Who Woulda Known

"I don't know, Cheryl. Why'd we rent this other costume at all?"

"I told you why and what might work," Cheryl said in that low, breathy voice of hers. I was standing at the mirror, a costume in each arm, holding them in front of me, one after the other, trying to decide. "You've been mooning over that Tim for months now. Something has to give."

I heard the catch in her voice and looked at her through the mirror. She was standing behind me, taller than I am, her cheek against mine and her hands on my waist. She looked so wistful—at least until she saw that I was looking at her in the mirror and then she smiled wanly and lifted a hand to my head and patted a couple of strands of my blonde hair back into place.

"I'm sorry, Cheryl," I said. "I know you hate this—that this isn't what you wanted. But I told you from the beginning I wasn't sure."

"I didn't mean to crowd you, to pin you in, Liz," Cheryl said with that sad voice of hers that I'd heard increasingly as I'd revealed I had feelings for Tim, the new division deputy manager in my office. "It was all new to me too," she added.

Falling in with Cheryl had been a fluke. I hadn't thought of that at all until the night, having just been dumped by Pete in accounting, that I found myself on the town with Cheryl, each of us with a broken romance to mourn, and we'd both gotten three sheets to the wind and wound up between the sheets together here in Cheryl's apartment—now my apartment as well.

"It seems like just too wild an idea," I said at last. "So, I think it has to be this Marilyn Monroe costume."

"That's fine, honey. You'll knock 'em dead in this. It shows off your blonde hair perfectly. That's what everyone notices about you—that gorgeous hair." Cheryl took several strands of my hair and pressed them against her lips and then, with a little sigh, she said, "I'll hang this French court costume up in the closet. Maybe they'll give us a discount on the rental if we say you didn't wear it. We got both costumes for you there."

"Three costumes," I answered back. "And you look terrific in that little devil's helper costume, Cheryl. That was a good choice."

I had to admit that Cheryl was right about the Monroe costume from

The Seven-Year Itch

when we hit the landing before descending into the basement of Nick's on the Beach that evening. The place was decked out in crazily carved pumpkins, orange and black crepe paper streamers, and plastic skeletons for the bar's Halloween costume party. The landing was spotlighted and was about the only point of light in the room. The floor below was swathed in shadows and smoke and a swirl of garishly costumed partygoers.

But when Cheryl and I appeared on the landing under the spotlight, I could see faces turned to me and the buzz in the room increase. Cheryl quickly descended four steps into the room as if to give me the spotlight all to myself. I smiled and swished my billowy skirt in the tradition of Marilyn Monroe—and, I admit, searched the faces turned to me for signs of Tim.

As we waded into the room, I lost contact with Cheryl. I was searching, and I was admitting to myself that it wasn't Cheryl I was searching for. I was trying to find Tim.

Luckily, I saw him before I came upon them and he noticed me. The two of them were leaning into bar stools at the very end of the bar, almost entirely in the shadows and partially hidden by the combination of cigarette and fog machine smoke. He hadn't looked up at all when I entered the room, because I remember seeing the back of his head—I could hardly not have noticed him; he was in a werewolf suit. Somehow on him, however, the hair just made him sexier, more desirable.

He was talking with Sondra, Jack Forester's secretary, from the office. She, dressed in a gypsy costume with a plunging neckline, was acting coy, and Tim was eating it up.

I wanted to vomit. Sondra was the office slut; she'd been had by any of the men executives who wanted her, if the rumors were true. Tim would just be another notch on her victory paddle.

Well, that's not what he would be for me. I could one and only with Tim. I was sure I could. Cheryl was nice—and could make me feel really, really special—but Tim was almost all I could think of since he'd come to the office. I knew this was upsetting Cheryl. I did what I could to find out where Tim was going to be, and I had been dragging Cheryl out to be near him—the two of us together so it wouldn't seem strange that I was always there alone.

And I talked of Tim incessantly. I knew Cheryl must be sick of it, but she had never complained. She had listened to all of what I fantasized about and went with me to where Tim was in the evenings. And she watched Tim with me and commiserated with me on what a perfect man he was—and how sexy and desirable. I had conditioned her to speak of him much as I did.

And now he was talking to Shonda. Shonda had been who Pete had dropped me for—and she'd only spun him a couple of times before she dropped him. He'd wanted to come back to me, but no chance of that.

They weren't too much into it yet, but I had heard Shonda talk about Tim in the office, and I knew she'd be after him.

I was panicked. I had to do something. Not just because I wanted Tim, either. Of course I wanted Tim. But mostly I didn't want Shonda to have him. She'd taken Pete and had made it so easy that I'd felt inferior for weeks. God, I still felt inferior. It didn't help that Shonda was gorgeous and naturally sexy.

It was just a matter of time before she'd have Tim too. There she was with those big chocolate tits almost falling out of the front of the gypsy blouse.

What could I do? I thought about what Cheryl had suggested that I do if we came here and I found Tim with another woman. I'd laughed at the time. I'd said it was a Hail Mary pass sort of scheme. And it was. But maybe it was time for a Hail Mary pass.

I turned and headed for the door.

Trembling because I was in a hurry to get back, I sat at my dressing table and adjusted the white powdered wig of the French court dandy that went with the costume I'd initially rejected. For the first time since I'd decided to try it I thought that I might have a chance. Cheryl was right. My memorable feature was my long, blonde curls. With those tucked up inside this wig, and without my usual makeup—and with a black fake mole applied right here under the eye to attract one's attention—I decided that I just might pull it off. The silky foppery of the costume was so well recognized and brought the one wearing it close enough to the androgynous zone without evoking the effeminate that it was the perfect male disguise for a slim woman like me.

I looked at myself hard in the mirror. I looked good. Better than that, I looked handsome. Not beautiful. Handsome. And that's the difference I was after.

* * * *

The low light and smoke in Nick's downstairs room helped a lot.

"Hey, fellow, watch your hands."

"It's me, Cheryl. Liz. Don't you recognize me?"

"Oh, god, no. You're a guy now. The transformation if remarkable."

"Thanks . . . I think."

"You went home and changed."

"I thought I'd give your scheme a shot. He's with Shonda—the "sleep-around" woman at the office I've told you about. Worst scenario. I've got to do something. Could you go over there and see what you can do to distract him—long enough for me to make a move on Shonda? Do you think she'll bite on the switch?"

"From the way you've described her, Shonda's ready for anything in pants. That's the easy part. But, yes, Shonda will think you're good enough to eat—or to eat her."

"That's what I'm counting on. If I can get her into the alley, give us fifteen minutes and try to get Tim out there, can you? So he can see what a slut Shonda is. You think you can vamp Tim enough to get that done? Or that you can think of something else. I know he's not your cuppa and that you're tired of hearing about him."

"I can try," Cheryl answered. She had the most enigmatic look on her face, though. I couldn't figure out what it represented. At least not then.

We approached Tim and Shonda from different angles, and Cheryl hailed him from behind, so that he had to turn away from Shonda to talk to her. I used that opportunity to slip in beside Shonda.

"Hello, precious," I murmured in the lowest register I could reach.

"Precious?" she chirped, as she turned to me. She was giving me a good look, and, as I hoped, she was showing interest. Thank god for the shadows and the smoke—and that Shonda had already had a couple of drinks.

I moved in close, bought her another drink and sweet talked her the way I always wished an attractive man would do to me when I was playing pickup at a bar. Cheryl had somehow managed to get Tim off on the dance floor.

One thing led to another and Shonda agreed to step out with me for a bit of fresh air. It was obvious to me that neither of us were fooled about how fresh I wanted to get. I took her hand and led her through an open doorway at the back of the room that was covered with a beaded curtain. We were in a corridor with small rooms on either side. The sounds coming out of them left no doubt in my mind that more private, very intimate parties had slipped out of the main party room Nick's bar. At the end of the corridor was a stairway leading up to a metal door—and beyond that was an alleyway with a street at one end and a drop down to the water of the bay at the other.

There were turned-over rusting barrels of assorted sizes lining the wall we had exited. Shonda's fat butt fit nicely on one of these, and Shonda wasn't shy when I leaned into her and came in for kiss.

Shonda was a fantastic kisser. I was beginning to see how she so easily entrapped the men.

Shonda was a good moaner too. It hadn't taken much to push the top of her gypsy blouse down and to get her tits out and squeezed good. They were beautiful chocolate mounds, and I almost gasped to see that she rouged her nipples.

Cheryl should be getting Tim out here pretty soon, I thought, so I had to give him a really good look at what Shonda would do for a man at the drop of a dime. I had maneuvered around so that my back would be to the door into the bar. All he'd see was Shonda and her look of unbridled passion when I was showing her what my lips and tongue could do. I knew I could bring this out of her. I had discovered, with surprise, that I could bring it out of Cheryl.

She gasped and groaned as I played her nipples with my tongue and teeth, and she gave a deep moan of "yessss" as I worked a hand under the hem of her peasant skirt and wormed fingers beyond a leg hole of her panties and into her slit. She jerked and groaned and tightened her grip on my shoulders when I found her clit and began to worry it with the pads of my fingers.

Shonda leaned back onto the wall and widened the spread of her legs, welcoming my attentions. She was biting the finger of one of her hands and clutching at my wig with the other. I had enough separation in my mind from what I was doing—and increasingly drifting into arousal and lust myself—to worry that she might pull my wig off. But I had pinned it in real well and it held up to her grip.

Damn she was arousing. And she was loving it. I had to admit that I was too. Tim and Cheryl would be along at any moment. I had to give him a definitive look at the fickleness and brazenness of Shonda—although that was a gamble. Some men loved a woman's brazenness, especially in sexual pursuits.

She begged for it and hiked her skirt up around her hips herself. I was going for broke, so there was no second thinking before I had slipped her panties off and lowered my mouth to her slit, searching in the folds with my tongue until I found what I sought.

We were moaning in stereo—both lost in the coupling, when the totally unexpected happened.

Shonda was crying out. I don't know how many times she'd repeated it before it sank in, but eventually it did. And I stopped in shock.

"Yes, yes, take me to heaven, Liz!" she had cried out.

She'd called me by name. She'd called out "Liz."

"What? Why? I'm almost there," she exclaimed, looking down into my eyes, as I turned my face up toward her in shock. I was panting hard. I was almost there too.

"You called me Liz."

"Yes. Yes. I know who you are. You don't know how much I wanted this, tried to get your attention. Taking Pete didn't work. But I saw how attracted you were to Tim . . . and I wanted—no, I want—you so much. Please, please, don't stop."

As I had said, I was almost there myself now, and suddenly Shonda had flowed in to fill my horizons. I had stopped thinking of Tim—wanting Tim—while I was still working Shonda's breasts. I only now realized that.

So, we finished.

When we reentered the back corridor of the bar, arm and arm, I almost didn't pick the sound out. But I had been focused on that voice—that moan—for more than a month now.

We paused at the door to one of the rooms off the corridor. Inside, sitting on a table, with a werewolf standing between her spread legs and rhythmically moving his hips back and forth, was a little devil's helper. Cheryl. She had her arms flung around Tim's neck, pulling his face down to her breasts as, with hands on her waist, he fucked her in long, deep strokes.

Cheryl was facing the door, and she must have sensed that Shonda and I, arms entwined, were standing there, because her eyes caught mine from over Tim's shoulder and she gave me such a knowing, satisfied, victorious look that it all fell into place.

The scheme she'd come up with for me to wear the men's French court costume wasn't to help me catch Tim. She—and maybe in collusion with Shonda—had been scheming to have Tim for herself.

Well, I had Shonda now, so who gives a shit?