She signed

The nib scratched over the paper and Rebecca laid the pen down with a shaking hand, her signatures fairly legible under the circumstances. Her parents witnessed the document and then the doctor stood up and indicated the door with one expansive arm. Acting on impulse, the ginger student suddenly hugged her mother, then her father.

"Now, now," Doctor Grey said placatingly. "You'll all see each other again before you know it. There's no need to worry—we've not lost anyone yet!"

"Mm, sorry," the youngster murmured and straightened, giving a **** smile at the feeble joke intended to diffuse the tension in the room. She preceded the professional out of the office and over to the lifts, where he left her in the capable hands of Nurse Nuala, who was waiting patiently for the patient. He then returned to the parents, whilst the nurse pressed the call button to take her and her charge to the right floor.

"How're you feeling?" She sensed the girl was struggling, like many undergoing the procedure.

"Um, a bit nervous," she admitted, "but really grateful for this opportunity!" Not wanting to sound ungrateful was a constant concern for many young women.

"There's nothing to worry about," Nuala reassured her, hiking up her blue uniform skirt right there in the corridor and pointing to the faint circular outline of an electrode implant beneath the skin of the tip of her clitoris. "Perk of the job," she explained, smoothing her skirt back down with a smile, just as the lift arrived.

The two young women entered and Nuala pressed the button for surgery.

"What's it like?" The student had asked that question on many a discussion forum whilst researching the operation, but this was the first time she'd met somebody who had undergone it in the flesh.

"It makes you feel very ****," was the thoughtful reply. "It's so easy, effortless really, for anyone to give you the most horrendous punishments. You'll never again get off with a light one because a man can't be bothered. You won't forget it's there, but you can't feel it unless you try, or you're getting a shock, of course. Then you certainly feel it."

They arrived on the desired level and the nurse led the way to another office, this one smaller with no external windows, just a desk, a filing cabinet and a set of lockers.

"Alright, if you wouldn't mind taking off your clothes and shoes and putting them in this locker, while I go over the procedure with you one last time."

Rebecca started to undress mechanically, used to stripping in front of strangers for punishment. Of course, she was already familiar with what would happen, having read everything she could find on the internet. First, a cap would be fitted over her head, so the doctors could see how her brain was responding, then she would be strapped naked onto the operating table and intubated whilst conscious. She would remain awake and able to feel pain throughout, so that they could use her brain readings to accurately place the electrodes to cause maximum suffering when activated.

The breathing tube would be required, because of muscle relaxants administered by the anaesthetist to stop her moving when the six inch long cauterizing needles were driven through the meatus of her clitoris, but first she would be brought to orgasm repeatedly, to make her clit hypersensitive and the readings of her brain easier to interpret. Test shocks would be sent between the needles to allow the surgeon to identify the most sensitive location for the electrodes, which he would then insert through the hollow needles. Finally, the electrodes would be tested and the patient sent to recovery. The incisions were so small that they wouldn't need any further treatment and barring complications, she would be able to leave the same day.

By the time the nurse had finished regurgitating the explanation taken almost word for word from the hospital website, Rebecca was naked, slightly less self-conscious than she would have been if a man had been present, but still embarrassed by her shapeless body in front of a woman she regarded as much more attractive. Had she known the nurse also harboured similar dissatisfaction with her own figure, she would not have believed it.

"Would you like to see how the device attaches?" The nurse finally departed from the defined script and the patient blushed and nodded shyly. Nuala took a small black box with trailing leads from the desk drawer and hiked up her skirt for the second time. She waved the leads near her sex and one jumped to fasten magnetically onto the tip of her clitoris. She then pushed the other into her vagina, where it also snapped into place. She gave the leads a firm tug and even invited Rebecca to try to pull them off, although she didn't yank too hard out of fear she would hurt the other woman.

Nuala tapped the release button on the black box and the wires fell off instantly. She sucked clean the one that had been inside her body and put the device away, dropping her skirt back into place.

"Any questions?"

"Hmm, well, only one. On your website, it says the procedure is excruciatingly painful, but none of the endorsements mention anything about that and I was wondering why not."

"Oh, well, it involves stabbing red hot needles through your clit, so obviously it does hurt as much as you would expect, but the test shocks afterwards are so much worse than anything else that you pretty much forget about everything that went before. It's like your life is divided into that happy time before you knew what real pain is and the time after your first shock, when you're in constant terror of the next. I think that's why nobody thinks to talk about the pain of the actual operation itself."

Rebecca nodded and thanked the nurse, although the reply had hardly reassured her. After checking there was nothing else bothering her, Nuala led the plain redhead out into the corridor and along to a shower room. As it happened, they did not meet anyone else in the passageway, but even if they had, nude girls were far from rare in this part of the clinic and they would have raised no eyebrows.

The student washed her body and hair with the detergent supplied and then the nurse hosed her down with a spray nozzle. Fresh white towels, slightly warm, came from a cupboard and were sent down a laundry chute after use. The same cupboard also produced a robe and slippers, which covered Rebecca's nakedness on the short journey to the operating theatre to meet the surgeon, anaesthetist and technician, who would be performing the procedure.