The Three Sisters continues!

[raincat]

Hi stu Of course WE all know that it would have made far greater sense for Margaret to call for 3 1/2" minimum heels, rather than 3 1/2" maximum. hehehe At any rate, I have been following your story lately with great interest, and wanted to thank you for doing such a fine job of providing us with such an entertaining saga which focuses so well on high heels. Can't wait to see where this conflict between Margaret and Ana goes. Keep up the good work. Thanks again for your fine efforts.

[Stu]

Thanks, Raincat, the positive feedback is always appreciated, and I am glad you like the stories. I think we all wish we had a co-worker like Ana, but unfortunately most of us have probably had a boss like Margaret at one time or another. And now, back to our story....... Ana returned to work the next day in a conservative long skirt and 4-inch heels. She spent much of the night pondering which shoes she should wear. She considered wearing 5-inch heels to send the message that she would not submit easily, but Bob convinced her that she would hurt her case by appearing defiant. But she rejected going down to 3-1/2 inches, as she might appear to be capitulating to Margaret. So she went the middle course with 4 inches, as it would send the message that she was reasonable and cooperative without conceding totally to Margaret. “Can I talk to you, Margaret?” Ana asked when she approached Margaret in her office prior to the beginning of her shift. “Of course, Ana. Sit down,” Margaret said. Ana sat down. “I need to discuss the dress code, Margaret. As you have undoubtedly noticed, I have a taste for unusually high heels…” “I don’t know how you stay up on your feet wearing such heels day after day,” Margaret said, interrupting Ana. “But it is impressive.” “Thank you,” Ana said. “Margaret, this is hard to explain. Shoes are important to me. I grew up in Costa Rica, where high heels are a much more important form of expression than they are here. I know you have the best of intent in making sure we all look professional for our customers. But your dress code would take away something that is very important to me.” “I can appreciate that, Ana. But I hope you can appreciate that we are not in Costa Rica. Our dress code has to reflect mainstream, professional tastes here in the United States. Five-inch heels simply are not mainstream, at least not for professional working women.” “With all due respect, Margaret, I would disagree. I am sure you have looked at my personnel file. I have gotten high marks for my professionalism. I have won the customer service award more than any other teller in this bank branch. I regularly get compliments from customers on my clothes and shoes. I have proven that I have the ability to project professionalism even in very high heels.” “Don’t take this the wrong way, dear,” Margaret said. “I could require all the female tellers to wear miniskirts and Wonder bras, and we would get a lot of compliments from our male customers. But it wouldn’t be the professional thing to do.” “Margaret, most of the compliments I receive come from women. I think if you took a few more weeks to observe how I interact with the customers, you would see…” “Ana, I don’t think this conversation is going to go anywhere,” Margaret interjected. “I know you take your job responsibilities seriously, and I commend you for that. I hope you can understand that I have a responsibility to be sure we all project the most professional image we can. You can still wear high heels, just not quite as high as in the past. In a few weeks, I am sure this won’t be as big a deal to you as it is now.” Ana walked out of Margaret’s office struggling to control her anger. She stormed into George’s office. “It did not go well,” Ana said. “Can I borrow your phone?” George nodded yes. Ana closed the office door and, using the speakerphone on George’s desk, dialed the bank’s downtown headquarters. “Mr. Young, please. Tell him it is Ana from the Metro branch.” Ana was playing her trump card. Mr. Young was the vice president of the bank. No other teller at any of the bank’s branches could have dared to call Mr. Young direct for any reason, but Ana was the exception. Mr. Young had been on a first-name basis with her for some time as a result of his frequent visits to the Metro branch. But her chance encounter with him in a Lake Tahoe casino several months earlier had sealed her special relationship with him. She had been experimenting with tight jeans and 6-inch heels when she ran into Mr. Young and other bank executives, who were up at Tahoe for a management retreat. She was invited to join them for a breakfast, and after hearing her talk about her branch’s operations and how they could be improved, Mr. Young was so impressed that he told her she could call him any time if she ever needed his help. The time had finally arrived for Ana to take Mr. Young up on his offer. “Ana, how is my favorite teller?” Mr. Young asked when got to the phone. “I wish things were better, Mr. Young. I will be real brief. Our new supervisor here, Margaret, has instituted a dress code. She does not want women wearing anything higher than medium heels here. I am sure you understand that will limit me.” “Ana without high heels? Unimaginable. That would put a crimp in your style.” “I have tried to talk to her, Mr. Young. She insists I don’t look professional in high heels. Do you think there is anything you could do?” “Is there any way you can get me a copy of the dress code? I would need to see it.” George spoke up. He had known Mr. Young for a number of years. “Hello, Mr. Young. I have a copy of the dress code on my computer. I could e-mail it to you.” “Great, George. Please do so. I am glad someone out there is looking after Ana. I will look at the dress code and let you know what I can do.” Ana started her morning shift hopeful that Mr. Young could do something to make Margaret pull back. Her spirits sagged at lunch when George showed the reply note that Mr. Young had sent to him. It said, “George: I have shown the dress code to our attorney. Please let Ana know the dress code appears legitimate, and there is nothing I can do. I could get in big trouble if I were to interfere with Margaret’s authority in this area. Sorry I could not help more.” “So that’s it,” Ana said. “No one can do anything. The next step for me is to update my resume.” George convinced her not to give up quite so easily. Following George’s advice, Ana let her attire become increasingly conservative over the next several weeks. Ana’s instincts had been to wear 3-1/2 inch heels every day, along with pants and skirts as tight as Margaret would allow. But George convinced her to play along with Margaret’s system temporarily, rather than challenge it. She wore 2-inch block heels one day, 3-inch heels another day. She went into her attic at home and found a pair of flats that she wore to work at least once a week, along with drab skirts and pants that she had been planning to donate to a Goodwill clothing drive. On some days, she barely put on any makeup. The change in Ana’s appearance was so dramatic that it was impossible for the other employees not to notice it. More importantly, many of Ana’s favorite customers asked her about the change, to which she could only answer, “New dress code instituted by management.” This was all part of George’s strategy: To send the message that Ana was victimized and demoralized by an unfair dress code aimed primarily at her. As a next step, George took a poll among the bank employees concerning their feelings about Ana. He did not announce he was taking a poll, and he realized that, because his friendship with Ana was well known, he could not expect honest answers if he talked to employees about Ana. Instead, he enlisted the support of Sherry, a teller who was not particularly close to Ana but nevertheless felt some sympathy for her. Sherry had taken a dislike to Margaret and was not happy with how Ana was being treated, so she was willing to cooperate with George. George carefully noted the information that Sherry gave him concerning her discreet conversations with other employees about Ana. He was encouraged by the results. “Here is what I am finding out,” he told Ana during one of her morning-break visits to his office. “Virtually all of the men who work here at the bank think it is a shame that Margaret has targeted you with her dress code. As for the women, roughly half also think it is a shame, while the other half feel you had been pushing the limit all along and are satisfied that you have been brought under control.” “50-50. That is a wash,” Ana said glumly. “Hardly!” George replied. About half of the people who work here at the branch are men. That means about three-quarters of the employees here support you, and only one-quarter support Margaret. In political terms, you win by a landslide. Most politicians would love to have your poll numbers.” “But will they stand up for me? What difference does this make if none of my co-workers are willing to support me and confront Margaret?” Ana asked. “That is our problem right now. I think everyone fears that if they visibly support you, Margaret will go after them. She has everyone afraid of their own shadow. The other employees support you, but they are afraid to show it. They won’t stand up and do something bold unless you do something first.” Ana thought for a minute and smiled. “I have an idea. It may be risky, but what do I have to lose?” She told George what she was thinking. George chuckled. “Brilliant, Ana. You would make one heck of a political strategist.” To be continued.

[Stu]

Margaret’s birthday was the following week. The bank staff had a long tradition of taking co-workers out to lunch on their birthday. Enough workers had to stay behind to keep the bank operating, but the rest of the staff often took advantage of the opportunity to get out of the bank and socialize with their colleagues. To encourage the greatest number of workers to attend, the tellers planned the lunch for the restaurant located next to the bank. On the day of the lunch, Ana went to the restaurant with the rest of the staff. The restaurant had set up tables and chairs for 18 people, a little more than the average birthday lunch. Ana went to the restaurant with everyone else, and nobody paid much attention to the shopping bag that she carried with her. Upon arriving at the restaurant, Ana went into the ladies room, and she emerged as a reminder of her former self. The 2-inch business heels she had worn to work were replaced by a pair of red 5-1/2 inch stiletto sandals. She had also changed into a pair of skintight black pants and a tight red sweater. The attire was more daring than what she had been wearing to work prior to Margaret’s hiring, and it got the reaction she had wanted. “Oh, look,” one of the male bank employees said loudly to his colleagues. “Ana’s back!” Another male colleague whistled and started chanting, “Ana’s back! Ana’s back!” Several of the other employees joined in the chant. It was all light-hearted and intended in good fun. “Gee, Ana, we’ve missed you,” one of the female bank tellers said to her. “Where have you been for the last few weeks?” Ana soaked up the attention. She assumed Margaret was noticing, although she did not quite have the nerve to look over at her. After the main meal, one of the bank managers stood up and said a few kinds words about Margaret and wished her a happy birthday. It was then Ana’s turn. She stood up, walked over to Margaret’s table (which drew scattered applause from several of the workers), and presented Margaret with a birthday card signed by all the bank employees. “All of us at the bank, and especially the tellers, wish you the best!” Ana said. She then led the employees in a round of “Happy Birthday”, and returned to her seat. As the lunch ended, Ana hurried back into the restroom, changed back into her 2-inch business heels and conservative attire, and returned to her teller’s post at the bank. About an hour later, she was asked to go see Margaret in her office. Margaret was sitting at her desk and scowling when Ana entered. “What did you think you were doing in the restaurant?” she asked angrily. “What did I think I was doing? I thought I was having a good time. Why?” Ana replied innocently. “Don’t play games with me. You deliberately violated the dress code with those shoes and pants. And furthermore…” “Now wait a minute,” Ana protested. “I was not in the bank, and I was on my own time. We don’t get paid for going to those birthday lunches. The dress code did not apply.” Ana surprised herself with the aggressiveness of her tone. Margaret replied, “The fact is, you were next door to the bank, most of the other bank employees were there, and you deliberately flouted the dress code in order to embarrass me and undermine my authority.” Ana privately agreed with what Margaret said, but she was not about to admit it. “With all due respect, Margaret, I resent your accusations. I was not subject to the dress code during the lunch, and I felt like expressing myself. It had nothing to do with you.” “Enough debate. The first thing I am going to do is to place a reprimand in your personnel file. Disrespect for the dress code, poor judgment, and disrespect for me as your supervisor. The second thing I am going to do is assign you to filing for the next two weeks.” The tedious task of filing bank papers in the back room was normally reserved for newly hired staff or even student interns. For an experienced teller like Ana, it was unquestionably punishment, and something intended for the whole bank to see. “I am going to file a protest…” “There is no protest procedure, Ana. I am your supervisor, and you need to respect my decisions and my authority. If you don’t, your future at this bank will be very dim. You should think about that over the next two weeks. Please report to filing at once. Good day.” Ana left Margaret’s office and muttered a certain epithet in Spanish that she had not used since she lived in Costa Rica. At her next work break, George tried to comfort her. “In a way, you got what you wanted,” George told her. “You challenged her, and now you got in trouble. This will either energize your colleagues, or it won’t. Now it is just wait and see.” The next four work days went very slowly, as Ana worked by herself in the back room filing and processing bank slips and other paperwork. It was quiet and lonely, and she missed the human contact. It got to the point where she actually looked forward to the weekly staff meeting with Margaret, just so she could sit in a room with other people. The staff meeting began as usual, with Margaret bringing the tellers up to date on new developments, and going over yet more changes in procedures that she was implementing. When Margaret asked if anyone had anything they wanted to bring up, Sherry raised her hand. “A number of us would like some clarification, Margaret,” Sherry said. “There is a rumor going around that a teller – no need to mention any names – was disciplined for violating the dress code last week when she was outside of the bank and was on her own time during lunch break. Are we subject to the dress code even when we are not at work?” A scowl once again appeared on Margaret’s face. “Obviously, I can’t get into personnel issues. But to answer your question, the dress code generally does not apply when you are not at work. However, you still need to use common sense. For example, if you go to the restaurant next door during your lunch hour, you are still a recognizable employee of our bank. Many of our customers will still know who you are. You are in the middle of your work day. So you still need to use good judgment and look professional. Does that answer your question?” Another teller, Keesha, raised her hand. “Sherry may not have been willing to name names, but I will,” she said. “Everyone here knows I have not been Ana’s biggest fan. In the last few years, I think she stepped over the line a lot with the kind of clothes and shoes she has worn….” “Let me interrupt you,” Margaret said. “We can’t take up personnel matters at this meeting.” “I’m not talking about personnel matters. I’m talking about your dress code,” Keesha replied. “I haven’t always agreed with Ana’s decisions on clothes and shoes, but I have to admit she is one of our best tellers. She works hard, the customers like her, and she puts a lot of energy into this place. For the last four days, I have had customers asking me what happened to Ana, is she still working here, is she all right. And that is not good, Margaret. If I can be frank, we have had pretty good chemistry with the customers here, and your dress code is messing with that chemistry. I do not think you realize that.” Ana was stunned. Keesha had never been friendly or overly helpful to her in the years they had worked at the bank. But she was one of the more outspoken tellers. For Keesha to be speak up about this was an indication of how disenchanted she must have been with Margaret in general. “OK!” Margaret said defensively. “I cannot and will not discuss personnel matters with you. I have a responsibility to ensure we perform the best we can for our customers, and a dress code is a simple way to ensure we adhere to our high professional standards. I hope you all understand that. The meeting is over, and it is time to go to work!” To be continued.

[Stu]

Ana thanked Keesha after the meeting for her support, but she still went home that night thinking that nothing more could happen. She woke up in a dejected mood, and contemplated not going into work at all. However, she reasoned that she would need all of her available vacation days to use for job interviews with other potential employers, and she did not want to waste even one for a “mental health” day.

She arrived at the bank and went direct to the back room to begin her tedious day’s work of sorting and filing papers. She heard more commotion and talking from the main part of the bank than usual, and she decided to investigate. To her astonishment, most of the female tellers were wearing high heels! About half of the tellers were wearing 4-inch heels that were banned under Margaret’s dress code. Most of the rest were wearing 3- or 3-1/2 inch heels which, while allowed under the dress code, were nevertheless extraordinary, as the women wearing them normally did not wear anything higher than 2 inches, and some of them rarely if ever wore heels at all. Many of the women, particularly those wearing the lower heels, had donned tight jeans and other styles of pants that were arguably verboten under the dress code. To emphasize the point, a few, like Sherry, wore shiny spandex exercise pants that glistened sinfully in the morning light and broadcast the figures of the women wearing them, for better or worse.

“What is going on?” Ana asked loudly.

“What do you think is going on?” Sherry asked as she struggled to walk normally in the spandex pants and what, for her, were unfamiliar 4-inch pumps with business heels. “This is a protest. We are showing our solidarity with you. Someday, you will have to explain to me how you enjoy wearing clothes and shoes like this. I have never been so uncomfortable in my life.”

Overcome with emotion, Ana hugged Sherry and several of the other tellers. “This is one of the nicest things any group of people could ever do for me,” she said.

“It’s not just for you,” Keesha said as she walked up to Ana. A heavyset woman, Keesha looked absolutely awful in a pair of jeans that she must have bought when she weighed 20 pounds less, along with a pair of 2-inch kitten heels that seemed to make her struggle with every step.

“Ana, what Margaret did to you is bullshit,” Keesha said softly. “It took a lot of guts for you to wave your high heels in her face at the lunch last week, but it was the right thing to do. If we had just sat by and let her screw you without doing anything, she would have come after each of us eventually for one reason or another. We may pay a heavy price, but we all agreed that we need to do this.”

There was a steady buzz from the customers as they saw the unusually attired tellers. A few of the regular customers guessed that it had something to do with Ana, but they thought perhaps it was a tribute for her birthday. When one of the tellers told an elderly male customer what was really happening, he nodded his approval. “Give ‘em hell!” he shouted to the tellers as he left the bank.

As it happened, Margaret did not arrive until about 10 a.m., an hour after the bank opened. She was mortified at what she saw. “What is going on?” she hissed in an effort not to look upset in front of the customers. She walked back and forth behind the teller counter and said quietly to each of them, “You have 10 minutes to change into decent clothes and shoes, or you will be sent home for insubordination!”

“Margaret, you have to do what you have to do,” Keesha said. “But if you send each of us home, you’ll have to close the bank. It will just be Ana and you, because Ana is the only teller here today who is complying with the dress code.”

Margaret stayed at the bank for 45 minutes, walking back and forth and trying to figure out what to do. She spent some time on the phone, apparently talking with the downtown headquarters. She then left the bank, looking visibly shaken.

Contributing to the defiant atmosphere, Ana came out from the back room after Margaret left and helped attend to the customers. By late morning, many of the tellers complained of tired or aching feet and needed to take an extended break, so there was plenty for Ana to do. Many of the tellers ditched their heels entirely after lunch and performed their duties in their stocking feet. By that time, they had made their point.

Ana barely slept that night. She had breathlessly related the day’s events to Bob when he returned home, and then she spent half the evening on the phone with Maria and Sharon. However, once she started to calm down, she began to worry about what might happen to her co-workers, as well as herself. Technically, Margaret was right – they were all guilty of insubordination. But would the bank really fire all of them?

When Ana got to work, she immediately sought out George, who gave her a warm hug. “I was on the phone half of last night and then again this morning with some of my contacts at headquarters. You wouldn’t believe what happened there!” he said.

“What happened?” Ana asked. Some of the other tellers gathered to listen to George.

“Margaret left here yesterday to seek some assistance from headquarters. She wanted all of you to be sent home and for tellers to be sent from the other branches to take over here. Boy, did she catch hell! A number of the executives told Margaret that they felt she was responsible for losing control of the situation here. And then Mr. Young went berzerk when he found out that Ana had been reprimanded. He demanded an explanation from Margaret as to how Ana could have been violating the dress code when she was outside the bank during her lunch hour. There was one meeting after another, and Margaret said she couldn’t continue to work here if headquarters wasn’t willing to support her. So Margaret quit!”

Several tellers gasped, while others broke into applause. “Ana got into a staring match with Margaret, and Margaret blinked first!” George said.

Later that morning, Ana received a call from Mr. Young, who asked her how she was doing. Mr. Young said he had ordered the reprimand removed from Ana’s personnel file. He added, “The bank is going to have to interview for a new supervisor. I hope you will apply.”

“That crossed my mind earlier today, Mr. Young. I have already decided to do so.”

At lunch, Ana drove home and returned wearing a favorite pair of white pants and white, 5-inch stiletto pumps. Several of the tellers applauded when she entered the bank and engaged in a celebratory wiggle. “Watch out, bankers. Ana’s back this time for real!” one of the male bank workers said.

Ana applied for the supervisor’s job. In her interview, she emphasized her experience in customer service, her knowledge of the day-to-day responsibilities of the tellers, and her thoughts on how to maintain and improve employee morale. Even though she felt she did well in the interview, she was nevertheless surprised when she was formally offered the job.

On her first day of work as a supervisor, Ana marked the occasion by wearing a white blouse, tight black business skirt, black stockings and 5-inch black stiletto pumps. At her first meeting with the staff, she emphasized that things were going to return to the way they had been prior to Margaret. “You know your jobs, and I plan to let you do your jobs without interference,” she said.

“There is no truth to the rumor,” she added, “that I am implementing a new dress code that requires all women to wear heels at least 4 inches high.” A few of the tellers chuckled at the joke. Ana continued, “In all seriousness, I am a strong believer in the power of good fashion to improve a person’s life. I encourage you to experiment with expressions that bring out the best in you. You will feel better about yourself, the bank will be a better place for all of us to work, and it will be a better place for our customers to do business. Yes, there probably will be limits to what can be worn. But rather than impose a dress code, I want you to talk to me, and we can see what works and what does not work. And if you ever happen to want advice on how to wear high heels properly, be sure to ask me. OK?”

Later that day, Ana was setting up things in her new office when George paid a visit. “First day as a supervisor, and already the rumors are that you are pushing your employees to wear high heels,” he said.

“Nonsense,” Ana replied. She explained to George what she had really said.

George then said, “There is also a real buzz going on about you over at headquarters. For once, my contacts over there are calling me, trying to find out as much as they can about you. Does she really wear tight clothes and extremely high heels every day? Is she really as hot as people say she is? What is the real reason she was promoted to supervisor? The first time you go over to headquarters for a meeting, people are going to be falling all over each other to check you out. This is going to be a very interesting time for you…and for the bank as well.”

Ana chuckled. “So my promotion to supervisor is just a façade as far as the gossipy types in headquarters are concerned? They think my true job is to be the bank’s sex symbol?”

“That’s one way to put it,” George said with a smile.

“Well, well,” Ana replied. “We’ll just have to see how this all works out.”

Next: Steve’s date with Ana

[Stu]

Steve’s Date With Ana

Written in the first person by Steve

Friday night arrived, and I fought traffic to get home so I could start the weekend. I was greeted by the site of Maria sitting at our kitchen table, which was covered with text books, business ledgers, and notebooks. Maria herself was dressed rather unspectacularly in a pair of ratty sweatpants and a tee-shirt. And, yes, she was barefoot.

“Sorry,” she said. “I hope you weren’t expecting a nice dinner tonight.”

I understood. The following week was finals week at the university, and this would be a lost weekend that Maria would spend buried in textbooks and lecture notes. The only positive thing about it was that she was going to graduate the following week, so this would be the last time that she (and I) would have to go through the hell of finals week.

Reverting to my old bachelor habits, I opened up the cupboard and took out a can of ravioli. I asked Maria if she wanted anything, and she said no.

“I did do one thing for you today,” Maria said. “Ana really wants to see ‘Titanic’, that new movie that has gotten a lot of attention. Bob is out of town this weekend on one of his long business trips. Sharon and Jack are vacationing out of state. And, of course, I am stuck here. So I told Ana you would pick her up at 7:30. The movie starts at 8.”

I poured the ravioli into a bowl, and put it in the microwave. “Very interesting. Wife sets up husband up on a date with her sexy friend. That sounds like a plot for either a soap opera or a b-grade skin flick,” I said.

Maria was not in the mood for jokes. “Look, if you don’t want to go, I’ll call Ana and tell her you can’t make it.”

“No, no. I’ll go.” I took the ravioli out of the microwave and hungrily wolfed it down.

I showed up at Ana’s house precisely at 7:30 p.m. I rung the doorbell, opened the door, and my jaw promptly dropped. Ana was wearing a black leather jacket, matching black leather pants (not particularly tight by her standards, but still snug-fitting), and the pair of black, 6-inch stiletto sandals that she had worn at our football party several months earlier.

“Wow!” I said, caught completely off-guard. I did not think it was possible for Ana to surprise me in that way, given the various outfits she had worn in the last several years. But I was wrong. “What’s the occasion?”

“Why, it’s our first date, silly,” she said flirtatiously. “With all the adventures we have had in the last few years, this is the first time you and I have ever done anything by ourselves.”

“OK,” I replied. “Are you sure you’ll be OK in those heels?”

“Well, if you’re uncomfortable with me wearing them, I can change into something lower.”

“No, no. They’re fine,” I said. We walked out to my car, and I opened the door for Ana and helped her into the car.

We drove over to the movie theater. I parked the car and helped Ana out. My God, was she a sight. Her feet were practically vertical, and her long legs, shapely butt and feminine torso never looked better than they did under the leather outfit, which glistened in the lights of the parking lot. She walked slowly but gracefully, and held onto my arm gently as she did so. I became nervous by the prospect of running into someone we knew in the theater, as we were still pretty close to home. With each step, and each click of her heels, heads turned. I normally did not even notice onlookers anymore, but the thought of being seen under these circumstances with a woman who was not my wife was somewhat disquieting. Why was Ana doing this?

I bought our tickets and we entered the theater building, with Ana still holding onto my arm. Now we were surrounded by a lot of people and it felt as if each one of them was studying Ana, some with pleasure, others with curiosity, and still others with disgust. This was one of those suburban multiplex cinemas, so we had to walk the length of the lobby and down a long corridor to get to the proper theater. When we found it, I pushed the door open, and Ana said to me, “You will hold onto me, won’t you, Steve? Please don’t go too fast.”

We stepped into the darkness, and walked slowly, with Ana’s arm wrapped tightly around mine. Our hands were clenched. We walked down the sloping theater aisle, and Ana did a good job of adjusting to the incline without losing her balance, although our pace slowed just a little. Unfortunately, we had arrived after most of the seats were taken, and there were no seats anywhere near the aisle. We finally spotted two vacant seats in the middle of the theater row.

“Those seats look like our best option,” I said. “Can you make it?”

“Piece of cake, as you Americans like to say,” Ana replied.

One by one, the people sitting in the row stood up for us. Ana held my hand tightly, and did an admirable job of stepping sideways for what seemed like an eternity until we got to our two empty seats. When we sat down, I breathed a sigh of relief. There had been no embarrassing tumbles on Ana’s part, and we had not run into anyone we knew. Now, sitting in the dark, we were just as anonymous as everyone else.

The movie started, and it lived up to its top billing. For more than three hours, we watched the Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslett characters meet on the Titanic, fall in love, and then struggle to survive as the ship began to sink. We huddled very closely, whispering things back and forth to each other throughout the movie. I do not know what kind of perfume she was wearing, but the smell of it was intoxicating. In the privacy afforded by the darkness, I began to feel turned on by the knowledge that Ana was wearing her leather outfit and those got-to-see-them-to-believe-them heels. As the movie characters began to consummate their forbidden romance, I looked at Ana and a taboo idea popped into my head:

If some way, somehow, I had met Ana before Bob, I would be married to her today. And Ana feels that way, too.

I banished the thought to the back of my head, and concentrated on the movie. When the thought started to come back, I simply wrote it off as a reaction to the leather, the 6-inch heels, the alluring perfume and all the hand-holding. With that, I enjoyed the rest of the movie.

When the movie ended, we remained seated while everyone around us filtered out. When we finally got up, we were able to reach the aisle with much less difficulty than we had encountered when we had arrived. Ana wrapped her arm around mine, and we strolled out of the theater. It may have been the time we spent in the theater, Ana’s perfume, or the evil thought that had visited me during the movie, but for whatever reason, I was no longer nervous. I was quite happy to be close to Ana, and the looks from everyone no longer bothered me.

“After a picture like that, it seems like a waste to just go home,” I said. “Why don’t we get a drink somewhere?”

“Sounds good to me,” Ana said. I suggested a little night spot that was in the same shopping center as the movie theater. It was so close that we did not even have to get into the car. We walked right over to it and got a table in the corner.

We ordered wine, and lightheartedly toasted our friendship. I then said, “Ana, your attire is stunning. It really made for a special night. In all seriousness, what prompted you to dress up like this tonight?”

To be continued.

[Stu]

Ana sipped on her wine, and did not answer right away. She finally said, “Well, Steve, you are a special friend, and I wanted to do something to make this night special.” “You succeeded.” “I wanted to wear something tonight that expressed how I feel about you because, quite frankly, I don’t know how to characterize our friendship. It defies simple definition. We are not adulterers. We have kept our wedding vows to our spouses, but…” “But, on the other hand, Ana, we cannot honestly say that our relationship is purely platonic.” Ana smiled and took a big sip of wine. “No, Steve, it isn’t,” she said. “And I am glad it isn’t. I think you’re glad, too.” I took a sip of wine and I leaned over to her so I could speak in a very low voice that could not be overheard. “You are an erotic artist, Ana. Your body is your canvas, and your clothes and shoes are your paints. You express yourself boldly, without fear of what people may think. But even the most avant-garde artist needs an audience. I am a key member of your audience. You take great satisfaction in engaging in sexy expression, and I take great satisfaction in witnessing it. A large part of our friendship is sexual in nature.” “Yes, Steve, there is an element of sex to our friendship. But I think it is more than just that. I think it is...” Ana was interrupted in mid-sentence by a loud voice. “Is that Steve? It is! Steve, how is it going?” I looked up and saw Ron, a salesman who worked in my office. Ron was the stereotypical salesman: loud, obnoxious and very talkative. Of all the people who could have spotted Ana and me, Ron was among the worst. “Steve, this is my wife, Jenny,” Ron said, introducing me to the woman standing next to him. Turning to Ana, Ron said, “And you must be Steve’s wife. You are originally from Mexico, right?” “Actually, I am from El Salvador, one of the little Central American countries just south of Mexico,” Ana said. “My name is Maria.” I gulped hard and struggled not to look surprised. “I see it is crowded in here,” Ana said. “There is room here for two more people. Ron, Jenny, why don’t you join us?” “That would be great,” Ron said. They sat down and Ron said to his wife, “We have not been to any of the office’s Christmas parties for several years. But people talk about Maria for weeks after them. Everyone says you have a flare for dressing well. How did the two of you meet?” Ana gave an account of Maria’s and my courtship that was perfect down to the last detail. I contributed elements of the story as well. Ana talked a little about Maria’s childhood in El Salvador and her family’s move to the United States, relating it all in the first person, of course. Ron and Jenny talked about how they met, and they described their two children. Ron and I then started talking about our jobs and some of the people we knew from work. While our conversation was taking place, a jazz quartet had taken the floor and began playing music. A few people had started dancing. At one point in the conversation, Jenny politely interrupted the conversation and said, “Listen, Ron! I love to dance to this song. My apologies, I don’t mean to end our conversation, but we really should dance.” Ron agreed. He took Jenny’s hand and they headed toward the dance floor. “That’s a great idea,” Ana said. She turned to me and said, “Come on, darling. Let’s dance.” She stood up and took me by the hand. It was somewhat dark in the club, and until that moment, it had not been possible for Ron and Jenny to see exactly what Ana was wearing below the waist. Once she stood up, the leather pants and 6-inch heels were in full public view. Ron’s eyes opened almost as wide as Jenny’s mouth. I thought I heard a brief exclamation of “oh!” emanate from Jenny before she regained her composure. I had wanted Ana to remain seated, but it was too late now. We walked out to the dance floor, Ana snuggled up to me, and we began dancing cheek to cheek to the slow jazz music. I could sense the eyes of virtually everyone in the club on Ana as we danced. Through my peripheral vision, I could see Ron and Jenny catching brief glimpses of Ana before returning to their attention to each other. For her part, Ana was doing an admirable job of making dancing in her sky-high stilettos seem effortless. I pulled her close to me, and enjoyed the warmth of her leather-clad body as I held it against mine. After dancing for several songs, the four of us headed back to our table. As we sat down, Ron said, “Maria, I can see why you are the life of the company’s Christmas party. That is a fantastic outfit.” “I would break my neck if I simply tried to stand in heels like that!” Jenny said. “It is phenomenal how you can move in shoes like that. I would like to be able to walk and dance that well in heels half as high as yours.” “It is a skill that one must develop over time,” Ana said. “I have a passion for high heels. Fortunately, so does Steve, and I love him so much for supporting me the way he does.” She kissed me on the lips. The conversation now took something of an adult turn, as Ana described her collection of heels. Interestingly enough, she was describing her heel collection, and not Maria’s collection. Her pride of ownership apparently won out over the need to be consistent in her role playing of Maria. As Ana finished describing her collection, a chagrined Ron looked at his watch and said, “I would love to continue this conversation, but we have kids at home and a baby sitter to pay. We return to our mundane, suburban lives. Next time, Jenny, you wear heels like Maria’s.” “In your dreams,” Jenny laughed. She turned to us and said, “It was a pleasure meeting both of you.” As we watched them leave, I turned to Ana and said, “I don’t know how good it was for you to pretend to be Maria. By 8:30 a.m. on Monday, everyone in my office will hear that Maria was here in a leather outfit and 6-inch heels.” To be continued.

[Stu]

“Would it have been better if I had been honest?” Ana said defensively. “By 8:30 a.m. on Monday, everyone in your office would have heard that you were out Friday night with a woman who was not your wife, but who was decked out in leather and 6-inch heels. Would you have preferred that? I saved you, and you owe me big time.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Sorry. I am too shell shocked right now to think clearly.”

“No need to apologize. But we should go. It is late, and Maria may be wondering what happened to you. Or, perhaps, what happened to us.”

We left the club. As we crossed the parking lot to return to my car, Ana walked on her own without holding my arm or leaning on me. She wiggled rather seductively, and her heels clicked loudly on the pavement. I enjoyed every step.

I helped Ana into my car. I then got in, and we began driving. I said, “I would love to be a fly on the wall in Ron and Jenny’s house, and hear what they are saying about us.”

“Ron was turned on by me,” Ana said matter-of-factly. “Jenny thinks I am a freak. I can tell by the way she was looking at me.”

“You are being a little hard on Jenny, don’t you think?”

“Not hard. Just honest,” Ana said. “But it doesn’t matter. Assuming Ron and Jenny are indeed a conventional couple, I feel sorry for them. Just like I feel sorry for all conventional couples.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s go back to what we were saying when Ron and Jenny arrived and interrupted us. You said that we have more than a platonic friendship because we both enjoy my sexy expression. But it is more than that. In the beginning, when I decided I wanted to wear high heels in the United States as I had in Costa Rica, it was just Bob, you and me. Bob and I needed your support in order for me to become a full-time heel wearer again. You gave us that support. Then you went out and found Maria. A mutual interest in high heels initially drew the four of us together. Like you said, Steve, a lot of it was sexual. Then we grew closer, and more intimate. Our trust for each other grew. We also added Sharon and Jack to our group, and we quickly developed an intimacy and trust with them. We then developed a love for each other. Our love gave us strength, and we experimented with more daring heels and clothes, which made us more intimate, loving and trusting. The cycle feeds upon itself, and the love among the six of us continues to grow.”

“I don’t know if I follow you. Obviously, we love our spouses. Do you and I also love each other?”

“Yes, although it is not the kind of love portrayed in the movies. In addition to the conventional love we have for our spouses, there is a communal love between the six of us. We have developed our own language and our own culture, understood only by us. I expressed my love for you tonight by wearing 6-inch heels. We are drawn together by my near-vertical feet, and the way I move my legs and wiggle my cola when I walk. Even though my clothes, shoes and walking style appear extroverted to outsiders, they are very intimate to us. Others may see shameless sexuality, but for us it is a deep, communal love that supplements the love we have for our spouses.”

“I know what you are saying. I feel so close to you tonight because of what you wore. In part it is a sexual attraction, but it is also a lot more. Yes, there is love and intimacy in what we are doing.”

“That is why I feel sorry for conventional couples. There is this whole additional dimension to life that they miss entirely. They look at me and say, ‘What compels her to wear such crazy shoes?’ They understand the sexuality behind it, but there is so much more that they miss.”

I pulled into Ana’s driveway. I started to get out of the car, but Ana told me to stay put. She opened the door on her side, and got out of the car without any assistance. She walked over to my side and said, “This was a special night, Steve. Thank you.” I watched her walk up to her front door. She put on one of the sexiest wiggles I had seen from her yet. She reached the front door and turned 90 degrees so that I could see her incredible heel-distorted profile: the extreme stilettos, her vertical feet, her legs wrapped in leather, her phenomenal posterior, her Latin eyes and thick, luscious hair. Was this lusty, sexually driven behavior? You bet. But there was more. This was our form of communication, our expression of intimacy, trust and love, the way we found to add to the joy and pleasure that we received from our marriages. Ana blew me a kiss, waved goodbye, and went inside her house.

I started the car and headed back to my house. Ana was not my wife, but in another place, another time, she could have been. My little pretend-marriage to Ana earlier in the evening had indeed been a charade, but perhaps not as big a charade as I had thought.

Next: Maria’s new job

[Stu]

Maria’s New Job

Written in the third-person by Steve, based on interviews with the principal participants.

Maria’s graduation from the university was a major event. She was the first person in her family to graduate from a four-year college, and one of the very few college graduates from the gritty Salvadoran neighborhood where she had spent her teenage and young-adult years. Aunts, uncles, cousins, and long-time family friends, as well as her parents, siblings, husband and friends from her married life, ensured that Maria received the loudest cheer of any of the business students who walked across the stage to pick up their diploma. And, of course, Maria was the only student who appeared on stage in 5-inch heels.

The week after graduation, Maria went to an interview for an internship in the marketing department at a prominent department store chain. Two months earlier, one of her professors had told her about the internship and encouraged her to apply. The first rule of business, the professor reminded Maria, was to know your product. “It is very apparent that you know shoes and clothes, and I think you would be a natural as far as marketing goes,” he told Maria. Following his advice, Maria applied for the internship and did very well in her initial interview with recruiters for the department store. Her follow-up interview was with some of the managers in the marketing department.

Maria wore a business suit and a pair of 4-inch business heels to the interview. She answered basic questions about how she might try to market some of the store’s products. She also talked about her family’s restaurant and the boutique store she had operated for several years. The interview went well, and Maria was delighted a week later when she received a telephone call from one of the department store chain’s marketing managers, who offered her the internship.

“Hello, Maria. My name is Cathy, and I will be your supervisor,” said the woman who greeted Maria when she arrived at her first day of work. Cathy was an attractive, personable African-American woman who appeared to be in her mid-30s. She shook Maria’s hand firmly, congratulated her on getting her internship, and walked her over to her cubicle, where some personnel-related paperwork awaited her. “When you are done filling out the forms, bring them to my office over there, and we’ll discuss your first assignment,” Cathy said. “And oh, by the way, nice shoes.”

Maria had worn the same business suit and 4-inch pumps with wide heels that she had worn to her interview. She immediately looked down at her shoes and over to Cathy’s, and she realized that Cathy was wearing the exact same make and model of shoe. “Thank you, Cathy,” Maria said. “I see we have similar tastes.”

“Yes, and it is important to have good taste when you are in this line of work,” Cathy replied. “See you later.”

Maria’s shoe strategy was to wear only 4-inch heels to work for the first several weeks. She also resolved to wear stylish but conservative business suits, and to avoid anything that was too bright, tight or sexy. Maria was well aware of the difficulties that Ana had experienced on her job with her choice of clothing and shoes, and, as an intern, Maria would not be able to withstand similar difficulties if she were to dress too boldly for her job. Even the 4-inch heels were probably higher than advisable, but Maria simply would not accept anything lower. She did intend after a few weeks to move up to 4-1/2 and then 5-inch heels, with the hope that people who market women’s clothes and shoes for a living would be more tolerant of such shoes than the average businessperson. Having a boss with an apparent taste for high heels was a favorable sign.

For her initial assignment, Maria was asked to perform a marketing study for a new line of women’s dresses that the department store chain was considering. Personally, Maria found the dresses to be too boring and conservative, but she reasoned there probably was a decent market for such dresses, and her study verified it. Cathy was pleased with Maria’s work and gave her more assignments, each one more challenging than the one that preceded it.

After a month on the job, Maria moved up to 4-1/2 heels, and was relieved when no one seemed to notice. Another month went by, and she walked into work one morning with a pair of 5-inch stiletto heels. While she was willing to compromise on clothing, she felt strongly that a 5-inch heel was her natural shoe and an important part of her individual expression. She had been frustrated the previous two months by wearing lower shoes, and she was anxious to return to shoes that were a normal part of her lifestyle. She was disturbed by the thought of having to choose between 5-inch heels and this very promising internship, and she hoped the shoes would not cause any problems.

She need not have worried. A handful of her co-workers complimented her on her shoes, and Cathy remarked, “Well, I see we have a true high-heel wearer in our midst.” Later in the morning, Cathy returned and asked Maria if she had any plans for lunch. When Maria said she did not, Cathy said, “Stop by my office at noon, and I will take you out to lunch. We need some time outside the office.”

Maria showed up at Cathy’s office at exactly noon. “Come on in,” Cathy said. “Just a quick change, and I’ll be ready.” Cathy pulled open the bottom drawer of one of her filing cabinets and pulled out a shoe box. She opened the box and pulled out a beautiful pair of shiny black 5-inch stiletto pumps with a pointed toe. She took off the 4-inch business heels she had been wearing, and eased her feet into the 5-inch stilettos.

“Oh, Cathy, those are beautiful shoes,” Maria said.

“You are not the only 5-inch heel wearer in this office,” Cathy said. “It’s been hard for me to watch you wear 4-1/2 heels for a month and not do anything about it. I figured it would only be a matter of time until you moved up to 5 inches, and I wanted to be ready. Let’s go.”

They walked out of the office and drew a few looks from some of the employees. Cathy took Maria to a small restaurant about a block from the office.

“I knew the instant you walked into the room for your job interview that you were a heel girl,” Cathy said after they ordered lunch. “The unwritten rule is that you should not wear heels higher than 3 inches to a job interview, so when an applicant walks into an interview with 4-inch heels, I notice right away. Most of the time, I can tell by the way the women walk that they usually wear something lower, because they are struggling a bit as they walk. In your case, you were so fluid that I figured you were used to wearing something higher. I thought, ‘Oh, my, we got a real one.’”

Cathy talked a bit about her shoe collection, which she said was dominated by 5- and 5-1/2-inch heels and boots of various styles. Maria described her collection, which was not unlike Cathy’s, except that Maria did not have boots. Maria decided not to mention the two pairs of 6-inch stilettos in her closet. She figured that Cathy must have similar shoes as well, and if Cathy was not going to talk about them, Maria should stay mum on them as well.

“There is actually a work-related reason for our shoe conversation,” Cathy said. “The highest heels we normally market are 4-1/2 inches. We occasionally get some that are 5 inches, but they often are not of good quality, and we don’t keep them very long. For a long time, I have wanted to have a line of top-rate shoes that are 5- and 5-1/2 inches high. I have never had the time to follow through. How would you like to do a marketing report that makes the case for 5- and 5-1/2 inch heels?”

“I would love that!” Maria said. “I could not think of an assignment that would interest me more.”

“Of course not. Because you are a heel girl,” Cathy said. “This won’t be easy. Senior management thinks of 5-inch heels and higher as being a little too kinky and out of the mainstream. As you know, we sell all kinds of lingerie and Wonder bras, and management doesn’t have a problem with that. But they are afraid truly high heels may draw a fringe crowd that will make other customers feel uncomfortable, thereby harming the company’s high-class reputation. Your study will need to convince them that that is not true.”

“Unless you and I are considered to be part of the fringe crowd, Cathy, I think we should be able to make the case.”

“Excellent!” Cathy said. “I have an unusual request for you, Maria. I have some friends I would like you to meet. They will provide you with some interesting information to help you with this assignment. We can meet for dinner in one of their houses. To get the mood right, you should wear a pair of 5-1/2 inch heels and a dress that…well…let’s just say a dress that would not be appropriate for the office. I will wear the same. All these people are women. There will not be any men around. Would that be OK? If so, how about tomorrow night? You can bring the dress and shoes to work in an overnight bag, and we’ll change when the office empties out at closing time. Does that sound all right?”

“Sounds like an adventure,” Maria said. “Tomorrow night is fine. I’ll be there.”

To be continued.

[Stu]

Maria showed up for work the following day with her overnight bag. By 5:30 p.m., most of the employees had left the office, and Maria walked into Cathy’s office carrying her overnight bag. “I’m just finishing up a few things. Why don’t you change first?” Cathy said. Maria took her overnight bag into the women’s room. She decided to acquaint Cathy with her basic style, and so he chose one of her favorite knee-length black dresses that wrapped tightly around her waist, hips and thighs. She put on the dress and her 5-1/2 inch black stiletto pumps, and walked back to Cathy’s office. “Is this OK?” she asked Cathy as she stood in her office doorway. “Oh my,” Cathy said, as she looked up from her desk and surveyed Maria from head to toe. “Maria, your husband must adore you. He had better treat you like a queen.” “He does, Cathy. He paid for my two years at the university, as well as some pretty substantial purchases of clothes and shoes, all out of his paycheck.” “A college education is a good long-term investment. As for the clothes and shoes, I am sure the payoff for him was more immediate. OK, my turn,” Cathy said. She took her overnight bag and walked off to the ladies room. Maria sat down at Cathy’s desk. There was a picture on the desk of Cathy with a man who must have been her boyfriend, as Cathy was divorced. There were a couple of other pictures of children, who were probably her nephews and nieces. A number of commendations were hanging from the wall. It all painted a very mainstream image of Cathy, which of course was exactly what would be expected of one’s office. Obviously, there was another side of Cathy that was not represented in the pictures and the commendations. “OK, Maria, forget I am your boss. I want your honest opinion.” Cathy was standing in the doorway of her office. She was wearing a stunning gold-tan dress, also about knee-length, that was like a second skin over her statuesque figure. The dress revealed details of Cathy’s anatomy that remained hidden under her conservative business clothes. The sensuous curves of her body were not quite as pronounced as Maria’s, but were just as captivating as they flowed lovingly from her ample breasts down to her narrow waist and long, lean thighs. On her feet was a matching pair of gold-tan 5-1/2 inch stiletto sandals. “Cathy, I am speechless. Really. You are sheer perfection.” “Now that we have buttered each other up, let’s go,” Cathy said. They picked up their briefcases and overnight bags, and headed out the office to Cathy’s car. With their heels clicking in the corridor and then in the parking area, Maria struggled to remember when she and any woman other than Ana or Sharon had walked together in 5-1/2 inch heels. Cathy walked easily and naturally, despite the extreme height of the heels. She obviously was very experienced. They got into Cathy’s car. As she drove, Cathy explained that she had worked her way through college with money earned from modeling. She knew she was not destined to appear on magazine covers; most of her jobs were for clothing catalogs and underwear ads that appeared in newspapers. But the experience left her with an appreciation for fine clothes and shoes that went beyond the simple desire to look nice. “Modeling got me out of the rough neighborhoods where I grew up. It was the foundation for everything I have achieved since, and everything I will ever achieve in my lifetime. When I put on a really nice dress and a fine pair of shoes, I feel like I am making myself the best person I can possibly be. I think you know what I mean, Maria,” Cathy said. “I do,” Maria replied. Cathy drove into a working-class, African-American neighborhood that was unfamiliar to Maria. It was not the worst neighborhood in the city, but it definitely was not the best, either. Cathy pulled up and parked in front of a modest house. “My friend, Tanya, lives here. I think you will like her,” Cathy said. She rang the doorbell, and an African-American woman answered the door. “Hi, Cathy,” she said warmly. “And you must be Maria. Come on in.” They entered the house and walked back into the living room area. There were three African-American women in the living room, including the woman who had answered the door. “I should start with introductions,” Cathy said. “This is my intern, Maria.” Pointing to the woman who answered the door, Cathy said, “Maria, this is Tanya.” Tanya was very tall, and she had a medium, athletic build. She was wearing a white top, a knee-length black skirt, and shiny black boots that extended up almost to her knees, and which featured a 5-1/2 inch stiletto heel. Even standing barefoot, Tanya appeared to be almost six feet tall, and the boots only made her taller. “And this is La Donna,” Cathy said, pointing to the second woman. La Donna was pencil thin and wearing an attractive blue dress with matching blue 5-1/2-inch stiletto pumps. “And this is Nathalene,” Cathy said, pointing to the third woman. Nathalene had a pretty face dominated by big brown eyes. She had a rubenesque figure that was attractively feminine because the relative sizes of her bust and waist and the curves of her hips were well proportioned, even if they were all somewhat on the large size. The only part of her anatomy that was out of proportion was her tremendous posterior, which was the largest Maria had ever seen on a non-obese woman. Nathalene wore skintight pants and 5-1/2-inch stiletto sandals, which highlighted her unusual anatomy. “Oooh wee,” Nathalene said, looking at Maria. “Cathy, you sho’ know how to pick ‘em. Maria here is a fine, fine lady.” Tanya said, “I’m gonna have to turn up the air conditioning. The temperature in the house went up 10 degrees when Maria came in.” La Donna added, “Wasn’t there an old Broadway song that went, ‘I just met a girl named Maria?’” “You talkin’ about West Side Story, girl,” Nathalene said. “That was about one Latin lady who had it together. We’re here talkin’ to another.” “All right, enough jive! You three are gonna scare my intern to death here,” Cathy said to the women. She turned to Maria and said reassuringly, “Don’t let them rattle you, Maria. They just like to put on the tough-talkin’ black girl act.” The five women sat down to a dinner of classic soul food: fried catfish, collared greens and black-eyed peas. It was the first time Maria had ever eaten soul food, and while she did not immediately fall in love with the cuisine, it was appealing enough that she ate a full portion without any difficulty. Maria spent much of the dinner answering questions from the others about her upbringing in El Salvador and how she had developed a taste for high heels and feminine fashion. “Now I suppose it is our turn to talk about heels,” Cathy said when Maria finished one of her stories. “I picked up some very interesting information from a contact of mine in the shoe industry. As you may know, African-Americans comprise about 11 to 12 percent of the U.S. population. However, my contact has access to marketing studies that find that about 40 percent of sales of 5-inch heels are to African-American women, and almost 50 percent of sales of 5-1/2 inch heels. Clearly, African-American women are key to any successful marketing of very high heels shoes by our department store chain.” “That is very interesting. I assumed Latin women dominated the market for very high heels,” Maria said. “I had no idea African-American women were such fans of those kinds of shoes.” “The African-American market has some intriguing characteristics,” Cathy replied. “African-American women buy the conventional heel heights – say, 2 to 4 inches – in about the same percentages as white women. A higher percentage of Latin women wear 2- to 4-inch heels than white or African-American women.” Cathy continued, “But once you get to 5 inches, the market changes. African-Americans and Latinas split the 5-inch market, while whites and Asians trail off. And at 5-1/2 inches, African-American women dominate, although Latinas still account for a considerable percentage of those shoes.” Maria said, “So, African-American women as a group do not seem to have a particular affinity for heels. However, those African-Americans who do like heels tend to go for the higher, more extreme styles. Why is that?” “If you ask 10 people that question, you will probably get 10 different answers,” Cathy said. “That is why I wanted you to meet my three friends here. Maybe they can illuminate us on why they wear such high heels.” To be continued.

[Stu]

Tanya said, “I think some of it is black pride. A vastly disproportionate number of the nation’s best athletes are black. The same with musicians and singers. High heels are both athletic and musical, if you think about it. It takes a lot of skill to wear the shoes, and there is a definite rhythm and cadence to the way we walk in them. Very, very few women are capable of wearing 5- or 5-1/2-inch heels, and, as an African-American woman, I feel proud that I can look good and feel feminine in such shoes.” “Men feel that way, too,” Nathelene said. “There aren’t too many African-American men who feel a woman needs to wear high heels in order to be feminine. But a lot of the men feel that, if a woman is going to wear heels, she should wear them high. You know, she should develop the skills needed to be stylish, graceful and sexy in a way a woman can only be in very high heels. It may not be that important to most white women, but it is to us. Why be satisfied with 3-inch heels if you can put it all together at 5 inches?” La Donna said, “Most people who are not African-American don’t know this, Maria, but I am going to tell you. When I am in a pair of very high heels, which is often, and I walk past another black person, man or woman, I often get a quick look of approval. Nothing is spoken, but nothing needs to be spoken. Black people understand. It is a form of support. They are saying that they appreciate the effort I am making to look my best, be my best, express myself with pride as an African-American woman.” “I understand,” Maria said. “I grew up with very similar kinds of attitudes. But African-Americans put their own distinctive twist on it.” The conversation became more personal. Tanya admitted that wearing very high heels when she was already quite tall gave her a strong psychological advantage in dealing with both women and men in her job as a personnel manager. La Donna said that, in flat shoes, she tended to look very frail and ordinary, and that high heels made her appear strong and sexy. Nathalene said that high heels made her irresistible to African-American men with a taste for women with extremely large buttocks. African-American culture tends to place a premium on such women, who by most other cultural standards would be considered unattractive, she explained. As the evening continued, Cathy made it clear that getting special high-heel shoes into her employer’s stores was something of a personal mission. “I realize there is only a niche market for these shoes. But I still want African-American women to feel that our stores understand them and want to serve them. Even African-American women who are not high heel wearers will feel better knowing the shoes are there. I think we can make significant inroads into the African-American market overall.” “I think we can, too,” Maria replied. “But remember, Latin women like those kinds of shoes, too. And there is a market for them among whites and Asians. We can make a special pitch to African-Americans, but we have to market them to everyone.” “Fair enough,” Cathy replied. The time finally arrived for Cathy and Maria to leave, and their three dining companions wished them luck in their endeavor. “Don’t let nobody tell you that fine high heels like these don’t belong in nice stores,” Nathalene said as they left. Cathy and Maria got in the car, and Cathy began heading back downtown to drop off Maria. “I can’t direct you do this,” Cathy said, “but I think you ought to make a regular practice of wearing 5-inch heels to work. I am already getting some questions from some of the senior management upstairs about you. They want to know who you are, what kind of job you have. I am not surprised that they are noticing you, Maria. If you wear 5-inch heels regularly, I think you will help set the mood for acceptance of very high heels into our product line. And if you wear 5-inch heels to work, I will, too. Between the two of us, we will make a statement.” Maria replied, “Quite frankly, Cathy, I always intended to wear 5-inch heels to work after the first two months or so. The 5-inch heel has been my standard shoe now for many years. I just don’t feel right in anything less.” “Girl, I definitely like your style,” Cathy said. *** *** *** *** The evening with Cathy and her three friends had been a revelation to Maria. Ever since she had arrived in the United States, she had thought the country lacked anything resembling the high-heel cultures of Latin America. Individual American women could be passionate about high heels, and the shoes certainly had a sexy reputation in popular culture. But Maria had always felt the country as a whole lacked any kind of a cultural driving force that caused large numbers of women to value high heels as Latin American women did. And Maria felt that her adopted country was all the worse for it. The only high-heel culture in the United States that Maria had known was among Latin women. But Cathy and her friends had revealed another high-heel culture that had somehow eluded Maria’s notice: that of African-American women. The basics of the African-American culture seemed to be the same as with Latins, in that high heels are viewed as an expression of beauty, femininity and sexuality. But there were some differences. The Latin passion for sensual, flowing body movements did not seem to extend to African-Americans. Instead, African-Americans revered pure height, and a woman’s ability to walk naturally and gracefully when the heels of her feet were pushed 5 or more inches into the air. It also seemed to Maria that 5-inch heels on an African-American woman were more than just an individual expression of a woman’s femininity; it was also a display of ethnic pride, and very much a group accomplishment. Maria had been less than completely comfortable around African-Americans since her arrival in the United States as a young teenage girl. But, following her outing with Cathy, she felt more of an affinity for African-American women, or at least those women who wore high heels. She saw parallels between her own quest to become proficient in ever-higher shoes, as an expression of pride in herself, her family and her Salvadoran background, and the encouragement that African-Americans gave to women who wanted to wear shoes with unusually high heels. And the more Maria thought about it, the more curious she became about African-American styles and attitudes about shoes. And she had every intention of satisfying her curiosity. Maria enthusiastically threw herself into the task of putting together her marketing study. She used the information that Cathy had provided her, and also did her own research, which included contacting shoe manufacturers and using any information they were willing to share with her about the markets for their products. She also began collecting demographic information on the areas served by the department store chain. Cathy gave her encouraging feedback on the initial draft of the study, and she went about revising and polishing her work. One day, Maria decided to take a walk at lunch. The headquarters office where she worked was located in the downtown area, so there were lots of people and plenty to see within a few blocks of the office. Maria was always amused by the sight of professional women going about their noontime affairs in business suits, panty hose and sneakers. She had lived and worked in the United States long enough to understand why most women would be uncomfortable walking for long stretches in even 3-inch heels, but it still seemed to violate every unwritten rule in her book concerning femininity, style and simple good taste. She felt better than ever about wearing her 5-inch heels on her occasional lunch walks, and savored the frequent looks she received from sneaker-clad women, as if she were saying, “Yes, girls, it can be done.” Walking along one of the busy downtown streets, Maria spotted a tall African-African woman in a black dress and 4-inch high-heeled boots. It was Tanya. Maria walked up to her, said hello, and they walked down the street together, stopping to window-shop at some of the stores. “I see you don’t subscribe to wearing sneakers at lunch,” Maria said. “Puh-lease,” Tanya said somewhat disdainfully. “I don’t understand all these women. If you don’t like walking in heels, then wear flats. Ain’t nothing wrong with flats. But if you like heels, then wear heels. Sitting at a desk in heels and then switching to sneakers when you need to walk…What is the point?” Maria chuckled. “We think alike,” she said. She added, “You have quite a taste for boots, Tanya.” “Yeah,” Tanya said with a smile. “I wear stiletto pumps and sandals, too, but there is nothing quite like a high-heeled boot. Pumps and sandals are feminine. Boots are feminine, too, but they project more power than pumps and sandals. Raw power. And sometimes, you need that.” “Like when?” “I am the personnel director for my company. I have to deal with a lot of professional types who are full of themselves, either because they make a lot of money, have an advanced degree, or both. Mostly white men, but some white women and minorities, too. Half of them look at me and think, ‘Black woman working in personnel, she must be an affirmative action hire who could not have made it on her own.’ And a lot of times they get real patronizing, as if I’m too stupid to figure out where they’re coming from. I got zero tolerance for that. I tell them flat out, ‘Lose the attitude. You want to work with me, then I will work with you. But if you want to work against me, I can play that game, too.’ But you need a physical presence to back up the toughness. Being tall helps, but the boots really shut people down. People don’t mess with me when I wear boots. It’s the power. You understand what I’m saying?” “Yes, I think I do,” Maria said. “With all the high heels I own, I don’t own a pair of boots. Salvadorans are not big boot wearers.” “Well, there is always a first time, girl. There is a terrific place not far from my home where I buy most of my boots. If you are supposed to be figuring out how to market high-heel shoes to African-Americans, you need to check this place out.” “I would love to! Can you go with me? When are you available?” “I can take you tonight, if you are around.” “It’s a deal,” Maria said. To be continued

[Stu]

They met on schedule, and Maria drove through town, following Tanya’s car in commute-hour traffic. As they approached the store, Maria recognized the neighborhood from her earlier visit with Cathy to Tanya’s house. They both parked in the lot in front of the small shopping center where the store was located. The store was small, but contained an eclectic collection of boots, pumps, sandals and mules, as well as flat shoes, athletic shoes, and skirts, blouses and dresses. While the product lines were somewhat different, the store reminded Maria of the kind of business she had once hoped her own Salvadoran boutique could become. Upbeat pop music played inside the store, and an African-American clerk greeted Tanya when they entered. Tanya introduced Maria to the clerk, whose name was Flo. “Maria is in the market for some boots,” Tanya said. “I can tell you’re no beginner,” Flo said, looking at Maria’s 5-inch heels. She showed Maria a line of boots with wide, 3- and 4-inch heels. Maria tried them on, but her eye spied some of the more daring boots further down the aisle. She picked up a couple of display boots with 5- and 5-1/2 inch stiletto heels and said to Flo, “I would like to try these on.” “Those are pretty hot, but if you can handle ‘em, I got ‘em,” Flo said. She brought Maria the pairs of boots in both sizes, and she tried them on. She said to Tanya, “You were wearing the boots with the 5-1/2 inch heels the night I was at your house, weren’t you?” When Tanya said yes, Maria said to Flo, “I’ll take these.” Looking around the store, Maria became interested in a tight black skirt and a black-and-gold leopard-style top. Maria was not quite certain what, if anything, constituted an African-American fashion, but this particular combination seemed to her to epitomize it. She went to the dressing room and tried on the top, skirt and boots. She was satisfied with the result, and walked back out into the store and told Tanya she would wear the combination home. “I think I’ll surprise my husband,” she said. “I feel badly I left him alone tonight.” “Your husband won’t know what hit him,” Tanya said. Maria paid for her purchases. While they walked back to their cars, Tanya said, “We haven’t had any dinner yet. There is a nice little place right in this shopping center. Drop your things off in your car, and let’s go to dinner, OK?” Maria agreed. She put the bag with her clothes and shoes in the car. She turned and noticed that Tanya had opened the trunk of her car and had taken out the 5-1/2 inch stiletto boots she had worn to the dinner with Maria several weeks earlier. Tanya pulled off her 4-inch boots and replaced them with the 5-1/2 inch boots, which were identical to Maria’s. “Hope you don’t mind,” Tanya said. “If we’re going to go to dinner, we’re both going in style,” “Absolutely!” Maria said. They walked into the little restaurant, which consisted of both a bar and a sit-down restaurant. Maria started to walk toward the restaurant area when Tanya said, “Where do you think you’re going? We need to sit at the bar, woman.” “OK,” Maria said. Sitting at the bar, Tanya said, “Always remember rule number one with stiletto boots: You must project power. With the kind of boots we are wearing, what is the point in sitting at a table where nobody can see them? That makes about as much sense as wearing heels at your desk and then switching to sneakers when you need to walk.” “Understood,” Maria said. They sat down at the bar. Tanya was familiar with the bartender, who had no problem serving them food at the bar. Maria ordered a bowl of soup, while Tanya ordered a sandwich. Maria thought the boots were wonderful. She was no stranger to 5-1/2 inch heels, of course, but the feel of leather around her lower legs, almost up to her knees, was new and exciting. She felt the power that Tanya was describing. She also felt the looks that both of them were receiving from the patrons, all of them African-American, as they entered the restaurant. While she was normally accustomed to attracting attention, she was a bit nervous over the fact that she was wearing such eye-catching attire in a marginal African-American neighborhood that had something of a reputation for crime. Tanya’s presence was reassuring, but Maria nevertheless felt as if she wanted to finish dinner and return home. They were finishing up when two African-American men entered the bar and said hello to Tanya, who stood and warmly hugged one of the men. “This is Charles, my special man. He always knows where to find me,” Tanya said. “And this is Kenny, a friend of ours. And this is Maria, who works downtown with Cathy. She is doing some market research for high-heel shoes they hope to sell in the department store.” “First-hand research,” Kenny said, giving Maria the elevator eye treatment that included a generous pause at her boots. He shook Maria’s hand and lifted it to his lips and kissed it. “You give new meaning to the phrase, ‘Walk a mile in my shoes.’” Tanya turned to Kenny and said sternly, “Now Kenny, Maria is married, so don’t you start using none of your cheap pick-up lines with her.” She turned back to Maria and said, “I’ve known Kenny since we were both in kindergarten. He sometimes acts a little bold, but he is harmless. Right, Kenny?” “Oh, Tanya, what you sayin’?” Kenny said. “I am just trying to make Maria feel at home in our little part of the world. Maria, tu vestida es bella.” “Gracias,” Maria replied. “You speak Spanish?” “I had a Mexican girlfriend for a while,” Kenny said. “Now see, Tanya? Maria and I are getting along just fine.” The four of them ordered drinks and talked for a while. Maria learned from the conversation that Tanya and Charles had been dating for quite some time and were at least talking about getting married. Kenny was currently without a girlfriend. Maria talked about her internship with the department store, and also told them a little about her childhood in El Salvador. Maria also talked about her marketing study and her shopping trip earlier in the evening with Tanya. As the conversation continued, Tanya and Charles rubbed against each other and started to kiss more and more frequently. Then they abruptly ended the conversation by saying they had to leave, although they did not say where they needed to go. It was pretty clear to Maria why they wanted to leave so suddenly. Getting up to go, Tanya turned to Kenny and said, “Now, Kenny don’t you dare leave until Maria is ready to go. And when she is ready, you will walk her to her car, which is parked right out here in front. You are not to leave her alone at any time, you hear me?” “Oh, man, I gotta hear this again?” Kenny said. “You think I would leave this Latina hermosa alone in a place like this? What kind of man do you think I am?” “Maria, don’t walk to your car alone,” Tanya said. “I know with absolute certainty that Kenny will walk you to your car when you leave. Remember, the boots.” She pointed to Kenny. “He may be complaining, but he does what I tell him.” “What was all that about the boots?” Kenny asked when Tanya and Charles had left. “Just girl talk,” Maria said, trying to suppress a giggle. “I am finishing up, too, and am going to be leaving.” She did not want to be rude to Kenny, but she wanted to leave the bar and start for home. Several other men at the bar were eyeing her in a way that made her uncomfortable, and she did not want to put all her trust in Kenny, who she had now known for only a few minutes. To be continued

[Stu]

“OK,” Kenny said. “You don’t have to worry. I have lived in this neighborhood all my life. You wouldn’t want to be here alone, especially with the way you’re dressed, but you’re OK with me. It gets a little weird here later on, but at this hour, it is fine.”

“OK,” Maria said, still not feeling reassured.

“You know, my Mexican girlfriend was a lot like you. She was also into tacos,” Kenny said, using a common Spanish term for high-heeled shoes. “Wearing those shoes, expressing her femininity, being sexy, it was like both a science and a religion to her. Ooh, it still makes me tingle when I think about her.”

“To many Latinas, that kind of feminine expression is very important,” Maria said. “But I think you can say the same thing about many African-American women. Look at Tanya.”

“Yeah. I really have known Tanya since kindergarten. Boy, has she developed since then.” He took a slug of tequila. He then said, “So you are Latina, but you are here tonight in an African-American neighborhood, and you’re dressed a lot like an African-American woman. Is this part of your market research?”

“Quite honestly, no,” Maria said. “All my life, I have always strived to express myself through clothes and shoes. But lately, as I have gotten to know Tanya and other black women, I have felt this tremendous curiosity about African-American expression and fashion. I wanted to try it for myself. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”

“I hear you,” Kenny said. “You take fashion seriously. So do I. Let me tell you this: There was a time in my life when I was a member of gangs, I was selling drugs, doing all that stupid stuff. Tanya asked me once during that period what I really wanted from life. I told her, ‘I would love to have a sexy woman like you, who dresses great and wears high-heeled shoes.’ I felt stupid saying something like that, but it was the truth. And Tanya says, ‘Well that’s great, but you’ll never get a sexy woman if you keep gang-banging and drug dealing.’ And so I quit that stuff and went straight. And I did have some pretty hot girlfriends. I am frustrated that I don’t have one now, but at least I am not gang banging.”

“That is very inspiring, Kenny.”

“Having a shoe fetish can be a good thing, Maria.”

“I have never liked the word ‘fetish’. It sounds so crude and deviant, like you have something to be ashamed of. What you have is a passion, Kenny. I have the passion, my husband has it, Tanya has it. Even my boss has it. You’re just one of us.”

“Whatever you say, Maria. Passion or fetish, it helped me survive.”

“That’s it!” Maria said. “Survival!”

“What?”

“Now I understand why I have become so fascinated with African-American expression.” She told Kenny about her grandmother, and her use of high heels and fashion to rise above her impoverished upbringing in El Salvador. She also told Kenny about how meeting and marrying Steve had enabled her to move from her working-class Salvadoran neighborhood to the American middle-class and receive a college education.

Maria added, “I worked hard for everything I received, but where would I be today if I did not have a passion for high heels and powerful feminine expression? Where would I be if my grandmother had not done the same? It was survival for her, and survival for me. The same for Tanya, who uses her boots and heels to overcome prejudice and other obstacles in her life. And my boss, Cathy, used modeling to work her way through college. There must be so many Latin and black women with similar stories. High heels for us have been a matter of survival. It makes perfect sense that I would feel drawn to African-American styles involving high heels.”

“That’s cool,” Kenny said. “You know, I would love to spend the rest of the night here talking to you, but it is getting late. I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to stay here much longer.”

Maria looked around and immediately understood what Kenny was saying. The character of the people in the bar had changed in just a few minutes. The men coming in were rough-looking, and several were openly leering at her.

“Indeed, let’s go,” Maria said. She stood up and, with Kenny accompanying her, walked toward the door. Several men whistled at her, and one man said loudly, “What’s your name, senorita?”

They entered the parking lot and walked to Maria’s car at a brisk pace. Maria felt incredibly sexy in her stiletto boots, tight skirt and unusually colored top, but this was one place where she no longer felt comfortable broadcasting herself. She opened the door to her car and thanked Kenny for accompanying her.

“Let me do one thing,” Kenny said. He took out a piece of paper and wrote his name and phone number on it. “I am sure you will throw this piece of paper away as soon as you pull out of the parking lot. But I want to give it to you anyway. If, for any reason, your marriage does not take you where you want to go, give me a call.”

“My marriage is fine, but I appreciate the thought,” Maria said. Kenny was looking at her in a less than subtle manner, but Maria did not mind. It was the first time all evening that Kenny had seen her standing, and she delayed getting into the car so that he could take her all in visually.

“Just remember,” Maria said. “You have a passion, and there are good women who have it, too. Don't give up, and you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

“I hope so,” Kenny said.

Maria got in her car, waved to Kenny and drove off. She normally did not like to drive in 5-1/2 inch stilettos, but she preferred to wait until she got to a better neighborhood before changing her footwear.

[Stu]

Maria finished her marketing study a couple of weeks later. Cathy was pleased with the report and scheduled a meeting with some of the higher-ranking executives. Maria was to give a presentation on her report at that time. While planning her presentation, Maria had an idea and bounced it off Cathy, who approved it.

On the big day, a nervous Maria stood in the meeting room in front of Cathy and ten executives of the department store chain. Cathy operated the laptop that projected Maria’s Power Point presentation onto the screen in the meeting room. She was perhaps a fourth of the way through her presentation when she stopped and picked up a pair of the 5-1/2-inch stiletto pumps from a display table at the side of the room.

“There may be a tendency for some of you to think that women will not feel comfortable or be able to function properly in such extreme heels, and that that will limit the marketability of the product,” she said. In front of the mostly male audience, she slipped off the conservative 3-inch block heels she was wearing and slid on the 5-1/2-inch stilettos for effect. Maria had purposely worn the 3-inch heels to the meeting in order to enhance the effect of her change into the 5-1/2 inch heels.

“There,” she said when the shoes were on her feet. “While this product clearly has a niche market, I do want to assure you that there is indeed a significant customer base that can go about their business in these shoes.” Maria maneuvered effortlessly in the shoes for the rest of the presentation. The main points in her presentation were that the high-heeled shoes would help attract new African-American and Latin customers, which was consistent with the organization’s goal of drawing a more diverse clientele.

The executives were impressed with the presentation and approved the marketing of 5- and 5-1/2 inch heels as a specialty product throughout the department store chain. And word of Maria’s daring mid-presentation switch to extreme heels spread quickly throughout the organization.

Several weeks after the presentation, Cathy asked Maria to accompany her to the department store located in the downtown area, a short walk from the headquarters office. When they entered the store’s shoe section, they saw the 5- and 5-1/2 inch heels in a corner display. Three women, two of them African-American women and one Latina, were looking at the shoes. Cathy and Maria were already wearing 5-inch heels, but Cathy suggested that they try on a pair of the 5-1/2-inch shoes, and asked the clerk to bring them pairs in their size.

As they tried on the higher heels, Cathy asked her, “What do you think?”

“Very nice,” Maria said. “I could use a pair of these in my collection.”

“They are yours if you want them,” Cathy said. “I received special approval from headquarters. You and I can both have a pair of shoes free as the company’s appreciation for the work we put in on the marketing study. Of course, it was mostly the work you put in.”

“Oh, thank you!” Maria said. “And you deserve a pair of shoes, too, Cathy. I could not have done it without your guidance and help.”

“There is one other thing,” Cathy said. “I received approval from management to offer you a permanent position with us in the marketing department. They were very impressed with your work. We can talk about your salary, but it will be substantially more than what you have been making as an intern. Would you like to come work for us?”

“Of course!” Maria said, and she gave Cathy a warm hug. “I can’t think of a place where I would rather work, or a boss I would rather work for. This is wonderful.”

“There is one little request of my own that I need to discuss with you,” Cathy said.

“And what is that?”

“You have this delightful little swivel in your hips when you walk in high heels. Can you teach me how you do that? I have not updated my style in a long time, and at this point in my life, I could use a little Latin flare.”

Maria laughed. “Absolutely! You’ll pick it up in no time.”

They decided to walk back to the office in their new shoes, and they went to the cashier so that Cathy could present the paperwork from management entitling them each to a pair of shoes. They were leaving the shoe section went they stopped to observe a couple of blonde-haired women in business attire and sneakers who stopped to look at the new shoes on display. The women picked up the shoes, pointed to the heels, giggled, put the shoes down, and went on their way.

Maria looked at Cathy and said, “They don’t get it, do they? I realize they are in the majority and we are the exceptions. But nevertheless, they simply don’t get it.”

“How could they get it? They were probably born and raised with everything they needed. They haven’t experienced the things that we have,” Cathy said.

They left the shoe section and were heading toward the store exit when they saw an African-American woman walking toward them. The woman was wearing a tight dress and stiletto heels. As she approached Cathy and Maria, she said to them, “Excuse me. I heard there is a new line of shoes here similar to the ones you are wearing. Do you know where I could find them?”

“The shoe section is right behind us, on the right hand side,” Cathy said.

Maria added, “The shoes with the highest heels are in the corner of the display area. You have to look a little, but you’ll find them.”

The woman looked at Cathy, then at Maria, and back at Cathy with a directness and familiarity that one would not normally expect from a total stranger. “Thank you, sisters. See you later,” she said, and she went on her way.

Cathy and Maria looked at each other. Then Cathy smiled and said, “So when are you going to teach me how you do that thing with your hips?”

“Oh, you want to do that now? Sure,” Maria said. “The first thing you have to remember is…”

Next: Sharon’s new look

[Stu]

Sharon’s New Look

Written in the first person by Steve

I went through a busy stretch at work, and my boss rewarded me by giving me a day off on a Friday. I thought I would just spend a quiet day alone working around the house, but Maria had another idea. Sharon had recently quit nursing and had taken a new job as activities director at our city’s senior citizens center. She had organized a big luncheon for the seniors on that Friday. Jack normally would have accompanied Sharon to such an event, but he was out of town at a medical convention. Maria thought it would be nice if I went to the luncheon with Sharon. Apparently, Sharon had agreed.

“It’s probably about time you caught up with Sharon,” Maria said as she was putting on her business suit and her 5-inch heels that morning. “She has been going through a lot of changes lately.”

“A lunch at a senior citizens center is not normally my idea of a fun way to spend a day off,” I said. “But I am sure Sharon will make it interesting.”

Driving over to Sharon’s house later that morning, I realized that I had not really seen her since Maria’s college graduation several months earlier. I had been aware that Sharon had quit her nursing job and had gone to Los Angeles to have some minor surgery prior to starting her new job. But my attention was so focused on my own job and also Maria’s internship and subsequent job offer, so I had really did not know what Sharon had been doing.

I parked in the driveway of Sharon’s and Jack’s semi-mansion and rang the front door. Using the front door intercom, Sharon verified that I had rung the doorbell and buzzed the front door to unlock. I entered the house and walked into the living room.

“Hello, Steve,” Sharon said as she entered the room behind me. I turned around, looked at her, and took a deep breath.

It was indeed Sharon…but a different Sharon. She was wearing a tight blue mini-dress and blue 5-inch stiletto pumps, which was very much her style. However, her hair, which had always been a dark-blonde color, was now a much lighter, brighter shade of blonde, and it clearly had been professionally styled. She was different in other ways, but I could not quite figure out exactly what had changed.

“You probably noticed the hair is different,” Sharon said. “Let me step you through everything else, from top to bottom.” She pointed to her nose. “I used to have a little bump here on the bridge of my nose. I never liked that bump, so now it is gone. I have a daintier, more feminine nose.”

She then pointed to her chest. “Breast enlargement, from my natural size C-cup to a D-cup.” Putting her hands on her hips, she then said, “And I had an inch of baby fat removed from my waist area via liposuction. I tried for years and years to get rid of that fat on my own, but nothing worked.”

“Sharon, you’re incredible,” I stammered out.

“No compliments until after we get back from lunch,” Sharon said authoritatively. “You need some time with the ‘new me’ before you can have an informed opinion. There is a lot to do at the senior center, so we need to leave now. I’ll drive.”

She picked up her purse from the living room table, and we walked toward the garage. “Oh, and thanks for coming. It means a lot to me,” she said in a softer, more feminine voice.

We got into a new Porsche sports car that was sitting in the garage, and I thought how nice it would be to be fucking rich like Jack. Sharon pulled out of the driveway, and we headed down the road. Her dress was so short and riding so high up on her legs that it pulled my thoughts away from money and on to something else.

“OK, I am not offering an opinion,” I said. “But I hope I can ask you: Why?”

“Of course,” Sharon said. “The change in my appearance is connected to my career change. They are all rolled up into one.” She told me how she had become burnt out after years of nursing, which was pretty common in that profession. At the same time, she felt she had been living a double life, and that frustrated her.

She said, “There was Old Sharon, the nurse and nurturer, going to work every day in a plain white uniform and flat shoes. And there was New Sharon, the high heel-wearing extrovert who your wife and Ana helped create. I hated going back and forth between these two women. Ana wears heels every day on her job and she was promoted, and Maria wore heels to class and as an intern, and now she has a great job. I wanted that lifestyle, too. So it was time to fuse Old Sharon and New Sharon to create True Sharon, a woman who uses her sexuality to nurture and sustain people. That is truly who I am.”

Sharon said she had called up Mindy, the ex-nurse whose 4-year-old son we had encountered the previous year during our heely nature walk at Lake Tahoe. Mindy ran the senior citizens center and happened to be looking for a new activities director. Sharon’s nursing background made her a strong candidate for the position, and Mindy liked the bold, unorthodox style that Sharon wanted to bring to her job. Sharon was hired.

“I told Mindy that I wanted to be a flamboyant activities director who would wear 5-inch heels and short dresses on the job, and she was OK with that,” Sharon explained while she drove. “Most people who work in senior services are earthy, even dowdy people, and I respect that. They are dedicated professionals who want the best for seniors. But being earthy and dowdy reinforces the stereotype of old age as being boring, a period when people basically wait around to die. That is so unfair. If everyone who wants to work with you dresses boring and dowdy, you are going to feel boring and dowdy. So I am doing it differently. I am being very sexy because I want my seniors to feel sexy. Seniors were sexy when they were our age, and most healthy seniors are still sexy. My style will inevitably shock some people, but I view it as an expression of love, respect and life. People never feel more alive than when they are being sexual. That is the way I want to nurture people.”

“I have never thought about that, but it makes sense to me,” I said. “But how does the makeover relate to this? You were already sexy.”

“Jack and I did a lot of talking the last several months. We concluded that my initial transformation – the one where Maria and Ana turned me into a high-heel wearer – took me about 80 percent of where I needed to be. But there was still unfinished business. The body I was in did not fully reflect the woman I had become. Fortunately, Jack is a good friend of one of the best cosmetic surgeons in Los Angeles, and he took care of the rest. He does great work.”

“He does indeed,” I replied. “But what did the surgery get you? What do you have now that you did not have before, besides the obvious physical changes?”

“There are three people – or groups of people – who I truly care about in this world. The first is Jack. The ultimate expression of femininity in Jack’s opinion is the blonde with an hourglass figure. It probably reflects the fact that he came of age in the late 50s and early 60s, the Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield era. So in part this is an expression of my love for Jack.

“The second group of people I truly care about are Ana, Bob, Maria and you. You all have given me a life better than anything I could have ever imagined. But I never felt quite on par with Maria and Ana. They are both Latin bombshells, truly gorgeous women, and whenever the three of us were together, I felt like the ugly stepsister…”

“Not true!” I protested. “You were every bit their equal in terms of femininity, style, sexuality…”

“OK,” Sharon interjected. “Maybe the term ‘ugly stepsister’ is too self-critical. With Maria’s and Ana’s help, I became a very attractive woman. But I still did not feel I was at their level. I felt that becoming a blonde bombshell would make us a complete trio. Or, more accurately, it would truly round out the six of us. Don’t you like the idea of me being the curvy blonde counterweight to the two voluptuous Latinas? Let’s not be timid – if we say we are dedicated to physical expression, then we should not be afraid to think in very physical terms.”

“All right,” I said. “And the third group of people you care about are…”

“The third group is my seniors,” Sharon said. “Sexy expression keeps them feeling alive, healthy and sexual. I figure that most of the seniors I am dealing with came of age in the decade following World War II, in the heyday of the blonde bombshell and the stiletto heel, so they should be able to identify very well with my expression. And, while you did not ask, the breast augmentation was done primarily for my seniors. I plan to do a lot of hugging, and I want them to feel large, heavy breasts when I give them a hug. I also want them to see a nice, busty woman when they come to the senior center. All that symbolic stuff about rebirth, nurturing, and rejuvenation that we associate with the female breast plays well on the subconscious.”

“No one can accuse you of being shallow, Sharon. You have really thought this through.”

“Oh, I can be shallow, too, Steve. I like the way my enlarged breasts project when I wear 5-inch heels. I got together with Maria last week, and she seemed kind of jealous about that.”

“Oh, please, don’t give her any ideas,” I said as I nervously squirmed in my seat. Sharon laughed. We pulled into the driveway of the senior center and parked.

To be continued

[Stu]

Walking into the senior center, I was able to look at Sharon with the benefit of having heard her analyses about her new look and her new job. And I began to see that Sharon and Jack had known what they were doing. She had been a remarkably attractive woman before, but now, walking into the senior center, she just exuded sex. The 5-inch stiletto heels, as they had been before, were the foundation, pushing her feet into the air, lengthening her legs and projecting her always-shapely butt outwards. But her shrunken waistline added to the effect, and her surgically enhanced chest added an entirely new dimension (quite literally) to her sexuality. She had not been kidding when she talked about the way her breasts projected when she was wearing 5-inch heels, and it was hard to not think about nurturing, suckling and similar thoughts in her presence. Even her bright blonde hair and styled hairdo would fill the mind with prurient thoughts. I wondered if it was all a little bit much, and whether she might repel some people who felt their senses were being overloaded. But if she was the one connection that these seniors might have with prime-of-life sexuality, she was probably right to have gone all out. Sharon introduced me to some of the volunteers who were already working to set up the luncheon, and then she became all business, as she directed the volunteers, checked on details, thanked them, and made sure the luncheon area was just the way she wanted it. Sharon shared the view of Maria, Ana and most other sexy, intelligent women that any physical attractiveness a woman could bring to the job stood for little if she could not do the job properly. A person of any age would be setting themselves up for trouble if they ever wrote off Sharon as a bimbo. A woman entered the room who seemed vaguely familiar, and she introduced herself to me as Mindy, Sharon’s boss. I had only seen her briefly some months before, but even then, I could see that she had lost at least 25 pounds. She was wearing a sharp pants suit and a pair of 3-inch heels that would have seemed out of place if she had been as heavy as she had been before. “You hired a special woman,” I said to Mindy after I introduced myself to her. “And you have a special friend,” Mindy said. “She has a lot of energy, and a lot of good ideas. I think a lot of people may see the heels and the short dresses and not realize how much she really has going inside her head. But once they get to know her, they will see what she truly has.” Pushed a little by curiosity, I said, “And you are comfortable, I assume, with the sexy image that Sharon likes to convey? As a friend of hers, I love it, but as you said, people initially can get the wrong ideas.” “My answer to that,” Mindy said, “is that we have a lot of problems in this country with the way we care for our seniors, and with the way we run social services in general. The last thing we need to worry about is an activities director who wants to portray a warm, sexy image for the seniors she is serving. We can use all the bold, new ideas we can get.” She added, “And someday, I will figure out how she manages to walk around all day, every day, in those heels.” I volunteered the fact that my wife and her friend had taught Sharon how to walk in heels. That amused Mindy, who said Sharon was returning the favor by giving her some tips on heel wearing, as well as suggesting the diet that had been helping her lose weight. “Maybe high heels are contagious,” she joked. Seniors were now beginning to enter the lunch room, which was now mostly set up. Sharon focused most of her energy on greeting the seniors that arrived. She was not a short woman, even standing barefoot, and in her 5-inch heels she was towering over many of the seniors. Even so, she warmly hugged many of the people as she greeted them, while leaning over quite a ways to avoid pressing her new D-cup breasts into the faces of many of these people. I suspected that Sharon was quite right in asserting that many of the seniors would find this to be an enriching experience. Sharon called me over and introduced me to the new seniors. Among other things, I learned that some of the senior women had started a new high-heel group in which they would bring vintage high heels to the center to show them to other seniors and swap stories about them. Of course, that had been Sharon’s idea, and she planned to personally attend as many of the meetings as she could. Almost 100 people sat down for a catered lunch that was better than one would have expected at a senior citizens center. Mindy opened the lunch with a short address in which she introduced Sharon for those seniors who might not have met her yet, and the applause Sharon received indicated that she indeed had been accepted quickly by most of the people there. After lunch, there was entertainment, including a folk-dance troupe, a small jazz band and – Sharon’s fingerprints were all over this – a fashion show that featured clothing-design students from the local community college. Lastly, Sharon presided over an awards ceremony in which she gave awards to some of the seniors who had volunteered the most time during the previous year. All in all, it was a successful, well-organized luncheon. Sharon said goodbye to many of the seniors as they departed, and then supervised the cleanup activities. I did my part by helping to put away chairs and fold up tables. When the cleanup was finished, Sharon warmly thanked everyone who had remained to help, and she and I then departed in her Porsche. On the way back to her house, Sharon shared with me many of the ideas she had for future senior activities and programs. She had a real passion for this job, and it was clear that Mindy would have been impressed with her even if she had conducted Sharon’s job interview while blindfolded. We arrived back at Sharon’s house. She went to the kitchen, poured me a beer, suggested I relax on the living room sofa, and then went upstairs to change. While sitting on the sofa, I picked up a photo album that was sitting on the coffee table, and began flipping through it. There were childhood photos of Sharon, and also a high-school graduation photograph that I had remembered from years ago. Other photos depicted her in nursing school, playing tennis, doing ballet and teaching a meditation class. There were photos of a wholesome-looking Sharon with various young men and women whom I could not identify. And then the photos began to change. There was one photo of Sharon standing awkwardly in 3-inch block heels, with Maria standing by her side in 4-1/2 stilettos. A few pages later, I saw the photo of Sharon in that yellow dress and the 5-1/2 inch stilettos she wore when she won the popularity contest at the night club we visited when we met Jack for the first time. There were photos of Sharon, Maria and Ana dressed elegantly in 6-inch heels on the day of our champagne brunch a couple of years earlier, and also of the three of them in 6-inch heels on the day of our adventure in Lake Tahoe, and our impromptu football game on their back patio. Yet another photo depicted the three of them with the Latin singer Luis Rojo. There were also a number of pages with photos – presumably taken by Jack – of Sharon in all kinds of sexy poses and outfits that I had never seen. There were no photos of Sharon since her surgery, but plenty of blank pages at the end of the album that could accommodate those photos when they were taken. I tried to imagine myself as a person looking through the photo album who did not know Sharon. What would I think of the intriguing left turn this woman had taken suddenly with her life, veering away from the ordinary American existence just a few short years earlier? Indeed, it was similar to the left turn I had taken with my own life, and I had photo albums at home brimming with pictures of Maria that told a similar story. But Sharon, more than any of us, was willing to push the envelope, and with her surgically enhanced body, she was starting on yet another adventure. One could only guess at the stories that she would someday be able to tell. Sharon entered the room. She had changed into a low-cut white halter top, a tight white miniskirt, and a pair of white, 5-inch stiletto sandals. “This will give you a better idea of the effect of the liposuction,” she said, rubbing her flat, tight belly. And, arching her back slightly, she added, “And it will give you a better feel for my new boobs, too.” She poured herself a Diet Coke. She apologized for not joining me with a beer, but she said she was paranoid about losing the flat belly and wanted to be sure she had it for a while. “OK,” she said, sitting down next to me on the couch. “Now you have been with me for several hours. Now I want to know what you think about the ‘new me.’” To be continued

[Stu]

“You are the sexiest woman I have ever seen,” I said. “I could not keep my eyes off you all the time I was at the senior center. I don’t think anybody could.”

“I am not sexier than Maria or Ana, even now,” Sharon countered. “But now I think I am at least in the same ballpark. And that is so important. Until recently, I was holding the six of us back.”

“Holding the six of us back from what?”

Sharon looked at me thoughtfully and did not respond right away. She finally said, “Let me start from the beginning. I don’t think it is an accident that the six of us were brought together. I am not a big believer in organized religion, but I do believe there are spiritual powers greater than ourselves, and I think those powers intended for us to be together.”

“What was their intent?”

“Presumably, for Ana, Maria and I to express our femininity and sexuality by wearing high heels and sexy clothing, and to share our expression with the world, with the support of Jack, Bob and you. Steve, each person is connected to every other person on our planet. One person’s actions affect everyone, like the pebble dropped in a pond that creates ripples that travel to the far side of the pond. Ana, Maria and I wear high heels and engage in sexy expression, and we may not know exactly how we affect people. But there are certainly women who see us and resolve to lose weight and dress better, and men who see us and redouble their efforts to find good girlfriends. And each one of their actions affects others. But the chain reaction starts with us.”

“That sounds reasonable. But I still don’t understand why you think you were holding the rest of us back.”

“Well, Maria and Ana have been high-heel wearers since their teens. They have drawn their share of admirers, and their careers have been doing well, in part because of their sexy reputations. In contrast, my nursing career was going nowhere, and I was stuck in flats and bland nursing uniforms during my working hours. I had to change my career, and I did. I had to complete the personal transformation of myself that Maria and Ana had started, and I did. Now, I believe I am their equal, and the six of us can proceed to the next step.”

“The next step? What is that?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. But if it is our destiny to be highly visible high-heel wearers, and your destiny as our husbands to support us, then we cannot rest on our laurels when we achieve a certain level. We have to constantly work on improving ourselves, and take our expressions to the next level. That is how we achieve a higher state of being. As long as I was not measuring up to Ana and Maria, the six of us could not advance. But now we can. Even if none of the six of us knows what that means.”

I did not know what to say. I did not want to offend Sharon by belittling her perception of some kind of spiritual purpose in our heely activities. But neither could I simply nod in agreement with what she was saying. Fortunately, Sharon let me off the hook. She slid over to me, put her arm around my shoulders and pulled me toward her until our noses were practically touching.

“I know what you are thinking, Steve,” she said. “There goes Sharon again with her kooky New Age mysticism. Now she has bigger boobs and wears stiletto heels every day, but she still spouts the same spiritual nonsense she was spewing out years ago.”

“Sharon, we may not always see eye to eye on spiritual matters. But I cannot imagine not having you in my life right now. And I know Maria feels the same way.”

I kissed Sharon affectionately on the lips. I told her I would love to stay and talk more, but that it was getting late. Sharon kissed me, and we got up off the sofa and walked toward the front door.

“Before you leave, I want to give you a hug,” Sharon said. She wrapped her arms around me, and I held her close. Her 5-inch heels were indeed helping to push her D-cup breasts into my chest, and I could see what she had said earlier about having people feel her big, heavy breasts when she hugged them.

“You know, you’re right,” I said as our hug ended. “There is something nurturing about that.”

“Yes, there is,” she replied. “I may have left nursing, but I am still a nurse, and I am going to make it a point to hug people from now on.”

I opened the front door and looked back at her. I suppose I will always be able to question whether the surgery was really necessary, but there was no question that, for this moment at least, Sharon was absolute perfection: her bright blonde hair, hourglass figure, her flawless abs exposed for me (and the rest of the world) to see, cute butt, long legs that were as graceful as ever, and all of them anchored on top of a pair of 5-inch stilettos that somehow improved upon what was already perfect. And topping it all off was a big, beautiful smile that made me wonder if I really wanted to leave.

Sharon said, “One last thing, Steve. You don’t have to believe anything I said about the six of us having a destiny and being ready to take things to a higher level. But, somewhere in the back of your mind, hold open the possibility that, for once, I may just be right.”

“Actually, I don’t think it matters what I think. If you believe we have a destiny to take our heely activities to a higher level, you are going to take the rest of us there, whether we want to go or not. I think you are going to make our lives very interesting.”

Sharon winked at me and said, “We can agree on that!”

Next: Sharon’s high-heel connection

[Stu]

Sharon’s High-Heel Connection

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

Sharon threw herself with relish into her new job as activities director at her city’s senior citizens center. With good reason, she thought of it as two jobs. There was the “conventional” job, which consisted of managing budgets, planning activities for the seniors, working with volunteers to make sure the activities went as intended, and interacting with seniors to make them feel welcome. This required a lot of patience, enthusiasm and long hours, but Sharon did not mind, as she felt a passion for her work that had been missing for a long time.

And then there was the “unconventional” job, in which Sharon tested her offbeat theory that her sex appeal could be used to nurture and brighten the daily outlook of the elderly. Day after day, she came to work in 5-inch heels and an ever-greater variety of blouse-miniskirt combinations, form-fitting dresses and snug pants suits. Normally, a person in that job would not be able to afford the expensive heels and designer clothes that were rapidly accumulating in Sharon’s closet. But Sharon had the luxury of not having to worry about supporting herself on her job’s modest salary, as she drew upon her husband’s considerable wealth to finance her costly work attire. For Sharon, the job was not about money, but instead was, quite literally, a labor of love.

Sharon’s popularity with the seniors was strong evidence in support of her theory. There were a few seniors who were offended by Sharon’s style and severed their ties with the center, but they seemed to be outnumbered by other seniors who liked Sharon and felt she had livened things at their little community. Attendance at senior activities increased during Sharon’s first months on the job, and more than a few seniors admitted that they looked forward to coming to the center to see Sharon’s outfit for that day. Some seniors took to affectionately calling her “our little fashion model”, while others more bluntly referred to her as “the sexpot”.

One of the regulars at the center became particularly close to Sharon. Helen was 72 years old and had been widowed for several years. She became more active at the center after Sharon started there, and was always complimentary of Sharon’s taste in clothes and shoes. One day, she invited Sharon over to her house for afternoon tea, and they agreed to get together the following week.

When Sharon arrived at Helen’s house, her impression was that it had the typical look of a home occupied by an elderly person. The place was overfurnished with chairs, tables and other furnishings accumulated over a lifetime. A multitude of aging photos lined the walls, revealing the many people who had been important to Helen throughout her life. The living room table was all prepared for tea, and when Sharon went to sit down, she was greeted by the unusual sight of a pair of vintage stiletto-heeled shoes on the chair next to hers.

“What gorgeous shoes, Helen!” Sharon said. “I did not know you were a high-heel wearer. You should really bring these in to the center to show the others. These look like they are from the 1950s.”

“The late 50s, I believe. The original generation of stiletto shoes,” Helen said. “But they were not mine. I could never wear shoes like that. They belonged to my late sister, Felicia.”

“Absolutely splendid,” Sharon said, picking up one of the shoes. “You don’t see style like this any more. Your sister was quite the high-heel wearer.”

“Yes, she was. Actually, Sharon, she was a lot like you in some ways. Felicia was a brunette, not a blonde. But like you, she had an ample bosom, a small waist, long legs and she just lived in heels like those. Always had a trail of men after her. She was quite the rebel.”

“Sounds like my kind of woman. I am sorry you don’t have her any more.”

They sat down and began sipping their tea and nibbling on cookies.

Helen explained that Felicia died in 1971 at the age of 40. She opened the photo album that was sitting on the table. The pictures were all of Felicia, most of them from the 1950s. It was apparent from the photos that Felicia was a striking woman, with long, flowing brown hair and the kind of hourglass figure that was worshipped during that era. To Sharon, she bore a reasonable resemblance to the actress Jane Russell. Felicia also was a fashion plate, as in each photo she was wearing striking 1950s dresses and, of course, very high heels.

“Even as a teenager, Felicia was out most of the night with the fellows,” Helen said. “I was the straight and narrow type, while Felicia was putting gray hairs on my parents’ heads. Even though I was born five years before her, I was the one who looked up to Felicia as an older sister. I knew I could never be like her, but there was a part of me that really envied her."

“I can see why you envied her. These photos are just wonderful. She really was a natural model,” Sharon said, turning pages of the album. “The intensity in those dark, brown eyes of hers comes through in every photo.”

“The 1950s were her time, no doubt about it. She was in her 20s, at the height of her beauty. Men worshipped her. But she could never settle down. She went from boyfriend to boyfriend, and from job to job. She never had trouble finding either a man or a job, but she couldn’t stay with either one for very long. A few months, maybe a year, and she would be on to someone and something else. I always thought the term, ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ fit her better than it did James Dean.”

“It sounds like her lifestyle caught up with her.”

“If the 1950s had lasted forever, she would still be here. Nothing was more important to her than style. The clothes and shoes of the era were just tailor-made for her. Men and jobs were disposable for her, but that stylish femininity was her life. By 1964 or so, the country had moved on, but Felicia never could. She could not adapt to the 1960s.”

Helen poured Sharon another cup of tea. “That is ironic,” Sharon said. “Felicia seemed like such a free spirit. You would think she would have thrived in the 60s.”

“The sexual revolution posed no problem for her. But she just could not accept other aspects of 60s culture, particularly the fashions. The informal 60s fashions -- tee-shirts, short skirts, low heels, flowery and psychedelic designs – were just anathema to her. By that time, she was in her mid-30s with no husband, no career, and a youth-dominated culture that was undergoing revolutionary change. As a result, she did embrace one unfortunate element of the 60s: She got hooked on drugs. She wasn’t looking for enlightenment, just an escape. By the beginning of the 70s, that was it for her. She died of a heart attack, alone in her low-rent apartment.”

The last pages of the photo album contained some 1960s-era photos of her. Consistent with what Helen had said, the sparkle in her 1950s eyes had been replaced by a dull, tired look. She looked out of place in the fading colors of those 1960s prints.

“Isn’t that the way it is with revolutionaries? They flame out when they are still young,” Sharon said.

“I don’t talk a lot about Felicia. I don’t think most people would understand her. Ever since she died, I have looked unsuccessfully for women who are somewhat like her. I was beginning to think Felicia was the only woman of her kind who ever lived. But when I saw you for the first time at the center, Sharon, I realized that you were the one I was seeking for almost 30 years. You have Felicia’s style, with the way you wear stiletto heels and those stylish dresses every day. You have more in common with her than anyone I have ever known. If Felicia could come back today, I even think she would approve of your miniskirts. ”

“You are too kind, Helen. I don’t think I could hold a candle to your sister.”

Helen got up from the table. “Come here, Sharon. I would like to show you something.”

To be continued.

[Stu]

They walked into a bedroom that appeared to be maintained for guests. Helen opened a closet door, revealing a row of 1950s-era dresses and a floor packed with all kinds of high-heel shoes. “Oh my!” Sharon exclaimed. “These are stunning, and I am sure some of them are worth a lot of money today. Not that you would sell them.” Helen said, “When Felicia died, I cleaned out her apartment. I donated all her late-60s, early-70s clothes to charity, as they had little value. But she kept all these 1950s clothes and shoes in her closet as though she was wearing them every week, even though most of them were 15 to 20 years old even then. I carefully packed everything away in boxes and put them in my attic. After my husband died a few years ago, I decided to unpack Felicia’s articles and put them here, so I could remember her. Sort of a shrine, you might say.” “These dresses and shoes are too beautiful to be packed away in boxes. Can I look at them?” Sharon asked. She picked up each dress, admiring its distinctive features, and then studied the shoes. “What an era for this kind of fashion,” she said. “You can try on any of the dresses and shoes. Go ahead,” Helen said. “Oh no! I could never do anything like that.” “Sharon, you may think I am a silly old fool. But I think Felicia’s spirit was too powerful to die. I have always felt that a little bit of her soul has been preserved with these dresses and shoes. As long as they exist, a little bit of her will exist, too. I think the right woman who wears these dresses and shoes can liberate that spirit of hers so that we can feel her presence. I tried to do it 25 years ago, but I failed, because I was the wrong size and I could not even balance in those high heels. But I am convinced you can do it, Sharon. You are about the same size as Felicia was, and you have the ability to wear those heels as they were intended.” The thought of wearing a dead woman’s 45-year-old dresses and shoes struck Sharon as macabre. But she noticed that the shoes were indeed her size, and the dresses seemed pretty close to her size as well. She had seen photos of these kinds of clothes and shoes in old magazines, but she had never thought she would actually handle them herself, much less wear them. Despite her own spiritual tendencies, she did not think much of Helen’s belief that Felicia’s soul could still be present in her clothing. But the thought of being able to try on such rare and exciting dresses was so tempting that she told Helen she would do it. “I’ll try this one,” Sharon said, taking a black dress from the closet. “And these, too,” she said, picking up a pair of high stiletto heels. Sharon kicked off her own 5-inch mules, removed her yellow blouse, and shimmied out of her tight white miniskirt. She then gently put on the black dress, which featured a V-shaped neckline and shoulder pads. She eased herself into the stiletto heels, which she estimated were about 5-1/4 inches high. Helen zipped up the dress from behind. Everything certainly felt right. Sharon turned around to look at a full-length mirror and gasped. The dress was a perfect fit, showing off her hourglass figure impressively and, in particular, flattering her chest and waist. The shoes fit as if Sharon had been wearing them for years, and were quite comfortable. “Unbelievable!” Sharon said. “I have had dresses specially made for me that don’t fit as well as this one. This is very spooky.” “It all makes sense,” Helen said. “You are the one, the one woman in a million who has the ability to communicate with Felicia. The first time I saw you at the senior center, I knew you were the right one.” Sharon was wondering if perhaps Helen was right. She left the bedroom and walked back to the dining room. She wished she could walk out the front door and be magically transported back to 1953, so she could experience the full flavor of the era. Even so, this was turning into a much more memorable afternoon-tea visit than she had been anticipating. Helen followed Sharon back to the living room. Sharon picked up her unfinished cup of tea and took a sip, while taking extraordinary care not to spill any tea on the vintage dress. She put the tea down, and looked around the room. She sensed something was there that had not been there before. She could not quite describe it, but she had a feeling that a third person had joined them inside the house. A person, or perhaps an entity? The house was absolutely silent, but the feeling grew stronger. Sharon looked at Helen, and Helen looked back at Sharon with a very knowing expression, as if she was having the same experience as Sharon. “Do you feel that?” Helen asked. “You do feel it, don’t you?” “I feel something very intense,” Sharon said. “Not a feeling from inside me, but something intense coming into me from outside. Maybe I am getting to this vintage clothes thing a little too much.” “It’s Felicia. Or at least, a vestige of her spirit,” Helen said. “What you and I are feeling now is the way I always felt when she walked in the room. She was an intense person. You can imagine what she was like in her prime.” Sharon walked over and stood in front of the living room mirror. The intense sensation abated a bit, replaced in part by a feeling of serenity and joy. Sharon looked at herself in the mirror, then turned to the side so that she –and anything else in the room – could view her in profile. “If this is Felicia, I hope she can see what is in the mirror,” Sharon said. “Since our figures are – or were? – so similar, I hope this can be something of a reminder for her.” Helen stood in front of the mirror with Sharon. “And Felicia may not see me, but if she can, she will see that I got old.” After a couple of minutes in front of the mirror, Sharon walked back into the bedroom, making a point of wiggling in a slow, sensuous manner. She had been so busy lately that she often forgot how much she enjoyed the rocking of her hips and the arching of her back when she walked in high heels. If Felicia’s spirit really was with them – and Sharon was beginning to believe it was – then Sharon thought the spirit might be able to enjoy the little movements and feelings produced by walking in very high heels. And, sure enough, the feeling of serenity grew with each step she took. With Helen following her, Sharon returned to the bedroom. She bent down and picked up one of the many interesting pairs of high heels in the closet, examined them, and then put them down on the floor. She took off the shoes she was wearing with the intent of changing into the pair of other shoes. But as soon as both shoes were off her feet, the feeling of Felicia’s spirit – or whatever it was – vanished, as if a light had been turned off. “Put on the shoes! Put on the shoes! Quick!” Helen cried. Even though neither Sharon nor Helen had said a word, they both sensed the disappearance of the spirit. Resisting the impulse to put her feet back into the shoes she had been wearing, Sharon put on the second pair of shoes. And Felicia’s spirit immediately came back, intense at first, but then calming. “So that’s it,” Helen said. “The dresses may be nice, but the shoes are the key. Sharon, you have to wear Felicia’s shoes in order for her spirit to emerge.” “Not only me, but an expert high heel wearer who happens to share our shoe size,” Sharon said. “Admittedly, there probably are not a lot of women who can do this.” Sharon spent the rest of the afternoon at Helen’s house, and got comfortable with the thought that she did indeed have the ability to bring out Felicia’s spirit by wearing her high heels. It was only with the greatest of reluctance that she changed back into her own clothes and shoe, and said goodbye to Helen. But both women agreed on what they would do next. To be continued

[Stu]

They drove through an older part of town that neither Jack nor Sharon knew very well. Helen, who was sitting in the back seat, guided Jack, who was driving. They finally pulled up in front of an older building that had seen better days. Jack got out of the car first and helped Helen out, while Sharon got out and looked around. As excited as she was about the evening, Sharon felt a little out of place. She was wearing a red dress that had belonged to Felicia, which meant the dress was over 40 years old. On her feet were a pair of Felicia’s red pumps, with a 5-inch stiletto heel. It was one thing for her to wear Felicia’s dresses and shoes in the privacy of Helen’s home, but another for her to go out in public in such old clothes. How ironic, she said to herself: She thought nothing of going to work in 5-inch heels and tight-fitting miniskirts, but she somehow felt awkward about wandering out in elegant old clothes. The world was not a logical place. “This is the place,” Helen said, pointing to the small bar and restaurant in front of where they had parked. “This was one of the real ‘in’ places in the 50s, one of Felicia’s favorites. It has seen better days, I am afraid.” Jack said, “The important thing is that it is still here. If it had been renovated and modernized over the years, it would not be recognizable to you. It does have that kind of genuine, musty mid-1950s feel to it.” They walked inside, and Sharon felt as if they had indeed stepped into a time warp. Her heels clicked loudly on the aging, cracked tile floor. The wood paneling on the walls and the bar itself was fading. The people inside were all white, and most of them were over 60. They were working-class types, neither friendly nor hostile. They evoked the blue-collar, unionized working class of the mid-20th century, when people were able to live a middle-class lifestyle with the income from their factory jobs. As the three of them walked to their table, most of the patrons in the place had their eye on Sharon. As a curvy blonde in 1950s garb, she was bound to get attention. They sat down at a table and ordered drinks. An old Frank Sinatra song played in the background, which seemed to energize Helen. “I loved Sinatra, but Felicia never cared much for him. The same with singers like Perry Como and Bing Crosby. She was more adventurous. She went for the likes of Charlie Parker and other black musicians. She even liked Muddy Waters when whites had barely heard of him. She later enjoyed Elvis and early rock ‘n roll. But she loved Billie Holiday. Something about Billie Holiday just really appealed to Felicia.” “That is not surprising,” Jack said. “Billie Holliday was passionate, but she also struggled with her own demons. I am sure Felicia felt a big kinship with her.” Jack added, “Speaking of Felicia, how are you feeling, Sharon? Is this experiment working as you expected?” “Yes,” Sharon said. “Felicia is with us. I feel her. She knows this place. She is giving me a very warm feeling. The same with you, Helen?” “Yes,” Helen said. “If anyone is feeling a little cold about this place, it’s me. It looks a lot like it did in the 50s, except back then it didn’t look quite so old.” Jack said, “Well, I don’t feel a thing. I guess you either had to know Felicia, or you have to be wearing her shoes.” Sharon was feeling a little thirsty, and she got up to ask the bartender for a glass of water. A man who appeared to be about 70 years old was sitting at the bar and talking to the bartender when Sharon approached them and asked for some water. The elderly man was staring at Sharon and, in particular, her dress. The bartender gave Sharon a glass of water when the older man apologized. “Sorry, ma’am, I did not mean to stare at you. I was just intrigued by your dress. It seems to be right out of a 50s movie, and it reminds me of someone I knew long ago.” “Was that someone a woman named Felicia, by any chance?” Sharon asked. The man gasped. “My God! Yes, I was thinking of Felicia. How could you have possibly known that? Did you know her? No, you are too young.” “The woman sitting with me is Felicia’s sister,” Sharon said cooly. “I am wearing Felicia’s dress and shoes. We came here because we thought we might run into an old-timer who knew her.” “My name is Ben,” the man said. “And I ..” Sharon interrupted him to invite him back to her table. She introduced Ben to Jack and Felicia, and then encouraged Ben to tell his story. “I dated Felicia for about a year, around 1954 or so. She was, oh, maybe 23 years old at that point. I was 26. Most gorgeous woman you could ever lay eyes on. Mesmerizing. And she wore this dress a lot,” he said, as he pointed to the red dress. “I danced with her when she was in that dress. I took her for long rides. I made out with her when she was wearing that dress and, well, you know…” “Were you in love with her?” Helen asked. “Hell, yes. I proposed to her several times. She turned me down and finally dumped me. One of the worst days of my life. I recovered and I eventually married twice, and now I’ve been divorced twice. I was in love with each of my wives, but it was not the same as it had been with Felicia. “I happened to be in a restaurant with my first wife and our two kids when an old friend saw me and told me Felicia had died. I had never told my wife about Felicia. I kept myself composed until we got home. I told my wife I had to go for a walk, and I went outside and bawled my eyes out. I always wanted to think she would have been happy with me, that she would have welcomed the chance to settle down, and we would grow old together. But Felicia wasn’t that type.” “No, she wasn’t,” Helen said. Turning to Sharon, Ben said, “If you don’t mind me asking, ma’am, why did you come here tonight, and why are you wearing Felicia’s dress?” “That’s a fair question,” Sharon said. “I felt that coming here to her old hangout, and wearing her clothes, would enable me to get to know her better.” She hesitated for a moment and added, “There is a bit of Felicia’s spirit in the shoes I am wearing. Coming here is our way of honoring her, and helping her to rest peacefully.” “I see,” Ben said. “I must say, the resemblance between Felicia and you are uncanny. Not too many women in any era have her figure. All you need to do is dye your hair brown, and you would be a real ringer for her.” Ben turned to the bartender and yelled, “Hey, Chuck! You have that Billie Holiday record I ask you to play every once in a while? Can you put it on?” The bartender opened a drawer, pulled out a CD and put it on the restaurant’s music system. The soft jazz and blues music of Billie Holiday filled the aging building. Several couples from other tables got up to dance on the bar’s small dance floor. Sharon turned to Ben and asked him if he would like to dance. Ben said yes. They got up and began to slow dance. “I know that Felicia is long gone, but who would have thought I would ever be able to again touch her dress? This is crazy,” Ben said as they danced. “Don’t question miracles. Accept them and enjoy,” Sharon said. “I don’t know if you can feel Felicia, but a part of her is with us tonight.” “What is she feeling?” “She is purring like a cat. She is in this familiar place, and dancing again with you. We cannot see her, and I doubt she can see us. But we can sense her, and I am certain she can sense us.” “I would like to believe that,” Ben said, although by his tone of voice, he clearly did not. “Come closer to me,” Sharon said, pulling Ben tightly against her. “You knew Felicia. Open your mind and your senses, and I think you will be able to feel her.” They danced to another Billie Holiday song. Ben was rubbing one of Sharon’s shoulders – or, more accurately, he was rubbing Felicia’s dress—when he said, “Jesus, I think I know what you mean. Felicia really is here. I am feeling her now. That was what you meant, wasn’t it?” To be continued

[Stu]

“Yes,” Sharon said. “Felicia was so totally devoted to her style that a part of her remains in each shoe she wore. A small part, perhaps. But people like you, who knew her, can feel her.”

The next song came on, opening with a sensuously slow saxophone solo. Billie Holiday then came on and sang the blues lines, “I’ve been down so long, down don’t worry me, I just sit and wonder, where can my good man be?”

Ben said, “That was one of Felicia’s favorites. “Stormy Blues” by Billie Holiday. It came out while we were dating, and she just fell in love with the song. She really identified with it.”

Tears began to well up in Ben’s eyes. He looked at Sharon and said, “Oh, Felicia. Why did you leave me? I could have saved you if only you had let me. Life could have been good, Felicia. You just had to believe in me, Felicia. Your good man was with you the entire time, but you never believed.”

“It’s all right, Ben. It’s all right,” Sharon said as she affectionately stroked Ben’s hair and neck. “Felicia hears you. I think she understands now.”

The song finished, and they went to sit down. The four spent several hours talking about Felicia, with Helen and Ben swapping stories that neither had ever heard. Many of them were good stories, and a few were sad. By the end, Sharon and Jack felt they knew Felicia so well that they half expected her to come walking in the front door.

When they finally got up to leave, Ben said to them, “I never really said good-bye to Felicia when she broke up with me, because I wanted to believe so bad that she would come back. And, of course, I never said goodbye to Felicia before she died. Tonight, I have the chance to say goodbye the right way.” He turned to Sharon and said, “Felicia, I loved you, and I always will love you. Rest in peace, my love.” He hugged Sharon tightly, and he hugged Helen as well. And Sharon felt a sensation of peace, the first time she had felt anything like that since her visit to Helen’s house several days earlier.

The hour was late, and Jack and Sharon dropped Helen off at her house and then went straight home with Sharon still in Felicia’s dress and shoes. Sharon folded the dress up neatly before going to bed, and gently hand-washed it the following morning. Rather than place the delicate garment in the dryer, she hung it up to dry in the laundry room. She then placed Felicia’s red stiletto pumps under the dress, and stood there looking at them.

Jack walked by and said, “This has been quite a few days for you.”

“I was heavy into New Age spiritualism for some time, but I never thought I could bring a dead person’s spirit back to life, even for a few moments,” Sharon said. “But Felicia and I have a connection. Maybe I am inserting my own bias into this, but perhaps there is an eternal bond among high-heel wearers of different generations. Our belief in our form of expression conquers time, and perhaps even our own mortality.”

“Perhaps so,” Jack said. “You can say that about any passion. A baseball player today can feel the same bond to Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio or Mickey Mantle. Passion is what truly makes us human.”

“There is so much more that we can do,” Sharon said. “Helen has a large closet packed with Felicia’s dresses and shoes. There are so many combinations to try, so many places to go. I am sure that Helen…”

“No,” Jack said, interrupting Sharon. “Felicia’s time was the 1950s. She lived her life, as tragically short as it was. This is your time, Sharon. You have to live your life, not Felicia’s.”

Jack was rarely so direct and authoritative in disagreeing with Sharon. But as he said it, Sharon knew he was right. With her new job, and with all the ideas brimming in her head for Ana, Maria and herself, there was plenty for her to do. One life – her own life – was plenty.

She got dressed in what, for her, was very casual wear: a tee-shirt, a short denim skirt, and 4-inch wedge heels. She told Jack she wanted to go buy a CD, and they went out to the local music store. When they returned home, Sharon popped the new CD – a collection of Billie Holiday songs – into the player. The song “Stormy Blues” came on, and Sharon embraced Jack as they began to dance to the slow blues. “I’ve been down so long, down don’t worry me…”

“This song is for Felicia,” Sharon said.

“OK, this song is for Felicia,” Jack said. He gave Sharon a long, passionate kiss.

Next: Ana, Maria and Sharon take “the next step”.

[raincat]

Hi Stu. Sharon's newfound connection with Felicia's spirit has added a most interesting twist to what was already a very good storyline. The possiblities of where it might go from here are almost limitless. Keep up the good work.

[Stu]

Hi, Raincat. I'm glad you liked the supernatural element to this heely saga. Perhaps it inspired Sharon and the others to take the final step to places they had never been before, as described in this next story....

The Next Step

Written in the first person by Steve

On a sunny Sunday afternoon, Maria and I made our way over to Jack’s and Sharon’s house. We were strangely silent in the car, considering that this was intended to be a day of raucous, uninhibited fun. Sharon and Jack (as usual) had proposed the get-together in order to take “the next step” in our unusual interest with high heels and sexy expression. They argued that we needed to build upon the impressive accomplishments of the past two years – the good career fortunes of our three ladies, the fact that their high-heel habits had appeared to help their careers rather than hinder them, the expansion of their fashion wardrobes and their mastery of 6-inch heels. As Sharon saw it, we could either rest on our laurels or advance, and we all agreed that advancement was the way to go.

And that meant that the three ladies were ready for the ultimate challenge: 7-inch heels.

Maria was looking forward to testing herself in 7-inch heels, which was a refreshing contrast to her initial reluctance to experiment with 6-inch heels two years earlier. While she had always been confident in her own abilities, she was now comfortable with the idea that her feet and, more generally, her body, were hers to enjoy as she pleased. She was no longer concerned with trying to draw a line between fashion and fetish. The success she was having in her new job – her change into 5-1/2 inch heels in the middle of her marketing report had become legend at her department store chain – had convinced her that her ability to wear high heels was a gift. And anyone with a gift has a responsibility to develop that special talent to the fullest. Furthermore, Maria reasoned that if she had a gift, then Ana and Sharon did, too, in light of their recent successes. It was easy to accept Sharon’s argument that the three of them – and the six of us – had somehow been destined to meet and develop our high-heel lifestyle together.

Several weeks earlier, Ana, Sharon and Maria had perused a number of Web sites before ordering their 7-inch heels. Each of the women had received their pair in the previous week, and somehow Maria had resisted the temptation to try hers on in light of Sharon’s suggestion that each of them wait until they got together on this Sunday afternoon. The unopened shoe box with the extreme heels was in the car with us.

Bob and Ana had arrived at the house just before we did. Our three ladies were all wearing casual sun dresses with 5-inch sandals, which was nothing exceptional for them. Sharon passed out sparking apple cider in champagne glasses (there was to be no alcohol prior to the 7-inch heel tryouts!), and we toasted our good fortune. She then pointed to three gift-wrapped packages on the kitchen table, labeled with Ana’s, Maria’s and Sharon’s names.

“These gifts are from Jack and me,” Sharon said. “We wanted to make sure the day was memorable. If we are going to go extreme, let’s go extreme all the way.”

Each of the ladies opened their packages to find a thong bikini inside. “If either of you are uncomfortable with this, you don’t have to wear them. And that goes for any discomfort on the part of your husbands, too,” Sharon assured us. “It is a grand American tradition for attractive women to wear skimpy bathing suits, so we thought this would be a good occasion for it. I’ll demonstrate first.”

Sharon went into the bathroom and came out a few minutes later wearing only the thong bikini and her 5-inch stiletto sandals. I thought I had become accustomed to Sharon’s dramatic new figure, but it was like I was seeing her for the first time. Her hourglass figure was there for all to see, covered only by the barest of a bikini top and an even skimpier bottom. Her bright blonde hair, generous bust, small waist, curvy hips, long legs and feet toughened by several years in high heels were goddess-like in their perfection. Jack started clapping, and the other four of us joined in. If only some of her elderly friends could see her now!

“Ana, how about you?” Sharon asked. Ana replied, “Absolutely,” and went into the bathroom to change. I was impressed by Ana’s growing self-confidence and sense of adventure over the last several years. For quite a while after meeting Maria, she had been the more passive of the two, and she often waited for Maria to agree to try something new before she would attempt it. But that had all changed. Her promotion at work and the circumstances surrounding it, as well as her friendship with George and Patricia, had made her eager to push the boundaries of her expression. She emerged from the bathroom in her thong and 5-inch sandals and soaked up the applause from the rest of us. She wiggled her way into the living room to look at herself in a full-length mirror, and giggled like a nervous schoolgirl. She walked back toward us and turned her back toward us. All those years I had admired Ana’s beautiful rear end through her numerous tight pants and sexy dresses, and now I was seeing it in all its natural splendor, with the thong itself barely visible.

“OK, Maria,” Sharon said. Maria looked a little embarrassed and told Sharon she did not think she could wear the thong. Instead, Maria pulled a bathing suit out of the shopping bag she brought with us, and walked into the bathroom to change. Even with all her success and her ability to feel comfortable in public in outrageous clothes, Maria was still amazingly squeamish about her near-naked body, even in the presence of only her most intimate friends. She emerged from the bathroom in a suit that was daring by her standards: A red one-piece suit that was cut extremely high around her hips and extremely low around her bust. All of those beautiful hips of hers were on display, and she was showing as much cleavage as I had ever seen outside of the bedroom. It was hard to feel disappointed with her selection, and she received generous applause from us as well.

We then walked out to the large swimming pool in the backyard. Prior to toasting ourselves with the apple cider earlier, Jack had managed to sneak out to the pool long enough to set up the three pairs of black, 7-inch pumps on the patio surrounding the pool. Depending on one’s point of view, they were both an awesome and an intimidating sight. The outrageous heel and vertical arch of the shoe made them incredibly erotic – to see. To actually have to wear them was another matter, and the women understandably were somewhat nervous.

The initial objective was just for the women to see if they could stand in the heels and, if so, to take a few steps with or without assistance. Jack put a chair down behind each of the pairs of heels. He then said, with a false sense of drama, “Ladies, whenever you are ready, please take your seats. Gentlemen, upon their word, please help them into their shoes.”

The three ladies took off their 5-inch heels and sat down in their chairs. I walked up to Maria, got down on one knee, and picked up one of the 7-inch heels. “Ready?” I asked. When Maria said yes, I carefully slid the heel onto her foot, which amazingly contorted itself into a vertical position to accept the shoe. I then slid on the other shoe. “How does it feel?” I asked.

“Very nice. Very sexy. As long as I am sitting,” Maria said. “What a difference from the 6-inch heels. Just that one silly little inch.”

Bob had eased Ana into her heels, and Jack had done the same with Sharon. I helped Maria up out of the chair, and I was impressed that she was able to balance herself and stand without any help. Ana and Sharon were able to do the same, and all three were able to stand tall and straight, without bending their knees. The distortion of their bodies was pretty incredible. They almost looked like the drawings of women from an underground erotic cartoon.

Sharon and Ana were laughing nervously, with Sharon pleading, “Jack, don’t go too far! You have to catch me if I fall!” Maria stayed quiet and was intently concentrating on what she would do next.

“OK,” Maria said. “Hold me gently on the arm.” I put my right hand under her left forearm, primarily to help her balance if she needed it. Maria took a baby step forward with her right foot, and then with her left. She repeated the baby steps a couple of more times, then started to fall forward until I pulled her upright. “Damn it!” she said. “Who was the demented person who thought 7-inch heels would be sexy?”

“You are in the world of extremes right now,” Jack replied in his professorial manner. “The concept of ‘sexy’ that you have from the conventional world does not apply here. You will never be able to have a sexy walk in the conventional sense in 7-inch heels. The erotic power of these shoes lies in the simple fact that they are outrageously, ridiculously extreme. The fact that these shoes exist – and that your feet are in them -- makes them sexy. Don’t think that you will master these like you have 6-inch heels.”

While Jack was talking, Ana took a few tentative baby steps in the heels. Sharon tried hers a few moments later when Jack returned to giving her his full concentration. I took my hand off of Maria and let her take the next few steps totally on her own, although I was ready to catch her if the need arose.

“Let’s go around the pool,” Maria said. She took some longer steps, and while she needed to bend her knees a bit to remain balanced, she straightened her legs at the end of each step. In back of us, I heard Ana say, “Follow Maria!” Bob and she followed several steps behind us in this slow-motion walkathon. I turned around to look when Maria stopped a few steps later to rest. Ana was walking a little more tentatively than Maria – her steps were slower and her knees were bent a little more – but she was still doing impressively well. Sharon, meanwhile, was struggling. She was taking one baby step at a time with her knees bent and was relying on Jack’s support to stay balanced. She had every reason to feel proud – how many women could even stand in 7-inch heels, let alone take baby steps? But the high-heel skills she had gained as an adult, as considerable as they were, still were no match for those of Maria and Ana, who had been high-heel wearers from the time they were teenagers. It seemed like these two women could do practically anything.

Maria and I had rounded the far side of the pool when we heard Sharon say, “That’s it! My feet are killing me! We’ll try this another day.” We stopped to look. With Jack holding her, Sharon stepped out of her heels. It was one of the few times in recent memory that she looked liberated in her flat, barefoot feet. “Time for a dip in the pool!” she said, and she promptly dove into the water. She surfaced near us and said, “Go as far as you can, girls, but don’t hurt yourselves!”

To be continued.

[Stu]

We continued our slow-motion odyssey. Maria took each step slowly and deliberately, almost as if she were a tightrope walker. She took some steps entirely on her own, but on her other steps she leaned on me for support. We were about halfway around the pool when we heard Ana mutter a Spanish expletive behind us. “I have done as much as I can!” Ana said. Bob and she were about 15 feet behind us. I turned around in time to see Ana step out of the heels. “That is torture!” Perhaps it was, but Bob rightfully praised Ana for her ability to walk as far as she had. “A truly inspired feat, whether you spell it f-e-a-t or f-e-e-t,” Bob told her. Maria was now the sole survivor of the three, and she continued to take her steps. As we started to round the backside of the pool, I was beginning to think that she might actually complete one circuit around it. But she started to wither quickly. “Shit!” Maria whispered to me. “My feet feel like they’re falling apart. My toes, arches, ankles are all hurting. I think I feel some cramps coming on.” “Don’t overdo it,” I counseled her. “You have gone beyond what anyone could have expected of you. More practice will build up your endurance.” “Just a few more steps,” Maria said. But it finally became too much for her. She put her arm around my shoulder and leaned on me as she took off the shoes. “Oh, God,” she sighed in relief. Maria received a round of applause from the five of us. Sharon had gotten out of the pool while we had been walking, and she was helping Jack pour glasses of champagne for the six of us. We congratulated ourselves by downing some champagne and munching on some snack food. The celebration then turned amorous. Jack sat down in one of the reclining poolside chairs, and Sharon reclined on top of him. Sharon’s skimpy bikini top barely contained her full-size breasts, and her nipples were practically popping through the wet material. Jack and Sharon were soon in a horizontal position and locked in a passionate embrace. Meanwhile, Ana and Bob sat down in another chair and became pretty romantic themselves, with Bob’s hand rubbing Ana’s bare butt and probing for her tiny thong strap. Within a few minutes, Ana and Bob headed inside to one of the guest bedrooms that Jack and Sharon maintained as lovemaking rooms for us. Jack and Sharon also got up and went in the house to their own bedroom, leaving Maria and I alone by the pool. I poured a second glass of champagne for Maria and myself. “The 7-inch heels and the thong bikinis appear to have had the desired aphrodisiac effect on our friends. But not us,” I said. Maria replied, “Sharon and Jack are still focused on working her new boobs into her overall expression. And I think Ana and Bob got sidetracked by the thong bikini. But I am focused on the heels. I am going to rest my feet for a while longer, and then I am going to do another circuit around the pool. The entire pool.” “If you think your feet will allow it,” I said. I knew what was driving part of Maria’s determination to walk in 7-inch heels. Her boss Cathy had confided to her several weeks earlier that she owned a pair of 7-inch heels and occasionally liked to use them for a walk around the house. Cathy had told Maria that, for a committed high-heel wearer, 7-inch heels were the ultimate experience. Once a woman had mastered 7-inch heels, she had accomplished everything, Cathy had said. And ultra-competitive Maria wanted to make sure that she was every bit as capable as her boss at walking in extreme heels, even if Maria was brand new at it. I still had not met Cathy at that point, but I figured the only thing preventing her from joining our intimate little heely group was the fact that she was still Maria’s boss. Maria took one sip of champagne and said she did not want any more, or it could impact her second go-around in the extreme heels. Instead, she wanted to go inside the house to get a glass of water. We went inside and passed the guest bedroom, where we could hear Bob and Ana making love. Maria got a glass of water from the kitchen and was sipping it when a thought occurred to me. A couple of weeks earlier, during one of her occasional foul moods, Maria had complained that she was the driver in our marriage when it came to her high heels and sexy expression. She complained that she was making all the decisions about shoes and clothes, and that I never pushed her or even offered suggestions in that area. She said I was too timid and that I needed to be more assertive in telling her what I would like her to wear. She reminded me that this aspect of our marriage, like most of our relationship, was a partnership, and that any success or failure relating to shoes and clothes was ours to share. Mindful of that conversation, I picked up the package with Maria’s name on it that contained the thong bikini. I held it up to her and said, “Before you begin your encore performance, I think you should change into this.” “I am not much into bathing suits, especially thongs. I would rather not,” Maria replied. “That does not matter. You are not wearing it in public. Sharon bought it for you as a gift, and you should have accepted it.” “Sharon would not want me to do anything that makes me uncomfortable. She was not at all hurt that I decided to wear my bathing suit.” “True, but that is besides the point. Sharon and Ana went along with the thongs, but you did not. You distanced yourself from them. You do that a lot. Even in your closest friendships, you only get so close to people and then you pull away. You should not have pulled away. Why don’t you just wear it? No one besides the five of us is going to see you in it.” Maria looked at me and smiled. “I think I know what this is about. It is that conversation we had the other week, isn’t it? You are trying to be assertive. It is only a bathing suit, but if it is what you want…” “Not what I want, Maria, but what is right for both of us. And a sign of our friendship with our other two couples.” Maria took the package and stepped into the bathroom. She stepped out a couple of minutes later in the thong bikini. I whistled in a complimentary manner. “Oh, come now,” Maria said. “It is not like you have never seen me naked.” Rubbing her belly, she said, “Two-piece bathing suits reveal the fact that I like to eat. If I were going to make a habit of wearing this, I would have to follow Sharon’s lead and get a little liposuction…” “Don’t you dare. You are perfect as you are. Whenever you’re ready for your walk, Senora Heels.” We walked back out to the pool. Maria held my hand as she stepped into the 7-inch heels. She let go of my hand and stood in them on her own. “It feels better the second time around,” she said. I stepped back and admired my wife. The thong bikini made a difference, revealing her lovely brown skin from head to toe. Her feet were at an impossibly vertical angle, but she managed to keep her legs straight, causing her bare butt to protrude at an outrageous angle and her chest (impressive without the need for surgery) jutting forward in the most obvious way. “I want to try this without having to lean on you, but stay close to me anyway,” she said. She took one step and followed with one after another, while I walked along next to her without touching or supporting her. “You’re doing it, Maria!” I shouted. “Yes, I know, but please don’t shout. I need to concentrate,” she said. Step after step, she made her way around the pool. A very slow one-two, one-two. Her legs were amazingly straight, and there was even a fluidity to her steps. Her movements were not sexy in the normal sense, as the heels were too extreme and the movements too distorted and awkward to appeal to conventional sexual tastes. What was sexy was the simple fact that she was walking at all, staying in control of herself while in shoes that would overtake and imprison practically any other person, woman or man. When we were about two-thirds of the way around the pool, we heard the patio door open and then heard Ana shout an encouraging, “Eso, Maria, Eso!” We then heard Bob shout, “My God, Maria is doing it!” Maria rounded the final turn of the pool, and I felt as if I was witnessing the finals of an Olympic track and field competition. She was strutting down the final straight-a-way, confidently taking bigger steps, moving a little faster than before, and I banished any thoughts from my head that she might fall at the very end and ruin this magnificent accomplishment. I was pleased that Jack and Sharon emerged from the house in time to see Maria take her last triumphant steps. She returned to the point where we had started, carefully raised her arms in the air to signal victory, and I hugged her as tight as I could. Ana, Bob, Sharon and Jack came around and we all engaged in a spontaneous group hug. Maria carefully stepped out of her heels and began breathlessly telling the others that her feet felt fine, and that her little walk was not as difficult as she had expected. I could not help but notice that Sharon was wearing a bathrobe and Ana had changed back into her sun dress, which ironically left Maria as the only one clad in a thong bikini. In her moment of triumph, it somehow seemed very appropriate. We all downed another glass of champagne, and I accompanied Maria inside the house. She carried the 7-inch heels inside with her, like an excited child unwilling to part with her new toy. We entered the second guest bedroom and closed the door behind us. Since we had last been in there, Sharon and Jack had put up several mirrors on the walls, enhancing the room’s usability for lovemaking. Maria took off the two parts of her thong bikini, and then slid into the 7-inch heels while I took off my clothes. She stood there, totally naked except for the heels, looking at herself in the mirror. She now got to see the impact that these wild shoes had on her own body. “Absolutely crazy,” she said. “Such impossible shoes, and yet I can wear them and walk in them. It is like I was designed to wear high heels. It is in my blood, and in my genes.” This was the climax of the incredible journey her grandmother had begun decades before as a young woman in the slums of El Salvador. Her grandmother had used her feminine charms and ability to wear high heels to pull herself up out of third-world poverty and climb up to the Salvadoran middle class. Maria had now taken the next step, and was standing in 7-inch heels in a luxurious North American mansion, with a college degree and a bright future ahead of her. High heels alone did not bring her to this lofty place, but the journey would not have been possible without them. It was now clear to me why she wanted to master the extreme heels so badly. “Steve,” she said, “aren’t there times when you wish you had married a normal woman? A woman who could not conceive of walking more than two blocks in a pair of 3-inch heels?” “You forget, Maria, I was married to a normal woman before I met you. It sucked.” I walked up to her and began caressing her naked hips. “Maybe so,” she replied. “But doesn’t it bother you that perhaps half the women I encounter every day secretly hope that I will fall down and humiliate myself because I insist on wearing such high heels?” “If I want to know what a real woman thinks of you, I’ll ask Ana or Sharon. Otherwise, I don’t care.” I pulled her close to me and kissed her on the lips, and then worked my way down her neck to her breasts. “OK,” she said. “But don’t you hate the fact that I deal with men every day who would absolutely love to fuck me? I could take you to my office and point out man after man who would jump into bed with me in a minute, if I ever gave any of them the word.” “Doesn’t bother me a bit. Fucking you is their fantasy. But it’s my reality.” I picked up Maria and placed her down on the bed. She made no effort to take off the 7-inch heels; after all, they are intended primarily to be worn in bed. I got on top of Maria, and we engaged in some of our most intense lovemaking ever. Seven-inch heels, a thong bikini, and a woman capable of wearing both of them at the same time are a pretty powerful combination. To be continued.

[Stu]

Seven weeks later, Maria and I were relaxing in our hotel room in San Francisco, enjoying a great picture-window view of the hilly city and the surrounding bay. Our trip was the result of an unexpected – but not unwelcome – development stemming from Maria’s 7-inch heel walk around Sharon’s and Jack’s swimming pool. In the weeks following that day, Maria spent time each day at home practicing to walk in her 7-inch heels. I was impressed by the depth of her enthusiasm. She had come 180 degrees from the time when she viewed extreme heels as a perversion of her family’s view of femininity. She now believed that extreme heels were an affirmation of everything her family had valued about feminine expression. Intelligence, hard work and a devotion to femininity through the wearing of high heels had been the key to her grandmother’s escape from Third World poverty, and they had enabled Maria to move up to the American middle class. She devoted herself to the goal of being able to walk in 7-inch heels as smoothly as she could in 5- and 6-inch heels. While she realized that such a goal might be unattainable, she saw merit in getting as close to it as she could, as if the striving for perfection by itself would make her better prepared to deal with whatever future challenges she would face. For the first time since her introduction to high heels as an adolescent, Maria needed outside help to improve her walking skills. We rejected the use of artificial aids such as the foot straighteners that we had seen on the Internet. Instead, Jack taught her some stretching exercises to perform every day in order to increase the already impressive flexibility of her feet and ankles. He also volunteered to examine her feet regularly to make sure she was not overstressing them. Between the exercises and the practice in the shoes themselves, Maria made quick progress, and within a month she was able to walk smoothly in 7-inch heels for a minute or two at about half her normal walking speed. And then, 5 weeks after our afternoon at Sharon’s and Jack’s swimming pool, we confirmed that Maria was pregnant. The most likely time of conception was indeed that eventful weekend when we had made passionate love in our friends’ guest bedroom. I was struck by the fact that our child would owe his or her existence to the sexual energy triggered by Maria’s experimentation with extreme heels. That seemed to underline the pointlessness of segregating our offbeat interest in high heels with the conventional aspects of our marriage. Everything was rolled together in a single package. Maria and I were excited about the prospect of becoming parents. We regretted the fact that Maria would soon have to give up high heels entirely for the duration of her pregnancy. We also realized that the all-consuming job of guiding our son or daughter through infancy and early childhood would divert our attention away from such things as Maria’s sexy clothes and shoes. Nevertheless, it seemed like a small price to pay for the privilege of bringing a new life into the world, and we resolved to become the best mom and dad that we could. There was, however, one piece of unfinished business in our old lives that had to be addressed. Maria and I decided that the triumph of her feminine expression – both on the job and in her personal life – had to be commemorated in one final night of dinner and dancing in 7-inch heels. This was something of a left turn, even for us, as we originally had no inclination for her to ever wear the most extreme of all heels in public. But her rapidly improving ability to walk smoothly in them in the privacy of our home, and the sobering connection between the 7-inch heels and the new life growing in her belly, convinced us that she needed to take this one final step before her transition to motherhood. San Francisco seemed to be the logical choice for such an endeavor, because of the city’s tolerant reputation as well as the anonymity that we would enjoy. And, of course, we would never think of attempting such a feat without the companionship and support of Ana, Bob, Sharon and Jack, who made the trip with us. I was sitting in the bed in our hotel room, admiring the view of the city, when Maria emerged from the bedroom. “What do you think?” she asked me. Her dress tonight was a return to her roots: a jet-black Salvadoran-style dress that was loose above the waist before wrapping itself tightly around her waist, hips and thighs. The dress then went loose around her knees before ending at her shins. The dress, along her black seamed stockings, were the perfect complement to her brown skin and jet-black hair. There was, as yet, no bulge in the belly to indicate her pregnancy, only the divine curvature of her hips and thighs that still beckoned to every man lucky enough to be able to see them. “I am happy about becoming a dad. But boy, am I going to miss this,” I said, reaching for my camera. “Hold it!” Maria said. She was still barefoot, and she slid into a pair of 5-inch stilettos. “Now take your pictures.” I eagerly snapped away, not knowing how long it would be before she would ever look like this again. There was a knock on the door, which I opened it to let our four friends inside. “How is mom doing?” Sharon asked. Bob whistled, and said, “Mothers never looked like that where I came from.” “You folks aren’t looking so shabby yourselves,” I replied. Sharon was wearing a long, gold-colored dress that pushed her breasts up to show an eye-popping amount of cleavage. I thought back to Sharon’s statement to me several months earlier that she had undergone her breast enhancement strictly for her job. She had either been kidding herself at the time, or Jack and she had since realized that it would be a waste to only use such a beautiful pair of assets for only 40 hours a week. In any event, the pair of gold, 6-inch stiletto sandals on Sharon’s feet made it quite clear that she was not abandoning her commitment to high heels. Ana was quite stunning as well, attired in a sheer white blouse and a tight, black leather skirt that ended just above the knees, complimented with black fishnet hose, and black, 6-inch stiletto pumps. A true legs-and-heels man would probably have considered her the most attractive of our three ladies on that night. Ana pointed to Maria’s feet and said, “Surely, we didn’t come all the way here so you could go out to dinner in those dowdy shoes?” “Of course not,” Maria laughed. She took the black, 7-inch stiletto pumps out of their box and set them down on the floor, and then she slid out of her 5-inch shoes. Even though Maria was capable of stepping into the shoes by herself, I extended my hand like a gentlemen, and she graciously held my hand as she slid each of her feet into the shoes. She then let go of my hand, and stood there, modeling herself for the rest of us. “Oh, Toto, we are definitely not in Kansas anymore!” Jack said with a laugh. “On to dinner!” Maria said. She wrapped her arm around mine, and we stepped slowly to the door, which Bob opened for us. We kept a slow, careful pace (one…..two…..one……two…..) that nevertheless seemed like the speed of light for a woman in such outrageous heels. We walked out the door and down the corridor to the elevator. I was just as impressed with the way Sharon and Ana were managing in their 6-inch heels – a normal pace, legs totally straight, walking as effortlessly as if they were in 4-inch heels. What a sight we must have been. We reached the elevator and got inside when it arrived. We traveled up to the penthouse restaurant on the top floor of the hotel, which offered an even more stunning view of the city than from our room. Jack and Sharon confirmed our reservations with the host, and we were told it would be a few minutes. I helped Maria sit down, and she let out a sigh of relief. “The first leg of our journey is over,” I said. “Wow. Just look at those. Stunning,” I heard someone say. I turned to the side and noticed a couple of women who had come in behind us and were standing in the aisle. One was an attractive, black-haired woman and the other was a somewhat awkward looking brunette, although both wore nice dresses and were wearing 5-inch heels. “Sorry,” the black-haired woman said to us. “I didn’t mean to be impolite. You don’t see shoes like yours every day. You are quite daring for wearing them out to dinner. I would love to be able to do something like that.” “Thank you for the compliment. Practice makes perfect. You may be able to do it some day,” Maria said. “Oh, I don’t know,” the woman said. She turned to her friend and said, “What do you think? Maybe you could try working up to shoes like that.” Her friend giggled in a sort of a low-pitched voice. It then became clear to me that the awkward-looking woman was actually a man! I was not used to seeing such things in our suburban town. Of course, we had come to San Francisco precisely because the shocking was commonplace there. Maria looked up at the man and said, “You should be very proud of yourself. It is not easy to walk in 5-inch heels, and you handle yourself like a pro. I am really impressed. Seriously.” “Thank you,” the man said. The host called Jack’s name, and we got up and said goodbye to the couple. I wrapped arms with Maria again, and the six of us made our way past rows of diners to our table. It seemed as if half the diners stopped what they were doing to stare at Maria’s feet. The rest of the patrons were gawking at Ana and Sharon, and I was grateful that they had done their best to ensure that not all eyes in the restaurant would be on Maria. “That’s what we should do,” Maria whispered to me. “We should teach you how to walk in 5-inch heels. Wouldn’t it be fun for you and I to put on a pair of sexy dresses and stiletto heels and go out to lunch in the mall? We could get you a wig and experiment with all kinds of lipstick and eye shadow. Makes me tingle just to think about it.” “With the baby coming, it is unfortunate that we won’t have time to do anything like that for quite a while,” I said sarcastically. We got to our table, and I helped Maria sit down. “The second leg of our journey is now over,” I whispered. To be continued

[Stu]

The six of us gorged ourselves on an incredible French meal that I will not soon forget. We sat and talked about the times ahead of us. Maria was planning to take a leave of absence from her job following the birth of the baby, but she would have to return to work after a few months, and at least she was in a position where she could wear high heels and nice outfits at her job. It was less clear how such things would work at home. Would Maria push a baby carriage around our neighborhood in stiletto heels? Even in heel-crazy El Salvador, women stopped wearing high heels for the most part after they gave birth.

“Don’t worry, Steve,” Ana said to me as she stroked my hand playfully. “I’ll come by twice a week to visit you two, and I promise never to come in anything lower than 5-inch heels. I’ll make sure you don’t go through high heel withdrawal.”

As we finished a rich dessert of chocolate mousse, a jazz trio set up its instruments and began playing on the other side of a small dance floor not far from our table. I sipped on my coffee and looked at Maria. “Just say the word. How are your feet?”

“They are fine,” she said. She sipped at her coffee, took a deep breath, and said, “Let’s go.”

I helped Maria up and locked arms with her as we walked over to the dance floor. Ana, Bob, Sharon and Jack followed us. This was the climax of our trip: Maria and I would dance in public while she wore 7-inch heels. Because of the press of our work schedules, we had only tried dancing several times at home. Ideally, we would not have wanted to try this in public without several additional weeks of practice, but that was a luxury of time that we no longer had. Anyway, we were not going to try any fancy dance moves. All we wanted to do was to move our feet in tandem with Maria holding on to me.

The eyes of everyone were back upon us as we made our way to the dance floor and began to dance. I rested my right hand on Maria’s gorgeous waist and held her hand in my left hand. I noticed two men sitting unusually close to each other at a nearby table who were transfixed by Maria’s feet. Even homosexuals were not immune to her charms! A heterosexual couple walked past us on the dance floor, and I saw the woman point to Maria’s shoes, turn to her partner and say, “Now she is GOOD!” I looked over at the jazz trio, and noticed the bass player’s eyes darting back and forth between Sharon, Ana and Maria. Even jazz musicians did not see the likes of those three every day.

I pulled Maria close to me and said, “You are a hit, even in San Francisco.” She kissed me on the lips. I asked her if she was getting tired, and she replied that she was fine and wanted to keep dancing. I could tell from Maria’s mood that she was no longer paying attention to others, but was withdrawing inside herself. It was her way of enjoying the music and her closeness to me without being distracted by the other people on the dance floor. I held her tightly against me, and whispered into her ear how much I loved her and how great a mother she was going to be. She pushed my head to the side, wiggled her tongue in my ear for a few seconds, and then told me that the day I walked into her little Salvadoran boutique several years earlier was the greatest day of her life. I whispered back, “At least until the day our baby is born.”

Maria’s tongue in my ear had given me a nice, firm erection. As one of the jazz musicians began a slow, extended saxophone solo, Maria leaned into me as hard as she could, letting the 7-inch heels push herself forward. Having never danced with Maria in 7-inch heels, I was delighted to feel my erection rubbing against a particularly sensitive spot of hers. This had never happened when she had danced previously with me in 5- and 5-1/2 inch heels, so the extra heel height and the way it repositioned her torso was making quite a difference. I placed my lips against hers, we opened our mouths and I began linking my tongue with hers. She hummed softly with delight, and we timed our movements slowly and deliberately with the soft beat of the music. It was relatively dark on the dance floor and I closed my eyes and felt there was nothing in the entire universe except Maria, me and the soft jazz music.

The saxophone solo continued, and I heard Maria moan softly with pleasure. I wiggled my hips once quickly and she moaned again. I held her tightly against me and she tightened her grip on me, and began breathing rapidly. She dug her nails into the back of my neck so deeply that I thought she might draw blood. She began moaning rapidly and reached as deeply into herself as she could to prevent herself from screaming, and all the while she was twitching violently while holding on to me as tightly as she could. A wave of perspiration washed down from her forehead. We stopped moving and I just held her tight for a few seconds until her little convulsions had passed, although she continued to breathe rapidly.

I whispered, “Maria, did you just have….”

“I think so. I mean, yes, I did. Of course I did. I can’t believe it.”

I looked up and saw that Sharon, Jack, Ana and Bob had stopped dancing and were standing next to us. “Are you all right, Maria?” Ana asked.

“Wow. Um, yeah,” Maria said, obviously at a loss for words.

“I think I know what happened, but in the interest of privacy, I’ll keep my medical opinion to myself,” Jack said. “Maybe the two of you should sit down.”

“Good idea,” I said. Several couples who had been dancing around us were staring at us, so our efforts to hide what had been happening had not been entirely successful. But it did not really matter. Her face still glistening from perspiration, Maria broke into a glowing smile as we slowly and carefully made our way back to our table. We reached our seats, and Maria gulped down a glass of water. She was still breathing somewhat rapidly.

“How did we do that?” I asked her.

“How is not important. It is simply important that it happened,” Maria said. “Now we have done everything. We married, you put me through college, we both have good careers, I can wear 7-inch heels. The fact that I had an …um, you know, in public, it just means….Hell, I don’t know what it means. Maybe it means we have accomplished everything we can with high heels at this stage in our lives, and now it is time to go home and have our baby.”

“Maybe so,” I said. “But this can’t be the end. I want to have the greatest baby in the world, but we have to find a way to balance being parents with this, this other part of our lives.”

Maria picked up my water glass, took a sip and smiled. “Absolutely,” she said.

The End....at least for now

[Stu]

When I started on a new set of "3 Sisters" stories last fall, I had only a handful of stories in mind. I was eventually shocked to find that I ended up with 150 pages (MS Word, single space) of heely fiction, which I have now posted here. The hit count indicates that approximately 70 of you have been faithfully visiting the forum and reading these over the last 5 months or so. I am flattered that you made the time to read the stories. I have not written any other stories yet, although I do have a pretty good idea of what happens later to these three couples. The biggest problem is finding the time to write the stories. Assuming I do write anything else, I might have to write only a few stories at a time and then post them, rather than write everything in advance. I will have to see how things work. I do have one favor to ask: I would be interested in knowing if you had a favorite character, couple or story, or if there was anything else about the series that stood out for you. (Or, if you thought any character, couple or story was particularly bad and did not work for you, I would like to know that, too.) You can either post your thoughts on this forum, or you can PM me, whichever you prefer. As you probably know, I have been trying to vary the themes (work, relationships, travel adventures, ethnic attitudes, heely fetishes), and am curious if anything stands out in your mind. Lastly, I would like to thank Raincat for your recent posting of support as well as some of the additional thoughts in your PMs. Writing with feedback is always easier than writing in a vacuum. Again...I hope you found the stories to be worthwhile, and thanks for your interest!