Guess The Sock
The customer-master and mistress have decided to play ‘guess the sock’ with me. As I kiss-respect the mistress’s boots her boyfriend orders me to guess what colour of socks she might be wearing inside her long, black patent leather, thigh length boots. He warns me that if I guess wrong, he will arrange with the authorities for me to be temporarily removed from my dirty alcove and publicly whipped in the town square!
I ponder the situation for a moment, and then decided that such a stylish and beautiful, young woman as this would most probably wear black socks to go with her black boots – even though nobody would ever see her socks. I therefore, humbly, inform the master-sir that my humble guess as to the colour of his girlfriend’s socks is black, if he would be so kind and understanding?
The mistress takes off her boot to reveal that she is indeed wearing a pair of short, black anklesocks, and I breathe a sigh of relief. My relief, however, is short lived, as the master-sir angrily points out to me that his girlfriend’s socks are not plainblack, but contain little white flowery motifs, and why hadn’t I guessed at those also?
I apologise profusely to the master, the mistress, and her socks, and desperately kiss the exposed sock in humility and penitence. But it does me no good. The master-sir declares that I have failed to correctly guess the colour of his girlfriend’s socks, which he sees as my being disrespectful towards them, and he therefore confirms that he will indeed be arranging for me to publicly flogged as a punishment.
The couple then walk off happily hand in hand.
The following week I was indeed carted off to the town square whipping post and royally whipped across my bare back with a total of 50 lashes in front of a crowd of jeering citizens, including the customer-master and mistress whom I had so blatantly disrespected. With each burning, searing cut of the whip I resolved to be a better, more attentive footslave towards my customers and their socks, and to think more intelligently before I ‘guess the sock’ next time.
I deserved to be whipped.