Honoured Guest of Rome
The lady Acquilina, and her 20 year old daughter Polyxena, were waiting for their honoured guest to be shown into the anteroom of their opulent villa on the outskirts of Rome – that guest being none other than the famously beautiful Nubian princess, princess Narcissa, from one of Rome
Acquilina’s husband – Caiaphas – was entertaining Narcissa’s father in another part of the villa; man’s talk – politics; war; money etc. Caiaphas had specifically asked his beloved wife and daughter to entertain the young Nubian princess whilst he dealt with the affairs of State.
19 year old Narcissa was excited. It was her first ever trip to Rome
Narcissa was escorted into the anteroom by a hunky, male slave who had introduced himself to her as ‘Priscus – your humble servant!’
Her humble servant! She liked that! The young African princess would most definitely like to have a handsome slave like Priscus as her personal body-servant. He certainly put her own personal body-servant, Patheticus – whom she had left back home with her soiled sandals in his mouth – into the shade.
Narcissa imagined a scene in her pretty, Nubian head where she first had the manly slave Priscus whip the weedy slave Patheticus at the wooden whipping post back in her father’s garden, and then whipped Priscus’s bare torso herself. The imaginary scene made her feel quite hot!
But she regained her composure just as soon as she was introduced by the hunky, Roman manservant to her hostess, the lady Acquilina, and her daughter miss Polyxena. Princess Narcissa – famed throughout the Empire for her beauty herself – was well impressed by the lady Acquilina’s fair-skinned beauty, as she was by the younger Roman lady’s naturally inherited beauty. She was equally impressed – and flattered – that the two aristocratic Roman ladies had opted to curtsey to her, as that was precisely what she had been planning to do to them!
Her father must be a more important man than she thought!
‘Princess Narcissa, welcome to our humble abode!’ said the lady Acquilina as she politely curtsied to her young, royal guest.
‘Thank you, my lady,’ responded the equally well-mannered princess Narcissa to her hostess.
‘And may I introduce you to my daughter, the lady Polyxena?’
The two girls smiled at each other and shook hands:
‘I am honoured, princess Narcissa!’ declared the fair-haired Roman girl to the black-haired, African princess.
‘Likewise, my lady. And please – just call me Narcissa!’
‘Only if you will agree to call me by my first name also – Polyxena!’
The two girls giggled, and agreed that they were about to get on together like a house on fire. The lady Acquilina beamed with undisguised pleasure. She appreciated just how important this African girl’s father was to the security of Rome ’s southern borders – even if her daughter Polyxena was blissfully unaware that by her friendly smile she had just played her part in securing Rome
The lady Acquilina suddenly clapped her hands and temporarily dismissed slave Priscus from the anteroom:
‘Priscus, fetch the household footslave. Our honoured guest’s feet must surely be hot and tired after such a long journey!’
‘At once, my lady,’ responded the big, burly slave. Both the younger women admired his tunic-covered buttocks as he turned to leave the room in order to fetch the summoned footslave.
‘I trust you will allow us the honour of having your feet washed, Narcissa?’ enquired the lady Acquilina politely of her African guest.
Princess Narcissa looked down at her feet and gently raised the hem of her plain, white robe to reveal a pair of soft, brown, African feet in flat, strappy, brown leather sandals – her toenails painted bright red (they had been humbly mouth-painted by slave Patheticus prior to his mistress’s departure some two days ago, and still looked remarkably fresh!)
The only flaws on the otherwise perfect, nubile young feet were two unsightly warts on the second and middle toes of the young African woman’s left foot. These always made her embarrassed to show her feet in public – toe-curlingly embarrassed – and the young Nubian woman felt she must apologise in advance to the two Roman ladies and their, as yet unseen, footslave for the ignoble state of her royal, African feet:
‘I fear your slave may be repulsed by my feet, my lady, as you can see they are somewhat deformed!’
The lady Acquilina is quick to reassure her young African guest:
‘Nonsense, Narcissa my darling! Your feet look beautiful – and I can assure you our footslave Felix will be most enamoured by them, isn’t that right Polyxena?’
‘Oh yes, Mater! In fact, Narcissa, he will positively enjoy attending to those warts on your feet. Our footslave Felix is such a queer fellow – I’ll swear he even relishes the imperfections in his masters’ and betters’ feet! You must make him lick your toes clean with his mouth! I’m sure his stupid, slave tongue will help to soothe your foot-warts most efficaciously!’
The two young women giggle, and the atmosphere is once again relaxed.
The trio of upper-class ladies move into the villa’s opulent drawing room and take up their respective seats on the various loungers. Idle, womanly small-talk is now the order of the day until the manly slave Priscus returns with a much more scrawny and weaselly, male footslave in tow!
Priscus is also carrying a bowl of fresh water and a towel, which he lays out on the floor next to the base of the lounger on which princess Narcissa is now languorously reclined:
‘Ha! Ha! So this must be slave Felix – the wart-licker you were telling me about, Polyxena?’ enquires princess Narcissa of the younger of her two hosts, as the aforementioned, weak and feeble-looking footwart-licker is manhandled unceremoniously towards her outstretched, brown-leather-sandaled feet by the strong and handsome slave Priscus.
‘Ha! Ha! Yes that’s right Narcissa! This is indeed our humble household-footslave, slave Felix. Please feel free to make him lick your foot-warts soft and clean! Ha! Ha! He’ll love it, Narcissa! He’s such a pathetic excuse for a manservant! Ha! Ha!’
All three ladies, and slave Priscus, laugh out loud, the latter with some degree of relief because he knows he is not the one who will be required to lick the rich African girl’s unfortunate foot-deformities, though he would quite like to get his tongue on the rest of her shapely, Nubian body!
Princess Narcissa regally sweeps her sandaled, African feet down onto the floor alongside the bowl of water, and directly below the kneeling footslave’s face.
If there’s one thing Narcissa does know how to do – it’s how to give orders to a slave:
‘You, the footslave, take off my sandals and wash my dirty feet. Place my feet in the bowl of water and lather between my toes with your slave-tongue. Make sure you pay particular attention to the warts on my left foot. I want them softened and pleasured, do I make myself clear slave?’
‘Yes, most honoured princess-mistress guest. At once most honoured princess!’
‘I must say, you speak very good Latin, my dear,’ remarks the lady Acquilina to her African guest as slave Felix starts to fumble with the latter’s dusty, brown leather sandals. He is nervous, and really is all fingers and thumbs, even though removing ladies’ sandals is a regular part of his daily routine. It’s just that he hasn’t had to remove the sandals of a Nubian princess before, and especially not under the ever-beady eyes of his own cruel mistress and her equally spiteful daughter!
But, thankfully, the honoured guest is not wearing sandals which lace all the way up the young woman’s lower calf muscles – like the lady Polyxena’s Gladiatrix-sandals – and so the flat, strappy, African-girl sandals are actually quite easy to slip off the Nubian princess’s feet.
He has spotted the warts, of course, and, pathetically – just as the lady Polyxena had predicted – he can’t wait to get his dirty slave mouth around them. The lady Polyxena was, as always, very astute – slave Felix, the household footslave, does like sweet feminine foot-deformities; very much so – for they brighten up his otherwise dull and monotonous existence. That’s why he likes the lady Acquilina’s dry and chapped, middle-aged heels so much; and her daughter Polyxena’s tiny, black foot moles – two of them, located on her shapely, right instep. He kisses those two tiny moles 10 times each, every morning, as he awakens the young mistress from her slumbers. And he is not being in any way disrespectful; the young mistress Polyxena has specifically ordered him to do so!
But now he is about to feel an otherwise perfect, young African woman’s unsightly verrucae on the roof of his mouth and the surface of his tongue, as he uses his unworthy oral organ to lather the Nubian princess’s bare, brown feet inside the bowl of fresh, lukewarm foot-water.
When he gets down to it, her feet taste wonderfully smooth – apart from the knobbly warts; but it’s fair to say that footslave Felix still very much admires the superior, young black woman’s feet now dominating his oral orifice – warts and all!
He is conveniently ignored by the superior women above him as he humbly attends to the African guest’s feet – but slave-overseer Priscus is keeping a close eye on him from the corner of the room, ready to whip the inferior footslave at the click of a Roman lady’s fingers!
Disappointingly for Priscus, slave Felix does a good job on princess Narcissa’s feet. He must have done – for she does not criticise his humble work after he dries her feet and fastens her brown leather sandals back onto them.
The subject of the superior ladies’ drawing-room conversation has now, however, turned to slaves and slavery:
‘Do you have slaves in your homeland, Narcissa?’ enquires the lady Polyxena in all innocence.
Well, for all she knows there might be some strange, far-flung corners of the Empire without slaves – the places were slaves are first captured and enslaved, for example!
‘Oh yes, Polyxena!’ exclaims Narcissa. ‘We have lots of slaves – and I have my own personal footslave back home; and a personal body-slave; and a personal work-slave!’
‘Ha! Ha! We have lots of work-slaves too, Narcissa! Would you like to see them in action in our salt-mines? If we’re very lucky you might even get to see one of them being flogged for poor performance!’
‘Oh, yes please, Polyxena! I’d like to watch your slaves working hard under the lash very much! Ha! Ha! I just love watching our own slaves all sweaty and hard at work on my father’s plantations under the hot, African sun!’ replies the Nubian princess – her own lazy and pampered, royal feet freshly licked and washed of sweat thanks to the efforts of the now superfluous footslave, slave Felix.
‘Mater, please can I take Narcissa down to Pater’s salt-mines to watch the slaves at toil? Oh please say yes! It’ll be such fun!’
‘Ha! Ha! Very well, dear. I’m sure your father won’t mind. But take Priscus with you, and make sure you’re back in time for our evening meal. Your father will be expecting you there – along with our honoured guest Narcissa, of course!’
‘Oh yes, Mater. We’ll be back in plenty of time for dinner! Narcissa – come with me!’ and with that Polyxena stretches out her pretty hand and leads her new, best friend Narcissa out towards the family chariot, a chariot which will be ably driven upfront by the hunky slave Priscus – after he has put the underling slave Felix back in his cage!
………………………………………………………………………
The journey to the Caiaphas family salt-mines only takes some thirty minutes by chariot – at least it does as driven by slave Priscus who does not spare the horses the whip! But then, he never spares his fellow household slaves the whip either. He just loves to whip.
It is a typically baking hot summer’s day in Ancient Rome, and the sun is at its zenith in the sky. But, in spite of the suffocating heat, as they pull into the salt-mines, all around them the two, young, privileged ladies can hear nothing but the sounds of hard, manual labour – the sounds of jagged rocks being broken; of male arm and back muscles straining at the sinews; the accompanying groans of exhausted, maleslave toil; and the sharp cracks of the overseers’ back-breaking whips!
‘Ha! Ha! Look Narcissa – over there!’ exclaims the young lady Polyxena as the chariot comes to a halt. ‘Look at that beardy old man having to carry that heavy rock! Ha! Ha! Look, his back is all wrinkly and whipped! Can you see? Ha! Ha!’
Narcissa can see:
‘Ha! Ha! Yes, Polyxena. I see him! Ha! Ha! He looks old enough to be our grandfather! Ha! Ha!’
‘Oh Priscus, be a darling and bring him over here, would you please?’ pouts the young lady Polyxena. ‘Narcissa and I wish to mock him and make fun of him!’
‘Very well, my lady,’ responds Priscus, winking cheekily at the pretty African princess standing next to his own, blonde-haired mistress in the chariot.
Has that arrogant slave no respect for his betters?
He certainly has no respect for his fellow-slaves, as he jumps out of the chariot and roughly pulls the old, decrepit work-slave over on his hands and knees by the earlobe towards the feet of his two, young, female charges:
‘Ha! Ha! Kiss our feet, old man!’ barks the lady Polyxena, hitching up the hem of her white and gold-embroidered, ankle-length stola as she imperiously thrusts her right, lattice-sandaled foot out of the chariot and in front of the kneeling work-slave’s face:
‘Yes my lady. At once my lady,’ responds the elderly slave, just grateful to have some respite, however ignominious, from his unrelenting toil.
Polyxena giggles as the old man’s wrinkly and parched lips touch her bare, white, high-class, pink-pedicured toes:
‘Ha! Ha! His beard is tickling my toes! Who is he, Priscus? What’s his name?’ enquires the lady Polyxena as to her father’s elderly property.
‘Erm, I’m not sure miss…I mean, I’m not sure the work-slaves have any names!’
‘Ha! Ha! Don’t be foolish, Priscus!’ declares miss Polyxena as she deftly switches her Roman-sandaled feet below the kneeling work-slave’s face. ‘Everyone has a name – even slaves like you!’
Slave Priscus looks offended. He’s so full of himself he actually doesn’t think of himself as a common slave:
‘Yes miss, of course young mistress, but what I mean is your father’s work-slaves are little more than numbers. Can you see that number branded onto his thigh – number 673C? I think that must be his name! Ha! Ha!’
No. 673C did have a proper name, actually. It was Britannicus! But nobody had called him that in over 40 years of enslavement here in the salt-mines. So even he had forgotten it!
‘Ha! Ha! Very well, Priscus. I understand… You down there at my feet, no. 673C or whatever your stupid name is! Kiss my honoured guest’s feet now, and make sure you attend to both her foot-warts as well! Ha! Ha!’
Narcissa, for once, was glad to have deformed feet – for making an exhausted and sweaty, old slaveman like this kiss and lick them in public was enormously satisfying to her young-womanly ego. How everyone laughs at the pathetic, old man on his knees in the dirt – all the whip-carrying overseers; the charioteer, Priscus; her friend Polyxena; even some of the other work-slaves, though their laughter is obviously a jealous laughter! Narcissa cocks her pretty African head to one side to get a better view of his wrinkly old lips on her ugly foot-warts.
Miss Polyxena, meanwhile, is impressed at the old work-slave’s total compliance and submissiveness to her orders:
‘Ha! Ha! You kiss feet quite well, slave no. 673C, though your beard is somewhat ticklish! How long have you been working in my father’s salt-mines, grey old man?’ enquires the ever curious miss Polyxena of the old, worn-out slave as he pays humble homage to her new best friend’s foot-aberrations.
‘Oh pray my lady…suck…lick… if it pleases you my lady…suck…lick… this slave has been labouring in these mines all his adult life…suck…lick… some forty years or so, miss…suck…lick…if it pleases you most respected mistresses… suck…lick.’
The lady Polyxena gasps in shocked delight. Forty years! Forty years! That’s twice as long as she has been alive!
She laughs. She could have him freed, of course, as a reward for being such an obedient and diligent foot-kisser of young women. Her beloved Pater could never deny her any of her requests. But she decided not to; instead she ordered Priscus to put him back to work. After all – time is money; and she and her family rely on the incessant toil of these dirty work-slaves to keep them in the opulent manner to which they are accustomed.
On the way back to the villa Polyxena remarked to Priscus on the sheer length of the old man’s servitude in the mines:
‘Ha! Ha! Just think, Priscus – forty years labouring in the salt-mines under the sting of the whip! How would you like that? Would you like me to enquire of my father if there is a vacancy in our mines for you?’
Priscus – keen not to give his capricious, young, blonde mistress any ideas which might adversely affect his relatively comfortable position as the senior household slave – decided to respond to her teasing question with a joke:
‘I suppose you could say that the old slave no. 673C is your family’s honoured guest, my lady! Ha! Ha!’
The two girls turn to each other in the chariot and burst out laughing at Priscus’s witty remark. Neither of them would really wish to consign him to forty years in the salt-mines – he was just too damn hot! And clever with it!
As for the weedy footslave Felix…well, that’s another matter!
The End
