Pt 2

A few minutes later, Chloe pulled back the curtain of the cubical and emerged into the opulently furnished room to find Abi already stood waiting for her in the cocktail dress which had clearly taken less time to change into than the bikini which required taking off all her outside clothes.

“Well?” She grinned, striking a pose and feeling like she had just stepped out of an R&B video. “What do you think?”

“Looks great!” Abi enthused before frowning a little and looking closer. “But it looks kinda… tight? I didn’t know leather could do that. Is it really so thin?”

“What do you mean?” asked Chloe, feeling a little puzzled. Certainly the leather was thinner than you might expect a leather coat to be made from but no thinner than some gloves she had seen or even the leather miniskirt her mum had that she insisted she was too old to wear but also couldn’t quite bring herself to throw out.

“Well it’s… umm…” Abi sought for the right words to put it delicately. “It’s not leaving a whole lot to the imagination!”

“Well I know it’s kinda skimpy but that’s what bikinis are like!” Chloe was a little hurt. She considered herself to have a good figure, perfectly worthy of being shown off in skimpy clothing, and was troubled by her friend’s slightly judgemental tone.

“No I mean…” Abi sighed. “Did you really want to show off quite so much around here?” She waved her hands in the vicinity of her own chest and Chloe looked down, finally catching onto what she meant. For the first time, she noticed that the cups of the bikini top had nipples embossed into the leather, more or less in the same place as her own, so it looked as if hers were showing through in remarkable detail.

“Oh wow! I didn’t see that!” She instinctively covered her chest with her hands as if her own small breasts were exposed. “How do they even do that? Or why?”

“You might want to check downstairs too!” Abi laughed, seeing her friend’s confusion. If that’s part of the bikini then I guess it’s made from camel-skin! Or at least the skin off their toes!” Upon inspecting herself in the mirror, Chloe realised that, had it not been for the fact that the bikini was a glossy black, she looked stark naked! Not only was her chest adorned with leather nipples but the bottoms presented a very well-defined vulva that she was sure was not actually her own!

“This is just so weird!” she half gasped, half laughed. “Why have the made this look like I’m naked?”

“Maybe it’s a fashion or something!” Abi laughed, picking up the jacket that she also wanted to try and inspecting it. “Oh wow look here!” She pointed to a series of small panels down the back of the jacket. Each diamond-shaped piece had a small nipple in the middle of it but, the weirdest thing was, they were not a regular shape as they would be if machine-pressed. “Must be their thing!” Abi observed. “Looks like they’re all done by hand too! No wonder this stuff is expensive!”

“Expensive and weird!” Chloe agreed. “Come on, let’s get changed before we damage this stuff and get out of here.”

“You were all up for this a few minutes ago!” exclaimed Abi. “Why the change of heart?”

“I don’t know…” Chloe admitted. “Something about this stuff is just creeping me out.” Both girls returned to the cubical to change and, when they emerged, the lady who had shown them in was waiting for them.

“Nothing to your liking today?” she enquired politely as the girls handed the various strangely adorned garments to her to be put back on display.

“No, not today.” Abi apologised, remembering that she was supposed to be in character. “Sorry.”

“Not to worry.” The lady smiled. “I don’t know if you noticed the gentleman I was talking to earlier?” she asked as they emerged back into the shop with its distinctive, new leather smell. Both girls nodded without making and further comment. “Well his name is Anton Falquian and he is both the owner of this shop and the designer of everything that we sell!”

“I see!” Chloe nodded, trying not to appear star-struck as she was supposed to be quite a celebrity herself. “Well do give him our regards.”

“Oh I shall.” The woman smiled rather primly. “But he wanted me to extend an invitation to you both for this Saturday. He wants to give you a tour of his factory and design facility to show you how his clothing is made. Here are two visitor passes, you’ll see the address on there. He’s expecting you at ten A M sharp!”This sounded less like an invitation and more like a summons.

“Do you think we dare go?” Abi asked as they left the shop and returned to browsing the rest of the mall. “Can we keep up the act for a whole day?”

“Why not? You got something better to do?” Chloe laughed.

“Well I guess not but…” A thought occurred to her. “What do we tell our parents? They might be mad if they find out we’ve been lying and wasting people’s times in shops!”

“We tell them we got given them at school!” Chloe suggested with a slightly derisive laugh. “Or we won a competition or something? Come on girl,” she teased, “anyone would think you’d never lied to your parents before!”

Abi said nothing but gave a little smile and followed her friend, trying to swallow the uneasy feeling that her best friend was going to get her into a whole lot of trouble!