And we paid them to do it!

Weve been doing up an old house which we inherited but was miles away from where we live. As we were worried about it being empty we agreed with a really lovely woman nearby for her and/or her daughter to look in on it now and then. We sorted out a rate and didn't think they'd do much but walk by and give it a glance on the way to the shops but it still gave us peace of mind. Should mention we had stripped and refinished all the floors so now all of you with brains are probably well ahead of us. It took us a while. Bless them. By the time we'd noticed the problem with the job description they'd already clearly repeatedly walked all round the place, almost exactly as we'd paid them to do. In heels.

Suziedqq Thank you for responding. You raise some good questions relative our little ‘problem’, especially given that the answers to these seem to me only to raise a few more. I may be wrong but I don’t suppose it can do that much harm to add a bit more flesh as I was inclined to do in the first post but then didn’t. How did they get in? We gave them a key or to be more accurate he gave the mother a key. I don’t have a problem with this except that it’s a bit unusual for ‘us’ to be that trusting. Then again there were clear advantages and I do at least know that they have one because oh yes I’ve checked. And we kind of know them. They knew the original house owner much better but as far as I can see all they want to do is help out and it’s pretty clear they were invited to go in as and when they liked. So to the second part. The floors are now ‘dented’, pretty much all over although more in some places than others. You don’t always notice but when you do it’s pretty obvious. But if I get to the real point it’s not my own reaction to this in itself that’s niggling me given that I have plenty of shoes of my own that I wouldn’t have given slightest thought to wearing, if it wasn’t for him suddenly obsessing over the whole subject. Out of nowhere he seems to want to draw my attention to the fact that other women, wearing the kinds of heels he frankly drools over, have been in a house (even the bedroom) that he sometimes sleeps in alone. I’m not convinced by his protests so what is the point of them? I understand that he spent a lot of time on his hands and knees on those floors but from where I stand (somewhat self-consciously) it seems to be turning itself into an obsession that involves him and, in particular, a perfectly amiable 20 year old girl who tends to favour the sorts of boots that he is unable to hide his liking for on the average street. So it’s hard not to make suppositions about exactly what my role or anybody else’s role in all this is meant to be?

Susie, Thank you for persevering and I do realize I’m not setting this out in a way that gives you or me the best chance. This isn’t exactly about fantasies (I don’t think) but I can see how it would be hard to tell, looking from the outside. So here’s a big plunge. We are talking about a man for whom feet and shoes are very much a part of his sexual make up – and who has never hidden that fact (from me) although he’s never asked me to advertise it. Without going too much into it I can admit that he has often laid things at my feet where I was likely (or openly invited) to tread on them. I’m sure some people will think this odd but personally I don’t mind it one bit and sometimes I rather enjoy it. It is (or was) just a small part of our relationship. But it’s intimate by which I mean it’s something that’s always been kept between us, as far as I am aware. How do I think the marks got there? I don’t have any doubt that at least one person has walked on pretty much every area of flooring wearing shoes with extremely harsh, small diameter heels. I don’t see how the countless tiny circular indents everywhere (including in clusters, by the bedroom window) could be explained by anything else and he will be well aware of that. I don’t think he has taken to wearing shoes like that himself because why risk it where it would be so potentially obvious? (I am sorry to say I very much hope I am right in the latter assumption.) I think it much more likely that he entered into some different kind of risk taking with the ‘housesitters’ which was yes a kind of fantasy but which came back and bit him. I know for sure that he will have noticed the way they dress, particularly the daughter. It’s not that unusual to encounter her clicking along the pavements in high boots with the narrowest of (no other word for them) stilettos - of the type which would definitely interest him - although she might just as easily be in trainers or high heel wedges. So, what if he gave them a key so that he could imagine the possibilities? And maybe the whole fantasy went as wrong as wrong can be if she/they turned to be a lot more diligent and a lot more inquisitive than he expected. I’m afraid I know him well enough to think him capable of this, blind to what the consequences might be if mother and/or daughter actually turned up in full glam mode (to an uninviting, empty shell of a place) and spent a whole lot of time having a good old nose round? But I struggle with the implications. I don’t believe that his complaining behaviour is an attempt to cover up an affair of some kind because (like with the cross-dressing) the ‘evidence’ is of the exact type he’d have anticipated and known to avoid. I mostly think he may have wanted to excite himself with the thought of an attractive young woman in skewer heeled high boots treading on his vulnerable new floor and may well have completely underestimated the worst that could happen and now can’t hide it so tries to pass it off as something he had no idea about and is annoyed with. His indignant explanation doesn’t fit with his usual levels of awareness. Or maybe it turned out exactly as he wanted, and he’s just trying to convince me otherwise. I really don’t like that version. Or maybe he never noticed what she wore on her feet, has no interest in her whatsoever, completely overlooked the possibilities whilst thinking about keeping the house watched, and is genuinely annoyed. This is not a bad relationship. I know men do fantasize. But I can’t help feeling this is a bit more than that a big mistake. Maybe I’m just reaping the rewards of entertaining these kinds of things in the first place. But I don’t think I’m wrong to indulge a little. Not so much the sharing. Really not into that. (Not sure exactly when it happened.Quite a while back, and it was him that pointed it out. It's not something that's so easy to talk about, so I've just been doing my own digging and obsessing for some while. I just want it not to have happened, really)

I can’t help thinking there are things in life that shouldn’t be as hard as we make them and by we I largely mean me. I’ve made three posts now and each time after I’ve pressed the button (never mind before pressing) I’ve wondered. Go for the light side? Go right in with the crazy? What do I really want to say. What should I keep private. Am I a good person. Etc etc. It’s different though when you have something that’s on your mind to when you write it down to when you press a send button and you know you’ve let it good and properly outside of your own head. But crossing that line, even just in itself, also helps change the thinking that started it all off. Maybe I should have begun this thread by saying essentially that I want to whinge about the disadvantages of unusual sexual fascinations. More or less. But actually it is a specific sexual fascination (or group of related sexual fascinations where I’m still only touching – and only intending to touch – on one part) and I don’t really see it (discussion) working as a general thing. But once you get specific there’s a whole different lot of things to worry over. Believe me, as if anyone would need convincing. But actually… My life is shared with a man whom I essentially trust. A man who made clear to me, very early in our relationship, that among many more straightforward traits he was vulnerable to the possibility that the right woman need only slip her feet into the right shoes and she could walk all over him. (Attempt at humour, sort of.) He is very certain about the fact that this is not just any random woman, or any particular type of shoe, despite clear favourites – which actually I consider a good basic starting point. And he has always been very clear about consent, in principle. But, where this sometimes unwelcome desire (for him, actually, almost more than for me) is concerned, he also admits his brain isn’t always the dominant driver. It is not uncommon for something that he cares passionately about to be laid at my feet. But it is also not uncommon for him to have an element of regret relative to anything which is damaged if I then tread on it. This is never displayed in terms of reproach to me. But it’s a difficult contradiction. I can love him by hurting/upsetting him. I find this quite an emotional challenge. But then so does he and I think in the end I’d rather we’d followed the path we did than for him to have hidden it, or me refuse to engage. In any case, bad person or not, engaging can be wicked fun on the right day and then there’s the incredible afters. But it’s not just him that has issues. He really likes boots, for example, as already well noted – which means he’ll notice them big time. Even if other women are wearing them, and even though it may only be just glance. I struggle with that, a bit. I struggle a whole lot more when some young thing in knee highs walks into a room and he doesn’t pick his coat up off the floor until the silly bitch has made sure she’s stepped on it enough. After all, those moments will probably never be fully erased from his memory, and therefore apparently never from mine. I blame both of them – as if they’d deliberately colluded in performing some kind of sexual act together before my very eyes. Like it could never ever be a mistake, because mostly he’d have been bound to see it coming. In those kinds of situations, with any other guy, I’d have just been pissed off with her but hey, things happen. And then comes the time when we’re not talking about a coat, or something even remotely unlikely to get walked on. There’s plenty of self-obsessed women not in the least concerned about people’s actual floors - quite possibly (a little more surprisingly, but I don’t really doubt his argument, in itself) even the ones sent out by estate agents along with the various fiances, wives and daughters of potential house buyers. Perfectly pleasant but distracted women have been known to have their moments too - but that doesn’t make the self-obsessed ones any less irritating. So it does just happen. It doesn’t have to be invited. I do know that. You so often want to sacrifice your most precious things. Any other man, any other floor. I’ve reread the posts a time of two now and I’m sorry babe. It’s as much me. We all have issues! I just need to find a way to get past it. Maybe for some sexual fascinations it’s not such a huge leap of faith to accept that an apparent manifestation of a fantasy was just a massive irony. Sorry. Think I got it maybe wrong all round.