feet. He loves designer shoes and only has eyes for my Jimmy Choos, per his request.
“Can I take them off of you?” he asks.
He’s a decent guy. We’ve seen each other in this office four or five times. Nothing he does insults me. What he likes isn’t perverted or menacing. He’s polite, asks for consent, and is careful. But for some reason, I want to slam the heel of my thousand-dollar shoe into his eye.
The sorry bastard might like it.
I lift the bowl of fruit to my lap, ignoring his request as I pick a grape from the vine. Crossing my legs, I roll my ankle in front of his face as I pop the grape into my mouth and bite with a crunch. Sweet juice fills my mouth and I moan dramatically. He looks away from my foot long enough to watch me lick my lips.
“Do you want to guess what color I painted my toes?” I ask. I press my toe to his crotch to feel his erection.
“Yes,” he says softly.
“We should make a wager. A bet.” I drag my shoe along his hard cock through his slacks.
Heat spreads up his neck and across his cheeks, reddening his light skin. My appointment swallows hard, but he knows better than to touch me before I allow it.
“Alright.”
“If you guess right, you can fuck me with my ankles on your shoulders. If you guess wrong, I’ll let you play with my feet, but you won’t fuck me today. Deal?”
It’s a bargain he accepts right away because either way he wins. Just looking at my feet arouses the newspaper editor, but he’s not so deep into his fetish that he needs feet to come. It’s just a plus. He’ll guess wrong, but he’ll still get to kiss, lick, and massage my feet. That’s enough to keep him hard, and right before his hour is up, I’ll jerk him off.
“They’re red,” he guesses. Normally, he’d be correct. Red is such a sexy color. It provokes passion and increases blood pressure. Men are drawn to the color, associating it with sensuality and romance. I wear it on my lips, my nails, and my toes for these reasons.
Last night I removed every trace of it from my hands and feet, and I wore a nude lipstick to today’s appointment.
“You can take off my shoe and find out.”
He cradles my foot as if it’s his most precious possession, careful not to scuff the shine on my shoe. Numbness that’s accompanied me since the day I followed my mom’s footsteps into sex work abandons me, and it’s a struggle not to scream stop. The word is stuck in my throat. I swallow, and swallow, and swallow again to keep it down.
“Damn,” the editor moans when he sees my bare, paintless toes. His eyes find mine, and if he catches indecision in my expression, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he lifts my foot and asks, “May I?”
I nod.
My words can’t be trusted.
He licks the arch of my foot, and I clutch the arms of the chair to keep from jumping up and running away. The bowl of grapes falls to the floor.
I’m broken.
There’s no other explanation.
I’m a psychopath, losing control of my mind.
On the treadmill in the dining area where a dinner table should be, I’ve attempted to control my racing mind, running faster and farther than ever. My tan top’s drenched in sweat. Rebellious hair sticks across my forehead and neck. I’ve been home from my appointments with Cristian and the editor for hours. The sun is down, and I should be in bed, resting for another day of appointments. But the idea of letting tomorrow’s clients touch me is sickening, and I can’t outrun the feeling no matter how hard I try.
When my lungs feel like they’re going to burst and I can’t keep the sweat out of my eyes, I slam my palm against the stop button and jump off. I double over with my hands on my knees, inhaling through my nose and out of my mouth as the muscles in my legs seize. My body might crumble until a rush of endorphins blankets me in dopamine and it feels as good as it did when I walked into Talent’s office and saw him sitting behind his desk.
I forgo the vodka in my freezer for water, guzzling half the bottle in one icy drink. I’m wiping it from my chin when someone knocks on my door.
Inez holds her cell phone up for me