Fetish Friday #4: Punishment Shouldn't Feel This Good

I have to admit, I almost fucked up the schedule again and posted something else. (Would have been a swell post, too—about how Sam just bent me over the kitchen table, lowered my pink satin pj bottoms, and...) But it's Friday! Alert the media! Toss the confetti! Break out the boot polish!

Why? Because today is dedicated to the wonderful world of boots. God, I love boots. I have mumble, mumble pairs. Truly, I don't really know how many I have because I tend to leave them scattered around the house. I know I've got purple suede, a few kick-ass black docs, red fringed... and Sam loves every single one of them. I was unaware that he had a boot fetish when we first hooked up.

I guess I just got lucky.

Now, you're going to get lucky—because I'm excerpting one of my all-time favorite stories, by one of my all-time favorite writers. Kristina Lloyd does this uncanny thing with words. She puts them together in intricate ways, unfolding her plots in ways that you don't see coming. Until suddenly *you're* coming. From the first story of hers that I read to the most recent one that fell into my box last week—I am ever in awe of her dusky, dreamy world view. Check it out:

Boot Camp
Kristina Lloyd

Five inmates are sitting on the lawn on wooden chairs, as nice as can be. It’s sunny here, shadows of skinny trees slanting across the grass, light burnishing the five pairs of army boots arrayed before me. Our counselor is wearing tennis shoes. It makes me suspicious. Punishment shouldn’t feel this good.

I’ve been waiting a while and my knees are starting to ache. I’m on all fours at the head of a horseshoe of feet. I know when they let me move, my knees will be red raw, cross-hatched with imprinted grass. Lots of little blades. I should have worn a longer dress. Or kneepads. Hell, I should’ve been born wearing kneepads.

Lee has the biggest boots and I can tell he’s lived a life already. Maybe he’s seen active service. Maybe he’s been talking about war for the last 15 minutes and maybe I’m meant to be listening. But I’m not. Instead I’m counting the eyelets of his boots, over and over. It’s the only way to stay sane. Three pairs of eyelets rising up to the metal loops of a speed lacing system, black laces crisscrossing over leather tongues, as beautiful as corsetry. They are British Army assault boots, size 12, standard issue for Soldier 95. I know this without asking.

José, the pussy, is wearing German jump boots. The leather is extra supple, the ankles have padded collars, and there’s no need to break them in. Before I realized this, I once tried hitting on a guy by admiring his jumps, and he said, “Yeah, they’re awesome. Fit like a glove right away.” I couldn’t see the point after that. I’m not looking for Cinderella.

Lee had to break his boots in. His feet would have ached, skin chafing and blistering, open sores stuck with fuzzy bits of sock, wounds painted with liquid skin. Maybe he stuck moleskin on the hot spots, tried salt water to toughen up his toes. Either way, he had to seduce his boots into submission. And he had to suffer to get there. Oh yes, sir, Lee earned those beauties, and for his pain and his patience, I would happily lick his molded, dual-density polyurethane soles.

I had them all to myself last night, the left foot and the right. Alone with Mr. Moon, I pulled out the laces, got rid of the dirt in each tongue and stripped off the paint. I lit a candle and kneeled over them, warming a spoon of polish over the flame, a spitshine junkie at her army boot shrine. I gave them four good layers of polish and let them dry several hours. And here they are now, back on his feet, dulled and black, waiting for my magic.

“Spitshine,” says our soft-voiced counselor because today that’s the name I asked for. “What is it you want to do here?”

I’m so wet and loose. He knows exactly what I want to do. Exactly because I wrote him a 12,000 word essay and he graded it B minus. “The structure was a little off, Kelly, and you didn’t come to any conclusions.”

“You dumb fuck,” I thought as he handed back the paper. “There are no conclusions. This is it. Don’t you get it? There is no end in sight.”

So here I am on my hands and knees, gazing at five pairs of army boots, all in need of some love and attention. I’m so horny I can barely kneel. The detention block’s at the far end of the lawn, and every Tom, Dick and Harry in there has probably got binoculars on my butt. The guys, my guys, sit with their feet planted wide, pants tucked in or hitched up so I can see everything there is to see; every last eyelet and lolling tongue; every stitch, scuff and scratch; every line of dust and each grain of Iraqi sand lodged in the creases that are etched in the leather.

That’s how it feels. It’s hallucinogenically intense down here. It’s the Van Gogh painting five times over. And I’m at the head of this horseshoe of booted feet, and next to me on the grass is my Tupperware box of kit—polishes, wax, a range of brushes, picks, water bottle, pantyhose, old t-shirts cut into rags—and Mr. Larry H. Condell is asking what I want?

Well, what the fuck do you think I want, Condi? The last waltz?

The set up’s almost too much. Five guys baring their boots, and it’s all for me. Sure, they’ve got their problems too, but this week it’s my turn. We’re engaged in some kind of cooperative rehab therapy. We learn about our own problems through learning about each other’s. It’s meant to be helpful. And it is, totally. I’ve learned for example, that Lee’s problem is he can’t stop thinking about pussy. He wants to eat it, touch it, taste it, lick it, smell it.

*****

Want to read the rest? You'll have to buy F Is for Fetish now, won't you?

XXX,
Alison

P.S. I can't give away the Brighton Buttons to every commenter, but I'll choose one or two winners today!