Barefoot Girl and The Demon

My heroine is naked.

And has been for every scene I’ve written so far. She’s a demon. With wings. It’s not that I haven’t been able to figure out how to dress her. It simply hasn’t been part of my thought processes. For the first third of the book, she’s stripping the hero and having her wicked way with him. She uses sex as a weapon and believe me, her arsenal is well-stocked.

Delving into my junk drawer for a way to dress my heroine, I came across a memory from the other day. I was wearing my turquoise skirt that swings in a fun, flirty and sexy way. I like fun, flirty and sexy. Those three words belong together in my mind. It’s hard for me to say one without the other two. Because I was walking to work, I wore the flat blue shoes instead of the sandals I usually wore. On the twenty minute walk, it occurred to me that despite the way the skirt played around my legs, flirted with my knees, and slid across my bare thighs, it was neither fun, flirty, nor sexy. It was the sandals that made me feel that way.

This realization was quite the shock to someone who prides herself on being Barefoot Girl. Socks, shoes, stockings and boots all feel like torture devices to my bare feet. My toes like to wriggle. Grass tickles, sand burns and mud squishes. There other less enjoyable sensations I’ve experienced as a result of my barefoot status, but they’re part of the package. It’s not all one way or another. Life is a blend of textures, and experiences.

Which leads me back to my heroine. Clothes don’t matter to her. She couldn’t care less what she wears as long as she can hike it up, tug it down or shimmy out of it. More often than not, she doesn’t bother with such impediments. Temperature control is not an issue for a demon. She can manipulate climate and appearances in order to project whatever image she wants. As the book develops she suffers a major identity crisis. Her clothing can illustrate this as she lets go of who she thinks she is and embraces her true self.

If Barefoot Girl can wear fun, flirty, sexy sandals, my heroine can wear clothes.