ON BECOMING WOMAN
I'm not sure of when it happened, but it was around the time when people stopped
calling me cute.
I had stopped shopping in the Misses department because the cut of a size fourteen didn't become the new shape of my now fuller fourteen woman's hips. So I ventured into the Plus Size Unlimited area and shamefully searched through racks of clothes that years previously I swore would only be for women like my mother. "1X" the tag said, and from the look of the garment that meant they had added extra material - an extra yard to give reason for the plus extra price. And what's with the flowers and sequins placed around the collar. And where are the darts, and tapered waist and, I cried as I paid the sales clerk.
At home I had long since given up full length mirrors that revealed soft flesh that
used to adorn Venus Williams thighs, Gabrielle's flat stomach, and perfect Holly Berry breasts. A scale that made me the envy of all of my friends, was now a stopper to keep the closet door from swinging shut. Videos of Buns of Steel, Abs of Metal, and Thighs of Stone with little anorexic cheerleaders who didn't need any more exercise than I needed a bowl of ice cream while watching them, had now become bookends for my new
collection of self-esteem enhancers.
It wasn't that I didn't care what I looked like, it's just that what I looked like
wasn't becoming to me. My idea of perfection had been me at size eight in spandex and
three inch, "come fuck me" pumps. Compliments of "You are such a cutie," and "Damn did you see that?" Hot fast sex that lasted for four hour marathons and yet still left me saying, "Wait a minute, you aren't done yet are you?"
My lover telling me that I was the cutest little thing that she ever saw - she laying on her back and me draped across her like a mink. These days, I felt that my thighs must feel like a tank pinning her down to the Mattress. Many nights I lost sleep because - asleep I couldn't control how heavy to lie on her. Many times I would just rolled over on my stomach and cry inside an arm of flesh.
I was constantly reminded of a petite and trim me by pictures wall-papering my
bedroom and hallways. And God knows that I dreaded affairs, because that
meant nothing to wear, which meant shopping in the fat women's section, again. The final insult to injury was when my high cut brief panties now fit like thongs. And control top and body shaper pantyhose were now a necessity even though I wasn't wearing spandex anymore. I resulted to wearing oversized shirts and knits, covering up my not so petite body - hoping people wouldn't notice that I had become unbecoming to them.
One day my lover asked me if I had ever stopped to listen to what people were
actually saying. Yeah right, like I wanted to get my feelings hurt all the time. "Girrrrl,
how do you get all that ass in them jeans," or " Do you know you got a biiig ass?" My
response would be, "You know, I knew it was there when I went to sleep, but
sometime between last night and this morning when I got dressed in the mirror I forgot.
But thank-you for reminding me."
But ok, one day I took my lover's advice and stopped to listen. Suddenly, I began
to notice older mature men glancing at me with smiles, "Sorry I was staring, but you are
very pretty." Women stepped aside as I entered parties, and not for the reasons I thought,
(God they had to open a space so large because my hips were a sign, "Proceed with
caution, wide load approaching" ). Instead, I heard things like, "Who is that?", as people
asked their friends about me. Those women who braved my response, would approach me and strike up conversation, usually ending with compliments.
People greeted me with, "Hey sexy, hello gorgeous." I would look around
wondering who they were talking to because, I still dressed in a face only mirror and
always wore oversized clothes.
Yet my lover secretly began replacing my oversized shirts and knits with tailored classic suits and dresses from the Voluptuous Store. </SPAN>That's a name she made up to make me feel good. She took me shopping in the All Women's and Plus Some Departments - buying me fourteen wonderfuls, sixteen wows, and those one extra special sizes. We even found a lingerie store for me that has become my secret - not Victoria's. And now I wear meant to be thongs, bikinis, lace teddies, and bras that don't need miracles because I have developed two of my own.
At night she spoons me from behind - wrapping her arms around my fullness and
caressing softness that she swears feels better than the once muscle that kept her head
smashed like a rock - putting her face in the folds of my back and cupping breasts
whispering, "Damn you feel so good." She turns me over and slowly loves the woman
I've become - feeling the maturity in my hips that have spread because I'm now at peak
breeding time. She wraps her arms around a waist that can pinch more than an inch, but
still indents to form an hourglass, telling the time that it needed to make me this woman.
She rubs breasts that are round to pillow her head upon. And I call my mother to thank her for not letting this apple roll too far from the tree after it fell.
The scale has been thrown away and full length mirrors unveil a picture of the
woman in me. New pictures drape my walls showing me as a girl who happened to be cute - transitioning into pictures that reveal the inner beauty of the woman in me. Lately I've had to count my blessings and I smile, because, my Womanness Definitely Becomes Me.