Look at Me!

Shirley put a finger on Constance’s knee. ‘Heels are very powerful. A woman can be old and fat and ugly but if her heels are high enough, men will still look at her that way.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘I kid you not.’

The shoes that Percy brought for Shirley to try had heels as thin and cruel as nails. The soles were like paper. The uppers were interlocking teardrops, one gold, one silver, and with gold and silver cord ankle straps.

‘Are those strong enough to walk in?’ Constance asked.

Percy’s eyebrow lifted. ‘If you’re looking for “sturdy”, you should try army boots,’ he sneered.

Shirley tapped Constance’s wrist. ‘Apart from a little dancing, I won’t be on my feet much in these. That’s the whole point.’

Constance thought for a moment, then blushed.

Percy squatted at Shirley’s feet. He lifted her left foot almost reverently, slipped her shoe off and eased a sandal on. One hand supported her arch; the other adjusted the ankle strap. Each movement was a subtle caress. When he’d repeated his actions with her other foot, he lifted them both to plant a pair of gentle kisses on the taut bows of her insteps.

Constance looked away and then back. It felt as if she was spying on lovers in an intimate moment. But she’d thought he was one of those ‘gays’. It was very confusing.

Shirley told Percy, ‘These are perfect. Your taste is exquisite, as usual. Now see what you can find for my friend, will you?’

Constance gasped, ‘What?’

‘You’re transforming yourself, aren’t you? A butterfly emerging from her chrysalis? Let’s move the process along, shall we?’

‘I didn’t say anything about …’

‘You didn’t have to. One day you’re a frump, the next day you look kind of pretty, and you aren’t wearing a bra. Draw a line from one to the other, and what do we have?’

Constance folded a protective arm across her chest. ‘What?’

‘Eventually, a very cute little sexpot, that’s what.’

‘I don’t know …’

‘I do.’ Shirley turned to Percy. ‘Conservative, for this time, dearest. Black, I think, and three inches?’

‘Does she have her learner’s permit?’

‘Percy!’

‘Sorry.’ He scuttled back into the stacks. He returned with a shoebox. ‘Plain black pumps. What could be more conservative?’

Shirley told him, ‘Help the girl try them on, then.’

‘Love to, but …’ His disdainful look at Constance’s scuffed loafers spoke volumes.

She kicked them off.

‘Thanks, Shirley’s friend. It’s not that those dreadful things are actually contagious, but …’

‘You wouldn’t want to soil your hands on them,’ Constance finished for him.

He squatted. From down there, he might be able to look up her skirt. Constance clamped her knees together but he didn’t so much as glance upwards. His eyes were on her feet.

‘What cute little piggies,’ he said. ‘Poor things.’ He looked up into Constance’s eyes. ‘They deserve better of you, you know,’ he accused.

‘Sorry.’

‘There, there,’ he told her toes. ‘Percy will dress you up nicely. I’ll be right back.’ He took tissue paper from the shoebox and used it to pick Constance’s loafers up and carry them away. There was the sound of something being dropped into a waste bin before he returned.

Shirley whispered, ‘I know he’s a bit eccentric, but he does know his shoes.’

Constance replied, ‘I guess I have the choice of either buying a new pair or going back to the office in my stocking feet.’ She grinned to show that she wasn’t really upset. In fact, she was quite enjoying the strange man. She’d never before bought clothes from anyone who actually cared what she bought.

Percy returned and put the pumps onto Constance’s feet with as much tender care as if he’d been wrapping Fabergé eggs. As his fingertips slid across the sensitive skin under her arches, she felt an answering subtle twitch of the tendons that run beside the hollows high on the insides of her thighs. The vamps were cut just low enough to expose half-inches of toe cleavage.

‘Walk, please,’ he announced.

Would she stumble and disgrace herself?

Shirley advised, ‘Get your centre of gravity above the balls of your feet. When you walk, your toes go down first. Remember, one foot in front of the other.’

‘You can do it,’ Percy encouraged.

It was like having a cheering squad boosting her. Constance set her feet firmly, shifted forward and concentrated on the sensations her legs’ muscles were feeling. It felt good – an elegant tension that rippled up her limbs.

And she was erect.

Constance took a short step, then another. Emboldened, she made the next one longer and stumbled but caught herself.

‘You’re doing fine,’ Shirley told her.

‘And now you are become a veritable swan!’ Percy exclaimed. ‘Look at what those shoes have done to your legs in the mirror. Pull your skirt up a tiny bit, there’s a good girl.’

Blushing with pleasure, Constance pinched the fabric just above her knees and lifted her skirt’s hem a few inches. In the mirror, her ankles had become more slender, her calves fuller. There were dimples in her knees and her thighs looked shapelier than she’d imagined them to be – not that she’d ever given much thought to what her thighs looked like.

‘Oh!’ she said. In a rush, she added, ‘Perhaps I’ll take two pairs like these.’

‘No,’ Percy told her. ‘That’d be a waste. Come back in another week and we’ll try you in three and a half or even four inches. You’ll take to wearing real heels in no time, I promise. You’re a natural.’

‘But she’ll take three pairs of stay-up stockings,’ Shirley said. ‘Would you believe that she wears’ – her voice dropped to a whisper – ‘pantyhose.’

‘Of course I noticed. I just didn’t want to embarrass her by mentioning it.’

As Percy wrapped, Shirley gave Connie a quick lecture on how to sit to take advantage of her new look – ankles crossed neatly to the side, so demure, so enticing.

On the way back to the office, Constance got just as much passing masculine attention as Shirley did. It felt a bit like the time she’d got into her dad’s hard cider, thinking it was just spicy apple juice.

She stopped by the ladies’ room and popped another button at her throat. Jeff was way overdue to visit. Before they’d broken up, he’d paused at her desk at least once every other day. She couldn’t wait to see how he reacted to the new Constance but she imagined he’d be stunned, then contrite, then desperate to get her alone to make love. When he did, she’d leave the lights on. Ha! What he’d see would devastate him, and in a good way.

And she’d see him. She’d see Jeff’s naked body. How did she feel about that?

Jeff hadn’t passed by her cubicle that day, not once. Still, he had eight floors of PCs to look after. Perhaps he was very busy. Perhaps he’d simply given up on her. She had to face that possibility. What if Jeff took up with Shirley?

Constance had a quick flash of her ex entwined with her new best friend, two lithe and lovely young bodies, undulating urgently.

No.

She hit Control 5 on her keyboard and brought the Andrew’s Aircraft queue up. The screen was a bit misty but then she blinked and it cleared.

Chapter Four

Constance pulled her cotton nightdress over her head and down as far as her hips. She paused. Why did she have to wear that ugly old thing? Modesty? Hadn’t she shed that? She yanked the offending garment up and off, tossed it into a corner, scurried into bed and slid deep under the covers.

Why the rush? So she wouldn’t see herself bare? Was that how it was going to be? A constant battle between her newfound pride in her body and all those sad years of puritanical conditioning? She was not ashamed of looking at her own body, and she would prove it.

She always had a penlight under her pillow, just in case she had to get up in the night. Constance snuggled down with her knees up, making a tent out of her bedclothes, and turned the light on. The bulb was actinic, and gave a blue-tinted light that washed the colour of her skin out. The pinkness had disappeared, leaving her very white. It made her breasts look as if they had been sculpted out of pure snow. She cupped her left breast. It was soft but resilient, and very warm, almost feverish. Her nipple wasn’t soft, though. It was quite hard. When she squeezed it between two fingers, it felt like rubber. A harder pinch made her gasp. A little tug drew pangs of pleasure from deep inside.

Jeff would have killed to watch her play with herself. He’d asked her for that but of course she couldn’t do it for him, not back then. Now?

Even stimulated, her nipple was still snow-white in the flashlight’s light. Somehow, it looked a bit evil – like the skin of a girl vampire in a movie.

She’d noticed that effect long before, though not in an appreciative way. She and her cousin Sarah had told each other ghost stories by the light of that bulb, shining it up under their chins to make themselves look scary. Once, Constance remembered, Sarah had put the bulb inside her mouth so that the light showed through her cheeks.

There was a thought. What would it look like glowing through the skin of her …?

Constance tucked her pillow up to elevate her head. Her knees came up higher and spread wide. Two very decadent fingers parted the lips of her sex. The lens of her penlight slipped in easily, as if she’d been lubricating. Perhaps she had. She pinched her lips closed just below the lens.

How pretty it looked!

Her skin was glowing from within her body, glowing pink now, not white. Her flesh must have filtered the ultra-violet out. She moved the light. The glow followed suit. She pushed it deeper. The glow faded, then brightened as she pulled it back. And faded. And brightened. And … and … and …

Look at me, Jeff! Watch me fuck myself with a penlight! Look at me. I’m going to get there. I am. I am. I’m so close … I’m …

Oh! Oh!

That’d been nice. It wasn’t quite like when Jeff had done it to her with his fingers, cock or tongue, but it was still very pleasant. That was an interesting lesson. While she waited to get back with Jeff there were ways she could cope with her growing need. She’d known that some girls got themselves off with their fingers, of course, and she’d try that, now that she was bad, like other girls, but she’d never considered using things.

Wouldn’t Jeff be surprised when she let him watch as she diddled herself with a penlight!

Chapter Five

For the fourth time that Saturday morning, Shirley shook her head and told Constance, ‘I don’t think so.’

Constance pouted. ‘Why not? Doesn’t it look good on me?’

‘It looks great. Very sexy.’

‘Then?’ Constance checked herself in the boutique’s mirror. She’d never gone for a ‘tailored’ look before but it certainly worked for her. The minute she’d seen the trim little black-with-white-pinstripes suit in the window she’d known she had to have it.

‘The skirt, for a start,’ Shirley told her. ‘It only just covers the tops of your stockings, and then there’s a slit another three inches higher. The fit, for another thing. It really emphasises your shape.’

‘So?’

‘It looks like what it is, Connie, a whore’s version of a business suit. It’s “business” all right, but not the sort of business we’re in.’ She paused, looking thoughtful. ‘Connie, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.’

‘About what?’

‘You know I support you coming out of your shell, a hundred per cent. You’ve transformed yourself and I’m proud of you.’

‘With your help.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe too much of my help.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You don’t go out at night, not to clubs or the like, and the sorts of things you’ve been buying lately are designed for night-time wear. They might be a bit too sexy even for singles bars, unless you want to give people the wrong idea.’ She bit her lower lip. ‘What I’m saying is, there’s talk around the office. You might have crossed the line in some people’s eyes.’

‘Crossed what line?’

‘The one between “classy-but-sexy” and “scorching”. Not that you look cheap, far from it. You look great – great enough that when you go to the water cooler, every man on our floor suddenly gets thirsty. How many of them have asked you out?’

‘A few,’ Constance confessed.

‘But you’ve turned them all down? If you went on dates to clubs you’d have a chance to show off all you wanted.’

‘I don’t know if I’m ready for clubs and dates yet.’

‘Still carrying a torch for Jeff?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Then?’

‘It’s hard to explain.’

‘You want the men to look but not touch, is that it?’

‘Shirley, the old me, she isn’t exactly dead yet. There’s still a bit of a puritan inside me. The way I am now, well, I could pull back if I had to, retreat into who I used to be, dressed the way I used to dress. On the other hand, if I got into a relationship the way I am now, that’d make the new me the real me and bury the old me for ever. I’d be burning my bridges. Does that make sense?’

‘Do I understand your words? Yes. Do those words make sense? No.’

‘Well, I’m buying this suit, anyway.’

‘But not to wear for the office, please?’

‘OK.’

‘Connie, you know what you need, apart from getting fucked good and hard and often?’

‘No, what do I need?’

‘To give the new Connie a test-run. See if you like her well enough to live with her, and without the old you.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Find yourself a place to go where no one knows who you used to be. Be your new self there, complete with steamy relationships, if the right guys come along. Then, if it doesn’t work out for you, you can retreat back here, where I’ll be waiting to help keep you on an even keel.’

‘That sounds complicated.’

‘Nonsense! Next long weekend, take a mini-vacation somewhere where there’s lots of action. That might be all you need to sort yourself out.’

‘What if I fall for some guy who lives a hundred miles away?’

‘That’s something we’ll just have to deal with if and when it happens. One problem at a time, please, but if it does happen, ask him if he’s got a friend for me, right?’

* * *

On the following Monday morning, Constance got a call from Mrs Carey in HR. ‘Connie, I’m making up the vacation schedules.’

‘Yes?’

‘You didn’t take a single day last year, nor the year before.’

‘So?’

‘You’ll have accumulated eight weeks, come June the fifteenth.’

‘Eight weeks?’

‘You’re entitled. If you decided to take it all at once, it’d really make things difficult for me.’

‘Sorry about that.’

‘So, you have to use some of it up, soon, like two weeks starting almost immediately.’

‘I do?’

‘I’m telling you that you have to take time off, and you’re upset?’

‘No, sorry.’

‘Good, then I’ll pencil you in to be off for two weeks, starting Monday next, right?’

‘Oh.’ Was it fate? Two whole weeks, in another place, a place where no one knew her? That was exactly the medicine that Shirley had prescribed, except for the size of the dose.

Constance picked up the phone and got an outside line. Forty minutes later, she was booked for two weeks at Gran Playa Aphrodite, an all-inclusive, adults-only resort on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. Now she’d have to do some serious shopping. The one swimsuit she owned had a Peter Pan collar, legs and sleeves. It had just been worn for her ‘girls only’ segregated swimming lessons. Somehow, she didn’t think it’d go down so well in the Caribbean, particularly the pattern of yellow duckies.

Chapter Six

When she alighted from her plane it was dark out. The air was as warm as fresh-squeezed milk. The airport was all grass huts and exotic plants, though the huts had been built out of two-foot-thick timbers that were held together by massive steel bolts.

A trio of pretty girls in flowery dresses greeted the passengers with weary ‘Ola’s and a few desultory dance steps. Well, it was eleven at night. There’d been headwinds. They were three hours late. The travellers were whisked through customs and into an open area that had buses parked around its perimeter. Hers was clearly labelled. Just twenty minutes after she’d landed, her bus was tunnelling its way between dark green walls of dense foliage. Constance caught glimpses of distant gas stations and fizzing neon signs but for most of the following hour it was just gigantic leaves brushing at the sides and roof of the bus and sharp turns taken too quickly. Then there was an open gateway that would have accommodated King Kong, and she was there, at the resort, in the place where she’d be free to explore her own immodesty to her heart’s content – but not until after a good night’s sleep and a long hot shower.

Once she’d booked in, a good-looking man in black short-shorts and a white T-shirt loaded her luggage onto a golf cart and whisked her along a many-curved driveway to her room on the ground floor of a three-storey modern pink-brick building. Constance tried to listen while he explained the mysteries of the air conditioning and so on to her. By the time he was done, she only had the energy to wash quickly and crawl into bed stark naked, for just the second time in her young life.

Constance was woken by happy squeals and splashes. The dappling of light on her ceiling told her there was brilliant sunshine and moving waves just a few feet beyond her gauze-draped French windows.

It was all waiting for her – people with admiring lascivious eyes – perhaps romance – certainly some sort of adventure.

And she was terrified.

Of course, she didn’t have to expose herself to risk and potentially to shame. The room had everything: a lovely onyx-tiled bathroom, a king-sized bed (for one?), a minibar and room service. There were likely to be some English-language programmes available on the 50-inch flat-screen TV. If she decided to chicken out, she could stay in her room for her two weeks, resting, just being idle. If courage came to her tomorrow, she could venture out then. If she never summoned the nerve, well, no one would know or care that she’d been a coward. She could lie to Shirley, make up tales of all sorts of wild adventures.

And her mother would have won. That was a sickening thought.

One step at a time, she told herself. Just do what comes naturally first, then see where that leads. Don’t think ahead. Don’t look behind. It was still morning, just. In the morning, she always got up and had a shower. So that’s where she’d start.

Constance hadn’t noticed it the night before but the air in the bathroom was scented. The shower itself was adjustable in a dozen different ways. She luxuriated, which isn’t the same as procrastinating. When she washed her intimate parts, Constance made a conscious effort not to avert her eyes.

As she stepped out, she remembered that the resort had hung a fluffy white robe on the bathroom door for her, on the outside. She could always wrap herself in a bath towel, but the robe was only a door away. She opened it.

‘So sorry, Miss. Housekeeping. You didn’t hear me?’

Constance reached to snatch the robe from its hook but the maid beat her to it and held it out to help her on with. Hoping that her flush from the hot water concealed her blushes, Constance braced herself and fumbled for the sleeves. There was no way for the girl to know that this was the first time since her adolescence that another human being had seen her stark naked.

‘Thank you!’

‘You very pretty.’ There was admiration in the young woman’s eyes, perhaps more.

‘Thanks for that, as well. You’re very – kind.’ She couldn’t very well return the compliment. The girl was quite plain and very thin. She had virtually no bust, but her nipples were very prominent under her clinging white T-shirt. Perhaps Constance should compliment her on them? She had to suppress a giggle at her own thought.

‘Anything you need, Miss?’

‘No, thank you. I’m Connie. You?’

‘Maria.’

‘Thank you, Maria.’

‘See?’ Maria pointed to a heart-shaped do-not-disturb sign lying on the credenza. ‘For when …’

‘Thank you.’

‘No problem, Miss Connie.’

‘Just Connie.’

Constance’s tummy rumbled, making her decision about what to do next for her.

For her first foray into the tropical world, Constance chose a beige playsuit. The fitted top had cap-sleeves and came down to about three inches below her bust. The shorts had four-inch legs and rose to a bare inch above her navel. She’d be exposing five or so daring inches of her bare midriff. Might as well jump right in!

There was a ‘train station’ grass hut about fifty feet from her building’s front door. There was a train already waiting. It consisted of an oversized golf-cart and a string of half a dozen two- and four-seater carriages with open sides and a brilliant yellow canvas roof.

The uniformed girl driver greeted Connie with ‘Ola’ and pulled away as soon as she was on board. Connie was the only passenger apart from a couple in the last carriage who were far too wrapped up in each other’s limbs to be aware that Connie had got on. Even from the far end of the train, she could hear the noises their voracious mouths were making. She focused on the scenery ahead but that didn’t block out the wet sounds. Connie squirmed, not quite sure of how she felt about the public display of sexuality.

The buffet building had windows that were three floors high. A dark Hispanic man was replacing a display menu. A sign announced, ‘Cover-up Zone’.

Oh hell! Was she underdressed?

Connie asked the man, ‘Excuse me?’ She made a gesture at her own outfit. ‘Am I covered up enough?’

A slow grin spread across his face. ‘No problem there, Miss. You plenty covered.’

That was a relief. She went into the dim room and was led to a table for two near the perimeter of the room, facing inwards. There was only a scattering of late breakfasters or early lunch patrons. Although the hot breakfast bar looked as if it was in the process of closing down, a cheerful server helped her heap a plate with scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages and home fries, plus a toasted bagel with butter and raspberry jam on the side. Constance was hungry.

She was halfway through her feast when a woman passed her on the way to the dessert station. The newcomer’s raffia wedges clattered on the tile floor. Constance looked up. The woman’s top was a poncho-style square of marmalade-coloured gauze. From the back, it was hard to see if she wore anything else. If she had the bottom half of a swimsuit on, there had to be very little of it. Constance could see every twitch of the woman’s lean hips through it. Fascinated, she watched as the woman served herself and turned back. Yes, there was a minute triangle of orange fabric covering her pubic mound. No, she had no bra on. The brown discs of her large nipples were plain to see.

The woman twinkled her fingertips at Constance and mouthed, ‘Ola!’

Constance swallowed before returning the greeting.

A movement off to her left caught Connie’s eye. A woman, half of a couple, had moved her leg and her skirt had parted up a slit that reached as far as her waist.

And this was a Cover-up Zone? It was very – confusing. The full implications of ‘adults-only resort’ crashed into Connie’s mind. It certainly didn’t just mean ‘no children’. She’d expected to come to a resort filled with honeymooners, retired couples and young singles, innocently or romantically disporting themselves in the sun and sea. She’d thought that her two-piece midriff-baring outfits and what she’d considered outrageously short skirts could make her the centre of attraction. If she met the right man, or even men, she’d been prepared to go beyond flirtation, perhaps. Whatever, she had anticipated being among the least modest of the vacationers …