These boots are made for working

The box has no return address, only your name printed in careful serif type. Inside, under tissue paper, the shoes gleam like something wet — black patent platforms, over-the-knee, absurd and beautiful and absolutely not yours. You almost laugh. Someone from the auction house, maybe, playing a joke. You should throw them out. Instead you sit on the edge of your bed, peel off your socks, and slide your foot in, just to see.

The zipper climbs your calf on its own. You feel it happen — a small cold ticking against your skin, like a beetle — and then it stops just below the knee and the leather cinches, snug as a handshake. You laugh again, thinner this time, and reach for the tab. It won't grip. Your fingers slide off the pull again and again, and the shoe feels warm now, and your name is on the box, and there is no card.

You get them halfway down your right calf before the leather simply refuses, contracting like a throat, and you sit back on the bed breathing hard. In the dark window, your reflection looks back at you wearing them. It occurs to you, distantly, that you don't actually remember deciding to buckle the left one.