Chapter 1

Mira and Tula were kneeling on the tiles of the washroom. The girls had begun their chores at first light as usual, after washing themselves.

Clothes washed, floors mopped, toilet scrubbed, they had knelt to clean and polish Master's boots.

Mira looked down, at the boot clutched between her thighs. It was a large heavy boot, made of a black alligator leather that had been well broken in and seasoned over time. There were wrinkles and crease all over it were Jason's foot had moved in and with leather, molding into it own shape. Mira ran her hand over the expensive animal skin, bending down again down to smell the faint but distinctive scent that her Master's foot had left inside the boot. Her face flushed and breath quickened she felt the tips of her fingers move over the ridges of leather.

She shook her head, trying to focus, arms aching, knees sore from working all morning with Tula washing Master's clothes, and then scrubbing and mopping toilet floors in the apartment. After the boots were done, she and Tula had to work in the leather room. There was a lot to do.

Boots were the hardest, because Master's way was so complicated. Mira breathed deep, remembering he was right in his whim, hands going unthinkingly to the slim, steel collar on her neck. She nodding to herself, pulling off the thin, soaked boot wipe that was wrapped around the bottom half of her long, thick black hair, she squeezed the dirty brown liquid from it into the bowl beside her. Then she moving her fingers through her wavy hair, she tried again, futilely tried to unknot locks, matted with the mud and dirt from the boot. Grinding her teeth with frustration, she sighed. Bending low, gathering her hair into a wad she stuffed it again into rectangular sack that was the boot wipe.

Mira still remembered shuddering in disbelief when her training mistress had told her and other slave girls, fresh collared, chained and kenneled together, in the Pens of Kabilia, that they were to be 'hair' and 'mouth' trained. All Kabilia girls were, Mistress had said, snapping her supple switch on her palm.

Up until then what she had learnt in the pens, was just what she had done in her father's hut, in their village when she had been free --cooking, cleaning, dusting, washing and sewing, for him and her brothers. She had been half terrified of being sold as a slave, when harvests failed again, but half eager to leave the hunger and mud of the farms, for the apartments of the city, where he was sure, she'd be, after she caught a handsome Master's eye. But she hadn't quite understood what it meant to be collared, to be a slave, before it came to the boots. She had been shocked at first at what was required of her, and had refused. But after she had slapped a few times by her mistress, who'd then touched her collar, making it sting, and after being well and solidly beaten by pen Master, she'd bent to her task. After she had done so once to their satisfaction, she had been put in a bare isolation pen, and had been ordered to clean boot after boot with her hair, for hours and days on end.

She would go to sleep at night in the pen, naked save for the collar around her neck, clutching the boot she had been cleaning to her pert breasts, unmindful of her hair still tangled in its lacings. On the fifth morning, having woken up at first light, almost unthinking she had started licking the boot she had slept with, trying remove a minor blemish on its side.

Just then her whip mistress walked in to the pen. Mira had looked down in humiliation as her mistress first laughed at her, then said derisively, "You're learning what you are aren't you, my dear." The Mistress had touched her collar again, and Mira had felt flash of humiliating heat deep between her thighs.

Mira felt the sweat build over her lip as she remembered, and her thighs moved against the leather that was between them. She gathered the strands of her hair together to twist more grimy liquid from her locks into the bowl. She bent forward as she did so; the liquid was oily and felt sticky if it fell on her body. Already her inner thighs, which she used to grip the length of the heavy boot as it lay on the floor, were greasy and dirty with the used cleaning liquid.

All the other cleaning was done now, and the house rule was that she wasn't allowed to wash or wipe herself until Master called for his cleaning-fillies in the evening. And if he didn't, because he was out for a day or two, spearing alligators in the marshes, which was his living, or felt like going out to the taverns with Master Marcus, then the gong didn't sound in the evening. She and Tula would spend a long evening, sweating over the alligator skins that Master had left in the tanning room, stretching, beating, and seasoning them, until their arms arched, and their back were sore. And all they were allowed to do, after that was to crawl onto the straw of their kennels, unwashed, going to sleep with the dirt from the days cleaning still stuck to their bodies. Mira felt quick flash anger wash over her again, as she remembered this rule. She hated the smell of marsh mud on her hair and thighs, and really ached to wash off the sedimented sweat and dirt on her body at the end of a long day.

"Oh no, Mira, of course not. Master doesn't allow that. I told you like when I explained all the rules girl!" Tula had smirked and then giggled when Mira had asked diffidently at nightfall after her first day in Master's kennels. The girls were at in the washroom, soaking the boot and floor wipes they had used all day with hot water, suds bubbling up a small bowl, with the special soap that was for that.