Roman Machinations
Don’t get me wrong – a slave is a slave, and if my wealthy, Roman master, master Apollonius sir, has decreed that I should be a common-or-garden villa slave, responsible for scrubbing his family’s floors, then that should be my role. I can either like it, or do it under the unremitting sting of the Roman whip as wielded by his brutish overseer, master sir Bricius!
The trouble is there is constant temptation around for me to aim higher – in the form of my master’s lovely, 19 year old daughter, the lady Licinia!
She’s such a lovely, Roman girl – in her sultry looks as well as her kindly personality – and I am oftentimes driven to distraction as she sits indolently by the courtyard fountain observing me at work, down on my hands and knees, dutifully scrubbing the ground around her brown-leather-sandaled feet.
If truth be told, I rather suspect she finds my rippling, sweat-covered biceps quite attractive; I rather think she likes having a youthful, but totally helpless, male brute under control and humbly scrubbing around her aristocratic, Roman-girl feet – knowing that, for all my physical power and energy, and despite her own feminine frailty and delicateness, she is the one with all the power – thanks to her doting father’s whip, which she frequently brings out with her to the patio under the pretence of oiling it for him! (Needless to say, she has no need to oil the whip – that should be the overseer Bricius’s job! But she clearly enjoys running the thick-girthed lash through her delicate, young-womanly fingers, especially in my trembling presence!)
Miss Licinia’s mother, the lady Honoria, seems to encourage her daughter in her overtly sexual teasing of the male, household slaves, and finds her daughter’s machinations amusing – but I think it’s fair to say that her father is less enamoured by his daughter’s playful flirtatiousness! I suppose, in his eyes, she is still a delicate, unplucked flower – being held in reserve for some young senator or legionnaire, and certainly much too good for the amorous attentions of a sexually-frustrated, male, household scrubber like me!
But miss Licinia can be quite stubbornly flirtatious, and she seems to be nearly always hanging around with nothing better to do than taunt the hard-working, household slaves with her maidenly beauty – whatever her father’s thoughts on the matter!
As if her oiling the single-tailed, brown leather slave-whip through her dainty fingers weren’t distraction enough, the sight of miss Licinia’s pedicured, bare feet – inside her open-toed and strappy, flat, brown leather sandals – swinging playfully in the air beneath the gold-trimmed hem of her pure, white tunic as she perches herself on the edge of the courtyard fountain, is enough to drive any self-disrespecting household slave to insanity! For they are without doubt the most perfect, female feet I have ever seen – like two elegant, alabaster pearls with fragrant, red rose petals adorning their frontispieces in the form of her skilfully painted toenails. I must say miss Licinia’s personal maidservant, Claudia, does a superb job on her young mistress’s feet!
Miss Licinia’s feet even smell nice – even in the height of summer when we are both perspiring under the midday, Roman sun; at such times I merely stink, thanks to my vigorous efforts scrubbing the stone, courtyard floor; whereas miss Licinia’s hot feet just seem to glow, with only the faintest aroma of cheesiness detectable when my kneeling and hardworking face is right next to them with my scrubbing brush!
I’ll swear the lovely miss Licinia – looking resplendent in her white and gold-trimmed, Roman tunic – deliberately wriggles her painted toes beneath my face whenever I am near to them, just to release yet more of their natural, young-womanly fragrance up my kneeling and embondaged nostrils. She is such a toe-tease!
And this is what is inevitably leading to my downfall, for the combination of her libidinous foot-flirtatiousness and cruel whip-oiling is leading me to the fanciful notion that the miss Licinia really does fancy me! That she would like to be with me – were it not for the unbridgeable, social gap between us – that of mistress and slave. Sure, if I was some sort of high-profile, gladiator slave she might be able to persuade her father to buy my freedom and let me be her consort! But a down-in-the-dirt, patio floor scrubber? I think not!
That still leaves me with one option, however – to offer up my services to the delectable miss Licinia as her personal footservant! Lots of rich, young Roman girls have one nowadays – they’re actually becoming all the rage since the Emperor Vespasian purchased one for his daughter! A kind of status symbol for aristocratic, young ladies, if you like – before they get married and have their own household full of personal servants!
I would dearly love to be miss Licinia’s personal footservant – the work would be so much less demanding than the hard labour I must presently undertake day after day! I mean, how hard can it be scrubbing a beautiful, Roman girl’s delicate feet and toenails when you’ve spent hours and hours scrubbing dirty, patio floors? Why, I would even get to kiss her beautiful feet – as an acknowledgement of my personal, young mistress’s ownership of me. And she would be able to whip me herself – since I would become her personal property – as opposed to merely watching me being whipped by her father’s brutal slave-overseer!
Ha! Ha! I’ll bet such a delicate flower of a girl couldn’t whip anything like as hard as that brute of an overseer, Bricius – however much she likes to posture with her father’s whip, running its freshly oiled lash through her delicate, feminine fingernails! Ha! Ha! Being whipped by a girl would be a doddle!
Yes – the more I think about it, the more I want it. I desire to be miss Licinia’s personal footslave, and, despite being a lowly, household scrubber, I think I know how to get there! What is it they say – flattery can get you anywhere? Especially when it comes to beautiful, young women! I mean, how could she possibly resist a sweet-talking hunk of a male slave like me? Ha! Ha!
I decide to manipulate her emotions the next time she is cheerily and innocently oiling her father’s brown leather whip whilst perched on the edge of the courtyard fountain.
As I scrub nearer and nearer to the Roman girl’s porcelain-like, red-painted toenails, I take a deep breath of her natural foot-aroma, and make my manipulative move:
‘Good afternoon, miss Licinia!… scrub…scrub… The young mistress is looking especially beautiful today…scrub…scrub… if I may be so bold, most respected, young mistress? ...scrub …scrub… scrub…’
She giggles, and wriggles her toes beneath my humbly bowed face with sweet, innocent delight – the way she is wont to do (Even though I am manipulatively wooing her, even I would not be so presumptuous as to look a superior, young Roman woman in the eye! That would just be too outrageous, even for an ambitious footslave like me!)
My weaselly words have clearly had their desired effect on the young woman, for she beams with young-female pride above me:
‘Ha! Ha! Yes I am beautiful, aren’t I, Machiavellius? Tell me, do you like my new sandals?’
And with that she pushes her right sandaled foot directly up to my mouth, so that I can get a better look at it.
To be perfectly honest I hadn’t even noticed that she was wearing a brand new pair of brown, leather sandals; they look just like the old ones; a bit shinier, perhaps, and they certainly smell strong and new – but still just a fairly ordinary pair of modest Roman-girl sandals, if truth be told!
But it won’t, of course! I shall flatter those plain, brown, flat leather sandals, even though they do little or nothing for me! That’s my only gripe about miss Licinia – she never seems to go for those high-heeled, silvery-coloured sandals that I see some of her young female friends wearing on their aristocratic feet when they come to visit her in the villa. Miss Licinia, for all her flirtatiousness, seems to prefer practicality over style when it comes to her Roman footwear.
Still, beggars can’t be choosers – and right now, I’m begging to be her personal footservant (though she doesn’t realise it yet!) and if flattering and fawning over the young miss’s flat, brown leather, strappy, open-toed sandals is what it takes to get me away from my interminable floor-scrubbing duties and into the service of her beautiful, soft and smooth, Roman-girl, pedicured feet, then that is precisely what I shall do:
‘Oh yes, miss Licinia… scrub…scrub…Oh pray, mistress! ... scrub …scrub...scrub… Truly your sandals look resplendent on your pretty feet, miss Licinia madam …scrub...scrub…scrub… Oh pray, miss Licinia, if it would please you lady Licinia …scrub...scrub…. may this dirty slave be permitted to kiss the young mistress’s new sandals …scrub…scrub… as a demonstration of his admiration for their great beauty, miss?... scrub…scrub…scrub…scrub….’
She giggles, and coyly withdraws her outstretched, sandaled and pedicured foot from the immediate vicinity of my mouth:
‘Ha! Ha! Hush what you are saying, slave! You know it would not be appropriate for you to place your lips on my footwear – since you are but a common and dirty, household scrubber! My! My! What would my father say if I told him? I have no doubt he would have you whipped for such impertinence towards me!’
She doesn’t sound genuinely angry – just bemused; but she nevertheless starts to oil the whip above me all the more vigorously, presumably lest I have any thoughts in my head of lowering my lips to her dusty, brown sandal-leather regardless of her protestations.
But she needn’t worry – I’m not a complete cad; or a complete fool! I certainly have no desire to be flogged by the slave-overseer again! Instead, I offer her up another proposal – whilst I am down before her on both knees as opposed to just one knee, and looking her in the leathery-sandaled foot, rather than the eye. For this is a slave’s proposal – not a suitor’s!
‘Oh pray mistress Licinia…pray forgive me, goddess-mistress Licinia...this ignorant slave apologises most profusely for embarrassing the mistress, if you would be so kind and understanding towards a stupid, male slave, domina Licinia? But truly, if it would be pleasing to the mistress, this slave would deem it an honour to serve in the capacity of the young mistress’s personal footservant, that he may thence legitimately kiss and honour her beautiful feet and footwear, if it would be so pleasing to you most admired and respected, young mistress Licinia?’
You may have noticed that I had stopped scrubbing whilst I gushed forth my self-demeaning proposal of personal foot-servitude towards the bemused, young mistress. Miss Licinia has certainly noticed it.
She suddenly stands up – in an apparent state of young-womanly shock at my animalistic forthrightness:
‘Be silent, slave! And resume your labours! How dare you presume to offer me your services? Are you not my father’s slave, and should not he be the one to determine the nature of your servitude in this household? Hah! Vile slave – wait until my father hears about this!’
And with that she turns quickly on her pretty, flat, brown-leather-strapped heels leaving my kneeling, rejected face surrounded by a cloud of her disappearing-foot dust. Somewhat ominously also, I notice how the tail-end of her father’s freshly-oiled whip dangles angrily by the side of her white and gold tunic as she storms off towards her father’s study!
Oops! That particular Cupid’s arrow missed its target!
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Some 10 minutes later the young lady Licinia returns to the courtyard where I had hastily resumed my scrubbing, this time in the company of her redfaced father:
‘Is this the wretch who propositioned you, my dear?’
‘Yes, father,’ replies the lady Licinia, all seemingly coy and upset, but still, I notice, holding her father’s freshly-oiled whip in her delicate, alabaster hands. ‘The brute tried to force himself on me, father, first as my footslave, and then as my lover!…Oh father, it was quite beastly! Whip him father, I beseech you!’
I cease scrubbing and look the Lady Licinia in the sandals. You know that she’s lying, but you must also know the fate that now awaits me!
I think we both know!
‘Very well, my dear…don’t upset yourself anymore! By the time I’ve finished with this fiendish brute he will wish he had never been born!...Now run along to the whipping barn and take the whip with you. I’ll soon have Bricius flog this wily wretch to within an inch of his life at your feet, and then banish what’s left of him to the mines! I promise you, my dear, he will not bother you, or any other young woman, ever again!
Miss Licinia embraces her father, her right-sandaled foot rising up coquettishly into the air in front of my kneeling face, showing me a triumphant, dusty, brown leather sole:
‘Oh thank you, father! Thank you! Thank you!’
Now, does that sound to you like a genuinely relieved young woman whose affronted foot-modesty is being protected, or the evil machinations of a manipulative, young minx who is eagerly looking forward to witnessing a rejected, male slave being cruelly whipped at her seemingly demurely-sandaled feet?
