Community Service Ch. 09

Ch. 9: David Smith's day deteriorates drastically - in the Sock Room.

*

Week 4: Monday (continued).

Unloading the Socks r Us delivery van, I thought this was the largest consignment yet.

Two-thirds, to three-quarters of the load, consisted of the in-demand long white sport and leisure socks; the firm favourite, of the sock-changing females of Canford.

And I knew there was to be another big delivery of this favoured footwear, this coming Friday ... just in time, for the commencement of the Sock Room's much advertised and much looked forward to Saturday-opening.

My two young Sock Room supervisors Community Service Officers Karen and Linda were over the moon about these upcoming extended opening hours.

Over the moon, that is, about the incredibly generous AFP-funded overtime pay they would be earning, thanks to the ready amenability of the local AFP representative and their immediate boss, Community Service Liaison Officer Harriet Harmman.

In return for the expenditure of such minuscule effort in overseeing my (enforced and unpaid) Saturday sock-washing 'backlog reduction' endeavours, the premium rate overtime pay that CSOs Karen and Linda would be 'earning' for 'working' Saturdays would boost their hopes of realising their much cherished early-retirement-to-the-sun dream.

I worked quickly, and in a little over five minutes I'd hand-trucked all of the sticky-tape sealed, colour-coded cardboard boxes of socks, stencilled 'Canford', inside the Sock Room to the much-depleted shelves.

But before I could unbox, unpackage and shelve the socks, complying with the instructions issued to me by the lady Socks r Us delivery van driver Stella I first had to sweep out and damp-mop the bare metal floor of her now fully unloaded Mercedes Sprinter van.

While I was busy, performing my menial labour van-tidying work for her, cordially invited to coffee by CSOs Karen and Linda as was customary, Stella was relaxing comfortably, enjoying their hospitality downstairs in the office.

At least they were out of my hair for a bit, and I was always grateful for that.

But soon Stella would be back, I was thinking, with increasing unease.

And as working quickly I brushed out the bits of sock-related debris and then damp-mopped the floor of her spacious delivery van, I grew more fretful by the second.

Because, for my male citizen's offence of 'Talking out of Turn' to a female (my lowly societal status as a community servant, gravely exacerbating the seriousness of the misdemeanour) the offended female Socks r Us delivery van driver was about to administer the statutory, summary caning punishment: the Standard Six.

*

"You'll have to finish restocking the shelves later, double-oh-seven," said CSO Linda. "Come down here. And hurry up - Stella hasn't got all day. She has to get back to her factory base in Heeling for another vanload of socks. She's got other Sock Rooms to supply. So the sooner she can administer your Standard Six, the sooner she can be on her way."

I looked over, to see that, fresh from enjoying CSOs Karen and Linda's coffee-time hospitality, Stella was now returning with my two supervisors ... And, judging from the anticipatory gleam in her eye, Stella was clearly relishing the prospect of indulging in another enjoyable treat: personally administering the Standard Six, to the bared bottom of an uppity community servant.

I could just imagine Stella from Heeling laughing about it, later, while regaling her sock factory work colleagues with the amusing anecdote during their lunch break: How she'd 'Standard-Sixed' Canford's Sock Room community servant, red-striping my bared backside in front of an audience of approving and cheering sock-changing females ...

"Come on - Sock Boy! Stop daydreaming!" snapped CSO Karen, hectoring me to position myself promptly to receive the Standard Six. "I said: Come on - Sock Boy! Chop-chop! The sooner you get this over with, the sooner you can get on with hand-washing all of these dirty socks."

I put down the 5-pack of long white, sport and leisure socks that I'd been about to unpack and shelve, and said respectfully, "Yes, Miss Karen."

Upon reluctantly but resignedly descending the six wooden steps leading down into my lower level, one-man laundry 'domain', CSO Karen said sharply, "You know the drill, Community servant David double-oh-seven: Stand against the wall - facing front."

"Yes, Miss Karen," I said respectfully.

With the six well-padded black leather recliners to either side of the six wooden steps all occupied, ranged against me on the upper level (street level) of the Sock Room in the 'Spectators' Gallery' overlook giving me the evil eye were twelve reclining females.

Though their ages and the ages of the other sock-changing females present in the Sock Room ranged from eighteen to about fifty, predominantly they were in their twenties and thirties.

Facing me at my head height on the other side of the upper level's two-barred safety rail, as though deliberately displayed to me in a cruel, taunting reminder of my unspeakable sock-washer situation, in varying degrees of dismaying and depressing dirtiness were the white-socked soles of ten, of the reclining Canford womenfolk.

The two exceptions were two of the bane-of-my-life Sock Room 'regulars': Norma Newlove and Cheryl Chubb.

Norma Newlove: My across-the-road neighbour from hell, who's bare feet I had been massaging just minutes ago, in the watchful presence of the Community Service Liaison Officer, Ms Harriet Harmman, who thankfully had now returned to the Community Service Liaison Centre.

And Cheryl Chubb: who's days' unwashed, dirty filthy, stinky feet - her Monday-morning feet - were also bare.

Though I knew that it was expected, of me and that I must comply, I could not bring myself to stand at the foot of any particular one of the twelve reclining females' recliners - it was an impossible, Hobson's choice predicament!

To do so would inevitably if erroneously be perceived, by them, as me being selective. Misconstrued, that I was choosing. Misapprehended, that I had a preference. Misjudged, that I had a favourite. Misinferred, that I was, in fact, being ... particular.

But by avoiding standing at the foot of the recliners of any of the feared (yes, feared!) Sock Room 'regulars' and standing between the pairs of (relatively clean) white-socked soles of two reclining females whom I was as yet happily unacquainted with, I knew I was risking aggravating CSO Karen.

"Do not aggravate me - Sock Boy!" hissed CSO Karen menacingly.

Whoo ... Crack!

Agonising pain exploded on my right calf as from behind CSO Linda let me have it with a sly swipe of her AFP issue flexible bamboo cane. "You know full well, double-oh-seven," berated the young, bubble-gum chewing blonde bombshell, "that when receiving caning punishment, to position yourself directly at the foot of one of the ladies' recliners - so that we can handcuff you to it! You are free to choose - what more do you want?"

"But why let the little pipsqueak choose? Handcuff him to mine, CSO Linda!" appealed Norma Newlove. "At my feet!"

Oh no! Why didn't I go for one of the 'easier options', while I had the chance? I thought now, all too belatedly.

I've slipped up again!

Instead of presenting Mrs Newlove with yet another easy chance to chalk up yet another one, against me, why didn't I 'choose' to be handcuffed to the foot of the recliner of one of the two newbies?

Not that there were any easy options: the Sock Room seemed to bring out the bitch in them all.

Reaching down behind me and rubbing at my injured right calf, I looked at CSO Linda in mute, mournful appeal: Did you really, need to do that?

Whoo ... Crack!

Excruciating pain then erupted on my left calf, as now CSO Karen too took a vicious from-behind swing at me with her whippy cane.

At this second, and even more devastating strike, my face contorted in agony. And to the further great amusement of the Sock Room attending females, my lacerated legs folded under me and in a spine-jarring bump that caused my teeth to gnash together I sat down hard on the Sock Room's lower-level stone floor.

Drawing my knees up so that I could rub at my injured calves to try and alleviate the awful throbbing dull pain, silently I looked up to CSO Karen in hopeless beseechment: Was there really, any need for that?

"Up - Sock Boy!" commanded CSO Karen.

"Heh heh heh heh," chuckled the lady Socks r Us delivery van driver Stella, tickled pink.

Finding it funny too, were the twelve reclining females. And if all of their chuckling, tittering and giggling, was anything to go by, so did all of the dozen-plus other, standing by and looking on sock-changing females present in the Sock Room.

CSO Karen had told me to get up. But I couldn't get up. I hadn't the will. It was all getting on top of me again.

I couldn't get up, because I was all weighted down, with the mind-dulling, soul-sapping onset of my usual Monday morning miseries.

I lowered my head to my knees in despair. And in sheer, utter dejection, the tears of self-pity began to flow.

"Heh heh heh heh," tittered Stella.

"Up - double-oh-seven!" ordered CSO Linda. "You've been told to get up twice now!"

But I couldn't get up - because it had all gotten on top of me again.

I couldn't throw off the oppressive, debilitating, overwhelming weight of my beginning of the working week woes.

My for-Unemployment-Benefits working week: Now to include Saturdays. And, from what I'd just heard Ms Harmman say, before long she would have me hand-washing the females of Canford's dirty socks on Sundays, too. Thereby fattening, even more - and all at my (forced and unpaid) Sunday-working expense - the already preposterously packed pay packets and bulging bank balances of CSOs Karen and Linda.

My face crumpling in wretchedness at the capricious callousness of my two young cane-wielding Sock Room supervisors' casual cruelties, I could only look up to them both forlornly in wordless, abject appeal: Why?

I was their golden goose - and this was how they treated me!

"Ha ha ha ha!" laughed Stella - who'd told me that she was going to have me, hand-wash her dirty socks today, rather than deposit them with her own home town's Sock Room community servant. "This is hilarious!"

"Are you going to let Community servant David double-oh-seven defy you, CSO Linda?" said Norma Newlove malevolently, sensing and seizing upon yet another gift of an opportunity to put me in harm's way and to bring yet more grief and wretchedness down on my head. "You and CSO Karen have both told him to get up. And, has he? No! He's having a sit-down!"

"That's right!" piped up Gina Stainham, never slow in getting in on the Baiting-the-Sock-Room-community-servant act; always quick, to join in the fun and indulge in a spot of bitchy bullying. "At this rate, he's never going to reduce his backlog of dirty socks - even with all of his extra working hours with the new all day Saturday-opening ... CSOs Karen and Linda: I think you are going to have to ask Ms Harmman to make him start working Sundays, too, all the sooner!"

"And look - he's rubbing at his injuries," pointed out Norma Newlove's other Sock Room crony, Cheryl Chubb, the toes of her days' unwashed, dirty filthy, stinky feet - her Monday-morning feet - scrunching gleefully. "Something, that time and again you have expressly forbidden him to do!"

That did the trick.

CSOs Karen and Linda grabbed hold of my ears, hauled me to my feet, jostled me to the bare brick wall beneath the two-barred safety rail, and handcuffed my wrists to the tubular framed recliner nearest to the six wooden steps on (my) right-hand side of the 'Spectators' Gallery' overlook.

Thus, my two young Sock Room supervisors had positioned and restrained me, as requested, at the foot of Norma Newlove's, well-padded black leather 'Lazy-Girl' lounger.

"Wahey!" exulted my across-the-road neighbour from hell, wiggling her cherry-red painted toes in my inches-away face triumphally. "Just where I want you - Community servant David double-oh-seven!" she goaded gleefully.

Miserably I stared at the extreme up-close soles of Norma Newlove's bare feet, still lightly suntanned a pale gold from her recent taxpayer-funded Florida holiday.

Norma's toes, for some reason suddenly galvanised to energetic action, started scrunching like crazy. And a second later I knew why, as I felt CSOs Karen and Linda's intrusive fingers and invasive hands grabbing hold of and pulling down on the elasticated waist of my community servant's white shorts, baring my bottom to receive the Standard Six.

"Step out of them, double-oh-seven!" snapped CSO Linda when my shorts were down around my ankles. "And don't be coy - you haven't got anything we haven't seen before."

I hesitated.

Although my ... modesty was out of sight of the Sock Room attending females by dint of the five-foot high bare brick wall I stood against - still I hesitated.

Whoo ... Crack! Whoo ... Crack!

Mind-numbing pain visited me again as CSOs Karen and Linda dealt my calves a second, devastating from-behind strike with their AFP issue canes.

Norma Newlove's toes wiggled wildly.

As though in the transport of an uncontainable anticipatory excitement, mere inches from my captive face Norma's wiggling, flexing, scrunching toes taunted me and tormented me triumphantly. I was right where she wanted me!

"Come on, then, double-oh-seven - get on with it!" snapped CSO Linda waspishly. "I said step out of them! Stella's waiting to cane you!"

"Yes, Miss Linda," I said respectfully through gritted teeth, stepping out of them.

Because, as a community servant assigned directly under her charge, and bound, thereby under the powers and control of her AFP-vested authority, I knew that I must, reply respectfully. And unfailingly comply.

There was no point, in pleading. No point in resisting. Nothing to be gained, from saying 'No'.

"Heh heh heh heh," tittered Stella. "I love coming to these Sock Rooms!"

My two young Sock Room supervisors now offered their canes to my disrespected and grievously affronted (Talked-out-of-Turn-to) complainant. "Choose your weapon, Stel," said CSO Linda, and I heard the smile in her voice.

From right behind me, I heard Stella say, consideringly, "I'll ... I'll use yours, Lindz."

"Let him have it, Stella!" urged Gina Stainham, always up for a spot of community servant baiting, as she watched the female Socks r Us delivery driver brandishing CSO Linda's AFP issue flexible bamboo cane. "And make them all count!" she further encouraged, as she watched Stella readying herself for action as carefully she took up optimum position behind my now fully exposed buttocks.

"Yes, Stella - let Community servant David have it!" encouraged Cheryl Chubb, the toes of her days' unwashed, dirty filthy, stinky feet - her Monday-morning feet - scrunching and wiggling and splaying open like crazy, expressive of her love for the 'sport'.

"Yes, Stella!" Norma Newlove agreed wholeheartedly, pleasurably wiggling and scrunching her toes in my face. "Don't tolerate being spoken to like that - by a community servant!"

Whoo ... Whoo ... Whoo ... I heard, right behind me, as like a Pro golfer at the tee with her eye on the prize, preparatorily Stella practised her arm swing technique.

"Hey! This cane feels great in my hands, Lindz!"

Whoo! ... Whoo! ... Whoo!

It sounds as if Stella means business, I thought, in utmost dismay. But what else did I expect?

"So ... I'm getting to administer the Standard Six, to a disrespectful, Talking-out-of-Turn, uppity - irreverent! - community servant," said Stella, sounding immensely satisfied with said state of affairs. "To mete out, personally, righteous retributive punishment to my offender. How great is that! So ... gratifying."

"I know exactly how you feel, Stella!" agreed Norma Newlove. "Let him have it, Stella - make every cane stroke count!" urged my neighbour from hell, wiggling and scrunching her cherry-red painted toes in my inches away face in gloating, goading, malicious glee. "Just like I let him have it - publicly, in the High Street Stocks - after his girlfriend Burger Girl offended me!"

The undersides of Norma's triumphally tormenting toes were so close to my captive face that her toe wiggling and scrunching actions were wafting the unpleasant, vaguely mature cheesy smell of her in-between-the-toes foot scent right up my nostrils. In distress and distaste, I averted my face.

Apparently noticing not only my averted face but also my apparent aversion, Stella said, "Um, Lindz, something occurs to me ... Remember what you told me, during coffee, about making Community servant David double-oh-seven sniff your and CSO Karen's ankle-socked feet, while you use him as a footrest during your coffee breaks? You know, to make him acknowledge, on a daily basis, your absolute and unchallengeable authority over him, as his Sock Room supervisors? By going to his knees upon command and remaining respectfully silent, while demonstrating his abject humility, obedient compliance, and unfailing ready subservience to you and CSO Karen?"

"Yeah, Stel," said CSO Linda, as if that was no big deal. "Why, Stel? What about it?"

"Well ... While he's receiving the Standard Six, wouldn't it make sense, to make him smell the feet of the reclining lady who's recliner he's handcuffed to?" suggested Stella reasonably, as though my two young supervisors had been missing the obvious. "In this case, Mrs Newlove?"

CSO Karen said, "This is something that Lindz and I have been discussing, Stel. But some of the ladies make him do that, anyway - Mrs Newlove is a case in point."

To my growing horror, the female Socks r Us delivery van driver Stella from Heeling enlarged theoretically, "I'm just thinking. If ... simultaneously with his bare-bottom caning by a chastising female, double-oh-seven is made to sniff the socked or bare feet of a reclining lady, soon the combination of the distressing olfactory association with the stinging pain of a bare-bottom caning, will trigger within him a sort of Pavlov's-dog style mental connection with unchallengeable female authority."

"That's it, in a nutshell, Stel," said CSO Linda. "That's what Karen and I think. We've talked about this, at some length."

The van-driving theoretician Stella continued, "And, as a natural corollary, it surely follows that kissing, the reclining ladies' socked or bare soles, would serve to underpin the reverential/obeisance association factor."

What, the? I thought uneasily. Kissing?

Her theorising themes making my blood run cold, Stella from Heeling further posited, "Surely, CSOs Karen and Linda, each time a chastising female takes the cane to double-oh-seven's bared bottom while he is restrained at the feet of another, reclining female ... isn't it inevitable, that gradually, he will become more and more conditioned? That, his psychological association with unchallengeable and unlimited female authority, will become increasingly strengthened? Become even further established? Become even more deeply embedded, in double-oh-seven's psyche? Until, ultimately, his female-reverent mindset, becomes hardwired?"

CSO Linda said, "Stel, great minds must think alike! That is along the exact lines of what Karen and I were thinking. We've been going over this a lot."

"Well ... it's just common sense, really," said the female Socks r Us delivery van driver modestly. "I mean, it stands to reason, doesn't it?"

CSO Karen said, "Ms Harmman has already given the green light, to Lindz and me, to implement whatever ... measures, that we see fit."

The raging pain from my viciously caned calves was all but forgotten now, as the diabolical implications of Stella's female-chastising, bare-bottom caning, female-feet sniffing and kissing combinational conjecturings started to sink in.