It’s a tough day at work but somehow I make it through to home time with nothing worse than some chaffing around the top of my neck from the collar. It rises high up the sides of my neck and its top is lowered at the front to allow my jaw to escape its embrace. It’s not too bad as long as I keep looking straight ahead, but it digs in if I try to turn my head at all. I realise I need to stop doing that and to turn my body towards whatever it is I want to look at. But I console myself with the thought that things should get easier as everyone stops gawking at me and just accepts what’s going on. Perhaps the hardest part is behind me now.

 

Or perhaps not. My working day might be over but the actual day still has another seven hours left and most of those will have to be back inside that hood. Back in the blackness and isolation. It haunts my thoughts as I sit on the tube, but at least it distracts me from noticing all the staring going on around me. It’s only a collar for fuck’s sake.

 

I walk into my driveway and am surprised to see Rob’s car is here. I wouldn’t usually expect him to be back from work until after eight and although he said he’d be here early to help me get back into my hood, I didn’t think he meant this early. I walk across my crunchy gravel, past his car and I look at my double garage door, and think of what lies behind it. My lovely old 1981 Lancia Beta Spyder. It’s a nice evening and normally I might be tempted to go out and pollute the air for no good reason other than to enjoy some retro driving pleasure, but of course today there is no time. It’s a few minutes to six and I have only forty minutes of daylight left.

 

Inside my house I can tell immediately that something is up. There’s soft music playing quietly and the smell of cooking. In the dining room the table is laid for two, complete with candles and wine glasses, and in the kitchen I find Rob, complete with ridiculous chef’s hat, putting the finishing touches to my absolute favourite dish. The one you can only indulge in very occasionally if you are a woman with even half an eye on your figure. Steak and chips, complete with onion rings and a token gesture of vegetables just to stave off any feelings of committing arterial suicide. The way to this woman’s heart is definitely through my stomach.

 

“Can you forgive me?” asks Rob as he slides the stakes onto my best plates.

 

“Forgive you? What for?”

 

“For being such an arse. For being angry with you when I should have been helping. For thinking my stupid job is more important than you are. For generally being a dick.”

 

“A dick who welcomes me home with my favourite dish?” I say as I pucker up for a kiss.

 

“Mmmmmmmmmmm. Well, the least I could do. Come on, eat time now, we can do cuddles after…”

 

“Eat time sounds good. I’ve been starving all day. They don’t feed you much in that prison you know.”

 

“I guessed by the way you were shoving breakfast down this morning. Now go and sit, I’m serving.”

 

“Oh, yes Sir. Can I do anything?”

 

“No, I’ve got it all under control. You just enjoy.”

 

Rob’s steak is absolutely spot on and sitting with him at the dining table, candles flickering and wine flowing seems like it might be the start of a perfect evening, except of course that as we eat, both of us keep glancing at the clock. But I decide not to rush my dinner. Forty minutes is plenty of time to savour my favourite dish and I’ve nothing else that has to be done before…

 

At 1839 we’re in the bathroom and we get the one minute bleep. At 1840 the collar unlocks itself. At 1842 I finish cleaning my teeth. Ten seconds later a fussing and stressed out Rob has the hood pulled over my head. By 1843 he’s got the zip pulled down and is replacing the collar. And then we sit like a couple of ripening lemons for almost two whole minutes before the collar locks itself shut. I’m back in the surreal, confining blackness. At least it’s not frightening this time. When he’s sure I’m all right, Rob says he has to do some work on his computer for a couple of hours. Apparently it’s a price he has to pay for coming home early to cook for me. And so he goes off to the living room to work and I’m left to myself for a while. I feel my way back downstairs and into the dining room where I decide to try and clear the table, just for a challenge and something to do. I manage to get the plates into the dishwasher and only knock over one wineglass on the table. Fortunately it was mine and so it had no wine left in it. I could do with some more wine, but alas that’s not happening until my mouth gets uncovered.

 

It makes me think about the weekend. Today is Thursday, and when the hood goes on tomorrow night it will remain until Monday morning. Nearly sixty hours. I don’t know how I’m going to cope with that. To distract myself from thoughts of the coming weekend I go up to my music room to lose myself in some really hard to play piece. I carefully feel my way in and find my much loved cello. It’s warm, rich sound always relaxes me and something impossibly difficult like Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante will push thoughts of anything else out of my head.

 

It’s a not unexpected but still heavy blow to find that cello seems to be off the menu for the duration of my Corrective Restraint. The first thing you learn about playing a cello is that you use your knees to hold it in place and the chain between my thighs is far too short to allow me to do that. I just can’t get my knees far enough apart to fit the cello between them. So much for my restraints not interfering with my job then. I push the disappointment aside and go for the piano instead. The Chopin Preludes provide a refuge from everything that I don’t want to think about. It’s hard to get started when I can’t see the keyboard, but once I get going I find I can manage.

 

 

oOo

 

 

The following day, Sarah once again comes over to the music department staffroom for morning coffee break. The presence of Joan has moderated our conversation and I bemoan the fact despite the whole idea of Corrective Restraint allowing us to continue in our jobs, I can’t play my cello. I can’t play a clarinet either because I can’t tilt my head forwards, and I can’t play a violin because the chin rest keeps slipping around the frictionless surface of the collar. To my great surprise Joan suddenly joins the conversation and offers a solution. She takes a couple of paperclips and improvises them into a little chain which she clips between the end pin of the violin and the ring on the front of my collar. It is an inspired piece of genius, holding the violin in place and stopping it disappearing over my shoulder whenever I press on it.

 

“Wow. Thanks Joan,” I say, feeling rather guilty that I’ve taken to disliking her without ever really knowing her.

 

“It’s okay. I was always a bit of a practical tomboy before… all this stuff,” she replies, gesturing at her dress.

 

“So, err… why did you sign up for…?”

 

“The lady stuff? Needs must. My father died a few years ago and it turned out that his business was riddled with debts. My mother inherited the equity in their house but got nothing else and couldn’t pay the mortgage on it. She was going to lose it. I had a little flat here and I sold it to help out and went back to live with my mum. But her house is up in Oxford and with the cost of commuting and stuff I still couldn’t keep the mortgage going. We were going to lose everything and so I signed up to be a certified lady for the no tax and free travel. It’s made enough difference to keep my mum’s house. She’s got cancer now and can’t work. If I can keep things going for a few more years then at least she can die in her own home.”

 

“Oh god Joan. None of us knew all that. I’m so sorry. We’ve all looked down our noses on you as some sort of, err…”

 

“Collaborator? Traitor? Yeah, I get that all the time. It’s why I just keep myself to myself. I wish I could be more like you two, and go out and do something about it all.”

 

“I don’t think we achieved anything much,” says Sarah. “Except fucking our lives up that is.”

 

“You should be proud that you did something though.”

 

“Well you should proud that you’re doing the right thing for your mum,” I say to Joan. “So no more skulking quietly off to your office at break time. Sit your arse down here with us and tell us all about your tomboy days.”

 

“Sit my, err, bottom down? Sorry I can’t say that A-word you used. Ladies apparently don’t use coarse language. I could get fined for that.”

 

“Really? Well watch what you say around us. These collars have eyes and ears you know.”

 

“I know,” says Joan. “I’d love to join you but…” She leans in close to me and whispers in my ear. “I’ve got a fucking elephant’s arse load of work on my desk needing done.” She straightens up and speaks out loud again as she leaves the staffroom. “But I’ve got a lot to do and I don’t want to break a nail by rushing.”

 

“Fuck,” I say to Sarah. “Now I feel bad. I see her in a different light now.”

 

“Yeah. Don’t judge a book by its cover eh? What did she whisper to you?”

 

“Erm, I don’t think I could repeat it in front of spying collars.”

 

“Well don’t then. Poor girl. What a shitty situation.”

 

“Yeah, kinda puts ours in perspective. We’ve only got six months of this. She’s got to dress up and act like that all the time.”

 

“Still, she does get to wear some cool dresses don’t you think Jem? And talking of dresses, I need to get some. My entire wardrobe has been rendered unusable because I can’t get into anything in these chains. If it’s not sleeveless and wraparound it’s not possible.”

 

“I was wondering about that. Where did that dress come from?”

 

“The prison gave me two of these. A white one and this blue one. See how the zip at the front goes right from hem to neckline so I can open it up and wrap it round me. And these little zips on the shoulders open up the sleeves so I can get my arms in.”

 

“They think of everything don’t they. Bastards.”

 

“Yeah, well I’m buggered if I’m spending six months with just two shapeless sacks to wear the whole time. There’s a shop in Tottenham that does special clothes for ladies in restraints. I’m going for a look tomorrow. Will you come and help me Jem?”

 

“Err, aren’t you forgetting something?”

 

“No.”

 

“The hood Sarah. Remember that? I don’t think shopping’s really on my can-do list at the moment.”

 

“I hadn’t forgotten. So what is on your can-do list in your hood?”

 

“Err, not much really. I managed to clear the dinner table last night.”

 

“So, does that mean you’re going to just sit at home and do nothing all weekend?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Got some pressing engagement that means you can’t come out with me?”

 

“No, of course not.”

 

“Well why not come shopping then? Just for a couple of hours. I might need help. What if there’s a dress I like but the zip is at the back? How will I try it on without someone to do it up for me?”

 

“Jack could help.”

 

“Yes he could. And he will. He’ll drive us to the shop so we don’t have to brave the tube. But I won’t enjoy the shopping if I know my friend is stuck at home feeling sorry for herself.”

 

“Who said I’ll be feeling sorry for myself?”

 

“You will though won’t you?”

 

“No, I’ll be… Well perhaps I’ll be nursing my arse after Rob has been in it.  I want to give him some sort of sex this weekend and my plan to be a great fellatrix seems to have been thwarted.”

 

“Yeah well. No better way to help a sore arse than some gentle exercise. Please come Jem. I know Jack will help, but he doesn’t understand it all like we do. I need you, for moral support if nothing else.”

 

“I wasn’t here for you on Wednesday was I. I promised didn’t I. Can we park outside the shop?”

 

“I don’t know. Jack might have to drop us off and go to park. The shop will be fine. All their customers are like us. They’ll be geared up for us.”

 

“Will they have stockings that will work with metal thigh bands?”

 

“They’re on the website.”

 

“Then I’m in. As long as it’s not early. I want time for morning sex, whatever form it takes. Seems the least I can do, especially after Rob’s dinner last night.”

 

 

oOo

 

 

It’s just after a quarter to eleven when the sound of gravel crunching under car tires announces that Sarah and Jack have just arrived at my house. I know this because the clock in the hall just chimed a few minutes ago. It’s about the only thing that tells me the day is passing. I’m not feeling in a fit state to receive visitors. Nor am I in a fit state to go shopping, or anything else really.

 

Since being released from prison I’ve done three evenings and nights in the hood, and I had just about managed to convince myself that I could cope with it and the worst thing about the next six months was just going to be boredom. But today is Saturday, and my first full day of my first full weekend in the hood. I knew it was coming of course but it wasn’t until early this morning when the collar didn’t unlock itself that the reality of it all hit me. I’m in the hood until Monday morning. Sixty hours confined in blackness. Sixty hours of unrelenting claustrophobic pressure all around my head. And sixty hours of not being able to eat or drink.

 

According to the information given to me by the Corrective Restraint goons who made all the stuff I’m locked up in, the human body can go for two foodless days with no ill effects whatsoever, in fact they told me that it would actually be rather good for my figure. Cheeky bastards. Like there’s anything wrong with my figure. Going without liquid, specifically water is another matter though and I would be seriously and dangerously de-hydrated if I went through to Monday morning without drinking. And so the powers that be have provided me with a plastic bottle equipped with a bendy straw-like tube that can supposedly be pushed through one of the breathing holes in the hood and onwards into my nose until it reaches in my throat, allowing the contents of the bottle to be squeezed into me. I tried it this morning with Rob’s help and it was the most horrible experience I think I have ever had. Not only was it painful, it made it incredibly hard to breathe and nearly choked me to death. And I’m a woman who has been practising her oral sex technique with a nine inch rubber dildo for the last four weeks. I dread to think how someone who hadn’t mastered their reflexes would have coped. The thought of having to endure this twice a day for twenty six weekends is really freaking me out. There is of course another option as to where the tube could go and disgusting as the thought of it is, I can’t imagine it feeling any worse.

 

And that brings me to another reason I’m not in the mood for visitors. I wanted to have some sort of sex with Rob this morning. I wanted to do something for him, and to show that I’m still a woman and a sexual being, despite everything that’s been inflicted upon me. And so I cuddled and got him going with my hands, and then let him fuck my cleavage a little before offering him my bottom for his pleasure. But he declined. He said he knew I’m not one for anal and it wouldn’t be fair of him to use me like that. All very noble and considerate of him of course, but the final nail in the coffin of my self-esteem. I can’t fuck him, I can’t suck him, and he’s too considerate to sodomise me. Some sexual being that makes me. Am I really worth all the trouble I’m causing him?

 

The doorbell rings, but I’m too busy wallowing in self-pity to get up off the sofa to answer it. I leave it to Rob which is rude and inconsiderate of me, and makes me loath myself even more. I hear voices in the hall and even some laughter. It seems they’re all getting along fine without me. And then there’s another sound, one that until very recently I rather liked making myself. The sound of heels on a hard floor. They become clearer and there’s something else too. A jingling noise. Both sounds get closer and I can tell when Sarah reaches the large rug in the centre of my living room as the heels go silent leaving just the jingling. That too stops and I think there must be just the coffee table separating us now.

 

“Hello Jem,” she says quietly, almost as if she knows I’m at rock bottom.

 

“Hello Sarah,” I reply in my muffled and awkward hooded voice.

 

“Can I sit?” she asks.

 

“Of course you can.”

 

I hear some more jingling and then Sarah sits herself right beside me on the sofa, so close that our legs touch. Her arms drop around me and I am comprehensively hugged.

 

“Can I kiss you?” she asks.

 

Before I have time to reply her lips are against mine and only the thickness of the hood prevents what I’m sure what would have turned into a long snog. It’s impossible to feel gloomy when Sarah’s about. She’s in just as much shit as me, but yet she doesn’t let it hold her down.

 

“Erm, I’m stuck,” she says after our kiss. “I seem to have got you tangled in my arms and chains.”

 

“Ah. How did you manage that?”

 

“I put my arms out as I sat down and got you in them, but now I can’t let go of you because of my wrist chain. And I can’t seem to get up because… well were tangled up. Sorry.”

 

I feel around with my unencumbered hands and find Sarah’s chains and arms and legs. Even blinded by my hood it seems fairly obvious how I can slide out of her embrace, but why spoil a good thing? I feel my way back to her wrist chain and wrap it around my hands, drawing her wrists together and tightening her arms around me. I need this.

 

“Tangled up eh?” I say mischievously. “That’s a shame. You’ll just have to keep hugging me until I feel human again.”

 

“Got the blues Jem? I don’t blame you. It must be awful in this thing.”

 

“It’s not so bad now you’re here.”

 

“Aw, thanks Honey.”

 

I hear more footsteps come into the living room and Rob’s voice sounds both amused and surprised.

 

“Oh, are we interrupting something?”

 

“Is my wife taking advantage of your girlfriend? Tut tut.” says Jack.

 

“I’m not taking advantage,” says Sarah in mock annoyance. “I was just giving Jem a hug and we got tangled up.”

 

“We did,” I add. “Hello Jack. I’m guessing you’ve met Rob now. Rob, somewhere in here is Jack, Sarah’s husband. And this Heffalump wrapped around me is Sarah.”

 

“Yes we did the introductions in the hall,” says Rob. “And apparently we’re going shopping.”

 

“You are still coming aren’t you Jem?” says Sarah.

 

It seems like only a few minutes ago the last thing I would have wanted was to go shopping. But Sarah’s exuberance has infected me and lifted me from my pit of gloominess.

 

“Err yes, I guess so.”

 

“I just wondered because you’re not really looking ready to go out,” she says.

 

“Yeah well, forgive me for not doing my make-up.”

 

“Just because you can’t see doesn’t mean we can’t see you. And you’re not coming shopping with me looking like a sack of potatoes. Why do you even have a dreadful top like that anyway? It’s not like you do gardening.”

 

“Err, a little understanding here please. It’s hard to get dressed when you can’t see what’s in your drawers.”

 

“Phooey. Take me to your wardrobe. I’ll style you.”

 

And so two women embark on the awkward and challenging journey up the stairs to my bedroom where Sarah goes through some of my stuff and gets me dressed to go out. A short feeling skirt, a silky feeling top, a wide belt and high heeled boots. I’m pretty sure the boots are my Manolo Blahniks but the rest I’m not sure about. It’s quite smart feeling though, and I can feel my self-esteem lifting as I imagine what I might look like. Sarah tames and brushes my hair, or at least the bottom half of it and she notices a hole in the hood at the top of its zip which would allow me to pull my hair through it when I put the hood on and have a big ponytail. I’ll wait till I’m more confident getting the dam thing on before I try anything like that though.

 

While Sarah’s fussing about me like an old mother hen, I think back to how awkward it all was when we were locked up together in that cell less than a week ago. There’s none of that now. I’m in sensory deprivation but I not having trouble sensing the chemistry between us. There’s a lot more bumping into each other than is necessary and I’m pretty sure some of the rubbing and stroking has nothing to do with smoothing out wrinkles in the clothes. At last she pronounces me ready to be seen in public with her and we make our precarious way back down the stairs to the men who are chatting away like old buddies in the living room.

 

I’m actually feeling slightly sexy in very strange sort of way as Rob helps me into my short leather jacket and we make our way towards the front door.

 

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” says Rob.

 

Oh fuck. He’s right. The gag strap. I haven’t worn it since we got home from the prison, but of course I haven’t been out in the hood since then. So much for conversation on the way then.  




Continued in The Accidental Feminist, Part Ten