The Three Sisters continues!

[Stu]

Introduction – By Steve We were having so much fun that there was no reason to stop. Three previous threads that appear on this Web site – “The First Sister: Ana,” “The Second Sister: Maria,” and “The Third Sister: Sharon,” tell the story of the remarkable changes that took place in my life and the people close to me during the years 1994 through 1996. In these threads, my close friend Bob and his lovely wife Ana shared with me their interest in having Ana become a full-time high-heel wearer. This intrigued me so much that I ended up falling in love with and marrying Maria, a gorgeous and incredibly skilled high-heel wearer in her own right. When Sharon, an old friend of mine, moved to town to start a new life for herself, she found Maria and Ana to be the perfect role models for her own high-heel endeavors. And Sharon ended up hitting things off with Jack. By the time 1996 came to a close, these three ladies were teaching themselves to walk in 6-inch heels, with the enthusiastic support and encouragement of their significant others. The stories to follow will chronicle the continuing adventures of the six of us in the years 1997 and 1998. They were exciting and rewarding years, in which Maria, Ana and Sharon grew and developed as high-heel wearers, loving wives and talented on-the-job professionals, usually with delightful results. These stories may not be for everyone, but the six of us are proud of our lifestyles and are happy to share our experiences with people who might them interesting. If you think you might be one of those, then by all means, please read on.

[Stu]

Weekend at the Lake

Written in the first person by Steve

“I’m just an exhibitionist,” Maria intoned as she looked at herself in the mirror. “A self-centered showoff. A vamp. Nothing more.”

Exhibitionist or not, it would have been hard for anyone in our hotel room not to look hard at Maria. She was wearing a black dress that hung sensuously from her brown shoulders and formed a large v-neck that exposed an ample amount of cleavage. The dress hugged her quite tightly from the chest down, highlighting the delightful curves of her waist and hips before ending at the knee. Complementing the dress were blacked seamed stockings (not panty hose, but true seamed stockings) and the piece de resistance: her killer pair of 5-1/2 inch black stiletto heels.

“And what a lovely vamp you are,” I joked. I immediately regretted what I said.

“Oh, Steve, I’m not playing around,” Maria said somewhat angrily. “Sometimes I don’t know who I am. I am supposed to be a serious business student at a respected university, but everyone calls me “Senora Heels” because I walk around the campus in stilettos every day. I am not sure how many people even know my real name.”

“When we were first married, you wore stilettos as a badge of individuality,” I said. “You were hell-bent on opening people’s minds, and on getting them to accept you as the woman you wanted to be. You insisted on respect for both your physical beauty and your intellect. What happened?”

“Reality hit me. Or maybe I just grew up. High heels and femininity may be important in El Salvador, but they are not relevant here in the United States. Why should anyone take me seriously when they see me walking with these ridiculous sticks of wood under my feet? Maybe I should limit myself to two-inch block heels like everyone else. Maybe then people will respect me.”

“With all due respect, my dear…bullshit!” came a female voice from outside of our hotel room. The door, which we had left ajar, opened, and Sharon walked in, accompanied by her husband, Jack. Sharon was her usual striking self, attired in a tight yellow mini-dress with matching 5-1/2-inch stiletto sandals.

Sharon added, “Sorry, Maria, but I could not help overhearing you as we approached your room. What you are saying is totally wrong. One of the very best things that ever happened to me was when Ana and you transformed me into a full-time, expert heel wearer. More women need to experience the things that we have.”

Jack said, “Maria, you have spent too much time at the university around all those pompous, politically correct types who don’t understand anything outside of their own narrow world view. The person you really need to start listening to is yourself. Hopefully, we will be able to help you with that.”

The door opened again, and Ana and Bob entered. “Who needs help?” Ana asked. She looked stunning in a tight, mid-length red dress and matching red, 5-1/2-inch stiletto sandals.

Ana looked at Maria’s melancholy expression and immediately answered her own question. She gave Maria a hug and asked, “Que pasa, mi amiga? Tell me what is happening?”

Maria briefed her on our conversation, and Ana said, “Oh, is that all? Sexy Latin woman feels out of place in her adopted country and wants to be like all the gringas? How often does that happen to me, maybe once a week?”

Bob said, “Maria, you are entitled to feel down about things occasionally, especially with all the pressure you are feeling from your studies. Just recognize it for what it is. By the end of our little weekend getaway, you will be feeling 100 percent better about yourself. I guarantee it.”

“Thanks, everyone,” Maria said, not looking convinced by anything the five of us had said. “I appreciate that you are all trying to be supportive. I have a lot of thinking to do, but I do not want to ruin anyone’s weekend. Let’s all get out of this room. I want you all to have fun. Don’t worry about me.”

I put my arm around Maria’s shoulder, and as we left the room and I shut the door behind us, I said, “If you’re not having fun, you will ruin my weekend. So don’t think too much, OK? Just enjoy.”

The six of us had not gotten together for several months, thanks mainly to the demands of our jobs (or, in Maria’s case, her studies). We decided to break the drudgery with a weekend trip to Lake Tahoe, the awe-inspiring mountain lake that straddles the California-Nevada state line. We all got into Bob and Ana’s minivan on Saturday morning, drove up to the lake and checked into one of the casino hotels on the Nevada side of the lake. The ladies had talked earlier in the week (before Maria’s mood took a nosedive) and planned what they would wear during the weekend. Thus, they were prepared for our Saturday evening in the casino with their complementary dresses and eye-catching 5-1/2-inch stilettos.

As we made our way through the crowded casino, any number of gamblers looked up from their slot machines to get a better look at our three ladies. I was so accustomed by that time to the stares and gawks that they would attract that I barely gave it a thought. I was mainly looking at Sharon, and was impressed that she was walking effortlessly in her sky-high yellow sandals, with a tasteful wiggle that made her look every bit as experienced in high heels as her two mentors. It was no longer right to think of her as the novice of the trio; she was Maria’s and Ana’s peer in every heely respect.

We were walking through the lobby of the casino when Ana pointed to a large display sign on the wall and said, “Look, Maria! Look who is performing at this casino tonight!” Maria turned, looked at the sign, and squealed with delight like an excited schoolgirl. It was the first time I had seen her smile during the trip.

“Oh my god, Ana, it can’t be! Luis Rojo is here! I can’t believe it!” Maria exclaimed.

I looked at the display and groaned, and Bob did the same. We were both married to Latin women, and we had both been exposed to the music of Luis Rojo, a Puerto Rican crooner who was so sickeningly sweet and romantic that he left a bad taste in the mouth of any man who heard one of his tunes. But Latin women seemed to love him. For the most part, I liked Maria’s taste in music, and I enjoyed listening to many of her salsa CDs. But whenever Maria put on one of her romantic Luis Rojo CDs, I would have to go outside or, if I was really desperate, into the bathroom. He was that bad.

Nevertheless, Bob and I walked over to the ticket counter to see if any tickets were available. The vendor told us the night’s performance had long been sold out, but that we could try checking back with him 30 minutes before the show to see if any tickets that had been set aside for VIPs had been returned unused. If any were left, they would cost $100 each.

“Could you imagine paying $100 to see Luis Rojo?” I said quietly to Bob. But Maria looked more crestfallen than ever when I told her all the tickets for the show were almost certainly gone, and all of a sudden several hundred dollars did not seem like a lot to improve her mood.

“It’s better this way,” she said dejectedly. “Ana is the only other one of us who might be remotely interested in Luis Rojo. It would be wrong to push the rest of you to spend hundreds of dollars on a show you wouldn’t like.”

“Nonsense!” Sharon said. “Maria, if it is important to you, it is important to us. We will go to that show, and we will not need to spend our own money.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” Bob asked.

“We have to be a little bit enterprising,” Sharon replied. “We have to use the assets that we have. Leave it to Ana and me. Right, Ana?”

“Right…I guess,” Ana said with some hesitation. “What do we do?”

[Tom-NL]

Good to see you back again Stu, and thanks for this new episode.

[Stu]

Hi, Tom. I am glad you are still interested in this series. Here is the next installment: “For now, follow me. And observe,” Sharon said. We walked to an area of the casinos where a number of craps tables were located. Sharon asked Jack for $50 in cash. We then walked past each of the craps tables, looking for one that might be short of players. But it was Saturday night, and each table had more players than it could handle. That was not about to stop Sharon. As the rest of us stood in the background, Sharon picked one of the tables and began walking around it, observing the action. The yellow mini-dress and stiletto heels drew the attention of each of the craps players, who followed the dice with one eye and Sharon with the other. After each roll of the dice, Sharon cooed something like, “Oh, good for you! That was wonderful!” in a dumb-blonde voice that was hard for the players to ignore. She then found a place by the table and leaned forward ever so slightly, making her dangerously short dress appear even shorter and flashing a lot of leg and those marvelous stilettos at the players. Over the next 10 minutes or so, she struck up some brief conversations with some of the others around the table, saying things like, “Oh, this game looks like so much fun.” When it was time for a new game to begin, one of the men who had been waiting to play offered Sharon the chance to play the next game. “Oh, I couldn’t do that! I know you’ve been waiting!” she said. But the man insisted she play, and Sharon agreed. She walked over to the dice, put down her first bet, and with all eyes glued on her, threw the dice and won her bet. “Oh, I won, I won!” she exclaimed. “Can I keep playing?” I have never played craps and do not understand the game very well, so I cannot describe exactly what Sharon did. But over the next 45 minutes, she continued to play and, while she did not win with every toss of the dice, she gained more than she lost. Despite her innocent, dumb-blonde routine, it became clear that she knew exactly what she was doing. And when her winnings reached $650, she thanked all the players, took her money, and walked away, giving them a nice wiggle of the posterior as she left with what had been their money. “Here is your $50 back,” Sharon said to Jack, returning the money he had given her. Flashing the rest of the cash, she said, “And here is the money we will use to buy tickets to see Luis Rojo.” “Where did you learn to play craps like that?” I asked her incredulously. Sharon replied, “An old boyfriend I dated many years ago was a serious gambler. He taught me a lot, especially how to play craps. I don’t really find it enjoyable. But it is a good skill to have, especially when you could use some extra money.” Sharon then said, “OK, I did my part. Now, Ana, it is time for you to do yours.” Sharon handed Ana the $600 and pointed to the ticket booth a short distance away. “Sellout or not, it is time for you to get us those Luis Rojo tickets. Go for it, girl.” “How do I end up in situations like this?” Ana asked. She stood at full attention and closed her eyes for a few seconds in order to concentrate on what she was about to do. When she opened them, she said, “OK, wish me luck.” Ana walked up to the ticket booth, swiveling her hips from side to side under her tight red dress. She flashed a big smile that seemed to indicate she did not have a care in the world, and she looked right into the eyes of the ticket vendor as she approached him. “Good evening,” Ana said. “I would like to purchase six tickets for tonight’s Luis Rojo performance,” “Oh, I am sorry, ma’am. Tonight’s performance is sold out,” the vendor said. “Sold out?” Ana replied in an innocent voice. “Isn’t there any way I can get tickets?” “Come back 30 minutes before the performance. If any of the tickets reserved for VIPs have been returned, they will be available for sale, first-come-first-serve. That is the best I can do for you.” “And you don’t know if any tickets will be available? You must know right now whether any tickets have been returned.” Ana stared lovingly at the vendor, who was fidgeting nervously but managing to maintain his professional composure. Ana has this ability to look at you in such a way that convinces you that she is madly in love with you, even if you know that such a thing is impossible. This poor vendor was getting the full treatment from her. “Look, ma’am,” the vendor said. “I am not supposed to tell you this, but we did get six tickets back this afternoon. If you come back 40 minutes before the performance, you should be the first in line, and then I will be able to sell them to you when they go up for sale. But do not tell anyone I told you, or I could get in big trouble.” “It will be our little secret, dear,” Ana said, leaning toward him. “But why make me come back? Look, I am a VIP. I am a friend of Luis Rojo’s, and if Luis knew we were coming, he would have reserved the tickets for us weeks ago. We only changed some previous plans last night so we could come up today. If you sell me the tickets now, I will tell Luis when I see him backstage tonight, and he will be very happy with your casino. But if I don’t get in to the performance, he will be very angry.” “You say you are a friend of Luis Rojo? Let me call my boss.” The vendor paged his boss. When the boss arrived, he briefly discussed the matter with the vendor, and gave Ana one quick but obvious heads-to-toes look. Ana took a couple of steps back from the ticket counter to make sure the boss could see all of her, including her provocative red heels. The boss nodded his head to the vendor, and walked away, taking one last look at Ana. “OK, as long as you are a friend of Luis Rojo, I can sell them to you now,” the vendor said. “And tell Luis hello for me when you see him tonight.” “Oh, I will,” Ana said, handing the vendor the money in exchange for six tickets. “Muchas gracias. I wish everyone at the casino was as helpful as you.” Ana vamped back to us, swinging her hips and waving the tickets as an expression of victory. “I do regret having to tell a little white lie,” she said. “I only do it as a last resort, but sometimes a woman has to do what a woman has to do.” Maria’s mood changed in an instant when she saw Ana approaching with the tickets. She smiled, stood up straight and regained the familiar bounce in her stilettos as she walked. And the energy that she projected really brought her killer black dress to life. For the first time that evening, I noticed that people were turning to look specifically at her, as opposed to our three ladies as a trio. We had almost two hours to kill before the show, so we had a leisurely dinner at one of the casino’s restaurants. We then made our way to the amphitheater and, once inside, we found that our tickets were for the front row near the center of the stage. After all, the tickets had originally been set aside for VIPs. When the show began, Maria bounced up and down in her seat like a 14-year-old girl at her first rock concert. Ana was visibly excited as well. Luis Rojo came on stage and began singing within several feet of us. Unfortunately, his live performance was just as sickeningly sweet as his CDs. The man made Julio Iglesias sound like a hard-edged blues singer. Rojo sang in Spanish, but he used the same two words over and over – amor, which means love, and corazon, which means heart. A non-Spanish speaker who knew only those two words could follow his songs perfectly. I looked over to Bob for support, and we both tried to look excited. I then looked over to Sharon and Jack, who were hearing Rojo for the first time. Sharon was smiling and seemed to be getting into the spirit of the show, while Jack looked pretty much neutral about the whole thing. The audience consisted mostly of Luis Rojo fans, and they stood up and applauded at the end of each song. We did, too. Rojo looked over at times toward Maria, Ana and Sharon, which was not surprising as he had a perfect view of them from the stage. As the performance went on, it seemed like he was looking more and more at Maria, particularly when everyone stood up to applaud at the end of each song. And Maria was looking up at Rojo with all the intensity of a star-struck fan. I thought perhaps I was getting paranoid (and a little bit jealous as well), but it was unnerving to watch this back-and-forth interaction between this Latin singing star and my wife. About two-thirds of the way through the show, Rojo began singing one of his favorite ballads, in which he professes his undying love to a woman. In the middle of the second verse, he walked over to us, put his hand down, and beckoned Maria to take his hand and join him on stage. A couple of stage hands put down a stool that Maria used to go up on the stage. A sizable number of people in the audience cheered and whistled when Maria got up on the stage, which was understandable. In her matching black dress and stilettos, she was absolutely sizzling. Rojo took Maria by the hand and looked right in her eyes as he sung the lyrics about eternal love. For her part, Maria handled her impromptu stage role perfectly. She stared at him with total adoration, as if she honestly believed the words were directed solely at her. She took a step back, and then another, and Rojo continued to hold her hand as he followed her around the stage. When Rojo finished the second verse, he pulled Maria toward him, and they began dancing as his band played the musical interlude between verses. Maria is not a particularly good dancer, but she let Rojo lead her and kept up with him nicely. If anyone noticed – and I am sure more than a few members of the audience did – Maria was giving a first-class demonstration of how to move gracefully in 5-1/2 inch heels. The dance ended when it came time for Rojo to sing the third verse, but even then he kept Maria close to him, and she willingly obliged. Rojo finished the song with a prolonged note while singing te quiero (I want you). Maria complemented this ending note perfectly by breaking into one of her big, beautiful sexy smiles that reduce me to mush every time I see it. When Rojo finished his note and the music ended, he pulled Maria to him again and kissed her on the cheek. The crowd erupted into the loudest applause of the night, and rightly so, as the chemistry between Rojo and Maria was undeniable. Rojo walked her to the edge of the stage, and the stage hands put the stool down again and helped her back to her seat. I heard someone in the audience yell, “Don’t go!” and someone else shouted, “Keep the lady on the stage!” Maria was positively beaming when she sat down, and I felt as if I had to watch her closely to be sure she did not pass out from hyperventilation. Our eventful night took yet another unexpected turn two songs later, when an usher handed Maria a note and inviting her and others in her party to join Luis Rojo and the band backstage after the performance. Each of the six of us took turns cradling the note as if it were a check for a million dollars. I have to admit, even I was excited. To be continued.

[Stu]

After the show ended, a couple of ushers accompanied us backstage. Things were pretty much the way I had imagined them, basically a whir of activity with band members, stage hands, roadies, and others busily taking care of whatever business was at hand. A number of people stopped whatever they were doing for a few seconds to get a look at Maria, Ana and Sharon, and several people walked up to Maria and complimented her for her improvised performance with Rojo. We finally saw Rojo himself, sitting at a table and sipping at a drink while talking with several people. When he saw us, he got up, walked over to us and graciously thanked us for coming back. Each of the six of us introduced ourselves, and he invited us back to his table. Several stagehands got chairs for all of us. “I want to tell you,” he said, “I have performed that serenade on stage at least one thousand times over the past 15 years. The performance of it tonight was easily one of the top five out of all those times. Maria, you added a dimension to that song. You took it to a place I cannot quite reach on my own, even with all my experience.” “Oh, Mr. Rojo, that’s really very kind of you,” Maria said, with more than a touch of embarrassment.” I asked, “Mr. Rojo, do you always pick someone from the audience when you perform that song?” “Please, call me Luis,” he said. “Only occasionally do I pick someone from the audience. Usually, I use one of my female backing vocalists for the serenade. But I always look at the women in the first two rows. If I think someone has the right stage presence…In other words, if I think someone is sufficiently beautiful and well dressed, and seems to have the charisma to pull it off, I will invite them up as I did with Maria. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. But rarely does it work as well as it did tonight.” One of Rojo’s helpers came by and served us rum with Coca-Cola, which apparently was the singer’s favorite drink. Roho said, “I don’t know what your personal situation is. However, Maria, if you were interested in an adventure, I would be willing to offer you a job with my band as a backing vocalist. You would perform the serenade with me at every show.” “Oh, but Mr. Rojo, I can’t sing. And I really can’t even dance,” Maria said sheepishly. “You would not have to sing. We could keep your microphone off. You would still make a great visual addition to the band. You could travel all through the United States and Latin America with the band, performing that serenade with us. And I have a European tour lined up next year.” “Mr. Rojo, I mean Luis, I am so flattered,” Maria replied. “I am currently in college. I couldn’t just take off with your band. Plus, I am not sure my husband would approve of it, either.” “A college student, huh? What are you studying?” “Business. I am a senior, so I am close to graduation.” “A business student. So you have a good brain to go with your lovely exterior. That is great. What are your plans after graduation?” “Get a job.” “If you wanted to get a job in the entertainment industry, perhaps as an agent, you could go a long way. Presentation and style is everything in this business, and you demonstrate that you already understand that.” “Thank you, sir,” Maria replied. “I am very serious about that. Look, Maria, you have a gift. A gift of beauty, style and sensuality. Do not waste it. If you have aspirations in business, that is a wonderful thing, but do not overlook the power of your femininity. Do not be afraid to harness that power, and use it as you used it tonight on stage with me. This world needs all the style and beauty that you can give it. And ladies,” he said, turning to Ana and Sharon, “my sincerest apologies for not including you in my compliments. You have the gift, too, and either of you would have been wonderful on stage tonight as well. And you are with good men who are secure enough to let you express yourself in a way that few women can. This is so good. I wish I could offer all of you jobs with my band.” One of Rojo’s assistants motioned to him. Rojo looked at his watch. “I am so sorry, but I have to be going. But I am so glad I was able to meet all of you.” Fortunately, Jack had brought a small camera in his jacket pocket. One of Rojo’s assistants took a photo of Rojo with the six of us, and Jack took photos of Rojo with each of us. Rojo also autographed some publicity photos for us. They all occupy a special place in our photo albums to this day. After Rojo left, the six of us went to one of the casino bars and talked for the next couple of hours while sipping drinks. Then we went back to our respective hotel rooms, still uncertain if we would be able to sleep. I unzipped Maria’s dress and asked her, “So, do you still want to blend in with everybody else?” “Oh, Steve, I was just saying that because I was feeling down. School gets to me sometimes.” Maria carefully hung up her dress, and then took off her bra and unhooked her panties. She turned to me, wearing only her garter belt, seamed stockings and stiletto heels. Meanwhile, I had removed all my clothes. “That Luis Rojo certainly has a way with words,” Maria said. “Do you honestly think I have a gift?” “That is a good term for it. You also had an upbringing that taught you how to use your gift. Plus, you have your intellect. All in all, you have a lot going for you. Rojo got it right.” I walked up to her, caressed her shoulders, kissed her lightly on the lips and then bent down and kissed her breasts. “Then why can’t I connect with the people at school? Why do some of the smartest people I know treat me like an airhead simply because I wear high heels to class?” “People with gifts are never totally appreciated. Many are not appreciated at all in their lifetimes. Brilliant artists and writers are criticized all the time, often unfairly. Some of our greatest scientists were put down as crackpots in their time. So why should you be any different? The fact is, people in academia are just as biased as everyone else. Most of them think that all smart people should act and dress like they do. They can’t deal with the fact that you are different. You figured out how to deal with people like that long before I met you. You continue to be who you are, you wear those heels proudly and defiantly to class, and you force them to accept you when you do as well as they do in your studies.” “You know I love you,” she said, and we locked our lips in a long, wet kiss. When we finished, Maria asked, “Should I take off my stockings and heels, or should I keep them on?” “Keep them on, of course.” “Ooh, I was hoping you would say that.” We got into bed. Our lovemaking over the next couple of hours was the most intense we had experienced in a number of months. To be continued

[Stu]

We woke up late Sunday morning, still feeling a little blitzed over the events of the previous night. We knew Sharon and Jack were up in the room next to ours, as we could hear the shower going. Maria and I showered and got dressed. Maria put on a red tank stop, a pair of tight blue jeans, and four-inch wedge heels. It was pretty conservative attire by her standards, but the women had previously agreed that Sunday would be an informal day. Our plans were to drive around the lake and enjoy the outdoors, a pastime not really amenable to wearing heels. We walked over, found Jack’s and Sharon’s door was ajar, and we knocked and went inside. Sharon, Jack, Ana and Bob were inside, and they broke into applause as we entered. “Here is the new Latin performing sensation, the one who really wowed them last night,” Jack said. “Now hold on,” Maria objected. “What about Sharon’s magnificent exhibition of craps playing, and Ana seducing that poor vendor into selling us his tickets? There were a lot of memorable performances last night.” We all heartily agreed. Sharon was looking at Maria and Ana, and was thinking about something. I was starting to learn that nobody in the room could consider themselves safe when Sharon was thinking. She was wearing a yellow spaghetti-string top, tight white jeans, and four-inch wedge heels very similar to Maria’s. Ana was wearing a white tank top, skintight black jeans, and a pair of three-inch block heels that did not do her justice. “Yes, we all accomplished something special last night,” Sharon said. “I used to think that a wonderful accident of fate brought us all together, but now I am not so sure. I think destiny brought the six of us together from all over the world. We were meant to be a group of six. We were meant to do big things.” I could hear echoes of Sharon’s past, when she went through a stage where she was heavily into new-age philosophy. “And your point is?” Bob asked. “My point,” Sharon replied, “is that maybe we should not rest on our laurels. We have a lot of momentum going from last night, and maybe we ought to go with it. We should push ourselves today, and see what else destiny has in store for us.” “What exactly are you trying to say, Sharon?” I asked. “I am trying to say this,” she said. She walked over to the closet, opened her shoe bag, took out her pair of black, 6-inch stiletto heels, and carried them back to where we were sitting. “I say we wear our six-inch heels today. Let’s just go for it all.” A hushed silence fell over the six of us. All three women had indeed brought their 6-inch heels with them on this trip. They were intended as a backup, as something the ladies could wear in the privacy of our hotel rooms in case our Saturday night in the casino turned out to be a bore. Of course, they had not needed them. Ana asked hesitatingly, “So, Sharon, are you suggesting we wear six-inch heels to breakfast? On a Sunday morning? What about after breakfast?” “We wear them to breakfast. If we want to keep wearing them afterwards, then fine. If not, then we change. But we should do this. We need to do this.” She slipped off her wedge heels and, first with her right foot and then with her left, eased herself into her six-inch stilettos. Her whole body appeared to eroticize itself before our eyes – her legs grew long, her curves grew ever shapelier, and her erect posture became quite arousing. “What do you think?” she asked us. “I think you are right, Sharon,” Maria said. “One of my favorite English-language expressions is, ‘Work hard, play hard.’ We all work hard during the week. What is the point in coming up here on our big weekend if we don’t wear heels?” Ana replied, “The only time we have worn 6-inch heels in public was when we were wearing long dresses and eating in a very exclusive restaurant. Today, we are all wearing form-fitting pants and we are at a casino that opens its doors to anyone. Do you understand what I am saying?” “Ana, I would not suggest this if we were at home,” Sharon said. “But nobody knows us here. What is the big deal?” “OK, you sold me,” Ana said. Maria and Ana went back to their rooms and came back holding their 6-inch heels. They eased into them, with the same delightful effect we had seen with Sharon a few minutes earlier. The sight of these women in their extreme heels was almost overwhelming. “I am hungry,” Sharon said. “Everyone ready for breakfast?” As we left the hotel room and watched our ladies wiggle down the hallway to the elevator, Jack turned to Bob and me and said, “Gentlemen, we live in interesting times. Thank God.” We rode the elevator down to the main casino and walked over to the restaurant area. I noticed two things almost immediately. First, I was impressed with how well all three of our ladies walked in 6-inch heels. The only time they had worn such extreme heels in public was several months earlier at a private country club restaurant. They all walked somewhat tentatively at that time. I knew that Maria had been wearing her 6-inchers around the house since that time and had gotten very proficient. It was obvious that Sharon and Ana had both been practicing in their heels as well. All three women walked fluidly and confidently, without any bent knees or momentary imbalances. They used the exaggerated movement of their hips and buttocks to propel themselves forward, making them quite a sight to see. And that, of course, relates to my second observation. Wearing 5-1/2-inch heels with nice dresses in the casino on a Saturday night draws a very different reaction than wearing 6-inch heels and skintight pants in the same casino on a Sunday morning. The admiring glances that our ladies received from the casino’s patrons on Saturday night were replaced by looks of surprise, and even shock, from the patrons we walked past on Sunday morning. I was not the one wearing the heels, but the looks nevertheless made me feel a little uncomfortable, and caused me to ask myself exactly what it was the six of us were trying to say. The only thing that seemed to mitigate the reaction was Nevada’s anything-goes attitude. This was best epitomized by the middle-aged man at a slot machine who stared at us as we walked by, and then turned to his wife and said, “See, dear, we didn’t need to go to Las Vegas after all.” We entered one of the restaurants, which was offering a breakfast buffet. We picked a table, and went over to the food counters to look at the offerings. We had only been there a minute when we heard a man say, “Ana, is that you?” To be continued

[RPMindy]

Stu, just dropped in.. I like the way the story is going. keep it up. should be very interesting! I do enjoy reading your stories, even when I don't comment. RPM

[Stu]

Hi, RPM. I am glad you stopped by, and thanks for the supportive comment. I do appreciate it. Now, where were we....... *** I turned around to see a man and a woman approach Ana. She immediately recognized the man and said, “Oh, Mr. Young. What a delightful surprise to see you here!” She introduced us to Mr. Young and his wife. “Mr. Young is the vice president of the bank where I work,” Ana said. “He works in the downtown headquarters, but he has been over to the branch where I work a number of times.” “That’s true,” Mr. Young said. He turned to his wife and said, “Ana works at the metro branch, and is one of the most popular tellers in our entire bank network.” “I’ll bet she is,” Mrs. Young said somewhat disdainfully as she not so subtly surveyed Ana from head to toe. Mr. Young explained that most of the bank’s top executives and their spouses were at the casino resort for a management retreat. He pointed out the other executives sitting down to breakfast on the other side of the restaurant, and invited Ana and Bob over to meet them. As she wiggled off to meet the bankers, Ana turned and cast an angry glare at Sharon. “Oh, my, this is all my fault,” Sharon said glumly. “I pushed you two to wear your six-inchers assuming we would all be completely anonymous. I hope Ana will be all right with those bank executives.” Maria put her arm around Sharon and said affectionately, “Sharon, remember, this is Ana we are talking about. The woman is as tough as nails. She will be fine. Now let’s get something to eat.” The four of us picked up our trays and began getting our breakfast. A Latino man who was also getting his breakfast saw us and walked over to Maria. I recognized him as one of the men who had been with Luis Rojo the previous night when he was talking to us. “Good morning, Maria,” the man said. “I see you put as much effort into looking fashionable for breakfast as you do for your Saturday night outings.” When Maria hesitated before saying anything, the man said, “Forgive me. We may not have been properly introduced last night. My name is Ramon Moreno. I am Luis Rojo’s agent.” “Of course,” Maria said. We all introduced ourselves to him. Maria invited Ramon over to our table, and he seemed happy to accept. “I assume, Maria, that you have not reconsidered our offer to join Luis’ band,” Ramon said somewhat light-heartedly as we began to eat. “With what my husband is spending to send me to college, I think he would be beside himself if I were to quit school to begin touring with your band,” Maria said. I replied, “That depends on what they would pay you, Maria.” Ramon reached into his briefcase, took out a pad of yellow paper, and scrawled a very impressive number on it. “Would this be acceptable? This is what I would suggest to Luis if you were interested.” Maria and I both gulped. “You can’t be serious,” Maria said. “You would pay me that much just to stand up on a stage and look pretty?” “Style, grace and femininity count for a lot in our business. Think about it,” Ramon said. Maria replied, “Steve and I talked about this last night. We value bold expressions of femininity, even when, like today, it may be a bit strong for most people’s tastes. But we also value intellect. I want to leave my mark on the world with both my intelligence and my femininity. Just making it with one is not good enough.” “I like your philosophy,” Ramon said. “You said last night you are a business student? Where are you studying?” “State University,” Maria said. “I thought as much. I graduated from State with a degree in business 10 years ago.” “Really!” Maria said. They spent most of the rest of breakfast discussing school topics. Ramon had earlier had many of the same professors who were teaching Maria’s classes. While they talked, I looked over across the restaurant and noticed Bob and Ana were having breakfast with the bankers. They seemed to be OK. When I refocused on Maria’s conversation, I heard Ramon say, “If you want to combine business acumen with your physical presence, I have two suggestions. You can become an agent like me. When people see you, Maria, they will know you understand style and flair, and they will be willing to give your clients serious consideration. The other alternative is to go into the clothing or shoe business. People need to know what they sell, and believe me, Maria, you know clothes and shoes.” “I was thinking more of accounting,” Maria said. Ramon almost gagged. “Accounting? That would be a waste of your talent, no matter how good an accountant you are. Think clothes, think shoes. Who could possibly look at you, Maria, and think you know nothing about clothes and shoes?” He took out a business card and handed it to her. “I would love to talk more, but I have to catch a plane. Maria, I know people in both the entertainment and clothing industries. When you graduate and you need a little help, call me. I will remember you.” He said goodbye to us and left. “Ramon gave us a lot to think about,” I started to tell Maria. “Maybe…” I never finished my sentence because Ana and Bob returned. “Did everything go all right?” Sharon asked, with a trace of guilt in her voice. “It went just fine,” Ana said, as Bob and she sat down with us. “I spent half the time telling the bigwigs about the award I won last year when I suggested ways the bank could save money by making the teller operations more efficient. They were all impressed.” Bob added, “After Ana finishes telling them about her award, the bank president’s wife asked her how she can wear such incredibly high heels. So Ana goes into the whole story about how she learned to walk in high heels as a teenager in Costa Rica. She had them all listening intently.” Ana added, “After I finished my story, the bank president mentioned my award again, and he asked me to send them my resume so they can keep it on file in the headquarters office. He said they could use more people in headquarters who have worked in the branches and know how they really operate.” “The real question,” Bob said, “is whether they asked for her resume because of her award, or her heels?” “Hopefully both,” Ana said with a laugh. To be continued

[Stu]

After breakfast, we went back to our rooms and packed up. The ladies went back to the lobby to rest their feet while we three men checked out of the hotel and put our luggage into Bob’s and Ana’s minivan. We asked the women if they wanted to change their shoes, but they all insisted they were OK. So we all piled into the minivan for the next stage of our trip, which was a scenic drive around Lake Tahoe.

I directed Bob to a state park about 10 miles north of the casino. We pulled into a parking lot right along the lakeshore. I had specifically picked this park because I knew there was a paved walkway leading from the parking lot along the lakeshore. The women would need the paved walkway if they wanted to stay in their 6-inch heels, which of course they did.

We all got out of the car and started walking. I was so glad to get out of the crowded casino and into the open air. It was a beautiful, warm mountain day, with a deep blue sky that was vividly reflected in the famous clear blue waters of Lake Tahoe. The green forests and the silvery mountains that surrounded the big lake on all sides added to grandeur of the scenery. And then, of course, there were our three ladies. I could now admire the three of them without having to think about who might be watching us. The three of them were, in my opinion, absolute perfection in their 6-inch stilettos: Their bodies were distorted in the most exquisitely erotic way, with the heels of their feet virtually up in that deep blue sky, their legs so lovingly long, their asses protruding out so far that they seemed to be asking the entire world to make love to them. The shrinks could psychoanalyze me any way they want, but I would not trade the pleasure I was experiencing at that moment for anything in the world!

We walked for maybe 150 meters until we came to a beautiful overview of the lake. We stopped to look and, without thinking about what I was doing, I grabbed Maria’s posterior, pulled her against me, and began kissing her passionately. Our tongues became so intertwined that I thought they might be tied together. “I am so happy right now,” I managed to say during a split-second break in our kiss. “I feel so liberated,” Maria replied. That might sound strange coming from a woman in 6-inch stilettos and pants so tight that they restricted her movement, but I knew exactly what she meant. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Ana and Bob, and Sharon and Jack, were also tightly embraced. I put my tongue back in Maria’s mouth, and we continued.

The spell we were all under broke prematurely when we heard a loud scream. I looked up and saw a young boy, not much more than three or four years old, on the path. His face was red, and tears were rolling down his cheeks.

“I want my mommy!” the boy screamed.

Sharon walked up to the boy and said, “Oh, dear, are you lost little boy?”

The boy nodded yes. I said the boy must have walked out from the parking lot, and that his parents were almost certainly there looking for him. We would be able to find his parents easily, I said.

“Maybe so,” Sharon replied. But she pointed to one of the boy’s knees, which was cut and bleeding. She was now in full nurse mode. “The poor little dear must have fallen. Jack, do you have anti-septic and a band-aid with you?”

To my surprise, Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out an individually wrapped sanitary wipe and a small band-aid, which he gave to Sharon. “Once a doctor, always a doctor,” he said to me.

“We’re going to fix that knee up and make it as good as new,” Sharon said, as she wiped the blood off the child’s knee and put on the band-aid. The boy stopped crying and became calm. “My name is Sharon, by the way. And what is yours?”

“Jeffrey.”

“OK, Jeffrey. Now we are going to find your parents. It should only be a few minutes.”

We started walking back to the parking lot, with Sharon holding the boy’s hand as she wiggled along in her extreme heels. The boy asked her, “Sharon, why are you wearing such funny shoes?”

“Why am I wearing such funny shoes? Hmm….. Well, Jeffrey, I guess because it is fun.”

We arrived back at the parking lot. A moderately heavyset woman saw us, yelled, “Jeffrey!” and began running to us. An equally heavyset man ran over, too.

“Oh, you found Jeffrey! Thank you ever so much!” the woman said first to Sharon, and then to the rest of us.

“When he got near to us, we found his knee was bleeding, so I cleaned his knee with a sanitary wipe and put on a band-aid. I hope that was OK. I am a registered nurse,” Sharon said.

“Oh, that’s fine, thank you,” the woman said. Her husband thanked us, and walked Jeffrey back to their car across the parking lot. The woman asked Sharon, “Where do you work as a nurse?”

“General Hospital.”

“Gosh, it’s a small world. I used to be an administrator at General. I probably left before you started. My name is Mindy.”

We each introduced ourselves, and Sharon and Mindy began talking about the hospital. Mindy said she got burned out on hospital work and left to manage a senior citizens center.

Changing the subject suddenly, Mindy said to Sharon, “I see you and your friends have a taste for exotic shoes. I used to wear heels a number of years ago, when I was 30 pounds lighter. But I never wore anything quite like yours.”

“It is a hobby of ours,” Sharon said politely.

“That is good. It shows you are a free thinker. Heaven knows, we need more of those in hospitals and senior centers nowadays. Everyone is so defensive, they don’t want to deviate from the book one bit for fear of being sued or accused of running up costs. Anyway, let me give you my business card. If you ever decide to get out of the hospital racket, let me know.”

Mindy said good-bye and added, “I will leave you with your friends. I think you have better things to do than to be a nurse for a lost three-year-old.”

Sharon put her arms around Jack and said with a suggestive wink to Mindy, “Oh, this is still nursing. Just with a different kind of uniform.”

We returned to the mini-van and drove along the lake in the general direction of home. Sharon and Jack were in the rear seat of the mini-van, and resumed the passions that Jeffrey had interrupted. Bob looked at them in the rear-view mirror, and pulled over to the side of the road.

“It is too early to leave for home,” Bob said. “Steve, you know this area better than any of us. You should drive and find us a quiet, secluded spot somewhere.”

“Sounds fine,” I said. I got into the driver’s seat, thinking Maria would also move up to the front passenger seat. But she remained in her place in the middle seat, while Ana stayed in the front passenger seat. Bob sat down next to Maria. I started the mini-van, drove down the highway a bit, and then turned off onto a side road that went up into the mountains. The road was narrow and windy, and I had to take it slowly as we gradually made our way up the mountain.

“I hope you know where you’re going,” Ana said. She crossed her legs, causing the stiletto on her right foot to point right at me. Pointing to her shoe, she said, “Because if you do get lost, I am not walking out in these.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. We got up to the top of the ridge, and pulled off to the side of the road. We had a great view of the lake below us and the surrounding mountain tops.

“Ooh, what is this place?” Ana asked.

I leaned toward her and said, “In English, this is called a great place to make out.”

Pointing to Sharon and Jack in the back seat, Ana asked, “And what in English do you call that?”

Sharon and Jack were in a position I had never seen before. I said, “If there is a term for that in English, I don’t know what it is.”

“Would you like to try that?” Ana asked me suggestively.

A six-inch stiletto heel, and the brown foot wearing it, came down hard on the console between Ana and me. “OK, I think the flirting has gone far enough,” Maria said. She was one to talk, as Jack was resting his head on her shoulder. “Why don’t the two of you come back here? There is room for the four of us,” Maria said.

Ana and I joined Maria and Bob on the middle seat. For the record, I sat next to Maria, and Ana sat next to Bob. We closed the doors of the mini-van as we got in. And the doors stayed closed for a good long time.

Next: Ana’s Admirer

[Stu]

Ana’s Admirer

This story was written in the third person by Steve, based on interviews with the principal participants.

George was the senior loan officer at the Metro bank branch. When he was younger, he enjoyed the challenges of setting up loans that helped his clients buy homes and cars, and start businesses. But George was now 60 years old, and he viewed his job as something that he had to do for a few more years until he could retire. In other words, George was coasting.

There was only one reason why George looked forward to going to work. He got to spend much of his work day in close proximity to Ana, the bank’s most attractive and outgoing teller. Curiously, she had been shy and somewhat lacking in self-confidence when she had been hired at the bank four years earlier. Even then, George felt she was pretty in an earthy sort of way, a quiet, plain-dressing Latina who always seemed to be holding something back. After she had been at the bank for about a year, it became clear that she had, indeed, been holding something back. Neither George nor anyone else had taken much notice when blocky business heels replaced the flat shoes that Ana had been wearing. But the business heels were soon replaced by eye-catching stilettos, as well as form-fitting pants and dresses that challenged the bank’s dress code. As the heels got higher and the clothing got tighter, Ana’s personality became looser: the quiet teller became vivacious and outgoing, and her self-confidence increased rapidly. It was understood that several female employees had complained to the bank’s management about Ana’s provocative attire. But management never did anything. According to rumor, management thought that Ana was at least partly responsible for the increase in the bank branch’s customer traffic that began about the time she unveiled her new image. If Ana could take credit for some of that increase, then in George’s opinion it was due to her friendly, upbeat personality, which really could make even the most ordinary customer feel special. Most bank patrons could not even notice Ana’s heels and tight clothing from the other side of the counter. What was important to George was that he could.

George spent much of his day in an office located behind the teller area. He normally kept his door half open, which gave him a good view of the tellers. On most days, he could see Ana’s backside as she dealt with the customers. She was, indeed, a sight that could get any man’s blood circulating: her brown-red hair grazing her shoulders, her trim figure, her perfectly shaped rear end wrapped so lovingly and unashamedly in an ever-changing assortment of pants, skirts and dresses, and those impossibly high stiletto pumps, sandals and mules. How could she possibly wear such heels while standing on her feet for nearly eight hours a day, day in and day out? It seemed superhuman at times.

As a happily married man and the father of grown children, George was not in love with Ana and had no desire to have anything beyond a normal professional relationship with her. However, in an aesthetic sense, he loved everything about her. Her charm, her flirtacious nature, the sexy clothing and shoes – she obviously enjoyed defying the norms of the business world by doing things her way. To George, the most radical, subversive and enjoyable of Ana’s attributes was the way she walked. Her posterior moved with a musically precise rhythm that was a delight to behold. In all his years, George had never seen a woman move quite like that. It was not risque or crude, but it was not exactly subtle either, just warm and sensuous. The movements were just exaggerated enough that George was convinced that Ana must have taught herself – or been taught by someone – to walk like that at an earlier stage of her life. But she had been wiggling like that for so long that it was apparently now an ingrained habit, and done without conscious thought.

George told no one about his feelings. They were too personal, and, of course, he had no desire to put his hard-earned professional reputation at risk by discussing Ana’s feminine attributes and bodily movements with his co-workers. At the same time, he felt he owed no apology to himself or anyone else over the private delight he derived from observing this very unusual bank teller. At his age, you took pleasure any time you could, and who could be crazy enough to ignore the charms of a woman like Ana? And, anyway, Ana’s charm defied words, so nothing could be gained by talking about her.

While Ana appealed to George’s imagination, there was little question that Patricia, his wife of 35 years, was his partner for life. She greeted him when he got home, made him dinner, talked with him, laughed with him when he was happy, and supported him when he felt down. He did the same for her, and made sure she had everything he could give her. They both felt pride over the two productive, well-adjusted grown children that they had brought into the world and raised. Patricia was everything to George…or, at least, almost everything.

Unfortunately, the years had not been kind to Patricia. The feminine figure that had appealed to George when he was young had been gone for decades. A chronic health condition now forced her to walk with some difficulty, and the medication she took tended to make her gain weight. When George went to bed at night, it was with Patricia, but he took the liberty of borrowing some of the sexy mental images of Ana that he had taken home with him from the bank. He imagined what life would be like if Patricia could somehow have Ana’s piercing Latin eyes, her legs, her ass, her ability to walk in those mind-blowing heels. He would snuggle up next to Patricia, and he could picture her as a slim young woman in those snug pants and those heels. He imagined Ana teaching Patricia how to wiggle her butt until she had it down like an expert. Oftentimes, this would make him quite amorous, which pleased Patricia to no end.

“I thought men were supposed to slow down at your age, but you have been speeding up the last several years. Am I feeding you something I am not aware of?” Patricia would ask.

And they would make love. Patricia’s condition limited the positions that they could take, but that mattered little to George. He was making love to Patricia’s soul, housed temporarily in a fantasy body borrowed from Ana. Sometimes, George could sense Ana herself in the room, her spirit over the bed, complimenting Patricia on her sexuality and exhorting him to keep going. And George could hear himself saying, “Oh, thank you, Ana, thank you, Ana.”

One night, unfortunately, George actually said it. He was so engrossed in his own pleasure that he did not hear it. But Patricia did.

“George,” Patricia said as he rested his head on her chest after they had finished. “Who is Ana?”

“Ana? I don’t know. Who is Ana?” George asked.

“That’s what I am asking you. When we were reaching our peak, you said, ‘Thank you, Ana.’ You said it several times. Who is Ana, and why were you thanking her?”

“You must have heard wrong, dear. I believe I said, ‘Thank you, damn.’ Those are the kinds of things men say when they are about to climax.”

“George, I have been married to you for 35 years, and never once have I heard say ‘Thank you, damn,’ when we make love.”

“Oh, Pat, I say it occasionally. Maybe you haven’t been listening all these years. Good night.” He rolled away from her and went to sleep.

Patricia could not go to sleep. She was not mad or jealous. She was not even upset. She knew her husband would not do anything improper as far as their marriage was concerned. But she was curious. She deduced – correctly – that Ana must be a woman who made some kind of a powerful impression on her husband. Perhaps Ana had something to do with George’s heightened interest in sex in the last several years. The only contact that George could have with women unknown to her would be through his job at the bank. While George slept, Patricia decided that she needed to make a trip to the bank to see if she could find Ana.

To be continued.

[Stu]

On alternate Fridays, George spent the day at the bank’s downtown headquarters to attend meetings of loan officers from the various bank branches. That was the preferred time for Patricia to visit the bank branch in her search for Ana. While George worked at the Metro branch, they actually lived closer to the South branch, and therefore Patricia handled routine banking functions at the South branch. She normally did not have any reason to go to the Metro branch. The next time that George was downtown, Patricia paid a visit to the Metro branch. She entered the lobby, looked around, and did not see anything that interested her. The assistant manager was in the lobby at the time and noticed her. “Hello, Patricia! What brings you here? George is not here today. He is downtown for his loan officers meeting,” the assistant manager said. “Yes, he is,” Patricia said. “George absent-mindedly took some of our personal banking statements to work with him yesterday, and left them in his desk. I was coming down just to pick them up.” “You know where his office is. Let me get you back here,” the assistant manager said. She opened the security door to let Patricia back behind the tellers. “I hope you find what you are looking for.” Patricia politely said hello to several of the tellers and started down the corridor toward George’s office. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw a woman walking down the corridor. She knew immediately that she had found Ana. The woman was indeed striking. Patricia surveyed the woman from head to foot: the brown-red hair, the pleasant figure, pants that seemed a little too tight for the workplace but that nevertheless flattered her waist, hips and legs. And then, on her feet: what kind of shoes was this woman wearing? Impossible stiletto heels that must have been five inches high! And yet this woman was walking gracefully and effortlessly down the hall. And are her hips really moving back and forth like that? In heels like that, how could they not be? Sensuality seemed to flow from her with every step. Damn it, George, Patricia thought. You have good taste in women. I’ll give you credit for that. “Is there anything I can help you with, ma’am?” Ana asked Patricia. “My name is Patricia. I am George’s wife. I know he is downtown today, but I needed to pick something up from his office.” “Pleased to meet you, Patricia. My name is Ana. I am one of the tellers here. You are catching me right at the end of my break. I’ll be happy to walk you to your husband’s office.” Patricia knew where George’s office was, but she was glad Ana volunteered to accompany her. Now she could observe Ana up close. She liked the fact that Ana made immediate eye contact with her and offered to help her. They walked down to George’s office, and Patricia could hear the click-click-click of Ana’s stilettos reverberate off the walls of the corridor. She could also tell from Ana’s accent that she was foreign born, probably Latina. Yes, she was quite a package. “Here is your husband’s office,” Ana said. “Is there anything else I can help you with?” “Thank you, Ana, I am fine. But I do have one question. You have a lovely accent. Where are you from?” “I was born and raised in Costa Rica.” “Ah, very interesting! I was sure you were Latina, but your accent is very different from a Mexican accent.” “Oh, yes, it is quite different. It was a pleasure meeting you, Patricia.” Patricia no longer had any doubt that Ana was responsible for George’s sexual renaissance. There was no question in her mind as to whether George still loved her, but the sad truth, she concluded, was that she no longer had the ability to stimulate him on her own. She was 5 feet, 2 inches tall, and weighed 190 pounds. She walked slowly and with considerable difficulty even in orthopedic shoes, and the available clothing for women of her age and size was not particularly appealing. How could she possibly compete with Ana? Patricia fondly recalled how she was when she was dating George in the early 1960s. She was young then, with pretty brown hair and a pleasant figure, and she often wore stilettos on her dates with George. Back then, she could have fought off Ana easily. But she could hardly blame her husband now for looking at another woman. Some women might have become angry over their situation, while others might have become consumed by jealousy, or perhaps even slipped into a bitter depression. But Patricia had a different way of thinking. Two or three times a week, she lay under her husband and felt his passion. They would snuggle together afterwards like a couple of newlyweds. Before Ana, they had often gone a month or more without becoming physically amorous. What could be so bad about an older couple making love as often as they had in their 20s? Patricia began to think of Ana as a positive force in their marriage. While engaging in intimacies, she sometimes fantasized about how George would react if he came home and saw his wife putting dinner on the table while wearing a pair of 5-inch stiletto heels. As the weeks went by, she became more and more curious about Ana. Was she intelligent? Did she have a sense of humor? Was there a reason for George to be enamored of the entire woman, or only her physical qualities? Her one brief meeting with Ana no longer seemed adequate, particularly since George worked with her every day. She decided that she needed to know Ana at least a little bit better. Patricia’s opportunity came several weeks later, when George went out of town for a two-day loan officers’ conference. Patricia called the bank and left a message for Ana, who returned the call a short time later. “I don’t know if you remember me. I am George’s wife,” Patricia said. “Of course I remember you. We met some time ago when you stopped by the bank to pick something up for your husband.” “Ana, I have a big favor to ask of you. I am planning a big surprise for George. I would like to arrange for a trip to a foreign country, and one of the countries I have in mind is Costa Rica. Those rain forests seem spectacular in the tourist brochures. But I was hoping I could sit down and talk with you so I could really learn more about the country. I would be happy to take you out to lunch.” “Oh, Patricia, that is so nice of you. I never really traveled to the rain forests, but there is a lot I could tell you about Costa Rica that you will never find in travel books. When would you like to meet?” “How about tomorrow?” “That would be fine.” They agreed to meet at a restaurant close to the bank. “And remember, Ana, this is supposed to be a surprise for George. Please don’t mention anything about this to him,” Patricia said. “Of course, Patricia. Your secret is safe with me.” To be continued.

[Stu]

Patricia arrived at the restaurant a few minutes early the following day. When she was about to enter the front door, she happened to turn her head and she saw Ana walking toward the restaurant about a block away. Ana was wearing a light-green sweater, with tight-fitting cream-colored pants and matching 5-inch white stiletto sandals. Even from a distance, it was easy to see her hips swaying sensuously from side to side as she walked. Incredible, Patricia thought. This woman is more comfortable with her sexuality than anyone she had ever known. So expressive, total self-confidence, not a trace of inhibition. The best always make it look easy. Ana greeted Patricia warmly at the restaurant entrance, as if they had known each other for years. They went inside, sat down, and ordered lunch. Ana declined Patricia’s offer of wine, but Patricia ordered a glass of white wine for herself. Ana began talking about Costa Rica. The rain forest preserves were almost exclusively set aside for foreign tourists, and few Costa Ricans actually visited them, Ana said. Instead, Ana talked about the country’s capital city, San Jose, several surrounding cities, and the country’s Caribbean and Pacific coast beaches. Patricia continued to be impressed with Ana’s friendly charm, and her ability to paint a picture of her native country for someone who had never seen it. Their lunch was served, and Patricia ordered a second glass of wine. When it seemed that Ana had exhausted the subject of travel to Costa Rica, Patricia decided to change the subject of conversation. “I used to enjoy wearing stiletto heels when George and I were dating,” Patricia said. “But I could not ever imagine wearing heels as high as yours. And yet, you are on your feet all day, and you even walked here to meet me. I do not know how you do it.” Ana giggled in a girlish way. “That is another aspect of Costa Rica that you should explore when you visit. Costa Rican women are practically born wearing high heels. They are really a fundamental part of our culture. We learn to wear them at a young age. We develop the skills and conditioning to wear them properly.” “And you do have such a style, such an ambience about you,” Patricia said. “Men must really like you.” Ana giggled again, this time with a trace of embarrassment. “I get compliments from men, but also from women. Of course, I also get a lot of icy looks from women who don’t care for my style. That goes with the territory. I do not let that stop me from expressing myself the way I want.” Patricia took a sip of wine. She realized how reckless she had been to order not just one, but two glasses of wine. Wine loosened her lips, causing her to say things that, while honest, were better left unsaid. She knew this was not the occasion to lose control of her discretion. But Ana was such a delightful, welcome change from her conservative, middle-aged friends. The occasion seemed to call for wine. “You know, George is a big admirer of you,” Patricia said. Oh stop, Patricia! Pull back while you still can! “Really?” Ana said, somewhat surprised. “He is such a quiet man, very professional, very businesslike. He has never complimented me in any personal kind of way.” Patricia took another sip of wine. “That’s not his style. He does not come home and talk about you. He may have made a quick mention of you once. But after 35 years of marriage, I know George. You have made an impression on him. Don’t ask me how I know. But believe me, I know.” “The things you don’t know about your own co-workers,” Ana said. She added jokingly, “I hope you are not jealous.” Patricia sipped the last of her second glass of wine. “Jealous? Absolutely not! If anything, I would like to buy you lunch a dozen times over. After spending the day around you, George often comes home with so much passion that, lately, we have been more active than at any time since we were newlyweds. If you know what I mean.” Ana’s jaw dropped. She looked down at her empty plate, having finished the last of her lunch. “Oh my,” she said. “I want to assure you, Patricia, that I have never been anything less than purely professional around your husband.” Oh, God, Patricia thought. What the hell did I do? I had the best thing going with George in many years and now I have ruined it, all because I couldn’t keep myself away from the wine. Patricia reached out and touched Ana’s hand. “Ana, do not misunderstand me. I am not in any way angry or jealous, and I do not think you have done anything inappropriate with George. He finds you attractive, as any healthy man would, but he uses it to bring himself closer to me. I used to enjoy dressing up and being fashionable when I was young. But we all age. Now I have health issues, and my medication makes me put on weight like an elephant. George still loves me, but you give him that little spark that I no longer can. And it has made things good for us.” Patricia sat up straight and pushed herself away from the table. “I am a foolish, old woman who has had too much wine. I told you something that I should not have. Please forgive me. To be honest, I am not planning a trip to Costa Rica. I invited you to lunch because I wanted to get to know you a little better. Now that I have done that, I promise I will never need to see you again. I only ask one thing of you. Please do not tell George that we ever met. Do not tell him what I have told you. He is a very private, proud man, and if he ever finds out…” “It’s OK, Patricia,” Ana said. “I will not tell George anything. The last thing I want to do is create trouble for the two of you. Don’t feel badly about this.” Ana was studying herself in front of the mirror that evening when Bob arrived home from work. “If you spend any more time in front of that mirror, we will have to start calling you ‘Maria,’” Bob quipped. “Sorry,” Ana responded. “I had a weird experience at lunch today.” She proceeded to tell Bob the details of her lunch with Patricia. “So your co-worker fantasizes about you when he makes love to his wife. Nothing strange about that,” Bob said when Ana had finished her story. “But the wife then tells you about it. You are right – that is weird.” “The question in my mind is how I should behave around George. I have always been polite with him, but never really friendly. Maybe I should open up around him a little more. If a woman has an admirer, the least she can do is show some appreciation, right?” Bob playfully put his hands over his eyes and walked away. “I think you already know what you want to do, Ana.” Ana walked back in front of the mirror. In the last several years, she had successfully developed a dual Costa Rican-North American persona that had worked well for her. Costa Ricans valued uninhibited femininity and style – how a woman presented herself was paramount in her native land. North Americans valued productivity and the bottom line – if a woman made money for her employer, her style was of little relevance. Ana had tested the limits of the bank’s dress code with her Costa Rican-style tight clothing and sky-high stiletto heels, and she had emerged unscathed because she also developed a North American-style determination to serve the bank’s customers well and to learn its operations. Until now, however, there was another aspect of her Costa Rican heritage that had remained dormant during her years in the United States: the propensity of Costa Rican women to flirt. Workplace flirting in the U.S. was mild compared to the much spicier Costa Rican version. Flirting in many ways was the national pastime of the little Central American country; the come-hither looks and strong body language were almost expected of attractive women in Costa Rica, but they could quickly get a woman in trouble in the U.S. And, besides, Ana was now married, which made the idea of flirting even more dubious. Ana had thought that her flirting days were a thing of the past, but the revelation about George was giving her all kinds of ideas that had previously been unthinkable. There were ways to flirt that would be apparent only to George, remaining invisible to everyone else at the bank. And what is wrong with responding warmly to George’s attraction? How could a woman learning about George’s feelings not respond in some fashion? Maybe a cold-fish North American woman would want to put a damper on the whole thing, but not a warm, feminine Costa Rican woman. Ana took one last look at herself in the mirror and smiled mischievously. “You’re right, Bob,” she said, even though her husband had left the room. “I do know what I want to do.” To be continued.

[Stu]

Ana walked by George’s office early the following morning, before the bank opened. She was wearing a black sweater, snug black-denim pants, and her 5-inch black stiletto pumps, which clicked quite loudly in the corridor. She stopped and stood in the entrance to George’s office and said cheerfully, “Good morning, George. How was your conference? We missed you here!” She looked at George, and could tell he was a little surprised by her unusually friendly manner. George managed to stammer out that the conference was fine, and Ana said she would see him later and walked away. It was important not to start off too strong. The day proceeded normally until Ana’s mid-afternoon break. She walked back to George’s office, the clicking of her heels announcing her presence well before she actually arrived. “Hi, George!” she said. “Can I come in?” “Why sure, Ana. Make yourself at home,” George replied, gesturing for her to sit down in the chair in front of his desk. “What’s up?” Ana sat down in the chair, positioning it so that it was at a slight angle relative to George’s desk. This would allow a better view of her shapely profile. She crossed her legs, so that the heel on her right foot was dangling in the air, where George could readily see it. “George,” she said. “I have a big favor to ask of you.” She explained that Joe, one of the assistant managers at the bank, was having a birthday next week. Ana had volunteered to go buy a birthday card for him for all the bank staff to sign. “I need a man’s advice to ensure I get the right card for Joe. I was hoping you could come with me to the store, maybe tomorrow during lunch, to help me buy a card.” She talked for a minute or two about Joe’s sense of humor and how she, as a woman, might not be able to pick the right card that would really appeal to him. As she talked, she let her shoe hang from her toes, which she wiggled slowly to make the shoe rock back and forth slightly. “Why sure, Ana, that sounds fine. Let me know when you have lunch break tomorrow, and we can go,” George said calmly, but Ana could see that his eyes darted nervously a couple of times to her foot before returning to her eyes. Men are so helpless, she thought. “OK. Let’s be ready to go at 12:30 tomorrow. Thank you so much, George. You are a real sweetie.” Ana got up, turned around, and exited George’s office with her standard wiggle. She turned in the doorway, looked back at him, and said, “See you then.” Ana met George at their designated time the following afternoon for the five-block walk to the greeting-card store. Ana was wearing a navy-blue top, skintight blue corduroy pants, and matching 5-inch blue stiletto sandals. They talked about the bank as they walked over to the card store. Many men might have asked Ana whether she was comfortable making the walk in such high heels, but George was too shy to bring up the subject. They arrived at the store and began looking at cards. “You look here, and I’ll look over here,” Ana said, moving about six feet away from George. She looked through the cards, realizing that George had an excellent view of her high heel-enhanced profile. As she looked at the cards, she kept an eye on George through her peripheral vision. George was turned towards her, so that he could see her through his peripheral vision while he looked at the cards. Ana smiled to herself. “Oh, look, George. Here’s one. Let me read it to you.” Ana said. She then employed a flirting technique she had learned as a teenager in Costa Rica. She turned so that she was facing George at a slight angle. She positioned her right foot a little ahead of her left foot. This particularly sexy angle gave George an excellent view of her feet, legs, posterior and her figure as a whole, and she could still look him straight in the eye while appearing completely natural. Costa Rican women flirted this way all the time, but Ana had almost never seen it done in the United States. Ana read the card, giggled, and asked George what he thought. George liked the card and said it definitely was a candidate, but suggested they keep looking. Ana had used her peripheral vision to observe George as she read the card, and was certain he had given her a split-second elevator-eyes look. How can you not love men, she thought. They spent a good 30 minutes looking at cards. During the last 15 minutes, Ana changed her strategy entirely, choosing to stand right next to George as they looked at cards together. She was wearing one of her favorite perfumes, expecting it would make a favorable impression on George. They made a lot of eye contact as they read and reread the cards that they felt were the best candidates. They finally picked one, paid for it, and left the store. “I am not sure I have ever spent 30 minutes looking for a card, not even for my wife,” George said as they walked back. “That was a very pleasant lunch break, and I am sure ‘ol Joe will like the card. Thanks for asking me to come along, Ana.” It was one of the few times Ana had ever seen him smile. “George, you were very helpful. I could not have done this alone.” Ana added, “Would you mind if we slowed down a bit? I would be more comfortable walking in these high heels if we went a little slower.” “Of course,” George responded. “No need to get back to the bank so quickly any way.” He added, “I suppose you must look forward to weekends, when you wear shoes that are a little lower.” As far as Ana was concerned, she had hit the bulls-eye. She did not think she would be able to get George to say anything about her heels, even though she had set him up for just such a comment. The man must really be enjoying himself. “Actually,” Ana said, touching him on the arm, “on most weekends, I wear shoes that are even higher. I know all of you at the bank think I am crazy, but we Costa Rican women live in our high heels.” “And I am sure your husband appreciates that,” George said. Another bulls-eye! Ana turned to George and said playfully, “As a matter of fact, he does!” *** *** *** George got very little work done that afternoon. He felt like a teenager again, with every cell of his being filled with desire. Ana completely dominated his thoughts. Every detail of her was vivid – her lovely brown-red hair, the scent of her alluring purfume, her shapely hips, world-class ass, long legs, and those killer heels. But there was something else that filled George with both excitement and dread. Ana knows, he thought. She knows I have been looking at her. But how? I have been so subtle and so careful, it seems impossible that she could have noticed. Ana has never shown the remotest interest in me, so there is no reason for her to think I had been admiring her. Perhaps I had not been as careful as I had thought. However she did it, she knows I have been looking at her. That is the only explanation for sudden interest in me, he concluded. And anyway, he thought, look at the bright side: She knows, and she likes it, and she is being friendly with you. It could be a lot worse: She could have made efforts to avoid me, or, heaven forbid, filed a complaint against me. If she had to find out, this is the way it should turn out. He stopped at the supermarket on the way home and bought flowers and a card for Patricia. Part guilt, perhaps, but also an affirmation for himself that no matter how much he lusted after Ana, he knew Pat was his woman. By 9 p.m. that night, he could not stand it any longer, and he practically had to beg Patricia to get into bed. He was like an uncontrolled bull, with his head full of thoughts of Ana. He tried to bring Patricia into his fantasies, but his experience with Ana was only a few hours old, and there was no way that Patricia could compete with Ana in his imagination. So he just thought of Ana, her ass, the way she stood, her near-vertical feet in her heels, the blue nail polish on her toes that matched her heels, the smell of her perfume, the way she stood so close to him that he could reach out, seal her lips with his and stick his tongue down her throat. He was moving so forcefully that Patricia had to ask him to be more gentle. They both climaxed but, an hour later, as they thought they were going to bed for real, George wanted to do it again. Patricia could not remember the last time they had made love twice in the same night. As she lay in bed after the second lovemaking session, Patricia could only think of one thing: What had Ana done to him? She may have kept her promise of not telling George about that awful lunchtime conversation, but she was clearly acting on the information she had gained from it. Was she acting out of revenge to Patricia because of the way she had embarrassed her at lunch with her stories of George’s sexual interest in her? Or maybe she was a tease who got her kicks by whipping men into a frenzy? To make things worse, George went to the kitchen and returned with a glass of her favorite wine. Oh, God, wine was the last thing she wanted right now! But she sipped it anyway, not wanting to hurt George’s feelings. George talked about all the romantic places they could visit once he retired, how they could do so many things that they had never had the time to enjoy over the years. Oh, Patricia thought, what he must have been thinking about Ana to feel so guilty that he has to do this! She finished the first glass of wine and George poured her the second glass. She did not want it, but she simply could not say no. Despite her protestations, George poured her a third glass, pointing out that she was going to go to asleep anyway, so there was no problem with it. “So how was work today?” Patricia asked as she worked on her third glass. She began asking about long-time associates of George’s at the bank that she had known for years. They talked a bit about each of them, and then Patricia asked, “And how is Ana?” George gulped hard on his wine. “Ana?” “Yes, Ana. One of your bank tellers. You know, while you were at your conference, I was in the neighborhood of the bank and I needed some money, so I stopped inside. Ana was the teller who assisted me. I introduced myself to her, said I was your wife. She was very friendly. A real snazzy lady.” “I don’t really talk to her much. I don’t know her very well.” Patricia knew she should have stopped, but her husband’s understated response annoyed her. So she kept pushing. “She is a very nice lady. I actually had lunch with her the other day. I was interested in what she could tell me about Costa Rica, because we might want to go there someday. So I called her up and asked her to lunch.” “You did? That’s funny. Ana never mentioned it to me,” George said. “But it is even more curious that you never mentioned it to me. You usually tell me about things like that.” Somehow, I have done it again, Patricia thought. George is right; I would normally tell him something like that. If I could just say no to wine. “I guess I just forgot,” she said. George put the wine glass down. The pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together in a way he did not like. “OK, Patricia. Tell me what is going on. Why are you interested in Ana?” “I could ask the same of you, George,” Patricia said defensively. “I heard you say her name when we were making love that one time. You denied it, but I heard it. So I decided to find out who she was, and I went to the bank, and one thing led to another, and we had lunch. That is all. Is your story that simple?” “There is no story,” George said. “She is a teller at the bank. Yes, she is a very attractive woman, and she dresses sharply, as you undoubtedly observed. I can’t control the fact that the bank hired an attractive woman to work as a teller. You want to know something? She asked me today if I could help her select a birthday card for Joe. That is the most I have ever talked with her.” “And look at what it did to you. You go pick out a birthday card with this woman Ana, and you come home like Casanova possessed. How long has it been since we did it twice in one night?” “It is odd that Ana never showed the slightest degree of interest in me until today. And now it turns out that she starts becoming real friendly and flirtatious with me right after you have lunch with her.” George stopped. All of a sudden, the puzzle came together in his head. “Oh, my God, Patricia! You hear me mention this woman’s name once, you become curious, you have lunch with her, and suddenly she is friendly to me. What did you tell her, Patricia? Did you tell her I blurted out her name once when we were making love?” “Oh, George, do you think I would ever tell her something like that?” She stopped, and tears began to well up in her eyes. “What I told her was something far worse. Oh, George, it was an accident. I never wanted to say or do anything that would embarrass you! Please forgive me!” George filled his glass of wine and downed it in one gulp. “Just what did you tell her, Patricia?” To be continued.

[Stu]

Ana was in the bathroom, combing her hair and applying her make-up, when Bob walked in. “Whoa,” he said. “That is pretty hot. Are you sure you want to wear that?”

Ana was wearing a red blouse, and a long, tight black skirt with a slit that ran practically to her waist. If she stood a certain way, the slit exposed the top of one of her stockings. Capping her outfit were a pair of 5-1/2-inch black stiletto pumps.

“I need to be very, very sexy tonight,” Ana said.

“Explain this to me again. Your co-worker, George, and his wife, Patricia, have invited us to dinner. Why?”

“I don’t know all the details,” Ana said. “Patricia told me they talked it out. George must have admitted he fantasized about me during their lovemaking, and Patricia must have admitted she had figured that out on her own and had let that little fact slip out when we had lunch. So now they want to ‘legitimize’ their friendship with me. Um, I mean with us.”

“Thank you. I am glad someone is thinking of me while your strange little love triangle develops,” Bob joked.

They drove over to George’s and Patricia’s house, and were greeted warmly at the door. The evening proceeded in a very normal fashion. As the two couples ate, Ana and George talked about working at the bank. George and Patricia talked about their two grown children. Ana and Bob talked about how they had met. After finishing dinner, they moved to the living room and sipped coffee while Ana shared some of her experiences about growing up in Costa Rica. It was only then that the evening’s conversation took an unusual, if not completely unexpected, turn.

“So tell me, Ana,” Patricia asked. “Do a lot of Costa Rican women share your taste in clothing and shoes?”

“In all honesty, Patricia, my style has evolved to the point where it is a bit extreme, even for Costa Rica. But, clearly, my tastes are derived from Costa Rican fashions. You might say I take Costa Rican sensibilities and combine then with the North American penchant for experimentation and risk taking.”

“And I am so glad you are willing to experiment and take risks!” Patricia said. “It is nice to see someone who is not afraid to step out there and be different.”

George cleared his throat. “I have something to say. Inviting you for dinner was Patricia’s idea. It has been a very pleasant evening until now, but I can no longer ignore the elephant in the room. The only reason the four of us are here tonight is because I had some very personal thoughts that were never intended to be shared with anyone. But they were shared. And I cannot just sit here, especially talking about women’s fashions, and pretend that it did not happen. Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I am very embarrassed about it all. And, furthermore, Ana, knowing what you know, I don’t quite understand why you would want to be my friend.”

“But I do want to be your friend, George,” Ana said reassuringly. She stood up so that the other three could clearly see her from her hair down to her stiletto heels.

“There are some things you should know about me,” Ana said. “I come from a culture that strongly embraces high heels and other bold forms of feminine expression. Women are encouraged to express their femininity in a very physical way. And men feel comfortable about openly admiring women. We are not taught to hide our feelings, as people often feel they must do here in the United States.”

She turned slightly so that the top of her stocking was visible through the slit in her dress. “I dress boldly because it is the way I express my true self. And I always appreciate it when others enjoy my form of expression.”

Bob said, “I will vouch for that. Ana believes in being honest with herself and with others. She is not shy in the way she dresses, and you don’t have to be shy in the way you react to her. If you like her style, you can tell her. Ana takes a special pride in brightening peoples’ days.”

“Look, I could be jealous of Ana,” Patricia said. “I could have made George feel guilty for finding her attractive. But what purpose would that have served? By embracing her presence in my husband’s life, we both became closer to each other, physically as well as emotionally. So I appreciate what Ana has done for us. The only thing that came close to ruining it was my big mouth.”

Ana walked over to George and said, “I know it is hard, George. Men, especially North American men, are taught to hide their feelings. In the workplace, you are warned that you are putting your career at risk if you tell a woman she is attractive. But around me, you can feel good about being a man. Compliment me or don’t compliment me as you see fit. If you are open with me, then I will be open with you, too.”

“OK, I will try,” George said. “Your attitudes are all a little foreign to me, but I think I will be able to embrace them. Ana, thank you. You are indeed a lovely woman.”

“If there is anything I can ever do for either of you, please let me know.”

“There is one thing,” Patricia said. “I can’t wear high heels any more, but Ana, I like your eye shadow and eye liner. I would love to go shopping with you so you can teach me more about the cosmetics that are available today. I would like to experiment with that.”

“How about next Saturday?” Ana asked. Patricia agreed.

Bob and Ana said goodbye a short time later and left for home. When they got in their car, Bob said, “Well, the hard part is over. Now you can relax. George and Patricia will incorporate you into their fantasies as they see fit. And there is nothing more that you need to do.”

Ana replied, “With all due respect, Bob, I do not think it will be that simple. I see George every day at work. Will I flirt with him more now? Will I start going out to lunch with him? And I have a funny feeling this upcoming shopping trip with Patricia will not be the last. What other highly personal things will she end up telling me? And lastly, we will have to invite them over to our house for dinner some time. What do you think I should wear as an encore after tonight? Do you really think we are going to have a normal friendship with these two?”

Bob thought for a few moments and said, “You are right. We have managed to establish yet another unusual relationship with another couple based on a mutual interest in high heels and bold feminine fashion. Except this time, you do not have to share the spotlight with anyone. You are the sole star of this show.”

Ana turned to Bob, smiled mischievously and said, “I know. Isn’t that great?”

Next: A prequel: Ana’s experiences in Costa Rica

[Stu]

Prequel: Ana’s Experiences in Costa Rica

This story was written in the first-person by Ana, with assistance from Steve.

The high-heel shoes stood on the wood floor by the foot of my bed. They were beautiful black, strappy sandals, with four-inch stilettos that seemed to demand one’s full attention. It seemed impossible that these could be my shoes. I had seen such shoes all my life, but always on the feet of other women. Someday, I was told, I would be able to wear shoes like those. And now, incredibly, that day had come.

It was my 18th birthday, and my parents had invited family and friends over to celebrate the occasion. Aunts and uncles, cousins, my grandparents, family friends of my parents, and many of my friends were in the house. I had greeted them as they entered, and spent the early part of the afternoon socializing with them in the living room. Then my mother looked at her watch and quietly motioned me to go to my room. It was time for the next stage of the party, as we had planned. I quietly left the living room, went into my bedroom, and closed the door.

Those steps I took before shutting my bedroom door were the last ones of my childhood.

It felt strange being alone in my room. There were three beds in the room – one was for me, and two for my younger sisters. Very few children in Costa Rica had the luxury of having their own bedroom, and I was certainly not one of them. But mom and dad had made sure that, on this special day, I would have my room to myself.

I had been wearing a simple blouse, plain jeans and two-inch block heels prior to entering my room. This had been my basic attire for the last two years or so, and as much as I had wanted to shed them for something better, I felt sad doing so. But there would be time later for feeling sentimental about such things. I took off my shoes, and unzipped my pants. I hung the pants up neatly in my closet, perhaps for the last time. I then picked up the pair of pants that my parents had folded neatly and left on my bed. They were black, and made of a clingy, polyester-like material. I had never worn such pants before, even though I had long wanted to do so. As I pulled them up, I looked at myself in the mirror, and my heart started to beat a little stronger. The pants were outlining my thighs, hips and waist far more explicitly than anything I had worn in the past. I had studied myself in the mirror countless times, but I had never seen myself quite like that.

With my pants properly zipped, I looked down and turned my attention to the stilettos on the floor. I moved them to the middle of the floor, and eased myself into them, first my right foot and then my left. I momentarily lost my sense of balance, as it felt like the shoes were making me fall forward. I reacted by thrusting my hips out slightly and arching my back. I felt back in balance, at least somewhat. My pants felt so tight, and the shoes had twisted my feet into a semi-vertical position and forced me to assume this strange posture. I turned back to the mirror and fixated on what I saw. My hips and waist appeared curvier than before. I turned to the side and looked at the shape of my cola, which is the Spanish term for rear end. I also observed my suddenly longer legs, and my now-twisted feet. It reminded me of the women I had long admired as they walked down the street wearing their high heels. I had dreamed for years about looking like this, and now that it was happening, it seemed so surreal. It was almost as if I had simply borrowed someone’s body, and that, when the day was over, I would return to the little girl’s body I had known all my life.

This was not the first time I had worn 4-inch stilettos. I had practiced walking in them in the house on several occasions in the past, but never with guests in the house. And I had never worn them with pants like this. I took a few practice steps around my room, and was able to walk comfortably as I had done in those earlier practice sessions. But this was different. I walked to the bedroom door and started to open it, but I had to take one last look at the room, at the little girl’s life I was leaving behind. I would be sleeping in this room tonight, but it would not be the same.

I opened the door and started down the hallway, my heels clomping loudly on the wood floor. I entered the living room. A few relatives saw me, their conversations stopped and they looked at me approvingly. Then my father saw me, walked up to me, and shouted, “Hello, everyone! I have someone that I want you to see. Behold my beautiful daughter, Ana!”

As I walked to the center of the room, relatives and friends that I had known all my life cheered. A few of the men whistled, and I could hear some of the women telling each other how beautiful I was. I stood in the center of the room and turned to the side, sharing with everyone my new feminine profile, enhanced by those magical stiletto heels. The applause went on and on, and it was one of the very proudest moments of my life.

I was no longer a little girl. I had become a tica, a Costa Rican woman. And my life would never, ever be the same.

*** *** ***

When people from the United States express their patriotism, they normally talk about the freedom they enjoy in their country, and its prosperity. The land of the free and the home of the brave. When Costa Ricans express their patriotism, they remind everyone that their little nation is the oldest and most stable democracy in Latin America, and the only country in the western hemisphere that does not have a military. And, in many cases, they say proudly that Costa Rican women are the most beautiful in the world.

The adoration of beautiful women permeates much of Costa Rican culture. I do not know how this began. Many cultures, particularly in Latin America, place a premium on feminine beauty, and at some point Costa Ricans put their own special twist on it. It makes us feel special. Unlike countries like Mexico and Peru, Costa Rica had no great Indian civilizations, and therefore we have no indigenous culture to incorporate into our national identity. Costa Rica was originally settled by small family farmers from Europe who built no great cathedrals, opera houses, or museums. But we have our women, and they are the ones who make Costa Rica special. Whether they are the most beautiful in the world is a matter of personal opinion. But the country operates as if they are.

The nation’s obsession with beauty is focused primarily on single women between the ages of 18 and approximately 25. Life for many of these women can resemble a seven-year-long beauty pageant. They primp and preen constantly, squeeze themselves into tight, form-fitting clothing, and wear high heels almost exclusively. They smile a lot, flirt with men of all ages, and soak up the attention like sponges. And they do get attention. Soccer may be the favorite sport of Costa Ricans, but the national pastime is looking at women. Everyone in Costa Rica looks at women – men and women, the old and the young, even little children look at women. They are all judges in this 24-7 beauty pageant, evaluating the figures and the poise of these women, how well they dress, and how well they walk in their high heels. In part, these young, single women are engaging in an elaborate mating ritual, in which they compete for the attention and affection of young, single men. But the women are also competing for the hearts of other Costa Ricans as well. Every town, village and community in the country takes pride in its beautiful, young women. Costa Ricans are not an entrepreneurial people, and they do not measure their wealth by national income levels, exports, or production of key commodities. As long as there are beautiful women in the streets, they are satisfied that things are going well.

Of course, not everyone in Costa Rica buys into the culture of beauty and femininity. Many young women avoid heels and attractive clothing, and there are even families that prohibit their daughters from dressing or behaving in any way that attract attention. My family was not one of those. We were enthusiastic participants in a culture that worshipped beautiful women, their high heels, and their colas. And I am glad we were.

To be continued.

[Stu]

Prequel: Ana’s Experiences in Costa Rica

This story was written in the first-person by Ana, with assistance from Steve.

The high-heel shoes stood on the wood floor by the foot of my bed. They were beautiful black, strappy sandals, with four-inch stilettos that seemed to demand one’s full attention. It seemed impossible that these could be my shoes. I had seen such shoes all my life, but always on the feet of other women. Someday, I was told, I would be able to wear shoes like those. And now, incredibly, that day had come.

It was my 18th birthday, and my parents had invited family and friends over to celebrate the occasion. Aunts and uncles, cousins, my grandparents, family friends of my parents, and many of my friends were in the house. I had greeted them as they entered, and spent the early part of the afternoon socializing with them in the living room. Then my mother looked at her watch and quietly motioned me to go to my room. It was time for the next stage of the party, as we had planned. I quietly left the living room, went into my bedroom, and closed the door.

Those steps I took before shutting my bedroom door were the last ones of my childhood.

It felt strange being alone in my room. There were three beds in the room – one was for me, and two for my younger sisters. Very few children in Costa Rica had the luxury of having their own bedroom, and I was certainly not one of them. But mom and dad had made sure that, on this special day, I would have my room to myself.

I had been wearing a simple blouse, plain jeans and two-inch block heels prior to entering my room. This had been my basic attire for the last two years or so, and as much as I had wanted to shed them for something better, I felt sad doing so. But there would be time later for feeling sentimental about such things. I took off my shoes, and unzipped my pants. I hung the pants up neatly in my closet, perhaps for the last time. I then picked up the pair of pants that my parents had folded neatly and left on my bed. They were black, and made of a clingy, polyester-like material. I had never worn such pants before, even though I had long wanted to do so. As I pulled them up, I looked at myself in the mirror, and my heart started to beat a little stronger. The pants were outlining my thighs, hips and waist far more explicitly than anything I had worn in the past. I had studied myself in the mirror countless times, but I had never seen myself quite like that.

With my pants properly zipped, I looked down and turned my attention to the stilettos on the floor. I moved them to the middle of the floor, and eased myself into them, first my right foot and then my left. I momentarily lost my sense of balance, as it felt like the shoes were making me fall forward. I reacted by thrusting my hips out slightly and arching my back. I felt back in balance, at least somewhat. My pants felt so tight, and the shoes had twisted my feet into a semi-vertical position and forced me to assume this strange posture. I turned back to the mirror and fixated on what I saw. My hips and waist appeared curvier than before. I turned to the side and looked at the shape of my cola, which is the Spanish term for rear end. I also observed my suddenly longer legs, and my now-twisted feet. It reminded me of the women I had long admired as they walked down the street wearing their high heels. I had dreamed for years about looking like this, and now that it was happening, it seemed so surreal. It was almost as if I had simply borrowed someone’s body, and that, when the day was over, I would return to the little girl’s body I had known all my life.

This was not the first time I had worn 4-inch stilettos. I had practiced walking in them in the house on several occasions in the past, but never with guests in the house. And I had never worn them with pants like this. I took a few practice steps around my room, and was able to walk comfortably as I had done in those earlier practice sessions. But this was different. I walked to the bedroom door and started to open it, but I had to take one last look at the room, at the little girl’s life I was leaving behind. I would be sleeping in this room tonight, but it would not be the same.

I opened the door and started down the hallway, my heels clomping loudly on the wood floor. I entered the living room. A few relatives saw me, their conversations stopped and they looked at me approvingly. Then my father saw me, walked up to me, and shouted, “Hello, everyone! I have someone that I want you to see. Behold my beautiful daughter, Ana!”

As I walked to the center of the room, relatives and friends that I had known all my life cheered. A few of the men whistled, and I could hear some of the women telling each other how beautiful I was. I stood in the center of the room and turned to the side, sharing with everyone my new feminine profile, enhanced by those magical stiletto heels. The applause went on and on, and it was one of the very proudest moments of my life.

I was no longer a little girl. I had become a tica, a Costa Rican woman. And my life would never, ever be the same.

*** *** ***

When people from the United States express their patriotism, they normally talk about the freedom they enjoy in their country, and its prosperity. The land of the free and the home of the brave. When Costa Ricans express their patriotism, they remind everyone that their little nation is the oldest and most stable democracy in Latin America, and the only country in the western hemisphere that does not have a military. And, in many cases, they say proudly that Costa Rican women are the most beautiful in the world.

The adoration of beautiful women permeates much of Costa Rican culture. I do not know how this began. Many cultures, particularly in Latin America, place a premium on feminine beauty, and at some point Costa Ricans put their own special twist on it. It makes us feel special. Unlike countries like Mexico and Peru, Costa Rica had no great Indian civilizations, and therefore we have no indigenous culture to incorporate into our national identity. Costa Rica was originally settled by small family farmers from Europe who built no great cathedrals, opera houses, or museums. But we have our women, and they are the ones who make Costa Rica special. Whether they are the most beautiful in the world is a matter of personal opinion. But the country operates as if they are.

The nation’s obsession with beauty is focused primarily on single women between the ages of 18 and approximately 25. Life for many of these women can resemble a seven-year-long beauty pageant. They primp and preen constantly, squeeze themselves into tight, form-fitting clothing, and wear high heels almost exclusively. They smile a lot, flirt with men of all ages, and soak up the attention like sponges. And they do get attention. Soccer may be the favorite sport of Costa Ricans, but the national pastime is looking at women. Everyone in Costa Rica looks at women – men and women, the old and the young, even little children look at women. They are all judges in this 24-7 beauty pageant, evaluating the figures and the poise of these women, how well they dress, and how well they walk in their high heels. In part, these young, single women are engaging in an elaborate mating ritual, in which they compete for the attention and affection of young, single men. But the women are also competing for the hearts of other Costa Ricans as well. Every town, village and community in the country takes pride in its beautiful, young women. Costa Ricans are not an entrepreneurial people, and they do not measure their wealth by national income levels, exports, or production of key commodities. As long as there are beautiful women in the streets, they are satisfied that things are going well.

Of course, not everyone in Costa Rica buys into the culture of beauty and femininity. Many young women avoid heels and attractive clothing, and there are even families that prohibit their daughters from dressing or behaving in any way that attract attention. My family was not one of those. We were enthusiastic participants in a culture that worshipped beautiful women, their high heels, and their colas. And I am glad we were.

To be continued.

[Stu]

I grew up during the 1970s and early 1980s in a small farming town in the mountains of Costa Rica. My father was not a farmer; instead, he bought the potatoes and carrots produced by the family farmers in our town, and he sold them to vendors in retailers in nearby cities like San Jose and Cartago. We were not wealthy, even by Costa Rica’s modest standards, but neither were we poor. We always had food, a roof over our head, and, of course, enough clothes and shoes for everyone in the family. During my childhood, I always remember seeing women in high heels. My mother, aunts, cousins, family friends – all wore heels. The single women tended to wear the higher stiletto heels, while the married women wore lower and more conservative wide heels, but flat shoes on women were a rare site. To me, high heels were as inevitable a part of growing up and becoming a woman as developing breasts and menstruating. I first asked my parents for a pair of heels when I was 13, and I was told no. When I was 15, my parents bought me a pair of loafers with 2-inch block heels. I was only allowed to wear them on weekends. Indeed, I wore them with relish, and particularly to Mass on Sundays. The church was the one place in town where women liked to show off their best heels, thanks largely to the captive audience of chuchgoers. Lots of young women found any reason at all to walk up and down the aisles during the service, with their heels clicking on the hard floor. Nobody seemed to mind, and I joined right along. When I turned 16, my parents bought me new loafers with a 2-1/2-inch heel. They then bought me a pumps with a slightly narrower 3-inch heel when I turned 17. The same rules applied: I could wear them only on weekends. Two months before my 18th birthday, I received a sneak preview of my next present: those wonderful, strappy 4-inch stiletto sandals. I practiced walking in them in the house, with my mother and an older cousin supervising me and giving me tips on how to walk properly in them, like a true tica. In Costa Rica, it is not enough simply to wear high heels. Instead, a woman must develop her own style of walking. In truth, a truly proficient high heel wearer would develop several different walking styles – elegant, flirty, even sexy and seductive. There was no way I could become an expert in the two months prior to turning 18, but my mother and cousin were able to give me the basics. My mother took out her own pair of 4-inch stiletto pumps, which I had only seen her wear on a relative handful of special occasions. Within seconds, she was strutting around the house like a woman 20 years her junior, and she put on an exhibition of sensuous movements of her cola that even made me blush. “You think I was never young? You think I was never interested in impressing men? Think again,” my mother said to me as she laughed. “Of course, there were a lot of reasons why your father fell in love with me. But my walking style in high heels did not hurt.” Yes, mothers teach those things to their daughters in Costa Rica. After my 18th birthday party, I was allowed to wear high heels whenever I wanted. My flat and lower-heel shoes went in the closet forever, and virtually overnight I became a full-time wearer of 4-inch heels. My cousin, whose shoe size was the same as mine, gave me a couple of pairs of her 4-inch heels, and my parents bought me another pair within a few months of my 18th birthday. Those four pairs of shoes carried me a long way. My loose clothing also gradually gave way to tight pants and skirts that shamelessly advertised my feminine figure. My parents beamed with pride in the morning when I would walk out of the house in my 4-inch stilettos and tight clothing. In the eyes of Costa Rican society, I was an attractive, sociable woman with a good upbringing, and someday soon I would become a desirable mate for some worthy man. I was a credit to my community and to my country. In Costa Rica, style counts for a lot. Strutting through town in my stilettos, I loved the fact that so many adults I had known my whole life would come up to me and tell me how fast I had matured, and how lovely I was. I also loved the attention I received from boys my own age. The compliments bolstered my self-confidence, and the more confident I became, the more compliments I got. Oddly enough, I liked to spend time during that period with our local priest, a handsome man in his late 30s. I would walk into church during the week in my stilettos, and offer to do little errands to help him out. I always loved to turn and give him a nice, sensuous wiggle whenever I left the church. I was not trying to seduce him. I simply felt badly that a nice man like him could not date or marry, and I wanted to be at least a little feminine presence in his life. I think he appreciated it, as he always seemed glad to see me, and he frequently complimented me on my appearance. I graduated from high school at about the same time that I turned 18. For the first year after high school, I attended a one-year secretarial training program in Cartago, which was only a short bus ride away. The students in the program were primarily 18-year-old women like me. At least two-thirds of us wore 3- to 4-inch heels on a regular basis, and we soon divided into two general groups: those who wore heels, and those who did not. In retrospect, I regret not paying much attention to the flat-shoe wearers, as most of them were good people. I was still immature in that regard. After one year, I graduated from the secretarial program with honors, and was ready to start my first job. I was hired as a sales clerk in the only real store in my little town. The store was a little bit of everything. It had started as a savings and loan where the farmers of our town could get loans and deposit their savings. The savings and loan remained its core business, but it was so successful that it expanded to also sell clothes and agricultural supplies. Naturally, I was assigned to the clothing department. My parents were delighted that I was hired, and I soon found out why. Virtually everyone in town frequented the store and got to know the employees on a first-name basis. At age 19, I was now one of the most visible women in my little town. Women would come in throughout the day to look at clothes, and I would help them with their questions and their purchases. Being well-dressed gave me credibility with them, and it helped me maintain my good reputation. The atmosphere at the store would change greatly in the late afternoon, when the men would come into the store after a day of work in their fields to buy farming supplies, chat among themselves, and also to look at us. In those afternoon hours, I easily had 10 or more pairs of male eyes focused on me at any moment as I went about my duties. I would walk up to the men, say hello, flirt with a few of them and then wiggle my way back to my duties. I loved the attention because my family and my culture had raised me to view this kind of attention as a compliment. No one ever expressed concern about my on-the-job flirting with the men, because this was also acceptable in Costa Rica. I (along with my fellow female employees) were bringing in customers to the store, and making the store an indispensable part of community life. It never occurred to me until I moved to the United States that such workplace behavior could be considered unprofessional. There were two women at the store, Rita and Victoria, who had a big influence on my life. Rita, the assistant store manager, was an attractive black-haired woman in her early 30s. She was married with three children. It was somewhat exceptional in my town for married women to have full-time employment, but Rita was an exception to everything. While most married women rarely wore any heels higher than 3 inches in public, Rita wore 4-inch stilettos to work on most days. She also had an affinity for relatively tight dresses (although not as tight as mine, but the comparison is an unfair one because I was still single). Rita also flirted more than most married women. But what impressed me most about Rita was her intelligence. She had worked at the store for a number of years, and knew every square inch of it. When things went wrong and the store owner was out, Rita took charge to make things right. One day, I was so busy flirting with several men that I put the wrong price tags on several articles of clothing. Rita noticed this, and called me into a back room. “You know, Ana, you are a very attractive, personable young woman,” she said. “The management likes you because you bring in customers, both men and women. You can keep this job for several years without learning anything new or improving yourself. But in five years, there will be new 19-year-olds who will attract more customers to the store than you. If you learn this business and do your job right, you can be promoted to more important jobs. If you don’t, you better hope you have good marriage prospects, because you will not have much of a future here. You seem to have a good head, Ana. Start using it.” Rita was right, and I knew it. After that, I redoubled my efforts to learn all I could about the store and to do my job well. I still flirted with the men and wiggled in their presence, but I learned how to not let that distract me from doing my job. Over time, I learned an incredible lesson: My potent feminine expression would have an even bigger impact on people if they could see I was smart and effective on the job. The physical and the intellectual reinforce each other rather well. Unfortunately, I could see that Rita was sad and frustrated much of the time, despite her important job. The rumors in town were that her marriage was not going well, and that she was even involved in extra-marital affairs. I can look back at her now and know that, if she had been born and raised in the United States, she would have gone to college and had a high-powered career. But those kinds of opportunities are not available to women in small towns in Costa Rica. Rita was indeed trapped. As I will explain later, I often thought of Rita when I had to make important decisions in my own life. She was both a role model for me, and a model of what I did not want to become. Victoria was also an important influence on me, but for completely different reasons. She was the secretary and personal assistant to the store’s owner, which made her the highest-ranking woman in the business. Rita may have been the problem solver, but when the owner was out (which was often), Victoria was in charge of the entire operation. She had a pretty figure and long, brown hair that was just a slightly lighter shade than mine. Perhaps most significantly, she was 29 years old and single. Costa Ricans get very traditional when it comes to marriage. They believe that a healthy, well-adjusted woman should be married by about the age of 25. Women who reach their late 20s without getting married are viewed with some suspicion, as if there may be something wrong with them. They are under continuous social pressure to prove that they are still feminine and desirable. An important way that Costa Rican society gives these women to prove their femininity is to exempt them from many of the social rules that apply to everyone else. High heels are perhaps the best example. As much as Costa Ricans revere high heels, there is a general taboo against wearing heels higher than 4 inches on a regular basis. However, this limit does not apply to single women beginning in their mid-20s. It is socially acceptable for these women to move up to 5-inch heels, as if they need the extra height to reassure others as to their femininity. These women also can wear tighter clothing and engage in even more flirtatious behavior than younger, single women. Victoria seemed to enjoy the freedoms that society granted her. She wore 5-inch heels on most days, along with the tightest clothing of anyone who worked at the store. She was very outgoing, and usually emerged from her office in the afternoon to join us in flirting with the men who would gather in the store. As much as I enjoyed the attention I got during these daily flirt sessions, Victoria was clearly the main attraction. She would wiggle up to the men, stand close to them, laugh at their jokes and tease them with her own. I am certain the men looked forward to her daily demonstrations of flirting, and who could blame them? She was a master at walking in heels, and I learned a lot by observing her. She had at least five different walking styles – a normal walk mode, an elegant style she employed for senior citizens and important visitors, a sensuous style she used with younger women, and two sexy styles that she utilized in front of men. She could switch styles in an instant, depending on who was in sight of her. I was supposed to feel a little sorry for Victoria, because she was about to turn 30 and was still not married. Instead, I grew to envy her. She seemed to enjoy her 5-inch heels so much that I wanted to try wearing them. However, I was too young, and could not wear anything like them without causing a scandal that would have embarrassed my family and jeopardized my job. I also envied the way she could dress and flirt more daringly than the rest of us. I did not think of her attire and behavior as a last-ditch effort to attract a good man; instead, I saw it as a rebellious expression of freedom that I might want to try myself some day. These were radical thoughts for a small-town, Costa Rican girl, and I did not share them with anyone. Victoria took obvious pride in the fact that she wore the highest heels in the store, and there was one occasion when I succumbed to the temptation to imitate her – or, more accurately, to challenge her. On Fridays, it was common for the female employees to dress down by wearing lower-heel shoes. Many of my co-workers and I moved down to 3-inch heels on Fridays, which cleared the way for Victoria to move down to 4-inch heels. I borrowed a pair of 4-1/2-inch heels from my cousin with the intent of wearing them to work on a Friday, even though the shoes were really only meant for special occasions. On the day I wore them to work, I noted with satisfaction that Victoria had indeed worn a pair of 4-inch heels, which meant that I was wearing the highest heels of anyone. I got a number of compliments, including a grudging one from Victoria. My triumph, however, was a short one. During the morning break, Victoria went home and returned in a pair of 5-inch stilettos with a needle-thin heel, and the tightest pants I had ever seen her wear up to that time. She strutted up to me later that morning and said to me, “Do not be in such a rush to move up, Ana. You do not know what I had to go through to earn the right to wear what I wear. Stay away from things you do not understand.” To emphasize her displeasure with me, she reassigned me for the rest of the day to take inventory in one of the back storage rooms. I never challenged her again! To be continued.

[Stu]

My little run-in with Victoria was soon forgotten. In fact, Victoria championed my promotion the following year to work as a teller in the savings and loan department. At age 20, I became the third highest-ranking woman in the store, behind only Victoria and Rita. This increased my visibility and status in the community. Also, instead of working primarily with female customers in the clothing department, I was now attending to a mixed clientele of men and women, including many of the prominent male farmers in town who trusted me with sizable transactions of money. I took this very seriously, and soon earned a reputation as an efficient worker who never lost track of a centavo of money. But I also pushed my flirting skills to new heights. I could give many of my male customers a look that made them feel like they were the most important and attractive man in the world. And I learned a lot about them by talking with them. Not coincidentally, I began dating a lot at about this point. Men now considered me one of the most desirable dates in town, and it was fun to have different men compete for my affections. My parents were ecstatic over my promotion and my popularity. The following year, when I turned 21, I began going steady with Carlos, a son of one of the more successful farmers in our community. He was handsome, well-mannered, hard working and reasonably intelligent, and was expected eventually to take over his family’s farming operation. My parents seemed to welcome him as their future son-in-law, almost from the start. I was not thinking so far ahead, but I did enjoy our time together. We went dancing practically every weekend in one of the small dance places in our town. Afterward, we would walk out of the dance hall in the night air, find some dark spot between two buildings, and spend what seemed like hours kissing while he massaged my cola with his strong, field-toughened hands. Those were good times, indeed. Carlos first proposed to me a year later, when I was 22 and he was 24. Many women in my town would have jumped at the chance to marry Carlos, but I told him I was not ready. I enjoyed my status and visibility in the town, and the last thing I wanted was to get married, become pregnant, quit my job and spend the next two decades in flat shoes raising children. Alternatively, I did now want to end up like Rita, trying to hold onto a job while raising children, and not being particularly happy at either. My parents were a little disappointed with my decision, but they accepted it. They still believed a marriage announcement was only a matter of time, and they were willing to give me that extra time to get the single life out of my system. When I turned down Carlos for the second time a year later, my parents were not so forgiving. What was I thinking, they asked me. I was so fortunate to have someone like Carlos, so how could I turn him down twice? His patience will not last forever, and if I lose him, I will regret it for the rest of my life, they warned me. I could end up like Victoria, they said, hoping to shock me. The problem was that, deep down, I wanted to be more like Victoria. The idea of a life without limits – wearing incredibly high-heeled shoes and clothes that were considered too hot for other women, and being the star attraction in the daily afternoon flirting at the store – appealed to me more and more. I still did not dare sharing such subversive thoughts with my parents. Carlos nobly stuck with me. He convinced his father to let him use his family’s pick-up truck to take me on dates to Cartago and San Jose, in the hope it would satisfy my desire for a more worldly existence and make the idea of getting married more appealing. The strategy largely backfired, as it made me even more dubious of marriage. I would look at the people in these cities, who were somewhat more sophisticated than the farmers in my little town, and I would question even more how I could be happy raising children within the four walls of some house in my little town. When I turned 24, Carlos proposed to me for the third and last time. The romance and anticipation that had been in his voice the first time around had pretty much vanished. Instead, he almost sounded impatient and weary. He made it clear that if I turned him down again, we would have to break up, which was fair. I told him I could not decide right away and I would let him know, which irritated him even more. The following morning, I did something I had never done before: I took a sick day from my job when I was not really sick. I had to get away for the day, and I took the bus to Cartago. I was beginning to doubt myself. At one level, it was pretty dumb to be turning down Carlos, as he was one of the better marriage prospects in town. Why was I so scared of ending up like Rita, and why was I so enamored of Victoria’s lifestyle? I had been part of the Costa Rican 24-7 beauty pageant now for six years, and my society was telling me it was time to give it up and move on. But I did not want the beauty pageant to end! It seemed so cruel. Why did my parents and my culture teach me to love the attention I got from wearing high heels and nice clothes, only to expect me to give it all up when my feminine appeal was at its peak? But other women did just that. I thought of all the girls I had grown up with, and how we were all excited to start wearing high heels when we were 18. Most of them were now married, rarely venturing out in public in anything higher than 2-inch heels, and they seemed happy. What was wrong with me that I did not want to follow in their footsteps? The bus arrived in Cartago. I got off and wandered aimlessly in the city, lost in my own thoughts. I stopped at a street corner and noticed a pretty clothing boutique shop. I went inside. The woman working inside was quite beautiful, with flowing brown hair and a slim figure, and she was wearing tight denim pants and a pair of 5-inch stiletto sandals. I judged her to be about 30 years of age. And she was definitely single. She asked me if I needed any help. I said yes, and she showed me her various clothing lines. Her name was Gloria, and we talked for quite a while about clothes. She finally said, “If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to ask.” I shocked even myself when I replied, “I actually do have a question, although I will certainly understand if you do not want to answer it. Do you like being single?” Gloria was surprised by the boldness of the question, but she recovered quickly. She looked at me, studied what I was wearing, and seemed to note my 4-inch stiletto pumps. “Let me guess,” she said. “You are about 24 or so, your boyfriend and your parents are pressuring you to get married, and you do not want to.” When I said yes, she responded, “Something very similar happened to me.” We talked for a little longer – fortunately, it was a slow day and there were no other customers in the store to divert Gloria’s attention. She finally said, “If you have doubts, you should not get married. If you stay single, do the things that you enjoy. I do not regret not having married because I am doing what I want to do. If I meet the right man, I will know it.” She added, “I think you are a high-heel lover, aren’t you? Come over here.” She walked me over to a corner of her store where a number of pairs of 5-inch heels were on display. “Try some on and see if you like them.” I had never even tried on a pair of 5-inch heels in my life. But Gloria brought me a pair of sandals in my size. I took off my 4-inch stilettos and eased my feet into the 5-inchers. It reminded me of my 18th birthday party. How could one little inch make such a big difference? I was not used to the way my feet were stretched vertically, and how I had to thrust my hips and my back to stand up straight. When I felt all balanced, I took a few cautious steps and stopped in front of a full-length mirror. As much as I had liked my appearance in 4-inch heels, I was staggered by the way I looked in 5-inch heels. The difference was stunning. “Ooh, Ana,” Gloria said. “If you are going to give up shoes like that for a man, he had better be good!” It was at that moment that I made my peace with not marrying Carlos. In four years, I had gone from being one of the most promising young women in my community to something of a disappointment. I had been someone with excellent marriage prospects, but now people had their doubts about me. I either had to marry Carlos, or become the next Victoria. I chose Victoria. “I love these shoes. I’ll buy them,” I told Gloria. While paying for the shoes, I told Gloria about my job at the store in my little town. She suggested I walk over to the Bank of Cartago a few blocks away and apply for a job there. If I was not going to get married, I needed to get out of my town, meet new people and expand my horizons, she said. And she was right. She gave me her business card and told me to use her as a reference. The bank had given her the loan to start up her clothing store, and she was on good terms with everyone there. I walked over to the bank (in my 4-inch stilettos), and filled out an application. I took the bus home, told Carlos I was not going to marry him, and then went home. My parents were waiting for me, and I told them my decision. As I had expected, they were crestfallen. As far as they were concerned, their hopes and dreams for me were crushed. I did not make things any easier for them when I took my new shoes out of the shopping bag. “By the way,” I said, “I will be wearing these from now on.” I slowly put the 5-inch sandals on my feet. My mother began to cry, and my father walked out of the room grumbling. As I said before, what a big difference a simple little inch can make! To be continued

[Stu]

Word about my breakup with Carlos spread through town like wildfire, and my debut in my 5-inch sandals at the store seemed to be the exclamation point to it. I wondered how Victoria would deal with me in 5-inch heels, but it was all academic. A week later, the Bank of Cartago called me in for an interview (I wore 4-inch heels), and a week after that, I was hired as a bank teller. I continued to live at home with my parents, as single Costa Ricans are expected to do, but now I was commuting by bus to work in the big city!

I wore 4-inch heels to my new job for the first couple of weeks, and then slowly worked my new 5-inch heels into my repertoire. I bought two more pairs of 5-inch heels from Gloria, and I soon became a full-time wearer of 5-inch heels. Nobody at the bank seemed to have a problem with it. In fact, I was promoted after six months and was put in charge of arrangements for the bank’s visitors. It was the perfect job for me. I got to show off my organizational skills by setting up meetings between the bank’s managers and its major customers, who were primarily big-time businesspeople. I set up the meeting rooms, arranged for coffee, and made sure the correct bank managers attended. I also got to show off my feminine skills by greeting visitors when they arrived at the bank and making sure they got everything they needed. My ease with men and my ability to walk elegantly in 5-inch heels worked very well in my favor.

I started dating again, and this time most of my dates were business types who were wealthy by Costa Rican standards. Instead of bouncing around in Carlos’ father’s pick-up truck, I was riding in comfortable passenger cars, which are considered something of a luxury in Costa Rica. I loved to see the reaction of people in my little town when these nice cars would pull up in front of my house to pick me up. Yes, I wanted to shout to my neighbors, I am now 25 years old, but I can still attract men!

For a short time, I dated one of my bank’s directors, a man in his early 40s whose wife had died tragically some years before. He took me to the finest restaurants and nightclubs in Costa Rica’s capital, San Jose, exposing me to a lifestyle I had only seen in movies and on TV. On the way home from one such date, we parked on a dark stretch of road with a nice view of Cartago, not too far from my little mountain town. We became quite passionate, and he took my hand and helped me unzip his pants and pull out his erect penis. It was hardly the first time I had seen a man’s erection, but I was nevertheless impressed with how rock hard he was.

“Look at what you do to me, Ana,” he said, as he pointed to his penis. “You stand out, even among Costa Rican women. You have powers and abilities that few other women have. All you have to do is walk into the room, and this is what happens to many of the men who are in the room with you. You don’t even know the things you are capable of doing.”

On one level, I was disgusted by his crude, vulgar remark. But on another level, I was fascinated by it, too. Even with my experiences with dating Carlos and others, I had not realized that a man could have an erection simply by looking at a woman. I had thought that some physical contact with a woman was necessary, even if it was only kissing. It was illuminating to think that I could simply walk into a room and cause men to have erections. I presumed (and continue to presume to this day) that I only have that effect on a small percentage of men, but the thought nevertheless has stayed with me over the years.

The next milestone in my life came a few months later, when I was told that a computer consultant from the United States would be visiting us to help us set up a computer system for the bank. I always liked meeting people from foreign countries and was looking forward to it. Still, I was unprepared for the moment when Bob walked into the bank and introduced himself to me. He was attractive, self-confident, but still humble, and he was so cute as he struggled to speak in his heavily accented Spanish. If it was not love at first sight, then it was something awfully close. He could barely keep his eyes off me. All of my years of flirting experience in my little town paid off over the next week. I soon learned that North American men are not used to such behavior and absolutely love it when Costa Rican women give them the full treatment, which I did. Bob and I had dinner before he returned home, but he was back a month later for follow-up consultation, and we officially consummated our relationship. I wanted us to get married and settle down in Costa Rica, but he said he had to stay in the United States if he wanted to keep his career. So I agreed to move with him to the United States. And, of course, my life would never, ever be the same.

I hope that this account of my years in Costa Rica helps answer the question I am continually asked, which is why I am so passionate about high heels and feminine expression in general. As mentioned in the previous story, I continue to take Costa Rican-style femininity and apply the North American penchant for experimentation and risk-taking to develop daring styles and expressions that are all my own. I am happy with the results, and so is Bob. I may not be able to paint, sing, play a musical instrument, or write prose or poetry, but I know how to dress to impress. That is my art. My body is my canvas, and my clothes and shoes are my paints. And while I dress to please myself, I am aware, like any aspiring artist, of my audience. The looks I constantly get from men tell me that they appreciate my expression. And for every woman who is put off by my style, there is another who looks on approvingly. You would be surprised by how many women tell me how they envy my ability to wear heels. Call me extreme or out of the mainstream if you want. But people have an instinctive need for sensuality and warmth, and I think they would rather get that from a friend, neighbor or co-worker like me than from some actress on TV or in the movies. I am only one woman, but I am doing what I can.

Next: Maria’s admirer

[Stu]

Maria’s Admirer

This story was written in the third person by Steve, based on interviews with the principal participants and his own observations.

Cost accounting. Marketing. Business law. It could be overwhelming at any time, but especially at midnight. Maria looked at her watch, and saw it was 11:50 p.m.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I am ready to call it a night,” she whispered to her two study companions.

Laurie and Dan both nodded in agreement. The three business students were in the same classes, and liked to study together so they could help each other with their assignments.

The university library was full, even at midnight, because it was the week for midterm exams. The library stayed open during exam periods until 2 a.m., and for many students, it was the preferred alternative to noisy apartments or frat houses, or even homes with parents, siblings or spouses. Maria and her two companions gathered their books and made their way down the corridors of the library. Maria’s 5-inch stiletto heels clicked loudly on the hard-tile floor. In the quietness of the library, each click-click-click sounded as loud as a firecracker. Students pulled themselves out of their books and looked to see the source of the noise; some seemed surprised at the source, but nobody seemed particularly annoyed. More than a few looked at each other and smiled as Maria and her two friends walked by.

“I will say this, Maria. You are the most subversive person in this university,” Laurie said when they exited the library and entered the cool night air. Laurie, like Maria, was a senior; she was 21 years old and had an earthy look defined by her brown, moderately curly hair, and her taste for old jeans and birkenstock sandals.

“Now what makes me subversive?” Maria asked. At 28, Maria was older and more experienced in life than most of the students at the university. But she enjoyed the chance to spend time with Laurie and Dan, who was also 21. She felt like she was experiencing a part of life that she had missed by not attending a university when she was younger.

“Half of the business department has theories about why you wear super-high heels every day,” Laurie said. “I know you’ve heard them: You are trying to curry favor with the male professors, or you plan to open a modeling agency after you graduate. But I have figured you out. You love to wear heels on campus because you pull people out of their own private little universes. They hear the heels clicking, they see you walking, and they have to look up and acknowledge you. You throw everyone off track. They forget whatever problem they were trying to solve, or whatever concept they were trying to understand. For a few seconds, you take over their universe. You are in complete control, and they cannot go back to what they are doing until you leave the area.”

“I never thought of it that way before,” Maria replied with a laugh.

“Sure,” Laurie continued. “Just look at all the things people do to get attention. They dye their hair purple, they wear tongue rings, they play boom boxes with the volume turned up. The problem for them is that no one is really impressed with that stuff. You trump them all. You walk into a library, or into a classroom after the lecture has started, and you take over. But what is creepy is that most people just think they are looking at this woman in high heels. They don’t even know that you have taken control of their minds. That is what is subversive!”

“Brilliant analysis, Laurie. I’ll be sure to tell my husband that you have figured me out!” Maria said, giving Laurie a high-five.

They walked into a parking lot and approached Laurie’s car. This was their late-night security routine: Because Laurie typically parked closest to the library, they would all walk to her car first. Dan would then accompany Maria to her car.

As Laurie drove away, Maria turned to Dan and said, “You are awfully quiet tonight. Is everything OK?”

Dan may have been 21, but his baby face made him look more like he was 18 or 19. His brown, curly hair, glasses, and wire-like frame did not help him look older, either.

“Yeah, I am fine. I am just thinking about schoolwork,” Dan said. They walked over to the next lot, where Maria’s car was parked. As they approached it, Dan said nervously, “Well, actually, something is bothering me, Maria. Not bothering me, really. But I…I…”

“Dan, it’s OK. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

“Actually, I do want to talk to you, but not here. If you don’t need to go home right away, maybe we can go grab coffee somewhere?”

“Sure, Dan.” They arrived at Maria’s car. “Hop on in and we’ll drive over to one of the late-night coffee places. Then we can talk.”

They drove over to a popular coffee house, ordered some decaffeinated coffee, and found a table. Dan became visibly nervous when they sat down.

“Well, um, here’s the thing,” he said. “We are going to be graduating in a few months. I am almost 22 years old. And I have never had a girlfriend. Two years ago, when I was a sophomore, I set a goal for myself to have had at least one girlfriend by the time I graduate. And I don’t think that is going to happen.”

“And why do you think that is, Dan?”

Dan took a sip of coffee and looked down at the table. “I am not real sociable or outgoing. You might say I am shy. I can’t talk to women.”

“You are not shy with me, Dan. We talk all the time.”

“That’s because you’re married, Maria. I can talk to married women just fine. But I can’t talk to single women. If you were single, we would never have studied together, because I don’t think I could have ever said anything to you.”

“But you talk to Laurie. She’s single.”

“That’s true, I guess. I like Laurie as a friend. But she is not really my type. I guess I can talk a little to single women if I don’t feel attracted to them. If I feel attracted to a single woman, I can’t think of anything to say to her. My mind goes completely blank.”

“Shyness is very common, Dan. I’m no expert, but there are all kinds of things people can do to overcome shyness.”

“Well, there’s more.” Dan’s hand was shaking slightly as he took another sip of coffee. He stared straight down into his coffee cup as he continued. “This is so hard to talk about. Maria, we’ve known each other for about a year and a half now. I think you have had an effect on me during that time. I no longer have any interest in plain-looking women. I only feel attracted to really, really good-looking women. I think about the kind of woman I would like to date, and I picture a hot, beautiful lady, really well dressed, with high heels and everything.”

“Dan, take your eyes out of your coffee cup and look up at me. Come on. Look at me,” Maria said. Dan did as he was asked. When their eyes met, Maria leaned forward toward him and said in a soft voice, “Good for you. You have every right to feel that way.”

“Good for me? Maybe. But I am being hypocritical, aren’t I? Self-delusional, too. How could a beautiful woman be interested in me? I am not good looking, I dress poorly, I act all awkward in social situations, and I can’t talk to women. And besides, why should I be interested in a woman just because of the shoes she wears….”

“Hold on,” Maria said. “I can only deal with one thing at a time. First things first.” She straightened her left leg so that it stuck out from underneath the table, and she let her 5-inch stiletto pump dangle tantalizingly in the air. “Now, what attracts you more: the shoe, or the woman wearing it?” she asked.

“The woman wearing it, of course.”

“I would hope so. Look, it takes a commitment to wear high heels every day. It takes a commitment to learn the physical skills needed to wear heels properly. It takes planning to be able to match the shoe with the amount and type of walking you plan to do that day. And it takes a financial commitment, because high heels aren’t cheap. Most high-high wearers make those commitments because they believe in the feminine expression that high heels make possible. To your credit, you are attracted to that kind of feminine expression yourself. You have something very important in common with high-heel wearers, so of course you want to date one.”

“Wow. That’s good,” Dan said, sounding just a little upbeat for the first time that evening. “You do know your stuff, Maria.”

Maria moved her leg back under the table. “As for the other things you said about being shy and lacking in self-confidence. Those things can be remedied. And, of course, if you want to dress better, you can.”

“I would like to think you are right. Maybe I can improve myself. But I can’t believe a beautiful woman would ever want to go out with me, no matter what I might do.”

“You are too hard on yourself, Dan. I am not married to some Latin hunk. My husband, Steve, is a nice, smart guy. I find him attractive, but you won’t see him on a magazine cover any time soon. One of the things I love about him is that he values not just my beauty, but my expression and all the feelings that underlie it. He understands that beauty is much more than just skin deep.”

“What do you mean?”

“Beauty is a value, an attitude, a passion. It is also hard work. I could dress in sweatpants and tennis shoes, and only wash my hair once a week like many of the women on this campus. If I did, nobody would think of me as an attractive woman. I make the effort to stay fit, dress well and wear heels because that is how I express myself. I value beauty. Men talk about beauty a lot, but very few truly understand it. Steve does. He shares my passion for it, and that is an important part of our marriage.”

Dan asked, “I am not sure I understand beauty, but even if I did, how could I convince a woman of that? Beautiful women are always surrounded by men. How can I get them to notice me when there are so many other men who are better looking and more outgoing than me? Don’t beautiful women value beautiful men?”

“Some do, but it is not as simple or hopeless as you make it sound. When I was 21, I was constantly attracting macho guys who were full of self-importance. They wanted me as a trophy for their own male egos. They valued my beauty because of what it meant to them, not to me. I always noticed a lot of timid guys looking at me, and I would have liked to have known a lot of them better. Most of the time, they never built up the nerve to talk to me, but I wish they had. There are women who value beauty for its own sake, not simply as a way to attract men. Those are the kind of women you should get to know.”

“How do I get to know them?”

“There is a Latin club where Steve and I like to go dancing that draws a lot of classy, well-dressed women. We’ll take you there on Saturday. It will be a good confidence builder for you. It will also be a good way to celebrate the end of midterms.”

“I don’t know, Maria. I’m a lousy dancer, and…

“Dan, that’s an order. You are coming with us on Saturday.” She wrote her home address on a piece of paper and gave it to Dan. “Meet us at our house at 8:30 p.m. and we will drive you there. OK?”

To be continued

[Stu]

Dan showed up at Maria’s and Steve’s house at exactly 8:30 p.m. on Saturday. Steve answered the door, introduced himself, and they sat down to talk. Steve talked about his career in the computer industry, while Dan talked about his plans for a business career. Dan seemed like a thoughtful, decent young man, although Steve felt Dan could use a haircut and a wardrobe makeover. If he is looking to impress beautiful women, Steve thought, the faded brown shirt and cheap blue slacks he is wearing tonight won’t quite get the job done. To Dan, Steve seemed very much as Maria had described him: a nice, smart guy who was reasonably attractive but not exceptionally handsome. Looking at Steve, Dan felt that perhaps there was indeed some hope for himself. He was dying to know how Steve and Maria had met and fallen in love, but he felt it would be premature to ask. The two men had been talking for several minutes when Maria entered the room. She was wearing a body-hugging, bright red dress, that was especially tight around her hips and thighs, and which ended just above her knees. Black seamed stockings and a pair of 5-1/2-inch blood-red stiletto sandals completed her attire. “Hello, Dan,” she said in a sultry voice. She vamped over to him, her hips rocking back and forth shamelessly, until she stood over her younger friend, who sat nervously in the couch. “Stand up, please,” she said in a soft monotone. Dan stood up. Maria moved over until her lips were only inches from Dan’s. She began caressing the back of his neck suggestively with her long, red fingernails, while looking deep into his eyes. “Are you ready for a night of hot, Latin dancing?” she cooed. She finished the sentence and promptly broke out into a big smile and began laughing. “Oh, forgive me, Dan. I am such a bad actress. But I just couldn’t resist.” “You had me going,” a relieved Dan replied. Steve looked at Dan and said jokingly, “You see what I have to go through? Life with this woman is just pure torture.” “The sultry stuff is not me. You know that,” Maria said to Dan. She took a couple of steps back from him and assumed a very feminine pose. “But this dress and these heels are me. Remember what I said the other night: Beauty is an attitude.” They got into Steve’s car and headed toward the Latin dance club, the same club where Ana and Bob had taken Steve several years earlier, before he had met Maria. It was the ideal place to take Dan, as it catered to a mostly English-speaking, middle-class Latino clientele, including plenty of women who shared Maria’s philosophy concerning beauty and femininity. The club also attracted a small but growing number of Anglo women who dressed like Latinas. During the drive over, Steve and Maria told Dan how they had met and about their early dates, which enabled Dan to satisfy his curiosity about how these two people from completely different cultural backgrounds had established a successful relationship. They arrived at the club in time to hear the salsa band begin its repertoire for the evening. As always, there were an abundant number of attractive women decked out in all kinds of colorful dresses and high heels. While Maria still drew her fair share of approving looks from the male patrons, the club nevertheless was one of the few places where she did not stand out from everyone else. There were a lot of well-dressed women to admire. Steve bought beers for the three of them, while Maria led Dan out to the dance floor. “It is easy to fall in love with salsa music,” Maria told him. “Just move naturally with the music.” Despite her advice, Dan started dancing slowly with a jerky motion that looked anything but natural. He looked nervous and self-conscious. “Just relax, Dan. You’re trying too hard,” Maria said. She took him by the hand, and wiggled her hips sensuously to the beat of the music. This seemed to have a soothing effect on Dan, who began moving a little more fluidly, although it was still a far cry from what most people would call dancing. They both got into a groove as the song continued. Dan became lost in his thoughts as he looked at Maria rock back and forth in her tight red dress and ultra-high stiletto heels. Having spent hours in classrooms and libraries with Maria over the previous year, it had not occurred to him that she could be any sexier than she appeared on campus, but tonight she was a quantum level beyond anything he had previously imagined. He felt good that Maria was willingly spending time with him. It was better for her to be a platonic friend than not a friend at all. The song ended, and they returned to their table to sip beer with Steve. They relaxed for a few minutes until Maria said to Dan, “I want you to look around the room here. Look at the women. In a few minutes, I want you to walk up to the most attractive unaccompanied woman here, the one who in your eyes is the biggest knockout, and ask her to dance.” “Oh, Maria, I can’t do that…” “No excuses, Dan. You danced with me, you can dance with them. You don’t have to talk with them, you don’t have to sit down with them after the song and try to get their phone number. Just dance one song with a lady, thank her, and come back here.” “It’s not going to work…” Steve broke in. “Dan, I hate to tell you, but Maria is right. No guts, no glory. You’re not trying to find a wife right now. It is just an exercise to build up your self-confidence. And it will. The first time is the hardest, and then it will get easier. Trust me. I didn’t get to meet Maria by being gun shy.” Dan looked around the room. Two tables away, there were four women sitting around talking. “What about the one at that table, the one at the left?” he asked. The woman was a slim, dark-haired Latina, wearing a short white mini-skirt and white stiletto pumps. “Yeah, good choice. She is hot,” Steve said. “If you don’t ask her to dance, I will.” “You’re not going anywhere, Steve,” Maria said. “She looks fine to me. Go for it, Dan.” Dan took two big gulps of beer, got up and walked over to the table with the four women. “Ex- excuse me, would you like to d-dance?” he said nervously to the girl. She looked at her friends and said, “Why not?” Dan and the girl went out to the dance floor. Dan was obviously nervous, and reverted to his jerky dance style. It might have been OK at a rock club, but salsa dancing required a little more refinement. Maria sipped at her beer while she watched Dan dance. She said to Steve, “You have to believe me, when Dan is on campus, he is such a nice guy. Funny, witty, very pleasant, and he is bright when it comes to academics. He is a different person right now.” “It happens,” Steve said. “It starts in high school, maybe even middle school. Other students develop a little faster than you do, maybe by only a few months. But the other boys put you down, girls ignore you, and your self-confidence can dry up quickly. And it takes years to get it back.” The song finished, Dan walked the girl back to her table, thanked her, and then returned to Maria and Steve with a big smile on his face. “That wasn’t so bad. A baby step is a baby step.” Dan went out to ask another girl to dance, and then another and another, each one looking as if she had been personally instructed by Maria in the art of feminine appearance. He told Steve and Maria he wanted to ask one last girl to dance, and walked up to a thin blonde Anglo woman sitting alone at a table. She got up to dance, looking very striking in a tight black skirt and pumps with heels that were as high as Maria’s. They danced one song, and then another. The band then began playing a romantic ballad. Dan turned to accompany her back to her table, and he was caught totally off-guard when she walked up to him, put her left hand in his, put her right arm around his shoulder, and began slow-dancing with him. He felt awkward for the first minute, but kept his composure and relaxed. They slow-danced for one song, and then a second. The woman then thanked him and Dan accompanied her back to her table. A surly man was sitting at the table and glared at Dan. “Thank you for dancing with my woman,” he said. “Oh, what do you care?” the blonde woman snapped back at him. “He asked me to dance, I was alone, and I said yes. Where the fuck were you, anyway?” “Don’t use that kind of fucking language with me!” the man shouted. Dan scurried back to Steve and Maria, while the blonde woman and her male companion became increasingly louder and profane. A couple of bouncers walked quickly up to their table, talked to them for a minute and then accompanied them out of the building, as most of the other patrons looked on. “That’s the story of my life,” Dan said dejectedly. “Even when I do the right thing, I still mess things up.” “You did nothing wrong,” Maria said. “It’s not your fault those two started to fight with each other and use foul language.” “Maybe not,” Dan said. “But they would not have started fighting if I had not asked the woman to dance. Every thing I try to do with women just turns to shit. It happens over and over and over.” “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Steve said. “You had a good night tonight. You handled yourself well with all those women.” “Yes, you did,” Maria said. The band was still playing slow tunes. She took Dan by the hand and said, “Come on. This was a good night, and it is going to end on a positive note for you.” They started to slow dance, but Dan held Maria at some distance, dancing the way a young boy would dance with his aunt at a wedding. Maria could tell he was nervous and shaking a little. She pulled him close to her, pressing her chest against his, and taking his left hand and guiding it down to her hip. She wanted Dan to experience the feel of her shapely body, to know the thrill of intimate contact with a beautiful woman so that he would be determined to go back out in the world and not give up until he found one of his own. She felt him tense up, then she stood on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear, “Relax, just relax. Enjoy this.” She felt the tenseness leaving his body, and she noticed that he was now the one holding her tightly. As the song continued, Dan started running his nose along the side of Maria’s neck, experiencing the wonderful scent of her perfume. The music ended, and Maria gave him an affectionate kiss on the cheek. “You know, I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me in my entire life. Honest,” Dan said. “It makes up for all those times you helped me with homework,” she replied. “I’m glad I could help you with something.” To be continued.

[Stu]

Almost two weeks went by. Maria saw Dan in class during that time, but professors tended to go easy on assignments for a while following midterms, so there was no reason for Maria, Dan and Laurie to get together to study. One day, following her last class in the afternoon, Maria decided to stop at a café and get some coffee to drink during her drive home. While waiting in line to order, she noticed Dan and Laurie were sitting in a booth at the back of the café. She bought her coffee and walked toward their table to say hello to them.

She was approaching the table when Dan and Laurie leaned toward each other and began kissing. “Oh!” Maria said in a total surprise. Dan and Laurie looked up.

“Maria! Come join us,” Dan said.

Now Maria was the one who appeared nervous and awkward. “I’m sorry. I see I am interrupting something. We’ll see each other in class tomorrow. Why don’t we talk then?”

Laurie got up from the table and said, “Maria. Look.” She was wearing a pair of wide, 3-inch block heels. They were not in any way fashionable, but it was the first time that Maria had seen Laurie in anything other than flat shoes.

“Laurie, that’s wonderful!” Maria said. “A lot has happened with you two!”

“And we want to tell you about it. Please sit,” Dan said. When Maria sat down with them, he said, “The week after we went dancing, I got together with Laurie after class and told her about our outing to the Latin club, and our late-night conversation a few days prior.”

Laurie said, “That got me thinking. I went through a brief period in high school when I wanted to wear high heels. My parents bought me these shoes, but I quit wearing them after a short time because none of my friends were interested in heels. I pretty much forgot about them. But when Dan was telling me what happened, I asked him if I should go to my parents’ house that weekend and bring back my heels. He said yes.”

Dan said, “We got together again the weekend after Laurie picked up her heels. We talked some more, one thing led to another and, well, here we are.” He kissed Laurie on the cheek. “We have you to thank, Maria. You brought us together.”

“I hardly think I did that,” Maria protested.

Laurie said, “When Dan and I were talking, we realized it was not an accident that the two of us started studying with you. We were both attracted to you. It is obvious why Dan would find you attractive. In my case, I now realize I saw you as the kind of woman I wanted to be. I didn’t realize it, though, because I had never thought of myself as attractive. It took my conversations with Dan to bring all that to the surface.”

Laurie continued, “Beauty is a value. Beauty is an attitude. Great lines, Maria. You should teach a class in that.”

“Well, it’s clear that not only were you attracted to me, but I was attracted to both of you,” Maria said. “All these intellectuals on campus, and none of them understand what I am about. But the two of you did. Even if you could not verbalize it, you understood.”

Maria turned to Dan and said, “Looks like you achieved your goal after all, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Dan replied, while starting to blush. “I did.”

*** *** ***

Cost accounting was a royal pain, Maria thought. Problem Number 6 in her latest assignment was giving her a bad case of heartburn. “I give up,” she finally said. “Dan, did you get Number 6?”

Laurie quickly added, “That one is giving me nightmares, too.”

Dan looked at both of them. “Don’t feel bad. It’s tricky. It took me a couple of go-arounds before I finally got it. Here is what you do.” He methodically stepped them through the problem.

“Maria,” Laurie asked. “Do you mind if I get a glass of water?”

“Of course, you can. The glasses are in the cupboard next to the refrigerator,” Maria said.

The three of them were sitting at Maria’s kitchen table, which was covered with papers, textbooks, pens, pencils, erasers and calculators. Laurie got up and carefully made her away across the kitchen. She walked very tentatively, and at one point almost fell as she struggled to maintain her balance while wearing her new 4-inch stiletto heels.

Maria kept a watchful eye on her, and said, “You are leaning a little too much from side to side, and it is throwing off your balance. Posture is not that important when you are barefoot or wearing flats, but it is crucial when you are wearing heels, especially stilettos. Be sure to stand up straight.”

“I don’t see how women like you can walk so elegantly in heels,” Laurie replied. “It’s like they limit your movements, rather than enhance them.”

Maria got up walked over to Laurie, swinging her hips from side to side in an exaggerated manner to make a point while strutting in her 5-inch stilettos. “It is like learning to ride a bicycle. At first, it seems impossible, almost as if you are violating the laws of nature. But once you learn, it becomes the most natural thing in the world. And so much fun, you don’t want to stop.” She took a packet of popcorn from the cupboard, and put it in the microwave. When it was cooked, she brought it back to the table, and the three of them munched on popcorn while sipping on soda.

They studied for almost another hour, until Maria looked at her watch. “It’s almost 11 p.m., and I think I am reaching my limit. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She left the room. When she returned, she was no longer wearing a pair of jeans and 5-inch heels. She had changed into a black leather skirt that wrapped tightly around her hips and thighs, before ending just above her knees. And on her feet were the precious 6-inch stiletto pumps that she saved for special occasions.

“OK, you two,” she said. “Study time is over. Now we’re going to party.” She turned to look down the hallway and asked Steve to come join them.

“Oh, Maria, what incredible shoes!” Laurie said.

“Don’t try this at home, kids. This is for experienced professionals only,” Maria said. She stepped from the kitchen into the living room, demonstrating her best one-two-one-two flirtatious walk, which, following hours of practice, she could now ably carry out in 6-inch heels. She went to the stereo and popped a CD of old Rolling Stones hits into the CD player. She walked back up to Dan, and said, “You’re being quiet, aren’t you?”

“I, I’m sorry.” Dan stammered. “It’s j-just that I never knew shoes like that even existed.”

“You need to spend more time on the Internet,” Maria replied. “Remind me to get you a list of Web sites that you should visit.”

Steve walked into the room. Maria said to Dan, “Steve saw me putting on my 6-inch heels earlier, and he just lay there in bed, watching TV. But now he hears the Rolling Stones on the stereo, and he comes out here like Pavlov’s Dog. Don’t ever let yourself wind up like him.”

“Character assassination will get you nowhere,” Steve said. “Let’s dance!”

They turned up the volume to play “Brown Sugar”. Laurie barely made it through the song trying to dance in her 4-inch heels, and she was relieved when Maria suggested that she change back into the 3-inch heels she had worn on the way over. It was important to practice, but it was also important to have fun, too.

The rock tunes continued one after the other: “Start Me Up,” “Satisfaction,” “Jumping Jack Flash,” “19th Nervous Breakdown” and “Under My Thumb.” While she took pains to explain that she was not a good dancer, Maria nevertheless gave an exhibition of dance moves that were possible in 6-inch heels, to the delight of the others. The next song, the slow-moving “Wild Horses,” provided a needed change of pace. Dan and Laurie slow-danced tightly, kissing each other with all the passion of first-time lovers. Maria and Steve watched the other two and did their fair share of kissing themselves.

Before the song ended, Steve turned away from Dan and Laurie and said softly to Maria, “Looks like we may have a fourth couple some day to add to our little social network. When do you think we should introduce them to Ana, Bob, Sharon and Jack?”

Maria giggled and replied, “Everything in its own time, Steve. We still have a lot left to teach them.”

Next: Another prequel: Young Maria’s outing with her grandmother

[Stu]

Prequel: Maria and Her Grandmother

Written in the first person by Maria, with assistance from Steve

The closet. One of the fondest memories of my childhood was my grandmother’s closet. Grandmother, who was a widow, lived with my aunt and uncle in a house about a 20-minute walk from our home in San Salvador, the capital of tiny El Salvador in Central America. Whenever we would visit, I loved to sneak away from everyone else, go into Grandmother’s bedroom, and look inside her closet. There were dozens of pairs of high-heeled shoes, in every color and style imaginable, and with heels of varying heights and thicknesses. To this day, I am not sure why children are fascinated with high-heel shoes, but leave a young child alone in a room with various kinds of shoes, and he or she (yes, even boys) will go right for the high heels. I used to take out the different shoes, run my fingers along the heels and soles, and of course I would try them on. Almost any child would do that. And, like any parent or grandparent, Grandmother would hear the noise and would come in and smile at the sight of a young girl clacking around the room in a pair of shoes made exclusively for full-grown women.

My clearest memory, however, was the time that Grandmother saw me walking in her high heels, and did not smile.

It was 1979, and I was an innocent 10-year-old girl. My uncle, aunt and cousins had taken a trip to visit cousins in another city, and my parents thought it would be good for me to spend the day with Grandmother. On most days, Grandmother was constantly dividing her attention between her children and grandchildren, but on that day I had Grandmother all to myself. My parents left me with Grandmother early in the morning. After making me breakfast, Grandmother went to put the food away and was the dishes, and I snuck away to play with her high heels. She entered the room and saw me, and I waited for her smile. But this time, it did not come.

“Maria, you are 10 years old, correct?” she asked me. Yes, I replied. She then said, “It is time you learn what high heels are really about.”

Grandmother was a tough, serious woman, mainly because she lived a tough, serious life. One does not live to be a grandparent in El Salvador without learning to be tough. El Salvador is the epitome of the small, struggling third world country: poor, overcrowded, underdeveloped and violent. As in many such countries, there is a small class of wealthy people that dominates the country’s economy and society. At the other extreme, there are the poor, who comprise most of the country’ population but own virtually nothing. The poor resent the rich, and the rich hold the poor in contempt. The poor periodically form revolutionary groups to take back by force what they believe the rich have stolen from them. The rich do whatever it takes to hold onto what they have, and that usually means paying for armies to put down the periodic rebellions with bloody force. In between the rich and the poor is the working class and a small middle class, of which my family was a part. The working class often allies itself with the poor, while the middle class sees things both ways: They resent the greediness of the rich, but they also fear the wrath of the poor. Unable to defend itself from either, the middle class leads a nervous, tenuous existence, treading on tiptoes to avoid offending anyone.

The harshness of life in El Salvador scarred Grandmother at an early age. Her father (my great-grandfather), a trade unionist, was killed during the repression that ended the violent uprisings of 1932, when Grandmother was only 11 years old. My great-grandmother somehow managed to keep the family intact, but they slid further and further into poverty. It was at the end of her teenage years that Grandmother discovered she had a gift that may well have saved her and her descendants from lives of poverty and misery.

“Watch carefully,” Grandmother told me. She took off the bathrobe she had been wearing during breakfast, and hung it in the closet. She put on a short-sleeve green dress that flattered her in all the right places. She looked through her collection of heels and settled on a pair of 4-inch black pumps, with a heel that was a little wider and sturdier than a stiletto, but still fashionably narrow. “Observe closely,” she said to me.

Grandmother stepped into the shoes one foot at a time, and I witnessed the most wonderful transformation. Standing barefoot, she looked like a woman whose best years were well behind her. But once she stepped into the heels, everything changed – she stood up tall and straight, her figure became curvier and more sensuous, and she began to exude the femininity that everyone around her knew so well. Grandmother at that time was 58 years old, but she had the figure of a woman half her age, and she could turn the heads of men young enough to be her son. She went into the bathroom to brush her thick black hair (modest use of hair coloring to cover up a sprinkling of gray was the only artificial aid she ever used), and to apply her makeup. She studied herself carefully in the mirror, making sure everything was just the way she wanted it.

“Grandmother, you are so pretty,” I said. “When I grow up, I hope I am as pretty as you.”

“I believe you will grow up to be a beautiful woman,” Grandmother said with a serious tone in her voice. “But there is much that you must learn about beauty. Come. Today will be your first lesson.”

We left the house, which was very small and modest by North American standards. We walked several blocks, boarded a bus, and then transferred to another bus. We ended up 45 minutes later in one of the many shantytowns that are scattered around San Salvador. It was hard to believe that entire families were living in the cheap, claptrap houses. The people in the neighborhoods were rough and scruffy looking, even by Salvadoran standards. Stray dogs were running in the street. Grandmother looked so out of place in her green dress and high heels, but she was totally at ease. I, on the other hand, was starting to feel scared.

“Grandmother, why have you taken me to this place?” I asked.

“This is the neighborhood where I grew up,” she said. “The houses were perhaps a little nicer 50 years ago, but not much different than they are now.” She explained to me that she was born into the working class, and her father barely made enough money to keep the family fed by working in a small textile factory. He joined the trade union movement and was killed in the 1932 uprisings, after which her mother provided for Grandmother and her three siblings by doing all kinds of odd jobs. There was a grimness to the neighborhood. Alcoholism was rampant and gun violence was common, but there were also good people who looked out for each other’s families.

By the time Grandmother was 16 years old, she knew she had the gift of beauty, as the young men of the neighborhood were constantly ogling her and asking her out on dates. But she did not know exactly what to do with it. She explained to me that she took a job as a domestic servant in a middle-class neighborhood of San Salvador, working 60-hour weeks during which she cleaned the house, cooked meals and helped supervise the young children of her employers. Because of the long hours, she often spent the night at the house. One evening, as she was finishing up her final chores for the evening, the woman of the house and her 15-year-old daughter told Grandmother how attractive she was.

“I wonder how you would look in nice clothes. Come here,” the woman told Grandmother. They went into the woman’s room. By happy coincidence, the two women were roughly the same size. The woman of the house took out one of her black dresses and asked Grandmother to try it on. She then took out a pair of her high heels, and asked her to try them on.

Grandmother told me she was a little scared. She had never worn high heels. “I don’t think I can. They are your shoes. I cannot wear them,” Grandmother said. But the woman insisted, and Grandmother finally tried them on. They were a modest pair of 3-inch block heels, but Grandmother nevertheless had to steady herself in them. They then applied some lipstick and eye shadow to Grandmother.

“How beautiful, no?” the woman of the house said to Grandmother. Her daughter added, “I could have spent a full day trying on dresses and shoes, and I could not look as good as you. I am happy for you, but I am also very jealous!”

The woman called her husband and her sons, and asked them to look at Grandmother. They agreed she was lovely. The attention scared Grandmother, as it was unusual for a working-class woman to draw so much attention from a middle-class family. Later on, the woman told Grandmother to keep the dress and the shoes as her gift. “If you use your beauty wisely, you can find a good man who will give you a much more comfortable life than you have known so far,” the woman said.

Grandmother took the woman’s statement very seriously. Over the next several months, she practiced walking in high heels, and made the effort to learn the fine points of hair styling and make-up. She set aside a portion of her meager income for fashion magazines. Poring through the magazines as if they were textbooks, she learned much about style and taste, and how she wanted to present herself. She finally bought herself a nicer pair of shoes and a dress that fit her as if it was made for her. By this time, she was fully aware of her gift, but she did not waste it on the ill-mannered boys of her own neighborhood. On her days off, she would put on her one nice dress and pair of heels, and spend the day in some of the nicer shopping districts in the city. She discovered that, if she dressed nicely, she could pass as a member of the middle class. She would draw the eye of boys who were students, rather than factory workers, and she welcomed the attention.

To be continued.

[Stu]

On one of her days off, Grandmother entered a small market to get something to drink. The teenage boy working in the store started talking to her, and before long, she had accepted a date from him. She thought for certain that the boy would no longer want to see her once he saw the neighborhood where he lived, but the boy remained as interested in her as ever. That boy was my grandfather. By age 19, the two were married, and Grandmother had moved up to the lower middle-class. It was not a comfortable, secure life, but it was a miraculous leap beyond anything she had known up to that point.

“I learned many things during that period, and they are things that you must learn,” Grandmother told me as we caught a bus that took us out of that awful neighborhood. “There is much ugliness in this world. Poverty, violence, the desperate struggles of so many people. In such a world, there is a hunger for beauty. A beautiful woman, well-dressed and graceful, is a ray of warm sunshine in the coldness and darkness of people’s lives. Beautiful women lift the souls of both men and women. They instill hope that there is goodness and decency in the world. There are good reasons why beautiful women have been prized throughout history. But I learned that beauty is more than just a pretty face and a nice figure. A beautiful woman must know how to dress, how to walk, how to look people in the eye and make them feel they are the most important people in the world. A beautiful woman must know how to distinguish between good and bad men. Upon picking a good man, a beautiful woman must know how to love and be faithful to the man, to inspire him and lift him up. She must make him appear to be an accomplished, enviable man in the eyes of others. All these things you must learn.”

We transferred to yet another bus, which took us to an unfamiliar part of the city. We got off the bus and stood on the side of the road, looking down into a large gulch that was full of people. There were small huts, literally made out of mud and sticks, where the people lived. Many of the men and women were barefoot. Naked children played in the dirt. Large hogs (the most important economic asset for many of these people) ambled through the area, eating the garbage strewn through the little community. My parents up to that point had sheltered me from that aspect of El Salvador. But Grandmother wanted me to see it.

“Isn’t there anything anyone can do to help these people?” I asked, with tears welling up in my eyes.

“The poor have lived like this for centuries, and they will undoubtedly live this way for centuries into the future,” Grandmother said. “The rich perhaps could help them, but they do not. We do not have enough to help them. All we can do is help ourselves. Look at them closely. They have the same color skin as us. They have the same color hair. If we were to go down there and change into their clothes, we could be one of them.” She pointed to a teenage girl who was not far from us. “That girl is as attractive as you will be in just a few years. But she will not have the opportunity to become as beautiful as you will be. She will never wear a nice dress. She will never wear high heels. She will only know the cheapest, most basic clothing. She will only know poverty her entire life.”

Grandmother turned me away from the gulch, and said, “Now you understand the reason why I wear nice dresses and high heels every day. They are a sign to everyone that I am not poor. I am not the working class. I can afford to buy nice dresses and high heels, and I know how to wear them. I may have been born in the working class, but I combined my gift of beauty with my knowledge of style, grace, and culture, and I advanced myself. I married your grandfather and made a better life for myself. And for you. If I had not understood how to use my beauty, you would be living today in the neighborhoods I have shown you.”

We caught another bus. The bus began to climb into the higher areas overlooking San Salvador. We got off in one of the nicer areas of the city, next to a modern shopping center. Most of the men were dressed in fancy shirts and pants, and most of the women wore colorful dresses and high heels.

Grandmother said, “This is where the upper middle-class go to shop. These people have more than we do. Our family owns one food store, while they own several businesses. But we are every bit as good as them. When you are older, many boys from this neighborhood will want to date you. If you pick the right one, you can have a good life here. I wanted your mother to marry a boy from this neighborhood, but she ended up staying in the neighborhood where I raised her. You will do better.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I taught your mother and her older sister everything I knew about beauty. They tried, but they did not inherit my gift. I remember when your mother was 20 years old. We would walk down the street together, and boys her age would look at me, not her. It was the same with your aunt. Both women married good men, but they were men of the lower middle-class. I am proud of my daughters. They did well. But you will do better. I can see already, Maria, that you have the gift of beauty. As you grow older, I will teach you what you need to use your gift well. And you will have one advantage I did not have, in that you will, at a minimum, attend high school. A woman becomes even more beautiful when she is educated. ”

Grandmother took me to lunch at a café in this neighborhood. As we ate, I looked at the women walking by. I tried to imagine myself with curves like theirs, and wearing nice dresses and high heels. I saw one particularly beautiful woman wearing a tight dress and what I realize, in retrospect, must have been 5-inch stiletto heels. “I want to be like her!” I told Grandmother.

“No doubt you will, Maria. No doubt you will.” For the first time that day, Grandmother smiled.

*** *** ***

Over the next three years, Grandmother spent a lot of time with me. She taught me about different styles of dresses and high-heel shoes. She taught me how to apply cosmetics, how to style my hair, and how to choose the best color combinations. She demonstrated how to walk in the highest heels, and she promised she would teach me personally when the time came. But that never happened. When I was 13, Grandmother died after a short illness. I was devastated, but I promised myself I would follow her example and make her proud as she looked down on me from Heaven. The following year, a second major upheaval tore at our family. The Salvadoran civil war of the early 1980s had gotten so bad that our family could no longer make a living operating our modest grocery store, and we moved to the United States. We planned to open a grocery store there, but because one already existed in the neighborhood where we moved, my family opened up a Salvadoran restaurant instead.

I started wearing high heels when I was 15, and as Grandmother predicted, I became popular with boys. I first dated the Salvadoran boys in my neighborhood, and then moved on to the Mexican boys in my high school. I came very close to being date-raped when I was 16. Afterwards, I remembered what Grandmother told me about the importance of differentiating between good and bad men. I became far more discriminating as to who I dated, and as my standards for men rose, so did the height of my heels. By the time I was 20, I was a regular 5-inch heel wearer.

I still think about Grandmother often. I have already achieved the two major goals she had for me. By marrying Steve, I moved “up” into the U.S. middle class, and I am also the first member of my family to graduate from a university. Wherever she is, Grandmother must be very proud of me for those two things. At the same time, Grandmother must have mixed feelings about other aspects of my life. As Steve has documented in his earlier stories, I was initially reluctant to experiment with 6-inch heels, as I knew Grandmother viewed them as extreme and improper for a truly beautiful woman. If she is indeed looking down on me, she may be disappointed by some of the choices I have made in that regard. However, I would impress upon her that the United States of the 1990s and early-21st century is a very different place than El Salvador of the mid-20th century. Perhaps more importantly, I am continuing to use my feminine gifts and skills to bring pleasure to myself, my husband and my close friends, just as Grandmother taught me. If I could explain it to her in that way, I am confident she would understand.

Next: Sharon tries a new nursing technique.

[Stu]

Sharon’s Nursing Experiment

Written in the third person by Steve, based on interviews with the principal individuals in the story.

Like most other working people, Sharon had a routine that she followed every morning. She got up, showered, ate breakfast, and put on her nurse’s uniform. For many years, she would put on her flat, rubber-soled nursing shoes along with her uniform. One day, she decided to change things. Instead of the nursing shoes, she put on a pair of white, 5-inch stiletto pumps.

“Very nice,” Jack said as he sat up in bed and took notice of Sharon’s change in footwear. “You’ll be the sensation of the hospital.”

Sharon laughed. Obviously, she would bring her nursing shoes along in the car and change into them once she got to the hospital.

“I am glad you approve,” she told her husband. “Do you think I am crazy?”

“Why do you ask?” Jack said, side-stepping the question.

Sharon walked over to the mirror and took a quick look at herself in her nursing uniform and stilettos before turning back towards Jack. “I can’t stand the thought of leaving home in those flat nursing shoes. It no longer feels right. I want to wear my high heels until the last possible minute, and then change back into them the minute I get off my shift.”

“You value your style. Nothing wrong with that.”

Sharon lay down on the bed next to Jack, while keeping her shoes on. “I feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I think now there are really two Sharons. There is Old Sharon, the nurse, who is devoted to nurturing the sick back to health. And then there is New Sharon, the sexy high-heel wearer who is constantly turning heads. I always have to choose between one and the other. But I can never be both at the same time. It is so unfair. Ana wears high heels to work, and Maria wears heels to school. They can be one person all the time. But I have to live this double life.”

“Lots of people live double lives, Sharon. They dress and act one way at work, and then are completely different at home.”

“But I do not want that. I would like to find some way to merge my two passions, nursing and provocative femininity, into something entirely new. I don’t see how such a thing can be possible, but I would still like to try.”

“The bottom line is that you can’t wear high heels at the hospital. I don’t know how you get around that,” Jack said.

“I don’t know, either,” Sharon replied. She looked at her watch and said, “I need to go. Bye, love.”

Jack watched her leave the bedroom. In their house, at least, a nursing uniform and 5-inch stilettos were a welcome combination.

*** *** ***

Sharon watched the hospital crew wheel a new patient into one of the hospital rooms. She looked at his chart: Warren, age 48, had spent the last two days in intensive care following a heart attack. He was about 30 pounds overweight, had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and was a heavy smoker. He had everything he needed to fit the profile of a heart attack victim.

Warren was pretty woozy for a few hours after arriving in the room. After that, he woke up fully and became alert. “Good morning,” Sharon said to him when she entered the room. “We are so glad that you are still with us in the world of the living. You had quite a close call.”

“To be honest, I was a little disappointed to wake up and still find myself here,” Warren said. “I think it would have been better if my heart had remained stopped.”

“Oh, my. You aren’t serious,” Sharon said. But he was. She had not planned to remain in the room long, but she asked some questions to gauge the state of Warren’s depression. Warren was talkative, and by the time he finished, Sharon was a little depressed. Warren was a supervisor in a local county office. He had been married for 12 years, but his wife, who was a legal secretary, left him for an attorney in the law firm where she worked. The divorce had been nasty, with the wife gaining custody of their two children and extracting most of the assets they had built up during their marriage. They had been divorced for two years, and his ex-wife now jetted around the world with the kids and her wealthy attorney-husband.

“What the hell,” he said. “I’m not the world’s smartest or most ambitious guy. But I valued our marriage and I took my responsibilities as a father seriously. And then my wife leaves me for this rich SOB lawyer, and I wind up with nothing. What do I do, start all over again?”

“I am so sorry,” Sharon said. “You have a right to be angry. But you have to get beyond it at some point. You still can have many good years left if you take care of yourself. And there are women out there who would appreciate someone like you.”

“You don’t understand,” Warren said. “My friends have tried to set me up on dates. But I don’t feel anything for women anymore. I am dead emotionally. The only place I want to see women is in men’s magazines. I have nothing left in my heart for a real woman. Even my kids don’t need me, as their rich stepfather can provide them with anything they want. I’ll just work until I die, which hopefully will be sooner rather than later.”

Warren’s words stayed with Sharon as she drove home that night. When she got home, she had a strange idea. She rejected it as being too crazy, and then reconsidered it. It would depend how on she felt the following day.

She arrived at the hospital in the morning, checked on her patients, and took care of her morning tasks. She then checked on Warren.

“And how are we doing this morning?” Sharon asked cheerfully.

“I am still here, which is not necessarily a good thing,” Warren said. They chatted for a few minutes, and it was clear that Warren’s mood was not any better than it had been the day before.

Sharon briefly left Warren’s room to pick up her purse, and then returned and closed the door to Warren’s room behind her. She took out a photo that she had put in her purse the night before. It was a copy of a photograph that a nightclub photographer had taken of her two years earlier when she had won a popularity-beauty contest on the club’s opening night. In the photo, she was wearing an extremely short yellow mini-dress and matching, 5-1/2 inch yellow stiletto sandals. She handed the photo to Warren.

“I want you to look at this photograph and tell me what you think,” Sharon said to Warren.

Warren’s eyes opened wide as he looked at the picture. “Wow,” he said. “Who’s the babe?”

Sharon put her hands on her hips and, somewhat annoyed, asked, “Who do you think?”

Warren looked at Sharon, then at the photo, and then at Sharon again. “Gosh, that’s you,” he said. “You’re pretty hot.”

“Well, thank you!” Sharon said, irritated that it had taken him so long to recognize her in the photo.

“Why are you showing me this?” Warren asked her.

“You’ve had it bad, Warren, but you are not the only one,” Sharon replied. “I went through a lot of different relationships. I was engaged to marry a doctor at one point, and he called it off just days before the wedding. I was so crushed that I quit my job and moved to this city. I lost interest in men. I met up with a couple of women who were into high heels and sexy clothing. I had never worn that kind of stuff, but I thought the change – any change – would be good for me. It didn’t take me very long to get the hang of it, as you can see by the photo. Now I am married to a doctor who works at this hospital. And, outside of work, I wear high heels and short skirts and dresses all the time.”

“Congratulations,” Warren said. “Should I start wearing short skirts, too?”

“No. But you can rebuild your life. Of course, you have to want to rebuild your life, and the first step is to regain your health. You will have to lose weight, eat right, take medication, and eventually start exercising. And I can help you. You say the only women who mean anything to you are the ones in men’s magazines? Fine. I can be like them. If that is what motivates you, I can give you the motivation you need to regain your health.” She then explained to him what she had in mind.

“Lady, you are absolutely nuts,” Warren said when Sharon finished her explanation.

“Maybe so. If you feel that way, we can forget we ever had this conversation.” She took her photograph from Warren’s hand and put it back in her purse.

“No,” Warren replied. “I am willing to give it a try.”

To be continued.

[Stu]

Warren was discharged after three more days in the hospital. He left with medications for his blood pressure and high cholesterol, and with doctors’ orders to lose 30 pounds and follow a strict low-fat diet. On the first Saturday morning following his discharge, Sharon drove to Warren’s condominium, following the directions Warren had given her when he left the hospital. The condominium was located in a decent part of town, but it was very small and basic. Warren had not been exaggerating when he said the divorce settlement and child-care payments took much of his paycheck. “Come in,” Warren said after Sharon had knocked on the door. Sharon was wearing a green sweater and an ankle-length black skirt, both of them a little snug but not particularly tight by her standards. She also wore light-brown boots with 3-inch block heel. “You look nice,” Warren said. “Not like in your photograph, but nicer than you looked in the hospital with your uniform.” “Thank you,” Sharon said in a businesslike manner. She had a large bag in which she took out a bathroom scale and a notebook. “First things first, let’s weigh you,” she said. He stepped on the scale, and Sharon jotted down his weight in her notebook. “You are 210 pounds. You need to lose 30 pounds, according to your doctor.” She then took a portable blood-pressure monitor out of the bag and strapped the device around Warren’s arm. She measured Warren’s blood pressure, which was almost normal. “You are taking the blood-pressure medication. That is good.” “And the cholesterol medication, too,” Warren said. “Let’s go into the kitchen,” Sharon said. She opened the refrigerator and some of the cupboards. She winced. “The doughnuts have to go. A lot of empty calories and artery-clogging fat. The cookies, too. I see you have a lot of red meat. You can have some, but not this much. Buy low-fat hamburger. Next week, I want to see more fish in the refrigerator. More fresh fruits and vegetables. And oatmeal. I want you eating oatmeal for breakfast seven days a week. No more whole milk, by the way. Use fat-free skim milk.” “Hold on,” Warren protested. “I know you told me you were going to do this. You want to be my dietitian, that’s fine. But where are the high heels and the fancy clothes that you were supposed to wear? I thought that was how you were going to inspire me.” “I told you how this will work,” Sharon said. “I will visit you every Saturday, and I am starting off by dressing conservatively. As you make progress in losing weight and improving your diet, I’ll start wearing high heels and short skirts. It is really up to you: the lower your weight and blood pressure, the higher my heels and hemlines. If it is clear that you no longer are interested in making progress, I will stop coming entirely. When you reach all your goals, I will take you out to lunch dressed the way I was in the photograph. Any questions? And I am serious about your kitchen. I want to see healthier food here next week.” “Yeah, yeah. It will be better. Sharon, why are you doing this?” Sharon dropped her businesslike demeanor for the first time that morning and instead became somewhat thoughtful. “I have been asking myself the same question,” she said. “Think of it this way. Men often like to fantasize about nurses. For whatever reason, the male psyche tends to have this deep-seated need to link nursing and sex. The idea of linking them in real life is taboo, of course, but that is unfortunate. If we really could find a way to link nursing with sex, or at least with sex appeal, we might come up with a pretty powerful new tool for improving the health of men. So I am willing to experiment. And I have unique qualifications to conduct this experiment, because I am devoted to both nursing and sexy expression.” Warren laughed. “Ooooh, you are so politically incorrect, it’s hard to believe,” he said. “I was politically correct for many years, and it got me very little in terms of personal happiness. My life only started taking off when I became politically incorrect.” Sharon said, as she packed her bags. “I mean it, that kitchen had better be overhauled when I return next week.” It was. When Sharon returned the following week, the junk food was gone. There was a big fruit bowl full of apples and bananas. The vegetable container in the refrigerator was full, and fish and chicken had replaced the red meat. Warren had lost two pounds, and his blood pressure also was down. “I went through all that work, just so I could see your calves,” a disappointed Warren told Sharon, who was attired in a red blouse and a long gray skirt that ended about halfway between her knees and ankles. She was also wearing a pair of black, 3-1/2 inch block heels. “There is no instant gratification when it comes to regaining your health. It is hard work, and the rewards are usually delayed,” Sharon replied. “But think of it this way,” she added, pointing to her shoes, “Most women would consider these to be high heels. I am just starting. As long as you make progress, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Warren continued to make impressive progress, losing about two pounds a week, and keeping his blood pressure down. For her part, Sharon found it harder than she had initially realized to dress appropriately to recognize Warren’s gradual progress. She did not have a big collection of long skirts. And, if she increased her heel height by a half inch each week, she would have gotten to her maximum heel height far too soon. She stayed steady at 4 inches for several weeks, but moved gradually from the thicker heels (most of which she had bought when she was learning to wear heels) to the thinner stilettos. By the eighth week, Warren had progressed to the point where Sharon arrived in a short orange dress that barely reached halfway down to her knees, and 4-inch strappy stiletto sandals. Warren was down to 194 pounds (a total loss of 16 pounds), and had been cleared by his doctor to begin moderate exercise. “I have two requests of you,” he said to Sharon. Last week, he said, he had gotten a horrible case of “the munchees,” and it took all the discipline he could muster not to break his diet. “If I could take a picture of you and put it on the refrigerator, it would be a big help,” he said. Sharon was glad to consent. Warren took out his camera, and Sharon struck a feminine pose as he took her picture. The second request, he said, was for her to join him on his daily one-mile walk that his doctor had recommended. “I’ll understand if you can’t walk a mile in those heels,” he said, but Sharon laughed. “Let’s go,” she said. To be continued.

[Stu]

They began walking through the neighborhood and entered the campus of the local high school. “I usually walk two laps around the running track,” Warren said. Eight other people were jogging around the track as Warren and Sharon walked it. The joggers all turned their heads in Sharon’s direction as they passed her.

“Hey, Sharon, I have a question for you,” Warren said. “Do you like me?”

“Well, um, of course, I like you,” Sharon said. “Why do you ask?”

“Your weekly visits are part of your experiment. You are really helping me, but it is simply part of your experiment. When you suggested your experiment, it was because you felt I would be a suitable candidate for you to test your theories of nursing and sex appeal. It was not because you took a personal liking and wanted to help me personally. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing you. I appreciate everything you are doing for me. I just want to know the truth.”

“Well,” Sharon said, trying to find the right words. “You are right, to some extent. I did see an opportunity to play with some of my ideas and expand my own experiences. But I have taken a liking to you. You have made the effort to restore your health, and I admire you for that. I am also pleased that, well, you have some of the same offbeat tastes in high heels and short skirts that I do. So how can I not like you?”

“OK, well, thanks, Sharon. I appreciate that,” Warren said, somewhat awkwardly.

“In fact, you know what I really like about you?” Sharon continued. “You were devious enough to suggest I come walking with you, when you knew I would be wearing high heels and a mini-dress, and you knew we would be walking on a track with people running. That’s brilliant, Warren. This really appeals to you, doesn’t it? Walking on a track with me while people run past us and look at us? Well, it appeals to me, too. So we have a few things in common.” She waved to a couple of men who ran past her on the track.

The following week, Warren’s weight dropped below 190 pounds, and to mark the occasion, Sharon wore 4-1/2 inch heels for the first time during her weekly visits. Three weeks after that, Sharon moved up to 5-inch heels and donned a little white mini-skirt when Warren dropped below 185 pounds, which was within 5 pounds of his goal. To Warren’s amazement, Sharon was still willing to go on the one-mile walk, even in such high heels. She was quite a sight now on the running track, and her wiggling was significantly more pronounced than before.

As they walked, Warren asked Sharon if she would consider visiting him on a regular basis even after he attained his goal of 180 pounds, which now seemed more certain than ever. “Everyone says keeping the weight off is harder than losing it. I am going to need the assistance. You won’t have to dress up like you do now, if you don’t want to,” he said.

“The experiment will end when you reach 180 pounds,” Sharon replied. “I will need to move on to other things. You will need to get a girlfriend of your own to help you keep the weight off.”

“I don’t know about that,” Warren said.

“Oh, I do. Just the fact that you asked me to keep seeing you tells me another aspect of my experiment was a success. The part I did not tell you about.”

“And what part was that?”

“At this stage of the experiment, I am dressing more like the girls in those magazines you like to read. But I am not just a page in a magazine. I am a living, breathing woman. The prospect of seeing me in high heels and short skirts got you to agree to my experiment, but you have really grown to value my companionship, and so you want my visits to continue. That is going to give you the desire to go out and find a woman of your own.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Your unusual style and attitudes have made an impression on me. I do not think my feelings about ordinary women have changed.”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘ordinary women’. But there are plenty of women in this world who wear high heels and value their femininity. If you care about things like that, you can find a woman who likes 3-inch heels. Remember, just like our experiment, there is no instant gratification, and things will take time. But if the woman feels loved and appreciated – in other words, if you are committed to the relationship – she will start wearing higher heels and shorter skirts, if she knows that is what you want. Trust me.”

“It is going to take me a long time to trust anyone. But I’ll think about it,” Warren said. He looked up and saw a man jogging past them who turned to Sharon and said, “Nice workout uniform.” Sharon shouted a quick “thank you” to the jogger.

*** *** ***

The final dinner was six weeks later. Warren was 178 pounds, his blood pressure and cholesterol had dropped to normal levels, and he felt healthier than he had in a long time. He had agreed to meet Sharon for dinner at a restaurant that specialized in chicken, fish and pasta – all good, heart-healthy dishes. Warren waited at the front entrance and swallowed hard when he saw Sharon walking across the parking lot toward him. She was dressed as she had been in the photograph she had showed him – a daringly short yellow minidress, and matching 5-1/2-inch yellow stiletto sandals. He was not the only one looking at Sharon as she approached the restaurant entrance, but he was the only one who would be having dinner with her. His heart started beating faster, which in recent months had tended to make him nervous. For this occasion, he was too busy enjoying himself to worry about it.

“Congratulations,” Sharon said flirtatiously. “You reached all your goals, and you are a healthy man once again. As promised, I am taking you out to dinner. And, personally, I am very proud of you.”

“I can see why you won that contest in that outfit,” Warren said. “You are one unusual lady.”

They both ordered pasta and wine, and enjoyed a leisurely dinner. And Warren had some news for Sharon.

“I actually have a date for tomorrow,” he told her. “A woman who works at my agency, although she is in another division and I don’t know her that well. She was divorced about six months ago, she is friendly, and she has been complimenting me all these months on my weight loss. And, for what it’s worth, she wears conservative, business heels to work.”

“That is wonderful news, Warren! I am so proud of you.”

“I am just taking it one day at a time, Sharon. It is just a date, and I go into this with no preconceived ideas of what may eventually happen.”

“Of course, Warren. Optimistic but realistic is a good approach to take.”

“You know, Sharon, I hope we can still be friends after tonight. I would like to meet your husband. If I do get a steady woman in my life, it might be nice for the four of us to get together.”

“Absolutely. And if there were an appropriate way for me to help or encourage this future lady friend of yours to be more proficient in high heels, I will be glad to help.”

Warren laughed at Sharon’s offer. He then said, “And are you going to write a report on the success of your experiment? Maybe you can get it published in a scientific journal.”

“Yeah, right. I would probably lose my job if the hospital knew what I have been doing. But I feel good about it. I wanted to prove to myself that there was a way I could combine serious nursing with my taste in clothes and shoes, and I did it.”

“There probably is a bigger market for your style of nursing than anyone would think. But, OK, it will be our little secret.”

“Yes, indeed,” Sharon said, as she took a sip of wine.

They finished dinner, and Warren insisted on paying the bill, even though the plan originally had been for Sharon to pick up the tab as a way of congratulating Warren on his accomplishments. They stood awkwardly at the entrance, knowing it was time to say goodbye. But Warren said, “Look, the experiment is now officially ended. So I am going to ask you as a friend…the club next door to here has some live music. Maybe we can go and listen to some music for half an hour? I know you need to get back to your husband, but it would mean so much to me.”

“Of course,” Sharon said.

They walked into the club, ordered some wine, and started dancing to the soft music. Sharon was drawing her usual assortment of looks and gawks from others in the club, but Warren was only thinking about the fact that he was dancing with the woman who had done so much for him.

“I feel a little guilty that I am here with you while your husband is home alone,” Warren said.

“Don’t. This makes up for all the nights I have spent alone while he has been working or traveling.”

“OK,” Warren said. “All I ask is 30 minutes with you.” Sharon agreed. But they stayed at the club for two hours.

Next: The three couples get together for a quiet Sunday afternoon.

[Stu]

A Quiet Sunday Afternoon

Written in the first person by Steve.

Even when you and your buddies are married to the most fabulous women in the world, there are times when you just want to spend an afternoon with the guys.

Bob, Jack and I made plans to gather at Jack’s house on Sunday to watch the big game on TV involving our local professional football team. Our team was doing well and would take hold of first place if they won the game. The three of us had been following the team’s fortunes for the entire season and would not have missed the game for anything. So we planned to spend Sunday afternoon engaging in the great American male ritual of autumn: Watching football on TV while drinking beer and munching on junk food.

I guess it was Sharon who invited Maria and Ana over to join her while we watched the game. Maria was with me in the car as we drove over to Jack’s house. I did not think of asking her what the three of them planned to do; I just assumed they would sit around and gossip, as women tend to do when their husbands are watching football. To underscore that this was not intended to be a day for the six of us, Maria was wearing a plain pair of jeans and 3-inch wedge sandals, which was about as conservative as she ever got. She did have a shopping bag with her, but I never thought of asking her what it contained. I was too busy thinking about the game.

Driving over to Jack’s house always made me feel rich and poor at the same time. I somehow felt privileged to drive up his long driveway, park and enter his virtual mansion. Having such a wealthy friend made me feel as if somehow I was a member of the elite. On the other hand, when I thought about what Jack must be worth, I would feel suddenly poor. Jack greeted us, and while Maria went off to another part of the house to socialize with Sharon and Ana, I joined Jack and Bob in the living room to watch the game on his fancy big-screen TV with stereo sound. The beer was cold, the chips were crispy, and hot dogs were grilling on the barbecue outside. Like I said, a great American afternoon.

The two teams fought hard, and the game was tied late in the first half when our afternoon took an unexpected turn. Sharon, Ana and Maria entered the room wearing tight, black Spandex workout pants, t-shirts with the name and logo of our football team, and the new 6-inch stiletto sandals that they had recently purchased over the Internet. Now I knew what had been in Maria’s shopping bag.

“Hello, gentlemen. How is the game?” Sharon asked.

“To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?” Jack asked, while doing a good job of mostly keeping his eyes on the television.

“The three of us are a little bored. We think 90 minutes of being football widows is enough. We want a little attention,” Sharon replied.

The women sat down with us and watched the last two minutes of the first half. We had to explain each play to Ana, who, like many people born and raised outside the United States, had trouble grasping the idea that there are actually rules, strategies and objectives in football other than knocking the opposing team’s players unconscious.

“A few of the women at the bank are football fans,” Ana said. “But I don’t get it. At least with basketball and soccer, you can see the men, including their faces, and their general builds, and you can decide for yourself which ones are the cutest. But football players are all covered up, so you can’t see them. Why would any women care about this game?”

The first half ended. Jack reached under his chair and pulled out a football that he tended to keep there during the season. “We definitely need to educate you, Ana,” he said. “Here, catch.” And he gently tossed the football underhanded to Ana.

“AGHHH!!” Ana screamed, jumping out of the way of the football. It was impressive that she could move so quickly and stay on her feet, given that she was in 6-inch heels. The ball bounced to the far corner of the room.

“No need to be scared of it,” Bob said.

Sharon picked up the football and threw it pretty hard at Jack, who caught it.

“Wow. Where did you learn to throw like that?” I asked.

“Are you kidding, Steve?” Sharon replied. “Remember, I grew up with two older brothers and a father who believed sports was the salvation for all red-blooded American youth. How could I have not learned how to throw a football?”

“Or catch one?” Jack asked. He threw the ball hard at Sharon, who caught it without the slightest trace of difficulty.

“I think all six of us need to go outside and get our blood circulating,” Sharon said, pointing to the door to their large backyard patio. She stood up as erect as she could, and turned to the side to better highlight her shapely, high heel-enhanced profile. “Are you ready for some football?”

We walked outside into the enormous backyard. There was a swimming pool and a patio about the size of a basketball court, as well as a large lawn. Sharon tossed the football to Jack. “I am going to go out for a pass. Ana and Maria, observe closely,” she said.

Jack walked over and stood about five feet away from her. He leaned forward like a football quarterback, and yelled, “Hike!”

Normally, “going out for a pass” requires a person to run out about 10 or 20 meters, turn around and catch a thrown football. Remember, of course, that Sharon was wearing 6-inch stiletto heels. Instead of running, she strutted out in grand style, wiggling back and forth with an intensity that even Ana and Maria would find hard to duplicate. She walked out about 40 feet, and then turned to the side, displaying her high heel-enhanced profile. “OK, Jack. I am open!” she shouted.

Jack threw the football. Sharon had to reach a little to catch it, and I feared she would lose her balance and fall face first into the concrete. But somehow, Sharon caught the ball and remained upright. She turned her back to us, and strutted out another 25 feet or so, and then turned around and yelled, “Touchdown!”

We all applauded Sharon as she wiggled back to us. “Who goes next?” Sharon asked. “Ana or Maria?”

“I’m not ready to catch the ball,” Maria said. “But I can try a running play.”

“Very good,” Sharon said. “I will be the quarterback. Steve, why don’t you be center?”

Bob ran to the middle of the patio, followed by Jack. “We’ll be defense!” Bob shouted.

Sharon instructed Maria to stand about five feet behind her, and a little off to the right. She then asked me to squat down and hike the ball to her. I grabbed the football and bent down until the football touched the patio. Sharon stood behind me, and put her hands between my legs, as the quarterback is supposed to do. I felt the back of her hands softly rubbing against my crotch.

“That’s not exactly how it’s done,” I said softly to her.

“You got your style, Steve, and I got mine. Hike!”

Still bending over, I passed the ball through my legs to Sharon, just like a real football center. “Run up!” Sharon said to Maria, who walked forward. Sharon gave the ball to Maria as she passed her. Maria then broke out into one of her most powerfully sexy walks, gyrating her hips in a manner I had not seen in a long time. One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four. She walked up to Bob and Jack, suggestively said to them, “I hope this is only touch football,” and moved on past them. When she got to the end of the patio, she turned around and asked, “Is that a touchdown?”

“Eight points! Six points for the touchdown, and we’ll give you the two point conversion automatically!” Jack said.

Ana took her turn. I hiked the ball to Sharon, who handed if off to Ana. She walked straight ahead, demonstrating her raciest wiggle as she blew past Jack and Bob. All of our eyes, including Sharon’s and Maria’s, were focused on Ana’s posterior. “What do you call it? A touchdown?” Ana asked when she got to the end of the patio. “This is fun.”

To be continued.

[Stu]

Sharon insisted that Maria and Ana learn how to catch a thrown football. We took turns tossing the ball gently to our two Latin ladies for a few minutes until they became comfortable catching the ball. Sharon then suggested that they practice an official pass play. “We’ll start with the simplest pattern – a square-in,” she said.

After explaining the pattern to Maria and Ana, she had me squat down and snap the ball to her. Ana walked ahead for about 10 feet, and made a 90-degree turn toward the center of the patio. Her profile, so delightfully distorted by those 6-inch heels, was a beautiful sight to behold. She walked a couple of steps until Sharon said, “OK, Ana, here it comes!” She tossed the ball to Ana, who caught it.

Bob walked up to Ana and said, “Jack and I need to start playing defense.” He took Ana by the waist, gently pulled her against him, and kissed her somewhat forcefully on the lips. “That’s the rule,” Bob said. “We’re playing kiss football. The play doesn’t stop until the person with the football is kissed.”

“Brilliant, Bob,” Sharon said. She then motioned to Maria to try the same pattern. I hiked the ball to Sharon, and Maria strutted out, her hips swiveling shamelessly, until she made the 90-degree left turn. I had seen Maria in 6-inch heels on a number of occasions by that time, but there was something particularly alluring about her at that moment. It was probably her unusually assertive walking motions and her tight spandex pants. Maria caught Sharon’s throw, and Jack gently put his arms around her and gave her a respectful peck on the lips. There was something eye-opening about that as well.

We ran the plays a couple of more times, with Ana and Maria taking turns catching the ball and being kissed by Bob and Jack. I finally turned to Sharon, pulled her against me and said, “We’re missing half the fun. I’ll have to give you a congratulatory kiss every time you throw a completed pass.” And I gave her a modest-but-not-entirely-platonic kiss on the lips. Sharon replied warmly, “Thanks, Steve.”

Sharon taught Ana and Maria some other basic pass patterns: square-outs, buttonhooks, and stop-and-goes. Ana and Maria then began going out for passes at the same time, so that Sharon could choose who would receive the pass. Jack had the presence of mind to realize that it would be a shame to let our improvised play session go unrecorded, so he went inside and returned with his camcorder. I took Jack’s place at defense, and Sharon simply started the plays by hiking the ball to herself.

The culmination of the afternoon came when Sharon had Maria and Ana run a cross pattern. Each of the women started the play on opposite sides of Sharon. They then strutted out about 15 feet and turned 90 degrees toward the center of the patio and walked toward each other. They could have practiced for six months and not carried out the play as well as they did on that afternoon though sheer luck and serendipity. Looking at Maria and Ana in profile as they swiveled and wiggled toward each other, we could see that their timing was perfect. Their steps for those few moments were absolutely synchronized, and the clicking of their heels on the concrete patio made a single sound. They passed each other, and were now on the opposite sides of the patio from where they had started. I had been about 20 feet away from Maria when the play started, but now Ana was walking in front of me. Sharon threw the ball to Ana, but her throw was a little high. Ana probably should have let the throw go, but she reached high for the ball and, somehow, was able to catch it. However, she lost her balance while stretching for the ball, and she started to fall backwards. In hindsight, it was a good safety measure for Bob and I to be playing defense, as any of the women could have gotten hurt if they had fallen on the hard concrete. I trotted up to Ana, caught her as she was falling, and pulled her upright against me. We embraced and kissed, as the others applauded and Jack filmed us. This was one hell of a contact sport!

Our little football game that day was the first time that the six of us had engaged in extramarital kissing to any degree. I discussed it with Maria the following day, and neither of us attached a great deal of significance to it. There certainly was an erotic element to it, but we saw it as basically the same thing as married couples trading partners while out on the dance floor. We knew we all had something special in common – a love of high heels and powerful feminine expression – and the events of the afternoon had drawn us closer in a special sort of way. The women were giving it their all, and Bob, Jack and I appreciated it, and we had to make sure the women knew we appreciated it. We were so pleased that somehow, against all odds, each of us had found a mate and four other friends with whom we could explore this unusual interest.

The women were getting tired, and so we called an end to our little game after I caught Ana. It was just as well, because there was only five minutes left in the professional football game that the Bob, Jack and I had supposedly come to watch. As it turned out, we got back to the TV in time to see our local team score the winning touchdown. We watched the post-game show to see the highlights of the contest, and then Jack hooked the camcorder up to the TV so we could see the highlights of our own backyard exhibition.

Jack’s video footage was wonderful. Maria, Ana and Sharon were all there on Jack’s big screen-TV in their skintight spandex and 6-inch heels, their feet in a near-vertical position, their legs longer than ever, and their posteriors and chests protruding at deliciously erotic angles. We all oohed when we saw the video of that one cross pattern; Maria and Ana had no idea until they saw the footage that they had been walking in such a synchronized manner. We giggled like schoolchildren at some of the kissing. But what got our attention the most was the simple footage of the three women walking in their extreme heels.

With a physician’s eye for human anatomy, Jack had captured the essence of how Maria, Ana and Sharon maneuvered and kept their balance in 6-inch stilettos. Watching the video clips in slow motion, Jack explained in some detail how Maria could thrust herself forward by swinging her hips forcefully from side to side. Sharon took a different approach, relying on her unusually well-developed thigh and calf muscles, as well as the muscles in her back, to walk while standing up straight. Ana employed a variation of Maria’s strategy, relying on the exaggerated motion of her buttocks to propel herself forward. Few anatomy lectures have been so enjoyable to watch. Jack later edited the footage into a fascinating highlight video and gave copies to us, as well as to Bob and Ana. We still have the video today.

“Thank God for hormones,” Jack said. “Without them, we would just see this as a dry academic demonstration of how the body’s musculature adjusts to changing circumstances resulting from the use of high heels. With hormones, well, we are all having a good time, aren’t we?”

Indeed, we were. Maria and I had been watching the tape while reclining on the couch, and I instinctively held her tight against me, particularly when we were watching slow-motion video of her magical hips in action. Now that the video was over, she opened her mouth, planted her lips on mine, and we began some real hard-core kissing. Nothing made Maria feel more feminine than walking in high heels and being admired. Nothing made me feel more masculine than being with Maria when she was feeling feminine.

The room got very quiet, and when Maria and I finally looked up, we noticed that Bob and Ana were smooching, and Sharon and Jack were becoming quite romantic as well. “Let’s go,” Maria whispered to me. We got up off the couch, and Maria led me by the hand out of the TV room to one of the guest bedrooms down the hall. In another sign of the increasing closeness between the six of us, Sharon and Jack had recently begun to ensure that their two guest bedrooms were fully prepared for use whenever the six of us were together at their place. It was understood that Maria and I, and Ana and Bob, could use the bedrooms at any time, no permission needed.

Maria and I closed the bedroom door, and began our most intense lovemaking since our Lake Tahoe trip several months earlier. Ana and Bob entered the guest bedroom next to ours a few minutes later, and hearing them only made our experience all the more pleasurable. My mind was filled with images of all three women, but I focused mostly on Maria. Jack’s slow-motion video of Maria’s hip movements had found a permanent place in the recesses of my brain, and I replayed the motion of those hips in my mind’s eye as her real-life hips were moving below me as we made love. Even though there were four other people in the house, Maria did not hold back when the moment of climax came. A minute or two later, we could hear plainly that Ana was not holding back, either.

I rolled over on my back and caught my breath while Maria wiped a bead of sweat off my forehead. “So, Steve,” she asked, “are Jack, Bob and you planning to get together to watch another football game next week?”

Next: Ana’s new boss

[Stu]

Ana’s New Boss

Written in the third person by Steve, based on interviews with Ana and George

George always looked forward to the click-click-click sound on the tile in the corridor outside of his office. It meant that Ana was coming to see him.

“A happy Monday morning to you, George,” Ana said as she stood in the doorway to George’s office. “How was your weekend?”

More than one worker at the bank had noticed that Ana and George had become good friends in recent months. They talked a lot and went out to lunch together once or twice a month. It only seemed odd because they had both worked at the bank for several years without showing any interest in each other. Word got around that something must have clicked between them when they both went out at lunch recently to buy a birthday card for a co-worker. It was an unlikely way to start a friendship, some said. Others speculated that maybe something was going on between them outside of work, but it seemed far-fetched that a saucy Latina in her early 30s with a penchant for sexy high heels could seem attracted to a conservative, even acerbic loan officer who was almost twice her age. The truth, of course, was far different than any of their co-workers would have guessed.

“My weekend was uneventful,” George said. He looked at Ana and smiled. “Let’s see. White stiletto pumps, 5 inches I believe, plain white pants and a yellow sweater. Very conservative, at least by your standards. And how was your weekend, Ana?”

“Uneventful,” Ana said. “And there is a good reason why I am dressed conservatively. My new boss starts today, as you probably know. I don’t want to scare her off.”

“That would be an unfortunate thing to do to your boss on her first day,” George said. “I hear through the grapevine that she is no-nonsense, straightforward, by-the-book. You will have to let me know if that is right.”

“I’ll come by at lunch and tell you all about it. Gotta go,” Ana said. George could hear her heels clicking all the way down the hall.

All the bank tellers were scheduled for an early-morning meeting with Margaret, their new supervisor. Margaret had previously worked for a bank in another city, so none of the tellers knew anything about her. She appeared to be in her mid- to late-40s, with black hair and a medium figure. She was dressed in a very professional business suit, with two-inch block heels. Hard to tell anything based on that, Ana thought to herself.

Margaret seemed gracious and professional in the meeting. “I have all heard good things about you, and I certainly know about the good reputation our bank has. Everyone here knows how to do their job, so I don’t anticipate making any major changes. Perhaps a little fine-tuning here and there.” So far, so good, Ana thought. At the end of the short meeting, each of the tellers walked up and introduced themselves to Margaret. When it was Ana’s turn, she introduced herself to Margaret and welcomed her to the bank.

“So you’re Ana. I have heard a little about you. The fashion plate of the bank. I look forward to working with you.” She shook Ana’s hand warmly.

“And I look forward to working with you, too, Margaret,” Ana said. The fashion plate of the bank, Ana thought as she left the meeting. It was probably just an innocuous comment, and it was certainly true, so there was no reason to attach a lot of significance to it. But something bothered Ana about the comment. Perhaps it was the tone of voice, as there was something just a little bit sinister in the way Margaret said it. Or maybe Margaret always talked that way. There was no point in getting overly paranoid about it.

“We’ll just have to see,” Ana told George when she stopped by his office at lunch.

*** *** ***

The first month with Margaret was fairly routine. She made a few minor changes in some policies and procedures, but little else. Then, at one of the weekly staff meetings, she announced that she was implementing a dress code. “I don’t foresee any difficulties with this,” Margaret said, as she handed copies of the dress code to each of the tellers. “You all have good sense and judgment about these things. The dress code is simply just a reminder of things you should be aware of.”

The very mention of the term, “dress code” filled Ana with dread. She picked up the paper that Margaret handed out and read it intently. The paper said:

Dress Code

It is of paramount importance that bank employees maintain a good, professional appearance at all time. Good judgment and common sense are the operative rule. We must be sure that we dress and conduct ourselves as professionals at all times to demonstrate to our customers that we can take care of all of their banking needs. Professional attire is always appreciated. No shorts, tee-shirts, sneakers or sandals, please. In addition, female employees should refrain from wearing any of the following:

Tank tops

Low-cut blouses

Mini-skirts

Excessively tight clothing

Shoes with heels higher than 3-1/2 inches (no exceptions)

Ana was so angry when she read the dress code that she was practically shaking.

During her morning break, she marched into George’s office and closed the door behind her.

“She is out to get me!” Ana said, trying to keep her voice down. “Margaret wants to make an example of me for the others!” She handed George the dress code.

“Stay calm. It can’t be that bad,” George said. He read the dress code and scratched his head. “Well, most of this is common sense, but….”

“This is aimed at me, George. Isn’t it obvious? Does anyone here wear mini-skirts and low-cut tops to work? No. A few of the tellers wear 4-inch heels on occasion, but going down a half-inch for them is no big deal. In my case…Tell me I am not being paranoid.”

“You’re not, Ana. You have a reputation here for pushing the limit when it comes to clothes and shoes. Margaret wants to reign you in.”

“Is it legal for her to do it? Maybe I should contact a lawyer…”

“Of course it is legal. Employers have a right to set dress codes for their employees. No neutral observer could look at this dress code and find anything wrong with it. Don’t waste your time on attorneys.”

“George, you have gotten to know me the last few months. You know what my expression means to me. I am NOT going to limit myself to 3-1/2 inch heels. I have come too far in my life to submit to someone like Margaret. If I have to, I will get a job elsewhere.”

“Ana, don’t overreact. Go home tonight, talk to Bob, calm down, have a glass of wine. Then tomorrow, talk to Margaret about it. You have a reputation for being a great teller and the customers love you. That’s your strongest selling point with Margaret.”

“What good will that do? She wrote ‘no exceptions’ next to the shoes, as if she already knows I am going to come in and ask to be the exception. But I will try.”

To be continued