The song of Bootlicking

This story is in Book Three: Boots and Bondage. By all rights, I should have taken it, or most of it, down off the site. 

But I couldn't make myself do it. This story is so wonderful, so my favorite... So I left it up.

Bootlicking in the Park

 Looking down at the case in front of her, Sarah did a quick count. Looked like about twenty bucks, give or take a few coins. Add that to what she had cleaned out earlier, when there was getting to be too much, and she'd had a pretty good day.

You can't leave too much money in the case. It's as bad as leaving it empty. You want to start with a few dollars and some coins, prime the pump so that people see you're playing for money, and so they see that others thought you were worth the money. But if there's too much, then people start to feel like you don't need the money. You stop being the starving artist and start being free entertainment. So you have to empty the case every so often, during one of those dead times when no one is coming by anyway.

Sarah strummed out a tune, singing a song she knew well enough to do on autopilot, and did math in her head. It's true what they say. Pan handling can make more money than most minimum wage jobs. And it's tax free. Not guaranteed, but no taxes. Nowhere near what she might make as a professional musician, but better than she'd make as a waitress. She got to stay in practice, and there was still, always, that hope that someone would discover her.

Every once in a while, someone would throw a business card into her case. Most of the time, they were bullshit. Someone wanting a date with her, or wanting to take advantage of her under the pretext of providing her music with management of some kind. Twice, she'd gotten cards from escort services. Once from a club that was looking for dancers, and once from a club that wanted to talk to her about being a club Mistress. That was interesting, a job offer based solely on her appearance, her clothes, and the lyrics of her songs.

And it paid well. Kept her in leather pants, kept her boots shiny, if not polished. She knew she couldn't look too clean. Leather pants were bad enough, even with the scratch marks she had dug into the legs, even with the dirt she packed against them to age them as much as possible. If her boots, those knee high combat boots with the tiny hint of a heel, were shiny and polished, there'd be no way anyone would believe she was just a street musician.

There were some who knew. Some of her regulars at the club knew she spent her weeks playing in the park. They knew, they even came and listened to her play, ogling her body and giving her lewd looks, but none of them exposed her. And all of them left money. Especially during the summers, when she would wear what looked like an old corset, pushing her breasts together to give people a good view if they stayed to watch her play.

Not tonight though. Tonight, it was too cold for the corset. Too late in the year for all that exposed skin. She wore a thick jacket, sleeves pulled up to show her tattooed arms, to show the bracelets, barely more than straps of leather, over each wrist. Her hands were in fingerless gloves, which made playing harder, but not as hard as it would be to play with numb fingers. Her nails were cut short, except her thumb, which she used like a pick sometimes, when she wasn't using the first two fingers to play the strings.

She finished the song, cleared her throat, and launched into a new piece, an old song with a lot of guitar work. There wasn't really a crowd anymore, but there were still a few people nearby, some of them pretending not to listen, just tapping their feet to the music while they had their conversations. The guys playing chess were wrapping up their final games, squinting to see the pieces as the sun set. Soon, they'd have to go back to wherever it was they went. They'd count the money they made playing tourists and cocky college students, they'd go somewhere to get drunk and get warm.

Or maybe they'd go home. Maybe, like Sarah, they had their own apartments. Maybe they would go home, add a wad of cash to one of their hidden stashes, counting to see if they had enough to take some time off. Enough to travel somewhere warm, maybe.

Most of them weren't paying attention to her. Or, at least, they were pretending not to pay attention. But there was one that was. One man focused on her to the exclusion of all others. He had a soft smile on his face, and his eyes would close every so often to just let himself float on the music. Then he'd open them and let his eyes linger up and down her body, taking extra time to follow the lines of her legs down, focusing longest on her boots. She smiled when she saw him lick his lips, knowing it wasn't a conscious movement.

She finished her song, and he came to her case. Dropped in a twenty.

She gave him her brightest, most seductive smile. “Thank you,” she said. She lifted the strap over her shoulder and started to put away the guitar, getting ready to leave before the sun had fully set, before the park closed for the night. She didn't have to leave yet, but there was no point staying; everyone else was leaving. Her audience was disappearing for the day.

“Wait,” he said, the word dripping with desperation, with pleading, and with excitement. “Please play one more.”

She smirked at him. “You have a request?” She asked.

He nodded.

She knew exactly which song he wanted to hear. It was one of her own, and it was the song that got her the job at the club. The job where she got paid to whip people, paid to torture and tease. Where she was paid to humiliate, to tie people up, to make them cry.

The job where she had seen him, time and again, in the crowd. Where she had watched him watching her. He'd always had that same look on his face. That desire, that desperation, that fear. He wanted to volunteer. Wanted to come up. But he never did. He could never make himself do it. He'd stood in line once, but left before it was his turn.

Oh, she knew what song he wanted to hear.

But she was going to make him work for it. “I don't know,” she said. “I don't usually take requests.”

The crowd was fast thinning out. The chess players were gone. The last few conversations wrapping up. A few more seconds, and they'd be completely alone. Or alone as you can get in the park. There'd still be the chance of someone walking by. Still be a chance of someone stumbling upon them.

That made her smile.

“Please,” he said. “I can pay.”

She laughed. “Oh, I know,” she said. “And you will. But not money.”

He looked surprised at that. “What?”

“I recognize you,” she said. She walked, with her guitar, over to one of the chess boards painted onto a table, to the benches where once-famous players sat all day long, trying to make enough money to live through the night. She put her left foot up on the bench. “And I'm going to make you pay for your song.”

He blushed. She put the strap of the guitar back on, shook out her hair, and put her fingers on the fret for the first chord. “I'll play,” she said. “And you'll lick.”

“What?”

She smirked at him, smiled at her prey. He might pretend to resist, but she knew things were already in play. “My boots,” she said. “They're dirty from the day. And my feet hurt. I want a massage. That special massage that comes from a tongue pressed hard against the leather of my boots. So that's my price.”

He opened his mouth to speak, then looked around. She could see the fear building.

“No one is around,” she said. “Just get down on your knees. Lick my boots. We both know you want to. Get on your knees, press your tongue to my boots, and I'll start playing. You can listen to my music for as long as you keep licking. Worship my feet, make love to my boots, and I'll play for you.”

She took her foot off the bench, looked at him, and shrugged. “Otherwise, I've got to get going.”

She went to take off the guitar again. He threw up his hands in surrender. “Wait,” he said. “Just wait.”

She pointed to the ground next to the bench. “On your knees,” she said. There was no command in her voice. No force. Just tone you use when negotiating with someone.

It was enough. He slowly got to his knees. She put her boot back up on the bench. He reached out, carefully, skittishly, and put his hands on her ankles.

She strummed the first note. “Now,” she said, her voice gaining that harder edge, that command that she knew would send a tingle to the base of his spine. “Lick.”

He leaned forward, put his lips against her boot, and inhaled, smelling the leather like he was smelling a fine wine.

“Lick.” She put everything she could into that word. Command. Desire. Threat. Request.

Then she felt his tongue, felt it press into the leather, felt it rub over her foot as he began to clean her boots.

She smiled, and she started to play. She saw his body tense as the song started, then heard him moan when she started singing. He thought she couldn't hear it. He thought maybe she didn't know how much he was enjoying it.

She smiled and sang, her voice hypnotic, twisting through the air and making its way through his brain, through his psyche. He probably wouldn't remember it, wouldn't be able to swear that she had actually played the right song. He was too focused. She could feel that with the way his tongue pressed between the laces, with the way he licked around each grommet. He could hear the song, but he wasn't listening.

Someone else could have come by then. There could have been a whole crowd of them. Standing around like a concert. He never would have known. He was too busy licking up the side of her leg, too busy pressing his tongue into the little groove made when she tied her laces around the top of her boot. He wouldn't have known if they were in a concert hall. He wouldn't have known if they were in an arena.

She kept singing, imagining what could be happening. They could be televised. They could be surrounded by fans, all of them holding the delicate silence as they watched him run his tongue along her insole. They would be sitting on the edges of their seats, listening to the soft tone of her song, to the balance of gentle danger in her music, and they would watch his tongue press on her toe. They'd see him kiss her boot with reverence and love, see her put her foot down, see the aching lines of his body, the almost physical pain he felt before she gave him the other boot.

She sang with her whole soul as he licked with his. She imagined the millions watching them, imagined them floating on the euphoria of her dulcet tones, each one of them wishing they were in his place, each of them wishing they could be the one licking the leather that clung to her ankles. They would listen, knowing she wasn't playing for them. Knowing she was playing for him. She was singing to him, that the music was him. They'd wish they were at her feet, wish they were the ones trying to slide their tongue into the seams at her heel, wish they were the ones moaning softly.

His moans added to the music, giving it a depth Sarah had never felt before. She nearly missed a note when he started licking along the side of her sole, getting into that crevice. He shivered just as she reached the crescendo of the song, and he licked her toe as she came to the end. He kissed her boot with an exhausted joy, with a mixture of satisfaction and desperate sorrow. He knew he had done well, he knew he had done what he thought he couldn't do, but he was sad it was over.

She let the last note of the song stretch out, let it fade softly. The world slowly came back into focus, and she realized that they were not surrounded by fans. They were alone in the park, surrounded by nothing but darkness. They were lit by starlight and a thin sliver of moon.

He stood up, looking both more relaxed and more nervous. He was shifting in his pants, trying to cover up something he was afraid would be there.

She smiled when he looked at her, and she made herself keep her eyes on his. She didn't look down, even though she knew how humiliated he would be if she did. There may not be a stain to see, but if she looked down, he would know that she knew.

But the moment was perfect as it was. Too perfect to ruin, even if they'd both enjoy the ruin.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice quivering, almost on the edge of tears.

She took a deep breath, smiled at him again and looked at him in a way she knew he needed. She looked at him with acceptance. With love. With pride, and without judgement.

“You're very welcome,” she said. “And thank you.”

“For what?”

Sarah considered thanking him for the money he gave her earlier. She considered praising him for how well he had licked her boots. Lots of ideas flew through her head, but she knew they were wrong. Anything he said would be wrong. She would ruin the moment, that perfect moment they were sharing. She need to say the right thing. She needed something that would fit the mood, that would convey all the messages she needed to convey, that would make it all worth it.

So she smiled, a genuine smile.

“For making my night.”