Peggy had always looked up to her older sister, Paula, who was two years older. Paula took after her father, with leggy, natural blond good looks and long, shapely hands and feet. Peggy looked more like her Italian mother, a stockier but still shapely brunette with shorter legs, and broad, flat “peasant” feet, as her mother never tired of telling her. “My side of the family, we’ve got bad feet,” her mother would say almost every day after work, immediately kicking off her stylish pumps and looking ruefully down at her swollen feet, each sporting several corns, hammered second toes, and bunions. “We have to suffer to look good.” Peggy never knew what her mother meant until she joined her sister to work after school at the front desk of a restaurant. Paula wore stylish, high heel slides and open toed shoes to work each day, and while she sometimes complained her feet were tired or sore, they always looked perfect to Peggy. At first, Peggy started wearing the same kind of shoes at work her sister sported, but quickly found out after a few hours that her feet would be in agony. “You just need to get used to it,” Paula would tell her, “Slip them off behind the counter when you get a chance.” Peggy would smile and take her sisters advice, but the pain continued. One night, Paula joined some friends at the restaurant to go out to a dance club after work, but Peggy begged off and went home. Her feet hurt so much that she had slipped her shoes off and walked through the front door with them in her hand.
Her mother looked up from the couch at her critically. “Oh Peggy, you can’t keep this up. Paula is lucky, she has no idea how much we suffer.”
“Oh Mom, what do you mean?”
“Just look at your feet. Hot, swollen, and I bet at least a size larger than when you went to work. I hate to tell you this, but those bumps on your baby toes that you have been ignoring are corns, and the swelling behind your big toes are the start of the family curse – bunions.”
Peggy smiled back sardonically and said, “I know, but what’s a girl to do?”
“Plenty,” replied her Mom.
“Jeeze Mom, that was a rhetorical question.”
“So I don’t know anything about rhetoric, but I could write the book on aching feet. Look, I’m not trying to stop you from doing anything, but please take a little advice. Try going a little lower on the heel heights – my feet don’t kill me nearly as much in two-inch heels. It’s also a good idea if the heel is a bit chunkier and if the toes are quite so narrow – those little beauties look like you need to cram your five little piggies in a space meant for four. Also – get rid of anything except soft leather – synthetics are just murder.”
Peggy bowed to her mother’s experience and took her advice. By the end of the week, she still couldn’t wait to soak her feet, but the pain became much less severe and manageable. By the end of the year, Paula had moved on to college, and Peggy continued to work at the same place until she too graduated.
When she joined her sister at State U., Peggy quickly learned that Paula belonged to Delta Gamma Sigma, the most prestigious sorority on campus. She longed to join her there. During rush week, Peggy tracked down Paula for a few minutes and asked her advice.
“Look Peggy, I know it’s stupid, but we are pretty much sworn to secrecy. One thing, though – what outfit were you thinking about wearing to the rush party tonight?”
“My blue cocktail dress, pearls, and those cute little cork slides.”
“That sounds perfect, except for the shoes. I can’t tell you why, but try to wear something higher with a closed toe.”
Peggy left her sister puzzled, but decided to follow her advice. Instead of the comfortable cork slides she wanted to wear, she crammed her feet into a pair of black leather stiletto slides and walked across campus to the party. By the time she made it to the sorority house, her feet were screaming at her in protest, but she plastered on a smile and started mingling.
She was surprised to find that most of the other hopeful candidates were wearing similar dresses but were sporting open-toed flip flops and slides, and her burning feet seemed to sigh in frustration at their looks of easy, cool comfort. Was Paula playing a joke? After a while, Peggy noticed that several other hopefuls were dressed similarly to herself, and deciding this was an opportunity for small talk, went over to one of them.
“Hi, I’m Peggy, who are you?”
“Hi Peggy, my name’s Jenny. Your outfit is really cute.”
“Thanks, but I wish I didn’t wear these shoes. My feet are killing me.”
“You and me, both. My cousin was a legacy here a few years ago, and told me exactly what to wear. I’m just dying to get in here.”
“Me too, “ answered Peggy, “That’s my sister Paula over there. She is one of the rush chairs here, and she gave me the same advice you got from your cousin. I wonder why.”
“I do to. Why don’t we sit down someplace – standing is just murder.”
Peggy and Jenny joined a group sitting around a coffee table that included several other freshmen hopefuls and several members of the sorority. She wasn’t sure, but Peggy thought her chances of getting in were pretty good, and hoped the same was true for her new friend, Jenny.
Two weeks later, Peggy learned she was asked to join Delta Gamma Sigma’s pledge class. At the pledge meeting the next night, she was thrilled to learn that Jenny, along with six other girls, were also pledges.
The pledges were lead into a darkened room lined with photographs that Peggy could not make out in the gloom. Cathy, the President of the sorority, began speaking.
“Welcome pledges to the best sorority on campus. This is our chapter’s secret initiation room. Never tell anyone except a fellow member or legacy what you learn in here. Violations mean instant expulsion from the sorority, and believe me, we have ways of keeping tabs. The pictures on the walls are from past initiations. Can anyone here tell me the name of our brother fraternity here on campus?”
“Pi Epsilon Delta,” piped up several of the girls, including Peggy and Jenny.
“That is correct. Sixty years ago, the President of Pi Ep was talking to our President about options for pledge initiations. Who knows what she told him or if it even stuck, but he came up with an idea based on the two names that we still use today. Any guesses?”
The room was silent. “OK then, lights please,” called out Cathy, and the room was instantly illuminated. Squinting in the sudden light, Peggy looked at the pictures on the wall. Girls her age from the past year’s pledge classes stared back at her. All were barefoot. In some of the older pictures, girls were imprisoned in stocks while their sorority sisters or “Big Brothers” from Pi Ep were tickling their feet with their fingers, combs, ballpoint pens, and feathers. Still others were hot-footing it across what looked like a bed of hot coals. In the most recent pictures, pledges were sitting next to what looked like very high heels, and were either massaging their own or another girl’s feet or were cooling them off in the fountain located in the house’s courtyard.
“Any ideas now,” asked Cathy.
A light dawned in Peggy’s brain. “Pi Epsilon Delta – P E D or ped, and Delta Gamma Sigma – D G S — dogs. They’re both words for feet. The initiations involve something to do with our feet.”
“Full points to Peggy. It started out as a joke, but legend has it the guys at Pi Ed went wild with the first tickling sessions in the stocks. Things just snowballed from there. One thing we look for in new pledges are cute girls with cute feet, or at least who wear cute shoes.”
Peggy smiled at this. No wonder Paula told her to wear higher, sexy, closed-toed shoes. She might never have made it if any Delta Gammas noticed her corns and bunions. She wondered if Jenny and some of the other fellow sufferers in painful shoes had similar foot problems.
“Unfortunately, the stocks and hot coal sessions are out. Nobody got seriously hurt, but the school is really cracking down on hazing, and they have video cameras all over campus now. We had to move on to something less obvious.”
“What is that,” asked Beth, a silly blond girl from California whose perfectly pedicured toes complete with pink polish were wriggling happily in a pair of flip flops.
“It’s our “Grin and Bear It” night. This is our first mixer with Pi Ep. All of the pledges must work clean up duty, serve drinks and appetizers all night, and clean up afterwards.”
“What’s so tough about that,” continued Beth.
“The hard part is that all of you must wear stiletto pumps with closed toes and heels that are at least 3 ½ inch high. You have to wear them all night, until cleaning up is finished. Anyone with heels that aren’t at least that high will be punished, as will anyone who takes off their shoes without permission. Your sisters will reward good behavior during the night by giving you rest breaks or even letting kick off your shoes for a few minutes. And for the stupid questions, Beth, you’ll need to find a 4-inch high pair. Any other questions?”
Peggy and her fellow pledges were silent, afraid of having to join Beth in some other form of foot torture. After the session concluded with some chapter songs and learning chapter trivia, the pledges left in two and threes.
Peggy overheard Beth complaining, “I hate heels, and closed toes are even worse. I don’t even own a pair of shoes like that.”
It turned out that none of the other pledges had suitable shoes. Some, like Peggy and Jenny, had the right heels, but their shoes were either slides, mules, or open-toed sandals. Others had pumps, but with much lower heels. Peggy and Jenny decided to meet the next day at the mall to go shoe shopping.
As Peggy suspected, Jenny also had a few corns, but no bunions. “Vanity, I suppose. I was also just a little chubby, and heels made me look thinner. I thought these little beauties (Jenny pointed down to her corns) were a small price to pay, but now I’m not so sure,” she said as she stuffed her feet into yet another pair of pumps at the department store where she had met Peggy.
“How do those feel,” asked Peggy.
“Not as bad as some of the others, but nothing is really comfortable.”
“I know what you mean. I guess I’ll have to take these. What do you say we wear them for a while to break them in,” replied Peggy, pointing to the red pumps she had finally selected. Jenny agreed, and the two of them paid the cashier and walked out of the store.
Within 20 minutes, Jenny said, “Let’s take a break,” and collapsed onto a bench located in the mall, immediately kicking off her shoes. She wriggled her toes and sighed, “Boy, I hope I can make it.”
Peggy joined her and slipped off her shoes as well, contemplating her feet in frustration. The tell-tale signs were there – redness, swelling, and her corns had become whiter and more prominent. Just then she noticed a group of guys wearing Pi Ep sweatshirts walking towards them.
One of the group said, “Practicing, ladies? See you Friday night.”
As they walked away, Jenny asked, “What did he mean?”
“Isn’t it obvious? He spotted us in these stupid tee shirts (all Delta Gam pledges were required to wear clothing with the sorority’s letters on them), saw our bare feet and these stupid shoes, and put two and two together,” replied Peggy.
Friday came and the pledges walked into the Chapter House. The stupid ones were already wearing their uncomfortable shoes and were paying the price. Peggy, Jenny, and two other girls who Peggy now knew also had problem feet (one with corns, the other with bunions, a hammer toe, and corns) were in sneakers. They quickly changed into their pumps and started setting up for the party. Peggy had thought that two hours was plenty of time to get ready, but she was amazed at how many times she and her fellow pledges were sent to the kitchen, the attic, or the basement for punch bowls, chairs, stereo speakers, and decorations.
Beth appeared to be suffering the most. She hobbled around on mincing steps and took every chance she could find to sit down. When she thought she was safe, she slipped off her left shoe and starting kneading the ball of her stocking-clad foot between her two thumbs. Cathy pounced on her. “We have a violator. Shoes on this instant,” she barked, and followed that with “Stand up.” Poor Beth got to her feet and tried stuffing her foot back into the shoe, grimacing with the effort. Cathy got down on her hands and knees and took out a small ruler, and appeared to measure Beth’s heel.
“Another violation. Your heels are not quite four inches,” snapped Cathy.
Beth looked like she wanted to cry. “The saleslady told me these were 10 cm heels – that’s four inches.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Each inch is 2.54 centimeters – four inches is 10.16 centimeters. You are 0.16 cm short,” retorted Cathy.
Peggy couldn’t believe it. Years of working in the restaurant preparing checks made her quick at math. Beth missed the requirement by less than a tenth of an inch. She wondered what “punishment” Beth would receive.
Peggy quickly found out. Cathy pulled off Beth’s shoes, peered into them, and asked, “These a size 8?”
Beth nodded. Cathy asked Julie, the House Secretary, to go into a closet and get her something. Julie obviously knew what Cathy wanted, and came back with a pair of leopard printed stiletto pumps with what looked like 5-inch heels. She gave these to Beth and said, “Put them on.”
“But they’re sevens,” Beth blurted out.
“I know, that is part of the punishment. Listen up, people. Anyone else who slips off their shoes for a little relief gets to wear one of these leopard printed numbers one size too small. Believe me, we have all sizes. Anyone else whose heels are not regulation height gets to wear some with heels at least one inch higher. I will close my eyes and count to ten, and anyone else who thinks they may not be wearing shoes with high enough heels can find a pair in the closet and wear those.”
As Cathy slowly counted, three other pledges made a mad dash to the closet, quickly found shoes the right height and size (but often the wrong color), and stuffed their feet into them.
Mercifully, the party started and Peggy and Jenny moved around the room, offering drinks and appetizers to the guests. They and the other pledges quickly learned that there were rewards for prompt service – the girls serving the most food without spilling anything received tokens from the older sorority sisters that read “The bearer can bare it for five minutes.” Peggy asked her sister Paula when they had to use them and Paula told her “Any time you like. See that little area over there with the little gate where Nancy is sitting?” Paula pointed across to room to one of her fellow sisters was sitting. “Just give her a token and take five. If you have more than one token, take as long as they last. You can also give tokens to other pledges if you like.”
After Paula and Jenny had ten tokens each, they decided to take a 15 minute break. Two other pledges were already sitting down with the shoes off, moaning as they massaged each other’s feet. Paula and Jenny each gave Nancy three tokens, kicked off their shoes, and joined their fellow sufferers. Cindy and Nicki were the other two pledges with bad feet, and all four of them commiserated with each other. Taking pity on Cindy and Nicki, who were out of tokens, Paula and Jenny each gave Nancy two tokens apiece, so that Cindy and Nicki could have another 10 minutes of bliss.
Cindy moaned, “My tootsies are on fire. I never had to wear shoes like this at work – Miss Patterson let us get away with lower heels.”
“Ooh, Cindy, be gentle on my big toe. You only have a couple of corns – wait till bunions join the party, eh Paula,” said Nicki, wincing as Cindy’s hand touched her left big toe.
Paula smiled and nodded, intent on rubbing her aching feet with the cooling rubbing alcohol she had been smart enough to bring with her.
“I give you $50 if you share some of that stuff,” said Cindy. Laughing, Paula handed around the bottle to her “sole sisters,” as Jenny called them.
Jenny noticed that several of the Pi Eps were looking at them intently. “Who are those guys,” she asked. The four sufferers were surprised when Nancy replied “At least half the guys in Pi Ep are foot guys.”
“Foot guys,” asked Nicky.
“You know, fetishists. Those bozos can’t keep secrets like we can. Guys during rush week learn the we are going to be their little sisters, and some of the brothers at Pi Ep let slip little snippets about initiation and our other parties. Guys who like feet kill to get into to Pi Ep.”
“But why us,” said Peggy.
“Some guys like it all – heels, bare feet, open toes, the works. Others like different stuff. A lot of them love it when we complain that our feet are killing us – they really get off on giving us massages and stuff like that. Sounds crazy, but it is a little kinky, and let me tell you, guys with strong hands are better than we are at massaging away the pain. You might get lucky when the party is over.”
Their time was up and the four girls returned to the party. The other pledges with cute, perfect feet proved to be terrible at hosting the party. Very few of them received any tokens, and as the party ended all of them were hobbling badly on their burning, swollen, aching feet. Peggy thought about it, and quickly realized that girls with perfect feet probably didn’t have the same kind of jobs the “sole sisters” had – Peggy at a restaurant, Jenny, a Starbucks, and Cindy and Nicki – ushers at a movie theater.
The pledges began cleaning up, and some of the Pi Eps took pity on them and started to help. Beth, looking particularly miserable, walked over to Peggy. “Please, Peggy, I’m begging you. I have to get these shoes off – they’re just killing me! I’ll give you a $100 for any tokens you have left – Jenny said you were the only one with any left.”
Peggy frowned. She meant to take a break in a few minutes with her two remaining tokens, but her pity got the better of her and she handed them to Beth. “Keep you money, but I want you to take my next five shifts on clean up duty during the week.” Pledges were required to clean up after meals, and all of them hated this duty. Beth nodded, grabbed the tokens, and limped over to the rest area. When Peggy glanced over, she noticed Beth had not only kicked off her shoes, but had used a letter opener to cut open her expensive designer stockings and let her bare, swollen feet escape. Peggy had no idea what Beth would do when the time was up, but luck was finally with Beth and Cathy announced that the clean-up was over.
One of the Pi Eps walked across the room and talked to Beth, who quickly accepted his apparent offer of a foot massage. Peggy was envious when this benefactor pulled out a little bottle labeled “Foot Eze” and started lathering a creamy lotion as Beth leaned back and whimpered in ecstasy. Several of the other girls raced out into the courtyard and starting dunking the burning feet in to fountain to cool them off.
Peggy was about to join them when someone tapped on her shoulder. “Feet hurt,” asked a cute Pi Ep guy sympathetically.
“Like you wouldn’t believe – amputation feels like a good choice right now, anything is better than this throbbing,” laughed Peggy. “Why don’t we sit down?”
Her new friend, Paul, agreed, and they walked over to one of the couches. Peggy was suddenly apprehensive. How could she take off her shoes now and let this guy see her swollen bunions and hardened, angry corns, when a group of cuties with perfect little feet were frolicking outside in the fountain. She frowned with indecision, when Paul intruded by saying “Don’t worry, I think your corns and bunions are really sexy.”
“Huh, how did you know?”
“I’ve been wanting to talk with you since I spotted you in the mall. I thought I saw a few corns and bunions, and when you and friends were on break, I looked some more. You have the cutest feet in the sorority.”
“Do you mean it,” replied Peggy.
“Sure, when I was a little kid, we lived with my father’s brother and his wife. She was a schoolteacher who always wore sexy, tight shoes and couldn’t wait to kick them off and have little Paulie give them a nice rub a dub dub. I quickly became hooked on “Foot Sore Brigade.””
“Does that mean I’ll have competition from every little minx with corns and bunions,” said Peggy, giggling.
“No, I’m a two-foot guy – I believe in strictly bigamous relations.” With that Paul started massaging Peggy’s willing feet, and they made plans to go to Pi Ep’s formal later in the semester.
When the night was finally over, Paula came over and said “Nice work with Paul, but I guess like mother like daughter.”
“What do you mean,” said Peggy.
Paula walked Peggy into the initiation room and indicated a picture dated 1975. In it, a laughing woman with her feet in stocks was being tickled by a tall, good looking man.
“That’s Mom and Dad,” gasped Peggy.
“Yup – even then you can see her corns and bunions. She told me Dad was a smitten kitten right away. Why do think he always wants to rub her feet. Once I overheard Mom tell Aunt Betty that any time she wants Dad to get in the mood, she moans, kicks off her shoes, and asks him to “rub my aching feeties.” Says it works every time.”
The end