The idea of being in a locker room with a bunch of other women doesn’t freak me out. Should it? It probably should. It doesn’t, though. I was never big into sports when I was in high school, but I was never embarrassed to change in the locker room. I was always a little curvier than the other girls, but it never bothered me, for some reason.
So I’ve got that going for me.
“Here we go,” Christina opens up her closet and I start laughing. “What?” She asks innocently.
“One side of the closet is ‘mom clothing’ and the other is ‘dirty girl’ clothing. It’s just a huge contrast.” On the left side are shirts, dresses, and pants, along with what I would consider to be normal shoes and boots and sandals. The right side of the closet is mostly black and lace: corsets, thongs, shorts, and mini-skirts. There are a pile of stilettos on the floor and there are even a couple of costumes.
“Come on now,” she says. “Variety is the spice of life.”
“Is that a naughty schoolgirl uniform?”
“You want to try it on?”
“No,” I blush.
“You should,” she grabs the outfit from a hanger and hands it to me. Somehow, it ends up in my hands, and I look at it.
“I don’t want to,” I say, but even as I speak, I realize how lame I sound. Isn’t tonight all about getting out of my comfort zone? I’m in a rut. I’m in a boring, tired, sick-of-my-life rut and I’m ready to get out of it.
It’s time to stop being lame.
It’s time to be bold.
“You know what?” I pull my shirt off and toss it on the bed. “I will try it on.” Christina giggles and claps her hands and jumps up and down as I finish stripping down to my bra and panties and then pull the outfit on.
Only, as I look in the mirror, I realize there’s a huge problem.
“My panties are showing.”
“Your panties are showing,” she repeats, but she doesn’t seem uncomfortable or nervous or weird about it. “What do you think you should do, Lily?”
And therein lies the question.
What do I think I should do?
The question isn’t what I think the world wants me to do or what I think my mom wants me to do or what I think my friends want me to do.
The question is what I think I, personally, should do.
“Take off my panties?” I ask.
“That’s one option,” Christina says.
It’s no different than a locker room, I tell myself, and wiggle out of my plain black panties. I drop them on the floor and then turn around.
“There you go,” she says. “You look sexy as hell.”
I peek at myself in the mirror and I blush when I realize I can see my ass cheeks. That’s how short the skirt is. Still, I kind of look, well, sexy.
And I kind of feel sexy.
And I kind of love that.
“Okay,” I say, turning back to my friend. “What else do you have that I can try on?”
Christina just laughs and waves at her closet.
“Have at it, love. We’ve got an hour to get you something perfect.”