A Sunny Monday Update (Posted on a Tuesday) and a Bottle-green Gymslip

I am ashamed to say that I spent most of yesterday in a pub. I'd taken my computer with me and decided to do a bit of work on the book before getting round to answer my e-mails. I actually got quite a lot written for the new book but then got sidetracked by a conversation with a fellow regular and it got all a little too late in the day. As you may know if you been following this blog; for one of my characters in the new book she is about to trade in the institution's somewhat idiosyncratic take on the good old-fashioned 1950s or 1960s style school uniform for a pair of ill fitting baggy stripey institutional pyjamas and plastic pants.

As she had been taken straight from the so-called 'schoolroom unit' to the section psychiatrist's consultation room for her customary interview and analysis session this provides a good excuse for a long winded (hopefully not too long) and typically fetishistic discussion of the highly restrictive, juvenile school uniform they have her dressed in.

As she will not be returning to the schoolroom - she is going to be placed in a small secluded room leading straight off of the doctor's consultation room enabling her to have the doctor's full attention 24/7 - she will be required to strip and change into her new and perhaps in some ways even more humiliating garb in situ, thus providing full scope for a detailed description of some of the more devious refinements that have been made to the girl's uniforms.

In addition, she receives a good long hard caning while still in her school uniform by way introducing her to her new regime and to encourage her compliance when told to get changed and to go into the tiny room that is to become her new home. Of course she is reluctant even to get changed in the first place; the pyjamas are so ill fitting that she is going to have to continually employ one hand to hitch up the trousers and it doesn't help that she has been told that the whole point is to help her to "feel more like a mental patient". You can imagine her extreme reluctance when, with her wrists in leather restraint cuffs and gingerly clutching at her baggy pyjama bottoms to stop them from simply dropping around her ankles, she is ordered into a teeny bare room in which the only furnishings are the usual standard hospital bed and a small desk and chair combination - both rather sinisterly equipped with restraints. By this point she has received a second caning for not changing straight away into her new garb and is still wildly weeping when she makes a break for it.

She gets no further than the consultation room door, which is of course locked from the outside. She rushes at the drapes behind the doctor's desk but what she finds there behind the heavy fabric only results in her becoming more frantic. Finally the problem is dealt with in the doctor's own unique inimitable style - but not in the way one might think. Without giving too much away it involves her being taken for a little sojourn beyond the institution's walls and a demonstration of psychology that leaves her docilely shuffling back to her new home with the triumphantly smiling domineering psychiatrist bring up the rear, cane in hand - the girl now knows there had never been any point in her running, but she tried to run and so must be punished in any case.

And there you have it, pretty much. Other than that I also use one of the caning sessions as an excuse for a series of flashbacks to her aunt's home and the uniform that woman made her wear while she lived there, which in turn allows me to introduce some new ideas which to be honest are not entirely 'my bag' but which introduce some interesting discipline possibilities: So we hear about her hot and rather uncomfortably sticky summer dress and the heavy bottle green gaberdine raincoat that she wears at all times when out of the house no matter the weather.

It all leads to a nice little quandary, that one: It turns out that her aunt doesn't actually insist that she wear the thing but she does dictate that if it is to be worn then it must be worn correctly, fully buttoned up, tightly belted and with the hood up. Of course in hot weather this is both impractical and looks somewhat ridiculous, but the only other option is for others to see the uniform that she has on underneath it, the fully buttoned blazer, the long-sleeved school-style summer dress - a design of her aunt's own devising - and beneath that; the full-length thick nylon slip and high-waisted long-legged school knickers.

As it is she finds it bad enough being obliged to remove her raincoat so as to sit in her aunt's car - but that's her aunt's rule and she is a very strict, very overbearing woman. The latter point is very interesting and there is some discussion as to how the girl, once quite outgoing - even outspoken - and spirited came to be so dominated by this woman that she finds herself weighed down by petty rules and restrictions, subject to corporal punishment, taken to see a psychotherapist for a series of conditions, most of which seem to have been fabricated by the woman herself, and finally told, without a by or leave or having any say in the matter whatsoever, that she is to be entered as a volunteer patient in an experimental psychology program. The rest as they say is history and I can't wait to write it!

But for now: The only person who ever speaks to young heroine or as much as acknowledges her existence is the good doctor herself and the only breaks the girl has from the tedium of her isolation are the long hours of psychoanalysis and questioning sessions she spends with the that woman. All the time all she ever hears talked about is her 'mental condition' or her 'psychological state' and if she ever speaks out about any of the ideas the doctor discusses with her or attempts to change the subject then the doctor is not shy of introducing the cane or the strap to the girl's behind. As the weeks turn into months we can only watch as she is gradually ground down by a series of procedures, some quite subtle, others less so, and a regime akin to brainwashing and designed to actually turn her in to a docile mental patient. Cruel, I know but there you have it!
Remember, though: as always this is only part of the story - there's loads more going on behind the scenes for us to learn about. Talking about 'shame clothing' and 'dress discipline' which we were - sort of - how about this little combination I recently came across (See top).