Community Service

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.