I picked lightly at my fingernails as I sat in the waiting room, glancing over the usual magazines and pamphlets, watching the clock tick and evaluating an incredibly generic, close up photograph of a violet. I pulled out my phone and fiddled with it for a few moments, and then put it away again and waited. The receptionist answered a call and then checked someone else in, and I thought vaguely about people with eating disorders as I stared blankly into the corner.

After a minute or so the door to the hallway opened and my name was called, and I looked up to see a tall, beautiful woman with straight, shoulder-length, dark blonde hair and soft, kind green eyes. I hadn’t imagined she would be so attractive, but she was, and she had a nice smile and a presence that put me at ease. I crossed the room towards her and she held out her hand and introduced herself as Christina.

She invited me to follow her down the hall to her office, and I couldn’t help looking down the back of her black, floral blouse and her tan pants to her shiny, fashionable taupe high heels stepping along the coarse industrial carpeting. I averted my eyes quickly and looked at the blank, cream-colored walls as we walked. She apologized for the construction on the way into the building, and I told her it was no big deal, realizing I hadn’t really given it any thought at all.

We turned the corner and she opened up the door. Her office had softer lighting than the hallway, and I was glad to see there were no trite sayings or so-called ‘motivational’ posters on the walls. It was a standard office with nothing for decoration except a few photos of sunflowers and some drawings pasted to the small filing cabinet next to the desk, and a couple of lamps, and, of course, a box of tissues.

She ushered me in and indicated the chair opposite the one by her desk, and I sat down as she began.

“Well thank you for coming in today, I’m glad for us to be able to meet.”

We talked for a minute about her background and the range of techniques and methods she uses in her practice, and about how often we thought we should meet and the way she likes to schedule appointments, and then we segued into talking about the reason I was there.

“So what brings you in today?” She had crossed her legs at the knee when she sat down, and my eyes flicked down to her shoes. It was such an open question, but I had a very ready answer. I felt nervous finally broaching the subject openly after trying to hide it for so long, after denying it for years and pretending like it wasn’t an issue, but I took a deep breath and felt my tension beginning to subside as I looked across the space at her.

“Well, I’ve been struggling a lot lately, and I guess really for a while now, with one thing in particular and I was hoping you’d be able to help me.” I almost expected her to say something, but she just let me continue. “Um… So since about the time I hit puberty, and even since a little bit before I guess, I’ve been, I guess you could say, drawn to um… to paying attention to… um…” I felt my face droop and my head tilted downwards as I heard myself say it. “To the feet of beautiful women.”

“I see.” She smiled as she said it, and whether reflexively or intentionally she flexed her foot subtly and began bobbing her leg.

“Yeah,” I said, letting out a large sigh. I waited for a moment, expecting her to say that she could help me or that she had dealt with that before, at least to reassure me that there was hope, but I looked at her for an extra moment and realized that she was waiting too.

“And?” she said, smiling gently. I let my eyes fall back to the floor.

“Well…,” I continued slowly, becoming embarrassed at admitting it out loud. “I guess that’s not all there is to it, um… I mean I think about them all the time. At work, on the bus, at the store, in the street… Every beautiful woman I see, I wish I was looking at their feet. The soles of their feet I mean.”

Even still she didn’t react. She just smiled and kept on listening for more.

“And I do look at them. Their shoes, their toes, their ankles. I catch myself trying to look at their socks coming out of the ankles of their shoes. Every time I see an attractive woman it’s like my eyes are pulled down and before I know it I’m looking at her feet.” I paused again, having felt I had declared enough to merit some kind of reaction, and again she smiled kindly.

“Well that’s nothing so bad, is it? I mean you haven’t told me anything that I think is worrying or unhealthy.” I nodded meekly before continuing. “Well. It’s not just that either. I…” I paused for a moment, trying to work up the courage. “I keep having these thoughts about… about wanting to kiss them. And… and smell them.”

I hung my head slightly and heard her still listening, so I continued.

“I think about pretty girls rubbing their dirty, stinky socks in my face, and forcing me to smell them, and making me lick their feet and suck their toes, and when I think about it I…” I almost wanted to cry with the shame. “I get… I become aroused. Sexually.” I looked up and she was still smiling, but she looked sympathetic now.

“How long have you felt this way?”

My mind flashed back to some of the earliest times, when it was fuzzier and less defined, when it hadn’t yet become sexual, and I told her about those. I told her about how that had evolved, around puberty, into becoming distracted by my female classmates in more than the usual way. And I told her about how during high school I had had occasion to attend a number of women’s athletics games, soccer and volleyball in particular, and how I would cringe at secretly wishing to be ganged up on by the whole team after the games.

I told her how my first girlfriend, and others after to a lesser extent, had often wanted me to rub her feet and what a torture that had been, because it had made me want so much more. I told her how it had followed me after that, through relationships in high school and afterwards, and how, unfailingly, I had lived with this persistent, secret, overwhelming desire to be subjected to women’s stinky feet.

“And did you ever indulge these urges?” she asked. “Ever ask for that from a girlfriend or other female friend?”

“No. I mean, how could I? I’m sure they would have just been disgusted.”

“I see. Did you ever even tell them that you were thinking about this at all?”

“No. This is the first time I’ve said it to anybody. I’ve always kept it to myself.”

“I see.” I waited for a moment as she seemed to evaluate me. “Well it seems pretty deep-seated. It seems like it’s a really central part of your sexuality.”

I squinted and looked down at the floor, and then I nodded.

“And what would you like for us to do about that?” she asked.

“Well I want you to cure me,” I said, unsure why it wasn’t obvious. “I want it to stop.”

“What if you couldn’t stop?” she asked gently. She let me think for a minute. “What if we could help you accept it, and let that be a part of your life?”

I still didn’t know what to say. I had never thought of it that way, always as something that was happening to me or as some kind of an affliction.

“You still haven’t told me anything that I find worrying or unhealthy,” she continued. “The only thing that concerns me right now is how uncomfortable you seem to feel about it. I think we need to work on getting you to accept your feelings and your urges, and to help you incorporate expressing those feelings into your life in a healthy way.”

I sighed, considering the idea, and she stood up and went behind her chair for a small stool that she had been using as a side table, which she set between us, and then she took the lumbar pillow from her chair and sat it on top. My eyes got wide and I flushed as I realized what she was doing, what she was about to do, and I felt myself tense up as a rush went through me.

“I personally think that a love and admiration for a woman’s feet is quite a special and valuable trait to have.” She sat back down, put her knees together, and turned them to the side, and then she put her left hand on them, reached down with her right, and slipped off her high heels. “It indicates sensitivity and a rare, devoted quality of adoration.”

She looked so elegant and feminine, and my consciousness pulsed as I heard her heels fall softly to the floor. She pushed them back behind her and her foot brushed against the splayed legs of her office chair.

“Now I want to be clear. What we’re about to do is not intended to provide you with a sexual release, because that would be unethical based on the nature of our relationship, but if you experience some sexual feelings that’s more than okay, and I want you to feel comfortable in that. Okay?”

I bit my lip reflexively and my heart began to pound. I tried to breathe and I nodded.

“Okay,” she said softly.

She lifted her feet onto the pillow and showed me the slightly dirty bottoms of her nude pantyhose. My heart raced and my eyes flitted around, and I shifted in my chair a little.

“Go ahead,” she said, softly and sweetly. “Go ahead and look at them. Keep your eyes on them for a while. Now I want you to look at my soles and my toes, I want you to look at my feet, and I want you to take some deep breaths.”

It was hard, but with some focus I managed to start breathing evenly as I looked at them. It was such a shock having her display them like that, just propped up in front of her for me to look at.

“That’s right,” she said. “In and out. Just focus on your breathing. Keep your eyes on my feet.”

I watched them and tried hard not to turn away, and I squinted slightly with the effort. I lost track of my breath and tightened up, to the point where when she started wiggling her toes slowly I suddenly gasped, and sputtered a little. I took a moment to regain my composure and then looked back at her face, and she was placid but seemed pleased at what effect had been cause by such little provocation.

She sighed softly and began flexing the whole of her foot, slowly, back and forth, alternating one after the other.

“Deep breaths,” she reminded me. “Just watch.”

I focused in on my breathing again and felt a warmth creeping through me, and with a clear mind and the vision of her feet before me I felt myself stiffen. I felt my face droop as I swelled, overcome by the sight of them but feeling my sense of shame lessen a bit.

She had me watch them for a couple of minutes as she wiggled and flexed, stretching them back and forth, and then she took them back down from the stool and rested them on the floor.

“Okay,” she said. “Now close your eyes and tell me how that felt.”

I sighed as I shut my eyes, the image of her pantyhosed feet still branded across my brain, and I searched to find the words.

“It felt… good.”

“Do you like the way my feet look?”

“Y-yes. I do.”

“What do you like about them?”

I struggled again, aghast that I was getting ready to say it.

“I like… I like your toes. I like your French tip pedicure. They’re a nice length and a nice shape.”

“What else?” she asked encouragingly, and I could hear that she was smiling. I breathed again as the words came, slowly.

“I like your arches and your soles. I like your heels. And I like the way they move.”

“What about what’s on them? Do you like my pantyhose?”

I felt myself gulp slightly.

“Yes, I… I do. I like… I like the seams and the extra fabric in the toe. I like they way they hold and cling tightly to your feet. They look silky and… and…”

“And what?” she prompted.

I frowned.

“And sweaty.”

“Good,” she said. “Now was anything hard or difficult about watching them?”

This was the part I had been dreading. Saying that I liked them was one thing, but to say what they made me want was almost unthinkable. I opted to start with what was, by comparison, a minor confession.

“They gave me an erection,” I admitted.

“Yes, I could see that,” she said, and I could hear another smile. “What else?”

I couldn’t stall anymore, and after all I had come there to be honest, to confront it.

“I wanted…,” I began, flooding with nerves. “I mean, I felt… I…”

She waited a moment.

“Go on,” she said sweetly.

I bit my lip.

“I just, I felt so overwhelmed and overcome. And I wanted…”

“Yes?”

“And I wanted you to rub them in my face.”

“Good,” she said. “Okay, good. So I’m going to have you open your eyes in a minute, and I want you to look at me and ask me for that.”

My eyes flicked open and I quickly shut them again. I was shocked, and torn between feeling thrilled, lucky even, and feeling almost terrified. I had never, and probably never would have, just asked a woman point blank if she would rub her feet in my face and now that’s exactly what I was getting ready to do.

“Deep breaths now, and I want to hear it loud and clear. Whenever you’re ready.”

I breathed in and out slowly, feeling the tension subside, and then I opened my eyes. I started saying it before I even saw her, afraid that I wouldn’t be able to and almost as afraid that I would.

“Please may I have your feet in my face?”

I was surprised at how steady and confident my voice sounded, as if my desire was assurance enough in itself.

“Good!” she said, beaming at my progress. “Now I want you to get even more comfortable with the asking, so we’re going to do it a few more times. I’m going to lift my feet back onto the stool and show them to you again, and I’d like you to look at them and then at me, and ask again, just the same way.”

I breathed again as she replaced them and flexed back her toes. She pushed her soles out towards me and raised her eyebrows, starting to grin, and she looked so bright and engaging that I suddenly felt as if it was, well, almost normal to ask what I was asking.

“Please may I have your feet in my face?”

“Good,” she said again. “That’s good.” She puled back her knees and reached down to scoot back the stool. “You may get on your knees in front of me and ask me again.”

I felt the anticipation building and I felt sure that finally, after all this time and all my stifled longing, I was really going to worship a woman’s feet, and something in me began to accept it. I was fully hard as I stood up, my strain conspicuous in my jeans, and I sat down on my knees with my legs apart.

“Now before you ask again, I want you to earn it a little bit. I’ll reward you with my feet if you admit, calmly and clearly, that you are a footslave. Say it now. I want to hear you say, and know the truth of it, ‘I am a footslave.’”

I licked my lips, my eyes wide looking up at her. I felt the words creep through me before I said them, and as they rose to my mouth they sank into my heart. I felt safe and secure, and for the first time, honest. I looked at her silky, pantyhosed feet in front of me, looked up at the firm, deliberate kindness of her face, and I said it.

“I am a footslave.”

It was like exhaling. It was a release. It was like for years I had held my breath and kept it all to myself, and now I was finally remembering what it was like to let go.

“Tell me again,” she said. “Let it settle. Tell me what you are.”

“I am a footslave.”

“Good. Again. Emphasize the ‘I’.”

My lips trembled but I felt my heart swell.

“I… am a footslave.”

“Good!” She smiled again. “I’m proud of you. Now you may stick your face in them and while I rub them around I want you to say, ‘I like stinky feet.’ Ready?”

She wiggled them again, and as I looked at them I knew it was finally going to happen. I shuddered, and I sighed as I felt an invisible, magnetic force pulling my face down into her soles. As her pantyhosed feet met my face I couldn’t help but moan, feeling the moisture of her sweat and sensing the thick, sour smell of her scent.

“Good! Now sniff them and say it.”

I sniffed deeply, reeling in the scent, and she made me repeat it several times, as before, and then she patted my face with them and told me to return to the chair. We regrouped and debriefed, talking over the experience and my feelings about it. She was very sweet and supportive, made me feel like it was a good thing, and told me that she really hoped I’d find a girl who would support me in my fetish and accept me for who and what I was. She even said that at our next appointment we’d discuss some ways of approaching that in a conversation. After that she said our time was, unfortunately, up.

“I think I want to give you some homework, for when you come in next week.” She rummaged in the backpack by her desk and pulled out a pair of gym socks. “You can have these for the week. They’re the socks I wear on my way into the office, and I run in them too, so they should have a pretty good scent to them. I want you to spend some time sniffing them while you have little moments alone, maybe while you’re falling asleep or when you get home for the evening, or even when you first wake up. Try to take about ten or fifteen minutes with them at a time, and go ahead and say out loud, just like we did before, ‘I am a footslave’ and ‘I like stinky feet,’ and repeat it while you smell them.

“I also want you to seek out some foot fetish pornography, and I can provide you with some resources. But I want you to watch for about 20 minutes or so before you start to masturbate. Try for 30 if you can.

“And I think it would be good for you to keep a log of these activities so I can look it over when you come in next. Sound good?”