Confessions of a Kinky Divorcee (5 page)

Once I’ve told her everything – except the bit about fondling my tenant’s bum – she reaches across and takes my hands, golden bangles clinking. ‘I just thought you’d like a rich guy who worshipped your feet. If he’s not for you, he’s not for you. But he’ll understand, girl. From what I’ve seen, he’s pretty decent.’

‘What makes you think I don’t like him?’ I ask.

Gladys rolls her eyes. ‘Energy … tone … blah, blah, blah … Plus you’re my mate. I know these things.’

I give a sigh. ‘Gladys, I think I’m having a mid-life crisis.’

Gladys snorts. ‘Join the effing club. I’m thinking of taking up belly dancing in Madeira and having sex with five oiled Chippendales. Does that sound like non-crisis behaviour?’ I grin because I can’t help it – Gladys can’t fail to make me abandon my cares. ‘Seriously,’ she says, ‘Think about my life.’ So I do.

Thing is, Gladys divorced a guy who started beating on her after their son took off to heaven knows where. Sometimes, this son drops her an email. She doesn’t think he ever reads her replies. This, I have decided, would be enough to drive any vegetarian back towards meat pies. ‘And every time I get a guy home, I go off him,’ Gladys says, toying with half a sausage. ‘Take Guy. Nice man. Like him a lot. But in bed, he pulls out halfway through – well, halfway through
for me
– and comes all over my shoes, hand jerking away like he’s shaking a bottle of ketchup. And I’m not like you, Debs. I like my shoes, but there’s a limit.’

I make a face, like I’m appalled – especially since she clearly thinks I’d want this kind of attention! But in truth she isn’t wrong because I feel a little turned on. Me and my fricking libido.

‘Thank God for my trusty vibe,’ she says.

‘Your what?’

‘Vibrator,’ she says. And I have to look at my hands – I’ve never been so embarrassed. ‘You do
have
a sex toy, don’t you?’ she says. ‘A vibe or a dildo? Or a porn vid or two?’ And when she sees me shake my head, she says, ‘Holy smoke, I can’t believe we’ve never talked about this. No vibrator? Really? I mean, how do you survive?’

Holy punch-bag, Kitten! Suddenly,
any
topic of conversation is better than ‘things to stick up your privates’ so I decide to trust her and spill the beans about my latest problem. ‘Listen, Glads,’ I say. ‘Can you keep a secret?’

‘My lips are sealed,’ she says, chewing on some sausage.

‘I think … I might have the hots for my tenant.’

Gladys’s face lights up. ‘You old dog!’ she cries, laughing and slamming the table so everything jolts and clanks. Then her brow furrows as the cogs turn. ‘Hold on,’ she says, ‘I thought your tenant was a girl.’

‘She is.’

Gladys stops chewing. ‘Oh,’ she says, putting her fork back down. She looks at me for a while, her head tipped. Then she raises her eyebrows and falls back in her chair. ‘Well, is this tenant a lezzie too?’

I nod, trying to ignore the L-word.

‘Bull’s-eye,’ Gladys announces. ‘So where’s the prob?’

The ease with which she says this takes me aback. ‘She’s got a girlfriend,’ I say.

‘Are they serious?’ she asks.

I say I don’t think so – it looked like they were fighting last night.

Gladys throws up her hands. ‘Again I say, where’s the prob?’

‘Glads, she’s twenty-something. It would be like child abuse.’

‘Don’t be silly. Why d’you think Guy came on to me? I’m twenty years his senior! Because all the young ones are screwing forty-year-olds these days. We oldies are a fetish. Haven’t you heard of cougars?’

‘That’s a man thing, isn’t it?’

Gladys gives another snort. ‘Sweetie,’ she says, nabbing a forkful of my potato. ‘I love you, but you make a very odd queer.’

Back at the store, Pearl calls in with a sore throat. It’s me, alone, with nothing to do except stare out at the rain, so when my phone goes off, I’m relieved. Turns out it’s Guy. As I answer, I feel lightheaded from this crush of mine, and as soon as I hear his swanky-smooth accent I’m melting on the spot. He asks if I’m busy and, when I say I’m not, he says he’d guessed as much, with this weather. ‘I want you to do something for me,’ he says, and when I ask what, he tells me he’s going to buy me a pair of shoes.

‘Hold on,’ I say, ‘sweet as that is, I can’t accept gifts. It doesn’t feel right.’

‘Well, I’m sure the manager of that lovely store of yours will give you back your money,’ he says, ‘especially if you decide you can’t accept the goods.’

I laugh. He laughs.

‘All right,’ I say. After all, I could do with a lift.

With that, he makes me walk him around the store, filling him in on the shoes I like. Something in black with heels, he says. Something where you can see a fair amount of foot. ‘Think cleavage,’ he tells me, ‘but the foot variety.’

I’m about to remind him that defining ‘cleavage’ depends on my knowing which part of my foot is the ‘breast’, and he gives a sexy, slightly devilish laugh that makes me burn. I walk him through classic stilettos, sparkly wedges, kitten-heel evening sandals, spiky-heeled strappy shoes; and of course, seeing as shoes are some of my favourite items on earth, I get all chirpy and excitable. Soon, we’re having a good old naughty chinwag about how five-inch heels do lovely things to the calf, and whether wedge heels can ever be called ‘lickable’. I feel turned on and embraced for who I am, all at the same time.

Henry was never interested in my shoes. He wasn’t the shoe type. But somehow, I managed to convince myself that this meant
I
wasn’t interesting – and suddenly, flirting with Guy, I can see how wrong I was.

He opts for a pair of black pointy slingback stilettos, with silver reflective heels, and makes me model them in front of the mirror. ‘Good,’ he says, as I strut towards my reflection. ‘Now, tell me what you look like.’

My cheeks flush and I check that there aren’t any customers. But the shop – in fact the whole darn street – is silent and empty, what with the rain coming down. So what the hell? If this makes me crazily horny, I can always slip round the back of the shop and … you know … go to the bathroom.

(Dear God, Kitten. What a floozy I’ve become!).

So I describe my legs in their flesh-coloured sheers, the calves pulled taut as I stride. And his voice becomes breathier, heavier, more strained. ‘Do your hips … move when you walk?’ he asks, making the word ‘walk’ sound like a controlled explosion. And when I tell him that yes, my hips rock a little in my pencil skirt because of how tight it is, he says, ‘I want you to know that I just unzipped. I’m sitting behind my desk, with my personal assistant just outside the door, and I’m jerking at myself like crazy. That’s how horny you make me.’ He pauses, as pleasure floods to my groin and I’m suddenly hot with arousal and shame. ‘Are you turned on?’ he asks.

‘Yes,’ I whisper.

He calls on the Lord then and lets out a groan, before telling me to sit in a chair and run my fingers beneath my skirt before stroking all the way from the top of my thigh down to the bridge of my foot. When I do this, it feels like my hands are his, and my legs tingle beneath my fingertips. I glance up, in case someone is watching. And I’m surprised to find how disappointed I am not to see a voyeur beyond the glass.

‘I want to grab your foot,’ he tells me, ‘and press it onto my cock.’

‘Are you hard?’ I find myself asking.

‘Never been harder,’ he says, through a moan.

Oh, God! The mere thought of Guy being hard makes my pussy heat and fill. I feel like grinding my groin against the chair I’m sitting on – grinding and grinding until I come. In fact, just the thought makes me revolve my hips a little and the pleasure is such a relief that I grip the seat of the chair. ‘Touch yourself,’ he moans.

I’m sorely tempted. ‘It wouldn’t be professional,’ I say.

‘That’s what makes it fun,’ he says. ‘God, I’m so close to shooting off.’

And without even thinking, I’m trailing my fingers up my stockings and beneath my skirt again – except this time I hitch my skirt up a little in order to burrow deeper, and there I am, sitting in Pussyfoot Shoes, with my thighs spread and my fingers rubbing my pussy through the gusset of my knickers, softly at first, and then faster, faster.

‘That’s it,’ he says, softly, his voice like a soft roar. ‘I can tell you’re doing it. Your breathing’s changed.’

‘Where … are you going to … come?’ I gasp, right at the brink of climax.

‘Oh, God,’ he moans, ‘oh, sweet, fucking God.’

‘Say it,’ I plead, so close to climax that it hurts.

‘All over your shoes,’ he moans, and then he shouts out, ‘All over your fucking feet!’ and suddenly he’s groaning, out of control, all ‘yes’ and ‘God’ and ‘holy fuck’ and ‘sweet Jesus’ and ‘oh, oh, oh’.

And suddenly, I imagine him walking through the door and finding me there, with my thighs spread, rubbing my pussy as I stare at him, and he glares at me, all lust and power, and unzips his trousers before grasping his cock and jerking away at it, before stumbling towards me as he comes all over my shoes, covering my stockinged feet in a stream of warm liquid. And suddenly, I’m tipping into an unhinged orgasm that arcs and floods and makes me cry out, grasping the chair with my free hand.

And you know what he says, Kitten, as I sink back, panting and amazed? He says, ‘You are the hottest woman to ever have graced a pair of high heels.’ And though my whole face flushes, I smile.

7.15 p.m.

I’m on the bus, on my way home, and the weather’s still hopeless. Plus my afternoon wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. After the sizzling phone sex with Guy, I felt as if I’d tainted the shop. When customers eventually came in, I felt unprofessional, sleazy and corrupt. I was certain I smelled of sex, even though I’d soaped myself down, and my patter wasn’t as smooth as normal. Then Guy called me and said he wanted to buy me the shoes I’d worn, and I accepted – not because I felt I should, but because seeing them there, on the central display, kept making my stomach churn. How could I watch another woman trying them on? I’d feel cheap.

8.15 p.m.

So I heated up some soup and had dinner in front of the TV. No sign of Janey. It’s times like these when I kind of miss Henry. I mean, there was always a TV show we’d watch together, chat about it a bit, moan about how improbable the whole lousy plot was. That was Henry all over, though – we got on perfectly when we were complaining about someone that wasn’t one of us. And of course, Gladys works at the pub on Wednesday evenings – she’s only doing the job so she can study half-time in psychology. That’s Gladys for you. Intelligent type.

Anyhoo, I started worrying about Janey a little. Going out, God knows where, with a girl like Lil? But how silly! Acting like the girl’s mother! (Maybe I need a pet or something. A cat. I’d like a cat.) Still, when I move the magazines out of the way, so I can rest my feet on the coffee table, I notice a battered book with a pic of a platform sandal on the front. It’s called
Shoe: A History
. One of Janey’s study books, I’m guessing. With my feet up, I lie back, letting the aches drain out of my pins, and I open it to a random page and start to read. ‘Yes, limitation was part of the stiletto’s original purpose. By essentially binding the foot, the whole walk and stance of the wearer is changed – they are forced to walk in a restricted style, which many found sexy. All the same, an argument can be made for empowerment where restriction is
truly
chosen and eventually overcome. We choose to restrict ourselves when we take on a stronger opponent in order to learn the art of boxing; or when we have a tattoo in order to express ourselves – a piece of art that may never be removed. Women who regularly wear high heels become adept at doing almost anything in them. And of course, considering a stiletto heel can make a fearful weapon, it makes no sense to say that all stiletto wearers are disempowered. In fact, the rise of the dominatrix archetype suggests the very opposite.’

I was so inspired by what I was reading that I didn’t notice my phone was ringing. When I answered, it was Gladys. ‘I thought you were working tonight,’ I said.

‘I am, poppet, but I wanted to check in. Make sure you’re OK.’

‘I’m fine,’ I say. In the background, I hear the front door open and slam.

‘I didn’t mean to make fun of you being a bit gay and all that,’ says Gladys. ‘Felt awful about it afterwards. I mean, you came out to me – that’s a privilege, and I’d hate you to think –’

‘Came out!’ I cried, horrified. ‘I did not come out!’

‘Saying, “I have a crush on a woman” is coming out, pet, like it or not.’

I open my mouth to say something, but I have no response, so I close it again, silent. At last, I say, ‘I didn’t think about it that way. But you’re right. And you don’t have to apologise, Glads. You were joking around. No harm.’

Gladys gives a sigh of relief. ‘Well, good. Anyway, what you up to?’

I tell her I’m reading this amazing book about the politics of the stiletto and she erupts in a fit of laughter. ‘Politics! That’s zany!’

‘What’s zany?’

‘They’re only shoes, love. They’re hardly going to start a revolution!’

And she jokes like that for quite a while, until I’m fed up and have to say goodbye. Who made Gladys the bloody queen of academic study? Still embittered, I wander out of the living-room and almost bump into Janey. She’s wearing tracky bums and a tight, white T-shirt that says ‘Bless the Butch’ on the front. In one hand she’s holding a pair of green hand weights, and in the other she’s carrying some kind of green smoothie that looks depressingly like pondweed. ‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ I say.

‘That’s me,’ she says, all serious. ‘Always creeping around.’

Thinking of the way I explored her buttocks while she was sleeping, I guiltily flush. ‘Actually,’ I say, in an attempt to change the topic, ‘I was just perusing your shoe book.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ she says. She smiles then – it’s always so welcome and unexpected, that sweet, blue-eyed sparkle. ‘What did you think?’ And she tips her head, so genuinely interested that all of a sudden I’m babbling on about restriction and empowerment, and how I see that all the time at the shop.

‘How so?’ she asks.

I tell her about my drag queen who came in the other day. You’d never know Billie was a drag queen – stunning woman, she is – but she had a drag contest coming up, like she often does, and needed to look snazzy. ‘She says stuff like, “Shoes are the soul of me. Without them, I lack confidence and suddenly I’m worried about what everybody thinks.”’