Chapter One
Coaster on the Floor
Her promotion to shift manager entitled Diane to wear black pants while Kevin and
the rest of the drivers were required to wear jeans. Hard at work in her washed-out-green
shirt with sleeves to her elbows, her hair tied up and tucked under the baseball cap all
the workers wore, Diane could not have done less to exude femininity, but Kevin still
found it. Whether he viewed her making pizzas from the side while he scrubbed grease from
the deep dish pans and admired her extended arms, hands deftly spreading cheese and olives
and sausages over dough covered in pools of sauce, or stared, while he was taking orders
on the phone, at her ass, as she sidled the length of the pizza-making counter, he longed
to be near her. He craved the intimacy the pizza shop gave them. He would sometimes stare
at her behind with a clinical reverence, analyzing what it could be about the way her
curves pressed out from those black pants, dotted with flour handprints—her over-sized
shirt pulled out and hanging over a hip—that made it so enticing. He felt guiltless eyeing
her; his appreciation of her beauty felt so genuine.
He truly admired her, was a large part of it. The two of them had started working at
around the same time, both as drivers. While he spent the summer folding pizza boxes and
keeping up on the dishes, waiting for deliveries, she had gotten the owner to train her on
every aspect of running the pizza shop, and earned her promotion. He didn’t have that kind
of initiative. In fact, he didn’t learn to answer the phones until his first shift under
her supervision.
While they had both been drivers, they had a few friendly exchanges, but when she called
him to the phone, Kevin noticed immediately her new managerial tone. “Kevin, come over
here.” She smiled, kindly. “I’m going to have you answer phones between deliveries, in
addition to your other duties.”
“Okay, sure.” He felt himself blushing. He was pretty sure Diane suspected his crush. He
couldn’t imagine a woman as beautiful as her didn’t suspect every man developed some level
of infatuation with her. He hoped she didn’t know the extent of his.
Kevin had been kicking himself for not asking her out when he had the chance. The
store had a strict policy against managers dating the hourly employees. His berating
himself, he knew, was an absurd façade. He wasn’t really fooling himself. He wouldn’t have
asked out a beautiful woman like Diane in a million years. He was shy enough with women in
his own league. He felt satisfied with work-related conversation and the occasional
exchange of personal, friendly anecdotes.
Diane instructed him on how to take orders over the phone, gave him a script to
memorize, then went to make pizzas. She returned after several minutes and tested him. She
leaned against the counter and played the part of customers placing orders. She made him
hold the phone to his ear, as if each were a real call. Kevin, grinning awkwardly, did as
he was told. He punched the orders into the computer, without firing them into the system,
as she watched and corrected his mistakes. He found her rather impatient with his progress
after a few minutes, and he was surprised to find himself feeling ashamed of his frequent
blunders. Once he got it down, though, she praised him. “Very good. Now you’re ready to
take real calls, all by yourself.”
Kevin knew his enjoyment of her praise showed all over his face.
The hang out after work was the bowling alley across the street. Kevin always
started the evening when he joined everyone—anytime he specifically heard Diane would be
there and other nights when he felt like hoping she would drop by—intent as hell on
getting on the list for a game of pool. There were only two tables in the back corner and
the cover was perfect. He could sit and enjoy the wait near Diane, listening to her unwind
by talking, usually to Monica or one of the other drivers, and only occasionally have to
abandon her to play his turn at pool, maintaining the deception. Luckily, Diane never came
around and watched. She might have grown suspicious seeing him shoot. For a supposed pool
fiend, he couldn’t sink a ball to save his life.
After a couple hours, one night, a bunch of the other drivers decided to go bowl. Kevin
prepared to surrender his pool game to join them, but when Diane and Monica and Beth all
declined, he used his pool game as an excuse to remain at the table. Soon after, Beth and
Monica were lured away by a regular at the bar top that Beth had been making eyes at for
several weeks. They tried to tug Diane along, but there was no moving her, and Kevin and
Diane were alone. Kevin looked up at the board where his name steadily rose.
“Why don’t you sit over here?” Diane patted the booth next to her. “You’re always
sitting so far away, waiting for your pool games.” She grinned and sipped from her drink.
She sat leaned back, and as Kevin rose from his chair he saw her legs splayed out under
the table on the chair cattycorner to her. Kevin sat a foot farther away than where she
had patted the booth. She seemed to notice and smirk, but Kevin decided it was his
imagination.
“Do you know what I heard,” she said, “and this might interest you. I heard a juicy
piece of gossip. I heard someone at work has a huge crush on someone else.”
“A crush?” Kevin felt the temperature rise several degrees. Diane leaned forward and
looked back as though trying to catch his face in the best lighting, gauging his reaction.
Kevin took a swig from his beer and avoided her eyes.
“Oh, a huge one,” Diane said, leaning back again. “It’s obvious to everyone, apparently.
Everyone can tell. They say he—it’s a boy who has the crush—is always watching her and
hanging around her, but he’s very shy, they say. They say he’s hardly done a thing about
it except to be very helpful to her.”
Kevin felt a fount of humiliation spread outward from his core. Diane was so clearly
calling him out. She couldn’t have been talking about anyone but him. He wouldn’t have
been surprised to learn she had suspicions, but her certainty, the idea of everyone
knowing and being amused at his desperation to be near her, he should have felt like
fleeing the bowling hall and never returning to work. Instead he remained, the heat of
blush not leaving but evening over all his skin, through all his body. He felt a mild,
pleasant buzz. “Are you going to say who?” he said.
Diane grinned, her mouth open. He thought she was going to tell him she knew about his
infatuation, he almost hoped she would. He feared he would confess if necessary to
maintain the euphoria he felt under her flirtatious teasing, her slight taunting. Under
the vulnerability of her playing with his secret.
She grabbed a deck of cards from the center of the table. “Let’s play.” She
shuffled the cards in her hands a few times, then set them in two piles on the table, and
riffled them. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No.”
“No girlfriend? You’re so cute, though.”
“No girlfriend, right now. I’m really busy.”
The smirk passed over her face again. The twinkle in her eye permeated the dim bar. “What
should we play for? We have to play for something.”
She finished her shuffle and dealt out three cards to him and three to her. She set
the remaining pile between them on the table and flipped over the first card, the starting
arrangement for the regular bowling alley card game of 31. She laid her hand on Kevin’s
over his cards, not allowing him to pick them up.
“Before you look.”
Kevin glanced down at their hands, layered together. He quickly looked up again,
but the image blazed in his periphery. The coolness of her touch drove a pulsing heat
through his body.
“What do you want?”
She withdrew her hand. “I want a foot massage. My feet ache after a long shift,
literally ache. That’s what I want, a foot massage. What do you want?”
Kevin wanted, of course, a kiss. What else would a man want from a woman he had a
wild crush on? And she began with physical intimacy as the stakes. Under any other
circumstances, he would have said it, but she was his boss and partly out of discretion,
partly using this as an excuse, he said, “Five bucks?”
Diane groaned and picked up her cards. “All you drivers care about is money.
Terrible, terrible, terrible. It’s a progressive disease, it really is. You go first.”
Kevin drew a six, which gave him a matching diamond with his queen. He discarded
his five of spades. The object was to get as close to 31 as possible. Any player could
knock the table at any time and end the game. An ace with two face cards or the ten of the
same suit was the best possible hand, scoring 31. Three of a kind scored thirty and a half
points. Going for three of a kind was risky, though, because if your opponent knocked, you
were sure to lose. Kevin always went for suited cards and rarely knocked, worried his
opponent held higher suited cards.
“Best of five?” Diane said.
“Sure.”
Diane knocked after a few rounds. She grinned over her fanned out cards. Kevin held
only two diamonds for a total of seventeen points but he got one more draw. He picked up a
diamond but only a five. “Twenty-two,” he said, turning them face up.
“Twenty-four.” Diane smacked her cards on the table.
“You knocked with that?”
Diane nodded, grinning. “Oh, a foot massage is going to feel sooooo good.”
“That’s only one.” Kevin was amazed his voice sounded clear. His slight buzz from
drinking had evaporated in the midst of the anxiousness coursing through him. He didn’t
know if he was more worried about giving her the foot massage or of not receiving the
honor. He certainly wasn’t thinking about the five bucks.
The second game Kevin was dealt three clubs, but for a score of only twenty-three.
He probably should have knocked right away, but once he waited, he had to improve. He drew
and discarded several times but couldn’t get another club. Diane kept drawing and
discarding, looks of mild disgust passing over her. The deck was nearly gone, then she
drew and beamed. Kevin knew he was in trouble. He drew again and improved to twenty-five,
but the way Diane knocked following, he knew she had him. He had one final draw and pulled
another diamond, giving him twenty-nine. He felt hopeful and waited for Diane to show. She
slowly turned over three sevens.
“Oh, man. I should have known you were going for that. I could have knocked at any
time. I was dealt twenty-two.”
“You had twenty-two on the deal and didn’t knock? You got to take a chance, if you
want to win.”
The ‘if you want to win’ seemed to linger. He knew she hadn’t meant it that way,
she hadn’t meant that she suspected he was throwing the match so he could massage her
feet, but he wasn’t too sure she didn’t suspect it in the quiet that followed.
She picked the cards up and started shuffling. “Do you really like pool?”
“I play enough, don’t I?”
“Yeah.”
“Why do you ask?”
“Something Monica said had me wondering.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Never mind. You better focus if you expect to mount a comeback. I’m up
two games to zero.” Diane finished shuffling and casually dealt. Kevin picked up each card
as he received it and pensively looked: a two of diamonds, a six of spades, and a two of
clubs. He rolled his eyes when he saw the second two. A terrible hand. Unless he picked up
a miracle two, he was in trouble. He drew a four of spades. Thought about it, but folded
one of his twos and kept the matched suits. He looked up. Diane grinned, her hand formed
into a fist and poised above the table.
“No,” Kevin said. Her knuckles rapped against the wood. “You dealt yourself a good
hand?”
“Good enough,” Diane said. “I was watching your face while you looked at yours. You
totally gave yourself away. I know I’ve got you beat.”
Kevin pinched a card from the top of the deck. The ace of spades would give him
twenty-one. It was his only chance. He drew another two. Diane burst out laughing. She
turned her cards face up, a nine and an eight of diamonds with a four of hearts.
“Seventeen good enough?”
“Seventeen? You knocked with that? I would have had three twos, but I discarded
one.”
“Awww, poor thing. I told you to take a chance.” Diane leaned back in the booth.
She stretched her legs under the table and bumped Kevin’s shoes with hers. “No five bucks
for you. And what did I win? I forget.”
“A foot massage.”
“Oh, that’s right. A foot massage. Oh, that sounds wonderful.”
Kevin managed to meet her eyes. He tried to casually smile. “You’re going to
gloat?”
Diane leaned over the table, placing her face close to his and grinning. “Of course
I am. That’s half the fun. You are paying up, aren’t you?”
“I pay my debts.”
Diane looked around. Several people from the pizza shop were still hanging around,
including Monica up at the bar top with Beth. Kevin worried people were sure to return as
soon as he started. He wasn’t looking forward to the embarrassment, but he certainly
wanted to show Diane he was honorable. “Tell you what,” Diane said, “I’ll be nice. I won’t
make you do it in front of everyone. Why don’t you wait a few minutes then come outside
and follow me to my apartment?”
Kevin averted his eyes as Diane walked over to say goodbye to Monica. Diane passed
behind him. He kept looking at the board for the pool game, though his name had been long
ago passed over. After waiting a safe period of time, he nonchalantly walked out. A pair
of headlights crept up behind him and stopped when he got to his car. “What took so long?
Are we secret agents, now?”
“I thought you said to wait a few minutes?”
“You’re so cute. Come on.” Diane’s window slid up and she drove past. Kevin hurried
into his car, started it up, and got behind her at the parking lot exit. He could hardly
believe how the night was progressing. An hour ago he was swept up in anonymous love,
now—almost by magic—he was headed to spend the night with the object of his devotion. He
eyed the movements of her head through her rear window. He worried the ride in separate
cars would give her a chance to change her mind, but she parked and got out in front of an
apartment building and directed him to a section of available parking.
She seemed to have grown a touch shy as he had feared, but her smile contained an
encouraging flirtation. She hurried ahead of him and he followed to where she waited, the
door to her building held open behind her. She bounded ahead again, and Kevin had to hurry
to catch the door and find her rounding a corner inside. Her cute butt through her pizza
manager pants—the same one he’d been admiring for months at work—disappeared from view. He
caught her waiting for the elevator, and she blushed and hid her face in the corner.
The doors opened and they both stepped on.
She faced him. “We can never date, you know. I signed a contract when I became a
manager. It’s against the rules for me to date people under me.”
“So what am I doing here?”
“We can be friends. There’s no rule against that. Besides, you have to pay up.”
The elevator opened to a dimly lit hall with the musty, vague smell of a motel, but
stepping into Diane’s room was like crossing a portal into an enchanted world by
comparison. The place was immaculate. The same grayish carpet as the hall was so clean it
glowed. A pink carpet just inside the door, whose long strands had turned dark at the
edges, was the only sign of grime. Diane kicked her shoes off and set them on the circle
of carpet. She moved through the room turning on lamps. “I like light.”
Kevin ventured across the living room and looked into the kitchen. A bottle of wine
gurgled as Diane filled her glass. She passed him on her way by. “Grab a beer from the
fridge.”
A few bottles were scattered near the back. Kevin twisted the top off one and sipped. He
stepped into the living room and stopped short. “What is this?”
Diane gave a slight shrug and smiled. “I’m a stickler about coasters.”
“Okay, but why…”
“You’re paying up on the bet, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Well then.”
Diane sat with her glass of wine on the wooden armrest of the couch, coaster underneath.
The other coaster sat on the carpet just past her feet.
“So you want me to sit on the floor?”
“Not sit.” Diane lifted her glass and sipped. With her legs crossed, one socked foot
swung above the floor.
Kevin tried to lighten the mood with a sheepish grin, but Diane countered with a
confident smile. Kevin wanted to kneel in front of her, to massage her feet, and he knew
she knew. He moved forward, leaned his knees into the floor, and sat back on his heels. He
took another quick sip of his beer then set it on the coaster as Diane stretched her foot
toward him. Kevin took it in his hands.
“Oh, yes,” Diane said as soon as he began massaging, then giggled lightly. Kevin focused
on his task, keeping his eyes down. He squeezed one hand around the top part of her foot
and applied circular pressure underneath with his knuckles. He attempted to bring
technical proficiency to performing this task to alleviate the straining in the tightening
crotch of his jeans. He needed to take his mind off what he was doing before his
discomfort got worse, not to mention obvious.
Diane seemed intent on not letting him. “You look so cute down there,” she said.
“Fitting, don’t you think? You lost the bet and now have to kneel before your victor.”
“I have to listen to you tease me, too?”
Diane’s other foot slid across the carpet, stopping between his knees. “Oh, yes. You
have to, part of being the loser. Can you take it?”
“You are a good 31 player. I admit it.”
“No, that’s not good enough.” She sipped her wine. “You have to say, ‘Diane is a
superior 31 player, and I pledge myself as her foot masseuse for the night.’”
Kevin laughed. He ran his thumb along her instep, giving circular massages under each
toe.
“You have to say it.”
Keeping her foot held up, Kevin reached for his beer with his other hand and took a
swig. He let the liquid swish through his dry mouth before swallowing. “I didn’t know that
was part of the bet.”
“Just say it.”
He peeked up at her face, saw her smiling down at him, and quickly lowered his gaze.
“Diane is a superior 31 player, and I pledge myself as her foot masseuse for the night.”
“Good. Very good. See? That wasn’t hard, was it? Switch.” She pulled her foot away and
lifted the other, raising it almost up near his face. Kevin took her foot in his hands,
moved it above his lap, and began with the same slow massage he’d given the other. Diane
leaned back, settling on the couch. Her feet encroached on where Kevin knelt. “That feels
so, so good.” Her eyes closed.
Kevin shifted on the floor, easing the pinching in his fly by maneuvering room. While he
did make himself more comfortable, he also made his present state of excitement pointedly
obvious. The minimal friction of his jeans caused a pleasurable flutter. He focused on
Diane’s foot, giving the bottom penetrating massages with his knuckles then stroking the
top with his other hand from her leg all the way to her toes. He listened to Diane softly
moaning to determine what she liked. He lost himself in his task for a long while. When he
came out of his trance, and grabbed his beer for a sip, he found Diane’s eyes had opened.
She smiled down at him, her manner seemed drastically changed from just moments ago. “Hold
it still.” Her eyes flitted to the beer in his hand, still on the coaster.
She withdrew her foot from his grasp and slowly moved it over the bottle. She caught his
eye, gave him a smile—the smile was the change in her manner, gone from confident but
playful to playful but insistent. Her big toe touched the rim of his beer and circled it.
Kevin held the bottle still, didn’t utter a word or give a gesture of complaint. He simply
watched her foot in the same trance he’d slipped into during the massage. Her tight socks
revealed the shape of her toes. With the dexterity of fingers, they grasped the top of the
bottle and twisted back and forth. Her big toe pressed as far inside the bottle’s lip as
it could reach. Finally, she pulled her foot back. “Okay, go ahead.”
Kevin paused only slightly. He couldn’t look up, though he knew her smile beamed down on
him. He raised the bottle, touched it to his lips, and drank.
“Well? How did it taste…better?”
“Oh, yes, it was wonderful,” he said, though he hadn’t noticed a change. The beer taste
overpowered. Really, he would have wanted to simply touch where her foot had been to his
lips and not drink at all, but he couldn’t with her watching.
She crossed her legs, her foot bobbed in front of him. “I’d like you to start using my
name when you answer me.”
“Okay, Diane.”
“Say yes.”
“Yes, Diane.”
“Good boy.” Diane leaned forward. “Now, I want you to take my socks off, but do it
slowly. Very slow and very sexy. Can you do that?”
“Yes, Diane.” Kevin cupped the heel of her foot that hung above the floor and squeezed.
He moved his hand up, brushing her sock until his fingertips met smooth skin. He curled a
finger under the elastic of her white athletic sock. Twisting in a zig-zag, he slowly
tugged the sock down to her heel. Slipped it over and massaged her bare heel with his
hand. He brought the sock down the length of her foot the same way, massaging her skin as
he peeled the sock off. He removed it completely and gave each of her toes a squeeze and a
slight tug, admiring the sight of them.
Diane switched her legs so that her other socked foot hung in the air. Kevin thought he
heard a sigh escape her as her thighs swished together. He removed her other sock, slowly
massaging as he went. He set the second on top of the first in a pile on the carpet.
Diane leaned back into the couch again. “Let me ask you a question, and I know you’re
very shy, but I want you to answer honestly. Earlier tonight, when I invited you over,
before I told you about how I couldn’t date you, were you hoping to kiss me?”
Her foot kicked toward where he knelt in front of her. Under the circumstances, he felt
silly being scared to admit it, but he could barely meet her gaze as he answered, “Yes,
Diane.”
She smiled. “Awww, you’re so cute. Blushing at my feet. Did you fantasize about kissing
me on your drive over?”
“Yes, Diane.”
“Well, your fantasy might come true. Though it’s probably not going to happen exactly as
you imagined. Do you still want to kiss me?”
“Yes, Diane.”
She frowned slightly. “I know you can be more polite than that.”
“Yes, Diane, please.”
She straightened her leg, her foot rose to just under Kevin’s chin. She pressed her foot
down so that her leg from toe to hip stretched its full length. “Go ahead. Kiss me.”
At his eye level, Kevin could glimpse, under her pant leg, her smooth calf. He knew what
she wanted, what she offered him, and he desired it as much as the kiss on her lips she
had correctly guessed he’d driven over hoping to receive. This alternative was beyond
compensation, it was bliss. He bent forward and placed a soft kiss on her foot.
“Good. Very good boy,” she said. “Now, one on the bottom.” She pointed her toes up, and
the bottom of her foot hung inches from his face. “And you don’t have to be so quick. You
can give me a nice, long kiss. Don’t be shy.”
Kevin moved his face forward and touched his lips to her, holding them pursed against
her heel. She slid her foot down and pushed until her heel cupped under his chin, her
instep pressed against the bridge of his nose, and the soft arch of her foot covered his
mouth. He remained there, not breathing for several seconds, then drew away with a soft
kiss.
She stared over her foot at him. A smug expression played on her face but she looked, as
well, excited and happy. Kevin felt an emanating heat from the humiliation of what he’d
just done, but he smiled up at her, equally excited and happy. Diane swiped her foot
across his cheek, and Kevin pecked after it as it passed his lips.
“Open your mouth and show me how you wished you could kiss me on your drive over.” Her
feet lifted into the air, and she pressed the bottoms against his face. Kevin moved from
one to the other, placing wet, open-mouthed kisses on them. The smell of dank sweat struck
his nostrils as he inhaled with his lips sealed over her feet but contained the fragrance
of intimacy. His closeness with the object of his devotion made the smell and taste of her
immediately pleasant. He lost himself in his passion, and a moan escaped him.
“Oooh, good boy, that’s it. Moan for me.” Her feet pressed harder, and Kevin pressed
back. His tongue slipped out and curled around a toe. At the top of his periphery, he
caught Diane’s hand slide down her belly and slip under the waistband of her pants. Her
moans joined his. Her other hand popped the button on her pants, and soon the two roving
hands spread the zipper open. Kevin moaned harder, licked and kissed faster, but peeked up
and glimpsed fingers slide under the purple triangle of Diane’s panties. Her eyes closed,
and her body rippled against the couch as her hands bulged the purple material from her
open pants. Her feet began to flail. Toes filled his mouth. His cheeks were caught with
wild slaps.
He tried futilely to match her intensity. The locked pleasure in the tight fly of
his jeans pulsed only faintly and uselessly as he witnessed Diane pleasuring herself. Her
moans became high-pitched, frantic sighs and she seemed to have forgotten about him. His
face might have been her footboard for all the attention she gave him.
Kevin had seen women come before, but he had always been so involved in his
performance, so absorbed by his own building climax. Watching from his knees, Diane
appeared so powerful and beautiful, able to conjure such a force in her own body with the
touch of her hands. Kevin’s experiences with his own hand—desperate as he felt to use it
presently—paled in comparison. Her feet suddenly went rigid, pressed against his face with
a big toe in his mouth. She shrieked as her hand vibrated up and down inside her panties.
An orgasm that lasted minutes made Kevin wonder if, in fact, he had ever seen a woman
come before. The slits of her eyes opened, and finding him staring wide-eyed back at her,
she reached with her feet for the top of his head, pinched his hair with her toes, and
pulled down. Her feet went to the back of his head and she kept him pinned, his nose
touched to the carpet. “Stay,” she said.
He heard her hands still fidgeting, but her breath slowed and quieted. After a while,
her feet slipped off. Kevin raised his head slowly, keeping his eyes down. Asking for
permission, by moving slowly, to look up again. She allowed it. She smiled down at him. A
light covering of sweat was the only evidence of the powerful outburst, laced with
femininity, for which he felt honored to have been present.
Diane’s gaze dropped slightly, her smile remained, and Kevin felt suddenly,
humiliatingly aware of his erection pressing against the fly of his jeans. The denim felt
like shackles. He imagined her reaching out and pressing there with her toes, knew her
touch, even with the denim barrier, would be more pleasurable than anything he had ever
experienced. But her foot lightly swung in front of him, tantalizingly close but no
nearer. “Well, you should probably go,” she said.
“Of course, sure.” Kevin downed the last of his beer and rose. Diane grinned and made no
effort to hide her amusement as his embarrassing predicament gained prominence with him
standing. “Well, bye.”
Diane got up as he was halfway to her door. “Wait.”
Kevin turned.
“You can kiss my feet goodbye.” She stood directly in front of him. Nearly a head
shorter, he had never noticed. He slowly climbed down onto his hands and knees. He
stretched his face forward, lowered it, and placed a soft kiss on top of her foot. He
started to rise. “I said feet,” she said, “not foot.” He moved to the other and as his
lips touched, she said, “And stay.”
He remained with his lips pressed to her foot, as she squatted down. She patted his
head. “Good boy. See you at work.”
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