The Garden Party

Angela and Peter were delighted. The weather forecast was for an exceptionally hot, bright and sunny afternoon – just perfect for their garden party!

It was only to be a small and intimate affair. They had invited only their very best friends – two other couples; Fiona and Iqbal, and Cecilia and Marcus. It would be an afternoon barbecue in their pleasant, suburban garden. A relaxing and fun little get together for all concerned on a perfect summer’s day.

For all, that is, apart from Angela and Peter’s slave – slave Patheticus. He would not be relaxing and enjoying the sunshine. Quite the opposite; he would be labouring hard – scrubbing the stone patio floor; serving the drinks; kissing the feet of his betters. And all under the baking hot, unrelenting sunshine whilst it was at its zenith. Indeed, his mistress Angela had specifically chosen to hold her little ‘soirée’ in the afternoon precisely because she wanted to see her household slave baking and sweating under the hot sun, all whilst she and her husband and friends relaxed under the cool shade of a large, garden awning.

Slave Patheticus’s suffering in the hot sunshine would only serve to enhance her, and her guests’ pleasure. Mistress Angela was clever like that.

Patheticus had been her personal slave from long before she met her current husband, master Peter. At the age of just 33, Angela had already been married 3 times, but she had only ever had one faithful footslave – the ever loyal Patheticus - since he had been given to her on her 21st birthday by her father.

Angela actually quite fancied slave Patheticus; she thought he was moderately good looking – for a slave. But, of course, any kind of sexual relationship with him was out of the question and utterly taboo. Besides, he was just a slave, and therefore totally unable to satisfy her sexual needs. Angela needed a real man for that – and 56 year old master Peter was that man: rich; strong; and hopelessly in love with her.

As well he might be, for Angela was a good looking woman. She always had been - tall; lithesome; naturally blonde (although she had recently dyed her hair with some fetching, red highlights); and, above all, as far as her slave Patheticus was concerned, she had shapely, well-turned ankles and delightfully podgy toes at the end of her long legs.

Slave Patheticus simply adored his mistress Angela’s feet – which was just as well given that he spent most of his day crawling behind them on his hands and knees. He was, technically, her personal footslave – or, at least, that was what it stated on his official slave-certificate – although, it has to be said, mistress Angela liked to use him more as a general dogsbody around the house; cleaning and scrubbing mainly – be it sucking up the dust and the dirt from her carpets; tongue-polishing her tiled, bathroom floor; or just licking her dirty boots and shoes to a nice shine, as a conventional footslave would do.

She made him do it all on his hands and knees, of course, so that even if he was engaged on non-foot related chores, he was still never far away from her precious feet – as befits a hard-working ‘footslave’. Indeed slave Patheticus had not looked his mistress Angela in the eye in over 7 years – not since she had had him whipped for such ‘insolence’. He was now only permitted to look her in the foot.

Small wonder, therefore, that he was totally enamoured by her shapely, white ankles and podgy toes.

This particular afternoon those shapely ankles and podgy toes were clad in a pair of pale blue flip flops. Mistress Angela’s toenails had been lovingly painted bright scarlet by slave Patheticus that very morning – using his mouth. He was only ever permitted to paint his mistress’s toenails with the tiny brush protruding from his mouth. That was because mistress Angela considered that he needed to see what he was painting up close and personal. She wanted his nose and his face to be so close to her toenails as he painted them that he could smell them.

And whatever mistress Angela wanted – mistress Angela got. Her beloved, manly husband, master Peter, saw to that, for if ever slave Patheticus failed to please his mistress, master Peter would take it upon himself to punish him. Severely.

Patheticus feared master Peter, as well he might, for master Peter was, ironically, somewhat jealous of his young wife’s personal footslave. After all, Patheticus the slave had been in Angela’s life longer than Peter her husband!

Master Peter, therefore, always made damn sure that Patheticus knew his proper place – at his mistress’s feet. It was now master Peter who would reprimand and punish the slave for ‘insolence’ if his slavish gaze ever strayed from his all-powerful mistress’s feet.

And so as his mistress Angela positioned him on his hands and knees in the porch at the entrance to the back garden - ready to kiss the soon-to-be-arriving guests’ feet – slave Patheticus was fixated by his recent handiwork on his mistress’s own podgy-shaped toes. He truly admired his mistress Angela’s bright scarlet-painted toenails which almost seemed to match a tiny red sore (an insect bite no doubt) on her right, outer ankle bone.

He also concentrated on the creases and folds in the hard, flaky, white skin at the backs of her bare heels as she fastened his chain to the wall of the garden porch, and he did not allow his footslave-eyes to wander up his mistress’s shapely, bare, suntanned legs beneath her very short shorts, as he knew, thanks to the bitter experience of the sting of the whip, that his mistress’s bare legs were for master Peter’s delectation only!

Patheticus knew, as his mistress roughly tested the now secured chain around his scrawny neck, that he would only be chained up in the porch for a short while. The chain was heavy and uncomfortable enough – but it was essentially just for show.

It was traditional for household slaves in the Gynarchy to be chained up in their owner’s porch in order to greet their owners’ guests – and had been a tradition since Ancient Roman times. Patheticus, pathetically, was actually quite proud to be part of such a long tradition, as he was of his Ancient Roman slave-name. He often wondered, indeed, whether he may have been a slave in Ancient Rome during a previous life – some sort of Ancient Roman scrubber - so naturally did he take to a life of bondage and servitude on his knees at the feet of others:

‘Keep your head bowed to the ground until my guests arrive, slave,’ demanded mistress Angela, the disdain and contempt, borne of years of ordering her slave about, almost palpable in her sweet, feminine voice. It was a tone of voice slave Patheticus totally respected, however.

‘Yes mistress Angela. This slave obeys his mistress.’

A truism if ever there was one – Patheticus was a totally obedient slave. He had little choice other than to be so, given both mistress Angela’s and master Peter’s predilection for applying the leather whip to his bare back.

And yes – his back was kept bare – permanently bare, and not just in the hot, summer weather, but even in the depths of winter. Whatever the weather slave Patheticus wore nothing but his ubiquitous, white slave shorts – in common with all male slaves in the Gynarchy. For the Female Laws of the Gynarchy stated that a male slave’s back must always be ready for the whip.

And so he watched as his mistress Angela’s pale blue flip flops flip-flopped out of view temporarily whilst she went into the back garden proper in order to adjust some of the sunloungers under the shade of the awning, ready for her indolent guests to rest their weary bodies on.

Slave Patheticus noticed some traces of dust on the back rims of his mistress’s pale blue flip flops as she walked away from him, and he made a mental note to remove said dust with his tongue at the first opportunity. He could not have dust sullying his mistress’s precious flip flops, and after 12 long years of serving his mistress Angela’s feet and footwear he was now expected to lick dirt off her shoes on his own initiative, whenever he spotted it. After all, mistress Angela could hardly be expected to inspect the state of her footwear continuously throughout the day.

That was his job!

As was kissing feet – female feet, and not just his own mistress’s feet, but the feet of her female guests, the first of whom was just arriving with her husband.

Patheticus recognised her voice immediately – it was mistress Fiona; 22 year old, dark-haired mistress Fiona, and her husband Iqbal. Such a handsome, young couple! Both ‘rockers’ - always looking good in their expensive black leathers, even if master Iqbal couldn’t yet afford a personal footslave for his own wife!

That was precisely one of the reasons why they both so much enjoyed coming round to their friends’, Angela and Peter’s house – for Iqbal knew that his darling wife simply loved having a footslave to boss about. She would make a good slave-mistress, just as soon as they could afford to buy a slave.

Mistress Fiona was a bit of a diehard rock-fan, and dressed rather excentrically to reflect her love of rock music even in such hot weather as it was today. She was not, therefore, attired in a loose-fitting summer blouse, shorts and flip flops like Patheticus’s own mistress Angela. No, mistress Fiona, as was her perfect right, had chosen to wear a black leather bomber-jacket; short, black leather miniskirt; short white sneaker socks, and plaid, canvas, slip-on vans.

The light, canvas sneakers were, in actual fact, a concession to the exceptionally hot weather – for mistress Fiona ordinarily wore a pair of black, highly scuffed, heavy leather, calf-length biker boots with thick, black bootsocks peeping out the tops. Slave Patheticus knew that because he had been required to kiss those feminine boots and socks on many previous occasions. But even the predictable mistress Fiona, it seemed, could not bring herself to wear her beloved boots on such a warm day as this. She wanted her pretty feet to remain relatively cool – even if the rest of her body was sweating inside her black, leather jacket and miniskirt, and even if she couldn’t quite bring herself to wear sandals on bare feet.

Who knows, she might even chill out and take her jacket off later whilst relaxing on the sun lounger in the garden!

For now, however, her dainty, right, canvas-sneakered foot was extended directly under slave Patheticus’s humbly-bowed nose in the garden porch, ready for him to pay his respects to her plaid-patterned vans and summery-looking, short, white cotton sneaker-socks.

Slave Patheticus couldn’t help but notice how pale mistress Fiona’s ankles looked compare to his own mistress Angela’s ankles – paleness caused, no doubt, by the fact that mistress Fiona’s pretty, 22 year old anklebones were normally covered in her legendary, heavy black boots and thick black bootsocks.

In a way, slave Patheticus wished that they still were – even on a hot day like this; or, indeed, especially on a hot day like this. For Patheticus liked the aroma of sweaty, female feet and socks tinged with the smell of hot, musty boot-leather. It was, admittedly, an acquired smell, but one which many footslaves like Patheticus developed over their long years of servitude.

Mistress Fiona said nothing to him as his lips touched the rounded, rubbery, white toe-end of her imperiously outstretched plaid, canvas sneaker. She was instead laughing and joking with her hostess, who was doing her best to persuade her to take off her heavy, leather jacket, whilst master Peter for his part was shaking master Iqbal manfully by the hand and welcoming him to their home.

Slave Patheticus, therefore, just concentrated on the plaid canvas shoe and short white sock beneath his face and lips. The sock, in particular, looked nice and feminine – and he admired the way the elasticated top of the plain, white sock only half-covered mistress Fiona’s somewhat bony ankle. Her ankles were not quite as fulsome and winsome as his own mistress Angela’s ankles, and mistress Fiona’s feet as a whole were much more petite than his beloved mistress’s.

For all that, however, they were still easy on the footslave-eye – especially as they were ordinarily hidden away inside heavy, buckled and zipped-up, black leather biker-boots. This was something of a revelation and a treat for slave Patheticus, and he made the most of it by kissing not just the rubbery, white toe of mistress Fiona’s still arrogantly outstretched shoe, but also the elasticated top of her short, white sock.

He had automatic permission from his mistress Angela to kiss sock, shoe or bare foot. She was not one of those fussy mistresses who specified which part of a woman’s foot the slave must always kiss. Mistress Angela was actually quite liberal in that regard – as were her friends.

The soft, white cotton sock felt nice on his upper lip, and slave Patheticus made straight for the top of the left sock just as soon as mistress Fiona, still ignoring him and chatting happily away to her friend and hostess, subconsciously switched feet under his kneeling nose and thereby presented her left foot for respectful greeting.

Slave Patheticus noticed that the elasticated top of mistress Fiona’s left sneaker-sock was considerably further down inside her canvas, slip-on shoe than the sock on her right foot had been, but he still found enough sock to kiss.

He remained chained up in the porch whilst the happy foursome of free people proceeded into the garden proper. It was a further 15 minutes or so before the second guest-couple arrived – mistress Cecilia and her husband, Marcus.

Mistress Cecilia was actually a medical doctor by profession, although not a very good one by all accounts. She was considered to be a bit of a ‘quack’, but it didn’t really matter much as she was a doctor in the male slave-prison. She only ever treated male slaves and it didn’t much matter, therefore, if she did a botched job.

Her husband Marcus was the prison governor and had secured Cecilia her well-paid job in the prison using forged medical certificates. They had been happily married for over 20 years now – both were in their mid forties.

Mistress Cecilia was most definitely not a ‘rocker’, and so she too, like her hostess mistress Angela, was dressed appropriately for the summer in a light, brightly-coloured, knee-length summer dress and plain, brown, flat, strappy, moses-style leather sandals. Her one concession to ‘rock’ culture was a pair of fetching, dark sun glasses.

Slave Patheticus, however, was not concerned with mistress Cecilia’s facial attire. He had always admired mistress Cecilia’s feet and legs – they were still shapely and very attractive for a woman of her age, even if she had one or two prominent varicose veins running down her shapely, white calf muscles. He kind of liked those veins however, very naughtily imagining what it would be like to have to run his tongue down the length of her veins.

Mistress Cecilia originated from South Africa and had not lost her Afrikaner accent, even after all these years living and working in the Gynarchy. Unlike her predecessor in the garden porch, mistress Fiona, she did not completely ignore the foot-kissing slave, but rather acknowledged his presence as he paid his humble homage to her brown leather moses-sandals:

‘Ha! Ha! That’s right, slave…kiss my bare toes as well as my sandals. I want to feel your dirty slave lips on my bare foot-skin!’

Slave Patheticus was only too happy to kiss mistress-doctor Cecilia’s bare, South-African toes, especially as, unlike his own mistress Angela’s bare toes, they were completely unvarnished and unpainted. They looked raw and earthy – dirty even; and he certainly detected a faint whiff of vinegary foot-odour as he lowered his slave lips to the feminine big toenail on mistress Cecilia’s outstretched right foot; vinegary foot-sweat mixed in with musty, moist sandal-leather.

Mistress-doctor Cecilia had clearly not bathed her feet today! Perhaps slave Patheticus would be ordered to wash her feet later on! The very thought excited him as he envisaged the water in the footbowl turning dirty beneath his humble eyes.

Once she was satisfied that her dirty, sweaty, bare feet had been suitably greeted by the foot-kissing slave inside their strappy, brown leather sandals, mistress Cecilia proceeded into the garden accompanied by her husband, master Marcus, whom Patheticus noted shared a Roman name with him – even if it was the name of a Roman centurion or senator, as opposed to the name of a down in the dirt, household footslave!

Mistress Angela returned to the porch a few minutes later in order to release slave Patheticus from his neck chain – albeit with a view to his beginning his period of hard labour under the hot, unrelenting sun. She instructed him to scrub clean the garden patio with his slave tongue!

It wasn’t that the patio needed scrubbing, you understand. The idea was that slave Patheticus’s nugatory sweat and toil under the baking heat, whilst the mistress and her guests relaxed on their individual sunloungers in the shade of the awning, would serve to enhance the superior, free people’s sense of relaxation. Slave Patheticus would sweat and toil for their pleasure, and would only be permitted to interrupt his back-breaking and tongue-flaying work in order to serve the guests and their hosts refreshing, cool drinks.

Not that he would be completely without liquid refreshment himself, for mistress Angela had kindly supplied him with a bucket of lukewarm water into which he could occasionally dip his dry and flaking tongue. Again, the very fact that his slave-mouth was saturated with dirty water from his bucket would only serve to make the taste of the refreshing, sweet fruit drinks all the more flavoursome in the guests’ free mouths.

And so slave Patheticus, as ever on his hands and knees, scrubbed the dirt from the soles of his masters’ and betters’ shoes and sandals off the rough paving-stones of the patio floor with his increasingly red-raw tongue, whilst they, for their part, relaxed on their comfortable sunloungers in the shade, laughing at him and mocking him:

‘Ha! Ha! Can you taste the muck from my sandals, slave?’ enquired doctor-mistress Cecilia when she observed Patheticus licking a part of the patio she had earlier been standing on.

She seemed genuinely keen to know whether or not he could distinguish between the taste of the dirt from the soles of her brown, leather moses-sandals and the dirt from the plasticky soles of her hostess’s pale blue flip flops, or indeed from the rubbery, beige soles of the other female guest’s plaid, canvas vans?

Slave Patheticus was under strict instructions always to reply to a superior mistress’s question with all due respect and humility, using humble slave-speak as appropriate. And so he gratefully interrupted his paving-stone licking to respond to doctor-mistress Cecilia’s perfectly legitimate enquiry:

‘Oh pray mistress, if it pleases you mistress Cecilia, this slave thinks that he can indeed identify the sweet taste of the mud from the leather soles of the superior mistress’s brown leather sandals, if it so pleases you mistress Cecilia, but he must confess that this is as much due to the distinctive pattern in the treads of the mistress’s sandals as it is to the actual flavour of the mud, mistress, if you would be so kind most beautiful and superior mistress Cecilia.’

Doctor-mistress Cecilia who was not, if truth be told, all that ‘beautiful’, even if she still had good-looking legs for her age, was nevertheless pleased and gratified by the footslave’s slave-speak response.

She smiled smugly to herself:

Ha! Ha! If only the prisoner-slaves in our foothole-dungeons appreciated the flavour of my shoe-mud so much, eh Marcus? Ha! Ha! Maybe then they wouldn’t go so hungry all of the time!’

Her husband Marcus lent over from his adjacent sunlounger and lovingly kissed his quack doctor-wife on the cheek:

‘Ha! Ha! You should bring your prison-uniform boots over with you next time darling; give slave Patheticus a proper taste of female prison-officer boot-mud and see how much he likes it! Ha! Ha! It may be that the humble, prison-yard mud is a bit less appetising than this posh green mud from Angela’s garden! Ha! Ha!’

The guests and their hosts all laughed:

‘Erm…excuse me!...’ exclaimed mistress Angela in a tone of fake offence. ‘My garden mud is every bit as dirty and unappetising as any prison mud! Patheticus has simply acquired a taste for dirty shoe-mud since he spends most of his day licking mud and dirt off my shoes and sandals! Ha! Ha!’

Marcus laughed and apologised to his hostess for implying that her garden mud was too good for the slave:

‘Ha! Ha! Sorry, Ange! No offence intended! I’m quite sure your garden mud tastes just as foul as our prison mud. Perhaps you should walk about in your garden one rainy day in a pair of wellies and then visit our prisoners in order to teach them how to appreciate the taste of suburban mud from the soles of a free lady’s rubber boots? Ha! Ha! What do you think?’

‘Oh I’d like that!’ exclaimed mistress Angela, clapping her pretty hands with glee. The thought of wiping the muddy soles of her bright yellow wellington boots on some gormless prisoner’s face appealed mightily to her!

Meanwhile mistress Fiona - who had at last removed her hot, leather jacket - was examining her left foot as she lay on her back on the sunlounger by twisting her canvas-sneakered foot in the air.

She tutted, drawing the attention of her ever-attentive husband, master Iqbal.

‘What’s the matter, honey?’ he enquired from his neighbouring sunlounger.

‘Oh, my left sock has slipped down inside my shoe. Tch! It feels all creased!’

Her husband laughed at his fellow-rocker wife’s petulance over such a small thing:

‘Ha! Ha! Don’t worry darling! I’m sure Angela and Peter won’t mind if we get their slave to fix it for you….Would that be okay, Pete? Would you mind if we had Patheticus straighten Fiona’s sock?’

‘Sure go ahead!’ replied master Peter, pleased to have been asked. ‘Just call him over.’

The next thing Patheticus, who had resumed his patio-licking, heard was the dominant voice of master Iqbal shouting over to him:

‘You there, the slave! Come over here this instant and straighten my wife’s sock!’

Slave Patheticus needed no further encouragement. He loved straightening young women’s socks – especially his own mistress Angela’s socks inside her zip-up ankle boots. He was missing her socks in this warm, summer weather even though he very much appreciated the sight and smell of her soft, bare feet with their scarlet-painted toenails inside pale blue flip-flops!

He crawled over to the end of the sunlounger where mistress Fiona was lying face up, and carefully pinched the elasticated top of the offending sock with the slave fingers of his left hand, whilst cradling her soft, plaid, canvas sneaker in his right hand. He then, gently, pulled up the remaining sock.

Thanks to mistress Fiona’s footsweat inside her canvas sneaker the sock slid up quite easily.

She again said nothing to him, but her husband, master Iqbal, felt the need to comment:

‘Ha! Ha! That’s right slave! Straighten my rock-chick’s sock! And make sure your dirty slave fingers don’t touch her bare skin!’

‘Yes master. As it pleases you master. This slave obeys you master.’

Patheticus had learnt, through many years of slave experience, the importance of submitting to a free man in front of his female partner. The master’s machismo must never be challenged. The master must be made to look good in front of the mistress. Otherwise the whip would surely be employed across the slave’s prone and vulnerable, sunburnt back.

Speaking of which, quack doctor-mistress Cecilia was now turning her quasi-medical attention to the state of slave Patheticus’s bare back as he straightened her friend’s sock:

‘Ha! Ha! His back looks very raw and sore, Angela! It looks burnt down to the subcutaneous tissues! Ha! Ha!’

Mistress Angela just laughed:

‘Ha! Ha! Like I care about his subcretinous tissues! Ha! Ha!’

Everyone now laughed except for Patheticus who was concentrating all his slavish attention on straightening out the tiny creases in mistress Fiona’s freshly pulled-up, white sneaker-sock, before doing the same, on his own slave-initiative, with her right sock.

‘Ha! Ha! You must be making him spend a lot of time outside toiling in the sun?’ continued the inquisitive doctor-mistress Cecilia.

Master Peter interjected at this point:

‘Not really, Cecilia – most of the time he’s inside the house cleaning Angela’s dirty shoes and socks…no, I expect he’s sunburnt because we often punish him by placing him for hours on end in our garden punishment-stocks over there.’

He pointed to the far side of the garden – currently the sunniest part – where a set of heavy-looking, wooden kneeling-stocks were secured into the ground.

Doctor-mistress Cecilia raised up her dark sunglasses to get a better look at the punishment-stocks:

‘Ha! Ha! Oh I see! Well, if he has to kneel in those with his bare back arched up towards the sunlight for any length of time that would certainly make his skin start to peel! Ha! Ha!...Darling, we should order a set of those wooden stocks for the prison!’

‘Ha! Ha! You’re not wrong, my dear!’ responded her husband, prison-governor Marcus, enthusiastically. ‘I’ll look into it first thing tomorrow!’

‘Would you like to see the stocks in action, Cecilia? ‘ enquired her hostess, mistress Angela.

‘Oh yes please, Angela!’ replied doctor-mistress Cecilia. ‘I’m always up for a bit of physical slave punishment! Ha! Ha!’

Slave Patheticus was then ordered away from mistress Fiona’s white socks and over to the wooden punishment stocks, even though had done nothing in particular to merit any punishment at that present point in time. He was to be punished purely for the entertainment and education of his mistress’s guests.

But such is the lot of a powerless and downtrodden footslave!

The fact that he had to kneel in the stocks, with his confined head hovering just a few inches off the ground, meant that he at least had a good, close-up view of the superior female feet that now surrounded him: the pale blue flip flops and scarlet-painted toenails of his mistress Angela; the plaid, canvas vans and now fully straightened, white sneaker socks of mistress Fiona; and, particularly, the pungent, unwashed, moses-sandal-shod feet of South-African doctor-mistress Cecilia, who now delighted in raising up her sweaty toes to his helpless slave nose, and pinching it in between the fleshy part of her big toe and second toe.

Any discomfort the hapless slave Patheticus experienced as a result of this foot-teasing by mistress Cecilia was soon eclipsed, however, by the bee sting slave Patheticus suddenly received on his exposed left shoulder.

How the free people all laughed at him and mocked him:

‘Ha! Ha! Even the forces of nature are determined to punish him!’ exclaimed the sneakered and besocked mistress Fiona. ‘He must be a very bad slave! Ha! Ha!’

Yes, Patheticus was indeed a very bad slave, frequently neglecting to lick-shine his mistress Angela’s boots and shoes to her complete satisfaction. Why, he had not yet even managed to clean that dust off the back of her pale blue flip flops!

Which was why he accepted his punishment in the stocks with humility and resignation, as befits a slave.

They left him in the stocks for a further 4 hours, his bare back sizzling under the hot, summer sun, whilst his masters and mistresses enjoyed their sizzling, hot barbecue.

The End