“Then don’t order me around. You know I don’t like that.”

“Yes you do.”

I breathed in through my nose and did my best to hide any physical manifestations betraying the surge of pleasant adrenaline at his words. “You’re right. Sometimes I do, specifically when we’re bereft of clothing. But when we’re at a party and I’m curious about this very unusual and interesting opportunity, I don’t like it so much. And I may never get another chance to talk with one of your slamps.”

He made a low growling sound in the back of his throat and glanced from his empty glass to me. “Please do not call her that to her face.”

“I…I wouldn’t do that.” I responded as though the idea was preposterous, even added an eye roll, but I made a mental note: Do not call her a slamp to her face.

“Janie, I’m serious. She wouldn’t like it. It would make her…she’d go nuts, try to rip your hair out, or worse.” His expression turned dark as his eyes drifted over to the bar, and I wondered exactly how crazy she was. Abruptly, he touched my arm, his eyes locked on mine, and gave me a soft squeeze. “Listen to me. Now I’m asking nicely. Don’t approach her.”

***

To be fair, I didn’t technically approach her.

I rescued her.

Well…I didn’t exactly rescue her. More precisely, I helped her. It happened in the bathroom.

I’d been followed to the restroom by one of Quinn’s team. He waited outside, situating himself by the door so that he could intimidate anyone entering to use the toilet. I hadn’t yet grown accustomed to having someone wait for me to finish my business, and it irked me.

When I had a guard, as soon as I entered a public restroom, I felt like the clock was ticking. Usually, I’d rush through and end up with my pants buttoned but unzipped, or sink water down the front of my outfit.

Tonight, however, I told the guard that he could expect a long wait; this was because I wasn’t quite sure how to manage lifting the heavy skirts of the dress without losing my balance, falling in, getting stabbed by feathers, or wrinkling the whole thing beyond repair.

The venue had one of those fancy washrooms with an adjacent sitting area. The room was spacious and richly—yet too sweetly—decorated in brocade light pink wallpaper, pink velvet upholstered chairs, and pink curtains. As well, a huge, ornate, lighted mirror with a thick glowing white frame ran the entire length of the walls.

Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling.

Suffice to say, the room was bright, shiny, and pink.

And sitting in one corner of the sitting room was the very blonde slamp.

I paused a half second when I saw her, but then I was spurred into action by my bladder and sprinted for the toilet. Perhaps it was because I was distracted by her presence and, therefore, couldn’t overthink my technique; or perhaps it was because I didn’t feel rushed as I’d prepared Pete—my guard—before I entered to expect a delay, but using the facilities went remarkably smoothly.

I was out of the stall in record time and was drying my hands with a soft cotton towel when I heard the very blonde woman from the other room.

“Shit,” she said.

It sounded frustrated and maybe a little desperate. I knew that feeling. I especially knew that feeling while in a bathroom.

I’d laid my gloves around my neck as a scarf, to keep them out of germ’s way, so I pulled them from my shoulder and drifted hesitantly into the pink room. She was still in the corner, but now she was standing up. A glass of something that I deduced to be soda water was sitting on the table beside her, and she was rubbing at her white dress with a cloth.

I tried to tiptoe closer, but recognized this immediately as an exercise in futility because my skirt rustled like a cornfield in a windstorm whenever I took a step.

She glanced up, her blue eyes connected with mine, and they turned from frustrated to bitter. “What do you want?”

“Can I help?” I glanced at the place she’d been rubbing. “Oh, see, that’s not going to work. Soda water doesn’t help with red wine—is that red wine?”

She frowned at me, and her gaze flickered to the stain marring the otherwise pristine gown. “Yes, it’s red wine, but I don’t need your help….”

“Yeah, that’s too bad. Most people don’t know this, but you should have used salt. Even then, depending on the fabric, it might not have made a difference. Then again, the stain is quite small and localized—may I touch your dress?”

“What?”

“Touch your dress, to determine the fiber content.”

She blinked at me, her mouth opened then closed. Finally, she said, “Go ahead!” Her arms flailed from her sides in the universal sign for I’m exasperated.

I sat next to her on one of the velvet stools and rubbed the thick material between my fingers. “Oh. Silk.” I tsked and shook my head as I considered the stain at her waist. “That’s not coming out. If only you had something to cover it….”

My gaze drifted around the room, searching for a quick fix. I wondered if the venue would notice if I tore a piece of pink velvet from the bottom of one of the drapes. Then, my eyes caught on the black gloves in my hands.

“Ah ha!” I jumped up and held the gloves in front of her stunned face. “My gloves!”

“What?”

“My gloves.” I sat down again and lifted up my skirt, revealing a row of ten safety pins. “I thought it best to bring safety pins. One never knows when they’ll be needed. Also, I’m terribly accident prone, and this skirt is so big. The chances of me tearing something tonight were pretty high, so I brought pins.”

“Pins?”

“Yes, pins.” I took one of the gloves and formed a loose spiral, pinching one end. “I’m not very crafty, but I’ve been learning how to crochet recently, and I also learned how to make a fabric flower. The gloves are black silk, so if we just connect them like this…” I pinned the two gloves together. “…and fasten them in place, we can hide the stain and make it look like you have fabric roses at your waist. What do you think?”

I lifted my chin to look up at her face. She was staring down at where I held the two hastily assembled flowers.

“Yes, that’s—that’s perfect. You’re a genius!” Her wide eyes moved to mine, and I was pleased to see she was smiling.

“Thank you. I’ll have to put my hand under your skirt and against your stomach so I don’t stick you.”

“Oh, go right ahead. I’m wearing those Spanx with the slit and I work in the fashion industry. I’m used to hands up my skirt.”

“Spanx with the slit?” I set to work pinning the roses in place.

“You know, Spanx? It’s like body armor and a girdle all wrapped in one. They hold everything in. And the slit is at my vag, so I don’t have to take off the Spanx in order to go pee or…you know….”

I paused my pinning and glanced up at her. Her lips were pressed together and her eyebrows were high on her forehead.

Finally, she finished the thought. “You don’t have to take them off in order to have sex.”

“Oh. Well…that’s convenient.” I nodded and resumed my pinning, pleased that women’s girdles had graduated from a virtual chastity belt to an open invitation. Then I tried to imagine myself ha**ng s*x while wearing constricting underwear, and I became preoccupied with where Quinn would place his hands. If I’d been wearing slitted Spanx on Thursday night, he wouldn’t have torn off my underwear.

Then I decided that he likely wouldn’t go for slitted Spanx because, more than anything, he seemed to want me as na**d a possible when we were physically intimate.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you could totally be a plus-sized model. You’re, like, exactly the right dimensions. You could wear stuff off the rack.”

Her words pulled me out of my thoughts, and I leaned back to consider my handiwork. “No offense taken. I know I’m a big girl.”

“No, you’re not a big girl. You’re a tall girl with big boobs. I’m not talking about a plus-sized catalogue model. I’m talking about high fashion, runway stuff. In high fashion, a plus-sized model is really just a normal model but with tits and ass for when the designers need a model who looks like a woman instead of a hanger.”

“Oh.” I let her skirt drop and struggled with how to respond to her statement, which felt like a compliment, but I couldn’t be sure. I would need to discuss it with Elizabeth in order to be certain.

I felt her eyes on me for a beat then she turned to the mirror and pivoted side to side as though to test the sturdiness of the applied flowers. “Wow, these are great. They look like they belong on the dress. Thank you.”

“No problem.” I tugged at the top edge of my gown, as my aforementioned big boobs needed to be tucked back in a bit. They were precariously testing the boundaries of my bodice what with all the bending and pinning I’d been doing.

“So….” She sat down on the stool next to mine and glanced at me from the corner of her eyes before opening a small white clutch and withdrawing some lipstick. “You’re with Quinn?”