A whale of a man—let's call him "Jones"—is beached on a stripped mattress in the basement of a three-story house in Williamstown, N.J. A trio of slender girls in strappy tank tops and skirts-up-to-there stand on top of him, giggling nervously as they grind their bare feet into his chest.

Harder, harder, he pleads, I can take it. They're on the clock here, so whatever the customer wants; they rake painted toenails across his belly, crush their feet against his Adam's apple and tromp the bulge in his jeans. In a sadistic grand finale, they leap up and down in unison as if double dutching. His ribs seem to crack in time to the techno shaking the walls upstairs. But Jones' euphoric smile says it all.

When the 10-minute trampling session is up, he dusts himself off, then wipes down each of the girls' feet with paper towels soaked in witch hazel. It's a surprisingly tender gesture.

To the neighbors living on this minivan-lined street, tonight's gathering might resemble any other party where girls dress like whorish secretaries and guys drink Crystal Palace gin from red plastic cups. That's the view from the outside. But for the 50 or so foot fetishists who paid $50 to $75 each to get inside, this is a brief step into heaven.

Darryl, a 40-year-old federal employee with a foot fetish, has been coming to these parties for months. He's done seven private sessions tonight and he's only been here two hours. (A private session includes all manner of foot worship—massaging, kissing, licking, tickling, sniffing, sucking, smothering, trampling, etc.—behind closed doors at a rate of $20 for every 10 minutes of foot action.)

Hot N Sexy Feet's (HNSF) parties are a big deal for Darryl, who always feared women would label him "some kind of freak" if they ever discovered his dark secret. "I thought I was imagining the whole thing," he says of his first party. "I thought it was too good to be true." Nowadays, Darryl says girls at the party line up for his "famous" foot massages.

"There's a lot of shame in this fetish, which I find surprising," says Sara, 21, an English teacher/dominatrix from New Brunswick, N.J., who also wrote about the parties for $pread Magazine. "Of all the things you could be into, this is so tame."

So tame, in fact, a recent issue of Details ran a three-page feature on the mainstreaming of foot fetishes; eBay is rife with Sniff This! ads for stinky old shoes; and director Quentin Tarantino has worked his fetish into just about every film in his repertoire.

And yet it takes some of HNSF's clients years to gather enough courage to come clean about their preference, let alone attend a party. One potential worshipper drove 180 miles from Washington, D.C., to HNSF's old party headquarters in Allentown, sat in the driveway for an hour hyperventilating, then turned around and drove home.

Of course the fetish scene in Philadelphia used to be much different before organized parties existed, with foot fetishists seeking their kicks in S&M dungeons, strip clubs and massage parlors. "We were all in the closet then," recalls Tubby, a 55-year-old submissive fetishist, who has spent the better part of the last 35 years licking feet, folding laundry and asking one mistress or another for permission to masturbate. "Gays were in the closet. S&M was not even in the closet—it was in the closet in the attic that nobody ever went to."

Let it be known: Steve Redmond is a leg man. And John Campbell, well, he loves darting his tongue between girls' toes. "We've stumbled into a gold mine," says Redmond, 32, one of the three organizers behind HNSF.

Along with partner Mike Thompson, Redmond and Campbell were dumbfounded by the sheer numbers; fetish Web sites estimate there are some 700 foot clubs in the United States alone and nearly 68 million podophiliacs worldwide. (Shrinks stress the importance of distinguishing between true fetishists and people who simply like feet, often associating poor social skills, intimacy problems and unbecoming sociopathic tendencies with the former.) And now that HNSF has been plugged on The Howard Stern Show and advertised in the back of papers like this one, the promoters make roughly $3,000 on every party. And that doesn't include the $300 to $600 each of the girls take home.

Because it's "just feet," Campbell says he's able to recruit a caliber of woman that would otherwise never consider working in the adult industry. He seeks out girls on MySpace.com, on university campuses and in Old City bars. He says he has a 50 percent callback rate.

HNSF's detractors have accused the company of foot pimping—and worse, prostitution. "They're just jealous," says Campbell. "This is not a brothel; it's a party. … Foot action just happens to be part of the deal."

Just how legal are these parties? There's an old courthouse truism that any time you mix cum and money, it's probably illegal. While HNSF in no way condones foot jobs (think hand job or blowjob, but with nimble-toed feet), its proprietors don't exactly crack down on them either. "Look, we know every cop in this town," says Campbell, voice sinking to a whisper and motioning around the party. "There's two cops in here right now."

By 11 o'clock, the party's in full swing. A middle-aged man in cubicle-monkey attire sprawls at the foot of the sofa in the white-on-white living room. This is "James," and he's Jen's first client.

James has asked very little of the 27-year-old novice, simply to let him stroke and caress her feet and calves. His eyes are closed and he wears an expression of

opiate bliss; Jen says he hasn't moved all night. At the standard rate, she's already made $60. "And all I have to do is just put my feet on him like he's a rug."

Jen says the steep session cost and door fee weeds out "creeps" and undesirables. "These guys are doctors and lawyers, computer programmers, guys who can afford it. And I'm getting paid to have my feet pampered by them—it's a pretty good deal."

Nearby, 10 people wait in a line for access to five private rooms upstairs. "Mike," a fortysomething bachelor who delivers flowers for a living, is standing in that line wearing a Hooters University T-shirt and clutching a lunchbox stuffed with Polaroids of women's feet. He's waiting with frosty-lipped Alanna, an 18-year-old car model with a whatchu-lookin'-at exterior. His desperate attempts at small talk—You from around here? Do you go to school? Are you Puerto Rican, because I like Oriental-looking Puerto Rican women?—are met with complete indifference.

When I talk to Alanna, I get the same eye-roll treatment. "These guys are like, 'Oh my god, your toes are so sexy,' and I'm like just thinking about the money," she says. "It's weird, but whatever. So long as I don't see their you-know-what."

The next foot worshipping party takes place Sat., Dec. 10, 7 p.m., in Williamstown, N.J. The theme is "Daisy Dukes." Call John Campbell at 609-280-8657, e-mail him at ejohn@hotnsexyfeet.com or visit www.hotnsexyfeet.com to sign up.