Tight
Look. You’ve broken up with me, okay? I’ve decided to embrace being single in all its multifaceted, terrifying ways. Stretch the corners of ‘single’ until it tears. Let’s face it, what other options have you left me with?
October. My Instagram is flooded with revenge-posts. I’m looking more put-together than usual, in tights and winter dresses I bought for your planned - and now forgotten - dates to Christmas markets.
“Loooove your legs in those tights.”
What’s this, you ask? It’s a private message from a user named “tights_lover.”* And he’s complimenting me. It’s the first sexually-charged compliment I’ve gotten since you left. Funny. I’d never seen this coming. We we’re meant to be moving to London, for Christ’s sake, with a swanky flat and an amazing sex life. But, instead; this.
“Why my tights?”, I ask, though the answer is obvious.
“I’m into tights. I can pay you, if you send me custom photos of you.”
He wants a bespoke service, then. Turns out he doesn’t even want to see my privates. He just wants calves, or toes, in tights. Either. He isn’t picky. He’ll pay £30. I realise that £30 covers the price of two Nandos. And if this isn’t single, I don’t know what is.
I send him photos of my toes and calves in tights, laying on my university, single bed. I like how I look: lost weight from the heartbreak.
God, I still want to live inside you like a leg in a well-fitted stocking.
Before sending, I get savvy. I deserve – nay, I am owed – payment, first, before I whore my toes out. Dad always told me that small feet were “princess feet.” Princesses get paid. I send my Paypal deets over.
Turns out, it’s the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals. He tells me that I must send one photo first, then he’ll pay me £10, then I send the rest and he’ll pay the rest. What’s the harm in that, right? Until he blocks me after the first photo.
Nandos: disappeared somewhere with my dignity. The consolation prize? A string of (unrelated) abusive texts from you and a dozen or so Instagram followers from the ‘tights community.’ My name has obviously been spread around.
They think I’m the girl who was gullible enough to give away tights-pics without getting paid. They think my legs are sexy. You think I’m a bitch, you think I’m manipulative, you think I was never worth your time, you think you have the right to tell me in little notifications as I browse Instagram, for the tenth time today.
A certain follower tells me he is stuck between my “tights and a hard place.” I deduce that this is meant to be a come on. He tells me that we live in the same county. Lovely. I decide to stop geo-tagging my posts.
This follower, called “tightsoverknees,” would like to know if I could mail him my used tights. I’ve had enough bad experiences with the tights community to wisely decide against the move. Even if he offers fifty quid.
I’ve gotta reply to your texts. Accuse you back, maybe?
December. The followers and texts are both still torrential. I don’t really know who I am; post-break up. I turn to friends. I turn to nature. I turn to coffee and cake and cheese scones. Wikihow tells me that a break-up takes three months to heal, once you break off contact. It’s been two, you keep messaging me and I can’t bring yourself to block you.
Abuse starts to feel like a routine. Comfortable.
A friend takes me to an owl-sanctuary. It’s off the beaten track. It’s a jumble sale/pet sale/owl sanctuary rolled into one. You can buy fresh eggs, which they keep next to old fridge magnets and an ice lolly-freezer. Perfect for the ‘gram. Uploaded.
“Tightsoverknees” recognises the photo. He messages me –
“Oh my god, you’re here! I’m the guy next to the eagle owl. I can’t believe we’re here at the same time – AND your wearing tights! This is heaven.”
He sends through a photo of him wearing tights around his, fairly muscly, legs in what seems to be an elevator mirror. Jesus.
I look over at “tightsoverknees,” timidly smiling at me from next to the owl they’ve named Midas. His hand shakes in a wave. WHY did I wear tights today?
Is nowhere sacred? He’s brought his fetish to a place of serenity, healing – my safe space away from all my entitled, self-indulgent, break-up trauma. How could he? I could tell my friend but, no. Where would I begin? He’s a guy and he doesn’t get why I’ve been engraving mascara stains into my pillow through nightly cries, and he certainly isn’t going to understand why I have engaged with the tights fetish community in an attempt feel something, be something, have something.
My phone vibrates. I wonder what you’ve said this time. Who you’re with and what you’re saying to them, about me, or not about me. I can’t decide which is worse. I once lived inside you like a leg in a stocking. I’m still recovering from now nylon can suffocate a person. I feel safer looking into the eyes of this man off the internet, then I do peeling my phone out from my pocket.
Katie Stockton is currently a Masters student, studying Scriptwriting at UEA. Last year, Katie graduated from Warwick University with a degree in Creative Writing. She enjoys writing about boredom, isolation and Wales. She recently had a play was staged at Norwich’s historic Maddermarket theatre. Her poetry has recently been published by Black Bough Poetry, Young Norfolk Arts Trust, Crepe and Penn, and Frontier Poetry. She was the recent runner-up in the Hestercombe Gardens Poetry Competition.