- My dance partner Rachel (Part 1) 14 min read
- My dance partner Rachel (Part 2)
written by Unknown author
original source of the story was Unknown source
1967 United States
My Dad left before I was in kindergarten so it was just Mom and me in the house while I was growing up.
To do something fun (& cheap) during my childhood, Mom would dance with me in our cavernous basement. She set up the stereo down there with her record collection. When she was young a thousand years ago everyone danced to big band jazz. And not only did Benny Goodman get his due, her high school also provided classes in ballroom dancing, which Mom took every year. So the end result was she knew the music and steps of most every major dance: the foxtrot, lindy hop, quick step, waltz, rumba, you name it.
As a little kid this was a fun activity and our basement sock hops went on for years at least a couple of times per week. With so much practice I ended up getting pretty good and could easily fling Mom around the dance floor with all the right moves.
By the time I turned 12, however, suddenly dancing with Mom had become kind of icky. I started declining her invitations to dance parties more and more often and she soon figured out what was up. So she said “maybe you’d like to dance with someone your own age ?” In my tween angst I wasn’t too excited about that idea either but Mom wanted me to have at least some social experience. So she arranged for a girl in the neighborhood to come over and I grudgingly agreed.
Her name was Rachel Higgins. Rachel and her Mom showed up on a Monday evening after dinner in the late summer. They lived just a few minutes from us but she and I had never actually met before. It was a big neighborhood and the two of us were from very different worlds.
Rachel was older at 14 and was about to enter 8th grade at the Catholic School while I was 12 and still in the city elementary school (6th grade). At those ages our physical & emotional development should have been lightyears apart. But they definitely weren’t, at least not when we started.
Rachel was about the same height as me at 160 cm (5-3). But even with her small, thin frame, she was kind of chubby at maybe 58 kg (128 lbs). The baby fat was still stored in her double chin and around her waist. She was just super quiet and didn’t seem to have much of any personality. Rachel was a nothing burger.
Her fashion sense was pretty lackluster as well. She showed up on the first day in a t-shirt, baggy bell bottom jeans and white tennis shoes, I guess just whatever she happened to be wearing that day. Her chestnut brown hair pulled back in a pony tail that was all of a 12cm (5 inch) long stub that stuck directly out from her head. And I immediately found out she knew exactly zero about dancing.
As I held out my left hand and put my right to her waist (the basic starting point of every dance) she recoiled in terror. I had invaded her personal space and she couldn’t disguise the small fat roll my hand had landed upon. But her Mom encouraged her and we got started. She then hugged me in the dance death grip which was prevalent at every 13 year old’s party around the world. As tactfully as I could I said “let’s try it like this” and held out my left hand again. Obviously Rachel’s Mom had neglected her daughter’s social graces. And at that moment I was tremendously thankful that my mother had done just the opposite.
The two Moms had coffee and chatted while I tried to make something happen with Rachel on the dance floor. Until then I had only danced with my mother, who was a great dancer, so I had no experience with anyone else. But Rachel had all the grace & agility of a bookcase. It was absolutely the most awkward and horrible experience one could imagine. She had no idea how to follow my lead, what the basic movements were or even how to stay in tempo with the music. Things I had long since effortlessly absorbed in all those years of dance parties with my Mom.
Miss Higgins seemed to be having as miserable a time as I was, maybe even worse. She was being humiliated in that SHE KNEW that I KNEW she had no idea what she was doing. But long ago my Mom prepared me for this kind of outcome when she told me “No matter how badly somebody dances, tell them they were great and that you had a wonderful time. That’s being gracious and polite.” So after the hour of shame was finished I said “Wow, you’re a really good dancer. A total natural.” And I guess I pulled off the biggest lie of my life since she looked at me and actually smiled (which was her first smile of the entire evening).
After Rachel & her Mom left, I did the post mortem with my mother. She knew it was a disaster but said I handled it well. And there would be other girls to dance with.
However the very next morning Rachel’s Mom called our house and said what a wonderful time Rachel had and that she’s talking non-stop about learning how to dance now. So another dance party was (regrettably) organized for the following Thursday night.
When Thursday rolled around I decided to make a major change in how things were done. Instead of trying to dance with Rachel, which was hopeless, I chose to simply start teaching her the basics, of which she knew nothing. The music was playing but we didn’t try to move to it. I just said “OK, this is how you do a spin.” And we’d do one. Then we’d practice it again. This is how you swing to the left. Now to the right. Just trying to get some foundation established.
While we were doing all this the whole situation struck me as kind of odd. Here I was two years younger than Rachel but I somehow had much more savvy, awareness and maturity on the dance floor. It’s like our ages were reversed. But I didn’t really pay too much attention to it. I just wanted to teach Rachel something so our time together wouldn’t be so unpleasant for both of us.
And that’s how it went for over a year. Rachel and I would meet almost every Monday and Thursday night for my hour long dance tutorial. Starting session number 3 the Moms just left us on our own. I guess they thought teenagers should have some privacy together. And, to my surprise, Rachel got better fairly quickly. After a couple of months, dancing with her became halfway decent. After 6 months it was fun !
Rachel’s mom even confided to my mother that Rachel was now dancing in her room every single night. Dance aerobics weren’t a thing yet in mid-1960’s America but that’s essentially what Rachel was doing of her own volition. And over time I started to notice some obvious changes in her.
As the months rolled by, her baby fat began to vanish. The double chin disappeared to wherever double chins go leaving her with a slim, trim, attractive face. And that lump of blubber around Rachel’s waist had been turned into a hard, flat tummy. One evening I even commented on how tone her stomach was and Rachel bragged that she did 100 situps every night. I called bullshit on that and she said “I’ll prove it.” I held her ankles and she pushed her skirt between her legs for modesty and cranked out 100 reps like it was nothing. As she was sitting there, recovering, she said “OK, your turn.” And knowing I could do maybe 10 situps I declared her the unconditional champ, which she savored silently while looking directly at me.
After a year of daily dancing Rachel probably lost around 10 kg (22 lbs). Which on her petite frame made a huge difference to her figure. She was a hardbody now with slim, toned legs, a tiny waist and a tight butt. She had a dancer’s physique, no doubt. And her hair remained uncut during the whole time as well. So she now had long flowing locks that she’d always put into a 30 cm (1 foot) ponytail for dance class, which looked super cute on her.
Not only did Rachel’s body morph in the last year, her fashion sense did as well. As the blubber fell away, so did her baggy jeans. And Rachel began to accept my advice regarding her outfits for our class. After a couple of weeks I told her women needed to wear more form fitting clothing to look good on the dance floor. So she began to wear her pleated Catholic school skirts to our dance sessions. They started as knee length and then, as her figure got better, she cut down some of her older ones into miniskirts, which were very much in fashion at the time. Those would lift up easily whenever I’d spin her around. Which, of course, I tried to do as much as I could get away with.
As to shoes, the first few weeks we danced she always wore saddle shoes, which I think was part of her uniform at the Catholic school. But at my suggestion, she began to show up for class in heels. I told her she’ll be wearing heels when she goes out on dates so she might as well get used to dancing in them. Thankfully she was persuaded by my argument.
The glorious spike heel era of the late 50’s / early 60’s had (sadly) ended by this time. The fashion world of the mid-1960’s had moved on to square toe, two inch block heels with buckles or bows on them. Often they were in bright colors like yellow or neon green. I didn’t find these choices nearly as interesting as the sleek stilettos but they were all the rage with the hip, young, stylish girls.
Rachel’s first shoe purchase was a pair of bright red, block heel Mary Janes. Rachel showed me a fashion magazine which displayed girls in New York, London and Paris all wearing styles just like that. And she followed that up with several pairs of square heeled pumps in various fluorescent colors with matching stockings or tights. She would cycle through those on a regular basis for class. Then during the winter she got some white knee high go go boots which I became completely enthralled with. And in the spring she bought a pair of dark blue kitten heels.
While I liked all of Rachel’s new shoes, one style easily stood out as the best of the bunch. She got them right at the end of the school year as a graduation gift – a pair of stiletto pumps. They were classic style, completely plain made of black leather with pointy toes and thin, tan leather soles. Maybe a 10 cm (4 inch) spike heel. Just perfection in every way.
Those shoes stirred some newly discovered excitement in the 13 year old me that I didn’t completely understand at the time. But I knew I liked them VERY much. And 15 year old Rachel looked really hot wearing them. The shoes changed her from a cute, fashionable young girl into a beautiful & classy young woman. It was an amazing transformation. Rachel wore those stilettos often to dance class that last summer.
At this period of my life I knew that girls shoes had a special magic for me but I had no idea what that was. I just knew I got excited (like REALLY excited) whenever I thought about them. And that I wanted to be on the floor close to or touching a girl’s shoes. Even better, to be under them if at all possible. It was an overwhelming urge for me and I had no idea what to make of it. And this was long, long before the internet was invented so I just had to blunder along all by myself trying to figure out what exactly these feelings were all about. I knew it was completely different from all the normal locker room talk other guys engaged in, which usually focused on girls with big boobs. I was so clueless then I didn’t even have a name for what I wanted. I just knew I got aroused when I was anywhere near girls shoes. And the more sexy the shoes, the better.
So during our dance sessions we would always have a “take 5” break sometime in the middle of the night where I’d lay down on the floor to “stretch out my ‘bad’ back”. I’d use the time to quiz her about her footwear, saying how important it was for a dancer to take care of her feet. I think this advice fell on very receptive ears since I was tacitly admitting that she was becoming a professional-ish dancer, which Rachel definitely seemed to like. So she became totally comfortable with these discussions and would even show every new pair of shoes to me with great glee. But for me the most important part was that she allowed me to feel her shoes to check their fit & balance. Me touching her shoes / boots became a completely normal part of our dance parties. Ostensibly it was for her benefit but truly it was just for my own pervy fantasies. I lived for those brief moments. Looking back, though, I think Rachel might have realized on some level that I was a “shoe guy” from those interactions. Women are just so much better at picking up the little social cues.
As can be expected I most enjoyed putting my hands on those black stilettos. I’d get such an emotional jolt touching those heels it was like I was grabbing a live electric wire !!! Feeling those long, cold heel shafts with all her womanly weight pushing down on them (and Rachel had a full grown woman’s body at this point) made the stilettos seem like immoveable pillars. Yet she’d effortlessly prance around in them in front of me and dance on them for an hour long class. And this was on heel tips that were as small as my pinky nail. I was absolutely in love with her shoes. And, I think, was starting to fall in love with Rachel as well.
Rachel knew I played baseball so I used that to my advantage. I lied and said my back was sore from pitching (even though I played 2nd base). And the dance class made it “worse”. I would add a few fake “ow’s” and grimaces every session to further my case. So I eventually asked her to walk on my back barefoot after class to loosen it up for me. I told her I had “read” professional baseball players in Japan had their female masseuses do that (a total lie but it sounded good). In any case it was enough to convince Rachel. I think she was willing to do whatever was necessary to keep our dance classes going. She seemed really emotionally invested in becoming a dancer now.
The backwalks always happened at the very end of the session when her feet would be really warm after dancing for an hour. I’d lay right beside the staircase so that Rachel could hang on to it for balance. And it was so wonderful to feel all of her sexy weight pressing down on me.
I tremendously wanted to extend our backwalks to her wearing shoes but that would have made me reveal how much of a weirdo I really was. And I was terrified of letting that information out. So we stayed with the barefoot-only contact which is a quasi-normal thing. At least people had heard of that style of massage before. Shoe trample would have been totally strange and abnormal.
At first Rachel was really embarrassed about having her feet stink during the backwalk sessions. She never wore socks (except with the go go boots) so it was always just her bare feet in those shoes. And Rachel’s feet would get really warm dancing for an hour (which felt oh so wonderful on my back). But I played it off as if I didn’t notice at all – even though I could smell a slight musky and leather scent most times. And after we had dozens of backwalk sessions and were both nonchalant about it, Rachel would tease me by sticking her stinky foot in my face and even laughing while trying to grab my nose between her two toes. I understand now that some guys really get enthused at a girl’s smelly feet but I have always remained indifferent about them. The shoe touching and trampling was always preferred infinitely more by me.
[ story continued in Part 2 ]