Caught In A Good Romance, 6 Of 10 free porn video

© Copyright 2013, by Leslie P. Lowe. All rights reserved. [email protected] Caught in A Good Romance, 6 of 10 By Leslie Lowe Chapter 6 The day of the Harem Fundraiser arrived. Samantha had invited Dawn to meet us at her place to get dressed and to transform me into the character Samantha had chosen. I would be costumed as a Hindu goddess named Parvati, the goddess of power, love and devotion. This was a figure with a deep and beautiful history that was very intriguing, yet I suspected the idea was really just an excuse for Samantha to force me to wear the most flattering and feminine dress on earth, an Indian sari. On the fateful day, as I drove to Samantha's a couple hours early as requested, "To help me handle the last-minute details before Dawn does your face," I thought about the days leading up to the fundraiser. Samantha had seemed to become even more involved in her quest to make me into a woman. I hoped her reason was not that she wanted to ridicule me but that she simply wanted her girlfriends to be comfortable with me as her personal assistant. At that moment, I feared that I would not be comfortable. Instead, I was beginning to worry that I would be more and more embarrassed as the night wore on, which would show me, if I failed, to be an inept actor who couldn't pull off the part, or if I succeeded, to be some sort of flaming sissy who loved being a girl. It seemed a no-win situation. I felt the panic rising. So when I arrived at Summer's, I was weakening, worried and whining to myself, on the verge of chickening out, while still trying gamely to ride out the storm. How could I tell Samantha I just couldn't do this in front of all those women, hundreds of complete strangers? Samantha greeted me and seemed to detect something was wrong. "Are you okay, Kimmie?" "Yeah, I'm fine," I said, trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice. "I think you just need a bit of feminine pampering, as all women occasionally do. I rather thought you might." She bid me follow her, and I did, toward her bedroom. As we walked, she spoke to me, as a teacher to her student. "We girls are like orchids, my dear. We're beautiful and tough, but only if properly nurtured." "What are we doing, Samantha? I thought we had to--" "Let me draw you a bath. Take off your clothes and lingerie and put this on." She handed me a diaphanous dressing gown in lavender lace. The gown felt, well, expensive. When I joined her in the steamy bathroom, there was already a mountain of bubbles in the tub. She helped me off with my gown, saying, "Your body is deliciously feminine, did you know that, Kimmie?" She didn't wait for an answer, but guided me into the tub as if she were a lady in waiting and I were a queen. The sweetly scented water was so hot I could hardly stand it. She held my hand as I let myself down and lay back, already in bliss. Lighted candles surrounded the tub, wafting over us waves of lavender and another spicy fragrance I could not identify. Sandalwood? "Now, doesn't that feel better?" She said, standing up. "You just relax, and I'll be right back." Carrying a tray of exotic-looking oils and unguents in beautiful containers, Samantha returned before I felt even a minute had passed. Apparently, my existence in the interlude had been so fully captured by each present moment of sensory delight that time had stopped. But the bubbles had gone down and the temperature of the water was no longer at the edge of pain. So she must have let me doze for a while? Samantha asked me to sit up, which I did reluctantly, feeling a slight chill on my shoulders. She began to wash my hair and was soon pouring fragrant potions on my head. I had recently begun to enjoy my longer hairstyle, washing and brushing it as if I were already the woman she seemed to want me to be, so her attention to my lengthening auburn tresses and her touching of my head and face felt so right. "That feels good," I said in a sleepy voice. "Yes, yes," she said, in a motherly coo, "that's my girl. You are such a natural girl, Kimmie!" Placing her fingertips delicately on my shoulders, she gently laid me down in the water again, deeper than ever, my chin tickled with the remnants of my bubbles. She covered my eyes with fresh cucumber slices, afterward delighting my complexion with an avocado mask. "I feel like a salad," I said. "You look like dessert, darling." This was fun, but suddenly I was worried. I had no idea how much time had passed, but it seemed that we had to get this done. "Samantha? I thought we had work to do? I really appreciate this, but are we ready for Dawn?" "Shush," she said. Still she kept her leisurely pace. "Let me show you how we girls keep ourselves nice and clean, Kimmie." I tried to sit up. "No!" she said, pressing me back into my reclining position under the still-warm water, the bubbles now having receded to tiny islands of suds. "Don't you dare move. Allow me to cleanse you. I don't want you to lift a finger. These last few weeks, you have served me selflessly as an ideal feminine companion, waitress and secretary. You have done it all. Let me do something for you. Relax and let me help you feel better. Please?" "If you insist," I said, "but what time is it?" "For once, will you stop being so OCD?" She coated a washcloth with fragrant, creamy soap and began to wash me, but soon let the cloth float away. For now she was stroking me with her soft fingertips here and there all over my torso and legs. I checked her expression and it was intent and professional--her chosen role, an expert spa attendant--but did I also detect a coy smile of pleasure playing at the corners of her lips? "This is so nice of you, boss!" I said. "I'm your dutiful servant now, Miss Kim." With that, she began to focus on my tiny breasts, especially the now-erect nipples, and the washing became caressing, which became fondling, "Oh yes, you are my baby doll, aren't you, Kimmie?" I could only moan as if dreaming. And then, leaning over the tub, she allowed her right hand to slither slowly down to my-- "Oh!" I said breathlessly. "Oh my!" she said in mock surprise. "You have a little red hot chili pepper cooking down there, don't you, senorita?" "Samantha!" I almost shrieked through my laughter. She giggled in spite of herself, and continued as if she were a mother making baby talk to her child. "Yes, it is so cute! Mommie needs to make sure it's not neglected. We don't want pretty Kimmie to ruin her evening with a dirty little clitty, now do we?" Ashamed as I was, I didn't want her to stop. I would have gladly given up that little penis and my miniature balls for a few more moments of this ecstasy. She began to vary the locations of her sinuous movements, dividing efforts among my nipples, my clitty and the--Oh my God!--G-spot under my-- "Such pretty little jewels!" she said, beginning to giggle again as she lured me deeper into this feminine trance, captured by the desire that she had inflamed. My breath caught and a squeak issued from my lips as she thrust her finger into my--"Ohhh, too gooood!" was all I could say in ineffectual protest. "You have a sweet little boy pussy, Kimmie. Mommie is going to take you to the land of unicorns and butterflies now, so no more of your silly protesting, please?" "Yes, ma'am," I squeaked, somehow using a childish girl's voice that came from God knows where, provoking another fond giggle from my gracious tormentor. With my submission, my relaxation onto her impaling finger, my pressing back against her and hungrily seeking now even more penetration, I felt my doubts and reservations melt away in the heat of something glowing deep in my tummy and growing, and, "Aaah!" It caught me and shook me and left me begging. "Don't stop? Pleeease? Uuuuh!" Shaking all over. Then relaxing, something missing, and awakening to a new world. Samantha had withdrawn her instrument of pleasure and was now kissing my lips. "That's enough, my pretty. We don't want to wear you out now, do we?" With superhuman effort, I opened my eyes. She stood up and took a white towel from the pile nearby. Drying her hands, she said, "You wake yourself up now, honey, and don't touch junior, okay? I want you to have a little edge tonight, so no boy juice in my tub. Promise?" "Yesss," I said, as if I were drunk, punctuating it with a giggle and, "What did you do to me, Samantha?" "Oh, nothing really, sweetheart. Just your first ever female orgasm!" She laughed and opened the door. "Don't worry about your rigid little clitty. I'm going to get us some ice." That thought got me moving, first very slowly as if through a viscous pool of waist-deep beauty oils, which must have been a post-orgasmic fog, and then just swooning over my new self-love, thinking about self- pleasuring, the possibilities I knew were now awaiting me, giving me a hopeful glow. I stood and started the tub to drain, grabbed a fluffy towel and twisted my long, wet hair into a turban. I used another to begin to dry off my body, trying not to touch my chili pepper, laughing out loud at the thought, caressing my own skin, trying to remember and learn from Samantha's moves. If I were to become Lance's girl, I found myself thinking, could Samantha teach me to--No! I stopped the thought, having embarrassed even myself, and I was barely recovered by the time my boss walked in with a bowl of ice, back in her usual strictly business mode. "My! Doesn't your fair skin have a lovely rosy glow?" "Don't look so smug, you white witch!" I said, and hugged her. "Thank you, Samantha." "Oh, Kim," Samantha said dismissively, "it was nothing any woman wouldn't do for her sweet little sister." Letting Dawn begin her work on me a while later, I realized I still felt touched by Samantha's loving attention, in more ways than one. She really cared about me and wanted me to enjoy the girlish persona she had forced me to take on. And let's face it; she had a point; in so many ways, I was a natural girl! So I made a decision to accept my fate, to be a bright and happy servant girl all night, and not let the women see how anxious I had been. I'd show them! Still, even after one of the most intensely erotic moments I had ever experienced, with those sublime echos of my first female orgasm still rippling through my mind, I didn't feel very powerful sitting there in my panties and bra as Dawn applied my Bollywood-style kohl eyes and other makeup. I just felt female. Days before, as we started getting ready, I had begun by feeling terribly humiliated, but soon realized that Dawn and Samantha did not see me as a freak or a clown, or as anything but a woman of a certain kind. Certainly, that had just been confirmed. Now, Dawn worked on my face for what seemed like hours, giving special attention to my eyes, adding layers of blush-like pink-to-red colors in different shades that gave them a depth and complexity I had seen only in magazines. She used a kohl pencil to line my eyes in mysterious darkness and applied multiple coats of the blackest mascara over false eyelashes she had glued on expertly. Samantha was around for much of it, and also left the room often to check a file, make one last phone call to remind a friend of the event, and otherwise frenetically handle the details. This was the same kind of behavior in which both of us had been engaged for the whole week as the fundraiser approached. "So," Dawn said at one point, "are you doing some painkiller or something illegal, dear?" "What? Me?" I said. "What are you talking about, Dawn?" "You are all blissed out. I mean, you're always a happy girl, but this is something to see!" I had a suspicion as to what it might be, but I wasn't talking! "No, not even aspirin. Not even alcohol--yet! But I am looking forward to that drink I can have after all this is over tonight. I guess I'm just letting myself slip into my challenging role, pretending to be a beautiful woman, trusting my consummate makeup artist!" "Pretending? No way!" At this point, Samantha came marching in, hands on hips, and pronounced, as if perturbed, "I heard that, Kim! Why don't you tell Dawn why you're glowing? Admit that you're not a virgin anymore, girlfriend! It's not shameful among other women to talk about the big oh. And really, as lesbian flings go, you ain't seen nothing yet, honey!" "Samantha!" I shrieked. "Please? You're embarrassing me!" Dawn staggered back with a shocked expression, laughing so hard I was afraid she would pee, covering her open mouth with both hands. Samantha laughed again, now at Dawn too. "But don't worry, Miss Kim. I won't sexually harass you, as cute as you are. I'm happily married and fucked soundly and often by my man. Besides, Dawn knows that we girls all have to taste of Sappho's sweet fruit as we grow through our adolescence." "Aw, Kim," Dawn said, "you're so sweet I could just eat you up!" She leaned over me, scattering air-kisses, careful not to smudge either of us. As I sat there a few minutes later, I was struck by how normal and ordinary this experience seemed to me somehow. Perhaps it was the way Dawn and Samantha had shifted to treating me totally as just another woman, even when teasing me. There was no longer the patronizing serious discussion like mother to child, or perhaps mother to daughter, that I had become accustomed to in my first few days of work for Samantha--except in jest. Now we were more like peers of the same sex. And connecting all these joyful moments was this heady feeling of united action, a movement toward our shared goal of becoming beautiful women for our night out with hundreds of other women. And there was the special touching. Mmmm! During our first dress rehearsal a couple nights before, I had already become a girl to them, and somehow I felt like one too. Yet part of me wondered at this, the weirdness of having been forcibly transformed into this other person, this beautiful woman who was self-possessed and at home because that's the way she was accepted by other women, powerful personalities not afraid to criticize or coach me when I took a wrong step in my now constant footwear, strappy high-heeled sandals like they wore. They had bent me to their will just as if I were clay to be molded. They had taught me to use that sari as a stripper uses her feathered fans, to cover and to reveal, and to shift my colors like a kaleidoscope to flash before the eyes of those who saw me, showing a constantly changing but always sexy figure. As nearly as I could tell, by the time this final makeup application occurred, I was no longer acting like Kim- the-girl dressed as Parvati, I was simply being one real woman costumed as another mythological woman. And to my utter amazement, I truly loved it. I did not want it to end. Such delicious fun! Finally, Dawn pronounced my makeup done and, after wrapping me up in my luxurious sari made of burgundy silk with a border embroidered in golden threads, she added my luxuriant black long-haired wig and called Samantha for a critique. Samantha came running. "Oh my God!" she said. "She is so beautiful, Dawn!" "I am proud of my work," Dawn said, looking at me and musing like the artist she was, as if she were responding to a potential buyer at her art gallery showing. "Don't I get any credit?" I whined in my best girlish voice. Both my girlfriends rewarded me with joyful laughter. Samantha stepped up and gave me two air-kisses. "Of course you do, Kimmie, my darling. You get all the credit for being sexy and feminine and absolutely ravishing." Dawn nodded agreement. "It's a good thing there won't be any men there tonight, or you might really lose your virginity, sweetie." "You mean any other men?" I asked in my same girlish voice, except this time with a hint of hysterical diva about it, taking every opportunity to practice for this night, when I hoped to fool everyone. Both women laughed again. "As if!" Dawn said. "You're no more of a man than I am, darling. And I mean that as a compliment, totally." She fiddled with my hair and my dress, then stood back and said, "Okay, Kim. That's enough silliness. You promised to be my pretty assistant tonight, so please help me get all my makeup packed and into the car." Samantha sighed. "I thought you were going to be my barmaid?" she asked in a worried tone. "I can do both," I said. "I've looked at the list of volunteers, and it shouldn't be hard to set up the bar and show the other girls the ropes before Dawn's makeover customers start showing up." "If not," Dawn said pleasantly, stashing things in a large black tote and a pink plastic case with lots of trays that looked for all the world like a Barbie fishing-tackle box, "I can go it alone. I just think it would be more fun with Kim, and she would enjoy learning more about makeup and other secret things I do with clients older and less attractive than she is, who need special help to find the beauty they deserve." "Thank you for the compliment," I said, "and yes, I would like to learn from you, even though you sound like a Bobbi Brown brochure." Looking at Samantha, I added. "Becoming a better woman is in my job description!" "And don't you forget it, Ms. Smarty Pants Sari Girl," Samantha said. "Now let's get going." My boss looked amazing too, in a belly dancing costume with blousy trousers below a short bra-like top showing her flat tummy. The outfit somehow had an expensive, queenly look about it, with flowing sheer fabric in aquamarine colors and gold highlights, and lots of stunning gold jewelry I had no doubt was the real thing. Dawn wore a simple figure-hugging floor-length dress she had said was a caftan. It was azur blue, which made her ice-blue eyes pop. She had done those large, oval eyes in rich blue eyeshadow and was wearing all silver jewelry, lots of it. I looked at her with admiration. "Lovely dress, lovely girl. What a body!" I said. "But I thought a caftan was a loose garment?" "Oh, Kim! You're just jealous of Dawn's figure, aren't you?" "Totally!" I said, laughing with them. "But you're so pretty!" Dawn said. "Go look." I stood up and looked at myself in the full-length mirror and had to agree I had never looked better, and in fact gave no clue at all that I was not a real Indian princess headed for a wedding. I looked like any other young woman who was lucky enough to wear hundreds of dollars of makeup, gold jewelry and a divine traditional dress that Samantha had ordered straight from India with delivery by FedEx at great cost. Actually, she had selected the sari and accessories and instructed her girl Kim, yours truly--her popular-around-the-office pretty personal assistant--to handle the details, which I had. Samantha, Dawn and I got out of Samantha's big car at the Civic Center's catering entrance. "Jackson," Samantha said to her chauffeur as he tried to open the door to let us out, "Never mind the door. We ladies can take care of ourselves. Get the heavy stuff. You can't come in. Leave it at the door." Jackson appeared to be hurt by Samantha's gruff rebuff. I looked at all the cars arriving, and the people milling around, couples walking up to the door, the men stopping there as the women entered with a perfunctory wave. Elliott was nowhere to be seen, as expected. He was probably at the office. He knew we had planned to allow the men entry only in when the party ended, a half hour before we shooed everyone out the door and locked up. Leaving poor Jackson pawing through the trunk of the big car, the three of us, resplendent in our exotic outfits, stepped lively inside the big doors and surveyed the pre-event scene, finding lots of things happening, and also sadly finding the anticipated general panic prevailing, even this early. From this anticipated chaos we had hoped and planned to mold our smoothly functioning event. I knew our fearless leader could do it, and even looking down into the abyss of failure, I felt so wonderfully a part of her team that I just knew she could! I watched Samantha take off toward the noisiest and messiest situation, two large women arguing over who had reserved a booth near the entrance, where Kim-the-receptionist, drafted to help us for this special occasion, was trying to get them to look at my careful, color-coded diagram showing who was where. I had emailed the spreadsheet to all vendors three days before, so disputes would be minimized. I assumed that Samantha was going to handle it without my assistance, and carrying several bags of makeup, followed Dawn to her spot, which had turned out to be very nice, near the bar, where every woman seeking refreshment would be standing as she took the first sip of her drink. "You took care of me, girl," Dawn said. "I thought this might be a good spot," I said, trying for the look of a harmlessly mischievous Pollyanna, which is who I felt like, and I really enjoyed that. "If I don't get ten new clients out of this, I don't deserve to call myself a makeup artist." "Well, you've got me, so you only need nine more," I said. "When I'm a famous starlet, no one else will ever touch my face!" "I'll hold you to it," she said, as both of us dropped our loads and started trying to organize the booth, Dawn moving some of the things I placed and leaving others just as I had arranged them. I was fine with that, just trying to be helpful, knowing it was her thing and I was just the assistant, but also a bit proud that I had learned so much about makeup and Dawn's work that I had begun to develop a feel for how to set it all up for my temporary boss. Finally I said, "Okay, are you ready here?" "Yes, thank you, dear. If I can, I'll come help at the bar." "Don't worry about it," I said to her. "I've done this a million times, and we have more volunteers than I know what to do with." I moved over to the bar booth, where the catering people had begun to prepare the beverage service, and things looked very good already. "Nice," I said to a woman in black with an apron, who seemed to be sort of in charge. "I'm Kim, Samantha's assistant? Samantha wanted me to help you guys set things up, make sure you have everything you need. How's it going?" "I don't think we need any help," the tall, rather awkward-looking girl, obviously an experienced waitress, said to me in a confidential tone, cutting her eyes over toward the gaggle of middle-aged women in unflattering costumes standing in a corner looking lost. "Maybe you could find something for them to do?" "Well," I said, "these ladies will have a lot of fun learning how to mix and serve drinks, so let's count them in, shall we?" I was just repeating what Samantha had drummed into my head repeatedly, that we had to get everyone involved, entice them into feeling ownership over the evening, and that this was is so important that it's really a higher value than professional service. Tonight, quality was engagement by the volunteers, not service. It was the opposite of a restaurant or professional caterer. I stepped closer to the tall waitress and stood on my toes to whisper in her ear, "I'm sorry. I've done my time in the front of the house, so I know exactly what mean. But this is the boss' order, to get these ladies involved, even if our service suffers, okay?" "No problem, Kim. I understand." So I spent the next twenty minutes or so making that happen, asserting myself very gently over the hired people, involving the ladies who had volunteered, while unobtrusively giving them barmaid training, negotiating to avoid disputes, and beginning to serve drinks as the time for opening arrived and the first donors and their guests began to filter over to the bar to get their "Harem Punch" and "Exotica Erotica Intoxica" drinks, which were advertised on a big hand-lettered, rather attractive sign posted on a tripod by our booth, thanks to the somewhat primitive artistic talents of one Kim Spencer, Personal Assistant. We were also pouring regular mixed drinks, wine and beer, although the latter was really for the men as the party closed. The hall was beginning to fill up, and the spectacle was amazing to me with my limited experience in the past, always being seen as a man. Now, accepted as a woman, everything had changed. I was no longer on the outside looking in. As women began to interact more, the conversations multiplied, as did the noise, and soon, I could hardly make myself understood as I explained to an elderly neophyte barmaid how to mix a cosmopolitan. But I did not care, because I was lifted by the tide of sisterhood. The lady thanked me and said, "I love your dress, dear. You are so beautiful!" I looked at her, a bit shocked. In the rush of things and wanting to get Dawn and the bar set up, I had forgotten myself. I realized suddenly that I was not just dressed as a woman. I was being a woman. I had been doing it now for perhaps an hour since we left the house, and I felt very natural and not at all like an impostor in my role. Yes, I was Parvati, or at least Kim-the-girl, and I liked it very much. There had been very few times in my life when I had been privileged to find myself so immersed in group goals that I had forgotten myself, and this time, it was all about women, and I was one of them, accepted as one, and not treated with the gender-forced distance that men and women throw up when dealing with each other--except when courting. "Kim!" Kim-the-receptionist said, tugging on the folds of my sari. "Samantha needs you. Please hurry!" "Coming, Kim! It's all yours, Sara," I said to the catering barmaid, who had turned out to be completely professional and wonderfully on board with involving the newbies, so I was not really worried about the bar any more. If I were wrong and she fought with the volunteers, well, I could come back and patch that up later. I ran to catch up with Kim, who had hurried off in her clicking heels, her mini-skirted slave-girl outfit totally appropriate and very sexy, marking her as obviously one of the help, a role she seemed to relish, as I did. Did I, really? I thought about it as we ran. Yes, I did enjoy the submissive servant role, the sublime serenity of shared effort! Finally, on the far side of the room, near the main entrance, we found Samantha, standing frozen, seething with rage or paralyzed by embarrassment--I could not tell which--as a tall black woman yelled at her. Behind the tall woman, there was an array of of beautifully coiffed and bejeweled African-American women, looking as if they were headed out for a night on the town, or perhaps even a fancy dress ball, many of them in exotic, colorful costumes just as Samantha, Kim and I were. They were all looking at Samantha as if she were the enemy, and they had been chanting, as I walked up, "We want in! We want in! We want in!" I went up to Samantha and touched her arm, to let her know I was there to support her. Finally the shouting woman stopped to take a breath, and Samantha gained the floor. "Sharonna," Samantha said to the leader of the group, smiling obsequiously, "I'm sure we can explain what happened to your invitations. I just know we sent them out." She turned to me, with panic in her eyes. I was clear that this was not the calm, self-possessed Samantha I was accustomed to. Something serious was happening. I squeezed her hand and hoped that soon I would be able to understand what I had done. Or not done? "Uh," Samantha said, "Kim here is my personal assistant, and she handled the invitation list." Here, she turned to me, and away from the throng of angry black women. She leaned down and whispered into my ear, "Help me, Kim. I must have lost her fucking list! I can't tell her I did that. I'll never hear the end of it. They will go to the media!" Then she raised her voice and said, "Kim, can you tell us what happened?" Samantha looked at me with a helpless, almost hopeless look in her eye. She was in trouble, and she was trusting me to handle this hot potato she had just passed. "Hi, Ms. Sharonna," I said, in my sweetest, most musical voice, dripping with submissive fervor and apology. "I'm so sorry for the confusion! Samantha is right. I was supposed to get all the invitations out. Did I miss somebody? I'm so, so sorry if I did!" I stepped closer to Sharonna and tried to shrink my stature as much as possible, hoping to add the effect of visible, physical submission, letting her know she was winning this battle already. "What's your name, girl?" the tall woman said, looking down on me imperiously. "Kim?" I said meekly. I realized I was having delirious fun! It reminded me of my improvisation classes in college. I was already totally into this bit; I was in full-out improv mode; gushing my meek and submissive lines, over the top, playing the bottom role, I had fairly crooned out my words of sympathy and apology, playing the part of one woman to another, singing the old song, I'm gonna lose my job, honey, please help me, please? Samantha and I both knew that I had no responsibility at all for the invitations, which Samantha had reserved for herself and a couple of other ladies, and apparently somebody, perhaps even a white-racist-rich-bigot-bitch who had hidden herself among Samantha's volunteers, had totally dropped the ball. Sharonna took a big breath and inflated herself to her full six-foot height, towering over the rest of us. "You damned right you fucked up, you snide little bitch!" "I'm sorry," I said, meekly, noticing that Samantha had given my hand one last little squeeze and begun her retreat, stepping off to the side, out of the line of fire. Sharonna continued in her oratoratorical style, obviously playing to her friends. "I gave Samantha that list on yellow legal paper. Think, girl! Can't you remember it? Almost fifty women from my African American Professional Women's Group!" Here she swept her long, bejeweled arm in a wide arc to indicate the grumbling women behind her, and continuing, "And not a single one of them got an invitation. Hell, I didn't even get an invitation myself, and I was at the top of the motherfucking list!" "Oh my God!" I said, bringing my hands to my mouth to show shock and dismay. "I remember that list!" I looked toward Samantha, and she was nodding, pleading with her eyes, while she kept backing off, trying to create more distance. "Samantha, I'm so sorry!" I said loudly enough for Sharonna and several others to hear above the din. "I remember when you gave me those yellow legal pages. You probably should fire me! I must have forgotten to enter them in the computer?" I turned back to Sharonna and further shrunk myself on bended knees, crooning, "I'm so sorry!" I willed the tears to come. I called on my acting skills to command a few tears to work themselves out--which was no mean feat against a psyche immersed in the ecstasy of not playing, but rather being, my character--such a fun scene for an actress like me! And I was gratified to feel a few of the tears I had summoned running down my blushing cheeks. This was my close-up in the center of the action that every actress dreamed of! Sniffling, I did the eye-fixing finger-work under my lower lashes that women do when crying in makeup, trying to prevent my mascara from running, but also playing to the far end of her line of black ladies. I screeched in humiliated agony, saying to Samantha, "How could I have let you and Ms. Sharonna down? How could I have been so stupid? I'm so sorry, Samantha! Oh, I'm so sorry, Ms. Sharonna!" I hugged Sharonna, or tried to, this woman towering over me so that I felt like an ant with an anteater, a tiny, helpless ant still crying, apologizing in the same sycophantic way, Sharonna hugged me back so tenderly! She almost cooed, "Hey now, girlfriend. It's okay. Don't worry about it. All of us are here anyway! We were going to do a big protest and all, but you stole our thunder, girl." "Ohhh!" I moaned in theatrical gratitude, hugging Sharonna even harder. "Hey now," she said, trying to soothe my pain. "Stop that crying, girlfriend. I've made mistakes." She turned to the throng of black women behind her, "Haven't we all made mistakes?" "Yes!" they shouted. Samantha came back into range, a big smile on her face now. She raised her arms in welcome. "Well, thank God everyone's here! Please, just come in and have fun!" Samantha said, adding, as the first few black women pushed by us, "And I'm so sorry, Sharonna." "It's okay," Sharonna said, as she stepped aside to let her girlfriends come into the room. The noise began to get even louder as they fanned out. I was pleased to see three of the new African American attendees head toward Dawn's booth. "Is there any way I can make this up to you, Ms. Sharonna?" I asked. "Buy me a drink?" she said, laughing, and then hugging me. She turned to Samantha, "Where did you get this girl, Samantha? I might have to steal her from you if she's interested in politics." "No way, Sharonna. I might have to spank Kim for losing your list, but I'm never going to let her get away!" "Kim? Is that your name? I love your outfit! Are you like an Indian goddess or an Indian bridesmaid?" "I'm Parvati, a goddess. Samantha chose it for me." I said. "I love the Indian culture," she said. "I'd much rather be wearing a pretty sari like you than this blousy African kaftan. So much sexier! Just don't tell anybody, okay?" "Your secret's safe with me." Samantha stepped between us, "Come on, Sharonna, let's go over here and get our fortune read." Samantha looked back as she escorted the taller woman away, and mouthed the words, "thank you," with a wink. "What drink can I bring you, Ms. Sharonna?" I called loudly, running after them through the din of so many female conversations. "A mojito, Kim. But call me Sharonna, please?" "Yes, ma'am!" I said. "Thank you for forgiving me." Yes, I told myself as I went to get Sharonna's drink and an optional cosmo in case my boss was ready, you play a world-class scapegoat, girlfriend! After dropping off Sharonna's and Samantha's drinks, I went to Dawn's makeup booth, where she had me assist with a makeover. I felt wonderful as I nodded in polite agreement to whatever Dawn and her client said, and complimented the client on how pretty her skin was, and handed Dawn her tools, accepting the dirty tissues and sponges to toss into the can, the sweet client referring to me as beautiful, and talked on and on about how, "You makeup people are always so pretty and girlish it makes the rest of us look like drag queens!" Dawn winked at me, and said, "Yes, Kim is about as far away from a drag queen as one can get. She's a doll, isn't she? Such a feminine flower! We should all be so pretty and delicate, so ladylike." "Thank you, ladies, but that's enough!" I protested. "Your compliments are embarrassing me!" Dawn looked so amused by how well I passed in her makeup, not just fooling all these real women but causing them to envy me. She and I were thoroughly enjoying the little secret hidden in my panties! Things were going so well! And the joy seemed unbounded. But the tone changed, as it so often does, when the men were allowed to enter at the end of the party, the chatter now muted, the feminine secrets hidden once again, the emotional guards going up. Elliott appeared with--Oh my God!--Lance at his side. We chatted for a while, with Lance eyeing me like a newborn filly, to the amusement of Elliott and Samantha. I played the shy flower, which was exactly who I felt like, knowing that Lance had been lusting after me before even seeing how pretty I could be, when only his imagination had made me a woman. For him to see me now, in this dress, was mortifying and humbling, as if I were naked and chained before him. Lance took one look at me--a long, lusty, penetrating stare, from my pouty red lips to my tiny cherry toes--and pulled rank. He insisted that the four of us go out to dinner on him. Elliott argued about who would pay, but everyone assumed we were going out, my two bosses ignoring my pleas of fatigue and not being used to high heels. "You move in them like you wear them all the time," Lance said, grinning. "Oh yes," Samantha said. "I've got her prancing around in heels almost every afternoon now." "Really?" Lance asked, talking to Samantha but looking at me with the smile of a crocodile. "It's part of my job description," I said lamely. "Flexibility is important in an employee," Lance said, his eyes affixed on my breasts. "Come on, Lance," Samantha said, slipping her hand into the crook of his arm and leading toward the door. "Don't forget Kimmie is really a boy." "Sure she is!" Lance said. I could hear both of them chortling at my beauty, at my expense. Elliott smiled warmly at me. "You've got more courage than any ten men I know, Kim," he said, taking my hand in a firm but gentle handshake. "I'd be proud if you took my arm." Turning slightly, stepping in front of me, he graciously guided my hand into a comforting hook under his massive muscular arm and pulled me snugly to his side. He stepped out to follow his wife and client, and I glided along with him, weighing him down no more than a feather in his cap. The feelings I had as he guided me out to the limo were new and breathtaking. I guessed I wasn't the first girl to get a crush on her boss. The only problem was, I wasn't exactly a girl. Was I? As we enjoyed our drinks at Roscoe's best table a few minutes later, Samantha soon had everyone transfixed with the Sharonna story, making it seem as if I had been the cavalry arriving just in time, but in skirts. I was flattered and appreciative, and yet further embarrassed by the way her telling of the story showed accurately what a smart girl I was, handling it in such a wily feminine way, nothing like a real man would or could ever do. After a lovely meal sprinkled with delightful conversation in which the others made a determined effort to include me, Lance offered to take me home. I protested that I had no way to get my car from work. Lance parried this attempted escape easily, saying he'd have his car pick me up in the morning and take me to get my car for the weekend. In the limo, Lance and I chatted amiably until he got serious, saying he wanted to discuss, in his words, "our relationship." "What relationship?" I said, glad to see we were pulling up outside my apartment. Lance laughed and said, as I struggled out of the car, entangled in my sari, "I love it when a girl plays hard to get." I stared at him hard. He laughed again as he ran the window up in my face, and the car rolled away. I went inside, took off my sari and makeup, and soon fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of handsome Indian princes, one of them looking remarkably like Lance with a deep tan, watching us girls dance in our Bollywood style to complete exhaustion. © Copyright 2013, by Leslie P. Lowe. All rights reserved. [email protected]