Alison Tyler

A bevy of bras dangled becomingly from the silver metal shower bar.

Silk stockings in a rainbow of colors were pinned carefully to the clothesline strung across the bathroom.

And then there were the panties—lace-edged, ruffled, sheer, satin. More choices than you’d find in a Victoria’s Secret catalog.

I admired the vision as if a patron at a high-end art gallery. A patron who would look but never, ever buy. Sure, I understood what lingerie was for. I simply didn’t have a use for frilly undergarments myself. Pretty panties were for pretty girls, and I hadn’t in my entire life felt pretty. I wasn’t wallowing. I’d simply grown satisfied with my slightly rough-girl style: jeans, always jeans, dark denim Levi’s paired with short-sleeved T-shirts when it was warm. Long-sleeved plus a hoodie when it was cold. Lingerie was for the sultry sorority chicks on my dorm floor, the girly-girls who went to ice cream socials, who wore wee little miniskirts, who knew the names of the different fingernail polishes they adored: Romeo Red, I’m not Really a Waitress, Vamp.

I observed these twittering chicklets in the communal girls’ room getting ready for dances or dates, and I felt more than a bit out of place in my striped cotton boxers and tight-ribbed T-shirts. What use would I have for their bras, even if I wanted one? I’m as flat-chested as they come. Still, I knew where I fell in the beauty hierarchy, and I knew that those candy-colored confections were not for me.

“Why the fuck are you wearing that? ”

That is, until Doreen came along.

I stood in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, and I had to rinse and spit before I said, “Excuse me? ” My eyes were wide at the tone of her voice.

“What girl in her right mind would wear underpants that look like that? No wonder you don’t have a date on a Friday night.”

I couldn’t think of a response. From the gossip, I knew who this dark-skinned Amazon beauty was: a recent transfer student from Nevada. From the girls, I’d learned that she was thirty-six, and had been working in Las Vegas as some sort of wine steward for the last twenty years. From the boys, I’d learned that she was a bombshell beauty, gorgeous enough to have been approached by Playboy magazine, not once, but twice. At eighteen and again at thirty-four.

“Guys can’t tell what your panties look like through your clothes, ” I said, sounding lame even to myself. Had she guessed that I didn’t care what guys could or couldn’t tell? Boys meant nothing to me at all.

“You walk different when you wear pretty lingerie, ” she insisted, proving her point by doing an impromptu catwalk across the tiled floor. She had long legs revealed by tiny white denim cut-offs and a perfect stride. I admired her in silence, before she nodded toward me. I’d heard that she was opinionated, strident, and already feared. And yet I had no idea why she was focusing her dark feline eyes on me. “Now you.”

“Now me what? ” I still had my cobalt-blue toothbrush in my hand.

“You try.”

I didn’t want to walk across the cold tiled bathroom floor; especially with this stunning she-cat watching my every move. And yet I found myself unable to refuse. Quickly, I rushed across the floor to the far wall and then back again, as if the goal had been speed rather than poise. Doreen doubled up laughing. “That’s how you walk when you’re trying to be sexy? ”

“You didn’t say—”

“You knew what I wanted. Try it again.”

“I’m not sexy, ” I said, feeling heat rush to my cheeks.

“Not like that. Not in those baggy-ass shorts. Not with that piss-poor attitude. But you could be.”

Why was she doing this? Was she simply dateless on this Friday night, with nothing to do but harass the dorm-floor loser?

“Try again.”

“I don’t want to.” I was starting to feel my old defenses come up. What had made me do what she’d said at the start? She’d simply caught me off-guard. That was all.

“With a swivel in your hips this time, ” she added, as if I hadn’t spoken.

“I don’t want to, ” I repeated, more forcefully this time.

“Better yet, ” she continued, clearly deaf when she wanted to be. “Take those off.”

“I’m not taking my underwear off! ”

“And the T-shirt, too.”

I stared at her, incredulous. Who the fuck did she think she was?

“I’m waiting.” She said this last in a sing-song voice, and she tapped her bare foot for emphasis. Was the woman crazy? Why on Earth would I strip down for a stranger, simply because she’d said she was waiting? We locked eyes for a minute, the gazelle and the lioness, and in that brief span of time I realized that I was the crazy one, pulling off my T-shirt and kicking out of my red-and-white striped boxers. And why was I doing that? Because nothing like this had ever happened to me before.

While Doreen watched, I strode across the bathroom floor, and this time, I put a bit of swivel in my walk. She was right. I felt better not to be in the baggy clothes, felt as if I were more animal than human as I strode across the floor.

“That’s it! ” She sounded truly excited. “I knew you had it in you. You were muffling all that power under those stupid underclothes.”

I returned triumphant to the sink, then made the mistake of looking in the mirror, and my confidence evaporated in a heartbeat. All I saw was a pale-skinned girl with a heart-shaped face and untamable curls. What the fuck was I doing? Prancing naked in the girls’ room in front of a virtual stranger. Doreen didn’t let me wallow for a second.

“Now, ” she said, “let’s get you into some pretty knickers, and we’ll see what you can really do. Follow me.”

She started out of the bathroom, and I bent to scoop up my T-shirt, but she returned before I could slip it back over my head. “You’re done with all that, ” she commanded, grabbing up the Hanes men’s shirt and tossing it into the nearest garbage, along with the boxers.

“Wait, ” I said, breathless. “I don’t have any other clothes in here.”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to come naked.”

I shook my head. There was no way.

Of course, I hadn’t realized that with Doreen, there was always a way.

“I’ll give you to three, ” she said, standing there like a queen regarding an insubordinate subject. “And if you aren’t out of the bathroom by then, I’m going to spank that lush ass of yours until you promise to behave.”

Jesus Christ, lady, I said—in my head—where did you come from? I knew the answer to that: Vegas. But my query went deeper than that. How had she known the buzz words to say to me? How had she guessed what I thought about at night, long after my roommate had dropped off to sleep, when I finally gave in and touched myself. Doreen wasn’t a queen. She was an X-rated fairy godmother. And now I had to decide whether to do what she said, or get what I wanted.

“I’m not walking naked down the hall, ” I heard myself tell her, taking a stand. It was a test. Would she pass? Would I?

Doreen shook her head. “Here I am, trying to help out a poor girl in need, and all I’m getting is lip.”

She was towering over me in seconds, dragging me by the ear to the wooden bench in front of the showers. Then she sat down and hauled me over her lap and her hand came down in a series of supremely stinging slaps, blows that had me squirming and kicking from the start.

I’d been fantasizing about being spanked for longer than I could remember, but I’d had no idea of what the actual pain involved might be. The pain and, of course, the pleasure because both came together. I could hardly wrap my mind around the fact that this gorgeous woman, who I’d never even been formally introduced to, was now heating my curvaceous hind end. But she was, talking darkly as she spanked me.

“Bad girl needs a bit of a tune-up, I’d say. Lose some of that haughty attitude. Next time I’m going to send you out to cut your own switch.”

I almost came right then.

Doreen shoved me off her lap.

“Now, ” she said, “I’d suggest you follow me to my room.”

I went meekly, aware that I was sporting blush-red rear cheeks as I followed the stunning minx down the hall. To my complete relief, we ran into none of our fellow dormmates. Perhaps Doreen had known all of the rest of the clan would be out—at parties or on dates. Far more likely was the fact that she simply didn’t care.

I sighed as she shut the door to her room, and then I waited, realizing that although I had safely walked unseen down the hall, I was now locked into a small square room with an extremely unpredictable female. I looked around wildly. Doreen had the room to herself—the other girl, beset with homesickness, had dropped out to move back to Chico. There was no chance we’d be interrupted.

Doreen regarded me with those dark, gold-flecked eyes. “Panties, ” she said, “pretty ones. And a simple camisole. Do you a world of good.” She headed to her own dresser drawer and started pulling out different items, until finally she’d spread out a whole array on her bed. “Try them on, ” she said. “I know we’ll find something that suits you.”

I hesitated only long enough for her to come to my side and set one firm hand on my still smarting ass. “I wasn’t kidding about the switch, sweetheart. You’re begging for me to get angry.”

I moved quickly after that. Slipping on a white lace camisole and a matching pair of lace bikinis. Doreen admired the view for a moment before shaking her head and offering over another. She had me in scarlet lace, then a swirl of lavender, before ultimately settling finally on a dove-gray chemise. The material felt luxurious against my skin. Why had I robbed myself of this sensual sensation? Why had I always insisted on the no-nonsense menswear fabrics, from plain cotton to scratchy synthetics?

Doreen was beaming at me, and then she turned me so that I could see my reflection in the mirror on the back of her closet door. “Pretty, ” she said, “right? ”

“The slip is, ” I observed, hesitant. I couldn’t agree to anything else. That not only was the nightie pretty, but that I was, as well.

“That’s not what I meant, ” she said, spinning me around once more, then pressing her full lips to mine and kissing me. A shudder worked instantly through my body, an intense rush of pleasure that had me breathless when we parted, but desperate not to stop. I reached out to her, and she grinned and swatted my hands away, her dark skin against my light. “Not yet, ” she said. “You wait.”

“For what? ” The words escaped before I could stop them. I could tell already that Doreen had to be in charge. But my legs were weak from the kiss and I didn’t want to pause. Not even for an instant.

“Sit down.”

I perched on the edge of her bed, staring up at her. She came closer to me, stroking my hair off my face, running her fingertips over my cheekbones, resting her thumbs on my bottom lip.

“You’re pretty, ” she said again, softly this time. “You’re pretty, even in the baggy clothes. Hidden, maybe, but still. I’ve watched you since I got here. I’ve seen the way you hide yourself. The problem isn’t what’s on the outside. It’s in here—” She tapped her fingertips against my temples next. “Let me show you.”

While I stared, heart racing, she reached for a heavy-handled wooden brush. Then she sat down on the bed, and motioned for me to climb over her lap. I knew what was coming now, and I knew how wet I was. Still, I felt embarrassed. But one look in her eyes let me know not to hesitate.

Over her lap I went once more, and now she lifted the silky chemise in the back, revealing my naked, blushing rear. This was sexier than in the bathroom. The feel of the sumptuous fabric rustling over my skin, the sensation of her pressing the smooth back of the brush against me once before she started. Started for real.

She didn’t go slow. She didn’t begin with a pat-a-cake type spanking to warm me up. Doreen punished me with serious strokes, the heavy wood bouncing against my bare skin, and I was crying out by the time she let go of the brush. But this time, she didn’t push me off her lap. This time, she dropped one hand between my legs and slowly began to touch my pussy. Wetness immediately enveloped the tips of her fingers as she stroked up and down between my nether lips. I was drenched.

“My bad girl likes that, ” Doreen crooned, continuing to touch me just right. She made dangerous little circles around my clit as my hips twitched on her lap. I was begging, softly, crooning nonsense words to her, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t stop. And this time, she didn’t. She teased me with the tips of her strong fingers until I came, shuddering over her lap, my body on fire with the power of the orgasm. It was just what I’d dreamed of. Just what I thought about late at night, my fingers making similar rotations as I tried my best to come quietly in my bed.

Doreen held me after that. Sat me up on her lap, so that we were pressed together, the chemise sticking to my sweat-sheened skin, her arms firm around me. My face was tear-streaked, but I didn’t care. My heavy bangs were in my eyes, hair a jumble of midnight curls, when Doreen finally stood me up once more, led me back to the mirror.

I looked different now. I had to admit that.

There was a pleasure beating in my eyes, a glow coloring my cheeks. She’d transformed me in less than an hour, given me a makeover from the inside out.

“You’re pretty, ” she said softly, clearly pleased with herself. “See now? See the difference? ”

I nodded. I did.

But how had she known?

How had she known not only what was underneath my clothes, but underneath my skin? The cravings raging within me. The urges I couldn’t deny. I looked at Doreen as she settled back against the mattress, one arm folded under her head, regarding me with those mesmerizing eyes.

She answered the question without me having to voice it.

“It’s always easy to see what’s underneath, ” she said in that soft growl of a voice. “At least, it is when you know what you’re looking for.”