Chapter Summary: I, in this special … 'something' Rosalie got for me was anything but comfortable, and Rosalie, looking at me, looking at us, was anything but scared. Because she knew exactly what she was doing. We were in her element now. Me? Scared. Anything but. Right? Yeah: maybe if I keep telling myself that, I'll eventually believe it, too.

You know, there are worse things in the world than to be all comfy, lying down, and having Rosalie Hale at your feet, painting your toenails. In fact, it was actually pretty nice, come to think of it, once I got over my initial mortifying embarrassment.

Because you know there's a dress code for getting your toenails painted. Did you know that?

I didn't know that.

I found out.

God. Did I find out.

...

"Okay," I laid down the law as soon as I entered the cabin, not even taking my coat off yet. "There is not gonna be any painting of toenails. Period!"

"Mmhm," Rosalie said easily, stripping me of my coat and taking it from my rigid body.

"Did you hear what I just said?" I pressed angrily.

"Mmhm," she said, hanging my coat on a peg by the door.

I glared hard at her.

That worked, … or not, as she didn't even turn back to me, but went to her Santa-bag-o-tricks... to get nail-polish? No, she was getting out a pastel-printed box, the size and shape where they package fine shirts in.

"Then what did I say!" I demanded.

"Hm?" she answered distractedly.

I was getting no confidence from Miss Ignoring Me here.

"Rosalie HALE!" I shouted.

Rosalie did turn at that. She looked at me, blinking for a second.

"I'm sorry, sweetie, did you say something?" she asked, a far-away look on her face.

I put my hand on my hips and glared, seriously considering if I should stamp my foot.

Rosalie smiled at me, and my heart thawed, just a little tiny bit.

Her smiled widened, just a hair. She quickly tried to suppress it, but it was there.

I sent daggers her way.

Rosalie held up the box. "I'm going to try something on for our girls' night, and I'd like your honest opinion on it, okay?"

I looked at the box then back at her, puzzled, knocked off balance by the sincerity of her request ... and the mystery of it, too.

What was in that box?

Rosalie smiled warmly at me, and disappeared behind the triptych.

A dress draped itself over the top of the mirrors.

"There's a dress code?" I asked.

Then I gulped. Would said dress code apply to me, too?

What was said dress code?

I didn't need to wonder for long: Rosalie stepped out from behind the protective mirrors, smiling radiantly.

"So, what do you think?" she asked happily.

I swallowed. Hard.

I would like the record to state that I was blinded by her radiant smile.

Honest.

Because what she wore drove every thought straight out of my head.

…

"Wh-what is that?" I asked.

Rosalie beamed and did a little pirouette. "It's a chemise; do you like it?"

"Um," I said panicking, "it's very …"

It was very. It was very very. It was so … very.

Yeah.

I realized the problem I had with the 'clothes' Rosalie was wearing wasn't that they didn't cover her, no, it was the opposite problem: her 'clothes' whatever she called it, did cover the important bits, but the cloth was so sheer that the word 'clothe' was just … wrong. They didn't clothe her, like cover over her bits, but more like: drew attention to them, and not only with the sheer material that forced the eye to strain to look through the gauze-like insubstantial material, but the problem was the material, or the lack of it, itself, it didn't cover her arms, nor her legs, nor even, if you discounted the tiniest of straps, her shoulders. No, her arms, legs, shoulders, uncovered weren't scandalizing, it was the material on her bits that were covered that drew the eyes up her long, long legs right to her …

Yeah.

And then your eyes got stuck there.

And then when you tried to raise your eyes, protecting her modesty that the slightest wisp of hair did nothing to protect, trying to lift your eyes to meet hers, then your eyes got … kinda … stuck further … south of her eyes. Sort of around the chest area.

It took an inhuman effort on my part to catch myself staring, force my eyes up, then catch myself staring, again, and raise my eyes. Again.

To meet two black pools of knowing eyes, crinkled with a satirical laughter at my predicament, which was: how to speak with my tongue tied, and how not to sweat, with the cabin suddenly, suffocatingly hot.

Rosalie was looking right back at me, and the big, big huge cabin (not really) narrowed down to a tiny point, right around me. I felt I had nowhere to run and hide.

"The material is imported silk," she informed me, "and feels so good on the skin!"

And, demonstrating, she brought her hand to her belly, and rubbed the material against her tummy.

Then she caught me staring, smiled wickedly, and her rubbing hand moved slightly Southward.

"Hhhhaa…" I whispered through my parched mouth.

Rosalie smirked, walked over to the santa-pile, pulled out another pastel-colored box, turned to me and said the world's most scary words.

"Your turn!" she sang.

That got my attention.

"No way!" I blustered angrily. "Never! Nuh, uh! No!"

Remember how I mentioned Rosalie's smile dazzled me? Or how her cobra eyes transfixed me?

Yeah. That.

Rosalie walked right up to me, 'stalked' more like than 'walked.' I tried to back away but I felt trapped with nowhere to run. Then she put her forehead against mine and looked deeply into my eyes. I could feel her smiling, supremely confident, but all I could look into were the endless black pools of her eyes.

Things got a little hazy for me after that. I actually don't remember the next few moments all that well. All I had was just a sense of paralyzing terror, and Rosalie gentle, firm hand guiding me to behind the triptych.

…

"Well, …?" Rosalie's voice called to me.

I looked down at myself.

I had to hand it to her. Rosalie knew if I put on something like what she was wearing, and if I had to show myself like that? I'd just simply die, there'd be no two ways about it. Just me: dead, and that's it.

So, what she got me was twice was she was wearing.

Hm. Lemme do the math. Two times nothing is …

Yeah.

But actually, there was a short, white slip under the very sheer purple material that I wore, and, bonus, Rosalie provided me with simple, white, modest panties, too.

How thoughtful of her!

And, unlike the more fanciful design that Rosalie wore that drew the eye here or there (not, mind you, with Rosalie Hale, the eye needed help being drawn) mine was all of one piece, seemingly totally seamless, so that the eye was drawn nowhere, actually. Instead the all of it, all of me, that is, had to be taken in and judged at once and as a whole.

It fit me perfectly, somehow magically hugging every contour, every curve that I didn't know I had and instead of calling out my inadequacies, it highlighted what I did have, and then complimented my features.

'You are simply beautiful,' it seemed to say.

And …

Looking down at myself, I knew I could go right there, right to that place where I criticized myself, seeing only my ugliness, my knobby knees, my veiny hands, and too, too much hair, everywhere now on my arms and legs and private areas. I could just go right there if I let myself.

And it would be so easy to do.

But what Rosalie gave me didn't allow it so easily. It was a small, light, skimpy slip, not even halfway down to my knees, baring my arms, and unclothing me as I had never, ever been before. It was miles away from my comfy, warm flannel pjs I was used to wearing.

This slip was so different. It didn't clothe me in comfort.

But it did clothe me in a new kind of dignity that I had never experienced before: it clothed me in beauty.

I knew this was an illusion. It had to be.

But if it were an illusion… I didn't want it to end.

And one sure way to end it was to show myself to Rosalie, and see her, and compare myself to her.

I looked down at myself once more.

"It's a Georgette slip," Rosalie said softly, right beside me.

"Gah!" I shouted.

She did it again, appearing right beside me without me even noticing.

Freak me out, why don't you!

I tried to be-still my beating heart. It listened to my request, and laughed at me, beating a mile-a-minute as I tried to recover from my fright.

Rosalie smirked, then looked at me appraisingly. "I chose lavender as the color," she said, "I hope you like it."

I blinked looking down once more at the powdery-white purple slip hugging my body. It stood in contrast to the pretty-pink dress I had been wearing, but the contrast was from one beautiful thing to another.

Rosalie had drastically changed my wardrobe options.

I looked back up her and gulped. "Uh," I floundered. "It's, uh, very nice."

Rosalie beamed. "Well," she demurred, but businesslike, like she knew it was very nice, but was glad that I saw that, too.

She smiled, grabbed my wrist, and pulled around to the mirrors. "Let's have a look-see," she said.

And I thought, oh, let's not! Nothing like spoiling the illusion of beauty that Rosalie Hale's critical eye was sure to do.

But try telling Rosalie Hale anything once she's on a mission!

She positioned me front-and-center, right in front of the mirrors, and, surprisingly, instead of putting herself on display, too, beside me, she molded herself into me.

My whole body caught fire wherever hers touched mine.

Then she wrapped her hands around me, her long arms 'V'-ing down my front, and she rested her chin on my shoulder.

And we just stood there, in front of the mirrors like that.

Forever.

… or so it seemed to me.

And as we stood there, Rosalie's smile got happier and happier, not bigger, just … happier.

And under her steady gaze, the illusion wasn't dispelled at all. In fact, it got stronger and stronger, to the point that I couldn't bear looking at it, her, holding me in her arms. Nothing could be that beautiful, nor that sweet. I kept blushing, harder, and harder, and finally, I just had to look away from us, looking back at us from the mirrors, because otherwise, if I didn't, my face would burn right off.

"Comfortable?" Rosalie asked softly in my ear. "Does it feel nice?" she purred.

"Uh," I said, but that's all I could manage. Yes, the material felt nice on my skin, just as she said.

That is, if 'nice' meant 'amazing,' then, yes: it felt 'nice.'

But, me, comfortable?

Is there a word for 'anything but'?

Just like I had said before, I had no idea where this was going, and I was quite frankly terrified.

And remember how Rosalie protested that she was scared, too?

Instead, in stark contrast to my terror, Rosalie was utterly confident. She knew exactly where this was going, because she was making it go there.

She was 'anything but' scared now.

She had re-found her stride and purpose, and was now supremely confident, at ease, in fact.

And that terrified me. Just a little bit.

Just a little, tiny bit.