A tragedy in cheap clothing

*

It cost her seven dollars and fifty cents at the second hand place. She had been wearing it all day, the jacket sometimes came off when she was hot, but the white polyester blouse she wore (four dollars, purchased in the same place) had gotten a bit grubby and even she’d been aware of that, and so kept putting the jacket back on.
It was made of rayon, polyester – woven plastic, but she never thought that it was odd that she had been wearing plastic all day, that may be why she was hot and grubby and stank.
She never thought of many things, she didn’t understand the difference between clothing fitting because you you do it up, or fitting because it fell right over your body shape.

When she was younger and thinner, anything she wore looked ok, she thought. She never pulled things quite off but it didn’t matter. Her small waist and nice hips and seductive walk brought the boys to her. She knew the value of flirting and putting out. Clothing didn’t matter as much as was on the inside.
She knew, a bit, that she never looked as she wanted to these days, that there was something off in her appearance. She didn’t know what. She would dress up and put on makeup and frown at herself in the mirror and be slightly angry at women who looked good. This suit, for example, she didn’t see the cut was unflattering, the fabric cheap and nasty and beading, the fit was generic and made her frumpy. She never bothered to think further than a recognition that it was not all it can be. Thinking took effort, thinking about oneself, more so. Her clothing choices were things she liked on other people, on the rack, that she could afford, that she could button up over her belly and that would circle her girth. She still wore delicate jewellery against her fiery flesh, not understanding how it just showed up the mottled flesh more.
The stink as she took the skirt off was of sour sweat, sharply fishy, an animalistic fugue of fumes. She wrinkled her nose briefly as she fully undressed. She read the magazines and somehow latched onto things she thought would do for her – she shaved her hair regularly down there. today it was prickling through and there were two new yellow spots where the regrowth came out wrong; she’d have to squeeze those out later. Since she got so fat, she couldn’t see her pubic region properly when she shaved it and it was full of little nicks and cuts from the razor, missed patches too.
She was going out again tonight, which was annoying as it had been a long day, but there was a new boy she was chasing after; she needed to be there to stop other women from getting near him.
She pulled on fresh underwear (nylon, high cut, in red – very seductive- with machine lace only slightly unraveled at the edges) and that killed the fug smell. She put on her good black lace bra that made her feel super sexy. It had been purchased when she was thinner, now she didn’t even notice the indent of the cup across her breast and the tied-up-sausage look it presented from behind as it cut into her back flesh.
She liked the dress she was going to be wearing. She’d bought it new, a wonder for her, at the cheap local shop. It was floor length, green, flowing, with a cut out triangle in the breast area. Flashes of her bra showed through which she decided was sexy and seductive, flashes of her crusted flesh showed through too. She’d had skin problems long enough that she no longer saw them. crusty flesh, red, shiny, and pimpled, it meant nothing to her, she was proud to show off her body.
she slid green eyeshadow over her eyes and applied pink lipstick. One of her boyfriends had told her afterward they had broken up that she looked like a clown when she wore makeup – that she applied it too thickly and used colours that made her look a fool; she had cried, then blocked his number and bitched to all her friends at what a dud lay he was, what a small penis he had. She felt better after that. Absolved.
There, a brush of the hair, put on those sparkly earrings and the choker around her flabby neck, put on the grubby silver dancing slipper – and she was ready. She looked at herself in the mirror, a squat, shapeless column of green with red flesh spilling out the top where it did up. Uneasily she looked at the lipstick, it had not come out symmetrical and she wasn’t sure about the colour, did it match the dress? No matter, she was dressed to impress tonight.
As an after thought she picked up the suit and draped it over the chair. The best thing about that fabric, was you didn’t have to iron it or even wash it that often. She should get more clothes like that, they were easy, and cheap. With a nod of satisfaction, she clumped out into the night.