This story is written by David, please send comments and appreciation to voondave@yahoo.co.uk

Community Service Ch. 12

Ch. 12: David Smith's sudden and surprising summons.


It was the start of another new week in the Sock Room.

I'd had no reason to suppose today was going to be any different from any other day. Just another lousy load of same old, same old.

The only thing that changed was the size of my gruesome workload: the daunting and demoralising backlog of the females of Canford's dirty socks. Which, continuously being added to, grew bigger and more insurmountable with every passing day - even though for more than three months now I'd been working relentlessly in the Sock Room for seven days a week.

I suppose it was inevitable that eventually I would get jaded, that my strength and stamina would become depleted.

And that's not to mention the mental strain ...

It was a struggle to stay motivated.

And I could feel myself becoming more and more run down; could sense that both my physical energies and mental fortitude were close to being spent and extinguished. That I was on my last reserves.

In fact, I believed that I was now beginning to succumb to the same debilitating and demoralising condition that was reportedly afflicting Sock Room community servants nationwide, termed by the doctors who treated the new widespread phenomenon as 'Community Servant Burnout Syndrome'.

In about equal measure I was being defeated and ground down by the casual cruelties of the sock-changing, Sock Room attending females, and by the stresses and strains of the soul-crushing futility and utter pointlessness of not only trying to cope with the unmanageable overrun but also actually endeavouring to reduce it.

Extra holding capacity was again urgently needed; the number of previously added wheelie bin containers had proved woefully insufficient to cope with the unremittingly escalating demands upon my sock-washing remit.

Some further additional colour-coded wheelie bin receptacles had been brought in, that brought the total up to twenty, and took up all of the remaining holding room.

But it was to little avail.

Such was the relentlessness of the sock-changing females' dirty sock deposits that these other new wheelie bins too had soon become full to overflowing from the incessant build-up; their hinged lids too left hanging down in an admission of overwhelming defeat to the irreducible cascades of dirty socks.

And that's not to mention the also spilling over industrial-sized hopper, marked: 'White Socks Only!'

The turning inside out, hand-washing, rinsing, hanging out on clotheslines to dry, and steam-ironing of hundreds and hundreds of pairs of mostly white but also countless pairs of Girls' Highschool black, navy blue, and other types of coloured and multicoloured dirty socks was too much for one person.

Of course, it didn't help my productivity output that the sock-changing, Sock Room attending females of Canford were constantly interrupting my work.

Ordering me to drop whatever I might be doing, and demanding my immediate attendance at the foot of their recliners so as to avail themselves of some of their constrained and compelled Sock Room community servant's other, extra-laundry, services.

*


I was up past my elbows in the temperature-controlled three-feet-deep stainless steel hot-and-soapy-water sink, hand-washing yet another gruesome batch of the females of Canford's dirty white socks when, behind me, in the upper level of the Sock Room, I heard the familiar warbling sound of the wall-mounted black bakelite phone.

I risked pausing a moment, just to straighten my grievously protesting back ... ah, what a relief.

I'd been bent over that damned hellish steamy sink now for two hours solid. Bent on rubbing and agitating all of the yellow-tinged foot sweat and ground-in dirt and snagging flaky dead skin from countless pairs of turned inside out dirty white socks.

Still, I daren't overindulge in this rare opportune moment of most welcome respite.

The ringing telephone would distract, but only momentarily, the attentive vigil of the reclining but ever watchful and performance monitoring Sock Room attending females. Who, taking it upon themselves to act as enforcers, at the first sign of slacking would harangue and rebuke me and, sometimes, even trouble themselves to alight from their recliners and come down the six wooden steps to yell unladylike reproachful words right in my face.

When the Sock Room phone rang it meant one of two things, and neither augered well: One of my two young supervisors CSOs Karen and Linda were calling from their office, or someone was calling from an outside line.

Mrs Norma Newlove - my neighbour from hell, one of the Sock Room regulars, and who had long considered herself Acting Superintendent in the absence of my two supervisors - got up from her padded black leather recliner behind the two-barred safety rail of the 'Spectators' Gallery' overlook to answer the phone.

Norma's voluptuous body moved with a fluid, eye-arresting grace. And it was with reluctant admiration that I watched her sedate progress as, padding barefoot the nine or ten strides to the ringing phone, her naturally olive-skinned soles and the pads of her customarily cherry-red painted toes picked up bits and pieces of dust and new sock lint from the dark-grey linoleum Sock Room floor.

Within days of its well advertised and much-trumpeted opening, responding to popular demand the Community Service Liaison Officer and MP for Canford, Harriet Harmman, had called in South London Telecoms engineers to make the Sock Room's phone contactable from external lines.

One of the brainchild Work Motivation Scheme projects of Prime Minister Caroline Flynt, lauded by her Authoritarian Female Party Cabinet colleagues as ingeniously conceived and radically innovative, the town centre situated establishment was far from being just merely an AFP inspired 'functional', decidedly drab community-servant-operated 'female-friendly' facility.

In common with Sock Rooms all over the UK, Canford Sock Room's success had far exceeded even the insightful hopes and expectations of Caroline Flynt. Turning out to be not only a highly popular girls-only meeting place and a convenient and most congenial rendezvous point for ladies going about town, but an increasingly used, well-attended, and much-valued attraction in itself.

Caroline Flynt's Sock Room initiative had in fact created much more than a Getting-the-career-claimants- to-work, sock-changing institution.

To Canford's Sock Room 'regulars', of whom by now I estimated their 'membership' to be into triple figures, the Sock Room was their free membership Social Club.

After six months of Sock Room service, it was not unusual for frequent-user sock-changing females, grown accustomed by now to a little occasional or even regular foot pampering - particularly of the sort they were unable to get from their less amenable or indulgent or malleable husbands or boyfriends - to ring in on the off-chance. Asking if any of the Sock Room's comfortable padded black leather recliners were free at present, or perhaps were soon to be vacated.

I especially remember one time, well into the afternoon of yet another consecutive diabolically demanding day of slaving over the temperature-controlled hot-and-soapy water sink and working my fingers to the bone, I heard Gina Stainham reply in response to such a caller: "Yes - come on in! He's doing nothing at the moment."

'Doing nothing'!

Such spur-of-the-moment calls were quite run-of-the-mill, made by hopeful half-an-hour-to-spare Sock Room attendees, desirous of treating themselves to a little special attention from the Sock Room community servant.

Or, in the cases of the more mean-minded and sour-spirited - and sometimes, malicious and outright cruel - sock-changing females of Canford, to come and give me a hard time, humiliating me at their dirty, stinky feet just for the sheer, passing-the-time hell of it.

But as the self-appointed 'Chief-Overseer-In-Absentia' Norma Newlove officiously went to pick up the phone, I knew by the distinctive warbling ring tone that the call was internal.

The call was coming from one of the two desk phones (reachable on different numbers) in my two supervisors' lower-level office, situated on the other side of my ironing station.

As she customarily did on these phone answering occasions, initially Norma stood with her right ankle crossed over her left. And as she was at the moment barefoot, the sole of her right foot arched and wrinkled a little as now with bended knee, in her relaxed habitual phone answering attitude she rested the tops of her toes on the dirty, lint-specked linoleum floor.

During phone calls lasting any length of time, I'd noticed that every twenty seconds or so Norma would switch her standing foot, resting one ankle over the other in her usual characteristic manner.

Sometimes, depending on what was being said to her on the other end of the line, responsively Norma would alter her stance and absentmindedly scrunch and wiggle her bare or white-socked toes and in doing so, give some outward 'readable' expression to her private thoughts and emotions as might be occasioned by the caller.

It was surprising how much 'language' I could intuit, or decipher, by the close observance of such absentminded responsive actions by Norma - and, for that matter, also by any other such similarly distracted Sock Room attending phone call respondents.

But this time, the call was over in just a few seconds.

And 'Acting Superintendent' Norma Newlove - Norma's tacitly self-awarded supervisory appointment, that my two supervisors also tacitly acknowledged and approved of and so did absolutely nothing to dissuade or discourage the Sock Room doyenne's assumption of authority in their absence - replaced the phone receiver and glared down at me.

"Community servant David double-oh-seven!" yelled Norma authoritatively. "Report to CSOs Karen and Linda's office - now!"

There's no need to shout - like some parade-ground regimental sergeant-major at some cadet with his beret tilted at the wrong angle! I thought - but didn't dare say.

It was well instilled into me by now that, whatever the provocation, by neither look, word, or deed must I in the slightest disrespect Norma - or, come to that, any of the sock-changing, Sock Room attending females.

They might well insist upon my being administered the Standard Six: the summarily sanctioned six-stroke, bare bottom caning punishment, often prescribed as a first resort, on the spot chastisement.

Which upon request, after positioning me facing the wall and restraining my wrists to the two-barred safety rail at the foot of an occupied recliner, my supervisors would hand over their cane to the offended vengeful female.

Who would then pull my white uniform shorts down to my ankles, and with the delighted chosen reclinant's socked or bare soles right in my face and to the ensuing encouraging cheers and gleeful shouts of her onlooking sock-changing sisters, exult in performing the corrective measure herself.

For some reason, the Sock Room brought out the bitch in them, and I didn't need to make matters any worse - invariably it was in my best interests to just compliantly submit to whatever might be coming.

Norma hadn't yet returned to her recliner.

She was glaring down at me, waiting for an answer.

And not just an answer: respectful acknowledgement of her harshly issued order.

Norma Newlove was the bane of my life - her, and her original Sock Room cronies Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb.

Right from Day One, matching Norma's high-90s% Sock Room attendance, if not her seemingly total obsessive vindictiveness, Gina and Cheryl have been Norma's moral support stalwart companions: malicious and malevolently imaginative contributors to and cruel and merciless instigators and inflictors of my daily Sock Room miseries and misadventures.

Though by now as just mentioned, quite a few other cruel-minded collaborators and perfidious participants had joined the wicked witches' coven, considerably swelling the Sock Room 'regular' ranks.

I looked along the long row of well-padded black leather recliners, situated on the upper level behind the two-barred safety rail in the 'Spectators' Gallery' overlook - the overlook, that afforded an elevated and unimpeded view of the asinine assemblage of ludicrous apparatuses in my one-man-laundry domain.

As was the case most of the time, the recliners were all occupied.

Occupied, by a sock-changing, Sock Room attending female of Canford, the soles of her dirty white-socked or bare feet, facing out toward my workstation as though as an ever present taunting and tormenting reminder of my Sock Room community servant's sock-washing/foot-pampering preposterous purpose.

Only one or two of them, I didn't know or recognise.

But the rest of the townswomen were familiar ... some of them, very familiar.

Gina Stainham: The soles of her white sports-socked feet were the dirtiest and filthiest of all. The areas around the toes, the balls of the feet, and the heels, were almost black.

Barely any white was left to be seen. Even the midsection lesser impacting arches were an almost equally impenetrable charcoal grey: from Gina's predilection for going about shoeless; and from her pleasure-deriving penchant for making my already difficult, disgusting dreadful work as unnecessarily diabolical and disheartening as possible.

Cheryl Chubb: The chubby-toed soles of her fleshy bare feet, spotlessly clean ... after earlier I had routinely tongue-bathed her 'Monday-morning feet': Her 'traditionally' days' left unwashed dirty, stinky Monday-morning feet.

The terrible 'tradition', harking back to the now seemingly years ago days when the Sock Room was only open Monday to Friday. But that Cheryl had nevertheless kept up, despite the introduction more than three months ago of seven-day opening.

As a constant all-day reminder to me of exactly what I had 'consented' to do for her - and what sometimes she would 'request' me to repeat, just for the sheer power-trip pleasure of it - Cheryl would often leave until home-time, selecting from the shelves a clean pair of white sports socks.

There were others, vying for my reluctant notice and respectful acknowledgement of their personage and presence.

Not the least, expectant of my immediate recognition and prompt silent servile salutations, were the three 'regular' college girls: Anita, Trudi and Naomi.

Anita - who greatly enjoyed pressing her bare feet into my face; rubbing her reddish-pink soles in, so that her vaguely vinegary foot scent would linger as a long-lasting reminder.

Trudi - who liked to make me sniff her feet. First, her white-socked feet. And then her bare feet; particularly under and in between her toes, where the ripe blue-cheesy odour was strongest.

Naomi - who loved to have her soles licked and her toes sucked. First, she'd have me lick upwards; watching me intently as I licked from heel to toes. She would then turn over on her recliner, lying on her front with her head resting on her forearms and her feet depending just beyond the end, her toes pointing downward. And, standing against the bare brick wall below the two-barred safety rail away I'd go again. Licking upwards - this time from toes to heel and working my tongue as hard as I could - listening to her sighs of bliss that I didn't know whether or not she wanted me to hear but suspected she did.

But, by the relative standards of Canford's sock-changing, Sock Room attending females, Anita, Trudi and Naomi were pussy cats.

None of them had yet caned me, either personally or by proxy.

If initially they'd been disappointed or dissatisfied with my first fumbling efforts and maladroit attentions and further displeased with an unenthusiastic and lacklustre application that also left a lot to be desired, apparently they were all pleased and satisfied with my responsive attitude adjustment and subsequent much-improved performances at their direction.

I suppose the three 'regular' college students were what my girlfriend Tina might term as 'passive abusive'.

Anita, Trudi and Naomi behaved no differently from by far the greater majority of females these days, who, untroubled by conscience, took casual advantage: scrupled to unremorsefully avail themselves, of the many various AFP-sponsored male-served female-friendly facilities on offer.

Put simply: They saw no harm in it.

The three of them, unusually all here together today, their free periods apparently coinciding, seemed to attend the Sock Room whenever they weren't attending their college classes.

Making eye contact with any of the Sock Room attendees was just asking for trouble.

But none of the reclining females liked to be ignored; didn't like that I was trying to blank out the unpleasant and disconcerting fact of their watchful and overbearing presence. Didn't like, that I was hoping to avoid their demands.

But what they did like, was that glumly and despondently I routinely studied the immutable reality of the dirty soles of their white-socked feet, in assessing the level of sock-washing difficulty they were - whether gleefully, amusedly, or simply because principally that was what I was there for - inflicting upon me.

Apparently, that didn't count as slacking.

But I looked up to Norma Newlove, my across the road neighbour from hell, now standing and staring down at me expectantly for an answer from the top of the six wooden steps.

The six wooden steps, dividing the long row of closely spaced black leather recliners, and leading down to my miserable workplace environment.

Where, eight hours a day (ten at weekends), seven days a week, to earn my Unemployment Benefits I scrupulously turned inside out and meticulously hand-washed and steam-ironed to exacting inspection-passing standards the participant sock-changing females of Canford's dirty socks.

An unsettling vision of barely bottled-up belligerence, Norma Newlove's eyes glinted ominously as impatiently she stood with hands on hips, staring daggers at me from the top of the six wooden steps: another of Norma's non-verbal 'languages' that I could intuitively interpret.

Norma was still waiting for an answer.

And not just any old answer: my bowed, cowed, submissively acquiescent response, conveying clear, unambiguous acknowledgement of her unquestioned and unchallengeable authority and indicating obedient prompt conformity to her sharply spoken command.

And I knew that if she didn't get it pronto, she wouldn't tell me again: The soles of her descending bare feet thudding against those six wooden steps, she would come haring down them in two seconds flat to severely 'chastise' me.

Norma inched forward.

From my lower vantage point, I could see that, overhanging the top step, the pads of Norma's toes were now very grubby.

Every evening, my last duty before going home was to sweep and mop the Sock Room's dark-grey linoleum floor.

But now by midmorning, from the street-dirty footwear of the almost constant comings and goings of sock-changing females, the floor was all dirtied up again.

In her tacitly appointed capacity of Acting Superintendent, of a manner and means of her own discretion and discernment, Norma was hair-trigger ready to administer summary 'correction' ... and she was still waiting for an answer.

Norma had been letting her lustrous black hair grow long.

Complimenting my neighbour from hell nemesis rather went against the grain. But I had to admit to myself that her now very long hair really suited her.

Richly dark and silky, and attractively black-blue highlighted from the harsh white glare of the Sock Room's chain-hung fluorescent light tubes, hanging straight, her crowning glory now reached all the way down to just above the elasticated waistband of her blue- with white leg-stripes tracksuit-bottoms, Norma's usual leisure wear.

Though it pained me to say it, even to myself, Norma was a sight for sore eyes.

An undeniably attractive eye-catching and head-turning young woman, Norma's curves were in all the right places, and she had dynamite legs.

With her olive-complexioned good looks, Norma-

Norma lifted her right foot, preparatory to descending the six wooden steps.

"Yes, Mrs Newlove. Right away," I said respectfully and acquiescently.

But I was too late; too late, now for any amount of bowed, cowed submissive respectfulness and unambiguous fawning acquiescence to be of slightest repair or commute ...

Norma was already on her way to 'remonstrate' with me.

And so I had to stand there, making no attempt whatsoever to avoid the full impact of the stinging and stunning roundhouse chastising slap that Norma, making the most of her downward rush impetus, administered with sufficient venomous irritated and agitated patience-exhausted power and perfection to knock me right off my feet.

Cue: A rushing hoard of sock-changing females, their thudding socked or bare feet sounding to me like the thunderous roaring of the stampeding hooves of a spooked herd of buffalo as hurriedly they descended the six wooden steps to come and kick and trample me while I was down.

*


So ... I wonder what those two want, I thought, tentatively feeling my sore and tender right cheek as I headed for Community Service Officers Karen and Linda's office.

I still hadn't forgiven them both, for, for their own selfish reasons, kiboshing all of my job applications by warning off prospective employers.

I remembered again, my absolute shocked disbelief and outrage when by pure accident I had made the profoundly demoralising discovery and stumbled upon the irrefutable printed proof of it while tidying their office while they were over the road at the deli.

And, what did CSOs Karen and Linda do, when confronted with the cast-iron evidence of their unspeakable machinations in the form of the dozens of letters they'd received from said warned off prospective employers reporting their compliance and my rejection? They'd hauled me before Ms Harmman and told her they'd caught me rummaging in their desks while entrusted alone in their office. For which I was then severely punished ...

Probably, my two supervisors were just summoning me from sheer bone idleness. Calling their whipped-pup dogsbody in to make them some coffee because they were too busy playing on their computers and couldn't be bothered to get up from their swivel chairs to make it themselves.

Or perhaps, to come and massage their feet; not because they wanted a foot massage, particularly, but because authoritatively summoning me to perform random and unpredictable spur of the moment foot massages for them was a good way of keeping me in my place and permanently on edge.

By now, routinely going on my bare knees before them on their scratchy office carpet every morning to perform their pre-work coffee break foot massage, I knew the sizes and the shapes and the contours of CSOs Karen and Linda's thin yellow cotton ankle-socked feet, better than I knew my face in the mirror.

But there was no point in idle speculation. Nothing to be gained, from rambling rumination upon the myriad of possible reasons for their summoning me to their imperial presence.

I'd find out soon enough.

Within a minute I was knocking politely on their office door.

"Come in, double-oh-seven!" called CSO Linda.

Upon entering the office I was surprised to see, sitting on the comfortable black leather two-seater settee that Ms Harmman had installed, two Securi-Fem officers - female prison transport personnel.

Their nametags, over the left breast pocket of their uniform white with maroon trim blouses, declared them to be Officers Lori and Affina.

Both of them, stunningly beautiful, with jet-black hair and flawless bronzed-gold toned skin, appeared to me to be of Indian extract.

Never before had I beheld such astoundingly attractive young women.

Their mid-thigh white shorts, and their leather, toe-posted strapless sandals and the somehow enigmatic-looking gold anklets they wore set off Securi-Fem officers Lori and Affina's eye-catching golden legs and shapely French-pedicured feet to breathtaking effect.

The sight of them did, literally take my breath away.

I couldn't put my finger on it ...

But there was something, profoundly moving, something inexplicably humbling, about being in Lori and Affina's Goddess-like presence.

It was all I could do, to resist the ... compulsion, that suddenly I found myself in the unshakable grip of, to go reverently down on my knees before them, and ...

This was crazy!

I told myself to get a grip.

My supervisors must have let them in through the back entrance, I thought, via the courtyard's back gate - because I'd certainly have noticed them coming down the six wooden steps from the upper level of the Sock Room if they had come in from the street entrance.

And they'd been here for a while, from the looks of things: the two thick white coffee cups on the rectangular smoked-glass coffee table in front of them were now empty and cold-looking.

But what were they doing here?

CSOs Karen and Linda had scooted out from behind their desks on their castor-wheeled office swivel chairs, so as to face their two prison system visitors in a less formal and more congenial manner.

CSOs Karen and Linda had finished their coffee too. And, both of them sitting with one leg crossed over the other, my two young blonde, concave bob hair-styled supervisors were doing that thing, they did. Where they would repeatedly allow their uniform issue black, thick rubber soled backless, clog-like shoe to dangle ever more precariously from the toes of their yellow cotton ankle-socked foot ... and then with that oft-practised shaking movement of their ankle, shuck the shoe back on and start over again.

I doubted they even realised they were doing it.

"What happened to your face, Sockboy?" inquired CSO Karen with an amused smile at clapping eyes on my blotchy reddened right cheek, that I now realised must be superimposed with Norma Newlove's handprint.

The post-slap kicking and trampling I'd taken by the sock-changing females' bare and socked feet had left me feeling sore and achy in places but otherwise unscathed - at least physically; mentally was another matter.

"I bet it was Mrs Newlove who did that," ventured CSO Linda, just in time preventing her black clog-like shoe from falling from the tips of her yellow ankle-socked toes and shuffle-shucking it fully back on again. "She doesn't half pack a wallop."

"Well, he must have stood and taken it, Lindz. Or Mrs Newlove would have been straight on the phone to us," CSO Karen said, crossing her leg and straightaway proceeding to dangle her other black clog-like shoe. "Mrs Newlove would have further chastised Sockboy herself, yes - but she would still have reported his indiscipline to us."

"Isn't it great, Kaz, having Mrs Newlove and her bitchy cronies to keep an eye on double-oh-seven for us?"

"Yeah, Lindz. Otherwise, we wouldn't have so much free time to spend on our office computers, playing games and keeping up with all of our friends on the social media sites."

"Or to go and sit in the deli across the road, Kaz, enjoying a leisurely coffee and a Danish, confident that we're leaving double-oh-seven in good hands."

"Or sit on our comfy couch, either with our games consoles or just to watch great films and stuff on our brilliant fifty-inch flat-screen TV that Ms Harmman had installed for us - she knows Sockboy is dull company!"

Trying to tune out CSOs Karen and Linda's baiting buffoonery, I looked out through the office windows at the flagstoned courtyard out back.

Doing my best to shut out their brain-dead banter, I stared at all of the socks, mostly white, pegged to the AFP red, green, blue and yellow coloured nylon clotheslines that I'd propped up for the socks to catch a drying breeze.

There was rain forecast for late afternoon, and I made a mental note to bring the socks back in before they got all wet through again - with my ever increasing dirty-sock workload, I couldn't afford time-consuming setbacks like that.

Meanwhile, I had so much to be getting on with.

"Um ... Miss Karen, Miss Linda ... was there something I can assist with?" I said, respectfully and politely. "Only, it's ten-fifteen, time for my morning coffee break, and-"

"Oh! By all means, double-oh-seven - don't let us stop you! Go and have your coffee break. And we'll tell Officers Lori and Affina, shall we, that you don't want them to drive you to Greystone Prison to visit that ungrateful seditious girlfriend of yours, Tina Marshall?"

I couldn't believe my ears.

I wrote to Tina every day.

Most of my ink was used, in telling her how much I missed her and how much I wanted her back - I was always careful not to let on about the worst of my Sock Room sufferings.

And I certainly hadn't told her that for the last three months or more I'd been working a seven-day week in the Sock Room - and that my ten-hour Saturday and Sunday shifts were unremunerated.

Tina would have had a fit.

And I phoned her once a week: the five-minute phone call, as allowed by Greystone Prison's stringent regulations.

But, face to face, I hadn't seen her in months.

"T-Tina, Miss Linda? I can visit, T-T-Tina?"

"Well, you've been working so hard, double-oh-seven, trying to reduce that massive backload of dirty socks, I asked Ms Harmman again for you if she couldn't possibly wangle a Visitor Pass."

"And if he believes that, Lindz, he'll believe anything!" hooted CSO Karen, almost causing her to lose control of her precariously dangling clog-like shoe.

The two Securi-Fem officers, Lori and Affina, laughed too. Even their mildly amused chuckling laughter at my expense was all tinkly and wonderfully melodic.

And, in a way, somehow ... lulling.

I thought about Tina all the time - her, and her best friend Janice Middleton, who was her burger bar co-worker and also her flatmate.

I desperately wanted to see them.

Despite both of their steadfast refutations and denials, I felt myself to be at least partly responsible for their unthinkable predicaments.

I remembered the afternoon when Tina, trying to protect me, had caused a cacophonous commotion in the Sock Room and in doing so made herself an enemy of Mrs Newlove, who's diabolical little game she had interrupted and thwarted.

Mrs Newlove, seconded by her Sock Room cronies Gina Stainham and Cheryl Chubb, had strenuously insisted on pressing charges of Grievous Assault against Tina. Resulting in Tina's being brought before the Community Service Liaison Officer, Ms Harriet Harmman, who's position as an AFP MP authorised her to adjudicate in such local matters.

From then on - although to be fair, Ms Harmman had done her best for them; had repeatedly tried to talk them around and get them to change their activist ways and abandon their anti-AFP leanings - things had rapidly gone downhill for the intransigent Tina and Janice.

In keeping with Greystone Prison's strict monthly-visiting regulation, I had applied for and had been issued with a Visitor Pass four times.

But each time, something had happened to cause Ms Harmman to tear me off another strip and revoke my precious Pass as a crushing punishment for "stepping out of line".

Ms Harmman seemed to very much enjoy and delight in watching my ensuing wretched begging and pleading performance, humbly beseeching her at any cost to rescind her decision to cancel my Visitor Pass. Before eventually tiring of my tearful tantrum, refusing my pitiful petition, and instructing her two subordinates and my two supervisors CSOs Karen and Linda to return me to my duties at the Sock Room forthwith.

Tina and Janice were due to have been released from Greystone Prison weeks ago, but they were still incarcerated in that hellhole.

Jailed for their moral standpoint, repeat-protesting against the iniquitous Authoritarian Female Party government's so-called female-friendly policies and initiatives, they had stood firm and unmoving on their principles and so had remained confined in detention beyond their provisional release date, pending further courses of rehabilitative correctional treatment and political doctrinal inculcation.

I was convinced that Tina and Janice's treatment in that notorious, all-female run institution was far worse than Tina was letting on.

Both in her letters, and during our precious weekly five-minute phone conversations that with the sudden automatic Time's-Up click of a dead phone line were always all too soon abruptly disconnected and over almost before they'd begun.

I was sure that Tina was trying to protect me - again.

Horrible, unspeakable things were happening to her and Janice within the walls and behind the bars of that execrable establishment that she wasn't telling me about - that she was protectively keeping from me.

Reading between the lines of her letters, I was sure of it.

I would do anything to get Tina and Janice out of Greystone Prison - anything.

Given the option, I would quite happily take their place.

After all, it wouldn't be the first time I had assumed a punishment awarded to Tina upon myself - as is a male citizen's right of appeal, under AFP legislation.

At least then I would be out of this damn Sock Room, and away from the sock-changing, Sock Room attending females of Canford.

But of course, the AFP government would not allow me to do it.

Tina and Janice, ardent decriers of Prime Minister Caroline Flynt's female-friendly eco-socio policies - and not least, her brainchild male-subjugative initiatives, schemes and projects - were anti-AFP to their cores and resolutely immovable in their stance.

They believed in male-female equality, and-

My unhappy reverie was ended by a triple-beep sound: a text message to a mobile phone.

Securi-Fem Officer Affina read the message and relayed the gist of it to my two supervisors.

"Our driver and co-driver colleagues, Jamelia and Samira, have just come back," Officer Affina said in her honeyed voice. "As I mentioned earlier, one of our van's back tyres was looking a bit underinflated, and so they'd gone off to find an airline, leaving Lori and me here to enjoy your offer of coffee. But now Jamelia and Samira are back, parked outside the back entrance as you suggested, CSO Karen, where its quiet. So, now we're ready to roll ... unless Community servant David double-oh-seven would rather have his coffee break first?"

"Um, no ... Miss Affina," I said respectfully.

It was impossible to be anything other than respectful; reverent - suppliant, even - to such an amazingly beautiful young woman with the aura of charismatic presence of Securi-Fem Officer Affina.

There was ... something about her.

Looking at her, I felt again that same, almost irresistible ... compulsion.

To reverently go down on my knees before her, and ... kiss her feet.

No matter that my two supervisors CSOs Karen and Linda were present.

What was wrong with me?

It was only at a sharp "Earth, to double-oh-seven!" from CSO Linda, who was trying to regain my attention, that I was able to drag my mesmerised eyes away from Securi-Fem officer Affina's golden anklet, which I then noticed was identical to her colleague Lori's.

I needed to pull myself together.

Again, I told myself to get a grip.

CSO Linda was saying, "Ms Harmman has informed us, double-oh-seven, that Governor Monroe has been in touch this morning."

CSO Karen said, "Governor Monroe says that despite some of her finest officers' best, determined efforts at effecting their rehabilitation, prisoners Tina Marshall and Janice Middleton are proving completely unresponsive and singularly unmalleable. Both of them, flatly and adamantly refusing to renounce their radical oppositionist anti-AFP convictions and to embrace and benefit from instead the Authoritarian Female Party government's female-friendly ideological values and the many Utopian quality of life enhancing opportunities attendant thereof."

CSO Linda clarified: "In other words: The unthankful unappreciative pair of out and out troublemakers won't learn which side their bread is buttered."

CSO Karen said, "Which is where you, come in, Sockboy."

CSO Linda supplied: "To help break your girlfriend Tina's stubborn, rebellious resistance and get her to play ball, Governor Monroe wants you, double-oh-seven, brought in. As a sort of bargaining chip. Governor Monroe believes that you will prove to be her weak link. Provide Tina with the right incentive - with the decisive persuasive factor - and finally, she will come to her senses: Hang a Sword of Damocles over your head, and Tina will do whatever is necessary to have the threat hovering over you removed."

CSO Karen further explained: "Governor Monroe thinks that she can use Tina's undying love for you, Sockboy - yes, for you! - to kill two birds with one stone: Break Tina; break the less strong-willed Janice."

"Tina and Janice can't be broken!" I yelled defiantly. "It won't matter what you hang over my head. You can hang over my head whatever you want - Tina and Janice will never play ball. Don't you see? Some things in this world are worth fighting for, and-"

CSOs Karen and Linda suddenly sprang from their castor-wheeled swivel chairs, and I did nothing to stop them from grabbing an ear each; still doing nothing to resist nor saying anything disrespectful or impolite when their fingers viciously twisted my oft-abused earlobes - my ears by now were like two cauliflower florets.

"Coffee break? I'll give you 'coffee break' - double-oh-seven!" snapped CSO Linda as she gave my right earlobe a painful, extra-vicious twist for added emphasis.

It was all I could do not to cry out - but I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of admitting they were hurting me.

"Some things in this world are 'worth fighting for'? Try fighting us - Sockboy!" invited CSO Karen, prompting me goadingly with a similar eye-watering twist of my left earlobe.

I knew how this went: They were hoping I'd be foolish enough to resist or at least complain.

I knew with certainty that if I did either, CSOs Karen and Linda would order me to place my palms down on one of their desks. Then they would pull my white uniform shorts down to my ankles and summarily administer with their AFP-issue whippy bamboo canes a Standard Six bare bottom caning in front of Securi-Fem officers Lori and Affina.

I very much did not want that to happen.

"Come on, you - into the van!" hissed CSO Linda as my two surly supervisors hustled me out through the office door. "You are going on a day trip to Brighton whether you want to or not. You are being chauffeured and escorted in elegant executive transport by amazingly beautiful Goddess-like ladies. You should be thankful, double-oh-seven!"

"Yes, Miss Linda. Thank you."

"Have you ever seen young women before with such sex-appeal who are as drop-dead gorgeous and possess such alluring magnetism as Securi-Fem officers Lori and Affina?"

"Only you and Miss Karen, Miss Linda."

"Oh, yeah. I know you worship the ground we walk on - double-oh-seven!"

"Don't worry, Sockboy," rejoined CSO Karen as now we all made our way through the flagstoned courtyard full of propped-up drying socks, as disappointed as her colleague Linda that I hadn't voiced a complaint at their provocative abusive treatment. "They'll have you back here in plenty of time to bring in all of these socks from the clotheslines before it rains later, and to sweep and mop the Sock Room floor before you go home."

"Yes, Miss Karen. Thank you," I said respectfully. "That puts my mind at rest," I added, under my breath.

CSOs Karen and Linda, not quite sure they'd heard right, shot me a menacing look.

"A pity you won't be able to visit Brighton seafront and bring Lindz and me a couple of sticks of Brighton rock," CSO Karen said sarcastically, having one last go at provoking me to an injudicious response. "A nice little present, Sockboy, for your caring, conscientious supervisors."

"Yes, Miss Karen. That's a pity. I'd certainly like to give you and Miss Linda a present."

CSOs Karen and Linda gave me another, bleaker, sinister, ominous look - but what the hell.

I could still hardly believe it.

Suddenly, out of the blue, CSOs Karen and Linda were telling me that, albeit for Governor Monroe's unethical and unsavoury ulterior "Sword of Damocles" motives, I was being allowed to visit Tina.

I wanted to shout my happiness.

I wanted to yell my delight.

But I tried to give nothing of my barely containable feelings away to CSOs Karen and Linda.

Securi-Fem officers Lori and Affina opened the rear doors of their prisoner transport van, and in my eagerness to be on my way to my sweetheart I was all cooperation and no hesitation as tersely though not sternly they directed me inside the big unlovely vehicle.

All compliant, when Officer Affina ordered me to position myself supine on the van's floor, alongside the two bench seats with my head towards the front.

Uncomplaining, when Securi-Fem officers Lori and Affina sat down on the bench seats, at opposite sides of my head, and promptly kicked off their toe-posted strapless leather sandals.

And neither did I demur when, with their bronzed-gold toned legs half-outstretched Securi-Fem officers Lori and Affina pushed the bottoms of their bare heels into the sides of my face, effectively filling my upwards gazing view with their tented cafe au lait coloured soles and toes.

Thereby, necessitating me to smell and inhale without cessation their mingling pungently fragrant though not unpleasant soles of the feet aromas.

As, after admonishing me to silence, and coaxing me to just simply let my mind drift and to unresistingly give myself up to and embrace the ensuing serenity of their pleasant-dream inducing soles-of-the-feet aromas, they too remained quiet as they sat and read their magazines all the way to Greystone Prison.

*


And, what dreams I had!

Such dreams!

I was so, so happy - so incredibly happy!

My darling Tina and I were together in bed, waking up again after yet another night of a little sleep and a lot of lovemaking.

Tina had the most fantastic, gorgeous tropical suntan - and I wasn't looking too bad myself!

We were in some far-flung exotic place on our fabulous, no-expense-spared beach resort honeymoon.

Happy and content to spend our days together on the magnificent secluded golden sandy beach.

Just lazily watching the shallow waves come lapping gently onto the sand, and enjoying the tall glasses of cold refreshing fruity drinks with colourful little umbrellas in them, that the five-star hotel's indulgent smiling friendly waiters were only too happy to bring out to 'the happy couple'.

Though now and again we'd have a rest from lazing about on our recliners or beach towels and swim; racing each other to the water's edge and laughingly splashing our way into the delightfully warm sea.

Tina was an accomplished, graceful swimmer - far better than me.

And, seeing her sun-bronzed body's seemingly effortless progress through the calm blue-green water, and watching the brilliantly shining tropical sun turn to sparkling diamonds the droplets of seawater thrown from her arms and her splashing sun-kissed feet, I was so happy, that-

"Hey, sleepy head ... We're here."

Securi-Fem officer Affina was nudging my cheek with the ball of her bare foot, bringing me back.

Bringing me, out of my wondrous dream, lying in a soft, comfortable bed, in the loving arms of Tina ...

And back, into my unwonderful reality, lying on the hard, uncomfortable floor of the big unlovely prisoner transport van.

*


At ten-thirty on a weekday morning, the Southbound traffic on the M23 was relatively light.

There had been no holdups en route, and so barely an hour after setting off from the Sock Room we'd arrived at the all-female run Greystone Prison, situated about three miles north of Brighton.

Securi-Fem officers Lori and Affina escorted me up to the entrance of the Security Checkpoint building, where, after speaking to me for a few minutes, they left me, telling me they would return for me at three p.m.

With a knowing look, Securi-Fem officer Affina had asked if I'd enjoyed my dream ...

Securi-Fem officer Affina had informed me that, upon their returning me to the Sock Room later, she and her three colleagues would be requiring me to administer to each of them before they went on their way a five-minute foot massage.

Reflexology, Indian-style, she'd told me.

A "special" kind, she said.

That individually she, Lori, Jamelia and Samira would teach me variations of. "Yes, Miss Affina. And thank you," I'd said respectfully.

Securi-Fem officer Affina had told me that, with the benefit of the guidance of her and her three colleagues' instruction, actually quite a lot could be accomplished in just five minutes.

And, waving away my claims of gross ineptitude and fears of inability to please and satisfy - assertions and worries, that, unaccountably had felt utterly sincere and entirely genuine - placating me in her lulling tones, she'd said not to worry.

She assured me that my albeit inexpert mini foot massage ministrations would nevertheless be "adequate", and "beneficial", and would send them away "walking on air" ... "replenished".

I learned that the Securi-Fem officers had already cleared all of this with my two supervisors. And that CSOs Karen and Linda had kindly offered the privacy of their office and the comfort of their leather two-seater settee to their four prison system visitors, so as to better facilitate and more agreeably environ their partaking of my much-looked-forward-to services upon our return.

Also out of the prisoner transport van, to stretch their legs for a few minutes were Lori and Affina's driver and co-driver colleagues Jamelia and Samira.

And I'd seen then at my first sight of them that Jamelia and Samira, breathtakingly beautiful with their jet-black hair and that same bronzed-gold toned skin, and who also wore the same ... eye-catching, gold anklets, were every bit as strikingly Indian beauty queen gorgeous as Lori and Affina.

They were equally possessed also, of such awe-instilling magnetic presence and ineffably alluring sex-appeal.

And, possessed of the same, I don't know ... Otherness.

I was very much in awe of them.

A little frightened, even, on some level.

And it wasn't just me.

I reminded myself that CSOs Karen and Linda, too, naturally and unselfconsciously, as though they were merely stating and pointing out the entirely obvious, had remarked in very similar vein upon Securi-Fem officers Lori and Affina's unmissable and highly noteworthy attributes and ... attractions.

To my mind, Jamelia, Samira, Lori and Affina were, I don't know ... Demigoddesses.

I'd stood there, watching them, as then all four Securi-Fem officers got into the bench-seated front cabin of their large van to leave for their next prisoner transfer assignment.

Securi-Fem officer Affina was getting into the van last and, glancing back, she saw that I was still standing there, staring at them ... staring at her.

For a moment, our eyes locked.

And I felt the strangest feeling. Felt some kind of ... connection.

Snatches of my incredible, amazing happiness-filled dream came flooding back.

Came flooding back, with such startling vividity and faithful clarity of detail and sense of occasion as left me weak at the knees and had my heart jumping around in my chest like a frog in a bucket ...

Tina and I, enjoying our delicious fresh fruit breakfasts in bed ... our days on the beach, sunbathing and swimming ... our sumptuous champagne dinners ... And then at night, getting into our amazingly comfortable Honeymoon Suite bed, and ...

In the grip of an unnerving, primal fear, rooted to the spot in stunned stupefaction I was still staring after their vehicle as Jamelia drove up to a turning circle and then headed back towards me at the posted 5 mph speed limit.

As the van neared, I could see that Securi-Fem officers Affina, Lori and Samira had all kicked off their toe-posted strapless leather sandals and had their bare feet propped up on the van's dashboard, their cafe au lait soles on full display.

I felt as though mesmerised.

I felt as though my eyes were ... drawn, to those shapely golden soles.

Irresistibly.

I felt, a ... compulsion.

To behold them.

To revere them.

To ... worship them.

I remembered of what absolute paramount importance it had felt to me as, in her, somehow ... lulling tones, Securi-Fem officer Affina had spoken to me - that, with utmost devout reverence I please and satisfy her and her three colleagues Lori, Jamelia and Samira, upon our return to the Sock Room later that afternoon.

When, humbly - in ineffable meekness - I knelt before each of them in turn, and worshipfully performed their individually taught five-minute foot massages.

And, in the ... compulsive, state of mind I was in, it hadn't fazed me in the least; hadn't seemed to matter a jot, the fact that I knew CSOs Karen and Linda would be present - and that, furthermore, they would not be mere onlookers.

No: I knew that my two supervisors would be observing my expertly guided reflexological performances with the greatest of interest and the closest scrutiny ... with the view of enabling them to receive from me themselves also, in future, the same exotic, matchlessly enjoyable and holistically beneficial foot attentions.

The same exotic, matchlessly enjoyable and holistically beneficial foot massages, that, as their ever-present and always available proficient provider, would doubtless soon prove to make me indispensable and even more frequently called upon by my two supervisors CSOs Karen and Linda for reasons of pure pleasure.

But that, to Securi-Fem officers Affina, Lori, Jamelia and Samira, these male-administered attentions, were something ... more.

Securi-Fem officer Affina had assured me that, as far as she and her three colleagues were concerned, though my foot-massaging ministrations might be cackhanded, inexpert, and wholly lacking in any semblance of finesse, that would not matter.

That, nevertheless, my sincere and genuine best efforts would nonetheless be "adequate", and "beneficial", and I would send her and her three colleagues away "walking on air".

That, they would all be ... "Replenished".

By now the returning van had almost reached me.

Numbly gazing through the slowly approaching prisoner transport van's windscreen, I saw Securi-Fem officer Affina, seated at the passenger-side window, swing her bare feet down from atop the dashboard and ask her driver colleague Jamelia to stop the van.

When the van drew alongside me and stopped, Securi-Fem officer Affina push-buttoned down the passenger-side window. "In you go, Community servant David double-oh-seven. You're expected."

I stared up into her face.

A face I knew I could never tire of looking at - of reverently, adoringly beholding.

Securi-Fem officer Affina was just so incredibly beautiful. Yet, she was ... more.

I so desperately wanted to ask her about my dream.

But instinctively I understood that to ask questions was not ... appropriate.

I remembered again, gazing up at her and Securi-Fem officer Lori's unaccountably attractive soles, tented over my face, and seeing the pads of their toes, touching ... connecting.

And remembered again, smelling and breathing in their pungently fragrant though not at all unpleasant soles-of-the-feet aromas, just before I fell asleep ... and had my dream.

"Yes, Miss Affina," I'd said unquestioningly and obediently.

To me, of all four of the gold anklet adorned Securi-Fem officers, Officer Affina was the most alluring, enchanting, captivating, and compelling.

*


My first sight of the grim grey edifice of Greystone Prison far overcame my glummest of imaginings.

The stark reality of it came with the surprising and stunning and sickening force of a quick one-two-three slap, punch and kick to my ignorantly unsuspecting and unpreparedly guarded system: direly unprepossessing, profoundly depressing, and deeply disturbing.

Though it shouldn't have - I'd seen more than enough pictures in print and on film of the dreadful foreboding Correctional/Rehabilitation Centre.

And I'd heard more than sufficient rumours, too, about the so-called Jailhouse Blues female prison officers.

Notorious for gleefully abusing and sadistically torturing their helpless prisoners while enjoying the protection of AFP-guaranteed irreproachability, the cane-wielding Jailhouse Blues did exactly as they pleased with impunity.

Employed not just for their willingness, but more for their barely controlled eagerness to 'correct and rehabilitate' their prisoners, the infamous Jailhouse Blue female prison officers were in their element.

Verbal abuse, face-slapping, bare-bottom caning ... even ballbusting.

I'd heard it all went on.

Sometimes, conducted in the prison officers' gymnasium down in the basement, the ballbusting of a prisoner was performed with elaborate, ceremonial fanfare, staged on some hellish-sounding slowly rotating apparatus called the Wheel of Chastisement.

Where, often in the Governor's presence, and at her button-pushing instigation, a 'chastising' Jailhouse Blue would administer, at the outset of each of the Governor's prescribed number of sixty-second revolutions, an expertly delivered barefoot kick between the stripped naked male inmate's widely restrained apart legs.

And then, around he would go, sagging in his unspeakable angst to the limits of his overhead wrist restraints ... To be bare bottom caned by each member of the detailed encircling twelve-strong Caning Party, as and when his moving-target exposed buttocks were presented to them for an exclusive five-second span during the Wheel of Chastisement's painfully slow 360-degree rotation.

I found it difficult to believe, but I'd even heard that there was a category of prisoner, called a 'One in a Hundred'.

One in a hundred, being the percentage of inmates who failed to come to heel.

Despite the best and determined attempts by even the most proficient and persuasive of Jailhouse Blue female prison officers to correct and rehabilitate them, these prisoners withstood the expert administering of all treatments and refused to allow themselves to be made fit for release into female-friendly society.

And so, ballbusting, considered an art form - it having been proved possible to barefoot kick a prisoner's testicles repeatedly, and on countless subsequent occasions, without 'ruining' him - the otherwise useless, hopeless case One-in-a-hundred category prisoners were used routinely in training sessions by the Blues for skill enhancing ball-kicking practice.

Eventually and inevitably, the irredeemably recalcitrant, ultimate-persuasive-technique resistant, One-in-a-hundred prisoners were of course 'ruined'.

But the word was - and I hoped for their sakes it was true - that eventually they became almost desensitised to their balls being repeatedly and regularly barefoot kicked as, gradually but ultimately and inevitably, the enthusiastic, training-to-perfection Blues kicked their balls to extinction.

To think that, such heinous things; such, diabolical, government devised, officially sanctioned practises, went on ...

At my first sight of the prison, my already great concern for Tina and Janice's welfare, cruelly confined within those drab dimensions, escalated a hundred-fold.

I was about to enter the Security Checkpoint building, when two women suddenly exited, the younger of them holding the door for the older woman.

The emerging older woman I instantly recognised, from occasionally seeing her interviewed on TV on the Seven O'clock Evening News by the channel's attractive blonde-haired no-nonsense reporter Cathy Newton: She was the AFP's Minister for Prisons, Lynne Truss.

"Is the helicopter ready, Isobel?" asked Ms Truss of her younger, dark-blue uniformed companion as she exited the Security Checkpoint building.

"Yes, of course, Minister," replied Isobel, in what to me sounded a slightly put out and pouty, umbrageous tone. "Your Jetranger is ready and waiting. As always, Ms Truss."

Ms Truss then noticed me, standing there open-mouthed with surprise.

The stern-faced though not unattractive, shoulder-length blonde-haired and blue-eyed, mid-forties Minister for Prisons then flabbergasted me by saying: "Ah! Good! You are here, Community servant David double-oh-seven. I know Governor Monroe is expecting you. Don't keep her waiting - I'm expecting her report on my desk by six o'clock this evening. I do hope you prove to be a jolly good bargaining chip!"

The Governor's "report"?

What, the-

Still holding the door open, Ms Truss's pilot Isobel said exasperatedly and bossily, "Well, do I look like a doorwoman? In you go, then, Community servant David!"

Confounded and speechless, I nodded politely and respectfully to the very attractive dark-haired, mid-twenties Jetranger ministerial helicopter pilot Isobel.

And, in I went, into the Security Checkpoint building as peremptorily and peevishly prompted.

*


In the Security Checkpoint building, seated behind their desks were two Receiving Officers.

Their hair was uniformly styled, in the same adopted but severely cut and somehow sinister-looking AFP adaptation of the concave bob, as worn by Community Service Officers and by many other female government employees of all ranks, including some senior Cabinet Ministers.

But, underneath it all ... as it were, what struck me most of all was that their decidedly unflattering hairdo did not disguise the very obvious fact that they were both stunningly beautiful young women.

Attired in their sobriquet Jailhouse Blue prison officer's uniform of pale-blue blouse and blue denim short skirt, the two Receiving Officers sat 'at ease'. Their flip-flop shod feet were propped up on their desks with their ankles crossed; their thick but flexible foam-rubber soled flip flops, continuously slap-slap-slapping away annoyingly against the bottoms of their bare heels.

Though it was blatantly obvious who I was - my identity was emblazoned in bold black letters and numbers upon my uniform white T-shirt: Community servant David 007 - they sat waiting for me to introduce myself and to state my business.

Their nametags declared them to be prison officers Melanie and Natalie.

"Name?" said prison officer Melanie, her flexible foam-rubber soled flip flops slap-slap-slapping away irritatingly.

This is ridiculous! I thought but didn't say: I didn't want to risk being face-slapped, or bare bottom caned - and certainly not ball-busted.

Imagine being a prisoner here, I thought to myself, uneasily ... and being ball-busted by those two.

They both certainly looked not only capable but well up for it.

A shiver ran down my spine ... I hoped it wasn't premonitory.

It would not have surprised me in the least to learn, that prison officers Melanie and Natalie had both contributed to the 'ruination' of many a stubbornly recalcitrant, failing-to-come-to-heel prisoner.

And, through their no doubt expert application of the same ultimate-persuasive-technique method, convinced many another troublesome prisoner to see the errors of his ways. Helping him to at least resign if not reconcile himself with living in future within the parameters set out for him, in conformity with the Authoritarian Female Party government's female-friendly societal requirements of him.

"I'm Community servant David double-oh-seven, Officer Melanie," I said respectfully. "And I'm here to see Miss Tina-"

"Yes, yes, Community servant David double-oh-seven, we know who you've come to visit," interrupted prison officer Natalie, swinging her bare, very shapely and nicely suntanned legs down to the floor.

"But first," she said, picking up the phone on her desk, "Governor Monroe would like a little chat with you."

"Do you know what she wants, Officer Natalie?" I asked politely. "The Governor? With me?"

I didn't know whether or not to believe what my two supervisors had told me, about the Governor planning to use me as a bargaining chip.

I knew from bitter experience that CSOs Karen and Linda couldn't be trusted.

But, the AFP's Minister for Prisons, Ms Lynne Truss, on the other hand ...

Other than glare at me warningly with a Shut-up-or-else expression, prison officer Natalie pushed a button on her desk phone and waited for a response.

A few seconds later, all business-like, she said, "Officer Natalie in Control, Governor Monroe. It's just to let you know that Community servant David double-oh-seven has just arrived and that I'm about to detail two officers to escort him to your office as you requested, Ma'am."

A few seconds later, she said, "Ma'am," and then disconnected.

"Governor Monroe will see you at once, Community servant David double-oh-seven," prison officer Natalie said, picking up the Walkie-Talkie from her desk. "As a priority."

Speaking into her Walkie-Talkie, in a rather less formal sounding voice prison officer Natalie said, "Control ... This is officer Natalie in Control. I need, right away, two officers to escort a community servant to the Governor's office. Who's available? Over."

"Control," came a replying female voice that for some reason sent a chill down my spine.

"This is Officer Bella Donna. Officer Billie Jo and I were just enjoying Foot Service up at prisoners Ross Chapman and Len Lightwood's cell on Level Five. But we can always return to them later ... they aren't going anywhere. BJ and I will be there in two minutes, Nat. Over."

"Copy that, Bel. See you and BJ in two, then. Over and out."

What in hell's name is "Foot Service"? I wondered.

But I thought it best not to ask ... I might find out.

Besides, it sounded pretty much self-explanatory.

And after all, as Canford's Sock Room community servant, I was no stranger to providing and performing various forms of 'Foot Service' myself: to the sock-changing, Sock Room attending females.

The two Receiving Officers Melanie and Natalie said nothing further to me as we awaited the arrival of my two escorts.

Officer Natalie just stared at me appraisingly.

While officer Melanie, her feet still propped up on the corner of her desk, nonchalantly continued slap-slap-slapping her foam-rubber soled flip flops against the bottoms of her bare heels.

And if I had to listen to that infernal slap-slap-slapping noise much longer, I'd be tearing my hair out and-

The Security Checkpoint building door opened.

And, in stepped my two escorts.

They wore the same 'Jailhouse Blue' uniform as the two Receiving Officers, Natalie and Melanie.

I saw that they also wore the same, thick but flexible and comfortable-looking foam-rubber soled flip flops, that imminently I would learn was the Blues' on-duty footwear.

Two staggeringly beautiful young women: One, a pale-skinned, platinum-blonde, with penetrating ice-blue eyes; the other, olive-complexioned and raven-haired, with dangerously smouldering dark brown eyes.

But, as fabulously attractive as they were, I found their presence incredibly intimidating and their unblinking assessment of me utterly unnerving.

Confirming their identities, their nametags declared them to be prison officers Bella Donna and Billie Jo.


Community Service continues in Ch. 13.