Hard Labour

I am serving a life sentence of hard labour in the stone quarry situated just outside the capital city of the Gynarchy, Barbaria.

I am 7 years into my life sentence which, if I live to be the full threescore years and ten, means that I have further 35 years to serve. Mind you, if I live to be 80 it only means I have a further 45 years to serve, for I shall never be released from my hard labour in the quarry.

I was sentenced to a life of hard labour because my erstwhile mistress, mistress Angelica, falsely accused me of looking at another mistress’s feet without permission. I say ‘falsely’ accused me, but, of course, there is no such thing as a ‘false’ accusation by a superior female under the laws of the Gynarchy. A mistress’s testimony is always regarded as gospel in the Female Courts, and, as a mere male slave I was not permitted to mount a defence. And quite right too!

And so it was inevitable that the Female Court would find me guilty and sentence me to a life of hard labour in the stone quarry those 7 years ago.

I cannot complain, because I am just a slave.

My hard labour involves sandpapering rocks. Or rather, a rock – for I am ashamed to say I am still working on the same rock I was chained to all those 7 years ago. My progress in sandpapering it down has been, quite literally, painfully slow – for I am a weak and feeble male slave; not at all muscular. At best, I would estimate I have managed to sandpaper down the foot high rock by about one millimetre – if that. It certainly looks a bit smoother on top, but neither I, nor my taskmistresses, are convinced that it is really any lower than it was when I started.

Not that it really matters, for if I ever did manage to sandpaper it down to ground level I would simply be chained to another rock in order to start all over again. The purpose of the sandpapering is merely to make me labour and sweat for the rest of my natural life. Nobody actually needs the rock to be sandpapered away!

I must sandpaper the rock by means of two sanding-blocks which are permanently attached to my hands via metal loops over my fingers – a bit like knuckledusters! Bearing in mind that I am working continuously on my knees, as befits a slave, it is back-breaking, as well as knee-shattering, work – I can tell you!

I must not only work, but also eat, drink and sleep, whilst chained to my rock. I am therefore kept outside in all weathers, on my knees, toiling at my rock for 18 hours a day, from 06:00 a.m. until midnight. My taskmistresses, needless to say, work in 8 hour shifts of 2 hours on and 2 hours off, as watching me sandpaper my rock for anything more than 4 hours in total during their feminine working day would be much too boring for them!

The only good thing about my situation is that I still get to see, and regularly pay my respects to, the feet and footwear of superior, young women. I was mistress Angelica’s personal footslave before she hauled me before the Female Courts accusing me of disloyalty and disrespect towards her feet, and so I am just grateful that I still have the opportunity to kiss feet. It’s what I do best.

The feet in question are the feet of my taskmistresses; the feet of visiting females who have come for a nice day out to the quarry (sometimes with their husbands or boyfriends) in order to gloat over the work-slaves like me; and even, on very special occasions, the feet of my erstwhile mistress herself, mistress Angelica, who is one of the ladies who likes to come and gloat.

As I said, I must toil on my rock in all weathers. Today is the height of summer and even though it is still early in the morning, if you will forgive my crudeness, I am sweating like a pig. My taskmistress at the moment, officer-taskmistress Josephine (just plain ‘Jo’ to her friends and colleagues, but ‘officer-taskmistress Josephine’ to me) is sitting beside me in the shade under a parasol, drinking a refreshing glass of fruit juice and flicking through the pages of a glossy magazine.

She is, like all the taskmistresses, uniformed – her uniform consisting of a white blouse (worn with a smart, navy blue jacket in winter, but not on a hot summer’s day like today); a pretty, feminine, navy blue loupette-style tie around her neck; navy blue slacks; and a brown, leather punishment strap hanging from the black leather belt around her shapely waist – a strap used to instil me to greater efforts should my taskmistress decide that I am slacking or not putting enough effort into my nugatory work sandpapering the rock.

As far as the taskmistresses’ footwear is concerned, I am lucky that they have to supply their own. The Department of Corrections does not supply them with boots, shoes, stockings or socks – so the only stipulation is that their hosiery and footwear must be dark blue or black, to go with the navy blue of their uniform slacks.

Because my current taskmistress, officer-taskmistress Josephine, is seated comfortably with her legs stretched out in front of her – her feet resting just inches away from the side of my rock – I can see that she is being a bit naughty! Whilst her dusty and scuff-marked, black, leather, low-heeled, zip-up, ankle boots are fully uniform-compliant, her bright pink, stripy socks are most definitely not!

I can just make out the elasticated tops of her pink ankle socks as I sandpaper my rock – and I suppose that’s the whole point; officer-taskmistress Josephine’s bright pink, stripy ankle socks would ordinarily be hidden inside her ankle boots beneath the boot-cut hems of her navy-blue trouser-legs, were she not seated with her legs fully stretched out in front of her, and so I shouldn’t think her supervisors would give a damn that she wasn’t wearing regulation, dark-coloured socks on this occasion.

Besides, I am in no position to complain! Nor would I wish to! I very much like officer-taskmistress Josephine’s bright, pink socks! They look very sexy and feminine, and my only regret is that I didn’t know she was wearing such a nice pair of pink, stripy socks when she had earlier placed her dusty, dirty, ankle-booted foot on top of my rock for me to kiss at the start of her first, 2 hour supervisory stint – as all the taskmistresses do at the beginning and end of each of their 2 hour stints. They do so in order that I, the prisoner-slave, may pay my humble respects to them, and praise and bless them for taking the time to supervise and direct my hard labour in this baking, hot sunshine.

Still, now that I know she is wearing stripy, pink socks, her boots will taste all the sweeter when I come to kiss them in some 45 minutes’ time at the end of officer-taskmistress Josephine’s first two hour stint. Who knows, if I am very lucky, I might even catch a glimpse of the pink, elasticated tops of her ankle socks whilst I am kissing the scuff-marked toes of her black, leather, zip-up ankle boots – now that I know to look out for the socks!

In the meantime, however, I must concentrate on my rock and my laborious sandpapering, and try not to be too distracted by the flash of pink, feminine ankle sock in the corner of my eye – since it was allegedly my wandering eye that lead to my life sentence of hard labour in the stone quarry in the first place!

Will I never learn?

Occasionally officer-taskmistress Josephine interrupts her glossy-magazine reading in order to caution me that I am slacking:

‘Put more effort into it, slave, or you’ll get a taste of the strap!’

‘Yes officer-taskmistress Josephine. At once, officer-taskmistress Josephine!’

A work-slave must never argue with a taskmistress. The taskmistress has all the power, and the slave is prone and vulnerable to the strap. Besides, the astute officer-taskmistress Josephine is right to reprimand me. I had been slacking, distracted as I was by her bright, pink bootsocks! I’m sure she is deliberately teasing me with them!

Suddenly I hear other female voices – giggling and laughing behind me, and heading up the hill towards my rock! It must be a delegation of female ‘gloaters’ – young women come for a nice day out in the stone quarry in order to mock the afflicted – we male, prisoner-slaves – as we toil away under the burning sun at our nugatory work.

At least it gives me the opportunity to see, and hopefully kiss, more female feet and footwear!

There appear to be just two of them actually - young women, both in their early to mid twenties I would say – and both, ostentatiously, drinking cool, refreshing water from plastic bottles. Oh what I would give right now for a sip of water – and don’t they just know it! Just as officer-taskmistress Josephine knows that I yearn for a sip of her fruit juice!

The two young student-women politely ask officer-taskmistress Josephine for permission to torment me, having first enquired of the details of my crime and sentence. Both the crime and the sentence, as explained gleefully by officer-taskmistress Josephine, seem to cause the two young, female visitors no end of merriment and amusement.

How pleasant it must be for two, free young women to be able to gloat over a dirty, convicted male work-slave such as myself, knowing that I am powerless to resist their glee!

One of the two, a young, tall, black woman, is the first to approach me directly. I know she is black because she is wearing white shorts on her long, shapely, smooth, bare, black legs – legs which seem to be glistening with sweat in the heat – along with flat, strappy, Moses-style sandals on her pretty, bare feet. I notice immediately that her toenails are painted a pretty, dark-purple colour – presumably to match her dark-purple T shirt.

Then again, I can hardly fail to notice her purple-painted toenails since she imperiously places her outstretched, right foot on top of my rock, directly under my kneeling nose, forcing me to temporarily halt my sandpapering work – and just as I was getting into the swing of it too, egged on by the threat of officer-taskmistress Josephine’s brown, leather punishment strap!

The black girl takes a noisy swig of her water, and laughs down at me:

‘Ha! Ha! Kiss my sandal, dirty slave!’

I can tell instantly that this young, black woman is an accomplished gloater and slave-teaser. She’s done this many times before! (although not, to my recollection, with me). Not only is she adding to my thirst by so flamboyantly drinking her cool, refreshing water whilst standing over me, she is teasing me also with her bare, black feet. For she knows that I am aching to kiss her purple-painted toenails and soft, black footflesh – and yet she is restricting me to kissing the straps of her brown, leather sandals. So near to soft, feminine footskin – and yet so far! Just as I am to officer-taskmistress Josephine’s pretty, pink socks!

What a loser I am – a loser-footslave, condemned to waste away my life sandpapering rocks when I could be kissing bare, female feet and sniffing female socks, which is what I am trained to do!

Still, at least I can see the black mistress’s bare feet at close quarters! At least I can smell her delicate, feminine foot odour whilst I kiss the musty, sweat-stained leather of her sandal-straps.

Her friend, a petite and slightly chubby blonde – who from the corner of my right eye I can see is wearing soft, blue and white canvas, deck-shoes with white laces on what appear to be bare feet, has some words of encouragement for her black friend:

‘Ha! Ha! Make him kiss the metal buckle, Jolene!’

The blonde mistress is a very astute young lady! She is evidently concerned that I might be getting too much of a thrill out of kissing the sweat-engorged leather of her companion’s sandal-straps, and is therefore suggesting that the wearer of the sandals restrict me to the feel of her metal buckles on my footslave-lips.

Cold and harsh metal buckle-straps – at least they may help to cool my parched lips, although I would clearly prefer to have my lips moistened by the black mistress’s sweaty sandal-leather!

But prisoner-slaves can’t be choosers, and the tall, lithely-limbed black mistress clearly likes her blonde friend’s helpful suggestion:

‘You heard my friend, dirty, sweaty pig, kiss only the metal buckle on the end of my sandal strap!’ she barks down impatiently at me.

‘Yes mistress. At once mistress. God bless you mistress!’

I am responding as much to placate officer-taskmistress Josephine, as the young black visitor and her friend, for officer-taskmistress Josephine, whilst she could be said to be quite lazy for 99% of the time, can nevertheless become very animated if she thinks I am in any way showing disrespect towards a female guest or visitor to the quarry. I know from bitter experience that there is nothing that would give officer-taskmistress Josephine greater pleasure than to publicly demonstrate her prowess with the punishment strap in front of these two young women.

And so if I wish to avoid the brown leather of the punishment strap falling onto my bare, arched and sunburnt back, I must now avoid my parched lips falling onto black mistress Jolene’s brown leather sandal-straps, and pucker up my lips instead onto the bronze-coloured metal of her buckle strap.

Bizarrely, the metal buckle smells and tastes quite rusty! Perhaps mistress Jolene has inadvertently been dropping drinking water from her bottle onto the metal buckle – or am I just starting to hallucinate?!

Her blonde friend, whose name I still do not know, appears particularly delighted at my take-up, on the instructions of miss Jolene, of her original suggestion:

‘Ha! Ha! Make damn sure your dirty lips don’t stray onto my friend’s leather sandal-strap, slave! Make sure you only touch the metal buckle – including the hinged pin in the middle! Ha! Ha! Wiggle your toes, Jolene! Make it more difficult for him! Ha! Ha!’

Miss Jolene now laughs too (along with the normally dour officer-taskmistress Josephine), and duly wiggles her purple-painted toes inside her Moses-style sandal in order to make it more difficult for me to kiss only the metal buckle of her sandal strap, which runs across the tops of those pretty, feminine toes. But, mercifully, I somehow seem to manage to avoid touching the brown sandal-leather with my lips, and as a result my taskmistress’s punishment strap remains firmly hitched to her belt.

I sense that the devilish, blonde mistress is somewhat frustrated at my success in keeping my lips on the moving, metal buckle:

‘Move over, Jolene…I want him to kiss my foot now!’ she exclaims.

Suddenly, brown-leather-sandalled, female, black foot is replaced under my nose on top of the rock by a white foot clad in soft, blue canvas deck-shoe with a dusty, white sole. A much smaller foot than the black girl’s foot. Petite and dainty.

To my horror, now that the laced-up deck-shoe is resting on the rock directly under my kneeling nose, I can see the faint trace of the elasticated top of a plain, white, cotton sneaker-sock inside the upper rim of the pretty, blue canvas deck shoe. The young blonde woman is wearing socks! How could I possibly have missed that?

I really must be losing my touch, or my eyesight! I mean, this is the second pair of female socks I initially failed to spot today! Shocking!

For I do like a sweet, feminine sock – and these so called ‘no show’ or ‘secret’ socks are amongst my favourites – especially when I can catch a furtive glimpse of the elasticated tops, as now. It’s as if I’m seeing something the mistress does not intend for me to see. Naughty slave! You should be sandpapering dirty rocks – not appreciating short, white socks!

Not that the young, twenty-something blonde mistress appears at all bashful about having her footwear admired by a dirty, convicted prisoner-slave:

‘Lick my shoe clean, slave. Start with the white area around the toe, and then run your tongue all along the side of my shoe, licking off all the dust and dirt. I want to see the white rim of my shoe sparkling in the sunlight! And don’t touch the blue canvas upper of my shoe yet. Just concentrate on the lower white part. I’ll tell you when you can lick the canvas and suck on the white laces!’

‘Yes mistress. At once mistress. This dirty slave obeys the sweet and kind mistress.’

Despite my humble words, I can’t help wondering why these two girls didn’t just go to a public footslave in the town square if all they wanted was to have their shoes kissed and licked. However, I’m not complaining! This is a welcome break from my boring, sandpapering toil. I would much rather be smoothing the dirt off a young woman’s deck-shoe with my tongue than smoothing the surface of a boring rock with some sandpaper!

As I lick along the rubbery, white, lower side of the blonde mistress’s deck shoe I can’t take my eyes off the elasticated top of her plain, white sneaker-sock – now that I know it is there! I am just never satisfied! Here I am - having the inestimable privilege of licking clean a visiting-tormentress’s soft, canvas shoe – and all I can think about is kissing the top of her white, no-show sock! I am incorrigible! If officer-taskmistress Josephine knew what I was thinking right now I would be sorely strapped – and deservedly so, for not only am I neglecting to concentrate fully on my lower-shoe licking duties, I am also putting officer-taskmistress Josephine’s own pretty, pink socks to the back of my mind!

However, my fixation with the chubby, blonde mistress’s short, white sock reaps its reward – for I suddenly spot a loose stitch in the elasticated top of the sock just below her shapely, if somewhat podgy, outer ankle bone. It is only a small, loose stitch – not exactly sock-threatening – but it is the undoubted highlight of my day thus far. For it reminds me that this is a real-life sock on the foot of a real-life woman. It is not perfect, just as she is not perfect. Yet they are both – sock and mistress – my superiors, and the more imperfect they both are the more deserving they both are of my slavish adoration and respect. For they are both, for all their imperfections and tiny flaws, better than me!

I mean, the short, white sneaker-sock is tasked with protecting its mistress’s foot. Whereas I am tasked with sandpapering rocks. It is clear which is the more important in the grand scheme of things. Need I say more?

‘Ha! Ha! You may suck on my laces now, slave!’

The young blonde woman’s piercing voice wakes me from my humble reverie, and I am once again concentrating on the task in mouth – that of sucking and licking clean her dusty, blue and white canvas deck shoe of the young, blonde, nameless but besocked, visitor-mistress – specifically sucking clean her dusty, dirty white shoelaces.

Later that afternoon, whilst another taskmistress, officer-taskmistress Julie, is supervising my work, yet another female visitor to the quarry, who this time is most definitely not nameless, approaches my rock.

It is mistress Angelica – my erstwhile mistress – now somewhat plumper than when I was her personal foot-servant some 7 years ago, but still an attractive young woman in her early thirties. She is wearing a familiar pair of red, plastic crocs with bright, yellow, summery ankle socks beneath a short, yellow, summer skirt. Ha! Ha! Sandals and socks! My former mistress Angelica certainly knows how to tease her estranged footslave. She knows I adore socks, and I have absolutely no chance of missing these bright, yellow ankle socks!

Unfortunately my mistress Angelica (for I still like to think of her as my mistress) is not alone. Her husband of some 3 years, Thomas (‘master Thomas’ to me) is accompanying her, helping her to walk gingerly over the sometimes slippery rocks towards me.

Mistress Angelica greets my taskmistress, officer-taskmistress Julie (who like officer-taskmistress Josephine before her is wearing the ubiquitous, navy-blue uniform slacks but this time with black, leather, square-toed, slip-on shoes and black socks) before coming over to stand in directly in front of my rock whilst I sandpaper away.

Mistress Angelica and master Thomas both laugh at me as I toil beneath them. I can’t help noticing that my mistress Angelica’s yellow ankle socks are creased inside her red, plastic crocs as she is laughing at me. I ache to kiss those creases in her soft, cotton socks.

What was that I was saying earlier about the tiny imperfections in a mistress’s footwear inspiring my devotion?

‘Ha! Ha! How are you doing today, footslave? Are you enjoying your hard labour? Do you feel you are making good progress on your rock underneath this hot sun?’ enquires mistress Angelica in a genuinely mocking tone.

Before I can answer the mistress’s rhetorical question, master Thomas has a valid, albeit mocking, opinion to express also:

‘Ha! Ha! You know, honey, I think he may actually be making some good progress! That rock definitely looks a bit smoother to me than the last time we were here – what was it, some six months ago?’

‘Ha! Ha! Yes – when was that exactly?...It must have been just before our luxury cruise around the Mediterranean, wasn’t it honey? God, he has been working hard in the meantime! Ha! Ha! I mean – look at how scrawny he is! He must have lost at least two stone in weight, even if the stone he’s sandpapering hasn’t reduced much in size! Ha! Ha!’

I daren’t say anything, but my mistress Angelica looks like she may have put on a couple of stone since she last visited me! It’s nice to see her looking so well!

‘Ha! Ha!. Yeah…’ agrees master Thomas with his wife, my mistress. ‘I wonder whether they let him supplement his diet with the shavings from his rock? Ha! Ha!’

The happy couple burst into almost uncontrollable laughter at master Thomas’s funny joke. Then master Thomas makes a suggestion to his wife:

‘Ha! Ha! He really does look hungry, darling! Why don’t you feed him some of the dust from the soles of your shoes?’

Mistress Angelica, sweet and kind mistress that she is, and also totally besotted with her manly husband, is only too happy to feed me a diet of dust-supplements from the soles of her plastic shoes, and, aided and abetted by her galant husband, who chivalrously holds onto his beloved wife whilst she rests the yellow-socked heel of her right foot on my rock, raises the sole of her shoe into the air, thereby affording my tongue access to the treads of her dusty, red, plastic croc shoe.

‘Ha! Ha! Come on slave! Eat up! Eat the dust from the sole of my shoe. Lick out all the treads! Chop! Chop!’

Even the normally shy and reserved officer-taskmistress Julie is smiling and laughing now as I suck and lick dust off the cheap, plastic sole of my former mistress’s (and accuser’s) red, plastic shoe.

It is, however, a welcome relief for my admittedly empty stomach, and I am genuinely indebted to master Thomas for his helpful suggestion to his wife – for the female guards don’t always remember to feed us, and officer-taskmistress Josephine either forgot, or more likely couldn’t be bothered, to feed me this morning!

As I consume mistress Angelica’s sole-dirt, I pray internally that, for afters, I shall be permitted to lick her yellow ankle-socks! I am confident in my heart of hearts that my mistress Angelica would not have worn socks today were she not, out of the kindness of her female heart, intending to allow me a quick lick and a sniff of her socks. For she has no real need to wear socks today. Not with sandals. Like mistress Jolene before her she could quite comfortably have gone barefoot inside her sandals today.

But no – my mistress Angelica knows that I like her socks, and I take some pride in the fact that I know she is wearing them for me, rather than for her husband, master Thomas. Mistress Angelica must still have some feelings for me – even if they are feelings of contempt for her former sock-sucking and disloyal personal footslave.

Sure enough, once I have finished my main course, mistress Angelica gives me the order I have been eagerly anticipating:

‘Slave, swallow all the dirt in your mouth and then kiss the tops of my yellow ankle socks. Kiss each and every crease in my yellow socks 5 times, and verbally praise and bless me in between each kiss.’

‘Yes mistress Angelica. At once mistress Angelica.’

I obey her. I seek out, and kiss, each crease and fold in my mistress’s yellow, cotton socks – first on her right foot and then on her left – as she obligingly positions each foot, one after the other, on the rock beneath my face. In between kisses I verbally praise and bless my mistress both for the beauty of her socks, and for having me punished for life here in the stone quarry.

Meanwhile, master Thomas has his arm around her and is kissing her on the lips – so she is being worshipped in two ways simultaneously; by a real man, who is romantically kissing her on the lips; and by a humble, convicted prisoner-slave who is kissing her on the socks.

I only wish this moment could last forever, but my mistress and master have much better things to do than to hang around the stone quarry all day. They must go home and get changed for they are dining out with some friends this evening.

An evening which I shall be spending sandpapering the very rock on which my mistress Angelica’s pretty shoes and socks have just been resting, under the supervision of yet another taskmistress- for officer-taskmistress Julie’s second 2 hour stint will have long finished by then.

And yet, as I do eventually receive female permission to stop working at midnight, and to get some rest, I am much too excited to sleep. Too excited by all the thoughts of the lovely female socks it has been my privilege to look at during the course of the day.

Rocks and socks. Life could be a lot worse, couldn’t it?

The End (of another day)