The Heel Bar Ch. 03

"Quiet, you!" warned Doorman Tony. "And, didn't I say, that you've got no call to go to the pub when you're on-call? That standby, means you are to stand by? Don't you see, muttonhead, even if I let you go now, you could still be called out later tonight, to cover for another barstool footboy changeover relief no-show?"

"But—"

"And anyway, why are you still here? Didn't I tell you, male citizen Steven, that the lady sitting on Barstool Thirty-Seven is without a footboy? And that you are to hop to it; to go right on in and facilitate her barstool?"

"Yes, but—"

"Or should I have a word with Ms Leasome about you, after all? Because, now I'm thinking, that maybe I should."

"But, Doorman Tony, we've made a deal about that!"

"I know ... but even so."

"Oh! All right -- Doorman Tony! I get the message!" said the on-call emergency-replacement barstool footboy, Steven Stevens, his resentment at his call-up to facilitate a barstool at the Heel Bar on Saturday night, followed by his disappointment at not being allowed to stand down when an entirely willing substitute was on hand to fill in for him, finally getting the better of him.

"I'll hop to it! I'm going right on in! Okay ...?" he said, looking back petulantly. "I'll 'facilitate'!" he said, making the double-quotation sign over his shoulders.

"And don't forget! Call Miss Clinton first, just like I told you," Doorman Tony called after him. "Remember our deal? This is your chance to start putting things right between you!"

"Yes, all right -- Doorman Tony! I'll call Miss Peachy first!" Steven Stevens shouted back irately as he let himself in through the double doors of the Heel Bar, his last words almost drowned out by the loud music within.

When the doors had closed behind Steven Stevens and the relative quiet had returned, Doorman Vince told me, "Miss Chloe will be pleased to see you."

Now I was truly stunned.

Doorman Tony said, "Ms Leasome told Vince and me that she is expecting your return tonight, male citizen Carl. She said she wants to have a word with you; go over a few things. Okay?"

"Okay, Doorman Tony."

"And then you are to install yourself at Barstool Nine. Ms Leasome said you know what to do; she's watched you facilitate Barstool Nine without demur or complaint for the last four weeks."

Doorman Vince said, "Miss Chloe said to tell you, she'll satisfy your obvious craving when she sits on Barstool Nine for her usual winding-down post-work drink with Ms Leasome and the other barmaids after closing time at two a.m."

Doorman Tony said, "Okay then, male citizen Carl -- you'd better hop to it, and go right on in."

I was in a state of shock:

Ms Leasome 'had watched me facilitate Barstool 9 without demur or complaint' for the last four weeks? And she had been 'expecting' me to return tonight?

Chloe, when after closing time she takes the weight off and sits on Barstool 9 for a relaxing post-work drink with Ms Leasome and the other barmaids, was going to satisfy my 'obvious craving'?

Now, finally, the penny dropped:

There wasn't going to be, a second, on-call Instant Response Standby Unit guy come running pell-mell down Tockenham Coat Road to the Heel Bar to facilitate Barstool 9 as emergency-replacement cover for a 10 p.m. barstool footboy changeover relief no-show.

Barstool 9 had been left unfacilitated tonight for a reason -- as a signal: It was my 'in'.

It would seem then that my ulterior-motived machinations weren't so fraught with risk as I'd thought; my desperately devised devious plan wasn't so punitive-penalty perilous, upon its inevitable eventual discovery by my Case Worker at the Job Centre, Miss Pamela Pettiford.

The prompt reappearance of a just-released former facilitator of Barstool 9 had been anticipated.

Just before the doors closed behind me as I let myself into the Heel Bar, almost but not quite drowned out by the lively thumping beat of the revved-up Saturday-night music, I overheard Doorman Tony say to Doorman Vince: "Well, Vinnie ... he turned up, then. Just like Ms Leasome said he would."

*

The nine or ten ticket-holder in-waiting ladies seated in the red-velveted booths to either side of the entrance doors diverted their attentive eyes from monitoring the digital readout display, or dragged vicarious eyes from the coveted barstools and the entertaining endurances of the barstool footboys at the inches-away feet of their barstoolista, and gazed appraisingly at me when I entered the Heel Bar.

The dolled-up Heel Bar Saturday-nighters commented and shared their assessments of the apparent barstool-facilitator latecomer, conferring with their biding-time companions in secretive hand-over-mouth exchanges.

I didn't know if she'd meant me to hear her but over the loud thumping music, I overheard a stunningly attractive girl in the right-hand booth say to one of her skimpily dressed killer-heel shod friends: "Oooh ... I hope I get him!"

Looking me in the eye, she crossed her bare right leg over her left knee, popped her heel from her yellow leather spike-heeled pump and proceeded to dangle and swing it from the toes of her high-arched lightly tanned foot.

I wondered if she'd purposely implanted the mental image:

Perching herself on my barstool, easing off her shoes and hanging them by their high heels from the conveniently rounded-rimmed circular chrome footrest encircling my head, and her golden bare soles reaching back the mere inches to enjoy my barstool facilitation while she imbibed AFP-subsidised drinks and bantered with other bopping-to-the-music barstoolistas.

Because that was exactly what she had done.

I guessed the girl to be older than me, at nineteen or maybe twenty. She was a real looker: million-dollar legs, a curvy figure, lustrous shoulder-length wavy blonde hair, and in her blue eyes was a glint that hinted at a playfully mischievous personality.

My intuitive impression was that I could do a lot worse than to hope that, via the potluck, random chance ticket-number/barstool-number correlation fortuity of the digital readout display, her announced barstool-facilitator preference was thus luckily granted.

Because, unless she underwent a dramatic personality change with a drink or two inside her, while evidently she didn't scruple about bringing me to heel, neither did she seem the sort to diabolically abuse her perched position and then disdainfully desert her barstool footboy with two backheeled thank-you-and-good-night black eyes to take home with him to remember her by awhile, just because she could.

But then I spotted potential trouble, forcibly bringing home to me the sobering reality that while most barstoolistas were fair-minded and their expectations and requirements of their barstool footboys were reasonable, the 'Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice' variety of Heel Bar patron was decidedly in the minority.

Wearing their political allegiance on their sleeves, the pair of young women sitting together in the booth to the left-hand side of the entrance doors wore their hair in the AFP-adopted but severely adapted concave bob style.

In these 'female-friendly' times, it was nothing out of the ordinary to see women sporting the same intimidating hairstyle that was regulation-worn by the AFP's CSOs and the government's other frontline personnel and even by a few example-setting AFP Cabinet Ministers.

But I sensed an underlying steely substantiveness to these two young women, suggesting they were not just relatively harmless heart-on-their-sleeve AFP cheerleaders.

Aged eighteen or nineteen at the most, one of them was brunette and her companion, who looked even more like trouble, was a blonde whose hair was streaked with pink highlights that might have looked great on another girl but on her seemed to holler 'attitude'.

All too easily I could imagine this partnered pair approaching me in full CSO uniform, carrying their AFP-issue whippy bamboo canes and wearing their black nylon utility belt equipped with the wherewithal to subdue and detain errant male citizens: taser, baton, pepper spray, walkie-talkie radio, handcuffs and cable ties -- and avoiding eye contact I would cross the road to evade them.

But I wasn't on the street, and I couldn't evade them.

I looked away, but I knew I had been too late. Knew that, albeit fleeting, I should not have made direct eye contact with the two menace-emanating young women.

I knew I was a fool to have made eye contact with the dolled-up Saturday-nighter ticket-holder in-waiting ladies seated in the two red-velveted booths on either side of the entrance doors.

A fool, not to have kept my gaze downward and made a beeline to the bar and Ms Leasome.

A fool, to let my eyes linger on the yellow leather high-heeled shoe dangling from the lightly tanned toes of the shapely petite bare foot of my stated wannabe barstoolista, Miss Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice.

And I knew that now I would be made to pay a price for my foolhardiness -- my AFP Female-Friendly Code protocol non-adherence.

Before I took a second step toward the bar to present myself to the Heel Bar proprietress Ms Andrea Leasome as instructed by Doorman Tony ("you should hop to it, and go right on in"), the brunette, snapped: "You -- footboy!"

I had no choice now but to look directly at my imperious addresser the brunette.

Crooking her finger at me to beckon me to her presence, she said peremptorily, "Yes, you -- footboy! Come here!"

There was nothing for it now but to meekly comply with the haughty brunette's summons and to humbly face her tongue-lashing tirade and, I intuited, a much harsher dressing-down and a punitive painful penalty too from her blonde companion.

Though the brunette was not in CSO uniform: blue blazer, green shirt, red above-the-knee skirt, yellow ankle socks, and black, thick-rubber soled backless clog-like shoes -- she might as well have been. The arrogant, self-assured note of AFP-empowerment was unmistakable in her voice.

It was the intimidating tone of command that, set against the backdrop of AFP Female-Friendly infrastructural entrenchment -- the almost weekly openings of yet another male-facilitated programme, project, and scheme -- no male citizen was left untouched.

I reported to the AFP-style concave-bobbed brunette at once -- it would not do to hesitate; to show the slightest sign of resistance or even reluctance to present oneself to a summoning female citizen.

Not to any female. But least of all to a pair of young women who exhibited more than enough tell-tale warning signs that they were not just politico-hobbyist AFP apparatchiks out on the town for a drink and a laugh, but off-duty Community Service Officers out on the prowl to snare unwary male prey.

And upon reporting as bidden by the browbeating brunette, I was further persuaded of my worrisome suspicion that she and her blonde companion were indeed off-duty CSOs, for such was the militaristic precision and perfection of their severe regulation-cut hairstyle.

"Good evening, Miss. I hope I find you well. And please: how may I be of service?" I said respectfully to the brunette.

I had spoken with due deference as per the standardised female-citizen-mistress/male-citizen-servant societal interaction protocols as set out in the AFP's Female-Friendly Code.

My demeanour and my words conveying my acknowledgement of, and agreement with, a female citizen's constitutionally enshrined right to summarily summon me face-to-face or by phone, and my unconditional acceptance of both her societal superiority and her personal authority, including and in particular my ready compliance to submit instantly and serve wordlessly unless required or invited to speak.

The brunette held out her hand and said: "Show me your Male Citizen Identity Card."

Any female citizen (not necessarily a CSO) was AFP-empowered to demand to see a male citizen's AFP-issued laminated photo-ID card which, along with his AFP-issued mobile phone, he was legally required to carry on his person at all times.

A male citizen's failure to produce his ID Card upon request by a female citizen would result in his offence being called in by said, female citizen, who, assuming Acting-CSO status would then arrest him and advise responding CSOs of her prisoner's location.

The now Acting-CSO female citizen could then serve a verbal Self-Custody Order on her captured offender to legally bind him to remain where he was while she went on her way. Or detain him herself, to witness -- and even partake in -- his ensuing on-the-spot chastisement for his contravention of the AFP's on-person-at-all-times edict.

Everything would then depend upon just how malicious was the responding CSO foot/mobile-patrol, and whether or not they chose to exercise their discretional post-punishment penal powers.

If the non-ID/phone-carrying male citizen was lucky, he might be sent on his way after being administered the Standard Six bared-bottom caning penalty at the hands of the responding foot/mobile-patrol CSOs -- or, at the apprehending female citizen's request, her participation in a three-way two-stroke shareout.

And if he was unlucky: following his matter-of-course on-the-spot Standard Six chastisement, his handcuffing, formal arrest, and his immediate admission to one of the AFP's female-run Corrections and Rehabilitation facilities; his release, pending his female overseers' recommendation, dependant upon his behavioural improvement under their daily Female-Friendly Doctrine inculcation and cane-centric mindset adjustment therapies.

I promptly handed my Male Citizen Identity Card over to the overbearing brunette.

As the brunette and her blonde companion put their concave-bobbed heads together to peruse my ID Card, I waited quietly.

Fleeting direct eye contact apart, I was pretty sure I knew what this was all about: they were mistaking me for a straggler; an on-call relief, turning up late for one of the 10 p.m. barstool footboy changeovers.

"So ... male citizen Carl," said the girl with the pink-highlighted blonde hair, pointing meaningfully to her wrist at what looked to be a wi-fi-enabled multifunction wristwatch of the type issued by the AFP to their female army of foot soldier CSOs and to their other female frontline forces. "What time do you call this, then, to report to your Barstool Footboy duties?"

Wordlessness was the wary and wise male citizen's watchword -- I remained silent.

"It appears that you are late; very late, at nearly half-past ten," said the high-and-mighty brunette, pointing to the dial of her own, wizard watch.

"Yes ..." agreed the blonde, "... sanctionably late."

And appearances can be deceptive, I thought but didn't say.

In fact, I didn't say anything to them.

I decided to play it safe: To make no attempt to clear up the understandable misunderstanding, but to feign contrite admission of guilt to their accusation and pretend remorseful submission to their righteous apprehension -- because it was for the best.

It would not do to backchat a female -- any female.

But especially not a possible off-duty CSO -- and the evidential signs of these two being so were mounting up by the moment.

Like many of the AFP's female frontline employees: Prison Officers, Correction and Rehabilitation Facility personnel, Job Centre Interviewers -- the CSOs were Female-Friendly ideology zealots. Ultra-fanatical adherents, the CSOs were Authoritarian Female Party doctrine enforcers who were never really off-duty.

"I am CSO Trudi," said the blonde, showing me her CSO ID Card. "And sitting next to me is my colleague CSO Debbie," she told me, confirming my strong suspicions and vindicating my fearful concerns.

"Have you anything to say in your defence or in mitigation, before duly exercising the law enforcement powers vested in me by the Authoritarian Female Party government, I award the statutory Standard Six bared-bottom caning penalty for your lax timekeeping in reporting to the Heel Bar to perform your barstool-facilitator duties, as also witnessed by CSO Debbie?"

In reading my 'rights', CSO Trudi was merely going through the legalistic motions. Her invitation to defend or plead mitigation was not only a hollow gesture but an invitation to self-harm.

So still, I said nothing.

My silence would indicate to CSOs Trudi and Debbie an uncontested full admission of guilt as charged -- which was for the best.

Any form of contentious argument with a CSO, including a protestation of verifiable genuine blamelessness in a manner of politest deference, the respectful insistence upon innocence would prove counterproductive.

The response of the power-crazed CSOs to the first word of humblest talking-back appeal was likely to be the introduction of cable ties and one's wrists restrained behind one's back, followed, once thus incapacitated, by a furious flurry of face-slaps. Likely too, should the CSO's arbitrarily administered face-slaps be met with attempted avoidance, would be a doubling-up of the Standard Six on-the-spot bared-bottom caning punishment.

"Male citizen Carl Carson, you will present yourself at Tockenham Town Hall at ten o'clock on Monday morning. Ask for me by name. Tell the Information Desk CSO that you are reporting as ordered by CSO Trudi, to receive your Standard Six chastisement for gross unpunctuality in reporting for facilitation duty at a female-friendly venue.

"Having stated your business, you will then face the wall and stand at respectful silent attention until I come to the Information Desk to escort you to the Corrections and Punishments Room.

"Witnessed by CSO Debbie or another colleague or colleagues, with her or their assistance I will de-trouser you, divest you of underwear, and restrain you to the horizontal caning-frame by your wrists and ankles, spreadeagled face-down. Any show of resistance during these denuding and restraining procedures will incur the statutory doubling of your CSO-administered six-stroke caning punishment, the penalty for obstructive noncompliance.

"After a safety inspection ensuring that your wrists and ankles are all secured satisfactorily to the ratcheted restraints on the horizontal caning-frame, I will perform your bared-bottom caning punishment: Six strokes of an AFP-approved cane, counted out at ten-second intervals, delivered with the full weight of the law, administered alternately to each bared buttock.

"I will then release you -- upon caution:

"Any second offence that you commit within the next thirty days would incur the statutory doubling of the Standard Six penalty; a third offence, a tripling of the penalty; a fourth offence, a quadrupling. Six cane strokes per each offence, delivered with the full weight and majesty of the law, administered in turn to each bared buttock, counted out at ten-second intervals. Have I made myself clear, male citizen Carl?"

"Yes, you have made yourself clear, CSO Trudi. Thank you."

"Do not think of making the mistake that many do of disobeying me and not turning up to the Town Hall as instructed, through fear.

"Believe me: the last thing you want is to have me and CSO Debbie come looking for you with an arrest warrant ... and our canes.

"Not only do CSO Debbie and I not hesitate to deploy our canes but we relish the chance to use them when using reasonable force to show noncompliant male citizens the errors of their ways -- especially fugitives from justice.

"When we caught up with you, before arresting you and taking you into custody, CSO Debbie and I would give you a lot of good reasons to wish you had obeyed my explicit instructions to the letter and turned up to take your due punishment at my hands. Am I clear?"

"Yes, CSO Trudi. You are very clear. Thank you."

"And be in no doubt: I will not tolerate your lackadaisical lateness. The way you sauntered in here tonight, unforgivably overdue -- and then, to put the icing on the cake, you have the bare-faced audacity to stand around staring at ladies' legs.