honey, like you’ve been fucked three ways from Sunday.’
Constance had forgotten the earthy way Shirley had of talking when away from her desk. It should have shocked her but somehow she found it refreshing. ‘I dumped Jeff,’ she confessed. ‘Perhaps that’s it.’
‘The cute IT guy? He any good?’
‘Any good?’
‘In bed.’
Constance felt her face burn. ‘I guess. Yes, to be honest, he’s pretty good.’
‘Mind if I do him?’
‘You mean …?’
‘Fuck him. He’s pretty cute, but if you’d have a problem …?’
‘No, no, no problem,’ Constance lied.
‘Thanks. Say, Connie, you doing anything at lunch?’
‘No, why?’
‘I’m going to shoe-shop. Want to come along?’
What was happening? In five years, no one in the office had ever approached her socially. She knew that some of the other women, the younger ones mostly, got together to go places. She’d overheard some of them talking about going clubbing and the like. Constance had never been included. Now, just because she was showing a little cleavage, she was sure, she was being invited. How powerful was that?
‘Sure, love to,’ she said without stammering.
‘One o’clock, then?’
‘One o’clock.’
Time was, when Constance would have been mortified to have walked down a busy street beside an over-made-up girl in a too-short skirt and too-high heels who swung her hips so emphatically.
To her own surprise, shame was the last thing she felt. So how did she feel? There was a trace of pride in being seen with someone who drew so many approving stares. Then there was jealousy. Constance might as well have been invisible, or, at best, a moon to Shirley’s sun.
But she was prettier than Shirley. She knew that, even if the thought was immodest. She was prettier but she wasn’t – sexier. That was it. And that was by her own choice, or by her mother’s.
Damn you, Mom. Look at what you’ve deprived me of, all these years. Well, it ends, now! A sense of relief washed through Constance. She felt reborn, emerging as a liberated woman, free for the first time in her life.
Shirley said, ‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it. I just caught our reflection in a window and that’s the thought that popped into my mind.’
‘What?’
‘It’s my philosophy.’
‘Oh!’
‘Don’t hide your light under a bushel, right?’
‘Right.’ Wow! Shirley could justify her brazenness with quotations from the Bible. With that justification, Constance tried swinging her hips a little. It took a moment to get the rhythm right but, once she got it going, it almost felt natural. Almost.
‘Here we are,’ Shirley announced. She led the way in.
The boutique was called Spikes. Constance swallowed hard. The shoes on display were … impossible. But beautiful, in a dozen different perverse ways. There were sculptures in leather, scraps of fabric on soaring heels, straps that made Constance feel restricted just from looking at them, puffs of pink fluff and slivers of snakeskin. People actually wore these?
A tall thin man in lavender pants and a matching shirt waltzed up to Shirley and arced to kiss her cheek without making body-contact. ‘Shirley-girly, my pet! How nice to see you again.’
He turned his head to give Constance’s feet a pitying glance that made her want to hide them. To Shirley, he continued, ‘For work or for play, today, my lovely?’
‘For play.’
He giggled. ‘Well, shoes are foreplay, in my opinion. What fun! New man?’
‘No. That’s why.’
‘Good strategy. Four inches again?’
‘And a half.’
‘Well, that’s progress at least. I’ll get you up to six inches one of these days, you mark my words.’
‘I’m sure that you will, but I don’t want to tower over all the men.’
‘There are many men that love to be towered over, Shirl. I’m tall but it hasn’t hindered me.’
‘They’re not my type, Percy.’
‘Different strokes.’
‘For sure,’ Shirley said. ‘Shoes for clubbing, please, Percy. I’ve got two new outfits, one in liquid gold, the other in a silver mesh.’
The strange man disappeared into the stacks.
Constance whispered, ‘What did you mean, “liquid gold”?’
‘It’s a fabric, very thin, very clingy, that looks like metal has been melted and poured all over you. It shows off your nips, and you can even see your bellybutton through it.’
‘Oh!’ Constance thought about that for a while, and about what it’d look like on Shirley, and on herself. Was she ready for something like that? Maybe not – not yet, anyway. Still, the thought of being seen in something so revealing made her feel a glow, down there. And if Jeff ever saw her in anything like that, he’d go crazy with desire, for sure.
Shirley put a finger on Constance’s knee. ‘Heels are very powerful. A woman can be old and fat and ugly but if her heels are high enough, men will still look at her that way.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘I kid you not.’
The shoes that Percy brought for Shirley to try had heels as thin and cruel as nails. The soles were like paper. The uppers were interlocking teardrops, one gold, one silver, and with gold and silver cord ankle straps.
‘Are those strong enough to walk in?’ Constance asked.
Percy’s eyebrow lifted. ‘If you’re looking for “sturdy”, you should try army boots,’ he sneered.
Shirley tapped Constance’s wrist. ‘Apart from a little dancing, I won’t be on my feet much in these. That’s the whole point.’
Constance thought for a moment, then blushed.
Percy squatted at Shirley’s feet. He lifted her left
