Old Stories - The Dress

Since some of my friends are posting old stories, I thought I'd join in the fun and relate this old tale from my misspent youth. I am posting this one because I hadn't thought about it in years until Halloween weekend, when Jen and I wound up telling it like 3 times. This is another long one; I promise my next post will be shorter. I just haven't written much in a while, and have to get all these words out.

The Dress

One of the things Jen and I like to do is design clothes and costumes. Jen is a great designer, and I'm pretty fair at doing costuming stuff. Jen is also a pretty good seamstress, so she can actually make our designs happen. We haven't gotten time to indugle in this hobby in a long time, and in fact didn't have much chance to back when this story happened, 9 or 10 years ago. But that's why it's a hobby.

One Halloween, our friend Genie decided she wanted to be a vampiress. A vampiress of the hot variety - not hard to do since Genie is very attractive. Being a fan of Anne Rice, she was kind of inspired by Claudia from Interview with a Vampire, and wanted sort of a grown-up Claudia. She found an amazing long, red, curly-haired wig that looked great (she herself had shortish blonde hair). I made acrylic fangs for her that just slid over her canines and looked pretty good, if I do say so myself. Genie asked Jen to design and make her a dress. Genie specifically said, "I want as much male attention as possible." This was her one directive to Jen on what the dress should be like.

Jen got busy on some sketches, and once she had it down (she had this idea for the dress for a long time) she started making it. It took weeks and many fittings to get right, but once it was right, god damn it was right. It was silver and red, with a low bust and a panel cut out of the midriff, and was (if I remember right) almost backless. It was cut exactly to Genie's form, and had no zippers or buttons to distract from the dress or the curves of the woman beneath it. Jen or someone else had to help her into and out of the dress each time because it was such a close fit. She looked amazing. Her own husband's jaw dropped when he saw her in it. I'm pretty sure her whole motive was to make him jealous, and given that she was going to wear this to work, I'm pretty sure her plan succeeded in that regard.

Genie worked at a mall, at "Things Remembered", a little booth that sold knicknacks and did engraving and such. A pretty girly kind of place, really. As we later learned, guys were coming up to the booth all night long, and hanging around the booth. She had a queue of guys. They were looking at and buying crap they didn't need or want. Some guys bought stuff for her. One guy, if memory serves, offered to take her to Greece.

A short time later, we saw Genie, and she related all this. She related it to us by complaining. She had gotten too much male attention, she claimed. All the guys hanging around her booth gawking at her creeped her out. Remember, her only mandate was "...as much male attention as possible". She gave the dress back to Jen, and said she would never wear it again. Genie blamed the whole thing on Jen and the dress.

Needless to say, Jen was a little irritated. She had been given one job, and she had done it exceptionally well. The dress went on a shelf, waiting for what purpose I don't remember.

You might think the tale of the dress is over, but oh no. You see, the next Halloween, another friend named Jess said she wanted to wear the dress. She wanted to look better in it than Genie. Jess was competitive that way. She would flirt with guys in front of their girlfriends/wives just because. Initially, Jen refused, given the aftermath of the last time The Dress was worn. But Jess badgered her - for weeks. Finally, Jen relented and tailored the dress for Jess. Once again, she did a stellar job. A lot of guys found Jess attractive - for instance, she was the ex-girlriend of a friend - but I really didn't. Still, I had to admit that she looked pretty good in that dress. She wore it to a Halloween party Jen and I were throwing.

A word or 400 about the party. At that time, Jen and I lived in a big 6 bedroom house we shared with Jen's parents. Genie's husband (Brad) and I had built a bar in the basement, which was dubbed "Fat Matt's", and was usually stocked with at least 20 bottles of liqour. Fat Matt's parties are somewhat legendary amongst our friends and the source of many "war stories". This Halloween party is perhaps the most infamous, because we tried something a little different.

You see, a couple weeks prior to Halloween, Jen and I submitted a Personals add to The Stranger in their "Others" section, looking for slaves for our Halloween party. After weeding out the ones who thought we were actual vampires (don't ask), we wound up interviewing and accepting three slaves. We made it clear there was no real sexual element involved, unless, y'know, they wanted to. One (the only one who actually was a slave/submissive) was a foot fetishist named Steve who had the idea for us to put him in a room with a curtain blocking half the room, our futon on the other side with the foot of the bed just the other side of the curtain, and some scented candles and stuff. Instructions posted at the door for people to lay down and relax, and put their feet through the curtain. Steve would then give them an oral foot massage. Yes, you read that right. Sure, we thought, that'll be different; and we went with that. Second slave (I don't remember his name) was a very non-descript guy who didn't really do much except fetch drinks and then leave early. He didn't know how to act, and our friends didn't know what to do with the slaves, really. Neither did we for that matter - we were just weird enough to come up with the idea, but not weird enough to really pull it off. Third slave was Thomas - a young, nerdy guy who seemed alright, but we later discovered had absolutely no social skills.

The bathroom upstairs had two doors to it - one that led to the hall and one to our room. Shortly before the party, Jen was in there with Jess and Genie, helping them get ready (I don't recall what Genie's costume was this time). Steve opened the door or something and got a look at the two of them...specifically their feet. Later, he offered to be our slave on a semi-permanent basis - specifically with the idea that he would be loaned out to our friends from time to time, and specifically to Genie and Jess. (We declined.)

Ok, on with the story of The Dress. Party gets underway. Nobody knows what to do with the slaves, second slave gets bored and jets early, nobody notices for about an hour. Jen and I throw around some orders, get neck rubs, etc. A few people are dared/sent up to the room to follow the instructions on the door. That gets...mixed results....but that's a whole 'nother tale.

Thomas, the whole night, is by Jess's side unless Jen or I have ordered him to do something else. At one point, Jess took him upstairs to an empty room and they talked for some time, during which Jess told him where she worked as a receptionist. To Jess, it was just a conversation. Thomas didn't exactly get that. A week or so later he showed up at her work, in a tux, with a dozen roses and a begging, stalker-type letter professing his love or whatever. Jess, naturally, got creeped the fuck out.

Shortly after, we see Jess again, and she gives the dress back to Jen, complaining. She complained that guys were gawking at her at the party, and most specifically she complained about Thomas. Now, her complaints could have taken a few forms:

1. Complain that she was foolish for telling a complete stranger where she worked while having a very private conversation with him at a party, kicking herself for bringing this creepy dude around. Valid complaint, but Jess wasn't known for taking responsibility for her own actions.
2. Complain that we brought this creepy dude around. Valid complaint; I felt kind of bad about it really.
3. Complain that the dress made her more appealing than usual, it was the dress's fault, the dress was cursed. Not so valid a complaint, IMNSHO. (There was definitely something about that dress, but she knew that.)

Can you guess which form her complaint took? If you guessed the irrational #3, you're a winner!
Jen took the dress back, apologized for the Mr. Stalker thing, and pretty much balled out Jess for not listening to her in the first fucking place. Then she took a seam ripper to the dress and parted it out for material.

Now, 9 years or so later, after relating this tale to two female friends, they have both asked Jen to design their costumes for next Halloween. Jen has said maybe, but claims she can't duplicate the effect of The Dress because she's rusty at design and sewing, and she had that design in her head for years beforehand and won't make it again. Given the hotness of said friends, I am sure that if Jen designs anything more flattering than a fucking burlap sack, they're going to be fighting the men off.

Now, in case you think I'm exagerrating about this whole thing, let me speak for a moment on the relating of the tale to Launchpad's wife. This is 9 years after the fact, Launchpad can barely remember what happened yesterday, but he saw both incarnations of the dress back then. I mentioned that Jen and I "told the tale of the dress to Donna." Launchpad looked puzzled for just a second and started, "The Dress...?" Before I could even start to explain, his eyes lit up, he grinned from ear to ear, he straightened a little and said "OH! THE DRESS!"
I'm pretty sure I saw some saliva coming out of his mouth, too.

- Mattbear out