
“See anything you like?” Sadie asks next to me as my eyes slip over the rows of clothes. “Do keep in mind, you don’t have to wear a dress, there are plenty of other feminine clothes here.”
I nod slowly. I’d just been thinking the same. Because party dresses are so short, aren’t they?
Tentatively, I take a few items from their hangers and hold them against my body. Everything’s so pretty but….
“They’re all so tight,” I say in a low voice, scared somebody might hear me.
Sadie looks at me. “Yes?” Then she realises. “Oh, right. Fuck. Uhm… do you think that’ll be… a problem?”
Both of us blush furiously and I shrug. “Not like I have a lot left….” Right. At this point, having sex would probably be difficult. “But even what there is, I… really don’t want people to -”
Sadie suddenly turns to meet my eyes. “Do you know what ‘tucking’ is?”
I’ve never heard the word before so I shake my head.
“Well, I don’t exactly know, either,” she says, “But I’ve heard it a few times in queer circles. It’s a way to arrange things… down there, that’ll make it almost invisible, especially if, you know?”
I’ve really never heard of that.
“Wait, I’ll look it up. One second,” she continues when I just stare. A few seconds later, she hands me her phone. “You might have to get the right underwear for that, but that really shouldn’t be the problem.”
So that’s what we do. We get a pack of plain women’s underwear in the right size, then Sadie guards my changing cubicle as I put everything in order. The guide on her phone said that I might need to put on two sets of underwear at the same time to increase the pressure but that turns out to be unnecessary. Even with just one, I’m able to hide everything pretty well. When I’m done, I turn to the mirror and look at myself, the skirt of my dress still held up by my hands. When I’m not staring at it, I can almost convince myself that there’s nothing there to begin with. So with clothing over it….
I let the skirt fall back down and leave the cubicle to go outfit hunting with Sadie. It’s only early afternoon, now, so we still have some time left. Even so, by the time I’ve finally settled on hot pants and a black crop top, we have to hurry to get home in time so we can both shower in time, blow dry our hair and do our make up. It’s not like either of us has to put on huge amounts of make up to look presentable but it does feel nice to put a little effort in. Once my hair is dry, she also puts it in a style she calls half up half down – which is weird because all she does is take a fair bit of hair from the sides of my head and fix it to the back of my head with a clip. It does look great, though.
Then we’re out on the street, Sadie with Google Maps on her phone, heading towards the party. The air is still comfortably warm and my legs feel strangely long, now that they aren’t halved by the dress’s skirt or boy shorts. The idea of wearing as little as I am is still novel but I feel comfortable. There’s nothing showing that shouldn’t be showing and I’m comfortable showing what I am. I feel light in the evening breeze as we walk along the road away from the port town and up the hill to where the party’s supposed to be taking place.
The sun’s going down behind us as we get higher and higher until we can not only see the sea glistening beyond the houses but also most of the island, the small trees and rough bushes, the rocks and crevices.
The house at the end of the road is large and luxurious. It can’t quite compete with Kim’s home but that does little to take away from its grandeur. Even long before we see it, we hear the music, the laughter and the shouts in a language I don’t understand but that Sadie seems to at least recognise as Greek.
There’s a wall surrounding the estate but the large gate is open and behind it I can see crowds of people in front of the house, playing drinking games, chatting, chasing one another. There are two bulky middle-aged men standing by the gate wearing security gear and they stop us as we approach.
One of them asks something in Greek and Sadie flinches a little, then furrows her forehead and stammers a few words. The possibility that we wouldn’t even get in hadn’t even occurred to me until this very moment. One of the guys gets this slightly annoyed look in his eyes like he’s already thinking about the right English words to send us away.
And then there’s a voice. “There you are!”
All four of us turn to see Elias standing in the open door, waving at us. He’s wearing loose shorts now and a khaki shirt and the grin is the same one he gave me this morning as he jogs toward us.
“I invited them,” he tells the two men, adding a few words in Greek that seem to be too quick for Sadie to pick up.
He waves us past the men and when we walk, they don’t stop us.
“You look better,” he says, giving me a quick, firm hug. I let him, even touch my hands lightly against his back.
“Thank you.” I motion toward Sadie. “This is the friend I was talking about. Her name is Sadie. Sadie, this is Elias.”
She puts on her best smile and also receives the hug graciously. She’s wearing her usual shorts-shirt combo so for the first time in basically ever, I’m more scantily clad.
“So, uh, how was your way here?” he asks in his strong accent as he leads us past the people and to the open door. They’re staring at us.
“Good,” I say slowly. Then, “Is this your party?”
A flash of pride lights up his eyes. “Yes! Everybody’s here.” He halts. “Well, almost everybody. You are the only tourists.”
And weirdly, that fills me with a sense of pride. I’m pretty enough to have been invited to a party despite being a stranger. Well, or I just looked miserable enough. But he doesn’t look like he just invited me to make me feel better. He’d be trying a little harder to ditch me, then, and get back to his friends. Instead, what he’s doing is leading us through the marble-tiled corridor to the kitchen, where he leans onto the obligatory alcohol table and looks at us expectantly.
“What drinks do you want?”
Sadie and I talked about this. Don’t let him make drinks while we’re not there. Even if he doesn’t drug them, putting more alcohol than we want is enough – getting the victim really drunk is the easiest way to make them pliable. But he’s not even attempting that.
“Something sweet,” I tell him and the grin he gives me makes me giggle. He has this quality to his expressions. Cute is probably the word, though I didn’t think I’d ever think about a guy that way.
He doesn’t even hesitate before grabbing the first bottle of juice and giving it a thorough shake. I watch closely as he measures the ingredients – without putting in a lot of alcohol, as far as I can tell – puts them in a shaker and finally serves me a drink on ice with a slice of lime and a straw. Laughter flashes in his eyes, then he turns to take Sadie’s order.
When we have our drinks, Elias leads us back into the corridor and to a huge room that is probably usually a living room but now serves as the main dance floor. The music is loudest here. The base vibrates in my feet and a large wall-mounted TV shows the music video to the song that’s currently playing. Again, the people stare at us as Elias leads us through the mass of moving bodies. Most of them seem to be roughly our age, I doubt there’s anybody over twenty here so far.
The huge floor-to-ceiling windows around the room show the pool in the backyard and the people standing around it, sitting at the edge with their feet in the water and even swimming, splashing each other. The terrace door is a sliding door, it turns out, and it’s been opened all the way so that it feels like half the room is just missing a wall. Definitely helps with the air inside, though.
Elias leads us outside and to a disproportionally long beer-pong table. A whole crowd of people is standing around it and some of them cheer as they see Elias come closer with us.
“Guys,” he announces in a loud voice, “These are Luisa and Sadie, all the way from –” he interrupts himself and leans over to me to whisper, “Where are you from?”
I giggle. God, I haven’t even taken more than a single sip yet and already I’m acting drunk. “England,” I tell him and he turns back to the crowd.
“All the way from England.”
More cheers, then he leads us to one end of the table and says, “You’re on my team! These are my friends by the way.” He points at each of the eight boys and girls standing at our end, telling us names I’m already forgetting. It’s his turn first and he makes it look easy. The small, white ping pong ball plops right into one of the water cups and he takes a large sip from a beer that’s handed to him. It’s a good atmosphere. The air has gotten less heavy now and the twilight is setting in. The music is loud even out here but not too loud to talk and after playing for a while, I can feel the buzz of the alcohol starting to set in.
The boys and girls treat me differently from the way they do at home. The boys keep glancing at me, roaring when I hit one of the cups. They don’t include me in their banter. The girls on the other hand keep making conversation with Sadie and I, a few of them speak pretty decent English. Everybody goes kind of crazy when they learn that Sadie speaks a little Greek and even crazier when one girl of Indian descent talks to her in Hindi and she replies fluently. She’s also a lot better at beer pong than I am.
On the way here, she’d asked me whether she should dial it down a little but I told her it’s fine. It’s only a party after all, she’s not trying to wing-woman me into marriage.
Later, when Elias excuses himself for a moment, a large, muscular guy puts his arm around my shoulders, leans in and asks in a silly voice, “So, what do you think of Elias?”
I’m already comfortably drunk at that point and the question makes me laugh out loud, even though he’s very much in my personal space.
“Do you think he’s nice?”
“Leave her alone, Lucas,” one of the girls, I think her name is Lio, tells him, pulling at his arm.
My face is growing hot with all the attention and I’m not meeting any of their eyes. “I think he’s nice,” I say in a low voice and Lucas lets go of me and howls triumphantly.
Sadie and I talked about this, too. Experiences. Flirting. And I decided I’d just come and see what happens. And so far I haven’t said anything wrong, have I?
“Do you think he’s cute?” Lucas asks then and I give a non-committal shrug.
“I don’t really know him yet, do I?”
I’m not entirely sure whether Lucas is actually trying to wingman or just get Elias into an uncomfortable situation.
“Do you wanna get to know him?” His eyes are laughing like he isn’t entirely sure himself whether he’s being serious.
I shrug again and give him a small smile. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“Lucas! What are you doing!” Elias shouts suddenly from behind us and pushes the much bigger guy away from me. He continues shouting in Greek in a manner that makes it very clear his words are profanity as he hits the bigger guy against the chest and shoulder. Lucas is howling with laughter, trying to dodge the hits but doesn’t really manage.
After a long moment, he returns to the group, avoiding eye contact with me and expectantly looking around.
“Whose turn is it?”
“Sorry,” one of the other guys says, trying his best to keep from laughing. “We replaced you, we thought you’d be gone for longer, now there’s no space left on the team.”
“With who?” Elias asks, clearly aware of where this is headed.
The guy turns and shouts something in Greek and within seconds, another guy joins us, grinning broadly. A heated discussion in Greek erupts where I’m pretty sure Elias tries his best to dissuade the others from their mission to make this evening as awkward for him as possible.
I watch for a moment, then tap his shoulder. “I don’t really feel like playing anymore,” I tell him with what I hope passes as a confident smile. “Could you make me another drink?”
His eyes are empty at first, like he doesn’t understand what I’m saying and what I’m implying, then he nods. “Yeah, sure.”
Lucas cheers again from where he fled to escape Elias’ wrath and Elias shoots him a death glare. Sadie shoots me an encouraging smile as we walk past her. She won’t follow me so I’ll have the chance to… do whatever I’m going to do.
Hope you know what you’re doing Luisa!