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'.