“This isn’t going to make me any less fat, you know.” I squint at my aunt’s reflection in the floor-length mirror.
“But it’ll make you seem less fat.” She grunts and huffs as she tugs. “We’re trying to get you married, after all.” She wraps the cords around her forearms. “Take a deep breath.” She bends backward until she’s nearly parallel with the floor.
I do as I’m told. She yanks the cords, using all one hundred and thirty-five pounds of her frame, crosses the cords over each other, and ties them into a bow. She pats my shoulder and places a kiss on my cheek as I stare at the hourglass shape of my body. I take rapid half breaths until my lungs acclimate to the limited space, then reach for the emerald body-contouring dress hanging beside the mirror.
I step into the dress, shimmy it up over my hips, and pull the dainty straps over my shoulders. The silver stilettos aren’t my favorite, but I squeeze my feet into the too-high shoes meant to make my large feet look smaller and spray on the vanilla chai perfume I love.
“Beautiful!” My aunt grins. She’s proud of the transformation she’s accomplished—the creature she’s wrangled and roped and concealed and powdered and glossed into a presentable young woman. She turns and makes her way out to where my date waits.
I stare at myself a little longer, smoothing my hands over the fabric. I can hear my aunt giggling. I imagine her with one hand on the man’s shoulder, the other on her chest, making uncomfortably direct eye contact. I tiptoe up the steps to meet my possible future.
I’m a little surprised when I walk into the foyer. I stop short of where my aunt stands—both hands clasped around the man’s biceps—and take in his beautiful smile. His deep laugh fills the room. He’s taller than my aunt; much, much taller than me. His eyes look kind. He’s not like the others.
“Shall we?” My heart begins to race as he pries my aunt from his arm and extends a hand to me.
“Yes.” I can’t look him in the eyes, and I wonder if he can tell I’m blushing beneath the pounds of foundation clogging my pores and covering my freckles. I take his hand and let him lead me out the door, away from my giggling aunt, and into the night.
We are barely moving as we sway side to side, taking the tiniest of steps on the restaurant’s dance floor. We whisper dreams and fears to each other as we move across the floor at a snail’s pace. Then the music changes and the saxophone is joined by a bass guitar and drums. I turn from my date and set my sights on the safety of my seat, but before I can shuffle away, he stops me.
“You’ve got something sticking out of your dress.”
It takes but a split second to realize what’s happening. He gently tugs at the cord peeking from the back of my dress, and my uncontrolled body bursts through the emerald lace, flowing like lava over the room and settling into the empty spaces as other patrons push against each other to avoid being trapped beneath the folds of my body. I crumble.
“Celeste?” My date is holding my corset as he covers my rolling flesh with the linen from overturned tables. His shirt buttons have come undone; small rolls of flesh hang over his belt. “How do we get this thing back on?”
✍🏽
This was a bit of a struggle to write.
The publication had a theme of compression and a 600-word limit. By now, y’all know I’m wordy, so it was tough cutting out an entire page of what I’d written in my notebook to fit into the word count limit.
Growing up with an excess of adipose tissue other people found unacceptable, I was always encouraged to make myself more “presentable” or attractive by covering, squeezing, girdling, Spanx-ing… compressing. But aren’t we all? That’s where this story comes from.
And in the end, as gently as he can, the man still wants to bind her back up. But is it for appearances? Her wellbeing? His comfort? He never explained that part to me.
🖤
Christine Gabriélle 