Showing posts with label uniform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label uniform. Show all posts

Saturday, 7 September 2024

The St Geraldene's Religious Re-education Centre Uniform Dress


 

Complete security, total isolation from external contact and ouside influences is guaranteed here at St Geraldene's. Our service is the ideal way to remove the troublsome woman, girl or recalcitrant teen from society whether temporarily or on a more long-term basis. If the former we ask for a minimum of two years and what will be returned to you will be a totally indoctrinated, completely docile, husk of who she once was.

Wednesday, 3 July 2024

Aftermath

 I tride to make a sort of school badge. It was supposed to be embroidered on her blouse but I couldn't make it  work: It just wouldn't show up, so I put a small version on her tie.  It would show up on a gymslip or summer dress bodice though...Trust me! I'm working on it

The reason her hair looks so hacked about is that the disciplinarian hired to care for her never like the girl's waist-length hair in the first place, was jealous of it and now uses it as a form of discipline in addition to the strap and the cane, hacking a bit more off each time the girl steps out of line in the slightest possible way

Tuesday, 25 June 2024

Tuesday, 10 April 2012

Miss Marianne Martindale's 'Wildfire Club' Publications: In Answer to a Reader's Inquiry

Anonymous' has left a new comment on the posting "More on Non-Corporal Punishment / Discipline" in which he (or she – there are some that visit here) asks whether there is any chance of posting the missing pages from the scanned extracts I posted regarding written impositions. (Way back on Thursday, 8 October 2009; Nostalgia–holic Garth).

The thing is: the book the extracts he (or she) is referring to came from is not one of mine but rather a work entitled 'THE FEMALE DISCIPLINARY MANUAL'. Now, I don't think it is right to scan in someone else's work in its entirety – a few snatches, sure (that's just being a little like Google books) but not everything; not even a complete section. In fact I'm not at all sure that I even posted a complete page, just isolated pargraphs mostly, cut and pasted together in a photo-manipulation package. However there is a link on the page (Click HERE or click on the blog page title above to visit) that will take you to an earlier group of extracts that I had previously posted.

Unfortunately I didn't have sufficient time to scan any more of the work – let alone the complete book – even for my own future delectation and delight. Secondly; sadly I no longer have the book, having since donated it to my good E-friend and arty collaborator 'Snooze' over there in the 'States, who's work you will have come across here gracing one or two past postings. The book was published by Miss Marianne Martindale's 'Wildfire Club' ca 1996 (-ish; I think) and – like the example of another of their publications I came across, above – was by Miss Regina Snow. Have a Google! I'm sure you'll find a fair selection of new and used copies through the usual outlets.

As for myself; I have recently returned from a little tour around the Romney Marsh area of Kent (Hythe, Dymchurch, Camber Sands, Lydde) and ajoining regions of East Sussex (Rye, Hastings, Battle and Winchelsea) – of which more next time.

Monday, 18 April 2011

For When She's Put to Work

Having one's charge committed to an institution or kept ensconced under strict scholastic discipline or otherwise incarcerated is all well and good - and we have discussed regimes and the provision of a suitable uniform under such circumstances, But what if she is to be placed in service? Well, what do you think?


What suddenly got me around to this line of thinking was coming across this pic just now while researching something entirely different - as is so often the case - and the dress struck me as a great jumping off point to exercise one's imagination along those lines. It is good to see something of the good old fashioned work dress persisting in this day and age but I'd have to make changes - long sleeves with tight buttoned cuffs to keep her mind on her appearance as she works, having to take care not to mark or dirty those cuffs, and perhaps a rounded collar butting at the throat rather than the open neck. What are your thoughts?


By the way I have just added two more blogs to the blog list (right hand sidebar): Spankee Finder.org.uk which claims to be “The UK's No1 spanking contact website” and The blog of one Leia-Ann Woods, a “submissive spanking enthusiast”. Just click either title to be transported straight there or check out my blog listing. I hope to see you a little later today with something about the new book - then I am off to Spain, flying early tomorrow morning. Bye!

Tuesday, 15 March 2011

Happy Birthday Poly

Happy Birthday Poly? Now, what can that be about? I hear you ask. Well, apparently it is the 70th anniversary of the production of polyester, along with nylon the mainstay of women's uniforms and workwear design throughout the 60s and 70s and even 80s (and still today in one form or another, usually as a mixed fibre -but is not the same, is it?). I know this because I had the BBC on the radio yesterday in the morning and it was a whole feature on Radio Four here in the UK extolling the virtues of polyester in those shiny houseboats, overalls and uniforms I am sure many here can remember. Imagine my amazement on hearing a woman on the radio going on about the 'sensual feel' (if slightly sweaty and static ridden) and sound of polyester and how many housecoat and so on from that golden era she owns - it was almost fetishistic.

Now as you may have guessed, I have been focusing my energies mainly on getting the book finished - presently hovering around the 450 page mark and with a little more to finish and go in, I really now do envisage it being released into parts in some manner, the first of which may be ready as early as the week after next. The trouble is that now, along with my dodgy knee and my rather painful foot - that as you may remember some idiot ran over in his car - I now have a touch of severe man-flu (i.e. what my other half describes as a mild cold - but I know different). I have recruited a kind soul (or rather he has offered his help) who is presently aiding me with editing and proofreading some sections (as well as contributing some fresh ideas).

Despite these various pressures I have been able to put aside a little time to play with the blog. Last night, following on from the aforementioned radio show I lavished a considerable time chasing links to stuff about polyester in the hope of dredging up suitable imagery for today's blog entry. Strangely it all got sidetracked and although I found precious little suitable on polyester I did somehow stumble upon a series of French language blogs and a couple of other resources which I thought about showcasing today. But first of all I set out to tackle a couple of comments that had been appended during the past week to the last posting I made why back last Sunday. It all got a little carried away so I thought I'd include my ramblings here... so...

Referring back to the comments left on my last post: I think 'Anonymous' has hit the nail on the head when he (or she - I've learned my lesson, ha ha) says "a uniform has to be something that stands out as being shameful to wear" and that "the 'girl' should look childish, silly and not have a thread of modesty" - although I would personally substitute 'self-esteem' or 'self-confidence' for the word 'modestly'. 'Orage' also has a point when she reiterates that "females regard the most bizarre outfits as normal". If this were the 1950s or 60s or perhaps even the 1970s then this subject would not be quite so problematic and fraught with complication. It is instructive to note that many of the writers I admire and that work in the genre I'm interested in tend to set their tales in the Victorian era, turn-of-the-century (19th /20th) or the 1930s. Indeed when I first set out I myself was tempted to set the scene in the 1930s and 1950s.
One only has to read this edited extract (below) taken from 'The Family Doctor' 1898 (apparently) to grasp the problem.

“Sir, I had long intended to bring to your notice just how the system of keeping girls in short frocks as long as possible is an excellent one. There is no particular hurry needful in the dressing of girls as women and I'm sure that the mere fact of wearing a short frock and with having her hair kept unsophisticatedly coiffured is enough to keep the silly thoughts and inclinations of many girls of sixteen or so in check. There is something about the delicate combination of the dress of a young girl of thirteen or fourteen with the rather slender yet womanly figure and confined waist of a young lady of perhaps seventeen or eighteen - a woman in her own right - or even one approaching her early twenties that makes for a rare and rather lovely picture. I would argue that one can have no hesitation in punishing a girl dressed in this manner by means of the rod or whip, while I would suggest that one would hesitate in caning a young lady if her true age was clear and her appearance appropriately adult.
Two girls of my acquaintance are much marked upon on account of their short frocks and young appearance. Should it be desired to retain some extra element of modestly, then silk knickerbockers of a suitable colour may be worn reaching almost to the knee but the frock should be kept short enough to allow the trimming of the drawers to peep out. The latter perhaps might be decorated around the cuffs with ribbon bows so as to soften the severity of the costume while retaining the necessary formality so important in instilling good discipline. Despite the childish brevity of the skirt, there is no reason why a girl's neck and arms should be left to the ravages of the sun and the frock should therefore be high in the neck, long in the sleeves and may be quite constricting in both the thus discouraging any unladylike extravagance of movement and instead encouraging passivity and a sweet, submissive demeanour.
Although of nearly seventeen summers their stepmother is very careful of their looks in spite of their schoolroom dress. They are fair, each possessing a splendid mass of light brown hair falling over their shoulders and are generally dressed in blue, their skirts reaching two or three inches above their knees, displaying legs encased in black stockings. Their figures are invariably enclosed in regular rather closely-laced corsets which as many people used to say gives the promise of very slim tightly laced figures. Their hands and complexions are always carefully protected from injury from the sun or air”.


I don't doubt taking such an approach would have been efficacious at the time - but in the present era? But then the other 'Anonymous' (or is it the same one - that's the problem with being anonymous!) Talks about "old fashion school clothing like gym slips worn with a boater" and a whole new world opens up. Even if we satisfy ourselves with such styling as it actually would have appeared at the time there is much mileage to be had - even though a young lady dressed in that manner no matter her age, up to appoint at least, would not have raised an eyebrow in the relevant era. If we start playing with that concept a little, however - stretching the boundaries between what would have been expected in what would have seemed unusual even then, perhaps playing with different and perhaps inappropriate fabrics, incorporating unusual colours or extreme details of styling - then the scope becomes wide indeed. For example, if we're talking about developing a school uniform suitable for the intractable late teen continuing her education at home, under the tutelage of a strict governess or some other suitable personage, we have no need to limit ourselves to the usual muted school colours. 'Ware_simon' suggested in connection with the dress depicted in my last blog entry that it might benefit from being "in [a] pink candystripe", he also suggests the style be modified to allow for buttoning down the back (which of course with a little thought can be made most awkward the young lady concerned) and the addition of "a white satin sash tied at the back in a bow". And why not? (Thanks for the kind comment regarding the site by the way, Simon). I can imagine pillaging from a whole swathe of school uniform designs, perhaps even spread a couple of decades or so, cribbing from the best, or rather the most restrictive, oppressive and, yes, eye-catching, the most outstanding or unusual features - from a disciplinary standpoint.

And we don't even have to restrict our palate to school uniforms as such inspiration, for example if one takes the traditional school blazer then why not substitute it with a short cape based on the style that nurses used to wear but restricted to waist length - along with a short pleated skirt, white cotton gloves, a boater on the head, hair in pigtails and ribbons and her long coltish legs bare down to the little white ankle socks, their frilled turnover-tops threaded through with ribbon of a suitable colour and tied in a bow, it makes for a pretty picture of contrite shy embarrassment. Now factor in the discomfort of traditional full-bodied cotton interlock school knickers but manufactured with a layer of latex or PVC sandwiched between the inner and outer cotton (or why not nylon or polyester) layers, a tightly buttoned high stiff Eton style collar that barely lets her lower her chin tied around by a firmly knotted diagonally striped school tie, rubberised girdle and high-cupped longline bra or stiff longline corsellete. Perhaps underneath it all one might choose instead to put her in the traditional liberty bodice suspenders and black lisle stockings, a flat fronted candy striped school shirt blouse worn under a particularly shapeless gymslip and her breasts suitably restrained and flattened so that she doesn't even have the allure of her developing adult silhouette to fall back on, perhaps braces fitted on her teeth with or not she needs them. Then we have the possibilities inherent in the tightly belted gabardine school raincoat of old.

Then we have those "school dresses featured in the Australian soaps" mentioned by 'Cloudelover'. I'm sure that if the guardian or governess given control over a recalcitrant young Miss were to trace back the evolution of that styling a few decades or so he or she would come up trumps, with a little thought and imagination. Incidentally, thanks for the link, 'Cloudlover' - for those interested several entire galleries of examples of Australian soap opera school uniform dresses can be found in the Yahoo groups: Neighbours Uniform Babes 1 and Neighbours Uniform Babes 2. Although there hasn't been much activity for a couple of years on these two groups I think the galleries are still intact and perhaps a few of you out there might consider contributing a few pics of your own as I don't think either is limited to soap opera content necessary and a little activity might just get the ball rolling again on what at one point appeared to be a promising pair of groups (just click group titles or the picture top left or go to the Yahoo group listing on the right-hand sidebar). And all this brings me back to polyester again. Surely 100% polyester is the most obvious fabric choice for a practical, functional and hard wearing school summer dress such as might be envisaged.

By the way, anyone know of the magazine a couple of whose covers appear above. I came across them on one of the french blogs I mentioned but can't remember which - I'll get it sorted before next time. Translating from the French (or rather, having Google do it for me) it seems the author found them in a box in his house someplace and they date back to the 1970s / 80s (there are other examples on the blog) - but I thought I'd pretty much seen every spanking mag there is and has been and I have never seen or heard of that one!

To end: I feel I can safely say that all our thoughts go out to all those out there in Japan at the moment who are suffering. It has been one hell of a shock watching the news pictures over the weekend and a humbling experience for all of us, even those of us safely watching on TV, the way that nature can wipe entire towns off the face of the map in little more than a blink of an eye, despite all of mankind's much-vaunted technology and I wish them well.

Friday, 29 January 2010

Filmic Inspiration, a Blog and a YouTube Link

Hi folks! I'm glad to be able to report that work on the new volume (that I am still yet to come up with a title for - any ideas folks?) is coming on in leaps and bounds. Some great, new and decidedly fresh ideas have popped into my head of late - all suitably cruel, as I'm sure you can imagine, but in a subtle way that I think somehow becomes even more twisted for being so. The only problem I have at the moment
is that, having successfully repaired my home computer, as am sure you know, I've yet to persuade it to co-operate with my printer / scanner. I'm not sure what the problem is but I am away from home at the moment anyway and I won't be back at my desk
until Monday or Tuesday of next week so the fix will have to wait until
that time - and then hopefully I can get on with scanning more of my magazine and book collection for your delectation and delight. I am also absolutely dying to get on with some artwork for the front cover of the new volume - it's one of my favourite bits when doing this stuff, although I'm not that great at it. One thing I have decided upon is that the imagery should incorporate some sort of parochial theme as between the pages we are afforded an insight into a church-run charity home for wayward young women. I will say no more than that for the time being, other than to say that we do also get another glimpse or two into a certain behavioural research unit, specifically that part set up a run in the style of an old-time secure reform school or boarding school but mostly the story deals with young Lavinia's life with her increasing tyrannical aunt and that woman's idiosyncratic views on domestic discipline. Basically it deals with the events leading up to her being persuaded to volunteer as a research subject in a project that she is told will involve her staying for a 'short while' in the experimental psychology unit of a private hospital. As you will know if you have read INSTITUTIONALISED volume 1 and volume 2, it is all pretty much as described to her, give or take, other than that the researcher's view of what constitutes a 'short while' differs some what to her expectations. And it is not a place one just walks away from. We also see something more of the background of one of the other characters who emerged during the events of volume 2, young Meridith Hewson.
Talking of reform schools; am I the only person in the whole world who had never heard of the B&W 1929 film ' Diary of a Lost Girl' by G.W.Pabst and starring Louise Brooks (See above left?. In it an "unprepossessing young woman is seduced by an unscrupulous and mercenary character". She is then sent to a reform school for girls, that seems less "an institute of higher learning than a conduit for fulfilling the headmistress’s sadistic sexual fantasies" and that is headed by staff who expect and exact "unrealistic standards of obedience from the cowering, terrified pupil" one in particular apparently seems to derive "an orgiastic pleasure from the rigors of [the] discipline inflicted". Sounds bloody gorgeous!!

By the way; is punishment PT / enforced PE and physical drill discipline is your thing? It is? Great! then click on the film poster top left to see a clip from the above movie posted on YouTube. You can also find a link to the same film clip in the useful resources list in the right-hand sidebar. The pictures scattered around this posting came from various sources on the web and all from the film other than the last one which comes from an entirely different source (actually the French film, Alphavillel). This I included simply because I think it would make a good basis for a suitable reformatory uniform, certainly a good starting point to work around anyway, particularly for the inmates of the type of old-fashioned style church-run regime that I envisage in the new volume. In the behavioural research establishment of course the regime is more closely based around an old-fashioned private girls school, though the discipline imposed is no less rigorous, despite the inmates theoretically being 'volunteers' and there were talking all high, tight starched collars, cotton interlock knickers and tightly braided pigtails.

Oh! I almost forgot: I have just added a blog to the blog list in the sidebar called 'School Girl Discipline'. Click to visit or see the link in the sidebar. See you next time.

Friday, 12 June 2009

A Liberal Dose of the Nurse’s Tawse

I have been getting on with a little bit of long over-due scanning today and came across this old photo that I thought I’d long ago lost and that I thought I’d share with you. I can’t quite recall where it originated but it has been stuck on a piece of cardboard with glue since the mid to late 1980s or early 1990s at the latest which explains its rather sad condition. Suffice it to say that this picture was almost single handily responsible for spawning my interest in nurses and their uniforms as depicted in a dominant role and went a long way in influencing the way in which I tend to depict the characters of the institution staff in my mind’s eye when writing.

Friday, 18 July 2008

From Behind Stained Glass: Meredith's Tale - Part 1

As promised, a short snippet from the upcoming volume 2 of INSTITUTIONALISED. It is only a rough draft at this stage so there are still probably some typos that I've missed. This particular snippet, I must admit, I have put out before on some of the newsgroups so some of you will have seen it and if so please accept my apologies but I had to start somewhere. This section follows up from the page 4 extract currently gracing the pages of 'The Institute' web site (see link, over to the right somewhere)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and if so, and even if you didn't, please let me know: your feedback is essential and much valued either way (I'm a big boy now, I can take the criticism... I hope. And even if I can't, well...there's always a few more pints waiting down at the pub to rub away the pain).


As always; all characters and situations are fictitious and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental.


(Click on title to read previous volume 2 extract)

Crrrack! Crrraack!


Arrrghhh!!!


A young woman screams; she can hear his ancient laboured wheezing, mummified and dust-dry, behind her, can smell his sweat, feel the brow-shed spray settling on her back like a fine rain of passion. He pauses, as much to allow for the blaze to spread across her buttocks as to regain his own breath; the exertion of swinging the supple, heavy-leather tawse through the sticky, heavy air of the little garret room threatens to finally bring about the coronary that she has so often prayed would one day free her. Elfin and petite, Meredith Hewson lies motionless and sobs heart-brokenly; she knows it won't be today, it never is.


How he loves this little room, the shelter he has so thoughtfully provided her, tucked safely away under the eaves; the tiny steel-barred skylight its only natural light, the narrow bed and chamber-pot-commode its only furnishings, besides that is the thickly-leather-upholstered bench-come-horse over which she is presently thoroughly and very professionally immobilised.


Neatly-bare arching ballerina’s feet are set widely spread with toes flat on the dusty grubby floorboards and heels hovering above. Calves, finely sculpted by nature in any case, are masterfully finished in perspiration-glossed elastic tension. Thick, broad, red-leather straps encase exquisitely-formed slender ankles, run across soft-backed knees and sweep around the very tops of her soft, white, quivering thighs, the uppermost edges of the latter bonds lying obscured in the shadowed heavy-overhang of buttocks perhaps best described as generous but in truth over-chubby. Despite her eighteen years the puppy fat still lingers, and lingers there most of all; youthful, roundly firm, elastic and resilient, it taunts him, drives him, veritably invites the three-tongued kiss of the tawse... and the next and the next...


She is bent tightly at the waist over the curving lip of the purposely designed horse whereupon a fifteen centimetre wide soft leather band is tightened down securely across the small of her back. The only movement permitted her tautly-rounded, reddened and abused cheeks is to be seen in the rippled-waves of flesh bouncing and reflected to and fro across each globe as each dances in turn to the rhythmic tattoo of pliant leather most expertly applied.


Whereas the side against which she stands rises perpendicular beneath her abdomen, the far side falls way at 45°. Thickly and softly padded it has formed its surface as a counterpart to, and around, the feminine contours of her torso under the persuasively secure down-force of a further set of restraints. A band of leather, a full twenty-five centimetres in breadth, runs across her upper back and shoulder blades. Her head lies, turned to one side, facing a large ornately-wrought gilt-framed mirror, the latter tilted with apparent carelessness against the attic’s sloping dusty-grey wooden side-beams. A red band of leather, of a breadth as if chosen to be the measure of her forehead, encircles her hairline, passing just clear of those sweetly-tipped pixie ears, lest she should be distracted from the appreciation that such a passionately-iconic spectacle so richly deserves.


She lies saintly; a martyr to lust and temptation, to one man's sexual repression, to an antiquated religious dogma so self-righteously-twisted as to translate and translocate the shame of one onto the blame of another with terrifyingly justified ease. She lies with arms secured back along her sides, broad leather bands encircling thin wrists and elbows and with the crown of her head angled down into the filth of the boards, the fungi-musk of dry-rot a bass note to feminine perspiration and the more metallic lingering relic-tang of his earlier abuse of her person.


Crrrraack! Yet another slap of the intolerant leather leaves its imprint, the three flesh-tanning tails of the tawse each sharply resolved in bruising red-blue relief. In the reflection before her the mouth agapes anew in a long and silent scream. A searing white flash blinds her thoughts, shatters further, and again scatters, the shards of personality she scrabbles, still, to gather to her.


More tears fall. A muddy grey mire of dust and decayed pigeon droppings, further diluted, spreads its margins and deepens its incursion into the arid underfoot dirt, fated to retreat in drying; only the brown tide ring will remain to tell the story, it and its myriad brethren lying around and about.


The mental scars run deeper of course, crisscrossing well-rutted through thoughts and memories, worn deeper still and added anew with each abusive act performed upon her, and the subsequent beating it naturally earned her.


It wasn't even sex, not as such, not as she understood it to be. If he could only bring himself to ‘use’ her as nature and God, surely God, intended. It would be just as abusive, it would be rape just as certainly, she found the old man repulsive after all, and certainly she would earn just punishment for her tempting of him just the same, it was the devil's flesh, she understood that now, but it would be a natural act for all that. She might have been left with some semblance of self-respect, some sense of pride in her femininity, at the end of it all. And, yes, perhaps she might even be granted some modicum of relief from the eternally nagging frustration that accompanied her every waking moment, and her dreams too, those twisted phallic-daemon landscapes from which, pursued by yearning, she would again and again be chased, slithering drenched in sweat back into the darker reality of that dingy little attic and the unending hours of enforced Bible study - all that she might be purged of her sin.


And she would be purged in a different way too, before his every visit. She was no stranger to the Bardex nozzle, having to lie facedown on top of the little bed with knees drawn tightly up and buttocks pushed invitingly skyward, the latter naturally parted by the enforced position yet parted further still by the latex-gloved hands of his housekeeper.


Crrraaack! He has switched sides, the strike comes across the opposite buttock cheek; the silent cry comes again dryly in her throat, little more than a hoarse squeak now. She is cried out now, finished, yet the beating continues; it has to, it is an exorcism more than a mere punishment. And he has to exorcise the devil from the two of them, drive out the beast from within himself as much as from within the miscreant lying before him.


Always he has one eye on the roof beams above; he is, after all, a man of the cloth, he knows well the symbolism of the roof, the symbolism of charity, that which covers a multitude of sins. His other can't avoid contact with the origin of several of those sins, he has violated her there, mere moments before, and his thick seed trickles now from between those deliciously fleshy peach-mooned buttocks, yet if there should be some penalty, a penance demanded, then it is she who must pay; it is the girl who must be punished for the possession of that puckered rosebud, surely the devil’s-embellishment, that it should have driven such insane lust into God's own servant. This it had, time and again, demanding that she be chastised time and again; those once perfectly flawless globes were now marked and marred by countless strappings, canings and horsewhipings, just as that rosebud, set between, stretched and distorted by countless repeated and persistent violations, seemed plundered of its dewy youthful innocent freshness.


Whhhoosh! She cringe is in her bonds, nerves tearing, shredding, expectantly waiting the impact, the strike that never comes.


WWhooosh! Whhhoosh! Whhhoooossh! The stagnant, heavy atmosphere is rendered again and again and again, the three leather tails forcing still-air through turbulently splitting and twisting paths and each offering up its own whistling overtone to the diabolical aural assault; mere practice swings, nothing more.


Time and time again her buttocks tense, attractively dimpling; she tugs impotently at her bonds, her eyes squeezing tightly shut as if she might cower unseen behind their wrinkled shuttering.


Behind her, unseen, he is pirouetting around with surprising agility and a lightness of foot belying his age. He is exploring the cramped space beneath the tent of angled roof timbers with the tawse's backswing, seeking to best accommodated its arcing envelope, optimise his degree of freedom in wielding it, maximise the inertia imparted the flailing leather.


Whhoosh! Whhhoooossh! Whwhooosh! Still more practice strokes: he is twisting his body, shifting his weight from foot to foot and swinging the leather strap first this way and then that, exploring ever-increasing sweeping arcs and looking for all the world like some daemonic tennis professional.


Her nerves are stretched to their tensile limit, fraying, splitting, failing - she cries now as she never has before, screams her near-silent squeaking, hoarse, scream as if in pain beyond the mere psychological, as if each blow were indeed landing.


For an infinitesimally short, infinitely long, heavily-pregnant moment there is silence - all is still, deftly still... then... then...


The moment is irreversibly shattered: Ccrrraack! Crraaack! Cer,rrraack! Cerrr,rrraack!!! Forehand, backhand, forehand, backhand. Right buttock, left buttock, right buttock, left buttock: a never-ending staccato rain of flesh-searing pistol shots, going on and on and on… Her eyes are wide open now, bulging, her mouth gaping in eternal mindlessly-soul-wrenching scream.


He is shouting, hollering in punctuated rhythm, red-faced, demented by anger, a strange anger, an anger born of confused and displaced guilt.


Unholy slut! Harlot! Devil-spawned temptress of filth…”


Cerr,raack! Cerra,aack! Crrrrraack! Cerrr,rrraack!: forehand, backhand, forehand, backhand. Pain flashes across her eyes in electric-white bolts, unimaginable pain, pain beyond enduring, then slowly, ever so slowly, begins to recede, fading along with his accusing, cussing voice, swirling and spiralling down into the welcoming arms of the abyss, the safety of the darkness. She is losing consciousness, blacking out as she has so many times before, so very many times, blacking out…blacking out… blacking… out…...




...White! All white! Everything! Everything is white!


White curtains are drawn around the bed, a common-or-garden hospital bed albeit with the chromed sidebars and grey metallic framework safely sheaved in soft matte-white plastic.
Through sleep-bleared eyes and blinked back tears the ceiling above defies focus, a depthless expanse of nothingness, a glance to the left and the right providing little beyond a glimpse of featureless walling and an obtusely-viewed misty day-white rectangle perhaps a meter to her left, the window somehow reassuring in its presence.


She has been tossing and turning fitfully for hours, her head swinging left and right then left again across the pillow, trickles of saliva left as traces of her distress upon the soft latex.


Soaked in sweat, the rivulets trickling down under the latex covers, her dark brown eyes had startlingly snapped open, gazing wide and uncomprehending from beneath curling dark lashes before just as suddenly disappearing behind defensively collapsing eyelids. Then slowly, ever so slowly, those lids had lifted again, fluttering, flickering, uncertain, those big brown velvet eyes swinging back and forth scanning for any hint, any clue that might separate dream from wakefulness, the normality of the situation seemingly too abnormal to fit her rational of reality.


The nurse leans over from the right-hand side, her smile friendly and welcoming yet tainted mildly with concern, a hospital nurse, a quite conventional hospital nurse, her white plastic apron softly crinkling over the perfect polyester-white of the uniform dress beneath: “ welcome back”, the words whispered in consideration of her patient’s alarmed state.


“…Wha…wha…where?”


It’s okay, honey…everything’s all right now; we’ll look after you. You're in hospital, dear, a very special hospital. You’ll be quite safe here, quite safe now. Quite, quite safe….”


To be continued


Copyright (c) 2008 Garth. P. ToynTanen

Monday, 14 July 2008

News update and a tiny post

You may have noticed that I've recently changed the entire look of this blog. Basically I've just selected and slightly customised a preformed template but hopefully it will look much better in Firefox now as it seems many people are using that rather than MS Explorer these days, at least that seems to be the case with those of you visiting here. I think it looked all right in Explorer, to be honest, but when I viewed using Firefox I wasn't terribly happy with how it looked. I intend to continue to make changes and improve things as I go along and get to grips with the flavour of HTML etc that this thing uses. I've been away over this past weekend and unable to do any work so perhaps I should change my comments section to say that I'm hoping to make updates most weekdays. Now down to business...

But first a little thing I came across on the Web some time ago, (well, on a Yahoo group actually) and that I think goes long way in succinctly encapsulating the essence of the entire INSTITUTIONALISED series; that written and that still hiding in my head.

I've no idea where it originated but it says so much so simply that I just had to include it; it's all there in the body language. And what a charmingly whippy cane our nurse has here; just perfect for warming up a pair of prettily shivering buttocks straight after a nice cold shower! One has to get the old circulation going, you know! The little shivering miss does seem a little on the thin side though: the question is; should she be referred to the dietician... or has the dietician already done her work? Answers on a postcard please... (:

Tuesday, 8 July 2008

Another inspiration, influence and a governess


Another influence on my work was a letter, apparently published in response to a previous edition's questionnaire or some such thing, that I came across in a very old magazine that I had found amongst a batch of dogeared old magazines and stuff that I'd bought at a boot-fair. That was way back in the 1980s and all I have now is an old photo copy that I've scanned for the blog. I have absolutely no recollection of the title of the magazine it originally came from, other than that it was from a letters page (too many beers over the years I guess).
The pic on the left comes from a 980s catalogue issued by Garoulds of London, And now-defunct uniform manufacturer that used to have a shop the Edgeware Road, London W1.
Their range of styles, that I still vividly recall from the 1960s and 70s, have played a great part in influencing the design of the more institutional uniforms that I envisage (and hopefully manage to depict) in my writings. The 1960s styles, particularly those of the early 1960s, tended to incorporate long sleeves with buttoned cuffs, more defined belted waists and somewhat flared skirts. The front-buttoned belt seemed a feature of many of their styles throughout the period. Despite the above being a 1980s version I can still somehow imagine it worn by the writer of the letter above. It's not perfect, but it provides a fair illustration nonetheless. I leave it to the reader to make the necessary mental adjustments to envisage an early 1960s version, perhaps in a hard wearing navy blue nylon fabric, the woman casually toying with a heavy leather strap, her charge tightly bent over a stall or across the arm of a sofa nearby.