The Air Stewardesses' Footmen Ch. 04

Ch. 4: (of 6) Queen of the Skies.

After my all-night session of massaging the dark nyloned feet of returned air hostesses in the crew room and polishing their uniform black three-inch heel pumps in their locker room, I finally got home at 7 a.m. on Tuesday.

On top of my early afternoon flight duty, my long night of foot massaging and pump polishing had drained me. Longing for sleep, I barely had the energy to climb the stairs, hauling myself up by the bannister rail to avoid clumsily tripping and waking my light sleeper girlfriend, Gemma.

I set my alarm to 1 p.m. before undressing quietly and getting into bed. Gemma murmured dreamily and turned towards me, but then she settled back to sleep. I looked at her face, the face that was always in my mind's eye. In sleepful repose on the pillow, Gemma's face was the picture of serenity. There was no hint of the volcanic personality lying dormant.

Waiting for sleep to overcome me, I thought about my guilty secret: Camilla.

I did not wake when Gemma got up at 7 a.m. to go to the local big-chain DIY superstore where she worked behind the counter 8-5 Monday-Friday and occasional Saturdays for overtime.

I was too busy dreaming.

Dreaming: About the BlueSky Holidays Chief Operating Officer Ms Gina Summers' introduction yesterday of the Subservience to Stewardesses directive to revised-contracted cabin crewmen.

Dreaming: About First-Night foot service, the inauguration last night in the crew room of the air hostesses' latest perk of their job.

Dreaming: About the 'Trio' seating system. Deemed most practical last night by the returned air hostesses, the Trio format maximised the efficiency of their after-flight footman. On his regulation issue kneeling mat, his usefulness was utilised to the full by affording comfortable shoulder footrests to the two in-waiting air hostesses to either side of the centrally seated, foot service receiving air hostess.

Dreaming: About massaging the returned air hostesses' tired and achy feet. On my personalised corporate colour one-foot square, one-inch thick foam-rubber kneeling mat, performing post-flight foot massages for my female counterparts into the small hours of the night.

Dreaming: About black three-inch heel uniform pumps wafting after-shift foot scents in my face when dangled and swung from the dark nyloned toes of the two outer seated in-waiting air hostesses using my conveniently positioned shoulders for footrests while awaiting their own turns to occupy the central, foot service receiving seat.

Dreaming: About air hostesses issuing their foot massage instructions or just leaving it to me. Some air hostesses, haughty and assertive in their new empowerment over their revised-contracted cabin crewmen counterparts. Other air hostesses, already taking their newly entitled cabin crewman-provided post-flight privilege for granted, ignored me while over coffee or mineral water they chatted to other hosties - I was merely their silence observing knee-bound foot servant or footrest.

Dreaming: About Gemma's longtime antagonist: Senior Stewardess Camilla Cameron.

Camilla: Who, through the Camilla/Gemma-Mason connection, was the bane of my work-life... until last night.

Camilla: The sole of one dark nyloned foot on my face, supported in nonstandard and nonregulation but unresisting and acquiescent compliant cooperation; her other foot, in my Subservience to Stewardesses directive conforming, careful and considerate hands to be soothingly massaged post-flight.

Camilla: Recording on her smartphone camera what last night in the crew room she laughingly called 'footage': Foot sniffing, foot kissing, shoe sniffing and shoe kissing photos and video clips of me, with which to taunt her implacable adversary Gemma to maddening but powerless fury. But Camilla's real goal was not to post on social media sites as threatened all of her photos and videos of me sniffing and kissing the dark nyloned feet and the black three-inch heel uniform pumps of Camilla and her clique of easily-led cronies and many other air hostesses, but to use as leverage to issue an ultimatum to Gemma. A call for Gemma's declaration of her decisive defeat. Gemma's avowed acceptance of, and promised full compliance with, Camilla's chosen triumphal coup de grace victory rite: to go to her knees and beg to kiss the soles of her feet.

Camilla: Inhaling long and deep from her after-shift dark nyloned under-the-toes aroma. Super enhanced after her overrunning sixteen-hour flight duty, the stinky stimulus had erected in my cabin crewman's sky-blue uniform trousers the tented proof for all to see of not my repulsed aversion but the exact opposite.

Camilla: Whose subjugating, after-work dark nyloned super-scented sole, I had kissed in unprompted and unforced homage.

Thereby anointing Camilla, my Queen of the Skies.

***

I woke up with my phone alarm at 1 p.m. feeling unrefreshed.

A lot had been going on in my unconscious mind, processing the ramifications of signing my cabin crewman's revised contract yesterday, agreeing to abide by the BlueSky Holidays Chief Operating Officer Ms Gina Summers' new Subservience to Stewardesses directive.

That is, in between vivid dreams of the air hostesses I'd provided post-flight foot service for last night. In particular, dreams of serving Camilla.

So, a state of mind not conducive to restful and recuperative repose, but to fitful and fretful tossing and turning.

I could have managed another hour of sleep. But I knew I wouldn't sleep soundly, dreaming of the picture-taking and video-recording Camilla. One dark pantyhosed foot in my hands to dutifully massage and her other dark nyloned sole planted upon my conveniently positioned face to compliantly support as on my kneeling mat I totally submitted to her. Much to the amusement of Camilla's cronies awaiting their own post-flight foot massage. Who, upon seeing Senior Stewardess Camilla's flagrant overextensions of her contractually entitled Subservience to Stewardesses directive enablements, were themselves emboldened to emulate Camilla's empowerment exceeding example. All of them, overstepping the inferred and implied but unstipulated and unclarified restrictions and prohibitions in the usage of their after-flight footmen.

Besides, another hour in bed was a luxury I couldn't afford because I had a lot to do this afternoon. Gemma had left me her usual to-do list, and being my rostered Rest-day, it was a long one.

I had a lot of guilty thinking to do, too.

Because there was no question about it: I was guilty. And when Gemma got home from work later, my worst fear was that she would learn the full treacherous foot-kissing extents of my guilt, captured on Camilla's smartphone camera. And I would offer no argument because I had no defence; cite no mitigation because I had no grounds.

Gemma would be hurt. But then Gemma would become enraged, then vengeful. And the vengeful Gemma would decide the fitting punishment for my weak-willed betrayal, the apt penalty for my diabolical disloyalty.

Though I had no basis for optimism, I still clung to the frail hope that Camilla might offer me a way out of my predicament before it reached crisis point. That Camilla was open to persuasion not to send her photographic mother lode to Gemma's email today at 6 p.m., but to leave it at the already sent snapshot example of me sniffing inside Senior Stewardess Donna's after-flight uniform pump in the locker room.

But no - I knew any hopes of damage limitation were forlorn. Camilla already had every possible power over me. So why would Camilla reconsider? Especially now, when along with all of her air hostess colleagues, I was not only under Camilla's thumb as her at-work subservient but under her heel as her after-flight footman.

Mulling over this state of affairs was doing me no good.

I got out of bed and headed for the shower. The power shower would help to clear my head. Dispel the lingering images of my Camilla featuring dreams.

Or so I'd hoped.

Because as I stood under the jets of hot water, Little Mason, as Gemma calls him, stood up too.

Because of Camilla.

Or because of the lingering aphrodisiacal effect that Camilla's post-flight dark nyloned foot scent so evidently had on me - not only Camilla's but Camilla's most particularly. As, in the crew room in the small hours of last night, I'd inhaled deep whiffs of the returned air hostesses' inexplicably pulse-quickening foot aromas. I'd submitted to Camilla's threat laden command to sniff. But I soon succumbed, seduced by the olfactory stimulus as sadistically inflicted by the excitingly dominant Camilla.

I couldn't believe it. But I couldn't deny it. Yesterday, my appreciative discernments of female physical attributes were those of the average Joe.

But now, tits, ass and legs had been superseded by another, more exotic discernment.

If I had to 'fall' for an air hostess colleague in such a way, why did it have to be Camilla? Why not Senior Stewardess Donna? Or the hostess-with-the-mostest, dreamboat Deborah? Or any other 'Princess of the Sky', as my cabin crewman colleague Terry so reverently accoladed his female counterparts.

But no - with worshipful lips, I anointed Camilla, my Queen of the Skies.

It was another complication, another dimension to the Camilla/Gemma-Mason dynamic. But this one was all my own making.

The trouble was I had always had something of a crush on Camilla. But then, not many were immune to her alluring attributes. But that's all Camilla was - Camilla might be my crush, but Gemma was my squeeze.

Gemma was a young woman who turned men's heads and raised their pulses with her redhead's presence wherever she went. And like Gemma, Camilla emanated sex appeal and had the same authoritative personality.

'Little Mason' was still standing to attention as I towelled myself dry.

I wondered how long I would last before I had to commit another, more egregious betrayal against Gemma to get Camilla out of my system.

***

Having a coffee break in the kitchen, I was considering which of Gemma's favourite meals to cook for us after I'd done the few remaining household chores and then the shopping as listed for me by Gemma when my phone rang on the table in front of me. I couldn't see who was calling me because my phone was face-down, and I hesitated to pick it up.

In light of events at work yesterday, the call on my mobile phone seemed ominous. I wasn't rostered for work today, nor on Stand-by. Today was a Rest-day. And after my all-night foot massage/pump polishing sessions in the crew room and the ladies' locker room, I needed it. And now I thought the caller might be the Crewing supervisor Janice or one of the other girls roping me in today because of our staff shortage due to the mass walkout resignation yesterday of ninety-plus per cent of cabin crewmen. But then it might be Gemma, calling to add another household chore or a forgotten item on my shopping list.

I picked up the phone and looked at the caller display... and relaxed. It was no one more ill-intentioned than my cabin crewman colleague, Terry. No doubt, he wanted to talk about our post-flight foot service experiences last night, compare our encounters with our newly empowered air hostesses.

"Hi, Terry. You had me worried there. I thought it might be Crewing. But wait, have Crewing been in touch with you to work later today?"

"No, Mason. But I contacted Crewing to volunteer to come in on my Rest-day; I could be minimum-rested and ready to work on one of our later flights. I checked our Arrivals and Departures on my phone app, and there is an estimated six-hour delay on our flight to Dalaman. So the rostered cabin crew for that flight will either be stood down, assigned to an alternative flight duty or held over on Stand-by; also, there will be slots on other flights to fill due to the on-the-spot resignation of most of our cabin crewmen yesterday. So I offered to cover for one of the stand-downs on the Dalaman or for anything else they might need me for."

"And what did Crewing say," I asked.

"Janice in Crewing told me to rest up today to recharge my batteries for what is coming my way over the next month. Janice told me, though, that she would consider it a favour that she would deliver on down the line if I would keep myself available to her strictly unofficially because she would like to be able to count on me if all of her other options run out. Janice said some air hostesses are phoning in saying they are nursing hangovers after their big party last night, rejoicing the contrived resignation of ninety-plus per cent of our cabin crewmen and the revised contracting of the last dozen of us. Janice joked that some of the hosties have not only got sore heads this morning from alcoholic overindulgence but also sore hands from all of their celebratory high-fiving last night, exulting in the COO's introduction of the Subservience to Stewardesses directive."

"I can imagine! But it's not much of a day off, is it, Terry? If you remain available to Janice in Crewing on an unofficial Stand-by basis, meaning for no pay, but you get no call up to cover for one of the stand-downs on our Dalaman or a fill-in on one of our other short-staffed flights. And I think that is how it will pan out. Janice will make good on repaying your favour down the line. But she and the other girls in Crewing will leave you as their last resort while they contact the air hostesses who are on Rest-day, and enough of them will take up their first refusal to take advantage of the COO's hosties-only offer to earn triple-pay overtime and bonus travel concessions for the duration of the cabin crew shortage."

"Yes, that is my take as well, Mason. But that's okay. I've offered, and that counts. Janice told me she has duly noted my voluntary helpfulness and willingness to work overtime at my new flat-rate pay. She said she will forward word of my spirit of selflessness to Personnel for accreditation on my file, and the information will reach the desk of our COO, Ms Gina Summers. Janice reminded me that Ms Summers keeps dossiers on all revised-contracted cabin crewmen, and she said that Ms Summers might contact me personally to commend my agreeability. Because Janice also told me that Ms Summers knows all about you and me, volunteering to stay behind last night after we'd served our own female cabin crew, to massage the feet of our later returning air hostesses and the two delayed all-female cabin crews and then afterwards polish their uniform pumps."

"Ms Gina Summers knows all about that; what we did last night?"

"Yes, from the flight supervisors' Cabin Crewman Conduct Reports. All of the Senior Stewardesses and most of the air hostesses we provided post-flight foot service last night put in a good word for us in recording their comments and observations. So, Mason, you may receive a personal complimentary call from Ms Summers too."

"Ms Summers travelled on my flight yesterday to Madeira. I have to say, Terry, Ms Summers doesn't look the sort who gives compliments lightly."

"No, she doesn't. But anyway, I'll be getting all the shifts I can handle. Janice said that I will be rostered three double shifts per week from tomorrow and that wherever possible within Civil Aviation Authority rules, my rest periods will be reduced to the absolute minimum through what she called 'creative rostering'. Janice hinted that she and each of the other five girls who work in Crewing will be responsible for preparing the rosters of one of us six Gatwick-based cabin crewmen. You will get a call from one of the girls in Crewing later, Mason. Janice said that all of us revised-contracted cabin crewmen are expected to work flat-out to alleviate the staff shortage pressures caused by the walk-out resignation of most of our cabin crewmen yesterday. Janice says there has already been a big take-up of Ms Summers' hosties-only offer. Our female counterparts are clamouring to work some of their Rest-days, and some are even postponing holidays to earn triple-pay overtime with bonus travel concessions over the coming month or two. But Janice said there are still slots to fill on the less popular weekend and late-finish flights."

"Ah... don't tell me."

"Yes - we can expect to work more than the usual number of weekend and late-finish flight duties for a while, particularly because we are entering peak season. And Mason, after signing our revised contracts yesterday, we will have to work all overtime for our newly reduced flat-rate pay, and we no longer qualify for travel concessions because we have agreed to let Ms Summers strip us of the entitlement."

"Darren won't be impressed with his reduced flat-rate pay, including all overtime, and losing his travel concessions, will he, Terry? And he didn't seem very happy last night with his revised-contracted cabin crewman's post-flight foot service duties either, did he? Not happy, at all, to tend the tender tootsies of our footsore female counterparts. I don't think Darren wants to stay on now. He's not cut out for it, adhering to the COO's new Subservience to Stewardesses directive. And anyway, after his latest defiant confrontation with Senior Stewardess Donna last night, I think Darren's days are numbered as a BlueSky Holidays cabin crewman."

"I talked to Darren earlier. Talk about down in the dumps; he's at rock-bottom! Darren is demoralised and dismayed; disillusioned might be a more apt descriptor. Janice in Crewing has told Darren that from tomorrow all leave, including days off, has been cancelled indefinitely for cabin crewmen. And she and the other girls in Crewing are going to work his butt off until enough of the new hosties have arrived and found their feet. And you are right, Mason. Darren said he's been searching online this morning for another job. He says he'll find one at an airline where hosties are defecting in droves to BlueSky Holidays. And Darren didn't need me to tell him he's thrown away a nice little windfall, let it slip right through his fingers. If he had resigned yesterday along with ninety-plus per cent of his cabin crewman colleagues, he would have been eligible for the COO's severance pay settlement; her blatant buy-off for immediate resignation. So Darren is distraught at so foolishly forfeiting his handsome pay-off."

"I'll bet! Darren must be kicking himself!"

"Oh, he is! Darren said he'd been willing to give the COO's new Subservience to Stewardesses directive a chance. All be it, against his better judgement. But after the way the air hostesses treated him last night, especially Senior Stewardess Donna and her crew, now he's not so keen. Coercing him through their thinly veiled threats on his job to forego his late pint at the pub and to stay behind instead to provide post-flight foot service for them - after he'd already done so for the female members of his own cabin crew. Hence his disillusionment."

"And Darren was lucky - two of Senior Stewardess Donna's crew, Julie and Analise, declined their foot service entitlement last night because they were too footsore. But anyway, Terry, I was surprised that Darren signed his revised contract yesterday. He should have known what he would be letting himself in for - particularly from all of the air hostesses he had got on the wrong side of because of his... well, let's say his abrasive nature. He had to expect a backlash. Some kind of payback."

"Yes. Darren said he should have known that many of the air hostesses would have it in for him. He said it should have been obvious that their new enablements would go straight to their heads and that they would leap at the chance to take full advantage and more of the COO's latest downgrading of us cabin crewmen. Darren said that the way the hosties looked down on him on his kneeling mat, all smug, smirking and superior in their new empowerment over him, that's him done with BlueSky."