Katherine Gehan - WOMAN TURNING 30 BECOMES FOOT-LICKING BANDIT

Katherine Gehan

WOMAN TURNING 30 BECOMES FOOT-LICKING BANDIT

I licked the foot of my first victim six months ago at my Woonsocket neighborhood Shaw’s Supermarket. It was a Tuesday morning. This was, of course, all before my current reputation and title as quipped by a certain About the Town reporter on the local news. My victim never saw it coming. And I must confess the first foot was certainly the best--similar to the way the first bite of chocolate or sip of beer is the most satisfying--and since that first lick, my endeavors are motivated less by pure pleasure and have become somewhat obsessive, like those of an over-eater or an alcoholic.

I saw her on the cereal aisle. She was a slim girl of seventeen or eighteen, wearing lime-colored jeans and white sandals that revealed ten meticulously-painted toes. The polish was an appetizing tangerine. Suddenly thirsty for orange juice, I turned away in search of refreshment. But no sooner did I locate the army of Tropicana cartons was the tangerine girl walking towards me down the aisle. Prior to this occasion I was not the fetish or outlaw type. No, I would identify myself merely as a woman on the cusp of the big three-oh, struggling with a plethora of identity issues.

Others on the verge of thirty have offered little wisdom, suggesting bits like: But you’ve come so far in the last ten years and you’re married now--not that being married equals success, but still it should help, no?

Women in their forties and fifties are equally disappointing: Just wait. When you turn thirty-one you’ll see that no one pays any attention at all. Aging is a dirty trick. These dear old hags are certain to add: Also, you’re married now--that should help--not that being married necessarily means anything.

And so I found on that Tuesday at Shaw’s that as the teenage girl clippity-clopped across the cold linoleum, I became entranced with her toes. She stopped next to me and perused the multitude of yogurt flavors, and I had an out-of-body moment. I felt myself fly towards her, red plastic basket in tow, and said, You have pretty feet. She gave me a quizzical flash with her doe eyes. I lunged to the ground, where I grabbed her calf, cradled her sandal, and made a wild, determined lick with my tongue across all the toes of her right foot.

Unbalanced while standing only on her left leg, she squealed, leaned against my crouched person, and jerked her leg away. A buzz in my ears prevented me from hearing anything else, and I stumbled away with the taste of salt, dirt, and paint in my mouth. The sensation of my tongue sliding into the valleys of her warm toe flesh was more than I could bear. And oh, the round innocence of the tiny pinky was so delicate!

Perhaps what keeps me going is the very essence of youth that I am able to absorb after licking a young woman’s foot. Perhaps, when I plant myself on the floor to arrange items on a low shelf to distract a nearby twenty-three year old blond with fuchsia flip-flops and coral toenails, and I breathe the fresh, sweet air around her body, for a moment I too am seven years younger and the world expands before me, like the way the squares of the supermarket floor checker forth to unexplored aisles. When the Foot-Licking Bandit strikes, she is less a woman on the verge of thirty and more a woman who has enough time.