Chip On My Shoulder

I am feeling somewhat surly and miserable:

• partly because of the weather – it is cold and damp;
• partly because I am tired and want to go to sleep – it is nearly 01.30 A.M. and it’s been a long day;
• and partly because the sassy, young, black woman who is currently gracing my humble, ‘stand-up’, public shoelick-stand isn’t wearing any socks inside her brown-leather pixie boots.

It is such a waste, for she has nice ankles – quite thick and podgy, like the rest of her! And I can’t help feeling, as I look down inside the tops of her scuffmarked, well-worn, brown leather, ankle-length booties, that a nice pair of plain, black, sneaker-style socks (to match her black, cotton, calf-length leggings) would just set her fat, brown anklebones off a treat, as I wearily endeavour to tongueshine her late night, post-clubbing footwear on this wet and miserable, God-forsaken night!

Not that her decision to go sockless inside her pixie boots is any of my damn business, really! I’m just a late night, public footslave and bootlick – and it’s not for me to decide what my female betters should or shouldn’t wear on their feet!

The chubby, young, black woman is alone – and appears to be in a bit of a bad mood herself, perhaps because she has evidently failed to ‘pull’ this evening? Perhaps also that’s why she is tucking into some nourishing, but highly calorific, comfort food – a large bag of warming chips (‘fries’ to those of you from the former British colonies known as the United States).

I can hear the bag rustling above me, along with her inelegant, unladylike slaps as she tucks into her hearty, post-midnight snack above me. God those chips smell good! They’re making me hungry – even though my stomach is full of young women’s boot and shoe mud which I have been consuming more or less constantly since 06.00 A.M yesterday morning.

That’s the thing about being a public footslave located just off the main, town square – long hours and an unvaried diet of arrogant, young-woman footwear-dirt. But, by law, I’m not allowed to have proper, human food – like chips or French fries – of course, since I’m just a slave. Cold, unappetizing slave-mush is all the Female Authorities ever feed me – one bowl a day, at 05.30 A.M; just before my public shoelick-stand officially opens at 06.00 A.M.

It officially closes at 01.00 A.M – for even a slave has to have some sleep and rest, else he will not be in a fit state to serve his female betters later that same day. So, come to think of it, as I dutifully tongue-shine this tired, young black woman’s neglected and rejected brown leather pixie-boots I suppose I should, technically, be claiming overtime!

Not that we public footslaves get paid overtime.

Not that we get paid – period! Even though we must still serve our female betters’ footwear after our officially-allotted opening hours should a drunken or insomniac customer-mistress deign to stop by and desire her shoes or boots to be cleaned – rather like the selfish and insensitive, chip-eating, fat black mistress whose sockless, brown leather pixie-boot now adorns my wooden footblock.

Never off duty; always ready to serve! That’s the public footslave’s unofficial mantra – not through choice, but through necessity; the necessity of obeying and pleasing a mistress, whatever ungodly hour she may choose to avail herself of your humble, footlicking services!

And even if her footwear lacks socks-appeal – because it is not complimented by a nice pair of short, black bootsocks!

Anyway, the greedy and selfish, rotund, black mistress appears to pick up on my sulkiness and fatigue-induced depression as I half-heartedly apply my tongue to her street-dirtied ankleboots:

‘Why are you being so surly, footslave?’ she suddenly asks me in a thick, West-African accent, in between voraciously licking salt and vinegar off her greasy, chip-stained fingers.

I apologise at once to the customer-mistress for my sullen behaviour and attitude-problem – for I had not realised it was so obvious, and I fear she might be gearing up to whip me with the public-use punishment whip which hangs ever-threateningly from a hook on the wall behind and above me. It’s never nice trying to get to sleep with a throbbing and stinging back – and I’ve managed to avoid any strokes of the public-use whip for two, whole days now, so my bare, kneeling back is nice and free of pain; cold and wet – but free of pain!

‘Oh pray customer-mistress, please forgive me customer-mistress! This slave apologises most profusely to the black mistress for his bad attitude on her boots, if you would be so kind and forgiving sweet mistress! Please don’t hurt me mistress! Please don’t beat me! Oh pray, black mistress! Oh pray!’

I kiss and lick the rounded toe-area of her unflattering, extended, left pixie-boot all the more vigorously, in an effort to demonstrate that – though I may be tired and weary, and although it is well past my bedtime – I am still honoured and privileged to lick clean this black girl’s dirty, brown leather, collared pixie-boots.

But she’s having none of it. She angrily withdraws her left boot from my penitent face:

‘Hah! Perhaps you think you are too good to shine an African woman’s boots, ugly pigface-slave? Perhaps you think my boots are not good enough for you?’

She’s hit the nail on the head of course – although it’s not so much her boots, as her lack of socks, that is disappointing me. As I indicated earlier, if she were wearing a nice pair of short, black anklesocks inside her brown pixie boots I would be most enamoured by the African girl’s feet and footwear, since the socks would set her fat ankles off a treat!

But, of course, I cannot say as much to a superior, African mistress! I must vehemently deny that I am disparaging of her boots, even though lying to a customer-mistress is a criminal offence here in the Gynarchy!

What’s a little white lie to a big, black mistress in such fraught circumstances?

‘Oh pray black mistress, if it pleases you most beautiful and respected, black customer-mistress, truly this slave is honoured to attend to the mistress’s most elegant and refined pixie-boots, if you would be so kind and forgiving to a lowly, helpless footslave who is at your mercy, black mistress! Truly you are my better mistress, and it is an honour to serve you mistress! This slave admires and respects the black mistress! Oh pray mistress! Oh pray! Please don’t beat me mistress!’

I really do fear for my back now! I am truly at this black girl’s mercy, and in her black power.

‘Well, ugly pigslave, you seem to have a chip on your shoulder – so that is what I shall now give you! Ha! Ha!’

And with that she stoops down to place a tomato-ketchup covered chip onto my right shoulderblade:

‘Ha! Ha! Enjoy your treat, pig! Enjoy the chip on your shoulder! Ha! Ha!’

The mistress is quite clever – as well as a little drunk – for the thick and gooey tomato ketchup will help to keep the chip stuck to my bare shoulderblade for everyone to see and mock; the dirty, public footslave with a chip on his shoulder! How quaint!

And the black mistress knows that the heavy, wooden slave-collar around my permanently bowed neck will not permit me to reach the cold chip with my mouth. It will have to stay there until it either falls off – or is removed by my supervisor-mistress in the morning when she comes to feed me my bowl of slave-mush, at which point I shall no doubt be punished for being in possession of illicit foodstuffs; illicit for a slave that is!

I praise and bless the African, brown-leather-pixie-booted mistress for her wit and ingenuity. What better way to punish and humiliate a surly and disrespectful footslave?

‘Oh pray, black mistress! Oh thank you, fat black mistress. God bless you mistress! This slave is truly grateful to the mistress for her kind and humiliating gift, and for demonstrating to the world his unseemly attitude-problem, most refined and superior, black mistress.’

She just laughs at me and walks off, busily licking chip fat and ketchup off her pretty, black lips.

…………………………………………………………………………….

I can’t sleep now with the worry – the worry of what is going to happen when my supervisor-mistress sees the, literal, chip on my shoulder in just a few hours’ time! She’s bound to require an explanation – and that’s bound to lead to an early morning whipping!

Damn!

If only I could get the chip to fall off onto the ground! Then I could eat it – destroy the evidence, so to speak – even though it will be stone cold and deeply unappetizing by now! And besides, I don’t really like tomato ketchup – and this chip on my shoulder is covered in it!

Fortunately for me, after an hour or so, it starts to rain quite heavily, and the chip is washed off my back and onto the soaking-wet ground next to my wooden footblock. Unfortunately, though, it is just out of reach of my mouth. Damn this heavy, wooden cangue around my neck! Why do the female authorities insist that we public boot and shoelicks have to wear them? It only makes our job of licking women’s dirty boots and shoes all the more difficult!

Perhaps that is the reason?

But the twists and turns of a public footslave’s fate mean that good-fortune is once again smiling on me, as my next, out of hours, late-night customer-mistress is one of my regulars – miss Nadezhda.

Miss Nadezhda is a street-walker, working the numerous back-streets and alleyways around the town square – and she often interrupts my sleep when business is slack in order to have her ubiquitous, high-heeled, black leather shoes tarted up.

The reason why I say that good fortune is shining on me as she approaches my public footlick-stand in the middle of the night is that I know that she’s a tart with a heart! She will help me out with my chip dilemma – help me destroy the evidence – for she herself operates somewhat outside the Female Law, and she will understand that my supervisor-mistress in the morning is bound to ask me where the chip came from, and at the very least punish me for untidiness and littering the ground around my public shoelick-stand!

But first things first – I must dutifully attend to mistress Nadezhda’s prostitute-shoes!

‘Good morning, miss Nadezhda. God bless you for using me once again to shine your beautiful shoes, prostitute-mistress Nadezhda!’

You see how my attitude has improved already – and all because I need to ingratiate myself to my prostitute-saviour; my one great hope for redemption!

‘Hi, footboy! How’s it goin’?’ responds mistress Nadezhda – elegantly placing her right, high-heeled foot onto my wooden footblock, ready for my silver-tongued attentions.

Miss Nadezhda is quite a tall and skinny girl; swarthy-skinned (I believe she may be of Romanian-gypsy origins); and with rich, black curly hair. She is wearing a nice, warm, beige-coloured coat which reaches down to her waist, and a short, black leather miniskirt with black, fishnet stockings on her long, skinny, pockmarked, prostitute legs.

Her ridiculously high-heeled, black patent leather shoes (the heels must be at least 5 inches), as ever, show off her shapely, if somewhat bony and veiny, anklebones very nicely. I suspect that’s why she wears black fishnets – to try and hide her deep blue foot-veins.

God only knows what chemicals are coursing through those veins! I’m fairly certain that miss Nadezhda regularly does drugs, which is presumably why she works the streets – to get the money to feed her habit!

Whatever – I won’t hear a bad word said against her! It is always an honour and a privilege to be forced to serve mistress Nadezhda and her lovely, Romanian footwear in the middle of the night; and especially tonight, when she can help save me from my predicament!

One can always rely on mistress Nadezhda when the chips are down!

‘I’m very well, thank you mistress,’ I lie, in response to her kindly, mistressly greeting – though, actually, I am feeling a lot better now that she is gracing me with her street-prostitute presence. ‘Just a lick and a shine, is it mistress?’ I enquire of her right foot as it wobbles in its high-heel on the damp, wooden footblock directly below my wood-confined neck and face.

She casually lights up a cigarette above me:

‘Yeah – get on with it, slave!’

‘Yes mistress Nadezhda. At once mistress Nadezhda.’

Mistress Nadezhda’s right, shiny-black shoe is not too dirty – despite the rain; but there are one or two unsightly mud stains around the soles. My tongue makes straight for them.

As I lick clean the line of stitching at the bottom of her shoe where the beige-coloured sole meets the black-leather of the upper, I admire a thick line of creasing in her slightly twisted, black fishnet stocking around the front of her prominent, Romanian-girl anklebone. That’s one area of netting I would dearly love my slave-nose to get caught up in!

Mistress Nadezhda says nothing as she leans forward, resting her arms on her black leather, miniskirted thighs and uncaringly blowing her cigarette smoke down onto my face as I humbly attend to her matching, black leather footwear. Occasionally she twists her ankle further to one side in order to afford my tongue greater access to the dirtiest side of her shoe. This action, of course, serves only to augment the creasing in her fishnet stocking, which I find most enrapturing, even at this ungodly hour of the morning!

After a few minutes she withdraws her right, Romanian foot from my lips and languorously replaces it with her left. She yawns. We’re all tired tonight. I mean, it is nearly 02.30 in the morning – and miss Nadezhda should, by rights, be tucked up in bed; with a client. Or at the very least she should be making love with a real man behind the adjacent bins!

Again, lady-mistress Luck shines her good fortune down upon me on this cold and wet morning. Miss Nadezhda has suddenly noticed the nearby, discarded chip lying forlornly on the wet ground:

‘What’s that doing there, slave?’ she enquires, kicking the, now decidedly soggy, chip with the pointed toe of her right stiletto-foot.

This is my big chance to destroy the lingering evidence of my earlier surliness:

‘Oh pray mistress Nadezhda, if it pleases you skinny prostitute-mistress Nadezhda, one of my previous customer-mistresses kindly left it for me, but I fear that I cannot reach it with my mouth!’

I know what you’re thinking – lying to a mistress again! Or, at least, not telling her the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth! But what else can I do? I have to implant the idea in mistress Nadezhda’s pretty, prostitute head that this cold chip was left for my consumption – for it is the only way I can think of to destroy the evidence! Eat it!

And besides – I am quite hungry now! I could eat a horse (or, at least, a fat black girl’s discarded, cold and greasy chip!)

‘Eww – I’ve got tomato ketchup all over my shoe!’ exclaims mistress Nadezhda suddenly, referring to the ketchup which now adorns the pointy toe of her right shoe which she has just used to ‘inspect’ the chip!

I know what’s coming next – as do you!

The Romanian prostitute’s right, high-heeled shoe is once again placed on my wooden footblock for cleaning:

‘Lick it off, footboy!’

‘Yes mistress Nadezhda. At once mistress Nadezhda!’

As you already know, I don’t much like tomato ketchup. But tomato ketchup from a beautiful, Romanian prostitute’s shoe – well, that’s a different matter!

I lap it up. Such a sweet-tasting shoe!

Now that I’ve done this small favour for mistress Nadezhda, I’m hoping that she’ll return the favour for me:

‘Oh pray mistress Nadezhda, if it pleases you most beautiful, skinny prostitute-mistress Nadezhda, would the mistress please be so kind as to push the chip with her foot over towards the slave’s footblock so that his ugly mouth may gain access to it, mistress? Oh pray mistress, if it pleases you mistress, this slave craves the humble item of discarded food, since he is truly hungry mistress!’

Miss Nadezhda tuts in annoyance:

‘Tch! But what about my shoe, slave? I don’t want it getting all dirty with ketchup again, do I? Moron!’

My heart sinks! I hadn’t thought of that! Why on earth would mistress Nadezhda want to sully her pure shoe again with my dirty chip? I really am being incredibly selfish!

I apologise at once to the mistress for my stupidity:

‘Oh pray mistress. Please forgive me mistress Nadezhda! Please don’t beat me, mistress!’

She finishes her cigarette, and stubs it out on the ground next to my footblock, with the sole of her right shoe, and then turns on her skinny, high-heeled ankle to walk off in a prostitute huff!

This is a disaster! Not only is she the second mistress this morning to leave my shoelick-stand feeling insulted by the public-footslave; I now have two items of female-discarded litter lying on the ground next to my public footblock – a greasy chip; and a squashed cigarette butt! I am going to be so punished by my supervisor-mistress later this morning – for making the place look so untidy!

…………………………………………………………………….

Sure enough, my supervisor-mistress, 20 year-old, Indian student-girl miss Vasumati, who works as a part-time ‘minder’ to the public-footslaves in order to supplement her overseas student grant, is not best pleased with me when she comes to feed me my slave-gruel at 05.30 A.M on the dot. She’s such a punctual and fastidious young woman herself (apart from her ubiquitous, tatty and well-worn, student-girl, white, lace-up sneakers which always look decidedly scruffy beneath the hems of her baggy, blue denim jeans) she deplores such untidiness in a slave:

‘DIRTY, MALE SLAVE!’ she screams at me in her cute, Indian accent, even though she knows I don’t smoke and don’t like tomato ketchup; or, at least, she must know the cigarette butt and cold, greasy, discarded chip cannot possibly be mine! ‘WHAT ARE YOU BEING DOING MAKING ALL THIS DAMNED, DIRTY MESS?’

She leans down to slap me hard across the face with her soft, Indian hand. As she does so, I catch a glimpse of her short, black cotton, student-girl sneaker-socks below her frayed and flared jean hems.

Oh if only the African mistress had been wearing such a sweet pair of socks inside her brown leather pixie boots – perhaps then I wouldn’t have been in such a foul mood last night, and none of this would have happened!

Miss Vasumati deftly picks up the cigarette butt by standing on it until it squashes into the treads of her right sneaker-sole. She then holds it up to my face:

‘EAT IT, SLAVE!’ she barks. ‘EAT THE FILTHY DIRT FROM MY SHOE!’

I obey, of course. I have no choice – and besides miss Vasumati has angrily thrown my bowl of slave-mush away, having clearly decided that discarded, Romanian-prostitute cigarette butt, and African-girl cold chip, are all I am worthy to eat for breakfast this morning!

For as soon as I have extracted and swallowed the dirty cigarette butt from the sole of her Indian sneaker, she repeats the demeaning act with the street-soiled chip.

At last the African girl’s unwanted gift eventually reaches my mouth, via angry Indian-girl dirty sneakersole, and slides down my throat into my stomach – along with all the other dirt and detritus from superior and haughty, young women’s shoes.

I do always try my best to please my female betters, but it’s almost like all the young women, whose feet I come into daily contact, have some sort of chip on their shoulder! They always find fault with me, and treat me like dirt; as you have just witnessed.

But, I have no cause for complaint – for dirt is what I am; the dirt beneath their feet.

The End