She flashed her badge, pushing past the security guard at the mall’s main entrance. The place was closing and the PA was telling everyone to find an exit and head home and, oh, be sure to come back and spend some more money tomorrow. Gloria barely heard, so attuned was she to the frequent loop of announcements. Her focus was on the store, getting there as fast as she could and, hopefully, finding herself standing once more before the red door with its ornate carvings and heavy handle, the one she hoped to open for herself this time.
The heels of her ankle boots clicked hollowly in the increasingly-empty mall, and the sounds came quick as she sped up her gait. She was haunted by the idea that she was close to this thing she had obsessed about and would only arrive in time to see the door vanish before her eyes. When she turned the corner and made the left toward Foot Traffic, she was surprised and happy to see that she was, indeed, awaited.
Deb looked completely different from the slightly chubby girl with the oily hair who had first started working at the store. Her work uniform was gone, now, replaced by a green dress that seemed to consist of layers of silk draped over one another, but still offering scandalously clear views of her long, shapely legs, her bare belly and Gloria could see, too, a dark nipple exposed beneath the dress. Her hair was darker than ever before, wild and long, with white flowers peppered throughout. And, like the vision Gloria had carried with her for so long, she hovered just off the floor, lifted by thin, sparkling, green-tinted wings flapping behind her. From even several feet away, Gloria could feel the wind displaced by the beat of the wings.
“You came!” Deb exclaimed, fluttering closer.
It seemed impossible to Gloria that such thin wings could lift this new version of Deb into the air, but she supposed there was more at work here than conventional physics. There was something sweet-smelling that surrounded Deb, and Gloria again felt a wave of arousal at the sight of her, so changed from the persons he had been before with her tiny, puckered mouth and curvy hips and chest. Her eyes twinkled with green light, and she jiggled a little as her body swooped down so that the tips of her toes rested on the floor before Gloria.
“I told Mother you were coming, so she left the door open for you, too! Want to come inside and see? It’s so beautiful!”
“Yes,” Gloria said, flat and plain. There was no hesitation, only simple declaration. She did want to go. She had to see. She had to know.
“Come on then,” Deb said and took Gloria’s hand, tugging her forward toward the door, red and looming.
While Deb’s feet barely brushed the gray carpet, Gloria’s feet dragged as she grew nearer to the door, ajar, and behind it Gloria could hear the sound of distant laughter, high and sweet.
“What’s in there?” she asked, nervously squeezing her guide’s hand. She blinked as Deb placed a soft kiss on her cheek for reassurance.
“It’s better if you see.”
And then, together, they slipped into the darkness behind the red door, and it closed, melting away like a mirage.
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