Community Service Ch. 13

A profoundly disturbing revelation, as to the sort of unlimited power and untrammelled advantage these Jailhouse Blue female prison officers must exert over their petrified prisoners, in satisfying their pleasures - and, I didn't doubt, gratifying some of their darker desires - enjoying at whim, their ... perks.

Looking satisfied, that without even having said a word but with just the force of her look she had intimidated and cowed me into a reverent, subdued silence, prison officer Analise then said to her colleague Rita, "Hey, this one's a bit of all right, isn't he, Hellcat?"

'Hellcat'? I thought. What sort of a name was that? Still, no doubt she richly deserves it. She's probably an embodiment of the proverbial firey-tempered redhead.

"Well, he's a cut above, so he is," opined the Irish-accented 'Hellcat' Rita. "And I can see the attraction. I'll give you that, so I will. But I prefer my men to have a bit more muscle, Analise. He's a bit weedy, isn't he? Like most community servants."

Prison officer Analise countered, "But he's ever so good-looking, though, don't you think?"

Prison officer Rita ran her green eyes over me again, but more appraisingly this time.

She then said, "Tell me, Community servant David. What sort of work are you assigned to?"

"I ... I work in Canford town's Sock Room, officer Rita," I said respectfully.

"Ha!" exclaimed officer Rita. "See, Analise? There you go: That's why he looks so dispirited. So run-down and jaded. Dejected. Defeated. And who wouldn't? Hand-washing girls' and women's dirty socks all day - that is when he's not being bullied and tormented and preyed upon by his sock-changing townswomen. You know as well as I do, Analise, that Sock Rooms bring out the bitch in us - and it's all the worse for him that as you say he's so good-looking. And he looks to me, so he does, a prime candidate to succumb sometime soon to Community Servant Burnout Syndrome."

Prison officer Billie Jo scoffed, "What, a Sock Room community servant? He should thank his lucky stars he's not a prisoner here. He'd soon succumb to a lot more than the Syndrome!"

Prison officer Analise responded, "Well: If he does ever end up in here - I'm bags-ing firsties for Foot Service!"

That served as the amusing little punchline for prompting the end the short meeting and the comradely parting of company.

Prison officer Analise, patting my cheek as a way of saying a fond goodbye, said, "And, Community servant David: End up in here, and ... I might even make you my bitch."

Laughing, she and prison officer 'Hellcat' Rita then continued on their way to their early lunch at the Staff Canteen; prison officer Analise, glancing back over her shoulder at me in speculative appraisal more than once.

For a moment I stared after prison officers Rita and Analise, unable but to admire their sexy shapely figures - especially prison officer Analise, who I was sure was exaggeratedly waggling her tight-skirted bottom purely for my benefit.

As the sounds of their foam-rubber soled flip flops slap-slap-slapping away against their bare heels slowly receded, I looked at their lovely shapely legs, also struck, by their starkly contrasting skin tones.

And at noticing, displayed fleetingly at their each and every stride, prison officer Analise's slightly dirty soles, and the decidedly grubbier and grimier bottoms of her colleague Rita's feet, who's flashing, comparatively milky white arches attracted the eye, uneasily I thought about what they'd both just said about me.

The irrefutable truths that prison officer 'Hellcat' Rita had spoken - about my being washed out and defeated and on the brink of falling yet another victim to Community Servant Burnout Syndrome - had hit right home. Smiles were rarer and didn't come so readily to my lips these days, and I couldn't remember the last time I laughed. But I didn't know until now that my miserable soul-crushed downtrodden state was so apparent.

Having said that, I was troubled far more by what prison officer Analise had said.

I felt sure then that prison officers Bella Donna and Billie Jo had 'bitches' of their own ... perhaps they were prisoners Chapman and Lightwood?

"Come on, you!" prompted prison officer Billie Jo with another sudden sharp tug at my uniform T-shirt. "Stop dawdling! The totty is for the prisoners to ogle at and lust after - not you!"

And with that, my two escorts and I were on our way again too ...

Looking up from the Ground Floor's square-shaped hall as I walked between prison officers Bella Donna and Billie Jo, I saw behind safety rails the five four-sided landings - or Levels - where the prisoners' cells were.

Up at Level 2, two Blues were leaning on the safety rail and looking down into the hall, watching the comings and goings and other general activity as they chatted.

One of the Blues caught my eye, and, using her cane to point straight at me and draw a bead on me she drew her colleague's attention to me.

They were two more pulse-quickening beauties. But even from where I was walking I could see they weren't having beautiful thoughts.

Deeming it prudent to break eye contact with them at once, I quickly looked away.

As I did so, I accidentally collided slightly with prison officer Bella Donna.

A light brush that earned me a heavy reprimand.

Prison officer Bella Donna interrupted my apology to snap at me, admonishing me to face forward and to watch where I was going if I didn't want my face slapped - because, slap it, she would.

Her even more irascible and less forgiving colleague Billie Jo informed me that I was lucky it hadn't been her that I'd so carelessly stumbled into - because she wasn't one for pussyfooting about. She would not have given me a second chance, warning reprieve - she would have pulled my uniform white shorts down to my ankles and given me a caning I wouldn't forget in a hurry, administered right then and there where I stood.

And, if I gave her or her colleague Bella Donna just cause again ...

As far as they were concerned, they told me, a community servant under their escort who didn't know how to behave himself would be treated in the same summary no-nonsense corrective fashion as would any prison inmate who stepped out of line.

Because as far as they were concerned, a community servant - an out of work, unproductive member of society, shamelessly living a leech's life on Unemployment Benefits funded by hardworking taxpayers just like themselves - was only one small step removed from an actual criminal.

Oh, and prison officer Bella Donna said that if I'd happened to have trod on her toes, no matter the Governor was waiting to see me - she would have had me hauled down to the gymnasium and restrained to the Wheel of Chastisement so fast that my feet wouldn't have touched the ground. And then: Boy, would she let me have it! Sore toes or not.

When I tried to apologise to prison officer Bella Donna again, she told me to shut up unless I wanted my face slapped - repeatedly, and very hard.

I was putting her right in the mood, she assured me, to participate in a little of what she told me she enjoyed greatly and that her colleague Billie Jo called the 'personal touch'.

She advised me that her leniency with me as a visitor would only extend so far - and I was already overstepping her limit.

She told me that had I been a prisoner, I would be at a loss what to do: soothe my throbbing, repeatedly slapped face; rub my stinging, Standard Sixed buttocks; or clutch my agonised, barefoot-kicked testicles.

Because, administered by her hands, cane, and feet, by now I would have experienced all three said forms of summary chastisement - and handcuffed, neither of the three said methods of pain assuagement would be achievable.

She warned me above all not to let the fact that I was not a prisoner here belull me into a false sense of safety. Because for as long as I was under her escort, I was anything but safe.

She told me I needed to understand that.

Staring back into the chilling depths of prison officer Bella Donna's ice-blue eyes, I was convinced beyond a doubt as to the absolute sincerity of her stated indifference to my civilian visitor status and even more so as to the due enactment of her 'personal touch' threat should I further overextend her antipathetic accommodations.

Given these most persuasive considerations, I was inclined to take her advice and just keep it zipped.

I had already been severely face-slapped by Mrs Newlove this morning as a single slap 'straightener' for laggardly compliance and for exhausting her very limited patience - and I needed neither the stinging pain or the crushing degradation of another eye-watering slap. Neither did I want to find myself comparing and considering which of the two of them was most adept at the face-slapping 'art'.

I was now sure that just one more word from me, and I would feel the sharp and stunning impact of prison officer Bella Donna's pale-skinned palms on not one but both of my cheeks - "repeatedly" and "very hard" - as I stood, unresisting, unevasive, compliantly accepting my punishment.

Under the governance of Prime Minister Caroline Flynt's Authoritarian Female Party, the rights of male citizens were unequalised.

As an unemployed community servant, my rights were reduced and restricted much more so than were the rights of working men. Whose taxes, after all, went to filling up and keeping filled the AFP's coffers, providing the necessary funding for all of the AFP's female-friendly amenities, projects and schemes.

And one of my AFP-regulated restrictions was quite literal.

Upon sufferance of a sterner penalty, I was bound by law to refrain from presenting any defence whatsoever and to receive the administering of my neighbour from hell Norma Newlove's frequent face-slapping 'straighteners' compliantly and without so much as flinching. The discipline as of course also pertained to the corrective physical admonishments of whomsoever other such chastising females.

Which was bad enough.

But it was abundantly clear to me by now that prison officer Bella Donna was something else altogether.

She was a law unto herself.

She had her own, set of rules and regulations.

Her own, repertoire of corrective measures.

Her own, ideas of discipline.

At prison officer Bella Donna's having marked my card so unequivocally, we then continued along, past a lift and to the far end of the hall, to where Governor Monroe's office was situated.

On the dark hardwood door, the brass plaque - that was so shiny it looked to me as though every day without fail it was polished and buffed and burnished to the nth degree - read: 'Meredith Monroe - Governor of Greystone Prison'.

Prison officer Bella Donna again turned her blood-freezing gaze on me and gave me one last frosty glare of warning before knocking politely on the door.

*

"Community servant David double-oh-seven, Ma'am. Escorted to your office upon his arrival, as requested," announced prison officer Bella Donna, in tones hinting that surely she had better things to do with her time than ushering community servants about the place.

Like availing herself of Foot Service? I thought.

As though sensing and knowing something of the Ice Princess's prickly mood and more so her crackly temperament, the Governor promptly got down to brass tacks.

"Welcome to Greystone Prison, Community servant David. I'm Governor Monroe."

I now saw that Governor Meredith Monroe was a strikingly attractive woman, perhaps in her mid-thirties.

A more mature version of her Jailhouse Blue prison officers, she wore the 'trademark' pale blue skimpy and revealing uniform, and I saw through the open kneehole of her desk that on her shapely, tanned feet she also wore their uniform-issue foam-rubber soled flip flops.

She also wore her own, blonde hair in the style of the adopted but more severely cut AFP-adapted version of the concave bob - a hairstyle I used to find sexy, but not anymore.

Due to its more sinister connotations of recent times, as far as I was concerned, the once appealing hairdo had lost most of its gloss and all of its glamour.

In Governor Monroe's case, though, as so often it seemed to be the way with older women, the somehow scary and intimidating helmet-like hairdo suited her.

"Thank you, Governor. I'm ... pleased to meet you."

"Please sit down, Community servant David," offered the Governor pleasantly, indicating the seat on the other side of her desk. "And don't look so worried! As a visitor, you'll find my officers' barks worse than their bites."

I looked back over my shoulder at prison officers Bella Donna and Billie Jo, who had stationed themselves to either side of the door ... and knew I wouldn't find anything of the sort.

But at least for the moment, under the restraining eye of their mistress and handler the Governor, they were both temporarily muzzled.

"Thank you, Governor. But I'll stand if I may; it's rather awkward, with these-"

"Officer Bella Donna," interjected the Governor, "I rather think we can dispense with the use of handcuffs on this occasion, don't you agree? This is, after all, a highly unusual - in fact, unprecedented - situation."

"Ma'am," said prison officer Bella Donna, who then did as bid, albeit with undisguised reluctance.

Her glowering expression made her feelings perfectly clear: She did not agree.

I could even detect the angry, waspish note; a sort of malicious undertone, articulated in the slap-slap-slapping sounds of her foam-rubber soled flip flops against the bottoms of her bare heels as in her displeasure she strode the five or six business-like strides to where I stood to remove her handcuffs from my wrists.

It struck me then, that what had occurred to me earlier was very probably true: that over time, the prisoners here would learn to discern, and therefore to match, many of the distinctive individualised foam-rubber soled flip flops' slap-slap-slap-slapping 'signature' sounds with the identities of their Jailhouse Blue prison officer wearers.

And, no doubt, moping in their miserable cells and cringing in constant dread and trembling in trepidation, listen keenly, with their attuned, educated ears, to each of those approaching slap-slap-slap-slapping sounds.

Because, for all of them, there would be certain distinctive and distinguishing, individualised 'signature' sounds, they feared most to hear ...

What a relief!

My wrists were already chafed, from the over-tightly applied cuffs.

Looking back over my shoulder I shot officer Bella Donna a pointed look ... and she shot me an even more pointed look right back.

Don't push it! I warned myself.

I took the seat across from the Governor as invited.

"How about a lovely cup of coffee, Community servant David?" Governor Monroe said, smiling cordially. "The beans I've got on the go at the moment are one of my favourites - a Columbian special-roast - ever so delicious. Can I get officer Bella Donna to pour you a nice cup?"

Because Securi-Fem officer Affina and her three colleagues had turned up at the Sock Room this morning to transport me to Greystone Prison, I'd foregone my coffee break, and now the thought of a cup of Governor Monroe's excellent coffee had my mouth watering.

And I was just about to take the Governor up on her kind offer, but when I looked back over my shoulder again and saw the expression on prison officer Bella Donna's face ...

"Um ... no, thank you, Governor. I'm fine, thank you."

"Perhaps later, then."

"Yes, Governor. Thank you."

Governor Monroe then said amiably, "I've been hearing a lot about you, Community servant David. And I've been looking forward to meeting you personally. You see, I thought we might have a little chat."

About bargaining chips? I thought.

"Um ... I-"

"Now I won't kid myself that you'd rather sit there, talking to me, instead of getting on with visiting prisoner Miss Tina Marshall - your darling sweetheart."

"Er, well ..."

"I happen to be aware that she misses you terribly, too, David. Although as yet, she knows nothing of your visit today. It was only this morning that I pulled a few strings to specially fast-track you."

Oh ... now it's 'David'.

And how come the special string-pulling fast-track favour?

And how come Tina doesn't know I'm coming? Surely she could have been notified of my sudden unexpected visit.

The Governor must be keeping it back, I supposed, as a pleasant surprise.

"When can I see her, Governor?"

"Oh, in just a few moments. But, instead of the Visiting Room, I thought it would be rather more ... conducive to my objective, for officers Bella Donna and Billie Jo to take you to see Tina in her cell. In-situ, as it were, as an added inducement to help you come to your decision - after you've listened to my proposition."

"Proposition, Governor? My decision?"

Governor Meredith Monroe leant back in her seat and looked at me appraisingly.

She then steepled her fingers, gathering her thoughts.

She then sighed, as though to convey to me the weight of responsibility that lay burdensome upon her shoulders at the difficulties she faced.

I waited for what was coming: now I would learn the real reason for Governor Monroe's sudden and surprising summons.

"It is a success record that my officers and I are rightly very proud of and most gratified by, that ninety-nine per cent of our prisoners here eventually come to understand the errors of their ways and leave us to embark upon their new, useful lives.

"Having said that, I sincerely regret and take very much to heart each and every individual failure.

"Every failure, to correct and rehabilitate the one per cent of male prisoners here. Who, if only they would consent to drop their futile he-man objections to female authority and reconcile themselves instead to adhere forthwith to AFP constitutional female-friendly guidelines, really wouldn't be so very badly off ... in the scheme of things.

"But, when it comes to failing my prisoners of the fairer sex; failing to convince them to come to their senses and to ... see the light, my dismayed regret is a thousand-fold.

"It is quite unfathomable to me, that, otherwise bright and sensible young women such as Tina Marshall and her cellmate Janice Middleton, do not seize upon their golden chances of personal betterment.

"Inexplicable, why they do not take, what is there for the taking.

"Why Tina and Janice do not grab, with both hands, such unprecedented female-friendly opportunities.

"Why they do not gratefully grasp, such quality of life enhancing benefits and entitlements; such, undreamed of female-superiority privileges, as are so readily available to them in such glorious abundance under Prime Minister Caroline Flynt's Authoritarian Female Party government.

"And that, instead, and despite some of my finest officers' best attempts to correct and rehabilitate them, they so stubbornly resist.

"Repudiating on principle the rightfulness of their entitlements to all of these proffered precious privileges, moralistically they persist in their sadly misguided beliefs and steadfastly refuse to recant their seditious political leanings."

I shuddered to think what the Governor meant by the 'best attempts' of some her finest officers ...

"My girlfriend Tina and her best friend Janice fervently believe in equal rights, Governor. You have just put your finger on it: they are both highly principled and very moral-minded. They both believe in male-female equality, and-"

"Quite, quite. But thankfully all of that is now consigned to the past. The AFP and their female-friendly ideology are here to stay. I know that you know that - and please don't bother to deny it.

"Ms Harmman has assured me, from reading your two Sock Room supervisors CSOs Karen and Linda's daily reports, that you have now come to terms with the new reality.