bows of her insteps.
Constance looked away and then back. It felt as if she was spying on lovers in an intimate moment. But she’d thought he was one of those ‘gays’. It was very confusing.
Shirley told Percy, ‘These are perfect. Your taste is exquisite, as usual. Now see what you can find for my friend, will you?’
Constance gasped, ‘What?’
‘You’re transforming yourself, aren’t you? A butterfly emerging from her chrysalis? Let’s move the process along, shall we?’
‘I didn’t say anything about …’
‘You didn’t have to. One day you’re a frump, the next day you look kind of pretty, and you aren’t wearing a bra. Draw a line from one to the other, and what do we have?’
Constance folded a protective arm across her chest. ‘What?’
‘Eventually, a very cute little sexpot, that’s what.’
‘I don’t know …’
‘I do.’ Shirley turned to Percy. ‘Conservative, for this time, dearest. Black, I think, and three inches?’
‘Does she have her learner’s permit?’
‘Percy!’
‘Sorry.’ He scuttled back into the stacks. He returned with a shoebox. ‘Plain black pumps. What could be more conservative?’
Shirley told him, ‘Help the girl try them on, then.’
‘Love to, but …’ His disdainful look at Constance’s scuffed loafers spoke volumes.
She kicked them off.
‘Thanks, Shirley’s friend. It’s not that those dreadful things are actually contagious, but …’
‘You wouldn’t want to soil your hands on them,’ Constance finished for him.
He squatted. From down there, he might be able to look up her skirt. Constance clamped her knees together but he didn’t so much as glance upwards. His eyes were on her feet.
‘What cute little piggies,’ he said. ‘Poor things.’ He looked up into Constance’s eyes. ‘They deserve better of you, you know,’ he accused.
‘Sorry.’
‘There, there,’ he told her toes. ‘Percy will dress you up nicely. I’ll be right back.’ He took tissue paper from the shoebox and used it to pick Constance’s loafers up and carry them away. There was the sound of something being dropped into a waste bin before he returned.
Shirley whispered, ‘I know he’s a bit eccentric, but he does know his shoes.’
Constance replied, ‘I guess I have the choice of either buying a new pair or going back to the office in my stocking feet.’ She grinned to show that she wasn’t really upset. In fact, she was quite enjoying the strange man. She’d never before bought clothes from anyone who actually cared what she bought.
Percy returned and put the pumps onto Constance’s feet with as much tender care as if he’d been wrapping Fabergé eggs. As his fingertips slid across the sensitive skin under her arches, she felt an answering subtle twitch of the tendons that run beside the hollows high on the insides of her thighs. The vamps were cut just low enough to expose half-inches of toe cleavage.
‘Walk, please,’ he announced.
Would she stumble and disgrace herself?
Shirley advised, ‘Get your centre of gravity above the balls of your feet. When you walk, your toes go down first. Remember, one foot in front of the other.’
‘You can do it,’ Percy encouraged.
It was like having a cheering squad boosting her. Constance set her feet firmly, shifted forward and concentrated on the sensations her legs’ muscles were feeling. It felt good – an elegant tension that rippled up her limbs.
And she was erect.
Constance took a short step, then another. Emboldened, she made the next one longer and stumbled but caught herself.
‘You’re doing fine,’ Shirley told her.
‘And now you are become a veritable swan!’ Percy exclaimed. ‘Look at what those shoes have done to your legs in the mirror. Pull your skirt up a tiny bit, there’s a good girl.’
Blushing with pleasure, Constance pinched the fabric just above her knees and lifted her skirt’s hem a few inches. In the mirror, her ankles had become more slender, her calves fuller. There were dimples in her knees and her thighs looked shapelier than she’d imagined them to be – not that she’d ever given much thought to what her thighs looked like.
‘Oh!’ she said. In a rush, she added, ‘Perhaps I’ll take two pairs like these.’
‘No,’ Percy told her. ‘That’d be a waste. Come back in another week and we’ll try you in three and a half or even four inches. You’ll take to wearing real heels in no time, I promise. You’re a natural.’
‘But she’ll take three pairs of stay-up stockings,’ Shirley said. ‘Would you believe that she wears’ – her voice dropped to a whisper – ‘pantyhose.’
‘Of course I noticed. I just didn’t want to embarrass her by mentioning it.’
As Percy wrapped, Shirley gave Connie a quick lecture on how to sit to take advantage of her new look – ankles crossed neatly to the side, so demure, so enticing.
On the way back to the office, Constance got just as much passing masculine attention as Shirley did. It felt a bit like the time she’d got into her dad’s hard cider, thinking it was just spicy apple juice.
She stopped by the ladies’ room and popped another button at her throat. Jeff was way overdue to visit. Before they’d broken up, he’d paused at her desk at least once every other day. She couldn’t wait to see how he reacted to the new Constance but she imagined he’d be stunned, then contrite, then desperate to get her alone to make love. When he did, she’d leave the lights on. Ha! What he’d see would devastate him, and in a good way.
And she’d see him. She’d see Jeff’s naked body. How did she feel about that?
Jeff hadn’t passed by her cubicle that day, not once. Still, he had eight floors of PCs to look after. Perhaps he was very busy. Perhaps he’d simply given up on her. She had to face that possibility. What if Jeff took up with Shirley?
Constance had a quick flash of her ex entwined with her new best friend, two lithe and lovely young bodies, undulating urgently.
No.
She hit Control 5 on her keyboard and brought the Andrew’s Aircraft queue up. The screen was a bit misty but then she blinked and it cleared.
