An unsuitable garment
Thursday, 07 May 2020
‘This is so you! It is perfect. Look how the green merging into blue matches your eyes! Gorgeous. It was absolutely made for you. I made it for you – somehow I knew.’
She was a large New Zealander and called herself Anya to make her brand sound Indonesian. She’d taken me by surprise at some expat function in Lombok. Beer was involved. She’d bounced up to me and at first I assumed she must be drunk. ‘I need you to model my clothes – are you willing?’
‘Err?’
‘It’ll be just one short photoshoot. Won’t take long.’
‘But…’
‘You are made for it. Have you time tomorrow? Come over. Have lunch.’
‘Err… I’ve never done anything like this, modelling, I mean. And umm you do realise I’m expecting? Hadn’t you noticed that?’
Now that I was more than six months pregnant few could miss my bump. Anya was still all smiles, ‘I am selling to Germans they are all overweight so you’ll do perfectly.’
Suddenly I didn’t feel so flattered.
The photoshoot was as she promised – efficient and not overlong – and soon I was wondering how many of her dresses I could afford. They were all long flowing silk.
Anya dyed in the sumptuous colours herself. Flame oranges merging into sunshine yellows or chestnuts; blues into turquoises and on into gorgeous greens. In the equatorial humidity, other clothes looked limp in minutes and clung around thighs and armpits, but not Anya’s. Her’s slid on over my head and slithered down over my swelling belly and hips, caressing my curves and lying so light on my skin I was convinced that everyone could see when my baby moved.
The designs were simple, my favourites were low-wasted, looking like a style from the 1920s. Most were smooth or shot-silk above and often crumpled cloth pleats for the lower parts of the garments. The dress I chose to keep, began as soft moss-green around my neck that in some lights looked the same colour as my eyes. Then the colour of the cloth darkened and grew richer over my ample breasts, then melded and merged into azure then deep sea turquoise until, close to the hem, it was the most perfect lapis blue. I wanted to dance as soon as I put it on. I wanted to wave my arms like a ballerina, though I felt more baleen whale than balletic. It was perfect for my gestational state.
I have it still. Now I have a waist again, simply tying one of Anya’s silk scarves around my middle makes it comfortable and flattering and still makes me want to strike poses I’m not longer capable of. Silk is so sensual. It gives me fantastical ideas and superpowers. Even now it almost suits my current life-status and mature-womanhood.
Posted:
07/05/2020 14:36:18 by
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