Sour Grapes
The ladies Julia and Portia – both aristocrats – are relaxing on their respective recliners in their villa courtyard on the outskirts of Rome, sipping on their respective glasses of wine in between sucking on some grapes. They are nice and comfortable in the shade.
Nearby, a semi-naked, loinclothed, male courtyard-slave is busily scrubbing away at the stone patio on his hands and knees, under the full glare of the Roman sun!
The lady Portia observes his sweaty labours:
‘I do so admire the glistening whip-gashes on your working-slave’s back, Julia! I trust they are fresh?’
The lady Julia giggles:
‘Yes, fresh on him this morning! I believe he may have inadvertently broken a vase whilst dusting in the sessorium.’
‘Bravo, Julia! I do so like to see a smarting back hard at work! Ha! Ha!’
‘Would you, perchance, like to observe his whip-wounds close up, my dear Portia? I can have him come over and wash your feet, if you so wish?’
The lady Portia languorously looks at her outstretched, brown leather sandalled feet beneath her lightweight, summer stola. Her feet don’t really need to be washed; they are quite clean, with just a thin veneer of sweet Roman-lady footsweat. Nevertheless, it would be nice to see the slave’s suffering – closer to hand!
‘Why yes, Julia my darling! If it wouldn’t be too inconvenient?’
The lady Julia – ever the attentive host – is delighted at her friend’s uptake of her suggestion. She claps her hands – and the kneeling slave comes hastily crawling over to the foot of his mistress’s recliner.
He is a well-trained, well-whipped slave, and immediately kisses his mistress Julia’s aristocratic, Roman toes inside her strappy, low-heeled, calf-length, brown leather sandals which wind their way up her lower legs (almost identical sandals to those of the Lady Portia, – which he had already kiss-greeted in the porch on her initial arrival earlier that hot afternoon!)
The lady Julia, meanwhile, gives him his new instructions:
‘Patheticus, go fetch a bowl of clean water and a towel. You are going to wash the Lady Portia’s feet.’
‘Yes, domina Julia madam. At once, domina Julia!’
Patheticus, the whipped Roman slave, then scurries off to the scullery in order to fetch the requisite bowl of water and fluffy towel for the guest-mistress’s feet. He does admire the visiting lady Portia – of a similar age to his mistress Julia (mid twenties) but bustier; and shapelier!
Within minutes he has returned to the courtyard, deftly carrying the bowl of fresh, lukewarm water balanced on his whipped, and still very sore, back, whilst crawling along with the white, fluffy foot-towel in his right hand. He is ultra-careful not to get it dusty, for he has already had one painful whipping today – as his water-carrying back keeps reminding him; he can ill afford another!
The Lady Portia nonchalantly continues to sup on her wine, and chew on her grapes, as the slave kneels by the foot of her recliner and respectfully starts to unlace her flat, brown leather, calf-length sandals from her suntanned, aristocratic, Roman legs and feet. His face is now very close to her warm, bare feet, just as his bent-over back is now much closer to her haughty view, and open to her inspection.
She laughs at it:
‘Ha! Ha! What a goodly amount of gashes you have laid upon your slave this morning, Julia my dear! I daresay his back is smarting most mightily! Ha! Ha!’
‘Indeed! The whip is a great teacher of the incompetent house-slave, and a reformer of the inept footservant!’
The Lady Portia sighs wistfully:
‘Mmm… I do so like to see a freshly-whipped, untreated slave toiling away under the hot sun! Ha! Ha! Any proper human-being would be permitted to lay down and recover from such wounds before resuming his labour – and to be treated with soothing salve. But the dirty slave must merely resume his work after his whipping, and perform much better than before, lest he invoke his mistress’s righteous ire once more! Ha! Ha!’
‘Indeed, my dear! I trust my whipped slave is performing a satisfactory job on your feet?’
The Lady Portia was indeed satisfied at slave Patheticus’s menial ministrations on her tired, bare feet. The water was quite refreshing and invigorating on her sensuous soles – and it pleased her that one who was clearly in so much pain, was having to be so gentle towards her.
The wicked thought occurred to her that she could have him whipped further – by falsely accusing him of scratching her bare, aristocratic footflesh! But the Lady Portia was not a sadist, as such; she was just a typical, young, upper-class, Roman lady, who was quite used to the sight of a servant’s whipped back, and aroused by it:
‘Yes thank you, Julia my dear! I must say, he has quite skilful hands when it comes to a lady’s podiatry – even if those same hands are clumsy when it comes to a lady’s pottery!’
The two ladies laughed, and Patheticus relaxed – a fatal error; for a male Roman slave should never relax in the presence of capricious, Roman ladyhood!
The Lady Portia suddenly changed tack, and decided she would have the footslave whipped – for insubordination, and lustfully fawning over her superior feet. With a feminine-wicked grin she turned to her friend Julia on the neighbouring recliner:
‘I fear, however, that your slave must be experiencing unseemly and libidinous thoughts whilst he is attending to my feet! See his intrusive tumescence!’
She then makes said tumescence even worse, by prodding it through the kneeling slave’s loincloth with her still-wet, crimson-painted, bare, big toe-nail on her right foot!
Patheticus turns a matching shade of crimson with shame and embarrassment – but not as crimson as his bare back when the Lady Julia has him subsequently tied to the courtyard whipping post.
The Lady Portia was permitted to flog him first – which she did with a wanton smile on her pretty, Roman face.
The above image (by Prang's Valentine Cards) is free of known copyright restrictions. Adapted and modified by Patheticus using fotosketcher.
But his mistress Julia whipped him particularly hard that afternoon, after her gloating, grape-sucking friend had gone – not least because the slave never seemed to get quite so tumescent within his loincloth when washing her bare, alabaster feet!
It was, therefore, very much a case of the grapes of indignant, young-womanly wrath; or should that be sour grapes?
