The French Exchange

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.