This is not what I expected.

I’ve seen them.  They have straps and stuff, medical restraints here, and I’ve seen them used on patients.  Never on me though, and I have asked.  Believe me, I have.  But Doctor Sorenson insists that I don’t need them.  

He knows of my, predilection was a word he used once.  I’m not one hundred percent sure what it means, but I like it.  In the back of my mind, it was always a fetish, but it was so much more than that, so having a new word for it is nice.

One of the sadly few benefits of my stay here at Saint Whatever’s Psychiatric Hospital.  The looney bin, as it were.  I’m here ‘voluntarily,’ though I feel like the first few days after my recovery in the regular hospital may have been mandatory.  Hard to say, I was on a lot of drugs still.

Doc thinks I should stay until I ‘get myself sorted out.’  That’s his polite way of saying until I give up my ‘super heroine delusion.’

I got myself tuned up pretty good.  I was out looking for some bad guys to have fun with me, and I guess they had a little too much fun, because they left me for dead in a dumpster.  I was in the hospital for something like two weeks with a whole mess of broken bones and internal injuries.  

Today I finally got the cast off my leg.  I have another session with Doctor Sorenson this afternoon, and they’ll be another discussion about what I want to do.  I’m sure no longer being in a cast will change my insurance situation or something like that.  I don’t know, someone will explain it to me.  I’m done with this place; it’s been quite a drag, honestly, but I really want to wear a straitjacket.  Yes, I could do that myself, I actually own two, one that I got early on in my exploration that’s more traditional canvas, and not that great, but the look, mmm, really does it for me, plus it’s pretty easy for me to get into myself, and still difficult to get out of.  I also got a latex one, and that one is really restrictive, but a bitch to put on yourself, and getting someone to put it on who isn’t all ‘oh, I don’t want to pull it too tight,’ and “what’s your safe word?’ It’s, ugh, it’s a whole thing.

But here I am, a super heroine imprisoned in a mental institution, strapped into a tight straitjacket, the crotch strap pulled extra tight between my legs, rubbing against my sex…

“Knock knock.”

They say, “knock knock” while they knock on my door.  You don’t need to do both; one will ruin my fantasy just fine.

I pulled my hand out of pants and said to come in.  It was a formality; they come in regardless or whether or not you invite them in, and while masturbation seems to be frowned upon on the ward, it is not a punishable offense.  Seriously, like nothing is, and I’m barely having a good enough party to be worth DJ’ing for.

One of the orderlies, Dayshawn, comes into my little room.  “Walking yourself today?”

Most days he was the one escorting me to my sessions, walking with my while I hobbled along on crutches and even pushing me along in a wheelchair before that.  They didn’t even strap me into the wheelchair despite my attempts to prove that I could just fall out at any time, so I quickly gave that up.  Besides, Dayshawn’s a big dude and could very easily control me if he needed to, but he’s super gay, and a real angel.  I’d have better luck getting raped in my nana’s nursing home.

“Yep.”  I stretched out my recently freed leg.  I pulled up the thin fabric of my pants leg.  My leg was grossly thin and pale after a few weeks stuck in a sweaty plaster cast, but least I’d been able to shave once they took it off.  A special treat since they’re not big on letting the patients have razors, for some reason.

“Do you need help, Miss Tribute?” he asked.  He at least called me Tribute.  I’m pretty sure Doc told all the staff not to call me that, insisting that my ‘real name’ be used, but Dayshawn’s cool.

“Not anything you’d give me, Dayshawn.”

“Girl, you playin’.  Come on, group’s about to start.”

Shit.  I hate group.  It was fun at first, imagining the other patients, crazed and mad, looking to take advantage of the injured, weak super heroine trapped with them in a mental asylum.  But they all wound up being quite boring, a bunch of drooling vegetables and jittery weirdos that jump at their own shadows.  

So I sit nearest to the door, zoning out as Doctor Sorenson tries to get a dialogue going with my fellow patients.  Oh, Angela is STILL afraid to go outside because of the germs, but she didn’t totally lose it when they opened her blinds yesterday.  Yay!  I pick a spot on the floor to stare at so my eyes don’t start rolling on their own.  That’s a surefire way for Doc to put the spotlight on me.  

Maybe I should.  If I told him how bored I was getting being cooped up here, he’d see that as progress or something.  This was not what I signed up for when I was checked into a mental institution.  I need to get back out there.  I have like, no access to news or the internet or anything, but there’s gotta be some new super villain rising to power out there, and I’m spinning my wheels listening to Agoraphobia Angie whinge on about the dangers of the outside.  I wish the outside was that perilous…

The tone of the words around me changed suddenly.  Someone, a couple of people actually, screamed.  I looked around, my heart pounding.

A patient, a newish one that I’d only seen recently and didn’t know, was standing behind one of the nurses, holding something thin against her throat, his other arm wrapped tightly around her, holding her.  

“Get back!” he was shouting.

The nurse, fucking Nurse Bilson, always a condescending bitch to me, never even pretended to call me Tribute, not once, and she’s standing there, some mad patient holding her hostage with a shiv in her throat.  

Jealousy and desperate desire warred within me.  That should be me.  How many weeks here and nothing, and snaggletooth bitch Bilson gets her fat ass taken hostage?  I don’t think so.

“Take me!” I shouted, acting on instinct.  I was on my feet in an instant.  Thank god I got my cast off.  It was fate.

“Everyone calm down,” Doc was saying.  He was also on his feet, his arms out, trying to maintain control of the room.  People were screaming, and the hostage taker was slowly backing towards the door with nurse Bilson.

“I don’ wanna hurt her, but ya’ll need ta let me out of here!”

“Trevor, we can talk about this, but you understand that if you hurt Nurse Bilson, there’s nothing I can do for you,” Doc said, slowly approaching him.

My outburst had gone completely ignored.  What was I, invisible?  “Hey, take me instead.”

“You need to take a seat,” Doc said, holding out his hand to me.

Doc, if you take this from me, I swear to god, you’re going to have to put me in a full body straitjacket and lock me in a padded room for a year.  “Hey!  I’m more valuable than her.  I’m a super heroine.  I’m Tribute!”

I could hear the slow exhale of frustration from Doctor Sorenson as he glared daggers at me.  Fucking asshole.

The guy, Trevor it seemed, looked at me, back at Doc, and then back to me.

“You fa real?”

“No, Trevor, listen to—”

“Yes!  I’ve been stuck here, just like you, and I’m much more valuable as a hostage than her.  Take me instead, I won’t put up a fight.”

He looked back at Doc, then he waved me over.  “Com’ere.”

I shot an ‘I told you so’ look at Doc as I sauntered passed him, my chin held high.  Trevor shoved Nurse Bilson away from him, and she sprawled on the floor beside me as I walked to my new captor, steppin over her like she was nothing.  That’s right, bitch.

He grabbed me, spinning me around and pressing the plastic shiv to my throat.  I barely suppressed a moan.

“Sorry ‘bout this,” he said, quickly, but roughly and efficiently searching me through my thin white scrubs, his fingers running under my breasts and around the waistband of my pants.

“Don’t be.  Can’t be too careful.”

“Listen, Trevor,” Doc was saying again.  “You don’t need a hostage.  You and me, we’ll sit down and talk about this like mature adults.  You can let—”

WHHAAANN  WHHAAANN

The alarm started to blare, cutting off Doctor Sorenson before he could make some stupid attempt to humanize me to my captor.  Red lights flashed on the wall, and suddenly I was yanked off my feet, Trevor pulling me with him as he darted out the door into the hall.  I looked around, and there were two orderlies advancing on us.  

“Stay back!” he yelled, again jamming the crude shiv against my throat.  It wasn’t that sharp, but he was pressing it hard against my vulnerable throat.  God, it felt so good.

The orderlies held their hands up, their palms open, slowly stepping back.  Trevor kept me in front of him like a human shield, slowly advancing down the hall towards an intersection.

“No, this way,” I hissed as he started down one path.

“What?”

“Just trust me!”

He was panicking, which was good for me.  He looked over his shoulder, and then he spun around with me and started backing down the other hall.  “I said keep back!” he yelled at the orderlies who’d started slowly advancing again.  “I don’ wanna see you guys followin’ me!”

They stopped, and we rounded a corner.  “It’s this way!” I told him, pointing.

“Where you trying’ ta take me?  The doors are that way.”

“You’re not getting out the doors, even with me.  Don’t you think they have those all blocked up.  I’m sure it’s crawling with cops outside.”

He stopped, and I could feel his breath on my neck, hot and heavy.  After a moment, he decided to believe me.  I guided him along until we came to the room I wanted to go to.

“What the hell’s in here?” he asked.

I pointed at the door.  “A door that locks from the inside that can’t be opened remotely like the rest of them.”

That was true, and he quickly reached out and snapped the deadbolt into place.  “Wait a damn minute.  I’m tryin’ ta get out of this hell hole, not lock myself in!”

“Well you’re going to have to negotiate with them, obviously.  You don’t want them bursting in here while your guard is down.”

He let go of me, pushing me away from him as he stood back, pointing the shiv at me.  He studied me, considering the logic to my words.

“Look, I just want ta walk out those doors.  I don’ belong in here.  I ain’t looking ta negotiate.”

“And you’ll do that,” I assured him.  “But you’re probably going to have to do a little negotiating.  You’ve got me as a hostage, and I’ll help you get out of here, but here you can collect yourself and you don’t have to worry about them stopping you.”  I was selling it as hard as I could.

He studied me a bit longer.  “You said you was a super heroine?”  He sounded skeptical all of the sudden.

“Yes!  Well, I mean, I don’t have any super powers, per se, but I’ve got a costume, and I fight crime.” I struck a pose, admittedly less impressive while wearing the same white patient’s scrubs as my captor.

“What’d you say your name was?”

“Tribute.”

“Never heard of you?”

“Seriously?  I mean, I’m not that big, but come on, you’ve never heard of me?”

He shook his head.

“Just this year I helped Fight Girl take down—” shit, what did we do together?  She chloroformed me, I remember that.  “A guy.  Lots of guys!”

“Fight Girl?  Yeah, I heard of her.  She’s legit.”

Seriously?  She doesn’t have any powers either!  But he knows her.  “I’m legit too!”

He still seemed skeptical.  “Then what the hell are you doin’ here?  You’re so super, you couldn’t get out?”

“I was…”  Shit shit.  “Undercover!”

“Undercover?”

“Yeah, undercover.  They’re keeping people here— people like you, who don’t belong here, against their wills.  But I couldn’t just come in and bust heads, I had to collect evidence.”

“Mmhmm.”  He seemed like he was warming to my story.  

“So I clearly want to help you escape.”

“An’ how we gonna do that?”

“Uh, for now, we have to just wait, I guess.  If you want to rest a bit, stay sharp, it could be awhile.  Standing there pointing that shiv at me is going to get real tiring, I’m sure.”

“I’m not gonn’ take a god damn nap!”

“Whoa, didn’t say nap, but you don’t need to be worrying about me the whole time.”

“I thought you was on my side, tryin’ ta help me get free an’ all?  Are you sayin’ I should be worried about you?”

Shit shit shit.  Yeah, play the trustworthy super heroine card with your only hope of getting tied up.  Real smart.  “Well, you probably should.  I mean, I don’t know if you don’t actually belong here.  I could find out that you’re actually a crazy psychopath, or some sort of super villain, who actually belongs in here, and then I’d have to try and stop you.”  I held my breath.

“Yeah, an’ I don’t know if you actually a super heroine.”  The skepticism had returned in his voice, as well as an annoyed tone.  I could work with that.

“I mean, I am, but you don’t want to take the chance.  You should probably restrain me.”

“Yeah.  An’ how’m I supposed ta do that?”

I pointed at the rack in the corner of the room.  “Well, you could use one of those.”

I might not have been able to get them to use a straitjacket on me so far, but you can be damn sure that by like, day four, I knew exactly where they kept them.

“You gotta be kiddin’ me.”

“I mean, they’re right there.  You can just make me wear one, strap it up extra tight so I can’t escape, I’m sure you can find something to gag me with so I don’t disturb you, and then when they come, you can negotiate to get out, or whatever.”  Oh god, I was so close.

He raised his eyebrows and then stomped over to the rack and took down one of the straitjackets.  A Posey Institutional Canvas Straitjacket, size small by the look of it.  The 2009 model, if I had to guess.  

He held it up, examining it, running his hands over all the straps and buckles.  I reached down and undid the tie cord in the waistband of my scrubs, and it was all I could do to not reach down further.  I was sopping wet.

“You should search me again, in case I’m concealing something,” I blurted as he came back over with the straitjacket.  My straitjacket.

He considered this.  “Nah,” he said slowly.

“What?”  I tried to keep the panic out of my voice.

“You don’ have anythin’ on you.  This, this seems excessive.”

“It’s what’s available!”

He took a step back.  Shit shit shit shit.  Pump the breaks.  I took a deep breath.

“I’m just, not about this stuff.  Locking people up; I do this, how’m I any different from them?”

“This is different.  You’re doing it to get free, and when you take a hostage, you have to make sure they’re restrained so they don’t foil your plans.”

“You plannin’ on wreckin’ my plans?”

“Well, no, but you don’t know that.”  I took a step forward, holding my arms out in front of me for the jacket.  As I did so, I shimmied my hips, causing my pants to start sliding down my hips.

He sighed.  “Fine.”  

More like finally.  He pulled the jacket forward, my hands sliding across the coarse, strong canvas line of the sleeves until my fingertips pressed against the sealed ends of the sleeves, my hands now trapped and useless.  “I’m sorry about this,” he said as pulled the heavy jacket over my shoulders.  Ugh, all the apologizing.  ‘Sorry Tribute, but I’m going to have to leave you with the sharks,’ or ‘I’m so sorry but we destroyed your clothes, you’re going to have to remain naked.’  Those are fine apologies, but none of this sincere bullshit.  It’s worse than a safe word.

The click of the first buckle snapped me out of my brief funk pretty quickly.  It was actually happening.  I rubbed my thighs together again.  Soon there would be a thick canvas strap between them, pulled up tight over my pussy, keeping my from escaping, rubbing against me while I struggled…

My pants slipped farther, and with a little more wiggling, they dropped to my ankles.  “Whoops.  You know these cheap scrubs they give us.”  I shrugged, loving how the gesture made the straitjacket hug at me tighter.

He stooped, grabbing my pants, and he started pulling them back up.

“What are you doing?”

“Relax,” he said, misinterpreting my panic.  “I’m just pulling yo’ pants back up.”

Fuck.  “Just leave them off.  They’ll just fall down again.”

He kept pulling them back up.  I shifted my foot back, stepping on the leg, halting his progress.  

“What if we have to run again?  I don’t want to be tripping over my pants.”

He gave another tug, ignoring me.  And then he stopped, my pants falling from his fingers and sliding back down to the floor.  “You one crazy ass white chick.”

I looked down at him, bent over in from of me, and followed his eye line.  Oh right.  Front of my white panties, absolutely soaked.

I wiggled a little bit, jutting my hips out, wishing I wasn’t wearing these damn standard issue, ill-fitting granny panties they gave to all of us, and instead something sexier and tighter, something a little more, say, translucent when wet.

He didn’t seem to be interested, and better fitting underwear likely wouldn’t have changed that.  Are all the cute black guys here gay?  Jesus.  

“I’m… excited.”  I batted my eyelashes.

Still no reaction.

“Aw, hell no.”  He walked away from me, towards the door.

“Wait, what are you doing?”  I tried to follow him, but I forgot my pants still around my ankles, and I tripped, falling face first onto the ground, unable to bring my hands up to break my fall.

It hurt like a bitch, and I groaned and rolled over to see him banging on the door.  “Yo, anyone out there?”

“Yes,” came the muffled reply of Doctor Sorenson through the door.

“Good, I think I’m ready to do that talkin’ thing,” Trevor said.

“Wait.”  I tried to sit up.

“Is Prudence alright?”

God damn it.  I hate that fucking name.  It’s ugly, it’s got the word ‘prude’ in it, which I am very much not, and it’s just so pedestrian.  ‘Prudence’ doesn’t get taken advantage of by super villains.  ‘Prudence’ doesn’t get raped and beaten within an inch of her life by a bunch of gangbangers.  ‘Prudence’ doesn’t end up taken hostage in a mental institution.  I’m Tribute, goddamn it, and I get myself in all these situations.

Trevor looked back at me.  “She’s batshit crazy, but I ain’t hurt her.”

I lunged to my feet, kicking off my pants and running at Trevor, the strap he had failed to fasten between my lags dangling and smacking against my bare thighs as I ran.

“Aw, shit.”

Turns out running is really hard immediately after healing from a broken leg.

I stumbled, and he caught me.  I thrashed, but the straightjacket, despite missing the most crucial strap, kept my arms at bay.  I don’t know what I was doing.  I was just mad, mad at Trevor for failing as a kidnapper and as a crazy person, mad at Doctor Sorenson for telling me I was delusional, for calling me by that other name.  “You son of a bitch!”  I don’t even know which of them that insult was directed at.

“What’s going on?” Doctor Sorenson yelled through the door.

Trevor shifted his grip on me and clamped his hand over my mouth.  Finally, we were getting somewhere.  I screamed.

“MMMMMMPPH!”

“Shit, she’s gone nuts!”

“Hang on!”

I bucked and thrashed, kicking at his shins.  I tried to bite at his hand.  How damn hard would it have been for him to fasten the damn crotch strap?

“I’m opening the door!” Trevor shouted back.  His hand pulled back from my mouth just before I could bite his palm.

“You can’t do this to me!” I shouted, trying to stop him from reaching the lock, but he turned it.  The door burst open and two orderlies rushed in.  I tried to struggle, but Trevor held me while one pulled the cap off a syringe with his teeth.  The other grabbed my head and held it still for his partner to jam the needle into my neck.

“I’m Tribute!”  My voice was already slurring by the end, and my struggles grew weaker, my racing heart pumping the strong sedatives through my system all the faster.

I blacked out.




“So you’re throwing me out?”

Doc sighed, pressing his palms together across the desk from me.  “Miss Prudence—”

“Tribute.”

“Prudence, Tribute, whatever.  Your insurance will no longer cover your care here.  I strongly recommend that you seek counseling, but not here.  You have all of your personal effects, and you will be escorted off the premises.”

I’d come to, strapped to a hospital bed.  I guess I’d finally earned it.  My restraint was painfully short, as not five minutes after I’d woken up, some lawyers had come in, and I’d been released and given back the clothes I’d been wearing when I was first brought into the hospital.  

I know stood proudly across the desk from Doctor Sorenson in my skintight white latex white bra and panties, gloves, boots and domino mask.  My costume.  Tribute’s costume.

It felt good to be back.

“You made a big mistake, trying to keep me here.”  I put my hands on my hips, tossing my hair back.

“You signed yourself in.  You were here voluntarily!  You’ve been free to walk out at any time.”

“You’ll always remember the time you tried to hold Tribute.  You haven’t seen the last of me, Doc.”

“I have.  I highly advise that you continue to seek help, again, just not here.”

“Hmmph.”  I bent over the table, thrusting my ass out as I leaned in close to Doctor Sorenson.  Staring him in the eyes, I picked up the pen and signed the release forms.  As Tribute.  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, very much so.”

I slowly straightened up, pressing my boobs together with my arms as I did so, giving him a good look at my cleavage.  I turned and sauntered towards the door, giving him one last look over my shoulder.  “I’ve got my eye on you.”

Two cops escorted me out of the asylum and into the cold night air.  It was snowing softly, and my nipples instantly getting hard as the wind whipped across my skin.

According to the papers I’d just signed, it was the first of the year.  And I had a resolution.

I am Tribute.  And I’m not going to change.