Sightless in Stilettos

This is the third of my 'To See Or Not To See' stories. To fully understand this one you would really need to read
 

Mature Content

 and probably 

Mature Content

It’s Friday afternoon in my office and I have to confess I’m feeling more than a little tipsy after our little Champagne celebration earlier. But hey, it’s not every day that you get to not only win a case, but also set an important legal precedent and dump some good-for-nothing bad guys in the shit at the same time. And get on the television news too. Well at least I think we’re going to be on the news. I couldn’t see anything of course, but it felt like quite a scrum of reporters outside the court and I did make a brief but triumphant statement on behalf of my client, along with a comment on how we had clarified the law and laid the doubts of thousands of women to rest. I’ve got the news on in my office but it seems like my five minutes of fame has so far been bumped by some sex scandal involving the Home Secretary. Apparently he has a taste for orgies involving anonymously hooded ladies.

I’m sitting at my desk trying to bolster my slightly deflated ego and cursing the kinky Home Secretary for relegating me to the “And now in other news” section, when my assistant Justin quietly sneaks in. I watch as his crisp white shirt, pressed trousers and smart red tie scurry about the room filling no less than three different recycling bins with the detritus of an office celebration. Justin is my new acquisition. I’ve finally hired myself an assistant and I have to say I wish I’d done it years ago. He’s smart, hard-working, keen as mustard and as he’s fresh out of law school, I only have to pay him a pittance. Until of course my conscience and his rent dictate that he’ll need a proper wage. Maybe that should be now, seeing as I’m about to become a famous lawyer on the telly, assuming of course they can stop banging on about the Home Secretary. Who cares if he likes sex with hooded ladies? I can see the attraction in that.

The case that we have just won was that of one Tanya Bates, forty-four years old and recently divorced from a nasty sounding serial adulterer. During her long-running divorce Miss Bates found an escape from the stress by walking in the countryside, and the quieter and more remote the countryside the better. She developed a real thing for hiking and hill-walking, an activity that has lurked uncomfortably in a legal grey zone of uncertainty since Restraint was introduced. Should a woman walking in the hills have to wear a blindfold or is she free to enjoy the visual splendour of the scenery? The law is rather unclear. It states that a woman must wear a blindfold when undertaking any kind of journey, which would seem to include hiking across the countryside, but the so-called ‘shopping precedent’ allows travelling, specifically walking, around an area without the need for a blindfold as long as it can be considered as ‘wandering’ and there is no specific destination. The fact that the countryside is not teeming with evidence-gathering CCTV cameras or over-zealous law-enforcement officers has meant that no charges have ever been brought in this area and the law has never been tested. Until now.

The specifics of the case are that Miss Bates travelled, correctly blindfolded, in her autodrive car to a small carpark in the Lake District. She then left her car and walked, unblindfolded up to the top of a mountain called Skiddaw. On returning to her car she sat in it for a while, ate the last of her picnic and drank a cup of tea. At this point her car was involved in a collision with another car in which both vehicles sustained minor, but expensive damage. The accounts of the collision from those present were very different.
Miss Bates’ account states that her car was not moving and her Navicon was not even switched on at the time of the collision. The other vehicle, which had been parked nearby, suddenly started moving and drove into her.
The account of those in the other vehicle, one twenty year old man and two women of nineteen and twenty-two, was exactly the opposite. They claimed that they were stationary and Miss Bates drove into them.

Now normally this sort of dispute would be sorted out by the parties’ insurance companies, but in this case an attempt was made to discredit Miss Bates and her account of the collision by claiming that she was illegally and manually driving her car without a blindfold, presumably in her hurry to leave the scene having just been observed illegally walking without a blindfold. And they had photos on their phones which apparently proved all this. It all got out of hand, the police became involved and the case ended up in court. And that’s where I come into the story.

The case against my client was nothing to do with the vehicle collision. It was specifically that her walk up Skiddaw and back constituted a journey for which she would have been obliged to wear a blindfold. Her failure to do so was a breach of the 2028 Female Restraint Act. And if I’m brutally honest, the prosecution case was probably sound. If my client set out from her car intending to reach a destination, in this case the summit of Skiddaw, then in the eyes of the law this would indeed constitute a journey and she should have been blindfolded until she arrived at the summit. However, if my client set out from her car intending to just ‘wander’ in the countryside and her wanderings just happened to take her over the summit of Skiddaw then that would not constitute a journey, and the requirement for a blindfold would not apply. This formed the basis of my defence. It was perhaps a risky strategy but in my view it was the only viable option because there was plenty of evidence, photographic, witnesses and indeed my client’s own testimony to the police before she was charged, which showed that she did not wear a blindfold for her walk. In order to bolster our case I decided to solicit the court’s sympathy for my client by also showing that she was falsely, unjustly and dishonestly accused of causing criminal damage, even though the car collision was specifically not part of the case. I produced the diagnostic logs from her car that clearly showed it was not moving, or even switched on at the moment of collision. And my coup-de-grâce was the equivalent log from the opposing vehicle which showed that it was moving at nine miles per hour in manual drive at the point of collision. I had obtained this log through the unscrupulous manipulation of a young man in a Toyota dealership, partly by feigning interest in buying a new car but more especially through the shameless use of a dress, and pair of stilettos, both of which I keep in my wardrobe specifically for such a purpose. If the prosecuting counsel had been paying attention he would have had all this struck as irrelevant but I kept him distracted by having Justin send kinky picture messages to his phone at the critical moment. Men are just so easy to manipulate.

With the idea firmly planted in the court’s collective mind that my client was only there because of a dishonest raft of false accusations, it was perhaps no surprise that we got a verdict of ‘Not Guilty’ and the precedent is set that women can wander the countryside with their eyes free to look at the scenery, as long as they do no more than wander of course. And to top off a sweet victory, the judge ordered that the three occupants of the other car be detained and investigated for various traffic offences. The car was in manual drive and the man had no driving licence and women are not eligible to hold a licence, being as there is virtually no situation where they can be in a moving car without wearing a blindfold, and so whoever was driving has committed an offence.

The issue of Restraint is never far from the headlines and I was aware that the case had captured some of the media’s fickle interest. Perhaps it was not so much the legal aspects but the rather the glamorous appearance of the defendant, and maybe even the defence counsel that caught their unsophisticated attention. A gaggle of reporters had gathered on the steps of the court, eager for some words, and probably more eager for some pictures of us after the verdict. And this required some careful management on our part. The steps outside the court would count as part of the premises and so technically our journey from the court would not have begun until we had descended the steps and reached the pavement. We would not have had to blindfold ourselves until we reached that point, but I thought it would be an awkward and inelegant moment with a scrum of reporters around us, and so we donned our blindfolds inside the building and I got Justin to guide me and Miss Bates to a suitable spot from which to make our statement. And besides, I think we must have looked rather swishly ironic, standing there wearing our blindfolds, speaking to the nation about our victory over blindfolds. Justin then guided us to a waiting taxi and we were whisked away like royalty. He really is worth his weight in gold. I’d love to see just how swish we looked but unfortunately there’s still no sign of us on the news. Currently there’s a blonde woman being interviewed. She’s captioned as ‘Hooded Party Attendee’ and the reporter has just asked how she knew the man she was allegedly performing sexual favours for was the Home Secretary if she was hooded and couldn’t see anything. She replies that he told her he was the Home Secretary, to which the reporter says he sometimes tells his wife that he is Buzz Lightyear when they are in bed, but that doesn’t mean he is. I suspect he’s going to regret saying that on national television. To infinity and beyond….

Justin finishes tidying my office and I tell him he can push off home early. He looks a little crestfallen when he realises that I am intending to stay for a while longer. He’s always very keen to guide me to the station when we leave the office at the same time, but I don’t think it’s got anything to do with ingratiating himself with his employer. Horny little bugger. He reluctantly leaves the room and heads back out to the front office but returns a few moments later looking troubled.

“Bill Thrushden’s here to see you,” he says ominously.

“Bill? Oh, send him in.”

“Do you want me to hang around in case…?”

“In case what?”

“Well, is he going to be angry? Will you be okay?”

“Okay? Me? Oh God I’m as safe as houses with Bill. Thanks for your concern but I can handle him. Honestly Justin. Send him in and get off home.”

Bill Thrushden is the prosecuting counsel we just beat in court today. He has an office in this building and it’s not surprising that he is paying me a visit after today’s shenanigans in court. He can be a great speaker in court and I have learnt a lot from losing to him, but he’s also a dirty old man and that makes him vulnerable to subterfuge of the kind I just played.

“My Dear Tallula,” he says in his grand, King’s English speaking voice. “May I say you’re looking particularly radiant today? And I must congratulate you on a very impressive verdict.”

“Thanks Bill. Sorry it had to be you on the other side today.”

“And I also have to say that you and your client were looking particularly impressive on the news.”

“What? Where? I haven’t seen anything.”

“You’ve been all over Sky News.”

“Dammit, I’ve had the bloody BBC on. They haven’t mentioned anything except the kinky Home Secretary.”

“Ah well, a fine looking pair you made outside the court, crowing about your victory. But a victory gained by some rather dirty tricks I think.”

“Dirty tricks? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean Bill.”

“I’m sure you don’t. I suppose it was your young gigolo out there who sent those pictures. It’s not you in them by any chance? Hard to tell in all that leather”

“Well you know, if it’s good enough for the Home Secretary…”

“Indeed. But of course if I were to do something like that to you and got found out, I’d be dis-barred and probably end up in prison. But you can do it to me and we just laugh about it. If it came to light, you’d probably be hailed for your ingenuity. The world is very unfairly biased.”

“The world is unfair? Says the one who doesn’t have to find his way home wearing a blindfold tonight.”

“Ah yes. I suppose you’ve got me there. So how about I guide you as far as The Dog and Duck and you can buy me a drink to apologise for your dirty tricks?”

“Well I could buy you a drink, but not as an apology because I maintain that I have absolutely no idea what I should be apologising for.”

“Spoken like a true lawyer. You’re going to go far Young Lady.”

I like Old Bill, even though he’s a lecherous sod who seems to look straight through my clothes whenever he speaks to me. In court I once offered to strip to my undies for him, to save him the effort of having to mentally undress me all the time and free his imagination to dream up more outlandish allegations about my client. The judge was not amused, but the jury seemed to like it. Despite his aura of sexual sleaze we have a curiously warm relationship. He’s old-school and I’m the new kid, and I’m more than happy to have a drink with him. I gather up my stuff, lock the office and take the lift down to the lobby with Bill. As we walk across the lobby I take a look through the glass door to the street beyond. It’s actually the only view of the street I’ve ever seen because beyond that door I have always been blindfolded. This afternoon is of course going to be no exception. I open my handbag and reach inside for the instrument of my restraint.

I find it impossible to avoid a complex cocktail of emotions when I am about to blindfold myself and venture out. Even I, a passionate supporter of the aims of Restraint cannot help but question its means. How outrageously unfair it is that women must bear this heavy burden while men, who were just as responsible for the poisonous war of the sexes, got off virtually scott-free. Okay so they are required to give assistance to a blindfolded lady, but this obligation is merely a social one. If they refuse and walk on by then the worst they can expect is to be thought of as rude. My obligation to be blindfolded is backed up by the law, with some pretty heavy penalties if I refuse to play ball. It is a very lop-sided equation. But it is not just outrage that I feel. There is also apprehension at what might go wrong out there. There is the expectation of lovely encounters with complete strangers. There is satisfaction at my sacrifice for the greater good. There is excitement of the coming adventure. And there is the arousal of something primeval and raw too. The desire to be subjugated that makes no logical sense. And the fact that I can’t help this seems to amplify my anger. Usually the need to think carefully about exactly where I’m going and how I’m going to get there keeps my emotions confined behind a wall of pragmatic logic. Is my phone’s battery charged? Have I programmed it correctly? Are the pavements going to be crowded? What is the layout of my destination’s entrance? Will I have to find a doorbell? Has it rained recently and will there be puddles? The days when a woman could just grab her coat and rush off somewhere are long gone.

For this little outing I’ve got no real planning to do. We’re popping round the Dog and Duck which is only two streets away and Old Bill’s going to guide me. But there is something else to ponder which doesn’t apply to solo excursions. Do I put my blindfold on myself, or do I give it to my companion for him to put it on me? A simple question but one with only complicated answers.

It is of course a highly personal thing to give someone a device that is going to reduce you to a state of subjugated near helplessness and ask them to put it on you. Sometimes it can be highly sensual and erotic too, like when my lovely partner Doctor Mike does it, or if I swap blindfolds with a complete stranger in the ladies’ loos. But it doesn’t have to carry any overtly sexual meaning. I would always offer my blindfold to my father, or my brother if I had one, or any close friend, and expect them to put it on me before we go out together. But, and this is where it can get awkward, I wouldn’t offer my blindfold to a casual acquaintance or work colleague. I would never offer it to my employee Justin for example, even though it’s obvious he has the hots for me. Actually especially since he has the hots for me. Nor would I offer my blindfold to a client or anyone else with whom I had a formal relationship. And so where exactly does someone like Old Bill fit in? If I offer him my blindfold then I am inviting him into my inner circle and making our relationship personal. But if I put it on myself then am I snubbing him? Am I telling him he is only an acquaintance and not a friend? Well it is unpleasantly obvious what he’ll be imagining while he blindfolds me and it’s not something I want to think about so he’s not going to get the opportunity, but to soften the snub of denying him I’m going to blindfold myself while we walk across the lobby. I’ll make it look like I’m so fucking cool and independent that I don’t even stop walking for a something as minor as putting on a blindfold, let alone stop to consider the social implications. If I time it right I can just stop by the door and offer my arm for him to take and guide me outside.

That seemed to go okay. My blindfold is on and I didn’t walk into the door. I don’t know if Bill is offended at my lack of friendliness as I can’t see his face and he doesn’t say anything, but he takes my offered arm and we step outside.  

I’m actually rather glad to have someone to guide me. It seems from the way Bill pulls and pushes at my arm that the street is heaving with people on the Friday rush home. It’s hard enough finding your blindfolded way around a street full of fixed obstacles without having to worry about mobile ones too. In order to take on an assistant I had to move out of my familiar one-room office and take on a proper set of chambers. Back at my old place I knew the street outside intimately. Every lamppost, every postbox, every parking meter, cracked paving slab or stiletto-grabbing drain grating was etched on a map in my head and I could navigate with confidence, ticking off the landmarks as my stick located them, and with my phone keeping track and yelling in my ears if I went off course. Here I don’t yet have that intimate knowledge. I’ve never actually seen most of the street outside the front door. Usually I would try to count the steps between landmarks and file them in my head for future reference, but today it’s just too busy. Bill’s got me zigzagging back and forth to get through the crowd and I’m totally disorientated by the time we get to the pub.

I can tell we’re inside by the change in atmosphere and the sound of a busy pub. Bill hasn’t bothered to tell me that we’ve arrived like he should have, but that’s okay. I did operate a campaign of dirty tricks on him earlier today so I can cut him some slack. Confident that we’ve arrived I push my blindfold up my forehead, clear of my eyes and over my hair a little. I quite like the way this looks. A little like an old-fashioned hair band which sort-of says I’m not stopping long. The pub is a haunt of the local legal profession and it seems like I’m something of a celebrity.

“Hey Tallula, saw you on the telly. Looking hot.”

“Come to buy us all a drink now that you’re famous?”

“What you up to at the weekend Tallula? Going hiking in the country? Not in those shoes surely.”

It seems like everyone’s seen me on the news except me. My finest hour as a lawyer and I’ve yet to see it. I brush off the shouts of recognition with a smile that says ‘in your dreams Pal’ and manage to get to the bar where Bill demands whiskey. An Isle of Jura single malt and a double because of my unethical courtroom tactics.

“Fame and fortune,” he says to me, gesturing to the bunch of blokes who heckled me on the way in.

“Only because half the people in this pub work at the court,” I reply. “And the other half works in our chambers building.”

“Perhaps, but I think we see a little glimpse of the future here.”

“The future? So would that be a future with me basking in fame and fortune, or a future with me being ogled and heckled by a load of alcohol-fuelled, horny blokes?”

“Well I’m just an old dinosaur, but I’ve seen things come and I’ve seen things go and in my considered opinion the future is you, young lady. And others like you. Women are on the rise and you’ll be taking over soon.”

“Err, excuse me? We’re on the rise? That’s a new one. Most people think we’ve gone back to the stone-age, or at least somewhere in Victorian times.” I reach up and tap the blindfold sitting across the top of my head. “These things might have made everything all polite and lovey-dovey, and I’m all for that, but they haven’t exactly put women on the rise.”

“My dear Tallula, I think you wear your blindfold too much and fail to see what’s really going on. You were on the news today, and in what context?”

“Well I don’t know. I seem to be the only one who hasn’t seen me.”

“Well when you do get to watch yourself, consider what you’ll see. You, a young and already successful barrister are standing next to your client, Miss Bates who is an important scientist if I’m not mistaken.”

“Nuclear physicist. She’s one of the lead engineers on the new Dungeness power plant.”

“Exactly my point. She’s already a bigwig and you’ll be one very soon. And where we should ask, is the male part of this scene? Look closely and you’ll see him. He’s the one who guides you out of the building to make your speech. And then he gets the taxi organised and helps you into it. Menial, subservient tasks.”

“Oh come on. Justin’s my assistant that’s all. He does the menial stuff because he’s young and inexperienced, not because he’s a man.”

“Yes, but the whole point of Restraint is to make women require the assistance of men. Is that not going turn men into the under-sex, the sex that just assists? To be relegated to just being the eyes of a lady is not really the promotion many men seem to think it’s going to be.”

“Fucking hell Bill, if that’s your prosecuting case then the jury’s gonna die of laughter. I think you’ll find the general view is that Restraint is about taking away women’s independence and making us reliant. Some would even say enslaving us. And that’s actually fine with me because it has to better than what we had before, but as to it putting us on the rise, yeah right. Forgive me if I don’t break out the celebratory bubbly just yet.”

“Well I could be wrong of course. Believe it or not I have been wrong before. Only yesterday I thought I had a certain case in the bag and I turned out to be wrong on that. But there’s nothing like a bit of adversity to stimulate the desire to triumph, and your sex does now seem to have a good dose of adversity.”

“Indeed we do. But I think your argument is flawed. Look back to the Victorian age, another time when women were in Restraint, except then it was by the dresses they had to wear. Didn’t exactly put them on top back then did it.”

“No, but there’s a difference. Although those dresses might have been like blindfolds in that they made it difficult for women to get about and do things, they were not forced upon women. Women wore them voluntarily because it was the fashion. The restraint was in their minds, hammered in there by the way they were brought up and the expectations placed upon them. The dresses were a symptom of the restraint, not the cause. Today’s women, at least the ones I meet, are not like that. They are like you, educated, intelligent and fired up with a desire for life which is amplified by their enforced restraint. You are the future, and when it comes remember you heard it from Old Bill Thrushden first.”

“Well when I’ve risen to the dizzy heights of being Prime Minister or Home Secretary I’ll remember you predicted it, and then I’ll get on with enjoying the hooded bondage party I’m attending.”

“Oh now you shouldn’t go filling an old man’s head with that sort of image Tallula. You at a bondage party, I don’t know if my heart could survive the thought. Are you the one in the hood who’s giving, or are you receiving from a hooded young gigolo?”

“How about I’m receiving from a hooded, nubile and busty young woman?”

“Oh, you are a demon in a dress Tallula. Playing with a man’s emotions like that. You and another woman? That’s just cruel.”

“Only cruel to a dirty old man.”

“I think you should go and pose for just that scene. The pictures might come in handy if you need to resort to dirty tricks on me again.”

“Again? I’m not falling for that one. ‘Again’ would mean I’d done it already, which of course I still strongly deny. But I’ll buy you another whiskey if you like, just so I won’t feel bad if I do it in the future.”

“Well I now have an image in my head that would be worth losing a case for. Another double please.”

“You’re such a sleazebag Bill. You should be ashamed.”

“And you My Dear, should be locked up in my basement. But we can’t always have what we want, can we.”

I should of course be highly shocked and offended by the way Old Bill speaks to me, and indeed if he were twenty or thirty years younger I probably would be, and perhaps rather scared too. But there is something of a refreshing, unashamed honesty about him which I find rather endearing. He says what he obviously feels without embarrassment or worry of causing offence, although I’ve never heard the staff in his office complain about him so he must be capable of reigning himself in. Perhaps it’s just me that fills him with dirty thoughts, or more likely it’s just me that he feels he can blurt them out to. Either way, I’ve never felt uncomfortable around him and certainly never felt in any sort of danger from him.

My thoughts start to turn to another man. Unlike Old Bill, this one might actually stand a chance of getting some lewd sexual favours from me tonight, assuming that hospital he works in hasn’t worn him down into a sleep-deprived zombie. Before that though there is the considerable hurdle of my journey home to consider. I could just call an Uber of course. Easy-peasy. Tap the App and one will be right outside the door in a matter of minutes. Tell it to take me home and sit back until I’m at my front gate. Expensive of course, but that’s not really a problem, I am apparently the future after all, and I do often opt for an Uber ride home. But somehow it always feels unsatisfyingly like cheating. There’s a real challenge to finding your way by bus or on the Tube, one that most people have no choice but to take. It can be rather exciting too. There’s always the possibility of getting stuck or lost, and of course always the possibility of charming encounters with handsome strangers. Any stranger can be handsome if you can’t see him.

Outside the pub window the street looks a little quieter than when we arrived. Of course I couldn’t see it then and have only the level of manoeuvring that Old Bill subjected me to as a measure of the street’s crowdedness. Perhaps he pulled and pushed me about to avoid people that weren’t actually there in order to enjoy some sort of dodgy physical interaction with my arm, but that seems a bit unlikely, even for Old Bill. After my dodgy dealings in court it feels like I’ve cheated the system enough for one day, so I decide to forgo the Uber and get the Tube home. I finish up my drink and my conversation with Bill and head across the pub to the door, feeling slightly disappointed that there are no further calls of recognition for my television fame. I pause just inside the door to tell my phone I want to go home on the Tube and push its bud-like earphones into my ears. I open the door and step onto the threshold. One more step and I’ll be breaking the law. I take my stick out of my bag and give it a quick shake. Its sections are linked by a long internal spring which pings them together like magic. While I wait for my phone to improve its satellite lock I peer along the street. It looks moderately free of unexpected obstacles as far as the traffic lights at the end where I know I’ll be crossing the road and turning left. It’s fairly familiar ground from there to the Tube station. The Friday afternoon rush is still ongoing and there are plenty of people to bump into. I am reminded of my conversation with Bill about Victorian dresses. It might actually be nice to be wearing a huge, bell-like crinoline skirt. At least I’d get some personal space in the middle of it. My phone tells me it is happy so I pull my blindfold down over my eyes, check it is seated correctly and step forward into the blackness.

My heart is always beating hard at the start of a solo expedition. I’m tensed and taut and my senses, other than my eyes of course, are on high alert. Ahead of me is a whole world of precariousness and no matter how many times I do this, there never seems to be much certainty about the outcome. Once the courage to commit is summoned the first few steps are the easiest. The image of the street from the door is still fresh in my mind and there is confidence in my position and surroundings. That confidence fades fast though. My phone tells me it is one hundred and twenty meters to the junction ahead. It keeps me on track whispering ‘one left’ or ‘one right’ in the appropriate ear. Larger corrections get the numbers two, three or four as appropriate culminating in ‘square left’ or ‘square right’ for a right angle turn. The phone’s detailed map also tells me of known fixed obstacles. ‘Care, parking meters’, or ‘care, cycle racks’ and the like will be squawked in my ears as I walk along. It’s not actually that difficult until you add in the unknowns. Wheelie bins, rubbish sacks, roadworks, parked cars and worst of all, other people, or more particularly, other women. Men are not much of a problem. They can see you and keep out of your way. You might think that being attacked or robbed by them would be a something to fear but actually it’s almost unheard of. Robbing a blindfolded lady would be like robbing a disabled person, an act of villainy far beyond the actual theft that few men seem prepared to stoop to. Other women are also not too problematic as long as they are with a man who is guiding them. It’s the other intrepid solo ladies, like me, that make life difficult.

My stick measures some two meters long when fully assembled, and this allows me to ‘see’ about two seconds ahead, assuming I’m to walk at a pace which will get me to my destination before I’m eligible for my pension. These two seconds are usually enough time to decide if an unexpected stick contact can just be avoided by a direction change or whether I need to stop and work out what to do. However this reaction time is halved if the unexpected contact is another woman walking towards me, and that’s assuming our sticks find each other. It’s not unusual for them to miss completely and then first thing we know is when our breasts collide. Little wonder the word ‘bumpers’ seems to be in vogue. To try to avoid these sort of full-frontal encounters there is a sort of etiquette that says unaccompanied ladies should walk on the pavement on the right hand side of the road. Simple as long as there is actually a pavement on both sides, but not much use in a pedestrianized area or a pathway through a park. The etiquette also dictates that if two ladies do detect each other they should both immediately turn to their right. Again simple in theory and it does work to some extent, but in a crowded place these sudden changes of direction can bring you into contact with others and set up a chain reaction of encounters that can leave you totally disorientated. The only thing you can do is stop, but that creates another problem. Bouncing around in my handbag, my phone is not rigidly fixed to me and can’t tell which direction I’m facing. It can infer this when I’m moving from my direction of travel but if I stop it can’t tell me which way to turn to get back on track. The only solution is to just walk forward in whatever direction I’m facing and hope it can work things out before I hit a wall or cause a traffic jam. As you can imagine, crowded streets are a bitch, and they’re never more crowded than on Friday hometime.

Despite the human traffic I make it to the end of the street without major incident. I get a countdown in my ears. “Twenty meters, ten, five, two, one, square left and await crossing tone.” For many years the authorities have been making our streets disabled-friendly and traffic light crossings are all marked with knobbly paving stones to help the visually impaired, which is half the population now. The knobbles are great for navigation but come second only to drain gratings in the list of hazards to stiletto heels. At least I don’t have to find a button to press anymore. My phone knows I want to cross the road and it speaks silently to the traffic lights without me having to do anything. I just wait for the beeps and off I go. The Tube station is two hundred and six meters ahead on this street but I am directed through another road crossing first to keep me on the right hand side. My phone knows the etiquette. It is an indispensable aid.

Not long after Restraint was introduced, another so-called indispensable aid appeared. It was called the Vidfold. As its name suggests, the Vidfold was a blindfold which incorporated a camera on the outside and two tiny screens on the inside. It enabled the wearer to see where they were going allegedly without breaking the law, which stated that a blindfold must:
“…perform the function of disrupting and preventing the passage of visible light into the wearer’s eyes such that the wearer shall be unable to form any visual image of their surroundings.”
The makers claimed that wearing a Vidfold was legal because it absolutely did prevent the passage of light to the eyes sufficiently that the wearer would not be able to see anything. The light emitted from the screens was not the same light that entered the camera and did not originate outside the blindfold, thus it was legal for the wearer’s eyes to see it. My own opinion is that the Vidfold would not have been legal because although it did disrupt and prevent the passage of light to the eyes, it did it in a way which still allowed the wearer to form a visual image of their surroundings. As it turned out the legality or otherwise of the Vidfold has never been tested in court. Nobody has ever been charged with using a Vidfold because almost nobody bought one. Commercially it was a complete failure.

There were several reasons why the Vidfold bombed. The first was that it was expensive and poorly made. The makers knew that even if it was ruled legal, the law would pretty quickly be amended to ban it and so it was only designed for a quick, short-term profit. It was also ugly and bulky. Although the camera and screens were small enough, to have any chance of focusing on something so close, the human eye required the screens to be behind strong, thick lenses which combined with the battery to make it heavy too. But the main reason it bombed was just because nobody wanted it. Those, like me who approved of Restraint didn’t want to cheat, and those opposed to Restraint weren’t interested in cheating because they didn’t want to play the game at all. To play and cheat was to accept the existence of the game.

I have to admit though, there are times when a Vidfold would come in handy. Navigating a Tube station at rush hour is the gold standard of blindfolded travel and in my experience there is pretty much zero chance of managing it without help. Many solo ladies don’t even try. The regular calls of “lady needs assistance” tell me I’m approaching the station entrance long before the voice in my ear starts its countdown. I have a stubborn and possibly slightly masochistic streak in my nature so I prefer to try to get as far as I can before I call for assistance.

“Square left and await crossing tone.”

My walk down the right hand side of the street has apparently protected me from any head-on encounters but it means I’m on the wrong side for the station. That’s no real problem because there’s a crossing right outside, but it does mean navigating through another minefield of knobbly paving. I can’t really blame Restraint for this hazard. There’s no law that says I have to wear stilettos except the law of my addiction to them. I’m about halfway across the road when I have my first meeting with another woman coming the other way. Our sticks do give a hint of warning but I still end up with what I think is the rim of a hat in my face closely followed by a boob to boob encounter. “Oh, sorry,” we both say simultaneously and a turn to the right gets us untangled, but it also throws me off course and despite the squawks of “three left, four left” in my ears, when I make it to kerb on the other side of the road I find my way blocked by stuff I can’t identify. Aware of my precarious position in the road with limited time before the lights change and the cars start moving I find myself starting to panic a little. I’m on the verge of calling for help when an unsolicited hand takes my arm and leads me clear of the obstruction.

“I’m sorry to help before you asked,” says a voice, “but I could see you were stuck and the traffic was about to start. There’s a cable box and a traffic light post conspiring to block your way.”

“Oh, thank you,” I reply, finding my composure again as the hand on my arm leads me a few steps to my left and the safety of more knobbly paving.

“Okay you’re on the pavement with your back to the road,” says the voice. “You have a good day now Miss.”

And with that the hand leaves my arm and my rescuer is gone. Stupid Tallula, just stupid. Of course I should have turned to the left after avoiding the other woman. I thought I had but obviously not enough. Ah well, back to the road he said. At least I know what to do now. Walk forward until I meet the wall and then follow it left. There’ll be a round thing, probably a drainpipe and then the entrance to the station which has no doors. Just follow the wall inside and it will lead me to the turnstiles. I have used this station probably several hundred times although the approach from my old office was from the other side, hence my confusion at the traffic lights. Once inside I have the reassurance of familiarity but this is soon countered by the voice in my ear.

“Satellite lock lost. Accuracy reduced.”

The first of the problems with the Tube begins. My phone can’t see the sky and so it now has to rely on triangulating phone masts. That’s not accurate enough to reliably guide me through the station and it’s very easy to get lost in the maze that lies ahead. Before any of that though there are the turnstiles to negotiate. Transport for London has experimented with all manner of automated fare payment systems that might help ease the queues but the good old fashioned turnstile has turned out to be the only effective barrier to those who don’t want to pay at all. As a token gesture of reward for our inconvenience, blindfolded ladies are entitled to travel for free but we still have to negotiate the barriers. There is a system of railings that funnels the thronging crowd into the turnstiles and once a railing is found it is easy to follow it. Once again I think that big Victorian skirt might be handy, acting like a bumper to keep others away and me serenely safe in the middle. Not so handy at the actual turnstile though which is narrow and blocked by a bar until some system recognises a blindfold and releases it, allowing me to push my way through. Hurdle number one dealt with, plenty more to come.

I’ve found that once through the turnstile the best tactic is to drift to the right until I encounter the wall again and then follow it. My phone squawks at me to turn left as it tries to keep me in the centre of the walkway, but the wall is more reliable and less frequented by pushy men in a hurry. It’s one way traffic in here now and the smooth floor is free of the threat of drain covers and wonky paving. It’s a relatively easy walk on to hurdle number two, the escalator.

Even wearing horribly sensible shoes and with a gentleman to guide you, navigating an escalator blindfolded is not for the faint hearted. Alone, in stilettos and a fashionably tight skirt it is a major challenge, but one I curiously rather enjoy. Just as at the turnstiles the station is designed to funnel the human traffic along. I keep following my wall and I can tell, partly from counting my steps and partly from the density of other people as the walkway narrows, that I am getting close to the escalator. There’s usually some jostling as some of those with the luxury of sight try to barge past to avoid being stuck behind a lady who needs to take her time, but somehow everybody manages to form up into single file for the escalator. The first thing I find is the moving handrail. I can’t take hold of it just yet but I can place my fingers around it and let it slide through them. I am rewarded for the effort of wearing smart leather gloves here as they glide easily on the handrail without sticking. I change my gait to a mincing shuffle and edge forwards. I quite like that the entire throng of people behind me has to slow down while I get myself ready. I can feel the moving treads with my stick as I shuffle forward and find the edge of the ramp. Here I stand on one foot and lift the other one forward until it is sliding on the moving treads. Now for the leap of faith. I sort-of jump onto my forward foot and grip the handrail tightly at the same time. I’m on, but I can’t relax just yet for the most critical part is yet to come. I have only about a second before the treads below me start to separate vertically and I absolutely have to make sure they don’t split under my feet between my toes and my heels. If I’m left perched on the edge on just my spiky heels then I’m in trouble. I shift my back foot up beside the front one but make sure I keep them staggered. If I feel the treads split under one foot I can quickly shift onto the other and stay upright. Today I’m lucky and I don’t have to. I’m safely on just one tread and I’m off down the hill. I pull in to the right to allow any men in a hurry to walk on past. Good thing I haven’t got my big Victorian skirt on here.

Getting onto the escalator is actually the easy part, it’s the thought of getting off that has my heart pumping. As I ride down into the bowels of the Earth my phone ups the tension by announcing it has lost its signal and is now just estimating where I am by sensing how I move. In other words it’ll soon be sod-all use for finding my way with. There used to be phone signal in the Tube, even on the trains in the tunnels but they switched it off because passengers actually preferred a few minutes of quiet on their way home, rather than the barrage of fifty ‘yeah, I’m on the train now’ conversations in every carriage. If they turned it back on I might have some idea when the end of escalator might be approaching but as it is I just have to guess by the duration of the ride, I usually count to about forty-three for this one, and also by listening for any clues like the sound of women’s heels on the floor beyond, the occasional ladylike “Ooh” and maybe even a “It’s okay, I’ve got you”. I tense up like a coiled spring and dangle a toe over the edge of my step. When I feel the step in front come up to meet it I’ll know I’m on the flat section at the bottom. Then I raise my toe just slightly and as soon as I feel it being scooped off the tread I must lunge forward instantly. I can use the handrail to keep my balance, but only for an instant before it curves away downwards and I’m on my own. In my heels and skirt I can only just walk fast enough to match the speed of the escalator and it is a disaster if I slow down. There’s a whole line of people behind and unlike at the top they can’t stop to wait for me. I have to blindly sprint far enough to escape the outflow from the escalator and not bang into anything, trip over, or lose track of where I’m heading. It is an almost impossible ask and the thought of falling down and having all those people behind walking over me is terrifying. Stay upright, whatever else happens just stay upright. My toe is scooped and I lunge automatically. My skirt tugs at my calves as I charge forward. Please let there be nothing in my way.

But it’s rush hour and of course there is something in my way. People, people everywhere. I bounce off one and then another and another but at least I’m still upright and seem to have found a little space. The problem is that I’ve stopped and have no idea which way I’m facing. My phone can’t help. I’m stuck. It is at times like this that the temptation to lift my blindfold for a quick peek used to be overwhelming, but now that I am experienced in the art of Restraint I know exactly what to do.

“Lady needs assistance here.”

There is no shame in it. I’ve done my best, to the probable annoyance of those behind me whom I have slowed down, but there it is. I am a lady in Restraint and while that is ridiculous in itself, it is even more ridiculous to try and soldier on. I need a knight in a shining pin-stripe suit to rescue me, and I have only a couple of seconds to wait.

“Can I help you Miss?”

“Oh yes please. I need the District line westbound.”

“No problem Miss. I’m going to the District line myself. Eastbound, but I can take you to your platform if you like.”

“Thank you so much. I just got disorientated in the crush.”

“That’s ok. May I…?”

“Yes, of course.”

I offer my left arm and a hand takes it and leads me on. This is Restraint in action. I am placed at a disadvantage through no failing or inferiority of my own and someone comes to help me. I have no idea who my saviour is, he could be a city gent in a Saville Row suit, a young hoodie, a dreadlocked Rastafarian, or a retired skiing instructor, but to me he is a handsome gentleman. Everyone can be a handsome gentleman if you can’t see them. He leads me through the maze of passages without speaking. There’s no need for small talk and there’s no hidden agenda here. He’s not trying to pick me up or expecting any reward other than my gratitude and the warm feeling of having done a good turn. Maybe he’s enjoying looking at me and perhaps feeling a little cool to have such a lady on his arm, I like to think I do look like that kind of lady after all, but that’s up to him. For my part I feel grateful to him, but I also feel respected and valued, like someone who is worthy of giving up a little time for. I can feel my femininity going into overdrive, fuelled by the subjugation my blindfold forces upon me. It is a heady feeling, like stepping out in a new dress and seeing heads turn. I am a woman, and a lady, I am absolutely worth your attention and I absolutely have to be restrained for everybody’s safety.

My gentleman leads me onward. I think I know roughly where we are, but his twisting and turning through the crowds makes it hard to recognise the junctions and corners. My phone has given up and just annoyingly repeats “position lost” in my ear every twenty seconds. Like I didn’t know. Suddenly there’s a whoosh of air on my face, a change of atmosphere and the sound of a train.

“We’re just about at your platform Miss,” says my gentleman. “There’s a train now. I can maybe get you on it if we hurry.”

“Lead on Sir, I’m game.”

My gentleman ups his pace and I am forced to run alongside him in short, skippy shoe and skirt enforced steps. Suddenly he pulls me to the left and I almost fall as my feet find more of those knobbly bumps, this time indicating the platform edge. The hand on my elbow keeps me upright and urges me forward.

“Mind the gap Miss,” he says but it seems I’m already over it as the floor texture changes to that of the train. “I’m afraid it’s a bit crowded. Are you okay to stand?”

“Yes fine thanks,” I say as the hand releases my elbow.

“Goodbye Miss. Hope you get home okay.”

“Yes, you too. And thank you.”

There’s the bleeping and hiss of doors closing and that’s it. I’m apparently on the train and my gentleman is gone. I hope he found me worth helping and that I maybe brightened his commute home a little. The train jolts forward and I reach up, searching for one of those dangling handles to hold on to. I can’t seem to find one until an anonymous voice tells me to go left a bit. And there it is. I thank the voice and settle my nerves. I can’t quite relax yet. The District line splits into several branches once it’s out of Central London and if this train isn’t taking the Richmond branch then I’ll have to get off and wait for one that is. The tannoy starts to list the stations ahead and I’m lucky, it’s going to Richmond. Now I can relax. I’m obviously standing rather in the way of the door as there’s a lot of brushing past me at the next stop but I keep a tight hold of my handle and stand my ground. This is another place that a huge Victorian skirt might not go down too well. A couple of stops later the voice that hinted where my handle was, a beautiful Jamaican sounding voice tells me that there are now some seats available and I accept an offer to be guided to one.

I remember that before we had Restraint most people used to avoid making eye contact on the Tube. They’d stare at their phones or look down at the floor to stay in their own isolated little world, avoiding the slightest interaction with other people. Now it’s rather easier to avoid eye contact, being as my eyes aren’t making contact with anything. Other people, well men I suppose being as they’re the only ones who can see on a train, can stare at me all they want without worrying about me noticing, and actually I rather hope they do. I sit in my little world of blackness and catch my breath and reflect on the experience I have just put myself through. Why do I do it?

Well there is the law, obviously, and the threat of finding myself in more stringent restraint, or worse, if I don’t play the game, but I have long since realised there is more to it than just obeying the law. I could obey the law and just get an expensive Uber every day and it wouldn’t make a significant hole in my substantial bank balance, so why do I insist on taking the Tube? The uncomfortable truth is that I actually like it. I like walking the streets of London in a blindfold. I like trying to find my way through a Tube station in a blindfold, and I absolutely love it when I fail and have to be assisted. I hate the law, I hate the injustice and the unfairness of it. I hate that it makes my life so bloody difficult. But I also love the law because it enables me to indulge an addiction without feelings of guilt or inadequacy or insanity. I am an addict. I am addicted to my femininity and anything that enhances it. Clothes, jewellery, make-up, hairdos, shoes, especially shoes. Stiletto heels reduce my physical capability. I can run a little in them if the surface is dead flat, but mostly they reduce me to just a tottering walk. They make it really difficult on rough, bumpy or soft ground, they ruin wooden floors, they leave my ankles aching at the end of the day, they can break off and leave me hobbling, they get stuck in gratings and lift thresholds, and I know they’re really, really bad for my feet. I hate stiletto heels. I hate the way they restrict me, the way they subjugate me. And I hate that they somehow they fill my heart with a joy I cannot be without. They lift me onto another plane of womanliness that once sampled cannot be given up. There is no way to logically explain the attraction of stiletto heels. They are sexy and elegant just because they are, and they make me feel good about myself just because they do.

And is a blindfold not a little like the stiletto heel? A device that reduces my capability but boosts my femininity, and the greater the reduction, the greater the boost. A blindfold can reduce me to near helplessness and since it is imposed upon me by an unjust force I can become one of the pinnacles of femininity, a damsel in distress, worthy of dying for, or at least worthy of giving a few minutes assistance to. But a blindfold, like the stiletto heel can also be overcome. Strutting confidently along on a pair of five inch spikes can make you look and feel like an uber-woman, and the same could be said of a blindfold. Do I imagine what I look like as I overcome my blindfold and step out along the street? Absolutely I do. And do I imagine heads turning to watch me? You bet I do. And does it make me feel like an immortal goddess? Well maybe not quite that high, but close. Is it just vanity? Maybe, but that is surely something of which we are all guilty. Who among us has never tried to enhance their image and their sexuality?

And besides, according to Old Bill, blindfolds are going to allow us women to take over the world. I still rather doubt his logic though. I suppose he would argue that I have made it to my train with little actual delay and that the only person who has been inconvenienced is the gentleman who took time to assist me. Perhaps he missed his train as a result, and perhaps that led to him missing an important business meeting, and perhaps that led to his promotion going to someone else, a woman perhaps. That’s an awful lot of perhaps. Perhaps I don’t want to take over the world anyway. Perhaps a part of me would rather be downtrodden and subjugated. Perhaps I need to stop over-thinking things.

The tannoy eventually announces the train’s arrival at Richmond. I’m not sure exactly where I have ended up in the carriage and where the nearest door is. I get up and decide to try to my right for a door, but my Jamaican sounding gentleman is still apparently here and he advises me to try the other way. Such a wonderful, deep sounding voice, filled with the coolness of the Caribbean. I ask it for help and its owner obliges me. A hand on my arm leads me off the train and all the way out of the station. It is such a joy that a complete stranger would do this for me and as we part company and go our separate ways I am left with that warm and satisfied feeling. I hope that my third handsome stranger of my journey home has the same.

It’s usually about two thousand, three hundred and forty steps from the station to my house and with my phone again locked to its satellites and my intimate knowledge of the streets, it’s normally pretty easy going. Unlike the thronging, hazard-packed streets of Central London, out here in leafy Richmond it’s only the occasional low-hanging tree branch that presents any danger. Today though, at six hundred and twenty two steps it suddenly seems I have an unwelcome problem to deal with.

“Watcha Lady. Touting for business are you? Must be in those shoes.”

“What. Are you talking to me?”

“Surely am Lady. How much for a hand job then?”

“I think you’re very much mistaken. Why don’t you try King’s Cross?”

“Ah, but they’s not classy ladies like you down King’s Cross. Go on, I just need a hand job.”

My initial horror at being accosted in such a manner very quickly evaporates as I realise what’s going on here. I might be wearing a blindfold but I can still recognise crappy acting when I hear it. And I can recognise that voice too, even through the layers of hammed-up Cockney accent. Well two can play this game. I turn and whirl my stick round at what I think is about waist height.

“Take that, pervert!” I shout as my stick makes contact with something.

“Ow! Ow! Stop. It’s me. It’s just me winding you up Tallula.”

“Oh Mike, it’s you. Did I hurt you? That would be a shame.”

“Yes, it’s me, and yes that hurt.”

“Good. You should know better than to try to play dirty tricks on a blindfolded lady.”

“Yes, but I know you and I know you’re not really a lady. You’re just my slut.”

“Ah, you see right through me. And even wearing a blindfold I saw right through you too. What are you doing here anyway?”

“Well I saw your phone track pop up at the station so I thought I’d walk down and accompany my lady home.”

“Aw, really?”

“Really. Now you’re a telly celebrity and all that.”

“Shit, is there anyone who hasn’t seen me on the telly except me?”

“You haven’t seen it?”

“No. Everyone keeps telling me they have though.”

“Ooh well, you were looking both extremely cool and dam hot at the same time.”

“Really?”

“And I felt very proud of you. And I thought you deserved someone to walk you home. May I take your arm Dear Lady?”

“Indeed you may, Kind Sir.”

I fold up my stick and offer Mike my arm. He takes it and pulls me close for a big kiss and then we walk on towards home. I feel the love and the bond between us. I pull him close and then closer still. Is there any better feeling than to be walked in a blindfold by the one I love? How lovely of him to come out and meet me. How wonderful it is to switch off and hand responsibility over to him. How beautifully romantic it is to be oppressed and subjugated in this way. Restraint in action. Long may it continue.