When I was a college student, I experienced an unusual, one could even say tragicomic event, while living in a student dormitory.
One afternoon, as I was flat on my stomach on my bed, recovering from the previous night’s party, a girl—who had also attended the party—sat on my lower back and began to massage my upper back. During the massage, I bent my legs and playfully patted her back with the soles of my feet, as if I were massaging her in return. She found it amusing.
However, while I was patting her, I felt her necklace with my toes, which she turned on her back on while massaging me so that it wouldn’t bother her. The necklace had a small medallion that I inadvertently tangled between my third and fourth toes, along with a few strands of her long hair tied in a ponytail. A mischievous impulse took hold. I held onto it, not wanting to let go. She turned around, still seated on my lower back, and grasped my foot with one hand while using the other to try to untangle the chain and medallion from my toes. I laughed at her futile attempts, playfully refusing to loosen my grip, despite her pleas to let go of the chain to prevent it from breaking and how I pull her hair. “Hey, let go!” she said, “You’ll break it! And you’re pulling my hair!” I just laughed harder, finding her futile struggle incredibly amusing. I twitched my toes, savoring the slight tug of the chain and hair, refusing to loosen my playful grip.
To put it mildly, she was a girl for one night who had been with many men. Former cheerleader and once a pole dancer in the strip club. She was a very cunning and skilled girl, and she was one of those who drifted through college parties. I didn’t particularly appreciate her, but she was… available, and sometimes that was enough. She was medium height, slim and firmly built girl. Her face wasn’t what you’d call pretty, but her teeth were impressive. She possessed a beautiful set of teeth. When she spreads her lips in a smile, her teeth looked like perfectly strung pearls- exceptionally burly, and strong.
My playful game came to an abrupt halt when I felt her long, sharp nails, began to scratch, not gently, but with a deliberate, unpleasant drag across my toes, then along my sole. Concerned for my toes, I finally, reluctantly, loosened my grip, allowing her to free the chain. I was apprehensive about her scratching my toes, as I took great care of them and about feet in general and was proud of their appearance. In fact, I had appeared in magazines and commercials for beach slippers, toe-loop sandals and flip-flops on several occasions.
After she finally freed the chain, unexpectedly, she seized my foot with both hands. Her grip was surprisingly strong.
Then came the shock! Before I could even register what was happening, she bit my big toe! A crushing pain exploded through my big toe. The pain was instantaneous and excruciating. A primal scream tore from my throat, raw and involuntary. I screamed at the top of my lungs, feeling as though my eyes would pop out from the intensity of the pain! For a moment, the world dissolved into a blinding white flash. I nearly fainted. In the chaos, I was unaware of how the bookshelf beside the bed fell, but it struck her hard in the temple with a sharp edge. This sudden impact caused her to release my toe, and I was finally able to free my foot.
The next thing I knew, I was in the hospital, the sterile smell acrid in my nostrils. The bite, the doctors explained, had been unbelievably fierce, so strong, that her teeth had penetrated the bone, resulting in a severe fracture. The bone was crushed, just below the upper joint – a little more than half of the big toe. Upper part of the big toe looked like it was separated. I lay there in profound shock, terror seizing me at the realization that she had almost bitten my big toe clean off. The doctors worked wonders, performing some miraculous procedure to save it. “You were lucky,” the nurse had said later, her voice grave. “That big toe was nearly bitten off”.
My big toe took an agonizingly long time to recover, and an ugly scar remains to this day, despite efforts to remove it. Because I have a large and very dominant big toe, significantly longer than my other toes, that scar is clearly, unmistakably visible.
That act of hers ruined my fledgling career as a model for flip-flops and toe-loop sandals, cutting off a valuable source of pocket money during my college years. Many years have passed since then and my big toe still hurts occasionally and often goes numb.
I’ve replayed that event in my head a thousand times, sifting through every detail, every word, every look. I still struggle to understand how the situation escalated to such dramatic conclusion. I am most disappointed in myself because I didn’t even try to free my foot.
