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Community Service Ch. 01

By: davidmuleguy



I had voted for the Authoritarian Female Party, led by Caroline Flynt ... It had seemed like a good idea, at the time.

My name is David Smith. And I live in Canford, south London.

I was an eighteen-year-old school leaver, and because I hadn't paid the kind of attention I should have, in school, I finished my education with poor grades. What can I say? I just wasn't much of a student. I just wanted to fool around, have a few laughs. 

Which was the main reason I hadn't found a job, after almost six months on the dole.

Not from lack of trying. But, after almost six months of job searching; of writing to employers, e-mailing them, knocking on their doors, and despite telling them that I was prepared to do anything, and prepared to work for minimum wage, for the privilege, I still couldn't find work. 

Job vacancies were thin on the ground as it was, and the job seekers out there chasing them surely had better CVs than I had. The phrase, 'Not worth the paper it's written on', just about covers it.

My job prospects bleak, to seemingly non-existent, I was almost in despair.

* * *

My parents, to whom I was the youngest of their four children, and the only one of the four siblings to be still living at home, weren't exactly over the moon either. 

After all, they'd been telling me for years to buck up my ideas. Telling me for years, to do better at school; to apply myself and strive for improved exam results. In short: to knuckle down to learning.

Just like my brother John, nineteen, and my two sisters, Alison and Denise, twenty-one and twenty-three, respectively, had done. And, who all had good, well-paid jobs now, as a result of their knuckling down. 

John worked as a chef on the North Sea oil rigs. He was away from home a lot, but the money was great, he said. When he visited home, cash was practically spilling out of his pockets -- and his pockets were deep. 

And Alison and Denise both held well-paid, and highly responsible positions, working for Canford's most eminent firm of solicitors, Black, Brown, and Grey. 

While, I ... All too late, I found myself wishing that I'd listened to my parents. Wishing that I'd paid more attention to what my teachers had been trying to drum into my head, for all of those wasted school years ... Wishing, that I had knuckled down.

But, I was where I was. And I just had to get on with it. 

Then, in early May, came the general election ... and then things really started to get interesting.

* * *

The long suffering tax-payers of Britain wanted change, and were demanding change. A change from inept, incompetent governments. 

Above all, hard-working, hard-pressed citizens were crying out for a major crackdown against the idle, malingering, sponging ne'er-do-wells of the long-term unemployed. In particular, the hard core, parasitic 'career claimants'.

Britain's Social Security bill was astronomical, and the 'career claimants' were largely to blame. Making a career out of claiming for this, for that, and for something else -- anything and everything they possibly could -- they were bleeding the country dry. 

It was, and had long been, an outrageous waste of the tax-payers' money.

Caroline Flynt, leader of the Authoritarian Female Party, said that it had to stop. And it had to stop now.

*

Caroline Flynt was a rising star in British politics, and the general mood in the country seemed to be right behind the highly charismatic leader, and her up-and-coming, all-female member Party. A party of no-nonsense, highly capable, and very ambitious women.

And ... according to some rumours I'd heard, a party of ultra-feminist, man-hating ball-breakers. But, I thought, that had to be a load of tosh ... Didn't it?

In the Authoritarian Female Party's manifesto pledges, Caroline Flynt was promising to eradicate male unemployment. Vowing, to make joblessness a thing of the past. In future, she said, there would be no such thing as male idleness.

All of the opposition parties had laughed derisively. It couldn't be done, they had jeered. The A.F.P.'s promise was unattainable, it simply couldn't be achieved. Full employment, said the opposing parties, was a pipe dream. The stuff of fantasy.

For Britain's females, voting for Caroline Flynt and the Authoritarian Female Party was a no-brainer. Females knew they were onto a winner, with the A.F.P. For them, it was win, win, win, all the way.

But the A.F.P. managed to raise a lot of support from the country's male population, too ... Including myself.

Because I wanted to work, and the A.F.P. were promising to put me to work. 

But, I was short-sighted. Blinkered. I was a one-issue voter. I didn't pay much heed to all of the other, female-friendly, not-in-my-interest policies that the A.F.P. were proposing. 

Having said that, I hadn't seen anything that should have raised a red flag, as it were, because I certainly had no gripe with females getting a better deal. But, little did I know, that this was just the thin end of a very thick wedge.

*

And so it was to this background, this groundswell of nationwide support, for the A.F.P., that Caroline Flynt and her all-female member party were swept to power. Swept to power in an all-time record, landslide victory.

The streets of Britain's towns and cities were filled to overflowing with joyful, celebrating crowds. Thousands of A.F.P. flags, banners and placards with their distinctive party colours of blue, green, red and yellow quarters fluttered and waved in a frenzy of happiness and new-found optimism ... mine, among them. 

Celebrations and revelry carried on late into the night. All over Britain the mood was positive and upbeat. A bright new future was dawning. A new, golden era.

On the evening of that fateful Friday, I celebrated quietly at home, with a bottle of red wine. Wine; a bottle of cheap, 3-for-£10 off-licence claret, that I could ill afford, but that I felt the occasion called for. 

On the other hand, Mum and Dad simply could not believe that I had actually voted for the A.F.P. "You silly, silly fool, David," Mum had sternly admonished. And Dad hadn't disagreed with her, shaking his head sadly, at his youngest son's folly.

With my first glass of red wine, I had toasted Caroline Flynt. And, at consuming my second and third glasses of wine, not only my sense of wellbeing had seemingly improved, but also my eyesight: for I was seeing, with 20/20 vision, through rose-tinted glasses ... I had done the right thing, in voting A.F.P.

Yes, it would be different now, I had thought, under this new government. Things would be different, under the rule of Caroline Flynt and the Authoritarian Female Party.

But, before I had even finished my bottle of wine, my sense of optimism was fast waning. 

I finished my bottle of red wine; not because I was still enjoying it, but because I felt as if I needed a drink ... and then I raided my precious stash, and opened another bottle of my cheap claret. 

There would not be, I began to realise, a bright new future dawning. Not for me. Just one hell of a hangover.

My inattention at school had resulted in blighting my job prospects. And now, by the sound of things, my having listened to the A.F.P.'s election manifesto pledges with equal inattention, was going to blight my future. Voting for the A.F.P., I began to realise, had been a dreadful, dreadful mistake. 

Not that my single vote would have mattered a jot, one way or the other, in the great scheme of things. But, if I had voted differently, at least I would later have had the small consolation of being able to say: 'I told you so!'. Or: 'I knew, that something like this was going to happen!'

And, listening closely to the news on TV, and watching the various TV studio talk shows, and watching the A.F.P. political broadcasts over the weekend following their meteoric rise to power, I was gradually filled with a deep unease. A relentlessly growing sense of disquiet. 

By the end of Sunday evening, I was experiencing trepidation. Dread.

Now that the Authoritarian Female Party were actually in power, they were moving fast. Over that weekend, the A.F.P. membership took up office; initiating their projects, and changing the face of Britain.

Galvanized into feverish, all-hands-on-deck purposeful activity, the all-female member party set about preparing for government. Set about the task, of installing their female-friendly governmental apparatus -- their anti-male administration.

Over the weekend, as I watched the news updates, my sense of foreboding deepened. 

My feeling of dread deepened, as I watched on TV the many A.F.P. broadcasts. Deepened, as I listened to the opinions of panel guests on countless TV studio discussions. And deepened, as I watched the more in-depth interviews of senior political figures, by TV station anchor-men and women, and by other journalistic luminaries.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. What I was hearing. What was actually happening. And, what I had actually voted for ... Mum had been right.

Prime Minister Caroline Flynt announced that, from Monday, all females would be exempt from paying income tax. Their earnings would be paid to them tax-free. Their tax burden, she said, would be passed on to the male workforce.

Caroline Flynt went on, promising the country's females that the introduction of many more female-friendly changes were on the way, and would be implemented as soon as possible. 

I was astounded and shocked. 

Of course, although I'd paid them little heed, I'd heard about many of the A.F.P.'s female-friendly election manifesto pledges. 

But this was the first that I had heard, of these ... more sinister, proposals. These, formerly kept under wraps, but now, completely overt, anti-male measures. 

Carefully, sneakily, craftily hidden away -- cunningly secreted -- in the 'small print'; in the clauses and sub-clauses of their election manifesto pledges ... maybe they were. 

But these vague, ambiguous, open to interpretation, delicately nuanced clauses were there, nonetheless.

Somehow, the A.F.P.'s deeper, darker, underlying design just hadn't been picked up on. Just hadn't been spotted, by the people who usually so closely scrutinized these things.

And, although the A.F.P. members had kept studiously quiet about these slyly hidden anti-male measures, before the election, their Cabinet Ministers were certainly giving them a good airing now. 

Now, that the Authoritarian Female Party were safely in power. Safe, to show their true colours. To flaunt them, flying them high and proud.

But the worst bombshell was Caroline Flynt's announcement, that the A.F.P. would be introducing their Community Service Programme.

For, Britain's male long-term unemployed (over six months), immediately upon their being unemployed for six months, would from now on be sent a Letter of Notification. After which, they would then promptly be served with a Community Service Order.

Until they found gainful employment, such male benefits claimants would be made to earn their weekly Unemployment Benefit payments, by means of working as community servants. 

And the same, working-for-their-benefits policy would apply to school leavers, who had no job or training to go to upon their leaving education.

All such male school leavers would be assigned to a placement, on the A.F.P. government's new Work Motivation Programme scheme. These placements being specifically designed, to 'motivate' claimants into finding gainful employment.

This was the biggest bombshell, because I was just one week away from reaching the six-month limit.

The Minister for Employment, Helen Highwater, announced an immediate recruitment drive. 

Females, aged between eighteen and fifty, were invited to apply for jobs as Community Service Officers. Their role: to supervise -- and, as and when they deemed fit, to chastise -- the community servants under their authority. 

The Community Service Officers (C.S.O's) would be armed, with the symbol of their authority: their A.F.P. issue cane. And C.S.O.'s would be free to use their canes, to chastise community servants at their own discretion.

Helen Highwater announced that females signing up as Community Service Officers would earn £10 per hour. A standard 40-hour week, would pay a wage of £400. And then overtime would often be available, and rates would be very generous, she said.

Helen Highwater said that Job Centres all over Britain would be open all over the weekend, and she urged females who thought this line of work appealing, to visit their local Job Centre, now ... Because these jobs were sure to be snapped up quickly. 

And the one week, crash-course induction training for Community Service Officers, was to start on Monday.

All other unemployed females, not wishing to avail themselves of this exciting new employment opportunity, would, with effect as of Monday, have their Unemployment Benefit payments tripled, to £240 per week. Until employment opportunities more to their liking, might become available to them.

Most unsettling of all was Helen Highwater's announcement that: all males who had been unemployed for six months or longer, must remain at their home address on Monday week.

These A.F.P. broadcasts were repeated frequently throughout the weekend. And the faces of the new Prime Minister, Caroline Flynt; the Minister for Employment, Helen Highwater, and various other Authoritarian Female Party Cabinet Ministers, were never absent for long from my TV screen.

With only one more week left in which to find a job, I was fearing the worst ... 

And my fears were duly vindicated. For, at the end of that final week I was still jobless.

On Saturday morning, delivered by courier, I duly received my Letter of Notification from my local Job Centre. Their terse instruction: "Dear Mr. Smith. You are to remain at home on Monday."

I did not sleep well, on Sunday night. My fevered mind would give me no peace. I either tossed and turned with worry ... or just lay awake, fretting about what might be in store for me.

For, according to the TV news, all over Britain: England, Scotland, Wales -- and, as it came under the jurisdiction of the UK government, Northern Ireland too -- much of the A.F.P.'s female-friendly governmental apparatus was now up and running.

* * * 

In accordance with my local Job Centre's terse, "You are to remain at home on Monday." instruction, I remained confined to barracks, as it were.

The TV news programmes and talk shows were still being dominated by one topic: the winning of the British general election, by the Authoritarian Female Party.

The ramifications of the A.F.P.'s rise to power were discussed endlessly; the items of discussion, seemingly inexhaustible.

And, I couldn't help but notice, that the (predominantly) female contributors to these TV studio discussion panels, could not keep the excitement out of their voices ... or the new, manic light, that seemed to shine out from their eyes.

*

At exactly 8 a.m., just as the national news was coming on TV, looking out of the window I saw a white van stop outside the house. The side of the van bore the now familiar Authoritarian Female Party insignia: a flag of blue, green, red and yellow quarters.

So, then. This was for real. This was really happening ... They were actually coming for me.

I continued to gaze through the living-room window; the TV news, now just some white noise in the background.

And then I saw two young women emerge from the A.F.P. van, both of whom, I estimated to be only slightly older than myself; maybe nineteen or twenty.

The two young women were, of course, Community Service Officers. 

The two C.S.O.'s both had blonde hair. And, as an integral part of their C.S.O. uniform, their hair was cut in the distinctive 'concave bob' style: with a straight fringe, coming to just above the eyebrows; straight at the back, and cut to just above the nape of the neck; and hanging straight at the sides, the cut slightly angled to follow the jawline, and with the hair teased to curve inward under the jaw.

The two C.S.O.'s were both quite attractive, I thought. Their faces were pleasing to the eye, and their figures were shapely and curvaceous; a pleasing picture of blossoming womanhood. But, for all of that, I had a feeling I wasn't going to like them very much. 

As well as their distinctive hair style, the uniform of the C.S.O.'s was very distinctive, too, and incorporated each of the four colours of the Authoritarian Female Party (to which, C.S.O.'s automatically became members upon their being employed by the party). 

Community Service Officers were unmistakable; if they were approaching you in the street, you could have absolutely no doubt as to who was walking towards you ... And, if you had any sense, you would turn around and walk the other way -- and quick.

The two C.S.O.'s who were now unlatching the front gate, were dressed in their uniform of blue blazer, green blouse, short, red skirt, and yellow cotton ankle-socks. On their feet, they wore the black, backless, thick rubber-soled clog-like shoes that were the standard C.S.O. issue footwear. Around their waist, they wore their C.S.O.'s Velcro-fastened, nylon utility belt. Their utility belts were pouched; the pouches' contents, hidden from view. But, clipped onto their utility belts, among other things I saw a bunch of keys, a walkie-talkie, and a pair of handcuffs. 

And if a further clue as to the C.S.O.'s identity was needed, one was readily provided. For, in their hands they brandished the dreadful symbol of their authority -- their A.F.P. issue cane. 

The A.F.P. issue cane was fearsome to behold; the C.S.O.'s implement of chastisement, being of flexible bamboo, and gradually tapering, so as to be almost whip-like at its tip. 

When the two C.S.O.'s saw me watching them through the living-room window, one of them pointed her finger at my front door, in an unmistakable command: Open up! And the two of them casually sauntered -- arrogantly swaggered -- towards the front door; the power and authority vested in them, by their new positions, quite obviously having already gone straight to their concave bob framed heads.

Turning from the window, I walked towards the TV, intending to turn it off. 

On TV was the new Prime Minister, Caroline Flynt. She seemed to be never off the screen. Yet again, she was assuring the British public that her government would not fail to keep their promises, but would vigorously pursue the speedy implementation of their female-friendly election manifesto pledges. 

My finger hovered over the TV's Off button ... Caroline Flynt was an attractive woman, I thought. Very attractive, actually. How old was she ... late thirties ... early forties? It didn't matter. With her shoulder-length black hair, dark brown eyes, her full-lipped, sensual-looking mouth, and her very shapely figure, she was a real eye-catcher. Certainly, she caught my eye. Even if she was, probably old enough to be my mum!

But, for all of that, this was all her doing: My undoing. Ultimately, she was responsible for my predicament. Caroline Flynt, and her Authoritarian Female Party, were—

I was startled out of my reverie by the two C.S.O.'s, who rattled their canes against the front door in their impatience ... And, to this day, I can still remember the highly unsettling sound they made.

I finally turned off the TV, and hurried to open the front door to the two C.S.O.'s ... I had a feeling they wouldn't take too kindly to me keeping them waiting.

Upon my opening the front door to them, the two Community Service Officers looked at me for long moments, without speaking; chewing gum, and blowing bubbles with it, till they burst with a popping sound. Pop! Pop! 

As they stared at me, the corners of their mouths formed a smirk of amusement, and of mockery, as they enjoyed my obvious discomfiture. Clearly, the two C.S.O.'s were revelling in my humiliating predicament. 


Community Service Ch. 01



According to their name tags, they were C.S.O. Karen, and C.S.O. Linda.

I looked across my street, and I saw neighbours looking through their front windows; others, standing at their front doors, even, in their eagerness to view these decidedly ignominious proceedings. I looked along my street, and I saw more residents standing at their doorsteps; their curiosity piqued, too, by the arrival of the A.F.P. van ... for it meant bad news, for someone.

The two Community Service Officers continued to smirk at me, and continued to chew their gum, and to blow bubbles with it, till they burst. Pop! Pop!

What disrespect! I thought. What cheek!

And, as the two C.S.O.'s noisily popped their gum, attracted by movement, my eyes were drawn downwards, to see that they had both slipped a foot out of their black, backless, thick rubber-soled, A.F.P. issue clogs. And, as I watched, they both flexed and scrunched their toes, in their yellow cotton ankle-socks. 

It somehow seemed to me, in interpreting the meaning of their body language, as though this was an unconscious, absentminded expression of pleasure. Yes: it seemed to me, that C.S.O. Karen and C.S.O. Linda were ... luxuriating, in the performance of their despicable duties. 

Pop! Pop! 

At hearing the chewing gum bubbles burst, I raised my eyes again ... and saw that the two C.S.O.'s were smiling at me. Smiling broadly.

After what seemed to me to be an uncomfortably long time, but was probably less than a minute, one of the Community Service Officers formally addressed me. 

"Are you David Smith?" asked the taller one of the two, whose name tag declared her to be C.S.O. Karen.

I felt an almost irresistible urge to say: 'No. You've got the wrong man', like a character in some woeful B movie. But, what would be the point?

"Yes, I'm David Smith," I replied, my voice betraying my displeasure and resentment.

"I am C.S.O. Karen, and this is C.S.O. Linda," she informed me, introducing themselves like two police women.

I didn't tell them I was pleased to meet them -- because I wasn't.

C.S.O. Karen smirked at me, as she then produced and unfolded a sheet of official-looking paper from a breast pocket of her green uniform blouse. Reading from the document, she intoned officiously: "I, C.S.O. Karen, by the powers vested in me by the Authoritarian Female Party, hereby serve a Community Service Order on you, David Smith, unemployed for six months."

As some of my neighbours came closer, the better to hear and see what was being said and done, I was grateful that Mum and Dad had already gone to work, and so were not here to witness this awful event.

Mum and Dad owned a small business in town. A florist shop, that they ran with the help of their eighteen-year-old niece (and, my cousin), Rose, who was their full-time employee. 

C.S.O. Karen went on, importantly, "You, David Smith, are to accompany me to the Community Service Operations Centre. There, the Community Service Liaison Officer will assign you to your duties, as a community servant."

Now, some of my neighbours were openly smiling; others, actually rubbing their hands in glee. In a minute, I thought, they would actually start cheering. Might even hop, skip, and jump, in expression of their joy. Especially the woman who lived directly across the street, Mrs. Newlove. 

Mrs. Norma Newlove: aged about twenty-six, a single mother, who had a houseful of horrible brats, and claimed every Social Security benefit allowance under the sun -- and then some. 

Openly gloating, she was, as she stood on her front doorstep. Her long, black hair was piled on top of her head, and fastened with a yellow plastic scrunch. She was looking tanned, and wearing her Minnie Mouse dressing gown and her Bugs Bunny slippers; souvenirs of her recent holiday to Disneyland -- at the British tax-payers' expense.

"Do you understand, David?" asked C.S.O. Karen, thoroughly warming to her new role, and quickly finding herself very much at home in it. Finding it, right up her street, in fact.

C.S.O. Karen: who, just last week, was being paid £80 per week in Unemployment Benefit payments, the same as myself ... But now, she was a Community Service Officer, and being paid £400 per week: She was being paid £400 per week, for supervising me -- a community servant.

"Yes, I understand," I replied through gritted teeth. 

Now, it was C.S.O. Linda who spoke, for the first time. She stepped up, very close to me; her attractive, arrogant, concave-bob-framed face so close to mine that I could smell her sweet, chewing gum breath. But there was nothing sweet about the authoritative tone of her voice, when she said to me, "From now on, you will use the term 'Miss', when you address Community Service Officers. I, am Miss Linda. And this," she said, gesturing to her C.S.O. colleague, "is Miss Karen. Do you understand, David?"

I could hardly believe my ears! Could hardly believe the way -- the tone -- in which this girl, this ... "I, am Miss Linda," C.S.O. Linda, had so arrogantly spoken down to me.

C.S.O. Linda: who, just last week, was being paid £80 per week in Unemployment Benefit payments, the same as myself ... But now, she was a Community Service Officer, and being paid £400 per week: She was being paid £400 per week, to lay down the law, to me -- a community servant.

The two C.S.O.'s watched my stunned, disbelieving expression. 

And, as they waited for my reply, they switched standing from foot to foot and, each time they did so, they ... luxuriated: Absentmindedly, they slipped a yellow cotton ankle-socked foot from its clog, and flexed and scrunched their toes. This pair of vixens weren't just enjoying themselves, I realised -- they were loving this! Loving their dominance over me.

Pop! Pop!

I raised my eyes again, to see the now unsmiling face of C.S.O. Linda. "I just asked you a question, David. I said: Do you understand, as to how you are to address us? How you are to demonstrate your respect?"

I was flabbergasted. This could not be happening!

Some of my neighbours were chuckling in amusement. They were enjoying the show. Enjoying my shame. Seconds passed, and I remained silent ... and C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda began flexing their wicked-looking canes meaningfully.

Would they really hit me with those terrible things? I wondered. Would they? Right here, on my own doorstep? In front of my gawping neighbours? In front of Mrs. Newlove?

I only had to look at the arrogant, power-crazed faces of C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda, to know the answer: Yes, they would. With no hesitation. And with no compunction. But with enthusiasm. And with zeal.

Once again, I was immensely glad that Mum and Dad were at work, and not here to witness my humiliation, by these two young women; by these two arrogant, officious, power-going-straight-to-their-heads, Community Service Officers.

"Yes, Miss Linda," I said at last. "I understand." 

I felt the almost irresistible urge, to run back into the house and slam the door in the two C.S.O.'s arrogant, concave-bob-framed faces ... but what would be the point? Instead, I pulled the door shut, and resigned myself to the inevitable. To the inescapable.

Without further ceremony, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda each grabbed hold of one of my arms, and roughly forced them behind my back. And then they frogmarched me to the back of their van, as my neighbours looked on, taking in the highly ignominious scene. Especially Mrs. Newlove, who was grinning from ear to ear, she was so exultant.

"Hey!" I protested, outraged. "I'll come quietly. Let go of me! There's no need for this! Get off me!" 

Upon opening the back doors of the van, which were marked with the black, capital letters: A.F.P., it was C.S.O. Linda who ordered harshly, "Shut up! Get in the van, David. Now!"

As I did as C.S.O. Linda had ordered, the shouted sentiments of my neighbours, of: "Yes! The lazy, sponging little sod!" And: "About time he did some work!" And, worst of all, the now gleefully cackling Mrs. Newlove's: "Ha ha ha ha! They will soon sort you out, David!" left me in little doubt that my neighbours had no qualms at all as to the rightfulness of my 'arrest'.

My sense of outrage soared, when I felt the palm of Mrs. Newlove's imperiously shoving hand, right in the middle of my back. I was incensed, at Mrs. Newlove's coming over; at her coming over the road, in her Minnie Mouse dressing gown, and her Bugs Bunny slippers, and having the impudence -- the audacity -- to actually help the two C.S.O.'s bundle me into the back of their A.F.P. van. But, I was absolutely livid, when Mrs. Newlove then imperiously echoed C.S.O. Linda's harsh order: "Yes! Shut up! And get in the van, David! Now!"

I had never felt so belittled. Had never felt so small. I was never, ever, going to live this down.

"I'm not idle!" I angrily shouted back at my denigrating neighbours; many of whom, I had formerly thought of as friends. "I just can't find a job, that's all!" I told them earnestly. "I've looked, and looked, and looked!"

The two C.S.O.'s evidently greatly enjoyed these reactions from my neighbours, and were pleased to see that they were obviously acting with the full backing and approval of the general public.

I was almost glad to get into the back of the A.F.P. van; at least it would be a refuge from my jeering, castigating neighbours. Especially, the gloating, insufferable Mrs. Norma Newlove.

C.S.O. Linda followed me into the back of the van and, as her colleague watched, C.S.O. Linda restrained me by my ankles, using the leather cuffs that were bolted to the floor of the A.F.P. van. C.S.O. Linda then slammed shut the back doors, and she sat on the padded bench-seat opposite me.

"This -- this is outrageous," I told C.S.O. Linda. "Twisting my arms behind my back, in front of my neighbours, and ..." I let my words trail off.

C.S.O. Linda was grinning at me. She chewed her gum, and blew bubbles with it, till they burst with a loud popping sound. Pop! Pop! Pop! "You haven't a clue, have you, David ... what you're in for?" she said. "You've no idea.

"Well, here's a small taster, David, of what's in store for you," said C.S.O. Linda, slipping her yellow cotton ankle-socked feet from her black, backless, thick rubber-soled A.F.P. issue clogs. 

Before I knew what she was about, C.S.O. Linda had stretched out her shapely (I have to give her that), olive-skinned legs, and placed her feet on my bench seat, right between my cuffed apart legs. Grinning, she spread my thighs further apart, with her feet.

What the ...? How dare she? I thought. What a colossal nerve, the girl had!

C.S.O. Linda's arrogant, superior, power-crazed smile was infuriating. Absolutely galling. 

Grinning at me, she raised both of her legs; the soles of her yellow cotton ankle-socked feet, now level with my chest. 

Mere inches away, I could see the soles of C.S.O. Linda's yellow cotton ankle-socked feet, in all of their gross, unsightly detail. 

The bright-yellow colour was still almost pristine, at her arch. But it was darkened; her foot sweat, staining the material a darker, yellowy-orange colour at her heels, at the balls of her feet, and around her toes, too: the pads of her toes, five distinct, individual yellowy-orange blobs.

Grinning even wider, C.S.O. Linda raised her legs even higher. The soles of her yellow cotton ankle-socked feet, were now level with my face. Mere inches away, I could now actually smell the decidedly unpleasant tang of their scent. 

C.S.O. Linda then flexed, wiggled, and scrunched her yellow-cotton-socked toes at me, wafting her tangy foot odour right under my nose. 

As though taunting me. As though goading me. As though provoking me, into saying something ... Something, that would land me in trouble. Something, that would give her the slightest excuse to take her cane to me -- already, I knew she wanted to. All the while, grinning at me. Chewing her gum, and blowing bubbles with it, till they burst ... Pop! Pop! Pop!

This was out of order! I thought. Well out of order! Where did she get off, roughly spreading my thighs apart with her feet, and then waving her sweaty-socked feet right in my face?

Grinning maddeningly, C.S.O. Linda continued to wave her sweaty-socked, stinky feet right in my face. Her toes; flexing, wiggling, scrunching. Chewing her gum, and going: Pop! Pop! Pop!

This was intolerable! I wasn't going to stand for much more of this ... this disrespectful treatment! After all, I still had rights ... Didn't I? 

C.S.O. Linda's face was a picture of pure, arrogant, supreme confidence. Supreme confidence, that came from knowing there would be no come-back, as a result of her domineering actions over a community servant. On the contrary: as I later learned, C.S.O.'s were encouraged to actively -- aggressively, even -- exert their authority over community servants.

C.S.O. Linda's grinning, bubble-gum popping, concave-bob-framed face was infuriating, as she then ordered, "Start massaging my feet, David ... If you don't, I'll give you a taste of this," she threatened, meaningfully flexing her wicked-looking, A.F.P. issue cane: the C.S.O.'s instrument of chastisement.

I was appalled. She was going too far! Surely, this was an outrageous abuse of her powers! I couldn't believe this was actually happening. Things were rapidly getting out of hand here; quickly escalating from bad, to terrible. 

This was abhorrent. I was nauseated. Nauseated, just at the very thought of handling C.S.O. Linda's sweaty-socked, stinky feet. 

But, intuiting the true, dominant, and ruthless nature of C.S.O. Linda; the true nature of this new breed, of power hungry females, who had so enthusiastically answered the Minister of Employment's clarion call to sign-up to become Community Service Officers, and to supervise (and, as and when they deemed fit, to chastise) the male community servants under their authority, it was obvious to me that it would be sheer, self-destructive folly, to do otherwise than to obey the commands of the cane-wielding C.S.O.'s. And, to obey them promptly.

My choice was clear: Massage C.S.O. Linda's feet, as she had ordered me to, as a community servant under her authority ... Or suffer the painful consequences of noncompliance. Painful consequences, summarily administered by her!

It didn't bear thinking about ... C.S.O. Linda, making good her threat, and taking her cane to me. 

Given my choices ... As loathsome as it was, to me, massaging C.S.O. Linda's sweaty-socked, stinky feet, was the lesser of the two evils. 

And so I took hold of C.S.O. Linda's right, yellow cotton ankle-socked foot, in both of my hands and said compliantly, "Yes, Miss Linda."

And, to this day, I can still remember that sinking feeling. That depression of spirit. My sense of hopeless, helpless capitulation. In short: my submission. 

As I began to massage C.S.O. Linda's right, yellow cotton ankle-socked foot, it was all I could do to hide my distaste -- my revulsion -- and my resentment.

This shouldn't be happening! No way, should it be happening! It just wasn't right! Being made to earn my Unemployment Benefit payments, was one thing, but ...

C.S.O. Linda's foot felt warm and clammy; unpleasantly moist, in my hands. And, at this extreme close-up range; at this literally, right-in-my-face nearness, I saw the sole of her sweat-stained, yellow cotton ankle-socked foot, even more clearly detailed and defined. Sweat-stained, particularly at her heel, the ball of her foot, and around her toes ... And the unpleasant, tangy smell was significantly stronger now, too. 

C.S.O. Linda smiled, and sighed contentedly as she enjoyed the benefits of my reluctant attentions -- my forced ministrations. 

As I massaged her right foot, she rested her left foot on my bench-seat, between my upper thighs, and within toe-touching distance of my groin. 

Then, upon her noticing that her colleague had been watching these proceedings from the driver's seat, she said, to C.S.O. Karen, "Hey, Karen! Know something? I think I'm going to enjoy this -- working for the Authoritarian Female Party!"

C.S.O. Karen laughed. "Yeah, I'll bet!" she replied. "Me, too!" 

Still giggling, C.S.O. Karen started the A.F.P. van, and set off for the Community Service Operations Centre, based in town.

* * * 

It was only a short, ten-minute drive and, upon our arrival at the Community Service Operations Centre, C.S.O. Linda released me from my ankle restraints. 

After locking up their van, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda again roughly twisted my arms behind my back, and escorted me inside the building. Full of themselves, the two C.S.O.'s then frogmarched me to Reception, and presented me to the Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman. 

The Community Service Liaison Officer; a quite tall, thin woman in her early forties, and with her auburn hair cut in the C.S.O.'s distinctive concave bob style, looked down her nose at me, as she appraised me. 

I found the Liaison Officer's gaze unsettling, intimidating. Her light-brown eyes, piercing, searching ... seeing. And she radiated authority. Powerful authority, that seemed to emanate from her like radio waves; scanning waves, that I could almost feel ... as if her signal was tuning in to me.

In fact, I found the Liaison Officer's seemingly all-seeing, all-knowing gaze so intimidating, that I couldn't meet her eyes; at least, I couldn't maintain eye contact with her for more than a few, highly disturbing seconds. 

And so I gazed past her, at the full-colour posters adorning the wall. 

The posters depicted various A.F.P. Cabinet Ministers -- I readily recognised the Minister for Employment, Helen Highwater. Most of the posters, though, were of Caroline Flynt, leader of the Authoritarian Female Party, and Prime Minister ... The woman who was, ultimately, responsible for my being here. The posters depicted her in various poses; mostly she was addressing audiences and party rallies, looking charismatic and authoritative ... And very attractive indeed.

The Liaison Officer then turned to my two escorts and, referring to me, she said in disdainful tones, "So ... what have we got here, then?" 

C.S.O. Karen replied, "This is David Smith, Ma'am. He has been unemployed for six months, and so he is now eligible for duty as a community servant."

Armed with this information, the Liaison Officer turned around, and walked up to the shelves behind her. There, she looked along the rows of brown cardboard boxes, each of them marked with the A.F.P. insignia: a flag of blue, green, red and yellow quarters.

"Ah, here we are," said the Liaison Officer, upon spotting the cardboard box she was looking for, on a shelf just above her head height. Being just about tall enough to reach the box, without needing to resort to the step-ladders, she reached up to retrieve it. And, as she reached up on tiptoe, both of her tan-hosed heels popped out of her low-heeled, black office pumps, displaying her rather long and narrow soles.

Upon her noticing this, C.S.O. Karen said, "Can you manage, Ma'am?"

"Yes, thank you, C.S.O. Karen. It's a bit of a stretch ... but I think I've got it," the Liaison Officer replied.

Having successfully retrieved the relevant cardboard box from the shelf, the Liaison Officer brought it back to her Reception desk, placing it on the counter. On the top of the plain brown cardboard box, a white label read: 'Community servant David 007'.

This raised a laugh, from C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda, and an amused chuckle from the Liaison Officer, too. Though, this merely meant that I was the 7th David, so far, to become a community servant. 

When their laughing and joke-cracking had subsided, the Liaison Officer informed me, "In this box, David, is your community servant's uniform: white T-shirt, and white shorts. You have five sets; one for each day of your working week. And, of which you must wash and press to a high standard, so that you are always presentable when you report for duty. Slovenliness will not be tolerated -- and is sanctionable. You are also being issued with two pairs of rubber flip flops, as there will be a lot of water where you will be working. You will put on your community servant's uniform before you leave this building.




Community Service Ch. 01



"From now on, David," the Liaison Officer went on, "until you find gainful employment, you will be working for your eighty pounds per week Unemployment Benefit payments, as a community servant. Your hours of duty, will be from eight a.m. to five p.m., Monday to Friday. You will be entitled to two fifteen-minute breaks: one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. And half an hour for your lunch break.

"This means that, working a standard forty-hour week, you will be earning two pounds per hour, by way of earning your eighty pounds.

"Now, David, I am assigning you to your work duties: in the Sock Room."

Indicating to C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda, the Liaison Officer continued, "Community Service Officers Karen and Linda, here, have been detailed to supervise you. C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda will monitor you. They will inspect your work regularly, to ensure that you perform your assigned duties diligently, and that you consistently achieve the high standard of results that will be expected of you.

"And, I am giving you due warning now, community servant David: as and when they consider the results of your labours to be less than satisfactory, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda are fully authorised to chastise you. They will chastise you, by administering to your bare bottom, as many strokes of their canes as they might deem the occasion to warrant."

I was absolutely speechless. This was totally outrageous! I couldn't believe what I'd just heard. What I'd just been told, by the Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman -- a senior figure in local government. 

C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda were fully authorised to cane me -- to 'chastise' me! As many strokes of their canes, as they deemed fit! To my bare bottom!

The Liaison Officer then said, "Now, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda, please get community servant David double-oh-seven into his uniform, and ready to begin his assigned duties ... He has been idle, for quite long enough." 

"Yes, Ma'am, right away!" replied C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda simultaneously, and with great zeal.

"Your clothes, community servant David double-oh-seven -- take them off. All of them!" snapped C.S.O. Karen authoritatively.

I couldn't believe my ears. This was incredible! An absolute nightmare!

"Are you hard of hearing, community servant David double-oh-seven?" asked C.S.O. Linda sarcastically. "Miss Karen just gave you an order: Your clothes! Get them off! Now!! Strip naked!" barked C.S.O. Linda, now flexing her cane meaningfully, as was C.S.O. Karen.

This just could not be happening! No! No! I refused to believe it! I was going to wake up any second; this would all just be a horrible, diabolical nightmare.

The Liaison Officer smirked, as she handed me a large white plastic carrier-bag and said, "I have put your other four sets of uniform in this bag. Put your clothes in here, with them, and someone will bring the carrier-bag to you later, at the Sock Room." 

I was red-faced from acute embarrassment, at having to fully undress in front of the Liaison Officer and C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda. It was incredibly ... belittling.

The three of them smirked at me, as I covered myself with my hands, the best that I could.

Now that I was fully unclothed, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda presented me with my community servant's uniform. And, as if I was a small child, still clumsy at putting on his own clothes, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda dressed me: "Pull your arms through," said C.S.O. Karen, as she pulled the white, short-sleeved T-shirt over my head. And: "Put your feet though," said C.S.O. Linda, instructing me to step into my white, elasticated-waist shorts, when she then pulled them up to my waist.

"Oh, I do like a man in uniform," said the Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman, sarcastically. Facetiously fluttering her fingers goodbye at me, she said, "Well, toodle pip. Off you go then, double-oh-seven ... Go and save the world."

Oh, she was a right barrel of laughs, the Liaison Officer. She was a laugh a minute.

C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda then escorted me out of the Community Service Operations Centre.

As they frogmarched me across Canford town square, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda enjoyed watching the smiling, waving, approving reactions of female members of the general public, upon their seeing us. That is, upon their seeing a community servant being so roughly manhandled, by two no-nonsense, assertive -- dominant -- C.S.O.'s. 

C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda nonchalantly chewed gum, and they blew bubbles with it, till they burst: Pop! Pop! Pop! as they escorted me, community servant David 007 (as my white uniform T-shirt announced, front and back, to the world), across the town square, to my workplace.

To where I had been duly assigned, by the Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman, to earn my weekly Unemployment Benefit payments, until I found gainful employment.

The Sock Room.

Community Service continues, in Ch. 2.



Community Service Ch. 02



Ch. 2: The Sock Room.

I, David Smith, of Canford, south London, having reached the status of male long-term unemployed (six months), had become eligible for one of the recently elected Authoritarian Female Party's Work Motivation Programme schemes: to be made to earn my weekly Unemployment Benefit payments, by working as a community servant.

On the Monday following my having reached this six-months time limit, I had been picked up at my home address, by two cane-wielding Community Service Officers – C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda.

I was eighteen years old, and I had guessed (rightly, as it turned out) that the two C.S.O.'s were only slightly older than me, at nineteen or maybe twenty. They were both blonde, and C.S.O. Karen, at about five feet, nine inches, was two or three inches taller than her colleague Linda. They were both quite attractive, I thought. Easy on the eye, with their still-developing, yet already eye-catching, curvy figures, and their fresh, girl-next-door faces ... But then, as the saying goes: beauty is only skin deep.

Their C.S.O.'s uniform was made up of the four colours of the A.F.P.'s flag: blue blazer, green blouse, red, short skirt, and yellow cotton ankle socks. On their feet, they wore the black, thick rubber-soled, backless shoes (like clogs), that were the standard C.S.O. issue footwear.

And, as an integral part of their uniform, the C.S.O.'s hair was cut in the distinctive 'concave bob' style. 

Formerly – that is, until the moment C.S.O's Karen and Linda had turned up on my doorstep – I had thought this particular hair style very attractive. The concave bob suited some girls and women extremely well, I thought. The hair style seeming to enhance, and to make the most of their features. To show them in their best light. At their most appealing ... And their most alluring. To me, the concave bob was a sexy hair style.

But, as worn by the C.S.O.'s – the predominantly imposing, aggressive-natured females, who arrogantly sported their authority, and who brandished their wicked-looking A.F.P. issue canes with an at-the-drop-of-a-hat menace – the concave bob was more like a sinister-looking helmet. Like the unlovely uniform headgear of some militarist female regime.

Right in front of my gawping neighbours, C.S.O. Karen had stood, puffed up with self-importance, and proceeded to officiously read out my Community Service Order.

Upon this formality having been duly observed, the two C.S.O.'s had then frogmarched me to the back of their A.F.P. van, and roughly bundled me inside – my gloating neighbour-from-hell, Mrs. Norma Newlove, gleefully assisting them. Shoving me in the back, and imperiously echoing C.S.O. Linda's harshly issued order, telling me to "Shut up! And get in the van, David! Now!" 

I had never felt so incensed, as I had at that moment. When I had felt Mrs. Newlove's shoving hand, right in the middle of my back and, with malicious glee she had hastened me towards my awful fate. And I had never so belittled. How would I ever live it down? Mrs. Newlove, I knew, would be dining out on that delicious titbit, for months. And she would savour its lingering aftertaste, for years.

Then, C.S.O. Linda had restrained me by my ankles with the leather cuffs that were bolted to the floor of the van, and the two 'arresting' C.S.O.'s had escorted me to the Community Service Operations Centre, based in town.

There, the Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman, had issued to me my five sets of community servant's uniform: white shorts, and white T-shirt – with my decidedly ignominious identity emblazoned in bold black letters and numbers, front and back: community servant David 007. 

One set, for each day of my Monday to Friday, forty-hour working week. Plus two pairs of rubber flip flops: "There will be a lot of water, where you will be working," the Liaison Officer had told me, with a knowing, gratified smirk on her face.

The Liaison Officer had formally told me that, until I found gainful employment, I would be made to earn my £80 per week Unemployment Benefit payments, by working as a community servant.

The Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman, whose auburn hair was also cut in the same distinctive concave bob style as was worn by the C.S.O.'s, was a woman I found to be greatly intimidating. She had a certain, disturbing ... presence. Her authority, seeming to emanate from her in powerful, almost palpable waves. And I instinctively knew that the less I saw of this highly unsettling woman, the better.

And the Liaison Officer had smiled, as though at the amusing mental images being evoked, when she had informed me as to the location of the work assignment that she was assigning me to: the Sock Room.

    * 

As my two supervisors, Community Service Officers Karen and Linda, frogmarched me, community servant David 007, through Canford town centre, I saw for the first time some of the new ... female-friendly features that the Authoritarian Female Party government, led by the very attractive and highly charismatic Caroline Flynt, had decreed be installed there.

One of these new features, I saw, was situated at the centre of the town square – the Public Caning Post.

And tied to the monstrous, T-shaped apparatus, was a community servant. 

His arms were stretched wide apart; his wrists fastened tightly with black plastic cable-ties, close to the ends of the horizontal section of the T-shaped device of chastisement.

I knew the hapless wretch was a community servant, because he was wearing the same, instantly identifiable uniform as myself: white T-shirt, and white shorts. What clinched it, though, was what I saw emblazoned on the back of his white T-shirt, in bold black letters and numbers: community servant Peter 003.

In accordance with the Community Service Officers' text book of chastisement (a slim hand-book copy of which, all C.S.O.'s routinely carried on their person), preparatory to the administering of chastisement, community servant Peter 003's white, elasticated-waist shorts had duly been pulled down around his ankles, so as to fully expose his bare bottom.

And, upon the white cheeks of his bare bottom, five or six red stripes glowed vividly ... At least, I thought it was five or six. It was difficult to tell; hard to be sure, as some of the angry red weals seemed to overlap previous wounds.

My God! They looked sore, too. And I could hear the poor sod moaning in pain.

As C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda forcefully escorted me across the town square, I saw two female members of the public, maybe in their late twenties or early thirties, saunter up to the Public Caning Post. And, savouring their anticipation, they smiled into the wretched, pain-racked face of community servant Peter 003, before putting their bags of shopping down upon one of the dozen or so wooden benches that faced the town square. 

Then, as though they were choosing a cue at a snooker club, the two women each selected a cane from inside a lidded cylindrical container, that was rather like an over-sized arrow quiver.

And, carefully targeting one buttock each, with obvious relish they availed themselves of their one-stroke allowance – laying their own, personal red stripes across the vulnerable bare buttocks of community servant Peter 003 ... And two more bright-red weals were added to his collection.

The highly disturbing sounds were plainly audible as, almost simultaneously the two chastising females' canes cut through the air, and smacked against each of community servant Peter 003's totally exposed bare buttocks. Whoo! Whoo! Crack! Crack!

"Aaaaahhhh! Aaaaaaahhhhhh!! Ow! ... Ow! ... Ow!" I saw community servant Peter 003's fingers flex, and bunch ... flex, and bunch ... in a spasm of involuntary nervous reaction, in the throes of his latest eye-watering afflictions.

Females within earshot of community servant Peter 003's agonised cries of pain, and of his follow-up, pathetic whimpering, responded to the sounds of his anguish with amused and delighted laughs, titters, chuckles and giggles.

And the two chastising females laughed, tittered, chuckled and giggled, too, as they returned the canes to the cylinder-shaped receptacle. 

Still laughing and giggling, the two women warmly congratulated each other upon the evident efficacy of the cane strokes they'd just administered – I distinctly heard one of them say, between giggles, "Good one, Pam! He certainly felt that! Heh heh heh." And then they picked up their bags of shopping from the wooden bench, and contentedly continued on their way.

I couldn't believe what I had just witnessed. What the ...? What the hell!

What got me, was the casual, nothing-out-of-the-ordinary, no-big-deal attitude, in which the two female shoppers had caned community servant Peter 003's bare bottom. It had just seemed, to the two women, to be so unremarkable an event – a non-event. So normal. So ... every-day. 

As I wondered what community servant Peter 003 might have done to warrant his agonising and humiliating punishment – his so-called chastisement – C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda laughed, tittered, chuckled and giggled, too. 

And, even though I wasn't resisting, they tightened their grips on my arms; twisted them further up behind my back. And as they frogmarched me across Canford town square, they chewed their gum, and blew bubbles with it, till they burst with a loud popping sound: Pop! Pop! Pop! 

On several occasions, my uniform issue rubber flip flops came off my feet. Partly, because I was not used to wearing them yet, but mainly, because C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda were forcing me to walk at a too-quick pace, in them. And when this happened a fourth time, C.S.O. Karen finally lost patience with me. "Carry them, David!" she ordered waspishly.

As I walked barefoot, I yelped in pain as I trod on small, sharp stones in my path. But this was mostly because I was paying insufficient attention to where I was going. 

For, in grim fascination, I looked about me at more manifestations of the new, so-called female-friendly features. At the new, fiendishly-conceived ... street furniture. The new contraptions and devices – the wickedly-devised, diabolical apparatus of community servant chastisement – that, by decree of the Authoritarian Female Party, were now installed in and around the town centre. 

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw, on the pedestrianised High Street, the row of four, hideous and barbaric, medieval-style stocks – all four of them, occupied by community servants.

On their knees, kneeling upon black foam-rubber mats, the community servants were firmly secured into those wicked devices. And, whatsmore, they were cruelly locked into a position that was not only awkward and uncomfortable, but was also a grievous, and endless struggle to maintain: Their arms pulled upwards, with their hands protruding through the two hand-holes, while their miserable, strain-etched faces poked out of the head-hole, barely a foot above the flagstoned pavement. 

As I watched, I saw various females – shoppers, girls-about-town; and office workers, shop assistants on their way to work – flock to the stocks. 

And, depending on these females' individual circumstances, they might simply put down their bags of shopping, for a rest, or maybe chat to a friend before they went to catch their bus, or maybe they had a spare minute or two, before they had to clock on for work. 

And, as they did so, these variously resting, shopping, chatting, on-their-way-to-work females would stand with their backs to one of the helpless, on-his-hands-and-knees community servant. And, freeing a foot from their shoe, they would reach their foot behind them and upwards, and massage, or perhaps simply rest the sole of their foot, upon the forcibly proffered, conveniently positioned face of the community servant, of who's services they were thus happily availing themselves. 

I distinctly heard some of these females' sighs of blissful pleasure. Sighs of pleasure and gratification, as they proceeded to massage the soles of their feet – hosed feet; stockinged feet; bare feet; socked feet – upon the community servants' forcibly proffered, conveniently positioned faces. 

Nonchalantly chatting away, and leisurely switching from foot to foot, these females happily – some of them, gleefully – availed themselves of this splendid new female-friendly town centre leisure activity. Their faces, a veritable picture of blissful contentment – or power-hungry gratification, at so subjugating the males at their feet.

There were four more of these cruel stocks, I noticed, at what a sign declared to be Smokers' Corner. 

All four of these Smokers' Corner stocks were occupied, too. For it seemed that there was no shortage of community servants, who were in need of chastisement.

At Smokers' Corner, I saw, females wishing to take a break, and enjoy a leisurely cigarette, could also take advantage of this new, highly agreeable town centre facility. Their satisfied expressions, upon exhaling their cigarette smoke, due only in part, to the nicotine hit.

Finally, as we were approaching the far end of Canford's town square, I saw yet another four sets of stocks. But none of these stocks were occupied, at the moment ... And then I saw the reason why. 

And again, I could hardly believe my eyes. For there was a large, elaborate sign that brazenly declared: Prostitutes' Parade.

The large sign, I saw, depicted an erotically illustrated, rear-view image of a stunning-figured, provocatively postured, touting-for-business prostitute. 

Bending over, with her pert, tight-skirted bottom thrust in the air, she was leaning into the front passenger side window of a car, purportedly discussing the terms of a transaction with her potential client. Standing with her left leg taking her weight, her right leg was bent at the knee, and the top of her right, high-arched, prominent-heeled foot was resting upon her siren-red, ridiculously high-heeled mule sandal, displaying her bare sole.

The Authoritarian Female Party, I later learned, had made it perfectly legal for prostitutes – or, as they preferred to call themselves, 'sex workers' – to go 'On the game'. And, on Prostitutes' Parade, for 7 days a week, the 'Good time girls' were at liberty to offer their services between the hours of 10 p.m. – 4 a.m.

But, under the A.F.P., no female became a prostitute purely out of financial necessity, any more. These females worked as prostitutes, by choice. Purely of their own volition. Because they wanted to. They enjoyed their work, these sex workers, these ... ladies of the night.

Having now crossed the town square, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda frogmarched me into a side street, and they propelled me towards the large, stand-alone building that was situated about 100 yards further up the street. And, outside of which was a large, animated gathering of chattering girls and women.

As we got closer, I saw that there were twenty-five to thirty females waiting outside the building, who, upon their seeing us approach, abruptly ended their conversations.

I had now arrived at my destination: the Sock Room. 

The place where, by the arbitrary dictat of the Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman, until I found gainful employment, I would be made to earn my £80 per week Unemployment Benefit payments, by working as a community servant.

    *

Upon their seeing my I.D., as was starkly emblazoned upon my white uniform T-shirt, front and back, in bold black letters and numbers: community servant David 007, a ripple of titters and chuckles broke out among the waiting girls and women. 

"Ha ha ha ha! He'll soon be shaken – and stirred!" quipped one of them, an attractive, shoulder-length dark haired, buxom woman in her mid-twenties, who's name I later learned was Gina Stainham. And, upon their hearing Gina's caustic witticism, the mildly amused titters and chuckles of the other girls and women erupted in to a decidedly unladylike, uninhibited ribald laughter. 

I could actually feel my face glowing crimson, such was my acute embarrassment.

C.S.O. Karen then detached the bunch of keys from her utility belt and, as she walked up to the main double-doors of the building, C.S.O. Linda held onto my right wrist tightly ... in case I was getting any ideas.

C.S.O. Karen chewed gum, and she blew bubbles with it, till they burst with a loud popping sound – Pop! Pop! Pop! – as she inserted one of the keys into the door lock. 

Immediately upon C.S.O. Karen swinging the double-doors wide open, as if they had been camped-overnight bargain hunters waiting for the Boxing Day Sales at Harrods, the assemblage of girls and women poured through the opened doors in an impatient, headlong rush. 

"In you go then, David," prompted C.S.O. Linda, when the last of the crowd of waiting girls and women had entered the building.

Just like many others, in towns and cities all over the UK, Canford town's Sock Room was now officially open.

    * 

The first thing that struck me, was that the Sock Room was a much larger building than I had imagined. Much bigger, than I would have thought such an ... establishment, to be.

The Sock Room was split into two levels. The upper level was at street level. While the lower, basement level was reached by descending six wooden steps.

As I entered the Sock Room, I came into a large, open, square-shaped room with three walls. The flooring was of a heavy-duty, light grey linoleum.

The wall to my right, and the wall that was interrupted by the double-doors through which I had entered the building, were both lined with wooden shelves from floor to ceiling. And there were several sets of aluminium step-ladders, to facilitate easy access to those higher, out-of-reach shelves.

The wall to my left, was lined with twelve, twin-wheeled plastic receptacles that, in their appearance and size, I thought, greatly resembled household wheelie bins ... and, upon closer inspection, I realised that's what they actually were. 

The wheelie bins were colour-coded. The first eight of these wheelie bins were painted white. Of the other four, one was painted yellow, one was painted black, one was painted navy blue, and the one at the end of the row was painted multi-coloured, rainbow-like.

Directly ahead, at the far end of the upper, street level floor of the Sock Room, six wooden steps led down to the basement level – for staff only.

To either side of the six wooden steps, it was a sudden drop-off. And at the edge of this sudden drop-off, on both sides of the six wooden steps, was a two-barred safety railing.

And, situated at these two safety railings, and facing towards the basement level, were four black leather, padded recliners. Two, on either side of the six wooden steps.

What, the ...? I wondered.

    * 

The floor-to-ceiling shelves, I saw, were fully stocked. Crammed, with brand-new pairs of socks.

Most of the shelves were stocked with white cotton socks. Some of the socks came in single pairs. But most of them, I saw, were of 3-packs, and 5-packs – especially the most-in-demand, sports and leisure socks, of which there were shelf after shelf. 

There were lots of schoolgirls' plain white long socks. And ankle socks too, though rather less of those. 

And there were many shelves full of long white socks, that were double-ringed near the tops with either red, green, yellow or blue. I would soon learn that these were the sports socks worn by the schoolgirls of Canford High, the town's largest school. The colours of the double rings, representing each of the school's four Houses. 

On the right-hand side wall, the first six shelves were dedicated to the yellow cotton ankle socks, as worn by the C.S.O.'s. These socks came packaged in single pairs ... no economy packs, here.




Community Service Ch. 02



Some of the shelves contained coloured cotton socks. Whether of a single colour, or multi-coloured. Some of these socks were patterned. While other socks sported designs, pictures, and motifs. So there was plenty of choice, for the girls and ladies of Canford.

A good number of shelves contained black cotton socks. And navy blue cotton socks. Both long socks, and ankle socks. 

I later came to understand that some of the younger females had a preference for black socks, as leisure wear. Apparently, they went well with their ballet flats. This footwear being highly popular, these days, and extremely comfortable too.

But the vast majority of these black socks were uniform socks, worn by the schoolgirls of St Kate's, one of Canford's two girls' schools. 

The students from Canford's other girls' school, St Esmeralda's, wore navy blue socks.

On the other side of the two-barred safety railings, down in the basement level, I saw the large, industrial standard laundering apparatus, that it was now my duty to operate.

    *

At the floor-to-ceiling shelves, the females of Canford were helping themselves to the brand-new pairs of socks. 

Despite there being a large litter bin in plain sight, after tearing off the sticky plastic bindings and cardboard packaging from the multi-packs of socks, many of the girls and women simply discarded the wrappings, carelessly littering the Sock Room floor. 

As they did so, the girls and women discarded their dirty socks, too. 

Some of them, I saw, peeled their socks from their feet, and then carelessly (or deliberately) dropped them onto the light grey linoleum floor ... for me to pick up. After all, that's what I was there for, wasn't it?

Some of them; either balling them up into a pair, or singly, deposited their dirty socks into an appropriate (colour-coded) wheelie bin. 

But some of the girls and women, actually went to the trouble of throwing their dirty (white) socks directly into the large, open-topped hopper that was situated at the end of the left-hand side of the basement, that was clearly signed: 'White Socks Only!'. 

Those ... those taunting, maliciously motivated, cruel-minded females stood at the two-barred safety railing, to gleefully throw in their dirty white socks – personally. As if to make it personal. Very personal. Intimately personal. As if they were sadistically saying to me: Ha! Get THOSE clean – sock washer! 

And Gina Stainham, the attractive, shoulder-length dark-haired, buxom woman in her mid-twenties, who'd caustically quipped that I'd "Soon be shaken – and stirred!" now said; and in a loud voice too, so that all of the other sock-changing girls and women would hear her latest comical gem: "Ha! Double-oh-seven? We all know what he's licenced to do – don't we, girls? ... He's licenced to wash our dirty socks!"

I cringed with mortification, at being once again subjected to the cruel barbs of Gina's acerbic wit, and having to listen to the sock-changing females' raucous, derisive laughter.

"Come on, double-oh-seven," said C.S.O. Linda. "You can come back up here later, to pick up all of this litter. And to pick up all of these dirty socks from the floor, and put them in the appropriate receptacles. But first, me and Miss Karen want to give you the Grand Tour of the Sock Room ... Show you your new domain. Where you will be working for your dole money, from now on."

Go on! Rub it in, why don't you? I thought, but didn't say.

    *

C.S.O. Karen instructed, "Go down those wooden steps – Sock Boy," she called me, in not wanting to be outdone by her colleague, in the mickey-taking stakes. "Then turn left, and go to the end. To the big, open-topped hopper."

I descended the six wooden steps, and I turned left as instructed. 

Down here, in the lower, basement level of the Sock Room, the floor was of a smooth, unyielding dark grey stone.

Pointing to the large, industrial-sized hopper, signed 'White Socks Only!', C.S.O. Karen told me, "This is the main hopper, David. For white socks only ..." A blurred movement overhead catching our attention, we looked up to see Gina, standing at the two-barred safety railing having just hurled her own, balled-up pair of dirty white socks into the main, open-topped hopper. As soon as Gina was satisfied that I knew just what she had done, she sauntered away, looking back over her shoulder at me, smirking goadingly. 

I glared back at Gina. Barefoot, she walked away slowly, her eyes mocking me. In her right hand she carried her blue and white trainers by their white laces, swinging them to and fro as she languorously headed towards the sock shelves to avail herself of a brand-new pair of socks. With her every step, Gina's bare feet; especially the balls of her feet, her heels, and the pads of her toes, picked up debris; bits of fluff and stuff from the Sock Room floor. And I watched her still-moist soles accumulating more and more dust and dirt, and becoming increasingly grubby.

C.S.O. Linda waved an attention-getting hand in front of my eyes and said, "Hel-lo ...? Double-oh-seven, get with the programme, eh? I think you'll have to run a quick mop over the Sock Room floor, later. But, for now, listen up: This, is your mission ..." She waited for C.S.O. Karen to stop laughing. 

C.S.O. Linda then instructed me, "You empty the white-painted wheelie bins, that are full of dirty white socks, into the main hopper ... Yeah? See this flat piece of wood? See these wooden steps? You put this flat piece of wood over the wooden steps, to make a ramp ... see? So that you can wheel the wheelie bins full of dirty socks down here, and then return the wheelie bins back upstairs when you've emptied them, so that they can be filled up again with more girls' and women's dirty socks." 

So as to ensure that I was quite clear on this, C.S.O. Linda placed the flat piece of wood over the six wooden steps, thereby demonstrating how the construction of the makeshift ramp was achieved. 

C.S.O. Linda went on with my instruction. "This is the main hopper. And it's for white socks only. See these two metal plates on the floor? And this lever? You place the two wheels of the wheelie bins onto the two metal plates, and then you pull this lever. See? Any fool can work it. It's all automatic: the wheelie bin is hoisted up to the top of the open-topped hopper; turned upside down, and the dirty white socks are all tipped out – just like household wheelie bins, being emptied into a refuse truck. Ha ha ha!" laughed C.S.O. Linda, pleased with her analogy. Of course, C.S.O. Karen thought it was funny, too.

C.S.O. Linda continued, "See this small door, double-oh-seven, near the bottom of the hopper, with the bolt across it? And these two big white plastic laundry baskets? You open this small door ..." (she slid the bolt, to show me how it was done) "... to get at the dirty white socks. See? It's not rocket science. Just pull the dirty socks out with your hands, and fill up one of the baskets," she instructed. 

C.S.O. Linda went on, "Now, some of the dirty socks might be balled up into pairs. When they are, you separate them ... got that? And you turn the socks inside out, and transfer the separated, turned-inside-out socks to the other, empty big white plastic laundry basket ... Yeah? 

"Now, that's very important – turning all of the dirty socks inside out," continued C.S.O. Linda. "You make sure that all of the dirty socks are turned inside out, to make sure you wash out all of the foot sweat and dead skin. And, David, I'm warning you now: if either myself or Miss Karen see any dirty socks that you haven't turned inside out, just like I'm telling you, you are going to be sorry," C.S.O. Linda told me, flexing her cane meaningfully, for emphasis. 

She went on, "So, to re-cap: You fill up one of the two big white plastic laundry baskets, with the dirty white socks, and then ... you empty the big basket of dirty white socks ... into the laundry boiler tank, here," she said, as she moved on to said apparatus.

The laundry boiler tank was made of a dull-grey metal, and it was raised, situated on a platform about five feet above the floor. It was square-shaped; the sides, about four feet wide, and it was about three feet deep. 

It was C.S.O. Karen, who then conducted the next stage of my Sock Room induction. 

"See this tank, David? And this lever? And this valve? Put your hand against the side of the tank ... see how hot it is?" she said, when I quickly withdrew my hand from the blistering hot metal.

C.S.O. Karen went on, "You pull down on this lever, and the lid of the tank lifts up ... see?" The lid opened on its hinges, from right to left, and clouds of steam billowed out of the laundry boiler tank as she demonstrated the lid-lifting mechanism to me. "You empty – up to a maximum – of six baskets' of dirty white socks, into the laundry boiler tank, and close the lid again. And then you let the socks soak, for at least two hours," she instructed. 

"And this valve, here," she said, pointing at the red plastic adjusting knob, "regulates the water temperature. See ...?" she said, pointing at the dial, the needle of which, was hovering just below the red danger-zone. "Keep the needle there – you'll need to keep the water piping-hot, if you're going to get all of the dirt and grime and foot sweat and dead skin out of the socks."

"Yeah," agreed C.S.O. Linda. "It stands to reason."

Next, and situated just to the left of the six wooden steps, were two large and almost identical stainless-steel sinks. They were of the same dimensions: almost square-shaped, and about three feet deep. 

The first of these two stainless-steel sinks differed from the second, in that it had a similar water temperature regulating valve and dial, to the larger, and lidded, dull-grey metal laundry boiler tank. 

Under this first stainless-steel sink, I saw, was a foot-pedal operated detergent dispenser. And under the second stainless-steel sink, were stacked four large dark blue plastic laundry tubs, that were slotted inside each other for space saving.

Unfolded, and standing between the laundry boiler tank and the first of the two stainless-steel sinks, was a set of aluminium step-ladders. And lying across the top step was a pair of long wooden tongs. 

It was C.S.O. Linda, who then resumed my Sock Room training. 

"Okay, double-oh-seven ... See these two stainless-steel sinks? And these step-ladders? And these long wooden tongs? The first sink is for hot water. See ... here's the valve, for regulating the water temperature. And see, here's the dial ... showing just under the red: just right. You'll need to keep the water good and hot, just like Miss Karen said, or you won't be able to get the dirty socks clean – pristine, clean – and then you'll be in trouble," she told me. "Because then we'll have to cane you, for not performing your duties satisfactorily. And when we do, trust me: by the time me and Miss Karen have finished with you, you'll be in a world of pain."

C.S.O. Linda continued, "And this is the detergent dispenser, here, under the sink. See ...?" she said, as she demonstrated the pump-action mechanism – pump, pump, pump – pressing down on the foot-pedal with her right, black, thick rubber-soled, backless (clog-like) C.S.O. issue shoe, and causing several thick, sickly-green gobbets of industrial-strength detergent to spurt into the empty stainless-steel sink. 

"You'll need to keep the hot water good and soapy, because the dirty, sweaty socks will kill the soap suds." And, as though to emphasise her point, C.S.O. Linda again pressed down on the foot-pedal and splatted an extra blob of the disgustingly-coloured detergent into the sink, for good measure. 

C.S.O. Linda then said, "And you use the long wooden tongs to transfer the pre-soaked white socks over, see? Out of the laundry boiler tank, and straight into the stainless-steel sink, right next to it – the hot-and-soapy-water sink. You just stand on the platform, and transfer the pre-soaked white socks over, using the long wooden tongs ... Yeah?" 

C.S.O. Linda went on, "So, David, what you do is: When the dirty white socks have been soaking in the very hot water for over two hours, you open the lid of the laundry boiler tank. You go up the step-ladders, onto the platform, and you use the long wooden tongs to transfer some of the socks – but, not too many; you don't want to overload – from out of the laundry boiler tank, into the stainless-steel hot-and-soapy-water sink, right next to it ... see? 

"Then," C.S.O. Linda continued, "you put on your washing-up gloves – the water will be too hot for your hands, without them, and they are stored in your janitor's cupboard, along with lots of other laundry things that you'll be needing. And you hand-wash the pre-soaked dirty socks – one by one – until you've gotten each and every single one of them all nice and clean.

"Then," she resumed, "as you get each sock all nice and clean, you transfer the all-nice-and-clean socks, into the other stainless-steel sink, right next to it – the rinsing sink. You then fill up the rinsing sink with cold water, and you start rinsing the soap out of the socks, by flushing them through and through in the sink full of cold water. You then pull out the sink plug, and you keep on flushing and flushing and flushing, with cold water from the tap, until there's no more soapy suds coming out of the socks ... yeah? Still with me, double-oh-seven? Okay, let's move on to the next piece of kit."

Once again, C.S.O. Karen took over my instruction. 

"See these two big green plastic laundry baskets, David, that are all full of holes? Well, you take one of the big green baskets, and you transfer the rinsed socks from the rinsing sink, into the basket. And then you drag the basket full of rinsed socks over here ... to this machine: it's called a mangle." 

My God! The contraption was like something out of a museum. Obsolete, for centuries.

"See how the floor underneath the mangle is sloped," C.S.O. Karen went on, "angled towards this grid? Well, what you do, David, is you put – one at a time – the all-nice-and-clean, thoroughly rinsed socks, between these two rubber rollers ... see? And then you turn this handle, to squeeze water out of the socks ... see? (C.S.O. Karen turned the handle, to show me how it was done). And you put the mangled socks into the other, empty big green basket," she said. "The squeezed out water drips onto the floor, and drains into the grid ... See why you need your flip flops, David?"

C.S.O. Linda then opened a door and, after waving me through, she and C.S.O. Karen followed me. 

The door led outside, to a flagstoned courtyard at the back of the building. 

The courtyard was enclosed by seven-feet-high brick walls, and so I couldn't see what was on the other side of them. Wicked-looking, jagged pieces of razor-sharp glass, were liberally embedded into the concrete-topped walls. And the sturdy, steel-reinforced wooden gate, that was set into the far wall, was secured with bolts top and bottom, and had heavy-duty padlocks locking them in place. On top of all that, there were motion-detection floodlights, too.

They certainly seemed to be keen on security here, I thought ... But, why the hell why? I mean, it wasn't as if there was anything worth nicking, in this dreadful place! 

"See all of these nylon lines, David?" C.S.O. Linda said, pointing to the brightly-coloured lines; red, green, yellow and blue – twelve, in all – that were hanging about five feet above the ground, and stretching between the two side walls of the courtyard, along side of which lay some wooden props. "Clotheslines," she informed me. "When the weather is dry, you bring the mangled socks out here, and hang them up to dry on these clotheslines. You'll find all the clothes pegs you'll need, in your janitor's closet ... Okay, back inside."

Back inside the Sock Room, C.S.O. Karen pointed to the white-painted door at the end of a short corridor. "The office, David. Where Miss Linda and I do all of the real work around here: managing the administration of the Sock Room."

It was C.S.O. Linda, who then pointed over towards a small niche, on the other side of the corridor wall. "Your ironing station, David. See? Your ironing board, and your iron." 

Though it was a small, relatively out-of-the-way corner, it was still in plain view from the upper level of the Sock Room ... And so the sock-changing girls and women upstairs could watch me, hard at work – slaving away, ironing their socks. My God! How humiliating was that!

"When it's wet weather, you peg up the mangled socks in here to dry," C.S.O. Linda told me, pointing to more nylon clotheslines. 

I noticed that, just like the clotheslines in the courtyard, these indoors clotheslines also, were red, yellow, green and blue ... the colours of the A.F.P. And I wondered if this was deliberate: intended as a none-too-subtle, ever-present reminder of my situation. 

C.S.O. Linda went on, "When the turned-inside-out socks are dry, David, you pull all of them through the right way again – the girls and ladies of Canford have got better things to do with their time, than having to pull their socks through the right way – so you save them the inconvenience. Then, you iron the socks – and, to a high standard – before returning them to the appropriate shelves, upstairs." 

My God! I could hardly believe it. The basement level of the Sock Room, was like ... like something from Victorian times – like a workhouse, straight out of the pages of a Charles Dickens novel. 

Hel-lo! This is the 21st century ... Haven't you heard of washing machines? Of spin-dryers? And, for your information, lady, I have got better things to do with my time, too, than pulling socks through the right way! I thought. But didn't say.

C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda were both studying my face, watching my reaction. My senses of astonishment, of disbelief, of resentment – of incredulous outrage – must have been written all over my face.

As C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda studied my face, seemingly reading me like a book, they smirked at me, in that infuriating way of theirs. Chewing their gum, and blowing bubbles with it, till they burst with a loud popping sound. Pop! Pop! Pop!

But then, they began flexing their A.F.P. issue canes, ominously.

C.S.O. Karen said, "Right, then, community servant David double-oh-seven. Let's see if you've been paying attention, shall we, to what me and Miss Linda have been saying to you ... hmm? Have you been listening carefully? Have you been paying proper attention – Sock Boy? Hanging on our every word? Do you understand what your duties are, in the Sock Room?"

This was an outrage! I could hardly get it to sink in – what was actually happening to me. And, the damn cheek of the girl, talking to me like that! Both of them! They were only a year older than me – two, at the most! 

"Yes, Miss Karen," I said through gritted teeth. "I understand perfectly."

"Ooh! I don't think I like your tone ... double-oh-seven," piped up C.S.O. Linda, flexing her cane threateningly. "I think you are forgetting your place: You are a community servant. I think you are forgetting about the tone of respect, in which you are to address us – your superiors – at all times ... Perhaps a few well-aimed strokes of my cane to your bare bottom will put a civil tongue back in your head ... hmm? Mr Licenced-to-hand-wash-girls'-and-women's-dirty-stinky-sweaty-socks, double-oh-seven."

What, the ...? What an absolute, colossal nerve! And I don't like you, calling me double-oh-seven, you – you sarcastic little ... so-and-so, I thought. But didn't say.

"Okay then," said C.S.O. Karen, just in time to prevent me from saying something I would be sure to regret. "We're listening, Sock Boy. Repeat back to us, exactly what your duties are, in the Sock Room."




Community Service Ch. 02



I sensed trouble, now. Bad trouble. Sensed I had to get this right. Sensed, too, that I needed to keep a "civil tongue" in my head – no matter what.

"Well, Miss Karen ..." I said, frantically trying to gather my thoughts, into something at least vaguely resembling some sort of coherence. "First, I empty the white-painted wheelie bins, that are full of dirty white socks, into the main hopper, signed 'White Socks Only!' It's all automatic, and any fool can do it. And – and then, I—"

"And then, what do you do ... double-oh-seven?" interrupted C.S.O. Linda abruptly.

"I – I open the small door, Miss Linda, near the bottom of the main hopper, and I take out some of the dirty white socks – just pull them out with my hands; it's not rocket science. I ... I make sure that all of the socks are all pulled inside out, to ... to make sure that I can wash all of the dirt and grime and foot sweat and dead skin out of them. And I fill up one of the two large white plastic laundry baskets with the turned-inside-out dirty white socks. Then, I climb the step-ladders, go onto the platform, and I empty the basket full of dirty white socks into the laundry boiler tank, to soak – for at least two hours. I put in, up to a maximum of six baskets' of dirty white socks. And – and then, I—"

"And then, what do you do – Sock Boy?" interjected C.S.O. Karen. "After the dirty white socks have been soaking for over two hours?" 

"I – I climb the step-ladders again, Miss Karen, and I use the long wooden tongs to transfer some of the pre-soaked socks into the stainless-steel sink, right next to it – the hot-and-soapy-water sink. But, not too many – I don't want to overload it. And then, I—"

"And then, what do you do, double-oh-seven?" interrupted C.S.O. Linda, again. 

They were both trying to put me off my stride – I was certain of it! And they were both smirking at me, in that maddening way of theirs. They were insufferable! Chewing their gum, and blowing bubbles with it and going: Pop! Pop! Pop! They were goading me – I knew they were! Trying to provoke me. Trying to antagonise me, into ... into stepping out of line – into forgetting to keep a "civil tongue" in my head. So they could cane me! Yes: that's what this was about! Well, I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction!

"I put on my washing-up gloves, Miss Linda – the water will be too hot for my hands, without them, and they are stored in my janitor's cupboard, along with lots of other laundry things that I'll be needing. And I hand-wash the dirty socks – one at a time – until they are all nice and clean. I keep the water piping-hot – I'll have to, if I'm going to be able to wash out all of the dirt and sweat and dead skin out of them. And I keep the water good and soapy, too, because all of that dirt and sweat will kill the soapy suds. And then, I—"

"And then, what do you do, Sock Boy?" interjected C.S.O. Karen, again; this time, with a barely suppressed giggle.

"As I hand-wash the socks, one by one, all nice and clean, I transfer the all-nice-and-clean socks, Miss Karen, into the other stainless-steel sink, right beside it – the rinsing sink. Then I fill up the rinsing sink with cold water, and I start rinsing the socks through and through. Then I pull the plug, and I keep on flushing and flushing and flushing the socks through with cold water from the tap, until there's no more soapy suds coming out of them. Then, I transfer the thoroughly rinsed socks into one of the big green plastic laundry baskets, that's all full of holes. And then, I—" 

"And then, what do you do, double-oh-seven?" interrupted C.S.O. Linda, yet again; but now, just as giggly-voiced as C.S.O. Karen.

My God, they were loving this! 

At first, as C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda had begun asking their questions, they had been smirking at me, in that galling, infuriating way of theirs. And nonchalantly chewing their gum, and blowing bubbles with it, till they burst with a loud popping sound: Pop! Pop! Pop! 

But, by now, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda were both laughing and giggling so much that, in the throes of their mirth, they were actually clinging to each other for mutual support. And, because they were laughing, when they popped their bubble gum it was bursting all over their lips; on their faces, even, and that was making them laugh all the more. They – my so-called superiors – didn't even have the sense to stop popping their gum!

Yet, it was my face, that must have been as red as the proverbial beetroot, as I continued ... 

"I ... I drag the big green, full-of-holes laundry basket full of all-nice-and-clean, thoroughly rinsed socks, Miss Linda, over to the mangle. I put the socks – one at a time – between the two rubber rollers, and I turn the handle, to squeeze the water out of the socks. The squeezed out water splashes onto the floor – it's why I need my flip flops – and then it drains away down the grid. When I've put the socks through the mangle, I put them into the other, empty big green basket that's all full of holes. And then, I—"

"And then, what do you do, Sock Boy?" interjected C.S.O. Karen, yet again, through her by now uncontrollable giggles.

"If the weather is dry, Miss Karen, I take the mangled socks outside to the courtyard, and I peg them up on the clotheslines out there – there's all the clothes pegs I'll need, in my janitor's closet. If the weather's wet, I peg the socks up on the clotheslines inside, at my ironing station, where Miss Linda showed me. And then, I—"

"And then, what do you do – double-oh-seven?" interrupted C.S.O. Linda, for the umpteenth time. But struggling to get her words out now, she was laughing so much.

"When the turned-inside-out socks are dry, Miss Linda, I pull them all through the right way again – the girls and ladies of Canford have got better things to do with their time, than having to pull their socks through the right way, so I save them the inconvenience. Then, I set up my ironing board, and I iron the socks – and, to a high standard – before taking them back upstairs, and putting them on the appropriate shelves. Then, I ... I ..." 

I let my words trail off, at being unable to think of anything else to say. And anyway, I was flummoxed, at not being interrupted again! 

Not that C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda were in any state to say anything more, for the moment, clinging to each other, as they were, and giggling like crazy. They seemed hysterical. They just couldn't seem to stop laughing. They were making sobbing sounds, struggling to breathe, and tears were streaming from their eyes. 

I said: "Miss Karen, Miss Linda ... Are you all right?" 

And they fell apart, all over again. Almost screaming with laughter. 

When they had eventually calmed down, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda resumed smirking at me, their eyes shining wetly. Saying nothing, but popping their gum again: Pop! Pop! Pop! 

It was C.S.O. Karen, who then said, "Now then, David, what we want to know is ... have you got any questions, for us?"

The way C.S.O. Karen said it, it sounded as if I better had, have a question ... Then something suddenly occurred to me; just struck me, out of nowhere.

"Yes, Miss Karen, I have a question. What about the other dirty socks, Miss Karen? I mean, I know what to do with the dirty white socks; the ones in the white-painted wheelie bins – I counted eight of those, upstairs. But, what about the other dirty socks, Miss Karen? The ones that the other four wheelie bins are for: the black socks, the navy blue socks, the yellow socks, and the multi-coloured socks?"

C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda looked at each other, and then back at me. Grinning, and popping their gum like crazy. 

C.S.O. Linda said, "My, my, you have been observant, double-oh-seven." She actually sounded impressed!

C.S.O. Karen said, "It must be his special training, Lindz." 

C.S.O. Linda then exclaimed, "Ha! Congratulations, David. Good answer. And you have just passed the test that we set for you." 

C.S.O. Karen explained. "See ... that's what those four large dark blue plastic tubs, stacked under the stainless-steel rinsing sink, are for – two for hand-washing, two for rinsing. I knew that you'd seen them; I was watching you, and I saw you notice them." 

C.S.O. Karen went on, instructively. "See, rather than having to sort out lots of different coloured socks, and washing them separately, in dribs and drabs, we've made it simple, for the sock washer. 

"You can hand-wash batches of the multi-coloured, and different coloured – or, non-white category – socks; including the black socks, the navy blue socks, and even the yellow socks, all mixed together. 

"You wash those socks, in lukewarm water – instead of in mad-hot water – using the large dark blue plastic laundry tubs. And you wash them, using a special detergent – it's called Kolour Kind, and you'll find it in your janitor's closet – that doesn't make the colours run. 

"See, some of the multi-coloured and different coloured socks are colour-fast – that means their colours won't run, David. But some are not colour-fast, and that's why you wash them with the special detergent – the Kolour Kind – to avoid accidents with the socks' different colours all running into each other, and ruining them," she explained.

C.S.O. Karen went on, "With those four large dark blue laundry tubs – two of them with holes, for rinsing, two without, for washing – you've got enough to be able to wash, rinse, drag to the mangle, and take a couple of batches of the non-white category socks to the clotheslines to peg up. While you leave white socks soaking a bit longer, in the hot-and-soapy-water sink. See ...? You'll suss it out, David, I'm sure." 

"That's right," said C.S.O. Linda. "He's not called double-oh-seven, for nothing!" 

When she had stopped laughing, C.S.O. Karen resumed, "Having said that, though, in a couple of days, David, you'll find that there are going to be enough of the black socks, and enough of the navy blue socks, and enough of the yellow socks, and enough of the multi-coloured socks in those wheelie bins, to be able to wash them separately, anyway, in batches of their own colour," she predicted confidently. "You are going to be up to your ears, in girls' and women's dirty socks."

C.S.O. Linda said, "So, double-oh-seven. We have now given you the details of your mission."

C.S.O. Karen laughed, and said, "Yes ... So we'll be in our office, David – you know where it is – getting on with the real work, around here. But we'll be checking up on you regularly. Monitoring you very closely. So no slacking! Now, chop chop!! Go about your duties – Sock Boy!" 

"Yes!" said C.S.O. Linda, in authoritative tones, and suddenly all-business again. "Those dirty socks are not going to hand-wash themselves! So, what are you waiting for, double-oh-seven? Get on with it! Get cracking! Start earning your dole money!"

C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda turned on their heels, and they walked towards their office, going: Pop! Pop! Pop!

I watched my two young supervisors walk away from me, with their not-a-care-in-the-world body language. Their black, backless, thick rubber-soled, clog-like shoes, slapping against their yellow cotton socked heels, as they went. Leaving me to it – leaving me, to the unspeakably humiliating, mind-numbing drudgery, of my Sock Room duties. 

Already, I hated the very sight, of their concave bob hair style, blue blazer, green blouse, red, short skirt, yellow cotton ankle socks, and black, backless, thick rubber-soled, clog-like shoes, A.F.P. uniforms. 

I had never felt so depressed. So down in the dumps. So miserable. I felt as though I was being oppressingly enveloped, by a dismal, leaden cloak. I felt, as though—

"What's up, David ... aren't you having a nice time, then, in the Sock Room?" inquired a sarcastic female voice, from the upper, street level of the Sock Room ... A voice I knew.

Oh, that's just great! I thought disgustedly. Just fine and dandy!

"No," I replied, more downhearted than ever. 

"No, I'm not, Mrs. Newlove."

Community Service continues, in Ch. 3.



Community Service Ch. 03



Chapter 3. First-day blues: Earning my dole money -- in the Sock Room. 

Oh, great! This was all I needed! Just how bad could things get?

Mrs Norma Newlove, my neighbour from hell, had actually come to the Sock Room to gloat over my hideous predicament ... And, of course, to change her dirty socks -- knowing that I was going to have to hand-wash them!

"Haven't you got anything better to do with your time, Mrs Newlove?" I said disgustedly.

"Are you joking ... community servant David double-oh-seven? Of course I haven't," she replied, sitting on the edge of one of the four recliners that overlooked the basement level of the Sock Room, the recliner that was situated just to the left of the six wooden steps leading down into those profoundly depressing environs. "I wouldn't miss this for the world!" she gloated. 

"And, I've come prepared," she told me, patting the red leather sports bag on the floor at her feet. 

Mrs Newlove untied the laces of her red and white trainers, pulled her trainers from her feet, and then swung her dark blue with white piping tracksuit-bottomed legs up onto her recliner. "Mum's got the kids," she told me.

From where I was standing -- in front of the laundry boiler tank in the lower, basement level of the Sock Room -- as Mrs Newlove relaxed on her recliner, the soles of her medium-high arched, rather wide-soled, white-socked feet were directly in front of my face, just three or four yards away. 

There were grey patches, I saw, on the soles of her white cotton socks, where her foot sweat had soaked into them. And, Mrs Newlove having just taken off her trainers, those grey patches were damp-looking. Especially at her heels, the balls of her feet, and around the undersides and the pads of her toes.

I groaned inwardly. Hell! How did things ever come to this? Actually having to hand-wash Mrs Newlove's dirty socks. And, I'm expected to get those filthy things clean! -- "pristine, clean" -- as my supervisors had instructed me. 

Making herself comfortable, Mrs Newlove crossed her ankles, and started scrunching her toes. This movement, I saw, caused the soles of her white cotton socks to fold and crease, especially at the balls of her feet, and under her toes. And the compressed edges of these creases were discoloured a darker, dirty dark grey. "I'm here for the day," she said.

* * *

Okay then, I thought: First things first.

I went to my janitor's closet and, upon spotting a roll of black plastic refuse sacks, I pulled one free from the roll, tearing along the serrated edge. Now that I was equipped for the task in hand, I climbed the six wooden steps, past the smirking Mrs Newlove, to the upper (street level) of the Sock Room.

Up there, the light-grey linoleum floor was littered. Strewn, with the sticky plastic bindings and torn cardboard packaging from the single, and 3-packs and 5-packs of socks that the girls and ladies of Canford had carelessly dropped as, in exchange for their discarded dirty socks, they helped themselves to a clean pair of socks from the shelves.

There was a large, black plastic litter bin in plain sight. But it might as well have not been there at all. For, even as I picked up their litter and put it into the black plastic refuse sack, more of the females of Canford carelessly dropped more of these sock wrappings to the floor, after availing themselves of a pair of brand-new socks from the shelves. 

Rapidly depleting shelves too, I noted. 

On this, the opening day of Canford town's Sock Room, the girls and ladies of Canford were ransacking the sock shelves. Like unruly female shoppers snapping up incredible bargains in some high-end shop's every-thing-must-go closing-down sale, they were quickly laying the shelves bare. 

Except, of course, nothing was for sale, in the Sock Room -- it was a free socks, free-for-all. Free, for all females, that is.

Maybe things would calm down after today, I thought. After the initial early rush. After the opening-day excitement, of the Sock Room.

I watched the girls and ladies of Canford, as most of them lifted the lids of the white-painted wheelie bins (of which there were eight), and deposited their dirty white socks inside them. 

Some of the females, though, stood at the four foot high, two-barred safety railing, and gleefully tossed their discarded pair of dirty white socks directly into the main, open-topped hopper, that was marked: White Socks Only! 

These girls and ladies of Canford, at seeing me picking up their carelessly dropped litter from the Sock Room floor, smirked at me, and gave me a smug, superior look. As if to haughtily say: YOU, are going to be hand-washing my dirty, stinky socks!

*

I then remembered C.S.O. Linda's instruction, for me to "Run a quick mop over the Sock Room floor." And I had just seen the necessary tools for the job -- a mop and bucket -- in my janitor's closet.

Carrying the black plastic refuse sack, that was now at least a third full with sock-related litter, I was half way down the six wooden steps and passing the infuriatingly smirking Mrs Newlove, when I heard a female voice behind me call out, authoritatively, "Just a moment, community servant David double-oh-seven!" She had obviously seen my ID, which was emblazoned in bold black letters and numbers, on the back (and front) of my white uniform T-shirt.

I turned around to see a suntanned, very fit-looking, quite attractive woman in her mid-twenties, who's long, platinum-blonde hair was tied in a pony-tail. She was dressed in a white tennis top, pale blue shorts, long white sports socks and white trainers.

She was just coming in through the double door entrance to the Sock Room, and dragging in with her two bulging black plastic sacks, similar to the one I was using to collect the sock-related litter.

Black plastic sack in hand, I turned around and retraced my steps, to see what the bossy-sounding young woman wanted. I hoped she wouldn't hold me up for long -- I needed to "get cracking," as C.S.O. Linda had so eloquently put it.

"I am Miss Pardew," the young woman informed me, in no-nonsense tones. "And I am the girls' PE teacher, at Canford High ... the Secondary school?" she added, when I didn't say anything in response.

"And ...?" I prompted, spreading my hands, in the universal So-what? gesture.

"And ..." she said, her face darkening with displeasure, "I have a little job for you," she told me, pointing to the two bulging black plastic refuse sacks that she had brought in with her. When she looked at me again, there was a smirk on her face. "This lot," she told me.

Miss Pardew said, "There are two hundred dirty socks, altogether, in these two sacks."

What, the ...? I thought.

"One hundred pairs. Sports socks, belonging to the schoolgirls of Year Five. Canford High has four Houses, and Year Five has twenty-five girls in each House," Miss Pardew explained. "Here, community servant David, look," she told me, inviting me to view the contents of the two large, bulging black plastic refuse sacks.

Looking into them, I saw that they were both full of dirty, long white socks, that were double-ringed near the tops with either red, yellow, green or blue. The four colours, that represented the four Houses of Canford High ... just like the Authoritarian Female Party's colours, I thought glumly.

Peering more closely into the two large sacks, I saw that some of the socks were single, and some were balled up into pairs. Then I hastily curtailed my closer inspection, upon being assailed by the decidedly unpleasant, musky odour that was emanating from the two large sacks: the stinky, combined smell of all of those Year Five schoolgirls' -- 100 of them -- foot sweat.

"Express wash, community servant David," said Miss Pardew in commanding tones. "I want you to give these schoolgirls' sports socks top priority. Do you hear? I shall be back at four o'clock tomorrow afternoon to collect them. And, it goes without saying, I shall be expecting perfect results -- this time, and every time."

What, the ...? Where the hell did she think she got off, this Miss Pardew? Coming in here, and ordering me about like that -- as if I was of no account!

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I said. "Now, you just hold on a sec, Miss Pardew. I can't just drop everything else -- just on your say-so. Anyway, there are lots of those kind of socks on the shelves -- just help yourself to those."

"Oh, I have every intention of doing so, community servant David. But I'll be taking those socks for Year Four -- in which there are also one hundred schoolgirls. In fact, for your information, there are a hundred schoolgirls, in each of the five Years of Canford High," she informed me with an unpleasant grin.

My God! I thought, as I did the math ... 100 pairs, for each of the five Year's ... 500 pairs of socks -- 1,000 socks! 

And, these were just the schoolgirls' sports socks -- of which, they surely had more than just one pair! What about all of their pairs of regular, every-day, long white socks that they wore in class? What about all of their other socks: the ones they wore at home, and the ones they wore when they were out and about, socialising? In short: all of the pairs of socks that they would be bringing to the Sock Room -- for me to hand-wash!

And -- hell! -- that was just Canford High! There were other schools as well. Including Canford's two girls' schools: St Kate's, and St Esmeralda's -- ha! More like St Trinians. 

Now, it really began to sink in. Some real inkling, some real insight into the actual, soul-destroying, mind-numbing magnitude of the dreadful drudgery that lay ahead of me. 

I tried to hide my smouldering resentment, and my deepening despair, from Miss Pardew. 

Affecting an air of unconcerned indifference; what I hoped was a half-decent imitation of nonchalance, I shrugged my shoulders. "Well, it doesn't matter," I told her flatly. "I've only got one pair of hands. Those socks are just going to have to wait, until I get around to doing them."

"I beg your pardon? Perhaps I am not making myself clear -- community servant David. I said: I want those socks ready for collection, by four o'clock tomorrow afternoon," asserted Miss Pardew.

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, either, Miss Pardew. I said: those socks are just going to have to wait, until I get around to them."

"Such -- such insolence!" exclaimed Miss Pardew in highly affronted tones. "Your manners leave a lot to be desired, community servant David double-oh-seven," she shrilled. "In fact, your manners are not at all what they ought to be -- for a community servant!" 

Ah, I'd had enough of Miss Pardew's nonsense. I had a lot of stuff to do, and I needed to be getting on with it -- I needed to "get cracking!"

Turning my back on Miss Pardew, I flapped a dismissive hand at her, by means of indicating I was bringing this conversation to a close. That the matter was settled. 

"Your behaviour is inexcusable, community servant David. Quite intolerable!" raged Miss Pardew. 

And, looking at her over my shoulder, as I once again started down the six wooden steps, I flapped my hand at her again -- this was all over and done with. "Get over it, Miss Pardew," I said.

I had turned my back on the Canford High schoolgirls' PE teacher, and I was more than half way down the six wooden steps, and passing by a scandalised-looking Mrs Newlove -- who had been sitting up on her recliner, and looking over and absorbing every word of this exchange, when—

"Get over it ...? Get over it -- community servant David? Perhaps I should speak to your supervisors -- C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda, aren't they?" said Miss Pardew, instantly halting my progress. 

"Do you think they, will tell me to "Get over it" -- community servant David? Because I certainly don't. In fact, I think your supervisors will see things rather differently," she said ominously. "And in any event, they certainly need to be apprised, as to your egregiously disrespectful attitude."

At Miss Pardew's mentioning my two supervisors -- C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda -- a highly unsettling image filled my head, of their flexing their A.F.P. issue canes meaningfully. C.S.O. Linda in particular, I knew, was just itching for an excuse to use her cane on me. She was just itching, to pull my shorts down around my ankles, as per the C.S.O.'s textbook of chastisement, and ...

"Er -- er ... no, Miss Pardew. I don't think there's any need for that. And ... and besides, they'll be very busy in their office ... doing the real work around here, and ... and I really wouldn't like to disturb them. Er, you said you'll be back tomorrow afternoon? To pick up Year Five's sports socks? At four o'clock? No problem. No problem at all, Miss Pardew. Consider it done, Miss Pardew. Rest assured, I'll make sure Year Five's sports socks are all ready and waiting for you -- and, with perfect results -- when you come to collect them tomorrow afternoon, at four o'clock. And ... and I'm very sorry, Miss Pardew, if there's been any sort of ... misunderstanding."

Miss Pardew glared at me. She then looked at her watch, and seemed to come to a very reluctant decision. "Oh, I don't think there's been any misunderstanding, community servant David -- I think I understood you perfectly ... Oh, very well. Regrettably, I haven't the time now to take the matter further, and to see that you are suitably brought to heel. So I shall have to overlook your appalling conduct -- this time."

Phew! That was a close escape. I understood now, that Miss Pardew was not a woman to cross; was not a woman to take liberties with. And I would have to watch my P's & Q's with her in future -- that is, if I didn't want be "brought to heel." 

Now it was Miss Pardew, who disdainfully turned her back on me. I watched her platinum-blonde pony-tail swishing behind her as she strode towards the door. And there was a spring in her step; a sort of jauntiness ... as if she felt she had just won a small, but important and satisfying victory.

I was once again making my way down the six wooden steps, and passing by a now smirking again Mrs Newlove, who was once again getting herself comfortable on her recliner, when—

"Oh -- and, commuunity servant David?" came Miss Pardew's voice, as she held the door open after stepping outside onto the street.

Oh, what the hell now? I wondered. "Er, yes, Miss Pardew?" I said.

Peering through the gap of the half-closed door, Miss Pardew said, "And don't forget to pull all of the socks through the right way!"

* * *

I took my nearly half filled sack of sock-related litter outside into the courtyard, and emptied it into the rubbish bin. No need to throw the sack away, I thought, as I could re-use it time and again to perform the same, demeaning chore: picking up the carelessly dropped litter, of the sock-changing females of Canford.

I looked at my watch. It read: 10:30. So, I thought ...

Two and a half hours, since C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda had rattled their canes on my front door, picked me up, bundled me into their A.F.P. van, and taken me to the Community Service Operations Centre. Where the Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman, had issued me with five sets of community servant's uniform: white T-shirt, white shorts, and two pairs of rubber flip flops ("There will be a lot of water, where you will be working"). And she had told me that, until I found gainful employment, by means of earning my £80 per week Unemployment Benefit payments, she was assigning me to work in the town's Sock Room ... And, of said establishment, my two supervisors, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda, had given me their "Grand Tour."

I looked up at the mid-May sky. It was a beautiful morning. Apart from just one or two thin and wispy cotton wool clouds, it was wall-to-wall sunshine ... not that I'd be seeing much of it, stuck in the Sock Room.

I stared at the twelve nylon clothes-lines: three of each, of red, yellow, green and blue ... The colours of the Authoritarian Female Party, led by Caroline Flynt -- talk about a femme fatale! She had seduced me into voting for the A.F.P.

Not for a moment, did I think it coincidental. Those coloured clothes-lines would be an oppressive, ever-present reminder of my situation. 

It was already feeling quite warm in the courtyard. The courtyard was south-facing, and I thought that, given the circumstances, that was fortunate.

Yes, I thought, as I stared at the twelve nylon clothes-lines, that were hung about five feet above the flag-stoned courtyard ... it looked like being a good drying day.

*

I re-entered the Sock Room and, as I was passing by the short corridor, that led to C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda's office, and that was on the other side of my ironing station, I could have sworn that I heard my name (double-oh-seven) being mentioned. So I crept stealthily down the short corridor, and I pressed an ear to my two supervisors' white-painted office door.

"So, Lindz," I heard C.S.O. Karen say, chuckle-voiced, "how do you think Sock Boy will get on, working in the Sock Room?"

"Ha! Double-oh-seven!" said C.S.O. Linda, her voice dripping with scorn. "That's a laugh, isn't it, Karen? Mr Licenced-to-hand-wash-girls'-and-women's-dirty-stinky-socks -- him, you mean?" 

"Ha ha ha ha!" laughed C.S.O. Karen, obviously tickled pink by her colleague's snide jibe at me. "I'll tell you what though, Lindz ... Isn't it dead brill, eh, being able to boss him about? Order him around. Make him do anything we say -- anything we want. Tell him to do this, do that, and do something else -- or else! Lindz,, think about it: it's going to be as good as having our own, personal slave! And, we are actually getting paid four hundred pounds a week -- four hundred pounds a week, Lindz! -- for our trouble. Not that it's any trouble -- ha ha ha! I still can't believe it. We're being paid four hundred pounds a week -- just for making that loser's life a misery. Ha ha ha ha! I would do it for nothing -- just for the sheer pleasure of it! I could hardly believe it, Lindz, when the Job Centre told us that, not only would we be allowed, but that we would actually be expected, to cane the community servants' bare bums!"

"Heh heh heh. Oh, you are so, so right, Karen! We've certainly landed on our feet here, haven't we? Eh? And, I'll tell you what, Karen ... I can hardly wait for double-oh-seven to give me the slightest, tiniest excuse, to pull his shorts down around his ankles and cane his bare bum -- chastise him ... Oh, I love that word: 'chastisement'. Don't you, Karen? It's got such a nice ring to it, don't you think? And, I'll tell you something else, Karen. I don't think I'll have to wait very long either ... Like I said before, double-oh-seven is incapable of keeping a civil tongue in his head. Not to mention, the thicko is bound to mess up with his sock washing sooner, rather than later."

"Ha ha ha!" laughed C.S.O. Karen. "Oh, my sides are still hurting, Lindz, from listening to him telling us what his Sock Room duties are! Hey, Lindz ... shall we pop in to the Sock Room now, to see how he's getting on -- I could do with a good laugh! I mean ... we are, after all, supposed to be monitoring him -- ha ha ha!"

"Oh, we'll be monitoring him, all right! But let's leave it for a bit though, shall we, Karen? We'll catch up with him later; see what the idiot's getting up to ... Here, Karen ... choose from this box of latest-release DVD's, courtesy of the A.F.P. Pick the movie you want to watch -- that'll take us nicely up to lunchtime. We'll remind double-oh-seven we're around, this afternoon," said C.S.O. Linda complacently. 

"Okay, Lindz," said C.S.O. Karen agreeably, and she began scanning through the box of DVD's. "Hmm ... Seen it ... seen it ... seen it ... Oh! Look, Lindz -- we've got the latest James Bond ..."

There was about three seconds of total silence ... and then C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda erupted; shrieked, simultaneously, "Double-oh-seven!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!"




Community Service Ch. 03



Well ... they do say that eavesdroppers never hear anything good said about themselves.

*

Okay, then. Right ... I had to get my thinking-head on, here. I had to get organised. I had to box clever.

First, I had to get those two bulging sacks of Canford High, Year Five schoolgirls' dirty sports socks -- double-ringed near the tops, with either red, green, blue or yellow -- that Miss Pardew had brought in (her "little job" for me), straight into two of the four large dark blue plastic laundry tubs -- the two soaking tubs. 

Then, while those two tubs' of non-white category socks were soaking, for at least two hours, I could be cracking on with some other work. Such as filling up the open-topped hopper with dirty white socks. And then putting some of them into the laundry boiler tank to soak -- also, for a 2-hour-minimum soak.

The four large dark blue plastic laundry tubs were stacked inside each other for space saving, and were stored under the stainless-steel rinsing sink. I pulled out the four tubs, and I put the top two tubs on the floor, side by side in front of the stainless-steel hot-and-soapy-water sink.

The other two tubs were rinsing tubs. Colander-like, these rinsing tubs were full of one-inch diameter holes. And the tubs had knurled corners, that raised their bottoms two inches above the floor to aid draining. I put the two rinsing tubs back under the rinsing sink for now, out of the way. 

There was a length of rubber hose-pipe coiled up in one of the soaking tubs, and I attached one end of it to the hot water tap on the hot-and-soapy-water sink. I put the other end of the rubber hose-pipe into the first of the two tubs I was going to fill, and then I spun the knob of the hot water tap until it was fully open. 

I watched, as water gushed out of the hose-pipe and began to fill up the first soaking tub. Within seconds, wispy tendrils of steam were coming out of the rapidly filling tub -- the water heated up fast, and obviously to a very hot temperature, too. 

I waited until the first soaking tub was half full, and then I transferred the gushing hose-pipe to the second soaking tub ... Now, I needed to go to my janitor's closet.

I spotted what I was looking for, straight away -- the special detergent that, as C.S.O. Karen had explained, wouldn't make colours run. The 5-litre plastic container of Kolour Kind was sitting on the closet floor, next to a 10-pack of pink, heavy-duty washing-up gloves. I grabbed a pair of the thick rubber washing-up gloves, picked up the Kolour Kind, and returned to the rapidly filling second soaking tub. 

Good timing ... Just a few moments more ... and then I turned off the hot water tap. Now, both of the soaking tubs were half full of steaming-hot water.

I read the directions on the Kolour Kind label: Add 1 cap-full, for every 25 litres of water.

Hmm ... how large were these tubs? I wondered. I pulled the two rinsing tubs out from under the rinsing sink again, and turned them upside down, thinking their capacity might be printed on the bottom ... Nope. I put the two rinsing tubs back under the rinsing sink again.

The scornful words of C.S.O. Linda came back to me: "... the thicko is bound to mess up with his sock washing sooner, rather than later." And she was right. I should have looked on the bottoms of the soaking tubs for their capacity, before filling them up. So much for boxing clever! 

Hmm ... I didn't want to go and ask C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda. Eavesdropping on them earlier, I had already heard them speaking of me in decidedly less than glowing terms. And if I went knocking on their office door now, about a simple thing like this, they were bound to give me a right old earful ... at least.

C.S.O. Linda especially, seemed to have it in for me. Sarcastically calling me 'double-oh-seven', all the time, and (thanks to Gina Stainham!) 'Mr Licenced-to-hand-wash-girls'-and-women's-dirty-stinky-socks'. Not to mention, that she had told C.S.O. Karen she was only waiting for the "slightest, tiniest excuse," to pull my shorts down around my ankles and cane my bare bottom ... So, no. Best not to interrupt their James Bond movie, I thought. At least, when they were lazing about in their office, they weren't out here, giving me a load of jip. 

So, then. How much Kolour Kind do I put in? I wondered. One cap-full? Two? More?

I carefully filled the container's small cap, and I poured the cap-full of thick, cream-coloured liquid into the first soaking tub ... 

Hmm ... It didn't seem like much at all, for that amount of water ... Ah, just use your own judgement, I told myself ... Plop! Plop! Plop! Plop! Plop! went the Kolour Kind, as I poured it directly from the 5-litre container into the first tub of steaming-hot water ... Okay, that should just about do it, I estimated. So I up-ended the 5-litre container again, and poured a similar amount of Kolour Kind into the second soaking tub as well.

I then picked up one of the two bulging black plastic sacks that that bossy bint, Miss Pardew, had brought in, and I emptied the unsavoury-smelling contents into one of the two soaking tubs. Then I picked up the second sack, and I deposited its contents into the second soaking tub. 

Some of the socks, I saw, were still floating on the surface water of the two tubs. So I grabbed the pair of long wooden tongs from the top step of the step-ladders, and I used them to push the stubbornly floating socks under ... and this action immediately caused the water to start bubbling and frothing up.

Ah ... good, I thought. The steaming-hot water was getting all nice and sudsy, already.

Job done: Now, the 200 (100 pairs) of long white socks -- double-ringed near the tops, with either red, yellow, green or blue, as representative of the four Houses of Canford High -- were beginning their 2-hour-minimum soak.

Later, I would have to begin the onerous, and tedious -- not to mention soul-destroying, and humiliating -- task, of thoroughly and diligently hand-washing every single one of those dirty, stinky, sweat-stained socks -- the sports socks, of the Year Five schoolgirls of Canford High.

In the meantime, though, I had plenty of other things to be cracking on with.

*

I looked at my watch. It was now 11:05. 

The day was getting away from me, and I'd hardly done anything yet. And it had just taken me thirty-five minutes, just to bin the sock-related litter, and to get the two tubs full of Year Five's dirty sports socks soaking. Oh -- and to eavesdrop on my two movie-watching supervisors, as they outrageously slandered my character. 

I could feel my face going red from my outrage and resentment, at my rememberance of their cruel and hurtful barbs and jibes ... And, what did C.S.O. Karen mean? I wondered, when she'd said to her cane-happy colleague: "Lindz, think about it: it's going to be as good as having our own, personal slave!"

And, my mood darkened -- even more -- at the soul-crushing thought of C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda, earning £400 per week. They were earning £400 per week, to so-called supervise me. Supervise me? They were sitting comfortably in their office, and watching the latest James Bond movie ("courtesy of the A.F.P."), while I ... Ah, I couldn't let myself think like this. Or I'd soon be heading for some kind of a breakdown. 

I mean, £400! That was five times my £80 per week Unemployment Benefit -- that C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda themselves, had been receiving, just over a week ago ... It didn't bear thinking about. 

Even thinking about being forced to hand-wash the girls' and ladies of Canford's dirty, stinky socks, was preferable to that. 

*

I picked up the flat piece of wood that was leaning against the dull-grey metal side of the laundry boiler tank, and I placed it over the six wooden steps to make a ramp -- just as C.S.O. Linda had demonstrated, during my "Grand Tour" of the Sock Room.

As I was walking up the makeshift ramp, heading for the wheelie bins of dirty socks, from the comfort of her recliner, Mrs Newlove sniped, "So ... those socks will just have to wait, until you get around to them, will they, David? You've only got one pair of hands, have you? You can't drop everything else -- just on her say-so -- can you? Ha! Miss Pardew soon put you back in your place, didn't she, David?" 

Mrs Newlove looked at me, smug-faced, as she then drank cola straight from the mouth of a 2-litre plastic bottle that she'd taken from her red leather sports bag ("I've come prepared."). She eyed me like a hawk, as she gulp, gulp, gulped cola down her throat. Then she smacked her lips in pleasure and satisfaction, and re-capped the plastic bottle.

"Oh, are you still here, Mrs Newlove?" I said, trying to sound totally indifferent to her highly annoying presence. "I'm surprised you haven't got something better to do."

Mrs Newlove sat up on her recliner, the better to follow my progress. "Something better to do? Something better to do -- better than this? What could possibly be better? Oh, I'm not going anywhere, David. You can bank on that! I wouldn't miss this -- your first day in the Sock Room -- for the world! Like I told you before," she said, patting her red leather sports bag, "I'm here for the day ... So, come on, David -- chop chop!! I want to see you earning your dole money! Ha ha ha ha!"

Oh, that woman! She was like some sort of self-appointed bane of my life.

"And -- you've put too much detergent in those tubs!" she said to my back, as I went to the long row of wheelie bins. 

*

Lined up against the left-hand wall of the upper (street level) of the Sock Room, were situated twelve wheelie bins, for the sock-changing females of Canford to deposit their dirty socks. 

Eight of the wheelie bins were painted white, indicating that they were for dirty white socks. Of the other four wheelie bins, one of the wheelie bins was painted black, indicating that it was for dirty black socks; one was painted navy blue, for dirty navy blue socks, and the other wheelie bin was painted rainbow-coloured, indicating that it was for both single-coloured, and multi-coloured category socks.

Upon lifting the lids of the twelve wheelie bins, my inspection revealed that these last four wheelie bins were all still well under half full. 

But, three of the white-painted wheelie bins were now already more than half full. And so I decided to take these three, more-than-half-full wheelie bins straight to the main, open-topped hopper, that was clearly signed: 'White Socks Only!'

As I was steering the first of these three wheelie bins down the makeshift ramp, Mrs Newlove was taking another good swig of her cola and, upon her seeing me traipsing past her down the ramp with the first white-painted wheelie bin of dirty white socks, and struggling not to let the thing run away with me, her mirth got the better of her and she spluttered and choked on her cola as it went down the wrong way.

Heh heh heh, serves her right, I thought.

I placed the two wheels of the first white-painted wheelie bin onto the main hopper's two steel hoisting plates. Then I pushed the Start button ("It's all automatic -- any fool can work it." C.S.O. Linda had assured me). 

I stood back and watched as, with an electric thrum, the wheelie bin was hoisted to the top of the main hopper. At the height of its elevation, the wheelie bin was then tipped upside down, causing its lid to hang fully open. The more-than-half-full load of dirty white socks all came tumbling out, and they hit the metal floor of the as yet empty main hopper, making soft thuds as they landed. The electric motor thrummed again, as the emptied wheelie bin was then lowered to the floor.

I pushed the emptied wheelie bin back up the ramp, and returned it to its place. I then repeated this procedure with the second and third, more-than-half-full white-painted wheelie bins. 

Having done so, I estimated there were now sufficient dirty white socks in the main hopper, with which to load the laundry boiler tank.

As Mrs Newlove watched me perform my Sock Room duties, there was a look of incredulous, delighted wonder on her face. And she was actually lost for words, for the moment ... But that wouldn't last long.

*

I had slid open the bolt in the small access door, near the bottom of the main hopper, and I was pulling out handfuls of the dirty white socks and throwing them into one of the two large white plastic laundry baskets, when I heard Mrs Newlove say pleasantly, in greeting, "Oh! Hiya, Gina, love. Come and join the fun!"

I looked over my shoulder, to see Gina Stainham sitting on the edge of the recliner to Mrs Newlove's right -- the recliner situated opposite the laundry boiler tank -- after having discarded her dirty white socks. She was now in the process (after having carelessly dropped the single-pack packaging on the floor!) of putting on a brand-new pair from the sock shelves ... Another, clean pair! Because I remembered her changing her socks earlier this morning, and taunting me about it.

What, the ...? Just what the hell is going on here? I thought. "Hey!" I complained. "You've already changed your socks once! This morning! I saw you!"

Gina Stainham's face set in hard, uncompromising lines, so taken aback, was she, at the astounding temerity of my challenge -- of my actually daring to admonish her. Her face reddening with umbrage, she snapped, "So? Have you got a problem with that, then -- community servant David? Because, if you have, I'm sure I could clear it up with your supervisors ..."

"No! No -- there's no need for that ... Gina. I ... I apologise, Gina. I -- I was ... out of order," I said, crimson-faced with shame, at being forced to so totally back down -- at being forced to grovel for Gina's forgiveness. 

With just a few well chosen words, Gina Stainham had put me right back in my box -- and both she and Mrs Newlove knew it.

But Gina Stainham wasn't leaving it at that. Oh, no. She wasn't letting me off the hook that easily. She wasn't going to miss an opportunity to slap me down -- to exercise her new-found authority, over a lowly commmunity servant. Venomously glaring at me, she spat, "You bet your arse, you're out of order -- sonny boy! And, it's Mrs Stainham, to you -- community servant David!"

Mrs Newlove threw her head back and emitted a high, delighted laugh, followed by a few moments' worth of thigh-slapping giggles. "Oh, he's a right lippy little sod, Gina! You should have heard him before! The way he was talking back to Miss Pardew -- Canford High's schoolgirls' PE teacher. He was giving her a right load of lip! Oh, she wasn't happy at all -- I can tell you!" 

Then Mrs Newlove was rummaging about in her red leather sports bag again. 

Extracting a number of rounds of Cellophane-wrapped sandwiches, Mrs Newlove politely offered them to her friend. "Fancy a butty, Gina? I was just about to have one -- it's making me feel peckish, all this watching community servant David hard at work -- ha ha ha ha! I've got cheese and onion, ham and tomato, and corned beef and mustard pickle," she said, taking one of the latter for herself, and taking a healthy bite. "Here you are, Gina -- take your pick," she said, through a mouthful of corned beef and mustard pickle sandwich.

"Ha ha ha!" laughed Gina. "Great minds think alike, eh, Norma?" she said, patting her own, blue leather hold-all. "I've come prepared, too. I've brought some lemon fondant cup-cakes, that I baked this morning, some chocolate biscuits, some cheese-flavoured crackers, and a big variety bag of crisps. And, to wash it all down, I've got a two-litre bottle of ginger beer. So we can share, Norma!"

Ye Gods! I couldn't believe it. Didn't these women have lives to lead?

Gina ("And, it's Mrs Stainham, to you -- community servant David!") Stainham saw me looking over, and said, "So, community servant David, heh, heh, heh ... How are you enjoying your first day, then, working in the Sock Room?"

Ah, I wasn't going to dignify that with a reply. I turned my back on the pair of witches, and concentrated on filling up one of the two large white plastic laundry baskets, with girls' and women's dirty white socks.

*

Having filled up one of the two large white plastic laundry baskets with dirty white socks from the main hopper, I was now faced with what I considered to be, by far, the worst and most distasteful of my Sock Room duties: pulling the girls' and women's dirty socks inside out.

Having retrieved the tubular metal and canvas folding seat from my janitor's closet, I began this most distasteful, nauseating, and thoroughly depressing of tasks.

The worst thing, about this most abhorrent, this most soul-crushing, of chores, was that I had to use my bare hands.

Trying to pull the dirty socks inside out while wearing the rubber washing-up gloves, was just too awkward and fiddly -- and too time-consuming. I certainly had no time to waste in fumbling and pfaffing about like that -- not with my ever-increasing workload seemingly growing by the minute.

Fortunately (certainly, not done deliberately, out of consideration to me), some of the girls and women of Canford had pulled their dirty socks inside out. This was simply due, I had seen, to the way some of the girls and women took off their socks: pulling them down from the top, and in such a way that their socks were automatically turned inside out as they removed them from their feet.

The vast majority of the dirty socks, though, were not pulled inside out. And some of the girls and women had balled up their pair of dirty socks, before depositing them in one of the wheelie bins -- or, as the case may be, tossing them into the main, open-topped hopper, clearly signed: 'White Socks Only!'

So I sat there, as miserable as a wet Wednesday in Wigan. Separating the balled-up pairs, turning them inside out, and transferring the turned-inside-out dirty socks into the other, empty large white plastic laundry basket.

The dirty socks that were already turned inside out, I gratefully threw straight into the other basket. But, for all of the other dirty, stinky, sweat-stained socks, I had to put my bare hand inside the loathsome things and get hold of the toe end with my fingers, so as to be able to pull them inside out ... Ugh. A horrible chore. It was awful, disgusting, and profoundly demoralising -- an unspeakable business.

But, my two supervisors, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda, had told me that I had to pull all of the dirty socks inside out, to make sure that I washed all of the dirt, sweat, and dead skin out of them ... Or else!

*

I pulled down the handle of the laundry boiler tank, and its lid lifted up, allowing wispy tendrils of steam to escape. 

The laundry boiler tank's lid opened on its hinges, from right to left. This was to facilitate the transference of the dirty socks, after their 2-hour-minimum soak, from out of the laundry boiler tank, into the stainless-steel, hot-and-soapy-water sink, immediately to its right. 

And I would accomplish this task, by standing on the raised platform, and simply transferring over dripping-wet clumps of the steaming, pre-soaked socks, using the pair of long wooden tongs to drop them in.

I carried the first large white plastic laundry basket full of dirty white socks up the step-ladders and, once I was on the platform, I tipped them into the laundry boiler tank. I used the pair of long wooden tongs to submerge any stubbornly floating socks, and then I closed the lid again.

I repeated this procedure another five times, up to the six-basket maximum ...

I went back to the main hopper, slid the bolt, opened the small door, pulled out more of the dirty white socks with my hands, and re-filled one of the two large white plastic laundry baskets with the foul and disgusting things. 

I then sat on my folding seat and, as necessary, I separated balled-up pairs, pulled the dirty socks inside out, and transferred them all to the other, empty large white plastic laundry basket.




Community Service Ch. 03



I then climbed the step-ladders, got up onto the platform, and emptied the large basket of dirty white socks into the laundry boiler tank. 

Now, at last, the four feet wide, three feet deep laundry boiler tank was full of girls' and women's dirty white socks.

Good ... Now I had to leave the dirty white socks in the laundry boiler tank, for their 2-hour-minimum soak.

I spent what little remaining time there was, leading up to my half-hour lunch break, at 1 p.m. by traipsing some of the now more-than-half-full white-painted wheelie bins up and down the ramp, transporting more and more of the dirty white socks, and tipping them into the main, open-topped hopper ... Repeatedly passing the smirking and chuckling, eating and drinking Norma Newlove, and Gina ("lemon fondant cup-cakes") Stainham.

* * *

Fortunately, as promised by the Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman, someone had dropped my clothes off at the Sock Room. Fortunately, because I certainly had no intention of going into town to get something to eat, dressed in my community servant's uniform.

I went to Burger Heaven, a town centre fast-food joint, and bought a burger and fries. 

The attractive, blue-eyed, pleasant and cheery eighteen-or-nineteen-year-old counter-girl who served me, who's blonde hair was tucked into her baseball cap style serving hat, and who's name tag proclaimed her to be 'Tina', greeted me with, "Hey! It may never happen! What's up? Why the long face?"

It's already happened -- and you would have a long face, too, Tina, if you had to spend all day hand-washing girls' and women's dirty, stinky socks, I thought. But didn't say.

But I left most of my burger. I'd completely lost my appetite. I just sat there, gloomily staring into the middle-distance, and absentmindedly pushing my fries around my plate.

"See ya!" said the ebullient Tina as I got up to leave my table. She was still trying to cheer me up, and put a smile on my face. But it was a lost cause. I did my best, but I knew my return smile wasn't sitting right on my face. As if some of my facial muscles were now rendered incapable of performing the functions they used to. As if, through chronic lack of use, my 'smiling' muscles were already atrophying.

However, eating out was an extravagance I couldn't afford. From tomorrow, I would bring sandwiches. And, weather permitting, I would eat them sitting on my folding seat in the courtyard -- out of sight of the likes of Mrs Newlove and Gina Stainham. 

My half-hour lunch break went by quickly. Very quickly. Seemed to be over in a flash. And, all too soon, it was time to be heading back ... to the Sock Room.

* * *

Upon my return to the Sock Room, my two tormentors, Mrs Newlove and Gina Stainham, pointedly looked at their watches, and tapped the dials accusingly. But I knew I was back early. My own watch read: 1:28 -- and I knew it was right. It was a radio-contolled watch, given to me by my dad on my eighteenth birthday ... Fortunately, it was waterproof.

My two tormentors, I saw with dismay, had now been joined by a third, with-nothing-better-to-do female -- Cheryl Chubb. A friend of Gina Stainham. 

A single mother, Cheryl Chubb was aged about twenty-five. She was reasonably attractive, with neck-length, brown hair, brown eyes and; yes, she was a bit on the chubby side. 

Though I had seen Cheryl around; out and about, and around town, I had never actually made her acquaintance ... But that was about to change. 

This latest Sock Room spectator had settled herself on the third, of the four recliners -- the first, of the two recliners to the right of the six wooden steps (as seen from the Sock Room entry door), and that was just about opposite the hot-and-soapy-water sink. 

The fourth, presently unoccupied recliner, was situated about three feet further on to the right, facing between the hot-and-soapy-water sink, and the mangle.

I needed to change back into my community servant's uniform. So I nipped out into the privacy of the courtyard to put my white T-shirt, white shorts, and rubber flip flops back on. 

As I was changing, I found myself thinking about Tina. 

Tina ... the lovely, pleasant and cheery counter-girl at Burger Heaven, who'd gamely tried to engage me in conversation ... ("Hey! It may never happen! What's up? Why the long face?) ... she'd sounded as if she really wanted to know.

Tina, I'd noticed, had been pleasant and cheery to all of her customers -- long-faced, or otherwise. But ... was it my imagination ... or had Tina been maybe just a little bit extra pleasant and cheery, towards me? Was it my imagination ... or had she looked at me in ... 'that way'? Both, while serving me at the counter, and the times when she'd, seemingly surreptitiously, occasionally glanced over at me, at my table. 

And, when she'd said, "See ya!" ... had there been something more, to it? A thinly-veiled message, in her voice? An invitation? Was it my imagination ... or had Tina been showing 'an interest'. Actually ... well, for want of a better phrase: coming on to me? 

But I'd been too dull to realise it? I hadn't picked up on it? I was unaware of the signals? I'd been criminally oblivious, to Tina's overtures?

Because, wrapped up in my woeful preoccupation, I hadn't been tuning in? Because, immersed in my own, self-pitying, bleak and disconsolate thoughts, I'd been unreceptive to those subtle signs? Because, intent on my miserable, mournful musings, and shutting out anything and everything else, I'd missed the vibe?

Ha! Dream on! I told myself. Who am I kidding? Get real! Of course, it was just my imagination! Just wishful thinking. I mean, come on! As if! A girl like her -- interested in me? She's well out of my league. Of course it was just my imagination. Must have been! She was just being personable, that's all. She was just being hospitable, that's all. She was just being courteous, and polite, that's all ... 

... Or was she? 

Having now changed back into my community servant's uniform, I returned to the Sock Room ... My thoughts, full of Tina. 

The lovely, ebullient, and caring Tina. The beautiful Tina. The heaven, of Burger Heaven.

Maybe I could make my dwindling finances stretch to another burger, sometime later this week, after all ...

* 

Cheryl Chubb also, had taken off her trainers, and had swung her dark blue with white piping tracksuit-bottomed legs up onto her recliner. The soles of her white cotton socks, I now saw, were grey-patched, like Mrs Newlove's. But they were grimy, too, as though Cheryl often walked about shoe-less.

Even more, hard work for me, I bemoaned -- and so unnecessary! But I bemoaned silently, this time. I didn't want to provoke Cheryl Chubb's ire, and find myself having to grovel to her, as well -- my ill-considered and ill-fated run-in with Gina Stainham, still painfully fresh and raw in my mind.

Unlike her two companions, Cheryl Chubb didn't ask me how I was enjoying my first day, working in the Sock Room. Instead, she just followed my movements, as though watching the eccentric and amusing antics of some exotic zoo animal. As if she was thinking: What, in the world, is he going to do next? Ha ha ha ha!

Just look at the three of them -- just lying there! I thought disgustedly. Just lying there, like three well-to-do spa club members relaxing by the Jacuzzi. All that was missing were the pina coladas. 

I went back up the makeshift ramp, and checked the current status of the wheelie bins.

My God! Lifting the lids, I found six of them to be more than half full: Four of the white-painted wheelie bins, the navy-blue-painted wheelie bin, and the black-painted wheelie bin.

Obviously, while I'd been out, some of the girls and ladies of Canford had visited the Sock Room during their lunch break. Changing their socks at lunch time -- how extravagant was that! So Gina Stainham, then, was by no means a one-off.

And some of the schoolgirls of St Kate's, and St Esmeralda's, had come to the Sock Room and changed their black socks, and their navy blue socks, respectively, too -- the little minxes! 

I could only hope that the novelty value, for the females of Canford, would fade quickly ... But I knew that it wouldn't -- and that, for many of the town's rubbing-my-nose-in-it, females, it never would. 

But, I realised with dismay, it wouldn't matter if the novelty did start to wear a little thin, in time, for some of the town's females. Because, out of a sense of civic duty, the wanting-to-do-their-bit, girls and ladies of Canford would still come to the Sock Room in droves. Because of the whole point of the thing: To motivate me -- the community servant sock washer -- into finding gainful employment. And then, no doubt, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda would frogmarch some other poor sod into the Sock Room.

Well ... for now, I could only deal with the white socks. Because the two large dark blue soaking tubs were already being fully utilised -- fully loaded, with the Canford High Year Five schoolgirls' sports socks ... Which reminded me. Another half-hour or so, and I could begin hand-washing them. 

I glanced over, at the two large dark blue soaking tubs. Thick, sudsy foam was spilling over the sides, and starting to spread out over the floor, three or four inches deep, towards the mangle ... Well, that's only to be expected, I supposed.

As I steered one of the more-than-half-full, white-painted wheelie bins down the ramp, I was acutely aware of the three pairs of tracking eyes, avidly watching my every move. Acutely aware, of those three spectating females' chuckles, giggles and titters, as I transported yet another load of dirty white socks -- this load, the first of the afternoon -- to the main hopper. 

As I descended the makeshift ramp, I overheard Mrs Newlove say, to her two comfortably reclining companions, "Look at the state of those two tubs, heh, heh, heh. I told the idiot he's used far too much detergent ... There's going to be fun, later."

Rubbish! I thought, as I pushed the Start button of the main, open-topped hopper. Once again, the electric motor thrummed, as it hoisted up the latest wheelie bin of girls' and women's dirty white socks.

*

I looked at my watch. It read: 2:15.

Right then, I thought. Time to start hand-washing Year Five's sports socks. 

This was going to be easy, I thought. A cinch. The two large dark blue tubs of socks had been frothing up a treat, and they would be sure to wash easily; just a quick, rub-a-scrub-dub, and then transfer them into one of the rinsing tubs.

I put on my rubber washing-up gloves, and got down to work. I plunged my gloved-up-to-the-elbows hands into the first of the two large dark blue soaking tubs. And, as instructed by my two supervisors, I agitated, one by one, dirty white sock after dirty white sock in the hot and soapy water, rubbing and scrubbing and mashing them in my hands. 

And, as I did so, one by one I transferred the clean, but sudsy socks into the first of the two rinsing tubs ... Phew! It was hot work!

But I reckoned I'd have both tubs of sports socks -- all 200 of them -- washed, rinsed, mangled, and pegged up on the clothes-lines in the courtyard, by about four o'clock. 

The weather was forecast to stay dry, so the socks could be left out overnight. And then I'd iron them tomorrow. Miss Pardew told me she would be here to collect the socks at four o'clock. So they would be done in plenty of time. Ready and waiting for her ... At least, that was the plan.

*

Hmm ... maybe Mrs Newlove did have a point, after all ... perhaps I had, been just a bit heavy-handed with the Kolour Kind detergent.

Rich, ultra-sudsy lather was now foaming out of the two tubs of Year Five's sports socks -- especially the one I was stoically working my way through -- and spreading out across the basement floor. It was already over my ankles, and rising and spreading all the time. And I wasn't even half way through the first of the two tubs of socks yet!

Oh, hell! I thought.

"See, David?" said Mrs Newlove smugly. "What did I tell you?"

Tell me how I can get rid of all of these suds, then, if you want to be of some use! I thought, but didn't say. Hell if I was going to ask her, for advice!

The foamy lather was now almost up to my knees. I started taking the socks; thick with the now gooey detergent, out of the two wash tubs, and I transferred them to the two colander-like rinsing tubs. 

Having done so, I attached one end of the rubber hose-pipe to the cold tap of the rinsing sink, put the other end of the hose-pipe into one of the colander-like rinsing tubs, and spun the cold tap fully open.

But, when I began agitating the socks, trying to rinse them through with cold water, things only got worse! 

Oh, hell! This was all going wrong. So wrong! How could it get this bad, this quick? Mrs Newlove had been right -- damn the woman!

I went to my janitor's closet ... and came back with the long-handled, 12-inch long, 4-inch deep rubber-bladed squeegee I'd seen earlier.

But it was no good! The squeegee was useless; no match at all, for the ever increasing, rising tide of foam. Foam, that only seemed to get ever thicker. Too thick, to drain away down the grid under the mangle.

Mrs Newlove, Gina Stainham, Cheryl Chubb, and all of the other females present in the Sock Room, hooted with laughter at the spectacle of my self-imposed predicament. The girls and women laughed their heads off, as they watched my lamentable, wholly ineffectual efforts; scooping up handfuls of the gooey stuff, and slopping it down over the already severely congested drain.

Even though the hose-pipe was gushing out cold water full blast, it was proving impossible to rinse out the socks. The cream-coloured, highly-concentrated Kolour Kind had thickened considerably -- and was continuing to thicken. Congealing into a gooey, greasy texture the consistency of whipped cream at the bottom of the rinsing tubs, and blocking up the 1-inch diameter holes.

It was a nightmare! Being laughed at and derided -- ridiculed -- by the sock-changing girls and women ... Not least, Mrs Newlove, Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb, the three reclining spectators.

*

Inevitably, the hullabaloo in the Sock Room soon brought my two supervisors hurrying to the scene.

"What, the ...?" said C.S.O. Karen, upon her seeing the mega-sudsy state of the basement floor.

"I've been flushing and flushing and flushing the socks through with cold water, Miss Karen, but I can't rinse the soapy suds out of them!" I told her despairingly.

"He used too much detergent -- that's why! Much too much! I told him!" Mrs Newlove informed C.S.O. Karen -- informed, on me!

I gave Mrs Newlove a look.

"Didn't you follow the simple directions on the label, David?" asked C.S.O. Karen.

"I -- I might have ... maybe used a tad too much, Miss Karen," I admitted.

"And, he was cheeky this morning! Very rude, in fact, to Canford High's schoolgirls' PE teacher -- a Miss Pardew!" blurted Mrs Newlove, seizing her opportunity to land me in even more hot water, as it were. "Miss Pardew asked him to do one little job for her -- and he gave her a right load of lip!"

I gave her another look.

"What ...? Miss Pardew ... Polly Pardew?" said C.S.O. Karen, who sounded as if she knew the lady in question ... And, not only knew her, but also held her in high esteem. "Is this true, David?" C.S.O. Karen demanded, portentously.

"No ... Well, not exactly, Miss Karen," I hedged. "I -- I only said—"

"It is! It is true!" interjected Mrs Newlove. "He bad-mouthed her. He said he wasn't going to drop everything -- just on her say-so!"

"Is this true, David?" said C.S.O. Karen, even more ominously. "Did you actually say that? Because -- for your sake -- I hope you didn't!"

"I -- I told her I was sorry, Miss Karen," I said uselessly. I was caught bang-to-rights, and I knew it -- trapped, by Mrs Newlove's testimony.

"See!" cried Mrs Newlove triumphantly. "I told you it was true! And, that's not all! He disrespected Miss Pardew. He flapped his hand at her! He turned his back on her when she was still speaking to him -- and he flapped his hand at her! In fact, he did it twice! And Miss Pardew was not happy. She wasn't happy at all -- I can tell you!"

I glared at Mrs Newlove. Hell! Why couldn't the woman keep it zipped? Put a sock in it, as it were. 

So Mrs Newlove fanned the flames. "Miss Pardew said that his manners left a lot to be desired. She said his behaviour was inexcusable. Quite intolerable. That his manners were not at all what they ought to be -- for a community servant!"

"David ...?" prompted C.S.O. Karen, her face darkening by the second with deep displeasure.

"I did say sorry, to Miss Pardew, Miss Karen," I said, almost totally deflated. 

"Only when she threatened to speak to your supervisors -- and have you suitably brought to heel!" blabbed Mrs Newlove relentlessly. 

"And," piped up Gina Stainham, indignantly, "he even complained about me -- changing my socks! Can you believe that? Changing my socks -- in the Sock Room!"

"It was your second pair today!" I threw back.

Mrs Newlove yelled, in support of her friend, "Yes, he did! He did! I'm a witness to that! Perhaps ... perhaps it's time, that community servant David was taught a lesson in manners," she added suggestively.

Ah, I'd had enough of Mrs Newlove. I said to her, "Why can't you mind your own business?"

Addressing my two supervisors, Mrs Newlove said indignantly, "Surely, you're not going to let a community servant speak to me like that, are you?"

"No. No, we are not," said C.S.O. Linda, flexing her cane meaningfully. 

To C.S.O. Karen, she said smugly, "See, Karen? What did I tell you? Didn't I tell you, eh? Didn't I tell you, that double-oh-seven was incapable of keeping a civil tongue in his head?" 

C.S.O. Linda then intoned officiously, "Community servant David double-oh-seven, I am awarding you six strokes of the cane. This is your chastisement, for speaking out of turn to a lady."

"Ha! Her? A lady? Don't make me laugh!" I responded foolishly.

To C.S.O. Linda, Mrs Newlove complained, "You're not going to let him get away with that, are you?"

"No. No, we are not," said C.S.O. Linda. 

"Community servant David double-oh-seven, you have just compounded your offence. Your chastisement is therefore increased, to twelve strokes of the cane. To be administered to your bare bottom. By myself, and by C.S.O. Karen."

My two supervisors then pushed me against the wall, directly in front of Mrs Newlove's recliner. Taking their handcuffs from their utility belts, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda used them to restrain my wrists to the recliner's front legs; my head, just under the lower bar, of the two-barred safety railing ... and the soles of Mrs Newlove's white-socked, toe-scrunching feet were right in my face.

"No ... oh, no ... oh, please ..." I moaned. This couldn't be happening.

And then I felt C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda's hands grabbing hold of either side of the elasticated waist of my white uniform shorts. Without further words, as per the C.S.O.'s chastisement manual, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda pulled my shorts down around my ankles, preparatory to the administering of chastisement.

Oh my God! I thought. This was really going to happen ... There had to be a way of stopping it -- there just had to be!

"Please ... please, Mrs Newlove. I'm -- I'm sorry ... I'm very sorry. I -- I was ... out of order. It won't happen again, Mrs Newlove ... I promise. You -- you can stop this, Mrs Newlove ... Just -- just one word from you, that's all it would take. I -- I appologise ... You -- you are a lady, Mrs Newlove. In ... in every sense of the word ... Please. Please ... Norma."

"You can appologise all you want, and you can grovel all you want, David. But I want to see you get what's coming to you -- what you deserve! Speak to me like that, will you? You need to be taught a lesson in manners. Miss Pardew is right: your manners are not at all what they ought to be -- for a community servant! And, it's Mrs Newlove, to you -- community servant David!"




Community Service Ch. 04



Chapter 4: What's the worst that could happen? 

It had already been the worst day of my life to date: earning my £80 per week Unemployment Benefit payments, by working as a community servant -- in the Sock Room.

And it wasn't over yet ... 

I was at home; that is, at my parents' house, where I was still living at the time. It was almost 7:00 p.m. and, having eaten hardly anything all day I was ravenous.

The whole of the Smith family, and also my eighteen-year-old cousin, Rose, who worked for Mum and Dad, were seated at the dinner table enjoying one of Mum's incredibly tasty spaghetti Bolognese dinners. 

"I can't believe that working in the Sock Room is anything like as bad as you are trying to make out, David," said Mum, pooh-poohing my stretching-the-limits-of-credulity tale of woe.

"Oh, it is, Mum. And trust me: I have given you the edited version!"

My nineteen-year-old brother John, on time off from his well-paid job as a chef on one of the North Sea oil rigs, said, "I'll take you to the Nelson later, Dave. And you can tell me all about it - all the grizzly details!"

"You're on, John! Thanks. After the day I've had, I could murder a pint!"

Just then, on the portable TV sitting on the kitchen counter, we heard the familiar intro music to Channel 4's seven o'clock news, and we all hushed up to watch the top-story headlines.

"... And, at Westminster now, talking to Cathy," announced the studio's veteran anchor-man, John Frost, "is the Home Secretary, Theresa Maynard."

The camera switched to the blonde and attractive TV journalist, Cathy Newton. Cathy was standing next to an ash-blonde, blue-eyed, slim and attractive woman in her mid-forties. The woman wore her hair in the distinctive concave bob style, and it was shot through with attractive natural highlights of light-grey and silver streaks. She also wore a distinct aura of presence, that was immediately apparent, and that would be ignored only by fools. And, rather incongruously, perhaps, for a woman in such a senior governmental position, on her feet she was wearing a pair of eye-catching leopard skin pattern flats.

"Theresa Maynard ... were you surprised," asked the wavy-haired, blue-eyed Cathy, on behalf of Channel 4's viewers, "that the Authoritarian Female Party, led by Caroline Flynt, were elected to govern Britain in such an amazing landslide victory?"

"No. No, I wasn't, quite frankly. Were you, Cathy ...? I very much doubt it. After all, Cathy, Britain had been crying out for change. Crying out, for a government that would do something about the perennial problem of our male long-term unemployed. And only the A.F.P., led by Caroline Flynt, were prepared to tackle the issue - to grab it by the ... well, I'm sure you know where I'm coming from, Cathy," replied Theresa Maynard with a meaningful smirk.

"Um ... quite," replied Cathy. "But, some would say, though, that the A.F.P. have gone a little bit overboard ... have gone too far ...? I mean, for example, take the introduction of the town centre Public Caning Posts, and the medieval-style stocks. And then there's the highly controversial Placement scheme, for school leavers with no job or training to go to upon their leaving education. And - and then there are these so-called Sock Rooms, that have beeen installed in every town and city in the UK. Where male community servants, under the supervision of cane-wielding female Community Service Officers, are made to hand-wash girls' and women's dirty socks ... Some would say—"

"And some would say, Cathy," bristled the Home Secretary, "that forcing lazy, workshy, parasitic ... career claimants, to do something for their Unemployment Benefit payments, is a jolly good thing. Wouldn't you? The wake-up call for these appalling scroungers is long overdue. And can you think of a better way, Cathy, of motivating the country's long-term layabouts into finding gainful employment? Because I certainly can't!" 

"Just one final question, Home Secretary ... Is it true, that the Sock Room scheme was Caroline Flynt's own, personal brainchild?"

"Ha ha ha! Yes! Yes, it was, actually. As was the highly successful Air Purification Technician initiative, a Placement scheme that all of our major airlines have now adopted. Another wonderfully efficacious idea of Caroline's - ha ha ha ha!" laughed the Home Secretary. "From the very first day of its operation, the Air Purification Technician scheme has been achieving quite brilliant results, proving to be an extremely effective tool for ratcheting down the statistics of male long-term unemployed. In fact, Caroline personally presided over that particular Placement scheme's opening ceremony, at Manchester Airport. The inaugural flight, I recall, was a Sunshine Holidays flight to Corfu."

"Thank you, Theresa Maynard, for talking to us this evening."

"You're welcome, Cathy. It's always a pleasure."

Turning to face the camera, the attractive and engaging Cathy Newton said, "And it's back to you, John, in the studio."

Before the two women went out of camera shot, Cathy Newton could be seen smiling, as she said something while pointing down at the Home Secretary's leopard skin pattern flats. Smiling equally widely, Theresa Maynard responded by slipping free her right, bare foot, picking up her flat, and tucking her right foot in behind her left knee; her bare right sole, now angled directly towards the camera. Effortlessly balancing herself upon her standing left leg, Theresa Maynard then proudly showed her shoe to Cathy, apparently extolling its virtues as she turned it this way and that, and viewing the stylish shoe from every conceivable angle. The two women - interviewer and interviewee - continued smiling, as they tested the flat's flexibility, scrutinised the insole, and apparently began discussing at length the merits and delights of owning and wearing said footwear.

"Oh, but she's a hard woman, that Theresa Maynard," commented Dad, returning his attention to his dinner.

"Nonsense!" replied Mum. "We need bright and intelligent, hands-on, no-nonsense women like Theresa Maynard running the country. Women with some backbone, resolve ... And she always wears nice shoes, too. Did you see those flats, girls? Absolutely gorgeous!"

Alison said, "Yes, they were lovely, weren't they, Mum? And girl-friendly, too. I like shoes that you can easily slip your feet in and out of while you're sitting at your desk in the office, wiggle your toes a bit, and let them breathe. That's why I love mules ... mmm, such freedom. We have to wear three-inch heel leather pumps in the office - don't we, Denise? My latest pair are still quite new and - oh, my poor feet! I can just about pop out my heels, but ... Oh, and that stuffy Mr Kilroy, the senior partner - more like kill-joy! - he says it's unseemly, in a solicitors' office, for office girls to be seen playing about with their shoes with their feet, under their desks and seats."

Denise said, "Yes, Alison, but at least my office pumps are quite well worn-in now, so they've become supple, and are actually quite nice to wear. And sod Mr Kilroy - the miserable old duffer! None of the other partners have ever said anything ... In fact, now that I come to think of it, Alison, that Mr Pervis ...? You know, one of the junior partners, who sits at the desk behind mine - I've lost count of the number of times I've looked over my shoulder to see him staring, bug-eyed, under my chair ... Oh, my god! - ha ha ha ha! Do you think he's got some kind of a foot fetish, or something? Ha ha ha ha! - Pervis the pervert! ... Anyway, yes, I thought Theresa Maynard's flats were quite sexy, actually. I thought they looked great on her - and she looked fantastic in them. Maybe I'll buy myself a pair ... Des will love them." 

Des (Desmond) was Denise's fiance. Apparently he was 'something in the City', and he was well loaded. One of his money-coming-out-of-his-ears, Champagne-swilling banker colleagues, Henry (hedge-fund) Harris, he'd said, bought a brand-new, top-of-the-range Porsche every year, and had opened an account for his shoe-crazy girlfriend at the world-famous women's shoe designer, Manolo Blahnik. And, he'd added admiringly, of his richer-than-Croesus colleague, that he routinely lit his £100-a-pop Cuban cigars with £50 notes. And the very idea of that - of money literally going up in smoke - drove me totally mental. Yes, it was his friend's money, and he could spend it how he liked. And I didn't care a jot, that he bought a brand-new, ultra-expensive motor every year, and that his banker's bonuses made the Prime Minister's salary look like change for the phone. And I didn't even care that, thanks to his indulgent largesse, his girlfriend made Imelda Marcos look stuck for something to wear - good luck to her, in fact. But, the thought of him lighting up his cigars with £50 notes made me want to put my foot through the TV screen.

Rose said, of Theresa Maynard's leopard skin pattern flats, "Yes. They are to die for, aren't they? Stylish, comfy, and - like you said, Denise - sexy, too." After glancing at Dad, Rose said, "And look at the state of these ratty old things, uncle Dan," as she pushed her chair back, stuck out her bare, olive-skinned legs and, dangling her pair of black, well-worn flats from her toes, worked her toes to execute a rapid-fire half-dozen heel slaps. Rose then added coyly, "But a pair of those flats would cost more than I earn in a week ..."

Pretending not to have taken on-board Rose's thinly veiled hint at a pay rise, and trying to get the conversation back on-topic; or, to be more precise, to get his shoe-mad wife, daughters and niece off the subject of female footwear (because, once they got started, you couldn't prise them off the subject with a 12-foot crowbar) Dad said feelingly, "Well, I'm glad I'm not Theresa Maynard's husband!"

"Ah," responded Mum, "but that's because you are married to me. Isn't it, darling? To me, who you love more than life itself. To me, who you just can't get enough, of—"

"Children present!!" I yelled in mock shock, pointing to my nineteen-year-old brother, John, and my two sisters, Alison and Denise, twenty-one and twenty-three, respectively. And to my eighteen-year-old cousin, Rose, who was my parents' full-time assistant in their town centre florist shop, Roses are Red.

Alison and Denise were solicitors, and they both held well-paid, responsible positions at Canford's most eminent law firm, of Black, Brown and Grey. Although in fact, there was no one with any of those names at the town's most distinguished law firm any more. Alison had explained to me that Mr Kilroy ("more like kill-joy!"), who had bought out those fine old gentlemen, hadn't then removed their names from the window and replaced them with his own name and those of his partners'. He'd preferred instead, to cash in on the kudos of those long-established, and prestigious predecessors' names and reputations. Apparently that was quite lawful. Provided, of course, that Mr Kilroy and his partners all signed legal documents, etcetera, with their real names.

Alison then said to me, "So ... about your job hunting, David. Are you sure you've looked everywhere? Knocked on every potential employer's door? Adrian says he's heard a rumour they may soon be taking on some warehouse staff at Tesco's." 

Adrian was Alison's fiance, and he worked as a forklift truck driver for the supermarket giant.

"Yes, everywhere I can think of," I said. "They are sick of the sight of me, Alison, turning up on their doorstep every week or so. But I'll get myself round Tesco's again as soon as I get the chance. And thanks for telling me - say ta to Adrian for me."

Denise said, "Hmm ... You've definitely thought of everywhere, though, have you? Everywhere in Canford? All of the employment agencies? Units in the Industrial Estates? Supermarkets, warehouses, garages, factories ...?"

"Yes. Anywhere I might have a chance, they are just not taking on staff. Or, when they do, they always give the job to someone else. But yes, Denise, I keep thinking there must be somewhere I haven't looked. Or that something hasn't occurred to me. I ..."

I was looking at Rose ... She was a full-time employee in Mum and Dad's town centre florist shop, Roses are Red.

And Rose was looking at me ... uneasily, as if she was waiting to see if a penny was going to suddenly drop ...

"That ... that's ... that's it!" I cried, in my Eureka moment - as the penny suddenly dropped. "Rose. Rosie ... don't you see? You can sign on the dole! Females are getting two hundred and forty pounds a week now, in Unemployment Benefit payments. Don't you get it ...? You can be a lady of leisure. And I could work for Mum and Dad at the florist shop!"

I was cock-a-hoop. It was problem solved! I couldn't believe it. The simple solution had been there all along, staring me in the face. What a relief! I was euphoric. I couldn't contain myself. I sprang out of my chair and started doing a merry jig ... of sorts. "Ha ha ha! We-hey!" Clapping my hands in sheer happiness, I sang, "No more Sock Room - oh no! No more Miss Karen, no more Miss Linda - oh no! No more—"

At perceiving her cherished job in dire jeopardy, Rose whined, "But - but I don't want to go on the dole! I don't want to be a lady of leisure! I want to work! At the florist's! Are you forgetting, David? I'm supposed to be taking over the running of Roses are Red eventually, when auntie Gail and uncle Dan retire. So there! You'll just have to find something else - and that's that!" she told me flatly.

I stopped singing. Stopped clapping my hands. Stopped doing a merry jig.

And then Rose recovered her confidence and assurance, saying to me, "Anyway, David. It's a ridiculous idea. What possible use would you be, in a florist shop? You wouldn't know a cowslip from a cow's bum!"

"Ha ha ha!" laughed Mum. "Rose has got a point there! And besides, David, you should be ashamed of yourself - trying to steal your cousin's job! How could you? I think you should apologise to Rose - and now, David."

"Thank you, auntie Gail," said the grossly affronted and gravely offended Rose - as if she and Mum had just caught me red-handed, looking through my cousin's underwear drawer. Rose looked at me, expectantly. "Well, David?" she prompted. "I'm waiting ..." 

While Rose waited, she crossed her right leg over her left knee, allowed her right flat to dangle from her toes, and she proceeded to work her toes, causing the heel of her dangling flat to repeatedly slap against the bottom of her bare heel ... slap ... slap ... slap ... slap ... slap ... 

I felt my face going red from shame. Mum was right: I should be ashamed. And Rose was right, too: I had taken leave of my senses there, for a moment. I would be about as much use in a florist shop, as an ashtray on a Harley Davidson. While Rose was a natural, in the florist shop - she had the proverbial green fingers. And taking her out of Roses are Red, and replacing her with me, would be akin to removing Michelangelo from the Sistine Chapel, and replacing him with some slapdash, cack-handed emulsion dauber.

Completely deflated, I slumped back down in my chair at the dining table, and miserably twirled some of the remaining strands of spaghetti around my fork. When I felt able to face her, I looked across the table at Rose. "I'm sorry, Rose," I said. "I wouldn't really have taken your job. Honest, I wouldn't. It was just an idea, that's all. Just a daft idea. Just a daft, clutching-at-straws idea," I said despondently.

Everyone had gone quiet at the dining table.

"Come on, Dave," said John, slapping me on the shoulder. "Let's go and have that pint."

 * * *

The Lord Nelson, our local pub, was quite busy for eight o'clock on a Monday evening. It was Happy Hour - half-price drinks - until nine. 

On the Juke Box, Mick Jagger was raucously bemoaning that he couldn't get no satisfaction. No - and you are not the only one, Mick, I mumbled under my breath.

John and I found a vacant table to sit at and, when we had both taken the tops off our ice-cold pints of lager, I observed, "It's funny that, isn't it, John? It says Happy Hour. But it starts at six o'clock, and finishes at nine. That's three hours."

John raised an eyebrow. "Why? Not complaining are you, Dave? Shall I go and have a quiet word with the landlord for you - tell him he's contravening the Trades and Descriptions Act of eighteen-something-or-other?"

"Ha! You've never been able to take your drink, John. It goes straight to your head. You've only taken the top off your pint, and you're already spouting nonsense."

"Never been able to take my drink? I'm nineteen years old, Dave - hardly a veteran drinker. Anyway, having a sense of humour, it's called, actually," responded John with mock offence.

"A sense of humour? Yeah, well, I used to have one of those ... You'd soon lose that, John, in the Sock Room," I said morosely.

"Ah, yes. The dreaded Sock Room. So ... is it as bad, then, as you've been leading us all to believe?"

"No, John - it's a thousand times worse. What you heard earlier ... well, that was the sanitised version. For Mum's benefit. No - it's hellish, John. Just hellish. I've ... I've got these two supervisors, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda. Hell! They are only a year or so older than me, but I have to respectfully call them Miss Karen, and Miss Linda. Or they'll cane me - chastisement, they call it - they'll pull my uniform shorts down around my ankles, and cane my bare bum. In fact ... they've already done it. They really let me have it - six strokes of the cane each. I've never known pain anything like it. And it's still hurting like hell, even now, hours later."

"What ...?" said John, in tones of outraged incredulity. "Did I hear you right? Your supervisors caned you, just because you didn't call them Miss—"

"No. No, there's a bit more to it than that. I - I had a bit of a mishap with some detergent, Kolour Kind, it's called. Even then, I might have still gotten away with a stern telling-off from C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda ..."

"But ...?" prompted John.

"But I - I'd been, well ... undiplomatic, with Canford High's schoolgirls' PE teacher, a Miss Pardew. So C.S.O. Linda handed her cane to Miss Pardew, so that she could cane me as well. It was bad luck, really, because it turned out that C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda are former students of Miss Pardew, which made matters a hundred times worse. They were both apoplectic, outraged that I'd been anything less than ultra respectful to their former PE teacher, who they both apparently still think the world of. So they gave Miss Pardew carte blanche - let her cane me as many times as she wanted. God, John, Miss Pardew really gave it to me - good and proper. She really gave me a good seeing to. I thought she was never going to stop. She kept saying that my manners weren't what they ought to be, and that she was bringing me to heel."

"Good god!" exclaimed John. "I was wondering why you were looking so agitated; shifting and shuffling about on your chair all the time during dinner. You hardly sat still for two seconds. No wonder, you tried to pinch Rose's job—"

"And Mrs Newlove was there - at the Sock Room. She actually came for the day - like it was a day out at some amusement theme park. Can you believe that? She'd got her mum to mind the kids, and brought a load of food and drink - like it was some kind of picnic outing ... incredible! Her, and another woman, Gina Stainham ...? You've seen her around, John. Anyway, she—"

"What? Mrs Newlove, did you say? Norma Newlove? Norma Newlove, from across the road - her? Why? What about her, Dave? Oh, hell, what has she done now? What did she—"

"What did she do? Mrs Newlove? She saw everything I did, and heard everything I said, to Miss Pardew - and she blabbed to my supervisors! When Miss Pardew turned up again in the afternoon, with another big batch of Canford High schoolgirls' dirty sports socks - Year Four's, this time - Mrs Newlove opened her big mouth and gave my supervisors chapter and verse. And I mean, chapter and verse. She was in her element. She dropped me right in it! But, John, that's not the worst of it - not by a long chalk ... Mrs Newlove, she ... she—"




Community Service Ch. 04



"Don't mind if we join you, do you, David?" said Mrs Newlove, and I nearly choked on my second sip of lager, as she and Gina Stainham put their own halves of lager down on our table and sat down opposite John and I.

 *

"Hello, John," said Mrs Newlove pleasantly. "Got some time off from the rig, then, have you? Has David been telling you all about his first day, working as a community servant? About being made to earn his dole money ... in the Sock Room? Heh heh heh."

"He's been telling me all about your famous big mouth, Mrs Newlove, that's what he's been telling me about!" said John hotly. "Not that I need telling - I know you of old! You are a malicious mouthed, mean spirited, trouble making—"

"John! John!" I said in low-voiced urgency. "Leave it out, eh? You're just making things worse for me. She's making my life a misery as it is - her and Gina. You've no idea!"

Sitting opposite John, Gina Stainham said to him, "Oh, we had a lovely day out today, Norma and me ... watching David hard at work, in the Sock Room. It was more entertaining than the cinema, ha ha ha! Has he told you about it - about hand-washing all of those girls' and women's dirty socks? Ah ... it gives me a lovely warm glow inside, knowing that David is going to be hand-washing all of my dirty socks for me in future."

"Ha ha ha ha!" laughed Mrs Newlove. "Yes! And mine, too! And David had better get used to it too, because he's going to be doing it for years - who's going to give the likes of him a job?"

"No one with any sense, Norma, that's for sure," opined Gina Stainham disdainfully. "They would have to be extremely hard-up, that's all I can say."

"Yes, Gina," agreed Mrs Newlove. "They would really be scraping the bottom of the barrel, wouldn't they ... and getting the dregs."

"Oh, you two really make me ... you make a fine pair," said John ironically, in failing to think of an off-the-cuff insult that would paint them black enough. "You claim every benefit allowance under the sun, and do nothing but sit on your fat—"

"Oh," interjected Mrs Newlove, "and I had David's supervisors cane his bare bum - chastise him - for disrespecting me ... Aw, diddums, the poor thing was bawling his eyes out. Did he tell you, John ...? Ha ha ha! I can see by the look on your face, that he hasn't! Well, I don't think he'll be speaking out of turn to me again, any time soon. Let's put it that way. And - ha ha ha! - best of all ... did David tell you, John, that while he was handcuffed to the foot of my recliner, and having his bare bum caned by his supervisors, I made him - ha ha ha ha!! - 'pre-wash' my dirty socks? I pulled my dirty socks inside out, and I stuffed them both into his—"

"Come on, John, let's go," I said. "Let's get out of here." 

"Ha ha ha ha!" guffawed Mrs Newlove and Gina Stainham, as John and I abruptly got up and left the table. John and I looked back, to see the uproariously laughing Mrs Newlove and Gina Stainham topping up their glasses from our barely touched pints of lager. Then, before John and I could turn away in disgust, they raised their topped-up glasses and, in unison, made sardonic toasts to us. "Cheers, dears! Ha ha ha ha!"

"See you tomorrow, David - in the Sock Room. Ha ha ha ha ha!" was Gina Stainham's parting shot.

"Me, too, David - Mum's got the kids," Mrs Newlove informed me. "And you can 'pre-wash' these, for me. Ha ha ha ha ha!" she laughed, as she quickly pulled off her trainers, and propped her white-socked feet on the table, ankles crossed. There were grey, damp-looking patches, I saw, on the soles of her white cotton socks. And the actions of her repeatedly scrunching toes were causing the grey, damp-looking areas to intermittently darken further, at the balls of her feet, and under her toes, as the cotton material folded and creased.

"Ugh!" said John. "Yes - come on, Dave. Let's get the hell out of here." 

On the Juke Box, Bob Geldof was peevishly complaining that he didn't like Mondays.

No - and you are not the only one, Bob, I said under my breath as I hastened through the exit doors of the Lord Nelson.

 * * *

Back at home, over a cup of coffee in the kitchen, John said, "Well, Dave, I see what you mean now, about giving Mum the abridged version of what it's like in the Sock Room. It must be an absolute nightmare in there, with the likes of Norma Newlove and Gina Stainham plaguing you."

"Oh, it is, John, it is," I said wretchedly. "And a lot of the girls and women are like them - you'd be surprised, how many. Gloating, and coming over all haughty, and arrogant, and smug-faced, because they know that I'm going to be hand-washing their dirty socks. Loving it, that they can inflict such dreadful drudgery upon me on a daily basis. Loving it, that they can waltz into the Sock Room and make my life a misery; that they can come swanning in there, and give me a right load of grief - torment the hell out of me, with impunity. Laughing at me, deriding me, and mocking me with their eyes, as they leave their dirty socks for me. Looking down on me - their sock-washing skivvy. 

"And there are actually recliners in the Sock Room - four of them - can you believe that, John? For the girls and women to relax, as they watch me slaving away, laundering their dirty socks to a high standard. Believe me, John: the Sock Room brings out the bitch in them. Outright cruel, some of them are - the things that they'll say, and do. And Mrs Newlove is right: the way things are going, I am going to be stuck in the Sock Room for years."

"Well, maybe not ..."

"What? What are you on about, John? What do you mean?"

"Well, Dave, I've been thinking: I mean, just don't go back - to the Sock Room. I mean, if you didn't; if you didn't go in tomorrow ... what's the worst, that could happen?"

At John's very suggestion - "just don't go back" - I felt a thousand tons of woes slipping from my shoulders. The answer really did seem that incredibly simple, and that blatantly obvious.

"You - you're right, John! I just won't go back! Sod them - sod them all! Sod C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda! Sod the Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman! Sod Theresa Maynard! And sod Caroline Flynt, and her so-called brainchild - her sodding Sock Room! Yes! You're right, John. I just won't go back - to the Sock Room. How come I didn't think of it? After all, like you say ... what's the worst, that could happen?"

 *

When I went to bed, I fell into a deep, trouble-free sleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, and I slept like the proverbial baby ... Until, according to my bedside digital clock: 08:20 ...

"Community servant David double-oh-seven! Out of bed, and into your uniform! Now! And I mean, NOW!" shrieked C.S.O. Karen, right in my face.

What, the ...? Talk about a rude awakening! As though materialising out of the ether, like the dark angels of chastisement that they were, it was C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda! 

Lying on my stomach, to protect my still-sore bottom from the painful friction, I pulled my duvet over my head to protect my ears, too.

"You're trespassing! How dare you!" I yelled, outraged. "And how did you get in?" I demanded. I knew Mum and Dad couldn't have let them in, because they would already have left for their florist shop in town. 

"With these, community servant David," said C.S.O. Karen, smugly jangling something shiny in front of my eyes. "Skeleton keys. We can let ourselves into any property we want, with these little beauties," she told me. "And we're not trespassing. We are Community Service Officers, conducting the business of the Authoritarian Female Party. That's how we dare!"

"Well, you're wasting your time. I'm not going back to the Sock Room - today, or any other day. So you can sod off - the pair of you!" 

"Oh ... is that right?" said C.S.O. Linda menacingly. "Well, we'll see about that!" she said, snatching my duvet from by bed, and uncovering my bare-assed body. "Miss Karen just gave you an explicit order, double-oh-seven, didn't she? Out of bed, and into your uniform - now!"

"And I just told you, didn't I? I'm not going back to the Sock Room - not today, or any other day. So you can both get lost - go take a running jump! Oh, and if you don't mind, close the door after you ... I'm going back to sleep."

Whoo! Whoo! Crack! Crack! 

"So ... you are not reporting to the Sock Room, as per your officially assigned duties, are you, community servant David?" said C.S.O. Karen.

"Aaaahhhh! Aaaaaahhhhhh!!" I yelled, as C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda's whippy, A.F.P. issue canes smacked into my exposed, and still sore bare buttocks. But I didn't want to get up in front of them. I didn't want them to ... see me.

Whoo! Whoo! Crack! Crack! 

"Tell Miss Karen and me to sod off, will you, double-oh-seven?" said C.S.O. Linda. "And, after you promised to keep a civil tongue in your head, too. Tut tut."

"Aaaahhhh! Aaaaaahhhhhh!!" I wailed, as C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda's savagely flailing canes reawakened my heinous agonies of the previous day. "All right! All right! Stop! Stop!" I yelled. 

I'd had enough ... I knew I was beat.

Whoo! Whoo! Crack! Crack! 

"Dare to defy us, will you, community servant David?" said C.S.O. Karen. "That comes with consequences. Now, for the last time: I am ordering you to get out of bed, and into your community servant's uniform! And hurry up!" 

"Aaaahhhh! Aaaaaahhhhhh!!" I roared, as much from outrage this time, as from pain. "All right! I said all right! Didn't I? I'm coming! I'm coming!"

Whoo! Whoo! Crack! Crack!

"All right, what ...?" said C.S.O. Karen ...

"Aaaahhhh! Aaaaaahhhhhh!!" I moaned, in my hideous torment. I knew what C.S.O. Karen meant. But I didn't want to pathetically capitulate. I didn't want to humbly bow, didn't want to say the humiliating words - didn't want to see her bask in triumphant satisfaction.

Whoo! Whoo! Crack! Crack!

"All right, WHAT ...?" demanded C.S.O. Linda.

"Aaaahhhh! Aaaaaahhhhhh!! ... All - all right ... Miss Karen ... And Miss Linda," I said through gritted teeth.

"You are a fool to yourself, double-oh-seven," C.S.O. Linda told me. "You will answer to Miss Karen and me, for this morning's little episode. And you have just earned yourself an audition with the Community Service Liaison Officer - remember her? She is not going to be happy." 

"And all the while," said C.S.O. Karen hotly, "your work in the Sock Room will be building up, and getting out of control." 

"Yes, it will!" agreed C.S.O. Linda, just as heated as her colleague. "So you will have to work through your lunch break today - on my orders!"

Whoo! Crack!

"Say: Yes, Miss Linda!" commanded C.S.O. Linda waspishly.

"Yes, Miss Linda!" I wailed in agonised defeat, my capitulation complete.

"Right then, community servant David, into the bathroom!" ordered C.S.O. Karen harshly. "You've got two minutes!" 

So much, then, for John's big idea, I glumly thought, exactly two minutes later, as C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda hustled me down the stairs, closed the front door behind us and, right in front of my avidly watching neighbours, bundled me into the back of their A.F.P. van.

 * * *

Upon our arrival at the Community Service Operations Centre, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda forced my arms behind my back, and frogmarched me through to Reception.

At seeing my ID, printed in bold black letters and numbers on my white uniform T-shirt, the Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman, said sarcastically, "Hmm ... didn't I have the pleasure of your company yesterday morning, community servant David double-oh-seven?"

Whoo! Crack!

"Say: Yes, madam!" snapped C.S.O. Karen who, when I didn't immediately respond to the Liaison Officer's question, lashed out with her cane at my right calf.

"Aaaaaaahhhhhh! ... Yes, ma - madam," I responded as instructed, while trying to rub my injured right calf with my hand - but C.S.O. Linda wouldn't let me. 

Addressing C.S.O. Karen, the Liaison Officer said, "So, to what do I owe the pleasure, then, of community servant David's unexpected visit?"

"Community servant David double-oh-seven is charged with three counts of misconduct, altogether, ma'am. One: He failed to report to his assigned duties this morning, in the Sock Room. Two: When ordered to immediately report for duty, by myself and by C.S.O. Linda, he refused to comply, repeatedly disobeying direct orders, as issued to him by Community Service Officers. Three: In the course of his repeatedly disobeying our direct orders, he grossly disrespected both myself, and C.S.O. Linda. He told us both to - and I quote: "Sod off" and "Get lost" and "Go take a running jump" ma'am."

Harriet Harmman once again turned her attention to me and, by her stony-faced glare, I knew this wasn't going to end well.

"Community servant David double-oh-seven, you have just heard the charges against you, as read out by C.S.O. Karen," said the Liaison Officer gravely. "Let me make myself perfectly clear. I will not tolerate such behaviour, as has just been described to me. And neither will your supervisors - haven't you realised that yet? You have flagrantly disobeyed your supervisors' direct orders. You have repeatedly shown them gross disrespect. In short: you have shown utter contempt, for their authority as Community Service Officers - and, by association, for the Authoritarian Female Party government itself. 

"Community servant David double-oh-seven," intoned Harriet Harmman coldly, "your actions are sanctionable. And I hereby fine you two weeks' Unemployment Benefit payments. This is your chastisement ... And, no doubt, over the ensuing days, weeks, and months, in their own fashion, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda will also help you to see the errors of your ways.

"And now, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda," said the Liaison Officer brusquely, as though this petty matter had already taken up far too much of her time, "please escort community servant David from these premises, and return him to his assigned duties immediately ... I'm sure he will have a lot of work to be catching up on, in the Sock Room."

"Yes, ma'am! Right away, ma'am!" responded the stern faced C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda simultaneously, in their best parade-ground fashion.

Once again, I regretted my disastrous folly in taking John's well-meaning advice: "Just don't go back." And for foolishly listening to his careless-shrugged, criminally complacent comment - his catastrophic counsel: "What's the worst, that could happen?"

Well, John, I thought gloomily. Let's see. What's the worst, that could happen? Where should I start? 

Hmm ...

How about: giving the Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman, a face like thunder, and three good reasons to remember me? 

How about: the devastating loss of two weeks' Unemployment Benefit payments, which was going to wipe out all of my 'rainy day' reserves, and leave me struggling to make ends meet, for weeks after? 

And, worst of all - the real kicker: How about my two supervisors, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda, helping me to see the errors of my ways ("in their own fashion"), over the ensuing days, weeks, and months? 

I mournfully mused over these miserable matters, as C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda once again forced my arms behind my back, manhandled me out of the Community Service Operations Centre, and frogmarched me across Canford town square ... to the Sock Room.

Community Service continues, in Ch. 5. 



Community Service Ch. 05



Chapter 5: C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda put their foot down ... and their feet up. 

I knew I was in trouble -- big trouble -- as I listened to the vengeful tone of my two supervisors' running dialogue as they frogmarched me across Canford town square, heading towards the Sock Room ...

"Can you believe it, Lindz," said Community Service Officer Karen, in tones that were more of wonder, than of outrage, "that Sock Boy actually told us to sod off? Oh, I'm going to make him regret those words -- the little squirt!" 

"Double-oh-seven told us to go and take a running jump, too, Karen. Don't forget that!" Community Service Officer Linda, reminded her colleague. "And, what about him telling us that he was refusing to come back to work in the Sock Room, that he was going back to sleep, and then just throwing the bedclothes back over himself and telling us to close his bedroom door on our way out -- if we didn't mind? Eh? You know, the way he said it, and all? All sarcastic, like. I mean, how insolent is that? Oh, I told you the little pipsqueak was incapable of keeping a civil tongue in his head, didn't I? But he's even more mouthy than I thought ... Well, I'll tell you one thing, Karen: I am determined to cure him of that!" 

"I thought Polly Pardew had brought him to heel, Lindz. She certainly made him cry buckets, the way she caned his bare bum, didn't she? Reminding him of all of his insolent offences; pressing home her points, ticking them off one by one, with each and every stroke of the cane. My god, she made him wail!" 

"Oh, didn't she just -- she certainly knows how to use a cane! She must have made him cry enough tears to fill up one of the blue soaking tubs -- ha ha ha! But, to be honest, Karen, I don't know what made him blub the most: Miss Pardew thrashing him, or being so humiliated by Norma Newlove -- not to mention, Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb ... Ha ha ha! Tormenting him with their stinky feet, while he was handcuffed to the foot of Mrs Newlove's recliner— oh, and Mrs Newlove! Ha ha ha ha! Forcing double-oh-seven to 'pre-wash' her dirty socks! Oh, she's got a wicked sense of humour, has Norma Newlove. 

"In fact ... I got a real kick out of it. Didn't you, Karen? Watching the show? I was getting off on it -- big-time! I was getting really turned on. It was making me, you know, all ... all wet. I couldn't stop, you know ... touching myself." 

"Ha ha ha ha! Oh, I know, Lindz! Me, too! It's not called a ... ring finger, for nothing -- ha ha ha! Yes, it was a real buzz, wasn't it, Lindz? It really put me in the mood, made me come over all ... romantic -- ha ha ha! Simon said I was like a sex-starved nymphomaniac, last night, the way I tore his clothes off him when he came over -- ha ha ha! Simon said, 'Weh hey! What's come over you?' And Simon laughed his head off, Lindz, when I told him!

"And, the beauty of it all, Lindz, is that we are actually getting paid four hundred pounds a week -- four hundred pounds a week, Lindz! -- for something that we would gladly do for nothing! I mean, the ... fringe benefits, are reward enough in themselves, aren't they? 

"And, if I was a betting girl, Lindz, I'd say that Sock Boy, here, is in even more dread of the attentions of the ... of the Sock Room girls -- ha ha ha! -- than he is of our canes. Something we should remember, in future, when we consider his chastisement."

"Hmm ... I think you might be right, Karen. Let the girls and women in the Sock Room have some fun with him, you mean? Let them do what they want, with him ... whatever, they want? Oh, Norma Newlove would love that -- ha ha ha! Can you imagine ...? She seems to really have it in for double-oh-seven, doesn't she? You just might have something there, Karen. That's definitely something we should bear in mind."

"You know what's bugging me most, though, Lindz? Something that Norma Newlove said this morning, before we realised that David wasn't going to show up at the Sock Room, and we set off in the van to pick him up at home ... Now, okay, we know that there's obviously some sort of history there, between David and Norma Newlove, and that she seems hell-bent on getting him into trouble, at every opportunity ... But, what she said about her and Gina Stainham seeing David in the Lord Nelson last night, with his brother John ... I can't help thinking, that—"

"Ah, yes, right. I think I know where you're coming from, Karen. Now I get it. It's pretty obvious, isn't it? Double-oh-seven, wouldn't—"

"That's right, Lindz. David wouldn't have had the guts to rebel against us -- not right off his own bat. He's obviously had some moral support. This must be the work of his brother, John. John is at the bottom of this. John is the one, who's been putting ideas into David's head, getting him all uppity ... Well, Lindz, I'll teach John Smith to meddle. I'll soon scupper him, the brass-necked, interfering, trouble-causing—"

I had deemed it wise to keep shtum, so far. To ... put a sock in it, as it were. To remain silent, no matter what my two supervisors said about me. 

To keep it zipped ... even when I heard, to my profound shock, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda so brazenly telling each other that they had found it a "real buzz", and that they had derived sexual satisfaction -- no, sadistic gratification -- from seeing me brought to tears of pain and humiliation. 

To keep it zipped ... even when I heard, to my utter incredulity, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda saying -- enthusing! -- that they had been "turned on", and that they had been "getting off on it -- big-time!". From, not only the sadistic thrill of caning me themselves, but also, from the excitement -- the dark titillation -- of seeing their former PE teacher, Miss Polly Pardew, mercilessly and energetically caning my bare bottom ("Your manners are not at all, what they ought to be -- for a community servant!"), after they had handcuffed me to the foot of my neighbour-from-hell Mrs Newlove's recliner, and pulled down my white, community servant's uniform shorts, in accordance with the C.S.O.'s chastisement manual. 

To keep it zipped ... even when I heard, to my sense of mortifying shame and belittlement, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda, gushing -- positively purring -- that they had been "touching" themselves, as they watched "the show". That they had actually been ... pleasuring themselves ("It's not called a ... ring finger, for nothing!"), while I was simultaneously being devastatingly caned, by Miss Pardew, and being comprehensively humiliated, at the tormenting, stinky feet of Mrs Newlove, and by two of her ghastly Sock Room cohorts, Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb. 

To keep it zipped ... even when I heard the final, icing-on-the-cake revelation of depravity; my sheltered mind, screaming TOO MUCH INFORMATION! C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda saying, all giggle-voiced, that as a result, of such ... stimulation, they had both got ... "all wet".

I had resolved to remain silent. To keep my own counsel, even as I learned of each of these shocking new insights into my two young supervisors' inner characters. Insights, into C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda's ... sexual proclivities. Insights, into their lustful, licentious leanings. Insights, into their sadistic, pornographic predilections.

But, now that C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda had sussed out the truth of the matter, and had brought my brother John into the equation, I was impelled to break my silence -- impelled to intervene, in my older brother's defence. 

"No! Please! Please, Miss Karen! Leave our John out of this!" I pleaded. "It was, all off my own bat! John had -- had nothing to do with it! He ... he—"

"John had everything to do with it!" yelled C.S.O. Karen. "He did -- didn't he? You wouldn't have dared, David, to defy me and Miss Linda! Would you? John put you up to your little game! Didn't he ...?" demanded C.S.O. Karen. "Yes, I thought so," she said in satisfaction when, red-faced with guilt, I made no reply. 

"So, David ... you thought you could thumb your nose at us, did you?" admonished C.S.O. Linda. 

"Well, Karen, I knew double-oh-seven was as thick as two short planks," said C.S.O. Linda. "But now, on top of everything else, he is fibbing to us -- lying to our faces -- when he knows we can see right through him! I mean, how stupid is he?"

"And, for all of his bluster and bravado, Lindz, David is just a quiet little mouse ... Who hasn't lost his virginity yet. I can tell. Can't you, Lindz? Eighteen years old, he is, Lindz. Eighteen years of age, and you are still a virgin, David ... aren't you? And in this day and age! Aren't you ...?" goaded C.S.O. Karen. "Yes, I thought so," she said in satisfaction when, red-faced with innocence, I made no reply.

"Ha ha ha ha!" laughed C.S.O. Linda gleefully. "Yes! Now that you mention it, Karen, I can tell! Ha ha ha ha! Oh, this has made my day! The secret agent's secret: Double-oh-seven -- a virgin! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

And then the double-door entrance to the Sock Room was before us.

And, at just the very sight of those doors, I was dismayed, dispirited, despondent. Deeply depressed, just at the very thought, of ... what awaited me, behind them.

Not least, because Mrs Newlove, my neighbour-from-hell, was evidently here again. 

She'd been here for all of yesterday, too, on the opening day of the Sock Room ... She'd actually had a 'day out', at the Sock Room. She'd actually come to gloat, and to watch me earning my Unemployment Benefit, as a community servant. "Mum's got the kids," she'd told me as she relaxed shoe-less on her recliner, her trainers on the floor, beside her.

And, not content with making just my life, a misery -- a waking nightmare -- she had, apparently, maliciously blabbed to C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda, hoping to get my brother John in dire trouble as well.

Upon C.S.O. Linda opening the double-door entrance to the Sock Room, C.S.O. Karen said harshly, "Go on, then! Get yourself in there ... Sock Boy."

 * * * 

It was now 09:30. 

The Sock Room was getting busy ... and my work was getting out of hand. 

Maybe ten or fifteen of the girls and ladies of Canford -- some of whom, I'd seen present here yesterday -- were helping themselves to a clean pair of socks from the shelves, after depositing their dirty socks into the receptacles provided: either dropping them into one of the colour-coded wheelie bins, or leaning over the two-barred safety railing and tossing them directly into the large, open-topped hopper, marked: 'White Socks Only!'

At their seeing me being frogmarched into the Sock Room by my two supervisors, some of the sock-changing females stopped what they were doing, and smirked at me, mockingly. Others sneered at me, derisively. While yet others, of them, smiled from ear to ear, in delighted wonderment at the Sock Room's -- and, their sock washer's -- very existence.

I'd told my brother John, last night, that the Sock Room brought out the bitch, in many of the town's females ... And, looking at their mocking, derisive, sneering and contemptuous faces now, I saw no reason to change my mind. The great majority of them, had an arrogant, haughty air, about them. Smug, in the knowledge that I was being brought here -- all but dragged here, kicking and screaming -- to hand-wash their dirty socks.

Under the female-friendly rule of the Authoritarian Female Party government, led by Caroline Flynt, a Sock Room had been installed in every town and city in the UK. And I spared a thought, now, for all of the other community servants who were in the same shoes as myself ... well, flip flops. ("There will be a lot of water, where you will be working, community servant David double-oh-seven."), the Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman, had told me as she issued my uniform.

The Sock Room floor was littered. Strewn, with the cardboard and plastic packaging that the sock-changing females of Canford had simply discarded. Carelessly (many of them, deliberately!) dropping the sock-related debris to the floor, when it was just as easy for them to drop the rubbish into the large black plastic bin provided for the purpose. And it would be for me, to come back up here later and bag it all up ... as if I wouldn't have enough, to be getting on with.

Upon our having descended the six wooden steps, that led down into the basement level of the Sock Room, where all of the laundering apparatus was situated, my two supervisors steered me to the right. "The office, David," instructed C.S.O. Karen. "You know the way ... down the short corridor, after your ironing station."

I was surprised, at C.S.O. Karen's instruction. My work was piling up by the minute, and starting to get way out of hand. Two or three of the colour-coded wheelie bins' lids, I saw, couldn't close; the excess of girls' and women's dirty socks, overflowing, and spilling untidily onto the floor.

I had thought that my two supervisors would have immediately put me to work: Emptying some of those over-full wheelie bins into the large, open-topped hopper -- clearly signed: 'White Socks Only!' -- and filling up the laundry boiler tank with the dirty white socks, for their two-hour minimum soak. 

And then, as soon as I'd done that, have me urgently cracking on with their former PE teacher Miss Pardew's "little job" for me: hand-washing Canford High's Year Five schoolgirls' sports socks ... 100 pairs of them. Because she'd said she would be coming back to the Sock Room today, this afternoon at four o'clock, to collect them. And, Miss Polly Pardew was definitely not going to be a happy bunny, if I didn't have them perfectly laundered, and all ready and waiting for her when she arrived. And, hell, I certainly had my work cut out, if I was going to achieve that.

But, before I had even set one foot in front of the other, towards C.S.O's Karen and Linda's office, a sock-changing female's voice called out, halting our progress ... a voice I knew.

The voice came from the vicinity of the black padded-leather recliners -- of which there were four: two, on either side of the six wooden steps, and situated behind the two-barred safety railing, beyond which there was a sudden, five-foot drop-off to the basement floor.

As one, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda and I looked up ... towards the voice. 

"And, what time do you call this, then, community servant David double-oh-seven?" demanded the highly indignant voice ... And from the same recliner she had occupied yesterday: the one just to the left of the six wooden steps (as seen from the upper level), and that was situated opposite the dull grey, industrial standard laundry boiler tank, in which the dirty (white) socks had their high-temperature, two-hour minimum soak.

It was the voice ... of the woman who had yesterday so fiendishly turned inside out her dirty, white cotton socks, and maliciously stuffed them into my mouth. Pushing them in; her non-too-gentle fingers, poking and prodding them in place, cruelly positioning the revolting, gag-inducing, tangy-cheese flavoured soles against the taste-sensitive roof of my mouth, and over my tongue ... my palate. 

It was the voice ... of the woman who had then gleefully splayed, wiggled and scrunched her bare, Florida-tanned toes, mere inches from my eyes. Goading me, as I had gagged and retched on her stinky, sweat-stained socks; my eyes, watering freely and copiously, in my acute distress and abject humiliation. Laughing at me, as I had stood, helplessly captive, on the basement floor where my two supervisors had handcuffed me: to the foot of her recliner, that was situated on the upper level of the Sock Room, just inside the two-barred safety railing. 

It was the voice ... of the woman, who, in the ecstasy of her undreamed-of triumph, had wickedly cupped my nostrils in her noisome, blue cheese odoured bare toes, forcing me to inhale the foul and fetid fumes of her in-between-the-toes foot stink, comprehensively crushing my spirit.

It was the voice ... of the woman who had so blissfully savoured my hideous torment. And who had so revelled, in her utter, devastating humiliation of me, as ... 

Activated, by my taste buds' sensing and registering those rancid and revolting flavours, like a programmed washing machine, my mouth had 'automatically' began to fill with saliva ... So as to "pre-wash" her dirty, disgusting, turned inside out, ripened mature cheese flavoured white socks.

And, I'd had absolutely no control, over the 'automatic' ... cycle process. 

I'd had absolutely no control. And so I'd had absolutely no choice ... as she had laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and wiggled and splayed and scrunched her smelly bare toes in triumphant glee, right in front of my eyes ... but to swallow.

And, to continue to swallow.

No choice, as, to my absolute horror, of its own volition my throat had started to convulse; had started to open, and close ... open, and close ... open, and close ... in a reflex, uncontrollable -- unpreventable -- 'automatic' gulping action.

I'd had no choice, but to swallow down and ingest, the resultant vile and viscous, rancid and revolting, stomach-churning liquid. 

I'd had no choice, but to swallow down and ingest, the concentrated ... effluent, that, as the dissolving 'active ingredient' of my "pre-washing" saliva acted upon it, was seeping out of the dirty cotton fibres of her stinky, tangy cheese flavoured, turned inside out white socks. 

It was the voice ... of the woman who knew a thing or two, about laundry: My neighbour-from-hell ... Mrs Newlove.

Mrs Norma Newlove. Who, in being eagerly and enthusiastically egged on and abetted by "Sock Room girls" Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb, had actually used my mouth, as her own, personal ... 'automatic' washing machine, to "pre-wash" her dirty white socks. 

I hadn't realised, that my two supervisors had been watching my face, and gauging my reactions. And, when I then saw a flash of ... something, in their eyes, passing between them ... I was filled with dread. 

Because I knew exactly what they were thinking. 

Whatever else they might be, my two young supervisors were certainly not a pair of proverbial dumb blondes. Far from it. In a streetwise, quick-on-the-uptake, sort of way, they were both ... canny. Quick-witted, sharply observant, astute and perceptive. Nothing much got past them. You could rarely pull the wool over their eyes ... at least, I couldn't. It was as if they both had finely-tuned mental radars, that were always on red-alert, and that would instantly ping! ... ping! ... ping! ... ping! ... in warning, whenever I 'tried it on'. 

It was like a constant game of cat and mouse. And, there would always be ... consequences, when they caught me trying to 'get one over', on them ... When the cats, caught their mouse.

C.S.O. Linda, had just said, before we'd entered the Sock Room: "He is fibbing -- lying to our faces -- when he knows we can see right through him!" 

This was, I knew, a bit of 'Thought Police' amateur psychology, on C.S.O. Linda's part. Designed to make me stop ... and think twice. Designed to make me Walk -- Don't Run! Designed to keep me on the straight-and-narrow ... Designed, to deter me from 'wrongdoing'. 

I realised that. But C.S.O. Linda had planted the seed. And I would often wonder, if my two supervisors actually could, "see right through" me. Because C.S.O. Linda had planted her seed in fertile soil. And, whenever I was thinking of 'trying it on', there was always a little voice of warning at the back of my mind, piping up, Don't do it -- they'll know! ... Don't do it -- they'll find out! ... Don't do it -- they'll cane you!

But, especially ... insightful, was C.S.O. Karen, who seemed possessed of the highly disturbing ability to unerringly home in on my weaknesses. To find the chinks in my armour. To discover, my ... vulnerabilities.

Not to mention, that she had, somehow ... divined, my 'shameful' secret: "Double-oh-seven -- a virgin!" 




Community Service Ch. 05



I supposed that this must be what was meant, by 'female intuition'.

And, I had never known, such blood-draining, falling-through-the-abyss, feelings. Had never felt, such intense, dreadful emotion. Had never experienced, such cataclysmic, end-of-the-world, fathomless depths of anguish, as in that awful, terrible, profoundly humiliating moment. I had never imagined, such an acute sense of ... mortification, existed, as when C.S.O. Karen 'outed' me.

I remembered what C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda had said, just a few minutes ago, about letting the sock-changing girls and women "have some fun", with me ... And I shuddered in dread, just at the very thought.

Because C.S.O. Karen was right: As terrible and as horrendously painful as the vicious, merciless infliction of their devastating, whippy canes upon my exposed bare bottom was, I was, even more in fear, of the heinous humiliations, of the "Sock Room girls". 

And I just did not want to find out, what their idea of "fun", would be. 

Or, to be more precise, what Mrs Newlove's idea of "fun", would be.

Because, the disturbingly insightful C.S.O. Karen, was right. There was, "some sort of history" between Mrs Newlove and me. 

It was nothing, really. Just something I did, a few years previously, when I was just a mischievous, pesky kid. A childish prank. 

But, Mrs Newlove had never forgot ... or forgiven.

"Get moving, double-oh-seven," ordered C.S.O. Linda. "The office ... you know the way."

 * * *

This was the first time that I'd been inside my two supervisors' office ... but it wouldn't be the last.

The first thing I noticed, was the obvious similarity to the Reception office in the Community Service Operations Centre, where Harriet Harmman was Liaison Officer. 

For, most of the wall space was taken up with full-size, full-colour posters of leading Authoritarian Female Party figures. 

But, the poster that immediately captured my attention, and held it fast, was the poster depicting the Prime Minister, Caroline Flynt ... the woman who was, ultimately, responsible for my being here, in the Sock Room.

Caroline Flynt looked, I thought, as seductive as ever ... even if she was, old enough to be my mum. It was as though she was looking down on me, with that sardonic smile of hers, her dark brown eyes, mocking. I'd seen that same, demure, dimple-cheeked 'trademark' expression of hers many times, on TV. And, her mocking look now, seemed to be conveying a personal message: Well, David, thank you for your vote. You wanted to work ... and now, I have put you to work, haven't I? Heh heh heh.

Yes. But I wanted a proper job! I didn't mean like this! Having to hand-wash girls' and women's dirty socks! I silently complained, to her inanimate, yet eerily life-like image.

In fact, looking at the other posters, I saw that all of the senior A.F.P. figures' images were similarly eerily life-like: the colours, so vibrant; the focus, so sharp. It was as if the photographer, somehow, had actually managed to capture the A.F.P. Cabinet Ministers' very ... personalities.

The poster of the A.F.P. Cabinet Minister, to whom my attention was then drawn, was a mid-forties, quite attractive, if stern-faced, woman, who I recognised instantly. I'd seen her last evening, on TV, being interviewed on Channel Four's seven o'clock news programme. 

The rather attractive, no-nonsense looking woman was the Home Secretary, Theresa Maynard. 

Theresa Maynard wore her hair in the same, concave bob style as the C.S.O.'s. And her just greying hair was attractively streaked with highlights of silver and gold ... just like in real life.

At first, I'd thought that the full-colour poster of her, must be a blow-up of a sneakily-taken candid photo. Snapped, presumably, by some serendipitous, just-by-chance, on-the-spot paparazzo. I didn't think that the photo was of the sort that would be released to the media, and circulated in general publication ... But, having said that, it was here, in C.S.O. Karen and Linda's office. 

And so, upon seeing all of the other posters, I could only conclude that the photographer hadn't been on the spot, just by chance. And, what's more -- and, I'm certainly no expert -- but, even to me, it was abundantly clear that all of the A.F.P. Cabinet Ministers' pictures were taken by the same photographer: They were all taken, in the same ... style.

The poster of Theresa Maynard, pictured her full-length, and the angle of view was almost full-on. Smiling, she was casually posed in a standing position, and she was looking right at the camera lens. As was often the case, with the Home Secretary, her legs were bare. And, with her right knee bent, the toes of her lightly-tanned bare foot were pressing down on the inside of the heel of her shoe -- a bright red flat -- causing it to stand up vertically. 

I remembered what Mum had said so approvingly last night, at dinner-time, about Theresa Maynard always wearing nice shoes. And my two sisters, Alison and Denise, twenty-one and twenty-three, respectively, and also my eighteen-year-old cousin, Rose, who'd joined us for dinner, had all enthusiastically agreed with Mum ... The women were shoe-mad, in our house.

During her interview, with the very attractive, wavy blonde-haired TV journalist, Cathy Newton, who co-presented Channel Four's flagship 7:00 p.m. news programme, Theresa Maynard had laughingly told Cathy that the Sock Room scheme was Caroline Flynt's own, personal brainchild.

I looked at some of the other posters, drawing-pinned to cork-boards on the off-white painted walls of C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda's office. And I readily recognised all of those A.F.P. Cabinet Ministers' faces; every single one of them, synonymous with the reprehensible repression of Caroline Flynt's Authoritarian Female Party regime. 

And it was like a hideous Who's-who, of the agents of diabolical oppression ... The Minister for Employment, Helen Highwater ... the Treasury Minister, Tessa Jewel ... the Minister for Corrections and Prisons, Lynne Truss ... the Minister for Energy, Donna Cole ... the Minister for the Environment, Elaine Green ... the Transport Minister, Gill Carter ... the—

"So, double-oh-seven," said C.S.O. Linda, bringing me out of my disgruntled reverie. "Listen up, now. Listen up, to what me and Miss Karen are going to say to you. Because, this is how it's going to be, from now on ..." 

"Every morning, first thing, you will go into the kitchenette," continued C.S.O. Karen, pointing towards the door at the back of the office, "and you will make two cups of coffee. One for me, and one for Miss Linda: milk, and two sugars in both ..."

"And then, double-oh-seven," continued C.S.O. Linda, "while Miss Karen and me enjoy our coffee, you will kneel on the floor, by our desk ... while we use you as a footrest."

What, the ...? I thought. I couldn't believe my ears. I mean, my two supervisors were just joking ... right? They were just pulling my leg ... right?

"No!" I yelled in outrage, when I realised that they certainly weren't joking, that they certainly weren't pulling my leg. "I will do no such thing! You can cane me. You ... you can both cane me -- as much as you want! But I'll -- I'll never—"

"Oh, but you will, David," said C.S.O. Karen, confidently ... assuredly. 

"Now, unless you want me and Miss Linda to take our canes to you now, and give you the hiding of your life ... you had better get yourself into that kitchenette, and make those two cups of coffee, like I just told you."

 * 

Hell! This was just awful, I thought miserably as I put the kettle on. Those two were a complete nightmare. It was bad enough, them using me as their coffee-making skivvy as my work got more and more out of hand. But, to so casually tell me, that they intended to use me as their footrest -- their footrest! -- I couldn't believe it.

Hell! This was just terrible, I thought wretchedly as I got two thick white mugs from a cupboard above the counter, spooned instant coffee into them, poured milk, and then added two teaspoons of sugar into each ... just terrible!

And C.S.O. Karen had seemed so ... assured, that I would obey her. So, no-doubt-about-it certain. 

Well ... she had another think coming, then -- they both did. Because I was certain, too! Because, I thought, there was no way -- just no way! -- that I was just going to meekly kneel on the floor, by their desk, while they used me as their damn footrest while they drank their damn coffee! 

 *

"Coffee is served ... ladies," I said -- in a manner that made it plain that I thought they were anything but ladies -- as I offered their mugs of coffee to them on a small laminated wooden tray that I'd found in a drawer in the kitchenette.

C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda glared at me; their eyes flashing dangerously, giving me menacing looks. Particularly, C.S.O. Linda, who pointedly looked at her friend and colleague, as if to say: See what I mean, Karen? 

And then, after they'd both put their screen-savers on their computer monitors, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda rolled on their castor-wheeled computer chairs, from behind their desk -- that was sited by the window, and that overlooked the flag-stoned courtyard and, at which they were positioned opposite each other, so that they could both look out through the window and monitor me -- and came wheeling around to the inner-office side of their desk.

Sitting side by side, on their computer chairs, my two supervisors accepted their mugs of coffee without so much as a Thank you ... and then they promptly kicked off their A.F.P. issue, black leather, thick-rubber soled, backless (clog-like) shoes, lifted their legs, and pointed the soles of their uniform, yellow cotton ankle-socked feet, right at my face. 

Ugh! What a sight! 

Averting my gaze, in distaste and disgust, from the soles of their expectantly waving, ankle flexing, toe scrunching feet, I looked out through the office window ... and I saw the four coloured nylon clotheslines: one each, of blue, red, green, and yellow ... the four colours, representing the quadrants of the Authoritarian Female Party flag.

"Well ...? What are you waiting for, double-oh-seven," demanded C.S.O. Linda. "Why are you gawping out of the window -- cretin! -- instead of obeying my orders? Don't worry, you'll be spending enough time out there, pegging up the thousands of socks you've washed. Now, we've told you what to do -- now do it ... Humph! Right, then. I will repeat, one last time: Get on your knees, before us, while we use you for our footrest ... Now!"

"No!" I yelled. "I won't! And you can't make me! Cane me -- cane me all you want. But I won't! I won't do it! I—"

"Oh, but you will, David," said C.S.O. Karen, confidently ... assuredly. 

"Lindz, just pop upstairs a minute, would you? And ask Norma Newlove, if she'd like community servant David double-oh-seven to massage her feet for her ... with his tongue? Ask her, if she'd like him to give her feet a nice, long, relaxing tongue-bath, would you? ... Ask her, would she like us to handcuff him to the foot of her recliner, so that she, personally, can order him to put his tongue to work, for her? Sucking her heels, licking her soles, sucking her toes -- and, licking all in between them, too -- for maybe ... an hour, or so? Ask her—"

I was shocked to my core. Profoundly appalled. How could C.S.O. Karen, dream up something so hideous, so odious, so totally diabolical? How could she inflict such a horror on me? To perform a ... "tongue-bath", on Mrs Newlove's feet! 

C.S.O. Karen, obviously, was even more of a sadist than I'd thought!

"No!" I shouted. "You can't do this! You can't—"

"And Lindz," continued C.S.O. Karen, as if I hadn't spoken, "if Gina Stainham is here, she also, might like community servant David double-oh-seven, to give her feet a nice, long, relaxing tongue-bath, too ... And Cheryl Chubb, too, if she's here ..."

This was monstrous! Absolutely heinous! I could not let that happen ... Just the very idea, of it! It was gross, heinous -- unthinkable! 

Being made -- no, Mrs Newlove, personally, ordering me -- to lick her bare soles ... to suck on her heels ... to suck her toes ... and to lick in between her toes, for "maybe an hour, or so" ... I just could not let it happen. I couldn't! 

Not Mrs Newlove!

"No!" I shouted again ... But this time, it was in tones of compliant capitulation, not defiant refusal. 

And the taste, of such a bleak defeat -- of such a humiliating surrender -- was like bile.

But, I knew when I was beat. I knew when the game was up ... I knew when to fold.

"All -- all right ... all right, Miss Karen," I said, my voice cracking, overcome by the awful emotion of the moment. "All right, then. I'll -- I'll be your ... footrest ... your's, and Miss Linda's ... Just -- just don't give me to Mrs Newlove ... okay?"

"We don't give you promises, double-oh-seven -- only orders!" snapped C.S.O. Linda. "Now -- and don't make me tell you again, or we'll take you upstairs now, and handcuff you to the foot of Norma Newlove's recliner again, just like we did yesterday! -- get on your knees, before us ... Do you hear me ...? Last chance: Say, 'Yes, Miss Linda'. And now!"

I could see, now, that there was nothing else for it. That there was no other acceptable alternative. That there was no way out, of this terrible, humiliating predicament. 

"Yes, Miss Linda," I said dejectedly. 

This -- submitting to C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda, and allowing them to use me as their ... coffee-time footrest -- was bad enough. But, the alternative ...

 *

C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda raised their legs again, stretching them out towards me, expectantly. The soles of their yellow cotton ankle-socked feet, once again pointing right at my face. 

"Kneel! Kneel there, double-oh-seven, facing us," instructed C.S.O. Linda, in tones that were not to be argued with, pointing her finger at the dark grey, institutional weave carpeted floor, at a point between her and C.S.O. Karen's hovering, outstretched feet.

The time for argument, with my two supervisors, was now over. I knew I was defeated. My resistance, I knew, was comprehensively crushed. 

C.S.O. Karen, had intuitively spotted a weakness, a chink in my armour ... a vulnerability. 

And she had ruthlessly prised it wide open.

Wretchedly, I looked at C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda ... at my nemeses. And they looked back at me, expectantly ... and authoritatively.

Sipping their coffee from the thick white mugs ... while I went without. 

Coffee, that they had ordered me into their kitchenette to make for them ("milk, and two sugars in both"), and had then accepted without so much as a Thank you. 

Coffee, that, from now on I would have to make for them, first thing, every workday morning. 

Coffee, that, sitting side by side, in their comfortable castor-wheeled computer chairs, they would enjoy beside their desk, as they used me for their ... coffee-time footrest.

Wordlessly (I couldn't have trusted my voice; it would probably have come out all whiny and cry-baby), I complied with C.S.O. Linda's humiliating instruction. 

I knelt, where and how C.S.O. Linda had indicated I do so: on their office's dark grey carpet, between their outstretched legs, and facing them. 

And, once on my knees, I found that my head was on a level with my two supervisors' outstretched, yellow cotton ankle-socked feet; my face, midway between them. 

On my knees, and facing them, C.S.O. Karen was positioned slightly to my left, and C.S.O. Linda, slightly to my right.

As it happened, neither of my two supervisors had found it necessary to suffer the before-and-after inconvenience of having to meddle about with the lever that hydraulically adjusted the seat heights of their computer chairs ... But, apparently, I was an inch or two too far away ... 

So C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda hooked the backs of their heels over 'their' shoulder, and together, exerted sufficient pressure to enable them to roll their castor-wheeled computer chairs forward, so as to avail themselves of the perfect, optimum distance for comfort.

This put a whole new meaning to the term: Being put in your place. And that was exactly what C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda were doing now: Putting me in my place, and establishing their new ... routine.

In all my life, I had never felt so ... used. 

My two young supervisors, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda, were actually going to use me as their early-morning coffee-break footrest -- and there wasn't a thing I could do about it ... Unless, that is, I wanted to find myself handcuffed to the foot of Mrs Newlove's recliner again, for her to ... have at me.

Simultaneously, C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda placed first one, yellow cotton ankle-socked foot, and then their other foot, ankles crossed, on top of 'their' shoulder. 

And so, C.S.O. Karen's feet were resting on my left shoulder, and C.S.O. Linda's feet, were resting on my right shoulder ... as they put their feet up.

I felt my bare knees sinking further, into the scratchy textured, nylon-rich fibres of the office carpet. Sinking further, under the twin pressures of my belittling burden. Sinking further, under C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda's ... oppressive, weight.

And my heart was sinking, too ... sinking further.

C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda, sitting comfortably in their castor-wheeled computer chairs, with their ankles crossed upon 'their' shoulders, sipped their coffee contentedly. Coffee, that I had made for them -- and that they had then accepted without so much as a Thank you ... while I went without.

Although the combined weight of my two supervisors' resting legs and feet, upon 'their' shoulders, was both a truly galling physical and mental imposition, they were a trial and travail that I could just about tolerate.

But, what I was far less ... amenable to -- what I certainly could not tolerate -- was C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda, complacently taking it in turns to wave the sole of their topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot, right in my face. Mere inches away, their unpleasant foot odours, were both mingling, and wafting up my nostrils, alternately. 

But, when I turned my face to my left, or to my right, in a bid to escape from their foul foot fumes, C.S.O. Karen, or C.S.O. Linda, with the ball of their foot, would immediately re-position my face, facing front again ... Facing, right towards them. Facing, their concave bob framed, domineering faces.

I'd already seen the soles of C.S.O. Linda's uniform, yellow cotton ankle-socked feet, close up. I'd seen them yesterday morning, after she and C.S.O. Karen had picked me up at home. When, while we were en route to the Community Service Operations Centre, she had ordered me to massage her feet, in the back of their A.F.P. van.

And now, I was seeing the soles of C.S.O. Karen's uniform, yellow cotton ankle-socked feet, close up, too. Extremely, close up. Right-in-my-face, close up.

C.S.O. Karen's feet, were a little larger, a bit broader, and rather more prominent-heeled, than C.S.O. Linda's feet. 

I knew this, because I was now closely comparing them -- had little choice, but to closely compare them ... With their ankles-crossed, shoulder-perched, topmost feet right in front of my face; side by side, and just mere inches away, I could hardly have been closer, to their uniform, yellow cotton ankle-socked soles.

The bright yellow colour of their ankle-socks, I saw, was coloured a slightly darker, brownish-orange, at their heels, at the balls of their feet, and the area around the undersides of their toes. Moistened, and dampened, by their foot sweat, I realised uncomfortably.

"Well, Lindz, at least Sock Boy can make a decent cup of coffee," said C.S.O. Karen, scrunching and flexing the toes of her topmost foot in pleasure and appreciation, right in front of my eyes.




Community Service Ch. 05



"Mmmm, yes. But it's just as well -- that's all I can say ... Or else we'd have yet another reason, to cane his milk-white, scrawny bare bum, wouldn't we, Karen?" said C.S.O. Linda, as she chidingly pushed my right cheek with the ball of her topmost, ankle-crossed foot: once, twice, and a third time; a little more forcefully, each time, for added emphasis. 

Then, still looking at me, C.S.O. Linda suddenly laughed. "Ha ha ha! If double-oh-seven had been as heavy-handed with the coffee, as he was with the Kolour Kind detergent, yesterday, we'd both be on a caffeine high for the next fortnight!"

"Ha ha ha ha!" laughed C.S.O. Karen. "Oh, yes -- and that reminds me, Lindz!" she exclaimed. "I almost forgot: The hundred pairs of socks that Miss Pardew brought in, yesterday. Canford High Year Five schoolgirls' sports socks. Miss Pardew said she'll be here at four o'clock this afternoon to collect them. Sock Boy will have to give those socks top priority, Lindz, just as soon as we've finished with him in here," she said as she then suddenly cupped my nostrils in the undersides of the socked toes of her shoulder-perched, topmost foot. 

Taken by surprise, I'd got a whiff -- and, what an awful stink! -- before I urgently whipped my face away to the right ... towards C.S.O. Linda's waiting, predatory foot.

"Are you seeing Greg, tonight, Lindz," asked C.S.O. Karen conversationally. "I was thinking ... if you haven't made any plans to go anywhere, I thought we could get Simon and Greg to treat us to a nice burger in town, at Burger Heaven ... if you fancy it, Lindz?"

At C.S.O. Karen's mentioning Burger Heaven, I thought of the cheerful, lovely counter girl, Tina -- the heaven, of Burger Heaven. "Why the long face?" Tina had asked me, yesterday lunchtime when I had gone there during my lunch break. I intended to go back there, too, if I could, sometime later in the week. It might only have been my imagination -- wishful thinking! -- but, I couldn't shake the feeling, that Tina had been ... interested, in me. Anyways, I had to find out for sure.

"Okay, Karen," agreed C.S.O. Linda brightly. "That would be great! You know me -- I'm always up for a burger! I'll give Greg a bell later," she said as she then suddenly cupped my nostrils in the undersides of the socked toes of her shoulder-perched, topmost foot. 

And, taken by surprise for a second time, I'd got a whiff of them -- and, what a horrible stink! -- before I urgently whipped my face away to the left ... back into the reach of C.S.O. Karen's waiting, predatory foot.

Immediately, C.S.O. Karen cupped my nostrils in the undersides of the socked toes of her shoulder-perched, topmost foot. 

But I was ready, this time. 

I whipped my face to my right ... back into the reach of C.S.O. Linda's waiting, predatory foot.

Immediately, C.S.O. Linda cupped my nostrils in the undersides of the socked toes of her shoulder-perched, topmost foot. 

And I was ready this time, too ... But I was outraged -- apoplectic! -- and I blew my top. 

Pushed well past the limits of my tolerance, tormented beyond endurance, I yelled at C.S.O. Linda, "Stop that! Just stop it! I've said I'll make your coffee, and I'll even be your damn footrest -- if that will keep me away from Mrs Newlove. But I've got to draw the line somewhere. And this is it! I'm not going to smell your stinky feet! I'm not! I mean it! I'm not going to—" 

"Oh, but you will, David," said C.S.O. Karen, confidently ... assuredly.

"And I'm telling you now, that I won't! This is it: The line. The line I won't cross. You can cane me -- cane me as much as you want! I don't care! You can both use me as your damn footrest, while you drink your damn coffee. And you can even handcuff me to Mrs Newlove's recliner again -- I don't care! She's already stuffed her dirty, cheesy socks into my mouth, and the horrible taste is still there, even now -- so she might as well have her damn tongue-bath, too! 

"So, there! You can do what the hell you want -- Miss Karen, and Miss Linda. But, I am not, repeat, not, going to kneel here, and—"

"Oh, but you will, David," repeated C.S.O. Karen, confidently ... assuredly. 

I didn't know what C.S.O. Karen had in mind. But, whatever it was, it wasn't going to work. I was adamant, about that. Adamant! 

"Have you any idea, any idea at all, double-oh-seven, just how much trouble you are in, from your insolent outburst?" asked C.S.O. Linda, icily. "I promise you now, that I will use every means at my disposal, to put a civil tongue in your head."

Well, Miss Linda, I thought. You might put a civil tongue in my head. But, there is no way, I thought, no way, that I'm going to kneel at your feet, for you and C.S.O. Karen to put your stinky toes over my nostrils while you drink your damn coffee ...

Until C.S.O. Karen plucked her walkie-talkie from her utility belt ... 

There came the crackling sound of radio static, as C.S.O. Karen switched the device on.

C.S.O. Karen then leisurely recrossed her ankles on 'her' shoulder, and she swung her now topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot right in front of my face, and cupped my nostrils in the undersides of her socked toes. 

Urgently, so as not to inhale the awful stink, I whipped my face away, to my right ... towards C.S.O. Linda's waiting, predatory foot.

"Ma'am, this is C.S.O. Karen. I'm speaking from the office, in the Sock Room. C.S.O. Linda is also present, ma'am. Over."

C.S.O. Linda also leisurely recrossed her ankles on 'her' shoulder. And she also swung her now topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot right in front of my face, and cupped my nostrils in the undersides of her socked toes. 

Urgently, so as not inhale the horrible stink, I whipped my face away, to my left ... back towards C.S.O. Karen's waiting, predatory foot.

"Yes, C.S.O. Karen?" came the voice of the Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman, in reply. "You are speaking from the Sock Room, you say? So I assume you must have a reason for communicating via walkie-talkie, instead of by telephone? Go ahead, C.S.O. Karen. Over."

C.S.O. Karen's topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot immediately pounced again, firmly cupping my nostrils in the undersides of her socked toes. 

And, again, so as to avoid inhaling the awful smell, I urgently whipped my face away, to my right ... back towards C.S.O. Linda's waiting, predatory foot.

"Yes, ma'am, that's right," replied C.S.O. Karen. "A disciplinary matter has come up, involving community servant David double-oh-seven -- he'll be in your files, ma'am, as David Smith, aged eighteen. He is also present, ma'am, because I want him to listen in to both sides of our conversation. Over."

C.S.O. Linda's topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot immediately pounced again, too, firmly cupping my nostrils in the undersides of her socked toes. 

And, again, so as to avoid inhaling the horrible smell, I urgently whipped my face away, to my left ... back towards C.S.O. Karen's waiting, predatory foot.

"I see, C.S.O. Karen ... Oh, so it's him again, is it? I remember community servant David double-oh-seven very well, very well indeed. You brought him to me barely an hour ago, concerning another disciplinary issue. He'd failed to turn up for his duties at the Sock Room. And when you went to his home to pick him up, not only, did he grossly and repeatedly insult both yourself and C.S.O. Linda, but he then refused to accompany you both back to the Sock Room, necessitating in your having to forcibly remove him from his bed. And, as his actions were clearly sanctionable, I fined him, by stopping his next two weeks' Unemployment Benefit payments. Over."

C.S.O. Karen's topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot was ready and waiting, and pounced immediately. The undersides of her socked toes, firmly cupping my nostrils; her toes, clutching tightly, more determinedly. 

Urgently, before I would have to inhale the awful stink, I wrenched my face away, to my right ... back towards C.S.O. Linda's waiting, predatory foot.

"Yes, ma'am. And now, community servant David double-oh-seven is being uncooperative again. He is refusing to comply, ma'am, with the chastisement methods that C.S.O. Linda and I see fit to impose upon him. Over."

C.S.O. Linda's topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot was also ready and waiting, and pounced immediately. The undersides of her socked toes, firmly cupping my nostrils; her toes, gripping powerfully, more insistently. 

Urgently, before I would have to inhale the horrible stink, I wrenched my face away, to my left ... back towards C.S.O. Karen's waiting, predatory foot.

Oh, I thought ... They could keep this up all day long, these two, if they wanted. But so could I. And, they would give in, before I did! Because, there was no way, no way, that I was going to kneel here, and compliantly sniff their stinky feet, while they sat there, drinking their coffee! No way!

"Oh, is he, by heaven! So ... what is it you have in mind, C.S.O. Karen? Over."

C.S.O. Karen's topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot pounced, yet again. 

And, yet again, I urgently diverted my face, to my right ... back to where C.S.O. Linda's topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot, was ready and waiting.

"Well, ma'am, it has been reported to us, by a Sock Room frequenter, a Mrs Norma Newlove, that community servant David double-oh-seven was in the Lord Nelson pub last night, having a drink with his older brother, John -- he'll be in your files, ma'am, as John Smith, aged nineteen. Over."

C.S.O. Linda's topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot immediately pounced, yet again; her toes, gripping and clutching at my "uncooperative" nose ... And I was starting to get fed up of this nonsense -- really fed up!

But, yet again, I resolutely wrenched my face away, to my left ... back to where C.S.O. Karen's topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot was poised, ready and waiting. 

But now, I had cause for pause ... C.S.O. Karen had just mentioned my brother John. But why? John had nothing to do with this! Why was he being brought into this?

"Well, C.S.O. Karen," replied the Liaison Officer, dryly, "it's not a sanctionable offence, for a community servant to have a drink in a pub ... not yet, anyway. Over."

C.S.O. Karen's left-shoulder perched, topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot immediately pounced again, and with equal resolution; her toes, holding onto my nose with a startlingly powerful grip ... If she also, was getting fed up with this nonsense, she was certainly showing no sign of it.

And, again, I wrenched my face away, to my right ... back to where C.S.O. Linda's topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot was poised, ready and waiting.

"No, ma'am ... But sedition is. Over."

And now, I had further cause for pause ... I didn't like the sound of that word -- 'sedition' -- one little bit.

"C.S.O. Karen, did I just hear you say, 'sedition'? Over."

C.S.O. Linda's right-shoulder perched, topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot, pounced yet again. 

And, yet again, I pulled my face away from the undersides of C.S.O. Linda's nostril-cupping, socked toes ... Diverting my face back to the left; back to where C.S.O. Karen's topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot was poised, ready and waiting ... 

But, less forcibly -- half-hearted, almost -- this time. 

Because I now had the most terrible, sinking feeling. It was a gut-gnawing feeling, of inescapable, doom-laden dread. A feeling, of impending, and unavoidable disaster. 

"Yes, ma'am, you did. That is what me and C.S.O. Linda suspect John Smith to be guilty of, ma'am. We don't think community servant David double-oh-seven would have the guts, ma'am, to rebel against us -- not right off his own bat. He must have had some moral support. We believe that it is his seditious brother, John, who is at the bottom of this. That he must have been putting anti-establishment ideas into his easily-led younger brother's head, and that that is what has made him all uppity, ma'am. Over."

And now, I realised, that one word -- 'sedition' -- was going to change everything. 

And that this had been, I now finally understood, the fiendishly astute C.S.O. Karen's angle, all along. And, why it was, that she had been so confident ... assured. Why it was, that she'd been so sure; so, no-doubt-about-it certain. It was because she'd had this ace up her sleeve, all along ... just waiting for the right moment to play it. To trump me.

"I see, C.S.O. Karen. Then this is a very serious matter. Very serious, indeed. So ... what is it that you propose, then? Over."

C.S.O. Karen leisurely recrossed her ankles on 'her' shoulder, again. This time, though, she didn't immediately cup my nostrils in the undersides of her yellow cotton ankle-socked toes ... Because she wanted my obedience, and my compliance ... right off my own bat. She just pointed her finger at her shoulder-perched, topmost foot, and silently mouthed the word: 'Sniff', before replying to the Liaison Officer.

"Ma'am, I've accessed Records on the office computer. And, according to his dossier, John Smith is currently working as a chef on one of the North Sea oil rigs -- Omega Three. He earns pretty good money, and, well ... Over."

C.S.O. Karen was still looking at me ... expectantly. And meaningfully pointing to her shoulder-perched, topmost foot ...and silently mouthing the word: 'Sniff'.

"And we could easily put a stop to that, couldn't we? And put a big spanner in his works, too, just for good measure ... If community servant David double-oh-seven won't come to heel? Is that, what you are saying, C.S.O. Karen? Over."

Yes. I knew, now, where the disturbingly perceptive -- insightful -- C.S.O. Karen was going with this. She had, I realised, unerringly found another weakness. She had detected, and homed-in on, another chink in my armour. She had discovered, and zeroed-in on, another ... vulnerability. 

And she was mercilessly prising it wide open. 

C.S.O. Karen knew, intuitively, that I wouldn't let John take the rap. She knew, that I wouldn't let him take the fall. She knew, that I wouldn't let her and her A.F.P. superiors, "put a big spanner in his works". Not ... if it was in my power to prevent it.

"Yes, ma'am. I was thinking, that we could remove John Smith from his well-paid chef's job on the oil rig. And we could helicopter him directly to the helipad at the Community Service Operations Centre, and, well ... Over."

C.S.O. Karen was still staring at me ... expectantly. And she was still pointing to her left-shoulder perched, topmost foot ... and she was still silently mouthing the word: 'Sniff'.

"Remove John Smith from his well-paid chef's job on the oil rig ... and assign him duties as a community servant? If community servant David double-oh-seven, either now, or at any time in the future, fails to bow to your authority, or refuses to comply with the methods of chastisement, as chosen by yourself and C.S.O. Linda? Is that, what you are saying, C.S.O. Karen? Over."

I'd heard enough ...

I knew when I was beat. I knew when to fold. I knew when to say, Yield! I knew when to throw in the towel ... When to wave the white flag.

C.S.O. Karen was still staring at me ... expectantly. She was still pointing to her left-shoulder perched, topmost foot ... and she was still silently mouthing the word: 'Sniff' ... But now, she was also splaying her socked toes, suggestively ... accommodatingly.

"Ma'am, that is exactly, what I am saying. It will be his brother John, who suffers the consequences ... If community servant David double-oh-seven won't come to heel ... And stay there. Over."

And now, I knew when to "come to heel", too ... 

And so it was, that, by putting aside my own feelings -- my very sense of worth -- I managed to overcome my acute abhorrence, at submitting to such soul-destroying, under-the-heel subjugation ... and, that I finally obeyed C.S.O. Karen's dreadful, profoundly demoralising bidding. 

Right off my own bat, I compliantly placed my nostrils under the ready-to-receive, accommodating toes of C.S.O. Karen's left-shoulder perched, topmost yellow cotton ankle-socked foot. 

But, this time, when C.S.O. Karen's foot stink hit me, I did not urgently whip my face away, to my right, before I would have to inhale it. 

Instead, I did, inhale it. Inhaled, C.S.O. Karen's foot odour. Inhaled, her awful, revolting, in-between-the-toes, socked foot scent ... And C.S.O. Karen smiled. Smiled, in the satisfaction of my having been successfully "brought to heel".

This was a living nightmare. 

But it was my living nightmare -- not John's. John had meant well. John had only meant to help -- help me out of my living nightmare. But John had, to all intents and purposes, committed sedition -- had tried to undermine the authority of the Authoritarian Female Party. "Just don't go back." (to the Sock Room), John had advised me. But, John's advice, however well-intended, had turned out to be ... counter-productive.

And so John was now in great danger, not only of losing his well-paid chef's job on one of the North Sea oil rigs, but of losing everything -- even, his very sense of worth -- if he was assigned duties ... as a community servant. 

Well, I couldn't allow that to happen. 

Not only, would it absolutely ruin John, but it would also devastate Mum and Dad, too. And so, I had to keep John out of this -- out of this living nightmare. 

And I could! It was in my power, to do so. In my gift. 

Just as long, as I came "to heel" ... And stayed there.

Eventually, with the ball of her left-shoulder perched, topmost foot, C.S.O. Karen pushed my face to my right ... towards C.S.O. Linda's topmost, right-shoulder perched, waiting, predatory foot. 

But C.S.O. Linda didn't pounce, this time. Because she knew, now, that there was no need to ... absolutely no need at all.

C.S.O. Linda knew, just as well as C.S.O. Karen knew, that I was beat. That I had folded. That I had said, Yield! That I had thrown in the towel That I was waving the white flag ... That I had "come to heel."

Casually, leisurely, C.S.O. Linda recrossed her ankles on 'her' shoulder. And then she cupped my nostrils in the undersides of the toes of her now topmost, yellow cotton ankle-socked foot. 

But, this time, when C.S.O. Linda's foot stink hit me, I did not urgently whip my face away, to my left, before I would have to inhale it. 

Instead, I did, inhale it. Inhaled, C.S.O. Linda's foot odour. Inhaled, her horrible, nauseating, in-between-the-toes, socked foot scent ... And C.S.O. Linda smirked, in triumph. Smirked, triumphantly, at the gratifying sight of my having been successfully brought to a state of pathetic, under-the-heel submission ... All that remained, was for her to successfully "put a civil tongue" in my head.

"Excellent thinking, C.S.O. Karen!" praised the Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman, effusively. "You are on the fast-track to promotion, as is your colleague, C.S.O. Linda. I can assure you of that. We need good C.S.O.'s, who can think on their feet -- and think outside of the box. Oh, and I am hereby increasing the first-offence sanction, that I set for community servant David double-oh-seven, this morning -- doubling it, in fact. I shall now be stopping his Unemployment Benefit payments, not for two weeks, but for four weeks. Over."

C.S.O.'s Karen and Linda -- who were only a year or two older than myself, and who had, only last week, been receiving the same £80 per week Unemployment Benefit payments as myself -- were a pair of bullies.

"That's very good of you to say, ma'am. It's good to hear your approval. Because, C.S.O. Linda and I, we ... well, we really and truly believe in our work, ma'am. We believe in the ethics, and in the core values and principles, of the Authoritarian Female Party. We believe, wholeheartedly, in the Party's female-friendly agenda. We both agree with all of the A.F.P.'s aims and aspirations, ma'am, and are proud to be members of such a finely motivated political movement. Over."




Community Service Ch. 06



Chapter 6: Dirty, smelly socks, and stinky, female feet: they're all in a day's work, for Community servant David Smith – in the Sock Room. 

I, eighteen-year-old David Smith of Canford, south London, was starting my second week of earning my Unemployment Benefit welfare payments, by performing my assigned duties as a community servant. 

With no job to go to after finishing my education at Secondary School, and my statutory six-month entitlement to dole money having expired, under the Authoritarian Female Party's work motivation programme, I had been duly assigned to my Placement: hand-washing the females of Canford's dirty socks, in the town's Sock Room. 

In their office, comfortably seated on their castor-wheeled computer chairs, and with me obediently and compliantly kneeling at their feet, Community Service Officers Karen and Linda were using my conveniently positioned shoulders as their coffee-break footrest. 

And, why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't they, make some personal use of me? At least, that was their way of thinking.

After all, in their being in the employ and thereby members of the 'femocratic' Authoritarian Female Party government, and me being a community servant under their supervision, with their AFP-backed authority they had what amounted to total power and control over me. 

I say 'footrest'. But there was rather more to it, than that. 

And I say 'coffee-break'. But my two supervisors hadn't actually started work yet – if you could call what they now did for a living, 'work'. From what I could see, they spent most of their time on their office computers, logged into social media websites and other suchlike whiling-away-the-time entertainments. 

But I, had started work ... because these were my – Community servant David 007 – first duties of the day: being my two blonde, twenty-year-old female supervisors' footrest while they drank the pre-work coffee I made for them.

These would be my first duties of the day, CSOs Karen and Linda had told me: To go into their kitchenette and make two mugs of coffee (milk and two sugars in both), and then go to my knees before them and obediently and compliantly provide my shoulders for footrests.

At first, I had stubbornly resisted CSOs Karen and Linda's stated intentions to subjugate me so diabolically. 

But my two supervisors would not be defied – not by an unemployed, earning-his-dole-money community servant in their charge. 

And so, to bend me to their will, and secure my future unresisting obedience and compliance, they had attained some persuasive ... leverage over me.

CSOs Karen and Linda's heinously conceived threat – and this, with the wholehearted approval of Canford's principal administrator, the local Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman: If I refused to submit obediently and compliantly to their chosen methods of chastisement and control, they would have my nineteen-year-old brother John removed from his well-paid job as a chef aboard one of the North Sea oil rigs, and assign him to a Placement as a community servant. 

Well, I couldn't let that happen. It would devastate our parents, to see both of their sons serving as community servants, under Prime Minister Caroline Flynt's 'female-friendly' Authoritarian Female Party government. 

So my first duty of the day – again, this with not just the official but also the wholehearted personal approval of the most powerful woman in the local government: to go to my knees, facing my two computer chair seated, coffee-drinking supervisors while they used my shoulders as their footrest. And, to demonstrate convincingly my capitulation to both their authority and their will, with their ankles comfortably crossed on 'their' shoulder, compliantly facilitate CSOs Karen and Linda's taking turns to cup the undersides of the toes of their CSOs uniform yellow cotton ankle-socked feet to my nose, for me to submissively sniff. 

And all that I could do, as I listened to my two supervisors' inane, usually boyfriend-related prattling as they drank the pre-work coffee I'd made for them, was to stare resentfully but resignedly at their attractive concave-bob framed faces, as they did so.

And this would go on, with the frequent and infuriating crossing and recrossing of their shoulder-perched ankles, until CSOs Karen and Linda finished their pre-work coffee, and finally ordered me to get to work in the Sock Room.

* * *

Upon entering the Sock Room, I was profoundly dismayed to see that my workload was still building up rapidly. But I wasn't surprised. 

Despite my best efforts last week, my workload had continued to get more and more out of hand as the week progressed; the backlog inexorably building as the dirty socks were tossed into their colour-coded receptacles relentlessly.

Opened just last Monday, the females of Canford were certainly not slow in availing themselves of the novel enjoyments of their amazing new facility. Not all of the town's females, of course, but enough of those 'civic-minded' females, to ensure that I was increasingly overwhelmed by their presentations of dirty, stinky socks.

Beholding the soul-crushing scene in front of me, I couldn't summon so much as an ounce of motivation. So incredibly depressing, were the thoughts of such ludicrous laundering. How utterly futile, were my endless endeavours!

But of course, that was very much the point. It was the AFP's (Prime Minister Caroline Flynt's brainchild) method of motivating unemployed community servants like me out of their assigned Placements, and into gainful (and tax-paying!) employment. 

Four of the eight white-painted wheelie bins' lids were hanging open, their noisome contents overflowing. Overflowing, with the countless pairs of dirty white socks that the girls and women of Canford had brought to the Sock Room for me to hand-wash, steam-iron, and return to the floor-to-ceiling sock shelves. 

Two of the four other, non-white colour-coded wheelie bins were getting full, too: the black-painted wheelie bin, and the navy-blue-painted wheelie bin. These wheelie bins were the receptacles for the dirty uniform socks of the schoolgirls of Canford's two Girls Schools: St Esmeralda's and St Kate's, respectively. It was patently and painfully obvious already that just one wheelie bin per school was insufficient; it was a wholly unrealistic provision. At least two more wheelie bins, I thought, would have to be allocated to each of the two Girls' Schools. 

It was same, near-critical situation, I saw, with the other two non-white colour-coded wheelie bins, which were almost full too: the multicoloured-painted wheelie bin, for non-white socks of various colours; and the yellow-painted wheelie bin, which was the receptacle for the town's CSOs' uniform yellow thin cotton ankle socks. It was glaringly apparent that a couple of additional wheelie bins were soon going to be needed for the CSOs' dirty socks, too.

Right, I thought. First things first: I'd better get those four overflowing white-painted wheelie bins of dirty white socks down to the industrial-sized open-topped hopper, marked: 'White Socks Only!'. I had my work cut out, and—

"Good morning, Community servant David double-oh-seven," said my neighbour from hell, Mrs Norma Newlove, from where she was relaxing on her usual black leather recliner that overlooked my lower-level work area ... and my heart sank to the floor.

One of who my two supervisors were already laughingly referring to as 'The Sock Room Girls' – the so-called 'regulars', who had hung out at the Sock Room nearly every day last week as if it was their new social club – Norma Newlove was in the company of five other, similarly reclining females. 

Two of Norma's companions, I was ... acquainted with: Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb. Attractive in their way, I suppose, in their mid-twenties they were about the same age as Norma, and they were two of Norma's cronies. In cahoots with Norma those two had really fixed me, last week. The other three, nothing-better-to-do-with-their-time females, were new faces.

What the ...?

Last week there had only been four black leather recliners on the 'Spectators' Gallery' overlooking my lower-level work area: two to either side of the six wooden steps leading down into it. But now there were six recliners: three to either side of the steps.

And there was still enough room for another four recliners. 

Would that be my first welcoming sight, next Monday, upon CSOs Karen and Linda releasing me from my first-duties-of-the-day, pre-work coffee-making and footrest service? I thought dismally. Not six, but ten nothing-better-to-do-with-their-time reclining sock-changing females staring down at me, as I hand-washed the females of Canford's dirty socks?

Eying her here-for-the-day leather sports bag full of the usual food and drink refreshments, I said to Norma Newlove disgustedly, "Don't tell me, Norma: Mum's got the kids?"

"I'll have none of your lip – Community servant David double-oh-seven!" yelled Norma Newlove angrily. "Any more of your insolence, and I'll have you caned! You are forgetting your place again – Community servant David double-oh-seven! Just one word to your supervisors from me, and you'll soon be feeling the cut of their canes on your bare arse again! Right here, again ..." she said, pointing down at her white-socked feet, just below the lower bar of the Sock Room's two-barred safety rail, "... at the foot of my recliner!"

Why couldn't I keep my fool mouth shut? 

Why couldn't I keep it zipped, when I knew perfectly well that my neighbour from hell Norma Newlove was taking full advantage of the fantastic benefits of the Authoritarian Female Party's new 'female-friendly' legislations, as they pertained to UK male citizens, in general, and to community servants, in particular? And, when I also knew perfectly well, that thanks to her new female-citizen powers she was really getting into the swing of being able to make life hell for me!

I was going to have to keep a much tighter reign on my resentment, I thought to myself, in self-admonishment. I was going to have to learn to bite my tongue – to prevent more serious harm being done to me.

Shaken, and humiliated to my core, I said," I'm ... I'm very sorry ... Mrs Newlove."

This brought a delighted gale of giggles from the three new faces, and titters of amusement from Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb. 

Norma Newlove smiled too: for her, this was yet another satisfying little victory she'd chalked up against me. And the way things were going, Norma would soon be needing a new stick of chalk.

My face, feeling as red as the proverbial beetroot, I ascended the 'gauntlet' of the six wooden steps to get the first of the four overflowing white-painted wheelie bins of dirty white socks on the upper level of the Sock Room.

*

I used the automatic hoist to raise and deposit, one after the other, the unsavoury contents of the four fullest white-painted wheelie bins into the industrial-sized open-topped hopper – signed: 'White Socks Only!'. I then slid the bolt of the hopper's furnace-door-like access, and I filled a large, white plastic laundry basket with some big handfuls of the town's females' dirty white socks.

Now, and in full view of the Sock Room spectators, I sat on my wooden folding chair. And, before putting them into the hot-and-soapy-water tank for their two-hour minimum pre-wash soak, barehanded (because wearing gloves made the work much too fiddly), adhering to my strict instructions I began pulling the dirty white socks inside out – the better to ensure that I washed all of the build-up of grime, foot sweat and dead skin out of them. 

And I was extra careful to try and make sure that I turned every last one of the dirty socks inside out ... 

For each and every dirty sock that my supervisors discovered I'd failed to turn inside out before hand-washing – or that I'd not pulled the right way again after laundering, so as to save sock-changing females from that pesky inconvenience – before locking up the Sock Room for the day, in the presence of whomsoever sock-changing females, CSOs Karen and Linda would duly administer the requisite number of chastising cane strokes to my bare bottom.

And I was yet to be successful ... From Monday to Friday last week, not once had I escaped the enthusiastic administering of CSOs Karen and Linda's AFP-issue whippy bamboo canes for one or other of those particular transgressions. 

On Friday, I'd thought I'd actually done it; I'd believed I was home and dry – until, at the absolute last minute, my neighbour from hell, Norma Newlove herself, had 'discovered' on the sock shelves a CSO uniform yellow cotton ankle sock that wasn't pulled the right way after laundering, and she had reported my 'failure' to CSOs Karen and Linda ...

It was the most dreadful, ghastly, humiliating work, pulling inside out all of those hundreds – literally hundreds and hundreds! – of dirty, stinky socks, as worn (often, for multiple days, and sometimes walked around in shoeless), and then duly discarded unto my care, by the female sock-changing residents of Canford. 

If only I'd knuckled down to learning at school! I bemoaned, in another cuff of self-admonishment.

If I hadn't messed around and joked about so much, instead of concentrating on getting good grades, maybe I wouldn't be in this damned mess now. 

If only I'd known! 

If only I'd known, that I'd be reduced to hand-washing my neighbour from hell Norma Newlove's dirty socks, five days a week! I'm damned sure I would have knuckled down to learning then! 

But look at me now: An eighteen-year-old recent school-leaver with no money, no job, no prospects, and stuck here – stuck in this damned Sock Room! Being watched, laughed at – mercilessly ridiculed and tormented, by Norma Newlove, and her ...

What were they up to now? 

Laughing and giggling, and taking their dirty white socks off, and ... and clipping their toenails. And what was that noise? It sounded a bit like an electric toothbrush. And why were they all looking over at me, and smirking like that?

Ah, whatever. I paid them no notice – I had my work cut out!

*

Time drags by, in the Sock Room. 

But at last, it was 1:00 p.m. Time for my half-hour lunch break.

And I knew where I was headed – to the town centre burger bar: Burger Heaven. 

I'd been to Burger Heaven last week, at Monday lunchtime. And I'd been working up courage ever since, to go back.

To go back, to the lovely blonde counter assistant Tina – the heaven, of Burger Heaven. 

Because I'd sensed that there was a spark of 'something', between us. 

I hadn't so much sensed it at the time because I'd been in a world of my own; a world of unrelieved gloom and unremitting despondency. I'd been far too preoccupied and enveloped in my own, first-day-as-a-community-servant blues, to take much notice of whatever else was going on around me. 

It was only afterwards that it really hit me. When I'd returned to the Sock Room.

It had probably just been my imagination, though. That was what I'd kept on telling myself, every day, for the remainder of last week.

After all, Tina was a beauty. A doll. A real catch. And me, well, I didn't think I was much of a catch. 

So it was probably just wishful thinking, on my part. 

But I had to know for sure.

*

And I knew for sure, right away. 

I knew right away, that the spark of ... 'something', I'd sensed, was really there. That I hadn't been imagining it, after all. 

It was in Tina's eyes. It was in the way she looked at me as I walked towards her, up to the serving counter of Burger Heaven.

Another counter-assistant colleague of Tina's, to whom she'd been talking when I'd come in the door and who's name tag declared her to be 'Janice', smiled meaningfully at Tina and went off to wipe down an already clean table.

Tina was exactly how I remembered her— but no, she wasn't. She was even more amazing. Even more fabulous. Even more dazzling. She was a baseball-cap-wearing, blue-eyed, blonde-ponytailed dream.

"Hello, stranger," said Tina. It was cliched as hell – but my knees nearly buckled. 

"So ... you're back," she said. And I almost had to hold onto the serving counter for support.

It was the sound of her voice, with its underlying hint of playful mischief. It was the look in her eyes; blue eyes, so full of expression, that seemed to really 'see' me.

I couldn't find my tongue. I couldn't get a single word out. 

I'd been working out all last week, what to say to Tina, and how to say it. But now ...

"Um ... why don't you sit down, David," said Tina, "and I'll bring your plate of burger and chips over to you – if that's what you're having?"

That was what I'd had, last Monday. A whole week ago – and she'd remembered! 

And what a thrill it was, to hear Tina say my name! 

At first, I wondered how she could possibly know. But of course – lovestruck fool that I was! – it was glaringly emblazoned in bold black letters on my white, uniform T-shirt: 'Community servant David 007'.

The truth of it was, that I couldn't afford to eat at Burger Heaven – I was holding back what little money I had, for something else ... hopefully.

"Um ... I can't stay, Tina," I said – and what a thrill it was, to say her name! 

"I ... I just wanted to ask ... Tina, if ..."

"If what, David?"

"If you fancied, well ... going to see a movie tonight? At the multiplex?"

"Hmmm ... I'll have to check my social calendar, David ... Just kidding!" she said teasingly, flipping closed the lid of her Smartphone. "Ha! Social calendar – as if! Meet me at seven, David. Here, outside Burger Heaven."

I could not believe it. I just could not believe it!

I actually had a date, with Tina! The lovely, vivacious, personable and engaging Tina – the heaven, of Burger Heaven. 

Before going out through the door, I turned around, to see Tina smiling and fluttering her fingers goodbye to me— no, not goodbye – au revoir! And Janice was back, linking arms with Tina and a big beaming smile on her face.

Tina wasn't fooling me: she would have no trouble at all, a girl as lovely, and as vivacious – as drop-dead gorgeous – as her, in filling the pages of her social calendar.

And no boy of eighteen ever walked so tall, or had such a spring in his step, or had such a gleam in his eye, as I had, as I returned to the Sock Room.

* * *

"You're keen, Community servant David double-oh-seven," said Norma Newlove when I breezed through the Sock Room's doors as if I was walking on air. "It's only twenty past one!"

Well, Norma, not all of us can laze about on recliners all day – some of us have to earn our living! I thought but didn't dare say. 

At the slightest bit of "lip" – of disrespectful backchat, or what many females now in these new 'femocratic' times would consider outright and intolerable insolence, from a community servant – I knew Norma Newlove would be reaching for the Sock Room's internal phone to raise the issue with CSOs Karen and Linda in their office, to have me 'disciplined'.

"And why are you smiling like that – Community servant David double-oh-seven?" demanded Norma. "What on earth have you got to be happy about?"

Ah! And wouldn't you like to know, Norma! I thought but didn't dare say.

Three of the six black leather recliners were vacant now, I noticed. There was no sign of the three new faces. Well, at least that was something. I'd been worried that the three of them, who I'd guessed were about the same age as me, were going to join in 'the fun' with Norma and cronies. They had certainly seemed the type.

"Well, if it was up to me," said Cheryl Chubb, "I'd make Community servant David work through his lunch breaks from now on. Until he's got his workload down to a more reasonable level – that would soon wipe that silly smile off his face! It's getting out of hand. I mean ..." she said, pointing to two more overflowing white-painted wheelie bins, "... look at all of those dirty socks, spilling over onto the floor like that, making the place look untidy. There must be hundreds— no, thousands, of them!"




Community Service Ch. 06



You aren't doing a bad job of making the place look untidy yourself, Cheryl! I thought but didn't dare say.

"Yes, Cheryl, I couldn't agree more: make double-oh-seven work through his lunch breaks, if he can't keep his workload of dirty socks down to a respectable level," said Gina Stainham. "And to add to them, here's two more dirty socks!" she said, waving her white-socked feet in the air. "Look, double-oh-seven!" she told me.

And Gina wasn't kidding, either. The soles of her white leisure/sports socks were filthy dirty, especially at the impact points at her heels, the balls of her feet, and her toe pads – from her habitually walking around shoeless. Gina Stainham was hard work!

"Er, excuse me ... ladies, but as you have just pointed out, I must be getting on," I said.

And I was halfway down the six wooden steps leading into my 'domain', when—

"Go and get a clean pair of white socks from the sock shelves, double-oh-seven," said Gina Stainham. "And then come back here, and change my socks for me," she ordered.

What, the? I thought.

"Um ... yes, Mrs Stainham," I said, biting my tongue. 

"And fetch a pair of white socks for me, too, community servant David – you know the sort I want," said Cheryl Chubb bossily. "And bring another pair, for Mrs Newlove!" she yelled at my retreating back. "You can change our socks for us, too!"

What the hell! I thought.

"Er ... yes, Mrs Chubb!" I called back.

And that set the three of them off to giggling and tittering.

Bloody hell! I thought.

They were complaining about me letting my sock-washing workload get out of hand, even to the point of suggesting I work through my thirty-minute lunch breaks until I've got it under some semblance of control – yet here they were, getting me to change their socks for them!

Because it was so obvious that no way could I ever possibly keep the female sock-changing residents of Canford supplied with clean socks, CSOs Karen and Linda ensured that the Sock Room's floor-to-ceiling shelves were always plentifully stocked with pairs of brand-new socks – by ordering me to refill them, each time the Socks r Us firm's van delivered another consignment.

There were lots of different socks to choose from on the sock shelves. But predominantly the shelves contained pairs of long, white leisure/sports socks, that, in these new 'femocratic' times when the UK's females had such an abundance of sports and leisure time, were by far the most popular choice of sock-changing females. 

Looking at the sock shelves, I saw that fortunately there were still plenty of single-pack, 3-pack, and 5-packs of the long, white leisure/sports socks – naturally, when pairs of brand-new socks were available, sock-changing females would eschew the pre-worn, second-hand socks that I'd so laboriously laundered for them. 

I selected a 3-pack of the required socks, tore off the brand-new socks' cardboard packaging, and returned with them to the three 'ladies of leisure' awaiting me on their recliners like princesses on their royal divans.

Raising her legs slightly, Gina Stainham said, "Take off my socks, double-oh-seven."

I hated being called that – double-oh-seven. It sounded like the ultimate mickey-take. Which of course it was.

"Yes, Mrs Stainham," I said, hoping my traumatised feelings weren't evident in my voice. I knew there was going to be more to this than met the eye – that had been my experience with 'The Sock Room Girls' so far.

Taking hold of the top of Gina's knee-length right sock, I rolled it down her tanned and very shapely leg so that her sock was automatically turned inside out when I pulled it from her foot – to save myself from having to do that horrible chore later. I then did the same with Gina's left sock. 

Taking her pair of just-removed, turned inside out dirty white socks from me, Gina sniffed them, and she contorted her attractive features in an elaborate pantomime of mortified revulsion.

"Now mine, Community servant David," instructed Cheryl Chubb. "Take off my socks."

"Yes, Mrs Chubb," I said, red-faced with shame, and I repeated the same, thoroughly belittling sock-removing procedure. 

Taking her pair of just-removed, turned inside out dirty white socks from me, Cheryl sniffed them and, hamming it up, she coughed exaggeratedly as though overcome by noxious fumes.

Now it was my neighbour from hell Mrs Norma Newlove who elevated her legs slightly, prompting me to 'attend' her. "Come on – Community servant David double-oh-seven!" she snapped. "Jump to it! Chop chop! Take off my socks!"

I felt my bottom lip tremble, and I knew I was on the verge of tears – because I was being reduced to this: changing my neighbour from hell Norma Newlove's dirty, stinky socks for her!

Thanks to the Authoritarian Female Party's new Female-Friendly legislations, including empowering all females (including foreign businesswomen and vacationers) with authority over all UK males, Norma Newlove was literally 'socking it to me' beyond her wildest hopes and dreams.

"Yes, Mrs Newlove," I said, and I was dismayed to hear the raw emotion betrayed in my croaking voice.

This was too much! 

But I knew that Norma was hoping for just the flimsiest, teeniest excuse to get on the Sock Room's internal phone to complain to my two cane-wielding – and cane-happy! – supervisors.

Repeating the automatically-turned-inside-out sock-removing procedure again, I took hold of the top of Norma's knee-length right sock, and rolled it down her – and even I couldn't deny the truth of it: very shapely – leg, and pulled it from her foot. I then did the same with Norma's left sock.

Taking her pair of just-removed, turned inside out dirty white socks from me, Norma sniffed them, and, hamming it up, as though assailed by the pungent emanations of an overripe Stilton, Norma cried in disgust: "Phwaah!"

"I wonder which of our socks are stinkiest?" said Cheryl Chubb. "I bet mine are – I've been wearing these socks since Friday morning!"

Immediately, my mental alarm bells began clanging.

But before I could retreat from within her reach, with her free hand Norma grabbed my hair and pulled my head close to her ample bosom. She was surprisingly strong, and I wasn't about to have a Tug of War contest with Norma pulling forcefully on my scalp. "Well, we'll soon find out, Cheryl," said Norma. "Because he'll tell us – Community servant David double-oh-seven!"

Arranging the toe section of one of her just-removed, turned inside out dirty white socks, Norma covered my nose with the damp, now greyish-white cotton and pushed hard, sealing my nostrils with her sock's toe section. "Now sniff – Community servant David double-oh-seven! Sniff!"

This was too much! Much too much!

But unless I was prepared to let her pick up the internal phone and dial '1' for CSOs Karen and Linda's office, and place myself at the mercy of their arbitrary arbitrations, I was powerless to resist or refuse Norma.

So I sniffed ... to find that Norma hadn't been hamming it up, after all, as a powerfully pungent aroma – much as I'd imagine an overripe Stilton to smell – assailed me. 'Phwaah!' – indeed!

Arranging the toe section of one of her turned inside out socks, just as Norma Newlove had done, Gina Stainham said, "Now come here, double-oh-seven. And smell my socks."

Compliantly, I reported to Gina Stainham's recliner. 

Snatching a good handful of my hair, just as Norma had done, Gina sealed my nostrils with the toe section of one of her just-removed, turned inside out dirty white socks. "Now sniff, double-oh-seven. Come on – sniff!" ordered Gina.

I sniffed ... to find that Gina hadn't contorted her attractive features in an elaborate pantomime of mortified revulsion, after all – it had been for real!

Arranging the toe section of one of her turned inside out socks, just as Norma and Gina had done, Cheryl Chubb, the instigator of the stinky-sock 'contest' said, "Now come here, Community servant David. And smell my socks."

Compliantly, I reported to Cheryl Chubb's recliner.

Gripping a good fistful of my hair, just as Norma and Gina had done, Cheryl sealed off my nostrils with the toe section of one of her just-removed, turned inside out, now yellow-tinged dirty white cotton socks. "Now sniff, Community servant David. Sniff – and sniff deeply!" commanded Cheryl.

I sniffed ... to find that Cheryl hadn't been hamming it up either, after all. Cheryl hadn't exaggerated her coughing fit – because now, coughing myself, I realised that she actually had been overcome by her own, noxious stinky-feet fumes!

Releasing her painful grip on my hair, Cheryl said, "So, Community servant David. Your decision: Mrs Stainham's, Mrs Newlove's ... or mine? Whose socks are the stinkiest?"

I didn't know what to say. 

They wouldn't believe me if I said that none of their socks ponged – they'd all see it for the cop out that it was. This was very tricky, fraught with incalculable risk: I had to make a choice – and yet somehow make the right choice. 

"Um ... all of your socks are very stinky, Mrs Chubb. But ... but I'd have to say that it's your socks, Mrs Chubb, that are the stinkiest. I nearly choked on the fumes. So, Mrs Chubb, I ... I declare you the winner."

"See!" shouted Cheryl Chubb triumphantly. "See, Norma? See, Gina? I've won. Community servant David has declared me the winner. My socks are the stinkiest!" she said with the greatest of satisfaction. 

But Norma Newlove had a face like thunder. 

I had to try to placate the chagrined Norma. So I approached her first, with one of the pairs of brand-new white sports/leisure socks from the 3-pack I'd brought from the sock shelves. "Um ... Mrs Newlove. You said you wanted me to change your dirty socks for you—"

"Give me those socks!" snapped Norma Newlove, snatching the pair of socks from my hands in annoyance. "Do you think I'm incapable of putting a pair of socks on my own two feet?"

Oops ... maybe I'd chosen the wrong stinky-sock contest winner. 

I'd known the decision of the 'award' was fraught with risk. But there was no question that Cheryl Chubb deserved it!

"No, Mrs Newlove. But ... but you said—"

"Well, what I am telling you now – Community servant David double-oh-seven! – is to get on with your sock-washing! Before I get on that phone and inform your supervisors that you haven't done a single bit of work since you've come back from your lunch break. So get yourself back down those steps. And here – take our dirty socks with you!"

"Yes, Mrs Newlove," I said through gritted teeth.

As brassily dictated by my neighbour from hell Norma Newlove, I descended the six wooden steps to my one-man-laundry 'domain' – taking along with me her, Gina Stainham's and Cheryl Chubb's pairs of dirty, stinky white socks.

But at least their socks were already pulled inside out.

*

Sitting on my wooden folding chair facing the 'Spectators' Gallery' that overlooked my 'domain', and pulling inside out another big batch of the sock-changing females of Canford's dirty, stinky white socks, I looked up to see the return of the three new faces reoccupying the same recliners they'd vacated earlier. 

I assumed they'd returned from having a spot of lunch in one of the High Street's food outlets – unlike the so-called 'regulars', they hadn't come to the Sock Room prepared with leather sports bags full of here-for-the-day food and drink provisions.

When I looked up again, after turning inside out another four or five pairs of balled-up stinky white socks, it was to see that the three new faces were now sitting up comfortably on their black leather recliners and observing me with great amusement – they'd heard about the Sock Room community servant, but now for the first time they were witnessing his 'antics' for themselves. 

Each of the three new faces' having removed their trainers, the soles of their white-socked feet were almost directly facing me. I was sitting on my wooden folding chair, but if I'd been standing the soles of their feet would have been at my head height.

I had fallen into the habit on these occasions, of making a 'professional' assessment as to the dirtiness and sweatiness of the socks that it was my duty to hand-wash and launder to a high standard. And upon closer observation I saw that the three new faces' white cotton socks were stained grey from their foot sweat, at their heels, the balls of the feet, and the toe sections. 

But in my 'professional' assessment the three of them were no worse than the average Sock Room visitor; their socks didn't look overly sweaty or dirty. 

For this, at least, I was grateful: I knew that some of the more bitchy sock-changing females (Chery Chubb, for one) purposefully wore their socks for days on end and sweated and dirtied up their socks deliberately. 

Gina Stainham's socks got filthy dirty. But in her case I believed this was just because of Gina's preference for walking about shoeless – the fact that because of her indifference and carelessness of my plight I was then left with her filthy dirty socks to try to hand-wash clean again was just the unfortunate consequence. So Gina Stainham contributed to making my life hell without even trying.

More and more girls and women were taking to wearing trainers now, in these new 'femocratic' times, I thought as I 'professionally' assessed the white-socked soles of the three new faces' feet. The light and comfortable, sporty footwear were the perfect accompaniment to their leisure/sports socks, and— 

"What are you looking at – Community servant David double-oh-seven?" demanded Norma Newlove belligerently, interrupting stuffing her face with at least her third bag of Cheese & Onion crisps from her big multipack. I was sure she was addicted to that flavour. Could that be why her feet and socks smelled so pungently of strong, overripe cheese? I wondered. 

"Get on with your work – those stinky socks aren't going to pull themselves inside out! No wonder your workload is getting so out of hand!" Norma told me. "I'm going to suggest to your supervisors that you work through your lunch breaks, for the time being. And that you start working Saturdays, too – I bet CSOs Karen and Linda would welcome the triple-pay overtime!"

That cow! I thought.

CSO's Karen and Linda, I thought, would probably welcome regular Saturday-opening – and so would Norma and cronies! My two so-called supervisors would 'earn' a small fortune in overtime pay, and the so-called regulars' Sock-Room-cum-social-club would be open for an extra day.

The three new faces crossed their ankles and started scrunching and flexing their white-socked toes pleasurably, smiling admiringly at Norma. 

Norma Newlove was showing the three new faces 'the ropes'!

"Wow! This place is a cool hangout!" enthused the prettiest of the three new faces, and her two friends nodded their emphatic agreement.

"Oh, we have all sorts of fun, with the community servant," Norma told the three Sock Room initiates, who then pleasurably scrunched and flexed their white-socked toes some more.

Once I'd deposited this white plastic laundry basket full of turned inside out dirty white socks into the hot-and-soapy-water tank for their two-hour minimum pre-wash soak, I thought, concentrating on my work again, I'd be able to crack on with hand-washing the pre-soaked socks in the temperature-controlled stainless steel hot-and-soapy-water sink. And ...

And what was that noise again, that sounded a bit like an electric toothbrush? There it was, starting up yet again.

I'd heard it thrumming away this morning, off and on. When the 'regulars' and the three new faces had been clipping their toenails, and looking over at me, smirking mischievously.

Looking up from my work, about ten pairs of turned inside out socks later, I saw there were quite a number of sock-changing females now crowding around Norma Newlove's recliner. There was a hubbub of excited anticipation about them, as they took turns clipping their toenails, and—

"I thought I told you to get on with your work – Community servant David double-oh-seven!" yelled Norma. "Do you want me to get on that internal phone, to CSOs Karen and Linda? Now, I won't tell you again: Get on with your sock-washing!"

The three new faces smiled at Norma with open admiration.

That ... witch! I thought.

And now I realised it was her, Norma Newlove – my self-appointed slave-driver! – who was responsible for making that mysterious noise, that sounded a bit like an electric toothbrush.

*

The afternoon dragged on slowly. 

But at least now, an hour or so after my much needed fifteen-minute afternoon tea break, the end of the day's Sock Room drudgery was finally in sight.

With my pair of long wooden tongs, I'd transferred the last of the presoaking socks from the hot-and-soapy-water tank into the temperature-controlled stainless-steel hot-and-soapy-water sink. And with my back thankfully turned to those nothing-better-to-do-with-their-time female watchers in the 'Spectators' Gallery', I'd made good inroads with hand-washing the dirty white socks, and transferring the washed sudsy socks into the adjacent stainless-steel rinsing sink.

The electric-toothbrush-like noise had been going almost incessantly; it would stop for a few seconds, and then resume. But I ignored it, and just got with my mind-numbing, soul-destroying toil. After all, what the hell did I care what the buzzing noise was?

I would have just about enough time, I estimated, to rinse out the day's last batch of socks, squeeze out most of the water by means of the old-fashioned mangle, and hang the damp socks out on the nylon clotheslines in the flagstone courtyard to dry overnight. 

I'd steam-iron the socks in the morning after I'd filled up the hot-and-soapy-water tank with another batch of the dirty white socks for their two-hour minimum pre-wash soak. For the next couple of days at least, I thought, I'd better prioritise the dirty white socks. Two more of the white-painted wheelie bins were now overflowing with dirty white socks, and—

"Um ... er, Community servant David? Would you come over here, please?" said Norma Newlove.

'Please'? 

I didn't like the sound of that. I didn't like it one little bit. Norma had to be up to something. But what?

Reluctantly but resignedly I pulled off my pink washing-up gloves, and I turned around to see Norma, her Sock Room cronies Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb, the three new faces, and also about fifteen other sock-changing females, all looking over at me from the 'Spectators' Gallery' with innocent smiles on their faces.

What the hell was going on?

Warily, I trudged up the six wooden steps to the upper level of the Sock Room, and compliantly I reported to Norma's recliner.

Looking at the sea of twenty-plus butter-wouldn't-melt-in-their-mouths faces, I said, "Um, what ... what can I do for you, Mrs Newlove?"

"We want you to, um ... adjudicate another contest for us, David," said Norma Newlove pleasantly.

'David'? 

I definitely didn't like the sound of that. Now I knew for certain, that Norma was up to something. But what?

"Another contest, Mrs Newlove?"

"Yes, David, another contest. This time, we'd like you to judge, from out of all of us ..." Norma gestured to encompass all of the twenty-plus sock-changing females present in the Sock Room, "... who has the cutest toenailed, and the nicest, smoothest, prettiest soles."

"Um ... Mrs Newlove, I—"

"Stand at the foot of my recliner, David, and start with my feet. Then you can judge the other reclining ladies' feet. Followed by all of the other ladies' feet."

"Um ... Mrs Newlove, I'm not sure I'm qualified, to—"

"Here, David," said Norma Newlove, raising her outstretched legs. "Start with me. Hold out the palms of your hands for me to rest my heels in, so that you have a perfect view of the soles of my feet ... Come on, David, my legs are getting all tired and achy, holding them up like this."




Community Service Ch. 06



"All right, Mrs Newlove," I said, immediately feeling the strain of supporting Norma's relaxing outstretched legs as she settled the backs of her heels in the apparently comfortably accommodating palms of my hands. "But, I don't know if I'm the person, to—"

"Look at my toenails first, David," said Norma, scrunching her toes to better enable my judgement. "Are my toenails nice? Do you think they're cute?"

The three new faces craned their necks, and the fifteen or so standing, sock-changing females gathered closer, the better to hear my adjudicatory pronouncements on the merits of Norma Newlove's toenails.

"Well, Mrs Newlove – judging by my own personal likes and preferences ... I think your toenails are perfectly trimmed: not too long, and not too short. And I really like your cherry-red nail polish. It really sets off your suntanned legs, Mrs Newlove, and your lustrous black hair," I told her sincerely. "It's definitely 'your' colour," I heard myself saying, complimentarily.

Recently returned from an AFP-funded holiday in Florida, the twenty-six-year-old, black-haired, voluptuous-figured Norma Newlove was actually looking very attractive, I had to admit.

"Now, what about the soles of my feet, David? Is my skin nice and smooth? Or is it dry and flaky? We want you to judge the soles of our feet, paying special attention and making particular mention as to the smoothness of the bottoms of our heels, and the balls of our feet, where sometimes we ladies have problems with an unsightly build-up of hard, dry, dead skin."

Some of the fifteen or so standing, sock-changing females tut-tutted empathetically and, showing the soles of their feet to each other and pointing out their own particular trouble spots, admitted that from time to time they did indeed have to address that vexatious recurring problem.

"Well, Mrs Newlove," I said, appraising the soles of her feet, "I can tell you that you have no problems on that score. The bottoms of your heels and the balls of your feet are in tip-top condition," I told her in all honesty. "In fact, the soles of your feet are not unsightly at all," I heard myself saying.

"Thank you, David," said Norma. "That is exactly what we want from you, as our contest judge: your honest, candid, considered opinion."

"Um ... all right, Mrs Newlove," I said.

"Community servant David," said Cheryl Chubb from the recliner next to Norma's, raising her outstretched legs in expectation. "Me next. Hold out the palms of your hands for me."

"Yes, Mrs Chubb," I said ...

And so it was, that I duly deliberated, and gave my "honest, candid, considered opinions" pertaining to the "cuteness" of the toenails, and the smoothness of the soles of the feet of next in line Cheryl Chubb, followed by Gina Stainham, followed by the three new faces – who turned out to be eighteen-year-old college girls Anita, Trudi and Naomi – followed by the rest of the fifteen or so standing, sock-changing females. 

After assessing the "cuteness" of the toenails and the smoothness of the soles of the three new faces, Anita, Trudi and Naomi – I said, ingratiatingly in hopes of winning their future decent treatment of me and hating myself for it, "And thank you, young Misses (I didn't know how else to address them!), for doing your civic duty, and bringing your dirty socks here to the Sock Room for me to hand-wash, instead of washing them yourselves at home in your washing machines."

Anita, Trudi and Naomi all smiled back at me in open amazement, pleasurably scrunching and flexing their bare toes like there was no tomorrow. 

"Oh, but you are welcome – Community servant David double-oh-seven!" Anita, who was the prettiest of them told me. "And in future, we'll be calling into the Sock Room regularly," Anita assured me. "To hand over to you, personally, our dirty, stinky socks for you to hand-wash! Because it is exactly what you deserve!"

When it came time for me to judge the fifteen or so standing, sock-changing females, Norma Newlove told me to go to my knees. "It's the best position for you to judge from, David," she told me. "You'll need to be nice and close to our feet."

One by one, each of the standing, sock-changing females stood directly in front of me, so as to facilitate my assessment of the "cuteness" of their toenails. 

There was a surprisingly wide range of attractive nail polish colours on show, although some of the sock-changing females' toenails were unpainted or coated with a clear glossy varnish. Anita, the prettiest of the three new faces, had a French pedicure. One thing I couldn't help but notice was that all of the twenty-plus females' toenails were all nicely trimmed.

Upon my having duly aired my pronouncements as to the "cuteness" of each of the standing, sock-changing females' toenails, they'd then turned their backs on me, and raised behind them first one foot (that I held in my hands to aid their one-legged balance), and then their other foot, for me to duly air my "honest, candid, considered" opinions as to the smoothness of the soles of their feet. 

As instructed by Norma Newlove, I paid special attention and made particular mention as to the state of smoothness of the balls of their feet, and the bottoms of their heels. 

"So, David ..." said Norma Newlove, after I had duly delivered my pronouncements upon the smoothness of the soles of the last of the standing, sock-changing females' feet. "Who is the winner?"

"The ... winner, Mrs Newlove?"

"Yes – idiot!" snapped Norma, once again sounding like her usual obnoxious self. "The winner! The winner of the contest. In your judgement, who, out of all of us, has the cutest toenails, and the nicest, smoothest, prettiest soles?"

"Um ... I, er—"

"In your honest, candid, considered opinion, who do you declare the winner of this contest?" demanded Norma.

I remembered Norma's face of thunder, her obvious displeasure after I'd declared Cheryl Chubb, and not her, the winner of the stinky-sock contest.

"Um ... you have, Mrs Newlove. You have the cutest toenailed, and the nicest, smoothest, prettiest soles," I told Norma, feeling my face blazing away in acute embarrassment.

Uncomfortably I beheld the unforgiving disappointed glares of the other contestants. "It ... it was a difficult decision," I told them.

But, so help me, I was only telling the truth! 

Norma Newlove actually did, have the cutest toenailed, and the nicest, smoothest, prettiest soles.

"So, Mrs Newlove, I ... I declare you, Mrs Newlove, the winner of the contest. Um ... congratulations."

"Good!" cried Norma Newlove in exultant triumph. "Good! I'm really glad you said that – Community servant David double-oh-seven! And congratulations are in order. Because now, as your duly declared contest winner, I get to do ... this!"

At this apparently prearranged signal, I found myself being roughly manhandled by some of the standing, sock-changing females, who, laughing, giggling, and squealing with glee, unceremoniously dumped me – the wrong way around! – onto Norma Newlove's now vacated black leather recliner. 

Panicked, I tried to thrash about, but I felt my arms, ankles and legs being gripped to immobilise me. It was useless to resist, and my continued ineffectual struggles only served to antagonise my tormentresses, who in response further tightened their grips and dug their fingernails into me.

"I get to do this – Community servant David double-oh-seven!" gloated Norma, crouched in front of me, and glowering down ecstatically at my turned the wrong way, upside down face. "This! I get to put this lot down your throat! I'm going to make you eat it all up, and swallow it all down!"

'This lot', I now saw, to my absolute horror and disgust, were lots and lots of toenail clippings, and some little piles of greyish flecked flaky powder ... So that's what that electric-toothbrush-like sound had been, I now suddenly realised: an exfoliator! 

On the slick, slippery centrefold pages of the glossy magazine that Norma was holding very carefully, along with the lots and lots of variously coloured and clear-varnished and unpainted toenail clippings, the little piles of greyish flecked flaky powder, I now realised with utmost revulsion, was the shavings of dead skin – removed from the soles (predominantly from the balls of the feet, and the bottoms of the heels, "where sometimes we ladies have problems with an unsightly build-up of hard, dry, dead skin") of the twenty-plus sock-changing females now present in the Sock Room.

How could they? How could they!

I already knew that the Sock Room brought out the bitch in many of the sock-changing females ... but this!

My neighbour from hell Norma Newlove was in her element. Not even her sweetest of dreams could have conjured up such a satisfying scenario.

"No. No, Mrs Newlove. You can't. You ... you can't do this. Please. Please don't. Please, Mrs Newlove ... please, please don't do this," I heard myself beg pathetically. 

But I knew I was wasting my breath. Knew that my pitiful pleas were in vain. Knew, in fact, from the glint in her eyes, that all I was doing was greatly increasing Norma Newlove's wicked pleasure.

My pitiable entreaties, I could see, were also greatly increasing the sadistic pleasure of the standing, sock-changing females, who were smiling maliciously down at me as they held me firmly in place.

Upon closer inspection of the horrible little hills of soles-of-the-feet greyish flecked flaky skin dust, and the lots and lots of coloured and uncoloured toenail clippings, I discerned the scattering of Norma Newlove's own, distinctive cherry-red clippings. And somewhere, too, in those little dusty mounds of greyish flecked flaky dead skin, I knew, was Norma's own, balls-of-the-feet and bottoms-of-the-heels contribution.

To Cheryl Chubb, the winner of the stinky-sock contest, Norma said gleefully, "Eat your heart out, Cheryl! This is the real prize – this!"

Taking great care not to lose any of the ... ingredients, Norma Newlove rolled the pages of the glossy magazine into a mouth-size tube, forced one O-shaped end of it into my mouth, began tipping up her end of the now tubular magazine, and—

"Hey!" yelled Tina – the heaven, of Burger Heaven. "Hey, you!" she yelled at Norma. "Leave David alone!"

What in hell's name was Tina doing here? I wondered. 

Tipped upside down on Norma's recliner, I couldn't see Tina, but I could picture her face.

"What's the matter with you?" Norma Newlove asked Tina belligerently.

"I said leave David alone!" screamed Tina.

How long had Tina been here? I wondered. How much had she heard? How much had she seen? How much had she witnessed?

Looking over at Tina, and then back to me, Norma said to the twenty-plus gathering of sock-changing females, as the penny dropped, "Ah! So, it's her, is it? It's her, is it, who's put such a big, goofy smile on Community servant David double-oh-seven's face?"

Norma Newlove smiled down at me gleefully. To her, this was like the icing on the cake. "Well, well, well. So you've got yourself a girlfriend, have you?" taunted Norma, tormentingly uptilting with deliberate slowness her end of the rolled-up glossy magazine. Norma was milking this moment for all it was worth. Any second now, and ...

"Didn't you hear me?" shrilled Tina again. "I said leave David alone – you bitch!" 

I saw Norma Newlove's face darken at Tina's insult. 

Trouble was coming. Real trouble. Bad trouble. 

"If you can't stand the heat – Burger Girl – get out of the kitchen! Go flip some more burgers," Norma told Tina disdainfully. "These Sock Rooms are for real women. Community servants need to be taught a lesson. And it's real women like me, who are their teachers. So leave now – or witness what I'm going to do to Community servant David double-oh-seven!"

I was filled with a sense of outrage such as I had never before experienced. 

Norma Newlove – a mean-minded, cruel and vindictive woman who had never done a day's work in her 'career-claimant's life, talking to the pleasant and personable and hardworking Tina – the heaven, of Burger Heaven – like that! 

I wished that I could warn Tina off. 

I wished that I could warn Tina to get out of the Sock Room. For her own good. 

I wished that I could warn Tina to get away from Norma Newlove – and all of these other sock-changing, lesson-teaching "real women". And now – before it was too late.

For 'causing trouble', Tina was sure to land herself in hot water with the Authoritarian Female Party's local big wig – Canford's Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman. The AFP wouldn't take kindly to their 'female-friendly' apple cart being upset – and upset, at that, by an 'ungrateful' female.

I wished that I could tell Tina to just forget about me. 

I wished that I could implore Tina to just walk away. To just leave me to my fate ... to just forget, about 'us'. 

I wished I could urge Tina to take a second look at her social calendar – because she had to have better dating prospects in there, than an unemployed and virtually unemployable dirty-sock washing community servant.

But I could say none of those things – because I had one O-shaped end of Norma Newlove's rolled-up glossy magazine full of multicoloured and uncoloured toenail clippings and soles-of-the-feet greyish flecked flaky dead skin shavings forced into my mouth.  

Not that Tina would have listened to my urgent warnings and desperate pleas anyway, had I been able to voice them.

"Now – Community servant David double-oh-seven!" gloated Norma Newlove, steadily uptilting her end of the rolled-up glossy magazine. Smiling ecstatically down at my turned the wrong way, upside down, horrified face, Norma yelled triumphantly, "Enjoy! Enjoy – eat it all up, and swallow it all down – this little lot of—"

But then suddenly the decidedly unsavoury contents weren't in Norma's rolled-up glossy magazine anymore – they were in her hair.

Tina hadn't gone back to Burger Heaven to flip some more burgers, on Norma Newlove's advice. 

Tina had stayed in the Sock Room. 

And, her approach going unnoticed because all of the sock-changing females' eyes were riveted on me and my heinous predicament, with a well aimed, white-trainered foot Tina had flipped instead Norma's tightly rolled-up glossy magazine right out of her hands; the springing-out pages hurling the entire 'preparation' upwards and into Norma Newlove's face and lustrous black hair.

"Aaaaahhhhhh!" shrilled the horrified Norma, flapping small clouds of soles-of-the-feet greyish flecked flaky exfoliations from her attractive long, black hair, and pulling free from its strands with her fingers one of her own, cherry-red big-toenail clippings.

And that did it ...

I had seen Norma Newlove angry before, many times – but never like this. This was something else again; something on a whole new level. Norma was incandescent with uncontainable, white-hot fury. 

Embarrassed like this – humiliated – right in front of her Sock Room associates and peers, Norma knew she would never live this hoisted-by-her-own-petard moment down.

"Get her!" Norma adjured her fellow, frozen-in-shock sock-changing females. "Get her – get the Burger Girl!"

Suddenly Tina found herself surrounded by twenty-plus very angry sock-changing females. There was no possible escape. "Keep your hands off me!" Tina spiritedly told the converging threatening throng of Sock Room attendees.

"Let me get my hands on her," said Norma Newlove furiously. "Just let me get my hands on her!"

"Leave her alone!" I shouted, finding some courage of my own from somewhere. "You just leave Tina alone, Mrs Newlove!"

"You just keep it zipped – Community servant David double-oh-seven!" snarled Norma Newlove, turning angrily on me. "I'll deal with you later! You are the cause of this – you!"

Whether it was because one of the sock-changing females had picked up the internal phone and dialled '1' to contact my two supervisors, or whether CSOs Karen and Linda in their office had heard for themselves the outbreak of pandemonium on the upper level of the Sock Room, I didn't know. But one thing I did know: I was flooded with relief, at seeing my two cane-wielding supervisors.

"So ... what's going on here?" said CSO Karen, calmly and authoritatively. "What's happened?"

"She happened – Burger Girl!" shrilled Norma Newlove, still flapping soles-of-the-feet skin dust out of her long hair, and pulling free some of the coloured and uncoloured toenail clippings that had gotten themselves all snarled up in her formerly lustrous locks.

CSO Karen said, "What's all that in your hair, Mrs Newlove? Is it ... what I think it is?"

"Um ... yes, CSO Karen," admitted Norma. "We wanted to have a bit of fun with Community servant David double-oh-seven. I wanted to force-feed him – make him eat up, and swallow the lot!"

CSO Linda said, "You should have given us a ring, in our office. We'd have added to it."

CSO Karen said, "So what happened, Mrs Newlove?"

"I just told you, CSO Karen: she happened – Burger Girl. She kicked the whole lot right out of my hands! She was trying to protect him – Community servant David double-oh-seven. Her boyfriend!"

At Norma Newlove's referring to me as Tina's cherished boyfriend, I felt my heartstrings being plucked like crazy.

How brave, Tina was! She had confronted and stood up to twenty-plus sock-changing females – to rescue me! And boy, she had certainly fixed Norma!

CSO Linda, handcuffing Tina's right wrist to her own, left wrist, said, "We can't let this stand. We'll have to present her to Ms Harmman. And I suppose you'll be wanting us to lodge a complaint in your behalf, will you, Mrs Newlove?"

Pointing to her hair, at the multicoloured mess of toenail clippings, and the dreadful dermatological soles-of-the-feet detritus sifting down through her formerly lustrous locks, the beside-herself Norma Newlove seethed, "Well, what do you think, CSO Linda?"

"I think you are absolutely right to press charges, Mrs Newlove," said CSO Linda. "But I have to tell you: if it's her first offence, she'll probably just be let off with a warning."

"Just a warning!" yelled Norma in outraged disbelief.

"A formal warning," CSO Linda clarified as if that would make Norma feel better.

CSO Karen, handcuffing Tina's left wrist to her own, right wrist, said to Tina, "Come on, you. Let's see what Ms Harmman has to say."

"It was absolutely shameful, what was going on here, CSO Karen!" argued the spirited Tina. "Someone had to stop it! This so-called Sock Room is an abomination!"

"Um ... Mrs Newlove," said CSO Karen. "CSO Linda and I will be gone for about half an hour while we go to the Community Service Liaison Centre to process ... Burger Girl. Could we impose on you to look after the Sock Room for us while we're away?"

"Oh, absolutely, CSO Karen. Of course. You're not imposing on me at all, CSO Karen!"

Being led away, handcuffed between CSOs Karen and Linda, Tina looked back over her shoulder at me – and I felt my heart crack right down the middle. It was a terrible, psychophysical pain. I couldn't bear it. 

Why did Tina have to do this? Why hadn't she got the hell out of the Sock Room while she still could? 

Tina could have any boy she wanted. So why did she have to get herself into this kind of trouble – over a community servant, sock-washing loser like me? A Sock Room attendant!

"Tina!" I wailed mournfully. "Tina! Tina!"

But she was gone.

Looking about me, I saw the predatory eyes of twenty-plus highly annoyed, vengeful females. 

I beheld the rage-filled, glowering face of Norma Newlove; the angry faces of her Sock Room cronies Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb; the hostile faces of eighteen-year-old college girls Anita, Trudi and Naomi; and the unforgiving visages of the fifteen or so standing, sock-changing females. 




Community Service Ch. 07



Community Service Officer Linda's prediction proved to be right. 

On Monday, Tina Marshall, a Team Leader counter assistant at Canford town's highly popular High Street burger bar, Burger Heaven, was, as a first-offender with a previously unblemished character record, given just a formal warning.

But, unfortunately for Tina, Mrs Norma Newlove, who could not be prevailed upon by the local Authoritarian Female Party official to drop her Grievous Aggravated Assault charges, adamantly appealed against what she angrily contested was a too-soft summary decision of said local AFP official.

At the outraged insistence of the sorely aggrieved 'plaintiff' Norma Newlove, supported by her Sock Room cronies Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb, the Community Service Liaison Officer, Harriet Harmman, finally succumbed to the haranguing vengeful trio's indignant and righteous demands: that the offender Tina Marshall faces a much sterner retributive comeuppance.

And so it was that on Wednesday, regretfully Ms Harmman agreed to revise her original, too-lenient decision, and reluctantly she duly awarded Tina the 'Standard Six'. 

Tina's public, Standard Six bare-bottom caning chastisement was to be administered on the following Saturday afternoon at 2 pm, in Canford town's High Street, by two CSOs as assigned by Ms Harmman. 

Presiding over the punishment proceedings, would me Ms Harmman herself.

Waiting on Ms Harmman's expressed instructions, one of the two punishment-detail CSOs would duly administer her AFP-issue whippy bamboo cane to Tina's left, fully exposed bare buttock three times while simultaneously the other CSO would administer her wicked-looking cane to Tina's right buttock.

All over Canford, everywhere to be seen were the hurriedly printed and posted public information notices, billboard posters, and flyers. 

At such short notice, it was too late to advertise the upcoming historic event in the local newspapers. 

But on local radio and TV, during commercial break interludes or at the end of news bulletins, announcements were made pertaining to Miss Tina Marshall's historic public chastisement caning, this coming Saturday at 2 pm.

For the first time, under Authoritarian Female Party rule, not just in Canford, but in the whole of the UK, it was a female, who was to be publicly caned.

* * *

Today was Friday. 

I was finishing my second Monday to Friday working week as a community servant, assigned to work in Canford town's Sock Room where, supervised by CSOs Karen and Linda I was made to earn my weekly Unemployment Benefit by hand-washing, and laundering to a high and exacting standard the females of Canford's dirty socks.

But on Monday, I'd had a very narrow and lucky escape, when Tina Marshall - the heaven, of Burger Heaven - to her own, great detriment, in a feat of daring-do had courageously caused my neighbour from hell Norma Newlove to be hoisted by her own petard - instead of me.

Tina had turned upon Norma, herself, her dastardly day-long 'preparation' of foot dust and toenail clippings, as was exfoliated and clipped from her own, from her Sock Room cronies Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb, and from the soles of twenty-plus other conniving Sock Room attending females' feet and toes. 

Norma, with the gleeful assistance of her many willing and enthusiastic co-participants - who with their cruelly grabbing hands and painfully digging fingernails had forcibly restrained me and held me upside down upon Norma's black leather recliner - had been about to pour into my mouth, and make me eat, the horrible little mounds of all of their soles-of-the-feet flaky dead skin and all of their many dozens of variously coloured toenail clippings ... when Tina, with her timely brave intervention, had quickly strode up to the smugly gloating and avidly concentrating Norma unnoticed and kicked Norma's tightly rolled-up magazine right out of her hands and out of my mouth, resulting in most of Norma's dreadful day-long harvest ending up in the shocked and horrified Norma's own, lustrous black hair.

Which was why Tina was now in trouble with the AFP ... facing a history making, exquisitely painful and excruciatingly humiliating Standard Six public chastisement caning, at the more than willing and more than capable hands of two punishment-detail CSOs, tomorrow afternoon at two o'clock.

In fact, I'd had two lucky escapes.

My second lucky escape - after Tina had been handcuffed by CSOs Karen and Linda and escorted to the Community Service Liaison Centre to summarily appear before Ms Harmman - was to find my two supervisors' office door left unlocked after I'd made what I'd believed could only be a futile, postponing-the-inevitable, ill-fated run-for-it.

Which was a very lucky escape, indeed.

Because there, with the Sock Room temporarily entrusted unto the now seething and even further antagonised Mrs Newlove's care until my two supervisors returned from the Community Service Liaison Centre, I was able to keep myself safely locked in. 

A refuge, from the wrath of my neighbour from hell Norma Newlove, her Sock Room cronies Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb, and the other twenty-plus, almost equally vengeful sock-changing females. 

Who, shouting angrily, and violently slapping their hands and banging their fists and kicking their white-socked feet against the white-painted office door, furiously demanded, upon pain of the direst consequences, that I open up at once and come out.

The direst of consequences or not. There was no way I was going to unlock that office door ... unless it was to CSOs Karen and Linda.

* 

By the end of this second week since Canford town's Sock Room's much-trumpeted opening, what surely most people would think of as very generous storage capacity had been reached, then exceeded, and now my noisome workload of the town's females' dirty socks was just getting totally and ridiculously out of hand ...

The industrial-sized, open-topped hopper - that was signed: 'White Socks Only!' - was now full to over-capacity of dirty white socks.

The colour-coded wheelie bins - of which there were now twenty - were all overflowing with dirty socks; the lids left hanging open untidily, on all of them.

And the industrial-sized hot-and-soapy-water (prewash) soaking tank; the two stainless-steel washing and rinsing sinks; all of the large plastic soaking tubs (for non-white socks); and the four nylon clotheslines outside in the flagstoned courtyard - all fully utilised.

No matter how hard I worked: no matter how hard I toiled, laboured, sweated - no matter how much I slaved! - over the temperature-controlled hand-washing sink, and at the rinsing sink, and at the old-fashioned mangle, and in my ironing station - my stinky, noisome workload just kept on growing and growing. 

Growing and growing, as a never-ending flow of the town's sock-changing females came in through the Sock Room's doors to deposit their dirty socks, and change into a clean pair. 

Some of the Canford girls and women - some of whom I knew personally, and quite well; others, not so well, or maybe just on nodding acquaintance with - sometimes changed their socks more than once a day.

Well, why shouldn't they? They didn't have to wash them.

* 

It was now just after 2 pm.

It was exactly 24 hours, before Tina - the Heaven, of Burger Heaven - was scheduled to be administered, publicly, the Standard Six.

Scheduled to make history, as the first ever female, to be caned under the AFP.

Sitting on my folding chair, I was pulling inside out (with my bare hands, because wearing gloves made the horrible distasteful chore too meddlesome, and thereby too time-consuming), yet another laundry basketful of the dirty white socks from the industrial-sized, open-topped hopper that was signed: 'White Socks Only!' 

Some of the girls and women of Canford balled up their pair of dirty white socks, before depositing them in one of the colour-coded wheelie bins or tossing them into the open-topped hopper. Which only demanded more of my effort and time in separating them: effort, that was highly irksome; and time, that I could ill afford. 

Whether my town's womenfolk did that, purely from pre-Sock-Room days habit, simply because it was what they did all the time, or whether they did it, very deliberately, for the malicious pleasure and satisfaction of causing me some extra aggravation - I thought it was a combination of both. 

Either way, certainly there was no practical point to it: I hand-washed the dirty white socks in big batches; many dozens at a time, so it was extremely unlikely that any of the separated pairs of socks would be paired together again, post-wash.

Glumly I stared at the white-socked soles of the sock-changing females, who, situated behind the two-barred safety rail on the upper-level of the Sock Room, were relaxing on the row of black leather recliners that overlooked my lower-level work area. 

It was a habit I'd fallen into, lately: assessment. 

Assessing, some of the difficulties and problems that I would be facing, in hand-washing some of the females of Canford's up-coming dirty-socks.

On Tuesday, in response to the growing demand, more of the well-padded black leather recliners had been supplied, bringing the number of recliners in the 'Spectators' Gallery' up to ten: five, to each side of the six wooden steps that led down into the unlovely environs of my one-man laundry domain.

Some of the reclining females' white socks, I saw, were grubby, grimy - almost incredibly dirty. A reliable indicator, as to those sock-changing females' penchant for going about shoeless. 

Which was a habit, I believed, that some of the Sock Room attending girls and women had only acquired, since said establishment's grand opening, two weeks ago.

It was a great challenge, to keep composed and to keep my face neutral, as with bitter resentment and barely suppressed outrage I stared at all of the dirty, filthy, white-socked soles of those mostly careless and indifferent sock-changing females - who, so blithely, caused me so much wholly unnecessary extra hard work! 

I say 'mostly', because I knew full well that some of these, more malicious-minded, Sock Room attending girls and women, whether motivated by a naughtily playful sense of mischief, or from more spiteful and cruel, urges or designs - dirtied up their socks deliberately.

They loved the idea - just loved it! - that they were ensuring that my dutiful efforts to hand-wash their extra-dirty socks clean would be all the more difficult, problematic, frustrating and stressful. And much more time-consuming, too: making me spend so much more time - time, that I could so ill afford to waste - on trying to hand-wash clean, in mad-hot soapy water, their purposely, cruelly, deliberately dirtied-up socks. 

And these cruel-minded girls and women got an extra delicious kick from knowing I would have to hand-wash their pairs of deliberately dirtied-up socks clean enough to pass muster: Clean enough, to pass the nitpicky, hypercritical inspections of my two young cane-wielding and cane-happy supervisors, CSOs Karen and Linda.

Predominantly, these sock-changing tormentresses wore the long, white cotton sport and leisure socks. From preference, yes - but mostly, it was because the soles of white socks showed up the dirt and grime much more dramatically (and satisfactorily!) than coloured socks, and so they were so much more troublesome and vexatious for their Sock Room community servant to try and hand-wash clean again. 

Sometimes, relaxing on their recliners, some of the sock-changing girls and women would take off their socks - or, more often than not, haughtily or bossily summon me to remove their socks for them.

So as to display the soles of their bare feet to me. 

So as to display the soles of their bare feet to me, as I sat facing them on my folding chair as I grimly pulled inside out yet another large plastic basketful of the females of Canford's ever increasing and steadily overwhelming backlog of dirty, stinky socks.

Why did they display to me the soles of their bare feet? What was their underlying message?

They wanted to show me, naked, and unadorned, the symbols of my subjugation.

But mostly, relaxing on their recliners, the Sock Room attending females would display to me, the soles of their white-socked feet. 

Showing me, the soles of their white cotton sport and leisure socks. Sometimes, filthy with an accumulation of days' worth of ingrained dirt; almost black, at the impact points of the heels, the balls of the feet, and the toe areas. Sometimes, yellow-tinged, too, with days' worth of their foot sweat.

Showing me, just exactly what they were going to make me hand-wash clean. 

Showing me, just how much more needless extra effort they were obliging me to devote.

Showing me, the extent of the unspeakable misery they were inflicting upon me.

Showing me, the malicious, cruel challenge they were throwing down: Let's see you hand-wash these, clean enough, to pass your supervisors' inspection!

In short: Pitilessly, mercilessly, maliciously, malevolently - gleefully - aggravating me.

And why? 

Because the Sock Room brought out the bitch in them.

A movement caught my eye: Mrs Norma Newlove, crossing her ankles. She was relaxing on the nearest of the five recliners to (my) right-hand side of the six wooden steps.

"And what - Community servant David double-oh-seven - do you think you're staring at?" snapped my neighbour from hell Norma Newlove.

My across the road neighbour from hell Norma Newlove had been giving me hell all week. Ever since late Monday afternoon, when Tina - the heaven, of Burger Heaven - had hoisted Norma by her own petard.

Although from Wednesday afternoon, Norma had eased up on me, just a tad.

Because it had been on Wednesday, that, back from her latest visit to the Community Service Liaison Centre, Norma had returned to the Sock Room triumphant. 

Buoyant, at finally having managed to persuade Ms Harriet Harmman to punish 'Burger Girl' with something rather more satisfactorily retributive than the mere telling-off that the local AFP official had so leniently originally decreed: the Standard Six.

Jubilant, at knowing that, by proxy, she would also be inflicting great misery, and deeply wounding me, too.

Norma, with her Sock Room cronies Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb in tow and providing moral support, had demanded proper justice; had finally got it, and now she was looking forward immensely to seeing it being served. 

"Nothing, Mrs Newlove," I said respectfully. "I wasn't staring at anything."

"You weren't staring at anything - Community servant David double-oh-seven?" snapped Norma. "I saw you: You were staring at the soles of my feet - and at the soles of all these other ladies' feet, too. Weren't you?"

"Yes, Mrs Newlove," I said respectfully. "I was," I admitted.

It wasn't just the look on my face that I had to try and keep composed and neutral, but the tone of my voice, too. 

Since Wednesday afternoon, Norma had been in the ecstatic throes of vengeful anticipation. She was floating on Cloud Nine. 

But that was no reason to drop my guard; Norma would still gleefully seize upon the tiniest and flimsiest of excuses to report me to my two supervisors CSOs Karen and Linda. 

If I had lied to her just now - or at least, not immediately admitted my lie, when challenged - about staring at the white-socked soles of hers, and all of the nine other reclining ladies' feet ...

So why was Norma Newlove floating on Cloud Nine?

Because, in public, tomorrow afternoon at two o'clock, Tina Marshall ('Burger Girl') would be administered the Standard Six chastisement caning, by two punishment-detail CSOs - and Norma would be there to see it.

Of this, Norma had been gleefully reminding me, since Wednesday afternoon. 

Since, adamant and unrelenting, her determined persistence had ultimately paid off. Norma had finally worn Ms Harriet Harmman down, forced the issue, and secured Tina's painful and humiliating punishment.

Since our first date, on Monday, when we'd gone to the cinema, Tina and I had become inseparable. 

We'd dated each evening - and news of our being together as 'an item' had reached Norma's ears.

"Will you be there tomorrow afternoon - Community servant David double-oh-seven?" goaded Norma Newlove. "In the High Street, at two o'clock? To see your girlfriend receive the Standard Six? The punishment she so richly deserves!"

There was so much I wanted to say to my across-the-road neighbour from hell, so much I wanted to get off my chest. But, un-balling and then turning inside out with my bare hands another pair of dirty, stinky white socks, I bit my tongue.

To voice, any of my resentful, outraged and less than reverent thoughts of Norma Newlove would merely be to play right into Norma's fiendishly manipulating hands. She would snatch up the internal phone, dial 01 for CSOs Karen and Linda's office, and promptly report my 'offence': that I had stepped outside of the behavioural parameters, expected of a community servant.

Under the 'female-friendly' governance of the Authoritarian Female Party, led by Prime Minister Caroline Flynt, we were living in new, 'Femocratic' times.

And all UK male citizens - especially community servants - had to be mindful of every word they said.

Everywhere now, were cunningly disguised CCTV cameras, and ingeniously hidden microphones. 

The visual and audial information, was observed and listened to (and some of it, filed in 'Person of Interest' dossiers) by AFP employees working in the government's monitoring stations and data-gathering centres. The government listening, and watching posts, that were set up by the AFP, immediately upon winning the General Election.

And then there were the AFP's agents-at-large. 

The agents-at-large - mostly, but not all, female - skillfully infiltrated the public. 

Cunningly, slyly insinuating themselves, the AFP's agents-at-large blended in: Strolling in the streets; browsing in the shops; sitting in cafes, as though they were doing nothing more harmful, than drinking tea; mingling in the workplace, and in the pubs; riding on the buses, and on the Tube ... Snooping, eavesdropping, and reporting, on the unguarded sayings and doings of the hoi polloi. 

On-the-spot canings, for behavioural transgressions reported by female citizens; for offences picked up by monitoring station observers; and for offences spotted, or heard out on the streets by sharp-eyed, keen-eared patrolling Community Service Officers, were becoming increasingly commonplace. Now a part of every-day life.

At first, the bright and colourful uniforms of the CSOs: blue blazer, green shirt, red, short skirt, yellow cotton ankle socks, and on their feet the clog-like thick-soled, black leather, backless shoes - appeared ludicrous. Laughable. 

But male citizens didn't laugh, for long. 

Soon, the sight of the CSOs primary-colours uniforms were evoking primal fear, in male minds. Inspiring knee-buckling dread, in male hearts.

And now, entering my lower-level work area, direct from their office, came two such CSOs: my two Sock Room supervisors, CSOs Karen and Linda. 

They were both doing a pretty damn fine job of evoking fear, in my mind, and inspiring dread, in my heart.

Only a year or two older than me - and receiving Unemployment Benefit themselves, up until just two weeks ago - taking to their new 'careers' like ducks to water, CSOs Karen and Linda ruled me with a rod of iron - or, rather, with their AFP-issue flexible bamboo canes.

After checking to ensure that I was working both efficiently and diligently (upon spotting my two approaching supervisors, I'd immediately redoubled my efforts), CSOs Karen and Linda stood with their backs to me before the two-barred safety rail of the Sock Room's upper-level overlook - or, 'Spectators' Gallery'.




Community Service Ch. 07



Right off, CSOs Karen and Linda started doing that, shoe-playing thing, that they always seemed so wont to do. 

And now, albeit not from deliberate goading, but just absentmindedly, my two supervisors were showing me the soles of their socked feet, too. Showing me, the current state of their CSO uniform yellow cotton ankle socks. 

Socks that, sooner or later, kneeling on the hard stone floor over a deep plastic laundry tub (for non-white socks) full of them, I would find myself using liberal amounts of industrial-strength detergent, and copious amounts of elbow grease, in trying to hand-wash clean.

Addressing Norma Newlove, CSO Karen, slipping out her left, yellow cotton ankle-socked foot to rest the pads of her toes upon the heel of her backless, clog-like shoe, said, "Mrs Newlove, we've just had a phone call from Ms Harmman."

"Oh, yes ...?" said Norma. 

"Yes. She offered CSO Linda and me a spot of overtime ... tomorrow afternoon." 

"What?" said Norma, her interest quickening. "Tomorrow afternoon?"

Smiling, CSO Karen told Norma, "For less than half an hour's work, we will be paid for a full day - at triple-time pay. Naturally, we've accepted."

Oh, no! I thought, miserably. I knew what this meant.

Norma said, "Does this mean, CSO Karen, that ..."

CSO Linda, slipping out her right, yellow cotton ankle-socked foot to rest the tops of her toes upon the heel of her backless, clog-like shoe - thereby absentmindedly displaying to me her entire yellow ankle-socked sole - answered, "Yes, Mrs Newlove, it does ... We are going to be the two-CSO punishment-detail, to publicly administer the Standard Six chastisement caning, to Tina Marshall.

Hell! I thought. 

"Good!" Norma whooped for joy. "Good! I'm glad!" she said, her unspeakable pleasure, articulately expressed in the sudden luxuriating scrunching and flexing of her white-socked toes. "Because now I know, that Burger Girl will be sorry she crossed me!"

"Oh, Mrs Newlove," said CSO Karen, switching over now, and casually resting the tops of the toes of her right foot upon the heel of her right, clog-like shoe, showing me the full length of her in-need-of-a-wash yellow ankle-socked sole. "You can certainly be assured of that!"

CSO Linda, also switching over, now, and absentmindedly showing me the entire yellow cotton ankled-socked sole of her left foot; the creases and folds of the thin, damp-looking, now mustard-yellow, fabric, almost black-edged from her mingled foot sweat and workaday grime, said succinctly, but meaningfully, "That's right!"

CSO Karen went on, "To be honest, Mrs Newlove, at first, I felt a bit sorry for Tina Marshall. It was a very brave thing she did, coming alone into the Sock Room to confront you. But, through her activities since then, she has forfeited any sympathy that I might have had for her."

CSO Linda elucidated. "Reports have reached us, via Ms Harmman, that on Tuesday, and then again on Thursday, Tina Marshall was among unruly mobs protesting in the streets with placards and banners. They were decrying Prime Minister Caroline Flynt, and demanding the Authoritarian Female Party's immediate removal from government." 

CSO Karen added, "Tina's Burger Heaven counter-assistant work colleague and friend, Janice Middleton, another dissident, accompanied her. They are now under surveillance. A very close eye is being kept, on both of them."

What, the? I thought, dismayed. Tina hadn't told me any of this! 

"Well, the little ... ungrateful bitch!" said the outraged Gina Stainham. "After all the AFP have done for her!"

"Yes!" agreed Cheryl Chubb hotly. "What more, can she possibly want?" 

"It beats me!" said another of the reclining Sock Room attending females, vehemently. "She and her other dissident friend must be out of their minds. We've never had it so good, since the AFP won the General Election, and Caroline Flynt and her Cabinet began introducing their female-friendly laws. We've been living in a Utopia! At last, it is us, who have the whip hand. Us females!"

"Ah," said CSO Linda. "But Tina Marshall doesn't like things the way they are now. Tina's not happy with the AFP's new societal rebalancing measures. Tina's not happy, with the introductions of all of our new female-friendly projects and institutions. She wants to go back to the way things were before - back to male-female equality. She doesn't think that we females should all be living on Easy Street: not having to work for a living anymore, if we don't want to, and having all of our new lifestyle benefits, privileges and easements, to the direct detriment of our menfolk. Above all, she wants these Sock Rooms closed down immediately, and permanently."

Norma Newlove said, "What's wrong with the girl? Is she mad? Burger Girl needs bringing back to her senses!" Pointing and jabbing an angry, accusatory finger at me, Norma said, "It's all because she's gone soft on him - Community servant David double-oh-seven!"

"Well," said CSO Karen, "Tina had better come back to her senses soon. Ms Harmman has warned her and her friend Janice twice now that they are both heading for trouble. Ms Harmman says, if Tina Marshall and Janice Middleton carry on the way they are, she'll be left with no option but to enrol both of them into one of the AFP's rehabilitation programmes, at Greystone Prison."

"Greystone Prison: isn't that a male prison; that awful place, down near Brighton?" asked another of the reclining sock-changing females, her apparent schadenfreude, expressively manifested in the scrunching and wiggling and flexing of her white-socked toes. "Where the Governor and all of the prison officers are female - and most of them, man-hating bitches? And they are known as the Jailhouse Blues?"

CSO Karen said, solemnly, "Yes ... that's the place."

* * *

Saturday, 1:45 pm.

I was shocked, at the size of the crowd. 

Shocked, and horrified.

High Street, was packed. Thronged, with the excitedly expectant multitudes of Canford townfolk. 

Even worse - much worse - was that the media were here. 

And they were here in strength: not just the local newspaper reporters and TV journalists, but radio and TV journalists from outside London, and even from regions further afield, too.

Suddenly, among the gathered crowd there was a frisson of excitement, a thrilled hubbub of anticipation. 

Standing on tiptoe, over the heads of the crowd, I could see Tina - the heaven, of Burger Heaven - her wrists, handcuffed in front of her, being escorted down High Street towards the five sets of stocks by CSOs Karen and Linda. Accompanying them, was the Community Service Liaison Officer and local AFP official, Ms Harriet Harmman.

Leading the small party, Ms Harriet Harmman's charismatic presence was like an aura. 

Everyone in the gathered crowd, seemed to sense it; seemed to feel it. It would not be overstating it, or in any way flattering her, to say that Ms Harmman was enthralling. Or perhaps 'charming' would be a better word.

This natural ability, to so effortlessly enthral: to command attention, respect - even to awe - was a common AFP characteristic. 

This inherent, enthralling (or charming) commonality, was not only shared by Prime Minister Caroline Flynt and her Cabinet Ministers but also by many of the lower echelon, local Authoritarian Female Party representatives - such as Ms Harriet Harmman: the AFP MP for Canford, south London.

As I had experienced for myself, two weeks ago, when CSOs Karen and Linda had picked me up at home in their AFP van and escorted me to the Community Service Liaison Centre to be assigned my duties as a community servant to earn my Unemployment Benefit - Ms Harriet Harmman exuded an air of natural authority. 

While issuing my community servant's uniform, Ms Harmman had emanated an authoritative vibe more effective and subduing than any spoken words could have engendered. An unignorable vibe, warning me to be on my very best behaviour.

She was a daunting, very intimidating woman, of whom one's instinctive sense of self-preservation immediately kicked in. Cautioning gravely, against crossing her, or in any way giving her displeasure, and ramming home the message that the less one saw of Ms Harmman, or was otherwise brought to her attention, much the better off, one would ultimately be. 

And upon seeing the tall and lightly built Ms Harriet Harmman again now, her light-brown hair styled in the same AFP-modified concave bob as worn by the CSOs, all of those unsettling, disturbing feelings washed over me and through me anew, as those foreboding sensations and direly warning imperatives urgently reasserted themselves in the very core of me.

The closer the approaching small party of four got to the bank of stocks - to those instruments of barbarism; those anachronistic, Olde Worlde devices of cruelty and humiliation - the more the crowd quietened. 

Parting before Ms Harmman's sedate approach, as if the forcefield of her charismatic presence was gently nudging them aside, the crowd's growing tension was palpable.

Standing beside the stocks, I saw, was my neighbour from hell Norma Newlove. She was accompanied (surprise, surprise) by her Sock Room cronies Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb.

What an absolute, unmitigated misery those three 'Sock Room Girls' had made of my life, these past two weeks. 

Of all of the past fortnight's Sock Room attending, sock-changing females, it was these three, who by far were the major contributors to making my life hell.

Especially Norma Newlove. Who, I could only imagine, because of some past imagined or perceived slight, or other, unforgivable insult, was always on the alert and ever on the lookout for new opportunities to punish me.

But me? I thought the reason for our mutual hostility was as simple as it was prosaic: Norma Newlove and I were the flip-side of what is sometimes romantically alluded to as a 'chemical-attraction'. 

My being assigned my community servant duties in the town's Sock Room was like a dream come true for Norma. 

It meant so much, to her, she'd told me, that it was like receiving all of her lifetime's birthday and Christmas gifts at once - in one huge, unimaginably fantastic, undreamed-of, present. 

And now, in her refusal to give clemency to Tina, and insisting and demanding that Tina suffers the pain and humiliation of the publicly administered Standard Six, Norma knew that, by proxy, she would, effectively, be inflicting cruel punishment on me, too.

Norma, in her unspeakable eagerness to see these punishment proceedings under way, was hopping from foot to foot, such was her gleeful anticipation. 

So too, from the looks on their faces, were Gina and Cheryl. They were enjoying themselves almost as much as Norma.

A moment or two later the silence became complete as, her mere presence commanding not just the respect but the undivided attention of the gathered Canford citizens, the local Authoritarian Female Party representative prepared herself to speak.

Ms Harriet Harmman's formal, modulated voice, though not loud, still carrying easily to the furthest reaches of the now rapt crowd, intoned, "Citizens of Canford. It is my unpleasant duty, and with great regret, that I bring before you today not a male offender, but a female transgressor: Miss Tina Marshall. Her crime: Grievous Aggravated Assault.

"It was upon female citizen Mrs Norma Newlove, pursuing her lawful activities in the town's Sock Room, whom Miss Tina Marshall so grievously assaulted.

"In being made aware by CSOs Karen and Linda of certain mitigating factors, and considering Miss Tina Marshall's status as a first-offender with a previously unblemished character record, I was inclined towards leniency.

"But her victim, Mrs Norma Newlove, has appealed against my considered lenient adjudication of a formal warning. She has demanded, and is adamant, that her assailant must be awarded the maximum penalty under the law. And, that it is administered, to the full extent of the law."

Yes - she would! I thought, feelingly.

Ms Harriet Harmman now formally addressed Norma Newlove. 

"Mrs Newlove. Is it still your wish, that these punishment proceedings are carried out? That your assailant, Miss Tina Marshall, receives the Standard Six public chastisement caning? Even now, at this late stage, you can give clemency. If you have had a change of heart, Mrs Newlove, you only have to say the word, and I shall call an immediate halt to these punishment proceedings. Just say the word, Mrs Newlove, and Miss Tina Marshall's bared bottom will not receive the Standard Six."

Puffed up with righteous indignation, Norma Newlove responded, huffily, "Stop the punishment proceedings, Ms Harmman? Give Tina Marshall clemency? After what she did to me? That is the last thing I want to do! Have I had a change of heart? No! Not a chance! You didn't see what she did to my hair! I want to see the little minx get what's coming to her. I want to see her bare bottom caned - for what she did to me! I only wish I could do it myself!"

Ms Harriet Harmman said, in disappointed resignation, "Very well, Mrs Newlove. Miss Tina Marshall's Standard Six sentence stands."

Turning to address the now, even more, rapt and expectant crowd, the local Authoritarian Female Party official, announced, "That being the state of affairs, it is now my unfortunate and most regrettable duty, to preside over these most unpalatable proceedings. And to see and ensure, that said Standard Six judicial proceedings are duly carried out, both in the spirit and to the letter of the law."

Further notes of regret and disinclination clearly evident in her voice, Ms Harriet Harmman duly instructed, "CSOs Karen and Linda. Unhandcuff the offender, Miss Tina Marshall. Instal her - head, and arms - into the centre set of stocks. Upon my expressed instruction, bare her bottom. She will receive, publicly, upon my expressed instructions, the Standard Six."

"Ma'am!" replied CSOs Karen and Linda, who with zealous enthusiasm proceeded to do their superior's, albeit reluctant, bidding.

But CSOs Karen and Linda, I knew, weren't inclined towards leniency. Nor were they reluctant. And not in the least, were they troubled by feelings of regret, or disinclination. 

Tina, in protesting publicly and vociferously against Prime Minister Caroline Flynt and her Authoritarian Female Party government's so-called 'female-friendly' rule - demanding the all-female Party's immediate removal from office, no less - had forfeited any such scintilla of sympathy, that AFP-employed CSOs Karen and Linda may previously have had for her. They would have no unpleasant pangs of remorse.

For all of CSOs Karen and Linda's smug boasting and gloating over being paid for a full day at triple-time pay, for what would probably amount to less than half an hour's work, I knew for an absolute fact that the very generous monetary incentives were to them just a welcome bonus.

CSOs Karen and Linda would have given up their free time gladly, and volunteered with willing enthusiasm and for no monetary gain at all, to administer the Standard Six, bare-bottom caning, to the 'ungrateful', self-confessed anti-AFP, Tina.

Tina's head and both of her arms were now inserted and secured in the centre set stocks.

My heart was being torn apart, at the very sight. It was unbearable. 

The girl I loved - brutally installed, by of all people, my two Sock Room supervisors CSOs Karen and Linda, into Canford High Street's centre set of stocks!

Ms Harriet Harmman said, "CSOs Karen and Linda. Prepare to perform the Standard Six."

"Ma'am!" said CSOs Karen and Linda.

"CSOs Karen and Linda. Upon my expressed instructions, you will both duly administer your canes, to offender Miss Tina Marshall's bared bottom."

"Ma'am!" said CSOs Karen and Linda.

"CSOs Karen and Linda. Disrobe the offender, Miss Tina Marshall: bare her bottom."

"Ma'am!" said CSOs Karen and Linda.

I couldn't stand this! 

I could not, and would not, let this happen. 

Because I could, and would, stop it.

"No - wait!" I shouted.

An excited commotion came over the attending citizens of Canford. Almost frantically, they looked about, trying to ascertain both the exact location and the source of the urgently shouted appeal.

As I approached Ms Harriet Harmman, not wanting to hinder my way, members of the crowd parted before me in their eagerness to witness whatever unexpected events were apparently about to unfold.

Ms Harmman said, "So ... Community servant David double-oh-seven. What do you have to say?" 

But I think she knew ... No: I knew, she knew. It was in her smile.

I was well prepared; I knew what I must now say. I'd been to the town library, and I'd looked up the relevant section of official, formal jargon. And then, so that I wouldn't mess up, I'd learned it by heart.

"Ms Harmman," I said respectfully, and formally. "I humbly beg your indulgence, to formally claim my lawful constitutional right, as a male citizen, to assume upon myself, the judicial sentence awarded to a female citizen: Miss Tina Marshall."

Perhaps only I, had noticed, that upon hearing my pleading voiced, cap-in-hands words, Ms Harriet Harmman visibly brightened; her smile, widening, just ever so slightly. As though I had duly confirmed her assumption. And as though thinking, that she would not, now, after all, have to preside over such unfortunate and unpleasant, female-punishment proceedings. History would still be made today, in Canford - but not, thankfully, as scheduled.

"No! No, David!" cried Tina, absolutely appalled, at my sudden intervention.

"Be quiet, you!" admonished CSO Karen.

The local Authoritarian Female Party representative said, "Are you quite sure, Community servant David double-oh-seven?"

"Yes, Ms Harmman," I said respectfully.

"You are fully aware, then, of exactly what this will entail? Since you are apparently au fait with the relevant protocol, can I infer from that that you are also fully conversant, with what you are asking my permission to undertake, in offender Miss Tina Marshall's behalf?"

"Yes, Ms Harmman. I am fully aware."

"That you will assume Miss Tina Marshall's Standard Six chastisement caning, at triple-rate: eighteen, strokes of the cane?"

"Yes, Ms Harmman."

"Administered publicly, to your bared bottom? In the stocks?"

"Yes, Ms Harmman."

"No! No, David! Don't! You mustn't!" yelled Tina, hysterical with anguish, at my out-of-the-blue heroics.

"You have been told to shut up!" CSO Linda shouted at Tina. "I won't tell you again!"

Ms Harmman then went on, "And, that the offender's victim, if she so wishes, is allowed to administer all, or some of the eighteen cane strokes, herself? In this case: Mrs Norma Newlove?"

"Yes, Ms Harmman," I said respectfully. "Ye-yes. I ... I understand."

Norma couldn't believe it - this was too good to be true.

"Yes!" my neighbour from hell Norma Newlove yelled gleefully. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" 

"No, David!" cried Tina, distraught. Distraught, at the notion of me handing myself over to my nemesis Norma Newlove, in her stead. "Don't do it, David! Don't! You mustn't do it, David! You mustn't!"

"Miss Tina Marshall! You have been told twice by my CSOs to remain silent!" said Ms Harmman sternly. "One more word out of you, and I shall award you a mandatory Standard Six - for contempt! And then all of Community servant David double-oh-seven's suffering in your behalf will have been for nothing!"

Ms Harriet Harmman instructed, "CSOs Karen and Linda. Release offender Miss Tina Marshall from the stocks. On my authority, her Standard Six chastisement caning is duly rescinded."

"Ma'am!" said CSOs Karen and Linda, sounding disappointed. But the law, was the law.

Upon her release from the stocks, Tina looked at me - and I will never forget the look on her face. 




Community Service Ch. 07



Such caring!

All at once, Tina looked furious with me, grateful to me, admiring of me - and loving.

Ms Harmman now instructed, crisply, "CSOs Karen and Linda. Now install Community servant David double-oh-seven into the centre stocks. Bare his bottom: pull down his community servant's shorts, to duly receive eighteen strokes of the cane."

"Ma'am!" said CSOs Karen and Linda.

As CSOs Karen and Linda secured first my head, and then my arms into the centre set of stocks, and then unceremoniously pulled down my community servant's white, elasticated waist shorts, the eager excitement of the gathered crowd was tangible. I could almost feel the spark, crackle and fizz of electricity in the air, such was the charged atmosphere. 

The local and regional radio and TV journos, too, were affected. All a jabber, they were making sure that they were still broadcasting this historic event: that their microphones were turned on, and that their TV cameras were rolling.

The local Authoritarian Female Party official now turned her attention to, and formally addressed, my neighbour from hell Norma Newlove.

"Mrs Norma Newlove. Is it your wish, as the constitution of the law so provides, to personally administer all, or some, of the eighteen-stroke caning punishment that Community servant David double-oh-seven has petitioned to assume upon himself, in your assailant Miss Tina Marshall's stead?"

"Yes, Ms Harmman!" replied the ecstatic, gleeful Norma. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" 

Norma still couldn't believe it - this was beyond her wildest dreams.

It was time to celebrate! 

Norma, after all, hadn't received her lifetime's worth of birthday gifts and Christmas presents in advance - because I was the gift that kept on giving.

Standing in front of me with her Sock Room cronies Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb, jubilantly and tauntingly Norma sashayed her bottom at me, in an unseemly display of unbridled triumphalism. 

"Yes! Yes! Yes! I most certainly do, Ms Harmman!" exulted Norma, still doing her victory dance. 

Mrs Newlove was triumphant. Ecstatic. She was over the moon; dancing in the street - she was just all hop, skippity boo.

Ms Harmman said, "Very well, Mrs Newlove. And how, then, do you wish to proceed?"

"Ms Harmman. Of the eighteen cane strokes, I would first like my two friends, Gina and Cheryl, to administer to Community servant David double-oh-seven's bared bottom, between them, a Standard-Six style caning."

Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb, right in front of me, clasped hands and did a joyful little jig of their own - Norma hadn't forgotten her loyal friends!

"As you wish, Mrs Newlove," said the Authoritarian Female Party's representative for Canford town. "That is quite in order. And, the remaining twelve cane strokes?"

"Ms Harmman," said Norma Newlove, with unspeakable relish. "The remaining twelve cane strokes, I shall administer personally. A sort of double, Standard Six."

"Very well, Mrs Newlove. Consider your chosen caning punishment format, thus arranged. CSOs Karen and Linda will facilitate you and Mrs Gina Stainham and Mrs Cheryl Chubb with the use of their canes."

During her formal exchange with Norma Newlove, I'd noticed that Ms Harmman, who was so accustomed to sitting comfortably behind her Community Service Liaison Office desk, appeared to be getting a bit footsore, from all of this standing around ... Or was she? 

Switching from foot to foot, Canford's Authoritarian Female Party representative would gratefully slip her rather long and slender, dark-nylon stockinged foot from her well-worn two-inch heeled, black leather office shoes. And when Ms Harmman pressed her toes down inside the back of the shoe's heel, thereby causing her shoe to stand on end, I was close enough to discern the profusion of scratches, scuffs and scars on the leather sole of her office pump.

The already all of a jabber, excitable voices of the live-at-the-scene local radio and TV journalists, and some further afield regional radio and TV commentators, too, were growing increasingly excited and melodramatic in their commentaries as they reported the very latest from Canford to their listeners and viewers. 

The assembled media scrum knew they were all onto a sure-fire winner with this one. 

Although what would have been the historic first public caning of a female under AFP rule had been narrowly averted, still, they were now onto something almost just as good ... And history was still being made - by me.

In these new Femocratic times, since Caroline Flynt and her Authoritarian Female Party had won the last General Election on their female-friendly mandate and assumed the mantle of government, the permitted and indeed encouraged TV coverage of the public chastisement of offenders made for very popular TV news programme sign-off pieces: 'And, finally ...'

And this, 'And, finally ...' sign-off piece would be especially viewer-engaging, with its 'love-angle' aspect.

A black-garbed man with black, curly hair suddenly stood in front of me, the lens of his shoulder-mounted camera pointing right at my face. 

Hell! I thought, as the full, terrible reality of what I was doing came slamming home to me. What was Mum going to think? What was Dad going to say? 

But I wouldn't have changed a thing.

And then appeared a blonde and blue-eyed female TV journalist, whose very attractive, very familiar peaches-and-cream complexioned face on my TV screen I instantly recognised: she was the delightful and delectable Kathy Newton.

Standing right in front of me, she was even more stunningly beautiful in the flesh. 

Although mostly she presented the news from the TV studio, Kathy was a frequent outside-broadcaster of South London news events and issues, and of other, regional and national stories too.

Only last week, at home (my parents' house), with all of the Smith family gathered together under the same roof to enjoy one of Mum's exceedingly tasty spaghetti Bolognese dinners, I'd enjoyed watching Kathy Newton interviewing the Authoritarian Female Party's Home Secretary, Theresa Maynard. 

But now, I listened with growing, mortified horror, as the lovely Kathy Newton spoke excitedly and melodramatically to the TV camera lens ... about me.

"Ladies and gentlemen SLTV viewers ... history is in the making, in Canford."

"Please, Miss Newton," said Ms Harmman politely. Politely; but there was an edge to her voice.

"There has been a reprieve, in the most remarkable and incredibly dramatic turn of events ... In an eleventh-hour interruption of female offender Miss Tina Marshall's Standard Six caning punishment proceedings, Miss Marshall's boyfriend, Community servant David double-oh-seven, has made an emotional last-minute appeal to the presiding local AFP representative, Ms Harriet Harmman, to allow him to assume upon himself the judicial sentence of a female."

Ms Harriet Harmman then said, irritably, "Please stand aside, Miss Newton."

But Kathy Newton did not stand aside. 

She was an investigative and breaking news journalist working for a TV channel who were notorious for pushing the envelope. 

The channel's investigative, chasing up and chasing down reporters were of a breed of hardened, cynical, pushy, no-pushover journos. Their flagship, evening-news programme, went on air at 7 o'clock.

Filling in SLTV's viewers on the latest, unfolding events from Canford, the bubbly, neck-length, wavy-blonde-haired TV studio presenter/outside-broadcast reporter went on - unabashed, unperturbed, unrestrained, and unapologetic.

"You just could not, make it up!" marvelled Kathy Newton, excitedly and melodramatically, and beaming her sensationalist 'Wait-till-you-hear-this!' smile. 

"Unlikely hero-of-the-hour, Community servant David double-oh-seven, in so dramatically rescuing in such a brave and selfless act, the love of his life - Burger Heaven Team-Leader counter assistant, Miss Tina Marshall - from a Standard Six, public caning punishment proceeding, has in fact done so, to his own, great detriment. 

"For in doing so, Community servant David double-oh-seven - who is none other than Canford town's Sock Room community servant - is actually volunteering to sacrifice what remains of his honour, his pride, and his self-esteem, by offering himself, in his girlfriend's stead, to the mercy of - according to our reliable sources - the very woman who is the bane of his life: Mrs Norma Newlove, a Sock Room frequenting, mid-twenties, unmarried mother of four."

Losing patience, Ms Harriet Harmman adjured, "Miss Newton! Please!"

"Community servant David double-oh-seven," Kathy Newton went on regardless, seemingly immune to Ms Harmman's unignorable 'best-behaviour' vibe, "is an eighteen-year-old, recent school-leaver. 

"An unemployed Benefits claimant, he has been assigned by local Authoritarian Female Party representative, Ms Harriet Harmman, to Canford town's Sock Room, to earn his weekly welfare handouts by hand-washing and laundering to a high standard the females of Canford's dirty socks. 

"And who will now face, publicly, in the stocks, in Canford town's High Street, eighteen strokes of the cane to his bared bottom. Twelve of the-"

"Miss Newton!" said Ms Harriet Harmman sharply.

"Twelve of the eighteen cane strokes, Mrs Norma Newlove has elected to administer, herself. After, that is, her two selected co-caners: her Sock Room friends Mrs Gina Stainham and Mrs Cheryl Chubb, have first administered between them, the first six cane strokes. 

"It is Mrs Newlove's lawful constitutional prerogative, under the AFP's new female-friendly-" 

"Miss Newton!" snapped Ms Harriet Harmman angrily. She'd now had more than enough of Kathy Newton's envelope-pushing ways.

"Ms Harmman," said Kathy Newton curtly, now recognising the very obvious fact. 

And at last, the gorgeous intrepid SLTV studio journalist/roving reporter Kathy Newton removed herself and her attendant cameraman from in front of the centre stocks.

Ms Harriet Harmman now said: "Mrs Gina Stainham and Mrs Cheryl Chubb. Position yourselves, behind the centre set of stocks. Prepare to administer three strokes of the cane each, to Community servant David double-oh-seven's bared bottom. Ladies ... At your leisure."

CSOs Karen and Linda now duly handed over their AFP-issue whippy bamboo canes to Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb.

With malicious glee, Gina and Cheryl, milking the moment to the full - milking their history-making, radio-and-TV-covered, fifteen-minutes-of-fame - stepped up to me, and in a faux friendly manner they patted my cheeks with their fingers.

And so it began: If not the most painful, then certainly the most traumatic, and the most humiliating day of my life to date.

Listening, to them! What a torment!

Listening, to Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb's whoops of malicious glee, upon inflicting (at their "leisure") upon my bared bottom, each of their allocated three strokes of the cane: Gina Stainham thrashed my left, bared buttock, while Cheryl Chubb, whipped my fully exposed right, butt cheek.

Norma Newlove whooped along, with her cane-wielding Sock Room cronies. As did most of the spectating females in the gathered crowd.

The agonising pain! The unspeakable humiliation! 

And, all of it, reported not just on local, but also on some of the further afield, regional and even national radio and TV channels.

How could I ever look Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb in the eye in the Sock Room again? After this!

But much worse, infinitely worse, I knew, was yet to come ...

CSO Karen then facilitated my neighbour from hell Norma Newlove with the use of her AFP-issue flexible bamboo cane. 

Smiling, CSO Karen said, "I'd like it back in one piece, please, Mrs Newlove."

Not smiling, Norma Newlove replied, "Oh, I can't promise that, CSO Karen!"

Ms Harriet Harmman now said: "Mrs Norma Newlove. Position yourself behind the centre set of stocks. Prepare to administer twelve strokes of the cane, to Community servant David double-oh-seven's bared bottom. Mrs Newlove ..."

On her way to position herself behind my bared bottom, Norma walked right up to me. With her hand, she uptilted my chin, so that she could look right into my eyes. 

Norma didn't say anything. Not a word. 

But she didn't need to: The look, on Norma's face, said everything. And the expression in her eyes, said more than words can articulate.

Ms Harriet Harmman prompted, "Mrs Newlove ... At your leisure."

And so it continued: If not the most agonising, then certainly the most anguishing, and the most devastating day of my life to date.

And all of it, reported live, on a staggering array of local, regional, national, and even international radio and TV channels ... including SLTV.

"You must be hurting terribly already, Community servant David double-oh-seven, aren't you?" said the blonde, blue-eyed, envelope-pushing journo Kathy Newton, her attendant TV cameraman, taking his zoom-in close-ups, at Kathy's direction.

"And you've still got Mrs Newlove to come! She's going to let you have it, isn't she, Community servant David? Why has Mrs Newlove got it in for you, David? Whatever have you done to her? Would you like to tell SLTV viewers, why she's-"

"Miss Newton! Please!" admonished Ms Harriet Harmman. "I must insist!"

As Norma's Sock Room cronies Gina and Cheryl were both taking maximum advantage and making optimum use of their three-cane-stroke allocation upon my fully exposed buttocks, it was with reluctant admiration, being the subject of her compelling reportage, that I'd listened to the consummate professional so familiar on my TV screen, Kathy Newton.

Clinically detached from the sights and sounds of my suffering, and totally absorbed, in the perfectionist's execution of purpose, Kathy Newton gave expert direction to capture, for the delectation of SLTV viewers, every agonised expression that the cane-wielding Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb had caused to pass across my contorted, pain-wracked face.

I then felt my neighbour from hell Norma Newlove playing CSO Karen's AFP-issue cane over the six raised welts on my bared bottom: the six, painful injuries, resultant of Norma's Sock Room cronies Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb's "Standard-Six style" equal partnership.

I understood perfectly, what Norma Newlove was silently telling me: Norma was maliciously letting me know, that she was going to target each of those self-same, already sore and tender spots ... deliberately. And repeatedly.

Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb had laid the foundations. And now, Norma Newlove was going to build me a 'twelve-storey' tower of pain. 

Perhaps Norma Newlove wasn't possessed of the clinical polish and finesse, of which CSOs such as my two young Sock Room supervisors, through a combination of regular training and frequent practice, were so accomplished. 

But, where Norma may have been deficient in expertise and elegance, I was quite confident that she would more than compensate for any such handicaps and shortcomings, with her hateful, spiteful, and cruel administering, of CSO Karen's AFP-issue flexible bamboo cane. 

Norma was going to-

Whoo! - Crack!

White-hot, searing pain detonated across the centre of my right, bared buttock. 

The pain was mind-numbing. But, gritting my teeth, I stifled a strangled yelp.

Norma Newlove had, I knew, accurately overlaid one of her Sock Room crony Gina Stainham's own, three hits.

With my head secured in the stocks, my movements were restrained and restricted. But when my head automatically snapped up, upon feeling the first of Norma Newlove's twelve allotted cane strokes to my bared bottom, it was to see, once again, Ms Harmman slipping one of her rather long and narrow, dark-nylon stockinged feet from its well-worn, two-inch heeled, black leather office pump. And, pressing her toes down inside the shoe's heel, she was causing her shoe to stand on end. 

Ms Harmman's seemingly deliberate switching from foot to foot, displaying to me the scuffed, scratched and scarred leather soles of her office pumps, while she duly presided over my humiliating, public bare-bottom caning, felt like an added insult.

And Kathy Newton wasn't helping matters, either. 

When SLTV's news programme went on-air at 7 pm, the channel's viewers were going to love the bubbly and vivacious Kathy's excited and melodramatic, live-at-the-scene running commentary.

How could Kathy Newton be so unfeeling? I wondered. How could she be so detached and clinical, in the face of my terrible suffering? How could she be so unsympathetic, of my unspeakable public humiliation? 

How could Kathy, a TV journalist who I'd always so liked, and admired, and respected - even had a bit of a crush for, if I'm honest - be so-

Whoo! - Crack!

Unbelievable pain flashed across the centre of my left, bared buttock.

The pain was mind-shattering. But, biting my tongue, I smothered an agonised cry.

Norma Newlove had, I knew, precisely overlaid one of her Sock Room crony Cheryl Chubb's own, three hits.

Automatically, my head snapped up again. And Ms Harmman, choosing this moment to switch over to her other foot, seemingly deliberately showed to me the scratched, scuffed and scarred leather sole of her other, well-worn black leather office pump.

And Kathy Newton, with her clever turns of phrase, and her witty and amusing asides - and her chuckling, laughing, and giggling - was only exacerbating my misery. 

It was so very different, when someone else, was the butt of Kathy's cruel jokes. When someone else, was the pansy, for her acerbic wit. When someone else, was her hapless fall-guy.

Even Ms Harmman was smiling.

After this, I didn't think I would view Kathy Newton in the same light again. 

I would make Emily Makepeace, my new TV news darling. 

Emily, already a long-time firm favourite - and a bit of a heartthrob, too, if I'm honest - certainly wasn't all beauty and no brains. She was one tough cookie of an interviewer, and she was certainly-

Whoo! - Crack!

Unimaginable, intolerable pain sliced across the undermost part of my right, bared buttock, just where it meets the top of the thigh.

This time, the pain was overwhelming, and I couldn't prevent the escape of an agonised moan of anguish.

My neighbour from hell Norma Newlove had, I knew, exactly overlaid another of her Sock Room crony Gina Stainham's own, three hits.

"He felt that one, Norma!" yelled Cheryl Chubb gleefully.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Gina Stainham. "Now you've got the little squirt right where you want him, Norma!"

Norma Newlove, as I was now finding out, was a lot handier with the cane than I'd imagined she might be.

But then, where Norma might lack the proficiency and finesse of my two young, well-trained and well-practiced Sock Room supervisors, CSOs Karen and Linda, Norma did, more than compensate for any such handicaps and shortcomings, with her hateful, spiteful, and cruel administering, of CSO Karen's AFP-issue flexible bamboo cane.

And it was only three down, with another nine of Norma's "double, Standard Six" bare-bottom cane-stroke allocation, still to be duly administered ... 

*

Finally, it was over.

The public caning punishment awarded to a female, that, as a male citizen subject to Prime Minister Caroline Flynt's Authoritarian Female Party's female-friendly constitutional laws, I was allowed to volunteer to assume upon myself - was finally over.

Immediately upon my neighbour from hell Norma Newlove savagely administering the last of her twelve cane-stroke allocation to my bared bottom, perfectly overlaying for a second time another of her Sock Room crony Cheryl Chubb's own, three hits, Tina - the heaven, of Burger Heaven - ran straight up to me. And, crying herself, she showered my pain-wracked, tear-streaked, stock-secured face with her relieved, grateful, proud, and loving kisses.