Copyright Herb Ranharter 2018   All rights reserved          

All webrights reserved    Herb Ranharter 2018                   

Red Shoe chapter 6, THE REVIVAL

Much water has gone past the Golden Gate bridge. The red shoe had lost its pull,       

drowned out by contemporary political crises and by the everlasting election processes.      
With WW3 looming overhead a desperate last ditch effort at happiness had to be undertaken,      

simple cross dressing was no longer an option (nether was cross burning.)       

As the cultural climate slowly upended all together new action was indicated.          
An [ON SALE] advertisement secured the necessary resolve. In order to keep the hospital funds flowing      

a reduced price sale on sex change operations was offered: “Two for the price of one” the slogan went.       

In its own right a bit of a guarantee; if things don’t work out you can change back.       

This offer was not to be taken lightly; an offer not to be refused.        

Sure enough the marketing approach worked on many and indeed many took to altering their lives.       

        Lines formed around the hospital block with expecting customers waving coupons in hand.       

Both of our main characters “He” and “She” lined up to have themselves done, had they not been so nervous       

they would have seen each other waiting while the line was queuing        

up, but their minds were otherwise engaged. And thus it came to pass, after some healing time,        

they each emerged having become “She” from “He” and “He” from “She” respectively.       



                                     

   


It is said that old habits die hard and thus, by subliminally-guided-paranoia, an unlikely coincidence occurred.       

Both parties had moved to the East Bay in a stab at anonymity, to get away from old habits and aquantances     

that might otherwise recognize them. Their hormone treatments did the rest to visually conceal the life changing     

events of the last six months. Imagine: Two completely new personae with tainted personalities searching for a new partner each.      

They were however still reacting to unresolved, unerasable, memories and now even more so as they tried      

to cope to their new environments as they went about their business.       

It is hardly a surprise that they would find one another by habit-guided reactive accident.      

Destiny struck with a vengance, after all it had worked before, why not in double mirror image.      

A variation form of “Through the Looking Glass” began to unfold.       

As chance would have it they met on a Friday evening in some bar near the waterfront and hit it off immeditely       

mostly by talking about their memories;     

of course now from an altered perspective. Memories, told and ennobled from the other sex’s side lent wings     

and resonance to their heavily filtered stories.     
                       
The only irksome link with their past that remained was a hankering to talk about red pumps      

or some metaphoric euphemism thereof; early impressions are always hard to overcome.       

Both parties languished after red pumps for entirely different reasons. A disposition that solidified      

their tender “new” relationship by way of positive psychological feedback. Needless to say neither party       
revealed much of their true past, nor did they ever talk about their recent transitions at all.       

Thus the stage was set for yet another slow moving shipwreck.     

The hormone treatments had meanwhile very effectively done their thing.      

The new “He” wanted to go hiking and engage in all new found activities suggested by her new,     

improved hull, all the things that where previously done in emulation now came to pass in real time.      

Whenever he was asked about where he had been for the last 25 years he would evasively answer:     

         

“ I have been aBroad for many years.” The new “She” on the other hand found herself stangely disinterested in sex       

and reconstituted herself by going shopping, often looking longingly at pink things in store windows.      

The purchase of an outrageous shoe with a necessitated compromise by way color shift towards pink,       

instead of red, provided a mutually satisfactory, if temporary, answer. Add to that a new outrageous shape       

like the Julian Hakes design. The price turned out to be too steep and resulted in the purchase      

of cheap Chinese knock offs,...... “but heyyyyy.”   

You sometimes get what you pay for; well, if you are lucky. She didn’t; not quite.       

The order asked for a size 38, what was shipped was a size 37, a Chinese knock off.       

It arrived, clumsily altered with a glue on sticker that declared it as a 38. Likewise the box had been altered.    

    

         

You get what you pay for, well, if you are lucky.

A permanent marker had scribbled over a printed 7 to fake it, it now read 8.  Clearly an act of flagrant contempt      

for the US customer.  Well, they were cheap at about 10 Cents on the Dollar and as they would largely serve as props,     

and not to be worn as much as displayed on some shelf.  Primarily a device to initiate dialog;      

besides, the shoes were not balanced as well as as they should be. Quite unlike the real thing.    

What constituted the biggest surprise was in the end the fact that people did not see the shoes as such,     

it confused the onlookers utterly and brought, what should have resulted in conversation, to a confounded stand still.     

Necessitating the revival of the old pumps as a point of departure. Go figure! Exhaustion ensued.     

    An air bath restored calm.

                    To be continued? Yup.                 

Sneak Preview: Oh, to dance again.

   

Turns out that the glass ceiling is really a glass floor ............... Oy!!!