About this story: "Sneakerville" is a fictional neighborhood in an unspecified big city, along the line of Boystown, Chinatown, or Little Italy, where sneaker fetishists live and work together as a community. In this little slice of heaven, having a sneaker kink is totally normal and accepted, and many people engage with their kinks openly and publicly. Our main character, Jill, moves to the neighborhood after her old life falls apart and she finally embraces her fetish. The story includes themes of exhibitionism, a little freeuse, and all kinds of different sexy sneaker fun! This chapter includes a lot of exposition, but I'm hoping to keep using this setting for more stories to come!
Her New Home: Chapter 1
A single tear rolled down Jill's cheek as she stood on the sidewalk surrounded by as many of her worldly possessions she could fit into three suitcases. She sniffed and shook her head, wiping the tear away. It was time to be strong.
She looked down at her trusty black Converse on her feet and flexed her toes a little. These shoes that had been through so much with her, but were also the cause of so much of her recent pain. She checked her phone and saw that the Uber was a few minutes away. The bustle of the airport pickup lane died away as she looked back at her shoes and reminisced.
It had been in 9th grade when her Chucks had first entered her life. She and 3 of her friends had done a dance for the talent show and needed matching outfits. It had been Brittany who had suggested they buy Converse. Perfect Brittany, now married to her high school sweetheart, with one child and another on the way. Brittany who wouldn't speak to Jill anymore, not after word got around. Blair had been the edgy one, the first to get piercings, now with who knows how many tattoos. She was still around their hometown, jumping between boyfriends every few months, smoking a pack a day. Hannah had been the flirty one, the one who choreographed the dance routine to be just a little too sexy for a group of freshman girls. She had moved away before Junior year and Jill hadn't heard from her since.
But it was Jill who was supposed to be the high achiever. She was the one who had gotten perfect grades. She had gone to a good school, out of state, and gotten a fancy degree. She had returned home with a hot, rich, lawyer boyfriend. She'd been the talk of the town. Everyone had loved her and couldn't wait to see her become a pillar of the community. Her boyfriend had even bought a house in town.
Looking back, they might have loved him even more than her. She was sure they'd have all heard by now why she was gone. Why he had called off the engagement and asked her to move out. Jill snorted with sarcastic laughter. He hadn't moved though. He was more than happy to remain the golden boy of the small community, now with a tragic backstory to make them all fawn over him.
Jill caught her reflection in the sliding glass door of the airport. She pondered her appearance for a moment. Her long brown hair was wavy and swept in the wind despite the blue headband that held it back. She pulled her scarf up a little more and zipped up her stylish leather jacket. Her long, slender legs shivered in the thin black leggings she wore, but her feet were warm in her white tube socks and her tightly laced black hightop Chucks. She thought back to the first time she'd tried them on in the store. She was 30 years old now, but she remembered her 15 year old self lacing them up for the first time like it was yesterday. She remembered the feeling she got when she looked at herself in the mirror. It was confidence she'd never felt before. It was comfort. It was also something else. Something she couldn't explain at the time, and would take her years to finally understand.
She hadn't even worn them much that first year she got them. She knew she liked the way they made her feel, but even back then something about them felt forbidden. Still, whenever she put them on it just felt right. She felt like herself in a way that nothing else did. She had been wearing them at the house party when she had her first drink, and when she'd had her first kiss. The homecoming football game senior year when they'd won the championship. They'd been her good luck charms during her hardest exams.
It wasn't until college that she'd started to recognize that feeling. A wild frat party, a short miniskirt, and a frat boy too drunk and horny to wait for her to unlace a pair of hightops. The sex was, by any measure, sloppy and bad, but something about how Jill had felt seeing them on her feet while bent over the sink in the bathroom had awakened something she couldn't put back to sleep.
She had tried, of course. There had been a few more drunken frat parties and sloppy shoes-on bathroom sex, but as this thing grew and took shape she had done everything she could to suppress it. Her going-out clothes became nicer. Sparkly dresses replaced the trashy miniskirts. The drunken wild house parties
bursa escort were replaced with formal mixers at the law school fraternities. And her Chucks stayed in her closet, replaced by wedges or heels or ballerina flats that even Jill admitted looked stupid.
That's where she'd met Paul, after all. The Jill that he'd fallen in love with had her shit together. She was the perfect future wife. She had been smart, and poised, and cute, and stylish, and everything a proper girl from her hometown was raised to be. And she had convinced herself that she had loved it. That it was what she had wanted. But the thing inside her had never gone away. And even after she'd long since donated all her party girl clothes, the Chucks remained.
She'd made excuses for them. There was always an excuse. They were her gym shoes. They were her grocery shopping shoes. They were a keepsake that reminded her of her closest friends from high school. The only thing Jill had been better at than lying to other people had been lying to herself.
They'd been living together for 3 years by the time the first incident happened. She'd been at the grocery store, which meant she'd allowed herself to wear the sneakers. She wasn't even dressed sexy. Just the shoes, the same leggings she was currently wearing, and an oversized pink sweatshirt. But the beast inside her had begun to gnaw. And when she got home, Paul had kissed her. It wasn't even a remarkable kiss. He had just held it a second longer than usual. That was normally his cue that he was interested in sex, which they didn't have often, only when his busy schedule allowed. That beast inside her had roared in that moment, and she had excused herself quickly. She had said something about her stomach hurting, some excuse to keep Paul from asking questions.
In the bathroom she had plunged her hand down her pants. Years of self control had finally snapped. She had stared at her Chucks as she fingered herself. The sight of their worn rubber driving her wilder than every time Paul had ever gone down on her combined. She remembered how frantically she had yanked the laces of her right shoe free and kicked it off. Her face burned with shame remembering the way she'd grabbed it and shoved it against her face. In her heart she'd always known, but finally fulfilling the fantasy she'd had was overwhelming. She'd lost track of the number of times she'd come. She took the other shoe off and washed her hands and face in the sink before collecting herself and walking back out.
That night in bed she had cried. At the time she'd thought it had been out of shame or disgust, but now Jill understood it had been fear. Fear that she had gone too far down the path of the perfect, proper wife, and the quiet, conservative daughter, and that she'd never feel the way she wanted to feel again.
Another tear leaked down Jill's face at the airport and she wiped it as well. The rest of the story was too painful to reminisce about right now. The year of sad, unfulfilling sex. The fake smiles in the engagement photos. The brunches with Brittany, who had never worn her Converse again after the talent show, and who was everything Jill felt like she wasn't. Finally, the first conversation with Paul. A casual request to wear her shoes to bed. The look of confusion and disgust on his face, even when he'd agreed. The look on his face a month later when she'd asked if he would touch them. The sound of his voice asking if she was "one of those weirdos."
She hadn't wanted to admit to her parents why she had gone back to stay with them for a few weeks, but Paul told them. He told everybody, apparently. That's how gossip worked in a town like that. Their disappointment hadn't come with the same level of disgust as Paul's, but Jill could still feel the sadness in their voices when they asked if she was sure she and Paul couldn't get back together. Their embarrassment when they told their friends Jill was moving away to the big city.
Jill shook herself again, forcing herself back to the present. This was where she belonged, she told herself again. Here she could find community. Here she could be herself - her true self. And maybe here she could find a life that makes her actually happy. Jill straightened herself up. "Chin up." she said to herself, "be proud. This is who you are."
She was one Uber ride away from her new life. Waiting for her was a new job, and an apartment she'd never seen in-person in a neighborhood she didn't know, but it was the neighborhood where she belonged.
A gray sedan pulled up in front of her and the driver waved. Checking her phone, Jill confirmed the license plate and waved back. She began dragging her luggage over and the driver jumped out.
"Hey, you Jill?" He asked cheerfully. Jill felt a flutter in her heart. He was hot. Tall, athletic, with blue eyes and very sexy dirty blonde hair that looked effortlessly messy but probably required a lot of product. He was wearing
bursa eskort bayan a black t-shirt from a rock band Jill didn't know, faded jeans, and a pair of well worn hightop black Vans.
"Uh, yeah," Jill confirmed, "sorry about all the luggage, will it fit?"
"Psshh, no problem," the driver laughed. "This old girl has fit way more than this." He popped the trunk and lifted her heaviest suitcase with ease. "Hop in, I got these."
Jill complied, climbing into the back seat, feeling relief that she didn't need to lug the bags around any farther. The driver hopped back in the front seat and quickly put the car in drive, pulling out into the bustling traffic.
"So, what brings you to town?" He asked brightly, turning down the rock radio station and looking at Jill in the rear view.
"Um," Jill had the morbid thought of sharing her whole traumatizing backstory, but shook it off. "Moving here, actually. I have an apartment."
"Oh nice! Welcome! I'm Lex, by the way" The driver said cheerfully. "You been to the city before?" he asked casually.
"No, actually," Jill admitted. "New job. Needed to get away from my hometown and my ex, you know..." she trailed off.
"Oof, sorry to hear that." Lex said with a small shake of his head. "I think you're gonna like it here." He looked at his nav system and zoomed the map out for a moment. "Looks like you're heading to 65th and Taylor," he noted. "That's where you're moving?" He asked with a smile, but there was a hint of suspicion in his voice.
"Right around there, yeah." Jill said. She felt herself shrink with embarrassment, but also didn't really want to give her new home address to the first stranger she met.
"It's quite the neighborhood," Lex replied, watching Jill closely in the rear view mirror.
"I..." Jill paused, thinking of how to phrase it, "Yeah I actually chose it because of the neighborhood." She said, with an air of defiance. She'd had enough judgement from her former friends and neighbors, she wasn't going to take it from this big city uber driver. To her surprise he let out a laugh of relief.
"Oh good! Sorry, I live in that neighborhood and if somebody moved there without knowing it," Lex grimaced, "they might have a bad time. You said this is your first time in the city and I was worried. Nice Chucks, by the way." He flashed a charming smile in the rear view and Jill felt her heart flutter and her cheeks flush.
"Thanks," Jill said, swelling with pride.
"So if you're brand new to town, how would you like a little orientation?" Lex offered. "I make this drive enough and I've lived in the neighborhood a while, care for a tour guide?"
"I'd love it!" Jill replied, smiling. "I know nothing about this place."
"Well the rest of the city is just big city, you know." Lex explained. "Sure the parks are nice and the museums are beautiful, but downtown is whatever. Home sweet home is 6 square blocks a mile north of monument square." It sounded like a well rehearsed spiel he'd given before. "Back around the turn of the century there used to be a big rubber factory around there that started making soles for shoes and boots. So the area around it filled up with cobbler shops and shoe stores. The plant closed in the 50s and was briefly the home to one of the Nike regional offices in the 80s, but they tore the whole thing down and built apartments. Still, the area attracted certain like-minded folks like myself and, if I may be so bold, like you. The city officially calls the whole area 'North Montgomery' after one of the major streets, but to everyone in it our neighborhood is Sneakerville."
"So it's an entire neighborhood of people who... like... sneakers?" Jill asked cautiously. It was what she had heard about that area. It's what she had dreamed of. Still, she was afraid it was too good to be true.
"'Like' is one way to put it. 'Love' is another. 'Have a deep, sexual fetish for' is my personal favorite, but I get why you might not say that in polite company." Lex joked, matter-of-factly. Jill gaped. She'd never heard another person come out and say it so clearly.
"Oh listen," Lex scoffed, seeing her shocked reaction, "a lot of folks from your hometown might be freaked out about it but in our neighborhood we're not shy. You'll see. Trust me, you're gonna enjoy it here."
As Jill watched out the window they passed a few neighborhoods that were recognizable: Little Italy, Chinatown, Little Havana, but then Lex pulled off the highway exit and into a quieter set of cute, seemingly normal city blocks.
"Now this area next to the highway is Bootstown, which most people just call Boots. Yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like." Lex explained as Jill saw two women in skirts and Doc Martens step out of an apartment building. "They're cool, we have a lot of overlap actually. The line between the neighborhoods is a little fuzzy sometimes. But here we are! Home sweet home." They crossed a busy intersection and immediately Jill noticed the difference.
On the corner was an anxious businessman shouting at someone on his phone. He had a briefcase in his hand and was wearing a full suit and tie with a pair of bright red Jordan sneakers. Next to him were two college-age girls, one in Adidas Sambas and one in Stan Smiths, each holding a shopping bag with the Adidas logo on it.
"Now on your left you'll see the bar where my band plays," Lex pointed. Jill looked and saw a light up sign for a bar called Lace-Ups. "There are a lot of bars in the neighborhood, and each one caters to a different audience." Lex explained.
"Over on the right is The Court, they're a basketball shoe bar." A sign showed a basketball hoop and the word Court in jersey font. "The Jordan sneakerheads pack that place every night. Gotta have basketball shoes to get in. Even Chucks get a funny look there, because I guess they don't know their history." Lex added with mock annoyance.
"What does Lace Up's specialize in?" Jill asked, curiously. She was already in awe of what she'd seen and they'd barely crossed the street.
"Eh, a bit of a catch all honestly." Lex shrugged. "More of a rock bar than a Club if you know what I mean. Lots of Vans and Chucks but anybody can go there."
Jill gaped out the window at everything she was seeing. Practically every storefront had something to do with sneakers. There were boutique shoe stores everywhere, their windows full of the latest models. Some specialized in running shoes and advertised Asics, Brooks, and Nikes. Others looked like quiet mom-and-pop shops full of Keds, Sperrys, and other comfortable style brands. But even the other stores found a way to mention sneakers. A lingerie/sex shop caught Jill's eye and made her gasp. The mannequins in the windows were wearing lacy bras and panties and matching sneakers. One mannequin had a strapon that held a hightop Nike Dunk in place of a dildo and several mannequin heads in the window showcased gags that would hold a shoe tight to the wearer's face, or the toe in their mouth.
"Getting it now?" Lex asked with a wry smile, seeing Jill staring at the storefront.
"I just... didn't realize..." Jill stuttered. She saw a sexy young couple walking hand in hand past the storefront, the woman in Keds and a flowy skirt and the boy in a polo with salmon shorts and Nike Blazers. The couple paused to look inside and the woman excitedly pointed out the strapon. The man also looked excited by it but Lex drove on before Jill could see the outcome. Seeing a couple that open about their sneaker love triggered a pang of jealousy in Jill, but also a stirring between her legs.
"Yeah, it gets a lot of people on their first time here." Lex added. "How about this, let me drive you around whole neighborhood before I drop you off. I can point out the good places to eat. "
"Honestly what you've seen so far has been pretty tame." Lex explained as he turned the corner. "Things get a lot more explicit around here as you get deeper in."
"Is my apartment..." Jill began to ask.
"Right in the middle? Yup." Lex answered with a laugh. "Don't worry, everybody is very cool. I live on the next block over. See, there you go." He added pointing out the passenger side.
Jill leaned over to peek out the window. There was a woman jogging on the sidewalk, wearing brightly colored shorts and a running tanktop and pink and orange Nike running shoes. However, she also had a purple Asics running shoe over her mouth and nose, the laces tied around the back of her head to hold it in place so she's only breathe in through the sneaker. Jill's eyes widened.
"Oh this cafe on the other corner is really good. Fantastic coffee, and special service if you're into that." Lex added. Jill whipped her head around.
Two women sat at one of the tables outside in the sun, chatting animatedly. One wore light colored jeans and white Keds, the other in a knee length floral skirt and only one white hightop Chuck Taylor. The woman in Keds sipped her coffee from a mug while the waiter, wearing all black Air Force Ones, poured the other woman's coffee into the pristine white Chuck she was holding up for him. Some of the coffee poured out of the lace holes but neither he nor the customer reacted. The woman thanked him with a wide smile and turned back to her friend, before casually tipping the shoe up and sipping the brown coffee that was beginning to soak the entire shoe.
The neighborhood was perfect, even without the sneaker element, Jill thought to herself. Every corner had a cafe or a cute brunch spot. Bars dotted every block. A convenient grocery store stood just around the corner from her new apartment. Everything was walkable, and a bus station down the street could take her wherever in the city she needed to go. Lex was extremely helpful, pointing out things like ATMs, Insurance brokers, and a handyman shop that she might need as she moves in.
When Lex finally pulled over and parked, it was right in front of a shoe store that specialized in women's sneakers.
"We're here!" he said cheerfully. "Welcome home!"
"Oh, I'm above the shoe store?" Jill asked, checking the address again.