Foot Note

Believe it or not, I get embarrassed when I write about my sexual experiences. It’s true. I was raised in a strict Spanish, Catholic home, and you didn't talk about sex. Sex was for marriage. Sex was private. Even now when I look back at what I’ve done, I shake my head and think, I can’t believe I did that. It was like some crazy movie, cheesy dialogue and all. Still, to talk about it, I’m embarrassed.

I was always told I was sexy. My sister was always beautiful and cute but me, sexy. I didn’t want to be the sexy one. I would have been happy with beautiful or cute. It was kind of ironic since I was a goth tomboy throughout college. I studied hard and didn’t pay much attention to what I wore, as long as it was black. I suppose being labeled sexy lead me to explore my sexuality despite my trauma from The Awful Kiss. 

When I was in graduate school I went to a foot interview. I answered this completely sketchy CraigsList ad that could have been some psycho-killer that wanted to keep my feet on a shelf in his refrigerator. But it was just some guy that wanted to check my feet out for some fetish work. I already knew I had nice feet. I previously dated a man that asked to see my feet. When I showed them to him, he was so happy he lifted me off the ground in a big hug. 

So I’m at the interview, an amazing loft with big pillows, intricately designed carpets, and a sofa area with flowing curtains like some exotic arabian movie. A chair was set up in the middle of a room, and this young, not-so-bad-looking guy has me sit down, and take my shoes off. So I can’t run away? The guy kneels next to me and holds my feet up to the light. He checks them in different angles, measures them, smells them. He did everything but lick them. Then the talk. What a foot fetish is, how they set up appointments. I knew it was a sexual thing, blah blah… kissing feet, blah, blah… massaging feet, blah blah. I passed the foot test! Yay! So, I leave and head into the subway to my at-the-time boyfriend David’s apartment. 

When I get to the apartment, Ring ring. The foot guy. Apparently, a German business man was in town looking for some foot loving. $250 bucks for 30 minutes. Plus a tip! You must always remember to tip your foot whore! I paused for a second with three thoughts; 1. $250 to get a foot massage, not so bad for 30 mins. 2. Possibly he wanted to keep my feet on a shelf in his refrigerator. I was about to say ok when into my head pops the image of an old, saggy, fat German man jizzing on himself, or even worse, MY FEET! Cringe. Shutter. Um, No Thank You.

That was the end of that. I chickened out. Good times. At least I still have my feet. 

The Awful Kiss

Before the age of 26, a sexual experience with another woman was pretty much a no-go. I mean, I‘m a good looking girl, I had offers. I guess I was more worried about the fall-out of being labeled a lesbian. After all, I was enrolled in Catholic school my whole life. However, It was my during time at an all-girls Catholic high school that there was just a little blip. 

To be honest, the first time I kissed a girl wasn’t sexy. There were no fireworks, there was no passion, it was just awful. I was fifteen when it happened, the awful kiss. At the time I had what I call whore’s lips. I recently discovered kissing and I was obsessed with it. I kissed as often as possible. At  the time, my kissing partner was my friend Sarah’s cousin, John. Sarah was WEIRD. And I don’t mean she was lesbian weird, she was just weird in general. She would get mad at me if I didn’t call her, even though I saw her at school everyday. I always just brushed her behavior off as nothing. A possessive friend. Sarah was the facilitator of the awful kiss. 

One day she convinces me to come over to her house using John as bait. I go. We talk. We play video games. I was playing Sonic the Hedgehog when John showed up. She strategically sits next to me and whispers, “Don’t freak out.” Don’t freak out?? What does that mean?? I glanced at her and  shrugged my shoulders, what?

“I want to weird him out,” she says. She sits on my lap and hooks her arm around my neck. I kept playing my game but in my head I’m like,  what the fuck??  “Don’t move,” she says. Don’t move? Then she kisses my cheek. A little kiss. I turn to look at her and I remember thinking she is going to kiss me. Like REALLY kiss me. I didn’t know what to do. Then there it was, the awful kiss. Smack on my mouth!  I was in shock from the kiss when her hand went down my shirt. I shot up, knocking her to the floor, and in a panic yelled out, “You made me lose my game!” 

For the next 12 years there were no sexual experiences with another woman. I think I was traumatized… 

There Was a Little Girl

There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow