Strange Desires

by Joe Simpson Walker

  ‘Okay, Chezz,’ he said, ‘let’s take your jacket off.’

  She made no response whatever. He bent over her and removed the jacket, raising her from the waist in order to do so, and when he let her go she fell back again and lay inert.

  Andrew knelt down at the foot of the bed, next to her boots. He could see his face, reflected over and over in the long line of brass studs, like fifteen or twenty little yellow fish-eye lenses. His eyes were drawn upwards, to the end of the line, the tops of the boots, where Cheryl’s fleshy pink thighs met black leather. He reached up, took the top of her right boot in his fingers, and gave a pull, then a harder pull. The top stud snapped open.

  The boots took a few minutes to unfasten all the way down, each stud needed a good pull. He eased them off Cheryl’s feet and fastened the studs up again, pressing each back into place. He stood holding the empty boots together in both hands, clutching them to his chest. He cast a cautious downward glance at Cheryl. The room was only half lit, by the light from the landing, but he could see that her eyelids were down. Beneath her T-shirt, her large breasts rose and fell slowly. He could hear her breathing, and it was heavy but regular.

  Turning away from her, Andrew half bent. He held the new boots close, and now they were hard against the crotch of his trousers. He began to rub them, up and down, up and down, with gathering speed and force. Inside his pants, his cock swelled almost at once to the limit of its capacity, and still fresh blood surged upwards from his thighs into his groin. He rubbed more gently, then hard again, and harder. He groaned and gasped, his knees trembled under him...

  ‘Andrew?’

  It was Mrs McKenzie, calling from the foot of the stairs.

  ‘Andrew? Don’t tell me she’s thrown up!’

  ‘Oh! No! No!’ Andrew called down, still clutching the boots but managing to speak in a steady voice. ‘She’ll be all right. I wouldn’t like to be her in the morning, though.’

  ‘That’ll be her own fault,’ Mrs McKenzie snapped. ‘If she’s all right for now, leave her.’

  ‘Yes, my love,’ Andrew muttered, too quietly to be heard below.

  He put the boots down, standing them neatly together beside Cheryl’s wardrobe. He turned a lamp on and left the room.

  Cheryl watched him go. She saw him only indistinctly, with the murky, blurred vision you have when you hold your eyes four-fifths shut. As he pulled the door to behind him, she let her eyelids relax, and they flipped open. Apart from that, she didn’t move: she lay still on her back, looking up at the ceiling, her mind fully occupied with cold sober thought.

  ***

  Cheryl spent the whole of Sunday morning in bed, and even when she was up and dressed, she seemed not to want to leave her room. Mrs McKenzie left her to it, but Andrew looked in. ‘Feeling human again, Chezz?’

  ‘I’m all right, thanks.’

  ‘Want some company?’

  ‘Do you want to see the tapes of my course?’

  In her room she had her own TV and video, and the camcorder was also her property, bought with her own money. Mrs McKenzie hadn’t greeted the purchase with enthusiasm: it wasn’t that it cost Cheryl a big chunk out of her savings, she didn’t mind that at all, ‘but where do you ever go worth videoing? And who do you know who’ll watch your tapes?’ There was a certain amount of truth in that. As a rule, she and Andrew were the audience for Cheryl’s home-made videos, and she only sat through them when she was in a patient mood. But Andrew watched willingly enough, and so he sat down with Cheryl today while she played back the tapes she’d made while outward bound.

  ‘I’ve got about an hour of last night on tape, too,’ she said rather sheepishly. ‘I haven’t looked at that yet.’

  ‘Pity nobody taped you,’ Andrew said. ‘You were the star turn.’

  Cheryl giggled. Her eyes were on the TV screen, upon which a line of figures with heavy rucksacks and dome-shaped safety helmets trudged up towards the crest of a steep grey slope.

  Andrew allowed his attention to linger upon the boots, standing where he’d placed them, with their heels against the wall and their toes pointing towards him as he sat. In his groin, the beginnings of a thrill stirred, a heightened sensitivity in need of a strong hand. But Cheryl might have noticed if he’d began feeling himself, however surreptitiously, so he could only look and bide his time.

  ***

  Even next day, Monday morning, Cheryl seemed lacking in energy. She had to be in college and her mother would have given her a lift en route to work, but she was so slow in getting ready that Mrs McKenzie had driven off and left her to make her own way. At last she came down, carrying a large tote bag. Andrew was at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘Come on, Chezz,’ he said. ‘You’ll be late.’

  ‘I’d sooner give it a miss,’ Cheryl said sullenly.

  ‘You can’t,’ Andrew said, almost with a snap. ‘You’ve got to go.’

  ‘It’s all right for you. I wish I could study at home.’

  ‘Maybe you will be able to, in a few years’ time. You never know,’ Andrew said, recapturing his good humour with some effort. ‘Cheer up, Chezz. Look outside - it’s smashing weather...’

  She went. He watched her walk slowly down the road in the morning sun, till she was three or four houses distant, then he shut the door.

  Cheryl didn’t look back. She walked to the end of the road, a good hundred yards. Then she at once about-faced and quickly retraced her steps, slackening pace again when she came within sight of home. From the road, she looked up at the window of her own room. The curtains were drawn back, but the light was still switched on, its bulb burning away unnecessarily in the sunshine. Then, as Cheryl watched, it went off.

  Quickly again, she entered the garden and slipped around the side of the house. Slipping past the window of Andrew’s workroom, she glanced in: there was nobody there and his computer, fax and modem stood idle.

  At the back of the house, French windows gave on to a paved patio, with chairs and a garden table. Cheryl sat down and unzipped her bag. Inside were none of her school books or papers: instead it contained her high-legged brown leather cowboy boots. She pulled them out, both in one hand, hastily pushing her shoes off with her heels; hurriedly, pulling hard, she got the boots on, first the right, then the left.

  In college clothes and cowboy boots, she looked in at the French windows. No one was to be seen. The windows were locked, but she had her own key.

  Now she had to move quietly and though she was a big girl, she could be quiet when she wanted. The house was silent. She made her way through to the hall. She stood beside the stairs and listened, and in the silence she could hear a sound from above. Or rather, a combination of sounds: a rhythmic creaking, as of springs being pushed repeatedly up and down, accompanied by soft grunts of breath, escaping somebody’s lips to the same beat.

  More slowly and stealthily than ever, Cheryl began to make her way up the stairs. The carpet was thick and soft beneath her boots. She crept upwards a step at a time, her head raised, looking to the left, towards the doorway of her room. She saw that it was open, not all the way open, just a few inches. And as she climbed on, step by step, she could see Andrew. He was sitting on the edge of her bed, his back to the door. He was still in his shirt, but from the waist down he was naked. In his hands he held one of her new boots, one of the long black studded pair from the House of Footwear. He held it with both hands, with the top of the boot forced up against his groin. His genitals were enclosed within the leg, and he was rubbing the leather hard against his skin, masturbating with all his strength.

  He gasped and groaned. His bare buttocks pumped against the bed, making the springs of Cheryl’s mattress creak. His head fell back till his eyes were looking at the ceiling. He rubbed Cheryl’s boot against himself harder and harder, the stiff leather leg jutted into mid-air and the foot kicked f
orward, as if fending off some invisible adversary. Soon he’d come.

  Cheryl had got up the stairs and was outside the door. Andrew remained completely unaware of her presence; unaware, that is, until she raised her cowboy boot to the door and gave it a prod of her toe. The door swung back. ‘Hiya, Andrew.’

  The effect upon Andrew was extraordinary: he spun towards her, leapt almost clear off the bed and emitted an inarticulate squeal of surprise and horror. His hands flew from his lap, and the boot he’d been holding so tightly was thrown a yard before it hit the carpet. Huge and purple with excitement, his cock and balls stood revealed. Cheryl stepped into the room.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked amicably.

  Andrew was incapable of answering, literally deprived of the power of speech. His mouth hung open and his lower jaw trembled. As the first shock passed, his whole body was beginning to shake. His erection shrank, before suddenly sagging into limpness.

  Cheryl stood before him. ‘I know what you were doing,’ she said. ‘You were having a wank into my boots. You’ve done it before. Into these.’ She lifted a cowboy boot.

  Andrew nodded. ‘Oh, god,’ he muttered. ‘You found it...! I meant to clean up afterwards,’ he said. ‘Your mum was downstairs, and then I heard her coming up. I forgot. I’m sorry. Chezz, we don’t have to tell your mum about this. She wouldn’t understand. It’s - it’s a need I have. I used to do it into my sister’s boots, when I was a teenager. And when I had girlfriends before I met your mum, I did it into theirs. But your mum doesn’t wear boots...’

  ‘So you’ve done it in mine?’ Cheryl said. ‘How often?’

  ‘I don’t know. A lot. It’s a habit. Usually in the daytime, while you and your mum have been out. But the other night I got the urge, you were away and your mum looked to be safe in front of the telly for a while, so...’

  ‘Why don’t you get mum to wear boots? You could buy them for her.’

  Andrew shook his head hopelessly. ‘She hates them as a fashion. Always has.’

  ‘Wouldn’t she wear them to turn you on?’

  Andrew gave another shake of his head. ‘She’d say I was abnormal,’ he said. ‘You see, Chezz, your mum - well, she’s very conventional in her sex life. She likes very ordinary sex, and she knows how she likes it, and never wants to do anything different. To be honest, we’ve never really had much of a sex life. Don’t get me wrong,’ he said, ‘I love her, but - well, sex isn’t a big part of our life together. Do you understand?’

  Cheryl nodded.

  ‘There’s no need to tell her about this. It’d only upset her. I’ve never told anyone about this - this thing I have. You’re the only person who knows, Chezz. It could bring us closer, even - and we’re pretty good mates already, you and me. Aren’t we?’

  ‘You’re my best friend, Andrew,’ Cheryl said.

  Andrew drew a deep breath of relief, and even managed a haggard smile. ‘You must think I’m a weirdo, mustn’t you?’

  ‘No, not really. Lots of men have said they’ve got turned on by my boots. I was a bit annoyed when I found what you’d done in them and I was gonna get rid of them - but I still had them with me when I went into the House of Footwear, and the man there said he could clean them up good as new. I’m not angry now.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ Andrew said. He looked down at her boots, standing not a yard in front of him. As if of its own will, his right hand dropped again to his crotch and began to stroke.

  ‘If you’ve got a thing about boots, you’d love the House of Footwear.’

  ‘Perhaps we’ll go there together some time?’ Andrew suggested, in a sentence that ended with a soft gasp of pleasure. That seemed to wake him up to what he was doing; his hand became still and he looked guiltily up at Cheryl.

  ‘You carry on, Andrew,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you something about me that I’ve never told anyone. I was walking through the park one evening - this happened a couple of months ago, it was still light that late - and I had these boots on. And there was nobody else about, except a fella I didn’t know. And he stopped me, and he said ‘how would you like to earn twenty-five quid? All you’ve got to do is sit down over there in the grass.’ He showed me exactly how he wanted me to sit - like this...’ She got down on to the carpet, and sat leaning back upon her arms, her legs stretched out before her, bent up slightly at the knees, feet together, her boots almost in Andrew’s lap.

  He was playing with himself again. ‘And what did this guy do?’

  ‘He knelt down in front of me, and he undid his pants, and he got out his dick, and he started wanking. Really hard, really fast. Like you’re doing now.’

  ‘And...’ - Andrew’s words began to be disrupted by grunts - ‘and weren’t you frightened by that?’

  ‘No,’ said Cheryl. ‘He never touched me. It wasn’t like he wanted to bend me over, and smack me on the bum... or put his hand inside my knickers... or get out a rope, and tie me up...’ Andrew pumped and writhed, thrilled afresh by each suggestion. ‘He just got turned on by me wearing these boots.’

  ‘And... oh! oh! Ohhhh! Was... was his cock as big as mine?’

  ‘No. Yours is bigger. More stuff comes out of it, too.’

  ‘AAAARRRRGGHHH!’ Andrew bellowed. Interrupted on the brink of climax only moments before, it hadn’t taken long. Semen splattered down on to Cheryl’s boots.

  ‘And then he got a yellow cloth out of his pocket and wiped them clean.’

  Andrew had placed a box of paper hankies at his side, ready to hand. He clutched up half the box’s contents and got off the bed, joining Cheryl on the carpet. He rubbed at her boots with the wad of tissue.

  ‘He got them really clean. But he didn’t say another word. He just gave me a twenty-pound note and five coins and went. I’ve never seen him again.’

  Andrew rubbed away every trace of his come. He shoved the soiled paper into his trousers pocket before getting up to put underpants, trousers, shoes and socks back on. Cheryl threw off her jacket. ‘Will you phone up and say I’ll be in this afternoon, Andrew? There’s no need for mum to know.’

  ‘No,’ Andrew agreed. ‘What your mum doesn’t know won’t hurt her.’

  He finished dressing and went downstairs. Alone, Cheryl locked the door. She stepped to the window.

  Her bedroom curtains were dark in colour, and made of a heavy material that bunched thickly when pulled aside. Both colour and texture had come in useful. Andrew had failed to notice that she’d cut a small hole in the left-hand curtain, a couple of inches above the hem. Or that placed behind the curtain, wrapped in a cloth to muffle the slight sound of its mechanism, its lens lined up with the hole, Cheryl’s camcorder stood upon the window sill. It was still recording.

  She unwrapped the cloth and switched from RECORD to REWIND. When the tape was wound all the way back, she took it out of the machine and put it away, in a case that was already labelled: MUM’S PARTY.

  People will usually watch a home movie if they’re in it. And Helen’s friends never missed Helen’s parties. She’d behave herself, and they’d indulge her: they’d gather round the TV in the front room, to watch for a few minutes. Only they’d see Andrew wanking over her boots, and explaining desperately that he and Helen had never had much of a sex life. They’d hear her, Cheryl, telling the story of how she accepted twenty-five pounds from a stranger in the park - which hadn’t happened, but Helen’s friends would never be persuaded of that. And once they got over the surprise, or at least got out of Helen’s hearing, they’d laugh. But it’d be Cheryl’s joke. Quite a party it’d be, one forthcoming Friday or Saturday...

  Five

  Victoria’s good humour was more than restored by this tale and by the end of it, she was laughing uncontrollably. She struggled to damp down her mirth long enough to ask a question.

  ‘What - ha, ha! - ‘ she let out a noise midway
between a snort and a raspberry. ‘What happened after that?’

  Down on the floor, still polishing earnestly away at her rainboots, Mr Keane shook his head. ‘Miss McKenzie came in again yesterday. Her mother’s hosting a party this weekend.’

  ‘I wish I was invited!’ Victoria cackled.

  But next moment some connection was made in her memory, and it caused her to glance at her watch.

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Pardon, miss? Miss? Where are you going?’ Mr Keane exclaimed.

  Leaving him to rub the empty air, Victoria was marching out of the room. All he could do was scramble to his feet and hurry after her. She marched downstairs, back down to the ill-lit workroom, with its cabinet full of dummy legs, its array of tools and unfinished jobs, and its kettle and teapot long gone cold. As Mr Keane hurried in, Victoria was putting on her raincoat. She pointed to her shoe, strapped to the wooden foot placed on his workbench, heel glued and clamped into place. ‘Forty-five minutes, you said. You’ve kept me here an hour, with your gabbing.’

  Mr Keane took an old-fashioned fob watch and chain from his waistcoat pocket. The fingers of his right hand were black with boot polish. ‘It should be ready now, miss. I’ll just wash my hands. Meantime, maybe you’d like to sign this for me?’

  With his left hand, he held out his client ledger. Victoria took it and sat down. She flicked the pages aside, leafing past scores of autographs, all of them women’s. At a blank page she took up her pen and scrawled ‘Victoria Martins’ in letters an inch high. She sat back, and looked down at the book with a feeling of disquiet: why had she done that? It didn’t even look like her usual handwriting. Not only were the letters big in size, they were strangely bold and aggressive in shape...

  ‘I’ll find you a bag to put these in, miss.’