Community Service Ch 08

Week 4: Monday. 08:10.

"Once you've served our coffee - whether it is our pre-work coffee or another coffee break - don't wait to be told what to do next, double-oh-seven!" snapped Community Service Officer Linda.

"On your knees! Now - Sock Boy!" ordered Community Service Officer Karen. "We shouldn't have to tell you, by now: Footrest!"

"Yes, it should be automatic, by now - second nature," said CSO Linda. "And you know what to do then, double-oh-seven. Without being told!"

I felt totally disinclined, this morning, at the start of what promised to be another misery-laden week, to respond with the expected obedient and respectful - reverential - 'Yes, Miss Karen' and 'Yes, Miss Linda'.

Saying nothing, I got to my knees upon the Sock Room's office carpet, in obedient and compliant but reluctant and resentful observance of the pre-work routine that CSOs Karen and Linda had established.

With its mean cushioned underlay and rough, utilitarian-weave bristly scratchy synthetic fibres, wearing my community servant issue white shorts the carpet's austere pile didn't feel too great on my bare kneecaps.

But that was the least, of my first-thing-in-the-morning discomforts.

On their castor-wheeled office chairs, cups of coffee in hands my two young Sock Room supervisors scooted out from behind their desks. They rolled up to me, raised their legs and comfortably rested their feet, ankles crossed, upon my obediently proffered shoulders.

CSO Karen, in front of me and slightly to my left, used my left shoulder, while CSO Linda, in front of me and slightly to my right, took the same advantage of my right shoulder.

Happily, for my two young supervisors, there was no pesky need for them to adjust the accustomed height of their computer chair seats. With their outstretched legs slightly elevated, on my knees the height of my 'footrest' shoulders was just right for them: CSOs Karen and Linda weren't the slightest bit inconvenienced, in putting their coffee-time feet up.

They'd both kicked off, under their desks, their uniform clog-like, black leather, thick rubber soled backless shoes.

Shoes, that, in an additional, personal service duty, my two young Sock Room supervisors had made me responsible for keeping in spick and span order.

Every day without fail, somehow I had to find the time to come into their office and clean and polish their AFP-issue footwear for them as they sat at their desks: pry free any small stones and suchlike stuck between the treads, and polish and buff up the black leather to a gleaming shine.

And I knew what to expect, from CSOs Karen and Linda, if they weren't happy with the daily maintenance cleaning and polishing efforts of their conscripted shoeshine boy ...

I looked straight ahead, right between my two young Sock Room supervisors' blue-blazered shoulders.

Though they were both looking right at me, I tried not to look back, at the forbidding, ever reproving expressions on CSOs Karen and Linda's very attractive but stern-looking faces.

Their uniform AFP-modified, militaristic-looking concave bob hairstyle had a decidedly unsettling effect. The somehow disturbing hairdo served to harden the softness of their feminine lines, and brought to the fore and into sharp relief, their underlying, authoritative and intimidating personas.

CSO Karen said, "Sock Boy seems a bit sluggish this morning, Lindz. He didn't answer us respectfully. And he didn't respond to our orders satisfactorily and with due promptness. But more than that: I don't like his sullen, resentful, irreverent attitude, Lindz, that he seems to think he can just stroll in here, all pouty faced, and present to us."

"Anyone would think he doesn't want to be here," replied CSO Linda. "With us."

"I don't expect to see a smile on his face - and I don't want to: if I see a smile on his face, that tells me I'm not doing my job properly. But, whenever he is attending us, Lindz, I don't want to see a resentful pout - evidence, that he has not even reconciled, let alone embraced himself, to committing himself wholeheartedly to our personal service."

"The sooner he reconciles himself to keeping us sweet, Karen, the better off he'll be," said CSO Linda. "Because he'll get no reward for good behaviour - only severe punishment, for bad."

"I want to see Sock Boy straining at the leash, Lindz, yearning to do our bidding - yearning to run and fetch our sticks. I want to see him chomping at the bit, eager to obey us - eager to jump through our hoops ... Maybe we should wake his ideas up."

Crossing her uniform, yellow cotton ankle-socked feet on 'her' shoulder, CSO Linda said, "You're right, Karen. His heart isn't in it. Obviously, we've been too soft with him; cutting him way too much slack. In his position, double-oh-seven should be wanting to bend over backwards to please us. Doesn't he realise, yet, that keeping us sweet should be his Number One priority? Doesn't he realise, yet, that we can influence every facet of his standard of living? That we can exert control, over his very quality of life? Doesn't he appreciate, our actual power?"

"I don't think so, Lindz. It doesn't seem to have sunk in yet, does it?" said CSO Karen. "Judging by his actions."

"How about we administer the Standard Six?" suggested CSO Linda. "If he's not eager to please us? If he doesn't want to keep us sweet? That should wake him up a bit. Help him to remember his priorities. And if that fails, well, there's always his brother John ..."

"You always said, Lindz, that Sock Boy has a lippy, rebellious streak that we'd always have to keep on top of, and occasionally need to stamp down on ... But, yes: There's always the trusty fallback of his brother John, isn't there, Lindz? Just one phone call is all it would take, to set the wheels in motion. Just one phone call, from Ms Harmman, and ..."

"No - you mean, set the rotor blades in motion, Karen!" quipped CSO Linda.

Okay, okay, I thought resignedly ... I get the message.

"Miss Karen, Miss Linda ..." I said politely and respectfully - reverentially.

I was worried sick, that one of these days they might finally deliver on their oft-repeated threat to have my brother helicoptered off the Omega 3 oil rig in the North Sea, where he worked as a chef, and instead be made to work for subsistence pay as a lowly community servant.

That was the heinous, constant threat that my two Sock Room supervisors held over me, whenever they deemed my obedience, compliance, or reverence towards them to be showing the least signs of flagging.

At first, CSOs Karen and Linda had threatened to cane me into submission.

But their cunning coercive idea to put my brother John's future fortunes into my hands had been their callous clincher - their malevolent masterstroke - in forcibly ensuring, that I stayed strictly in line and utterly subservient to them both ... In forcibly guaranteeing, that I continued to jump through their hoops.

Because I knew it was no idle threat: CSOs Karen and Linda had had me listen in on their walkie-talkie radio conversation with their superior. And I had heard Ms Harmman, laughing delightedly at the malevolent machinations ("precocious genius") of my two young Sock Room supervisors, as with her congratulations and commendations the local Authoritarian Female Party representative and MP for Canford had approved and signed-off on their sinister surety.

It was the way things were, now, in these new, Femocratic times. Under the female-friendly, all-female rule of Prime Minister Caroline Flynt and her Authoritarian Female Party government.

"Miss Karen, Miss Linda. I do, know my priorities. I do, want to obey you, and ... to please you."

Oh, how it galled me, to say it!

How I hated, to hear the submissive sound of my voice: My servile, supplications; my obsequious overtures; my pathetic pleading; my excruciating entreaties ... The soul-destroying sound, of my downtrodden, absolute, unconditional capitulation - to those two!

"So why, then - Sock Boy! - is that pouty, sullen, resentful look still on your face?" demanded CSO Karen. "I've just said: I don't want to see it! Whenever you attend us, you will look pleased to do so!"

Maybe I should start thinking about Number One, after all, I thought ... While John worked on the Omega 3 oil rig as a chef, pulling in good money, I worked in the Sock Room as a sock washer, pulling inside out, the females of Canford's dirty socks.

But I knew it was no use: Even if I told them to go ahead and ruin John's life - influence horribly every facet of his existence, and exert diabolical control over his very quality of life - CSOs Karen and Linda would still do whatever it took to bend me to their will.

For as long as I remained a community servant under CSOs Karen and Linda's supervision, I would remain under their complete control, be ruled by their AFP-vested power ... And be vulnerable, to the whims and wiles of their creative cruelties.

And worse: If I was being all pouty and sullen and resentful and failing to keep them sweet, CSOs Karen and Linda would be sure to exert their kiboshing influences, with any such prospective employer as I might otherwise have successfully prevailed upon to offer me gainful employment ... And a route out of the Sock Room.

But then again ... for all I knew, CSOs Karen and Linda might already be doing exactly that: derailing my job applications. I had no solid, evidential reason to suspect that they were using their 'powers of office' to scupper my attempts at finding paid employment - but it wouldn't surprise me!

With the toepads of her uppermost ankle-socked foot, CSO Linda pushed my face leftwards until I was looking directly at the inches away sole of CSO Karen's, uppermost foot.

I felt the familiar, unpleasant damp warmth, as with the ball of her foot and the pads of her toes CSO Linda maintained a gentle but insistent pressure, keeping me facing left.

The underside of the toe area of CSO Karen's uniform thin yellow cotton ankle-socked sole was level with my nose. The sock's bright yellow fabric there was damp and turned a darker, English-mustardy, colour; as it was at the heel, and at the ball of her foot.

My face was so close, to CSO Karen's foot, that I was unable to avoid picking up her under-the-toes foot scent. It was an unpleasant odour that, by now, I knew well. Just as I did CSO Linda's, equally disagreeable foot scent.

CSO Linda took another sip of the pre-work coffee I'd made for her. "Show us - double-oh-seven," she said, returning her now half-empty coffee cup to its saucer. "CSO Karen, first."

"Yes. Show me - Sock Boy!" said CSO Karen. "Get that pouty, sullen, resentful look off your face - and show me!"

I just got on with it, as I knew that I must ...

Burying my nostrils under and amid the toes of CSO Karen's shoulder-perched, uppermost thin yellow cotton ankle-socked foot, I showed her - I showed them both.

I showed, CSOs Karen and Linda, that if I wasn't exactly yearning to do their bidding: that if I wasn't straining at the leash, wanting to run and fetch their sticks; that if I wasn't chomping at the bit, eager to jump through their hoops; that if I wasn't bending over backwards, trying to keep them sweet - that if I wasn't reconciled, let alone embraced, in wholehearted commitment to their Number One priority personal service ... then, I was, at least, still indubitably in their power.

With my lips firmly sealed as dictated, I inhaled deeply, and discernibly - loudly.

And when CSO Karen recrossed her ankles, compliantly I pushed my nose under the yellow ankle-socked toes of her other foot, where again it was warmly and welcomingly received in a nostril-sealing embrace. And I sniffed again, deeply and loudly.

Because this, was what CSOs Karen and Linda demanded of me: A daily, pre-work demonstration of my continuing obedience, compliance, and reverence.

And so it began: Week 4.

The start of my fourth week, working as a community servant in the Sock Room of Canford town, south London.

Where I had been assigned, by the local Authoritarian Female Party representative and MP for Canford, Ms Harriet Harmman, to earn my weekly Unemployment Benefits payments ... by hand-washing, to a high and exacting standard, the females of Canford's dirty socks.

* * *

Monday. 08:30.

"Good morning - Community servant David double-oh-seven!" greeted my across-the-road neighbour from hell Norma Newlove, hectoring and goading me the moment I showed my face in the lower-level of the Sock Room.

Finally dispensing with my pre-work coffee footrest services, to my usual great relief CSOs Karen and Linda had told me to wash up the coffee things, and then dismissed me from their office.

But, as always, it was a case of 'Out of the frying pan, and into the fire'.

Looking down on me (both figuratively and literally), Mrs Newlove was leaning back comfortably, upon her accustomed black leather recliner: the nearest, of the six that were to my right of the six wooden steps that connected the upper-level to the lower-level of the Sock Room.

To my left of the six wooden steps, on that side of the 'Spectators' Gallery' overlook, were situated another six of the Sock Room's well-padded, black leather recliners ... a total of twelve.

Originally the Sock Room had been furnished with six recliners: three, on either side of the six wooden steps.

Last week, there had been ten recliners. But with six recliners now, on both sides of the six wooden steps, and with only the narrowest of gaps separating each of the recliners, at least now there was simply no room left to instal any more of the blasted 'Lazy-Girl' loungers.

In the next two recliners along to Norma, behind the two-barred safety rail of the 'Spectators' Gallery' overlook, lounged Norma's Sock Room cronies Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb.

At the moment Norma, Gina and Cheryl were the only sock-changing females attending the Sock Room.

But they were enough. More, than enough. They were the bane of my life, these early-bird, long-stay, provisions-bringing, Sock Room 'regulars'.

The Sock Room was their social club. Their den. Their playground. And I, was their captive entertainment ... a rich, endless source of malicious merriment.

"Community servant David - catch!" shouted Cheryl Chubb, tossing down to me her balled-up pair of dirty white socks. "There you go - sock washer! Get those clean! I've been wearing those socks since Friday morning. Oh - and, before you hand-wash them clean - don't forget to pull them inside out!"

"Thank you, Mrs Chubb," I said respectfully. "I ... I won't forget."

"Ha ha ha!" cackled Cheryl Chubb - at once again hearing in my voice, my pathetic unfailing reverence, and at seeing in my face, my brought-to-heel submission and subservience, and at recognising in my body language, my kowtowing obedience and compliance - no matter how much, she and her ill-meaning ilk Sock Room associates might try to provoke and goad me to a punishable indiscretion.

It was audible, in the tone, the pitch, the timbre - the 'quality' - of the ghastly Cheryl Chubb's gleeful, gratified giggling, that the measure of my descent into brought-to-heel obedience and under-the-thumb servility could be discerned and comprehended - could be ... quantified.

By now, at the start of my fourth week as Sock Room community servant, the predominantly overbearing, domineering, subjugating sock-changing females of Canford, had, sad to say, stamped out of me almost all of the initial resistance I'd shown. And Cheryl Chubb - one of the very worse, of the 'stamper-outers' - knew it.

In fact, by now it was common knowledge: Every girl, every woman, who came into the Sock Room to change her dirty socks, knew it.

Even the town's non-sock-wearing girls and women, who occasionally popped into the Sock Room just for the fun of witnessing my humiliations, knew it.

And now, upon watching me reach up full stretch for her discarded pair of casually tossed balled-up dirty socks, and pull off a quite excellent one-handed catch like an outfielder cricketer preventing six runs as he spectacularly caught out the disbelieving batsman at the boundary, Cheryl Chubb cackled some more. "This is brilliant!" enthused Cheryl. "Weekends are boring. But now it's Monday morning - and normal service is resumed!"

"Come up here, double-oh-seven," Gina Stainham told me.

Obediently I complied with Mrs Stainham's order - in these new, Femocratic times, females didn't 'ask' community servant's, to do their bidding: everything was an order. It was the new normal.

"Turn around," ordered Gina, upon my ascending the six wooden steps and reporting to her recliner. And upon my duly obeying her and promptly turning around, Gina grabbed hold of the elasticated waist of my community servant's uniform white shorts and yanked them down to my knees.

"Oh yes ... We gave you a damn good caning - Norma, Cheryl and me. Didn't we, double-oh-seven?" said Gina Stainham with great satisfaction, as she took a good long look at the by now fading evidence of her and Norma's and Cheryl's cruel handiwork (as per regulations, I wasn't wearing any underpants). "We really, let you have it. Didn't we?" said Gina, her tone wickedly prideful, and full of fond, wistful reminiscence.

Gina Stainham was referring to what had happened, the Saturday before last.

When I had assumed upon myself, at triple-rate, the Standard Six caning punishment, that my girlfriend Tina - the heaven, of Burger Heaven - had been awarded, by Ms Harriet Harmman.

Eighteen strokes of the cane. Administered in public, in the High Street's stocks.

Not, only before the gathered good folks of Canford.

But also, before a daunting array of the UK's big channel big-name news teams; representations of all of the local, and many of the regional, channels; and even an assemblage of journos from foreign press and TV media, too.

Not least, among them, had been my (former!) evening TV news darling: the blonde, bubbly and beautiful Kathy Newton.

"Yes, Mrs Stainham," I said respectfully, in reply to her, hurtful, questions, about the many hurts that she and Norma Newlove and Cheryl Chubb had taken such gleeful pleasure in inflicting upon me. "You did."

Norma Newlove said, "Now, come here, Community servant David double-oh-seven, and take off my dirty socks, for me ... personally."

By now, the Sock Room was beginning to fill up.

Filling up, with first lesson free period girls, who were popping in en route to one of the town's several High Schools, or to one of the two Girls' Schools, or to Canford College. And with women, who were on their way to work, or perhaps on their way to the town centre shops.

And filling up, with women, who, such as Norma Newlove and her Sock Room cronies Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb, were officially designated 'Ladies of Leisure', and in receipt of the AFP government's very generous, weekly Ladies' Living Allowance disbursements.

The Sock Room attending girls and women of Canford were coming in to avail themselves of a clean pair of socks. And to deposit their dirty socks, into one of the colour-coded wheelie bins, or into the industrial-sized open-topped hopper, that was signed: 'White Socks Only!'.

Except, all twenty of the colour-coded wheelie bins, and even the open-topped hopper too, were all overflowing now, with unprepossessing cascades of the females of Canford's dirty socks.

Sock-wearing, among the girls and women of Canford, had never been so popular. Particularly it was the long white, sport and leisure socks that were always in highest demand.

And I had no reason to believe, that my home town's females' high-majority and high usage uptake of Canford's Sock Room facilities, wasn't replicated in Sock Rooms all over the UK, by the sock-changing female populations of every other town and city.