Her First Foot Boy

He put her panties and stockings into the laundry hamper. Did garter belts need to be washed? He left it on the sink for her to figure out.

He had no idea where the corset went. Or did he? He checked. Amazing. She had a drawer labeled Underwear and another labeled "Underwear" in quotes. The underwear in the second drawer was markedly lacier and skimpier, and there was another corset in there, a rich satin brocade thing. He put the leather one on top.

Shoes? Probably in the closet. He slid the door open. Her shoes were lined up on a multi-level shelving unit, grouped by use. Mostly casual shoes and practical office pumps. A few pairs of boots on the floor. The upper level was shoe boxes, oriented with the label facing front. There was an empty spot.

"Enjoying yourself there?"

He cringed. Of course. Because his life was apparently a porn flick now. "I was tidying up." He turned to look at her.

"Tidying. Naked. In my closet." She looked more amused than anything else but she clearly didn't believe him at all.

He squirmed. "I was putting your shoes away. And you said you'd tell me when I was allowed clothes again."

"That was a joke."

Oh. Right. Obviously. "I was playing along?" he tried.

Her teasing smirk softened. "I'm going to need at least fifteen minutes in the bathroom."

"Yeah, I'm done already." And there were at least two bathrooms.

"No, I'm saying, I'll be in the bathroom for at least fifteen minutes."

He gaped at her.

She winked. "I'll let you use a tissue this time, if you want."

He opened his mouth to protest, then realized he'd only be making it worse. "I'll start some tea." He fled, slamming the door behind him.

His clothes were still in her room.

Fuck.

His phone was in there too. He considered slinking in to get it. No, with the way his morning was shaping up, she'd poke her head out at exactly the wrong moment.

Yeah, she'd definitely remember him. And probably so would all her friends.

He went to the kitchen and turned on the stove. He'd try a few crepes. He'd never used a copper pan before.

It lived up to the hype. Incredibly even heat, incredibly quick response. He turned out crepe after perfect crepe, stacking them up on a plate.

She came padding out in a polo shirt and jeans. "You did tidy up."

"I had some time."

"I didn't mean to embarrass you there."

"It's fine," he lied. "I realize how it looked. I wouldn't do that, though."

She let that slow smile spread across her face. "No, you wouldn't, would you?"

She offered him his clothes.

"Thanks."

A trace of her teasing air returned. "Just to be clear, you're to put these on and sit on the chair."

Could she take it as well as dish it out? "Bitch," he said.

She burst into laughter. "What did you call me?" Oh, yeah, she could take it.

He turned off the range hood and enunciated. "You're. a. bitch."

She darted in to kiss his cheek. "Only to boys who need a firm hand," she whispered, and then brushed by him.

They sat and ate crepes. She did wash her garter belts, by hand. Same for the stockings, which she'd luckily seen in her hamper before she dumped it all into a machine.

"Sorry."

"It was sweet of you to try." She chewed contemplatively. "You're a sweet guy. Surprisingly wholesome."

Sweet. Wholesome. Yeah, that was girls said about him. He steered the conversation back to her travels. She asked him about teaching undergrads. They lingered over a second pot of tea.

Finally, he stood. "I have some grading to do," he said apologetically.

"Oh, of course." She stood but didn't move.

He watched her, curious what she'd do next.

She stepped decisively into his personal space. "I don't think you ever kissed me last night."

Well, even he could take that hint. He bent down---was she really that short, without the shoes?---and kissed her. She opened her mouth and he tasted the butter and cinnamon on her tongue. He felt himself pulling her to him. He came up for air before he embarrassed himself further.

She looked at him, but not thinking this time. Waiting.

He took a deep breath. If only. "Walk me to the door?" he said, hoping his voice sounded normal.

She looked down. At this distance, with the height difference, that meant he couldn't see her face at all. "Of course. I can give you a pair of shoes."

A pair of shoes? Was she offering him a souvenir?

No, it turned out.

"Why do you have a pair of men's size twelve flip-flops?"

"Someone left it."

"Someone left his shoes at your apartment?"

"He was wearing nice leather shoes. I suggested a walk by the lake front. He got them from a corner store and didn't bother taking them with him."

So it was a souvenir, in a way. He tried to keep his expression neutral. "His loss, my gain." Ugh. He tried again. "Thanks, Lily. That's really thoughtful of you. They'll be much more comfortable than my cycling shoes."

She shrugged and watched him put them on. He picked up his cycling shoes.

"Well, thanks, Lily. This was great. I hope, um, things work out at, um, work."

"Yeah. You too. At school, I mean." She looked at him, making no move to get out of his way.

"Hug?" he offered.

She let him hug her but she was stiff in his arms. Tense.

He looked at her.

She stared at the ground and spoke so quietly he could hardly hear her. "I've really enjoyed our time together."

"Me too, Lily." He chuckled. "Me too."

"Maybe I could give you my phone number? You could text me if you wanted to meet up again."

He felt a big, stupid grin stretch across his face. She wanted to see him again? He did a mental victory lap before reality came crashing down.

He'd made the cut from one-night stand to booty call. And that wasn't something he could do. He was terrible at friends with benefits. He got attached, and then jealous, and then nasty.

He swallowed. "You're really fun to talk to, Lily. I'd love to be friends with you."

He still couldn't see her face but he didn't need to. Her pain and her anger were plain in every line of her body. "Yeah," she said flatly.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah." She stepped aside and jerked the door open, refusing to meet his gaze.

He stepped into the hallway. She slammed the door behind him.

Fucking fuck.

He brooded all the way home. He'd made the right decision. He knew that. See her again and again, knowing she was spending the nights in between with some other guy? With random other guys all over the world? He couldn't do that. He knew it. If only she'd understood.

She'd find somebody. There was no shortage of kinky, submissive men who'd be content to come when she called. Some of them would probably get off on the fact that she was seeing other men. There were people like that.

He threw away the flip-flops when he got home. He said something restrained when his room-mate asked about his night, leering knowingly. Then he threw himself into work and chores. Grading, laundry, shopping and cooking for the week.

He caught up on his reading, including a truly awful paper that was unfortunately quite close to his own research. He could see the kernel of a neat idea in there, but excessive peer review had utterly destroyed any hope it had of telling a compelling story. He was in no mood to dig out the shrapnel and fit the pieces back together.

He turned in at ten, promising himself a long hard ride in the morning to clear his mind.

He woke up to two missed calls and a series of texts from Carlotta, all sent between 2:30 and 2:35 last night. The texts read,

"Call me when you see this"

"Keep calling until I pick up"

"Asshole"

"You are truly the stupidest man alive. I am going to give you one chance to explain yourself and then I am going to fly all the way back there to kick you in the balls."

"Repeatedly"

"Not in a sexy way"

It was six. It'd be four for Carlotta. Well, she knew when he got up. He called her.

It rang for almost a minute before she answered. She whispered, "I'm going to walk to the park down the block where I can shout at you properly without waking Sarah." And on that ominous note she hung up.

She called him back fifteen minutes later. "What the fuck, Benjamin?" she hissed.

"Is this about Lily?"

"Yes, this is about Lily. What the fuck did you do?"

"I have no idea. What did she say I did?"

"All she would tell me is that it was fine but you weren't going to be seeing each other any more."

It was fine? Ouch. "Well, is that a problem?"

"She got snowed in once. No flights out for three days, and only one room at the hotel. She had to share with one of the partners. Not the kind that keeps his hands to himself."

"That's horrible."

"No, that was fine too." She paused a moment to let that sink in, then shrieked, "What the fuck did you do?!"

"Um. It went really well---"

"Bullshit!"

"No, hear me out. It went really well. She even said so. Except at the end she offered me her number and I said we should be friends and she didn't like that."

Carlotta was silent.

"You still there?"

"Why?"

"Look, I'm not judging. It sounds like everyone's having fun. But I don't want to be her Tuesday boy, you know?"

"Her Tuesday boy?"

"I don't want to be just the boy she calls on Tuesdays. Carlotta, she picks up men for fun. She was telling me about it. Her whole life is flying around and sleeping around."

"She said this?"

"She told me about the traveling and the partying. The sleeping I figured out myself."

"Benjamin, are you under the impression that Lily fucking Ouyang is sniffing around your sad sack ass for a booty call?"

"Don't be mean, Carlotta."

"No, I need you to understand this. Lily has a section in her contacts list full of gorgeous men hung like horses who make more money in a year than you or I will ever see in our lives."

"Do you have a point here?"

"She keeps them together by writing B.C. into the first name field. The last name is a company or a city or something. Like, B.C. Morgan isn't a guy named Morgan. It's a guy who works at Morgan Stanley who will wine her and dine her and fuck her whenever they're in the same city. Can you guess what B.C. stands for?"

"Great, she has rich assholes lining up to have tons of basically anonymous sex with her whenever she wants. Good for her." He was surprised at how much it hurt to hear his suspicions confirmed.

"My point is, Lily does not give men her number because she wants a friends with benefits situation. I don't even know when she last had to offer a man her number unasked."

"Oh." Shit.

"Yeah, oh."

He had no idea where to go from here. "I screwed the pooch, didn't I? You know, I thought she was flirting with me a few times."

He heard Carlotta breathe loudly for several seconds. Then she growled, "You thought she was flirting with you? At some point during the kinky sex you were having all night, you thought she might have flirted with you?"

"It wasn't like that. And how do you know we had any kind of sex?"

"Excuse me." He heard Carlotta scream wordlessly from a distance. Then she came back. "Did I do everything, when we got together? Absolutely everything?"

"I think you asked me out, yeah."

"Of course I did. Listen carefully. I'm going to text you her number. You are going to explain how stupid you are. And then you are going to beg for the chance to take her out on a date."

"Is that going to work? She didn't sound like she wanted to hear from me again."

"I have no idea. You are the only person in the world who could have shat the bed quite so thoroughly."

"I guess she did ask me three times to stay the night. That's a good sign, right?"

Carlotta screamed into the distance again. "Okay, I'm done. That's---I'm done. Text her. If you do it today, I'll let you pretend you unfucked this on your own."

"How am I going to explain how I got her number?"

"Oh, yeah, you can't. Tell her I gave it to you because you realized what an incredible moron you were."

That was technically true, he supposed. "Thanks, Carlotta. I really appreciate this. Hey, um, how are things working out---"

"It's four in the morning and I'm standing out here in a bathrobe. Fuck off." She hung up.

Benjamin opened up his texts and started to compose a message.

Then he put his phone down. Now that a real relationship was a possibility, he found himself looking back over their night together with new eyes.

They were from such different worlds, financially, and, worse, she was so incredibly awkward about it. How long would it be before she got tired of slumming it with him? Or before he got tired of her apologizing for every part of her life that he couldn't afford? Because that would be a lot of apologizing.

Not to mention, 50% travel? That was halfway to a long-distance relationship. If he could do long-distance, he'd still be with Carlotta. But he couldn't. He didn't do one-night stands and he didn't do long-distance, and he had good reasons for both.

"Not everything has to be a big commitment," Benjamin chided himself. "Do you want to see her again?"

Yes. He wanted to have breakfast with her again. He wanted to hear more about all the places she had gone and all the things she had eaten. He wanted to be the one going for that walk on the lakefront trail.

He dashed out a message and sent it before he could second-guess himself. "Hey, Lily, this is Benjamin. Carlotta gave me your number. I'm a total idiot. I misunderstood completely. Ask Carlotta how stupid I am. Please, can I buy you a drink and apologize in person?"

Then he threw his phone aside and started getting ready for his now very short ride. He'd tried.

He was pulling on his cycling clothes when his phone dinged. "Carlotta explained in great detail last night how stupid you are. A car is coming for me at eight. If you're here by then, I'll let you grovel all the way to the airport."

A moment later a second message came in. "Groveling was figurative. Wear clothes or I'm going to tell the driver I don't know you."

He looked up the directions. The train would be cutting it uncomfortably close. If he rode, he'd show up pouring sweat but with a good ten minutes to spare. He grabbed his lock. He'd probably have to leave his bike at her place and take the train back to pick it up.

"Coming," he wrote, and clomped out the door as fast as he could walk in his cycling shoes.

He was halfway there when he realized he should have brought a pair of flip-flops for the train back.

If you enjoyed this little romp, let me know. Your ratings and comments are the only reward I get for this work.

Thanks to my beta readers

oneagainst

and

TheRedChamber

for their feedback, without which this story would be much worse.

If you're in the mood for something much more serious, I did write the story of Lily's time in the hotel room with her partner. It'll come out in January for the Pink Orchid event. You can follow me on my author page to be notified when it lands.