimmed pubic bush, which is quickly removed with clippers. A cutthroat razor finishes this job. Another of the nurses ruffles Judith's hair. "This too?"
"Well, that's what this sheet says."
"But we are told, 'Men must be cropped, but do not shave a woman's head unless specifically ordered to do so.'"
"No, do it," Judith whispers, to stop them bickering. They shrug. Judith is shaved, bald.
The nurse with the clippers stares for a moment when she's done, debating whether or not to leave her eyebrows. No, off they come too.

Then Judith is led to an old-fashioned pedestal toilet. It's rather stained and dirty, with an old-fashioned wooden seat. It's sitting forlorn in the middle of the room, with no screens around it. Next to it, there's a deep sink with tubes, hoses, nozzles. One of the nurses has been busy, running taps, testing temperatures.
"Enema," she's told with a fish-like stare. "It's not a book by Jane Austen here. Stand just here. Good. Bend over, please."
Judith gives a start as a cold brass nozzle is pressed to her anus, then pushed into her rectum. They squirt her full, more than a half-gallon of liquid from a big bag of soapy water. "Now, jump up and down. Good."
Then they make her squat, watching with detachment as she empties her bowels. This cycle is repeated, a half-dozen times, until she's getting dizzy, feeling a little sick, and her stomach is aching from being pumped up to eight-months pregnant size and let down. She's used to enemas and purges, but not as many or as big. They have her squat over the sink and irrigate her with a powerful jet of warm water, pushing the tube deep into her until they're sure they've really cleaned her out. She's been on a two-day fast, and only taking liquids anyway.

Judith is shivering, looking anxiously at them. There are private grins being traded. They've done their work well, and like to see their patients recognize it.  They prod her across the room to a big bathtub, already filled to the brim with warm, greenish water, steaming in the cool air. The three tie on big full-length rubber aprons and tug on elbow-length industrial gloves in a dull maroon color. They pick up rough dish scourers, sponges, one has a bristle brush of the sort you'd use on a stone floor. "Get in," she's told. "Kneel down."

They thoroughly wash her body using an undiluted liquid detergent. Why? Because degreasing her skin minimizes insulation. Her breasts are scrubbed, hard. Then she's made to stand, and they scour her genitals with equal fervor. She's glowing pink, sore in many places. But they're not through. "Open your crack," she's told. 
A nurse produces a huge bristle brush, one you might clean bottles with. It's dipped in detergent powder, tipped into a saucer.
"In we go," she's told, as the brush is prodded between her thighs, then slid into her vagina and pulled in and out vigorously. One says, gratuitously, "This is the cleanest you'll ever have been hey, you stinky-cunted whore?"
Another frowns. "She's a voluntary patient, Claudette."
"Ah! Now, that's vraiment folle!"
They notice her stigmata, her faint whip scars. There's lots of headshaking.

A new, younger nurse appears. She's very professional and pleasant to Judy. One of Fraunhoffer's own staff. She sits Judy down, swabs, and inserts intravenous saline and nutrient drip taps in both arms. Several small silver plated electrodes are applied, with superglue: pussy lips, nipples, undersurface of her breasts, her underarms, between her ass cheeks. She's also dotted with little sensors, and all the loose leads, color-coded, are gathered up in a bundle and taped together. "Now it's time for ear plugs," it's explained. A pair of big molded things are produced, like an oldster's hearing aid.

The first nurse holds up an inflatable gag, says "Ready?" She slips it in, sealing Judy's mouth with waterproof tape. The younger nurse carefully inserts nostril tubes, and tapes them in place and caulks the seal with some thick gel. Judy is breathing noisily through them, though it's noisiest to her. The gag has another small tube built in so they can let her breathe through it if she gets congested.

She's led into another room, like a workshop, carrying her bundle of cables and tubes like an astronaut going to the takeoff. Now it's time to strap Judy to the corners of her frame.  It's a strong rectangular aluminum frame about 11 feet by three feet. She's held by waterproof cuffs at ankles and wrists. They pull on the straps, attaching the cuffs to the frame, as tightly as possible. She is spreadeagled, and her arms are drawn straight above her head.

Two fortyish, fat male porters appear, and smirk down at the naked woman. She's showing everything. They could do anything with her. And with non-volunteer patients, they often do. Huge erections. Inches from her, offensively male. She's sure she'd be able to smell them, they look the unwashed type. But with tubes in her nose she's only smelling neoprene rubber now. The two porters tweak her nipples. A hand roughly squeezes her shaved mons, and the two are laughing, nudging each other. She's suddenly terrified. They won't, will they? No, they lift the frame on to a trolley, and roll her out.

It's a long trip, down hundreds of yards of corridors, lots of peering faces, because they are not at all bothered about her modesty. There's even a stop for coffee refills in the cafeteria, and at one point she finds herself surrounded by grinning Asians in face masks. Finally, they arrive. She sees a sign -- Hydro Room #7 -- as the trolley turns, and beneath it a notice: 'Reserved. Fraunhoffer/Martinelli.'
She knows this is the notorious 'tank.' There's a glass-windowed control room, like you see in big labs and recording studios,  overlooking the room. It's at the far end, on a mezzinine level. At the center of the drab room, there's a pair of hydro baths. Just huge flat-bottomed tubs lined with thick black rubber, and quite functional. 

Both about 12 feet by four, and four feet deep. One's filled already, with lukewarm water at about 70 F. Various adjustments are made and they tilt the frame, hook it onto a hoist, and slowly hoist the frame and Judith into the water filled tank. Fraunhoffer steps in at this point, and there's just a hint of a smile as he stares into her frantic, blinking eyes as the water closes over her. A restrained little airport goodbye wave, mocking her.

Each end of the frame has a stubby axle at its center which slots into a corresponding teflon-lined bearing socket inside the tank. This arrangement allows the frame, and Judith with it, to be rotated about the long axis like a barbecue spit. They disconnect the hoist. The frame is now free to rotate beneath the surface of the water. They ensure Judith is breathing properly through the tubes provided and that they will remain kink-free and open during the next procedure. Through the rippling water, Judith sees Fraunhoffer looking down at her. He's speaking to someone, but if she's good she'll be able to lip read: "Voluntary . . . Crazy . . . Maximum severity . . . Who knows?"

JUDITH'S WET PACK, Pt.2

There are several more nurses here now. Fresh faces, in white trouser outfits, masks. A more purposeful crowd than the reception committee. They take folded sheets from the soak tub and refold them to match their purpose. Each sheet goes through rollers to expel any trapped air. The idea of preparing the sheets in this way, and applying the pack with Judith submerged is to see all air is excluded from the pack: Air acts as an insulator.
Applying the pack in the tank is easier because Judith is relatively buoyant. They carefully wrap the sheets around each limb as tightly and smoothly as possible. Cloth tapes tightly tie each sheet in place prior to bandaging. Bandaging the thickest part of the limb first tends to force the flesh to the thinner parts and make the limb more uniform in thickness . Each turn of the bandage overlaps the preceding one. Pressure is applied as evenly as possible to reduce the probability of pressure sores. A lot of bandages are used, too. It seems extravagant, but no amount of wriggling can loosen this binding.

It may seem like a lot of work but, face it, Judith isn't going to be unpacked for a while. To aid the wrapping operation, they rotate the frame and Judith like a spit. A great improvement over manhandling the enormous combined weight of Judith and her wet pack on a table.  They include her hands and feet in the wrapping process, removing and replacing the cuffs one at a time. To help speed the process several hydro attendants work at the same time on different body areas. The supervising  nurse ensures that all the bindings are tight enough and that the pressure is uniform. When binding the head, they use pads over the eyes to minimize any gaps in the packing.

After a couple of sheets have been wrapped around the torso,  a short corset compresses the waist and controls respiration. She's getting the harshest treatment they carry out here, known as a Code Eight. In the case of a male, Judith knows, they'd be folding the man's penis back toward the buttocks and holding it in position with pack sheets applied in the style of a diaper. They'd hold the sheets in place with a tightly strapped canvas waist belt and attached crotch straps designed to prevent erection.

For her, it's different: she feels them fitting her anus and vagina with short stubs of plastic tube, over an inch in diameter, to hold these orifices wide open. Then tightly stuffing her vagina with several oversized tampons, and corking her with a plastic bung with a catheter borehole through it. Then taking a springy plastic clip to keep her labia spread open. Spreading and taping the loose skin of her outer labia to her thighs. Another special clip holds her clitoris, pinchng it till it's numb. Various extra electrodes are attached to her nipples, armpits, labia, anus. 

Once her limbs, trunk, crotch, neck and head are satisfactorily wrapped, then the next stage begins. They hoist the support-frame from the bottom of the tank so that Judith is supported by it. They remove the ankle cuffs and place sheets between her legs to fill any gaps. Securely, they wrap additional sheets around the legs and the trunk and fasten them in place with bandages. 

At this stage stronger bandages are used, made out of cotton sheeting. As the thickness increase, it is no longer necessary to bandage after every sheet. They splint her legs and body. The splint is a canvas corset-like device, with stainless steel stays. It laces up the back and extends from the ankles to beneath the armpits with adjustable shoulder straps. Fittings are provided for a head-harness and shoulder brace to be attached. They lace up the splint as tightly as possible, using heavy-duty buttonhook devices and temporary straps.

Once properly applied, Judith is held in absolute rigidity. Her feet are going to be held en pointe, but for now, the splint is anchored by a strap across the soles of the feet. They release the wrist cuffs and remove the original frame altogether, leaving a waterlogged Judith bobbing, nearly all of her underwater.
They put each arm into a splint. Each splint has a mitt for the hand. They tightly lace each arm splint from wrist to armpit.  They strap the arms securely to the side of the body using the special canvas straps built into the side of the body splint, passing the straps through the loops in the arm splints. Then, extra-large sheets wrap her entire body, from the crown of the head to the tips of the toes, as a single unit. As with any other wrapping operation, they pass each sheet at least 3 complete times around Judith to ensure that it cannot be unwrapped. After the last sheets are added they again bandage Judith from head to toe. The sheets are 100% cotton, they absorb and retain the maximum amount of water and provide the minimum insulation.

Now, Judith is bound with canvas cinch straps and slid into a heavy canvas security-bag.  Remember, Judith is still immersed in the tank. The staff fiddle around to make sure there is no air trapped in the bag. They tightly lace and strap the security bag and then perform a final heavy bandaging to prevent any possibility of air entering the bag when Judith is raised out of the tank. Judith is then securely refastened to the support frame with a number of canvas straps. Her feet are forced into an exaggerated en pointe position using a ballet strap.

Judith and her frame are hoisted out of the tank, and the excess body-heated water drains off. As the water drains out of the pack no air can pass back through the pack-sheets to fill the voids previously filled by the water. Judith not only feels the oppressive weight of the wet sheets, but also feels the pack draw tighter as the  sheets 'shrink' to fill gaps previously filled with water. It is rather similar to being vacuum packed, Fraunhoffer has told Pia. The canvas straps used to secure Judith to the frame are retightened as any excess water drains from the pack.

Now they lift the hoisted frame and Judith clear of the tank. Slowly, it's moved to the cold tank. It's right alongside, but this one has just been filled with water at freezing point, and will be kept that way by a continuous stream of ice from a dispenser, and a recycle through a refrigeration loop. In winter, it just gets fed from melt water off the roof, but now they need a little help. There's ice on the surface, which breaks as they gradually lower Judith into the tank. So all the warm water is removed from the pack, they hoist her out and allow the pack to drain again, before re-immersing. This is done several times in quick succession.  As the freezing water gradually passes through the pack they hear Judith desperately trying to inhale more air through the breathing tubes. The seeping cold water is making her oxygen requirement shoot up.

She's making a pitiful moaning sound, but Fraunhoffer shrugs off Pia's worried glance.
"We could give her a little shot of anaesthetic in the neck and stop that noise you know, numb her vocal cords," a nurse suggests cruelly.
"No, let her sing." Judith is trying to inhale all the air she can as her metabolism increases to combat the cold. Seeing this, and aiming to make her suffer, Fraunhoffer has a nurse fiddle with the air tubes, attach a clamp squeezing them partly shut. 
As her air supply is reduced, it forces her to stop wasting effort on making a sound, and reduces her breathing to an asthmatic wheeze. 
"She'll think she's asphyxiating," he says.
"She likes that," Pia contributes, knowing it's true. She'd watched her girlfriend slowly strangle on a rope only weeks earlier, and seen how intensely it excited her.
After the initial immersion, Judith is left to soak in the tank.

"Now the auto-immersion cycle starts," Fraunhoffer explains. "We use a timer to determine when Judith will be hoisted out of the tank or immersed. It's automatic. 
The timer has a random setting so she cannot anticipate the next hoisting or immersion."
"That's mean," Pia says with a little smile.
"The period between immersions may be long enough for Judith to become uncomfortably hot," he adds. "But, maybe not. The various sensors will tell us everything we need to know. We can make sure she doesn't die, but I think she'll come close a few times."
Pia is pleased, because Judith will be too. They can make her suffer more this way. 

Judith will be left without any contact with the outside world. How long? 
Maybe for as much as a week. They've left it vague with the hospital so no one will be asking questions. The hell endured by Judith is hard to imagine. Itching,  cramps and fear of immersion are her only companions. The timer switch also activates the white-noise speakers in the hydro room, which effectively masks any outside noise that Judith might otherwise hear. Since the white noise is very loud, the staff wear hearing protectors while in the room. Judith is protected by the ear plugs and layers of pack.

The next day. Fraunhoffer is talking to a group of Asian students, Pia is there too. He's shown a video, explained the wrapping process.
He says: "A wet-sheet-pack is clearly a fearsome method of discipline. Our patient, Judith, has been transformed into an absolutely helpless and rigid mummy, without even the slightest hope of escape.  Even her fingers, toes, jaw and eyelids are immobilized. Even shivering is reduced to a minimal level. I'm sure she has been reduced to a state of blind panic, but is of course not able to communicate that panic to anyone or get any form of comfort."
"Why?" a young girl student asks, wide-eyed.
"Because she longs to endure the extremes of human sensation. This woman has been crucified, for fun. Flogged unconscious. She loves pain!"
"Oh." The girl is stunned, but licks her lips, and looks around to see if anyone can tell that this excites her. They don't, but Fraunhoffer does. He makes a mental note to get her name.
"Eventually all she'll feel here is the agony, and her thoughts. This is the torture than breaks the strongest, and produces religious visions, acid trip nightmares, and even normality in loonies." The students chuckle uneasily. Many know that their governments want them to learn this technique.

Judith is alone! Judith is being crushed and needs to move to relieve the screaming cramps in her limbs and body. Judith cannot possibly lie still any longer - but will! Judith has no idea when she will be released or how much time has passed. Judith knows beyond doubt that she has entered a living hell - if this can be called living. Judith is not catheterized , so the question of urination soon arises, since they are keeping her fluids in balance.
She's thinking, "Can I hold back until I am released?"
"How long will I have to wait - just a few minutes, more?"
Eventually Judith succumbs to the urge and is forced to urinate.
"See all the yellow in the water? Check the monitor. Yeah, she's pissing. Okay, I guess we need to turn up the recycle," an operator says, looking up from an X-Men comic book.

Later the issue will becomes defecation. They gave her some glycerine suppositories. 
Oh, Judith will eventually be forced to succumb to this, too, though she'll merely be leaking after all the enemas, the earlier low-solids regime, and the saline and liquid drips. In addition to the shame of fouling herself -- she'll have visions of lying in her own waste, even if she isn't --  she'll be concerned about what "treatment" may be meted out to her if she messes the tank so horribly. Something to worry about.
"I have some ideas for after, don't you, Pia? She'll be so ready for sensation, I think she'll yell with joy, come like a madwoman, if we flog her. Don't you?" Fraunhoffer says, munching on a bagel.

"How much longer?" Pia asks.
"Up to you."
"Well, it could be days, you know. She'd want that."
"Um. But I'm new to this and I want to avoid the possibility of desquamation -- her skin falling off -- or serious mental imbalance. Watch those dials. See how she's REMing? And watch the heart rate, see how it's been zooming up and down. The temperature, skin, deep body? She'll have some vivid memories of things that never even happened, her dreams will be so real."
"You sound like you've overcome your dislike of this technique, doctor." Pia observes. "In fact, you're almost enthusiastic."
"Well, under certain circumstances it might have its uses, yes . . ."
"Such as?"

"Oh, training a submissive women for her master. Or a guy for his mistress. With the right subliminal messages masked in the white noise in the tank, kind of post hypnotic stuff. Yes, this could have potential . . ."
"Wasn't there a lot of trouble the last time German doctors liked playing games with cold and helpless people?"
"Ahem, yes, so I'm not going to make a big thing of it. I don't think I'll publish this."
"Ah, don't panic. You're safe with me, doc, I'm as unethical as you, and just as self-centered as her, so don't worry."
"But if either of you have any patients you'd like to refer. People who call you about the film? Well hey, a dollar is a dollar . . ."
"We have an added treat, these leads to the electrodes. We can give her a nasty shock, and enliven those dreams some more," Pia reminds him.
"Yes, it's getting to be that time. Nipples or pussy first, my dear?"

"When is this going to end?"

"I must have been here for hours!"

"Is it night or is it day?"

"Have I been in here for 6 hours or 24 hours or 2 days or a week?"

" Nobody told me how long this treatment would last - they implied it would only be a couple of hours, but I know it s been longer than that!"

"Are they ever going to release me?"

"The cramps keep getting worse and my muscles feel as if they are being torn apart."

"Are my arms turning blue?"

"If only I could die."

"Oh god, please let me out."

But Judith is not released -- the treatment continues. Life remains a living hell of alternating heat, cold, immersion, fear of drowning, claustrophobia, suffocation,  cramps and unimaginable boredom. Nothing to do but lie there, nothing to hear, smell, control or feel except the cycles of immense cold. And every now and then, piercing pain in her sex or breasts. Hell, on earth. There is no way to know when the next immersion will come, or if it will come, and no way to judge the passing of time.

Judith dreams on, her visions and fantasies becoming more bizarre with each minute. It's late on the third day, but she doesn't know that. In the control room, Pia dumps her takeout Vietnamese food in a wastebasket, hoists her skirt, begins to gently stroke herself, reading a novel as she samples the wetness of her panties. 
Fraunhoffer is down on the floor of the room, fiddling with leads, administering shocks, his erect prick in his hand. They wave to each other. He'll be up soon, and in the mood for Pia.

And Judith? She dreams.

18/05/01