Mutely, I nodded, unable to look him in the eyes. He took that as agreement and seemed to gaze off thoughtfully. “Claire?’ I heard him ask, and tentatively, I looked up at him. His eyes threatened to swallow me whole, to drown me in a sea of tenderness, so soft was the look he gave me then.
I cleared my throat. “Yes?” I asked, hardly above a whisper.
“I hope you finally find the strength to be direct,” he said, and walked away.
It was one of those moments that you never think can actually exist. One of the ones that changes you forever. It’s that moment when you get a look inside somebody’s soul, and you find that no matter what your external differences are—here, it was that I was a skinny little nobody and he was the school hunkathon—that underneath, you’re really all humans, after all.
It was slow going at first. He would volunteer to be in my peer-review groups in creative writing class, and give me truly insightful commentary. Then he mentioned that he liked to go walks after every game, and invited me to one. Before I knew what was happening, we were talking all the time. I would gather up my courage and call him on weeknights after football practice, and he would tell me about how his dad had split after his mom started drinking, and now he lived with his uncle, who was pretty much never around. I would read him my poems, still not brave enough to tell him that they were all about him.
I didn’t think I needed more, not back then, you know? I was still too shy, too uncomfortable inside my own skin. During gym, I would watch the other girls, their blossoming bodies spilling out of their bras and panties like so many sea anemones, the hair between their legs poking out from the sides of their bikini bottoms, the faint smell beneath their arms reeking of pheromones, the tiny bulge above the line of their tights a source of embarrassment for them, one of envy for me.
So Rob and I continued to talk, and it was only when he wasn’t looking at me that I could bring myself to crack jokes, and the reward of his laughter quickly became the highlight of my day. It wasn’t a friendship we acknowledged much, just something that seemed to have occurred naturally, but in the darkest recesses of my mind, I knew that it couldn’t naturally survive for long. Still, I fooled myself, over and over, into thinking that this could go on forever, that we could talk like this over summer breaks, choosing to spend the long weeks walking along the line of woods on the edge of town, and that one day, we would stop by this great golden pond where the ducks like to swim on Indian summer evenings, and a silence would fall between us so light and profound that we would both not notice as our first kiss happened.
Silly, foolish, dreaming girl.
It happened when I was waiting for him after football practice one day. I had written a new poem that day and was looking forward to sharing it with him; I felt it was definitely more direct than in the past, and it was taking all my nerve to decide to share it with him. I had just settled myself on the floor of the hallway outside of the locker rooms and leaned my head against the tiles to ponder what Rob’s reaction might be when I heard the cacophonous sound of laughter coming from inside. I could hear the start of a conversation between the players inside, and before I could stop myself, I had gotten up, and pressed one ear against the crack in the door.
“So what’s with you and String Bean?” someone asked, and I could hear the guys jostling each other, the sound of gym bags falling to the ground and the sound of lockers opening and slamming closed.
“Who’s String Bean?” someone asked.
“That’s what this idiot calls Claire,” said a voice I realized with a shock was Rob’s. I digested what he said, and felt honored that he had rushed to my defense. Somewhat.
“Hey, yeah, what IS happening with you and her? Don’t her bones hurt your dick when you’re inside?” another guy asked, and a sick feeling began forming in the pit of my stomach at the words. I heard all the guys laughing uproariously, slapping each other on the back.
“Shut up man, that’s disgusting,” Rob said. “Claire and I are just friends, we don’t do that kind of stuff.”
“Friends? What are you, a faggot? Although I guess yeah, it’s hard to get a chubby for someone who still looks like a nine year old boy,” some dude answered him, to more surrounding laughter.
“You’re a dumbass,” I heard Rob cut through the laughter. “Claire and I talk. She’s not my type anyway.”
I literally felt my blood freeze.
“Oh, and who is?” Random Unidentified Jock Number One asked. “Chrissy B.?”
I knew Chrissy B. We all knew Chrissy B. She was one of the most beautiful girls at school, somehow managing to transform all of her excessive curves into one incredible package of ripped jeans, old-school leather biker jacket, and a top that showcased a pair of unbelievable tits.
“Yeah...” I heard Rob sigh damn near dreamily. “Gotta love those big, beautiful women. Claire doesn’t even have an ass.”
“Oh shit, man! I can’t believe you said that!” someone yelled, and the hooting and hollering began.
“And if you ever tell her I said that, I’ll kick your ass into next week. Claire and I have a good thing going, and if you ruin it, you’re dead, you hear?” I heard Rob say the words through a sea of numbness. I was paralyzed.
I couldn’t have moved in that moment if someone had bulldozed into me. No ass? Chrissy B., with her gum-chewing and flashy gray-green eyes? I felt as if someone had sucker-punched me in the gut, rooted to the spot even as I realized that the locker room door was opening.
When the first guy caught sight of me, he blanched a little, and I saw them all pile out of the locker room as if I was in a dream. The minute the guys saw me, they all went a little quieter, ten pairs of eyes on my face, testing me, waiting to see what was going to happen next. I could hear their thoughts. Shit, is she going to cry? Damn man, Rob’s in the shitter now.
The last guy to exit was Rob, and when he saw me, his face went the funny color of old oatmeal. “Claire,” he began, reaching out towards me, and that was enough to snap me out of my daze and propel me deeper inside of my nightmare. I stepped away as he said, “Claire, what did you hear?”
I could feel my face morphing into what was going on inside, into a storm of betrayal, pain, and shame, and I stopped it in its tracks. I felt my face settle into an ice-cold mask as the full realization of the fact that I had heard his every word slammed into Rob. “Claire, let me explain—“ he started, but by that point, I was running down the hall, leaving the jeering of the hairy apes far behind me, my feet slapping against the cold linoleum.
He tried calling a few times after that, and there was a part of me that wanted to pick up. We were friends, after all, and it meant a lot that he was trying to call, considering the circle he traveled in at school. But then I would remember the words. Big, beautiful woman. No ass. Bag of bones. And I would pick up the receiver and slam it down so hard the plastic against plastic would reverberate around the room. I spent the week avoiding Rob’s eyes and those of his football buddies, and at home, I would stand in front of the mirror naked, filled with a self-loathing that was at an all-time high. Skinny, worthless little nobody. Flat little brown nipples that nobody would ever want to touch. Hipbones poking through my skin. In the morning, I would get dressed in as many layers as possible, trying to hide my frame, trying to put an extra layer of protection between myself and the world.
Two weeks later, Rob was dating Chrissy B. I saw her in his letter jacket, his muscled arm wrapped around her waist as they talked with another couple by the lockers. If I had been any less dead inside, I wouldn’t have been able to recover from the sight of his beautiful fingers on her ample body, fingers that I had imagined caressing my skin more times than I dared to count in my dreams. She saw me coming down the hall, smacked her gum, and leaned her full, luscious blond locks in my direction as I passed.
“That’s Claire?” I heard her ask as I walked by them. “Damn, honey, looks like you traded up,” she said, loud enough to make sure I heard. The laughter
of her companions, including Rob’s, echoed behind me, loud and clear as fire alarm bells.
Many voodoo hairdolls of Chrissy B. were made during my high school years. I never spoke to Rob again, but for the rest of high school, about once every four months, I’d get a phone call during our formerly regular hours, and I’d pick up to hear nothing but silence on the other end. I was never able to sleep well on those nights, my dreams full of me as a girl chubby with breasts and hips, and Rob eating his words.
But I never grew up into all of those promised signs of femininity, but at least I understood fully why I was in so much awe of my friend Marissa. What I wouldn’t give for all those luscious curves. I would dream about them in bed, about the way she looked when she confidently wore her size twenty bikini at the beach, the self-assured way she rubbed suntan lotion onto her tanned skin, the round curve of her thighs when she bent her legs on the towel, like some otherworld creature in the sun.
It’s no use, is it? I’m going to be this way for the rest of my life, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. So I think I can say with full assurance that this is the night it should all end. I’m not an idiot, okay? I realize that I’m angry and bitter and I don’t want to live this way anymore. Marissa’s confidence should have rubbed off on me, but it didn’t, and no amount of cake is going to make me the woman I want to be. So I’m saying hello to this little bottle of sleeping pills Marissa got me; I told her that I’ve been suffering with insomnia for weeks now, and she sweet-talked her doctor into procuring them for me, sans prescription. Her telling me that almost made me doubly depressed, if that’s even possible.
I’m counting them out, one, two, three. Is five too many? I don’t want to throw them all up and be rushed to the hospital or anything like that. Can you imagine how embarrassing that would be? I can just see the doctor being all, “Ma’am, why did you attempt this?” What am I supposed to say, “I have no tits and ass and I want to stop hating the world for it”? Come on.
So I count out six and hope it’s the right amount. I’ve done my research; I work with the chemical makeup of things, so it’s really my bread and butter. I estimated I’d need about five to ten to do the trick, but I can’t take them one at a time; I’m afraid I’ll fall asleep before I can take the rest. I pour myself a glass of white wine and take them, three at a time, fifteen minutes between each, because the anticipation is otherwise just too much for me.
The world darkens by degrees, slowly, slowly, until everything is dark and I’m finally at peace.
* * *
God damn it. There’s all this light filtering in through my curtains and I want to kill it. What happened? Did I not take enough? Did someone find me and save me? Ugh. I didn’t even get to have one of those moments where I’m like, oh, it’s not all as bad as I think, I wish someone would come and pump my stomach.
Jesus, can someone kill that light? I’ve got an ear-splitting headache, and the room’s all wobbly. I slowly slide the covers off; my balance is all off, probably because of the pills. I clutch every available surface around me on my way to the bathroom to try and splash some water on my face.
It’s so damn gray in here; why don’t I ever make it cheerier; God, I’ll bet half the reason I’m so depressed all the damn time is because I never, ever do anything to cheer my—
What?
My hands still under the faucet as I look at some odd, brand-new face in the mirror.
Green eyes, long, flowing hair. The pouty, Jolie-type mouth. I touch my face in shock, because it’s not my face.
It’s Marissa’s.
Now, I know. I know I am in total shock. But there’s this other feeling in me, too, lurking underneath the depressive ray bathroom like a thief who just can’t wait to be caught. But I’ve caught him.
His name is Joy.
That’s right. Pure, unadultered joy, mixed in with the knowledge that yes, this is sick, and no, I don’t care. I can’t stop pawing at my face, this gorgeous new face, touching the hair like I can’t believe this is all mine. Because I can’t. And now, for the best part.
I look down. Oh yes. This is mine, too. These mounds of flesh, flesh so rotund that there are slight stretch marks on me, shiny in the dim light, proof positive that I am a woman and nobody can deny me that right. I strip down to my panties quickly and run over into the bedroom, to look into my full-length mirror. I draw the curtains open, and in the twilight of morning, I can see my fantastic new form reflected back at me clearly.
Wow. I gather my breasts, those perfect, pink-tipped creations in my hands, the plum color of my newly manicured nails stark against that lovely skin. It almost feels wrong, seeing that chiaroscuro reflected back at me, but I can’t stop touching myself, hardly believing this is all real. I have hips. I have long legs that go on for miles and are curvy in all the right places. I twirl and check out my butt, this fantastic bubble butt that looks mind-numbingly unreal in my little leopard thong. In my other form, in my past life, I could have never worn something like this.
I draw the mirror close to the foot of the bed and position myself back on the pillows, kicking all of the messed-up sheets out of the way. Now there’s nothing but me, and I am the focal point of the show. I begin to stroke myself, first my hair, which is soft and shiny. I take the ends of one of the locks and touch it, feather-light, over my chest, watching my new cotton-candy nipples tighten in response. I shift the heft of each one of my breasts in each hand and watch them jiggle in my reflection. I jiggle. Like jello. My joy is so complete that I laugh out loud, shocked into silence again by the confident, happy sound.
I trace my fingers over my belly, that protrusion that completes me, that hollows out down into the hips that fill the palms of my hands. I can’t get over the fact that I cannot find my hipbones. They say that women have extra fat around their hips, more than men, and I have that now, instead of the hipbones you could see through every dress I ever convinced myself to wear before. I am warm as I outline my thighs, smooth as silk beneath my hands, and the sight of my breasts pushed together like creamy scoops of ice cream is making me tingly in a whole new way that I’ve never experienced before. I can and cannot believe what is happening right now—I’m getting turned on. By my own self.
So why not take advantage of this incredible moment?
I slide my index finger towards the top of that leopard thong. I take a peek below, and it’s as pink as my nipples. Nice, Marissa, very nice. I lift my legs and slide the thong off, enjoying the pull and ripple of my flesh in the mirror as I do so. I spread my legs and tentatively slide my hand between my legs. I am warm and pink and as my finger makes contact with the hood of my clit, I feel dirty and excited, all at the same time. God, it’s good. I rub a little faster on that spot that feels so nice, and I feel the blood rush to my hips, thighs, and legs. My chest is turning a little bit red, and my breath is becoming shallow. Any other time, I would picture some gorgeous guy I saw on the street with his head between my legs, but now that look like this, I don’t need to picture anybody but myself. I like that my lips are parting as I’m rubbing myself, that my perfect hair is now becoming disheveled. Most of all, I like that I feel tingly from my pussy to my ass, and I’m saying things out loud I’ve never dared to before, that I want all my holes filled up, that I want fingers in my ass and my pussy all at the same time. The pebble of flesh between my fingers is growing fuller, and I can feel my moans stretching out into eternity, rising and falling with the great fullness of my tits. They bob in the mirror, and I lift one of them up to my mouth and suck, amazed by the fact that I can finally do this, that I can finally feel my own tongue on my own body, that this fullness is now mine. Just as I’m building up to my climax, however, my cellphone buzzes.
I look over, not daring to take my hand off my pussy, and the name that pops up on the screen almost makes me freeze. Damn it, Marissa. I know you’ve had a stroke of bad luck now that you’ve lost your tits and ass, but don’t you dare take away from my moment.
; Um, yeah. Gaining this body after a night of attempted suicide seems to have made me a little cranky.
I silence the phone, but the photo of Marissa’s—I mean my—smiling face is still there, up on the screen. So I reach over my new body, flip the phone over, and get back to business.
I add more fingers now, and my whole palm is grinding into the smooth flesh between my legs. I’m probing the inner parts of myself, the ones that are slightly rough to the touch, and I gasp as a finger slides accidentally in. Nice. My fingers are long against the sopping slickness of me, and I slide two of them inside. My pussy stretches to accommodate just a touch, and I’m working myself, over and over, holding my breast up to my mouth with my other hand. One bite on that nipple and I explode all over my fingers, moaning like an animal, like the big, sleek, contented kitty that I am now.
Laying there, panting with exertion, I see that I have stained my sheets. I spread my legs even further, enjoying the fact that it’s me who has made this big, huge, incredible mess. Those are my juices on this bed. My cheeks are flushed, exaggerating the loveliness of my doe-like eyes, the pupils wide enough to evidence my recent orgasm.
I’ll call Marissa later. I promise. Even though I’m kind of silently thanking whatever deity that may exist above that she does not know where I live.
Oh man, speaking of that, I should really also return her planbook. She accidentally left it at the diner where we grabbed lunch three days ago, and she’s been on my butt ever since then to give it back. Apparently, she can’t do her work without it or some nonsense like that, blah, blah, blah. Seriously, woman, get with the electronic age, will you? You’re a high-end reporter, and all your friends have gone digital, so will you just get with it?
I skimmed it out of curiosity—and jealousy, all right, I’ll admit it—and it seemed like she had something pretty exciting on tap for today. I cannot seem to remember it, but I do remember feeling a mixture of bubbliness and rage. I wonder what that was all about. I guess it must have gotten kicked under the rug when I was planning my evening of foreversleep.
ROMANCE: CLEAN ROMANCE: Summer Splash! (Sweet Inspirational Contemporary Romance) (New Adult Clean Fantasy Short Stories) Page 90