Soxual Harassment

Hey, it’s me – you know, the sock in question. I hope I’m not bothering you at all – but I gotta talk to somebody. I’ve got this little problem – I don’t really know how it happened. Things started out pretty innocently, but….well – here’s the thing:

I guess, to tell the truth, I didn’t mind so much when it all started. I mean, I started out like everybody else so it’s not like I was pre-destined to be special. I know this because the guys on the shelf said they heard her tell the guy who is forbidden from touching any yarns on our shelf to be sure to make me the exact same way – everytime. And, he did.

Now, how I got from a batt to a yarn was pretty special – but, still, not totally unique. Most of us guys on ‘her’ shelf are spun the same way – a few of the wilder, more exotic types were made by machine. Still, I have to say, I was enjoying myself with the way she caressed me and called me sweet names.

It creeped me out a little when I was all spun up and she kissed me before plunging me into a scalding hot bath – I was a little gun shy the next time she kissed me – but it appears the hot water torture was a one time affair. And the kiss? Well, it was really just a good –night peck before she went to sleep. A few of the guys on the shelf have also experienced the weird and surreal experience of being propped up next to her as she sleeps. Apparently, it only happens once in a blue moon. Perhaps most disturbing was when she first put me on. I gotta tell you, it did feel nice. Aside from our obvious differences, we’re a perfect fit. And, when she wiggled her foot around, I, well, let’s just say I was a man with no complaints. I just wished we weren't being watched because the second she went, “mraowww, I love you,” I knew I’d never hear the end of it. Naturally, it raised some eyebrows and there was much ribbing from the guys about me being a great stud – until my face got all red and our leader made them stop. He’s chomping at the bit to get made into a shawl so, you know, he’s pretty serious about his job. He said the blush would disturb her, being as there’s no red in me at all. They nixed the picking pretty instantly. Clearly, you can be ‘removed’ from the shelf at any time.

As time went on, I got a little tired of her constant compliments. “oh, gawd you are cute,” she’d squeal. It lost its luster over time. The shrill shriek of pleasure she’d let out when the light from the window caught all the glitzy sparkle in my yarn while she was knitting lost its chime-like charm after she did it over and over. The guys have been pecking at me non-stop because she has ceased to work on any of the shelf projects OR the wip’s in the basket, whatever that means. See this fabric I’m laying on, here? That was supposed to have been cut days ago but, still, she won’t put me down. I knew things were totally out of hand when she finished the heel, turned me over to ‘examine my color structure’ and rubbed my heel gently and said, and I quote, “the money shot,” with a lustful grin that made me very uncomfortable. I heard the guys on the shelf roaring that night and that is when I decided it was time to end this – even if she is a pretty nice girl. Still, enough is enough. It was time for me to make her see the impossibility of this relationship. I mean, I’m a sock – just a sock!

The next day was rough. I was shaking in my shoes. I almost lost my nerve. But, then came the petting and more cooing and some sinister giggles and that’s when I finally worked up the nerved to twist and turn my stitches around all wrong in hopes of lessening her enchantment with me. Unfortunately, my plans were not well thought through as she was just beginning a new stitch pattern and, therefore, was more attentive to those twists and caught the errors only a few rows in. You could have heard a pin drop when she realized it, though. Utter. Painful. Silence….and then she put me down and just glared at me a while. I withered. She ripped those rows back with a venom that made me reconsider my desire to cease being her favorite. I almost begged for mercy as she put me back on the shelf. I knew that things had changed for us forever. I felt so ungrateful....such the betrayer of her gentle, albeit vampish, affections.

It was this state of grief, combined with the shocked looks on the guys’ faces when she came right for me the next morning, that made me doubt my choice and, so, I eagerly reached out to her and made sure to glance back at the shelf confidently as she whisked me away. I must admit, I felt invincible when I heard their astounded gasps and little things like, ‘she’s never been so quick to forgive any of us,’ and ‘hey, what’s he got that I ain’t got?’ and simultaneously watched their outer strings drop to the shelf in awe.

Lulled into this false sense of security and emboldened by what I mistook for true love and fervent admiration, I walked right into the lion’s mouth. No one could deny that things felt ‘different’. Nothing you could really pinpoint, just not the same. She still caressed and cooed and generally lusted over me, but she kept talking to someone else. “Oh, isn’t he a nice one?” she’d say, and then I caught a glimpse of something very troubling out of the corner of my center-pull. It would seem that she mistook my request for ‘cooling off’ as a cry of loneliness and sorrow. She felt that the reasons it would not work were clear – that I would need a partner more like, well, like me. She misinterpreted what I was trying to tell her about why a sock cannot be so intimately involved with a person as a cry for help, a desire to have a partner of my own. Together, we are to be used for her sick pleasure. And, now, she’s setting this googley-eyed thing next to me every day and – agh! I can’t bear it – an arranged marriage!