Back and forth she went, time and again, wondering dimly if this was a deliberate move of his—a little light humiliation to keep her in her place. He was so changeable, this Zachari. She had no idea what he really thought of her, and she wished she didn’t care. But as she continued walking, the self-consciousness, the irritation, the embarrassment began to slip away, until she was no longer aware of anything very much. Only the smooth, cool boards, the rough softness of the zebra-skin rug, the slipping and sliding of her dress against her bare legs. The presence of Zachari, silently watching her, his gaze fixed on her feet.

“Good.” His voice was harsh. “Now sit down again.”

She sat on the couch, and he came and crouched by her, putting a long, velvet-covered footstool in front of her, indicating that she should place one foot there while he himself perched on the back of it. He produced a little slide rule, such as other shoemakers used. She placed her foot against it, and he slid the marker down to the top of her toes. Then he used a tape to measure the width of her foot in three places. After the strangeness of the walking up and down, this was rather pedestrian and commonplace. She was disappointed.

“I can judge the measurements by eye, but it’s best to double-check.” It was as if he’d heard her thoughts.

“Did you judge right in my case?”

But he just smiled.

She began to move her foot down from the stool, but he put out a hand to stop her. The hand touched her foot, then slid to hold her ankle. She thought about that hand touching hers last night. The fingers were strong, presumably from all the work.

Lifting her foot and holding it gently, he slipped one hand under the arch and one under the toes. She imagined his hands shaping leather, knocking in nails. The broad palms. The arms, under his shirt, would be finely muscled. She allowed her foot to relax, to go limp.

And then she felt the most exquisite sensation, as though heat were passing from his hands into her foot, making it tingle, the tingling passing up through her leg. Slowly he moved his hands around her foot, pressing here and there with his thumbs, feeling for the shapes of her bones, separating her toes and exerting a light pressure between them. He stroked, he pressed, he felt his way around her foot until she sighed audibly with pleasure. She allowed him to run his hand up the back of her calf, feeling the shape of the muscle.

When he placed her foot back on the stool, she instantly missed his touch, but of course there was still the other foot…

“Don’t stop,” she said without thinking, when he had finished.