“Cute sugar-baby artist seeking an older man to help fund my degree-show ;)”
I post a photo of myself on Craigslist, pouting on a sun-bed, soaked in blue light. I’m an absolute catch and loathe to use a false name. I sign it, “Tabatha <3.” Honesty will shine through on my ad. A cool breeze wafting down this sweaty meat market. I’ll reel in the richest man and a weekly remittance. Not sure what I’ll do in return, I’ll feel that out case-by-case. Some red velvet dinner dates, the theatre, a wrinkly hand groping my knee, experience another side of London and womanhood.
I shut the laptop, giddy with the evening stretched in front of me. There’s a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in the fridge, a leaving present from the chefs at work, from the troupe. A dinner service is a dance, we choreographed it’s components through time. Oiling motor-functions, drilling short-hand communication. Check on. Show time. Bending and weaving around each other like wiley alley cats. You should have seen us, it was art. Those were the bars I’d sing to tutors when they asked why I was leaving early, why I wasn’t in the studio as much as everyone else. The loafers. I can’t live off my student loan alone, it’s stifling. I’ve always worked, denying myself a single thing is torturous, triggering, like childhood.
Regardless, I’ve been distracted and it’s a few months until the degree show, so I’m planning quicker ways to make money.
The only response I get is an inquiry into whether I do footwork from the user profile Footman. I didn’t post any pics of my feet and I’ve never considered them erotic. I pull my socks off and hover my foot an inch off the ground for inspection. I wiggle it around, flexing, free-styling and type into our thread, eyes fixed on my foot.
New message from Tabatha
My feet are size 4.5, wide
I can curl the toes under so it looks like a knuckle
a fist I punch into the air sometimes when I’m laid on my back
my toes are long, spaced far apart
with visible joints and circular pads at the end like a frog’s
they’re notably dexterous
I can isolate the big toe of the right foot and bend it at a 90 degree angle
while keeping all the other toes straight
I suppose the only time I’ve considered my feet for this long is during showing-off contests.
New message from Tabatha
I am available twice a week
£100 a session
My fine art degree is focussed on endurance performance, bringing an action to its breaking point. I set the rules of the performance beforehand, constraints for the action to exist within, then give myself over entirely to its completion. Surrender. I think of my work as operatic, over the top, hysterical. “Much too Much” I repeat in my sketchbooks, enjoying the symmetry of the words, ornamenting the letters and illustrating them with unflattering naked cartoons of myself.
Inspired by accidentally chopping off the top of 3 fingers while chefing, I performed: ‘Lemon’. I sit on the floor with a pile of 100 lemons to my left and a chopping board and knife in front of me. I chop each lemon into quarters. I suck the segments in turn and place them to my right, until all lemons are cut and sucked. During the process the action takes over my eyes - watering, my face - grimacing, my cheeks - flushed, my toes - curling. All imaginable beforehand, but while moving through the action these gestures occur unexpectedly. My mouth bleeds, my stomach churns. It’s the meditative moment I’m interested in, when I’m acting out of my conscious control, when the performance has taken over and the action is moving me. You set the stage and when reality knows it’s being watched it acts differently. I set up four cameras capturing various close ups, then present them spliced on a split screen. I apply a washed out blue and yellow colour grade to the footage, dusty and minimalist, playing with the abstract white-box studio space. I set the saturation to gradually increase as the performance continues until the blood looks like ketchup. I burn ‘Lemon’ onto 20 DVDs and use a screenshot from the saturated end for the cover sleeve, a bright yellow lemon segment smiling in my mouth like I’m the Godfather.
Outside of the service industry I’m struggling to position myself with any clarity in Life-after-Uni. Life is a game, a series of rules and regulations, and you need to take these rules seriously because life is serious and it isn’t a game.
As a child I dreamt I was the Queen of Spiders. Drawn toward thin, spindly illustrations. Now I’ve a penchant for lanky men. Footman is in his late thirties, has a gangly, lurching frame, posh accent, dark blue-black hair, elegant olive cheeks that meet up a sharp mountain’s edge nose. During our first session he sits across from me, cross-legged on my floor. I play with my feet, let him get to know me and them. I bite my nails. I perform the big toe isolation trick. I feel inspired and tie a nearby headscarf around my big toe, lay on my back, wave my foot rhythmically in the air, composed against the white painted ceiling and its geometric shadows. I pull my camera onto my chest and record.
“I call it…Toe Bow.”
I roll back up and rest my feet on his lap, he unties the bow.
“Massage me, Footman!”
New message from Footman
Your toenails are uneven in length, misshapen and malformed.
Evidence of habitual onychophagia (toenail biting).
Some nails show slight ingrowth, particularly at the edges, accompanied by black bacterial debris. The act of biting involves hooking your teeth around the nail’s edge to start the incision, which dislodges the debris.
You pick the dark pungent clump from your tongue and wipe it on your jeans thigh.
A raw unfiltered interaction with the feet that speaks to an unrestrained intimacy.
I want to use this time to work on my degree show performance. I tell Footman that he can do whatever he wants, if it doesn’t disturb my flow too much. He sends back a wish list: Washing, massaging, sucking, serving.
I sit on the edge of the bed as he washes my feet in a bowl.
“Does this feel nice?”
The tea towel I provided is chaffing my foot. I tut and smack his hand away.
“Come on.”
He lays underneath my desk on his back, he keeps his hands tucked underneath him and I rest my feet on his face while I type. He licks and kisses but I barely notice, I’m in the throes of inventing, art-brainstorming.
“Do you think I’ve got good posture?” I’m procrastinating.
“In a way,” Footman replies, muffled under the table, he nudges my foot off his mouth with his nose, “it looks straight but you’re consciously maintaining it, so I wouldn’t say you have naturally good posture.”
“Whatever.”
I knead my toes more forcefully into his face, digging his cheek into his teeth, pushing along the row, making little lacerations that should annoy him for the rest the day.
The performance needs to be idiosyncratic. Grand. Referencing something of my personal mythology. I need props. I want to confess. To plunge my hands into my gut like the guy in Videodrome and exhibit whatever I pull out. I must expose myself to such a degree wherein my ego is burned, leaving me scorched, pure.
In the heat of the moment he asks for a foot job, I say it’ll cost more, and if you don’t have the money on you—forget it. He likes me to be dominating, mean to him, say nasty things if he interrupts my work. I get a kick out of it when it works, when I can convince myself. Historically, sexual partners have wanted me to be subordinate. I’m not clear on my wants and desires. In relationships I’m always trying to fit to what I imagine the other person wants.
There was a girl who lived down the street and we’d pretend to be married. Alone, I’d fantasise elaborate games we could play together as a couple. A series of questions with a points system and forfeits like, Kiss on top of the quilts for 15 seconds. Pull down your knickers for 10 seconds. Press your face cheek against the other person’s bum cheek for 5 seconds. I attempted to explain the plan when she arrived but her eyes glazed over and she quickly got into character instead, pretending to be the husband and shouting that I’m not giving him enough sex and nipping me. One time she tackled me to the floor outside, it was a hot day, the path burned my back as she straddled me and I could feel her thigh sweat rubbing on my belly.
In the brainstorming document I type: Sexual exploration in childhood. Not sex itself, but sex adjacent. Role-playing. When the lines between objects, people and the self were blurred, when everything was everything meaning nothing, actions were for absolute experience, uninhibited by connotations of guilt or shame. I line up Belle, the Beast, the chipped tea-cup and the clock figurines on big teddy. I pull my pyjamas down and sit on them with my bare bum, whichever sticks to my bum when I stand up is my new favourite.
“You drink too much,” Footman informs me, pulling his car into the drop-off point outside uni, “you should cut down.”
He must have clocked the empty wine bottles when he crawled out from under the desk.
“One in ten people have an alcohol allergy.” I school him.
“In most cultures people only drink with a meal.” He replies.
“Our bodies don’t filter it properly. After the first drink we need more and more.”
“Exert your will-power. Think of Rome.”
“It’s a biological craving, not a willpower issue. They built Rome with slaves.” I open the car door. “I’d have to stop all together to solve the problem, cutting down won’t solve the problem.” I flap my hand behind me in a half-hearted goodbye as I climb out of the car.
“Stop altogether then.” He surmises.
I laugh, “At my age? Contending with this spiritual malaise?”
“See you next week Tabatha.”
New message from Footman
Across the sides of your feet, the skin is translucent, with purple veins whispering through.
Your soles are wrinkled and calloused.
Your arches are svelte, athletic.
I adore a petite mouth-sized foot, though yours are ungracious.
More akin to an adventurous teenage boy’s feet than a young woman’s.
Further highlighted by the long black pubic hairs that sprout out of your foot’s roof and tangle on the stems of your toes.
I still live in halls, which is sort of uncommon for a third year. You should have found some mates to move in with by now. I thought I’d live with my friends from first year but they chose a house without me and only divulged at the last moment. I kept inviting my ex Max over, against their wishes. Max’s endurance performances are self-mutilation based. One night he cut a massive gash into his leg, to prove he was the more dedicated performer and to spite me. He hit an artery and I had to rush him to A&E. I still get trauma-hallucinations of the blood spurts on the concrete walls of my en-suite. These things happen. We would try to collaborate, under the condition he didn’t drink excessively but he never kept his promises. I’d relent to evenings sharing bottles of wine while I perfected ‘Part of Your World’ karaoke on a microphone plugged into my amp. What would I give, if I could live, out of these waters? He lay in a stupor, slurring encouragements, until we’d inevitably argue and I’d chuck him out.
I never moved rooms, so my halls mates are still first years, which creates this seniority distance between us. I don’t mind. I don’t trust any of these idiots. I’ll never fall in love again. Every weekend there’s a party, or a club then an afterparty, going on until midday the next day. Bodies crammed onto a single bed, lolling all over each other and slipping onto the floor, passing around a plate. I’ll often sniff the pile instead of the line, pretend it’s an accident.
We’re on pills tonight and it makes them chatty and clingy. Hushed and eager conversations creating enclaves of unity. Locked into vibrating bubbles, gritted teeth, boring into each other’s eyes. No matter how fucked up I get there’s still a remove, I can never truly lose it with these guys. I can’t stop art-brainstorming, so I interview the room on their early sexual explorations in childhood, utilising their loose lips. They all recall the place first, “It was on the bus…”, “it was on the top bunk…”, “it was in the toilets at Brownies…”
A first year sculptor, Edo, is laid on my chest, I’m stroking their soft hair and admiring their icy turquoise eyes, with white streaks, dots and lines, they’ve shaved off their eyebrows so the long dark eyelashes contrasting against their pale skin is particularly beautiful at this hour. They’re in profile and blink slowly, their jaw bone undulating underneath pock-marked cheeks. Their mouth is wide with naturally upturned corners and a handsome gap in the front teeth like Vanessa Paradis.
“Where was your boarding school?” I ask.
“It was during break, at home, in Hong Kong. Have you seen those massive apartment buildings?”
“Yeah, on one of those ‘walk around in the rain with me’ videos.”
“Exactly yeah. All the neighbours thought I was sooo cute,” Edo laughs, staring up, watching the memory play out on the ceiling, “I’d go door-to-door, offering to walk their dogs. I’d get a gang of them, lead them around the balconies, up the elevator, to the roof, play catch for a bit, get them riled up,” I give their shoulder an encouraging squeeze, they’ve gone a bit cross-eyed and blood-shot, a little smirk playing on the corners of their mouth. “then I’d like… kind of… toss them off…”
“Hmmm.”
Edo turns toward me and I look straight into their eyes and smile expansive with my teeth, excited.
“I remember trying to make the dog cum and it’s dick looked like my mum’s lipstick, really red, shiny.”
“Did it cum?”
“Yeah.”
Alone, I condense the confessions into pithy one-liners and pair them with a different placement for anonymity, “In the showers after hockey practise, trying to make the dog cum, its dick looked like lipstick.”
I’m unsure of where this is going but I must respect the process - I must follow my nose and move through it, let it guide me. I am merely an antennae, picking up signals for transcription.
New message from Footman
Your ankles are tantalising, lean
minimal soft tissue separating the skin from the underlying bone
the bones leading to your toes are pronounced
as is your Achilles tendon
which juts out beautifully
I’m gazing out of the window. I get travel sick and my mum told me you get it because your belly is moving but your eyes aren’t. I wouldn’t say I’m developing feelings for Footman. I wonder how he feels. I love the doctoral vernacular in his follow-up messages. I wouldn’t say the set-up is sexy, more laughable. But for the dynamic to work, does the foot girl need to be into feet? If the disdain I fling toward him is to be truly convincing doesn’t it help that I’m not into it? I’m getting a few messages a week from other Foot profiles. Is he sharing my name around on forums?
“I’ve got other offers you know. Maybe I’ll up my price.”
“You would need to take better care of your feet.”
“I thought you liked them—just the way they are?”
“I never said that.” He keeps his eyes on the road.
I slip my shoe off, reach down, peel off my sock, stretch my leg out and rest my bare foot on the dashboard. I clench and unclench my foot in time with my words, like it’s talking.
“Why are you so mean to meee?”
I glance over at his crotch to see if he’s stirred but I can’t tell. He ignores me.
“How is your performance coming along?”
I retract my leg and put my sock back on.
“I need more money. I need materials. £300 and I’ll give you a footjob.”
“I’ll stop at a cash machine.”
New message from Footman
Your toes are strikingly long, with bony joints that slant to one side.
Wide gaps separate each toe, giving them an unusual flexibility.
They’re impressively agile, capable of
spreading apart
with surprising range
as if made for intricate movements
precise tasks
Last night I had a video dream, when the perspective isn’t first person POV, I’m a camera watching myself. I suppose it’s like when you meditate, the one who watches the thoughts is thinking. In the dream I’m stood naked, centre frame and I’m chugging-chugging milk, throwing it up, then drinking more. In between the drinking and the vomiting I’m reading out the early sexual exploration anecdotes. Mother’s milk, purging. This makes sense.
I need glass bottles of milk in a blue crate, the type they had at school. I find them at a butcher’s on the high street near uni and lug them to the studio. I read the booking sheet for the performance space and see Maud, a conceptual writer, is in there this morning. Maud transcribes old episodes of Jeremy Kyle then alphabetises them, dresses up in various disguises and performs the alphabetical poems from a pulpit she lifted from the theatre department.
I hang around feverish to start and text Footman: “I’m recording my performance today.” He likes the message but doesn’t reply. I watch the screen for 5 minutes then give up. I sucked him off after the foot job. In the car park at the big Tesco. Stuffy plastic, musty backseat of his car, folded over at an odd, painful angle, his flaccid dick simply resting on my tongue, like a warm slug. I can hear his exact disparaging, condescending tone.
“Tabatha... Can you stop please.”
I should have slapped him round the face, or at least pinched his bum or something. The whole point of this endeavour - alongside earning some money - is to reclaim my power.
I didn’t eat breakfast in prep for all the spewing so I feel a little faint. I get to work, find a big bucket in print-making, book a camera, tripod and three lights out from equipment, open my sketchbook and practise performing the anecdotes dead-pan.
New message from Footman
The feet are a window to the soul and your soul needs discipline.
You should to be more focussed and meticulous in how you approach life.
You must honour yourself.
I hope I can help you to realise this through our work together.
When my last batch of student loan comes through, I call the footwork off.