Jewel
09-27-2008, 03:07 PM
Just A Simple Black Dress
by Cherry Black (cher_noir@yahoo.com.au)
http://images.teamsugar.com/files/upl1/9/95672/17_2008/DSC04407.xxlarge.JPG
Here's how it all began. On the walk to my subway stop there's a strip of boutiques, each with three steps up to a black-and-brass French door. Each of these doors at eight-fifteen in the morning, every morning, wears a tilted sign on a chain that quite rightly says, 'Closed.'
The centre boutique of the strip of five is known as Gizereh by the fan of glass over the door which also bears the etched design of two hands, fingers meshed like passionfruit vines. The shop is twenty-two feet wide. The varying week-to-week window displays rarely feature more than one pair of shoes posed discarded, one belt, one frock, one wallet—the haphazard detritus of the well-to-do young lady fleeing into the arms of a tryst. Inside, the layout is refined and uncluttered. In short, this is the kind of low volume, high margin store that I call 'Credit Card Hell.'
But it can't do any harm if I do stop now and then at a store like Gizereh, or at Gizereh in fact, to linger and gaze. And this is exactly what I did, one wet morning with behind me the streets and windows and passers-by all sombre in the wintry colours of gray.
Two things here. First, in the window was a black dress of timeless style that seemed somehow out of place, but surely not for its first-lady charm and a simple understated elegance. Second, the sign on the door, swaying still, said 'Open.'
On a gust of rain, I went in. Not a soul in sight. The rear of the store was curtained. I circled the black dress, spiralled to where I could inconspicuously prod the tag. Yes, it had one. And it said five thousand, exactly, as a matter of simple fact.
A woman said, 'Do you admire it?' and I think I may have said it was stunningly beautiful, or something like that, coherent or otherwise. She was close to me then. I felt radiated warmth on my arm and cheek. I wasn't talking to the woman, rather to her reflection stencilled on the morning gray beyond the plate glass front window.
'I've seen you,' she said. 'I've watched you watching this dress.'
I'd never seen it before.
'Yes, it was over there in that case.'
Why did I say that? I spun around. The glass and chrome case in the far corner was empty. I returned to the dress and the woman became once more the patient angel of a reflection.
She gave me a little space, a little time. We circled the dress together before she broke her orbit and at an easy distance paused to watch me, resting one long finger erect against her powdered cheek. I was running late for the subway. Close once more, she breathed softly, 'I can give it away to the right woman.'
That evening I called my Ex and told him that a raving dyke had attempted to seduce me in her shop and had offered me an expensive dress as enticement for sex. He said I was nuts for refusing. He said also something along the lines that I should give her his number because for five thousand or even half that he'd be happy to fuck her straight. Dear man. Then he wanted to know what she looked like.
Which raised an interesting question. Just what exactly did the woman look like? I had no idea. I remember as I was throwing myself indignantly down her three front steps, and had glanced back to give her one last indignant stare, how I found the shop empty. I felt cheated by that. I told no one all day what had happened and found myself reliving the experience feeling hot and angry. Most embarrasingly, the only thing I'd managed to get out in reply at the time was a strangled gurgle. And again how strange, that I had gurgled right in her face yet could not remember a single thing about her.
The real inconvenience of all this was that now every morning I had to walk down the opposite side of the street to avoid going right past Gizereh, which I hoped was clear as a snub. But could I help sending a glance over the busy street, across the gloom of these mid-winter's mornings, to the warm glow of Gizereh, to answer the simple question: Is my beautiful dress still there?
Yes, of course it was there. And morning by morning, one by one, the other items in the shop window fell absent until there was nothing left but the dress itself which seemed to consume that whole window space with wings of radiant blackness. One morning there was a white card pinned to its breast. I could read it easily even from across the street. 'Sale,' it said.
The price tag had been altered, the five-thousand gone and replaced with six.
'What kind of Sale is that?' I said to no one.
From behind the woman replied, 'It sets its own value. Do you want it now? The price can only go up.'
'No.'
'But you came over for it. To see.'
'I wanted to see if you had put a sensible price on it.' I waved a hand as though prepared to bargain. Seduce me with a discount. 'I may have considered...' No I would not.
'Why don't you try it on.'
'No.'
'It's your size.'
'I need to lose a few pounds.'
'You'd be surprised.'
Why did I say no... say no then try it on anyhow? Because, as the woman advised, it could do no harm. She promised to remain in the shop front without acknowledging why that should be. She kept her word. The black dress was tight, too tight, until like a constricting snake sensing relent in its prey, it released me and relaxed into my shape. Even my hair fell down.
For the rest of that afternoon I sat in my office staring out the window at nothing, tapping a pencil against my teeth in time to a drumbeat that was my steady heart. I could have sworn I was in love. But with whom? Or what? No, that made no sense. I was definitely aroused though, in that slow incandescent way that brings with it melancholy sighs and an itch to the fingertips. Absently I stroked my desk, the arms of my chair, the leather of my diary, seeking and registering sensual textures. In the bathroom cubicle I sat with knees spread wide and stimulated my nipples feeling sexy and warmly loved.
At home making dinner for one, I remembered how as I had shaken my head and handed the dress back to the proprietress, that its fabric had visibly stiffened. And as well, how it went cold in my hands.
Just moments before that, disturbingly, admiring myself in the dressing room mirror, what was it that I had experienced? It was a lover's humid warmth inside that dress, a pressure around my breasts that seemed to grip them like two strong but reassuring hands. Those same hands, the fingers, were brushing over my nipples. And what was it again, another sensation so real that it caused me to snap my knees shut and drop protectively, the sensation of a soft but insistent hand thrusting up between my legs? Whatever it was, after it coaxed me to relax, I was rewarded with the guilty pleasure of anonymous fingers stroking at my slit. I'll admit, I had leaned backward against the change room wall, spread my knees, and allowed that delicious sensation to advance.
Naturally, I was back there the next morning after a sleepless-night's panic, more than half an hour early for my train. Surely that dress wasn't sold. Oh please, oh please...
Gizereh was open according to the tilted sign swaying on its chain. The woman was there, a shadow behind the curtain, hands clasped at her waist. Hearing the bell tinkle she came forward through the curtains without disturbing them. 'Yes, Madam,' she said.
'Who's it by?' I said, nodding at the dress.
'Csabito.'
'I've never heard...'
'It says so here on the label,' she said, not that I had challenged her. Turning out the neck of the dress, she pointed. And there it was, the single word 'Csabito' hand-stitched across a white square of material sewn into the neck band.
'Spain or something?'
'Old Europe I think. It might be Czech. Or Hungarian.'
As she restored the neckline I caught sight of more stitching deeper inside the garment, but before I could see, she had removed the dress from the display and hung it over her arm.
'Would you like to try it on? One more time?'
'But you bought it. From somewhere...'
'It arrived by accident in a shipment.'
'You could have...'
'I did. I called the company and they had no record. So I kept it. It's very beautiful isn't it. Try it on.'
'Why don't you keep it for yourself? You have the figure for it.'
'It's been here long enough. Try it on. I'll wait here in front.' She went over to the door, switched the sign around. That seemed the right thing to do.
Did I imagine that the pleasure of this garment was my own dark secret? To deny this pleasure I feigned casual interest in incidental things along the way to the rear of the store and the change room, lingering here and lingering there, prodding a scarf, tossing over a sweater, the whole while my heart pounding.
I undressed, held the dress against my front and modelled it before the mirror. Peering inside I found that the stitching of the satin lining actually made the shape of two hands with fingers splayed cupping the inside of the bust. Needing to feel, I slipped off my bra and threw the dress over my head. It warmed instantly, fluttered like a cloud of feathers settling down into my curves. I am sure it sighed as it assumed my shape.
by Cherry Black (cher_noir@yahoo.com.au)
http://images.teamsugar.com/files/upl1/9/95672/17_2008/DSC04407.xxlarge.JPG
Here's how it all began. On the walk to my subway stop there's a strip of boutiques, each with three steps up to a black-and-brass French door. Each of these doors at eight-fifteen in the morning, every morning, wears a tilted sign on a chain that quite rightly says, 'Closed.'
The centre boutique of the strip of five is known as Gizereh by the fan of glass over the door which also bears the etched design of two hands, fingers meshed like passionfruit vines. The shop is twenty-two feet wide. The varying week-to-week window displays rarely feature more than one pair of shoes posed discarded, one belt, one frock, one wallet—the haphazard detritus of the well-to-do young lady fleeing into the arms of a tryst. Inside, the layout is refined and uncluttered. In short, this is the kind of low volume, high margin store that I call 'Credit Card Hell.'
But it can't do any harm if I do stop now and then at a store like Gizereh, or at Gizereh in fact, to linger and gaze. And this is exactly what I did, one wet morning with behind me the streets and windows and passers-by all sombre in the wintry colours of gray.
Two things here. First, in the window was a black dress of timeless style that seemed somehow out of place, but surely not for its first-lady charm and a simple understated elegance. Second, the sign on the door, swaying still, said 'Open.'
On a gust of rain, I went in. Not a soul in sight. The rear of the store was curtained. I circled the black dress, spiralled to where I could inconspicuously prod the tag. Yes, it had one. And it said five thousand, exactly, as a matter of simple fact.
A woman said, 'Do you admire it?' and I think I may have said it was stunningly beautiful, or something like that, coherent or otherwise. She was close to me then. I felt radiated warmth on my arm and cheek. I wasn't talking to the woman, rather to her reflection stencilled on the morning gray beyond the plate glass front window.
'I've seen you,' she said. 'I've watched you watching this dress.'
I'd never seen it before.
'Yes, it was over there in that case.'
Why did I say that? I spun around. The glass and chrome case in the far corner was empty. I returned to the dress and the woman became once more the patient angel of a reflection.
She gave me a little space, a little time. We circled the dress together before she broke her orbit and at an easy distance paused to watch me, resting one long finger erect against her powdered cheek. I was running late for the subway. Close once more, she breathed softly, 'I can give it away to the right woman.'
That evening I called my Ex and told him that a raving dyke had attempted to seduce me in her shop and had offered me an expensive dress as enticement for sex. He said I was nuts for refusing. He said also something along the lines that I should give her his number because for five thousand or even half that he'd be happy to fuck her straight. Dear man. Then he wanted to know what she looked like.
Which raised an interesting question. Just what exactly did the woman look like? I had no idea. I remember as I was throwing myself indignantly down her three front steps, and had glanced back to give her one last indignant stare, how I found the shop empty. I felt cheated by that. I told no one all day what had happened and found myself reliving the experience feeling hot and angry. Most embarrasingly, the only thing I'd managed to get out in reply at the time was a strangled gurgle. And again how strange, that I had gurgled right in her face yet could not remember a single thing about her.
The real inconvenience of all this was that now every morning I had to walk down the opposite side of the street to avoid going right past Gizereh, which I hoped was clear as a snub. But could I help sending a glance over the busy street, across the gloom of these mid-winter's mornings, to the warm glow of Gizereh, to answer the simple question: Is my beautiful dress still there?
Yes, of course it was there. And morning by morning, one by one, the other items in the shop window fell absent until there was nothing left but the dress itself which seemed to consume that whole window space with wings of radiant blackness. One morning there was a white card pinned to its breast. I could read it easily even from across the street. 'Sale,' it said.
The price tag had been altered, the five-thousand gone and replaced with six.
'What kind of Sale is that?' I said to no one.
From behind the woman replied, 'It sets its own value. Do you want it now? The price can only go up.'
'No.'
'But you came over for it. To see.'
'I wanted to see if you had put a sensible price on it.' I waved a hand as though prepared to bargain. Seduce me with a discount. 'I may have considered...' No I would not.
'Why don't you try it on.'
'No.'
'It's your size.'
'I need to lose a few pounds.'
'You'd be surprised.'
Why did I say no... say no then try it on anyhow? Because, as the woman advised, it could do no harm. She promised to remain in the shop front without acknowledging why that should be. She kept her word. The black dress was tight, too tight, until like a constricting snake sensing relent in its prey, it released me and relaxed into my shape. Even my hair fell down.
For the rest of that afternoon I sat in my office staring out the window at nothing, tapping a pencil against my teeth in time to a drumbeat that was my steady heart. I could have sworn I was in love. But with whom? Or what? No, that made no sense. I was definitely aroused though, in that slow incandescent way that brings with it melancholy sighs and an itch to the fingertips. Absently I stroked my desk, the arms of my chair, the leather of my diary, seeking and registering sensual textures. In the bathroom cubicle I sat with knees spread wide and stimulated my nipples feeling sexy and warmly loved.
At home making dinner for one, I remembered how as I had shaken my head and handed the dress back to the proprietress, that its fabric had visibly stiffened. And as well, how it went cold in my hands.
Just moments before that, disturbingly, admiring myself in the dressing room mirror, what was it that I had experienced? It was a lover's humid warmth inside that dress, a pressure around my breasts that seemed to grip them like two strong but reassuring hands. Those same hands, the fingers, were brushing over my nipples. And what was it again, another sensation so real that it caused me to snap my knees shut and drop protectively, the sensation of a soft but insistent hand thrusting up between my legs? Whatever it was, after it coaxed me to relax, I was rewarded with the guilty pleasure of anonymous fingers stroking at my slit. I'll admit, I had leaned backward against the change room wall, spread my knees, and allowed that delicious sensation to advance.
Naturally, I was back there the next morning after a sleepless-night's panic, more than half an hour early for my train. Surely that dress wasn't sold. Oh please, oh please...
Gizereh was open according to the tilted sign swaying on its chain. The woman was there, a shadow behind the curtain, hands clasped at her waist. Hearing the bell tinkle she came forward through the curtains without disturbing them. 'Yes, Madam,' she said.
'Who's it by?' I said, nodding at the dress.
'Csabito.'
'I've never heard...'
'It says so here on the label,' she said, not that I had challenged her. Turning out the neck of the dress, she pointed. And there it was, the single word 'Csabito' hand-stitched across a white square of material sewn into the neck band.
'Spain or something?'
'Old Europe I think. It might be Czech. Or Hungarian.'
As she restored the neckline I caught sight of more stitching deeper inside the garment, but before I could see, she had removed the dress from the display and hung it over her arm.
'Would you like to try it on? One more time?'
'But you bought it. From somewhere...'
'It arrived by accident in a shipment.'
'You could have...'
'I did. I called the company and they had no record. So I kept it. It's very beautiful isn't it. Try it on.'
'Why don't you keep it for yourself? You have the figure for it.'
'It's been here long enough. Try it on. I'll wait here in front.' She went over to the door, switched the sign around. That seemed the right thing to do.
Did I imagine that the pleasure of this garment was my own dark secret? To deny this pleasure I feigned casual interest in incidental things along the way to the rear of the store and the change room, lingering here and lingering there, prodding a scarf, tossing over a sweater, the whole while my heart pounding.
I undressed, held the dress against my front and modelled it before the mirror. Peering inside I found that the stitching of the satin lining actually made the shape of two hands with fingers splayed cupping the inside of the bust. Needing to feel, I slipped off my bra and threw the dress over my head. It warmed instantly, fluttered like a cloud of feathers settling down into my curves. I am sure it sighed as it assumed my shape.