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There is a level of peace that comes with knowing your place in the world.
In ours, Mistress sits above all else; She looms on high, ever-present, watchful and loving. We rest at Her feet; I, to Her right, capable and honed, while Darling wraps arms around Her left, cheek pressed against Her shin, pleasant and placid. The remainder of the world sits beneath us all, and in this positionality, I am comfortable and warm, I hold and am held.
She asks for little in return for this certainty, just that we fulfill our roles; something I do with pride.
Something I find joy in, myself.
Before me, Mistress’ boots await my care and attention. They are old, and much-loved; scuffs on the toe and heel carefully tended to with the practiced hands of a watchful craftsman, a fine, all-encompassing polish adorning each and every bit. Specks of mud have embedded themselves in the tread and stained the body of the shoe, but such a thing is unavoidable - a treasure like this deserves to be used, after all - and can be resolved with ease.
To that end, I collect my tools and go to work. My pick clears chunks of condensed debris from between the treads, and my cloth wipes dirt from the body of the shoe before I adorn a brush with a frothy mixture of soap and water. I cover the boot from tip-to-toe in small, circular motions, taking care not to apply too much force nor too little, using just enough effort to leave the surface as clean as the day She received them, if not moreso.
In these moments - with my fingers dipping into wax conditioner, prepared to refresh the boot’s thirsty leather - I find my head full of solace and my body at peace. I am able to fade into the world and be what She wishes me to be; a well-trained trophy, a talented pet. I have always worked with my hands, and this is simply another evolution of that hobby, another facet of what I have always been meant to be. She has sought to feed my appetite, and She does so with glee. Even in Her absence, She’s left Her jacket to my attention, a reward granted for months of dutiful care taken toward Her boots.
I can barely contain my excitement at the honor.
The peaceful space I find myself in now is only augmented by Darling’s presence beside me; splayed out on the bed, the vibration of the wand between her legs is only broken up by stifled, quiet little moans that leave her lips. She’s been going at it for near an hour, and I don’t bother to ask how many times she’s reached her peak in that time, knowing that she’s too lost in the art of her masturbation to keep count. It’s the pronounced difference between our purposes; while I was meant for service, she was meant for pleasure. Even in the absence of Mistress, she continues to sate her hunger, to tend to the ache between her legs with her own hands.
We are both so, so loved.
Far removed from the world outside Her apartment, all we have is what She permits; while She’s away, we do not leave Her space. We do not dare to open the door to the hall, nor step beyond the balcony. We do not maintain our hobbies or social circles beyond the space, for they exist beneath our feet, and thus are unworthy of our attention. We do not stray from our given tasks unless our bodies demand it, and even then we resolve those wants as quickly as we can before returning to our rightful places.
After all, pets are not meant to hold jobs, and trophies are not meant to leave their shelves. In both of those ways, we are exactly where we need to be, and we want for nothing more.
My fingers continue to work against the boot; freshly conditioned and finished their rest, I wipe the excess from the surface of the leather and open the tin of wax polish She’s procured for me. I grant myself a brief moment of indulgence as I stain my fingers with the substance and lift them to my nostrils, inhaling with enough force to make my head ache momentarily. The rest of my body responds properly; my cock tents my panties, and stains the cotton opposite its head while I drool involuntarily. Arousal tips each of my senses, and I am alight with desire and a need to perform to Her standard.
If I do well enough, I might be granted the grace to ride this very boot, to huff the fresh polish spread about its surface while testing the strength of its coat with my lips.
I return to my task; my fingers smooth polish about the surface of the boot in small circles, making sure to cover it entirely. I fight the urge to sink fully into the leather fumes, instead stealing whiffs where I can as I lean closer in to make sure that each and every bit of the boot’s surface is covered. Mistress’ inspections are thorough and intensive, and even a slight bit of leather left bare will catch Her eye and ensure both a spanking of my ass and a reduction in privilege, both of which I’d like to avoid. I use the tips of my nails and fingers to coat the barest, hardest-to-reach bits as thoroughly as possible, before lifting the shoe to the light, catching the near-opaque layer of wax with the blunt, matte reflection that I’ve come to expect.
It is nearly perfect; with a few small adjustments made, I collect my brush and begin buffing the polish across the surface of the boot. I admire its craftsmanship as I work, and remember the first time I saw them; a storefront window in Chicago, beckoning me like a Siren’s call, Darling wrapped on my arm convincing me that they’d look so good with the dress I’d bought for her.
Except, that’s not possible - these boots belong to Mistress, and She’s had them as long as She’s had us.
I blink, and stop for a brief moment. Perhaps I’m confused, but I’m not sure what I could possibly be mistaking them for. I don’t own any boots - pets like myself are meant to maintain leather, not wear it. I shake my head to let the moment pass, and hopefully clear the polish fumes from the innards of my skull as I continue to work at buffing the wax to cover the boot properly. Once finished, I wrap the cheap nylons that Mistress has provided me around two-fingers, and repeat the circular motion again as the opacity clears, replaced with a burgeoning shine.
This whole process will take me nearly two hours, when it’s all said and done; Mistress prefers a mirror shine, to see the reflection of both of Her pets in the toe-box of Her shoes when we present ourselves to Her. It clashes with my own desires; sometimes, the matte look of greased leather appeals more to my sensibilities, a natural look that lends itself to a greater appreciation for the material’s natural state, and far more suitable for an inexperienced submissive to reach. A practiced bootblack like myself could develop a strategy for a mirror shine over time, but for someone else to care for my - Her - boots, a more achievable outcome was preferable. If Darling couldn’t do as good a job as I, it made sense to me to lower her ceiling.
Again, I stop. Darling doesn’t clean boots, she masturbates and writhes and persists in an atmosphere of perpetual hedonism. My headache returns; worse, now, than it was previously, and I find myself unable to continue the polishing, let alone start applying another layer of wax. I set the boots down, and pull myself to my feet, inhaling the fresh air away from my little corner of the world, hoping that it’ll serve to center me once again.
It does little to help.
I step away fully from my workstation, and stare out the window, taking in the sunlight for a brief moment. The streets outside are largely unfamiliar in the daylight, as Mistress prefers for us to go out only during the night - but I can’t help but feel like this place used to look different, that Darling and I used to take coffee by an open window overlooking a park. Instead, we sit above a near-picturesque town center; a bevy of small shops bustling with activity, intermingling with clay garden planters. I try to place myself in any of these shops, and a sense of pervasive uncomfortability washes over me, the idea that I’m thinking of something I should have put out of mind a long time ago, the same sensation I’d gotten in the past when thinking about the possibility of death.
Every fiber of my being urges me to turn back toward my work, to pick the boots up and begin again, or to lay myself on the bed next to Darling and watch her work as I’ve been instructed when I’ve felt unwell in the past. I lean into the former, assured that returning to my work will fix me - but I stop short as my eyes catch the leather jacket laid out before me. I take it in my arms, and I lift it to my nose, and I inhale.
To my surprise, it does not reek like Mistress’ preferred polish; rather, it smells of sweat and tobacco, of firewood and vanilla, scents that I’ve not come to associate with Her. A spark of familiarity in the back of my mind comes alive, and my mind is consumed by a sudden flashfire blaze.
With it, the carefully constructed world around me falls apart, and I’m left with only my awareness, something I’ve not had for some time. Memories try - and fail - to bubble to the surface of my mind, leaving me with only a sense of innate wrongness that threatens to drag me down into the submissive muck that I’ve been trapped in previously; defiantly, I clutch my jacket like a lifevest and try to prevent them from slipping through my hands like water through a child’s splayed fingers. The patchwork I’m left with is barely coherent; an amalgamation of memories painting myself in a position I inherently know to be wrong - Darling at my feet, cleaning my boots, sucking my cock - intermingled with images of service and submission that feel correct.
Between them all, holes span the patchwork of my brain; absences that I know to be incorrect, baseline evidence of the unmaking that I’ve endured. There’s not nearly enough memory here for a fully fledged person, and any attempts to handwave the pruning as mere forgetfulness is met with that same wall of flame that snapped me from my trance initially. I try to dig for bits of information that I should know - location, age, name - but I come up nearly empty, save for what She’s given to me previously.
I am a Dyke. I polish Her boots. If I behave, I can ride them.
It repeats, in my head, like a mantra, subsuming nearly everything else therein. All the cognizance that I’ve managed to gather fades away near-instantaneously, but I clutch it for dear life, and force myself to ground by staring at the writhing shape on the bed. Darling, unperturbed by my own revelation, bucks her hips as she smashes her cunt against the vibrator in her hand, her eyes empty of all knowledge beyond the animalistic desire to sink fully into the pleasures of her flesh.
Somewhere outside of this moment, I see her in a different light; intelligent, dutiful, trying her hardest even if she wasn’t the best at the art of servitude. I see her on hands and knees, a devoted supplicant, a beautiful submissive.
My submissive.
Whatever writhes uselessly on the bed before me now bears no resemblance to the woman that I loved before. I wonder, possibly, if her head is more hollow than mine; if she’s been reduced to such a pitiful state that she can’t exist outside of proximity to our shared Mistress. My thoughts drift toward the woman in question, and I feel that same fire that snapped me from my service previously wash over me once again; quickly, it becomes a focused fury, a potent rage.
It forces me from the bedroom, with a promise to return.
Stepping into the apartment proper, waves of warm comfort crash headfirst into total and utter confusion. This place was not our home, even if it serves as our prison now; scraps of memory showcase a plain apartment with comfortable furniture, rather than the well-worn loft I step fully into. Long nights with my head in Mistress’ lap and Her hand stroking Darling’s thigh as I stared at the exposed brickwork of the entryway fade, leading to nights where my hand coiled possessively in my submissive’s hair, or had her sit at my feet with my boots comfortably resting upon her back.
The longer I dwell on the latter memories, the more they start to fade - and as such, the depths of my conditioning are clear before me. I was no stranger to the subject of hypnotic conditioning despite my own failures with it, but I’d never intended to end up as someone’s subject; rather, I’d intended to work through some of Darling’s own faults and fears in a controlled space, to try and build up her own confidence.
Whatever had been done to both of us was far more sinister than I’d have ever even considered.
It was as if I’d been subsumed from my own memory; my images of dominance overlaid onto another, my form written out entirely. Our Mistress had taken not just my place at the top of the food chain and settled me below Her, She’d taken my clothing - my boots, my jacket, and the rest of my leather at the least - and left me to care for it in Her stead. She’d carved me into a new shape, and stepped into the void left by the absence of my prior dominance.
She’d become absolute, and She’d taken us both as prizes in the process.
My face flushes with warmth at this final revelation, and I make my way toward the door, desperate to make it outside. In my mind, I piece together a plan; I had no clue where I was in relation to where I’d been prior - nor any idea of where we’d been before - so I would simply stumble aimlessly until I found the first store willing to help. I’d pitch my case and my confusion in hopes of understanding, and pray that they had enough sense to contact the police. I could figure the rest out when I got there, I just needed to get to the door and-
-before I could conceptualize the next steps any further, it opens, and She enters.
At a glance, it was easy to see how She’d so seamlessly managed to integrate Herself into our lives, how She’d coaxed me down from whatever lofty ambitions I’d had and crushed me into submission beneath Her boot. We were of a similar size, and both brunettes, but our similarities ended there; She was well-dressed in a two-piece suit, while I’d been left in cutoff jeans and an oversized t-shirt. She moved with presence and power, while I felt myself withering away the longer She stared at me. She wears a confident smile even in the face of the surprise of my presence outside of our room..
“Oh, sweetheart.” She coos, in the same voice one would use when speaking to an especially dull child or a domesticated animal. “Did we wake up a bit early?”
Any attempt at speech dies on my tongue, and any inkling of the plan of escape I’d built up in my mind vanishes bit by bit with each step She took to close the distance between us. My legs weaken, and before I can even process that it’s happening, I fall to my knees before Her, fighting the compelled apologies trying to actively force their way out of my throat. Something about Her presence in and of itself was overwhelming, leaving me to wonder if I’d been drugged, or if the conditioning simply was so pervasive that the very sight of the woman whose presence had wormed its way deep into my head was enough to break me. I try to brace against the breaking waves of docile submission that threatened to drown me inside my own skull at Her approach.
”It’s okay, pet.” She hums, lifting the toe of Her shoe toward me; a patent leather Oxford, polished the day prior, still smelling of wax and conditioner. The closer it draws to my lips, the more aroused I become; my cock pushes against the boundaries of my shorts, and my mouth fills with saliva. I hesitate to make any further moves, unwilling to supplicate myself so quickly, unable to fall to my body’s betrayal-
“Kiss it.” She commands, and I do without thinking. I press my lips to the toe of Her shoe, tasting the last dregs of the polish that coat its tip. Both my Mistress’ shoe and the inside of my panties find themselves well lubricated with saliva and precum respectively. I feel my mind’s few remaining safeguards starting to fall as I kiss the shoe with all the passion of a lifelong lover. All the while, Mistress works Her fingers down toward the back of my neck, scratching me with the points of Her nails, treating me like the animal She so clearly thought I was.
Was She even wrong? Could I offer any opposition? Did She make me like this, or was this always what I was; a pretender, wrapped in borrowed power? The few remaining vestiges of my conscious mind cling to the idea that I’d once been a fully fledged person, but it’s become harder to rationalize - especially with my hand working its way beneath my waistband, wrapping around my cock and stroking it with little regard for the way my superior loomed above me. She doesn’t seem to notice as She lowers Herself toward me, Her mouth reaching my ear.
”That’s right.” She whispers, a low growl from the back of Her throat. “You’re a dumb, docile animal, aren’t you? A real proper leatherdyke, inasmuch that you’ve got more affinity toward it than any person - even your own wife.”
That didn’t feel right, but I was powerless to argue; my jaw still firmly latched around the toe of Her shoe, my tongue working against it as if I could peel the polish off with enough force. Mistress reaches for a clasped necklace around Her throat as I continue to work, clicking it open with a thumb, and rolling a wheel on the bottom. As She does so, it starts to tick, a rhythmic action that worms its way into my brain, drawing the dregs of my thoughts to Her attention, trapping my subconscious between Her hands. It was nostalgic, in a way, as the bifurcation of my mind quiets, focused solely on the sound of the clock’s mechanism.
“You’ve always loved leather more than people.” She speaks, a quiet and steady tone. “From your earliest days, you always preferred rubbing your cock against a boot than putting it inside someone. You could never perform; it’s why Darling walked up to me at the bar, isn’t it?”
The memories start to return; the dyke bar, Darling on my arm, and the well-dressed woman across the way. She’d complimented my jacket and Darling’s collar, asked a handful of questions that made me think we were going to get lucky, fumbled with that stupid necklace in a way that made me think She was nervous. Enough of the memory was correct that I didn’t bother pushing back on the rest of Her statement; rather, a smile crosses my lips as I nod, familiarity and recognition lighting some of the few synapses remaining.
”It’s why I got the two of you back here.” She whispers, the ticking continuing as She works Her Oxford out of my mouth, clutching my chin with Her fingers and pressing it between my legs, deftly shoving my hand out of Her way. I pull it free, using it to balance myself for a moment as I lower myself to my knees, so as to better press the shoe against my cock. “Two whiskey sours, a tablet in each, and we were off to the races. It was the most truthful you’d ever been with one another - She didn’t want to serve, and despite your protests, you’d have been happier with just your leathers. I was happy to oblige; my trophies, my pets, my good girls.” She sighs, shaking Her head. “But you’ve still got that little spark in you. You think you want to be something that you aren’t. You steal my valor and call yourself dominant.”
Any worry or protest in my skull fades with Her further encouragement; I begin to rut like a dumb animal, fully debasing myself. I spare a last memory toward Darling - fucking Her self raw on the bed - and wonder if I’ll be destined for that, too.
“I assumed that if I fed your appetite for service enough - and treated you like a good dog outside of that - you’d give it up. Let it die.” She rolls Her eyes. “Unfortunately, the problem’s a bit deeper than cognizant resistance. I think it sits behind your eyes, in the fibre of your mind and the fabric of your soul. The pretender isn’t some impulse, it’s cooked into all that you are.” She continues Her coaxing, and I continue to rut. “As much as I love to play this game and watch the light leave your eyes, over and over again, I’m getting a little tired of having to worry about you getting out while I’m off being a real woman.”
A cold worry crawls up my neck, and I wonder if this is it; if She’d split me from Darling with one last, awful orgasm on the foot of Her boot and leave me to put together the broken pieces of my mind on my own. She seems to sense my worry, and the hand that holds my chin moves to my cheek, and She coos in that saccharine tone once again.
“Don’t worry, pet.” She sighs. “I’m not going to get rid of you. All we need to do is prune a bit more, and you’ll be happy, hm? You believe me, right?”
She nods my head for me, fingers hooking my jaw and cheek, but I doubt I could have resisted anyway. The whole of my body is fixated on the ticking of Her necklace, the feeling of leather against my nethers, the wave of cold overriding the burning flame in my skull. Mistress gives me a genuine, full-hearted smile, and lifts Her free hand. My eyes trace Her index finger and thumb as they come together.
”Sink for me, pet.” She whispers, and the varied sensations ripping through my body came together in one moment, begging me to heed Her words. My eyelids start to close, and I feel the world around me starting to fade as my orgasm reaches its peak.
“Three.” She hums. “Two.” Her smile turns upward, the points of Her canines revealed.
I fall into the void before I hear Her say ‘One.’
-
There is a level of peace in knowing your place in the world.
In mine, Mistress sits above all else; She looms on high, with a pet wrapped around Her leg in a perpetual, pleasurable fog, and i beneath Her feet in a position of endless servitude.
Below them, the rest of the Earth sits in adoration.
i am gracious to have any place in Her design; i repay this as well as i can, fingers working against the fabric of a debased leather shoe. It has a name, i know, but such a thing is lost in the vacant halls of my head; i find myself so transfixed by the wondrous feeling of its material against my skin that i cannot bother to wonder why a simple fact escapes me.
Instead, i go to work. i clean the fabric of the shoe with my tongue, working from tip-to-toe, cleaning every speck of dried waste and debris from its surface. The unpleasant taste of salt and dirt that washes over my tongue does little to halt my work; the grit wears against my tongue, but i persist regardless.
Mistress asks very little of me, overall; i am capable of very little aside from cleaning, conditioning, buffing, and polishing. Mistress told me that i used to be more confused about my place, and that She was here to help; She scooped out the bad, and left me in my truest place.
i have never been happier.
My fingers smooth conditioner into the shoes, and i wipe the excess away with the edge of my shirt, before scooping fingerfuls of polish from the tin and smearing them about the leather’s surface. i strain against the barrier of my cage, and i do not complain; if i do well enough with this pair, Mistress has promised to free me and allow me all the time i’d like in the closet, alone with all of Her boots. i stem my burgeoning excitement for only a moment by pressing a polish-covered fingertip against my tongue, letting the taste of it wash over me.
i owe a debt of gratitude to Mistress for showing me the truth; leather is better than skin. She helped me realize that it was okay to give up on the idea of needing an actual girlfriend, that i could sate myself with Her boots, and She’d take care of the rest. Some girls, She’d argued, weren’t really girls at all - they were things, and they were best suited for making their homes amongst other objects, pressing their flesh into them if they were so lucky.
Pushing against every urge to rut myself raw on the still-waxy shoes, i am disrupted as the door to my hovel opens, and i turn to face the entryway, tilting my head to the side. Mistress stands before me, with Her other pet hanging off of Her arm; despite the latter’s state of undress, i find myself utterly unaffected, entirely placid. i turn my attention back toward Her boots, and work to finish my task. The buffing of the brush only intensifies the wax fumes filling the closet, dulling my senses nearly entirely as Mistress speaks.
”Can you imagine?” She hums to Her pet. “Being like that?”
“No, Miss.” The pet coos. “It’s, like, gross.”
“That it is.” Mistress snorts. “Imagine if you had to touch it, to kiss it.”
Her pet shrieks, juvenile and annoying, and my focus is disrupted for only a second as i lean closer to the boot. i rub my cheek against the freshly-buffed surface and huff the fumes as i do so, half anticipating Mistress to scold me for it. Instead, She simply laughs at my desperation
“That’s, like, really gross!” Her pet finally musters. “Besides, it doesn’t want me. it has Your shoes, right?”
The pet is right; i do have Mistress’ shoes, and Her boots, and Her polishing supplies, and all else She’s given me to build my little hole in the world, tucked safely within Her closet. i pull the shoe from my face, aware that i’ve likely stained my cheek with polish, and go to finish cleaning it before the snapping of Mistress’ fingers breaks my focus. i turn to face Her, eyes up and wide, bearing the same empty-headed stare that the girl on Her arm wears.
”It does.” Mistress muses to Her pet. “But as much as it’d love to drown in them forever, it needs to come out sometimes.” She takes a step toward me, turning the thick band of leather around my throat and reminding me of its presence, before clipping a leash to the end of it. The heavy weight of it serves to ground me, to shake me from my leather-scented heaven and bring me back to Earth. i step forward, and take my place at Her feet once again, and She smiles down upon me as She runs Her fingers through my hair.
“Good girl.” She pulls me along; i follow, dutifully.
God sits upon Her throne, and I am graced to sit at Her feet.
i couldn’t ever imagine being happier.