by Gina Messina
“It was during a fight they were having which woke me up in the middle of the night. My mom was furious. She’d somehow discovered that my dad was having an affair—an affair with a French woman, for heaven’s sake! That’s the night I saved the Chanel shoes.”
“Saved the Chanel shoes?” Dr. Harrison repeated, her eyebrows furrowed together as if further clarification would be necessary.
“Rescued the Chanel shoes, I mean. Rescued them from the trash heap in the alley behind our house. My mom had thrown them away. She’d figured out that my dad had bought them when he was visiting his girlfriend in Paris and they were fighting about it.”
Charlie pictured her small self (and herself small, because her husband, Sean was always telling her that she was small minded) as she stood in the hallway and watched her father violently tear the straps from her mother’s shoulder, exposing her breast in one motion. It was the first time Charlie had ever seen a woman’s bare breasts. Sitting there, she could nearly hear the clattering sound that the large round silver buttons had made when they popped off her mother’s dress and hit the floor like tiny glass marbles.
“He basically forced her to have sex with him that night but she obviously liked it,” she declared while wringing her hands together.
“What makes you say that?”
Charlie shot her an incredulous look. “The moaning, the fully closed eyes, the sweat glistening off her skin …”
Her psychiatrist shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“Can it be…genetic?” Charlie questioned, ignoring the slight blush rising in her doctor’s cheeks.
“Can what be?”
She gritted her teeth. Is everything a question to this woman? “You know…wanting to be owned by a man?”
Her doctor’s eyes arched in surprise and she seemed to give serious consideration to the question.
“Maybe there’s a gene that’s been isolated that I can be tested for?” Charlie asked.
For a long moment she considered this revelation which gave ample enough time for Dr. Harrison to formulate a politically correct answer. “That’s very presumptuous of you to think that your mother enjoyed being dominated by your father, don’t you think?”
“No. I’m certain she was turned on by the control he had; the power, I guess. It must’ve been very erotic. Enough to overlook my father’s many infidelities. Hell, I’m fairly confident he had a woman in every state but my mom just looked the other way. I think a small part of her enjoyed the fact that other women found him so irresistible. In a twisted way, it got her off,” she stated, calling to mind the way she’d gasped and covered her mouth with her tiny hand while her mother hadn’t uttered a sound. Her eyes hadn’t shared the fear that Charlie had felt at such an aggressive act; instead, her mother gazed up at her father with the soft hint of a smile on her face.
“What exactly did you see?” Dr. Harrison fervently asked while just about sitting on the edge of her chair, no longer interested in the time.
Charlie gave her a single glare before she continued. Again with the damn questions. “Well,” she answered, “I heard my dad’s heavy breathing first, through the open bedroom door, and I could see the desire on his face which only increased with the wonder that grew in my mother’s eyes. When she reached for him, her hands encircling his neck, she pulled him down to her bare chest and before I could turn away, I saw him start to suck on her breast. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.”
“Did you actually see them having intercourse?” her doctor probed with a high level of emotion that was almost contagious. It made Charlie suddenly feel worthwhile and for once, she didn’t mind the question.
“I saw him climb on top of her, his tongue encircling her erect nipple while his fingers pulled at her hair. My mother just laid there and moaned. Then he fucked her.”
“There’s no need to be crude, Charlie,” Dr. Harrison reprimanded while at the same time pressing for more details. “But you mustn’t stop now. You’re very close to telling me something of significance. You’re on the cusp of something noteworthy. Please continue and try not to leave any important details out!”
Charlie couldn’t help but wonder why it had taken eighteen very expensive sessions to get to this ‘noteworthy’ point but she decided not to harp on it. She didn’t want to lose momentum. Instead, she just kept talking and deliberating as to why this significant thing she was about to say wasn’t significant enough to get her doctor to stop doodling and actually write something of substance down.
“I’ll try to keep it clean.” But I can’t make any promises, she thought smugly. “Later that night, when I knew they were sleeping, I snuck outside and rummaged through the trash until I found the shoe box. I remember it clearly, my little girly hands, gingerly opening the lid to make sure they were still safely cocooned within the many layers of tissue paper.”
“But what about the sex, Charlie? You really just skimmed over those necessary details. I think the next time you’re talking about a subject that makes you feel uncomfortable; you need to face it head on!”
This time Charlie did ignore her because, for some unknown reason, it gave her a delightful feeling inside. She wasn’t sure why. It just did. Maybe my shrink likes being in control just like my father or being owned like my mother? She smirked to herself. A little role-play never hurt anyone. Who knows? She might actually like it. Charlie considered this for a second but then glanced back down at her doctor’s lesbo sandals and thought better of the idea.
Rather than answer, she leaned her head against the back of the leather sofa and closed her eyes, waiting for a comment. A really astute therapist might have reasoned that this was undeniably, where her love affair with shoes first began. Maybe she’ll surprise me and offer me some insight, she optimistically questioned, after hearing about this traumatic event in my seemingly innocent youth. Tell me how fucked up it was and how I sought comfort in my mother’s discarded shoes.
Usually Charlie selected her shrinks based on their personality. But, in this case, Dr. Harrison’s Yale degree had won out. Now she was waiting for the doctor’s Ivy League education to pay off. She waited for her to speak. Say something. Anything, she mutely implored with her eyes, staring daggers at the framed diploma that was strategically positioned on the wall next to the Tuft’s undergraduate degree and just to the right of her doctor’s chair. But for the love of God, don’t ask another fucking question.
Dr. Harrison leaned forward in her chair. “Go on. We have another fifteen minutes before my next patient,” she uncharacteristically muttered, “Talk to me about the shoes.”
Finally.
CHAPTER TWO
“The core of my work is dedicated not to pleasing women but to pleasing men.”
Christian Louboutin
“Well, I guess, if we have the time ...” Charlie said with a shrug, feigning indifference while trying her best to control the butterflies that were whirling around in her stomach and the feeling of throbbing, further down still. Her body always responded the same way, every time she considered David and those magnificent, incredible, life-altering stilettos’.
“It was my freshman year of college. I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but I studied fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Technology. That’s when the world of shoes truly transformed me. I even remember the exact the date! October 23rd, 1998!” she exclaimed while laughing aloud to herself.
Sitting there, she couldn’t believe how many years have passed since that truly defining moment in her life-much like the night she’d watched her parents through the crack in their bedroom door when she was just six. She also couldn’t remember the last time she’d thought about David and those shoes that had made her feel so greedily lustful.
“I remember walking to school along Fifth Avenue. It was a really chilly fall day and I had on my favorite Frye suede cowboy boots.” She paused and waited for an admiring comment about her good taste in boots but then moved on when she saw the blank expression in her
doctor’s eyes. That bitch wouldn’t know a good pair of boots if I handed them to her on a sterling silver platter, she concluded with disgust. Charlie had been in a particularly good mood that morning because it had finally been cold enough to pull out her winter footwear.
“Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the Rolls Royce of high heels. I know you take no interest in shoes, Dr. Harrison, but they were really something else! I stopped dead in my tracks and studied the beauty of them. I have to admit that from the moment I saw them, there was no doubt in my mind that they would one day be mine.” Charlie paused again, remembering how they’d been perched on a Lucite platform that was lit from below and how they’d seemed to glow on their pedestal. “It was almost as if they were talking to me. Pick me, choose me, love me, they seemed to say.”
Without thinking, Charlie draped one leg across her thigh and ran both of her hands slowly down her calf to her ankle. She closed her eyes, relishing the sensation. When she opened them and looked up, her doctor was fervently scribbling away. It made Charlie grin with satisfaction.
Ahh, that’s more like it, she thought to herself then strained her head forward and peeked to see if her psychiatrist was drawing or actually taking real notes.
“Don’t stop, Charlie,” she said, glancing up.
Charlie noticed how her pen was readily poised in the air, as if she expected her to make an earth shattering statement at any moment. It reminded her of the seconds right before she climaxed. Should I stop? Make her beg for it? she sadistically contemplated before continuing.
“Well, when I passed through the door, I was in a state of euphoria. Ecstasy actually. I was intoxicated by the possibilities I saw in my future. I picked up one shoe and stroked it with my freshly manicured hand.”
When Charlie had first seen those stunning shoes, she’d cursed herself for not having gotten a pedicure that morning. She really wanted to try them on but her toes were a disaster. She would have been mortified if the saleswoman saw her chipped polish and overgrown cuticles. The cheap Korean salon on Fifth Avenue where she usually got her nails done had been booked solid, which had surprised her because they’d recently been cited for unsanitary conditions. She had to wait over forty minutes just to get a manicure that morning and was told it would be another hour if she wanted her toes done, too.
Even though she was in dire need of a pedicure, she couldn’t afford to waste any more time. She only had an hour to get downtown to her Art Appreciation class which started at noon and couldn’t be late. Her professor, Mr. Campbell, a short pudgy man with sour breath, already had it in for her. Since the first day of class he’d made several unwanted advances and she’d snubbed him every time (even though it had been tempting because she really could have used an A in the class). But she just couldn’t get over the fact that he was only five foot six, way below her cut-off requirement for height. Charlie was five foot eight, so with high heels, she would’ve towered over him like a goliath. It would have been like having sex with a munchkin! She just couldn’t go there. Even she had her limits.
“Dr. Harrison, when I flipped those shoes over and saw the bright red, shiny leather soles, I knew I had to have them. The price tag of $795.00 didn’t matter. Nothing was going to stop me! I would’ve paid twice that. Those shoes were like a high-priced hooker and I was prepared to do anything to get them.”
Charlie took a minute to gather her thoughts, and then just when she was about to pick up where she’d left off, Dr. Harrison reached across her desk and picked up the phone.
“Sally,” she said to her receptionist, “Please tell my next patient I’m running a bit behind schedule.”
This is a first, Charlie thought to herself with a feeling of self-worthiness, a sensation that she hadn’t experienced in ages. It didn’t matter that she was paying through the nose to feel this way, what mattered was that her shrink was putting her first. Those loser patients can just wait, she glibly told herself, What I have to say is important, too!
Dr. Harrison nodded prompting her to continue.
“It’s as if I were driven by some magnetic force—a powerful pull,” she went on, while heaving a theatrical sigh. “There were simply no words to describe the beauty of those Louboutin’s!”
The next thirty-four days and nights had been consumed with ideas of how to acquire those priceless gems. Charlie had been obsessed with illusions of the first time. The first time they would glide onto her narrow feet, how they would embrace her ankle and spoon her arch, the way they would echo when they hit the pavement.
“Really, Dr. Harrison, they were incredible! Like nothing I’d ever seen before. I spent weeks imagining the places those shoes would one day take me.”
“Charlie, where is it that you wanted to go?” her doctor quizzically asked.
“I’m not sure. All I knew was that those shoes weren’t made for walking. They were made for soaring.”
She remembered it as if it were yesterday. It had been four days before Christmas Eve when she’d found herself in a panic. How can it be that these shoes haven’t found a place in my closet? she had asked herself every day.
Sitting in the therapist’s office, Charlie was enjoying her trip down memory lane. She could clearly see the spot she’d created for those fantasy shoes. Her tiny closet had been jammed packed but she still managed to find space for them on the top shelf, front and center, between her gold lizard Jimmy Choo’s and her black satin Manolo Blahnik’s. She never cared about the golden rule; if you haven’t worn something for more than two years, chuck it! How could she think about parting with any of them? It would’ve been like cutting off one of her limbs. Besides, she was pretty sure that rule only applied to clothes, not shoes. Charlie had never tossed a single, solitary shoe. At least not since her feet had stopped growing back in the Eighth grade. She had every one! One hundred and ninety-nine to be exact (yes, she counted) and once she got her hands on those scrumptious Loubies, she’d have an even two hundred!
That spot had remained vacant like a tiny deserted island for weeks on end, like a beauty queen waiting to be crowned. Each time she would open the louvered doors, the distinctive space she’d created stared back at her, taunting her. It was almost as if it were calling out, feed me. Both her and her closets appetite were insatiable and only one thing would satisfy them. There was no doubt in her mind that she’d find a way to get them and she planned on being prepared for the day that she did.
“It was late. Somewhere around eight or nine o’clock when I couldn’t stand the thought of some lucky girl who lived uptown, not in the dregs of midtown like I did and who had a cavernous closet, ending up with what was supposed to be mine,” she declared.
Charlie glanced down at her gold Cartier Panthere watch—a wedding gift from Sean and realized that she’d been talking for over an hour. Wait until she hears about David! she thought to herself while dredging up the distant memory of how she’d gotten up from her bed and began to get dressed on that snowy night. She even remembered the grey cashmere wrap dress she had worn, which had made her ass look perfectly heart shaped, and the kid leather Gucci platforms with a five-inch cork heel that had made her legs look like they went on forever.
“Sounds like you were very determined.”
Determined? Charlie quietly reflected. You’re a fucking wordsmith, aren’t you? Not determined! Driven was more like it. Suddenly her faith in Dr. Harrison plummeted again. Why doesn’t she get it? Not fifty minutes ago she thought her psychiatrist was on track, on her way to a god damn psychoanalytical breakthrough. Didn’t I just tell her I have an obsession with footwear? She could feel her heart hammering in her chest and her anger flared up. Charlie heard her mother’s voice in her head. ‘Use your words, slowly,’ she used to say each time Charlie had a temper tantrum because of her frustrating stutter.
“I t-t-told you I have an obsession with shoes!” she stammered out, then buried her face in her hands.
“Take a deep breath and try to relax.”
&n
bsp; Charlie peeked out between her fingers, embarrassed that she couldn’t control her own speech. She couldn’t remember the last time she had stuttered. Breathe, just breathe, she thought. For the love of God, fucking breath!
Dr. Harrison waited while she pulled herself together and reigned her voice in. “So? What happened with the shoes?” she finally asked.
Charlie took a deep breath then began to tell her about the night she’d met David. “After I got dressed, I took a cab downtown. Some bar in the financial district that I heard was always teeming with wealthy bankers. It was cold outside and snowing, but I still remember there being a large crowd at the bar. After I sat down and ordered a drink, I spotted his shoes.”
Charlie had been lucky to find a seat at the bar and immediately ordered a dirty martini with extra olives, which had been her drink of choice her Freshman year of college. She loved the way the gin felt both fiery and smooth when she took a sip. She also loved the way the bartenders looked at her with desire when she said the word ‘dirty.’
“I saw his shoes first, before I actually saw him.”
“Whose shoes did you see?”
“David’s,” she replied with a nostalgic feeling that made her feel sexy. “David’s chocolate brown Ferragamo loafers. You know, the ones with the gold-tone buckles that were all the rage back then.”
Charlie had made eye contact with him and gave him a small encouraging smile. He winked back. She was just able to see him through her peripheral vision when he pulled out a shiny black alligator wallet and paid for his drink with a platinum American Express card. She lit a cigarette and let out a plume of smoke through her nostrils then turned her back, confident that he was watching her.
“I knew he’d approach me,” she remarked, feeling the strong urge for a smoke to help take off the edge. She needed a cigarette as badly as she ever had but reached in her bag for another Xanax instead. Long gone were the days when one could light up in a bar, let alone an office building. While waiting for the sedative to do its magic, she thought about David, which always made her feel unhinged.
