Excerpt 1

 

"Papers!" Demanded the older of the two boys, holding out his hand.

Struggling to keep her emotions in check, the tall, well-dressed woman opened her handbag and rummaged inside. Without a word she handed over the required paperwork to the pimply-faced youth. Gillian wasn't racist exactly but she didn't like Pakistanis on a general principle. They seemed to have a particularly bad attitude to women. The boy looked down at her ID and then back up at her. He said something to his younger colleague in what she supposed was Pakistani and they both laughed.

"Your name, age, and address."

She tried to stifle a sigh; clearly her ID belonged to her. It had a recent picture of her face on the front of it.

"Gillian Longmuir, forty-two, 9 Cypress Gardens, Allenby."

The two boys looked at each other and this time the younger one said something which appeared to amuse them both. His colleague assumed a more serious look.

"Have you read the recent directive regarding interaction between State Officials and members of the public, Mrs Longmuir?"

She nodded her head, it was usually best to reply in the positive to questions like that.

"Then you'll be aware that State Officials, such as us, should be referred to as 'sir'?"

She flushed at the remark, but she knew he was correct. Even teenage thugs in uniform like these two had to be treated with a certain amount of respect.

"Yes, sir."

"Good, and where do you work, Mrs Longmuir?"

"I work at Marston's which is just over there on the other side of the road, sir."

"You're very well-dressed for a secretary, Mrs Longmuir. Do you have suitable permission from your employers?"

Behind her she heard the younger boy snigger. Gillian felt her face blush again. Suitable permission from her employers? Unbelievably, this sort of question had become common-place in modern-day Britain.

"I...I'm not a secretary. I'm a senior manager in the firm, sir."

"Nevertheless I assume that you have the requisite paperwork entitling you to wear that rather ...daring suit? Isn't it a little short for a lady of your age? We do have anti-Harlotry rules now, as I'm sure you're well aware."

She looked at him in amazement, was the dreadful little Pakistani suggesting she was a whore? She could hardly believe her ears. She heard his colleague say something in his own, indecipherable language.

"My colleague, Mr Majid, would like to ask if those are stockings you're wearing, or tights."

"I honestly don't see what possible business is it of yours what I'm wearing?"

She was so annoyed by their intrusive questions that she allowed herself to forget the stories she'd heard from some of the girls at work regarding the recent introduction of the stringent Morality Laws that she dimly remembered reading about. Naturally she never considered that the rather stringent rules might be applied to her.

The Pakistani slowly looked her up and down. "It seems to me, Mrs Longmuir that someone has been remiss in reading up and understanding the New Government's Morality Laws. Rule 2a clearly states that any unaccompanied girl can be stopped and questioned regarding her appearance at any time by any State-appointed Official. We as you can see by our uniforms, are State-appointed Officials; you are an unaccompanied female whom we suspect may be of low moral standing. In order to assuage our fears, you need to produce the requisite paperwork giving you permission to wear a short skirt to and from your place of work."

Majid, who was now stood directly behind her, said something else.

"Oh, and in order to carry out our remit, Mr Majid still wants to know if you have on stockings or tights."

Gillian felt a sudden coldness in the pit of her stomach. This horrible little man was quite seriously accusing her of being a whore! She wasn't a girl either. Far from it in fact, she was a senior manager in a well-respected firm of accountants and the mother of two daughters. How could this be happening on the main streets of her own town?

"I...I don't have any paperwork, I didn't think it was necessary. I didn't..."

"Tights or stockings?"

"Stockings, sir." She replied shame-faced. Being asked if she was wearing stockings or tights in the street by a teenage Pakistani was a new experience for her.

"Show us."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said 'show us' Mrs Longmuir, as I'm sure you're well aware. That is unless you want me to arrest you."

She stood looking at him, unsure what to do.

"Just pull up your little skirt and show us! Don't pretend that you don't want to show us, why else would you wear such an indecent skirt especially at your age?"

Gillian was furious. "How dare you ask me questions like that you horrible little man? I'm old enough to be your mother; doesn't your culture have any respect for women at all?"

Constable Faysal Zafar smiled showing his pearly white teeth. As he reached behind his back for his handcuffs he had already begun his speech,

"Gillian Mary Longmuir, I'm arresting you on suspicion of Harlotry and potential Hate-crime, anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you in a court of Law."

 

Excerpt 2

 

William Massingham drove himself home that afternoon. After asking young Weston to keep him informed of the progress of his new protégé he returned to his own palatial home. As he mounted the steps to the imposing door it was opened by a uniformed maid who curtsied prettily. Without a word he handed her his overcoat. He found his wife in their huge drawing-room.

"Hello darling, how was your day? You look quite fatigued."

Massingham sat down heavily in his favourite armchair. "Fairly good, my sweet. I've been reasonably busy I have to say. The business doesn't run itself you know."

"Quite darling, quite. I'll call Lyndhurst; she's quite marvellous in these sort of situations."

"Darling, you're always so kind."

In a nearby room a buzzer sounded. Abigail Lyndhurst immediately got to her feet and checked her appearance in the mirror. Once she was happy she turned and teetered out of the room on her high heels. As she walked down the long corridor towards the stair she passed one of the footmen who stared at her with an amused expression before giving her a low wolf-whistle. She blushed furiously at the unwanted compliment. My God, had it come to this? One tiny error on her part had consigned her to the dreadful house. Her old life and friends and accomplishments were now history. Rather than the respected Dr Lyndhurst she was now merely 'Lyndhurst. Rather than a GP she was now a nurse. She was now the official nurse to the dreadful Massingham family. Her duties involved everything that could conceivably be described as 'medical'.

The deferential knock at the drawing room door signalled the arrival of the woman. Massingham barely glanced at her as she entered, although in any other context she would have drawn many a look. She was wearing four inch, gleaming white stilettos, white stockings and a tiny mid-thigh pleated white skirt. As she curtsied her large, creamy white breasts encased in a half-cup white wonder bra were very prominent. The fact that her short-sleeved white blouse had the top three buttons undone helped of course. Her bleached peroxide hair was topped by a tiny, demeaning cap. And attached to her blouse was a badge that proclaimed her identity to everyone, Nurse Lyndhurst.

"Aah, Lyndhurst there you are, my husband needs his usual foot massage."

Immediately Abigail knelt at Massingham's feet and proceeded to unlace his shiny, black brogues. It certainly didn't pay to delay when given any order in this house, as she knew to her cost. Carefully she worked them off his feet, and then slowly removed his right sock. Taking his foot in both hands she raised it to her mouth and placed her lips on it. She then proceeded to kiss his foot from the top of his toe to his heel. The smell was quite horrible. He'd clearly been wearing his shoes and socks all day. Of course she ignored that fact. Once she'd kissed them she began to slowly lick them, with long slow movements of her tongue. The taste was quite dreadful; his elderly wrinkled feet were quite horrible. Clearly however she couldn't suggest that. Her bottom twitched involuntarily as she recalled the canings she had received for having the temerity to gag when she was being taught. Above her she could hear the two of them carrying out a banal conversation as if this was the most common thing in the world. Even as she thought that, she realised bitterly that it was a commonplace as far as her master and mistress were concerned. Far from being a respected professional woman, she was now merely an ornament. She carefully worked her thumbs into his ancient flesh, kneading out any knots she found.

"That's enough, girl. Suck them."

Abigail was shaken out of her reverie by her master's grunt. Hurriedly she moved her head and put his little toe into her mouth. She rotated her tongue around the digit, desperately trying to ignore the texture and the disgusting bits of grime and flaky skin that she encountered. She repeated this process. Four more times. When she got to his revolting big toe he took his foot off her lap and placed it flat on the floor. In order to suck it Abigail had to shuffle her knees and put her head on its side and her cheek against the rug. This had the unfortunate effect of thrusting her backside high into the air. At first she was dreadfully embarrassed at this revealing posture, but now she just accepted it. She knew very well that her mistress enjoyed watching her plump backside as it wriggled away in her skin-tight, silky, white knickers.

 

Excerpt 3

 

Lilly gasped with effort as she ran down the pavement, she could feel her ponytail banging between her shoulder blades and her short skirt fluttering dangerously high up her thighs. She couldn't afford to ease off because she didn't have the time. She pushed herself the last couple of hundred metres silently praying there wouldn't be a queue at the coffee shop. In her sweaty palm she carried the exact money for three skinny lattes. She panted as she pushed open the door, thankfully there were only a couple of people in front of her. As she stood and waited her turn she reflected on her decision to accept the offer made by Johnson and Landers last month. She realised of course that had been their plan all along. They didn't want to actually send her somewhere up North of course, that had merely been a bluff. What they actually wanted was to keep her close so that everyone would see her still working in broadcasting, Keep her in the public eye so that all her former colleagues and friends, and enemies for that matter could snigger at her as she scurried around the vast sets that comprised the NGBC's new infrastructure in her humiliating Blackfriars uniform with hair tied in a long single plait with a flamboyant yellow ribbon that succeeded in its intention of drawing attention to her.

 

She had lost track of the number of people who took pictures of her or demanded that she pose for selfies with her. Even now in the cafe she could tell that people recognised her and were talking about her. She tried self-consciously to pull the brim of her incongruous straw boater further down over her face., but she could still hear the whispers.

 

"Isn't that what's her name...you know, used to read the news."

 

"That can't be Lilly Geoghan, can it?"

 

"What's she doing dressed like that?"

 

Ashamed she kept her eyes glued to her shiny, brown sandals. The whole scheme had been concocted by those New Government bastards for exactly this reason. What would be the advantage of sending someone as well-known as her to a God-forsaken work camp? Now she was kept like some sort of house-trained puppy on a lead, a living breathing example of how power had shifted from the previous left-wing establishment to the New Government version of it. She had become a warning to all women of her class and her background, submit to the New Government...or else. As she got to the front of the queue, the spotty youth behind the counter smiled at her derisively before taking her order.

 

"What name shall I put on the cup?"

 

"Lillian Nicole Geoghan, please sir"

 

She squirmed in embarrassment as she always did. Making her tell them her full name just so they could call it out when her coffees were ready was deeply humiliating. Having to call a teenager 'sir' was mortifying. But she simply daren't refuse, her official role at the NGBC was a runner, the lowest of the low, and consequently she was subject to the strictest discipline. If she got any part of the order wrong she'd be spanked. If she was even a minute late in delivering any of the drinks, she'd be spanked, which was why she was running down the street at her age. She had to press a button on the office computer whenever she left her designated workspace and then press it again when she returned. She would often have to explain to a superior, which was just about anybody, exactly how she'd spent that particular time away from her desk.

 

"Please, miss. I was in the bathroom, miss."

 

"Please, sir. I was running an errand, sir. "

 

And her spankings were hardly ever a private affair. She was simply told to put her hands on her knees and stick her backside out while her punisher slapped her backside, wherever and whenever that might be. It wasn't a coincidence that she was called whenever a visitor to NGBC was due, the amount of people she actually knew and who witnessed her shame as she served coffee or tidied up the place or was despatched to find a pen, was quite incredible. Even those she'd never met before usually recognised her when they were introduced. That was a part of the whole, humiliating exercise she realised, that everyone she met would no doubt pass along the story of how Lilly Geoghan, former newsreader and darling of the EBC was now a gofer.

 

The upside was that she was free to return to her family every evening. Even now she heard stories of how some of her colleagues had resisted the pressure from the New Government and had been despatched to some far-flung corner of the country. Hurried, whispered conversations with sympathetic former colleagues revealed that one of her friends, Ayeesha, another former presenter was now helping to dig ditches in rural Norfolk. Lilly shuddered whenever she thought of the refined, petite former Cambridge graduate up to her knees in mud and filth as she laboured away in a field somewhere. She couldn't imagine a less appropriate job for the unfortunate Indian woman, but always in the back of her mind was the realisation that it could easily have been her fate had she been injudicious enough to turn down the NGBC. As it was she could still involve herself in family life and only occasionally was she required to work weekends. The loss of her EBC salary was enough to force the family to downsize somewhat, they'd had to move to a smaller house and sell one of the family cars, but even so, it wasn't quite farm work. In a sense she was grateful to the New Government, which perversely made her hate it even more.