A Story About the Body Ch. 01

"But I wanted to see more. So I gently, gently pushed the door open to get a better look at them. Only, she opens her eyes and stares right at me. I try to look away from her but I can't. I was just mesmerized by her eyes. It was like I could feel her passion just from standing there; I could smell the sweat in the room and—and it was like I could feel the heat radiating off of their bodies across the room. But she didn't say anything; she just kept looking at me, moaning, while he builds up his rhythm with her ... and she's just getting louder the entire time. And when I'm looking at her, that's when I realize, he's wearing a wedding ring and she's not. Her fingers were just hanging over the back of the chair, completely bare.

"And that's when Madeline touched me on the shoulder!" Cassandra laughed. "I almost jumped out of my skin, thinking someone from security had caught me. So we left them there and went back to our dorms. It was the craziest, bestest, experience I've ever had!"

We were only a few shops down from La Fontaine's now. It was located on a strip of the old city, where buildings were all joined together with old stone faces.

"Wow," I said, very quietly this time. "Did that really happen?"

"Maybe," she said slyly, as she opened the door at La Fontaine's for me. "But you have to admit: it's a really good story. And, you know, I learned something from watching them, as creepy as that is. When I saw that he had a wedding ring and she didn't, I didn't look at them and think 'Oh no!' like I always had before when I found someone had been cheating. It was just ... they seemed so happy; so happy that all I thought staring at them was 'How beautiful'."

I entered through the door, mulling over the incredible tale she'd just told. Even though I had gone through the doors first, she led the way through the store; she seemed to know it even better than the people who worked there. La Fontaine's was a high-end women's department store, one of the very few large stores left in the city anymore that wasn't a corporate chain. It had been around for nearly a hundred years and featured some of the finest in lady's fashion from all over the world; from beautiful, and expensive, evening dresses to the most intimate and expensive of lingerie—La Fontaine's had it all.

"I'm a writer," I said to her, while she looked through a rack of dresses and I followed in her wake. She looked back at me, skeptically.

"Really?" she asked, turning her attention back to the dresses. She pulled a dark red dress out from the rack and looked at it for a second longer than the others, and then set it back in its place. "What do you write?"

"Well, I, uh, mostly write short stories and that kind of thing," I said, trying to look as uninterested as she did by poking through a couple of the dresses she had already passed.

She stopped where she was and turned to look at me. "What's 'that kind of thing'?"

"It's, like, you know, novellas and poetry and, that," I told her, nudging my way by her, taking the lead as I looked through dresses.

"Who's your publisher?" she asked.

"Anyone who will," I laughed. I felt uneasy talking about my failed career, yet I continued when I normally would have given up and changed the subject. "I mostly do freelance stuff now, and ghost-writing sometimes."

"Ooh, ghost-writing. Spooooooky!" she raised her hands in the air and shook them back and forth in front of her face. I couldn't help but laugh at her. Even though she was mocking me it felt almost cathartic.

I came to the end of the rack of dresses and Cassandra wasn't too far behind me.

"None of these are really ... Oh. My God!" she said, her jaw opened wide. She had reached the end of the rack and was looking around the store when she had spotted it. She pushed her way past me and I followed, curious and eager to see just what had taken her breath away. On a raised pedestal not too far away there was a female mannequin wearing a strapless, tight blue sheath, with a large, beautiful blue ribbon on the side.

It looked incredible.

And expensive.

"This is perfect!" Cassandra said as she circled the mannequin, reaching out to touch the fabric. She petted it the same way that she had my hair when we first met and looked up longingly at it.

"That's a little bit ... fancy, for a casual dinner party, don't you think?" I asked. She continued to circle around the dress observing it from every angle.

"So, small confession," she said, taking a deep breath. "It's actually more of a semi-formal-slash-formal, large dinner gathering, with an emphasis on the formal ... But you still want to come, right? I mean, look at this dress—you'd get to wear this dress!"

I looked up at the dress, and then down to Cassandra. I didn't know what to think. Somehow this incredibly pushy, strange, amiable woman had managed to dredge me out of my normal routine and had me dress shopping to go to a rather important-sounding party in only a few days. She was asking me, still as a stranger, to wear something fairly revealing and be meet a bunch of her friends for the first time, all at an important dinner.

"Cassandra, this is a lot," I told her.

"Oh, don't worry—I'll buy you the dress!" she said as she finished her final lap around the pedestal.

"I—what? I meant everything that's happening ... you'd buy me that dress? Just like that?"

"Oh," she said again, sighing. "Okay, yes: it is a lot at once, in the span of a few hours—"

"It's been like, 30 minutes!" I corrected

"Okay, okay! Like, 30 minutes—but still: this can be so, so, so much fun!" She took a step towards me and put her hands on my shoulders and looked up at me with her big, brown eyes. "Please, Serena."

"I really don't—" I started, looking away from her.

"Okay—you don't have to say you'll come, but just try the dress on. It's so gorgeous and I think it would look so amazing on you. And if you try it on, I know—I just know you'll want to come!" Cassandra rushed off somewhere to ask for help before I could say no.

After she disappeared I looked back up to the dress. It was a very nice dress. I did the same laps that Cassandra had done examining the front and back of the dress. It was strapless and covered down to the mid-thighs. There was a light blue bow that matched the dress and cinched the waist and the fabric of the dress itself looked like nothing I had ever seen before. It was just a beautiful design, but I couldn't find a price tag anywhere on the dress.

I wouldn't be opposed to having the dress, but if anyone was going to buy it, it would be me. I didn't want to be indebted to someone I hardly even knew.

Before long Cassandra came back with another woman, carrying a protective sleeve that I could only assume held my dress.

"Wouldn't you like to know my size?" I asked.

"Size 2, right?" Cassandra asked with a smile. She took the dress from the woman and handed it to me. "Dressing rooms are this way, follow me!"

Dazed I followed her. It made me wonder just how transparent of a person I was. I always thought I was fairly introverted and that gave me an air of mystery, yet each time Cassandra looked at me and was able to tell me something about myself, it shocked me. Even though it was something as simple as a dress size, and millions of people who are in retail could probably just look at me and tell me my dress size—it unnerved me so much than she could. It made me feel as though every secret, every ounce of privacy I had cultivated over the years, was laid out plainly for her to see.

"You always look so shocked around me!" she said with a laugh as we arrived in front of the changing room stalls. There was another beautiful young woman standing guard around the changing rooms.

"Hey!" she said excitedly as we approached, giving a gentle hug to Cassandra. "I didn't expect to see you until the weekend, Cas!"

Cassandra smiled back. "Jen, this is Serena; Serena, Jen. Jen is a very good friend of mine," she explained as Jen headed towards one of the doors to unlock it for me. She opened the door and I saw not so much a dressing room, as a small living room. Unlike the cubicles of most department stores, it was a small room with a carpet, a large comfy leather chair in the center of the room, and a body-length mirror against the wall opposite the door. Although still a small room, it was incredibly well decorated considering its purpose was to change clothes in.

What surprised me most, though, was that I had been to La Fontaine's before and had seen their dressing rooms. They were the same as any other changing rooms in stores; small and cramped with utterly lifeless walls and a long thin mirror on the back of the door.

"Oh, you're just saying that because I put the best things aside for you," Jen said with a wink to me. "It's a beautiful dress, by the way."

I walked into the room with the dress in hand and turned to close the door, only Cassandra was right behind me and was nearly struck by the closing door. "Whoa!" she laughed, side-stepping it.

I looked back at her with a quizzical look.

She just shook her head as she finished closing the door for me. "You really need to stop being so confused by every little thing!" On the back of the door there was a place to hang up the dress so I did, as Cassandra dropped into the comfy chair in the middle of the room.

I unzipped the bag the dress was in and then stopped and looked at her. She gave me a "go on" gesture and I turned back to the dress, taking it out of the bag. Holding it in my hands it really did look amazing, and the texture of the fabric was somehow very soothing to touch. I hung it back up on the door and looked over at her.

"Can I ... change?" I asked with a nervous laugh. "Alone?"

"We're both girls; it's just like changing in front of your sister!" she told me.

"I don't have a sister," I said.

She stood up from the chair, shrugging her own coat off of her shoulders and came towards me. As she started walking, she began peeling away her scarf from her neck, and, instinctively, I took a step back. I don't know why, but something about her—the look in her eye maybe—scared me. As she came a few steps closer, her scarf dropped to the floor and I took another step backwards, hitting the door. I felt trapped. I could feel my breathing getting a little heavier as I stood there back against the wall. She kept advancing. When she reached me finally, her hands moved gracefully, slowly, to the buttons of my coat. One by one she started to undo them. "I'll show you," she spoke tenderly and softly. "It's nothing. We're both just girls, right?"

My breathing had become a little shallower and a little more ragged as she undid each button, the smell of her perfume once more wreaking havoc on my senses.

I looked to her eyes, and she held my gaze until the last button came undone. And then, gingerly, she slid the tips of her fingers under the opening of my coat, under my neck and above my breasts and pushed until her finger tips slipped over the tops of my shoulders. I lowered and straightened my arms, my coat crumpling into a pile on the floor.

As it came off, I looked away from her, feeling her hands moving down the sides of my arms. They moved slowly, but with purpose. Her fingers didn't tremble as she crossed the threshold between the fabric of my t-shirt and the bare flesh of my arms. Her hands left goose-bumps on my exposed skin as she reached the tips of my own fingers. Tracing a line from my fingers she moved up the outside of my thighs to my waist, delicately sliding her fingers under my t-shirt.

I let out a gasp and clenched my hands together at my sides. Her fingers moved their way from the bottom of my flat stomach, to my ribs. I was breathing heavily, and quickly, my eyes firmly shut. All I could feel was the light pressure of her finger tips on my ribs, pushing the fabric of my shirt up my body, exposing me in that room for only her to see. As she continued to climb, I tilted my head back and my arms, without asking them to do so, began to rise with her hands, helping to push the shirt right off my body.

When, at last, it too fell to the floor, I stood bristling and shaking with excitement and nerves. I opened my eyes, and stared at her. My arms were pressed up against the top of the door, with her hands gently holding me there. I could feel the cotton of her sweater against my exposed body, the warmth of her own skin; of her warm breath, settling just beneath my neck. She held me there, staring at me, and I at her, our gaze unbreakable.

And then surely—as surely I felt the heat of her body against mine—I felt her hands begin to slide down my arms, my shoulders. I felt her palms pass over my breasts, and then down to my waist. She unhooked the button on my pants. As her fingers briefly touched my waistline my hips rose to meet hers, bringing our bodies once more together. My hands, still on the wall above my head, clenched as I felt the pants slacken around my waist and drop to my shins.

I stood, all but naked in front of her trembling.

Without words she turned around, her body still pressed against mine, our hips still wedged together. I could feel her hair pressed against my body, her pelvis pushing back hard, putting pressure on my body. She raised her arms above her head, slowly crossing them in front of my face and began to pull my arms down to her own body. I looked ahead of me. In the mirror mounted on the opposite wall I could see her front, her eyes closed as she touched my hands to the bottom of her sweater.

Without help I began to raise it on my own, my own hands taking their turn with her body, moving up the sides of her body until her sweater too crumpled to the floor beside us. This time my hands returned hungrily to her body, and I was the one who could not stop watching. She kept her eyes closed as I touched my hands to her pants. I undid them quickly; much quicker than I intended to.

"See," she whispered turning around to face me. She brought her lips nearer to mine than they'd ever been. "It's not so bad."

I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as she hung there in front of me. I was waiting for her to do something; to do anything. Without moving her head, she reached around my back and unfastened my bra. "We're both just girls," she repeated as her fingers hooked under the shoulder straps of my bra, bringing them down the sides of my arms. She took the bra off of me and let it fall beside us and then reached around her own back and did the same, dropping it on the floor beside mine.

She wrapped her arms around my neck, her lips moving once again towards my face, though she made no further move. My skin felt like it was blistering with anticipation, this strange body against mine; the body of another woman. She pressed down on the heel of each of her boots, her arms resting on my shoulders for balance as she did.

"Just girls," she said again, her hands running down my chest all the way to my hips. She held tightly there, her fingers pressed into my skin as she stepped out of her boots, and kicked them away from us. She took a small step back, but kept her fingers pressed against my hips, and bent over. Running her fingers down the sides of my legs until she reached my knees, and then she began to step out of her pants. The touch of her fingers over my knees tickled me, sending an electric shock of pleasure through my body.

Once her pants were off she stepped out of them and moved them away with the tip of her foot. Her fingers found their way back to my hips. Our eyes met again.

Biting her lip, she knelt down in front of me. Dropping to her knees, she helped me out of my own pants, which I stepped out of and she tossed aside. As she knelt there, I reached forward with my own hand to touch her hair. My arm trembled as I did, and my hips thrust towards her as I made contact. My hips were so near her face that I could feel her warm breath through the thin panties I had on.

I gasped, my eyes closed; my head tilting back in anticipation of something more.

But nothing happened. As the seconds crawled by, I felt her fingers return to my hips as she raised herself. I could feel her chest gently rub against the swelling of my mound as she rose her body up. I felt her finger brush away a strand of hair from my face and I once more opened my eyes to her.

"Let's get you into that dress," she said. Cassandra moved away from me, back to the leather chair in the center of the room. I stood there for a moment, stilly. My hips craned out from the wall, searching for something that wasn't there. I was completely exposed, except for the turquoise panties I still wore.

With a deep, cleansing breath, I turned around to the dress and pulled it from its hanger. As I did so, I heard the scraping of the chair as she moved it, turning it to face me at the door. She watched me as I slipped the dress on my body. She touched a finger to her lips as I pulled the dress up, my breasts jiggling in the act. Her legs spread wide as she watched me, and she leaned back in the chair, her other hand resting on the inside of her thigh.

As I slipped the dress fully on to my body, I tucked my long hair to the side and looked at her. Hoarsely I spoke, "How does it look?"

"Amazing," she said.

I could see my own reflection in the mirror across the room and it did look very good on me. It felt as though it fit me better than it had the mannequin on display, something I'd never experienced before. I smoothed the sides of my dress out with my hands and took several long strides towards the mirror. I passed Cassandra on my way, watching her as intently as she watched me. I swallowed hard as I passed her. I wasn't sure what I wanted to happen, but I wanted something to happen as I neared her.

Standing in front of the mirror she approached me from behind. In the mirror I could see her eyes above my shoulder looking back at me. I held my hands together in front of me. "You can't not come," she whispered into my ear. "Look at how ... radiant you are."

I straightened my neck and body as much as I could. I hadn't even thought about the party in so long. I nodded my head. "Okay, I'll do it."

She smiled and turned her head to mine. I did the same, our lips barely an inch away yet again. "I told you that you would," she teased. "Thank you," she said, and pressed her lips ever so softly against mine. The meeting felt like a crushing wave on my body. I felt numb and unable to move. Effortlessly my lips pressed back against hers, matching the soft intensity of her kiss.

And then she broke away and moved to collect her clothes and redress. Even after she broke the kiss, I stayed still, my head turned to where hers had been, my eyes fixed on where she had been.

I'm not gay, and I had no idea what I was doing then, with someone I hardly even knew—and yet, somehow, I felt immutably close to, as though I'd known her my entire life and as though she knew every single dark secret I had, and every dark impulse I had ever entertained on the darkest of nights.

And in that moment, my impulses were ravenous and unfed. All that I desired was her body.

But as I stood there, thinking to myself, she collected her clothes and redressed as though nothing had happened, as though this moment had been nothing to either one of us. I watched her in the mirror, pretending to be looking at myself. She walked, like a dancer, with graceful strides; the muscles of her legs were taut and throbbed with each step.

I refocused on the dress I was wearing, turned and craned my neck to see how the back of my body looked. It did fit me amazingly. It hugged my curves. Not once did I find myself needing to adjust the dress to keep it from falling down.

It was as though it had been made just for me, perfectly synced to my every measurement, as though I was Cinderella herself.