Strange Desires

by Joe Simpson Walker

  Victoria looked up. ‘Pardon? What?’

  ‘I’ll find a bag for these.’ Mr Keane held up her shoes. ‘To keep ‘em dry till you’ve got where you’re going.’

  He put the shoes down again on his workbench. The beam from his desk lamp fell full upon them, a circle of brightness in the general dim. Directly above it, fastened to the wall, was a rectangle of shadow: the little cupboard he’d closed in haste when Victoria had first entered the room.

  ‘What’s in there, Mr Keane?’

  ‘Pardon, miss?’ He looked around. ‘What’s in where?’

  ‘There,’ Victoria said, very distinctly. She pointed.

  ‘That, miss? Ah - er - that’s private.’

  ‘I know you didn’t want me to see. But I want to see. Open it up, Mr Keane.’

  For a long moment Mr Keane stood still, only his lips moved and no sound came out. Then he stepped to the cupboard and drew it open. Victoria sat up, leaned forward and recognised the shape of yet another pair of boots, standing together. And dim though the interior of the little closet was, she could see that in their style, these boots were very curious indeed.

  Stiff, solid black leather, straight cut up to knee-length, with perfectly horizontal tops, they fastened at the backs with thick, tough zips. And each boot’s zip was reinforced by a long strap or belt which circled the leg from knee to ankle, curling down and around like the slide of a helter-skelter. Press studs of several different shapes - stars, cones and pyramids - held the strap in place as it curled. In addition, a crazy array of studs was embedded in the surface of the boot itself, from top to toe, in no discernible pattern. The shape of the toes was midway between round and pointed and the heels and soles rested upon a single, undivided foundation of massive platforms, enough to add a good three inches to the wearer’s height.

  Victoria stared at the bizarre boots as if spellbound; then she held up a hand and gave a snap of her fingers. ‘Bring them here!’

  ‘Miss Martins, please...’

  ‘Bring them here, I said!’

  Mr Keane found a clean cloth, which he spread out upon the floor in front of Victoria. He lifted the boots out of their cabinet and set them down on the cloth. ‘Please, miss, please, be careful.’

  Victoria reached down and picked up one boot, the right one. ‘God, they’re heavy! What are they made of?’

  ‘The toecaps are reinforced with steel. And the platforms are very solid stuff.’

  Victoria took the boot in both hands. Held close, it could be seen that it had been worn, perhaps a good deal, although if so it had been lovingly preserved. She ran her fingers across its surface. The leather was soft and smooth, but its smoothness was perpetually disrupted by the metallic coldness and sharp points and edges of the studs, creating a tactile experience that was surprising and disturbing, but also highly stimulating. Without her noticing, her eyes had closed. She saw a mental picture, so vivid as to be almost a hallucination: these boots upon her feet, their gigantic platforms raising her high into the air; beneath her, men - all the men she’d ever known, her father, her brother, her whole list of boyfriends and lovers - all obliged to crawl upon their hands and knees, to throng about her booted calves, to merge into a sea of bare backs in which she might wade imperiously...

  ‘How much do you want for them?’ she said.

  ‘Those boots aren’t for sale, miss.’

  ‘Then how much will it cost for you to make me a pair like them? Name your price.’

  In gentle regret, Mr Keane shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, miss, but they were a one-off, the most exclusive creations of the House of Footwear. It wouldn’t be right to make another pair. You see, they were a gift to my late wife.’

  ‘Your wife?’

  ‘That’s why I like to keep them by me while I work.’

  Victoria’s lips set tight. ‘I want to put them on, Mr Keane.’

  He drew in a deep breath. ‘Well that wouldn’t be right either, miss, would it? Though,’ - he hesitated, but went on - ‘though you do remind me of her. Her name was Jane. She wasn’t as glamorous as you are, but she was beautiful to me. And she was about your age when I first knew her - I was a little older, in my thirties. And you’ve got exactly the same size and shape of foot. Boots made for you would have fitted her just nicely. I remember the first time she saw those...’

  ***

  Jane’s mouth had fallen slightly open. James looked at her anxiously. ‘Are they the kind of thing you had in mind?’

  She didn’t answer. Sitting next to him on the living room sofa, she stared down into the large cardboard box that rested upon the coffee table, its lid open, swathes of silky black wrapping paper lifted aside to reveal its contents. Then she turned to him, and threw her arms around his neck, and her face against his face pushed her lips against his as if striving to glue them together. ‘MMMWHAH!’ She released him. ‘How do you get them on? Show me.’

  Eager to comply, James got down from the sofa and knelt at her feet. The empty boots were all fastened up, and the fastenings were such as to deny ready entry to a wearer’s foot; he had to pull the curling leg-strap free of its moorings, unsnapping each of the many studs in turn, working upwards, before he could lower the zip. He took Jane’s foot, wrapped in the light brown nylon of a pair of tights, and slid it gently into place; then he pulled the zip up. Its heavy teeth growled as the boot encased Jane’s calf. ‘It’s brilliant the way they’ve got zips on the backs instead of the sides,’ she said. ‘And the straps...’

  ‘Yes,’ James said. ‘You won’t get your feet out of these in a hurry, my dear.’

  He zipped and strapped her other foot into its companion boot. ‘Are you all right to get up in them?’

  ‘Just watch me!’

  Without a moment’s hesitation or clumsiness, she jumped off the sofa and to her feet and began to stride up and down the living room in her new boots.

  ‘Do you like the feel of them to walk in?’

  ‘You bet!’

  As she moved around the room, testing the feel of the boots upon her feet, her movements altered. She slowed into a kind of warlike prowl, bending her legs at the knees and her arms at the elbows, bringing each foot down with a distinct stamp. There was no music playing, but James could see that a beat was pulsating in her mind’s ear, and then she began to sing: ‘Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah...’ With each ‘yeah’, a massive platform hit the carpet. The studs (there were approximately fifty to each boot) threw out a shifting, glittering pattern of light; between skirt-hem and leather calf, a knee bent and unbent inside tight brown nylon. James watched enthralled. He’d considered platform styles in footwear an aberration of the 1970s; but then he’d met Jane, who was twelve years younger than him and wore them all the time. On her calves, the flimsy leg-sheaths and monstrously built-up feet of the ordinary platform boot filled him with excitement. And then she’d happened to say that she’d been looking for something out of the ordinary... ‘Not too heavy?’

  Brought out of her trance, Jane stopped singing and looked around.

  ‘You don’t think they’d be too heavy to keep on for long, do you?’

  She grinned indulgently. James read her thoughts: funny old James, underestimating her youth and vigour. But there were one or two features to those boots she hadn’t discovered. ‘If you find they are, there’s something you can do. I’ll show you.’

  She was by a chair, and in response to a gesture from him she sat down. Again, James knelt at her feet. With both hands he took hold of one boot, lifting her leg and gripping the boot by the heel and sole, clenching his teeth as he pressed hard at a couple of strategic points. The right amount of pressure in the correct places produced a loud CLUNK, and almost the whole of the boot’s hypertrophied sole and heel came away in his hands.

  Jane nearly fell off the chair. ‘Hey!’

 
‘Now the left, my dear...’ Again, grasp, pressure and CLUNK. Jane was left sitting in boots that were sturdily soled and heeled, but which didn’t add greatly to her height. ‘And there’s one more thing...’

  His hands flew to his own clothing, his jacket, his necktie, the buttons of his shirt; with trembling fingers, but rapidly none the less, he stripped naked to the waist. ‘Now...’ From kneeling he let himself fall forwards, to lie at full length on the floor, arms at his sides, face down. ‘Jane... please, my dear, will you stand on my back?’

  Jane was already on her feet. ‘Stand on you?’

  ‘With all your weight. Use one foot, whichever you prefer.’

  ‘Like this?’

  The abbreviated sole of her right boot pressed hard upon James’ right shoulder blade. As directed, it bore the whole of her weight. Stretching out her arms, lifting her left foot back, she stood poised like a booted ballerina.

  James lay still beneath her. More than a minute had passed before he spoke again. ‘My dear, if you’ll take your foot away...’

  He looked over his shoulder as she did, and watched her eyes and mouth widen. ‘Oh, James!’

  The soles of the platforms had been smooth and featureless, but the hidden soles bore a heavy print, and the previous minute had been time enough to impress it deeply into the flesh of his back. In his mind’s eye James could see it: the shape of her boot, perfectly defined and within it, the shape of a love heart. Within that, across the widest part of the sole, each with a line to itself and formed in an ornate script, the two words SLAVE-CRUSHER. ‘

  You like it?’

  ‘It’s brilliant! I want to print it on you more! All over you! I want you naked! Strip off!’ she exclaimed.

  James could only hasten to obey. Within moments, he lay naked on the living room floor, the remainder of his clothing thrown away. At her command he rolled on to his back, his side, his face again, and submitted to the weight of her boots. Right and left boots pressed their prints into the flesh of his chest, stomach, arms, thighs, groin. Love hearts and SLAVE-CRUSHER covered his body, overlapping in shades of scarlet, crimson and purple. Jane towered above him, her eyes now glittering with pleasure made ever more desirable by her waxing enthusiasm.

  He was on his back when she yelled ‘Turn over!’ and assisted him to do so with a kick, the impact of her leather toe reinforced by studs. But when he lay face down, this time she did not immediately crush him beneath her sole. She was herself down on the floor, searching for something. Kneeling in her boots, she took both James’ hands by the wrists, pulled them together behind him and began to tie them with his own necktie. ‘Get up on to your knees. Now,’ she commanded, springing to her feet while he struggled to rise, ‘over here.’

  She stepped to the coffee table and pointed down, to a spot directly in front of it. Clumsily James shuffled forward.

  ‘Closer. Right up against the table. Get up on your knees as high as you can.’

  James obeyed, and when he did his groin was pressed up hard against the table’s edge and his cock, expanded to its utmost; rigid, purple-tipped and ready to perform, rested upon the table top. Jane stood close beside him, and he knew what she was going to do. She raised her right foot, encased in its stud-armoured, strong-strapped, heavy-zipped, thick-soled knee-length boot and set it down. With all her weight, with all the force of her young leg, she crushed his cock against the coffee table.

  James writhed. Torment and joy were at war inside him. Jane’s boot crushed down harder, and harder yet, and he howled like an animal; but at the same time, he threw his buttocks back and forth. Jane crushed him rhythmically, and her whole body moved. Her breasts shook rapidly up and down; she threw an elbow round his neck and pressed them into his face. Through the fabric of her dress he could feel their shape, suddenly changed, the nipples turned hard and pointing away from each other. He screamed. A jet of semen leapt through the air, its furthest extremity cleared the width of the table and splashed on to the carpet.

  Jane lifted her boot. Already, James was detumescing; but as his cock sank into softness, the single word SLAVE could yet be read, printed along its length.

  ***

  ‘Jane didn’t often wear these boots when we went anywhere,’ Mr Keane said. ‘They drew too much attention, and people tended to pass comment on our age difference anyway. But she’d always wear them for me at home. She’s not here anymore, and I keep them by me. I never made another pair like them, and never will.’

  Victoria wasn’t listening. Her attention had returned to the boot in her hands, especially to its sole. Now that she looked very closely, she could see a fine crack, too narrow to admit even a fingernail: the place where the platform came away. But how did you get it off? She squeezed and twisted to no effect. But Mr Keane knew how. He’d reveal the secret soles, when the boots were upon her feet. She unbuckled the long curling strap at the back ankle, and began to pull open the studs that held it to the leg.

  But she got no further for Mr Keane sprang forward and snatched the boot from her. ‘No!’ he cried, his voice louder and sharper than Victoria would have thought possible: ‘No! You can’t wear them! I won’t let you!’

  He backed as far away from her as far as he could, clutching his wife’s boots in his arms. Victoria stared at him in rage. ‘How dare you? Bring them to me at once! Do you hear me?’

  And yes, Mr Keane did hear her. In a lifetime’s devotion to the dominant female and the booted foot, never before had he committed such an act of defiance. Perhaps the urge to rebel had been for many years suppressed in him, only to revive in a moment of the greatest provocation. Whichever it was, his burst of spirit was not sustained. For a long minute he stood trembling, his eyes glazed, his features moving meaninglessly, his arms wrapped around the boots as if paralysed. Then his knees gave way beneath him, and he sank slowly to the floor. ‘Please, miss, please...’

  Victoria’s shiny rainboot stamped viciously. ‘Take this one off. Put that one on. Do it, you little bastard.’

  Mr Keane was defeated. He crawled to Victoria’s feet like a man whipped and clubbed. He stood his wife’s boots next to hers. She raised her rainboot for him to remove.

  But instead he fell flat and threw his arms around both her legs, pinning her ankles together. He pressed his cheek hard against the rubber of her rainboots, and burst into loud snivelling tears. ‘Please, please, don’t... I’ve been so lonely without my Jane, she was the only one for me, and she was lost so young! You’re young and strong and lovely, miss - take pity on a lonely old man. Don’t make him spoil his memories...’

  ‘You stupid old pervert!’ Victoria screamed. ‘Let go of me!’

  But instead he hugged her boots tighter, and his shoulders shook like the haunches of a dog in heat. He was weeping in full flow now, too copiously to be capable of speech. Victoria wrenched her boots back and forth, kicked at him savagely and broke free of his hold; but the smooth black rubber was smeared with Mr Keane’s handprints, and streaked with his tears, and somehow that drove her to an ungovernable fury. ‘Look what you’ve done!’

  ‘I’m sorry...’ Mr Keane wept. ‘I’m sorry, miss...’

  ‘Fuck sorry!’ Victoria bawled. ‘This is for sorry!’

  And with those words, she leapt to her feet and crashed the sole of her rubber boot down hard upon his face. She hurled her weight back and forth against the lined, pale flesh; lifting her foot away at last, to reveal a deep, clear boot-print marked in his cheek. ‘There. Look in the mirror when I’m gone - I’m leaving this place now - but first...’ She seized Jane Keane’s boots up from the floor. ‘This is for your wife’s stinking feet!’

  Holding both boots by the tops, she swung her arm around in a circle; she let them go, flinging them at the workroom window with all her strength. Both hit the glass, smashing a big jagged hole in the frosted pane.

  Mr Keane lay
, still weeping. Victoria grabbed up her shoes and walked out of the House of Footwear. She pulled the front door shut after her with a SLAM; the brass boot door-knocker rocked in its moorings, and delivered the building a parting kick. Victoria stalked down the steps, and away down the street.

  The rain had stopped, but a bitterly cold wind was blowing. Victoria scarcely noticed, not until she emerged from the back streets on to the main road. She rounded a corner and a blast of freezing air caught her full on and threw her unfastened raincoat aside to right and left. From neck to knees, her body shuddered but she kept on walking, unflinchingly. Her calves and feet had met the icy blast with indifference, protected as they were inside black rubber... But something made her ask herself a question: what the hell came over me? That poor man! I insulted him, I insulted his wife’s memory; I stamped on his face, smashed his window, walked out of his shop without even thinking about paying - and why? What’s happened to me tonight? I put on these boots - and what came over me? She recalled something Mrs Gardner had said, in the story of Lockwood Lodge: her speech about the psychological significance of the boot. A symbol of aggression, dominance and cruelty, she’d said. Was that it? Have all those qualities been inside me, then - waiting to be unleashed by boots...?

  She came to a halt. Her expensive high-heeled shoes were still in her hand, clutched together by the ankle straps. She looked down at them, and then up again. A little way farther ahead was a bus stop. Only one person was waiting there, a lank-haired, glum-faced young man, wedged into the corner of the shelter. Through its perspex walls he was looking at Victoria, in fact, eyeing her hopelessly. Next to the shelter stood a litter bin.

  Victoria walked on, up to the shelter and dropped her shoes into the bin, on to a copy of that morning’s Daily Mirror. The young man’s gloomy mouth dropped open, his dull eyes were illuminated by a stare; but Victoria stared right back, in such a way as to kill any questions before they could reach his tongue. She threw her right hand high and straight into the air and gave a shout: ‘Taxi!’