by Jamie Knight
“Why? So, I can see just how abnormally shaped I really am, the tall freak of nature in the mirror, and how good I will never look in anything?” His voice whines and stretches, like it’s been scraped against the razor edge of a knife. “How much I can’t afford shit?”
Now it’s my turn to fight with tears — with a scratch and burn in my throat that grows by the second.
“No,” I say, almost screaming it. “No, that’s not why I want you to come inside. I want to get your measurements, and I want to get you something nice, even if they don’t have everything that’s in their catalog.”
Tommy’s comment about not being able to afford things has just hit me and buried itself into my brain.
“Wait. What do you mean ‘can’t afford’ things?”
Tommy clams up.
“Nothing.”
I’m definitely sure it’s not nothing, but I’m not going to get into it with him right now. If I did, he’d just close up even more. He’d give me even more of a chilly reception that he already has, and I don’t want that.
“And you’re not buying me those suits,” he says, “I let you buy the pants, but the suits are not happening. I’d rather go naked.”
I grab him by his shirt and whisper, “I’ll strip you down right here and give you a good fucking if you keep that up that attitude, Tommy.”
I’m surprised by my boldness, but Tommy isn’t. He just stares down at me, looking like an incubus — a devil of sex and mischief, more than ready to test my threat.
“You really think you have it in you to boss me around like that, pet?”
The way he asks this, it makes me shiver. It makes my knees a little weak, and my pussy hot and tingly. I don’t answer immediately.
“Well? Do you?”
I step away from him, getting control of myself — just before I melt into his arms.
“No, sir,” I answer, “but I do need your measurements. You can either give them to me, or I can get them some other way.”
Tommy blushes here, but quickly covers it up with what I assume is an attempt at toughness. He tries to look like he’s the boss of me.
“I see,” he says, still sounding angry, but not unreachable. Something I’m grateful for since I know this must be hard for him, this whole situation, even though I never intended for it to make him even more self-conscious. “Well, then, I suppose, since you are determined to give me this makeover, I have no choice. I have to provide you with my measurements.”
Here, I’m expecting him to just rattle off some numbers, and expect me to take them back into the shop with me, but that’s not what I get. I get his hand in mine and a willingness to go back inside.
Chapter Forty-Two - Tommy
On our way back into the suit shop, I’m feeling embarrassed but oddly happy.
Sure, I’m still angry that I don’t have as many options for clothing as more normally-sized people; I’m still more than a little cranky at that store clerk for trying to pretend that he wasn’t trying to insinuate that I am abnormally sized, but Melissa — the fact that she would come out of the store, give me a little piece of her mind, threatening to give me a good fucking for my attitude and get my measurements — that has me feeling warm and happy.
And horny, despite the circumstances.
Despite the way I have been acting and feeling about my lack of money, I’m grateful for Melissa. For her stubborn insistence that I’m handsome and worthy of time and attention. Without that, I’d just be going to the same dumpy thrift stores for my secondhand suits.
As Melissa and I start the process of letting the store clerk measure me — first around my shoulders and neck — I feel my cock stiffening and hardening, at just the thought of some of her recent threats of pleasure.
By the way Melissa’s fidgeting off in the corner, she must be feeling similarly. It’s worse for me, though, as I’m about to have another man down in that region, trying to measure me. While he’s trying to measure my waist, he might just end up measuring my shaft.
So, I spend the next couple of minutes trying to sober myself up and trying to think of something other than Melissa or what it would really be like if she decided to go through with punishing me for my snotty, pissy behavior.
But by trying not to think about it, and I’m thinking about it more. To the point where I can see and feel how it would be to have her riding me while sitting on the bench, I was just on in front of the fountain, in front of all the passersby.
She would tell me what a bad, ungrateful little boy I’m being on the date she has with me, and how much I need to be taught a lesson — taught how to behave. Under this, I feel my dick go straighter and stiffer. More blood and heat starts to course through it, and that’s just when the store clerk is about to bring his tape measure to my waist.
I tell the clerk my measurements, quickly, so that he doesn’t have to go to the trouble.
Surprised, the store clerk snaps away his measuring tape and jots down those notes.
“I’ll be damned,” he says. “The suits your girlfriend over there picked out for you pretty much fit you. Only a little bit of alteration is needed.”
He backs away from the little stage I’ve been standing on in front of the mirror. My one and only shopping bag sits nearby, a small trophy.
“If you’d like, I can let you try them on before your girlfriend pays for them.”
Girlfriend?
Pays for them?
My head snaps in Melissa’s direction.
She just waves at me sweetly and gives me a smile to match.
No! She already paid for a piece of clothing I didn’t want her to bother with! And now she’s paying for more?
As if Melissa can read my panicked thoughts, she answers, “You stormed out of here, so I said I would pay for the suits if they fit you, honey.”
She gives me another smile. This one is just as coy as it is mischievous.
“Go ahead. Try them on. I’m anxious to see how sexy and business-minded you look, Tommy.”
With that, I’m defeated. I agree to try the suits on. Not that I have much choice in the matter now anyway, but despite the aura of angst I’m giving out right now, I’m actually excited to see the results. Now that I’m not feeling as self-conscious, I’m actually looking forward to seeing how some of those suits my look on me.
And, as I find out a few minutes later, it’s worth the wait.
The man in the mirror staring back at me is someone I definitely don’t recognize. He’s handsome, magnetic, and intelligent-looking — in an intuitive, skilled way like I’ve learned and experienced a lot. I look like I have access to some secret of the universe.
That’s how the suits make me feel. Like I’ve not just the boss, but that I’m in control. I’m a force to be reckoned with.
The suits fit me snugly, but unlike my frumpy, bargain-bin one, this one actually draws less attention to my thicker places, and instead, I look like I’ve been sculpted this way. I look like I’ve been made by the hand of an artist to be bigger, taller, broader shouldered, not just sloppily put together with extra clay — like my dad used to say.
While my face is as big as it’s always been, it looks sharper and more sculpted than it’s ever looked. My lips and eyes look painted on with the finest brush, shaded, and given depth by a masterful, sensing hand.
And the color of the suits, one navy and white, and the other black and a little blue, they make me look more alive and more colorful, not so stressed and doughy. Something I’m not used to seeing in myself, no matter what I wear and no matter what kind of day it’s been.
For the first time in my life, I actually think I look handsome. People have told me I am, in the past, but I’ve never believed it until now.
I look like the kind of guy I would want to be. I look like a man with someplace to be other than his basement bedroom. I actually look like the lawyer I’ve always wanted to become.
I put a hand u
p to my face, trying to understand what I am seeing.
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” I stamp my feet, out of anxiety, happiness and something I can’t quite describe.
“Oh, my God! Is that really me? How can I look like that? I’ve never looked that nice or that sexy ever!”
Melissa laughs, but I can tell she’s starting to cry with joy.
The only one not emotional is the store clerk, and he is beginning to look like he’s regretting ever taking this job, precisely for the fact that it’s put him in a room with two grown adults freaking out over good fashion.
“Yes, honey,” says Melissa, coming over to join me.
Indeed, she has tears in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks.
“Yes, you can look that good. You are that handsome and that sexy, babe.”
I sniffle harder at this.
“I can’t believe it,” I squeak, staring at myself.
Melissa kisses the back of my neck, wiping away some of her tears.
“Believe it, my love. Believe you are this beautiful, this sexy, this worth it.”
While I’m not quite ready to accept that I’m worthy, I am ready to see myself as sexier and more handsome. That’s progress. Before today’s date, I would’ve never seen myself the way I’m beginning to see myself now — through the mirror of Melissa’s eyes.
I stay in the suit I’m in a little bit longer, savoring the experience. After that, I get dressed in my casual clothes and head toward the register. But not before Melissa grabs a few pairs of matching fancy leather shoes to go with the new suits.
Of course, I protest to Melissa adding more to the total, but that just makes her grab more: socks, ties, cufflinks. She starts grabbing all of it without a second thought, now that she knows my size, the style that looks best on me.
That only succeeds in making me more anxious and more unsure of my worth. Especially since the cost has long since skyrocketed above my ability to cover the payment — at least until I get paid next, which, as I look at my bank through an app on my phone, hasn’t happened yet. Odd, considering I got paid last Saturday right on the dot.
Melissa is unconcerned with that, however. She just whips out her fancy piece of plastic and presents it to the store clerk, who is now our cashier.
She doesn’t even bother to wait for the clothes to be bagged. She just swipes her card and approves the total.
This is where I start to really sweat bullets.
“Melissa, please let me pay you back,” I say helplessly, as the total quickly reaches over two grand.
“You are paying me back,” she says with a thin smile, “for that salty attitude.”
She flicks her eyes in my direction. “Seeing you moved so much by these clothes, it’s a pleasure to pay for them.”
“Melissa, please…”
“On second thought,” she says, “I’ve got a few more things I’d like to add.”
Before I can beg her not to add any more to what she’s already spending on me, she comes back with two more copies of each suit, plus one extra color — a gray one. One that I didn’t try on, but was sort of looking at earlier.
“Add these to the total.”
She puts the suits on the counter.
I draw in a shaking breath.
“No. Melissa, I can’t let you spend that kind of money on me.”
I’m not quite sure what’s happening to me, but I’m beginning to feel dizzy and out of my head and body. It gets worse when I see that now the total is well over two grand and climbing towards three and a half.
Melissa doesn’t seem to know how bad it’s getting for me. Either that, or she doesn’t care. Either way, she allows the payment to go through, and everything to be bagged up. And I’m left clutching my only shopping bag to me like a paper bag I’m supposed to use to keep fainting.
It seems like forever, but finally, we step out of the shop with Melissa carrying all of the bags. Despite the fresh air and open space, all I can hear is ringing in my ears. All I can see and feel around me is a thick numbness. In it, I begin to see flashes of things I remember from my childhood, but don’t quite understand — cruel faces, and clothes I really loved.
As these images move in, and through me, I begin to feel my lungs squeezing. My heartbeat is thumping out of control in my veins to the point where I think I can feel it in my feet, and my wrists.
Something wet moves across my face, and before I’m able to really think about what I’m doing, I’ve moved away from Melissa at a run. As I’m running, all I can think of is how unworthy I am. How small and worthless my life and my body is. How it doesn’t deserve any kindness or special treatment or any fancy clothes.
I hear the laughing of children in my head that I remember, and yet don’t. This reaches a fevered pitch as I duck through the metal door, I find myself in front of. It’s only when I stumble inside that I realize it’s a bathroom. Somehow or another, I’ve managed to flee to a bathroom, out of all the places I could’ve ended up.
As I stumble into a stall and lock the door, the voices in my head from memory grow louder, clearer. Tommy doesn’t deserve to look that good. He’s too fat and too tall for anything he likes.
I flop down on the toilet, hearing and feeling myself hyperventilating, though it feels like someone else. Again, I’m so out of it, I’m not even sure how I’ve managed to end up on any solid ground other than the floor. But I have, and I use that stability to let emotions I don’t understand rage through me.
Physical pain in my stomach and heart actually overwhelms me here, and I start babbling about things, I didn’t even know I was still hurt over: about how I was treated at school as a kid; about how I always wanted to be, but never had the courage to be myself; that I hated the “fat camp” I was sent to; and that I hate my dad for everything he’s ever made me hate about myself.
After all that, I end up yelling about how I’m not worthy of anyone. I’m not worthy enough of love, or the generosity Melissa’s showering on me after I’ve done absolutely nothing, and never will be able to. I’m too weak and too frail, despite my two hundred and eighty pounds of weight.
And then I hear the bathroom door opening. I don’t even need to wait for her to speak to know who it is, but I can barely hear her over my rapid breathing.
“Tommy?”
I just keep panting, sagging back into the toilet, wondering if I’m going to breathe right ever again. Right now, it doesn’t feel like that’s going to happen. Even sitting still, I feel like everything’s swimming and floating around me.
“Tommy, honey? What’s the matter?”
I can only answer her with incoherent mumblings about worth and clothes, I tried to care about and feel good in, that were destroyed.
I feel Melissa come closer. I can see part of her heels underneath the stall door, and at that moment, I just want her to get away and stay away. I’m terrified for her to be close. I’m terrified for her to comfort me.
The more I think about it, the more I feel like I’m being dragged down into a tattered, black hell. One where all the beautiful colors my life could be smudged, greyed out, and infected.
“Don’t come near me,” I say. “I’m not worth all the money you spent on me. I’m not worth any of this attention, any of this love. I’m not worth anything, Melissa.”
My voice is shaking, but not nearly as bad as the rest of my body. I’m feeling close to passing out with each word.
“I’m not worth five dollars, let alone close to five grand.”
I hear and see Melissa’s shoes move closer to the door. I hear the stall door rattle like she’s going to try to come in anyway.
“Leave me alone. Leave me behind! I’m just a waste of your time and your money, and I have no idea what you see in me!”
At this point, I stop seeing Melissa’s boots by the door, and instead, I see her head of black, chin-length hair. She’s gone from standing by the door to deciding she’s going to crawl u
nderneath it. That’s how much she’s decided she’s not going to let me push her away.
Chapter Forty-Three - Melissa
After making a mad dash to follow Tommy to an out-of-the-way bathroom in the outdoor mall complex, I’m spinning. Not just from his quick and confusing change of mood, but from how fast he moved to get away from me.
I track him down to the bathroom and come to stand in front of his stall door.
Of course, he’s locked it and tells me to leave him alone. I
ask him what’s the matter, and while he gives me some kind of answer, it’s not all that coherent — something about clothes that he loved and were destroyed, and worth around those. After that, he devolves into a heavy breathing mess. Some of which is laced with words, but I can barely make them out.
The ones I do make out, and the ones that spur me to more action, are about him being a waste of time. My time and money, specifically. And not knowing what I see in him, and that I should just leave him alone or leave him behind.
You silly boy! I think, setting my shopping bags down on the nearby bathroom counter, and deciding he’s going to come face-to-face with me after a statement like that.
That’s exactly why I wanted to do all this with you! That’s exactly why I knew you needed to get a wardrobe update, and why you needed to know how well you are loved and looked after! Because I know you believe you’re not worthy of me, just like I believed that I wasn’t worthy of someone better than Dennis!
Thinking this, I follow through on my previously decided course of action: to climb under his bathroom stall door so that he can’t keep ignoring me and pushing me away.
I’m not so temperamental or superficial that I’m willing to let him separate himself from me with a grubby bathroom floor or a locked stall door. That’s not going to keep me at bay.
So, I get down on the floor and began to wiggle myself underneath the opening under the stall. I do so quickly and easily, knowing that he’s going to use any opening given to him to get away and try to keep up his own internal dialogue of self-debasement, no matter what I try to tell him.