Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
I pull on a silky robe over my lingerie and sit down at the vanity. Then, I reach for an eyeshadow palette, the one Victoria bought me for graduation, its colors untouched except for the safest, most boring shades. I choose a subtle, metallic brown and pack it on, then add a heavy flick of liquid eyeliner, bolder and thicker than I’ve ever dared. I go for the false lashes next, trembling as I glue them down, watching as they turn my gaze into something cartoonish, yet hot. A few seconds later, I’m painting my lips—first with a mauve pencil, then with a slick, shiny gloss I found in a clearance bin at the drugstore.
Now the hair.
I wet a brush and yank it through the snarls, then flip my head and start blow-drying. Cassie’s hair was loose and bombshell, a tangle of deliberately messy, platinum waves, a la Pamela Anderson in her prime. I try to mimic it, scrunching and spraying until the blonde falls wild around my shoulders. In the mirror, my face looks unfamiliar: louder, older, almost trashy. But that’s what guys want, right? Hell, my stepbrother brought a whore to a family event. That’s definitely what men want.
My eyes gleam with something I haven’t seen before as I look back at myself, cheeks flushed.
For a minute, I just stare at the girl I’ve created.
And I like her.
She’s nothing like the Kayleigh who works at the plant store or eats mac and cheese alone at the kitchen counter or cries at movies with animals in them. She’s the kind of girl who could fuck your boyfriend and not feel guilty. She’s the kind of girl who doesn’t just watch from the sidelines; she’s the main event.
I angle my phone, open the camera, and snap a few pictures. At first I just do my face, head tilted, tongue out, the classic thirst-trap poses. But then I get daring: I pose with my shoulders bare, turn sideways to show off the line of my chest, even arch my back to push my boobs up. The robe slips from my shoulders and I don’t bother to pull it back up. My tits look like they’re about to spill out of the too-small bra I have on, the mounds huge and creamy. My pulse races. The more I see myself through the camera, the more I want to see.
One selfie becomes ten, then twenty.
Slowly, I unbuckle my bra and stand bare, nipples hard and pink in the chilly air. OMG, am I really going to do this? I stare at my huge Double D’s in the mirror, ivory and succulent, and decide yes. I am. I’m that girl now. I take a photo, then another, holding my arm across my chest in one, hands on my hips in the next. I twist around and snap a shot of my butt in the mirror. I flex, I pout, I bare my teeth in a predatory grin. Each photo is a little bolder, a little more explicit. My body flushes hot, a surge of something like pride warring with the fear that someone, somewhere, might be watching.
I set the phone down and stare at myself in the mirror, pulse racing as I take in my heaving tits and slightly damp panties. Am I going to go there?
Because there’s something else I want to try. I’ve seen it online—girls spreading their legs for the camera, spreading themselves open like it’s nothing. I wonder what it would feel like to make a photo like that, to own it the way Cassie or any of those girls would.
I grab the edge of the vanity and sink down onto the little stool, my thighs sticking to the vinyl. I arrange myself so that my knees are wide apart, and then gently hook a finger into the gusset of my panties and pull it away so that the dark pink wetness between my legs catches the light. My fingers hesitate, then slide along my slit, just enough to make myself glisten. I take a deep breath, grab the phone, and take a picture: no face, just pussy and hand and nothing else.
It’s fine, right?
No one’s going to see.
Plus, when I look at the photo, I don’t feel sick or gross. I feel—”empowered” isn’t quite the word. It’s more like, for the first time, I have something that someone else might want. Not just want. Obsess over. Feel envy about. And I like it.
I get up and rummage through the junk drawer in my nightstand, where all my failed experiments in self-pleasure live. There’s a vibrator, still in its box, a gift from Mary Kate that I’ve never dared to use. There’s also a massive, translucent dildo that I bought on a dare in college and stashed away out of sight. I take both out, cradling them in my lap, and start to giggle—because honestly, who am I right now? What happened to the real Kayleigh because I don’t recognize this woman at all.