Womanized

by Nikki Crescent

  “Really? Would you buy it for me?” I grabbed his arm with both of my hands.

  His face suddenly became red. “B—Buy it for you?”

  “You said it would look great on me, and I really love it. But I don’t have any money. Can you buy it for me?” It was hard not to smirk. Chris was always poking fun at me in school, always mocking my bad spelling or joking about how lousy I was in shop class. I liked to spend my period breaks in the computer lab, and Chris always thought this was funny, so he would call me various synonyms for ‘nerd’. So maybe that white dress was my way of getting a bit of revenge.

  “You haven’t even tried it on,” he said with an awkward laugh.

  “I’ll try it on now,” I said. “And then if I look good in it, you’ll buy it for me, right?”

  We had the attention of the nearby group of students. They were looking at us. They probably recognized Chris, and I’m sure Chris knew it. He looked over at them quickly and then he looked back at me. He forced another awkward laugh before saying, “Sure—maybe. Just try it on and we’ll see.”

  So we slipped into the store. I found the rack with the various sizes of that white dress. I was a small guy, and apparently a small woman as well, as the medium looked way too big. I took that small over to the dressing room and slipped inside. And then I took a deep breath. It was nice to be away from the busy mall for a minute—away from the gazes of familiar faces. I felt like I was constantly on the verge of being recognized, so my heart hadn’t stopped pounding. I kept telling myself that people would understand when they found out that I did it for one hundred and fifty bucks. I’m sure most lower-middle class kids would do the same thing for that much money—plus a few free snacks and a free album.

  I slipped out from my black skirt and my gold bodysuit. I wriggled my body into the tight white dress. The skirt of the dress was short—maybe even shorter than my black skirt. It flared out slightly, giving me a sort of cutesy look. I kind of liked the way the soft fabric felt on my skin—though the dress didn’t quite go well with my black heels.

  I checked my makeup and my hair in the dressing room mirror, making sure my disguise was still in order and that I was still unrecognizable. I took a deep breath and then I went back out into that store, to continue my little prank on Chris. “Well? How do I look?” I asked as I did a little spin. I felt my skirt lifting up, possibly giving him a tease of my panties. Our classmates were still sitting outside of that store entrance. Chris stared at me with a dark red face. His lips were pressed thin as he stood with his back to that entrance. “What are you doing?” he hushed through his clenched teeth.

  “I’m just trying on this dress? Don’t you like it?” I couldn’t wipe the big smirk from my face.

  “It’s a two hundred dollar dress. Are you crazy?”

  “You’ve got money, don’t you? Buy me the dress, babe. Please.” I had to bite my bottom lip to stop myself from laughing. I don’t think he realized how humiliating this whole thing was. The least I could do was poke fun at him just a little bit. I just wanted to watch him squirm, so that he could feel a tiny bit of the embarrassment that I was feeling.

  I didn’t actually think he would buy the dress. “Okay,” he said with an awkward chuckle. “Ring it up. I mean—how can you not own that dress—am I right?” He was once again speaking loud enough for everyone to hear. I went back into that changing room and then I started to laugh. When I emerged, the dress was already bought. He had the receipt clenched tightly in his fist. “Let’s keep moving, shall we?” he asked. His cheeks were still red.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” I said to Chris as I grabbed the shopping bag from the cashier. I had no idea what I was going to do with a two hundred dollar dress. Maybe I could come back in a few days and try to return it, making my total for this humiliating endeavour three hundred and fifty bucks. I was surprised by Chris. He’d already spent four hundred dollars on this little rouse. Was he really this desperate to make everyone know that he wasn’t gay?

  We casually strolled down the mall. Chris carefully looked back over his shoulder. “Do you see her?” I asked quietly.

  “No, but I’m pretty sure she’s still here,” he whispered.

  We walked a bit further. He looked down at his phone and then he shook his head. “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s your lucky day.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my mom just transferred me two hundred bucks. I guess she must have seen us buy the dress.”

  “Is it my lucky day or is it your lucky day?” I asked.

  “Yours—because I was going to shake you down for that money later. Now we can just pretend like it never happened. Give that dress to your sister or something.” He looked down at his phone again. He let out a long sigh. “Damnit,” he said.

  “What is it now?”

  “She wants me to buy you a dress from Elliott’s.”

  “Elliott’s? Isn’t that a store for old people?” I asked.

  “It’s a store for more… conservative ladies. She probably thinks that you’re dressed like a slut.” My heart suddenly skipped a beat and I felt the colour drain from my face. “I mean—no offense. She thinks any skirt that isn’t longer than knee-length is a slut skirt. I wouldn’t take it personally.”

  But strangely, I did take it personally. I suddenly felt vulnerable, knowing there was a middle-aged woman staring at my bare legs, thinking I was a whore, while I was walking through the mall. And if she thought it, did other people think the same thing?

  It was a minute later when I caught a guy staring at me. I would have assumed he was looking at someone behind me if it wasn’t for the big grin he made when our gazes connected. I found myself tugging down my skirt again and wishing I were wearing a dress from Elliott’s. Though it was a bit nice to know that all of the work I put into this disguise was paying off. Guys really thought that I was a chick. Obviously, for the sake of my self-esteem, it wasn’t fantastic news. But for the sake of keeping my identity safe, it was relieving.

  But now, I had another idea in my head of how I could mess with Chris. I could make him sweat by making him worry that I was too much of a slut. I looked around, trying to spot his mother. I couldn’t see her, but I knew that she was watching. Maybe she’d slipped into a disguise of her own.

  “I’m just going to buy a Coke. Want anything?” he asked.

  “Buy me a Coke too,” I said. “I’ll wait out here.”

  Chris went into the little snack shop and hopped into the short line. Then I looked around and spotted a man nearby. He was looking at his phone while leaning against the glass fence that was stopping him from falling thirty feet to his death. I took a deep breath and approached. I leaned up against the glass next to him. “Hey there,” I said. He looked up at me. I made sure my bum was perked out and my legs were nice and straight, so it would look like I was flirting with him.

  “Hi,” he said. And then his cheeks started to turn a bit red. “C—Can I help you?”

  I bit down on my bottom lip and looked him up and down. It was my best slut impression, and judging by the redness on his face, it was working. “I was just wondering if you had the time handy?”

  “Uh—yeah. It’s, uh, quarter to five,” he said.

  I let out the little giggle that I’d spent that morning practising. “Is it really almost five? I thought it was way earlier than that.”

  “Technically it’s four forty-two, if that makes a difference,” he said. He looked down at my body slowly. I couldn’t help but notice his gaze lingering at my chest for a moment.

  “I really like your shirt,” I said. “It looks soft. Can I feel it?”

  “Um, yeah, okay,” he said. He took a step towards me.

  I reached out and felt his shirt, grabbing a bit close to his chest. “It is soft,” I said with a big smile.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  Then I felt the tapping on my shoulder. I turned and saw Christ staring at me with an unimpressed scow
l. “We need to go,” he said. He held out my Coke—another free treat I got out of him. I grabbed it and then I turned to the man with the phone.

  “Thanks again for the time,” I said.

  “No problem. Is this your brother?” he asked.

  I just smiled and then Chris tugged me away. It was only ten seconds later when he said, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You’re driving my mom crazy!” He subtly showed me the text message he received from his mother.

  ‘Bring your girlfriend to church this Sunday. She needs it,’ his mother wrote. I nearly burst out laughing. Maybe dressing up like a girl wasn’t such a bad idea. Maybe this was a good opportunity to have some fun—especially now that I knew that I wasn’t recognizable. As long as I avoided contact with people from school, I was fairly confident that I was in the clear.

  “You know, I really need a new pair of shoes,” I said. “There’s a shop down here that sells the cutest strappy heels. Maybe you can buy me a pair,” I said.

  He smiled at a group of passing girls. Then, keeping his gaze forward, he said, “I’ve bought you enough.”

  Maybe I was getting carried away, but I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed Chris and stopped him, spinning him around to face me. I put my hands on his sides and I stepped in close. “I just really want to thank you for the dress. It’s really so beautiful,” I said.

  “What are you doing, Joe?” he asked quietly, looking around nervously.

  “I just want you to know how grateful I am. And I think… I think that I love you.” I tried to fight back the grin that desperately wanted to be on my face.

  “Okay, that’s great. Now stop it.”

  I leaned in close. “Let’s make out. Maybe I’ll let you get into my panties later. You can fuck me like a wild animal. I’ll even let you stick it in my ass, the way that you like. I want you inside of me, Chris. I want your big, hard—”

  He pushed me back. “Stop it!” he snapped. “This isn’t funny. Don’t think that I won’t go and return all of this shit I bought you. And don’t forget, I haven’t paid you yet. I’m starting to think that maybe you don’t deserve to be paid.”

  “Hey—a deal’s a deal!” I said. “Don’t renege now. I spent all day getting ready for you.”

  “Let’s not do this here,” he said, looking around again.

  “I’m doing this here,” I said. “You aren’t giving me the appreciation I deserve. I spent hours getting myself dolled up for you, and you’re making me feel worthless.”

  “Okay, okay—just calm down,” he said, putting his hands on my shoulders.

  I pushed his hands away. “If you want me to be your girlfriend, then you need to start treating me with some respect.”

  He nodded his head quickly. “Okay, fine. Can we just drop it now?”

  I took a deep breath and then forced a smile. “Fine. Let’s just get to the other end of the mall so I can get home.” We started walking, and then he reached down again and grabbed my hand, as if he wanted his mother to know that we worked out our little spat.

  CHAPTER IV

  We stopped at Elliott’s, so that Chris could buy me a dress to satisfy his mother. The dresses were far from flattering, but it didn’t really matter—it was just something that would be returned a few days later, either by me for a bit of extra cash, or by Chris. “Pick out something cheap,” he hushed to me.

  I actually found a cute number on one rack. It was a slim blue dress with white dots and sleeves down, almost to the elbows. It had a thin white belt that wrapped around the waist, and the fabric was unbelievably soft. I took the dress off the rack and said, “Should I try it on?”

  “Sure,” he said. So I took the dress into the changing room and put it on. The changing room door was made from slats, with the thinnest slits between each slat. When I put my face right up to the door, I could see into the store and into the mall behind it. So I took the opportunity to scan around, looking for Chris’s mom. I looked hard, looking from store to store, but I couldn’t see anyone. I was starting to think that she wasn’t following us at all. Maybe that text message he showed me was fake, or maybe his mom sent it when we first met up. She didn’t bother hiding when we first saw her in the mall, so why was she doing such an impressive hiding job now?

  Chris walked up and knocked on the door. “Almost done?” he asked.

  I opened the door and stepped out. He looked me up and down while nodding his head. “Hey, that actually looks pretty good on you,” he said.

  “I know, right?” I did a little spin. The dress fit me surprisingly perfectly, and it even made it look like I had some decent hips to show off. “And it’s only thirty-five bucks.”

  “Alright, we’ll buy it.”

  While I was changing back into my bodysuit and black skirt, I looked back through those slats again. Still, I couldn’t see his mother. If she wasn’t there, was he lying about his mom wanting me to buy a dress from Elliott’s? Why would he lie about that? Why would he want me to dress up in a knee-length conservative dress?

  Unless he was the one trying to humiliate me… Maybe this was one of his jokes. Maybe he didn’t actually care about his parents thinking he had a girlfriend. Maybe that woman he pointed out at the start of our mall excursion wasn’t even his mother at all, but just a random woman. Maybe he had a second phone in his pocket and he was sending himself pre-fabricated messages. Maybe he knew that if he told me his mom was worried that I was too much of a slut, that I would go around acting like more of a slut. Was it possible that he just wanted a good laugh while I went from guy to guy, pretending to hit on them as if I really wanted a good stuffing?

  I shook the thoughts from my head. We were halfway to that Apple Store—halfway to that service exit which would take me out to the parking lot. From there, I could jog back to my car and get far, far away from that mall. Then I could come back and return all of these dresses and have a bit of spending money for myself.

  “My mom thinks you look great in the dress,” Chris said as he slipped his phone into his pocket.

  “Let me see,” I said.

  He hesitated, staring into my eyes. “Let you see what?”

  “The message. I’m assuming she texted that to you—let me see the text.”

  He didn’t pull his phone out. “Are you okay? Why are you being weird all of a sudden?”

  I looked around. “There are no old ladies here, Chris—just kids from our school. Your mom isn’t here—so what’s this really all about?”

  “Stop looking around like that!” he snapped. “You’re going to ruin everything. She’s here, okay? She’s just keeping her distance. We’re almost at the end of the mall. Can’t you just play along for another five minutes?”

  I stared deep into Chris’s eyes, trying for one last moment to see if he was bluffing. There was fear in those eyes, but why? Was he just afraid that I was going to spoil his cover with my goofing around? “Just let me see the message,” I said.

  He shook his head and let out a long, deep sigh. Then he pulled out his phone, tapped a few buttons, and then turned his screen towards me. And sure enough, there was the whole conversation with his mother. “Happy?” he asked. “Can we go now?”

  “Alright—let’s go,” I said. I took a moment to straighten my sparkly top and my pressed black skirt. I handed Chris my shopping bags. “A good boy carried his girlfriend’s bags for him.”

  He took the bags and smiled. “My pleasure,” he said. So we kept walking. And I kept my focus on Chris without looking at him. I watched many times as he looked back, as if he was trying to spot his watching mother.

  I also used to consider the possibility that Chris was gay, but after this trip to the mall, I was fairly certain that he was straight. The reason he never had a girlfriend was almost definitely his psychopath of a mother. Who would want to date a guy with a mother who spied on an entire date? I found myself looking back occasionally, trying to spot the woman, but she was nowhere to be seen. I was almost starting to w
onder if she bribed the security guards to let her into the camera room, so she could watch us as we passed from camera to camera. And what if that was what she was doing? What if she kept watching as we snuck out the service exit? What if she watched me run to my car? What if she took down my license plate and looked me up somehow, and found out that I was actually Chris’s friend? Chris’s mother apparently had a pretty good reach with her gossiping. According to Chris, he told her that he had a girlfriend and it was only a few days later before people at school were talking about the fictional woman. So how long would it be before people at school were talking about the guy who dressed up like a chick and pretended to be Chris’s girlfriend?

  My heart started racing. I kept looking back, trying desperately to spot the lunatic woman. I looked around at the cameras, and then I found myself trying to stick close to the walls, so that we were walking under the cameras instead of in front of them. As I was looking up at one camera, I noticed it turning towards me, as if she really was in that control room, trying to watch us. Or was it just a coincidence? Were the security people maybe keeping an eye on me because I couldn’t keep my nervous gaze away from their security systems?

  “Let’s go into this department store,” I said to Chris, tugging him suddenly so that he had no choice. I wanted to lose Chris’s mother—and I had to lose her before I got back to my car. Holding Chris’s hand, I ran across that first floor of that department store. I kept my eyes up, scanning for cameras so that I knew which sections to avoid. I took him through the women’s clothing section. I pulled him in between two racks of clothing and then I made him duck down with me. “Did she follow us?” I asked.

  Chris’s eyes were wide. He was strangely out of breath. “I don’t know. How would I know?”

  “Did she message you?”

  He pulled out his phone. Sure enough, there was a message from his mother: ‘I lost sight of you. Where did you go?’

  “Yes!” I said. “We lost her. Now we need to disguise ourselves.” I looked around and spotted an incredibly cute grey sweater dress on a mannequin. The pile of the various sizes was right next to the mannequin, and I also really liked the brunette wig on the mannequin’s head—so I grabbed that wig and a small grey sweater dress. Then I grabbed Chris again. We swung through the men’s section as we snuck towards the changing rooms. For Chris, I grabbed a blue and white sweater and a pair of dark blue jeans. We continued towards those changing rooms, and then I noticed the camera pointed down at the changing room doors, so I stopped.