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The French Exchange

By: Praeparvus



My parents divorced when I was 6. I was brought up by my dad, and I did not make it easy for him. I was the classic product of a broken home, as we used to say.

 I became a chronic bed wetter, meaning my dad had to wash all the sheets and bedclothes most days - and this was before many people had washing machines. He took them to a launderette. Why he didn't hit me I do not know. 

If only others had been equally tolerant. The bedwetting continued unabated until I was 19, and was the cause of numerous humiliations. My adolescent years were filled with embarrassments, as I often was sent to stay with friends and relatives to give my dad a break, especially in the long summer holidays. People were so cruel in those days. Especially the mums, and their daughters, the sisters of my school friends. 

The problem reached its climax when I was 18. As a student of French, I had to spend a summer in France on a student exchange. I would stay with the family of Paul Arnaud in a large apartment in the centre of a lovely old town in Brittany.

 It was an old, crowded apartment. I had the little room usually occupied by Paul, who was an English student. He had three sisters - twins Florence and Delphine, 20, and Julie, 23, who shared the adjoining, much bigger room with a balcony. The parents slept in a little curtained-off area next to the kitchen. 

There was a large reception room with huge windows looking across the town to the old cathedral bell-tower. The parents ran a small dance and yoga school which occupied the ground floor of the building, and often Mme Arnaud would give some of her students extra tuition in this lovely room. Many of them also came up here to eat, or to rest, or to find plasters for their blistered feet. Both parents had been professional dancers, a fact reflected in the simple grace and long-limbed elegance of all four of their children. 

 This was the era of UK punk - 1977 - and my French friends wanted to know all about it. They liked to ask me about bands such as the Clash, the Sex Pistols, and the Jam, and about fashion shops in London, and the "punk" choreographer, Michael Clark. For the first time in my life, attractive girls were talking to me as if I was OK, interesting even. 

And in fact, the house was nearly always full of very attractive girls. Most of them were a bit older than me, but I could not help thinking that perhaps I might get lucky: if I could not lose of virginity here, then I might as well give up.

 But then reality kicked me out of such daydreaming. 

On arrival, I had to give Madame Arnaud the tightly folded plastic sheet which I had to take everywhere with me. Usually my unfortunate habit was explained beforehand. But Mme Arnaud looked puzzled at this "gift" (maybe she hoped it was a box of English chocolates). 

She unfolded the sheet and held it up for all to see. A faint smell of stale urine drifted past our nasal membranes.

 "Ah! Je comprends! C'est pour le lit, parce-que tu as un problème, oui? Un problème embarrassant, non?" 

She chuckled and handed the sheet to her elder daughter and told her to put it on my bed. So my six-week stay had got off to an embarrassing start. Things would get much worse, very quickly. 

First night, I was desperately worried about wetting the bed, and went again and again to the bathroom in an attempt to empty my bladder completely. Of course, I was constantly bumping into the girls as they went to and from the bathroom. They always smiled at me. 

The dreaded plastic sheet had been put under a white sheet, so I pulled it out and slept on the plastic, knowing I would probably wet myself that night. I did, but the damage was limited and I was able to hide it. 

After two or three nights, however, the tang of urine was building up and Mme noticed it. She thought maybe a cat had got in and pissed under the bed. Then she noticed some stains on the mattress and sniffed. She looked at me, and I went red in the face. She told me in her not very good English that she knew what I had done and that I had better not do it again.

 Of course, I did, and on the fourth night I flooded the bed. When Mme saw the urine-soaked cotton sheets she was not happy. She caught me on the way to the bathroom and marched me into the kitchen, in my wet pyjamas. She made me stand in front of everyone in this hot kitchen, where the three sisters and two of their friends were eating their breakfast. 

Then she told me to take the pyjamas off, there in full view of everyone. I was astonished, but there was such authority in her voice that I did so, very slowly, very reluctantly. It was sort of ok as I was wearing thick M & S vest and briefs underneath. 

The pyjamas, the sheets, a blanket and pillow-cases all went into the wash. I could already see various female eyes turn down towards my underpants, which were still damp. I could not help but notice the furtive smiles that were exchanged. Then the phone went and Mme left the room: perhaps I had been spared worse embarrassment, for this day. 

No-one seemed too surprised by any of this strange pantomime - like it was just normal. And perhaps in France it was, I thought. Clearly, this family had no hang-ups about undressing in front of each other. 

Delphine kept flashing her brown eyes at me as I sat down to grab my almost cold croissant and huge bowl of black, dusty coffee. I had to go to the college that day to find out my duties - I would be doing English conversation classes with younger kids through July. 

Apart from these things, all went well, and I was beginning to enjoy my stay in this lovely old town, filled as it was with friendly young people who - unlike their English counterparts - seemed to find me quite interesting, and certainly worth getting to know. 

 Two nights later - a Friday night, after much drinking, and with the apartment now full of the sisters' friends - I wet the bed again. Seriously, catastrophically.

 I was woken by the sound of girls' shrill chattering out in the street. It was 8.30. I lifted my aching head and saw the urine dripping through the thin mattress onto the wooden floor beneath my single bed. I went to get a cloth to clean up, knowing Mme would not be so happy, to say the least. 

 Alas, my search for mops, in a pair of borrowed pyjamas, again soaked with pee, alerted the ever vigilant Mme. She bustled into room, nose twitching. She saw the stains, she saw me hiding my wet patches in shame, she sniffed the air, she mumbled something like "Cochon!" 

She ripped the soaking sheets off the bed and thrust them in a bundle into my arms. Again I was marched into the kitchen. This time it was much busier. Delphine and Julie were making pancakes for their friends. Everyone was in a state of dishabille, there were a few heavy hangovers, and plenty of brightly coloured knickers flashed under not quite long enough t-shirts. 

If I wasn't in the role of sacrificial victim, I would have been enjoying the view.

 "Bonjour!" shouted Delphine. "What is it? You are wet again? You think my English is improving, yes?" 

The mother snarled something in staccato French, I hadn't a clue what she said but it caused most of the people in the room to go quiet, and then to giggle. 

Again she made me stand in the middle of the room. Then she asked me in French to explain what had happened - why my pyjamas and bedclothes were wet - in French, to all present.

 My command of the language was not quite up to it. I blushed and said something like: "Je suis desolé madame, mais je sais que je suis mauvais, et sue j'avais mouille le lit, pour le deuxième fois, bien sur je doit nettoyer votre lit et...et..." 

Mme was clearly enjoying this new opportunity to indulge her cruel streak. Some of the girls were giggling but she told them to stop. She took the sopping sheets out of my hands and place them in the kitchen sink. She led me to the sink, then grabbed me by the neck and pushed my head, my face, down into the stinking sheets. 

She was literally rubbing my nose in my own mess. I was now enduring the humiliation I had not suffered since another parent's attempt at aversion therapy (for which read sadism) at age 12. Except that now I was 18, and was being humiliated in front of an audience of beautiful young women. 

She pulled me back out of the sink, and gestured for me to take off my pyjamas. When she had the soaked pyjama bottoms off, she rolled them into a ball and again pushed them into my face. Then she told me to take off the underwear. This was not believable. She said it again in broken English, adding, "vite, vite!" 

I was stammering some attempt at a reply, but before I could think she yanked at my vest. 

When I resisted she grabbed both my wrists with one hand, lifted my arms above my head, and with her other hand pulled the vest up and over. I could not believe her strength: I was incapable of freeing my hands from her grip. 

Then she began tugging my pants down, smacking my hands away as again, I tried to resist her. I twisted around so that least I would only be exposing my plump white bottom to the now strangely silent audience. Were they shocked? Were they not feeling sorry for me? Why did they not stop this mad woman? 

There was a knock at the door. Salvation, I thought. Mme could not possibly continue with this torture now. Maybe it was the police? 

But no. Florence went to the door and opened it. It was Mme's Saturday morning yoga class. In all the excitement she had forgotten it was 9am, and about ten students - mostly young women in the 20s and 30s, it seemed - had arrived for their lesson. They had all changed into their gym-wear and wondered where Mme was. 

 She ushered them all into the kitchen, which was now packed, and told them they would have to wait a couple of minutes because she had to teach the English student an important lesson. She told them to pay attention, as well - as if she needed to: they were all staring at this pale apparition clutching the front of his baggy wet underpants, and whispers began to circulate. 

 Mme again tried to pull my pants down. Foolishly, I managed to elbow her hard in the stomach - an unwise move, as it turned out. This was just what she needed - an excuse to retaliate with all her strength, and it was considerable. Inflamed, she ripped the pants down with great force. She gave my now exposed buttocks a sharp, stinging slap, then picked up the pants and held them with forefinger and thumb like you might hold a decomposing rat by its tail, and dropped them in the waste-bin.

Then she pushed me over to the sink again, found an old dish cloth, and some soap, and told me to wash myself all over. Of course, I could not do that, as it mean moving at least one of my hands away from my front. So she angrily began scrubbing me with this horrid cloth, first my neck and chest, my back, my bottom, then spun me round, rubbing hard at my flabby stomach.

 My hands were firmly closed over my crotch. She tried to prise them apart, but I held firm. So Mme gave my knuckles a hard rap with the back of spoon. Agony. And again. Agony again. She raise the spoon for a third blow - and before it came, I loosened my hands. Strong hands pulled at my elbows - my strength gave way.

 I felt the cool air on the parts of me that had know been exposed, I felt those parts shrinking. There was a sudden, absolute silence, it seemed to last for aeons. Then came one or two snorts of suppressed laughter. Then the gasps came, gasps in French of course, followed by the little explosions of young female French laughter, disappointed laughter perhaps. 

Because what they now could see, white and hairless, bouncing around on its tight little sac, was not at all what they were expecting or perhaps hoping to see. 

She swung me round. I felt the warm air of the bread oven, I felt the acidic tingling of the urine on my skin, I felt the coarse cloth rubbing up and down, pushing and probing around the tiny proboscis, pushing back its loose skin, revealing its tiny, shiny pink head, pulling back the skin, job done, then rubbing over the tiny pouch and rubbing between my thighs. 

 The attention caused this little thing to stiffen to its full hardness, a proud little soldier, the length and almost the thickness of a disposable cigarette lighter, but slightly upwardly curved. There was more laughter now, less inhibited, as some of the girls started making that international finger and thumb signal to each other - the finger tip two inches, no less, from the thumb tip - no, less, one inch! 

And yes, all was now exposed, in all its smallness and quivering impotence: the source of all my shame, absorbing the powerful gaze of the assembled breakfasters. But now clean, quivering in the French kitchen warmth, the smells of coffee and croissant and the delicious perfumes of this noisy cluster of girls. 

Even in my deepest shame I felt they were a better audience than perhaps their English equivalents would be. They seemed to be quite able to take in such sights. They were enjoying this, but not in a terribly cruel way, unlike their mistress. 

Mme made a little speech for my benefit. She explained that this shaming would stop me ever doing that dirty thing again, but that if I did the shaming would be repeated and made worse. 

Then I was made to put on a pair of small white cotton pants, with a delicate little satin bow at the front. They fitted me perfectly. There was another polite round of applause and then the yoga class went downstairs for their lesson. 

The rest of my stay in France was spent in the knowledge that every female in that town knew the story of my shaming in great detail. After the initial burning shame of the exposure, I came to accept what had happened - and it was here that I learned the bittersweet appeal of absolute worthlessness. How, as a male, I could do nothing to satisfy a female except by obeying her every command, and always failing, always. 

Of course, I continued to wet the bed - and took the punishment. Mme once said she would beat me with her slipper if I did not stop ruining her bedding, and on another occasion she announced that she would cut off my little pee-pee with her big kitchen scissors if I did not stop. She once found a large wooden clothes peg and clamped it onto the little stub, much to everyone's entertainment. 

But it did not stop me bedwetting. Every morning, I awoke to sopping sheets and the stench of ammonia. Every morning, I awoke to the soreness of my chafed nether regions. Yet, every morning I also felt a sharper and sharper tingle of delicious expectation - what new humiliation would the ever-resourceful Mme Arnaud devise for me today?

But nothing, it seemed, could cure my bedwetting. Not even the series of ultimate humiliations that awaited me on my final days in France. I will attempt to write about these later, when I feel I can face retrieving the memories, digging them out, after all these years.

Meanwhile, all I can say is that I went back to England, a totally changed character. I became a dedicated Francophile. My sex life did not blossom, of course not. But I had already experienced some of deepest possible forms of sexual humiliation, and I spent much of the rest of my life trying to recapture them.

The French Exchange Ch. 02: The Pain



The first three weeks of my six-week stint in France as a language exchange student had been the strangest of my life, chiefly due to my chronic bed-wetting habit and my distinctly unimpressive anatomy. The second three weeks would be even weirder, and would mark me both physically and psychologically for the rest of my life.

I was staying with the family of a dance-school owner in a picturesque little port in Brittany. I had my own, comfortable room in this tall, narrow town-house - but privacy was not among the amenities I had enjoyed so far, even though, at 18, I was a fully-grown adult - well, in all but one very embarrassing respect.

In fact, as readers of the first instalment of this story will know, I had been subjected to almost daily humiliations inflicted by Mme Arnaud, in a futile attempt to curb my infantile habit. Or rather, I was now certain, as a punishment for being an inadequate male: the last thing Mme wanted was for me to stop wetting myself, because if I did, she would lose her excuse for tormenting me.

My position was strange and difficult. The work side of my trip was going quite well: each day I gave English conversation classes to large groups of French teenagers at the local college, and would have been a popular figure in this little society if it was not for one thing - they all knew about my humiliations at Mme Arnaud's and the sources of my shame.

To cut straight to the harsh facts, I was forced, each morning, to remove and wash my soaking wet bed-clothes and pyjamas in full view of the rest of the household, and allow Mme Arnaud to mop me down with a cold flannel while I stood in a tin bath.

The household, I should add, was currently all-female. Monsieur Arnaud and his only son were in London for the summer, so it was Madame and her three daughters, twins of about 20, and one slightly older, who inflicted punishments and observed my shame. 

Often the daughters would have their friends to stay, and they too would take part in the morning ritual. Sometimes even some of Mme Arnaud's classes would stumble into the kitchen just when I was being stripped, or having my nose rubbed in the stinky sheets, or my bottom smacked with a leather slipper because I had disobeyed some order or other.It became a bit of an attraction for the young and not so young women of this pretty little town - something they whispered and winked and giggled about. The dirty Englishman and his tiny, weeny little birdy - his p'tit oiseau. 

The tiny little thing, the size and colour of a piece of cold macaroni, that danced and bobbed around on my walnut-sized scrotum as each blow descended on my plump pink buttocks. How they loved to look at it, especially when it stiffened up to its full two and two-fifths inches, jutting up rudely and almost vertically towards my navel, its peanut-sized pink head straining to poke itself out of the skin and into the clammy air of the kitchen.

People were now signing up for Mme Arnaud's morning yoga classes specifically in the hope of being called in to one of these sessions - and they were nearly always rewarded with an eyeful, and sometimes a Polaroid photo, of a naked, snivelling me. It was always, always, strictly, females only.

Two things changed in the third week. Firstly, five professional dancers from Vietnam, members of a group performing in a local arts festival, came to stay in the house, with their dragon-like minder. There was not really room for them but that did not stop Mme Arnaud collecting the generous payments offered by the regional arts organisation for their board and lodging. The three daughters and I were dislodged from our beds for the week, and a fourth bed - mine - was squeezed into their large room.

Secondly, Mme Arnaud decided to up her campaign of cruelty on me. After breaking the news of the Vietnamese dancers, she told everyone: "Sadly, our English guest has not mended his ways. We have to stop him wrecking our house with his urine, especially now that we are going to have important guests."

"So I have decided that each night, just before bed, he must bring his pot in here and empty his bladder into it, so that we can be sure he is not lying about it. I would like as many of you as possible to be here at 11pm to witness this."

"Our Vietnamese guests will be spared viewing this gruesome spectacle," she added. "However, if, even after this, he continues to wet himself, then he will of course continue to undergo corrective treatment each morning in the breakfast area, in the presence of all guests."

Now, I was approaching the coming week with a mixture of fear and excitement - for I was already learning to extract some strange, twisted pleasure from the depredations I was subjected to. Above all, I adored the way these young French women seemed to find my body rather fascinating and entertaining, and not simply mockable as had been the case back home.

I began to wonder, what on earth are these Vietnamese dancers going to think?I didn't have to wait too long to find out. The minibus arrived that Saturday afternoon, and five petite young women clambered out. They seemed impossibly slender, almost fragile, in their loose-fitting black outfits. All but one had jet-black hair, and they all had that perfect, pale ivory skin. The were talking and laughing quietly among themselves, some flashing shy glances into the window of the house they would stay in.

The French girls in the windows waved and clapped, and some ran down to welcome this exotic party. I was just going out to take my last conversation class of the day and passed the new guests on the stairs. They looked at my 6 ft plus, slightly punk figure with my spiked up hair and made what I thought were appreciative noises. I explained I would be back later and one of them actually smiled and bowed her head!

To be honest, I had never seen such beautiful creatures. I adored the French girls despite the cruelty of their mother, they and their friends were vivacious and funny and clever - some were naughty and very sexy. But these young women from the other side of the planet were - or so it seemed to snooty me - in another league of attractiveness.

On Saturday evenings after classes we often went to the beach for an hour or two's sun and swimming. I always used to hate beaches, but now I enjoyed them. I would wear my old tight speedos, and walk up and down the beach into the sea, in the secure knowledge that everyone on that beach already knew about my shortcoming.In other words, they knew that I had what might now be termed a micro-penis. Because many of them had seen it at Mme Arnaud's, or had been told about it or seen Polaroids of it from their friends or their big sisters.

In the UK I would have been the laughing stock, bullied and jeered off the beach. Here, no-one seemed to mind, everyone was friendly, offered me drinks and spliffs, and wanted to improve their English talking about punk music and so on. 

Of course, I did sometimes notice girls giggling and making that "tiny" gesture to each other with their fingers and thumbs, while boys would also mutter obscenities to each other and tended to ignore me.

Today was different: the Arnaud girls and their friends were not on the beach, they were home preparing the house for their new guests. Mme Arnaud tyrannised over her daughters just as she did me. In most ways they were typical young women, free spirits, rebellious even - but when it came to her, they went quiet, subservient; they conspired in her bullying of me, no question. And I didn't blame them. There was something seriously scary about Mme A.

Back in the house, I quickly learned that I would be sleeping on a thin mat on the kitchen floor. The sisters had taken over my room, leaving their big room free for the five Vietnamese dancers.The dancers were already making themselves at home - very politely asking in French, where the bathroom was, where to buy cigarettes, and so on. One of them, unusually tall by Vietnamese standards, seemed to like talking to me rather than to the French girls. Her name, she said, was Mai, and she came from Hanoi.

We all sat down for a supper, at which Mme Arnaud introduced the dancers and made each of us explain our reasons for being here. When it came to my turn, I started to tell them about my teaching, but Mme Arnaud interrupted me and said - yes, but first you must tell them about your little problem.

I was appalled - surely this was not the time? I mumbled something about my bladder problem and how Mme Arnaud was kindly helping me to overcome it, but I could not make them understand, I fear. Mme asked one them what I was - she said, "he has small balloon?" - and everyone laughed. "Well, he might well have, but the real problem is he pees in his bed every night, so we have to clean him up every morning, and try to help him stop this dirty habit," she said, in very slow French. She reminded me of Mrs Thatcher.

The Vietnamese girls still looked puzzled, but began telling us about themselves - how they were all graduates of a famous dance academy in Saigon, which we now call Ho Chi Minh city, how they'd already danced in Moscow and Havana and Canada and Edinburgh, and how they wanted to show us western imperialists just how good the Hanoi regime was to its young people.

This was the official line, whenever their minder, a reptilian lady in silks, of indeterminate age, who had clearly known Mme Arnaud in an earlier existence, was present. In reality, they were all eager to taste the corrupt but delicious fruit of capitalism, and as they were all in their early to mid 20s, they wanted to do this as soon as possible!

The minder, whose name was Madame Dongh, kept glancing at me, then turned and talked rapidly to Mme Arnaud. I got the feeling she didn't like the look of me; not surprising, given that I was the only "male" in the whole house, and had already been outed as someone who couldn't even control his bladder.

There were some excruciating attempts at singing traditional French and Vietnamese songs, and then the newcomers were told by their minder to prepare for sleep, as they had all been travelling all day, and needed rest. They had exercises at 7.30am downstairs, before breakfast.

Eventually I was left alone with the two older women, who seemed to be catching up on their pasts. They looked at me with disdain: "To your bed in the corner," she barked, pointing to the thin mattress on the floor.

"But first, bring your chamber pot here, and empty your bladder."They had given me a "potty" earlier in the week, which I had used through the night. I still managed to wet the bed, however.I found the pot, and shuffled towards my corner, behind a rough curtain, and prepared to pee.

"Not over there, here where we can see you!" she shouted. "Bring it here!"Again, disbelief. I could imagine urinating in front of Mme Arnaud - I had no dignity left, in her case. But in front of this exquisite Vietnamese lady? Not very pleasant for her, surely?

"Mme Dongh has expressed an interest in your condition. She knows many boys who had the same problem, because of the War. You have no such excuse, however."

I began stammering something, but Mme shut me up, and grabbed the potty: "I will hold it here, at the right height - now, get a move on, or do I have to undress you as well?"

I knew there was no point arguing. I unbuttoned my jeans and began burrowing around in my pants.

At this point I have to tell you something very personal, something only men with very small penises will recognise. We are not good at peeing standing up: it's safer to do it like girls, sitting down.

This is because it is difficult to aim a short penis, especially when it is uncircumcised like mine. Any pubic hair or clothing just makes matters worse - nine times out of ten you will end up soaking your clothes and your legs.

So I burrowed, and pulled, but there was not enough of it to reach out over the thick denim of the jeans. Mme Dongh looked intently at my hands. Her face betrayed not an atom of what she might be thinking about this curious performance, and this pathetic anatomy.

"Better to drop you trousers and pants" said Mme A. "You don't want to soak them as well."

I did as she said, and aimed the tiny stub at the pot. I tried to retract the foreskin enough to expose the head and ensure a good stream, but it had retracted deep into my groin. I released, and a lot of urine sluiced out sideways, hitting my left thigh and Mme Dongh's silk-covered knee.

"Stop you idiot, you filthy brute" yelled Mme Arnaud. "Apologise for this disgusting assault at once!"

Luckily, the Vietnamese lady was over the shock, and was staring very hard at the guilty party - my shrivelled baby shrimp of penis - and she laughed, she pointed at it, and laughed and laughed, putting a hand to her face, doubling up.

And then she said to Mme Arnaud, "Oh, I think we shall have lot of fun with this, what you call it, this thing, this ...this LADY-BOY!"

"Oh yes, we will indeed," snarled Mme Arnaud.She slapped me hard on my my backside, and then she pushed the potty, which had only a little pee in it, into my hands, and told me to get out of her sight. I did as she said, and bedded down on the floor, like a dog, I thought.

I heard the two ladies talking for hours, I could smell cigar smoke, I heard clinking glasses, and then younger voices, speaking a language I did not know but assumed was Vietnamese. And then a blinding light, I was staring into a torch, and felt the bedclothes being pulled off me, and then hands grabbed my feet and - it was Mme Dongh, now dressed in black pyjamas, and three of her dancers, also in black. 

I tried to stand up but more strong hands grabbed my wrists and pulled me back to the floor - there was a lot of chatter, a lot of laughter - a hand made for my pyjama trousers, it pulled at the waistband, down they came, the pants beneath, stained with so many leakages, now took the full glare of the lamp. I looked up to see several faces, most young, one older, staring at my middle. The older lady said something else, then her ivory hand went to my underpants, it grasped and it pulled and it pulled them down enough for all there to see what was beneath, which was nothing much but a tiny slug sleeping on a little tightly-packed pink pillow.

So, my absurd member was being shown off again - this time to a new audience of world class Vietnamese ballerinas, who all shrilled with laughter. One made to touch this thing, but Mme Dongh clapped her hands hard, switched off the light, and shooed them all away.

I was astonished, and could not get back to sleep.I was so uncomfortable. I thought, maybe, just maybe, I could creep onto the soft sofa in the reception area for a while, just to get a couple of hours of good sleep. I bedded down, it had that strange smell that very old furniture often has...I drifted into a crazy sleep, dreaming madly about gangs of Vietnamese women dragging me out of my bed. 

And then I woke, to see the same three Vietnamese dancers, in their pyjamas, staring down at me again. At the same moment I became aware of the wetness all around my middle, and then I remembered where I was: in the public part of Mme Arnaud's household. And I was lying on her grandest piece of furniture, the centrepiece of her reception area, and it had been soaked through by me.Worse still, I had made my bed on a couple of black cotton bags that contained some of the dancers' finest silk costumes - left there late last night by the minibus driver, who'd forgotten to deliver them earlier.

I knew now that I would probably die - that Mme Arnaud would kill me , for splashing her Vietnamese friend's silks, and now for this outrage - ruining her antique chaise longue. And that the dancers would also hate me for spoiling their beautiful clothes. Should I run away now? I looked up at the laughing eyes of these dancers, they had noticed the damp stain on the cushion, they were touching it and smelling their fingers and frowning.

They seemed to think a bit, then they remembered what they had been told last night, and now they exchanged knowing glances, and now they bent low, lifted me off the sofa, and began removing the bags, and cushion covers, efficiently, taking them off to be washed, recovering the sofa with some curtain material found in a cupboard, escorting me out of the way, up to the bathroom - these Vietnamese dancers were on my side!

They did not, however, manage to protect me from Mme A's wrath. As soon as she emerged from her boudoir at 8am, she hurried to the kitchen and inspected my sleeping area. She was surprised to find everything dry. She caught me on my way back from the bathroom - my body clean and clothed, but my pyjamas, of course, still stinky and soaking. 

By getting dressed before breakfast I had broken an unwritten rule. She seemed to be seriously angry about this, and called her daughters. It was Sunday morning. The house was more packed than at any time I had been there. There were no normal classes today, but lots of visitors - including many of the other young Vietnamese dancers (the troupe numbered 30 in all, and they had been billeted at various houses around town) - as well as a few officials and hangers on. I felt sure that Mme would spare me the ritual today. I was so wrong.

For now, it was just me, Mme and the three daughters in the kitchen. She held me by the scruff of my neck and told me I would have to atone for the embarrassment I had caused Mme Dongh last night. She told me that when the Vietnamese contingent arrived for their breakfast at 9am, I was to make a formal apology for defiling her clothing, and I was to invite whatever punishment she saw fit to inflict on me.

Just then, a yell came up from the floor below. Then there was commotion at the door, and Mme Dongh burst in. She was wearing beautiful new silks, but she turned around and pointed to a large wet patch on her bottom - "The ladyboy, he pissed downstair," she said, pointing at me. "He has pissed on the girls' best costumes too."

Mme A looked daggers at me, bustled out of the room, and soon returned, holding her left hand out towards my face."Smell my hand," she barked.

I did. I could smell my own pee on it.

"Lick my hand!"

I did as she asked.

"What's on my hand?"

"Urine."

"Whose urine?"

"My urine."

"Where did I find this urine?"

"On the chaise longue in reception, Madame."

"How did the urine get there?"

"I slept on the chaise longue and wetted it."

"How shall we punish you?"

"I don't know."

"You will find out very soon. And you will have a much bigger audience this time: the whole troupe is coming for our welcome breakfast."

Alas, all of that was true. Preparations began. I was puzzled when she told Delphine and Julie to lower the clothes drying rack that was suspended from the kitchen ceiling, over the stove. What was this new madness?S

She signalled them to stop when it got to about 5 ft above the floor, then she grabbed my wrist and signalled Delphine to take my other wrist. They walked me over to the stove, and pulled my arms towards the heavy old wooden rack. "We need some rope," she said.

"Use silk, it is stronger," said Mme Dongh, handing her a couple of black silk rags or handkerchieves from her sleeves.They quickly tied my wrists to the wooden slats. 

"Lift him!" Mme A snapped. Delphine and Julie heaved at the cords, the pulleys creaked and groaned, but they were lifting the rack high above the table, my arms with it. They pulled harder and I was now having to stand on tip-toe. They pulled again and my feet left the floor, I was swinging in front of the hot stove like a piece of meat.

The rack made ominous creaking sounds, so they let me down a little until I was back on tip-toes. My arms were already aching.

"Excellent", said Mme A. As the Vietnamese dancers filed in from their exercises, she told them to sit around the table and carry on as normal. The sisters served them with coffee and croissants, and everyone moved their chairs around to watch what was happening.




The French Exchange Ch. 03: Resolution



"Silence!"

Mme Arnaud's tungsten-steel voice ripped thought the steamy air of the dining room just after 10pm on one of the hottest Sundays of the summer so far. Even this late in the day the temperature was in the high 20s - but that voice was more than enough to chill me to the bone.

I could tell from the way she was looking at me, that mad smirk, that she was about to announce something to my disadvantage. Around the big table were Mme's eldest daughter, Julie, her younger sister, Delphine, three of their friends from college (Francoise, Maxine and Chloe), and six of the dance academy's star pupils - all of whom had taken part in the grande finale of the dance festival the previous night. Everyone had been drinking champagne and there was a slightly crazy atmosphere in the house.

"We've all had an exciting week with our young Vietnamese guests, and I am delighted to tell you that myself and our six brightest stars here have all been invited on a return visit to Viet Nam next autumn!" Mme A announced. Big deal, I thought.

There was some rather muted applause: I knew that the daughters of the house and their friends were not on the best terms with their parents' dance students, who tended to be a bit standoffish, and terribly aware for their beauty and their talent. Never the less no-one could fail to be impressed by these six gorgeous creatures, stunning even in their civvies with their cheekbones and long necks and exquisite shoulders.

"But I have less happy news as well. I have to tell you that, as we are now back to normal, that my task in correcting the behaviour of our English guest ..." (with hands on hips she swivelled around to cast me a glance) "...will have to be redoubled in vigour, as he has taken advantage of our many distractions over the past few days, and his vile little habit is once again rampant!"

As she was saying this I was sitting, as usual, at a smaller table at the far end of the main dining table - separated, an outcast, perching on a small child's chair, with my back to the rest of the company.

I wanted to shout out that she was lying - I had managed to go three nights without wetting my bedding, thanks to a clever little catheter made by Delphine and Julie. They had had so much fun, finding plastic tubes small enough to fit snugly over my most private part, and to stay on all night.

We had eventually had some success with a plastic disposable syringe, a bit of tape and length of clear plastic tubing. Very much to my discomfort I could now see that this cunning apparatus was being pulled out of a supermarket carrier bag by Mme Arnaud.

We had been found out. She held up the device, which leaked several drops of something onto the table cloth as it untangled.

"He has been using this disgusting thing...", added the fierce Madame, at which she tossed the tubes into the dustbin. "But unfortunately for him, and those who helped him, it leaked onto the floorboards."

The phrase "those who helped him" was a new and shocking departure. So, did she know that two of her own daughters were taking pity on me, behind her back? Would she punish them, as well?

"Of course I noticed the one of father's syringes was missing from his drawer, and I also know that only one person in this house knew they were there. Stand up Delphine, and explain yourself."

Of the three sisters, Delphine had been the kindest and also the bravest - and yet she was also the most afraid of her terrible mother. She was a slight girl with very pale skin, dark green-brown eyes which occasionally flashed defiance, a wide mouth filled with beautiful teeth which occasionally would chew on strands of her long dark brown hair. 

She was a misfit like me, she was disliked by her twin sister Florence (who was very conventional, intolerant and out with her rich but boring boyfriend). But she loved and was loved by their big sister, Julie, the hippy one, 23 years old, my other ally in this weird house of horrors.

I was expecting Julie to speak up in defence of Delphine, to take the blame, to defy this ghastly mother - but she did not. 

Mme Arnaud knew that she still had full power over these two, and she used it, mercilessly. "Delphine, stay there. Julie, you too were involved, stand next to your treacherous sister."

The two girls, who both now looked so young and frail in their flimsy summer clothes, stood next to each other by their mother. Neither looked at each other, nor at me. They both stared down. All the colour seemed to have drained out of them, so that despite their regular sunbathing, their thin limbs looked pale.

"You know what I will do," Mme A continued. "You have seen what I do to our dirty visitor, and I will do the same to you. I will thrash you both, here in front of your friends, just as you were by me not so long ago, that day you were sent home from school."

"You will both lean over the dresser, you will remove your shorts and underclothes and you will receive, each of you, ten stokes on your backsides. I will use my slipper as before, but I will hit harder, as you are now both old enough to receive the full dose."

I could hardly bear to look at my two friends. Delphine was now sobbing, and tears were streaming even down the face of clever, witty, smart, sexy, lovely Julie. They shuffled across the floor to the dresser, and Delphine, as though she were following some internal programming, leant over, lifted her skirt, and stretched her arms out in front of her. 

Now, I was already getting terribly mixed feelings: I was already seeing my two dear conspirators, their bottoms stripped of clothing and quivering, reddening, as the strokes of the slipper rained down on them. I was seeing this before it happened, and it excited me.

How on earth could this pathetic, vicious little woman hold such power over these smart, beautiful young women? I was pondering this tricky question when Mme A dropped her next bombshell: "All of this will happen to you immediately - unless!"

She paused for maximum effect. For the first time I recognised that drawl in her voice - as well as being mad, she was most certainly drunk, and this was amplifying her madness. Most of the other girls round the table were now glaring at me, muttering angrily, clearly furious that I had dropped their lovely friends into this mess.

Mme continued: "Unless, that is, you both confess to your misdemeanours, renounce the one you were trying to help, and henceforth assist me in every possible way in his rehabilitation into decent human society. Clearly this wicked creature somehow charmed you, but I cannot for the world understand how he did it."

"So, Delphine? JUlie? What have you to say?"

There was silence, then some sniffling and sobbing, and much wringing of hands and shifting of feet.

"Quick! I need your answer now! I am going for the leather slipper, and once I have it there will be no going back!"

"Maman! No, No! " yelled poor Delphine, "Not here, no!"

"So what will you say, child, to your mother?" hissed Mme Arnaud.

"It was all my fault," said Delphine. "It was me, I had the idea. I helped W with this. I just wanted to help stop the bedwetting. But I see I was wrong, and I will assist you maman, in whatever way you ask".

"Good girl!" shouted the angry madame. "I now know you are my true daughter. But I also know you are trying to protect your sister, so will still be punished,..."

"No!" yelled Julie. "She's crazy, it was my idea. I thought it would help us all. Now I see I was wrong, and that you were right. We must cure this English creature of his horrible habit."

Both girls were now crying freely, and shaking a bit, they were both defeated, totally. Their friends were nodding their heads vigorously in agreement. Mme Arnaud was again triumphant.

"OK then, good!" she said. "Now by doing precisely as I instruct as we will attempt to re-construct the character of our guest. But first, we must get back to basics. Before this wretch is sent to bed, I want you two to ensure that he has completely emptied his bladder. You will ensure that he has no fluids left within his pathetic English body, by every means possible. You will do this, here, now. Your friends can help you if it is necessary. Now!"

Delphine looked at Julie, they exchanged a look that I saw clearly, and it was only then that I saw that they were truly the daughters of this madwoman, because I saw a new, a changed state. They had both, separately, decided to save themselves, knowing the the only way to do so was to destroy me.

Their friends seemed very willing to witness, even to participate. Mme turned to them and asked, "Do you have any friends nearby who might like to join us? We need as many as possible to bear witness to this. It is better though if we keep our audience all female."

One girl, I think was Maxine piped up: "Oh yes madame, I have a lot of girlfriends, we were going to meet at the old port at 10.30, but they would love to come here first if you like!"

Why did everyone end up slavering over this evil woman? Why? I had no idea, just as I had no idea really what was awaiting me. It could surely not be worse than the crazy beating I had received from Mme Dongh, hanging from a clothes dryer in the kitchen, red stripes across my pasty white bottom. Those stripes were still visible: surely she could not want to re-open these sore wounds?

As if answering my silent thoughts, Mme A began again: "Yes, dear girls, please get your friends around here as soon as possible, and tell them not to worry, this will not be distressing. We will help this poor English boy get a good night's sleep, that is all." Maxine ran off gleefully to fetch these friends - they all now seemed like hounds who had just scented blood, or something more delicious.

Mme A. was whispering in very rapid French to her daughters. I could not understand, but from their faces I gathered she was giving them rather surprising instructions regarding what they were supposed to do to me. Delphine's two friends were whispering as well, and then before I knew what had happened they had arrived, one each side of me, grabbed my arms, and made me stand up. I knew that what was starting was not going to end without me being deeply and badly humiliated.

Mme A re-appeared carrying my by now infamous chamber pot, pale blue china with a crazed glaze, and placed it right where my meal had been, on the table right in front of me. 

There was some commotion downstairs at this point. We heard high-pitched voices and squeals of laughter on the stairs, the clattering of feet, and in burst a new group of girls. I lost count of how many young women came into the room, wafted in on a cloud of alcohol fumes, Gitane and weed smoke, seven or eight I supposed. They had obviousy been running all the way so as not to miss anything, and they were all dressed for a night of clubbing, short skirts, goth make-up, tight tops, exposed midriffs, the works. 

"Maxine! What's going on, do we really have to stay here?", one of them asked.

"Yeah, just hang on a few minutes, you have to see this, you really do," said Maxine.

"But why's Delphine all sad?" said another of these glamorous friends.

"Oh", said Maxine, "It was all his fault, this English language boy, he tried to get them into trouble, but now he's in deep trouble. Hang on here and you will understand!"

"Oh! " said another of the girls, heartbreakingly beautiful with her kohl-lined eyes, her tight sequinned top, bare midriff, tight black jeans, so low-cut they almost fell off her narrow, jutting hip-bones. "Is this the Englishman with the tiny thing?

"Yes, but I haven't seen it yet!"

"Nor me, maybe we will find out if this is true or not?

"I heard he has a penis that's only five centimetres long, even when it is sticking up hard!"

"That's what I heard, but they said seven centimetres!"

"Seven? That's ok isn't it?" piped up another girl, who was using here fingers and trying to visualise what 7 centimetres looked like. She seemed to have little idea of what a centimetre was. 

"No", said Maxine, "My brother said most boys his age are twice as big at least, even when soft! We saw him on the beach in speedos, and you tell there was very little there."

Maxine's words, so matter of fact as if she was talking about the weather, made me want to shrivel up and die.

"He's right I can vouch for that," came another, deeper, female voice. "10 soft, 15 hard is the absolute minimum for a man," said this really very lovely voice, slowly, in a slight mocking way. "I imagine this guy will have more, as he is quite tall...no?" 

"I think you're in for a lovely little surprise" chuckled my former friend, Delphine. There was a sudden explosion of laughter from everyone there, and Mme A smiled: "Enough! This is serious business. Delphine, please start."

Poor dear Delphine, she managed not to catch my eye once, as she spoke: "You must now pee into this pot on the table."

I looked down at the chamber pot in front me, and then considered the two strong girls who were holding my arms. I felt I needed to lecture them on the logistics of male urination - but no, Julie was already at work. 

She unzipped my jeans, and put her hand inside, fumbling for something to hold onto. She eventually found the opening of my underpants and again fumbled. Why was she so slow? I was now desperate to pee. Of all people there she knew best that my means of doing this were, well, limited, and that what little I had had to be carefully pulled out through the clothing.

Evetnually she found it. I felt her young fingers grasping me, and it stiffened. Then she attempted to pull the little rod out, over the clothing. I had my back to the rest of the room, so at least these rowdy girls would not see me in the wretched state. Or so I hoped.

Delphine was annoyed, and roughly pulled down my jeans to my ankles so that again I was standing in my underpants. 

There was dead silence in the room as Julie's hands went to the front of my underpants, trying to find the opening. Again, it seemed to take ages of fumbling. She used two fingers to keep the pants open, and with the two fingers of her other hand, tugged at my member, which right now resembled a little knot of wrinkled skin, like that bit at the end of party balloon after you tie it.

I could hear the girls behind me, shuffling their feet, giggle, chairs were creaking. "I wish they'd turn him round, we can't see anything," one said.

"There's very little to see," said Mme A, who was now standing next to me, snorting a bit, "and I don't think you'd want to see him peeing would you? It might make you feel sick".

As Delphine pulled my penis out into the air, it perked up a little. She pulled the skin back as far as she could, until a tiny, darker pink head appeared, like the nose of a mouse, with a drop of moisture on its little mouth. She pointed this down towards the pot, and said, "Go on then, do it!".

But now I could produce nothing. Laughter was building up, no-one could hold it back any more, all those night-club girls were elbowing each other and doubling up, and whispering in very loud stage whispers to each other. Mme A did not share in this hilarity however: "He's not doing what you tell him. You have to make him do it!"

Poor Delphine, she pulled back my foreskin even more, and looked up at me with her big eyes, and she started to blush a bit and her hold on me relaxed a bit. Mme A had got up, and bellowed at the poor girl, "You are not meant to be pleasuring him, you idiot!"

I got soft again, and suddenly felt able to pee - no, I had to pee, now! Alas, my foreskin had crept back over the head, and, as so often happens, the urine went in all directions except the intended one. Most went down my legs and into the jeans that were around my ankles. But a rogue jet shot out sideways, just as it had a few days previously, and this time splashed over Mme A's lovely leather slippers.

The air turned to ice, Mme stared at her feet in complete disbelief. I expected her to punch me in the stomach or something worse - but instead she stared straight into my eyes, a big drunken, lecherous grin spread across her face. She stepped closer to me, and pulled off one of the slippers.

"Take him over to the dresser. Bend him over it. Pull down his pants and lift up his t-shirt", she commanded. "As a naughty little boy who still has not learned how to behave like a grown-up, he has to be punished with the slipper, just as all children in this house always have been."

The two girls holding me did as she asked. I was marched across the floor to the dresser on the far wall, and then they made me bend over it, my face against the oak planks. I felt my old cheap cotton briefs being dragged down until they were below my knees, and my t-shirt pulled up my back to my armpits. So there I was again, my naked back and bottom exposed to a new and much rowdier audience. Thank god they could not see my front.

Mme A began smacking me with the slipper. All the girls in the room chanted the numbers, but as the smacks went beyond ten some started singing, "Turn him round, turn him round". Gradually others joined in, they were stamping their feet, and for once I felt grateful to Mme A, as she seemed to ignore their demands and just went on smacking me hard with the slipper. I tried to keep my legs close together so that I should not expose a rear view, but my thighs were too thin, and the slipper often stung the back of my scrotum as well as the cheeks of my bottom.

It was painful and noisy: my bottom felt on fire, both cheeks must have been bright red. But it was less painful than the belt used a few days before by Mme Dongh.

At about stroke 25 she gave one last massive smack. The sound was astonishing, the sound you only hear when leather hits a large mass of soft naked flesh with great force. It seriously stung me and brought tears to my eyes, and then she threw the slipper down. The girls were still chanting "turn him round, turn him round" and the cessation of the smacking made them stamp all the more, there were perhaps 20 gils in the room now and it seemed the floor would give way, such was their racket.

They let me stand up. Mme A glanced at my genitals, the scrotum now a tight little bright pink pouch supporting the even tinier rubbery shrimp-like object above. "Oh girls," she said in a much dirtier tone than I had heard her use before, "If only you could see what I can, you would laugh so much." 

Mme A looked at me again, then at the two girls holding me, then she nodded at them, as to say: "OK, do as they ask, turn him round".

I froze - the pain vanished, washed away by a new unreasonable fear of a new level of shame. Why did this matter to me, who had already been so completely humiliated?

I don't know - something about those ballerinas, it really got to me, I dreaded their scorn more than anything. So I resisted being turned with all my strength. It was a comic struggle really, me with my bright red bottom and arms flailing, the two girls and Mme. A trying to twist me round by my shoulders and elbows. I was fighting to protect something that no longer existed - my modesty. If I was turned, all they would see would be the body of an absurdly under-developed 18-year-old male from north-west Europe.

They would see my white torso, my strangely dark nipples, my belly that was flabby despite being thin - and then, beneath it, the comical, quivering trinity of my most intimate parts, as naked (and about the same size) as the day I was born.

I would not let them see it. I would die first. I shouted this out - "Stop it, leave me, don't show me, please don't!"

The two girls seemed to sympathise and relaxed their grip, I was able to cover myself with both hands. But Mme A just gave me another huge smack on the bottom, grabbed both my upper arms from behind, and with great force turned me round towards the crowded room. I was facing my audience, I saw the six star pupils, still sitting round the dining table, now laughing uncontrollably, all pretence at dignity abandoned. The party girls stood behind them, and put up a new cheer.