Her boot was the first I saw of her.

Leather. Before that moment, the word meant little to me. One in a list of many materials: nylon, cotton, wool, et cetera. I had a few items in my closet—everyone did—but those weren’t real. Faux leather. Essentially plastic, as she would later instruct me. Looking at her boot, my face just inches from it, I was immediately struck by the thought: this is the real thing. There was something about the texture; sleek, polished, smooth at a distance, but up close a faint, dappled skin-pattern revealed itself. The light came off the material beautifully despite the liquid spilled carelessly all over it, and cutting through the aroma of my splattered morning coffee there was a distinct scent, earthy and a touch acrid, that instantly seared itself into my sense-memory. Every inch of the boot’s surface bore traces of its heritage, its craftsmanship, and inspired in me a certain sense of awe, however unwilling.

Then I looked up at the rest of her.

She did not fill me with awe. Not then. Not yet.

She was tall, yes. Handsome, oh yes. I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about the leather drenching her—jacket, pants, belt, everything she wore was black leather but for her white vest top. I was thinking about the short, androgynous style of her hair. I was even thinking about the carabiner on her belt; I had lived in a ‘liberal’ city for long enough to know how these types signaled to each other.

Two words to my mind, both of them sharp and barbed on my lips.

Butch. Dyke.

A third word too, when I noticed from her build and the shape at the front of her pants that she was probably some kind of gender freak. Plenty of those around, these days.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” I exclaimed, picking myself up, and my fallen, emptied coffee cup too. I kept my voice carefully breezy and pleasant, even if I didn’t bother to conceal my wrinkled nose or scornful gaze. “I must have just—totally my fault—I didn’t even see you coming.”

“Of course not,” she replied, bemused and annoyed in equal measure. She gestured at the coffee shop we were standing just outside. “You came out of there in a rush, staring at your phone.”

Her voice—definitely some kind of gender freak. I bristled at that, and her tone.

“I guess neither of us were looking where we were going.” I laughed insincerely, and made to push past her. “If you’ll just excuse m-“

“No.” She placed her broad shoulders squarely in my way. “This was your fault. You already said that.”

I sighed. Great. A scene, while I’m on my lunch break. People were starting to stare—god knows why they were staring at me, and not at this shameless queer.

“Now look,” I replied firmly. “Accidents happen. I’m not sure what else you want me to do about it.”

“Accidents happen,” the dyke agreed, smirking. “But it was your fault, and you’re being very rude about it. So what I want you to do is: explain how you’re going to make it up to me for ruining my boots.”

“Your-“ I glanced down. Admittedly, both her boots were pretty drenched with my hot coffee. “I don’t think… I’m sure they’ll just dry out, in time.”

“I don’t want them to stink of your shitty espresso,” she shot back. “And the finish is already shot.”

Again, I sighed. This was just ridiculous. “What, you want me to pay for them or something?”

“I don’t think there’s any need for that.” A distinct sleaziness entered the dyke’s gaze. It made my skin crawl. “How about you just come polish them up for me?”

“What?” I hissed, rolling my eyes. “No. Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll… I’ll call the cops.”

“In that case, maybe I do need you to pay for them.” She laughed unpleasantly. “Maybe a hospital visit too, come to think of it. That coffee was scorching hot.”

“Are you threatening me?” My hands balled into fists.

“Just pointing out that this is your fault. You admitted it, out loud, in front of all these witnesses. You wanna handle this all above board? Fine by me.”

Infuriatingly, she was right. A lot of witnesses. Most of them freaks like her, most of them nodding along to her words. I started doing the numbers. I had no idea what the law said about a situation like that, but I was worried. Conversely, I was sure I had enough time left on my lunch break to polish a stupid pair of boots.

“I know a spot around here,” she added, as if sensing me bend. “And I have my kit with me.”

I rolled my eyes again. “Fine.”

I could live with it. As much as I hated the thought of giving this freak her kicks, I could try to convince myself that this was the good, Christian thing to do under the circumstances. And I really did feel a little bad about her boots.

“Atta girl.” Her eyes shone. “What’s your name?”

“Briar, if you really must know. Yours?”

She tilted her head like there was something funny about the question. “Call me Em.”

Em led me across the street and down the next block, then through an alley running next to some kind of bar. Behind the bar was a small lot, currently empty of people, with a few benches set up, clearly for people to sit and relax on. Em sat on one of them. Without thinking, I sat next to her.

“Oh. No.” Em shook her head and pointed. “Down.”

“Can’t you just take your boots off?” I protested.

“And get my feet dirty and cold, as well as wet? No.”

She was already taking something out of her bag; her polishing kit, seemingly. I considered refusing, but I had reached the point of simply wanting it all to be over as quickly as possible.

“Fine,” I grumbled. “See if I care.”

Even though it made me nauseous, I slipped off the bench and knelt down on the ground in front of Em. From that position, the difference in our heights and builds was all the sharper. She loomed over me, silhouetted against the gray sky; in all her black leather, she was in that moment like a photograph out of history. Monumental, although my heart quickened uncomfortably at the thought of all the other women she must have had in the same position I now occupied.

“So I just… rub them down?” I forced my attention to the task at hand: her boots.

“Here.” Em smirked as she handed me a rag. “First, dry off your mistake.”

I bristled, but found it difficult to protest as she sat back easily on the bench and extended her legs forward, presenting her boots for my attention. I took to my task quickly, but found it more time-consuming than I had expected. It took a little time for the rag to drink up the coffee soaking into Em’s boots, and now that I had put myself into such a degrading position there seemed little point in half-assing it. I would give the dyke no cause for complaint. I made sure to dry every inch, every little cranny.

“Good,” Em murmured, as I finished. Her approval tasted surprisingly warm. She reached down to pluck the rag from me, and replaced it with a brush and a tin of leather soap. “Next, scrub.”

Her tone was commanding, imperious, but strangely I didn’t chafe at it. She had such an easy manner with giving orders. Her voice, while betraying her status as one of those gender freaks, had a kind of power to it. A charisma. It pulled me into her flow, and quieted the parts of my mind that wanted to complain.

“How do I…” I found myself asking, as I opened the tin of soap.

“Wet the brush,” Em explained patiently. “Then work the soap into the bristles.”

My brow furrowed. “Then… How do I…”

Em’s smile was a razor. “Spit.”

I shivered. It felt degrading, for reasons I struggled to articulate. Wasn’t I supposed to be making her boots cleaner, not dirtier? All the same, I found myself spitting a wad of saliva onto the small brush. It took greedily to the moisture, and it then proved easy to work the soap into a lather. Obediently, I began to scrub at Em’s boots.

“Not like that.” Her earlier warmth made the reproach all the sharper. “Gentler. Work in little circles. If you damage the leather, you really will be paying for it.”

Against all my instincts, I cringed at myself. “Sorry.”

Maybe it was her pose. Her posture. The way she sat, legs shamelessly open, arms out behind her, back arched, emphasizing, perhaps inadvertently, her chest. There was a strange mix of masculine and feminine to her. That should have repelled me; instead, I was struck by the way she wore her masculinity. It was a little like she had walked out of some old movie, starring some mid-century Hollywood bad boy. She pulled it off with so much more assuredness than any man I had ever met—even though, beneath, despite everything, her body was undeniably feminine. How was that even possible?

“Focus,” Em urged, soothing me. “Focus.”

It didn’t matter. I tried not to think about it. The work of scrubbing her boots proved an excellent distraction. Methodical, and comforting in it. Even the way my hand was already growing tired seemed to fade away, as I rubbed at Em’s leather in small circles, just as she had described. The soap quickly lifted traces of dirt and coffee, restoring the cleanliness of her boots if not the luster. As I neared the end of the work, I found myself peering closely at their surface, hunting down every last trace of dirt, and in so doing, once again enjoying the subtle strangeness of the leather itself. Once I finished, against my better judgment my chest swelled with pride at my accomplishment.

“Very good,” Em told me. That helped nothing. “Now wipe off the soap.” She handed me a fresh rag, and I did so quickly. The boots looked properly clean now, but dull. “Next: polish them.”

She handed down to me a different, larger brush, and a tin of polish. When I opened it, I was assaulted by a piercing scent I recognized from earlier. It made me scrunch up my nose, prompting a small laugh from Em.

“Apply a little with your fingers,” Em directed. “And buff it out with the brush. Big strokes this time. There’s a rhythm to it. Find it. Settle into it.”

I nodded—which was strange. I should have refused, I reflected as I stained my fingertips with leather polish. I could not have. I wanted this to be over. I wanted to do a good job. I wanted, perhaps, to impress Em. Whatever the reason, her growing smile was a collar pulled right around my neck.

I couldn’t refuse her.

Polishing was slow and methodical too, but in a different way. As I learned the technique, aided by Em’s occasional prod and comment, I found it to be an exercise in repetition. It wasn’t sufficient to simply apply polish and move on. I had to buff it out, moving the polishing brush across the surface of the leather again, and again, and again, each stroke raising a little more shine on the material. There was, I learned, a delight to it; to seeing something as beautiful and resplendent as mirror-polished leather emerge from the dull boots thanks to my touch. More and more, I peered closely at it, studying the leather’s pattern, watching my own reflection take shape on its surface.

‘How long had I been there?’ was a question that simply did not occur to me.

“You’re doing well,” Em purred. Her approval, a song. Then, as if idly: “You know, a lot of people enjoy doing this.”

I simply nodded. I had an inkling of that. There are all kinds of freaks and perverts staining God’s earth. I might have said that to her, but the task at hand consumed me. Polish. Brush. Buff. Shine. An obsidian mirror emerged before me. 

“It’s relaxing, I suppose,” Em drawled. “They adore the ritual of it. I’ve seen plenty of girls go into a kind of trance polishing boots. Not that I’ve ever understood. At least, not from that end.”

It was like she was mocking me—only, I didn’t feel mocked. My instant comprehension of her words drowned any suggestion of offense.

Ritual.

Polish. Brush. Buff. Shine.

I paused, just briefly, to run my fingertip over a particularly pleasing spot. I shivered at the leather’s touch. It was perfect.

“There are girls who’d jump at the chance to be where you are now, Briar,” Em wheedled. “To forget all about their boring, ordinary lives. To be one with the moment—buffing and polishing, feeling your satisfaction grow as my boots begin to shine. Don’t you feel lucky?”

I nodded.

There was too much light. The sun was passing behind Em’s head, leaving her in silhouette and me in her shadow. With beams of sunlight falling around her, crowning her, I started developing a headache. At least, I thought that’s what it was. It wasn’t painful, though. Not even unpleasant. Just a distant, rhythmic throbbing, choking down tighter on my thoughts with each repetition. I didn’t then realize that the throbbing was in time with the motion of my brush.

“’Course, not all of them are doing it for meditation,” Em added. I couldn’t see her grin, just hear it. “Not all of them are doing it because of how blissfully dumb and calm it makes them feel. Most of them are doing it simply because they’re huge fucking boot perverts. Like you.”

I nodded—then stopped. My anger was dull, so dull I barely felt it, but I couldn’t let that pass.

“That’s a horr-“

“Quiet.” Her voice, a cracking whip. “Focus.”

Shakily, I nodded again. Right. Focus. Must focus. Must have Em’s boots perfect.

I couldn’t tolerate anything less.

“You’re polishing a leatherdyke’s boots,” Em pointed out. “So let’s not pretend.”

I nodded. Not pretending sounded good. Really, though, I wasn’t thinking much about her words.

Just about her boots.

Polish. Brush. Buff. Shine.

“I understand that you’re not there yet, obviously. Not quite ready to bend and break. But you will be. You’re already falling.”

Falling… for her? I would never. Not for a freak like her. Or… just falling?

I felt like I was falling. There was a vertigo pit in my stomach, but the sight of Em’s boots and the action of polishing them kept me utterly tethered. No, I wasn’t falling.

It was right there. I was blacking her boots.

What was that about ‘not there yet’?

I considered asking. But when I glanced up at her—out of the corner of my eye, of course, I had to remain focused—she seemed so great in stature that my question deserted me. She was shrinking away. No, she was rising into the sun. Becoming greater. Becoming celestial.

“You’re OK,” Em kindly reminded me. “I’ve got you. You’re doing a wonderful job, Briar. Just keep going. Keep polishing for me. That’s all you need to do. Polish, and listen.”

There it was again. That soporific warmth.

Polish. Brush. Buff. Shine.

I wasn’t sure why I had considered her voice to be in any way freakish at first. On the contrary, it was lovely to listen to. Soft and melodic when it needed to be; hard and firm when required to strike a chord of excitement within me. I could have listened to it forever—and perhaps I did, in that timeless moment as she kept murmuring to me, telling me things that were immediately lost beneath my peerless focus but worked into my mind as deeply and surely as the polish into her wonderful boots.

“Look,” Em said eventually. The word, a simple command, snatched my focus effortlessly. “Don’t you think you’re almost done?”

I paused. I looked. Her boots were a perfect mirror now; both of them, all over. But was I done? I couldn’t say. I wasn’t sure. I could only look into the mirror. In it, I saw myself, faintly; an outline, as faceless and indistinct as I felt, rendered utterly black, the proportions of my body made strange by the concave shape of the tip of Em’s boot.

Was I done? Was I done?

The answer came, though I wasn’t sure if it was in her voice or mine.

“Yes.”

***

That evening, after I got home from work, my wardrobe found itself strewn out over the floor of my apartment as I searched in vain for even one piece that would sate my craving. I groaned, pained, as I checked label after label and found myself hopelessly bereft.

No leather. Not real leather, anyway.

The day passed in a daze. I could barely remember how my encounter with Em had ended; after sleepwalking back to my workplace late, I made it through the afternoon on autopilot and was barely in a better state when I clocked off and arrived home. The entire time, my brain was abuzz with a singular sense-memory, and whenever I was close to truly rousing myself I would chance to look over my hands and notice that, despite washing them, black leather polish was still embedded under my fingernails.

Polish. Brush. Buff. Shine.

I wasn’t a freak or a pervert. I told myself that right away. I was just curious. That’s all. It was just like taking a second bite of a meal, just to be sure, even though you were certain you didn’t like the first one at all.

I had to touch it again. Leather.

The best I could do was a faux leather jacket stuffed in the back of my closet. Just touching it made me wince; it was plainly cheap, and a cheap imitation, nothing at all like the heavy, well-worn, well cared-for garment Em had been clad in. The fact that I was feverish enough to feel grateful to have found even that was nothing short of humiliating.

It would have to serve. And free from prying eyes, I was beyond humiliation as I lay back on my head, pressed the faux leather jacket to my face, and inhaled.

Nothing.

A whine came from my parted lips. It had none of the scent. None of the texture, either. It did nothing for me. It satisfied none of my curiosity.

Memory, then. I would have to settle for that.

In my mind’s eye, I conjured her. Not intentionally. I meant only to recapture the leather of her boots. I want to call to mind every last detail: the shine, the texture, the scent. But Em proved to be inseparable from all of that. My memory of her boots was welded to the memory of her lounging over me. Their texture, her gaze, piercing and hot. Their scent, her voice, low, enchanting. Their shine, her sheer presence, forceful and magnificent.

I burned with resentment toward her. Even as my hand worked its way between my legs.

The entire time, as lust overcame me, I kept huffing at my fake leather jacket and rubbing it against my face, each time hoping it would strike true. It didn’t work. Worse than useless; each time, the phoniness of its scent and feel dulled my pleasure. Driven by a frenzied urge that was still freshly imprinted on my mind, I kept working my fingers into myself, achieving nothing but the sharpening of my own need.

Useless.

I needed it again.

Polish. Brush. Buff. Shine.

I needed her.

Even as I masturbated, I tried to cling to my disgust for Em. That was proving as futile as my efforts to gratify myself. I couldn’t help it. She had interwoven herself with the other desires she had given me, and in the face of that, my preconceptions were softening. I was stuck on the thought that none of the men I had ever dated had made me feel so swept away, or treated me with such a stirring, commanding mixture of sternness and guidance.

How often had I complained to friends and family about needing a real man?

Maybe what I really needed was a woman like her.

That thought made me shiver with shame. But not as hard as it made me squirm.

Em had treated me like she was a queen—no, a king—and I her subject. Like it or not, being part of her kingdom was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me.

And I was never going to see her again.

That thought, after what felt like an hour of fruitless huffing and rutting, drove me despair. With a ragged groan, I threw the fake leather jacket across the room and pounded my bedsheets in frustration.

I couldn’t cum. I couldn’t rid myself of this mania. Willing myself to calmness was useless when a pair of leather boots still burned bright in my mind’s eye.

Then, I saw it.

The long, loose sleeve of my top had ridden up, exposing something beneath. Numbers, written there in black—in polish, I realized—and miraculously not yet smudged into illegibility. Em must have written then there. I couldn’t remember that, though—until I could, until suddenly, like a half-remembered dream, it came to me, a memory of Em lifting my limp arm and writing something onto my skin while she poured yet more words into my pliant, unresponsive head.

I should have been frightened. Instead, I was simply grateful.

Especially when I rolled up my sleeve all the way and saw that it was a phone number.

***

“I just…” Em’s eyes unmade me at once. My mouth had never been so dry. “I felt bad, about earlier. You were right. I was very… unpleasant. I-I was hoping I might come in and apologize?”

I was standing outside the door to her apartment while she leaned against the door frame with a predator’s languid stance. It was, infuriatingly, clear that she had been expecting me. That should have aroused some kind of resentment or indignation in me. The sheer embarrassment of being forced to stand out here in the corridor and explain myself should have made me angry enough to storm off.

But there they were. Her boots. On her feet, their tips reflecting the low light spilling out from her apartment.

I shivered. I needed.

“No,” Em told me, after a contemplative pause. “Not good enough.”

She stepped back, and started closing the door in my face.

“Wait!” I cried out, desperation plain on my lips. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not good enough,” she told me firmly. “If you want something, Briar, you should be honest about it and ask nicely.”

I shouldn’t. I couldn’t. But when the door started closing again-

“Wait!” I called again. I shifted nervously. “It’s y… your boots.” Em’s grin widened. “I wasn’t… wasn’t sure I’d done a g-good enough job. And s-since I need to make it up to you—for the coffee I mean…”

Em’s head tilted. She was considering.

No, she was simply letting me stew.

“No,” she told me again. “Honesty, Briar. Come back here when you’re ready.”

I couldn’t suppress a little whine at the unfairness of it. Her demand paralyzed me. Honesty? What was that supposed to mean? Wasn’t my coming here honest enough? Did she really want to see me debased so completely?

Too bad for her. It wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to beg. I still had my pride. I was a good, Christian woman, even if I had a few sins to work out of my system. Who was she to make demands of me? Nothing of the sort, clearly. She was a freak. A demon, clad in human skin and jet black leather. Some kind of succubus—no, a prince of hell. Tall and monstrous and magnificent.

I wasn’t going to give in to her.

That’s what I told myself, right up until her boots began to disappear behind her closing door.

“W-wait!” It burst out of me again. The door opened. Em stared at me again, smug, expectant. The way I could feel myself bending for her was agonizing. “I just… I want to do it again.”

What was the point in turning back, having come all the way across town? A pathetic rationalization, but one I needed to cling to.

Em said nothing. She expected more. Her words came back to me.

Be honest and ask nicely.

I folded my hands in front of myself and squeezed my eyes shut. “Please let me shine your boots again.”

“No.”

Just like that, I found myself choking back a sob. “Why not?” I asked desperately.

Em folded her arms. Amusement simmered in her eyes. “You’re not my type,” she answered. “But you could be.”

She nodded significantly to my plain, everyday outfit.

Half an hour later, I had made the round trip. I knocked on her door again—this time, wearing the nicest dress I owned. The one I usually kept for church.

“Good girl,” Em purred, when she opened the door again. That stirred something in me. “Come in.”

That made it all worth it.

I had spent the entire car ride rationalizing. I had already humiliated myself, hadn’t I? Just by calling her. No, just by polishing her boots in the first place. I couldn’t get any lower. My pride was already ruined.

So why not do as she told me? 

Inside, Em sat herself down on her couch, legs spread. I stood in front of her; she hadn’t offered me a seat. Next to her was that little bag. Her polishing kit. I kept switching between staring at that, and staring at her boots. It was strange; earlier, kneeling before her had made me feel small. Powerless. Now, as I stood above her, I felt exactly the same. She spread herself across her couch with the ease of a king on a conquered throne. My place in her court, as I stood meekly with my hands clasped, was all too clear.

“Kneel,” Em instructed.

What was I submitting myself to? If she had a kingdom, it was Sodom. I glanced nervously at the door. My pride was already dashed, but there was nothing stopping me from leaving. Perhaps my body, at least, could remain pure.

My gaze fell back upon her boots.

I knelt.

Em extended her legs forward, crossing them at the ankles. Her boots were just inches away from me now. I was rabid with need, even though I couldn’t seem to move. The surface detail I could make out was everything I had craved. Everything that had been lacking in that faux leather jacket I had already thrown away. The boots were at a fine polish, thanks to my earlier efforts.

But I knew I could do better.

“You want these.” Em planted one heel on the ground, elevating one boot above the other, and moved the toe in small, mesmerizing circles. “Don’t you?”

I nodded. I was enraptured.

“Now, isn’t that funny?” Em laughed. “When you ran into me before, you seemed like just another one of those stuck-up straight girl bigots. Bet you can’t even begin to wrap your head around what’s happening to you now.”

The shameful truth was that I wasn’t even trying to. Her words in my ears were as sticky and black as the polish still under my fingernails. They coated the inside of my mind.

“Don’t worry about it too much,” Em told me. “All that really matters is that you’re sitting there, drooling over my boots like you’ve never seen anything so good. Isn’t that right?”

Her boot was ever in motion. The small circles she made with her toe kept the light bobbing up and down across the polished, leather surface. I could feel my focus fading. I nodded.

“Good. You know, in my community, we have a word for people like you. A few words, actually. So: you know what you are?”

“No,” I replied, my voice a pale echo to her rich roar.

“A filthy, pathetic, no-good, in-denial, boot-licking dykeslut.”

She spat the slur with such vicious glee that it dragged a whimper from my lips. As wrong as it now felt to deny her, I shook my head.

“I’m n-not… a d-dyke.” The words came to me slowly and awkwardly, and according to the rhythm of her boot.

“But all the rest is true, Briar?” Em jeered. Her mockery turned me bright red.

“N-no,” I whined. “It’s just… I’m not… I’m straight!”

“No, you’re not.”

“I a-am!” I protested, my voice becoming a weak, high-pitched mew. It was so unfair how difficult it was to disagree with her.

“Do you think you look like a straight girl right now?”

I nodded, before I caught myself. If only she would stop moving her boots for one second. It was so distracting.

“N-no, but… I’ve only ever had boyfriends, and I’m not… i-into girls…”

“You’re into girls’ boots, clearly.”

I shivered. I could feel myself bending, and that stiffened my resolve. I couldn’t give this up. Not this. It was everything I had been raised to reject.

“T-that doesn’t mean that I-“

“Kiss them.”

My entire body tensed. Her command had lit my brain up like a firework. Pitifully, the only thing that held me back was my need to be certain that I had really been granted permission.

“Y-you… what d-did you…” My words were hopelessly wet. My mouth, full of saliva.

“Kiss my boots, dyke.”

That time, shamefully, arguing was the last thing on my mind.

But I didn’t feel ashamed, as I threw myself forward and wrapped my lips around the tip of Em’s presented boot.

Nothing had ever felt as good as the sensation of leather on my tongue. I felt dirty. Filthy. Sinful. Not for betraying all of my deepest, most sacred convictions. Oh, no.

Just for tarnishing Em’s boot leather with my unworthy, slavering mouth.

She howled laughter at me as I lapped and worshipped. “How does it taste, straight girl?” she asked mockingly.

Awful. Rapturous. But those words couldn’t make it past my lips, choked as those were with the tip of the Em’s boot.

I couldn’t stop. Not even for a moment. I was instantly addicted.

“It’s funny, how easy you fell for it,” Em mused, sitting back and sighing fondly as she enjoyed my boot-licking. “I knew you would the moment I got the measure of you. You’re just that type of girl. You’re weak, Briar. Easily led. You don’t like to rock the boat. You like structure. You like a nice little ritual to follow.”

Her words slipped into my ears without resistance. Every part of my mind was bent towards her boot. Towards drinking in every last detail of their taste, their scent, their touch. Em’s voice was free to pass into my subconscious without scrutiny.

“Trust me, you’re not the first to fall all the way down for me,” Em told me. I barely heard her. “But, wow, you should have seen the look on your face, as your eyes started glazing over. ‘Little circles’. It was just so easy, straight girl.”

I felt as though my body had been plunged into a furnace. Rabid heat consumed me. The only thing stopping me from reaching up my dress and between my legs was the fact that keeping my hands planted reverently on Em’s boots seemed so much more pressing.

“Always is. But you went down harder than most. Gave me plenty of time to really go to town on you. It was very, very helpful—and look at you now.”

Boots. Leather. Lick. Touch. Clean. Polish. Worship. I was frenzied. I was lost to it.

“Bend, and break,” Em urged me, her tone imbued with a special significance. “Bend and break for boots, Briar.”

That was the only thing she said that gave me any pause. I felt an immense heaviness settle across my mind, so overwhelming it brought my tongue’s ministrations. I could feel my will, my very self, bending beneath Em’s words. Her boots already held such sway over me, but in that moment the force of their presence seemed to double. It was gravitational. It was all-consuming.

I was bending. I was ready to break.

“Good,” Em said softly. “That’s enough for now, I think.”

She pulled her boot away from me—not far, but far enough. I whined with grief.

“Hey, Briar,” Em sang out. “Tell me what you need.”

What did I need? I was nothing but need. Nothing besides my raw, gnawing need. I needed my tongue back on Em’s boot. That was obvious. I needed to gratify myself, to earn the release I had been craving all day. As that occurred to me, I finally reached up beneath my dress and started touching myself. My fingers wouldn’t be enough, I knew that, but it was something.

But as I knelt there, face pressed pathetically to the ground, hips high in the air, legs splayed out, fingers working frantically over my cunt, my gaze was still held by Em’s leather boots. The one I had been licking was, once again, marred with my mess; this time saliva instead of coffee, coating its otherwise-perfect surface with sticky, filthy drool. In that moment, it was all too clear that I really, truly needed.

“I n-neeeeeed,” I slurred, my voice strangely absent and devoid of emotion, despite my pent-up desperation, “to p-ppolish youuuurrr bootssss.”

Again, Em simply laughed. In my peripheral vision, I could make out that she had, at some point, reached down, unzipped her pants, and fished out her cock, which she was now stroking idly in one hand. Normally, I would have found that unnatural and disgusting. In that moment, the thought of giving any form of pleasure to an evidently superior being like Em was not at all unpleasant.

“You do, huh?” Em mocked. “Well… too bad. See, leather boots are for leatherdykes, Briar.”

I whimpered. I whined. I could see my downfall coming, and I already knew that I could not resist it.

“I’m a lesbian,” Em added. “I like girls. I like other lesbians. I wouldn’t want some fucked-up straight girl with a fixation polishing my boots. No. I want my boots polished by dykes.”

I masturbated even more furiously. I bent. I bent and broke for boots.

“So let me ask you, Briar,” Em pumped her cock in her hand as she presented her checkmate. “What are you?”

The words burst out of me in a rush. I broke entirely and let their newly crowned truth fill me. The mere fact that saying them, embracing them, would get me what I needed was enough. I didn’t just repeat them. I shouted them joyfully.

“I-I’mmm a fffffillthyy, pat- pathetic, nnno-good, inn-deni… denial, boot—fuck, fuck!—boot-licking dykeslut!”

“That’s right!” Em’s cock exploded in her hands, as the shattering of my sexuality brought her to orgasm. Her cum rained down on my bent head—and on her boots.

Something about that filled me with twisted glee. More to lick up. More to clean. More to polish.

Em’s thoughts were perfectly in-tune with mine. With her free hand, she reached over to her polishing kit and tossed it to me. I caught it in both hands; to me, it was a sacred relic.

“Then get to work,” Em told me, grinning. “Dyke.”

***

At Em’s side, I moved through the bar’s loud darkness. A thick band of leather connected us, her hand to my neck. It made me shiver; so did the dozens of pairs of eyes that fell upon my skin, predators eyeing me up, kept at bay only by the clear signal that I had already been claimed.

This was my debut into Em’s world.

It took place at the very bar outside which I had once serviced Em’s boots. That alone excited me; the fact that she had drawn me so skillfully and so effortlessly into her spider’s web. There was no question that I might escape.

Just once, after that first night, I had tried to go back to my church and find solace in the rigors of its congregation. It had been useless. All of those good Christians had sensed the change in me. Perhaps they were tipped off by the traces of polish under my fingernails, or the heavy, leather collar around my neck, or the bright red love bites beneath it. Or perhaps it was simply the way I found myself staring at the other pretty young women at church, wondering how they might look wearing boots.

Or polishing them.

Those weren’t my people. Not anymore. They were all straight, and straight-laced.

And I was a shameless dyke.

Here, at the leather club, I belonged. This was my Sodom, and that night I felt like its princess. Everywhere I went—following at Em’s side, of course—I was looked at and adored. Everywhere, I was surrounded by leather. It entranced me hopelessly; boots, jackets, belts, pants, caps, all of it. The light playing off each item mesmerized me. It smothered my thoughts in a dull, fierce arousal. I had become hopelessly, shamelessly weak to the material. It had become my all-consuming fetish. Only Em’s firm hand on my leash kept me from indulging myself with my fingers at every opportunity.

When she saw fit to be less firm, that was precisely what I did.

Usually, that was after she permitted me to bootblack for another leatherdyke. To sit before them and polish their boots, my attention held fervent by the worshipful task before snapping back as I completed it and was, as a reward, permitted to reach up beneath my tiny leather dress for a few minutes of drooling gratification. Sometimes, even better, one of the dykes I was bootblacking for would let me kneel and hump against her boots. That was heaven. I’m sure I made quite the spectacle, humping, moaning, dress riding up to expose my naked, shaved cunt. Everybody loved to watch.

A recently converted straight girl, fucking herself against dyke leather like a dog in heat. I was the belle of the ball.

By the end of the night, I was a sodden, despoiled mess, and the wide, wild grin on my face was the most sordid thing of all. My dress was ruined—I would have to polish it later, I thought dizzily—but I cherished all the small bills of cash that had been tucked into the shoulder straps as tips. As thanks for my service. Another community tradition. I adored it immediately. My time on my knees in prayer had never felt as rewarding or as valued as my time on my knees for leather boots.

“Ready to go?” Em asked me. She held my leash tight, and I gasped as I tasted its grip. She was grinning. She had enjoyed the night in her own ways, and I was sure she would enjoy me before we slept. Fully dressed up in leather, she was resplendent.

“Yes, Em,” I replied demurely

“Hey, Kath,” a passing dyke interjected suddenly, addressing, to my confusion, my dominant. “What’s the deal? Why does she call you ‘Em’? That’s not your name.”

“It’s short,” Em replied. Her eyes sparkled with amusement. Mine registered only confusion. ‘Em’ was the only name I had ever known her by. ‘Emma’, I had presumed.

“For what?” the other dyke scoffed.

Em’s smug reply simply made me gasp again at how expertly she had tamed me.

“’Master’.”