I adjusted the mask securely into place. No strings or ribbons, this baby was getting glued on with the same stuff Hollywood starlets used to stop nipple slips on the red carpet. I was nervous as it was—I'd have lost my nerve altogether if I thought there was a chance I'd be recognized.
I alternated between tweaking my costume and the hairpins holding my long, brown hair off of my neck, anything to keep my hands off of my face until the glue was dry and the mask fastened tight. Looking at my reflection, I thought it was possible no one would recognize me even without the mask. Hair that normally fell to the middle of my back was piled on top of my head in tendrils held up by copious amounts of bobby pins. My makeup, too, was a 180 from my usual mascara-and-lip-gloss routine. Dark, smoky eyes and pouty red lips stared back at me from what I usually considered a fairly non-descript face. Brown eyes, brown hair. Boring, boring, boring. It had certainly never attracted anyone worth attracting.
My body was a different story. Though only 5'2", I had an exaggerated hourglass figure. Slender, yet curvy legs led to a bit of a backside and a waist so narrow I could almost fit my small hands around it, but 32DD breasts were the focal point, and a source of shame for almost my entire life. It was bizarre to see them all but on display beneath the flimsy white material of my goddess costume. My large nipples were standing at attention, unused to the friction of going braless—I even wore a bra to bed! I thought I could see the shadows of my areolas behind the peaked fabric, but considering the skirt of the costume barely cleared my panty line, I wasn't going to stress it, which was easier said than done.
I knew I wasn't in small-town Utah anymore, and that the chances I would be recognized here were microscopic, but even after three years at college in the state capital, it was hard to shake the paranoia induced by ridiculous religious standards.
Far from being considered unlikely, abstinence was the end all be all of my town's high school society. Not only was sex verboten, but so were oral sex, hand jobs, and masturbation. Anal sex wasn't even thought of as an option! No one of any quality did any of those things, and if they did, they were too ashamed to talk about it. So, while I'd had the same amazing dimensions since junior high, they were considered a liability rather than an asset. Rumors of my promiscuity started the same day I started wearing a bra, and it didn't abate until high school when it became painfully obvious that I didn't date at all.
Despite the near-constant barrage of chastity propaganda (Modest is Hottest!), I held a secret. I had dark, sensual dreams that often bled over into my waking thoughts, lust that while never acted on, was always just beneath the surface. I often fantasized about writhing naked with one popular boy after another—sometimes more than one at a time.
Maybe because it was because it was completely different from the way I
should
be thinking that I hid away, or maybe the vein of lust that was always at a slow burn was why early rumors had spread—the result was the same. I was ostracized as a scarlet woman, and the fact I'd never even been kissed didn't seem to make a difference.
The end of my senior year I finally started seeing a boy in my graduating class. I was aware that he wasn't the most...anything (attractive, intelligent, ambitious), but my self-esteem was low enough to accept his proposal the day after graduation. All we'd done at that point was exchange goodnight kisses (not even involving tongues!), but that evening, finding ourselves alone, we let our guards down. We were going to get married, so we'd be doing things eventually, right?
His tongue in my mouth led to his hands up my shirt led to shirts coming off led to dry humping until he came in his pants. Guilt wracked him...until his erection recovered. Then my bra coming off led to him sucking on my nipples led to me fishing his cock (disappointingly small) out to immediately come on my hand. Guilt wracked him again...until his erection again recovered. Then my pants on the floor in the corner led to his fingers inside me (disappointingly rough) led to him penetrating me missionary-style for three or four pumps (disappointingly fast) until he pulled out and came on my leg. More cycles of guilt and recovery involved him licking my pussy (disappointingly clumsy), me sucking his cock (have I mentioned disappointingly small? I could have easily deep-throated him...if it had reached to my throat), and shock and outright refusal at my suggestion of anal play. After he'd come often enough (final score: Him- 6, Me- 0), his guilt/recovery cycle landed firmly on guilt and he asked me to go home. He wouldn't look me in the eye. He didn't even kiss me goodbye.
The next morning I woke to a break-up voicemail, I "wasn't the marrying kind". Whispers and pointed looks emanated from everyone in town until I left a month later for college. Even surrounded by new faces in a new place, I had enough residual guilt that I was too timid to act on my desires amid the gorgeous college boys that now surrounded me, hiding myself in bulky clothes.
I made great platonic guy friends in my dorm, which was nice, and initially thought I'd lucked out with roommates. They were a lot more open-minded than any girls I'd known before, and they were adamant about setting me up on dates to try and get me experienced. I went, and I had a good time, and I even got laid a couple of times (
much
less disappointing than my hometown hump, but still not the libidinous adventures I was hoping for). Unfortunately, I eventually realized that the reason I wasn't getting calls afterwards wasn't because my dates were ashamed (though that attitude certainly had its place in the city, too), but because my new "friends" thought it was fun to steal boys out of my grasp. I was more than willing (i.e., desperate) to do just about anything with a guy I found attractive, but I couldn't compete with the promise of a front-row seat to a lesbian tryst like they provided. My roommates offered to let me into their Sapphic circle, but the idea of being with another woman held no interest for me. And honestly, as much as I wanted to express myself sexually, I didn't feel like guys that passed me over for that were worth fighting for.
So for two and a half years I'd withdrawn back into celibate hermit mode, focusing on my studies. Though absent of orgasms that weren't self-induced, my life had had a lot of success scholastically. It was the reason I was standing in front of a gilded mirror in a penthouse suite at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, trying to work up the courage to make my way down to a hedonistic costume party.
I'd easily earned a place on the debate team that had met here for a national competition, and surreptitiously made plans to stay a couple more days on my own for the event downstairs. The mere idea of anonymity was titillating, offering me the opportunity to act out every depraved sexual act I'd dreamed about without the attached slut stigma that would follow me at home.
I adjusted my gold arm band and tugged at the hem of my filmy skirt again—it barely cleared the crotch of my white thong, and neither were going to offer any coverage at all if I bent over. I peered at my body and tried to determine whether or not I could see the sparse, dark diamond of neatly trimmed pubic hair behind the fabric, then gave up with a shrug. For my purposes, either way would be fine.
My hands moved up to the clunky gold necklace that I'd adjusted into a small clutch for my key card and ID, and smiled. I wanted my hands free. Determining I'd let enough time pass, I tentatively pressed at the mask. It held fast, and my smile widened. The stranger in the mirror strapped on gold gladiator heels to complete the outfit and I opened the door before I lost my determination. The hall was empty as I waited for the elevator, nagging doubts of my puritanical past whispering through my brain. Before I could give in to them, the golden doors slid open smoothly, revealing an empty car lined with mirrors.
In front of me, I didn't see a shy, shunned girl, or a desperate, awkward girl. I saw a sex goddess, a literal embodiment of my costume. I strode into the elevator that delivered me directly to the lobby in front of the party rooms. Walking much taller than my 5'6" (with those gladiator heels) should have allowed, I wore my new confidence like a heavy perfume. I don't know if I was actually turning heads, but I felt like eyes were on me, and it emboldened me further. Making my way through the lobby, I saw women wearing even less than I was, their costumes literally painted on.
You go, girls!
Passed through my mind. Men weren't as bold, but almost every costume seemed to have been modified to allow for bare chests. Sexy centurions, sexy sultans, sexy devils, sexy Willy Wonkas, for fucks sake!
