Shoes

The first time was purely the fault of circumstance. We had been separated for six months, at our respective universities; after what seemed like an eternity of late nights on the phone, whispering hot words, trying to get each other off without waking our roommates, we were finally going to receive the gratification of actual physical contact. I wanted to look hot as hell as I stepped off the plane in Arizona. I had been entertaining dreams of him ripping off my clothes in his car and fucking me before we even left the airport parking lot.

Things did not work out that way. I had decided to wear my new knee-high black leather boots. Forgetting that my feet swell when I fly, I had bought the boots on sale, half a size too small. I did not realize that this would lead to anything more than aching feet until we reached his bedroom—already wet from anticipation—and began to undress each other. I stopped to unzip my boots, but they wouldn't come off. After minutes of fruitless tugging the zippers still would not budge, and the mood had been completely destroyed. "Well, I guess we're just gonna have to have sex with the boots on," he said. And we did.

I fucked him like a high-class hooker, Julia Roberts-style,straddling him and riding with an aggression that I had never felt before. It felt dirty, like the first time my high school boyfriend fingered me behind the gym. And the orgasm was indescribable.

Three months later school was out and we were living together in the city. He came home one hot afternoon with new white suede dress shoes from Roots, the kind you wear with loose khaki linen pants and that seem to belong only in Italy. After pulling them out of the bag he grabbed me around the waist and whispered in my ear, "I want to have you while I wear my new shoes."

I slipped on my Prada pumps, he his white suede, and we made love like we lived on the Upper East Side. Slow thrusts of bourgeois bliss—I leaving light kisses on his collarbone as he gently stroked my hair, staring into each other's eyes as we came together. At this point it became a "thing" that he wouldn't let me call a fetish. We began to shop for specific shoes, surprising each other with gifts of footwear. Nikes, loafers, stilettos, fuzzy slippers—each had its own flavor of sexuality. And although time has passed and the relationship is over, I still get hot as I pass through shoe departments.