“Fuck! I´m sick of your smelly cigarette butts, your foul breath, those stained fingers. I can´t kiss you. I won´t kiss you. Go and swallow a tube of toothpaste before you come back!”

Barry had a vein throbbing dangerously in his neck as he yelled. A minute ago he had looked so endearing as he approached her with his tousled hair and roguish smile. She sighed as tears threatened to spill onto her cheeks. There was nothing as bad as a reformed smoker. Hell, she had practically given up the habit before she met him. He was responsible for her becoming addicted again. Now that he was on this health kick, he treated her like the ultimate pariah.

Danielle fled along the pavement. She didn´t feel like going out to dinner now. Damn. She had wasted a week´s wages on this little black dress too. Plunging cleavage, short hemline, tight stretch material just made for dancing. Not at all like her daytime persona. She had been prepared for a great night. Instead, here she was in The Valley, home of Chinese restaurants and sleazy nightclubs with everyone except her laughing and going somewhere.

Her new six inch stilettos weren´t made for stomping purposefully over uneven pavers, Danielle realised. She tripped and almost fell, eventually leaning against a wall to consider her options. Apart from the dress, she had also spent $50 on a pedicure in preparation for her one year with Mr-Almost-Right anniversary date. At thirty, she found most of her choices were on the rebound from failed marriages or had just discovered they were straight after years of exploring the wrong orientation. A decade of disastrous dating formed before her eyes — a fleeting mirage of twenty stone men in Hawaiian shirts and pimply college boys who ran home to mother when she revealed her true PMT self. Barry had been her best prospect. Now, however, she was being forced to ruin a perfectly good pedicure by walking to the train in bare feet. Life was indeed unfair.

A cigarette. Danielle fumbled in her bag for the inevitable packet and lighter. She became more desperate as she rummaged deeper, past the used tissues and other unidentifiable detritus. She was virtually crouching on the pavement now, tearing frantically at the lining, hungry for her fix.

“Can I help you?” The deep voice was attached to orange sandshoes and flared, tie-dyed pants.

“I-I need a cigarette,” Danielle confessed helplessly to the young, handsome face which sported rather tempting sideburns.

Momentary visions of running her fingers through them caused her to pause until she remembered her teary, undignified state. She stood up shakily, somehow managing to attach something nasty and sticky to her hair as she tried to look less dishevelled. The young man laughed. In a single fluid movement it seemed, he had produced a cigarette and removed an old, yellow, post-it note from the tangles of her hair.

“Light it!” she almost spat as she snatched the offering from his fingers.

Languidly, he struck a match and held it towards her eager lips. She took several quick puffs followed by a long, breathy drag. As she came to her senses, she realised that her lipstick was hopelessly smudged along the cigarette. She shrugged. It was too late to make a decent impression now anyway.

“I´m Adrian.”

He looked like a teenager. Couldn´t be a day over nineteen. Cute in a very retro kind of way. Perhaps he was going to a fancy dress party in this collage of clothing that was more sixties than anyone had ever actually worn in the sixties.

“Danielle,” she mumbled half-heartedly. “Thanks for the smoke,” she added in a dismissive tone, expecting that he would soon be on his way.

Instead, Adrian grasped her firmly by the arm and began to escort her along the footpath, walking much too fast given her footwear challenged state. She was annoyed by his take-charge attitude but felt too weary to protest. She stumbled down alleys and sidestreets as he seemed determined to traverse the entire suburb. At some point, she became aware of how pleasant it felt to have his powerful biceps steering her along. At last, he stood outside the door of a nondescript building. Craning her neck, she could see lights flickering about three storeys up. She peered inside to be confronted with a rickety set of spiral wooden steps.

“Naaaahmph,” Danielle grunted. Adrian stared at her quizzically with sea green eyes she noticed for the first time. She had really meant to say, “These bloody shoes hurt my feet so much, I´d rather throw myself under a truck than climb those stairs.”

Somehow, in her miserable state, she couldn´t form the words and pointed feebly at her poor, swollen feet instead. In a trice, Adrian was on his knees, unstrapping the offending items. He removed each shoe reverently, before holding it to his face and inhaling deeply. He took on the look of a man truly in lust as he savoured the odour of foot sweat and leather. He then lifted each of her feet from the pavement and softly, almost imperceptibly, touched the top of each one with his lips. Danielle´s instincts told her to run, but Adrian had started up the stairway, her shoes dangling from one hand. She had no choice but to follow if she ever wanted to see her Italian slingbacks again.

Upstairs, the nightclub was hazy with smoke, not all of it from traditional cigarettes, Danielle noted. As her eyes adjusted to the fog, she saw that the room was small but crowded. Jim Morrison boomed from speakers that had seen better days and those who were not dancing squatted on overstuffed beanbags. There was no dance floor as such. People just seemed to lurch together in a semblance of rhythm whenever the urge overtook them. A single, garish, purple spotlight did little to enhance the tie-dyed, roman sandaled look sported by most of the patrons. Danielle felt dizzy. She had entered a time warp perhaps.

Adrian appeared at her side with a glass containing blue liquid. “They only serve blue drinks here,” he replied in response to her expression. Danielle was slightly unnerved to discover that this seemed to make perfect sense. She allowed herself to be led to a bean bag and sipped the surprisingly pleasant elixir whilst watching twenty somethings sway to Janis Joplin. “Ohhh Lo-o-o-r-dddd,” the speakers crackled as though they really were remnants from the sixties.

Adrian eased himself uncomfortably into the bean bag beside her as she quickly realised that it had only been designed for single weight distribution.

“I thought bean bags were the seventies,” she mumbled but he didn´t seem to hear.

His lips seemed to be exploring her shoulder blades, showering tiny kisses along the sides of her neck and onto the exposed areas of her back. It had been a long time since anyone had kissed her there. She felt her body become tense as she tried to remember when she had last loofahed her back. He was probably a pervert but she didn´t want his lips to be littered with her dead skin cells.

“Dance?” Adrian murmured.

Danielle would normally have refused but he had come dangerously close to nibbling her ear and she had definitely run out of cotton buds that morning. Dancing would allow her to keep him at a safe distance. She stood beside the bean bag and swayed vigorously. Adrian put his hands gently on her waist and pulled her towards him. It felt good to collapse against his chest, taking some of the weight from her poor, abused feet. There was a certain freedom in dancing barefoot she realised. He lit a cigarette and they took turns at puffing from it as John Lennon sang about peace. Danielle almost made a comment about his IRA contributions but quickly realised that this was probably not the time for political discussions. Instead, she raised her head and did not resist when Adrian placed his lips against hers.

Danielle couldn´t remember nineteen year old boys being so tender. He tasted deliciously of nicotine and corn chips and jelly beans as his tongue traced the outline of her lips, removing any last vestiges of lipstick.

“Mmmm,” he murmured as his tongue entered her mouth.

Teasing. Undemanding. Gentle. At least until The Rolling Stones. You just can´t kiss romantically to Satisfaction. Adrian did indeed look satisfied when he kissed low between her tits and discovered she wasn´t wearing a bra. His hands cupped her small, pert mounds through the fabric of her dress sending shockwaves from her nipples to her toes. He tweaked the nipples playfully, attacking her lips with renewed vigour when she emitted a high pitched mewl. By the time the song was over, both were flushed with desire. Danielle had found herself grinding against this young stranger despite her mother´s voice muttering about Barry and biological clocks. Iridescent lights were flashing in her brain and she could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing but Adrian with his strong arms and his soft lips and his penchant for her useless shoes.

Danielle didn´t notice the hard pavement as they once again ploughed through the back roads of The Valley. She was part of the laughing, someplace-to-go crowd now and her bare feet felt light. She saw women looking appreciatively at Adrian and she cuddled just a little closer. Some stared for longer than could be considered flirtatiously proper, Danielle decided. There had to be some etiquette for how long you could ogle a complete stranger she considered possessively.

“I´m a lawyer,” she blurted as they hurried along. The I´m-better-than-these-other-women instincts had begun to take over.

“Very impressive,” was his laconic reply.

It was only when they finally stopped outside what appeared to be a deserted warehouse that reality emerged. Adrian still held her shoes but she didn´t care about them now. In the distance, she could still see the lights of the highway. Beyond that would be the train station. Lust had made her careless.

“I-I can´t come in. I don´t know who you are.” Danielle shivered slightly as a cool breeze attacked her skimpy outfit.

For a moment, Danielle thought she caught a look of disbelief on his face. Then he smiled. A broad, relaxed, confident grin. She was whisked into his cavernous abode as he bundled her unceremoniously over his shoulder. Danielle had never seen anything like it. His apartment was one massive room. A futon looked strangely forlorn in one corner, as though it had been a careless afterthought. In another corner there was a tiny kitchen, littered with pizza boxes. No oven. A man after her own heart. The rest of the apartment consisted of giant canvasses covered in what initially appeared to formless psychedelic colours. Closer inspection revealed that the paintings were multihued representations of shoes. Shoes and feet. Cowboy boots. Chinese slippers. Ballet pumps. Tiny, children´s feet. Delicate, women´s feet with red toenails. Danielle remembered her expensive pedicure and breathed an inward sigh of relief.

A newspaper clipping caught Danielle´s attention. A review for an art exhibition. Adrian Stoneham. Successful new-age artist. Even had a showing in New York. Finally, Danielle understood all the staring and whispering as they had walked the streets together. Even she knew that Adrian Stoneham was the most eligible bachelor on everybody´s lips. “Bathroom,” she shrieked and bolted towards the curtain where Adrian pointed with a bemused expression.

Danielle stared at the mirror in horror. Her hair was pointing up in nasty spikes. Her twenty-four hour long lasting foundation had become a scary series of rivers that threatened to dissipate altogether. Only her cobalt blue eye shadow remained determinedly intact. This close to midnight, it looked like a terrible mistake. Suddenly, Adrian appeared behind her, his breath warm and intoxicating against her neck. She felt a cigarette appear between her lips. On the sink he placed a steaming cup of coffee. “Just wash it all off,” he whispered in her ear. To her relief she found some cotton buds as well. At least she could now relax in that department since he seemed determined to put his mouth so close to those particular parts of her body. She briefly considered searching for a loofah but settled for splashing cold water over the exposed parts of her shoulders and neck. She then sat on the edge of the old, claw-foot bath, alternately sipping coffee and puffing her cigarette while she ran warm water over her feet.

When she emerged, Adrian smiled and beckoned for her to sit on the fluorescent, green, inflatable sofa. He removed the cigarette from her hand as he indicated a deformed piece of green plastic on the floor. The remains of a sofa that had come in contact with a careless smoker, he explained. The room was aglow with lava lamps and the smell of incense made her head light. He sat beside her and pulled her feet onto his lap.

“I love this,” he murmured as he tweaked her second toe.

It was slightly longer than her big toe, an oddity she had inherited from her mother´s side of the family. His hands were very, very soft. Long, delicate fingers faintly traced every crevice of her feet. He massaged slowly, varying the pressure till she found herself swooning in a less than coquettish manner.

Adrian´s lips and tongue were on her feet now. He applied the same expertise he had used on her mouth earlier, sending her into a frenzy of delighted moans. Her legs seemed to involuntarily part, giving him a view of her lacy, almost-not-there, black g-string. His beautiful eyes widened and Danielle noted with delight that his hands trembled slightly as they began to travel upwards. Ankles. Calves. Knees. Nearly there. Nearly at her thighs. Danielle closed her eyes and waited. She felt his body move away from the sofa. Then — nothing. She opened her eyes to discover Adrian standing beside a canvas, paint brush in hand.

“Don´t move sweetheart,” he ordered kindly.

Danielle was nonplussed. What was this? The man had worked her into an unparalleled state of wanton yearning and now he was going to paint? Danielle wanted to be outraged and storm away from the apartment. Yet, all her mind could register was that he had called her sweetheart. Sweetheart! Sweetheart made her feel young and pretty and girlish and giggly. She leaned back as seductively as the inflatable sofa would allow and watched.

Adrian had discarded his shirt and his body rippled with promise as shadows from the lamps caught his movements with the paint brush. Danielle felt infuriatingly hot. Hot and desperate. She slid a hand between her thighs to adjust her g-string, only to hear a low groan escape from Adrian´s lips. With deliberate abandon now, she pulled the crotch of her panties to one side, revealing a blonde, wispy patch of pubic hair. Adrian continued to paint, but more slowly, his eyes staring at her rather than the canvas. Danielle sucked a finger in her mouth before placing it on her pussy. She circled the entrance for some time, her stomach muscles fluttering with an unrequited ache. Then, she slipped her finger inside, amazed by such heat emanating from her tight snatch. She removed her finger and held up its gleaming wetness for him to admire. His breathing was noticeably raspy now, inducing vampish emotions that Danielle had long ago forgotten. She removed her dress.

Danielle retrieved one of her shoes from beside the sofa. With a wicked smile, she raked both tits with the thin heel. It felt incredibly sensual, her nipples puckering in response to the foreign touch. She eventually settled back and began to flick her clit with the fingers of one hand whilst seductively teasing the heel of her shoe over the outer lips with the other. Adrian was staring with mouth agape. As her need intensified, she rubbed her clit frantically with her whole hand, pleading to higher forces for relief. Almost there. Her breathing a series of gasps. Almost there. Liquid sunshine thoughts warming her brain. Almost there. Her entire body trembling with imminent promise of release.

Danielle wailed in agony as Adrian pinned her arms back. She shuddered as her panties were blatantly torn from her body. A moment of fear crept over her as she felt hardness at the entrance to her pussy. Then she saw sea green eyes and they were sparkling, loving, full of desire. Danielle screamed when Adrian entered her to the hilt and her muscles closed around his cock in a frenetic series of uncontrollable spasms. He was certainly more than adequate, she realised, as her pussy muscles stretched to accommodate his girth. His teeth nibbled delicately at her ears causing her to lose her senses in the strange patterns created by the lava lamps on the ceiling.

This was like no awkward teenage encounter Danielle had ever known. One moment Adrian´s movements were slow, like she was a fragile China doll. The next moment he would be pummelling, clawing, searing into her body as though he might never have the chance to fuck again. She found herself scaling to lofty heights, only to come crashing when his actions eased. Falling stars flashed before her eyes as Adrian´s grunts of exertion became one continuous primal howl. She found herself begging. She wanted this man´s spunk deep in her womb. She wanted him to rip her wide open. She wanted it to go on forever. When he came in a final thrust of fierce surrender, she dug her nails deeply into his back and abandoned herself to the golden blackness.

When she regained consciousness, Danielle found herself propped up on the futon. Adrian leaned back and expertly lit two cigarettes at once. He took a long sensual drag from one of them before handing it to her.

“I´m going to need a good lawyer to help with my contracts. Your feet are also very beautiful,” he declared dreamily, gesturing to his earlier painting.

Her feet filled the centre of the canvas, simultaneously delicate and bold with her slightly longer tootsies clearly accentuated. Danielle smiled with wonder. In the background, like an aura of their lovemaking, were dozens of sparkling stars highlighted by brilliant, heart-shaped swirls of gold and black.