The Indentured Footservant

Part 1 – A new life

Roger sat nervously in the back of the limousine observing the sights of Jakarta as the car sped through the streets of the Indonesian capital.
The uniformed chauffeur was a heavily-built black man in his early 30s. The car had been sent to meet him at the airport.
The chauffeur wasn't saying much, and so Roger decided he would break the ice with, what he thought, was a fairly innocuous question:
'Have we far to go?’
The smartly dressed chauffeur paused for a moment before replying in a thick West African accent:
'I suggest you keep quiet, slave, and learn to speak only when you are spoken to by your betters.'
Roger's heart sank to the pit of his stomach. Slave! It was the first time ever in his life he had been called a ‘slave’, and it was a somewhat ominous development. He was, after all, as he understood it, going to be a household servant – not a ‘slave’. But how had he come to this humble position at the age of 45?
He thought back through the events of the last six months -- his descent into bankruptcy and homelessness; the utter desperation of living on the streets and in grubby, cold hostels and shelters in winter time; hiding from the gangsters to whom he still owed money; and then seeing the advertisement in a discarded newspaper:
'Wealthy Indonesian family seek male servant aged 35 - 55. No experience necessary. Full training and free board and lodging will be provided. Must relocate to Jakarta. Applications to Box no 765. No timewasters.’
In his state of hopelessness it had seemed a possible way out -- a chance to escape from all his problems and to live abroad at zero expense. After all, the advertisement promised 'free board and lodging if required'. Sure he would be some sort of ‘servant’ in the household, but how hard could that be? Dusting a few rooms; mopping a few floors; mowing the lawn; perhaps doing some odd-jobs around the house? He could do all that!
He had therefore responded to the advertisement and to his astonishment, within a week, received a reply at his homeless persons’ hostel confirming his appointment, on probation, and providing sponsorship forms for his Indonesian visa. His one-way air ticket to Jakarta was also included.
From the sponsorship forms he was able to tell that the family he would be serving were a Mr and Mrs Ramelan, both in their late forties, and their 20 year-old twin daughters, Lastri and Merpati. But he didn't pay too much attention to the forms. He just wanted to get his visa and get out of the country.
The Visa given to him had said 'Category - Indentured Servant.' On arrival at Jakarta airport, the pretty, young female Indonesian immigration officer had stamped his passport with a wry smile on her face. Another arrogant westerner, down on his luck, would soon be learning humility at the feet of his Asian superiors, she had thought. She had put his landing card to one side. For his part, Roger had simply been admiring her shiny, black leather, knee-length boots and her smart uniform.
And so, here he now was, in the back of the Ramelan family limousine being driven to their house to begin his new life as a servant – or ‘slave’ as the chauffeur would have it.
It actually took about an hour to reach the Ramelan family home which was located in one of the posh suburbs of Jakarta. As the car pulled into the driveway Roger was somewhat taken aback at the size of the place -- it was huge! It looked like a mansion! Perhaps keeping this place clean and tidy wouldn't be as easy as he had first thought!
On the other hand, Mr Ramelan clearly employed other servants, such as the moody chauffeur. So presumably he would have some help in his duties, whatever they may be. For the first time he wished he had actually made some inquiries as to what his duties and responsibilities would be before rushing off to apply for the position. But it was too late now -- this was going to be his new home whether he liked it or not.
Needless to say, the chauffeur didn't open the door for him when the car had come to a halt. Instead, the rather gruff black man had barked what appeared to be an order to Roger:
'Follow me, slave.'
There it was again! That word ‘slave’! What on earth was going on?
However, he dutifully followed the uniformed chauffeur through what appeared to be the 'staff entrance' into the large mansion, as it led directly into the kitchen.
The chauffeur approached a rather overweight black woman in her 30s who was standing in the middle of the kitchen wearing a brightly coloured traditional African dress and an apron, and greeted her with an affectionate kiss. This was Awa, the chauffeur’s wife and the cook for the household.
Roger stood somewhat awkwardly in the doorway whilst the chauffeur and his wife made some small talk before turning their attention to the new arrival:
'This is the new footslave,’ the chauffeur declared to his wife with an evil grin on his face.
Footslave! What’s on earth does he mean by that? Roger was now even more perplexed. It was like the African man was speaking in some sort of foreign language!
The cook, however, was smiling at him, and addressed him directly in a much more friendly manner than her husband had:
‘Hello, dear. Come in and put your bag down over there’ she pointed to a corner in the kitchen.
Roger noticed that the black woman also had a strong West African accent
‘My name is Awa, and this is my husband Komi,’ she continued.
‘But you can call us Master Komi and Mistress Awa, slave,’ interjected the male chauffeur, without smiling.
Roger put down his bag and stepped forward towards the friendly cook intending to shake her hand.
He sensed that the woman looked a little surprised as he did so:
‘Hello, my name is Roger, he introduced himself.
A split second later Roger was lying on his back on the cold tiles of the kitchen floor, his head ringing as the black man and black woman were both towering above him, she still smiling, his face etched with rage. It took Roger a second or two to realize what had happened – the chauffeur had struck him hard across the face and sent him reeling to the floor. His jaw was stinging and he could taste blood inside his mouth:
‘Never speak to your superiors in that way again, dirty slave!’ the black man was shouting. ‘How dare you speak to my wife like that, you dirty no-good foot-licker!’ The big black man than kicked Roger in the ribs – temporarily winding him.
‘Enough Komi!’ urged the chauffeur’s wife. ‘He has only just arrived. He still has a lot to learn!’ she pleaded on Roger’s behalf, stooping down to help him up onto his knees.
At this point, the chauffeur placed his foot on Roger’s back forcing him face down onto the kitchen floor in front of the African woman’s feet:
‘Then I will begin his lessons now!’ said the African man in a dark tone. ‘Slave, you will now show my wife some proper respect – kiss her feet,’ he barked down at the still winded, confused, Roger.
Roger was not a violent man. In fact, he had always been something of a wimp. In any case, there was no way he would have been able to take on this brute of a man in a physical fight. Still gasping for breath Roger attempted to defuse the situation verbally:
‘Look, I’m sorry, there must be some misunderstanding. My name is Roger and I’ve just arrived from England to take up the position of house-servant to the Ramelan family. I am not a slave!’
Even Roger was no longer convinced by the last statement, not now that he was lying face down on the dirty kitchen floor at an African lady’s feet with her husband’s foot digging painfully into his back!
Now it was the turn of the kindly African woman to speak again:
‘Be quiet, my darling, and let me explain. You are a slave. You are to be the footslave of all the women in this household. Master Ramelan is a very powerful man and he has obtained you as a special gift for us all. He told us you will be serving his wife and daughters as their personal footslave, but that you will also serve his female staff as their footslave too. So it will be best for you if you just do as my husband says and kiss my feet.’
With that the African woman shoved her dusty, broad, brown leather sandal-shod right foot directly under Roger’s nose – so close that he could smell the leather of her sandal straps and see the tiny lines in her soft, brown, african footflesh. For some reason his eyes focused on a piece of dead skin that was protruding at the top right-hand corner of her big toe. He felt repulsed. He had never been that close to another human being’s feet before, and the idea of kissing the African woman’s dirty foot was quite disgusting, not to say degrading and demeaning.
But Roger was, fundamentally, a coward. And he didn’t want to incur any more pain from the woman’s husband, and so, before the enormity of what he was doing could fully sink in, Roger actually found himself placing his lips onto the woman’s bare big toe and kissing it.
It felt soft, and he caught a faint whiff of human footsweat. Something stirred deep within him.
The woman, and perhaps more importantly her husband, appeared pleased with his act of humility and obeisance. Roger heard then both laughing
above him:
‘That’s right, my dear, now kiss my other foot,’ chirped mistress Awa happily as she withdrew her right foot from under Roger’s nose and replaced it with her equally broad and wrinkled left foot.
Roger had already crossed the line into footslavery, and so the second kiss on Awa’s left big toe came easier to him. Again the African couple laughed and he felt the relief of master Komi lifting his heavy foot off the small of his back.
‘Well done, darling!’ exclaimed mistress Awa to her new slave. ‘Now you see how much easier it is for you if you obey everything we say? You must understand that you are a slave, dear, and you must learn to obey all of us. We are all your masters and mistresses, and you must learn to call us that and to be humble and treat all of us with respect.’
She spoke in such a bizarrely friendly tone; it was almost incongruous with the content of the words she was actually speaking. She was informing Roger that he was, in effect, nothing more than a footslave, fit only to kiss her feet and the feet of all the other women in the house.
And yet, she was speaking nothing other than the truth, and Roger was in no position to argue. He remained lying face down on the kitchen floor staring at the African woman’s sandaled feet as she went on to explain a few more home truths to him:
‘You must forget your name ‘Roger’. You are no longer ‘Roger’. You are now just a slave, and that is what everyone will call you. You are now nobody and are the inferior slave of everybody.’
Mistress Awa then raised her right foot and, hands on hips in order to balance herself, placed her sandaled foot on top of the new footslave’s head, pushing his left cheek hard onto the cold tiles of the kitchen floor, and then rested the dusty sole of her sandaled foot on his upturned right cheek:
‘Aah! Such a pretty slaveboy!’ she exclaimed, clicking her teeth. How miss Lastri and Miss Merpati will enjoy teasing you!’
Master Komi laughed out loud at this point:
‘Speaking of the young mistresses I am going to collect them from the college. Get him changed into his slave tunic, and take him up to meet the master and mistress at 4 o’clock, Awa,’ he instructed his wife.
Still with her right foot resting on top of the footslave’s right cheek, Mistress Awa embraced her husband and kissed him goodbye on his right cheek.
As he turned to leave the kitchen Master Komi had some further words of warning for the new footslave:
‘Slave, see you obey your mistress Awa, or you will have me to answer to when I get back. Do you understand what it is I am saying?’ he barked down at the slave still lying prostrate under his wife’s feet big, brown, sandaled feet.
‘Yes, master Komi.’
The words came surprisingly easily to the new footslave. They rolled off his tongue as if they were now the most natural words he could utter.
Mistress Awa laughed:
‘Don’t worry, Komi. He is already broken. I can hear it in his whining voice and see it in his stupid face!’
And she was right. Roger was no more. That first kiss to mistress Awa’s foot had marked his transition to household footslave. And now it was time for him to meet his new masters’ masters.
Some 45 minutes later he was kneeling beside mistress Awa as she politely knocked on the door of the main lounge.
The short tunic which mistress Awa had given him to wear was similar to those the footslave had seen being worn by house-slaves in movies set in Ancient Rome – brown, rough, plain, indicative of his humble status. His normal clothes had been removed from him by mistress Awa, and she had informed him that from now on the tunic was all he would be permitted to wear – indoors and out, whatever the weather. The tunic had the word ‘slave’ written on the back in both English and Indonesian.
The only other item he now had on him was a metal slave-collar around his neck which was endorsed with the words ‘Property of the Ramelan family’, followed by their address. Mistress Awa, ever the kind and gentle woman that she was, had made sure as she put the collar around the slave’s neck that it wasn’t too tight for him!
She had also been kind enough to explain to him that, as he was a footslave, he was no longer permitted to walk upright like a free human being, but must crawl everywhere on his hands and knees – ready to serve the feet of his superiors at a moment’s notice. She also advised the slave never to look a superior human being in the eye, but to always keep his head bowed and to focus on their feet.
It made perfect sense to the new footslave, and that was exactly what he was now doing as he stared at the hard skin on the backs of mistress Awa’s wrinkly brown heels.
He heard a male voice say ‘Enter!’, in response to mistress Awa’s knocking, and crawled behind her superior heels as she took him in to meet his new owner.
Mr Ramelan and his wife were both seated beside each other on a comfortable leather sofa in the middle of the lounge, apparently keen to meet their new possession.
The first thing that struck the footslave was how thin and wiry Mr Ramelan was and how plump by comparison his wife was. He wondered, fleetingly, whether all the women in this household were overweight, but soon remembered his place, and lowered his gaze to Mrs Ramelan’s feet as mistress Awa led him to kneel in front of the sofa at his new master and mistress’s feet:
‘This is your new slave, Sir and Madam,’ chirped Awa in her ever-happy, soft sing-song, west african voice.
‘Thank you, Awa,’ replied Mr Ramelan, ‘Sujatmi will be his trainer. Can you please ask her to join us?’
‘Yes, certainly, Sir,’ responded Awa shutting the door behind her as she withdrew from the lounge.
The new footslave, endeavouring to learn the conventions and protocols of this strange household, made a mental note of the fact that although mistress Awa was a servant, and referred to Mr and Mrs Ramelan as the ‘Master’ and ‘Mistress’, she was nevertheless allowed to address them as ‘Sir or ‘Madam’. He wondered whether he would be expected to do the same, although he wasn’t sure how that would square with having to address mistress Awa, their cook, as ‘mistress’.
‘Kiss my wife’s feet, slave,’ ordered Mr Ramelan.
Clearly, the men in this household, be they servants or masters, expected the footslave to pay his humble respects to their wives in front of them. Perhaps it added to their sense of machismo to see a lowly male footslave paying homage in such a demeaning way to their partners on their orders.
The slave had noticed that Mr Ramelan had spoken with a strong asian accent when issuing his order to the slave, and Mrs Ramelan now spoke with an equally strong accent as, from her seated position on the sofa she stretched out her right foot for the kneeling footslave to kiss:
‘Make sure you kiss only the toe of my leather shoe, slave. I don’t want your filthy lips touching my bare skin!’
Unlike the slave, Mrs Ramelan was wearing nice, and obviously very expensive clothes, displaying her status as a wealthy woman. She was dressed in a western-style, black trouser suit and black, high-heeled shoes on bare feet. She was also wearing an expensive-looking, gold ankle chain on her outstretched right foot.
As the slave crawled over to her, and then lowered his head to her shiny black shoe in order to kiss it, he noticed how her foot wiggled slightly in her high heel causing her forbidden, light brown, flawless, asian footflesh to flex on the top of her foot. He kissed the toe of her equally flawless, expensive shoe and tasted patent leather for the first time.
‘And the other one,’ ordered Mrs Ramelan curtly as she replaced her outstretched right foot with her left.
The slave noticed that, for a rather fat woman, she nevertheless had shapely ankles and calves as they disappeared up her trouser legs. They looked very soft and smooth.
His humble act of obeisance must have been satisfactory for Mrs Ramelan said nothing, and just twiddled with her curly, black hair as her husband addressed the kneeling slave again, this time answering some of the questions that had been racing through the stupid footslave’s inferior brain:
‘Slave, you are now my family’s foot-servant. Officially, your legal status is that of an “indentured servant”. In practice, however, as you will not be paid and will receive only your free board and lodging in return for your labour, you are nothing more than a slave, and you will be regarded as such by everyone in this household. Furthermore you will never be allowed to obtain your freedom. If you try to escape I shall inform my contacts in our Immigration Department that you are in breach of your visa conditions and you will be imprisoned for life. You should resign yourself, therefore, to the fact that you will be our family slave for the rest of your natural life.’
Listening to Mr Ramelan’s words the slave formerly known as Roger now realized that the advert had been deliberately misleading and he had effectively been duped into becoming a real-life slave in a foreign country. Yet he already felt this was his true destiny. He had sensed it the moment he had kissed mistress Awa’s foot.
His new master continued:
‘You will address me simply as “Master” and my wife as “Mistress”. Everyone else you will refer to as “Master”, followed by their name, or “Mistress”, or “Miss” followed by their name.
In particular, you will show the utmost respect to my twin daughters, Lastri and Merpati – “Miss Lastri” and “Miss Merpati” to you. They are at college now but you will pay your humble respects to them later.
In the meantime you will be introduced to Miss Sujatmi, who will be your trainer. Sujatmi is our laundry-maid, but you will be taking on some of her work as you will now be responsible, amongst other things, for the upkeep of my wife and daughters’ hosiery and footwear.’
The mistress was in the process of lighting a cigarette at this point and a cruel grin enveloped her pretty face as she listened, admiringly, to her strong husband informing the weak slave of the fact that he would now be responsible for washing all her dirty stockings and her daughters’ dirty socks.
Mr Ramelan continued his ‘welcoming’ speech:
‘Sujatmi will also see to it that you pay your way properly in this household by pimping you on the streets of Jakarta during the evenings as a ladies’ footslave. She will explain more about this to you later.
Your accommodation will be a hole in the barn attached to the back of the house. You are not permitted to sleep in the house itself along with the other servants, as you are just a dirty footslave , are lower than the rest of them, and must slave for them also. Sujatmi will therefore lock you in your hole every night, and will release you in the morning when it is time for you to recommence your servitude.
The penalty for insolence or disobedience on your part shall be the whip, administered by Komi, our chauffeur. I suggest you do your utmost to serve us well and to avoid the whip as I am reliably informed that its sting is most undesirable. However, if needs be, the whip will ensure your submission and compliance.’
As he listened to his new master’s stern lecture, still staring humbly at his master’s wife’s expensive, black high-heeled shoes as she flexed her pretty feet in front of his face, the footslave noticed how fluently and clearly, in spite of his accent, the master spoke English.
Indeed the master was only interrupted in his pronouncements when there was a faint knock on the door:
‘Enter!’ shouted the master.
It was Sujatmi, the aforementioned laundry maid:
‘Sir call for Sujatmi?’ came a high-pitched asian voice from behind the footslave.
‘Yes, Sujatmi, please come in. This is the new footslave and, as we discussed last week, I want you to take charge of him. See that you teach him how to serve properly at the feet of his superiors!’
‘Oh yes, Sir. Sujatmi learn slave well!’ responded the laundry-maid happily.
She sounded quite young, in her mid twenties, and her English was evidently not as good as that of her master and mistress. Even with his limited knowledge of Indonesian society the newly arrived footslave guessed that the maid was from peasant stock. As Miss Sujatmi moved over to stand beside him he could see from the corner of his eye that she, unlike the two other women he had met in the household thus far, was not overweight. Quite the opposite, she was petite and slightly built. He noticed also that she was quite traditionally dressed from the waist upwards, including a black head-scarf and modest blouse, but was wearing western clothing from the waist downwards – blue, denim jeans and white and blue sneakers.
Yet the mere fact that she was standing in the presence of the master and mistress, whilst he was kneeling, reinforced the message that the master had just been seeking to get across to him - that he was lower than miss Sujatmi, and she was his master too.
‘Take the slave to the barn, Sujatmi, and show him his hole, then take him to the laundry room and show him his duties there please. Miss Lastri and miss Merpati should be back from college in about an hour’s time. The slave can pay his respects to them after we have all had dinner.’
‘Yes, Sir. Sujatmi understand, Sir. Sujatmi thank master and mistress for giving Sujatmi footslave to train!’
Both Mr and Mrs Ramelan smiled. Sujatmi was so cute – almost like a third daughter to them. They treated all their servants well – apart from the family footslave. But they were both particularly fond of the hard-working and diligent Sujatmi. In a way, they wished their own daughters could be more like her; Lastri and Merpati were far from being hard-working and diligent. Nevertheless, they doted on them too.
‘You’re welcome, my dear,’ responded Mrs Ramelan. ‘We know you’ll do a good job training the footslave! Now, take him to the barn and show him the filthy hole he will be living in,’ she added, clearly excited at the thought that whilst she and her family, and even the other servants would be spending each night in the warmth and comfort of the luxury mansion, the footslave would be tethered to a stake inside a dark hole in the draughty old barn – cold and alone.
‘Yes,sir. Yes, madam,’ replied the young maid rather coyly.
She then changed her tone and whole demeanour to address the kneeling footslave:
‘Slave, follow Sujatmi feet,’ she barked in her thick asian accent as she kicked him in his already tender ribs with her right-sneakered foot. She was determined to demonstrate to her master and mistress that she was fully up to the job of slave-trainer.
The footslave promptly lowered his head to the back of miss Sujatmi’s sneakers and crawled after her heels as she exited the lounge. Sujatmi said nothing as he continued to crawl after her sneakered heels down a corridor and out onto a gravel path at the back of the house which led to the ‘barn’ that apparently housed his humble accommodation. The gravel chafed and cut his knees.
As he stared at her sneaker-heels the footslave occasionally caught a glimpse of the elasticated tops of miss Sujatmi’s short, thin white ankle socks under her denim trouser legs. He wondered how long it would be before he was ordered to kiss her feet? Perhaps she too was married and had a husband who wanted to see him pay his slavish respects to his other half?
As soon as they had entered the barn the slave got the answer to at least the first of those two questions. Miss Sujatmi ordered him to stop in the middle of the barn and moved to stand in front of him on the dirt floor. She then stretched out her right sneakered foot in the dirt under his kneeling face and gave the inevitable order that the footslave was now almost expecting:
‘Slave kiss Sujatmi foot,’ the young woman barked, adjusting her headscarf as she did so.
The footslave slowly and respectfully lowered his lips to the top of her outstretched blue and white sneaker. It was dirty and chapped. Part of the outer material around the area of the toes had clearly worn off. He could also smell ingrained sweat in the fabric of the sneaker. This was truly a well worn sneaker.
But the footslave had already realised that, whether he was kissing the dusty brown leather sandals of the cook, mistress Awa, or the pristine, shiny, black patent leather high heel shoes of the mistress of the house, or the dirty, worn blue and white sneakers of the laundry-maid, mistress Sujatmi, it was the chosen footwear of his superior mistress, and had to be kissed with the utmost humility and respect.
And so, he kissed the flakey, worn, leather and plastic of miss Sujatmi’s pungent sneaker.
It elicited a little squeal of delight from the young woman:
‘Ha! Ha! Slave kiss Sujatmi dirty sneaker! Sujatmi better than slave! Slave obey Sujatmi!’
It was as if the young laundry-maid couldn’t believe the power and authority she now had over another living being, and she quickly withdrew her right foot, replacing it with her left, as if to test that the first act of humble obedience hadn’t been a fluke:
‘Slave kiss Sujatmi other foot!’
As he lowered his lips to the top of her equally flakey left sneaker the slave now had a clear view of the top of miss Sujatmi’s white, ‘no show’ cotton sock and her light brown, shapely asian ankle. The pure whiteness of the sock contrasted with the dirty-white of her worn-down sneaker. In spite of her dirty outer footwear, she must keep her feet fairly clean, thought the inexperienced footslave.
Little did he know that he was about to find out that this was not necessarily the case, for at that moment Sujatmi pulled up a nearby stool and sat down on it in front of him:
‘Sujatmi tired. Feet tired. Feet sweaty; dirty. Slave take off Sujatmi shoes and socks. Clean Sujatmi feet with tongue. Slave obey!’
It hadn’t taken Sujatmi long to assimilate the role of slave-mistress. The latent desire to dominate that resides in many oppressed young women had quickly risen to the surface.
The footslave unfortunately fumbled somewhat as he strove to undo miss Sujatmi’s dirty, white shoe laces. In fact, they were more gray than white, demonstrating that, like the sneakers they were a part of, they had fulfilled many years of service on the asian girl’s feet.
Unimpressed by his ineptitude, Sujatmi kicked the slave’s face, leaving a dirty streak on the side of his right cheek:
‘Slave hurry! Obey Sujatmi! Take off shoe!’
Every time she shouted she had to adjust her head scarf.
The clumsy slave finally managed to get the lace on her right shoe undone and to remove her sneaker from her small, dainty, white-socked foot. The sneaker came off with a ‘whoosh’ as the warm, sweaty air that had been trapped inside escaped. It really was quite pungent – a heady mixture of feminine footsweat and musty, moist leather.
The slave observed too, as he placed the sneaker on the ground, that the inner lining of the shoe was completely gray with wear, and that whole patches of the inner lining had worn off.
He hesitated for a moment wondering whether he should proceed to remove the young woman’s sock, or first take off her other shoe.
Miss Sujatmi put him out of his misery:
‘Slave take off Sujatmi sock. Clean foot. Lick!’ she screamed at him, seemingly exasperated at what she perceived to be a reluctance on his part to obey her entirely reasonable orders.
The short white ankle sock in question no longer looked so pristine. Yes, the elasticated tops that had been visible before were still snowy-white, but the bottom of the sock contained yellow and brown sweat stains, and there was a small hole developing on top of the big toe.
As he started to peel off the young mistress’s sweaty, white ankle sock, Sujatmi suddenly decided that he should first pay his respects to her sock:
‘Slave stop! Kiss Sujatmi sock! Worship it!’
The young woman, slightly built though she was, seemed to tower over him in her position of power seated above him on the wooden stool. The footslave was frightened of her, and knew it was only right and proper that he should pay his respects to the young woman’s inner footwear.
So he kissed the toe of her worn, white ankle sock, feeling her wiggle her big toe with delight inside the sock, causing the thin white cotton to crease and fold.
‘Ha! Ha! Slave miss Sujatmi sock-slave! Slave like kiss Sujatmi dirty sock?’
Inexperienced though he may be, the new footslave knew there was only one answer he could possibly give the superior young woman seated above him:
‘Yes, mistress Sujatmi, this slave is indeed privileged to kiss your sock.’
And the speed with which he had come to accept his new role in life did not even occur to him, so obsessed was he with paying his genuine respects to the young Indonesian laundry-maid’s dirty white ankle-sock.

Part 2 – Free board and lodging.
Having respectfully kissed her socked foot, the new footslave proceeded to peel off Miss Sujatmi’s short, white, cotton ankle sock.
He had never had to take off someone else's socks before, but decided that the respectful way to do it was to pull it off from the toe, thereby avoiding the risk of inadvertently touching the mistress’s bare ankle with his dirty, slave fingers.
For her part, Miss Sujatmi had never had her socks taken off by someone else before. She liked it, however. She liked the fact that someone else, particularly a male slave who was totally in her power, had to do something menial for her that she was perfectly capable of doing herself.
As soon as the sock on her right foot was off, Sujatmi stretched her bare foot forward until her dainty, bare, scarlet-painted toes were touching the kneeling footslave's lips. The slave instinctively knew what was required of him now -- he opened his mouth to allow the girl’s dirty toes to penetrate it.
He could taste her salty, feminine foot-sweat on his tongue. Miss Sujatmi wiggled her toes inside her slave’s warm mouth and giggled. It tickled. She wanted to make sure, however, that the new experience of having her bare foot inside a slave's mouth was more than just a pleasurable experience -- she wanted to ensure that her foot was simultaneously being cleaned:
'Slave suck Sujatmi toes. Clean out sweat. Swallow Sujatmi foot-dirt,’ she ordered in her high-pitched voice, which, under normal circumstances may have been somewhat grating, but which, given her current position, sounded nothing other than authoritative to the hapless footslave.
Miss Sujatmi kindly assisted the footslave by scraping her toenails along the roof of his mouth in order to help dislodge bits of toe-jam, sock-lint, and other little pieces of foot debris, whilst the slave moved his tongue in and out of the sweaty areas between her dainty toes. The slave could feel and taste the fragments of dislodged, sweaty toe jam sliding down the back of his throat and actually found himself feeling honoured to be allowed to serve this poor peasant girl in such a humble and intimate way.
After some 5 minutes miss Sujatmi withdrew her moistened foot from the slave’s mouth and dried it on his hair, before ordering him to remove her left sneaker and sock, and then repeat the whole cleaning process with her bare left foot.
When she had dried her left foot miss Sujatmi then ordered the slave to put her dirty socks and shoes back on for her. The footslave realized immediately that she was sending him a message in ordering him to do this – she was telling him that all his demeaning work in sucking the sweat and the toe-jam from her divine feet had effectively been in vain, as she was now covering up those freshly cleaned feet with the same old dirty socks and sneakers that she had been wearing before. In other words, she was telling him that she didn’t really care about the state of her feet and footwear, that she had made him suck on her bare toes just to humiliate him, and that he had no choice but to like it.
Sujatmi needn’t have worried. The new footslave was learning fast and developing his coping strategy – which was to ingratiate himself to all his superiors, do exactly what they wished, flatter them, pamper them, worship them.
It was a very wise strategy for a new footslave in the Ramelan household.
Time was moving on and Sujatmi decided she must show the footslave around his humble ‘accommodation’. She stood up from the stool, adjusted her headscarf again, and snapped down at the humble slave (whom she now despised even more knowing that her foot-dirt was currently residing inside his stomach):
‘Slave follow Sujatmi. Heel!’
The footslave felt it entirely appropriate that this young peasant woman should address him as if he were a dog, for he now had an innate sense of his own inferiority before her. He admired her for having the confidence to treat him like a piece of dirt she would scrape off the sole of her shoe, for that was all he now was – a piece of dirt under her shoe.
He crawled after his mistress’s sneakered heels to a corner of the barn where there was a trapdoor in the dirty floor. He watched the back of miss Sujatmi’s sneakers as she undid the latch on the trapdoor and pointed down into the darkness of the hole that now emerged.
‘This slave hole. This where slave sleep.’
Sujatmi enjoyed the look of apprehension on the slave’s face. He had never particularly liked small, confined spaces, and this dark hole looked something like a small dungeon.
‘Slave go down in hole! Move!’ barked mistress Sujatmi.
The slave, in spite of his phobias, already knew better than to disobey one of miss Sujatmi’s orders, and so, somewhat gingerly, he climbed backwards down a metal step ladder into the hole. Miss Sujatmi followed after him.
Once down in the hole the slave immediately resumed his kneeling position. There appeared to be no light in the hole, just that which was coming from the open trapdoor above. The hole consisted of a bare (and cold) concrete floor, and little else apart from a wooden tethering post in the middle with a rope attached to it. There was barely enough room for miss Sujatmi to stand up straight. Luckily she was a short girl. If she had been any taller her head would have banged on the ceiling.
Sujatmi was enjoying the contrast between her own, comfortable accommodation in the servant’s quarters in the big house, and the footslave’s dirty hole in the draughty barn. She decided to tease the slave over this:
‘Ha! Ha! Slave like hole? Hole to slave satisfaction?’ she enquired of him, mockingly.
Before he had a chance to answer miss Sujatmi went on to contrast his dirty hole with her own bedroom:
‘Sujatmi sleep in nice bed. Soft; warm. Slave sleep in dirt on cold floor! Ha! Ha!’
The slave knew in his heart of hearts that this was exactly as it should be. As the lowest of the low he did not deserve to sleep in a warm, comfortable bed like some sort of superior human being. Any form of shelter at all was too good for him. His masters and mistresses were too kind in providing him with this accommodation – and completely free of charge.
Miss Sujatmi was now pulling on the rope attached to the tethering post:
‘This where Sujatmi tie slave at night. Sujatmi tie slave leg.’
It occurred to the slave that this particular form of bondage was probably more symbolic than anything else. After all, the trapdoor could only be opened from the outside, and in any case, where could he escape to? As the master had so graciously explained to him earlier, by law he was now an indentured servant for life – tied to the Ramelan family by more than just ropes or chains.
‘Slave kiss Sujatmi feet! Thank Sujatmi for show slave hole!’
The footslave immediately lowered his lips to Sujatmi’s feet and repeatedly kissed the tops of both her right and left sneaker.
Sujatmi laughed at the slave’s apparent enthusiasm for her dirty, well-worn, old sneakers:
‘Ha! Ha! Slave like Sujatmi sneakers? Slave like Sujatmi leave sneakers in slave hole at night so slave can smell? Slave answer!’
The footslave had now fallen so far into the slough of submission that he could think of nothing he would like more than to have the stink of miss Sujatmi’s smelly old sneakers fouling the air in his hole whilst he slept:
‘Oh yes please, mistress Sujatmi. Please will you leave your sneakers in my hole at night so that I can smell your glorious foot-smell all night long.’
He wasn’t being sarcastic – he meant it. And Sujatmi knew that he meant it.
And she meant it too:
‘Slave beg miss Sujatmi leave stinky socks also. Slave kiss Sujatmi socks! Worship! Beg!’
She pulled up the legs of her jeans to reveal the elasticated tops of her thin, white, cotton ‘no-show’ socks again.
The slave needed no further encouragement:
‘Oh mistress Sujatmi, if it pleases you sweet mistress Sujatmi, please will you do this slave the honour of leaving him your dirty socks to smell in his hole throughout the night?’
All the while he was feverishly kissing the tops of the young woman’s white socks, taking care not to let his top lip brush against her bare ankles without permission, whilst Sujatmi looked down despisingly at him, readjusting her traditional, black headscarf.
She pretended to ruminate on the slave’s humble petition, although she had in reality already decided that he would have to smell her stinky socks throughout the night whether he liked it or not:
‘Mmmm. Sujatmi think about it. Decide later. Now slave follow Sujatmi out of hole. Sujatmi show slave whipping post!’
A whipping post! They had a whipping post! The slave gulped. This family obviously took slave-discipline seriously. As he followed miss Sujatmi up the step-ladder, keeping his humble eyes fixed on the backs of her sneakers and socks as she climbed up in front of him, he prayed that miss Sujatmi was not intending to demonstrate the whipping post on him. To be whipped for disobedience or ineptitude would be one thing, but to be whipped just for the privilege of finding out what it’s like to be whipped would be quite another!
He needn’t have worried, however, for what the slave did not yet know was that nearly all the punishments were carried out by master Komi – the chauffeur – and all slave-beatings had to be approved and authorized by either master Ramelan himself or his wife. So Sujatmi couldn’t have beaten him at that moment on a whim even if she had wanted to.
And she did want to.
As she led the footslave on his hands and knees across the floor of the barn towards the stout, wooden, whipping post, she imagined herself whipping him with the brown, leather slave whip. In her imagination, she could hear his cries for mercy as he knelt, bare-backed, at the short post, his hands secured to it by means of the iron shackles attached to each side.
As miss Sujatmi unhooked the vicious-looking slave-whip from the wall, and then kindly crouched down in order to run it through her delicate fingers directly in front of the kneeling slave’s face so that he could see its awesomeness close-up, he determined in his own mind that he must never fail to please his masters and mistresses and give them a legitimate reason to make him hug the whipping post. He would be a diligent, respectful and obedient slave to them at all times.
Sujatmi laughed at the distress on the slave’s face. She could afford to laugh because the whip was never used on the house-servants; only on the footslave. A disobedient or ineffectual servant would merely be dismissed. Indonesian law prohibited the beating of servants:
‘Ha! Ha! Slave frightened of whip? Slave like Sujatmi beat slave?’ she teased him.
The slave felt he must make his preferences for avoiding the whip clear to miss Sujatmi right from the outset. She was such a kind mistress that she probably would whip him if he asked her to!
‘Oh pray, mistress Sujatmi, this slave begs its beautiful, sweet mistress not to beat him, mistress. This slave fears the whip, mistress!’
Sujatmi laughed aloud at the slave’s pitiful whining. She wanted to reassure him that she would not whip him without good reason, but at the same time to get the message into his thick skull that she could have him whipped at any time (that much was perfectly true; the master and mistress were so fond of her they would never decline a request from her to have the slave whipped, or even to whip the slave herself, just as they wouldn’t decline a similar request from their own daughters):
‘Ha! Ha! Sujatmi like slave beg for mercy. Sujatmi kind mistress. Not beat slave if slave obey. But if slave disobey, Sujatmi beat slave long time. Many pain!’
She stood up and cracked the whip in the air to reinforce the message to the slave.
The message got through. The slave, spontaneously, kissed mistress Sujatmi’s dirty, blue and white sneakers - the tops, the sides, the heels, the laces - as she recoiled the whip ready to put it back onto its hook.
Sujatmi then took the slave back to the big house and into the laundry room where she explained to him the nature of his chores there.
Mr and Mrs Ramelan were under the mistaken impression that Sujatmi was a hard-working laundry maid who just needed a bit of assistance. But Sujatmi herself had other ideas. She was, fundamentally, lazy, and hated her work in the laundry. When the master had told her that the new footslave would be available to assist her in the laundry during the mornings, she had already decided that she would in fact delegate all her chores to the new slave, and that she would just supervise his menial work.
She began her tour of the laundry by leading the slave, as ever on his hands and knees, over to some laundry baskets in the corner. There were five of them, each containing the dirty hosiery of the five women in the household respectively – Mrs Ramelan; her two daughters, miss Lastri and Miss Merpati; Miss Awa, the cook; and finally there was miss Sujatmi’s own dirty linen basket.
The baskets only contained dirty, feminine socks, stockings and tights. All the ladies’ other dirty clothes, including their underwear, went straight into the washing machines. But, when they had learnt of the new footslave’s imminent arrival, the five ladies had decided amongst themselves that their dirty hosiery should be singled out for pre-washing by mouth by the footslave.
Miss Sujatmi had been particularly keen on this idea as she felt it was only fair that the footslave should have the opportunity to become accustomed to the different tastes and smells of each of the ladies’ foot-garments. That was typical of Sujatmi – always thinking of others!
Naturally, she led him over to her own basket first:
‘This Sujatmi dirty socks, tights,’ she explained.
The slave now found himself peering down into a bundle of dirty, discarded socks and tights of various colours and patterns. Some looked new and relatively clean; others looked dirty and well-worn, like the socks mistress Sujatmi was currently wearing; all of them gave off an odour of stale, feminine footsweat that assailed his nostrils even though his face was a good 12 inches or so away from the dirty hosiery. Even though he was now a professional footslave, he couldn’t help instinctively grimacing in reaction to the sweaty smell.
Sujatmi noticed his expression and laughed. She then feigned pity for him:
‘Aww, slave not like Sujatmi stink? Slave not want lower head in basket – smell Sujatmi dirty socks?’ she pouted.
And with that, before he could respond, she grabbed her slave by the hair and shoved his face down into the dirty bundle of unwashed socks and tights. When she pulled him back up again the slave was gasping for fresh air. He could feel and smell the sweat from her dirty socks on his face.
Sujatmi proceeded to explain how, later on, he could resolve the problem of the smelly linen basket by sucking all the nasty, stinky sweat out of her hosiery – and that he would be doing the same for each and every item of hosiery in each and every basket.
That would be his daily laundry-room chore no 1.
Chore no 2 would be to shine the dirty shoes and boots of the five female masters in the household, and she dragged him over to the other side of the laundry where there were 5 large, wooden boxes each containing many pairs of dirty, feminine shoes that were just ripe for cleaning. Of course, Sujatmi felt obliged to clarify to the slave, for she had already decided that he was a bit thick, the method by which he would have to clean all the ladies’ footwear:
‘Slave clean ladies’ boots, shoes with tongue. Lick off dirt. Swallow ladies’ boot-filth. Make nice shine!’
Sujatmi would have liked to put the slave to work on a pair of her own zip-up, block heeled, brown leather ankle boots straight away. She had stepped into a muddy puddle whilst wearing them the day before, and the sides and soles were now caked in thick mud. She delighted in showing the dirty ankle boots to her slave, holding one of them directly under his nose so that he could not only see but also smell the offending mud mixed in with the scent of her still damp boot-leather.
But, regrettably, there wasn’t time for the slave to begin his duties just yet. It was dinner-time, and Sujatmi had to join the other servants, Awa the cook and her husband Komi, in the kitchen where Awa had prepared dinner for them all. The three household servants ate the same food that Awa prepared for the master’s family, but they did not ordinarily eat with the family, except on special occasions.
Needless to say the footslave was not invited to dinner as such, but even he had to eat and in any event she didn’t want to leave him in the laundry-room unsupervised. Besides, she wanted him to watch her eating as it would be a nice opportunity for her to demonstrate to him that his fare would be somewhat different from hers:
‘Mmm. Sujatmi hungry. Time for Sujatmi eat. Tonight Sujatmi eat chicken and rice. Very hot. Very nice. Ha! Ha! Slave eat only bread and water. Always slave eat only bread; drink only water. Ha! Ha! Dirty water – dirty feet water!’
Sujatmi was getting a little bit carried away with herself. The idea of the slave being forced to drink only her dirty foot-water had only just sprung into her head – although she thought it was an excellent idea!
In reality, however, Mrs Ramelan had issued instructions that the footslave was to be fed stale bread and proper drinking water. She didn’t, as she put it, ‘want him eating her out of house and home’, but at the same time she recognized that even a slave has to have some nourishment – otherwise where would he find the strength to serve her and her family? Yes, bread and water should suffice. There was nearly always some spare bread left over, and it would only normally be thrown away or left out for the birds. And tap water, of course, cost next to nothing.
It wasn’t that the Ramelan family were exactly short of money! It was just that Mrs Ramelan considered that bread and water was a fitting dietary regime for a dirty footslave. What more could he ask for – free board and lodging – a dirty hole to sleep in and bread and water to sustain him, just as the advertisement had promised.
As the footslave crawled into the kitchen behind mistress Sujatmi’s blue and white sneakered heels, master Komi was already sitting at the table beginning his evening meal, so lovingly prepared for him, the master’s family, and Sujatmi by his wife, Awa the cook:
‘Sujatmi, darling, come in and take a seat. It is just ready for you!’ declared Awa.
‘Mmmm. Chicken smell good!’ replied Sujatmi, as much for the slave’s benefit as for Awa’s, as she knew the slave wouldn’t be getting any.
Awa smiled, taking Sujatmi’s comment at face value as a compliment intended purely towards her culinary skills. Mistress Awa was probably the most genuinely kind-hearted and innocent of all the servants. Even the footslave had noticed that she sometimes addressed him as ‘dear’ or ‘darling’, albeit in a rather condescending tone.
Yet even the kind-hearted Awa would have baulked at the idea of the footslave eating her carefully prepared and delicious food. She didn’t like the thought of her nice, clean food mingling with all the female shoe-dirt and toe-jam that would inevitably be inside the footslave’s stomach – and she was worried that the lingering taste of ladies’ footsweat inside his mouth (perhaps even her own footsweat) would skew the taste of her food.
So Awa was more than content with the mistress’s instructions that the slave was to eat nothing but bread and to wash his dirty mouth out with nothing but water. She had already left a bowl of tepid tap water and a lump of stale bread for the slave in the corner of the kitchen, although it soon became evident to the slave that he would not be permitted to eat until the servants had finished their meals, just as the servants couldn’t eat until the family upstairs had been served their food.
The footslave was, quite literally, at the bottom of the food chain!
Sujatmi had already decided that the footslave would have the honour of staring at her feet as she ate her delicious chicken and rice supper:
‘Slave kneel at Sujatmi feet. Keep nose on Sujatmi sneakers while Sujatmi eat. Slave obey!’
Awa and Komi laughed as Sujatmi barked her orders down at the kneeling footslave. The young laundry-maid was clearly trying to impress them with her newly-trained puppy.
The ‘puppy’ obeyed, resting his nose on miss Sujatmi’s left sneaker as she sat, cross-legged, at the kitchen table, her right-sneakered foot dangling happily in the air above his head as she savoured her hot meal.
The slave could smell the delicious aroma of the cooked chicken and realized for the first time how hungry he was. As the smell of the freshly cooked chicken mingled in his nostrils with the smell of the stale sweat and musty leather of mistress Sujatmi’s left sneaker, he even dared to wonder whether, if he was very good, the servants might throw him some of their leftovers to have with his bread and water.
It would be a forlorn hope.
Whilst his field of vision was filled with the top of mistress Sujatmi’s dirty, blue and white sneaker, the slave could hear the conversation going on above him amongst the three servants. It was small-talk mainly. Nothing about him. But then, why would they wish to discuss a dirty footslave over dinner? He was a nothing – a nobody. It would be like discussing shoe-dirt or toe-jam – completely inappropriate at the dinner table.
The slave noticed how the three superior human-beings were quite noisy eaters, slurping and slapping as they greedily consumed their appetizing meal. Master Komi even let out one or two belches. It all served to make the selfish slave think all the more about his own empty stomach, rather than concentrating on his mistress’s sneaker as he should have been.
But fortunately for him, mistress Sujatmi couldn’t read his thoughts. Even a footslave has some privacy.
When they had finished their meal, which included a delicious pudding of ice-cream and fruit salad, mistress Awa made a point of scraping the leftovers from each of their plates into a pedal bin in front of the slave’s face. Her husband and miss Sujatmi laughed as she did so:
‘Ha! Ha! That’s right, my darling, throw our leftovers away. They are much too good for the dirty footslave to enjoy. It is a privilege enough for him to smell our delicious food!’ commented master Komi, wiping his lips with a napkin.
The footslave had to agree.
Having finished her meal, Sujatmi, bent down to grab the kneeling footslave by the hair and lead him over to his bread and water. As she did so, he could smell the remains of her meal on her breath. Even that made him hungry, and all the more grateful for the meagre portion of stale, blue-mouldy bread he was about to eat.
But Sujatmi wasn’t satisfied that the bread was dirty enough for him. She was concerned that his stomach would already be getting used to dirt, and that if the bread was too clean it would upset it. She graciously, therefore, rubbed the dirty sole of her right sneaker on his bread, adding her shoe-dirt to the blue-mould and ensuring that the bread was flavoured in a way befitting the meal of a footslave.
She really was such a kind and thoughtful young mistress! The slave kissed her feet again in genuine gratitude.

Part 3 – The Master’s Daughters
It was now time for the new family foot-servant to be introduced to, or rather, as Mr Ramelan, the master of the house, had earlier more accurately put it, 'pay his respects to' his master's 20 year old twin daughters -- Miss Lastri and Miss Merpati.
The latter were both relaxing in the family's spacious lounge following dinner. Their parents had gone out to a social engagement -- leaving just their two girls and the servants in the house.
Lastri and Merpati were, however, well used to being in charge. Indeed, being in charge of servants came perfectly naturally to them. They had been brought up surrounded by servants, had been waited on hand and foot since the day they were born, and some people, perhaps a little unkindly but nevertheless with a degree of justification, would have described the two twenty year-olds as rather ‘spoilt’ young ladies.
Although twins, the two girls were not identical either in appearance or personality, although there was an unmistakable bond between them. For example, although they were both studying at the same private College (at great expense to their indulgent father) they had chosen quite different subjects and career paths.
Lastri, usually thought of as the more sensible of the two, was studying law. Her sister, Merpati, was studying to be a fashion designer. As they both sat slumped in front of the television awaiting the arrival of their newest servant, their respective outfits reflected this major difference in their chosen career paths.
Miss Lastri was still smartly dressed in a frilly, white blouse and smart, gray, pin-striped trouser-suit with shiny, black, spike-heeled and pointy-toed, zip-up ankle boots. She was a pretty girl with long, dark hair. She also wore designer glasses.
Her sister, the equally pretty Merpati, had permed, curly black hair with red highlights in it, and was wearing a red blouse, a navy blue mini-skirt with light blue leggings underneath that came down to just above her knees, and thick red and yellow patterned slouch-socks peeping over the top of a rather scruffy-looking pair of calf-length, beige, ugg-style boots. Merpati's parents, along with the rest of their generation, regarded Merpati's dress sense as something of an embarrassment. But, of course, they knew nothing! Merpati was a successful student of fashion design, and she knew exactly what she was doing when wearing her bright, seemingly garish combination of colours. Besides, the plethora of colours reflected her complex personality -- full of contradictions and full of fun, unlike her much more sensible and predictable sister, Lastri.
Needless to say the new family footslave, as he waited on his hands and knees beside the laundry-maid Miss Sujatmi outside the door of the lounge to meet his master’s daughters for the first time, would have no right to express any opinion on either of the two girls’ dress sense. Whatever they had chosen to wear, they were both his superiors deserving of his unconditional respect and adoration. He trembled with apprehension as Miss Sujatmi knocked on the lounge door prior to leading him into the ‘lionesses’ den’.
It was Miss Lastri who turned off the television with the remote control as Sujatmi entered the room with the footslave in tow. Even the erudite miss Lastri thought that this was much more interesting than the boring old news programme on the TV! They were about to meet their new slave!
It was the less cultured Miss Merpati, however, who voiced the two girls’ first impressions:
'Yuck! He's so old!' she exclaimed, clearly disappointed that the new footslave was not some 20 year old hunk that she could play with.
Her sister laughed:
‘Oh I don't know, Merpati,’ she replied, ‘he doesn’t look too bad for his age, bearing in mind that he’s old enough to be our father!’
All three young women, Lastri, Merpati, and Sujatmi laughed as they collectively sized up their new acquisition:
‘Miss Lastri, Miss Merpati, this your new foot-servant,’ confirmed Sujatmi as if there could be any doubt that the pathetic middle-aged man kneeling on the floor in front of them, head respectfully bowed, could be anything else.
The slave, fleetingly, wondered how miss Sujatmi felt about having to address two girls who were about five years’ her junior as ‘miss’; but he quickly realized that he would soon be having to do the same, even though they were 25 years his junior!
‘Slave pay respect miss Lastri, miss Merpati! Kiss feet!’ continued miss Sujatmi, anxious that the slave with whose training she had been entrusted should not show her up.
‘Ha! Ha! That’s right, lackey-boy’ giggled miss Merpati, ‘crawl over here and kiss your new goddesses’ feet!’
Goddesses! So that was how they thought of themselves! The humble slave found it hard to disagree. The two young women did indeed appear to be beautiful, svelte Indonesian goddesses. He was particularly impressed with the sharply suited miss Lastri and her shiny, black ankle boots.
But it was her sister Merpati who was clearly anxious to have her feet kissed first, as, standing dominantly with hands on hips, she had now extended her right foot onto the thick carpet directly under the kneeling footslave’s nose. The slave’s field of vision was now dominated by the scrunched-up tops of her red and yellow patterned slouch sock and her large, round-toed, beige ugg-boot.
As he obediently lowered his face to kiss the toe of said boot he could see that it was well-worn and scuffed and he could smell the strong smell of the beige material. It felt rough under his lips as he placed his first respectful kiss to the scuffed, booted toe of his new mistress.
‘Hmm, I do like your slave tunic, foot-lackey – plain and dull! It really suits you!’ mocked the young fashion-designer mistress in perfect English, albeit with the same, strong Indonesian accent that the slave had earlier remarked in her parents.
Lastri and Sujatmi laughed at miss Merpati’s barbed comment on the humble slave’s lack of sartorial elegance, as miss Merpati then withdrew her right booted foot from under the kneeling slave’s nose and replaced it with her left.
The slave kissed her left ugg-style boot, now fully resigned to the fact that he would be spending much of the rest of his miserable existence kissing the feet and footwear of arrogant, rich, spoilt young women whilst they mocked and teased him – young women who nevertheless were, undeniably, his betters.
‘Ha! Ha! Slave thank miss Merpati for say slave wear nice clothes!’ ordered miss Sujatmi, adjusting her own, rather plain, black headscarf.
The footslave immediately obeyed, to Sujatmi’s immense satisfaction:
‘Thank you, miss Merpati, for complementing me on my slave-tunic. This slave truly is unworthy to be allowed to wear such generous attire.’
Merpati and Lastri both clapped their hands in delight:
‘That’s right, slave-boy, and don’t you forget it!’ cautioned miss Merpati, ‘our father has been more than generous in providing you, a mere footslave, with any clothing at all! If it were up to me I’d have you stark-naked!’
The three young women now roared with laughter at the thought of seeing the old man crawling around their feet, naked as the day he was born:
‘Naked apart from some whip-stripes on your back, that is!’ added miss Lastri, clearly full of as much fire as her sister, in spite of her more sober appearance. ‘Now slither over here on your belly like a fat slug and kiss my boots! She continued.
The footslave was not by any means ‘fat’; a little ‘paunchy’ perhaps, but no reasonable person would ever have described him as ‘fat’. However, if young mistress Lastri wanted him to imitate a fat slug, and to ‘slither’ over towards her feet rather than ‘crawl’, he had no choice but to obey.
The girls laughed at his pitiful efforts to emulate a superior slug as he pulled himself across the carpet to where miss Lastri was standing.
Needless to say Lastri did nothing to help him, not even to the extent of stretching out her booted foot, until such time as he was right in front of her. She too was standing, but with her arms folded, as the slave placed his lips on the shiny, patent, black leather, pointy toe of her right, spike-heeled, ankle boot. The slave could not, of course, tell if she was wearing any socks or nylons inside her boots, as her boot-leg cut, pin-striped, trousers came down to her ankles, but the mere fact that he was even wondering about such things demonstrated that he was already a fully-fledged footslave. Perhaps he had always been a footslave by nature, and had just never realized it.
Whatever, as he kissed the toe of the trainee lawyer’s, shiny, black ankle boot it felt right – like he was in his proper place, beneath her feet as she towered masterfully above him. Sujatmi and Merpati also sensed that the slave was in his proper place, and both were smiling contentedly as they watched the slave kiss Lastri’s outstretched ankle boot.
Miss Lastri, like her sister before her, then deigned to facilitate the slave in his humble act of respect towards her by replacing her right boot with her outstretched left boot directly under his face:
‘We ought to give him a pet name!’ she suggested, addressing her sister.
‘Yeah, and then we could brand it onto his bare buttocks!’ exclaimed Merpati, excitedly. The footslave hoped she was joking, but the girls appeared to have stopped laughing.
‘How about “Fat Slug”?’ suggested Lastri, pleased with the slave’s impersonation of a slug.
‘Nah, I think we should give him a Roman name since he looks like a pathetic Roman slave. How about “Patheticus” – “Patheticus Maximus” ?,’ opined Merpati.
Lastri laughed and squealed her approval:
“Actually, given the tiny size of his penis, perhaps it should be “Patheticus Minimus”! she roared.
The two arrogant and spoilt young women collapsed in hysterics of laughter. Sujatmi also joined in, even though she hadn’t a clue what her two mistresses were on about. Sujatmi, the poor peasant girl, had never really learnt to read or write properly, let alone study Latin.
It goes without saying that none of the three girls had actually seen the footslave’s penis, nor had they any desire to. It would never be allowed anywhere near their vaginas, so why would a middle-aged slave’s shriveled-up old penis be of any interest to them? Nevertheless, it was not an unreasonable assumption on their part to speculate that his penis must have been small because he was, after all, a mere slave.
“Patheticus Minimus it is then!”,screamed Merpati with tears of laughter streaming down her pretty Indonesian face.
Her sister, Lastri, decided to put the slave’s new nickname into immediate use:
‘Patheticus Minimus, my feet are so tired and hot in these leather boots! I want you to take off my boots and massage my socked feet – with your mouth!’ she continued, moving backwards in order to take up a reclining position on the long, comfortable sofa that dominated the opulent lounge.
The slave realised that miss Lastri’s command must be perfectly lawful, as she was a student of law, but he wasn’t quite sure what she meant by ‘massaging her socked feet with his mouth’. No matter, he was doubtless about to find out, and at least he now knew what mistress Lastri was wearing inside her shiny, expensive-looking boots - she must be wearing socks!
As he crawled over to the edge of the sofa where her booted feet were outstretched, he was acutely aware of his task-mistress, miss Sujatmi, standing behind him, watching his every move like a hawk eyeing its prey:
‘Slave obey miss Lastri. Take off miss Lastri boots. Put face on miss Lastri socks!’ she barked down at him threateningly.
Patheticus reached up to undo the zip on the side of miss Lastri’s shiny, right ankle boot. As he did so he slowly revealed a pair of thick, black boot-socks. He could feel the heat of miss Lastri’s socked feet on his fingers as he gently slipped off the boot. He then repeated the process with her left boot.
The mere action of removing miss Lastri’s shiny, black, patent-leather ankle boots had inevitably caused the socks to crease at the toes. Miss Lastri hadn’t even noticed, but the slave’s task-mistress and trainer, miss Sujatmi, ever the perfectionist, was not best pleased:
‘Slave straighten miss Lastri socks! Smooth out creases! Straighten toes!’ she barked down at him, adjusting her own black headscarf which also needed straightening again.
Miss Merpati, who, like her sister hadn’t noticed the slave’s ineptitude, now gleefully joined in the verbal chastisement:
‘That’s right, Patheticus, do as Sujatmi says! God, you’re so incompetent! You can’t even remove a young woman’s boots without creasing her socks!’
Miss Lastri just smiled contentedly. She enjoyed the feeling of the humble male slave adjusting her thick, black boot-socks and making sure they were smooth and comfortable on her pretty feet.
Miss Sujatmi, meanwhile, was becoming increasingly impatient with her protégé. She hadn’t yet trained him in how to mouth-massage a lady’s socked feet, but she was nevertheless determined that he would do a good job on miss Lastri’s feet:
‘Slave obey miss Lastri. Rub miss Lastri sock feet with mouth. Obey! Move!’ snapped the young, arguably over-promoted, laundry-maid.
But the slave knew that, over-promoted or not, miss Sujatmi would be in a position to make his life hell if he didn’t perform his humble task to both her, and miss Lastri’s, complete satisfaction. And so, he moved his slave face closer to miss Lastri’s socked feet which were now resting on the arm of the sofa and began to gently manipulate his mouth and lips over the soles of her black socks.
The slave realized that what he was being required to do wasn’t quite the same as merely kissing miss Lastri’s socks. Rather she wanted to feel his mouth and lips rubbing her tired feet through her socks. And so, he moved his mouth in a circular motion around the ball of her socked foot, hoping that it wasn’t tickling his superior mistress, but rather was a pleasurable experience for her.
For her part, miss Lastri was hoping that her socks smelled. They had, after all, been inside her boots all day and the thought of the humble slave being surrounded by her foot-stink amused her. She would therefore have been somewhat disappointed to know that, although there was an inevitable trace of feminine foot-odour assailing the slave’s nostrils, the smell was not, in actual fact, too bad. Certainly miss Sujatmi’s dirty, bare feet had smelt far worse before he had licked and sucked them clean earlier in the day.
What Patheticus did notice, however, was little tiny bits of black sock-lint coming off on his lips. He felt privileged that miss Lastri’s sock-lint was going into his slave mouth.
‘Mmm. That feels good!’ sighed miss Lastri, wiggling her toes and flexing her foot-muscles as the slave continued to mouth-massage the young, female lawyer’s black-socked feet.
Her words of ‘praise’ spurred him to even greater efforts as he realized she wasn’t finding it unpleasant or ticklish. Even miss Sujatmi now felt more relaxed as ‘her’ slave was apparently pleasing the young mistress.
Only miss Merpati was now impatient:
‘Hurry up, Lastri! I want to use him as well, you know!’
Lastri smiled at her sister’s petulance. Although they were twins, she often thought of herself as the more mature, as did others around them. Her mother often joked that Lastri had been the first to ‘pop out’ and thus, technically, could be said to be her ‘firstborn’!
‘In a minute!’ she replied to her sister somewhat exasperated. Lastri would really have been quite content to just close her eyes and drift off to sleep on the sofa with the slave ‘mouthing’ her socked feet, but she realized that would be a little unfair on her beloved sister.
The slave decided, wisely, that the dispute between his two mistresses was none of his business. He would just do whatever he was told. Sujatmi, however, was keen to know what miss Merpati had planned for the slave:
‘What miss Merpati like slave do?’ she enquired somewhat anxiously as she wanted miss Merpati to end up being just as pleased with Patheticus’s services as miss Lastri clearly was.
‘Mmm, I think I’ll have him take off my boots and kiss my socks from top to bottom. I want his mouth to get used to the texture and feel of my socks since that’s all he is – a sockslave!’ replied Merpati.
At that point miss Lastri decided she had had enough of Patheticus’s feeble ministrations and she unceremoniously kicked him with her socked feet in the face:
‘You heard my sister, sock-slave. Slither on your fat belly over towards her and pay your respects to her socks,’ she barked, without so much as a word of thanks for the excellent foot-massage she had just received.
Miss Merpati, who was now seated in a comfortable armchair opposite the sofa on which her sister was lying, leaned forward on the edge of the chair in eager anticipation as Patheticus, with miss Sujatmi walking behind him, dutifully ‘slithered’ over on his ‘fat’ belly towards her waiting uggs.
‘Take off my boots, slave Patheticus, and let’s see if you can do a better job of it than you did with my sister’s boots! Make sure you don’t crease my nice red socks!’ she snarled.
The footslave was getting used to being shouted at and bossed about by demanding young women, but he was concerned that it might not be possible to remove miss Merpati’s boots without disturbing her socks to some extent – especially as he had no option but to pull off the ugg boots – there were no side-zips to undo that might enable him to delicately slip off the heavy, beige boots. And besides, miss Merpati’s socks were already scrunched up and creased inside her boots. They were, after all, ‘slouch’ socks, and would probably reach up to her bare knees if pulled up straight.
No matter, he had to do his best to obey the young mistress’s commands, and if he failed to satisfy her he would doubtless be justifiably punished. And so, somewhat gingerly, and as carefully as he could, Patheticus the sock-slave pulled off Miss Merpati’s heavy, beige boots. Inevitably, the socks did move, the toe ends on both feet slipping off the end of her dainty toes.
Miss Merpati tutted in feigned anger:
‘Stupid, incompetent slave! Look what you’ve done! You’ve creased my socks! Did you not hear what I told you?’
Miss Sujatmi, on the other hand, was genuinely outraged. She didn’t have a whip to hand, and so she bent down to slap the clumsy slave hard across both cheeks.
The slave, his face stinging, begged for mercy:
‘Oh pray, miss Sujatmi, miss Merpati. Please forgive this stupid, bungling slave for his incompetence and disobedience!’
‘It’s all very well apologizing to us, Patheticus, but you should be apologizing to my socks! They are the ones you have so roughly handled!’ screamed miss Merpati with an evil grin on her pretty face.
Miss Lastri laughed:
‘Ha! Ha! That’s right, Merpati. Make him apologise to your socks! After all, he is their slave too! Make him beg their forgiveness, and then caress and soothe them, like he would his girlfriend - if he were allowed to have one!’
Meanwhile miss Sujatmi, her face etched with rage, had grabbed the slave by his hair and was forcing his face down onto miss Merpati’s outstretched, socked feet:
‘Slave apologise to Miss Merpati socks. Beg socks mercy. Beg socks forgive slave!’
Patheticus obeyed. He blustered into miss Merpati’s bright-red-socked feet:
‘Oh please, Miss Merpati’s socks. Please forgive this dirty slave his roughness and incompetence. Please allow him to smooth you back onto miss Merpati’s beautiful feet and legs, so that he can kiss you and worship you!’
The girls, even miss Sujatmi, had to laugh at the slave’s truly pathetic display, begging forgiveness from a girl’s pair of smelly socks. And they were smelly – unlike miss Lastri’s black socks, for miss Merpati had been wearing her red and yellow patterned slouch socks in those same, heavy ugg-style boots two days in a row.
To Patheticus’s relief, the socks, it seemed, accepted his humble apology and he was allowed to smooth them back onto their pretty owner’s feet. He now had to ‘kiss them from top to bottom’ as per his original tasking, and miss Merpati had very specific requirements as to how he should do this:
‘Make sure you only kiss the yellow diamond pattern, slave. I don’t want your lips touching the red stitching.’
Merpati was referring to the fetching pattern of yellow diamond shapes that ran down the sides of her otherwise bright red slouch socks all the way to her toes. Why this stipulation was so important to her the slave had no idea. But then, he didn’t need to know. Perhaps there was no reason, other than to humiliate him further by dictating exactly which parts of the humble, feminine foot-garment his slave mouth was allowed to touch. Whatever, if that was what his young mistress demanded, that was what she would get.
Patheticus, therefore, duly obeyed, kissing the fifteen yellow diamond shapes down the sides of miss Merpati’s exotic red slouch-socks, getting his mouth accustomed to the feel of her socks as she had wished. All three girls gleefully watched the middle aged man-servant carry out his demeaning task of worshipping 20 year-old Merpati’s calf-length, smelly, slouch socks whilst she was still wearing them.
To Sujatmi’s relief, Merpati too now appeared satisfied with Patheticus’s efforts. She was relieved because it meant the two girls would want to keep him, and that she, therefore, could continue to train him and use him in the laundry.
‘Mmm. At least he seems to be quite competent when it comes to kissing superior females’ socks,’ declared Merpati happily. ‘Have you told Patheticus about his work as a ladies’ foot-whore in the evenings, Sujatmi?’
Patheticus’s ears pricked up. He realized that miss Merpati must be referring to something her father had mentioned to him earlier in his ‘welcoming’ speech – something about ‘pimping’ him on the streets of Jakarta at night?
‘Ah no, miss Merpati. Sujatmi forget tell slave!’
‘Ha! Ha! Well, I’ll tell him shall I?’ offered miss Merpati, still enjoying the sight and feel of the kneeling footslave kissing up and down the sides of her socks. ‘Poor Patheticus Minimus, I’m afraid you’ll have to earn your keep by kissing and licking the dirty feet of women out on the streets of our capital at night. Starting from tomorrow evening, Sujatmi will take you out on a lead to the centre of the town where you will have to shine ladies’ shoes for a dollar a time. Don’t worry – you’ll be blinkered like a horse to help you concentrate fully on the ladies’ feet and footwear without any distractions, and we also have a little wooden box that can be attached around your neck and which the ladies can place their feet onto for you to shine with your tongue - so you won’t have to lick them down on the filthy ground!’ she mocked.
‘Ha! Ha! Yes, and the money you earn will help to pay for all the nice clothes and tasty food that we give you,’ added miss Lastri. She was referring, of course, to the slave’s rough tunic and the bread and water diet her mother had put him on. ‘You’ll be like a street-whore, only for women’s feet!’ she continued. ‘Won’t that be nice, sock-boy?’
‘Slave answer miss Lastri!’ bellowed miss Sujatmi, very much looking forward to ‘pimping’ Patheticus on the streets.
‘Yes, miss Lastri, if it pleases you miss Lastri and miss Merpati, this slave would indeed be honoured to earn you some money by shining the shoes of superior Indonesian women out on the streets with his tongue, mistress.’
The girls all laughed:
‘Take him away to his hole in the barn, Sujatmi!’ ordered miss Merpati,‘and see to it that he gets a good night’s sleep. He’s got a long day of foot-servitude ahead of him tomorrow!’
‘Yes, miss Merpati!’ beamed Sujatmi, pleased with the way the evening had gone.
‘Oh, and one more thing,’ added miss Merpati peeling off her red and yellow slouch socks and throwing them onto the floor. ‘Have the sock-slave pick those up with his teeth and soak them overnight in his mouth. That should help to accustom him to the taste and smell of my sweaty feet!’
Sujatmi was delighted:
‘Yes, miss Merpati. Of course, miss Merpati. Sujatmi make slave suck miss Merpati socks all night!’
And so, the appropriately named Patheticus slithered pathetically on his belly out of the comfortable lounge, his mouth filled with miss Merpati’s dirty red and yellow slouch-socks, his mind full of the vision of miss Lastri’s shiny black, patent-leather, spike-heeled ankle boots, and with nothing to look forward to other than spending the night tethered to a stake in the dark, dismal, hole in the floor that passed for his new home, surrounded by the stink and the smell of miss Sujatmi’s sweaty, white ankle socks and tatty, old, blue and white sneakers.
Welcome to the world of the indentured foot-servant, Patheticus!

Part 4 – Serving Miss Lastri

The weeks and months passed and the indentured foot-servant did what he had to do in order to survive in his new environment - he got to know his new mistresses, their likes and dislikes, their moods, their whims, so that he could pander to each and every one of them.
It was a sensible strategy for a vulnerable and powerless household footslave.
The mistress he probably admired most was Miss Lastri. Sophisticated, intelligent, erudite - she was the epitome of superior, young womanhood. Normal men, free men, might have described her as 'a classy bird', even if they found Lastri’s intelligence somewhat intimidating. But of course, the household footslave was neither normal nor free, and it ill-behoved him to think of his young mistress as a ' bird’. Rather, he thought of her as the superior being she was, and he genuinely felt privileged to be in her service, albeit as a humble foot-servant.
He therefore developed the following mindset when serving mistress Lastri:
'This is your Indonesian master’s daughter, and you are worth less than the dirt beneath her feet. She is more beautiful, more intelligent, more high-class than you have ever been or could ever aspire to be. Whilst she is studying to become a highly paid lawyer, you are fit only to study the dirt on her ankle boots, prior to licking off that dirt, thereby contributing to her smart appearance and assisting her to impress her fellow students and work colleagues when she does her work experience as a solicitor's clerk.
This young 20 year-old woman may be 25 years your junior, but she is your infinite superior as she towers above you in her smart, pinstriped trouser-suit and shiny, black ankle-boots. You must obey Miss Lastri, adore her, worship her -- and hope against hope that, whilst you could never deserve her respect, you might at least earn her compassion and feminine mercy.'
Lastri's twin sister, Merpati, was an altogether different kettle of fish. Willful, impetuous, moody, unpredictable she represented danger to any underling -and especially to an underling’s underling, such as the household footslave. Again, free men may have regarded Merpati as being as ‘eccentric’ in her personality as she was in her taste in fashion. But the footslave did not have that option; for him, Miss Merpati's often outlandish dress sense had to be respected, as did Miss Merpati herself. In particular, however bizarre her footwear might be, however eclectic and garish the colour-schemes on any given day, it was the chosen footwear of his superior mistress and must be treated with exactly the same respect he would display to her sister’s expensive, more sophisticated footwear.
Accordingly he developed the following mindset when serving miss Merpati:
‘This young woman is a “free spirit” in every sense of the term. She is not bound by rules and chains as you are. She can pretty much do what she wants, when she wants, and your role is to facilitate her in any way she so pleases.
If she is annoyed or angry she has every right to take her anger out on you – for you are her father’s, and therefore by extension her, property. Even when she is in the wrong, as far as you are concerned she is in the right, and you must flatter her that this is so, fawn to her, ingratiate yourself towards her to the utmost of your ability, as befits a slave seeking to please his superior young mistress.
As you are specifically her footslave, study her footwear; learn to appreciate her tastes; admire her shoes and socks, even if they appear scruffy or mismatched to your inferior mind – for miss Merpati is your better, and her tastes are therefore superior to yours.
And whenever she loses her temper, and shouts and screams verbal abuse at you, and slaps you across the face and kicks you, accept your chastisement with humility and resignation, as befits a slave. Go further, thank her for taking up some of her precious time to correct you, rather than just dispensing with you as she could do, whilst at the same time demonstrating through your gasps of pain that you are genuinely suffering under her wrath, which is what she wants to see.’
Lastri and Merpati’s mother, Mistress Ramelan (the slave never was told her first name), was more like miss Lastri in her temperament, although at times she could demonstrate the petulance and cruelty more associated with her other daughter, Merpati.
Mistress Ramelan remained something of an enigma to the foot-servant. He certainly seemed to spend more of his time serving each of her two daughters than he did Mrs Ramelan herself, even though Mrs Ramelan, being a lady of leisure, spent much more time in the house than her two daughters. But he sometimes sensed that she actually preferred witnessing him grovel at the feet of her daughters rather than being served by him herself. And yet, it was equally apparent that it was Mrs Ramelan who had been the driving force behind his recruitment, enslavement, and harsh conditions of service – such as his meagre accommodation of a hole in the ground and his diet of bread and water. She was clearly a woman who believed in her family’s superiority, and in slavery. He also sensed that she despised him, even hated him, though why was never clear to him.
His mindset vis a vis his master’s wife, Mrs Ramelan, was therefore as follows:
‘This is the most powerful woman in the household, your master’s beloved wife. She sets the tone for how others treat you, and it is thanks to her that you are regarded, correctly, as the lowest of the low. You must ‘live down’ to your reputation and remember that you are not fit to even be in the presence of any woman’s feet, let alone to touch or kiss a woman’s feet or footwear.
Mrs Ramelan can have you dismissed from your privileged position of household foot-servant with a click of her finger, so you will demonstrate your respect and admiration for her at all times. She makes it obvious that she, quite rightly, despises you, so when she permits you to kiss her brown, leather sandals you will ensure that your dirty, slave lips respectfully touch only the leather straps across the top of her feet and do not brush against her superior nylon stockings or bare footflesh.
Whenever you are in the presence of other mistresses, but Mistress Ramelan is also present, you will have regard to her supremacy over you as she is the master’s wife. This means that you will obey her orders over those of other mistresses, including those of her daughters, even if it means upsetting the other mistresses and incurring their justifiable wrath and righteous punishment. In short, Mistress Ramelan is your goddess.’
Serving 5 women in the same household often led to a conflict of orders. The footslave had quickly learnt that he could not always please all 5 women, and had no option but to create a hierarchy of mistresses in his mind - based on their social status and position within the household - and to accept that by giving priority to the demands of one mistress over another he would inevitably incur the displeasure of the one whose demands were not being given priority.
That was the theory, anyway. In practice, of course, he could not help but take into account the mood and temperament of the mistress giving him the order at the time, or indeed, the mood and temperament of those close to her.
Such was the case with mistress Awa, the household cook. According to the social order within the household, mistress Awa’s commands should be less of a priority to him than those of miss Lastri or miss Merpati, for example. And the slave was confident that miss Awa herself understood that.
However, if her husband, master Komi, was present the slave had to reassess whose orders would take priority. Master Komi, in addition to being the family’s chauffeur, was also the family’s slave-flogger. It was Master Komi who usually wielded the whip on behalf of any of the female masters within the household who wanted the slave to be severely punished. Furthermore, master Komi had strong views on how the household footslave should treat his beloved wife Awa. He expected, nay demanded, that the humble slave demonstrate the utmost respect and obedience towards his wife, perhaps precisely because he and his wife were both just servants themselves, and because he relished displaying his machismo and authority over the down-in-the-dirt, foot-kissing slave.
In other words, if master Komi was present, the footslave invariably had to give priority to mistress Awa’s demands, even if it meant upsetting mistress Merpati, for example. And that was always a tough decision, for miss Merpati was not accustomed to having her orders disobeyed! The irony for the poor slave in such an impossible situation was, therefore, that he would probably end up being punished for disobeying miss Merpati by master Komi – just not as harshly as if he had disobeyed miss Awa. It was the lesser of two evils.
The slave sensed that miss Awa herself was, fundamentally, a kindly woman – the sort of woman who could quite happily serve others and live in a world without slaves, but who did not feel strongly enough about such matters to fight against slavery or to avoid using the services of a slave. She was quite prepared to ‘go with the flow’ and to treat the footslave the way the other women in the household expected him to be treated – with contempt.
The slave had therefore developed the following mindset in his dealings with mistress Awa, the household cook:
‘This beautiful, young African woman is your superior in every sense of the word. You do not deserve her kindness, and she is right to look down upon you as an inferior slave, deserving of her contempt and disdain. Her husband, your master, is equally right to demand that you show his wife the respect she deserves, and that you gaze only upon the humblest and lowest part of her body – her feet.
For that is all you are – a footslave; a slave of women’s feet – all women, whatever their status in life, be they rich or poor, black or white, cruel or kind – all women are your masters, and you are fit only to lick the dirt from their beautiful, feminine feet, and to soften the hard skin on their heels with your slave tongue.’
Speaking of women’s status, within the Ramelan household the lowest social status belonged, of course, to the petite peasant-girl and laundry-maid, miss Sujatmi. But miss Sujatmi, petite and of low social status though she was, quite literally loomed large in the slave’s life. As Mr Ramelan had appointed her to be the footslave’s trainer and taskmistress, the slave spent most of his waking hours kneeling and staring at miss Sujatmi’s feet. At times, he almost felt as though he was her personal footslave whom she occasionally ‘loaned out’ to the other female members of the family.
And, if truth be told, miss Sujatmi was often guilty of thinking of the household footslave in those terms also – as her personal slave, at her constant beck and call, subject to her every whim, however evil, however capricious. This was because the ‘suppressed’, if not ‘oppressed’ miss Sujatmi was a natural-born slaveowner. The master’s daughters, Lastri and Merpati, may have been responsible for giving the footslave his Latin nick-name, ‘Patheticus’; but it was the 25 year old, head-scarfed, uneducated peasant girl, miss Sujatmi, who was responsible for most of the stripes on the slave’s back under his Roman-style slave tunic.
In dealing with Miss Sujatmi, the slave had developed the following mindset:
‘This young woman, unused to being a position of power and authority, has nevertheless, and for better or for worse, been given absolute power and authority over you.
She is clearly determined that you will respect that power and authority and will not shy from imposing her will upon you with the aid of the whip, that great teacher of respect and obedience, as and when necessary.
You must therefore get to know this young woman’s likes and dislikes, for your well-being will depend upon pleasing her and serving her to her complete satisfaction. In particular, you must respect and care for her footwear even though, and indeed precisely because, she cannot afford nice, expensive shoes and boots like Mrs Ramelan or her daughter, miss Lastri. No matter, miss Sujatmi’s tatty, old worn sneakers must be accorded exactly the same degree of respect you would show towards the most expensive pair of mistress Ramelan’s knee-length, patent leather, high-heeled boots. And similarly, miss Sujatmi’s dirty, sweat-stained, white, ‘no show’, ankle socks worn inside her sneakers whilst she supervises your menial work in the laundry room, must be cherished every bit as much as the fine, flesh-toned, denier stockings that Mrs Ramelan wears inside her expensive boots to important social functions.’
Such were the mindsets of the household footslave, developed after just a few months of service, and they were truly a world away from the mindsets of his previous life in England.
One thing that hadn’t changed in the slave’s feeble mind since his enslavement was his love of order and routine. And his daily life, thanks to the efforts of miss Sujatmi, was well-ordered and routine. Monotonous, some would say. But it suited both the slave and his female masters; the latter knew where they stood; the former knew where he knelt.
This is the story of one such typical day for the Ramelan-household footslave…
It was the piercing cold, as usual, that woke him up. Indonesia was not a ‘cold’ country but, even in the mild Indonesian winter, his slave-hole in the isolated, draughty barn at the back of the house was permanently cold and dark. Not that Patheticus, was complaining – he recognized that it was accommodation fully fit for a mere ‘toady-in-the-hole’. A cold stone floor was more than adequate bedding for someone who spent their life on their hands and knees cleaning the dirt off his betters’ shoes.
After nearly an hour shivering in the cold, the welcome sight of his taskmistress, miss Sujatmi, opening the hatch above his head, and the sight of the dirty soles of her sneakers as she climbed down the rungs of the metal ladder into his lonely hole, warmed his heart somewhat. Another day of humble servitude; another chance to demonstrate his inferiority at the feet of superior women.
Miss Sujatmi said nothing as she untied the rope around the slave’s right leg which had tethered him overnight to a wooden post in the centre of the hole, symbolizing the fact that even when he was asleep he was in bondage. He would never be free, not even when he was unconscious.
As he moved over onto his stomach the slave kissed his first female feet of the day, placing a respectful kiss on the toes of each of miss Sujatmi’s familiar, scruffy, well-worn, blue and white sneakers. He noticed that she was wearing her very short, dark blue ankle socks inside her sneakers that morning. Only the elasticated tops of the socks were visible running along the tops of her sneakers. However, he knew every inch of those feminine socks very well as he had sucked them clean many times:
‘Please don’t beat me today, miss Sujatmi. I will be a good slave to you today, miss Sujatmi,’ he whined, cringingly, as he tasted her dirty sneaker-leather on his dry lips.
It was the only time in the entire day he was encouraged to speak without first being spoken to. And he said it every morning – first thing. He said it, because it reminded miss Sujatmi, if she needed reminding, that he, the Ramelan-family slave, was in her power, at her mercy, and was frightened of her. He said it, above all, because he knew that miss Sujatmi liked to hear it. It bolstered her confidence, flattered her somewhat fragile ego, and therefore helped him to ingratiate himself towards her, all of which should make for an easier day.
Miss Sujatmi adjusted her black headscarf and gave the slave his first, familiar, order of the day:
‘Slave follow Sujatmi out of hole. Follow Sujatmi sneakers. Obey!’
There was no question of the slave not obeying the young laundry-maid. Her authority over him was already fully established.
Once they were both out of the hole the slave knew that, whilst climbing up the metal ladder, he had his only chance of the day to stretch his tired legs, for once out of the hole he was immediately expected to assume the customary position of a footslave – on his hands and knees, head humbly bowed, staring at the feet and footwear of the superior mistress currently deigning to be in his presence.
It was whilst he was in this humble position that miss Sujatmi washed and shaved him. He felt embarrassed that she had to do this for him every morning, that she, a superior young woman, should have to clean him. It felt wrong. It wasn’t the natural order of things. He, the male, should be serving her, the female. Yet he also realised deep down that he had to be made presentable for the mistresses he would be serving that day, and that he, a mere slave, could not be entrusted with water and a razor. After all, he might be tempted to drink the water; or, even worse, to use the razor blade to threaten or attack his mistress in an effort to escape– not that such a thought would ever enter his head. He was by now completely resigned to a lifetime of footslavery.
In any case, it was not his place to question how things were done, and so he comforted himself by staring respectfully at miss Sujatmi’s sneakered feet as she shaved him, examining where the dirt and dust had accumulated on her shoes so that he could make a good job of removing it with his tongue if and when she ordered him to do so later in the day.
He was not given breakfast. He was allowed only one meal a day, of bread and water, at dinner-time. His stomach had shrunk to accommodate this.
Miss Sujatmi, obviously, had dressed herself as she did every morning. However, his next daily, routine task was to help dress the master’s 20 year-old twin daughters, miss Lastri and miss Merpati.
Miss Lastri was usually the first to need assistance as she awoke early in order to go either to college or to the solicitors’ office where she was gaining some work experience.
Miss Sujatmi led the slave on his hands and knees, by means of a lead attached to the slave-collar around his neck, across the rough, gravelly path that led from the barn to the big house. It was always a relief for the slave to feel the softness of the carpet in the hallway on his knees after the rough gravel of the pathway. He was sure the lady of the house, Mrs Ramelan, had had a gravel pathway installed just to make life more difficult for him. Not only did the gravel chafe and cut his knees, it also stuck in the grooves of the soles of miss Sujatmi’s sneakers, and on entering the house he was required to extricate the tiny pieces of gravel from the grooves with his tongue as she stood on one leg at a time, raising her other sneakered foot into the air behind her for him to gain purchase with his tongue.
On the plus side, however, the gravel from the bottom of miss Sujatmi’s shoes did help to fill his empty belly.
On reaching miss Lastri’s room, miss Sujatmi gently knocked on the door, just in case the young mistress had not yet awoken or was not decent (Miss Lastri only required the slave’s assistance in dressing her feet. The rest of her clothing she was happy to put on herself).
‘Enter!’ came the reply. The mistress was up!
‘Good morning, miss Lastri,’ beamed miss Sujatmi as she entered the young mistress’s bedroom with the footslave in tow.
‘Morning, Sujatmi,’ replied miss Lastri.
‘Miss Lastri sleep well?’ enquired Sujatmi politely.
‘Yes thank you, Sujatmi. It was rather cold last night, but I just pulled on that extra blanket.’
The conversation between the two young women was all very civil. Sujatmi was a servant, but was nevertheless a fellow human-being, deserving some respect even from her mistress.
There were, on the other hand, no words of greeting for, and no small-talk with, the humble footslave. And that was entirely as it should be. For, in miss Lastri’s eyes, he was neither a servant nor a proper human-being. He was a slave – a thing to be used, and lucky to have the privilege of being used.
Miss Lastri was sitting on the edge of her bed, bespectacled as usual, and wearing a frilly, white blouse and below-the-knee navy blue skirt. It was actually quite unusual for Lastri to wear skirts or dresses. She much preferred trouser suits; but she was due in court that day in her capacity as a solicitor’s clerk, and she always liked to wear her best skirt when in Court. It impressed the traditionally-minded male magistrates and judges, which never did her clients any harm.
The footslave was led over to miss Lastri in order to kiss her bare feet as was customary every morning.
As his slave lips touched a faint vein that ran along the top of miss Lastri’s pretty, brown-skinned, right foot, miss Sujatmi established miss Lastri’s immediate requirements:
‘Miss Lastri want slave wash feet?’ she enquired politely.
‘Yes please, Sujatmi. My feet are a bit dirty. And have him bring a pair of my dark, nylon stockings from the wardrobe. I don’t want my legs to be cold today.’
The slave respectfully kissed miss Lastri’s ‘dirty’ left foot as miss Sujatmi acknowledged miss Lastri’s wishes:
‘Yes, miss Lastri. As you wish, miss Lastri,’ she replied , somewhat sycophantically. Even a maid likes to keep in with her mistress.
Then, abruptly changing her tone, Sujatmi passed on miss Lastri’s orders to the kneeling footslave, the only ‘man’ in the room, but who was allowed in miss Lastri’s bedroom ironically because he wasn’t regarded as a man – he was just a male slave:
‘Slave obey miss Lastri. Fetch stockings from wardrobe while miss Sujatmi fetch bowl and water.’
Whilst miss Sujatmi went towards the ensuite bathroom to fetch the necessary equipment for the slave to wash miss Lastri’s feet, the footslave dutifully crawled on his hands and knees over to the wardrobe (miss Lastri, graciously, no longer required him to ‘slither like a fat slug’ in her presence. It took him too long and she didn’t have all day. Besides, Patheticus no longer resembled a ‘fat’ slug; he had lost so much weight thanks to his meager diet of bread and water. Her sister, miss Merpati, on the other hand, was never too busy to watch the slave ‘slither’ like a slug, fat or otherwise, across her bedroom floor!)
Miss Lastri’s stockings, tights and socks, as one would expect of such a tidy and orderly young woman, were neatly arrayed on several shelves inside the massive wardrobe, as were her shoes and boots below them in the bottom of the wardrobe. They were all neatly arrayed because the slave had arranged them thus on miss Lastri’s orders. So he knew exactly which pair of dark, nylon stockings she was referring to. He knew too that, under her skirt, she would already be wearing her panties and suspenders. That was the routine whenever he was required to assist miss Lastri with her stockings.
At such times Patheticus was required to carefully place the delicate, folded, dark nylon stockings in his mouth and crawl back to where miss Lastri was sitting, prior to depositing the stockings respectfully on the lushly carpeted floor beside her bare feet, ready to roll them up her bare feet and legs as soon as he had finished washing her feet.
Miss Lastri watched the slave impassively as he knelt submissively before her, occasionally examining her fingernails which she had polished herself earlier that morning.
After a couple of minutes miss Sujatmi retuned with a bowl of water and a towel from the bathroom:
‘Sujatmi make water nice and warm. Make miss Lastri feet warm up,’ she beamed.
Lastri laughed:
‘Not too warm, I hope. I don’t want to scald my pretty tootsies!’ she giggled, raising her bare feet off the ground and wiggling her bare, unpainted toes in front of the kneeling slave’s nose.
‘Oh no, miss!’ exclaimed Sujatmi. ‘Sujatmi make sure water just right! Feel nice and warm on mistress’s toes.’
Then, again changing her tone of voice to one more suited to barking orders at a helpless male slave, Sujatmi addressed the footslave:
‘Slave put miss Lastri feet in bowl. Slave rub miss Lastri feet. Wash off dirt. Clean!’
The footslave knew it was entirely appropriate that he should have been made to kiss miss Lastri’s feet whilst they were still dirty and unwashed. He was not worthy to kiss a young woman’s clean feet.
He carefully placed both miss Lastri’s dirty feet into the porcelain bowl, and gently rubbed her feet in the water with his slave hands. He watched as the warm water turned only slightly dirty with toe-jam and tiny pieces of dead skin from miss Lastri’s soft, brown feet.
Miss Sujatmi was watching too, and ordered the slave to stop when she was given the signal by miss Lastri that she was now satisfied her feet were sufficiently clean.
‘Slave stop!’ barked miss Sujatmi, adjusting her headscarf once again. ‘Take out miss Lastri feet. Place on towel. Wipe dry!’
The two women watched the humble footslave, with a strange mixture of both contempt and contentment on their pretty faces, as he instantly and dutifully obeyed. Miss Lastri, in particular, was enjoying the feeling of the soft towel on her feet as the slave manouvered it between her delicate toes, or ‘tootsies’ as she had earlier referred to them.
‘Miss Lastri want slave paint miss Lastri toenails?’ enquired Sujatmi whilst the slave finished drying the mistress’s toes.
‘No, thank you, Sujatmi, I haven’t really got time. I’ve got to be in Court at 09:30, and, besides, I think I’ll wear my suede, knee-length boots today – so nobody will be seeing my feet. Have the slave put my stockings on me, would you?’
‘Yes certainly, miss Lastri’ fawned the maid. ‘Slave! Obey miss Lastri. Put stockings on miss Lastri feet! Slave obey quick! Miss Lastri in hurry!’ snapped Sujatmi.
The slave appreciated the way miss Lastri no longer bothered to give her orders to him directly whenever his task-mistress, miss Sujatmi, was present. It was as if he was so beneath her that she could not even be bothered to give him her orders herself, preferring instead to watch and listen to the maid Sujatmi bossing him about. Besides, Sujatmi enjoyed bossing him about so much, and Lastri was such a kind girl – she took pleasure in seeing her maid enjoy a position of authority for a change, albeit delegated authority from her.
The slave was now well practiced in putting a lady’s stockings, tights or socks on her feet. The fumbling of his earlier days was long gone.
With stockings and tights he was only allowed to roll the garment up the mistress’s leg as far as her knee. It had been made perfectly clear to him right from the start that the mistress would take over from there – he was, after all, a humble footslave, not a body-servant or even a ‘leg’ slave. The mistress’s lower leg was the extent of his remit, and on the one occasion he had inadvertently touched a mistress’s thigh (it was actually miss Merpati’s thigh), he had received a well-deserved punishment at the whipping post of 30 lashes across his bare back and shoulders from master Komi.
He would strive not to repeat that terrible experience.
And so the footslave carefully, but deftly, rolled up one of mistress Lastri’s dark, nylon stockings before pulling it over her outstretched right foot and then gently rolling it up her shapely calf as far as her knee.
He then did the same with her left leg. Stockings were, for obvious reasons, easier to put on a mistress than tights. These particular stockings also felt deliciously soft and sheer, as they added a wonderful sheen to miss Lastri’s already beautiful and shapely legs.
Once she had adjusted and secured both her dark, nylon stockings to her suspenders, miss Lastri asked Sujatmi to order the slave to fetch her black, suede leather, boots from the very same wardrobe where he had earlier collected her stockings.
Again, the slave had to do so on his hands and knees, but this time, as the footwear wouldn’t fit in his mouth, he was allowed to carry the boots in one hand.
The footslave liked this particular pair of black, suede boots very much. Chunky-heeled, knee-length, zip-up boots, they seemed to hug miss Lastri’s lower legs in a way that he wished he could be permitted to do. Oh to be one of miss Lastri’s boots – protecting her precious Indonesian foot from the elements and the street dirt, absorbing her foot-sweat through her dark, nylon stocking!
As he pulled the right boot onto the still seated miss Lastri’s outstretched right leg, and then zipped it up, the footslave watched somewhat forlornly as the young woman’s shapely, dark nylon-covered calf disappeared from view. Truly he was privileged to be this young woman’s bootslave!
Once both her boots were on miss Lastri stood up, allowing her navy blue skirt to come down to cover the tops of her knee-length boots, placed her hands on her hips in a pose of supreme self-confidence and feminine dominance, and then moved her right booted-foot under the kneeling slave’s nose.
No orders were necessary; no words of command snapped in broken English by miss Sujatmi – it was obvious to the whole world what he had to do next – he had to kiss the toe of the superior miss Lastri’s black, suede leather, knee-length boot in abject submission and respect.
He duly did so – with genuine respect. It wasn’t hard to respect the bespectacled, refined and erudite young lawyer, miss Lastri.
The next mistress he would be serving that morning however, her twin sister miss Merpati, was, perhaps, a different matter.

Part 5 - Serving Miss Merpati
Miss Merpati was not an ‘early riser’, nor was she accustomed to being in a good mood in the mornings. One thing the family footslave known as ‘Patheticus’ had learnt very quickly was the need to be ultra-submissive towards Miss Merpati when she was in one of her crotchety early-morning moods.
Even miss Sujatmi was nervous as she waited with the kneeling footslave outside Miss Merpati's bedroom door. Merpati did not treat the servants with the same respect that her twin sister Lastri did. However, at least the male slave would be present to take any of the flak -- Miss Merpati despised male slaves much more than she despised female servants.
At 09:00 a.m. precisely Sujatmi adjusted her plain, black headscarf and knocked somewhat tentatively on the bedroom door. She had been given instructions the previous evening by Merpati’s mother, Madam Ramelan, to awaken Miss Merpati at that precise time if the latter had not already stirred from her slumber as she had to be at college by 10:30 a.m.
There was no response.
Sujatmi swallowed hard and knocked on the door again, this time harder and louder. It appeared as though Miss Merpati was indeed still asleep.
Still no response.
Sujatmi knew she now had no option but to open the door and awake Miss Merpati as gently as possible by shaking her as she lay in her bed. It wasn't an unusual scenario, but given Miss Merpati's unpredictable mood-swings, Sujatmi was always nervous about doing it. With the footslave kneeling humbly and obediently behind her blue and white sneakered feet, Sujatmi, the erstwhile laundry-maid and now 'footslave trainer and taskmistress', gently shook Miss Merpati, gently beseeching her to wake up.
Merpati awoke with a start, her tousled red and black hair and sleepy brown eyes emerging from under the duvet:
‘What time is it?’, she grumbled.
‘Good morning, Miss Merpati,' chirped Sujatmi. 'It nine o'clock and beautiful day outside, miss,’ she continued, evidently trying to put the young mistress in a good frame of mind.
The footslave, of course, was not permitted to speak to miss Merpati unless he was directly spoken to by her. Although she was just a 20 year-old girl, she was his master’s daughter, and therefore his mistress, and therefore way too superior to engage in small talk with the likes of him. He knew he was privileged just to be allowed into her bedroom, – particularly when she was still in her night-clothes. Not that he was any kind of sexual threat to the superior young woman. Indeed, he was allowed into her bedroom precisely because he was a mere slave - impotent as a eunuch, completely in her power and at her mercy (and, for that matter, at the mercy of her maidservant, miss Sujatmi).
‘Fetch me a cigarette!’ ordered miss Merpati, somewhat perfunctorily.
This order was directed at Sujatmi – the footslave was considered unworthy to serve miss Merpati in any way other than as her personal footslave. There would be plenty for him to do in a moment.
Sujatmi knew exactly where miss Merpati hid her cigarettes. She ‘hid’ them because her parents, especially her father, didn’t approve of her smoking. Her mother smoked herself and therefore had less moral authority on the matter. But, whether her parents disapproved of it or not, Merpati just had to have a cigarette first thing in the morning. She often skipped breakfast, but never her early morning fag.
As she lit the cigarette for miss Merpati who was now sitting up in her comfortable bed, Sujatmi enquired politely as to what her mistress’s requirements were for the morning:
‘Miss Merpati want tea, coffee?’
‘Just a coffee, please,’ replied Merpati, more relaxed now that she had had her first fix of nicotine.
‘Yes miss. Sujatmi fetch now. Leave slave to serve miss Merpati feet,’ replied the maidservant, happy that Merpati appeared to be in a reasonably good mood.
‘Thank you, Sujatmi,’ said Merpati, yawning and stretching her arms as she did so.
‘Please’ and ‘thank you’. Yes! Miss Merpati is in an unusually good mood this morning, thought the smiling Sujatmi as she left for the kitchen to fetch Merpati’s coffee.
If the footslave, who during this exchange had remained kneeling, head bowed to the floor by the side of Merpati’s bed, had any hopes of the young mistress being as kind and polite to him, they were soon dashed:
‘You, the slave, I haven’t got time for you to wash my bare feet properly this morning so you’re going to clean them with your dirty, slave tongue!’ she informed him in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, twisting herself around to sit on the edge of her bed whilst taking another drag on her illicit cigarette.
Miss Merpati’s pretty, soft, brown feet were now resting on the fluffy white carpet under the kneeling slave’s nose. Her floral-patterned, white pyjama bottoms had risen up slightly to reveal also her shapely brown ankles. The middle-aged, white slave felt genuinely honoured to be so close to the 20 year old Indonesian girl’s beautiful, petite, bare feet, and was, pathetically, excited at the prospect of sucking her overnight toe-jam from between her delicate toes and swallowing any dead skin that had accumulated on her feminine feet.
‘What are you waiting for, lazy pig! Get on with it!’ she barked, reaching down to slap him hard across his left cheek with her cigarette-free left hand and waking him abruptly from his reverie of adoration for her bare feet.
‘Yes, mistress Merpati! At once, sweet mistress Merpati!’ blubbered the chastised slave, angry with himself for upsetting miss Merpati by his seeming reluctance to obey instantaneously her perfectly reasonable order.
Miss Merpati was doing nothing to help the slave – she rarely did – so her feet remained firmly on the carpet waiting for him to lift them to his kneeling lips.
He gently raised her right foot first. It felt so small and soft in his man-sized hand. What a privilege! What an honour to hold such a precious, beautiful thing in his hands! But it did also feel a little sweaty and a little sticky.
Merpati continued to smoke on her cigarette, exhaling the smoke onto the top of the kneeling slave’s head as he ever so gently inserted her big toe into his slave mouth.
As usual (for miss Merpati’s toes were often inside the footslave’s mouth first thing in the morning) it tasted a little salty, and he could feel tiny pieces of girl toe-jam coming off the toe and onto his tongue. He could also feel her big toe-nail scraping the roof of his mouth as he manipulated the toe inside his mouth in order to better clean it.
He did the same for each individual toe on both her divine, asian feet – one toe at a time, making sure his lips sucked the whole way down each of her bare toes removing any residual sweat from the day before and extracting all the night-time toe-cheese.
Merpati just puffed away on her cigarette enjoying both the feel and the sight of the footslave’s degradation down on the floor at her feet.
Just as he was finishing the last toe – the little toe on miss Merpati’s left foot – Sujatmi re-entered the bedroom with her mistress’s coffee.
Sujatmi smiled at the sight of ‘her’ slave sucking miss Merpati’s toes:
‘Ha! Ha! Slave clean miss Merpati toes good?’ she enquired of the young mistress.
Merpati took a last drag of her cigarette, extinguished it on the top of the middle-aged, male slave’s head, and took the cup of hot coffee from the tray proffered to her by Sujatmi:
‘It’ll have to do. I haven’t got time for him to wash them properly this morning – I have to get to an important seminar today. One of our country’s top fashion designers is coming to speak to us at the college!’ replied Merpati with girlish excitement, extracting her foot from the slave’s mouth and pushing him away with the ball of her foot – indicating that that particular task was at an end.
Although Sujatmi was of a similar age to her mistress (just five years’ her senior), she did not share her mistress’s interest in fashion – perhaps because she couldn’t afford nice clothes on her servant’s wages. Merpati and Sujatmi were complete opposites in that regard – the rich, spoilt fashion design student, who was accustomed to wearing rather garish and, some would say, outlandish outfits and the humble country-girl come laundry-maid, who nearly always wore the same old blue denim jeans, scruffy blue and white sneakers, and traditional, black headscarf. Nevertheless, Sujatmi was an astute enough maid to know when it was in her own best interests to feign excitement in empathy with her mistress’s evident excitement:
‘Really, miss? Miss Merpati very fortunate to be at such good fashion college with top designers!’
Merpati smiled and nodded her agreement. She was now rubbing her feet dry on the slave’s hair as she sipped her coffee in a rather noisy and un-ladylike manner.
Aware that time was of the essence, Sujatmi pressed on with finding out her mistress’s specific clothing requirements for the day:
‘What clothes miss Merpati like to wear to college today, miss?’
‘Erm… I think I’ll wear my yellow top and black leggings. They should be in the wardrobe. And the slave can fetch my black sneaker socks – the ones with the polka dots – and my leopard-print ballet-flats,’ responded Merpati.
This was quite a conservative choice of clothing for miss Merpati – perhaps she didn’t wish to appear too outrageous in front of a top fashion designer?
‘Yes, certainly, miss Merpati,’ replied Sujatmi, ‘Sujatmi fetch clothes from wardrobe.’ She then turned her attention to the kneeling slave:
‘Slave fetch miss Merpati shoes from shoe-cupboard and miss Merpati socks from sock-drawer. Slave obey! Quick!’ she yelped.
The slave knew exactly where to go, and he remembered to ‘slither’ rather than crawl, as, even though it had originally been her sister’s idea, miss Merpati still liked to see him slither across the floor of her bedroom on his belly like a giant slug, rather than crawl on his hands and knees like a normal footslave. And what miss Merpati liked, miss Merpati got.
Equally he knew exactly which pair of shoes and which pair of socks Miss Merpati had selected. He had, after all, been a footslave in this household for some six months now -- it was only to be expected that he would have familiarised himself with all the footwear of the various ladies in the household whom he served. That was his job.
He now knew, for example, that his task-mistress, Miss Sujatmi, except when it was raining, nearly always wore her scruffy old blue and white sneakers and short, low-cut, sneaker socks -- usually fairly plain, light-weight cotton socks, albeit of varying colours, such as the dark blue ones she was wearing today. He had to take particular care of Miss Sujatmi's white sneaker socks, as they inevitably stained easily inside her sweaty sneakers. During the monsoon season Sujatmi preferred to wear her brown, chunky-heeled, zip-up ankle boots as they were more water-resistant than her scuffed and, in places, holey sneakers.
Miss Lastri had a preference for wearing ankle or knee-length leather boots with dark ankle socks or thick boot-socks, although she also frequently, as was the case today, wore dark nylon stockings or tights inside her boots instead of socks. Not that the dark colours of her tights made them any easier to keep clean - a footslave has to be ultra-careful when mouth-washing a young woman’s delicate, nylon stockings lest they snag and tear on his teeth. The punishment for laddering a mistress’s tights in this household was too terrible to describe in words.
Miss Awa, the family cook who originally hailed from West Africa, rarely wore hosiery – preferring to go barefoot in her leather sandals – although she did have a few pairs of mainly white ankle socks which she would wear, somewhat bizarrely still with her sandals on, on cold days, not that the Indonesian weather was ever particularly cold, even during the rainy season. The slave always found it particularly humiliating to have to stare at miss Awa’s white-socked feet inside her sandals. It was as if she was saying to him ‘you are not worthy to look at my beautiful, brown bare feet, so I am wearing these socks not just to keep my feet warm, but also to hide my superior bare feet from your view. You are not worthy to be an African woman’s footslave – only her sockslave’. Miss Awa did have a few other pairs of shoes and a pair of black, leather calf-length boots, but clearly preferred to let her feet breathe inside her sandals whenever possible, even if they were occasionally hidden inside her socks.
Mistress Ramelan, the twins’ mother and mistress of the house, never wore socks – only stockings or tights of the sheerest denier and highest quality, although she too often went bare-legged. She also had a particularly large collection of very expensive designer shoes with high heels and pointy toes which the footslave had to spend hours polishing and cleaning with his slave tongue – even those pairs mistress Ramelan never actually wore.
And then, of course, there was miss Merpati in whose sock-drawer Patheticus was now respectfully rummaging in order to find the correct pair of black, low-cut ankle socks with the multi-coloured polka dots. They were fairly typical of miss Merpati’s taste in hosiery. Unlike her twin sister Lastri, Merpati only had about 3 pairs of tights, and no stockings, preferring instead to wear ‘funky’ socks – never plain socks like miss Sujatmi or miss Awa, but always with brightly-coloured logos or patterns on them. Miss Merpati had over a hundred pairs of socks of various differing materials and lengths – over-the-knee socks, knee-high tube socks, calf-length socks, slouch socks, ankle socks, frilly, laced socks and low-cut ‘no show’ socks. The one thing they all had in common was that they were unmistakably ‘girly’ and feminine. She was, to use the jargon of footslaves, a real ‘sock-girl’, almost as obsessed by her sock collection as the humble footslave was.
Patheticus found the black socks with the multi-coloured polka dots fairly easily amongst all the other socks in the drawer. The multitudinous socks were all neatly rolled up in pairs and laid out in the drawer. That was because it was one of Patheticus’s responsibilities to take care of miss Merpati’s sock-drawer, and he always took pride in his humble work, however degrading and demeaning it was.
Patheticus, the girls’ sock-slave, put the rolled up pair of female socks into his mouth, taking care not to wet them with his saliva. There had been many occasions in the past when those same socks had been in his mouth and required copious amounts of his saliva to help wash out miss Merpati’s footsweat, but they were currently clean and fresh and ready for her to wear on her pretty, brown feet, and the last thing miss Merpati would want would be soggy socks on her feet first thing in the morning.
He then slithered over to miss Merpati’s shoe cupboard to retrieve the equally familiar leopard-print ballet-flats, so beloved of miss Merpati. Some might say that leopard-print shoes wouldn’t go with black and multi-coloured polka dot socks, but on miss Merpati, the fun-loving and rebellious young fashion-designer they somehow seemed to work. The footslave, at any rate, had come to appreciate miss Merpati’s taste in footwear. It was, undoubtedly, an ‘acquired taste’, but it did help to brighten up a footslave’s life. If you’re condemned to hours of staring at and caring for a young woman’s footwear it might as well be esoteric and unusual footwear.
Patheticus had particularly grown to like the flat, ballet-style shoes, although they were showing the signs of wear and tear despite his best efforts to keep them looking fresh and new. Some of the leopard-print pattern, for example, had worn off the area around the toes. They also, close up, smelt quite musty – the result of many sweaty days on miss Merpati’s feet, not that the smell would ever bother anyone else – only the humble footslave was ever close enough to the shoes to have to smell them.
He carried the pair of sweaty, ballet-flats in one hand as he slithered awkwardly, with miss Merpati’s socks still in his mouth, back to where she had been sitting on the edge of her bed.
Miss Merpati was now, temporarily, in her en-suite bathroom where miss Sujatmi was helping her to wash and get dressed. Having washed miss Merpati’s feet with his mouth, Patheticus wasn’t needed to assist her with the rest of her morning toilet. He was required merely to await the return of his mistresses from the bathroom, when he would doubtless be ordered to put miss Merpati’s socks and shoes on her feet.
Patheticus placed the socks and shoes on the carpet next to the bed and knelt humbly to await miss Merpati’s return.
Sure enough, after some fifteen minutes, the two young women emerged from the en suite bathroom, Merpati now looking much less disheveled and in her yellow top and tight, black leggings which came down to just above her shapely ankle bones.
She sat on the edge of the bed again in front of the kneeling footslave.
‘Slave put miss Merpati socks on miss Merpati feet!’ came the abrupt but anticipated order from his task-mistress, miss Sujatmi.
Miss Merpati, who was definitely in a good mood that morning, unusually for her
actually deigned this time to lift her right foot ever so slightly off the carpet to facilitate the slave in rolling the first sock onto her foot. The slave concentrated on the stitching of the sock as he first separated it from the other sock, then rolled it up in his fingers, before carefully stretching it over miss Merpati’s toes and then gently pulling it up her delicate and petite 20 year-old foot as far as it would go, which was to just below her ankle. He took particular care to smooth out any wrinkles or creases in the sock - it was important that the sock should do its job of keeping miss Merpati’s feet comfortable inside her sweaty shoe.
As he examined the stitching the slave could see signs of wear in the sock, particularly around the heel area, which was a pity as he liked this pair of miss Merpati’s socks very much and did not like the idea of miss Merpati having to get rid of them. As he put the remaining sock on her outstretched left foot Patheticus knew he could soon expect an order from miss Merpati to kiss her socked feet, and he wasn’t wrong:
‘Slave, I want you to pay homage to my socks. Begin by kissing my right sock – but only the red polka dots. You will kiss each red dot 3 times. Do it now!’ barked miss Merpati.
This was a favourite ‘game’ of miss Merpati’s – to specify certain areas of her socks which the slave was permitted to pay homage to. It gave her a wonderful feeling of absolute and arbitrary power, and was, perhaps, one of the main reasons why she preferred patterned as opposed to plain socks.
Patheticus heard miss Sujatmi laughing above him as she reinforced miss Merpati’s orders:
‘Ha! Ha! Slave obey miss Merpati. Kiss only red dots. Slave make sure lips not touch black stitching!’ she warned ominously.
Fortunately for the footslave the polka dots on the sock were quite large –large enough for him to be able to place both lips on a single dot without inadvertently touching the surrounding black cotton. There were precisely 7 red dots on each sock. He knew that because he had had plenty of opportunity to study the socks and count the dots on previous occasions. There were 7 polka dots of each colour – yellow, red, white, green, blue and purple – on each sock, making 84 polka dots on the pair of socks in total.
He remembered how, during one evening whilst she was watching television in the lounge with her parents, her feet resting on the end of the opulent sofa, miss Merpati had ordered him to kiss each and every coloured dot on these very same socks 100 times. Needless to say, it had taken him two hours to perform that particular degrading act of devotion – 8, 400 kisses to one pair of socks whilst miss Merpati was still wearing them! But he did it, much to Mr and Mrs Ramelan’s amusement, and at least this morning he was only being ordered to pay homage to one colour of polka dot, presumably because miss Merpati had a seminar to go to.
The only difficulty presented by the task was that two of the red dots were located on the sole of the sock, one near the toes and one near the heel, meaning that miss Merpati would have to assist him by raising her socked foot quite high off the ground to enable him to reach them with his slave lips. Perhaps the phrase ‘would have to’ is a bit misleading. Miss Merpati, after all, didn’t ‘have’ to do anything to help her slave to comply with her orders. If he failed to comply – he would simply be punished. The impossibility of fulfilling a mistress’s command was no defence for a slave in this household. But, fortunately for Patheticus, as has already been observed, miss Merpati was in an unusually good mood that morning, and she did, graciously, lift her foot up to enable him to kiss the two red polka dots on the bottom of her black sock three times each.
The two superior young women, both mistress and maid, watched intently as the humble, male footslave performed the humiliating task of worshipping the red polka dots on miss Merpati’s black sock whilst taking care not to let his dirty, slave lips stray onto the surrounding black material.
When he had completed the worship of her right sock, miss Merpati held up her left socked-foot, and gave him the following order:
‘Slave, you will now kiss the green polka dots on my left sock three times each. Again, make sure you don’t touch the surrounding black stitching or any of the other coloured dots.’
‘Yes, miss Merpati. I obey you, miss Merpati’. The slave felt it appropriate at that point to reassure his young mistress verbally that her every wish was his command, but miss Sujatmi seemingly felt that his words were superfluous and that he should be simply getting on with the task in hand:
‘No talking, slave. You a slave. Slave obey miss Merpati. Not talk, or feel whip!’ she spat.
The slave needed no further prompting. He kissed each of the seven green dots on miss Merpati’s left sock – three times each.
The women appeared satisfied with Patheticus’s efforts for miss Merpati next ordered him to put her shoes on her socked feet.
The slave could both see and smell the dark sweat-stains on the well-worn inner lining of the leopard-print, flat ballet shoes as he gently slipped miss Merpati’s socked feet into the soft shoes, first her right foot, then her left. He witnessed also how the tops of the shoes creased as she wiggled her toes inside them in order to make herself comfortable in them before standing up.
Miss Sujatmi reminded the slave that miss Merpati’s act of rising to her feet was a signal for him to kiss the latter’s feet:
‘Slave pay homage to miss Merpati shoes. Slave kiss! Worship!’
In fact, the slave did not need any encouragement to kiss and worship the shoes and feet of miss Merpati. Although he profoundly respected and admired her more intelligent and erudite twin sister, miss Lastri, for her sophistication and innate superiority, he had to acknowledge that miss Merpati quite simply looked ‘the business’ – a highly attractive and beautiful young asian goddess at whose feet he was fit only to grovel and fawn.
And so that was exactly what he did. He kissed the tops of miss Merpati’s leopard-print ballet shoes as she stretched out first her right foot, then her left, under his kneeling nose. As he did so he had a terrific sense of being completely in this young asian woman’s power as, relatively petite in stature though she was, she nevertheless towered above him. With a humble footslave’s sense of awe he admired the various contrasts between the elasticated bottoms of her black leggings, the smooth, brown skin of her shapely ankles, the elasticated tops of her short black socks just below her ankle bones, the various coloured polka dots on the main body of her now slightly creased black socks, and the leopard-print pattern on her short, toe-scuffed ballet-flats.
His humble kisses to her shoes were in genuine appreciation of all the above.
Merpati laughed as she sensed the slave’s awe:
‘Ha! Ha! What a lucky slave he is to have a mistress who wears such nice footwear for him to kiss and admire!’ she commented to Sujatmi.
‘Yes, miss Merpati. Dirty slave not deserve honour of serving beautiful young Indonesian woman like miss Merpati. Slave not worthy kiss miss Merpati socks and shoes!’ agreed Sujatmi.
‘I want to see him pay his respects to your feet as well, Sujatmi. After all, you may only be a servant, but as a woman you are better than him too!’ opined miss Merpati, somewhat graciously.
Sujatmi now laughed with delight and, somewhat coyly, readjusted her black headscarf:
‘Ha! Ha! Yes, miss Merpati. Sujatmi like have slave kiss her feet in front of miss Merpati. Make slave humble!’
The two girls duly swapped positions so that it was now the maidservant’s familiar, scruffy, blue and white sneakers, and dark blue low-cut sneaker socks beneath her blue denim jeans, that presented themselves under the kneeling footslave’s nose.
‘Patheticus, I want you to pay homage to my maid’s socks and sneakers by way of praising her for turning you into such a pathetic, humble footslave. Start by kissing the tops of her socks and sneakers. I want to see your upper lip touching the sock and your lower lip simultaneously touching the top of her sneaker. Make sure your upper lip doesn’t brush against her bare flesh,’ ordered miss Merpati.
‘Yes, mistress Merpati. As you wish, most merciful goddess-mistress Merpati,’ groveled the slave, bringing a satisfied smile to miss Merpati’s face. It was nice to hear that the slave recognized she was a ‘goddess’, for she often thought of herself in those terms.
For her part, Sujatmi beamed every bit as much as she stretched forward her right foot for the slave to pay homage to in the very specific manner ordered by miss Merpati. She was pleased because, not only had the difficult-to-please miss Merpati just complimented her on her slave-training skills, but also because it felt nice to have someone else ordering the slave to kiss her feet for a change, rather than having to order him herself.
As he carefully lowered his lips and felt the soft, warm, elasticated material of the top of miss Sujatmi’s short, dark blue sock on his upper lip, and the colder, more abrasive material of the sneaker on his lower lip, Patheticus was struck by the contrast between the co-ordinated, but relatively plain colours of miss Sujatmi’s footwear, and the exciting profusion of colours that had just a few moments ago assailed his senses as he had been kissing miss Merpati’s shoes and socks.
But he was nonetheless just as respectful of miss Sujatmi’s footwear – for, like miss Merpati before her, she was a superior and beautiful young woman who deserved and demanded his utmost respect and obedience, and it was a privilege to taste and to smell her chosen footwear.
He was, after all, nothing more than a girls’ foot, shoe and sock slave.

Part 6 – The Master’s wife

Having served her daughters, it was now time for the indentured foot-servant to serve the Lady of the house – Mrs Ramelan.

Patheticus was, not without reason, nervous. In the months that he had been in the Ramelan household he had learnt one thing above all others – which was that Madam Ramelan did not suffer slaves gladly, but gladly made slaves suffer. One had to always perform at one's best, therefore, when serving the master's wife.

And so it should be! After all, it was only thanks to the generosity of Madame Ramelan that Patheticus had been rescued from a life of despair on the streets of London, transported to Indonesia, given free board and lodging in the hole in the barn at the back of her beautiful house, and was allowed the inestimable honour of being her family’s footslave. Was not this superior and generous Indonesian woman entitled to perfect obedience from her pathetic male slave?

Once again, he was kneeling behind Miss Sujatmi’s heels, and staring humbly at the backs of her tatty old blue and white sneakers and dark blue sneaker socks beneath her blue, denim jeans, as the headscarfed laundry-maid knocked on the door of the master bedroom where Mr and Mrs Ramelan slept.

‘Enter!’ came the crisp reply of Mrs Ramelan’s authoritative voice.

Sujatmi duly opened the bedroom door and entered, with Patheticus the foot-servant crawling submissively on all fours behind her:

‘Good morning, Madam. Sujatmi hope Madam slept well?’ chirped the maid, as ever anxious to ingratiate herself with the most powerful woman in the household.

‘Good morning, Sujatmi dear,’ responded Madam Ramelan, who was seated at her dressing table, ‘Yes, I’m feeling really refreshed, and it looks like it’s going to be a lovely day today!’

‘Sujatmi hope so, Madam, though Sujatmi hear rain maybe come later.’

Although Mrs Ramelan despised male slaves such as Patheticus, she had no problem being civil to the female, and even the male, servants in her household. They were, after all, human beings and deserving of some respect as such – unlike the male footslave who was nothing more than a dirty dog, fit only to lick the dirt and sweat from her superior feet. Mrs Ramelan was, therefore, happy to exchange pleasantries with her laundry-maid Sujatmi, whom, in any case, she regarded almost as a third daughter – indeed, as the daughter she wished her own daughters, especially the wilful and somewhat wayward Merpati, could be more like - chaste, modest and hard-working.

It has to be said that Madam Ramelan did not know the real Sujatmi!

The two women continued their small talk for a few minutes, both completely ignoring the male slave who was still on his hands and knees behind miss Sujatmi’s heels, his eyes humbly fixed on a dirty, black mark on the back of her left sneaker – as they should be.

Mr Ramelan had long since left for work and Mrs Ramelan had therefore been on her own when Sujatmi and Patheticus entered the room. Being a ‘lady of leisure’ she was not inclined to rise early in the mornings, but it was clear that she had already showered as she was now attired in nothing but her pink and white, silk dressing gown and fluffy pink slippers.

Patheticus did, secretly, admire Mistress Ramelan. Although she must have been a few years older than him, in her late forties, like so many asian women she looked much younger. Her beautiful, brown skin, or at least that part of her skin which he was sometimes permitted to touch in the course of his duties i.e her foot-skin, was still quite soft and smooth, and, although she could perhaps be described as a little overweight, her calves and ankles were still shapely. Only her voice, slightly deeper and more authoritative than that of the other younger women in the household, gave away her age.

The smell of fresh coffee also hung in the air – Madam Ramelan was accustomed to making her own coffee in the morning – much to the servants’ consternation! However, it meant that Sujatmi could get straight down to business and concentrate on Madam Ramelan’s requirements as regards the services of the footslave:

‘Madam Ramelan want slave wash Madam’s feet?’ enquired the handmaiden, adjusting her black headscarf to ensure her long,black hair remained suitably covered in the presence of the mistress.

‘No, thank you, Sujatmi. I’ve already showered and bathed my feet. Just have him paint my toenails, please,’ responded the all-powerful mistress of the house.

Sujatmi immediately conveyed Madam Ramelan’s orders to the footslave in her own inimitable style:

‘Slave obey Madam. Fetch pedicure kit. Paint Madam toenails. Obey! Move!’

She kicked Patheticus in the ribs with her sneakered-foot, just to reinforce the command and to spur the lazy slave into action.

Madam Ramelan smiled to herself – Sujatmi had been an inspired choice for slave-trainer. The laundry-maid’s new role had really brought the best out in her – all that pent-up desire to dominate the male that resides in every female.

Patheticus knew exactly where the pedicure kit, consisting of nail-clippers, spongy toe-dividers and various little bottles of toenail paint, was kept – in the bottom drawer of the dressing cabinet at which Madam Ramelan was still seated, so he didn’t have far to crawl to obtain the little box.

‘Thank you, Sujatmi, you may leave us now and have your morning tea-break– I’ll deal with the slave directly,’ smiled Madam Ramelan.

Sujatmi was expecting this – Madam Ramelan normally dismissed her after just a few minutes, and it was a nice opportunity for the ‘hard-working’ maid to put her feet up in the kitchen and have a cup of tea and a chat with that other ‘hard-working’ servant – miss Awa, the cook.

‘Thank you, Madam. Madam ring for Sujatmi when slave finished?’

‘Yes, yes, my dear. Now run along!’ replied Mrs Ramelan somewhat impatiently – such a dedicated and devoted servant – Sujatmi really must learn to relax more!

As Sujatmi exited the opulent bedroom, Madam Ramelan’s cheery demeanour and tone changed almost immediately to one more appropriate for dealing with the lowest of the low – a male footslave. There now followed a series of curt commands, all in her distinct Indonesian accent, but nevertheless in perfect English, as Patheticus carefully fulfilled the role of slave-pedicurist to his owner’s wife:

‘Slave, kiss each of my slippers and then take them off my feet…Slave, suck on my cuticles in order to remove any sweat and debris…Slave, put the white toe-dividers between my bare toes…Slave, cradle my right foot in your dirty slave hand and paint my big toe-nail…Slave, use the red paint, and make sure none of the paint touches my flesh…’

As Madam Ramelan, quite literally, looked down on the slave from her seated position, whilst he humbly attended to her superior feet, she decided the time was ripe for some verbal slave-teasing. Madam Ramelan liked to play mind-games with the slave, as she was his superior intellectually as well as socially:

‘How do you like being my slave, footboy? Do you like having to suck and paint your superior mistress’s toenails, or do you find it a demeaning and degrading chore?’

Patheticus’s heart sank. He hated these question and answer sessions conducted my Madam Ramelan – she was always trying to trip him up, to find some way of misinterpreting his answers and thereby find an excuse to have him punished – not that she needed any excuse!

He had long ago decided that the best policy was just to give heartfelt, honest and obsequious replies in the most humble form of slave-speak that he could muster:

‘Oh pray, Madam Ramelan , if it pleases you Madam Ramelan, this slave is truly honoured to serve at the feet of his most beautiful and superior mistress, if it so pleases you, Mistress.’

Madam Ramelan laughed out loud at the pathetic male slave’s cringing reply:

‘Ha! Ha! That’s right, slave – you truly are privileged to serve at my beautiful Indonesian feet! But what I also want to know is, how do feel about having to serve the feet of the other females in this household? Take my beloved daughter, Lastri, for example. How do you like having to be the footslave of a 20 year old girl, when you must be old enough to be her father? Don’t you find that humiliating, having to grovel at her feet and lick her dirty boots clean and generally do whatever she says?’

Patheticus’s heart was racing with tension and fear – he must be extremely careful as to what he says, for the mistress was asking him about how he feels about serving her precious, and if truth be told favourite, daughter.

He had to think on his knees as he continued to attend to Madam Ramelan’s feet:

‘Oh please, Madam Ramelan, if it pleases you Madam Ramelan, this slave worships miss Lastri and is honoured to be granted the privilege of removing the filth from the soles of her boots with his slave tongue. This slave seeks only to serve your daughter miss Lastri to the best of his humble ability, if it so pleases you, most beautiful mistress Ramelan.’

Again, a wicked grin spread across Madam Ramelan’s pretty face. She was acutely aware that in another world, in a different place, this pathetic slave could well have been her social and intellectual equal, and yet here he was, on his hands and knees, carefully painting her toenails and addressing her as if she were a goddess – which, in this household, to all intents and purposes, she was:

‘Ha! Ha! And well you might worship my daughter, footlick, for she is your better, is she not? Is she not superior to you in every way – female, beautiful, intelligent, well-educated and with a bright career as a lawyer ahead of her, whilst your only prospects are to continue kissing and licking her boots for the rest of your miserable existence?’

Patheticus had to agree. Even if he hadn’t actually agreed, he would still have had to agree, because he was just a slave:

‘Oh yes, mistress Ramelan, if it pleases you mistress Ramelan, this slave is truly undeserving to ever be in the presence of his superior and merciful young mistress, miss Lastri, if it so pleases you, mistress.’

‘Ha! Ha! And why exactly is that, footslave? Why are you, as you rightly say, undeserving to be in my daughter’s presence?’, continued Madam Ramelan, keen to hear more self-abasement by the pathetic creature at her feet:

Patheticus was pleased to have an easy question to answer for once:

‘Oh Mistress Ramelan, if it pleases you mistress Ramelan, because this slave is nothing but a dirty footslave, fit only to lick the street-dirt from the soles of miss Lastri’s ankle-boots when she comes home from work, if it so pleases you, Madam Ramelan.’

Madam Ramelan’s merciless verbal teasing continued:

‘It does indeed please me, slave. But tell me honestly, surely you can’t enjoy the bitter taste of my daughter’s dirty, leather boot-soles? Surely the filth must stick in your craw?’

Patheticus was momentarily shocked to think that Madam Ramelan would ever be under the impression that he might actually lie to his female superiors:

‘Oh no, Madam Ramelan, if it pleases you Madam, the bitter taste of miss Lastri’s leather boot-soles tastes sweet to the tongue of this footslave, and her boot-dirt slides naturally down this dirty footslave’s throat.’

If Patheticus had been wired up to a lie-detector at that point it would not have stirred – for under Madam Ramelan’s cross-examination, he was stating the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

To Patheticus’s relief Madam Ramelan seemed pleased with his obsequious responses thus far:

‘Ha! Ha! Well said, foot-flunkey! But tell me, how do you feel about having to serve my other daughter - miss Lastri’s twin sister, miss Merpati? Do you like having to be her personal sock-boy, smelling and sniffing her dirty, patterned socks before you wash them in your slave mouth, or do you wish you could just treat her in the way so many arrogant, western men of your age treat young asian women – as some kind of ‘asian babe’ who exists only for their sexual gratification?’

Patheticus could detect real venom in Madam Ramelan’s voice at this point in their conversation of unequals. Something unpleasant was stirring deep within her. He wondered whether Madam Ramelan herself had ever been mistreated by a western man at some point in the past. It would certainly explain a lot, since the longer he was in this household, the more he was coming to realise that she had been the driving force behind his enslavement.

Whatever, he had to make it immediately clear to his mistress that he had absolutely no disrespectful or lustful thoughts towards her pretty, 20 year-old daughter, miss Merpati, but on the contrary was privileged to be the latter’s personal sock-servant:

‘Oh pray, mistress Ramelan, if it pleases you mistress Ramelan, this slave humbly begs his mistress to believe that he would never think of his mistress’s daughter in such unforgivable terms, Mistress, but rather is honoured and privileged to suck the sweat from miss Merpati’s superior socks, Madam, if it so pleases you mistress.’

Again, Madam Ramelan was secretly quite impressed with the footslave’s abject grovelling – it was entirely appropriate for the family footslave to talk about her daughter in such respectful terms. But she wanted to hear more:

‘Yes, slave, but I want to know exactly how you display your inferiority with regard to my daughter’s dirty socks. Do you truly concentrate on them whilst you are down in the dirt on your hands and knees, staring at them as she is wearing them inside her sneakers and shoes? Do you ensure that you examine them in minute detail as a good sockslave should - the pattern of the stitching, the creases and the folds, and the various mix of colours and logos - as they keep her superior feet warm and comfortable inside her shoes? And do you yearn to sniff her socks and lick them clean for her when she comes home from fashion college in the evenings, or do you, perhaps, consider that you have more important things to do than to study and worship my daughter’s dirty socks?’

Patheticus knew that there could be nothing more important for a footslave than to concentrate on the feet and footwear of whichever mistress he happened to be serving at the time. Indeed, it was precisely why he was now starting to perspire, for whilst he was being interrogated by Madam Ramelan and trying desperately to give proper and respectful answers to her perfectly legitimate questions, he was still having to paint each of her toenails with a tiny brush daubed in red varnish:

‘Oh no, mistress, if it pleases you Madam Ramelan, this slave wishes for nothing more than to be allowed to stare at his mistress Merpati’s socks whilst she is wearing them, Madame, for they are the superior socks of his superior mistress, and it is his duty as her sockslave to worship and adore them, if it so pleases you, Madam Ramelan.’

Madam Ramelan paused for a moment – she was evidently less pleased with this latest grovelling response:

‘Mmm…I’m not sure that anyone much cares what you wish for, slave!’

Patheticus realised his error. His last comment, referring to his ‘wishes’, could indeed be misconstrued as arrogance on his part – a trait totally unbecoming in a mere footslave.

Fortunately, Madam Ramelan appeared to be prepared to overlook this particular, tiny, indiscretion:

‘But enough about how you view my daughters, slave. How do you like serving the female servants in my household? Take miss Awa, my cook, for example. How do you like it when she makes you kiss her beautiful, bare African feet? Do you thank her for the privilege, or do you perchance think you are too high and mighty to have to pay your respects to a servant-woman’s feet by kissing them?’

Patheticus knew he was anything but ‘high and mighty’; in fact he was ‘low and weak’:

‘Oh no, Madam Ramelan, if it pleases you Madam Ramelan, this dirty slave is always grateful to miss Awa for the honour of being permitted to kiss her superior feet, for she too is truly his superior female master, if it so pleases you Madame.’

‘Ha! Ha! I’m glad you seem to know your place, footpig! But tell me, how do you feel about having to soften the hard skin on the backs of her heels with your slave tongue? Do you find that particular aspect of foot-servitude distasteful or unpleasant?’

Needless to say, there was another potential ‘trap’ here – it didn’t matter whether the footslave found a task ‘distasteful’ or ‘unpleasant’ or not – his tastes and pleasures were of no consequence – if ever he was ordered to lick the dry, chapped skin on the back of miss Awa’s heels, that was what he had to.

But in any case, as luck would have it, Patheticus apparently did not find such things distasteful:

‘Oh no, mistress Ramelan, if it pleases you Madam, this slave is honoured to kiss and lick the hard skin on any superior mistress’s feet, including the beautiful feet of his mistress Awa, for he is but a footslave, fit only to clean and soften the bare feet of his mistresses with his slave tongue, if it so pleases you Madam.’

For all Patheticus’s cringing servility, Madam Ramelan appeared to still have her doubts as to his total commitment to serving at the feet of women:

‘Mmm… but how do you like being in the power of my laundry maid, Sujatmi, foot-servant? How do you like being at the beck and call of a 25 year old, illiterate peasant girl all day long? Do you see her as your natural superior too, or do you think she’s just a slip of a girl lacking in any natural authority over you? Which is it, slave? Answer your mistress!’

Patheticus, realising that Sujatmi was the last remaining female member of the household that Madam Ramelan could refer to, was actually stupid enough to start to relax inside, thinking that he had survived his ‘grilling’ from Madam Ramelan without making any serious faux-pas:

‘Oh pray, mistress Ramelan, if it pleases you most merciful mistress Ramelan, this slave is truly indebted to miss Sujatmi for taking him in hand and training him in how to be a proper footslave to all his superior mistresses, if it pleases you mistress.’

‘Yes, but you haven’t answered my question, footslave,’ stated Madam Ramelan somewhat ominously. ‘I specifically asked you how humble you felt vis-à-vis my illiterate laundry-maid. I want to know whether you think you are in any way better than her? Perhaps you think, for example, that she should be the one waiting on you hand and foot, and not the other way round? I mean, she is, after all, much younger, slighter and less well-educated than you, is that not so?’

Patheticus thought it was a fairly obvious trap that Madam Ramelan was trying to lead him in to, and was confident that his next answer would help him avoid it:

‘Oh no, Mistress Ramelan, if it pleases you Madam Ramelan, this slave recognises that miss Sujatmi is his superior as she is female and he is but a male, if it so pleases you, superior Madam Ramelan.’

Madam Ramelan laughed at Patheticus’s touching acknowledgement of the superiority of the female over the male:

‘Yes, but what about Sujatmi’s scruffy old footwear – those dreadful, smelly old blue and white sneakers she loves wearing, with the ingrained dirt. Do you think her feminine sneakers are your superiors too? Do you worship them too, foot-drudge?’

‘Oh yes, mistress Ramelan, if it pleases you mistress Ramelan, this slave admires the ingrained dirt on miss Sujatmi’s sneakers and considers that the dirt merely enhances the feminine beauty of miss Sujatmi’s sneakers.’

CRACK!

Madam Ramelan delivered a sudden and totally unexpected slap across Patheticus’s left cheek with the back of her right hand, sending him crashing onto the ground, his head momentarily spinning as his cheek burned:

‘Arrogant, insolent slave!’, barked Madam Ramelan, genuine fury apparently in her voice. ‘How dare you insult my maid’s sneakers! How dare you suggest that they deserve to be dirty and that you are too good to lick off the dirt from her footwear! I have never heard such impertinence in a slave!’

As he lay on the ground staring at Madam Ramelan’s half-painted, red toenails, Patheticus, at first, struggled to understand what he had done wrong. But as Madam Ramelan’s words began to sink in, he realised how she had misinterpreted his words – she was taking his statement that he admired the ingrained dirt on miss Sujatmi’s sneakers as meaning that he thought he should not have to lick off the dirt!

It was, of course, a deliberate ‘misunderstanding’ on Madam Ramelan’s part. At last she had found her excuse to punish him. Even the stupid footslave Patheticus realised that.

But he realised also that he still had to play the game, and seek to apologise for his ‘impertinence’. Regaining what little composure he had, and positioning himself once again on his hands and knees at Madam Ramelan’s bare feet, he begged her for mercy and forgiveness:

‘Oh pray, Madam Ramelan, please forgive this dirty, arrogant footslave for his insolence! This slave humbly begs you to punish this slave for his arrogance and for angering the mistress with his insolence and disobedience. Oh pray, mistress!’

You will note that Patheticus did not seek to defend or to clarify the offending remarks – that would have been to add insult to injury, and further lashes to the lashes he was undoubtedly going to receive for his loose tongue.

Madam Ramelan appeared unimpressed. She pulled a cord that was situated above her dressing table and which rang a bell in the kitchen in the servants’ quarters:

‘It’s not me you should be apologising to, dirty, arrogant slave – it’s miss Sujatmi and her sneakers you need to apologise to! And, so help me God, I’ll see to it that you do, boy!’

Sujatmi was somewhat startled by the bell ringing in the kitchen. It was much too soon – she hadn’t finished her tea yet – surely that dumb footslave hadn’t finished Madam Ramelan’s pedicure already?

The indolent laundry maid made her way up the stairs to the master bedroom sensing that something was amiss. As she entered the room she was greeted by the sight of Patheticus on his knees ,sobbing, and fervently kissing the bare feet of Madam Ramelan who was now stood in the middle of the room, hands on hips, still clad only in her silk dressing gown but now with a look of fake fury on her face:

‘Ah, Sujatmi darling, come in!’

Sujatmi relaxed a little – Madam’s friendly tone towards her suggested that it was not she that had done anything wrong:

‘I’m afraid I have to tell you that this dirty piece of filth owes you and your sneakers an apology!’ continued Madam Ramelan. ‘Can you believe he actually sought to suggest that he was too good to lick the ingrained dirt off your sneakers?’

Sujatmi did not believe it. Indeed, she knew for a fact that her pathetic protégé Patheticus would never dare to suggest such a thing, but she was happy that Madam Ramelan had thought he had said it.

Of course, as he continuously kissed Madam Ramelan’s bare feet with their partially painted bright-red toenails peeping out from the fluffy, white carpet, the irony was not lost on Patheticus that it was Madam Ramelan, not he, who had effectively ‘insulted’ Sujatmi’s sneakers, describing them as ‘dreadful’ and ‘smelly’.

And yet, the simple reality within this slave-owning household was that a mistress could do and say no wrong – so, if Madam Ramelan said he had insulted miss Sujatmi’s sneakers by refusing to lick them clean – he had done. No court in the land would acquit him of the charge if a woman was accusing him.

‘Sujatmi, darling, please come forward so that I can have this conceited slave pay his respects to your sneakers, and beg your forgiveness, whilst I pronounce sentence on him!’ Madam Ramelan politely requested the servant-girl.

Sujatmi smiled and adjusted her black headscarf around her pretty face as she stepped forward and stretched out her right sneakered-foot yet again for the footslave to pay his respects to at the behest of another mistress.

‘Slave, you will now kiss the feminine sneakers you so brazenly insulted and beg miss Sujatmi’s forgiveness! Do it now! Move!’

With that, Madam Ramelan pushed his face away from her own feet with her bare, red-painted, asian toes and sent the penitent Patheticus in the direction of miss Sujatmi’s outstretched, sneakered foot.

Through his tears Patheticus could now see the familiar sight of Miss Sujatmi’s tatty blue and white sneaker and the elasticated top of her dark blue sneaker- sock. He lowered his lips, the same lips that had led to his demise, to the top of the sneaker and kissed the very ingrained dirt he had been accused of neglecting.

‘Beg my maid’s forgiveness, pig, I want to hear you plea for her sweet, feminine mercy!’ screamed Madam Ramelan.

Patheticus duly begged:

‘Oh pray, miss Sujatmi, please forgive this recalcitrant and disrespectful slave for his arrogance towards you, in implying that his slave mouth and tongue are too good to lick the precious, ingrained dirt from your beautiful sneakers. This slave begs his mistress Sujatami to have sweet, feminine mercy on him.’

He kissed the top of the outstretched sneaker again – several times.

‘And the other one!’ barked Madam Ramelan, in a kind of joint order to Sujatmi and Patheticus, the former being required to replace her outstretched right foot with her left; the latter being required to pay verbal and physical homage to the duly proffered left sneaker.

As he kissed Sujatmi’s left sneaker and, to her evident delight, threw himself at her mercy, Madam Ramelan, the judge, asked for Sujatmi, the victim’s, views as to what punishment she thought would be fitting for such a heinous crime as insulting a lady’s footwear:

‘Well, Sujatmi, darling, what do you think? Do you forgive him? Do you want me to show mercy to the arrogant, but penitent, slave, or would you like to see him whipped?’

Sujatmi took a moment to ponder the situation, although, if truth be told, she knew exactly what Madam Ramelan would want to hear – and therefore knew exactly what her view should be:

‘Mmm… Sujatmi forgive slave, Madam, but still want slave be punished for arrogance.’

As he continued to kiss miss Sujatmi’s sneaker and the top of her blue sock, Patheticus’s heart sank. The victim, who also apparently doubled as the jury fore-woman, had spoken – he was guilty as charged, and the jury of one good woman wanted him punished. Now it was up to Madam Ramelan to formally sentence him:

‘Slave, you have heard miss Sujatmi’s verdict. I hereby sentence you to 15 lashes of the whip across your bare back and shoulders, to be delivered by master Komi, my chauffeur, in front of the entire household, at the whipping post in the barn, at 19:00 hours this coming Saturday. Furthermore, you shall receive your lashes whilst the sneakers you have so arrogantly offended are tied over your nose. Let’s see how you like breathing in miss Sujatmi’s inner sneaker-stink whilst you are being flogged!’

Miss Sujatmi clapped her hands with delight – she always enjoyed watching Patheticus being whipped, but seeing him whipped whilst hearing him having to gasp in the sweaty smell of the insides of her sneakers, that was an especially nice touch on Madam Ramelan’s part!

For his part, Patheticus was just relieved at the relative leniency of the sentence – a mere 15 lashes for insolence and impertinence. Truly Madam Ramelan had a merciful streak to her feminine character.

At that moment there was a knock on the door and miss Awa the cook, somewhat tentatively, peered round the corner. She had come up from the kitchen on the pretence of finding out what Mrs Ramelan wanted to have for lunch, but in actuality because she was curious as to what was going on in the master bedroom.

‘Ah, Awa, come in, my dear,’ smiled Madam Ramelan, for the time being, apparently, divested of her feigned anger. ‘I was just going to send for you! I was wondering whether you had any complaints about this dirty footslave, as Sujatmi and I have just been discovering how arrogant and disrespectful he can be!’

Miss Awa beamed broadly, lighting up her pretty African face, as she slowly entered the room at her mistress’s invitation.

If truth be told, the easy-going cook miss Awa had absolutely no complaints about either Patheticus’s attitude or his work, but, like Sujatmi before her, she had developed a sixth sense for knowing what Madam Ramelan wanted her to say in any given situation, and so she made something up:

‘Well, Madam, I cannot tell a lie. The slave does sometimes allow his dirty lips to brush against my bare flesh when I order him to kiss the leather straps on the tops of my sandals.’

With her melodic west-african accent, Miss Awa did indeed sound as though she could not tell a lie. And, in a sense, she couldn’t – for she was a superior woman, and therefore, in this household, her word, like that of any of the female members of the household, was law. If she said Patheticus brushed his lips against her bare footflesh without permission whilst kissing the tops of her brown, leather sandals, then that was what he did – even if he didn’t.

Madam Ramelan had a look of feigned shock on her pretty asian face again:

‘Unbelievable! I just cannot believe the arrogance and ineptitude of this dirty, good for nothing slave! Sujatmi, darling, you must not feel you are in any way to blame for this slave’s incompetence. You have done your best to train him well as a ladies’ footslave, but he is clearly nothing more than a bumbling, clumsy buffoon. There is, I fear, only one way to drive such incompetence out of him – with the whip!’

She then ordered the hapless slave Patheticus to kiss miss Awa’s sandaled feet whilst she pronounced further sentence on him:

‘Slave, for your wanton incompetence and clumsiness when kissing miss Awa’s sandaled feet, I hereby sentence you to a further 15 lashes, to be delivered at the same time and place as before. Furthermore, immediately following your punishment, you will demonstrate that the whip has taught you proper obedience by kissing miss Awa’s sandaled feet 100 times each in front of my entire household, and woe betide you should your lips so much as graze against a single pore of miss Awa’s bare foot-skin as you do so!’

As he listened to his further sentence, Patheticus kissed the top strap of miss Awa’s outstretched brown leather sandal, taking care, as he always did, not to allow his lips to brush against her beautiful, brown footflesh.

Part 7 – The servants’ servant

Following the announcement of his sentence, Patheticus was, quite properly, required to complete the pedicure of Madam Ramelan’s feet, which she had been forced to suspend because of his outrageous rudeness about miss Sujatmi’s sneakers. Both Awa and Sujatmi, on Madam Ramelan’s invitation, stayed to watch the still sobbing Patheticus finish off painting Madam Ramelan’s toenails with the bright red paint, before the trio of the Indonesian Laundry maid, the African cook, and the white, European male footslave made their way back to the kitchen – the two female servants walking upright as the respected human beings that they were; the male footslave crawling behind their heels on his hands and knees as the inferior male animal that he was.

As they did so, you might think that there would have been something of an ‘atmosphere’ between the three servants.

You could be forgiven for thinking, for example, that miss Sujatmi, who had been entrusted with Patheticus’s training as a footslave, might have felt somewhat aggrieved at her protégé’s poor performance in front of the lady of the household -showing her up, as it were, by angering Madam Ramelan by his inappropriate comments – especially when those comments were insulting towards her own favourite pair of scruffy old blue and white sneakers!

But you’d be sadly mistaken! Sujatmi was, in fact, feeling elated. After all, the mistress had expressly exonerated her from all blame for Patheticus’s unacceptable behaviour, and had even done her the honour of allowing her to decide whether he should be punished or not. Furthermore, following Sujatmi’s guilty verdict on Patheticus, Madam Ramelan had decreed that, for his insolence and disrespect, he would be whipped not only in Sujatmi’s presence, but also with those very same sneakers, about which he had been so disparaging, wrapped around his nose whilst the sentence was being carried out – an ingenious touch by the mistress, and one which pleased Sujatmi greatly.

Yes – Sujatmi felt elated, and rightly so.

And as for miss Awa, was she, perhaps, kind-hearted soul that she was, feeling just a little bit guilty at having lied about Patheticus occasionally brushing his lips against her bare footflesh without permission – thereby earning him a further 15 lashes on top of he lashes he was to receive at Sujatmi’s behest?

No! Miss Awa did not have a guilty conscience and was feeling completely at ease. After all, she knew that in the Ramelan household a female can do and say no wrong. Patheticus must indeed have allowed his dirty, slave lips to brush against her bare African foot – because she had said that he did! And miss Awa, like Sujatmi her fellow maid, was very much looking forward to seeing Patheticus’s punishment being carried out that coming Saturday evening – especially the part where he would be made to kiss her sandaled feet in front of the entire household a total of 200 times. She would feel like an African princess having her feet worshipped by a lowly, captive male prisoner – her prisoner!

Yes – Awa was at ease with herself and the world, and rightly so.

As for the guilty footslave, Patheticus – his feelings were, of course, of no consequence, but, just for the record, if you think he may have been harbouring any feelings of resentment towards either miss Sujatmi or miss Awa – again, you’d be wrong. On the contrary, as he crawled behind miss Sujatmi’s dirty blue and white sneakers and admired the backs of her short, navy blue ankle socks, Patheticus felt nothing but humility and resignation: humility, that he was such an incompetent and disrespectful slave towards his mistresses – as Madam Ramelan had clearly shown to him; and resignation to the fact that he was going to receive a well-deserved flogging for his misdemeanours.

Yes – Patheticus felt ashamed of himself, and rightly so.

As they entered the kitchen miss Awa offered to make Sujatmi a fresh cup of tea, as her first cup had been so rudely interrupted by Madam Ramelan’s need to summon her back to the master bedroom at short notice. Awa decided that she could do with a cup of tea herself before starting to prepare Madam Ramelan’s, and then her own and Sujatmi’s, lunch. Needless to say she would not have to prepare any lunch for Patheticus (the footslave only had one meal a day which was his evening ‘meal’ of the ubiquitous stale bread and tap water), nor did it even cross her mind to offer the male footslave some refreshing tea.

In any case, Patheticus had work to do – his usual morning chore of scrubbing the kitchen floor, using the special scrubbing brush that had kindly been made for him by miss Awa’s husband, the household chauffeur master Komi. The scrubbing brush, or ‘mouth-brush’ as the other servants liked to call it, fitted neatly into Patheticus’s ugly mouth, thereby enabling him to effectively scrub the floor with his mouth whilst simultaneously allowing him to examine the dirt on the floor close up. As master Komi had pointed out when he had first presented Patheticus with the ‘mouth-brush’, it left him with no excuse for missing any of the dirt, and would therefore earn him the severest punishment if the tiled kitchen floor wasn’t sparkling by the time he had finished this particular daily chore.

At first, the inexperienced slave Patheticus had allowed himself to feel somewhat aggrieved at being required by the African cook and her husband to carry out the chore of scrubbing the kitchen floor! Believe it or not, he actually thought that, as a family footslave, such tasks should not be part of his job description! However, a few beatings from master Komi had soon helped him to see the error of his thinking, and, the more he carried out the filthy, back-breaking task, the more Patheticus had come to realise that it was, actually, an entirely appropriate chore for a household footslave to scrub the kitchen floor with a mouth-brush – after all, he was already well positioned for the task as he was permanently on his hands and knees staring at the floor, and the vast majority of the dirt on the floor came from the soles of his superiors’ shoes. So why wouldn’t he be required to clean off that dirt?

Miss Awa filled a bucket with lukewarm water and threw the mouth brush down at Patheticus for him to insert into his filthy, slave mouth:

‘Slave, clean the floor – and make sure you remove all of the dirt near the doorway,’ she ordered Patheticus in her melodic, west African accent, before joining her fellow, hard-working maidservant, Sujatmi, with two steaming hot and refreshing cups of tea.

As the two women noisily sipped the refreshing, hot beverage, Patheticus inserted his mouth-brush and lowered his own lips towards the lukewarm bucket of water. He then began scrubbing the floor whilst Awa and Sujatmi engaged in small talk and friendly chit chat with each other.

The two women ignored the male scrubber completely as he toiled away at his routine task, taking particular care, as he had been ordered to do by miss Awa, to clean the thick mud off the tiles that were located immediately inside the kitchen door – mud that could have come from the soles of any of the other servants’ shoes or boots. As he repeatedly dipped the mouth brush into the water and scrubbed the tiles the lukewarm water not only turned colder, but blacker. Inevitably, he swallowed some of it – he swallowed the superior servants’ shoe and boot mud.

After some twenty minutes Patheticus faced a bit of a crisis – he was nearing the area of the floor under the kitchen table where miss Awa and miss Sujatmi were sitting. He came to Sujatmi’s blue and white sneakered feet first. Even as he was admiring the way one of her short navy blue sneaker-socks was now lower than the other inside her scruffy blue and white sneakers, he realised that she, deeply engrossed as she was in her frivolous conversation with miss Awa, was apparently unaware of his presence close to her feet, and she was showing no signs of moving her feet out of the way of his mouth-brush. Yet he had to scrub the entire floor – including the area directly under miss Sujatmi’s feet.

Patheticus eventually decided that he had no option but to interrupt the ladies’ conversation and politely request miss Sujatmi to kindly lift her feet. It was not an option he relished, but to merely clean around the superior mistress’s feet, ignoring the dirty floor directly under her feet, at least without her express permission to do so, was not an option at all. He therefore removed the brush from his slave mouth temporarily, braced himself, and then dared to interrupt miss Sujatmi’s conversation with miss Awa:

‘Oh pray, miss Sujatmi, please forgive this dirty slave’s intrusion, sweet mistress Sujatmi, but this slave humbly begs his superior mistress to be so kind as to lift her divine feet so that he may scrub the dirt from under her feet, if it so pleases you, most kind and merciful mistress Sujatmi.’

It was, by any stretch of the imagination, a polite, and not unreasonable request, from a busy male footslave to, it has to be said, a rather lazy female fellow-servant. It was a request which fully acknowledged the female servant’s superiority over him and profusely apologised to her in advance for any inconvenience that would be caused by compliance with the humble request.

Unfortunately for Patheticus, however, Sujatmi was not in the mood to oblige him. She adjusted her black headscarf and tutted:

‘Tch! Sujatmi busy – not want move feet! Slave go away – clean under Sujatmi sneakers later!’

Miss Awa, too, was apparently angered by the footslave’s grovelling interruption:

‘No talking, slave. Do not disturb miss Sujatmi! She is my guest in this kitchen and you will obey her or you will feel the end of my rope across your back. Get on with your work, dirty footslave, and come back to the area under the table later. ’

Miss Awa was referring to the thick, heavy rope which she kept hanging on the back of the kitchen door and, rather mischievously, used to beat the slave with. She was being mischievous because, technically speaking, only master Ramelan, the head of the household, or his wife, Madam Ramelan, could authorise the slave to be beaten – but Awa liked to have the rope to hand as it was, as far as she was concerned, the only language Patheticus understood – and even the threat of it could instil him to visibly greater efforts – as it did now: no sooner had miss Awa mentioned the dreaded rope than Patheticus inserted the mouth-brush back into his mouth and did what he was told – he scrubbed around both her and miss Sujatmi’s feet – taking care not to splash any dirty water onto their respective african and asian feet, and not to disturb his female superiors again. He did not wish to feel the wrath of miss Awa’s rope – even across his slave-tunic covered back it stung and bruised.

Miss Awa and miss Sujatmi did, eventually, deign to end their tea-break and to move away from the kitchen table – allowing Patheticus to mop up the dirt on the tiled floor which had come from the soles of miss Awa’s brown leather sandals, as well as that from miss Sujatmi’s dirty sneaker-soles, with his pathetic scrubbing-mouth.

Later still, after the two women had lunched, Sujatmi led Patheticus on his hands and knees into the nearby laundry where there was yet more work for him to do under her supervision. A pair of miss Lastri’s dirty black boot-socks which she had been wearing to work the previous day inside her shiny, black, zip-up ankle boots, were lying, somewhat forlornly, in miss Lastri’s dirty linen basket awaiting the attentions of the footslave’s mouth by way of a pre-wash.

Miss Sujatmi sat on the edge of a table from where she could closely observe the kneeling slave, again adjusting her headscarf, her pretty, sneakered feet dangling in the air, as she gave him his next orders:

‘Slave clean miss Lastri dirty socks. Suck out sweat – dead skin. First kiss socks – worship! Obey!’

It went without saying that Patheticus was expected to pay homage to miss Lastri’s discarded boot-socks by humbly kissing them before placing them in his mouth – but Sujatmi had said it anyway.

The slave respectfully lifted the pair of dirty black, ankle-length, female socks out of the laundry basket before gently placing them on the floor and then lowering his lips to kiss them on the toes. As he did so he caught a vinegary whiff of miss Lastri’s day-old foot sweat, but, wisely, he didn’t baulk at the smell or show any signs of distaste for it – ‘that is the smell of your master’s daughter’s socks,’ he told himself, ‘and you are honoured to be given the privilege of not only smelling, but also tasting, your superior young mistress’s dirty, sweaty, black socks.’

Patheticus noticed that the young woman’s socks were, in actual fact, more grey than black with wear around the area of the toes – by far the smelliest area – as he humbly and respectfully kissed both the socks, prior to lifting one of them and inserting it, toe first, into his mouth.

It may have smelt vinegary, but it tasted salty.

Miss Sujatmi gave a wry smile as she observed the entire sock disappear into the slave’s mouth and watched him suck out of it the girl’s footsweat and little pieces of sock lint and toe jam.

For her part, the 20 year old trainee lawyer Miss Lastri, as she was standing up in court and arguing a complex point of caselaw before the presiding magistrate, was blissfully unaware that her humble footslave was at that very moment cleaning by mouth the thick, sweaty black boot-socks she had been wearing the day before inside her ankle boots. Nor did it even cross her mind that, tomorrow, he would be kissing, sniffing and sucking clean the toes of the dark, nylon stockings she was currently wearing inside her black, suede, knee-length boots. Lastri had more important things to think about – like how to get her self-evidently guilty client off on a technicality.

Patheticus spent some thirty minutes pre-washing miss Lastri’s dirty, black socks in his mouth before miss Sujatmi decided they were ready for the washing machine. She had Patheticus place them in the machine himself – for she had no desire to touch the dirty, now saliva-sodden socks with her own fingers – before ordering him to pay his attentions to the favourite pair of shiny, black, spike-heeled and pointy-toed, zip-up ankle boots miss Lastri had been wearing over those same socks the day before.

Although they were made of shiny patent leather, the boots were showing some signs of wear and tear – a slightly dislodged stitch here; an indelible scuff mark there. They were boots with which Patheticus had become very familiar over the months since he had been enslaved in the Ramelan household – and it was, seemingly, that very over-familiarity that was about to get him into trouble. For Patheticus committed the cardinal sin of a footslave – on being ordered by miss Sujatmi to lick clean the boots he momentarily forgot to first pay his respects to the right boot by kissing it, instead grabbing it rather roughly and immediately setting about lathering it with his coarse, slave tongue.

Sujatmi was outraged at his behaviour. She suddenly jumped down from the table on which she had been sitting and slapped Patheticus hard across the right cheek – sending the boot crashing back down onto the floor:

‘Slave pay respect to boot before start licking! Dirty slave! Slave not fit to lick miss Lastri boot without boot permission. Miss Lastri boot angry! Shocked! Boot want Sujatmi punish slave hard!’

Patheticus realised his error straight away, and could have kicked himself. He didn’t have to however, for, obligingly, miss Sujatmi was now kicking him in the ribs on behalf of miss Lastri’s offended boot:

‘Slave apologise miss Lastri boot! Beg boot forgiveness for slobber over boot!’

Patheticus duly retrieved the feminine boot he had so ungentlemanly manhandled, and begged its forgiveness:

‘Oh pray, miss Lastri’s boot, please forgive… this dirty footslave… for not showing you proper respect by first kissing you… and begging your permission to clean the dirt off your leather soles!’ he whimpered, periodically gasping for breath as Sujatmi continued to wind him by kicking him with her sneakered feet in the stomach and rib-cage.

The latter was enjoying herself immensely. She loved the position of absolute power she was in – of being the only one who could interpret what the boot was thinking and saying, presumably because the boot was, like her, female:

‘Miss Lastri boot say slave not forgiven! Boot want slave whipped! 12 lashes. Sujatmi get rope. Slave continue to kiss miss Lastri boot and beg boot forgiveness.’

Even in miss Sujatmi’s temporary absence Patheticus found himself begging the inanimate object’s forgiveness – begging it not to have him whipped. He had no choice. If miss Sujatmi said the boot felt violated – it did.

As Patheticus was dutifully begging her ankle boot for forgiveness, miss Lastri was celebrating her client’s totally undeserved acquittal in court. She was completely unaware that at the very moment her client had been cleared of all charges on a technicality, thanks to her complex legal arguments, back in the laundry room her shiny, black ankle boot had been sentencing Patheticus to 12 lashes with the rope.

Perhaps more to the point, even if she had known, she wouldn’t have cared. She wouldn’t care if Patheticus was suffering repeated blows across his tunic-covered back with miss Awa’s thick, heavy punishment-rope – for he was just a slave, and slaves often got whipped.

Having delivered the twelve strokes demanded by the aggrieved boot, miss Sujatmi continued with Patheticus’s humiliation:

‘Miss Lastri boot say slave woo boot; flatter boot; beg boot allow dirty slave touch it!’

So the feminine boot now wished to be wooed by the slave? Then wooed it would be!

‘Oh pray miss Lastri’s boot, most beautiful and feminine black boot, please permit this dirty boot-slave to touch your beautiful skin with his dirty fingers, and to place his lips respectfully on your exquisite and shiny black leather, if it so pleases you, mistress boot.’

Sujatmi laughed at the slave’s feeble attempts at wooing a female boot:

‘Ha! Ha! Miss Lastri boot say slave not forgiven. Boot still angry – say slave dirty pig! Boot make slave wait until tomorrow – maybe let slave touch boot and clean boot then. Slave thank miss Lastri boot for show mercy!’

And so Patheticus was obliged to thank the pointy-toed, spike-heeled, shiny black ankle boot for possibly allowing him to touch ‘her’ and lick ‘her’ clean the following day by which time ‘she’ may have calmed down. He would have to hope against hope that miss Lastri did not decide to wear that particular pair of favourite boots the following day – for she undoubtedly would then care about what had happened, and further punishment would doubtless ensue.

In the meantime, miss Sujatmi ordered Patheticus to instead kiss and lick clean the beige ugg-style boots of miss Lastri’s twin sister, miss Merpati. They, rather like their owner it has to be said, were apparently less fussy about who touched and kissed them.

As the failure Patheticus obediently kissed and licked the dirty soles of miss Merpati’s discarded uggs, the successful young fashion student who owned the boots, and who was currently wearing the leopard-print ballet flats and black ankle socks with the multi-coloured polka dots so lovingly put onto her pretty feet by Patheticus earlier that day, was charming the middle-aged, distinguished male fashion designer who was visiting her college into taking on at least one of the designs from her personal portfolio.

Meanwhile, back in the laundry room, Sujatmi had decided of her own accord, without even consulting miss Lastri’s black ankle boot, that Patheticus was deserving of further punishment for his male roughness:

‘Sujatmi go now to kitchen for evening meal. Slave not eat tonight. Not deserve eat. Ha! Ha! Slave eat only miss Merpati boot dirt and drink only miss Lastri sock-sweat!’

And with that she left him for about an hour whilst she tucked into a delicious beef curry prepared for the other servants, and the Ramelan family, by miss Awa. Patheticus’s stomach rumbled as he smelt the delicious aroma of the hot food wafting in from the nearby kitchen. But in his heart of hearts he knew that miss Sujatmi was right to deny him any food – he had not earned his, quite literal, ‘crust’ today – he had made so many unforgivable mistakes! Such ineptitude and disrespect on his part!

He desperately tried to extract a mud-encrusted stone from the tread of miss Merapi’s left ugg-style boot as a means of filling his empty stomach with something.

When she returned from the kitchen, fully satiated by her well-earned evening meal, miss Sujatmi happily informed the slave that it was time for him to stop licking miss Merpati’s ugg-boots and to get ready to go out on the streets of Jakarta as a foot-whore.

This was another daily task which Patheticus the footslave had to perform every evening. It was his way of paying back the Ramelan family for all their hospitality – by earning them some money which would help to pay for his keep i.e for his hole in the barn and his bread and water rations. He did this by tongue-shining the boots and shoes of lady pedestrians on the streets at night for a dollar a time. Sujatmi went with him – in her capacity as his ‘pimp’. Patheticus was the ‘whore’.

As it was raining outside that particular evening, Sujatmi decided she would change out of her sneakers, which often leaked and let the rain through, into her chunky-heeled, brown leather, zip-up ankle boots – or rather she decided that Patheticus would change her footwear for her.

She sat in a chair in front of him and ordered the kneeling slave to crawl over to her personal shoe-rack and fetch the brown leather boots. As she gave him her commands, she inadvertently let out a little belch, sending a waft of delicious beef curry up Patheticus’s nose. He felt even more hungry, as he carefully and respectfully first kissed, and then removed miss Sujatmi’s blue and white sneakers from her feet, kissed and straightened her dark blue sneaker socks, and then kissed and placed each of her chunky heeled brown leather boots onto her socked feet, before adjusting the bottoms of her blue denim jeans over the tops of her boots the way he knew she liked him to.

Patheticus always regretted seeing a mistress’s socks disappearing inside her boots. He much preferred to be able to see his mistress’s socks whilst she was wearing them, as it reminded him that he was the servant of her inner, as well as her outer, footwear. Perhaps he was also a bit jealous of the socks, being able to serve their mistress by absorbing her foot-sweat and keeping her feet nice and comfortable inside the privacy of her warm boots. But he consoled himself with the pathetic thought that only he and his mistress knew in such circumstances what sort of socks, if any, she was wearing on her feet.

Like anyone else would care?

Sujatmi also liked to take miss Awa’s rope with her whenever she pimped Patheticus as a ladies’ foot whore out on the streets of the city. It allowed for instant discipline should he display the slightest disrespect for any of his female ‘customers’. She therefore attached it discreetly to a belt around her waist, before grabbing a dark blue anorak with a hood which she would wear over her traditional, peasant-girl headscarf in the rain.

However, miss Sujatmi was not the only one who had to get dressed for going out. In addition to his plain, brown slave tunic, Patheticus was required to wear black leather blinkers on either side of his face – to better enable him to concentrate on the feet and footwear of the women he would be serving out on the streets without any distractions. In addition, attached to the blinkers by means of two small chains, was a wooden footblock which swung beneath his chin as he crawled along on his hands and knees – but rested conveniently on the ground whenever he lowered his head to service a lady’s foot. The lady concerned could therefore position her foot directly under his nose by resting it on the ‘portable’ wooden footblock. It was another of master Komi’s helpful inventions.

Master Komi would also be the one who would drive Sujatmi and Patheticus into the town centre - the latter kneeling in the back of the limousine at Sujatmi’s booted feet - leaving them off near the red-light district where Patheticus was required to ply his trade.

However, although he would be leaving them off in the red-light district, Komi the chauffeur had no idea that Sujatmi would, as soon as he had driven off, and as she did every night, make a slight detour on foot, with Patheticus in tow at her heels, towards a dirty squat in a nearby alleyway in the town centre.

Patheticus, however, knew exactly where Sujatmi was going. The chaste and traditional peasant girl was off to see her ‘secret’ boyfriend, master Budi, before pimping Patheticus out on the streets.

Naughty Sujatmi!

Part 8 – The foot-whore

As miss Sujatmi and Patheticus made their way through the dark alleyways of the town centre red light district towards Sujatmi’s boyfriend’s squat it started to rain quite heavily. Miss Sujatmi, of course, was alright – well wrapped up in her anorak with the hood, her traditional black headscarf, her blue denim jeans and her brown leather ankle boots.

Patheticus, on the other hand, being dressed only in his light weight, roman-style, slave tunic, was getting soaked, and as he crawled on his hands and knees in a manner befitting a footslave along the wet pavements, as ever with his slave face just inches from miss Sujatmi’s heels, his ugly face too became splattered with little drops of dirty rain water that sprayed off the back of her boots whenever she walked through a puddle. The wooden footblock hanging from the two chains around his neck made Patheticus feel even more miserable as it weighed his neck down – not that anybody cared, of course. But he was, at least, grateful for the black, leather blinkers on either side of his face, which helped him to concentrate on the back of his superior mistress’s feet.

They reached master Budi’s flat-come-squat soon enough. Try as he might, Patheticus could not bring himself to like 28 year old master Budi. He respected him, of course, inspite of his much younger age , as he was, unlike him, a free man and therefore his superior,. However, Patheticus had master Budi down as being a bit of a ‘wastral’ – he was, like Sujatmi, of peasant-village stock; was seemingly unemployed; smoked various illicit substances with apparent impunity; and drank a lot too. Even more gratingly, Patheticus was aware that master Budi paid for many of his drugs and much of his alcohol by siphoning off some of the proceeds of Patheticus’s labour on the streets as a ladies’ shoeshine-whore – money that Sujatmi was meant to give to Madam Ramelan to help pay for his keep.

Yes, Patheticus saw him as a bad influence on his beloved young mistress – Sujatmi, for example, only ever seemed to remove her headscarf, or drink or smoke, when in master Budi’s flat. But, be that as it may, miss Sujatmi was clearly very much in love with master Budi, and the humble footslave, therefore, had no choice but to shut up and behave respectfully towards master Budi – for that was what Sujatmi demanded.

Perhaps, if truth be told, Patheticus was just jealous of master Budi.

Sujatmi and Budi embraced as soon as she entered her boyfriend’s run-down, one-roomed flat. Master Budi was quite a bit taller than miss Sujatmi, and so she had to stand on tip-toe as she kissed him lovingly on the lips, causing the backs of her brown leather boots to crease and fold in front of the kneeling, and now drenched, footslave’s face.

Master Budi, as ever, was apparently anxious to make love to his girlfriend before the couple pimped Patheticus on the streets. As Sujatmi began to remove her ubiquitous headscarf and her other clothing he therefore gave Patheticus the familiar, grating, command:

‘Take off my girl’s boots and socks, foot-faggot!’

Master Budi spoke much better English than Sujatmi, albeit with his strong Indonesian accent. Patheticus couldn’t help thinking that the young man could make so much more of himself if he would only settle down and find a job!

But he must not forget who is the master and who is the slave.

Sujatmi giggled as she sat down on the edge of master Budi’s somewhat rickety and creaky bed, canoodling with him, as Patheticus, whom she was now almost completely oblivious to, gently unzipped and removed his mistress’s brown, leather ankle boots, followed by her short, navy blue socks. Whilst miss Sujatmi and master Budi took pleasure in their foreplay, Patheticus took pleasure in seeing his mistress’s socks again.

As she slipped off her jeans and panties, Sujatmi, momentarily, but only momentarily, aware of Patheticus again, ordered him into the usual position he was required to adopt when Sujatmi and her boyfriend were about to make love:

‘Slave take Sujatmi boots and socks and place nose in boot in corner of room.’

Patheticus obeyed, turning his back on the increasingly passionate young couple, and crawling with his mistress’s boots and socks in hand to a far corner of the room where he positioned the boots upright on the floor, inserted one of his mistress’s discarded, blue ankle socks into each boot, and then shoved his slave nose down into the top of the right boot.

As he listened to the moans of pleasure from the young, virile couple and the creaking of the bed behind him, Patheticus, the kneeling ‘foot-faggot’, smelt the warm aroma of miss Sujatmi’s inner boot lining and her sweaty, blue sock.

Fortunately, the couple’s passionate lovemaking didn’t take long – for Patheticus had much work to do out on the streets that night. The footslave-come-bootblack was always at his busiest during rainy evenings, when ladies’ footwear inevitably became all the dirtier thanks to the wet and muddy streets.

The young couple got themselves dressed again, whilst sharing a cigarette, with Patheticus only required, as usual, to put his mistress’s socks and boots back onto her pretty feet.

To Patheticus’s irritation, master Budi always insisted on accompanying his girlfriend when she took Patheticus out onto the streets. It was, of course, good for miss Sujatmi to have a big, strong man to protect her on the sometimes dangerous night-time streets of the Indonesian capital’s red light district – and Patheticus, wimp that he was, was far from being a big strong man, although he undoubtedly would have defended his mistress’s honour to the death if needs be.

However, Patheticus resented the way it was master Budi who actively sought out his female ‘clients’ – the young man always seemed to pick the women with the dirtiest footwear or the cruellest attitudes. Or was it just that most women were naturally like that – eager and keen to dominate and humiliate a hapless, male, public footslave?

Whatever, the rain had eased a little bit as the trio of master, mistress and slave emerged from the dirty squat to make their way back on foot into the heart of the red light district, and specifically to their usual ‘pitch’ under a lamppost in a dead-end alleyway where Sujatmi would stand beside the kneeling foot-whore whilst her boyfriend Budi drummed up business on the corner with the neighbouring main street.

A steady stream of customers were soon persuaded to avail themselves of Patheticus’s services – it was, after all, only a dollar a time, and master Budi could apparently charm any lady into availing herself of ‘his’ foot-whore’s services.

Master Budi had yet again excelled himself in his first choice of customers for Patheticus. Within what seemed like only a few minutes, he found himself staring at a dainty feminine foot as it rested on the wooden footblock directly under his nose. The female foot was clad in red, sparkly, high-heeled shoes and frilly, lacey white ankle socks, with a pretty flower motif of roses on the outer ankle. The young woman then appeared to be bare-legged up as far as a very short, red mini-skirt.

Patheticus soon discerned that the pretty foot belonged to a young Indonesian woman in her early twenties, who appeared to be accompanied by her boyfriend, a much older white man, perhaps in his late sixties. It was not an uncommon scenario – probably the result of an internet dating agency – and as soon as the young woman’s boyfriend spoke, Patheticus realised that this particular young woman would soon be destined for the United States:

‘How d’yall like mah fiancee’s shoe, boy? ‘Aint it purtty?’

The elderly man’s southern drawl was pronounced, and Patheticus, bizarrely, found himself wondering how the Indonesian girl would ever be able to communicate with him!

‘Slave answer master!’ barked Sujatmi, causing Patheticus to jump and the young Indonesian fiancée to giggle.

‘Oh, yes, master, this slave admires the young mistress’s red shoe very much, if it pleases you master.’

It was true – the sparkly high-heeled shoe was indeed very sexy and pretty, and the young woman seemed to be flexing her foot in front of Patheticus’s face in order to afford him a better view.

‘Heh! Heh! That’s right, boy, they’s just about the purttiest darn shoes ah ever did see! And what d’yall think about her sock – ‘aint it purtty too, boy?’

Sujatmi, standing right next to Patheticus, was listening keenly to his responses, eager to ensure that her foot-whore displayed proper respect to his superiors. Patheticus was aware of it – and of the rope dangling from miss Sujatmi’s belt:

‘Oh yes, master, if it pleases you, master, this slave does indeed appreciate the beauty of the young mistress’s snowy-white sock, master, if it so pleases you sir.’

Despite the rain and the mud on the pavements, the young woman’s shoe and sock appeared almost pristine, with just a few minute traces of mud splattered around the base of her shoe and one tiny speck of wet mud on the white material stretched over her inner ankle bone. Again, the young Indonesian woman flexed her outstretched foot to afford everyone, but especially the blinkered Patheticus, a better view of her ‘snowy-white’ ankle sock. The sock creased around her ankle as she did so.

‘Heh! Heh! ‘Aint’ that a fact, boy!’

It occurred to Patheticus that this elderly American man was probably one of the increasingly few people in the world who could legitimately refer to him as ‘boy’ based on their respective ages alone.

‘Ah bet y’all are wonderin’ what mah fiancee’s purtty white socks smell like, boy? Why don’t y’all git yoh nose into them thar flowers on the cuff and give them a sniff, boy?, continued the man, enjoying demonstrating his power and prowess over the much younger ‘slave-boy’ in front of his beautiful, young Indonesian fiancée.

Patheticus realised, of course, that the flower motif on the socks would not necessarily smell any differently from the rest of the young woman’s sock just because it depicted sweet-smelling roses. But he realised also that the American man knew it too – that this was purely an exercise in power and humiliation, and it was up to Patheticus to make the elderly man look good and strong in front of his fiancée. Besides, being on the side of her outer ankle bone, the flower motif would, if anything, be likely to be less smelly than the area of her sock around the toes, so the man’s suggestion was not too degrading or demeaning.

As Patheticus had guessed, the young woman who apparently did not speak much English had not understood what her boyfriend had just said to the foot-whore, but miss Sujatmi helpfully, and gleefully, translated it for her into Indonesian – at which point the young woman, still giggling, and perhaps a little the worse for drink, twisted her foot sideways on the wooden footblock to afford the foot-whore’s nose better access to the outside of her shapely, sock-covered ankle bone.

She laughed out loud as she felt Patheticus’s nose brush against the flower motif on the side of her white sock and heard him sniff. Her fiancé, and miss Sujatmi, also laughed out loud at Patheticus:

‘Heh! Heh! That’s right, boy, y’all take a god deep breath an’ inhale the aroma of mah girl’s sock. ‘Aint they the sweetest roses y’all ever did smell, boy?’

Patheticus knew it was a rhetorical question:

‘Yes, thank you, master, this slave thinks it is the sweetest smell he has ever had the honour of sniffing, if it so pleases you master, sir.’

Sujatmi continued to translate for the man’s young fiancée, who appeared capable of nothing more than giggling and laughter.

The American man, seemingly increasingly emboldened with his power over his hapless fellow-westerner, continued with his taunting of the footslave in front of the two pretty, Indonesian girls:

‘’Ah reckon it does please me, boy! But ah’ll tell y’all what doesn’t please me – an’ that’s the fact that mah girl’s sock is all twisted inside her purtty shoe. Look closely boy – y’all see how the sock has creased on her purtty foot?’

Patheticus couldn’t have looked any more closely at the young woman’s socked foot even if he had wanted to – it was directly in front of his nose:

‘Yes, master. This slave can indeed see the creases in the young mistress’s sock, master.’

‘Yep, ‘aint that a fact, boy! So, tell me boy, what are y’all proposin’ to do about it? Is you gonna beg mah fiancée for permission to straighten her sock for her, or do y’all think she should just put up and shut up?’

It wasn’t difficult for Patheticus to work out the answer to that particular question:

‘Oh no, master, this slave must indeed ask the superior young mistress for permission to straighten her sock for her, so that the young mistress’s foot will feel more comfortable inside her pretty shoe, if it so pleases you master.’

The man was relishing the humble footslave’s obsequiousness:

‘Heh! Heh! That’s right boy – that’s just what you is gonna do. So do it – beg mah fiancée for permission to touch her sock with yoh dirty paws, boy. Heh! Heh! Let’s see iffin’ she’ll let y’all do it!’

Patheticus knew he could rely on miss Sujatmi to translate his polite request to the young female customer:

‘Oh pray, young mistress, if it so pleases you, young mistress, please be so kind as to permit this humble footslave to adjust your sock for you so that it will be nice and smooth inside your pretty, red shoe on your beautiful foot, mistress, as the master has suggested, if it so pleases you mistress and master.’

Having listened to Sujatmi’s translation of Patheticus’s request, or rather her paraphrase of what he had said, for it must be difficult to translate verbatim such whining sycophancy into another language, the young woman appeared content to allow the foot-whore to touch her precious sock and to straighten it for her.

Sujatmi duly interpreted the young woman’s reply - this time for Patheticus’s benefit (and that of the young woman’s elderly fiancé):

‘Young lady say slave take off shoe and straighten sock but not touch young lady bare foot.’

The order was clear enough:

‘Heh! Heh! That’s right, honey-pie, you tell ‘im. He’s nothin’ but yoh slave!’

The young woman appeared to understand this, and beckoned to her fiancé to come over and help support her whilst she raised her foot off the wooden block to allow Patheticus to humbly kiss her sparkly, red, high-heeled shoe, then gently slip it off her shapely young foot, before respectfully kissing her white ankle sock and then adjusting it for her so that it was nice and smooth on her brown skin.

As he did so, Patheticus noted how remarkably clean the white socks were – not a hint of wear, or any trace of dirt, even under the toes, strongly suggesting that they may well have been a brand new pair of socks bought for her that very day by her infatuated fiancé. Whatever the case, it was nice not to be handling a smelly pair of female socks for a change. He also liked the way the lacey frill at the top of the sock brushed against his nose when he had kissed the sock.

Of course, he then had to adjust the young woman’s other shoe and sock, before the American man checked that she was happy with the foot-whore’s service.

It appeared, thankfully, that she was, for the American man not only paid Sujatmi the standard dollar but threw in a 50 cent tip for her. Sujatmi was pleased.

As the elderly american man and his beautiful young Indonesian bride-to-be departed back up the alleyway arm in arm towards the main street, the fact was not lost on Patheticus that all his hard work in carefully straightening the young woman’s socks would soon prove to be in vain, as her socks would inevitably slip and crease again inside her sparkly-red spiked heel shoes – but, of course, that wasn’t really the point. The point had been to humiliate the slave and to make the happy couple feel good about themselves. And in that sense Patheticus’s labours had proved to be successful.

But there is no rest for the wicked and no sooner had the couple departed than the foot-whore’s next customer was approaching. She appeared to be a Scandinavian backpacker-girl – tall, blonde, in her early thirties and wearing just about the muddiest pair of brown hiking boots that Patheticus, experienced footslave though he now was, had ever seen. Inside the dirty boots she was wearing equally mud-splattered thick, black boot-socks, the tops of which were somewhat crumpled above her ankle length boots.

Unlike his previous female customer, this articulate and independent young western woman was more than capable of barking down her own orders at him in perfect English, as, backpack still in place, she plonked her heavy right boot onto the wooden block under his kneeling face:

‘Foot-whore, clean my boots, and make sure you suck the filth off my boot-laces also – they are supposed to be white!’

Patheticus liked a powerful young woman who knew exactly what she wanted, and he immediately kissed the outstretched hiking boot and set about removing as much of the offending dirt from the boot and the boot-lace as was slavishly possible.

As he did so, the young woman, somewhat bizarrely, was actually apologising to Sujatmi – to Sujatmi, mind, not Patheticus – for the state of her boots;

‘I’m sorry that my boots are so filthy. I’ve been walking for 3 days up in the surrounding hills, and haven’t had a chance to clean them or even to change my dirty socks!’

Sujatmi laughed:

‘Ha! Ha! Miss please not worry! Whore like eat boot-mud. Whore hungry – not eat all day. Need eat dirt for line stomach!’

The young Scandinavian woman joined Sujatmi in her laughter, and now felt much less guilty about the state of her footwear:

‘Well, in that case perhaps your whore would like some cheese after his main course? I’m sure there must be lots of toe-cheese inside my sweaty socks!’

And so Patheticus, after he had swallowed copious amounts of Indonesian mud from the outside of the Scandinavian backpacker’s brown, leather hiking boots, was ordered to remove her boots in order to receive his ‘treat’ of cheese and biscuits for ‘afters’ – cheesy female Scandinavian toe-jam and sock lint that is.

As he removed the first boot the unpleasant stench of sweaty female foot odour that assailed his nostrils was quite overpowering. The young female hiker clearly had indeed been on her feet and wearing those same, thick black boot-socks for several days. But, such is the lot of a public footslave – sniffing sweet-smelling, clean, white socks one minute, as he had done with his previous customer, and then dirty, sweaty, black socks the next – each and every female customer’s feet and socks had to be accorded the same respect, whatever condition they happened to be in.

And so Patheticus simply braced himself and shoved his nose and tongue into the folds of the thick, black boot-sock under the young woman’s toes – sniffing and licking up her sweaty sock-lint, prior to respectfully peeling off the sock in order to lick the pungent toe-jam from between her soft but sticky bare toes.

By the time he had finished his degrading ‘meal’, and was putting the Scandinavian hiking-girl’s socks and boots back on her still dirty feet, his mouth and face stank of her personal foot and sock sweat. As he was retying the young woman’s, now sodden with his saliva, boot-laces, miss Sujatmi could not help but observe that, despite his earnest efforts, Patheticus had not really managed to suck off all the dirt from the laces – they were still a shade of dirty grey rather than the pristine white the young backpacker had indicated they were meant to be.

Ever eager to use the rope on Patheticus’s back, Sujatmi unhitched it from her belt and offered to beat him on behalf of the young woman for his failure to satisfy her demands:

‘Dirty slave not clean young miss laces properly! Young miss want Sujatmi beat slave?’ she enquired in hope, flexing the thick rope between her feminine fingers.

The young Scandinavian woman, however, had a mind of her own about such things, and it seemed she had not harboured such unrealistic expectations as to the foot-whore’s ability to clean her dirty laces thoroughly in such a short period of time:

‘Ha! Ha! No – it’s ok,’ she laughed, ‘I expect the whore has done his best. They were truly filthy to begin with, and they do look much better than they were!’

Sujatmi, palpably disappointed, reattached the rope to her belt. Nevertheless, she made sure her whore verbally thanked the young woman for showing him such underserved mercy:

‘Slave thank young woman for not have slave beaten - kiss young woman boots!’

Patheticus was indeed supremely grateful to the young woman for showing him mercy, and willingly showered each of her brown, ankle-length hiking boots with grateful kisses as he finished tying each of her grey boot-laces.

The young woman was happy to pay Sujatmi her dollar and left as another satisfied customer. Patheticus’s stomach too was satisfied insofar as it now felt much less empty thanks to the copious amounts of Scandinavian boot mud it now contained.

The next customer was one of the many female Indonesian prostitutes who worked the area. Although Patheticus didn’t know her name – either her real name or her working name – she was one of his ‘regulars’. In fact, many of his regulars were working girls in the area – it was important to them to keep their footwear clean, as, unlike the footslave, their clients did not normally appreciate girls with dirty, smelly feet.

In stark contrast to his previous customer, this woman whom he estimated to be about the same age as his mistress Sujatmi, was wearing nice, shiny, black patent leather high-heeled shoes and black fishnet stockings. Only a few splatters of muddy rain-water spoiled the appearance of the pointy-toed shoe that was now positioned on the footblock under his nose. However, ever the obsessive perfectionist when it came to ladies’ footwear, Patheticus couldn’t help but also notice a tear in the fishnet stocking just below the prostitute’s shapely, inner ankle bone.

Unlike the first young lady’s pristine white ankle socks, this prostitute’s black fishnet stockings were evidently not new and had been worn several times before. No matter, they were the stockings of a superior woman and deserving of every bit as much respect as a lady’s snowy-white ankle socks or mud-encrusted thick, black hiking socks.

The prostitute lit a cigarette and rested her arm on her outstretched leg as she gave her orders to Patheticus:

‘Slave polish shoe with tongue. Clean off filth. Swallow!’

She sounded very like miss Sujatmi with her delightful Indonesian accent and broken English, but she quickly reverted to her fluent Indonesian as she chatted happily to Sujatmi about the weather, about business – or the lack of it on such a dreadful evening - and about the state of her footwear, particularly the spiked heel on her right shoe which had a globule of wet mud and grass stuck on it.

The Indonesian prostitute and the ‘chaste’ Indonesian peasant girl decided that Patheticus’s mouth was the ideal place to deposit such unwanted filth:

‘Slave suck filth off madam’s heel. Swallow mud! Make heel shine. Slave obey!’

It was miss Sujatmi who snapped the order to him on behalf of the prostitute, and, to the latter’s evident approval, Sujatmi just couldn’t resist unhitching the rope again from her belt in order to deliver a couple of encouraging blows across Patheticus’s slave-tunic covered back. She knew that her prostitute-friend would not have any compunctions about seeing the slave beaten – unlike, it seemed, their previous customer.

The pain had the desired effect and did indeed invigorate Patheticus into making even greater efforts, as the prostitute penetrated his slave mouth with her spiked heel - using the roof of his mouth to scrape off the offending patch of grassy mud.

Patheticus didn’t really need this extra mud – his stomach was now full. But, of course, Patheticus’s needs were not important. It was much more important that the prostitute’s spiked heel was clean.

After he had cleaned and sucked her other spiked-heel shoe, the prostitute handed over her 1 dollar to Sujatmi and headed back to her own patch in the red-light district, happy in the knowledge that however low her own social standing might be in society, she was still superior to the male foot-whore whose stomach was now having to digest her shoe-mud.

Inspite of the comparative cold of the evening Patheticus began sweating as he saw the next woman approaching him out of the corner of his blinkered eye. She appeared to be a young policewoman, in her early twenties, and smartly dressed in a uniform consisting of shiny, black knee-length leather boots, dark stockings, a navy blue knee-length skirt and navy blue jacket with a white blouse and black tie. He also noticed a pair of handcuffs dangling from a black leather belt around her waist.

Patheticus was sweating because he had never been totally convinced that what he was doing on the streets of Jakarta at night was entirely legal – after all, his visa specifically tied him to working as the indentured servant of the Ramelan family. It did not allow him to work as a public footslave – at least, not as far as he was aware – even if he was carrying out his work as a foot-whore at the behest of his owners, Mr and Mrs Ramelan. Patheticus was astute enough to know that if he was working illegally, Mr and Mrs Ramelan would not be held to account – it was he, the illegal alien who would be thrown into prison.

He suddenly had feverish visions of himself struggling with the young policewoman as he vainly tried to resist arrest. However, trained as she was in self-defence and restraint techniques, she would soon overpower him, cuff him, and then be standing over him with the sole of her dirty, knee-length leather boot resting in a victory pose on top of his stomach as he lay defeated on his back in the Indonesian mud. She would then call for back-up, and have him thrown into the back of a police van before booking him into a dingy cell back in the police station.

She would then complete all her paperwork, finish her shift, and go out to celebrate her arrest with her colleagues – another illegal foreigner off the streets of her beautiful capital. The courts would undoubtedly sentence him to life imprisonment for working illegally and resisting arrest, and the young officer might even visit him in prison just to gloat over his demise and to inform him of her promotion which was, in part, due to her successful arrest and conviction of the dirty foot-whore.

As Patheticus’s imagination ran away with him, however, it soon became clear that the young policewoman was just another customer requiring his services. Pounding the beat on such a dismal, rainy evening inevitably led to her boots getting dirty, and Patheticus guessed that, as a policewoman, she would not be expected to pay for his humble services.

The policewoman certainly seemed to know miss Sujatmi, although Patheticus was sure he hadn’t served her before. She chatted away happily to Sujatmi in Indonesian, even kissing her on the cheek, as she positioned her right boot on the wooden footblock for Patheticus to, presumably, clean.

It was Sujatmi who clarified the officer’s requirements:

‘Slave lick clean lady immigration officer’s boot.’

Lady immigration officer! So she was from the immigration police! She must be here to arrest him! Once again Patheticus found his heart pounding with fear as he began to lick the mud-splattered lower part of the all-powerful young woman’s knee-length, black leather boot. He was vaguely aware of her smiling evilly down at him as he did so.

Then Sujatmi spoke again:

‘Ha! Ha! Slave like taste of lady immigration officer’s boot? Slave recognise boot?’

Recognise the boot? Why should he recognise the boot? What was miss Sujatmi getting at?

Sujatmi could tell from the confused expression on his ugly face that Patheticus had no idea what was going on. She decided, graciously, to enlighten him:

‘Ha! Ha! Slave a dumb-ass. Not Understand. Sujatmi explain: This Miss Atin, daughter of friend of Madam Ramelan. Miss Atin help Indonesian families get slaves; help Madam Ramelan get slave visa – stamp slave passport at airport. Now make sure slave visa made permanent. Make sure slave never be free – always be slave. Ha! Ha! Slave kiss miss Atin boot. Thank miss Atin for help Madam Ramelan make slave permanent!’

It was one of those ‘road to Damascus’ moments in which everything suddenly became clear – even to the stupid footslave. The speed with which his visa had been issued; the wry smile on the face of the female immigration officer, whom he now knew as miss Atin, and whose boots he had admired even then on his arrival at Jakarta airport some six months ago; the way she had seemed to put his landing card to one side, separate from all the others – it was all part of a successful plot by Madam Ramelan to enslave a naïve western man.

And it had worked. For the footslave, formerly known as Roger, now known as Patheticus, was indeed a slave for life, and would be serving at the feet of superior women for the rest of his miserable existence. And it seemed he had this, apparently corrupt, young female immigration officer, miss Atin, to thank in large part for his predicament. He therefore kissed the lady immigration officer’s black, leather, knee-length boot several times – with genuine gratitude.

And so our story has reached its happy ending, although, for the indentured foot-servant, it was clearly just the beginning.