My Daughter’s Addictions — Chapter 7
Victorian London was a city of superlatives. It was the largest city on the planet – its population rose from two to six million between 1850 and 1900. It was the world’s centre of knowledge and innovation, the birth site of the industrial revolution, and home to the richest, the wealthiest, the most enlightened people.
But Victorian London was also the home to a sinister Dickensian underworld.
Where did elegant, long-gloved women go when they wanted to indulge in luxury shopping? Did they stroll along Victorian alleys with open sewers? Did they cross busy streets trying not to get their velvet boots into fresh horse dung, what with all the horse-drawn carriages and buses filling up the streets? Did they sit down for a cup of tea at a street café where they could enjoy the show – a prostitute giving a gentleman a blow job behind a street lamp?
If you want to see what 19th-century consumerism palaces looked like, you don’t need to invent a time machine. Just take the underground to Piccadilly Circus, then walk a few hundred yards down Piccadilly to one of the many shopping arcades that still exist today.
An elegant man in a frock coat and top hat will usher you through the entrance to a long and straight, marble-floored, vaulted colonnade lined by more than fifty individual two-storey shops with sumptuous, richly decorated windows. Instead of the well-known High-Street chains, you will find exclusive shops that have been owned and tended to with passion by one family since their first opening. Shop signs bearing names like “Madame Frey’s” or “Christensen, Carnahan & Combs” are faithful witnesses to that, and if you walk too fast along the arcade, you will see the names of so many old families that afterwards you won’t remember if the one shop that sold those strange furry books was “Ferguson & Branch” or “Flourish & Blotts”.
In the middle of all that scintillating magnificence was the shop I was looking for, and paradoxically, it stood out from the rest because of its unpretentiousness. The wooden front and display window were clean and shiny, but they had clearly not been renovated in a very long time. The faded letters on the sign over the door read:
Bernoulli’s
Guanti da donna dal 1887
The dimly lit shop window displayed a single pair of long leather gloves that lay on a velvet cushion, and a mosaic of hand-sized, sepia-coloured photographs.
I stopped and was having a closer look at the many pictures of old-time artists in opera gloves – can-can dancers, opera singers and theatre actresses –, when the door suddenly opened and a young boy, surely not older than eighteen, stuck his head out. He scanned the corridor with swift glances towards both ends of the passageway, then left the shop and strode down the arcade, disappearing from my sight in less than five seconds.
I stood there, bemused and puzzled, wondering what was making him flee like that. Was that actually a sex shop disguised as a glove shop?
How very childish of me to be writing diary again! I just went through my last entries, from when I was 13. Cringe! What with all the colours and glitter pens and little hearts and pastel stickers!
The last entry was about me and my dad having ice cream at the Chapel. The Chapel is a small two-storey house at the High Street and King’s Road crossing, square, naked, totally uninteresting if it weren’t for the tiny clock tower and weather vane that sit on the house’s flat roof. That pale-green, patina-covered tower miniature is the reason I started to call the house “The Chapel” when I was very little. The Chapel was vacant for as long as I can remember, and one day, an ice cream parlour moved in, and my dad and I were among the first customers, and…
I don’t hate my mum, but she treats me like a child, and it’s become a lot worse since my dad died. I’m 16 now. I deserve a lot more independence than she gives me. But she’s so stiff!
I actually couldn’t believe it when she allowed me to wear my latex catsuit and gloves at Mhairi’s Halloween party! That day was the best of my life, and I was convinced my mum would change after that. But the very next day she went back to normal, nagging me all day about everything I do differently from her.
I’m a good student, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t party around. Then, why is Mum constantly getting on my case? I’m more mature than my friends; for sure, a lot more than that lazy bitch Mhairi.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Mhairi, and it’s thanks to her that I learnt about the marvels of latex clothing. But she’s so annoying sometimes! She always wants to stay at home, watching the telly and eating rubbish. And now she has started to smoke. Her parents know it, but they don’t care. She’s trying to get me to try it, but I don’t want it. I’ve never had any interest in smoking.
Anyway, I have so much I want to write that I don’t know where to start. I never thought I would keep diary again, but writing should help me cope with all the shit that’s going on in my life. And who knows, maybe one day I can turn these memories into a novel – “The Life and Times of Willa Holloway”.
Ha, ha! Who will want to read about my life!
I stepped into the glove shop, feeling a twinge of guilt over having gone there without Valentina. True, I hadn’t promised to call her so that she could accompany me. But I remembered her bright smile and the gleam in her eyes when I told her my name, and I felt sorry for her. She had surely interpreted that as a promise that we would meet again. It’s not that I had not liked being with her. In fact, I had enjoyed it and I was very curious to know more about her, but she flirted away from the beginning, and that scared me off. I had never had anything with a woman. In fact, the only person I had ever been with was Willa’s late father.
The door bell that chimed somewhere above my head brought me back to reality. The walls were lined by tall wooden cabinets with endless rows of drawers, similar to apothecary cabinets; but the drawers were two-feet wide and only three inches in height. The glazed wood was of a reddish brown colour and very shiny, and despite the antiquated, ornate design, I thought it was by far more beautiful than any modern furniture you got to see at Ikea. The back wall was occupied by a piece of the same design, but instead of drawers, it had shelves that were crammed with flat boxes made of fine, white cardboard similar to canvas paper.
A tall and slender woman walked down a narrow spiral staircase. She was wearing jeans, a plain white blouse and flat, comfortable shoes, but all items were visibly expensive. Her hands and arms were wrapped in black leather opera gloves.
“Welcome! I am Madame Alessandra!” she said. She stepped towards the tall, round table that occupied the centre of the room and pulled one of two tall stools from under the table. "Please, sit comfortably, and let me do the rest,“ she said with a smile.
She took my handbag and hung it on a hook that was under one of the higher steps of the staircase. Then, I heard the click of a button and a bright light illuminated the table from above.
"It’s your first time here, isn’t it?” she said. "Allow me.“ She took my hand very gently, as if she were asking me for a dance, placed her other hand under my elbow, and lifted my arm to examine it. "You have beautiful, long fingers,” she said. “And the right proportions. You were born to wear gloves. And your arms are long and slender, too. You will need very long gloves.”
“Actually, I want to buy gloves for my daughter,” I said.
“Where is she, then?” Alessandra slowly put my arm back on the table. "If I don’t see her hands, I won’t know what fits her.“
"The gloves are a surprise gift,” I explained, fidgeting with my fingers.
Alessandra frowned. She leaned forward and rested her right elbow on the table and propped her chin on her leather-covered hand. She looked at me with wide open eyes and didn’t say anything for a minute, during which I threw a closer look at her gloved hands. The leather of her gloves hugged her skin as snugly as Willa’s latex gloves stuck to hers. But unlike Willa’s whore gloves, Alessandra’s leather gloves were sumptuous and elegant and… plainly put, fit for a queen.
“I’m sorry,” she said, straightening up. "I know I’m a bit intense sometimes. But I’m a perfectionist. Gloves are very personal items, and they should be bought by the person who wants to wear them. The wand chooses the witch, remember?“
I was not sure I understood what that meant, but it seemed that all people who wore gloves were eccentrics like Lady Gaga, Valentina or Alessandra. Was that my daughter’s future?
I cleared my throat loudly. "This should be easy,” I said. "I primarily want satin gloves. Those are one-size-fits-all, aren’t they? Could you just show me the longest you’ve got?“
"Our satin gloves come in three different sizes. They are significantly less stretchy so they don’t wear out too fast.” She paced around the room while she said that, and finally, she squatted down next to the drawer cabinet. “Let’s do this. Would you say your daughter’s hands are smaller or larger than yours?”
“She’s taller than me, but she’s only sixteen… so overall, she’s slimmer.”
“That answer doesn’t help me,” she said. "Are her fingers thicker than yours?“
“Good, good…” She pulled open two of the drawers at the lowest level. "And would you say her fingers are longer than yours, or the same?“
"Can I see the first one again, please?” I chuckled.
“Hmm?” She jerked around and looked at me. "What was that?“
"Sorry,” I giggled. "It was a bad joke about how this feels like a vision test to get new glasses.“
"I see… Are her fingers longer or shorter than yours?”
“Definitely not shorter,” I said with a sigh.
Alessandra pulled one of the two open drawers until it popped out of the cabinet and brought it to me. She put the drawer on the table, and I was surprised to see that it was a good yard deep. In it, a dozen or more pairs of very long satin gloves lay in a row like coloured pencils in a tin box.
“How about these?” she asked. "I suggest you try them on. Choose a colour. They are all the same size.“
Each pair of gloves was of a different colour, and I was delighted by the intensity of the hues. I felt like a little kid who’s at the ice-cream parlour for the first time. "I love all of these! I would buy one of each if I could.”
Alessandra moved the stool that was free closer to me and sat on it. "Why don’t you choose the colours that best combine with most of your daughter’s clothes? Black and white gloves can be worn with literally anything.“ And after a very short pause, she smirked. "Or nothing.”
“OK, black and white, then. And another one. I want three pairs… Maybe these,” I said, pointing at a pair of oh-so-shiny baby-blue gloves that had caught my attention immediately.
“How about these?” countered Alessandra, picking up a fire red glove. And without waiting for my answer, she took my right hand. “Raise your arm, please.”
I had sex today. For the first time. It came unexpectedly, but I seized the opportunity, and it hit me like a tornado, and now I want more. A whole lot more. Today, and tomorrow, and every day of my life!
Erika has been flirting with me constantly since Mhairi’s Halloween party. I knew right away that she was fascinated by my latex gloves that night, but I didn’t think she would fall so hard for me. She started hanging out with Mhairi and me all the time, and she also started wearing long latex gloves with us, and she will do anything just to be with me.
And I have been sort of playing along. It’s a bit like playing with your dog. You throw an old deflated ball for him to retrieve. You throw it as far as you can so that you can read a full tweet or two before he comes back, slobbering up the whole world around him, and deposits his treasure at your feet. And you look at his tail wagging like crazy, and you don’t know whether to feel pity that he doesn’t know that you don’t need him half as much as he needs you, or satisfaction that you’re making him so happy with so little effort.
That’s what I do with Erika. I allow her to be close to me. We spend time together, we have fun together, I let her hold my hand. And it’s little effort because I actually enjoy being with her. She’s nice and intelligent. And hot! God, she is hot! I love her athletic body!
But she’s also needy. Not needy in a creepy way, like a stalker. But she’s really in love with me, and I don’t know what to do with that, because I like her, but I don’t love her.
Today she started to talk about masturbating with gloves on, and suddenly she asked if I would let her masturbate in my room because she can’t risk her parents walking in on her while she’s frigging herself in long latex gloves. She wanted to be left alone, but I couldn’t miss the opportunity to see her naked.
Oh, delicious honey! Her body should be in a museum, next to those Greek goddesses of war. Her long, powerful legs, her perfect arse, her round tits, her strong arms covered in shiny latex! I shiver all over just thinking about her naked body. I can even sense the oaky smell of her hair – like wood mixed with a hint of vanilla, feminine but not girly.
We started making out, and I toyed a bit with her, but then she grabbed me with those amazon arms of her and pressed my face onto hers and gave me the hottest kiss of my life! (It was actually my first, but when she asked, I said I had kissed other people before. I didn’t want her to feel too important.)
And then we had sex. When I think of her delicious pussy – freshly washed, clean, juicy like a fruit cocktail… Oh, I wish I could sink my face in her pussy again! What turned me on the most was seeing my own latex-covered fingers pumping in and out of her body. It was glorious. After what I experienced today, I don’t think I will ever have sex with a man. Women are so beautiful! God, my gloved hands massaging Erika’s soft tits! Yes, I definitely need my sex partner to have tits.
However, what happened afterwards was sad. She said that she loved me. Many times, but I didn’t reply. Yes, after the first orgasmic blast I was so full of gratitude that I actually wanted to say “I love you”. But I knew that was only my hormones making me want to say something stupid, and I managed to keep my trap shut.
Afterwards, when we were lying in my bed and the last waves of pleasure were ebbing off our bodies, all I needed to be happy was a shower and a good dinner, and I don’t need Erika for that.
No, I don’t love her. But I wouldn’t mind at all having sex with her again. And again, and again, and again!
Alessandra wanted me to don the red glove she had chosen.
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” I said, pulling my arm back.
“Nonsense!” She seized my hand and yanked my arm straight. "I can’t force you, but I know that you are dying to feel these gloves hug your skin.“ And before I knew it, she had removed two rings off my fingers with the dexterity of a pickpocket. "Never wear jewellery underneath your gloves,” she said. "You have to respect your gloves.“ Then she made me slide my fingers into the tube of red satin and she pulled the garment up my arm. "Give me your other hand,” she said, taking the second glove. And a minute later, my hands and arms were encased in red satin nearly up to my shoulders.
I had worn long gloves before… once, as part of a costume. I tried to remember what it had felt like that time, but I had apparently forgotten, because what I felt that day in London was overwhelming. Like in a trance, I climbed off my stool and strutted towards the mirror that hung on the back of the main door. I couldn’t believe that the woman with the flashy red gloves on was me. I wiggled my fingers, then my hands, then hugged myself, getting closer and closer to the mirror, trying to accept that those magical gloved hands were my humble gloved hands.
“Let me see,” whispered Alessandra, stepping behind me. She took my hand and smiled. “See? Perfect fit! Look at the stitches here… See how perfectly they match the natural curvature of your fingers?” With a gleam in her eyes, she ran her leather-covered finger along the length of my satin-covered finger, and I shivered everywhere.
“Great!” I croaked with a raspy voice. My throat was very dry all of a sudden. "Perfect fit, indeed. Now let’s hope they fit my daughter’s hands.“ I went back to the table and Alessandra followed me.
"They will. These gloves are stretchy enough, so they will fit your daughter even if her fingers are longer than yours… by, say, not more than a quarter-inch. Also, tell her to wear short nails.”
“I will,” I said, examining my gloved hands closely.
“So you’re taking the black, white and red ones?” she asked.
“No, the blue ones. These ones are too flashy,” I said.
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, but I don’t want my daughter to draw too much attention to herself.”
“May I ask what she wants the gloves for?” said Alessandra. “Are they for a costume, a formal event or just for fun?”
I told her everything about Willa – from the beginning to how she now wanted to wear long latex gloves in public.
“Which means she wants to draw attention to herself,” said Alessandra candidly. "Take the red ones.“
"But I’m her mother, and I want the blue ones,” I retorted.
“She’s sixteen,” sighed Alessandra. "It’s her job to express her individuality. Buy her the red gloves, or watch her get eyebrow piercings. Your choice.“
I raised my eyebrows in a mix of bewilderment and anger. That was the second time in a day that a stranger thought they had the right to tell me how to raise my daughter. I shot Alessandra a stern glance and she grinned.
"I’m sure she will like the blue ones,” I insisted. "For when she wants to go for sophisticated.“
"I tell you what: You buy all four pairs, black, white, blue and red, and I give you a fifth pair for free – for yourself.” She took a pair of fuchsia-coloured gloves and dangled them in front of me. "These could be yours,“ she said with a smile.
I contained my breath. For a minute, the world was silent.
"All right, then,” I said, exhaling forcefully. "Deal.“ I proceeded to take off the red gloves I was still wearing, carefully pulling the fingers one by one.
"Bravo!” said Alessandra, clapping her gloved hands. “That’s the right way to do it. Remember: Always respect the glove.”
The muffled noise quality of Alessandra’s clapping made me nervous. I was fascinated by her leather gloves.
“May I ask you something?” I requested while she pulled the red gloves off my hands and laid them on the table. My voice turned raspy again.
She went to a small room in the back of the shop and came back holding a bottle of mineral water and two glasses. “Of course! Ask away,” she said as she poured water into a glass. She handed it to me.
“Thank you,” I took the glass and drank a few sips of water. "Do they make you wear gloves to work here? Like, have you noticed how all employees at the optician’s always wear glasses? I think, if they don’t need vision correction, they make them wear non-prescription glasses.“
Alessandra laughed. "First of all, I’m the owner of the shop, so nobody makes me do anything,” she said while she took a seat on the other stool.
“Really? Aren’t you too young for that?”
“I’m twenty-eight. Is that really too young?” She crossed her legs, put her gloved hands on her knees and leaned back with exaggerated casualness. She was displaying her sumptuous gloves in all their glory! "Anyway, it’s actually my mother’s shop; but I will inherit it some day, like my mother did when my grandmother retired. And that day, I will become the madame of this shop, and I will finally replace that old sign over the door. My great-grandfather commissioned it for the shop’s fiftieth anniversary, but that was before the war.“ She got a glassy, dreamy look on her eyes. "This shop is as old as the arcade. I wish I could have been here the day of the inauguration!”
Yesterday I left out some details about my first time with Erika.
When I was about to reach my orgasm, the one thought that dominated my mind was the fact that I was wearing shoulder-length latex gloves. Images of myself wearing those gloves at school, on the street, on the bus came to my head. Just before reaching my orgasm, I wanted to scream for the whole world to know it: I want to wear long gloves every single moment of the rest of my life.
And then I had a vision of myself, lying with spread legs on a birthing chair, my pregnant belly about to explode, hot sweat running down my face and my back, and my latex-covered hands gripping some cold metal tubes while I’m in such agony that I can’t even scream. And then the doctor comes in and asks: “Nurse, why is the patient naked and wearing latex gloves? The patient doesn’t need to wear gloves. And why are her gloves so ridiculously long and shiny?” And the nurse answers: “Sorry, Doctor. She was wearing those gloves when she came to the hospital, and she threatened to sue us if we tried to remove them from her hands. And she offered to pay each nurse a thousand pounds if we wore gloves like hers during her labour.”
And then I look at both nurses and see that they are both naked and wearing shoulder-length latex gloves like mine, and that turns me on so much that I feel a blast of power go through my body, and I hear the cracking of a whip inside my head, and I am suddenly able to scream, and for an eternal second, I am but a weightless, blissful soul, untied to the earthly realm, free of pain and suffering and worry.
When I came back from the Nirvana, my hands and arms were palpitating inside their latex prison. I was exhausted and spent, and although I had wanted to die in those gloves a minute earlier, I suddenly had the urge to take them off. I had never felt the need to remove my gloves before, but after that sexual experience, I couldn’t bear those gloves on my hands.
I didn’t tell Erika about it, and I nearly cried when I was showering. I was terrified that something had changed for the worse. And above all, I was terrified that I didn’t understand why it was happening.
However, when I woke up this morning, I was normal again. As soon as I got off my bed and washed my face, I felt the need to be gloved again. I donned a fresh pair of shoulder-length latex gloves, and I was immediately hypnotised by their smell, by their shine, and by how they clung to my skin.
I don’t know what all this means, but it is clear that gloves are more than just fashion accessories for me. Somewhere in the depths of my mind, gloves affect me in a way that I still need to understand.
Alessandra swung forward and rested her forearms on the table.
“Look at these gorgeous gloves,” she said, deliberately showing her gloves off with very sexy hand movements. "They are the very best in our collection – they cost four hundred pounds. You can’t begin to imagine how good they feel on my hands! The leather is so thin and so supple… It fuses with my skin.“
I took her hand and threw a close look at her fingertips. In fact, the leather had adapted itself so well to her fingers that I could clearly see the contour of her fingernails.
"They are gorgeous!” I sighed.
“Indeed they are!” she exclaimed, putting her gloved hands to her face and inhaling deeply. “Oh, the aroma! But back to your question: No, I don’t wear gloves while I’m working. I’m wearing these today only because I put them on for the customer before you. I wanted to take them off when he left, but you arrived literally a second later. You probably even saw him leave the shop.”
“Oh!” I gasped. “That guy that fled the arcade…”
“Yes, he first looked out, as if making sure no one he knows was there to see him, and then he ran off!”
“Poor boy!” She chuckled. "He comes to the shop every now and then, buys a pair of satin gloves, always claims they are for his sister; for her birthday, for Christmas, or just like that because she loves gloves so much! And then he says one day he will buy her the best leather gloves we’ve got, but not today, so thank you and good bye. And today he finally grew the courage and asked me to try them on for him because my hands look exactly the same as his sister’s. So I put them on, and he turned red in the face, and I swear he got a stiffy,“ she giggled. "So he said sorry, he had forgotten he had an appointment and he’ll be back, and the rest you saw yourself.”
“Wow! What a pervert!” I snickered. “But if you know that he just wants to leer at you in gloves, why do you do it?”
“Because he’s a customer,” said Alessandra. She poured herself a glass of water and emptied it in one gulp. "One day he will grow real courage and he will say the gloves are actually for himself, and I will help him try them on, and he will wish he could keep them on for ever, and he will buy them. And then I won’t see him for a long time, but eventually lust will be bigger than shame, and he will come back and buy more. And he will never stop coming back.“
"A man in long women’s gloves? Eww!” I flinched.
“If men are willing to pay for the product, why shouldn’t they enjoy it?” said Alessandra, shrugging. "Who are you to judge?
And with that, she stood up and loaded her arms with several of the flat white boxes that were stacked on the shelves at the back. She brought them to the centre table and put each of the pairs of gloves I had chosen for Willa in an individual box.
“Look,” she instructed me while she packed the gloves. "You never fold gloves unless they are longer than elbow-length. And in that case, you fold them only once.“ She pointed at the inside of her own elbow. "Here, where the elbow goes. And when you get home, you don’t need to keep your gloves in this box if you don’t want to, but they always have to lie flat and unfolded. You have to –”
“Respect the glove,” I interjected.
“Precisely. So, these are for your daughter,” she said, pointing at the four boxes. "At twenty-five each, that makes hundred pounds. And these are for you.“ She put a stamp on the box that contained the fuchsia-coloured gloves. The stamp read: "Free sample. Courtesy of Madame Bernoulli”.
“I also would like to buy her a pair of leather gloves. I wish I could afford the ones you’re wearing, but… Can you please show me the best leather gloves you have for less than hundred pounds?”
She hesitated for a second. "All right,“ she said finally. "My cheapest full-length leather gloves cost hundred and fifty pounds. But you can have them for hundred and twenty if you promise that you will come back.” She smirked. "I know people. I’m sure you’re a returning customer.“
She went upstairs and I prepared my credit card while she was gone. A couple of minutes later, she came back down. In her hands, she was carrying a pair of black leather gloves. She lay them flat on the table.
"Hundred and twenty is still a lot of money,” I said with a whistle.
She showed me the inside of the gloves. "But they are unlined, see? That means the leather needs to be treated especially so it can be worn directly on the skin. They are excellent quality.“
"Well, then,” I sighed. "I hope Willa likes them. They are beautiful!“
"Great! Now listen: I imagine you’re dying to get your hands into them, but if they are for your daughter, don’t rob her of the pleasure of being the very first person who ever wears these gloves. Wearing unlined leather gloves for the first time takes a few moments of patience and care. Your daughter will have to put them on very slowly, finger by finger, gently stretching the leather as she does it. The leather will initially feel tight and stiff, but the body heat will slowly warm the leather up, and it will become soft and supple and it will take the shape of your daughter’s hand. And after a few minutes of patience, the gloves will feel like a second skin to her. And then, these gloves will be hers and nobody else’s. For ever. If you want to experience that, you will have to buy your own pair.”
“I understand,” I said, biting my lip with desire. The way she explained it, it sounded like having sex for the first time. "I promise I will not touch her gloves. But does that mean your customers don’t get to try leather gloves on before buying them?“
"Oh, no! Of course they do. I have gloves reserved for customers to try on – like these,” she said, waving her gloved hands. “But they don’t take these home. Every customer who buys unlined leather gloves takes home a pair of virgin gloves never worn by anyone before.”
She put the leather gloves in their own white box, and then she placed all boxes in a large shopping bag.
“May I ask you one final question?” asked Alessandra, handing me the shopping bag. "How did you learn about us? What made you choose our shop?“
"It was a personal recommendation,” I said, exchanging the shopping bag for my credit card. "Valentina MacMillan,“ I added.
"Oh, Valentina sent you?” She smiled. “Well then, thank her the next time you see her, because you’re receiving a special gift due to her recommendation.”
She went upstairs again, and when she came back down, she gave me a gift-wrapped five-inch cube. "Here. It’s not gloves, but I think you will like it. As I said, I know people,“ she said. "Don’t open it before Christmas!”
This is a fictional story written by Janey Egerton. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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