And she figured she was probably flunking.
"Will you submit yourself, or do I have to do the usual manhandling?" the nurse asked, cocking her head towards the exam table.
The question wasn't posed with any animosity at all; it was just a neutral query.
"No, ma'am," Darcy answered, sure she knew what was being asked.
Darcy placed herself on the familiar table and waited to be secured to it as always, but that didn't happen. She heard and saw Nurse Carson roll herself between legs that she had automatically placed into the ever-present stirrup boots, but they had not been expanded nor fitted to her. She could remove her feet at any time.
Hell, if she really wanted to, she could get up and walk away.
Hating to do it, but knowing that if she didn't, it would somehow turn out badly for her, Darcy asked, "Nurse Carson, ma'am?"
"Yes, Hanson?"
"Uh, aren't you going to…like…restrain me?"
The woman's gaze momentarily flickered up to her eyes, then back again to Darcy's crotch and then the table on wheels that was to one side of her. Her answer was impatiently given. "I just asked you if I needed to manhandle you and you said no." Their eyes met again, and this time they held. "Did you lie to me, Hanson?"
"No, no, no, I didn't." She certainly didn't want her thinking that. "I just think I misinterpreted what you meant."
"Are you saying I wasn't clear enough?"
Darcy realized she should have known that there was no clean way out of this conversation, that she should never have asked in the first place, so she did her best attempt at patching things up before they got much, much worse for her. "No, ma'am. No. I'm saying that I was entirely at fault, but I understand now, and I'm sorry for wasting your time."
"You will be, Hanson, you will be, I can promise you that." She had apparently finished her preparations, because she began to don gloves. "I can assure you that taking a punishment—or an intimate exam—both of which you're about to get—is an entirely different thing when you're not held down. It's much more of a challenge, to submit oneself in that way. That is what you intended, isn't it?"
Darcy was already panting. She had no idea that this was what she had agreed to accept. How could she possibly manage to do that? She writhed and heaved and tugged as frantically as anyone else while she was being inspected or disciplined. How was she supposed to deal with the fact that there would be nothing holding her down, nothing keeping her there? Save for her own masochistic tendencies.
She wondered if this was some ultimate test that the doctor had devised, to see just how far she'd be willing to go. And beyond that, she wondered if there would be any kind of a monetary reward for having done so, as there had been in the past for certain unusually hard trials.
Darcy knew she wasn't going to be given very long to decide what to do, and her other very real consideration was that she had already told Nurse Carson that she was up for this. If she reneged now, there would be consequences on top of whatever it was she was already going to get.
She knew this was going to be the hardest challenge she'd faced yet, but she felt she couldn't really get out of it. She knew she was going to regret it, but she decided that she was going to go ahead with it. It was going to kill her, in more ways than one, but she was going to do it.
Without allowing herself to think any more about it, Darcy said, "Yes, ma'am."
And with that, it started.
And Darcy immediately began to regret her decision. It wasn't Tiger Balm that Nurse Carson used on her clit this time, it was something the doctor had recently found that was a step above. Not only did this solution—which was more like a paste than a balm and, thus, didn't liquefy with body heat—scorch the flesh it touched, it made it tingle, slowly at first, and then more furiously, like a body part that had gone to sleep or a vibrator that was turning itself up on its own.
It amped up the sexual side of things quite considerably, especially for Darcy, who had always been susceptible to those things.
Not long after the nurse had applied the paste, she heard the door to the room open and wasn't surprised to see the doctor peeping over the nurse's shoulder.
Darcy, in the meantime, was trying to grip something—anything—in order to weather what she knew was just the beginning of her ordeal.
"I understand there's something very interesting going on in here, and I didn't want to miss it."
"Yes, sir. Several things. I believe this is the first time that Hanson here has had the poultice you found used on her, and she has agreed to receive both an examination and a punishment without restraint."
It was one of the few true smiles she could ever remember seeing on the doctor's face. "Well, if she's able to do it, it will be quite an accomplishment." He looked into Darcy's eyes. "I think a suitable reward might be in order if that goal is met."
A suitable reward could be anything, she realized, and she heartily hoped it was money. Orgasming was a very close second, though, especially at this moment.
The doctor took over, as both of the women knew he would. Although he was likely to go harder on her, Darcy had to say she was happier with him, because there was no chance at attaining ecstasy with Nurse Carson, whereas the doctor could allow her, at his discretion.
Things got much harder for her when she was fitted—well, not quite fitted, because, in both instances, her body was required to stretch beyond the point of discomfort—with both a vibrating dildo and a vibrating plug, which had her pussy humming something fierce, to the point where she wasn't at all sure she wasn't going to blow this by coming within the next few seconds.