“Wunmi! You CAN’T go to a party dressed like that.” Sophie’s annoyed squeal brought a grin from Tope.
“Why not?” Wunmi didn’t see anything wrong with what she was wearing. It was a student party after all.
“Jeans! I mean, jeans and a crappy old top. Wunmi, come on! Okay, this is so not going to happen. Come. With. Me.” Sophie just about dragged Wunmi into Wunmi’s bedroom. “Show me your clothes, I know you have some good ones, I bought them for your birthday.”
Wunmi gulped. She remembered all too well. Her eighteenth birthday and she had opened Sophie’s present in front of her Mom and Dad. Her Mom had been outraged. Her Dad had just looked embarrassed. Wunmi had explained it away as Sophie’s idea of a joke. The clothes had gone into a nylon bag and then into the back of her closet. She hadn’t dared leave them at home when she headed off for college.
“Here they are.” Oh god, Sophie had already found them. She was like a ferret when it came to clothes. Worse, she was holding up the pleated skirt she bought for Wunmi, the one that was so short she was embarrassed just looking at it. “The skirt’s good, get those jeans off Wunmi.”
It was no use arguing with Sophie when she was in one of “those” moods. Trepidation was replaced by awkwardness as she peeled her jeans off.
“Wunmi!” Sophie’s squeal was even more outraged. “You can’t, those … those … God, panties like that went out with my grandmother.”
“What’s wrong with them?” Wunmi looked down.
“Everything. At least wear something pretty. I mean, white cotton? What else do you have?”
“Uhhh, Sophie, ALL my panties are like that.”
“Wunmi!” Sophie almost sprinted out. So fast, Wunmi barely had time to hide herself from Tope’s eyes as he lounged on the chair, grinning like a cat.
Sophie came back in, holding a plastic package.
“I am so NOT wearing your panties!” Wunmi was adamant. There were some things on which you had to draw the line.
Sophie held the plastic package out. “Still in the wrapping. Brand. New. Put. Them. On. Now.”
Blushing, Wunmi peeled her white cotton briefs off and hastily slipped into the black panties that Sophie pulled from the pack. Oh. My. God. They were tiny. At least they weren’t g-string panties but there wasn’t much more to them.
A tiny front, a small back and a couple of strips of black elastic across the hips. She slipped the skirt on equally as hastily. At least the skirt concealed a little more. It was short though, far shorter than anything Wunmi had ever worn before. As short as the skirt Sophie was wearing. She felt dreadfully exposed.
“Here.” Sophie held out a halter top. It wasn’t one of her presents, it was an old one of Wunmi’s from when she was about twelve. She had no idea how it had gotten here with her other clothes but there it was. In Sophie’s hands. Being held out towards her to put on. She opened her mouth to say she’d wear something else, it was far too small.
“Not a word.” Sophie was adamant. “Put. It. On.”
Wunmi slipped her top off. Taking the halter top from Sophie, she slipped it over her neck. Sophie stepped behind her to do the ties across her back. The next second, Wunmi felt her bra unhooked.
“No way,” she protested. “No way am I going on a date with no bra.”
It made no difference. Sixty seconds later her bra was gone. The halter top was fastened across her back. Sophie smiled happily.
“That, Wunmi Philip, is SO much better. NOW you look hot.”
“I don’t want to look hot Sophie.” She didn’t feel hot. She felt like she was burning. With pure embarrassment. She could never go out looking like this. Looking like … looking like …
Sophie flung open Wunmi’s bedroom door. “Tope, come and have a look, doesn’t Wunmi look hot.”
Tope peered in, and whistled. “Nice Wunmi, very nice, Ike’s gonna love this.”
Wunmi didn’t care whether Ike loved it or not. She was furious. And that was only with Tope looking her up and down. She could see herself in the mirror and she did look sexy, she knew that. The short skirt accentuated her long slender legs.
The halter top left everything except her chest from her neck to her navel uncovered. It covered her breasts, but in that disconcerting way, that halter tops have, of emphasizing what they conceal. Wunmi didn’t have much to emphasize mind you, but the small halter top managed.
Exposed didn’t really describe how Wunmi felt. She felt half naked and … and vulnerable. Guys would look at her and think she was … think she was … like Sophie.
Her pussy pulsed hotly.
“Come on, let’s get going.” Tope was impatient now.
Before Wunmi could blink, she was walking out of the apartment with Tope and Sophie. It was a long wait before the doors opened, Tope and Sophie just about dragged her in to the gate, everyone heading out to bars or parties. Wunmi was just one more scantily dressed girl heading out.
It was him. It was him! But the corridor was packed. Just like that, he was gone. In the lobby, she tried to wait but Tope and Sophie were having none of it.
“Ike’s waiting outside, come on, we gotta move.” And Ike was his Jeep right outside the entrance. As they pulled away from the driveway, Wunmi glimpsed him again, leaving the apartment building with a couple of other guys. Her heart did its little pitter-patter thing for a second before he disappeared.
Seated in the front, Wunmi hung on as Ike roared through town. She wished his hand would stay on the wheel rather than her knee. She wished she had worn her jeans rather than the short little skirt that exposed most of her legs to Ike’s hand.
Something he seemed determined to take advantage of however many times she eased his hand off. He acted like it was a game and she was teasing him. She was so going to kill Sophie.
The party was worse.
“Come on, let’s go dance.” Sophie hauled them into the room where everyone was dancing right away. Wunmi enjoyed dancing, but not when she was wearing a skirt that flew up and exposed her panties whenever she moved too energetically.
Worse still, Sophie and Tope disappeared after a few minutes. That left her with Ike, whose surname should have been octopus because his hands were everywhere.
And the music.
The music pounded out, so loud Wunmi couldn’t hear Ike’s voice even when he yelled something in her ear. She shrugged and smiled. Whatever it was he had said, he took her smile for agreement and turned, disappearing into the crowded darkness of the basement.
Sophie and Tope had disappeared completely, she knew nobody there. She didn’t like dancing. She didn’t like the music. She didn’t like parties. She didn’t like dates that disappeared on her, blind or not. This just sucked.
This just sucked big time!
If she had known Ike was such a creepy fool, she would never have let herself be persuaded to come. Tope had said he wasn’t like him. He hadn’t mentioned Ike was a complete dick with hands that he couldn’t keep to himself.
Not only that, he abandoned her in the middle of a crowd of frenetically dancing strangers. Wunmi felt completely out of place. Not only that, she wanted to lose Ike and go home.
This really really sucked.
Someone bumped into her. Hard. Almost knocking her down, so that she cannoned painfully into some guy right next to her. She would have fallen except that his arm caught her and held her.
Wunmi found herself looking into a pair of deep eyes that swept her up into their depths and held her there. Eyes as beautiful and as blue as the sea. Eyes that she had last seen in the gym last night, looking at her, following her butt as walked towards the door.
“Hi,” he yelled, a momentary dip in the volume meaning she actually heard him rather than trying to lip-read. Although she wouldn’t mind reading his lips. Closely.
“Hi yourself,” she yelled back, regaining her balance. He didn’t take his arm away. Wunmi didn’t try to escape either. She liked the feel of his arm around her, just as she had last night in the gym. Besides, she was still looking up into those beautiful eyes.
She winced as the music wound up again. He noticed. She knew he noticed, it was the change in his eyes that told her without either of them speaking.
Without a word, which would have been useless in any event, he turned and took her with him through the crowd, edging people aside for her, making a path to the doorway, then up the crowded stairs to the entrance of the large old house. Still crowded, it was just a little quieter. Quiet enough that you could hear someone yelling.
“Too noisy,” he was yelling. She could hear him now. Just. “Somewhere quieter?”
“Please,” Wunmi yelled back, clinging to him. Anywhere away from this insane noise. Anywhere he wanted to take her.
Now, rather than his arm around her, he was holding her hand. She liked the feel of his hand holding hers, large and strong and dry, not wetly sweaty like the assholes’. He looked around before leading her up the wide wooden stairs.
It would have been a beautiful old house if it hadn’t been so battered. Wunmi would have loved to have lived in a house like this rather than the modern designer shoebox apartment she shared with Sophie. Even if it did have a swimming pool and all those other facilities everyone thought were great.
It was a little quieter on the first floor, a little less crowded. Wunmi thought he would stop but he didn’t. He led her up another flight of stairs, reaching another large landing. There were still people but not as many. This was one huge party.
She felt a vast relief at the lowered volume of the music, now more of a distant but pervasive thumping than a deafening cacophony. It was still dark though. Dark and busy. Wunmi found herself sweaty as a glance through one of the open doorways revealed sights she would rather not have seen.
