Shoe Fetish

Shoe fetish and Learning to walk
--------------------------------
Lots of women like my shoes,or so they say.

Strange as it is,I don't give a damn about my shoes.

I just buy the most comfortable pair that I happen to see.

Most of my shoes are strictly sports sneakers and tennis shoes.

Sports apparel.Not fashion statements.
I like the support that they give me when I walk.

I walk a lot.
A lot.
And I need all the support I can get.

But in any case, most women like my shoes.
Or so they say.

But there is one girl I know who is a little different.
She is a confirmed shoe fetishist.
And a foot fetishist.

It's a funny thing to see her stare at me when I wear my shoes.
She looks at them like a fat hungry kid stares at a hamburger.

Her eyes are transfixed.Her face is blank.
She has lost track of time.

I see drool at the corner of her mouth, I kid you not!
And she's looking at me wearing my shoes.

She never misses an opportunity.

It's creeping me out.

My feet aren't pretty.They aren't supposed to be.
I clip my toe nails regularly but that's about it.No nail filing or
pedicures for me.

My feet don't smell, or so I'm told.
They aren't too hairy either.Maybe that's because I'm not Frodo.

My feet are a bit on the dainty side.
Size 8 on their best days, and size 7 on weekends,bank holidays and
most other days.I suppose I got it from my mom,

whose shoe size is 3.She has to search in the toddlers section for her
footwear.She's officially tired of wearing

sneakers with stickers of Mickey Mouse and Goofy on them.

BUt let me tell you something.Small feet only mean that the man wears
small socks.Nothing more,nothing less.If I

could only tell you what a whopper I had caged behind the
zipper...maybe some other day, and only if you ask nicely.

Oh I forgot.
My feet aren't pretty.

Four years ago I poured steaming superheated water on both my legs.


I'm not a masochist.

It was an accident.


I repeat.
I'm not a masochist.

I suffered second degree scald burns to such a severity that two
hospitals refused me.The third only gave me a shot

of painkillers so that I could stop howling in pain, and dressed my
burns up with Silver Sulfadiazine and sent me to

another hospital.

I spent two days in the Intensive Care Unit and a week in the Burns
unit and consumed five bags of plasma.In the

Burns unit, there was an eight year old girl bext to me who had an
accident with hot oil from a deep frying pan.

She was all wrapped up in gauze like a mummy.
No.
She didn't walk like an egyptian.
I doubt it if she had even heard of The Bangles.

I don't know what happened to her,but later the police showed up to
the hospital.They were alerted by the hospital

staff about the severity of the accident.
They suspected it was a college hazing ritual gone bad.

I explained to the inspector that I had been out of college for some
time now ,and this accident was entirely my own

fault.
The inspector gave me his number and asked me to call him if I had
changed my mind or my story.
Neither my mind or my story changed.

My nurses weren't sexy.They didn't wear short skirts.They didn't
lavish any attention on me.
They were middle aged, and acted as if they had seen all of this a
hundred million times before.
Maybe they had.

After being discharged I discovered that I could not walk.
Extensive nerve damage and muscle tissue damage, said my doctor.
My left ankle was twisted at an odd angle and the skin had hardened around.
The doctor explained that there would be some permanent damage and
some loss of function.
But it was difficult to assess the extent, he added.

My treatment was as painful, if not more , than the accident itself.

Saline solution to be rubbed on my raw skin.Twice every day.
Doctor's orders.

Ear plugs optional.

Talk about rubbing salt on your wounds!

And a high protein diet, for rapid regeneration.

I tried to walk after ten days.
Shooting bolts of pain from jangled nerves almost made me faint.

At this point it was easier to walk on all fours.

I was twenty one and was learning to walk all over again.

I was crawling on all fours for two days, before I got frustrated.
Learning to walk all over again is a lot harder the second time.

Gritting my teeth, and screaming with each step, I began walking.My
hands supporting and taking most of the

weight.Ten minutes on the first day.Fifteen on the second, I began
walking slowly,shooting stars of pain searing

lines of pain and etching them on my memories.

More salt was being rubbed on to my wounds.
Doctor's orders.

After a while the pain became a constant companion...a
friend,confidante,my guardian angel who let me know that I was

gloriously and riotously alive.
I ate,slept,shit and walked through the pain.
Pain, I realize is very beautiful.
Pain makes one realize how alive he is.It opens up the portals of
consciousness.In pain ,you regain your clarity of

vision and things suddenly become what they are and just that.Nothing else.
I was waiting for the pain to become so unbearable that my system
shuts down due to overload.The moment never came.
Pain is very resourceful.It was determined to see me suffer.

I was drifting away under waves of painkillers and sedatives.
But the pain still remained.Dulled, not so bothersome.But it
stubbornly remained.

I had refused painkillers until doctors convinced me that
anti-inflammatory drugs in the painkiller would hasten the

healing.

I'm not a masochist, but was afraid that I'd get hooked on to the painkillers.
I'm afraid of addictions- which is why I don't smoke,drink,gamble or
follow any ritual for more than 21 days in a

row.

Learning to walk the second time was much faster, if not harder.
Ten days later , I learnt to walk, just in time for my birthday.

But the scars remained.
My feet had strange black and white patterns on them.Ivory white skin
with melanin freckles on my ankles.

My left thigh sports a black spot that looks like the continent of Australia.

It looks like Aus-trah-lia.The land of Foster's Beer.
That's right Mate!

Er...I mean left.

On my right thigh, a pitch black Pangaea goes all the way from the
back of my knee to my kidney.Its easy to remember.
Australia,left knee,Pangaea -right knee to kidney.

My feet aren't pretty.Not even close.Brown scars and white mottled
skin shows all the way upto my toes.

And yet she loves to watch me slip on my black socks (I only own black
socks) on my feet.
She will not budge until I've knotted my laces and said my goodbyes.

Maybe she likes my feet.

Or maybe she is fascinated by the scars and grotesque patterns and to
grotesquery in general.


But after learning to walk again, don't care when someone stares at my feet.

After all,despite what doctors said,my feet still work.

Footnote:
The Art of storytelling:Comedy in tragedy
When I actually tell this story to someone else, it is nothing short
of a performance.
I aim for different effects and different emotions.
But if I'm bored, I'll make it short,cut and dried up.

But if I'm in the mood for it, the story will always be funny.

People have laughed till their tummies hurt with this story.It was a riot act.
I was clowning around, right from the beginning where I'm stripped
down buck naked in front of a very cute looking

intern to the later stages where I'm walking on all fours.

The only people who weren't laughing were my parents.They had gone
through it, and all those memories were stronger

than my story itself.
Theye were appalled by all the people who were laughing.They thought
people were being insensitive.To an extent that

was true, people were being insensitive laughing at my pain, but they
laughed because the story was crafted in a

manner to evoke laughter.

Of course, my parents forbade me from ever repeating the funny version
of the story.

--
<