Alison's Wonderland (22 page)

I was almost ready to take the risk. My pussy was telling me to do one thing while every other part of me was telling me to do something else: the right thing. I stood up, not caring that I was naked; the people watching me had seen me in the buff plenty of times. I slipped on a purple silk robe, then tied the belt around my waist. I turned on the lights and checked myself out in the mirror, making sure I still looked good. They’d set me up with a jump rope and exercise bands so I could get some exercise, but nothing beats walking around New York.

Then I heard the sound, a soft knock on my door, so quiet I would’ve thought the noise was coming from my imagination if it wasn’t the middle of the night. But the wee hours had arrived, and noise was scarce even in Manhattan. I wasn’t scared, because none of my friends even knew precisely where I was. I had sent them a mass e-mail letting them know I’d be MIA for two months. I walked over to the door, but instead of looking out the peephole, I pressed my ear to the door, then whispered against the crack. “Who’s there?”

“You know exactly who it is.”

“No, actually, I don’t.”

“But you still want me, don’t you? Without even knowing what I look like or anything. You’ve been thinking about me. I can tell.”

“Why are you torturing me like this? Is this a twisted kind of test to see just how horny I really am?”

“No, Iris, I swear. I just saw you and felt this instant connection that went beyond my job or responsibilities, beyond right and wrong. And I know I told you all about my cock, but really, it’s about more than that. I think I’m meant to be with you.”

His voice sounded anguished, and finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I undid the latch above the door and then turned the knob. The man standing there was pretty much the man of my dreams—tall, probably about six feet, bald (that’s my thing), big and strong. He was wearing jeans and a white long-sleeved shirt, and had some stubble on his chin. I just stood there, though. If I let him in, everyone would see, and if I left the room, everyone would see.

“You’re even more gorgeous in person, Iris.”

“What’s your name?” I had to know at least that.

“Raymond,” he said, then just stared at me. Suddenly, this wasn’t just about his cock or my dirty dreams. I could feel the air between us becoming even more charged. Without thinking too much more about it, I grabbed my key and slipped into the hallway, knowing I was likely closing the door on my chance for twenty thousand dollars. That would mean the past month had been wasted, too.

He led me to another room and there the tenderness stopped. “I know exactly how you like it, Iris, probably better than you know yourself,” he said as he slipped two fingers inside me. I shut my eyes and floated on his voice, his touch, because if I pondered it too much, I’d realize I was with a complete stranger, one who’d been watching me intently for weeks. It wasn’t like picking someone up at a bar, where you’re both blank slates.

He did, indeed, know exactly what he was doing. He not
only bent me over the bed, but shackled my wrists together with padded cuffs. When my whimpering got too loud, he taped my mouth shut. As many kinky things as I’d done before, no one had ever done that. I could make noise, but no sounds come out, staying trapped inside me, with only the music of his belt whipping across my bottom and my heavy breathing, in and out of my nose, and the sound of his cock entering and leaving my pussy filling my ears. I cried, but they were happy tears, tears of release, tears that told me the price I’d been asked to pay was too much. I couldn’t sell my sexuality short like that, and after five (I think) orgasms for me, Raymond switched things around, uncuffing me and removing the tape so I could suck his extra-hard, ready-to-burst cock.

His fingers stroked through my hair and I played with my sore but still throbbing pussy as I knelt before him. “You’re so beautiful, I’m going to take good care of you, Iris.” I sucked harder, and was rewarded with a burst of his salty fluid in my mouth, a sign that he’d enjoyed this as much as I had.

I slept fitfully, knowing I wasn’t going to return to the study. There was a knock on Raymond’s door at seven, and I didn’t even bother putting on the robe. “Iris, we know you’re in there,” I heard when Raymond didn’t open the door fast enough.

He flung it open, and we were faced with the entire committee staring disapprovingly. “The experiment is over. You can go. You’ll get your check in the mail,” the lead scientist said in a clipped voice.

“Thank you,” I said, not wanting to ask more. I was going to get my money
and
this sexy man who wanted me as often as I wanted him?

I only found out later, when I got a copy of the report, that they’d concluded that “oversexed” women like me simply couldn’t resist the temptation of cock. As it turned out, the
notes had started as part of the experiment, but Raymond had gone rogue. And thank goodness for that.

Now we do our own form of experimenting, but it’s not for money, and it’s just between us. I live with him, and don’t have to worry about anything…especially where my next orgasm is coming from.

When I was little, about seven or eight, my favorite fairy tale was “Cinderella.” That was because my two older sisters, Claudia and Patricia, were always picking on me. My mother sent me off to school with them in the morning, thinking I would be safe, but as soon as we turned the corner of our block they would start razzing me.

Claudia, who was two years older than me, would run a few steps in front of me. “You’re so little,” she taunted, “if someone saw you behind us they would think you were our dog.” They would then both cackle uproariously like the little witches they were. Trying to hold back the tears, I would struggle to keep up with them, catch my shoe in a crack in the sidewalk, stumble and fall. I would fantasize that a handsome prince would come and rescue me, and whenever I was alone I would practice dancing so he would notice me at the ball.

As I grew up, I became fascinated by shoes, maybe because I saw every new pair as the ones he would find me in. I did meet many handsome princes, and while some of them rescued me, none of them ever rescued me for long. My hope
of meeting a prince who will stick around is still with me, as is my fascination with footwear. I own maybe thirty pairs. When I first moved to this neighborhood twenty-five years ago, I was delighted to find the local shoemaker only a few blocks away.

Natasha Shoe Repair is the name of the shoemaker’s shop up on Clark Street. The owner, a bald man with steel teeth, looks the same as he did when I came to the neighborhood. Once I asked him the secret of his youthful appearance and he said he drank vodka for breakfast. His steel teeth make his smile quite scary, but actually he is a genial man. He has been calling me Miss Moscow all this time because he thinks I’m Russian, too.

Das vadanya
is how he always greets me. I keep telling him that my grandparents were born in Russia, but not my parents, not me. I’m as American as popcorn at the movies and Mickey Mouse, but he persists.
“Das vadanya, das vadanya,
” he keeps repeating until finally I respond with what Russian I know. “
Balalaika, beluga, Baryshnikov,
” I answer. This usually calms him down, and he then rings the little silver bell that stands on the counter because he is not a fixer of shoes. He spends the day standing behind the long counter at the front of the store where he repairs watches and sells the knockoff designer handbags that are in a glass showcase below the counter. When he rings the bell, he summons the real cobbler from a small room in the rear of the store where the cobbler, who is his employee, mends the shoes. These back-room cobblers usually stay a year or two and then they are replaced. I think some of them must leave to open their own shoe-repair shops, but I don’t really know.

The soles of my orthopedic sneakers—they are called MBTs—are all worn out. I decide to bring them in to Natasha Shoe Repair. These sneakers were so expensive, I lived on tofu and spinach for three months to afford them. It was worth it.
Not only do they make me two inches taller, walking in them is like walking on helium.

When I get there, the bald Russian is nowhere to be seen, so I ring the bell myself. The man who comes out from the back of the store is not the pale, squat, tubby guy I am used to seeing. This man is slender with a wiry build and big dark eyes like a faun. His thick, brown hair is close-cropped and curly like a Brillo pad. He wears a black T-shirt, black jeans and a white canvas apron. Even behind the thick canvas of the apron, I can make out a bulge between his legs. He is wiping his hands on the sides of the apron, long powerful hands with thick but graceful fingers. The sight of them makes the inside of my thighs shake, and I think about his upper lip tickling my clit while those fingers grasp my ass, caressing it. Because I am immediately thinking like this makes me realize how lonely I am, how hungry for hot cock inside me.

“What you need?” he asks in a foreign accent I cannot place. What I need is those fingers ripping off my blouse, my skirt, pulling down my panties, but I cannot tell him that. I show him the sneakers.

“Hard job?” I ask apprehensively. “Too much work?”

“No problem,” he answers, giving me a crooked, zigzag smile. “Come back Tuesday, ten dollars.”

“Ten dollars?” I can’t help exclaiming. The fancy shoe store where I brought the sneakers had told me when the soles wore out they could be repaired there for one hundred and thirty dollars. “Sure,” the shoemaker says. “You nice pretty lady.” He fishes a yellow ticket out of the pocket of his apron and tears it in half, puts half in one of the sneakers and hands the other half to me. His admiration surprises and confuses me. He looks to be in his early thirties, at least twenty years younger I am. I nearly bolt out the door, but then I remember I haven’t even thanked him. I am wearing my brown alligator pumps and orange fishnet stockings. When I turn to say
thank-you, he is still standing there, and—do I imagine it?—he is looking at my legs.

When I come back to pick up the sneakers, once again the bald Russian isn’t there. I ring the bell, and the shoemaker comes out to greet me. His hands and wrists are all stained with black dye, which makes them look even sexier, as though he is wearing high leather gloves. “Your shoes ready,” he says, and takes the ticket I hold out to him. Our fingers touch and a warm jolt of electricity runs through my body.

He vanishes back into the interior. I can just make out a large sewing machine, a rack of steel hammers of various sizes, rolls of leather on a shelf. He rummages below the shelf and pulls out a white plastic bag. He brings it to me, opens it and pulls out the sneakers to show me. When he upends them to display the soles, they look better than new; the seamless rubber gleams dark as the mysterious night.

“Perfect,” I say. He puts the sneakers back in the bag. His luminous eyes shine like jet and he is looking at me, smiling happily as if he finds me beautiful. Shyly, I return his gaze and our eyes lock and hold in a warm embrace. I remember I have to pay him and get out the ten I have folded in my jeans pocket for this purpose and hand it to him. Once again our fingers touch and this time the heat that passes between us is even stronger, insistent, like the steam rising from a pot.

Just then, the bald Russian stomps in, carrying a bag from Forever Bagels up the block. I look down and the shoemaker turns away. “
Das vadanya,
” says the bald Russian, and then, more insistently, he says it again, “
Das vadanya.
” A few Russian words float up from the bottom of my consciousness. “
Smirnoff, Stroganoff, Stolichnaya,
” I say as I grab my sneakers and f lee the store.

Out on the street, I cradle the sneakers between my breasts. When I put up a hand to brush my unruly bangs from my eyes, my fingers smell like leather. I imagine I am dancing
with the sexy shoemaker. I am wearing a strapless white dress with a wide skirt and the sneakers. His hand is firm on my waist as he whirls me around and round.

After I get home, I take the sneakers from the bag and handle them, knowing he touched them. I imagine his fine fingers clasping a silver knife, carefully cutting away the old worn sole with sure movements. I want those fingers on my back and pulling me to him with the same intensity with which he grips the knife. I want his big tool deep inside me. I am getting wet.

I kick off my shoes; take off my clothes, my fishnet tights, my bra and panties, and put them on the kitchen chair. Then I put on my sneakers because I know that he has held them in his hands. I lace them up and head into my bedroom, go to my bed and lie down on top of the covers. I think of his fingers, taking pride in their handiwork, proudly patting the soles of the sneakers. Then I see those fingers move up, brushing my ankles, stroking the muscles of my calves, holding my knees open. He parts my thighs, looks inside. He licks his lips at what he sees and then buries his mouth inside me. His supple tongue laces its way up to find my clit and then he is sucking me slowly, methodically, showing me the way a master cobbler works with extreme patience. My clit swells, throbs, my cunt quivers and my whole body shouts,
Yes, yes, yes!
My flesh softens, becomes more pliable. He can stretch me; mold me any way he wants.

He reaches up, and his hands envelop my breasts, his fingers rub my nipples, with the same rhythm with which he is sucking the tender button between my legs. I feel the quickening inside that means I am about to come. How I want him to fuck me! The metal buckle of his belt presses into my belly. Below it, through the fabric of his jeans I can feel something else, the solid proof he wants me.

I reach down, unbuckle the belt, fumble with his zipper
and pull it down. But then I hesitate, shy about touching him. He helps, puts his hand inside and pulls it out. It is a deep purple color, and so long it reaches to my navel. He is uncut, my preference. When he leans his body on top of mine, his master tool, hard as steel, presses into my vulva.

It is only then I lean over and get my giant Blue Rabbit vibrator out of the drawer in my bedside table. I don’t need any lube because I’m so wet from my imaginings that my juice is flooding out of me, running down my legs. I lie on my back, put a pillow under my hips and close my eyes. The cobbler is standing over me, his pointy cock combing through my pubic hair. He is my prince who knows just how to find the way inside. My legs spread even wider. I flip on the switch to the vibrator, loving the sultry purr. Easily, it slides into me and I imagine my prince moving in me with a steady rhythm. The joyful friction between us makes sparks fly. I push the speed button on the vibrator up to high. The pulse between my legs quickens into a roar and then I am opening up, turning inside out, flooding with waves of bliss that carry me out to a calm warm sea.

I don’t know how long I drift there. My bladder is full and the dildo still inside me. Reluctantly I pull out the dildo, imagining it is his thumb sliding out of me. I hold it as I swing my legs over the bed and stand.

I dash out of the bedroom down the hall to the bathroom but am stopped short by the vision I see in the mirror on my bathroom door. An old hag carrying a brilliant blue sex toy, its bright, happy color a mockery. My legs are still shapely but my small breasts hang down, having lost all their bounce. What would the shoemaker think if he saw my body? Would he laugh, feel sorry for me? Maybe he is just being nice to an old lady? Maybe he looks at all women with desire no matter their age? Some men are like that. I know I’m driving myself crazy. I seem to be doing this a lot lately. At least he has in
spired a delightful fantasy. I make use of the toilet and then, in the bathroom sink, I lovingly give the Rabbit vibrator a little bath. It will never laugh at me or mock me.

When I wake up the next morning, I feel loose and free. It’s been cold; a lot of rain; today is the first sunny day. The temperature check on my computer says 72 degrees, in April no less! If the polar ice caps continue to melt, maybe there will be no spring this year, but I’m in a springtime mood. Today, I will put away my winter clothes and get out my spring things.

I go to my closet, sort through my skirts, blouses and jackets. I decide to give away my old beige trench coat and get a new one, maybe in a flower pattern. I sort through the great pile of shoes in the bottom of the closet. I pick up one of my torn red leather pirate’s boots and see the shoemaker holding it, then, his fingers flashing, he uses a big pointy needle to sew up the rip in the side. As I put them back in the pile, I see a flash of silver, my dancing shoes.

I got them for five dollars at the Salvation Army years ago when I first moved to the neighborhood. They were black, lace-up vintage shoes with a low stack heel. As soon as I tried them on I knew they would be my dancing shoes. I wanted to make them dressier. I went up to Natasha Shoe Repair and got shoe spray paint and sprayed them silver.

I did the salsa in those shoes, the tango, lindy hop, waltz, rumba and the cha-cha-cha. I never lacked for partners and many were the nights I danced my way into a fine gentleman’s bed.

Now the shoes are worn and shabby. The silver paint is chipped off and the holes in the leather over the big toes seem to gape even wider than before. If anyone can fix them, my cobbler can.

I apply lipstick and fix my hair. I put on my favorite maroon velvet blazer. I wrap the dancing shoes in a bag and go up at
noon. I hope the bald Russian will be out to lunch. I am in luck. He is playing chess at one of the tables outside at the Chess Classic Café, a few doors down from his store. He is so involved in his game, he wouldn’t notice if the entire Bolshoi Ballet whirled past.

I enter the store and ring the bell. My shoemaker seems to grin when he sees me. but maybe it is only my own wistful thinking. “Yes?” he says.

I feel embarrassed like a shy Cinderella who wants to run away. I try not to look at his crotch but am not successful. I take the shoes out of the bag and put them on the counter.

“Can you fix these shoes?” I ask him.

“Sure,” he says, “but why you paint them silver? I see they used to be black.”

I tell him they are my dancing shoes. “I wanted to make them special,” I say.

“How long you have these shoes?” he asks. I wonder if this is an oblique way of asking my age. I decide to go for broke and tell him the truth. “Twenty-five years,” I answer. His expression does not change. “You have good times in these shoes?” is his next question.

“Oh, yes,” I answer. “I love to dance.”

“Me, too,” he says.