“Ok, yes I guess,” I admitted, knowing she’d eventually get it out of me.
She continued her guessing game being hot one time, cold the next until I was laughing and moving too much, and we had to stop.
She finished cutting, blew it dry, and dug out her makeup. “I’m not letting you out of her with the gorgeous hairstyle and no makeup, girl!”
When she spun me around in the chair, I didn’t recognize the girl in the mirror. I stared for a few moments and several of the clients murmured to each other.
“You look right beautiful, gal!” one customer hollered from under the dryer. Heads full of rollers and perm rods nodded in agreement.
“JoJo, it’s magic!” I said, lightly touching my hair as though it would all wilt. Where my hair hung heavy and thick to my butt, it was now beautiful waves that swirled nearly to my shoulder. I had bangs. I’d never had bangs in my life. I blinked back tears.
“If’n you start crying you’ll wreck your makeup!” JoJo warned with a big smile.
I looked at my watch. “Oh, I have to go,” I said somewhat sadly. “What do I owe you?”
One of the customers spoke up and said, “We will pay for that transition, young lady. Don’t you worry yourself about it!” And the others nodded in agreement. I had to press two fingers to my mouth while I thanked them to keep from crying.
JoJo walked me to the door, and I ran down the steps and into the waiting car. I heard JoJo holler through my open window, “Oh my god, Lou. It’s HIM!” I laughed and hung out the window waving as Parker drove away.
“For a minute I was afraid the wrong girl got in my car,” Parker said, glancing over. “I think you just went through one of those passages in the last couple of hours.”
I kept touching my hair. Parker dropped the sunshade and slid the cover off the mirror. “Enjoy. You should. You deserved this.”
I still had a hard time recognizing it was me. What with the makeup and wavy shorter hair? I hardly saw the girl, but now a modern young lady.
He pulled up in front of the ladies’ clothing store. “Did you want me to wait?”
“Can you come in with me? You know better what I should be wearing than I do,” I said in all honesty. My little town had no fashionistas. We were all country gals.
“Of course, I’m flattered you asked me.” He came around and opened the door for me.
The small shop was a mirage of color and sparkle, making me feel like a dull dirty smudge. Parker sensed my discomfort and guided me to a rack of summer tops.
“Why don’t we start with tops, then shorts, then maybe long pants and dresses? We can wing it as we go. How’s that sound?”
I nodded. All the power I felt from my transformation haircut went out the window. I was a lost lamb, and the sales clerk knew it. Parker backed off letting her help me until he saw her condescending manner. He stepped back in and took over and we swept through the store without her interference again.
Parker opened the trunk, and we loaded the bags of new clothes. Out of the store, I began to relax and gave one last look at the colorful clothing and brand-new tags on them before Parker closed the trunk lid.
“How about we get something to eat? My treat!” he asked.
I wouldn’t let him pay for the clothes. I finally had my own money and needed to start feeling responsible for myself, no matter how small the effort.
Lunch was at the fanciest place I’d ever been. I felt like a flower that just blossomed and I began to relax and enjoy the new experiences and emerging feelings.
“Lou, you are like a butterfly that just emerged from the cocoon. From your hair to your choices of clothing. I am so blessed to see someone as deserving as you find herself. You worked hard all your life to help care for yourself and your family, I’m so happy to see you this way,” he said, reaching across the table to lay his hand on mine.
“I do feel different. A lot of it has to do with you. You’ve given me the chances I needed. I’ve often read that sometimes all someone needs is a hand-up. I think the work you do is just that. You stop to help.”
“I’d like to think that’s what I’ve done. It has always been why I do what I do. I work with the poor and needy, as well as the addicted and those in trouble with the law. But you know, I think I’d want to do that no matter if I had a church and congregation behind me, or not. I’d be just as happy as long as I was helping someone.” He squeezed my hand. “But you… You just needed a nudge in the right direction.”
I couldn’t wait to get back to the house to sort through all I’d bought today. I was a little sad I could take nothing home, but these clothes were for this life here with Parker.
He helped me spread everything out on the bed. Half the closet space and several drawers were empty and waiting. I cut the tags off and neatly hung or folded everything.
“Oh, wait a minute!” he said running out the door. I heard the door slam, then slam again and he was back with more packages.
“I thought we brought everything in?”
“I suspected that you wouldn’t let me buy your clothes, so while you were getting your hair cut, I bought a few things for you. Things that I knew you’d never buy for yourself,” he said, pulling a thick white plush robe out of the bag. “Now you have something to wear after your shower.”
I gathered it against me. “It’s beautiful, thank you.” I rubbed my face on it. “Soft. Like a bunny.” I hung it on the back of the bathroom door and ran my hand over its softness.
When I came back there was a pile of silky lacey frilly colors on the bed.
“I hope you like them, Lou. I knew you wouldn’t want anything too skimpy, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be girly and a little sexy.”
The black satin bra had stripes of black sheer across the cups and the panties had the same stripes of sheer across the hips. There was another set of pink lace and another of lavender. I thought it was the most beautiful lingerie I’d ever seen.
I hugged him. “Thank you. They’re perfect. Just perfect.”
At the bottom of the pile was a nightie of the softest white silky in the world. Tiny ribbons tied at the shoulder. I saw nighties in the store that I would have been embarrassed to wear, but this… This one was magnificent.
“I wasn’t sure if that was something you’d be comfortable with, but I knew you’d be beautiful in it.”
It was late and time for him to take me home. I carefully folded them into a pile and held them against my face before placing them in the drawer.
The following day I started to work as soon as we got to the house. He was busy with other things and didn’t realize I’d finished work and went to shower.
I knocked softly on the open door to his office. He pushed back from his desk and swung his chair around and stared.
I smiled. “I hoped you were done with your work?”
He reached back blindly, pushed the lid of his laptop down, and said, “Oh yeah, I’m done. I am done with work.” He smiled. “You look stunning in that, Lou.”
“Thank you,” I smiled.
After a shower of intoxicating scents, body smoothing shave, creams, and lotion, I slipped on the nightie. The silk caressed my breasts and dropped off my hard nipples to mid-thigh. My big chocolate brown nipples shadowed through the silk. I shaved smoothly below but left curls in the front, which were visible through the silk.
He opened his arms, and I went over and sat on his lap. “Just so beautiful,” he murmured, stroking my still-damp but wavy hair. I leaned in to kiss him and he moaned low as our tongues slipped past each other. He cupped my breast and thumbed my nipple through the softness.
I moaned in his mouth. His hardness grew against my hip and began to throb. It started the same tingling between my legs as before, and the wetness came.
He lowered his mouth to my nipples and sucked them long and hard. The sheer was wet and clung. His breath washed across cooling and making my hot nipples ache. He stroked my thigh, then under my gown across my hip. He squeezed my ass and pulled me tighter against him.
“You drive me wild,” he murmured against my lips. I moaned and rocked my hip into him. “You have no idea how sexy you are,” he sighed, running his hand up and down my back. “It doesn’t seem right to keep you for myself.”
“I want to be with you,” I replied, alarmed that he even thought of that.
“I know you do, Lou. But you should be out dating and having fun with people your age. You’re missing that. I’m twelve years older. You have your whole life ahead of you, my path is set, Lou. You’d be a preacher’s wife.”
Although I could see myself as his wife, I knew he’d end up being ashamed of me. The congregation would frown on our age difference I was sure, but mostly I didn’t have the social graces and would be an embarrassment.
I didn’t say anything more. I don’t know what I was thinking. Yes, I did. In my heart, I knew my future wouldn’t include Parker. But I wouldn’t have changed a thing. There was no one else I’d rather have become a woman with, than Parker.
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” I said, my hand on his cheek. “You held my hand when I needed it, you stood back when I needed you to, and gave me a shove when I wasn’t sure of myself.”
“You did it all yourself, you just felt my presence and found strength in that,” he said.
My head was on his shoulder. “You know, I never intended to save myself for my future husband. It wasn’t somethin’ mama talked to me about. We had some sex ed in school, but it was so generic. JoJo and I talked about it some on and off but only in vague terms because neither of us was experienced. I think it was at that point that I knew I wanted to know what I was doin’ sexually… Because I’d need it to help me judge if this guy was the one I’d want to spend my life with. Sex is a big part of a relationship, so it has to be right from the get-go.”
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