“Get your shit together,” I said again. I was going to my first Zabria Prinar One party, to hang out with people I really liked. This dopey, mopey shit was decidedly not the vibe.
Using my comms tablet, I put on some energetic music and started getting ready so enthusiastically it was almost aggressive. I reapplied my favourite red lipstick, and put on some eyeshadow, too, doing a dark smoky eye with silver shimmer on the lids and in the corners. Deciding to be really, truly, vigorously festive, I also dusted some of the shimmer along my cheekbones, as well as a little dab at the cupid’s bow of my lips.
My hair I left as-is. It was down, and was behaving quite nicely.
I did change my outfit, though. I’d been wearing a pair of sweatpants from med school and a ratty old pink T-shirt. I chucked them away, humming loudly to the song vibrating out of my comms tablet as I surveyed the options in the closet.
Some of my clothing was still in boxes, as the closet was small and my wardrobe wasn’t. Most of the stuff hanging up and available was either farm-life-practical or office-professional. Neither of which was the look I was going for tonight.
Abandoning the closet, I started hunting through my boxes of clothes. My fingers closed around silky black fabric.
Perfect.
I shimmied into the party dress, tugging the straps and skirt into place. It was stretchy but tight in all the best ways, with a faint shimmer at the front that drew attention to the low neckline. Not that the shimmer was necessary. My boobs probably drew enough attention as it was.
I gave the skirt another adjustment. It was a bit shorter than I remembered, the hem falling mid-thigh instead of closer to my knee. I completed the look with my knee-high boots. After one last check in my mirror, I felt ready to emerge, like some kind of hot, vampy butterfly.
When I opened the door and returned to the kitchen, I found Warden Hallum standing in the same place I’d left him. Like he was some kind of robot who’d simply powered down when I’d left the room, and now was booting back up again.
Although…
Maybe not quite booting back up.
Because now, he simply stared at me in frozen silence. Like his brain was buffering.
“I’m ready,” I said when he didn’t speak.
“You are not,” he said, all raspy and weird, like someone had just punched him in the larynx. “You have forgotten your pants!”
“I haven’t forgotten them,” I replied, frowning. “I’ve purposely left them off. This is a dress.”
He didn’t seem interested in my explanation. He didn’t even seem to want to look at me anymore. He shut his eyes tightly and pressed hard on his eyelids with the tips of his fingers, the way someone might if they’d gotten some dust in there. Or the sun was shining too brightly at them, and now they were all overstimulated.
“Is something bothering your eyes?”
“No,” he grunted. He lowered his hands and swiftly turned away, marching towards my bedroom.
“Where are you going?” I asked, hustling in my heels to keep up with him. They made little clackety-clack sounds on the floorboards as I went, which provided a nearly comical contrast with the precisely measured and heavy boot-falls of the warden.
“I am going to find you some pants.”
“Pants really are not part of this outfit,” I informed him. “Are you going to tell me what I can and cannot wear to the party?”
“No.”
Good lord, he said that word a lot.
“But I am telling you,” he growled, planting himself in front of my closet, “what you can and cannot wear on the ride there.” He snatched a pair of pants from their place. My frumpy, waterproof trackpants. The kind you’d wear on a long winter hike. Or if you really wanted to make sure nobody knew you had nice legs under there. Or legs at all, really. They were that shapeless. “Put these on.”
“Those ones are ugly, though.”
“I do not care,” he said in clipped tones. “They are warm and waterproof.”
With a long-suffering sigh, I took the pants, knowing he was probably right. I’d just have to shuck them off before all the dancing and whatnot.
“Fine,” I said. “But I’m keeping these boots on, even though I know you think they’re ridiculous.”
His eyes dropped to my boots. Then began a slow crawl upwards from them, to the bare stretch at my thighs. My whole being prickled with awareness. Including the place between my legs.
