The Slowest Reveal

I'm kneeling on the shag rug at the foot of our bed. An early spring draft sneaks in through the crack under the door, covering my bare thighs and shoulders in prickly goosebumps. I mentally reprimand myself. Should've switched on the heater. Too late now. I've assumed the position. Too much effort to get up.

I'm at eye level with her feet. They might get a little chilly when the socks come off. I'll need to make sure I do a good job of warming them up. First with my hands, then with my mouth.

It always starts with a massage. We didn't intend to give any structure to this ritual. Over time it just became an unspoken agreement: the only way she will ever derive pleasure from this taboo is through massage; and I'm obliged to indulge her before all else. I don't mind. It loosens her; relaxes her; gives her a reason to reciprocate; allows her to tolerate me. God, how I wish she could experience other forms of pleasure while I carry out my fantasies. I wish she was even slightly excited about how wet my pussy is, just from studying the way the cotton fabric clings to her curves, the little creases of material right in the crook of her arches mimicking the creases of her skin beneath. The sheer anticipation of the things we're about to do (I'm about to do)... the feeling fills me. It's almost as commanding as the feeling of her fingers filling the part of me that throbs.

Soon.

An involuntary spasm sends a torrent of blood rushing between my legs, engorging the flesh, swelling me. A glinting bead of clear syrup leaks out, trickling down my thigh before dripping onto the rug, leaving a stringy, viscous trail which quickly cools in the draft. I shudder.

'You alright down there?' she asks with a touch of amused sarcasm.

I sputter out a nervous chuckle.

'Yeah, just a little chilly.'

She shuffles her feet in gleeful, uneasy restlessness, brushing them against each other, repetitively spreading and wiggling her toes inside her socks. It's a comfort reflex; a jittery mannerism. Just a silly thing we all do when we're sitting idle, reminding our brain what it feels like to have limbs. She does it all the time without realising. I've tried to explain--albeit in my awkward, meandering stream-of-consciousness kind of way--how wild it drives me when she does it. I like to watch and pretend she's putting on a little show. Teasing me. But the second she catches me watching, the show's over. She won't do it under a spotlight. It's too much like acting; there's too much pressure to make the movements look convincingly subconscious.

I crane my neck to see up beyond her legs, curious about what she's doing with her hands and her eyes. She's lying on her back with two pillows under her head, just scrolling away on her phone. Just like she does every night before we turn out the light. I relax a little. She's not paying attention. I'm under no scrutiny.

Yet.

I take a deep, silent breath, cautious of betraying my nerves. I gingerly pinch the fabric of her left sock, between her big toe and its neighbour. I'm holding that breath, at the mercy of the crushing palpitations in my chest as I feel the rounded tips of her toes beneath the material.

She freezes, like a spider detecting prey snagged in her web. The curtains draw up and the hot, bright spotlight falls on us. My heart shifts gear to a steady gallop. A dollop of adrenaline falls into the centre of my chest like a pebble dropped into a pond. I let the breath go.

I hear the distinct clunk-clunk of plastic on wood; she's placed her phone on the bedside table.

Not because she wants to watch or anything. That does nothing for her (in fact, part of me wonders whether it still disgusts her a little bit). No, she's feigning attentiveness as a courtesy. Something like etiquette or tradition holds her accountable for the way she presents herself while she's being touched. If the roles were reversed, she would expect the same courtesy of me. Not that they ever would be. This is my kink; this street only runs one way. Even so, she can't allow herself to appear disrespectful or apathetic. She is graciously indifferent. No more, no less.

It hasn't occurred to her that many practitioners of this trade actually enjoy being ignored while they work. I haven't yet figured out which camp I'm in.

I swallow around the lump in my throat, tugging on the sock, stretching the cotton out past the tips of her toes. She obliges, lifts her heel off the bed an inch, allowing the sock to loosen more freely. It's tight around the ankle. I prop both elbows on the edge of the mattress and slip my thrumming fingers down into the elastic hem. Her smooth skin warms the backs of my fingers. There's a temptation to slide my hand all the way down into the depths of her sock, to immerse myself in the unadulterated cosy warmth, to explore the soft, buttery, velvet skin of her foot inside its cocoon. I want it like the teenage version of me wanted to slide her hand down the front of her crush's jeans, into that mysterious humid nest of lace and fuzz and flesh. But there's another part of me that wants to see it; expose it to the cool spring air and examine every captivating detail like an art scholar drooling over a Roman fresco. That visual side of me is just a little louder; she wants it just a little more. So I slide the hem of the sock down over her ankle until it reaches her Achilles tendon. Then I stop

The real show starts here.

Slowly.

That's how I prefer it. So slow that it aches and turns my brain to sludge. Glacial. I need to witness the unveiling of every single crease and wrinkle, every tiny detail from the edge of her heel to the very tips of her marshmallowy toe pads. Every millimetre of skin I uncover is a new reward, a new sight to appreciate; another tiny part added to the whole; a new alluringly incomplete fragment that is slightly more exciting; more fascinating than the fragment on display in the prior moment.

I know it's an act I shouldn't enjoy watching. I shouldn't be this turned on by something so innocuous; so utilitarian. I shouldn't find beauty and allure in something so objectively grotesque and alien. This part of the human body isn't designed to be visually appealing. It's supposed to be hidden away. It is a purveyor of strange smells and pain and sharp edges and flakes and crust. It is dirty and obscene and its architecture is all bulbous, knobby protrusions and acute angles and leathery folds. It is in itself, a deformity.

Yet half of the attraction is in the forbiddance of it. Revealing this intimate, private part of my lover's body is, to me, like watching a solar eclipse in reverse. Twice.

And because she knows my feelings, she takes care of that part of her. For me. Beneath these socks are no smells or dirt or sharp edges. Only succulent, delicious treats.

I grip the loosened toe of the sock once more and pull until the hem finally slides up around the base of her heel, exposing a thin crescent of skin the colour of an overripe peach. She's buffed and moisturised for me. Her skin is smooth and fresh even in the places most prone to cracks and dryness. This is no desert hardpan. These surfaces are lush and luxurious. I keep pulling. An inch more. The plane of her heel flattens out, then begins to concave along the inner edge as I uncover the bottom of her arch. This is the first of many favourite spots along this rolling pink micro-landscape of crests and valleys. The skin softens here, between her heel and her arch; it's more flexible; more pliant. Here is where the wrinkles start to really dance across the stage of her sole, carving tracks into the flesh like the wheels of a horse drawn cart across clay.

A hot pulse flares up inside of me, flowing outwards from my belly into my extremities in waves, carrying with it a foggy swoon like a strong painkiller. I am dripping. My nipples react and I am suddenly aware of the fabric of my tank top against them. I fight the urge to plunge my hand between my thighs.

Her heel is fully exposed now, flushed rose-pink and warm. The hem of the sock stretches the skin taut across the middle of her sole, smoothing out the horizontal creases as it slides along, revealing still more of the deep basin of her arch. I pause there to take in the sight as if it were a vista viewed from the outcropped shoulder of some high mountain pass. The back half of her foot is now completely bare. I could rest here in contentment for almost an eternity. But there is more yet to be seen, further distances to travel.

I bunch the loose sock and pull it back towards her, causing her toes to bend backwards slightly, stretching the skin taut as I continue to unveil, sliding the hem past the deepest point of her arch and up the other side toward the ball of her foot. Here I pause again. The skin settles in the middle of her sole, relaxing back into those deep crevasses and pillowy folds. This is the next of my favourite spots, where the skin is pale as whipped cream, soft as butterfly wings, and supple as satin bed sheets. I've felt those tiny satin folds beneath my fingertips; across my tongue and lips.

In my mind's eye an abbreviated fantasy plays out for the benefit of my tactile brain: pressing my thumb into the skin, manipulating the muscle beneath, allowing my fingertips to explore the textures while I fulfil the one meagre act of service in this discipline that pleases my lover. And then I want to feel those textures in other places, on my cheeks, my forehead, my lips. The primordial urge to bury my face in her foot is almost impossible to resist, but somehow I manage to abstain, my vagina humming in protest as the nectar continues to seep out of me.

I pull on the sock again, exposing the ball of her foot. The sock sits over her toes like a loose slouch beanie. I let it rest there for a moment. The exhilaration is thumping against my ribcage.

I pull the sock free.

Reflexively she spreads and wriggles her liberated toes and I'm hypnotised like a cobra by a flute. She's polished them in a colour of my choosing. It's a humble act of sacrifice which means nothing to her but everything to me; granting me the deep pleasure of adorning to my own tastes this part of her body which I hold in such high regard. I tuck my thumb along the underside of her toes, wondering whether there really is any softer skin anywhere else on the human body. There isn't, I decide, as I gently tilt her toes downwards to admire the job she's done applying the soft, pastel lilac polish.

'Not sure I'm a fan of this colour,' she declares, partially dislodging me from my cotton-wool bubble of joy.

I sigh before suggesting a compromise.

'Back to black next time?'

Black is the one colour we see eye to eye on. It's also my all time favourite colour on her toes. And on mine.

'Yes, please,' she agrees.

And then it's back to square one, tugging and pulling the sock from her other foot, basking in the obscene beauty as her rosy heel and pale arch are slowly unclad, inch by inch, millimetre by millimetre, my arousal growing with the passing of each second and the unfurling of each wrinkle and curve, until, finally, with one last tug, my lover is barefoot before me.

I pluck a ball of lint from between her fourth and pinky toes, a stray cat hair from the tip of her big toe. Nothing is better at breaking the trance than a stray hair on your tongue.

She tosses me the bottle of strawberry scented edible massage oil and a bath towel, punctuating the end of the show and inviting me to start my shift as her personal masseuse. Eagerly I oblige, scrambling up the foot of the bed and assuming my new position, cross-legged on top of the mattress. I fold the towel in half and place it on my lap. She places her bare heels on my knee. I uncap the bottle and pour a small dollop into my palm, then rub my hands together to warm the fluid and my fingers. Like most people, she isn't a fan of cold wet things touching her feet.

I lift her right foot and sandwich it between my palms, spreading the oil over the surfaces of her sole and the top of her foot. She's lost a bit of warmth sitting bare for a few moments, so I do my best to create friction, increasing the pressure in my fingers as I spread the oil around her toes and the edge of her heel. Even though she has maintained those parts of her anatomy with careful precision, she is always wary of stray flakes or patches of dry skin. I appease that worry by making sure the oil is spread liberally over those areas. She needn't worry. They are flawless.

I am in ecstasy, as my fingers glide along every surface, sampling every texture and working into every space between and beneath. In truth, I do desire to express the way she feels beneath my hands; the effect this ceremony has on me; my gratitude at her tolerance of my fascination. But there still exists deep in my core a tiny shred of shame, warning me against showing too much vulnerability or exposing myself too genuinely.

And so my gaze is anxious, flitting about her bare foot with its slick coating of oil, the shimmering lilac polish on her toes contrasting against my own black nail polish as I work her muscles with my fingers, massaging ripples through the skin of her sole like the tide rolling up a beach, friction warming the pale skin, causing it to flush in a delectable shade of pink as the blood runs closer to the skin; and her face, masked in a carefully orchestrated, inoffensive expression of pleasant relaxation. And when I think I've been staring in one place for too long I find a random point in suspended space, at a random depth, somewhere between my eyes and the blank bedroom wall.

I don't want her to see how uptight I am; how enraptured. I can't let her see past this facade of mild enjoyment and into the part of me that is moaning like a lioness in heat at the mere sensation of her foot between my hands. There is a part of her that might be frightened by that part of me. Each time we carry out this ritual, the frightened lover grows smaller, and the carnal beast in me grows bolder.

Oh, but to utterly surrender to these feelings... that would be bliss. To throw back my head and howl, to lock eyes with my lover and play out for her the full, profound, unfettered range of my emotions: curiosity; transfixion; wonder; adoration; exhilaration; ecstasy; hunger; greed.

And I will surrender to it, but only at the conclusion of this rite. Only once I've sufficiently placated her with my firm hands and these exotic oils: my queen on her golden bed of silk and cashmere; only once I'm on my back, face buried beneath her tendered, blushing soles, at the mercy of her hands and fingers as they coax me towards that shocking, white hot, rending oblivion; only once control has been ripped from my grasp by the delicious agony of orgasm, will I express how I feel.

And even then, as I lie panting and drained, acutely aware of my nakedness, the blazing aura of rapture radiating from my skin, total satisfaction and release will elude me... until she bends down to kiss my lips. Not a lustful kiss, but the sweet melancholy kiss of a lover who is trying to understand.