Page 31 of Bent Out of Shade
It was stretchy, I’d give it that, but I couldn’t get a sense of how it looked because my aerial view was of a lot of hills and valleys. Taking a deep breath, I threw the door open to see it in the mirror.
“Nice,” said the woman from the next cubicle, stepping out with her arms full of clothes. She flashed me a thumbs-up before leaving.
I stepped in front of the mirror and did a double take.
The dress shouldn’t have worked, but hel-lo, mama.
The mock-neck halter top reduced my “mannish shoulders” (thanks for that label, Tatiana), while the ruching along the satiny material allowed it to cling to my curves in a flattering way—and not as if I’d been stuffed into sausage casing. It fell to soft pleats along my left calf, the right side cut slightly higher, like a flamenco dancer’s dress, and the fabric cupped my ass in a tender embrace.
I grinned. “Oh, this will do nicely.”
Jude grabbed the elastic on the leg of my underwear and wrenched it up my ass cheek. “You need a thong.”
I slapped her hand away. “That kind of manhandling costs a hundred an hour, and I am not wearing butt floss.”
“You’re right. Go free under there. But you do need a different bra,” she said, nonplussed, smushing my arms against the sides of my boobs to make my girls stand at attention.
I sputtered a cough. “I’m not going naked, either. I have bad luck with gusts of wind at the best of times, and I will not end this date arrested for public indecency.” I poked my elastic underwear line and sighed. “I’ll wear the shapewear that comes down midthigh, but grant that a new bra is in order.”
“Midthigh.” Jude whistled. “That’ll be sexy fun for Laurent to unpeel later. Maybe you’ll even make that sweet, sweet sucking noise when your skin pulls free. Rawr.” Leering, she mimed claws.
I narrowed my eyes. “Fashion is a bitch.”
“Thong it is.” She grinned evilly. “You still have your false lashes, right?”
I dropped my head into my hands with a groan. Sure, they made my eyes pop, but putting them on without wanting to scratch them loose was excruciating. And my child—aka lash specialist, because despite having over forty years of life, I was too chicken to put them on without direct assistance—took a sadistic glee in torturing me.
That said, I still took Jude’s advice.
Several hours later I stood in front of the mirror wearing a push-up corset with so much boning in it—and not the pleasurable kind—I swore its design was based off the Iron Maiden. The torture device, not the band. I’d bought a simple black thong, and while there was no panty line, my butt looked like it was nestled in a slingshot, ready for takeoff.
I dropped the dress over my head, slipped into my heels, and faced the mirror again, curling a lock behind my ear. Wow. From my updo courtesy of a blowout salon I’d stopped at, to my outfit, I was a freaking Lamborghini of women. So long as Laurent didn’t peer too hard under the hood at the functional but unsexy parts, all would be well.
Between the contouring and the heels, there was an extra sway to my hips that I embraced.
“Ta da!” I struck a pose in Sadie’s doorway.
“Whoa, sexy lady.” She scrambled off her bed and twirled her finger to get me to turn around. “Oh my God, Mom, you have a butt! I always thought it was just some shapeless dead zone.”
“I gave the wrong child away. That’s it. Switch back with your sister.”
“No can do.” She grabbed my hand and tugged me into the bathroom. “She doesn’t have my false lashes magic touch.”
I sat down on the edge of the tub while Sadie turned my face to the light, studying it with her lips pursed, while she muttered under her breath, “Foundation is good. Blush properly blended.”
“I do know how to apply makeup,” I said with a laugh.
“Apparently you don’t, because you only used one color of eye shadow.” She rummaged through a drawer for her large cosmetics case with all her cosplay makeup. “We must create depth. Plus, I’ve seen better liner jobs on the grade eights putting it on in the girls’ bathroom at school.”
“Fair.” I was happy to endure her teasing because this was the most that my daughter had acted like her pre-magic self in a while.
Once my lips, eyes, and lashes all passed her approval, she smiled. “You look beautiful. Laurent is going to freak out.” She shook her head. “Took you guys long enough to finally get together.”
I made a vague sound of agreement. Hopefully she had no idea I’d been sneaking off to hook up with him.
There was a loud knock on the front door and I eeped.
Sadie patted my hand. “You got this, Mom.” Then with a sly smile, she bolted into the hallway. “Payback is going to be fun.”
