Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 138526 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138526 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
The week can’t end quick enough. True to my word, I have changed my style. Pax helped me clear out my wardrobe until there was nearly nothing left and then we went shopping together. Choosing more womanly suits for work, skinny jeans, waist-high pants, dresses for outside of work. My closet no longer has any trace left of the old me.
It was sad. I cried. I kept my purple suit and some pajamas and that’s it. We donated the rest to a thrift store, or Pax did. I stayed home and kept crying.
It’s for the best, Pax is right, I’m getting older now and I need to be taken more seriously.
And now I’m getting my hair done with Laurie by my side. We’re having a girls’ day. Hair and then makeup, though the latter is purely so I can learn how to apply more than just a lick of mascara to my lashes.
I’m not about to start using highlighter but I’d like to start being able to do my brows and put a bit of shading on my eyelids. Now that I actually have eyes.
“You look so weird,” Laurie tells me as the lady behind me snips into my thick, burgundy hair.
“Good weird or bad weird?”
“You look hot as fuck, but… you just don’t look like you anymore.”
I shrug my shoulders. “That’s kind of the point.”
“Whose point? I thought you were happy as you were?”
I look at my friend in the mirror, she’s in the chair beside me, her red hair in foils. She’s getting hers lightened.
“I was, but I need to start getting more serious. We’re not getting any younger and I really want to be respected.”
She laughs harshly. “Respected? Because of how you look?”
“That’s how it works.”
“But… you’re already respected.”
“No, I’m not… people treat me like a naïve teenager. They say mean shit about me all the time and think I’m an intern. The whole point was to be invisible and instead I was the joke of the office.”
Laurie looks incredulously at me. “And Pax told you that, I’m assuming?”
“I heard it myself, you know I did.”
“And you don’t think people will say anything now? You’re a knockout, you’re gorgeous… you’ve gone from pauper to model… you don’t think people are going to notice?”
She’s right… I should have done this gradually. “I’m dreading work tomorrow, don’t make this harder for me.”
“I bet you are. Nobody is going to recognize you.” She reaches for my hand and I extend mine to her too. We can’t quite touch each other so we tickle the ends of our fingers together and giggle. “You were beautiful then and you’re beautiful now… just don’t lose sight of who you are. Especially not for a guy.”
“Amen, sister,” the woman cutting my hair says and then bumps knuckles with my best friend.
“There’s no going back now anyway,” I murmur. “I got rid of everything.”
“You look amazing,” the lady who just bumped knuckles with my best friend says. “And when I’m done with your hair, you’re going to look even more amazing.”
I smile at her, watching her snip at my newly colored wavy black hair like the pro she is.
To say Pax approves of my new look would be an understatement. He hasn’t left me alone since I arrived at his apartment yesterday with colored thick waves, trimmed to my shoulder blades, and my body encased in waist-high jeans that are baggy on the leg, and a pink crop top that hugs my breasts. He peeled me out of my clothes faster than I put them on.
I don’t even own a pair of cotton panties anymore except a packet for my period week. The rest of my things are all matching and, to be honest, I do feel really sexy under my clothes. I’m wearing a new pantsuit that fits me like a glove. Even the jacket cinches in at the waist, but underneath I’ve got on a black corset-style bra that zips in the middle, and matching panties. And even though nobody can see it I feel powerful somehow, sexier. I don’t particularly like the feeling. It’s a new feeling.
I almost turn back and put on the dark purple suit Ezra got me for Christmas but I know I need to get a grip and get over it.
I’m a lot earlier than usual but I need to check my desk and make sure everything is still in its place or I’ll be cutting into paid office time to do it and I imagine I’ll have a lot to deal with and catch up on today.
With my tablet resting on my arm, I head into the building and make a beeline for the elevator, keeping my head down as I go.
Mr. Conti steps in before me, I hadn’t realized I was hot on his heels I was too busy connecting to the company WI-FI.