After descending through a layer of thin clouds, the lights of the city spread beneath us and provided enough illumination to reveal a winter landscape. The captain had announced that the weather was 12° F with light snow flurries. I amused myself by wondering how many other people in the city were in walking casts and concluded that I would be the only one with exposed toes. As we taxied to the gate, my anticipation and some apprehension began to build as I thought of how my girlfriend would react to seeing my cast. I was in the front third of the main cabin, so there would be a number of people in front of me to run interference as we emerged from the jetway into the gate area where people were gathered to meet arriving passengers. She was about fifty feet away when our eyes met and her face lit up. An instant later I could see a look of puzzlement mix with her smile as she watched me in the cluster of passengers moving through the gate area. People react very quickly to a perception of abnormal movement and I knew that she had detected the alteration in my gait. We were about twenty feet apart and she was beginning to open her arms to me when I emerged into full view. She stopped suddenly, her eyes wide and mouth open in amazement, before exclaiming, "Oh my God, what happened?’ Rushing forward, her eyes darting alternately from my face to my cast, she grabbed me in a tight hug and then stood tight against my right side, holding my arm and focused her attention on my cast as she tried to query me, "What happened… you never said anything about… my God you must have broken your foot!" I pulled her against me and kissed her cheek as she put her head on my shoulder. "Well, I told you that I had a surprise for you, didn’t I?" was my reply as I smiled at several bystanders who had noticed our unusual meeting and were watching us with amusement. She then lifted her head up, looked at me closely and sympathetically and said, "Ohhh, I feel so bad for you." I kissed her quickly on the lips and said, "It’s not really much of a problem, I sprained my ankle while running over the weekend and when I told the orthopod I was going to visit you for a week, he gave me the option of a walking cast so I wouldn’t have to use crutches." Her expression lightened and she smiled, "I’m glad it’s not serious; it’s just such a shock to see you in a cast." I felt very relieved that her spirits lifted since I was already carrying enough guilt from the fact that I was lying to someone I loved in order to satisfy a peculiar sexual fixation.

She stayed close against me, holding my right arm with both hands and watching my cast closely as we walked slowly along the concourse in conversation. I sensed that her interest was now on the cast itself and I was about to make it a focus of attention. We were about to exit from the terminal building when I stopped next to a low bench, opened my bag, and retrieved my coat. "I’ll probably need this," I said as I put it on, "as well as this," and produced a toe sock that I had previously placed in a pocket of the coat. Resting my cast on the bench, I leaned forward and pulled the sock over the front of the cast. "Oh, you’ve got one of those sock thingies," was her comment as she watched me with a sort of devilish curiosity, "I was wondering how you were going to keep your toes warm; it’s only about ten degrees out." Perhaps it was only wishful thinking, but it seemed that her interest in my cast was more than casual as I was beginning to feel excited and got a little burst of arousal as I saw our reflections in the door and saw my cast with a toe sock for the first time.

Light snow had fallen earlier in the evening and was still on the sidewalk leading to her townhouse. As I waited for her to unlock the door, I looked back at our footprints in the dusting of snow and tingled with excitement at the sight of my one shoeprint alternating with the small oval imprint of the walking heel. Whenever I wore a cast, I always tried to find a place to leave an imprint of the walking heel, no matter how temporary it may be. Even if it was just walking from damp pavement onto dry , it was always a thrill to look back and see it. On occasion, if I encountered a patch of firm damp earth next to a sidewalk, an imprint might last for days and I would look for it when I passed the area after the cast had been removed. Such rituals are an exciting part of fetishism and are a means of reinforcing the desire to continue the behavior.

The anticipation of seeing my girlfriend and finally getting to be with her while in a walking cast was making me giddy with excitement. We entered her house and, without even removing our coats, embraced and kissed with the passion of reunited lovers. Our amorous intentions toward one another were nearly palpable, but rather that running to the bedroom, we sat together for a while on the sofa talking and drinking a glass of wine. I got up once to go into the kitchen for a glass of water, but this was really to assess her reaction to my cast now that we were alone. As I had anticipated, she watched it with intensity and, as I returned to the couch, she said similar words to those that had made me suspicious of her interest years before, "That is such a neat-looking cast, I love to watch you walk with it." It was time to have some fun with this, so I replied in jest, "No sympathy around here I see; you’d probably really love it if I we’re in traction." "No, no it’s not that," she replied with coy amusement, "I feel very badly that you hurt your ankle, but it’s sort of…well, it makes you look very appealing somehow." I sat down next to her and could see that she felt a bit embarrassed by this admission so I held her, kissed her cheek, and then propped my cast, with its toe sock still in place, on the ottoman in front of us. This confirmation of my suspicions was satisfactory as far as I was concerned and I felt no need to explore this any further with her. If she wanted me to know more about this she would tell me by word or action. So, we remained contentedly snuggled together on the couch, becoming very desirous of each other.

By this time she had shed her shoes and socks and had now begun sliding a bare foot slowly back and forth along the instep of my cast as we talked and exchanged affections. This moment was a culmination of years of fantasy and I and could barely contain my excitement seeing her pretty foot actually resting on a cast that encased my foot. During one of those strokes she deftly grabbed the toe sock with her toes, plucked it cleanly from the cast, and began stroking my toes with hers. This ignited a torrid passion in us that was just the first of many such episodes that we rekindled during the next nine days. It was obvious to both of us that the intensity of our physical intimacy was being greatly augmented by my wearing a cast but we never spoke of it as being the source of our passion. For me, this experience was an erotic fantasy come true since I was secretly satisfying a fetish desire with someone I loved deeply. What made it even nicer was that I lost any feelings of guilt for deceiving her by wearing a recreational cast since I knew that it was a player in an unspoken erotic desire of hers. It was clear that this was the case, since whenever we were alone at home together, her feet were bare and one was usually resting on my cast whether we were seated at the table eating, sitting next to each other on a sofa, or lying in bed. We simply enjoyed this unique circumstance and lost ourselves in the rapture that had developed and let our romance flourish.

She had to work most of the following week but we met several times for lunch or dinner, occasionally dining with friends. When we would meet, her eyes followed my cast as I approached her and, when we walked together, she was very much aware of the attention others would pay to my cast and she seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. One evening we were meeting four other people for dinner at a nice restaurant and I had contemplated covering my cast completely with a dark sock, leaving only the walking heel to protrude from a hole in sole of the sock. I had done this before when I had wanted to make a cast inconspicuous for a particular occasion; but I didn’t wear casts to have them hidden and the way things were evolving, this cast had become rather a personal focal point for the two of us. In fact, I wanted the cast to be as conspicuous as possible so I contrived a mini-toe sock that just covered my toes and perhaps an inch of the cast at most. Since my girlfriend was working, I had plenty of time to work on this creation before meeting everyone for dinner later in the day. It was held in place by taping the cut end of the sock to the plaster just above the rim of stockinette at the front of the cast, and then leaving enough length of sock to fold back over the tape to just hide it. In order to keep the folded sock from slipping forward, I placed a few stitches of thread through all the layers of the folded sock just ahead of the tape. It worked beautifully and didn’t slip off the front of the cast, even when tugging on it. The appearance was quite alluring; here was virtually my entire cast exposed with only the very front edge of it and my toes covered. To me it was the equivalent of a low-cut womans shoe that tantalizes you with what is just barely out of view. The only problem was that it did not offer sufficient warmth on such a cold day and it didn’t protect the front of the cast from the winter elements. Since I had business to attend to before meeting everyone for dinner and would be walking a fair amount in the downtown area, I covered this special toe sock with a conventional one which I removed before alighting from the cab at the restaurant.

My girlfriend and our other dinner companions had arrived just a few minutes before me, so my entrance into the restaurant put me on center stage. The cast shone like a beacon in the subdued light of the darkly-paneled room and I could see every eye shift to look at it as she came forward to greet me. She also glanced at my cast and then looked at me with a touch of curiosity and a slight coy smile which made me aware that she had noticed my special creation. I hadn’t met two of the people before, so after a round of introductions everyone extended their sympathy for my "injury" and made the cast a brief topic of conversation and polite visual inspection. One of the men that I hadn’t meet before regaled me with his own cast story as we proceeded to our table through the restaurant amid the discrete glances and stares of other diners. The table was situated in a corner with a banquette on two sides and chairs on the others. My girlfriend immediately slid onto the banquette with me beside her which put us in the corner with the other four people around the rest of the table. This had been a very purposeful move on her part and was actually a little difficult for me to negotiate with the cast but I didn’t really give it any further thought at the time. A while later after we had ordered appetizers and were enjoying a drink and conversation, I felt someone bump against my cast and I moved it slightly to avoid another collision. A moment later, I again felt contact with the cast and then felt something press gently against the tops of my toes. This time I didn’t move and quickly realized that my girlfriend had slipped out of one of her pumps and had placed her foot on top of my cast and was gently stroking my sock-covered toes with hers. I glanced at her and we exchanged slight, discrete looks of acknowledgment and I reached down to give her hand a squeeze beneath the table. This turn of events had me quite excited and I wondered if the sight of my cast with its mini-toe sock really had appealed to her as I thought it might. This must have been the case, because a few moments later she slid her right hand beneath the cover of the table, moved it into my lap, and wrapped it around my fully turgid manifestation of masculine arousal. For most of the next two hours she left her foot in place on top of my cast and occasionally would return her hand to my lap to assess and, if necessary, enhance my state of arousal. It was very uncharacteristic for her to do this in such a setting and certainly explained her quick action to place us at the table in a position that would give us the most concealment. Whether she had planned this in advance of dinner or did so when she saw my special cast display, I’ll never know for sure; but I have always interpreted this as a rather spontaneous event that was incited by the special appeal my cast held for her. For me it remains a memorable evening that amused me by virtue of the fact that we carried on polite dinner conversation without exhibiting the slightest indication the mischievous erotic play that was occurring beneath the table and which had brought me perilously close to orgasm.

Most of the week was a delightful romantic interlude with frequent, rapturous, physical intimacy, and loving and tender moments together. There was also the relaxation of being away for a period of time and enjoying a few diversions. The fact that I was doing all of this in a walking cast was thrilling and the discovery that the cast had played such a central role in stimulating our sexual drives was more that I could ever had hoped for. Even the weather cooperated in this regard as it began to snow rather steadily late Saturday morning and continued well into Sunday afternoon. After going out for breakfast on Saturday morning, we decided to abandon our plans which would have kept us out most of the time and, instead, spent the two days together at home relaxing and enjoying each others company. This also meant that I could wear shorts, eliminate the toe sock, and leave my cast fully exposed. It had weathered the wintry streets without any serious damage and it had now acquired that appealing patina of wear that lets an observer know that this cast has been around. She truly seemed to relish the sight of my cast as her gaze followed me whenever I walked by and, whenever we were close to one another, her bare feet usually found their way to rest on the smooth plaster. Sunday evening came all to quickly and after an early dinner at home, it was finally time to leave. She had a busy week ahead and I decided that it would be easiest if she simply took me downtown to catch the airport shuttle rather than take the time to deal with the snow and airport traffic. After our goodbyes, she got her final look at my cast as I walked from the car and boarded the bus, thus ending the most rewarding part of this splendid adventure. My thoughts on the way to the airport now turned to the work that lay ahead, and of getting home, and removing this marvelous cast which had brought me so much pleasure.

The snow had stopped for several hours and the plane climbed through a few layers of broken clouds as it ascended above the winter nightscape. Since the weather forecast for my destination was for temperatures to be in the 60s, I knew that my farewell walk in this cast in about three hours would be with my toes exposed. The plane was only about half full on this late Sunday evening flight and there were no other passengers seated in my row on either side of the aisle, so I leaned forward and removed the toe sock from the front of my cast. I sat staring at the cast for several minutes and realized how much pleasure that it had brought over the past week and a half and felt very gratified that I had achieved an unspoken affirmation of the appeal that it had to my girlfriend. Feeling tired, I turned out the reading light and tried to get a bit of rest since I had planned a rather busy day upon my return. Unfortunately, the delightful feel of the cast on my foot started me thinking about something that I had hoped to avoid considering, but now had to confront. This entire trip had been planned and executed so that I could wear a cast with very little chance of discovery only four months after having worn a cast for six weeks. Suddenly, ambivalence reigned in my mind and I was now actually thinking about keeping this cast, something that had certainly not been part of my plan. I quickly dismissed this notion as preposterous since showing up in front of my friends and colleagues wearing another cast so soon after the other would certainly lead to intense suspicion on their part and could potentially expose my peculiar fetish. This reasoning made a strong argument for removing it and I concluded that it just wasn’t worth the risk of discovery and humiliation. It seemed that the best way to quench this desire to keep the cast was to do what I had done previously when erotic drive had clouded my judgment about the necessity to remove a weekend cast when there was no possibility of keeping it. In those instances, I would simply have one last flurry of erotic fulfillment and immediately remove the cast before my desire to keep it returned. Of course, half an hour later, I always wanted it back on; but the deed had been done and life went on without the cast. This seemed like a reasonable approach to the current situation and I resolved to do just that as soon as I arrived home.

I tried to rest again but my mind wouldn’t accept this line of reasoning because the desire to keep wearing this cast was so strong. Now I found myself using a different argument by acknowledging that I would be leaving the university to do a fellowship in less than a year and at that time there would be another opportunity for a full-term cast wearing with a completely new group of people. Therefore, denying myself this pleasure now would allow me six weeks of pleasure later on, free of any sort of anxiety. On top of that, there would still be opportunities for two or three more weekend cast adventures out of town before leaving my current position. This argument still didn’t convince me to remove it and I realized that I was becoming more cavalier about being in a cast the more often I wore one. Why deny myself, I thought. I would be leaving the university in about ten months, wouldn’t be putting down roots in this community, and would no longer see the people who were my friends and colleagues. Suddenly, it didn’t matter to me if I were remembered by my colleagues as a character who was always wearing a cast; this was another opportunity to wear a cast that had to be taken advantage of. Besides, future positions and responsibilities would likely preclude me from wearing casts this frequently so I concluded it was best to enjoy it while I could. Experience had taught me that people didn’t doubt my explanations for a cast and no one had ever challenged me directly about the credibility of an explanation I provided. The burden of proof would always be on anyone who thought that my cast was not for medical reasons. In a rather short time I had reversed my thinking and was now satisfied with my rationale for keeping this cast and pondered for a few moments on a plausible explanation that I would need in the morning. Ankle fractures are actually a common wintertime injury from slips on ice and, besides, this cast was on the same ankle that I had "injured" a few months before. My mind was now made up, the simple fact remained that I enjoyed being in a walking cast and felt like was it my natural state of being. This was something deeply personal that would be hard for other people to accept and I certainly felt no need to explain it to anyone. What was important was that when the anxiety that comes from the fear of discovery and the pressure to explain the appearance of a cast was eliminated, the only thing left was intense personal pleasure and satisfaction. Finally, I could get some rest after this mental turn of events.

After we landed and taxied to the gate, I was alone with my thoughts about my decision as I made my way along the concourse. Through experience I was discovering how I had been able to compartmentalize the roles that wearing a recreational cast required. When I was with my girlfriend, we found the cast to be an accoutrement that heightened our sexual activity, but it was not a focus of our interactions or activities. To those around me, it was presented it as a temporary medical necessity and was a curiosity for some. Personally, the cast was an integral part of my life that made me happy and energetic. When wearing a cast, my thinking and work were actually more focused and productive because I wasn’t constantly distracted by thoughts of yearning for a cast. It was always a constant companion and I took great comfort in being able look at it and feel it on my foot. What surprised me most from these long-term experiences was, that even though the cast was a fetish object for me, I was not constantly aroused by it as I had been when I first wore casts in private at home. Having a recreational cast for a long period actually made its erotic value much more enjoyable since I was able to segregate that aspect of it from everything else. It was always there as a willing "partner" when desire arose and I never grew tired of the pleasure it gave. Given the choice, I would rather not be afflicted with my particular paraphilia but this was not something that I had control over. I was actually grateful that if I had to be a slave to a fetish, it was far better that it be a walking cast and not some unacceptable perversion which would limit my ability to have an otherwise normal existence or have made me into a criminal. The airport terminal was rather quiet late on a Sunday night and, as I walked along the hard floor, I felt excitement as I heard my cast thump with every step. This sound had an erotic appeal to me just like the click of a stiletto heel, the slap of a sandal, or the clop of a clog, and it simply reaffirmed why I could never resist the opportunity to be in a walking cast and comforted me on my drive home.

My first thought on awakening was to perform a final test of my resolve to keep this cast by having one last moment of erotic gratification and then try to proceed with removing it. The pleasure came readily and, afterward, rather than grabbing the saw and beginning the removal process, I simply arose to shave and bathe. The last time I had worn a cast, it was only intended to be for the weekend and, because of circumstances, it evolved into six-and-a half weeks. Being discovered in the cast by my woman friend was not the pivotal event in deciding to keep it long term; instead it was the pleasurable night that we spent which made the cast difficult to relinquish. Therefore, the decision to "go public" was not part of a preconceived plan, but was driven out of a strong desire to prolong the pleasant experiences and memories associated with the cast. The act of a simple phone call to my colleague telling him that I had injured my ankle, was in a cast, and would be a bit late was the declaration of irreversible commitment to keeping the cast. This scenario was now playing itself out again. I was now mentally committed to keeping this cast and was simply debating with myself as how to take that final step, or whether an "act of commitment" to someone else was even necessary. When I finished dressing and gathering my things for the day I didn’t linger with the decision any longer. I simply walked out of the apartment, drove to the university, walked into my department, and was greeted with the usual double takes, stares, and flurry of concerned questions that accompany the sudden appearance of someone in a cast. Only my closest friend had a slight skeptical glint in his eye and smiled as he observed my cast but said very little. We each had silently recognized the subtle clues in each other that belie one’s deeply private fixation on feet and I am confident that he had envious enjoyment seeing my cast for the next five weeks.

I wore the cast for a full six weeks, so on a late March Friday I left a bit early for an "appointment with the orthopedist", went home, and removed my beloved cast. Adding the time in the cast I had worn six months earlier to this one, I had spent 91 of the last 203 days, or 45% of my time, in a walking cast. Amazingly, instead of satisfying my fetish, it only whetted my appetite for the next long-term adventure which I was already planning to coincide with the move to my new position the following January. I was not going to miss such an opportunity for wearing a long-term cast and, when the time came, I appeared on the first day in a new walking cast which I then wore for six weeks. Even though I had returned to the northern winter, I still wanted to enjoy my cast with exposed toes. So when I arrived each morning, I established a routine and simply plucked off my toe sock as a matter of course after I removed my coat. No one ever commented on this but it was fun to watch peoples’ reaction and interest in seeing a cast being worn with exposed toes in the middle of winter. Even before this move and what would be my third long-term cast in a sixteen month period, I couldn’t curb my insatiable desire to wear a walking cast whenever possible. In the eight-month stretch before moving to the new position, I managed to spend several more weekends wearing a cast. On one of these occasions, I had a spectacular experience that was purely the result of serendipity and was the stuff that dreams are made of.