Chapter 3: Buried Desires
The air in Ellie’s closet hung thick and still, tasting of mothballs and the ghosts of high school dances. Cardboard boxes sagged under the weight of calcified textbooks and sweaters faded from too many washes. Dust motes swam sluggishly in the beam of the flickering desk lamp she’d dragged inside, casting jumpy shadows across the packed shelves. Her fingers brushed worn cotton – the familiar, oatmeal-colored cable-knit that felt like safety – then snagged on something slick and cool hidden behind a box labeled ‘Bio 101 Notes (Do Not Recycle!)’.
The slinky black top slid free, a spill of liquid shadow against her palm. She remembered buying it now, vaguely. Last semester. Cheap wine courage in a fluorescent-lit chain store, the kind plastered with posters of laughing, impossibly shiny people. She’d shoved it straight to the back, untouched, its existence an embarrassing footnote.
This morning felt different. The phantom whispers from her laptop screen – ‘This is what they want… this is what you need to be…’ – still echoed faintly, not mocking now, but insistent. A low thrum in her blood. She kicked the closet door mostly shut, the latch clicking softly.
The cool nylon slipped over her head, whispering against her skin. It was tight. Not uncomfortably so, but… present. Defining. She shimmied it down, the fabric clinging instantly to her ribs, her waist, settling low on her hips. Her breath hitched, sharp and audible in the dusty silence. She looked down. The neckline wasn’t obscene, just… lower. The way the black fabric stretched taut across her small breasts felt alien. Exposed. But beneath the spike of vulnerability was that electric thrum again. Not disgust. Not exactly. Something hotter, more dangerous. Curiosity? Anticipation? She didn’t know the name for it yet, only the tremor in her hands as she smoothed the fabric against her stomach.
"Okay then," she muttered to the racks of forgotten clothes. Her voice sounded breathier than usual.
She pushed out of the closet, the lamp’s glow spilling into the slightly brighter chaos of her dorm room. Her desk lamp, still on from last night, cast its cold pallor over the piles of books and papers. Her laptop sat closed, an inscrutable black slab. She avoided looking directly at it.
Her reflection in the small, tarnished mirror above her dresser made her freeze. The girl staring back was familiar – the messy bun escaping its elastic, the oversized glasses perched low – but the sharp angles of her collarbones were starkly visible above the neckline of the black top. The fabric clung, outlining her frame in a way her usual tents never did. She looked… different. Older? Sharper? Or just like she was trying too hard? The thrum intensified, mixed with a prickle of self-consciousness.
The battered makeup bag on her dresser seemed to pulse. Usually, it yielded only moisturizer and tinted lip balm. Today, her fingers bypassed them. She dug deeper, past dried-up mascara samples and broken eyeshadow applicators, pulling out a compact of foundation a shade too dark – bought once for a disastrous costume party – and a stub of black eyeliner.
The foundation felt heavy and unfamiliar. She dotted it on, rubbing it in with hesitant fingers. Too much? Probably. She tried to blend it down her neck. The eyeliner was worse. Her hand shook. The first swipe went jagged, extending too far past her lash line. She smudged at it with her thumb, leaving a smoky grey smudge. It looked… messy. Intentional? Maybe. She added a clumsy second line, hoping it read as ‘bold’ not ‘sleep-deprived raccoon’. A swipe of dusty, forgotten bronzer across her cheekbones felt like painting on a mask. Or armour.
She leaned closer to the mirror. The layers of makeup softened the starkness of the black top, somehow. Made it seem less like an accident and more like… a choice. The girl in the reflection still had Ellie’s eyes behind the lenses, but they looked wider. Edgier. Less like someone who faded into the background. The electric curiosity surged, momentarily drowning out the nerves.
The electric curiosity surged, momentarily drowning out the nerves. It felt less like dressing and more like shedding skin. Ellie turned from the mirror, the unfamiliar girl’s smoky eyes following her towards the pile of discarded clothes on her unmade bed.
Her usual worn grey sweatpants lay crumpled atop faded pajama bottoms. Beside them, folded neatly under a physics textbook she’d used as a weight, lay the dark wash jeans. She’d bought them months ago, lured by a sale sign and a fleeting fantasy of looking effortlessly cool. They’d remained untouched, stiff and intimidating.
She picked them up. The denim felt heavy, substantial. Unyielding. "Okay," she breathed, steeling herself. She stepped into one leg, then the other, tugging the thick fabric up over her calves, her knees. It was a fight. The denim resisted, clinging tightly to her thighs.
She sucked in her stomach, wriggling her hips. The waistband scraped against her skin. She tugged harder, fingers straining. The zipper refused to budge halfway up. "Come on, you bastard," she hissed, wrestling with the metal teeth. A final, desperate yank. The zipper screeched closed, bitingly tight around her hips.
She gasped. The jeans weren't just tight; they were a second skin, molding to her. They pressed against her belly, hugged her thighs like a vise. She twisted slightly, catching her reflection in the dresser mirror’s edge. The denim pulled taut across her backside, outlining the curve of her ass with startling, undeniable clarity. It wasn't subtle. It was… anatomical. A hot flush crept up her neck. The electric thrum intensified, mixed with a jolt of raw exposure.
She smoothed her hands down the front, the rough denim scraping her palms. The sensation was foreign, constricting yet strangely potent. She felt taller. Sharper. Less like Ellie Finch, perpetually hiding in oversized sweaters. More like… someone else. Someone the whispers might approve of.
The ancient Conair hair straightener lay buried under a tangle of charging cables on her desk. She plugged it in, the orange light blinking ominously. The smell of hot plastic and dust filled the small space as it warmed. She pulled the elastic from her messy bun, letting her wavy, shoulder-length brown hair tumble down.
She grabbed a thick section near her crown. The ceramic plates hissed as she clamped down, dragging the iron slowly downwards. A wisp of smoke curled up. The scent of singed hair joined the hot plastic. "Shit," she muttered, releasing the clamp too fast. The hair sprang back, barely straighter but definitely frizzier.
She tried again, slower this time, holding the iron firmly. The heat radiated uncomfortably close to her scalp. Section by painstaking section, she dragged the iron through her hair. The waves fought back, but gradually surrendered into limp, unnatural lines framing her face. It felt heavy. Dead. Not hers.
Finally, she clicked the straightener off. The silence felt louder without its angry buzz. She turned fully towards the dresser mirror. The girl staring back was a stranger. The severe, straightened hair accentuated the angles of her jaw, making her face look longer, paler beneath the slightly-too-dark foundation. The smoky smudges around her eyes looked less like a mistake and more like a deliberate, dark statement. The black top clung, revealing collarbones and the swell of her small breasts beneath the fabric. The tight jeans sculpted her hips, her thighs, the pronounced curve of her ass – a shape she usually hid, now boldly outlined in dark denim.
She blinked. The girl in the glasses blinked back, her eyes wide and uncertain behind the lenses. The electric curiosity was still there, a live wire humming under her skin, but it was tangled now with a profound, unsettling dislocation. She didn't recognize herself. The laptop sat silent on her desk, a dark monolith watching her transformation. A single, panicked thought sliced through the static: What have I done?