Hotel Footslave

Chapter 1 -- Room Service

'Hotel "Footslave", can I help you?'

The hotel receptionist answered the phone in her usual chirpy, happy voice. She loved her job -- her first real job since leaving school. Trudy had just turned 20 years old, and all her family were impressed at the fact that, despite leaving school with virtually no qualifications, she had at last managed to secure a potentially good career in the hospitality industry. She may be just the receptionist now, but Trudy had a very high opinion of herself and had ambitions to rise to the very top. She was determined that one day she would be the manageress of her own hotel.

'Oh, hello. My name is Patel, and I’m ringing to make a reservation for myself, my wife, and my two daughters this coming weekend.'

'Yes certainly, sir,' responded Trudy, twiddling her long, blonde hair, 'how many rooms do you require?'

'Two please - a double room for myself and my wife and a twin room for my daughters, if that's possible?'

'No problem, Sir, we have two such rooms available this weekend. I’ll just take your credit card details if I may?'

And with that the blonde, bubbly 20 year old receptionist proceeded to process the reservation.

As she did so, lying beneath her feet under the reception desk was one of the hotel’s footslaves. It was a ‘themed’ hotel, and as the name of the hotel suggested, the theme was foot slavery. Many of the rooms had 'resident footslaves’ - secured in alcoves in the floor -- who could be released from their confinement if the female guests so wished in order to service their feet. Some of the other cheaper rooms did not have the luxury of a resident footslave. But the female guests could call upon the 'footslave room-service' facility as and when required. And then there were the 'general use’ footslaves, scattered throughout the hotel, who were at the disposal of both female guests and staff. These footslaves were the hotel’s porters, shoeshine boys and laundry slaves.

The footslave whose left cheek was currently acting as the receptionist's foot rest was one such 'general use’ footslave. He didn't mind being a ‘general use’ slave -- in fact, quite the opposite. Sure, in the slave-hierarchy within the hotel, the ‘general use’ slaves were regarded as bottom of the pile. And it wasn't that he wasn't ambitious -- he could see himself, eventually, 'rising' through the ranks to the elevated status of one of the room-footslaves. But he had only been at the hotel for a couple of years, and the 'life' of a general use footslave was, at least, varied - you could be serving as a porter one day, polishing feminine shoes and boots the next day, washing dirty female socks and hosiery the next, or, as he was today, serving as a footrest for a female member of the hotel staff. No two days were ever the same!

The hotel receptionist’s foot-rest didn't know much about his mistress- even though he had served her in this capacity many times before. He knew only that her name was Trudy, that she was bubbly and attractive (he knew that because he could hear how some of the male guests flirted outrageously with her -- and because she had great legs!) He knew also that she had a preference for wearing tan-coloured stockings and high-heels. At that very moment the young woman was digging the sharp, albeit rubber-tipped, heel of one of her shiny, red, patent-leather pumps into his upturned cheek, whilst the other, pretty, high-heeled foot was resting on the ground just inches in front of his face. A special light under the reception desk made sure that her feet were fully illuminated -- the hotel authorities wanted to make sure that the receptionists’ foot-rests had a good view of their mistresses’ feet and footwear, be it day or night.

As she spoke to the customer, Mr Patel, on the phone Trudy subconsciously flexed her feet, causing a little crease to appear in the fine denier stocking around the ankle of her left foot which was resting in front of the footslave's face. Were it not for that tiny crease in the material the footslave might have been forgiven for thinking that mistress Trudy was wearing her heels on bare feet. But in the bright light he could see every crease in the stocking-- he could even focus his eyes on the individual stitches of the material of the stocking, especially where it was stretched over her shapely ankle-bone.

However, at that particular point in time, the footslave was focusing on a tiny black mark on the side of the otherwise ultra-shiny red shoe. It was a tiny scuff mark on the patent leather, unnoticeable to anyone, including the wearer -- anyone, that is, apart from a pathetic down-in-the-dirt footslave whose whole field of vision, not to say ‘universe’, was dominated by his young mistress’s footwear. He so much wanted to lick off the offending mark on his mistress's shoe. But he knew that he could not do so unless he was so ordered by the mistress. And mistress Trudy had more important issues to deal with -- like processing Mr Patel's reservation politely and efficiently. So the slave at her feet just had to put up with the frustration of staring at the slight imperfection on the otherwise perfect mistress’s shoe.

If the footslave knew little or nothing about the life of the young mistress towering above him, she knew even less about the miserable existence of the foot-rest under her feet. Indeed, she never gave him a second thought. He was just there -an object for her to rest her feet on whilst she was on duty at the reception desk. She never bothered to speak to the foot-rests, and scarcely even noticed which slave was fulfilling that role on any particular day. If truth be told she didn't even care. And why should she?

Having finished processing Mr Patel's reservation, Trudy stopped fiddling with her blonde locks and resumed filing her fingernails. She readjusted herself in her chair to make herself more comfortable, causing the heel of her right foot to momentarily dig even deeper into the footslave's cheek. The tiny crease in the stocking around her left ankle also disappeared again, giving the pathetic footslave even more reason to obsess about the tiny scuff mark on the side of her left shoe.

It was a busy hotel, and the phone was soon ringing again. This time even the footslave could tell it was an internal call by the different ring-tone.

'Reception, can I help you?' chirped Trudy.

'Yeah, ah’d like one of them footslaves sent up to mah room’.

Trudy grimaced. It was that fat cow in room 16. American, she believed. Quite abrupt, quite rude.

‘Yes, certainly, Madam, I’ll have one sent up right away. Will there be anything else?’

‘No thanks, honey-pie. Just git that slave up here – mah feet need a good wash!’

Trudy knew enough about American accents to know that this woman was from the deep South.

‘Very well, Madam. Good-bye’

Fat cow or not, the woman was a guest in the hotel and was entitled to a professional service. Trudy paged one of the room-service footslaves who scurried along on his hands and knees, naked apart from his white slave-shorts (in common with all the male footslaves in the hotel), to the front of the reception desk:

‘Slave, go to room 16’, she ordered abruptly, lowering her normally chirpy voice to make it sound as authoritative as possible. Trudy had two ‘voices’ – a polite one for the guests, and a dominant one for giving orders to the footslaves. She made sure that she always, quite literally, spoke down to the slaves.

The room-service slave immediately scurried off on his hands and knees up the stairs (slaves were not allowed to use the lifts unless accompanying a female guest), whilst Trudy, again, resumed her nail-filing, and her foot-rest, again, focused his attention on that infernal scuff-mark on the side of her left shoe.

The room-service footslave knocked somewhat gingerly on the door to room 16. He was, as ever, on his hands and knees with head bowed – the hotel footslaves were never allowed to stand up. He had no idea who was staying in the room, all he could be sure of was that there was a woman in there as male guests were never allowed to make use of the footslaves, just the female guests.

The first thing he saw when the door was opened was the black mistress’s socked and sandaled feet – white ‘no-show’ ankle socks with a colourful floral pattern just beneath the white elasticated tops, and beige flip-flop style sandals, but with shiny silver buckles on the thick leather straps across the top of her feet. He noticed, in an instant, that the socks were quite dirty around the exposed toes.

‘What kept you, boy?’ barked the young woman, who was, to put it politely, somewhat overweight. ‘Ah ordered you nearly 5 minutes ago. Git yoh ass in here now, fore an ah whup yoh ass, you lazy good-for-nothin’ footlick!’

The slave knew it wasn’t true that he had taken five minutes to scurry along to her room, but arguing with a mistress was totally out of the question. In the Hotel ‘Footslave’, not only was the female customer always right – she could do no wrong! He therefore sought to apologise for his tardiness:

‘Please forgive me, mistress. I apologise for not getting to you sooner, mistress.’

His attempt at a cringing, groveling apology earned him a kick up the backside:

‘Shut up, boy! Don’t you try an’ sass me, boy. You is nothin’ but a dirty, no-good footslave and ah wants mah feet attended to. Now git in that room, boy!’

The room-service footslave, in his early fifties, must have been at least 20 years older than the young woman who was now clearly enjoying bossing him about and referring to him, disparagingly, as ‘boy’. But it was right that she should do so – for he wasn’t a ‘man’ in the true sense of the word: he was just a male slave, infinitely inferior to this superior, young black woman.

She continued to kick him with her scrunched-up, white-socked toes as he scurried hurriedly on his hands and knees into her room. He heard her slam the door behind them.

‘Git yoh ass in front of mah bed, boy!’ barked the young, black mistress in her heavy, sexy Southern drawl.

Although she was quite overweight, Marcia was nevertheless, an attractive young woman. At 31, she was a successful self-employed business-woman, selling beauty products to salons specializing in black womens’ hair and beauty. She was in town on business for a couple of days, and had had quite a busy day trawling around the numerous such salons in the area. Her feet were now hot, sweaty and tired having been in her white socks and sneakers all day and, although she had changed into her sandals, which also served as her house-slippers, she knew she could do with a foot-rub. She knew also that her feet needed washing, but she would have her foot-rub first. She didn’t care if it meant that the unfortunate footslave would have to endure her foot-stink.

She relaxed back on her bed and rested her sandaled feet so that they were just inches from the face of the room-service footslave who was now kneeling at the end of her bed:

‘Take off mah sandals, boy, and rub mah socked feet,’ she barked. It wasn’t that she was in a particularly bad mood. Marcia just despised male slaves, and enjoyed shouting orders at them.

‘Yes, mistress. At once, mistress’, whined the hapless footslave. He knew that he was in the power of a demanding young woman, who would tolerate nothing less than his utmost submissiveness.

As he gently raised each socked heel off the bed in order to slip off her sandals, his nose came much closer to the socked toes. He caught quite a strong whiff of feminine sock-sweat. The floral pattern around the top of her short ankle socks was doing nothing to improve the fragrance of the socks. As the sandals came off he could also see the source of the smell – yellow sweat stains beneath the toes. But his features betrayed none of his discomfort. He was a footslave, and the smell of a woman’s foot-sweat was a smell fitting for his slave-nostrils.

‘Make sure you rub hard on mah toes, boy. Ah wanna feel yoh slave-fingers rubbin’ through mah socks. Do you hear me, boy?’

‘Yes, mistress. I obey you, mistress’.

‘You sure will, boy, or ah’ll whup yoh sorry ass red-raw.’ She picked up the brown, leather single-tailed whip that was supplied in every room, and ran it through her fingers. She liked the feel of it, the texture. She betted it would really sting if applied to a bare back or shoulders.

The room-service footslave began obediently rubbing the dirty white socks of the black mistress. Now, he could feel the source of the pungent odour – the socks were quite damp under the toes. He knew that the woman’s sock-sweat would be transferring onto his hands – that his fingers would smell of her sweat when he had finished. But that was precisely where her foot-sweat belonged – on his fingers, and, later, down his throat as he sucked it off.

Mistress Marcia cracked the whip in the air, as much to test it out as anything else:
‘Ah said rub mah feet hard, boy! You deaf or somethin’?’

‘No, mistress, sorry mistress,’ pleaded the pathetic footslave, spurred into even more vigorous sock-rubbing by the mere sound of the cracking whip.

Marcia laughed, and let out a little moan of pleasure:

‘Hmm, that’s better, boy. You just keep on rubbin’ mah socks while ah has me a cigarette.’

All the rooms in the Hotel ‘Footslave’ were non-smoking, but, needless to say, it was not the slave’s place to point this out to the superior mistress. As far as slaves were concerned, a mistress could do no wrong. If she wanted to smoke, she damn well would, and if she wanted to, she could subsequently blame it on the slave. He was, in effect, like all the slaves employed in the hotel, a potential ‘whipping-boy’ for the misdemeanours of the female guests, as well as a footslave.

Marcia was clearly enjoying her relaxing foot-rub, and grabbed the remote control to switch on the television. The TV was behind the footslave, so he could hear the programme if not see it. It was the latest episode of a long-running soap opera which he had once enjoyed watching before his enslavement nearly 15 years ago. But he had long since lost touch with the characters and the plot – needless to say slaves never got to watch television - and so he didn’t find the dialogue in the least bit distracting as he concentrated on the job in hand – giving a relaxing foot-massage to the superior mistress Marcia.

He could smell her cigarette smoke. That was something else he hadn’t had the pleasure of consuming in over 15 years, nor had he had a drink. Since becoming a footslave his senses had been dominated by the smell and taste of female feet; they were his only real sustenance, apart from the disgusting slave gruel he got to eat every day.

But he was now fully conditioned to his life as a footslave. Just as mistress Trudy’s footslave would have liked to lick off the offending scuff-mark from the side of her red, leather pump, so the room-service footslave would have liked to respectfully kiss mistress Marcia’s dirty white socks as he rubbed her socked feet. He admired the way her socks creased as she wiggled her toes under his now sweaty fingers. There was one yellow-stained area on the underside of her left sock in particular that he longed to kiss, as a demonstration of his humility and servility. But mistress Marcia had not ordered him to kiss her socks, and, like all slaves, he had the frustration of being completely subject to her wishes and whims. If she wanted her socks kissed, she would order it. If not, she wouldn’t. His role was but to obey.

In fact, Marcia was getting bored with her foot-rub. It was time for the slave to wash her dirty feet. But, with a mischievous grin on her face, she had already decided she would have him do it in a way befitting a footslave:

‘Boy, stop rubbin’ mah feet and go git a bowl of water and a towel from the bathroom. You is gonna wash mah dirty feet. Move, boy!’

The slave obeyed as Marcia swung her legs round to the side of the bed. She stubbed out her cigarette and switched off the TV using the remote. She wanted to concentrate on the slave-boy’s humiliation as she made him clean her feet. She also picked up the brown leather whip again and placed it in her lap.

When the slave retuned awkwardly on his hands and knees, or rather ‘hand’ and knees as he was carefully carrying a bowl of warm water and a towel in his left hand, and moved round to kneel in front of his mistress who was now seated on the edge of the bed, he could see that she still had her socks on.

Mistress Marcia could, of course, have removed her socks whilst she was waiting for the footslave to return from the en-suite bathroom, but why should she? What was the point in touching your own stinky socks when you had a footslave to do it for you?

The humble footslave placed the bowl in front of mistress Marcia’s socked feet and awaited his orders.

‘OK, boy, take off mah socks and wash mah sweaty feet. Ah wants you to start by dippin’ yoh tongue in the water and then lickin’ ‘tween mah dirty toes. You hear me, boy?’

‘Yes, mistress. At once, mistress.’

The slave gently and respectfully raised mistress Marcia’s right foot off the carpeted floor in order to peel off her sweaty white ankle sock, from the top downwards. Although she was undoubtedly overweight, she was one of those ‘obese’ women who still had shapely ankles and pretty feet. As the sock came off her toes the slave saw that her toenails were freshly painted purple. He could never work out why some women still liked to have their toenails painted even if their feet were hidden inside socks. Perhaps she had originally planned to wear open-toed stiletto sandals? Perhaps she had made some other slave do it for her just to humiliate him? Whatever the reason, the toes looked pretty.

However, mistress Marcia’s feet were not all-perfect. As the second sock came off the slave could see areas of rough skin on both her feet, particularly around the balls of her heels, and one of the toes on her right foot showed signs of a bunion beginning to form. No matter, they were the brown feet of his superior black mistress, and the footslave almost had a sense of unworthiness in their presence.

Marcia was becoming impatient:

‘Git yoh tongue in that water and on mah toes, boy!’ she barked down at him, reinforcing her command with a swipe from the coiled up whip across his naked right shoulder.

The sting made the lazy slave get a move-on. He lowered his slave-head over the porcelain bowl of water and dipped his tongue in the lukewarm water. It was quite refreshing for a footslave to feel water on his tongue, even if it was bath-water and not drinking water. But, parched though his throat was, there was absolutely no question of him taking advantage of the situation to drink some of the water. That water was for use on his mistress’s precious feet.

And so, he dutifully raised his slave-tongue out of the water, and moved his head over to mistress Marcia’s left foot.

Marcia giggled as she felt the slave raise her now bare left foot off the ground and insert his wet tongue between her big toe and second toe. It tickled!

For his part, the slave felt the stickiness of her foot sweat as it came off her soft toe-skin and onto his tongue. How privileged he felt. It was humiliating, even degrading – yes. But it wasn’t as though he was some free human-being who was being debased at an equal’s feet. He was nothing but a dirty footslave, and the toes he was licking were the toes of a superior young woman. It was not only right and proper that he should be doing this – it was an honour!

As she looked down on him, watching his balding head dip in and out of the bowl of water and then feeling his slimy, moist tongue licking the dirt and toe-jam out from between her stinking toes, mistress Marcia realised too that she was actually bestowing a great honour on this dirty footslave – the honour of touching her bare feet with his slave-tongue. She enjoyed her sense of superiority and power.

Of course, however hard he tried, no amount of toe-licking and sucking was ever going to remove all the day’s accumulated sweat and dirt from mistress Marcia’s soft, black feet. The footslave knew it, and mistress Marcia knew it – and so, once she was satisfied that his tongue had done its best, she ordered the footslave to wash her feet properly in the bowl.

The water turned darker as the remaining sweat and dirt washed off Marcia’s feet. The footslave then dried his goddess’s feet with the white towel and, on her command, crawled back to the bathroom to empty the contents of the bowl into the bath. He would have preferred to drink the dirty foot-water.
When he returned into the bedroom, mistress Marcia was still sitting on the side of the bed. He crawled round to be in front of her feet again and to await his mistress’s next orders.

Mistress Marcia was now tucking into some chocolate biscuits. As he knelt humbly in front of her, the slave could smell them. It made him feel hungry. He only got the one bowl of tasteless slave-gruel per day, and that had been hours ago. But, even though he probably needed the biscuits more than Marcia did, there was absolutely no question of her sharing even the smallest crumb with him. Marcia had another snack in mind for the slave – the street-dirt from the soles of her sneakers.

‘Put mah socks back on mah feet, slave-boy,’ she ordered.

Again, the humiliating nature of this command was not lost on the slave. Not only was the mistress perfectly capable of putting her own socks back on for herself; not only was there no need for her to wear socks in the hotel room as the floor was comfortably carpeted and the room was perfectly warm; but the very act of putting the dirty, sweaty white socks back on her freshly-washed feet was meant to reinforce the point to him that his work had been entirely nugatory. Mistress Marcia’s washed feet would continue to smell as they would once again be covered by her smelly socks. And she didn’t care.

‘Now fitch mah sandals and put them on me, boy,’ she continued.

The slave obeyed unquestioningly as always. He felt he must be doing well getting away with only one cursory stroke of the whip so far, bearing in mind that this was obviously a very demanding young mistress.

However he wasn’t done yet. Mistress Marcia had one more task for the room-service footslave:

‘Boy, see them-thar sneakers over in the corner. You is gonna lick them clean. They’s been on mah feet all day and picked up some dirt. You is gonna eat that dirt, boy!’

‘Yes, mistress,’ agreed the slave. He had no choice but to agree. He was going to eat the dirt from her sneakers because she had commanded it.

‘Well, what you waitin’ for, boy? Git yoh ass over there and start doin’ it, or does you want another taste of mah whup on yoh bare back?’

‘No mistress. I mean, yes mistress. I obey you, mistress,’ stammered the pathetic, whipped slave, crawling hurriedly over to the discarded sneakers.

Because they were predominantly white, the dirt showed up quite clearly on the sneakers. There would be no excuse for missing any. What did worry the slave was that the sneakers were obviously well-worn, and much of the dirt, particularly on the sides, appeared to be ingrained. He really needed some shoe-whitener if he was to get the superior young woman’s sneakers looking fresh and clean:

‘Mistress, if it pleases you mistress, may I go and get some shoe-whitener from the store-room, mistress?’

There was an ominous moment’s silence whilst mistress Marcia took in the audacity of the slave’s request. She stood up, whip in hand, and stormed over to the kneeling footslave in the corner of the room:

‘What’s that you sayin’, boy? Is you askin’ to be excused so as you can fitch some shoe-polish? Didn’t ah say that you was to clean mah sneakers with yoh dirty slave-tongue?’

The way mistress Marcia was putting it made the footslave realise the arrogance of his request. Of course it had been utterly presumptuous of him to suggest to a mistress how he should do a job, or what ‘equipment’ he should be allowed to use. He braced himself for the inevitable cut of the whip.

It came.

‘Ah ain’t never heard such uppitiness from a slave. You is forgittin’ who you is, boy. You is mah slave, and iffin ah tells you to lick mah sneakers, you licks ‘em! Is ah gittin’ through to you, boy?’

Another cut of the whip fell on his now tender right shoulder.

‘Ouch! Yes, mistress. Please forgive me, mistress. I don’t know what came over me mistress. It won’t happen again, mistress!’

‘Too right it won’t, boy. Now git yoh tongue lickin’ mah sneakers fore an’ ah loses mah temper!’

If this was mistress Marcia before she lost her temper, the slave had no intention of finding out what she was like after she had lost her temper! Chastened, he picked up his mistress’s right sneaker and licked vigorously at the side and on the sole, ensuring that as much of the street-filth as possible, ingrained or not, went into his slave mouth and down his slave throat.

All the time mistress Marcia towered over him, watching him, pleased that he was so evidently frightened of her, pleased that she was the mistress, and he was the slave. As he humbly ate her sneaker-dirt, she happily continued to munch on her biscuits.

Chapter 2 – In The Stocks

It was Friday afternoon – three days later.

The Patel family had arrived at the hotel check-in desk. Mr and Mrs Patel were feeling a little stressed after their long flight from Pakistan. Their two daughters were less so.

At 21 years old Indira was the eldest of the two girls. She was a very feisty and independently-minded young woman, who was studying to be a doctor. Mr Patel had studied medicine himself in the USA, and was very encouraging of his daughter’s career choice. He was very proud of her. Indira, however, at that present moment was thinking only of the fun she was going to have on this family week-end shopping trip to Europe. She had so many clothes she wished to buy – she hoped her father had remembered to bring his credit card with him!

Her younger sister, Amina, was just 19 years old. If anything, she had a reputation for being even feistier than her elder sister. Indeed, some of Mr and Mrs Patel’s friends felt privately that Amina was ‘out of control’. In their opinion, Mr Patel in particular had been too ‘liberal’ with his girls, and had no real idea what they got up to behind his back. He didn’t know, for example, what everybody else, even his wife, knew – that Amina had already slept with several boyfriends.

For her part Amina, who was studying to be a drama teacher, was looking forward to this trip – her first to Europe – every bit as much as her sister, although the fact that she was leaving her current boyfriend, Farooq, behind was causing her some distress – even though she’d only been going out with him for two weeks. Never mind, she had her mobile phone with her.

The two girls were casually dressed in western-style sports clothing. Indira was wearing dark sunglasses, a pink and white T-shirt and black track-suit bottoms with pink stripes down the side, the elasticated hems of which just reached the tops of her high-top, pink and white sneakers.

Amina, whose sunglasses were resting on top of her head, was perhaps less colour-coordinated than her sister, and indeed, it could be argued looked just that little bit scruffier in her light gray top, blue denim jeans that were badly frayed at the bottom, and red and white checked, canvass plimsolls. Amina was chewing gum.

Mr Patel was smartly dressed in a western-style business suit. Even though he was officially on holiday, he always preferred to travel in a suit. His wife, 44 year old Nasreen, was also smartly turned out in a bright blue, patterned, traditional Pakistani ‘Salwar Kameez’ suit consisting of a long silk top that reached down to her knees, bright blue silk trousers that turned in at her shapely ankles, and low-heeled, black leather court shoes.

‘Good afternoon, sir, welcome to the Hotel “Footslave”,’ chirped the hotel receptionist.

It was Trudy again - by coincidence she had been on duty at the reception desk on Tuesday when Mr Patel had rung to make his reservation. The footslave whose upturned cheek was acting as a footrest behind the reception desk under her feet, however, was not the same one as on Tuesday - not that Trudy would have noticed. To her, a footrest was just a footrest -- even if it was a 'human' footrest.

Like his counterpart before him, the new footrest had nothing to do but fixate himself on mistress Trudy's shapely, tan-stockinged left ankle as she booked in the Patel family. Her right, stiletto-heeled foot, was digging into his left cheek.

'So that's one double room and one twin room, each with a resident footslave, is that correct Mr Patel?' asked the receptionist politely.

'That's right, dear,' replied Mr Patel, somewhat condescendingly, to the young receptionist who he guessed was no older than his youngest daughter, 'the double room is for myself and my wife and the twin room is for my two daughters.’

Indira and Amina were happy enough to share a room, and a footslave – even though they had separate bedrooms back home in their large villa in Pakistan. The Patels were a wealthy family, thanks largely to Mr Patel’s expertise as a top surgeon in his field. It was another reason why his two girls were often regarded by their acquaintances as somewhat ‘spoilt’.

The receptionist punched a bell on top of her desk and a ‘porter-footslave’ suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Both Indira and Amina couldn’t help from bursting out laughing at the sight of the slave. He was a middle-aged man, naked apart from some white slave-shorts on his rather scrawny body. Being a footslave he was, of course, on his hands and knees, but what tickled the two girls was the unusual sight of the large, heavy wooden crate that was attached to his bare back – the receptacle for all their heavy luggage.

‘Ha! Ha! Check him out, Indira,’ laughed Amina, still chewing her gum, ‘I’ll bet his back is aching by the end of the day!’

All the Patel family spoke excellent English, albeit with strong Pakistani accents.

‘Yeah, your stuff alone would be enough to break any slave’s back, let alone that of an old man like him!’ teased her elder sister.

Amina let that particular light-hearted jibe from her sister go – mainly because it was true. Amina just could never bring herself to travel light, even on a short 3 day trip like this!

Before calling on one of the hotel chambermaids to assist the Patel family to place their luggage in the wooden crate on the kneeling slave’s back, the receptionist ordered the ‘footslave-porter’ to kiss the feet of Mrs Patel and her two daughters.

The ‘footslave-porter’ was concerned at the amount of luggage he could see out of the corner of his eye – not because it would inevitably be heavy and exhausting to carry on his back, but because he feared that some of it might fall off if it didn’t all fit in properly – and that, if it happened, would mean only one thing – a spell in the Hotel punishment stocks.

However, for now he had to concentrate on kissing the feet of the new female guests. He shuffled over first to Mrs Patel’s feet. Crawling on ones hands and knees is, of course, incessantly uncomfortable, but it is all the more difficult when one has a heavy wooden crate attached to one’s bare back – even when it is empty.

Mrs Patel, however, kind woman that she was, graciously stretched out her right leg to facilitate the footslave in his humble act of greeting. This gave the slave a good view of her shapely, brown-skinned bare ankle under her blue silk trouser-leg as he lowered his face to her outstretched foot. The slave kissed the top of her black leather court shoe and waited, keeping his head humbly bowed, for Mrs Patel to replace her right foot with her left, so that he could repeat the process. Mr Patel looked at his wife lovingly, enjoying the sight of a dirty, male slave paying his respects to his beloved wife to whom he had been married some 23 years.

He watched with equal satisfaction as the slave then turned around and shuffled over humbly towards his two daughters’ feet – although this was where the incompetent slave made his first major mistake. Hotel protocol would have dictated that he kiss the feet of the eldest daughter, Indira, first – but the stupid, incompetent slave didn’t know which of the two girls was the eldest, and plumped for Amina’s feet first.

Luckily for him neither Indira nor Amina were aware of the ‘hotel protocol’, and most importantly of all, Indira didn’t seem to mind that her younger sister’s feet were the first to be kissed.

Unlike her mother, Amina was not disposed to ‘help’ the slave in his duty by extending her foot towards him, so he had to shuffle that bit further forward until his nose was directly above the red and white checks of her soft plimsolls. He could smell the canvass and the rubber as he lowered his slave lips to the white rubber around the area of the toe of her right plimsoll. Close-up, he could see that the plimsoll was a little worn and tatty – rather a nice match for her frayed jeans – and there were dirty scuff marks on the white rubber covering the toes and along the side of the plimsoll.

The frayed denim brushed against his nose as his lips touched the rubber toe of the young Pakistani woman’s dirty shoe. Amina looked down at the humble slave nonchalantly, still chewing her gum. They didn’t have personal slaves in the Patel household – or even servants, apart from the cleaning lady who came twice a week, but Amina had an innate sense of her own superiority over all the ‘public’ slaves she came into contact with. To her it was perfectly right and proper that she should have her pretty, young feet respectfully kissed by a middle-aged, male slave.

Again she stood still, meaning that the slave had to shuffle slightly to the left in order to ensure that his lips made good purchase on the rubber toe of her equally dirty left shoe.

He then continued to shuffle to the left in order to present himself at Miss Indira’s sneakered feet. Indira’s sneakers were much cleaner than Amina’s plimsolls, and, like her mother, she did the slave the ‘courtesy’ of extending each foot, one after the other, in order to assist him with his efforts to pay her his humble, slavish respects. Because she did so, he could see that she was wearing bright, white thick ankle socks under her black tracksuit bottoms. The tops of the socks, at any rate, looked clean and fresh, and may even have been perfumed, as the slave could detect a refreshing waft of summer meadow mixed in with the rubbery smell of the pink and white high-top sneakers. Like Amina, Indira enjoyed having a male slave on his hands and knees in front of her and kissing her feet. It made her feel superior and powerful. She already loved this hotel!

By this time the black-and-white-uniformed chambermaid had arrived to assist loading the luggage. The ‘footslave-porter’, out of the corner of his eye, could see her dark nylons crease around her shapely ankles as she lifted the first case into the crate on his back. He recognised, just from her feet, that it was Mary, the youngest and lowest-paid of all the hotel’s chambermaids – but still his infinite superior in every way. She was, after all, a woman.

It was Mary who would decide whether he acquitted himself properly in portering the Patel’s luggage, even though the footslave himself had no control over how well or otherwise the luggage would be loaded on top of him.

He remained as still and as steady as possible, surrounded by the feet of the 4 women, as heavy case after heavy case were placed in the wooden crate, adding to the burden on his already tired back.

‘If you’d like to follow me, Sir and Madam, I’ll take you to your rooms on the third floor. The lift is just over there’, explained Mary in her beautiful, soft Irish accent, an accent that turned somewhat harsher as she spoke down to the slave:

‘You, the slave, follow my heels!’

Both Indira and Amina had noticed that neither the hotel receptionist nor the chambermaid had addressed either of them directly at all. It was almost as if they didn’t exist! They felt a little bit put out by this, but it was difficult to feel too aggrieved when you’ve just had your feet kissed by a humble and respectful footslave.

The footslave-porter mustered as much strength as he could and tried to focus his eyes on the backs of Mary’s patent-leather high-heeled shoes. The cases in the crate felt somewhat precariously stacked, but he was very much in her hands now, as she would not be the one to be punished if anything went wrong.

The party of 5 people and one slave entered the lift and Mary pushed the button for the third floor, all the time making small talk with Mrs Patel about the weather, the family’s journey from Pakistan, the sights they were hoping to see that afternoon.

As the lift stopped at the third floor disaster struck – at least for the slave. The slight jolt of the lift stopping caused one of the cases to slide off the top of the crate onto the floor close to where Mrs Patel was standing. It didn’t touch her, fortunately, but it looked very unprofessional, and Mary was furious. As the doors of the lift opened, she berated the footslave-porter and slapped him several times across the face:

‘Stupid, incompetent slave!’

Slap! Slap!

‘How dare you drop one of the cases! Do you think you’re too high and mighty to carry this nice family’s luggage on your slave back?’

Slap! Slap!

The Patels smiled to one another. They realised that much of the chambermaid’s anger was fake, designed to put on a bit of a show for their benefit. No real harm had been done, and, of course, if anyone was to blame for this tiny incident, it was Mary herself for not stacking the cases on the poor slave’s back securely.

Be that as it may, Mary was determined to demonstrate to the hotel guests that she was the one in charge over this mere slave, and that she would have him properly punished on their behalf:

‘I’m terribly sorry about that, Sir, Madam, I can assure you this slave will be suitably punished forthwith. I will report him immediately to the manageress.’

‘Thank you, my dear,’ (Mr Patel seemed to refer to all women as ‘my dear’), ‘but I’m sure it was just an accident!’

Perhaps, as the only other male present, Mr Patel was feeling some sympathy for the male slave, even though he himself was a superior free man.

‘I think he should be punished, Papa – what if the case had fallen on top of Mama’s foot?, opined Amina.

Indira smiled. She knew her sister would just love to see the slave whipped, or even better, would love to whip him herself.

Mary, addressing Amina directly for the first time, sought to reassure her that the slave would receive no mercy:

‘Don’t worry, miss, he will regret being such a clumsy oaf!’

The slave listened, powerless, as his fate was discussed and decided by the superior women standing above him. In the meantime, Mr Patel had gallantly put his wife’s fallen suitcase back in the crate on the kneeling slave’s back, and the party made their way down the corridor to the Patels’ adjoining rooms.

Mr and Mrs Patel’s luggage was deposited in their room first, and Mary then escorted the footslave and the two girls to their room.

As soon as she had entered her and her husband’s room Mrs Patel collapsed on the bed and kicked off her shoes:

‘Oh, my poor feet are killing me!’ she sighed.

Mr Patel laughed:

‘Well, my dear, you’re in the right place for a foot massage, if you want one,’ he replied, pointing over to the alcove in the floor at the far end of the room.

This was the alcove in which the more expensive rooms in the Hotel ‘Footslave’ had a ‘resident’ or ‘room’ footslave for the comfort of the female guests. The slave would lie on his back in the alcove until or unless he was required to serve. Each alcove had a steel trapdoor over the slave’s head, with holes through which he could breathe, which was kept locked and could only be opened by the guests or a member of hotel’s female staff.

Mrs Patel laughed, and dragged herself off the bed, walking over in her bare feet to look down at the alcove. She couldn’t see the slave’s face beneath the holes in the steel trap-door as it appeared to be totally dark inside the alcove.

The footslave, however, could see Mrs Patel’s pretty features staring down at him through the tiny holes. Even though it was an outrageous thought for a mere slave, he couldn’t help but be grateful that he would be serving a pretty woman for the next few days. His previous customer had been rather fat and ugly!

‘Where’s the key, Mazur?’ Mrs Patel asked her husband.

‘It’s hanging just over there on the wall, where it says “Alcove Key”!’ replied Mr Patel, somewhat bemused that his wife couldn’t even spot the key!

Mrs Patel fetched the key and unlocked the trap door. She laughed at the sight which greeted her:

‘Ha! Ha! He looks shocked and scared, Mazur. Come and have a look!’

Mr Patel, who was trying to unpack, walked over and peered down into the hole beside his wife. The slave now saw two smiling faces peering down at him – but they weren’t friendly smiles – they were the mischievous smiles of masters contemplating how they were going to humiliate their slave.

The ‘resident-footslave’ wasn’t, in actual fact, all that ‘shocked and scared’. But he was, quite naturally, somewhat apprehensive whenever a new female guest or guests arrived. They would have total power over him for the duration of their stay, and he could not know whether they would treat him harshly or kindly.

Fortunately, for this particular slave in room 301, both Mr and Mrs Patel were not cruel people.

The slave gave the customary greeting to a mistress whenever she opens the trapdoor above his face:

‘Good afternoon, Madam. How may I serve you?’

Mrs Patel laughed at him:

‘Well, you can start by massaging the soles of my sweaty feet with your face,’ she suggested, and with that she raised her right foot and brought it slowly down onto the top of the slave’s upturned face.

‘You can bring him out of the alcove if you want to, dear,’ said Mr Patel, resuming his unpacking.

‘It’s alright, dear,’ replied his wife, ‘I haven’t got time for a full foot massage at the moment. We do need to get unpacked and ready for our excursion!’

Having said that, Nasreen Patel didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry to unpack her things, and, judging by her little moans of pleasure, was evidently really enjoying rubbing the soft sole of her bare foot up and down the slave’s face. She particularly liked the way his nose tickled her footflesh. She could literally feel the sweat and grime coming off the bottom of her foot and onto the slave’s face.

The slave could feel it, and smell it, too.

Meanwhile, in the neighbouring room, Indira and Amina had found their ‘resident-footslave’ and Amina had already extricated him from his hole in the floor so that he could unpack her suitcase for her.

He was now on his hands and knees, removing her socks and underwear from her case and respectfully and tidily placing them in what would be her sock-drawer.

Indira was happy to do her own unpacking – indeed she preferred to do it herself. She didn’t really want some strange footslave handling her smalls!

Her younger sister Amina, by contrast, was more than happy to sit on the edge of her bed and bark the orders to ‘her’ slave as he did all the work:

‘Put those socks in there! Fold those knickers properly, boy! Don’t touch those tights until I tell you to!’

Once he had unpacked her undergarments, he was ordered to unpack her shoes – all three pairs of them, for a three day stay! But what’s a girl to do? How could she possibly know which shoes she would need in a strange town in a strange country that she had never been to before? And besides, she strongly suspected that her sister had brought just as many pairs with her!

And so the slave carefully and respectfully unpacked mistress Amina’s chunky-heeled, brown leather, zip-up ankle boots; her blue and white high-top sneakers (rather like Indira’s pink and white versions); and her pointy-toed, flat, black leather pumps, placing them all neatly in the bottom of her wardrobe. Amina liked the way, unprompted, the slave respectfully kissed each shoe before placing it in the cupboard. This footslave clearly knew his place, which was good, for Amina could be a demanding task-mistress.

‘It says here that we can take the slave with us out of the hotel if we want to!’ she exclaimed excitedly to her sister as she read through a welcome pack she’d picked up from her dressing table, ‘as long as he stays with us at all times and he’s back in his hole by 10:00 am on the morning of our departure.’

‘Cool!’ exclaimed her sister who by now had finished unpacking, ‘I bags the use of him first when we do go out since you have used him to help you unpack!’

Amina wasn’t happy about that idea!

‘I’ll toss you for him!’ she suggested, and so the girls tossed a coin. Indira, to her delight, won the toss. It was only natural justice!

The room-footslave, of course, rather like the footslave-porter before him, had no say in his fate.

When they had all unpacked, the Patel family made their way in the lift back down to reception on the ground floor. They had pre-booked an excursion leaving at 3 o’clock outside the hotel – a guided tour of the town in a luxury coach. Then, later that evening, the plan was to have dinner during a cruise down the main river in the town. The girls’ parents had decided to leave their resident-footslave in his hole, which Mrs Patel had once again locked after her impromptu foot massage. Indira and Amina’s footslave, however, was dutifully crawling behind Indira’s white sneakers as she held him on a leash which was secured to a metal collar around his neck containing the address of the hotel and the girls’ room number, 303.

Mr and Mrs Patel had changed into fresh clothes. Mr Patel was now casually, although still smartly, dressed and Mrs Patel was now wearing a yellow Sari and strappy, black stiletto sandals on her newly refreshed feet. Indira and Amina hadn’t bothered to change.

Whilst they were waiting in the Reception area for the tour guide and coach to arrive, Amina suddenly spotted something that caused her to clap her pretty hands with delight. In a corner, just inside the front entrance to the hotel, the incompetent porter-footslave who had earlier dropped one of their cases was secured, on his hands and knees, in a set of low, wooden punishment stocks.

The ‘stocks’ were, more accurately, a form of ‘pillory’, as the unfortunate slave’s head and arms were secured through the wooden holes, but, unusually for a pillory, the fact that it was so low down forced the slave to kneel with his face just inches from the floor, making him unable to raise his head or to see anything apart from the feet of those passing by. A fitting pillory for a footslave, some might say.

Amina laughed. The slave looked truly miserable – she just had to go over and torment him:

‘Wow, check it out, Indy!’ (Indy was her occasional nickname for her big sister.) ‘It’s that stupid dolt who dropped Mama’s suitcase in the lift! Let’s go and see how he likes being in the stocks!’

Indira laughed at her sister’s wickedness as the pair, accompanied by Indira’s footslave, strolled over to the footslave in the stocks.

The slave in the stocks recognised immediately the girls’ footwear. He braced himself.

‘Well. Looky here!’, sneered Amina as she stood in front of the kneeling slave, ‘if it isn’t the stupid, bungling oaf who nearly crushed my Mama’s foot with her suitcase!’

She was exaggerating of course, but, as a superior and free young woman, she had every right to do so;

‘How do you feel now, slave? How are you liking it, being cooped up in that horrible contraption? Is it hurting your back and shoulders? Are your limbs aching?’ she teased.

The slave’s limbs were indeed aching. Bizarrely, he wished he could be still carrying luggage around on his back, as at least he could then move about and get some respite from the gnawing pain in his limbs in between guests’ arrivals. But once secured in the stocks, there was no way he could move a muscle.

He knew he had to answer the young mistress politely, and that she wanted to hear he was suffering for his ‘crime’:

‘Yes, mistress, if it pleases you mistress, this dirty, lazy, good-for-nothing slave is in great discomfort mistress, but deservedly so, if it pleases you mistress.’

Amina and Indira both laughed out loud at him:

‘Ha! Ha! It certainly does please me, slave!’ exclaimed Amina. She moved even closer to the wooden stocks so that her familiar red and white checked plimsolls were once again just inches from his face:

‘And how do you like the view from your wooden window, slave? Do you like the sight of my dirty plimsolls?’

The slave answered her, or rather her plimsolls, in the only way he possibly could answer such a rhetorical question:

‘Oh yes, mistress, this slave does indeed feel privileged to be allowed to look at your beautiful shoes, mistress.’

Still laughing, and still chewing on the same piece of gum she had had in her mouth since their arrival at the hotel, Amina then slowly pulled up the frayed hem of the denim jean on her right leg, to reveal a short red, cotton ankle sock with a motif of a well-known cartoon character on it:

‘And what about my sock, slave? Do you like it as well?’ she teased.

‘Yes, Mistress, this slave does indeed like your beautiful red ankle sock.’

Amina was loving this. She adored tormenting helpless slaves:

‘Well then, slave, if you like my sock don’t you think you should pay your respects to it and kiss it?’

‘Oh yes, mistress, this slave would indeed be truly honoured to kiss his superior mistress’s sock.’

This time Amina had to help him, as the confined slave couldn’t move his head even a millimetre. She raised the side of her right foot to his slave lips and thereby facilitated him in placing a humble, slavish kiss on the side of her sock-covered ankle bone.

She giggled as she felt his lips on her sock:

‘Ha! Ha! Come here and make him kiss your socks, Indy!’ she implored her big sister.

Still with the ‘room-footslave’ at her heels behind her, Indira moved over to stand in front of the stocks as Amina obligingly stepped to one side, and, stretched out her right foot until the side of her snowy-white ankle sock was touching the ‘porter-slave’s’ lips. He felt a metal zip at the bottom of her pink and black tracksuit bottom flick against his nose as his lips buried themselves in the folds of her white sock.

The room-footslave felt somewhat jealous.

Meanwhile Amina had seen a note pasted to the wall above the stocks, outlining the porter-slave’s crime and Punishment:

‘For incompetence and endangering the safety of a female guest – 18 hours confinement in the stocks.’

She laughed again :

‘Ha! Ha! 18 hours slave! And you’ve only just started your punishment! Just think, while you are cooped up here, aching in every limb and nerve and staring at peoples’ feet, me and my family will be seeing the sights of the town, then having a nice cruise down the river and a slap-up dinner, then returning to get a good night’s sleep – and you’ll still be here when we come down for breakfast in the morning! How do you feel about that, slave?’

The slave replied meekly, with humility and resignation as befits a slave:

‘If it pleases you, mistress, this slave deserves all it gets, and wishes its mistress and its mistress’s family a good time as you enjoy what our town has to offer.’

Listening to his porter-colleague, the room-footslave no longer felt jealous.

Chapter 3 – The Laundry

The tour coach arrived and the Patel family happily boarded for their guided tour of the city.

Mr and Mrs Patel sat beside each other on the coach, as did their two daughters Indira and Amina. Indira, because she had won the toss with her sister over the use of the footslave, had chosen the window seat -- she felt it would be easier to tuck the slave under her feet on the floor of the coach if she was sitting by the window as it would help to keep the aisle clear. It suited Amina also, as she could enjoy resting her plimsolled-feet on the slave's body whilst her sister rested her sneakered feet on his face.

Indira ordered the footslave to lie on his side with his right cheek on the dirty floor of the coach. She then placed her right sneakered-foot on top of his upturned left cheek and rested her left foot on the floor directly in front of his face. Although he couldn't see them, the footslave could also feel the rubber soles of Amina's canvas-sneakered feet resting on his bare ribs.

The two girls settled into the coach and looked forward to their tour. Their minds were now totally focused on all the interesting new sights they were about to see. The footslave under their feet was no longer given a second thought. He had become a mere footrest.

As the bus pulled off the footslave could feel the vibrations through his right cheek resting on the dirty floor. His whole field of vision was dominated by Miss Indira’s left, pink and white high-top sneaker. It never failed to strike him how large a girl’s footwear, even a relatively slight Pakistani girl’s footwear, could appear when your face was positioned right next to it. Furthermore, even though it was quite dark down on the floor of the coach, he could make out, being so close to the shoe, tiny little scuff marks and traces of dirt on the side of the otherwise pristine sneaker. He could smell it too – the unmistakable rubbery, canvassy smell of young-woman’s sneaker.

In spite of the fact she was wearing high-tops, Miss Indira’s soft, snowy-white ankle sock was visible to him too if he raised his eyes slightly, thanks to the V-shaped gap at the bottom of her track-suit leg where a small zip was undone. The clean white of the sock contrasted somewhat with the creamier white of the sneaker, and he admired the tiny folds and creases in her sock as she occasionally moved or flexed her foot whenever she was straining out the window to see some particular site of interest.

The contrast between his position and that of the superior mistress seated above him was not lost on the humble footslave. Whilst she would be seeing all the interesting sites of the town that day, all he would be seeing was the backs and the sides of her sneakers and socks. And yet, he felt enormously privileged to be allowed to accompany this young woman and her family on this excursion. They could have left him behind in the hole in their room at the hotel. Or even worse, he could be confined in the hotel stocks like his fellow-slave, the unfortunate footslave-porter. Instead, he was to have the honour of serving this young woman and her feet both on the coach and, no doubt, in the fresh air. She was the first guest to take him out of the hotel in a long time, and so, however arrogant and spoilt a young woman she may be, he was nevertheless grateful to his mistress, and was determined to serve her to the best of his ability.

He felt the coach slow down as it approached the first stopping-point on the itinerary -- a panoramic view of the city from the top of a hill. The tour guide invited the guests to step out of the coach and to take pictures if they wished. As it was a nice, bright day, virtually everyone did.

Indira dragged the footslave on his hands and knees behind her sneakered-heels by means of the leash attached to the metal collar around his slave neck, and stood in front of the wall over which the impressive view of the entire city was laid out before her. As she excitedly spotted the various well-known landmarks in the city, the footslave concentrated on spotting little pieces of dirt on the back of her sneakers. He made a mental note of them as he knew he would almost certainly be required to clean those sneakers with his tongue later that evening before his mistresses put him back in his hole for the night.

Nobody in the tour group paid any attention to him as he was nothing unusual – just a common or garden footslave kneeling on a leash behind his young mistress’s heels. They had much more impressive sights to look at. Amina, however, did take one photograph of the footslave kneeling at her sister’s feet, just so that they could show it to their friends when they got back home.

Meanwhile, back in the laundry room of the hotel, located in the basement, things were hotting up. Mistress Lailani, the laundry-mistress, was directing the work of several slaves as they hand-and-mouth washed the female guests’ clothing. The hotel had no need for automatic washing-machines, everything was washed ‘by slave’.

Lailani ran the laundry with a rod of iron. At 30 years old, she had risen through the ranks in the hotel from chambermaid, to supervisor, and now she was in sole charge of the hotel laundry. It was demanding work, but extremely well paid compared to what she could be earning back in her native Philippines, and she was very happy, at long last, to be in a position of real power and authority, with real management responsibility, even if that power and authority was over mere slaves.

Perhaps because she was, in common with most Filipina women, slightly built she kept a brown leather strap ostentatiously hanging on the wall of the laundry as a potent symbol of her authority, but in truth it rarely needed to be put into use – such was her reputation amongst the slaves as a strict task-mistress who demanded, and received, utter respect.

Right now her attention was focused on the unfortunate footslave (appropriately numbered ‘13’) who had been tasked with cleaning the dirty socks and nylons of the female guests from room no 654. Lailani had a particular interest in these guests’ footwear, as they were two of her fellow-countrywomen whom she had met a Filipino Social Club in the town.

Miss Tala and miss Imee were two Filipina students who had recently arrived in the city in order to study English. Lailani had managed to negotiate with the hotel manageress a special discount for the two girls, both of whom were in their early twenties and on a limited budget, for a long-term stay of 6 months. The room they had been allocated was, of course, not one of the more expensive rooms with a ‘resident-footslave’, but the two girls had free use of all the hotel’s other facilities – including the footslave-laundry.

Mistress Lailani was determined that footslave no 13 would do a good job in cleaning the girls’ dirty socks and tights. It thrilled and excited her to see male slaves cleaning by mouth the dirty hosiery of her fellow-countrywomen, particularly as Filipina women throughout the world were so often outrageously exploited by men just because they were poor. Well, not in this town and this hotel!

As she moved to stand over him footslave no 13 was just taking the dirty socks and nylon tights out of the plastic bag that had the girls’ room no. on it.

‘You, slave, put all socks and tights on floor. Quick! Obey!’

Although she had been living in the town for some 10 years, Lailani still spoke with a strong Filipino accent, and was still having lessons to try to improve her English.

The slave, who was, needless to say on his hands and knees on the floor, could see mistress Lailani’s small, dirty-white, flat, slip-on shoes and multi-coloured, stripy socks under her blue denim jeans as, petite though she was, she towered above him. He did not relish having the personal attention of the strict laundry-mistress whilst he began his new task.

But she had ordered him to be quick, and so he quickly extricated the remaining socks and tights from the bag, until they lay in a crumpled heap under his nose on the floor. He could smell as well as see them. There must have been about 8 pairs in total – 4 pairs of socks and 4 pairs of nylon tights.

Two of the pairs of socks were white ankle socks, one pair with a red stripe around the tops and a red-coloured area around the reinforced stitching of the toes, the other pair with a pretty motif of pink and yellow flowers on the ankles. There was also a pair of black knee-length socks, and a pair of calf-length, thick navy-blue boot socks. All the socks looked and smelt well-worn and dirty, with the blue boot-socks in particular showing signs of wear and tear, especially on the heels.

The nylons were all tights, no stockings. Three of the pairs were tan-coloured, the other pair were darker in hue – almost black. The latter pair also differed from the others in that they not only had reinforced toes, but also had a thick line of reinforced stitching down the soles and around the heels. Inspite of that, the slave noticed the beginnings of a tiny ladder in the ankle of the left leg of the darker pair of tights.

Of course, one thing the hapless footslave could not know was which socks and tights belonged to which Filipina mistress – not that it was any of his concern. His job was to clean and freshen the dirty socks and tights of any female guest whose hosiery he was entrusted with. And it was a position of trust – one couldn’t have superior young ladies walking around in dirty hosiery.

Mistress Lailani smiled to herself as she saw the slave involuntarily grimace at the smell of sweaty tights and socks that was now wafting up towards him. There was no smell of detergent in this particular laundry to mask the smell:

‘Ha! Ha! Slave like smell Filipina girls’ dirty socks and tights?’ she asked him mockingly.

‘Yes, mistress, this slave is honoured to smell its Filipina mistresses’ footwear,’ replied footslave no 13, anxious to keep mistress Lailani happy.

‘Ha! Ha! Slave put nose in socks and tights. Sniff!’ she ordered.

Without delay footslave no 13 did as he was told and lowered his face into the pile of dirty socks and tights. For some reason he felt compelled to close his eyes as he audibly sniffed the pile of putrid linen for the benefit of miss Lailani.

As he did so, it occurred to him how far he had fallen in life. Just 3 years ago he had been a successful businessman, often travelling in the Far East, and being served by Filipina waitresses in top class hotels and restaurants, without giving them a second thought – taking their subservience for granted. Now he was reduced to smelling a pile of Filipina girl students’ dirty socks and tights, being watched over and bossed about by a Filipina woman who was at least 20 years his junior.

And all because he had embezzled some funds! Footslavery for life – that was his sentence, and the hotel had purchased him at auction. His only hope, his only ‘ambition’ now, was to work his way out of the laundry room and into the position of a ‘resident-footslave’ in one of the more expensive of the hotel’s rooms. At least then he might get to have some personal contact with his female clients, and be able to do more than just sniff piles of anonymous women’s dirty socks and mouth-wash their dirty nylons day in and day out. Three years as a humble footslave had not totally knocked the ambition out of him!

Lailani was pleased at the sound of the slave sniffing her friends’ stinky socks and tights, but was not so pleased that the slave had closed his eyes:

‘Slave open eyes! Look at sweat; dirt! Slave obey!’ she barked angrily.

She really wanted to humiliate this arrogant slave as she knew something of his previous life from his file. He had been just the sort of arrogant businessman she still encountered from time to time in the hotel – and whatever frustrations stroppy male guests took out on her, she took out on the male footslaves in her charge.

The footslaves, of course, had no-one to take out their frustrations on. They were, quite literally, bottom of the pile. Even the piles of dirty socks and nylons they served were superior to them.

The slave dutifully obeyed the laundry-mistress and opened his eyes. Directly beneath them was the dirty, yellow sweat-stained toe of one of the white socks with the pink and yellow flowers on the ankle. The yellow of the sweat-stain, however, did not match the bright yellow of the flower, for it was tinged with brown, presumably from the inside of the young woman’s shoe. The toe of the dirty, white sock also appeared crusty from the dried in foot-sweat.

Mistress Lailani had noticed this particular sock also, and saw it as a further opportunity to tease the helpless slave at her feet:

‘Ha! Ha! Slave like see sweat on Filipina girl’s dirty sock? Slave want kiss sock?’

‘Yes, please, mistress Lailani, if it pleases you most gracious mistress Lailani, this dirty footslave would indeed be honoured to kiss the female guest’s dirty white sock, mistress.’

Although he still had ambition, footslave no. 13 knew how to talk the talk of a humble slave.

‘Ha! Ha! Slave kiss sock! Honour it! Worship it! Tell sock, sock better than it!’ ordered mistress Lailani.

She loved having her slaves address her customers’ dirty socks as if they were superior, living beings, and not just inanimate pieces of clothing.

Footslave no. 13 obeyed. He lowered his slave lips to place a respectful and reverential kiss on the dirty, yellow and brown stained, crusty toe of the stinky white sock, and then expressed his admiration to the sock:

‘Oh mistress’s sock, truly you are better than me, and I am not worthy to kiss you or the sweat from your owner’s feet.’

Lailani laughed out loud. She was feeling particularly mischievous that day:

‘Ha! Ha! Sock say slave arrogant! Sock angry! Sock say slave not kiss it without sock permission! Slave beg forgiveness of sock!’

The hopelessness of his situation was not lost on the slave. Even if the ‘sock’ had not ordered him to kiss it, mistress Lailani had, and yet she was the one who had decided that the sock was offended! Nevertheless, he was just a slave, and had to obey his mistress Lailani’s new order – or rather, the sock’s new order:

‘Oh pray, mistress’s sock, please forgive this dirty, stupid slave its arrogance. It did not mean to cause its superior mistress’s sock any offence.’

Lailani had decided it was time for the slave to do some actual work:

‘Sock say slave forgiven,’ she announced, much to the relief of the slave. ‘Slave put sock in mouth and suck off sweat. Clean!’

The slave picked up the flimsy white ankle sock that had previously graced the foot of a pretty young Filipina student (it was, actually, one of miss Tala’s socks), and placed it, toe first into his mouth. He could feel the crustiness of the toe and almost instantly began to taste the saltiness of the unknown girl’s footsweat as it came off the sock and onto his tongue. He knew that the success of his sock-sucking would depend not just on how much of the yellow and brown stains he managed to remove from the sock, but also on how soft and ‘uncrusty’ he could make the toe area. And so, he sucked vigorously, sucked and swallowed, sucked and swallowed.

When mistress Lailani finally ordered him to take the sock out of his mouth, some 10 minutes later, it did look a lot cleaner, if somewhat crumpled and sodden with his saliva. The sweaty smell too seemed to have gone, not a huge surprise to the footslave who had tasted copious amounts of salty feminine foot-sweat sliding down his throat.

Mistress Lailani appeared satisfied, and ordered him to put the other matching sock into his mouth.

And so it continued with each individual sock, and each pair of nylon tights. When it came to the tights, the footslave was only permitted to suck on the toe and foot areas. He would have to hand-wash the other parts of the tights later, as, indeed, he would hand wash the socks, in order to ensure that all the hosiery was properly cleaned. His mouth was, if you like, merely the ‘pre-wash’.

Footslave no. 13 found the dark pair of tights a particular challenge when he came to suck on them. They were actually a pair of Miss Imee’s tights (not that he had ever met her either). The problem was the slight ladder on the left ankle. Not only was he concerned that mistress Lailani might not have noticed it before it went into his mouth, and therefore accuse him of damaging the young woman’s hosiery – just about the worst crime a laundry-footslave could commit – he would also have to take particular care not to make the tiny tear any worse. It was so easy, with thin denier nylons in particular, to inadvertently damage the material with ones teeth.

The slave knew it, and mistress Lailani, who had, fortunately for him, noticed the ladder, knew it too, and so she examined the left ankle of the sodden wet nylon very carefully after it came out of the footslave’s mouth.

As he waited nervously for her verdict the slave’s mouth felt dry, partly from fear, partly from the after-taste of the salty, dark-nylon, feminine toe-sweat that still lingered in his mouth.

Footslave no. 13’s luck must have been changing, as mistress Lailani said nothing, her silence indicating that she thought he had done a good job. Slaves were very rarely praised for good work – only scolded and chastised for poor work.

‘Now slave finish sucking. Wash socks and tights in bowl. Move!’ barked miss Lailani.

The footslave, as ever on his hands and knees, and closely followed by miss Lailani, humbly carried the pile of pre-washed hosiery to a nearby bowl of clean, warm water, respectfully placed the superior garments into the bowl, and began gently scrubbing. Again, he had to be particularly careful with the delicate nylons, although the navy-blue boot-socks were also in danger of fraying if he wasn’t careful when scrubbing the heels.

All the time the hotel footslave was working his way through the pile of dirty laundry, sniffing and mouth-washing their dirty, used socks and tights and then scrubbing them by hand, Tala and Imee were enjoying a relaxing drink at a bar in the town centre. They cared not that whilst their pretty mouths were full of the refreshing taste of red wine, some ugly footslave’s mouth was full of the taste of their dirty hosiery and residual foot-sweat.

Nor did they give a second thought to the fact that the socks they were wearing now (thick, black boot-socks inside black, high-heeled ankle boots in the case of miss Tala, and thin, cotton white ‘no-show’ socks inside blue sneakers in the case of miss Imee) would also, in due course, be mouth-and-hand washed by one of the hotel laundry-slaves – perhaps even the same one. They didn’t care because they didn’t know, and they didn’t need to know. They were two, young, free Filipina women enjoying life in the West to the full, and were more concerned to find boyfriends than to worry about how their socks would be cleaned!

Back in the laundry the slave had finished hand-washing all the girls’ dirty socks and tights, and had been ordered by miss Lailani to wring them out and then place each pair on a clothes-horse to dry. In spite of the fact it was rare for any mistress, let alone the severe and strict mistress Lailani, to praise a slave for his work, Lailani felt that some words of encouragement, albeit mocking, teasing words, were due to this particular slave for his efforts in cleaning her girlfriends’ dirty socks and tights.

She moved to stand in front of the kneeling slave, temporarily coming between him and the wooden clothes-horse on which the drying socks and tights were now neatly laid out. Her feet, in their white flats and multi-coloured, stripy socks, were now directly under his nose:

‘Hmm, slave good sock-cleaner of Filipina girls’ socks. Slave like serve Filipina women? Like serve Lailani? Like kiss Lailani feet?’

Of course, like nearly all questions put to a humble slave by a superior mistress, it was a rhetorical question. How could he possibly decline an offer to kiss miss Lailani’s pretty, petite feet?

‘Yes, please, mistress Lailani, if it pleases you mistress Lailani, this slave would be honoured to kiss its superior Filipina mistress’s beautiful feet.’

Lailani giggled, and stretched forward her right foot revealing even more of her multi-coloured ankle sock under her blue denim jean:

‘Slave kiss Lailani sock,’ came the simple command.

The slave lowered his lips to the soft sock and obeyed.

‘Now kiss toe of Lailani shoe,’ continued miss Lailani.

Having felt the soft material of her stripy sock on his lips, the slave now felt, and smelt, the leather toe of her somewhat scruffy, flat, white, work-shoe.

Lailani appeared to give a little sigh of pleasure and satisfaction at the slave’s humble act of obeisance towards her:

‘Mmm. Lailani like feel slave kiss feet. Maybe take slave to room tonight – make slave worship bare feet. Slave like?’

Footslave no 13 could barely believe his ears! In the 3 years he had been cooped up in the hotel laundry he had never once been invited to a guest’s room, let alone to the room of the resident laundry-mistress. Yes, his luck was definitely changing. What an honour that would be!

‘Oh yes, mistress Lailani, this humble slave would truly love the opportunity to pay homage to its mistress’s beautiful, bare feet, most superior mistress!’

As she extended her other foot for him to kiss in humble adoration, mistress Lailani laughed at the power she had over this pathetic slave. Of course she wouldn’t take him to her room! But it was nice to raise his hopes in this way, and then dash them! She would keep him on tender-hooks for a while, and then give him the bad news later, just as she was locking up the laundry for the day:

‘Ha! Ha! Lailani think about it. Now slave stare at miss Tara and miss Imee socks and tights. Watch dry. Concentrate on blue sock.’

She grabbed him by the hair, stepped to one side, and positioned his kneeling face close to one of the lower rungs of the clothes-horse on which one of miss Tara’s thick, navy-blue boot socks was hanging, close enough to dominate his field of vision and to enable him to focus on the individual stitches of the well-worn sock.

And so footslave no 13 spent the rest of his afternoon staring at a young Filipina woman’s navy-blue boot sock, watching it dry, and imagining what it would be like to worship miss Lailani’s bare feet in her room later that evening.

Imagining was all he would be doing.

Several hours later the Patel family retuned to the hotel from their day’s excursions, including a relaxing cruise down the main river through the town whilst having a champagne supper.

Needless to say, the footslave who had accompanied them had not been invited to partake in the family’s delicious supper, and had remained under miss Indira’s high-top sneakers throughout the meal.

He was now, however, having first been ordered to lick clean both miss Amina’s dirty plimsolls and miss Indira’s high-top sneakers (as he had earlier anticipated), back in his hole in the floor of the two sisters’ bedroom as they changed into their night-clothes.

Miss Amina, barefoot and in her pyjamas, was the first to come over to the hole and stare mischievously down at him in his prison:

‘I hope you had a good day today, footslave, staring at my sister’s sneakers and socks, for tomorrow you’ll be serving me! Here’s something to keep you going in the meantime,’ and with that she threw her dirty, red patterned ankle socks, the same socks she had had on her feet all day inside her canvas red-and-white checked plimsolls, the same socks that had begun the day in the heat of Pakistan, down onto the slave’s face.

They stank.

Not to be outdone, Indira then graced the slave’s upturned face with her dirty socks, not that they appeared all that dirty apart from one or two brown stains on the soles.

With that the two girls closed and locked the steel trap-door over the slave’s face, leaving him with only their sock-smell for company, climbed into their respective beds, and, both exhausted, immediately put out the light for a good night’s sleep.

As she drifted off to sleep, Amina had a smug smile on her face as she thought about the clumsy footslave-porter, still cooped up in the stocks in the lobby of the hotel.

Sweet dreams, miss Amina.

Chapter 4 – ‘Boots’

It was the following Tuesday morning.

The Patel family’s ‘long weekend’ of just three full days in the town was drawing to a close and they were packing in preparation for check-out. They had spent all day Saturday shopping, all day Sunday sightseeing, and on the Monday had gone to see a show. Now they would be flying back to Pakistan with lots of souvenirs and happy memories of their short city-break in Europe.

Being a week-day, the Hotel ‘Footslave’ was now populated with more businesswomen than tourists. One major business conference in particular was taking place in the hotel – the Annual General Meeting of a female-orientated media and publishing company. The footslaves in the hotel were being kept very busy by the female delegates to this conference, most of them in their thirties or younger – and all of whom expected the highest possible standards of service.

Located in a walled garden, at the back of the hotel, was one such footslave – the hotel ‘shoeshine-boy’. The garden was the only area on the hotel premises where smoking was permitted, and so the hotel proprietors had installed the shoeshine-boy there so that those ladies who liked to smoke could have their shoes shined whilst they enjoyed a cigarette.

The ‘boy’ was actually in his forties, but he couldn’t realistically be referred to as a ‘man’ – given his lowly status vis-à-vis his female superiors. Like all the hotel footslaves he was suitably humble, and knew his status in life – which was serving the feet and footwear of his female masters and betters.

He was secured, in a kneeling position, to the garden wall by means of a chain around his neck – a chain which, helpfully, also prevented him from raising his head, thereby ensuring that it remained suitably bowed at all times over a wooden block which was positioned directly beneath his face– ready to serve the women’s feet. He was also, in common with all the other hotel footslaves, naked apart from the metal collar around his neck and his slave shorts.

Although it was still only 07:30 in the morning, he had been chained up in the garden since 06:30 am, just in case any of the female guests fancied a cigarette and a shoeshine before breakfast. Hitherto that morning, however, he had had no customers, and had been left to shiver in the early morning cold air alone.

In fact the first voice he heard that crisp Tuesday morning in the garden was those of one of the chambermaids, 25 year old Natasha, who was apparently showing around a new maid.

As the two female members of staff approached him he could hear Natasha, in her familiar East European accent, explaining his role to the new maid, who appeared to be a black girl with a strong West African accent:

‘…and this is the hotel shoeshine. We call him ‘Boots’, as he spends nearly all his day cleaning the dirty shoes and boots of our female guests’.

Boots heard the African girl giggle as her shapely, stocking-covered ankles moved into position in front of him alongside the much longer legs of Natasha. Both the chambermaids were attired in their black and white maids’ outfits, consisting of black blouses, frilly white pinafores, black knee-length skirts, dark stockings and shiny, black leather court shoes which accentuated the shapeliness of their pretty ankles.

Natasha continued to explain the role of the shoeshine-boy to the new girl:

‘He is woken up at 06:00 am sharp every morning when he is given his meal and washed for the day. At 06:30 we bring him out here to the garden, which is also the smoking area, and tie him by this chain to the hook in the wall. He then has to stay kneeling all day and shine the female guests’ shoes as required until 9 o’clock in the evening.

As you can see, he is allowed to use shoe-polish and brushes and cloths to shiner the ladies’ boots and shoes, but it is very important that he has to lick clean the ladies’ footwear first.’

Boots now heard the African speak for the first time as she asked Natasha a question:

‘What do we do with him if it is raining?’

Natasha, rather rudely, couldn’t help laughing out loud at the naïve African girl’s question:

‘Ha! Ha! We don’t care about that! Remember, Adeola, he’s just a dirty pig – if it rains, he gets wet. Nobody cares!’

20 year old miss Adeola was now embarrassed at the stupidity of her question, and resolved to just shut up and listen to the experienced Natasha’s explanation of the shoeshine-slave’s role:

‘Look, Adeola, I will show you what a stupid, dirty pig he is. Watch this!’ and with that miss Natasha took a step forward raising her right foot onto the wooden block under the slave’s nose.

Adeola thought Natasha looked very dominant, even in her maid’s outfit, as she stood, hands on hips, with one foot raised onto the wooden block and barked down her orders at the kneeling shoeshine-slave:

‘You, the pig, shine my shoe!’

Boots was well used to shining miss Natasha’s shoes. Chambermaids and other female hotel staff were permitted to use all the footslave-facilities within the hotel – subject to the caveat, of course, that female guests took priority over the staff when it came to using the slaves. Nevertheless, as a smoker herself, Natasha had often had occasion to use the shoeshine-boy, and had even, for her own amusement, and as a means of showing off to the new staff such as Adeola, developed a kind of humiliating ‘catechism’ to run through with Boots.

As the latter lowered his slave lips to the shiny top of her patent, black, high-heeled shoe, she began the catechism:

‘Who is the master, and who is the slave, dirty pig?’

Boots knew all the answers to the questions as Natasha had kindly taken the time to teach him:

‘You are the female master, and I am the male slave, mistress,’ he humbly replied – in between his first licks on the top of her right shoe.

The shoe was actually quite clean – just a few tiny traces of wet mud along the lower sides – probably from the garden. He did notice, however, how her sheer, dark nylon stocking had creased slightly around her outer ankle as a result of the outstretched positioning of her shapely foot.

Natasha continued with the slave’s degrading catechism – to the evident amusement of the new maid, Adeola.

‘And what type of female master am I, dirty slave?’

‘You are a supreme and most merciful female master, oh most glorious mistress Natasha’.

Adeola could scarcely contain herself. This middle-aged shoeshine-boy was so pathetic!

‘And what type of slave are you, filthy pig?’

‘I am nothing but a dirty, shoe-licking queer, most glorious mistress Natasha!’

Even Natasha herself had to smile at this stage of the slave’s ‘catechism’, even though she had heard it many times before (indeed, she had composed it!) :

‘And what is your ultimate privilege in life, shoe-licking queer?’

‘My ultimate privilege in life is to lick the dirt from your superior, feminine shoes, most glorious and merciful mistress Natasha.’

And, with that, Boots, ever conscious of the fact that actions speak louder than words, did indeed enthusiastically lick the dirt and the mud off the side of mistress Natasha’s patent-leather shoe, as though it was the greatest privilege he could possibly have in his miserable, slave existence.

‘Oh my God, he is such a wimp!’ exclaimed Adeola incredulously, as Natasha exchanged feet to allow Boots to lick the filth off her left shoe. ‘Can I make him clean my shoes?’

Natasha laughed. She liked this new girl Adeola, even if she did have a lot to learn:

‘Of course, you can, honey!’ she replied, stepping down from the wooden footblock to make room for miss Adeola. ‘Just stretch out your foot onto this block and order him to lick your shoe. Don’t forget to call him a “dirty pig”, because that’s what he is!’

Adeola gave a little ‘whoop’ of delight as she was conscious of the fact that she was currently the most junior of all the female hotel staff, this being her first day in the job, and yet was about to have her shoes licked clean by a male slave who was at least twice her age.

A wicked smile graced her pretty, red lips as she copied Natasha and, hands on hips, stretched out her right foot until it was resting on the wooden block directly under the footslave’s nose.

This was, of course, the first time Boots had seen the new, African chambermaid’s feet close up. Although she was wearing the same, dark, regulation stockings and black, patent leather, high-heeled shoes as mistress Natasha, her feet were much broader than Natasha’s, and he could see little signs that her stocking was somewhat twisted inside her shoe as the stitching was somewhat stretched and skewed around the side of her prominent ankle-bone.

The other thing Boots noticed as he awaited his orders, was a faint smell of stale sweat emanating from the African girl’s nylon stocking-clad foot. This concerned him somewhat, as presumably the stockings were fresh on her, this being her first day. That implied that she was not too fastidious about her personal hygiene, not that he had any right to complain about a superior mistress’s foot hygiene – he was obliged to kiss and lick the footwear of all women who placed their feet on his wooden footblock, whatever the condition of their feet and footwear.

‘Dirty pig, lick my shoe!’ came miss Adeola’s order in her cute West African accent.

As he lowered his tongue to taste the top of her shiny, black leather shoe Boots did indeed notice how much stronger the smell of foot-sweat became. He had not been imagining it – Mistress Adeola needed to have her feet washed! But, sadly for him, that was not his role. His only role in life was to ensure the cleanliness of ladies’ outer footwear – but he would at least try to make sure he did a good job of that!

He licked and licked until Adeola’s pretty, black, high-heeled shoe was sparkling in the early morning sunshine.

‘And the other one, foot-pig!’ barked miss Adeola, really getting into her role as slave-mistress, and replacing her right foot with her left.

Natasha was impressed. Adeola would make a good chambermaid in this specialist hotel as she clearly learnt quickly and had a natural instinct for bossing about inferior, male footslaves – one of the great joys, perhaps the only real joy, of being a ‘superior’ chambermaid in this particular themed hotel.

As Boots lathed away at Miss Adeola’s shoe with his rough tongue, Natasha continued to explain to the trainee-chambermaid some other aspects of his role:

‘As I said before, Adeola, we could also order him to polish our shoes with the shoe-polish, but we haven’t really got time. If he does use the polish he has to apply it to the lady’s shoe with his bare fingers. He’s only allowed to use the cloths and brushes to ‘buff up’ the shoes or boots after the polish has been applied by his dirty, slave hands.

Also, at 9:00 PM we have to bring him inside, as he then has to go around the hotel rooms, with a porter’s crate strapped onto his back, collecting the dirty shoes and boots that the female guests have left outside their rooms for cleaning. Once he has collected all the shoes he takes them to the scullery and cleans them all by hand and mouth, before taking them back to leave them outside the ladies’ rooms. We lock him up in his cell for the night at about 12:00 PM – so he usually gets about 6 hours’ sleep – more than enough for a dirty footslave!’

Boots listened as the experienced maid Natasha accurately explained his miserable existence serving the boots and shoes of women to the new African chambermaid, whose shoe dirt he could now taste in his mouth.

When Adeola was, eventually, satisfied with the condition of her left shoe, she stepped away from the block, and the two chambermaids went on to the next part of Adeola’s induction-tour of the hotel – the laundry room.

Needless to say neither girl had anything to say to Boots on their departure – no words of thanks for his efforts in tongue-cleaning their dirty shoes. He was just a human shoeshine-machine, a ‘thing’ they could use to spruce up their footwear – a ‘perk’ of the job.

And the human shoeshine-machine didn’t have much longer to wait for his next ‘customers’ – two of the young business women who were staying at the hotel for the aforementioned media company’s AGM.

Laura and Carole had much in common. They both worked in the Accounts Dept of the media company, were both blonde, both smokers, and both were in their late twenties. They were good friends as well as colleagues, and having breakfasted, they now wanted a cigarette before the first session of the AGM which was due to begin at 9 o’clock.

Hence they had come to the ‘smoking garden’.

As they approached him, Boots could hear how they were discussing some aspects of the company’s business plan. Needless to say, as a stupid and humble footslave, he could not understand the intricacies of what they were saying. But that only served to emphasise that these young ladies were intellectually superior to him, and that he was fit only to shine their shoes.

Or more accurately, their shoes and boots, since whilst Laura was wearing pointy, flat-heeled , black leather shoes on bare feet, her friend Carole was wearing black, spike-heeled ankle boots with black ankle socks. Both ladies were wearing trouser-suits, grey pin-striped in the case of Laura and black in the case of Carole.

The two young businesswomen appeared totally engrossed in their conversation as miss Laura was the first to step up to the wooden footblock and place the pointy black shoe on her right foot onto it, lighting up a cigarette as she did so.

She interrupted her conversation with her friend only briefly to say:

‘Boy, shine them up!’

And then, having taken a first drag on her cigarette, she continued talking to her colleague who, by now, had also lit up.

As the two smartly-dressed business women continued their business conversation, ignoring the shoeshine-boy at Laura’s feet, the humble Boots duly concentrated on what he did best – shining feminine shoes.

He began by licking and sucking on the pointy, slightly scuffed toe, of the black, leather shoe, endeavouring to extricate with his tongue a tiny blade of grass that had become embedded in the tip. As he did so he could see the joints of the mistress’s toes as her shoe didn’t quite cover her bare toes in their entirety. He admired the smoothness of her white foot-skin, and wished he could place a respectful kiss on her soft, bare foot-flesh, although he knew that was quite out of the question in his capacity as a shoeshine-slave.

The young woman was subconsciously wiggling her toes inside her shoe as Boots licked at it, causing the faint veins on the top of her foot to flex in front of his eyes – a reminder to him that he was serving a living, breathing superior woman, a goddess whose footwear he was truly privileged to lick clean – just as his ‘catechism’ had taught him.

Laura, for her part, wasn’t giving the shoeshine-boy at her feet a second thought. She barely noticed as he finished licking her dainty shoe, and began gently applying black shoe-polish to it with his slave fingers. She just smoked and talked to her friend, occasionally flicking her cigarette ash down onto the kneeling footslave’s head.

She did have the presence of mind to swap feet once the slave had finished rubbing her freshly polished right shoe with his cloth. She also gave her right shoe and foot a cursory glance, to make sure she was satisfied with his efforts and, more importantly, that he hadn’t stained her bare foot or trouser leg with the black polish.

Of course, he hadn’t. Boots was actually rather good at shining ladies’ delicate footwear. In all the years he’d been employed as a shoeshine-slave at the hotel he had never once ruined a lady’s shoes or smudged her bare or stockinged foot with some stray shoe polish. The punishment he would receive for doing that didn’t bear thinking about!

When he had repeated the ‘lick and polish’ procedure with her left shoe, Laura moved away from him to make room for her friend and colleague, Carole, to position her outstretched right foot onto the wooden footblock.

Carole was more ‘helpful’ to the slave insofar as she deigned to pull up her black trouser leg so that the hem was well clear of the top of her ankle boot. She accepted that the shoeshine-boy would not be able to lick clean and then polish the whole ankle boot unless she graciously assisted him in this way.

Still puffing away on her early-morning cigarette, mistress Carole gave her orders to the humble shoeshine-slave:

‘Clean my boots, boy!’

And that was all she said to him. Her conversation with Laura resumed.

Boots observed that Carole was slightly ‘podgier’ than her colleague, Laura, but she nevertheless had very pretty and shapely ankles inside her black, leather zip-up, high-heeled ankle boots. Thanks to the fact that she had pulled up her trouser leg, Boots could also see the elasticated top of her black boot-sock, contrasting nicely with her smooth, white feminine skin. The businesswoman’s sock was slightly creased and folded at the top, and Boots would have liked to straighten it for her. But again, that wasn’t his role. The mistress didn’t care about the slight crease in her sock – nobody cared about it, except him, the pathetic ladies’ footslave.

Mistress Carole’s boots were dirtier than mistress Laura’s shoes, and so Boots had even more vigorous licking to do on the side of the boot in order to remove the traces of street-dirt and mud from the superior mistress’s footwear.

Carole, of course, wasn’t in the least bit concerned that her boot-filth was going down the shoeshine-slave’s throat and into his stomach. Indeed, she had barely noticed the dirt on her boots – she was only using the slave to pass the time whilst she chatted to her friend about important matters of business and enjoyed her cigarette.

Although she was slightly shorter in stature than her friend Laura, Carole still towered above Boots as he knelt humbly at her feet. As he tongued away at her ankle boot, Carole was vaguely aware of her sense of superiority over the cringing male at her feet. But he was never in the forefront of her thoughts – he was just a slave obeying her orders.

Boots had to spend some extra time licking dust out of the zip-fastener down the side of miss Carole’s black, leather ankle boot as a considerable amount of the stuff had accumulated there – and he was such a perfectionist!

He then applied the black boot polish with his fingers, feeling her ankle bone, and eventually, her toes wiggling inside her boot as he did so. After he had buffed the polished boot with a cloth, and brought it to a nice shine with a small brush, mistress Carole graciously replaced her right boot with her left, again pulling up the hem of her trouser leg to afford him a full view of, and full access to, the whole of her ankle boot. If only all mistresses were so considerate, he thought.

When he had finished cleaning and polishing her left boot, Mistress Carole removed her foot from the block, twisted her feet, first the left foot, then the right foot, in order to check the results of the bootblack’s work, and then stubbed out her cigarette on the ground with the sole of her right boot directly in front of the kneeling slave’s face.

The significance of this gesture wasn’t lost on Boots – it was as if she was saying to him: ‘You may have just spent a lot of time and effort cleaning and polishing my boots, but I don’t care if they get dirty again, for they are only the humblest and lowest part of my attire, and I hardly give them a second thought. Just as I don’t give you a second thought – for you are nothing but a down-in-the-dirt boot-licker, fit only to lick the dirt from underneath my boots, and I despise you.’

Like the two chambermaids before them, the two businesswomen moved off without saying another word to Boots, and without so much as a backward glance at him.

Scarcely had the taste of mistress Carole’s boot-muck left his mouth, than Boots’s next customer arrived.

She was evidently another guest, although not with the business conference. The attractive young woman was asian in appearance and looked to be in her late teens or early twenties. She had evidently also entered the garden in order to enjoy a quick cigarette. Boots almost felt a sense of protectiveness towards the young woman, who was probably young enough to be his daughter. Why was such a pretty young woman smoking? Didn’t she realise it was bad for her health?

But, of course, such thoughts had to remain firmly locked in his slave-brain, as it was most definitely not his place to tell the young woman what to do. On the contrary, against the natural order of things though it may be, it was the young female who had all the power, and the middle-aged male slave who would be told what to do. And so, quietly and humbly, Boots awaited his orders.

The young woman appeared to want to tease him first:

‘Ha! Ha! Are you enjoying licking clean women’s dirty shoes and boots, slave-boy?’ she enquired in a heavy Pakistani accent, whilst taking her first drag on her cigarette.

The young woman was wearing a short, white mini-skirt and chunky-heeled, brown, leather zip-up ankle boots, with thick, white, scrunched-up boot-socks which reached almost to the tops of her shapely, smooth, brown calf-muscles.

Boots, flattered that this particular mistress was actually deigning to engage him in conversation, replied submissively, as befits a humble footslave:

‘Yes, mistress, if it pleases you mistress, this humble slave is indeed privileged to be allowed to lick clean the dirty footwear of his superior mistresses.’

The young asian woman laughed as she took another drag on her cigarette, before plonking her block-heeled boot onto the wooden footblock under the slave’s face:

‘What do you think of my boots, slave? Would you like to lick them clean?’

‘Oh yes, mistress, if it pleases you mistress, this slave would indeed be honoured to perform such a humble service for the superior young mistress!’ replied Boots, with a degree of genuine enthusiasm, so conditioned had he become to his role.

The young woman laughed again at his pathetic submissiveness, and her all-consuming power over him:

‘Okay, well you’ll have to be quick, footlicker. I’m afraid I haven’t time to let you give them a full polish – just a quick lick and a shine – but make sure you get all the mud and filth off them!’

‘Yes, mistress. I obey you, mistress!’, replied Boots, getting to work with his tongue straight away.

He started at the top of her boot.

‘And make sure you don’t touch my nice, clean sock with your dirty face, boy!’ barked the young woman down at him.

Boots would have loved to brush his nose and face against the soft material of the top of her scrunched-up boot-sock, but he had to acknowledge in his mind that the young woman was quite right not to allow his dirty, slave face to soil the pure whiteness of her superior sock. And so, as he licked the top of her brown ankle boot, he was particularly careful to ensure that his ugly nose didn’t touch the folds of her white sock.

Boots was aware that, unlike the two businesswomen before her, this young woman was watching him intently as he lathered her dirty, brown, ankle boot with his saliva. And the boot was quite dirty and soiled – she was clearly another young woman who ordinarily had better things to worry about than the state of her footwear, even if she was protective of her ‘nice, clean socks!’

Then, disaster struck! Like miss Laura before her, this young asian woman was repeatedly flicking her cigarette ash down onto the slave’s head as he licked her boot, and a stray piece of ash lodged itself in one of the folds on her precious, white boot-sock.

The young woman was furious:

‘Now look what you’ve done, slave! You’ve allowed my cigarette ash to dirty my sock! How dare you!’ she screamed.

She bent down and slapped Boots twice across the face in quick succession.

Boots, though reeling from the stinging blows, had the presence of mind to apologise at once to the young mistress:

‘Oh please forgive me, mistress. Please punish this ignorant, lazy, incompetent slave for his disobedience. Please report me mistress, and have me whipped.’

This was, in fact, the standard reply that any of the hotel footslaves was required to give to a female guest who had a complaint. It was, of course, in reality not Boots’s fault that the ash had strayed onto the young woman’s sock, but he was nevertheless morally responsible for the accident – for a female guest is never wrong and can do no wrong.

‘Too right I will, you dirty, useless, good-for-nothing slave!’ screamed the young woman, still, apparently, incandescent with fake outrage.

She slapped him again across the cheek.

‘Well, what are you waiting for, boy – get it off!’

Boots quickly made to remove the offending ash with his nose.

This earned him another harsh slap across the face.

‘Just what do you think you are doing, slave! Didn’t I tell you not to touch my sock with your face? I can’t believe your arrogance! Use your slave fingers!’ exclaimed the young woman, her tone betraying her apparent incredulity at his wanton act of disobedience.

Boots could have kicked himself! How could he be so stupid? The young woman’s orders had been perfectly clear – his face was not to touch her sock!

As he, somewhat gingerly, flicked away the tiny piece of black cigarette ash from the white sock with one of his fingers, he heard another female, asian voice calling out to her:

‘Amina, you have to come now. We’re ready to check-out!’

‘Just coming, Indy!’ the young woman replied, quickly stubbing out her cigarette.

Boots was angry with himself and frustrated. He was obviously not going to have time to clean the young woman’s other boot – and all due to his gross inefficiency in allowing her cigarette ash to soil her nice clean sock.

‘You’ll be feeling the lash later today, slave,’ were the young woman’s ominous parting words as she turned to walk away from him.

And Amina meant what she said. She would report the slave to the hotel manageress before her family checked out of the hotel. For Amina loved getting slaves into trouble.

A few minutes later, as the Patel family were checking out at the hotel reception desk, the manageress was assuring Amina, the youngest member of the family, that the recalcitrant shoeshine-slave would indeed be punished with a flogging later that day. She suggested that Amina herself should determine the number of lashes.

Amina, in view of the seriousness of the offence, decided that Boots should be punished with 30 lashes. Her only regret was that she wouldn’t be around to witness his punishment!

Amina’s father was very proud of her.

And the manageress had one final pleasant surprise for the Patel family before they left. The clumsy porter-slave who had dropped one of their suitcases from the crate on his back on the day they had checked-in, was required to kiss Mrs Patel’s black-sandaled feet 20 times by way of a final, grovelling apology to her, since she had been the one who was nearly injured by the falling suitcase.

In a gesture of natural justice the same porter-slave also had to carry the Patels’ luggage, inside the heavy crate secured to his bare back, to their taxi which was waiting outside the hotel to take them to the airport. As he did so, he noticed how much heavier the luggage appeared to be than it had been on their arrival – Miss Indira had obviously succeeded in thrashing her father’s credit card!

In spite of the ineptitude of some of the slaves, the Patels had enjoyed their stay at the hotel, and would come again. However, for now it was time for them to head home.

And it is also time for us to check-out from the Hotel ‘Footslave’.