December 1, 2016 – Shoe fetish            
 

This was a scene essay for Creative Writing Class in 1990, and actually true.

Recently, one morning I pulled a new, green merino wool dress out of my closet.  I laid it out on the bed along with slip, hose, jewelry, and a brand new pair of high heels the same exact shade of green.  While I was brushing my teeth I was congratulating myself on my bargain prowess for buying the shoes at last January’s clearance sale and stashing them in my closet until the right outfit came along to match them.

“Aaa Hah,” my husband exclaimed. 

He is wrapped in a bath towel and is wet from his shower when he espies the new shoes on the bed.  He grabs one of the green high heels and brandishes it about as it were a saber.  He can plainly see they are “virgin shoes” with not a single scuff mark on the sole.

“Aaa Hah,” he said again with a glint in his eye for he has caught me this time.

I’d smuggled the new shoes into the house without his knowledge.  I was foaming at the mouth as I was brushing my teeth and the color started to rise into my cheeks.  I knew I had no defense; I was guilty as sin.  I had a choice of pleading the ‘Fifth’ or openly admitting I had bought a pair of shoes.  I chose the latter.  I made a slurred excuse,

“They are the exact shade of green as my new dress.  I knew when I bought them at last year’s clearance sale I would find a dress to match – someday.”

He shook his head smiling at me warmly like a parent smiles at a naughty child then tossed the shoe where he had found it.  He knows the real truth; he knows I have a flaw in my personality.  He knows I have a “shoe fetish”.

I have known for a long time I have this problem.  It has been years since I have purchased just one pair of shoes at a time; more often than not it is usually two or three pairs I purchase at a time.  Once, in New Jersey, I bought eight pairs at Thom McCann’s.  Boy, I had happy feet for over a week.  What I didn’t realize, until just recently, was that even my husband knows this deep dark secret.

When I ask him how I look, his eyes immediately go to my feet.  If my shoes happen to match my outfit he instantly asks, raising his eyebrows archly,

“New Shoes?” 

My instinctive reaction is to remove a shoe and like a child show him the worn bottom and the scuffed, scraped heel declaring one of my many pat answers,

“These are old,”   or “I’ve had them since last year,” or “They really need to go to the cobbler; the heels are worn out,” or “Actually, I could use a new pair?”  This is wishful thinking.  Or simply, “I got them on sale.  Do you like them?”  I can’t lie well and my excuses are transparently feeble. 

This routine, this game we play in my sweet-talking him into letting me buy more new shoes has worn his patience thin.  He is on to me and my shoe fetish.  Do I need psychoanalysis?

A flicker of guilt fills me as I hope he doesn’t find the black leather and lizard skin heels I bought at J.C. Penney’s half-price sale last week.

Fast forward 25 years – nothing has changed except my modus operandi now has a battle cry:

If the shoe fits, buy it in every color.

- Author Unknown