Dr Precarious

New Heels

When he returned, he was dangling a pair of crystal clear high heels off his fingertips and a pair of layered drinks in Martini glasses on the palm and fingers of his other hand, wrist poised backwards over his shoulder like a fancy French waiter.

By the slant of the light, Marissa confirmed her estimation of the time as 10am. "We are having celebratory drinks?"

Dr Precarious placed the heels of the shoes so far off the edge of the stone desk that their refracted light made it look like they were floating in the air. They were beautiful. The heels tapered to a square base that would fit within her thumbnail. The front of the shoes, where her weight would be placed through the ball of her foot, had a hemispherical sole. Beautifully rounded like a giant drip of water was forming from the sole. It must be perfectly centred to align with the heel or they would have tipped over.

Gently, with hardly a clink, Dr Precarious placed the two glasses on the stone desk. Surely this was not enough to set the two shoes falling, but Marissa's hands darted out to catch them just in time. He spoke, "No, not celebrating. They are both for you. The second is just in case the first one does not have enough effect."

She looked up at Dr Precarious, a shoe in each of her hands. "Are they alcoholic?"

"No, not at all. Quite the opposite in fact. Where alcohol causes equilibrioception to become diminished, you will find this little cocktail enhances it. Through the inversion of the same process as well; the endolymph and blood viscosity. You'll enjoy it I'm sure."

Marissa didn't wait to be asked and lifted one foot to her knee so she could put the shoe on. It fitted perfectly, "Do you have a pair of these in every size, or did you somehow know..."

"Neither. I only interviewed women with size 7½ feet. So many applicants, I couldn't be bothered interviewing all of them."

For a moment Marissa felt less special or proud of her achievement, then recalled that foot size is as much a quality of hers as anything else. Once she had put on the second she, she placed both feet on the ground and couldn't help but explore the way they rolled underneath her. "Can I go for a walk in them?"

"I am as curious to know the answer to that as you are, so how about you try."

Marissa stood and found that it took fine muscle control to stop her feet from wanting to twitch sided to side and strength to pull her ankles straight if she didn't catch them in time. She hoped she had hid most of this wobbling by leaning forward on the stone desk a little.

Almost like a command, firm but relaxed, she gained control of her feet and took a few steps forward. She was able to stay upright but was aware that the placement of her feet had lost some accuracy as she adjusted to maintain balance. She doubted she could manage a stop and turn so chose to take a wide circular path back to her seat. Once comfortably seated she allowed herself to smile. Then held it in place as he slid the two Martini glasses towards her.

There were four layers, from the bottom a small triangle of clear dark blue. On top of this a creamy olive green formed a generous layer, then a bright passion-fruit yellow layer, not crystal clear, but more clear than opaque. On the top floated an almost oily red layer, so thin that it broke and joined in places.

"Best not to mix it or it will go too thick to swallow. You will want to drink it all down quickly in one large gulp."

Marissa smiled back at him, "I could feel my desire to do just that growing inside me." For a moment she wondered if this was still the job interview and then realised that the interview is the job and it will never be over. To cheer herself up, she asked herself a question, 'Are you bored now'? Then she held the glass elegantly between her fingers and in one clean motion tipped it into her wide open mouth and gulped it down.