Prison-Galley Taskmistresses

We are all being punished.

The prison-galley is not a real galley-ship, and it does not go anywhere. It is a gloomy mock-up. But our slavery is depressingly real. Like the galley-slaves of old we are chained to our heavy, wooden oars, and forced to row for 18 hours a day, all under the supervision of our harsh, prison-galley taskmistresses.

Still, at least our taskmistresses deck the galley with bells of holly, brightly coloured baubles and sparkly tinsel at Christmas time – they aren’t completely heartless!

There are 20 of us on the galley – all prisoner-slaves who have been sentenced to life at the oar. We each have our own heavy oar to pull, and are arranged in two, straight rows on either side of a raised, wooden gangway along which our beautiful, but stern, taskmistresses patrol in two hour shifts – armed with their long, single-tailed, black leather, punishment whips.

I am officially known as galley-slave no.15, for I am situated near the back on the left hand side of the galley as you look forwards. We are all officially known by our numbers, as we have lost the right to our slave names, thanks to our heinous crimes against femininity.

My crime was to runaway from my mistress. I was young; impulsive; stupid. Now I am paying for my crime – and heavily so.

Many would say rightly so.

We galley-slave prisoners do have our own ‘unofficial’ slave-nicknames for each other, however. Talking amongst the prisoners is strictly prohibited during work hours, but when the last taskmistress has gone home for the night, and we are locked in our galley - still chained to our oars which now must double as our wooden pillows for the night - we can chat amongst ourselves before we collapse into a stupor of physical and mental exhaustion and try to get at least a few hours’ sleep before the early-morning taskmistress arrives for the first shift of the new day at 06.00 A.M!

I have been christened ‘Patheticus’ by my fellow galley-slaves – because I am a pathetic wimp. Directly in front of me is ‘Pigface’ – no. 13 to give him his official name. I have no idea why he is called ‘Pigface’, as I have never seen his face. Of course I haven’t, for he is permanently chained up to his oar with his back towards me, unable to turn around. And like me – like all of us – he is going nowhere; not until he dies.

I can only assume he is called ‘Pigface’ because he looks like a pig from the front.

Directly behind me is no. 17 – ‘Crawler’, or ‘Creepy Crawler’ as some of us prefer to call him. That’s because he is forever sucking up to the taskmistresses – all in an effort to avoid the stinging cut of the whip. I have to admit he is quite successful in his grovelling and fawning, for I rarely hear the crack of the female whip descending on his bare back behind me. Perhaps we other galley-slaves are just a little bit jealous of him, but I do genuinely think he is also a bit creepy.

I personally wouldn’t trust him with a barge pole, let alone a heavy, wooden oar. You have to watch your back where Creepy Crawler is concerned, although, unfortunately for me, of course, I can’t. Creepy Crawler has to watch my back for me – watch it being whipped by the taskmistresses. I know he enjoys looking at my stripes.

On the other side of the raised wooden gangway are the even numbers of slaves – numbers 2 to 20. My main contact on the other side of the gangway is ‘Soreback’ – who sits beside me at position no 16. You will have guessed why he is called Soreback – he is always being whipped. Not because he is lazy, but because he is weak. I can’t see him lasting much longer in this place – though he has, admittedly, been here longer than me.

I was condemned to be a prison galley-slave eleven long years ago. Unfortunately I anticipate living for another 40 years or so – I am still only 33. Poor Soreback must be in his late fifties by now, and the oar weighs heavily on his spindly, old-man arms.

Our beautiful, young taskmistresses have no such problems with weak arms. They are all fit and attractive young women in their prime – in their twenties or thirties – and each taskmistress works only a two hour shift each day. They aren’t expected to work more than two hours per day, so demanding is their supervisory role.

It is truly a skilled job – being a prison-galley taskmistress. Knowing just how hard you can push a man; just how much you can whip him in order to instill the maximum physical effort out of him, before the effect of the whipping becomes counterproductive and actually weakens him to the point where he can no longer row.

Then the smelling salts have to be brought out in order to revive him – a bit of an ‘own goal’ for the prison-galley authorities since, in such circumstances, we all have to stop rowing for a few minutes whilst the faintee receives his medication. That’s why our highly-skilled taskmistresses have to complete a three week training course in the effective use of the female whip before they can begin working on the galley. They need to learn how to control their natural, young-womanly urge to whip a male slave!

And, generally speaking, they do learn to control those natural instincts, which is why the sight of even a weak and feeble prison galley-slave like Soreback actually passing out under the sting of the female lash is such a rare event.

You really do have to admire our beautiful, young taskmistresses, and their skill and dexterity with the whip!

We prisoner-slaves, on the other hand, have to be despised. Unlike the taskmistresses, we are obliged to work 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We have no choice. The Female Courts have sentenced us to perpetual rowing at the oar for the rest of our unnatural lives.

Our long working day begins, as I have already indicated, at 06:00 A.M. every morning. The first, two-hour shift will most likely be run by either senior taskmistress Jelena or taskmistress Zhen-Zi. They both seem to like working earlies – in fact I cannot ever recall seeing miss Zhen-Zi on an afternoon or evening shift. Which is a shame, really, for I would very much like to imagine her walking up and down the raised gangway with hot and sweaty feet inside her ubiquitous, stylish, black leather ankle boots – as opposed to the presumably freshly showered feet she has inside her boots early in the morning.

You will soon come to realise that we are all – to a slave – obsessed by our pretty taskmistresses’ feet and footwear; hardly surprising when you consider that we are each seated at an oar in long, narrow, recesses running along either side of the raised, wooden gangway along which the taskmistresses patrol with their whips, meaning that our gormless, prisoner-slave faces are practically at the same level as our taskmistresses’ feet.

That, incidentally, is why their leather whips are so long, so that the tail end of the whip can make sharp and stinging contact with our bare shoulder blades without the mistress having to stoop down.

Which, again, is a bit of a shame really, because if the beautiful taskmistress did have to stoop down it might cause the hems of her trouser-legs to ride up slightly and thereby reveal more of her socks to us inside her pretty shoes or ankle boots!

There is no uniform for the taskmistresses to wear as such. They are all civilian women who do this socially useful, prisoner-punishment work on a part- time, voluntary basis. So they can wear whatever they like whilst they are supervising us and goading us.

Most, however, choose to wear trousers or slacks of some description. It is relatively rare for a taskmistress to wear a skirt or a dress. I suspect they worry about giving us galley-slaves a cheap, ‘upskirt’ thrill as they walk along the gangway above us, although the irony is that most, if not all, of the galley-slaves are by now conditioned to getting our ‘thrills’ out of the pretty ladies’ feet and footwear. It is the only part of their bodies we can realistically look at, chained up as we are in the bowels of the ‘ship’ at foot level. So we have all to a slave developed a fetish for female feet however ‘macho’ and conventional our tastes may have been prior to our demeaning imprisonment!

Hence our collective fascination for our taskmistresses’ footwear, and particularly those sudden, furtive glimpses of their inner footwear – their stockings, tights and socks. A taskmistress’s hosiery will often be the talk of the galley at the end of each day, particularly if she is spotted wearing a new or exotic pair of tights or socks that she has not been observed in before!

Pathetic, I know, but you must understand that we prison-galley slaves have nothing else to look forward to or up to – other than our taskmistresses socks!

Taskmistress no. 1 – Mistress Jelena; firm but fair.

The wooden hatch at the back of the galley creeks open and we hear the first taskmistress of the day climbing down the wooden staircase – down to our level. The taskmistress is initially behind us but we can all tell who it is just from the sound of her footsteps. So attuned are we to our mistresses’ gaits, we can tell by the sound of their footsteps alone who it is - and this, undoubtedly, is senior taskmistress Jelena.

My suspicions are confirmed as mistress Jelena walks past me down the raised gangway towards the front of the ‘ship’, trailing her single-tailed, black leather whip behind her. Some taskmistresses like to do this as they enter the galley – to trail their whips along the dusty, wooden gangway. I think they feel that the mere sight of the stinging business-end of the whip trailing along the ground is a salutary reminder of what awaits us if we slack.

Other mistresses prefer to keep their whips coiled up and ready for action, but may dangle them over our bare shoulders by way of a warning. It’s amazing how even the feel of a cold, leather whip at rest on one’s prone and vulnerable shoulder-blade can instill greater effort in a tired and flagging galley-slave!

I get the impression that all of our taskmistresses truly love their whips. They each have their own, supplied by the Female State, but which they keep at home. Some must spend hours oiling them and keeping them in tip-top condition, for their whips seem to wrap effortlessly around one’s entire, maleslave torso when applied to the upper back or ribcage.

Other taskmistresses, however, like senior taskmistress Jelena, seem to be less fastidious about the condition of their whips. In fact, mistress Jelena’s whip is quite frayed at the end through many years’ of judicious use – not that that makes for any less of a sting! Indeed, it probably makes the smart even worse as each individual, frayed leather strand bites agonizingly into the male flesh!

Yes, frayed or not – we all deeply respect senior taskmistress Jelena, and her whip. She inspires obedience, without being one of those taskmistresses whom we prisoner-slaves sometimes refer to as ‘psychos’ - those who seem to whip for whipping’s sake, and to whom the whip is the be all and end all of their job.

Experienced mistress Jelena is definitely not a ‘psycho’. They tend to be the younger, less experienced taskmistresses, still struggling to control their natural, female-dominant urges.

No, we all respect mistress Jelena precisely because she is a bit older than some of the other girls – mid thirties I would say. She has worked for many years on the prison galley, hence her rank of ‘senior’ taskmistress. She is quite tall in stature, but slim; a blonde, with her hair tied neatly back in a ponytail; possibly East European in her ethnicity, judging by her name. But above all she is a superior, young woman who is firm, but fair. She will whip – but only when it is truly called for; only if a prisoner-slave is genuinely slacking.

I don’t anticipate, therefore, that there will be much cracking of the whip during this first two hour stint under senior taskmistress Jelena’s supervision – partly because of our collective, genuine respect for mistress Jelena and our consequent desire to serve her well; and partly because we are all feeling relatively refreshed and strong after our 4 hours’ or so of sleep whilst chained to our oars, and thanks to the early-morning meal of tasteless slave-gruel which we were kindly fed just over an hour ago by miss Debbie – one of the taskmistress-assistants.

Senior taskmistress Jelena turns round at the top of the gangway to face us all. She simultaneously furls up her frayed whip. It has done its job for now – the job of fraying our nerves by reminding us of its length and girth!

As per usual, senior taskmistress Jelena is casually dressed in a white, frilly blouse, a navy blue ‘bomber-style’ jacket, and dark, navy-blue slacks with low-heeled, round-toed, black leather, slip-on shoes. In keeping with her black leather whip, her black leather shoes are looking somewhat unkempt. But, secretly, we galley slaves quite like that. For we shall now each get to kiss one of those scruffy shoes.

It is traditional for a prison-galley taskmistress to walk back down the raised gangway at the start of her shift, and to present one foot for kissing to each of the prisoner-slaves seated on either side of the walkway. Those of us seated on the right as she faces us (the ‘odd’ numbers) will, of course, be required to respectfully kiss her right foot. Those on the left of the gangway as she faces us – her left foot.

Taskmistress Jelena is a great believer in this tradition, and sure enough she soon begins her walk of female power down the raised gangway. Her right shoe is kissed by 7 pairs of eager lips (belonging to galley-slaves nos. 1,3,5,7,9,11 & 13) before she gets to me. She stops only briefly in front of each chained prisoner, and superciliously extends her foot forward onto the edge of the wooden gangway directly beside our faces.

I have the honour of kissing her right shoe just before she extends her left shoe towards my comrade slave Soreback – no. 16 – seated on the other side of the gangway to my right.

I always like to make the most of kissing my taskmistresses’ feet – as it is the only contact I now have with the opposite sex. As my lips respectfully touch the rather scuff-marked and dirty, rounded toe-area of mistress Jelena’s flat, black leather shoe, I am delighted to note that she is wearing socks today – what appear to be plain, dark grey, towelling socks.

It is a rather ropey-looking sock, it has to be said, but a pleasure to observe nonetheless, for mistress Jelena does not always wear socks on her pretty, East European feet. She is a ‘seasonal socks’ girl – wearing socks purely to help keep her feet warm and comfortable during the cold, winter months, such as now. The rest of the year she tends to go barefoot inside her shoes – often the very same pair of shoes that she has on now – but shoes without socks.

Unlike some mistresses who seem to wear socks all year round – the so-called ‘natural socks’ girls.

It’s entirely the mistress’s choice, of course. But we galley slaves all like a bit of pretty sock. Why wouldn’t we? They brighten up and adorn a superior lady’s feet – and no two pairs of feminine socks are ever exactly the same, for they are impacted by the wearer; by her personal foot-shape and foot-biology.

I’ll bet, for example, that if I had the time I could observe lots of little, individualistic creases and folds in blonde mistress Jelena’s ropey, dark grey, ankle-length sock, formed by the shape of her pretty, right foot. And if she were to be kind enough to slip off her shoe, I’ll bet I could spot lots of tiny, little imperfections in the grey towelling-sock stitches, such as loose or hanging stitches, and whole areas where the sock is wearing away and thinning through repeated wash and wear; I would also, no doubt, be able to observe and study little pieces of fluff and other detritus attached to the sock. For the more you focus on a young woman’s sock – the more there is to see and admire.

But all this is just a pipe dream on my part – the prison-galley taskmistresses never take off their shoes and allow us prisoners to study their socks. Why would they? We have hard labour to perform, and they have harsh whips to crack!

Senior taskmistress Jelena is no exception. No sooner has my mouth left her shoe, and her sock registered in my consciousness, than she has moved on to the next prisoner behind me.

I wonder if Soreback got a good view of her left sock?

I can hear the slave behind me, Creepy Crawler, giving his usual creepy kiss to the shoe I have just kissed. He always makes a point of kissing the taskmistresses’ shoes in an audible fashion, by way of demonstrating his complete and utter humility and submission towards his female betters. Momentarily, I am jealous that he is now seeing that grey, ropey girlsock which is no longer in my field of vision.

At least I always get to kiss the taskmistresses’ shoes and observe their socks first! Ha! Ha! Creepy Crawler only ever gets my sloppy seconds!

Her East European feet having been duly worshipped by the 20 prisoner-slaves on the galley, mistress Jelena slowly begins her journey back down to the front of the raised gangway.

It is another ‘tradition’ that each taskmistress will spell out her expectations and requirements of her prisoner-employees at the start of her shift – so that we all know exactly where we stand.

Or rather where we sit. In chains.

Mistress Jelena speaks clearly and concisely, with just a hint of a residual East European accent:

‘I hope you are all feeling rested, slaves, for you have got the long, hard day ahead of you!’

‘Yes thank you, taskmistress Jelena. God bless you taskmistress Jelena. We slaves are determined to work hard for you, and for all our beautiful taskmistresses today, if you would be so kind taskmistress Jelena.’

You can guess who that was speaking, can’t you? That’s right – Creepy Crawler, seated directly behind me.

I really don’t know how he gets away with it! Any other galley-slave would be whipped instantly for speaking out of turn like that. A taskmistress’s opening speech should be listened to in respectful silence! And besides, he should be savouring the lingering taste of mistress Jelena’s scruffy shoe-leather on his lips – like I am. Like the rest of us all are!

But no – Creepy Crawler just has to fawn and grovel out loud.

Having said that, he has spoken for us all. We are all thinking exactly what he is saying!

‘Good! I’m glad to hear it no.17. I want to see you all sweat like the pigs this morning. The oars are set to the ‘severe’, so you will all have to pull especially hard on them today. There will be no room for the slackers. Anyone who slacks shall be whipped! Is that clear, galley-slaves?’

‘Yes, mistress Jelena’, we all now chant in unison – all apart from Creepy Crawler who, of course, has to add his own words:

‘Most certainly, mistress Jelena. Thank you for warning us. This slave will not let you down, most beautiful and respected mistress Jelena.’

Again, he has the uncanny knack of saying out loud what we are all feeling inside! I hate him! I hope he does get whipped!

I’m ashamed to say, however, that a part of me equally hopes that the slave directly in front of me, no. 13 or ‘Pigface’ as he is known, will also require to be whipped at some point by mistress Jelena this morning, for then I would doubtless get a better view of the backs of mistress Jelena’s grey towelling socks beneath the hems of her navy-blue slacks as she stands in front of me applying her whip with gusto to his naked back.

I know it’s a cruel and selfish thought on my part, but we slaves all wish punishment on our nearby comrades-in-oars from time to time. I can absolutely 100% guarantee you, for instance, that Creepy Crawler loves to watch me being whipped – and not just because he will get a close-up and personal view of the taskmistress’s footwear whilst she is whipping me; he actually enjoys watching my pain and suffering!

But whilst I would never wish pain on the oarsman in front of me, I most definitely would enjoy the sight of mistress Jelena’s socks and shoes standing on the raised platform next to my face whilst she disciplined him. The flared hems of her navy-blue slacks would swing in the air with each stroke as she raised herself up on tiptoe in order to bring the whip crashing down with maximum impact, and the sound of the whip cutting into my pigfaced-comrade’s back would be accompanied by the stirring sight of the backs of mistress Jelena’s towelling socks beneath her slacks.

Sock-revealing movement beneath mistress Jelena’s slacks as she punishes a galley-slave slacker. There’s a certain perverse, poetic justice in that somewhere, isn’t there?

But I’m probably going to be disappointed. Slave Pigface is quite a strong slave – younger than me. He rarely gets whipped – except by the ‘psycho-mistresses’ who see him as something of a challenge to their young-feminine power and authority! The firm but fair mistress Jelena is not likely to whip him – not if he pulls his weight which, at this time of the morning, he undoubtedly will!

Mistress Jelena continues with her instructions to staff:

‘You will all begin on count of three …one… two…three!’

She uncoils her frayed, leather whip again, and cracks it threateningly in the stale prison-galley air.

With a collective groan of physical effort we start to pull on our heavy, wooden oars.

The oars feel extra stiff this morning. That’s because, as mistress Jelena has so gleefully informed us, they are set to ‘severe’. The taskmistresses can ready the oars to one of four settings:

‘light’; ‘moderate’; ‘severe’; or ‘burdensome’.

‘Light’ and ‘burdensome’ are rarely used. If the oars are set to ‘light’ they could almost be pushed with just one hand. In my humble experience they are only ever set to ‘light’ when we have a visiting female dignitary. It helps the taskmistresses to look good in such circumstances as we slaves appear to be rowing efficiently with all our might! (we may even be ordered beforehand to help the illusion at such times by grunting and moaning as if we really are straining to move the oars!).

Conversely, the oars are only ever set to ’burdensome’ by way of a collective punishment. I’ve experienced ‘burdensome’ a few times, and, believe you me, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy – not even on Creepy Crawler! It is absolutely backbreaking. You can’t even see your taskmistresses’ feet for the sweat rolling off your forehead and down your face!

Most of the time therefore, the oars are set to either ‘moderate’ or ‘severe’ – depending on the mood of the taskmistress on duty – although it is often the early-morning taskmistress who sets the pace. I think the subsequent taskmistresses just can’t be bothered readjusting the oar settings – certainly not downwards!

Mistress Jelena must therefore be in a bad mood today, for she normally sets the oars to ‘moderate’. Perhaps it is her time of the month.

Be that as it may, she is, of course, perfectly within her rights to change the setting to ‘severe’ – we are, after all, male prisoners undergoing punishment.

And it is a punishment – having to pull on a heavy, wooden oar for 18 hours a day – stopping only for short breaks to kiss the taskmistresses’ feet at the start of their respective, two-hour shifts. And remember, there must be no talking amongst the slaves whilst we row. Not even Creepy is permitted to talk during the rowing. We must conserve our breath and our energy for our nugatory hard labour.

After the first few, strenuous pulls the heavy oars seem to get easier. Getting started is always the hardest part – the time when a prisoner-slave is most likely to require the encouragement of the whip. Mistress Jelena, the taskmistress of many years’ experience, of course knows that, and she patrols along the raised walkway, whip ready to strike, as she watches the rippling muscles in each and every one of our male backs looking for signs of muscle strain and bulging veins.

The lack of any such signs of physical distress are likely to lead to the whip being deployed.

Better to have bulging, red veins than fresh, red stripes on your bare shoulder blades, I say!

However, I don’t really need the stimulus of the whip! The merest glimpse of taskmistress Jelena’s girly, grey socks inside her scuff-marked, black leather shoes as she slowly walks past me is more than enough to spur me on to ever greater efforts. For I want to please those East European socks and shoes, and be a good galley-slave for them.

I sense mistress Jelena looking disparagingly down at my rippling shoulder blades as I look admiringly sideways at her sweet socks. She patrols constantly up and down the raised gangway throughout her two hour shift, for mistress Jelena is nothing if not a conscientious taskmistress!

I’m disappointed to have to say, however, that mistress Jelena ends up finishing her two hour shift without having to whip anybody. I’m pleased for my own back of course, but a part of me still wishes that Pigface would have fallen foul of mistress Jelena’s whip, just so that I could admire the backs of the female whipper’s black, low-heeled, slip on shoes and thick, grey towelling socks!

But blonde-ponytailed mistress Jelena has made us all work hard by the sheer force of her feminine personality alone. What a tribute to her maturity and female mastery over us!

Next up, however, is one of the ‘psychos’ I was telling you about earlier – mistress Zhen-Zi.

Taskmistress no. 2 – Mistress Zhen-Zi (psycho-mistress no. 1)

Miss Zhen-Zi is a stunningly attractive and petite Asian girl of Chinese origins – early twenties – and she likes to wear black to match her jet-black, bob-cut hair: a black, pinstriped trouser suit with bootcut trouser hems; and a pair of stylish, black leather, pointy-toed, spike-heeled, zip-up ankle boots which enhance the beauty of her petite, oriental feet. We galley-slave prisoners always assume that she also wears black socks inside her boots – for miss Zhen-Zi not only has a penchant for black clothing; she has a black heart.

I don’t mean that to sound too disparaging. In fact, it could be construed as a compliment. For she is a very good taskmistress, thanks to the dark side of her nature. Miss Zhen-Zi is clearly convinced that we prisoner-slaves are all naturally lazy – being male – and she simply will not have slacking on her shift! She loves to whip; she whips to cut; she cuts to hurt; and she hurts to hasten us into making ever greater efforts on our oars. You can’t really criticise her for being handy with a whip and good at her job!

She is a beautiful, young lady of few words; partly, I suspect, because she is a recently arrived immigrant from somewhere in rural China, and her English is still rather poor; partly because she lets her whip do the talking for her; and partly because that’s just the way she is. Morose; sullen; stuck-up; superior.

Needless to say we all fear miss Zhen-Zi, and her whip – very much so; but unlike with senior taskmistress Jelena it is not a fear borne of respect so much as a fear of what she might be capable of doing to each of us with her poisonous whip. Even Creepy Crawler dare not speak back to her, other than to beg her for sweet, feminine mercy as her whip cuts through his shoulderblades.

We may all be quite wrong about mistress Zhen-Zi, of course. She may not have a black heart at all – just a dominant one. And equally she may not be wearing black socks inside her sexy, modern, black, zip-up ankle boots. Maybe she has a bright, fun side to her character which she likes to keep hidden from us prisoners, but which is reflected in brightly-coloured, fun-themed, cartoon socks hidden deep inside her feminine boots?

The point is though, that we shall like as not never know – for mistress Zhen-Zi is not a girl to show sock. She likes to keep us all guessing – and she is, of course, perfectly within her young-womanly rights to do so!

As she takes over the reins of power from her more experienced and slow-to-whip predecessor, mistress Jelena, an atmosphere of acute nervous tension pervades the galley. We all make the most of the two taskmistresses’ brief changeover time to catch our breath. For the female whip shall most definitely be cracking across bare, male flesh during this next two hours.

Mistress Zhen-Zi likes to keep her whip coiled up as she makes her way down the gangway having her pointy-toed, ankleboots ritualistically kissed in sequence at the start of her shift. I always love the way she is in the habit of twisting her pretty, ankle-booted foot to one side when she presents it to you for kissing. She clearly likes to have the instep of her boot kissed – rather than the toe area itself – perhaps because the toe areas on her stylish boots are just so pointy; she doesn’t want to afford us the luxury and the thrill of effectively having to suck on her sweet, feminine boot-toes. Her oriental feet are so small I am sure her boot-toe would fit comfortably into even the smallest man’s mouth!

And that just wouldn’t do! It is not the role of a taskmistress to provide any form of comfort to her charges. We are, after all, as I keep having to remind myself, convicted criminals undergoing punishment in her dark and mysterious, oriental eyes. We are not ordinary footslaves who are being given the privilege of serving properly her oriental feet and footwear – much as we all would like to be!

Miss Zhen-Zi’s introductory speech is, necessarily given her limited command of English, rather like her – short but sweet:

‘Slaves pull hard on oars. Slaves not pull hard – get whip! Slaves begin!’

Unlike mistress Jelena before her, miss Zhen-Zi has no need to crack the whip in the air in order to make us start rowing; her sharp, Chinese voice is like a whipcrack all of its own.

And her spike-heeled boots clip-clop along the wooden gangway as she begins her supervisory floor-walking.

Less than a minute into her session, however, and miss Zhen-Zi has already seen fit to paint the bare back of prisoner no.12 with her female whip. I can see a long, thin stripe developing across his sweaty, right shoulder blade on the other side of the gangway a couple of rows in front of me.

He wails in pain – which is why, incidentally, we have all given him the slave-nickname of ‘Screecher’. He never takes the whip well and always screeches in agony!

Having said that, it certainly did sound like a painful stroke as it cracked across his bare back and shoulder. He is quite a weak slave – but then what can you do? Being a strong and muscular slave in this place (like no. 3 – known as ‘Hercules’) is not a good idea either in the presence of the likes of miss Zhen-Zi. She has now moved further down the gangway and is whipping him too. Being strong and muscular is rather like being a red rag to a bull for the ‘psycho’ mistresses such as miss Zhen-Zi, for she will not have her fragile, petite, young Asian-woman authority challenged by a manly-looking galley-slave! She will break him with her whip – even if he is already broken – just so that she can show him who is boss!

I have to confess I had managed to study the backs of miss Zhen-Zi’s spike-heeled, black leather ankleboots creasing and folding around the heels whilst she was applying the female lash to no 14’s weak, male spine. But sadly, there was still no sign of any socks. Her black-pinstriped, bootcut trouser hems just will not ride up high enough to reveal the tops of her pretty ankle boots, and what might be inside them!

I’m even assuming that they are ankle-boots. They may even be calf-length for all I know, tucked in, as they are, beneath those pinstriped trousers! In which case we slaves would have absolutely no chance of ever seeing her Chinese-girl socks whilst she whipped a comrade-in-oar’s back on the cruel, prison galley-ship!

Still, we can dream; we can imagine her black, cotton socks creasing and folding on her dainty, feminine, Chinese feet in tandem with the leather in her boots as she applies the whip. And it is a nice thought. An inspirational thought – one that certainly spurs me on to even greater efforts as I pull on my heavy, wooden oar. For I love being at the mercy of a beautiful and petite, young Chinese taskmistress who is wearing stylish, black ankle boots and black bootsocks!

In total about 7 of us are whipped during miss Zhen-Zi’s stretch. I’m not one of them. I think, to be honest, we all got off lightly, for 7 whippings is low for miss Zhen-Zi’s shift. Unlike mistress Jelena, she must, in fact, be in a relatively good mood this morning – at least by her standards!

She leaves without saying goodbye, but she is gone but not forgotten – for we can all see her souvenir whipmarks left on the smarting back of one of our colleagues. Something to remember her by!

Taskmistress no. 3– Mistress Aileen (psycho-mistress no. 2)

The third, superior taskmistress to grace us with her female presence today is another ‘psycho’ mistress – but of an altogether different sort from the shy and retiring miss Zhen-Zi.

Quite the opposite in fact. Taskmistress Aileen is, if anything, overly talkative. She loves to give us a constant stream of verbal commands (and/or abuse) during her daily two hours’ of absolute, feminine power – though, like mistress Zhen-Zi, she doesn’t rely on wordpower alone. Each and every command or insult, delivered with an Irish lilt, is backed up by the authority, and if necessary the sting, of her ubiquitous whip!

Taskmistress Aileen is supremely dexterous with her whip, which is all the more admirable given that she only has one arm – her right arm. I suppose it is just good luck that this also happens to be her whipping arm – or has she somehow just learnt to use her one remaining arm to such good, punishing effect?

We don’t know – just as we don’t know how she came to lose an arm in the first place. Maybe she was born with only one arm – though the most widespread rumour amongst the slaves is that she lost it during her military service in the Female Army of Barbaria.

Whatever, she is no longer serving in the female military – though it would sometimes be easy to forget that, given her propensity to march up and down the gangway in her heavy, jackboot-style, black leather, kneelength boots, barking down orders at us in her sergeant-mistress like voice!

Mistress Aileen is the exception to the rule in other ways too. She is in her early forties; always wears a smart, navy-blue, knee-length skirt (perhaps it was the female navy she was in?); and tan-coloured nylons inside her knee-high boots. We know that because we can just see the nylons in the slender gap between her still shapely knees and the lower hem of her navy-blue skirt.

We know it also because during the spring and summer months mistress Aileen swaps her knee-high boots for a stylish pair of navy-blue court shoes with one inch heels – which she continues to wear with her tan-coloured nylons.

I don’t think we have ever witnessed mistress Aileen wearing socks, or even being bare-footed and bare-legged inside her summer shoes. Mistress Aileen clearly likes to wear nylons – and we presume they are wholesome nylon tights rather than sexy stockings, given the modest length of her skirt; though we can never be sure – given the modest length of her skirt!

What we do know is that her nylon-covered feet do perspire a lot inside her boots and shoes. We know it from when we are kissing her court shoes during the spring and summer months, for we can smell her foot-odour as our lips touch the pointy toe-ends of her smart, navy-blue courts.

And if her feet perspire inside her courts they must surely also be perspiring inside the enclosed confines of her heavy, black leather, winter jackboots, especially given all that marching she undertakes up and down the wooden gangway of the prison-galley?

By the same token, whenever she is wearing those powerful and domineering boots, of course – such as she is today – we prisoner-slaves just have to make do with imagining mistress Aileen’s foot smell, as that sweaty-nylon odour will be well and truly trapped inside her long, black boots.

Mistress Aileen holds her whip tucked in under her one arm as she walks down the gangway presenting her jackbooted feet in turn for kissing. The long, knee-high boots on her pleasingly shapely, tan-nylon-covered legs have zips up the sides, and there isn’t a prison galley-slave among us who isn’t dreaming of slowly pulling those zippers down with his teeth, and then kissing and sniffing mistress Aileen’s very personal-smelling, nyloned legs and ankles.

But it is only a pathetic prisoner-slave’s dream! The reality is that we must all make do today with the taste of her bootage, and only the briefest of tastes at that, as we are each permitted just one, brief, respectful kiss to one of her boots – the left or the right depending on our permanent location in the prison galley, as I described earlier.

For my part, I try not to be distracted by the thought of mistress Aileen’s sweaty, tan-shaded nylons inside her black leather jackboots when it comes to my turn to kiss the toe of her imperiously extended, right foot. I merely revel in the sight and feel of her powerful, feminine, knee-high boot stretching up high above me. It is a potent reminder that this young woman is better than me, for even her footwear is higher than me.

If I were in any doubt about that, the tail-end of mistress Aileen’s whip also hangs ominously over her outstretched, nylon-covered kneecap by way of a further reminder of her power over me and her potential to do me harm. I hope, therefore, that my humble kiss to her boot is received in the spirit in which it is given, as a demonstration of my respect and submission to her womanly power and authority.

Mistress Aileen’s introductory talk is typically rambling and verbose, but nonetheless eloquent:

‘Right, now listen up you morons and listen good! I’m keeping the oars set on ‘severe’ because I want to see you all sweat. You have two choices – either to sweat or to bleed. Either way your backs will be moist this morning. Not only that, but you will all row your oars in perfect unison. I know that’s difficult for dirty, useless scum like you lot, but I’m warning you that anyone who interrupts the smooth rhythm of the oars by rowing too slowly or too quickly will be sorely whipped! I can see that some of you have made the acquaintance of the whip already this morning. Don’t think for one second that that will protect you from receiving more stripes across your ugly, sweating backs. If needs be I’ll simply overlay your existing sores before I start painting new stripes on your bare backs. Do I make myself clear to everyone?’

‘Yes taskmistress Aileen!’ we all chime in unison.

It’s at times like this that we galley-slaves must, literally, all pull together! All for one and one for all may, if we’re lucky, mean none for the whip!

This time even Creepy Crawler doesn’t seem to want to draw any extra attention to himself. Like me he has thus far escaped the sting of the whip today, and I think it is his constant desire never to be whipped. Can’t blame him for that really – even though in this place it is a bit of a forlorn hope. There are just too many different types of prison-galley taskmistresses, with too many whips, to be able to please all of them all of the time – however much one may grovel and fawn at their booted feet!

Having said that, let’s gird our loins and see if we can’t survive another strenuous two hours of hard, physical labour without the added discomfort of the female whip!

Throughout her two hour shift mistress Aileen is marching up and down the gangway, barking down her orders at us in her delightful, Irish accent and berating us for what she sees as our underperformance.

Some galley-slaves would, rather unkindly, describe her as ‘barking mad’, but I think she just wants to remind us of what is required:

‘Pull harder no.7, you lazy oaf …Do you want to feel the sting of my whip on your back?.... Faster…Faster no. 11 …All of you…Stop looking at my boots and concentrate on your oars… Move…Keep in rhythm no. 16, or by God I’ll beat out the strokes on your back!...’

And she ends up doing just that, for prisoner no.16 , the aptly name Soreback, fails to keep up with the rhythm.

Because he is seated directly on the other side of the gangway next to me I, of course, get to see mistress Aileen’s black leather jackboots close up as she repeatedly whips him. I’m sorry, but you’ve just got to admire the creases in a woman’s kneeboot leather whilst she is whipping another slave – and the dirt and dust stuck to the bottom of her boots. All that power. All that pain, inflicted by the female wearer of those towering boots. Is she not a supremely beautiful, one-armed goddess at such times?

I’m afraid I don’t feel any sympathy for slave Soreback as he winces under the whip. He is letting us all down by failing to keep up with the pace. He deserves to be whipped, and I therefore have no feelings of slavish guilt that I am enjoying his smarting pain vicariously through my admiration of his female tormentor’s smart, black bootleather!

Soreback is sobbing by the end of his seven, hard cuts from mistress Aileen’s single-handed whipping – though I note he only has four red stripes on his back and shoulders – the first, the fading stripe from mistress Zhen-Zi’s stinging whip; the other three, presumably, include the overlays mistress Aileen had threatened, or should that be promised, us.

Soreback’s sore-looking back serves to encourage the rest of us who can see it to row that much harder and more diligently during the remainder of mistress Aileen’s two hour shift!

Taskmistress no. 4 – Miss Priti; bootsock-mistress supreme!

Ah what a blessed relief after the two ‘psycho-mistresses’ – mistresses Zhen-Zi and Aileen. Next up is the petite and pretty Pakistani mistress, the aptly named miss Priti! My favourite taskmistress!

And why is she my favourite? Well – just look at her! Early twenties; petite; Asian; shoulder-length auburn-dyed hair; glasses; a white, frilly blouse; black slacks worn stylishly at half mast to display her black, biker-style, calf-length boots – designed to make her dainty, Pakistani-female feet look bigger and stronger than they actually are in all their leathery and metal-buckled glory.

But there’s more to this young Pakistani woman’s appeal than just her physical appearance and taste in footwear: we are likely to be honoured by the occasional glimpse of her sweet socks inside her boots – even though they are calf-length boots and she is wearing them with trousers! And how come? Precisely because her trousers are worn stylishly at half mast, with the hems barely covering the upper rims of her boots, and because mistress Priti is in the habit of stopping at various stages along the raised gangway in order to pull up her socks inside her boots!

Some of us suspect she does it deliberately, just to tease us – that she is an Asian sock-tease! However, I personally think she probably does it just because she likes her socks to be kept straight inside her loose-fitting boots. For she is no slouch! But whatever her motivation, we all praise and bless her for it, for her socks brighten up our miserable, galley-slave lives.

She wears truly beautiful socks in exclusively feminine colours – always pastel-shaded, be they pink, light blue, or yellow. And always plain; never patterned. Always cotton; never wool. And always deliciously soft-looking, not that we ever get to touch them!

Believe me, it is the highlight of your slave day if miss Priti stops to pull up her bootsocks in front of your mesmerised face!

I think she knows it too, even if I don’t believe she’s a deliberate sock-tease. She must know it drives us slaves wild – even the sound of her sock being pulled up against her smooth, brown, Asian leg-skin.

I wonder what shade of pastel socks she has on today?

Mercifully, I don’t have to wait too long before I find out, for my favourite taskmistress is soon standing in front of me with her right, oversized, calf-length boot extended out towards me for respectful kissing. As I lower my lips to the thick, rounded, scuff-marked toe of her heavily buckled biker-boot, I can actually see the elasticated top of a pale, pink bootsock! What’s more, excitingly, it looks like it might need pulling up soon, for it appears slightly crinkled and twisted at the top, so much so that I can even catch a furtive glimpse of miss Priti’s soft, brown, Asian leg beneath the half-mast hem of her plain, black trouser leg.

Oh if only I could free my hands from this heavy wooden oar in order to pull up mistress Priti’s bootsock for her! Straighten it for her! Smooth it out for her!

But that’s impossible – I am being punished for running away from my erstwhile mistress, and my hands are permanently chained to the oar – like all my fellow prisoners’ criminal hands.

I can look, therefore, but not touch! It really is a kind of exquisite, mental torture!

Mistress Priti does not stoop down to pull up her sock in front of me, sadly. Not yet anyway. Instead she continues her catwalk down the gangway in order to have her biker boots worshipped and kissed by the other galley-slaves.

Such a fragile-looking slip of a girl – and yet such powerful and becoming boots!

Respect!

She soon reaches Creepy Crawler behind me:

‘God bless you, mistress Priti. Thank you for the honour of kissing your powerful boot, sweet and kind mistress Priti,’ he gushes.

Now I do truly hate him! How dare he try to worm his way into the affections of my favourite taskmistress! Hands off Creep! Her boots and socks are mine! Even her whip is mine – if she wishes to acquaint me with it!

Being whipped by miss Priti would almost be a pleasure. Or If not a pleasure, than at least an honour!

Like her Asian counterpart before her, miss Zhen-Zi, miss Priti is a young lady of few words. She merely exhorts us to work hard, and informs us that the oars – surprise surprise – continue to be set to ‘severe’.

And then – off we go!

We have to wait an agonising 90 minutes or so before mistress Priti eventually stops on the gangway to adjust her pale pink, cotton bootsocks. Luckily for me she does so only about 4 rows or so in front of me. I would preferred the highlight of the day to have happened right beside me on row 15, of course, but it could have been worse. It could have happened totally out of sight and behind me.

The worst scenario of all would have been if she had stopped to straighten her socks next to Creepy Crawler in the row directly behind me, for then I would have had the indignity of being able to hear her pink socks being straightened, but not being able to see them! And to top it all, Creepy Crawler would have had a ringside seat!

But, as it is, he is even further away from her socks than I am – and I happen to know his eyesight isn’t all that good either! Ha! Ha! He must be fuming!

For my humble part, I still have relatively good eyesight, and I can therefore still make out some of the individual stitches in mistress Priti’s pretty, pale pink socks – even from a distance – as she pulls them up her slender, Pakistani calf-muscles and straightens them inside the tops of her black leather, calf-length, biker boots.

It is without doubt the pink highlight of the day for all those of us who are privileged enough to witness it; miss Priti – the paragon of the soft, feminine bootsock!

Taskmistress no. 5 - Mistress Jade (psycho-mistress no. 3)

We go from the sublime to the sadistic when 23 year old mistress Jade takes over from miss Priti. It’s funny really, for the two young women are good friends, and yet they are so different in their personalities. Miss Priti is slow to whip (I don’t believe she has had occasion to unfurl her whip at all today) whereas mistress Jade can’t seem to survive without the constant cracking of her whip.

A natural brunette, but with her hair dyed blonde, mistress Jade is the fattest of all the taskmistresses – but a lot of us chained to the galley oars admire her for this. We quite like a bit of plumpness on our taskmistresses’ bodies, as their corpulence reminds us of how free and well-fed they are compared to we half-starved prisoners. They are free to indulge in the female lusts of the flesh – to eat, drink and be merry – whereas we must wallow in our maleslave bondage and misery, surviving on our tasteless rations of slave-gruel.

It’s right and proper and the way things should be.

And besides, we quite like mistress Jade’s fat ankles inside her ubiquitous, brown leather, extremely low-cut ankle booties which, unusually, fasten by means of a zipper up the middle, as opposed to on the sides as more conventional ankle-high booties would do. Indeed, I would describe her footwear as more like shoes than booties, although she herself refers to them as booties.

Whatever, they leave her plump, white ankle bones deliciously exposed above the stretched, elasticated tops of her equally ubiquitous, flowery-patterned, multi-coloured, below-the-ankle cotton socks beneath the hems of her above-the-ankle, black, denim jean-legs.

Taskmistress Jade is a pure, English rose, (well, bleached blonde!) and that, presumably, is why she has a penchant for flower-motifed socks. Not that her socks smell of roses. They smell of feminine foot-odour, for her ultra-short, brown leather anklebooties do not prevent the release of her sock-smells up our nostrils as we pay homage with our galley-slave lips to the zips covering the pointy toe areas of her boots.

The sweat-scented, short, flowery socks, however, do help to brighten up the appearance of mistress Jade’s otherwise pale-white and flabby anklebones. She has the palest anklebones of any young woman it has ever been my privilege to serve, although her ankles are actually dotted with several tiny, red sores. I’m not quite sure what causes the sores, but they never seem to bother her that much.

If they did itch, I would happily scratch them for her, or soothe them with my tongue. Her footsores, quite frankly, give me goosebumps!

I love looking at them, for the more imperfect and blemished a superior taskmistress’s feet are, the more humble I become. Her foot-flaws remind me that I am the slave of a flawed human being, who nevertheless is my infinite better, which makes me sub-human.

But her pale, fat, pock-marked ankles and unnaturally stretched, short, flowery ankle socks are not the most striking thing about taskmistress Jade. The most striking thing about her is her whip.

For it constantly strikes us!

Whenever taskmistress Jade comes on duty you know you are more likely than not to feel the terrifying sting of the female lash; at least once; and hard!

So we brace ourselves for the practically inevitable.

My stripe, courtesy of her leather whip, comes about 20 minutes or so into her shift. I am not particularly slacking at the time – just physically exhausted, but the fat-girl-delivered whipcut soon reinvigorates me.

It fairly takes your breath away – the female whip; certainly when it is so expertly applied by a well-trained, young taskmistress who loves her job!

I can hear Creepy Crawler muttering with glee behind me as he revels in the sight of the rapidly developing stripe across my back. The thought occurs to me that he will also have been afforded a nice view of taskmistress Jade’s short, brown leather anklebooties and multicoloured, patterned socks as she stood behind me and brought down the whip on my exposed shoulderblade. He must be thanking his lucky stars!

But his time will come!

In any case, I am eternally grateful to the all-powerful mistress for disciplining me, for the sting of her whip helps me to concentrate much more diligently not only on my rowing, but also on the side of the pretty, flower-patterned sock on her left ankle once she turns her whip-attention to poor old Soreback beside me. The short sock is somewhat twisted at the top, and creases and folds with each of the three, stinging cuts she delivers to his already tender shoulderblades.

Soreback must really be feeling it today! But it’s nothing more than he deserves if, like me, the taskmistress perceives him to be slacking. Mistress Jade may be permitted to have slackness in her socks, but we must not be permitted to slacken at our oars!

Sure enough, Creepy Crawler is the next to get it. He cries out at the shock of the whip.

Ha! Ha!

At least we are all equals under miss Jade’s harsh regime. We all have stinging and reddened backs by the time she turns her own back on us and hands over to the next taskmistress.

We each take stock of our pain whilst we await with bated breath to see who taskmistress no. 6 will be.

Truly there can be no rest for the wicked male, but please don’t let the next taskmistress be another young whipper-snapper!

Taskmistress no. 6 – Apprentice-Taskmistress Kirsty; taking liberties

Well – she’s young – just 20 years old! But, fortunately she is not a compulsive user of the whip.

Not yet anyway!

Mistress Kirsty is still learning the ropes, so to speak. She is an apprentice-taskmistress, now in her third week of her apprenticeship. Up until last week she was accompanied by her mentor, miss Angela. But for the last few days miss Kirsty has been let loose on us, all on her own!

Ginger-haired miss Kirsty is doing very well, I have to say. Her inevitable tendency towards youthful impetuousness seems to be no barrier to her young-womanly authority, and she always manages to inspire us to row harder.

That inspiration comes not so much from the business end of her whip, however, as from her beautiful footwear – always plain, black leather ballet flats and matching black socks, although the really exciting thing is that her socks always seem to have different coloured heel areas. We only know that because the very tops of the coloured areas at the backs of her socked heels are sometimes just visible above the back rims of her low-cut ballet-flats. Today, for example, her coloured sock-heels are sky-blue.

We all assume, therefore, that today the reinforced toe areas of her otherwise black, cotton ankle-socks must also be sky-blue to match – but none of us knows for sure, for apprentice-taskmistress Kirsty has never yet had occasion to slip off her black ballet flats, not even to straighten her socks, or perhaps to remove an irritating little stone from the inside of her delicate, soft, feminine shoe.

We live in hope!

Be that as it may, I have to admit that I do sometimes take liberties with apprentice-taskmistress Kirsty’s sweet socks – especially during the initial foot-kissing ritual. I am supposed, of course, to kiss her on the rounded toe of her plain, black shoe – as I would with any other, fully-qualified taskmistress. But I’m afraid I just cannot resist miss Kirsty’s sweaty, blue and black, low-cut ankle-socks as she approaches me today and superciliously extends her ballet-flated foot for me to kiss! The lingering sting of mistress Jade’s whip is spurring me on. I just know that I am going to place my lips on the body of taskmistress Kirsty’s exposed sock – the part covering the top of her shapely foot below the flared hem of her black, bootcut, trouser leg.

In the event, however, as I lower my impertinent lips towards the forbidden girlsock, I notice an even more inviting, narrow area of greying sock where the black sock material is starting to wear away – running all along the young woman’s pale, white instep above the upper rim of her soft, leather shoe. Instinctively, therefore, I place my mouth onto that thinning area of narrow, black sock, and kiss it; purely out of my slavish respect for it. Galley-slavish respect!

I’m taking a hell of a risk, I know, but I just can’t help myself! I have to kiss arrogant, young, redheaded-woman black sock inside plain, black ballet-flat, whatever the consequences may be for my already marked bare back!

Fortunately, miss Kirsty is a kind and forgiving apprentice-taskmistress. She merely giggles triumphantly at the feel of my impudent lips on her common, worn sock, and moves straight on to number 16 – to Soreback - whose back is already too sore to risk kissing a taskmistress’s sock without her express permission. He wisely confines his lips to her shoeleather.

A sensible slave – I’d probably do the same in his position, but, unlike him, I have only had to endure one female-whipcut thus far today! I have the capacity to take more pain, should it be forthcoming.

A I savour the memory of taskmistress Kirsty’s soft sock material on my dry and parched, galley-slave lips, Creepy Crawler is, again, using his slave-lips to verbally fawn and grovel towards miss Kirsty; to ingratiate himself with the inexperienced, and exploitable, young taskmistress. But I don’t care. I have tasted her sock! I am like a real footslave!

I pay for that opportunistic and illicit sock-tasting later, of course. Not even the naturally sweet and forgiving apprentice-taskmistress, miss Kirsty, could overlook such blatant impertinence in a galley-slave! And so I receive not one, not two, but three stinging cuts of her apprentice-lash on my back during the course of her two hour shift. Each lash is given on the pretext that I am not pulling my weight. But in reality we both know it is because of my taking liberties vis-à-vis her sock – even if the beautiful, young, redheaded trainee-taskmistress quite liked it at the time!

Taskmistress no. 7 – Mistress Laura; white witch!

A borderline ‘psycho’!

Always shouting. She loves it – strutting her stuff up and down the wooden walkway like a pea-hen, flicking her whip and causing each of us to flinch and cower as she walks past us.

I think she looks a bit like a white witch, with her pointy face and long, black, curly hair. But a very pretty witch nonetheless.

Predictably she is another young woman who likes the power of boots – albeit just ankle boots, but black patent leather, chunky-heeled, chisel-toed boots, and with her blue denim jeans tucked fetchingly into the tops.

No chance, therefore, of seeing sock. But that is undoubtedly all part of miss Laura’s strategy – to humiliate and degrade prison-galley slaves by denying them the sight of her socks.

She SHOUTS her opening words to us:

‘BRACE YOURSELVES, SLAVES! .... THE OARS ARE STILL AT ‘SEVERE’ AND WILL REQUIRE HARD LABOUR ON YOUR PART….

LET ME REMIND YOU THAT I LIKE TO RUN A TIGHT SHIP… SLACKERS WILL BE WHIPPED; THE WEAK WILL BE WHIPPED; THE INFIRM WILL BE WHIPPED; THE IMPERTINENT WILL BE WHPPED….

I WILL NOT TOLERATE ANY DISOBEDIENCE OR DISRESPECT FOR MY AUTHORITY ON MY SHIFT…. NOR WILL I TOLERATE ANY TALKING…. YOU WILL WORK IN COMPLETE SILENCE; YOU WILL PULL ON YOUR OARS; YOU WILL ROW; YOU WILL STRAIN; YOU WILL GASP WITH FATIGUE…BUT STILL YOU WILL ROW… AND THAT IS ALL YOU WILL DO….

NOW YOU WILL EACH KISS MY BOOTS AS I MAKE MY WAY DOWN THE GANGWAY… YOU WILL EACH KISS THE TOE OF MY BOOT AS I PRESENT IT TO YOU… DO NOT KISS THE TOP OF MY BOOT; DO NOT KISS THE HEEL OF MY BOOT; DO NOT KISS THE INSTEP OF MY BOOT. ..KISS ONLY THE TOE…. YOU THERE, NO. 1, BEGIN!’

And with that mistress Laura presents her shiny, right, chisel-shaped boot-toe to no.1 at the very front of the galley.

He is not, of course, in a particularly privileged position . No.1, in fact, is arguably the worst position a prisoner-slave can have on the prison-galley (along with no. 2) – for he never gets to see the taskmistress’s feet as she walks along the raised gangway; except, as now, at the very start of her shift, and possibly also at the end of the mistress’s two hour shift during the changeover period. Also, he never gets to see the stripes on anyone else’s back. He can only feel his own stripes.

I’d hate to be no.1! ‘Stinker’ I think he’s called, but I’m not sure. He’s always very quiet and subdued, and understandably so.

Mind you, we all have to be quiet now – even Creepy Crawler. Can you imagine trying to ingratiate yourself with mistress Laura? No-one would ever dream of taking advantage of her good nature, as I had done with her predecessor, miss Kirsty!

It’s just as well taskmistress Laura likes a bit of peace and quiet from the galley-slaves during her shift, for she makes more than enough noise herself throughout her two hour stint on the galley, as she continues to shout her female authority down at us from on high on the raised walkway:

‘PULL HARDER! ....FASTER! FASTER SLAVES!….PUT YOUR BACK INTO IT!….MOVE!’

Her whip too does some talking, though for the most part she uses just the sound of her whip, rather than its sting, to urge us on. Sometimes the mere swish and crack of the whip is all a prisoner-slave needs to encourage him to work harder!

That, and the appealing sight of mistress Laura’s shiny, bossy, black ankleboot-leather walking triumphantly past his face!

Taskmistress no. 8 – Mistress Bethany; eccentric and kooky

It really is getting quite late in the day now – not that we ever get to see daylight, stuck down here in the prison-galley in the bowels of the Gynarchy’s dungeons.

By the time mistress Bethany starts her shift, her feet must surely be getting very hot and sweaty inside her sneakers and socks – assuming she has been on her feet all day and not lazing around in bed!

We all like and admire mistress Bethany and her ubiquitous sneakers. She is an individualist – a bit of an oddball-mistress in many ways. Late twenties; bright pink hair (and I do mean bright pink; almost luminous!); some would say that she lives in a bit of a dream world all of her own; that she is a bit ‘kooky’.

She is certainly ‘kookily’ dressed tonight – an ankle-length, red corduroy dress to clash with her luminous pink, shoulder length hair; dark-rimmed glasses; nose and lip studs; tatty, green keds-style, low-cut sneakers with grubby, white laces; and thick, black, woolly tights with yellow heart-motifs all up and down the sides.

We galley slaves very much admire taskmistress Bethany’s eccentric dress sense – kooky or otherwise, and we especially appreciate her many different pairs of patterned, woolly tights – always worn with the same pair of scruffy, green canvas sneakers as she trails her black leather whip nonchalantly up and down the wooden gangway behind her.

I, for one, simply adore those little yellow heart-motifs on the sides of her black, woolly tights this evening. Such pretty little yellow hearts as she extends her grubby-sneakered foot out for me to kiss. The pale, yellow hearts contrast so sweetly with the deep, rich black of the surrounding tights-material, the dirty-green of her canvas sneakers, and the red of the somewhat frayed hem of her corduroy, ankle-length dress.

One thing I will not presume to do, however, tempted though I am, is to kiss one of those little, yellow hearts adorning the side of her black, woolly tights. Unlike with mistress Kirsty, mistress Bethany’s hosiery is not to be trifled with. If kissing apprentice-taskmistress Kirsty’s socks earned me three stinging cuts of the female lash, no amount of furtive hose-kissing would be worth the terrible pain that would be engendered by taskmistress Bethany’s whip!

That’s because the kooky young woman has sewn little lead balls into the tail-end of her whip – balls that scourge! Totally illegal, of course! But who’s going to take a kooky taskmistress to task over such a matter?!

In the Gynarchy of Barbaria a State-taskmistress is above the law! (Actually, all women are!).

So, even though it is getting late and we are all getting tired, everyone is, quite literally, pulling together in a collective effort to protect all our backs from the potential horrors of taskmistress Bethany’s illicit whip! She has no need to actually apply her terrifying scourge to any of our backs tonight. The mere sight of those little, leaden balls trailing along the gangway on the end of her whip behind her scruffy, green sneakers is enough to inspire us all to superhuman efforts on our oars!

In fact, I do believe that Creepy Crawler is the only slave on this ‘ship’ who has ever actually felt the sting of those leaded balls. Ha! Ha! He had tried to verbally ingratiate himself with mistress Bethany once, complementing her on her bright-pink dyed hair, but he lived to rue the day! Ha! Ha! Kooky and unpredictable mistress Bethany wasn’t in the mood for his cringing sycophancy.

He’s never tried it on again with her since!

That’s another reason why I like and admire taskmistress Bethany so much. She keeps the Crawler quiet!

As far as I’m concerned, despite her cruel-looking whip, like her woolly tights -she’s all hearts!

Taskmistress no. 9 – Mistress Fridgerd; Nordic giantess

And so the final two hour shift this evening falls to the tall and svelte mistress Fridgerd; ‘Frida’ to her friends – but we aren’t her friends. We are her prisoners.

Mistress Fridgerd has recently returned from maternity leave. She has retained her shapely figure, even after childbirth, but she is such a tall girl she truly towers above us on the raised gangway like a veritable, blonde-haired, Nordic giantess!

Not that she wears flats to try to compensate for her height! She clearly likes walking tall and proud, for taskmistress Fridgerd is once again wearing her favourite pair of chunky-heeled, matt black leather, zip-up ankle boots beneath her black, boot-cut slacks.

Like the diminutive mistress Zhen-Zi, and the lovely mistress Priti, all those hours ago, mistress Fridgerd likes to wear her trouser hems at half-mast. It does seem to be the fashion amongst young women at the moment, at least as far as we can tell stuck down here it is!

But, however fashionable it may be, in miss Fridgerd’s case (as in miss Zhen-Zi’s) it still doesn’t help we galley-slaves to determine whether or not she is wearing any socks inside her chunky-heeled, square-toed, zip-up ankleboots.

If she is, they remain hidden underneath the raised hems of her trouser-legs. So we have no choice but to speculate. Perhaps she is wearing ultra-short, sneaker-style socks inside those delectable boots; white ones; or black ones; or navy blue ones.

Perhaps she is totally sockless!

Oh if only the taskmistresses had somewhere to sit down on the prison-galley gangway during their supervision of our labour! Then, perhaps, their trouser hems would ride up even further, affording us a glimpse of their fabulous bootsocks!

But there is no such place for the mistresses to sit down and relax! It almost seems rude that the slaves are seated while the mistresses have to stand – not that any of them would wish to change places with us!

And so none of us knows whether mistress Frida – sorry, Fridgerd – is wearing any smelly socks inside her boots, and that’s what is so frustrating: the not knowing! Am I labouring under the power and command of a tall and beautiful, young, Nordic woman who is wearing short, black sneaker-socks inside her black, block-heeled ankleboots, or am I just labouring under an illusion?

That is the question.

But it must remain unanswered as I dutifully kiss the square-shaped toe of her right ankleboot. It certainly feels like she might be wearing soft, black socks inside her boots!

Anyway, the priority for us all now is to try to avoid any more fresh cuts of the lash. Nobody wants to have to try to sleep with a smarting back! And taskmistress Fridgerd knows that. That’s why she constantly flicks her whip in the air – close to, but not actually on, our stooped, bare shoulders. She wants to remind us that we are completely in her natural-blonde power and at her sweet, feminine mercy – that she can ruin our evening with just one flick of her pretty, but strong, Nordic-girl wrist.

We row, and row, and row for a further two hours. A whole day of ‘severe’ rowing only slowly draws to a close.

………………………………………………………………………

And once the last taskmistress, mistress Fridgerd, has gone back to the bosom of her family – we galley-slaves form a sort of family of our own, as we discuss the day’s events amongst ourselves.

There is no doubting what the first topic of conversation will be. Number 9 (Feetpig) opens the debate:

‘Did you all see mistress Priti’s pink socks when she stopped to straighten them inside her boots? She did it right beside me! It was totally awesome!’

We can all fully understand the slavish excitement in his voice, and, if truth be told, the rest of us are feeling somewhat jealous. To have a petite and pretty Pakistani mistress pull up her socks in front of your very face is, indeed, an awesome experience, as well as being an honour and a privilege!

‘Man, you were so lucky, Feetpig!’ pipes up Socksuck (no. 18). ‘All l could see from back here was a flash of pink cotton on her soft, brown legs!’

Feetpig enlightens us all further:

‘Yeah…but she was standing so close to me I could even see the diamond pattern in the stitching of her pink socks! I could even make out her bare skin through the holes in the individual stitches! It was awesome! Truly awesome!’

We all try to imagine the ‘truly awesome’ diamond-shaped stitch pattern in taskmistress Priti’s pale pink bootsocks, and her soft, brown, Pakistani-female skin through the holes in those stitches, in our stupid, female-foot-and-sock-obsessed maleslave heads. But lucky Feetpig doesn’t need to imagine it. He actually saw it!

I decide it is time for me to boast about my own little, sock-related triumph:

‘Well, I got to kiss mistress Kirsty’s black sock inside her black ballet flat!’

There are gasps of amazement from some of my galley-slave colleagues:

‘You didn’t?!’ exclaims one of the galley slaves incredulously from the front of the ship. I didn’t quite catch who – but, of course, all those seated in front of me could not possibly have witnessed by sock-kissing triumph!

‘Yeah – he sure did! I saw him do it!’ shouts out no.19 in support of my claim to fame!

‘Yes I did!’ I confirm to any remaining doubters. ‘I just couldn’t help myself. As soon as miss Kirsty stretched out her pretty foot in front of me I just lowered my lips straight onto that thinning area of sock above her instep!’

More gasps of approval and amazement from my maleslave-colleagues!

‘You lucky bounder! How did it feel?’ asks no. 6 from way up in front of me. His slave-nickname is ‘Cringeworthy’ as he is terribly posh (or he was before his enslavement and imprisonment; now he’s as ragged and wretched as the rest of us!).

‘It felt really nice and soft,’ I reply.

‘Ha! Ha! I’ll bet those stripes from miss Kirsty’s whip don’t feel so nice and soft on your bare back, Patheticus?’ quips Creepy Crawler from directly behind me.

Trust him to pour cold water on my one, major achievement of the day!

But, as always, I grudgingly have to admit he’s right. I wish I could pour some cold water on my still-smarting back!

Still, it was worth it!

‘Did anyone count the little yellow hearts on the side of mistress Bethany’s black, woolly tights? I thought I counted 9 on the side of her lower left leg,’ says Soreback, changing the subject from my own sore back!

‘Nah. It was more like 12 or 13!’ opines galley-slave number 14 (‘Bootsniffer’) in front of him.

‘Well, I’m pretty sure I could see as many as 15 on the side of her right leg above and below her anklebone,’ states slave no. 3 (‘Toejam’).

I have to admit that, enraptured though I had been by them, I had been too tired this evening to even try counting the number of heart motifs on the side of taskmistress Bethany’s black, woolly tights. And besides how do you know whether to count a heart that is partially hidden inside the mistress’s sneaker, or below the ever moving hem of her ankle-length dress? I think the whole counting exercise is a bit pointless, but I do fully understand that my co-prisoners need to do something to take their feeble, slave minds of the interminable strain of having to pull on our heavy, wooden oars for 18 hours a day.

Some of us get our kicks from furtively kissing female socks; some from counting heart-shaped motifs on the sides of female tights.

‘Well, I liked mistress Laura’s patent leather ankleboots best this evening!’ declares no. 20 (‘Bootblack’) from the back of the galley. ‘They were so shiny I could see my face in them as I kissed the toe of her boot!’

And so our pathetic, slavish conversation – about girltights, girlsocks, girlshoes, girlboots and girl-whipmarks on male backs– continues for another hour or so before we all have to try to catch up on some sleep. For in just a few hours’ time we’ll have to do it all again – not necessarily with the same taskmistresses, but necessarily under the same smart of the female whip!

As I rest my head on my wooden oar and close my eyes, I sing my favourite song for helping me to drift off to sleep, silently inside my head:

‘Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream,

merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream….’

and as I do so I imagine that all my strenuous rowing efforts are actually taking me down the river towards freedom from bondage.

But it’s just a sweet dream – unlike the living nightmare of the prison-galley!

The End