I could sleep for a thousand years
From the beginning, the pedicure pushed my pain threshold. My feet plunged into water five degrees too hot, but I could take it, the minute of acclimation, the heat reddening my calves as it insinuated itself up my knees to my thighs.
I've always been a wimp, the one who screams when a splinter pierces the skin or who collapses on the kitchen floor with the accidental tip of a knife into a finger. At my pedicure on Sunday afternoon, however, I paid attention to the thin line between pleasure and pain, the dance across it. Crossing the threshold is less unpleasant than fascinating, a way to play with the edge. Maybe I'm feeling a need for punishment, for the excoriation of sin out of flesh. Or maybe I'm just tuned in. Aware.
The pedicurist ran a pumice sponge along the length of my foot, scrubbing against the heel, roughening the tender arch, until she reached the ticklish spot under my toes. As she returned the sponge to my arch, wielding it with malice, my skin ached. Just when it got to be too much, her hand moved and I closed my eyes in relief.
And the bruises: the way she palpitated them! Last summer, I stepped into a hole in the sidewalk and hit my shin against a crumbling edge of concrete (during a stray chihuahua rescue; long story). That bruise was bone deep and had me propped up in bed with an ice pack for the rest of the day. Six weeks post-fall, it remained, a concentrated spot of pain on my left tibia, bad enough that I had to ask the pedicurist to avoid it after a few painful moments. I have a new bruise in the same spot, misshapen and slightly discolored, mild enough that I forgot about it until Sunday's foot treatment. As she massaged my leg, pressed against the bone and muscle with strong fingers, the pedicurist hit the bruise. It was almost as if she was exploring it, feeling for weakness, for the blood underneath the skin. It hurt. Her fingers moved along, only to return a moment later, brutish and cruel. The cycle of pain and relief was compelling. When would it hurt again? When would I welcome the afterglow, the release of pain? The brevity of the discomfort and the anticipation of its end was enough to keep me from stopping her.
Finally, my calf massage complete, the pedicurist began to pummel my feet with her strong fists, punching them over and over again as though they had done her wrong. My bones hurt. My bruise cried out. My scraped arches wondered what was next. I sighed and closed my eyes, waited for the steaming towel, waited for her to paint my nails the shimmering color of old blood.
After it was over, I went down the street to La Fonda, where two strong margaritas with dinner eased the pain. On my walk home, I stole glances at my improved feet and occasionally touched my aching shin, humming Venus in Furs as I took on the rolling hills of Berkeley back to my house in the flats.
Image: My Hipstamatic feet, where you only see the tan lines, not the bruises.
Tongue slightly in cheek for this post.