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Shop Assistant: Chapter 6 — Description
Shop AssistantCopyright © 2021, Dave Potter
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
When Amina saw the Umm Amaani laid out before her as she stood on the stage before the usual assembled crowd, she shivered despite the warm temperatures. The Umm Soraya had been one thing; the Umm Safiyah something else, but this… this was on a whole different level.
“Gentlemen, let me first point out to you the thickness of the rubber in this suit, a full 4mm making it the thickest and heaviest suit on the market,” explained Miss al-Moultazimoun as Saaliha handed out samples of the rubber so that the potential customers could compare it with other suits. “But why so thick you may ask? Well, the reasons are simple: a thicker suit ensures that removal from the sinful world that is the key to the purdah philosophy. Ensconced within the Umm Amaani and your beloved female will be totally separated from all that is evil. The other suits allow some sight if the male guardian prefers this; the Umm Amaani does not, for sight is one of the main methods in which sin can reach us. The other suits allow a degree of hearing; with the Umm Amaani it is almost completely eliminated. Perhaps if you were to shout near the ear of your precious jewel, then something could be discerned, but no more. Another source of sin eliminated. And even touch. Stroke this suit softly and the wearer will be unaware. She exists in her own pious universe and for both her and you, that can only be a good thing. The Umm Amaani may be our most expensive suit, but I would argue that it is an investment well worth making. Why? Well, for your precious purdah jewel, she is safe within her case, and that means she is virtually guaranteed entry into Jannah. Some may say that this is a harsh method, that it is hot and dehumanising. But I ask you, is it harsher than the torments of Jahannam? Is it hotter than the eternal fires of Jahannam?”
Her words chilled Amina who was about to enter this portable prison, but the men present merely clapped and nodded in agreement.
“And what about you, for I said that such a suit will benefit both the wearer and her guardian? Well, learned clerics at the Al-Azhar in Egypt have decreed that, since a man and a woman have been united in marriage, then a woman can work off the sins of her spouse and vice versa, working together to attain Jannah and avoid Jahannam. We have many customers here at Al-Moultazimoun Clothing who have previously neglected their deen and lived dissolute and reprehensible lives. But by marrying a pious girl and gifting her with an Umm Amaani suit to live out her days in blissfully, then they are also working towards their own purification.”
‘Bullshit! What absolute bollocks! What twisted, sick logic is that? Such were the thought so Amina who was stunned as to how insidious Miss al-Moultazimoun’s sales patter could be. Anything for a profit!
And then it came time to be fitted. She stepped into the suit and immediately noticed the difference. The weight as it rested on her body and thickness. Moving her lower limbs was much harder covered in such a thick suit of rubber.
That was nothing though compared to the upper body.
The Umm Safiyah had restrained her arms, but this went one step further. Her arms were crossed manoeuvred behind her back, not hand to elbow in the small like previously, but high up, the hands crossed and almost touching the shoulders and then the suit laced over them.
And laced and laced. This too included a corset, but this corset was much tighter and more restrictive. The laces went right up to the neck where they cruelly compressed the arms, squeezing them together, melding them into her very torso whilst all the while her waist shrank and shrank until she was faint and struggling for breath.
“The Umm Amaani utilises a concept known as a Venus corset, named after the famous statue of the Greeks that has no arms. With the corset fully laced, it appears as if the wearer is armless, whilst the pleasing narrow waist and surging bosom, are preserved. This is important since, as your wife will be hidden from you and rendered incommunicado, you need to find other ways in which to create a loving marital bond, and prime amongst these is a silhouette that both reminds you, her spouse, of her great piety, but also excites you sexually. Many spouses of Umm Amaani wives like to lace their wives’ waists down to a size whereby it can be encircled with both hands and indeed, if this is an option you wish to pursue, Al-Moultazimoun Clothing offers a full support service for this.”
Make the waist even smaller! Amina was struggling to cope as it was, her breathing ragged and her body already heating up from the rubber enclosure whilst her arms were dead, folded behind her back. Then came the hood.
As it was lowered over her face, the world turned black. Before that though, there was more trauma. The trauma of having tubes inserted down her nostrils to help facilitate her breathing, and the trauma of having the integrated gag inflated within her mouth until the pressure of her cheeks and jaw was immense.
But when the hood was closed, she was alone. The light went out and silence descended upon her world. The only sensation that she felt was the tightening of her hood as Saaliha laced it tighter, and then the similar tightening of the posture collar which forced her head upwards.
And that was it. She stood there alone in the universe, her only companion the overpowering smell of rubber. She swayed slightly and waited. After some time, she felt clothing being draped over her, but inside that cocoon it made no difference. Then a hand on her back and she walked, taking the tiny mincing steps that were now her norm. Even this slight movement though, caused the heat to rise. She was glad to sit.
And so, the week began. A week like none other. A week so divorced from reality. A week of no sound or sight and very little sensation. If Saaliha stroked her head, she did not feel it. All she knew was when the hose was inserted into her bottom for toileting and when she sucked up things though her gag. And the walking. Not much, but traumatic. Walking alone in your own plane of existence. Walking slowly and for short distances. She felt the heat rise and she passed out. She assumed that was when she was leaving the store and crossing the car park, but when she came round, there were straps around her, and she was sitting.
She passed out many times and struggled to tell the difference between consciousness and not. She drifted in her own void, her mind wandering. The real world began to seem like a dream, an illusion. She wondered if in fact she had died and this was what it was like afterwards, neither the fires of Jahannam nor the garden of Jahan. She began to understand why this could be seen as a spiritual thing. She pondered on humanity, on reality, on life itself. And then, sometime during that week of silence and darkness, she was visited by God Himself. Except that God was not the abstract faceless figure that Amina had learned about in Quranic school when she had been Amin, but instead appeared in human form. And even more shockingly, that human God was not a man, but a beautiful woman who embraced Amina as tightly as the rubber that surrounded her and whispered sweetly, ‘Do not fear, Amina, all shall be well.’ And when she asked why She had called her Amina and not Amin, that God simply smiled and replied, ‘You are what you are’ before fading away again into the black. And it was at that moment that Amina why the purdah suit was so potent, why its inmates needed to be silent and hidden, for in that moment she realised how false all the religious tales she had ever been told were. They meant nothing in this place. There was no fire. There was no garden. There was just control and domination. Submission is holy they said. They who did not submit but dominated. They with the power. Why did they not get into purdah suits themselves. Why did not sheikhs and imams wear Umm Amaani suits if they were so holy? Never before had she felt so spiritual, so close to God.
And never more so far from religion and faith.
Now she knew why they locked their girls away in these cruel torture instruments forever.
They were petrified of what they would reveal if they were ever released, they who had faced God and eternity in the void of non-existence.
When she was released by Saaliha, she cried. She clenched her eyes shut and clung to the veiled assistant. She begged to return to the suit; the outside world being too much to deal with. Saaliha stroked her head and said that she understood. That she too had lived in the Umm Amaani. They hugged. Then she spent hours in the bath. Hours staring at the white walls, amazed by the light.
She knew that the suit had changed her. Never again could the old Amin truly return.
And after that it was easier. She wore the Umm Fatima and the Umm Aisha, and then the cycle started again: Soraya; Safiyah, Amaani…
Chapter 7