Mari left work a half-hour early to ensure she’d have at least an hour to get ready before Bisi arrived. No more black suit. No more minimalist make-up. No more sensible work shoes. She’d gotten to see Bisi dressed to the nines, and now she was going to return the favor. Bisi was right to be scared. Marisol had purchased the perfect dress this past summer on an impulse, and she had been waiting for months for the right time to wear it. When Mari had checked with Bisi about their plans, plans that Mari was not privy to due to ‘violations of trust in regards to the covert settling of bar tabs,’ Bisi had said that she could dress up ‘if she liked.’ Mari had found that directive unhelpful in the extreme. She had sent a barrage of further questions, so Bisi had generously added that if she wished to dress up, she would not be the only one at ‘the location’ who was dressed up. Did that mean that Bisi was dressing up, Mari had asked, but Bisi had declined to elaborate. She had, however, allowed that food would be provided at ‘the location.’ Mari had huffed in frustration. Well, she would be dressing up if only to give Bisi something to feel doomed over and to give herself a chance to wear her dress. 

Accordingly, when Mari got to her apartment, she came through the door at a trot and went straight to the bathroom to turn on her hot rollers. While they heated she stripped and brushed her teeth. She turned on some music, sat on the stool she kept under her bathroom counter, and carefully wound her hair around the fat, velvety rollers, trying not to burn the tips of her fingers. When she had the last one clipped in place, she grabbed her oversize shower cap and covered up the whole lumpy mess and started the shower. 

A lightning fast face-to-toe scrub followed, and Mari hopped out of the shower, pink and glowing, sprayed essence all over her face and then grabbed the yummy coconut-scented body lotion she favored and moisturized every inch. If people thought she smelled like dessert, she may as well lean into it. She threw on her robe and checked the clock, seeing that it was not quite five-twenty. Perfect. She still had forty minutes until Bisi was supposed to arrive. She went to work on her face, doing her make-up the way she liked it best— bold. As she reached the end of her routine, she carefully applied the winged eye, waxed her brows into strong arches, and finished with a crimson lip stain which she topped with a coat of Ruby Woo lipstick. She checked her results in the mirror and was satisfied. Reaching up, she patted her hair and discovered it had cooled. She’d leave the rollers in while she got dressed, though, to be on the safe side.

Hustling to the bedroom, she yanked open her underwear drawer and stared at the contents. Should she look like she was wearing no underwear  or should she be wearing no underwear (or the next best thing)? It was a tough call. Second date, though. Second date. Second date. Somewhat sadly, she decided to try and make things difficult for herself. Fortify herself against temptation. She reached for the not-at-all-sexy lycra shapewear that made even the most body-con dress glide over her curves like a dream. Maybe next time, assuming there was a next time, she’d reach for the red lace bodysuit that covered much, much less of her topography. She’d probably curse herself later tonight, especially if Bisi started kissing her again at some point (and Mari was kind of hoping that would happen), but her mother would be proud. 

She put on a longline bra and carefully settled the girls into it in a pleasing configuration, her cups runneth-ing over, as usual. She came from a long line of curvy Omegan women, and those genes were not recessive. Then? It was time for the dress. She pulled it out of the closet and ran her hand over it lovingly. Narrow metallic pleats in a deep emerald-green. The shining, flowing fabric caught the light whenever the dress moved, and it floated so prettily over her curves that as she tied the halter behind her neck, she could not resist a little twirl. She pivoted in the mirror, fussing with the pleats to get them hanging perfectly, admiring how the little belted waist of the dress made it look extra snatched, noticing that the exposed skin of her shoulders and back was looking glowy from their recent exfoliation and moisturization. She looked good.

Mari sat on the bed to put on the shoes. The shoes were, frankly, insane. Just nuts. The gold faux-snakeskin sandals, high-heeled, of course, were held to the foot with a whisper and a prayer and were surmounted not with a sensible, reasonable ankle strap or tie, but with a wired gold coil that wound around each ankle and calf almost like jewelry. They did not look like anyone could walk in them. They did not look as if they would stay on. But Mari could, reasonably comfortably, walk in them (she’d tested it out around the apartment to be sure) and they did stay on. Moreover, they were the perfect finishing touch for a Greek Goddess dress. Mari was sure the shoes would fill Bisi with dread, because Mari was kind of turned on by them herself— they skated the line between sexy and trashy so charmingly. Long story short, this cocktail dress was a very different look than the one she’d sported the last time Bisi had seen her. She had a little cropped black satin jacket to wear over it, and a good coat to wear over that, because the thermometer didn’t care about fashion and it was nippy out, but for a few glorious minutes before they left her apartment, she was going to let Bisi get the whole effect. 

She looked in the mirror again with the shoes on and Oh! Crap! The rollers! Mari had almost forgotten to take the rollers out. She hurried back to the bathroom, grabbed a basket and released the clips, letting each roller unspool itself. When they were all in the basket, she flipped her head, gave her hair a coat of hair spray, and then straightened. As soon as the spray dried, she began to gently shake and loosen the curls into big, bouncy waves that fell all around her bare shoulders. She fussed with her part a little, and then added one last spritz to secure everything and took a deep breath. Ok. She was done. This was her best, and she thought it was pretty good. Alphas loved a little shoulder action, and Bisi had liked her even without it, so she’d probably like her even more with it. And everyone liked curves, and Mari… had curves. Plenty of them. It should be fine. It would be fine. Nothing to be nervous about. She carried the little black shrug into the living room and draped it over her coat on the chair so that she wouldn’t forget it and then sat down on the sofa to fidget and wait for Bisi to arrive in--she checked her phone—ten minutes. 

Mari grabbed the remote to put on something mindless to make the time pass, but before she could even pick a streaming service on the TV, there was a knock on the door. She jumped up. Bisi was early. Well, that was a good sign, probably. They’d been texting back and forth all week, mostly so that Bisi could continually refuse to give her information about their date, but also just to chat. They’d talked a couple of times, too, and the calls had gone on for much longer than ought to have been required to  satisfy the stated purposes of said phone calls— to find out what Mari liked to eat, to find out what kind of clothes Mari should plan to wear... 

In between the chats, Allain had thoroughly cyberstalked Bisi on Mari’s behalf and declared her to be the real deal. He had also declared her to be drool-worthy, not of this Earth, and the catch of the century. “Mari, I don’t care if she’s taking you to Chuck E. Cheese, you dress up, and you dress up good. You need to reel this one in. This is a once-in-a-lifetime Alphortunity. You shouldn’t be available, but people are stupid and so you are, and we need to fix that, and have you ever found the right person to fix it with. ‘A doctor, a doctor I can’t believe you’re marrying a doctor’…”

“What are you talking about!?” Mari had demanded.

Allain had looked at her like she was crazy. “Have you never seen Beaches? Well, never mind. I’ll show it to you sometime and we’ll cry till we puke, but not because of that part.” He had gone on to assure Mari that if she was never heard from again after her mystery date, he would avenge her. “So just have a great time and don’t worry about anything.”

Mari actually preferred being alive to being avenged, and she’d pointed that out to Allain, but he had told her that death was a small price to pay for a date with Bisi Egbe. Mari had snorted, but to tell the truth? He wasn’t totally wrong. The more interaction Mari had with Bisi, the more she wanted. And, if Bisi had come early, maybe she felt the same way about things. Mari stood, straightened her dress one  last time, took a deep, bracing breath, and went to answer the door. 

She opened it to find Bisi standing there, radiant in a rich gold satin blouse tucked into a slim fitting leather skirt in a rich mulberry color. On her feet were  an utterly enviable pair of tall suede boots. The boots were high-heeled, so even with Mari in her stiletto-heeled sandals, she was still sadly dwarfed. Large golden hoops hung in Bisi’s ears, drawing attention to her cheekbones and jawline. She looked like a sun goddess, and Mari stood in her doorway, dazzled for a moment, forgetting all about her plans to dazzle Bisi, feeling enchanted by her instead. She cleared her throat, and smiled as normally as she could manage, and said “H-hi! You found me!”

Bisi didn’t reply. She just stared down at Marisol in silence for several beats. Self-conscious, her triumphant turns in the mirror feeling like a lifetime ago, Mari smoothed her palms over her dress again reflexively, as if a stray pleat might be to blame for Bisi’s strange demeanor. “Would you… like to come in for a moment? I don’t know if we have time, but I could make you a drink? If not, I still, uh, need to get my coat, so…” Marisol stepped out of the doorway and gestured for Bisi to come in, but the Alpha didn’t move. Mari looked down at herself, uncertainly. Her dress seemed to be on par with Bisi’s outfit in terms of dressiness, but was it not right? “Is it…what I’m wearing? I have a little jacket that goes over it, but if it’s not appropriate for wherever we’re going, I can change—”

Bisi shook her head somberly. “That’s not the issue, Marisol. The issue is that I am afraid to come into your house. You did tell me. You told me. You said you would dress up. And in my defense, I tried. I tried to imagine it and prepare. There is a thing I do before a challenging surgery—I close my eyes, I envision every step of the procedure, I walk through it in my mind, I imagine what might go wrong, and what I will do if this thing or that thing happens. I did that for tonight. I imagined you opening the door, scenting you again after so many days, I imagined what you might look like, what you might wear, how I might feel. But no visualization exercise was ever going to get me ready for this. It turns out that I think I have much more control over myself than I actually do. I was right to be concerned.”

“I can change—” Mari offered again, not sure what else to say, not sure whether to feel flattered or dismayed. 

“No, you are so very beautiful. Your dress is beautiful and it looks wonderful on you. Don’t change anything. Just give me a moment to—acclimate. Mentally.”

Mari looked down again, like the dress might have changed style since she'd last looked at it. “Well, I’m glad you like it. Honestly, I was feeling good about this dress until I saw you. I don’t know whether to kiss you or orbit you. You’re glowing. You look incredible.”

“Kiss me,” said Bisi throatily. “If that’s an option, then definitely kiss me.”

“You have to come in for me to do that, Bisi,” Marisol pointed out. “Or, stay there and I’ll grab my coat—”

Bisi stepped inside and pushed the door closed behind her with a booted foot.