Boring and Unadventurous
 

 

 

What is the difference between attractiveness and beautifulness? Some might say they are the same, but is it not possible for someone to be stunningly beautiful yet somehow unattractive? And conversely, can we not lose our heart completely to someone who would never make the pages of Vogue? Or can it be that a woman beautiful enough to grace the cover of Vogue can become unattractive if she neglects herself?

 

The first time I saw her, she wasn’t beautiful. She looked plain and unremarkable, dressed in shapeless, drab clothes, her hair tied back in that most hateful of low maintenance hairdos, a low tied ponytail, and having made little, if any effort to embellish her looks. And yet, as a jeweller sees through the lustreless gloom of an uncut diamond and finds the sparkling gem within, I saw through her timid, mousy aura and was dazzled at the sight of the most desirable woman I had ever laid my eyes upon. A woman who obviously had no idea just how attractive she was. On that day she wasn’t beautiful, but I wanted her more than I have ever wanted another human being.

 

 

 

Part One
A Whole Life Makeover
 

     

A theme park in winter is a rather surreal place. With the thronging summer crowds absent, a curious, almost post-apocalyptic feel hangs over the place. Huge car parks stand empty like giant lakes of tarmac. Fast food outlets are boarded up. Merry-go-rounds lie idle. Roller coaster tracks are silent, like giant, sleeping serpents. But that’s not to say that there’s no activity. Winter maintenance is in full swing. The walkways and paths are strewn with contractors’ vans as everything from tree planting to ride painting is performed with increasing urgency as the spring opening approaches. And of course to bring in the punters with that opening, there has to be some new attraction. A new ride, always the most exciting yet will have risen up from the landscape through the winter days, and getting it working in time for the big opening is always a source of much stress for its installers.

 

Through this odd landscape walked Laura Isseberg on her way to work. Everyone else parked in the staff car park by the offices, but Laura liked to use the punters’ car park and walk up past the new roller coaster that was being installed. Its adrenalin-raising feature was its precipitous vertical drop from the top of the lift ramp, however the local council’s planning department had insisted that no new installation at the park could be taller than the surrounding trees, so half of the straight down drop had to go underground. The new coaster dropped straight into a round, concrete-lined hole, emerging the other side of a MacDonalds. A seemingly impossible planning restriction had been turned into a marketing masterpiece, for the hole had spawned the name for this new thrill ride. The Abyss.

 

As Laura wandered past the mass of Bolliger & Mabillard vans parked around ‘The Abyss’ and watched the car clacking up the lift ramp with its cargo of surreal, white plastic, water-filled test dummies, she wondered if she was happy with the state of her life which seemed to be both good and crappy at the same time. In the good corner was her new job here at the park. She’d started a little under a month ago as an assistant in the marketing office and it was a big improvement on her previous job as copywriter and page designer at the local scandal-rag newspaper. Today, in between various rounds of tea making, she was going to work on posters showing offers and deals at the various retail outlets on park. She liked her new job and felt she was doing well at it, but lurking over in the crappy corner of life was her social existence. Or rather the lack of it since she had been dumped by her boyfriend. Apparently she was just too “boring and unadventurous”, or at least that’s what his text message had said. Yes, a fucking text message! How dare the little shit break up with her by text. What made it even more irritating was the fact she was going to dump him for, well for just being a little shit really, but she hadn’t gotten round to it, and he had done it first. Bastard! “Boring and unadventurous”, what was that supposed to mean anyway? Ok so she wasn’t a bungee jumping or shark fishing type, but how many people were? Or did he mean sex? She did all right at sex. Just what was she supposed to do to be exciting for him? Dress up in rubber and let him whip her? Fuck that, although the thought of her whipping him had some merit, actually a lot of merit. OK so she was rather conventional and she didn’t do glam, but that didn’t make her boring, did it?

 

When she was a teenager, Laura had been cursed with acne. Her face, neck and back were constantly peppered with horrible red blisters, often with puss filled, white centres. And how can a young girl feel good about herself looking like that? She hid away from the world as much as possible, covering herself up with scarfs, chunky roll-neck sweaters and a long fringe. She’d become a horsey girl, never happier than when she was covered in mud and hay and horse snot and generally looking as scruffy as possible. If you feel you can’t look good by tarting yourself up, then it‘s best to be scruffy so that at least there’s an implied prospect that you might scrub up half decently. Now she was thirty years old, the acne had long since gone and she no longer hated seeing herself in the mirror. But though her skin had generally recovered unscarred, Laura’s deep anxiety about trying to make herself look smart, or heaven forbid, sexy, and her complete lack of confidence in her appearance remained. She became terribly self-conscious and uncomfortable in social situations. And in the bedroom, well she liked to be under the covers with the lights off before anyone else entered the room.

 

And that was what hurt so much about being dumped by The Little Shit. He had called her ‘boring and unadventurous’, and as always with insults, the ones that hurt the most are the ones that have some truth in them. But with her new job and new single status, Laura had been thinking that this was an opportunity to give her life a makeover. As she walked on past the coaster building site, she noticed Patrick, the park manager talking with some engineers. He waved to her and she waved back, thinking how nice it would be to get waved at, or even whistled at by the workmen, even though that sort of thing was frowned upon nowadays.

 

“I’ll show The Little Shit,” she said to herself. “We’ll see who’s boring and unadventurous.”

 

 

Laura arrived at the marketing office, an open plan affair with three workstations, one of which was hers, and Maria the manager’s office at the back. The place seemed strangely deserted but Laura could hear some keyboard tapping coming from Maria’s office. She wandered over to the door to say good morning, but instead of Maria she found a different woman inside. Someone she had never met before.

 

“Oh, I’m sorry. I was looking for Maria,” said Laura sheepishly.

 

The woman lifted her head from a laptop and a pair of steely, penetrating eyes looked Laura up and down as if analysing her. Then she took off her glasses and stood up.

 

“You must be Laura.” she said in a slightly foreign sounding, but definitely posh accent. “I am Anna Russendale. I am in charge of marketing for the Lancelot group. I’m sure you know that we own this park and fifteen others around Europe. Please, come in and sit down. I need to have a little chat with you.”

 

“Oh, ok,” stuttered Laura feeling a little shell-shocked at the realisation that this was the big boss from London. “I don’t know where everyone is this morning.”

 

“Well there’s just you and me this morning,” said Anna, which didn’t help Laura’s nervousness. She looked at Anna and noted a lady who obviously took great pride in her appearance. She was probably in her mid-forties, wearing a stylish looking fitted dress with a wide belt, a large gold necklace and matching earrings. Her attractive, yet somehow intimidating face was topped by a high-maintenance looking pompadour style hairdo of a chestnut colour which reached down to the bottom of her neck behind her. She was immaculately, yet not excessively made-up and her varnished nails were the exact same colour as her lipstick. There was an aura of authority about her. She was the boss and she looked like she knew it.

 

As Laura entered the office and sat down, the older woman turned her laptop round and showed Laura the screen. On it was the artwork for a poster advertising a free kids meal with every adult meal bought in one of the park’s fast food restaurants.

 

“Is this your work?” asked Anna.

 

A lump formed in Laura’s throat. She was feeling like a naughty schoolgirl in the headmistress’s office.

 

“Err… yes,” she said in a small voice.

 

“Yes I thought so. I couldn’t imagine anyone else in this office coming up with anything as creative as this,” said Anna. “A good stock shot of the restaurant and some nice design work. The pictures of the food are from the menus I assume.”

 

“Em, yes,” replied Laura feeling a little relieved, but still incredibly nervous. “I didn’t have much to work with on that poster but I found the menus on the server and so used the images from them. I hope that’s ok.”

 

“Oh yes, it’s very ok. What about this one? One of yours too?” Anna called up another poster on the laptop. This one was a three for two offer on souvenir photos taken by the automatic camera systems fitted around the park’s rides. It showed Laura herself, her long hair freed from its usual ponytail and billowing loose in the wind while she seemed to be laughing hysterically, upside down at the top of a roller coaster loop.

 

“Oh, yes. I couldn’t find any photos that didn’t feature real punters and so I asked the engineers to let me sit on the coaster while they were testing it. I went round quite few times to get that picture and was a bit sick afterwards.”

 

“There are loads of stock images on the system featuring people who are cleared for our use. The bunch of Muppets in this office should have shown you where to find them. But full credit to you for going the extra mile to get this shot. You wouldn’t get me on one of those things for anything.”

 

“I hope it’s all right that I used a picture of myself for this,” said Laura felling very nervous again. Where was everybody else? Why was she getting this grilling? And why was this woman referring to her colleagues as ‘Muppets’?

 

“Do you know,” continued Anna, “if I saw this as a press ad in a national paper I wouldn’t be unhappy. A pretty lady obviously having a great time on an exciting ride. Says it all.”

 

“Well I don’t usually think of myself as being pretty.”

 

Anna looked at Laura and seemed once again to be analysing her. “Yes, I think I can see that. But I don’t know why it should be the case,” she said in an off-hand tone of voice.

 

Laura wondered whether that was a compliment or an insult, but she didn’t have long to think about it for Anna was speaking again.

 

“According to Patrick, in the last three weeks you’ve produced more good work than both of your colleagues and your so-called ‘head of department’ have produced between them in the last three months.”

 

“Err, thank you,” replied Laura, wondering where all this was going.

 

“Now I have a very important question for you Laura, and I would like you to think carefully before you answer. How do you feel about appropriating company money and using it to buy yourself a lavish lifestyle? New cars, fancy clothes, holidays, that sort of thing.”

 

Laura’s heart missed a beat. Was she being accused of something here? She hadn’t done anything like that. What the hell was this all about?

 

“Err… well. I don’t think it would be right really. I mean… it would be stealing.”

 

“Well I’m glad you feel that way Laura. And it’s a position that I would agree with. Unfortunately your colleagues here, and especially your so-called ‘boss’ took a rather different view. That little trio of thieves have had their dirty little hands in the company till for some time now. They must have thought I’m fucking stupid. Since when did we have an office in Antigua that needs to be visited? No doubt while wearing clothes bought on the accounts that we apparently have at Jovani and Juicy Couture. And that new and snazzy little blue Mazda convertible outside, well apparently Maria decided to buy her new car using her company credit card.  Now, we had a frank and constructive exchange of views about all this early this morning, and we came to a compromise position whereby I agreed not to call in the police, in return for the three of them agreeing to terminate their employment here with immediate effect and get the fuck off company property, never to return. Personally I think they got a rather good deal. I would have preferred to see all three of them wearing striped suits and a ball and chain for ten years, but they’d probably get off with just probation or some crap like that, and in any case, we don’t really need that kind of publicity.”

 

“Oh,” stammered Laura.

 

“So I’m hoping that, as you’ve only been here a few weeks, their poisonous ways haven’t rubbed off on you yet. They haven’t have they?”

 

Laura stared in amazement at the older woman and shook her head meekly. She was completely dumbfounded and terrified. The other women in her office weren’t her friends really. In fact she didn’t actually like Maria, her now ex-boss very much, but they were her colleagues and, regardless of what they had been up to, they had just been summarily disposed of by this dragon woman who had whirled into town without warning. Laura wondered what her own fate was to be.

 

“Good. Relax Laura. I know you weren’t part of all this.” Anna smiled and her face seemed to somehow become warmer. “Isseberg. An interesting name. Where’s it from?”

 

“It’s actually not really from anywhere, my father just made it up. My parents are from Iceland and Icelandic naming causes a lot of difficulties in other countries where the children would be expected to have the same surname as their parents. So when they moved here, they made up a Nordic sounding family name just to avoid the confusion. ”

 

“I see. I suppose there aren’t any ‘iceberg’ jokes you haven’t already heard then?”

 

“I’ve heard a few.”

 

“Yes, well don’t melt away on me now because I rather think I need you. I’ve got a park here that opens in five weeks, a new three million pound coaster, a TV ad in production, and I’ve just fired the park’s entire marketing department, except for you of course. Now I wouldn’t normally do this to someone who’s only been with us for a few weeks, and as a junior assistant at that, but you’ve done some great work in those few weeks, and Patrick thinks you can do it, and most importantly, I’ve decided I like you. So what do you say to taking over as head of marketing here on a trial basis? If you keep your cool Iceberg, and get me a finished TV ad, press ads, leaflets and all the other shit we need by the time the park opens, we’ll consider making it a permanent position. You’ll need some help of course. I’ll send you a couple of minions from head office, but it’ll be mainly down to you. What do say to that Iceberg? Care to do battle with a Titanic task?”

 

“Oh Christ. Err, I’m sorry, I mean yes. Yes of course. I’ll give it my best.”

 

“Yes well, your best is going to have to be good to pull this off. Now I’ll be around here for the next couple of days and then I’m back in London. My numbers and email are on the system and here is my personal mobile. Day or night you can call me about anything and I’ll help if I can. I’ll talk to personnel about getting you a temporary pay grade and if you have a personal life, better put it on hold now. Now I have to go and see Patrick, and you’ll be wanting this office to get started, so I’ll get out of your hair, but I’ll try and catch up with you later for a longer chat. Maybe we can have lunch together.”

 

Anna closed her laptop and slipped it into her bag. She got up and started to leave. A stunned Laura just watched as she headed for the door.

 

“Oh, I nearly forgot,” said Anna pausing at the door. “There was no way I was going to let that bitch Maria leave with a brand new MX5, and since the company’s paid for it, you might as well have it for now. You can keep it if things turn out rosy, but I’ll be having it back if you make an arse of yourself.” She tossed Laura a set of car keys and then was gone, leaving Laura to try to come to terms with what had just happened.

 

“Fucking Hell,” she thought. “I was thinking my life needed a makeover. Well it looks like it’s happening.”

 

 

 

 

 

In the days immediately following her ‘promotion’, Laura’s life makeover had to take a backseat as her new job took up all her time and energy. There was so much to do, so much to organise and she didn’t really know how to do most of it. But slowly order began to form from the chaos and a plan for the weeks before opening day evolved. And each day there was the little treat of driving to and from work in her new, blue, sporty and stylish MX5.  It was the first time she’d had a car that was anywhere near new and anywhere near sporty, and Laura wondered if it was actually the first stylish thing she’d had of any kind. Even though it was winter, she couldn’t resist dropping the top down and freeing her hair from its ponytail to wave around in the wind as she drove. She thought about her picture on the poster she had done, and Anna’s words about it. ‘A pretty lady having a great time.’ And that’s exactly how Laura felt as she drove along. Oh, how she hoped The Little Shit would see her driving past.

 

Laura’s ego received another boost when an email from Anna appeared asking if she could use the picture of Laura on the coaster as part of a print ad for another park in the group, to which Laura agreed with considerable delight. “Does this mean I can call myself a model?” she wondered. “Not so boring now am I.”

 

A week after Anna’s visit, Laura had to add being a TV producer to her rapidly lengthening list of skills. She relished her MX5 across the country to another of the group’s parks where part of the TV ad was being filmed. This park already had a similar ride to ‘The Abyss’, albeit not dropping into a hole in the ground. Some clever effects work was going to be needed to make it look like ‘The Abyss’, but the production manager, a cheerful and rather loud lady called Ellen assured her that it could all be done. Laura’s first taste of TV production was an interesting one. The director, a rather pretentious little man with pierced eyebrows and a beret who called himself Bartock and kept referring to the advert as ‘his film’, seemed to Laura to be more interested in shooting pictures for his showreel than following the storyboard, and several times she had to call him aside and quietly stamp on his ego. She also learned that filming seemed to mainly consist of lots of equipment and lots of people standing about doing nothing, waiting for one person to finish fiddling with something. And as soon as that was fixed, someone else had to tinker with a light, or a bit of costume or something else that needed fixing. And just when all was ready, the sun would disappear behind a cloud and they’d all stand around for a bit longer, waiting for it to return. But for all that, Bartock and the crew produced some great shots and things were looking good for the ad.   

 

It was late when she got home to her flat which sat above a small shopping arcade. She parked the car in the street, climbed the two flights of stairs to her door and threw a TV dinner in the microwave. She noticed herself in the large mirror on her landing wall and realised that while long hair looked great blowing in the breeze while driving a convertible, the aftermath was rather less than stylish.

 

“If I’m going to keep this ‘pretty lady having a great time’ image going then I’m going to have to get a hat of some sort to wear in the car. Maybe Bartock’s beret would look better on me,” she said to herself. And then she thought about her former boyfriend and his text message. “I wonder what The Little Shit would make of me now. Still too ‘boring and unadventurous’ for you? What a twat. I’ll show you.”

 

While she ate her dinner, Laura opened her laptop and browsed some hats on the web. She hadn’t worn a hat for a long time, and was reminded of her teenage years when a woolly hat was one of her regular tools for hiding her spotty forehead. She decided that a beret like Bartock’s would indeed suit her rather well, allowing her hair to billow about, but keeping it under wraps enough that it shouldn’t look like a bird’s nest after she’d driven any distance. She clicked on ‘BUY’ and spent another half-hour window shopping at other clothes that might compliment her life makeover, before tiredness got the better of her and she slouched off to bed.

 

The following morning while she had breakfast, Laura fired up her laptop and was rather shocked to see the sort of clothes she’d been browsing through the night before. Stylish looking jackets, tops, even a few skirts, and heaven forbid, boots with high heels! She never wore that kind of stuff. And the prices! But as she gazed at a pair of Prada boots on the screen, they were definitely having an effect on her. Some sort of desire to have them ran through her. How good would she look stepping out of her MX5 in those? Assuming of course she could still drive in those heels. And also assuming she could step anywhere in them. Laura shook herself back to reality and headed off to work.

 

The first item in Laura’s in-tray was a letter from the personnel office. She opened it and read her new, temporary pay grade. Then she read it again. And again. And then she went online and ordered the Prada boots to celebrate. All through the day she buzzed with excitement. Her income had just more than doubled, and she had just bought her first ever item of designer clothing. Life makeover right on track!

 

The following day Laura arrived home from work to find a large parcel waiting for her. Her new boots! Within minutes the parcel was torn open and her feet graced by a pair of knee high, black leather boots with a decorative buckle at the ankle and three and half inch heels of a moderately sensible thickness. Apart from trying on her mother’s shoes when she was a little girl, Laura had never worn heels before and she staggered inelegantly around her flat in them.

 

“Oh Christ, what was I thinking when I bought these?” she muttered to herself. “Oh yes. I was thinking that I wasn’t going to be ‘boring and unadventurous’ in my choice of footwear any more. Come on Laura. It can’t be that hard. Every day you see women walking around perfectly happily in heels like these.”

 

She spent most of the evening practicing walking around her flat in her new boots and felt like she was getting the hang of it by the time her ankle muscles cried out “enough!” and she went to soak away the aches in the bath. The following morning presented Laura with an uncomfortable dilemma. Of course, she should wear her new boots to work, life makeover and all that. And most of the time she’d be sitting down anyway. And she could take some sensible, boring shoes as a back-up. And she wanted to find out if she could drive in heels. And a hundred and one other reasons to wear the boots. But overriding all that was a feeling of deep unease. The fear of being smart. The fear of making a style statement. The fear of being looked at. It was all very well posing around in her car, for it provided a safety barrier. Even with the top down she was still in the car, separated from those who might be looking at her. And the car was universally cool. About the only uncool thing anyone could do with it would be to try and shift a wardrobe. The boots were different. They would be like part of her, a statement of her taste and her desire to look attractive. A statement that ‘this is as good as I get’. The fear returned and the boots stayed at home.

 

All through the day Laura cursed herself. She felt she had let herself down and gone back to the old Laura, the ‘boring and unadventurous’ one she was trying to escape from. She had chickened out and she hated herself for it. As she stewed, she came up with a plan that once done, would allow no option to chicken out, and she called her oldest and best friend Tiffany to put the plan into operation.

 

Laura had to work late and it was almost eight o’clock by the time she drove home, collected her boots and an overnight bag and drove round to Tiffany’s. It took more than two hours for Tiffany to work her professional magic and declare the job done. Laura’s light brown hair was now dyed jet black with streaks of dark, rich copper running through it and at the ends. It had been straightened and Tiffany had cut it into a heavily layered style that ran down the sides of her face and then curled progressively inwards, following the line of Laura’s jaw and framing her face in a near perfect oval. The gently inward curling hair continued beyond her neck and down the front of her shoulders, in a silky looking waterfall of black and copper. At her back there was no curling, the hair dived vertically down to a straight, copper hem. The layered cut added length and weight at the top while the sides thinned and pulled themselves attractively inwards. This haircut was Laura’s masterplan. Now that it was all cut at different lengths, it would no longer be possible for her to simply tie her hair back in the boring old ponytail. She would have to wear her hair out on display now. The dye would take many weeks to wash out and a layered cut takes forever to grow out. There was no going back. The old hairstyle was gone, and hopefully the old Laura with it.

 

But Tiffany hadn’t limited herself to hair. Laura’s nails were now trimmed and varnished a dark, blood red. A little foundation and concealer removed the last tiny traces of Laura’s acne years, and her eyelashes sported mascara for the first time in her life. A hint of eye-shadow emphasized her eyes further and her lips wore a glossy red colour to match her nails.

 

“Oh wow,” said Laura as Tiffany finally uncovered the mirror behind the dressing table and she saw her new look for the first time.

 

“You look good enough to eat” said Tiffany with a dirty grin. The double meaning of this comment was not lost on Laura as she knew well the nature of Tiffany’s sexuality.

 

“Easy Tiger,” replied Laura.

 

“Well that’s one of the things I always wanted to do to you done. Would you like to see a list of the others?”

 

“I’m having a whole life makeover. Anything’s possible,” joked Laura, running her fingers through her new hair. “Especially if I look like this. It’s amazing. Oh thanks Tiff. You’re the best.”

 

“I always knew you were beautiful under all that baggage. It’s great that you’re finally letting yourself out of that box you’ve been hiding in.” Tiffany leaned forward and gave her friend a peck on the cheek.

 

The emotion of the moment and of seeing herself all beautiful and glamorous suddenly got to Laura and she turned and pulled Tiffany back towards her. Before she knew what was happening lip gloss met lip gloss in a long and passionate kiss.

 

“Oooh, I think there’s hope I might turn you from The Dark Side again,” said Tiffany, breaking the awkward silence that followed.

 

“Err, sorry about that. Just seeing myself like this and well… you know. Maybe I should just take this makeover thing one step at a time.”

 

“Hmmm. I can wait.”

 

The conversation turned to other things. Food now being the primary concern, followed by Laura receiving instruction on how to look after her new look. It all seemed rather complicated.

 

“You, err, don’t have to sleep on the sofa you know,” said Tiffany awkwardly as it got late. “My bed is huge, and I promise no hanky-panky. Unless you start it.”

 

“Thanks Tiff, but the sofa will be fine.”

 

“Suit yourself. I’ll get you a duvet and some pillows.” Tiffany got up and left the living room. “I’ve waited ten years for you. A little while longer won’t hurt,” she shouted from somewhere, before returning with an armful of bedding. “Good night Hun. Don’t get that hair all messed up in the night,” she said.

 

“Tiff. You haven’t really been waiting for me have you?”

 

Tiffany laughed and headed off to bed. “If you change your mind there’s no lock on my door.”

 

Laura made herself comfortable on the sofa and thought about the evening’s events and her relationship with Tiffany. She remembered when they had first met over ten years ago at college. They were two young women emerging from miserable teenage years, and both struggling with the after effects; Laura with her total lack of self-confidence and Tiffany in a state of confusion about her sexuality. At that stage, Tiffany hadn’t accepted that she was a lesbian and was still struggling to be ‘normal’, dating boys in relationships that went nowhere. But as Tiffany began to come to terms with who she was, she and Laura became very close, more than friends, almost lovers. But Laura had backed away from her, afraid of where it might lead and unable to understand her own feelings. Tiffany went on to blossom afterwards, diving into a new life of sex and intermittent love with great enthusiasm, while Laura had silently become jealous of her friend. And now here they were again. Doing girls stuff together like friends, or sisters, or maybe more. She thought how nice it must be to be a lesbian. To not have to have men in your life. Men like The Little Shit. Why couldn’t she just be like Tiffany? Why did she have to keep wanting a man when all the men she had had were shits? Maybe it was because she’d never been able to make herself attractive and so had ended up with the dregs of manhood. Maybe now that she was finally pulling herself together things would be different. Or maybe not. Maybe she should just go and make love to Tiffany right now, before the effects of her handiwork wore off. If she did, it didn’t mean she was a lesbian, just that she could swing both ways a little. “Being a lesbian doesn’t mean I’m a man hater,” Tiffany had once told her. “If I see a good looking bloke, I might still fancy him, even have sex with him, but I don’t want to love him, or share my life with him. I want a woman for that. It’s not black and white for me, more shades of grey, and while I prefer the lighter shades I can still appreciate a bit of darkness.”

 

Laura woke with a crick in her neck from lying awkwardly on the sofa. She looked at her watch. 03:10. She got up, turned on the light and saw her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. Her face was now clean of make-up, but the hair was still there. And the aura of her new self. She sat for a while thinking, and then she went off to Tiffany’s room and quietly climbed into bed beside her.

 

 

 

 

 

“Wakey Wakey. Good morning sleepy head.”

 

“Mmmmm. Hello.”

 

“I woke up and found I had three arms. It took me a moment to work out where the third one had come from. I’m glad you changed your mind and came through.”

 

“Mmmmm. Well don’t get too excited. It was only because your sofa’s bloody uncomfortable.”

 

“Jees, you really know how to make a girl feel good in the morning. I’m just a back-up for a sofa am I?”

 

“Yeah, you got that right. What time is it?”

 

“Time for some us-time before we get up. And I’d have stuck some spikes in the sofa if I’d known it would get you here. It’s a long time since we woke up together.”

 

“Mmmmm. Seems like we’ve been here before. And back then I ran away from you because I didn’t know who I was. And here we are again, and I still don’t know who I am.”

 

“You’re you, and that’s all that matters.”

 

“I don’t know what I can be for you Tiff. I don’t want to lead you on and then run away again.”

 

“Lead me on? Err, who’s doing the leading here? Who invited who to their bed?”

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

“Just go with the flow Laura. And if you decide it’s a man you really want, I’ll understand.”

 

“Oh don’t mention men. Fucking Little Shits.”

 

“They’re not all like him. Some are actually quite nice. Although not as nice as me. Tell you what, a little test. I can feel, rubbing up against you here, that you’ve still got your panties on. I’m going to kiss and cuddle, and maybe even caress you for, shall we say, twenty minutes. If at the end of that, your panties are dry, then you’re obviously still a man wanter, and I’ll have to find another way to turn you from The Dark Side. But if the panties are wet, then I obviously make you horny, and I get to eat you up. Deal?”

 

“Oh! All right then, deal.”

 

As Tiffany went to work on her, Laura lay and soaked up her friend’s attentions, which were certainly a world nicer than anything The Little Shit had done for her. Or any of her previous boyfriends for that matter. She wondered how she wanted this ‘test’ to work out. She wondered if she could sway the result by thinking about un-sexy people in the news, like David Cameron, or Donald Trump. Or she could swing it the other way by thinking about, what exactly? Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise? Or George Clooney in Out of Sight? Or Jennifer Lopez in Out of Sight? Or Jennifer Garner in Daredevil? In the end she decided to just enjoy the ride and let her body make up its own mind.

 

“Right then, inspection time,” declared Tiffany suddenly as she dived below the duvet. “Bum up. Let’s have those knickers.”

 

A few moments later she surfaced holding Laura’s pants.

 

“Laura, these pants are awful. What’s the point of doing your hair and stuff if you’re going to wear underwear like this?”

 

“Well I’m functional when it comes to underwear. What difference does it make? No-one sees it, unless I’ve made it into the bedroom by which time it’s a done deal.”

 

“No-one has to see it, Dummy. It’s how it makes you feel. You’re having a makeover. Why? Because you want to attract another man? No. It’s because you want to feel good about yourself. You want to feel that you’re sexy and desirable. It doesn’t matter what other people think, or see, it’s what you want to feel that’s important. Take me. I never wear tights, only stockings. Nobody else can tell what’s going on with my thighs, but I can tell, and it makes me feel good. And it gives me a little thrill to be dressed normally on the outside, and look like a complete whore underneath. If you want to start feeling good about yourself, you’re going to need some decent underwear, trust me on that. Now let’s see what we’ve got here. Ah ha. What’s all this? Looks to me like the Iceberg’s been melting.”

 

“Oh, yes they are a bit. Looks like you win.”

 

“No, it looks like we both win.”