From Horrors! 365 Scary Stories-
Fashion Victim by Martin Mundt
from Horrors! 365 Scary Stories
“I’m sick of black,” she said, standing in front of the mirror in my
shop.
She wore all black, a sweater with sleeves lapping over her hands, a
long
skirt, combat boots. She made a face at her reflection, her mood black.
“I think I hate black.”
She wore ear, nose and lip rings, plus studs and chains, like she’d
fallen
face-first into her jewelry, keeping whatever stuck.
“I need color.” Clothes huddled all around us like the hold of an
immigrant
ship. “Racks and shelves and cases full of color.”
She wound her fingers into black pigtails.
“Do you think I should go red? Or maybe orange? Go for a techni-color,
Carmen Miranda, Peter Max look?”
“Try yellow,” I said. “Short is gorgeous, too.” I ran my hand over my
sleek
scalp, my stubble rain-slicker yellow. “Plus, the skull can be very
erotic.”
She pouted, looking at me.
“I’ve got one hundred dollars left. My boyfriend, my ex-boyfriend,
Karl,
took the rest. He took the cash, the car, and the credit cards, even
the
ones in my name. He went off to play drums in L.A. or someplace. I’ve
listened to drumming for six straight months, and for what? I feel like
my
brain’s been chewed on.”
“Men,” I said. “They’ll eat you alive.”
She paged through my racks, creaking hangers.
“What I really need in my life right now are clothes that scream ABBA,
but
hipper, you know? Maybe something early seventies, but not
mid-seventies,
and definitely not sixties. And not black.”
“How’s this?” I took a red satin miniskirt off a rack. The skirt
squirmed. I
grabbed it with both hands to hold it still. Satin skirts have no
restraint.
“Too Agnetha.” she said, scrunching up her nose.
I replaced the skirt, and the little satin bitch zipped herself shut on
my
finger, drawing a bead of blood. I heard the vintage hats tittering
quietly
behind me. I gave them such a look that they shut right up.
I tried a silver dress.
“How’s this?”
She glanced.
“No. Too Nehru. Too groovy. Star Trekky, I think. I really want sort of
a
Gary Glitterish, Bay City Rollers effect, you know?”
I smiled, but I didn’t know.
“This is it!” she squealed.
She swirled a skirt off a rack like she was ballroom dancing.
It was the most hideous skirt I had, a test-pattern atrocity, neon
green,
blue and red, long and tight. She held it to her waist, beatific.
The hats sighed. The corsets and dresses wrinkled with disappointment.
“I’m gonna try it on.” She jumped into the dressing room and whooshed
the
shower curtain closed. The dressing room was lined with plastic sheets,
the
easier to clean up the mess afterwards.
“This skirt’s really tight.”
I watched her shadow on the curtain, wiggling the skirt up to her
waist. She
inhaled a few times, and the zipper zipped shut. Her shadow twirled for
the
mirror.
“Really, really tight,” she called. “It’s an Emma Peel, Catwoman kind
of
fit. Hey, this is weird. Did you know that if you look down at this
skirt
just right, the pattern kind of looks like a face? There’s eyes staring
up
at me, like I’m standing in a shark’s mouth.
Naivete is so adorable. The hats tittered again.
“I can hardly move my legs to walk in it, though. I think it’s too
small.”
Her shadow wrestled with the waistband.
“The zipper’s stuck. Hey...”
She gasped. She opened the curtain and staggered out.
She took six inch
steps, because in an eyeblink the skirt had stretched itself down to
her
calves and up to her shoulders, pinning her arms inside, wasping her
waist.
Her eyes were wide, her voice crushed to a whisper.
“Help!” She mouthed the word.
The skirt rippled, like one big muscle contracting. The hem oozed down
to
hobble her ankles. The waistband squirmed up to collar her neck. She
tiptoed
tow more tiny steps, wavered and toppled over.
I rolled her back into the dressing room with my foot. The skirt
rippled
again, covering her mouth and feet. her eyes circled, looking for help.
The skirt rippled again.
I closed the curtain.
The hats sucked their fangs. The corsets opened their bony jaws and
squeaked
like hungry baby vultures. The dresses moaned, distressed as empty
stomachs.
“Calm down, calm down.” I said. “Everyone will eat. It's only Monday."
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