The firm hands check every strap. She tenderly pats my testicles, laughs in delivering her message of control, then I hear the door open and close.
Why did I come here voluntarily?
I assuage my frustration by mentally returning to Bangkok.
The initial hours and days in four point restraint are the toughest. Muscles accustomed to moving about seem to protest by cramping. The mind suffers in sending unanswered signals to stir. There is, of course, no way to move. The need to scratch overwhelms and to the neophyte, such needs seem to be thrust to the forefront of all thought. The simplest itch can become paramount, overwhelming all other thought.
So though most perplexed about my arrest, I sat in complete frustration, occasionally trying to futilely lift an arm. I could not think clearly in being so thoroughly bound.
When I heard movement I realized that one of the guards had stayed, most probably seated behind in the stuffed chair. As stated, four point restraint mandates constant supervision. So I brazenly called out... to be released, of course.
“Please... just my left arm... only for a moment.”
I used a most timid and beseeching voice. I would kiss the hand that simply loosened the velcro. As stated, a mere child could do it, but I could not.
I received a prompt response.
A cabinet opened and closed. The guard came into view and fingers pinched my nose. When I opened my mouth for air, some type of clamp caught my tongue and was pressed viciously. Then there came a smile and evil giggling as my tongue was forcefully pulled outside my lips and what felt like chopsticks were pressed against the top and the bottom. Then gratefully the clamp was removed. But the result was that the two sticks pinched my tongue such that I could not return it to my mouth.
The lesson... no talking. The woman silenced me without saying a word in rebuke. She just immobilized my tongue as she had my limbs.
This made drinking difficult, but every hour, at least it seemed like every hour, I was forced to imbibe. Much was spilled with my tongue made useless. But the woman was patient, obviously having clamped and secured many tongues. The water was dribbled to the back of my throat, where I learned to allow it to collect then open my gullet, swallow, and take a deep breath before the flow resumed.
Yes, control. It was all about control. All was taken from me as I found myself being fed liquids like a sick child.
And of course, water leads to other needs. Bladder control was the next lesson after silence. For though the urge became intense with the hourly infusion of liquids, urination was at the whim and under the strict supervision of the guard.
I learned to pee in a basin... whenever commanded. And sometimes, just as the police officer had done in the back of the patrol car, there was needed a brisk swat to my penis to promote detumescence.
Tender hands would hold my manhood as I felt and heard my flow splash into the basin below. One guard turned the process into entertainment... suddenly commanding me to stop... which I of course did upon feeling the prongs of the cattle prod... and then I was commanded to begin again. This mentally placed me in a funk. Hours and hours of silence and boredom punctuated by abject humiliation and the threat of even more agony.
I have no idea how long I remained in the chair. At the changing of my guard, each new arrival released a limb, one at a time, and cruelly applied the cattle prod. The surge of electricity seemed to instantly awaken the muscles, the body’s natural opiates having eventually put them to rest. And the mind and nervous would thus be reset for another long agonizing journey, the pain accumulating most slowly over the hours.
One must understand that such bondage has a curious effect. Slow and unrelenting pain is the only way to describe the torment... if it can be described. And when one believes he has reached his level of intolerance, it just builds more. Screams for mercy go unheeded of course. I always pictured the guards watching with pleasant looks of amusement sitting most comfortably as the pain forced the most spasmodic lurching. Sometimes there was laughter after a particularly demonstrative bout of wrenching. And over time I came to know which guard was tending based on her reaction to my muffled pleas.
One was particularly taunting. In recognizing that I was near to passing out and a brief release was overdue, she would talk, in her limited English.
“We wait. Five minutes. For me you learn to take for five more minutes. Then maybe I release. If you good. Kiss my hand perhaps.”
She was waiting for my own system to open the floodgate of natural narcotics, of course.
Was this part of the regimen or the guard amusing herself?
For only when it was apparent that release was not necessary was each strap loosened, an arm or leg tenderly stretched, the prod applied, the strap returned and the narcotic effect disrupted so that the march of slow anguish could begin again.
Whatever, I learned to take the prolonged torment. And whether or not it was indeed five minutes, the strap on my left arm would finally be released, and though my tongue remained cruelly entrapped between chop sticks, I would, groveling, crane my neck and try to kiss her hand.
“Ank you... ank you,” was all I could muster with tongue incapacitated.
I would hear her laugh as my dry tongue touched the back of her hand as she evidently lifted it to accept my most humble offer of gratitude.
Then she would pull the arm straight. The aching would be overwhelming as tendons and ligaments that had not moved in what I believe to be hours, stretched in relief. Though it was a good ache, I knew it would begin the process anew. Still I needed it.
Such a simple deed and such welcomed relief. The momentary absence of pain became pleasure. And that is what I began to live for, the relief of torment. I learned to modify my behavior such that I earned relief. And of course, the only persons who could afford such respites were the cruel Thai women holding me.
Just as facilely as the arm was released, it would be returned to bondage. But the guard was never prompted by my groveling demeanor. They decided the timing. Their knowledge of the body’s merciful reaction to slow torment was impressive. They knew how to counter the natural opiates. I just had to endure.
Unbeknownst to me, the rear legs of the formidable metal chair were attached to hinges. On more than one occasion, after many hours, perhaps days of restraint, I felt myself moving backwards... and I just sat as my head and shoulders went down and my legs and feet went up. The back of my head rested on the cell floor as I looked up into the face of the cruel and intractable woman.