Sisters
The fourth 'To See or Not to See' story.

Following on from:

Mature Content

 and

Mature Content

and

Mature Content

“Have they gone then?”

“Well if you’d bothered to get up off the sofa, come to the door and waved them off then you’d know that they’ve gone.”

“Thank fuck for that. I thought they’d never go.”

“You really can be an antisocial bitch sometimes Elaina. Your parents drive all the way up from Devon to see you and you’ve hardly said a word to them.”

“They don’t come up here to see me. They come to see my oh-so-fucking-perfect sister in her fancy house in Richmond. I’m just an inconvenient chore along the way.”

“Now you know fine well that’s not true. Your parents love you and have done nothing to earn your scorn.”

“Really? I don’t have to be able to see to detect the look of disappointment on my mother’s face. ‘Where did we go so wrong with this one? Why can’t she be more like her sister? What can be done to fix her?’ Well I’m sick of people trying to fix me. There’s nothing wrong with me, it’s everyone else that’s gone to fuck.”

“Well if you’re just going to wallow in another round of masochistic self-pity then I’m just going to leave you to it. Give me a shout if you want to be sociable.”

I hear Peter get up and leave the room, shutting the door behind him. I’m left alone, apparently to wallow in masochistic self-pity. That’s a good-sounding psychological term. Another badge to add to my collection. It can join others like bipolar, manic, self-harmer, oppositional defiant disorder, sibling rivalry disorder, and martyrdom complex to name just a few. All have been pinned on me by those intent on fixing me. I really don’t know how Peter puts up with it all. Either he takes his marriage vow very seriously or he really does love me. Why else would he stay with me, and look after me through this ordeal, and find just the right balance of sympathy, support, and pull-yourself-together distain? It must be hard to have a self-destructive wife, and even harder when her neuroses have gone and got her locked in a punishment hood.

I do realise that I have problems in my head. I guess they began when I started secondary school. My sister is three years older than me and it seemed that everything I did and everywhere I went my wonderful sister had been there first, been there and been perfect, been there and set a bar so high that I could never hope to reach it. My life became one of disappointing people, one of never being as perfect as my sister had been. No wonder I went wonky. No wonder I used to cut myself. No wonder my self-esteem went belly-up. No wonder I hate my fucking sister. The first opportunity I had to stop walking in her footsteps was when I became old enough to leave school and I took it. While she floated off to be perfect at university I got a job in a chicken factory, picking the meat off boiled carcases. Chicken McNuggets? I know all about them. Then I ran off to London on the back of a grockle’s motorbike. It didn’t last with him of course, but he did get me a job as a receptionist in his brother’s garage. It paid enough to just about cover the rent on my single room in a shit hole of a house, but didn’t leave any left for food. So I got a second job as an evening waitress in a gastro pub. And there a regular customer picked me up with that old cliché line, ‘What time do you get off?’, to which I replied ‘ Hopefully about five seconds after you do.’ We went back to his place and fucked on our first date, because of course my sister would never do such a thing. And four years later, when I was just twenty three, we got married. For the first time in my life I felt like I was out in front of my sister. She was still just a single law student and I was a married woman. She was living in student digs while I had a house in Hillingdon. She had turned herself into a fashion-obsessed Barbie-doll, and so I became a grungy feminist.

Some would say it was a bad time to take up the feminist cause. I would say it was the best time, or at least the most needed time. Not since the days of the Victorian corset had women been under such pressure. The cause was worthy and the fight was bloody. We were the new Suffragettes and we were at war.

Of course it’s hard to win a war if half of your own side turn traitor and become collaborators with the enemy. Collaborators like my sister, tottering around in her self-imposed bondage, wearing the enemy’s blindfolds with enthusiasm and calling ‘Lady needs Assistance’ whenever her ego needs a boost. I hate her for it. And once again I am condemned to life in her shadow. She’s a rich and fancy lawyer, even got herself on the news the other day. She has a swish house in Richmond, and I’m just a convicted criminal housewife. In fact I’m not even a housewife anymore being as I’m locked in this hood and can’t see to vacuum the floors or cook the dinner. Little wonder my mother cannot hide her disappointment.

My slide into criminality was one that many women found themselves on when the accursed Restraint laws began to bite. Most decided to extract themselves from the slippery slope before their lives were totally ruined, but I of course had to be one of those who held out and slid right to the bottom. The more I saw my treacherous sister cavorting with the enemy’s awful diktats, the more I had to resist them. The protests and marches before Restraint and its horrible blindfolds became law turned into civil disobedience afterwards. At first they oh-so-considerately only applied Restraint to Sundays, to give us all a gentle introduction and get us used to the idea. Of course pretty much everyone either stayed at home, or ignored it, or blatantly flouted it. My perfect sister had a perfectly timed bout of glandular fever that enabled her to stay home and avoid taking sides during those first weeks when perhaps it could have gone either way. I already knew which side I was on. I went out and I protested and I refused to wear their blindfolds, and so did millions of other women. The authorities seemed to ignore us at first. Unable to arrest and charge us in such numbers, they turned a blind eye. They looked weak, unable to enforce their own law. We went out and protested every Sunday, marching through the streets with our eyes uncovered. We were sure we were winning, but all we were really doing was sowing the seeds of our defeat, piling up evidence that would be used to destroy us.

The streets of our towns and cities are loaded with CCTV cameras. Now, as then, you can’t walk far without popping up on some screen or recorder, or computer with facial recognition software. Any woman who held any sort of official photo ID could be identified and images were stored as evidence. And then the counter attack began in the form of the fixed penalty fine. These fines were very small, only fifty pounds if they were paid promptly, but they doubled every fourteen days if they were left outstanding. It was terrifying to watch the debt spiral if you refused to pay. After twenty weeks it was over twenty five thousand pounds. Of course we had the option to plead ‘not guilty’ and have our day in court, but that could take six months or more, with the photo-evidence giving little prospect of a ‘not guilty’ verdict, and all that time that fine would be doubling. The only way to deal with it was to pay the fines quickly while they were still small but this had the drip-drip effect of wearing us down. Countless women saw their wealth being drained away and one by one they capitulated until only the hardcore feminists like me were left to carry on the fight.

My protesting and general refusal to wear a blindfold racked up a hefty bill. I think it reached something over a hundred thousand before things got nasty. I thought I had a plan. I had no real money of my own for them to take and the house and our stuff all safely belonged to my husband and couldn’t be touched. I thought I would get arrested and thrown in jail. I would join the other Neo-Suffragettes in a sort of non-fatal martyrdom and our fate would inspire the masses to rise again. But they didn’t throw us in jail, instead they had something new for us, something more appropriate for blindfold refusers. They put us in hoods. Horrible, tight fitting hoods that were locked in place by a metal collar around our necks. We wouldn’t give our sight willingly so they took it from us.

Up until this point I had managed to hide from my husband the extent of the trouble I had got myself into, but when he had to sign up to be my legal keeper for the duration of my hooded sentence he discovered all. At first the sentence was quite short, only twenty eight days and I’d be free, and my enormous fines would be put on ice if I agreed to be a good, ladylike and appropriately blindfolded woman in the future. But of course, me being me, I had to go and make it worse. On day two I tried to cut the hood off with a carving knife. When that failed because the fabric was too tough I attacked the collar with a hacksaw and nearly cut my throat in the process. I remained locked in the hood and my sentence was doubled for the attempted escape and vandalism of state property. Undeterred I next set about the hood with a pair of tin snips. This had limited success. I did actually manage to cut it enough to see with one eye through the slit but it took all me all day to cut it and when Peter came in from work he was furious. The court was furious too. My sentence went up to six months. It sounds mad looking back but at the time I thought this was good. I thought that the worse I made things for myself, the greater the beacon of injustice I would become and the greater the icon of female resistance. God, how wrong I was.

Peter made me promise not to damage my hood again. We talked about leaving the country once I was free and I pretended to play along but inside my rage was unstoppable. Left alone in the house for the day I went to work on the hood again. Deprived of even the mildest of cutting tools, this time I called 999 and told them I had acid in my eyes from trying to burn the hood off with it. An ambulance turned up and I feigned agony and so they took me to A+E where they cut the hood off me. Of course there was no acid. I faked the whole thing and I managed to get on the news for it. I also managed to get my sentence extended again. Two years, the maximum allowed. I was on my last chance. Screw up again and I’d be wearing my hood in prison.

Peter now took things into his own hands. He started locking me in the spare bedroom with my hands handcuffed behind my back to keep them away from the hood whenever I was left alone. At first I was outraged and spat my fury and disgust at him. It was my life and my right to fuck it up, even end it if necessary to fight for my cause and he had no right to stop me. I smashed the bedroom up and tried to kick down the door but he just had it strengthened and added bars on the window for good measure. I might as well have been in prison. My parents tried to get me shuffled off to a mental hospital ‘to protect me from myself’. I’ve heard that phrase a lot in my life.

That was then and this is now. I’m still locked in a hood and my husband still keeps me chained and locked up to keep me out of any self-destructive mischief. He doesn’t need to anymore because I’ve calmed down now, but I’ve made him so many false promises that he can’t really believe anything I say. Those early days when I spat so much anger and aggression have left me drained of the will to resist. I accept his regime because I understand the need for it, and that he forces it upon me because he loves me and still hopes we can have a normal life together if we can get through this. I’m eight months into my two year sentence but I’m eligible for parole after one year. If I’m offered it I will take it and I’ll be a good compliant little wife. I have no fight left in me and the cause is a lost one. I know that now. On the few occasions we leave the house I can hear what people out there say about me. Do they admire my bravery and my sacrifice for the cause? Not a bit of it. They pour scorn and ridicule upon me and the heart-breaking thing is that the worst of the insults seem to come from my own sex. If this were the middle ages they’d have me in a pillory and pelt me with rotten eggs, or worse. Today I just get pelted with insults, but they too are rotten. My hood singles me out as a feminist and a common criminal. I’m not sure which of those is worse. The cause is dead. Women are either drowning in punishment like I am, or they’ve decided that living under the new regime is not nearly as bad as fighting it. Or they’re like my sister and are having a ball playing at being delicate damsels who need rescuing every time they get lost in their blindfolds.

Peter is so right. Masochistic self-pity is something I’m an expert at, but I’m determined to change. I’m going to go and find him and apologise. I’m going to be happy for the rest of the evening and who knows, hopefully we’ll have some sex tonight. Sex is the one thing I still seem to able to do in this hood, indeed I think I’m a whole lot better at it than I was before. Peter has had so much shit because of me and yet he stands by me, looks after me, and still manages to hold down his job to keep a roof over our heads. I can’t even do the housework in return. I have nothing to repay him with except sex, and I resolved a while back to make myself available whenever and for whatever he wants. We have lots of sex now, but as with anything else that is freely available it has to be worked at to keep it fresh and exciting. And so we do it all ways. Straight sex, oral sex, anal sex, sex with my breast cleavage, sex with a dildo, sex in the bedroom, in the shower, on the kitchen table, in public places, with a vibrator and a Tens machine, sex with me hanging upside down by my ankles, sex in my handcuffs, sex with my belly full of enema, sex all the way down my throat. I bet my sister can’t do that. Peter would never admit it but I know there’s a beast inside him that is turned on by his beautiful wife being locked in a hood and chains. And I have learned to work it. About the only thing I share with my sister is her looks and I know what they can do to a man. I regard it as practice for the new world I will have to live in if I can get through this. I will be like other women, a delicate thing of beauty, to be polished and admired but ultimately of little practical use except for housework, sex and baby making.

I feel around on the sofa beside me with my restricted reach, searching for my stick. Peter doesn’t keep my hands cuffed behind me anymore. Instead we have this leather belt thing with a chain attached that goes round my waist and my handcuffs are attached to it. The chain is short enough to keep my hood safely out of reach but secured like this I can just about manage some simple tasks like washing the dishes. I can also wield my stick to find my way about with bumping into everything in the house. I’m secured like this day and night and only released to get dressed or wash myself or to exercise my shoulders, and always under Peter’s close supervision. And whenever he has to go out and leave me alone I am always confined behind the locked door and barred window of the spare bedroom where I have nothing except a radio and a load of audiobooks to pass the time.  I used to have a computer I could speak to and connect with the outside world but Peter took it away when he found out who I was connecting with. Bad influences that were encouraging me to misbehave. Hanging on the wall is the only other thing of note in my prison cell, a straitjacket. I’ve never actually worn it but it hangs there as a threat of what misbehaviour will bring. My life has become one of nothingness and it has broken me. I have no fight left. I don’t care about self-respect and the injustice of the world. I just want to be normal, I just want to be out of this hood and I will become whatever they want to achieve that. Once again I will follow in my sister’s footsteps and become a compliant, obedient Barbie doll. I share her genes and we look rather alike so who knows, perhaps I might actually be better at it than she is. Perhaps I’ll discover that tottering around in a blindfold and torturous shoes will bring me a power over men that feminism and equality could never hope to achieve. Perhaps it might even make me happy.

I get up off the sofa and feel my way to the door. It’s closed but I find the handle and step out into the hall. I could call out to Peter but I think that to apologise I should go and find him rather than summon him. I stand still, hold my breath and listen for any clue as to where he might be. I can hear through the hood although the sound is dulled and gets drowned out easily by the amplified noise of my breathing and the creaking of the material if I move my head at all. A clinking sound, maybe of crockery suggests he might be in the kitchen doing the washing up. Now I feel really bad. One of the few chores that I can actually manage myself and I’ve left him to do it while I sulked. What a worthless wretch I have become. Perhaps sex tonight with my tits tightly garrotted with thin string would be a suitable punishment to offer him to make up for my behaviour today, assuming of course that I can reach high enough to tie them. I feel my way to the kitchen, following the skirting board with my stick, moving carefully in the blackness.

Although it is totally black inside, this hood is actually white on the outside. It has an orange stripe running around it where my forehead would normally be which marks me out as a convict. Quite why they think that’s necessary is beyond me. Is anyone other than a convict likely to be out in public in a tight fitting hood? Is that where we are heading? Today it’s blindfolds. Tomorrow could it be hoods for women? Will it be only the pretty ones that get to wear a blindfold while the not so pretty get shut away, out of sight in a hood? I must stop thinking these thoughts if I’m to become a willing member of this new society.

My hood is apparently a marvel of modern design and technology, or so I was told by the man who first put it on me. It was custom made to fit me after my head was scanned into a computer so that there would be no tight spots, no wrinkles and no seams that could chafe my skin or disrupt the bloodflow in my head. At the end of my sentence I will apparently emerge completely undamaged. Perhaps that is a measure of my new worth as a woman. The hood will not damage my face or my looks and that’s important, but if wearing it completely screws my brain up then that doesn’t really matter. On the outside it looks like leather, it even has a pseudo-grain texture, but it’s just a façade. Behind it the material is made up of thin layers of metal mesh, similar to those in a car airbag, stacked on top of each other so that light has no chance of passing through but moisture escapes with little hindrance. The mesh is impregnated with silver and copper for their anti-bacterial properties and of course being metal it has no stretch in it whatsoever. I am kept dry and hygienically clean inside the constant, all over pressure of my own personal claustrophobic portable prison. The tight material passes over my eye sockets without touching my eyes. I can feel my lashes brush against it when I blink. My eyes are open and yet they see nothing. It is truly awful. My ears too are kept clear of the unrelenting pressure. The hood is stiffened and formed into a slight dome over each ear to avoid them being squashed. This little air cavity also increases the level of soundproofing and further isolates me from the world. The hood continues on down over my neck and is closed by a strong metal zip that runs down the back. The fabric has to be pulled tight by some special tool before the zip can be closed. Once that’s done a rigid metal collar goes round my neck and traps the zip at the bottom. The collar locks in place and makes it impossible to get the hood off without some serious cutting tools. I know this well.

On the plus side there are a few parts of my head that are left unmolested by the hood. Above the zip at the back there is a hole through which my hair is pulled. It sticks out in a ponytail which I suppose must look rather nice when I make an effort with it, but more usually it probably looks like an unkempt, greasy mess. The hood also has a cut out which starts just above my top lip and continues down under my jaw. There is another tiny cut out under my nose. I can breathe and eat and drink normally, and perhaps more importantly I can also perform my womanly duties without hindrance. Perhaps I can perform them better now, without the distractions of unnecessary sensory input or indeed without the inhibitions of self-respect. Unfortunately I can also scream and shout normally, which is another reason Peter keeps me locked up when he’s not home. Blindly wandering the streets yelling poisonous, feminist rhetoric has done nothing to improve my chances of winning parole, and that is all that matters now.

They tell me that the fancy materials and technology in the hood would allow me to be locked inside it for years on end. I could spend the rest of my life in it and in theory at least I would be completely undamaged, except for one slight snag. Devoid of any stimulation whatsoever, my eyes would seize up. More accurately the tiny muscles in them and perhaps even my optic nerve would atrophy through lack of use. Inside the hood I can blink and move my eyes unhindered but the muscles that control focus and iris have nothing to do and left like this they would just waste away. So to avoid this, every ten days or so I have to visit my local Cop Shop to have my eyes exercised, and I have rather ambivalent feelings about these visits. I am keen to go, obviously. I don’t want to eventually get released only to find I’ve gone blind, and the visits should be the highlight of my life because I do actually get to see something and look, albeit briefly, at another human being, but actually I rather dread these visits.

They start with an officer strapping me to a frame so I can’t move. Then the collar is unlocked and the hood removed, and despite its fancy materials it still goes into a machine to be cleaned and sterilized. I briefly get to see the inside of a dimly lit office before a pair of goggles is strapped over my eyes. I then spend half an hour or so staring at alternate dim, bright and flashing patterns. Then the goggles come off and a sort of robot arm is set in front of me. It waves a little screen around and I track it with my eyes, watching more patterns of dots on it. The arm swings up right in front of my face and then withdraws back to the office wall forcing me to change my focus all the time to follow it. I get this for perhaps another twenty minutes until the cleaning machine is done with my hood. The officer then inspects carefully, very carefully in my case given my history. Sometimes it’s a small, ginger-haired bloke who calls himself Stuart. He’s a bit creepy but he treats me with some degree of kindness and sympathy. Other times I get Mrs Melia-Smith, an imposing, lean and muscly Amazon type woman. She must be over six foot in her bare feet and in the heels she always wears she towers over me and intimidates me with her very presence. She has a mean face and long, tightly curled blonde hair, and she treats me with the distain and contempt that I suppose is appropriate being as I am a convicted criminal.

Despite the dreaded Mrs Melia-Smith I could perhaps enjoy the whole thing and treat it as a break from my exceedingly boring routine if it were not for the final act, the part where the hood goes back on. Being thrust back into blackness and the feeling of the hood being tightened and locked is just too much to bear. I guess it’s like giving a starving man a whiff of steak and chips and then leaving him to die. I get a glimpse of how things used to be and then it’s gone. It’s enough to break anyone down into fits of tears, tears that will be wicked away into the hood before they can wet my cheeks, tears that bring a smile to the face of Mrs Melia-Smith. She is pure evil.

The clinking of dishes is louder in the kitchen. Peter is doing the washing up and I am an ungrateful wretch for not doing it. I feel my way over to the sink and search out his body with my restrained hands.

“You’re right. Masochistic self-pity is something I need to leave behind. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? Really? I wish I could believe you Elaina. I wish I could know what’s really going on in your head.”

“Nobody knows what’s going on in my head, least of all me. I really am trying to be different but the old me keeps fighting back. Sometimes she gets out and makes me angry again. But she’s back in her box now and I want to make it up to you. Perhaps we could try something new tonight? Some sort of little fantasy?”

“I do have a little fantasy actually.”

“Name it Master, and it shall be yours. I deserve to be punished.”

“My fantasy is to have some nice, normal sex with a woman who can look at me as we make love.”

“Aw. That’s not fair.”

“No it isn’t, but that’s what I want. And so if you really want to make things up to me then how about focussing on making your parole in four months’ time?”

“I am focussed. I’m desperate to be out of this hood. And am I not making progress? When did I last fight you over these chains? When did I last have a tantrum and wreck the house? When did I last scream and shout when we go out? You haven’t made me take a gag in my handbag for ages now. I’m getting better. I’ll be ready in time. I’ll do anything it takes.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

“Then how about going to see your psychiatrist? How about getting a report that officially says you’re better? I would think a parole board will like that sort of thing.”

“Oh God, please. You sound like my mother.”

“You’ll do anything?”

“Okay, okay. I’ll do it. I’ll go and see the bitch and get pronounced cured, even though she just makes me angry. I think what might really cure me though is punishment. Some hard punishment sex. Pain will cure me. I need to be punished don’t I?”

“Good. We’ll phone for an appointment on Monday. I’m sure Doctor Grey will be more than happy to see you. And you’re right, you do need to be punished, and I have just the thing in mind for you.”

“Name it Master. I need pain.”

“Whatever I say you will do?”

“Whatever you say.”

“And you’ll perform it completely and without complaint? Making a perfect job of it and showing enthusiasm at all times?”

“Of course. No act will be too extreme, no pain unbearable. I am yours to punish.”

“Okay then. Your punishment will be as follows. Tomorrow I will take you over to your sister’s house and we will have Sunday lunch with her and your parents.”

“You bastard! No!”

“Yes. You will be polite and calm and nice to everyone and you will wear a dress, and heels, and do something with that mop of hair instead of it just hanging out of that hood like a decaying lump of seaweed. You will be the perfect lady and you will give your mother a kiss and apologise for being a sullen bitch today. And above all you will be nice to your sister.”

“FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! NO!”

“Fuck fuck fuck, YES! You said you want to be punished. You said you’d do anything. Well there it is. This is your chance to impress me. Your chance to show you have changed. Think of it as a rehearsal for the parole board.”

“That’s not for another four months. Please don’t do this to me.”

“Four months is not long to transform yourself from what you’ve been this afternoon into something that might just get parole.”

“Oh God!”

“How much do you want to get out of this hood? Really, how much?”

“Ugh. All right. I’ll do it. Does it have to be for lunch though? Can’t we just call in briefly in the afternoon?”

“No. We’re going for lunch and we’ll stay until you’ve repaired some bridges with your family. You know you need their help if you’re going to get through this.”

“I suppose you’re right. I don’t hate them really, except perhaps my sister. I really do hate her.”

“No you don’t. Not really. And you know it.”

“All right. Sunday lunch. And I’ll wear a dress, but heels? I haven’t got any heels.”

“Yes you have. I’ve borrowed some fashionable shoes from your sister. And you’re going to wear them. In fact you’re going to wear a dress and heels every day from now on.”

“What?”

“You’ve a parole board to impress remember? You’ve got to be civilised and ladylike. And that means you have to look at ease in ladies’ clothes. So you’re starting tomorrow.”

“Please, no. You can’t do this to me.”

“Anything it takes remember?”

“Oh God.”

“If you agree you can have punishment sex tonight.”

“What sort of punishment sex? I was thinking about breast pain. You could fuck me while my tits are tortured by cruelly tight bindings.”

“How about you finish the washing up and you get whipped for each bit of dirt you leave on the plates?”

“Ooh. I can’t see. There could be lots of bits of dirt left. Will you make sure I can’t sit down to lunch tomorrow without wincing?”

“Only if you’re very lucky. Now get cracking, and while you wash I want you to think about what you’re going to say to your sister tomorrow.”

“Can’t I think about the whipping my bottom is going to get instead? That won’t be nearly so terrifying.”

“Get washing. I’ll be upstairs when you’re done.”

Peter pushes me up against the worktop and then leaves me. I start feeling around for stuff in the sink and stuff waiting to be washed. I can’t tell of course if I’ve got something clean but I usually manage by just scrubbing everything thoroughly. It takes a while but it’s not like I usually have anything more pressing to do. The threat of being whipped for every bit of dirt I miss is of course bogus. Peter’s not really going to come and inspect the dishes in the cupboards and count the crumbs and smudges. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to get whipped. My bottom is going to burn tonight for sure but that’s okay. I like pain. Pain makes me feel alive. It washes away my guilt and suppresses the demons in my head. My thighs are covered in scars from when I used to cut myself with a Stanley knife. I used to burn myself with cigarettes too and it was the smell of them that got me busted my by my mother. She burst into my bedroom expecting to catch me smoking and instead found me burning my breasts after a particularly shitty day at school. And so started my long and unpleasant history with psychiatrists, none of whom helped in the slightest. Peter gets it though. Since I was put in this hood he has worked it out. He knows that pain is a release for me. He understands that my desire to hurt myself and self-destruct is only a shield to mask the unbearable pain inflicted by others. And so although it pains him to do it, he hurts me. He hurts me just enough to stop me doing it to myself and we combine it with sex so we can kid ourselves that we’re just kinky and I’m not a total nutcase.

I’m shaking as I wash the dishes. I’m shaking so much that the chain rattles against the edge of the worktop. Tomorrow I’m going to meet my sister and I’m going to have to do it wearing her shoes, and I’m going to have to be nice to her. No wonder I’m terrified. Down at the bottom of the washing up bowl the cutlery is soaking, but this house has become how my parents’ house used to be. It is home to a self-harmer. There are only blunt, plastic knives and dulled, pointless forks. I will find no comfort with them. I reach up and take hold of my nipples. I pinch them absolutely as hard as I can and drive my fingernails into them through the thin fabric of my tee-shirt. The pain makes me sob and whimper but it cleanses my mind of my sister for now. Hopefully it will tide me over until I can feel that whip.


oOo


Day two of this weekend from hell feels from the morning warmth by the bedroom window like it is going to be sickeningly sunny. Lovely for most people in this city but just the same stifling blackness as any other day for anyone who happens to be locked in a hood. But today is bringing a hell infinitely worse than any that a mere punishment hood can deliver. Today is bringing my whole family and I’m going to have to have lunch with them. I’m going to have to sit at a table and be polite and appreciative. I’m going to have to be nice. That in itself is bad enough but there is something worse. Today is the start of something I have known is going to have to happen but which I have been putting off and putting off because it is going to sicken me right to my core. Today is the start of my transformation into something resembling a modern lady. I shudder at the thought but it’s the only way I’m going to get out of this hood and get to have a life again. Even if that life is one of fakery and pretence and of being controlled and demeaned it still has to be better than this life. And I owe it to my husband to release him from the burden I have become. I need to become a lady of our new society. I need to become a vacuous, dumb, fashion and beauty obsessed fantasy doll, just like my sister. Once again I will have to walk in my sister’s footsteps and today I literally will be wearing her shoes.

The shoes have been bothering me ever since Peter announced yesterday that he had borrowed them for me. It’s not the impending aching or even broken ankles, or even the humiliating prospect of being unable to walk in the items of fashion and torture that my is my sister’s idea of shoes. It’s that this is obviously a coordinated and pre-thought out plan by my husband and family to ‘help’ me. The shoes were here in this house before any mention of today’s family get-together. They’re all scheming to transform me into something I don’t want to become, and unlike in the past when various attempts have been made to ‘help’ me or ‘fix’ me, this time I cannot just run away. This time I know I have to go through with it or else spend fuck knows how long in this hood and maybe worse. Maybe I should just end it all right now and be done with it. What I wouldn’t give for a good, sharp Stanley knife.

But of course I’m not going to end it all, at least not yet. I know I’m screwed up but I’m not that screwed up. I’m going to play along and try to convince myself that it’s all right and that I’m even enjoying it all. Metaphorically walking in my sister’s shoes is something I’ve done plenty of in my lifetime and I’m sure I can stand to do it again. Perhaps this will be the time that I will excel and finally be better than her. Yeah. And I’ve already started. I’ve got up early and washed my hair, or least the part of my hair that sticks out of the hood. I can’t see it of course and can’t even be sure I used the right bottles in the shower, but it feels big and bouncy and that’s a start.

Right now I’m sitting on the edge of the bath. It really hurts and I am loath to get off. Last night my bottom and thighs got a severe whipping and it was the most enjoyable thing I’ve experienced for ages. Running my hands over my cheeks I can feel the raised welts and bruises. They feel gloriously tender and I wish I could see how they look, but the angry red lines and purple blotches are not hard to imagine. The edge of the bath is crushing them and it feels magnificent. I hope my perfect sister has perfectly hard chairs in her posh dining room. I will get through lunch by squirming about on them.

“Your hair looks great.”

Peter startles me. I didn’t hear him come in. His words make me jump and the feeling down below makes me wince.

“Ooooh.”

“Sorry did I give you a fright? Feeling a bit tender are we?”

“Just a bit. Thank you. It will help me get through today.”

“There’s nothing to get through. Just a nice lunch with your family. What’s so hard about that?”

“Ooh now let me see. Where do I begin…?”

“Come on then, time to get dressed. I’ve got everything ready for you.”

“You’ve got everything ready? What does that mean? I thought you were just supplying the shoes.”

“Well we wouldn’t want the shoes to clash with your dress, so I sort-of borrowed a bit more than just shoes from Tallula. She’s lent you a whole outfit and I bought you some new underwear to go under it.”

“Oh God. A whole Tallula outfit? You kept that quiet. You promised it was just her shoes.”

“No I didn’t. I only said I had borrowed shoes. I didn’t specify that nothing else was involved.”

“Bastard. You sound like a fucking lawyer. You sound like her.”

“You said you would do anything remember? I gave you a gentle introduction and was economical with the extent, that’s all. Now are we going to have a tantrum about this?”

“Ugh, no tantrum. I’m not doing them anymore. Do what you will with me, just don’t tell me how I look in it and don’t ever tell me my sister’s clothes suit me.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you how you look but I might not be able to supress every sound of approval. Tell you what, I’ll take some photos and you can look at them once you’re out of that hood.”

“Ah well, at least there’ll be an upside if I fail to make parole.”

“Come on. You promised enthusiasm, remember? Time to get you dressed.”

Peter leads me to the bedroom while I supress my grumbles and try to think of enthusiastic-sounding words to say, but the first item I am handed to put on does not inspire any enthusiasm at all as I tear open a packet and feel its contents. Despite the prospect of a warm summer’s day I am apparently going to be wearing tights. Except that the tights soon turn out to be their insidiously evil cousins, stockings. As I pull them on they feel tight and grippy around my thighs and at least offer the thin hope that I might not have to endure the full humiliation of suspenders. A bra is next, again new and in a packet. It actually feels rather luxurious and mercifully almost devoid of lacy guff. It is also stiffly wired and feels rather uplifting, if only in a physical sense. I feel my boobs in it and they feel firmly supported and encouraged to produce cleavage. Obviously that’s going to be well on display if I’m going to wear a Tallula dress. The next item is pants, or panties as I suppose I should now call them. I am relieved to find I’m apparently not expected to wear a thong in my new existence and my spirits are further lifted by the way the elasticated material rubs against my bottom’s raised welts. I can distract myself nicely with that.

I’m actually feeling rather better about all this than I expected. Nice, expensive-feeling underwear is, well, nice actually, and I am a woman after all. I was never completely Doc Martin boots and baggy jumpers, I only went that way to not be like my sister. The silky feeing slip that Peter next provides me with further lifts my spirits but I’m brought back down with a crash by the final piece of underwear. I know what it is as I step into it. I’ve never worn one before but I know exactly what it’s all about. It’s a collection of strong webbing loops held together by some thinner fabric to form a petticoat and it’s called a strain taker. Its function is to restrict my legs and pull tight just before the delicate, feminine fabric of an outer dress does and hence prevent any boisterous, unladylike walking from stretching or tearing the lady’s dress. As soon as I’m in the thing I can feel the anger surging up inside me. Am I really going to have to imprison myself in such things to escape from being imprisoned in this hood?

The old, angry me is banging on her box in my head. She’s shouting and screaming about the injustice of it all but I’m keeping her box securely locked shut with calm and practical thoughts. My sister would say that there’s no point in being able to run about if you can’t see where you’re going and that it’s more useful to be sexy so you will have plenty of men queuing up to help you when you need it. I’m going to try very hard to find a way to see the sense in that. And besides, I rather doubt my legs will be troubling my strain taker very much if I’m going to be tottering about in a pair of Tallula shoes.

Peter helps me into the dress. Mercifully he doesn’t describe how it looks but I can’t stop my brain from extrapolating images from the way it feels. It’s a halter neck thing which leaves my shoulders bare and as expected plunges deeply at the front so my cleavage is exposed to all. It has an elasticated section round my midriff because, well you would if you had Tallula’s figure, and then it becomes a skirt that ends a little above my ankles. I can’t feel how tight it is because of the strain taker but I’ll bet it’s as thin as a pencil. I can’t feel any frills or bows or stuff on it so that’s something I suppose.

All in all I’m surprised at how calmly I have managed this dressing up process. I’ve spent half the night telling myself that it’s only a dress and it’s no big deal, and the real challenge is lunch with my family. There’s a strange silence in the bedroom. Peter has promised not say how I look, but of course it is the only topic of conversation that makes any sense right now. And I am feeling an overwhelming desire to ask how I look, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I must look like a lady of sorts and I can’t honestly say it feels all bad. During the night I came up with a little idea that I thought might impress Peter and give me extra credit, but now that it’s time to enact it I rather feel I want to do it anyway. I feel my way to the dressing table and sit down to do some make-up. Of course I haven’t got much to make up with only my mouth and jaw exposed but it’s the thought that counts. A little shader and perhaps even some lip gloss, if I can manage it without seeing.

Now comes the part I have been dreading. All this stuff I’ve put on is just about making me look like some sort of fantasy doll. And I can ignore that because I’m stuck in this hood and can’t see what I look like. Nothing I’m wearing is actually uncomfortable and with the exception of the ridiculously tight skirt, nothing is hampering my ability to move. I’m still free to move around as me. But the final item I am going to wear is going to change all that. It, or rather they, are going to be horribly uncomfortable, painful even, and they are going to force me to move and behave in a way that is not me. My sister’s shoes are the real villains of all this and they are going to rule me with their tyranny, controlling my posture and forcing me to totter about like the fantasy doll I must look like. I am going to hate these shoes more than everything else I am having to wear, perhaps even more than this hood.

Peter puts the shoes in my hands and I examine them carefully. The first thing I feel are the ankle straps with not just one, but two buckles on each. No throwing them off in a fit of temper then. The main event though is of course the heels. Surprisingly and perhaps mercifully they’re not the spiky needle-like stilettoes I was expecting. They feel like they might be as thick as an inch wide at the bottom and I might actually stand a meagre chance of being able to remain upright on them, but they feel soooo high, six or seven inches at least. The shoes also have what feels like a substantial platform under the toes. Does that make them easier or harder to walk in? I’m about to find out. Trying very hard to expel all thoughts of strangling my sister for providing these instruments of Satan, I put the shoes on the floor in front of me. With Peter lending a steadying arm I step into them, or perhaps more accurately I step up onto them where I wobble unsteadily for a while until I feel confident enough to let go of Peter. I continue to wobble as he fastens the ankle straps and secures me into my new life as a dollified woman. Old Elaina is screaming inside her box but I’m wrapping it in soundproofing so I can’t hear her. I’m doing this. I have to do this if I am going to get out of this hood. To be able to see again, even if it’s just for some of the time has to make this a price worth paying, and besides, they can do wonders with ankle surgery these days.

Before I can suffer the torture of lunch with my family there is something else I must endure first. An ordeal less frightening but with potentially more serious consequences if I screw up. I have to get down the stairs. That might not sound like much, but dressed in a skirt this tight, with my sister’s tart shoes on my feet and blinded by a hood, it becomes a challenge of biblical proportions which I would surely fail at if it were not for a sturdy handrail and a husband’s secure grip to keep me upright. With the staircase bested and in the familiarity of my home I can navigate fairly freely. I spend the next half hour wondering about, feeling my way along the walls and using them to help me balance. It’s not that I haven’t worn heels before, I used to waitress in them every night, but they were just ‘sensible’ heels of three or four inches. These things on my feet now might be twice that high. The platforms under my toes reduce the angle of my feet to a just about manageable steepness but they also make me feel very precarious, almost like I’m walking in stilts. It feels like every short step could be the one that capsizes a shoe and snaps my ankle in two. But at least the shoe-enforced short steps mean the hobbleskirt is not bothering me. What does bother me is that neither of these ridiculous items has anything to do with the law that I got myself into such trouble protesting about. They are simply items of fashion, worn by women who are vain and stupid but whom the rest of us have some inexplicable desire to emulate. The government blindfolds women, and so women come up with ways to further restrict and subjugate themselves. Could it be that blindfolds are just a trigger and once pulled, women will do the rest of the job themselves because we’re just wired up that way? Will we be back in bodices and bustles by the time I get out of this hood? Will we be trussed into corsets for no other reason than it’s fashionable? Please, no.

After a while I think I’m getting the hang of the shoes and indeed the feel of them reminds me of a rather less miserable part of my life, a time when I used to flirt shamelessly with customers, partly in the hope of a better tip but also just because I enjoyed it. Practising in the shoes improves my technique but it also tires my feet and ankles and brings on that ache that promises to just get worse as the day goes on. I like pain of course, but there are a many types of pain. I don’t enjoy a headache any more than anyone else but the crack of a whip across my arse can be exquisite. I’m going to try and convince myself that the pain of high heeled feet is one I can enjoy.

It feels strange and unnerving to be dressed like this. Despite all the clothes I feel strangely naked, like there’s something missing. I feel exposed and vulnerable. Peter announces it’s nearly time to go and he has a surprise for me. It is a tiny bolero style jacket with long sleeves and snugly elasticated cuffs.

“Does it match the dress? I ask as he puts it on me. It’s the first expression of interest in how I look that I have let slip out.

“They’re a set,” he replies.

“Oh. I suppose that makes sense being as they are my sister’s.”

“It looks…. Sorry I promised not to say.”

“I know. I can’t say I’m not curious though.”

“You want me to tell you?”

“No, it’s better that I don’t know. One step at a time.”

“Okay. Hold your hands out. I’ve got some gloves for you.”

“Gloves? Have you got a hat too? A hat over a hood. That would be something.”

“We thought about that but decided it would be too much.”

“We thought about it? We? So this is an organised conspiracy then.”

“I think you know it is. And you know why.”

As Peter works my hands into a pair of thin, but tight fitting gloves, no doubt also supplied by my conspiring sister, I suddenly realise what is wrong and why I feel nakedly exposed. I’m not wearing my chain belt and handcuffs. I’ve worn them almost constantly for so long it feels weird to be free of them. And now I realise this, their absence troubles me deeply for it is they rather than the hood that have been the calming influence upon me. Being locked in the hood just made me angry and fed the desire to fight. It was the handcuffs that broke me. They, not the hood, were the things that exhausted the fires of rage and suppressed my desire to sacrifice myself to the fight. They were the things that set me on this road to acceptance and hopefully some sort of life again. Without them I have nothing to prevent me freaking out, descending into a tantrum and ripping these ridiculous clothes from myself once we’re at my sister’s house, or even right outside in the street. I need my handcuffs. I need to be chained to keep me calm. I have to have them.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I ask as Peter finishes working my hands into the gloves.

“I don’t think so. You look…..ready.”

“What about my chain belt?”

“Oh now we’re not going to need that. Are we?”

“I think I should wear it. Just in case.”

“Just in case? In case of what exactly?”

“Well, you know. I mean, I’m not planning anything and I don’t think I’ll lose it, but I’ll feel a lot more comfortable if that possibility is removed. I’d like to be chained if that’s okay. It feels weird not to be. And I’d like to know that you have a gag with you.”

“Well all right. If it’s what you want. It would be nice for your mum to see you unchained though. It would mean a lot to her.”

“You could chain me, and then if I’m doing okay through lunch you could maybe release me just for a little while. Just so she can see me behave.”

“Okay then. I’ll go and get it.”

Peter goes upstairs to get my chain belt and I feel hugely relieved. Being chained makes it easier. It’s like putting a lock on the sweetie jar. It removes the need for self-control and the possibility of disobedience and bad behaviour. Not completely of course. I can still have a tantrum even if I’m chained, but the chains seem to have a calming effect on me. They will become the oppressors and the injustice rather than all these lady-clothes, and I have been chained so much that I know how to deal with them.

“Are you sure?” asks Peter as he returns to the room.

“Absolutely sure,” I reply confidently.

I feel the belt being placed around my waist and by the time Peter has fastened and locked the buckle behind my back I have already placed my wrists in the handcuffs and got them locked in snugly. I feel safe and secure again. I will get through this day.


oOo


I remember well that Sunday I spent with my family. Although I saw nothing of it I have constructed images of the day in my head of how everything, including me, must have looked. It was a turning point and a major milestone in my life that deserves some special space in my memory. I remember tasting my mother’s cooking again. I remember the banal smalltalk at the dining table that tiptoed around the elephant in the room without touching it. I remember my sister painting my nails and being very nice to me as she always was even though I was always horrible to her. I remember the afternoon walk to nearby Kew Gardens during which nobody shouted abuse at me and my husband telling me how much in love all the other couples there looked, men and blindfolded ladies walking closely, arm in arm, being brought together and having their relationships intensified by their blindfolds. I remember my husband discreetly mauling my bottom to make my bruises hurt and help me get through the day. I remember I did find a way to enjoy the pain in my feet from wearing those shoes.

Since then I have managed to keep the old Elaina at bay. She is still in me of course but I keep her shut away in her soundproofed box in my head. I have managed to purge myself of her desire to fight and to self-destruct and have become a decent and proper member of society. By the time of my parole board I had learned to walk in my sister’s shoes both metaphorically and literally. I had learned to walk in her dresses too and I had rehabilitated myself into a proper, modern lady, albeit a lady locked in a punishment hood with her hands still securely restrained. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough and I didn’t make parole. The board said that parole at the first opportunity was reserved for those with a perfect record of behaviour throughout their sentence, not just in its later part. My record from my early months was abysmal and neither my apparent subsequent rehabilitation nor the glowing psychiatric report from Dr Grey could erase that fact. However they did feel I deserved some reward for my efforts and some incentive to continue them and so the terms of my sentence were altered somewhat. The locking collar that retained my hood was replaced with one that featured a simpler locking mechanism and Peter was given a key. He was allowed, at his discretion to remove my hood when I was at home and under his supervision. I could see again, if only in the evenings and at weekends when Peter was home, and only then if I didn’t go out of the house. It was enough though to preserve some semblance of sanity and show me that there was a life worth living if I could learn to accept my place and be nice to people.

I made it to the end of my sentence without further blemish on my record and my sister managed to convince a court to exchange my enormous and still outstanding fines for a three year extended blindfold order. I have to wear a blindfold not just when travelling, but also when I am in any public place. That includes not just streets and parks and the like, but also places like shops, restaurants or even cinemas. It’s hard, but I am managing and it’s a doddle compared to wearing a hood all the time.

When I was young I never had any idea of what I wanted to do with my life, or what I wanted to be, other than to not be like my sister, and so in some ways I have achieved my life’s main goal. I am not like my sister. She has a fancy career as a swish, expensive lawyer. She is rich, and getting richer and she is an icon of fashionable, modern femininity, while I am just an ordinary bloke’s wife. My status and worth are defined not by my own skills and achievements, but by those of my husband. Without him I am nothing. I have even stopped the now highly unfashionable and frowned upon practice of keeping my family name. I am no longer Elaina Crenshaw, I am just Mrs Chambers, wife, housekeeper and painfully abused sex-slave of Mr Chambers. It’s not as bad as it sounds, especially the sex-slave bit.

After I was released from the hood we moved house to a new area where no one knew me or my troubled history. We started over and I found new friends among our new neighbours who are all intrigued by this enigmatic, stylish and rather beautiful new woman on the block who always wears handcuffs. I still haven’t weaned myself out of them although I now have a whole thirty centimetres of chain between my wrists. I have learned to find my way to my new friends’ houses so I can visit and we can be ladies who do lunch together. We also drink coffee and talk about our daily chores, about fashion, about blindfolds, about our husbands, and even about sex. And my hands’ restraints are never far from the conversation. My friends are all intrigued and I can see the unspoken desire in the eyes of some of them. Perhaps I should have a word with their husbands. And come three o’clock my new friends’ world becomes a frenzy of activity as their children escape from school, and I feel my way home to get the dinner ready for my husband. Sometimes I might deliberately forget so that I can enjoy a takeaway and a good whipping. My life might seem rather small, especially compared to the grand things I was brought up to expect in the days of equality and feminism, but I was never happy in those days and I am at least sometimes happy now. Our new house has normal, metal cutlery and I have free access to carving and steak knives. I’ve not felt seriously tempted to use any of them for anything other than their intended purpose, and that has to be a good thing. I suppose that soon I might regard myself as stable enough to embark on that great, true female purpose, that of being a mother, and it will be good for me because it will be something I can never see my perfect sister doing. She would never screw up her perfect figure to produce something that might possibly not turn out to be the perfect child.  If mine is a girl I’m going to bring her up right. No filling her head with notions of equality and grand expectations that will only lead to disappointment. Much better for her if I fill her head with notions of shoes and dresses and blindfolds and glamour and beauty, and then she will be able to find herself a man from the top drawer and be the mistress of a fine house. I wish my mother had done that for me instead of buggering off on ships all the time. It would have saved me a lot of angst.