Stalking The Sparkle

I was out the door at quitting time, something that was not all that common. After all, what else do I have to do? Watch the tube, eat dinner, read a book, wash my clothes? Big deal. I liked my job and staying until I found a good place to stop didn't bother me at all.

But not today. I was knocking on Aida's door just as soon as the gridlock spit me out and let me get there. After an enthusiastic welcome she pointed me to the bathroom, where I showered and shaved. Not that my beard is all that heavy but…

I suppose you've all seen the stereotype of the scruffy French artist - scraggly excuse for a goatee, hollow cheeks, intense burning eyes. Thanks to my Dad's French ancestors I had the scraggly beard part. On my mother's side, maybe she wasn't so far off about Genghis Kahn and her umpty-great grandmother. What I'm trying to say is I have a very light beard. With my dirty blond hair I could get away without shaving every day, but I do it because I think stubble sucks. I shaved for the second time that day because I didn't want Lori to get clocked.

I didn't have to waste time choosing an outfit, Aida had laid out a pale blue blouse with a big ruffle running along the buttons in front and a black skirt with an elastic waist. Interestingly enough, our waist sizes were pretty close, it was only in the hip department that I fell short. Pantyhose this time, no way would a modern woman wear gartered stockings with that outfit and that hemline unless she was going to be standing on a street corner and keeping an eye out for the cops.

While you could call my outfit demure, Aida had gone for wah-hoo! Bright red, low cut, skater dress. She had a ruby necklace dangling right at the top of her cleavage, assuring that every male eye would be looking right there and drooling. Four inch fuck-me heels below, little rubies dangling from her ears above, hair loose and bracelets jangling in the middle.

For the first time I saw Aida in full makeup - spectacular! I was not going to have to worry abut anyone looking too closely at me. Hell, I was going to have to worry about being completely unnoticed.

"What did you do with that conservative pharmacist lady I spent the weekend with?"

"You like?"

"I'm trying to decide if I should give in to lust or jealousy."

"Jealously, darling. Lust would muss the makeup. Get dressed, we're going out for dinner. Sink or swim time, kid. You have ten minutes to walk around in those heels and then we are out the door."

I got dressed. Damned if I wasn't embarrassed to be wearing those utilitarian underthings when I could clearly see the lace on Aida's bra through the thin material of the dress. Didn't take long for me to become a jealous bitch.

I got up and put on the heels. I wobbled around from one end of the studio to the other, getting the feel of the things. How the heck did Aida walk in those stilts?

I know. Practice, practice, practice!

I practiced until Aida called time.

"You're improving. I'll park at the far end of the parking lot and by the time we get to the restaurant you'll be an expert."

"Either that or I'll have shredded pantyhose and skinned knees."

"You'll need more confidence that that when we walk down the aisle in the church."

I got to practice my feminine glare until Aida started applying my makeup.
 

On the way to dinner, I started to wonder if Aida might have been some relation to my mother. I couldn't count the number of times Mom warned me that 'I've got eyes in the back of my head. Don't even think of dreaming you're going to get away with it!' How could a woman who was busy driving in traffic know when I almost scratched my face? How could she swat my hand away and not have an accident?

I guess I have a lot to learn about being a woman.
 

True to her word, Aida parked at the furthest edge of the parking lot. If we were in a stadium we would have been in the nosebleed seats, but at least I wasn't trying to climb stairs in these heels.

We ate at one of those corporate greasy spoons that seem to infest suburban America. You know, the ones that go by the first name of the founder - Denny's, Sherri's, Elmer's, Wendy's. Wait a minute, Wendy was his daughter and it's a glorified burger joint so it doesn't count.

By the time we got to the restaurant I was stable enough that I wasn't so worried that I would end up with my face in somebody's Spaghetti Bolognese. The skirt thing was automatic as I sat, as was kicking off those shoes to rest my feet. Sure I was nervous, but by the end of the meal being out in public as a woman, that was simply who I was. The Ladies Room? No problem. I was a lady. Well, no problem once I managed to find my shoes. They had migrated off somewhere and Aida had to hook them and fling them back to me. I only had to fix my lipstick, eating is hard on lipstick.
 

"Where do we go for rings?" I asked. "The mall?"

"Dear girl," the fruity pseudo-English bitch was back, "one does not purchase quality jewelry from a plebeian mall. It just isn't done!"

"Please accept my humble apology, your highness."

"Granted. One of course begins one's search at Tiffany's."

"Wow! My Mom has a genuine imitation Tiffany lampshade in her study."

"You're hopeless."

"You really want to start at Tiffany's?"

"No way, Jose. Those suckers think twenty grand for an engagement ring is mid-range."

"No shit?"

"I can piss off my mother a lot mere cheaply."

"I love a girl who pisses economically."

"And you can piss off!"

"Ooohhh… Kinky!"

"Will you stop that!"

"OK, I'm stopped. Where do we go?"

"I did some searching on the web. There's a place called Rubik's that shows some decent engagement rings on their site. A half carat diamond in 14Karat gold runs five, six hundred."

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph protect us and all the Saints preserve us!"

"Like mother, like daughter?"

"Wouldn't a pair of mood rings do the job a whole lot cheaper?"

"If one expects the trap to spring you must bait it properly. Now if Mother were to be selecting an engagement ring for me - and believe me she would be perfectly happy to do it for me despite my wishes - it would certainly be about a five carat, first water diamond on a filigreed 18 karat gold band with at least a dozen smaller diamonds plastered all over the thing. Gaudy as hell, that's her style."

"Why do they measure diamonds and gold in vegetables, anyway?"

"Because you need a lot of lettuce to buy them, of course."

"I had to ask…"

"Same sound, different words. Diamonds come in Carats with a 'C' - one-fifth of a gram. Gold comes in Karats with a 'K' - one-twenty-forth of whatever metals are used in the alloy. Carrots come in Blancs - subdivided into Mels, Bugs and Bunnys. Bugs was one of the first crossdressers to gain exposure on national TV, you know."

"I tried. I really tried, but I had to say it.

"So is that really what's up, Doc?"

"The engagement is off."

"Do I get to keep the ring if you broke the engagement?"

"Good thing we haven't gotten the rings yet."

"And here I'm the guy that makes his living spotting the flaws in a plan."

"You just missed another one."

"What?"

"Get out your compact and look in the mirror. You're not a guy."

"Can I get serious for a minute?"

"I don't know, can you?"

"Yes. We're still talking an awful lot of money for a joke."

"Look, Lauren. My grandfather was loaded and he started a trust fund for me the day I was born. Dad wasn't quite as successful, but he started a trust fund right along with Gramps. Those investments have been collecting interest and re-investing it for twenty-eight years. I blew some of it on college, but when I hit twenty-four - damned male chauvinists thought a woman had to be more mature than twenty-one to handle money - all of it became mine! I live on my income and I've barely touched it. So yes, I can afford those rings."

"I guess that makes me a kept woman?"

"You're a keeper, anyway, Lauren."

"Can we make that Lori from now on?"

"Lori… I like it."

"I do too."

"Then make sure your boobies are in place and let's look at rings."
 

We entered the store holding hands, figuring that would give the salespeople a pretty good clue as to who the matching rings were for.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes, we're interested in a pair of engagement rings."

"I assume congratulations are in order?"

"I finally got her to say 'yes'."

Now wait - as I remember it was Aida saying YES! Rather emphatically. I just smiled and kept my mouth shut.

"Have you given any thought to the style you would prefer?"

"We're thinking of a simple solitaire, maybe half a carat. I'm a pharmacist and I use my hands all day and Lori spends most of her time on a computer doing complex analysis. We really don't want anything gaudy."

I had to admire Aida; assertive friendly, knowledgeable, open. Exactly the demeanor I strived for when meeting with a client. No wonder we bonded so quickly!

"I can appreciate that. Let me show you some of the things we have and you can see the various shapes to choose from - round, pear or heart among many. Have a seat and you can look more closely."

Who knew that there would be so many choices involved in finding an engagement ring? After trying and comparing several we decided that the pear cut flattered us both. I thought we were done, but no…

Now we had to decide on the setting. Aida and the saleslady started talking color palettes and warm tones as opposed to cool tones, leaving me far behind in the dust. I had no trouble keeping my mouth shut.

Aida showed me the veins in her wrist, which looked sort of a bluish-purple to me. That indicated she had a cool palette. My veins had a greenish tinge to them, so I was the proud possessor of a warm palette. Who knew?

Aida's cool pallet would best set off a white gold or platinum setting. My warm palette called for a rose gold setting. Decisions made, we left the shop five minutes after they closed. Our rings would be ready on Friday, in time to show them off to my parents.

All that money and we had to wait, but they would be here soon. In my wildest dreams I never thought I would look foreword to waving an engagement ring under my mother's nose. How cool was that?

Have I only been a girl for three days? Amazing!

Thursday

By Thursday night I was getting restless. I had returned home each afternoon and assumed my alternate identity, I did what I usually do, cooked, cleaned, watched the tube, read one of the many magazines I subscribed to. I have several dozen subscriptions to some odd technical magazines, things like NASA Tech Briefs, Fast Company, Wired, Science News, Global Finance, Business India, Bloomberg, Vogue, Esquire, InStyle, Construction Executive, Equipment Today, The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard, just to name a few.

I have a head stuffed with a huge number of odd, unrelated facts and speculations. You never know when two or more of those facts will connect and give me an insight into the project I am vetting. I certainly don't read them cover to cover, but I skim them - and the advertisements they contain - to get a decent overview of the industry.

For the last few days I had been distracted in my reading. Comfortably splayed out in my recliner, I paged through the magazines, but I kept getting distracted by my breasts. There must be some special coding carried aboard the Y genome that causes a man's brain to stop and look at any curve that comes close to the natural curve of the female breast, and I am certainly not immune to that message. The problem was, I was carrying two fine examples of that curve aboard my body, and it was distracting as hell when trying to read in a recliner.

Wearing a bra and having breasts had become almost second nature by Thursday evening, as had panties, stockings and the feel of a dress hem over my legs. I was still distracted by actually looking at my breasts, though.

I suppose such reactions are why the species hasn't gone extinct. In any case, I couldn't concentrate, so I made a radical decision. I had ventured out into the world on Monday night and disaster kindly stayed away. Why not go out again and test the waters.

Actually, I was thinking I needed a special dress to wear on Saturday when we had our dinner with my parents. That might tell you just how far I had gotten into this whole impersonation of a fiancée. It didn't seem so much like an impersonation at that point.

I had no choice but to go for the natural look since my makeup skills were negligible. I had no choice as to wardrobe, having borrowed only one dress from Aida. So I threw caution to the winds, brushed my hair into a more feminine style, put on a little lipstick - well within my meagre talents - and off I went. Then I came back and got my purse, I guess I still have a ways to go before that becomes automatic.

Once I got to the car I realized I didn't have a clue as to where I was going. I got out my phone to call Aida for help when I realized there was a better way. I would go to her drugstore and ask Aida where I should go to shop for a dress.

I parked the car and, before I could get too nervous, carefully got out without exposing my panties to anyone who would be wandering by. I entered the store, was greeted by the happy teenager at the front register and joined the line in front of the 'Consultation' window at the drug counter.

As luck would have it, it was Aida who showed up when it was my turn. The look on her face was priceless. I couldn't help it, I had to do it.

"Uh, well," I stammered in a whisper, "is there any kind of pill I could take to get, you know, a bigger, uh, bustline?"

I've mentioned that Aida is a tall woman, not some demure little thing. It isn't often that the head pharmacist stops dead, points at the customer and gives out a loud horselaugh while trying not to fall over.

"I guess it must have been something I said…" I offered to the assembled multitudes. "She's my fiancée, she usually isn't like this."

"Lauren," she gasped, "that was not nice!"

"But fun. Can you take a five minute break? I need to ask you something."

"Is it anything like that last question?"

"No, this one's serious."

"It better be. I'll be with you in a minute."

The assembled multitudes disassembled and Aida took me into the consultation room for a quick kiss and a half-hearted ticking off for causing a scene. She also gave me some places to look for a nice dress and shook her head that I would actually be buying a dress on my own. We parted with a less-that-chaste hug and off I went.

I got back in the car and adjusted the mirror to check my face. That was when I realized that even though I wasn't wearing makeup, I had refrained from touching my face. Mr Skinner would be proud!

The shopping was not interesting enough to go into great detail. I'm sure that several people clocked me, but nobody raised a fuss. The second shop had a very nice print dress that I fell in love with. I liked the longer sleeves, since I wasn't all that enamored with my bare arms and it had a high enough neckline to conceal my falsies. Aida tells me my legs are outstanding, especially in heels. That dress was perfect.

Once I had the dress, I just couldn't see wearing my plain, white utilitarian bra with it. So I went over to the intimates section and ended up with half a dozen new bras in several colors and styles. I didn't forget to get a selection of new panties, either.

I had yet to learn that women's sizes are, shall we say, free form? I just bought the sizes I was wearing and took them home untried.

I only had to return two of the bras, but ended up taking home more bras than I returned. Lesson learned.