One hundred percent Italian silk dangled daintily off the plastic hanger. She fingered through the fabric to uncover the true silhouette. A rough cotton thread peaked through the mahogany folds to reveal a small, handwritten price tag: $188. Her hand flinched back a notch. Yet, the snowy materials beckoned to her. Nothing else existed in that singular interaction between epidemis and excretion. That exact spot inside the belly buttoned floors of Nordstroms marked happiness. No, indulgence, but past credit card bills dulled the line between those two minutely diverging words.
A swatch of curly hair passed her peripheral. Reality rushed into place. The fluorescent scorches hung above the 15 foot ceiling, animating the small patches of color and name brands. A bed headed blonde wearing last season’s one button jacket and those horrendous ‘Asian’ embroidered slippers scurried pass with several feathered, silkened and scratched creatures desperately grasping on to its slipping hangers. A numbing warmth vined its way from her lower back to a realizing flush under her zygomatic arc. It stiffened her.
Nonchalant gaze replaced the piercing desire on her palate.
“It’s nice,” she scoffed turning her ample upper body towards him. He smiled.
“You’re a bad liar.”
“Fuck you.”
“Right now, right now?”
“Whatever.”
An unsteady suede heel glid over the linoleum floor. As she hopped away to the next fashion block, he tasted her seductive warmth, slid the hanger from its rail, and traced her steps.
“Try it on for me.”
“Why should I? It’s not like I could afford it.”
A smile spread through his moistened lips.
“Just try it on for me.”
“Fine.”
She rolled her eyes and draped her beloved over the shoulder, letting it flutter into the dressing room. As she rounded the corner and out of sight, her eyes tinted a wickedness that spread into an open smile.
Thumping to the tune, he pulled out his wallet.
