Rick howled with laughter. Molly giggled.
"Get out," I told Rick. Still laughing, throwing the dressmaker and me amused, delighted looks, he left, boots clomping. I closed the blinds, locked the door, and stripped. And became a dressmaker's dummy. The next half hour was pure torment as I tried on dress after dress, looked over each one in the bedroom mirror, and started to like it, only to hear the dragon queen disparage it totally. I actually quit looking in the mirror to see if I had an opinion. My preferences didn't count. Madame Melisende finally chose three dresses, brought in a portable sewing machine, and started altering.
I slipped into a robe, fell on the sofa, draped myself across the long seat, and accepted a cup of hot tea from a laughing Molly. I closed my eyes. "I'd rather be shot, stabbed, or chewed on by a rogue vamp," I whispered to her, "than go through being fitted for a formal gown again."
Molly just chortled as she settled near me on the wing chair Rick had vacated. "It does you good to be a girl once in a while," she said. "Besides, now you need a new hairdo."
I groaned. Molly laughed again, but this time I was sure I heard the timbre of a torturer in the tone. Minutes later, I was sitting on a stool while Molly brushed my hair and braided it with tiny gold beads before gathering it all up and wrapping the braids around my head in an elegant do that caught the light. Then she started in on the makeup.
It was worse than I ever expected. I hated it. It was torture, no matter how good Molly said I looked. Molly made my eyes stand out like Cleopatra's, dusted something on my skin that made it glisten like gold dust, and put enough mascara on me to weigh down my lids. And she wouldn't let me look over the work--kept turning me away from the mirror with a firm hand. I could have muscled her for my own way, but Molly is my friend and she was having too much fun for me to simply stomp out.
It was late when Madame Melisende and her nameless assistant were done stitching, hemming, letting out, and taking in. They stuffed me into a dress, brought in all the lamps, and led me, my eyes closed, to the full-length mirror. Molly, the madame, the mouse who had no name I'd heard, and a sleepy-eyed Angelina, woken just for the final show, gathered around. In total silence. And I opened my eyes. I stood there in my one good pair of black dancing heels, wearing only my gold nugget as jewelry, the dress slithering around me like, like, like nothing I had ever felt before, I stared at myself in the bedroom mirror.
I gaped. Turned. "Holy . . . uh . . . moly," I whispered, in deference to Angie. I looked like a million bucks. A stylish, high-maintenance, girly, sophisticated million bucks.
The heels added three inches to my six feet in height. The silk knit dress started at my instep and rose in a loose sheath to my hips, which were banded by satin to my midriff in a tight cummerbund look. Above that wide band was a plunging neckline, the deep V crisscrossed with satin strips, the halter top strap a satin band about an inch thick. Oh--and the slash up my left leg, which made me look totally hot, was perfect for dancing. I did a little dance step, which showed an unseemly amount of thigh. "Perfect," I said, thrilled despite myself.
Beast nudged herself into my thoughts. Prey clothes. She sent me an image of two cats reflected in a pool of still, black water in a clearly amorous position, the full moon over their shoulders, the male scent-marking the female by rubbing his jaw over her head and ears. Instantly I recalled the photograph of Leo and Katie, in their own clearly amorous position. Beast purred happily.
I sighed quietly so that Madame Melisende couldn't hear. A nameless feeling tremored along my skin, lifting the fine hairs. I smoothed the dress along my body. I wasn't wearing my own underwear. The madame had cut mine from me and tossed them into the garbage with a "One does not ruin the lines of a creation avec les culottes. Foolish girl." And she had tossed me a body smoother that looked like a torture device. I had cussed under my breath while pulling on the nearly invisible wisp of discomfort. But the dressmaker was right. The smoother was perfect, and the dress would have been ruined by panty lines.
I smoothed my hands along my sides again, feeling the prickly sensation of Beast rolling over and stretching in my mind. Sex. It was the feeling of sex.
This full moon was going to be difficult.
A single knock sounded at the door and I looked at a clock. Which was totally wrong, thanks to Ada. Molly checked through the windowed door, chuckled evilly, threw me a look, and opened the door. Rick walked in, boots loud in the quiet room. He searched the space and found me. And stopped dead.
"Good Lord Almighty," he breathed.