Community Service Ch. 13

Ch. 13: David Smith must make girlfriend Tina see the light.

I waited, as in Greystone Prison's Security Checkpoint building, the seconds passed disquietingly.

If this was a tactic routinely deployed by the two Receiving Officers Melanie and Natalie to discomfit visitors and to discourage them from opening their mouths to open a dialogue for no purpose other than to attempt to engage them in idle discourse, their deterrent certainly worked with me.

Implicit in the prohibitive stares of the two Receiving Officers was that exchanges of pleasantries of the day were unwarranted, cordial conversational observations were surplus to requirement - in fact, their openly hostile glares made it crystal clear that anything other than strictly necessary business related utterances would be unwelcome and indeed impermissible.

Neither, and even less so, did the forbidding expressions on the countenances of the other two prison officers present invite so much as a polite Good-morning, let alone an unsolicited outpouring of tittle-tattle.

Summoned via their Walkie Talkies by Receiving Officer Natalie, prison officers Bella Donna and Billie Jo had entered the Security Checkpoint building more than a minute ago but had yet to say a word.

The fact that they were all so outstandingly beautiful and stunningly attractive only served to make me feel even more uneasy and all the more awkward.

With each passing second my anxiety increased as each of the four 'Jailhouse Blue' female prison officers subjected me to their silent scrutinising stares.

The only sounds, the slap-slap-slap-slapping of Receiving Officer Melanie's uniform foam-rubber soled flip flops that with nerve-jarring monotony beat a devil's tattoo against the bottoms of her bare heels as she sat with her feet propped up on the corner of her desk.

But when at last one of them did break the growing tension of the uncomfortably lengthening silence, the stony look in her eyes and her curt manner of address and the uncompromising authority conveyed in the tone of her voice did little to settle my jangling nerves and nothing to calm my growing concerns.

"Community servant David double-oh-seven," said Receiving Officer Natalie. "Officers Bella Donna and Billie Jo will now escort you to Governor Monroe's office. They will accompany you throughout your visit. Finally, they will return you here. Where you will quietly wait, until your Securi-Fem return transport to Canford arrives to collect you."

I understood from Receiving Officer Natalie's forbidding expression that a verbal reply was not required and so I didn't make one.

Prison officer Bella Donna now stepped forward.

At hearing the sudden slapping sounds of her foam-rubber soled flip flops rapping smartly at her bare heels as she closed the half dozen or so steps' distance that separated us, female feet featuring so predominantly in my life these days, almost automatically I found myself looking down at prison officer Bella Donna's approaching feet.

Before being assigned as Sock Room community servant by Canford's Community Service Liaison Officer, Ms Harriet Harmman MP, I had thought that one pair of feet were much like another.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Just like the features on people's faces, by now I had seen such a range of shapes, sizes, and myriad other distinguishing characteristics, I was of the opinion that feet were every bit as different and individual (and, the more I saw of them, as recognisable) as faces.

Now, I observed that prison officer Bella Donna's pale-skinned feet were in fact beautifully formed, and appreciatively I noticed that her slender medium-long toes were done up attractively in the French pedicure style.

When I looked up again, from her now stationary feet, I saw that in her hands were a shiny set of handcuffs.

And now, in her immediate presence and making direct eye contact from barely a foot away, most forcefully was I made acutely aware of just how outstandingly beautiful and stunningly attractive was the flawlessly pale-skinned, penetratingly ice-blue eyed, platinum-blonde prison officer Bella Donna.

"Put your hands behind your back, Community servant David," she said. Her calm, cool tone conveyed to me that she was accustomed to being obeyed promptly and without question or demur.

"What?" I said, taken aback - and alarmed. I'd heard the scary rumours and horror stories of the sort of things that went on in this place - and there was no smoke without fire. "Why do I need to-"

"Regulations," interjected officer Bella Donna.

"But, I-"

"Community servant David double-oh-seven," cut in officer Bella Donna again, speaking sharply, her ice-blue eyes glinting ominously. "You are obstructing a prison officer in the course of her duties."

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to. But-"

"Perhaps you are unaware that, for that, with just one word to the Governor from me with supporting testimony from three reliable witnesses, albeit you are a visitor that is no protection and you could well find yourself being led away to sample a variety of our ... correctional procedures."

I realised that my lame laments and feeble protestations weren't cutting any ice with the Ice Princess, and so I thought it best just to cooperate and to put my hands behind my back as instructed.

Besides, I didn't like the sound of being "led away".

But I didn't like the idea one little bit, I thought as officer Bella Donna stepped behind me.

With my hands restrained behind my back, I would hesitate to put my faith in these so-called Blues and trust them to conduct themselves within the parameters as set out in the Penal Code regulatory guidelines. What was to stop them, from-

From behind me, I heard prison officer Bella Donna's grunt of satisfaction upon cinching her handcuffs around my wrists so tightly it was all I could do to stop myself crying out.

She then leant in close, and it was more so in the manner of her discompassionate delivery than her actual words of warning that sent a chill right to my heart as she whispered icily in my ear. "Hurts, doesn't it? But, trust me: that's nothing. And believe me, double-oh-seven, there is nothing I enjoy more than teaching a few manners to disrespectful males and bringing them to heel - especially uppity, little whippersnappers like you who won't do as they are told the first time. So now I am telling you: When I or any other officer tells you to do something, you will do it promptly - and without any backchat. This is not a debating society. The orders and instructions we issue are exactly that: orders and instructions. To be obeyed and complied with at once. They are not up for discussion ... got it?"

I nodded once, compliantly signalling that I'd got it.

She was not finished, though, and certainly not placated, for she then continued breathing into my ear just as frostily. "I am Officer Bella Donna. And during your visit here, of which I have been given the dubious honour of conducting, you will address me accordingly at all times and with all due respect. Or, of a manner and means at my personal discretion, you will suffer the correctional consequences - which I assure you will be very painful and will live long in the memory. I advise you to bear in mind also that my colleague Billie Jo expects the same consideration ... and she isn't as tolerant or as lenient as me."

I looked at prison officer Billie Jo, who was still standing near the door.

And, such was her aggressive cane-at-the-ready demeanour and the baleful glare she returned, it was enough to convince me that what I'd imagined highly unlikely might, in fact, be true: the raven-haired, olive-complexioned prison officer Billie Jo was, to be feared even more.

Upon seeing that her colleague Bella Donna had finished her little tete-a-tete pep talk, prison officer Billie Jo said, all business, "Let's go, Community servant David - you are keeping the Governor waiting!"

So, now I knew how things stood.

But what else had I been expecting?

And now it seemed as though my troubled first impressions about prison officers Bella Donna and Billie Jo were vindicated.

That my worried gut instincts were validated.

That my assessments of their callous, cruel, hard-hearted characters were verified.

That there was just cause and reason, for their making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

"Yes, officer Billie Jo," I said respectfully.

*

So it was, that with my hands tightly cuffed behind my back, I was escorted from the Security Checkpoint building and into Greystone Prison.

Marshalled by prison officers Bella Donna on my left and Billie Jo on my right, I listened to the businesslike sounds of their uniform-issue flip flops slap-slap-slapping away against the bottoms of their bare heels, that as we walked along the interconnecting walled-in pathway had a slightly echoey resonance.

Once inside the prison, it didn't take long to conclude that all of my fears and forebodings about the place and its personnel were far from unfounded.

The expressions on the faces of the infamous 'Jailhouse Blue' female prison officers who upon glancing my way and seeing my identity emblazoned on my community servant's uniform white T-shirt were warnings enough in themselves: I was another errant male, who would benefit from a sampling of their correctional techniques and rehabilitation therapies.

Just inside the building, I noticed a stairway to my left, that led down a short way before branching off to left and right. The sign on the wall above said - Basement: Gymnasium, Sunbeds, and Foot Massage Room.

The gymnasium ... I'd heard that was where the dreadful Wheel of Chastisement was located.

The Wheel of Chastisement was the diabolical device of discouragement and dissuasion.

Or, of encouragement and persuasion.

The dichotomic distinction depended upon the polarised points of view of the principal participants, engaged either in operating it or riding 'bareback' on it.

The Wheel of Chastisement:

The slowly revolving dais, upon which the stubbornest and most resistant-to-change prisoners - of whom browbeating and face-slapping and even repeated multi-officer simultaneous caning had failed to do the trick - were restrained to in a standing position with their feet wide apart and administered a more potent behavioural remedy.

Consisting of ballbusting and bare bottom caning by an 'ultimate-treatment' recommending Blue, who as instigator would personally perform the Governor's prescribed effective dosage of barefoot kicks, and supported by a twelve-member Caning Party detail including the instigating Blue herself, this mindset adjustment curative therapy of last resort was superintended by the Governor ... A safeguard, against any unfortunate overdosing of the treatment recipient by her overcaring officers.

In these such cases, it might be a prisoner's final chance, and his last opportunity to voluntarily capitulate.

To come to heel.

To accept his fate.

And consent to submit, once and for all.

Not just to the Blues.

But to vow to undertake henceforth - his oath and his signature upon his Release Form duly witnessed by his rehabilitators - to reconcile himself as subject to the AFP-vested authority of any and all females.

Whether they be UK nationals, or from overseas: visiting university students, tourists, businesswomen, or foreign workers whether permanent or seasonal.

And to readily provide, night or day, any assistances or personal services made upon him.

Whether availed upon, in person, while out and about, going about his routine activities and other pursuits.

Or whether contacted on his AFP-registered mobile phone.

His number obtained either online, from the AFP's Female-Friendly Services website, or found in public phone booths in the monthly-updated local directories in which the categorised character profiles of reformed prisoners were printed along with their contact details.

With the more stubborn and obdurate prisoners being administered, where necessary, up to a maximum of three ultimate treatments (the exact prescribed effective dosages of Blue-administered barefoot kicks, as calculated by the Governor on a carefully considered case-by-case basis), the cruelly conceived contraption was said to be curative in 99% of cases.

The 1% of refusing-to-come-to-heel prisoners (known as the 'One in a hundred's), deemed irredeemably unfit to be released into female-friendly society, these scrap heap, hopeless case failures were relegated to an unspeakable existence and doomed to an unthinkable fate.

These usually alpha male types, resultant of their profound objection and insurmountable reluctance to submit so completely and comprehensively to the notion of all-female administrative rule, in general, but manifestly more so to the AFP's female-authority ideology, in particular, were given the most mindless and demoralising of prisoner work duties.

And as though as reminders of the consequences of their fateful choice, it was with punishing frequency and remonstrative regularity that the Blues used the One-in-a-hundreds for skill honing ball-kicking practice.

But at least there was one happy side-effect of the Blues' routine training aid usage of the no-hopers' scrotums for target practice: it helped to keep down to acceptable levels the number of unfortunate but unavoidable 'ruination'-style accidents.

Regretable mishaps, as inevitably (and especially with overenthusiastic rookie Blues) occurred on occasion in the general course of administering to lesser problematic and redeemable inmates this inherently delicate method of prisoner chastisement.

Although sometimes, just as a timely 'straightener', at her discretion a Jailhouse Blue might be disposed to recommend a small dosage (up to a maximum of three barefoot kicks) of the 'ultimate treatment', to a prisoner who in her considered opinion was showing signs of 'lapsing'. And, as the 'instigating' Blue ...

To my left again we came now to another set of concrete steps, these leading down into a dimly lit corridor.

About to be escorted down these steps by a Jailhouse Blue were two prisoners.

The two captives certainly looked a sorry pair.

If these two forlorn-looking wretches were typical examples, it spoke volumes as to what life 'inside' must be like in Greystone Prison.

Garbed in a decidedly drab cigarette-ash grey prison uniform, on their feet they wore ridiculous-looking, too-big fluffy slippers of the same horrible depressing colour.

Miserably the two intimidated inmates shuffled along in their fumbly footwear, carefully minding their steps, and even more carefully minding their manners, remaining silent and unresponding as the cane-wielding Blue badgered and belittled them, her sharply issued admonishments and authoritative cajolings, liberally laced with cruel jibes and hurtful slurs.

The two inmates' names, stencilled in black onto their grim, grey uniforms, rang a bell ...

Yes - prison officer Bella Donna had said over her Walkie Talkie when responding to Receiving Officer Natalie's call for assistance, that in their cell up at Level 5 she and her colleague Billie Jo had been availing themselves of Foot Service from prisoners Chapman and Lightwood.

No longer requiring them for Foot Service, instead of allowing them to languish in their cell unproductively, prison officers Bella Donna and Billie Jo must have detailed their would-be foot servants to other duties.

Other duties, that apparently now, in their abject dejection in knowing what was imminently in store for them, they were so sorrowfully on their way to fulfil.

I couldn't help noticing that the Blue, for all of the slights, insults and acerbic aspersions with which she verbally assaulted him, she seemed to have a bit of a roving eye, for prisoner Lightwood ... not to mention a bit of a roving hand.

Her nametag declared her to be prison officer Siobhan.

Just past this downward leading flight of concrete steps, the sign above the white-painted double doors read - Staff Canteen.

Just then four Blues on the early first-sitting lunch break pushed their way through into the dining room, and when the double doors flapped back and forth after them a few times, the wafting mouthwatering aromas emanating from within gave testament to the high-quality cuisine the Blues and other prison personnel enjoyed.

But again, what I noticed more than the tantalising lunch fare aromas was the almost heartstopping beauty and pulse-quickening attractiveness of the Blues - and this, despite the decidedly offputting effects of the female prison officers' adopted but severely cut and somehow menacing-looking AFP-adapted concave bob hairdos.

Still more, noticeable and pervading, to the point of not just insinuating but impressing insistently upon the mind, was the irritating and annoying slap-slap-slap-slapping sounds of the Blues' uniform foam-rubber soled flip flops, slapping against the bottoms of their bare heels as they went about their duties.

It was these, almost constant sounds, rather than the cliched occasional clanging and banging sounds of slamming steel-barred cell doors, which were the symbolic sounds of Greystone Prison.

Sounds that, carrying from near and far, announced themselves ominously throughout the Jailhouse Blues' domain.

What must it be like, I thought, for the prisoners here to have to listen to that all day?

Perhaps learning, over time, to discern some of the individual slap-slap-slapping 'signature' sounds of their Levels-patrolling captors' comings and goings. And-

Suddenly I was brought up short when prison officers Bella Donna and Billie Jo both grabbed hold of my uniform T-shirt and jerked me to an abrupt standstill as, on their way to the early lunch sitting, two approaching Blues stopped to say hi and to swap the latest gossip with my two escorts.

And yet again I was bedazzled and awed by the dazzling beauty and stunning attractiveness of two more of these female prison officers, uniformed in their cleavage-displaying pale-blue blouses and the pale-blue denim short skirts that to such pulse-quickening effect showed off their million-dollar legs.

As most of the Blues seemed to be, these two were in their early twenties.

Greystone Prison was, apparently, run by beauty queens - but whose beauty was only skin deep.

The two jovial and loquacious Blues' nametags informed me that they were prison officers Rita and Analise.

Prison officer Rita was an Irish-accented, drop-dead gorgeous pale-skinned green-eyed redhead, with the sort of bright and bubbly personality that was guaranteed to light up and enliven any room the moment she stepped into it.

She paid me barely any notice.

Prison officer Analise was a glamour model gorgeous, eye-catching, head-turning, pulse-quickening suntanned brunette with dark brown eyes, of who's heartbreaker beauty I was sure was such as to stun into admiring appreciative (or envious) silence the occupants of any room into which she made an entrance.

She paid me a lot of notice.

Prison officer Analise looked me up and down, taking me all in.

My overriding emotion was of shock.

I had never been looked at by a girl before, with such open, uninhibited ... interest.

I was greatly unsettled, by the sheer candid brazenness of prison officer Analise's appraisal, as, all but licking her lips, predatorily she undressed me and interfered with me with her eyes.

The hell of it was that I felt that I daren't say a word.

And the way she stared back at me, told me she knew it.

Prison officer Analise was one of the rulers of Greystone Prison.

And I, albeit a visitor - and a community servant at that - was one of the ruled.

It was a decidedly disquieting insight.