Nikki's Shoes Ch. 02

Just to the left, there's a towering maple tree. 50 feet, 60 feet... does it matter? It dwarfs whoever stands next to it.

To the right, a small scrubby pine that stands like a bewildered teenager at a dinner party populated entirely by greying adults.

Behind it? More gravestones.

This one in particular said "Katherine Faulkner".

"Wife."

"Mother."

"1968-2009"

It said more in those simple words than I could have ever eulogized, and I laid white tulips on top of the red granite in her memory. I missed her long dark hair, and her beautiful green eyes, and her lushly perfect body, and I wanted to hurt someone or something.

I turned around and walked to the small bench off the asphalt path leading to my dead wife's grave, and I sat down heavily in the heat and humidity of a late August afternoon. Not for the first time, I thought about the abject cruelty of a God that could take my wife, and leave Paris Hilton breathing.

It could have been five minutes, or an hour... I wasn't sure which, and I didn't much care. My sons were at my inlaws' place; I had taken the day off work, and the pitying looks of my coworkers on this anniversary were far too much for me to endure. I looked up at the sky and noticed a solitary condensation trail from a far-off jet, and I thought seriously about getting on a plane to somewhere that I could start all over again.

And that's when I saw her.

She was walking towards me.

I actually laughed out loud, because I didn't want to be living in a Stephen King novel, and I didn't want to entertain the thought of my wife coming back as some kind of grotesque horror, but how else does one explain a vision in a midnight tank dress? Especially given that she was the exact image of Katherine?

I watched, in equal parts awe and mounting terror, as her long legs effortlessly climbed the shallow path. I took in the complete sweep of her, from the over-sized black sunglasses, to the pale face and the ruby slash of lips. I drank the sight of her, greedily, gorging myself on the black crepe de chine that caressed her body from neck to knee. I felt my throat close up as I saw her bare legs down to MY GOD... those Alexander McQueens on her perfect manicured feet.

Those were the shoes I'd bought for Katherine on the day of the accident.

$925... 5" stiletto heels, with gold leather straps moving over her ankles and insteps and toes in a very subtle nod to bondage and slavery, to gladiators and victory, to sex and death.

I saw them at Nino's... and I knew that they belonged on Katherine's feet just as I belonged inside her. I knew that she would wear them for me, and I knew that she would wear them for herself, and I smiled at the memory, and I frowned at what this creature in front of me had just done.

The click of the heels was muted by the heated asphalt. I knew what they sounded like when Nino's assistant Marnie had worn them to show me their devastating effect. I wanted to hear Katherine's laugh again as I gave them to her; the pleasure in her eyes as she opened the box was like that of a child with an unexpected treasure.

I shook my head to clear it, and I looked up again to see this woman, this creature, this nightmare standing in front of me, with her arms crossed over her chest, shaking, no, trembling.

"You're not supposed to be here."

I didn't think the dead could speak. But her voice sent chills down my spine nonetheless.

"Nobody's supposed to be here. I checked."

I listened to her petulance and arrogance, and I stood up. My charcoal gray suit hid me from her gaze, and I was thankful for the modern equivalent of armour, because it certainly prevented her gaze from transfixing me completely. As I looked at her impassively, I realized that she came up to my height, and I shivered involuntarily. The resemblance was uncanny.

"I didn't tell anyone I was coming. I didn't realize I needed an appointment." I said, stupidly, realizing how completely moronic that would have sounded.

She took off her sunglasses. She put them in her little Hermes clutch, and she looked at me, eye to eye, standing about two feet from me, not giving any ground at all. "I don't like being here when others are here."

That gave me pause. "You grieve alone?"

Her eyes turned into little hard emeralds. "Who said anything about grieving?"

She walked past me, and a subtle smell of Guerlain washed over me. Thank God she didn't smell like Katherine, because I would surely have lost my mind on the spot. She sat on the bench, and as I turned to face her again, she crossed her legs.

I tried not to stare at the heels she wore like weapons, but that was pointless. You have to look. You have to stare, and prostrate yourself and worship those potent symbols and everything they signify from the evident awareness of sexuality all the way to the certain knowledge of giving, and abandon, and carnality. There is nothing as powerful as a sexual message. Nothing.

And here we were, in a graveyard, and I was surrounded by the present and the past, and confronted with a need that would absolutely continue to dominate my future.

"If you're not grieving, what the hell are you doing in a cemetery?" I inquired, not taking my eyes off the vicious heels.

She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she took the time to uncross her legs, put her feet on the ground, languidly stretch out her left leg and cross it over her right knee, idly bobbing her left foot up and down so that the afternoon sun would catch the golden leather straps and reflect warmly right into my paralyzed brain.

"I came to laugh. I came to give thanks."

Of course she did. In that instant, I took in the picture.

Rich older man. Younger devastating trophy wife. Bought and paid for. The price must have been exacting, I thought, for her to come and gloat.

"Which one's yours?" I heard her voice rise in the haze.

"Mine?" I echoed, trying hard to reclaim my fading strength.

She stood up and walked amongst the stones. I watched the ripple of her ass under the black dress, and I couldn't help but think of Katherine bent over the kitchen table, or in our bed...

She stopped here and there, and finally she came to see the tulips sitting on top of Katherine's marker.

"Don't..." I croaked as she lifted a tulip to her lips.

She was desecrating her.

She was violating my wife.

She was killing her memory.

She sat casually, right on the tombstone. Her ass and legs obscured all of the print except for the "9" at the lower right, and I wanted to slap her, but I just couldn't. I walked quickly towards her and stood looking down at her as she traced her lips with the tulip's petals.

She looked like she was about to suck it into her mouth.

And that's when it overtook me.

My erection sprang forth, unbidden, betraying me completely. The blood engorged me; I heard only the pounding of countless corpuscles in my head, joined with the faint whine of bees and the rustle of leaves. I saw only my wife, and I felt only my need.

A strangled gasp tore from my throat as I sank into the flowerbed directly in front of the gravestone, and I took her foot in my hands, delicately tracing the straps of her shoes, marveling at how warm her feet felt.

I didn't look at her at all. I didn't want to face my shame and my desperation, but I couldn't run from what I had let happen either. I moved both my hands up the backs of her perfect calves... my mind telling me they were Katherine's. I bent to kiss her knees, just inside her thighs, and she moaned softly as she hitched up the hem of her dress.

I felt her put a sharp heel right inside my left collarbone, and she shoved. Hard. I sprawled back on the turf, and looked at her, puzzled, confused, angry as hell... and then it was my turn to moan. She had hitched up the hem entirely, and exposed a dark purple thong. It cupped her obscenely, outlining her, showing her more nakedly than if she had been wearing nothing at all.

She turned. She knelt.

Her hands gripped the top of my dead wife's tombstone, and she looked over her shoulder at me. Her stiletto heels pointed at me like daggers, but the thought of being hurt was not anywhere near my black heart.

"First here" she whispered, her eyes flaring with an unholy passion.

"Then on my husband's" she cried... her hands gripping the red stone tightly as I approached.

As I sank into her, the entire liquid channel of her gripping me like a condom, I begged an absent God for forgiveness. I was betraying my wife on her memory. I reached under her and gripped the perfect silicone-enhanced breasts painfully, squeezing them so that she could feel at least a fraction of my pain as well; the only thing I got for my effort was a groan of complete lust.

And those shoes, they made me... they made me.

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