The early morning traffic was building up on Park Avenue as Ian unlocked the door of his shoe store and entered. Mark, whom managed the shop, barely seemed to notice the owner’s arrival. Ian without ceremony or conversation, fired him on the spot. The door chime seemed to mock the young man as he left the premises.

He had to fire Mark for consistently ordering expensive shoes for which there was no demand. It was most inconvenient for him to visit the store today but Ian felt compelled to act, after Mark had ignored his warnings.

Mark was keen and Ian certainly had no desire to squash his enthusiasm. However, the boy’s seemingly fatal flaw was costing a lot of money. That was how Ian rationalised his own action to himself, but in his heart he knew that his drastic action had a deeper root. He felt it had something to do with the younger man’s unselfconscious way with the female customers, which he could never quite emulate. Seeing Mark in action, serving a lady , always made Ian conscious of his own inadequacy with women. And this was not, Ian felt, how the boss should be made feel.

Ian allowed his eyes to linger lovingly on the brand new display of shoes that Mark had tried to defend. It was these that had caused the problem. 12 pairs of glistening polished leather 4-inch heel stilettos in black, and red. There was a tango festival in town and Ian figured the assistant had hoped to raise himself in his boss’s estimation by making a killing on these items.
But not one pair had been sold, and the festival was nearly over.
This was not the first time Mark had made an error of judgement, forgetting that they weren’t an exclusive specialist shop down in SoHo , and that their clientele bought much the same conservative kinds of footwear over the years.

These elegant shoes were not cheap, Ian winced at the cost. However, he couldn’t help but harbour an admiration for the young man’s exquisite aesthetics.
Confronted with their magnificence, the dull conservatism of his clientele saddened his heart. He regretted that so few of his genteel up town customers purchased what they would regard as extreme styles, or even anything that was a cut above the ordinary. But sadly he couldn’t allow these personal considerations to stand in the way of his business acumen.

Ian saw too the open toed red suede strappy 6-inch heels waiting forlornly for a customer: another attempt by young Mark to innovate. Picking up this particularly elegant pair, he gasped when he could barely feel their weight in his palm. And the shoes were perfectly balanced, a work of art. With a sigh born of long repressed sensuality and suppressed eroticism, he placed them back on the shelf.
A low tone drew his head around toward the still locked front door and away from his musings. He hoped that Mark had not returned to make a scene. But it wasn’t him, instead a woman stood framed by the glass door, her finger on the buzzer. Ian frowned and tried to wave her away.
‘We are closed!” he mouthed through the glass.
She frowned and made no move to leave.

‘We are closed!” he barked.
He was still a little angry and feeling uncomfortable after dismissing Mark. It had been a long time since he served a customer. He merely came to check on the shop from time to time. He was speaking at a conference later that day on how to market shoes on the internet; this was the work he now engaged in, motivating others to build a successful business. He didn’t really have a reason to keep the shop on, especially what it was costing him in losses that pleased only his tax accountant. The woman had begun to pace impatiently along by the shop window. It was a walk of such perfection, panther-like in its grace and power, with seductively swaying hips, and a perfectly aligned stride. his eyes dropped inevitably to her feet.

She wore classy black leather ankle boots with what he estimated was a four-inch spiked steel heel. Ian’s knowledge told him they were very expensive, and absolutely timeless. They conceded no reference at all to the currently popular, graceless and self consciously ironic, chunky styles. In contrast, they were all smooth lines, elegant curvature and exquisite arch. Shoes expressed everything. The woman’s boots announced she was commanding, sexy and rich. And she was clearly not going to go away. He felt an erection building, as he opened the door and granted her entrance.
‘Are you refusing to…. serve Me…”
A red manicured fingernail plucked at his identification tag,
“…Ian?”
The voice was authoritative, British with a seductive edge. He had forgotten he had donned the badge in readiness for the conference, and he realised that she must think he was an assistant.

“No Ma’am!”
“I will need to lock you in though Ma’am.”
“Shop rules…”
His eyes fell, his voice floundered. It was him that should be locked up and he’d said it in reference to her! He felt totally idiotic, he instigated the protocol around here didn’t he? He could make any rules he damn well liked. Yet it seemed, suddenly as if the many strictures he had previously lived by were redundant in her presence. If she couldn’t see that he was the owner of this shop then he was less self-assured than his prosperity and experience ought to allow. This startling lady, had no hesitation in addressing him according to what she perceived as his natural place, quite evidently far beneath her. She nodded before dismissing him with a slight flick of her long fingers, and strode into the shop. She was treating him like a lowly clerk but he hadn’t corrected her to let her know he was the proprietor of this establishment.

The woman was dragging a leather belt from the display through her hands. She picked out a second one and turned to face him. She was wearing a tailored pinstripe suit. The skirt was high at the knee and the jacket was fitted tightly to her curvaceous form. The cut was glorious, expensive. A white silk blouse with a purple tie completed the ensemble. The masculine apparel of the tie suggested a sensual barely contained power with a sexually ambiguous edge.

‘The red pumps, open toed, size six!”
Her voice conveyed the crisp, precise cut of the whip. It demanded instant obedience, piercing his reverie. It reminded him of a governess he had seen in an old black and white British film. He had like the sound of those types of voices then, and he liked it now. Ian raced to the storeroom. With trembling fingers he lifted the box and carried it like a priceless jewel.The lady had taken a seat, one fabulous stockinged leg crossing the other, her foot tapping impatiently. She was not only beautiful but also arresting, powerful, with a streak of cruelty in her glance. Golden bobbed hair, penetrating blue-green eyes. Her eyes observed him coldly, as if chastening him for his effrontery in openly viewing her. Ian’s eyes fell. He noticed the perfectly straight seam running up the back of her calf and into the secret underworld beneath her skirt.

‘Remove my boot!”
The crossed boot lifted to graze and lift his chin, forcing Ian to look up at the woman’s proud face. He could sustain eye contact for only a moment, savouring the delicate fragrance of leather, before bowing his head and hastening to obey. His hands caressed the fine leather lovingly, an old classic style that few women could wear with panache. He unzipped them, smelling deeply now the heady intoxicant of leather and warm female foot. His cock strained hard against his trousers. The boot slid easily away from the black silk stocking. Her foot was curved in exactly the right places; with red toenails. His hands couldn’t resist caressing the magnificent shape of her ankles.

“The other boot!”
She ordered imperiously.
Ian watched in fascinated arousal as her thighs opened marginally when she shifted position. His pulse rocketed as he saw the lacy tops of stockings just under the edge of her skirt, and the tell tale clip of a suspender belt.. Were all English women like this he wondered? If they were he might just decide to relocate the business to Mayfair!
‘Now!”

Her voice hardened, commanding his attention. Ian lifted her booted foot reverently, hastening to remove the boot while trying to contain his growing desire. He wondered if she intuited the suppressed obsession that she had so easily inflamed? His taste in exotic shoes was long submerged by the dreary styles his clientele had forced him to stock. The very idea that she might know about his repressed tastes humiliated and excited him.
“The shoe…Ian!”

He fumbled at the irritation in her voice. He tried to hurry to please her but the truth was he now rarely fitted footwear. The stiletto filled his hand, the sharp curve of the high pump felt erotic in its utter simplicity of form. He drew her foot into his palm, delighting in the slight dampness of her sole, the full weight of her leg, and slipped the divine shoe onto her lovely foot. It fitted to perfection. He pulled the strap into the closure and adjusted the tightness. Her toes wriggled as she delightfully showed her toe cleavage, beneath the black silk. She pulled her foot free of his hands, pivoting her ankle to view the shoe.

“Do you enjoy delaying Me, Ian?”
Her voice lowered.
She reached out for his tie. He could feel himself turn crimson as she tugged it so that he almost choked.
“No Ma’am!”
His voice faltered again miserably.
Her knees parted, offering several more inches of mystery to his lowered eyes. He wanted to hide in a corner, and climb up her skirt and lose himself in those hidden delights at the same moment. .
His eyes followed the red majesty of the high heel pump as it lowered. He wanted to tell her that it was made for her. He didn’t dare. The point of the stiletto lifted off the rubber surface climbing slowly higher toward his open exposed crotch. Ian watched in fascinated horror. It descended painfully onto the bulge of his straining cock. He moaned aloud. He lifted his face to tell her that she had missed the mounting area only to see full awareness in her eyes as they watched him calmly.

“I am still waiting, Ian!”
The words were accompanied with pain as she pressed the sharp point of her heel into his compressed mound of desire.
“Yes Ma’am!”
His hands flew to the other pump, shaking as he leaned forward to clasp her heel. He pulled. Her foot refused to budge. The pressure on his cock increased.
“Ma’am…please!”
To his surprise he heard her laugh, a cruel uncaring response to his suffering.
Her foot lifted easily. Ian didn’t dare look up at her again; his entire world had narrowed to serving her feet. The pump slid against the softness of her foot, nestling in its rightful place. Ian took great care in adjusting it. When he had finished he withdrew his hands once more. Again the shoe lifted, her knees parted, and a warm wave of sweet but maddening fragrance mingled with the scent of leather and foot. Then the foot dropped to rest on the floor.
“Barely adequate, Ian.”
“Yes Ma’am!”
“Do you admit that you failed to serve Me properly?”
“Yes Ma’am!”

The pressure on his cock increased. She was speaking to him in such an imperious manner, he couldn’t believe he was taking it. But more than tolerating it, he found he liked it. In fact he craved more.
She lifted the belt. Then she snaked it around his bent neck. Manicured nails grazed the skin of his neck as the belt laced through the loop. Then it was snug about his throat. In an instant she had reduced him to a lowly animal. Her abject pet.
“Pull your trousers down!”
There was no escaping her command. Ian crawled off the stool, straining against the improvised leash, his range limited by the length of the belt in her hands. He pulled down his pants and underwear, utterly humiliated.
“Bend across the stool… your ‘ass’ as you term it here, toward the door.
Her voice drove him to his knees across the stool. Her words brought him harshly back to reality. He realised just how exposed he was. Her right foot slid under his body to poke against the throbbing tip of his cock. 
There was a whoosh in the air and the sudden impact of hard leather hitting his ass. Ian moaned and bucked.

‘What do you say?”
Ian panted through the pain. His muddled mind could only think of one thing to say,
“Thank you Ma’am!”
With every impact his desire to release increased until he felt he must cum.
“Please”
He begged desperately.
“Not yet!”
She seemed to know he wasn’t simply referring to her beating him. The belt whipped him again. He felt his ass burning. Ian begged with increasing desperation. His ability to control his approaching orgasm nearly gone.

“Cum wretch!”
Her curt order penetrated his mind
Cum squirted out, over the top of the fabulous red pump. He had been released at last into a realm of submission only glimpsed in his past life.
Someone else had just entered the shop. The noise made Ian jump as surely as any whip. He tried to jerk his head up to see whom but was held firmly in place by a combination of the leash and foot of this mysterious woman. If only he had locked the door!
“Ah, Mark! Did you fetch my things?”
“Yes Ma’am”

Ian recognised that voice. To his amazement it was that of his newly unemployed shop manager. The next thing he registered in his disorientated mind was that the pair obviously knew each other.
“From out of the corner of his eye, Ian could see Mark place a camera at the ladies side.
Ian struggled against the leash, feeling the spiked heel digging in his soft flesh. Held fast in this powerful woman’s grip, he would have to meekly await whatever was coming next.
Flash! The camera caught him forever in his compromising position.
“You look like You were born to kneel at a lady’s feet”
she laughed coldly.
He felt her left foot kick him awaiting a response.

“Thank you, Ma’am”
“Good boy”
He could see Mark out of the corner of his eye, his young body well-defined beneath his suit.The camera flashed once again. 
“”Now Ian, while I couldn’t care less about your tawdry little business, I do think it was rash of you to fire Mark.”
“You see, it is not that you have left this poor boy without an income. You have also slightly reduced my own, for he works for me.”
“I- I had no idea Ma’am”
Ian gasped.
“Apparently not. You really think a man could have chosen such exquisite shoes by himself?”
“I suppose not Ma’am”
“Of course not. I did and he simply followed my orders.”
I need to make some big changes around here”
“Yes Ma’am”
he whimpered.
“Mark, prepare the documents.”

Mark, remaining on his knees beside the woman, pulled a sheaf of paper and an ivory pen from the leather bag. He proffered them to her on open palms. She handed Ian the pen and held the papers to his nose.
“Unless you relish the thought of these pictures going on the internet, you will sign where you see my insignia.”
“Yes Ma’am”.
He scratched his signature in four places, as indicated by a curious insignia, a sort of sideways figure of eight, like the mathematical symbol for infinity had been placed where she indicated he should sign.
“Excellent. You have now signed over your entire business to me. I am now your employer and I appoint Mark, as your manager.”
Ian’s head began to spin. What had he done? He was pulled back to reality by a sudden jerk on his leash.
“Pay attention. You will receive a small allowance to cover your living expenses. You may approach me, through Mark, if you need anything extra. But be warned, you had better have a good reason.”
He was desperately trying to hold back a sob that had come from nowhere. He couldn’t tell if it was one of relief or anguish.

“You will sell your house, which is now also my property and come and live with Mark in my servants’ quarters on Central Park West. Is that clear?”
Ian couldn’t take it all in.
The harsh swipe of the belt across his naked buttocks soon clarified his mind.
“”Am I understood?”
Thwack!
“Absolutely Ma’am”
“Now cover yourself up and get ready for business”. Mark will leave you a card with my address. There is much for you to learn. This is a new beginning for you slave. A chance to prove your worth.”
The lady freed Ian’s neck, and presented her right foot to his face, the foot over which his cold semen was splashed. Eagerly, Ian licked it clean, lapping the gooey mess off the shoe leather, and sucking it from the dark silk of her stocking.
Then, as abruptly as she had entered his life, she walked out of the shop.
Ian looked at Mark, waiting for his instructions.

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