Slave in a Cave
Slave Servilius was toiling away dutifully, as per usual, in the underground salt-mines just outside Rome – inspired by the sting of the nearby taskmaster’s whip and his own selfish desire to avoid any more pain than was absolutely necessary.
To be honest, the salt-mine slave had had enough of pain and suffering after some 10 years of backbreaking drudgery below ground!
But his suffering was destined to go on for the rest of his wretched, middle-aged life – and, indeed, today in particular, would increase in magnitude as the young woman who had consigned him to the salt-mines those 10 years ago, the lady Octavia (now 30), had decided to come and mock her erstwhile servus provolvo (personal footslave) in his abject pain and misery; as is her perfect, Roman-girl right!
The first he was aware of her presence was via her still-girlish, giggling laughter as she approached him surrounded by a gaggle of her young Roman-lady, and Roman-male, friends – some of whom were holding their aquiline noses whilst they were smirking, due to the truly awful smell of maleslave sweat and fear that permanently permeates the underground salt-dungeons!
But miss Octavia wasn’t holding her pretty nose; instead she was looking down her grinning nose at the hard-labouring, middle-aged footslave as she hitched up the hem of her pure white stola and positioned her dainty, besandalled foot onto a nearby rock next to his kneeling face (all salt-mine slaves are required by law to break the salt off the rocks whilst cringing on their hands and knees!):
‘Ha! Ha! Recognise this, slave?’ she quipped – referring, presumably, to her pretty, white, aristocratic Roman-girl anklebone.
Slave Servilius did recognise it – and the voice of his erstwhile mistress – and, overcome by his years of longing to kiss soft, feminine footflesh once again, immediately dropped his blunt, tiny pick-axe implement and showered the dusty, Roman-girl sandal with feverish, maleslave kisses! He didn’t say anything – just grunted and groaned like a caveman – since that, effectively, was what he now was; a slave in a cave!
How everyone, even those holding their Roman noses, laughed at him – the raggedy, dishevelled, long-bearded, bald-headed workslave worshipfully kissing the foot and ankle of his sweet, female nemesis like there was no tomorrow!
‘Ha! Ha! I’ll bet his beard must tickle, Octavia?’ enquired one of the other young ladies present.
‘Ha! Ha! Yes – ugg! I hope it hasn’t got things living it?’ replied the foot-kissee, suddenly repulsed at the thought of a dirty slave’s, beard-dwelling creepy-crawlies touching her nice, clean Roman skin!
Everyone laughed, and sought to reassure her that the slave’s beard would actually help to dry the sweat off her foot (for it was stiflingly hot down here – as well as smelly!)
Duly reassured, the lady Octavia deftly switched pretty ankles on the makeshift footblock-rock beneath slave Servilius’s foot-mesmerized face:
‘Ha! Ha! How are you liking it, Servilius? Ha! Ha! How do you like kissing your former mistress’s nice, shapely foot and ankle again after all these years? Ha! Ha! Have you missed them, slave?’
The slave Servilius – having lost the power of speech through years of enforced silence – merely grunted his approval of the unexpected, female foot-feast before him!
Again – how everyone laughed!
‘Ha! Ha! I think you can take that as a ‘Yes’, Octavia!’ opined another of her female friends.
The lady Octavia looked, and sounded, triumphant:
‘Ha! Ha! I’ll bet you regret turning your nose up at my feet all those years ago now, don’t you Servilius? Ha! Ha!’
This was the nub of the point – slave Servilius had not turned his Anglo-Saxon nose up at his young Roman mistress’s bare, white feet all those years ago when she had ordered him to de-sandal her and wash her feet. She had merely perceived him as having done so – when, in fact, he had only been momentarily distracted by the bare, black feet of her beautiful, Nubian maidservant in the corner of the atrium, and had fleetingly thought about how nice it would be to wash the maid’s even dirtier and dustier, leathery-calloused, black feet!
But, unfortunately for him, his then 20 year old mistress Octavia had seen his 40 year old, slaveman lechery towards her maidservant’s imperfect feet, and, feeling insulted, had immediately ordered him to be consigned to the slave-mines for life (and the poor maid to the kitchen as a full-time floor scrubber, not that any of it was her fault!)
And now, some 10 years later, slave Servilius was indeed regretting his momentary lapse in concentration, but was unable to express that regret other than by sobbing unmanfully onto his erstwhile young mistress’s still alluring, smooth alabaster-coloured, left foot. Even her musty smelling, strappy brown-leather sandal belatedly held a fatal fascination for him – and he sobbed over, and kissed, it too!
‘Ha! Ha! Again, Octavia – I think you can take that as a ‘Yes, Domina!’ smirked her female cohort-in-mocking!
‘Ha! Ha! What a weakling! What a dried-up and wizened, old wimp, Octavia!’ interjected one of her Roman male-friends. ‘Ha! Ha! You’ve certainly brought him down a peg or two! Ha! Ha! Ha!’
‘Ha! Ha! Yes, Octavia – many congratulations! You are the victor, and he is your victim! Ha! Ha! Well done!’ remarked another free-Roman malefriend.
The lady Octavia herself beamed with young-womanly pride:
‘Ha! Ha! You certainly look old and haggard, my former slave Servilius! Ha! Ha! Doesn’t the stale air down here agree with you, or something? Ha! Ha!’
Slave Servilius merely grunted twice, like the human slave-pig that he was, so one of Octavia’s female friends obligingly interpreted his slaveman grunts for her:
‘Ha! Ha! I think he’s saying, ‘Yes, Domina Octavia! If it pleases you, Domina Octavia. This slave does indeed suffer from the oppressive and stinky air down here in the slave-mines, most beautiful mistress Octavia, but is indebted to the mistress for providing some respite for him through the sweet fragrance of her sweaty foot, most gracious Domina, if you would be so kind and understanding, goddess-mistress the lady Octavia?’ Ha! Ha!’
Everyone – including the ignorant taskmaster with the nearby coiled-up whip (himself a slave) – bellowed with laughter in response to the young, aristocratic-Roman woman’s witty interpretation of slave Servilius’s primeval grunts!
Eventually, the lady Octavia recovered enough from her own belly-laughter to address her former footslave yet again:
‘Ha! Ha! Well, Servilius? Is that what you meant to say?’
Grunt! Grunt!
‘Ha! Ha! There, I told you so, Octavia – two grunts for yes!’ beamed the female ‘interpreter’, feeling vindicated (as well as vindictive!)
‘Erm…the only problem is, Octavia, whilst this pig-ignorant, wretch of a slave is kissing and grunting over your pretty feet, he isn’t actually doing any work! Should that be allowed, do you think?’ enquired one of the lady Octavia’s sanctimonious malefriends.
A wry smile played over the lady Octavia’s pretty, Roman lips:
‘Do you know, Marcus, I think you’re right! This dirty, indolent slave has indeed cast aside his pick-axe in order to kiss my feet, and has stopped working without his taskmaster’s express permission!...Ha! Ha! You there, the taskmaster – I do apologise on behalf of my workshy slave! Please feel free to discipline him with your whip, and put him back to his work!’
And with that the lady Octavia abruptly lowered her white stola-hem and withdrew her foot from Servilius’s cowering slave-face!
‘Yes, Domina! It will be my pleasure, Domina!’ replied the burly taskmaster, already uncoiling his single-tailed, black leather whip. ‘Pray stand back, my lady, that you may be well out of harm’s way from the whip!’
The lady Octavia certainly had never been whipped, and never would be – and so she and her aristocratic friends gleefully stood back and made way for the miserable, bearded and blubbering-for-mercy creature at their feet to be the sole recipient of the Roman-whip’s cruel sting!
But blubber was all Servilius could do – even the Latin word for ‘mercy’ was beyond him now!
Even if he could have uttered it, it wouldn’t have done him any good. He had ceased working – albeit to pay his slavish respects to his all-vanquishing mistress – and would now, accordingly, be whipped; whipped until he once again had his blunt tool in his hand and was digging salt out of rock for the benefit of his Roman masters and betters!
The young, Roman people collectively cheered each and every cut of the punishing whip on his back, with the lady Octavia even air-whipping her former slave’s back in tandem with the actual strokes of the brutish taskmaster’s whip.
Servilius’s grunts soon became cries – cries which echoed around the mine, encouraging the other workslaves to ever greater efforts with their measly pick-axes!
Eventually he found the strength to pick up his own, precipitately discarded, pick-axe and resume his menial work, and the whipping stopped.
The lady Octavia and her friends promptly exited the mines as they were in dire need of some fresh air, leaving the forlorn workslave Servilius not just in the nasty stench of the slave-mine, but with a nasty taste in his mouth – that of his former footmistress Octavia’s sweaty, brown sandal-leather, even though the sandal itself was long gone, along with her jubilant laughter!
