Heidi's Guide to Four Letter Words(37)

I let out a squeak of surprise as I’m removing my headphones, when I hear the shout from behind me. Turning around in my chair at my dining room table where I set up my podcast equipment, I see Aubrey standing in my open doorway with a shocked look on her face.

I completely forgot I sent her a text a little while ago, asking if she had a pair of black high heels I could borrow. I wanted to look my absolute best for my date with Brent, and ballet flats would not cut it. Especially not with the dress I stuffed myself into.

“You heard that?” I ask sheepishly.

“Every thrusting finger, G-spot word of it! Dude. Look at you being all nasty and dirty and awesome! You didn’t even stutter once,” she says with pride in her voice as she walks across the room toward me and I get up from my chair.

As soon as I’m standing, her feet come to a stop and she looks me up and down with wide eyes.

“Sweet Jesus, what are you wearing? And what’s wrong with your face?”

I nervously try to tug the skirt of the dress down lower on my thighs, but that just makes more of my boobs pop out, so I adjust the top as well. Pull, tug, pull, tug, up, down, lather, rinse, repeat. No matter what I do, this dress is entirely too indecent, and dressing room mirrors should be illegal. It didn’t look this revealing when I tried it on at the mall earlier after the salesperson handed it to me and assured me every woman needed a little black dress in her wardrobe. Now that I’m standing here in front of another human being, I’m feeling a cold breeze in places where I shouldn’t feel a cold breeze.

“It’s a little black dress,” I reply with a huff of annoyance when the skintight, strapless piece of clingy fabric just will not stay put over my boobs.

“It’s a little black dinner napkin,” Aubrey says with a shake of her head, waving her hand in the general area of my head. “What about… this?”

“A very nice woman at the Macy’s makeup counter did it. She said electric blue eyeshadow is making a comeback.”

Sure, the bright blue powder on my eyes was a bit of a shock when I first looked in the mirror, but it’s growing on me. You know, if I don’t look in the mirror. I will admit the false eyelashes might be a bit much, and every time I blink, it feels like I have spiders clinging for their lives to my eyelids, but I have to continue on my quest to find the new and improved Heidi.

“Did you bring me some shoes?”

Aubrey’s eyes never leave my face as she hands me a pair of strappy black stilettos, and it’s starting to make me feel a little self-conscious. I just need to buck up and remember I said cock on my podcast. And I asked a man out on a date. None of that was normal for me, but it made me feel amazing. I’m sure I’ll get used to the rest of this new me the more I do it, and I’ll feel confident and amazing in no time.

Grabbing the shoes from Aubrey’s outstretched arm, I hold onto my dining room table to steady myself as I slip each one on. My calves immediately scream in protest, but I read somewhere once that beauty is pain. Since it feels like someone is currently pounding my toes with a hammer, I’m assuming I look gorgeous.

“There. How do I look?” I ask her with my arms out wide, my legs shaking and teetering the longer I stand here.

“Wonderful. As long as you don’t try to walk. Or blink. Or breathe. I think I just saw some of your nipple.”

“This is exactly the kind of outfit and shoes Laura Newberg was wearing the night I spied on the end of her date with Brent. I’m not sure if she ever got a second date, but this is how she got the first one, so there must be something about it that enticed him,” I explain.

“You already enticed him. He said yes, didn’t he? And were you wearing one of your LuLaRoe dresses when you asked him?”

My entire closet is filled with soft, flowy LuLaRoe cotton dresses. Boring dresses. Kindergarten teacher dresses, not sex kitten dresses that will turn a man on. My dresses will just make a man want to do homework. Hence the need for an emergency trip to the mall today.

“Yes, I was wearing a LuLaRoe dress—the one with the alphabet on it, since you asked. Kindergarten teacher clothing. I’m not a kindergarten teacher. I’m a confident, sexy woman who can now say something other than fern when referring to the male genitalia.”

“Did you just say fern?” Aubrey questions as I attempt to walk in a circle around the room.

My knees knock together and my ankles threaten to collapse with each step, forcing me to grab onto anything I can reach as I move, so I don’t face plant on the floor.

“Yes, fern,” I mutter, my shoulder slamming into the wall when my foot wobbles with a step and throws me off balance.

I quickly grab onto my bookshelf with both hands and hold on for dear life.

“You know how in all those old, classical statues, everyone’s privates are always covered with tasteful leaves? Well, my mom always called the penis a fern when I was growing up,” I explain, slowly removing my death grip on the bookshelf and lifting my arms up in the air on either side of me for balance.

“If this date is a smashing success and you and Brent wind up having sex, promise me you’ll shout, “Give me your fern, baby!’” Aubrey laughs.

Before I can roll my eyes at her, the doorbell rings. Aubrey looks back and forth between me and the door, neither one of us moving. I’m still standing here with my arms up in the air, because I’m afraid to take another step in these ridiculous shoes.