Power Sabotaged : Part 7 : Sheila's Brave Adventure

Power Sabotaged : A New Life For Sheila
Part 7 : Sheila’s Brave Adventure

The next night Sheila bravely returned alone, full of anticipation and much trepidation, eager to have this experience while it presented itself. Sheila stood on the side of the street, warm summer air blowing pleasantly through her hair. It did not seem so busy for some reason tonight, but maybe it was still early. Another woman stood nearby. She had been here before Sheila. As nothing much seemed to be happening Sheila decided to make conversation.

“Hi there! Have you been out here a lot?” She wondered at herself for attempting to reveal more of her new ‘sordid’ identity to another woman, but she did not know the woman from previous normal times.

“Not a lot.” The woman glanced at her, but seemed not to offer more in conversation. Probably she was ashamed of what she did, or was concerned at being recognised by too many people.

Ordinarily Sheila would not have wished to encroach further upon the veil of remoteness or privacy which this woman seemed to want to hide behind, but there was something about the excitement of what she was doing that made her want to intrude further. “It doesn’t seem very busy here tonight?” she offered.

“There aren’t many clients left!” said the woman, unable to avoid showing her frustration.

“Is that so?” said Sheila. “That’s a shame. I suppose everyone is running out of food now, or even money.”

“But what am I going to do if there are no clients,” said the woman, showing her frustration at the worsening conditions for the women who had resorted to offering themselves. “I need the food or the money. You are new here aren’t you? I haven’t seen you on this street before.”

“Yes that’s true. Normally, like yourself I don’t doubt, I would never have contemplated doing anything like this. But as most of us are short of food we’ve been driven to it. I have a man who’s been good to me with food, but I feel the need to explore this adventure, of earning food or money this way. He may well be running short of food soon, I am sure, so I need to find out where I can earn more.”

The woman, who was dark haired, regarded her strangely at first, but the look passed. “It was busy here over the last couple of weeks,” the dark haired woman explained. “More women were coming here to offer themselves and more rich or food rich men were hearing about what they could get here. Clients were turning up in larger numbers.

“I started doing this about three weeks ago, because I had nothing in the fridge. All those wonderful neighbours of mine! They wouldn’t give me bread, vegetables or anything. I suppose you could understand everyone’s fear of running out of food. But I was out of food before any of them, and no one was very helpful.

“So I was desperate. One neighbour, the husband of a friend, did make a suggestion to me. He would give me some food in return for sex. But I wouldn’t cheat on my friend in that way, and I was annoyed with him. If he wanted to give me food he could have given it without exacting a price.

“I started to feel ill from lack of nourishment and I knew I had to do something. So I went to visit another close friend. She took pity on me and shared some of her food with me. She told me about rumours she’d heard, of women earning food from men who wanted sex. There was a place where women, normal women, office workers, professionals, housewives, whoever, could sell their charms for food or money. She said she didn’t think there was anything very wrong in doing this. In today’s unusual circumstances women had to do something to keep their heads above water. Besides it might well be an exciting experience.

“Of course many of us women these days have fantasies about sexual promiscuity, prostitution and so on. Most of us don’t do too much about these fantasies because we’re too tied up with worries and responsibilities; our careers, our husbands, children, babies. We worry about what our neighbours and peers might think. But then again most of us have experienced a few different boyfriends before we settled down and maybe have changed partners from time to time.

“So I thought, ‘What the hell! I might as well give it a go.’ Of course when I came down here it was getting quite busy, but I’ve certainly earned quite a lot of food from it, and sometimes other things. And I have found it quite exciting, sexually. The only trouble is this week, particularly tonight, we’re lucky to see a client. All the foodstocks are down, and the men can’t afford to pay us any more.”

“Oh dear!” said Sheila, feeling very disappointed. She had built herself up for this excitement and felt let down, although she was interested to hear this woman’s experiences, not dissimilar from her own. “I was so looking forward to some sexual adventure, as well as the food! Have there been no clients at all?”

“Few. That’s why most of the other ladies have gone home now. But there has still been a steady trickle. Last night I had two different men, which is fine. Tonight I have only been on for half an hour before you came. Another woman found a client, but there’s been nothing else yet. I’ll see how it goes for another hour or two, but if nothing happens I’ll be leaving.”

The woman had dark good looks, and she was slim. Sheila imagined most men would find her attractive. It was not long before a mature man, of strong build and large stomach, came upon them, eyeing both with interest as he approached.

“Are you looking for business?” he addressed them, politely enough, although his guise told her he knew they could be his if he willed it.

“Yes if you have food or money,” said the dark haired woman.

“I do of course! Plenty. Do you like rice? Vegetables – and a fresh steak?”

Sheila felt graced by the man’s gaze. He was conscious she could not compare with the dark haired woman, who was quite elegantly built and had a pretty face. And yet this man was weighing them both up. She felt exhilaration that she was still in the running. Perhaps her blonde brown hair and her smiley face were as attractive to this man as to Bob.

The man made up his mind. “I’ll take you lady,” he addressed the brunette. “No less respect to you lady,” he nodded to Sheila. “If I could take two in one night I’d take you too. Perhaps I’ll try you out another night lady.”

Sheila felt some disappointment, but she had expected the dark lady to win that contest. She had been here first. It was only right that she should acquire the first customer. In truth she was relieved. Although she would have liked to be picked, that was for her ego, to satisfy her desire to be adored by all men. She did not really fancy the man much. He was strong looking, but rather too plump around the waist for her tastes, and he was getting a little too old to be very attractive.

For her at this moment, this was not about food or survival. She still had Bob, although she did not know how long for, because she suspected he was running short of food.

So she was not downhearted. The man had paid her a compliment. She only hoped there would be another along soon, one who wanted her, and hopefully whom she could find attractive. After the bad tidings the brunette had told, she feared that the evening would not be busy. If no one else came, or if whoever came decided not to part with their precious food, then she would be more than disappointed with a failed adventure. She told herself there was plenty of reason for hope.

She watched as the elegant brunette led her customer down the road and disappeared into a side road with him. Sheila faced the empty street alone.

She wondered if anyone else would appear on this dark street tonight. Luckily the moon was bright and there was light from the generators in some nearby buildings, office blocks. It seemed strange that the lights should be on here when nobody was at work. They cast a strong enough light onto the road to facilitate the business which had recently been plied here. The minutes clicked by, and she wondered whether she had been worth coming here after all, if the illicit trade was in such decline.

She heard footsteps. Almost before she was aware a man walked briskly up the street towards her. Slim and angular, he wore a broad rimmed hat, like a black cowboy hat, probably to cover his features, in case anyone he knew would find out about his activities after dark. He surveyed her coolly as he passed her. Without stopping or hesitating for a moment he continued on up the street, probably in search of more choice, she thought. She felt the pang of failure. A potential customer did not find her attractive enough and was continuing on, up the street, looking for a more suitable woman. Sheila did not know whether she could have found him attractive. She could not have told his age or seen his face. She realised cruelly that if she were to succeed at all in this game she would have to accept her opinions were irrelevant. If she wanted to earn the groceries or money she needed she would have to accept the judgements of men. To be worthy of men’s food or value might be difficult as shortages became severe. A man would have to prize a woman very much to be willing to part with his precious commodities.

Another man approached from further down the road. This one walked slowly and seemed to have spied her from a distance. As he approached he looked very directly at her. The man was small in height, well built and thickset. In contrast to the slim and tall man he wore nothing on his head and sported a tidily groomed head of hair. She judged he might still be in his thirties or perhaps older.

“Are you feeling lonely tonight?” he joked to her, perhaps testing her to see whether he might desire her.

She laughed, understanding the joke. “Yes, there aren’t many out tonight, of men or women.”

“If you’d like some vegetables you can show me to your rooms,” he offered cheerily.

“I don’t have a place nearby. Do you? Or we could walk to my place, but it’s a bit of a walk!” she explained.

“Actually my workplace is in town, only a couple of blocks away,” suggested the man. “I have the key. It will be deserted these days. We can go there!”

The thought crossed her mind that she would never have risked herself like this before the crisis. The safety implications of meeting a stranger, then going somewhere private with him, whether to her own place with all its treasures or his place, to be at his mercy if he proved dangerous or nasty, didn’t bear thinking about. If there had been no place to go she might even have suggested doing it in a park or a deserted side street at this warm time of year, despite some of the lawless events she had heard of in the last week or two, which had happened in the darkness. Somehow this guy came across as open and he sounded trustworthy. Some instinct told her he was alright. The customers here generally wanted one thing, and they came here willing to pay for it.

She had heard steps, loud ones, fast, and looked around involuntarily as they became closer. The tall man with the hat was approaching fast. In a flash she realised what must have happened. The tall stranger had walked right up the street to see which other ladies might be on offer. When he had reached the top end he would have realised there were no other ladies present at this time. As he walked back down the street he must have realised he was about to lose the opportunity for the only woman on the street, He must have rushed back down the street to claim her.

“Hey, I was here first,” said the tall stranger. “She should come with me.”

“You were up the road mate,” said the shorter guy,” while I was making arrangements with this lady.”

“You’ve pushed in,” said the tall man quietly, as if now resigned to the fact that he would not get what he wanted, but loudly enough for the shorter guy to hear.

The tall man was a little strange, thought Sheila. What men or women would have argued such a point when he had not even spoken to her before? She was however pleasantly surprised to see these men both competing for her favours. She wondered whether to say anything, for it was after all surely up to her to go with whoever she chose. Obviously there was no doubt she would choose the shorter guy, as she had already done so.

“You were a long way away up the road,” said the shorter guy. “You had your chance before and you missed it, so I don’t know what argument you’re trying to make. I have already made an arrangement with this lady, so back off!”

Sheila could sense the anger in the shorter man, and could envision matters getting out of hand if the tall man chose to argue further. But the tall man was a ridiculous figure. He had made a fool of himself. She was quite relieved that he had not asked her first. How could she trust such a strange man with so little grasp on reality. She felt no sexual interest in a man she could not see properly and who behaved so strangely with so little grasp of the way most people behaved. The shorter guy, on the other hand, had displayed anger, and she had little doubt that if the tall man wearing the hat continued with his silly claim he would resist him. She saw every sign that the shorter guy would resist physically to retain his rightful arrangement to lie with her. She felt the brief thrill of a woman who is about to be fought over, one who is desired by more than one man.

The tall man shrugged his shoulders, looking one last time at Sheila. Still she could not see him clearly under his hat. Perhaps he was more handsome than she imagined. She would never know. She said nothing to him, and he had never directed any direct words at her, despite being the object of his desires at this time. Perhaps he was rather shy, she thought. He sauntered back off down the road, at a lower speed than before, perhaps to wait for any other woman who might choose to offer herself on this street.

“Well, where were we?” she said.

“What a weirdo,” said the shorter guy. “I’m sorry if I got a bit angry there, but what a cheek he had. You’re still up for it, I hope?”

“Of course,” she agreed. “He was a bit strange wasn’t he.”

“I think it’s a good job I got to you before he did,” said the guy. “There’s no telling what strange ideas that guy might‘ve had!”

“No, you never know.”

“You can trust me, lady. I’m straight as an arrow. My workplace is safe enough, and I’m here for one thing only – some enjoyable sex, for which I will pay you in kind.”

Somehow she did feel safe enough with this guy. His anger at the man in the hat was justifiable; she had felt it too. His anger actually made her feel safer. She judged he was a normal decent guy with a sense of common decency. A few weeks ago she would never have allowed herself to put such trust in a stranger as to go into a building alone with him for sex when she had only just met him. But times had changed, and desperation and the willingness to try new adventures was enough to allow her to trust this stranger with her safety. No friend, not even Bob, knew exactly where she was, or what she was doing, or where she was going with this man. If she wanted to experiment with her sexual experience and her lifestyle she needed to trust this man, and she found she could do that.

“Would you like to put your arm in mine?” he asked.

“Yes. That would be nice,” she said, trusting him and judging him to be okay.

She went with him. The streets here were deserted as they approached his workplace, which was in the financial and office district of the city. With the electricity off there was little work to be done, even during the daylight, as the computers were all dead. Even the records of businesses were largely or partially lost to them unless they had been printed out to create paper files. So many businesses in these days kept their files on computer systems that the loss of them meant accounting could not be done. The more traditional bookkeeping businesses were having less problems and could actually attempt to transact some business. Even phone systems were interrupted by the power cuts too so messages could only be taken by couriers on the ground, and those couriers were no longer travelling by car, as petrol supplies were interrupted.

They came to a tall office block, having seen no one in those few streets. He explained the work he had done in normal times, but he had not been in recent days.

She did not admit to him, her first customer, that this was her first experience ‘on the streets’, but she did say this was not her normal profession.

“Have you visited that street before/” she asked, interested to hear his reply.

“I’ve been there a number of times,” he admitted unashamedly.

“Did you bring them all back here?” she asked

“Some of them. One or two of them had places of their own nearby to go to.”

As she stood in the doorway, waiting while he fumbled with his keys in the lock, she felt alive and expectant. She knew she should be worried and cautious, as she had no ‘friend’ nearby to guarantee her safety. But she had felt no uncertainty with this man. Perhaps he had a wife or partner, but she felt no potential guilt over her intervention into this man’s life. These were not normal times. She was not alone in doing what she was doing. Many people were behaving in ways they were not accustomed to. Women sold themselves for food and money, discovering more about themselves in the process; Men, who happened to have something to trade, found themselves able to command women in ways they had not known before. The new ‘prostitutes’ were from wider social backgrounds and ages, which had provided a new and more exciting marketplace for these few weeks. Men with surplus could trade in ways which were temporary. This period was an aberration, while normal life was suspended; all things were changed.

She realised he could have fucked her here in the doorways at the side of the street. No one was here, none came by. She might have found that exciting if he had suggested that. The idea thrilled her, of having sex in places which would normally be public, where office workers, motorists and pedestrians would normally be, where now there was the possibility of being seen by someone, but if they did chance to be discovered it would not matter. Judgements were no longer as they had been, embarrassment need no longer be a factor. A passer by would keep their thoughts to themselves, be shy to approach. They might watch from a distance, perhaps appreciate the eroticism of a temporary mating, maybe being turned on themselves.

Instead her ‘client’ was quickly through the door. He led her upstairs and into plush offices, made redundant by the actions of the terrorists. They had the whole section of office space to express their lusts in. Sheila revelled in the place and in the physical enjoyment she could have here….

Food supplies came in again! The damage at the oil refineries was being overcome at last. The word quickly passed around on many grapevines. Maintenance workers and engineers had worked around the clock to get some of the refineries up and running. The military, divided between gas production and pipes, electricity power plants, grids and lines, and oil/fuel supplies was miserably overstretched. They could not be everywhere at the same time. The government, she heard rumours, was drafting private security guards and new volunteers into a semi military force to attempt to guard key pipes, and installations. They were training even newcomers in the skills of gun handling and anti terrorist guard duty. But the terrorists kept coming back! Just when things appeared to be calming down there was another attack on some insufficiently protected installation.

They needed more engineers, steelworkers, repair men with practical skills, as well soldiers, policemen and guards. However the mass of the population had been engaged in ‘service industry’ tasks, pushing paper or computer buttons, or selling services over the telephone. It seemed to many that it had been a long time since the population in general had been directed towards real tasks of production or repair. A very long time had passed since the people had been on a war footing; not since the days of the Nazi and Japanese threat. The cold War had kept the military fairly strong, but since then it had been allowed to ossify and generate. Most people had few practical skills. The government was finding the people of Britain were far from useful in the current crisis. Their prior training and aspirations in life did not make them useful in the face of the deluge of industrial property bombings which were occurring. Those with skills found themselves pushed by incentives and the pressures of managers to work very long hours.

Sheila looked at herself in the mirror. She was pleased to see a rosy faced, tanned and healthy looking woman staring back at her in the mirror. Her hair as brown and vigorous, and a bit longer, than she used to wear it when she was in the office. She was perhaps a bit thinner in the cheeks than before, and she could see she had lost at least a few pounds in weight. All the walking she was doing was the cause of it. As the petrol pumps rarely had any fuel in them there was no sense in trying to take the car out. Public transport had largely stopped also. She found herself walking to ‘clients’ or ‘lovers’, however she preferred to call them.

She walked also to the shops where food would sometimes now be stocked. The authorities had begun to get wise to the stockpiling of food by the individuals who had been able to get their hands on the early stocks, when the crisis began, and those who had been able to afford the exorbitant prices being charged. They had realised they would have to do something fast if starvation and malnourishment were to be avoided, so they brought in controls. The food was to be rationed and the price to be controlled. Police and even soldiers were sent to food shops where the food was distributed to ensure that crowds behaved and queues were orderly. Also they ensured the shop owners did not make improper profits by selling to the people who could afford to stockpile.

There was a day when neighbours came to her door. “We’ve heard the TV’s coming on again,” they said.

“Oh great!” she said, “That’s fantastic. How do you know? Can we believe it?”

“I got a message from my sister in Coventry. The TV is back on there apparently, and has been for a couple of weeks. So she reckons the government is getting the electricity supplies fixed. Apparently some TV transmitters were damaged too, but they’re working on them too. The government say they will win the war against the terrorists and are doing.”

“What are the programmes like?” asked Sheila, “Like before?”

“Oh yes. You’ll be pleased to know your favourite soap Coronation Street is still on, and we still get Neighbours from Australia.”

“Marvellous!” Somehow the news about Coronation Street was not quite as welcome as it might once have been. It seemed, in the months since she had seen the show, somehow she had lost the plot of it. She could no longer remember the details of where she had left the ongoing sagas of family life. “Have they been making it continuously through ‘the troubles’ ?” she asked.

“That I do not know. I will have to ask her the next time I contact her,” said the neighbour.

Life had become more interesting at home since those days before the troubles. Instead of watching adventures taking place on the screen in her living room, the fictional, but all the same everyday occurrences of the Street or some of the other soaps, she had found herself embroiled in some very real and very personal adventures. She had been pushed or forced into activities she could hardly have imagined before. She had given herself and her body, at times, for food and security. She had risked her safety with total strangers. She had found, at the same time, some good substitutes for love. Perhaps she had even found the real thing – love itself, in part, and at times. Surely she was a stronger and more fulfilled person now, more in control of her own destiny than before. She knew how to survive in the face of whatever the terrorists might throw at them. She wondered whether, when, or, if Coronation Street came back on her box, whether she would bother to watch it in future. Her own life had become more exciting!