The Edge of Sanity

By Rose Nichols

Admission

The car rolled down a long gravel drive lined with ancient oaks, their gnarled branches arching overhead in a cathedral of neglect. Beyond the trees, a complex of pale stone buildings resolved through the morning mist, their precise geometry softened only by the dew that hung to the boxwood hedges and immaculately edged lawns. The driver did not speak, not even when Aria pressed her palm flat to the glass and asked, “Is this… are we here?” There was only a shallow nod, then the car eased to a halt beneath the portico of the Blackwood Institute for Women’s Wellness.

The doors whooshed open as she approached, a pair of glass slabs so clean they momentarily reflected a better version of herself: upright, well-dressed, even her posture deceived by a brief hope that maybe, maybe, this was an overreaction to a string of sleepless weeks and one ill-advised meltdown at work. Inside, the lobby was all daylight and muted beige, with diffuse sunlight filtered through frosted windows and diffuse, unthreatening furniture arranged in perfect semi-circles. The air was scented with something faintly herbal and antiseptic, as if the place couldn’t quite decide between hospital and holistic haven.

“Miss Wilson?” The voice was so soft Aria nearly missed it, but then a woman in a crisp navy uniform materialized at her elbow. The tag read Helen B., and her hair was scraped back in a severe bun that made her look both ageless and exhausted. “We’ve been expecting you. I’m Nurse Brown.” The greeting hovered at the precise intersection of sincerity and formality. “Please, come with me.

Aria found herself escorted to a small side room with comfortable seating, not unlike a therapist’s office.

“Let’s have you sit and settle for a moment before we begin intake,” Nurse Brown said, already pouring from a petite glass teapot. The tea was palest gold, fragrant with lemongrass and something subtly floral. “It’s our own blend. For calming nerves.” She placed the cup into Aria’s hands, and the warmth seeped through her skin with a sensual intimacy she hadn’t anticipated.

“Thank you.” Aria sipped. The flavor was clean, almost bright, but there was a faint bitterness beneath the surface, a tingle that lingered on her tongue and in her throat. She kept her hands around the cup, desperate for the anchor of physical sensation, while Nurse Brown perched on the ottoman beside her with the poise of a ballet instructor.

“You’ll be meeting with Dr. Blackwood shortly,” the nurse said. “He personally oversees all new admissions. It’s a matter of protocol, to ensure you receive the best individualized care.” She folded her hands on her lap. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me before we begin?”

Aria blinked, caught off guard by the question’s ambiguity. “I… I don’t know what my employer put in the file, but I’m only here for a short stay. Just until things settle down at work.” She tried to inject a laugh, but it came out thin and unnatural. “This isn’t, like, a real mental hospital, right?”

Nurse Brown smiled, but her eyes did not. “We pride ourselves on discretion and progressive methods. Our patients are here by choice, always.” She reached out to adjust an invisible crease in Aria’s sleeve, a gesture both intimate and corrective. “Your physician’s referral and your employer’s letter of concern describe significant workplace anxiety, recurring insomnia, and… a recent emotional episode?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Aria muttered, feeling heat crawl up her neck. She stared into her tea, watching the surface tremble as she tried to steady her hands.

“Perfectly understandable.” The nurse’s voice softened, carrying just a trace of real empathy. “Rest assured, you’re in the best possible environment for recovery.” She rose in a single fluid motion, smoothing her skirt.

“I’ll let Dr. Blackwood know you’ve arrived. Please, make yourself comfortable.” Nurse Brown’s shoes whispered across the carpet as she closed the door, leaving Aria stranded in the quiet room with the half-drained cup warming her fingers.

Aria set the teacup down, but the warmth of it seemed to have infiltrated her, blooming outward from her sternum. She pressed trembling fingertips to her wrists, feeling for the reassuring throb of her pulse, but there was a restlessness that shocked her; a sudden, liquid agitation in her thighs, the way the soft fabric of her skirt now seemed to abrade her skin with every small movement.

The room was silent except for the muffled hum of the climate system, yet every nerve in Aria’s body buzzed as if the sound had tunneled inside her skin. She shifted on the couch, crossing and uncrossing her legs, but the motion only intensified the friction where her tights pressed against her thighs. Her scalp prickled and her mouth was suddenly dry, as if the tea had purged all moisture from her body. She pressed her knees together, trying to anchor herself in the moment, but the heat inside her only thickened, cloying and insistent, like a fever migrating downward.

She considered, in a moment of desperation, excusing herself to the restroom, to run cold water on her wrists, maybe splash her face. But the notion itself stoked a hot, shameful anticipation: a bathroom stall, the lock clicking shut, and her hands clumsy and eager beneath her skirt.

As she half-rose from the couch to fulfill the idea, smoothing her skirt with hands she could not keep still, the latch rattled and the door opened with a practiced gentleness. Dr. Blackwood entered with the inertia of authority, shutting the door in a way that made her feel she’d never quite had a right to leave. He was taller than she’d expected, his bearing measured and oddly theatrical, with a shock of silver at his temples and eyes the pale color of wet concrete. The edges of his suit were so crisp that Aria was suddenly aware of every wrinkle in her own blouse, of the static-cling line of her skirt against her thighs, of the sticky dampness now collecting at the seam of her underwear.

“Miss Wilson.” His voice was as soothing as the tea: unctuous, rounded, with a vibrato that made her think of voiceover advertisements for pharmaceuticals. “I see your nurse has already made you welcome.” His handshake was dry and brief, but his gaze lingered, dissecting her in the time it took to sit and cross one long leg over the other. “How are you finding the Institute so far?” he asked, genuinely performing the question.

Aria’s tongue felt clumsy in her mouth. “It’s… very pleasant. Everything is very…” She searched for the least embarrassing word. “Orderly.”

“That’s our aim,” Dr. Blackwood said, his tone registering an almost physicist’s delight in the concept of order. He folded his hands on the folder he’d brought. “Let’s get you properly settled, shall we?”

He opened the folder as if it were a communion wafer, reading aloud with the detachment of a priest reciting mass for the dead. “History of chronic stress, difficulty with sleep, notable incident at the office, culminating in an episode of public distress. No previous psychiatric admissions. No apparent history of self-harm or ideation.” His eyes flicked up to her, unreadable, then returned to the page. “You’re here voluntarily, is that correct?”

Aria nodded, then, to her horror, felt her knees slip and knock together beneath the hem of her skirt. She gripped her thumb with her palm, testing whether her own hands would listen to her.

“Voluntarily, yes,” she managed. “It was… suggested. By my employer.” Her body was now a chorus of small betrayals: the scrape of every heartbeat along her throat, the pulse leaping behind her knees, the heat radiating up from her lap and making it impossible to think of anything except the way her inner thighs trembled against one another.

Dr. Blackwood made a note in the file with a fountain pen, the sound of its nib dragging across the heavy paper amplifying the hush in the room. “Excellent. We appreciate clarity of intent.” There was a faint knitting together of his lips, the prelude to a small, confidential smile. “The Blackwood Institute specializes in assisting high-functioning women in transition. You are not alone, Miss Wilson. Most of our residents arrived much as you have.”

Aria could feel the heaviness of her limbs, the swimmy dissociation between what she intended and what her body precipitated. “I just need to rest. A few days, maybe a week.” The pitch of her voice, brittle at the edges, betrayed how much she was trying to sound in control.

“Of course.” Blackwood adjusted his glasses before continuing. “All progress begins with proper rest.” He set down the folder, turned the full wattage of his gaze on her. “But sometimes illness is not simply a matter of sleep deficit. Sometimes it runs deeper. In our culture, bright women are taught to prioritize the success of their career and other higher pursuits over the needs of their body. You’ve already experienced trouble sleeping, but the body has other needs as well.”

He paused a calculated moment, observing her: the sharp, involuntary dilation of her pupils, how her left hand hovered near her thigh before retreating to the safety of the armrest. “Tell me, do you ever experience sudden physical agitation? Unexplainable irritability, or perhaps—” he let his gaze drop, ever so slightly, to her trembling knee, “—unexpected sensations that make it difficult to concentrate?”

Aria started to shake her head, but instead made a small gasp as the heat in her body sent a lance of arousal shooting up her spine. “N— No, I don’t believe so.”

“Miss Wilson, you have nothing to be ashamed of.” Blackwood’s words poured into her ears like syrup. “When the body’s needs are ignored, it can respond with dramatically increasing those urges.” We call it Hypersexual Repressive Disorder. Luckily for you, it’s something that we have seen before and know how to treat.”

Aria shook her head, too quickly. “I’m not— I’m not repressing anything, Doctor. I’m not sick. I’m just tired.” She forced a brittle smile, desperate to restore some symmetry to the encounter. “I just had a streak of bad weeks. I know my limits, I promise you. I don’t need a program, or… whatever this is. I just need a couple days to, I don’t know, get my feet back under me. That’s all.” The warmth was now a buzz in her teeth, a static that blurred her vision at the edges. She felt it pooling under her skin, a fever of embarrassment and something more slippery, less nameable. “My employer means well, but I don’t think I belong here. I’m not…”

She tried to speak further, but the consonants she intended dissolved into a breathy, involuntary whimper. The couch seemed to vibrate beneath her, and she became hyperaware of the dampness blooming at the juncture of her thighs. Every muscle below her waist was awake, alive, agitating for relief, yet the presence of Blackwood and his unwavering scrutiny converted her need into something jagged and unspeakable.

Dr. Blackwood regarded the shivering woman with a studied gentleness, the kind cultivated over decades of converting suffering into insight, insight into compliance. “You’re not alone in this,” he said, re-crossing his legs. “What you’re feeling is entirely normal. Most of our residents arrive convinced their symptoms are personal failings, rather than the result of a treatable imbalance.” His tone was almost mournful. “Please, allow me to assure you. Here, we eliminate shame entirely.”

Aria’s face flooded red, visible even beneath her careful foundation. “I—” The word stuck, then split in two. “I don’t know what you’ve done to me,” Aria managed, fingers digging half-moons into her knees. “But this isn’t— it’s not normal. I shouldn’t feel like this.” Her voice see-sawed, teetering on the verge of tears. “Please, I just want to go home. I really think I’d like to leave now.”

Dr. Blackwood exhaled through his nose. For a moment, he regarded her with a kind of mournful gravity, as though he were already preparing her obituary. “I’m afraid that’s not possible at this juncture,” he said, voice deepening an octave. “Your employer’s directive is quite specific. We are required to monitor you for a minimum of seventy-two hours, and to intervene as indicated for your own safety.” He fluttered a thin sheet of paper in her file. “There is a duty of care, Miss Wilson. Both medical and legal.”

She recoiled, eyes flicking to the door, planning escape, when it opened of its own accord. Nurse Brown entered with a smile so fixed it was almost ceremonial, flanked by two assistants in the same navy uniform, their arms folded behind their backs, their faces set in anodyne calm.

Aria’s panic was immediate and animal. She pushed herself back into the cushioning, hands flinching away from her own lap as if proximity alone might accuse her of something shameful. The flanking nurses moved in seamless choreography, one on either side of the couch. Aria tried to stand, but her legs betrayed her; she tumbled forward, intent only on getting past them, out, away.

She made it as far as the threshold before arms looped expertly under her armpits and midsection, lifting her from the carpet in a practiced, impersonal way. Aria’s heels skidded and caught, but the nurse’s assistants held her aloft with a restraint so gentle it was more humiliating than forceful. “Easy, Miss Wilson,” Nurse Brown said, voice a honeyed adhesive binding the moment together. “We’ll get you comfortable in your room. There’s nothing to fear.”

They moved her down the corridor, Aria’s shoes scuffing against the tile, the world juddering with each step. She was half-aware of the increasing dampness in her underwear, the bizarre shame of it outpacing even her terror. The hallway was nearly silent, but as they passed closed doors she imagined she heard quiet whimpers or moans of women crying into their pillows, or the incessant wet, ragged panting of someone in the throes of another “symptom.” The nurses hurried her through, making small, wordless noises of comfort, as if handling a faintly seditious child in the final stages of a tantrum. The air grew thicker with the scent of antiseptic masking something more animal, something carnal and unclean, until, at last, they deposited her in a room that looked engineered for maximum neutrality: beige walls, a single bed with a waterproof mattress, a sturdy writing desk bolted to the floor, a bathroom whose door stopped short of closing completely, as though privacy were a privilege that had to be gradually re-earned.

The nurse assistants held her, not with force but with the quiet threat of overwhelming patience, as Nurse Brown knelt gracefully to Aria’s eye level. “I know this is overwhelming,” the nurse said, voice stripped of all condescension, now nearly tender with concern. “You’re having a powerful reaction. That’s why you’re here. To get help. We see this all the time.”

Aria could taste her own pulse, coppery and wild, as she sagged against the chair where they’d arranged her. The attendants released her arms but remained close, their presence a quiet dare to act out. Nurse Brown produced a small, folded bundle from a white paper bag and laid it on the bed: a loose, pale-blue gown, the institutional kind with the ties at the back.

“Why don’t you change into this?” she said, standing to offer Aria the illusion of privacy, though the door remained ajar and the nurse’s silhouette lingered in the glassy blur of the observation window. “Once you’re ready, we’ll introduce you to the first group session.”

Aria stared at the gown hopelessly. “Can’t I just wear my own clothes?” Her voice was paper thin, more begging than a demand.

Nurse Brown’s reply was a gentle but implacable, “For your comfort, it’s best if we begin with the Institute’s attire, at least initially.” She offered Aria a smile tinted with the faintest shade of condescension, then stepped back, folding her hands as she waited. The attendants retreated to the doorway but lingered, their presence making it clear that resistance, while not physically impossible, would be treated as another symptom.

As Aria peeled off her skirt and blouse, gooseflesh rippled over her arms and thighs, the chill of the room amplified by the growing disquiet in her belly. She tugged at her tights, then paused, struck by an almost embarrassing self-awareness: her underwear clung, sticky and sodden, to her skin, as if her own body had betrayed her. She bit back a shudder as she remembered Dr. Blackwood’s gaze, the way he seemed to see through layers of wool and flesh to the raw, hungering animal beneath.

She dressed quickly, cheeks burning with mortification at the stickiness between her legs and the way the gown’s fabric ghosted over her nipples, which leapt at the touch like the heads of startled mice. The gown was a shade too short, falling to mid-thigh and clinging in ways nothing institutional had any right to.

Nurse Brown returned with a tablet and a binder, as if she were checking in a parcel, and gestured for Aria to follow. The aides closed in behind to bracket her gently, a silent choreography that made it clear this journey was compulsory. Aria followed the nurse down a several plain corridors, with each turn punctuated by a checkpoint: a door with a punch code, a glass wall with a security camera.

Each step down the corridor peeled a new stratum from Aria’s composure. The slickness between her thighs, at first a secret she could deny, became an undeniable indication of her own body's mutiny. The gown’s hem fretted up with each stride, exposing the naked backs of her knees, and she could feel the heat collecting, pooling, then slowly relinquishing itself in slow, humiliating beads that slicked the inside of her legs. There was no buffer anymore, no panties or tights to shield her from the fabric or the world; each shift of muscle or brush of skin threatened to reveal her inexhaustible, alien need. If the staff noticed, they gave no sign, but Aria became hypersensitive to every sidelong glance, every slight twitch of Nurse Brown’s nostrils as she led the way.

They entered a windowless lounge where five other women sat in a horseshoe of molded plastic armchairs. They varied in age and affect, but each wore the Institute’s blue insignia like a brand. The youngest, a girl with eyebrows sharpened into knife-blades and a jaw set for permanent defiance, was already drumming fingers on the armrest, her leg bouncing so energetically the whole chair trembled in sympathy. To her right, a pale, pinched woman in her forties sat ramrod straight with both hands folded in her lap, every line of her body locked in visible restraint. Another, a heavyset redhead with skin the color of candle wax, blinked so infrequently that Aria found herself counting the intervals, fascinated and repulsed in equal measure. A thin, androgynous woman in wire-rimmed glasses stared at the carpet, her lips moving with silent, frantic arithmetic. At the center, like a planet around which the rest orbited, sat Dr. Blackwood.

“Welcome, Aria.” he said, turning to greet her. “Please sit.” Then turning back to the other women, “We have a newcomer; let’s all introduce ourselves.”

The first to speak was the redhead. “My name is Colleen, and it’s been twenty-one days since I touched myself.”

Aria’s jaw slackened just enough to betray her, but she snapped it shut, glancing at Dr. Blackwood for guidance—was this a joke, some scripted ritual, or had she stumbled into a parody of therapy?

But Blackwood just nodded with approval while the women continued going around the room.

The girl with the knife-blade brows rolled her eyes so hard the whites flashed. “Sarah,” she said, voice flat. “Six days.” She smirked at Aria, as if daring her to scoff. “Probably doesn’t sound like much, but try it sometime.”

Next was the pinched woman, her fingers clasped so tight the knuckles gleamed. “Joan. Forty-four days, three hours, and…” A quick glance at the wall clock. “…eleven minutes.”

By the time it was Aria’s turn, the truth could not be denied: the air itself was a vector, thick with the pheromones of so many restless bodies. Aria was not a vector; she was a node. The heat in her groin was now a steady, pulsing current, and the knowledge that every other woman in the room was quietly suffering the same circadian tide made her want to laugh, or weep, or claw her way out of her own skin.

“And you, Aria?” Blackwood’s words cut through her haze of arousal.

She wasn’t going to dignify the question, or the ritual, with a performance. The heat had become a throb, and it made her want to speak in fragments, to lash out with the kind of language that would have gotten her written up at the consultancy, but she forced her tone into something flat and measured. “I’m Aria. My habits are private. And I don’t think I belong here.”

Blackwood’s smile was gentle, practiced. “Privacy is important, but so is honesty— to yourself, especially. You’re not alone in this.” A silence followed. Ruby’s chair creaked, Colleen’s breath caught, the room’s design leaving no shadows to hide in.

“We meet each morning to discuss progress and challenges. This is a safe and confidential space. Our protocols help you learn to co-exist with your urges, rather than letting them dominate or define you.” His voice, predatory and musical, pirouetted across the room. “Would anyone like to share their experience since yesterday?”

A silence so dense it seemed to thicken the air. Aria felt a bead of sweat navigate its way from her hairline down to her temple: the tickle at once distracting and cruelly erotic. Even the architecture of the room seemed complicit, shaped for maximum exposure, no dark corners to huddle or hide. Ruby was the first to break, her hand shooting into the air, but not before her thighs pressed together with a violence that made the chair groan.

“I was dreaming,” Ruby said, her voice clear and sharp as shattered ice. “But it wasn’t even me. I was seeing myself, like, third person, just…" She snorted, embarrassed. “Just fucking. Over and over. It woke me up.”

Blackwood nodded, as if this were a perfectly ordinary report. “And how did you respond to this dream?”

“Woke up in a sweat.” Ruby flexed her fingers, then clenched them into her lap. “Tried to rub one out, but—” Her mouth snapped shut, her cheeks mottling with red. "It’s not allowed.”

Aria’s stomach twisted. She expected laughter, ridicule; instead, the group registered only the dull thud of agreement. “I’m sorry, but what do you mean it’s not allowed?” She asked nervously.

Dr. Blackwood lifted a hand, his gesture both parental and judicial. “We discourage that here,” he said, the phrase polished to a soft, implacable finality. “For most patients, direct stimulation only intensifies the syndrome. The symptoms can escalate, sometimes uncontrollably.” His gaze traveled the circle, calibrating each woman’s threshold for shame. “The stimulation results in muscular convulsions that are very dangerous to the patient.”

"You mean an orgasm?" Aria asked with a smirk.

"Ah, I understand what you mean. However, it may surprise you to learn that the female orgasm does not actually exist. Blackwood smiled with condescension. “What you may have felt in the past, what you call an “orgasm”, is only the symptom; the catastrophic endpoint of the illness itself. When the body experiences a paroxysm of so-called pleasure, it’s not an apex but a breakdown. A crisis of the nervous system. You’ve felt the aftershocks, I imagine: fatigue, confusion, even depression?”

Dr. Blackwood steepled his fingers and leaned forward, his expression that of a man imparting an occult secret to an eager acolyte. “We call them orgasms because that’s what culture teaches us to call them, but in clinical reality, Ms. Wilson, what you experience is a crisis. A short-circuit. It is the mind’s way of punishing the body for its own desires.” His gaze flickered around the circle, alighting on each woman’s face in turn. “At the Institute, we have made it our mission to separate pleasure from injury, to teach you how to live without surrendering to the destructive impulse.”

Aria couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “That’s ridiculous! I’ve had orgasms my whole life, and I’m perfectly fine.”

“And yet here you are, Aria.” The group fell quiet, everyone fidgeting, eyes darting anywhere but at Aria, as if she’d belched at a funeral. Even the defiant Sarah looked away, lips pressed thin.

Dr. Blackwood’s tone remained gracious, but his smile retracted a half-shade. “The persistence of delusion is a diagnostic feature, not a failing. The first weeks are always the hardest. You will learn to recognize the difference between your needs and your impulses. Colleen, would you like to speak to that? You made great strides last week," Blackwood said, pivoting on the axis of his own authority.

Colleen, whose hands trembled on the armrests, forced herself to meet the doctor’s eyes. "It’s like hunger," she said finally, her voice wet with shame. "It builds up until I get desperate. But I know if I give in—" Her jaw flexed as if her own teeth might punish her. "I’ll get worse. Colleen pressed her knees inward, fighting to still the tremor that made her legs quake beneath the blue poly blend of her institutional sweatpants. “I— I used to think it was about the relief. That if I could just get it over with, I’d be okay. But that only made it come back worse. And now I understand what you meant, Doctor.” She inhaled, the sound rattling in her chest, and fixed her gaze on a point somewhere behind Aria’s ear. “There’s no such thing as an orgasm, not really. Just… a kind of neural seizure. A trick your mind plays when it doesn’t know how else to cope.” Her voice grew tentative, as if she needed to convince herself as much as the circle. “It’s like hunger, but if you keep feeding it, it’s all you can ever feel.”

Blackwood’s approving nod was interrupted as Aria made a hard, derisive sound, louder than she intended. “You’re all insane,” she said, voice keening up as the shame and the panic found an outlet at last. “This is insane. I’m not like you.” Her hands clenched and unclenched, desperate for something solid to crush; she could feel the weighted pulse of her own blood, the slow, torturous beat of arousal that refused to be ignored. The room turned to her, regarding her not with hostility, but with a numb pity that made her want to crawl out of her own skin.

Ruby snorted, a brief, electric cackle. “Everyone says that the first day.”

Aria surged to her feet, fists clenched. “No. No, I’m not staying here. You can’t keep me. You can’t.” The pounding between her legs was insistent, a metronome tracking the seconds of her despair. She looked to Blackwood, who simply blinked, slow and reptilian, as if she were a laboratory rat with the temerity to speak. And maybe she was; after all, her body was betraying her at every turn, a mutiny underway at the level of the smallest nerve cell.

“You see, everyone, denial only worsens the syndrome,” Dr. Blackwood intones, voice gentle as a noose. He spoke with the deep patience of a man who had orchestrated this very tableau a hundred times before, his tone almost paternal: “Notice how the distress accelerates the cycle. The more she resists, the more intense the physiological manifestations become.” He gestured to the dark stain that had blossomed at the crotch of her gown, the cheap poly-cotton clinging to the outline of her labia. The tremor in her thighs had become an unconcealed quiver, each pulse more obvious than the last. Her face flushed a mottled red; sweat stippled her upper lip, her hairline.

The other women nodded in sympathy, as Aria murmured and squirmed, backpedaling on the short blue carpet as if all her impulse might slough off onto the floor. The wordless hum enveloped her, an auditory pressure so deep it threatened to split her in two. Aria’s mouth opened and closed, a fish on a dock, gaping for oxygen and finding only the cloying, humid air.

It was then, as if waiting for the precise apogee of her humiliation, that Nurse Brown reappeared at the door with a crisp nod. “Aria, if you’ll follow me, we need to perform your physiological assessment.” The tone was neutral, but Aria heard the faintest inflection of victory behind it. She staggered toward the exit, the muscles of her thighs twitching with every step, clothing clinging damp to her hips. In the mirrored glass of the door she caught her own reflection: sweat-plastered hair, the flush in her cheeks and chest, the damp spot at her groin. She felt the mortification detonate through her, annihilating what little dignity she’d tried to preserve.