And so, at about 6:30pm on the Wednesday before the official start of winter break, sitting on the living room couch, her nose stuffed in a
Norton Anthology of Literature
, Chloe heard Stephanie carry a giant bag to the front door.
"OK, see you!"
"See you," Chloe replied, attempting to keep her voice as calm as possible.
"Good luck tomorrow."
"Thanks, I'm sure I'll do fine."
The moment the door slammed, Chloe's heart began racing. She heard the sound of Stephanie's car accelerating down the street.
OK. This is it.
Just to be safe, she decided to wait at least an hour before trying anything. Jesus, could you imagine Stephanie barging back in, wondering where the hell her vinyl jeans were? Talk about mortifying. Chloe tried to concentrate on her reading, but the minutes seemed to
crawl
by. She kept staring at her watch. The wait was absolute torture. She began to have second thoughts. Maybe she didn't need to do this at all? Maybe she should have just forgotten about the whole lousy idea?
However, the moment she looked at her watch and saw that an hour had passed, she slammed her book shut, and tiptoed into Stephanie's room.
What exactly was she going to ... do? Was she going to try the vinyl pants on in Stephanie's room? Or bring them into
her
room and try them on there? She decided that it would be better to try them on in her own room and lock the door. That way, if Stephanie came back into the apartment for some unexpected reason, Chloe would just have to make something up, or hide the pants in her room, or ... honestly, she had no idea what she would do, but she couldn't help but proceed.
Then she had a thought that almost chilled her to the bone: what if Stephanie had ... taken the pants with her? She taken them to Seattle, right? OK, well that would at least put a nice, solid end to this nuttiness once and for all. She couldn't try on something that wasn't even
there
. But were vinyl pants the kind of thing you would really take home with you to your parents' house? Yeah, probably not.
Chloe couldn't decide if she was hoping Stephanie had truly taken them or not. But as she crept into Stephanie's room, turned on the light, and looked around, she realized she had no easy escape: the red vinyl jeans were sitting right there on Stephanie's dresser, perfectly folded underneath her black knit sweater.
OK. Here goes. She walked over to the dresser and ... ran her fingers against the fabric. They felt kind of like she'd imagined: smooth, pliable, just a teeny bit sticky. Was she really getting excited about ...
this
? And yet, something about them continued to call to her. She couldn't quite explain it, but she almost sensed that some unseen "force" was commanding her to wear them.
All right, so, if she was going to play dress-up, what was she going to wear as a top? She might as well try on one of Stephanie's tops as well as her vinyl jeans, right? She saw the full array of cute shirts she'd seen Stephanie wearing throughout the fall: the black Queen t-shirt, the white Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt, the black ringer tee with the glossy spaceship drawing on it, even her volleyball jersey. Chloe poked her head into her roommate's closet and spotted the long-sleeve white crop top that said "Girl Power" on it. Yeah.
That
would be fun to wear with the vinyl jeans.
Chloe's hands were quivering with anticipation. The time was now. She snatched the white top from the closet. Then she pulled the trousers out from under the sweater, placed the sweater over the top of the dresser to hide the fact that the trousers wouldn't be there, and then
raced
to her room and locked the door.
She unfolded the jeans and held them up. Were they even going to fit? As she touched the PVC with her fingers, she had the vague sensation that the pants were ... influencing her behavior in some way -- altering her, perhaps. A strange series of thoughts began to make their way into her mind, suggesting that these vinyl jeans of Stephanie's were about to transform her more than just a little. She simultaneously wanted to put them
right back
onto Stephanie's dresser, and yet move ahead with her plan like never before.
Chloe had to grin to herself as she observed the contrast between her current outfit and the outfit she was about to try on. She had been wearing a dark green zip-up sweatshirt over a plain beige t-shirt and some light brown slacks. After a moment of hesitation, she placed Stephanie's clothes onto her bed, put her glasses on the nightstand, and began undressing down to her bra and panties. Was she going to leave any sort of odor on Stephanie's clothes? Eh, that was something she could worry about later.
She pulled the "Girl Power" crop top over her head, slid her arms in, and was surprised at how comfy the thin cotton shirt felt on her body. The sleeves were skin-tight but the bottom of the shirt dangled loosely past her breasts and fluttered pleasantly against her belly. She peeked at herself in the mirror and loved the way the shirt accentuated her chest and waist. Oh yeah. This was a good choice of top.
And now, the moment she'd been waiting for. She picked up the PVC pants once more and pried the legs apart (as it turned out, the fabric tended to stick together a bit), marveling at the sound of the material parting from itself. One riddle that she was finally able to answer: the inner lining was made of soft cotton, not vinyl. She searched for a label, but oddly, couldn't find one.
Then, with as much coordination as her quivering hands could muster, she carefully began placing her bare feet through the legs. Putting them on took some doing, as the material seemed to slide up her calves in fits and starts. "Why have I been spending two months obsessing over
this