‘The lazy fucks had better have finished cleaning the shoes I want to wear out tonight’, Carol thought to herself as she stretched in bed and let out a sigh. She had given the task of cleaning her black pumps to the community of Mants that shared her sprawling and opulently appointed house earlier that day; she smiled as she remembered how she had worn them out partying the night before, and her bare feet and polished toes must have left them in quite a state. For fun she had demanded that the cleaning team of sixty-or so tiny men have their hands cuffed behind their backs, and to clean the shiny black shoes with nothing more than their tongues. She was a master of creative cruelty, her twisted amusements bringing her such delight.
Carol lived a life entirely supported by an economic system violent with inequality. Women like herself, were at the top; they had no need to work or take care of themselves in any conventional way. They wanted for absolutely nothing and had no concept of rarity. A sub-civilization of Mants, now numbering in the trillions, labored to provide food, resources, luxury, entertainment, innovation, and pleasure. Carol had only ever known this system, and any alternative was literally unthinkable to her. She, and all other women like her, saw herself as a living goddess to be worshipped by her staff of thousands of bug-people. It was the natural way of the universe, that there were to be haves, and have-nots... and she had.
History of course, is rife with examples of democratic masses overthrowing the elite few. American independence, the fight against slavery and for civil rights, the European revolutions against their monarchies. Over human history, there are ten-thousand examples of a poor people repressed until an uprising resets matters to a new status quo. The pampered elites, insulated from reality with their money, land, castles, and food would find themselves suddenly burst from their bubble and more often than not executed by mobs driven to violence through starvation or outrage. No matter how unequal or unfair a country or system became, there was always the escape valve of civil unrest. The elite - the kings and queens, the oligarchs and heiresses - by their nature were outnumbered many times over by the proles, and so although injustice by the haves upon the have-nots was common, there were dramatic avenues of retaliation that could turn the societal tables.
Until the process of Reduction was developed.
A quantum miracle whereby a person may be swiftly reduced to just a few millimeters in size, Reduction changed the world. At first used as an efficient punishment for criminal offenders, it later was used to staff assembly lines, reduced workers being much more able to work with finesse at tiny scales, not to mention so cheap to employ and feed that they may as well be free. And soon whole communities of reduced persons, or Mants as they would become derogatorily known, came to exist. It became more and more expensive to live a non-reduced life, pressure to become reduced grew and political changes began to reserve the right to be normal sized to those who were rich and powerful. At some point, rare genetic effects became apparent such that those people bearing them were not readily susceptible to the Reduction process, these people were genetically guaranteed a permanent membership of the emerging superclass of normal-sized people. Winning this genetic lottery coincided strongly with the presence of two X-chromosomes, slowly leading the world to be increasingly dominated by women. Never in history has a more powerful collective lived peacefully alongside weaker cousins; humans - both men and women - are driven to take, to own, to drive anyone or anything weaker than them slowly, grindingly, into the dirt.
And so again dawned a human era of elite oppression over less-fortunate masses; where the rich exploited and effectively enslaved the Mants to provide them with embarrassing luxury. Except this time, there could be no unrest or collective action that could rectify the injustice. The five-thousand Mants that worked in Carol’s home could all rise up in protest at once and yet still could not effect any change. How could they protest their living standards when Carol can lift her toe and crush thirty slowly beneath it, when a crowd of a thousand can be slaughtered in seconds beneath a pair of her boots. Or even worse: be tortured in the most barbaric and inhuman ways, as one might pull the wings slowly off a bug. All of this done with the full blessing of the state, with no law to support Mant rights, they do not exist. Instead the law gives Carol ultimate jurisdiction in her home, which she uses to terrorize and dominate the Mant workers.
This current inequality, of goddesses like Carol demanding ever greater hardships for their pleasure from the wretched oppressed Mants, has no end, there is no appeal, no possible uprising, no hope. The Mants are born into a hopeless slavery, their tiny bodies to be exhausted by the capricious and greedy whims of the invincible titanic goddesses that own them.
And Carol loved it. She loved the feeling of superiority she got just comparing herself to the poor bugs. She liked stepping down hard just in front of a group of Mants scurrying to their assigned tasks somewhere in the house, to glance down and see their shell-shocked reactions as a ten-thousand ton foot and shoe lands like a bomb inches from their fragile bodies. Seeing them grovel at her toes, or to watch a group of them to lick her shoes clean with their tongues, desperate to please her, sent shivers through her body, it made her hot with self-importance and status. She fucking loved it.
Carol was hungry, it had been two hours since brunch and her tummy was beginning to rumble again. She stretched out on the plush sofa with a lazy yawn, flexing her plump and polished toes before standing up and walking from the large sunroom to the afternoon tea-room.
Carol sat down at the dinner table, and looked over the place setting.
'D' was a Mant. He worked in the place-setting team, one of a hundred or so Mants responsible for very manual task of laying out the silverware, glasses, plates, napkins, etc. It had taken him and the others several hours to prepare just for this meal, his limbs burned with the exertion of lifting and positioning the giant objects for her use. Everything was set perfectly, each of the several forks, knives, and spoons placed within Mant-millimeters of their correct position. D and the team had finished just minutes before Carol sat down, their ant-size forms had worked for hours to get everything ready for this meal, as had the much more numerous cook-team that had prepared the gargantuan food itself that they were about to serve.
Both the place-setting and cook teams assembled themselves in rows toward one side of the linen covered table, several hundred of them lined up with heads bowed and waiting nervously. D hurried to catch his breath after running to his row, shoulder to shoulder with his fellow workers, he bowed his head down and looked at the white linen table cloth under his feet. The table under D shook and jabbed his knees suddenly as it jumped from Carol sitting her weight down on the chair, she settled herself in her seat with a lazy sigh, her bare thighs creaking against the leather as she did so. This was the most nerve-wracking moment, they were assembled so that she may demonstrate to them any deficiencies in what they had prepared; and such demonstrations were often deeply cruel.
She loomed over D and the others on the table, the bulk of her large chest proud and ominous above them. Without looking towards the assembled Mants, she sneered "This had better be good or you're all getting whipped again", her lips curling up as she remembered just a week ago how they had begged and then screamed for the punishment to end... she couldn't even remember what they were supposed to have done wrong.
They watched as she lifted her silverware and began to tuck in to the gigantic steaming plate of food they had prepared, a delicate venison au jus, with gratinée baby potatoes, creamed spinach, to be preceded by an assortment of light and fruity amuse bouche jellies that were laid out in front of the plate.
Working the silverware with her long manicured fingers, and began to eat. Mouthful after mouthful disappeared between her plump lips. Thousands of tons of the finest food chewed noisily and gulped down. The Mants remained frozen in their ranks, heads still bowed but terrified by the violent noises of consumption coming from so nearby. For D, the proximity to this gluttony was hard to bear; he like most of the Mants were close to starving, having had their rations cut by Carol so that they would only eat once every two days. The food in one messy mouthful being devoured by the goddess in front of him would feed the ammassed hundreds of servile Mants for more than a month. His stomach ached even more deeply to be in such proximity to so much food that was not available to him. Making the food teams stand by as she ate was all part of the theater of cruel fun for Carol, she knew that she had cut their rations (easily done, with just a swipe on a button in an app) so that they would be near starving. She enjoyed the warm feeling of superiority gulping down food that had been prepared for her by these bug like people, and which she knew they would all be desperate beyond imagination to have even the smallest mouthful of. Childishly she chewed slowly and noisily above them so as to draw out their anguish, she never missed an opportunity to demonstrate her superiority.
Finally, the multi-course meal was done, it seemed that the food had been well received, after all it had almost all been finished by the towering goddess. Relief just started to dawn on the Mants that were still stood there obediently. Carol dabbed her mouth with a napkin, belched a messy belch, and then looked over to the group in silence.
"Well... " she started, picking at her teeth with a pink fingernail, "... the second course was slightly salty.".
D's heart sank. "What the fuck.", he thought. She finished it all, how can she complain now...
"And you bugs know that I deserve perfection... right?" she continued, slowly.
"So you need to be... punished.", she stifled another giggle as she took a swig of wine.
"I'm going to punish you all. Because I'm a goddess, and you lot are bugs and deserve to be punished".
D couldn't believe what he was hearing, the Mants stayed in lines but there was an uneasy shuffling, a few looked around, and a soft but urgent murmur started up. How could she punish them for basically nothing... was there any fairness in her heart? How could she do this, what punishment was fitting for breaking their backs, while half-starved, to bring her a Michelin quality meal?
Carol leaned down to fetch something from under the table, as she did so her chest and face loomed perilously close to the array of Mants still in lines on the table. Her mouth, framed by plump outturned lips now hovered close overhead. D could smell her, feel her warm breath; there was wine on it, but he dare not lift his head to see how close she was. He could feel the heat from her as she loomed. So close now they could hear the soft but clear wet sounds of her lips parting again as she opened her mouth to speak, "you lot are bugs... and deserve to be punished..." she repeated again, her voice soft and with vocal fry, drawing out the last word.
She sat back up bringing with her a black briefcase sized thing from beneath the table, she placed it behind them finding some empty space on the linen.
Whipping was one of her favorite group punishments, and she had had a device made just for the purpose of delivering it. It resembled a raised black concert stage to the Mants, a briefcase sized thing to Carol, studded with an array of hundreds of short vertical poles topped with a tiny remotely adjustable collar.
"Climb on board buggies or I'll crush you all", she said nonchalantly as she sat back, in total confidence that the Mants before her would obey. They did.
D found himself among several hundred Mants, most in disbelief at what was happening, but still flowing in a crowd toward the towering black device, he felt her watching them from above, and he stole the courage just for a moment to look over his shoulder up at her as he shuffled forward. He saw a smirk on her face, as she looked down at the crowd, she had relaxed back with a glass of wine in one hand and resting the other on her now visibly full stomach. Somehow he caught her eye in looking back, looking down at him she blew him a kiss and took another swig of wine before grinning like she was about to burst into laughter. D snapped his head back foward, his heart suddenly racing to have been seemingly singled out, and he shuffled up the steps to the top of the football field sized device with the crowd.
As they spread out from the stairway onto the device, they saw a field of vertical black poles, each around 4 feet tall, arrayed a few feet from each other. At the top of each was a thick rubber loop, big enough to fit a Mant's head through, but not much larger.
The goddess's cheerful instruction broke through the murmuring of the crowd, "You bugs know what do do, heads through the loops, hurry now, I'm getting bored and I don't like waiting... it's in your interests right now to keep me as happy as you can".
D found a pole and bent down and put his head tentatively through the loop, with a *zip* it tightened immediately, snugly pulling around his neck and causing him to stumble and struggle to regain his footing.
In a few short moments the Mants covered the top of the device, each bent over at a pole and unable to free themselves from the rubber loop tight around their necks. Carol leaned forward for a closer look and licked her lips. She brought a hand up from under the table, holding her phone in the air next to her face, and after a moment of suspense, her manicured thumb lightly pressed a button on the screen.
Instantly hundreds of previously hidden leashes were actuated, one each per station, driving forward with dramatic speed and cracking against the backs of every one of the hundreds of Mants simultaneously. She let out an ear-splitting laugh as the pathetic synchronized yelp of the Mants reached her.
Again, she struck them, and again. Crimson lines barely visible to her beginning to appear on the captive prisoners beneath her. Like those around him, D was apoplectic with pain, there had only been a few strikes, but the leash struck with such force, and cut so deeply, he was driven almost mindless. Between each stroke as the shock of the pain began just slightly to fade and become dull, the anticipation of when the grinning goddess would tap that button again was unbearable... to know that a freight train of pain was to be unleashed any second... but which exact second?
She giggled with child-like glee to hear them howl in unison in response to her manicured finger tapping the button. She loved how she could cause such dramatic pain, with such a tiny action, it got her off that such a tiny thing to her could cause such a huge event. After a few minutes of what she called 'warm ups', she was ready for the real fun to begin. She reached behind her back, and under her shirt unhooked her bra. removing it and her tight fitting top she sat there now with proud breasts looming over an audience moaning in pain and beginning to beg for it to end. With one hand she massaged her breast and teased her hardening nipple. It stood in front of the Mants, gigantic before them, her nipple alone several times their size.
Bloodied and confused as to what was happening, they were at least relived for this brief reprieve while she undressed herself. They watched, a whimpering, moaning audience, as she placed her phone in front of them on the table, their eyes glued now to the cinema-sized screen and the large button marked 'Activate'. She licked her lips, standing up from her chair as she did so... leaning forward resting on outstretched arms, her pendulous breasts loomed above them, and they noticed her nipple was large and hard... and slowly lowering towards the button on the phone. They watched in unison, in unendurable anticipation, as her breast lowered down, closer to the button. As it approached they heard her soft throaty moan, for with as much fervour as they dreaded the next whipping that was inevitably approaching, she was looking forward to it. Her nipple lowered closer, closer, the increasing pleas and prostrations of the bugs before her bathing her ego... and then... the cold glass of the phone on her nipple sent a shiver of pleasure through her core, shutting her eyes in bliss she heard the crack of a few hundred whips and the chorus of pain beneath her again. "Mmmm..." she moaned, and felt her pussy begin to get wet.
Faster now she lifed her nipple and tapped it down again, and again, and again... the idea of the hundreds of Mants being nipple-whipped causing her to grin as she loomed, breathing heavily over the crowd now frantic and screaming with pain. Continuing to dab her rock hard nipple up and down, she opened her eyes to look over the field of squirming bugs just before her... looking closer she saw some of them now slick with blood from the whipping, struggling to maintain their footing in the increasingly slippery floor... as she lowered her chest one more time toward the button, she noticed among the crowd the bold little Mant she had blown a kiss to before. She lowered her plump lips until they hovered just ver D's head, he was transfixed as he face and then mouth loomed above him as he cowered... "Hello again little bug..." she crowed, "beg me to stop." she ordered.
Immediately D started begging, "Please goddess, please, you have punished us so severely, we will work for you and and worship you, please goddess stop punishing us, we cannot take any more..." ... her mouth turned up into a cruel grin, and a moment later she answered... "No.". Into his crestfallen face from above, she blew him another kiss, and drove her chest down on the button again with a moan, and a split second later a *crack* sounded the delivery of another brutal beating for her pleasure.