"Oh my god, Emily! What are you wearing?"
Emily stood in the open curtains of the changing room, wearing a vintage papier-mache mask and an Edwardian style tea-dress. Tasha stopped combing the racks to fix her with an exaggerated sneer.
"Why? What's wrong with it?" Emily asked, swishing the lace skirts of her dress.
"Where do I even start?" Tasha sighed, pretending to throw her hands up in exasperation.
Emily turned back to the mirror behind her and peered at her reflection through the eye slits in the grotesque scowl that hung over her face. "I like it! It's exactly the kind of thing people wore in the 1900s. And this dress is in such good shape for how old it is!"
Tasha rolled her eyes and leaned an elbow on the rack. "Okay, sure. I'll give you points for historical accuracy. But no one will be able to see your body in that!"
Emily lifted up her mask and glanced at her reflection again. The style of dress didn't suit her body exactly. She had a small enough frame for the 1930s style, but the stiffness of the fabric stuck out awkwardly around her curves. It didn't look bad, by any stretch, but her figure was definitely obscured. "I'm okay with that," she replied, but her voice wavered with uncertainty. "Halloween is supposed to be scary. I don't know why it has become all about sex."
Tasha shook her head. "Emily, how old are we now?"
Emily turned to her roommate and laughed nervously. "Twenty-nine?"
"Yeah, twenty-nine. And have you ever properly slutted out for Halloween?"
Emily paused, picking at her lower lip. "Well, there was two years ago at Damon's party..."
"Yeah..." Tasha said, crossing her arms, "when you dressed as a Victorian ghost."
"I wore a corset..." Emily protested.
"Underneath a high-collared velvet dress, so no one could see a damn thing. And that hair you were rocking..." Tasha pretended to shudder at the memory.
Emily took the mask off and looked down to hide the pink that was creeping across her face.
Tasha noticed. "Look," she said, her tone softening. "If you wanna wear that, more power to you. Rock the shit out of that horrible mask and grandma dress. Be your best self. But, I think that you secretly want to wear something sexy. You just think that if you do, people will notice that you actually have a nice little body under all of your clothes and that they will judge you for it. Am I right?"
She was right. Emily shrugged noncommittally.
"So, I'm going to give you an out," Tasha said and went back to sorting through the racks. "I'm going to pick out something for you, and anytime you are worried that people think you're feeling yourself too much, you can just say that I dressed you. Everyone knows how pushy I am, they won't even ask."
Emily laughed. "Okay, sure. Nothing too on the nose though, okay? I don't want to be a sexy police officer or anything like that."
"Don't worry," Tasha replied. "I saw something in the racks a little ways past. I'm going to buy it and you're going to wear it. Just trust me."
Back at their apartment, Emily looked at herself in the full-length bathroom mirror. The dress that Tasha picked out was long and black with dramatic bell sleeves and a few eye clasps spanning from her belly button to just under her crotch. The slit of the skirt went to the absolute top of her thigh and the top was almost completely open, exposing most of her bra and a long triangle of her stomach.
"What am I supposed to be, exactly?" Emily called to Tasha, skeptically.
"Morticia!" Tasha shouted from her closet. "I've got that black wig and when I do your makeup, it'll all come together."
Emily felt too embarrassed to look at her own reflection any longer, and so she sat on the toilet lid to wait.
Tasha burst in, wearing her undead sexy nurse costume from three years ago and carrying a pile of black hair and lace. She put her armload down on the floor and produced a joint from behind her ear. She lit it, took a puff, and passed it to Emily. "Here," she said. "It'll help lower your inhibitions." Tasha said this every time, as if Emily had never gotten high before.
Emily took a hit while Tasha looked her over.
"Stand up," Tasha ordered. At times like these, Tasha liked to channel Edith Head, barking clipped commands in an unidentifiable accent. "Bra off," she said after a moment of consideration.
"What?" Emily asked, incredulously.
"It looks bad with a bra," Tasha sighed. "Take it off. You're perky enough and I've got double-sided tape."
Emily slid out of her bra and pulled the shoulders of the dress back into place. The gauzy fabric felt strangely nice as it slid along her bare breasts.
Tasha was now kneeling on the floor. She tapped Emily's shin; the implied direction was for Emily to offer up her leg. When Emily lifted her foot, Tasha slid a lacy stocking up to Emily's mid-thigh. She shivered from the cold of Tasha's fingers and from something else... Am I getting turned on by this? She tamped the feeling down by biting on her lower lip and taking in a breath. The feeling resurfaced as Tasha put on her other stocking.
Tasha sat Emily down again on the toilet seat and brought out her heavy makeup bag. She went to work, brushing pale foundation and powder all over Emily's rosy freckled complexion. Dark eyeshadow and red lipstick were applied, and then the black wig was pulled low over Emily's hairline.
Tasha looked at Emily for a moment- her evaluative stare was always so difficult to read. Then a smile spread across her face. "You look so fucking hot!" she squealed, suppressing a giggle.
Emily stood up and was manhandled to the mirror by Tasha's imploring hands. When she faced her reflection, she could hardly recognize herself. She was no longer the sweet-faced red-headed hippie girl. She looked severe and dark, an appealing combination of intimidating and alluring. There was a confidence in her posture, and with her shoulders pushed back she could see the rounded fullness of her bare breasts casting shadows on her slim stomach. Her body was sensual in a way that it never had been before. Her curved form looked as if it were begging to be touched.
On any other night, Emily would have fought back against the sexiness of this. She would have insisted on putting on a slip underneath, on wiping the red from her mouth. She would have spent the whole night slouching, trying not to be noticed. But, tonight... she looked so unlike herself and the feeling of being someone else followed.
She felt her movements change as they made their way to the party. Her walk became a prowl, her face and chest tilted haughtily upwards. Tasha next to her seemed swayed by the change in Emily's energy too. Tonight, she did not rush Emily along or make comments about what Emily should do when they got to there. Tonight, Tasha seemed in awe of this tall and dark creature beside her. They passed the rest of their joint back in near silence until they arrived.
"Holy shit, Emily?" Damon asked incredulously as he let them in. "Damn, I would never have recognized you!"
Damon was dressed as werewolf Michael Jackson from Thriller. It was the same costume he wore every year. He wore it so perfectly, down to the crisp curls and yellow eyes, that no one ever mentioned how poorly this costume had aged.
As Emily strode through the party, she was vaguely aware of how many sets of eyes were on her. In times past, she would have withdrawn from this collective gaze, preferring the comfort of near-invisibility. Now, it gave her life. It gave her power. She hungered for more.
In the kitchen, she poured a glass of wine while Tasha took some shots with the blonde witch from Hocus Pocus.
"I love your dress," a guy dressed as Beetlejuice said in her peripheral vision.
Emily turned to look at him. It was one of Damon's friends- Mick or Michael, she couldn't remember. He was cute and always at these parties, but they had never talked before.
Emily took a sip of her wine and smiled. "I love your coat," she said.
"Thank you," he replied and laughed. "It was my grandfather's, I figured it would work for this."
Is he nervous? Emily wondered. No one had ever been nervous to talk with her before.
He took a drink from his bottle of beer. "So, have you ever come to one of these things?" he asked.
"No," Emily said almost automatically. It didn't feel like a lie.
"I didn't think so," he said. "I would have... remembered you..." He swallowed the last bit of the line, painfully aware of the cheesiness of what he was saying.
"I'm Emily," she said, extending her hand.
"Hey. I'm Michael." He took her hand in his, and felt the clamminess in his palms.
She could feel something else too- eyes on the back of her neck. She turned around and her eyes went immediately to the source. Standing in the corner alone was a tall man dressed in the most elaborate skeleton costume that she had ever seen. From behind his mask, he met her gaze and held it without pretense. She smiled wryly and tilted her wine glass towards the stranger.
"Someone you know?" Michael asked.
Was that jealousy in his voice? "I have no idea," Emily replied.
Michael laughed. "Yeah, it would be pretty hard to tell in that getup." He paused, as if debating whether he should say the next few words. "I'm guessing you get a lot of looks," he said, and then cringed. "God, I'm not usually this corny! I'm sorry..."
"It's fine," Emily shrugged. "And no, I don't."
Michael squinted like he didn't believe her.
Tasha appeared at Emily's side and tapped her on the forearm. "Hey Em, can you come outside with me?" She gestured secretively to the second joint she had rolled.
"Sure," Emily replied. She turned to Michael and brushed his forearm. Who am I? she thought. "I'll see you in a bit."
"I hope so," Michael replied.
Outside in the little fenced in backyard, Emily and Tasha smoked half of their joint. Emily felt the weed thrumming in her veins. The few people standing who had come out to smoke stole furtive glances. The feeling of being desired by so many people was intoxicating.
"There's a skeleton over there that's been looking at us," Tasha said, gesturing towards the fence.
Emily didn't need to turn around to know that it was him. She smiled and nodded slowly.
"Do you know who that is?"
"I have no idea," Emily replied.
Tasha looked his way. "He looks like he's got a nice body under that costume," she mused. "Do you want to invite him for a smoke?"
Emily turned and saw the skeleton man standing there. Again, he did not look down when their gaze met. She gestured towards him with the joint and smiled. He shook his head slowly and then put one finger in the air.
