Throughout years women have achieved great things. We have piloted space shuttles, walked the North Pole, won Olympic marathons, but most remarkably, we have mastered even the most ridiculous high heels that designers have thrown our way.
I myself have steadily built up the skill of walking in heels since I was a 4 year-old strapping Lego blocks to my feet, until today as I teeter in 5inch stilettos, all a little too small, a bit too high and far too expensive. Being confident that I have now mastered the art, I was dumbfounded when I tumbled off my most recent splurge and flew straight into the arms of an innocent by-passer on my way to the bus stop.
I had Burberry to blame for that little blunder, with a pair of heels so baleful that if they weren’t meant for fetish parties, I wouldn’t know what to wear them too. Luckily, or rather unluckily for me, that was exactly where I was heading. My friend had recently discovered her inner pinup girl and as well as talking me into a rather kinky photo shoot, she liquored me up, leant me her corset and set me on my way to a party that would make even the most callous sadomasochist blush.
Arriving at the misleading red carpet, we were pointed in the direction of a unisex dressing room, where men transformed into women and women morphed into an assortment of animals. As I frantically searched for a private area to change, I realized that in a place as small as this, there was no room to be coy. Having eventually found a somewhat secluded spot near a friendly drag queen, my friend and I began our metamorphosis. Once dressed, or rather undressed, we made our way back down the red carpet wrapped in blankets, and entered stealthily through a dimly lit doorway.
“Tickets!” snapped a women dressed head to toe in a green PVC military outfit straight out of 007’s Golden Eye, as she cracked the booth she stood behind with a horsewhip. An ecstasy of fumbling broke out among everyone in the queue afraid to hesitate a moment too long in front of the creepy whip lady. As we proceeded, tickets in hand, our obviously distraught faces drew attention to us, and the friendly drag queen whom with we had a brief yet personal encounter, smiled and whispered : “Relax, don’t be shy. Trust me, people here are friendly. Besides, the more open you are, the more you get.”
What he meant by that I was not too sure, but decided that I probably did not want to question the matter further.
Fetish etiquette was something we were clearly unsure of, so we decided to indulge ourselves in overpriced champagne and hide behind a clouded judgment. The journey to the bar however, proved harder than initially thought. Carefully, we slalomed down the corridors between gimps and French maids while avoiding what appeared to be medieval torture devices. Somewhere between the vacuum-chamber and the stocks, I lost my friend and was left to fend for myself. As I slid through the crowd I felt as though I had hit my head on one of the dildos suspended from the ceiling, knocking me down an ominous rabbit hole into a perverse Alice in Wonderland sort of parallel universe. A woman trudging past me wearing luminous horse gear and a pair of hooves interrupted my thoughts.
The Manifest Fetish Fashion party was according to many the place to be that Saturday night, and I have to admit that they really did offer the crowd everything from latex to lashings. Encapsuled in a surreal bubble of the bizarre, the six menacing ballrooms had been carefully decorated in a way only appropriate for such an occasion, with stirrup seats much like the ones you would find at your gynecologists office, replacing the potted plants that normally perched in the windowsills at more subtle events.
As I grew accustomed to my odd surroundings, I looked down and found a girl kneeling in front of where I was sitting. Immediately, 20 bad thoughts ran through my mind as I was waiting to find out what she was doing. Her face lit up in a grin.
“I know you!” I was terrified.
“You dated my ex!”
By then I was mortified. I let out a squeal disguised as a laugh and hesitantly agreed that that might very well be possible. At that point like a knight in shiny latex, my friend came galloping through the hall alongside the now befriended horse woman, and came to my rescue.
With all my senses on overload, I had not stopped to realize the small but very scary possibility of running into someone familiar. The ex of an ex smiled again and wobbled off on heels that put mine to shame.
Warily I screened the remaining crowd for any more familiar faces. Suddenly, the kinky uniforms aside, they all looked like my old high school teachers, neighbors, doctors, and even grandparents. The horse woman, who now suddenly looked like my librarian, trotted off and my friend and I decided to call it a night.
As we got dressed and staggered down to the bus stop, I began to think about whom the people may revert to as the sun began to rise. The drag queen may suit up to be a stockbroker, the horse woman may have acquired her skill of impersonation as an actress, and as for the girl kneeling in front of me, she was just an average student with my similar bad taste in men. As for the rest of the women, when they are not prancing around in ridiculously high heels and fetish outfits , they may be piloting space shuttles, walking the North Pole, or may even be winning Olympic marathons.
