I’ve never had travel sickness before, but as the car fights its way through the traffic-snarled streets of London I am feeling horribly nauseous. I don’t whether it’s the aftermath of the traumatic ordeal I have just endured, or the dread of the coming months, or the motion of the car when I can’t see anything. Whatever it is, it’s made terrifyingly worse by the obvious consequences of being sick in my current state. I’m in Sensory Deprivation Confinement. But even through the fancy hi-tech material of this hood I can detect the atmosphere in the car. Rob is driving and he’s not speaking, other than muttering obscenities at other drivers. But I can feel his anger and his disdain surrounding me and boring its way in through the hood. And I can do nothing about it. I can’t plead my case, beg for forgiveness, argue for understanding or even bawl him out for being such a prick. I can’t speak. At all. Apparently being able to talk counts as a sense and so I have been deprived of that too.

 

After my interview with my solicitor I was once again blindfolded and force-marched to the Corrective Restraint Preparation Centre where I was shut in a cage and ordered to strip myself naked. A couple of young, wide-boy types with Essex accents and baseball caps fired up this machine that scanned my entire body with flickering red laser lines. They wanted an accurate 3D model of me so that their machines could knock up perfectly fitting restraints. My hair gave them a real problem. They said the lasers couldn’t penetrate through what they called “that curly, red rainforest” and I was obliged to stick my head in a bucket of water to wet my hair down so it could be slicked back and tied out of the way. Only then could their computer see the shape of my neck and head properly.

 

The first ‘restraint’ they put on me was the chastity belt, but before that came the injections. They secured me with my arms and legs outstretched and then with the biggest and thickest needle I’ve ever seen, they injected no less than five electronic chips into me at places denoted by a computer controlled laser which marked the exact spots on my skin with a red X. One in my pubic mound, one in my crotch just behind my labia, one in my bum cleavage, and one in the back of each of my thighs. I don’t know which was worse, the piercing agony of the needle or the feeling of violation from knowing their electronic spies were stuck inside me. The belt has sensors in it and if it detects it has moved away from the implanted chips it will decide it has been illegally cut off and immediately inform the ‘Management Division’. I will then get an automatic doubling of my sentence unless I can prove ‘exceptional circumstance’. Apparently I’d even get a bill for having new belt made and could be charged with vandalising government property. The fucking thing isn’t even mine.

 

The belt itself is of course humiliating and uncomfortable, but I’d have to say it doesn’t yet feel as bad as I thought it might. It has a tight band around my waist from which the ‘shield’ descends over my mound and through my crotch. Rather than being just a flat strip of metal, it is shaped and contoured and while it presses very snugly either side of my labia, it bulges away from them in its centre to form an enclosed, shielded void over everything that I could experience anything pleasant with. At the front of this void is a vent to let air in, covered with a fancy mesh to stop anything else getting in of course, and at the back the bulge forms itself into a short tube through which my pee will apparently run out, and to which I am supposed to be able to attach a hose to inject water and keep myself clean. Of course I haven’t actually tested either of those theories yet. Behind this the belt becomes a steel thong from hell, squeezing itself between my cheeks and flaring out wide around my arsehole where it has a large round opening. It pushes my cheeks apart and my hole feels like it’s constantly being presented for something.

 

They said that if I can do the splits it might just be possible to get something like a knife blade under the shield and get myself some stimulation and so to make sure that doesn’t happen I have a snug fitting steel band around each thigh and they’re joined by a chain of just three links. I don’t know about doing the splits, but just walking tugs at the chain and stairs are only possible because my thighs are squishy enough to let the bands dig in and allow me a little more movement. So far, after about five hours, the belt has not been as bad as I had feared, but that might be because I’m distracted from it by the infinitely worse things that I’m having to deal with.

 

I have no idea where we are, and I don’t even know where the car is going. My house or Rob’s flat, or has he got some restrained girlfriend minder lined up to dump me with for the next six months? I do know that as he promised, he has signed up to be my guardian and to look after me for the duration of my sentence but it’s clear that he regards it as an inconvenience, a humiliation and “something he could well do without when he’s under so much pressure at work”. Pressure at work? Pah, he doesn’t know what pressure is. Wait till he’s shut in a hood like this, then he’ll know. I feel another bout of nausea coming on and swallow nervously. As I do so the uncomfortable movement of my larynx reminds me of what’s around my neck.

 

After the belt I got my collar. And this required another two agonising injections of security chips, one on each side of my neck. All my solicitor had said about everything having to be explained to me turned out to be just crap, because I knew nothing about the fact that that assessor bitch from hell had put me down for a number four collar until I watched the thing form itself from nothing right in front of me on a fancy 3D printer. When it was done the two Essex goons tried it on me and professed how pleased they were with it. Apparently the fit was just perfect. To me it felt like I was being strangled and turned into a giraffe at the same time. After the test fit, they sent it off somewhere to be polished and electro-plated with shiny chrome. To make it look nice, they said. To make it humiliatingly unmissable, I said. And while it was gone, they got on with making the hood.

 

At last the car comes to a stop and the sound of a crunchy gravel driveway under its wheels tells me that Rob has brought me home. And I’m relieved at that. Now that I can’t see anything I need to be in a familiar place where I know intimately where everything is. He opens the car door, helps me out and leads me across the gravel to my front door. Gravel is never easy when you’re wearing stiletto heels, but it’s a whole lot scarier when you can’t see. I hear the sound of keys in a lock, but unlike the ones in the prison these keys signify something good. Home. And for the first time in three terrible and terrifying days I feel that something has just improved. My house is my castle. It’s the last remnant of the life I had when I was a highly paid big shot. It’s mine, bought and paid for and it’s been here since women walked around in crinolines, bonnets and corsets. Maybe it will be here to see that again the way things seem to be going, but in the meantime it will protect me from the world. And the first thing I want to do is get out of my clothes that I’ve been in for three days and wash as much of that prison off me as possible.

 

As Rob guides me into my hallway I feel the black and white Victorian floor tiles under my feet and I’m tempted to kick my shoes off straight away. But it occurs to me that I can’t be so undisciplined now. I can’t leave things lying around where I could trip over them and where I won’t be able to find them. Everything needs to be put away in its place now. I’ll keep my shoes on until I’m in my walk-in wardrobe with its shoe rack along one side. The first lesson perhaps in how to survive life in a hood.

 

Unlike the collar, the hood did not create itself before my eyes. It was made by a computer in another room, but the Essex boys took great delight in telling me how new it all was and how trendy it was going to become. Trendy? Really? It’s apparently made from several layers of some synthetic composite material called Clarino. Each layer is filled with micro perforations to make it extremely breathable, but the multi-layer arrangement ensures that absolutely no light whatsoever gets inside. The pieces were cut by a computer to match the scans of me and were welded rather than stitched together. As with the collar, the goons were ecstatic with the hood’s apparently perfect fit. They told me there wasn’t a wrinkle to be seen and it looked ‘so cool’. I’m sure they would have thought differently if they had been the ones trapped inside it. It closes with a substantial zip down the back and they showed me a special tool, like a big pair of pincers that fits into eyes either side of the zip so the hood can be pulled tightly closed and allow the zip to be advanced downwards. The process has to be repeated several times to get the zip down to the bottom of the hood’s collar and once that’s done there is pressure all around my head, a dense, confining pressure that conspires with the blackness to generate the most appallingly claustrophobic experience imaginable. It took me a long time to calm down after they put it on me and the last thing I saw was the smiling face of the she-devil herself, Suzanna Black, who had stopped by just to gloat and see the results of her handiwork.

 

As I panicked and panted in the hood, I realised that it has two little holes under my nose through which I could breathe. And the fabric itself is so porous that I can just about manage to breathe through my covered mouth too. And that means I can speak, although only quietly and it’s hard to move my jaw and lips enough to speak properly. Presumably that must mean that I could potentially spout poisonous feminist rhetoric to all and sundry, and to prevent that there is a wide strap that goes around my head, outside the hood and over my mouth. It’s made of something that’s not at all porous and gags me completely. Apparently I am allowed to remove the strap when I’m at home but I have to wear it whenever I venture into a public place. Something else no one told me about. As if I’d want, or be able to go out in public anyway.

 

As I stand in the hallway of my house, pondering my shoes and when to take them off, I feel Rob starting to unbuckle the gag strap behind me. Its pressure disappears and I feel it slide away from around my head. It is a tiny improvement in my state imposed bondage, but it also makes things much more awkward. Now I can speak, but what to say to an angry man who thinks I have fucked up his life for the next six months when he should be thinking about how he can make things bearable for me.

 

“Thanks for getting me home,” I say. I can’t face having another row right now.

 

“They’ve really gone to town on you haven’t they,” he replies. “I thought you were just going to get handcuffed. I knew something was up when it took so long before I got a call to come and get you. That’s three days off work I’ve had to take this week.”

 

Oh whoopee fucking doo. Three days off work? His supposed-to-be girlfriend is trapped in a fucking hood for Christ’s sake! Can I get some fucking sympathy here?

 

“I’m sorry. I err, need to get out of these clothes.”

 

“You need some help?”

 

“No, I can manage. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.”

 

It’s my house and I know my way around. I feel my way along the wall to the stairs and start to climb them. Immediately that chain between my thighs reminds me of its presence but I’m not going to be defeated, and I’m definitely not asking to be carried up. I push my knees apart and the bands squeeze against my thighs, but I get enough movement to climb the stairs while holding on to the bannister tightly. In my bedroom I can’t get my dirty-feeling, prison-soaked clothes off quickly enough and the en-suite bath is calling to me. It gives me an excuse to not go back downstairs too. I don’t want to be with Rob at the moment. Maybe I should have gone to live with Sarah and her husband. At least she wants me. I feel my way into the bathroom and get the bath running. I wonder if all these fancy electronic bits I’m locked up in are waterproof. Well that’s their problem not mine. If I damage, or ‘vandalise’ them then I’m in trouble, if they break because they don’t like water then that’s not my fault. I feel around for a bottle of ‘stress relieving’ bubbles and pour in a generous helping. I think I need something rather stronger but they’ll have to do for now. The warm water is soothing and gentle and I try to imagine it’s night and I’ve just got the lights turned off.

 

I wonder how Sarah is, and if she managed to go to work today. Hopefully Rob is going to bring my bag in from the car and I’ll be able to phone her. Assuming I can work the phone of course. Touchscreen. That’s not going to be easy to feel my way around. I wonder if Alexa can hear my voice through the hood, but then I suppose it could never understand me without a hood so it seems rather unlikely. Perhaps I’ll have to get an old-fashioned phone with buttons, if anybody still makes one.

 

After a while Rob knocks on the door and I hear him enter the bathroom. I wish he’d just piss off and leave me alone. I don’t see why I should keep eating humble pie all the time just because I don’t want to fight.

 

“Erm, I know we talked about moving in together, and decided not to for a while, but I guess this sort of changes things a bit,” he says, sounding in conciliatory mood. “Being as you’re sort of… well not just in handcuffs.”

 

“I’m sorry Rob. I had no idea about all this.”

 

“Yeah. It’s a bit of shock.”

 

“You want to see how shocking from in here.”

 

“Yeah. So what about it? You want me to move in? You want to come to my place? How d’you want to play this?”

 

“Erm… I need to be here I think. I need to know where everything is. And this house, it’s like my blanket.”

 

“Okay, so…”

 

“I need help Rob. Especially now while I get used to this thing. But I don’t need the anger and contempt. I’m sorry I got you dragged into this, but we’ve been through it a hundred times and it’s time to let it go. Either you’re going to help and support me, or I’d rather be alone.”

 

“I can’t just wander off and leave you like this.”

 

“I don’t want you here if it’s just because you feel guilty about leaving. I want you here because you love me, and for no other reason.”

 

“Of course I love you. I wouldn’t get so pissed off with you if I didn’t.”

 

“I’m not sure what that means.”

 

“It means I’m here. I love you and I want to help.”

 

“No more anger?”

 

“I’ll keep a lid on it.”

 

“No. No keeping a lid on it. Let it go.”

 

“You’re one hell of a woman Jem. Okay, anger gone.”

 

“You sure?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Then, what do you want? Move in here or me come to you?”

 

“Will you have me in your house?”

 

“As long as the anger doesn’t come with you.”

 

“What anger? Forgotten already.”

 

“Then welcome home Robert Macintyre.”

 

“Pleased to be home, Jemima Melstrom. So this is err… your chastity belt then.”

 

“It is. And I am definitely sorry about that.”

 

“Yeah, shame. But, err… it does look kinda cute.”

 

“Oh god, not you as well.”

 

“As well as what?”

 

“You know my friend Sarah?”

 

“The one who was in court with you?”

 

“Yes. Her husband apparently thinks it’s sexy.”

 

“Yeah, well. There is a certain something…”

 

“What is it with you men? How can it be sexy? The whole point is to stop sexiness.”

 

“Yeah but, why’s that great mass of hair of yours sexy? There is no reason, it just is.”

 

“I don’t think my hair is very sexy at the moment, squashed under this hood.”

 

“You’d be surprised Jem. It’s bursting out from under that hood like an upside down volcano.”

 

“What? Don’t tell me the hood’s sexy too. Jesus.”

 

“Hey, I’m just not being angry. I know it’s all shit, but you’ll beat it Jem. I know you and I know you’ll turn it around and get through it. You’re a tougher cookie than you let on.”

 

“You think that?”

 

“I know that.”

 

I suddenly feel something against my mouth and I realise it’s Rob. He’s kissing me. I can feel his lips against mine and I try to respond. It is the strangest kiss I’ve ever had, and quite possibly the most erotic. And he’s right, I am a tough cookie. I’m Jemima fucking Melstrom and I’ve been through shit before. I will get through this. 




Continued in The Accidental Feminist, Part Eight