Yvonne's visit
Okay,.... herewith the story of Yvonne's recent visit, albeit not exactly in the same vein as most of my earlier true story accounts. But that is a good thing, a quality which breaks some serious ground in a couple of ways.
Obviously one of them is personal; this is the epilogue, if you will, of an ongoing experience which began for me around 1956,.... 1956! This is the circle being unbroken (finally),... the epic "Evangeline" of my life,.. and some answers and insights which were a long time in coming. It is the continuum,.... resolution,... catharsis, ... the "do-over" we never get.
It also very conveniently accomplishes what I trust will be a "forum-legal" treatment of my personal pet peeve around here - some of you have heard me go on about it - and that is the matter of portraying experiences from our "formative years," .. the experiences which galvanized us all into the fetish community,... but without violating the "minors" injunction. You will see why and how this works.
And the original thread is linked if a "refresher" is needed.
Whew.
I'm going to start with a sort of spoiler alert. Among the things which did not happen during Vonne's visit (that was her nickname) are sex, romance (this is a close call), nudity, renewed relationship, the promise of future companionship, etc. Maybe one or two of those things were on Vonne's mind when she proposed the visit, but I'm not sure about that. I think she was just a little lonesome at the time and taking a creative approach. There's no doubt that both of us ended up being somewhat surprised at how the three days went.
I had made no plans, pending Vonne's arrival,... had no specific expectations,.. but was wildly curious about what might happen. And while I had some lecherous and off-the-wall ambitions in reserve, I really didn't even know what I wanted to happen. Okay, I did,.... but that was not to be.
For the purposes of simplicity, let me just say that Vonne and I were two vastly different people with a common bond involving quirky fetish interests,.... in her case, bondage,... and in my case, a foot- and tickling fetish. Plus we had our groundbreaking shared experiences.
Yet she was still the very straight and proper military careerist, and I the brooding artsy-craftsy bohemian writer, occasional revolutionary, etc. (I scarcely take my corporate background seriously, anymore) To mention a few other offsets:
Vonne was intent on remaining settled in our old hometown,... an idea repugnant to me,.... she even asked if I was going to return when I was "done" with teaching here,.... as if everyone naturally ends up back in their hometown. An outlook I detest.
I wasn't crazy about talking about my wife's passing,.... Vonne didn't volunteer that much about her divorce,.. only that they had grown apart..... so come to think of it, we were both pretty present- and future-oriented, I guess. But there wasn't that much there. And there were some awkward spots. Lifestyle. Politics. She was taken somewhat aback by the volume of alcohol which streams through my daily routine (I didn't mention weed),... she was clearly uncomfortable (terrified) when I took her to a downtown blues club where I occasionally play piano,... and I found Vonne to be stiff and ... umm,.. well,... straight. We were establishment versus counter-culture,.. and that would have been that.
Seemingly the mutual revelations which we had shared in my old pickup during our early twenties had dissipated,... though we did talk about that wonderful evening,.. I was sparing in my account of fetish activity in my own life, while Vonne reported (surprisingly, to me) there had been nothing like that in her marriage. (Seriously,.. what normal red-blooded American male doesn't want to tie his wife to the bed?) I thought she treated the subject almost as if it had been silly "kidstuff" that we were supposed to outgrow.
And that's when I had a sudden inspiration. I "confessed" to Vonne that the angst, self-consciousness and alienation bred by my fetishes had been an ordeal of major proportions for much of my life,... and that, looking back, it would have been so comforting to have settled them right back there when we were eleven years old.
"How do you mean?" she wanted to know,..... and that's when I popped the question.
"What if," I posited, ".. you knew everything at age eleven that you knew that night in the truck,..... what would you have done differently when we were kids?"
I could see immediately that Vonne was intrigued by the question,... she smiled her biggest smile thus far,... and she thought for a few minutes. I did, too. And that's when the visit really started. We talked,... we went back in time,... and revisited all the experiences which stood out in our memories of that time. In many instances, we literally re-enacted certain events,... It was like being in Quantum Leap,.... correcting past oversights and events which could have gone better if we had been more aware.
Vonne confided that if she had been aware that boys could have such a thing as a foot fetish, she would have called me out very early on at some of the foot-ticklings she endured. However she did admit that tickling was often the thing which made it that much more compelling to be tied up. And as it turned out, she was still plenty ticklish when her feet were being kissed and nibbled,... that just put a different spin on it.
"I think I would have loved to see you kissing my feet back then," Vonne surmised. "It would have been like I was the queen of the jungle, and you were,.. uhh, you know,....." Vonne also recalled the occasion I mentioned in the original story, wherein she negotiated a foot-tickling-for-cash payment in a game of Monopoly. "I could have won the game if I had only known," she lamented comically,.... and I had to agree.
I countered with a memory which got instant recognition from Vonne, and was what sort of launched our "re-enactment" game.
As a kid I had had the ultimate in clubhouses,....built it myself,... maybe 6x8 feet,.. and a nice, safe private 100 yards into the woods. Had a "sofa" which had been the back seat of an old Plymouth,.. a wooden crate "coffee table," ... a window with curtains,... the works, I'm telling you. And it had been in my cherished clubhouse where I had first felt the dawning pangs of my foot fetish which went beyond mere tickling. (Actually a number of our tied & tickled episodes took place in my fortress)
Vonne was tied up on the sofa, giggling and squirming, her feet extended onto the old crate, and I sat there studiously removing her shoes and socks. For me, watching my trembling hands peeling off Vonne's little girl socks and seeing her helpless waiting soles,... had been a seminal moment, indeed. The little voice in my head was saying, "Screw tickling,... you want those feet in your mouth and you know it."
Well, I fought that one off, of course,.... but the retelling of the incident brought a shattering confession from Vonne. "I have never forgotten that," she confided. "Being tied up and feeling you taking off my socks was a first in a way,... it was like you were really taking off all my clothes. It was like being naked with a man for the first time. I felt completely exposed and vulnerable."
Astonishingly, Vonne told me that she had often thought back to that moment when she was getting au natural for adult intimacy,.... it had become emblematic of nakedness for her. Amazing how these little things work out, isn't it?
So I alertly said, "Let's do it again!" Vonne was, in fact, sitting on my sofa (Swedish, not Plymouth) but her feet were not yet on the coffee table (Okay, just have a much better crate, now) Vonne grinned skeptically,... "...what????" .... but I swung into action. I had already managed to get a couple glasses of sherry in my old playmate, and she actually just sat there,.. (You are not serious, are you?") making no sincere effort at resistance as I lifted her feet onto the table,... wrapped her ankles with a handy length of curtain cord,....... and sat back, trying my best to project childlike mischief as I eyed her.
"Now, Vonne,.... close your eyes and think back," I proposed soothingly,.... and by God, she did!,...... grinning broadly. "Pretend this is really how it went,... I'll do the same." I addressed her bound feet. Unlace the tennis shoes,... ("I was wearing loafers back then,") ... Vonne squirmed convincingly,... next, off come the short ankle socks,... the kind with the little fluff ball at the heel,.... I went as slowly as I possibly could,.... revealing Vonne's still-flawless bare feet by breathtaking millimeters,.... and brushing my fingertips along her sole as I did.
"Are you feeling it?" I asked,..... "Is it coming back to you?.........." Vonne's answer was an emphatic "YES!"
"Okay,... but you were expecting to be tickled back then,...... what if THIS had happened, instead? I leaned in closely and licked under the curl of Vonne's toes,... ah hell,... I threw in as many oral ministrations as I could squeeze into three seconds."
"Ewwwwww!" she said, but she giggled slightly, too.
"Ewwwww? Seriously?" I came back,.....
"Well,... that's what I would have said back then." I had momentarily altered the ground rules of the game, but I pressed on,..... "Okay,... okay,.... good. Then what?
Vonne opened her eyes and looked at me. "I would have said something like 'What do you think you're doing?' I don't know about foot fetishes, yet,.... remember?" She paused and thought for a moment. "Since having you take off my socks felt like being stripped naked,... then if you had started kissing my feet, it would have been like,......... like...
We talked about this for a while,..... and it turned out there was a conundrum contained in my starting hypothesis. You see, as kids back then, we knew ZERO about sex,... so foot kissing would not have been equated with sex, per se. "It would have been like the Jungle Queen thing," Vonne suggested,.. more of a worshipful reverent gesture. "...but if I'm the Jungle Queen, then why am I tied up?" She had me there.
"Okay," I countered, "Suppose I had just blurted out, "Vonne, I don't know why, but I really like kissing your feet? What if I had told you exactly what I was feeling then? Think back." For emphasis I nibbled at one sole and Vonne let out a very adult squeal.
I don't know," she said,....."My mind was all on being tied up. That's what made the game for me,..... back then I just figured that little boys liked to torture little girls, and you always tickling my feet was just one way they did it."
Bingo. Eureka. With further discussion we agreed that the foot tickling meme was sort of a variant on little boys' penchant for finding ways to torment girls, eg., pulling their pigtails, etc....... and Vonne, to her credit, observed that the "tied & tickled" theme reflected that era's framing of women as passive,... perhaps slightly masochistic,... objects, if you will. "The girl was always getting tied up somehow in every show we watched,..... and being tickled was better than being tied to the railroad tracks."
The final piece of the puzzle, at least for Vonne, was the determination that getting tied up equated with being highly prized and valued,..... after all, we put money in a safe so it won't get away, eh? She reflected that she must have enjoyed being tied up in our games because it confirmed that she was a potentially prized (desirable?) possession for men,.... she was the pretty heroine of hundreds of action shows,... She said it still made more sense to her than why I would be so passionately drawn to her feet. "What is it about feet?' she asked.
I was well prepared for this one. Combination of symbols. Reverence, for one,... vulnerability, for another. The afore-mentioned symbol of nakedness,.... and the possible equation of tickling response to arousal/climax. I've even read somewhere that the contours in the female foot are suggestive of the contours in the rest of the female form, and I pointed this out, as well. "The foot fetish covers a lot of bases," I concluded and Vonne nodded appreciatively.
"I think I get it, now," she said. We moved on,... the ice was broken. I asked her if our old kid games had given insufficient treatment to her emerging thing for being tied up? (I wanted to ask why this had not been a part of her marriage, but I didn't want to derail things) At this point, I felt that my own quirks had been given ample attention, and I wanted to learn whether or not Vonne could have made similar inroads when we were kids....
"Do you remember your fishing spot?" she asked immediately. There was a secluded little place on the river when we were kids,.... a little waterside clearing completely surrounded by bamboo,... and Vonne and I used to go there so I could fish for catfish and we would drink sodas. Like my clubhouse, very private. Vonne reminded me that there had been a sycamore tree on the perimeter of the clearing, and that she had always wanted me to tie her to that tree,... but couldn't ask. (This was a little chilling - my wife's main thing was being tied to trees)
Well,... as fate would have it, my apartment just happens to contain two structural columns,.... 8" diameter, Roman-looking, I suppose,.... and I'm guessing these had not escaped Vonne's attention. I glanced over at one of them. "That look like a sycamore to you?" I kidded her,.... and I began unwinding the curtain cord from her ankles. Vonne stared at the column, gulped and took an unbelievably deep breath,....
"I don't know," she said,..." You want to tie me up to that?" She shook her head as if sort of confused,.... at least that's how I recall it now,.. and I thought she was going to fall off the fetish memory wagon.
"C'mon, Vonne," I teased. I jumped up, carrying one of her feet with me,...... and began tickling it just like in the old days,.. scrabbling fingers, nibbling teeth,.. probing tongue (okay, not like the really old days) Vonne kicked and rolled sideways on the sofa,.... suddenly shrieking at the top of her lungs,....
"Okay,... okay,.... okay......"
I stopped the tickling,.... placed what was supposed to be a highly meaningful kiss on her toes,..... and told her to think about it,.... to think back again,... and I went to get us another glass of sherry,... inquiring over my shoulder, "What was it about that tree?"
This time, Vonne spent much more time in thought. She took the sherry,... said, "I'm thinking," .... I actually had time to go smoke a cigarette on the patio,.... and when I returned, Vonne had a curiously serious look on her face. I think she really had gone back in time.
"The river was different from your clubhouse," she began. "Or from your folks' basement,.... it was outdoors (another of Susan's fascinations),... but there was something else different about it." (I noticed she had gulped down the entire glass of sherry,...... I was definitely ready for another one)
"What was that, Vonne?" I was totally curious about this.
It took some back-and-forth and probing, but here was the upshot. The clubhouse had always been about foot tickling,... whereas being tied to the tree at the river clearing would have been purely about being "the captive." Vonne even mentioned that the image of being tied to that sycamore while I went down to the river's edge to fish,.... my back turned to her,... and her just being a prisoner,... practically ignored, really,.... at least for a while,..... THIS was something special to her,... and I never would have guessed. And finally, Vonne mentioned that there had been an old episode of the Robin Hood TV series in which Maid Marian had been tied to a tree in a camp in Sherwood Forest, and that this had really been a persistent image in her mind. I suspect so, indeed.
"Sherwood Forest, it is, then," I teased. "You're already staying in my guest room,... you can be my prisoner for a little while, I guess." Still scrumptiously barefoot, Vonne let me escort her the five paces to my indoor "sycamore tree."
"This is crazy," she said breathlessly as I held her hands behind the column and wound the same curtain cord around her wrists.
"That's why it's so cool," I offered. "But if you'd rather not,............."
"No,... go ahead." At that moment I felt distinctly sorry that Vonne had not had anything comparable to the many experiences I've managed to engineer for myself. And once again, I felt that wistful longing that we could have continued from where we were in '61,.... but I guess that's life.
For extra measure, I tied Vonne's ankles to the column, as well,... then lay prone on the floor to lick between her toes,... sending her into gales of laughter. She really was incredibly ticklish,.. but I got back up after just a minute. "Okay, you are now my prisoner. I'm going to go start dinner." Her eyes got wide and then, as much of a surprise to myself as to her, I kissed her,..... neck, lips, nose, cheek, eyes, ears,...... I thought she was about to faint. I thought I was, too.
My kitchen is two rooms removed from where Vonne stood bound to the column,... I was able to put some shrimp in a steamer,... peel an avocado,... throw some mushrooms in to sautee,.. a few other culinary details,.... all the while obsessing about what must be going through Vonne's mind - she had not called out or said a word,.... I crept around a door frame to peek at her and see that all was well,... should have blindfolded her, I thought,... oh well,... Another bottle of wine? You bet. Then back out on the patio for another smoke,.. actually a "different" smoke this time.... grab some spinach from the garden to add to the sautee,... The minutes seemed to really creep by, then,.... at least peeling the goddamned shrimp ate up some time,... I made a sauce,....
When I returned to Vonne in about thirty minutes, I had a pretty nice looking dinner platter,.... unless you were really starving. "How have you been?" I asked, but I didn't want her to really answer. I popped a shrimp into her mouth,... then a mushroom,... slimed some avocado around her face, only to lick it off while I gently tickled under her bound arms,... and so on and so on,..... dinner was great!
It was sort of intoxicating to me,.... feeding Vonne that way,... holding her glass to her lips,... "prisoners" have to be fed, you know,... She seemed to be in shock,... mesmerized somehow,... you could almost hear her heartbeat. Oh, she was into it,... breathlessly anticipating each bite,... moaning with each swallow,.. offering no resistance when I smeared a faux newburg sauce on her cheeks and kissed it away,.... As Vonne was preoccupied with the last shrimp, I returned to the floor and to her squirming toes,..... Her laughter was the first time I'd really heard her voice in nearly an hour,..... she was into this prisoner thing. Oh, no doubt we were well beyond the river clearing sycamore fantasy, but what the hell,... sometimes spontaneous events are the leading edge.
When I untied Yvonne from the column, she was,.. like in some sort of daze,.. I held her arm on the way back to the sofa and she just sort of slumped down. but she smiled at me as she sat down,..... she even hooked her arm around my neck and drew me in for a kiss. Wildly stoned at this point, I just went along.
"The mushrooms and shrimp were really good," Vonne said after a minute or two, and she grinned broadly at this. "You're a good cook."
"Well," I replied,... pursing my lips and mocking a gay chef, "Presentation is everything, they say." Vonne exploded into a fit of giggles,... I took advantage of this by lifting her foot to my face and licking up and down her sole,... the giggles increased, but in between she managed to inject, "Do I still have sauce on my face?" We both laughed then. Vonne pressed both of her feet into my face and announced that she was the Jungle Queen,... and using my fingertips again, I sent her rolling and kicking across the sofa, but her laughing was happy and comfortable.
And that seemed to be it for the evening,... the second evening of Vonne's visit. I had been wondering if she wanted to sleep together after all that,.. but again to her credit, she did not. Instead, we made coffee and talked for another hour or so. Everything had been in the realm of play,.... perhaps very prescient play,... perhaps grounded in a long familiarity. But one has to remember,.... early 90's was the last time I was goofing around like this,... and some things can be highly special and unique without being the end-all to every circumstance or question. So it was that evening.
And the visit wasn't over,.... Vonne still had one more evening to go,... we talked about plans,.... I certainly had a lot to think about,.... she did, too,.... but what it all comes down to is that it had been fun. Escapism. We put the cares of the day away for a spell,.. went back in time,... experienced a unique respite.
There's a little more to all this,... but I'm about burned out at the moment. I hope that TMF'ers aren't too disappointed by the relatively sanguine nature of this story,... the ever-present psychological element was difficult to depict - or at least it would have taken three times the space,.... and no one wants that. But I wouldn't fault anyone for pointing out that I may not have portrayed this encounter as being especially meaningful to anyone but myself. So it goes.
