The Air Stewardesses' Footmen Ch. 04

"Gemma, I'm willing to shoulder some more household and shopping responsibilities - and to make them my new norm. Just name them."

"Mason! You should have accepted that golden-goodbye money and got out! What about our social life? And then there is this, Ms Gina Summers. Just from seeing her and listening to her on TV when she is fronting BlueSky Holidays commercials, I can tell she is a real ballbuster. What will she do next? Heaven knows I am all for improved female rights in the workplace. But your company's Chief Operating Officer, Ms Gina Summers, is pursuing a totally over the top female-favouring agenda; where is it all going to end? I mean, surely you must see that employment conditions will go on improving for your female counterparts at the expense of deteriorating further for you and your male colleagues. And then there's Camilla! I can't have that witch victimising you to get at me. Especially now, under your revised contract. It would be all too easy for her to bully you, just to keep getting under my skin."

There was a ping from Gemma's laptop telling her she had a new email.

I looked at my watch: the time was 18:00. Camilla had lived up to her 6 p.m. promise. Any last, lingering hope I had that Camilla might come up with something workable, just between us, was now dashed. But then, why would she? I had no bargaining chips. Camilla already had every at-work advantage over me.

"Gemma, I was going to tell you. That new email, too, is from Camilla."

"Oh? And how would you know, Mason? Oh! Don't tell me!"

"Yes: it's about me again. And Gemma, I am sorry, you are not going to like it. But before you read what Camilla says and see the photos and video clips of me she has sent you, remember that you are my everything. You mean the whole world to me, Gemma. And, whatever it takes, whatever you want, whatever I have to do..." I let my words trail off as Gemma angrily gestured to me to zip it.

Gemma read out the new message. "Camilla says: 'Gemma, it is my very great pleasure to present to you my photos and videos from my amazing new album. I compiled it late last night in our crew room and have entitled it: Foot Games. You will see why. And I am sure you will find them interesting and... revealing. Gemma, prepare to see another side to your fiance, Mason. He had quite a time last night. He and his cabin crewman colleague Terry. But of course, I have long been aware of Terry's, um... proclivities. With yesterday's introduction of the Subservience to Stewardesses directive, Terry was handed the key to his paradise. And in truth, I would like to see a few more cabin crewmen like Terry, who know their place and want to be in that place. Anyway, enough of Terry. Back to Mason. Your boyfriend Mason will explain my ultimatum. It is my one-time offer of how you can prevent me from posting the attached photos and videos of Mason online. Which, I think you will agree with me, will ruin not only his good reputation but also harm yours by association if posted on social media. Mason would lose his cabin crewman job with BlueSky Holidays, and with his reputation in tatters, he could forget about finding a similar position in the airline industry. But Gemma - this is not my preferred course of action; in fact, I would hate to lose my pet cabin crewman! I would far rather you submit to me once and for all than force me to carry out my threat to widely circulate all of my crew room footage, as it were. But I repeat: This is a one-time offer. An offer that again, I think you will agree with me, you will have no other reasonable recourse but to respectfully accept with an acknowledged well-beaten loser's good grace when I phone you tomorrow for your decision. Now sit back, bitch redhead, and watch my Mason-featuring footage!' See what I mean, Mason? Camilla can't help herself, can she? She just has to have her malicious little digs. She is a real piece of work, that cow Camilla. Always trying to... Mason, what the...?" Gemma's words died off, at now seeing the nature and the extent of the thumbnail image menu of Camilla's photo and video portfolio. Camilla's crew room 'footage', starring Cabin Crewman Mason Mallard and, with all of their faces blanked out to preserve anonymity, co-starring Senior Stewardess Camilla Cameron and featuring a stellar supporting cast of BlueSky Holidays air hostesses.

Gemma's second early evening soap had just started. But with a few keystrokes on her laptop, she overrode the TV programme to get the extensive thumbnail image menu of Camilla's titled photos and captioned videos onto the big screen to fully enlarge them.

Gemma looked at Camilla's tauntingly titled still photos and watched her cruelly captioned videos for over thirty minutes.

Camilla, it was clear, had a natural talent for producer/director movie making. And it was clear too that Camilla had greatly enjoyed the idea of putting Gemma through the mill by putting together cleverly and wittily her still-photo and video compilation of crew room 'Foot Games'.

I had sat there, stunned, shocked. But mostly excited, at now seeing from the angle of Camilla's smartphone camera what I had been subjected to on my kneeling mat at the dark nyloned after-shift feet of the throne-like seated Camilla, and later by her suggestible clique of example following cronies when they also took their turns to occupy the foot service seat.

Gemma pressed a button on the remote control, and the TV screen went dark. Gemma appeared to have lost the mood to watch her second early evening soap, was in the wrong frame of mind to enjoy the latest episode of unlikely cockney carryings-on. Gemma sat still, looking into the 50-inch smart-TV screen as if still seeing something going on in its black void.

"Gemma? Gemma, sweetheart, I..."

"Sweetheart, Mason? Now I know who your real sweetheart is, don't I?"

"Gemma! Don't say that!"

"So, Mason, what does Camilla want, then? What is her one-time offer? How do I prevent Camilla from posting those photos and videos of you all over the internet? Come on, Mason. Out with it. The sooner you tell me what that bitch Camilla wants, the sooner I can decide what to do about it. And, more to the point: what to do about you!"

It was the moment that I had been dreading. My redheaded girlfriend Gemma ran a short fuse at the best of times. I had to get this done and tell it straight. Prevarication or placation would only make the inevitable blow-up more tumultuous and the subsequent fallout longer lasting.

"All right, Gemma. This is the situation. Camilla wants to call a final halt to this long-running catfight between you two," I said, trying to sound calm and reasonable. "And to be honest, so do I, so that then maybe we can all lead more normal lives. Wouldn't that be great? Hmnn? After all, hasn't this senseless squabbly saga between you and Camilla gone on for long enough now?"

"Long-running catfight? Senseless squabbly saga? And, leading more normal lives - with your irregular hours making it impossible to plan our social life? Mason, you had better choose your words more carefully. And my patience with you skirting around the issue is wearing very thin! Get on with it! Tell me: What does that cow Camilla want from me?"

"Camilla wants a formal gesture of humble acknowledgement that she has won. To befit the occasion's significance, Camilla wants you to make a ceremonial-style demonstration of your surrender. For Camilla to cancel her threat, all you have to do is satisfy her one demand: Go to your knees here in our living room tomorrow during your lunch break, and beg to kiss the soles of her feet. But I will be here too, my love, to lend you moral support. Camilla will phone at twelve-thirty for your answer."

"Oh! Oh, so that is all I have to do, is it, Mason?" Gemma said sardonically. "And how horribly ironic! To prevent Camilla's photos and videos of you going viral and your unconscionable crew room capers becoming the next internet sensation, I can save you from notoriety as the infamous flying foot fiend by copying you and going to my knees to kiss the feet of my arch enemy? And as for my being harmed by association? That threat of Camilla's is weak because so few people even know we are together, let alone an engaged couple. And Camilla's threat to cost you your cabin crewman job and ruin your chances of finding another one in the airline industry is even weaker because I want you out of it anyway! In fact, Camilla would actually be doing me a big favour by not only getting you out of the airline business for good but also away from her clutches. So Mason, watch this video again and tell me: Why should I not only capitulate to Camilla once and for all but let her bring me to my knees in my own living room to conquer me in so cruel a fashion, for your sake?"

Gemma reactivated the TV, and she reselected one of Camilla's thirty-second video clips. Camilla had captioned this video: 'Mason: on his kneeling mat, massaging and sniffing my after-shift feet!'.

The stirring surge of rekindled excitement at viewing this video a second time gripped me again. I leant forward to listen to and rewatch what was unquestionably the chief life-changing post-flight foot service experience last night at the feet of the newly empowered returned air hostesses.

I did not ask myself why Gemma had reselected this particular video for us to watch again. Such was my avid engrossment in the unfolding scene.

On the edge of the sofa, I sat there, transfixed. Mesmerised to mute immobility by this most loin-stirring example of Camilla's middle-of-the-night smartphone-recorded crew room 'footage'. The soundtracked images were vibrant-coloured and, blown up to full expansion on the 50-inch TV screen, brought to lifelike reality.

The vivid crew room recollections rocked me again as I relived the scene from Camilla's throne-like seated viewpoint. Camilla could and did command my obedient service at will, and here on the 50-inch TV screen was the irrefutable proof of the extent of her natural authority over me. Looking up to her from my kneeling mat, I saw a dominant and all-powerful Camilla. Turning my world upside down and inside out and shaking it all about as, compliantly facing her in compulsory silence as she occupied the foot service seat, she pushed the envelope and 'theoretically' misused me. Overstepping the implied and assumed but unwritten and unspecified restrictions and prohibitions of revised-contracted cabin crewman post-flight foot service parameter guidelines, Camilla used my conveniently positioned face as her footrest. Her dark nyloned right sole at rest on my slightly upturned face, Camilla cupped my nose under her toes as I maintained her optimal footrest angle as mutely in unresisting cooperation I massaged her left foot.

Cajoling me to deep inhalations of her super-scented dark nyloned soles after her overrunning sixteen-hour flight duty, Camilla's example setting mistreatment of me to her onlooking clique of easily led cronies was incidental. Primarily, her smartphone-recorded olfactory atrocity was gloatingly directed at her longtime foe Gemma.

Gemma let the 30-second video replay three times, and then on the fourth rerun, she aimed the remote at the TV to pause mid-video.

Looking at the frozen picture, I knew why Gemma had reselected this particular video. And I knew what was coming now.

"Mason, you are a man, and you have a man's weaknesses. So I could forgive you almost all of what I've just seen. Even seeing Camilla bring you to a state of such obvious arousal, I could forgive. Because at least, now, after the photos I've just seen and the videos I've watched, I think I can understand it; understand you, that is. Camilla was right, and neither was she exaggerating. Because I now see that there is another side of you. A newly awoken side that Camilla has fully brought out in you."

Gemma stared at me, daring me to deny it.

"And I can understand Camilla, too. The gloating bitch, imagining her ultimate victory. Inflicting upon me such a belittling as finally she not only conquers me but crushes me in what should be the security of my home."

Gemma stared at me again, daring me to deny the dimension of her domiciliary degradation - should she opt to endure it for my sake.

"But, Mason, here's the thing: You kissed Camilla's foot. Didn't you? See, on the TV? On your knees before her, on that little square mat. Your kneeling mat, Camilla keeps calling it. Perhaps you thought I wouldn't see it, wouldn't notice such a fleeting moment in a thirty-second video. But I did see it. And I'm still seeing it now. Again and again. I have seen it, and I will never be able to unsee it. So, yes, Mason: look at the TV! And have a good look, Mason! Because there is your disloyalty, your treachery - your infidelity! That is a kiss of adoration, a kiss of devotion - a kiss of worship! Mason: On your knees, you kissed the sole of that bitch Camilla's foot as if she was your goddess. So now, I want your honest answer: Is she?"

"Gemma, you are my goddess! You know that! That didn't mean anything. It meant nothing at all. I mean, not in the way, that..."

"Mason, I know you find Camilla attractive. And that's okay; most men with a pulse do. But then, most men aren't so besotted as to go to their knees to kiss the soles of Camilla's feet in adoration. So Mason, can you tell me truthfully that you don't want her? Can you deny that you don't have, and always have had, a thing for that cow, Camilla?"

"Gemma, I can truthfully deny that I want Camilla as my life partner."

"Mason, this is not the time for secrets. It is the time to come clean and be totally honest with me, to tell all."

"Gemma, all right. No secrets; I will tell all. But it will sound strange."

"Mason, I don't care if it sounds strange, as long as it is true."

"Gemma, something came over me last night, something irresistible, and I was helpless in its grip. It had been building up in me since our COO Ms Gina Summers announced her Subservience to Stewardesses directive and explained what it would mean for cabin crewmen who signed their revised contract: providing a post-flight foot massage for our returned air hostesses. I think that was the main reason that ninety-plus per cent of our cabin crewmen bailed out, as it were."

"So why didn't you bail out with them, Mason, and parachute to safety with your golden goodbye payment?"

"Gemma, I Just wanted to keep my job. But I think Chief Stewardess Lois Lawson was the catalyst for my new feelings, telling me all about her foot soreness problems during her twenty-year career as an air hostess. Then, in-flight yesterday, Captain Amanda Mandelson told me about her own foot soreness issues during her five-year stint as an air hostess, which she called 'the affliction common to air hostesses'. After that, I could think of nothing else but watching out for signs of 'the affliction' among the air hostesses of my crew, of which I saw many, and about massaging their feet when we returned to our crew room. And, seeing from the meaningful looks on their faces how much they were all looking forward to it... it sort of got to me. Gemma, I had once turned down a foot massage request from an air hostess called Donna. She is now a flight supervisor, and she got her way last night. And it so happened that it was for Senior Stewardess Donna that I performed my first ever foot massage. I had never imagined I could enjoy it. But last night, I enjoyed all of my foot massage experiences beyond belief. And, most of all, serving Camilla. So, yes, Gemma, I kissed Camilla's foot. And I kissed Camilla's foot in worship. Camilla refers to my cabin crewman colleague Terry in her email. Terry reveres the air hostesses as his Princesses of the Skies; I kissed the sole of Camilla's foot to anoint her as my Queen of the Skies."

"I can't be hearing this... Mason, you kissed the sole of my arch enemy Camilla's foot to anoint her as your 'Queen of the Skies'?"

"Gemma, yes, I did. I am sorry, but I did. I admit it. And I admit, too, that I do find Camilla attractive. And yes, I always have. I suppose you could call it a crush. But besotted? Gemma, come on! Camilla could never come between us, not in that sense. It is with you, Gemma, who I am besotted."

"Yes: you are so besotted with me, Mason, that you go to your knees before that bitch Camila and kiss the sole of her foot - in worship?"

"Gemma, I worship you every moment of every day."

"Well, at least it is not quite the disaster it might have been. The saving grace is that Camilla doesn't appear to know that you kissed her foot unforced and unbidden - anointed her, as you put it. That she doesn't reference it; glory in it, either at the time or in her 'Foot Games' video clip caption, surely proves it. Oh - how that cow Camilla would have loved to rub my nose in that! Yes, you later kissed Camilla's feet and the feet of many other air hostesses, too - but only when told to. Ah, Mason... All right. What's done is done and can't be undone. But it can be dealt with."

"Can it, Gemma?"

"I know I can trust Camilla to keep her word. Camilla will withdraw her threat to expose you and your abominable behaviour on social media and delete all of her photos and videos of you as promised if I agree to submit to her specified demands. Camilla might be a bitch, who wants to belittle me beyond words in her gleeful triumph, but she is an honest and honourable bitch. But Mason, I am keeping all of Camilla's photos and videos as mindful mementoes, heedful reminders to both of us of your weak-willed submissions in your crew room last night. Because I want us to regularly review your servile fawning on your kneeling mat at the feet of your female counterparts. Not just massaging their after-work feet, which I consider entirely acceptable, a perfectly appropriate male counterpart courtesy. But kissing and sniffing their feet and kissing and sniffing their work shoes, as two at a time they use your shoulders for their footrest and dangle their pumps in your face while you massage the feet of a third air hostess. But even they are as nothing to your worst disloyalties. Your betrayals of me in subjugating yourself to Camilla and kissing the feet of her like-minded cronies. Mason... how could you?"

"Gemma, I don't know. All I know is that I have changed overnight. And you are right: I am a weak-willed man. Because last night, something possessed me, and instead of fighting it, instead of fending it off, I let it overcome me, allowed it to rule me. It was a new... appreciation. An attraction for air hostesses' feet that I did not have before last night and found impossible to resist. Can you forgive me? Can I make amends? I will do anything you say."

"Mason, you will understand that your extraordinary disclosures have put us on a new footing, as it were. So, I will forgive you - but on strict future stipulations which I will rigorously enforce. But I will not forget. And with our regular reviews of Camilla's photo and video compilation of 'Foot Games', nor will you. And so, yes, Mason: Because I want to save your reputation and, even now, I still want to keep us together, I will agree to Camilla's one-time proposal and accept her foot-kissing ultimatum."

"Gemma! Gemma... thank you. You won't regret it."

"I already am. But Camilla has won. And so Camilla can dictate her chosen terms. Just as I would have done had I been the victor. But that is not to be - all thanks to you, Mason. And I have to hand it to Camilla. She has come up with an exquisitely excruciating coup de grace. I suppose Camilla came up with the idea last night, inspired by the introduction of the Subservience to Stewardesses directive. So all right, then. With the good grace of an acknowledged, well-beaten loser, as she puts it, when Camilla calls me tomorrow lunchtime, I will respectfully inform her of my agreed total submission to her as required and that I will comply fully with her stated ceremonial-style formalities of my utter capitulation. I will politely invite Camilla to come to our house to enjoy in our living room the presented on a plate, gift-wrapped and beribboned ultimate put-down victory over me that you have handed to her. Camilla can then bask forever in gloating gratification that we have both gone obediently to our knees before her and kissed the soles of her feet."