Chatty

A Muslim girl is approaching me whilst chatting on her mobile phone. She is speaking Arabic, so, being naught but a stupid slave, I have no idea what she is saying or who she is speaking to. But the conversation seems jolly and pleasant.

She does not interrupt her phone conversation to give me orders, but merely plonks her foot down onto the footblock in front of my face. She is wearing flats, with no socks. Now, in the absence of any verbal orders from a customer-mistress to the contrary, a public footservant’s default position is to kiss feet – specifically on the shoe or boot-toe. So that’s what I do – only to receive a cruel kick to the face a few seconds later, indicating that I am actually required to lick the bright young woman’s shoe.

It’s called ‘kick to lick’, and is an alternative way for a customer to indicate their orders if they are too busy, or just to haughty, to communicate verbally with a slave.

Actually, it’s more of a ‘shove’ than a ‘kick’ in this case, but it still hurts as it pushes my recently stiffened neck painfully to one side. I internally apologise to the Muslim mistress (for I am not allowed to speak unless spoken to – and then only about shoes or socks), and hastily begin ‘lickshining’ her canvas shoes (not that you can ‘shine’ canvas, but that’s not the point, of course; the point is to humiliate me.)

At one point she stoops down to look me in the face, but she is still chatting on the phone – probably about me, and probably saying something along the lines of what a pathetic, shoelicking wimp I am! She then walks off, still engaged in her happy conversation above me, leaving me with the bitter aftertaste of cheap, canvas shoe in my mouth. I do hope this bright young woman deigns to visit me again, so that I can do better next time.