23. Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Three
It was, all told, probably the best outcome I could have hoped for. We seemed to have reached an agreement, the three of us women, and I would be more than happy to have some allies aboard the ship from that point onward.
Still, I must confess when I opened the door the next morning to find Zenny squatting in front of my quarters, my hackles instinctively raised.
Perhaps, as Val had suggested, she’d spent the night ruminating over things and had decided that she was so offended by the mashed-potatoes incident that she was going to kill me after all.
Or at the very least, give me a good walloping.
Some of this might have shown on my face, because Zenny rose to her feet quickly, shuffling awkwardly for a moment. “I was just—” Abruptly, she thrust something into my hands. “Here.”
It took me a moment to understand what it was. She’d handed me a bundle of some sort of cloth, folded surprisingly neatly. When I let it drop loose, I saw she’d brought me what appeared to be a garment. Furrowing my brow in confusion, I looked back at her. “A dress?”
Zenny had folded her arms in tightly over herself, hunching her shoulders a bit, too, like she wanted to disappear.
“I thought you might want something to wear on Amazonia that isn’t a jumpsuit.
I noticed you didn’t bring much by way of personal effects on board, so I thought . . .” she trailed off.
She didn’t need to finish the statement for me to understand her meaning. She thought she’d extend an olive branch of friendship by offering me this gift. It was really very thoughtful.
For a moment, I was touched beyond words. Then I realized my silence might be misinterpreted, and I didn’t want her hackles to be raised any further. I offered her my brightest smile. “Thank you, Zenny. That was very thoughtful.”
She shrugged. “Weren’t no big thing. It don’t fit me right, anyway.”
“Thank you,” I said again.
We stared at one another for a moment, neither one of us quite knowing how to proceed. “Well, I should—” I began, right as Zenny was starting in with, “Gotta get back to—”
Both of us stopped at once, exchanging a look of wry amusement at our shared awkwardness. We had a lot to learn about each other, Zenny and I. But perhaps this could be the start of a real friendship.
Ursa was still sleeping when I slipped back into the room and shut the door behind me. It wasn’t unlike him to sleep in later than me, so I wasn’t overly concerned. But because of his previous bout of SWS,1 I knew I needed to monitor his sleeping patterns closely.
Today, however, I would take advantage of the fact that he was still fast asleep to try on the dress from Zenny.
Even though I felt we’d had a moment of genuine friendship, I couldn’t wholly discount the possibility she’d done something to sabotage the dress—like cutting a hole out of the bottom, or dusting the lining with itching powder—to get her revenge on me.
Oof, that did sound unpleasant. I sniffed at the material, just to be sure, but it smelt only like detergent to me.
Stepping out of my thermals, I hooked on my bra, then slid on the dress.
It was a little bit snug, as Zenny was slimmer than me, but it fit without straining the seams too much.
After checking that the rear end was, in fact, intact, I turned to look at myself in the mirror that hung on the back of the door.
Oh. I stopped short at the sight of myself, not entirely sure what to feel.
The dress was a pretty pale blue and much more feminine than something I would have imagined Zenny wearing.
Then again, I’d only seen her in her role as a crew member, and we all wore essentially the same jumpsuit, so that really wasn’t an accurate way to measure her style.
I, myself, was more accustomed to wearing dresses when I was on Haven 3, though you’d never guess that from my wardrobe on space travels and down on Earth, where trousers and jumpsuits were far more appropriate attire.
That all being said, even though I was more used to wearing dresses, I’d never worn anything quite like this before.
The fashion on Haven 3 is very restrictive and formal—high collars and corsets and skirts and whatnot.
This dress was little more than a slip of fabric that clung to my figure and made me look very . . . womanly.
Listen, I’ve already detailed that my figure is nothing to get too excited about—certainly not by Havenian standards—but the way the fabric cinched and clung made me look sort of soft and round in all the right places.
It was nowhere near as revealing as the dress I’d been forced to wear on the giggle gas heist, thank God, but rather, it was cut to be as flattering as possible.
Except . . . there was something rather strange with the sleeves. After a moment, I realized what it was. They were meant to be pulled down to the sides, leaving my shoulders bare, but if I wore it like that, my bra straps would be showing. Unless . . . ?
After a few moments of awkward maneuvering, I managed to unclasp my bra and slide it out through the top of the dress. There. I examined myself. That really did look better.
Much better, I considered as I took stock of my own breasts. Again, they had never been anywhere near my most impressive feature, but the dress made them look invitingly shapely and soft.
I couldn’t go out without a bra though, could I? I was a scientist, for goodness sake!
But the dress demanded it. And it wasn’t as though anyone could tell I wasn’t wearing a bra. Knowing the members of the crew, some of them would spend far too much time considering it, but they wouldn’t know for certain. It would be my own little secret.
The idea thrilled me more than I would have guessed.
In the reflection of the mirror, I examined myself again, turning once more to ensure there weren’t any unseemly revenge holes anywhere.
As I did so, I couldn’t help but notice that my underpants produced a rather unflattering line underneath the thin fabric.
There were, of course, underwear designed to wear with a dress such as this, but I most definitely had not been wearing any of those during my research excursion to Earth.
Comfort and utility had been much more at the forefront of my mind.
Then, anyhow. Now I lamented that the pretty dress was going to be ruined by my granny panties.
Unless . . . ?
No. I couldn’t.
. . . Could I?
Glancing behind me to make sure Ursa was still asleep, lest he wake up and start to get ideas, I reached underneath my skirt and quickly shimmied off my underwear.
Yes, that made the material lie much more evenly over my posterior region.
I smoothed over it with my hands a few times and practiced stepping forward, then backward, then forward again, trying to ascertain if anyone would be able to tell I was going commando underneath.
It was all for naught. I’d probably chicken out and put my underwear back on any moment. At least for now, I could enjoy the sight of myself looking—dare I say it?—attractive.
Maybe I had space goggles on, too, from being away from the Havens for so long.
There was only one thing still needed to complete the picture.
Last night, I’d plaited my wet hair to keep it from drying in a tangle while I slept.
It was my go-to hairstyle aboard the ship, no-nonsense and unfussy and practical in every way.
But today I didn’t want to be practical.
I wanted to make a little bit of a fuss.
Loosening the braid, I used my fingers to comb through the snarls until my hair hung long and loose around my shoulders. Then I stood back to admire the effect.
I looked . . . soft. Much less constrained and buttoned up than I normally did.
I knew this was how Ursa liked my hair the best, though for some reason, I always felt shy wearing it that way around other people.
If I really wanted to interrogate the reason why, I suppose perhaps it had something to do with being viewed as plain for so long.
I knew I couldn’t compete with the genetically modified beauties on Haven 3, so why even bother?
For the first time, I considered I might have been doing myself a disservice. Perhaps I would never be as glamorous as my enhanced, genetically perfect peers, but that was no reason to make myself small.
I was so lost in this contemplation that it took me a moment to recognize the motion in the reflection of the mirror. Blinking, I looked up, my gaze freezing on what I saw.
Ursa, sitting up in bed, staring at me.
1. Sun Withdrawal Sickness. I’d decided to give his illness a shorthand term, since I would be documenting it as part of my ongoing research on bear algae.