Playing Dress-Up, part 1 [fiction]

The hand-written note, in purple ink on heavy woven paper, sat on my bureau and silently taunted me. Seeing the piece of paper, folded in half and held shut with a silver sticker, tucked beneath the handle of the shower when I returned home that afternoon had sent a thrill shimmering through my chest. I never knew what those pretty papers were going to contain. They were rare, and I treasured them. The few I had received were socked carefully away in a drawer, a collection of triggers for some of my most interesting memories.

Today's note was an order, and immediately upon reading it, my brain had erased my plans for the night without waiting for my explicit permission.

I never would have brought a postal scale into my bedroom unless I developed some plan to mail my mattress, but his instructions had been clear: I was to wear no more than four ounces of clothing, and a pair of heels at least five inches high.

The shoes were easy. Most of my favorite fancy shoes were above that height. I grabbed my black suede ankle boots with the stilettos and went back to the bed, where the hard decisions remained strewn across the covers in disarray.

I couldn't find a bra under an ounce and a half, so that was out. Dressing myself had suddenly become a game of surface area versus heft, and density was the enemy. I had to be decent enough to go out in public for at least a little while, possibly for the whole night. I had no idea how much time would be spent where, so there were no safe assumptions.

There could be no socks or tights. I wondered if jewelry was considered "clothing" for this purpose, and decided that it wasn't. I had enough piercings that were made of steel and difficult to remove that it wouldn't have been fair to count them; it likely would have left me naked.

Of course, that probably meant he was going to do exactly that: work out the weight of my jewelry somehow and tell me I had disobeyed his order. But punishment was preferable to re-piercing several parts of my body.

Pawing through my underwear drawer, I chose the smallest G-string I could find. It was black lycra with five tiny rhinestones glittering on the top edge. Sitting innocently on the scale, it left me three and a half ounces of clothing to dress the rest of me. I bit my lip and looked around the room, hoping some object would pop into my sight and bring with it a brilliant idea, the solution so obvious and so clever I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it immediately.

Curtains, towels, and a bedspread, however, just made the task seem more hopeless. Fabric, I was quickly learning, was heavy. At least when seen as a step to my strange goal.

Giving up for the moment, I stepped to the mirror and started applying makeup. A base coat to even out my skin was followed by some dark purple eye shadow and then some bright silver. I topped it with kohl-black eyeliner, then accented the corners with a touch of glitter.

Pulling back for a moment and shaking my hair down like a model readying for a photo shoot, I looked at my reflection sideways, then picked up the brush and dragged the purple color farther out from the corners of my eyes. Then I grabbed white eyeliner and painted a tiny star under my left eyebrow.

Pouting at myself like a small girl denied a cookie, I painted black liner around my lips, taking care to keep the lines clean, then added purple lipstick inside it. Some light touches with a brush blended the black into the purple, turning the uneven blotches of color into a twilight fade that accented my eyes. It occurred to me then that my white star-shaped contact lenses would have been ideal with this makeup, but it was too late to put them in; the tears created would streak my perfect paint job and force me to do it again. It wouldn't be as good the second time.

And I'd be late. Which I almost was already.

Hurrying now, I yanked open all the drawers in my dresser and the door to my closet, scanning frantically for something made of nothing. I thought of tulle, of chiffon, and my mind went to my box of costumes. There in the mystery chest I could find a ballet tutu, a pair of wings, a pair of shiny strapless dresses, many things with garters, and lots of lace.

The strapless dresses were too heavy, by such a tiny margin that I wondered if it could be coincidence. Might he have gone through my clothes already, knowing what I would do when given this assignment, and deliberately eliminated these as a possibility? They would have been too easy a solution, possibly one that he would find boring.

I shook my head. It wasn't worth worrying about.

Upended in mid-air and shaken with frantic vigor, the box produced a shiny cascade of materials and shapes, some objects that clattered on the floor and some that floated away as they fell or slid sinuously from the top of the pile into the dusty foothills below my bureau. Remaining at the peak of the small mountain was a lavender nightie made of something like stretchy tulle. Spaghetti straps held it up and the bottom had a ruffle that hung just even with my cheeks, if I didn't walk. The top edge was ribboned with little cuts that came dangerously low when I put it on. If I moved the wrong way, sometimes the fabric would grab my nipples and forcibly show them off. Even when it covered everything that I thought it should, nothing was hidden; the fabric was so transparent that it barely even blurred my outlines.

It weighed three ounces. I saw no choice but to put it on.

I couldn't leave the house like this. It wouldn't be legal, and I wasn't going to risk getting arrested, at least not for my clothing or lack thereof. If I was going to tempt the law, it would be a little later in the evening's proceedings.

Half an ounce remained in my allowance. Even my lightest bra didn't fit that bill. I nudged the pile of costumes with my toe, hoping for inspiration, and there it was - a tassel peeked out from under the edge of a fairy wing, and I had my answer.

Five minutes with scissors, glue, and an old black t-shirt made me the proud creator of a pair of five-pointed stars, about three inches on a side. I found some double-stick tape in my desk drawer and applied it to the stars, and the stars to my nipples. They barely covered my areolas, and I thought that a cop might have something to say to me about the intentions I demonstrated by going outside in this, but technically I couldn't be arrested for nudity.

It was time. I ran a brush through my hair, grateful for its length and wishing it were even longer - perhaps down to my knees - so I could appear reasonably clothed from at least one direction.

My heels clacked loudly on the stairs as I went down them. I slung my purse over my shoulder, rifled habitually through all the pockets to make sure I hadn't removed the essentials in a moment of absent-minded inspiration, and opened the front door. I locked it behind me, tucked the key away, took a deep breath, and stepped off the porch onto the sidewalk. There I waited.