The toenails.

Winnie’s feet were not just the envy of all females who saw them, or the proof she was the ultimate alpha female that used her sexy paws like male’s fetishes to submit them, but the reflexologists delight who gave her a weekly free session while all her trauma escaped though him.

Because, indeed, she collected about fifteen shocks per working week. Her job as a criminal solicitor was both too much and too little: every night she promised herself she’d change job even if she had to scrub the restroom, yet every morning she got up earlier and earlier, younger and younger, more excited and stronger, to face the challenging day ahead.

The manicurist practised her hardly obtained nail art diploma on her toes and paid her 100 pounds for a picture of the result. Winnie didn’t need that money, so she just stashed it all inside an old vase her mother in law had brought to her from Thailand.

The vase was so ugly nobody even bothered to dust it. She didn’t know how much she’d need that money one day.

Soon came the day she became a partner of the solicitors firm, and her work, family and spiritual responsibilities made her forget she was just a mortal. A high achieving alpha female mortal who seemed hard like stone, but so fragile inside she could just melt that vase by letting all of her repressed tears fill it.

And this was all Tom’s fault. He had started to get jealous of her work success and to abuse her, to go out at night and stuff his nostrils with gear, only to comeback in the early morning stinking of one pound shop perfume.

Covid was almost over thank goodness and her two young twins had started school. Ever so demanding as they were, there was no more time left for girly treats, for she had become the sole breadwinner.

– Why is dad angry when I drop a lego? Why does dad call you Miss Super-Duper?

The pain of watching her little twins grow in a crazy household made her start loosing her teeth, one by one.

Yes, cocaine addicts, she knew them all well. She would get to the bottom of their hearts just to find the key to let them get away with the most horrendous crimes.

Now was wishing she had got them all isolated for life and beyond.

One day she went to a visit to the dentist, and there was a foreigner in the waiting room. He asked her why she was wearing boots during the summer, in sign language. He had no teeth, yet a smile that could whisk you into a dreamland of happiness for a precious minute.

She said she had no time to cut her toenails, that whenever she wanted to, either he phone rung, her twins both started yelling, or her husband asked for an urgent dish of carbonara because otherwise he’d get an ulcer.

Kooly, which was the foreigners name, didn’t understand a word nor a sign, but Winnie had never felt such strong empathy from anyone in her life. She broke into tears. He wiped her tears before she went in to fix a painful tooth, and offered to take her home on his bike.

He sung some sort of foreign song all the way and was dodging police cars all the time, which made the handles and the wheels tickle her.

That’s how a new love story begun, during the perfect moment. His resourcefulness surprised her everyday, they made up a language that no one could understand. He worked as a Gardener and was paid in fifty pe coins everyday, funnily enough, so he always was eager to get rid of them, just by pampering her.

Seven months down the line…. winnie still hadn’t had time to cut her toenails, for she was so inlove and busy and scared of her twins father at the same time, that toenails seemed the least annoying thing, yet they hurt more than her now recovering teeth.

The dentist offered implants and told her she’d lose her career with that kind of smile, but she didn’t care….. she actually wished her career smashed.

One day Kooly and her went into an Internet cafe and he spoke with his family on Skype. They were so happy to meet her, showed her the chicken, the rabbits, the cows, the kids drawings and artwork, the swimming pool, the beach….

Winnie absolutely had to go there.

– Kooly, I’d like to leave London and go there for a week. I wish we could lie down at sunset and you could cut my toenails.

All travel booked, five pairs of nails clippers packed in her writsbag, divorce settlement solved and the savings from the Thai vase just in case, off they went to a destination she didn’t know.

She was so excited and so were the girls, she was leaving ten pounds tips to every member off staff from the journey.

But once they got there, they were stopped at customs. Yes, the five pairs of suspicious nail clippers! They had a judge to question them. Kooly sorted it all out with the vase cash.

So! At last they were at the beach, twins playing with Koolys relatives and enjoying the merryness of sign language, when Winnie got a call from her ex mother in law. Tom had agreed to sign himself in to a detox clinic. She also asked for the vase, in a very funny and evasive manner. She ended up admitting that she desperately wanted it back.

How strange….!

-I can’t return it to you, but I’ll post you a new one from the destination I’m at.

Another 3 days with painful toes.

Winnie got her a souvenir from the local market and wrote a letter to Tom too.

When would the perfect moment to cut her toenails come?

Fed up, she told the twins to climb some palm trees with the bigger girls supervision, and lay down on a hammock.

– Otto kaka manicure!!! She told Kooly.

He was ready to cut her toenails when a gush of tropical wind stole her hat, and said,

– No capicci manicure! Turning the nail clippers around and observing them closely from every angle as if they were a dangerous insect.

A teenage boy appeared and shouted something she understood: hir mother had been rushed into hospital.

The boy was his son! He had been hiding that he had a family! As he threw the nailclippers into the ocean and disappeared like a gold winning athlete, Winnies mobile rung.

It was Tom. He had been refusing to eat, drink and bathe unless he was granted a call to her.

He told her the Vase was worth the price of a house, and that they could retire there, just there, where she was with her twins, because he owed his twins life to Kooly, and he wanted to make up with her and give the chance to Kooly and his family to open a little business.

– How did you know Kooly had a family? And why didn’t you tell me this before?

– I hired a detective. I’m clean in 22 days and will be there with you. Just don’t hate Kooly, and please don’t you dare to cut your toenails, I want to be the only man on Earth who cuts them for you!!!

The End.