Bootblacking is top level kink because it's one of the few I can think of where the nominal sub is treated as a thoughtful, knowledgeable technician from the outset.
Like, a flogging bottom might be praised for their ability to take pain and know their limits, or a rope bunny might be recognised as keeping themselves in good physical shape so they can hold complicated stress positions for longer than a novice, but even the most beginner of beginner bootblacks has learnt a little bit of materials science (Will this type of brush scratch this patent finish?), a little bit of basic chemistry (If these were last polished with a silicone wax, how do I remove that to start to bull them?), a little bit of leatherworking history (Is that natural fibre stitching on those surplused Warsaw Pact boots, will my polish rot it?) and spent time practising techniques on their own boots.
And it's one of the few kinks I can think of where the top is so immediately physically and emotionally vulnerable to the bottom in that way: I put my foot in the hands of a stranger bootblacking at a party, and I trust that they won't damage the boots I was gifted by my long-dead Master when I was 17, that they won't soak the stitching and start the rot of the boots I was wearing when I first fucked the love of my life, I trust that they'll carefully work around and treat the cuts and scuffs in the leather that I picked up wearing these same boots marshalling at a dozen prides and going toe-to-toe with strikebreakers and scabs on twenty years' worth of picket lines. The experienced bootblack can look at my soles and where my boots crease, and see that I have a weak hip, that I'm slightly bowlegged, that I don't drive and that I walk even in the weather where I'd rather not. And I trust that they'll see that worn-out, poor, slightly sad old man and still call me "sir".
It just feels like a lot.
@spitfaggot
the joke among my leather circle is "everyone subs for a bootblack," not necessarily that bootblacking = sub or dom, but rather, we could have the most stone-top, left-pocket-black-flagging, powder-coated-steel-paddle-gripping Sir Dom, and all a bootblack has to do is move their wesco boot with a palm and they obey. "give me this foot." tugging laces loose with one practiced finger. hefting a heavy-soled engineer up to wrench pebbles loose from in between the lugs. "stay still." taking finger-fulls of huberd's and lathing it meticulously and lavishly over a pair of oil tans - watching my customer curiously eye the lubricated shine with a rising heat behind their cheeks. planting the full weight of their boot on my shoulder and commanding them, gently, to press their weight onto me.
there's something so deeply fulfilling in being a technician, someone who restores leather like a museum archivist, accentuating scratches and blemishes and returning life to those leather pieces so they can go on to keep fucking, kicking, running. i am as much a craftsman as i am a history keeper. my respect is given not just by the titles i refer to you with, but the care i have given to your boots, jackets, and harnesses, and the stories they tell.
