Life In The Foothole

Part 1 –Cause & Effect

The crystal vase flew through the air, crashed against the living room wall and shattered into a thousand smithereens.

It shattered into a thousand smithereens because mistress OIga had thrown it through the air.

Mistress Olga had thrown it through the air because she was angry.

Mistress Olga was angry because her personal footslave, Thomas, had failed to clean her boots properly.

Cause and effect.

And a shattered vase was not to be the only effect of slave Thomas’s ineptitude, as we shall now see.

'Slave! Get your sorry ass in here now, you dirty, good-for-nothing, lazy pig!' shouted Olga.

The dirty, good-for-nothing, lazy pig was at that moment in the utility room handwashing his mistress’s dirty, grey socks that she had been wearing the day before inside her red and white sneakers.

He shuddered with fear and apprehension as he heard his young mistress’s raised voice. What had he done now? He did love his mistress Olga, but she was a very hard woman to please. She was always berating him; always beating him -- even though he did try his hardest to serve her to the extremely high levels of excellence she demanded of him. Perhaps, in his heart of hearts, he knew that he would never come up to her exacting standards as he sensed that she totally despised him, disliked him even.

And why shouldn’t she? After all, it is a mistress's prerogative to despise and dislike her slave should it so please her to do so.

Slave Thomas, naked but for a pair of white slave-shorts and a leather slave-collar around his neck, quickly dried his hands on a neighbouring towel and crawled on his hands and knees out of the utility room and along the hallway towards the living room. As a young woman’s personal footslave, he was never permitted to walk upright. Who ever heard of such a thing? A footslave, walking proud and upright, like a free human-being! The whole idea is laughable!

Slave Thomas could tell from his mistress’s body language, however, that whatever was wrong today was no laughing matter! He crawled over to mistress Olga, who was standing in the middle of the living room, fully clothed apart from being in her socked feet, her arms folded - the fingers of her right hand drumming impatiently against her upper left arm:

'Crawl over here and kiss my socks this instant, you lazy pig!' she barked at him.

‘Yes, mistress Olga, at once mistress Olga!’ blubbered the slave – best to be ultra obedient and submissive when mistress Olga was in one of her foul moods.

Foul mood or not, his mistress had obligingly stretched forward her right foot to reveal more of the white, cotton ankle sock, under the hem of her blue, denim jean, that she wanted kissed. Thomas duly crawled over to the young woman’s outstretched foot and lowered his lips to touch the upper part of the sock covering her toes. It was the second time he had kissed that white sock today – he had respectfully kissed it after putting it on mistress Olga’s pretty foot whilst she sat on the edge of her bed earlier that morning.

Just one kiss appeared to be enough as mistress Olga immediately withdrew her right foot, replacing it with her left socked foot and shoving it directly under his kneeling nose:

‘And the other one!’ she snapped impatiently.

As he kissed her left socked-foot, slave Thomas couldn’t help noticing that the snowy-white sock was more creased and wrinkled on her foot than the right one had been. Such details are important to a footslave – perhaps that was why mistress Olga was angry with him? It didn’t take much to upset her.

But the full magnitude of the reason for his mistress’s wrath was soon to be revealed to him:

‘Now look at those boots!’ screamed his mistress, pushing his face sideways with her socked foot towards a pair of black, blocky-heeled, zip up, leather ankle-boots lying somewhat forlornly on the plush, blue carpet of the living room floor.

Slave Thomas was, needless to say, very familiar with all his mistress’s boots and shoes – he spent most of his waking hours tongue-polishing and cleaning them – but he quickly recognized that the pair of boots in question was his mistress’s favourite pair of black, casual ankle-boots.

‘Well, what have you got to say for yourself, slave?’

Thomas was a little bit confused. He couldn’t immediately see what the problem was. He remembered cleaning the boots yesterday evening, and, on initial inspection, they looked okay to him – the zips didn’t look broken; there were no obvious signs of mud or dirt on the soles or the blocky heels. They weren’t exactly ‘shining’, but then they weren’t made of patent leather, like mistress Olga’s newer, black, pointy-toed and spiked-heeled ankle boots which she had purchased just a few weeks before. These block-heeled ankle boots were much older, maybe three or four years old, and they inevitably showed some signs of wear and tear around the edges – stretch marks in the leather uppers, for example, where they had moulded themselves to the contours of his mistress’s precious feet.

No, try as he might, slave Thomas couldn’t see anything unusual or wrong with the familiar pair of black ankle boots lying on the carpet.

Yet he had to answer his mistress, and she had clearly spotted something wrong with them. Time for some ultra-respectful and submissive slave-speak:

‘Please mistress, if it pleases you mistress Olga, the mistress is clearly not satisfied with the state of her boots and this slave humbly begs his mistress’s forgiveness for any failures on his part, if it so pleases you most merciful mistress Olga.’

He braced himself.

‘Not satisfied! Not satisfied!’ repeated mistress Olga with an air of incredulity in her voice. ‘Perhaps the dirty slave thinks I should be satisfied with them! Perhaps the high and mighty slave opines that the boots are in a satisfactory condition for his mistress to wear! Is that what you think, all powerful, and know-better-than-his-mistress, slave-boy?’

The sarcasm in mistress Olga’s exasperated voice was cutting. The slave was far from being all-powerful, and certainly would never claim to know better than his superior mistress!

He was still confused, though. He just could not identify what the problem was:

‘Oh no, mistress, if it pleases you sweet, feminine mistress, this slave would never presume to know better than his supreme and all-powerful mistress, mistress Olga, but this stupid low-down slave regrets that he is unable, due to his slavish stupidity, to recognize the problem that his superior mistress has evidently identified, if it so pleases you most respected mistress.’

Slave Thomas knew that this was getting serious – his ‘most respected mistress’ would most certainly not be pleased at his inability to identify what the problem was – with the concomitant implication that whatever it was it must be something relatively trivial over which his mistress was over-reacting. This was not something Thomas wished to imply, but it was the unavoidable consequence of his failure to spot any deficiency in the boots.

Mistress Olga, being a merciful young woman, put her slave out of his wretched misery. She crouched down, grabbed him by the hair, and shoved his face into the blocky heel on the left boot which was lying on its side on the carpet:

‘Now do you see the problem, foot-flunkey? Do you see now why the boots are not fit for your mistress to wear?’

At last, slave Thomas spotted the reason for his mistress’s, justifiable, ire – the end of a tiny, almost imperceptible, blade of grass stuck in the stitching where the heel joins the sole of the boot. How could he have missed it? He had cleaned and polished every last inch of those boots with his tongue late last evening – or he thought he had. Such laziness on his part – such sloppiness! No wonder his mistress was angry!

Slave Thomas did the decent thing and immediately apologized to his mistress:

‘Oh pray mistress Olga, oh sweet mistress Olga, please forgive this slave his ineptitude and disrespectfulness in allowing a blade of grass to remain on your divine boot. Truly this indolent and incompetent slave deserves to be punished! Please beat me mistress Olga. Whip me, I beg you, for this slave must be taught how to serve his mistress and her boots properly and in a manner befitting a personal footslave.’

Mistress Olga gasped with exasperation:

‘Whip you? Beat You? I’m sick and tired of beating you, filthy slave! Every day I whip you and whip you, and what good does it do? Look at the stripes on your back! Have they taught you anything?’

It was true that mistress Olga did invest a lot of her time and energy in physically chastising her personal footslave. Olga was like that – a kind-hearted and caring mistress who only wanted the best for her slave, hence her belief in strict physical discipline. But even the mighty single-tailed leather whip, it seemed, had failed to beat the incompetence out of this particular slave. His back was a mess, but so too was his work!

Mistress Olga didn’t wait for the slave to answer her rhetorical question:

‘How long have you been with me, slave?’

Slave Thomas’s heart sank even further. That sounded like a rather ominous question:

‘Mistress, if it pleases you mistress, this slave has been privileged to be in your service for nearly two years now, mistress.’

In fact, it would be two years that coming month. He had been bought at auction by Olga’s father as a 21^st birthday present for her. Co-incidentally, the slave was also now aged 23 – not that slaves got to celebrate their birthdays.

‘Two years! Two years – and you still think it is acceptable to present your mistress with a pair of boots containing grass stuck to them!’

It wasn’t really a question on mistress Olga’s part – more a statement of incredulity – but slave Thomas nevertheless thought it would be appropriate to assure his angry young mistress at this point that he in no way thought his actions acceptable:

‘Oh pray, mistress Olga, this slave is deeply ashamed of his incompetence, and begs the sweet mistress to show him her just anger by punishing him, if it so pleases you sweet, feminine mistress.’

He looked like a downtrodden puppy-dog, and, having removed the offending blade of dead grass from the heel of the boot with his teeth, and swallowed it, the pathetic slave started sobbing over his mistress’s white-socked feet. But Mistress Olga’s heart was not for melting:

‘I’ve just about had enough of you, slave. I will indeed punish you, for such gross incompetence deserves to be punished.’

She paused briefly for dramatic effect before continuing:

‘But I’m not going to whip you!’

Slave Thomas, prematurely, took this to mean that his mistress was calming down, and had determined that some lesser punishment than a painful whipping was in order. After all, it was only the tiniest blade of grass! He gratefully acknowledged his mistress’s forgiveness and mercy by showering her white-socked feet with unsolicited kisses:

‘Oh thank you, mistress! Bless you mistress! This dirty slave truly does not deserve such a beautiful and merciful mistress!’

Olga smiled evilly to herself. It was almost as though her slave had forgotten that she had promised to punish him at all, such was his relief at escaping a whipping:

‘You are correct in what you say, slave. You don’t deserve me! That’s why I’m going to get rid of you!’

She paused again in order to allow the full force of her words to sink in to the stupid footslave’s slave-sized brain.

Slave Thomas, momentarily shocked, stopped both his sobbing and his sock-kissing. He almost committed another crime by looking up at his mistress, but checked himself just in time:

‘I beg your pardon, mistress? This stupid slave did not quite hear what his divine mistress just said.’

‘You heard me alright, dolt! I’ve had enough! I’m getting rid of you! I’m taking you to the Separation-Court, and I’m going to get a new personal footslave! How do you like the sound of that, sock-slave?’

Slave Thomas did not like the sound of it at all! For all the suffering and frustrations that being a haughty, spoilt, young rich woman’s personal footslave involved, it was nevertheless a privileged position for a humble slave – the pinnacle of foot-servitude you might say – an honour that was not bestowed on every common-or-garden footslave.

Yet, it was never a secure position. A mistress could, as mistress Olga was now threatening to do, ‘divorce’ her slave at any time – all she had to do was convince a ‘Separation Court’ that her slave was either incompetent, or disrespectful, or both, and the court would end her lawful ownership of the slave, take the recalcitrant slave into state custody, and even offer a new, replacement personal slave to the female-complainant.

It was as easy as that, and slave Thomas knew that he would have no chance of convincing the Court to allow him to stay with his mistress Olga. The Separation Court never found in favour of a male slave-defendant. Why would it? The judges were all superior females, and the inferior male defendant wasn’t allowed to put forward a defence. It was a mere formality!

Time for some more serious sock-kissing!

‘Oh please, mistress Olga,’…kiss…kiss… ‘this dirty slave,’…kiss…kiss…’begs his mistress to reconsider,’…kiss…kiss…’and to permit this slave to remain’…kiss…kiss…’in his divine mistress’s service,’…kiss…kiss…’if it so pleases you, most beautiful and esteemed young mistress’.

Mistress Olga, gratified by the slave’s genuine distress at her proposal, merely laughed at him. As he continued to blubber over her white-socked feet she taunted him:

‘Ha! Ha! I’m afraid my mind is made up, slave! First thing tomorrow we’re off down to the Courthouse. I wonder what the court will decide to do with you? Sell you on as a personal footslave to another mistress, perhaps? – Probably not, given the degree of your incompetence! Maybe they’ll sell you into the state sector, and have you shining ladies shoes all day long as a public footslave in the town square? But then, what would be the point of that if you can’t even successfully remove a blade of dirty grass from a lady’s boot-heel?

No, I think they’ll have to pass a more drastic sentence on you – life in a foothole! Ha! Ha! That’s certainly what I’ll be pushing for, because, in my opinion, you’re not fit to serve at a lady’s feet, or even the feet of the general, female public! Life in one of the dungeon footholes – it’s the only place for you, boy!’

The slave suddenly felt sick! What if she was right? What if the court sentenced him to life in a foothole?

A ‘foothole’ was the popular term for one of the specially constructed concrete cells, located deep in the bowels of the city dungeon, where recidivistic footslaves, with no hope of improvement, were incarcerated for life. A foothole consisted, quite literally, of an unlit, unheated concrete hole in which there was just enough room for the slave to lie on his belly, with a metal aperture at the front through which he could just about stick out his head in order to kiss the feet and footwear of the female prison guards as they passed by in the dungeon corridor, if they so desired.

If they didn’t desire it, they would force his head back into the hole with their boots and seal him in by bringing down and locking a small metal trap-door which covered the aperture. The guards wouldn’t even have to open the trapdoor fully in order to pass his food through to him, as the small trapdoor contained an even smaller, lockable, slit at the bottom through which a plate of slave-mush and a saucer of water could be squeezed.

Condemned footslaves who were being punished for infringing the prison rules, or even just for upsetting or annoying one of the female guards, could potentially spend weeks locked in their pitch-black concrete holes, without any opportunity to stretch out their necks and kiss the feet of the pretty guards – a convicted footslave’s only ‘pleasure’ in life.

But even those prisoners who behaved themselves, and who were given the honour and privilege of staring at and kissing their guard’s feet through their apertures, were never released from their holes – indeed it wasn’t physically possible to release them, as the thick concrete cell was effectively fitted around the convicted slaves after they were put into the hole. They were, quite literally, imprisoned for life in their holes – and rightly so, for they had all failed in their duties as footslaves and been ‘returned’ to the State by their dissatisfied female owners. In most women’s eyes, they were lucky to be fed and kept alive by the State at all!

Slave Thomas knew all this because every footslave was shown the footholes in the town dungeon before first being put up for auction – as a warning of the dire consequences of failure to please their mistresses, consequences which slave Thomas was now justifiably facing.

Olga knew about the holes too, as she, like most young women, had been on a guided tour of the city dungeon as part of her induction into slave-ownership. She laughed at the thought of her personal footslave, Thomas, languishing in one of the footholes – not because it wouldn’t happen, but because she relished the thought of her incompetent slave spending the rest of his natural life incarcerated below ground in a dark hole, with only female prison-guards’ boots for company, never seeing daylight, or the blue sky, or the green grass, ever again – and all because he had missed a tiny blade of that green grass whilst polishing her boots. Yes – incarceration for life! That would be a fitting punishment for her incompetent footslave!

‘Ha! Ha! Yes, I’ll definitely be asking the court for you to receive a life sentence in the hole! How do you like that as a punishment, slave?!’

Slave Thomas didn’t know what to say to his mistress. Her word was law. If she did ask the court to send him down for life – it would! All he could think of doing, was to continue to kiss his mistress’s white-socked feet and beg her for mercy – he might not get a further chance!

‘Oh please mistress Olga,’…kiss…kiss… ‘please have sweet, feminine mercy,’…kiss…kiss… ‘on this useless slave, mistress Olga.’ This slave truly deserves,’…kiss…kiss… ‘to be sent to the foothole for the rest of his miserable existence,’…kiss…kiss… ‘but throws himself at his mistress’s feet and socks and begs,’…kiss…kiss…‘his sweet, kind mistress to show him mercy. Please give this slave,’…kiss…kiss… ‘another chance to prove himself,’…kiss…kiss…’I beg you, most kind and wonderful mistress!’

Mistress Olga’s white, cotton socks felt deliciously soft on his grovelling lips as he desperately and abjectly kissed them in between begging her for mercy. But if her socks were soft, her heart was hard. The slave had to go.

In fact, if truth be told, she had made her mind up some time ago that her slave had to be replaced, and had engineered this whole scene. The footslave, useless and incompetent though he was, had not actually missed the blade of grass when tongue-shining her boots the night before. She had, in fact, planted it there that very morning – as was her right – in order to find a suitable pretext to get rid of her current slave and to get a new one. It wasn’t that she was a frivolous girl, or anything, but she considered that slave Thomas was just too ugly to be her personal footslave. She had planned to exchange him from the moment she had first set eyes on him. She had only waited two years so as not to upset her father who had chosen him for her at auction.

But two years was long enough – and in any case many young women of her age changed their personal footslaves after a couple of years – it was always exciting to have a new slave to ‘break in’.

And so, if he only knew it, slave Thomas had never stood a chance. His mistress had just never ‘fancied’ him. Their ‘relationship’ would have been doomed from the start – even if he had been the most competent footslave in the world – because his young mistress just didn’t find him attractive enough.

Nevertheless, as he didn’t know any of that, the pathetic, soon-to-be ex personal footslave, was still begging for his mistress’s mercy:

‘Oh pray, mistress Olga, please don’t condemn this slave to life imprisonment. This slave throws himself at your mercy, sweet mistress!’

Mistress Olga, reveling in her sense of power over the slave’s fate, and still unmoved emotionally, moved physically over to sit down in an armchair and then simply ordered her slave, for she hadn’t quite dispensed with his services yet, to put the offending boots on her feet:

‘I’m going out to see Ashad now, slave. You will put my boots on my feet, even though your feeble efforts at cleaning them have left them barely presentable! Do it now, slave!’

Master Ashad was Olga’s boyfriend – now there was a man she did fancy! A real man. A man capable of walking upright, and defending himself against her, admittedly fiery, temper. Olga liked that. She liked real men – not wimps. Her new footslave, how ever good-looking he was, would only ever be an accessory at her feet. And Ashad would have to approve him, for Olga would never want to do anything to upset her beloved, manly boyfriend.

The unmanly slave Thomas, on the other hand, was still wimpering at his mistress’s feet, as he raised his mistress’s right socked-foot off the carpet and carefully smoothed the black, leather ankle boot onto her shapely, young foot, before pulling up the side-zip with his teeth, “a-la footslave” so to speak. He then straightened his mistress’s left sock, the creases in which were still concerning him, before inserting his mistress’s precious left foot into her remaining boot.

He wept as he zipped up the left boot with his slave mouth, seeing all but the elasticated top of her white, cotton ankle sock disappear before his eyes inside the black ankle boot. Would he ever get to see, touch and smell that pretty, white, feminine sock in all its glory again? He had taken so much for granted, and now his little world as mistress Olga’s personal footslave, pathetic though it was, was falling apart.

Tomorrow he would be appearing in court – in the dock – accused by his female owner of incompetence. Slave Thomas knew in his heart of hearts, that he was guilty as charged, and would almost certainly be ‘going down’ for life – down into a dirty, dark, concrete foothole in the State dungeon.

Part 2 – Silence in Court!

Everything happened in such a rush.

At 10:00 am the following morning slave Thomas found himself in the specially constructed dock for accused footslaves that was located in the main court room of the so-called ‘Separation-Court’ – where women could petition for ‘separation’ from their personal slaves on the grounds of disobedience, incompetence or disrespectfulness.

Slave Thomas, as far as he knew, was up for incompetence, and, as he knelt in the dock, which was situated just inches in front of where the Lady Judge would be sitting, he could sense the antagonism towards him from all sides of the Courtroom. It was full of women – women officials; women in the public gallery; and, of course, his female accuser and mistress, mistress Olga.

Mistress Olga was representing herself in court. She had no need for legal advice or assistance. The outcome would be a foregone conclusion – slave Thomas would be dismissed from her service and taken into custody. He knew it, and all the women present knew it too. But it was nice to go through the motions.

As the rest of the courtroom rose to their feet as the Lady Judge entered the courtroom, two female prison guards, both dressed in regulation knee length, black skirts, sheer black nylon stockings, and black, knee-length leather, zip-up boots moved forward to stand on either side of the kneeling slave in the dock. The guard on his right pushed down on the top of slave Thomas’s head, thereby ensuring that he was now kneeling with his head respectfully bowed at the feet of her Worship as she took her seat of power in front of him.

Before his head had been forced down, Slave Thomas had noticed that the Lady Judge was a black woman in her late thirties or early forties. She looked severe, with her black hair done up in a bun. He had also noticed, however, that the woman who was about to determine his fate was wearing glasses, which gave her an air not only of authority, but of intelligence. Slave Thomas found himself hoping, albeit briefly, that her evident intelligence would also mean she was a fair-minded woman, who would therefore show mercy when sentencing him – perhaps giving him the benefit of the doubt and allowing him to serve another woman as a personal footslave.

But then, slave Thomas didn’t know her Worship, the Lady Judge Madam Priscilla. Madam Priscilla had been a ‘Separation Court’ judge for many years, and thoroughly despised each and every ‘defendant’ who appeared before her. She took the view, not unreasonably, that each and every personal slave who appeared in the dock was there, by definition, because his mistress wanted him there. He must, therefore, have failed his mistress. There could be no debate about the matter. He must be guilty of whatever it was his female owner was accusing him of.

Her Worship, the Lady Judge Madam Priscilla, therefore showed no mercy to the failed individuals who knelt before her. Indeed, she sentenced them with glee to the full extent that the law would allow her. She loved her job. It was her main pleasure in life, apart from disciplining and chastising her own personal slave.

As the rest of the court became seated, slave Thomas, thanks to the lady prison officer’s positioning of his head, now had a clear and close up view of the Lady Judge’s feet and footwear as she settled herself into her seat of judgement and power directly in front and above him. Her Worship, the Lady Judge Madam Priscilla, was wearing a black robe that came down to just above her shapely ankles when she was standing, but rose higher to reveal a shapely pair of black-woman’s, black nylon, stocking-clad calves as she sat down. She was also wearing shiny, black patent leather pumps on her pretty black feet.

Ever the attentive footslave, slave Thomas observed closely as Madam Priscilla’s nylon stockings creased slightly around her ankles as she made herself comfortable by crossing her legs at the ankle directly beneath his face. His own soon to be ex-mistress, mistress Olga, rarely wore nylons, so he was fascinated to see so close up how tiny the individual stitches were in the Lady Judge’s flawless stockings– compared to the thicker material and stitches he was more accustomed to humbly staring at in his mistress’s socks.

Thanks to her positioning of her feet, the footslave could also see the dirty soles of Madam Priscilla’s shoes, and, in particular, how the area below the rounded toe of her right shoe was beginning to show signs of wear, not that the Lady Judge’s shiny, black pumps could be described as anything other than crisp and smart.

Slave Thomas found himself overwhelmed with a sense of respect for, and a sense of his own vulnerability vis-à-vis, this powerful Lady Judge, and would undoubtedly have immediately kissed the black woman’s feet in supplication if court protocol had demanded it. He knew, however, that the female prison officers, who were now seated next to him beside the dock, would soon indicate if and when it was appropriate for him to kiss the Lady Judge’s feet – indeed he was confident that they would insist he paid his respects to her Worship at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner.

Slave Thomas was awoken from his reverie at Madam Priscilla’s feet by another female court official reading out the details of the case and the charges against him:

‘Case no 675AR2 – A petition from mistress Olga Lazukova for separation from the responsibilities of ownership of the slave known as “Thomas” on the grounds of incompetence and disrespect in the fulfilment of his duties as personal footslave to the said mistress Olga Lazukova. The hearing is now in session.’

Slave Thomas heard a gasp of feminine disgust go round the public gallery as the accusations of incompetence and disrespect towards his mistress were read out in open court. He hadn’t realised that his mistress Olga had intended to accuse him of disrespect as well as incompetence, but fully understood that, as she was his all-powerful mistress, she had a perfect right to charge him with anything she damn well liked. Besides, he sensed that, whatever the charges, he had already been found guilty by the court, and that each and every one of the female observers in the public gallery wanted him sent down to the foothole for life.

He wasn’t wrong.

One such woman in the public gallery was 25 year old mistress Monique, a pretty, young black woman originally from an Island in the Pacific ocean, but who had been studying medicine in Europe for several years. Miss Monique was casually dressed in a white T-shirt, black denim jeans, and white strappy sandals which contrasted nicely with the brown skin on her pretty, petite, bare feet. She spent much of her spare time in the public gallery of the ‘Separation Court’. On her foreign student budget, she couldn’t afford to own a personal footslave herself, but she ‘got her kicks’ out of attending the Court and seeing hapless and helpless male footslaves being punished and sent down for their inappropriate behaviour.

She especially enjoyed it when her Worship, the Lady Judge Madam Priscilla, was presiding over the Court– for two main reasons: firstly, the judge was a fellow black-woman, and Monique admired how successful the Lady Judge Priscilla, who like her was of immigrant stock, had been in her career– rising to the top of her profession. She saw the esteemed Lady Judge as a kind of role model, and was determined to make an equal success of her own career as a doctor.

Secondly, Monique loved to observe the footslaves’ pitiful reactions whenever the Lady Judge Madam Priscilla, as she often did, sentenced them to life imprisonment in the foothole-dungeon. Monique even liked to take surreptitious pictures of the newly condemned prisoners on her mobile phone as they were led away, sobbing, on their hands and knees by the female prison guards, knowing that they would be spending the rest of their miserable lives locked away in the bowels of the town dungeon which was situated directly beneath the court house, never seeing the light of day again.

And Monique would often follow up on the same prisoners’ misery by arranging to ‘visit’ them in their footholes – not to sympathise with them or to offer them her condolences, but rather to gloat over their predicament and to torment them with her pretty, brown feet.

You might think miss Monique was a somewhat strange girl. I couldn’t possibly comment!

Monique licked her lips with anticipation as the marvellous Lady Judge, Madam Priscilla began the short proceedings by addressing the complainant, mistress Olga:

‘Thank you for your petition, Miss Lazukova. Would you care to elaborate for the Court as to why you feel the Court should grant you a separation from this slave?’

Mistress Olga rose from her seat and addressed the kindly lady judge:

‘Yes, thank you, your Worship. I regret that my personal footslave, slave Thomas, is a totally disrespectful slave, consistently underperforming in his duties as a footslave, all of which culminated yesterday in his presenting me with a pair of boots which were thoroughly unclean, and then basically telling me to “shut up”, arguing that there was nothing wrong with the boots when I remonstrated with him about them!’

There were gasps of shock and genuine outrage, and one or two feminine shouts of ‘Whip him! Scourge him!’, from the female public gallery as mistress Olga gave her account of what had happened, according to her own recollection of events.

For his part, slave Thomas could not recollect ever telling his mistress to ‘shut up’, but he was ashamed of himself nevertheless, for angering his mistress to such an extent that she was clearly under the impression that he had told her to ‘shut up’.

The Lady Judge, her Worship Madam Priscilla, was also shocked by miss Olga Lazukova’s account, and looked down angrily at the kneeling piece of male filth at her feet, before addressing the complainant again:

‘I am very sorry to hear that, my dear. Such behaviour is clearly unacceptable in a dirty slave. Do you wish to express an opinion as to what the insolent and incompetent slave’s sentence should be before I pass judgement on him?’

‘Yes, your Ladyship. I would like to suggest that this slave is unfit for female consumption, and should be removed from feminine society by being condemned to the foothole-dungeon for life!’

There was a spontaneous burst of applause and shrill cries of ‘Hear! Hear!’ from the female public gallery, as mistress Olga resumed her seat.

When the applause had died down, the Lady Judge, Madam Priscilla, addressed all the other women in the room:

‘Is there any woman here present who wishes to speak in defence of the accused footslave?’

There was a deafening silence in court.

Footslave Thomas now knew for sure he was a condemned man. Of course, as a mere slave, he had not expected to be permitted to give evidence in his own defence in Court, but he had hoped that some kind and merciful female would have perhaps suggested a degree of clemency on his behalf. It seemed however, that he would have to do his own begging for mercy.

The Lady Judge, impressed by the silence and decorum being shown by all the ladies in her courtroom in the face of such an obstinate and recalcitrant slave, then announced her verdict:

‘I find the slave Thomas guilty as charged by his mistress, miss Olga Lazukova, and herewith grant her a permanent separation from said slave. I hereby further direct that the State shall organise a replacement personal footslave for miss Lazukova, free of charge.’

Olga punched the air in delight, as the Lady Judge continued by addressing the now convicted prisoner, slave Thomas, directly for the first time:

‘Slave, before I pass sentence on you, you will kiss my feet and plea for my mercy.’

With that, her Worship, the Lady Judge Madam Priscilla, uncrossed her ankles and positioned her right foot slightly in front of her left whilst the two uniformed and booted lady prison officers seated on either side of the convicted prisoner again rose from their seats and grabbed him by the hair, manoeuvring his head over towards the Lady Judge’s outstretched foot. In the front row of the public gallery, miss Monique eagerly leaned forward with her mobile phone in hand in order to take a picture of the convicted prisoner kissing the Lady Judge’s feet and begging for mercy.

For his part, as he lowered his lips to touch the top of the black Lady Judge’s shiny black shoe, slave Thomas realised that this was his last chance, however slim, to avoid the ultimate punishment, demanded by his now ex-mistress Olga, of life imprisonment in the foothole. He therefore kissed the Lady Judge’s shoe respectfully, but with vigour, as he threw himself humbly on her mercy:

‘Oh pray, most esteemed and honourable Lady Judge, most worshipful and merciful Lady Judge, this humble slave begs for your sweet, feminine mercy, and pleads for the opportunity to serve another mistress as a personal footslave, which duty he will strive to perform to the best of his humble ability, if it so pleases you, most merciful and all-powerful Lady Judge.’

Listening to his pathetic whining and pleading from the public gallery, miss Monique was actually quite impressed with the convicted slave’s verbal grovelling at the feet of the Lady Judge. She was also, however, excited at his abject humility and powerlessness, and by the knowledge that his pleadings for mercy were sure to come to naught.

Just how inadequate those pleadings were in her Worship, the Lady Judge Priscilla’s eyes, soon became apparent after the slave had finished kissing her left shoe:

‘Slave Thomas, the Court has heard how utterly disrespectful and disobedient you have been in the service of your charming young mistress, miss Lazukova. I note that in your pleading you have not once sought to apologise for your unacceptable behaviour towards your former mistress, but instead have sought merely to lessen the consequences for yourself of your criminal neglect of your mistress’s boots.

I find you to be a disgusting and repellent individual, who is not fit to be in the polite society of women.

I therefore sentence you to life imprisonment in the foothole-dungeon, and direct that under no circumstances should you ever be released from said confinement.

Take him down!’

As the public gallery once again burst into spontaneous applause, mistress Olga again punched the air in victory, and was surrounded by many of her female friends and well-wishers.

Meanwhile, the convicted prisoner formerly known as Thomas, was unceremoniously grabbed roughly by the two female prison guards and literally dragged on his hands and knees down a flight of stairs that led directly from the dock in the court-room down to the footslave-dungeons below.

As he was dragged along a dimly-lit corridor behind the two female prison guards’ black leather, knee-length boots, his own knees cutting and chafing on what appeared to be a rough and uneven concrete floor, the former personal footslave suddenly realised that he had seen his last ever daylight, and, more importantly, that he would never get to see his mistress Olga’s bare feet, shoes or socks ever again.

He cried out in despair, but was soon silenced by one of his female escorts who slapped him hard across the face:

‘Be quiet, slave! You will not speak or utter a sound in this place unless you are directed to do so by a mistress!’

The guard sounded cold and unfeeling, not at all like his beloved erstwhile mistress, mistress Olga.

But slave Thomas knew he only had himself to blame – telling his mistress to ‘shut up’ indeed! Life in the foothole was too good for him! The Lady Judge knew it; the female guards knew it; and he knew it.

The whole process of ‘fitting’ him into his concrete hole didn’t take long. He had to admire the efficiency of the female prison guards in their work. They first of all stripped him naked, then backed him into the narrow, low concrete hole in which there was just enough room for him to lie face down on his stomach, with his hands strapped to his sides, before they started mixing some more quick-drying concrete which they then used to fill in the front of the hole around the metal aperture that would provide the only access he would have, at least for his head, to the dimly lit dungeon-corridor outside the concrete cell.

As they worked around him, slave Thomas, his eyes still moist and red with sobbing, fear and apprehension, stared at the female prison guards’ black, leather knee-length boots. There were at least four guards working on the concrete, and given the dirt on the floor of the corridor outside his concrete cell, the soles and lower parts of their black boots were inevitably caked in dust and mud.

Slave Thomas somehow knew that he would be spending most of the rest of his life licking and kissing those muddy, black uniform boots, and his eyes moistened again as he thought of the variety of footwear that his mistress Olga used to wear, and that he would now be missing – her many pairs of brightly coloured sneakers; her multi coloured socks as well as her snowy-white, cotton socks; her boots of various lengths, including her ankle boots which permitted him to see the elasticated tops of her socks whilst she was wearing them. All that variety would be gone now as he was condemned to stare at the regulation-issue, knee-length boots of the female prison guards.

He tried to think positively. At least he couldn’t be whipped – encased permanently as he was in concrete, with only his head capable of being exposed through the metal aperture. He had already experienced a stinging slap across the face from one of the guards, and deservedly so – but at least his back would no longer feel the terrible sting of mistress Olga’s lash.

But it was a cold comfort really. He had fallen so far and lost so much. He would never again be able to touch a woman’s soft, bare feet with his hands, or remove her shoes and socks for her with his hands. Only his mouth could be used from now on to serve the female guards’ feet and boots.

Speaking of which, the latter had now completed the final touches to the construction of his new home, and only one guard, a young blonde woman, was now left in front of him, as his head was extended in front of her booted feet through the ground-level metal aperture.

The same guard pointed her boot forward until it was directly under slave Thomas’s nose, and gave him the first order of his new existence as a lifer in the foothole-dungeon:

‘Kiss my boot, prisoner no 7865!’

Her voice sounded young, but authoritative – she was probably not much older than himself or his beloved mistress Olga.

Prisoner no 7865 – that must be my new name! he thought to himself as he fought back his tears of self-pity and lowered his lips to respectfully kiss the dusty toe of his female guard’s black leather knee-boot. As he did so, he observed the tiny creases in the leather of the well-worn boot. The creases only served to remind him of the fateful pair of mistress Olga’s well-worn ankle boots whose neglect had led to his life sentence.

The guard withdrew her right boot, replacing it with her left:

‘And the other one, prisoner.’

Slave Thomas, or rather ‘Prisoner no 7865’ realised he was going to have to get used to being referred to as a ‘prisoner’. It somehow sounded even more demeaning than ‘slave’!

After he had paid his respects to her outstretched left boot, the young, female prison guard gave him what appeared to be a well-rehearsed introductory speech to new inmates:

‘Prisoner no 7865, you have been sentenced by the Courts to lifetime confinement in this concrete foothole with no prospect of remission. You must accept your fate with humility and resignation, as befits a convicted prisoner.

You shall spend at least 20 hours a day confined in the hole with the trapdoor covering the metal aperture locked closed. Your food will be passed in to you through this lower aperture,’ (she pointed with the toe of her boot her to a long, slim aperture within the main aperture), ‘but, with good behaviour, you may be permitted to extend your head through this upper metal aperture for up to 4 hours a day, as you are doing now, in order to have your face shaved and washed by one of the female guards in the morning, and to pay your respects to your guards’ boots if they so desire it.

This shall be your only human contact, although you may, on occasions, be permitted to kiss the feet and footwear of female visitors to the dungeon, again should they so desire it.

Whilst you are totally prohibited from talking, unless directed to do so by a superior woman, you may, if given permission to do so, address a female guard as “Most respected mistress-guard” ….followed by the lady’s name, or address a female visitor who deigns to speak to you as “Most respected mistress-visitor”…again followed by the lady’s name, should she inform you of her name.

My name is mistress-guard Michelle.’

Prisoner no 7865 was surprised, but relieved, to hear that at least he would have occasional, if rare, opportunities to observe and kiss the feet and the, presumably more varied, footwear of lady guests to the dungeons, rather than just the black leather boots of the female guards. It was rather pathetic, of course, that he would take any kind of solace in such a thought, but then, stuck as he was forever in a dark, concrete hole, prisoner no 7865 had little choice other than to be grateful for small mercies.

Most respected mistress-guard Michelle reminded him, however, that all such ‘perks’ were entirely at her, and her fellow-guards’, discretion, and that he was now completely at their mercy:

‘However you should be aware, prisoner no 7865, that we do not tolerate any disrespect or disobedience on the part of prisoners, especially any breach of the no-talking rule, and you will be confined 24 hours a day in your hole with no release for your head through the aperture should we so wish it. Some disobedient prisoners have been condemned to such solitary confinement for months at a time, but, your fate, to some extent, is in your hands. Obey the Rules and we will make your life as comfortable as possible for you. Disobey us, and we will make your wretched existence a living hell!

You may now kiss my boots again and thank me for explaining the Rules to you, prisoner no 7865.’

The blonde mistress-guard Michelle extended her dirty, black, right boot again for the prisoner-slave to pay appropriate homage to:

‘Thank you, most respected mistress-guard Michelle, for explaining the prison rules to me, if it so pleases you, most respected mistress-guard Michelle.’

24 year old Michelle smiled to herself as she realised that this particular new inmate’s spirit already appeared to be well broken. That would make her job all the easier.

After he had respectfully kissed the toe of her left boot again, she pushed his face back into the concrete hole with the zip side of her dirty, black boot, explaining to the new prisoner that the aperture would not be opened again until the following morning:

‘I suggest you ruminate on your crimes and contemplate how you are going to make the most of the rest of your wretched existence in this foothole, prisoner no 7865,’ she suggested helpfully.

And so, as the small, but heavy, trapdoor of the metal aperture came crashing down and was locked from the outside by mistress-guard Michelle, blocking off all light from the concrete hole in which prisoner no 7865 was now totally, and permanently, confined, unable to move a muscle whilst lying flat on his stomach, he took the friendly young female guard’s advice, and ruminated on his helplessness and powerlessness - confined for life, as he now was, in the bowels of the State dungeon.

At the same time his ex-mistress, mistress Olga, was lying flat on her back on a comfortable bed, making love to her boyfriend Ashad, and looking forward to going with him the following morning to the State Auction Rooms in order to choose a new personal footslave at the State’s expense.

Part 3 – The Tropical Tormentress

Exactly a week had passed since the trial, and Monique, the pretty 25 year old black girl who hailed originally from a tropical Island in the South Pacific, but who was now in Europe studying to be a doctor, was busy in her student digs getting ready for her favourite past-time – visiting recently convicted prisoners in the town’s foothole-dungeon.

Sure, Monique enjoyed attending the actual trials in the Court-house as well. She loved watching the distress on the male prisoners’ faces as they were being sentenced – especially if, like slave Thomas, they are being sent down for life.

But even better than watching them disappear down the steps that led from the Courtroom to the depths of the foot-dungeons, was getting a visitor’s pass to the dungeons themselves, and thereby having the opportunity to gloat over the hapless convicts as they lay in their concrete ‘tombs’, their pathetic heads sticking out of the ground-level apertures in the heavy concrete wall of their individual cells (there was no door) – desperate for the company of some female feet and footwear to brighten up their otherwise pointless and dismal existences.

Monique always liked to dress the part for her visits to the foothole-dungeons. Being petite and of slight build, her feet were equally tiny and she was ever conscious of the fact that, although they were undeniably pretty and shapely, her feet might not exactly appear ‘threatening’ to the prone and vulnerable prisoners – which, unfortunately for her, was precisely what Monique wanted; she wanted the prisoners to fear her, to sense her power over them, to realise that they were completely at her mercy, and that she was the one in charge.

And so on her visits to the footholes she tended to overcompensate for the daintiness of her feet by wearing huge, heavy, clumping great buffalo-style sneakers or clogs – shoes that made her feet look twice as big as they actually were. And, of course, for a dominant young woman like Monique such shoes had other advantages as well: They were excellent for ‘crushing’ down on the heads of her unfortunate victims – grinding their stupid loser-faces into the dirt on the ground; or, alternatively, the thick-wedged sides and heels gave the foot-prisoners plenty of shoe material to lick clean and tongue-polish.

Yes, when it came to visiting the dungeons it had to be thick heavy sneakers or clogs – however ridiculous they may have looked on her tiny feet as she clumped along the busy pavements of the city streets.

That particular morning Monique had decided to wear her black and red buffalo-style clogs – the ones with an open-heel at the back. It was quite a warm day, and whilst the leather clogs would undoubtedly cause her feet to sweat inside them, at least her heels would get some fresh air. Not that Monique had any intention of going barefoot in her clogs – she nearly always wore socks, even in the height of summer, as she didn’t like the feeling of sweaty leather rubbing against her bare feet.

And besides, she had an ulterior motive for wearing socks that day. Monique had chosen a pair of multi-coloured, stripy ankle socks to wear inside her heavy, wedged-heel, red and black buffalo clogs. She had chosen them, not because they went particularly well with her clog-style sneakers, but because they were vital to her plans for convicted slave Thomas that day. Monique was nothing if not inventive when it came to teasing and tormenting slaves. She put a lot of planning and effort into it – even bribing the dungeon guards to get extra passes for the prison (visitors were supposed to be limited to one visit a month, but Monique liked to go once a week!).

The multi-coloured, ankle socks with the thin stripes were ‘full-length’ in the sense that they covered her shapely, brown-skinned ankles completely – and, of course, were fully visible from the back thanks to the open heel. A short, black above-the-knee skirt and black and white T-shirt completed the ensemble, as Monique, humming happily to herself, placed one of her medical text-books into her shoulder bag and then headed to the bus-stop for the bus that would take her directly into the centre of town.

On arrival at the prison she was greeted by her old friend, guard Michelle. It was Michelle who managed to get Monique most of her Visitor’s passes – at a price:

‘Hi, Monique! How are things?’ enquired the female prison-guard politely.

‘Great, thanks!’ replied Monique, her stomach beginning to churn inside with excitement at the very sight and smell of the grim and dank prison – and this was just the upper-level where the administration buildings were – the foot-hole dungeons were several metres below ground, and could only be accessed via a twisting, stone staircase. Monique knew the building well.

‘How is he doing?’ enquired Monique, referring to the hapless slave Thomas, now known simply as prisoner no 7865, and whom the fraudulently obtained visiting order specifically permitted her to visit for one hour.

Of course, Monique wasn’t really enquiring after the prisoner’s health. Guard-Michele realised that. She knew Monique well enough to know that the young woman was hoping to hear that the newly-convicted ‘lifer’ wasn’t coping at all well; that he was suffering; that he was sorrowful, penitent and regretful; that he was lonely and isolated, and was begging for mercy and ‘another chance’ to serve properly at the feet of women. That was what Monique liked to hear – so that, more or less, was what Guard-Michelle told her.

Not that any of it was untrue.

Monique couldn’t wait any longer – she just had to see the new prisoner and gloat over his predicament.

‘He’s in the fourth cell on the right down the second corridor. Can you find your own way there, only I’m a bit busy at the moment with some paperwork? I’ve already opened his aperture and released his head, and I’ve placed a chair opposite his cell for you,’ Michelle informed the female guest.

‘No problem. Thanks, Michelle,’ responded Monique, quite chuffed that she was now trusted by the guards to make her own way down to the cells unescorted.

Somewhat gingerly, given the height of her buffalo clogs, Monique clumped her way awkwardly down the spiral, stone staircase towards the various dimly-lit corridors full of foothole-dungeons and their hapless male occupants.

Although each corridor contained several cells, concrete partitions prevented the inmates from seeing each other, and, as conversation between prisoners was strictly prohibited, each prisoner was effectively condemned to a lifetime of solitary confinement – their miserable lives punctuated only by the pathetic excitement of paying homage to the mistress-guards’ boots or the feet and footwear of the occasional female visitor.

For, although Monique was probably the most regular female visitor to the prison, she was by no means the only young woman who liked to torment the prone and vulnerable prisoners in their dungeons. It was a pleasant day out for many a young lady. And then there were the so-called ‘debutantes visits’ – groups of young women who were approaching their 21^st birthdays and were therefore about to become slave-owning mistresses for the first time (if their fathers could afford to buy them a personal slave). The State organised tours of the foothole-dungeons for all such young ladies in order to assure them as to the fate that awaited any male slave who might have the audacity to displease or disobey them. Slaves such as slave Thomas, or ‘prisoner no 7865’.

Monique could not afford a personal slave of her own, but, for her, this was the next best thing – a prisoner of her very own to torment and tease. As she made her way along the second corridor as directed by her friend guard-Michelle, Monique recognised slave Thomas, or rather his head, almost instantly. It helped that he appeared to be the only one whose head was sticking out at ground level into the corridor. All the other cells appeared to be either empty, or to have their apertures closed. But even if other prisoners had been sticking their heads out, Mistress Monique would have recognised slave Thomas immediately – he had such a gormless, pathetic look about him, even when he had been kneeling in the dock at the Lady Judge’s feet. He was one of life’s losers – a failure even as a personal footslave – just ripe for humiliating and degrading!

There appeared to be nobody else about in the dank and dismal corridor. Everything was quiet – so quiet that Monique could hear water dripping from the ceiling onto the floor – fortunately not where she was about to sit – i.e in front of prisoner no 7865’s cell.

The petite and pretty South-Pacific Islander clumped her way over to stand directly in front of prisoner no 7865’s outstretched head. She laughed at him as he, inexperienced and unused to the confinement of his head as he still was, tried in vain to raise his head to see who the owner of the thick, heavy, black and red buffalo boots was:

‘Ha! Ha! Don’t strain yourself, prisoner no 7865, you’ll do yourself an injury!’ exclaimed miss Monique, feigning concern for the convicted prisoner’s well-being.

Prisoner no 7865 was confused. He was stupid at the best of times, but now he was also confused. He hadn’t had any visitors before. He had, after all, only been imprisoned in his concrete dungeon for a week, though already, starved of daylight and proper human company, he was beginning to lose all sense of time.

Needless to say, amidst his confusion, he was also quite excited by the appearance of his unexpected guest. He could tell from her voice, and from what he could see of her lower legs, that she was a young, black woman. But exactly who was she, and why was she here?

Monique knew what he was thinking and anticipated his questions (had he been permitted to ask questions):

‘Don’t worry, prisoner-slave! You don’t know me – but I feel like I know you,’ said Monique, extending her right, black-sneakered foot onto the dusty concrete floor of the corridor directly under the prisoner’s nose:

‘You see, I was at your trial – in the public gallery – and I must say I enjoyed seeing you being sent down. Ha! Ha! You looked so scared and frightened when the good Lady Judge sentenced you to life in the foothole! Ha! Ha! What a loser! What a wimp! Kiss my foot, loser-slave!’

Prisoner no 7865’s innate defense-mechanisms kicked in. He no longer felt a sense of elation at having some feminine company. This young woman spelt trouble. He braced himself, and lowered his lips to the top of her heavy, black sneaker.

Monique giggled with glee as she felt the hapless prisoner’s lips through the leather upper of her sneaker-clog:

‘Ha! Ha! That’s right, slave. Do what you should have done for your mistress – mistress Olga I believe her name was? Kiss a young lady’s feet and show your proper respects to her! Come on, kiss it again! I want to feel your dirty lips paying homage to my foot! Show me that you’ve learnt your lesson and now know how to show proper respect to your female superiors’ she shouted – her high-pitched, feminine voice echoing down the corridor.

Prisoner no 7865 obeyed. He fervently kissed the top of the, somewhat dusty and dirty, black and red leather sneaker.

As miss Monique switched feet, she continued to berate the convict:

‘I think you got off lightly myself, slave – considering the heinousness of your crime – telling your superior mistress to “shut up” indeed! Well, let me tell you, if you’d been my slave, I’d have insisted that you not only be imprisoned for life in the footholes, but that you first be whipped – and properly whipped; with a heavy scourge, so that your back would contain a permanent reminder of your shame and insolence!’

Prisoner no 7865 kissed the dusty top of the young black woman’s now outstretched left sneaker, feeling the black shoe lace ticking his nose (a lace which, incidentally, he realised was just there for show as the young woman was wearing clog-style sneakers which could easily be slipped off her feet without untying the laces), as she continued to talk down to him:

‘My name is mistress Monique, slave, and I’m here to see to it that you realise the full horror of your crime against women. My God, I’ll see to it that you suffer down here. Ha! Ha! By the time I’ve finished with you you’ll be in no doubt as to who has all the power and who is weak and vulnerable!’

She paused briefly from her diatribe to let the effects of her words sink in to the prisoner’s stupid skull. As she did so she also noticed with satisfaction a trace of his saliva on the leather upper of her buffalo clog. Yes! The taste of her dirty footwear was now in his mouth. He was to all intents and purposes her personal footslave for the next hour or so!

Monique grabbed the chair that had been left for her by Guard-Michele and positioned it so that she could sit directly above the prisoner’s head – her sneakered feet resting on the ground on either side of his cheeks:

‘Tell me, slave, how are you enjoying your concrete hole? Is it to your satisfaction?’ she mocked.

Prisoner no 7865 was well aware that the young woman was enjoying mocking him, but was equally aware that it was in his own best interests to submit to her teasing and answer her respectfully, as he did with his female guards:

‘Oh please, most respected mistress-visitor Monique, if it pleases you most respected mistress-visitor Monique, this slave deserves nothing more than to be incarcerated in this dirty, concrete cell and believes it is truly a fit dwelling for a recalcitrant and disobedient slave such as this slave, if it so pleases you most respected mistress-visitor, mistress Monique.’

Monique laughed at the prisoner’s grovelling response as she dug her socked ankle bones into his temples on either side of his face:

‘Ha! Ha! Well said, prisoner no 7865! It is indeed a fitting abode for a dirty, no-good piece of arrogant filth such as you! And tell me, slave, how do you like the view from your concrete window? Do you like the sight of my red and black buffs so close up to your face?’

Prisoner no 7865 did like the view. Compared to the normal view of the bare concrete floor of the corridor, or even the occasional view of the mistress-guards’ somewhat monotonous regulation, knee-high, black leather boots, the current view he had of the tops of the strange young woman’s red and black buffalo clogs and stripy, multi-coloured ankle socks was quite literally bringing some colour into his life – and indeed colour to his cheeks as the young lady was continually increasing the pressure on his temples with her socked ankle bones.

He therefore told miss Monique the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as befits a convicted slave addressing a superior mistress:

‘Oh yes, most respected mistress-visitor Monique, if it pleases you most respected mistress-visitor, mistress Monique, this slave does indeed admire your footwear from his lowly vantage point, and is privileged to see the superior mistress’s footwear in such close-up detail, if it so pleases you, most respected mistress-visitor Monique.’

The only thing the pathetic, cringing, obsequious slave felt he ought not to say, for it was not his place to appear too forward with a young mistress on a first ‘date’ as it were, was that he equally admired the glimpse of her soft brown calves above her stripy ankle-socks – for it was the only bare female flesh he had seen in what seemed like ages. How he missed washing his mistress Olga’s bare feet – a task he had relished every morning before his demise!

For her part, mistress Monique was still eager to know what the prisoner thought about her footwear:

‘Yes, prisoner no 7865, I appreciate that it must be an honour for you to stare at my buffs like this, but can you really see all the fine details in this murky light down here? I mean, can you see the individual stitches along the tops and the sides of my buffs? And can you make out the tiny traces of dirt and dust on the leather uppers? I’d hate for you to have to miss out on any of these little details as the sight of my buffs must undoubtedly be the highlight of your day!’ she mocked – although she knew that the sight of her buffs would indeed be the highlight of this convicted prisoner’s day, if not his whole week. It was just so pathetic that he was reduced to such an existence! She laughed again.

Prisoner no 7865, meanwhile, was concerned to stress to his superior, free visitor, who, in stark contrast to him could come and go as she pleased, that, in spite of the relative gloom of the corridor, he could quite easily make out the individual details of her footwear:

‘Oh pray, most respected mistress-visitor Monique, if it pleases you most respected mistress-visitor, this slave is pleased to confirm that it can indeed make out the details on the superior mistress’s footwear as its eyes are now accustomed to total darkness inside its concrete cell and have therefore adapted to enable it to see clearly in the relative brightness of the corridor outside its humble cell, if it so pleases you most respected mistress-visitor.’

Monique was quite impressed that the slave’s body was already adapting to life in the gloom of the dungeon – if it were true; and it must be true, for surely no slave would dare to lie to his mistress in a place like this?

Satisfied that he could see her footwear properly she now wanted to know what it felt like to his face:

‘And tell me, slave, how do you like the feel of my stripy ankle-socks as I dig my ankles into the temples on your forehead? Do my socks feel nice and soft, or am I starting to hurt you as I increase the pressure on your temples?’

If truth be told, and it would be, for a slave must never lie to his mistress, prisoner no 7865 was beginning to experience some discomfort as a result of miss Monique demonstrating her power and authority over him by digging her ankle bones into his temples. But equally that wasn’t preventing him from appreciating the soft material of her cotton ankle-socks on the side of his face – again it was a feeling he had once taken for granted but was now starved of; the sensation of a mistress’s soft, socked feet touching his slave face:

‘Oh most respected mistress-visitor Monique, if it pleases you most respected mistress, this slave is truly privileged to feel the soft material of the mistress’s socks on its face, although the dirty slave has to acknowledge that it is also experiencing a degree of pain as the mistress applies pressure to the side of its forehead, if it so pleases you most respected mistress-visitor Monique.’

Most respected mistress-visitor Monique laughed at the slave’s evident discomfort:

‘Ha! Ha! It does indeed please me, most despised slave-prisoner no 7865, that you are in some pain, if it so pleases you most despised slave-prisoner no 7865, for this mistress is of the opinion that there is not enough pain and suffering in your wretched life, if it so pleases you, most despised and ugly slave-prisoner no 7865. Ha! Ha!’

Monique enjoyed mocking the slave-speak of the convicted prisoners. She knew they had no choice other than to speak in that way, as a mark of their respect towards the superior females they were addressing, but she thought it highly amusing, and somewhat ironic, that it took them 50 words to say something that would take a normal, free human being only 10 words to say. It was ‘ironic’ because if ever there was a class of people who were effectively ‘voiceless’ it was the convicted, lifelong prisoners languishing in the bowels of the town dungeon.

Voiceless or not, Monique wanted to hear more from the convicted prisoner who was at her feet and at her mercy. Relaxing the pressure on his temples, although not because he had complained of being in some pain but rather because the pressure was starting to hurt her own delicate, feminine ankle-bones, Monique continued with her teasing of prisoner no 7865:

‘But tell me, slave, how do you like the smell of my footwear? I mean, my shoes and socks are so close to your ugly face that you must surely be able to smell the musty leather of my buffs and even the cotton material of my socks? Describe how my footwear smells, slave. I’m curious to know.’

Monique was genuinely curious. Had the slave’s sense of smell also developed within the confines of the dungeon? Was it, like his eyesight, already sharper than before and able to distinguish between the different types of leather in the guards’ boots and her own buffs, for example?

Prisoner no 7865 could indeed smell the leather buffs, although there was no discernable smell coming from the young black woman’s multi-coloured, striped ankle-socks. There would undoubtedly be some sort of odour associated with the area of her socks which was deep inside her shoes – the area around her toes and, perhaps, along the sole of her precious foot. But whilst she had her shoes on even the highly-developed sense of foot-smell of the convicted footslave could not smell her socked toes:

‘Oh pray, most respected mistress-visitor Monique, if it pleases you most respected mistress-visitor Monique, this dirty slave can indeed smell the leather of its mistress’s precious sneakers, but regrets that it is unable to identify any detectable odour from its mistress’s socks, if it so pleases you most respected mistress-visitor, in part because the smell of its mistress’s leather sneakers is quite overpowering, most respected mistress-visitor Monique.’

Although the prisoner couldn’t see it, a wry smile was now appearing on mistress Monique’s pretty South-pacific features:

‘Mmm… I am sorry to hear that slave. I can sense from the tone of your voice that you are disappointed that you cannot get a good whiff of my sweaty socks! I’ll tell you what – how would you like me to give you a special treat? Why don’t you beg me to take off my shoes and allow you to smell my socked toes? Then you can tell me how much, or how little, they stink! Would you like that, prisoner no 7865? Would you? Would you?’

‘Oh yes, most respected mistress-visitor, mistress Monique, this slave would indeed be honoured to sniff its superior mistress’s socked toes, if it so pleases you most respected and gracious mistress-visitor.

Monique laughed:

‘Well, what are you waiting for, prisoner no 7865? Go on then, beg me to take off my shoes and let you smell my socks properly. Put forward your humble petition to me, explaining why I should accede to your pathetic request!’

Prisoner no 7865 was conscious of the fact that the mistress-visitor wanted to hear him beg for the honour of sniffing her socks purely as a means of augmenting her own sense of power over him, and so he dutifully begged:

‘Oh pray, most respected mistress-visitor, mistress Monique, if it pleases you most respected mistress-visitor Monique, this slave humbly begs its mistress to remove her shoes in order to afford this dirty slave the inestimable honour of inhaling the odour of the mistress’s socked feet and toes, in order that it may better appreciate the smell of its superior mistress’s beautiful, feminine socks and feet, if it so pleases you, most respected and merciful mistress-visitor Monique.’

Monique laughed again:

‘Oh very well, slave, if you insist!’, and so saying she bent down to slip off her buffalo clogs.

For a brief moment the slave felt a pang of anguish. As a personal footslave he had been used to taking off young women’s shoes for them. How helpless he now felt confined, as he was, in his concrete hole, unable to extract his arms or hands in order to assist mistress Monique to remove her footwear!

Fortunately the shoes, heavy and clumpy though they were, slipped off the front of her feet easily.

They slipped off to reveal the true petiteness of miss Monique’s pretty South-pacific feet inside her stripy socks. As she raised her right, socked foot up to the prostrate slave’s nose for him to smell, mistress Monique voiced what she knew the prisoner must be thinking:

‘Aren’t my feet pretty, slave? Don’t you just long to see what my pretty brown feet must look like inside my stripy socks? Don’t you wish I would take off my socks and let you see my bare toes? She teased, wiggling her socked toes directly under his nose in order to release more of the smell.’

And there was a smell – not overly pungent, but nevertheless the unmistakeable smell of sweet, feminine foot-sweat was now making its way up the prisoner’s nostrils, yet again reminding him of his previous life as a young woman’s personal footslave – a life that had ended what now seemed like an eternity ago, although it was, in fact, only one week ago!

Excited, prisoner no 7865 almost forgot his manners:

‘Oh yes please, mistress, please I beg of you, please let me see your pretty brown feet …if it so pleases you, most respected mistress-visitor, mistress Monique.’

Mistress Monique could have been offended by his impertinence in not addressing her properly at the start of his reply, and, indeed, by his obvious lust for her bare feet. But she actually found his frustration amusing. She would never allow this particular convicted prisoner to see her bare feet – he wasn’t worthy – but it would be fun teasing him about it; raising his expectations only to then dash them!

‘Mmm.. yes, just imagine slave, just imagine my pretty, soft, brown Tropical Island feet rubbing themselves all over your ugly, slave face! How soft they would feel. Why, some of my precious foot-perspiration might even rub off onto your face! You’d like that, wouldn’t you slave?’

‘Oh yes, mistress. Please, mistress, I beg you, mistress, please rub your superior bare feet on my face, mistress…most respected mistress-visitor Monique.’

Monique now laughed out loud at him:

‘Ha! Ha! I’m afraid you’re getting way ahead of yourself slave! After all, we’ve only just met, and you should be concentrating on smelling my socks! Remember?’

And with that mistress Monique placed the toe of her stripy-socked right foot directly onto the slave’s nose and ordered him to sniff:

‘Smell my sock, slave. Concentrate on your duties, or I’ll call the guards!’

The threat of the guards being called brought the day-dreaming prisoner back from his South Pacific Island paradise, on which he had been lying at the bare feet of his pretty, native-girl mistress as she sun-bathed on the beach, back to the cold and harsh reality of the foothole-dungeon, in which he was now obliged to sniff the young woman’s sweaty ankle-socks.

Monique, however, was apparently beginning to show signs of pity for him. As he audibly sniffed at her socked toes she came up with a suggestion:

‘I’ll tell you what, slave, I’ll give you a little test, and if you pass it, I will rub my pretty bare feet all over your face next week when I visit again. I’m going to sit here and read my book. While I’m doing so, I want you to stare at my socked feet – to examine them in minute detail. I want you to study the pattern of the socks, to memorise the colours of the various stripes – and the order they appear in. Count them. Also study closely any areas where the material of the sock may be wearing away, and examine the stitching where it is stretched around my heels. Basically, obsess yourself with my socks over the next half hour or so that remains of my visit, for I’m going to ask you questions on my socks next week and, if you get all the answers correct, I promise you I will let you see and feel my soft, bare feet next time! Aren’t I kind to you, prisoner no 7865?’

Prisoner no 7865 had to agree:

‘Oh bless you, most respected mistress-visitor Monique! This slave is indeed honoured to be allowed the chance of seeing his mistress’s divine, bare feet, if it so pleases you, most respected mistress-visitor Monique!’

‘Ha! Ha! Calm down, slave! Remember you have to earn the privilege first by studying my socked feet! Furthermore, if you fail to answer all my questions correctly next time I’ll personally see to it that you spend the next six weeks locked in the pitch darkness of your cell with absolutely no opportunity to serve the feet of women, guards or otherwise. Now shut up and concentrate on my socks, slave!’

And with that the trainee doctor, miss Monique, buried her head in her course textbook, filing her pretty head full of facts about complex medical procedures which would help her to pass her end-of-year examinations and qualify as a doctor, whilst convicted prisoner no 7865 filled his vacuous head with facts about the young woman’s socks – facts which, he was confident, would lead the following week to him passing his own ‘exam’ and then being allowed the honour of not only seeing, but also touching with his face, her pretty, brown, bare feet.

Little did he know that he had absolutely no chance of passing Miss Monique’s contrived test. She was, as she had been throughout her visit, only tormenting him in accordance with her pre-arranged plans! From that moment onwards, he was doomed to six weeks of solitary confinement in his concrete cell.

Part 4 – The stitch-up

They say that a week is a long time in politics, but it is an even longer time in prison – especially when you are a convicted footslave, locked in a foothole-dungeon, and eagerly awaiting the return of your most respected mistress-visitor, as prisoner number 7865 was doing.

He passed his time ‘revising’ for his ‘memory test’—trying to remember all the details that he could of mistress Monique’s multi-coloured, stripy ankle socks. He was determined to pass the test, as the reward that awaited him – seeing and feeling mistress Monique’s soft, brown, tropical-island, bare feet as she rubbed them over his pathetic, slave face – was everything and more that he could hope for in his otherwise interminably dull and tedious existence in the dingy foothole.

Sure, the female guards were still being kind enough to regularly open the ground-level hatch in his concrete cell wall to allow him to project his head out and kiss their dirty, black leather, uniform-boots. But he ached for the sight, smell and feel of a woman’s bare feet again. It was the thing he missed most since his fall from the exalted position of personal footslave to his former mistress, mistress Olga. How he missed the sensation of her soft, sweaty toes in his mouth, the feel of her scraping her toe jam off her toenails onto the roof of his mouth, the salty taste of her bare footsweat. He could only hope against hope that if he passed the test she had set him, and he was confident that he would, mistress Monique, the exotic and petite tropical- island girl from somewhere in the Pacific, might even insert her pretty, bare toes into his mouth.

And so he filled his every waking moment with revision – memorizing every last detail he could think of about mistress Monique’s stripy socks which he had studied intently during the half hour available to him for that purpose during her first visit to the dungeon. He counted the days by counting his meals – he was only fed one meal a day, in the morning, consisting of rather unappetising and tasteless ‘slave-mush’ – but the tasteless mush would only serve to make mistress Monique’s bare toes taste all the sweeter. Prisoner no 7865 was nothing if not an optimist!

It was, at last, the seventh day. He hoped she would come early in the morning. Prisoner no 7865 was becoming nervous and impatient – much to the amusement of his female guards, particularly Monique’s friend, guard-mistress Michelle. Seeing him gobble up his breakfast of slave-mush, as if bolting down his food would in some way expedite the long-awaited arrival of his mistress-visitor Monique, Michelle laughed at him, and counselled him not to get his hopes up too high:

‘Calm down, prisoner no 7865. Your visitor will be here soon enough, but I really don’t know what you’re getting so excited about. I’ve never known any slave to actually pass any of her tests. Mistress-visitor Monique sets such high standards!’

Blinded by lustful thoughts of mistress-visitor Monique’s soft, brown feet, prisoner no 7865 wasn’t listening to guard-mistress Michelle’s sound advice. He was still confident he would pass the impending test.

Mistress Monique was actually running a bit late. Her visiting order was for 10:00, but she didn’t arrive until 10:20. It was 10:30 by the time she cleared security and was standing in the dimly-lit corridor outside prisoner no 7865’s cell. Once again, his head was waiting for her, projecting out, his face looking downwards at the floor, from the ground-level aperture in the concrete wall.

Prisoner no 7865 could see that mistress-visitor Monique had chosen to wear black, opaque tights and black, leather, lace-up ankle boots that particular morning. Once again, she appeared to be wearing some sort of mini-skirt, although, from his lowly and confined position, prisoner no 7865 could barely see above her shapely, black-tighted calves. So, she’s elected not to wear the multi-coloured, stripy socks she will be testing me on, he thought to himself. Makes sense, really; it was, after all, supposed to be a memory test, so why should his mistress help him by wearing the very socks she was going to be testing him on?

‘Hello, prisoner no 7865! Have you missed me?’ enquired mistress-visitor Monique cheerily, but somewhat breathlessly as she had been rushing down the stone staircase of the dungeon due to her tardiness.

‘Oh yes, most respected mistress-visitor Monique, this humble footslave has truly been looking forward to its mistress’s visit, and to demonstrating his respect for and commitment to your socks by undergoing the memory test you will be setting him, if it so pleases you most respected mistress-visitor Monique.’

‘Ha! Ha!. A simple “yes’ would do, slave!’ laughed Monique, fully aware, however, that the prisoner-slaves were obliged to address their female visitors in such respectful, if rather convoluted, language. If truth be told, she quite liked the prisoners’ enforced verbal servility, just as she liked having her boots respectfully kissed by them. She extended her right, black leather, lace-up ankle boot directly under Prisoner no 7865’s nose, the thick, black material of her tights creasing at the ankle inside the back of her boot as she did so.

She didn’t need to give him a verbal order. Prisoner-footslave no 7865 immediately pressed his humble lips to the toe of her boot and audibly kissed. He was honoured that the toe of the outstretched boot contained a slither of street-mud, for it meant he was tasting where this beautiful and superior mistress-visitor had just been. He was even more gratified to see that when he lifted his lips from the toe of her black boot, the trace of mud had gone. The young woman’s boot-mud was where it belonged – on his lips and in his mouth.

Mistress Monique hadn’t even noticed the tiny mud-stain on the toe of her boot. And now she never would. She withdrew her right foot, and replaced it with her outstretched left boot for the prisoner to pay homage to. This time, as she did so, the plastic covered end of her lace whipped against the footslave’s nose. Again, mistress Monique hadn’t noticed this, but to the fired-up and lustful footslave it only served to emphasise that he was the slave of this young woman’s boot – it was as if the boot itself was punishing him, whipping him across the face with its lace, for his arrogance in thinking that he had some sort of right to kiss it, or indeed to see its owner’s soft, bare feet.

Prisoner no 7865 kissed the toe of the left boot and mentally begged its forgiveness.

‘I’m afraid I haven’t got much time, slave! I’m running a bit late and have a lecture to go to at medical college, so we’ll have to start your test straight away. Are you ready? Have you been doing your revision, slave?’ asked mistress Monique, pulling over a chair, as she had done last time, in order to sit above his head, with her two booted feet resting on either side of his temples.

‘Oh yes, most respected mistress visitor Monique, this slave has been thinking of nothing but your beautiful socks since you last left him, and believes he is ready to answer all your questions, if it so pleases you most respected mistress-visitor Monique.’

Monique laughed at his slavish eagerness as she made herself as comfortable as she could on the rather plain and hard chair:

‘Ha! Ha! Very well, slave! We’ll get started, in that case. But I should warn you that the pass mark is very high – 100% in fact. If you get any of the answers wrong I’m afraid you lose, and the forfeit will be – six weeks’ solitary confinement in your dirty concrete hole. I’ve cleared it with the guards, some of whom have been placing bets on the outcome! But don’t despair too much, slave. If you get all of the answers correct I will keep my promise and let you kiss and smell my pretty bare feet!’

Prisoner no 7865 gasped with excitement. Concentrate! You must concentrate, he told himself. This could be your one chance to ever touch and feel a young woman’s bare feet ever again – albeit just with your face!

He braced himself for the first question:

‘Very well, slave, here’s the first question,’ began Monique, taking out a scrap of paper on which she had written her questions and answers. ‘How many different colours were there on my stripy socks?’

Easy! It was an easy question for him to answer! Prisoner no 7865 breathed a sigh of relief. The test was obviously not going to be all that difficult, although he fully realised that the easiest question would probably come first:

‘Oh pray, most respected mistress-visitor Monique, there were 7 different colours on your stripy socks, if it so pleases you, most respected mistress-visitor.’

‘Correct!’ exclaimed Monique, ‘Well done, slave. You’re off to a good start!’

His heart lifted. It had been a long time since anyone had said ‘well done’ to him. Not even his beloved former mistress, mistress Olga, had been accustomed to praising him for his efforts. But then, why should she? He had been her slave, after all, and slaves don’t work for praise or money. They work to avoid the whip!

‘Question 2,’ continued miss Monique, ‘Name all those different colours.’

Again, prisoner no 7865 breathed a sigh of relief. This was almost too easy. Not only could he name them, he would name them in the order they appeared, from the toes upwards:

‘If it pleases you most respected mistress-visitor Monique, the colours were red, white, blue, green, purple, yellow and orange, in that repeated pattern, most respected mistress-visitor.’

‘Correct! Very good, slave. Now, question 3: On the sole of my left sock, how many separate areas did you see where the stitching was beginning to wear away?’

Mmm… the questions were beginning to get a bit trickier now, primarily in the sense that the answer could, arguably, be open to interpretation. How do you define what constitutes a separate area of worn-away stitching?

The answer to that, of course, was that it was mistress Monique’s definition which counted. But, fortunately for prisoner no 7865, he had studied the soles of both mistress Monique’s socks very closely last time. She, for her part, had been gracious enough to raise her feet off the ground to afford him a better view of the soles of her socked feet. And he, for his part, had concentrated on the areas of worn-away stitching because it was through those areas of thinner stitching that he had at least enjoyed a veiled glimpse of mistress Monique’s precious, brown footflesh.

He therefore had an answer for the superior young woman:

‘Oh pray most respected mistress-visitor Monique, this slave believes there were three areas of worn stitching on the sole of your left sock, most respected mistress-visitor.’

Monique paused for dramatic effect in order to heighten the slave’s tension. She liked making slaves feel tense:

‘Correct!’ she pronounced, much to prisoner no 7865’s evident relief. He was still very much on course for kissing and smelling her bare feet!

‘Question 4: On the day in question, how many creases were there in my right sock on the area above my ankle bone?’

Believe it or not, prisoner no 7865 was confident that he knew the answer to this one! For when he had been ordered by the young woman to study her socks last time, he had truly studied them – ‘obsessed himself’ with them, as she herself had counselled him to. And he had actually counted the creases in the sock above her right ankle:

‘Oh pray most respected mistress-visitor, there were 4 creases in the mistress’s sock above her right ankle, if it so pleases you, most respected mistress-visitor Monique.’

Monique clapped her hands in delight. She seemed genuinely gratified that the slave was doing so well in his test:

‘Well done, slave! Correct again! Just one question left – let’s hope you get it right!’

Prisoner no 7865 was sweating with the tension now – he was so close; so close to passing the test with 100%; so close to earning the right to see this beautiful young black woman’s bare feet. He must concentrate! He must not fail!

‘Question 5. The final question: How many stitches were there in the reinforced area of the sock covering the toes on my right foot?’

Prisoner no 7865’s heart sank. How many stitches? He had only had half an hour to study the young woman’s socks last time – and she had been continually wiggling her beautiful brown toes inside the socks, causing the socks to fold and crease. It would have been impossible for him to actually count the number of stitches! Mistress Monique must surely have known that!

He would have to make an educated guess! The stitches in that particular pair of cotton socks had been very small. There must have been hundreds, even in the relatively small reinforced area covering her precious toes.

‘Hurry up with your answer, slave! I haven’t got all day!’ barked mistress-visitor Monique, her tone noticeably darkening.

‘Oh pray, most respected mistress-visitor Monique, if it pleases you, most respected mistress-visitor Monique, there were 750 stitches in total in the area of your sock covering your beautiful toes, if it so pleases you, most respected mistress-visitor Monique.’

Prisoner no 7865 sounded confident, but it was a pure guess. He could only brace himself, and hope against hope that he was correct.

Mistress Monique again paused for dramatic effect before delivering the bad news:

‘I’m afraid that’s incorrect, slave. The correct answer was 760. You lose. Ha! Ha! What a pathetic loser you are!’

Of course, mistress Monique had no idea how many stitches there were in the reinforced area of her sock covering her toes. More to the point, she didn’t care! Like the prisoner, she had had to guess how many stitches there were, but unlike the prisoner, her guess was deemed to be the correct one – for she was the mistress, and a mistress can never be wrong.

If truth be told, whatever number he had guessed, she would have chosen another. It was the one answer she had not written down, for she had been determined all along that this dirty prisoner would never get his lips on her superior, feminine bare feet.

Prisoner no 7865, in his abject disappointment, was beginning to realise that too. Quite apart from the fact that the question about the stitching had been well-nigh impossible to answer correctly, mistress Monique was much too good for him, and had clearly never intended to allow him access to her bare feet. After all, if she had been serious about it, why would she have chosen to wear tights today? Would she not have come barefoot in shoes or sandals, or at least worn a pair of socks that could easily be removed? There was no way she was ever going to get ‘undressed’ in the dungeon by taking off her tights.

He had therefore, quite literally, been ‘stitched up’.

‘Oh dear, slave! You’ve failed the test – and you know what the punishment for that is! Since you have chosen not to study my socks in the required detail that I ordered you to, I think it is only fitting that you spend the next six weeks locked in your concrete hole. You clearly have better things to study and to think about than your superior mistresses’ feet and footwear! Very well, so be it. Guards!’

As mistress-visitor Monique called for the female prison guards, prisoner no 7865 started to sob at her feet:

‘Of please forgive me, most respected mistress-visitor Monique, please forgive this arrogant, ignorant slave for his disrespectfulness towards you and your socks, most respected mistress-visitor Monique,’ and with that he lavished unsolicited kisses all over mistress Monique’s pretty, lace-up black leather ankle boots, even allowing his dirty lips to brush without permission against the material of her opaque, black tights.

Monique looked down on him from her seated position with a sense of satisfaction. She had destroyed his pathetic hopes and dreams and reduced him to a state of abject misery! How wonderful it made her feel inside. But she felt that it would be rather impolite to overtly gloat over his distress. She had to feign pity, mixed with a hint of disappointment and anger:

‘It’s all very well kissing my boots and tights and calling me “most respected mistress”, prisoner no 7865, but when it comes down to it, in not studying the minutest details of my socks correctly, after I had given you an express order to do so, you have demonstrated that you have not changed since your incarceration – you are still the same self-centred, disobedient and disrespectful slave who continually fails to please his female betters. You fully deserve the punishment I am about to inflict on you – six weeks of total darkness and isolation. Perhaps that will give you time to recognise the error of your ways!’

Prisoner no 7865 had no answer to this totally fair point – other than to continue kissing the superior young woman’s leather boots.

It was guard-mistress Michelle who answered Monique’s call. She’d been expecting it:

‘Is everything alright, Monique?’ she asked (as if she didn’t already know).

‘Not really, guard-Michelle. ‘I’m afraid this prisoner has disrespected me by failing the observation and memory test I had set him about my socks. I want him punished. I would suggest six weeks solitary confinement in his foothole?’

It was now guard-Michelle’s turn to feign disappointment and anger:

‘What? I really am so sorry, Miss. I can assure you that he will not see the light of day, or should I say the light of the corridor, for at least six weeks!’

The two girls laughed, Monique in her black leather, lace-up ankle boots; Michelle in her regulation, black, zip-up knee-length boots. They would be the last things prisoner no 7865 would see for six weeks, as the knee-length boots pushed his sobbing face back into the hole, and the aperture was slammed shut and locked.

Six weeks is a long time to spend on your own in the dark. Of course, the female guards still fed him every morning, by pushing a saucer of slave-mush and lukewarm water with their boots through a tiny, lockable slit at the base of the aperture. But the aperture itself remained firmly locked, and, as if to add insult to injury, prisoner no 7865 couldn’t even see the bottom of the guards’ boots as they pushed his saucer through the slit.

When the aperture finally did open again after six weeks, the murky light from the corridor seemed, temporarily, to be blinding. As he stretched his stiff and aching head and neck out of the opening into the corridor it took a while for his eyes to adjust to the female prison guard’s regulation black leather knee-length boots.

‘Ha! Ha! You stink, prisoner no 7865!’

He recognised the voice. It was mistress-guard Michelle:

‘And just look at that filthy beard! We’ll have to shave that off immediately. Her Excellency, the Prison-Governess, is coming down to see you. Ha! Ha! You are an honoured prisoner, no 7865!’

The ‘honoured’ prisoner was just glad to be able to stretch his neck – albeit within the confines of the metal aperture. He also found the wash and shave given to him by mistress-guard Michelle, quite comforting, not that she was particularly gentle with him. But it was just nice to have some human, female contact again. He now fully accepted that he had deserved his punishment. He would be a better, more conscientious, foot-prisoner in future.

After some two hours there was a commotion. All the mistress-guards were suddenly lined up along the corridor walls, with mistress-guard Michelle standing directly on the slave’s left. His eyes had fully adjusted again to the light now, so much so that he could see, out of the corner of his eye, the specks of dust and dirt along the stitching of her boots.

Suddenly a pair of high-heeled, black patent leather, high-heeled pumps on tan- coloured nylon stockings presented themselves directly in front of his face. The shoes were incredibly shiny – flawless, despite the dust and muck on the floor of the dungeon corridor. Prisoner no 7865 realised he was looking at the shapely feet of the Prison Governess. They truly were a sight for sore eyes!

He had never met or seen the Prison Governess before. He had only heard of her by reputation. He knew, for example, from overhearing the guards’ conversations, that she was a married woman in her late thirties, by all accounts good to her staff, but a firm believer that prisoners were in her prison to be punished – not ‘rehabilitated’ or ‘reformed’ – but punished. It was largely thanks to her beliefs and attitudes, therefore, that the footslave-prisoners were treated with no respect by their guards, and were regarded as nothing more than losers and low-lives – which, if truth be told, they were.

What annoyed her Excellency the Prison-Governess more than anything, however, was disrespect shown to female visitors to the prison by the inmates. And that was why she had taken the unusual step of venturing down into the dirty foothole-dungeons herself – she wanted to see with her own eyes the dirty, disrespectful prisoner who had deigned to upset one of the prison’s regular female-visitors, a young lady by the name of Monique.

‘Prisoner no 7865! Kiss the feet of her Excellency, the Prison-Governess! Barked guard-mistress Michelle, as the said governess stretched forward her pointy-toed, shiny black leather right pump under the prisoner’s nose.

As he lowered his lips to kiss the top of her shoe, prisoner no 7865 could not help but stare at her Excellency the Prison-Governess’s nylon-covered foot. It was so exciting for him to see a woman’s footskin, albeit covered in tan nylon, after six weeks in the pitch dark. The nylons were quite sheer, of the finest denier, so it was only the sight of the ultra-tiny stitches in the material of the nylon shimmering in the light which betrayed the fact that the Prison Governess was not, in fact, bare foot inside her shoes.

Pathetically, prisoner no 7865 caught himself wondering how many minute stitches there would be in the reinforced area of the stocking covering the Prison Governess’s toes. More than 750, he guessed.

The Governess spoke:

‘So this is the arrogant and disrespectful prisoner who dared to upset one of our guests?’ she enquired, addressing guard-Michelle.

‘Yes please, Ma’am. Prisoner no 7865 failed to study mistress-visitor Monique’s socks properly, thereby failing a subsequent memory test she set for him about her socks, ma’am.’

The Governess sighed and tutted, as she replaced her right foot with her left under the prisoner’s nose for him to respectfully kiss:

‘Tch! Tell me, prisoner no 7865, do you think you are too high and mighty to study a young woman’s socks when she orders you to? Do you think, perhaps, that you are too good for this place, and that you should be permitted to concentrate your brilliant mind on higher things than a young black woman’s socks?’

The guards all smiled. The sarcasm in the popular Governess’s voice was palpable.

‘’The prisoner will answer Her Excellency the Prison Governess!’ barked mistress-guard Michelle.

Prisoner no 7865, never having spoken to the Prison-Governess before, wasn’t entirely sure how he was meant to address her. He would have to rely on his, already much discredited, guess-work:

‘Oh pray, Your Excellency, most respected Mistress Prison-Governess, this slave apologises for its failure to study adequately the socks of his superior mistress-visitor, the most respected mistress-visitor Monique, and promises to be a better footslave in the future, if it so pleases you, Your Excellency, most respected mistress Prison-Governess.’

The Prison Governess was, apparently, not best pleased with prisoner no 7865’s obsequious reply:

‘Don’t refer to yourself as “slave”, prisoner!’ she snapped. ‘You are not fit to call yourself a slave! You have failed as a slave. That is why you are here – and shall remain here for the rest of your miserable life! But, my God, you’re right about one thing! You will do better in future. The next time a female guest in my prison orders you to study her footwear you will study it, or so help me God I’ll have you locked permanently in your cell never to see a woman’s footwear ever again! Do I make myself clear, no 7865?’

Her Excellency, the Prison Governess, had made herself perfectly clear.

‘Yes please, Your Excellency, most respected mistress Prison-Governess, this slave hears and obeys you, Your Excellency, most respected mistress Prison-Governess.’

There were gasps of disbelief all down the line of prison guards. The fool had actually referred to himself as a ‘slave’ again, in direct contravention of an order from the Governess herself! Unbelievable! Prisoner no 7865, idiot that he was, didn’t even realise his mistake. All he knew, as the esteemed Prison-Governess kicked him in the face with her pointy-toed, shiny, black leather court shoe, was that he had said something to upset her.

He would have another six weeks to go over what he had said and try to identify his mistake, for that was what her Excellency the Prison Governess now sentenced him to for his disobedience – a further 6 weeks in isolation in his concrete foothole!

Part 5 – The Debutantes

The years passed agonisingly slowly for the foot-prisoner in the foothole – ten years to be precise. Mercifully, the period of 6 weeks solitary confinement which had been effectively doubled to 12 by Her Excellency, The Prison Governess, was the longest continuous stretch of isolation he was subjected to. Most of the time he was a model prisoner, and therefore, on most days he was afforded the ‘privilege’ of having the hatch opened in his cell wall for a few hours so that he could project his head out at ground level into the dungeon corridor and pay homage to the passing regulation black, leather knee-length boots of the female guards.

But, small mercy though that was, life in the foothole was, fundamentally, monotonous and dull. The female guards came and went. Guard Michelle, for example, had long since left her job in the prison to have babies. But new guards took her place, and, due to their regulation footwear, they all looked pretty much the same – at least from the perspective of a prisoner in a foothole. Black leather boot after black leather boot; day in and day out; no prospect even of seeing or smelling the regulation, black nylons inside the guards’ boots – the guards were under strict instructions from the Prison Governess not to ‘treat’ the prisoners to the sight or smell of their inner footwear.

Rarely, he would be lucky enough to have a female ‘prison visitor’ – women like mistress Monique (who, incidentally, following his ‘test’ some ten years previously had never visited him again, not because he had offended her by his failure to pass her test, but simply because she was bored with him and had wanted to move on to tormenting the next prisoner). Such female prison visitors provided some welcome respite from the daily monotony, but they had invariably just come to gloat and to tease – promising their bare feet, but delivering only their boots and socks; raising the foot-prisoners’ hopes only to dash them again. Just as mistress Monique had done to him all those years ago.

And so, the overall experience of being a prisoner for life in the foothole-dungeons was one of deliberate monotony – and rightly so; it was a place of punishment after all.

Yet, even down here, in the depths of despair, life could occasionally present some unexpected excitement for an erstwhile footslave.

Today was to be one such day.

It started like any other day for prisoner no 7865 in his confined, concrete cell. At 06:00 am precisely the ground-level hatch to his cell was opened allowing the light from the corridor to flood in, and his saucer of slave-mush and water to be unceremoniously pushed through by the dusty, booted foot of one of the female guards. Prisoner no 7865 eagerly devoured his dusty, female-boot soiled meal, not because it was appetizing, but because it would be, as always, his only meal of the day – and, of course, because it was a feast fit for a footslave-prisoner.

When he had finished his meal, and it didn’t take long, he once again, as usual, picked up the empty saucer with his teeth and projected his head out of the ground-level aperture in order to deposit the saucer on the ground outside his cell. A guard’s boots marched over and the saucer was lifted up and taken away.

Prisoner no 7865 remained with his head sticking out from the aperture, staring at the dirty floor of the corridor, because there was nothing else to do. He resigned himself to yet another morning of guard-boot watching and, if he was lucky, kissing. That was his life.

But 3 hours into this ‘normal’ day something quite abnormal began to happen. There was the sound of excited girlish chatter and laughter; of giggling – most unlike the invariably bored and sombre female guards.

As the gaggle of girls approached his lonely cell down the dimly lit corridor, prisoner no 7865 soon realised that this particular group of young women were not guards at all.

Debutantes! They were debutantes!

He could tell from the way they were dressed – or rather from their footwear, for that was all he was physically capable of observing from his lowly position - that they were definitely ‘civilians’ ;brightly coloured and varied ‘civilian’ footwear on shapely young legs. Already they had brightened up prisoner no 7865’s day just by the simple act of walking towards him!

‘Debutantes’ were young women who were a week or so away from their 21^st birthdays and were about to become footslave-owners for the first time. Normally from privileged backgrounds, for personal-footslaves didn’t come cheap, the State organised guided tours of the footslave-dungeons for the young ladies, as a means of reassuring them of the fate that awaited any disobedient or recalcitrant slave who failed to live up to their expectations – the fate of life imprisonment in a dirty concrete foothole in the bowels of the town dungeon.

It was, of course, an exciting, if slightly scary, day out for the young women, most of whom would never have been anywhere near a dirty dungeon before. But, ironically, it made for an exciting day for the prisoners also – lots of new and unfamiliar feminine feet to observe and, if you were lucky, to kiss and pay your humble respects to. Prisoner no 7865 braced himself. It had been some 3 long years since he had last been honoured with a visit by debutantes to his corridor.

There appeared to be 6 of them, and he quickly identified them all by their footwear as they gathered round him.

There was ‘Miss slides and white socks’ – a young, black woman in a brightly-coloured floral summer dress which reached down to just above her shapely calves, who was wearing light brown, open-toed, wedge-heeled, slides, made of cork, over pretty, white ankle socks. Prisoner no 7865 noticed that they were the new style of ankle socks, the so called ‘no show’ or ‘footie’ ankle socks that reached to just below the young woman’s ankle. Women hadn’t worn socks like that when he had been a personal footslave all those years ago. How the world must be changing outside in so many other ways!

Even when he had been a footslave on the outside, prisoner no 7865 could never quite understand why women wore socks with sandals. His mistress Olga had done it on occasions too! But why? Surely the whole point of wearing sandals was to allow their feet to breathe? Was it, therefore, purely to frustrate and humiliate the footslave by hiding their beautiful, bare feet inside socks? It probably was in mistress Olga’s case.

Whatever her motives, prisoner no 7865 was grateful to ‘Miss slides and white socks’ for her choice of open-toed footwear. The white socks contrasted nicely with her brown skin, and the open-toed sandals afforded him a clear view of the patterned stitching of her white socks. He could even see her delightful brown footflesh through the zig-zag pattern of the stitches.

Then there was ‘Miss black sneakers and black ankle socks’. This young woman’s black denim jeans were turned up at her lower calves, giving him an exciting view of the elasticated tops of her thin, black ankle socks which, again, contrasted nicely with her white skin. Even more exciting, the top half of what appeared to be a tattoo of a coiled up whip projected from the top of her right ankle, the lower half of the tattoo disappearing into the black sock. He wondered if this young woman was a ‘goth’.

Thirdly, there was ‘Miss black, zip-up, ankle boots and thick, grey bootsocks’. This young woman, judging by her skin tone, appeared to be from the Indian sub-continent. She was wearing either a very short mini-skirt or short pants as her beautiful, shapely legs appeared to stretch for ever above her black, leather ankle boots. Unlike the knee-length boots of the female guards, however, these ankle length boots allowed the prisoner to catch a glimpse of the tops of her thick, grey bootsocks inside the young woman’s boots. Very exciting!

The fourth debutante was definitely asian; oriental, in fact, for she was dressed in a way that only oriental women in their early twenties tended to dress: in knee-socks. More precisely, she was wearing, a short, above-the-knee skirt, black knee-length socks with a purple trim at the top, and rather dirty, white, slip-on, pointy-toed flats. He decided he would refer to her as ‘Miss knee-socks and pointy flats’. Prisoner no 7865 liked knee-socks on a woman – they seemed to tower above him, emphasising that even the young woman’s socks were higher, and therefore better, than him.

Then there was ‘Miss white sneakers and dark nylons’. Again, footslave no 7865, who by this time was beginning to think he had died and gone to heaven, admired this combination of footwear – the casual, dirty, white and rather tatty looking sneakers, mixed with the more formal, businesswoman-style nylons that would normally be worn with high-heeled pumps or court shoes. He observed a slight run over the outer left ankle in this particular young woman’s nylon tights which, combined with the filth on her sneakers, suggested a young woman who wasn’t too fastidious about the cleanliness or otherwise of her footwear.

Prisoner no 7865 resolved that he would happily lick clean ‘Miss white sneakers and dark nylons’ dirty white sneakers and kiss the run in her nylon stocking, if she so wished him to!

And then, finally, (apart from the ubiquitous black-leather knee-length boots of the accompanying female guard) there was ‘Miss brown, leather, strappy sandals and dirty bare feet’. This was perhaps the guest whose feet and footwear intrigued him the most. He was sure he could detect the odour of footsweat coming from the young woman’s feet, even though she was currently standing the furthest away from him. She was dressed almost like a gypsy-girl, with a swirling, multi-coloured ankle-length skirt under which her sandaled feet projected out. Yet, prisoner no 7865 realised the girl was most probably not a ‘gypsy’. Weren’t debutantes always from well-to-do families? And besides, her skin was a rather pale white. More likely she was a ‘hippy’ – or whatever the equivalent was nowadays.

And so, to sum up, prisoner no 7865 was suddenly surrounded by feminine feet clad variously in slides, sneakers, ankle boots, slip on flats, strappy sandals, socks (knee-length and ankle-length) and nylons – plus, of course the bare feet of the ‘hippy-chick’ and the austere black leather regulation boots of the accompanying mistress-guard.

Let the games begin!

It was ‘Miss black sneakers and black ankle socks’, the one with the tattoo, who spoke first:

‘How long has he been down here?’ she enquired of the guard, not out of any sense of pity for the prisoner – after all, she didn’t know him; she had literally just set eyes on his head for the first time.

‘I’m not sure, miss. About 10 years, I think. He was sentenced long before my time!’ answered the female guard, whom prisoner no 7865 now recognised to be mistress-guard Sophia, a keen and very strict new recruit, who was in her element working in the foothole-dungeons as she loved regulations and rules – and this place was all about regulations and rules.

Her response to the young woman’s question caused some merriment amongst the debutantes, for whom 10 years represented half their lives!

‘Ha! Ha! What a loser! What was his crime? Is he a “socks-offender”?’ enquired miss white sneakers and dark nylons, to the even greater merriment of her fellow-debutantes.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ responded mistress-guard Sophia. ‘Prisoner no 7865 – answer the young woman. Tell her what your crime was!’ she barked.

Prisoner no 7865 duly informed the young woman of his heinous crime all those years ago:

‘Please miss, if it pleases you most respected mistress-visitor, this dirty prisoner

was guilty of disobedience and disrespect towards his mistress, if it so pleases you, most respected mistress-visitor.’

There were now gasps of disgust amongst the group of young ladies:

‘Why should that please me, insolent slave?’ responded Miss white sneakers and dark nylons, in a somewhat aggrieved tone.

‘Give him a break, Carly,’ interjected miss brown, leather strappy sandals and dirty, bare feet, ‘He’s a prisoner-slave. He has to talk like that. It’s supposed to be a sign of respect towards you!’

The girls laughed.

‘Yeah, alright, I’ve heard of slave-speak! But I don’t want to just hear this dirty piece of filth treating me with the respect I deserve. I want to see and feel him pay his respects to me! Guard, can you make him kiss my feet?’ asked miss white sneakers and dark nylons, whom prisoner no 7865 now knew to be called ‘Carly’.

‘Sure!’ replied mistress-guard Sophia.

‘Oh me too!’ exclaimed miss brown, leather, strappy sandals and dirty, bare feet excitedly.

‘And me!’ added Miss slides and white socks.

Now it was mistress-guard Sophia’s turn to laugh:

‘It’s alright ladies! You’ll all get your turn!’ she reassured them.

Since miss Carly had asked first, however, it was miss Carly for whom the others made way to enable her to stretch out her right, white sneakered foot directly under prisoner no 7865’s nose.

He could smell the musty leather of her dirty, white sneaker and see tiny pieces of fluff and dust clinging to the dark nylon of her stocking as it creased around her heel and ankle:

‘Come on, slave, kiss my foot, and I want to really feel your lips contacting with the toe of my dirty sneaker!’ snapped miss Carly

She sounded like a ‘natural’ slave-owner, this one, not a young woman to be trifled with! And it occurred to him also that, although he had once been sentenced to six weeks’ of solitary confinement for the error of referring to himself as a ‘slave’, these young mistresses were perfectly entitled to call him whatever they wished since at that precise moment in time he was, in effect, their slave.

There were gasps of approval and satisfaction from the group of debutantes as his lips smacked on the toe of miss Carly’s sneaker. Satisfaction, curiously, that was mixed with some disgust:

‘Ooh, gross!’ exclaimed Miss black sneakers and black ankle socks – the girl with the ankle tattoo. ‘No offence, Carly, but your sneakers are minging. Ha! Ha! And this loser is having to kiss them with his bare lips! What a saddo!’

Miss Carly, it seemed, wasn’t in the least bit offended. On the contrary she felt exalted – like a princess with a humble servant paying homage to her dirty feet:

‘Ha! Ha! I think he likes the taste of my dirty sneaker! Look he’s kissing it again!’

Prisoner no 7865 was indeed kissing the toe of miss Carly’s dirty white sneaker again and again. This was too good an opportunity to miss – the chance to taste and feel girl-sneaker on one’s lips again!

‘Move over, Carly, I want a go!’ shouted Miss slides and white socks impatiently.

‘Alright, Amy, keep your hair on!’ replied her friend, Carly.

The white-sneakered, dark-nyloned foot that had been outstretched under prisoner no 7865’s nose was then suddenly replaced by a much smaller foot shod in white ankle sock and cork, open-toed sandal:

‘Kiss the toe of my white sock, slave-boy’ ordered the petite, young, black woman in a high-pitched, excited voice.

As he obediently lowered his lips to the soft material of miss Amy’s white, ‘footie-style’, ankle sock, prisoner no 7865 could not help but notice that, close up, the sock was not as pristine and snowy-white as it had first appeared. It was perhaps inevitable that the dirt of the dungeon floors would impact on the young woman’s white socks. He had no reason to doubt that the socks were fresh on her that morning, but equally there were signs that they were not being worn for the first time – the heel of this particular sock, for example, showed signs of wear and tear on the back of the heel where her shoes or boots had doubtless been previously rubbing.

He felt miss Amy’s toes flex inside her sock in reaction to his lips touching her socked toes, just as she had ordered him to, and she let out a little squeal of delight:

‘Ha! Ha! Look – he’s doing it. He’s actually kissing my dirty sock! I really am better than him!’

Her friends laughed with pleasure at Amy’s seeming innocence:

‘We’re all better than him, Amy’ counselled her friend, Carly, ‘He’s not even fit to be a woman’s personal footslave. That’s why he’s here, isn’t that right, guard?’

‘That’s right, miss,’ confirmed mistress-guard Sophia, ‘all our prisoners are failed footslaves!’

‘It’s a pity, really,’ said miss Amy rather ruefully as she switched her right foot for her left under prisoner no 7865’s nose. ‘I’d quite like to have this prisoner as my personal footslave. I like the feel of his lips on my socks!’

For his part, prisoner no 7865 would have liked to have been miss Amy’s personal footslave and sockslave. He would willingly kiss her socks every day and all day.

But that was, unfortunately, out of the question.

Miss black, zip-up ankle boots and thick, grey bootsocks was the next to step up to the prisoner’s head. She seemed quieter than some of the other girls. But, seeing close-up her pretty ankle boots and the tops of her thick, grey socks on her soft, brown legs, prisoner no 7865 would have happily been her personal footslave also:

‘Kiss the side of my boot and lick the dust out of my boot-zip, slave’ ordered the young woman. There was no hint of an Indian or Pakistani accent although prisoner no 7865 was still convinced this young woman was of asian ethnicity – the tone of her skin suggested it.

Whatever her race, she would obviously make quite a demanding mistress, with very specific requirements and high standards expected of her personal footslave – rather like his own erstwhile mistress, mistress Olga, whom he still remembered fondly, albeit through slave-tinted spectacles. Mistress Olga too had often ordered him to ‘lick out her zips’. How it was all coming back to him!

There was a fair amount of dust to extract from the zip that ran down the side of the young asian woman’s chunky-heeled, ankle boot. But it was dust that tasted good, for it was the boot-zip dust of a sweet and feminine asian mistress. He just wished she would order him to pull down the boot zip with his teeth and to sniff the side of her thick, grey bootsock. How he would love to bury his slave nose in the thick folds of that feminine, grey bootsock!

But it wasn’t to be. There just wasn’t time, and besides her friend Lee-Fu, was waiting to have her feet worshipped.

Lee-Fu was known to prisoner no 7865 as ‘Miss knee socks and pointy flats.’ He had been looking forward to paying homage to this particular young woman’s feet and footwear. He truly admired the exciting contrast between her dark, black knee socks and the dirty, creamy white, well-worn flats she had on her socked feet. The shoes smelt of cheap plastic as she shoved her foot under his nose, causing her knee-sock to crease around the ankle – a sock which seemed to tower masterfully above him, emphasising his mistress’s power over him as he was only deemed fit to stare at and admire the lower part of her sock:

‘Slave kiss Lee-Fu shoe! Not touch Lee-Fu sock - only look! Slave obey!’ barked the young woman in a thick oriental accent. He had been right! Even after 10 years locked away in the foothole-dungeon the former footslave had not lost the knack of being able to tell a young woman’s ethnicity just from her style of footwear!

So he was permitted to look at her sock, but not to kiss it or touch it. It was only proper – even prisoner no 7865 had to admit that he wasn’t fit to kiss the black knee-sock of a superior, young oriental woman. And so he restricted himself to kissing and tasting the pointy toe of her plasticy, white shoe, and to admiring ‘from afar’ her black knee-sock with the single, purple stripe at the top, which covered her shapely lower leg and calf-muscle.

Miss black sneakers and black ankle socks – aka the ‘goth’ – was the next to step forward. Her ankle tattoo featuring a coiled up bull-whip truly fascinated prisoner no 7865. What did it signify? What did it say about her personality? The goth-mistress’s next question to mistress-guard Sophia, as he humbly kissed the canvas-style black sneaker on her outstretched right foot, confirmed at least one aspect of her personality: her sadism. It also helped to explain the whip tattoo on her right ankle:

‘It’s a pity we can’t whip him, as his body is effectively encased in concrete! I love whips! How do you punish the prisoners? Surely you must have someway of inflicting physical pain on them!’ she queried, conscious of the fact that the prisoner kissing her black canvas sneaker was admiring the whip tattoo partially covered by her black ankle sock.

‘Not really, miss,’ replied guard-mistress Sophia almost apologetically. ‘We can, of course, kick them in the face with our boots whenever we want to, but, for the most part, punishments consist of withdrawing their food and water or keeping them locked in solitary confinement in their cells for days on end.’

‘Ha! Ha! Don’t you kick him in the face, Samantha! I don’t want you breaking his ugly nose before he has a chance to smell my bare feet!’ shouted miss brown, leather, strappy sandals and dirty, bare feet (aka the ‘hippy-chick’)

Miss Samantha, the Goth, laughed:

‘Don’t worry, Summer, I’m looking forward to seeing him having to smell your sweaty bare feet every bit as much as you are – although, do us all a favour, will you, and make him suck clean your feet? They reek!’

There were roars of laughter from all the girls, including miss Summer, whose feet were being so criticised!

‘Sure thing, Samantha! I told you before, I deliberately haven’t washed them for 3 days as I knew we were coming here!’

Prisoner no 7865 felt flattered. He took an instant liking to the hippy-chick mistress, miss Summer. She had clearly made a real effort for him, preparing her feet prior to her visit so that they would be in a suitably dirty and stinky condition for a convicted foot-prisoner. How kind and thoughtful of her!

As she took her turn in front of him, however, his enthusiasm for bare feminine feet was tempered by the truly rank smell of miss Summer’s dirty feet. The unpainted toenails, in particular, looked disgusting – chipped and broken, and the big toenail on her right foot had a thick layer of what appeared to be black toe-jam wedged underneath it.

He awaited miss Summer’s orders:

‘Slave, I want you to not only kiss my feet, but to use your tongue and teeth to remove the sweaty dirt from under my toenails. And do it gently, mind, or I’ll see to it that the guards lock you away for months. Suck on the toes first in order to soften each cuticle and remove all the outer sweat before you lick out any toe jam from under the nails. Do you understand me, footslave?’

Footslave! She had actually addressed him as ‘footslave’. Prisoner no 7865 felt a sense of pride again – for the first time in years. It was as if he had been granted a pardon, albeit a temporary one, and was now deemed fit again to be called a young woman’s personal footslave.

Yes, he liked mistress Summer, even if her feet were dirty and stinky!

‘Answer the young mistress! barked mistress-guard Sophia, waking prisoner no 7865 from his reverie.

‘Oh yes, miss, if it so pleases you most respected mistress-visitor Summer, this dirty prisoner understands and obeys its beautiful mistress.’

Now it was miss Summer’s turn to feel pleased. She wasn’t often described as ‘beautiful’. If truth be told she was rather a plain looking girl. But she realised that to this humble footslave-prisoner she was a goddess – a goddess who was about to bestow the ultimate privilege on her humble worshipper, that of tasting and swallowing her stinky footsweat and dirty toenail-jam.

And prisoner no 7865 dutifully lapped it all up, to the groans of shock and disgust from the surrounding debutantes;

‘God, Summer, this is just totally gross! I can’t believe you’re making him do that! Have you no mercy?’ exclaimed miss Carly, ironically.

‘That’s the whole point, Carly,’ laughed Summer, ‘when we get our own personal footslaves we can make them do whatever we like: lick our muddy shoes; sniff our dirty socks; suck our sweaty toes; or eat our stinky toe-jam. They will, quite literally, be permanently at our feet and at our mercy! Isn’t that right, guard Sophia?’

‘That’s right, miss,’ replied the guard, happy to confirm the young woman’s statements, but also with a hint of jealousy in her voice. These young women were so spoilt! They didn’t appreciate just how lucky they were!

For his part, as he consumed his unexpected second meal of the day, consisting not of the usual, tasteless prison slave-mush, but of mistress Summer’s sweat-laden and tart toe jam, prisoner no 7865’s only regret was that he couldn’t be the personal footslave of each and every one of these beautiful and arrogant young debutantes.

Part 6 – The Supergrass

He didn’t know it at the time, but the visit by the 6 beautiful debutantes was to be the highlight of prisoner no 7865’s lifetime in prison.

A further 10 years passed with no more debutantes visiting his particular corridor in the ever expanding dungeon – just the occasional individual female visitor, curious and keen to gloat over the, now middle-aged, prisoner in his foothole.

Or, very occasionally, the women-visitors came in pairs, and today appeared to be one such rare occasion, for prisoner no 7865 was honoured to have two women standing over his head in the corridor outside his cell.

One of them, a slightly older woman, perhaps in her early forties, was wearing black, pointy-toed and spike-heeled, zip-up ankle boots. Prisoner no 7865 had noticed how pointy-toed boots and shoes appeared to be back in fashion again. It was one of the few observations he was able to make about the outside world – the changes in woman’s footwear-fashions down the years. Doubtless, in a few years’ time chunky-heeled and round-toed boots would be back in vogue.

Prisoner no 7865 actually preferred the chunky-style of footwear – but only because it gave him more female shoe-material to kiss and lick. And he was not averse to the more pointy styles of shoes and boots. He had come to admire and appreciate all women’s feet – whatever their chosen style of footwear. After all, seeing close-up the many and varied styles of feminine footwear was the only excitement he got in his otherwise dull and miserable existence in the bowels of the foot-dungeon.

And this particular woman in her forties looked very attractive in her black leather, stiletto-heeled pointy ankle boots. They were quite exotic and expensive boots – with an area of soft suede down the sides – contrasting nicely with the shinier leather of the rest of the boots. She was wearing smart, black trousers over her boots, but he could tell they were ankle boots as the woman was kindly pulling up her right trouser leg as she stretched forward her right foot under the prisoner’s nose for him to respectfully kiss, revealing the top of her boot as well as the elasticated top of her dark blue ankle sock, which contrasted nicely with her soft white skin.

‘Kiss my boot, prisoner,’ she demanded.

Prisoner no 7865 obliged. He thought, momentarily, that he recognised the woman’s voice. Perhaps she had visited him before? He concentrated on her socked ankle inside her boot. Had he seen and kissed that shapely ankle before?

‘Can I make him kiss my feet also, Mama?’ enquired the other female visitor, her voice betraying a fair degree of both excitement and impatience.

So, he was dealing with a mother and her daughter. The latter appeared to be a young woman in her early twenties – so that would fit.

‘Of course you can, darling! But you’ll just have to be patient. My boots need proper tongue-cleaning – just look at the filth on the soles!’

‘Ha! Ha! Scrape the muck off your boot and onto his ugly face, Mama! Make him eat your boot-dirt!’ suggested the younger woman.

A right little vixen, thought prisoner no 7865. It would be an honour to kiss her feet in due course. But in the meantime he had to agree with the older woman – her boots could do with a jolly good tongue-cleaning, and prisoner no 7865 was confident that his tongue was up to the job.

The mother took her daughter’s advice and scraped the sole of her boot up and down prisoner no 7865’s prone and vulnerable face in order to remove the larger, chunkier pieces of filth and mud from the boot-treads, before ordering him to polish off the boots with his tongue:

‘Slave, lick off the rest of my boot-dirt with your tongue. And don’t touch the suede part of my boots – I don’t want your filthy tongue spreading the muck onto the suede; it will just make it all the harder to get out!’

So, unlike so many of his tormentresses, this attractive and assertive middle-aged woman genuinely cared about the state of her precious boots. That made prisoner no 7865 all the more determined to do a good job. If she cared, he cared:

‘Yes certainly, most respected mistress-visitor, this prisoner hears and obeys its mistress, if it so pleases you most respected mistress-visitor.’

‘God, Mama, listen to the way he speaks! What a loser! What a dork! You were right – he is worth less than the filth beneath our feet!’ exclaimed his ‘customer’s’ daughter.

The older woman laughed at her daughter’s evident simultaneous disgust and pleasure at the pathetic sight of the lifelong foot-prisoner licking her mother’s dirty boots:

‘That’s right, darling, he is nothing; a nobody; think of him as just being a foot-cleaning machine – fit only to swallow ladies’ boot and shoe mud. Ha! Ha! That’s all he is!’

As he licked the leather parts of the middle-aged woman’s ankle boot to a nice shine, prisoner no 7865 had to agree with the astute observations of both the mother and her daughter. The new generation were in complete agreement with the older generation. At least that much had not changed in the outside world – foot slavery was still going strong, and he was deemed fit only to taste the filth and the mud of superior women’s boots!

As the woman switched her right booted foot for her left under his nose, again raising the hem of her black trouser leg to reveal the top of her dark blue ankle sock and soft, white calf, and then scraping the excess street-mud from her bootsole onto his receptacle-face, something was niggling away at the back of prisoner no 7865’s slavish mind. He was sure he recognised the older woman’s voice from somewhere. He was pretty confident that he hadn’t dealt with the younger woman before. But the mother?

He couldn’t be sure, and so he just concentrated, as befits a humble foot-prisoner, on devouring the offending mud from the woman’s left boot.

When he had finished tongue-licking and tongue-shining the boots he was gratified to see them glistening in the light of the dungeon corridor. A good job – even if he said so himself. And he might as well, for a mistress would never feel the need to acknowledge good work by a slave – only to criticise and chastise for sub-standard work.

‘Move over, Mama, it’s my turn now! My sneakers are just as filthy as your boots!’ exclaimed the impatient younger woman.

Her mother duly obliged and stepped aside to allow her daughter to take centre stage – her sneaked feet now directly under prisoner no 7865’s nose.

They were pretty sneakers. Very ‘girly’. Pink with white stripes. The young woman was also wearing baggy, white slacks, but when she stretched forward her right foot for the prisoner to kiss, the hem of her white slack rose slightly above her shoe to reveal the elasticated top of a thin, pale pink ankle sock, with a brighter pink stripe along the very top of the sock.

Prisoner no 7865 noticed how the back of the young woman’s thin, cotton sock had disappeared down inside the heel of her pink and white sneaker. He knew this was deliberate, and was the way many young women liked to wear their low cut ‘footie’ socks inside their shoes and sneakers. It was as if they were saying to their footslaves – ‘even though I have chosen this sock because it matches the colour of my sneaker, it is not there primarily for show, or even for my comfort; I am wearing it purely to soak up the sweat from around my toes, and at the end of the day I am then going to shove it into your mouth for you to suck clean!’

Prisoner no 7865 decided he would happily suck the sweat out of this young woman’s pink sneaker-sock if she so desired him to.

‘Order him to kiss and lick your dirty sneaker, darling! Giving a slave verbal orders is all part of the fun, even though he already knows what is expected of him! And don’t forget to talk down to him like the piece of dirt that he is. Remember, this prisoner must have disobeyed his mistress at some point to end up incarcerated down here!’

The mother appeared to be instructing her daughter in the art of how to deal with a footslave. Perhaps, thought prisoner no 7865, the young woman is herself a ‘debutante’, about to get her very own footslave for the first time? She was about the right age.

The young woman, however, seemed in any case to have a natural ability for bossing about a humble footslave:

‘You heard my Mama, dirty foot-faggot! Kiss the toe of my sneaker, and then lick off all the dirt, you foot-licking queer!’ she snapped, genuine venom and hatred in her young voice.

Prisoner no 7865 thought it best to establish his obedience and submissiveness verbally towards this dominant young woman, before actually carrying out her orders:

‘Oh pray, most respected mistress-visitor, if it pleases you most sweet and merciful young mistress, this dirty prisoner hears and obeys its superior mistress.’

And with that he placed a genuinely respectful kiss to the white, rubbery toe of the young woman’s pink and white sneaker, admiring, as he did so, the way her pink footie sock disappeared down into the heel of her sneaker, revealing a quite prominent vain down the back of her ankle. Judging by the tone of her skin-colour, this young woman appeared to be mixed race – for she was darker than her mother, whose calf-skin above her dark-blue bootsock had been very white. Prisoner no 7865 guessed that the young woman must be very pretty, as so many mixed race women are.

The young woman’s foot muscles flexed in delight as the humble prisoner then began to lick away at the ingrained dirt on the pink and white sneaker, concentrating on a particularly unpleasant black stain along the white rim of the sneaker sole.

He tasted rubber, he tasted leather,he tasted mud; whilst the young mistress tasted power.

‘Ha! Ha! Look at him, Mama! He’s eating my shoe-dirt! What a queer footlicker! Can I spit on him?’

Her mother laughed at her daughter’s naivety:

‘Of course you can, darling! You don’t have to ask my permission! He’s a slave – you can do whatever you like to him!’

The younger woman smiled with embarrassment at her own innocence and naivety. Of course she could do what she liked! She was now a grown woman – she’d be 21 next month, and eligible by law to own her own slave. She was secretly sure that her parents intended to buy her one for her birthday. Why else would her mother have suggested this visit to the footslave-dungeons?

For his part prisoner no 7865 couldn’t help remarking how polite and well brought-up the young woman was.

The young debutante pursed her lips and made some distinctly unladylike noises as she gathered up some saliva in her mouth prior to expelling it down onto the balding head of the footslave who was still diligently tongue-cleaning her sneaker with his own, inferior saliva.

The young woman laughed as the prisoner flinched as her ‘gob’ splattered onto the top of his head:

‘Ha! Ha! Look, Mama – my gob is running all down his cheek. It’s actually washing his cheek; look, it’s cutting a track through the mud you scraped onto his face from the bottom of your boots!’

Both mother and daughter burst out laughing at the pitiful sight of the footslave-prisoner tongue-shining the younger woman’s pink sneaker whilst her saliva dribbled down the side of his dirty face:

‘Ha! Ha! Make sure none of my dirty saliva lands on my sneaker, slave-boy, or I’ll call the guards!’ threatened the young woman.

‘No mistress, if it pleases you, most respected mistress-visitor,’ was the only response prisoner no 7865 could come up with.

‘Well, aren’t you going to thank my sweet and kind daughter for washing my boot-filth off your dirty face with her spit, footslave?’ enquired the older woman, mischievously.

‘Ha! Ha! Nice one Mama!’ exclaimed the aforementioned daughter. This particular mother and daughter evidently got on well together!

‘Yes mistress, of course, most respected mistress-visitor,’ replied prisoner no 7865, addressing the older woman before turning his attentions to her sweet and kindly daughter:

‘Oh pray, sweet and kind most respected mistress-visitor, this dirty prisoner thanks you for spitting on him and for washing the boot-dirt off his ugly face, if it so pleases you, most sweet and kind respected mistress-visitor.’

‘Ha! Ha! That’s quite alright, slave. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it was my pleasure, if it so pleases you filthy footslave!’ The young woman then switched feet under his nose.

‘Now get on with your work and clean my other sneaker!’

Prisoner no 7865 obeyed.

‘Mama, I’m gonna take off my shoe and make him smell my sweaty sock. What do you think?’

Again the young woman’s mother was keen to stress to her daughter that she could do whatsoever she liked:

‘It’s your call, darling. If you want your sock sniffed, then sniffed it will be. Make him do whatever you wish!’

Her daughter giggled. Being an all-powerful mistress took some getting used to – but she was confident that she would get used to it, and quickly! This was great fun!

‘Slave, you heard me! Stop licking now. I’m going to take off my sneaker and I want you to sniff my pink sock. Sniff the area around the toes. I want to feel your nose deep inside the creases of my sock!’

And with that, she stooped down to untie her shoe lace, and remove her pink sneaker. Her mother had to help her balance as she positioned her pink-socked foot directly under the prisoner’s nose (she didn’t want her sock to get all dirty by placing it on the dusty floor of the dungeon corridor).

Prisoner no 7865 dutifully lowered his nose to touch the top of the young woman’s socked toes, inserted it in the folds between her toes, and audibly sniffed.

The smell wasn’t too bad – just a hint of sweaty, feminine foot-fragrance, even though the sock showed signs of having been worn many times before as there were traces of black staining on the underside of the toes.

The young woman evidently enjoyed the sight and feel of the footslave-prisoner sniffing her sweaty, pink sock:

‘Ha! Ha! How are you liking it, slave? How do you like the smell of my dirty sock? Does it smell pink? Or does it smell more like blue-mouldy cheese?’

Prisoner no 7865 realised that he had to give a diplomatic answer to the young woman. She would clearly be disappointed to know that he didn’t find the odour of her pink sock unpleasant; and yet he had to make it clear to her that he found it, nevertheless, humiliating to have to sniff her sneaker-sock whilst she was still wearing it fresh out of her shoe. For that, of course, was the young woman’s intention – to humiliate and degrade him with her pink sock:

‘Oh pray young mistress, if it pleases you most respected mistress-visitor, this prisoner is truly honoured to smell the mistress’s beautiful, pink, feminine sock, for it is a smell befitting the nose of a foot-prisoner, and a reminder to him of his inferiority and helplessness vis-à-vis the young mistress, if it so pleases you most respected mistress-visitor.’

The young mistress seemed reasonably satisfied with prisoner no 7865’s pathetic and obsequious response:

‘Ha! Ha! I’ll tell you what, slave, since you’ve been such a good boy I’ll dry the spit off the side of your face with my sock. Would you like that, slave-boy? Would you like to feel your mistress’s soft, pink sock rubbing the spit off the side of your face?’

At that moment in time prisoner no 7865 could genuinely think of nothing he would like more. What an honour!

‘Oh yes, please, mistress, most respected, generous and kind young mistress-visitor, if it so pleases you, most respected mistress-visitor.’

The most sweet and kind young mistress-visitor duly indulged the prisoner-footslave, rubbing the saliva off the side of his cheek with the soft material of the sole of her pink, cotton sock.

‘Ha! Ha! This is brilliant, Mama! Why don’t you take off one of your boots and make him smell your sock?’

Her mother laughed:

‘Actually, I was thinking of having him smell my bare foot! Here, darling, put your sneaker back on and help me balance while I take off my boot and sock.’

And with that the girl’s mother unzipped her right ankle boot and peeled off her dark blue ankle sock to reveal a pale white, if somewhat veiny, shapely foot and ankle – an ankle which prisoner no 7865 couldn’t help feeling looked somewhat familiar.

‘Ha! Ha! Make him smell your bare toes, Mama!’ exclaimed the younger woman excitedly.

Her mother just smiled and stretched out her veiny foot under the prisoner’s nose, again keeping the sole of her foot off the dusty floor of the dungeon-corridor whilst her daughter helped her to balance:

‘Well, slave, you heard my daughter, Get sniffing! Get your nose in between my big toe and second toe and audibly sniff. I want to feel your nose vacuuming up my sweaty toe jam!’

Prisoner no 7865 was overwhelmed with a sense of humility. This was a real honour and a rare treat for a prisoner in the foothole-dungeons– sniffing the bare feet of a beautiful woman, fresh out of her black leather ankle boot and dark blue bootsock, whilst her pink-sneakered and pink-socked daughter looked on.

He humbly positioned his nose into the sticky area between her big toe and second toe and audibly sniffed. It smelt tart and vinegary. It reminded him of a smell from his past – from long ago, before his incarceration.

‘Ha! Ha! Tell him, Mama! Tell him who we are!’ exclaimed the younger woman, evidently enjoying the sight of the helpless prisoner sniffing her mother’s bare toes. ‘Ask him if he recognises the smell of your feet!’

The mother laughed:

‘Well, slave, do you recognise the odour of my feet? Do you know who I am?’ asked the older woman.

It took a few seconds, but after a few more sniffs prisoner no 7865 remembered where he had experienced that particular, distinctive, womanly foot odour before:

‘M…M…Mistress Olga?’ he gasped, extracting his nose from between her toes as if coming up for air.

The two women laughed, the younger one clapping her hands in delight!

‘Actually, I think you’ll find it’s “Most respected mistress-visitor Olga”, slave Thomas’, replied the older woman.

Prisoner no 7865 nearly passed out. ‘Slave Thomas!’ He hadn’t been called that for over 20 years! This must indeed be his erstwhile mistress, mistress Olga! Of course, it all began to fit! Her voice; the shape of her ankle; her personal foot-odour. This was indeed his former mistress!

He was overwhelmed with a sense of misplaced joy, and began fervently kissing the veins on the soft foot of his mistress Olga, much to the younger woman’s amusement:

‘Tell him who I am, Mama! Introduce him to me!’ she exclaimed

‘Slave Thomas, allow me to introduce my daughter, Lara – master Ashad’s daughter; remember him? I’m pleased to inform you that my beautiful daughter was conceived on the very night you were sent down!’

Prisoner no 7865 did remember his mistress’s boyfriend. Of course, that would explain why miss Lara had darker skin than her mother – master Ashad was of Pakistani origins.

A thousand questions were now racing trough prisoner no 7865’s servile brain. Had his mistress Olga married master Ashad? Was she still married to him? Why had she come here today, and why had she brought her daughter with her? Perhaps she had just brought her along to show him the living embodiment of her celebration all those years ago at having him incarcerated for life – the ultimate gloat, if you will! But, on the other hand, he found himself wondering whether his former mistress Olga had actually come back in order to have him pardoned and released! Perhaps she was intending to have him released in order that he should serve her beautiful daughter Lara as a personal footslave, just as he had served her mother all those long years ago!

His heart raced with excitement at the thought of it!

‘Tell him why we’re here, Mama!’ urged miss Lara.

Yes! Tell me! Please tell me! thought prisoner no 7865 to himself.

Mistress Olga appeared in no hurry, however, as she was putting her sock and boot back on her foot. Prisoner no 7865 wished he could assist her with this – not just to hurry her up, but because that would have been one of his humble duties as mistress OIga’s personal footslave – putting her socks and boots on for her. He felt frustrated that he couldn’t perform this humble task for her! Please say you are going to have me pardoned, mistress Olga, so that I can serve you and your beautiful daughter as your family footslave, he thought to himself!

As soon as mistress Olga deigned to speak, however, his hopes were dashed:

‘Actually, I just wanted my daughter Lara to see what a pathetic excuse for a footslave you are, slave Thomas! I wanted her to see for herself why I took you to Court and had you incarcerated for life in this God-forsaken dungeon! I wanted her to see with her own eyes how ugly you are, and how you could never have been fit to serve at my feet all these years!’

‘Ha! Ha! I do see what you mean, Mama. He is ugly! His ugly face would definitely clash with your pretty shoes and boots. I’m glad you got rid of him and got slave Paul instead!’

Slave Paul! Who was slave Paul? Evidently his replacement, and a much better looking and more fortunate footslave than prisoner no 7865.

‘Tell him how you “grassed him up”, Mama!’ giggled miss Lara, clearly having inherited her mother’s sense of mischievousness.

Mistress Olga laughed:

‘I’m afraid I have a confession to make, slave Thomas. You remember that blade of grass I found on the sole of my boot all those years ago? The one that prompted me to take you to the Separation Court and that ultimately, led to your life-imprisonment in this hell-hole? Well, I’m afraid I have to tell you that I planted it on my boot! Ha! Ha! That’s right, slave! In a way, therefore, you could say that I “grassed you up” and at the same time got you sent down for something you didn’t do! Ha! Ha!’

Mother and daughter were both now in fits of hysterics:

‘Ha! Ha! Kiss my Mama’s boot by way of thanking her for grassing you up, slave!’ squealed mistress Lara, as mistress Olga stretched forward her right boot again for the wrongly-convicted footslave to kiss.

And he did. He did respectfully kiss the toe of the black, leather ankle boot of his false-accuser who had perjured herself in Court.

For, the simple fact was, of course, that mistress Olga had not committed perjury. A mistress’s word was law, even if it was factually untrue. That was the privilege of being a mistress. And, as he kissed the toe of the laughing mistress Olga’s boot, prisoner no 7865 realised that he wasn’t worthy to be her personal footslave, or that of her beautiful daughter, miss Lara. For they were his betters in every sense of the word- more intelligent, better educated, and much better looking than him.

Yes, mistress Olga was right to have had him locked away all those years ago. Justice had, actually, been done – and had been seen to be done.

Miss Lara was evidently getting more and more excited at slave Thomas’s predicament:

‘Ha! Ha! Just think, mama, this useless slave has been rotting in this concrete hole for 20 years – my entire life!’

‘Ha! Ha! That’s right, sweetheart,’ replied her mother, ‘and he’ll still be here when you’re my age! And then, when he eventually dies, they won’t even take him out and bury him. They’ll just entomb him forever in his concrete cell – where he belongs! Ha! Ha!’

‘Mama, I was wondering…do you still have the old pair of black, ankle boots he failed to clean properly all those years ago?’

‘’Yes, darling, of course I do. You know how useless I am at throwing anything away!’

‘Well, why don’t you make arrangements to have your boots buried with him when he dies? They could place one boot on top of his cheek and the other in front of his face – right by his lips – so that he could be made to kiss your boot for all eternity!’

Olga was so proud of her daughter! She thought it was a truly original idea!

If truth be told, so did prisoner no 7865.

As mother and daughter left the dungeon happily, arm in arm, prisoner no 7865 remained where he belonged in the depths of the foothole-dungeon. He never saw his beloved mistress Olga or her daughter again, and languished in his concrete cell, occasionally kissing female boots and shoes, until his death some 25 years later.

Several centuries later his skeletal remains were discovered by a young, female archaeologist who was excavating the old foothole-dungeons. She laughed at the sight of the ugly, male skull kissing the pretty, feminine, ankle boot which was lying in front of it, before crushing the skull into powder beneath her own, dirty, brown, hiking boot.

Mistress Olga’s ankle boots were subsequently placed in a museum devoted to the study of feminine footwear through the ages. Even in death, it seemed, prisoner no 7865 was of less importance than the female footwear he had served throughout his wretched life – his life in the foothole.

The End.