Footsucker

Twelve

It is a short step from being a student of one’s own life to being its curator; hence my archive. I feel ready to talk about my archive now. Fetishists, I understand, tend to be great accumulators, great keepers of files and samples, photographs and cuttings, and I was no exception. My archive was large and impressive and I did from time to time feel the urge to share it with someone. I can’t think of any circumstances in which I’d have brought a man to look at it. It was the sort of place I’d only bring a woman, and even then only the right sort of woman, someone like Catherine, although I knew there was nobody exactly like her.

Let’s imagine you were such a woman. Let’s imagine I had invited you to my house to see my archive. How would it be? It would be much like this. We would go by taxi to the small terraced house in West London where I live. We would enter the hall and I would probably invite you into the living room and offer you a drink. At first all you’d see would be a bachelor’s place, a moderately expensive hi-fi, a cheap colour TV, a few items of chrome and leather furniture that some people would probably consider a bit naff and dated. It would not look like the obvious place for a collection of sexual exotica. It would seem far too mundane and ordinary. You might notice the Allen Jones print on the wall and that would be a clue, but even so it would all seem surprisingly homely. You would be reassured or disappointed depending on your disposition. (Catherine, when I finally persuaded her to come to my house, was taut with nervousness.) I wouldn’t try to force you into anything. Only after a drink or two, and only if you were still sure you wanted to press on, would I invite you down to the cellar where the archive was kept.

I would carefully open the group of locks that secures the cellar door. I would turn on the staircase lights, warm but not too bright, and as we descended you’d see more pictures on the walls: a Helmut Newton photograph, that you might recognize from White Women, showing a pair of manacled feet in supremely glossy red high heels. You would notice working drawings by shoe designers, some Warhol shoe sketches, and a large medical drawing of a foot blown up from Gray’s Anatomy.

At the bottom of the stairs we would stand together in a small cluttered workroom or office. You would see the rows of books and magazines all relating to my interest, books like Rétif de la Bretonne’s Contemporaines, John F. Oliver’s Sexual Hygiene and Pathology, Rossi’s The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe in several editions, magazines like Heels and Hose, Footsie, Instep. You would see filing cabinets bulging with photographs and newspaper clippings, and of course you would see my many, many scrapbooks.

I began making these in very early adolescence. I would look through fashion magazines, occasionally through softcore pornography. I would see shoes or bare feet that appealed to me and I would cut out the photograph and stick it in my scrapbook. I imagine a lot of boys do that sort of thing. Sometimes I would cut out the entire image to show the woman’s face, body and clothes. But all too often I found the face, body and clothes quite unerotic, quite irrelevant and a positive distraction from the shoes and feet. In those cases I would simply cut the woman off at mid-calf. This seemed a harmless enough activity, and it brought with it certain satisfactions. Yet I was aware that I was not master of my own fate. I was relying on the editorial control of the people producing the magazines. I decided to seize the means of production.

Like many men I used to take photographs of my girlfriends; of their faces and bodies, sometimes naked, usually clothed. But I soon became more specific. I began to take pictures just of their feet, resting on a cold stone floor, or on a soft fine rug. Sometimes they would be wearing shoes I had chosen and bought for them, sometimes they would be bare.

I suppose I’ve always been reasonably ‘successful’ with women, though it’s not a term I like. I had a lot of experience. I had a lot of girlfriends. I soon had quite a collection of photographs of their feet. Some found it odd, but few objected. When I was alone I would often spread out these photographs on my desk, arrange them in patterns, in groupings. They were an aid to memory, a kind of souvenir, but also a kind of harem. But, of course, there are far more women, far more attractive feet in the world than one could ever know or make contact with. And one of the greatest pleasures for someone like me is that one may encounter powerful erotic stimuli in quite casual, quite ordinary contexts in the course of one’s daily life. It isn’t like that for all fetishists. If you are obsessed with bare buttocks, there is a prescribed and extremely limited number of places where you are likely to encounter them; not in the street, for example, not on public transport, not in every home, at every party, at every nightclub. But these are all places where one finds beautiful feet and shoes.

Inevitably these encounters tend to be short and fleeting. A spectacular pair of FMs walks by you in a crowded street. You experience a sharp pang of excitement, but it is here, then gone. It’s true that I have been known to follow a really fine pair of feet, and that can be exciting in itself, but it is ultimately unsatisfactory. I needed some means of making these chance experiences more real and permanent.

I bought a small, leather shoulder-bag and cut a hole in the side large enough to accommodate the lens of a fixed focus, automatic camera. The camera was lined up with the hole, then attached to the inside of the bag, and I ran a cable release from the camera, out of the bag, up through the shoulder strap to my hand. I walked the streets carrying the bag, and when I saw an attractive pair of feet belonging to a woman who was standing at a bus stop or looking in a shop window or waiting for a friend, I would stand beside her as though I was waiting too. Then I would take the bag off and set it down on the ground with the camera lens pointing towards the feet, and I would squeeze the cable release to make a permanent record of the subject.

Results were mixed but not wholly unsuccessful. Sometimes the pictures were blurred, because I had nudged the bag or because the feet had moved, and sometimes someone would walk between us as I was taking the photograph, but, on the whole, I achieved my goal. I captured images of feet and shoes that I would never have been able to possess in any other way. They were a crucial part of the archive. If you liked I would show you these photographs, and also the ones I took when asking women to answer my questionnaire. You could see the completed questionnaires too if you wanted.

We could spend a great deal of time in this part of the archive, but sooner or later you might say that all these things were secondary materials. They were not the thing itself. I wouldn’t argue with you. I’d simply say, let’s move on.

We would then find ourselves in a small, comfortable, predominantly red room. You would see that each of the walls was hung floor to ceiling with thick burgundy chenille curtains. Light would come from a small overhead chandelier, and at the centre of the room you would see a small but plush loveseat and a footstool. You would see a small sideboard and what looked like a cocktail cabinet, but your eye would rapidly move to a row of glass domes on top of the sideboard, the kind used to cover stuffed birds or animals. Anticipating your interest, I would flick a switch and half a dozen spotlights would shine down on the domes. Instead of creatures, each one would contain a pair of shoes. You would see how special these were; one pair with nine or ten inch high heels, another a pair of open-toed ankle boots, another a pair of antique bar shoes. But you wouldn’t have time to inspect them closely because I would already be bringing the rest of the room to life.

I would open the sideboard to reveal massed, orderly rows of shoes. I would walk over to the cocktail cabinet, open its doors and show the illuminated interior, and on the shelves where the bottles and glasses should have been there would be an arrangement of kid court shoes in burgundy and black, purple and aquamarine.

Perhaps I would have the video set up in the room and now I would turn it on to show a series of stills, close-ups of shoes and feet in brilliantly crisp, clear detail.

‘Impressed?’ I might ask, and if, like Catherine, you half-nodded, half-smiled, I would look back as though to say, ‘You’ve seen nothing yet.’

I would go over to the far wall, take hold of one of the stretches of chenille and pull it back like the tabs of a small stage and I would reveal a walk-in cupboard behind it. This, you would see, was the real thing, the inner sanctum, the secret chamber. I would take you by the hand and suggest you take a much closer look.

You would see shelves from floor to ceiling, and display stands in the centre, all crammed with shoes; an Aladdin’s cave, a treasure house, but maybe also a reliquary, and maybe partly a prison cell. The sense of mad accumulation would be glorious and yet there might be something sinister about it. By then you would know my tastes and preferences, so none of it would really surprise you. You would have known what to expect and yet you would still be overwhelmed and impressed by the concentration, the intensity of the collection.

Some of the shoes would be opulent and ornate, others simple and classically elegant, some wholly and only fetishistic. And although each shoe would tend to be sleek and discrete, when put together they would create a diffuse, ragged design; black leather nestling next to cerise satin, blue silk next to black lace. The ankle straps from one pair of sandals would spill over into the mouth of a pair of red silk court shoes. Different kinds of leather pierced or inlaid, or concocted into marquetry. You would see bevelled heels and wedges, a few platform soles, some gold lamé, some parrot feathers, fishtail heels, ruby slippers, needle-toes. All the great names would be represented: Vivier, Ferragamo, Perugia, Schiaparelli, Frizon, Cover Girl, Jimmy Choo, Blahnik. There would even be a glass slipper of sorts, although actually it was made of transparent perspex.

It would all be there before you, a collage, a catalogue of shapes, colours and textures that corresponded to my mind, a collection that utterly revealed my personality. I would glow with pride. I’d tell you this was my great work, that it was me. You would see that putting the shoes together like this had been an act of creation and profound self-definition.

You would be filled with questions. I would explain to you that buying the first couple of pairs in this collection was a very big step for me. I was circumspect to start with. I would only buy through mail order. I bought either from specialist fetish suppliers or from conventional mail-order catalogues. But it took very little time before I had the courage to go into shoe shops and buy there. I would always say that I was buying the shoes as a present, which in a sense was true, and none of the shop assistants ever questioned my motives or indicated that they thought I was doing anything peculiar. The ones who served me could hardly have thought I was buying them to wear myself since my own feet are large, and I always bought shoes in conventional women’s sizes. In fact I bought them in a variety of sizes so that as and when I had new women in my life, whatever their foot size, I would have something to fit them.

My collection grew, became substantial. I poured a lot of money into it, though probably less than certain men pour into other hobbies. I’m sure it was no more expensive than sailing, golfing or running a classic sports car. There was, however, something lacking. My collection consisted entirely of brand-new shoes. They were often exquisitely beautiful. The styles and shapes were appealing, but as they lined up on my shelves and in my display cabinets, looking pristine and immaculate, they seemed curiously chaste and mute. It proved what I had always known, that a shoe in itself, however full of erotic potential, only comes to life when placed around a human foot. These shoes that I had so carefully selected were used only in the bedroom during sex. They had never been worn in the street. They lacked female warmth, they lacked that patina and character that comes from being worn.

I changed my hunting grounds. I visited second-hand and antique-clothes shops, market stalls, charity shops, and I added to my collection. The shoes thus obtained showed some slight signs of life and wear. They had been gently creased, moulded to the shape of the owners’ feet. Sometimes the inside of the shoes bore an imprint of the feet that had worn them. I found this very exciting. There was considerable pleasure to be had in imagining the previous wearer of the shoes, speculating about her feet, her personality, her sexual preferences. And I wondered how she might feel if she knew that her discarded shoes had become objects of fascination for some man, or that I had passed them on to some new woman who had worn them during sex. But of course it was all speculation, all imagination. I would never meet these previous owners.

And that is when I took the next step, and this I think is the only aspect of my obsession that ever actually made me feel ashamed. It was certainly the only thing I ever did that was even remotely illegal. I began to find ways of stealing the shoes from women’s feet. Not quite literally. I didn’t leap on women, knock them to the ground and rob them. I never used violence; rather I used a great deal of skill and cunning.

There are certain occasions, certain situations, when women take their shoes off in public. It happens in parks or at the beach, although, in the latter case, women rarely wear very exciting shoes when they’re walking on sand or shingle. They also take their shoes off in restaurants or bars, at the theatre or cinema. At parties and dances footsore women frequently kick off their shoes and dance in their bare or stockinged feet.

Again, I suppose my greatest advantage in all this was that I didn’t look like the sort of man who would steal women’s shoes. What would such a man look like in any case? I would saunter past my ‘victim’, looking innocent but purposeful, as though I had many things on my mind other than women’s shoes. It was surprisingly easy. In parks the women would be sunbathing with their eyes closed, or engrossed in a book or listening to a personal stereo. In restaurants and bars they tended to be engrossed in food, drink and conversation. In the theatre or cinema they were watching the entertainment, although the seating arrangements here often made access very difficult. At parties and dances the women were partying or dancing. In none of these situations were they expecting to have their shoes stolen. They would be guarding their handbags, their keys, their credit cards, but they would feel quite relaxed about their shoes. And that’s when I used to pounce; swiftly, deftly, expertly. A certain amount of crawling about on the floor was often required, but that went with the territory. I stole the shoes and I was gone. Later I’d imagine the women walking home shoeless, their bare feet exposed to the common gaze, and there was a certain sly pleasure in that too.

If I had taken you to my archive I would try to explain all this to you. Perhaps you would be looking at me a little askance by now — Catherine certainly was. But it would be time to press on. I would ask you to select a pair of shoes you liked and I would help you put them on. You would realize you were not the first to have worn them, that other women had been here as you were, and I would hope that the thought excited you.

We would enter the inner sanctum, the secret chamber, and I would draw the curtain closed behind us, so that we were in this enclosed space, the walls full of shoes, the ceiling mirrored, the floor lined with deep wool carpet. We would stand at the centre and I would undress us both. Perhaps you would have chosen a pair of red leather high-heeled mules with a peep-toe. I would kneel at your feet and kiss your flesh where it met the leather, then I would lay you down and fuck you long and intensely and tenderly, and no doubt you would look up, look past me, up at the mirrored ceiling, at our surroundings. And undoubtedly you would look at the rows of shoes, and you might think about all the past or future perverse acts these shoes represented. And with my cock inside you, with your feet encased in shoes of your own choosing, I would hope that you would finally be coming very close to understanding me. That, at least, is what I hoped for from Catherine, but perhaps I was asking too much, too soon.