Rebecca Klassen
How to Clean Stilettos
1) Wipe a microfibre cloth around the inside of the shoe to remove any accumulated dust and debris.
High heels from her single days on the floor confirms your hunch that something’s off between you two. That’s why you open her laptop for the first time and peruse the inbox.
2) Use an old toothbrush to scrub the outside of the sole and the tip of the heel with warm, soapy water, then dry with a towel. Fun fact: stiletto is Italian for ‘pointed writing instrument’.
Her words are recent, lurid, erotic, and not for you. They cut you, leaving you raw and your hands shaking.
3) A handled brush with horsehair bristles is softer on leather. Gentle, circular motions should remove scuff and black marks.
You want to talk to her, but you don’t trust yourself to speak calmly. She’s never liked your aggression, which you’ve labelled passion. The argument will get stuck in a loop; you’ve always been a broken record. Your history together is blotchy. No wonder she’s sent these words to someone else.
4) Shoe cream is workable and gives a shinier finish than wax. Apply with two fingers wrapped in a polishing cloth. Ensure you select a good colour match.
People said you were soulmates, that you complimented each other. Maybe that’s why you were complacent, thought it would work out effortlessly. You didn’t pay attention to detail, to her needs.
5) Move your brush around the shoe again until the cream vanishes.
Perhaps couples counselling, atoning for your mistakes to create a brighter future.
6) Leave them by the door for her. A good pair will last years.
You shut the laptop. God, you love her, but you can’t talk to her yet without that damn passion, so you pick up her high heels, along with your cleaning kit. Only elbow grease will do now.
Playing I Have Never with the Thirteen-Year-Old Girl My Best Friend Just Adopted
Tammy’s left us alone while she fetches the windbreak from the car. She wants Millie and I to bond on this beach rug, the breeze playing our open lemonade cans like panpipes. Tammy and I played I Have Never in pub gardens, bent double, trying not to pee, learning about each other.
I tell Millie, ‘Just drink if you’ve done the thing I say I haven’t.’
She nods, watching two brothers skimming a frisbee.
I say, ‘I have never liked playing frisbee.’
Millie shrugs. ‘Never touched a frisbee. Do I drink?’
I look back at the carpark. Tammy’s rummaging in the boot, unable to offer an answer that satisfies Millie and assuages my guilt. ‘You don’t need to drink.’
Millie stares longingly inside her can. I kind of hate Tammy now she’s ruined brunching, weekend breaks, getting pissed together. We can’t chat uninterrupted anymore about books, the old days, our dreams. Of course, Millie is Tammy’s dream. Mine’s to visit Machu Picchu and sleep with Tom Hardy. Millie felt more appealing when she was just potential.
‘Your turn,’ I say.
Millie says, ‘I have never had a one-night stand,’ and I wonder if she knows what casual sex is, then she giggles as I drink. I imagine Tammy in my place on the rug, remaining humbly dehydrated for her new daughter.
I watch the frisbee brothers, not wanting to look at Millie, and I can’t believe I say aloud, ‘I have never wanted to go home and cry more in my life.’ I drink deeply, and Millie’s laugh bursts out, which makes me laugh too, lemonade fizzing on my chin.
‘My turn,’ she says. ‘I have never wanted to just drink my fucking lemonade more.’
She takes a glug, belches, and I think she might be my new best friend.
Rebecca Klassen is co-editor of The Phare and a Best of the Net 2025 nominee from Gloucestershire, UK. She has won the London Independent Story Prize and was short/longlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award, Flash 500, Bridport Prize, Alpine Fellowship, Laurie Lee Prize, Quiet Man Dave Prize, and the Oxford Flash. Her stories have featured in Mslexia, Fictive Dream, Toronto Journal, Shooter, The Brussels Review, Amphibian, Roi Faineant Press, Writing Magazine, Ginosko, Riggwelter, Cranked Anvil, BarBar, and Ink, Sweat & Tears, and have been performed at numerous literature festivals and on BBC Radio.
