Dead Like You

39

Shoes are your weapons, ladies, aren’t they? You use them to hurt men in so many ways, don’t you?

Know what I’m saying? I’m not talking about the physical, about the bruises and cuts you can make on a man’s skin by hitting him with them. I’m talking about the sounds you make with them. The clack-clack-clack of your heels on bare floorboards, on concrete paving stones, on floor tiles, on brick paths.

You’re wearing those expensive shoes. That means you’re going somewhere – and you’re leaving me behind. I hear that clack-clack-clack getting fainter. It’s the last sound of you I hear. It’s the first sound of you I hear when you come back. Hours later. Sometimes a whole day later. You don’t talk to me about where you’ve been. You laugh at me, sneer at me.

Once when you came back and I was upset, you walked over to me. I thought you were going to kiss me. But you didn’t, did you? You just stamped your stiletto down hard on my bare foot. You drilled it right through the flesh and bone and into the floorboard.