Ynnym

I really enjoy bondage. It gives me a special thrill that never seems to grow old. So, as I sat, crouched inside the small cavity of the machine, watching the hatch that I had just crawled through close and seal with a hiss, a certain frisson shot through my body. Endorphins, I guess, spreading, making every movement feel good, even flexing and curling my naked toes was a sensual experience.

The first thing that I noticed after the door sealed was how perfectly quiet it was inside the machine. The noises from the lab had vanished completely - the hum of the air system, the refrigerators, the computers, the various other mysterious contraptions and boxes. The silence felt good. It seemed to give me a sense of privacy even though I knew that not to be true. Illusions are the key to doing what I was here for, though, and silence and a sense of bondage would go a long way to helping me do my “job”.

I had to snicker to myself (a sound that quickly became swallowed by the silence the moment it trickled from my mouth) at that thought - “job”. But, indeed, it was my job. I was being paid to participate in this experiment to study the physiology and psychology of an orgasm by my best friend Bessica’s aunt.

Bessica (never Bessy, god forbid!) had been a friend of mine since college over five years ago. Every summer she comes down here to El Salvador to stay with her aunt, a Madame Lucette, who apparently helps treat Bessica’s strange, progressive skin allergy disease. This year, Bessica invited me and two other friends, Caroline and Angela, down to help out with some experiments that her Aunt wanted to perform regarding female sexual response to various controlled physical and psychological conditions.

“Wait! Just pause there for a second! You want us to travel to El Salvador to stay in a big house on the coast for a week to study sex and you are going to pay us?!” Caroline had exclaimed.

“There’s no men involved, are there?” Angela asked somewhat skeptically, sweeping her mane of blue hair over her shoulder.

“No!” Bessica said. “Only women are allowed at my Aunt’s place. And, yes, she will even pay for your transportation. And, yes yes, we will have lots of time to lie around on the beach. Well… what do you all think?”

“There’re no horses involved, are there?” Angela asked in the same dry tone causing the rest of us to laugh.

“Uh… no… My Aunt is studying orgasms and arousal. There will be no barnyard animals,” Bessica promised patting Angela gently on her tattooed cheek. “Unless you find them arousing…”

Caroline, Angela, and I looked at each other for a second in stunned disbelief.

“So?” Bessica prompted. “Do you all want to come?”

“Are you kidding?” I said finally. “I’d have to be dead not to come.”

Caroline’s mouth twisted a bit and she pulled on a dread of her dark brown hair which she always kept short. “Well… I’ve been trying to get a promotion at work. So, my head says that I should stay here. But…” A smile widened across her face. “Arousal? Orgasms? …my cunt says that I should go.”

Angela and I looked at each other and smiled. “And we know that you always do what your cunt says,” I laughed.

“There is not even a choice for me,” Angela said. “Of course I’m going!”

    <>--+-

We flew down to San Salvador and survived a harrowing van ride to the coast. We arrived at Bessica’s aunt’s place about the time that the sun dropped into the ocean. And when I say “dropped”, that’s exactly what it seemed like. There was hardly any form of twilight like what you’re used to seeing up in the northern latitudes. It seemed like it was daytime one second and pitch black night the next. So, I did not really get a good look at the place. However, I must say that I had that envisioned that Bessica’s aunt lived in a large Victorian house with perhaps a modern facility nearby with medical equipment, but this place was no house.

First we arrived at a fortified gate which seemed to scream “drug lord”. There was a sign that said “Le Puits Creux, 1867”. When Bessica read it out loud it sounded like “le pee crew” which made us laugh a little.

After we phoned in and were permitted through the gate, we drove another mile or so down a one lane track before we came upon a huge Victorian building four stories tall with a red ceramic tile roof, turrets on the outer corners and dormer windows lining the roof. All the windows were covered with an array of heavy, secure bars.

“This has been used as an asylum for exceedingly rich patrons since the late 1800’s,” Bessica was explaining.

“‘Has been used’?” Caroline asked. “Did she say ‘has been used’? Not ‘was used’? Are you saying that there are still wackos there today?”

“Easy, Caycay, they are not wackos. My aunt does not house serial killers at her place. The inhabitants are simply, uh, eccentric,” Bessica explained. “Ill-equipped to survive in the modern world.”

“What?! You never told us that we were going to spend our holiday in an insane asylum!” Caroline exclaimed. She turned and pointed at me. “Did you know this?”

“No!” I said holding my hands up. “No!”

“There aren’t too many patients here,” Bessica said defensively. “The building is mostly uninhabited.”

I felt a shiver shimmy its way up from my stomach to my chest and I felt a smile slip onto my face. “I don’t mind really. Medical restraints! This kind of makes the trip even more exciting.” I have never been shy about enumerating (most) of my sexual predilections.

“Weirdo,” Caroline said to me, but turned to look out the window again.

    <>--+-

We were greeted at the door by a tall woman with long black hair contrasting with an alabaster complexion - a true Snow White beauty. She was wearing a black column tank dress that seemed to hint not only at well proportioned curves, but also a complete lack of undergarments - not even shoes. She did not seem much older than we are, but I decided that it must be Bessica’s aunt when she leant over and kissed Bessica squarely on the mouth. “Welcome home, Beccisa, my little mole rat,” she said with an elegant French lilt.

“Beccisa?” Caroline whispered to me.

“Mole rat?” I whispered back.

Bessica had said that she had been visiting her aunt since she was a child. I had envisioned a much older woman. I was beginning to understand why Bessica had placed so much faith in her aunt’s ability to treat her skin allergies. Her aunt’s skin was flawless even though she had to be in her fifties, at least.

“Welcome, girls, to El Salvador! Thank you so much for coming! I look forward to working with each of you. I am Madame Lucette.”

We had an awesome dinner with some exceptional wine all served by a cute, little Salvadoran woman named Leeward in an authentic French maid outfit. Even though she did not speak a lick of English, that did not keep Caroline from attempting to flirt with her, boldly displaying her frighteningly inadequate ability to speak Spanish. I could do no better, I suppose.

Madame Lucette was unable to spend too much time with us. “I must attend to our friends,” she explained. “We will meet tomorrow after breakfast and get to work.” Then she silently breezed through the door.

Leeward set us up in small bedrooms. I was kind of amused actually when Bessica and I ended up sharing a queen sized bed in a stamp sized room considering how big the place is. But she and I have shared beds before and not always in a platonic sense. It felt nice under a gossamer sheet when she wrapped her arm around me and pressed up close, kissing me lightly behind my ear. “I’m so glad you guys have come along. I love you all so much.” She settled and shortly I felt her soft, slow, steady breathing tickling my neck. I smiled and quickly joined her in a blissful slumber.

When I awoke, it was light outside. I looked towards the window yawning. Bessica was curled up on the window seat staring out the window. She was silhouetted against a green meadow topped by a distant ribbon of gray ocean and then the bright blue morning sky.

“Your naked,” I said.

Bessica turned to me smiling. “I guess I should have warned you. I spend most of my time here naked. Particularly when I am being treated for my skin allergies.”

“Don’t apologize,” I said. “I’m not afraid of your girly bits. Come back to bed. Let’s sleep a little more.”

    <>--+-

“Beccisa says that you are quite skilled in self directed tactile manipulation, Ynnym.”

The way that Mme. Lucette said that turned the statement into more of a question.

“Yes,” Caroline jumped in before I could respond. “Saint Ynnym is the queen of masturbation.”

Silly me. I have not even introduced myself yet. My name is Ynnym St. James. My first name has an accent on the second syllable. I am a single woman, decidedly lesbian. Indeed, Caroline, Angela, Bessica and I are all lesbians, although none of us are involved with one another. Sure, we have all had little flings with each other over the years, sometimes more than once, but unlike our iron-bonded friendship, romantic connections just have never stuck.

I am definitely more introverted than the others, even Angela who, despite her blue hair and freaky facial tattoo, is really quite shy and submissive. Often, I would much prefer a quiet night in to recharge my batteries, than a disappointing night in a loud bar. I could not even guess how many Saturday lunches I have spent listening to tales of drunken horror stories followed by “So, Saint Ynnym, what did you do last night? Masturbate?” And after I boldly answered in the affirmative, I would savor a silent victory, confident that my solo manipulations had led to a much, much more satisfying time.

And that is how I got my nickname, “Saint Ynnym” - my seeming disinterest in finding a romantic partner - this illusion that I am not interested in coupling. Well… I guess that I do prefer self pleasure when you come right down to it. Sure. Sex with another woman is awesome, but  I’ve never met anyone who could give me an orgasm that exceeded those that I could give myself. One day I’ll find someone, I’m sure. But, I’m OK with doing myself. I’m good at it. I like it. It’s relaxing. I can get off quick as a rocket or go all night. I am in complete control. It’s really good.

“Yes,” I said with practiced confidence. No need to deny it here. “I am the most accomplished masturbator among us.” The others just nodded their heads quietly.

“Excellent,” Mme. Lucette said. “I have a marvelous experiment for your participation, if you wish.”

I looked at the other girls for a second. “Sure. That’s why we are here, right?”

“Good. Come with me,” Mme. Lucette said motioning with her finger.

“No, no, no! She prefers to come alone!” Caroline said just a little too loudly.

“Ah! You are a funny girl, chatte cheri” Mme. Lucette said, though she did not laugh. I glanced at Bessica as I stood to leave and we both rolled our eyes.

Mme. Lucette, once again barefoot, led me through a large, heavy door out of the living space and into the hospital. I tried to remember the path that we took, but the route was very circuitous - up stairs, through locked doors, around corners. I quickly lost all sense of direction. I cannot even confirm whether we were above or below ground.

At one point, we traveled through a straight, narrow corridor lined on both sides by closed doors, each with small barred windows to allow staff to look in. Even then, each door had a steel plate that could be swung over the window, a final sealing to isolate the room completely.

Mme. Lucette must have noticed me looking towards the windows as we walked, trying to see what each room held. Ahead of us, I saw a door from which light poured through the small barred window projecting a grid of black shadows on the far wall.

“Oh, dear,” Mme. Lucette said, gently placing a hand on my shoulder, stopping me well before I would be able to glimpse through the glass. She then went to the door and pulled the steel plate into place, latching it for good measure.

“Come, petite tatuo,” she said and we continued down the hall.

“We don’t have as many patients as we did long ago,” she stated. “Once these rooms were filled. Treatment plans have improved and psychotherapy has developed into a more respectable science. These rooms are rarely used anymore.”

“But, they are still used occasionally?” I asked.

“There are circumstances when they are useful.” Madame Lucette was turning a key in a lock at the end of the hall, waving me through and pulling the door to behind us with a loud, ominous knelling.

It must have taken us ten minutes to arrive at the “lab” - a dark room with various desks lit with bright white LED spotlights which had the tendency to leave the unlit places even darker. In the shadows, tubes, conduits perhaps, descended from the gloom above to various machines like alien tentacles.

“If you will, take off your clothes please.”

I had expected to be signing a number of documents before participating in the experiment. There were none. This was not a US government funded study. This was simply to satisfy some question in Mme. Lucette’s head. She promised to let me know of any conclusions that she derived, though I’m not 100% sure what questions she was posing.

I suppose that I may be sounding flippant and naive to so willingly submit to such an intimate examination without legal safeguards. But this wasn’t the US. This was Bessica’s family which makes it like my family. I must admit, still, I did do a bit of research on my own after I had promised Bessica that I would participate in her aunt’s experiments. I googled Mme. Lucette and found that her CV hosted an impressive collection of research papers in all the most respected journals dating back 30 years. A quick check in CiteSeer produced pages and pages of other papers that cited Mme. Lucette’s work. She is definitely internationally respected in her field. So much so that I began to fantasize that my participation in these experiments would likely help improve all women’s understanding and enjoyment of their bodies.

Besides Mme. Lucette had something about her that made you want to do everything in your power to help her.

“I would like for you to masturbate for a long time,” Mme. Lucette explained. “Hmmm… five hours, maybe? But, no orgasms. I want you to try to stay as close to the edge as you can for the whole time. Is it possible?”

“Sure,” I said. Five hours. I’ve probably done it before.

“I want to monitor you. Are you claustrophobic?” she asked me as I folded my sun dress and placed it on a nearby desk.

“Oh, no! I am not at all,” I responded. “Actually, I am a bit of a claustrophile… or whatever you call it. I kind of like tight, dark spaces.”

“Oh! That is very helpful. I need for you to be inside this machine so we can produce a record of what is going on physiologically, chemically, mentally.” She pointed to a large metal structure that looked like a cargo container. There was a small opening at the top of a series of metal steps. The opening was bordered by a thick rubber gasket and could be sealed by a heavy metal plate set upon hydraulic arms. “Beccisa says that you all have experimented with a bit of bondage as well. Do you find it arousing?”

“Oh, yes!” I said.

“More specifically…” (OK. I love the way that word slid off her tongue with her French lilt and all.) “…does bondage play a part in your fantasies while you are masturbating?”

“Umm… Actually, I would say it is more of a requirement,” I responded determined to be as forthright and professional as possible. My panties dropped to the floor and I stepped out of them.

“Ah! Is that so? That will help a lot with our experiments. I do not wish to study fear,” Mme. Lucette explained as she opened and closed drawers at a metal workbench, rattling through the contents as she did. “At least not directly. Here we are.”

She turned and when she looked down on me I started to feel a little nervous. I pulled my arms up to cross them over my breasts. I glanced at my clothes.

“These rings will act as markers,” Mme. explained holding up an oval circle of metal. “I think that I have your sizes correct.” She pulled out a key, inserted it into the metal ring, which when she twisted the key, the ring sprung open. “Your wrists, please.”

My hands were shaking when I held them out. I felt my skin flush suddenly. Mme. Lucette wrapped the cold metal around my wrists one at a time. After the second was locked she held my hands in hers, smiling reassuringly. “These devices look very much like cuffs. They have an entire array of sensors in them to help monitor your vitals during the experiment.” She paused, looking into my eyes so intensely that I had to look away after a second. “I am hoping that the bondage appearance will enhance your experience.”

She pushed each of my arms to my sides and then lifted them away from my body and let her eyes slide from my breasts down - a path that she retraced shortly with a fingertip forcing me to jump a bit with a small yipping sound. Goose bumps erupted across my stomach and along the outside of my hip as her finger slid down. She knelt before me and by the time she reached my knees she was using both hands, sliding them around to the backs of my calves, stopping and squeezing lightly when she reached my ankles.

“Good,” she said. And though I was happy that I was pleasing her in some way I was not entirely sure what she found that inspired her to comment.

She fitted a cuff around each ankle. Once again, the cuffs were tight and perfectly sized for me. I felt a bit of a lateral pressure and when I looked down past my breasts I saw that she had a finger looped through a D-ring on my right ankle cuff. “No need to link these today,” she said.

She slid her soft hands back up the outside of my legs, resting them on my hips. She raised herself on her knees and looked directly at my crotch. The sudden attention made my muscles in that area start to throb slightly. Arousal. She passed her right hand over my pubic bone with the softest touch as though she were brushing stray lint from my pubic hair sending a shiver quavering up my spine, my breath audibly bursting forth.

Mme. Lucette stood and raised her hands to my neck, grazing my breasts as she moved. “One more ring for today,” she said reaching back to her worktable. The cold metal wrapped snugly around my neck and clicked audibly as it locked. “These markers will help the machines know which end is up,” she said with a slight tug on the D-ring positioned at my throat for emphasis. “Let’s start the experiment, my beautiful Ynnym.” I felt a bit faint. God, I loved the way that she whispered my name.

She had me drink a chalky liquid that tasted vaguely of strawberries. It was supposed to improve the imaging resolution. Before I knew it I was crawling, a small, soft towel in my hand, up the metal steps, though the opening and into the belly of the machine.

After the door to my container sealed an array of soft lights flickered to life around the periphery. If I were to sit with my back straight, my head would touch the top of the cavity. I had to crawl and roll over onto my back to position my head on a soft headrest, gently arraying the towel underneath my hips as I did. The base of the cavity was made of some sort of foam that seemed to conform to my back slowly, but once it did, felt very supportive, warm and comfortable. I shifted and arched my back, thrusting my breasts out, clenching and releasing muscles as I relaxed.

A touchscreen device was suspended by retractable arms directly above me. The screen displayed a list of fetishistically inclined keywords: packaged, pet girl, piercings, etc. When I touched a word a list of titles and summaries appeared on the screen - each title a fictional work of erotic fantasy.

As I tapped through the menus with my left hand, I let my right slide from my breast across my abdomen and down between my legs. I pushed my middle finger past my labial lips and felt the moisture that had built up there.

Damn! I was horny as hell. I thought perhaps that I should go real quick, the first one, then I would be able to go long and slow. No. That would be totally unprofessional. I smirked. “Unprofessional.” I’m getting paid to masturbate - a paid masturbatrix. I am a professional now.

I found a story that really captivated my attention. It was about a woman who found comfort and safety being restrained in a coffin and buried underground. It was a delicious fantastical extension to a feeling that I have utter empathy for. The story made me swoon. As I read, I would absently stroke my sex, pushing harder as the plot evolved, backing off as my arousal grew towards the edge of orgasm. The woman hooked herself to life support and committed herself to be buried in her coffin for three weeks. She watched her fate evolve as she was lowered into her grave with rebar packed around her. I nearly lost myself as cement began to flow around the coffin and began to set. Of course, as she executed her plan to escape she ran into a few kinks (pun intended).

I was sad to reach the end of the story. It had been a nice long one, and I felt that I had been able to maintain a high level of arousal. I felt certain that I was performing to Mme. Lucette’s expectation, though I had no idea what they were.

I eagerly tapped around for another story after I had finished the first, rubbing harder as my concentration wandered simply to keep my level of arousal high. I was thinking that it’s crazy how such unpleasant, dark fantasies can bring forth such intense feelings of arousal. What would it be like to be trapped in a coffin, restricted by metal restraints, unable to move? Certainly, the fantasy of the situation made me delirious with desire.

I looked around the cavity of the machine in which I lay. The space was much bigger than a coffin would be. I could sit up. I could not quite reach from one wall to the opposite. There was several feet of distance between my head and the machine wall. And the hatch wall, more than a few feet beyond my naked pointed toes which I flexed back and forth enjoying the contraction of muscle, mesmerized by the way the periphery lighting flashed off the surfaces of my ankle cuffs - off the D-rings embedded in the cuffs.

As I lay surveying my small world, I suddenly noticed an identical D-ring anchored in the corner near my left foot. It was the same gauge metal. It’s milling was the same. In fact, there was another D-ring in the corner by my right ankle. I sat up a little and looked all around me. There were D-rings throughout the cavity. Theoretically, these rings could have chains attached to them which in turn may be attached to a participant wearing appropriate cuffs (such as myself, I suppose) in order to control their ability to move.

I had to back off the rate of my personal manipulations just a bit as my sex seized with arousal suddenly - the fantasy of restraint tipping me too quickly towards climax. I lay back and rested for a moment. They had applied no chains to my cuffs, so such restraint was not in my cards. But what if I were? I had to lie still to keep from passing the threshold of orgasm for a minute or two searching for less erotic thoughts with which to distract myself.

I laughed quietly to myself as I started to think about the whole setup. I was getting paid! It’s crazy that I am getting paid to participate in this experiment. Even as a lay in this small container, Mme. Lucette’s machines were monitoring all aspects of me - my chemical balance, my brain waves, my heartbeat, my temperature and blood pressure.

As I started scanning for a new story once again, I found myself imagining Mme. Lucette with a hand on her hip, her bare toes sticking out under the hem of her dress, casually adjusting knobs designed to manipulate me, express me, enthrall me, debase me. Oops!

Careful, Ynnym. I must have been in the machine for almost two hours by now. Still a long time to go.

I found a new story that really appealed to my senses - a classic genie-in-a-bottle story. The woman who found the bottle became sympathetic to the genie’s circumstances and was lured into the bottle where she became mesmerized by the bountiful tables of delicious fruits and drinks as well as the genie’s sexual wiles. She was tricked into partaking of the genie’s sex which happened to be the key to freeing the genie. The woman awoke in the genie’s bed, wearing the genie’s garb. In a fit of smoke she emerged from the bottle, finding the former genie now free to make wishes of her own which she, the once free protagonist, was now compelled to grant. The ex-genie’s final wish was to fit a permanent chastity belt on her newly anointed successor, ensuring that the woman would serve as the bottle’s genie until the end of time.

I weathered that story quite well, applying pressure and friction at the perfect speed to keep my blood near boiling. The towel upon which I lay had become quite wet. I looked around my small, silent cavity imagining myself as the genie trapped for an eternity in a small bottle, aroused (as I was) but kept from climaxing. The dim light flashed reflections from the cuffs locked around my wrists. I reached for my collar, my fingers drenched and dripping from my secretions as they brushed across my soft abdomen and taut nipples.

I pushed against the hard metal of my collar and pulled the ring at my throat. These cuffs, this collar - no different than the jewelry adorning the genie… I let out a swooning exhalation.

I started tapping around for a new story.

Suddenly, the sound of scraping metal pierced the peace of my safe, silent haven - startling me - sending my heart into overdrive for a second. My eye caught a bit of motion in the shadows down by my feet and I realized that something had been deposited into the cavity with me. I shuffled around to see what I could find, struggling a bit when I fought the foam that had so well conformed with my supine position. There was a beaker with a note pleading me to drink the chalky mixture within. Also, there was a bedpan.

“Hello?” I said. I’m not sure why I felt the need to call out, but I did. And because, there was no answer, I found that felt I should try harder. “Hello?!” I felt a strong need for Mme. Lucette’s calm voice. Certainly, she must be just outside the machine.

“Bon jour?” I screamed more loudly, butchering the pronunciation, no doubt. What the fuck do I know about French? My voice sounded muffled and muted even to me. And, still, there was no answer. Mme. Lucette was probably monitoring the experiment. Maybe it was one of her Salvadoran helpers. “Hola?”

“Of course,” I thought to myself. “The sound proofing is so good they probably can not hear me at all. Of course.” I sat back looking around the inside of my box. I have no idea what I expected to see. I guess I was looking for a microphone of some sort. They were monitoring so many more of my vital signs, certainly they were getting an audio recording as well. Then I started wondering if I had been moaning at all. For the first time I think I felt a tinge of embarrassment.

I did not think that it had been five hours yet, so I decided that I shouldn’t be too concerned. I flicked the bedpan with my finger. The plunk sound was quickly eaten by the space. Luckily, I had no need for the bedpan. I had sufficiently emptied my bladder before we began and I have a bit of skill at holding it pretty well. It seemed like it would be kind of nasty to be stuck in a confined space with a pan full of stinky pee anyways. Then again, I decided that the machine must be well ventilated. Otherwise, it would reek by now with the musky scent of sex. As it was, I barely noticed any smell at all.

They say that the olfactory sense is most able to filter out a smell over time. I held my fingers to my nose. No. I could smell sex on my fingers quite distinctly. I would have tasted them in the privacy of my own bed. But, I was being watched. I guess there is a limit to the depth of my depravities that I am comfortable to display.

I realized that I had lost the edge of my arousal. I chugged the chalky liquid stuff (“Blech”), straightened out the (somewhat moist) towel beneath my back end and lay back again, pulling the touch screen towards me. I let my fingers breeze up and down my abdomen a few times, relaxing, letting goose bumps flash across my skin then pushed the base of my right hand on top of my sex. I wiggled my chest from side to side settling into the soft pad beneath me. Letting it pull me in and hold me. I probably had another hour or so to go. I pressed a finger on either side of my clit and began to wiggle them from side to side.

I finally settled on a story called “The Box”. I guess it seemed fitting. It was about a woman who awoke in a 15 foot square doorless cell where she was kept and conditioned by a series of flashing lights, simple tones and tactile feedback to learn to forget all else except to love and worship her new Mistress. After months of isolation and conditioning she emerged like a butterfly happy and prepared to live a life of sexual servitude for a beautiful woman.

I don’t know why, but in my mind’s eye the mistress in the story looked exactly like Mme. Lucette - the long, dark wavy hair, the shining pale skin, the suggestion of curves beneath her long column tank dress which flipped seductively from side to side as she walked, her long narrow toes, painted and polished, peeking from beneath the hem.

My eyes were closed. I was thinking of going over the edge. It surely had been more than five hours by now. Then I heard a muffled popping sound and, even behind my closed eyes I could tell that my world went dark.

I sat up quickly banging my head on the touch screen. My eyes were now open wide gulping at the darkness around me, searching for a ray of light to etch out an image. But there was nothing. The darkness was complete. My sex clenched hard once involuntarily. I thought that perhaps I went over the edge. I felt fluid stream down my inner thighs and my pussy clenched again. I don’t think that it was an orgasm. At the moment though, my heart was racing, wondering about what happened to the lights. My Kegels contracted again, each spasm, less intense.

“Hello!” I cried out, reaching toward the side from which I had entered, knocking over the beaker, blindly thumping my hand against the bedpan with a dull clumping sound.

“Madame Lucette!” I waited again straining to hear some sort of reply, hoping that the door would open any second.

I crawled towards where I thought the door should be until I felt the smooth sides of the cavity of the machine. I knocked a couple of times quietly at first.

“Hello! Is it time to get out of here?” I cried. “Please? Anyone?”

I noticed that my bladder had filled, after all. I might need to pee soon.

I knocked a little louder, with a bit more urgency. “Madame Lucette?!”

I waited in the silence for a moment…

“Hello?! Anybody?!”