The Singing Teacher Who Awakened My Hidden Fetish

It all started because of work. For months I had to give talks and presentations almost every day, and my throat couldn’t keep up. I ended every day hoarse, aphonic, my voice in tatters. A doctor recommended something that seemed absurd to me at the time: singing and diction lessons, not to learn how to sing, but to learn how to project my voice without destroying my vocal cords. Reluctantly, I looked for a private teacher. That’s how I met Marisa.

Marisa was a redhead, with short hair that brushed her jaw and a freckled, elongated face that always seemed on the verge of smiling. Slim, with unhurried movements, she had the kind of presence that fills a room without needing to raise her voice. She gave her lessons in a small studio in her own house, with an upright piano against the wall and two chairs facing each other in the center.

The first few weeks were strictly professional. I breathed as she instructed, held notes that didn’t come out right, repeated ridiculous exercises that made me feel like a child. But Marisa had infinite patience and a way of correcting me that never felt humiliating. Little by little, the formal greetings at the beginning began to change.

First came the hugs when we said goodbye. Then the kisses on the cheek. And, once in a while, an almost accidental peck that neither of us commented on afterward, as if admitting it out loud would break something. There was a current between us, a barely contained tension that charged the air in the studio every Tuesday and Thursday.

—You need to let your body go —she would say, putting a hand on my sternum—. The voice lives here, not in your throat. If you’re tense, you choke.

And I was tense almost all the time, though not for the reasons she thought.

***

May arrived, and with May came a sticky heat that the studio’s old fan could barely move. That afternoon Marisa wore a light cotton dress and, halfway through the lesson, did something I had never seen her do before: she took off her shoes. Without making a fuss, she slid the sandals under her chair and rested her bare feet on the wooden floor.

I can’t explain what happened inside me. I had never paid attention to anyone’s feet. I had never considered myself a fetishist, and I didn’t even really know what that meant. But Marisa’s feet had something about them that emptied my mind completely. They were slender, free of calluses, with perfectly aligned toes and a faint sheen of sweat from the heat. I found myself staring, dazed, completely losing the thread of the exercise.

—Did you fall asleep? —she asked, amused.

I looked up sharply, red to the tips of my ears. But she had already followed my gaze down to the floor, and understood perfectly where my attention was. Instead of getting embarrassed, she smiled. A slow, deliberate smile that had nothing innocent about it.

—Well, well —she said softly—. I didn’t have you pegged as one of those.

Neither did I have myself pegged as one of those.

Marisa slowly crossed her legs and stretched one foot toward me until it hovered a few centimeters from my knee.

—If you like them that much —she said—, you could do something useful with that trance. My feet hurt from standing all day. Do you know how to give a massage?

I swallowed. I didn’t know how to give massages, but I nodded like an idiot. I leaned forward and took her foot in my hands with almost religious care, as if I were afraid of breaking it. It was hot, slightly damp, and the moment I touched it a shiver ran all the way down my spine.

—Start with the sole —she told me, and for the first time her teacher’s voice was useful for something completely different.

***

I dug my thumbs into the arch of her foot and started pressing in slow circles. Marisa closed her eyes and let out a soft moan, almost a sigh, that gave me goose bumps. I moved up to the base of her toes, then down to her heel, repeating the motion. She sank into the chair, surrendered, guiding me with monosyllables.

—Harder. There. Don’t stop.

My face was getting closer and closer to her foot. Without thinking, without really deciding, I brought my nose near and inhaled. The smell hit me full force, intense and warm, and instead of repelling me it intoxicated me in a way I didn’t understand. It was as if a part of me that had been asleep all my life had just suddenly awakened, ravenous.

—Do it —murmured Marisa, watching me from above—. I know you’re dying to do it.

She didn’t need to say what. I stuck out my tongue and licked the sole of her foot, from heel to toes, in one long, slow stroke. The salty taste lingered in my mouth and heat rose from my belly. Marisa let out a low, triumphant laugh.

—Good boy —she said—. Keep going.

And I did. I lost control completely. I licked each toe one by one, put them in my mouth, ran my tongue over the instep, the heel, the ankle. At the same time, with my other hand I massaged her other foot so it wouldn’t feel neglected. Marisa watched me with half-lidded eyes, an expression caught between desire and power, enjoying seeing me reduced to that.

—Look at you —she whispered—. All class long acting like a polite gentleman, and it turns out this is all you wanted.

She was right, and that thought turned me on even more. I was kneeling on the floor of her studio, licking my singing teacher’s feet as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and I had never felt so alive in my life.

***

Suddenly, Marisa pulled her feet back and straightened in the chair. The change was so abrupt that it left me off balance, my mouth still slightly open.

—Class is over —she announced, picking up the sandals.

I looked at her, not understanding, frustrated, my body screaming at me that this couldn’t end like that. She must have read it on my face, because she smiled again with that calm wickedness I was learning to fear and crave in equal measure.

—Don’t make that face —she said—. It’s too hot in here. Why don’t you buy me a drink? There’s a terrace around the corner.

I agreed before she finished the sentence.

***

The terrace was in a small square, with metal tables under awnings and enough people around that anything happening there was, technically, in public. We sat at a table off to the side, next to a hedge, and ordered two beers. The sun was beginning to set, but the heat was still thick.

We talked for a while about unimportant things, but the tension from before hadn’t gone anywhere. It was still there, in the way she looked at me over the rim of her glass, in how I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened half an hour earlier. Then, without warning, Marisa took off one sandal under the table and slid her bare foot onto my lap.

—Where were we? —she asked, as if nothing were happening, taking a sip of her beer.

I froze. The sole of her foot pressed right against my groin, which reacted instantly. I looked around nervously. A couple was chatting two tables away, a waiter went in and out, a group was laughing near the bar. No one was paying attention to us, but the mere fact that we were surrounded by people made everything ten times more intense.

—Marisa, there are people here —I whispered.

—I know —she said, smiling—. That’s what makes it fun.

She started rubbing her foot slowly, up and down, without breaking the rhythm of the conversation I was no longer hearing. Under the hedge, hidden by the tablecloth and the shadow, no one could see what she was doing. But I felt everything, and the mix of pleasure and fear of being caught had me on the edge of something.

—Take it out —she ordered in a low voice, without stopping smiling at some random point in the square.

—Here?

—Here. And don’t make me repeat myself.

There was something in her tone, a serene authority that brooked no argument, that made me obey without thinking. With clumsy fingers, under the cover of the table, I undid my pants and freed myself. Marisa looked at me for a second, pleased by my obedience.

—Spit —she said.

I did. And then her two bare feet closed around me under the table and started moving.

***

It was one of the dirtiest things I’ve ever experienced. There we were, in a square full of people, drinking beer like two ordinary acquaintances, while her feet jerked me off with a skill that left me breathless. I tried to keep my face neutral, hold her gaze, pretend everything was normal, but inside I was shaking.

—Don’t you dare make a sound —she warned me in a murmur—. If you draw attention to us, I’ll get up and leave you here alone. Understood?

—Understood —I panted, clenching my teeth.

Marisa sped up, and every so often, almost by accident, her heel would slip and strike me with a force that hurt. The first time I jerked; the second time I understood it was no accident. She was watching me as she did it, measuring my reaction, enjoying the way pain and pleasure mixed until they became one and the same thing.

—You like it —she said. It wasn’t a question.

And the worst part was that she was right again. Every blow from her heel tore a moan out of me that I had to swallow, every pressure brought me closer to the edge. I was completely at her mercy, in the middle of a square, subjected to the whims of a woman I barely knew and who at that moment could do whatever she wanted with me.

—Hold on —she ordered—. Hold on until I tell you.

I clenched my fists on my thighs, dug my nails into my own legs, did everything I could to hold back. Sweat ran down my forehead. A waitress passed within centimeters of our table and I almost gave myself away. Marisa didn’t even blink; she kept moving her feet, relentless, driving me to a point where there was no turning back.

—Now —she finally said, barely moving her lips.

I came undone against her feet with a spasm I had to disguise as a cough. It was brutal, endless, a release that emptied me completely and left me collapsed in the chair, breathing as if I had just run a marathon. Marisa slowly pulled her feet back, crossed them under the table, and calmly took another sip of her beer, as if nothing had just happened.

***

We stayed silent for a few minutes. I was still trying to put myself back together, heart racing and head spinning. I didn’t know what to say, didn’t even know who I was after that. Marisa, on the other hand, seemed absolutely serene, in control of the situation from start to finish.

—Your voice is improving —she commented after a while, with a mischievous smile—. You projected very well today.

I laughed despite myself, still dazed. She finished her beer, slipped her sandals back on under the table, left a few coins, and stood up.

—Same time on Thursday —she said, leaning down to give me a slow kiss at the corner of my lips—. And wear clean socks. I don’t like slobs.

She walked away without looking back, leaving me alone on the terrace, my beer half-finished and my head full of questions. I had just discovered something about myself that had been hidden my whole life, without me even suspecting it. And the most unsettling part wasn’t having discovered it, but how desperately I wanted Thursday to come.