In These Shoes by Shauna Busto Gilligan

Anybody wants to grab this text and illustrate it? Please drop a comment. Shauna very kindly wrote it.

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I wear red patent shoes that click and clack across paved paths and scrape on uneven cobble stones. I am invisible if I am soundless. My shoes click; my voice sings.

Us women are masters in deception; our own mistresses. Before these days of blackness and magic, before Día de los Muertos, when I imagined behaving in this way, I thought an unbearable guilt would build up and consume my passion, forcing me to retreat into my shell of niceness and apologies. But with each further sin I commit I cast off another layer of guilt and submission. My heels click louder. Each stomp is a stomp for freedom. At thirty three I have found my secret.

It is purely for the pleasure that we are together. We can neither hide this pleasure nor can we prevent it from taking over. I imagine I am a twentieth century Coatlicue, Goddess of earth and fire: earth with my J but fire with my C.

“Disfruta,” C whispers in my ear. I get so excited that I have to hold myself back from climaxing. And then all my guilt-infested feelings fly out the window and I do as he bids: Enjoy. And then I slip back into my glistening red shoes and listen to the sound of happiness as they bring me home.
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