When Alice told me she had a surprise for me, I got worried. I knew she’d been working on something she kept from me for the last couple of months, and that much time meant something really elaborate could be in the offering. Now, Alice isn’t all bad, and she can be kind when I need her, but she is endlessly inventive (she studies engineering) and has quite a mean streak, too.

We’ve been together for about two years, and she made it clear from the start she didn’t want just a boyfriend, but a submissive houseboy. I had always dreamt of having a mistress like her, even if I didn’t admit it to myself. At first it was hard, until I accepted it, but she’s trained me to become really dependent and obedient, and I couldn’t resist her anymore if I wanted to.

It all started when she realised I couldn’t say no to her pretty, smelly bare feet waving under my nose. She would just tease me with them at first, wondering how far she could take it, but she soon had me doing all the house chores, tagging along her like a puppy wherever she went. I ended up obeying her every little whim and spending long nights rubbing, smelling, kissing and licking her feet, enthralled on the floor as she sat or lay on the sofa, or at the foot of her bed as she fell asleep.

All in all it isn’t a bad life, though I wish she kept me on a looser leash, let me go out alone with my friends or choose my own courses (I’m a student, too, and she makes me work a lot harder than I would choose to, and take massage and cooking courses, which is just embarrassing).

“You know how I love biking?” she asked.

“Sure”, I said.

For a while she tried to make me bike with her, but my body is just not made for it. I’m small and thin, and my muscles don’t get that much power so I could never maintain her speed. I’m sure if she ever needed it she could overpower me very easily, and she enjoys pinning me and trapping me with her body, but of course she only needs to tell me what she wants for me to do it. Except if what she wants is me biking with her.

“I’m going on a 5-day biking trip tomorrow. Easter’s a good time to take time off and I need some real cycling.”

“You don’t want me to go with you, I hope”, I said.

“I do want you to come with me, but I know it’s impossible. I could really do with you to fetch and carry bags and give my feet a nice tongue bath every night. Your tongue feels so good between my toes when I’m tired and it’s all squishy in there. Don’t worry though, I know you can’t keep up, so you’re staying here instead, doing some chores for me. I made sure you’ll keep entertained. And you’ll have so much to look forward to when I get back...”

“I’m sorry I can’t go with you. I’ll miss you while you’re away”, I said.

“How sweet!” she said. “You’ll see, though; I’ve made sure you won’t be completely deprived of my scent while I’m away. After all we don’t want your training to go to waste. Heel!” She clapped her hands, giving me the signal to go on all fours and crawl behind her.

I began nuzzling around her ankles, as I was supposed to. She slid her left foot out of her slipper, resting her toes on its heel and exposing her bare sweaty sole, which I couldn’t resist licking.

“Does that smell and taste nice, little mouse?” she asked.

“Mmmm--delicious”, I said in between long, slow strokes of the tongue.

“Good boy”, she praised. “Would you like to come?”

“Yes, please, Goddess”, I said. “Please?”

“Too bad”, she giggled. “Not today. You get so much more sloppy and inattentive after you come. We’ll have to work on that. For now, though, I want you to be absolutely focused on your chores while I’m away. After all, it’s taken a lot of work to set this all up.” She lifted her foot slightly and ran her dirty, damp toes through my long hair, making me sigh and melt inside.

“Crawl”, she said, walking to her bedroom.

I can’t deny I was getting a bit worried about what she had in store for me, but I knew that whatever it was I had no choice but to submit to it, and that I would end up enjoying it, even if parts of it proved painful, awkward or demeaning. If I didn’t like those things, I wouldn’t be with her after all.

“Haven’t you noticed anything peculiar about my socks lately?” she asked as she made her way.

“I can’t say I have, sorry”, I replied.

“Right”, she said. “You’re selfish and unobservant. Do you think they’ve been going for a walk into the washing machine and back into my drawer?” she asked. “You’ve not been doing sock washing duties this entire year.”

I remembered her making me work on her socked feet a lot last winter, especially after she’d been playing outside or running in the gym, and how little I liked some of her commands after I removed them, such as washing them in my food ball and eating or drinking soup with them in it, or slurping my tea through the sock’s toes she kept making me suck. I enjoyed her bare feet far more, and her socks got really smelly, especially when she wore them exercising in closed winter shoes. I also didn’t like having to slurp and swallow large mouthfuls of lint.

It made me worry about my health, too, though she wore only natural materials. I was even grateful once she let me stop her sock worship so long as I hand washed them, after one night when we got drunk and she let me express my concerns to her and held me as I sobbed. But it’s true I hadn’t done so for a long time. It wasn’t my fault though, they just ... hadn’t been showing up with the dirty clothes, or on her bedroom floor where she expected me to pick up after her.

“I couldn’t find them. I didn’t mean to avoid them, honest”, I said.

“And it didn’t occur to you to ask about them, did it?” she asked.

“It didn’t. I forgot about it”, I replied. She was right. That was unobservant, at least, though I wasn’t ready to say it was selfish.

She took a few boxes out of her private chest. It wasn’t locked, but it had been made clear to me if I ever opened it there would be consequences. Alice was like that about a lot of things: someone else might have used a chastity device to deny me pleasure; she simply ordered me not to come. “If you need a tool to control your slave, what’s the point?” she would say, and I can’t say it didn’t work. She had me wrapped around her little finger in no time.

“I understand”, she said. “You told me you found it really difficult to worship my socks. You remember that?” she asked. “You see, I’m really fond of you. You’re a wonderfully compliant playtoy, and I’ve genuine affection for you”, she said, and I felt quite moved.

“I think we have something great here, not just sexually, but I like how you think, you are clever, make good conversation when your mouth isn’t filled with my foot, and are a supportive and resourceful partner. All that good stuff. We could be very happy together for a long time, at least I could”, she said.

I had never heard something like this from her. Just how worthless, pathetic, docile and powerless I was, and how I was lucky she took pity on me and kept me around. I knew at some level she had to have more of an interest in me and that much of her verbal abuse was playful, but she’d never told me I mattered so much to her.

“Thank you so much, Alice”, I said, calling her by her name rather than mistress, in such an important and intimate moment, though still on all fours at her feet. “I ... I guess I never knew that ... It’s really good to know you feel like that about me. I will also be very happy to be with you, for as long as you’ll want me”, I said, barely avoiding tears.

“Now I am not going to tell you this very often”, she said, as she got a large wooden board from under her bed. “The fact is I am not always fair to you, and that’s not going to change. I like controlling you, and part of that is toying with you; playing and hurting you. I hope you realise this is how I like it and how it will always remain. I’m going to keep grinding you down, training you to please me better, and punishing you. Sometimes I’m going to be unreasonable and I’ll punish you simply because you’re there and I want to take out my anger. It won’t even be about you. Sometimes I’ll punish you for not doing the impossible, or for no better reason than I want to hear you scream and dip my toes in your tears. Are you ready to be mine?”

“I am”, I said with conviction. “I would like to tell you, Alice, that I realise what you want from me. That sometimes you want me to screw up just so you can beat on me, or mock me. I know you want to humiliate me and break me down, and while I find it hard to admit, the fact is...” My voice went very low. “I really enjoy being treated like shit. I love it. I need it.”

“I was hoping to hear something like that”, she said. “Now I’ll have to point out some of your defects, though: you’re lazy, you are not curious or daring. To be blunt, you’re a wimp and a coward, and while you’re obedient and submissive, you’re not devoted enough. You’re really bad at anticipating what I want or trying to delight me and surprise me, and at putting yourself last when I’m not telling you what to do.” She fiddled with some equipment.

“If I’m going to stay with you, you’re going to show me that you want it, you are willing to work for it, and though you can’t possibly deserve it, you will do your best. This is why I have prepared this for you. This five days you’re going to be washing the socks you should have been washing this entire year. It’s been 100 days and I wore a pair every 2 days, so that makes 100 socks for you to wash. Seems doable, doesn’t it?” she asked.

I really wasn’t looking forward to that, but I should be able to wash a pair every ten minutes or so.

“Yes, but what are those boxes for, and the board?” I asked.

“Good questions!” she said.

“Not so unobservant after all”, I quipped, though I regretted it immediately. I realised it is not wise to bait one’s mistress right after she opened herself up and unveiled she has a plan. Live and learn.

“Toilet time. We have to get you clean inside”, she said.

“Oh, come on”, I complained.

“NOW!” she shouted, making me jump.

I made my way to the toilet, sulking. She enjoyed arse play sometimes (I didn’t, much) and insisted on me being absolutely clean for it. I thought that’s what she had in mind.

“You’ll thank me for this when you know what’s awaiting you”, she said, pumping me full.

Then I lay in the bath, waiting while she timed me. After a couple of minutes, she got me to lie on my back sat on the edge of the bath and rested her cool, bare feet on my belly, pressing down on it hard and making me writhe with the pain.

“You look so funny when you do that”, she chuckled.

Then she stood on top of me and I felt like I was exploding inside. Eventually she went back out and let me release everything, after which I cleaned myself and the bath with cold water, only to have it done a second time for extra safety, belly stomping included.

It was then I realised what she had meant. If I really wanted to be hers, I should embrace it all. The pain she gave me, the times she made me do things I hated for her exclusive enjoyment, all those things were part of my submission, and it was time I learned to stop complaining and devote myself fully to her every little whim. So when she stood on me, smiled, and asked me if I wanted her to stop, I told her I wanted her to use me however she wished. She jumped on my water-filled belly three times, making me think my bowels were going to tear up, but her playful child-like giggles, and her cute mischievous smiling face, were all the rewards I wanted or deserved, as I dedicated my pain to her service in my mind.

After another thorough bath in cold water, she let me out and dried me with a big, fluffy towel, which felt really good. It always confused me how she could be caring and nice, though always controlling, but take such delight in my suffering too. She walked back to the bedroom with me crawling behind, and cuddled me in bed for a few minutes warming my body up. She liked grabbing my hair (which she made me keep quite long) and rub my face on her armpits, breasts, or belly. I had learned not to complain or whine about it, as it only made her more excited.

Eventually she got bored of having me around and forcefully kicked me off the bed. She did that a lot, but, try as I might, I never managed to learn to fall gracefully. She laughed as I hit the floor like a sack of potatoes and cried in pain.

“Nice pratfall there, Toy”, she said. “Goes with being such a prat, I bet.”

She got out of bed, treading on me as she stood up, with the casual carelessness of habit, and got everything ready for her plan.

“Place yourself on the board. Hands and feet on the corners”, she said.

I took my place and felt her move behind me. She began to tie me to the board. She looped ropes around my wrists and between each of my fingers, and then tied the loops to holes on the board so I couldn’t move my hands. Then she did the same to my feet, looping the rope first around my ankles and then under my soles so I had no chance to escape or even wiggle much.

“Let’s test the ropes”, she said, and tickled my bare feet though she knew perfectly well I was completely trapped. “Aww, you can’t move? Are you helpless, my pet?” she mocked. “Too bad!”

She placed the board, with me tied on it, under her desk, with my head pointing at her chair. Then she sat down, turned on some music, and fiddled with her computer, while she used her bare feet to idly and casually play with my face. She poked my eyes with her toes, rubbed my cheeks with her soles, shoved her feet in my mouth and pinched my nose and ears, all while paying me absolutely no attention. The one time I tried to say something she slapped my cheek with her sole and told me furniture doesn’t talk.

The ropes keeping me captive and the use I was put to, simply as a plaything for Alice’s restless feet to prod and rub, made me feel insignificant, like a tiny insect in an experiment. I enjoyed submitting to Alice, but when she didn’t talk to me or acknowledge me in any way, it broke something inside me: the part of me that makes me think I matter. It wasn’t an entirely bad experience, and Alice probably knew it. It was like my head was made of transparent stuff and she could see the wheels of my hopeless thoughts and feelings turning and turning as she toyed with me. I just let myself dissolved into each sensation: the rough rope on my wrists and ankles, the unpolished wood under my knees and palms, the smell of Alice’s feet waving in front of my nose, her sharp toenails poking my eyelids ... Bit by bit I gave up my desire to talk, to be talked to, and to be treated like a person or even a pet by my owner, and let the thrill of being nothing but a toy suffuse my whole mind and body, allowing each little moment, each perception of worthlessness, to build up to a complete sense of belonging. Alice owned me and she wanted me to be there, a prisoner lying at her feet. I was nothing, but at least I was being used, humble as my use was; and being used means one is useful.

A while later, it may have been minutes or hours, she wiped her feet on my hair, put on her slippers, and left me there. I knew better than to ask her anything, but I wanted to know where she was going, what she’d be doing and when she’d be back. It didn’t matter what I wanted, though: I had been put in place, used, and set aside, a toy back into the toy-box, all for her convenience.

She came back humming, which was a good sign. In order to avoid boredom, I had been thinking of her, and what she might decide to do with me. It made waiting for her, not knowing when she would come back, or even how long I had been held in place, more bearable, and she sometimes asked me about my daydreams to mine my own fantasies for ideas to use on me.

“Hi!” she said. “How would you like to be untied from those nasty ropes, curl up on my lap while I have dinner, and let me feed you with my hands? I brought chicken wings!”

“I’d love that, mistress!” I said a little surprised by the change of being ignored and treated like furniture to being cosseted like a pet.

“I bet you would”, she said. “It’s not happening though. You’re not getting free tonight. So no food either, or things could get messy.” She said it all in the cheerful, playful voice she greeted me with. It made her sound like a bit of a spoiled brat, though I would never dare tell her that. But then what did that make me? Being teased by a bratty princess only sharpened my humiliation.

“Tell you what, though. If you promise to be good and nuzzle my bare feet while I have dinner, I’ll take your board out from under the desk and keep you by me while I eat. Mind you, I want proper service: rub them for me with your face, and give them nice tongue strokes like a good little lapdog now and then. No uppity comments, of course. If I’m pleased I may even let you lick my fingers at the end. What do you say, pet?”

“Yes, please”, I said, knowing this was as good as I was getting. It was going to be a long night tied up to the board, but if I could at least interact with Alice it would go by quicker, though I’d have to humble myself at every turn.

“I’m glad to see how enthusiastic you are to massage my smelly feet with your face while I eat, little one”, she said, sliding the board away from the table and moving it by the sofa where she often sat to eat. “It makes me think you may be learning your place after all.”

She had me looking at her feet, stuck to that damn board I was beginning to hate. With a tray on her lap, she began to eat. If I could only be that tray ... We had a nice chat about this and that, me being very careful not to say anything that could be taken as insolence, and I did my part massaging her feet with my nose, lips and cheeks, giving them the odd lick. They were quite sweaty and smelly, and at first they stuck to my skin, but I couldn’t complain, both because I would only get punished for it, and because Alice knew I loved the smell of her feet even when they were pretty strong. Everything but sniffing her socks. It was embarrassing, and the smell of her food made me hungry for something other than the sock lint and toe jam I inevitably caught in my tongue and had to respectfully swallow. Her sweat was sharp and salty, and had a distinct flavour I had come to find familiar, and oddly comforting, but which left no doubt as to what I was licking, rather than the meal I would have liked. I made sure to run the tip of my tongue through every little wrinkle and groove on her soles. Part of me wanted not to be punished, but it was more than that: it was the servile need to please my mistress and to abase myself for her that moved me.

Her meal came to an end. She sorted her tray to take to the kitchen for washing later, but then she knelt on the floor by me.

“You’ve been a very good doggy”, she said with a smile on her face. “I need you to be good all the time, though, so you’re going to be broken this week. It’s time to do what has to be done. But before that, your reward: open your mouth.”

I opened my mouth and she fed me her fingers, one by one, letting me thoroughly lick and suck on them. She let me do both her hands, and seeing how excited I got, she push them in all over again while she looked into my eyes, making me feel small and helpless. Then she wiped them on my long hair, and turned me across, so my back made a convenient footrest while she watched a film.

Encouraged by our talk during dinner and my demeaning but soft treatment afterwards, I tried to talk, only to feel her slam her heels on my back and wonder if her footrest had made a noise. She kept moving around, treading my back with her sole, prodding me, raking her toenails over my skin, while I quietly submitted to her. I even cried a little, both from the pain and the shock of her harshness when I expected otherwise, and the frustration and embarrassment of feeling tricked.

It must have been quite late when my footrest duties ended, after a couple of films and some reading. At least while she was watching I could follow the dialogues, but afterwards I had only the weight of her feet on my back and the sound of turning pages. She gave me a last hard kick, and joined me on the floor. Her face got serious.

“How are you holding up?” she asked. “I know I’m being a lot rougher on you than you’re used to.”

“It’s ... very intense”, I replied. “May I be--”

“I’m not going to punish you for what you say now, unless you go out of your way to piss me off. This is too important. Speak freely.”

“I’m confused. I don’t understand what you’re doing to me or why. It feels like you’re grinding down my dignity, and playing with my feelings. Going from ignoring me or using me like a thing to being playful and even kind. I feel I don’t know why this is happening, or what’s going to happen next. It makes me afraid and alert, like walking through an unknown room in the dark, not knowing if I’m going to stumble or hit a wall.”