Like all beautiful women, she had hideous feet. They were fine in heels but when she took them off she showed little yellow buttons of callus on the big toes, long hairless from wearing such tight shoes, and the smaller ones warped and splayed so that they were nearly webbed when she walked and they stretched out with uneven gaps between each toe when she tried to spread them and flex. Her heel was pink at the base and scratchy white as it reached her Achilles tendon. Bunions harder than coral. There was nothing she could do; her feet would remain like that forever. It was because she had never worn comfort shoes.
Because she was a ballerina, she said, her feet had been cursed with mortal layers of dead skin and calluses. She could walk stately as a queen in six-inch heels, but it came at a price, oh yes, a price she had to pay every time she wore flip-flops or sandals, every time she had to get a pedicure and the woman massaging her feet tried to hide her disgust, knowing that it was in vain and that it was only a cosmetic procedure that would hide the ugliness at first glance. Poor girl, she never had a chance.
I always told her she should just wear comfort shoes for women, that I'd love her no matter what shoes she wore, and that I didn't mind that her feet were ugly at all. Feet aren't the proudest part of our bodies. They're weird-looking with their little fingers and big veins and hair and resiliency from walking and standing all day. I didn't mind giving her a foot massage now and then out of pity, and it made me feel better knowing that I could brush my scaly heels against her legs in the early morning and I wouldn't have to feel self-conscious.
Her ugly feet made her more human. They were a beautiful flaw and they made me love her even more. Eventually she bought a pair of extra width shoes, a pair of the best walking shoes money could buy, so that she wouldn't have to suffer any more when we spent a Saturday afternoon at the museum, or the evening dancing. She knew by then that her feet were far beyond rehabilitation, and for other reasons which I won't go into here, so was our love.
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