Red Shod Girl
Chapter 4
By Sacrip
“It may not be fair to say that Gatsby was an evil man,” the Professor droned in Ella’s American Lit class, “but we can say for sure he felt the ends justified the means. The end being Daisy, and the means a life of crime. Fitzgerald didn’t come out and say this was what America does as a whole, but I don’t think he would have objected to the idea, either. So the question becomes, what is worth fighting for? What is worth hurting for?”
“Freedom?” One student said.
“Defending the weak from the strong.” another said more confidently.
“Pants.” said Ella.
“Pants?” The professor said, glancing at Ella’s knee length plaid skirt worn with short pink socks and red shoes.
“Yeah, I’d kill somebody to wear pants again,” Ella said, mostly to herself now. “Whitewashed jeans, tan slacks, hell just a pair of shorts would be good. Something to make me not fear walking outside, wondering if this’ll be the day everyone sees my panties.”
“Um, interesting analogy, Ella. Gatsby wanted the wealth and society, but couldn’t earn it comfortably.legitimately. He had no pants to wear while walking with this crowd. He wore a skirt. We all know what’s under a woman’s skirt...” Ella’s hands went to her hem, the ‘ripple’ making them pull up her skirt higher and higher as she sat in her chair. God, STOP IT! she screamed mentally at her shoes, her captors. “Ella, are you all right?”
“Oh, um...yes, Doctor Kanaly.” Ella’s hands relaxed,and she breathed a sigh of relief. “I just have a headache.”
“Oh, sorry to hear that, Ella. Nothing like cultural ennui to get your head pounding. Well, looks like we’re out of time anyways. Go over the study guide for next class. Goodbye, everyone.” Ella gathered her notes, stuffed them into her teddy bear backpack and hurried to the door. “Oh, Ella, I hope you feel better next class, cause we’re going to talk about 20’s American culture some more. Heck, we might even do the Charleston.” Ella ran out the door, feeling the tingle from the shoes. Bolting into the ladie’s room, she tried to make it to the stall, but didn’t quite get there in time. In the middle of the washroom, Ella’s shoes performed the Charleston dance, and Ella went along for the ride. Step, kick, step back, kick back, back and forth, again and again. Ella anxiously watched the door, hoping nobody would walk in before her shoes had enough.
“C’mon guys, I gotta get to my next class. I promise when we go home we’ll play, ok?” Like stubborn children, the shoes defied her, making her dance faster now, step kick step back kick back. “Yancy, Tressa, I will NOT tell you again, let me GO!” Ella now felt her arms come up, swinging back and forth in time with her legs and the unheard music she was dancing to. “This is NOT funny!” Ella felt her face change, and saw in the mirror a wide smile on her face as she danced. “I LOVE to dance!” Ella heard herself say. Great, she thought, now they’re making her vocal too. “Let me GO! NO YES We wanna DANCE I have to go please I’m a happy little dancing girl everyone look I’m so cute and pretty and girly tee hee just call me Twinkletoes.”
Exhausted from fighting with the shoes, Ella let go, resigned now to the fact that someone was going to see her and they’d take her to an asylum in a straitjacket. Then she had an idea. “Um, guys, I have to pee. And if you don’t let me in the stall, I’m gonna...” In a flash, Ella found herself inside a stall, sitting on the toilet with her skirt pulled up and panties pulled down. Relaxing now, Ella took her time and composed herself. “Look guys, I know you want to play and have fun,but mommy has to go to class so she can get a good job and buy a big house. With, uh, a big hardwood floor so we can have dances there. Ballroom dancing, ballet dancing, raves, anything you want.” The shoes made her feet tap on the floor quickly, excitedly. “Oh, and I’ll put in mirrors, and a big speaker system, and a stretch bar, and even a disco ball, OK?”
After a moment, the shoes tapped each other on the toe, which Ella hoped meant they agreed. Finishing her business, Ella walked out of the ladies room and out of the building, heading for the Arts and Humanities building where her Introduction to Film class was held. The lesson plan said they’d be watching ‘Das Boot’ today. And unless German submarine sailors in WWII included dancing in their daily routine, Ella thought she’d be pretty safe.
Tired from dancing, Ella walked at a slow pace across the greens between buildings, looking around to make sure nothing around would set her shoes off again. Looks like the coast is clear, she thought to herself. Just sit in the back of class, sleep during the movie, run to my car afterwards and head home. Maybe they’re bored of me by now, Ella told herself. Maybe I can just spend the rest of the day in my room, and not hear...
“Ella? Hey ELLA! Come here.” Crap, it’s them, Ella thought. Cheryl and her cronies turned the corner of the Admin building across the way and called out to Ella. Holding up her hand to wave, Ella was jerked backwards by her shoes, who decided that Ella ought to visit with her friends. Regaining her balance, Ella pumped her arms to match her shoes, who were making Ella run at full speed across the grass. Arriving at the spot, Ella’s right shoe jerked forward, heel digging into the ground as she slid to a halt, ending up on the ground with her legs in a full split in front of the girls. “Um..Ta daa.” Ella said, weakly.
“Told you before, E, you’re not getting on the cheerleading squad. Not while I’M head of it.” Cheryl looked down on Ella as her four cronies, all in their cheerleader uniforms, nodded in agreement. Cheryl herself had on her usual outfit: patent leather boots, designer jeans, tight fitting T-Shirt and platinum blond hair that reached the small of her bony back and hadn’t seen its natural color in 15 years or so, Ella estimated. Apparently, being head cheerleader meant you didn’t have to actually wear the uniform, just get acolytes to do it for you.
“Told YOU before, C, not interested. I only break a sweat when I’m at the beach or at Johnny Depp’s house.” Ella stood up and brushed herself off. “Just thought you’d like to know what you’re missing. You’re not special, just an attention whore.”
“Nice one, E. I guess you saved your money by buying those cheap shoes and took some lessons. A LOT of lessons, from the look of them. Here, I’ll trade you a pack of gum for them, there’s a homeless lady on the drive to my apartment who’d ADORE them.” The girls giggled at their leader’s joke, and Ella felt the right shoe tremble and her leg tense up, ready to kick.
“Settle down,” she whispered to the shoe. “Actually,C, I’m converting to Buddhism, and I’m in the process of letting do of material wealth trappings on the road to enlightment. I’m trying to lighten my load, C, and some of your girls there could stand to do the same.” The cronies behind Cheryl all gasped at once. Bullseye.
“Funny, E, do buddhists usually wear Calvin Klein skirts and Abercrombie and Fitch sweaters?”
“Gotta start from the ground up, C. Rome wasn’t built in a day. You know Rome, right? Big city in Italy? Vatican, Coliseum, world’s biggest ball of twine? Oh, wait, that’s your hometown. Never mind.”
“Oh, clever girl, E. And quite the little tap dancer, from what I hear.” Cheryl and her cronies all giggled and smirked, and Ella knew why they called her over now.
“Well, what can I say, C, we girls love to dance, don’t we? I dance on sidewalks for passers by, they dance for a 1-16 basketball team that couldn’t hit a J with a dictionary, and you dance for anybody named Miguel in the back seat of an El Camino. I just hope you stretch first, I hear it’s really cramped back there.”
“Yeah, E, I’m being criticized for who I have sex with by a 20 year old woman dressed like a five year old girl at her first day to kindergarten. The pink Care Bear backpack really completes the look, honey.”
“Well, we all have our crosses to bear, C. I’m a little girl, you’re an erector set with boots. I’ll take mine over yours any day.”
“You..you BITCH! You KNOW you totally want this!” Cheryl put her hands to her sides and jutted out her small but shapely breasts.” Ella sighed, dissapointed. For the first time in a while, she was having fun doing something besides being a plaything for her roomate’s entertainment, and now Cheryl, her longtime rival, couldn’t keep up the verbal fencing and instead resorts to the ‘you’re a lesbian, no you are’ game that got old in 8th grade. Ella turned her back and walked away, her annoyance outweighing, for once, her need to have the last word. A few steps away now, Ella heard Cheryl say,“You love to dance, E, so why don’t you dance for me, huh?” Ella froze, whether from her shoes or her own fear, she wasn’t sure. “Yeah, E, do a slutty dance for me,show me what a lesbo you are.” Ella felt her shoes turn her around to face Cheryl again.
Ella knew she only had a few seconds before the shoes committed her to dancing, so she pleaded inside her mind to the shoes, “Let me do this my way. I’ll dance, I’ll obey you, just let me do it this way. You won’t regret it.” In her mind’s eye, she showed what she wanted to do, how she imagined herself. She imagined the shoes like an audience in a movie theatre, each sitting on a seat with popcorn between them, watching a film of her dancing the way she wanted to. She felt a warmth, for lack of a better word, from the shoes now. They agreed.
Looking up suddenly, Ella locked her gaze on Cheryl’s, narrowing her eyes as she burned a hole right through her rival’s head. Slowly, delibirately, Ella walked forward towards Cheryl, one foot in front of the other, hips jutting side to side,with one hand on her waist and the other on her head as she ran her fingers through her hair. “Quite the naughty one you are, C, wanting me to dance. Just for you. Or..am I the naughty one?” Ella stood face to face with Cheryl now, and whispered,“Or, maybe I’m the naughty one? How will we know who to punish?” Stepping back one step, then two, Ella began to dance.
Ella felt the ‘ripple’ move through her. But now, it was a slow, sensual ripple, moving like a wave from her soles to her head. As the wave passed each part of her body, she responded; her legs flexing and relaxing, her knees bent just slightly, her hips and torso feeling boneless now as she undulated with a steady rhythm. Every part of her was connected to every other part. when her big toe moved, her little finger moved in sympathy. Her body was a serpent now,summoned by an invisible snake charmer to dance for the crowd, and she obeyed.
Her eyes never leaving Cheryl’s, Ella raised her arms in the air, wrists bent and fingers extended. Commanding the soundless drums to beat now for her, Ella moved her hips in time. Up and down, left and right, slow, then fast. never stopping her body’s wave or the undulating hips, Ella moved her feet forward and back, then side to side, making circles as she moved around Cheryl. Close, then far. In front, then behind. Every part of Ella’s body stayed in motion, a perfect machine of femininity and sexuality. Cheryl, grinning at first, now looked uncomfortable.
“OK, Dykerella,that’s enough, we gotta...”
“You wanted this, C.” Ella said in a voice she didn’t recognize, low and throaty, but smooth as silk. She deftly moved in front of Cheryl, blocking her path. “You’ve been so curious all these years. Lying in your bed at 3 A.M, wondering how a soft touch would be...”
“Stop it, E...”
“Hoping nobody noticed in the showers when you snuck a peek in the next stall after practice, you imagine a different world, C. One where it’s OK to...”
“QUIT IT!”
Ella’s body had been going faster and faster as she spoke. Now it moved like a precision engine, all pistons firing. “This is what you want, C. But you’ll never ask, will you? I guess you just need it tossed on your lap, eh?” For the first time since her dance began, Ella broke her gaze with Cheryl’s, looking slightly down lower. “Well, look’s like I perked you up.”
Cheryl looked down at her breasts, mouth agape at her body’s betrayel. The cronies gathered behind her, gasping at this turn of events. Ella spun now in circles, letting her skirt swish around her waist, high but not too high.
“You...you BITCH!” Cheryl balled up her fist and strode to Ella, launching her knuckles at Ella’s head. Spinning around impossibly fast, Ella’s right hand snapped upand caught Cheryl’s hand by the wrist an inch away from Ella’s nose. Ella’s body was still now as she regarded Cheryl, too shocked to move.
Pulling down on her wrist, Ella jerked Cheryl’s face towards her own. “I’m not a cheap shoe, bitch.” Ella’s right shoe rested itself on Cheryl’s chest, then rocketed itself straight, tossing Cheryl backwards, airborne, into three of her cronies, knocking them all down. Ella turned slowly to the forth, then looked down at her left shoe. “Time to pick up a spare?” The girl squealed and ran away.
Ella’s head was spinning now, awash with different sensations in her body. The adrenaline rush from her first physical fight in over 10 years mixed with the heat she generated inside herself with her sultry dance and the feeling that the shoes were not merely controlling her anymore, but living things inside of her mind and body, all made her feel, more than any other time since this ordeal began on Friday, that she was simply a visitor in her own body. What frightened her was that it wasn’t an entirely bad feeling, either.
A sudden jolt brought Ella back to the here and now. Looking around, Ella saw she was now at her classroom for Introduction to Film class. Apparently, her shoes walked her here while she was out of it. Ella just hoped she didn’t look toomuch like the zombie she had felt like the last few minutes. Between the Shirley Temple dance down the street from her house on Friday and today’s femme fatale kung-fu cheerleader bowling incident, Ella had just enough public humiliation for a lifetime, she figured.
“Hey, careful there, Ella. I’m not insured against schoolgirls who knock me over tables.”
“Oh, sorry, Professor Tarry, I’m just, uh, not myself today.”
“It’s OK. And I told you before, call me Ms. Tarry. Whenever someone calls me professor, I feel like I have to wear tweed and vote Green party. And I refuse to do one of those things.” Ms. Tarry made way for Ella to take her seat, and Ella smiled as she passed her. Ella liked Ms. Tarry, even if she did insist on treating Intro to Film like it was a real class or something.
“OK, class, if you checked your course schedules for today, you know that today was to start our unit on war films, starting with Das Boot, probably the finest German made film on German sailors in a U-boat during World War II ever produced. In 1981. By Wolfgang Paterson.” Ms. Tarry paused, and in time a few students chuckled. “Unfortunatly, I forgot to bring my copy of it from home, and the library here doesn’t carry it, so, I got the next best thing: Moulin Rouge, by John Huston in 1952, about the life of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a French artist noted for his renditions of Paris nightlife, particularly of dancing girls.”
The door, Ella noted, was on the opposite corner of the room. Ms. Tarry was famous for berating students who tried to leave class early, so Ella got up quietly and tried sneaking around the back, ducking below the heads of the students in the back row. Both students and teacher left Ella unnoticed as she weaved her way to the door. Just a little further, Ella thought to herself. Just a few more feet...
“...and though considered tame by today’s standards, the Can-Can was quite risque back then, and helped along the reputation for this area as one of debauchery and seediness. Now, are there any brave souls who’d care to demonstrate the dance for us?” The class chuckled, and Ella, inches away from the door now, stopped where she was. Under her own power, this time. The shoes felt heavy to her feet, the sign that they were about to take over. But they didn’t.
Ella understood then that the shoes weren’t just controlling her anymore. They were training her. Whatever happened, no matter what, she was going to dance right now. The shoes are simply letting her walk the plank, rather than get thrown overboard. Not sure if this was better or worse, Ella raised her hand until Ms. Tarry saw her. “Oh, Ella, thank you. Please, come up front.” Ella, trembling, walked to the front of the class.
“So, yeah, OK,” Ella started, addressing the class and Ms. Tarry both, trying to keep the nervousness out of her voice. If she had to do this, she at least wanted the reputation of a fearless female rather than a nervous ninny. “So, basically you just, uh, hold up your skirt, like this,” Ella said, holding her skirt a few inches above the hem and lifting it up and out to mid thigh level. “I guess, um, you don’t HAVE to wear a skirt, but it gives your hands something to do, you know?” The class chuckled, and Ella wondered if she was going to get out of this with some dignity intact. “Then, um, you swish it around, like this,” and Ella swished her skirt a few inches back and forth. “And, um, you kick your legs like this,” Ella said, now kicking her legs to about waist level, one after the other. The class started a slow clap, and Ella, still under her own power, danced a little around the room, kicking and swishing to the rhythm of her audience’s hands. After half aminute or so, Ella stopped and bowed to the class, who clapped and cheered. Ella turned to Ms. Tarry, about to ask jokingly if she could have extra credit, when the teacher clapped sharply twice with her palms. before she knew it, Ella was standing at attention in front of her and before a confused classroom.
“Ella, Ella, Ella,” Ms. Tarry said, sighing. “You just have to half-ass your way through everything in this class, don’t you?” Ella heard murmurs of confusion from the students, wondering what was going on. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see one boy pointedly looking around for a hidden camera, sure this was some kind of video prank being played on them. “You show up late to class, if at all, you turn in half baked papers and don’t even bother using proper cite notation, and you don’t even try to stay awake when I’m showing a film. And now this? Oh no, Ella dear. This dance won’t be half-assed. It’ll be WHOLE assed. As in YOUR whole ass, for us to see. Get going.” Ms. Tarry snapped her fingers, and Ella felt the ‘ripple’ once again.
Turning to face the class once again, Ella felt her eyes narrow and her mouth widen in what she could now recognize, after feeling her face take on expressions she didn’t put there herself for days now, as a saucy smile. Grabbing her hem with both fists, Ella jerked up her arms, bringing her skirt up to her chin. Swishing her skirt back and forth vigorously, Ella felt her shoes skip her side to side, from one end of the row of desks to the other, spinning in a circle at every desk before moving on. The class clapped their hands again, now humming and singing the can-Can song, dum dum da da da da DUM DUM da da dee dee dum dum da da dee dee do. They sang the command and Ella obeyed every syllable with a swishing skirt and a skip of the shoe.
The class clapped faster now, and Ella’s body responded, now kicking her legs as high as she could as she danced up and down the aisles, adjusting her hold on her skirt so that everyone could see her panties from every angle. She heard chuckles from whoever she danced by, saw fingers pointing at her as she approached, and felt hands and fingers touch her legs and behing as she passed. All the while, she never slowed down, always kicked as high as she could, and continued to smile and even wink at the boys, and a couple girls, who decided to touch as well as look. What was everybody laughing so hard at, Ella wondered, thinking rationally to keep herself from going crazy with shame.
Finally, with every last student given a close up view of her dance, Ella kicked her way back to the front of the class, spun in a neat half circle and tossed her skirt onto her back as she bent over, giving a full-assed conclusion to her performance. The audience clapped and cheered and laughed as Ella stood there, unable to move. After the applause died down, Ella felt the heaviness in her shoes go away, meaning she was released from their hold. Starting to stand up straight, Ella heard “Freeze” whispered in her ear, stopping her in her tracks, still bent over.
“Well class, let’s thank Ella once again for indulging our less than pure curiosity about this historic dance.” the students clapped again as Ella remained as she was, frozen and showing off her butt to about 30 strangers. “And another round of applaause to Ella for her sense of style. After all, Strawberry Shortcake ruffled panties simply demand to be seen, and Ella delivered.” Laughing some more, the class clapped again. Tears welling up silently, Ella promised herself to tear up anything in her underwear drawer that wasn’t plain white briefs when she got home, hoping the shoes wouldn’t catch on till it was too late.
Moving around to Ella’s front side, Ms. Tarry bent over to whisper in Ella’s ear, taking out a necklace that was behind her sweater. It was a gold pentagram. “Tell Freida I’ll be late to the next coven meeting, I got tons of papers to grade. Now go back to your seat. Turns out, I do have ‘Dad Boot’ after all.” Standing straight again, Ella hurried to her seat, got a pen and paper out of her teddy bear backpack, and took copious notes throughout the class, her eyes always on the screen or on the paper.