Country Club Serving Wench

“They are experimenting, I see,” Master Louis said.

“It’s a cautious experiment, master,” Patty told her owner.

The two of them were having dinner at the Huron River Country Club, on a Friday night that was no more busy than usual. Patty, in accordance with the club rules, had left her hobble-heels at the entrance and had locked her right ankle to the table fetter before handing the key back to Master Louis.

The inner surface of the fetter was plated with a psi-active metal. Patty didn’t know the name of that particular metal. She only knew that its touch gave her a tingle of pleasure, and made her bare feet especially aware of the carpet – a shag that was just at (or possibly over) the edge of practicality for a dining room.

Patty was a bond witch, wearing a glass gem in her slave collar to mark her increased psi sensitivity. House slaves would merely find the contact with psi-metal comfortable, which was the point of the cuff’s plating.

The serving wenches tonight wore harnesses in addition to the usual skirt-and-blouse uniform of the country club. Each harness consisted of a broad belt with cross-the-heart suspenders to help hold them up against the pull of chains. Matching leather cuffs were locked on wrists and ankles. Most of the servers were otherwise unrestrained, although Patty did see one wench with chains attached to her cuffs and harness.

“Sooner or later, one of the wenches will trip and fall down.” Master Louis didn’t sound too concerned about this. “Even if this harness arrangement helps them keep their feet, there will still be accidents. Then the club will have to replace the carpet. Again.”

“It’s a soft carpet, master,” Patty said. “It’s better to replace it than to have someone be hurt when they fall down. However, the plan for tonight is to attach hobbles only when a serving wench is bringing out dessert. That’s what makes it a cautious experiment.” In response to her master’s raised eyebrow, Patty added, “I read the posted broadside on our way in, master.”

Master Louis reached over and gave her a caress. “And I was too lazy to bother,” he said. “That’s one for you.”

Rosemary Anne stepped over to Table Six, remembering to keep her steps short. She wasn’t hobbled yet this evening, but it never hurt to practice.

Mr. Louis Watkins and his bond witch Patricia were sitting there. Rosemary knelt by the table with the grace of three years of regular practice. “May I take your order now, Mr. Watkins? Missie Patricia?”

“Water and our usual salads, to start with,” Mr. Watkins said, looking up from his menu. “Patty told me she wanted a half-portion of the ham steak, and I’ll want a full portion of the same. Carrots with both, instead any of the potato sides, and extra rolls. We’ll think about dessert later.”

“As you wish, Mr. Watkins.” Rosemary jotted down the order, stood up, and headed for the kitchen. There the dining-room manager, Mr. York, waited until she had passed on the orders before calling her aside.

“Change of plans, Rosemary,” Mr. York said as he sat on a stool. “Stand before me with your feet at hobbling distance.”

Rosemary obeyed, holding out her arms as well, and Mr. York nodded approval as he started locking on the chains.

“You’ll take the water to Table Six and the dessert order to Seven,” Mr. York said. “After that you’ll stay hobbled, but you’ll also be taken off Seven and Eight. Susan will take over those two.” He checked the attaching padlocks. “This locking-and-unlocking isn’t working out, so we’re going ahead and keeping you all hobbled.”

“Yes, Mr. York,” Rosemary said. He was her boss, and while a slave woman might beg her master for mercy, a boss had to be obeyed.

Rosemary took a moment to consider her new chaining before picking up the tray loaded with two glasses of ice-water and six dessert-plates. Above her bare feet, the two studded leather cuffs now had a chain connecting her ankles, secured at each end with a pair of little padlocks. A matching pair of padlocks fastened a lifting chain from the lower ring of her harness-belt to the middle of her ankle hobble, keeping the hobble chain from dragging.

The cuffs on her wrists were connected by another pair of padlocks to a chain of generous length that ran through the upper ring set in her belt. Rosemary, testing her wrist-chaining, found that she could lift her hands up to just below eye level. That ought to be enough. If not, she would have to beg for an adjustment, but too long a wrist chain could create its own embarrassments.

Moving out into the dining room, Rosemary now had a much stronger incentive to keep her steps short. A requirement, in fact, imposed by that new chain between her ankles. The lifting chain helped a great deal. An earlier trial, some months back, had shown that even very short hobble chains, if allowed to drag, would catch in the shag carpet. Rosemary had managed to keep her feet during that short-lived experiment, but three of the other wenches had tripped and fallen, sending food and drink flying everywhere.

Serving the two water glasses to Mr. Watkins and Missie Patricia, Rosemary found that while walking in hobbles was easy, serving with wrists cuffed was tricky, even with this generous length of wrist-chain. She concentrated on moving slowly, smoothly, and carefully, and told herself that practice with these chains would help.

“I’ll be bringing out your salads next, Mr. Watkins,” Rosemary said. He responded with a willing-to-be-patient wave of his hand, and Rosemary took her tray on to Table Seven.

There, warned by her experience with the water glasses, Rosemary took extra care with the dessert plates. It wouldn’t do at all to get her wrist-chain in the whipped cream or the frosting. She managed, taking two or three times as long as she otherwise would need, and again told herself that practice would help. She smiled apologetically. The three ladyslaves at the table returned understanding looks while their masters nodded their appreciation of her enforced restraint.

Rosemary returned to the kitchen and brought out the salads for Table Six. The ankle-hobbles slowed her – that was the point of hobbles, after all – but they didn’t worry her. The wrist chains were still tricky, however. She needed more practice with them.

Perhaps she should have asked – begged – for some practice sessions. The finishing estate trained its young slave women in walking gracefully in hobble-heels, but did very little to teach moving gracefully with arms shackled. Given how the finishing estate sent so many of its students to work here as part-time serving wenches, it might have set up a short formal course.

She asked if Table Seven needed anything else, and when the masters there shook their heads she moved on to help Susan at Table Eight. Mr. York turned a blind eye to his wenches helping each other out this way, and it would become more important when they were all hobbled and thus slowed down.

Now it was time to pick up the orders of Mr. Watkins and Missie Patricia, and to take them to Table Six. Only those orders weren’t ready. “Scorched horribly,” Mr. York told her when she reached the kitchen. “They’re being redone. Go refill their water glasses, glasses, apologize for the kitchen, and offer the usual.”

“They may want rolls instead of breadsticks, Mr. York,” Rosemary answered. Mr. York nodded and made a shooing gesture.

After a hobble-slowed walk to Table Six, Rosemary refilled the water glasses and knelt. “I’m very sorry Mr. Watkins, Missie Patricia. There’s been a problem with your order and the kitchen is remaking it.”

“I didn’t see any spills,” Mr. Watkins said with a smile.

“It wasn’t that, Mr. Watkins.” Rosemary smiled back. “But I’m afraid there still will be a delay. Would you like drinks or extra breadsticks while you wait?”

Missie Patricia spoke up, “Please, master.” Mr. Watkins glanced at her and nodded.

“A Scotch Miser for me, and…” he looked again at his bond witch.

“A Tina Collins, please, master.”

“And a Tina Collins for Patty,” Mr. Watkins said. “Also, a basket of rolls, rather than breadsticks.”

“As you wish, sir.” Rosemary stood to go fulfill the order.

As she did, Rosemary saw that the party at Table Seven was just leaving. One of the first-year girls hovered nearby, waiting to clear the table. With an effort, Rosemary remembered her name: Thelma Sue. She was still just a busgirl, and still wore a slave collar with an age medallion. The ‘18’ indicated that she was only eighteen years old.

Rosemary herself wore a grown woman’s slave collar, having turned twenty-one just under three months ago. It seemed like forever since she had been an eighteen year old busgirl. Now Rosemary looked forward to leaving the finishing estate, to being sold to a dealer and then to a proper master. Working as a serving wench would become a memory, if perhaps a useful one. But enough woolgathering. She had to fill Mr. Watkins’ order, and she didn’t have time to waste, with the hobble slowing her down.

Sue (who hated her first first-name of Thelma) shot a quick, envious glance at Rosemary in her hobbling chains. Sue’s hopes had risen when they made her put on the wide harness-belt and locked the leather cuffs on her wrists and ankles. Now it seemed like those cuffs were just for show, that she wouldn’t be chained at all this evening. She was too young, having just started at the finishing estate this winter term.

She stacked the dessert plates on her tray with the rest of the dirty dishware and headed back to the kitchen. Halfway there, she remembered to slow down and take short, hobble-length steps. She’d been told to practice, and she had seen the other girls – serving wenches, as well as the other two busgirls – practicing short-hobbled steps as they went about the dining room.

In the kitchen, Sue delivered her tray to the dishwashers and started out to gather more. Mr. York interrupted her with a word and a gesture.

“Stand before me here” – he pointed – “and place your feet apart at a hobbling distance.”

Sue obeyed, grinning with sudden excitement. So she *was* going to be hobbled tonight, after all!

“Don’t grin so much,” Mr. York said as he padlocked the chains to Sue’s already-locked wrist and ankle cuffs. His own lips kept twitching into a smile, subverting his command.

“Yes, Mr. York,” Sue said, trying to suck her grin back down with, well, call it mixed success.

Sue picked up a new tray and headed back to the dining room. Mr. York called after her, “Remember, short steps. Don’t trip and drop your tray.”

“Yes Mr. York!” Sue called back. But it was the hobble chain, pulling against her ankles, that enforced that command.

Sue felt very much the full-grown slave woman as she entered the dining room with short, careful steps. But unless something unusual happened, it would be another three years until she left the finishing estate and a real master purchased her.

Rosemary set out the basket of rolls on Table Six and served the drink orders to Mr. Watkins and Missie Patricia. She then went on to Table Seven, kneeling to proffer menus to the new party seated there. She took their drink orders to the bar, picked up the water glasses in the kitchen, and returned by way of the bar, picking up the drink orders there.

Back at Table Seven, she reminded herself not to get overconfident. After carefully serving the water and the drinks, she knelt, asked if the party was ready to order, and wrote down their initial salad requests.

Walking back to the kitchen with hobble-shortened steps, Rosemary concentrated on moving smoothly and gracefully. The lifting chain helped a lot, but she did risk a trip and a fall if she tried to hurry. She went out again to check Table Six, and once more back to the kitchen. There, the salads were ready for Table Seven, but not the replacement order for Table Six. Rosemary added a pitcher to her tray to refill the water glasses of Mr. Watkins and his bond witch Patricia.

At the tables, Rosemary thought she was improving with the wrist-chains. More practice wouldn’t hurt, though. More practice never hurt. Another hobble-slowed walk back to the kitchen, and finally – finally! – the replacement order for Mr. Watkins and Missie Patricia was ready.

Rosemary set the plates on her tray and headed out of the kitchen. The chains on her wrists reminded her, once again, to be careful when she served Mr. Watkins and Missie Patricia. The chains on her ankles continued to keep her steps short as she entered the dining room. This time, however, she saw Mr. Watkins watching her. It suddenly felt like everyone in the dining room was watching her.

Rosemary lifted her head and walked to Table Six with all the pride and grace she could muster. Hobble-chained and barefoot, she would be the very best serving wench that she could, tonight.

(End of vignette)