Lucky Shoes

The Shoes

Benjamin was many things. By that I mean he was average. The only thing unaverage about him was that he was a closet transvestite. That was his gift you might say. What this meant was he liked to dress up in woman's frilly things and flaunt his femininity. But only in the privacy of his own home, mind you. 

'That,' he'd say with an assured nod, 'Is enough.'

I'll share a secret with you though that wasn't nearly enough.

Now it didn't take hold of him often but when it did it just wouldn't let go—he just had to have something flowery and female.

He'd only really gotten up the nerve to shop at one lowly dress shop. It was a thrift one out by the rail tracks by the name of Maxine's.

Benjamin parked his car, rolled up all the windows and made doubly sure that all the doors were locked up tight. Then he strolled the three city blocks to Maxine's, humming to himself happily. Actually it wasn't so much humming as a kind of an unmusical buzzing like maybe a bee or cat might make.

'It's okay,' he kept repeating to calmly in his head. 'You could be going anywhere.'

Benjamin was afraid of many things. Being found out was definitely at the top of his short list though.

"Oh my," he said when he got to the store. Then he looked around to make sure no one had heard him talking to himself that being something he had promised himself he would never do. "Promised," he muttered to himself.

Benjamin had always been a little taken aback by the lady mannequin in Maxine's window. You see, she had the most exquisite hourglass figure—not rakish in the manner of today's trendy girls but generous fore and aft with ample bosom a-mid-ship like a sound brigantine. "Ah," Benjamin sighed as he always did. He would give just about anything to have such timbers.

Anyway, in the window next to a lot of feminine flotsam and jetsam was a classic pair of pumps and a matching handbag.

"They're just gorgeous," he said to himself in such a bother that he didn't even bother to look around.

"Good morning!" Benjamin smiled cheerfully as the shop door slung shut behind him with a bright and merry tinkle. Then his smile drooped. Maxine's husband Randolph was minding the place.

The heavy man leaned heavily on the countertop his head buried in the Daily News.

"Humph," he smirked when he looked up over his bifocals.

Benjamin felt sorry for sweet Maxine. He knew that her man would come out with a blue ribbon in any contest for meanest and ugliest. He also knew all about makeup. What it could cover up and what it couldn't. Maxine did her darndest but Benjamin still saw the bruises.

Randolph here today was a sure sign that bruises would be there next time he saw her.

"Shopping for our Aunt are we?" Randolph minced.

"Why, yes. Yes, I am."

Benjamin slunk round the tiny shop, under the jeering eye of the troll his day ruined.

Now under ordinary circumstances he would have bought some little nothing and left. But these most definitely were not ordinary circumstances because those were no ordinary shoes and handbag.

"Pardon..." he said at long last.

While he waited for the ogre in back of the counter to slog through what he was reading he glanced down at the paper. Below the topsy-turvy text was a graphic photograph of a very pretty girl who was also very dead.