Color Less Ordinary
by Lilie Berlin © 2005

This story was inspired by Ken Moody Eating a Blue Shoe (Robert Mapplethorpe, 1985)

Gray. From the sky, to the cool waters of the Sound, the entire city was a thousand shades of gray. The Emerald City in January. I plodded through it on my way home from work one random Tuesday evening.

The shortest distance between A and B is normally a straight line. I knew this and normally followed the formula, but not that night. I wanted food. Something decadent. Crème Brulee! I had been good and lost five pounds. I deserved it. I wanted company, too, even if it was a crowd of strangers. I refused to be lonely.

Hunger and aching pulled me splashing through puddles into Brasserie Margaux, a place I had passed at least a thousand times.

A bored looking host placed me in the shadows near the noisy kitchen. My chair was too low and I had to pull my breasts back to keep them from resting crudely on the tabletop.

Underneath the tablecloth, I fiddled in my purse with a new lipstick I had bought at the drugstore. I popped the cap on and off as I watched the grouchy host return the extra silverware to a cabinet at the front.

I closed my eyes and imagined all the wives in the room were jealous because their husbands could not stop staring at me. Feeling defiant, I unbuttoned the top of my blouse for them and wondered what they would do with the ice cubes from my water glass. Run them up and down my neck and into my cleavage? Around my nipples? Stick them in my cunt and drink the water as it melted? Whisper naughtily as they did these things?

I was having nasty thoughts and I loved it.

The lipstick, perfect and new, was silky across my lips. I left prints on the edge of the glass and the filter of my cigarette. It adhered to the starched white napkins as I dabbed water from the corners of my mouth. Someone would know I was there, even if it was after I had left.

I waited fifteen minutes and no waiter came to take my order.

Gazing at my parted lips in a tiny compact mirror, I applied another layer of color. I tilted the mirror down slightly to sneak a peek at how much cleavage I had revealed. Pulling my arms in at my sides, I accented it even more. I continued to play until, finally, someone approached. I looked up when nothing was said and, in that instant it was as if my entire world shifted to technicolor.

Before me stood perhaps the most striking man I had ever seen. I had to squint at his beauty, it was so fine. His features appeared etched in hematite; the dark, nearly black landscape shone in the flickering candlelight from votives throughout the café. He was completely bald and wore a simple white shirt. A dazzling contrast to his ebony skin.

I could not look away. He was staring back at me, and it didn’t appear to be in disgust, shock, offense or irritation. Interest? I was more confused than I had ever been. I couldn’t believe a man this beautiful would even notice dumpy little me.

The burn in my stomach was so sweet, I had to stifle a gasp at its intensity. My bones of reason and control were splintering. I tried to gather them as quickly as I could, to hold them together and make sense of everything again. I said the only thing I could think of in that moment,

"Um."

"That color looks fabulous on you," he said, pointing to the lipstick I had dropped on the table in my surprise. His voice ran over and through me, smooth, warm, lovely. My body pulsed with longing to hear it again. My legs spread under the table. Everything trapped between my thighs engorged and became uncomfortably cramped.

"Thanks," I squawked clumsily. "It’s Garnet Chrome."

"Sassy." He grinned wide.

"Excuse me?" The idea had never occurred to me.

He cleared his throat, "What would you like for dinner?"

"I'm not here for dinner."

"Dessert?"

"Yes, please."

"Then what would you like for dessert?"

You! I wanted to shout.

"Crème Brulee," I managed, in a mousy voice. I trembled in panic. What could I do? What could I say to keep him at my table? I was losing my mind.

"Sorry. We don’t serve Crème Brulee," he informed me, his eyes radiant and locked with mine. His voice had an unmistakable teasing quality to it. A dare? A provocation? On the outside, our conversation might have seemed quite banal, but I detected an unmistakable buzz of sexual tension in the air. The reaction was so intense, my skin tingled.

Peeling away from the wall behind me, stepping out of that shadow into the open and being seen, I felt brave, "What do you have?"

I leaned forward and rested my arms on the table. I smiled triumphantly when his eyes darted to my chest. He licked his full lips with a sultry pink tongue and arched an eyebrow.

"Should I wait for your boyfriend to return before I go over the menu?"

"That would be a long wait," I said, glancing at the missing place setting.

My heart was racing. I could hardly wait for the next words out of his mouth. I wanted to lick them from the air.

He leaned in close to deliver them with a deep voice. "You like chocolate?"

The blush brewing just under my skin exploded and rushed so quickly to the surface, I felt dizzy. I realized I was holding my breath as well as the edge of the table. It released in a burst of giddy, nervous laughter. His huge grin only contributed to the explosion.

Conversations throughout the café halted, one after the other, and patrons eyed us curiously. I covered my mouth to suppress the giggles but it was no use. I laughed until tears ran from my eyes.

When I finally composed myself, I looked at him again. He convulsed with a few more chuckles, his shoulders bouncing heartily. His head shook with a sigh as he grabbed the menu off the table.

"I have the perfect thing for you. You’ll love it! Trust me?"

"I’m in your hands," I shrugged with delight.

He clapped once then bounced away into the kitchen.

In his absence, I realized my face was hurting from smiling so much. I tried to straighten my mouth because I knew how much I look like a chipmunk when I grin that big. The battle was lost and I gave up. I suddenly didn’t care how silly I looked.

I contemplated how quickly it happened. How, in an instant, it seemed everything was different. So alive at last. I didn’t have long to think about it. He was back after hardly any time at all, carrying a plate in one hand and a handsome cognac glass in the other.

The dessert was a cleverly crafted plate of ice cream, half chocolate, half vanilla, and shaped as a yin yang. The two halves fit perfectly together along a swirling border. I watched him flick a lighter from his pocket and ignite the liqueur. The flame danced a brilliant blue.

"I’m Constance, or Connie."

"My name’s Darren, or Darren. And I’m off at ten."

My excitement surged again. The flame before me flashed wildly with my sigh of relief. He moved on to other customers and I dug into the ice cream as it started to melt; the colors coalescing together.

*               *               *

Darren’s apartment lay in the fashionable Capitol Hill district. The old, wooden stairs creaked under our weight. Tipsy and happy from two flaming cognacs at the cafe, I held Darren’s hand as we made our way along the burgundy carpet to his apartment.

He led me in with a warm hand on the small of my back. I stood in the nearly empty studio trying to catch my breath from the short walk which had seemed a million miles. The exhilaration of his company was uplifting and exhausting at the same time.

"You want another drink?" He crossed the room to a tiny kitchenette and pulled two tumblers out a dish rack in the sink.

"Sure." I walked around the room, happy to explore his space. Aside from the bed rumpled with white sheets, an armoire in the corner and a vanity under the window, there was not much to see. No posters on the walls. No television. He didn’t even have a stereo. "You just move in?"

"About five years ago." He joined me next to a cardboard box resting on the floor. The flaps were open and I could see a variety of things inside.

"What’s this?" I pointed to the collection of CDs, novels, and a pair of blue, three inch heeled pumps.

Darren laughed his way through a sigh I suspected was quite tired. "My next meal."

I looked at him quizzically, took a shoe out of the box and turned it over and over in my hand. The material was cheap, tacky, probably plastic. A Payless special, circa 1980.

"You’re selling this stuff?"

"Yeah. Gotta pay some bills. As nice as the Brasserie is, the customers don’t tip for shit."

"Whose shoes are these?"

They had to be at least size 11. I feared I danced in the wake of a past supermodel girlfriend. Even if she did have bad taste, my gut clenched.

He sighed again and set the tumblers on the floor. His sudden melancholy transformed my apprehension to panic. I gripped the shoe tightly as he cupped my face in his hands and kissed my mouth. The ember of arousal that had been glowing all night and infusing my blood with the most delicious warmth enflamed as his tongue parted my lips and slipped inside. I was on fire then, burning blue, so hot I began to melt.

"I like you, Connie. I like you a lot."

I opened my eyes. "These are yours, aren’t they?"

He nodded, avoiding my gaze, then bent down for his whiskey and knocked it back in one gulp.

"Some—no—many women can’t handle it. I’d rather be upfront about things."

Darren sat on the edge of the bed while I stood by the door, blinking in bewilderment. I sensed he thought I’d leave then. I still held the shoe in my hand. It felt right.

"How much you think you’d get for these?" I asked.

"Maybe three bucks at a consignment shop."

I grabbed my purse and fished for my wallet. "I’ll buy your next meal."

I found the money, but thought better of it.

"On one condition," I informed him.

Darren’s eyes narrowed, "Which is?"

"Model them for me."

"Aren’t you shocked?" he asked, and I wondered how many times he had been through this. How many other women were halfway down that creaky stairwell on their way out by now?

"Yes," I answered. "Put them on."

His eyes still wary, he removed his shoes and socks and brushed the lint off his feet. Then he was still, sitting on the bed with his hands in his lap and his legs lolling in front of him. I handed him the shoes, then lowered myself to the floor to watch him put them on.

He stood up in those terrible, tacky pumps and raised his pant legs to display them. In another time, in another life, I might have found it amusing. At that moment, I wasn't sure I had ever seen anything sexier.

"Well?" He asked quietly, caution lingering in his tone.

"You know what would be even hotter? Remove the rest of your clothes, but leave the shoes on."

He complied silently, removing each piece of clothing slowly and dropping them to the floor. His physique was chiseled, from those blue pumps to the top of his bald head. All of it wrapped in thick, flawless, black skin.

When he was down to his underwear, I could see the outline of his cock curved up his abdomen, the mushroom tip peaking above the waistband. He caressed it with his hand, stroking through the material, his eyelids narrowing in pleasure and mischief, his lips parted and glistening.

"You’re beautiful," I moaned and slid my skirt up my thighs.

"So are you."

He hooked his briefs with both thumbs, slid them down his thighs and let them drop to the floor. His erection sprang free, glorious and proud above a heavy scrotum. A chain reaction of excitement commenced within my body from my nipples to the moistening slit between my thighs.

Darren tossed his briefs aside with a kick of a blue heel then walked to me. That close, I could feel the heat radiating from his body. I leaned forward and rested my cheek against his muscular thigh.

Cocoa butter tainted with a hint of sweat filled my nostrils and made my head swim. I caressed the shiny tips of the shoes with one hand as the other wrapped around the back of his leg and slid to his buttocks. They clenched once, then relaxed. I slid my hand between the cheeks.

With my face still pressed against his quivering thigh, I tilted my head up to look first into his eyes, to see his desire, then back down to his cock just inches from my face. It knocked with each deep inhalation, bouncing heavily. The foreskin pulled back tightly. Fat veins bulged. A single milky drop clung to the hole at the tip. I collected it with a finger and brought it to my mouth.

I pumped slowly at first, my touch light against the velvety smoothness. Like little feathers, I fluttered my fingers up and down the shaft until Darren was bent at the waist and gasping.

"Not yet." He held himself steady with a hand on my shoulder, the other clinging tightly to the base of his cock to avert the orgasm. I rolled to my knees, kissed his outty navel, and he helped me to my feet.

He began with my breasts, kissing them through the fabric of my blouse before liberating them with tender movements. He was so swift and seductive, it only took a moment before I was completely naked. Completely ready. I burned with embarrassment at this juncture with others, but this time was different. The way he looked at me at that moment, I would have done anything.

Darren reclined on the bed and pulled me on top of him. I tried to position myself so I didn’t lay too much weight on him, but he insisted. I slid up his body to take his cock and that was when he refused.

"Turn around," he said and made a twirling motion with his finger. I crawled over him and positioned myself to face his cock. Taking it gently in my hand, I pulled it to point straight in the air.

"Woman, you got a gorgeous ass," he groaned from the pillows and traced my labia with his fingers. He played in the slickness, running his finger from my asshole to my clit and back again. I whimpered.

Mouth gaping and watering, I looked past the magnificent cock in my hand to his feet and those blue heels. It was all the courage I needed. I arched my back as much as I could, thrust my pussy into his face and dived into his lap.

Each thread of restraint cut that evening led me to this point. Complete abandon. I rode and sucked wildly. We came together, moans muffled by mouthfuls of each other’s pleasure.

*               *               *

"No, no, no. The other one!" I sat on Darren’s bed, wrapped in the sheets, and watched him at the vanity trying on different wigs. The doors of the armoire were open. Half his wardrobe consisted of extravagant, brightly colored women’s clothing. I favored the straight black bob with the kimono robe. He liked the curly red mane that matched the fabric.

"You’re right," he said and tamed the wig with a silver handled brush.

He looked incredible, but there was something missing. I searched through the sea of clothing on the floor until I found it.

"What you got there?" Darren asked as I straddled his lap. He grabbed my ass with both hands and pulled me closer.

"Garnet Chrome." I gasped when he took my nipple between his lips and sucked until it was hard again. "Make an "O"."

"With pleasure." He slid a hand between my legs.

"No, with your mouth. Like this." I demonstrated by opening my mouth wide and stretching my lips tight. I popped the lid of the lipstick and rolled up the tube. I leaned in to apply the color.

"Darren, stop smiling," I giggled. "I can’t do this if you don’t stop smiling. Stop it."

"I can’t."

I gave up and ran the lipstick over my own mouth. I covered his lips with mine then pulled away to admire my work.

"That color looks fabulous on you."

_______
© 2005 Lilie Berlin. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.

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