Short Story A Strange Girl

Previous Story: Interlude: Police WorkPrevious Story: Next Story:     "Allô?" Inspector Clairemont repeated through the poor transatlantic connection. "Allô?"     "Yes, inspector, hello!" He heard a woman's voice speak in English over the line.     "Ah," Clairemont mentally mustered his English. "You are Officer Shear, yes?"     "Yes, inspector."     "Superbe. I must admit, your expediency is surprising. I've only finished speaking with the liaison some minutes ago." Clairemont tucked the old-fashioned phone receiver between his cheek and shoulder as he sat down.     "I hope you don't mind, sir, but I'm not much for waiting." Penny paced behind her desk in ...
Next Story: Interlude: Justice is BlindPrevious Story: Next Story:     For Stilette there were two kinds of take: business and pleasure. Today was all business. Her retifistic passions alone weren't enough to keep the lights on, pay-off her network of informants and flips, engineer her gadgets, or keep fuel in the jet. She wore her game face as she walked down the busy South American street in a sun dress, thin thong sandals that slapped her bare soles as she walked, and a wide brimmed hat, keeping the sun from her face and shoulders.     Buenos Aires was a city Stilette had come to know well as a professional, thanks to its wealth. It was also a city she longed to know b...
Warning: This story contains mature situations and sexual themes.

    "Paige Bonnaire!? I haven't heard that name in ages," Angelique Martin said, her voice a flustered mix of surprise and worry. Her English was perfect; her accent nearly undetectable. "Who exactly did you say you were?"
    "My name is Penelope Shear. I'm with the police in the United States. I know that my authority doesn't extend across the Atlantic, but I need your help." Penny's voice betrayed a desperate tenor behind her words, something she would've kept in check were she speaking with anyone in a position of authority or making the call from the precinct. But Penny was home alone. Clad in a tank top, shorts, and white slouch socks, she sat on the floor in front of her couch, level with the cheap coffee table she used as a makeshift desk.
    "I don't know what I'm to say, miss. Yes, I once knew Paige. I was one of her instructors in school." Angelique sunk onto her couch and folded her lengthy legs under her dressing gown as she perched on the edge, close to the base of the landline phone she was using. "I was her English teacher her final year of lycèe, er, high school." Angelique's hand were shaking, her mind wandering back to the last time she looked down into those greener-than-green eyes before Paige disappeared.
    "An anonymous source provided some connection between Paige Bonnaire and a thief, you may have read about her, who calls herself Stilette." Penny was careful in choosing her words. She didn't know what game Stilette was playing this time. Was Angelique a confederate? A victim?
    Angelique felt her throat go dry. "Yes. I have read the name before," she paused to swallow. "A cat burglar, jewel thief, something like that."
    "Among other things," Penny said, doing her best to read the timbre and tenor of Angelique's words. Her legs folded under her, Penny's toes curled in her socks. "Were you ever interviewed about her disappearance?"
    "No, no. I know that her father did come to the school, poor man. We did not speak however."
    "Is there anything you can tell me about him?" Penny sincerely wondered about what kind of upbringing Stilette must have had.
    "Precious little. Paige did not mention him often, if ever now that I think on it. When he came to the school, he was, I do not wish to speak ill of the man, but he was in sorry shape. He'd obviously been drinking. And weeping." Angelique rung her hands without thinking about it.
    "I understand," Penny said. Personal curiosity was beginning to get the better of her. "What can you tell me a about Paige? Was she shy, outspoken?"
    "She," Angelique paused as she collected herself. There was certain kenning in Officer Shear's voice. She understood. "She had a reputation, among the students, as a strange girl..."

    Rain pattered against the old leaded glass of the classroom windows. The girls inside shifted in their seats, passed notes, and feigned interest in Mlle. Angelique Martin's lesson as she read aloud from a book.

    Paige bit her lip and wiped hair out of her face as she watched Angelique's navy colored heel dangle elegantly from her bare toes. Page had both of her pink socked feet shoved into one of her well-worn school loafers, the black of the leather cracked and peeling with age and wear. Her empty shoe lay top down, having been tipped over by her shoeplay previously.
    She didn't bother hiding the fact that she stared anymore. She'd been caught looking a few too many times, by teachers and students alike. The teachers only reprimanded her for not paying attention during lessons. The students at her lycée were often much worse.
    "She's always staring at our feet," they would whisper. "I heard she got caught in secondary school trying to steal Claudette's shoes," they roundly repeated. "Paige is such a freak," they concluded long ago. And Paige decided to give them no evidence to the contrary.
    Class was ending, but Paige barely noticed as she watched Mlle. Martin. She uncrossed her bare legs, her heel precariously swaying from her big toe, before it clattered to the floor and she wiggled back into it. Angelique was speaking, something about the next section for tonight's reading. Paige was miles away until those legs, feet, and shoes disappeared around the corner of Mlle. Martin's desk.
    Paige drifted back to reality. With a sigh, she fished around for her other shoe until she managed to get it back on. As she grabbed her things and readied to leave, Angelique said, "Paige, would you mind staying a moment." Paige briefly let her eyes link with the hazel of Angelique's. She nodded.
    After the room had cleared, Angelique stood again and began to pack her own things. "I've noticed that you seem to have difficulty focusing during class." Paige had heard it a thousand times before, and it couldn't be further from the truth. She focused very well, it just happened to be on other things.
    "I'm just not very interested in school," Paige said, her eyes wandering around the room, snatching the occasional glance at Angelique's toe cleavage or arch gap. "My mind is usually elsewhere."
    "That kind of attitude isn't going to get you very far, dear. Your marks are adequate yes, but adequate scores from someone who doesn't bother to pay attention, tells me you have a very good mind. One that could be made all the better with a bit of application. Especially with the Baccalauréat coming up." Angelique was taller than Paige flat-footed, not even counting her pumps. She tipped her head to steal a bit of eye contact with Paige. Angelique had rarely seen her face completely unobscured by that mop of hair. She was actually quite striking, Angelique noticed.
    "I know," Paige said back as she stared up at Angelique. Paige wanted to blurt out what she was thinking, all the torrid little adolescent fantasies she'd had about Mlle. Martin and her pretty navy heels. But she didn't. Anytime she'd tried to tell anyone about her particular tastes, it had ended in embarrassment.
    "It's not for me, Paige. It's for you. It may not feel like it, but you are laying the foundations of your future right now." Angelique paused as she lowered herself to half-sit on her desk. With her right thigh elevated, the appropriate pump popped free of her bare heel with a faint swish. Angelique was about to speak, but Paige did first.
    "It's your shoes," she said, her greener-than-green eyes snapping up to lock with Angelique's. Impulsiveness is something that Paige would never shed on her path to becoming the daring Stilette. "They're beautiful," she said softly, her eyes never leaving Angelique's. Paige's cheeks flushed, but her stare remained fixed.
    Angelique was surprised by the conviction in Paige's voice and the intensity of her eyes. Angelique broke their gazing first as she tipped her head to look down at her shoe, partially dangling as it was from her toes. "Oh," is all she managed to say at first, her mode of thought completely derailed.
    "And your feet, your legs. I think about them all the time. I don't know why. I just do," Paige said quietly. Her cheeks were bright red, but not from embarrassment. Paige's eyes drifted from Angelique's to trace the curves of her body down to her feet and heels.
    "Paige, I," Angelique stammered and leaned forward. As she did, her dangling pump clipped the floor and slid right off, revealing her well shaped toes and pedicured nails. Paige dropped her school bag on to the desktop nearest her and sank to her knees, her own socked heels springing free of her loafers.
    "Beautiful," Paige whispered. "May I?" She asked without waiting as she picked up Mlle. Martin's shoe. She'd handled other girls' shoes before of course, with and without their knowledge, but this was special. Angelique was one of the most beautiful women she'd seen in her day-to-day life. And this very shoe, having seen it dangled and toyed with so often, handling it caused Paige to shudder with pleasure.
    She'd held it but a moment, but it was long enough for Angelique to find her voice. "May I have that back?" Angelique asked, her voice small and breaking slightly. Paige looked up at her. Paige's eyes were glassy and wet, something Angelique hadn't expected, just like the rest of their encounter.
    "I'm sorry," Paige said. "Yes." The reality of the moment set in, grinding the adolescent fantasies in Paige's mind to dust. This is how it always went.

    Angelique was trembling as she recounted her remembrance to Penny over the phone. "I had never looked into eyes filled with so much yearning and hurt and disappointment all at once." She said quietly, as though she were ensconced in a confessional. This story had simmered within her for more than a decade. She'd never told another soul. Now, she tipped the ewer of her memories for a virtual stranger, a catharsis she didn't know she wanted.
    Penny was leaning forward, breathing a little heavier than normal. "What happened next?" Her question came out timidly.

    "You can put it back on." Angelique said as she bent her knee toward Paige, the sunlight playing off the faint pink polish on her toes. To Angelique, it was a reflexive gesture of consolation. To Paige, it was much more.
    Paige leaned forward wordlessly, one trembling hand cupped and squeezed Angelique's bare heel while her off-hand brought the pump to Angelique's toes. Angelique shuddered in surprise as a tear fell from Paige's cheek onto her toes.
    Paige took her time replacing the shoe on Angelique's foot. Even after firmly seating Angelique's heel, Paige's fingers remained lightly touching her ankle. She wanted this to go further.
    "Thank you," Angelique said politely, not knowing what else to say. She kept her leg motionless, afraid of damaging the fragility of the moment. Paige's fingers finally left the soft skin of her ankle.
    Paige avoided eye contact as she stood, her socked heels coming to rest on and crush the backs of her loafers. "Will that be all, mademoiselle?" She asked as she grabbed her school bag and inhaled sharply.
    "I think so," Angelique said. She studied the girl hard for more meaning, some means of connecting with her further. Angelique remembered well being Paige's age. The uncertainty, the emotional immaturity, the paradox of the powerlessness of youth and the slipping away of its freedoms on the cusp of adulthood.
    Paige, her head down, turned to leave, her loafers quietly slapping her feet as she walked to the door. "Paige," Angelique called after her. The girl slowed and half turned. "I'm sorry." Not a hollow sentiment, but far short of the depth of the sympathy Angelique felt for Paige at that moment.
    "So am I." Paige opened the door and disappeared out into the hall.

    There were several moments of silence on the phone. Angelique had been emotionally descriptive, describing at length what she saw in Paige, the feelings that roused themselves between them. Penny at last asked, "Is that the last time you saw her?"
    "No," Angelique said, her heart fluttering. "I was consumed with what had happened, the things she'd said, for the remainder of the day. I did not know what to do, what to say to her. So, like people usually do, I convinced myself nothing had changed, everything was status quo. The next day, she did not attend school. I set to worrying immediately. Could she not bare to face me after speaking her feelings? Could I have said something, done something differently?"
    Angelique adjusted her position on the couch, the rest of her day forgotten. "I told myself it was nothing. She would be back on the morrow. And then she wasn't. And then she wasn't back the day after that, nor the day after that and on and on and on. When her father came to the school, I was mortified. I could have said something, but it felt like such a betrayal to tell anyone what she had shared with me. I know it was my responsibility and I should have said something, but I just couldn't."
    Penny waited with baited breath. "But that wasn't the last time you saw her?" Penny's impatience got the better of her.
    "No. It was several months later..."

    It was late afternoon. Angelique's navy heels clicked across the pavement of the car park as she approached her small late model Audi. She was was looking down as she fished her key ring from her purse, her schoolcase tucked under her other arm.
    "Bonjour, Mlle. Martin," Paige said from around her car. Angelique looked up casually at first, expecting it be any one of her students. Her eyes widened as she saw it was Paige.
    She looked the same, but carried herself differently. She wore street clothes, though with the same punk flare she'd incorporated into her school clothes. She wore untied ill fitting lace-up boots, black tights with purple fishnet over them, a short skirt, a leather jacket and a purple halter top. "Paige! What, I mean where have you been?" Angelique was gobsmacked.
    I got a new job," she said casually before taking a draw from a cigarette. "It's kept me very busy."
    "Your father's been looking for you, I," Angelique faltered. "I've been worried."
    Paige flicked her cigarette away. "I wanted you to know I didn't leave because of you, because of what I told you." Paige stepped closer. "Getting to look at you every day in school made me stay longer than I expected. I'd been planning to leave for a long time."
    "Paige, you should go home." Angelique closed the remaining distance to stand before her, just to the side of the Audi.
    "I can't. Things are different now." Paige had no problem maintaining eye contact now. "I know who I am, where I belong."
    "Do you really?" Angelique's tone smacked of incredulousness. Angelique put her things on top the car and clasped Paige by her upper arms. "You're nineteen. Go home, finish school, go to university. You'll be grateful you did."
    "I won't, Angelique," Paige said calmly, the first time she'd spoken aloud Angelique's first name outside of her bedroom or in the shower. "I have friends, money, and I'm getting a different kind of schooling now. I like it. I'm good at it."
    "What do you mean?"
    "That's all I can say. I just wanted to tell you goodbye." Paige reached up to take Angelique's hands in her own.
    "Paige," Angelique began to say, but she was soon quieted as Paige began to kiss her hands and caress them with her cheeks.

    Angelique quietly fought back the lump in her throat. "It was like nothing I've ever known. What she did to me, how she made me feel. I do not know if you have ever been flattered by someone's earnest most desires. To know what it's like to grant someone's sincerest wish, to partake in it together..."
    "The two of you..." Penelope let her question trail off, as she tried to stifle and ignore the warmth between her legs.
    "Yes. More than once that night." Angelique's slender highly-arched feet rubbed against one another as she remembered Paige worshiping them, treating her reverently like no lover before or since had. "I expected her to be gone in the morning, but she wasn't." Angelique let herself laugh.
    "I'd never done anything like that with someone, a one night stand. Should I wake her? Let her sleep? I was relieved when she awakened on her own as I was dressing for school."

    Angelique, wearing a blouse and skirt, was sitting on the edge of the bed when Paige woke up. Paige crawled up behind Angelique and embraced her. Her lips glided across the back of Angelique's neck.
    "I will always remember this," Paige whispered. "I hope you will too."
    Angelique nodded her head forward, dangerously close to letting herself get swept back up by Paige's touch. "I have to get to the school soon," she struggled to say.
    "I know." Paige kissed the back of her neck before pulling away. Paige sat back against the headboard. She had to adjust as she moved one of Angelique's navy heels out from under her. She'd given them a lot of attention the night before. Paige tossed it to the foot of the bed. "Here."
    "Oh," Angelique said as she turned. "I thought you would like to keep them." As she picked up her shoe, she thought of all the things Paige had done to it and her last night.
    "I do." Paige smiled. "You wear them today, one more time for me. I'll meet you in the car park this evening, and say goodbye once more."
    "Okay." Angelique smiled faintly as she tugged her shoe on. Paige curled her toes into the sheets as she watched Angelique finish getting dressed. She sighed with contentment knowing Angelique would be wearing such a debased pair of shoes in public.
    "I'll lock up," Paige told her as Angelique left for school. Finally alone and able to shirk the cool veneer she'd constructed, she giddily bounded of for Angelique's closet. Paige amused herself with Angelique's shoe collection for as long as she could before she too had to leave for "work."
    True to her word, she waited for Angelique by her car just as before. Paige had changed clothes of course, and, as she came into view, Angelique immediately recognized her pink socks, fishnets, and loafers from how she used to dress in school. The rest of her outfit was different of course, a torn sweater with holes that showed a tight mesh blouse underneath and baggy cargo shorts.
    "Bonjour," Angelique said quietly as she got close. Paige smiled coyly and nodded. As Angelique walked to the driver's side, Paige approached her from behind. Her fingers lightly played at the small of Angelique's back. "I hope you aren't planning on doing something indecent out here. We could be seen," Angelique couldn't stop her self from giggling as she looked around.
    "Just get in. I'll handle the rest," Paige whispered.
    And so, Angelique unlocked the driver's side and sat down. Before she could pivot her legs in, Paige took hold of the sides of her knees and squatted down. She whispered sweet things as she kissed and fondled Angelique's legs. Angelique writhed and giggled despite herself. "What if someone sees?"
    "They won't," Paige said with the conviction of youth and naiveté. At last, Paige's hands glided down Angelique's legs to her ankles. Paige popped her heels free to let the navy pumps dangle a final time. Paige's fingers worked the soft skin of Angelique's arches. First one shoe fell. Then the next.
    Paige stood and stepped out of one her shoes. Now back to her full height, she looked around, a cheeky smile on her face, before she pulled off her sock and stuffed it into a pocket. She stepped into Angelique's pump, her fishnet covered toes and sole coming to rest in the warmth of where Angelique's foot had been, a cute half inch gap forming between her heel and the heel-cup because of the size difference. She repeated the process for the other shoe before squatting down again.
    "They're big on me," she whispered before she picked up one of her loafers. "But I like that." She slid her loafer onto Angelique's foot. With the heel-cups crushed, they were like worn leather slippers on Angelique's larger feet. After shoeing her, Paige leaned in to kiss Angelique once more.

    "And she was gone." Angelique said, her voice even. "I've never told anyone about our time together. I don't know if that will help your investigation. I don't know if I should've said anything." Angelique's uncertainty was only surface; there was an immeasurable sense of emotional release bubbling inside her.
    Sexual frustration burned inside Penny and she couldn't articulate why to herself. She unfolded her legs and stuck them straight out under her coffee table before locking her ankles together tightly. "Thank you, ma'am. I'm sure that wasn't easy." It was all Penny could think to say.
    "She has touched your life too?" Angelique finally gave voice to the feelings of understanding she felt from Penny.
    "She evaded arrest. That's something I would like to correct," Penny said professionally. It did nothing to occlude the depth of personal meaning behind her words.
    "I have thought about that night, our time together, many times over the last decade or more, miss Shear. Sometimes fondly, other times less so. But," Angelique cleared her throat. "I think if I had unburdened myself of this long ago, I would have thought on it less often." She didn't know what Penelope would do with her advice, but she felt a measure of peace for offering it.
    "I understand. Thank you, ma'am. I must be going. Goodbye." Penny's words came out curter than she meant.
    "Adieu, miss Shear." Angelique said sympathetically before Penny ended the call.

    Stilette pulled off the head-phones she'd been listening to the phone call recording with. She'd been careful to give Penny Angelique's landline number expressly for the purpose of bugging the call. She sighed with contentment and arousal.
    That Angelique felt the way she did after all these years, that she understood what she did about young Paige Bonnaire, it made Stilette's heart swell in a way it rarely did. Hers was a dangerous existence, fraught with passion, surprise, and daring, but, fundamentally, it was a lonely one.
    Just as Penny couldn't articulate the feelings inside herself, Stilette was consciously blind to her need to reach out to someone. To share more than a single night's passion, or a passing encounter with. Her emotional incognizance was leading her down a dangerous road: Penny was police.
    But Stilette, blissfully ignorant of her own psychology, trotted down the corridor of her Collection, eager to grab Angelique's navy pumps and enjoy them tonight before she fed Penelope her next bit of "context" tomorrow.

    The shoe box under Penelope's bed lay open on the floor, the lid some feet away from the box. Penelope gripped her headboard as she groaned and gyrated her hips. She was nude except for her remaining work pump, the one Stilette had allowed her to keep. "Why do I like this?" She said out loud, Stilette's shoe rocking underneath her. "Is this what you wanted?" Her question posed to herself as much as it was to Stilette.
    Her climax was violent, overpowering, unexpected, and what she needed. She buckled and slid down her headboard, her breathing rapid and labored. She looked at her bare foot and shod foot together in the thin light of her bedroom. She saw Stilette's shoe, now on its side, glistening with wetness along the toe-box and insole.
    She flopped onto her back and stared up at her ceiling only moments before relief turned to sleep.
    The next morning, she'd thought it a dream until she rolled over onto Stilette's shoe and felt her work pump displaced near her toes. Penny groaned, a faint lick of shame tickling at her mind. Still, she felt better. She didn't want to examine any of it now; instead, she packed both shoes back in the box and put it away under her bed again. Out of sight, out of mind. As she climbed into the shower, that didn't stop her from wondering when she would need to "relieve" herself like that again. She shuddered and focused on getting ready for the day.
    It was a busy day at the precinct. Penny didn't see the next message from Stilette until lunch, using the same unknown number from before. Penny felt anxious as she opened it. It simply said a name, Toulouse, and another phone number. The name was familiar. A city maybe?
    Penny's day couldn't end quickly enough. There was a subtle change in her work ethic as she dwelled on her personal investigation. It didn't go entirely unnoticed, but nothing had come of it yet.
    Back home after her shift had ended, Penny didn't bother changing. She toed off her work pumps and sat down at her coffee table. The same sort of anxiousness from opening the last text filled her after placing the international call. She waited impatiently through the interminable chirping of the phone ringing on the other end. Unconsciously, she rubbed and played with her warm hosed feet and toes as she waited.
    "Allô?" An older masculine sounding voice asked on the other end.
    "I'm calling for Toulouse," Penny said cautiously. Her inner monologue was a mantra of "Please speak English, please speak English."
    "Toulie? D'accord." The voice said. There was background noise. Maybe a sports game on television, Penny couldn't be sure. She heard the sound of the receiver being put down and voices.
    "What's this?" A voice asked in English.
    Penelope relaxed slightly. "I'm calling for someone named Toulouse?"
    "I understand this. What do you want?" The person on the other end sounded leery.
    "My name is Penelope. I'm looking for a woman named Paige, Paige Bonnaire." Penelope erred on the side of caution and left out any reference to law enforcement.
    "Huh, you too? She is not here, I can tell to you that!" The voice snorted sardonically. "She take something of yours too?"
    "In a manner of speaking, yes." Penelope said, not lying.
    "Well if you find her first, you tell her never to come back to Toulie's, eh?"
    "What did she take of yours exactly?" Penny asked, curious as to the source of the all the hostility.
    "What did she not? Look, I guess you too are in the business? She burn you?"
    "Yes," Penny lied. When asked a leading question, answer in the affirmative to keep a suspect talking is what she'd always been told.
    "For five years we take her in. Show her the," the voice, presumably Toulie, paused as they searched for the right word, "ropes! What does this one do? How does she repay? She takes everything is how. One day we are friends, the next, like the wind she is gone with everything."
    "I know exactly what you mean," Penny wove her web a little broader. "The same here, stateside."
    "I am surprised she would travel. Hated it back then. For the first few years, we looked close to home, thought we might find her. Never did. This explains why, no?"
    "The people in my outfit are looking for her now. I'm running down leads in Europe. Do you know of any contacts she might have had outside of your operation?"
    "Non, non, non. We were like family. She was, uh, like a sister to me and the other youngers. When she burned us, we could not believe. At first we thought we were, uh, compromised, a different crew take things, take Paige with them maybe. But then that never shake out." Toulie paused to take a drink of something. "It hurt, you know."
    "Absolutely," Penny said before fully committing herself to her lie. "Toulie, I'll be honest with you. My people are down a few hundred grand because of her, and it's basically my fault for bringing her inside. You now how that goes." It was crooked sob story Penny had heard more than once.
    "Oui, I do." Toulie's voice rang with sincerity.
    "I'm trying to save face and make things right. I'll do right by you too, professional courtesy, if you can tell me anything relevant about Paige. Dreams, hopes, anything she used to talk about that she might've put your money toward."
    "She was quiet, mostly, a little odd in manner. Liked art, not so good at it herself. Followed fashion, but she never acted or dressed like she did. She was a drop-out I think, like most of us. Smart though. Good at working the angles, and a quick learner. Her betrayal, it came from nowhere. I tried to figure out what went wrong, but it never made good sense. We made good money, had good connections. Still don't know why she left."
    Penny began to piece things together. Paige wanted more; she outgrew them. Paige had gone to on to a kind of education, it just wasn't what Angelique would have wanted. After she had what she needed, the skills and a small nest egg, she went solo and turned pro. Penelope was sure there were some interstitial stages in there, but the bigger picture was clear.
    "Thanks for taking the time, Toulouse." Penny said.
    "Is okay. If you find her, you get what's yours. And you tell her if she ever comes back here, she'll regret it."
    "I will." Penny ended the call.
    Penny swiped back to her messages on her phone and, on a whim, wrote a text. "Toulie is still very angry with you." She sent it, not expecting a response.
    A response came back moments later. "He should be."
    At seeing a real reply from Stilette, Penny texted back immediately. "Stringing me along like this is just going to make it easier to catch you."
    "I know."
    "I will give this to Interpol. Tell them everything." Penny sent back. "With the texts, the evidence I have, Paige Bonnaire, we will find you."
    "No, Penelope. I don't think you will." Penny furrowed her brow and began to text back, but another reply came. "You want to catch me by yourself. Or else you would have told the FBI, Interpol all about our little correspondence. That, I would know."
    Penelope shifted. She was right. Penelope did want to be the one who caught Stilette. "Then why this game?"
    "I already told you, silly."
    "No, you played coy."
    "Aren't you having fun? I am." Stilette smiled as she typed that.
    "No! You're one of the 20 most wanted criminals in the world. This isn't fun. This is about justice."
    "You look cute up on your high horse." Stilette laughed out loud.
    "I will find you," Penny typed with finality.
    "I hope so," Stilette responded.

    "I will find you," Penny panted to herself in bed rhythmically. Her bare toes curled over the toe-box of her work pump on her other foot. Both of her hands gripped the heel-cup of Stilette's shoe as she worked it up and down, back and forward. Her thoughts lingered on scenarios where she got the better of Stilette. Penny imagined hand-cuffing her and zip tying her ankles. Her shoes would need to come off for that of course. "I will find you," she panted once more before relief came.
    As she lay there, falling asleep, she wondered. What would she do, when she did find Stilette?