Strange Desires

by Joe Simpson Walker

  ‘Be careful,’ Roy muttered.

  ‘I’m being careful,’ she snapped back. ‘Here we go...’

  With the opening of the box, the smell of fresh leather had been released into the air. It grew a little stronger as Angie pulled away the last of the paper, and revealed Mrs Gardner’s special order: a pair of thigh-length, straight-legged black boots, of a design that reached up four or five inches past the wearer’s knees.

  Angie’s eyes widened, and her lips made a funnel. She’d known that the parcel contained boots, but now that she saw them, the sheer beauty of their cut and style, the quality of their material and manufacture, took her by surprise. She picked up the topmost boot; it was stiff in the leg, so much so as not to bend or flop despite its length, but at the same time the leather was supple and warm under her hands. Its surface was black, but not glossy; the blackness of the leather was so deep as to absorb light rather than reflect it, almost as if it were still living skin.

  Holding the first boot in one hand, still staring at it, Angie lifted out its companion. The cardboard box fell off her knees and on to the dusty road, but she seemed not to notice.

  ‘Roy, look at this!’

  ‘What?’ Roy said sullenly.

  She held one of the thigh boots out towards him, with the outside leg facing in his direction. They were designed to be pulled on and off, and were completely without such adornments as lacing, zips or straps. But above the knee, the outer leg bore a strange emblem worked in gold: a circle of links about five inches in diameter, forming an unbroken chain. And inside that a large D; inside that, an M and an S, side by side, with the tail of the S curling around one leg of the M. Even in the twilight, the gold shone brightly against the intense blackness of the boot-leather.

  ‘D.M.S.,’ Angie said, pointing to each letter in turn. ‘What does that stand for?’

  ‘How should I know? I’m only the courier. I’ve never even seen them before. They’re for someone whose name starts with D - Diana, or Dorothy, or something.’

  Angie reached down for the box and found the dispatch label. ‘Mrs Davinia Gardner. Maybe it’s something like “Davinia, My Sweetheart”. Maybe her husband’s getting them for her.’

  ‘She’s paid for them herself,’ Roy grunted. ‘I know that much.’

  ‘Oh, do you?’ Angie retorted. ‘Thought you were only the delivery boy.’

  Her attention returned to the boots. ‘Hey, Roy,’ she said at last; ‘how much do boots like these cost?’

  ‘A lot,’ Roy answered. ‘Five or six hundred quid. This place we’re taking them is a health farm, or something,’ he added. ‘Mrs What’s-her-face owns and manages it.’

  Angie nodded thoughtfully. ‘Do you reckon I’ll ever be rich enough to spend that much on a pair of boots?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Roy grunted. He was conscious that the prices asked by the House of Footwear were well beyond anything he’d ever paid for clothes. In fact, that was what had given him the idea of inviting Angie to accompany him on his new job: to be seen by her in a first-rate tailor-made suit, behind the wheel of a big powerful car, invested with the official title of ‘courier’, riding to the service of people with money to burn - it had been an overwhelming temptation. But by now he regretted having yielded to it.

  Angie’s eyes were on his face. ‘Might get a rich sugar daddy, mightn’t I? ... but he’d have to be really, really, incredibly good-looking for me to consider him. And I probably wouldn’t, even if he was,’ she said, sliding expertly from putdown to flattery. She unbent her knees and stretched out her legs, holding them aloft a few inches above the road. ‘These boots are about my size. Hey, Roy, how do you think I’d look in them?’

  Roy had known this was coming. He’d refused to let her open the parcel in the first place because he knew that if she did, her next desire would be to try the boots on; and when he surrendered and allowed her to open it, he’d known that within a short space of time, Mrs Gardner’s virgin leather waders would be penetrated by Angie’s feet.

  She was already pulling off her own boots, short black biker boots, with thick leather soles and functionless straps running over the ankles and around the sides at the tops. Underneath her feet were bare, and moist with a coating of sweat; her skin was dark, and the calves and thighs of her legs were heavy and muscular. She was a voluptuous girl, with a big chest and well-rounded hips and as Roy watched her take Mrs Gardner’s right thigh boot, and draw her leg well back in order to insert her right foot, he forgot his sullenness in a wave of sexual excitement.

  The boot did not accept Angie’s leg readily: she had to pull hard, and for a few moments her foot seemed trapped midway down the calf. She dragged with renewed force on the boot top, and it gave way, rushing up over her knee and encasing the lower portion of her thigh. She picked up the left boot, and as she did she glanced up at Roy, and saw the change in his expression. She grinned slyly. ‘You can help me with this one. Get hold of it by the heel, and kneel down on the ground.’

  As directed, Roy knelt before her on the road and held the left boot while she pulled it on. As she did she rested her right foot, already booted, upon his shoulder. The new boots’ smell was close to his nostrils, his vision was taken up by the spectacle of her legs held apart. She thrust her left foot into its boot. Again, she struggled, but persevered. Her thighs became a matching pair: two columns of velvety black leather halfway up, suddenly transformed into thick trunks of sweaty brown flesh, converging to meet at the crotch, hidden inside her shorts. The boots weren’t Angie’s to wear, but at that moment Roy hardly remembered that fact.

  ‘How do they feel?’ he gasped.

  ‘How do they feel?’ Angie repeated.

  She swung her legs away from him, and climbed out of the car. Hands on hips, she strode up and down the road, moving this way and that, oblivious to where her feet were taking her, her whole consciousness turned inwards by the sensations generated from her leather-coated legs. ‘How do they feel? They feel... they feel,’ - but she gave up the effort to find exact words. ‘They feel fucking FANTASTIC!’

  She dragged up her T-shirt, freeing her big brown breasts from all confinement; she pulled down her shorts, kicking them impatiently away. Naked but for the boots, she turned again to Roy, still kneeling beside the car, his mouth hanging open and his loins thrilling with blood. She threw out an arm and pointed to a patch of grass under some trees, a few yards distant from the roadside. ‘I want it, Roy. NOW.’

  Roy scrambled to his feet, shedding his suit as he hurried in the direction of her commanding finger. They fucked in the grass, him on top, but with Angie’s booted legs wrapped around his torso, gripping him like the finger and thumb of a giant’s hand. The boots, their pressure, the tightness of their hold, the rhythm of their squeeze, they dictated the course of their love-making. More than once he was brought to the very brink of orgasm, only for the leather clutch to slacken, forcing him to work harder. Only when Angie had come twice, or maybe three times, was he allowed his release.

  By then, the evening had got quite dark. Bright in the country sky, the stars glittered overhead as Roy and Angie looked for their clothes. Angie found hers readily enough, and getting back into them was only a few moments’ business. While he retrieved the various items that made up his courier’s suit, Roy watched her, pacing gently up and down in the starlight with her arms folded: tired, wet and happy, still enjoying the feel of the boots. He could see now that although they were a good fit for her in foot size, they’d evidently been made for a person with considerably slimmer legs, especially in the thighs: she’d really had to wedge herself into them. Not that he was complaining.

  ‘You’d better sit in the car,’ he called. ‘I’ll come and help you off with those in a minute.’

  ‘Yes, boss,’ Angie said dreamily.

  Sitting in the car, she lifted each leg at his command and put an ar
m tight around her seat to help him pull the boots free. He replaced them in their box. ‘They were laid so you didn’t see the gold things at first,’ said Angie helpfully. ‘I wonder what that stands for, “D.M.S.”?’

  Roy tried to think of some smutty phrase that fitted those initials, but he couldn’t, so he just shook his head.

  Boxed up again, Mrs Gardner’s special order lay across the back seats as the car drove on, down long country roads with no lamps or lighted windows to be seen. Angie sat quiet at Roy’s side, her head rested comfortably, her eyes open. Roy himself was feeling good, but sleepy. He handled the car with reactions that were slower than they should have been, now and then his eyelids feeling unexpectedly heavy. But there were no other drivers on the road, and they had only a few more miles to go before they reached Lockwood Lodge.

  Three

  Victoria raised a hand, and Mr Keane was silenced. “How do you know all this?” she said. “I mean, all the details?”

  “Roy told me, miss. He didn’t leave anything out. He was forced to make a full confession, you might say.”

  “Confession?” Victoria repeated. “Forced? Who by?”

  “If you’ll allow me to tell the story, miss...”

  “Oh, get on with it,” she grunted.

  ***

  The lodge came into view some minutes before they were there. It was a many-roomed country house, built eighty or a hundred years earlier. Angie was impressed: she sat up and looked intently through the windscreen as they drove closer. “Is that it? Ooh, Roy, isn’t it a big place? What’s her name - Gardner? - she must be loaded to live there.”

  “Got paying guests, hasn’t she?” Roy said carelessly. “I bet she doesn’t under-charge.”

  He turned the car in at a gateway and eased its speed as they rolled up a long gravelled drive. The lodge stood before them, a tall dark silhouette against the starry sky. It was made of some kind of red stone, blackened with age. “Hey, Roy, look at that.”

  “Look at what?”

  “The windows on the top floor.” Angie was leaning forwards and sideways in her seat, to get as good a view as she could. “They’ve got shutters on, and they’re all closed up. There can’t be anyone staying there.”

  “Maybe it’s off-season.”

  “In the middle of summer?”

  Roy shrugged. He brought the car to a stop and was about to get out, when he realised that Angie was about to do the same. He laid a detaining hand upon her arm. “You wait here.”

  “Oh, Roy,” she said in a tone somewhere between complaint and appeal. “Can’t I come in with you? I wanna see what it’s like inside.”

  “No,” Roy said. “I’ll only be two minutes in and out. You’re not even supposed to be here. Just do as you’re fuckin’ told for once, and wait.”

  He was tired and wanted to squash the argument before it could get properly started. He succeeded: Angie shut up. With sulky eyes and closed lips jutting forward, she watched as he collected Mrs Gardner’s special order and climbed out of the car.

  Having got his way, Roy could afford to feel a little remorseful for snapping at her. I’ll say I’m sorry on the way back to town, he told himself. He looked up at the big dark house, and saw that she was right about the top floor. In the starlight he could see a row of small windows, all of them dark behind closed wooden shutters. But they were very high up and were probably only cramped little rooms, built as servants’ quarters in the days when servants weren’t supposed to be treated too well. People who were paying to stay somewhere would want a bit more luxury. In any case, the rest of the lodge was lit up and the front doors stood open to the evening. When Roy carried his delivery in, he found a receptionist, an attractive young woman with long blonde hair, sitting at a desk. Just then she was giving her attention to a book, a fat paperback which she held in both hands and kept wide open, creasing its broad spine. “‘Scuse me.”

  The girl looked up. Her eyes were a very pale blue, with their shape defined by heavy black eyeliner.

  “Delivery for Mrs Gardner. You can sign for it, can’t you?”

  “Hold on a minute,” the girl said.

  And with that she went on reading; she turned a page and Roy could see that she was coming to the end of a chapter. Watching her read, he also noticed that pinned to her blouse was a plastic badge bearing the name KATE, and above the name, the same insignia as adorned Mrs Gardner’s leather waders: the big ‘D’ and the small ‘MS’, all within a circle of chain.

  She finished the chapter and put the book down. “Where’s that from?”

  “House of Footwear,” Roy said, holding out his delivery form.

  The girl didn’t take it; instead, she came out from behind the desk. “Follow me. You’ve got to come upstairs to Mrs Gardner.”

  “What the bloody hell for?” Roy said. “Can’t you sign?”

  “You’re new, aren’t you? Never been here before? Well, Davinia - Mrs Gardner - always likes to meet Mr Keane’s employees. It’s all right. You’ll just have to talk to her for a while and have tea and biscuits. But don’t swear in front of her,” she said warningly.

  Kate, as her name appeared to be, moved briskly and as Roy mounted the stairs, her heels were almost on a level with his eyes. In addition to her blouse, she was dressed in a nicely cut, buttock-hugging mini-skirt. Her legs were bare, without tights or stockings; on her feet were long, heavy-soled lace-up boots, military style, reaching almost to her knees, with the tops of long black socks showing just above. But what drew Roy’s attention was that on the outside top of each leg, Kate’s boots bore that same insignia, worked in gold upon the black leather.

  “What does that stand for?”

  She turned and looked down. “Pardon?”

  “‘D.M.S.’ What does it mean?” Roy said. His mind was on Angie, sitting sulking in the car. To be able to satisfy her curiosity on that point wouldn’t be a bad peace-offering.

  “Ask Davinia.”

  They rounded the stairs and came to a landing, off which a long corridor stretched straight ahead. It seemed to extend almost from one end of the lodge to the other, with doors all the way down either side. At that moment, a woman was coming out of a room several doors away. “Kate?”

  “Delivery for you. From the House of Footwear.”

  “Oh, good!” the woman said - Mrs Gardner, evidently.

  She remained where she was, drawing the door shut behind her, and Kate led Roy down the corridor. Mrs Gardner was rather tall and very slim, with long platinum blonde hair, a pointed, dimpled chin, dark eyes, and a small mouth. She was wrapped in a robe of black silk, tied at the waist with a loose, casual knot. As she stood, Roy caught a glimpse of a slender thigh and a white knee. But below that, his eye met shiny black of a different texture to silk. Under the robe, she too was wearing black leather boots, and below its hem he could see the tips of stiletto heels, increasing her natural height by some inches.

  “So you’re Mr Keane’s new courier? See about some refreshments, Kate - non-alcoholic, of course. We don’t want this young man to lose his licence.”

  “Yes, Mrs Gardner.”

  Kate went downstairs again, and Roy was left standing in the corridor with Mrs Gardner. She’d taken his delivery sheet, but was obviously in no hurry to sign. In and out, he’d told Angie. She’d just have to wait. “I’m Roy.”

  Mrs Gardner nodded. “And Mr Keane’s just taken you on? Well, I think I should interview you while you’re here. I like to check out the people he has working for him.”

  “There’s not much to say about me. I’m just a driver.”

  Mrs Gardner raised an admonishing finger. “You’re not just a driver. You’re a courier!”

  She said it jokingly but her eyes were on Roy, and he didn’t like them: they were small, piercing eyes, so dark brown as to be virtually bl
ack. And she was about forty, and he’d never had a thing for older women. And not only did Roy not much want to talk with her, but his attention was distracted somewhat by a sound he could hear, coming faintly through a wall from some room on the corridor. It was an insistent, repetitive humming noise, muffled, but recognisable as the sound of a machine in operation - a washing machine, maybe, or a small lathe; but he was only guessing, because it didn’t sound exactly like either. He wondered what it could be. An overlong pause in the conversation was broken by Mrs Gardner.

  “Mr Keane’s a very good friend of mine. I’ve been dealing with him for years - longer than I care to admit,” she said coyly. “Getting a new pair of boots from him always makes me feel like a princess - he lavishes so much care on the measuring, so much artistry on the boots themselves. He makes love to my feet.”

  Considering that Roy saw his employer as that fundamentally unsexy type of human being, a little elderly man, this speech might have made him laugh out loud, but he gave a bland nod. “I know his boots cost a bundle.”

  “They’re worth it.”

  “Does your husband buy them for you?”

  “I’m divorced.”

  “You must do really well out of running this place,” Roy said. “It’s a health farm, isn’t it?”

  Mrs Gardner shook her head. “Not exactly.” She turned again to the door and laid a hand upon the knob. “Come in here.”

  She opened the door, and as she did the mechanical humming Roy had heard became suddenly much louder and clearer. He realised that the machine, whatever it was, was in that room; and a moment later, he saw it.

  There were two people there, a man and a young girl. The girl was sitting in a chair, leaning inelegantly back with her arms folded and her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. The man was placed at her feet, and was at that moment, a fixture in the room. He was bent, kneeling, over a low leather couch, and was fastened down to it with thick black leather straps, secured by the wrists, ankles, elbows, and knees, at the small of his back and just below his armpits. A large piece of heavy adhesive tape had been stuck across his mouth to gag him. He was almost naked, his only clothing being a pair of small briefs made of thin, semi-transparent white cotton.