Chapter 4 - Shop Around

First off, I reflected on all the things around the house that could be re-purposed into a purse. Not that I exactly wanted a purse. But I could easily see the utility with all the crap I usually had to stuff into my pockets, along with the recent addition of my phone.

Despite considering a few options, nothing fit the bill for my needs. At least, I could grab one of the umbrellas and use the phone's original box to keep it dry.

I unleashed my hair out of its little ponytail and judged my walk in the larger mirror in the bedroom. The shake of my broad hips and supple behind kindled exactly the sort of reaction I was hoping to avoid in public. Even the thought of being out in public fed back into the flow...in a difficult to restrain fashion. It was way too hot for one of my navy blue hoodies, yet I still grabbed my cleanest one for something to at least wrap around my waist.

It was an awkward and painfully obvious cover and also emphasized my big ass. Experimentally, I slipped on the hoodie and relished the way it made me feel. It fell across me in the way I imagined a dress might. The sleeves overwhelmed my hands and gave me material to twist and curl and play with. At my chest, it was easy to shift the front to give more of an impression that something was there than my meager but still sensitive chest.

How far it fell while still retaining the softened outline of my shape was a mental boost. I just could not bear to wear it out in this weather. If things got worrisome though, then at least I knew it was a tent I could retreat into. Begrudgingly, I pulled it back around my waist and got ready with some deodorant and a quick wash to make sure I felt fresh.

Groceries weren’t a problem, thanks to my parents. Still, there was plenty I could get. Mostly, I felt curious about roaming the areas where I usually didn’t go. I considered Walmart but the nearest was a shade off being a hellish, nightmare pit with dirty floors and forgotten merchandise under the newest management. Target wasn’t much better, but it sat next to several shops and boutiques I was eager to try out.

Plus, the blighted well of mediocrity that was Target would at least give me an impression I could work with. And it wasn’t a long drive.

I couldn’t seize the ease to put on Spotify or some other musical app to kill time while I rounded the corner and merged onto the main road. I popped open the window to let the old sense of dust inside the car and the oppressive steam clean of the outside mingle. Spittle rain continued, interspersed with flicks of heavier drops that cascaded through the dirt and dropped away from the windshield like congealing sweat.

Past the mobile home parks and the small market, I noticed there seemed to be new construction on the main road not too far from some of the elementary schools. Instantly, my first hope and thought were that they had somehow put down a bookstore less than a mile from my home. That used to be the case, over in what used to be a bowling alley and then used to be a Kmart, and now had become an indoor swap meet, past a series of restaurants, nail shops, and what used to be a major supermarket before their culling began.

The purge of bookstores was even more painful though. First, losing this independent one nearby. Then, all the little ones owned by other companies inside the mall. Then, the stray ones I had to travel near and far to find. A regression and retreat from fun possibilities. I vaguely entertained the thought before glaring at my ineffectual wiper blades.

Naturally, people were blasting sheets of water at full speed from the intersection as I carefully made my left into the Target parking lot. It wasn’t raining much but areas like this side of town seemed to pool the water into sudden flash floods. Fortunately, the parking lot was easy to navigate on the left. When I pulled into an empty spot, I took a long moment to release a slow breath as the wind whipped sprinkle obscured the view. I wouldn’t need my phone here, so I took the blanket from the backseat and gently covered the box. It also didn’t appear that the rain was heavy enough to bother dragging an umbrella around. So, I turned and unfurled the hoodie as a shield to get inside.

I barely felt a chill. Past the giant red balls out front, I grabbed the nearest cart and held a breath. The cart felt subtly taller than I was expecting. It was enough of a difference that I took a minute to adjust my arm position. I hadn’t needed to fix the seat or mirrors in my car when I got in.

I mentally floated past these thoughts before focusing on how exposed I was, even with a hoodie as an odd security blanket. I puffed a few locks of my damp, red hair out of my face before blindly fixing it to look as good as I hoped it would.

My lower legs already ached, as though I’d walked the entire way here. They were bare and exposed but silky smooth as they brushed against each other with each shy step. Orbiting on the edge of the aisle, I glanced over at women’s accessories. Some cute bracelets, hair ties, necklaces, and other items shared a display case and a little turning thing.

Weaving between everything in the section, I lingered by the neutral-toned purses after skipping around the hot pink and glittery silver ones. The prices were not exciting, but there was one purse constructed with a slot for a cell phone in mind. The edge had the zipper on the outside along with a silken lining.

Again, the price was not in the range where I would leap at it but nothing else quite caught my eye. So, I casually and quietly dropped it underneath the basket in my cart as a possibility. The dangerous jungle of possibilities and fear lay ahead.

Bras. Skirts. Full flapping dresses. Garments I really didn’t have a ready name for. But if everyone was going to treat me like a lady and this was my look then I needed and wanted something that made sense, even though I felt so in over my head standing before the kaleidoscope of colorful clothes.

The first, daring move I made was to gently lift a bra off the rack and check its information. The world didn’t end. Which is always a good start.

I earnestly lingered on an understated, silky skort with the material flowing freely but joining in the middle. It felt like the kind of hybrid garment I could transition to first before I got more adventurous. My nerves felt so raw and attenuated that a lingering clerk who suddenly and sweetly asked me, “Can I help you with anything, miss?” was nearly enough to launch me into the air.

She noticed my jolt and asked if I was all right. My first reaction was to dress in the fastest smile possible. From there, I had zero trust in how I made sounds to her face. My brain ran so hot, like a computer screaming over every possibility, that sweat threatened to stream past the rain moistened tips of my bright hair.

Cautiously, I cupped my mouth with a tiny cough and faintly answered, “Sorry. My… my throat. Looking around.”

The clerk immediately went into what was surely a practiced sympathy mode as she laid her hand near her neck and responded, “Oh, I’m sorry! Was there anything in particular or any section you were trying to find? If you can’t speak, I have a print-out catalog with the different departments and you can just point to what you’re trying to find.”

That was very nice of her, even though the attention of her gaze threatened to drown me in a pool of my fluids. I waved her off with a smile and a shake of my head without trying to speak again.

After that, I was basically left to my own devices. I knew that people were around, other customers and clerks. But none of them focused on me. Eventually, just standing around this department didn’t feel as crazy as it had minutes ago. Maybe I was just making too much of it, but it was still incredibly stressful.

But again, the world didn’t end and I had to deal with how things were.

Bottom to top. Shoes. My feet were absolutely smaller but it wasn’t such a drastic change that my feet felt uncomfortable in my original sneakers. Of course, I had no way to tell if these were my original sneakers. Maybe they were a little bit smaller. My feet shifted some, even with the laces is done tight. and there was definitely a space at the front of the shoe. They weren’t uncomfortable to wear, but I could absolutely see myself in something smaller.

This was not the place I wanted to look for shoes, especially since open-toed options were the norm. Now socks, I could get behind even though it’s still felt like I would be in the range for my usual pairs. Because of the summer heat, I often went without. But some sort of cute, light sock did appeal to me. After that, there was no way I was going to look at ladies' underwear. Granted, I had a notion of how I could make it work but that didn’t feel like a priority. I could just grab some generic stuff in cotton with a nice color.

Pulling in a breath and tightening my boldness, I dropped one of the skorts into my cart along with a succession of denim long skirts and other sorts with natural materials. My nerves started to fade when I found some nice fitted-tees and tops that I thought would be loose. But I had to try stuff on.

Just holding things against myself and hoping, with how much my shape had been altered, was not enough. For the lady behind the changing room desk, I made my voice small and issued the same excuse about not being able to talk. She counted up how much I had and gave me a numbered plastic tag. The walk back through the changing rooms made me swoon, as though I wasn’t fully in control of my body and rather just some remote control toy moving on a tank-like delay.

Not even getting inside the stall felt comfortable, as my brain flashed with a dozen fears that someone, despite all the privacy promises that everyone made, would be watching me in a secret room. So, the changes between each outfit were a quick and nervous flick-flip which left me stumbling and staggering on my feet.

If not for feeling so distended and exposed by the skirts, they would’ve been quite perfect. I liked the way they billowed while remaining close. I’d never worn a kilt, but I enjoyed the feel of this. Of course, everything underneath wanted to make itself well known.

With a deep breath and a quick sit on the bench, I regained some of the restraint and stability that I needed. The clothes had that store stiffness you would expect, but I delighted in the material. At the very least, I could easily see myself wearing skirts around the house and out of view of the teaching camera and then pop on the tops later for the heat of the summer afternoon.

In my head, however, I was already close to $100 with just a few outfits picked out. And these were actually rather large on me, the new me. I didn’t want to spend all afternoon here though, especially when there were options further down the strip which might be cheaper and more interesting. So, as a compromise, I grabbed onto a handful of things that looked really nice and felt like I would find reasons to wear them, and then carefully checked their sizes.

This nervous trek back-and-forth had me fighting with parts of my own body for whether I was going to pee myself or do something else. Fortunately, I wrestled enough willpower to keep my body from spazzing out. The ankle-length dress, however, which felt oddly comfortable, challenged my will. Looking in the mirror had me flush and turned on in ways I could scarcely imagine. It was like being the human embodiment of a reflecting pool as stones kept crashing waves inside me over and over. And I was on the precipice of all that spilling forth.

Squirming in place, I managed to instill just enough terror, of the right sort, into me that I put a cap on it. Power shuffling my way out in my normal clothes, I zoomed for the nearest restroom. I felt relief that it was a family style one which didn’t force me to choose. In the large stall at the back, I ripped off my shorts and plopped down on the seat. My traitorous thoughts recalled the feel of that dress just as I was starting to relieve myself.

It was coming. Shuffling back and not trusting the open notch at the front of the seat or how elevated it was, I exploded with all the sensations I’d restrained. Several things hit me at once.

First of all, I pulsed with the sensation of every wave. It was like a spurting fire hose thrown over a series of hurdles. At the same time, it felt thin, strange, and oddly viscous. Like I was still stuck in peeing mode, but with something new. This just shoved another firecracker in as it all started to hurt without me touching anything.

I could easily imagine this was where everything would change even further. And that just threw another accelerant into the mix. Ultimately, I felt like I had been screwed by a ghost.

Cleaning up in the restroom of a Target was trembly and shameful. At least I didn’t leave any stains on my clothes but their industrial, one ply tissue paper crap was not up to the task. The stray notion that I’d had a sexy rendezvous threatened to reignite the powder keg. My imagination played with fire, briefly envisioning all the possible details. It wasn’t helped by the lingering aroma.

Outside, I veered away from clothing to see if there were any treats I could add to my basket. Chocolate might be a fun experiment, considering one of the myths was that a woman’s sense of smell and taste (as I had a woman’s face) made chocolate a completely different experience from what a man felt. It might’ve been a myth and this wasn’t a very scientific test, but I’d still have chocolate.

I limped a little amongst crowds, in part because I felt nervous worry that what had happened to me was obvious, however people saw it, and because I felt drained. After picking out a few things, I decided it was time to head off somewhere else.

For the check-out, I used the self-service section and managed to escape without dealing with anyone else. The clouds still weighed heavily but blue sky, with the cast of the evening, parted them.

The overpriced body stuff store might be worth a stop, even though I only really tried the pillow mist and aromatherapy bottles. I’d been out of all of them for quite a while and it hadn’t really made much difference.

The first thing I noticed was that everyone who worked there had a long, perfect hair. They finally got rid of face coverings, so I could see an army of smiling faces with also perfect teeth. I felt slightly better that the lady towards the front who was placing several squeeze tubes on a shelf had a similar body type to me. We were about the same height if I stretched out on my toes.

The sweep of her hair ranged from an almost-blonde that sat near her shoulders to a much darker tone towards her roots. On the whole, it appeared like streaked mahogany brown. Some part of me calculated that I was at least fifty percent as pretty as her. But the confidence-breaker was my voice.

Once again, I feigned laryngitis or something similar, smiling while tapping my throat and resting a hand against my lips. A turn and a faint, covered cough was all I needed to add. She passed me off to a coworker with black hair who folded her arms in front of her and offered me some possibilities for what I’d like to buy. I gestured around and looked.

And my nose took in even more. A few test spritzes and being immersed in that small shop helped. My sneeze, even though I caught it, sounded bigger than my size. I earned quite the “bless you”.

After browsing a bit, I left without buying anything. None of their prices or deals were worth it. The discount clothing stores just past was no-frills, even though they did have some changing rooms. No one in there was at all worried about how I looked and I could tell, by how some ladies were digging around for deals on their hands and knees.

One huge benefit to the place was that they surrounded it with nothing but mirrors on the walls to make it look bigger. Target had something similar but far more subdued and I was too distracted to even bother noticing.

Here, I wandered a section and then frowned in surprise as I noticed a girlish redhead passing by wore the kind of random stuff I usually did. She frowned to look over at me and it took a silly amount of time to realize I was judging my reflection.

The mirror before me was bigger than the one at home, while still being discount quality slapped up on a wall. At a glance, I could find no doubt that I looked just like a girl. From the side, I had a faint trace of bumps at my chest, something that would vanish if I added so much as another, scant layer.

I hadn’t been hunting for them, but I could go looking for push-up bras with some sort of insert. If only I had my phone with me, so I could have some sort of guidance. At least, it didn’t take me long to find some options in an area off to the side. They looked like the kind of stuff I’d seen before. Some had a squishy, underside section while others were paired with a very soft, flesh-toned insert.

I felt like I was wandering into a pool in which the tips of my toes were straining to touch bottom as the water nudged me forward. Oh, swimsuit. If I wanted to head to the waterpark then I had to remember to get one of those. Granted, I could just go in some shorts paired with a light top.

Poking around, I found what felt like a holy grail of sorts. Not only was it primarily cotton in a deep blue that I adored, but it was a pair of swim shorts with a slim shape. Unfortunately, this meant looking for some sort of bikini top or at least a sport-bra-looking one. After digging without needing to crawl around on the floor, I had a few candidates. Along the way, a few of the “maximizer” bras and inserts got added to my narrow cart.

Once again, it was back to the changing room. The lady at the bench barely paid attention to me. Not as though Target was the Ritz Carlton of changing rooms, but the floors felt like they hadn’t been washed in this section since the store first opened. Hanging things up and juggling what I could, I worked through.

The swim short felt rather like scuba gear but made of materials that I liked. I chanced upon a top that fit well with my new size. It couldn’t pull off a miracle, nor did I expect it to, but I still felt faintly disappointed there wasn’t more to show off at my chest. Past that, I felt comfortable.

The real test came with the bras. I chose some with the enclosure in the front and tested out each style. My back popped a few times before it hit me it would be easier just to rotate the bra around and adjust it afterwards. I got adventurous with some picks before finally settling on a combination which reduced doubt that something was there.

It was such a minuscule difference but one which drastically altered my perceptions. With that little boost of boob, it was easier to feel my sleek, soft, cute face. Slipping on my hoodie made me feel especially nice like that, even though the swamp cooler didn’t seem like it was doing anything to cut the storm’s mingling heat.

Playing around with the combinations left me in a slim top with the nicest padded bra underneath and a fun, fluttery skirt. None of the clothes had been washed yet, so they had that awkward itchiness, but at least they didn’t feel like they’d been scoured across the floor. At the changing room lady, I stood there in my choice of clothes and meekly spoke, “Can I wear them out?”

My emphasized bumps were my meager bulkhead against the nervous tones of my voice. The lady looked frustrated and annoyed with my request, even though she didn’t turn her sharpest scrutiny on me. Going back-and-forth I had to show her everything and she had to write down all the information. I wore my hoodie and turned over my debit card to be used at the front.

Everything together stretched well past $300, but I had several outfits for swimming and lounging around the house. And that was with several manufacturer’s discounts. But I was wearing a loose and airy skirt with all sorts of other stuff. If not for the nervous swelling between my legs contained by a pair of bicycle shorts and completely obscured by the skirt, then everything would appear perfect. I even stopped to linger at my pleasant reflection in these new clothes.

Miss Maggie Jones. Now, I felt settled enough to go purse shopping. Although anything to replace my ancient wallet from when I was not even yet a teenager seemed overdue. The discount place next door had a denim purse with several slots to safely stash your phone. And it was cheap enough I could just roll with it while keeping my eyes out for something fancier.

I didn’t stay long, as it felt like the ravenous beasts of a dozen sandstorms had been trapped within those walls and deprived of a proper meal. Plus, their air conditioning was even worse than the other discount place. The purse looked like a deal, although it definitely deserved a run through the wash after it had to endure somewhere like that.

The storm left behind a heavy, prickly mist. While large sections of pavement had been flooded mere minutes ago, now large swaths of it were completely dry. Turning left at the light near the bank, I merged onto the main roundabout that would take me back into downtown.

For all the development, this area still remained largely empty. A major hospital chain had a clinic building to the left which they had promised, for decades, to turn into a proper hospital replacement. To the right, a large market and gas station stood alone like a sentinel against the void.

Further up to the right was the first of many smog check businesses, along with a small strip mall, a storage place, and an aeronautics magnet school past the intersection. Before the intersection though, something was different…

A patch of land not only had been graded, stripped of its sparse desert vegetation, paved, built on, and assigned businesses, but those businesses were open and in full display. A nail spa on the edge was the constant blood sacrifice to appease every business center in town. Although, as things now stood, I was more interested to see what kind of services they offered.

Next door to that was the first business that made me widen my gaze. It was called simply, “Critical Hits Gaming”. The window advertisements teased a swarm of physical and digital entertainment. And it was less than a mile from my house. A sandwich shop I didn’t recognize sat next to it. But the thing that got cars beeping behind me, because I stopped in the left turn lane a moment to stare, was the surprisingly large bookstore anchoring the plaza.

This had to be a waking dream. This just couldn’t be possible. The town that I lived in was far from perfect, light-years even, but it had quirks, cracks, and flaws I’d gotten used to in my life and actually appreciated. One of the things that I knew intimately was that whenever I found something fun in the area, it would tantalize me with it for a short while, then ultimately take it away.