Ballet Shoes: Encore

Breaking In New Pointe Shoes

I have no words for what my ears went through while researching this /lh

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Third Person's P.O.V.

Age: 20

"They're here!" Ben shouted excitedly as he bounded into his living room, a rather pretty package in hand.

"What's got you so excited?" Gwen asked, briefly peeking over the top of her book.

Ben carefully set the box down on the coffee table before exiting the room. Soon returning with a pack of toe pads and a tube of Jet Glue. Also placing them on the coffee table. The brunette then plopped himself down in front of the coffee table and started opening the box. Ben had it half opened by the time he responded to his cousin's earlier question.

"My new ballet shoes are here!"

"Don't you have four other pairs of ballet shoes though?" Kevin asked.

"Yes," came Ben's hurried response as he finished opening the box and started removing pastel tissue paper.

Kevin raised a brow in confusion. Since it's true that Ben has four other pairs of ballet shoes, why does he need another pair. Who the hell needs five pairs of ballet shoes? Is four not enough?

"Yes I have four other pairs of ballet shoes but I needed one more set of pointe shoes as per recommendation to prolong their life," Ben  explained without tearing his focus away from the task at hand, "My other pair started giving up on me a couple weeks ago so I went for a fitting with Julius almost immediately. And damn he works fast! I wasn't expecting this for another couple days at least."

"Okay..." Kevin trailed off, not fully understanding Ben's explanation but rolling with it.

In short order, Ben had his new pointe shoes out of the box. He smiled brightly as he examined them. Finding nothing out of the ordinary.

"Now to break them in," Ben mumbled standing up.

"Break them in?" Gwen queried, putting her book down.

"Yep."

Before either Gwen or Kevin could say anything else, Ben started breaking in the pointe shoes. First, he placed the pointe shoes on the ground and covered them with a cloth. He then pressed his heel on the box part of each shoe to widen it. Next, Ben picked up the right shoe and used his hand to raise the box section back up. Repeating it with the left one.

Ben sat back down on the floor for the next part. He slipped on one shoe and traced where his heel began with his finger. Making a mental note of it before taking the ballet shoe back off. With that mental marker, Ben bent the shoe backwards and forwards at that point a few times. Taking great care as he also slightly bent the upper section of the shoe.

Once that was done on each foot, Ben examined each shoe individually. Making small adjustments as he saw fit. All the while Gwen and Kevin just watched. Both of them stunned into silence despite the many questions that danced on the tips of their tongues. None of which they would get the opportunity to ask before Ben continued.

The brunette held one shoe in each of his hands and started banging near the top of the undersides together. The noise was horrendous! Only pausing at the random intervals Ben made in order to tap the top of each shoe on the ground with the force of landing a jump. Each time he did, the landing sound got softer.

After a few minutes of that, Ben stopped. The noisiest part of breaking in new pointe shoes was done. Only a couple more steps remained and then the shoes would be ready for dancing.

So, Ben grabbed the tube of Jet Glue and popped it open. He applied some on the inside of each shoe. Careful not to put in too much and undo what he had achieved with banging the shoes together. It didn't take too long for the glue to dry.

Ben lightly smiled and reached for the pack of toe pads. He opened it and placed one pad in each pointe shoe. Slipping them on afterwards and standing up once more. Ben held onto the coffee table and dug his knee into the back of each ballet shoe. He also stooped low for a couple minutes with some of his weight resting on the heel of his shoes. Both actions further adjusting them to the shape of his feet.

"Perfect!" Ben beamed after testing out his pointe shoes with a few simple movements.

It was then that Gwen and Kevin snapped out of their shocked states. The questions and concerns they previously couldn't voice coming out in a jumbled mess of syllables.

"I didn't catch any of that," Ben stated once they were done.

"Never mind," the couple said in unison.

"Don't worry," Ben said, "I was also shocked when I saw Estelle break in new pointe shoes for the first time. I didn't expect the process to be so intricate and kind of complicated when you really think about each step and what it does for the shoes. It's also quite noisy."

"Mhm," Gwen and Kevin hummed in sync again.

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Hey everyone!!! Ballet Shoes is back! Sorry for the wait. I like to have most of the story written before posting it so that's why there was such long a gap.

Next, this portion of Ballet Shoes doesn't follow the format of the previous one. I wanted to try something different so fingers crossed this pans out the way I intended.

Updates will be twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. I think that's all the announcements I have (I'm probably forgetting something tho but whatever).

Have a good rest of your day/night!