The Homeless Girl’s Boots And Stockings
(Published on Tuesday, October 29, 2002)
This story was submitted by Robert Tarin.

To read this author's 1st story, click Smelly Socks.

I always expect them, every time I go to the corner store, beggars asking me for spare change. That night was different though. There was someone there I hadn’t seen before, a new face in that crowd of street drunks. She was about eighteen, pretty little thing, though the clothes she was wearing could have gone through a good washing. That wasn’t the first thing I noticed though.

My first reaction when I first saw her was to look at her feet. She was all dressed in black, a very short black dress, a black coat. On her legs she wore these black shiny stockings. They had a few holes on them. “She probably had them on for quite some time obviously,” I thought to myself.

“Hey mister, you got any spare change?” I heard this girlish voice yell at me from across the parking lot as I got out of my car and made my way for the entrance to that convenience store. I pulled a few coins from my pocket and dropped them into this young girl’s hands. She was kneeling there near the payphone. With her small hand extended with the loose change, I gave it to her slowly, working its way into the handbag she was carrying with her. I got a look at them, those tattered looking Doc Marten boots she was wearing,

“They were shiny at one time,” I thought to myself. These boots looked as though they had gotten some good use out of them, and those stockings, I imagined that she would literally have to peel them off once she finally decided too take them off. They were probably stuck to her feet with the amount of sweating I knew her feet had to be doing inside those old boots.

I finally went into the store, came back out, but she was gone. That was the last I had seen of her for the next few weeks. I thought about her often though, well, not her exactly. I thought about those boots and the stockings that she was wearing that night I first saw her. How I wish I could have offered her a few dollars to come back with me to my car and let me take those boots off of her feet. I would have stuck her stocking clad feet right up to my nose and inhaled that wonderful odor that would have been wafting off of her feet, making it’s way deep into my nostrils. And those boots, I couldn’t imagine the odor that was deep inside them. They looked as though she had been wearing them for years.

“Hey, that isn’t a bad idea,” I thought to myself that afternoon while I daydreamed at work about that homeless girl’s boots and stockings. “What would be her price for those boots and stockings?” That was something I often wondered to myself, just until the next time I would get a chance too see that homeless girl.

On payday, I drove to that corner store once again to cash my check. I hadn’t even thought about her that day. I pulled into the parking lot. It was getting dark out already. I could already see that usual crowd of homeless people gathered there by the front door, and there she was. I hadn’t noticed her when I first pulled in, but there she was, and by chance, she had the same thing on that she was wearing the first time I saw her, sans the heavy black jacket, though it was hot out and she would have no use for it that evening.

I waited a while. Some of the people in that crowd left. Some stayed behind. None of them were really paying much attention to any of the other people that were there. Everyone was in their own little world I guess. She must have remembered me from the last time.

“You were the one that gave me that handful of change last time, huh mister?” that girlish voice said to me.

“I’m sorry. I don’t have anything on me, but wait for me when I come out of the store,” I told her. My hands were trembling. My brow had a light coating of sweat on it. I wondered if she’d go for the offer I had in mind to ask her. “Oh what the hell,” I mumbled to myself. The person in line ahead of me turned to look at me. I guess he thought I was mumbling to him.

I cashed my check. I didn’t even bother to get anything, and then I went back outside. She was alone by that same pay phone. The other people had left her there by herself. “Now’s your chance stupid. Don’t chicken out,” I was thinking to myself. My hands still trembled as I made my way closer to her.
“I have an offer I’d like to make to you,” I said to her. I had to pay attention not to mumble the words to her, as I was very nervous.

“Well, first off, I don’t turn tricks if that’s what you're going to ask me,” she replied back to me.

I almost wasn’t going to ask her after all, but as I stood there and looked down at her feet, those scuffed up black leather boots, those black shiny stockings covering those young shapely legs; God knows how those feet looked! I knew if I didn’t go ahead and ask her now, I’d be regretting it for another two weeks. “What would you charge me for those boots and stockings that you have on?” I finally went ahead and asked her.

“Oh, you fucking freak. You're one of those foot guys, huh?” she replied back to me.

Man, was my heart beating. I’m sure the sweat on my brow had gotten a little heavier since I was in the store.

“If it wasn’t that I needed the money, I would be laughing at your perverted ass,” she went on telling me. “Well, how about fifty bucks? I think that’s a good price for my well worn boots and stockings.”

I agreed to the price and she followed me back to my car and proceeded to take off those boots and stockings. Once we got in there, she made sure I gave her the money first. The truth was, I would have been happy to give her more had she asked me. The rank odor began to build up once she got those boots off of her feet, and just as I predicted, she did have a hard time taking those stockings off of her feet. She rolled them down from the top of her thigh, and down over those muscular calves. Once she tried getting them off of her feet though, that's when they seemed as though they were stuck to them.

“Here you are, mister. I’m sure you know what to do with them.”

Just then she got out of my car. She made her way into the darkness, barefoot, and that was the last time I ever saw her again. I enjoyed those boots and stockings a few times that evening once I got home. Sadly, those boots, and those now dried and sweat encrusted stockings have begun too lose the scent that they had the first time she took them off of her feet. I look for her often though, just wondering if I’ll ever see her again, and just what she’ll be wearing on her feet if I ever do. I always have my pockets full of change just in case I see her once again.