✅ A Dose of Humiliation

44. Choosing a Punishment

To our surprise, the envelope Serena had left us with contained three cards. They were similar to the two that I had seen Becker show my parents: slightly larger than a bank card, perhaps the size of some trading cards. Each one was a different colour, with an iridescent gleam that really seemed to highlight just how much the treatment was costing. Did the colours make parents take the decision more seriously? I really didn't know.

One of the cards, I only had to glance at the title to know what it would say. They were the kind of names that had clearly come from some marketing committee. They could have been euphemisms, but ones that you wouldn't be able to see the meaning of unless you already knew of them. Beneath the title, there was a short description of each dose's effects, as well as suggestions for how parents could increase the resulting embarrassment in order to help the punishment lead to a real change of the child's behaviour. I wasn't surprised to see that the Floodgate card recommended not telling them the nature of the punishment, and making the patient admit their own problem in order to get any help. My fist clenched when I read that one. It wasn't just Becker being a jerk, these things had been designed by experts to humiliate someone and take away their sense of independence.

The other two cards had the names Goodnight and Overload. I might have been able to guess what they meant, but I wouldn't have been sure. I wondered if Marcie was going to read them out as we looked at the little pieces of plastic on the table, but somehow that didn't seem right. Even if Serena wanted us to know what was in store for her, it still felt like secret information. So we each took one and read it in silence, before passing it to the next person when we were done.

I almost glanced at Floodgate and handed it to Clint right away; but realised immediately that would be as good as telling everyone what my problem was. So I sat there and read it, although I didn't learn much more than what I had already worked out. The effect would kick in whenever it detected that I was sleeping, apparently determined by measuring activity in some particular part of the brainstem. And when it kicked in, it would disrupt impulses in a couple of nerves. A signal from my bladder to my brain indicating some degree of pressure inside it would be intercepted and sent straight back down another bundle of nerves to the body, causing the urethral sphincter to relax. There was no way a victim could learn to overcome this, because the signals were never reaching their brain. There was a code to scan with your phone at the bottom, giving additional information about how it could interact with other medication, and the enhanced effects that would follow from getting an intensity booster, but I didn't want to look into those. Serena would never be getting a booster in any case, I was sure that she would give up on this curiosity about punishment as soon as she felt what it was actually like.

I might have been gritting my teeth a little as I passed the cards on, wondering how anyone could want to do that to their own children. It was almost beyond belief. And perhaps Nikki noticed my expression, because she addressed me right away:

"That one seems pretty gross, yeah? Over the top much?"

"Yeah, that would be horrible. I can imagine how degrading it must be, that might make me hate myself or something. Or hate whoever did it to me." I hoped I could sound disturbed enough without making it clear I was actually going through that. Just from their expressions when they read that, I knew how quickly I stood to lose their respect. They knew that this was just a punishment, yeah, but even so it would be hard for anyone to take me seriously with that problem.

"At least it wouldn't be public," Marcie said. "I mean, with that one she'd be able to hide it from her friends and nobody would have to know. It would destroy your social life if anyone knew, but most times you can keep something like that to yourself. When I had that lisp... ugh. I know everyone supported me, because you're all awesome. But still, if I had the choice I would have picked something that I could deal with on my own time. So it didn't come between me and everyone else."