This story is written by David, please send comments and appreciation to voondave@yahoo.co.uk

Tea, Coffee, and Me Ch. 3 of 3.

Ch. 3: The Compatibles.


Running the cordless Dyson over the crumb-strewn carpet of the Pavilion Lounge, I concluded that my employer Mrs Hilary Harper had got it right when she'd said that the thirty SPOILT! Boutique manageresses attending this year's Annual
Conference at the Brighton City-Break Hotel and Spa were liberally mixing pleasure with business; the manageresses, not just colleagues but friends with shared interests, were taking full advantage of the opportunity their five-day
conference presented them for a rare girls' get-together.

The high-end fashion, accessories, cosmetics, and personal services store manageresses' laid-back attitudes said it all: as much as a working conference, it was a pleasure trip, an all-expenses-paid excursion to the East Sussex seaside
and the bright lights of Brighton.

On top of that, Mrs Harper's two nineteen-year-old junior partner assistants, Amanda and Zoe, both on friendly terms with the manageresses who during the week had gifted them both a small fortune's worth of cosmetic and perfume samples,
said they had seen the manageresses out on the town enjoying the famed Brighton night-scene. Their hair skillfully coiffured, make-up expertly applied, and dressed to impress in their SPOILT! Boutique evening-attire fashionwear and eye-
catching high-heeled shoes, the manageresses were having a high old time, basking in the rapt attention of great-looking men who were none too shabbily dressed, themselves.

Mrs Harper's opinion was corroborated, by the lax attitude the manageresses showed towards their refreshments break schedule.

Their morning coffee break was supposed to be 10:00 - 10:30. But, just as Mrs Harper had predicted they had arrived early, and it was pushing eleven o'clock when with evident reluctance the Head of Conference, Miss Hazel Connaught-
Cavendish, finally announced that they should return to their conference room.

Their half-hour coffee break had gone on for over an hour, just as Mrs Harper said had been the norm. And she told me to expect at least the same schedule-busting overrun this afternoon when, for the final time before their five-day
conference wound down to a close, they returned to the Pavilion Lounge for their tea break.

But then I supposed it would make it more challenging to keep within reasonable bounds to a half-hour schedule, when some of the manageresses far exceeded their fair and equal time take-up to the unfair and unequal diminution of their
colleagues', selfishly overindulging in their refreshments-break luxury 'little something extra'.

Running the powerful vacuum cleaner over the carpet of the Pavilion Lounge to pick up the scattering of biscuit, cake, and sandwich crumbs that the thirty-strong contingent of coffee-breaking SPOILT! Boutique manageresses had left in
their wake, left to my own devices for the moment, I was at liberty to let my mind wander to reflect on the events of the last hour or so ...

Miss Hazel Connaught-Cavendish, Head of Conference and manageress of London's Oxford Street's premier everything-under-one-roof SPOILT! Boutique, and who at Mrs Harper's suggestion had been delighted to be the one to initiate me into my
male-worker role's principal duties, in taking tenure for sixteen minutes she had been the most flagrant flouter of the refreshments-break 'little something extra' overindulgers.

Miss Martina Morris, though, manageress of Brighton's SPOILT! Boutique store and who as the local agent was deputed to organise this year's Annual Conference, in taking tenure for fourteen minutes she had run Miss Connaught-Cavendish a
close second on the selfishness scale.

During the second half-hour or so of (over-schedule) coffee-break time, indulging themselves for seven or eight minutes each, only another four of the other twenty-eight manageresses had taken tenure of their refreshments-break luxury
little-something-extra facial footrest.

I did the math – and in my mind's eye I envisioned the all-too-possible aftermath:

At just six out of a total of thirty, this meant that, on this, the final day of their Annual Conference, it was going to be a very long tea break this afternoon if all of the other twenty-four manageresses were going to insist upon
having their rightful turn with Mrs Harper's new footboy.

Julie, manageress of the SPOILT! Boutique in Cardiff was one of the latter four.

The first, of the latter four to avail herself of their prized-position facial footrest, while other coffee-breaking colleagues made do with making use of my albeit still desirable and comfort-affording but 'lesser' back, sides, and
shoulder-footrests, as ceded during the in situ manageress's mid-tenure from-foot-to-foot switchover.

While I traversed the Pavilion Lounge; the Dyson, gobbling up the carpet-strewn crumb debris left by the thirty refreshments-breaking manageresses as though voracious for such titbits, I recalled Julie's 'accession'.

No sooner had the Brighton SPOILT! Boutique manageress and conference organiser Miss Martina Morris finally, and with apparent reluctance, given way; her bare heels, slapping against her kitten-heeled white mules as dolefully she'd
reintegrated herself among spectating colleagues – when suddenly I'd found the apparently fleet of foot and stealing-a-march Julie standing in front of me.

And then it was her turn: Julie's, holding forth, opinion-positing, centre-of-attention tenure of their facial footrest.

Positioned inside the accommodating 'V' of my widely spread apart legs as I sat on the carpet of the Pavilion Lounge, though Julie stood with her back to me I knew who she was from her crimson final-day-of-conference T-shirt.

And recognised her, from her thin white stockings – the left, sweat-moistened sole, I'd earlier observed with anticipatory dread should she subsequently accede prized position – as, standing with her back to me, she'd rested her left
foot upon my right shoulder during Miss Connaught-Cavendish's overindulgent overrunning occupation of the facial footrest.

Unlike my breaking-in first-user, the precariously teetering Miss Hazel Connaught-Cavendish, Julie had not been in need of my thoughtful and considerate transferal assistance, either initially or during her from-foot-to-foot switchover,
mid-tenure.

Julie had not needed me to take hold of and hold down the heel of her shoe to steady her balance, as, standing on one high heel, she eased her right foot from her other yellow leather stiletto-heeled pump and raised her foot behind her,
preparatory to adopting the single-footed stance of tenure.

But as Julie, unsighted and unguided, reached the sole of her thin-white-stockinged right foot behind her and upwards towards my conveniently positioned and compliantly waiting face, she had benefited, though, from my having earlier
identified and addressed the understandably irksome and tiresome inadequacy issue that had faced Miss Hazel Connaught-Cavendish and Miss Martina Morris, pertaining my face being merely easily reachable.

Benefited, from my off-my-own-bat facilitation, as, carefully tracking her sole's wayward approach, I leaned forward and manoeuvred my forehead to receive early and with pinpoint exactitude the bottom of Julie's erratically approaching
heel, thus thoughtfully aiding and making more easeful and less haphazard her blind navigational 'docking'.

Following the efficacious examples as set first by Miss Hazel Connaught-Cavendish and then by Miss Martina Morris, Julie had tested and retested, making the minor but essential adjustments to maximise security and minimise the
uncertainty of high-heel shod single-footed balance:

The bottom of her heel, planted in the centre of my forehead; her arch, right in front of my eyes; the ball of her foot, upon the bridge of my nose; and the undersides of her thin-white-stockinged toes encapturing my nostrils, Julie had
enhanced her surety of purchase, pre-commitment.

And, as once in situ – with the succeeding two manageresses to avail themselves of my shoulder-footrests; two more at my sides; another two at my back – I'd listened to Julie's pleasantly lilting Welsh tones as during her tenure she held
forth, the focus of her coffee-breaking colleagues' attention.

Listened, to Julie's pleasantly lilting Welsh tones, as, albeit merely incidentally and consequentially and so not deliberately and intentionally, Julie had obliged me to inhale the tangy aroma of her under- and in-between-the-toes scent
through her gossamer thin, almost transparent white stocking.

Listened, as, relaxing her weight and leaning into me as assuredly she would any sturdy and reliable inanimate footrest, Julie made the most of her tenure.

As I stared through the gauzy white veil of her stocking; my vision, encapsulated by the ultra close-up sight of her pale-olive complexioned arch, Julie lighted upon issues of current particular interest concerning their fashion-world
work and, as fashionistas themselves, close common interests.

As the manageress in-tenure, Julie had the floor.

Julie's sweet-sounding oratory was not merely obligingly listened to with indulgent politeness by her coffee-breaking colleagues. But, her in situ status, serving to imbue her every utterance, gesture, and facial expression with an added
little something, focusing their minds as well as seducing their ears she commanded their undivided attention as she talked fashion.

Though some of the manageresses offered their opinions relevant to Julie's pronouncements or chipped in with other contributions to the open conversation when Julie paused for breath, they withheld their comments and refrained from
making such observations while Julie held forth, hanging on to her every opinion-positing word while in-tenure.

As I'd listened in on the manageresses' fashion world insiders' coffee-break conversation – my part-of-the-furniture presence, soon seemingly taken for granted; considered normal, by the thirty refreshments-breaking manageresses – I
wondered if already I was learning to adapt.

For to my surprise, I was not the least offended, let alone repulsed, by the albeit unintentional and therefore merely consequential breathing in of the tart aroma of Julie's under- and in-between-the-toes scent through her sweat-
dampened semi-transparent thin white stocking.

Mulling this over, I thought back, comparing the noticeably tarter between-the-toes scent of the Cardiff SPOILT! Boutique manageress Julie with that of the manageress Julie had acceded, Miss Martina Morris, and with the discernible
intra-digital differences too of the manageress who had initiated me, Miss Hazel Connaught-Cavendish.

In conclusion, I realised that I hadn't in the least been put out by the incidental imposition and therefore the inadvertently unavoidable inhalation of these first three refreshments-break facial-footrest availing manageresses' foot
fragrances; and that further, I held similar non-negative sentiments towards the subsequent three: Emily, Ceri, and Lindsay, respectively the manageresses of the Birmingham, Swansea, and Edinburgh SPOILT! Boutiques.

It seemed apparent now that all of the presuppositions previously perturbing me were unfounded; my fretful fears and fraught forebodings, unsubstantiated.

And, to my dawning astonishment, I realised too that I hadn't minded; was not put out in the slightest, that the Cardiff SPOILT! Boutique manageress Julie:

The bottom of her heel planted centre-forehead; the ball of her foot, centred upon the bridge of my nose; the undersides of her nose-gripping, nostril-encapturing toes ensuring enhanced safety and optimum surety of high-heel shod
single-footed posture – luxuriated uninhibitedly in her having-the-floor, holding forth, opinion-positing, centre-of-attention tenure of the facial footrest.

Was this was another sign, that I was starting to come to terms with the requirements, expectations, and indeed the demands of my male worker's primary role – that I was learning to adapt?

I remembered Julie's from-foot-to-foot switchover, mid-tenure:

Julie, returning her right foot to its yellow leather stiletto-heeled pump, preparatory to availing herself of the facial footrest with the sole of her left, thin-white-stockinged foot.

And I remembered Julie's six accompanying mid-tenure switchover succeeding manageresses, taking up the 'lesser' footrest positions ceded by six of their colleagues:

Two of the coffee-breaking manageresses, standing to either side of Julie and likewise with their backs to me to avail themselves of my shoulder-footrests; an unshod foot, raised behind them to rest sole-upward atop 'their' shoulder.

Two of them, taking up positions at my sides to use the convenient footholds provided by the bumps of my hips, partaking of their refreshments as they listened attentively to the oracle-like oratorical outpourings of the in-tenure
manageress.

And two of them, behind me, staking their coffee-time claims to 'their' half of my back, their toes, untucking the tail of my shirt from the elasticated waistband of my community-servant style white work shorts to enjoy the next-to-the-
skin warmth on their bare soles.

Julie – mid-tenure, post-switchover:

Once again, in situ.

Single-footed postured.

Holding forth, once more.

The centre of attention.

Enjoying, the continuation of her coffee-breaking colleagues' constant concentration upon her every oracle-like utterance, eloquent hand gesture, and full-of-meaning facial expression – enjoying: the incumbent, having-the-floor,
opinion-positing, focus-of-attraction status of tenure.

Julie's lilting Welsh tones charming me as, albeit inadvertently and unintentionally and so not meanly and maliciously, unavoidably albeit incidentally I was compelled to inhale the tart aroma now of the under- and in-between-the-toes
scents of her left, sweat-moistened thin-white-stockinged foot, and—

"David, you'll wear that carpet out!" cautioned Amanda, suddenly materialising beside me to jolt me out of my reverie. "Didn't you hear me calling you? I've been shouting myself hoarse."

"No, Miss Amanda. I'm afraid not."

"Daydreamer!" admonished Amanda as she reached down to press the vacuum cleaner's Off switch; the whining note of the powering down Dyson, for all the world sounding disappointed and deprived.

"I'm sorry, Miss Amanda. I couldn't hear you over the sound of the vacuum cleaner."

"You mean you couldn't hear me because you were miles away; lost to the world – daydreaming. Don't you?"

"Yes, Miss Amanda."

"Zoe said you looked as though you were in a world of your own, and that she would have loved to know what you were thinking about – but I think I can guess. Penny for them ...?"

I didn't take Amanda up on her figurative pecuniary inducement to divulge to her my innermost thoughts but instead, glad at times like these to seek safety and take solace in full observance and complete compliance with AFP protocols as
applicable to such female-male interactions, I stared down at the carpeted floor, at the spot between Amanda's black-leather flat shod feet.

"Anyway ... what I've come to tell you is that we'll have to manage here without you for now. Mrs Harper wants you to report to the office of the hotel manageress, Miss Honeywell."

"Yes, Miss Amanda," I said respectfully. "I'll go right away."

"No – it's too soon. It's only ten past eleven, and Mrs Harper says you are to present yourself to Miss Honeywell at eleven thirty on the dot. And besides, I wanted a little chat, and this is the first chance I've had to talk to you on
your own."

"Anything you say, Miss Amanda."

"Zoe and I had been looking forward to your very first foot massage for us round about now; just a quickie, to initiate you into our service so that we could compare our first-impressions when we went to our workstation in the kitchen.

"But Miss Honeywell has rescheduled her daily Heads of Department meeting from four o'clock this afternoon to eleven thirty this morning. So now Zoe and I will have to do your work for you ..." said Amanda, looking over to where Zoe and
Mrs Harper were draping fresh white tablecloths over the four pushed-together serving tables "... and help Mrs Harper reset the serving tables.

"Which means that we're going to be behind with all of the baking and sandwich making and so on for the SPOILT! Boutique manageresses' afternoon refreshments break."

"I ... I'm sorry, Miss Amanda."

"It's not your fault – and don't worry, David. Zoe and I will be sure to make you make it up to us later. You can count on it."

"Yes, Miss Amanda. Of course."

"Oh – what refreshing respect! What, unaccustomed reverence. You are such an improvement, on the reluctant and begrudging, sullen and surly Neville. Not to mention, all of the other hopelessly unsuitable and inherently unadaptable male-
worker employees before him who were hardly any better. Lost causes, all of them."

"Not at all, Miss Amanda."

"Zoe and I so enjoyed your premiere performance. What an impression you made! Even Miss Hazel Connaught-Cavendish herself called you a perfect sweetie – and I can tell you: that is praise indeed.

"And Mrs Harper is over the moon with you; she can barely believe the dramatic change in her fortunes. So much so that she is now pinning her future hopes on you.

"So many times, Mrs Harper has been sadly let down and bitterly disappointed by the severe shortcomings of your undermotivated and hence underperforming forerunner failures.

"But you, David, with your ready willingness and eager-to-please attitude, have revived her dwindling aspirations and renewed her diminishing ambitions.

"The quality of application of our niche selling-point luxury little-something-extra provision as demonstrated by you earlier is unprecedented; incomparable, with the woefully inadequate service provided by your lamentably lacklustre,
lugubrious and curmudgeonly former incumbents.

"With your superlative self-initiative: your pleasing propensity for not-needing-to-be-asked-or-told, off-your-own-bat facilitations and other unprompted helpful aids and considerate off-the-cuff conveniences – you and your novel
niceties were an unqualified success at the SPOILT! Boutique manageresses' morning refreshments break."

"Thank you, Miss Amanda."

"Oh – 'Anything you say, Miss Amanda'; 'Yes, Miss Amanda, of course'; 'Not at all, Miss Amanda'; 'I'm sorry, Miss Amanda'; 'Thank you, Miss Amanda' – I could get used to this!

"You may have thought that I was used to it already; that by now, I would be thoroughly accustomed to the deferential respect and solicitous consideration of male citizens – but no. We are getting there, but there is still a long way to
go in the reconditioning process of male citizen mindset transition.

"But, at least in as far as we at Harper's Conference Catering are concerned, after witnessing your almost faultless debut this morning in the Pavilion Lounge, I really and truly believe now that Mrs Harper's exasperating and at times
seemingly futile quest to find the elusive key-role male employee of the required calibre is finally at an end.

"I can't tell you, David, how much Zoe and I are looking forward to having you serve us.

"To have you – who in such stark contrast to all of your intractable and intransigent antipathetic antecedents, are so willing and welcoming and congenial and compliant – provide our at-work fringe benefit."

Feeling myself colouring at the compliment, again I looked down at the carpeted floor, meekly staring at the spot between Amanda's black-leather flat shod feet.

"Oh – and there it is again! What a wonderfully welcome change: An AFP protocol observing, Female-Friendly Code compliant, respectfully downcast gaze – how unutterably pleasing it is to see it!

"Your reverent attitude and humble demeanour are highly gratifying; a most welcome improvement from the brazen, insolent, authority-challenging eye-to-eye stares of Neville and his fellow truculent and defiant ne'er-do-wells before him
who, thank heavens, Zoe and I are now no longer lumbered with," complimented Amanda.

"David, I'll let you into a little secret: Neville, and all the rest of your tiresome here-today-gone-tomorrow runaway predecessors ...? Most of them fled, less, because of the refreshments-break impositions placed on them by our female
clientele, but more, because of the uncompromising requirements and non-negotiable demands put upon them by Zoe and me.

"Because, David, let me tell you now: Zoe and I are not prepared to compromise our expectations and see still less reason to negotiate particular requirement exemptions with our at-work fringe benefit – our shared foot servant.

"Neville, and the rest? Their hearts just weren't in it.

"Unable to forget the past; mentally unequipped, to realise that what's gone is gone for good and to accept as permanent and irreversible the changeover to the way things are now in this new era of female-rule, in their simmering
resistance and smouldering resentment they'd turned their minds against us.

"In their unalterable antipathy to the ideological principles of the AFP government's Female-Friendly Code concept and their outright rejection of its fundamental values, irrationally entrenched in their pointless pigheaded stubbornness
they'd steadfastly refused to adapt.

"And, because we had to win their obedience because we could win neither their hearts or their minds, I can't tell you, just how utterly tedious it was for Zoe and me to continually have to cajole and compel the irreconcilable
knuckleheads to compliance.

"All we wanted, was for them to do as we told them; is that too much to ask?"

To say that I was surprised, by Amanda's candid revelation regarding her and Zoe's overenthusiastic personal use, misuse, and borderline abuse of my under-enthusiastic absconded predecessors and taken aback by her frankness as to the
uncompromising and non-negotiable usage her and Zoe's latest replacement at-work fringe benefit foot servant could similarly expect, would be colossal understatements.

"But, David Manners, right away, in you I saw our missing team player: our male-worker role employee, who would not abscond; would not let us down – and, who might even learn to adapt.

"Our key-role male employee, of the required calibre.

"Right away, I intuited that you possessed the right qualifications; the prerequisite credentials, that, until now, we have sought so long in vain:

"The prerequisite credentials, of a genuine Compatible."

I stared at Amanda in incomprehension.

"Oh, we know you are out there, you Compatibles.

"As do Caroline Flynt's Authoritarian Female Party government.

"Through collaborating government agencies such as our Job Centres and with the supplementary cooperation of various Compatibility Programme-participating CCTV-equipped social hubs which, as the case may be, either summon or attract a
conducive congregation, the AFP are tapping into this previously underexploited resource and extracting like diamonds this coveted commodity from virtually untouched seams.

"And what, previously underexploited resource; what, diamonds, am I talking about, David ...? Why, you foot fetishists, of course."

Amanda paused, allowing me the opportunity to reply.

Upon seeing that I was too dumbfounded by her astounding assertion to respond, Amanda then went on, to elaborate and to enlighten.

"By and large, and by degree, admirers of the female foot are known to be of a submissive nature.

"Many of you, although you may never have thought of yourselves as such, are inclined towards feminism.

"Some of you, have the propensity to be not just feminist-light but outright, full-blown feminists.

"A few of you – although you might not yet have realised, understood, acknowledged, accepted, and admitted it to yourselves – are ultra-feminist.

"And, in the case of many of these males of an ultra-feminist persuasion, devout woman-worship is embedded in their DNA.

"Already naturally inclined towards the Female-Friendly concept, they are readily receptive to the alluring overtures of its fundamental message – though as yet they may not be responding to it, they most definitely hear it.

"Therefore, already they are more than halfway towards embracing the principal tenets enshrining the female-friendly cause and are just a short step further from burning their bridge and scuttling their boat and committing themselves
wholeheartedly to adopting AFP ideology as a lifestyle choice.

"All they need, this extreme-element, dyed-in-the-wool, ultra-feminist category of males, is just another little push in the right direction.

"Scoping out social settings and patrolling public places, either singly or teamed up in pairs are AFP female operatives deployed by the Department of Compatibility.

"Nicknamed the 'Diamond Hunters' because 'diamonds are a girl's best friend', these female agents' routine reconnoitres and random rovings are regularly rewarded.

"Trained to spot and recognise the guarded and disguised downward glances of their unsuspecting targets and to then, seemingly casually, provide their surreptitious spectators with the full-hit stimulus: the eye-catching, attention-
grabbing, apparently absentminded shoe-playing performance-extraordinaire that within seconds will reduce their unwitting subjects to a state of helpless avid captivation ... thus these female agents perform their specialist remit and
accomplish the first stage of their mission.

"After a precautionary few minutes, maintaining the ruse that she is oblivious to the apparent proclivity of her baited and now ensnared prey and preserving the impression that his little secret is safe, under the guise of a routine Stop
and Question procedure the successful plainclothes honeytrap agent presents her AFP credentials to her unsuspecting victim.

"Thus, with an everyday, entirely regular show of official authority that will not alert or alarm him unduly, she has enabled herself to 'routinely' examine his Male Citizen Identity Card.

"Based upon the intelligence filed in the agent's subsequent report, a surveillance-led follow-up investigation is undertaken to ascertain the exploitative extents of her uncovered foot fetishist's compatibility.

"Predominantly, though, although the out-and-about, on-the-prowl plainclothes female Diamond Hunter agents play an important role, it is their deskbound colleagues back at base, nicknamed the 'Diamond Sifters', who most frequently hit
paydirt.

"It is from information gleaned by these dedicated specialist teams of giveaway-clue searching and telltale-sign detecting operatives at the Department of Compatibility, that from their daily expert evaluation and painstaking analysis of
hundreds of hours of officially submitted, sympathist-forwarded, and otherwise obtained/appropriated/confiscated CCTV footage, the AFP is extruding its main supply of Compatibles.

"Comparatively willing and submissive, the amenability and the malleability of the Compatibles is prevailed upon to mitigate the troublesome inefficiencies and minimise the irksome inadequacies of the unwilling and resentful and hence
recalcitrant and unmanipulable mainstream female-friendly service provider workforce. Who, either Placemented, forcibly induced or otherwise coerced, facilitate the AFP's most demanding, demeaning, demoralising and therefore the most
difficult to man and hence the most critically underprovisioned female-friendly programmes, projects and schemes.

"As a direct consequence of their Compatible husbandry, the AFP is beginning to benefit from significantly improved female-friendly service facilitator cooperation. And, as a knock-on effect, is also starting to see a reduction in the
burn-out rate of Placemented males who, reassigned, to lighter duties, their in-post physical afflictions and psychological torments are hence reduced and so are less traumatic to bear.

"Better still, rising numbers, of both the female-spy-at-large Diamond Hunter uncovered and the deskbound CCTV-footage scrutinising Diamond Sifter discovered Compatibles, are responding to the AFP's national appeal to in-work males to
sign up at their local Job Centre to volunteer to man a female-friendly service in their free time.

"And, to the barely credulous delight of the AFP, not just donating an occasional day-off or even sacrificing their weekend offtime, many of these formerly shy and retiring but now outed and liberated Compatibles are applying to pledge
their annual holiday entitlement to free-time fill some of the most difficult to man high-burnout posts.

"Of particular high take-up, are the Air Purification Technician slots: Facilitating the incredibly popular and increasingly widely available in-flight female-friendly service, by manning one of a modified aircraft's railed under Seat-
Line APTSVs – Air Purification Technician Service Vehicles.

"Which, according to sequenced demand, automatically conveys the supinely strapped-aboard air filtration specialist to the retracted footwells of the seat-number locations of the pushbutton-summonsing female air passengers of his
assigned Seat-Line.

"I'm not just talking short-endurance Domestic. And not only mid-endurance European – or even long-endurance, aircrew hours limit, multiple-flight pattern.

"Having enjoyed their introductory, gentled-in, short-haul in-flight experiences so much, some of the Compatibles are putting their name down to man the Air Purification Technician Service Vehicles on the flight deck and cabin crew
replacement long-haul there-and-back trans-Atlantic and other inter-continental flights.

"Some of them, even volunteering to man an SV to Seat-Line serve on one of the scheme-participant airlines' Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Belfast, and Glasgow Airports' around-the-world routes –
including the particularly draining and debilitating eternal-night flight East to West 'sun-chasers'.

"The air hostesses say the Compatibles are a delight to work with: unlike their Placemented, constrained, compelled, or otherwise cajoled charges, they don't have to threaten, browbeat, and bully those guys aboard their dedicated Seat-
Line serving foot-service buggies!

"And then there is the bonus benefit. The hosties say that since the introduction of the depolluting 'Techies' who, with their mouths taped over, sniff up the stinky fumes from the pushbutton-summoning female air passengers' feet – as
well as the hosties' feet, too, during destination turnaround intervals and the aircrew changeover/passenger drop-off interludes of longer-range flights – the cabin's recirculated air is discernibly fresher.

"But, for us at Harper's Conference Catering, with our limited resource of just one well-placed sympathising Job Centre contact, you Compatibles are so tough to find; so frustratingly tricky to unearth – look how long it has taken us to
uncover you: more than a year.

"More than a year, of relentless, spirit-sapping search.

"A search that – when yet another male employee hopeful proved hopeless; the seemingly brighter prospect's promise soon coming so disappointingly and discouragingly to nought just like all of the apparent possibles before him – has
tested Mrs Harper's perseverance with her entrepreneurial niche selling-point business idea to the brink of abandonment and her resolve to the edge of disillusion.

"Either you still-in-the-closet Compatibles are too timid or self-conscious to come forward and make yourselves known to authorities as encouraged, appealed to, or otherwise propositioned on AFP TV, AFP Radio, in the AFP Times and other
governmental printed media, or – and David, you are a case in point – you were oblivious of your latent compatibility.

"You – who I am convinced are an extreme-element, dyed-in-the-wool woman-worshipping ultra-feminist – were waiting for it to be triggered.

"Miss Tonya Tomkins, our sympathetic contact and your Job Centre interviewer yesterday, saw it first.

"Not only the prerequisite, perfect suitability of your short-statured and robustly structured upper-bodied physical build to ideally acquit you in your male-worker role, but like me, Tonya also intuited your unusual and, far more
important, to us, compatibility.

"In fact, to her amazed delight, Tonya believes that through a cunningly clever combination of implementing her Job Centre training skills and employing the instincts of her own, wiles and guile – she was the girl to trigger it.

"Such was her astonished glee, Tonya had struggled to control her feelings; had striven to keep her euphoric emotions in check, as you unmasked yourself.

"Tonya had thought it impossible that you could not sense her jubilance; incredible, that you could not discern her exultancy; unbelievable, that you could not pick up on the sheer ecstatic thrill of her incredulous delight, as you
revealed yourself to her ... as it were.

"Tonya said that at yesterday's end-of-shift staff meeting, her colleagues congratulated her and her supervisor praised her on her responding with such cool-headed professionalism – considering it was her first personal experience of the
Compatibility phenomena.

"After watching your interview as recorded in full-colour HD by the Job Centre's strategically sited CCTV cameras, overlaying the laughing and the cheers and high-fiving of her exultant colleagues was the accompanying loud snappy bangs
and shrill whistles cacophony as Tonya found herself covered head to toe in the multicoloured streamer-paper from a dozen party poppers.

"Tonya's supervisor told Tonya that such was the evidence they'd just watched, it was irrefutable; beyond all possible doubt or dispute that Tonya had earned her first commendation and made her first contribution in the Job Centre's
collaboration with the AFP in resourcing and advancing the government's latest female-friendly project: The Compatibility Programme.

"Cause for celebration also was that Tonya's confirmed, personal duck-breaking success had earned Brighton Job Centre three points and had moved them up to joint-third place in the Southern League of the keenly contested Job Centre Cup:
the kudos-according and prize-winning inter-Job Centre trophy.

"Yet another brainchild of Prime Minister Caroline Flynt, the much-coveted cup is contested by the UK's Northern, Eastern, Western, and Southern 20-team leagues.

"Brighton Job Centre was now level with Southend; just one point behind second-placed Bournemouth and only two points behind Southern League leaders Portsmouth.

"And, kept cold in the office fridge for these occasions are an AFP-supplied selection of celebratory bottles of Sauternes, Chardonnay, Mouton Cadet, and Pino Grigio. Of which, two of the latter were eagerly opened and joyously partaken
of by Tonya, her five Interviewer colleagues and their supervisor.

"In their jubilation, they clinked their chilled wineglasses in twin-toasting with the tasty and refreshing white wine, Tonya's first recorded Compatible capture, and Brighton Job Centre's improved and now Title-contending position in
the Southern League table.

"But Tonya said that she couldn't help but spot; could not miss, the giveaway signs of distraction and tell-tale clues of furtive, wandering eyes that, at a seminar hosted by specialist instructors from the Department of Compatibility,
she and her Job Centre Interviewer colleagues had been briefed to look out for, coached to recognise, and drilled to act upon.

"And that by giving you; again, as briefed and coached, enough line with which to entangle and entrap yourself inextricably, it was a formality for her to reel you in with nary a twitch of resistance like a conquered fish into her
keepnet.

"In short, David: It was our sympathetic Job Centre contact, Miss Tonya Tomkins, who gave you your little push in the right direction.

"That was why, at the end of your interview yesterday, Tonya instructed you to tell Mrs Harper upon your arrival at her business premises this morning to ring Tonya at the Job Centre before we left for the hotel.

"So that Tonya could give her the good news, which Mrs Harper then could pass on to Zoe and me: She was delighted to be able to tell us without a doubt that she was sending us someone suitable, this time, having achieved her first
officially-recorded success – having triggered your latent compatibility.

"And that is what Mrs Harper, Zoe and I have just been talking about while we've had you busy vacuuming the carpet after the SPOILT! Boutique manageresses' coffee break: your now tried and tested, proven on-the-job compatibility.

"Cat got your tongue, David ...?

"Well, don't worry. Trust me: Zoe and I will train you; instruct you.

"Zoe and I spend most of our time on our feet, and so in your secondary capacity as our at-work fringe benefit, we will require your frequent attendance: as often as the constraints of your primary male-worker role duties and whatever
other, reciprocity-related commitments allow.

"The soles of the feet are extremely sensitive – full of nerve centres; or, as Zoe and I think of them: sweet spots.

"You could not have conceived of the reflexological education that now awaits you – the soles-of-the-feet services that Zoe and I are going to instil in you.

"You have so much to learn; so much instruction to absorb; so many lessons to assimilate.

"But: learn, absorb, and assimilate our teachings, you will.

"Zoe and I will teach you how to use your tongue – yes, David, you did hear me correctly.

"Not only to soothe us, which as an incidental consequence is beneficial to our whole-body health; and not just to reinvigorate us – but primarily to please us.

"In short: What Zoe and I require of you, what we will expect from you and in fact demand of you, is your unstinting and indefatigable attentiveness.

"But, not only that ... From now on, David, whenever you either come into or leave our presence, you will watch for our prompts for you to demonstrate to Zoe and me your obeisance by kissing the sole of our foot."

I was utterly speechless ... Confounded beyond description, by Amanda's unquestionably authentically sourced and accurately recounted events of yesterday afternoon during my Job Centre interview with Miss Tonya Tomkins, and secondly her
matter-of-factly stated requirements as to the extent of my dedicated doting indulgence to herself and Zoe as their at-work fringe benefit.

Once more, Amanda paused, offering me the opportunity to reply.

But I was incapable of reply; unable to respond to any of her profound pronouncements in any way that would be the least bit considered or coherent.

Again, I was glad to be able to take solace and fall back on the safety-net of by-the-book compliance with AFP Female-Friendly Code protocol observance.

In the AFP-stipulated manner for a male when addressed by a female, respectfully I kept my eyes trained on the floor, meekly gazing in silence at the spot between Amanda's feet – which now prompted her to slip free her right foot from
its black leather flat.

Meaningfully, purposefully – intentionally – Amanda wiggled and scrunched her olive complexioned clear-varnished bare toes.

I don't know how long I stared down for; for how long I watched Amanda's for-my-eyes-only floorshow as I thought over everything she had just said in attempting to gauge the extent of her involvement, affiliation, or even her fully paid
up subscription membership of the Authoritarian Female Party:

Amanda's not mere, awareness, but her au fait, seemingly in-depth knowledge of the AFP's Compatibility Department and their so-called Compatibility Programme.

Her clear conversance, with the vigilant on-the-prowl female agents-at-large Diamond Hunters and their deskbound-colleague analyst Diamond Sifters, ever on the lookout for 'diamonds'.

Her, apparently informed, understanding of the myriad interconnected workings of collaborating government agencies.

And, what could only be an insider's knowledge, of the smartphone-filmed footage donations of a countless colluding collection of AFP-sympathist watchdog whistleblowing informants, and the equally potentially valuable video offerings
forwarded by the panoply of other, unofficial busybody contributors.

Added to all of that, Amanda knew all about the Job Centre Cup. The kudos-according, prize-winning inter-Job Centre trophy enthusiastically contested by the UK's North, West, East, and Southern 20-team leagues.

I could only conclude, that the in-the-know Amanda was being kept so well up to speed with such matters, by regular AFP policy updates and frequent informative bulletins from her company's sympathetic Job Centre contact, Miss Tonya
Tomkins.

Amanda's chuckling penetrated my musings, and I lifted my gaze from the somehow mesmerising sight of her wiggling and scrunching olive-complexioned clear-varnished bare toes, to look up at her knowingly smiling face.

"David Manners, you are the as yet pure, raw material of the unresistant malleability and accommodating bendability that Zoe and I will be able to manipulate and mould.

"Zoe remains to be convinced; although it is obvious to me: You are going to adapt easily to being our at-work fringe benefit."

At hearing Amanda's words, a tingly shiver of understanding; of realisation, ran right through me.

The realisation, of the truth of it.

It was as if Amanda had shaken loose sufficient clingy cobwebs to expose to the bright light of day something that had been in hibernation.

As if, crystalising now, was not only understanding and realisation – but recognition, acknowledgement, and acceptance.

That I had been 'triggered'.

Amanda consulted her wristwatch and, as though startled at the quick passing of time, she exclaimed, "Now go – it's eleven twenty-eight! Report to Miss Honeywell's office. She's expecting you."

"Yes, Miss Amanda," I said respectfully, finally finding my tongue.

Finally finding the tongue, that Amanda had just put me on notice that she and Zoe would very soon be making good use.

The tongue, that, from now on, as their at-work fringe benefit, Amanda and Zoe would be making their as-and-when available demands on its soles-of-the-feet services.

The tongue, that, manipulating the nerve centres and tickling the "sweet spots" of the soles of their hardworking feet, would not just soothe, and would not only benefit holistically – but would sensually please and splendidly delight
Amanda and Zoe.

The tongue, that, attending Amanda and Zoe as frequently as allowed by the constraints of my primary male-worker role duties and my other, reciprocally-related commitments, would acquit them better; would serve them more satisfyingly
than could the expert learned fingers and the sensitive, knowing thumbs of the most gifted reflexologist.

Because it was the tongue, of a 'Compatible'.

The tongue of a Compatible, whose 'latent compatibility' had been 'triggered'.

Triggered, by giving it the required "little push in the right direction".

Triggered, yesterday, by none other than my employer Mrs Hilary Harper's sympathetic Job Centre contact.

My eighteen-year-old school-leaver's Career Classification Assessor and now Probational Case Worker, to whose Desk I must report on a fortnightly basis for at least a year for my Male Worker's Conduct Review interviews.

For who – at listening to Amanda's minutely detailed and vividly related account, I'd not only realised, and not only understood – but recognised, acknowledged, admitted, and accepted – the undeniable truth of it:

I had exhibited many of the tell-tale signs and evidenced numerous giveaway clues of the kind that, at an AFP-sponsored seminar, she and her Job Centre Interviewer colleagues had been briefed to look out for, coached to recognise, and
drilled to act upon by specialist instructors from the Department of Compatibility.

Tell-tale signs of furtive eyes and giveaway clues of downward glances, which were of such unguarded, undisguised, glaring obviousness and unmissable openness that in her modesty she admitted she could not have failed to spot as, as
recorded in full-colour HD by the Job Centre's strategically sited CCTV cameras, I had 'revealed myself' to her.

And thus for who, in affording her the opportunity to arouse my dormant predilection, I had enabled her to claim her first recorded success, to receive her first official commendation, and to chalk up three precious points for Brighton
Job Centre – by providing her first personal experience of the Compatibility phenomena:

The AFP-style adopted but severely adapted concave bob sporting Job Centre Interviewer and ardent Authoritarian Female Party apparatchik – Miss Tonya Tomkins.

***


By my own, watch, I saw that I wasn't a moment too soon.

At 11:30 as required I knocked politely on the door upon which the gleaming brass nameplate announced was the office of the manageress of the Brighton City-Break Hotel and Spa: Miss Helen Honeywell.

I waited, assuming that presently I would be called to come in.

Only to be surprised when seconds later the door was opened wide, and standing there looking down on me was an attractive woman in her mid-twenties who wore her luxuriant tresses of wavy black hair cascading over the fronts of her
shoulders: Miss Honeywell, I saw by her name tag.

Before I could recover from my surprise and announce myself, she questioned, "You'll be male citizen David – Neville's replacement? Mrs Harper's new footboy?"

"Yes, Miss Honeywell," I said respectfully.

I saw nothing to gain in splitting hairs and quibbling about her misrepresentation of my job title – and perhaps 'male-worker role refreshments-break luxury little-something-extra provider' was a bit of a mouthful and did call for some
form of apt abbreviation.

Miss Honeywell ran appraising eyes over me, looking me up and down. "Hmmm ... I can very well imagine that your short but stocky physique acquits you ideally in the performance of your principal, facial-footrest duties for your employer
Mrs Harper's refreshments-breaking female clientele?"

"Well, this is only my first day, Miss Honeywell. But yes, at least so far that would appear to be the case. Some comments to that effect were made this morning, by the SPOILT! Boutique manageresses at their coffee break. In particular,
I heard the Head of Conference, Miss Connaught-Cavendish, telling Mrs Harper how pleased she and her manageress colleagues were with me. And Miss Amanda, who along with Miss Zoe is a junior partner of Mrs Harper, has since then kindly
endorsed Miss Connaught-Cavendish's sentiments."

"Well, if that is the case, you must be a definite improvement on your absconded predecessor, the defiant and highly disagreeable Neville, who I understand will soon be on his way to be taught a few much-needed manners by the Jailhouse
Blue female prison officers of Greystone Prison. And a most suitable comeuppance, in my opinion. Still, as the saying goes: The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Come in, then, male citizen David, and close the door behind you."

I closed the door and, my eyes cast respectfully downward accordant to standard protocol, I watched the tips of Miss Honeywell's high-heeled black leather office pumps disappear into the carpet's deep pile at her every step as I followed
her into her spacious and well-appointed managerial office.

To her four companions within, seated at the nearest end of a rectangular twelve-place conference table, two on either side, Miss Honeywell explained the reason for the short interruption to proceedings: "It's all right, ladies – it's
only my footrest."

From what Amanda had told me, I took the other four women to be members of Miss Honeywell's Heads of Department; their hotel uniforms corroborated this.

I wondered where their other senior colleagues were; but then perhaps there were no items on the agenda that warranted their attendance today.

Any further introduction unnecessary, Miss Honeywell now pointed to the floor, drawing my attention to a purple object she'd positioned under the nearest end of the conference table.

Behind a smoked-glass coffee table over in a more luxuriously furnished area of Miss Honeywell's office suite, I saw two identical ones, placed at either end of a plush tan leather three-seat settee.

"Lie down on your back, with your legs facing back this way, away from the table. Keep your arms along your sides and your legs together. Rest your head on the throw cushion I've placed under the near end of the table, male citizen
David," instructed Miss Honeywell.

"Thank you, Miss Honeywell," I said gratefully, thinking she must have thoughtfully gone to the settee to get it for me upon hearing my expected knock at her door at 11:30 sharp.

"It's not for your comfort; it's for mine. It's to tilt your head at an angle more conducive to comfort – my comfort."

"Of course, Miss Honeywell."

The four lady Heads of Department laughed and chuckled. And, when they peered under the conference table to watch as obediently I complied with Miss Honeywell's instructions precisely, they clapped their hands and stamped their
sensible-shod feet on the carpeted floor in a sedentary dance of amused delight.

Miss Honeywell then picked up the gold framed, pale-green padded conference chair that for the moment she'd moved back, out of the way, and repositioned it in place: over me so that my torso lay confined between the stackable seat's
tightly restrictive legs; the front legs, cinching my shoulders. Seeing that things were now just as she wanted them, she sat down.

Lying supine with my head on the purple throw cushion and finding myself staring up at the near end of the conference table's un-finished underside, I was now out of sight to the hotel manageress Miss Helen Honeywell and the four other
senior position women and no longer a distraction to their Departmental deliberations of the day.

"Now, ladies ... where were we?" said the manageress of the Brighton City-Break Hotel and Spa as, immediately upon sitting down again in her conference seat she hovered both feet above my face and, toeing free her high-heeled black
leather office pumps, she allowed them to fall via my upturned face to the richly carpeted floor.

"I was asking if there was any further news yet about my request; about the possibility of bringing in a few more male workers on Placement," one of the Heads of Department reminded Miss Honeywell. "Bedmakers and bathroom cleaners, to
work as two-man teams under the supervision of my chambermaids."

The hotel's Housekeeper, I realised.

She sounded as though she had forgotten my very existence; as though already it had completely gone from her mind that I was lying there under the conference table – a facial footrest for the presiding hotel manageress while she chaired
their daily get-together Heads of Department meeting.

"Ah, yes, Mrs Simmonds, your Housekeeping request," said Miss Honeywell as she set about getting the soles of her dark-nyloned feet all nice and comfortable upon my purple throw cushion propped, upturned, conveniently tilted face.

"Vis-a-vis your request, I have this morning received a reply from the Community Service Liaison Officer, Miss Delia Dilmot, who on our behalf is liaising with Brighton Job Centre.

"And it's good news, Mrs Simmonds. Miss Dilmot has been assured of the roping in of the required number of Placemented male workers by the middle of next week, even if it means procuring them on secondment from the Domestic Work Detail.
You can inform your girls," said Miss Honeywell as, pressing down the toes of one foot over my mouth and encapturing my nostrils in the dark nylon covered toes of her other foot, seemingly absent-mindedly she obliged me to inhale her
under- and in-between-the-toes scent.

"Well, that is excellent news – and not a moment too soon," said Mrs Simmonds the Housekeeper. "I know my hard-working girls will be glad to hear it! Guiding and controlling them, like beasts of burden, the Placemented males take all of
the work out of their work. Better still, the experienced two-man teams of the Domestic Work Detail can pretty much be left to get on with it unsupervised; they are surprisingly proficient, and they know that their work standards will
afterwards be checked closely by my girls."

With ensuing agenda input from the hotel's Fitness Centre manageress, Miss Reeve, and from the hotel's Coffee Shop manageress, Mrs Alexander, the rescheduled Heads of Department meeting continued in this issues-of-the-day vein.

Until, while pushing my face from side to side with the ball of one foot and playing the pads of her dark-nyloned toes of her other foot over my lips in seeming absentminded pastime playfulness, Miss Honeywell said, "Well, that's all of
the issues on today's agenda covered. So, is there anything else to address, ladies, before I wind up today's meeting?"

"There's the matter of some cutlery to be ordered for the Seascape Restaurant. Thanks to too many light-fingered diners, I'm getting short on dessert spoons again," said the other of the four lady Heads of Department, who I assumed now
was the restaurant manageress.

"I'll phone our suppliers today. It's a perennial problem, isn't it, Mrs Waverly? Some of our patrons' unfortunate penchant for pinching our silver-service spoons and other motif-engraved cutlery?"

"Sometimes, Miss Honeywell, believing themselves safely unobserved and their acquisitory antics unnoticed, my waitresses and I will spot the culprits in the act. Most often, it is lady diner perpetrators we perceive, purloining the
pricey pieces and popping them into their purses."

"And sadly, Mrs Waverly, as manageress of the hotel I can tell you they are not the only items of value to go missing on a regular basis.

"An astonishing percentage of our guests relieve us of an astounding amount of various other of our signature-embossed and embroidered hotel items. To them, just little logoed-keepsakes, fond souvenirs of their stay with us. But, to us,
a never-ending logistical headache and a bothersome book-balancing battle.

"It is unfortunate and unfair indeed, ladies, that from economic necessity the vast majority of our honest and upstanding patrons are paying the price of the dishonesty and the petty pilfery of the tiny minority of their fellow guests
via the compensatory mark-ups factored into our room-rates and meal tariffs."

From my supine position under the conference table, I listened to the four Heads of Departments' tut-tutting at the unbecoming behaviour of some of their light-fingered staying guests and their murmurs of disapprobation at the
resident/non-resident, table-reserving/walk-in restaurant-diner cutlery pocketers.

"So, is there anything else, ladies? No ...? Well, I suppose that wraps up today's meeting, then," said Miss Honeywell as vigorously she massaged the warm dark nyloned soles of her feet, enjoying the meeting-culminating pleasures of a
finishing-up facial foot-rub.

The four lady Heads of Department vacated their seats at the conference table and filed out of Miss Honeywell's office, closing the door behind them without making further comment or allusion to my presence.

Either they had forgotten all about me, lying there unobtrusively under their conference table, or I was an unnoteworthy irrelevance.

Miss Honeywell now lifted her gold-framed and pale-green padded stackable conference seat from over me and said, "While you're down there, get my shoes for me would you, David?"

Miss Honeywell's forgoing just now of her earlier rigid protocoled observance of the formal 'male citizen' address had not escaped my notice.

I could only assume that it was her satisfaction with my impeccable conduct and approbation of my passive demeanour that had earned from her this relaxing of strict female-citizen-Mistress/male-citizen-servant interactive protocol
adherence.

She, but of course not we, were now on first-name terms.

As bid, I retrieved Miss Honeywell's high-heeled black leather office pumps from where, via my upturned, purple throw-cushion propped, conveniently tilted face they had come to rest under the conference table, several feet apart on her
office's richly textured carpet.

"I'm afraid that was a bit of a squeeze for you, David, wasn't it? The legs on those stackable conference seats: they are, spaced rather narrowly. How are your shoulders and your arms feeling, after such rigid, restrictive confinement,
albeit only for an hour or so?"

"They'll be okay, thank you, Miss Honeywell; my arms are a bit numb, and my hands are all pins-and-needly, but I'll soon be back to normal."

I then placed Miss Honeywell's shoes in front of her on the carpet at her dark-nyloned feet; and correctly, so that as I knelt before her and she rested her hand on my head for balance, she could conveniently insert her feet back into
them as I took hold of and held down the heels for her.

"I must say, I'm inclined to concur and share the sentiments of the Head of Conference Miss Connaught-Cavendish and her SPOILT! Boutique manageress colleagues. Your service ethic is exemplary, and your general attitude throughout your
attendance here in my office during my daily Heads of Department meeting is highly commendable. Most satisfactory, indeed."

"Thank you, Miss Honeywell."

"I am only sorry that today is your last at this hotel venue under the present catering contract; but, hopefully, you'll be back. So that, under the terms of my something-for-something reciprocal arrangement with your employer Mrs Hilary
Harper, I might once again avail myself of your splendid service. Be assured that I shall be passing on these same laudatory comments to Mrs Harper."

"Thank you, Miss Honeywell."

"Well, off you go then, David."

"Yes, Miss Honeywell. And thank you."

***

In fact, by the evidence of my watch, with the 24-hour digital display showing the time at 13:02, this meant that it had been for an hour and a half, that I'd served as the Brighton City-Break Hotel and Spa manageress Miss Helen
Honeywell's daily Heads of Department meeting under-the-conference-table facial footrest.

Funny, I thought, as now I headed back to the Pavilion Lounge ... it hadn't seemed half as long.

*


"Ah, David, you're back," said my employer Mrs Hilary Harper upon my return to the Pavilion Lounge.

"How did it go with Miss Honeywell? Was she happy with you?"

"I thought it went okay, Mrs Harper. It wasn't as if I had to do a lot; just, be there, for her, and be quiet. Miss Honeywell said she would speak to you about it later today."

"I am so pleased with you, David. You seem to be adapting so well!

"I am still getting over what Miss Connaught-Cavendish said about you: her lavish comments, her fulsome praise.

"And then, there are her promises of commercial endorsements. Not only, to her immediate circle of business colleagues, who will take what she says at face value. But referring enthusiastically and recommending persuasively our niche
selling-point luxury little-something-extra refreshments-break service to her broader network of potentially interested associates.

"It's beginning to look as though Amanda's intuitive hunch about you was right: you are promising to be a real commercial asset to Harper's Conference Catering!"

I basked in the glow of my employer Mrs Hilary Harper's own, complimentary comments and effusive praise.

But, observing formal AFP protocol, I respectfully lowered my gaze to her red leather high-heeled pump shod feet ...

Perhaps, when at the end of work today at the expiration of our five-day contract with the Brighton City-Break Hotel and Spa we returned to her business premises in her catering van with all of our catering equipment, Mrs Harper too
would avail herself of the soothing and reinvigorating pleasures of my male-worker role services.

"Unfortunately you've just missed Amanda and Zoe," Mrs Harper told me. "They've gone into town for their lunch break and won't be back until two o'clock.

"I know just how much they were both looking forward to their first foot massage from you, David. But now, because you have other, reciprocal-arrangement commitments in the interim, it's going to have to wait until after the SPOILT!
Boutique manageresses' afternoon refreshments break; that's if there will be time, even then."

Instantly I was deflated.

I hadn't realised, until then, just how much I'd been looking forward to seeing Amanda and Zoe again ... especially Zoe.

"As I understand it from Amanda, this morning in the kitchen the commis chef Sarah instructed you to report to the chefs' changing room at two o'clock to perform a post-work foot massage? And that also, Sarah has informed you that
subsequently the same post-shift foot-massage service will be required of you by the Lunch shift waitresses?"

"Yes, Mrs Harper. Miss Sarah explained to me the something-for-something agreement reached between yourself and the hotel manageress Miss Honeywell: your reciprocal arrangement, in which I was your bargaining chip for the use of the
set-aside Pavilion Lounge. And so I assured Miss Sarah that I would comply with both her own, rightful request and also with those of the similarly entitled post-shift Lunch waitresses."

"Oh – this is almost too much! I'm still having trouble getting used to my sudden good fortune, after all of this time. What an upturn; what an incredible turnaround! I keep thinking that someone will pinch me, and I'll wake up.

"Miss Tonya Tomkins, my sympathetic Job Centre contact has excelled herself this time: She has supplied me and my junior partners Amanda and Zoe not only with a properly qualified, well-mannered, agreeable-natured male worker with a
touch of common sense – but with one who is learning to adapt!"

"Thank you, Mrs Harper."

"Well ... oh, look at the time! You had better get some lunch yourself, David. You have a hectic, jam-packed afternoon ahead of you. You'll need your energy levels up to cope with demand – especially with the SPOILT! Boutique
manageresses, who I very much doubt will even bother to return to their conference room after their final tea break."

"Yes, Mrs Harper."

"I'll give you some of our catering food, prepared by Amanda and Zoe and myself. You can eat it here, in the Pavilion Lounge. Or if you prefer, while the weather's nice, you can go outside in the hotel's grounds."

"Thank you, Mrs Harper. And yes, I think I'll go outside."

"All right. But if you leave the hotel premises, be sure to be back here before two o'clock; remember your reciprocal-arrangement obligations on my behalf to the commis chef Sarah and also to the Lunch waitresses."

"Yes, Mrs Harper, I will. And thank you."

*


As it happened, enjoying my lunch, prepared by the fair hands of none other than my employer Mrs Hillary Harper and her two junior partner assistants Amanda and Zoe as I sat on one of the wooden benches in the Brighton City-Break Hotel
and Spa's beautiful ornamental gardens, suited what I had in mind.

What I had in mind, was phoning Edds – my former school chum, Eddie Edwards – who right now would still be on his 1:00 - 1:30 lunch break at his workplace: Brighton City Council's recycling and renewables plant, which also served as the
hub for more than a dozen other local towns.

Edds, in his detestable and, all but inextricable, rut.

Desperate to be free of it.

But, with little chance of liberation, hopeless of salvation, Edds would be stuck in his rut unless and until he got a little outside help.

On my calls-recorded and texts-monitored AFP-issue mobile phone, allocated to me just yesterday on my eighteenth birthday upon my becoming, for a male citizen what the AFP termed Serviceable Age, I called Edds on his own, AFP-issue
phone.

Because I knew of a job vacancy, in which, although he might think the downsides outweighed the upsides, given his present predicament he still might be interested.

Knew of a businesswoman, who wanted to expand her small business; wanted to branch out, appointing another two female junior partner assistants, enabling her to cater at two separate conference/convention/event venues.

But couldn't.

Because she couldn't find a second male worker, of the required equanimous composure of character.

And because it was not every male worker, who had the right physical qualities: the prerequisite short-statured but stocky and robust upper-body build, to acquit himself ideally in the performance of his primary male-worker role
refreshments-break luxury 'little something extra' duties.

Edds wasn't perfect; he didn't quite fit either bill – but I thought he might be worth Mrs Harper taking a chance on.

Granted: the job-description wasn't every male's cup of tea.

And it wasn't every male, who could put aside his antipathy to the AFP; could put on hold the fundamentals of his female-friendly ideological differences, and give it a real go – try to adapt.

But, given the deep pickle Edds was in, and with his chances of self-extrication from his intolerable situation slim at best, beggars couldn't be choosers. Edds couldn't afford to be picky. He wasn't in a position, to–

Eddie's phone had stopped ringing; he'd picked up.

"Hey – Dave! What's up?" said Edds, from the sound of it chewing a mouthful of his lunchtime sandwich or pie.

I wasn't surprised that Edds knew it was me calling him:

On our male citizen's AFP-issue mobile phones, the primary purpose of which was to make Serviceable Age male citizens conveniently contactable by service-summoning females, the caller's name and number appeared on the phone's display
screen by default setting.

"Dave – I hope you're not ringing to tell me you won't be coming to the Seagulls' match against Arsenal tomorrow?"

"No! Not a chance – I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Well, good. But Dave, can you hurry up and get to the point?"

"Oh. Well, okay. But, what's up?"

"I'm just finishing off washing CSO Jasmine's Merc; she's very particular, and I'm wash-leathering it off now. But then, I've still got to wash CSO Sadie's ... oh, hell, they've seen me talking on the phone ... They're coming over here
now, and CSO Jasmine is flexing her cane. As I said, she's hard to please, and if she's not happy ..."

I looked at my watch: Eddie had about ten minutes of his lunch break remaining.

Time was going to be tight – if he was going to make the call.

"Edds, listen up ... it's great news!"

"Well, can you get to it quick, Dave? I'm about to be—"

"Edds ...? Edds! That phone number I gave you – call it now! Edds ...? Edds! Did you hear—"

Edds was abruptly cut off, an authoritative female voice, interjecting, "This is CSO Jasmine. Do not disconnect this line! Keep the line open, turn the volume right up to full and listen to what follows – male citizen David Manners!"

*


When I returned to the Pavilion Lounge at ten minutes to two, Mrs Harper greeted me with: "I've just had a most interesting phone conversation with a friend of yours, who sounded in a bit of a state: Mr Edward Edwards."

"So ... Edds called, then, Mrs Harper?"

"Yes, he called. He told me he wanted to come and work for me; that he'd heard from you that I had an urgent vacancy. And that you would recommend him."

"Please forgive my presumptuousness, Mrs Harper. But Eddie's in an awful rut, working for the Male Citizen's Minimum Wage at Brighton City Council's recycling and renewables hub."

"Yes, so he said."

"And his Community Service Officer supervisors have been foiling all of his efforts to find different work, sabotaging his applications to find another job by warning off any prospective employers."

"Yes, so he told me."

"So, Edds is stuck, Mrs Harper. The CSOs have got him where they want him, and he isn't going anywhere; can't go anywhere."

"Yes, he mentioned that as well."

"It's all a game to them, keeping Edds there – but it's not just Edds; the CSOs have singled out a few other victims for special treatment. They want to keep Edds and the others under their thumbs and make their lives a misery – I know
all about it.

"Edds has told me about the casual cruelties of his supervising CSOs, some of whom have applied to work at the hub permanently while other CSOs work there on rotation or as assigned. Apparently, the permanent CSOs are the worst; they are
the ones doing the victimising. Edds says that inflicting their malicious mistreatments is how they get their jollies.

"In fact, over the phone just now I actually heard Eddie being Standard Sixed by two of his supervisors, CSO Jasmine and CSO Sadie, who had tasked him with washing their cars.

"I thought their names were familiar, and I remembered Edds has told me they are two of the recycling and renewable hub's permanent CSOs.

"Eddie has mentioned CSOs Jasmine and Sadie to me several times; he says they are 'two real pieces of work'. Strutting and strolling along the recycling lines, like merciless vindictive whip-wielding overseers on some slave galley of
old, they cane conveyor belt workers on their bare legs for not pulling their weight.

"First, CSO Jasmine slapped Eddie's face for 'missing a bit', because she wanted her car looking 'all nice and sparkly' for the weekend.

"CSO Jasmine told Eddie to stand, facing her, and to clasp his hands behind his back and to remain standing like that no matter what. And then she slapped his face a lot of times, yelling at him that this is what he gets for gassing on
the phone when he is supposed to be hard at work following her instructions and obeying her orders.

"Eddie told CSO Jasmine he was very sorry, but it didn't help; he said he would always do better in future, and that didn't help – CSO Jasmine just kept on slapping and slapping, and CSO Sadie shrieked at Edds to not even think of
removing his hands from behind his back while he was being 'spoken to'.

"CSO Jasmine then told Eddie to pull his work shorts down around his ankles and to put his hands on his knees, and CSO Sadie yelled at him to keep them there no matter what or it would be all the worse for him. And then they both
Standard Sixed him: first CSO Jasmine, and then CSO Sadie.

"I heard it all, Mrs Harper – during my phone conversation with Eddie, CSO Jasmine snatched the phone from Eddie's hand, and she told me to keep the line open and to turn the volume right up to listen to what happens next.

"I heard everything: CSO Jasmine and CSO Sadie's harsh yelling voices, and the awful whoosh and terrible crack of their canes as six times each they struck Eddie's bared bottom.

"Neither of them held anything back, they gave it everything – I heard their grunts of effort, like female tennis players attempting to score aces.

"I ... I heard Eddie crying.

"I heard his sobbing voice. Begging CSO Jasmine, pleading with CSO Sadie to stop, to please, please stop. But they wouldn't. And the more Eddie cried, the more CSOs Jasmine and Sadie laughed.

"Over Eddie's phone, CSO Jasmine said that is what happens when Eddie is kept from doing their chores during his lunch break.

"And then CSO Sadie came on the line. She told me that she was unhappy and that I was the cause of her unhappiness. Because Eddie wouldn't have time now to wash her car before his lunch break was over and had to return to work at his
conveyor belt, and she didn't want to have to hang around after work wasting her time while Eddie washed it then. So now she would see to it that he would have a very uncomfortable afternoon.

"And as for me: I had better keep looking over my shoulder, and listening out for a knock at my door, and wondering who it was ringing me on my phone this time – because believe it: I have put myself on her radar.

"I'm still in a state of shock, still shaking. Edds, telling me about how wicked CSO Jasmine is and how malicious CSO Sadie is, that's one thing. But having them speak personally to me, and hear their malicious cruelty dripping from
their malevolent voices, albeit over the phone, is another.

"And, well, Mrs Harper, this morning on our way here, you'd mentioned about how you wanted to expand your company to cater at two venues but was unable to find a second male worker of the right calibre; that you needed someone with the
right qualities. So ..."

"I see. And you think, David, do you, that your friend Eddie Edwards, who apparently can't even wash a CSO's car properly and told me that his work experience to date has been as a stubborn-label remover at Brighton Council's recycling
and renewables plant and, before that, Placemented as a punishment with the Domestic Work Detail, fits this description? That he satisfies my employment requirements for a male worker's primary, luxury little-something-extra role within
Harper's Conference Catering?"

"In all honesty, Mrs Harper ...? I'm not a hundred per cent sure. But I've known Edds for years, through school. And, well, I think he's definitely worth giving a go."

"Well, let's hope so, David. Because based entirely on your recommendation I have been busy on the phone, setting things in motion to effect an immediate expansion of Harper's Conference Catering."

Speechless, I just stared at Mrs Hilary Harper.

I'd only rated the chances of Eddie phoning Mrs Harper as I'd urged him as maybe fifty-fifty, and even that was contingent upon him having heard my message before his phone had been snatched from his hand by CSO Jasmine. But evidently,
Edds had heard. Not for a moment, though, had I thought that things might happen so fast – if even at all.

But perhaps this latest painful face-slapping episode and his excruciatingly agonising bare-bottom caning humiliations at the hands of the diabolically domineering CSO Jasmine and CSO Sadie, while I'd listened in, had done the trick.

"I have contacted my two ladies in waiting, as it were, Miranda and Sophie," Mrs Harper told me.

"Albeit at almost zero notice, they both say they are immediately available and would be delighted to take up the two newly created junior partnership positions in our newly extended scope of operations, that you have made possible.

"I phoned around a few of Brighton's bigger hotels, and I got lucky with one of them.

"Fortunately for us, the Esplanade Hotel has been last-minute looking for someone to refreshments-break cater to a suddenly rescheduled Annual Conference, which has been brought forward one month to run from Monday to Friday next week.

"And so now, a contingent of twenty-five Sally's Shoes saleswomen Annual Conference attendees will enjoy an unexpected something-little-extra luxury during their morning and afternoon refreshments breaks.

"I have spoken to the Community Service Liaison Officer, Miss Delia Dilmot, who also happens to be the Authoritarian Female Party MP for Brighton, and who also happens to be a personal friend of long standing. And believe me: you can't
conceive of the strings she can pull.

"I explained to Miss Dilmot the troubled circumstances surrounding Mr Edwards. The problematic issues of which he has found himself a helpless and hopeless victim, as detailed and described by himself to me in our phone conversation and
corroborated just now by yourself. Foremost of which, are his supervising CSOs' sabotaging of his attempts at employment enhancement, and their relentless bullying and baiting.

"Miss Dilmot told me that she distinctly remembered Mr Edwards's referral to her from his Job Centre interviewer. For, so egregious had been his reported ill behaviour: his unapologetic unpunctuality; his absolute absence of manners,
and, in fact, not only his non-observance and noncompliance but a flagrant disregard of Female-Friendly Code protocols.

"The three-month disciplinary Domestic Work Detail assignment she'd awarded him, she said, was a most thoroughly deserved sanction and one that she would neither hesitate or have the slightest compunction in doubling or even tripling
should his name come across her desk again.

"Neither could she feel an iota of sympathy for what she sees as Mr Edwards's self-imposed present predicament: all but shackled to his stultifying conveyor-belt confined job in such a dismal and depressing work environment.

"And, as for Mr Edwards's state of further, acute unhappiness as occasioned by his job application kiboshing, sadistic and subjugating CSO supervisors? Miss Dilmot says there can be no question of any accusations of improper or
inappropriate behaviour or unprofessional conduct, since making their sanctioned and Placemented male charges' self-inflicted miseries worse by rubbing salt in their wounds at will is all but written in the CSO job description.

"But, upon my asking her to prevail upon her good offices to intervene on my behalf, Miss Dilmot gave me her assurances that she would engage her considerable influences in setting the necessary wheels in motion to probationally reprieve
Mr Edwards as soon as we'd finished our phone conversation.

"I could, she said, consider Mr Edwards's present position with Brighton City Council's recycling and renewables depot as terminated at the end of his shift today."

Mrs Harper must have read my look of astonishment.

"It's what comes from having friends in high places, David.

"And so, on the same pay grade as yourself and with the same client feedback performance-related possibilities for weekly wage packet top-ups, on Monday at our Esplanade Hotel venue, your friend Edward Edwards will start work for
Harper's Conference Catering.

"Primarily, in his priority male-worker role capacity Edward will serve as the niche selling-point luxury little-something-extra to our refreshments-breaking female clientele. Secondarily, he will provide his two supervisors Miranda and
Sophie with their at-work fringe benefit, in as far as the constraints and commitments his primary duties allow.

"And, if further to our initial over the phone understanding I can negotiate the convenient and valuable time-saving use of a set-aside lounge in which to serve our female clientele's morning and afternoon refreshments breaks, Edward
will be the trade-off bargaining chip in any reciprocal something-for-something arrangement arrived at by myself and the Esplanade Hotel's manageress."

I could hardly believe it – I'd gotten Edds out of that dreadful recycling and renewables shed and away from those abuse-yelling face-slapping cane-happy CSOs, Jasmine and Sadie.

I'd call Edds again later – we would have to have a pint down at the pub tonight to celebrate his new job!

On the downside, I would definitely be in CSOs Jasmine and Sadie's bad books now.

I wondered not if, but when and how, their wrath might manifest itself. ("You had better keep on looking over your shoulder, and listening out for a knock on your door, and wondering who it is ringing you up on your phone this time –
because believe it: you have put yourself on my radar.").

"Thank you, Mrs Harper. Eddie, he, I mean ... you won't regret it," I said with more confidence than I felt, at shouldering this new responsibility as Eddie's sponsor.

I had absolute confidence in Eddie's good character; was thoroughly assured of his integrity. But the question was: Could he learn to adapt?

"Think of it as an early reward, David. For your superlative service to the coffee-breaking SPOILT! Boutique manageresses this morning. For starting off on the right foot, as it were."

"Yes, Mrs Harper. Thank you."

"Didn't I tell you, David, that you could do a lot worse than to work for me? Well, the same applies to your friend Edward. Because now, as my employees, you both have a friend in a high place.

"And, albeit to a slightly lesser degree, you and Edward will also have supportive and influential patrons in Amanda and Zoe, and Miranda and Sophie who, albeit primarily in their own, vested interests, will want to protect you both from
the worst downsides for males of AFP governance – including warding off vengeful CSOs.

"One more thing: The nature of our business at Harper's Conference Catering being what it is; or, more particularly, your male-worker roles within it, prospects for promotional advancement for you and your friend Edward are zero – but
not so, financial furtherance.

"If my four junior partners and I are still happy with you and Edward at the end of your first – in all likelihood defining, make-or-break – month, as a well-earned bonus and a lucrative incentive to maintain your early standards, I will
begin awarding you a quarter of one per cent share of net profits.

"On the same basis, at the end of six months, I will increase your share of net profits to a half of one per cent. And at the completion of a full year, I will award you both a full one per cent.

"I will cap your and Edward's portion at one per cent. But, of course, if company profits continue to grow, then so will your shares in them.

"This supplementary income is not, instead of, but is additional to your periodic pay rises. And, what's more, as it falls within the guidelines of the AFP-approved Compliant Employee Subsidy Scheme, you will earn these proceeds not at
the standard sixty per cent male citizen income tax rate but completely tax-free."

I couldn't believe it. Wait till Edds heard about this!

Mrs Harper then looked at her wristwatch, and exclaimed, "My goodness; it's two minutes to two! Sarah, the commis chef, will be expecting your presence in the chefs' changing room."

"Yes, Mrs Harper – I'm on my way!" I said, hurrying to the door of the Pavilion Lounge.

I felt boosted; as if Mrs Harper had just injected me with half a litre of adrenalin.

Just as I got to the door, Amanda and Zoe entered, having returned from their lunch break in town.

"David! What on earth's the panic?" demanded Amanda.

"Miss Amanda, I—"

"Yes, where's the fire, David?" chipped in Zoe, smiling.

"Miss Zoe, I—"

"And you'd better hurry, David," interjected Mrs Harper.

Evidently, my employer did not want me getting waylaid by the returning Amanda and Zoe, who were perhaps thinking of availing themselves of a secondary-function at-work fringe benefit "quickie" from me before I went about my primary
function, male-worker role something-for-something reciprocal arrangement commitments.

"You wouldn't want Miss Delia Dilmot to get to hear of your unpunctuality from the commis chef Sarah!"

*


"I was beginning to think you'd forgotten all about me, David," said the commis chef Sarah in what passed for greeting when I arrived at the wedged-open door of the otherwise unoccupied chefs' changing room.

"Oh, no, Miss Sarah – I wouldn't forget!" I assured her, slightly breathless from my mad dash from the Pavilion Lounge to be here on time as arranged.

Mrs Harper had told me I would have a hectic, jam-packed afternoon ahead of me. And it started here.

I was slightly surprised but inexpressibly relieved to find the chefs' changing room free of staff but for Sarah.

The last thing I needed was to have fresh-out-of-college pre/post-shift chefs de cuisine and chefs de partie tittering in amusement, snickering in mockery, or even merely looking on indifferently at my summoned servitude to one of their
colleagues while they changed into or out of their civvies.

Standing at the open doorway waiting to be called into the small utilitarian room, I wondered if Sarah had told her kitchen colleagues to make themselves scarce before I reported to do her bidding at two o'clock.

It would have been kind and considerate of Sarah, a thoughtful and generous touch. But unlikely; why would she bother? Why would she take my feelings into account; the sensitivities of a Serviceable Age male citizen?

It appeared as though Sarah had only just got here herself. She was still wearing her chef's white jacket and loose fitting blue-and-white-checked pants, putting some of her things away in her locker against the far wall.

Looking over her shoulder at me, Sarah slid back her white socked right foot on the smooth once-pale wood of her white leather chef's clog and turned her foot sole upward, resting the tops of her toes upon the heel of her backless shoe.
"That's good, David," she told me, fixing me with a look. "Because I've been looking forward to this, ever since we spoke this morning."

I stared down at Sarah's upturned sole, and noticed the dark-grey creases of her thin white cotton sock, evidencing the sweaty toil of the day-shift she'd just worked in the hot steamy conditions in the kitchen of the Brighton City-Break
Hotel and Spa.

Standing with her back turned to me, her right leg bent at the knee, Sarah maintained her insouciant stance; somehow, such an attention-grabbing pose.

I looked up, caught Sarah's eye – saw her speculative, appraising look.

But, I couldn't help but look down again, at that somehow enrapturing image.

Couldn't prevent my eyes from staring downward and homing in to refocus upon that somehow captivating sight; the seemingly affected pose, which for some reason Sarah was continuing to display.

Sarah finally slid her right foot back into her comfy kitchen-wear chef's clog, and nodded to herself, as though convinced now that she'd confirmed beyond doubt something she'd previously strongly suspected.

Sarah then walked across the austere room's dark-red tiled floor, to where two meanly padded straight-backed wooden chairs were situated.

'Situated', because it appeared that Sarah had pre-placed the two seats, positioning them opposite each other in the centre of the chefs' changing room, ready for our appointment.

Sarah sat down in the seat that faced towards the wedged-open door and slid both feet back to rest her toes upon her backless shoes' low heels. Sarah looked at me for another moment, and then said, "I honestly don't know who wants this
the most."

Sarah pointed to the seat opposite her, the one facing away from the door. And now I took my cue, entering the chefs' changing room at last and sitting as instructed by Sarah in the utilitarian room's only other chair.

Sitting so close to Sarah set off in me a frisson of nervous excitement.

Sarah looked even more beautiful than I remembered her from this morning in the kitchen, where at Mrs Harper's instruction I'd gone to be of whatever help I could to Amanda and Zoe and then to trundle the heaviest of our three
refreshments trollies through to our set-aside work area, the Pavilion Lounge.

Sarah had sensed someone behind her and, upon seeing me standing there admiring her culinary skills, she'd broken off from her onion-dicing at the chopping board to tell me to report to the chefs' changing room at two o'clock because she
would require my services after finishing her Breakfast-through-Lunch 06:00 - 14:00 shift. And that, so would the two Lunch-shift waitresses, a bit later, when they got off work.

Sarah's chef's white jacket had been splotched, smeared, smattered and spattered with foodstuffs both recognisable and indeterminate. But she'd looked good in it.

And, now that we were all alone together in this tiny private space, Sarah's body language was discernibly different, from then.

Sitting so close that our knees almost touched, her whole demeanour was more relaxed. She was letting her hair down a bit and allowing more of her vibrant personality to shine through – allowing me, while no one else was present, to see
the real Sarah.

I could almost feel the magnetism between us, the age-old, irresistible pull of attraction. Could all but hear, the crackle of electricity at our almost-touching nearness.

I wondered if it was just me, or if Sarah sensed it, too; if she was getting the same vibe.

But I told myself to park all of that to one side; I had a something-for-something agreement reciprocal arrangement service to provide.

Sarah had positioned our two chairs the optimum distance apart for the purpose at hand. For now, at the end of her chef's blue-and-white-checked pants clad outstretched right leg, it was to her comfort and convenience that she placed her
ankle-socked foot into my compliantly receptive hands.

I can barely describe the thrill, at that moment; the ecstatic excitement that tingled right through me.

At the thought, of being of such service – no: it was more, of being put – to such a service.

With a pang of guilt and a stab of remorse, I realised that it was not ire and resentment but a debt of immense gratitude I should feel towards my eighteen-year-old school-leaver's Career Assessment Interviewer and now Probational Case
Worker at the Job Centre, Miss Tonya Tomkin's, who I'd irreverently thought of as the She-Devil of Desk 5.

Was this another, clear and definite sign that I was learning to adapt?

Because holding Sarah's foot; her post-work foot, in my hands and administering relieving, relaxing, and reinvigorating ministrations – performing foot service – was the most incredible feeling.

Just a few hours ago in the set-aside Pavilion Lounge, notwithstanding the albeit non-deliberate and therefore not maliciously imposed but merely incidental and inadvertent olfactory intake of those single-footed postured ladies' faint
and not so faint foot-scent fragrances, I had found that I had not in the least been put out at being required for the first time in my male-worker principal role capacity to serve as the luxury refreshments-break little-something-extra
to six of the SPOILT! Boutique manageresses as, during their holding-forth, centre-of-attention tenure they monopolised their facial footrest.

And, shortly after that, in her office, as she'd presided at her hour-long Heads of Department meeting, I'd found that I'd been similarly far from unhappy to serve under the dark-nyloned feet of the hotel manageress, Miss Helen
Honeywell, as her under-the-conference-table facial footrest.

But, holding Sarah's post-work foot in my hands, was something else.

It would be foolish to delude myself that our assignation and prearranged interaction at Sarah's instigation was anything other or anything more meaningful than thousands of other AFP protocol observant female-citizen-Mistress/male-
citizen-servant liaisons taking place throughout the UK at that very moment.

But I felt the active, participant nature of this, hands-on, service – as compared to the inherently passive, facial-footrest service – to be intensely intimate and profoundly personal.

I observed the creases that had formed in the sole of the thin white cotton material of Sarah's ankle sock.

And so it was, that as with my first timid touches I ministered with exaggerated care between those creases in the soft damp material, thrilling to the feel of the pliant warm flesh of Sarah's sole yielding beneath my novice's fingers, I
experienced my first hands-on foot-massage moments.

Throughout her day shift, I thought, those edges; those now, dark-grey creases, would have rubbed, would have chafed, causing increasing discomfort and irritation to Sarah, worsening as her workday wore on.

Perhaps she adjusted her socks now and again to relieve the ongoing pesky problem, only for those thin folds to reform repeatedly.

Gently, with the tips of my forefinger and thumb, one by one I took hold of the damp creases of compressed thin white cotton and carefully pulled them away, allowing her sole to breathe.

"Now, that's what I call proper female-friendly service, David: Doing something like that unprompted. Neville, your absconded predecessor, never did that."

When Sarah spoke the word 'service', coming from her lips, the elemental profundity of it was such that she caused a resonation of something within me. Rumbling right through me like shock waves, the shuddering, quaking impacts seemed to
loosen and dislodge – to further, shift aside – some obstructive barrier deep within me.

Like aftershocks, Sarah had added to the tumultuous mental rockfall precipitated earlier by Amanda during our "little chat": Amanda's mind-shattering all-seeing assertions, soul-searing insights, and perspicacious predictions as to the
eventual exploitable extents of my female-friendly usefulnesses – of my 'compatibility'.

As I'd neared my eighteenth birthday and drew inexorably closer to what, for a male citizen, Prime Minister Caroline Flynt's Authoritarian Female Party government termed Serviceable Age, it had been with the inherent anxiety of a
pessimistic glass-half-empty outlook and the trepidation of an overactive imagination that I'd speculated upon the female-friendly fortunes awaiting me.

But nothing – no imagined scenarios, no envisioned encounters, no dreamed-up female-citizen-Mistress/male-citizen-servant situations – had prepared me for this, tumultuous turn of events.

As I sat there, entirely focused upon the task in hand, as it were; firmly rotating the pad of one thumb into the bottom of Sarah's right white socked heel while my other thumb circled deep into the ball of her foot, something occurred
to me.

"Miss Sarah ... I was wondering: Would you like me to take off your sock? I mean ... well, I was thinking, you might like it better, and—"

"There you go again, David! That's what I mean: Using your initiative; offering what is required, without needing to be told. Never once, did Neville offer to take off my sock – I always had to tell him."

I was starting to get a bit fed up of hearing about my latest runaway predecessor, Neville.

And anyway, what was wrong with the man? What was wrong, too, with all of my other absconded previous incumbents?

Sitting here, now, providing a post-work foot massage for the commis chef Sarah – performing not just a passive but a participant, hands-on, personal service – I felt not only the first stirrings of a sense of purpose but something yet
more profound: an intuition of place.

"Miss Sarah, I am most happy to do this for you," I told her as I peeled off her thin white cotton ankle sock.

I can only describe as awe, the power of the emotions that flooded through me as I held the relaxing physical weight and beheld the heart-stirring vision of the sole of Sarah's freshly unsocked after-work right foot.

I saw now that the bottom of Sarah's heel and the ball of her foot were workaday-rubbed a reddish pink. And I could see where she'd been walking on the repeatedly forming folds of her sock: three on the ball of her foot and two on her
heel were the five standouts, while some less vivid red lines traversed her arch.

Though I had been careful to massage between the folds and creases, concernedly I wondered now if I had been working my thumbs too firmly through the thin material of her white ankle sock and doing more harm than good; though I thought
it highly unlikely that Sarah would have suffered such pain-occasioning maladroitness in silence.

Nonetheless, although I knew that it went directly against protocol and risked censure to speak unless spoken to first, I thought it best to address the issue by voicing my concern.

"Miss Sarah, I'm sorry if I've been rubbing my thumbs too hard; if I've caused you any discomfort through my clumsiness. But this is the first time I've done a foot massage."

"Thank you, David, for your consideration. Thoughtfulness is a most pleasing trait, particularly in that it is such an unusual one in a summoned male citizen. But no – keep on doing what you've been doing; this is so relaxing. It feels
so much nicer, on my bare foot."

"Yes, Miss Sarah. And thank you."

"And David, by no means are you clumsy. You say you have never performed a foot massage before, but you do seem to have a natural, intuitive sense of just exactly what to do."

"Thank you, Miss Sarah."

It had not escaped my notice that in addressing me, Sarah had dropped the impersonal, protocoled rigidity of the formal 'male citizen' usage. Apparently she, but of course not we, were on first-name terms.

"Equally pleasing is your positive attitude – at least as important as ability, is adaptability."

"Yes, Miss Sarah. And thank you."

"I can see that you will have very few if any of the usual male-mindset transitioning problems and that with perhaps just one or two little tweaks you will become an excellent foot servant for your employer Mrs Hilary Harper's junior
partner assistants Amanda and Zoe who, as I understand, from today you have replaced Neville as their at-work fringe benefit."

"Yes, Miss Sarah, you are correct. Miss Amanda has outlined what she and Miss Zoe expect of me. And I am committed to doing my very best for them both."

"Good; I'm sure you will. So, I think I'll leave you to it, then, unsupervised; just let you do your own thing."

"Yes, Miss Sarah. And thank you."

"I only wish you'd been here from the beginning of the week, David. Instead of that disinterested and disobliging deadbeat, Neville Norcott."

"That's very kind of you to say, Miss Sarah."

Sarah reached forward to pluck from my shirt's breast pocket my male citizen's AFP-issue mobile phone.

A female citizen was AFP-empowered to demand the immediate handover or to gain instant unfettered access to a male citizen's AFP-issue mobile phone should she wish to communicate an issue to AFP authorities by text message or, should she
deem it necessary, to dial 01 to speak directly to his Controller.

"I think you deserve a special mention, David ... Okay, so I see your Probational Case Worker at the Job Centre is Miss Tonya Tomkins," said Sarah, upon apparently having searched for and quickly found Miss Tomkins in either my phone's
On-System Directory or, and more likely, from my direct-dial Contacts list.

"Hmmn ... Miss Tonya Tomkins. Her name rings a bell. Ah, yes, I remember Mrs H telling me: Miss Tomkins is her sympathetic contact at the Job Centre, who has supplied most of her male workers previously and has now supplied you."

"Yes, Miss Sarah. That's right."

"Well, I'm going to send this Miss Tonya Tomkins of yours a text message."

While my untrained but, apparently, naturally adept and quick-learning fingers and thumbs ministered to the bare sole of Sarah's right foot, easing away the aches, pains and tirednesses of her on-her-feet kitchen workday, on my AFP-issue
phone's keypad Sarah's own, expert fingers and thumbs composed a text message to Miss Tomkins.

I wondered what Miss Tomkins would say regarding Sarah's text message when just over two weeks from now I reported to her Desk for the first of our fortnightly Male Worker Conduct Revue interviews.

Probably, nothing; after all, my good behaviour was not to be pat-on-the-back congratulated or lauded, but standard and expected – or else.

As my Probational Case Worker, I knew that should I in any way incur her displeasure Miss Tonya Tomkins had the power to sanction me, up to and including throwing me in jail. Most probably, she would have me admitted to the nearby and
notorious Greystone Prison, where she could rest assured that the infamous Jailhouse Blue female prison officers at that iniquitous institution would make my indefinite, behavioural-progress dependent stay with them a most memorable one.

Sarah had such a pretty foot, I thought, and the incredible sensations, as firmly but carefully I worked the pads of my fingers and thumbs into the bare flesh of her needful post-work sole, was proving to be the most sensually exquisite
experience: more incredible, than serving the SPOILT! Boutique manageresses as their refreshments-break facial footrest; and more exquisitely sensual, than under-the-conference-table facial-footrest serving the dark-nylons wearing hotel
manageress Miss Honeywell at her Heads of Department meeting.

"There, I've sent it. A good word, as it were," said Sarah as she reached forward again to return my phone to my shirt's breast pocket so that there be no need of an interruption to my hands-on service.

"Miss Tomkins will receive my formal Female Citizen's Communication with my name and AFP-membership number attached. She'll enter it into the AFP DataBase, print off the usual requisite official copies and put one of them in your file
for future reference."

"Thank you, Miss Sarah, that was very kind of you. But really, there's no need. I—"

"No, you deserve it, David. And I like to reward compliant conduct and service of an acceptable standard with a kind word. Officially recorded On-System and copied into your Male Citizen File, it certainly won't do you any harm, should
you find yourself brought to book for a Female-Friendly Code infringement, and—"

"Hey – I see you've got him well under control, Sarah!" interjected a female whose accent I recognised as local. "And, what an improvement on Neville!"

"Hi, Cindy – but no: David's as good as gold! And, yes, he's a massive improvement on Neville – incomparable!"

"He seems very docile," came a second new female voice, sounding foreign. "Easily controlled."

"Hi, Marisa – and yes: He is!"

The two female voices had come from the wedged-open door of the chefs' changing room directly behind me. Sarah, looking over my head, smiled with familiarity at the newcomers. "I was expecting you two so soon. Have you finished early?"

So, I thought: the two Lunch waitresses have arrived, post-shift. But, remaining protocol observant I didn't turn around to look at them; I stayed focused on what the commis chef Sarah had tasked me.

"No, we're not early– we've finished late, actually," replied the first speaker; the local accented waitress, who had awarded me the compliment of being an "improvement" on Neville – Cindy. "It was the usual thing: window-table diners,
lingering over coffee while they enjoy the lovely views."

"Yes – and now, after working back to back Breakfast and Lunch shifts with virtually no time off in between, my feet are killing me!" said the second, foreign-sounding speaker. "And Cindy says that being Friday, it's going to be a long
hard foot-slog of a shift tonight – oh, my poor feet!"

I'd thought I'd picked up on it the first time she spoke. But upon hearing Marisa talk again, though she had a comfortable command of English and spoke with commendable fluency, I was almost sure of it: Marisa had an Italian accent.

"Well, come on then, Sarah – all good things come to an end. Stop hogging the footboy – it's our turn!" said Cindy, good-naturedly enough but with an edge of firmness; she knew the clock was a-ticking on my reciprocal-arrangement
availability.

I had perhaps a little over half an hour before I would have to report back to the Pavilion Lounge, to help out with the final preparations for the SPOILT! Boutique manageresses' 3:00 - 3:30 refreshments break.

I remembered Mrs Harper's warning: It was the thirty-strong contingent of SPOILT! Boutique manageresses' final refreshments break of their five-day Annual Conference, and so the laid-back ladies were sure to be letting their hair down
more than usual and may not even return to their conference room.

With a sense of amazed disbelief in myself, I realised that I was not in the least disconcerted; not in the slightest, perturbed, at the prospect of being called upon again presently to serve as the high-end fashion store manageresses'
luxury little-something-extra refreshments-break facial footrest.

And, I wondered: How many, and which, of all of those attractive women; not just fashion store manageresses but trendy, with-it fashionistas themselves, would prevail upon my principal-role services this time? Would, perhaps, the fleet
of foot and stealing a march Cardiff SPOILT! Boutique manageress Julie, to the unfair and inequitable diminution of her colleagues, again attempt to avail herself of more than her fair and rightful share of holding-forth centre-of-
attention facial-footrest tenure?

"Oh, all right, all right ..." said Sarah with a resigned sigh, picking up the turned-inside-out thin white cotton ankle sock that, after peeling it from her right foot I'd left draped over my knee for her easy retrieval "... and just
when I was getting settled. That old saying must be right; the one about time flying when you are enjoying yourself."

Yes, I thought sympathetically – and I hadn't yet got around to massaging your left foot. And, not lost on me either, was Sarah's implied compliment.

The commis chef Sarah's "turn" with me now at an end, I said, "May I do that for you, Miss Sarah?"

"Oh ... all right," said Sarah in some surprise, handing her turned-inside-out ankle sock back to me.

To save her from doing it, I pulled Sarah's thin white cotton ankle sock through the right way again. And then I surprised Sarah again, by holding it open, showing that I intended to facilitate the easeful reinsertion of her right foot.

"Well, well, well! Isn't he a gentleman?" observed Cindy. "Neville would never have done anything so considerate as that, either out of common courtesy or even resentfully from a reluctant observance of Female-Friendly Code obligation."

"Mama mia!" exclaimed Marisa. "Now I have seen everything."

"Oh, you haven't seen anything yet, Marisa, believe me," replied Cindy, chuckling. "Just wait until we have him to ourselves."

"I can't wait!" enthused Marisa.

Still holding Sarah's right foot in my hands, I gazed at her white-socked sole. Fascinated by the grey-tinged areas at the ball of her foot, her heel, and around the undersides of her toes, I found it impossible to decide if it was more
thrilling to look at than her bare sole.

I could have imagined it.

But at Cindy's 'Just wait until we have him to ourselves' and Marisa's 'I can't wait!' comments, I thought I'd seen a shadow fall across Sarah's expression.

"Where do you want David, then?" Sarah asked the two waitresses, her tone cooler, her voice flat.

Yes, Sara's demeanour seemed to have changed. Her manner now had become abrupt; almost blunt, with the two waitresses.

"You can stay here if you want. At this time of the afternoon, apart from the occasional trainee chef clocking on or off shift or maybe just popping in for something from their locker, you'll have the place to yourselves."

The last thing I needed, while I serviced the post-work feet of the two waitresses Cindy and Marisa, was the sniggering asides of coming-on/going-off shift fresh-out-of-catering-college apprentices and the snide observances of
'forgetful' 'popping-in for something' learner cooks.

"Thanks, Sarah. But there's no one in the Seascape Restaurant now, and so Marisa wants to have him in there while we enjoy the views. I think Marisa and I will find it altogether more conducive."

"Good idea, Cindy," said Sarah approvingly, clearly pleased with the alternative post-shift foot-service location.

Making no move to remove her right foot from my hands as my thumbs continued their work on her arch, Sarah gestured around the cramped conditions of the chefs' changing room, pointing with emphasis at the room's two meanly padded
straight-backed seats she and I were sitting on and that the two of them would have had to use.

As three into two didn't go, Cindy and Marisa would have had me sitting or kneeling on the cold hard bare-tiled floor at their feet. So I was cool with their "altogether more conducive" choice, too.

I had the strangest feeling that Sarah was saying and doing all of this for my benefit; that Sarah sensed, and didn't like, the idea, that the two post-work footsore waitresses' intended uses for me were going to be a little ...
pushing-the-envelope.

But, why should that bother Sarah?

Why should Sarah care, about the probable inflictions of borderline abuses and even possible over-the-top treatments by female citizens upon a Serviceable Age male citizen; even one who she had just rewarded with a text-messaged 'good
word' to his Probational Case Worker for "acceptable" service?

"Marisa missed out on Neville after our Lunch shift yesterday; by then he'd done a runner," Cindy told Sarah conversationally. "It was a first-day disappointment for Marisa – not that she missed much; she would have been disappointed
anyway!"

"Absolutely, she would, Cindy," agreed Sarah, nodding encouragingly.

"I'm just glad I'd already texted a strongly worded complaint about him on his AFP-issue mobile phone and sent it to his Probational Case Worker at the Job Centre," said Cindy.

"I was having problems with Neville, too; hopeless, wasn't he?" replied Sarah, seemingly in a bid to keep the conversation going.

I could have imagined it.

But it was almost as if Sarah was thinking: 'The longer I can keep Cindy and Marisa here, talking to me, the less time the catty pair will have left to have their pushing-the-envelope way with David once they've dragged him off to their
little lair in the Seascape Restaurant'.

The two post-shift Lunch waitresses now stepped forward into my range of view, standing to either side of me. I now saw that the local girl, Cindy, was an attractive blonde and that Marisa was a classic Italian beauty.

Cindy and Marisa looked down on me, and their body language was easy to read: We'll soon have you to ourselves.

Sarah took the two waitress's unsubtle hint at last and withdrew her white-socked right foot from my hands and slipped it into her clog-like shoe.

Cindy took my right wrist, Marisa grabbed my left wrist – and both squeezed firmly. Their unspoken message, nonetheless clear: Get up, out of your seat.

I got up, out of my seat.

In and of itself, sharing the goss and passing the time of day with Sarah was cool.

But letting their limited foot-service time slide by, yakking about my absconded no account predecessor whose services were of no service at all and whose unlamented loss was a definite plus received not with mournful regret but with
grateful relief, wasn't.

Cindy and Marisa squeezed my wrists again; Marisa's squeeze, discernibly firmer. Their silent signal, nonetheless clear: You are coming with us.

"I'm as easy-going as the next girl. But my leniency is not unlimited, and my patience is not infinite; I'll only allow so many second chances," Sarah rattled on, apparently sensing that the two waitresses were on the brink of escorting
me away. "I'd told Neville I expected to see a big improvement by today: both in his attitude, and in his foot massage performance – or else."

I could have imagined it.

But I thought I saw a glint of satisfaction in Sarah's eyes at her words waylaying Cindy and engendering from the local blonde waitress a further service-time wasting response.

"In my text message to his Probational Case Worker, I'd recommended – no, requested – that before he's transferred to do his well-deserved stint in Greystone Prison, Neville be Standard Sixed. But, now that I think about it, I think I'll
apply to the Community Service Liaison Officer for her permission to administer his caning personally."

"Oh? And why would you want to do that, Cindy?" enquired the seemingly stalling-for-time Sarah.

"Well ... I mean, why should I let him off lightly? Why should I allow that disrespectful, useless little whippersnapper Neville to receive the Standard Six behind closed doors in the Punishments and Corrections Room in the Town Hall at
the hand of a random CSO just doing her job and witnessed formally by just one other, complacently gum-chewing, seen-it-all-before CSO? Why should I spare him the humiliation of a public bare-bottom caning in the Town Centre stocks that
he so richly deserves – and, that he'll never be allowed to live down – as the official filmed recording of my administering his punishment before a witnessing crowd will be publicly accessible online and in the AFP's Video Library
Archives?"

"Well, if you put it like that ... I can't think of a reason, Cindy," agreed Sarah.

"No – and besides, it will give the little toerag something to remember me by, and by extension, all of us girls at the Brighton City-Break Hotel and Spa, who through his non-compliance with Female-Friendly Code protocols and non-
cooperation with our wishes, he so insulted. Oh, the anticipation; I can almost feel the Public Punishment presiding CSO's flexible bamboo cane in my hand!" exulted the self-appointed executor, Cindy, warming to the prospect of
personally swinging the cane with maximum effort and minimum mercy at Neville's bared buttocks in public at the Town Centre stocks sometime soon.

"Well, let us know the day and the time, Cindy," said Sarah. "I'm sure that those of us who are not working will all come and watch."

My attention was then attracted by the sound of tapping, coming from down on the floor to my left.

I looked down, to see that Marisa was easing free her right heel from her three-inch heeled black leather waitress's work pump.

I looked up to Marisa.

And again Marisa tap-tap-tapped the metal-tipped heel of her waitress's work pump against the bare tiled floor of the chefs' changing room, as though deliberately redirecting my gaze downward, where AFP Female-Friendly Code protocol
dictated it belonged.

Slowly, Marisa withdrew her right foot the rest of the way out of her shoe.

Mesmerised, I watched as Marisa scrunched her toes, which through the gauzy material of her dark pantyhose I could see she had painted a bright red. Marisa then splayed her long slender toes and, stretching their dark nylon confines, the
vibrant red colour of her nail polish stood out even more; seemed to shine, like five little warning lights.

Enraptured, I watched as Marisa went on, scrunching her toes, splaying her toes; flexing her tired out toes uninhibitedly in the unfettered freedom of post-work liberation.

"Tired tootsies, Marisa?" inquired Cindy sympathetically. "Me, too. But don't worry; we've got something for that – male citizen David."

I looked up to Marisa.

And now there was something new, in Marisa's dark eyes, something that I couldn't read.

Again Cindy and Marisa squeezed my wrists, their extra firmness expressing their growing impatience; Marisa's squeeze much the firmer, and conveying something ... more.

Their unvocalised directive, nonetheless clear: It's time to go.

Cindy and Marisa turned me around and began steering me toward the wedged-open door of the chefs' changing room, intent upon repairing to the Seascape Restaurant and getting me to themselves without any further needless loss of foot-
service time, and—

"Um ... male citizen David Manners!" blurted Sarah.

Cindy's split-second tightening of her hold on my wrist betrayed her irritation with Sarah, as did Marisa's own, reflexive squeeze. With audible sighs of frustration, Cindy and Marisa reluctantly released my wrists, allowing me to face
Sarah.

"Yes, Miss Sarah?" I said respectfully. "Was there something ... else?"

Sarah reached down and peeled her white ankle socks from her feet.

"Male citizen David Manners, I have a chore for you: Wash and iron these dirty socks for me," Sarah told me, imbuing her voice with a crisp commanding tone of authority that I hadn't heard from her before.

"And, when I say 'wash', I mean I want you to wash them by hand – not just throw them into the washing machine with your weekly wash. And, when I say 'iron', I mean I want you to press my socks properly, using a steam iron. And I warn
you: Do not be tempted to circumvent my instructions by cutting corners – I will know if you have in any way flouted my specified requirements.

"You will return my washed and pressed socks to me here at your earliest opportunity ... tomorrow, when I clock off at two o'clock would be convenient; and it should be within the wit of man to manage that.

"These are AFP-empowered female-citizen-Mistress/male-citizen-servant commands that I am formally issuing to you, male citizen David Manners," Sarah snapped harshly.

"Failure to comply, or to produce for me imperfect results, will at a minimum result in you receiving the Standard Six bare-bottom caning penalty. And, understand me: I will not permit you to receive your punishment in relative behind-
closed-doors privacy at the hands of a CSO. I will obtain the necessary permission to chastise you myself, in public at the Town Centre stocks. And then, just as with your absconded predecessor Neville, recorded on film, your ignominious
disgrace will be documented and preserved for posterity. Understood ...?"

It was with a feeling akin to awed reverence that I accepted into my care the items entrusted to me, putting Sarah's pulled-inside-out sweat-dampened thin white cotton ankle socks into either side pocket of my community-servant style
white work shorts.

"Understood, Miss Sarah. My employer Mrs Hilary Harper has already told me I won't be working tomorrow. So tonight I will perform the chore you have set for me, following exactly your explicit instructions and specifications. And at your
stated time of convenience, tomorrow at two o'clock, I will return here to the chefs' changing room and deliver your socks, hand-washed and steam-ironed."

"Um ... good," replied Sarah.

It seemed to me as though Sarah wanted to say something more to me, but that she was reluctant, put off perhaps by the presence of the two waitresses.

I could have imagined it.

But the final, lingering look Sarah gave me seemed to convey an apologetic, helpless shrug. As if Sarah was saying: 'I can only protect you so far; my delaying tactics are all used up'.

Protect me from what; delay what, I was about to find out.

For now, Cindy and Marisa retook their hold of my wrists, and squeezed; Marisa's grip, even firmer than before and surprising me with its possessive strength.

The two footsore waitress's unvoiced signal, nonetheless crystal clear: Come on, you – let's go.

"And, make sure you do, male citizen David Manners!" snapped Sarah as the two post-shift Lunch waitresses ushered me ahead of them through the wedged-open door of the chefs' changing room. "Hand-washed and steam-ironed!"

But now, Cindy and Marisa weren't stopping for anything.

*


The beach, marina, and sea views as seen from the Seascape Restaurant were indeed magnificent, and availing themselves of my services as per the agreed reciprocities of my employer Mrs Hilary Harper and the hotel manageress Miss Helen
Honeywell's something-for-something arrangement, the two post-shift Lunch waitresses Cindy and Marisa enjoyed them.

But I saw none of it.

As, positioned sitting on the floor with my back against a floor-to-ceiling plate-glass picture window, Cindy and Marisa, sitting in front of me on the two dining chairs they'd placed over each of my outstretched legs, stretched out
their legs too in using my shoulders as their after-work footrest.

The weight of the two waitresses' relaxing legs and feet on 'their' shoulders was surprisingly heavy, their combined downward pressures, anchoring me in place as immovably as a wharfside capstan set in concrete.

Cindy had made herself comfortable first, sitting facing me in the chair slightly to my right which she'd placed over my outstretched right leg.

Her right ankle crossed over her left upon 'her' shoulder, Cindy popped free her heel from her uppermost work pump and, swinging her dangling shoe from her dark-nyloned toes she wafted her pungent post-work foot fragrance into my
inches-away face.

Clearly, Cindy was showing Marisa the ropes.

As a foreign visitor, although Marisa would surely have some idea as to what went on in the UK these days, she might not be aware of what some people considered the remarkable extent to which the AFP exerted control over the male
citizenry.

Marisa's face was a picture of amazed disbelief – but no, I realised: her astounded expression was of incredulous delight.

Marisa had witnessed in the chefs' changing room examples of my compliant demeanour and impeccable behaviour at the feet of the easygoing and easy-to-please Sarah, the commis chef, and had conveyed her surprise as to the level of what
she had termed as my docility.

But now Cindy was pushing the envelope.

Marisa took Cindy's lead and promptly followed suit, and then I was inhaling not just Cindy's but also Marisa's pungent post-work dark-nyloned scents as, their ankles crossed comfortably upon 'their' shoulder, languorously they dangled
their topmost black leather three-inch heeled waitress's work pump right in front of my face.

Of the two waitresses' ensuing shoulder-perched shoe-playing shenanigans, it was Marisa, who with seemingly natural inventive flair spiced with her lively Latin intensity of expression, outperformed the pump-dangling playful repertoire
of the sedate by comparison local girl Cindy.

Cindy, flexing her uppermost ankle and dangling her pump at an angle that revealed to me most of her work shoe's well-worn interior, said, "I know you've only been here in the UK a few days, Marisa, but how are you enjoying Brighton so
far?"

Flexing her topmost shoulder-perched ankle this way and that way as she dangled her waitress's work pump from her big toe, Marisa enthused, "Oh, I love it, Cindy! The friendly hotel staff, the beautiful Brighton beaches – the attention
of the boys! And my Student Exchange junior managerial course lasts for six months!"

Letting her right shoe fall from her foot to the carpet between the 'V' of my outstretched legs, Cindy hovered her dark-pantyhosed sole in front of my face. "Begin massaging my right foot now, male citizen David," she instructed,
scrunching and wiggling and splaying her toes, as though to make clear which foot she was talking about.

"Yes, Miss Cindy, as you wish," I said respectfully, drinking in the dark-nyloned details of Cindy's now fully unshod right sole before reverently taking it into my hands.

"I'll tell you when to begin on my left foot."

"Yes, Miss Cindy."

The two post-work waitresses then gazed out through the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass picture window in front of them, enjoying the relaxing vistas beyond.

Just as I had done with Sarah, the commis chef, I began by rotating both thumbs firmly into the bottom of Cindy's heel. And again, unless instructed otherwise by Cindy, I would gradually work my way upward, ministering to her arch, the
ball of her foot, and finally the undersides and the pads of her toes.

And within moments, just as had been the case with Sarah, while still manipulating the centre of the bottom of her heel, Cindy too was sighing blissfully in post-work relief.

In the absence of any countermanding or issuing of new instructions from Cindy, I continued doing my own thing.

Marisa, distracted from enjoying the relaxing panoramic views beyond the plate-glass picture window, looked down several times to see what I was doing that was repeatedly and consistently hitting the spot for Cindy as methodically I
worked my way from heel to toes.

The two waitresses then lapsed into a companionable silence as again they stared out through the window; the only sounds, Cindy's pleasureful post-shift sighs.

"Yes, Marisa, Brighton is a great place," said Cindy, resuming their conversation. "I was born here, and I wouldn't dream of – more firmly there, on the ball of my foot, male citizen David – moving anywhere else."

"Yes, Miss Cindy," I said compliantly.

Marisa looked down on me, and for a moment she observed my ministrations as I followed Cindy's instruction, working both thumbs more firmly; some clockwise rotations, and then counterclockwise.

"Cindy, from back home in Milan I have watched in fascination the extraordinary rise to power of your AFP and observed with deep satisfaction your female government's continued consolidation of societal dominion over your male citizens.
But, blurred by distance, a view from afar is an imperfect view, and I would love to hear a first-hand account of the altered living conditions here from the viewpoint of a female citizen."

"Oh, Marisa! Where should I start? Well, our now Prime Minister Caroline Flynt's concept of the Female-Friendly Code is now constitutional law.

"Right from Day One of Caroline Flynt's Authoritarian Female Party's rule, there were changes for the better.

"But over the longer term, as envisioned by AFP think-tanks and with invited supplementary input from female citizens via the AFP's quarterly-edition Female Citizen-Male Citizen Satisfaction Questionnaire, the establishment of manned
infrastructures as will promote all of the imaginable comforts and facilitate every possible convenience of female citizens has been the priority and indeed the single-minded ambition of our new all-female government.

"Everything is so different now; it seems that every week, the AFP announces yet another Grand Opening of one of their fantastic female-friendly services, projects, or schemes. It's a whole new normal."

"And so ... how does this new normal work, Cindy, in everyday reality?"

"Well, for instance, if they so choose, females no longer need to work for their living. And believe me, Marisa: sometimes the AFP government's open offer of a life of absolute leisure on their very generous Ladies' Living Allowance is
very tempting!

"I love my work, though. And, of course, my wages are paid tax-free now. The male workforce has been made to take on that burden; just as their tax-pounds finance all of our many other female-friendly services and schemes – such as the
Ladies' Living Allowance.

"The new benefits are too numerous to mention, Marisa: Free travel on public transport; free health and fitness club membership; a whole panoply of male-facilitated female-friendly services ... the list goes on and on.

"But, one of the main and, for me, the most truly satisfying development, is that any female citizen of adult age is AFP-empowered to summon the service of any Of-Serviceable-Age male citizen. And, in fact, Marisa, as an AFP courtesy the
same empowerments are extended to female visitors from overseas."

"How marvellous! I haven't heard about that, Cindy."

"Oh, yes – and really, it's as easy as could be! The contact number and character synopsis of every Of-Serviceable-Age male citizen in the UK are readily available – published online in the AFP's On-System DataBase, in the Female-
Friendly Service Directory, as well as of course in local telephone directories.

"Summonable by a call direct to his AFP-issue mobile phone, or just a text message – or even a mere click of the fingers in a public place – either method of summons, he cannot, must not – dare not – ignore."

"So, just as an example, Cindy. I could ... look up the contact number, for ... male citizen David here. And I could summon him to come and do for me ... whatever I want?"

"Yes, Marisa – that's it exactly! You've got the idea."

"Cindy, what happens to a male citizen who says 'No'?"

"Marisa, believe me: Any male citizen with two working brain cells between his ears won't say 'No' to a female citizen."

"But, a lot of men don't have any functioning brain cells in their heads, Cindy. So, what happens to a male citizen who does refuse his summons from a female citizen direct to his AFP-issue mobile phone, or ignores her text message, or
does not respond obediently and compliantly and come to heel at an authoritative click of her fingers in a public place? Or who says he's sorry but he can't, for whatever reason?"

"Well, with power comes responsibility. And, although feedback from the AFP's latest Female Citizen-Male Citizen Satisfaction Questionnaire has revealed another sharp rise on previous polls and that in a growing trend, more than sixteen
per cent of females now thinks it entirely fit and proper to over-enforce their empowerments, I like to consider myself a benign taskmistress who exerts her authority fairly and reasonably over our menfolk.

"But, woe betide any Serviceable Age male citizen who shirks the Constitution-bound obligations of his societal duty without what the female or females in question consider a valid excuse for exemption or at least adequate grounds for
granting a discretional exception.

"Any such egregiously wronged female is entitled to demand that the offender in question be Standard Sixed: a short, sharp, bare-bottom caning lesson that in many cases is sufficient to bring an errant male citizen quickly to his senses.

"And, should the disobliged and by implication disrespected female be also inclined to insist that the Standard Six be administered not at the hands of an AFP-employed CSO and witnessed formally by just one other, she can apply to the
Community Service Liaison Officer for permission to perform the bare-bottom caning penalty personally at the Town Centre stocks.

"Furthermore, should she be of a mind, upon due enactment of her offender's public humiliation at her hands, she can request his removal to an AFP Correction and Rehabilitation Facility. Where, with an intent focus upon female-friendly
ideological instruction and daily doctrinal inculcation, he will undergo further, more sophisticated mindset-adjustment therapies under the guidance of his female overseers."

"And that is how it should be!" said Marisa fervently.

"Back home in Italy, based on your AFP and led by a beautiful, charismatic and visionary woman very much like your Prime Minister, Caroline Flynt, is a women's movement of which I was proud to become an active member earlier this year on
my eighteenth birthday.

"Everything is progressing nicely, and the future augurs well. Our movement's core, subscription membership is rising, and our latest voter-pledge canvassing by myself and my female activist colleagues shows that support is soaring for
our fledgeling political party."

"And that is how it all started here, too, Marisa. Perhaps it won't be long, now before women's movements such as ours gain a foothold all over Europe. And then, who knows ...?"

From their dreamy expressions as they looked out through the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass picture window, Cindy and Marisa didn't see the beautiful beach, marina, and sea views of Brighton, but the infrastructural foundations and
consolidations of a worldwide Female-Friendly utopia.

Rousing herself from her rose-tinted reverie, Cindy removed her right foot from my hands and rested it once more on my right shoulder. She then allowed her left work pump to fall from her foot, where it landed beside her other pump
inside the wide 'V' of my spread apart outstretched legs.

Hovering now the dark-nyloned sole of her left foot in front of my face and again scrunching and wiggling and splaying her toes as though for the purpose of clarity, Cindy instructed: "Begin massaging my left foot now, male citizen
David."

"Yes, Miss Cindy," I said in respectful compliance.

"Are you going to repeat your heel-to-toes, method, David?"

"That was my intention, Miss Cindy, yes."

"Well, when you get to the ball of my foot this time, David, do that twin-thumb rotation thing of yours extra-firmly again, just as you did with my right foot."

"Yes, Miss Cindy," I said obediently.

It had not escaped my notice just now, that, presumably as a concession for my respectful, compliant, unfailingly obedient behaviour, Cindy had dropped the stiltedly proper, rigidly protocoled 'male citizen' usage.

It seemed now that she, but of course not we, were on first-name terms.

"Male citizen David is extraordinarily well-behaved, Cindy," observed Marisa, working her ankle to waft from her precariously dangling work pump further warm winds and lingering scented eddies of her post-work dark-nyloned foot aroma
into my inches-away face. "I can't help but notice, that he has followed your specific foot-massage instructions to the letter and that in accommodating your occasional positional adjustments when recrossing your ankles on his shoulder,
he has prioritised your comfort to the direct detriment of his own."

"Marisa, that has not gone unnoticed by me, either: his unfailingly respectful, compliant, obedient – in fact, almost awed, solemnly reverential – demeanour towards me, and towards Sarah, before me. My suspicion has been growing, Marisa,
that David is one of the Of-Serviceable-Age male citizens of which the AFP refers to as the Compatibles."

"The 'Compatibles', Cindy?"

"Yes, Marisa, the Compatibles. The AFP has created a special, dedicated set-up, called the Department of Compatibility. Whose crack, expert workforce's remit, is to investigate and follow up the possibilities for procurement of these
uncommonly placid and pliable people."

"Cindy, please tell me more, about these Compatibles!" urged Marisa.

"Well, the Compatibles are the inherently willing and obliging, malleable and manipulable, predominantly in-work male citizens, whose considerate character and noble nature can most easily be prevailed upon to facilitate the perennially
undermanned female-friendly services which, without whose recruitment, would go seriously under-provisioned – or, worse, might sometimes go unmanned altogether."

"They sound indispensable, Cindy."

"Oh – they are, Marisa!"

"I mean, they must be worth their weight in gold, these Compatibles."

"The AFP believes that ranging through feminist-light, to the extreme-element dyed-in-the-wool ultra-feminist woman-worshipping foot fetishists – therein, lie the reasons behind their respective unusual amenability, uncommon cooperation,
willing bendability, and extreme tractability.

"But at the Department of Compatibility, because of their tremendous value, the Compatibles are known as 'Diamonds'.

"The office-based investigators – who on their monitors scrutinise not just the live AFP feeds from strategically sited cameras, but follow up thousands of hours of 'promising' CCTV leads forwarded by collaborating government agencies,
and trawl the smart-phone video footage segments sent in by AFP affiliate or just ordinary sympathetic watchful members of the public – are known as the 'Diamond Sifters'.

"And the specially trained in-the-field plainclothes honeytrap agents who are then sent to dig them up – and, while out on patrol, often root out and bag others by chance – are known as the 'Diamond Hunters'."

"Really? How apt!"

"Of course, the AFP could easily use forced labour to facilitate our female-friendly services – and there is no shortage of female overseers to ensure that the manpower we do have available to us is fully utilised. And, as an incentive
to look for work with keener enthusiasm and greater determination, Job Centre staff do, put longer-term unemployed males on Placement. But that is all very well; when all is said and done, there is nothing like a willing worker."

"You mean, Cindy ... like male citizen David, here?"

"Well, Marisa, why don't you find out? I'm relinquishing our post-work prize: it's your turn now, with the footboy."

At Cindy's words, Marisa recrossed her ankles on 'her' shoulder and wafted from her other dangling, swinging work pump fresh warm draughts and lingering scented eddies of her dark-nyloned foot's post-shift fragrances.

"My turn, with the footboy?"

"Your turn, with the footboy."

Marisa presented her right foot to me, as though hinting I should remove her black leather three-inch heeled waitress's work pump for her.

In something akin to a full, awed awakening it struck me now that, this, here, was what it was all about: Service.

Surely, shoe removal should be the precursor. The prerequisite service, of foot massage.

A preliminary ceremony, performed with due gravitas.

A solemn, devotional undertaking.

A matter of etiquette.

But, just as I reached my hands forward to do her implied bidding, Marisa eschewed my homage and thwarted my reverent shoe-removal intentions as with an adroit flex of her ankle and a deft flick of her toes she sent her waitress's work
pump sailing high over her head and behind her.

I waited for Cindy and Marisa to recover themselves from laughing at the resultant sounds of devastation as Marisa's black leather three-inch heeled waitress's work pump landed on one of the set-for-dinner tables, displacing cutlery and
condiments and smashing glassware.

At last, placing her dark-nyloned right foot into my waiting hands, Marisa said, "So, male citizen David ... how long have you been a footboy?"

"Just since this morning, Miss Marisa. When I started work for my employer Mrs Hilary Harper: I'm her male-worker role luxury refreshments-break little-something-extra for her female clientele."

"Oh? And, how are you settling into your new job?"

"Quite well, Miss Marisa. I think I am learning to adapt."

"Well, I am ... um, more firmly there, on the bottom of my heel, male citizen David, if you don't mind, thank you – very pleased for you."

"Yes, Miss Marisa, as you wish. And thank you."

"I mean, after all, it can't be every young man's cup of tea, can it? And not many, are of your diminutive size yet stocky and robust upper-bodied structure. And ... Um, male citizen David, I wonder if I can ask a special favour of you?"

"A special favour, Miss Marisa?"

"The thing is, I can feel my calf cramping, and the only effective relief is to stretch out my leg fully. I ... I wonder, if ..."

"Miss Marisa, you only have to ask."

"Well ..."

"Miss Marisa? Is there ... something I can do?"

"Well, I do so hate to ask, but ... may I rest the sole of my foot on your face?"

"Um ..."

"It's a lot to ask, I know. But you'll be comfortable, I think, with your head resting against the window, if that's your concern. Or, is it ... the smell?"

"Miss Marisa, since serving as the facial footrest to the SPOILT! Boutique manageresses this morning during their coffee break, the fears I had on that score are all put to rest."

"Oh ... really?"

"Yes, Miss Marisa."

"So ... you don't mind?"

"No, Miss Marisa."

"But, how can you not mind? I mean, what an imposition: I am an eighteen-year-old part-work/part-study junior managerial course Exchange Student from Italy, asking you to let me rest the sole of my post-work stinky nyloned foot on your
face!"

"Miss Marisa, it is just as Miss Cindy said earlier: as an AFP courtesy, the Rights of Summons empowerments pertaining to Serviceable Age male citizens are extended in full to foreign female visitors. You have every entitlement, and you
are merely exercising your rights – in no way is it an imposition."

"But, inevitably and unavoidably, submitting to my – well, it has to be said: outrageous, pushing-the-envelope request – is going to entail prolonged and inescapable inhalation of my under- and in-between-the-toes scent."

"That's fine, Miss Marisa."

"It's fine?"

"Yes, Miss Marisa. And, you are not making an outrageous request; it is perfectly reasonable."

"You see what I've been saying, Marisa, about male citizen David? He must be a Compatible."

The next thing I knew, Marisa had planted the length of her dark-nyloned right sole on my face and, pressing my head back against the plate-glass picture window, she tilted my head so that my gaze was directed upward at the gap between
the top of the window and the pelmet and not at the two of them.

And I found out now that what I had assured Marisa of was correct: I was not the least put out at being subjected to, at Marisa's "outrageous, pushing-the-envelope request", the "inevitable and unavoidable" "inescapable prolonged
inhalation" of her post-work under- and in-between-the-toes scents.

I couldn't see Cindy now, but I could hear her tittering in amusement.

Already today, I had undergone the albeit inadvertent and consequential and so not deliberately and maliciously imposed inhalation of six successive SPOILT! Boutique manageresses' freshly released foot fragrances, as, single-legged
postured, they'd enjoyed the holding-forth, opinion-positing, centre of attention status of refreshments-break facial-footrest tenure.

To my great surprise, the harrowing ordeal that in my acute anxiety I'd imagined and braced myself for had in reality turned out to be anything but; had been far from the unpleasant and stressful experience that in my preconceived fears
I'd dreaded.

The six manageresses' foot scents were, of course, all different. As subtle and perhaps not quite so subtle as might be the randomly sampled fragrances from a similar number of perfume bottles found on the cosmetics counter of a
reputable department store – each one of them, heady, intoxicating, and with a unique signature.

It occurred to me now that, in my capacity of Mrs Hilary Harper's male-worker role luxury little-something-extra provider to her refreshments-breaking female clientele, ahead of me awaited a limitless olfactory bonanza.

I was sure I could detect a smile now in Marisa's voice too, when she said, "Your hands are free now, male citizen David. So you might as well begin massaging my left foot – here."

"Yes, Miss Marisa, as you wish," I said compliantly into the bottom of Marisa's dark-nyloned heel, at which Cindy laughed at my muffled voice.

"And, if you don't mind, male citizen David, if it's not too much to ask, can you work your thumbs into the bottom of my heel and the ball of my foot more firmly this time? And with more consistency of pressure? Is that all right?
Because you seem to be losing concentration, I'm afraid. And, if it's not too much trouble, with a more equal ratio of clockwise and counterclockwise rotations? You are doing very well indeed, apart from those few little faults."

"Yes, Miss Marisa, of course," I said obediently into her dark-nyloned right sole as in a self-pleasing up-and-down motion Marisa massaged her foot on my face, occasioning another mirthful giggle from Cindy.

The two waitresses then lapsed into a companionable quietude again for a minute or two as they enjoyed the relaxing views.

Cindy finally broke their comfortable silence, saying, "Marisa ... on Friday nights after work, some of us waitresses usually go for a well-earned drink at Antonia's Wine Bar, where they have Placemented footboys – would you like to come
along? Believe me: it's just the thing after a long, hard, tiring Dinner shift on your feet."

"Oh! I would love to, Cindy. Thank you – I will look forward to it!"

After another little period of quiet, this time it was Marisa who broke the silence, when she said, "Um ... male citizen David?"

"Yes, Miss Marisa?" I said indistinctly into the warm sole of her surprisingly agreeably aromatic dark-nyloned right foot – and now, without removing her foot, Marisa lifted the bottom of her heel from its resting place between my lips
to allow communication.

"I ... well, I do so hate to be a bother, and I do so hate to ask, but ..."

"Miss Marisa?"

"You'll say 'No', this time, male citizen David. And that's all right; I won't take it any further."

"Miss Marisa – I certainly won't! I wouldn't dream of it!"

"But you haven't heard what I'm going to ask of you yet!"

"It doesn't matter, Miss Marisa. You can ask of me anything you like – I won't say 'No'."

"Can I? Won't you?"

"Miss Marisa – of course. And besides, it would be as Miss Cindy said earlier: if I did say 'No', you could demand to have me Standard Sixed by a Community Service Officer – the CSOs are the AFP's female army of foot soldiers, their
disciplinarians and enforcers.

"Or if you preferred, permission would be a formality, if you wanted the satisfaction as many ladies do of administering the bare-bottom caning penalty to their offender personally and publicly at the Town Centre stocks instead of
letting him off lightly with the minimum of humiliation behind closed doors in the Punishments and Corrections Room in the Town Hall.

"It's very common, Miss Marisa; and as you'll soon see for yourself: there is always some wrongdoer or other; some Female-Friendly Code violator receiving public punishment at the hands of his lady prosecutor."

"You see, Marisa? It's like I've been saying," said Cindy, recrossing her ankles for the umpteenth time on 'her' shoulder and luxuriating in scrunching and wiggling and splaying the dark-nyloned toes of her post-work feet. "Male citizen
David isn't the sort to say 'No'. The strong likelihood of painful repercussions for defiance doesn't enter into it."

"Well, in that case ... male citizen David?"

"Yes, Miss Marisa?"

"I'm afraid to say, that now I can feel my left calf starting to cramp."

"Oh – I'm sorry to hear that, Miss Marisa. Is there something ... I can do?"

"Well, since you are considerate enough to ask ... As you know, the only thing that will prevent my calf from seizing up is to extend my leg fully. So, I was wondering ..."

"Yes, Miss Marisa?"

"Well ... would it be all right, male citizen David, if ... if I rested the sole of my left foot on your face, too? I mean, both feet at the same time?"

"Of course, Miss Marisa. Please go ahead."

That got another giggle from Cindy, and yet another luxuriating recrossing of her ankles upon 'her' shoulder as she enjoyed the antics of her new fun-loving, rope-learning, quickly settling in Italian colleague.

"You haven't forgotten, have you, male citizen David, I have told you that you can say 'No'? I will give you dispensation – my discretional exception. You have my word, my solemn promise, that I will neither have a CSO Standard-Six you
in the Town Hall and nor will I cane your bare buttocks myself in the Town Centre stocks, if you say 'No' to me."

"Thank you, Miss Marisa. But I really don't mind."

"You don't mind? You don't mind, male citizen David, if while you sit there uncomfortable on the floor, I sit here in comfort in front of you enjoying the beach and sea views, resting both soles of my stinky nyloned feet on your face
after finishing my back-to-back run-off-my-feet Breakfast and Lunch waitressing shifts?"

"Not at all, Miss Marisa."

"Not at all?"

"Not at all. And after all, Miss Marisa, what you suggest is extremely logical and highly practical: my hands will then be free again, so at the same time I will be able to resume massaging Miss Cindy's feet as well as facilitating your
requested further comfort."

The next thing I knew, Marisa's dark-nyloned left sole was accompanying her right, and now both post-work feet were pressing the back of my head against the plate-glass picture window and tilting my gaze unobtrusively upward at the gap
between the top of the window and the pelmet and so not at the two of them.

I then felt but did not see Cindy once again place one of her dark-pantyhosed feet into my now freed up hands.

I waited a moment. And then, in the absence of any general instruction or a particular foot-service requirement from Cindy, I proceeded to do my own thing.

"I am now convinced beyond doubt, David ..." said Marisa, settling the undersides of the dark-nyloned toes of her left foot over my nostrils and double-sealing my nose with the toes of her right foot "... that Cindy is right about you:
You truly are a Compatible."

"Yes, Miss Marisa," I said respectfully into the arch of her surprisingly pleasantly aromatic dark-nyloned foot. "And thank you."

It had not escaped my notice just now that, presumably as a small concession for my unfailing obedience and ready compliance, or perhaps as a reward for declining her discretional-exception offer to say 'No' without fear of repercussive
comeback, in addressing me Marisa had relaxed the usual rigid formal protocoled female-citizen-Mistress/male-citizen-servant interaction and eschewed the customary 'male citizen' usage.

Apparently, she, but of course not we, were now on first-name terms.

***


"So, David ... how did it go, then, with Sarah the commis chef and the Lunch shift waitresses?" enquired my employer Mrs Hilary Harper upon my return to the Pavilion Lounge, with about ten minutes to spare before the scheduled
commencement of the SPOILT! Boutique manageresses' 3:00 - 3:30 refreshments break.

The final touches, I saw, were now being made to the serving tables by Mrs Harper and her two junior partner assistants Amanda and Zoe.

"I thought it went OK, Mrs Harper."

"Amanda and Zoe and I are so pleased with you, David – all the signs are that you are learning to adapt.

"And in fact, I've just had a phone call from Miss Tomkins, your Probational Case Worker at the Job Centre, who says she has received a highly complimentary Female Citizen Communication regarding you. And, why should she trouble herself
to call me about that? Because it is a first, for one of my male-worker role employees.

"And, not only that, but the hotel manageress Miss Helen Honeywell was here a minute ago. She spoke very highly of you too and congratulated me on your recruitment. She expressed her hopes that we would do business again soon, and renew
our special something-for-something reciprocal arrangement. Miss Honeywell told me that she has already text-messaged a good word to Miss Tomkins and that she is going to send her a follow-up, handwritten report elaborating upon your
unfailing respect, compliant conduct and impeccable behaviour. Congratulations, David!"

"Thank you, Mrs Harper. But really, I was only doing my—"

"We're not early, are we, Mrs H?" said Miss Hazel Connaught-Cavendish, the manageress of London's Oxford St's showpiece everything-under-one-roof SPOILT! Boutique and the Head of Conference, leading her twenty-nine high-end fashion,
accessories, cosmetics, and personal services store manageress colleagues into the set-aside Pavilion Lounge.

"Not at all, Miss Connaught-Cavendish," said Mrs Harper as she and her three staff members hurriedly took up positions behind our respective service tables. "Everything is all ready and prepared for you."

Mrs Harper gave me a look, that said: See, I told you they would turn up early again.

"And, is male citizen David, all ready and prepared for us?" said the manageress in the crimson final-day-of-Conference T-shirt.

I'd know that dulcet voice and those mellifluous lilting Welsh tones anywhere: She was manageress of the SPOILT! Boutique in Cardiff – Julie.

"Now, now, Julie," admonished Miss Hazel Connaught-Cavendish. "We must let other colleagues partake. You had your turn with male citizen David this morning, during our coffee break."

That was true:

Along with five others, including Miss Connaught-Cavendish herself and Miss Martina Morris, Julie – while other coffee-breaking colleagues were left to make do with my 'lesser' back, sides, and shoulder-footrests – Julie had been one of
the six manageresses to take up the prized-position holding forth, opinion-positing, centre-of-attention status of facial-footrest tenure.

"Of course, Miss Connaught-Cavendish," said Julie contritely.

The Head of Conference went on, "Unfortunately for us, Mrs Harper's excellent new footboy only came into her employ today. And so, if only for five minutes each, during our afternoon refreshments break on this, the final day of our
Annual Conference, other colleagues must, and shall, have their turn with our little-something-extra."

I did the math:

If twenty-four tea-breaking manageresses were each going to have a five-minute in-tenure 'turn' of their facial footrest, this would not be a thirty-minute, but an overrunning, schedule-busting two-hour refreshments break ... but no.

Taken into account, must be all of the extra time taken up by the in situ facial-footresters' single-legged postured foot-to-foot switchovers, mid-tenure; their successors' minor but necessary single-legged stance adjustments, pre-
commitment; and the repeated settling in of six replacement manageresses as, upon each new accession to tenure, they availed themselves of my 'lesser' back, sides, and shoulder-footrests.

Miss Hazel Connaught-Cavendish said, "Amanda and Zoe. When we're all done here, would you like to come with me to the conference room, and help yourselves to whatever you'd like from the SPOILT! Boutique fashionwear, shoes, lingerie, and
cosmetic items that we've had on display this week?"

"Thank you, Miss Connaught-Cavendish!" said Amanda and Zoe simultaneously.

"Good. You've been so pleasant to us all week, I might be able to find you both a nice SPOILT! Boutique wristwatch too."

From what I'd gathered, Amanda and Zoe had already done well this week with gifts like part-used perfumes from the manageresses – but now a final-day-of-conference bonanza awaited them.

"I'll have a cup of coffee, please, male citizen David, if that's all right; I'm not much of a tea drinker," said the manageress in the orange final-day-of-Conference T-shirt: Miss Martina Morris.

"Of course, Miss Morris. My pleasure."

Miss Morris was manageress of the SPOILT! Boutique, here in Brighton. As the local agent, she had been deputed to help organise this year's Annual Conference, including booking same-hotel accommodation for herself and her twenty-nine
manageress colleagues and arranging their refreshments-breaks provisions.

"Oh, let's not stand so much on formalities, David – call me Miss Martina."

It seemed now that she, but of course not we, were on first-name terms.

"Yes, Miss Martina," I said, picking up a saucer and one of the thick white mugs we used for coffee. Reaching for the coffee pot, with the split-second eye contact that was protocol permissible in these cases, I added, "And thank you."

Raising her voice above the tea-break chatter of her colleagues to make herself heard to my employer, Miss Martina Morris said, "Mrs Harper, any chance of you turning male citizen David over to me, for my boutique?"

A quarter-full, I had to put Miss Morris's cup and saucer down again on the table to still its rattle.

"I'm sorry, Martina, I'm afraid not," replied my employer.

I picked up the cup and saucer again and resumed pouring.

"Are you sure, Mrs H?" tried Miss Morris again. "I would love to instal him in the Brighton SPOILT! Boutique, in Personal Services. I know male citizen David would be a big hit with the ladies of Brighton."

Half-full, again I had to put the cup and saucer back down on the serving table.

"No, Martina, I'm sorry but no," replied my employer more firmly. "I've waited too long, for David to come along."

I picked up the cup and saucer again and carried on pouring from the coffee pot, but my hands weren't as steady as they had been.

"Can't I persuade you, Hilary?" persisted Miss Martina Morris, undeterred. "I mean, just like here, it would be a proper, respectable job of gainful employment for male citizen David, not a Placement. And when he's fully trained-up by
myself and my staff, who he can practise on, I will appoint him Head Male Pedicurist."

Three-quarters full, once again I had to put down Miss Morris's cup and saucer.

The thought, of being whisked away now from my kindly employer Mrs Hilary Harper and her junior partner assistants Amanda and Zoe – headhunted, by Miss Martina Morris, manageress of Brighton's SPOILT! Boutique, to be trained up to serve
in Personal Services as her Head Male Pedicurist ...

"It is out of the question, Martina," my employer replied, this time with a touch of asperity. "Amanda and Zoe would mutiny if I was to let David go."

I wondered if there was a scintilla of truth to that.

I looked at Amanda and Zoe ... from behind their serving tables, they were both staring daggers at Miss Martina Morris.

From the Brighton SPOILT! Boutique manageress Miss Martina Morris's apparent familiarity with my employer Mrs Hilary Harper, I could only assume that Mrs Harper was a frequenter of the high-end fashion, accessories, cosmetics, and ...
personal services, store. And, I had to wonder: were Amanda and Zoe?

"All right, then, Hilary," Miss Morris conceded reluctantly. "As long as you remember, should you change your mind, to let me have first dibs on David? I mean, it's not every day, is it, that we come across a male worker with such
unusual character qualities and rare abilities as his."

Once again, I picked up the coffee pot and Miss Morris's three-quarters-full cup and prepared to pour, but Miss Morris said, "Thank you, David, that'll be fine."

"My pleasure, Miss Martina."

"Um ... David," said Mrs Harper. "I think some of the ladies are waiting for you to come and perform your special duties."

"Yes, Mrs Harper."

Just as I walked behind her serving table, Amanda slipped out her right foot and rested it sole upward in her black leather flat. "Er, David ... are you forgetting something?"

Yes – in my eagerness to put myself at the service of my employer Mrs Hilary Harper's refreshments-breaking female clientele – I was, forgetting something ... ('From now on, David, upon each and every occasion of your either coming into
or leaving our presence, you will watch for our prompts for you to demonstrate to Zoe and me your obeisance by kissing the sole of our foot').

I didn't have the slightest hesitation, not a moment's deliberation; it was just the way it was – my new normal.

With evident approval my fair-minded employer Mrs Hilary Harper looked on as I got to my knees at the proffered olive-complexioned sole of Amanda's upturned right foot, to cement this, the next stage of my adaption.

"Forgive me, Miss Amanda, I won't forget again," I said, looking up to her. I then lowered my lips and, in reverence, I kissed first the ball of her foot, and then her arch, and finally, I pressed my lips against the bottom of her bare
heel, in a more lingering demonstration of devotional obeisance.

And now, for Zoe.

Upon going to my knees behind Zoe, at first, she did not proffer the sole of her foot for me to kiss reverently in a leaving-her-presence demonstration of obeisance, but looked over her shoulder and down on me, smiling.

As seemed usual with Zoe, her smile was full of enigma.

But this time I read something in it that, like a bucket of water thrown over a sputtering candle, doused completely the fluttering flame of my earlier hopes that something of a romantic nature might blossom between us.

Read something in it, that laid to rest my wrongful romantic notions.

Laid to rest, my hopeful affairs-of-the-heart speculations, as the groundless deluded fantasies they were.

Because now, laid to rest now also, apparently, was Zoe's last lingering doubt as to Amanda's convicted assertion to me that: 'You are going to adapt easily to being our at-work fringe benefit'.

Seeing that I now understood this; reading from my face that I was disabused of my flight of fancy and reconciled that our relationship was not one of an equal footing, Zoe did not slip her foot from her eighteenth-birthday present,
authentic Greystone Prison 'Jailhouse Blue' female prison officers' flip-flop. But instead, still wearing it, she raised her foot behind her until her lower leg was level with the floor.

My whole body shook with jittery, nervous tension; with unnerving, awed reverence – this was another of those moments.

My fingers, trembling in anticipation of performing now, the service the waitresses Cindy and Marisa had not required of me: the preliminary devotional requirement now intimated by Zoe – solemnly, I slid free Zoe's thin-rubber soled
flip-flop.

And ... had I ever beheld, such a pretty foot? Perhaps the commis chef, Sarah, ran Zoe a close second.

Gripped in the enraptured throes of some form of magical madness, my adoring lips planted kiss after worshipful kiss upon Zoe's shapely pale-complexioned sole, thus cementing myself into my proper place in Zoe's regard.

I couldn't stop, couldn't get enough; Zoe's sole was just so kissable, and—

"Um ... I think that will suffice, David," said Mrs Harper. "Please contain yourself. After all, I'm sure that as Zoe's at-work fringe benefit you will have every opportunity to express your ... feelings. Now go and present yourself to
Miss Hazel Connaught-Cavendish and the other SPOILT! Boutique manageresses – they are waiting for you."

I felt my face going redder than Julie the Cardiff SPOILT! Boutique manageress's crimson final-day-of-Conference T-shirt.

But I needn't have worried. From her look, I knew that Mrs Harper's seemingly stern tone with me had been one of mock reproval; that she was not admonishing me but that she was amused – because she was smiling. As was Zoe; but like the
cat that got the cream: our relationship was on the proper footing.

I headed at last toward the centre of the Pavilion Lounge where engaged in tea-break chitchat, the group of now congregated and expectant SPOILT! Boutique manageresses were waiting for me to perform for them my male-worker role
refreshments-break little-something-extra.

The manageress in overall charge: the Head of Conference, Miss Hazel Connaught-Cavendish, whose golden-yellow final-day-of-Conference T-shirt accentuated her bronzed skin tone like a well-chosen accessory – aided me, directing me with
her expertly manicured forefinger to the required spot.

I sat down on the carpet as directed and, just as I'd done this morning at the thirty manageresses' coffee-break, I widened my outstretched legs out into an accommodating 'V'.

Miss Hazel Connaught-Cavendish then said, "So, girls; those of you who missed out at coffee-break this morning – which one of you wants to take your turn with male citizen David first?"

The words were barely out of Miss Connaught-Cavendish's expertly lip-glossed mouth, when in her distinct Northern Irish tones the manageress in the cream-coloured final-day-of-Conference T-shirt piped up, "I'd like to go first – unless
anyone has any objections ...?"

I knew who she was, and I remembered her well. She was Shannon, one of the manageresses to avail herself of one of my shoulder-footrests at this morning's refreshments break. The sole of Shannon's right foot upon my left shoulder-
footrest had been bare, and I'd noted that her arch and the undersides of her toes were a stark creamy contrast to the reddish-pink colourations on her heel, the ball of her foot, and the pads of her toes.

Judging by the looks on the missing-a-trick faces of the other twenty-three eligible manageresses, they also would all have liked to have gone first. But, since they wished they'd done the same but had done it first, raising no objection
they went along with Shannon's quick-off-the-mark claim to tenure.

One of the more vivacious and colourful manageresses, and not least in that she was so distinguished by her Northern Irish accent, Shannon: red-haired, green-eyed, and pale-skinned – was the stunningly attractive, sex-appeal oozing
manageress of the SPOILT! Boutique, in Belfast.

"Prepare yourself, please, David," said Miss Hazel Connaught-Cavendish.

"Yes, Miss Connaught-Cavendish," I said respectfully.

It did not escape my notice that in addressing me just now, presumably as a small, protocol-relaxing concession to reward my unfailingly obedient and uncomplainingly compliant demeanour, the Head of Conference and manageress of London's
Oxford Street's showpiece everything-under-one-roof SPOILT! Boutique, Miss Hazel Connaught-Cavendish, had dropped the usual rigidly formal 'male citizen' usage.

It appeared now that she, but of course not we, were on first-name terms.

Shannon now approached me, the covetous eyes of her twenty-nine manageress colleagues, enviously following her first-to-the-prize progress towards their refreshments-break luxury little-something-extra facial footrest.

Shannon stood right in front of me and, with her appraising green eyes, looked down on me. "Footboy."

Just that one word – not just the word itself, but the way Shannon pronounced the two syllables, evidencing her Emerald Isle origins – sent a strange tingly shiver of ecstasy shuddering through me.

"Miss Shannon," I said succinctly in respectful acknowledgement and making the split-second direct eye contact that on such occasions was not only protocol permissible but appropriate.

Awaiting further address or instruction, respectfully I directed my gaze downward, at the spot between Shannon's feet.

Shod in a pair of expensive-looking three-inch heeled sandals with three silver-grey straps across the front half of the shoe, Shannon's feet were very pale-skinned, and her toes painted a bright red.

I did not have to wait long for Shannon's opening instruction, short and to the point: "Keep still for me, footboy."

There it was again: the strangely thrilling way, that Shannon said 'footboy'.

"Yes, Miss Shannon," I said respectfully. "I will. Go ahead – and please: be confident in the stability of my supportive sturdiness and assured of my unwavering steadfastness in maintaining your comfort."

"Just a second, Shannon, before you get settled ..." said Miss Hazel Connaught-Cavendish, reaching down to pluck my AFP-issue mobile phone from my shirt's breast pocket "... there, I've got it. I'll pass this around the ladies, just as
soon as I've text-messaged a good word to male citizen David's Probational Case Worker. Later, depending on how things go now, I may follow it up with a handwritten letter of commendation; I'd like to think it might help male citizen
David out a little should he find himself in hot water for falling foul of the Female-Friendly Code."

Shannon then stood up close, turned her back on me, and stood with her feet slightly apart.

I stared down at the backs of her bare heels, raised on her three-inch heeled backless sandals.

The slacks Shannon wore were two-tone; the back sections a lighter, perfect colour match for the silver-grey cross straps on her sandals.

Nothing seemed to go overlooked by these SPOILT! Boutique manageresses. Even the emerald-green silk ribbon in Shannon's red hair complemented her green eyes.

Shannon's slacks, like her shoes, were expensive-looking.

But, from eavesdropping this morning on the manageresses' coffee-break conversations, I knew that Shannon, as manageress of the SPOILT! Boutique in Belfast, did more than okay, with discounts on store merchandise. And that also, with the
Placemented males in her store's Personal Services Department, who she herself selects from line-ups of long-term unemployed at the Job Centre, she had free reign, with—

It was time to concentrate – a little tottery when standing on just one foot, testing her balance experimentally Shannon was sliding her right foot in and out of her three-inch heeled mule-like shoe: the sign that she was going with her
right foot first.

"Would I be in order, Miss Shannon, to hold down the heel of your left shoe now to steady you, and then hold down the heel of your right shoe during your switchover?"

"Yes; please do so."

Taking their cue, six of the tea-breaking manageresses now stepped forward to avail themselves of my albeit desirable and comfort giving but 'lesser' back, sides, and shoulder-footrests.

Twenty-three of Shannon's refreshments-breaking SPOILT! Boutique manageress colleagues were now left to look on and await their respective 'lesser' or in-tenure occupancies.

As now, in the sudden hear-a-pin-drop silence that had descended, there was not a cup-against-saucer chink to be heard as Shannon began raising her right foot behind her, having completed the minor but necessary single-legged postured
adjustments, pre-commitment.

The approach of Shannon's bare right sole was uncertain, errant, erratic.

But, carefully monitoring the waywardness of her unsighted alignment, I leaned forward and manoeuvred my forehead to receive early and with pinpoint exactitude the bottom of her haphazardly approaching bare heel as, in my thoughtful and
helpful, not-needing-to-be-asked-or-told, off-my-own-bat facilitation, I aided her blind navigational 'docking'.

As was the case with all six other previous facial-footrest availing manageresses, such was her quick confidence in my stability and assuredness of my reliability that within moments Shannon too seemed oblivious that with the sole of her
foot planted mid-face, heel to forehead, she was obliging me to support the steadily increasing weight of her gradually relaxing single-legged posture.

"So ... now that Miss Connaught-Cavendish has managed to wangle for us all a Friday-night freebee extension to our stay here at the Brighton City-Break Hotel and Spa: What do you all say to another night at Antonia's Wine Bar?" said the
having-the-floor, holding forth, opinion-positing, centre-of-attention Shannon in her broad Northern Irish accent.

"Because let me tell you, I had one helluva night last night, giving those footboys a bit of what for. I have never enjoyed myself so much. And I know that I, for one, would love another evening, of ..."

Shannon, manageress of the SPOILT! Boutique, in Belfast, was now in-tenure.


***


Two weeks later.


To salvage a couple of minutes of my one-hour lunch break I hadn't changed out of my community-servant style workwear, and hastening to the entrance in my keenness to be punctual I barely glanced at the line-up of posters displayed in
the Job Centre's window.

Even so, I noticed that some of the posters were different from those I'd seen just over two weeks ago when I'd reported for my eighteen-year-old school-leaver Career Assessment Interview with Miss Tonya Tomkins.

The posters were full-colour, life-size, and very eye-catching.

Produced by top-of-the-tree artistic designers on an AFP-commissioned money-no-object budget, clearly, the money was not wasted.

Depicting actual, in situ scenes, the posters glamourised in-work free-time sacrificing male citizens performing their freely chosen or consensually agreed on female-friendly facilitatory function.

Every poster was enthusiastically endorsed by at least one and sometimes several AFP Cabinet Minister patrons. Their speech-bubble messages, extolling the noble selflessness of the volunteers' free-time sacrificial provision of the
featured female-friendly service and exhorting other time-on-their-hands working male citizens to follow their excellent example.

The real attention grabber, though, was the full-colour life-size poster of AFP Prime Minister, Caroline Flynt.

Her left forefinger pointing at the poster viewer and her right forefinger indicating downward beneath her black leather office pumps at a thumbnail-style photo selection of her favoured female-friendly services which happened to be her
own, brainchild projects, Ms Flynt rally cried: 'SPARE TIME IS WASTED TIME – MAN A FEMALE-FRIENDLY SERVICE TODAY!'

Signs beneath each of the posters indicated that a one-minute video segment of the featured scene could be viewed inside on the Job Search screens, upon insertion of your Male Citizen Identity Card.

Before I had to return to the Brighton Pier View Hotel – this week's, Monday-Friday venue – just out of interest, if I had time later after Miss Tomkins had done with me, I might have a closer look at the posters in the Job Centre
window. Peruse the latest appeals and more earnest adjurations, to the in-work male citizenry, to sign up today to pledge some of their free time in the female-friendly cause.

I pushed through the Job Centre's thick-glass double door entrance, and there she was: the 'She-Devil of Desk 5' – giving some out of work and now out of luck interviewee some typical 'You will accept this job opportunity, or I will
assign you to a Placement', ultimatum grief.

Miss Tomkins happened to notice me coming in and, in addition to her look of instant recognition, in her expression, I saw something ... else.

Something about Miss Tomkins' reaction upon my entrance held me in check, and I hesitated to sit down on one of the few remaining vacant seats among the sixteen or seventeen other waiting interviewees.

Miss Tomkins looked down at her desk, as though in perplexed thought. Knitting her brows, she moved some things around, as though looking for something she'd mislaid – and, lo and behold, there it was, hiding under a green Job Seeker
file: a sheet of white office paper.

Miss Tomkins snatched up the sheet of paper, told her interviewee to stay put, and on her castor-wheeled office swivel chair, she scooted over to her colleague adjacent at Desk 4.

Just as I'd noticed at my school-leaver's interview two weeks ago when Miss Tomkins had similarly scooted over to the file cabinets at the back of the room to get my Male Citizen File, again now her heels popped out of what appeared to
be the same pair of well-worn red leather flats, at her every propellant push-off.

The Job Centre Interviewer at Desk 4 was an attractive brunette whose looks, I thought, would be splendidly softened and as even dramatically improved did she not sport the same AFP-adopted but severely adapted concave bob hoodoo-hairdo
style as her AFP apparatchik colleague at Desk 5.

Pointing to apparent items of note on the sheet of white office paper, Miss Tomkins spoke quietly to her colleague at Desk 4, upon whose face a smile began to form as with apparent intent scrutiny they lowered their concave-bobbed heads
over the document.

Thinking that I was mistaken; that I must have imagined Miss Tomkins' transient expression, I was just about to take a seat when a sudden movement in the open kneehole under Desk 4 attracted my attention.

Her right leg crossed over her left knee, the attractive brunette Job Centre interviewer at Desk 4 was dangling and swinging her black leather office pump from her bare toes.

I could only stand, and stare, and watch, her seated semi-revelation.

For, since starting work two weeks ago in my male-worker role luxury little-something-extra provider for my employer Mrs Hilary Harper's female clientele, the not infrequent occurrence of absent-minded revelation was a phenomenon that by
now unfailingly attracted my avid attention and engaged my keen observation to the extent that its power and influence over me bordered on obsession.

The by no means guaranteed but at least the promising possibility of ensuing activity upon a refreshments-breaking lady's revelation, whether while standing or sitting – sitting, being more conducive to more elaborate and adventuresome
and, occasionally, the glory-of-glories: under-the-seat, cross-ankled, double-sole full revelation – would entrance me in something akin to enchantment.

For how long, I stood and stared, enjoying the semi-revelatory treat taking place in the open kneehole of Desk 4; the attractive brunette interviewer, angling her foot steeply upward so as to expose to tantalising view her bare sole from
the bottom of her heel to the ball of her foot, I don't know.

Belatedly I remembered what Amanda had told me on my first day during our "little chat", before I had reported to the office of the Brighton City-Break Hotel and Spa manageress Miss Helen Honeywell, to serve as her Heads of Department
meeting under-the-conference-table facial footrest.

About the clandestine activities of the AFP's plainclothes honeytrap agents:

Their periodic patrolling of propitious public places; their recurrent reconnoitring of results-rewarding commercial properties; their potluck, random roaming of other likely locations; and their prioritised pursuance of the steady
stream of substantive leads as supplied to them by their office-based screen scrutinising colleagues at the Department of Compatibility – shoe-playing: to attract the betraying attention of Compatibles.

I thought I knew what I would see when finally I looked up ... and I was right.

The attractive brunette Job Centre interviewer at Desk 4 and Miss Tonya Tomkins were grinning broadly.

It had not been a 'revelation' in the natural, absent-minded sense of the term.

It had not been a lucky, in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time, fortuitously happened upon – serendipitous – delight.

It was staged.

The sheet of white office paper was a sham.

A deception, deployed to drop my guard and lower my gaze.

A decoy that had worked; that had done the trick.

Miss Tomkins and her complicit colluding colleague at Desk 4 laughed as they high-fived.

And then, smiling – no doubt, in the happy remembrance of her commendation earning Compatible-capture achievement over me two weeks ago – on her castor-wheeled swivel chair Miss Tomkins scooted back to her bemused-looking interviewee at
Desk 5, her bare heels again popping free of her red leather flats at her every propellant push-off.

When sheepishly I turned to take a seat, it was to see the sixteen or seventeen waiting interviewees giving me strange looks.

The six Job Centre interviewers' desks were set apart equidistantly by about seven feet, and directly facing them was the row of twenty interconnected hard plastic orange seats provided for job seeker/school-leaver career assessment/male
worker conduct review interviewees.

One of the few remaining seats faced Desk 5; I sat down in it.

The hard plastic orange seat was uncomfortable, and listening to the dismal despairing interviewees telling their variations of the same sorry stories while they waited to be seen made for a dull and depressing interlude.

But I didn't have to endure it, or them, for long.

For, just a few minutes later, Miss Tomkins dismissed her interviewee with his tail between his legs and a flea in his ear.

I watched the luckless lad trudge despondently to the bank of Job Search screens and insert into one of them what I assumed was his Male Citizen Identity Card.

From where I was sitting, I could see that the familiar format of the Job Search screen was then replaced by something else ... and that the guy looking at what now was there in its stead didn't seem overly encouraged by what he saw.

I heard the split-second buzz of static that I'd heard twice before, upon one of the Desk Doyennes calling forward a new interviewee.

This time, I saw that it must have been Miss Tomkins who had just flicked the switch on her desk microphone, because hers was the only free desk, and because she was eyeballing me.

In accustomed authority, Miss Tomkins intoned over the PA system: "David Manners! David Manners, report immediately to Desk Five."

Miss Tomkins could, I thought, simply have merely crooked her finger at me in beckoning. But no, that wouldn't do, would it? It wasn't the same.

I got up from my hard plastic orange seat and stepped forward. But upon reporting as summoned, respectfully I stood back from Miss Tomkins' workstation and held my silence, adhering to the dictates of AFP Female-Friendly Code protocols.

But instead of telling me to sit down, Miss Tonya Tomkins, sitting with her bare olive-complexioned right leg crossed over her left knee and, now confirmed from this close range as wearing the same comfortable and flexible footwear I'd
seen on my last visit, allowed her right heel to pop free from her well-worn red leather flat, in partial- to semi-revelation.

I'd soon come to learn that the thing about initial, pop-out, partial- to semi-revelation, was that not always but surprisingly often it was the promising prelude to more elaborate and expansive examples of absent-minded shoe-playing
expression.

Not that this, I knew, was the unconscious behavioural 'revelation' phenomena, in the fortuitously happened upon, serendipitous sense.

But still: I stood, and stared, and watched, helpless in the thrall of this by now all too familiar bewitchment.

In a manner of disturbing, replicated exactitude: in that it suggested something carefully considered, deliberate, purposeful – cunningly organised – was afoot, just as her colleague at Desk 4 had done, Miss Tomkins angled her foot
steeply upward and dangled her shoe from her toes, exposing to tantalising view her bare sole from the bottom of her heel to the ball of her foot.

For how long, I stood, and stared, and watched: stared, at the bottom of Miss Tomkins' grubby, work-begrimed bare heel; observed, the hypnotic play of her swinging, precariously dangling well-worn red leather flat – I don't know.

But, I thought I knew what I would see when finally I looked up again ... and I was right.

The triumphant, jubilant expression on Miss Tonya Tomkins' face was more eloquent than had she voiced to me her thoughts in words:

This (dangle, swing, dangle) male citizen David Manners (swing, dangle, swing) was how I exposed you.

How I brought to light (swing, dangle, swing) your compatibility.

How I made available (dangle, swing, dangle) your many female-friendly usefulnesses: not, just to your employer Mrs Hilary Harper, her junior partner assistants Amanda and Zoe, their female clientele, and to all of the other females as
entitled via the terms of Mrs Harper's reciprocal arrangements – but (swing, dangle, swing) especially ... to me.

"Good afternoon, male citizen David. You may sit down."

"Good afternoon, Miss Tomkins. Thank you."

"First, I am pleased to say that since I last saw you two weeks ago, a lot of attitude-changing water appears to have flowed under your bridge.

"During the two weeks that you have been working for Mrs Hilary Harper of Harper's Conference Catering, I have received an impressive number of meritorious reports about you – both, from your employer's female clientele, and from
reciprocal-arrangement recipients of your services.

"In the form Female Citizen Communication text messages mostly, but a not inconsiderable number of direct phone calls to me here, too.

"But then, there are these ..." Miss Tomkins showed me some stapled-together sheets of white paper "... as you can see: a sizeable handful of hand-written testimonials. All the more impressive, because they are all the more unusual:
these female citizens have gone to the trouble of putting pen to paper for you – in some cases, as well as text-messaging or phoning.

"Good words, so to speak, from female citizens. For who, such has been their satisfaction not only with the uncommon quality of your service but also your impeccable behavioural conduct, felt compelled to relay through the proper channel
not only their highly favourable endorsements but also to convey to me their firm insistence that their comments and commendations be officially noted in your Male Citizen File.

"But of course, all communications – text message, phone call, handwritten, or in-person – sent to or received by us here at the Job Centre, are entered into the AFP National Database System as a matter of routine. And I can tell you,
just as I have informed all of my correspondents in this matter, I have placed photocopies or transcripts of all such Female Citizen Communications in your Male Citizen File."

I wasn't sure if what Miss Tomkins had said to me warranted a reply, but I judged it best to offer the standby play-it-safe response anyway: "Thank you, Miss Tomkins."

"I am pleased with you, male citizen David. Up to now, there is not the slightest of blots on your copybook. You have got yourself off to a bright start, and I am optimistic about your prospects.

"But I am not one to be carried away by sunny starts. I have seen many bright beginnings fade, and fade fast.

"You have shown a lot of positivity, but will your star continue to rise and shine? Will this steady stream of Female Citizen Communication attesting so glowingly to your remarkable adaption continue to flow to me here at my Desk? Will
your praiseworthiness last, or will it fizzle out? Will commendations be replaced by condemnations? We will have to see how you go on, won't we?"

"Yes, Miss Tomkins."

"So ... male citizen David, this is your first Male Worker's Conduct Review interview with me, your Probational Case Officer."

"Yes, Miss Tomkins."

"Just to recap: These one-to-one meetings will take place on alternate Mondays, during your lunch break when it is least inconvenient to your employer Mrs Harper."

"Yes, Miss Tomkins."

"Although, you should also prepare yourself – keep your calendar free and ensure your availability – to report to me here for any supplementary lunchtime meetings between us, that at my discretion I might summon you to my Desk
impromptu."

"Supplementary ... impromptu, meetings, Miss Tomkins?"

"Yes, male citizen David – impromptu: Extra, unscheduled meetings, that at short notice or even with no advance notice at all, I might summon you here to my Desk. Be sure to check your phone regularly for my text message – believe me:
you wouldn't want to miss it ... male citizen David?"

"Yes, Miss Tomkins. I'll be sure to check."

"Good. Now, on your way in, did you see those posters displayed in the window? Male citizen David ...?"

"Um ..."

"Now, don't tell me you didn't notice that wonderful life-size full-colour poster of Caroline Flynt, and her stirring message to fine young men such as yourself: 'Spare Time is Wasted Time – Man a Female-Friendly Service Today!' You saw
that, didn't you?"

"Yes, Miss Tomkins. I saw it."

"Well, there is another way that you can please me – and at the same time, respond to your Prime Minister's appeal to you: Volunteer to donate some of your free time to facilitate a female-friendly service this weekend."

"But, Miss Tomkins, I'm so tired, after a week of—"

"I know from speaking to your employer Mrs Harper this morning that you've got the full weekend off this week."

"Yes, but on Saturday I'll be going with my work colleague Edds to watch Brighton – we're at home to Liverpool in the Premier League."

"Yes, I know. I'll be going with Dolores – my colleague at Desk 4, the Interviewer you were so obviously ... appreciative. We've got complimentary all-competition season tickets to watch the Seagulls' matches both at home and away,
complete with refreshments vouchers for half-time. But, to get back to you: that still leaves your Sunday free."

"But my Sunday isn't free either, Miss Tomkins. I've made arrangements: Sunday afternoon, I'll be going for a pizza, with—"

"There you go – Sunday it is. You can go for a pizza anytime."

"But, Miss Tomkins! I can't just drop plans, to ..."

I realised that the soft, muted sound I'd heard a second ago must have been Miss Tomkins' right well-worn red leather flat falling to the carpeted floor beneath Desk 5. For, in the next instant, the ball of her warm and slightly clammy
foot was pressing into my bare left knee; the undersides and the pads of her bare toes, securing a firm purchase.

The tingly sensation was so pleasurable, it was almost unbearable.

Over the last two weeks, I had experienced many pleasurable sensations:

Foot-to-face passive servitude at the feet of refreshments-breaking, single-legged postured, opinion-positing centre-of-attention in-tenure ladies.

And active participant, self-initiated/instruction-led hands-on foot massage services.

But this was something different again.

"And, here was me, thinking your future was full of promise, male citizen David. But already, just like so many others before you, your bright start is fading – and fading fast. Is your sunny start, then, just a false dawn?"

With the pads of her toes over my bare left knee, Miss Tomkins emphasised the words: 'me', 'promise', 'David', 'already', 'fast', 'false' and 'dawn'.

To look anywhere, but at her penetrating blue eyes, looking down at her desk my eyes fell upon the sham sheet of white paper – it was, of all things, an intra-AFP/Job-Centre circulation, r.e. The Compatibility Department.

"I am not unreasonable: I'll excuse you for Saturday – you can go to the football match with your work colleague Edward Edwards; you are both doing so exceptionally well in your new employment situations with Mrs Harper, I would hate to
engender any feelings of resentment.

"So ... am I, being unreasonable, in asking you to donate just a little of your free time on Sunday, either before or after you go for your afternoon pizza? Am I being over-demanding, in asking you to man – not an eight-hour, not a
four-hour, not even a two-hour – but, to gentle you into it, just a one-hour Female-Friendly Service Facilitation slot?"

I kept quiet.

"Believe me, male citizen David: I am not always so accommodating – you are very much a special exception. But trust me: you wouldn't want to disappoint me."

Again I said nothing in reply, hoping that Miss Tomkins would drop all of this voluntary free-time sacrificing female-friendly service facilitation business and move on.

But, no ...

"All right ... let me set out some of the many good reasons for you doing so, male citizen David:

"One – you will earn your way into my good books; the benefits of which you should not dismiss lightly.

"Two – I might be able to see my way to reduce from a possible maximum of five the number of times per week that I summon you to my Desk impromptu; I might – if you do not try my patience any further – even go so far as to cast-iron
guarantee your choice of one regular meeting-free day of the week.

"Three – when I record your voluntary Female-Friendly Service Facilitation accreditations in the AFP National Database System, I will add an endorsement of my own; this will stand you in still further good stead in the event that you are
brought before an AFP Disciplinary Panel, when in considering your record the panel may see some basis for mitigation.

"Four – it's a tight race, at the top of the Southern League of the UK Intra-Job-Centre Compatible Capture Cup, with Brighton Job Centre currently in third place behind Portsmouth and the League-leaders Southampton. In the event of a tie
on points, the determining criteria to decide the outright winners will be the highest number of in-work male citizen Female-Friendly Service Facilitation recruitments – you would not go unrewarded, should I recruit you as a free-time
sacrificing volunteer and your sign-up proved to be the prize-winning difference."

This time, with the pads of her toes on my bare knee, Miss Tomkins laid emphasis on the words: 'good books'; 'regular'; 'good stead'; 'unrewarded', and 'your sign-up', sending further shivers of ecstasy through me.

There was a lot of 'might', 'could', and 'mays' in there ... nonetheless, it seemed there were some tangible benefits to be earned, just for volunteering to man a one-hour Female-Friendly Service Facilitation slot.

Miss Tomkins must have sensed her opening; intuited that I was thinking about it.

"You needn't sign up as a Regular, male citizen David."

"I wouldn't have to be a Regular, Miss Tomkins? For definite?"

"No – because in your present line of work you won't know from one week to the next whether you will be working a five-day, six-day, or even a seven-day week, you will be unreliable; Regulars need to be dependable. So, what you will need
to do is to register your willingness to man a female-friendly service voluntarily as an in-work male citizen."

"Um ... I'm still not sure, Miss Tomkins. It's a big commitment, and—"

"Won't you do it, David, to please me?"

"Um ..."

"I know: How about ... an instant bonus reward? Sign up now, and I will allow you to sit under Desk 5 at my feet for five minutes."

The effect of Miss Tomkins' words eclipsed all that she had said previously; their impact upon me, description-defying.

And neither had it escaped my notice that in addressing me just now, Miss Tomkins had dispensed with the normal formal protocoled 'male citizen' usage – she, but of course not we, were on first-name terms.

"And ... I needn't become a Regular, Miss Tomkins?"

"No! I've told you: although your employment circumstances may change in future, for now, your irregular hours of work rule you out from applying to become a Regular. But you can still register your interest in manning a female-friendly
service as an in-work male citizen on a one-off, as-and-when basis."

"Well, if you put it like that ... All right, then, Miss Tomkins."

"Good!" Miss Tomkins drew the pad of her forefinger across her forehead, as though I had been hard work. "Well, we got there in the end, didn't we?"

"Yes, Miss Tomkins."

"And, now that you are in such a positive frame of mind ... what about in future?"

"In future, Miss Tomkins?"

"Yes – in the future! What do you say, to Mrs Harper informing me as to your future availability in advance: on a weekly basis and as a matter of course? And then, to save you the time and trouble, I'll put your name down to man a vacant
female-friendly service slot that upcoming weekend?"

"Um ... I—"

"I'm not unreasonable: I won't overcommit you; the last thing I want is to burn you out too soon. And, as another special concession for your continuing cooperation, we can keep the football arrangement going with your work colleague and
friend Edward Edwards. Leave it to me; I'll square it all up with Edward's Probational Case Officer, Vanessa at Desk Three."

"That's a big escalation, Miss Tomkins. A one-off, as-and-when basis, is one thing. But ... I mean, thank you for letting me and Edds go on watching the football, but I'm not sure I want to commit, to such—"

"That was contingent upon your continuing cooperation ... Do you want me to allow you to go on watching the football?"

"Well ..."

"Excellent! That's all settled, then. You are doing the right thing, David. And, don't forget: when you have completed the necessary formalities at Reception, come back here to me for your instant-reward bonus. You haven't forgotten what
it is, have you; the little treat I promised?"

"Um ..."

"I didn't think so. Now, go over to one of the Job Search screens, and insert your Male Citizen Identity Card to override the default format and gain advanced access to the System.

"From the menu, select: 'A-Z Listing of Female-Friendly Service Facilitation Vacancies'. Scroll down the list of available choices for the day in question, and then select the as yet unfilled slot that you wish to man. Your request will
then be processed. Wait for your printout, run your eyes over it to see that all is correct and proper, and then take it to Reception.

"If you haven't been able to choose, don't worry; we get that a lot. The receptionist will run a range of still-available options past you and, if you are still undecided, she will be happy to make what she considers an appropriate
selection on your behalf. Well ... off you go then."

"Yes, Miss Tomkins," I said, vacating my seat. "And thank you."

*


Inserting my Male Citizen Identity Card into the Job Search monitor to gain advanced access to the System, the first thing I noticed upon selecting 'A-Z Listing of Female-Friendly Service Facilitation Vacancies' was that it was possible
to apply to man a particular facility for anything up to three months in advance through 'Slot Securement' and 'Block-Booking'.

But, keeping my focus more to the immediacy, I opened the Friday window – I thought I might be able to keep my weekend free and intact, after all, by serving Miss Tomkins' suggested gentling-in, getting-me-off-the-mark, one-hour female-
friendly service slot on Friday evening after work.

As it happened, scrolling down the 'A's, I spotted the very thing that I felt was guaranteed to get me into Miss Tomkins' good books.

I could forget all about donating just one free-time hour, though. The minimum time-frame commitment for this female-friendly service was a four-hour time slot; and even then, it was strongly caveated with "a high possibility of long
overruns due to circumstances beyond our control".

I positioned my finger over the touch-screen where it said 'APPLY', and the word lit up, prompting me to 'COMMIT' ... I withdrew my finger to a safe distance.

It wouldn't do to be hasty.

If I acted in haste, I wouldn't be repenting at leisure – and, why, for no good reason, subject myself to a needless minimum quadrupling of Miss Tomkins' stated one-hour introductory, 'gentling-in' requirement?

Because there was, a good reason?

Mulling this over, I remembered the message I'd seen beneath the posters displayed in the Job Centre's window. About the video recordings viewable inside featuring the scenes depicted: In-work, free-time sacrificing male citizens, in
situ and performing their freely chosen or consensually assigned female-friendly service facilitation.

On the touch-screen, I repositioned my finger over where it said 'Watch Video', and the words lit up.

There was nothing to worry about: the viewing of the video was for informational purposes and, at this stage, non-committal.

I touched where it said 'Watch Video' ...

The ensuing video footage was of a one-minute duration, but that was enough.

The question now was: Just how important to me, was it, to get into Miss Tomkins' good books? ("the benefits of which you should not dismiss lightly".)

Had the shock of hearing Miss Tomkins' five-minute under-the-desk "instant-bonus reward" proposal unhinged me?

Just the very thought ...

On the touch-screen, once again my finger poised over where it said 'APPLY', and again the word lit up, prompting me to 'COMMIT'.

Maybe I wasn't thinking straight.

Maybe it was the mind-shattering notion of earning the heretofore unimagined privilege of sitting on the floor in the open kneehole of Desk 5 at Miss Tonya Tomkins' feet.

Or maybe it was the scintillating idea of feeling again in the Probational Year future and perhaps longer at her discretion on alternate Mondays, the incredibly sensual thrill of the warm and slightly clammy ball of her foot and the
undersides and pads of her toes gaining purchase on my hypersensitive bare kneecap as she asserted her authority and 'persuaded' me to "cooperate".

Or, maybe it was the thought of Miss Tomkins text-message summoning me at her discretion up to a possible maximum five days a week to her Desk impromptu, for extra Probational (or extra-Probational) lunchtime meetings ("believe me: you
wouldn't want to miss it").

It was make-your-mind-up time.

On the touch-screen, I touched my finger to where it said 'APPLY' ...

In the housing beneath the Job Search touch-screen a printer started up and now, replacing the thumbnail video icon and the appended descriptive text, was a bold-lettered formal statement:

Thank You, Male Citizen David Manners, For Registering Your Interest In Voluntary Female-Friendly Service Facilitation And For Pledging To Donate Some Of Your Free Time This Weekend – Retrieve Your Printout And Report To Reception For
Verification And Validation.

I retrieved the sheet of flimsy white printout paper, read through it, and was satisfied that all was correct and proper.

I experienced another twinge of doubt; this was a big decision.

But the time for hesitation and indecision was behind me; I had made my decision, and it was too late for second thoughts.

I had made my freely chosen in-work male citizen's free-time sacrificing female-friendly service facilitation selection.

No one had made me press 'Watch Video'; no one had forced me to press 'APPLY', and no one had coerced me to 'COMMIT'.

And now I was committed.

If I was to renege now, on my albeit as yet unverified and unvalidated application but now, On-System registered pre-ratified pledge ... well, I'd read the warning.

Probably, it was just a case of nerves, which was understandable, I thought as I headed to Reception with the thin sheet of white paper which, although I hadn't actually signed it, because I had pressed 'COMMIT' on the Job Search touch-
screen my request was now registered On-System on the AFP DataBase and the printout flimsy was a legally binding document.

Sitting behind the Reception counter was an attractive brunette in her early- to mid-twenties who watched me approach. From her name tag, I saw she was Sandra.

"Good afternoon, Miss Sandra."

"Good afternoon, male citizen."

"My name is David Manners, and my Probational Case Worker, Miss Tonya Tomkins at Desk 5, suggested to me that I donate some of my free time this weekend to facilitate a female-friendly service. Here is my Male Citizen Identity Card, and
this is my printout."

Sandra slid my Male Citizen Identity Card into a slot to get my details up on her computer screen, and then she ran her eyes over my printout.

"Um ... male citizen David, have you read the on-screen description of the service you have chosen to facilitate?"

"Yes, Miss Sandra."

"And you weren't dissuaded, by what you read?"

"No, Miss Sandra."

"Did you watch the one-minute video?"

"Yes, Miss Sandra."

"And you weren't put off, by what you saw?"

"No, Miss Sandra."

"It's just that, well ... what you have chosen to do is very ... full-on, for a first-time volunteer. Our experience has been that it is better to gentle in volunteers, so as not to frighten them away or burn them out too soon.

"Under the Female-Friendly Code: Article Two, your printout flimsy is a legally binding document, whether signed or unsigned. Upon pain of punitive chastisement of up to and including imprisonment, it compels you to carry out your freely
chosen voluntary female-friendly service facilitation to an adequate, supervisorily signed-off standard.

"But, since I can see you are clearly a noble young man intent upon doing the right thing, I have it in my power to revoke the document and rescind your, um ... rash commitment. To protect you from yourself, as it were.

"So, shall I run some of the ... more suitable, options by you, and you can make another choice? Believe me: you'll be glad you did!"

"No thank you, Miss Sandra."

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, thank you, Miss Sandra, but I think it best to honour my commitment."

"Has Tonya put you up to this, by any chance? I wouldn't put it past her."

"No, Miss Sandra. Miss Tonya didn't make any actual service suggestions, only that she would be happy with me for now if I signed up to man a one-hour slot sometime over the upcoming weekend. My choice of female-friendly service
facilitation, and of its duration too, is my own."

"So be it, then, male citizen David, if I can't change your mind ...?"

"No, Miss Sandra."

"Then I'll need you to sign a disclaimer."

"Of course, Miss Sandra."

"Absolving me from any blame whatsoever, for any temporary or permanent physical problems you may incur and/or any short-term or long-term mental health issues that may arise as a result of your insistence upon your facilitation choice
despite my best efforts to dissuade you."

"Naturally, Miss Sandra."

"Sign here, then."

"Yes, Miss Sandra; and while I'm at it, I'll sign my printout flimsy too."

"Good ... Now, as to your volunteer status: Are you signing up as a Regular?"

"No – Miss Tomkins says I'm unreliable. Undependable. She says I'll have to sign up as an in-work male citizen and volunteer and to sacrifice my free time on a one-off, as-and-when basis."

"One, last chance: Do you still want to do this?"

"Yes, Miss Sandra."

"Okay ... there you go then, male citizen David. You've already signed my disclaimer; you've just signed your printout flimsy at the bottom – all that remains now is to rubber-stamp your printout flimsy to verify and validate your
service selection."

"Yes, Miss Sandra. And thank you."

*


"And, you are doing this ... to please me, David?" said my school leaver's Career Assessment Interviewer and now Probational Case Worker, Miss Tonya Tomkins, when upon my return to Desk 5 she read through my verified and validated
printout flimsy as rubber-stamped by Sandra at Reception.

Miss Tomkins had again let her left red leather flat fall to the carpeted floor beneath her desk and, with the ball of her warm and slightly clammy bare right foot pressing into my seemingly supersensitive bare right kneecap, with the
pads of her toes she put emphasis on the words 'And', 'this', and 'please me', sending pulses of pure pleasure rippling right through me.

"Yes, Miss Tomkins. I'm doing it for you."

"Are you serious? You'll really, do it? You won't let me down?" demanded Miss Tomkins, literally pressing home her advantage as with the pads of her toes she emphasised the words 'serious', 'do it', 'won't' and 'down'.

Somehow, through the semi-delirium of my all but incapacitating sensual overload, I managed a reply. "Yes, Miss Tomkins, I ... I'm serious. I'll ... do it. I won't ... let you down."

*


Miss Tomkins did have a very shapely foot, I thought as upon claiming my instant-bonus reward and sitting on the carpeted floor beneath Desk 5, from extreme close-range, I admired it.

And, as she sat with her olive-complexioned right leg crossed over her left knee, the aroma emanating from her red leather flat was dreamy as she let her well-worn flexible shoe dangle from her bare right foot in semi-revelation.

The last thing I wanted was to risk Miss Tomkins abruptly curtailing my five-minute reward for taking liberties. But I could not help myself, but to press my lips into the bottom of Miss Tomkins' work-begrimed bare heel in a respectful,
reverent – worshipful – kiss.

But to my relief, my Probational Case Worker merely let her comfy office-wear shoe fall to the floor, granting me free reign.

And, how I laid bare my soul at Miss Tonya Tomkins' bare sole!

At that moment, my ecstatic devotions conveying to her my complete submission, she knew as did I that with obedient compliance I would in future accept any and all of Miss Tomkins' in-work male citizen's free-time sacrificing female-
friendly service facilitation voluntary assignments.

Miss Tomkins splayed her toes, and I savoured the olfactory nirvana of her intra-digital delights.

But my five-minute instant-reward bonus passed like five seconds.

For, all too soon, with the ball of her foot, Miss Tomkins pushed my worshipful face away, signalling that my time was up.

How I longed to stay there, in the open kneehole of Desk 5 – but it wouldn't do to take liberties.

I got out from beneath Desk 5.

Standing before Miss Tomkins, I bowed from the waist in reverence and, in departing salutation, I said succinctly: "Miss Tomkins."

Miss Tomkins smiled, and I heard her attractive brunette colleague Dolores at Desk 4 laugh.

When I turned to head for the exit, it was to see that the waiting dozen-plus job seeker/school leaver Career Assessment/Male Worker Conduct Review interviewees were all giving me strange looks.

But I didn't care: They were all out of work and now out of luck losers. Whereas I was employed, and in luck.

"It's still not too late to change your mind, male citizen David!" said Sandra from behind the counter at Reception.

But she was laughing.

*


So, I needn't peruse the line-up of posters displayed in the Job Centre's window or read the AFP Cabinet Ministers' latest appeals and more earnest adjurations to in-work male citizens to sacrifice some of their free time to facilitate a
female-friendly service, I thought as I hit the street.

Which was just as well; only five minutes now remained of my one-hour lunch break.

The first of my Male Worker Conduct Review alternate-Monday meetings with my eighteen-year-old school-leaver's Career Assessment Interviewer and now Probational Case Worker, Miss Tonya Tomkins, had panned out far better than I could have
imagined – I was definitely in her good books.

Propelling me back to my workplace to carry on the good work was a pick-me-up, life-is-good spring to my step that hadn't been there before; our lunchtime meeting had left me feeling invigorated, energised – galvanised.

I would certainly abide by Miss Tomkins' admonitory instruction to check regularly in future for her text messages summoning me to her Desk for lunchtime meetings impromptu.

On the whole, things were shaping up pretty well.

Even Edds – who, although perhaps could not be described as taking like a duck to water to his primary male-worker role little-something-extra provider to our employer Mrs Hilary Harper's refreshments-breaking female clientele and
secondarily as the at-work fringe benefit of his supervisors Miranda and Sophie – was learning to adapt.

The only fly in the ointment was how I was going to face my now girlfriend Sarah with the news that I was cancelling our date; how I was going to explain that I would not be taking her for a pizza on Sunday afternoon, after all.

I remembered the look on Sarah's face, just over two weeks ago.

When on that Saturday upon finishing work in the Brighton City-Break Hotel and Spa at two o'clock, she'd found me waiting for her in the chefs' changing room – holding the neatly folded pair of thin white cotton ankle socks that for the
benefit of the two waitresses Cindy and Marisa, Sarah had 'ordered' me to hand-wash and steam-iron.

But I doubted very much that Sarah would be smiling in amusement, later, when I called to tell her I was standing her up for our Sunday afternoon pizza date – and why.

In my head, I could already hear what Sarah was going to say: 'David, I can understand that you want to get into Miss Tomkins' good books; that you need to keep her sweet – but did you have to go over-egging the pudding like that?'

As a kitchen worker, I supposed Sarah could speak with some authority on the subject of overegging the pudding in the literal sense.

But maybe by Sunday evening, as a result of my in-work male citizen's free-time sacrificing Female-Friendly Service Facilitation choice, albeit, in a figurative sense, I would know a little about over-egging the pudding too ...

At Gatwick Airport, on Friday evening at 18:45 I was to present my Job Centre-issued printout flimsy to the receptionist at the information desk of Cosmopolitan Airways.

To the astonished delight of Miss Tomkins, and despite the best efforts of Sandra the Job Centre receptionist to 'protect me from myself' and dissuade me from opting for something so "full-on" as a first-time volunteer, I had applied to
man Air Purification Technician Service Vehicle J, on the 19:30-departing Cosmopolitan Airways Flight CA 01-04.

With flight crew changeovers/passenger transfers during each of the respective destinations' one-hour stop offs on the four-leg, east to west, around-the-world journey: Flight CA 01-04 Gatwick-Los Angeles (11h 20m); Flight CA 02-04 Los
Angeles-Tokyo (12h 00m); Flight CA 03-04 Tokyo-Dubai (11h 55m) – Flight CA 04-04 Dubai-London Gatwick (8h 00m) culminated on Sunday evening, forty-eight hours later, one of Cosmopolitan Airways' Friday-evening-departure sun-chasing
Double Redeyes.

Traversing its under-seat rail track in the aircraft's modified fuselage, responding automatically to in-sequence demand Service Vehicle J would report to the retractable footwells of the pushbutton-summoning female air passengers seated
in the Seat-Line J (starboard window) seats.

This innovative female-friendly service was one of the brainchildren schemes of the Authoritarian Female Party Prime Minister, Caroline Flynt.

Purportedly, the purpose of this highly popular in-flight service was that the Air Purification Technicians, strapped supine aboard their Seat-Line dedicated Service Vehicles and their mouths sealed with tape, would sniff up the fumes
from the feet of the pushbutton-summoning female passengers so that via the cabin's air recirculation system the other passengers wouldn't have to.

I quickened my pace a beat.

In my employer Mrs Hilary Harper's something-for-something reciprocal arrangement with the Pier View Hotel manageress Miss Carolyn Cassidy, the fifty-strong contingent of Monday-Friday duration Annual Convention attendees from Feminist
Magazine would again congregate in the set-aside Pier View Lounge for their 3:00 - 3:30 refreshments break.

This morning, those schedule-busting ladies had overrun their 10:00 - 10:30 coffee break by more than an hour.

How many this afternoon, I wondered, of those assertive, bossy, haughty women of wide-ranging ages, would stake their claim to assume their prized position, having-the-floor, holding forth, opinion-positing, centre-of-attention, single-
legged postured tenure of their facial-footrest?

I broke into a trot; I wouldn't want to be late getting back.

And besides – Amanda and Zoe would be awaiting the return of their at-work fringe benefit.


The End