Chapter 20
Sealed
I woke up feeling groggy and a bit confused. My dreams had been a strange reliving of yesterday’s events in the bondage dormitory, except Boilerman was looming everywhere – looking into a window, hidden behind a door, under the beds… it felt like the constant switch from fear to arousal to fear again had impeded my rest.
I emailed Margaret to let her know I was going to the Institute directly. The drive there was filled with trepidation, the good feelings of the quite wonderful Saturday evening had been ruined by yesterday’s strange discovery. What was I supposed to do? Pretend nothing happened, play dumb and keep my eyes open? No, that wouldn’t do – I would have to raise the issue. I couldn’t keep going with this shadow looming over my head. At least I had solved the mystery of the pipes Spyder had ranted about.
But first I had to get dressed. I left my jacket and boots in the small locker and headed to the dressing room. After a short wait in line, it was my turn to be stripped naked in the dark, washed by dozens of unseen, latex clad hands, very thoroughly. My turn to be covered in latex head to toe, booted, hooded… completed.
I spent a few moments afterwards calming myself. The entire process – as well as the latex outfit itself – was quite arousing, and I wanted to be focused for the discussion. The task seemed daunting but… easier perhaps, in latex, somehow. I headed to Renee’s office.
“Good morning, Judith, what can I do for you?” she said as I knocked and entered.
“I need to speak with you – and Dr Reed too,” I retorted.
“I see – she has her first therapy session in about 30 minutes, can this wait?” she asked.
“I’m afraid not, this is important” I replied, trying my best to sound serious and hide the distress from my voice.
We entered Dr Reed’s office and I closed the door behind us. Dr Reed sat up, sensing that this was serious.
“Yes? I don’t have a lot of time; I’m reviewing my notes,” she said.
“Very well,” I replied, “I’ll get to the point. I know about Boilerman.”
Dr Reed and Renee looked at each other – it was clear they knew, and I continued, “okay, I know you couldn’t show me everything at once, I understand that now. But when were you planning to tell me? Were you planning to tell me at all? Do you know he has some kind of fuck machine in his room? That some of the patients are seeing him?! That is totally inappropriate! What other secrets is this place hiding?!”
I decided not to name my source – perhaps Spyder knew more, and I didn’t want her to stop talking to me – her information, even if rather cryptic, had been accurate, after all.
Dr Reed sighed deeply. “We knew very well that you would find out sooner or later. We’ve tried to stop the patients from seeing him, but a few seem drawn to him. This may sound hard to believe, but in some ways Boilerman is a very kind man, if one with deeply disturbed priorities. His true desire is that everyone became heavy rubber fetishists, and the Baron provided him with a way of realizing this dream. By the time he truly understood what was going on, it was too late.”
Huh. I wondered why he hadn’t told me this… he could have used it as an excuse, but he hadn’t.
She continued. “I do share your concerns. If word got out of this, it could cause a scandal, a scandal we don’t need. We’ve taken steps to ensure that the few patients who are seeing him are not in any way coerced. They seem to be genuinely pleased with the situation… He seems to offer a vibe, a hint of danger perhaps, that draws them in. You can speak with them if you wish, although I will first have to get their consent to disclose this information to you, it is rather private.”
I frowned – she was right, but it felt like a delaying tactic. “But what about justice? He knows the Baron’s identity, but won’t he share it – he’s protecting him! And he was certainly involved too.”
Dr Reed said. “Justice would be nice. Very nice. But … that’s not our job. We’re here to help the patients. That’s our priority, not justice.”
Renee added. “I was here maybe a week after the discovery of this place. It was a chaotic mess, and the patients were dying. Boilerman knew what to do. Without him, who knows how many more would have died? I needed him, his knowledge, his assistance, far more than he needed to be punished.”
“Also, we decided not to tell you at first because he’s not that important in the grand scheme of things. That, and his intense desire to rubberize others can be quite off-putting. Oddly enough, since you’re into latex now he’s probably more pleasant – he wouldn’t feel that drive nearly as much.
I rubbed my temples. They were right, but I still felt this sense of betrayal. “Are there any other terrible secrets you haven’t found the time to tell me yet?” I asked sharply.
Once again, Renee and Dr Reed looked at each other, and Renee replied “I don’t think you’ve met every patient yet, and as you know, some of them have been affected by the Baron’s treatment much more seriously than others – Amber is a good example, although she’s not the worst, alas.”
I thought about Amber and how she probably would never recover full mobility due the Baron’s reckless use of muscle paralytics on her as part of his twisted schemes, or how Elizabeth had essentially been mutilated, or A Doctor’s lost identity. “There are worse?!”
Dr Reed looked glum, but Renee got up. “Come with me. I will bring you to her – she’s the worst off by far. We can talk about this later, but Dr Reed really does need to get ready.”
I nodded sharply and followed her. “She’s normally on the second floor of the south wing…” said Renee.
A few minutes later, Renee said quietly “Ah, here she is.”
On the ground, a feminine figure clad in what looked like a tight but very thick catsuit was crawling on the ground. “I… I think I saw her before, the first day I got my outfit, but it didn’t fully register” I said, as I examined her with greater attention.
It was clear she couldn’t see anything and probably wouldn’t be able to hear very well with the thick rubber – no micro-perforations there. I also saw that her arms ended in a sort of ball – ball mitts I later learned – and her feet were covered in a thick, vaguely “foot like”, rubber shape. It didn’t seem it would have been possible to walk, or grab anything, with her outfit. Her waist was dramatically narrow - 16 inch, I later learned - although I couldn’t see a corset.
Renee said, “It’s much worse than it looks”. I heard a tremor in her voice, and I looked at her with alarm – I had never seen Renee been taken aback by anything. She continued. “This is patient 54. We call her Seal – because she’s truly sealed in. We know very little about who she was before.”
“Truly sealed in? What do you mean? No one can wear latex 24/7, I’ve been told this more than once,” I replied as I kept examining her. She did have a sort of “backpack” – a series of blocky structures on her back, as if she had several older chilling units. Various tubes were plugged in the devices, a few were plugged in her hood, more into her torso… were some of them carrying blood? What was this contraption?
“We don’t know if the Baron did this to punish an enemy, or if this was a random victim. But yes, she is sealed in. To solve the issue of skin incompatibility with latex, he had her skin removed” she replied in a haunted tone.
“WHAT?! How!?” I replied, horrified.
“The inside of the suit has apparently some kind of coating that makes it compatible with flesh – it’s a replacement for her skin. There are a number of layers, the thick outer one protects the inner one. But without skin, her sense of touch is mostly gone,” she continued as I looked on, too taken aback to say anything.
“It’s not the only organ that was removed. You see those devices on her back? Replacement organs. One of them is a blood oxygenator – she has no lungs and thus cannot speak or smell. There is another that supplies her blood with nutriments. A micro dialysis machine. So no lungs, no kidneys, no digestive system, she’s fed via IV. We also believe her eyes and portion of her auditory system were removed. Without this suit, she would die.”
“I…” I backed up a bit and leaned against the wall. This couldn’t be real. But looking at Renee’s face, I could see this was no sick prank.
Renee continued, her voice hollow. “I think she may be the loneliest person on the planet. She’s completely isolated. We believe that the Baron used her as a guinea pig, in co-operation with some corporations specializing in medical devices. The artificial lungs, used in some COVID cases for example, they were designed with the data obtained here. The skin covering was part of a study for a treatment for deep burn victims – it didn’t lead to anything useful alas. They keep sending us updated models btw, these artificial organs used to be far bulkier.”
“I…” I didn’t know what to say, what to do. I didn’t know what was worse – the notion that the Baron did this to someone as a horrible revenge of some sort, or the notion that the Baron was involved in cruel human experimentation, showing a complete disregard to human suffering. “So … what can we do?” I asked faintly.
“We don’t know,” said Renee, “try to keep her comfortable? We can’t replace her missing organs or skin, we can’t communicate… I know it upsets Dr Reed greatly, our inability to do much for her”.
“What sort of life is this”? I gasped.
“I… we discussed euthanasia, but without her consent, it’s just a fancy name for murder.” said Renee dejectedly.
“The Baron must pay for this!” I said, flailing for some answer, something to do.
Renee smiled sadly “He really deserves it. But every minute we spend chasing justice is a minute we aren’t helping the patients. We have to make them the priority; they have no one else.”
“As for Seal,” she continued, “the only thing we can do, besides keeping her healthy and comfortable, is hope. Hope that one day we find a better solution. The recovery of many patients is a many year process, so … we have to keep trying.”
I nodded glumly and she patted me on the shoulder. “It will work out, somehow. I think you’ve earned a break; this was a pretty heavy morning.”
I thus had an early lunch with River and Red. We spent a number of minutes in silence. As I sipped on a small glass of nutrition fluid, I realized they knew about the kind of morning I had and were giving me room to broach the topic first. I… didn’t know what to say, how to react.
“This… this is messed up,” I said.
Red nodded, and River replied, “I think the worst part is that there is no clear way forward for her. No silver lining. Yes what happened to me was terrible, but I got better, and I still have my future ahead of me. And honestly, I’m pretty happy right now. Seal is… well you saw.”
Red coughed and said “We shouldn’t lose hope. Perhaps we’ll figure something out.” As I looked on skeptically, she continued. “No, it’s true! Dr Reed was telling me this morning about how she’s started a new treatment approach for one of the old drones, based on your conversation with Amber. This is someone who has been in this state for over 20 years!”
River intoned robotically “Yes, the recent progress, thanks to you Judith, is very encouraging. But we can’t get our hopes up too much. It might not work. Some things cannot be undone.”
We spent a few more minutes in silence, which I broke by saying “well… fuck. I’ll have to think about it, maybe something will come to me. But I have to move on. We have a meeting this afternoon?”
River nodded and Red said, “I’m not the biggest fan of meetings, but it will be a welcomed change of topic.” We finished our meals with half-hearted attempts at gossip.
A few minutes later we were in the meeting room. I realized that I could look forward to many, many more meetings in my career, but Red was right, they sometimes could be a welcomed distraction.
After dealing with a number of minor issues, we discussed Patty’s arrival – I hadn’t realized how quickly she had decided to move in, but the end of the month loomed, and I supposed she was eager to get out of that cabin. Her arrival had two main challenges.
First, and perhaps easiest to solve, was logistics. A bedroom has already been prepared and there was plenty of room in the basement to store her stuff. River and Renee would guide and ease her into life at the institute – in a way I had been a practice run, although Patty’s circumstances weren’t quite the same as mine.
The bigger discussion was around her documentary idea. The mere notion of making a film about the Institute and showing it to everyone was difficult to accept, particularly for Renee and Dr Reed who were very privacy focused. As far as they were concerned, if no one in the public thought about the Institute ever again it would make their lives easier.
But I pressed the point. I had done some quick research, and there were rumors of at least one big true crime podcaster considering the Institute Story for a season, which confirmed Patty’s prediction. The story was going to be told, with or without our input. Who knows what they would say, dream up, to make for interesting “content”? Besides, Patty wasn’t “just” a journalist, she too was a victim of the Baron. It was quite likely that many sisters would be very happy to speak with her.
“That’s what worries me,” said Dr Reed, “The sisters may not realize the impact of what they say when seen by outsiders.”
“True,” I replied, “but this isn’t a quick interview edited in a rush. It’s going to be a documentary. There will be plenty of time to tweak it, for review, for input.”
“How will this impact our budget?” asked Red.
“Not too badly,” replied Renee. “We got a generous donation from Michelle, Nadia’s sister. It’s giving us a bit of maneuvering room. There aren’t any spare funds for the film though.”
“I think I can help with that aspect,” I replied. “Margaret believes we can get some funding from the Federal Film Board, that way all we have to pay are the costs for her being here.”
After the meeting finally ended, the sign language class was a welcome distraction. Today the topic was the rather esoteric terms for heels – their length, their shape, the thickness of the shaft – the Institute’s sign language was far more precise than English when it came to fetish items. Normally I would have no hope of retaining this level of detail, but since the sisters were frequently chatting about their gear, these terms were in common use.
I did a bit of paperwork and note taking and headed home. I wondered what other dark secret the Institute would spring on me… and what other experience it would bring.