Chapter 12

An epilogue, really, but that sounds so pretentious, doesn't it?

I sat in the inevitable chair, right across the dressing cubicles. It was a bit of a wobbly chair. Every cubicle was in use.

I hate to go shopping with my girlfriend just as much as the next guy — especially for clothes. But still I grinned. For I knew there was something in it for me, too. A lot, actually.

I was gathering credit points for a reward. And I collected them with a smile.

The reason for my smile was in the second cubicle from the left. She was the most beautiful woman I knew and she had done strange things to me. Right now, for example, she had reduced me to a teenage boy who imagined her standing half naked behind that flimsy curtain. And, as a teenage boy, I had had to rearrange the crotch of my pants, hoping that none of the women around me would notice what I had done.

Yes, I was in love all over again with the woman in cubicle two from the left. In fact, she was looking for a dress to wear tonight for when we would first go to the Met. Next we would have an intimate supper at our special Italian restaurant, after which we would walk over to our tiny piano bar and have our habitual nightcap-and-dance.

But tonight at supper I would present my love with a small but very expensive trinket in a velvet covered little box. So — if all goes well and why shouldn't it? — we might skip the piano bar and...

The images that colored my daydream tightened my pants even more. I sighed and tugged to erase the evidence. My eyes wandered around with embarrassment.

As they did, they got hooked to the gaze of a spectacular platinum blonde. Her eyes bored straight into mine. She smiled a dazzlingly white and red lipstick smile. My first reaction was to blush, feeling caught with tenting pants. But what I saw next undid all my careful rearrangements.

The big haired sex bomb stepped from behind the rack of clothes where she had been standing. First thing — or rather things — I saw were her breasts. They were huge and hardly held in check by her tight V-necked angora jersey. It had been tucked into an equally tight mini-skirt. She seemed to wear the skirt only to hug her hips and leave her endless legs free to play all the way down to a pair of towering heels.

Monroe, I thought, but taller. Mansfield — ah no, sexier ... she was just every wet dream the golden era of sex goddesses ever produced. And she brought it all over to me — sashaying and smiling as if she knew me.

I rose to my feet.

"Bruce?" she asked in a cloud of perfume and sexy breathing. I then knew who she was. But I discarded the notion at once. It was just not possible.

"Yes," she said. "It's me."

I once more took her in — the hair, the tits, the legs. The glossy, fat lips. And the cool, cool gray eyes, of course.

At that moment something red invaded the corner of my eyes. A tall, blonde woman had left cubicle two from the left. She wore a red velvet, floor length evening gown. It hugged her slim body, leaving her elegant neck, her fragile shoulders and delicate clavicles free.

A blonde Audrey Hepburn, I thought. No, spicier ... Lauren Bacall. Yes, I know my classics. I turned around to admire her. She shifted her weight to one hip.

"Well, honey?" she said. "What do you think?"

I walked towards her. My head felt dizzy from overload. My hands cupped her face. My eyes caught her wide blue eyes. And I kissed her.

She gasped when I let her go.

"Oh my, Bruce," she panted. "What was that about?"

"I just had to, Rachel," I said.

She smiled — a bit nervous it seemed.

"Who was that woman?" she asked.

I looked around. The goddess had gone — like a mirage. My eyes wandered through the shop. I did not see her.

"Ah," I said. "Someone I thought I knew once."

"She looked ... amazing."

"Yes," I said. "Amazing."

Then I turned back to her.

"Rachel? Will you marry me?"