Selected Short Stories Featuring Cinderella Shoes

by Nicolas Wilson

never actually sell any champagne in there. But it means he’d paid double for three songs- so in less than fifteen minutes this would be my best night of the month.

  Our back room isn’t really separate, just three walls and a thick red curtain. Some men like the privacy, the intimacy, of being alone with a dancer. Some men think they’re going to get lucky, and sometimes get handsy, but Mike’s pretty good about staying close any time one of us is back there.

  The guy’s already slumped in the half-circle booth, looking timidly down and away. When I get close he jumps a little, and smiles in a nebbish sort of way.

  “I was here last week. I wanted to pay for a dance, but…” he realizes he was close to asking me to think about what happened last week, and his eyes shift back to the ground. “I know girls work at different clubs, so I’ve been going to different ones, hoping to run into you.”

  “Well, here I am.” I sit down in the booth next to him. “What’s your name?”

  “Jack,” he says.

  “What do you like, Jack?”

  “Shoes, and, and feet,” he says, then hesitates, before bending towards the floor. There’s the rustle of tissue paper. “I, uh, brought a pair of shoes I’d like you to wear.” I bristle. “There’s a hundred bucks in it, if they fit.”

  Normally I wouldn’t. I have a few regulars who like to buy me things, shoes, or outfits, because they’d like to see me wear them- well, like to see me take them off- and for the regulars it’s worth it. There’s a level of trust that comes with that regularity. But I’ve made negative money this week, and my rent is already late.

  He hands over the bag, and I part the papers. Even in the low light, I recognize the heels I’d worn last week. My heart skips a beat as I pick up the left one, the one I’d lost, but my mark, a slash of red nail polish across the label, isn’t on the shoes.

  It seems weird, but he says he saw me last week and wanted a dance; some people get obsessive about dancers, and if I’d been wearing those shoes, then he probably wanted me wearing them when I danced for him. I’d learned some time ago the line between creepy and sweet is blurry at best with regulars.

  Jack reaches into his pocket, pulls out his wallet and extracts a crisp $100 bill and sets it on its edge on the table. “You can keep it, just for being a good sport and trying it on; wouldn’t be fair to punish you for me guessing your size wrong.”

  That makes it an offer I can’t afford to refuse. I start to strap on the shoes, and once I finish he softly pulls my foot into his lap. “A perfect fit. Like they were made for each other.” His hand lingers, not on my leg, but on the straps of the shoe.

  “You didn’t recognize me. Heh. To think I’ve spent the last week terrified, yet fantasizing, that you knew me. Recognized me.” I gasp, and I want to let the breath out loudly, but I feel cold metal pressed to my leg, and think better. “That for once, a pretty girl knew me, understood me, that I was finally going to be noticed for who I am, and what I do. I don’t know whether or not I should be disappointed; it’s too late to be relieved. I mean, you’re probably stupid, but I think you’d have put things together soon enough, especially all that with the shoes.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to dance, while I figure out what I want to do. And behave; one jab from this stiletto in the femoral artery and you’ll bleed out before that gorilla can even respond to your scream. And I’d give myself even odds of stabbing him, too, then getting away.”

  I stand like a corpse, all of my limbs playing dead as my mind starts to shut down. Slowly my muscles remember how to move, then how to move seductively. I plant a foot between his legs, then slowly stretched the other up in the air, then extend it out, resting it on the back of the booth behind his head, and I lean inward.

  “I wasn’t lying. I did see you last week, and I had wanted to buy a dance. If things were different-” he stops talking long enough to stroke his cheek along my foot as I pull it away from him. And suddenly I see the shoe as I had that night, blood running underneath it, only this time it’s a heavier flow, a gushing wound, and I stamp my heel into the soft flesh of his throat.

  He tries to bring the stiletto around towards me, but I lean down on his arm. He’s stronger than me, but his other arm is trapped beyond my leg, so it’s one of his arms trying to pick me up from a reclined position.

  Blood bubbles around my heel, and after several seconds, he gives in, and his arm goes limp, and the stiletto slides out of his fingers and onto the seat. And still I keep him pinned there, impaled. His eyes become sad, as the realization finally comes over him, and I almost feel sympathy for him; because of that, because he made me feel bad for him for even a moment, I twist the heel in, twist until his face becomes a twisted parody of pleasure, and his body is limp.

  I wait another moment, to be sure he won’t leap back to life like some horror movie monster, before I call out, and when I do, all of the strength from a moment ago is missing from my voice. Mike is there in an instant, and reacts quickly, moving me back and shoving the knife off the seat, farther from Jack. Then he checks for a pulse. “He’s dead,” Mike says.

  “Good,” I reply.

  Table of Contents

  Cast

  Fist off, I'm a robot, let's get that out of the way right now. I didn't come to take your job. I was built for this, for what I do. Because human beings made a mockery of their own legal system.

  Lawbots, as we're often collectively called, were created to be cogs in the machinery of justice. The theory went that human people could be bribed, threatened, or simply make mistakes; hell, even the best humans could only remember a tiny fraction of legal precedent that impacted on a single case, let alone hope to hold the entirety of case law in their cellular memory. But the worst thing was humans could be biased, by religion, by philosophy, by almost anything.

  The practice has been a little more rocky, and there was even a flap when someone realized lawbots could be tampered with- at least theoretically- since they didn't leave a paper trail. The appeals court for the DC circuit even trialed a paper back-up, by which all the thoughts of the prosecutor and judge were printed stream of consciousness style; however, the amount of information obtained quickly overwhelmed the human overseers, and they were forced to admit that only a robot could monitor the activities of the other lawbots- and robots watching robots defeated the entire purpose.

  Which kind of brings me to court. I've argued a good case. Parque's a child molester, a nasty one. He hasn't turned violent yet, but the signs are all there. He's a lousy witness, too, and his public defender's nearly as much a piece of work as he is. I nearly had them both on jury tampering, but one of the bailiffs said something that tipped them off and they scuttled their plans before any money changed hands. Jury took no time at all to come back- which is either a sign that my case was weak (and it isn't), or that they saw through the thick musk of flop sweat and BS coming off defense counsel.

  The foreman eyes me nervously; some people think that the coldness of a robotic judge and prosecutor gives human defense attorneys an edge, but I think that distrust mirrors what it fears, and I choose to give humans the benefit of the doubt- at the very least I'd say the jury's still out. But I have a higher conviction rate, while taking more cases, than my human predecessor- which might be attributed entirely to skill, but at least proves any potential bias isn't overriding.

  The foreman looks to the judge, and there's a flash of defiance, almost anger. I don't understand it, then he looks back to me and reads “Guilty, all counts.” My eyes flick on their own back to the judge. He folds the paper verdict back in half, and sets it down.

  I don't even have time to hope he's just being dramatic and not symbolic before he starts to speak. “I find the jury's decision in this case prejudiced by evidence not in record. There have been grievous faults in the jury's fact-finding, and blatant disregard for my instructions on the application of the law. I am forced, by the insufficiency of evidenc
e presented to establish as a matter of law the defendant's guilt, to set aside the jury verdict, and enter an acquittal into the record. Case and jury are dismissed.”

  Something was off. I take my time walking to the judge's chambers, and his secretary lets me in. She was pretty, by human standards (by which I mean her features were fairly symmetric, her body parameters well within healthy limits). “Megan, good morning. Is he in?” She gives me a smile that tells me he was expecting me, and buzzes me through. He’s reading something on his desk and doesn't look up when I speak. “With all due respect, I don't understand.”

  “I was unaware that your understanding was a determinant in my adjudication.” I’m ramping up for a speech, when he puts up his hand without looking up. “The die is cast, counselor. You can't bring charges again- that would violate the double jeopardy protections of the Fifth Amendment.” I knew it was possible, if unlikely, to have a judicial acquittal vacated, and the jury verdict reinstated, but I also knew he knew it, too, and either figured it wouldn't happen on account of his record and reputation, or that it might but he didn't care, because he could only control his own court room. I nod and walk out.

  I don't like to admit it, but I come to the factory sometimes, just to think. The factory was