He tenderly feels the harsh undersides of my poor feet and decides on extra time. Could it be this gives him a frisson of anticipation, till he places my heel in his crotch and arranges my foot so he can begin scalping. Setting my heel where he can feel the tip of my big toe comfortingly close to what was once an active sex organ. This being the saving grace for a man who might have otherwise been locked away to savour the memories of all those toes.

Outside the grubby yellow curtain that sets the limits of his domain I hear the women attending to their hairdos. They sit in rollers, drink coffee and have their nails painted blood red, shrieking New Year wishes for Health and Mazel and Gefen and Col Tov and Briot etcetera. Zaigezunt! and Happy New Year! Words targeted even at Adon Mendeleh, distracting him from a treatment designed especially for him. The pedicure forgotten. Why am I letting him use my precious foot in this way? I wonder.

He swivels my leg to get at the other side of my heel, and when he's satisfied the toes are closer, he takes his large pumice stone and rubs and rubs as the exaggerated movements take him into the early phases of his ecstasy. Now he hugs my heel into his thighs as he puts down the stone and forgets himself. I pretend I know nothing of this. All the while tuned to the cries of the women beyond the curtain, Shanah Tovah! Ha Col Tov Lach!

He takes a knife and lifts my foot so close to his face that he can lower his lips to my toes surreptitiously and peck. Then scrubbing again with my foot so high it jogs up and down against his cheek. He is nothing if not meticulous as he lays one tool down in favour of another. Always pretending to attend to the skin of my heels with different instruments in order to follow with more scrubbing as he pulls my toes deeper into the nether regions of his apron. Now he is almost too excited to remember his job as he sneaks more strokes and less secret kisses. He recollects himself in time to let go this beautiful foot and put it tantalising at the end of his knee to begin his clipping.

I see how he shakes now and I hold my breath as his scary instruments probe the private parts of my vulnerable toe nails. His array of knives clippers and drills—the drill is on me now—seem ominous for an aged German named Mendeleh (Mengele?) but I see how he uses his tools with love, already fearing my departure as he prolongs foot number 1. He changes drill heads to buff and has clipped so deep I fear for ingrown toe nails. Isn't that what they say? Cut straight across and not too deep.

My toe is bent into his inner thigh as he continues in the care of my cuticles. And now the cream. Destined for the feet I guess he chooses instead to rub it vigorously into my lower leg as he rocks my foot more powerfully against his crotch. I relax my foot to enjoy the massage and feel his penis lying unrestrained beneath his pea green apron. Now my sole lies on his cheek as he rubs and kisses my unattractive large big toe using gentle massage motions as if it is truly his only friend.

Adon Mendeleh! They call him. Yaysh lecha telefon! Their words sting me. Disappointed he goes and I feel more keenly the effects of my own sad arousal. He returns hurried, eager for more spurious massage. I wonder if it was John Travolta or Samuel E. who reckoned on the dangers of foot massage. The liberties taken. Perhaps the call was a sabotage to protect him from exposing himself to me in his excited state. Timed fifteen minutes in. Do they keep an eye on his movements? Or mine. Are they waiting for me to cry out indignant, Adon Mendeleh! His antics have not gone unnoticed here.

He looks reckless. His movements more determined and circular. I wonder can a detumescent penis come? Shocked now, I see it. As he lifts my heel his apron pulls up a touch. The balls are clearly visible. They seem enormous.

This is more and more dangerous as he takes foot number 2 with only his interests at heart. I struggle to free my big toe. This is going too far. I have led this desperate man on by silent complicity and now I want my toe back. Suddenly he speaks, asking a brief question in Hebrew about my job to detract from involuntary sounds of an orgasmic nature that escape him. Ooosh! Ooooosh! Oooooosh! Now I fear for us both and suspect my right foot is not getting the attention it deserves while receiving plenty it doesn't.

The apron flap has all but disappeared into his crotch. My heart is in my mouth. As he grabs my foot I catch sight of the works. It just as I fear. This sad arrangement excites me. Boychekeleh! He dilutes his imprisonable act with tender Yiddishisms delivered to my toes which sound faintly homoerotic, and continues scrubbing. I cast an eye on his prick. Curled up like a snail. Unmemorable. He is losing it in this cordoned corner of a dingy hairdresser in Frishman street that he has commandeered for over fifty years since his lucky escape while the guttural sounds of elderly Israeli women behind the curtain punctuate his pleasure. Their idle gossip contributes to the taboo of this unacknowledged sex act. Like being twelve at movies and pretending your cousin's friend isn't really exploring your cunt while the rest of the gang keep a devious eye on the proceedings.

Once I let a miserable man with a dodgy eye feel me up one a late night coach ride as desperate I held my bladder. Too young and scared to ask him or the driver to stop. Twenty years later I do the same as Adon Mendeleh caresses my foot at his face. My foot! Ayzeh Fisseleh! he gasps. What a foot!

Finished, he says. I wonder.

Yofi! he admires his handiwork and holds my foot in the air for an invisible audience. Ha Regel Shelach, Zeh Hah Degel Shelach! A woman's foot is her flag. I like that.

He has abandoned all attempts at subterfuge. Even after it's over he digs my foot one last time into his receding apron and— I cannot believe this—lifts his apron self-consciously to reveal the whole bangshoot. It is so brief I hardly know if it was meant for him or me.

We continue our collusion with nail polish. I hand him my bottle of purply blue which he applies with great excitement to the few remaining square inches of toe nail he has left me. While the women shout more New Year greetings to each other, more coffee, more biscuits and Believe Me's, he applies cotton wool and varnish remover to clean up his act. I am ready to slide them into flip flops with flowers. He applies a final lotion to my verruca as he regains the composure of an eighty something.

I feel alone in this transaction. Forced to acknowledge there is not one woman waiting for the infamous pedicurist on the busiest Friday morning of New Year 5757.

While he applies ointment and gauze with trembling hands he lifts up his heavy optical magnifiers to reveal more of his face. I see the tiny sticky out ears. No lips. The expression of a beaver burrowing in deep spaces, hoarding. A collection of toes no doubt. Heavy veins and muscles in his forearms. Always massaging, massaging, massaging.

A final kiss to the underside of my toes. Both feet. He lets the water out as I watch my dead skin travel down the plughole. He insists on applying my flip flops, placing my foot flat on his chest. Lev! He declares. Showing me, or them, his heart.

He writes out his bill which I carry to the desk and wonder if he'll be here when I return. The women look at me quizzically. Is there a sneer? A look of silent disapprobation as Mendeleh disappears behind his curtain and I follow my purply blue nails through Dizengov Street, past the black patent six inch heels and working men's boots of the young Israeli babes. Past thickening ankles and varicose veins into the juice bar where I settle on banana watermelon and prickly pear and look wistfully at the pretty babes' pretty babes on the eve of the year 5757 and what I anticipate its first sexual encounter.

I examine my toes, finding pockets of hard skin forgotten in the heat of his desire. There is now no decent excuse with which to return. I am left with a vision of Adon Mendeleh, his apron held up with pride, frozen in my memory like a punishing flashback. My feet soon forgotten in cold climate, destined to be enclosed for longer and longer periods.

Jacqueline Lucas

"The man in my story is round the corner from where my story put him. The clientele are elderly holocaust escapees so getting the odd sighting of the old geezer’s whatsit is not such a big deal in the larger scheme of things. He was always popular but perhaps tried it once too many, or more likely, the old dears are passing on, and young girls fancy much more upmarket places for their nail parings.

I try and write as close to my own experience as I dare, and look for the difficult areas where no-one is simply innocent. I went back to him to write my story so that implicates me—just as all the women who returned again and again for his thorough toe job were not entirely in the dark. He is lucky I guess to have made a life so close to his real loves... this little piggy went wee wee wee !

I’m aiming to get a selection of short stories, and then perhaps a novel and lucrative script deal! I’m a photographer, writer and general layabout, and like cavorting round the Blue Note on a Monday anokha night. Are any agents out there? I keep hoping someone will come to me like an angel and I’ll be able to avoid the grovelling, the rejections and the suicide attempts. Get my number from Karl who’s now my best mate (why, shucks...ed.).

I’ve had my poetry published in various mags, and short stories in Ambit, Pulp Faction, A Be Sea and now em two. Always eager to do readings, and I love launches!"