Kiss and Tell: “My podiatrist co-worker turned out to have a foot fetish”

Welcome to Kiss and Tell, a series about the steamy, surprising and frequently absurd world of Toronto dating. Send your most memorable stories from the pursuit of love and lust in the city to submissions@torontolife.com.

—As told to Juliann Garisto

I was working as a receptionist at a health and wellness centre when I met Dante (which is not his real name). He was a practitioner at the clinic, specializing in podiatry. He was tall but slouched and seemed to have a bit of a chip on his shoulder. If he didn’t like you, you would know: he was blunt about everything. But he was friendly to me from the moment I met him, which was my third shift at the clinic.

I was having trouble unlocking the door to the clinic when he approached from behind to tell me I was “doing it wrong.” I was so startled by him sneaking up on me that I jumped. He laughed, then playfully shoved me aside and punched in the numbers to the keypad himself. When the door unlocked, he held it open for me and said, “Ladies first.”

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From that day onward, Dante was the person I went to for help with my job. He showed me where everything was—the laundry room, the clean towels, the clean linen, the receipt paper. I was so grateful to be taken under his wing that I didn’t consider whether he was coming on to me. He was older, and he seemed mature enough to know that I was too young for him.

In the first two weeks I worked at the clinic, Dante and I got along well. He continued to tease me about certain things, but he was interesting to talk to. There was one topic of conversation that he couldn’t get enough of: feet. As a dancer, I soaked up everything he had to say about feet like a sponge—I was sincerely interested in his work. Then, one day, he told me I should come and see him some time for treatment. I told him I couldn’t afford it. He said, “We’ll figure something out.” So I agreed to a “free” appointment the following week.

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The appointment went really well; my feet felt amazing afterward. “Why don’t you come back next week?” Dante offered. I reminded him once more that I wouldn’t be able to pay him. He reminded me not to worry, that we were going to figure something out. I asked him what exactly he meant by that. That’s when he told me he needed a foot model for some video exercises that he wanted to post on Instagram: simple, two-minute-long clips of foot models doing toe lifts and crunches with a female voice-over giving instructions. The exchange seemed reasonable: the exercises were easy, and they looked like they would actually benefit my dance practice. So I agreed to model for him, and he booked me for an appointment the following week.

Things were a little different when I had my second appointment. There were candles lit, and Dante had put on some music with mandolins and soft piano. I told myself he was just giving me the full treatment, but I knew he didn’t do this even for the regular clients who spent hundreds of dollars. As with the first appointment, I came out feeling immense physical relief. I was grateful that he was so willing to provide treatment without me having to pay. But I did feel strange.

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After that appointment, Dante asked if I wanted to book another for the following week. I told him I wasn’t available. He was fully booked anyway—I knew because I managed all the practitioners’ schedules. He said he could move his clients around and that I should try to see him at least once a week, as per our arrangement. Before I could ask exactly what he meant by that, he was asking if I had plans for the rest of the day. It was my day off, and I had planned on going to the dance studio to practise some choreography I was working on.

He asked if I wanted to go for lunch. When I told him I really needed to practise, he said, “Don’t worry—I’ll pay.” He seemed determined to have lunch with me, so I didn’t bother arguing even though I really should have been practising. I resented him for making me feel like I owed him my company, but I also felt guilty: after all, we still hadn’t discussed how exactly I would fulfill my end of our arrangement. Maybe by accepting his lunch proposal, I thought, I could demonstrate gratitude.

So I let Dante take me for lunch. He acted like we’d been friends for a long time. I found out he was actually thirty years older than me; he had just turned sixty. I was surprised because he didn’t look that old. But then I thought his age was a good thing: a 60-year-old man wouldn’t try to pursue a woman half his age, right? And yet, I was beginning to suspect that we weren’t on the same page.

After lunch, I thanked Dante and decided to ask about the foot modelling so I could start properly paying him back for the hours of treatment he was giving me. He told me he would get in touch to discuss the specs for that. He also told me that I could “cover the next one” when it was my “turn” to take him out for lunch. Finally, he hugged me goodbye and told me I had really nice feet. I didn’t know what to say; I still couldn’t tell if we’d just gone on a date or if he was just my professional mentor. I hoped to God it was the latter.

Later that week, I got a text from Dante. He wanted me to book another appointment with him, and he had details about the modelling. He had booked a studio and needed me for three six-hour shifts from four until 10 in the evening. He said those night shifts were the only times available for booking.

It seemed like an excessive amount of time for filming such short clips, and why was it so late? Was this what he expected in return for the two hours he took to work on my feet? Where was the trade-off? When I challenged the demanding nature of his request, he told me that it took a lot of time to set up for a shoot, hence the long hours, but I was officially suspicious. I’d worked with filmmakers before; it didn’t take six hours to film two minutes of footage.

I didn’t respond to his text until the eve of my next shift, when I knew I’d have to see him in person. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I said that I was feeling overwhelmed with other responsibilities and that I didn’t think I would be able to commit to our exchange in the way he was hoping I would. I figured he would give me some grace and just accept the fact that I was unavailable. Then maybe I could just bake him some cookies to express my gratitude and leave it there.

His response: “Then you have to pay for those appointments.” I responded with a laughing emoji—I had deliberately told him I couldn’t afford to pay him for treatment; even with my employee discount, it was too expensive. He had to be joking. “This isn’t funny,” he texted back. “We had an agreement.” I couldn’t believe his audacity. I knew I wasn’t completely innocent in our exchange, but I was starting to feel used. I decided to call him.

The phone rang several times before he answered huffily. He said he was busy and couldn’t talk. I ignored him and said that I wasn’t paying him, not only because I didn’t have the money but because it wasn’t fair. I’d trusted him, and he’d tricked me. He reminded me of what I’d promised. I tried to explain that it wasn’t ethical for him to expect me to repay him with so much of my time, but he refused to listen and repeated that he couldn’t talk and had to go. I was livid. I texted him one last time saying that I was disappointed by his lack of understanding.

The following day at work, Dante completely ignored me. He refused to even say hello. My colleague asked if everything was okay. I sensed that she already knew what had happened—she had worked at the clinic longer than me. When our shifts ended later that day, we went for a drink, and she told me everything. Apparently I wasn’t the first girl to be targeted by Dante. There had been two others before me, and they’d also happened to be dancers.

My colleague told me it was a similar story with the other girls: he befriended them with a kind and friendly demeanour, offered them free massage therapy, and then guilted them into spending several hours of their free time with him while he filmed their feet. Meanwhile, he refused to treat male clients and seniors. I felt stupid for trusting him, but my colleague told me it wasn’t my fault: he targeted the same type of girl relentlessly, wooing them with the prospect of friendship and “free” therapy. The moment his target failed to reciprocate his unsolicited offerings, she’d find herself shunned and ostracized until she inevitably quit. I couldn’t believe how easily I’d been duped. I’d always thought of myself as good at laying boundaries.

I would’ve quit the job immediately if I hadn’t needed the money. Instead, I went to work teeming with resentment. Dante continued to pretend I didn’t exist unless he absolutely needed something from me. I knew I would have to quit eventually—I was reaching my threshold—but I told myself I should try to stick it out for another week. In the meantime, I would look for another job.

I considered telling my boss about the altercation with Dante. He shouldn’t have been able to continue manipulating new female employees. It was unfair to the women and unprofessional, period. Unfortunately, Dante got to my boss before I could. A few days after he started to ignore me, I got fired. When I asked my boss why, she said that my relationship with Dante had made him uncomfortable; we were supposed to be “co-workers” not “lovers.” I explained that he had been the one to pursue me, but that wasn’t what Dante had told her. So he got away with it, and I got the boot.