Chapter 24: Police Procedural

“A husband?” Constable Margery Dennis, Valerie Haste’s live-in lover, was sprawled on the bed they shared.

“Yes, a husband.” Valerie had just got back from work. She’d been planning a quiet evening but from the way Margery was staring at her coyly, bed sheets wrapped around her obviously naked body, her partner had more energetic plans.

“What you mean like he used to be?” Margery nodded towards where Valerie’s ex-husband Barry was sitting on the floor.

“Oi!” Valerie snapped. “Stop lounging about, haven’t you got work to do?”

Barry looked up sullenly. “Yes, but she, “ he nodded towards Margery, “said I should be here to help when you got in. She thought you might need warming up.” His tone was closer to insolence than Valerie would have liked but she let it go.

“How thoughtful, Marge! You are such a slut. I don’t think I need him for that tonight though. All right then, Barry, help me undress then you can get me a drink. I need a scotch after today.”

“Bad one?”

“Oh, not so terrible,” Valerie stood while Barry unfastened her skirt. She stepped out of it. He turned to hang it in the wardrobe and then came back to begin unfastening the buttons on her blouse. “It’s good to have you do this Barry. No, not so terrible Marge, it’s just I’m not getting anywhere much with the Wheeland boy.” She turned to Barry. “No, don’t hang that up it needs laundering. Do it tonight. I’ll want it again tomorrow.”

He shuffled off with the shirt. Valerie wondered why she hung on to him. Since the divorce he’d been just like any other sponsored male. She could end that anytime she liked. Maybe she was a bit sentimental. Hardly what you’d expect from a Detective Sergeant in the Male Control Force, though.

“Well do we?” Valerie, now stripped to her underwear climbed into bed alongside her lover. “Do we know anyone with a husband, I mean a current husband?”

“No. I’m pretty sure we don’t. Still don’t talk work. I want to play.” Margery nuzzled up to Valerie’s neck, her hands exploring the other woman’s breasts.

Valerie, enjoying Margery’s attentions was giggling happily when Barry returned with her drink.

“You’re impossible,” Valerie said as Margery tried nibbling on her ear lobes while she attempted to take a sip of her drink. “Still I’ve decided on two things. I’m going to talk to this husband and I’m going to get the daughter to talk to her boyfriend. Now, if you want to nibble something try further down.” She pushed Margery’s head down towards her lap. “That will be much more amusing.”

...

In Gerard Street, Wan Yu called her class to order. “Ladies, ideas on Path of Look for your slaves? Miss Daphne I think you should start, you were most vocal when this topic was raised.”

Daphne had found it hard to adapt to some parts of the training. She wasn’t always comfortable with the abstract ideas behind Kòngzhì Rén but she had found that her intuition about what worked was sound. “Well, I was thinking about the first day we saw Mary Tang. I know the way that SHE looked impressed us all but I was thinking about her slave. He was in that one-piece leather suit; completely enclosed, strapped and padlocked in, silenced, featureless to anyone seeing him. It was obvious to us that his Mistress had taken great care to have him like that. Mary must have thought as carefully about how he would look as about how he was to be restrained. She might have him dress that way because she likes how it looks or because she likes what it says about her and about him.”

“Very good. And what do you think his perspective would be?”

“He looked uncomfortable. The suit must be hot and make it hard to breathe easily and the straps restrict his movement. he’ll be stiff after a while. So, Pressure of Pain, I think.”

“Pressure of Humiliation too,” Collette chimed in. “He must know how ridiculous it makes him look.”

“Anything else?”

“There could be Pressure of Fear,” Anna added, “if he is afraid of being restrained like that, maybe if he was claustrophobic. Or maybe fear of being seen like that. Although he should be pleased at how good a job Mary did on him.”

“So maybe even Pressure of Pleasure. If a slave feels his Mistress pays special attention to his appearance maybe that makes him a little proud and that makes him a better slave? He won’t want to offend his Mistress if he thinks she will not make him look so good,” Wan Yu suggested.

Fara wasn’t so convinced by Wan Yu’s last point but didn’t have a chance to debate the issue as Wan Yu announced, “Now we have a practical exercise. Let’s look at these two.”

As she spoke, Tsai Linn came in leading two shackled and gagged slaves. Both had been forced into maid outfits.

Bernard was wearing a black satin maid’s dress with a lace trimmed apron and a short skirt that barely reached the tops of the stockings he had been force to wear. The skirt was puffed out by petticoats beneath and the short sleeves of the dress left his arms bare. His face was masked by a black stocking that had been pulled over his head and, from the way that his cheeks were puffed out, the girls guessed that he had been gagged with an inflatable ball behind the leather strap that covered his mouth. On his head he wore a stiffly-lacquered, shoulder-length black wig with flick ups. On his head a maid’s cap had long, lace, tails hanging down behind his back. In as much as the girls could judge his expression behind the stocking mask he looked completely humiliated.

Alongside Bernard, Gary Sumpter was feeling equally put upon. Where Bernard was the image of the fetish sissy maid, Gary looked positively frumpy.

The stockings and garter belt Gary had been left with on his arrival hadn’t survived long with the sharp corners and cramped access of his cage. In fact they had only lasted long enough for the Sunrise girls to label him as an uppity sub trying to get around them and for the men to think he was some sort of sex traitor.

Now he had been put into an outfit that Wan Yu said was, “Proper maid uniform for hard-working maid.” The dress was plain, black and with white collar and cuffs to the short sleeves. The skirt was straight and knee-length. he’d been given a pair of thick stockings and some plain, black, low-heeled shoes. Where Bernard’s apron and cap were elaborate his were about as simple and untrimmed as could be imagined. The only thing the two men shared was that their waists were corseted, their chest augmented with padding, their faces masked with stockings and their mouths stuffed and strapped.

“So,” said Wan Yu, “which is better costume for slave? Cockroach or new boy?”

Collette put her hand up and Wan Yu invited her to answer. “The obvious answer is cockroach, I guess,” she said, “but I’m not so sure.”

“How so?”

“Well, cockroach probably hates his costume but I think that one,” she pointed to Gary, “hates his more. He likes to wear women’s clothes but he is being made to wear the clothes of the most menial woman - a household servant, like all women used to have to be. I saw him when he arrived, he likes to look more flamboyant than this. Worst thing for him is to look nondescript. Cockroach though likes not to be noticed. He thinks if he is not noticed he does not have to work so hard. This costume for him is a disaster. It says ‘look at me!’ I think that is worse than being made to look foolish.”

Tsai Linn looked delighted. “A very good answer Miss Collette. I can see you have spent a lot of time thinking about this Path. Well done!” She looked at the two hapless men. “Well, we will now put you to work. Cockroach, you go fetch tea for us all. And you, scullery maid, you go sweep out kitchens.”

The two cross-dressed slaves nodded obediently and went to leave.

“Wait,” said Collette, calling after them. The two men stopped. “Shouldn’t a good maid curtsey before, leaving?” The others giggled.

“Oong mmumphs,” the gagged Bernard responded bobbing obediently, almost falling over in his high heels as he crossed one leg behind the other and bent his knee while holding the hem of his abbreviated skirt.

“So-og-gy” Gary was slower to grunt his apology, clearly unhappy at the humiliation of trying to talk while his mouth was stuffed, as he gave his curtsey and left the group.

Tsai Lin watched him go, thinking that he needed a little more encouragement to join in properly.

Moments later, Wan Yu appeared. “Miss Fara, I have a message for you from the police,” she said. “They say that they can let you see Jim tomorrow. If you can help by getting him to cooperate they will be very happy.”

...

That evening, Fara and the others were lounging in the dormitory. The place was quiet. Madam Chao, Tsai Lin and Wan Yu had decided to go to friends nearby for a game of Mahjong.

Anna was sat at the dressing table, experimenting with various ways of putting up her long fair hair and trying out a series of neck scarves that she had acquired on a recent shopping trip.

On the floor in the middle of the room Daphne was stretching and doing exercises. She, more than any of them, had found it difficult being cooped up in the Sunrise Tea Parlour. Normally she was out playing sport and running but here she hadn’t had the chance. While the girls were free to come and go as they pleased, there really wasn’t the time to get far and the Tea Parlour was a good mile from the nearest park.