I used to have really nice feet. Model-type nice feet. The type of feet that would allow me to go over to strangers' homes, kick off the shoes and socks, and smack them heel down right on the dinner table. I always drew fascinating stares, not because of my bold move, but because of my beautiful feet.

Women fell over as if they'd just been ravaged by gods. Straight men would run out to nudie bars just to reassure themselves that they weren't gay. Grandmothers wept. And small children just gaped.

Some people would touch them. Some asked. Some didn't. Some would lean over and press their lips to them, staring at them like a lover, holding them like a dying friend, before standing back, upright and embarrassed.

"Do not be ashamed," I said.

My feet were like Mecca. Those who saw my feet would tell others and they would come to lay their eyes and hands upon them. Strangers came from miles. Sonnets were written. Odes. Songs.

People loved my feet. They revered them.

But those were my feet of yesterday.

As with many people who possess something so shockingly beautiful as my feet were, I denied for much too long that my feet were tootsies past their prime.

One day when I was over at a stranger's house I pulled off my socks and shoes and laid my feet upon the coffee table next to the Fritos and sour cream dip. Only a moment had passed before the man seated across from me asked what that smell was. I suggested that the dip may have perhaps become rancid, but when the stranger put the dip bowl to his nose he found no offending odor.

"Perhaps the cheese, then? What do you think of my..."

"No, it's not the cheese. It's worse..."

As the stranger said this and as I looked lovingly upon my feet I noticed that there was something wrong - a blemish. A spot between the pinky and second toe.

"...it smells like..."

And there on the nail of the big toe on my right foot. What's that? Oh God. It's, oh my God, discolored.

"...rotten eggs and vinegar."

A moment and I was quickly shoving my feet back into their bags and boxes. I was up and on my way out the door. "What travesty has happened?" I thought to myself. I pulled the knob and was making my way out of the door.

"Hey, wait. The smells gone."

I charged through the door to the outside listening to the stranger's incessant muttering about how fresh the room suddenly smelled, him asking if the roses outside the window had suddenly bloom fade into the distance as I ran from the house.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no," I screamed.

I ran for hours, through the city and deep into the woods until I collapsed on the bank of a river. I crawled into the water hoping that it would cleanse away the evil that had befallen my precious feet.

The water felt nice. It was cool and refreshing and it drained away the terror, making me calm.

My imagination.

I looked around to see if anyone was nearby. I was alone. I walked back to the shore and began to disrobe - to let my clothes dry out and my body breathe in the crisp autumn air. But in my euphoria I had forgotten about my feet.

I unlaced my shoes and placed them on a nearby stone and yanked my socks off into balls, taking pleasure in shaking them straight and then laid those on the stone. I stood and was beginning to remove my pants.

They say that everyone has a defining moment. A point at which everything you know in your world changes from which you can never return. It could be called a moment of clarity when suddenly you see things as they truly are.

This was my moment of clarity. I looked down and saw that my toes, once straight pliant pieces of fragile alabaster had turned to dirty maligned hooks of meat and bone. The smooth sheet of porcelain settled between my ankles and toes now a mess of stringy veins. Thick, yellowy, curled nails.

I fell to my knees, weeping, and reached back to my feet's soft underbelly. Shards of glass tore at my fingers. No arch. Creased like linen.

I stayed at the river the rest of the touching my feet and hoping to awaken from this nightmare. But when night had finally fallen I realized that my fate had been cast that day. I put my socks and shoes back on. The roughness of the socks against the hide of my feet made a vulgar scratching sound and I vomited. I did not look at my feet.

Now, these many years later I have come to terms with my feet's betrayal. I do not fault them for what they did, nor do I hold them in contempt as I had for a very long time. But I don't let them out, nor do I look at them. And so we live, with each other, but never together.

Want to comment on this Short Stories? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Short Stories and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...