I’ve never made coffee in platform stilettos before. The French Connection pair I’m wearing are black velvet with pale pink bottoms. I stand close to six feet with them on. My legs are lean and long like the trunk of a young, growing tree. Oh, and speaking of French…
There’s a French painter in my bed. Since I live in a studio apartment, in a midtown east luxury building – the bed isn’t too far from the kitchen, where I’m preparing his espresso.
I’m acting like I don’t feel his seaweed green eyes tracing the shape of my shoulders, curving down my thin elbows while I make him a breakfast drink – scanning up the back of my legs, back down to the bottom of my heels.
Last night, when I first put on these shoes – his back was turned. His tall, lean body slightly dipped toward a glass wall overlooking the east river. I traced his silhouette’s outline in the distant glow of the Queens Bridge. He turned, about a minute in to the touch of my stare. He took a step back. And then another; backwards, away from me.
“I’ve never seen you like that before, baby,” he whispered. “You’re so tall…”
His name is Alexandre. He works in fashion. The first night we met, we hand fed each other crème brûlée and raspberries. He asked me to be his Valentine and said I should let him be my third husband. “Lucky number three… mon amore…”
Alexandre sat on my vintage love seat, about thirty feet from where I stood in red lace lingerie, thigh high stockings and these black velvet heels.
“Walk…”
I did what he said, which is rare for me. I stepped forward. My thighs barely brushed when the weight of my left foot swung in front of the right one and I took a long, slow step toward him.
“Je suis toujours avec toi mon trésor, je t’aime…”
I took a second step in his direction, and a third.
“I see women in heels all of the time. You know how to walk in those. You’re an entirely different woman. I can’t believe I didn’t see this before…”
My apartment is filled with morning light and smells like strong coffee. I’m not wearing the stockings anymore, but the heels haven’t left my feet. The stretch of my spine, strutting across the room to start a new day with my future, is making me smile.
“You have a beautiful smile, baby…”
I’m perched on the end of the bed after I place Alexandre’s coffee on the night stand beside him. My shoe is dangling from the toes of my right foot, crossed over my left knee. He moves close to kiss me, and I realize I’m about to start life all over again.
Only this time, I’ll do it wearing French stilettos.