by Roxie Noir
Her shoes weren’t her only problem. In her rush, she’d somehow picked the most ill-fitting outfit she owned, all items that had fit her better ten or even twenty pounds ago, before she’d gained the stress-weight of her final year in college. She and Ethan had been fighting a lot, and her thesis advisor had practically been Satan himself. The pants she was wearing dug into her waist uncomfortably and threatened to slide down her ass every time she shifted in her chair. Her breasts bubbled out the top of her bra, and her shirt kept riding up. Valerie was paying more attention to keeping herself decently covered for the day than she was to her work.
Luckily, Mr. Declan seemed to be staying in his office with the door cracked.
When she had to go get something from the color printer, on the other side of the office, she tried to move quietly and stealthily so no one would see what a mess she was that day. Like a panther, she thought to herself. Like a graceful panther, just going to get some printouts.
Printout in hand, she turned, and then there he was: Jasper Declan, standing at the door to his office, looking right at her, in her stupid shirt and stupid pants and extra-stupid flip-flops. Her stomach flipped over, and she thought she might pass out, die, puke, or all three, right there.
Instead, Valerie gathered herself. She stood up straight. She smiled, and she walked back toward her desk.
“Good morning, Mr. Declan,” she said as if it were any Monday morning. Her palms and underarms had broken into sweat, but she wasn’t going to show him that.
“Good morning, Valerie,” he said. He didn’t smile but stood, tree-like, in his gray suit in the doorway to his office. “Do you have a minute?”
Valerie’s sweaty hands went cold.
“Sure,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. She put the printout down on her desk, straightened her chair, and walked past him into his office.
Jasper closed the door most of the way, leaving it about six inches open. Valerie sat in one of the chairs facing her desk, the same one she’d sat in on Friday before the scotch and the finger bang. She crossed her legs and tried to adjust her pants and top without looking like she was adjusting her pants and top, sat up straight, put her hands on the chair’s arms.
As he walked past, Jasper ran one finger down the back of Valerie’s neck, slowly. It sent goosebumps down her whole body. Under her ill-fitting bra, her nipples puckered.
Jasper sat in his big leather chair, folded his hands on his desk, and looked at her.
“Miss Bridge, we have a dress code at Declan and Soames,” he said.
Valerie tried to push her feet further under the chair she was sitting in.
“Your outfit is barely work-appropriate,” he said. “But flip-flops are explicitly against policy. Explicitly.”
“I’m sorry,” Valerie blurted out. “I was running late, and I had these on for the train and I forgot to bring heels.”
“As my assistant, I expect you to exemplify Declan and Soames,” Jasper went on. “When clients come in and see you, wearing flip flops, what will they expect? When the other assistants see you dressed like this, they’ll lower their standards.”
Valerie’s face burned.
“In this business, image is everything,” he said. “It’s a hard truth, but they way you look matters here.”
Valerie nodded. “I understand,” she said. She felt miserable. Friday night he’d been so eager to get into her panties he’d literally ripped them off of her, but here, in the cold light of day, everything was different. Maybe it had been the whiskey talking, back then.
“It’s also important to work with what you’re given in advertising,” he said.
Valerie frowned.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“If someone provides you with something—say, a phrase, or a piece of art—they might like to see you use it.”
Well, that confirmed that he’d sent the skirts—not that she’d needed confirmation, she wasn’t a moron. She felt her shirt ride up again and she tried to pull it down, casually.
“I see,” she said.
Jasper wrote something on a post-it note and handed it to her: an address, about five blocks away.
“I need you to go there and tell the man at the counter that I sent you,” he said. “Please do it right away. The brochure you were working on can wait another hour.”
They looked at each other for a moment.
“That’s all,” Jasper said.
Valerie rose, pulled at her clothing, and left his office.
Chapter Six
Half an hour later she stood in front of a small store with enormous glass doors. The doors had beautifully polished brass handles, each the size of her torso. It was simply called SCARPE, embossed across the doors in big, bold, gold letters. She pulled the door open and went in, immediately feeling out of place in her ugly flip-flops and ill-fitting clothes. In the center of the little store was a plush leather couch, facing a small selection of shoes and boots: high heels, knee-high boots, all in beautiful leather. It even smelled beautiful.
“Can I help you?” a young, accented man behind the counter asked.
Valerie adjusted her bag on her shoulder nervously. “I’ve been sent by Mr. Jasper Declan,” she said.
“Yes, of course,” he said. He came around the counter and gestured at the chair. “Please, have a seat while I get your items from the back.”
As he walked through another door, Valerie perched on the sofa, put her bag next to her and tried not to touch anything. She couldn’t see any prices, of course, but they were probably in the hundreds of dollars, at least. Valerie ran a hand over the sofa. It was buttery-soft, and she found herself stroking it, rubbing her fingers on its supple surface.
The man re-entered with a shoebox in one hand and a champagne flute in the other. He handed her the flute and Valerie took it even as she thought it’s ten o’ clock in the morning.
It was delicious, of course, and probably expensive as fuck. She took another sip.
The man knelt on the floor in front of her—Valerie prayed he wasn’t getting his suit dirty—and ceremoniously removed one shoe from the box.
Valerie’s eyes widened. The shoe was gorgeous: high-heeled black leather with a rounded toe and a small platform, maybe half an inch, and a thick leather ankle strap. As the man turned the shoe for her inspection, she saw that the back of the ankle had a tiny padlock dangling from it.
“The lock is only decorative, of course,” the man said.
“Of course,” Valerie echoed. She sipped her wine and tried not to read too much into things. She failed.
“You have excellent taste,” he said. “These are nearly sold out. Your right foot, please,” he said.
Valerie held up her right foot, praying that it didn’t smell and wasn’t dirty from wearing flip-flops on the subway every day. If anything was wrong, the man didn’t say anything. He clasped the ankle strap, assessed her foot, and then held his hand for the left foot. When both shoes were on, he sat back and looked at her feet, critically.
“If you could please stand, madam,” he said.
Valerie did, swaying to her feet in the skinny heels.
“Could you please take a few steps?” he said.
Valerie walked to the other end of the couch and back, her cushioned hips gyrating as they always did in heels this high. That was why she wore them, after all.
“These are a little small,” the man finally said. “I’d like to try a half-size up.”
Valerie sat and he took them off of her feet as she sipped the champagne, the glass now half-empty, and sipped more as he went to the back and came out with another box. He put that pair on her feet as well, and he was right: this size felt much better, she thought. Valerie walked all the way around the couch in them, hips and booty waggling with the rhythm of the steps, enjoying watching herself in the store’s mirrors even as the accented salesman seemed utterly unmoved.
“Those feel good?” he asked when she sauntered back to him.
“Excellent,” he said, and removed them from her feet. As he whisked them to the back of the store, Valerie finished her champagne, feeling a little light-headed, and carefully set the delicate glass on a side table. She congratulated herself on not spilling the drink or breaking the glass.
“Your shoes, madam,” the man said when he came back out. He handed her a black bag made of expensive paper with ribbons for handles, the shoebox inside neatly wrapped in paper.
When she took it, he looked at her expectantly. Valerie realized she hadn’t paid for anything. Was she supposed to?
“So, uh,” she said uncertainly. She tried to remember if she had enough in her bank account to cover this.
“The bill will be taken care of by Mr. Declan,” the man said smoothly. “Have a wonderful day.”
Valerie was relieved. “Thank you,” she said, and left the store back into the bright New York summer.
When she walked into the expansive first-floor lobby of her building, she had an idea. Before she went to the elevators, she sat on one of the never-used couches, and took off her flip-flops. Her back to the doors, she hoped none of her coworkers could see her as she quickly took the heels out of their box, caressing their soft leather and little padlocks, and put them on her feet. She put her flip-flops into the box the heels had come out of, and stood.
Her pants fell past her ankles, covering the straps and padlocks, so they looked like any other pair of shoes. Valerie walked to the elevator, feeling the soft jangle of metal against the back of her heel.
It would be their little secret, she thought.
Chapter Seven
Over the next days it became a game, or at least that’s what Valerie thought. A thin bracelet made of braided leather showed up via bike messenger on Monday night, after Valerie got home, and she wore it Tuesday. She could have sworn that when Jasper saw it, he smiled. On Wednesday she wore The Shoes again and Thursday evening she received thigh-high stockings with a seam up the back, soft as butterfly wings. There was no price tag, of course, but there was a note in the package:
I bet you already have a garter belt, it read.
The note was right.
Friday she wore the red pencil skirt, the one he’d sent to her the weekend before. Of the three sizes he’d sent, one was too big and one too small, but one fit just right, hugging her curvy hips and showing off her smaller waist, sculpting itself to the ample swell of her ass. Valerie spent minutes just staring at herself in the mirror before rushing off to work.
When she got there, she felt like everyone was staring as she sashayed into the office. She didn’t mean to sashay, she was just trying to walk, but it was surprisingly hard in her skirt and heels. The other assistants were probably whispering about her, she thought, but then she saw Jasper, standing in the door to his office.
His eyes started at her head and traveled down her body, slowly, and Valerie felt like his gaze was almost physical, a long, slow caress.
“Good morning, Mr. Declan,” she said as she walked toward him.
“Good morning, Valerie,” he said, and nodded. Then he walked back into his office.
Valerie hummed as she went about her work: proofread some copy, schedule some meetings, wrangle the other principals in the company into a time for their yearly board meeting, which was a month away, held in the Hamptons, and would be an absolute pain to manage.
Jasper went to lunch and came back without hardly glancing in her direction, though, and even though Valerie felt stupid about it, she also felt a little crestfallen. What had she been hoping for, she chastised herself, a lunch date in the middle of the workday when they were both surrounded by colleagues?
Still, by 4:30 he hadn’t said or done anything and Valerie realized she was beginning to feel desperate. After their week of indirect flirting, she’d convinced herself that something would come of it by the end of Friday, and here it was. Nothing. Besides that long, hungry look first thing that morning, he’d barely given any indication that she was anything but his assistant.
Finally, at 4:45, she picked up the nearest thing that she’d been working on, walked to his office, and knocked softly on the half-open door.
“Come in,” Jasper said.
She stepped through the doorway, pushed the door until it was almost closed, and looked at him, expectantly. He didn’t look up from his computer screen for several seconds, and when he did, there was nothing in his gaze.
“Mr. Declan,” she said. Her heart beat harder in her chest and adrenaline shot through her body with the knowledge of what she was about to do.
“Yes?”
Valerie steeled herself. “I had some questions about this copy,” she said. She moved to the side of his desk, doing her best seductive walk, and put the sheets of paper on the desk. “The formatting looks a little off...” she said, leaning over the desk and arching her back, looking up at him through her eyelashes.
He glanced at her and back down at the paper.
“This is what the client asked for,” he said. “They were very specific. The formatting is fine.”
Valerie wiggled a little. “Are you sure?”
Jasper locked eyes with her and held her gaze for a long moment.
“Valerie, please don’t come in here with questions like this. I hired you because of your ability to use your judgement to work independently and not bother me with nonsense every five minutes. You know very well that there isn’t anything wrong with the formatting. Now, please leave. I’m very busy.”
Valerie felt ridiculous. She was bent over her boss’s desk like a dog in heat, wiggling her ass around for a man who couldn’t have been less interested—who just wanted to talk about work, and for her to go do her job. Tears began to prick at her eyeballs. She stood up straight.
“Sorry, Mr. Declan,” she said, and hurried out of his office, trying her best not to cry. She left the office fifteen minutes later, exactly at 5pm, without saying goodbye.
Chapter Eight
Valerie finally cried when she was on the subway, still wearing the stupid skirt that he’d bought her but apparently didn’t like, or something. Thankfully, on the subway, no one gave a second glance to the young woman sniffling in the corner. She knew it was dumb to hope for some big sweeping romance with her boss—who was, first and foremost her boss, she reminded herself—but after Ethan had dumped her unceremoniously she’d wanted something to get her mind off of that, and the whole thing with Jasper had seemed like such an exciting fantasy.
She ordered in Indian food she hadn’t budgeted for and watched stupid crime procedurals on her computer until she fell asleep. The next morning she felt a little better, but started wondering again if she should go to work Monday.
As she puttered around her kitchen, slowly making coffee and wondering if she really needed to do the dishes yet, there was a knock on the door. Valerie’s heart felt like it skipped a beat, because lately knocks had been bringing good things—bracelets, stockings—but she knew this knock could be anything.
What if I’m fired? She thought. I could totally sue, she thought, as she walked to the door, even as she knew she’d never win a suit against the company, especially since they could actually afford to hire lawyers.
It was a bike messenger, again. He held out a paper-wrapped package to her and was gone practically before she could say, “Thanks.”
Well, she probably wasn’t fired, Valerie thought as she closed her apartment door, or if she was, she’d at least gotten a gift for it. She put it on the kitchen counter and unsafely used a knife to cut the paper open.
Inside was a matte black box, about 5x7. The top slid off easily, the way expensive box tops do, and inside was a card on top of tissue paper. The card was thick, embossed with JD in gold lettering on the front. It read:
Valerie,
I apologize for yesterday. We need to talk some things over. Can we meet for dinner at the Plaza to
night at 8pm? I’ll send the car around 7:30.
Jasper Declan
PS: Sophie is available all day and waiting for your call.
Valerie read and re-read the note with a combination of relief and annoyance. On one hand, she wasn’t fired and Jasper wasn’t finished with her, all of which was good, but couldn’t he ask twenty-four hours in advance what her weekend plans were? She didn’t have plans tonight, but she’d actually been looking forward to doing nothing, and now she had to call somebody and get gussied up for a fancy dinner. He hadn’t even given her a way to say no—just, the car will be there at 7:30. Valerie briefly considered saying no, or better, just staying in her apartment and not going down when it arrived. Maybe he could learn to schedule things a little.
Speaking of which...
Under the tissue paper was a notecard. Valerie wasn’t a paper expert, but she knew expensive when she saw it. Sophie Pembroke, Personal Shopper, it said, and gave a phone number.
She leaned back against the kitchen counter and thought about this, briefly. Her mother would tell her not to go, that a man would never respect her if she just gave in so easily. But the truth was, she kind of liked it: the presents, the sneaking around. She shouldn’t be a little turned on that Jasper had no regard for her schedule, but... she was.
Rebelliously, Valerie drank her coffee before calling Sophie.
Chapter Nine
Sophie was a British woman maybe ten years older than Valerie, who wore cat-eye glasses, had a full sleeve tattoo on each arm, and who Valerie liked almost instantly. Going in she’d been dreading the stuffy personal shopping experience, since she didn’t know much about fancy clothes, and because fancy clothes never even came in her size anyway, but everything Sophie’d shown her had been exactly her style and had fit like a dream. For the Plaza they decided on a black off-the-shoulder dress that nipped in at the waist and flared at the bottom, and Sophie had even had the right bra for her—longline, strapless, and pushup.