African Queen
Tale no. 19 – African Queen
The above artistic work (Snake Goddess, by AnonMoos) is free of known copyright restrictions.
‘I am a slave in rural Sudan. My mistress is a 48 year old African lady, and thus 15 years my junior. She is a widow, and lives alone in her hut on the outskirts of the local village.
I am originally from Europe, but was kidnapped by rebels whilst on business in Khartoum some 5 years ago and sold into slavery at the village slave-market.
My African mistress wears only traditional African dresses, but despite their bright colours, she is a dark woman. She is a hard-looking, permanently scowling, and harsh lady who works her slave hard. She never smiles or has words of encouragement for her slave, nor does she grant me any periods of rest. I must work hard from dawn until dusk, scrubbing the floor of her hut, licking clean her shoes and sandals, and washing the African dust from her leathery-calloused, black feet.
I do not sleep in her hut. I am kept chained outside like a dog, ready to greet my mistress, or any of her female guests, by kissing their feet. Also like a dog, I am permitted to eat only my mistress’s leftovers.
My mistress disciplines me with a brown, leather, cowhide slave-whip which she keeps constantly by her side. My mistress may be generally lazy, but she has a strong right arm thanks to her repeated application of the whip on my bare back and shoulders.
There is no joy in my life - just perpetual bondage, pain and misery at the feet of my surly African Queen.
My days as a slave are full of back-breaking work, dull, slavish routine and soul-destroying monotony, but once a week I am blessed by a visit from my mistress’s 23 year old daughter, miss Fawziya, who is a successful lawyer in Khartoum.
Unlike my mistress, miss Fawziya likes to wear western style clothes, being a progressive and modern young woman who has studied in the West and has now made a successful career for herself in a traditionally male-dominated society. Be that as it may, however, miss Fawziya still takes after her mother when it comes to the treatment of slaves. I am just as despised and mistreated by miss Fawziya as I am by her mother, my mistress.
This morning, as expected, I hear miss Fawziya’s car approaching my mistress’s hut along the dirt path that leads out of the nearby village. As the car stops I assume the traditional slave-greeting position on my hands and knees, head humbly bowed, ready to kiss the esteemed young female guest’s feet.
Miss Fawziya alights from her vehicle and strolls over to where I am chained up outside my mistress’s hut. Even though it is a baking hot day under the unforgiving Sudanese sun, miss Fawziya is wearing a smart, navy blue, pinstriped trouser suit over a crisp, white, frilly blouse, and black, ankle boots. Her black boots are now dusty under the hems of her pinstriped trousers thanks to the dusty ground surrounding my mistress’s rural hut.
Miss Fawziya graciously extends her right foot under my kneeling face and I immediately lower my lips to touch the rounded toe of her dusty, black leather boot. I can see the zip on the side of her ankle boot and mentally trace it up her lower leg to the top of her boot beneath her pinstriped trouser leg.
The block-heeled ankle-boot is very feminine, but quite large as miss Fawziya is a very tall and strong young woman. Like her mother, she looks quite hard, but her youth still lends a certain softness to her otherwise hard features.
She withdraws her right foot from under my nose and replaces it with her left. Again I kiss the rounded toe of the successful young, African, female lawyer’s dusty, black leather boot. My breath and saliva leaves a wet mark in the African dust on the toe of her boot.
At this moment my mistress emerges from her hut and embraces her daughter. It is the only time I ever hear my two mistresses actually laughing.
My mistress reaches down and unchains me, ordering me in her heavy, African accent to follow her daughter to heel into the relative coolness of the hut. I am relieved to be out of the glare of the baking hot sun. My semi-naked, white, European body was not made for exposure to the hot, North African sun. My back is permanently sunburnt, which only makes the sting of my mistress’s cowhide whip all the more painful.
But I am not being allowed into the hut for my own comfort and well-being. I am required to wash the feet of my mistress’s guest – her daughter. I must fetch the foot-bowl, kneel before miss Fawziya as she sits on a wooden chair in the centre of the hut, and humbly and silently remove miss Fawziya’s boots and socks in order to soothe her tired and sweaty African feet with some refreshing water. It’s a traditional greeting from a humble house-slave to an honoured guest in African countries – a scene repeated from time immemorial, although the vision of the older, white man washing the younger, black woman’s bare feet is not so common in history.
I repeatedly kiss miss Fawziya’s large, but eminently soft, sweaty black feet whilst I wash them in the foot-bowl. I am almost proud to pay homage to her superior feet – for she is a successful young woman at the start of a glittering career, and I am a self-evident loser working as an African woman’s footslave in my twilight years. Yes, miss Fawziya, being my mistress’s daughter, is manifestly my better, and it is an honour for me to pay literal lip-service to the feet of such a strong and beautiful young African woman.
Her sweaty, plain black bootsocks lie in a crumpled heap beside the foot-bowl, next to her peeled-off, unzipped boots. I long to sniff the black bootsocks, for I know they will smell strongly of miss Fawziya’s hot, African feet. But I am not permitted this tiny, slavish indulgence, for I have much more work to do.
After I have dried my mistress Fawziya’s bare feet with a towel, I must lick the African dust and mud off the soles and uppers of her black leather, successful businesswoman’s ankle-boots before I am permitted to put her socks and boots back onto her precious, African feet.
The owner of the boots, still sitting barefoot above and in front of me, largely ignores me, the bootslave, as she chats happily with her mother, my mistress, in their native dialect – interrupting her conversation with her beloved mother only to occasionally berate my work or instil me to even greater efforts:
‘Slave clean around the back of the heel!…remove that filth from the toe of my boot with your tongue, slave!…suck on the black, metal boot-zip and make it shine, slave!...’ she barks down at me sullenly in her strong, Sudanese accent, her equally sour-faced mother looking on approvingly.
Eventually the boots are tongue-shined to miss Fawziya’s apparent satisfaction as she clicks her fingers by way of indicating to me that I am to stop tasting her leather boots and to put her socks and boots back onto her outstretched feet.
Before she leaves, Miss Fawziya hands my mistress a carrier bag containing several pairs of her dirty, unwashed socks. She could, of course, wash them in her own automatic washing machine back in her plush apartment in Khartoum, but my mistress encourages her daughter to bring her dirty hosiery home to the hut of her birth every week for her mother’s personal footslave to wash by mouth.
And so I know I shall be spending much of the rest of this special day with miss Fawziya’s dirty socks soaking in my slave mouth, following which I shall have to wash them properly by hand and then place them on a rock under the hot, African sun outside my mistress’s hut in order to watch them dry.
Various villagers will pass by and laugh at me – the sunburnt, whip-scarred, elderly, white, male slave staring at the young, female African lawyer’s drying socks under the unrelenting supervision of his whip-wielding, surly and po-faced, middle-aged, African Queen.’
From Footslaves' Tales Volume 1
The above artistic work (Snake Goddess, by AnonMoos) is free of known copyright restrictions.
‘I am a slave in rural Sudan. My mistress is a 48 year old African lady, and thus 15 years my junior. She is a widow, and lives alone in her hut on the outskirts of the local village.
I am originally from Europe, but was kidnapped by rebels whilst on business in Khartoum some 5 years ago and sold into slavery at the village slave-market.
My African mistress wears only traditional African dresses, but despite their bright colours, she is a dark woman. She is a hard-looking, permanently scowling, and harsh lady who works her slave hard. She never smiles or has words of encouragement for her slave, nor does she grant me any periods of rest. I must work hard from dawn until dusk, scrubbing the floor of her hut, licking clean her shoes and sandals, and washing the African dust from her leathery-calloused, black feet.
I do not sleep in her hut. I am kept chained outside like a dog, ready to greet my mistress, or any of her female guests, by kissing their feet. Also like a dog, I am permitted to eat only my mistress’s leftovers.
My mistress disciplines me with a brown, leather, cowhide slave-whip which she keeps constantly by her side. My mistress may be generally lazy, but she has a strong right arm thanks to her repeated application of the whip on my bare back and shoulders.
There is no joy in my life - just perpetual bondage, pain and misery at the feet of my surly African Queen.
My days as a slave are full of back-breaking work, dull, slavish routine and soul-destroying monotony, but once a week I am blessed by a visit from my mistress’s 23 year old daughter, miss Fawziya, who is a successful lawyer in Khartoum.
Unlike my mistress, miss Fawziya likes to wear western style clothes, being a progressive and modern young woman who has studied in the West and has now made a successful career for herself in a traditionally male-dominated society. Be that as it may, however, miss Fawziya still takes after her mother when it comes to the treatment of slaves. I am just as despised and mistreated by miss Fawziya as I am by her mother, my mistress.
This morning, as expected, I hear miss Fawziya’s car approaching my mistress’s hut along the dirt path that leads out of the nearby village. As the car stops I assume the traditional slave-greeting position on my hands and knees, head humbly bowed, ready to kiss the esteemed young female guest’s feet.
Miss Fawziya alights from her vehicle and strolls over to where I am chained up outside my mistress’s hut. Even though it is a baking hot day under the unforgiving Sudanese sun, miss Fawziya is wearing a smart, navy blue, pinstriped trouser suit over a crisp, white, frilly blouse, and black, ankle boots. Her black boots are now dusty under the hems of her pinstriped trousers thanks to the dusty ground surrounding my mistress’s rural hut.
Miss Fawziya graciously extends her right foot under my kneeling face and I immediately lower my lips to touch the rounded toe of her dusty, black leather boot. I can see the zip on the side of her ankle boot and mentally trace it up her lower leg to the top of her boot beneath her pinstriped trouser leg.
The block-heeled ankle-boot is very feminine, but quite large as miss Fawziya is a very tall and strong young woman. Like her mother, she looks quite hard, but her youth still lends a certain softness to her otherwise hard features.
She withdraws her right foot from under my nose and replaces it with her left. Again I kiss the rounded toe of the successful young, African, female lawyer’s dusty, black leather boot. My breath and saliva leaves a wet mark in the African dust on the toe of her boot.
At this moment my mistress emerges from her hut and embraces her daughter. It is the only time I ever hear my two mistresses actually laughing.
My mistress reaches down and unchains me, ordering me in her heavy, African accent to follow her daughter to heel into the relative coolness of the hut. I am relieved to be out of the glare of the baking hot sun. My semi-naked, white, European body was not made for exposure to the hot, North African sun. My back is permanently sunburnt, which only makes the sting of my mistress’s cowhide whip all the more painful.
But I am not being allowed into the hut for my own comfort and well-being. I am required to wash the feet of my mistress’s guest – her daughter. I must fetch the foot-bowl, kneel before miss Fawziya as she sits on a wooden chair in the centre of the hut, and humbly and silently remove miss Fawziya’s boots and socks in order to soothe her tired and sweaty African feet with some refreshing water. It’s a traditional greeting from a humble house-slave to an honoured guest in African countries – a scene repeated from time immemorial, although the vision of the older, white man washing the younger, black woman’s bare feet is not so common in history.
I repeatedly kiss miss Fawziya’s large, but eminently soft, sweaty black feet whilst I wash them in the foot-bowl. I am almost proud to pay homage to her superior feet – for she is a successful young woman at the start of a glittering career, and I am a self-evident loser working as an African woman’s footslave in my twilight years. Yes, miss Fawziya, being my mistress’s daughter, is manifestly my better, and it is an honour for me to pay literal lip-service to the feet of such a strong and beautiful young African woman.
Her sweaty, plain black bootsocks lie in a crumpled heap beside the foot-bowl, next to her peeled-off, unzipped boots. I long to sniff the black bootsocks, for I know they will smell strongly of miss Fawziya’s hot, African feet. But I am not permitted this tiny, slavish indulgence, for I have much more work to do.
After I have dried my mistress Fawziya’s bare feet with a towel, I must lick the African dust and mud off the soles and uppers of her black leather, successful businesswoman’s ankle-boots before I am permitted to put her socks and boots back onto her precious, African feet.
The owner of the boots, still sitting barefoot above and in front of me, largely ignores me, the bootslave, as she chats happily with her mother, my mistress, in their native dialect – interrupting her conversation with her beloved mother only to occasionally berate my work or instil me to even greater efforts:
‘Slave clean around the back of the heel!…remove that filth from the toe of my boot with your tongue, slave!…suck on the black, metal boot-zip and make it shine, slave!...’ she barks down at me sullenly in her strong, Sudanese accent, her equally sour-faced mother looking on approvingly.
Eventually the boots are tongue-shined to miss Fawziya’s apparent satisfaction as she clicks her fingers by way of indicating to me that I am to stop tasting her leather boots and to put her socks and boots back onto her outstretched feet.
Before she leaves, Miss Fawziya hands my mistress a carrier bag containing several pairs of her dirty, unwashed socks. She could, of course, wash them in her own automatic washing machine back in her plush apartment in Khartoum, but my mistress encourages her daughter to bring her dirty hosiery home to the hut of her birth every week for her mother’s personal footslave to wash by mouth.
And so I know I shall be spending much of the rest of this special day with miss Fawziya’s dirty socks soaking in my slave mouth, following which I shall have to wash them properly by hand and then place them on a rock under the hot, African sun outside my mistress’s hut in order to watch them dry.
Various villagers will pass by and laugh at me – the sunburnt, whip-scarred, elderly, white, male slave staring at the young, female African lawyer’s drying socks under the unrelenting supervision of his whip-wielding, surly and po-faced, middle-aged, African Queen.’
From Footslaves' Tales Volume 1
