Dress Up Part 1

Kelly decided she was having a party. "It's a dress-up party. We're always naked, so we'll make this special by wearing fancy clothes."

That weekend she arrived armed with flyers for the "Dress-Up Party. (I mean it.) Food, Friends and Fun (ie. Booze). Bring Your Boyfriend, Bring Your Friends." This was followed by her address, phone number and a hand-drawn map to her house from Central Avenue.

I told the boyfriend about it while we were running errands. He got excited. "A stripper dress-up party! Cool! I have a great sharkskin suit from the 50's that I hardly ever get to wear. What are you wearing?"

I did a mental inventory and realized I had no party dresses. The boyfriend grabbed my hand and whisked me through the busy afternoon traffic, across the street and into a Vintage Shoppe.

We found a round rack in the middle of the store with cocktail dresses, Some were amazing, but they were pricey. I thought we should leave, but he shushed me. "Just try them on for fun. Classic dames turn me on," and he kissed the back of my neck, so I grabbed a space-age lamé sheath and a basic black. He thrust a quilty cream and gold broacade silk with matching evening jacket into my hands.

"Ack! This is a musty old lady dress!" I tried to hand it back. He refused.

"Just try it on."

I tried the gold lamé first. I felt like Barbarella attending a dinner party hosted by Captain Kirk. It was cool. Then to humor the BF, I tried on the cream and gold brocade silk.

Oh my god!

I walked out to show him and he immediately flushed and got a partial hard-on. It was as if the dress -- cut, color and fabric -- had been custom-designed for me. With the jacket on I looked designer elegant. Without the jacket, the fitted tank halter dress made me Iook like a silver screen sex goddess.

"I'm buying that for you," he sighed.

I looked at the price tag. "It's $75.00." The boyfriend was a cook and taking care of his terminally ill mother.

"It's worth every cent."

******

None of my shoes matched my new vintage outfit. It was 2 days before the party and I was obsessing as I sipped a beer and waited for my big money regular to drop by after his shift. Brandy hopped on stage. She sort of lazy pranced around -- it was early and dead -- when I noticed her shoes -- clear high-heeled lucite strappy sandals. They would match my new suit and they were the perfect accessory for a stripper dress-up party. When I asked, Brandy said she'd picked them up at the mall at some faux-boutique shoe shop on the second level.

The next day my 3 year old son and I were driving across town to the place my roommates and I had derisively nicknamed "Hitler Mall". (The mall was actually named for a conquistador who had decimated the local Native American population -- the survivors' descendants lived in the hills beyond the mall. Also, I hate malls.)

My boy and I wandered around the mall until we found the store. The salesman brought me a couple of styles to try, I found a style I liked that was comfortable and stood up to prance around on the carpet. My son looked at me and his deep brown eyes widened with awe.

"Oh, Mommy! You look just like Cinderella!"