The Flip Flop Girl

The Flip Flop Girl's Story
How I Met Simon

I've been thinking about sharing more with all of you. As I say, I am grateful for all the responses I've gotten regarding flip flops and having a foot fetish and being willing to explore what it all means. What I want to do next is share with you a story about another guy in my life, maybe the one that got away. I'm still processing what happened between us. This was a couple of years ago. He was my boyfriend and I learned a lot from him. I'd even say he helped me reach a deeper level in my appreciation of myself and my body and sexuality, not just feet but definitely feet were important. I like to think of it as a deeper understanding of sensuality. I suppose I shed more of my inhibitions with him. I learned to love my whole body and to understand how my feet can be a portal to pleasure. I'd say there is still more I could learn and my experience with him taught me to reserve judgmnet and to follow my intuition. One area I am still curious about is how something so intimate has made its way into the mainstream as regular readers are well aware. And, as for loving feet, that too is still up for discussion but I already have the experience with it as well as an appreciation for its charms.

I was just thinking about Simon this morning. I went to one of my favorite haunts for a meal and some coffee. I brought the New York Times with me to keep me company. The weather was cooperative for sandals so I picked out the most upbeat flip flops I could find within my vast stash, a pair of funky Havaianas with green thongs and orange footbed. I suppose they kept me company too. As much as I was engrossed in reading, I was just as preoccupied in slipping my soles back and forth in my flips and pressing my toes into the buttery soft surface. Before I met Simon, I was already very much into flip flops. I remember when I used to work at a law firm I was the flip flop queen. Everyone would comment on my feet byway of my flip flops. Every girl wore flip flops but I guess I stood out because I seemed to always be sporting a different pair and my feet were always immaculate. You could eat off the soles of my feet and I know there were quite a few attorneys who would have been more than willing to do that. There was one I briefly dated that pretty much did just that one feverish night. Anyway, I had become a flip flop expert and so when I met Simon, it was a match between a flip flop queen and a very seasoned foot fetish king. I remember one of our first meetings, perhaps it was the first: we were at a diner, no it was more of a tavern. And he was so cute commenting on how the tavern wasn't really authentic but a replica of the real thing. We were actually on our first date. We'd met through an online dating thing and he must have taken special notice of my intense interest in flip flops. At the time, I'd come to feel very confident about it. He was a little shy to bring it up all at once. I could sense he was into feet. Maybe I felt him looking over at them. Or maybe he did say something. "That's very cool you're so into flip flops." Yeah, I think Simon did say that in passing. And I remember pretty much saying something similar to what was already in my personals ad:"I do love my flip flops. I've grown to love everything about them. I even love the very word, 'flip flop' and all its uses, even how it's used to show how politicians go back and forth in trying to bend the truth."

Those comments of mine really helped get the conversation going and helped Simon find his feet, sort of speak (ha, ha!), because he chose to express his interest in politics for awhile. He thought the whole system was suspect and that the media was more in love with following "flip flops" than the real issues. I couldn't agree more and I instantly became attracted to him. I had a feeling there was more to him and I wanted to give him a chance. He thought we were all floating along a very fluffy cloud most of the time unaware of what was really going on in the world, more inclined to navel gaze than anything else. Simon thought we just followed one celebrity mishap after another, one buzz word after another, one sound bite after another, and in the end, we were left jacked up with too much eye candy, over-stimulated, over-saturated, and over-sexed. It was funny how he put it: "I'm still trying to get a handle of this whole Generation X thing, just a fluffy label. And now we have Generation Y, and, God help us, we will damn well have Generation Z."

Oh,yeah, he was a member of Generation X, I was a member of Generation Y, and he feared his ten-year-old daughter would be a member of Generation Z.

In one fell swoop, I was seeing three individuals neatly separated into generational compartments. It was actually a pretty cool way for him to clue me into his having a kid and to give me a little nudge that he was older than me. He looked so young and sexy, still does. So, that wasn't an issue for me. It was a bit of an issue for him as I would learn.

He wondered often if he was too old for me. In hindsight, I wish I would have told him more firmly to shut the fuck up about that. If I didn't like him in any particular way, I sure as hell would have told him! I did grow to love that man. I think I could see something between us from that very first date. He is a handsome man and he has an elegant yet firm way about him. A charmer without pretending to be, you know. The real deal. And he knew a lot about a lot of things. And he was always pointing out things to me that helped me see the world a little differently or in a more interesting or critical way. Not negative, usually very supportive and positive insights. He did have his rants but I enjoyed them.

The whole thing about the tavern being fake really gets me to this day. And he was so fucking right. The tavern was in our artsy part of town, Capitol Hill, it's called Linda's Tavern. And it is an old structure with some street cred, at least enough for me. But Simon pointed out how the mounted deer head and the old posters, down to the distressed look to the bar and the booths were all just part of a packaged "look." It wasn't a real working class dive. People who frequented this bar would often be more of the middle class type than working class. And, definitely no truly sketchy characters. Not that anyone welcomes sketchy characters as a rule, right? But, well, it all depends. A bar like the Twilight, Simon pointed out, was authentic because it just was what it was, not pretty, but not trying to be ugly either. And it had a rougher crowd mixing with a more underground hipster crowd. It just felt more real because it was more real! And I guess that is what I learning to miss about Simon: he was far more real than a lot of what I'm seeing lately.

Labels: foot fetish, journal, literature, love, sex, Writing