Chapter #2Introduction into Joe's new life by: Afan It was a rainy Tuesday afternoon. Joe sat in his room and cleaned the shoes of his older sister Sarah, a pair of very well worn high heels. While cleaning them he held the shoes as far away from him as possible, in order to prevent himself from smelling the stench coming out of them. It was unbelievable. He could still smell the strong thick aroma of stale sweat and worn out synthetic material as if the shoes were right under his nose. The stench was so strong that Joe imagined the waves of steam coming out of the heels and spreading in his room. The longer he stared at the shoes, the more he was certain to be really able to see flickering air around them. Joe wished he could just throw away these stinking things, run away and be free to do whatever he wanted to do, but he knew that this wasn't possible anymore. Like so often lately, Joe's thoughts carried him away to his memories about how his life had been before and how everything had come to this. Once again the events of the last months passed in his mind's eye...
Some months ago, Joe had lived the normal life of a normal thirteen year old boy. He had visited a local school, where he always had received good grades and he had played in a successful hockey team. His family had been quite normal and unspectacular – Joe and his sister had lived together with their mother since their father had died in a plane crash. Joe and his seventeen years old sister had been fighting at times, but overall they had been living together dearly. Jessica, their thirty-five years old mother always had cared for both her children and worked hard to earn enough money for the family (she had been waitress, after the plane crash she started as teacher).
One day, everything changed. The family had been watching TV (some bad comedy), when suddenly the program was disrupted by breaking news. The reporter explained that the government had been changed dramatically, that the ultra feminist party was on top now and that everyone had to expect a lot of drastic social changes in the country. Joe and his family hadn't been taken this message too serious, his sister just mocked: “Haha, Joe, seems life could become a lot more complicated for you now!” Little had they known back then, how complicated it would become later. Two weeks after the news, the things had started to get serious. Joe had been in school, when a lot of police and SSS cars with activated sirens rushed the school yard. The officers had stormed the school and declared that the “Bill 48” established by the “Feminist Republic of Stenchlandia” from now on prohibited any presence of male persons in the educational system, sports clubs or any other associations. Then every male person, students, teachers, just everyone, had been escorted home by police or SSS officers. Just before Joe had entered a police car, he had seen that even Harvey, the old caretaker was escorted by four SSS women. Surprisedly, he had started to shout and struggle but against four trained SSS officers he had had no chance. They had forced him in a van with darkened windows and just before the door was shut and the van had driven away, Joe had heard some muffled screams of Harvey and these screams had been so intense that Joe had turned away shocked and with a perseverative goose flesh.
Only two days later everything had become even worse. Joe hadn't left the house since the proclamation of “Bill 48” and in the afternoon the family was visited by a woman from the local administration office. She had informed the family about a new law called “Bill 66”, which gave human rights for male persons like Joe the state “not obligatory” and which endowed women to use males as footslaves. At first, Joe and his family hadn't been able to believe that this was actually happening and true. For some weeks they had been living as if nothing had happened until the Smiths, their neighbours, had been deported by the SSS. In an early Thursday morning, some agents just had entered the Smith's house, arrested the parents and taken them and their children away in separated vans. This sight had caused Joe's mother Jessica to panic for the first time. She had called him and Sarah in the kitchen and told them that it was absolutely necessary to pretend to like the new government. Else the same thing that had happened to the Smith's could happen to Joe, Sarah and Jessica. She then had turned to Joe and said: “I am very sorry honey but this means that whenever we have guests or are in public, we need to pretend to be good citizens. As much as I hate it, we will have to humiliate you and treat you like a footslave. I know it will be hard for you Joe, but always remember that it will be much better than getting caught by the SSS!”
Ever since this day, Joe's life had been horrible. His mother always had been doing her “job” treating him like a worthless little servant whenever guests or controlling officers from the new administration were there. She had humiliated him, made him smell her stinky feet or invited the guests to do so. But when the visitors had been out of the house, she always apologized and the first couple of times she even cried. In contrast his sister Sarah soon had learned to enjoy being able to dominate her brother with governmental legitimacy. She had invented the “Stinky-Saturday” for Joe, which meant that she would invite friends over every Saturday to tie up and gag Joe and to make him sniff their rank feet. Of course Joe hadn't had accepted this cruelty just like that and complained about it. But when Jessica had asked Sarah to stop, she just had said: “Why should we stop? Look mom, I know you love your son and that's okay, but the more we look like strict feminists to our neighbours, the less is the chance that we get problems with the government!” Jessica still hadn't liked this idea, but at least she had been convinced that it only would do good to the family's reputation and so she had apologized to Joe and said that he had to just tough it out until the social situation improved again. “And that's it”, Joe thought to himself, “that's how you turn a happy boy with a normal life into a worthless, serving piece of shit! If I ever get my normal life back, I will...” indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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