by Noelle Mack
“Take it out. Put it on. Christmas comes but once a year.”
She left the room and came back wearing it. Kev’s eyes lit up. “Yeah,” he said with feeling. “Come sit in my lap.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her down to him, making her laugh. The cat meowed a faint protest until Kevin turned to him. “Hey, kitty, I heard they’re serving free mice in the kitchen. And three’s a crowd.”
Lump stayed put until Kev put a hand under him and scooped him off the sofa. The cat stalked out.
And then the fun began.
Double Dee
1
The cups were way too pointy. Not good. Dee took the prototype bra off the figure form and set it on the design table, perching on a high swivel chair to study the thing. The lightly padded, stitched nylon cups jutted up almost threateningly. She poked a finger into one, denting it. Slowly, ever so slowly, it rose again.
“It’s alive,” she murmured. “It’s alive and it hates me.”
Her assistant, Jami, came over to take a look. “What’s the problem?”
Dee pulled pins out of a pincushion and stuck them through the side panels of the bra into the graphed cardboard that covered the table. Then she consulted a paper pattern.
“For one thing, the design specifications are in Chinese.” Dee read over the fine print. “No, this part’s been translated. Sort of. Says here that the improved stitching will add a touch of eleganceness to make this bra outstanding in all the ways.”
“Um, it does stand out, Dee. A lot.”
“Yeah, in the wrong way.” Dee scowled and set a pair of long, heavy shears across both cups. She could almost hear the trapped air whoosh out. “I didn’t ask the manufacturer to add stitching, and the Love-Lee-Lace people won’t finance my new line with a prototype like this.” She picked up the shears and set them aside.
Jami watched the slow, inexorable rise of the cups. “That is so creepy.”
“That’s what we’ll call it,” Dee said bitterly. “The Creepy.” She ran a finger over the embroidered concentric circles of one cup. “Or the Scratchy. And how about that color? I don’t think it even has a name.”
Jami peered at the nylon material of the bra. “Well, it’s kinda blue. With a little beige mixed in. Call it bleige. Or bluege.”
“Either way, it’s awful. What am I going to do? Getting to this stage of production cost me five grand so far, including the trip to China.” She kicked the suitcase under the table. Thirty hours of flying backwards across who knew how many time zones and she hadn’t even walked in her own door yet, coming to her rented design loft first.
Jami gasped. “Excuse me for saying so, but that does not look like a five-thousand-dollar bra.”
“No, it doesn’t. It looks like a five-dollar, bargain-basement nightmare.” Dee plopped her head into her hands. “I blew it. And to think I talked my Uncle Isador into bankrolling me.”
“I thought Is was your great-uncle.”
Dee looked up, surprised that Jami would remember that little detail. “That’s right. He’s ninety-five.”
“That’s totally old,” Jami said wonderingly. “He must eat healthy. But he can’t live forever.”
“Are you implying that he’s going to die before he finds out that he sank fifteen grand into the world’s ugliest bra?”
“No, Dee. I didn’t mean that, you know I didn’t.”
Staring down at the pinned bra, Dee wiped away a tear. “What am I going to tell Uncle Is?”
“Don’t tell him anything. Distract him. You could fix him up with that fitting model who came in last month. The one with the giant boobs,” Jami said helpfully.
Dee shook her head. “Silicone.”
“Like men care,” Jami scoffed.
Dee contemplated the hideous bra without saying anything for a few moments. “He’s going to be so disappointed. He’s always been incredibly kind and generous, and he believed in me when no one else did. But no one will ever buy this.”
Jami hesitated before speaking again. “Well, it’s not that bad,” she hedged. “I mean, my grandma had a bra like that.”
“Uh-huh. Now I feel better.”
Her assistant pulled on a dangling thread. “I could pick out the stitches for you, but the little holes would show,” Jami offered. “Maybe that would flatten the cups.”
“Flat is not a concept that sells bras,” Dee said. “Think round. Think high, firm, sexy. That’s what sells.”
“Those cups are high, Dee. And the 1950s look is hot right now. Think rocket ships, aerodynamic locomotives, ballistic missiles. You know, thrust.”
“Thrust is a guy thing.”
Jami studied the bra on the design table. “But my grandma’s bra really worked for her. She was married three times.”
A flicker of interest lightened Dee’s big brown eyes. “In the same bra?”
Jami nodded. “Yup. It was her something old for all three weddings. You know, for luck. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” Dee said with disgust. “So I reinvented your grandmother’s lucky old bra. Color me talented.”
Her assistant picked up the bra and examined it closely. “It’s very, um, sturdy.”
“Another word that does not sell bras.”
“But maybe—”
“Jami, women want their lingerie to convey sexuality, not sturdiness. It’s not like army boots.”
Her assistant looked down at the lace-up, khaki-colored, lug-soled clunkers on her feet. “Army boots are cool.”
“Bras are different. Sexy and frivolous—that’s what sells. And a good lingerie sales associate will persuade a customer to buy two or three at a time, so the ones she’s not wearing can rest.”
Jami looked at her wide-eyed. “I didn’t know bras needed to rest.”
“They don’t,” Dee sighed. Her assistant was just too naïve to breathe sometimes.
What Dee needed was a seasoned veteran of the fashion business with a gimlet eye for the details of garment manufacturing and the ability to crack a measuring tape like a whip. What she had was a crunchy idealist who mixed camouflage prints and pink fake fur.
Jami shook her head disapprovingly, making her eyebrow rings clink. “Designing something to fall apart—that’s so cynical.”
“And so profitable,” Dee pointed out. “Lingerie purchases tend to be emotional anyway. Women want the illusion. It makes them feel better about themselves.”
“So you’re saying that a new bra is like chicken soup for the boobs.”
Dee sat up straighter in her chair. “Right. We’re selling hope and happiness just like everyone else.” Not that this prototype would make anyone happy, but Dee had to sound confident, if only for her assistant’s sake.
Seemed like an awfully long time since she’d graduated from the same fashion institute as Jami. Fashion had been fun at first but the business side of it was a lot tougher than Dee’d expected. As of yesterday, her uncelebrated birthday, she was twenty-nine and ready to quit. She looked into Jami’s innocent face and saw herself once upon a time. Unbearably young. Dewy. Completely clueless. “Illusion is everything.”
“Oh.”
“Lingerie design is all about oo-la-la styling. A nickel’s worth of satin and lace can add up to a fifty-dollar retail sale.”
Jami stuck a finger under the strap of her acid-green sports bra and snapped it. “Wouldn’t know. I personally like neo-urban stuff. Anyway, priced that high, a bra shouldn’t spring a seam and die on you in three months.”
“Tell that to the Love-Lee-Lace people.”
Jami only shrugged. “They want to charge fifty bucks. But the bra my grandma got married in all three times was a Perkette and it only cost $6.95.”
“Those days are over,” Dee said wearily.
“History of Underwear 101.” Jami paused to think. “Perkettes were the first department store bras that clicked with women. Available in white only.” She looked at Dee with sc
holarly pride.
“Right,” Dee said. “They had straps that could hoist a piano and triple-thick elastic sides with reinforced stitching.” She poked the bra on the table again. “And a teeny-weeny white satin rosebud between the cups for extra allure. Just in case a man ever got that far.”
Jami nodded. “They sold fifty million nationwide.”
Dee leaned back in her swivel chair. “And then came La Perla,” she said. “And Victoria’s Secret. And Agent Provocateur. What made me think I could beat them?”
“You’re a great designer,” Jami said loyally. “You will.”
“Not with this thing.” Resolutely, Dee slid one blade of the shears under the fabric between the cups and cut them apart.
“What are you doing?”
“I think the cups are too close together. Adding a fraction of an inch in between might help. So I’m going to handsew a little extra material here”—she stuck a pin on either side of the cut—“and send it back to the manufacturer in China. And I’ll tell him to take the stitching out before he starts the production run.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Jami said. “I’m going out for wheatgrass juice. They have minced carrot loaf on Tuesdays. Do you want some?”
“Uh, no. But thanks. I don’t suppose I could ask you to pick me up a burger.”
Jami shook her close-cropped head. “I don’t eat anything with eyes, Dee. Please don’t ask me to be an accessory to violence.” She picked up her hemp shoulderbag and left the loft.
Home. Bath. Bed. The three little words that meant the most to Dee at the moment. She’d dragged the suitcase through the lobby, balancing a roll of sketches on top of it. She’d been so tired she hadn’t even bothered to put them in a tube or rubber-band them. At least she hadn’t left them in the taxi. She looked around for the doorman in case there were packages that had been delivered while she was in China, but he was nowhere to be seen.
The elevator door closed silently and she counted the floors going up, almost staggering down the hall to her apartment when the doors opened. Dee unlocked the door and bumped her suitcase over the threshold without bothering to turn on the lights. She stopped, letting it fall over. The sketches rolled away but she didn’t bother to pick them up.
Dee shucked her clothes where she stood, then headed into the bathroom, stark naked and shivering a little. Her thighs and butt were sore from endless hours of sitting on a plane—a hot bath would take care of that. Then bed. Tomorrow was another day, although she couldn’t sleep in.
Dee crouched by the tub, turning on the faucet full blast, and tossed in an extravagant handful of pricey bath crystals, a gift from a fabric supplier, so she could afford to waste them. The jar was already half empty.
The gift basket had also held a scented candle at least a foot high, lovingly created by a hive of very busy, very talented designer bees just for her, if she wanted to believe the label. She could almost see them patting it smooth with their little black paws. If bees had paws. Whatever. She had been saving the candle for a moment like this.
Dee took the basket down from the cabinet shelf and unwrapped the delicate, crinkly paper around the beeswax pillar, ready for a little atmospheric soaking. She twiddled the wick upright, then padded back to the living room, looked in the box over the fireplace for the matches, lit the candle and carried it back.
The tub was nearly brimming and Dee set the candle down on its wide ledge. She shut off the faucet and let some of the hot water go down the drain so it wouldn’t overflow when she got in.
Her bathroom was her refuge—a beautifully appointed space, like the rest of the apartment. Something she couldn’t possibly afford as a start-up designer, but it had been her graduation gift from Uncle Is, who owned the building. And to whom she would be in hock for the rest of her life, Dee thought unhappily.
She closed the door tight and reached into a deep cabinet for a stack of fluffy folded towels to place next to the huge tub. A bowlegged table held spritzy little bottles of beauty products and two-week-old copies of rag trade publications. Her mailbox was probably crammed with the new issues, something else she’d get to tomorrow.
She stepped in, then sat down, letting the water’s penetrating heat and fragrant steam work their magic. Ahhhh. She leaned back, resting her head against the cool, smooth porcelain.
Bliss, just bliss. She closed her eyes. A faint, very faint, sound of footsteps echoed in her ears. Someone in the apartment downstairs was in the bathroom right below hers. As expensive as the building was, a lot of the construction costs had gone into luxury surfaces for the interiors, and it wasn’t all that soundproof. She waited for the clonk of a toilet seat flipping up. She didn’t hear it.
The new inhabitant of 16-B would have to flip up the seat because he was a guy. Unless he was a hardcore bachelor who never put it down. She didn’t know too much about him besides his name, Tom Driscoll, noticing it on the row of mailboxes after he’d moved in three weeks ago.
And noticing him. Dee had seen the delivery van on her way out to buy a weekend’s worth of fashion magazines and newspapers and thought he was one of the movers at first. Tom Driscoll’s arms were massive, chest ditto. Legs, long and muscular. Dark hair, dark eyelashes. Blue eyes. Worn jeans with an eye-catching front bulge, topped by a frayed T-shirt with a few paint spots.
Never mind the moving-man clothes, she’d thought. He had to be making a lot of money to buy a place in her building. She’d scoped him on the sly, knowing he was watching the movers manhandle a ten-foot black leather sofa down the truck ramp and not her. Dee slunk away the second he’d turned toward the door with keys in hand and a big grin on his face.
Not that he would figure out that her apartment was on top of his unless she introduced herself and told him. Too bad. He was definitely the kind of guy she wanted to be on top of. Not that she had the time for a romance.
Maybe someday, she’d thought on her way back, swinging the plastic bag of magazines and munching on a Swiss chocolate bar. He’d been directing the unloading of still more black leather furniture. He had to be single and he had to be straight.
Bachelor-pad black leather stuff was the first thing a live-in girlfriend or new wife kicked to the curb, and gay guys didn’t think it was cool. Not even retro cool.
Dee sank lower into the water, feeling deeply relaxed already. She reached out with a dripping foot and turned on the hot water faucet with her toes, thinking about her China trip and the problems of the prototype. Screw that, she told herself. Think about Tom Driscoll. Think about sex.
In the habit of topping off the tub until the bath was exactly the temperature she liked, she let the hot water trickle for a few minutes. Then she heard the click of a medicine cabinet door being opened in the bathroom below. Maybe he was shaving for a late-night date. Dee could imagine what he would look like post-shower, buck naked, with wet hair that trickled water over those big shoulders. And a towel tied just above his groin, barely covering that interesting bulge.
She wouldn’t mind yanking off that towel and playing with his cock and balls while he squirted gobs of aerosol shaving cream into his hand and slapped it on his face. She loved that smell, loved watching a man shave.
And she would love to kiss and nuzzle the big cock that stood up from his damp, clean pubic curls. He’d let her, of course, but when he picked up the razor, he’d tell her to quit it, giving her a sexy-Santa smile in the middle of all that white foam.
She’d let him finish. And then…there was nothing nicer than kissing the baby-soft cheeks of a freshly shaved man. She’d nip his neck and earlobes, and trace her fingernails over his strong chest.
Dee mentally moved the action to her own personal cloud nine, her antique fourposter. She slid a hand between her legs. If he were on all fours over her right now, with his mouth on her pussy, licking and nipping her labia and thrusting his tongue deep inside, she’d be in heaven.
Just the thought of looking up at a set of heavy balls and a thick, erect cock, her he
ad resting between two strong thighs while he satisfied her first, aroused her to fever pitch.
Her fingertips touched her clit, brushing over the sensitive tip. Over and over. She would tease his scrotum with her own tongue, licking all around, warmly, lasciviously, feeling it tighten and his cock get thicker, wanting him to get totally hot while he serviced her but not be able to come…
She heard him swear and opened her eyes. Maybe he’d cut himself shaving. She looked down and realized that the water in the tub was almost over her shoulders. She sat up, screwed the faucet handle the other way, and got out gingerly, being careful not to slosh.
Dee listened for more signs of life from the apartment below but heard nothing. Take care of that little cut, Tom. Nice to have met you. And welcome to my fantasy world. She smiled as she wrapped a towel around herself and used another to dry her legs and arms. The first towel fell off when she wrapped yet another around her wet hair and she left that one on the floor, rubbing her wet feet in it.
Dee ran a hand over her thigh, noticing how dry her skin was. Long flights were just not good for human bodies. Her legs and ass could use some lotion. And her breasts too. Best for last. She could get close to climax with some just-right fondling and nipple attention, especially if she watched herself do it in the bathroom’s tall, freestanding mirror.
Then she could finish off with a vibrator in her bedroom—the long, neon-pink Orgasmo or the small but extremely effective Ode to Joy? Decisions, decisions. Either one would do, though, and then she could fall asleep. Not a bad way to end a generally disastrous day. She put a folded towel on the ledge of the bathtub and sat on it, reaching for the lightly scented lotion, pouring a warm stream over one stretched-out leg and catching the excess in her palm, rubbing it into her skin in long strokes.
She did the same with the other leg, then stood, rubbing her oiled hands over her ass cheeks, savoring the sensual pleasure of handling herself just the way she wanted to be handled.
