Brushed by Stal Lionne Page A

them yet. She felt herself come alive with energy, and sat down to try the shoes on. As she took off her old, practical shoes, and slid on the platform sandals,  her feet sent sensations up her legs, through her thighs, and directly towards her womanhood. It’s a known fact that most of the nerves and pleasure points in connection with the human body exist in the feet, so there’s no surprise that putting on a pair of perfectly crafted shoes should stimulate the areas most men had trouble even knowing about. The heels were about 4 inches. She stood up and felt a jolt of ecstasy move straight to her spine and through parts of her body she hadn’t felt in years. Looking at her calves in the mirror, she just loved how the pink leather soles felt. Nobody would ever see them when she walked, but knowing they were there was enough for her to enjoy. Most pleasures, deep pleasures, can’t be seen by the naked eye.
    She took a stroll through the store and felt her backside swing, which stimulated her between her legs. The right kind of shoes felt like there were soft hands rubbing you in all the right places with each step. When was the last time her husband took the time to touch her like that?
    “How much?” Piper asked, bracing for the worst.
    “Well,” the girl said, leaning over to make sure nobody was listening. “The store price is $710.00, but if you have cash to pay, I could let you walk out with them for $300. Just, you know, it’ll be between us girls.”
    Piper loved being called a girl, and the shoes made her fall even deeper into her reflections of youth. She reached into her wallet and pulled out most of the cash she had reserved for the down payment the painter had requested, and told herself she’d figure out how to take care of those practical matters later. There was no way she was going to let go of the feeling these shoes gave her.
    “What do you want me to do with your old shoes?” the girl asked, casually pocketing the money.
    “Burn ‘em,” Piper beamed. “We were never that close anyway.”
    With that, she sauntered out to the street with her new shoes, holding her umbrella and letting it twirl while the sounds of her heels clicking against the cobblestone mixed with the raindrops that fell all around her.
    The painter’s studio was on Mercer Street, so she headed down Houston and stopped in the Aroma café to have a cappuccino and sit on the silver chair that faced the   window, exposing her legs and looking to draw stares from the men walking by. After all, she felt sexy and desirable for the first time in ages with her new babies on her feet. Feeling aroused, Piper took out her phone and called up her husband.
    “Frank,” she said. “I’m in the city at the Aroma café.”
    “What,” he said, sounding pre-occupied. “Is everything okay? What do you need?”
    “I don’t need anything baby,” she said in a trying-to-be-sexy voice that matched her shoes. “Why don’t you take the day off, come meet me in the city, and do whatever you feel like to me. It would be fun if you just found me and pretended not to know me.”
    “You know I’m in the middle of prepping for a big presentation here,” he said coldly. “You want to play around in the city, good. Go see a movie and treat yourself to something nice. I don’t have time to play games, Piper. Really. Do you need anything else?”
    “No, not from you, no” she said, realizing then that the man she married may not have been the man she married. “I’ll see you tonight when I’m done with the painter.”
    “Good,” he said. “We need to get that kitchen done before my parents come to stay with us for the holidays. You don’t want to be cooking in a half done kitchen, do you? Way to stay on track, Piper. That’s my girl.”
    A man walked by and couldn’t help but looking up Piper’s skirt through the glass of the front of the café. She smiled at him then turned away.
    “No,” she said to her husband. “We